“He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but he who walks wisely will be
delivered.” Proverbs 28:26
It’s almost exactly 16 years since I left my abusive husband after 18 years of marriage, but I can still remember clearly some of the feelings that overshadowed that dark season. Having shared many experiences that I thought might be unique to me, I have been amazed at how many of my thought processes are far more common in the lives of other abuse victims than I ever imagined.
“Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.” Genesis 3:1a
The word “crafty” used in Genesis 3 describes the serpent that came to the garden. The word has also been interpreted to read “subtle,” “clever,” “cunning” or “shrewd.” The description clearly implies that this particular being’s intellect alone posed some kind of a threat. Continue reading The Power of Words
It happens all the time. A victim of abuse finds the courage to step out of the shadows of her shame and fear to reveal the truth about what has happened to her. The trauma she has endured may be a result of molestation or rape, physical abuse, and/or verbal or emotional abuse. She wants to believe that, once she shares her terrible secret, the people to whom she reaches out will hear her, validate her and comfort her. But as horrible and shocking as it may seem, she may not receive what she needs. For reasons that defy logic, many may rise to defend her perpetrator, and she may instead find herself shamed and shunned and even persecuted. Such is the absurdity of the See-No-Evil Disconnect. Continue reading The See-No-Evil Disconnect: Abandoning Victims to Protect the Status Quo
It is a strange thing to invest so much energy into convincing yourself
that your relationship is normal only to one day be jolted by the reality that there is nothing normal about it, to be forced to admit that your relationship is patently unhealthy, destructive, and yes, abusive. Continue reading Three Words Every Abuse Victim Needs to Hear
If you put together a list of all the primary strategies that abusers 
use to keep their victims living a life of emotional paralysis, 99% of them would probably apply to the man to whom I was married for 20 years. But as I read and hear other women’s stories, other more subtle patterns emerge, and among them is a practice I have struggled to identify even in my own history, a bizarre combination of passive and controlling abuse. Continue reading Passive and Controlling Abuse