Why I don't recommend abused women seek help from pastors or the church

Presbyterian Continuist

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Well, it was great to hear that you have testimonies of domestic abusers who turned their lives around through our Savior. Very encouraging.

However, I never suggested that there should be no penalty for crimes. Here is something I have seen over and over though, that it seems the Father does not ALWAYS want people to go to jail for their crimes. I have heard so many testimonies (one of my favorite sources is the Precious Testimonies channel, which has real get down and get real and sometimes get "dirty" confessions and testimonies.)

I have heard testimonies from high level satanists who apparently were into human sacrifice, bikers who committed murder. and so on And over and over they talked of illegal drugs they used. Messiah turned their lives around and He didn't tell them, "Turn yourself in and go to prison." Honestly I think that if everyone went to jail who has broken the law, especially those who do drugs, that the streets would be kinda bare out there! Ditto many schools, hospitals, well you name it. There wouldn't be room for them all.

It's up to the Father who goes to jail and who does not. Many have turned their lives around and have served their Churches and other believers. What good would they be in jail? Again, I'm not saying no one should go there. If someone is violent or threatening then that person absolutely needs to be incarcerated. Not just them of course.

But think about it. Where in the Bible do we see a system of justice such as in this country has, and most countries have? What we see are people living in cages, so often just learning more crimes and making more bad contacts, even getting drugs in prison. inappropriate content flows like water. there, not to mention horrific sex crimes. How is that helping anyone? What is the rehabilitation rate there? Well, it ain't good!

The Bible says an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I'm sure many men and women in those cages would be happy to give up an eye or a tooth so that they could go home and be with their families and support them.

Again, if they are dangerous, great lock them up. Or if the Father wants them in jail for any reason, great, He's the Boss and it will happen. But I don't see that prison, generally, is the answer personally in all cases where the law has been broken. I see prisons as perpetuating more crime and more dysfunction.
We are actually on the same side, so there is no argument from me about what you are saying.

it is just that I am coming from the direction of one whose professional career for 10 years was with the Ministry of Justice advising domestic violence victims.

All domestic violence is dangerous for the victim, and has the absolute potential to end up in homicide if effective intervention is not done. It starts with criticism and putdowns (psychological DV), to push and shoving, punching holes in walls, throwing meals, threats of violence, misquotes of Scripture (in the case of Christian offenders), and this is Threatening Language/Behaviour under the Summary Offences Act (in NZ, with max 1 yr in prison). Then it progresses to punching, hitting with fists or a weapon of some kind (Male assaults Female, Crimes Act, max 2 years in prison), then it can progress to stabbing, strangling, or shooting (Wounding with Intend to Cause Grievous Bodily Harm, I think 5 yrs max in prison), and this can lead to actual homicide (In NZ that is a life sentence).

Domestic Violence never goes away without effective intervention, and usually ends the relationship and a Protection Order from the court served on the offender (Max 2yrs prison for breaches). With a Protection Order, the offender is not permitted to abuse or threaten the victim in any way, and even criticism can be seen as a breach and the police can be called and cart the offender off in handcuffs. Also with a Protection Order, the offender and victim can continue living together, but the offender has to leave immediately the victim does not want him there. If he refuses to go, that is a breach, and the police can cart him away to end up back in Court on a criminal charge of breaching a Court Protection Order.

There was a case where a husband and wife attended the same church and one of the conditions of his bail was that he had no contact with his wife, so either he or she had to go to another church. I remember reading about a case, I think on CF a number of years ago that the wife had to leave the church because the abusing husband was the worship leader and the pastor refused to have him stand down because he believed that the wife was responsible for his actions!
 
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Presbyterian Continuist

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I have been within what some would call "conservative" Christianity all my life (fifty-plus years) and I have never heard of the book "Love and Respect." It certainly isn't on any reading list I've ever seen in any conservative church I've attended. Generally, there aren't any such lists (save the Bible and maybe Charles Spurgeon).

I've never encountered this "protection of the ol' boys" you mention, either. I'm an Elder in my church and would know if such a thing existed in it. I can tell you it doesn't.

I also haven't encountered this twisting of Scripture you say goes on, conservative though my church is.



And how do you know this, exactly? How do you know this "result is more typical than not"? Have you done an in-depth investigation of this matter in all conservative churches in North America? Or even just in the States? In even one state? I very much doubt it. Certainly, one story - however tragic - or even a dozen does not prove a rule for the many thousands of churches in North America.

