I’ve had a lot of people cock their head and squint their eyes at the mention of “spiritual abuse”. What does that look like? How does one play out spiritual abuse?

This was a letter written to me in the months leading up to our separation. I have more letters like this, and countless text messages and emails with similar verbiage. At the beginning of our separation, he would say quite often that he questioned my salvation. That he believed anyone who is a true believer wouldn’t pursue divorce. Of course, he was concerned for my soul, and wept for my eternity…
Anyone that truly knows me (and even those who don’t, because let’s face it, I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve. There aren’t many secrets with me) knows that my faith is the most important thing in my life. It always has been. So it also shouldn’t be surprising to someone with a healthy mind, that my faith would be an easy target if one would want to try and manipulate and control me.
And they would be right.
The previous two times we separated, I pursued a legal separation rather than divorce because I knew that “God hates divorce”. In fact, what brought me back to him after our second separation was him counter filing with divorce papers. That scared me. And it worked. I went back to him with absolutely no change on his part, and no promise to change. It didn’t matter that he held me hostage in my own bed with a loaded gun. It didn’t matter that our marriage counselor said that he was the most resistant person she had ever worked with (other than one other man, who she fired). It didn’t matter that our marriage counselor said that I was the only one she had ever laid awake at night worried about, worried for both me and my boys. It didn’t matter that he was still an alcoholic with no promise to change.
All I heard was “God hates divorce”.
Both times that I went back in the past were because he was able to twist and misuse the Bible, cherry pick verses to make me feel like what I was doing was so sinful and wrong.
Throughout our marriage he has been able to approach me in such a way that I felt like he really was my spiritual leader. But in looking back at his actual words, I shutter. The accusations he made of me made me doubt myself so much. They crushed me. They confused me. Because I didn’t think I was that person he was accusing me of being. I never thought that I was mentally unstable or chronically depressed or spiritually dead, like he accused me of. So to hear those things coming from him was very hard. He always had a way with words, and he was always able to sound confident and intelligent and of course, 100% right. And his ability to sound smart AND spiritual makes for a very convincing argument, and makes it difficult to see the abuse at face value.  For example, I probably would have been able to recognize verbal abuse if he had called me stupid. But he didn’t. Instead, he called me foolish, and he quoted Bible verses about wisdom or verses about being a godly wife. I lost count of the times I would go to my closest friends and ask them “you interact with me daily – do YOU think I am XYZ, like he says?” (Looking back, I am so grateful for those solid friendships in my life that spoke truth when all I heard were lies.)

It’s hard to see the truth through the foggy lens of spiritual abuse. Especially when you are so in love with Jesus and all you want to do is trust and obey.  When someone is feeding you a false narrative of something that means so much to you, it feels so wrong to reject what that person is saying when it’s “in the name of Jesus”.

Thank the good LORD that the fog continues to lift and I can see clearly the Words of my precious Savior.  I can see His truth.  I can see MY worth and MY value in Him.  I can know that I am cherished and adored and precious to Him.

And so are you, my friend.  So are you.