Transcript & Slides: Overcoming Partner Abuse

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Overcoming Partner Abuse
By David Feddes

Abuse of wives or of a live-in person is very common in our time and probably has been in all times, but it is something that we need to deal with and to face. Even those in the church need to face the fact that leaders and churchgoing people can be involved in partner abuse.

Before getting into the details of partner abuse, let me just first of all say that those who abuse their partners and also happen to be churchgoers will sometimes use the Bible to justify their abuse. And when they do, they are abusing the Bible as much as they are abusing their partner. Some men, for instance, like the verses in the Bible about wives submitting to their husbands: "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church" (Ephesians 5:22–23); "Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord" (Colossians 3:18); "Wives, be submissive to your husbands" (1 Peter 3:1). Abusive men are especially fond of such verses because these verses, in their minds, mean that the wife should do whatever they want and the husband should have absolute control and the say in everything.

But it's always a danger to read verses of the Bible that are talking to somebody else and not to you. These are some verses that are taken, sometimes out of context, and directed at wives. But what does the Bible say to husbands?

"Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Ephesians 5:25). He gave himself up for her. He sacrificed himself for her. "Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them" (Colossians 3:19). Is there anything unclear about that? Do not be harsh. "Husbands, be considerate as you live with your wives and treat them with respect" (1 Peter 3:7).

Now, do those sound like the kind of verses that would encourage abuse and harsh treatment of a wife, and complete control of her, and making her do everything you want? Those verses say, "If you're a husband, here’s God's message to you: give yourself up for your wife, sacrifice for her, do not be harsh with her, be considerate of her, treat her with respect."

So enough of those verses that abuse the Bible by taking what it says to wives. Of course it says to wives to treat their husbands in a certain way, but the husbands are not to say, "Now wife, you’ve got to do that." Rather, you listen to what the Bible says to you, and you let your wife or your partner worry about what the Bible says to her.

So whatever we do when we're talking about abuse, let's not abuse the Bible by saying that it justifies abuse. There is a verse in the Quran, a book of a different religion, which tells husbands that they may beat their wives. But there is no such thing in God's Word, the Bible.

Partner abuse can be emotional, it can be physical abuse, it can be sexual abuse. And we'll look at each of these in some more detail.

Emotional abuse can be verbal or other ways of harming someone, attacking them emotionally. And even among women who suffered physical abuse—who were beaten or mistreated physically by their husbands or by their partners—more than half say that emotional abuse actually harmed them the most.

So before getting to physical abuse or sexual abuse, you might think, "Well, this emotional abuse thing, that's not really all that serious." Well, among women who suffered other forms of abuse, they said this was sometimes the worst.

Insulting—to call your wife names, to degrade her, to insult her looks and tell her she's ugly, to insult her intelligence and tell her she's stupid, just to insult her by throwing a name at her like she's a... or a... And I've heard a lot worse even than that. But those kinds of insults just degrade a person.

Blaming—blaming someone else for everything that happens. I'll give you a couple of extreme examples. There was a pastor who abused his wife and had her bound with a dog chain. And he decided to loosen the chain a little bit because she said it was hurting her. And once she got free from it and he wasn't around, she left the house and turned him in to the authorities. He was angry at her because he had been nice to her by loosening that chain, and she took advantage of it.

Or I'll take another example of blaming. I know a woman who was abused by her partner. She had been talking to me about the struggles that she had, and then on one occasion she just left her phone on recording during one of those arguments. And then afterward I received from her an email which recorded the argument. And the argument included some terrible insults from him—some terrible names—and advice that she should just kill herself. And then he found out she had sent that to me. And he was furious with her. She had betrayed him because she had let what he said go to somebody else. It was not his fault for saying those things. It was her fault for letting anybody else know that he had said them.

Another form of emotional abuse is just to ignore people—to avoid your partner completely, try to punish by being very cold and distant from them. Isolating them. Sometimes impoverishing them—controlling money and not allowing them to spend any penny without your approval and absolute control. Sometimes not allowing them to eat enough. Sometimes threatening directly—either telling them to kill themselves, threatening to kill yourself, saying you're going to kill them. Those kinds of direct threats.