In any event, I don't agree that a woman in an abusive circumstance with her husband should not seek help from her church leadership. Obviously, if the abuse is physical, the place she should go first is to the police. Your advice, though, to people to forsake church leadership altogether in dealing with spousal abuse is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, it seems to me. In fact, the extremity of your point of view smacks rather of virtue signalling.
I am an elder of my Presbyterian church, and when we had a lady minister, one of the female members came to her asking for help concerning domestic violence against her. The minister didn't feel qualified to help her and knew I was a Ministry of Justice victim advisor, so she called me in to speak with her. So I gave the woman the normal advice that I would give to victims concerning their rights, and told her to go straight to the nearest police station and make a complaint and they and the court will look after her. I never got any feedback about the outcome of that.
 
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topher694

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But @Redwingfan9, the transcript is there so you can see the context. You can also see the video if you choose.



But wouldn't you agree that is very dangerous advice? Why should a woman suffering domestic violence not call the police immediately?

Per research done by Alanna Vagianos: The number of American troops killed in Afghanistan and Iraq between 2001 and 2012 was 6,488. The number of American women who were murdered by current or ex male partners during that time was 11,766.​

@topher694 as a pastor, what would your comment be to another pastor who told a woman who was "smacked" to get in touch with the church in the morning, and that the church is really the ultimate solution to her problem? (per Piper transcript in post #21), portion of Piper's comment cited below:

"If it’s not requiring her to sin but simply hurting her, then I think she endures verbal abuse for a season, and she endures perhaps being smacked one night, and then she seeks help from the church.

Every time I deal with somebody in this, I find the ultimate solution under God in the church...."

Edited to add: BTW, @topher694 has shown through his discourse that he understands this dynamic and would be one of those safe pastors.
I think I will refrain from disclosing what I might say to another pastor except to say I would not approve.

Edit: lol, my puppy hit submit before I was ready
 
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LoricaLady

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We are actually on the same side, so there is no argument from me about what you are saying.

it is just that I am coming from the direction of one whose professional career for 10 years was with the Ministry of Justice advising domestic violence victims.

All domestic violence is dangerous for the victim, and has the absolute potential to end up in homicide if effective intervention is not done. It starts with criticism and putdowns (psychological DV), to push and shoving, punching holes in walls, throwing meals, threats of violence, misquotes of Scripture (in the case of Christian offenders), and this is Threatening Language/Behaviour under the Summary Offences Act (in NZ, with max 1 yr in prison). Then it progresses to punching, hitting with fists or a weapon of some kind (Male assaults Female, Crimes Act, max 2 years in prison), then it can progress to stabbing, strangling, or shooting (Wounding with Intend to Cause Grievous Bodily Harm, I think 5 yrs max in prison), and this can lead to actual homicide (In NZ that is a life sentence).

Domestic Violence never goes away without effective intervention, and usually ends the relationship and a Protection Order from the court served on the offender (Max 2yrs prison for breaches). With a Protection Order, the offender is not permitted to abuse or threaten the victim in any way, and even criticism can be seen as a breach and the police can be called and cart the offender off in handcuffs. Also with a Protection Order, the offender and victim can continue living together, but the offender has to leave immediately the victim does not want him there. If he refuses to go, that is a breach, and the police can cart him away to end up back in Court on a criminal charge of breaching a Court Protection Order.

There was a case where a husband and wife attended the same church and one of the conditions of his bail was that he had no contact with his wife, so either he or she had to go to another church. I remember reading about a case, I think on CF a number of years ago that the wife had to leave the church because the abusing husband was the worship leader and the pastor refused to have him stand down because he believed that the wife was responsible for his actions!
Yes, I agree that we don't really disagree. Your posts have been enlightening, along with others' posts here. It is good to see people taking domestic abuse seriously.
 
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LoricaLady

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Okay, I will share one more thing. Very off the wall. Once I was dating someone. If I had known what I know now we would have had one date, but we had more than that. On reflection he was the biggest NARC I ever saw, though I was naive and didn't understand what he was was really like at the time. Well, the Father intervened. He said I had to get away from him or the spirit of sadism that was on the man would lead to a spirit of masochism getting off on me! So I never saw him again. (Thank You Lord!)

