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 WHY MY FAITH KEPT ME STUCK IN A TOXIC RELATIONSHIP

Penny - founder of NASG

penny@C2C.co.za

Part 7:

Spiritual abuse includes using scripture against you. My husband was not a person who knew his bible, but he did come to some church services so heard the word being preached. He knew that as a Christian I believed that “God hates divorce”. He reminded me of that many times whenever he could see that I was reaching the end of my tether. Because he knew that I was trying to live my life in a way that was pleasing to God, he must have felt quite safe when he behaved selfishly and did whatever he wanted to do. He had many affairs, dictated what I could and couldn’t do, isolated me from friends and family, and ensured that the only voice I heard would be his. This is the way a narcissist gains control over you, and because you cannot validate whether the way he treats you is abuse or not, you begin to doubt your perception of reality and believe him when he accuses you of being to blame for everything in the relationship.

The one thing he did do, however, was to hide his money in trust funds so I couldn’t access it just in case I would be driven to the point of no return and insist on getting a divorce. My unsuccessful attempt in 1991 must have unnerved him. Whenever things became intolerable, he used to taunt me saying, “Get a divorce! You won’t get a cent as I’ve hidden everything in trusts”. The smirk on his face disgusted me, and he derived such pleasure by threatening me as he knew it made me scared to leave because I may have to live a life in abject poverty. He delighted in the knowledge that I didn’t have the financial means to go even if I wanted to as he had not allowed me to work. I felt like a prisoner who’d been given a life sentence, trapped in an unhappy, abusive marriage with no way out - desperate, anxious, sad, frustrated, disempowered, and confused.

I pleaded with God day in, and day out, to change my husbands' attitude toward me. For him to be loving and kind instead of vindictive and cruel. I began to despair, not understanding why God wasn’t answering my prayers and performing the miracle I knew He had the power to perform. Later, it dawned on me that because God has given man free will, no amount of prayer would change my husband and end the abuse. God is a gentleman and never imposes himself on anyone. He allows people to choose how they want to live their lives and the path they want to take.

The cycle of abuse never ends, and I felt like a hamster on a wheel. First, the “honeymoon phase” (love-bombing: they are loving, kind, attentive, and give you gifts), then the devaluation phase where the abuse begins, it then becomes progressively worse in the "discard phase” and as they can see that you are getting to the point where you’ve had enough and may leave (in which case they’d lose their narcissistic supply), they revert to the honeymoon phase (love bombing). This happens over and over and over again and is the cause of trauma bonding – intermittent kindness (reward) and abuse (punishment).

(to be continued…)

www.courage2change.co.za for support

 

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