But also just hints—"Well, if you think this is bad, you ought to see what happens if I get really angry"—and various kinds of hints that terrible things could happen. Sometimes it can even involve some abusers driving very recklessly to try to scare their spouse. But there's various forms of emotional abuse. And as I've already pointed out, these hit very deeply. It's not just the body blows that hurt. It's the blows to the heart and to the mind and to the identity.

The Bible speaks of verbal abuse: "Reckless words pierce like a sword" (Proverbs 12:18); "A deceitful tongue crushes the spirit" (Proverbs 15:4); "The tongue has the power of life and death" (Proverbs 18:21). So again, don’t underestimate what insults do to a spouse. And a woman with a nasty tongue can have a terrible impact on her husband. But a man with a terrible tongue can have a dreadful impact on his wife.

"The tongue is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell" (James 3:6). You know what happens when you're accusing, when you're attacking, when you're degrading? You're doing Satan's work. Your tongue is set on fire by hell. "The tongue is a restless evil, full of deadly poison" (James 3:8). And you, if you're an abuser, sometimes will spew some of that poison at somebody else, and then you act like everything's okay. And that poison is still seeping through their veins.

Emotional abuse is a terribly serious matter. And so is physical abuse. Attacks by partners are the number one cause of injury to women ages 15 to 44. And physical abuse can involve throwing or breaking things. Even if you don’t touch your partner, the fact that you're going around smashing things or breaking things shows that you're physically very violent. And it's frightening to them. And you know that's why you're doing it—to scare them.

Scratching, biting, pushing, obviously slapping and kicking and choking are physical abuse. Denying food to somebody or forcing food into them. Having weapons around, pointing a gun at them or talking about that gun and what you might do with it. Or just having a sharp knife around and just acting like you might do something with it—these are all terrible forms of physical abuse.

And sometimes the physical abuse results in broken bones and serious bruises and serious bodily damage. But even if it doesn't come that far, any kind of grabbing or physically coercing of another person is physical abuse of that partner.

And then there's sexual abuse. Sexual abuse involves any forced sexual acts, and this is rape. Rape happens even if it is between two married people. Rape is any forced sexual act that occurs without the consent of the other person. You may not like that word if you're a person who has done that, but it is rape, and it is regarded by the law as rape.

There are also other forms of sexual abuse. Rape, of course, is one form that sometimes a spouse or partner will use against somebody else, and sometimes they do it just to show they have control, just to punish somebody else and say, "I can do whatever I want with your body whenever I want, whether you like it or not."

Sometimes infidelity is sexual abuse—a person having affairs with others and saying, "I have the right to do what I want." But there's often a double standard in situations of abuse, where they can sleep around, but they're very jealous. They often suspect and accuse their partner of being unfaithful. An abusive man is often extremely jealous and thinking his wife is sneaking off with somebody.

Another form of sexual abuse is the use of pornography—looking at pornography and then sometimes pressuring your partner to imitate what the people in the pornography have been doing.

Another form of sexual abuse is just that whole sense of ownership: your partner is your property. Now, the Bible says things like, "The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife" (1 Corinthians 7:4). But that's meant in a situation of partnership and tenderness and of giving of oneself—not "You're my property, and I'm taking you." Rather, there's a huge difference between "You're my property, and I'm taking you" and saying, "I belong to you, and I'm giving myself to you."

So sexual abuse is a terrible form of partner abuse, of spouse abuse, that occurs. And we shouldn't say, "Well, once a person is married, they've given consent to anything." No. They're still a person, and every time that something is forced, it's sexual abuse.

Emotional, physical, sexual—whatever form it takes, it can be very devastating to a person. And it takes a tremendous amount of help and healing to recover from it. To overcome the impact of it takes a tremendous amount of courage to face it and deal with it and to find ways to escape it.

Lundy Bancroft is an author of several books, and one of those books is called Why Does He Do That? Lundy Bancroft has directed the largest program in the nation for abusive men. He's been involved in more than 2,000 cases of abuse, and so he has a pretty good understanding of what goes through the minds of angry and controlling men in particular. He grants that women can sometimes be involved in abuse as well, but his main expertise and experience has been with men.

So let's look at a little bit of what his findings are. Here are some of the things that abused people sometimes think. She may think to herself, "He's not always this way. He loves me. Sometimes he just does these mean things, but he really does love me. He didn't mean it. He just lost control."

