Is An Abused Wife Codependent?
By: Kimberly Dimick
On the issue of co-dependency in MARRIAGE, we must look at this topic using Biblical due process. We want to process this subject through the lens of God's Word.
"Abused women are not co-dependent," writes Lundy Bancroft, "It is the abusers, not women, who create abusive relationships."
The Biblical MARRIAGE COVENANT is not a co-dependent relationship.
We are so dependent, so inter-connected, so joined together that we ONE FLESH. According to Malachi, we are one in spirit. The Biblical MARRIAGE COVENANT is not a co-dependent relationship. I do not take "the going psychology" and fit the Bible into the World's paradigm! The marriage relationship is NOT like any other relationship.
The marriage covenant is holy and created by GOD; it is not a product of the world or its system of thinking.
The relationship with Jesus Christ is an exclusive relationship. Yes, Jesus opens His arms to ALL, and ANYONE may come… but they come to a CROSS. There is NO other way that we enter into this Bridal Covenant with God.
Marriage IS a picture of Salvation.
Just as we are not searching to get our needs met by any other supply or SOURCE, so does a wife, in marriage, reflect this very truth. Her husband is her SOURCE and supply line to get her needs met. If a wife's needs are wrong, then so are my needs concerning Christ, my Bridegroom. I, honestly, get so tired of having to defend God's truth over and over again. It is either truth or it is NOT. There are no shadowy, gray areas.
A husband's and wife's roles and purpose in God are unique unto marriage. I am not talking about our relationship to God, others, children, the brethren, or even our enemies or unbeliever. God has specifrically designed marriage to work apart from ALL other relationships just as being a child of God works outside of ALL religious systems.
Marriage does NOT follow the going relationship models of the day and MOST, if not all Christian models, as well.
At times, every woman gets confused about her role as a help-meet. She cannot fathom that God Himself has called her to be loved in this way. Jesus Christ puts the focus on His wife. She is His Beloved. She did not lift a finger to save herself. She has been given by pure love the way to be in relationship to her husband, Christ.
Her responsibility is that SHE IS ABLE TO RESPOND to her bridegroom's agape love.
God KNOWS why He designed marriage this way and we either trust His great WISDOM or we argue with Him and lose our way. If the group counseling methods worked then why are marriages failing? Of the marriages that are still together, there is only a small percentage of those that are even anywhere near happy. Most couples are still suffering and have settled for less because they do not think there is any other way. Most people that understand God's heart for marriage will tell you that the road to destrction is WIDE and many find it, but the way to life is NARROW and FEW find it.
MANY are called to deeper intimacy with God and yet FEW really find it.
God knew what He was doing in giving man HELP. It is perfectly suitable for the man. It is GOD'S idea, not MAN'S.
Herein lies the problem:
- Ignorance of God's design of covenent marriage
- Ignorance of applying her help-meet role
- Ignorance of the husband's role
Wives are still suffering under the misconceptions and erroneous teachings of BOTH the world and the Church that tell her:
- Needing her husband is sinful and wrong
- She is wounded and has issues and she should deal with those HERSELF without any influence, care or love from her husband
- If she seeks that strength and supply (source) from her husband she is co-dependent because she is not supposed to need anyone but God and herself to become happy (IN MARRIAGE)
- HIS needs are met the SAME way her needs are met
- Men and women are treated as if they are the SAME and so are dealt the SAME methodologies.
Again, this is WRONG when it comes to marriage.
HUSBANDS AND WIVES ARE NOT THE SAME.
A husband has a completely different role and purpose in God than does his wife. In fact, they are different in every way. The Bible says HE made them male AND female. It's for a reason. Their differences are a blessing and for the GLORY of GOD. They reflect the image and likeness of GOD for heaven's sake. GOD is the head (that SOURCE from which ALL things come FROM, for a Bride.) The child of God is the responder by receiving and then MIRRORING that supernatural life of Christ in her.
The wife is the help-meet and these two roles work together to form this perfect picture of the love between a Bridegroom and His Bride. They MUST WORK TOGETHER. You cannot have a Savior or GIVER/initiator without a vessel/receiver/responder. The bride's response is HER ACT OF FAITH in believing that there is LOVE coming FROM an actual PERSON (the person of Jesus Christ). The Christian's faith believes that there IS a God who LOVES us and ACTED and INITIATED the FREE gift of SALVATION. You cannot have an spiritual or human connection without BOTH. Does the giver of the gift then mean that the receiver is selfish for receiving the gift?
A husband is a living portrait of Christ healing His bride, removing all the spots, stains, and wrinkles and he lays down his life for his wife.
All the insecurities, fears, and other wounds of a married woman will come up for the purpose of her husband having to LEARN how to lay his life down for her, to meet ALL of her needs. He brings healing to his wife, as Christ is the Savior (sozo = healing), so, too, the husband is to "like a savior healing" give up his life for his wife, to HEAL by AGAPE LOVE, her wounds (spots, blemishes, and wrinkles).
If he refuses to lay his life down but rather decides to take up his life and to live for SELF, that is AB– USE. A husband is either loving his wife or he is not. There is no middle ground here. It is the heart of Christ in a man that leads to a wife giving her husband grace. My husband falls short but his heart is RIGHTLY related to God. I have no problem giving my husband love and grace.
