I Want to Reconcile, but Don’t Feel Safe. Is It My Past?
Morning friend,
Many of you participated in our recent webinar on the Four Lies That Christian Women Believe That Keep Them Stuck, Scared and Silent. I trust that you are being challenged by God to grow through whatever current situation you may find yourself in. It’s so tempting to ask God to change the external situation – our husband, our wayward child, our health, our job, etc., but what if the situation you’re facing is designed by God for you to change? To grow? To learn to question things that you thought were true, but aren’t? To build muscles of courage, resiliency, and deeper truth? I loved this week’s question because this reader understands that it’s not just her husband who has his work to do. She does too. Our 3-month Walking in Core Strength Group Coaching Program is open right now and will start on September 8. If you’d like to build some of those muscles in your own life, click here.
Question: I have been in an emotionally abusive marriage for 12 years – BUT I have seen God change my husband’s heart and behavior in some small and big ways. I still need boundaries, and my marriage is still difficult, but I wonder if some of my own unhealed trauma from this marriage is holding me back from growing into a better marriage with my husband.
I find my feelings of love are gone, even though I am committed to showing him love. When I see him and am with him, I feel massive amounts of anxiety (based on past reactions to me). He doesn’t respond badly much anymore, but I’m still bracing myself for impact. I’ve chosen to forgive him for his past behavior, but I don’t feel peace.
The goal is a unified and God honoring marriage: how do I stop feeling trauma responses towards my husband as he “improves”? How do I allow myself to feel safe when I have felt attacked for so long? How do I see my husband as a loving, caring, attractive spouse with all the abuse in the past? How do I heal my sexual relationship with my husband given that was a huge focus area of the abuse for so long?
Answer: You ask some good questions that I’m sure other women in your situation wonder about as well. First, I want to affirm your desire to work on you. It’s so tempting for women in your situation to place all their focus and energy on his change, his repentance, healing, and restoration. And that’s understandable, especially if you desire reconciliation.
Equally important, however, is that you look honestly at how this marriage has impacted/harmed you, as well as pay attention to where your own changes and growth are needed to become a healthier and more mature version of you, whether your marriage makes it or not. From your questions, you have a good start on your own journey as well as exploring the possibility of how past unhealed trauma may impact your attempts at reconciliation.
Let me start here: Before you and your husband can attempt to rebuild what has been broken, it is necessary for you both to identify what was unhealthy about your own selves as you entered this marriage as well as the internal mindsets and beliefs that led to the attitudes and actions that were harmful and destructive in your marriage.
For example: You might reflect and see one pattern you had was that you never spoke up early on in your relationship and said, “Ouch” or “Don’t” or “NO”, because you were taught (and believed) that a godly wife submits, gives in, pleases her husband. Saying stop or no would hurt his feelings, or that you wouldn’t be honoring him or God. You might also notice that growing up, you were never allowed to have an opinion of your own, or voice dissent in your family of origin. Or when you tried, you were abused or harmed in some way. You might also notice that you were only affirmed as a child when you complied, people pleased and did what others wanted you to do. If you spoke up, did your own thing, or disagreed, bad things happened.
When your husband does this work, he might notice that he had a belief that a husband always gets the final say. He might believe that if you argue or dissent it means you don’t respect or love him. He also might have a belief that because I’m married, I have a right to your body, regardless of how you feel. You weren’t specific on the things he did that were harmful and destructive, but both of you should be able to talk about it safely and name both the behaviors and the thinking/beliefs behind them. And, it’s important for you both to list what specifically needs to be different if you are going to feel safe and trust again. You should be able to say no, and he should be able to honor your no without retaliation.
There is a lot to unpack if you both want to use this painful season to heal, grow and mature. And this is God’s will for you to do because repairing a damaged relationship cannot happen if the people in the relationship keep repeating the destructive behaviors. That’s why I don’t recommend marriage counseling as the first step in healing a destructive marriage. Individual work comes first because you should not trust someone who has not done the work to become a trustworthy person (Proverbs 25:19). You cannot safely talk with someone who has not done the internal work to be safe to disagree with. You cannot live with someone in peace who will not respect your boundaries or if you’ve never learned to have them.