Lundy Bancroft gives an example. He says, "Well, I was talking to a woman, and she said, 'Yeah, sometimes he just loses control and he breaks things.' And so I asked her, 'Whose things does he break? Does he ever break anything of his own?' 'No, he breaks what belongs to me.' Oh, so he does have some control. He chooses what he's going to break and what he's not going to break."

So you think to yourself, "Oh, he didn't mean it. He's out of control." No. He's got control all right. "He calls me names. He tells me these terrible insults. And then he wants to have sex. What in the world is going on? I feel so confused. Am I crazy?"

One phenomenon that some abusive people use is gaslighting. They tell you what happened, even though that's not really how it happened. And they keep saying it and browbeating until you say, "Well, that's not what I thought happened, but that's what he says happened. Am I crazy?"

Or the way other people view him—people love him. "Why do I set him off? Maybe it's my fault. How can I improve? He's overall a good guy. Everybody else loves him. He seems to get along with them. I must be to blame." "Well, he's trying, and sometimes he even apologizes a little bit. He's trying. Things are going to get better. I feel scared. I don't dare to leave him."

If any of these thoughts sometimes go through your mind, there's a pretty good chance that you're being abused.

Five common puzzles that Bancroft highlights:

1.     His story is far different from hers. He said that when he deals with people in abuser programs, he will not deal with anybody unless he also has access to the partner or spouse. Because if he's listening just to the men in the program, you can't believe anything they say. Their version is completely different from hers. He'll say there was a minor argument and, "I grabbed her by the arms briefly." And what the medical report will say is both arms were broken and one was yanked out of its socket.

2.     Another puzzle: he gets insanely jealous and yet most of the time he seems to be perfectly rational and level-headed.

3.     He can get people to side with him. It's not uncommon at all for an abusive man to have other people, sometimes members of her family, siding with him. He's got ways of making things look like he's in the right.

4.     Eruptions seem out of control. He seems like he blows up, he just can't control his temper. And yet he seems to calculate a great deal of control. He seems to manage things. So there's a combination of seeming to erupt but yet being very cold and calculating.

5.     At times, he seems to improve. But then he repeats the abuse, and it gets worse. That's one of the things to be very aware of. Even when there are promises of improvement and you get your hopes up for a few weeks—don't. Because unless something dramatic happens and he gets some form of change in his life, it's going to be repeated and it's probably going to be worse.

What goes on with the abusive mentality? Well, here are just a number of things. One is that the abuser is very possessive. His partner—if he has children, maybe them too—he owns them. They're his. And when he talks about "my wife," he's not just talking casually about "my wife." He means my wife. My kids. And he wants to control them.

Very often, an abuser will want to be told where the wife is. In the modern era, he wants her to text wherever she goes. And he feels he's doing a favor if he lets her out of the house—if he lets her go here or there. But if she's going to go here or there: "Tell me when you're here. Tell me when you're there." I know of situations where even he'll have her take a picture of herself in front of the building she claimed to be at so that he can verify that she's where she said.

I know of a guy who goes—he's a lazybones, he does nothing—but he shows up at his wife's area of work and sits around. What's he doing? He's controlling. He's watching, so that even when she's at work, he's hanging around.

He's manipulative. He wants to control her—everything. And he will use his blowups, he’ll use his other behaviors to try to manipulate her or to shape her mind—to gaslight, as I mentioned earlier—to make her believe his version of events.

He’s entitled. He figures he deserves this. He’s the boss in the relationship. He’s the smart one in the relationship. He’s superior. She ought to recognize that he knows best.

He’s degrading. Very often, when you’re around an abuser for a while, you keep feeling worse and worse about yourself because he points out—sometimes through just dreadful insults and horrible things that he says, but sometimes he’s just critical. Everything you do is wrong. It’s always wrong. “You always get it wrong. Can’t you do better? What did you do wrong with this meal? Why didn’t you clean up better? Why did you get home two minutes late? You’re home on time but you should have been home ten minutes early. You should have understood that I needed you here today.”

There’s a twisting of events. Something you say will be twisted against you. Something you did will be twisted against you. If you look at another guy walking down the street, you are planning an affair with him.

Blaming—everything’s your fault.

