Reclaiming Hope and Safety in a Destructive Marriage (Part 2 of 2)

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Find out which program is right for you at HopeRestored.com. Today on Focus on the Family, we'll return to a very serious problem that affects far too many marriages, interactions that damage the heart and the mind and the spirit of your spouse. She wired up her courage and we worked together on her having a very direct but respectful conversation with her husband and this is what she told him. She said, you know honey, I know that you are unhappy with our sex life and that you'd like me to be more warm and responsive in the bedroom but I just can't manufacture those feelings when you ignore me for long periods of time and we don't have anything else in common. We don't do anything together.

You ignore me most of the time and whenever I ask you for something you shoot me down. Wouldn't you rather have a wife who's loving and warm and friendly in the bedroom than someone who's just doing her wifely duty? So that was the question she asked him. You know what his response was?

Of course I would, but if wifely duty is all I get, it's good enough. Now that statement completely cut her off at the knees because what he's really saying to her is that you are an object to use, not a woman to love and that completely crushed her spirit. That's Leslie Vernick and she's back again as our guest today. Your host is Focus President and author Jim Daly and I'm John Fuller. That's such a heartbreaking story John and it points right to our selfishness and our sinfulness as human beings.

Without the Holy Spirit in our lives we can easily fall into a trap of making our marriage all about us and what we want and as a result we destroy the oneness that God intended for us. If you missed our conversation with Leslie last time, I hope you'll go to our website, get a download, get the broadcast app, whatever you need to do to access this powerful content. Leslie helped us understand that abuse can happen in many different ways. There's physical abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse with sarcasm and harsh words, or abusive situations where one spouse has all of the control and the other spouse has none. We also pointed out that abuse happens to both men and women. Many of the examples we shared last time and will have today will feature women as victims and that's true in the majority of cases of abuse but as we acknowledge last time abuse happens both ways and many of the principles and advice Leslie shares from her book will work for abused husbands as well. Yeah and we can tell you more about Leslie's book and our broadcast last time when you call 800, the letter A in the word family, 800-232-6459 or stop by the episode notes for the link.

Let's go ahead and return now to part two of our conversation with counselor Leslie Brunick on today's episode of Focus on the Family. You've written the book The Emotionally Destructive Marriage. Recap for us so those that are joining us today can understand kind of the definition for an emotionally abusive marriage.

What does it look like? It looks like when you are regularly dismissed, deceived, dominated, degraded, or diminished. When you're regularly feeling those feelings or your spouse is doing that to you we all may do it once in a while but when something like that happens to you frequently in your marriage the marriage it becomes destructive the marriage itself and you become destroyed. You talked last time about a woman's difficulty and we we put the qualifiers on everything last time knowing that abuse goes both directions and if again don't be too critical of us not talking about that right now because we did talk about that last time how sometimes the abuse goes toward the man and I again would just refer you back to the discussion the last time to hear that definition but for the woman that doesn't truly understand if she's in that abusive relationship and she feels the way that you're feeling what are some of the things that she can begin to do to remedy that situation? How direct should she be with her abusive husband? Well I think one of the things that she needs to begin to do to build her own confidence is to I talk about four core strengths that a woman needs to develop and a lot of times they need to develop them before they can ever have a conversation with their husband because they're just too scared or they're too weak or they're too angry and these are things within herself within herself yes so the first one I use the acronym core c-o-r-e and the first one is I will be committed to honesty I will be committed to truth-telling both internally like I'm not going to lie to myself anymore like this isn't so bad and you know maybe he's going to be different and I should just pray harder I've done all that and it didn't work and insanity is doing the same thing over and over again hoping things will be different and so you're committed to truth both in your own spirit like maybe this is really getting to me and I'm starting to take it out on my kids you know you're going to be honest with yourself and that's the first step to really do the honest part you know I think in counseling and in the church one of the verses that I have been so committed to is when Jeremiah warned the prophets of Israel and he said you heal the wounds of my people superficially by saying peace peace when there is no peace and so for people helpers listening to this they need to understand that these kind of marriages you need a lot of truth telling and truth seeking you can't just cover over things and so a wife has to be committed to telling the truth both about herself and where she's at as well as what's going on in her marriage she tells the truth to herself she's going to have to tell her truth to her spouse and usually because he's not going to respond very well to that she may have to tell the truth to her church and she's been a great master at keeping secrets and covering over so she's going to have to learn and be committed to that before she can have that