I can't prove to anyone that this was what I was told. But it makes me wonder if a spirit of masochism is sometimes involved in domestic abuses cases. Just a thought. The devil is a busy boy with all kinds of tricks up his sleeve.
 
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topher694

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But @Redwingfan9, the transcript is there so you can see the context. You can also see the video if you choose.



But wouldn't you agree that is very dangerous advice? Why should a woman suffering domestic violence not call the police immediately?

Per research done by Alanna Vagianos: The number of American troops killed in Afghanistan and Iraq between 2001 and 2012 was 6,488. The number of American women who were murdered by current or ex male partners during that time was 11,766.​

@topher694 as a pastor, what would your comment be to another pastor who told a woman who was "smacked" to get in touch with the church in the morning, and that the church is really the ultimate solution to her problem? (per Piper transcript in post #21), portion of Piper's comment cited below:

"If it’s not requiring her to sin but simply hurting her, then I think she endures verbal abuse for a season, and she endures perhaps being smacked one night, and then she seeks help from the church.

Every time I deal with somebody in this, I find the ultimate solution under God in the church...."

Edited to add: BTW, @topher694 has shown through his discourse that he understands this dynamic and would be one of those safe pastors.
As for how I would handle the situation quoted in blue myself (physical stuff) . I would not for a second let them stay in that situation. Depending on my situation, my wife and I have drove over immediately to get the abused out of the situation. We would most likely encourage them to call the police. Of course there are times we can't be there ourselves, then we insist they leave and stay on the phone until they do. Then again encourage police involvement. Once they are safe and thinking straight, then the spiritual side can begin.
 
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Kaon

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We will all learn yet, through experience, that humans dont deserve our trust; the Most High God does. Humans will always disappoint, so we need to develop a real relationship with the Most High God to be able to move with purpose.

This includes, and has always included the "Church" institution. We have allowed institution to lead us to hell, and dogma to make us forget who the Most High God is.
 
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The Righterzpen

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Yes, I realized it is rare for them to change, but I refuse to not try. With God all things are possible. Sometimes that seems to create a default position in people that they think I'm taking sides, which couldn't be further from the truth... I'm on God's side, end of story.

No, only through a miracle, and those are extremely rare, no doubt.

Agree with both here.

I have to say though, I had to get help for myself for my lack of ability to control my temper related to my son. His father had a problem too; and though husband would never hit me, because he knew as a combat trained vet, I could break his arm; he took a lot of his frustrations out on his son. The kid "wouldn't listen" because he had a developmental / medical issue that interferes with his ability to process language. My son is 17 now and the impairment is quite obvious.

Real repentance means a change in behavior. And I remember the process.

My son and I went into a domestic violence shelter for 4 weeks because I was afraid husband was going to loose it and hurt the kid. (The kid was 5 years old at the time.) When I went back home to try and fix the marriage; the shelter called CPS. When they opened their investigation; I was honest with them about what was going on, but also honest about the fact that I needed help too. And that honesty I think is what kept the case out of the legal system. My husband worked in a group home for developmentally disabled adults and if he'd been "founded" on a CPS investigation, he would have lost his job.

We received counseling for 18 months, with the understanding that "If you hit the kid; I'm calling the police." My husband had psychological issues and I deem was likely a victim of physical abuse as a child himself. He never dealt well with "life on life's terms". He had a couple of affairs and when he filed for divorce from me (after living apart for 6 years) so he could marry girlfriend #2; she broke up with him and he committed suicide that night! Tragic end to the life of a man who made a string of very bad choices!

I remember talking to the CPS social worker and telling her the problems I had with my own anger (being the adult child of an alcoholic and an incest survivor - to say the least - I know what rage is!). She said to me: "You have your own counselor outside of this case; correct?" I said: "yes". She said: "Go to your counselor and develop a safety plan. Bring it back to me in 2 weeks. If you do this; I won't remove your child from your custody." I did that and she kept her word.

It was a long road and I had to unlearn a lot of things I'd "learned" trying to "be a good Christian parent"; And this is the source of the first comment I made in regards to "religiously sanctioned child abuse". It was really hard because not only was I trying to change myself, for my son's sake; I lost a lot of "friends" along the way.

