Abuse is patently wrong, but when should you leave the marriage or relationship? Keep reading to find out when — and if — you should leave. In part 3 of this four-part series on abuse, biblical counselor Jim Newheiser evaluates common statements made about abuse. His article appeared first here at the Biblical Counseling Coalition and is used with permission. Read part 1 and part 2.
If You Feel You’re Being Mistreated, Should You Leave?
ASSERTION: If you feel that you are being mistreated or controlled, leave the relationship.
A valid concern: This statement is made because there are so many women who stay in dangerously abusive relationships when they have every right to seek safety and refuge.
Possible Harm of Believing the Assertion
The harm that can be caused: Those who are seeking to protect victims of abuse sometimes fail to distinguish between the degrees of sinful mistreatment that can take place in a marriage relationship.
The message some women get is that if your husband is to any extent controlling, manipulative, or angry, then you are in an abusive relationship and you need to get out. Women are told that an angry husband has broken the marriage covenant, and they have the right to divorce.
I affirm that a battered wife has every right to get away from a violent husband Click & Tweet! and that his failure to repent and to live at peace with her can eventually lead to the breakup of their marriage (1 Cor. 7:15). Sadly, however, I have seen women who are in difficult, but not violent marriages—in which there is often anger on both sides—who use the claim of abuse to divorce their husbands on less than biblical grounds.
The reality is that marriage brings together two sinners. Click & Tweet! Because of the fall, many marriages involve a struggle for control as described in Genesis 3:16. In many cases, both partners are guilty of sinful anger, which Jesus calls murderous (Matt. 5:21-22).
Wisely Investigating an Abuse Charge
It would be better to say: Wisdom needs to be exercised in distinguishing between degrees of sin in an allegedly abusive situation.
Just as the act of adultery is a greater threat to a marriage than a lustful look (Matt. 5:27-28), there is a difference between physical assault and a harsh word. Because Jesus declared, “What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate” (Matt. 19:6b), every effort should be made to preserve marriages and to help both men and women who have fallen short of perfectly keeping the marriage covenant to change.
Church leaders shouldn’t swing from the extreme of sending women back to abusive situations to the other extreme of encouraging the breakup of marriages which might be restored Click & Tweet! . A man who refuses to repent of controlling and angry behavior may be put through a process of church discipline. This process will often give the time and space needed for the abuser’s heart to be more clearly revealed.
(Friend, are you in a controlling, destructive, or difficult marriage? Why not get the help you need? Learn more about confidential, compassionate, effective biblical counseling by Skype or in person.
Contact me today.–Lucy)
Sharing Hope with Your Heart,