Denying is a specialty. “Come on, I didn’t really say that. I didn’t really harm you. I didn’t really assault you. I didn’t do that.” He’ll deny it in public, but he’ll even deny it to you. And he’ll also—part of that—minimize: “Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have hit you, but I didn’t hit you all that hard. And besides, you kind of had it coming, didn’t you? You’re the one that set me off.” So he’s minimizing his own responsibility, minimizing how serious it was, and trying to make it seem not so serious.

And so the abuser uses all of these tools at his disposal—to control, to own, to manipulate, to show he’s superior and you’re less, to make you fit his version of events. Because he is the center of the universe, and you are just a satellite who has to orbit around his sun.

The Bible speaks of fools, and abusers have a lot in common with the Proverbs description of a fool. “The way of a fool seems right to him” (Proverbs 12:15)—he’s always right. A fool is never wrong in his own humble opinion. “A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions” (Proverbs 18:2). He can’t listen. He can’t understand anyone else’s point of view. He will talk at you. He will tell you how things are. He does not want to hear from you.

He also doesn’t change. “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly” (Proverbs 26:11). He does not learn from his sins and errors and leave them behind. He keeps going back to the puke.

“A fool gives full vent to his anger” (Proverbs 29:11). He thinks, “If I am angry, I have the right to unleash it.” These are some of the characteristics of the fool in general, and they certainly apply to the fool who is abusive and controlling toward his partner.

How do you respond?

Trying to please an abuser is not the way to make things better. Trying to please fails. Trying to please an abuser would work only if your behavior caused the abuse. Well, now is that so? No. Abuse is never caused by someone else. So pleasing an abuser will not stop the abuse. He will find something else wrong with you to abuse you for. If it was your fault, then you could fix it by improving yourself and pleasing him more. But that will not work, because it wasn’t your fault, and your behavior didn’t cause it.

Any effort to please an abuser rewards his manipulation and it hardens him. He says, “Hey, it’s working. She’s doing what I want.” And so he will use the abuse if needed to get what he wants. You cannot read an abuser’s mind. You cannot fix him. So trying to please him is going to fail because how do you know how to please him? You can’t read his mind. You can’t turn him into a non-abusive person. But your efforts to please him can crush you. You can lose your sense of selfhood. You’re always trying to figure him out. You’re always trying to figure out what he wants. You’re always trying to understand his version of things. Before long, you lose yourself entirely, and you’re just a puppet and a doormat of that abuser.

Couples therapy also tends to fail—in fact, almost always fails—when there is actual abuse going on. Because couples therapy tries to help people work things out. Couples therapy deals with issues that are mutual, that involve both people. But abuse is one person’s fault, not both.

Now, if you’re an abuser, you say, “I don’t like the way you said that. I know that it’s her fault too.” No. If you’re verbally insulting your wife and degrading her, if you’re striking your wife, if you’re raping your wife—it is not her fault. Dream on, buddy. It’s all your fault.

And if you’re on the receiving end of that abuse, don’t try to go to couples therapy and find out what both of you can do to improve the situation. He needs an abuse program. He doesn’t need couples therapy.

When you go to couples therapy, the abuser feels confirmed that, “Well, the partner is setting me off and she should change her ways.” And so the counselor will try to look at both sides. He’ll say, “Okay, now here’s what you could work on, and here’s what you can work on.” And the abuser will hear what she needs to work on, and he won’t hear what he needs to work on at all. He’ll take it as confirmation that, “Yeah, she’s the one who’s setting these things off.”

And the partner, when she goes into that with a therapist, will feel that if she changes, then the abuse will stop and the relationship will improve. But it won’t—because she was not the problem in the first place. She didn’t cause the abuse.

Here’s a final reason why couples therapy is not a great idea for abusive situations: if you talk honestly about the abuse, that can cause worse abuse.

Just give an example from Lundy Bancroft. He mentioned a person who went to therapy with her husband, and at one point the therapist finally said, “Well, you know, we’ve got to be a little more honest and go a little deeper here. Let’s talk. We’ve got to trust each other and talk about the things that are really going on.” And so she decided to talk about the abuse with her husband in the room. And the therapist listened, and the husband said, “Oh boy, I didn’t realize how much it was hurting you and how much it was bothering you.” Oh, and the counselor felt very good about the session.

It was over, and after they got in the car and started driving down the road, he grabbed her by the hair, smashed her face on the dashboard, broke her nose, and said, “You—I told you never to talk about that.”

Couples therapy is not the place to deal with abuse. You need a program for abusers, because couples therapy will usually do more harm than good.

