I never even got a restraining order against my ex-husband because I felt his fear of going to jail was what kept him from causing me serious harm. I felt that if he felt he had nothing to lose because I had already pointed him out to the law, he would only get much worse.

I never felt as if the police or courts could protect me from him, and I am terrified of him to this day. He was always careful to make sure that there was nothing I could use against him in a court of law. So, with no legal recourse against him, there was nothing I could do but leave.

So yes, I fully agree that it is just passing the buck. But sadly, I don’t believe our current system is very effective. Restraining orders are often just a piece of paper with no weight behind them.

One time, after he had choked me, I told him I was calling the police. He actually handed me the phone. He told me, "Go ahead and call them, you don’t have a mark on you (I got him off me fairly quickly), I’m the one who is hurt (I had to hit him to get him to stop choking me), if you call the police I’ll tell them that you assaulted me. I’ll even make sure you lose your job because of it."

So, I ended up taking HIM to the hospital myself, and had to listen to his threats and insults the entire way. Surreal isn’t it? When you go through something like that, you feel like the whole world is backwards.

So yes, he is out there somewhere, a free man, and I worry often about what he will do to someone else eventually. I wish I could have done something but there was simply nothing that would have held up in court.

I also have had four close female friends over the last three years. All turned out to have had abuse in their life. Two were abused by partners (one was repeatedly raped by her husband) and are now remarried, one is currently being verbally and emotionally mistreated and is worried about what to do as she has three children. The fourth one left her abusive marriage after 25 years and has been afraid to be with any man since. All are spiritual women, all communicated their problems to their church. None of their abusers has spent a day in jail. They also felt/feel that they have limited options.

Here are some even scarier statistics to show what I mean:

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, between 1998 and 2002: Of the almost 3.5 million violent crimes committed against family members, 49% of these were crimes against spouses.

About 75% of the calls to law enforcement for intervention and assistance in domestic violence occur after separation from batterers. One study revealed that half of the homicides of female spouses and partners were committed by men after separation from batterers (Barbara Hart, Remarks to the Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect, April 1992).

50% of offenders in state prison for spousal abuse had killed their victims. Matthew R. Durose et al., U.S. Dep’t of Just., NCJ 207846, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Family Violence Statistics: Including Statistics on Strangers and Acquaintances, at 31-32 (2005), available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/fvs.pdf

So yes, it would be wonderful if more abusers could be made to suffer the legal consequences. The problem is, right now it often only seems to happen if their victim is dead or beaten to the point of severe hospitalization. Abusers who aren’t physical can be even harder to deal with legally as it is often a "he said, she said" situation.

Also, while I said that it is very often misused, I’m not convinced that abuse is an extremely minority reason for divorce in this country. I think it is merely under-reported.

Some more statistics:

Nearly one-third of American women (31 percent) report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives. Source: Commonwealth Fund survey, 1998

Violence is the reason stated for divorce in 22% of middle-class marriages. Source: EAP Digest November/December 1991.

Studies by the Surgeon General’s office reveal that domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women between the ages of 15 and 44, more common than automobile accidents, muggings, and cancer deaths combined. Source: Journal of American Medical Association, 1990.

Things are improving at least. It used to be (even ten years ago) that when people talked about abuse, they only spoke of battery. Now there is much more education and resources available on other types of abuse. Hopefully our younger generations will be better schooled in what constitutes appropriate behavior and will have more options at their disposal. But it will take time.

If someone is an abuser, No Fault Divorce still just sweeps that under the rug. So it does our society no good to just file for irreconcilable differences and not address the problem of abuse.

Second, it protects those who are falsely accused of abuse. As you said in your own post, it’s abused more than not, yet you want it to protect the minority of cases involving abuse or infidelity.

I’m sorry, but I think there should be consequences to such behavior, and simply quietly divorcing someone just passes the buck on the problem to some unsuspecting person in society. So the abuse or the infidelity continues.

However, if these folks had to spend time in prison, lose ALL their assets, etc, then I believe many will seek to make real changes in their lives.

No fault divorce hurts far more than it helps, and there is a way to achieve the protection you seek while still obtaining a conviction against those who choose to abuse. We should do what is right, not what is easy or safe.

However, when I filed for divorce myself, I discovered that since California is a no-fault state, there often is NO OTHER available legal reason that can be placed on a divorce decree. The only other choice that can be selected on the forms there as a reason for dissolution (i.e. divorce) is incurable insanity.

So, although I divorced my husband due to his adulterous and abusive behavior, the official record states that it was due to “irreconcilable differences.” I simply had no option of selecting "cruelty" or "adultery" as a cause.