But I did find some good resources:
https://www.amazon.com/Unconditional-Parenting-Moving-Rewards-Punishments/dp/0743487486
https://www.amazon.com/How-Would-Jesus-Raise-Child/dp/0801012503

And this one; which is extremely helpful and informative!
chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/http://www.biblechild.com/assets/thy-rod-and-thy-staff-they-comfort-me-mar-2013.pdf

This book gave me a good starting point to study these passages people often use to justify "disciplining" kids with corporal punishment.

Today, my son and I have a good relationship and I thank God for the healing He brought to both of us. It's a long road; but fixing the problem is possible. It takes a dedicated devotion to that end though and real repentance!
 
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Sketcher

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This was originally posted in the marriage forum but I'm reposting here by request so everyone else may join the discussion too.

There are some good pastors out there who understand the dynamics of abuse. I've found them to be few and far between. Several dynamics are at play:

a) protection of the ol' boys
b) twisting Scripture verses about wives submitting to husbands
c) the outsized influence in the churches of the popular book "Love and Respect", aka "The Husband's Calling to Abuse His Wife" that has made many recommended reading lists and widely adapted by conservative churches; however the book plays on Bible-y phrases and concepts that are unquestioned in the filters of many conservative believers to subtly twist and shift the enactment of submission beyond anything the Bible would recognize.

Here is one story of an abused wife who sought help from the church. I'm so very sad to say this is result is more typical than not. So, so sad.

Women Say Harvest Protected Abusive Husbands, Not Abused Wives, Part Two | Julie Roys

"Love and Respect's" fingerprints are all over this part:

"However, Frers [the abused wife] said in 2012, she told Becky Willey that she was afraid to join her husband who had three months earlier moved to Fairfax, Virginia, to plant a church. Frers said Willey dismissed her concerns, saying that all she had to do was sleep with her husband and things would be fine.

Frers said this answer was typical for Becky Willey. Frers said in meetings with other pastors’ wives, Willey would teach wives that their number one role as wives was to give their husbands what no one else could—sex. Frers said Willey told wives that it was a sin for women to refuse their husbands sexually. This was one of the reasons Frers said she didn’t tell leaders at HBC Davenport about her husband’s sexual abuse. “I feared (my husband),” Frers said, “but I feared God even more.
I believe it is important for churches to support shelters/safehouses for abused women. My church has done so for years. If her situation is beyond the pastor's ability to speak to, that's an easy referral to make.

As far as Love And Respect goes, it honestly sounds like you are twisting its message. Not to say that abusers don't also, but I have heard Dr. Eggerichs preach. He spoke against abuse and authoritarianism as part of his message to husbands. Another part of it was, even if she is disrespectful to you, love her anyway (Eph 5:25, 28). Furthermore, I have never heard anything from him that calls upon anyone to remain in a situation that puts their life or safety at risk.
 
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LoricaLady

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Agree with both here.

I have to say though, I had to get help for myself for my lack of ability to control my temper related to my son. His father had a problem too; and though husband would never hit me, because he knew as a combat trained vet, I could break his arm; he took a lot of his frustrations out on his son. The kid "wouldn't listen" because he had a developmental / medical issue that interferes with his ability to process language. My son is 17 now and the impairment is quite obvious.

Real repentance means a change in behavior. And I remember the process.

My son and I went into a domestic violence shelter for 4 weeks because I was afraid husband was going to loose it and hurt the kid. (The kid was 5 years old at the time.) When I went back home to try and fix the marriage; the shelter called CPS. When they opened their investigation; I was honest with them about what was going on, but also honest about the fact that I needed help too. And that honesty I think is what kept the case out of the legal system. My husband worked in a group home for developmentally disabled adults and if he'd been "founded" on a CPS investigation, he would have lost his job.

We received counseling for 18 months, with the understanding that "If you hit the kid; I'm calling the police." My husband had psychological issues and I deem was likely a victim of physical abuse as a child himself. He never dealt well with "life on life's terms". He had a couple of affairs and when he filed for divorce from me (after living apart for 6 years) so he could marry girlfriend #2; she broke up with him and he committed suicide that night! Tragic end to the life of a man who made a string of very bad choices!

I remember talking to the CPS social worker and telling her the problems I had with my own anger (being the adult child of an alcoholic and an incest survivor - to say the least - I know what rage is!). She said to me: "You have your own counselor outside of this case; correct?" I said: "yes". She said: "Go to your counselor and develop a safety plan. Bring it back to me in 2 weeks. If you do this; I won't remove your child from your custody." I did that and she kept her word.