Personal therapy with the abuser himself—if it’s just therapeutic counseling—will also fail. Lundy Bancroft says, “I have yet to meet an abuser who has made any meaningful and lasting changes in his behavior toward female partners through therapy. When he’s finished, he will be a happy, well-adjusted abuser.” He’ll feel better about himself, he’ll feel more well-adjusted, he’ll still be an abuser.

A high-quality abuser program is entirely different from therapy. And just as a footnote, Lundy Bancroft doesn’t write as a Christian. He doesn’t try to present a Christian point of view. He’s just saying this as somebody who’s seen a lot, has seen a lot of abusers. And he says, “I haven’t yet met an abuser who changed because of counseling or therapy or couples counseling. They need a program specifically directed at abusers. And even then, many of them won’t change.”

Abusers who do change have certain characteristics. Bancroft says the abuser’s friends and his relatives recognize his abuse and tell him to deal with it. They don’t side with him. They don’t say, “Well, you’ve got it pretty rough. I can see why you blow up at her once in a while. I can see why you scream at her. I can see why you hit her.” No. If he has relatives and friends who recognize the abuse and tell him to deal with it, there’s a greater likelihood that he will.

He’s less self-centered, and he senses how badly he’s hurt his partner. There are degrees of abusers. Some are extremely self-centered and just can’t feel for anybody else. But those who do change are the ones who are less self-centered and sense how much harm and hurt they’ve caused.

Another area of abusers who change is that their partner—their spouse—is strongly supported by family and by friends and by church and by the legal system. They’ve got people standing with them. She’s not just at his mercy. Her family members are standing with her and encouraging her. She’s got friends. Her church, her pastor, her elders are not sympathizing with her abuser. And the legal system is willing to hold the abuser accountable.

Another aspect of abusers who change is that he actually joins an abuser program—not just general counseling or therapy or couples therapy—but a program for abusers for at least two years. And without those things, change is very unlikely, at least from a secular point of view.

Even from a spiritual point of view, if God has changed the heart of an abuser, if the Holy Spirit is at work, he still needs to directly face some of the things that made him an abuser in the first place. He should join an abuser program. He should not just say, “Oh, I’ve been born again. I’m a different man now.” He needs to prove it by his actions, and he needs to find ways to change.

People will not change if they’re abusers unless something invades their little world—unless there are consequences. Again, to quote Lundy Bancroft: “An abuser changes only when he feels he has to. Either his partner demands change and threatens to leave him, or a court demands change and threatens to jail him. I have never seen a client make a serious effort to confront his abusiveness unless somebody required him to do the work.”

That’s a secular expert who’s had experience with thousands of abusive situations. None of them ever change unless they are forced to change—by the legal system or by their spouse—and they finally have to face some harsh consequences. Otherwise, they will not change.

So where abuse occurs, consequences are necessary. Consequences have to be imposed.

If you’re a person who’s being abused by a partner, report it to the church—because abuse is a sin, and church leaders must fight sin and protect their flock from abusive predators. So report it to the appropriate church authorities if you’re part of a church.

Report it to the police. It’s not just a sin—it’s a crime. Physical and sexual assault are crimes. Even verbal can be a crime. Serious threats are also crimes. You do not have an obligation to protect a criminal from the consequences of his crime.

If you’re going to impose consequences, be ready to report it to the church. Be ready to report it to the police. But then mean it when you do. Be prepared to leave. Form an exit plan. Leave if he won’t join an abuser program.

Don’t threaten. Leave. If you threaten three or four times and don’t do it, he will not take you seriously anymore. He knows you’re bluffing. If you threaten to report it to the police but then don’t, he’s not going to be scared by that. He knows you’re bluffing. It has to be real consequences.

And why do you impose those consequences? Well, let’s look at the Bible again.

The Bible says, “Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult; whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse” (Proverbs 9:7). So if you try to help him straighten out, if you try to correct him, if you try to rebuke him, it just brings more trouble and more abuse on you.

“If you are a mocker, you alone will suffer” (Proverbs 9:12). “A mocker resents correction” (Proverbs 15:12). “Drive out the mocker, and out goes strife; quarrels and insults are ended” (Proverbs 22:10).

