Escape to Freedom: Diary of a Battered Preacher’s Wife – Chapter 16 – “Eyes Wide Open”

April 16, 2011

I don't remember ever feeling so alone before!

My husband and I talked for about an hour yesterday afternoon, and it was like my whole viewpoint has changed and my eyes are wide open. He would not speak of anything else except how hurt he is… how I supposedly "pushed him out" by my "lies," "unwillingness to be happy," and "not wanting to be with him". It was all about him and how he needs healing from me.

He said he would return, maybe, if I publicly repented of sharing with close friends what was really going on inside our marriage… he wants to turn it around and let people know he is not abusive.

Control your wife.

     Keep quiet, Sue.

          Wear your mask.

               Pretend.

                    Play the game.

I am not angry anymore….. I see the narcissism and the little boy immaturity… he just wants his mom to make it all better. 

I'm not confused anymore. When he left, all the confusion departed. I see more clearly than ever before.

But it doesn't reduce the pain… or the loneliness. The loneliness is the hardest. I'm in a strange town, a little Wyoming town. I came here to be close to my daughter and granddaughter. But we only have weekends together.

I never realized before what single women go through, how it feels.

This motel room isn't bad… but it isn't home. I've lost my appetite…. I used to love cooking for my family. That was my whole life… taking care of my family. And now it's just me. It's an adjustment. I know it's a season… but it's so much harder than I ever knew.

Life reinvention begins with deconstruction

It's hard to look past the wreckage. My husband keeps reminding me that if I try to divorce him, no matter what, he will not get marriage counseling. I know he means it.

I mention there are other counselors and other ministries, and he says nothing. I ask for marriage counseling and mention Dr. Michele Fleming… he says nothing. He will only speak with the pastors who support him… church leaders he has won over, who have not spoken to me…. who don't know me.

There's no turning back… it is time to begin writing about this.

I'm reading Brennan Manning's books, such as "The Furious Longing of God" – a love story for the brokenhearted. And I am encouraged and strengthened.

May God strengthen and encourage all of us today… open doors for us that are just what is needed…. close doors that would bring more pain… expose the darkness… bring Light & Truth… bring Comfort & Forgiveness…. and rest.

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Responses:

Lifegiver: Hi Kings Bride!!  WOW you sound wonderful and FREE!!  Im sorry that you are feeling so alone but I believe that the aloneness will not be so overwhelming as time goes by and you realize that your IDENTITY is really in who you are IN CHRIST…I too saw everything in a NEW LIGHT when I was separated for the 8months from Medicman…It was like a revival, in MY SPIRIT, SOUL AND BODY…Im so glad that you too have seen and believed the truth and are not ever settling for the abuse, lies, and false doctrines again…

Kings Bride, when I met you at our intensive, I knew by Holy Spirit, that you have pressed through to become more and more "LIKE HIM"…I believe thats why you are not bitter or angry…God is WELL PLEASED with YOU!!I hope that you feel and know that!!!I also hope that as each time He shows himself big on your behalf, through divine interventions, favor, opening doors, pursuing you to fulfill your dream of writing your story, that you will know more and more about his CONTINUOUS AND IMMENSE LOVE that He has for you…You are so precious to the Lord and to the Body of Christ…And Now, that you are FREE and Completely able to hear, without all of the distractions and confusion from the enemy, I believe that He is going to use you in a mighty way…Fulfilling His Plan for your life…Writing your life story sounds like a powerful tool that He will be using to set a lot of others FREE…I will be praying that Holy Spirit will inspire you to write what the Lord would want you to write…I look forward to purchasing your book one day, soon I hope!!

Love you girl and so very pleased to see that you are Overcoming in many many difficult areas…This is a season and a journey…And as you have already realized the Lord loves our Journeys…Thats where we always seem to draw closer to Him…
May the Lord transform you even further in His Likeness.

In His Love,
life giver

Amen, amen, amen, LifeGiver!

You are so right… and I can now say that I totally agree about being a Light and shining for our families to see. Walking in forgiveness, walking in joy, walking in the favor of the Lord…. and praying.