I hear your heart. You want to reconcile and show your husband love and grace even when your feelings are not yet there. Doing your own work, including exploring how unresolved/unhealed past hurts and trauma may be interfering in your ability to fully feel your positive feelings are great goals. However, if your body is telling you that you are still unsafe, pay attention. Why are you feeling unsafe in this moment? Is he doing/saying something that is a repeat of old history?
Marriage is a unique, special relationship that requires safety and trust. It may not always have feelings of romantic love, but it must always have safety and trust. I would encourage you to ask your husband to answer each of the following questions (and ask yourself as well). Answering them will help you see if you and your husband are on the same page with what you want your marriage to look like going forward. You might discover his idea of a good, safe marriage and your idea of a good, safe marriage are not compatible. And if you ask him these questions and he won’t do the work of answering for himself and you, pay attention. No matter what he says, he’s not doing the work to change.
What have you learned about yourself from this experience?
What matters most to you right now?
If you could look into the future and become the kind of person you’d most like to be, what would that look like? Feel like? Sound like?
How do you think your attitudes and behaviors have affected and impacted me and our marriage?
What are the changes you need to make in you so that this (fear, broken safety and trust, abuse, adultery, addictions, etc) does not happen again?
What steps do you think you need to take to become a safe and trustworthy person?
Reconciliation is important to God. However, reconciling a relationship back to its previous position may not be possible. For example, imagine the treasurer at your church embezzled money and was caught. She is truly repentant. She says she’s changed. Great, but is the church biblically required to restore her to her previous position as treasurer? I don’t think so. Yes, God calls us to forgive. But he also says there are real consequences for sin.
Over the years, I’ve worked with many women who have been deeply traumatized by their spouse, sexually, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Yes, they have forgiven their husband. Yes, they choose to biblically love him (at a distance, as a brother in Christ, as a parent to their children, even as an enemy). However, they cannot live with him as a wife, share finances with him, kiss him, or have sexual intimacy with him. I don’t think God expects them to fake it. Safety and trust died when he repeatedly broke covenant and repentance doesn’t always promise resurrection.
I have a friend who put her lipstick on while driving and accidentally bumped her car into a woman riding her bike. My friend was distracted for just a minute; she didn’t notice this biker, yet this mistake cost the biker her life. My friend was broken-hearted, truly sorry, deeply repentant… and the woman on the bike stayed dead. Consequences are real, and sometimes very painful. They don’t go away just because someone is sorry or changes.
I admire your desire to reconcile. Take your time, pay attention to what you see, how you feel, how your body feels when around your husband, and continue to do your work, and watch his actions, not his words. I believe God will show you whether the marriage can be restored with some time and care, or whether you will need to be honest enough with yourself and him to acknowledge and mourn that your marriage relationship has died and cannot be repaired.
Friend, when you’ve worked hard to repair broken trust and safety, what “fruits” of repentance did you look for to see that change was real?
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The true hurt to much , Allready give 2 opportunities to quit porn. And he doing again since l discovery. He been psiquiatra. Therapy and group. And been clean. For 4 months. But the love for him it’s going. So l have therapy for me and God I need time to see clearity . We separe for 4 month . With. Boundaries and he respect . He it’s found everything. In my home . I am not do it smithing . I go out everyday. Church and friend so that it’s my history thank you .
This was really helpful, Leslie. Thank you for your wisdom.
I would LOVE to ask my husband those questions and hear his response. But when I ask him questions, he either shuts down and stonewalls or says “I don’t know” or “I don’t have anything nice to say” or “what are you talking about”? In our four years of marriage I’ve never had conflict resolution with him because he cannot communicate. Marriage counseling made everything worse, so I understand your point. I’ve decided to give it to God and work on myself and that only God can change and convict him. It’s an unsafe marriage just like my toxic childhood home was. I thought I had healed and moved on from that but yet at 41 yo attracted the same mess. Go figure!
Tracy, so now you know. This man does not want to change, does not want to grow, does not want to look at himself and will resent you for shining a mirror of questions in his face. But you do. You do want to heal, change and grow. Good for you. Do it. That is God’s will for you. And as you grow in wisdom, courage and strength, you’ll have greater clarity on what to do in your marriage.