That’s not talking just about abusive spouses, but the abusive spouse is one form of the fool and the mocker—the one who will not listen to wisdom, the one who will not change his ways, the one who mocks and insults and degrades and belittles anyone who challenges his actions.

The only solution, then, is: drive him out. Get away from him. You can’t change him.

“A man of great wrath will pay the penalty; if you rescue him, you will have to do it again” (Proverbs 19:19). Wrath is cruel. Anger is overwhelming. But who can stand before jealousy? (Proverbs 27:4). That kind of jealousy and that anger that comes through with the abusive and controlling person—the only solution to that is: let him pay the penalty for it. Don’t try to please him.

“A man of wrath stirs up strife, and one given to anger causes much transgression” (Proverbs 29:22).

So it’s not just the secular expert and counselors who speak of the necessity of consequences for abusive people. The Bible itself says, if you’re dealing with a mocker, if you’re dealing with a fool, if you’re dealing with a man of great wrath—he’s got to pay the penalty. He’s got to face some consequences.

Now, a spouse may say, “But I promised to stay with this person. God hates divorce.”

True enough. The Bible says, “‘I hate divorce,’ says the Lord God of Israel, ‘and I hate a man’s covering himself with violence as well as with his garments,’ says the Lord Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith” (Malachi 2:16).

“Covering himself,” and other translations also say “covering his wife” with violence. So God hates divorce. Divorce is never an ideal option. But if a man is covering himself and his wife with violence, God hates that too.

In that kind of a situation, there aren’t any happy, good choices. There’s just a sad choice and an even worse choice. And if you’re living with an abuser who refuses to change, you need to get away from him.

Now, I don’t want to be too forceful or too strong in advising an abused person, “You have to leave him.” Then I maybe become part of the problem—one more person who’s trying to control you and tell you what to do and what you have to do. These are things where you need to come to your own conclusions.

But the truth of the matter is that God, while he hates divorce, hates violence—hates mistreatment of a partner.

So don’t accept abuse. Don’t accept it for God’s sake, because it dishonors God to let an abuser keep destroying your spirit and your body, which God created. God doesn’t want you being abused.

Don’t accept abuse for your own sake. You’re precious. You may not feel like it after years of being browbeaten and actually hit and degraded, but you’re precious. Do not let an abuser trash your life. Don’t let yourself become garbage and treated that way by him.

You need to stop the demonic attacks. Satan is the accuser. The Bible says that the tongue is set on fire by hell (James 3:6). Satan means accuser, and he is constantly accusing and attacking. So stop those demonic attacks and seek healing from the Lord.

And here’s another reason not to accept abuse: for the abuser’s sake. Consequences—painful consequences—are the best hope for him to escape evil.

If you keep going along with him, if you keep letting him mistreat you, he’s not going to change. He will keep going further and further on the road to judgment—to bringing down God’s wrath upon himself. So if you care about your abuser, consider the possibility that consequences are the only thing that will ever change him. Only if he believes you’re willing to leave him, or if he believes that the legal system is going to punish him, is he likely to change. And if those get his attention, he might even say, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” He might have spiritual change as well as change in his life.

But if you go along with the flow, just take the perspective of the man who’s dealt with more than 2,000 abusers and said, “I have never seen one of them change unless they had consequences imposed on them.”

Love your abuser. The Bible says, “Love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44), and so we can’t just say, “Well, I hate them. Goodbye. Good riddance,” and so on. But if you love your abuser, you do need boundaries. You need to protect your safety. You need to protect your dignity. You need to prevent further attacks.

If you love your abuser, you’re wronging him by offering yourself to him again and again and again as his punching bag. Don’t do that. Get some boundaries. Get some protection for yourself and protect him from his evil self. And then, once you have some boundaries where you’re safe from his attacks, then—forgiveness.

Seek for his well-being. Pray for his well-being. “Pray for those who mistreat you,” says the Bible (Luke 6:28). You can pray for him. You can forgive him. But keep this in mind. Dan Allender and Tremper Longman, when speaking about this, say, “Forgiveness cancels the debt, but it does not lend new money until repentance occurs.”

So you might forgive your abuser, but you don’t come back to him and say, “Now hit me again.” You don’t come back to him and put yourself right back in the same situation again. Forgiveness does not mean that we pretend nothing happened. Forgiveness comes when repentance occurs.

