Your Abusive Spouse: When to Leave

Leave your abusive spouse now.  Before anyone protests the sanctity of the marriage vow, let me say that I don’t take this answer lightly. And let me qualify the term, abusive spouse. Most people are occasionally emotionally ‘abusive’. These days that term is loosely bandied about and it can be difficult to ferret out what one or another individual means by it. Ironically, many abusers accuse their spouses of abusive behavior in an attempt to deflect their own wrongdoing.

So let’s be clear by what this term really entails. Many people shut down, withdraw, lose their temper, and sulk. As humans, we are sometimes passive-aggressive, over-step a boundary, or let an inappropriate word fly from our mouths. These immature behaviors need to be addressed, cause others pain, and generally set our relationships back a step or two. We can all be a jerk at times. This doesn’t make us an abuser.

Like most everything else, abusive behavior resides on a scale from slight to severe. If you feel genuine remorse, are able to take responsibility for your actions, and stop doing that behavior even if it takes a couple of tries, you are a normal human being with a conscience. Chances are you are not an abuser. So what does a genuinely abusive spouse look like and why should you leave now?

1: Abusive behavior escalates.

As we look over the life of a relationship, abusive or immature behaviors generally de-escalate. We mature, we grow together, and we learn to love better. Unless one of us is an abuser. If the name-calling, attempts at control, manipulation, threats, and gaslighting have noticeably increased, then the behavior is not due to a lack of self-control or youth.  Abusers rarely begin a relationship using their fists. They use charm and love-bombing. Abusive behavior slowly grows over the years, starting out as merely uncomfortable and hurtful. As time goes by, the abuser grinds his or her victim down like a glacier grinds out a valley. Slow and steady.

My ex went from threatening the girls into good behavior to eventually setting fire to their things. See what I mean? And still, he didn’t physically harm them.  As time goes by, victims become desensitized to abuse. I don’t mean it has less of an effect. I mean that the ability to respond becomes diminished. So we need to check our relationships. If they grow steadily worse over time, then chances are that we are dealing with an abuser, not just someone who is moody.

2: Check your mind and body for the effects of abuse.

Abusive behavior exacts a real toll on us. If we live in fear and experience regular trauma, our minds and bodies suffer real damage. Are we consistently miserable? Do we hide things from our spouse because we are terrified of their reactions? Walking on eggshells is a perilous way to live. Choosing to live in a war zone will culminate in war wounds that may not heal in this lifetime. For a couple of years before I left my ex for the last time, my internal mantra was I wish I were dead. I said it hundreds of times a day to myself and I meant it. If we find ourselves wishing for death, it’s time to reevaluate our lives. This is not God’s will for us.

Some people believe, like I used to, that if somehow they can insert themselves between their spouse and their children and take the hits, then the kids will be spared. This is not true. It is as traumatic for children to watch a parent suffer at the hands of another as it is for them to suffer the abuse first hand. Actually witnessing abuse is first-hand trauma.  I wish I had known this sooner. We often believe the lie that somehow we can mitigate abuse if we toss our bodies onto the grenade.  But no shortcuts are available on the highway of abuse. Watching someone experience trauma is traumatizing.

3: Staying enables abusive behavior.

Somehow we Christians began to swallow the lie that turning the other cheek meant never standing up to evil. But even Jesus did not deliver himself into the hands of the Pharisees until he was ready to do so.  Matthew 7:6 says:

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast. ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them. under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

                Guess what? Each of us is holy, made by God to serve Him alone. When we stay with an abuser, we are casting our lives, our pearls, before swine. And make no mistake, if you are being abused, you are being trampled.

So what does the Bible say?

In Galatians 7: 15-16, Paul writes:

But if the unbelieving partner abandons the other, let it be so. In such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. ¹⁶ For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

If your spouse is knowingly causing you trauma through emotional, verbal, physical, or financial abuse, have they not already abandoned you? They may hold you prisoner within the confines of a relationship, but not as a person made in the image of God.  They have abandoned your humanity, as they have also abandoned their own humanity. And abusers know the harm they cause. They do it on purpose. It isn’t immaturity, but cruelty.

In such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved…  And yet often enough in the Christian world, we act as if that were the case. Remember when Jesus was rebuked for picking some grains of wheat from the field to eat on the Sabbath? He said that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. This is true of marriage. Marriage was made for humans, not humans for marriage. God did not invent marriage and then create some humans to fulfill His idea of it. Rather marriage is meant to be life-giving and covenantal. Unfortunately, not all marriages can be described thusly.

It is Escape, not Separation

My purpose in writing this is to answer the question I am asked every week by a heartbreaking array of women who live with violent and/or narcissistic husbands. I even get this question from men trapped in marriages with emotionally abusive women. “Should I leave?”  they ask after telling me about horrific episodes and decades of unhappiness.

But this is where we get to the crux of the matter. “Yes, you should leave,” is such an easy answer to a question that most of these women have circled for years. If it was a matter of walking out the door without fear, then probably the spouse isn’t an abuser. To leave an abuser is not about an act of will, it is about an act of warfare and a desperate escape.  Without family support, without church support, leaving a dangerous spouse is no easy task. Two out of five women who are murdered were killed by an intimate partner. See these links for the latest research. Intimate Partner Violence Intimate Partner Violence Stats

As a woman who was urged to stay with my ex despite the pastor describing him as ‘a wretched human being’, I urge the church to take another look at its position. If true religion, as James says, is the care of the widow and the orphan, then we should consider putting abused women in this category. They are abandoned and for some, their spirit, soul, and body have been terribly wounded. Instead of asking women why they want to leave, we need to ask “How can I help you escape?”

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