discussion with her husband I think that's sound advice and we talked last time about the description of the emotionally abusive relationship so again if you didn't hear that go back and listen to that let's talk for a moment about what a healthy and good relationship looks like though because we need to paint that picture when couples and I think it's inevitable Leslie you're going to hit some hard times we talked last time about the grade in marriage I mean every marriage is all over the place you get an a plus for some things and maybe a d minus for other things and you average a c or a b minus something like that that's just the natural development of marriage and relationship but in that context where are the a grades how when are we doing it well when a woman comes to her husband and says what here's what I'm feeling what is a healthy relationship look like there are three qualities that every healthy relationship must embody and if they don't embody these three qualities it doesn't matter whether you're a Christian or not a Christian if you don't embody these three qualities you will not have a healthy relationship and it could even become destructive and the first is mutuality those people in the relationship have to give something into the relationship to make it work in a marriage both people have to give honesty they have to give caring they have to give respect and both people have to give responsibility in other words I am going to take some responsibility for the care and the maintenance of this relationship and both people have to be willing to be repentant when they mess up and if both people aren't doing that mutually in the relationship the relationship is going to either stagnant or it's going to fall apart I'm working with a woman right now where her husband feels he has absolutely no responsibility in the marriage to do anything other than be a provider he doesn't need to talk to her he doesn't need to be nice to her he doesn't need to love her all he needs to do is be a paycheck which is a horrible role for a husband just to be an object in a paycheck but he doesn't want to do anything else and she feels like she's shriveling up and dying like she's in a desert she has plenty of money but she has nothing else in the marriage and so there's no mutual in this relationship so that's the first ingredient the second ingredient is there needs to be reciprocity and what I mean by that is that the power and responsibility are shared and I'll give you a story about that and I'm going to make up names but a client of mine was a full-time wage earner she worked outside the home she made a good salary she didn't make as much as her husband made and so he required her to deposit her entire paycheck into the account but he only deposited the same amount in the account because he wanted to be even but he required her to be absolutely accountable for every penny she spent but he always had reasons why he could spend the money because he was the head and he could do what he wanted and so he didn't have to account for his money but she had to account for her money she had no power over their money he had the power over the money she couldn't make a decision what to do with their money he made that decision and in addition he had this other account where all the rest of his money went that wasn't that had no name on it for her she had no access to it and she had absolutely no idea how much money he made so there was a financial lack of reciprocity and he used money to exercise control over her in an abusive way by limiting her freedom and her choices and so that was an abusive relationship even though he didn't use words he used money to abuse and control her and so that was a lack of reciprocity and then the third important ingredient so mutuality reciprocity and the third ingredient is freedom and I don't mean the kind of freedom you can do whatever you want with no consequences what I mean is each individual in the marriage need the freedom to be themselves and when you're trying to control and make another person into what you want them to be and they don't have the freedom to be the person that God called them to be or they don't have the freedom to disagree or they don't have the freedom to have a voice and give their own opinion or say they don't like something without a heavy price to pay it is not a healthy relationship and Leslie in that regard those are three excellent attributes which actually are so scriptural that when we apply them even when the world applies them they work they work and that when I would say when you're looking even at non-christian counseling those truisms are going to be there because they're biblically based and you know that should give us great hope that we have the tools whether we pick the tools up and use them as the question let me come back to something you said because I think it's so critical that power and control keep coming through in the themes that you're describing and it's the abuse of those things and it tends to land in this murky place called submission and the definition that we give it there's probably as many definitions to submission as there are denominations in the church which probably explains the problem with it what is the right way the biblical way for us to view this idea of submission and what does it actually mean well I think before we can even talk about the actual biblical definition of submission we ought to clarify what headship means too and Jesus actually modeled both headship and submission for us so that we would be crystal clear what it meant and so in modeling headship what Jesus did is instead of wielding his mighty power which he was certainly capable of doing he was an authority he was the son of God he could have done all kinds of fabulous things like hit people with lightning bolts and he could have shown his head chip in that way in fact he said it to Pontius Pilate he could have done you know my father could send an army but he didn't model headship that way in fact for his disciples how he modeled headship was he put a towel around him