MOST husbands go through the motions. They are Pharisaical law keepers but their hearts are FAR from the living God. They have all the Christian props down pat, but there is no desire, no pursuit, no life, no drive or force in them demonstrating a consuming passion and fire for Jesus.
When a man has that utter dependency upon Jesus and LOVES God no matter what it costs him, it is EASY, EASY, EASY to reciprocate love.
When a man has a heart that responds to His Savior and is grateful for the death of His savior for him then he will live like a man that is eager and falling all over himself to give that love away. He cannot go a day without pleasing God and obeying His voice.
Sometimes a wife's role as a help-meet is to turn away or to stand in opposition to a husband's sin, as in the case of addictions.
Now, I understand that co-dependency in "other" relationships is possible, especially concerning addictions. Co-dependency actually CAN happen to a woman in a marriage but NOT the way she is taught. Co-dependency is taught IN MARRIAGE, that her happiness is SELF-generated and sustained. If she is NOT doing this then she is labeled co-dependent. This is DESTRUCTIVE to a woman in marriage and it is when a wife refuses to obey God in her role as HELP-MEET, which is to turn away or stand in opposition to his sin.
She does this by trusting her responses because she is created by God to naturally and automatically BE his mirror. She does not become a responder or a mirror. SHE IS a responder and mirror in the same way a man IS the head. It is a defiition of masculinity to be the head and to initiate. If is a definition of femininity to be a responder and to mirror. What the husband does ONLY reveals WHO he is. Is he Christ-like? LOOK at how he chooses to act and draw out of his source?
Is it God, or is it the flesh?
The New Testament says it like this: "Wives be subject to your own husbands as unto the Lord." This is describing a woman's responses to her head rather than instruction on being a doormat. She is SUBJECT TO HIM because she is at his mercy. She is subject to him, like she is subject to gravity in the natural realm. She has nothing to do with gravity; she is simply affected by it.
In the same way, her husband AFFECTS her and it manifests in the way she responds to him. What they call co-dependency can happen at this point by her NOT being strong enough, or too scared, to take a hard stand by refusing to let her husband rule over her, keeping her under the curse of the law. When she caves in to his control (ruling over her), then she has actually DENIED God's desire for her heart to be loved, and she has exchanged it, instead, in becoming the initiator and figuring out what he needs in order to be satisfied, even if he abuses her.
This is a picture of the wife trying to make her husband love her by turning a blind eye to his SINl
Having a desire for your husband is NOT an addiction. God has a desire for His Bride. Is God addicted to us? Some might thing so considering the lengths Creator and Almighty God went to, to love a Bride and to secure an eternal relationship with her.
A man's masculinity is defined by WHO he is according to the PURPOSE of GOD. Period.
IN TRUTH, it is the husband who is acting CO-DEPENDENTLY and possessing a VICTIM MENTALITY. Why? Because he is trying to demand his wife meet his NEEDS. He exchanges his masculinity for a femine one. He is acting and responding like the feminine nature of the Lord instead of the masculine one. He wants to respond to everything. That is NOT being a MAN and therefore he IS co-dependent upon her and is reliant upon her to enable him to obey the Lord.
NO! It is the man who is the giver and the one who initiates the relationship just like Christ does. christ does not try to be the Holy Spirit. Their roles and purposes are different BY DESIGN. He tries to FORCE her by CONTROLLING her to meet his needs and become DEPENDENT upon HER BEHAVIOR instead of going to his HEAD, which is Christ to get his needs met. That is not how God created marriage to be. He is a victim because he whines and cries about his inability to follow the Lord and blames her. He puts CONDITIONS upon his wife to enable him to be MAN. This is all so backwards!!!
THE CORE PROBLEM
The problem with abuse is a man's problem, NOT her problem. BUT, in my opinion, the core problem with men being abusers is that they have shirked their true godly calling as MEN and demand to act like women, by responding. That is the CORE problem and not very many see it. The women's movement does not hate men; they HATE that men control by choosing outside of God's defined role as MEN. Even many of these women do not get that.
THE SOLUTION: LOVE ONE ANOTHER, OVER AND OVER AGAIN!
Men would be LESS LIKELY TO AB– USE if they understood that they are not being men at all and learn to step into their powerful, glorious and exceptional role in being proactive in bringing Christ to their wives… bringing His kingdom in the Earth by proactively choosing: "Love one another" over, and over again.
Choosing love today,
Kimberly
Kimberly Dimick and her husband, Joshua Dimick, know how it feels to lose everything: marriage and family, church and reputation, finances and careers, and so much more. Together and separately they have walked the path of Love, a narrow path, a path that is lonely and not well-used. They know the soul-shattering pain of separation and divorce and the know "The Way Home" to a life of choosing unconditional love.
The surprising answers to a happy marriage are shared in her posts, articles, and her book-in-progress. As you venture on this journey with Kimberly you will experience how God shines His most brilliant light in her darkest hours. Today her mission is to provide a voice to women suffering in silence, shining the Light of Truth into the dark places. As you journey with Kimberly you will witness a true life transformation that will shatter the misinformation and lies commonly fed to women that keep them in false submission.
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