It was a long road and I had to unlearn a lot of things I'd "learned" trying to "be a good Christian parent"; And this is the source of the first comment I made in regards to "religiously sanctioned child abuse". It was really hard because not only was I trying to change myself, for my son's sake; I lost a lot of "friends" along the way.

But I did find some good resources:
https://www.amazon.com/Unconditional-Parenting-Moving-Rewards-Punishments/dp/0743487486
https://www.amazon.com/How-Would-Jesus-Raise-Child/dp/0801012503

And this one; which is extremely helpful and informative!
chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/http://www.biblechild.com/assets/thy-rod-and-thy-staff-they-comfort-me-mar-2013.pdf

This book gave me a good starting point to study these passages people often use to justify "disciplining" kids with corporal punishment.

Today, my son and I have a good relationship and I thank God for the healing He brought to both of us. It's a long road; but fixing the problem is possible. It takes a dedicated devotion to that end though and real repentance!
We all love hearing stories of triumph over strongholds. Thanks for sharing! :)
 
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Endeavourer

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I've never encountered this "protection of the ol' boys" you mention, either. I'm an Elder in my church and would know if such a thing existed in it. I can tell you it doesn't.

Would you agree that the story I linked does protect the pastor from the consequences of his abuse at the expense of his wife?

Unfortunately this story is very familiar to me. I have seen this dynamic play out in many cases. Sometimes the wife is placed under church discipline for failing to submit better if their marriage does not improve. I could give you the stories......

I also haven't encountered this twisting of Scripture you say goes on, conservative though my church is.

Either you don't recognize it or you are very fortunate with the church you attend. I have attended a number of the more conservative, mainstream reformed churches throughout my life and the dynamic I described definitely is in play there even if it is not initially apparent. I can give you quite a few very sad stories involving just the churches I have attended.

However, those denominations are often not the worst. The Jack Hyles style churches are among some of the worst.

Also, Doug Wilson who also had a large home school following, who famously made this statement: "When we quarrel with the way the world is, we find that the world has ways of getting back at us. In other words, however we try, the sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts." This sounds like domination, humiliation, subjugation and rape to me. Most men do desire an egalitarian pleasuring party when making love to their wives.

Also the Quiverful movement has damaged a lot of women.

I could continue to name others, but mainly churches who preach about the submission of women without clarifying what submission is NOT. Otherwise, in every sermon a tender hearted, God fearing woman is hearing a different message than the men are hearing:

When a pastor in a church that teaches female submission preaches about turning the other cheek, forgiving 70x7, etc etc without saying specifically "this is NOT applicable to marriages and turning the other cheek to abuse is NOT what is meant by submission", then an abused woman who is under the preaching turns all of those sermons into directives for how she needs to submit to/endure abuse better to as her God given role.

Certainly, one story - however tragic - or even a dozen does not prove a rule for the many thousands of churches in North America.

The story happens so often that I no longer feel that advising a woman to talk to her pastor is safe. There has proven to be too high of a chance she will be dealt with as a problem, told to submit better, etc. As I mentioned, sometimes this even proceeds to church discipline against her even though her husband is the abuser.

In any event, I don't agree that a woman in an abusive circumstance with her husband should not seek help from her church leadership. Obviously, if the abuse is physical, the place she should go first is to the police. Your advice, though, to people to forsake church leadership altogether in dealing with spousal abuse is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, it seems to me. In fact, the extremity of your point of view smacks rather of virtue signalling.

For me, it all depends on the church. I've seen pastors I thought were safe and very tender hearted turn out to not be so. More often than not. Unless I know that the pastor understands the dynamics of abuse, I have not had success with referring abused women to pastors, particularly in conservative, complimentarian circles.

My mantra is to "First, do no harm." For me that means referring abused women to resources I know are safe, and too many pastors have proven to be unsafe so they are no longer my first line of defense.

There are a few exceptions, as I referenced in the first sentence of my original post, such as the pastor @topher694 who has engaged in this thread.
 
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bèlla

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Well, the Father intervened. He said I had to get away from him or the spirit of sadism that was on the man would lead to a spirit of masochism getting off on me! So I never saw him again. (Thank You Lord!)