and he got a bowl of water and he washed their dirty feet and he told his disciples that this is what I'm showing you headship looks like it doesn't mean you get your way it doesn't mean you get to go first it means that you get to be the servant and you get to lead in servanthood and yet his disciples were so like unclear about that just a few verses later after he modeled that wonderful example they're arguing who's going to get the first seat in heaven and so Jesus again says to them you know the gentiles you know how they use their authority and they lord it over people Jesus says not so with you if you want to be the head you get to be the servant and so headship biblically is defined as if you want to be the head you get to be the example of sacrificial servanthood first you get to initiate that that's what biblical headship means and so when a husband or a church says a husband gets his way and he gets to dominate and control another person the scriptural words for that is bullying or selfishness it's not headship and Jesus also modeled submission when he willingly gave himself to his father's will Jesus always is described as wanting to do what God wanted him to do but in one time he didn't want to do what God wanted to do and that was in the garden of Gethsemane he said if anything could happen that we could do this a different way I would rather have it done a different way and yet I'm willing to do what you want God and so submission is when some person or a male or female willingly gives her will to another and so submission is only done by the person who chooses to do it and you can't force someone to submit and Leslie you're saying that very clearly yet we live life kind of between boundaries and sometimes it's gray where that boundary line is and where we cross over it help us better understand because we want I hope we want to live a life that is honoring the Lord and we want to be in marriages that are lifting up the Lord in those relationships so when we're crossing that boundary it helps better understand where that line is we're always looking for the lines well here's one example and I and I share this example in the book but Bill was very controlling in Teresa's phone use he didn't want her to talk on the phone when her when he was home in his mind he thought you're a stay-at-home mom you have all day to talk on the phone if you want when I'm home I want that time to be ours not an unreasonable thought and so he didn't want Teresa to use the phone at all when he was home so one night she sees her cell phone ringing and she looks at it and it's her sister and she picks up the phone and she puts it over and she says Bill it's my sister I want to get this and so he looks at her with a cock in his brow you know she could tell he was not happy and so she takes the call and she said my sister's having trouble at work she's on her computer she can't figure something out she's a deadline I'm just going to take a couple minutes Teresa knew her computer very well and was going to help her as soon as she got off the phone Bill said give me your phone and she said no I'm not going to give you my phone he said give me your phone and they wrestled a bit and he grabbed it out of her hand and he threw it in the sink full of soapy water and he said now you're not going to be able to talk on the phone when I'm not home now we would think that that was abusive and yet in Bill's mind Teresa wasn't loving him she wasn't honoring his request she wasn't submitting to his leadership as the head of their home and so this gets very murky because we have to ask the question does a husband have the right to dictate someone's decisions like I can't talk on the phone if I feel it's an emergency and I don't have the right to prioritize my sister's needs for attention in the moment over your needs for me to sit and watch tv with you and so this can become very sticky and very murky for pastors counselors who've got Bill and Teresa sitting before them and Bill is saying you know I shouldn't have thrown her phone but after all she should have been listening to me because I'm the husband and I already told her I didn't want to talk him when she was on the phone she doesn't love me very well if she's doing this and it gets just murky and confusing and who's right and who's wrong and who has freedom to say I want to talk to my sister right now does Teresa as an adult woman have the freedom to make that choice or does Bill as the head get to dictate her phone use well and Leslie that really goes back to the fundamental value which is for us as Christians to lay down our lives as husbands that's very specific in the scripture meaning you lay your self-interest down in the interests of your spouse and when you're doing that in a healthy way and it's not being abused by the spouse really your relationship will be godly things will flow from it fruit will flow from it there'll be a healthy aroma in that relationship and that's what you're driving at right when there's mutual submission and mutual sacrifice and mutual giving for the welfare of each other it works great and that's what Jesus was saying that's right and that's actually what Paul was saying too is that when he's giving the marital duty laws he's saying because wives traditionally in the hierarchical culture always had to submit so that was nothing new even to non-Christians the radical new thing was hey husbands you have some responsibility too and he was trying to make it more mutual and more reciprocal he wasn't just saying hey husbands you get all the goodies and the wife has to do all the work he's saying hey you've got some responsibility here too and so Paul and Jesus were saying something very radical for that time our guest today on focus on the family is Leslie Vernick and she's written a book called the emotionally destructive marriage and we'll recommend you check that out we've got the link in the episode notes here now is the rest of her conversation with Leslie on today's focus on the family as I asked her this question Leslie we've we've got a few minutes left for