I will not tolerate people who slander their neighbors. I will not endure conceit and pride. (v. 5) Pride is the enemy of the soul that shows its face in many different ways. Some people delight in belittling others because it makes them feel superior. Verbally abusing another person gives the abuser a sense of power and authority, and keeps his hands clean from physical assault. If you tolerate just a little bit of verbal abuse (name calling, unkind teasing, etc.), it won’t be long before the floodgates of verbal vomit will scorch and wither your soul. You may not be able to control another person’s mouth, but you can set limits as to how much you will endure. Just a little bit is too much!

My daily task will be to ferret out criminals and free the city of the Lord from their grip. (v. 8.) You can replace the words “city of the Lord” with “my home” or “my church.” It is not loving to protect a criminal from the consequences of his actions. Physical battery is a crime! Don’t buy into the lie that you are not being a good, supportive wife if you call 9-1-1 and press charges against a physically abusive spouse. Fondling and other inappropriate sexual behavior toward children is a crime! When these types of crimes are swept under the rug, innocent people get hurt and suffer for years to come! A wise pastor once said it best, “You can sweep broken glass under the carpet, but it will work its way through the rug and cut your foot.”

Here’s the link to the whole page: http://www.brokenpeople.org/content/coaches/The%20Power%20to%20Make%20Hard%20Choices138873.asp?coach_ID=138873&K27=brokenpeople.org&A=View%20Article

God bless, LT

The first response I have to you is when you say, for whatever reason you still love your husband. Well, my sister, that’s the love of God in you for a partner, in a bond of marriage, that God ordained and does not want to see die.

Mark 10:9 What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

So that is why you still feel love for your husband. That, coupled with the emotional bond that developed during your dating time and early marriage. That’s hard to let go.

Secondly, I wanted to address your husband’s alcohol struggles. For any of us who have been born again, we all go through a maturation process that is long and arduous, whereby we make progress and learn a lot but it’s the type of process that can best be referred to as "growing pains." Just like a child goes through the terrible two’s, etc. We are children of God and learning to live according to God’s word and grow in the spirit, is the same as what our physical process was when we were children. I applaud your husband’s efforts to reach out to God (the only true hope of change and redemption for all of us), but it’s a spiritual growth, just like the physical growth was when we were younger, learning to grow through our teenage years and early adulthood.

Thus we all tend to get angry at God and frustrated and wonder why we bother and where is it all going, etc. That is where your husband is. My suggestion to you, when/if that comes up in conversation is to simply give him your own experiences in your own personal faith walk (experiences you had to grow through) and give him the analogy that changing from the world’s way to God’s way is hard and is like growing up again, but it’s far more worth it than anything we could have received growing up as kids in this physical world (if that makes sense).

Regarding your AP – I, too, fell into that trap years ago because of the horrible state of my marriage so I’ve been there as well. If you’ve read some of the articles on this site about infidelity as well as using the "guarding your heart" principle to protect your marriage, you will know that Godly Christians recommend not seeking friendships with those of the opposite gender and I agree. Some exceptions would be a Christian counselor or a pastor or something of that nature but your AP does not fit those descriptions.

I suggest you keep contact with that person minimal. You don’t have to lie, you just don’t have to go into great detail either. You can say something such as, we are struggling, but I know God will show us the way and please pray for us. This keeps the conversation honest (no lying) but also points toward God, not the flesh.

If this man is the type to say/respond, I wish your husband treated you better, I’d never do that to you, etc. etc. please see that for what it is – that is Satan trying to bait you into thinking for this man in an emotional way that is not healthy and will not move your forward toward your goal of Godly living and reconciliation with your husband. Therefore, I strongly recommend, dare I say, urge you to keep contact with this other man at a very, very bare minimum. Ultimately, what’s he going to give you that God can’t? This human can’t possibly offer things that God can offer.

Always keep your eyes on God in all your struggles. When you need Christian counsel and companionship, do so with Godly women and use this website, too, as it is a wonderful tool and it is a supportive environment.

I want to share with you my own personal experience in the healing of abuse in my marriage (and it is still not all the way there yet, either). It takes years to fully recover. During the recovery process, it is a time for you (and your husband if he chooses), to become more spiritually mature. There is a work God has in store for you as you grown and once you’ve grown more and the only way He can bring it about is to test you and mold you in times of trial, such as now. But I want to be realistic that it takes years to heal this kind of dysfunction so strap your boots on for a long walk.

