Don't we all see red when we close our eyes?
Some facts about domestic violence:
If a husband tries to close a wife's head in a car door, that's domestic violence.
If he sits on her and pins her down and screams inches from her face, that's domestic violence.
If he knocks her onto a bed and puts his fingers around her throat trying to strangle her, that's domestic violence.
If he throws an animal (say, a cat) at her, that's domestic violence.
If he tries to pull a toothbrush violently out of her mouth, that's domestic violence.
Do I have to go on?
It doesn't matter if the fellow in question is shorter than or weighs less than the wife. It doesn't matter if he is a Christian and is contrite and apologizes and says he wants to quit doing things like that. It doesn't matter if he really does want to quit doing things like that. It doesn't matter if he tells his parents or pastor or counselor (or all three) and asks them to keep him accountable for his behavior. It doesn't matter if he prays about it and asks people to pray for him about it. It doesn't matter if you know him and like him. It doesn't matter if he is really stressed out.
It doesn't matter if the two of them are leaders in their church. It doesn't matter if the wife in question is strong and smart and verbal and capable. It doesn't matter if she doesn't want to call the police or see her husband arrested. It doesn't matter if she doesn't want to ruin his reputation by telling the whole public the full extent of what is going on. It doesn't matter if she doesn't exhibit any kind of "battered wife syndrome" or you can't see any signs of abuse. It doesn't matter if she still likes him and speaks well of him. There is no excuse for the above behaviors and the person guilty of them is guilty of domestic violence.
I make all these statements because I just had a conversation with a close friend who, despite knowing the fact that all of the above applied to my situation, somehow still thought that my situation was different.
Whether by "different" she meant that it wasn't domestic violence, or that it was somehow excusable (horrifying possibility), I don't know, but what I do know is that she somehow thought that the "different" status of my situation somehow let the pastors and mentors and church leaders we told about the ongoing situation, over the three years it was happening, "off the hook" on needing to follow the classic textbook on responding (step one of which I now know is always to separate them and get the abused out of danger).
The heck? Go re-read the "It doesn't matter..." paragraphs up there.
And dear God, do I have to itemize and publicize the full extent of the situation to get people I know and trust to believe me when I say it was domestic abuse if they happen to know the person in question? Why do some people have a "different" category into which they can put the above, but 100% of the atheist people I know lack one? Heck, the liberal Christian denominations lack "different" categories as well.
I don't know the answer to that question, but I do have a clue. Atheists and liberal Christian denominations are likely to be realists about the problem of divorce. They know that in a domestic violence situation, the odds of the abuser getting better are low to begin with, lower as time lapses, lower after anger management counseling failed, lower still after the abuser refuses to return to counseling after counseling fails, lower still after the abuser acts with aggression in front of witnesses. They also know that the longer a victim of abuse stays in a violent household, the likelihood of a repaired relationship drops, the odds become lower still if the abuser has embarrassed the abused by doing something in public, and they bottom out if the abused was so stressed out by the situation that they develop crippling auto-immune disease at even the thought of going back to the abused. In situations like that, atheists and liberal Christians are OK with contemplating divorce.
Other Christians are not. Which is a problem. If someone's sick, they are quick to say that someone should pray and go to a doctor but realistic that cancer can kill anyway. Are they also quick to say that someone should pray and go to a counselor but realistic that domestic violence can kill anyway? No, they wouldn't say that, but their refusal to consider that sometimes divorce is the right option is very similar.
The atheist and liberal Christian viewpoints do diverge. Most atheists would allege that divorce is the best option for all such cases and that counseling for the abuser can happen after that, but that the abused and the abuser can't get back together because the pattern is unlikely to be broken (and statistically, they are right). I suspect many liberal Christians would think though that making an honest attempt to make things work post-counseling for both abuser and abused is justified.
But that's where they likely leave it. Their conservative Christian counterparts somehow think that chance after chance should be given, all the while the odds get grimmer. A pastor who I didn't even know that well emailed me after the separation encouraging me to go back to my ex-husband because "bitterness rots your bones." Did she not think well enough of me to trust I had already given multiple chances? Did she assume that had multiple chances happened she'd have heard through the gossip mill and thus they couldn't have? I suspect it is that she thought that for Christians, divorce isn't an option ever.
And I'm sad about this. I will probably be writing about this all my life; every time a conservative Christian hears I got divorced they will think poorly of me if I tell them it was my choice. A few will change their minds if I explain things further, but not many. For some my situation will forever be deemed "different."
I hope I don't care someday. I hope that someday my ex-husband can rest assured that I won't have any more knee-jerk reactions which result in my dragging his reputation through the mud again as I explain things to people who really ought to know better. And I hope that someday conservative Christians get off their collective high horses and figure out that just as the Kingdom of God sometimes doesn't break through and heal a brain tumor, it sometimes is best to act prudently and quit blindly assuming it will break through in a marriage. Neither situation says anything at all about God's desire to heal - it just recognizes that just as it's foolish to tell someone they didn't get healed because they didn't have enough faith, it's dumb to tell someone to fly against common sense and hope that "faith" will save them from domestic homicide.