you to address the woman in particular the woman who feels you are describing my situation that cell phone thing that happened to me how can she start getting some help for that like I started to say she needs to build her core strength which is she's committed to truth she's open to growth and she's going to learn what to do because she's not going to learn that overnight she's going to be responsible for her own reactions to destructive behaviors because so often once a woman begins to wake up and realize oh my gosh this is me she starts to get pretty harsh herself in her desire to have the freedom to say what she needs to say and so she's going to be responsible for her own reactions and respectful to her husband without dishonoring herself and then the last thing is she's going to learn to be empathic and compassionate for her husband's weaknesses and sins without enabling him and that is the key that she can have compassion for someone and still implement tough consequences because consequences are going to be an important wake-up call for him and without the pain of consequences he will not be motivated to change and Leslie I would only add to that in terms of the observation on the husband's part hopefully there's self-revelation that occurs hopefully hopefully listening to today's program and last time that I do lean in that direction it does seem to describe some of my behavior maybe not all and like I said you know these are choices that we live between these boundaries and maybe we've chosen unwisely at times as husbands to verbally attack our wives what can we do to arrest that kind of behavior what should we do tonight when we go home if we recognize that in ourselves how should we speak to our wives let me give the man who's listening to this broadcast who may be recognizing wow maybe she's speaking about me five things that they can do and one is to get clarity to begin to understand that maybe you are abusive and you are living in an abusive marriage and your wife has just about had it and that doesn't mean that it has to come to divorce if you're willing to change and you're willing to do something different so the next step would be I'm committed to doing something different you know when I talked about abusing my child in the broadcast that I did on emotionally destructive relationships I was committed once I saw that I had the same capacity as my mother to be abusive that I was never going to do that again and I was committed to do whatever I had to do to change to not repeat that destructive behavior so that's the second step the third is that you need to confess you need to open up and talk to your wife and say I see some things that I've never seen before and I am willing to do what I need to do to get help the fourth thing is that you need community around you because you cannot do this change by yourself God never and that means accountability yes that means accountability that means other men in your life who can speak into your life that you're willing to listen and that you're willing to hear your wife's feedback when she says to you you're doing it again that you're allowing that community Hebrews 313 says that we all have the capacity to be deceived and so that we need one another to speak into our lives and so you are going to invite community and the last thing that you're going to understand is there are consequences if you refuse to change and you keep doing the same thing you've always done they're going to be painful consequences not to hurt you but to help you wake up Leslie back to the the illustration of the husband throwing the phone into the sink you've described some things that that particular woman might have done how could she possibly respond respectfully and what kind of consequences can she give him for treating her like that I mean really it was way over the line and it was abusive you know in those situations it might not be that she has any power to do any consequence in that moment but it might be that she begins to speak up and say what you did was unacceptable if you ever do that again I won't be able to live with you because you've just created a an abusive situation that's destructive to me to our children who are watching and to our marriage and I love you too much to allow you to continue doing that without you understanding how damaging that is and so I don't feel safe with you anymore we've talked about safety we haven't talked as much about safety as I'd like to but safety is an important component to God and sometimes we think the sanctity of keeping a marriage together at all costs at any price is more important than the safety of the individuals in the marriage and when someone chronically feels unsafe whether it's emotionally unsafe physically unsafe sexually unsafe financially unsafe or spiritually unsafe they may have to create some distance and that may include separating for a season not to punish but to help someone wake up that you do not get the perks of a good relationship without doing the work and that's important I think we need to put that emphasis on that safety factor let's go ahead and speak to that beyond the obvious but we define that for us what should a woman do who feels unsafe well let me just put some biblical parameters around there because I think sometimes women feel guilty taking measures to be safe when they think oh I should just stay and you know try to put up with it the bible says in proverbs I think 27 the prudent see danger and take refuge and so some examples although God says to us that we are to obey authorities over us when David knew that Saul was seeking to harm him he didn't just pray he fled and when Jesus baby Jesus was being sought after Herod who was an authority over Joseph the God woke Joseph up in a dream and didn't say don't worry Joseph I'll take care of you he said what get out of dodge he said go to you know go to Nazareth because Jesus's safety was more important than obeying the authorities and we all know that lying is wrong it's one of the ten commandments and yet when Rahab lied to save the spies kept their