I'm surprised you didn't discern the bitterness inside me, because I do feel it was there…. and deep anger that I didn't know was there at the time, but has surfaced … but it's like it's just so much better to be FREE! It's like my head came off and I'm just living from my heart now! Some friends in deliverance ministry discern demonic in me, and I know it was there… but they just didn't understand that all I needed was LOVE! I needed a safe place to unload the pain, and when the pain came out so would all the demonic whatevers.

I want to run outside in the rain and shout "GRACE!" Amazing grace!

A big, long hug to you, LifeGiver…. for that is truly what you are!

Lifegiver: Hi KingsBride!!!  To be completely honest with you…NO I DID NOT SENSE ANGER OR BITTERNESS…NOT IN THE LEAST…What I did sense was Great disappointment, despair, and loneliness…Your spirit is gentle and meek and I dont agree with those who said you had a demon of some kind…You did not have the demonic spirits, your husband did/does………

Before my journey of last year, I didnt know that I was allowed to be angry, I mean REALLY ANGRY!!!…It was not a fruit of the spirit so I resisted it and stuffed it!!!I was told that I could have a two minute pity party and that was it…Then I had to get over it, whatever it might have been, but instead, I was to repent, forgive, release, bless, turn the other cheek, hand my husband my other cloke, love unconditionally and submit.

Your question about whether we are on the other side or not…I think in some way, YES, BECA– USE I WILL NEVER EVER EVER GO BACK TO THE OLD ABUSIVE MARRIAGE…But revelation and life is progressive, So I hope that I will always be pressing to get over to the higher side in every journey I take…Thats what I love about how God made us, In His Image but with a FREE WILL!!I want to continue to choose to continually and progressively become more and more like HIM!!!Thats my goal and I know its yours too, you beautiful handmaiden of the Lord…

Praying that you will see the rainbow in the rain today!!!

In His Love,
life giver

Wow, LifeGiver! You speak powerful truth…

I just read in a single day "Divorce: God's Will?" And in that book much of what you just said was written!!!

As a result of reading this book I have taken off my wedding ring, for I have come to realize my marriage was broken from Day 1.

R was married to another woman when we married. And that woman was married to her previous husband when she married R. At one point, there were 4 of us in that union – a trap, a demonic union. I married R thinking he was free.

Her marriage to R was granted on the day after R's 9th surgical procedure, the electronic stimulator implant. I felt I couldn't leave him… he needed me more as a nurse than a wife. His children had bonded with me… I loved them as my own. We were on the other side of the country, so far from home.

What a mixed up, messed up, filthy thing I now see it as! A horrible beginning, and one we never received any rest/healing from. Yet, very godly people praise us for hanging in together…. even saying our union was God-appointed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And these people were in a healing and inner deliverance ministry!!!!!!!!!!! And they knew the whole entire story….And our pastors in California pronounced us man and wife, even knowing R's divorce was not final!!!!!

A major international ministry adopted us… even knowing our full story!!!! And put us in charge of 9 states and made us teachers and preachers! What a setup. 

And then I got sick… no wonder! Almost died.

R got mad because my sickness (hemorraging 24/7 for 7 months, loss of a tremendous amount of blood, resulting in iron deficiency, fatigue, barely able to get around, etc)… his mother got angry with me… wanted me to get a hysterectomy. No health insurance.

I just knew it was from stress and the remedy was LOVE and time to heal in our marriage. I asked R to pray for me…. he would every once in awhile, but most of the time he wouldn't. He told me he would pray on his own… but I needed to FEEL his touch, to hear his words of prayer. But he couldn't take the time, not even 5-minutes a day.

Other women got what I needed – his touch, his affection, his gentle side

Stopping to rest is not in R's vocabulary….. so he shut down his heart, he tells me.

That was 3 years ago. 1 year ago he entered full-time ministry and expected me to support him, stand by him… but I was too weary. when he wouldn't listen and increased his pace to nearly 15-19 hours a day, I spoke up… he wouldn't listen… he got angry… so I went to close friends and opened up to my pastor… he got angrier and angrier… I discovered this marriage ministry and basically told him, "It's the intensive or we're lost!" So we got to the intensive and you know the story from there.

So I removed my wedding ring today. I put another ring there so it doesn't feel so empty. I want to see how it feels… if it's a peaceful thing or not.

What I have learned is that we can miss our destiny, we can even perish spiritually if we are in an abusive marriage for too long, without boundaries. I had no idea how close I was to dying both physically and spiritually.