Regarding divorce – well, God hates it. Regarding separation, of course that is necessary at times, especially in abusive houses where that is sometimes necessary not only to prevent violence but also the abusers are sometimes (dare I say, usually) so psychologically/emotionally unhealthy they tend to need to be faced with dire consequences to even wake them up out of the denial they so greatly desire to live in.

Separation should NEVER be done with the intent of divorce, however. Nor should it ever be done out of an emotional state of frustration or in a desire for revenge. It can be done, sometimes, because it’s the only thing to shake a bad situation up to where some attention would be paid, but even then it should be made clear that both parties have reconciliation in mind. Separation, by a Christian, should always be done with future reconciliation in mind. That is something I will stand by.

Here are two books I’ve been reading and want to recommend to you:

1 – Praying Through the Deeper Issues of Marriage, also by Stormie Omartian – much better book (in my opinion) than the first Power of a Praying Wife. Her first book (in my opinion) was made for people who "have it pretty good." That’s how it struck me. Only 30% of the population deals with abuse so there aren’t many books geared toward that. This second book she wrote is actually for people like you and me, who have REAL problems that can sometimes be frightening. I’m not minimalizing the problems of others, it’s just that what I see in problems that aren’t abusive, tend to be people who are extremely emotional because they have the freedom to be. In an abusive house, as you know, you literally, at times, don’t even have the freedom to express your emotions because you might get screamed at, hit, have things thrown at you, etc. In other words, there is so much fear and manipulation, you can’t always express your emotions even when you want to. Abuse is a whole different animal from any other kind of marriage problems I’ve seen.

2 – Love Must Be Tough by Dr. James Dobson. It tells a lot of the advice through victims of infidelity, but the principles of respect and what love does and does not do in crisis situations, cross the boundaries of all marriage problems, including abuse. And there is a chapter on abuse, and alcoholism, as well. It’s well worth the read.

If you haven’t already done so, make sure you set boundaries in your verbal communication with your husband. No yelling/screaming on your part. No allowing him to threaten you or name-call, etc. I’m not saying you can keep him from doing it, but you have the right to calmly explain that you want to have healthier communication. If the cursing you out or name-calling (on his part) does start during a conversation, you should politely say I’ll come back when we’re (or you) are calmer and then leave the room.

If this will incite anger to the point of violence, then you should start praying about this approach. Obviously you should be praying (not that you aren’t) about your marriage situation in general and asking God to guide you in what to do in all the different types of scenarios that you are bound to come across when living with someone who has an abuse problem and an alcohol problem.

God will guide you and start putting it in your head what to do. Seek Him daily through prayer and the Word. Fast, too. I’ve been doing that recently because I’m in a similar place in my marriage right now as you, with similar dilemmas. Going to God for the answer, as opposed to acting from our flesh, is always the right approach.

Please let me know if you have any other questions and keep me updated. I may not always be able to get back to your right away. My marriage is still unstable, too, so sometimes I’m dealing with personal things related to that, but I’ve shared with you what has helped me in the last several months and hope that you can gain some insight from it. With love and prayers, LT

I’ve got some personal things going on at the moment, but I wanted to let you know that I will write back when I can. I need a point where I have a lot of time to do that. You are in my thoughts and prayers until I can write more. With love, LT

Eventually our everyday “how are you” chatter turned to deeper more emotional issues as we discovered that neither one of us was as happily married as we first thought. After nine months we did manage to meet and out emotional affair then turned physical and we pledged our undying love for one another.

Being a Christian woman I know right from wrong and some months later my AP and I decided we would end our A and rededicate ourselves to God and to making our marriages work. He felt a tremendous guilt from our A and decided he couldn’t live with that. I moved back in with my husband in hopes things would get better.

For him it has been a wonderful experience to be able to be closer to God and his wife and I’m truly happy for them. For me it has been different, I haven’t experienced the same happiness, in fact my husband shows no affection for me whatsoever, and hasn’t for some time, which may be one of the reasons I felt drawn to my AP. On occasion my XAP will send an email to just “check in” and make sure I’m ok. He thinks that things for me are going as well as things are for him. Since, I don’t want to be emotionally dependent, I haven’t told him any different. I know that the only way to be truly over him is NC but for now I think I’ve made great progress.