Narcissists desire control. The mention of sadism could imply it fed his narcissism or was the result of its presence. Since you were enamored with him the likelihood of manipulation is greater. Masochism could arise from a desire to please and keep the peace.

However, sadists and masochists derive sexual enjoyment from physical, mental, or emotional control. The crux of their pleasure is being controlled or exerting it.

I wouldn’t say masochism is present in domestic violence situations. But there’s usually a controlling party and a measure of injury to self-esteem and self-worth which makes them more attractive to abusers and susceptible to remain longer than they should.

While abusers typically target weaknesses they can exploit. There is a special type who finds enjoyment in breaking strong-willed women and making them subservient. They are best avoided at all costs.
 
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Endeavourer

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I believe it is important for churches to support shelters/safehouses for abused women. My church has done so for years. If her situation is beyond the pastor's ability to speak to, that's an easy referral to make.

As far as Love And Respect goes, it honestly sounds like you are twisting its message. Not to say that abusers don't also, but I have heard Dr. Eggerichs preach. He spoke against abuse and authoritarianism as part of his message to husbands. Another part of it was, even if she is disrespectful to you, love her anyway (Eph 5:25, 28). Furthermore, I have never heard anything from him that calls upon anyone to remain in a situation that puts their life or safety at risk.

What do you think of the points discussed and the link in post #29? Also post #25?

Do you believe marriage is designed for duty sex from an obliging wife for HIS release (esp since it will only take him a few minutes!!!), or do you believe it was designed for mutual enthusiastic desire and ecstasy as intimated in the Song of Solomon? If you want the latter, then I'd toss Eggerich's book in the dumpster. Not only does his understanding of sex fall miserably short, but little about the way he advises you to treat your wife will help get you there either.
 
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LoricaLady

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Narcissists desire control. The mention of sadism could imply it fed his narcissism or was the result of its presence. Since you were enamored with him the likelihood of manipulation is greater. Masochism could arise from a desire to please and keep the peace.

However, sadists and masochists derive sexual enjoyment from physical, mental, or emotional control. The crux of their pleasure is being controlled or exerting it.

I wouldn’t say masochism is present in domestic violence situations. But there’s usually a controlling party and a measure of injury to self-esteem and self-worth which makes them more attractive to abusers and susceptible to remain longer than they should.

While abusers typically target weaknesses they can exploit. There is a special type who finds enjoyment in breaking strong-willed women and making them subservient. They are best avoided at all costs.
There are therapists who say narcissists can be quite sadistic, even in a Marquis deSade way where they get aroused by hurting others.

The Bible says "We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and... spiritual wickedness in high places" i.e. the dark side.

I believe there are evil spirits of sadism, evil spirits of masochism, all kinds of evil spirits.

I would assume that not every victim of domestic abuse has a demonic spirit of masochism on him or her, but I would bet some do. Mho.
 
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Paidiske

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This idea of someone developing a training program for church leadership has been on my mind recently. Perhaps church leaders should be mandatory reporters?

As a church leader, and by law a mandatory reporter for abuse of children, I am cautious about mandatory reporting of abuse involving adults.

The reason is to do with the trauma of the abused person. One of the things that person needs is to be and feel safe; and to be given back control of what happens to her. Mandatory reporting can take that from her; push her into a whirlwind of dealing with police and legal matters and so forth, before she is ready.

I would always encourage someone to report, but I think putting church leaders in a position where we have to take that decision away from the victim, effectively taking control from them, is not automatically a good thing.

On a slightly different note, this diagram is a useful resource and one I reference often:

The-Duluth-Model-Power-and-Control-Wheel-Domestic-Abuse-Intervention-Project-nd-circa.jpg
 
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Sketcher

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Some men have read this book and have been able to benefit from it, although I feel little of its advice is according to Scripture.

However, it places a heavy burden on the wife to provide unconditional respect towards another mortal being; the only One who is worthy of unconditional respect is our Lord.

Further, "respect" is often used as a code word for "obey". Eggerich uses the example "I didn't feel respected just now when you ___ ". In doing so, Eggerich gives the man the responsibility of enforcing verses in the Bible that don't belong to him.