All I ever wanted was GOD!!! I wanted my children to burn with Holy Love…. I tried to pray as a family, tried to serve, tried to speak up for justice…. but thrwarted in every way, every time.

My husband would say to me (1st husband of 20-years), "Sue, you haven't done anything wrong. There's just something inside me that wants to kill you. But don't worry, I've got it under control."

He didn't really have it under control, I don't think… and all his homosexual relationships, heterosexual relationships, porn, and ungodly business and financial practices… I knew in my gut was hurting our whole family… I used to pray and ask God to separate us, because I was taught divorce was wrong… married till death do us part. So I even hoped and prayed for Death!!!! Oh God!

I waited way too long! I went right from the frying pan into the fire… because R was there to "save" me, having been a close friend and almost a member of our family for a couple years. He was the only one who stood by my side when the church officially excommunicated and shunned me.

And the church supported our dysfunction! And still does!!!!!!! I speak up and certain pastors will not listen to me… R hides behind them!

I love the church…. I always have…. but God, please help me to go public, to speak about these things so many will hear and know.

God cares for the widows and the fatherless… a widow, I learned today, is also a divorced woman… or a woman whose husband has deserted her.

I'm just venting…. I'm okay…. but the church wants us to suck something like that up and hold it in? I want to regurgitate! Make a wife a prisoner, saying "Marriage is for life." Don't let her talk. Make sure she keeps quiet. If she talks, discredit her. If she persists, shun her… excommunicate her. Tell everyone she's dangerous.

PureinHeart: King's Bride, I too want to reiterate what Life Giver has spoken to you by His Spirit. You were not bitter but broken-hearted over being unloved. You were lashed by storms and not comforted and every woman will have an emotional response to this kind of treachery and abuse being done to her. Many Christians may be well-meaning but so often in their lack of knowledge end up saying very hurtful and even causing more damage. Unknowingly, they have spoken a word curse over you, that gratefully can not stay as it has no cause and has no basis in Scriptural truth.

The truth is, that it was the denial of your anger and pain and pushing it deep within that created your struggle. When a woman is responding to abuse, this is what her tendency is.

Since she has no voice at all to express herself and no one who will believe her, she turns her anger that (righteously belongs to her abuser) onto herself.

In an effort to survive her heartache she blames herself and lives under the tyranny of self-hatred and loathing. What you probably felt was a sense of hopelessness so overwhelming in its severity and length of time that your heart went numb.

Going numb can be a good thing for your sanity and survival.  Shutting down toward abuse is right. We mistake a numbness for coldness of heart and you were not cold and heartless. God saw your faith mixed with tears and He was faithful to bring to bring you here to get you the comfort, love and encouragement you needed to gain strength.  

Sometimes shutting down inside is all a woman can do, as she has no one speaking truth to her and supporting her. Bitterness and hardness of heart only comes when we refuse any longer the room for God to move upon our husbands and will not give them mercy and grace when they genuinely repent.

Your anger was only unresolved because you had no truth to fight against it. Every time you came up for air, your husband pushed you back down. God is NOT blaming you for being spiritually abused. You never refused to go there with God and He is in awe of you, His daughter.

Yes, like me your mercy was out of balance. Bitterness, NO!! I know this because your heart and actions were not those of a woman who did not believe in the grace and kindness of God. You have given your husband every conceivable chance to repent and turn again to God. You stood up to him and demanded that his words and ministry live up to the plumb-line of God's Word. You only asked of him what His Word has asked of him concerning being a Christ-like husband and man. God does expect our profession of faith to line up with His heart and character. God expects men to have a love that represents Him in the Earth.

Yes, men may fool many people a lot of the time but they can not fool God. You have even gone so far as to expose his folly and still he continues on it because he would not receive correction. I only pray that for the sake of his eternal soul that God leads him to a true contrition and brokenness.

You are a daughter of God who has represented HIS heart honorably. You are adorned with His majesty and splendor because He chose you. You have been redeemed and ransomed from your place of captivity and will never be the same again. Many will come to His splendor because of you. Many will say, I too was held prisoner but He rescued me because He loves me. It will be because YOU loved them into the truth of recognizing their value and worth before the Father and the priceless gift Jesus gave them.

Kimberly