Thank you Leslie. I have spent nearly a decade working in this space with other men with various compulsive/abusive behaviors. Research shows (can’t recall the citation now) that it takes at least 3 years and more like 5 years for a man to do the inner transforming work. to get healthy. Watch consistent behavior changes over YEARS. Believe that… not words.
Your wisdom and experience is so much appreciated.
Thanks Larry for your honesty with how hard it is to truly change these behaviors.
A few other things to note: For process addictions (gambling, sex, cluttering/hoarding etc) the statistics and my own experience are that about 10% that enter Recovery fundamentally transform over 5 years. Sobriety (not acting out) is necessary, but a person can white knuckle it for a few months to a year but that is not real health and transformation. For instance sex addiction (porn, affairs etc) is not a sexual disorder but an intimacy disorder. Unless root causes underlying the behaviors (often from child and young adulthood) are identified, processed and healed over YEARs there can be no lasting Recovery. It cannot be done alone but requires skilled therapists and honest connection with a few healthy people. Sadly most churches are still in denial and clueless about these issues.
Larry, do you have any statistics on the percentages and time-frames for recovery for verbal/emotional abusers?
This is great. What jumped out at me was that she says he doesn’t act out ‘much’ anymore. When he does, unless you can immediately say ouch, and have him listen, see it, and repent, each time, you actually have guerrilla warfare going on. In some ways that’s scarier than when it happens all the time. You never know when it’s going to jump out of the bush at you. my h would relish this! We’ve been groomed to be so afraid of him that I totally get the “braced for impact” sentiment. I bet he can tell when you are braced. Does he then just carry on or does he get soft and kind and give space? Do you feel like you owe him forgiveness for just this once? Are you afraid to call him on it each time? That’s still a transactional relationship.
Leslie, Thank you for being used by God to bring clarity, light and truth. I had the first, sick to my stomach feeling, on my wedding night, that I had made a huge mistake. 6 years of emotional abuse and neglect, constant abandonment left me confused, questioning so many things about the man I married. That was the tip of the iceberg. Your podcasts, and blogs helped me face some hard truths about my marriage as well as shedding light on behavior patterns in myself. I went from “I can’t do this anymore to I won’t do this anymore”. My marriage was unsustainable and unsafe. My husband demonstrated time and time again through his actions, that he was unwilling to do the hard heart work he needed to do and was a passive presence during marriage counseling. My divorce was final late Spring. I have moved forward from feeling I made the biggest mistake of my life to seeing the positive fruit of how much I have grown as a person and how much my faith has grown. The Lord has taken such good care of me and continues to. My home is a place of peace and safety. My body is slowing starting to heal. The constant fear, anxiety and dread has lifted. I’m so grateful for my counselor and the core group of strong Christian women in my life who walked beside me through the trenches these past 2 years. I relate to the woman who this blog is addressing, I wanted so desperately for my marriage to be healed. My heart hurts for her and I pray that she will be led forth with peace, clarity, wisdom and insight. I pray she finds healing and the courage she needs to make the best decisions for herself. Some people in the Church would call that selfish and spew their judgement and condemnation. I was on the receiving end of such rhetoric and the pain it causes. I recall a thought that you made in one of your podcasts about how Christians tend to idolize the institution of marriage at all costs without regard for the person being destroyed in the marriage. I hope I stated that correctly. I am looking forward to the start of new podcasts this Fall! Thank you again and God bless you ❤️🙏🏻.
Wow! This one hits closer to home, except the desiring reconciliation part. I constantly feel guilty bc I feel no desire whatsoever to reconcile our marriage. My husband has been working on himself for a couple years now, has made great improvements, and I do my best to be kind and helpful and pleasant, but I cannot muster any degree of romantic feelings for him. Even the idea makes my stomach turn. I feel like a terrible person bc so many people would do anything to have their abusive spouse actually have a change of heart and turn it around, and mine did, but I feel like he pushed me until I finally snapped. THEN he decided he’d better get it together bc I couldn’t keep up the “fake it til you make it” anymore and he was upset that I wasn’t loving toward him anymore. He put me through a lot, and I honestly do forgive him. I just can’t make myself LOVE him.
Amen, sister! Sometimes it’s just too late. They can ignore our pleas for years, but after we have snapped, then they want it all back. We try and try until our tank is empty, then suddenly they want to try and we are the “bad” for giving up.