I’ve been married for 16 years to an abusive alcoholic. We have 2 daughters 8 and 15. For whatever reason, I still love my husband, but I’m finding it harder and harder to stay with him and feel I’ve reached a point that I just don’t want to try anymore. About a year ago my husband decided to give his heart to the Lord and hoped he could be delivered from his addictions. We started seeing a Christian marriage counselor to help, since both of us had decided that our marriage was pretty much over. The Counselor has helped us tremendously. Unfortunately my husband is still struggling and is unable to overcome the drinking, and because he’s been struggling with this for so long, he feels it’s not worth it, and feels God is not helping him enough. He is angry with himself and God and turns that anger towards me.

My daughters have seen and heard more than their share of horror between their dad and me and I can no longer allow them to see and hear this abuse. The marriage counselor gave me new hope and for a while things seemed better, but with my husband’s regression, I feel I can no longer support him and feel a need to leave before he hurts me again, which he has threatened to do several times.

As I said before I do still love him, and have prayed for years that things would change, I have read The Power of a Praying Wife. But I can’t do this for him anymore; I feel he’s got to, at some point do something for himself instead of waiting for everyone else. I’ve tried to get him to go to AA and promised I would go with him. I’ve also advised him that God will help him if he shows effort to help himself. I can’t do it for him!

I guess I have the feeling of deserting him and with that comes some guilt since I’m old school and have that whole “in sickness and in health till death do us part” thing in my head. But I’ve also done enough reading and praying to know when the Lord would not want me in such a bad situation. I too must help myself. I’m torn.

Of course then there’s this whole other fear that I can’t make it without him, and what if I fail my daughters?

I just found the following book I’d like to recommend. I wanted to pass on a book that, when I went to the amazon.com page, it had up as a suggestion for me based on past purchases. I just felt REALLY strongly to share that on this page, and probably one or two of the other pages here on this site, that deal with abuse.

At any rate – not all of you that read here are in abusive marriages, I know, so this may not be for you but if you are, you know who you are. There are a lot of women out there, who are part of couples who haven’t "come out of the closet" of abuse yet but if you sit around even wondering whether your marriage is abusive or not, then chances are it is. My experience is that people who are in healthy marriages with a minimal level of respect on both sides, aren’t the ones sitting around wondering whether their marriages or abusive or not.

At any rate – I haven’t read the book but the description spoke volumes to me. If you have an account with amazon, as I do, you can go in and look at excerpts, as well. This isn’t written from a Christian perspective so please keep that in mind. It will probably have "worldly" suggestions that you may not want to take to heart, so read it prayerfully if you decide to read it, but the core of the subject matter is important enough if you are dealing with it in your life or know someone who is.

My own experience with how God brought my situation to light and started working his healing power was that I went to the church first, not man’s institutions (ie, the police). I’d recommend this. Always go to God and His people first. If the necessity arises later on, for various reasons, to eventually go to wordly institutions, such as the courts or the police, then that might happen but always do everything prayerfully.

The book is called "Why Does He Do That?" by Lundy Bancroft. Here’s a blurb I found on amazon that seemed to really say it all.

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From Publishers Weekly: This fascinating investigation into what makes abusive men tick is alarming, but its candid handling of a difficult subject makes it a valuable resource for professionals and victims alike. Bancroft, the former codirector of Emerge, the nation’s first program for abusive men, has specialized in domestic violence for 15 years, and his understanding of his subject and audience is apparent on every page. "One of the prevalent features of life with an angry or controlling partner is that he frequently tells you what you should think and tries to get you to doubt or devalue your own perceptions and beliefs," he writes. "I would not like to see your experience with this book re-create that unhealthy dynamic. So the top point to bear in mind as you read [this book] is to listen carefully to what I am saying, but always to think for yourself." He maintains this level of sensitivity and even empathy throughout discussions on the nature of abusive thinking, how abusive men manipulate their families and the legal system and whether or not they can ever be cured. Jargon-free analysis is frequently broken up by interesting first-person accounts and boxes that distill in-depth information into simple checklists. Bancroft’s book promises to be a beacon of calm and sanity for many storm-tossed families.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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The book above is helpful if you are a victim. There’s also another book I’d recommend to the victim and the abuser and it’s called "Angry Men and the Women Who Love Them." If you are in an abusive relationship you’ll see yourself and your marriage in this book as you read it.

If you have questions, please post back. I check this site often, and always respond when I feel led by God to do so. Steve and Cindy Wright are also very attentive to the site as well for those in dire situations and in need of help. With love, LT