Jesus Christ himself, when he proclaimed the kingdom of God, said, “Repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1:15). Jesus said, “If your brother sins against you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him” (Luke 17:3). God calls for repentance before he gives us the blessing of forgiveness.

So we can forgive people in the sense that we let go of our resentment and our desire for bad things to happen to them—we can forgive them. But even that does not mean that we just get right back into the relationship again unless there is true repentance and true long-term change. And even then, sometimes there’s been too much water under the bridge. You’ve got a new life established, and you can be glad that he’s changed, but it’s possible that he’s not going to be able to have you be part of it anymore because he just killed that marriage and killed your ability to ever trust him again.

So I won’t try to sort out everything that every spouse must or cannot do. But to have some firm boundaries and consequences, and then to extend forgiveness where you’re praying for your enemy’s well-being and praying for their repentance, and at the same time realizing that forgiveness doesn’t mean that you have to jeopardize your life and well-being—and the life and well-being of your children—just so that you can say, “Well, I forgave him, and I went right back into the relationship again.”

And then get help. Because you’ve been through a lot. When you’re an abused person, you need healing. And go to God. God is the helper of the downtrodden. God is the helper of those who cannot help themselves. God is the defender of his people. And so go to God. Seek his healing. Say, “Lord, I’ve been crushed. I’ve been wounded. Please heal and restore me.”

Go to yourself. Okay, this may sound like heresy—and I’m not saying that we save ourselves—but you have inner strength and wisdom if you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. Especially if you have a new heart from him, if the Holy Spirit is already in you, then whatever messages your abuser and controller has been sending—you have inner strength. You have wisdom from God. Trust that fact and start drawing on your own mind.

Because one of the dangers of being an abused person is you lose the ability to think for yourself. He’s been gaslighting you. He’s been making you think his version of the story. Trust your own mind. Trust your own wisdom. Trust the inner resources that God gives you. And do not allow yourself to be manipulated by abuse.

Find help and healing from family members. You may have some relatives who treasure you, who really cherish you, who support you, who encourage you. Especially if you’ve been insulted and degraded by somebody else, the people who see what’s great in you—the people who admire you—you need to be around people like that, the people who encourage and edify and build up.

And that brings me not just to your biological family, but to your church family. If there are fellow saints who see you as royalty—as a daughter of the King—or in the case of a man who’s been through abuse, a son of the King—called by God, gifted by God, talented, a major contributor to the life and well-being of the church—if you’re around people who see you that way, that will help in your healing.

Sometimes specialized help is also valuable. Maybe there will be a support group for survivors of abuse. Maybe there will be a therapist with experience in helping people who’ve been through spouse abuse or partner abuse. You can seek that counsel and find wisdom from them and find guidance in healing.

But it’s so very important that you get help and healing—through God, through discovering what God’s doing inside of you by his Holy Spirit and the inner self he’s given you, through loving family members, through a wise and discerning and supportive church, through a counselor who knows what he or she is really talking about.

This is what we need when you’ve been abused and are seeking help and healing from the Lord.

As I’ve already mentioned, if a person is the abuser, they need a specialized abuse program. And they need to deeply repent—before God and before the person who has suffered their abuse.

Overcoming Partner Abuse
By David Feddes
Slide Contents

Abusing the Bible

Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. (Ephesians 5:22-23)

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. (Colossians 3:18)

Wives, be submissive to your husbands. (1 Peter 3:1)

Love and respect

Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. (Ephesians 5:22-23)

Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. (Colossians 3:19)

Husbands, be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect. (1 Peter 3:7)

Partner abuse

• Emotional
• Physical
• Sexual

Emotional abuse

• Insulting
• Blaming
• Ignoring
• Isolating
• Impoverishing
• Threatening

Even among women who suffered physical abuse, more than half say emotional abuse harmed them most.

Emotional (verbal) abuse

Reckless words pierce like a sword... A deceitful tongue crushes the spirit... The tongue has the power of life and death. (Proverbs 12:18; 15:4; 18:21)

The tongue is a fire… set on fire by hell itself…  It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. (James 3:6-8)

Physical abuse

Attacks by partners are #1 cause of injury to women ages 15-44.

