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What Should This Abused Separated Mother Do?

steakandexodus

steakandexodus

New Member
My wife, Mrs. Izzy, has been building a best friendship with a young (23) mother for some time now. We will call her Rose. We care very deeply for her and would like some advice on ways we can counsel her in her current circumstances. My wife gathered all of this info and shared this with me seeking advice. I thought this would be a great place to seek help. Here is her story.

Rose is a thoughtful, straightforward Christian. She is currently married, 2 years in, and has a 1 year old boy. She is a stay at home mom. Her marriage…sadly doesn’t look too well. Her husband, let’s call him Bill, has been abusing her for some time now. Bill has his own story…but it is not mine to tell, nor germane to this story. Rose has been neglected and abandoned for pretty much the entirety of her marriage up to this point. He would spend all of their money on frivolous things for himself and run out of money for food, bills, and rent. A big problem is that he makes himself unnecessarily busy; so busy he really spends close to no time with Rose or their child. It has been recently discovered that he has been paying for prostitutes regularly throughout their whole marriage and is on drugs. He has been exhorted and given every opportunity to repent for his wickedness, but to no avail. Last week during a normal argument about his neglect for his family’s needs he slammed Rose to the ground next to their child, mounted her, and smacked her in the face lightly while smiling (come to find out he was restraining himself from doing what he wanted and really lay into her). He then proceeded to grab his gun and held it up to his head and threatened to take his own life in front of his wife and child. The next day he willingly went to stay somewhere else for a predetermined month for Rose to figure out what to do about all of this. Bill isn't showing signs of regret and has recently escalated things and doesn't want anything to do with Rose or their child. He also admits to not actually being a Christian.

How should Rose handle Bill’s behavior? Anyone reading this that may have wisdom to offer, please contribute in any way you can. If you need more details on anything I am fine offering what I know as needed.
 
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Re: What Should This Abused, Separated Mother Do?

Here's my read of it:

They have a close bond despite their troubles. Bill cares; he's not apathetic.

Bill needs to understand himself better. His actions are symptoms of something deeper going on. He's in pain and needs to find out what these compulsions are telling him. Simply trying to suppress these urges and hope they go away won't work.

Positive attitude will help. Bill has a lot going for him: He has initiative and drive. He's able to empathize. He has a wife and son whom he wishes to provide for and around whom he can focus his efforts.

He may have issues around self-worth arising from early in his life, and he may be purchasing things as an effort to tune out this pain. If so, then some time spent examining these issues and mindfully allowing whatever feelings come up will be necessary.

Bill may need to make some structural changes — how he spends his time, the kind of job he works at, the people he chooses as friends — in order to improve his focus, but he should not view these as substitutes for the personal work described above.

Hoping this helps!

Edit: I went with certain assumptions in writing the above — this is the Internet, after all — and I trust that OP will know which parts to apply (if any) and which to ignore.
 
I have a completely different take than Mystic. Simply because I have dealt with someone exactly like this myself.

He is being controlling. It all comes back to that. No money = control. No time = control. No intimacy = control. Hitting, knocking her down, being on top = control. Threatening to kill himself, oh please you know where this is going. He is not now, or ever, going to kill himself, trust me on that. He knocks her down, yells at her, hits her, then makes HER feel guilty and sorry for him by threatening to kill himself. It doesn't get much more controlling and manipulative than that.

But it all goes deeper than this. The issue is demonic. Until he sees the demons, turns to YHWH, confesses his sins, AND is willing to get rid of the demons, there is nothing that anyone can do that will help. Oh he will listen to you, and he will say that he will change and maybe even tell you the changes he will put in place. This will last a month, maximum. Then when he goes back again it will probably be worse.

We can go into reasons why he's doing what he's doing. We can talk about his low self esteem and his childhood and whatever you want, but addressing those, even with him, will not stop the behaviour.

I also don't agree with divorce in this situation. Separation, yes, definitely. I think if he was living with her then the violence is only going to get worse over time, so this is not an option. But he is able to be helped, and this situation can be fixed. it just involves more than time out and talking about it. He needs the big guns. He needs YHWH.
 
I suggest you cease your efforts immediately and disengage from this couple.

First, you are WAY too young to have the perspective or experience to deal with what you've described.

Second, you don't know these people, you only know what you've been told. Either or both of them could be NPD/BPD crazy and you'd never know until it was too late (if ever), because you don't really know them. Even if you were family and had known one of them for all your life and known the other since before the marriage, see point #1.

Third, you're white-knighting in another man's relationship and no matter how much you feel like you could help or want to help, you are the INTRUDER and you are taking the WIFE's side in this. See points #1 and #2.

Fourth, if Rose is is attractive, bail out now. If she's better looking than your wife, RUN. No matter what happens, you will have ZERO credible witness in this, especially given your age and stated desire to find another wife.

I repeat, you are meddling in another man's marriage without authority and you're taking his wife's side. You are young, you don't really know them and there is the possibility you have ulterior motives you don't even recognize. Wisdom says don't walk away, RUN.

Please understand that I speak from experience when I say well-meaning guys like you get hurt in situations like this; as is beaten, stabbed or shot, because you are interfering in a relationship you are not part of. Ask any experienced cop and they'll say the same thing only more emphatically.
 
I thoroughly agree with everything Sarah and Eristophanes said.