Thanks AMB, and Brenda!
I’ve also spent many years doing all the “ right” things to try to create a healthy marriage…lots of work on myself, and repeatedly trying to communicate, verbally and in writing, what the minimum requirements for a healthy marriage are: mutual and reciprocal respect, care, support, and love; freedom to be your authentic self; healthy communication, etc.
My husband will occasionally tearfully tell me how “ sorry he is for everything “, and for several years I tried to talk myself into believing that he was finally understanding how his behaviors have hurt me and harmed our relationship…but in reality, his “ sorrow” was that I am no longer allowing myself to be verbally and emotionally abused; that I no longer think my one role in life is pleasing him, managing his emotions, and keeping the peace around him; and that I now understand what personal boundaries mean: that I am responsible for only my own thoughts, feelings, and actions ( not his), and that I deserve to be treated with respect , kindness, care, and love ( as I’ve always treated him).
I also forgive my husband, in a Biblical way, but the consequences of his actions, his refusal to be responsible for himself or accountable to me, his refusal to grow or change in healthy ways…has killed any emotional connection I used to feel with him.
And with no emotional connection, a physical relationship not only is undesirable to me, it doesn’t make sense. I feel I would be disrespecting myself, and gaslighting myself emotionally ( I used to do that daily) , if I pretend to feel a connection that doesn’t exist, or acted as though we have a mutually safe, loving, affectionate, intimate relationship…when that relationship doesn’t exist. By my husband’s choice.
Another thing I’ve learned: no matter how much I take on, how hard I try, how little I ask of him, how much I suppressed my thoughts, ideas, opinions, wants, or needs…. for decades I did 99% of the emotional labor of the relationship…there was a reason it was never “ enough”. That was never my job, and it isn’t even possible. I can’t be more than 50% of the relationship.
My husband has the choice to either do the work he needs to do to be healthy and in a healthy relationship with me…or he can choose not to. He chooses to try to pressure me to act “ the way you used to”, or even just “ what he wants”, with no regard for my feelings, wants, or needs.
But that was never healthy, and I’ve matured beyond being the girl who was so desperate for “ love” that she was willing to erase herself to comply with someone else’s script for her life.
I’ve invited my husband, kindly and gently, to join me on the path toward a healthy, loving, emotionally mature relationship.
He refuses. That’s his choice, and I choose to respect his boundaries.
And then keep moving forward on my own path.
I feel this so much! I put up with over 30 years of ‘what am I doing wrong?’ His dismissal, abandonment, manipulation, deceit and his flirting with other women. It affected my health drastically. Then the panic attacks started. I feel so broken and defeated. Physically broken and no longer independent. NOW he decides he wants to be nice. He is still controlling and very much has to have things his way. I feel like I’ve lost so many good years. 44 with him. The first 14 were difficult at times but I was mostly happy. Then boom, everything changed. His parents had a lot to do with it. I don’t feel any ‘husband’ life for him anymore. I don’t trust him enough to even let him hug me. We have not been intimate since 1996! I’m enrolled in CORE but I don’t know if I can ever love him like a husband anymore. Any advise is appreciated. And prayers.
Leslie,
I have the exact same questions as this woman. I am no longer in love yet show love to my husband who has emotionally abused me for 10-15 years along with our 17 year old son.
I hope to ask him these questions soon. They seem like the light into the darkness type questions.
I see that so many other women have also been through this. It’s heart breaking.
Thank you for being a source for so many hurting people.
My heart aches for those of you who are in destructive, painful marriages. It’s good and necessary to forgive; I like to say “release,” but that doesn’t heal the wounds. The healing takes time; lots of time. And if/when he really does begin to change, you still have to be careful, as Larry said above. And for some, the change just comes too late. But I’d like to add a word here. If you see a change in his behavior, and it is genuine, if you are willing to stay in the marriage, ask God to supply you with His love for your husband. You are a vessel made in His image to contain all that He is. Up to now, the Lord has supplied you with patience, long suffering, forbearance, and now, if you want to stay because your husband is doing the work, you can ask the Lord to supply you again with His divine love. If you can’t stay, He will give you the wisdom and grace to go. May God bless and supply you all.