There is no verse telling a husband to drive, make, browbeat, demand, insist on or otherwise wrangle submission from his wife. The verse on her submission is given to her and her alone. This was a huge advancement of women's equality at the time because the culture then was for the husband to enforce his wife's submission. Paul changes that on its head when he gives the responsibility of submission wholly to the party doing the submitting, and only to that party.
His example is far more civil than I would expect of any abuser. It comes off to me as a highly filtered way to communicate to a disrespectful person in an effort to resolve the issue, and it doesn't even have to be reserved to an intimate relationship. It kind of reminds me of the "conflict resolution" talks they gave us in elementary school, complete with an "I statement". When understood correctly, it is not a tool for abuse, nor is it co-opting Scripture in any way.

One more comment on this book is how he handles sex. To him, sex is for the man. Not once does he reference the woman's sexual needs or pleasure. Duty, obligatory, prostitution like sex to keep your home together. This isn't just my take; it's what came through to every woman I've met who has commented to me on how the book affected their intimacy.

Yet, Song of Solomon describes a mutual yearning and longing on both parts of the couple. It seems Eggerich has cut that book out of his Bible.

Instead, Eggerich positions sex is as a way to "minister" to the husband and respect him. Yuck!!

Several defining passages from his book:

The section opens with a story about a daughter explaining to her mother that she and her husband are having a fight, and the mother telling the daughter that she should have more sex with him, saying, “Why would you deprive him of something that takes such a short amount of time and makes him sooooo happy!?”

“His anatomy and design is much different from yours. “He needs sexual release as you need emotional release.

“Who is supposed to be the mature one here? He is a new believer and you’ve been in Christ for many years.”….She decided to minister to her husband sexually, not because she particularly wanted to, but because she wanted to do it as unto Jesus Christ. She just didn’t have that need for sex….

More from this excellent review:

https://tolovehonorandvacuum.com/2019/01/love-and-respect-review-how-sex-portrayed/
My take is that his emphasis is that men need sex in a way that is alien to many women, not that women don't have sexual desires, or shouldn't receive sexual pleasure from their husbands. And that it's basically where many people can start "from zero" in a sense - a man should do his best to take care of those emotional needs, and if she desires to have sex with him in spite of him not doing that, then great. I'm also not seeing anywhere that he claims that what he wrote about here is the end-all, be-all word on sex. It seems to be a starting point.

Besides, when that was being written, high-speed Internet was not nearly as ubiquitous as it is today, and that both compounded and fundamentally changed inappropriate contentography usage. inappropriate content has evolved between 2004 and 2019, we now have a generation of young men who have had easy access to it growing up like we didn't have in 1999. And he had been counseling couples in the 80's and 90's, which is much of what he had been drawing on. It is a much bigger problem today, and it is much different than it was during those years, so I think it is safe to say that issue is beyond the scope of the book.

Do you believe marriage is designed for duty sex from an obliging wife for HIS release (esp since it will only take him a few minutes!!!), or do you believe it was designed for mutual enthusiastic desire and ecstasy as intimated in the Song of Solomon? If you want the latter, then I'd toss Eggerich's book in the dumpster. Not only does his understanding of sex fall miserably short, but little about the way he advises you to treat your wife will help get you there either.
Again, he's talking about a starting point, not the end of the journey. Very, very basic elements. If people in a marriage are fighting enough, they need to get to that starting point before they can go beyond it.
 
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bèlla

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I believe there are evil spirits of sadism, evil spirits of masochism, all kinds of evil spirits.

This is true. But I wonder if you realize the slippery slope you’re on. Either the woman possessed masochistic tendencies upon entry or developed them within the relationship.

Masochists enjoy pain. And given the subject, I think its best to err on the side of prudence. Domestic violence is not masochism. Nor do its victims enjoy being hurt as a rule.

A spirit of masochism or sadism is most likely to rest on individuals whose sexual proclivities veer in that direction. They engage these acts consensually. Or by force in the case of abusers.

Violations in their relationships usually hinge on consent. Meaning, the other party has undertaken behaviors they didn’t agree to.
 
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ChicanaRose

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sin leveling where a response to abuse is said to be 50% responsible, which in practice becomes 100% responsible for 'provoking' your own abuse.

I agree. She may be responsible for her words before God (which may have been displeasing to Him) but never responsible for the partner's violence. There is a distinction.
 
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ChicanaRose

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I have witnessed a friend's wife lie about abuse, flat out telling him she would cry abuse to the church in order to justify getting a divorce.

I appreciate you bringing this up. People like this create challenges for the real victims who seek to be believed.
 
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