When people learn about polygyny, a very common temptation Satan places in front of them is the "young, abused wife who needs support". Such women come to you as a married couple to discuss their marriage, feeling that you are "safe", since you're married already, and won't be trying to take her yourself - she wouldn't discuss this with a single man, only a married one. Then you teach her what the Bible teaches about marriage in order to "help" her. Polygyny obviously comes up. Now, suddenly she realises you're available. By this point you've talked so much she's developed an emotional attachment to you. You decide you have to rescue her out of the situation by taking her into your home, temporarily - and pretty soon she's your wife. Except she's not, because her husband never Biblically divorced her, so you're actually living in adultery but trying to justify it scripturally.

You may feel this would never happen. Let me assure you that it can. It has happened to too many men in the Christian polygyny movement already. It's very common. In fact, just within the last year, I can think of one situation directly lining up with this involving a man who had been highly respected in this community, and a second situation with similarities to it. Then if you go way back in history, you also find that some of the founders of Mormonism had this exact situation with some of their wives, around 150 years ago. There are many more examples in the intervening period also. Satan's been doing this for an extremely long time, and he's extremely well practised. We've seen it all before.

Satan knows exactly how to trap us. He has very well-refined traps that he uses. And this is one of the most effective. You've described a carefully laid trap, the plans of which we've seen before so it is instantly recognisable. And you need to run.

This woman does have genuine problems in her marriage. But you are NOT the person to help solve them. She's trying to heal a monogamous marriage. She can receive advice on fixing a monogamous marriage from any Christian counsellor, it does not have to be someone in your situation where you could be tempted to go further than that. And you may have no intention of doing that, but Satan is a cunning devil...

She needs to talk to women who have been through situations like she has. She also needs to learn about spiritual warfare. The best way you can help her is to find whatever local women's ministry has a strong set of Godly women who would be able to both advise her and combat the demonic influence in her family through prayer, push her in their direction, then run - or even better, get your wife to do this investigation and the pushing, so you can start running today.
 
I'm not coming from a married persons perspective, but i do have experience with abusive relationships from both sides and as a volunteer for shelters.

I agree whole heartedly with Eristhophanes and a few of the other comments. For one, you don't know if your getting the whole story. If your only hearing her side then i'm sure it's thru her rose colored glasses. Secondly, you probably don't know their background...is there mental illness, documented abuse, previous police involvement? Also, how do you know he "refuses to fulfill her intimately"? I'm curious how that would come up? Unless she told your wife in private? That to me is a red flag that maybe there is too much disclosing going on possibly. How enraged would that make the husband if he knew what she was telling you? I would really not repeat anything to him that she has told you...it could put her in danger possibly.

If (big if, we don't know for sure) the husband is violent and has threatened to use a gun before...you could be putting yourself and your family in danger of serious harm if he infers your trespassing and taking the wifes side. If they ask for help i would direct them to seek professional counseling and if you feel she is in dire danger...involve the police so they can contact a abused womens shelter for her. I wouldn't get involved in this any further and disengage.
 
You have been given some wise counsel here brother. The only things I would add are that under no circumstances will this woman be eligible for marriage, she probably wasn't even eligible go marry this guy, and you risk falling into some very serious sin by messing around in this "marriage".

And let's not forget that this young woman married this guy willingly. She chose this. Now there's almost no way this end well for Rose and Bill or their son. The cure is almost worse than the disease. She can pursue a separation and be celibate but you have already admitted she is pursuing male attention outside her marriage.

Get out while the getting is good. This train has to go through all of the stations on its way to the wreck and all you can do is get out of the way or get run over.
 
To start, I’d like to say that there has been some valuable and thought provoking insight. This is some very heavy counsel! To be honest I had to take a lot of time today to step back and really meditate and pray about what everyone is saying. You scoundrels even drove me to stick my nose in my bible all day! Haha! Though I feel that there may be some misunderstandings, likely due the fact that I didn't communicate as much or as well as I could have, I truly am taking everything into consideration regardless. I know all of you can only work with what I give you, but I think some assumptions have been made that I’ll need to try to clear up. Misunderstandings or not, I look forward to digging deeper into all the counsel that has been shared with me here. Unfortunately I won't have the time to do that just yet. Partly because this has been mostly a venture of Mrs. Izzy's and not myself, so I think I should discuss some of this with her as well before outright ruining their friendship. I don't want you lovely, caring folks worrying too much until I'm back, so I hope you believe me when I say that I have been going a snail's pace and have proceeded up to this point with much caution. I don't believe anything is about to erupt quite yet! Seriously though, please be in prayer for me as I seek after God's heart on how to handle this. In the meantime, if anyone has some scriptures that I can meditate on that you believe has much to say on this matter, please do share.
 
Just wanted to put my 2 cents in from my experience. You are in the same place I was about 3 years ago. This is my story woman divorced her husband I married her have lived a poly lifestyle for about two years. Now because this came too fast for my first wife of 28 years she is ready to leave me and I'm facing a spilt up family of 4 children. Don't do like I did take heed to what these people are saying. Slowing down means years not days.
I'm telling you this out of love not judgment.
 
Misunderstandings are always present in online discussions, the key is to ponder responses carefully and take whatever is applicable on-board, discarding the misguided bits only after careful consideration and without becoming offended by them. And you're already doing that, which is awesome! And refreshingly different to how I've seen people respond to this sort of feedback in the past...
Will keep you in prayer.
 
I too will add experience. Mine with a neighbor, abusive ,drugs alcohol and children. After me and my family got involved advising there was no reason left to stay. She herself fell into drugs after the divorce and Rumours began that I had slept with her.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
 
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