• Throwing or breaking things
• Scratching, biting, pushing
• Slapping, kicking, choking
• Denying food or force feeding
• Weapons or endangering

Sexual abuse

• Rape: forced sexual acts
• Infidelity: affairs with others
• Jealousy: often suspects and accuses partner of infidelity
• Pornography: looks at porn and pressures partner to imitate it
• Ownership: partner is property

Partner abuse

• Emotional
• Physical
• Sexual

Thoughts of the abused

• He’s not always this way. He loves me.
• He didn’t mean it. He just loses control.
• He calls me names, then wants intimacy.
• I feel so confused. Am I crazy?
• People love him. Why do I set him off?
• Maybe it’s my fault. How can I improve?
• He’s trying. Things will get better.
• I feel scared. I don’t dare to leave him.

Five common puzzles

• His story is far different from hers.
• He gets insanely jealous, but in other ways he seems rational.
• He can get people to side with him.
• Eruptions seem out of control, yet other controlling behaviors appear calculated.
• At times he seems to improve, but then he repeats abuse and gets worse.

Abusive mentality

• Possessive
• Controlling
• Manipulative
• Entitled
• Superior
• Degrading
• Twisting
• Blaming
• Denying
• Minimizing

Abusive fool

The way of a fool seems right to him.

A fool finds no pleasure in understanding 
but delights in airing his own opinions.

As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.

A fool gives full vent to his anger. (Prov 12:15; 18:2; 26:11; 29:11)

Trying to please fails

• Trying to please an abuser would work only if your behavior caused the abuse.
• Abuse is never caused by someone else, so pleasing an abuser won’t stop abuse.
• Any effort to please an abuser rewards his manipulation and hardens him.
• You can’t read abuser’s mind or fix him, but your efforts to please can crush you.

Couples therapy fails

• Deals with issues that are mutual—but abuse is one person’s fault, not both.
• Abuser feels confirmed that partner “sets him off” and must change her ways.
• Partner feels that if she changes, abuse will stop and relationship will improve.
• Telling of abuse may spark worse abuse.

Personal therapy fails

I have yet to meet an abuser who has made any meaningful and lasting changes in his behavior toward female partners through therapy… when he is finished, he will be a happy, well-adjusted abuser… 

A high quality abuser program is entirely different from therapy. (Lundy Bancroft)

Abusers who change

• His friends and relative recognize his abuse and tell him to deal with it.
• He is less self-centered and senses how badly he has hurt his partner.
• Partner is strongly supported by family, friends, church, and legal system.
• He joins solid abuser program for 2 years.

Impose consequences

An abuser changes only when he feels he has to… Either his partner demands change and threatens to leave him or a court demands change and threatens to jail him. I have never seen a client make a serious effort to confront his abusiveness unless somebody required him to do the work. (Lundy Bancroft)

Impose consequences

• Report to church: Abuse is sin. Church leaders must fight sin and protect flock from predators.
• Report to police: Physical and sexual assault are crimes. Serious threats are crimes. Don’t protect a criminal.
• Prepare to leave: Form an exit plan. Leave if he won’t join abuser program.

Consequences

Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult; whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse… If you are a mocker, you alone will suffer… A mocker resents correction… Drive out the mocker, and out goes strife; quarrels and insults are ended. (Proverbs 9:7, 12; 15:12; 22:10)

A man of great wrath will pay the penalty, for if you deliver him, you will only have to do it again… Wrath is cruel, anger is overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy? … A man of wrath stirs up strife, and one given to anger causes much transgression.  (Proverbs 19:19; 27:4; 29:22)

Divorce and violence

“I hate divorce,” says the LORD God of Israel, “and I hate a man’s covering himself [also translated his wife] with violence as well as with his garment,” says the LORD Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith. (Malachi 2:16)

Don’t accept abuse

• For God’s sake: It dishonors God to let an abuser keep destroying your spirit and body, which God created.
• For your sake: You are precious. Don’t let abuser trash your life. Stop demonic attacks and seek healing.
• For abuser’s sake: Consequences are the best hope for him to escape evil.

Love your abuser

• Boundaries: protect your safety and dignity; prevent further attacks
• Forgiveness: seek and pray for your enemy’s wellbeing.

Forgiveness cancels the debt but does not lend new money until repentance occurs. (Allender & Longman)

Get help in healing

• God: Helper of the downtrodden
• Self: inner strength and wisdom
• Family: relatives who treasure you
• Church: fellow saints who see you as royalty called and gifted by God
• Counsel: support group or therapist