Personally, I much prefer that system, even though it is (very) often misued. As a formerly abused wife I greatly appreciated the fact that I did not have to try and prove his (always) hidden abuse in court. It was much easier and much, much safer that way. Quite frankly another route may have gotten me killed.

I believe that much must be done to reduce the divorce rate in this country, but I do not believe that eliminating the no-fault divorce laws is the way to do it.

Women (and men) such as myself depend on these laws to help keep us safe and speedily remove us from dangerous situations. There is an epidemic of abuse in the nation and it would not make sense to endanger those who need those particular laws the most.

Encouraging better pre and post-marital counseling is a better solution.

I agree with Rose that what it seems like your husband has done is to “stay with you” and “play” the role of being married — yet without actually being married. He gets all of the perks of being married… living in your home together, being with the children each day, having you when he wants you and yet when he doesn’t, he can claim you’re divorced (which is true) so he doesn’t have to follow through with the responsibilities of a marital partner.

Something is wrong with this picture though. Either your husband is in this marriage, “for better or worse” and you both work on the “worse” together to make things “better”, or he needs to feel a little more of the sting of making his decision to divorce. Pray about your decision though and go with God. It seems like your husband shouldn’t have the perks of being married without making the sacrifices it takes as well.

I’m not trying to stir up problems, but I want you to see the fuller picture as it is. From what I surmise, there is a lot of confusion going on here on both of your parts.

On your part: I can see your heart being revealed between the lines of what you write in your letter. I see confusion and hurt. You wrote, “I did not what the divorce, I did it because that’s what he wanted.” There is a lot of pain revealed in that statement alone. I also sense that you feel hopeful because you let him move back in and through this time you say you have “been really close.” And yet I also sense that woven through all of this is anger.

You want to push your husband to fight for your marriage and not cower back behind the divorce decree. That’s probably why you made the statement to him about his moving out and making child support payments once you start your job in January. You’re trying to shake him up a bit hoping he will wake up and step up to being committed to marriage once again. (It’s the principle of trying to stir him from “functional fixedness” that the article “Why Doesn’t My Spouse Change – Functional Fixedness” talks about, which is posted in the “Save My Marriage” section of our web site.) But you’re confused as to how much you can push without driving him away.

On your husband’s part: I perceive that he’s also very confused. There are some good things about him — thankfully, he didn’t abandon you and the children financially. (Sadly, many men do.) He obviously loves your children. If you’re both growing closer to each other through this time, he must be displaying some good qualities or you wouldn’t experience such a positive result in your relationship at this time. But your statement about his “not seeing anybody and is not planning on dating because he wants to make sure this is what God told him to do” reveals confusion on his part.

God hates divorce. It would go against His nature and what the Bible says about divorce if he divorces you because you “were not growing together.” Just because you were “going one way and he was going another way” isn’t a biblical reason to divorce. It’s a great reason to come together in prayer and ask God to show you how to grow together rather than apart. It’s a great reason to go to a counselor or a pastor and/or to find other ways to help you to start growing together again. (We have hundreds of articles on our web site alone that can help you with that mission.) Sure, it will take a lot of work, but perseverance through trials is God’s way of doing things, not divorcing! God doesn’t tell people to divorce for this reason. Your husband must be confused on this.

Also, if you haven’t committed adultery or you’re not an unbeliever who wants out of the marriage, then you haven’t broken covenant with him and he really doesn’t have the right to “date” anyone else, even though he divorced you. If he does then HE commits adultery and causes someone else to do the same — that’s what the Bible says. (You might look at the article we have posted in the “Separation and Divorce” section titled “Scriptures on Divorce” for more insight.)

I perceive that both of you are operating out of confusion and maybe a lack of relationship skills — particularly with each other. (My husband and I have been there and have done that in the past — so I recognize that readily.) You see what the world says about love and marriage and you seem to be going along with it.

A person can think that if their marriage is a certain way that is negative for a period of time, then it will continually stay that way or grow worse. But that doesn’t have to be true. God can cause a new thing to grow within your marriage relationship. If he can resurrect the dead and He can create the heavens and earth and that which is “good” out of nothing, He can certainly resurrect a dead marriage and create “good” within your relationship — even out of a vacuum of nothing or even out of that which is presently bad.

How great is your God? (That’s going to be the title of the Marriage Message I’m working on for this week.) A marriage doesn’t have to be flushed just because it’s in troubled waters right now. If you’re both Christians, then God can work within and through you to teach you new things and help you to repair that which is broke. But it will take open hears and minds and spirits and follow-through to what He tells you to do to let God do His creative work.