There is no "different."
If a husband tries to close a wife's head in a car door, that's domestic violence.
If he sits on her and pins her down and screams inches from her face, that's domestic violence.
If he knocks her onto a bed and puts his fingers around her throat trying to strangle her, that's domestic violence.
If he throws an animal (say, a cat) at her, that's domestic violence.
If he tries to pull a toothbrush violently out of her mouth, that's domestic violence.
Do I have to go on?
It doesn't matter if the fellow in question is shorter than or weighs less than the wife. It doesn't matter if he is a Christian and is contrite and apologizes and says he wants to quit doing things like that. It doesn't matter if he really does want to quit doing things like that. It doesn't matter if he tells his parents or pastor or counselor (or all three) and asks them to keep him accountable for his behavior. It doesn't matter if he prays about it and asks people to pray for him about it. It doesn't matter if you know him and like him. It doesn't matter if he is really stressed out.
It doesn't matter if the two of them are leaders in their church. It doesn't matter if the wife in question is strong and smart and verbal and capable. It doesn't matter if she doesn't want to call the police or see her husband arrested. It doesn't matter if she doesn't want to ruin his reputation by telling the whole public the full extent of what is going on. It doesn't matter if she doesn't exhibit any kind of "battered wife syndrome" or you can't see any signs of abuse. It doesn't matter if she still likes him and speaks well of him. There is no excuse for the above behaviors and the person guilty of them is guilty of domestic violence.
I make all these statements because I just had a conversation with a close friend who, despite knowing the fact that all of the above applied to my situation, somehow still thought that my situation was different.
Whether by "different" she meant that it wasn't domestic violence, or that it was somehow excusable (horrifying possibility), I don't know, but what I do know is that she somehow thought that the "different" status of my situation somehow let the pastors and mentors and church leaders we told about the ongoing situation, over the three years it was happening, "off the hook" on needing to follow the classic textbook on responding (step one of which I now know is always to separate them and get the abused out of danger).
The heck? Go re-read the "It doesn't matter..." paragraphs up there.
And dear God, do I have to itemize and publicize the full extent of the situation to get people I know and trust to believe me when I say it was domestic abuse if they happen to know the person in question? Why do some people have a "different" category into which they can put the above, but 100% of the atheist people I know lack one? Heck, the liberal Christian denominations lack "different" categories as well.
I don't know the answer to that question, but I do have a clue. Atheists and liberal Christian denominations are likely to be realists about the problem of divorce. They know that in a domestic violence situation, the odds of the abuser getting better are low to begin with, lower as time lapses, lower after anger management counseling failed, lower still after the abuser refuses to return to counseling after counseling fails, lower still after the abuser acts with aggression in front of witnesses. They also know that the longer a victim of abuse stays in a violent household, the likelihood of a repaired relationship drops, the odds become lower still if the abuser has embarrassed the abused by doing something in public, and they bottom out if the abused was so stressed out by the situation that they develop crippling auto-immune disease at even the thought of going back to the abused. In situations like that, atheists and liberal Christians are OK with contemplating divorce.
Other Christians are not. Which is a problem. If someone's sick, they are quick to say that someone should pray and go to a doctor but realistic that cancer can kill anyway. Are they also quick to say that someone should pray and go to a counselor but realistic that domestic violence can kill anyway? No, they wouldn't say that, but their refusal to consider that sometimes divorce is the right option is very similar.
The atheist and liberal Christian viewpoints do diverge. Most atheists would allege that divorce is the best option for all such cases and that counseling for the abuser can happen after that, but that the abused and the abuser can't get back together because the pattern is unlikely to be broken (and statistically, they are right). I suspect many liberal Christians would think though that making an honest attempt to make things work post-counseling for both abuser and abused is justified.
But that's where they likely leave it. Their conservative Christian counterparts somehow think that chance after chance should be given, all the while the odds get grimmer. A pastor who I didn't even know that well emailed me after the separation encouraging me to go back to my ex-husband because "bitterness rots your bones." Did she not think well enough of me to trust I had already given multiple chances? Did she assume that had multiple chances happened she'd have heard through the gossip mill and thus they couldn't have? I suspect it is that she thought that for Christians, divorce isn't an option ever.
And I'm sad about this. I will probably be writing about this all my life; every time a conservative Christian hears I got divorced they will think poorly of me if I tell them it was my choice. A few will change their minds if I explain things further, but not many. For some my situation will forever be deemed "different."
I hope I don't care someday. I hope that someday my ex-husband can rest assured that I won't have any more knee-jerk reactions which result in my dragging his reputation through the mud again as I explain things to people who really ought to know better. And I hope that someday conservative Christians get off their collective high horses and figure out that just as the Kingdom of God sometimes doesn't break through and heal a brain tumor, it sometimes is best to act prudently and quit blindly assuming it will break through in a marriage. Neither situation says anything at all about God's desire to heal - it just recognizes that just as it's foolish to tell someone they didn't get healed because they didn't have enough faith, it's dumb to tell someone to fly against common sense and hope that "faith" will save them from domestic homicide.
There is no "different."