When You Say We Can't Leave...

Some people seem to think separation and divorce are always wrong.

I want to ask them: do you realize what you're saying? Are you thinking it through?

Whether it's abuse of any kind, addictions, porn or any other form of cheating, some people still insist that separation and/or divorce is wrong. They will push and push for reconciliation after the fact, too.


Let me try to put it in perspective. They're saying...

• They expect us to have an intimate and sexual relationship with this person, who has abused and betrayed us.

• We don't have the right to be emotionally and/or physically safe in our own home.

• Preserving the "marriage" is more important than our health and safety.

When I hear this kind of sentiment, I know that this person is not a safe person. They're not safe for anyone in a destructive marriage to get advice from.

A high view of marriage INCLUDES divorce.

Why? Because for our vows to mean anything, there must be consequences when they are broken. I mean really, how much of a marriage is it where one repeatedly breaks their vows? Is that really honoring God to allow that to continue to go on? There must be a way of escape for the oppressed and abused. There must be protection from harm, not enabling of sin and abuse. Otherwise, our vows mean nothing. Empty words with no substance that make a mockery of our covenant keeping God.


Now can I go back to that first bullet point? They expect us to stay married and remain in an intimate and sexual relationship with our abuser. It's honestly one of the most triggering ideas for me. I can feel it in my chest, in my pounding heart. It literally makes me feel sick and nauseous. My body knows the danger and reacts to that toxic idea. This is a what abuse and trauma do to the body.

Recognizing the consequences of that idea is important. Sexual abuse and degradation (by maintaining a physical relationship in an unsafe relationship) is a violation against one's own body. It's not intimacy, because that requires vulnerability and emotional safety. It's just lust and it is uniquely harmful and demeaning because it is an act committed against our bodies.

It's horrifying to me that some insist that the victim should have to entrust themselves to the one who violated them and expect the victim to become "one flesh" regularly with the one who has treated them cruelly (and likely continues to do so).

Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and to misuse and abuse the body of one's spouse is to desecrate and profane something sacred. Have you considered that?

To push a victim to stay or to pursue reconciliation is naive and flippant in the face of the betrayal of abuse, addictions, or any form of adultery. In reality, it is further abuse to pressure the victim into a close and intimate relationship when trust has been so completely destroyed by the other's actions. Let me say it again this way: You are adding to the abuse if you side with and enable the abuser.

How dare the church focus on the victim and callously accuse her of unforgiveness and bitterness, rather than acknowledging the destruction of the abuser's actions that led to her choice?

Where the covenant has been broken, IT IS BROKEN. She is free to choose to try again or to divorce, because he broke the covenant.

It's not on her. It's on him and his actions that caused the break.

She is not under obligation or bondage. She is free.