Shay, what I would recommend is first to pray, and pray, and pray some more for God’s insight into this. If you’ve done that — then do it again. And then I’d recommend that you go into the “Marriage Counseling” section of our web site and read through the articles and what we have posted, asking God for insight and wisdom. This will give you a good slant on the type of counselor or pastor you will seek for advice. If your husband won’t go in for counseling — then you start. I’m sure you need insight as to what YOU should do. The ministry of Focus on the Family (for which we supply a link) is a good place to start. They will start by giving you free counsel and then they will point you elsewhere if you need more than they can give.

Also, the book, “Love Must Be Tough” by Dr James Dobson would be a GREAT one for you to obtain. It talks about responding to a spouse with tough love and from what I read in your letter, this book could help you. There’s a difference between reacting to a situation through giving wise, respectful, reality-based tough love, and reacting out of angry tough love — one CAN bring healing — the other can bring more damage. Reading the book “Love and Respect” by Emerson Eggerichs and/or even the CD by that title (that the ministry of Focus on the Family makes available) would help to tie this concept together for you.

In all of this, I would recommend that you start working on your own issues. Pray and ask the Lord what you did in the marriage that could have harmed your relationship with your husband. Don’t look at your husband’s emotional “stuff” — let God work on your husband. You may want to go through the “Save My Marriage” section and the “For Married Women” section of our web site to see what the Holy Spirit, our Wonderful Counselor points out to you.

Whether you and your husband ever remarry or not, it’s good to get yourself as healthy as possible and work through your own issues. If you need to apologize and ask your husband for forgiveness for anything, do as the Lord prompts you. Don’t let it be dependent on his apologizing. That is between him and God. Do what you can and see what God does from there.

I believe as you’re doing this, God will show you whether you should ask your husband to move out or not. He may need that as “tough love” or perhaps God will show you otherwise. But don’t wait for your husband to do his part, do yours and see what happens from there. Don’t worry about how much time it takes. It’s human beings that are fooled into looking at a time frame to “move on with our lives.” Go with God’s time frame — not anyone else’s — including your own. We know of a couple that were divorced for 12 years before God moved them to reconcile. Look to the God of hope — He will direct your steps rightly.

I pray this helps.

You have however, mentioned that you have become very close which indicates that, given time, your relationship could grow stronger and your husband may request a remarriage. Perhaps setting a date for him to consider remarriage or not would be the best way to go. He needs to know just living with you for the sake of the kids is not good enough for YOU.

I am not a counselor so could be very wrong but do know that with God’s strength anything is possible. Do not be hasty in your decision. His decision to divorce you in the first place did not come from God as "God hates Divorce".

Please try and get marriage counseling you will be surprised at how helpful it can be.

So then I asked him, “Well, why did you move back in with me?” and he said “because of the kids” (I am not working so he is paying all the bills). But today I told him that once I start this new job in January he can move out and he can just pay me the child support for the kids.

So my question is, should I really put him out or should I let him stay? I really had hoped that maybe we would get back together (remarry). He also told me he was not seeing anybody and is not planning on dating because he wants to make sure this is what God told him to do. Then he told me God told him he needs to stay here with me for the kids. So I’m like, “how is God going to tell you to divorce me but yet still stay in the same house with me? Isn’t that a sin to shack up and not marry?” We still do everything married people do.

Please, I need help. What should I do (put him out or try to work it out)? Do you all think we might get back together? I wish we could go talk to some one but he said he doesn’t need to talk to anybody.

Jealousy has become the problem with my husband. He can’t understand why Pastor is using me and not him in these areas of ministry. He became so jealous that he has gone to the counsel of elders at the church and accused me of having something going on with our pastor. My husband has since then left the church (his choice) and I left to try to support him in his dealing with all of this. I went to another church with him one Sunday and he did not want me to go with him.

This jealousy has also spilled into other relationships in my life. I have a very close female friend that he has accused me of having a sexual relationship with. All of these accusations have left the privacy of our home and has moved through the community. I don’t know what else to do but divorce.

I ask him if we went to another church together and the Pastor at that church promoted me in the ministry would he feel the same way. His answer was yes and he would leave that church. When I am doing the praise and worship on Sunday mornings he has made comments about me to our daughter about me and the praise and worship I was doing. Much like Michal did when David was dancing before the Lord, it’s like he despises me for what the Lord is doing in my life. Please can you help me with this problem?