safety God commended her she's in the hall of fame in Hebrews 11 and so God values safety and when Jesus was arguing with the Pharisees over their legalistic application of the Sabbath he used safety he said which one of you if your ox fell into the well or even your child who wouldn't break the rules of the Sabbath in order to rescue that ox and so I think sometimes we have valued like I said the sanctity of marriage more than the safety of the individuals and so I think a woman needs to be safe and stay safe and let me just give a less dramatic example than separation one of the women that I work with her husband engaged in a lot of road rage he had a lot of rage at home too but road rage was particularly terrifying to her and the children and finally she said to him you know you are out of control you're terrifying me and the children and from now on I refuse to drive with you wherever we go I'm going to go separately I will not be in the car with you unless I'm the driver. Does she need to plan for that conversation to go poorly you know what if he reacts out of that anger then she does and so I give lots and lots and lots of information about how to prep for that kind of conversation both internally as well as safety for you if you're going to have that kind of conversation if there's ever been any physical abuse or other kind of ramifications against you how do you prepare for that and so a whole chapter is devoted to that but one of the things I will say is you don't have that kind of conversation with your husband if you haven't told other people that you're having that kind of conversation that you haven't had an accountability so 30 minutes after I have this conversation please call me to make sure I'm safe and that you don't have an exit plan so that if he starts to escalate that you can't get out of the house. Leslie that is really good advice let me carry that a little further let's say tonight someone's heard this broadcast this wife is feeling vulnerable she's recognizing perhaps for the first time that she might be in that abusive situation the lights have gone on and what would you suggest for her tonight when they go home and they're in the home tonight what can she do to begin this process of healing really and that's what you're talking about how to heal the relationship should she say nothing and go back to the four core things and why don't you quickly mention those once again yeah I wouldn't encourage her to say anything yet because she needs to be empowered to say it wisely you know when we're confronting somebody with some difficult information about themselves Galatians tells us to do it wisely that when someone's caught in a trespass we who are spiritual should do it gently and with a spirit of humility and so I think sometimes when we are empowered with truth we kind of go in with guns blazing and said you know what you're an abuser you're a jerk and I'm not living with you anymore and that is likely to fall on very deaf ears if well it'll raise the exact opposite reaction that you're hoping for so if your desire is to be heard then you need to an action plan I think of queen Esther as a great example you know she desired to be heard she has some very tough stuff to tell her husband but she planned she prayed she prepared she developed an action plan and even then when the timing wasn't right and she realized you know this isn't a good day to have this conversation she postponed it to the next day and so I think to help a woman have that kind of conversation she needs some prep work and it's really important that she takes the time to do that meanwhile though she can begin to educate herself get stronger and work on those four core things honesty openness to growth I'm going to be responsible for my own reactions and respectful to my husband without dishonoring myself and I'm going to be empathic I feel bad for the man he is right now but I'm not going to enable him to continue to stay there that's some powerful advice and encouragement for anyone in a dysfunctional abusive relationship and it's our prayer that those marriages can be turned around and transformed by God's love forgiveness and grace and now maybe you've been challenged by Leslie's words today there's something going on in your life where you're falling short and not treating your spouse the way you should if so you need to deal with that and get some help through your church and accountability group or even professional counseling and if you're the victim of what we've been describing today I urge you to get help right away that's why Focus on the Family is here to provide tools and resources for families and for you if you need them we've got our team of Christian counselors they can give you Bible-based truth for your situation so don't delay God wants to heal your heart your spouse and your marriage so contact us today to get started our number is 800-a family 800 the letter a and the word family or check the episode notes to learn more and I want to recommend Leslie's book the emotionally destructive marriage to you as well this is such an important message for the Christian community and we can send a copy to you when you send a gift to Focus on the Family for any amount that's our way of saying thank you for partnering with us to rescue hurting marriages and offer God's hope to these couples working together we can make a difference in their lives join the support team and help us help marriages across the globe when you call 800 the letter a and the word family or check the episode notes for details coming up next time Deborah Pigay describes how trusting God can help you overcome your anxiety we can do it through Christ who strengthens us and so that's what we got to do decide we're going to have a peaceful atmosphere I'm going to guard my peace on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ the seasons of your life are always moving forward singlehood marriage parenting aging well and through it all focus on the family is with you 24 7 download the focus on the family app today from the app store or google play