Abuse

Abuse may come crashing in through the front door loudly commanding your attention, making its presence known unequivocally. Or, it may slip in surreptitiously through the backdoor, the one normally reserved for those most familiar, sit quietly in the corner of your kitchen biding its time, occasionally stirring to insidiously slip out to the far reaches of your home – your life, leaving a dark trail marking its path until every aspect of your soul has been violated by its desecrating tendrils.

When abuse shows up as the polite dinner guest, the one you didn’t invite or expect, but your spouse brought home, you make room for it at the table, maybe even make up the guest bedroom. Then it stays longer, becomes the unwanted houseguest who just never leaves that you grudgingly make space for in your life. Slowly, you adapt to the little changes that are necessary to keep the peace while giving away more and more of yourself. Years go by and the houseguest has taken over part of the place, maybe even moved into your bedroom, pushing you emotionally out into the cold. You don’t even really notice the changes throughout your home, the pieces of you shoved into corners, silenced into submission. Then one day when you look into the mirror you fail to recognize the stranger staring back.No one would understand if you told them how very unhappy you were because, after all, you think you allowed this to happen, that you were complicit ; you didn’t protest or put up a fight. You haven’t told anyone that you hate this houseguest, have hated them all along, but more than that, you have come to hate yourself. And why shouldn’t you, because you’re sure that your spouse hates you; your spouse – the one who promised to love and cherish you until death do you part? And that death part is sounding pretty damn good about now; almost anything would be preferable to living within this complicated mess.

You are shattered. You wonder if there is anything left of you at all. You feel . . .empty. And even if you left, where would you go? What would you do? Who would you be? All you are and all you have are wrapped up in your spouse. Is leaving worth the effort? And you’re tired, so very, very tired. If you could you would crawl into bed and close your eyes and stay there until you just melted away into the mattress.

And, of course, you worry about what people will say, because they are going to talk. They always do. How do you make them understand that the years of silent smiles were window dressing for an empty soul? Does it matter? How can you let it matter? This is your survival.

But it will also be your spouse’s survival. They will come out baring their teeth like a wounded animal. They will wage a campaign of polite terror, continuing to attack, maybe for years. They will come after you for as long and hard as they can and you have no idea how intense they will make it. Can you survive? Do you want to?

You believed marriage was forever and meant every word you spoke when you took your vows, but you had no clue that your spouse would become someone else,  someone of whom you are so very afraid. The tears burn your eyes as you struggle not to cry every time you remember how hard you have fought to save this marriage, but the reality is that abuse, in all its many forms – physical, emotional, financial, spiritual, sexual, etc. – is about power, and that sort of struggle has no place in a marriage.

You know the verses, can quote them. Yes, God abhors divorce, but He also hates violence. And that is what abuse is – violence. Violence shatters the soul, destroys the covenant, makes a mockery of the sacred. The Heavenly Father cannot want His beloved to remain locked into a marriage, bound simply by words where no covenant remains. He cannot possibly desire to see His child trampled into the dust from which He created His children, rendered wholly unrecognizable from the beautiful self He knit together in the womb.

You cannot save your spouse from themselves. You cannot stop the abuse. You can only save yourself. Please know that you are worth saving.

****Please know that if you think you are being abused, you are probably right. Please talk to someone you trust. Find safety, then when you’re ready to begin to heal and feel again, two resources recommended to me (and we’re actually helpful0), are Mending The Soul, S. Tracy and Why Does He Do That?, L. Bancroft. You are loved beyond measure. You are worth saving.