When Boundaries & Sharing Harm / Abuse Backfire: Why We Lose Belonging

This Stuff would Never Happen to Me

Seems like both yesterday and a lifetime ago that I was a "normal" person. A wife, homeschool Mom, part-time Registered Nurse, and an active church participant. I wanted to love God, love my family, and love others.

What was also normal (no, what I even deemed "good") was my striving-for-perfect performance, my ability to make others happy with me, and how I could navigate whatever system(s) I was in (school, church, relationships) to be successful and accepted.

My loyalties were deep and fierce, and I considered those who walked away from our church or their marriage as troublemakers, unteachable, or disobedient to the "God-given order and authority" as I understood it (I was not as loving as I thought).

I mean, how hard is it to walk the straight and narrow? I'd been doing it married over a decade and following the Lord for years prior to that, and was still barely pushing 30.

I had it figured out. I was doing it right. I was fitting in...

I was wrong.

The Undoing

Within a matter of years, the neatly wrapped yarn ball of my life was completely unwound into a knotted pile of chaos on the floor... No longer perfect, no longer pleasing, and no longer acceptable.

The reality, of course, is that it never had been. My husband and I were fundamentally flawed from the outset; it's just that we had been able to control it (somewhat) and hide it (mostly).

An addiction of my husband's resurfaced and escalated after years of sobriety, and something inside of him began to shift as he became an entirely different person about it. Instead of humility and repentance, there were lies, minimizing of the destruction that was resulting, and anger. Lots of anger.

Meanwhile, I was starting to awaken to the fact that boundaries not only were a real thing, but were actually a good thing, for both of us.

In all the years of battling the addiction in our marriage, including when it nearly ended a couple years in, I was told repeatedly I didn't have grounds for separation/divorce/other limitations, that I was overreacting, and that I needed to submit. As things escalated this time, I felt completely trapped, without say over the sanctity of my marriage, or even over control of my own body. Despite the increasingly alarming behaviors, including abuse of multiple kinds, those exhortations from church leadership didn't change.

In despair, I became suicidal, and when those cries were still not heard, with the support of my own counselor and support groups, I began to set and keep my own boundaries- a place I could honor God (and actually live) in.

The Result

I expected that boundaries would increase safety and stability in my life. In the grand scheme of things, they did, but I could never imagine the opposition that followed, both in my marriage and even from the faith community. Also, those that caught wind or glimpses of major concerns did not reach out or follow up, but turned blind eyes and deaf ears. Life began to spiral out of control.

At home, the anger grew. I was repeatedly called a feminist, told that I was in sin, cornered for periods of time and told to admit I was in sin, and promise to obey (I did not). Once, in a rage he drove 115 mph on the interstate until I would play a Bible verse on repeat that he felt was telling me to comply with his view.

Despite the fact that his own addiction was raging out of control, I was told that I was "running into the arms of another man" if I asked any for help; I was not allowed to talk with our pastor or marriage counselor (both of whom were male) without my husband's supervision/knowledge. When things were so scary that I did reach out to them privately, they cooperated with his request to be notified, despite their knowledge of the repercussions I would suffer because of it (the anger responses, having my financial allowance taken, and more).

I felt so trapped and unsafe; life truly felt "crazy making." Our pastor had decided to agree with his objections to my boundaries, and I was told to submit to my husband, even as he ripped up books on boundaries and my women's betrayal group journal.

He was more resistant to getting help than I had ever seen, isolating from people, and had so much anger and blame toward me that it was becoming more frightening. He was also in a tremendous amount of internal pain. Still, there were a limited number of people who knew the details of our lives; he was able to appear his normal self to most of the world.

He had never been this person. It was scary and disorienting.

A bomb went off, impacting the entire rest of our lives, when my late husband died by suicide in an impulsive move after I talked with him about the necessity of him getting help and responding to my need for boundaries.

Afterward in the church, I was removed from leading worship without cause, choices I made were questioned, and my attempts through various meetings to share my hurt and ask questions were not met with repentance or gentleness. I was simply told how it was going to go.

After enough meetings saying things like, "Why is my life under a microscope because Andre died by suicide?" and attempting to work through these issues, it was clear there was going to be no change. I realized I was still trying to have a voice where I had none... including in my own life and the expression of my faith.

Leaving that church (and the support we needed in a critical time) was both devastating and necessary. Later, when Hope Speaker was born, I attempted to discuss some of what happened in person with individuals who didn't know the details (before doing so more publicly). I was horrified at the refusals to meet/talk, the corrections, warnings, and excuses for the abuse and harm... however "spiritualized" they were. It was the same I had experienced before.

It is so hard to finally speak the plain truth about what I have been through. Moving into a calling, a business, a ministry that involves sharing the depths of my own darkness and pain to reach others in theirs has been costly. But it has been an opportunity for deeper learning and healing.

What It All Means

The point of sharing my story is not that I was wronged. The issue is this continues, right now, to many- particularly to women. I have learned of it more and more, especially as I have opened up about my experience.

What keeps many from sharing the harm done to them? From expecting a healthy response (which is genuine acknowledgment and repentance) from others, particularly those who have some power / authority? From drawing boundaries that keep them in a God-honoring, limit-honoring, human place?

It is often that they fear they will lose belonging. The saddest part is that they often will.

My story is just one picture of how this can happen, even in places we spend decades, with people we believed to be as family to us.

Somehow, victims and those wounded become blamed/held responsible, fully or partially, for the harm that has been done to them... This can be done by the ones hurting them, those who are complicit in the cycle, as well as those on the outside speaking into it.

The patterns continue, the voiceless and powerless remain there. God is dishonored. The church, and the world, loses out.

What needs to change?

Here's a few things that are NOT working:

• Distancing ourselves from the mess of "those people"

• Choosing to ignore when we hear/see harm

• Dismissing people's expression of their limits or boundaries

• Expecting one spouse to "keep the marriage together," especially when they are not the one breaking it

• Using the Bible to put structures like marriage and church before the well-being of the people in them

• How the Bible is used to disempower, rather than empower, women

By doing these, we will never be able to able to:

1) See that it could happen to us, or see it when it's happening to others

2) Believe others when they share

3) Discern the situation clearly with all people considered equal

4) Support survivors, and help them get out

5) Hold those doing the harm/abuse accountable

6) Make relationships safe places to be known, particularly in the struggles

7) Have marriages, families, and churches that reflect God

8) Help a large population of the body of Christ (women) walk in their calling: living in the Holy Spirit and sharing the gospel

We lose belonging when systems, order, and authority are valued more highly than the humanity of individuals made in the image of God. Even though the pain may "wake up" some to realize that place is not where they want to belong, the wrongs are still wrong... and they come at a high price. Connection and trust are lost, not only in people, in the church, but in the Lord Himself.

This is my honest cry. We can, we must, do better. God gives us what we need to do so.

With you,

 Rachel

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