When women are abused by the person who promised to love, cherish, care and provide for them, there will never be justice for that wife in this life. Even if their husband makes a complete turnaround. The sexual betrayal, the multiple targeted abusive actions©, and the damage also inflicted on other relationships make this a horrible weight to carry throughout your life.
If you’ve been wrestling with these thoughts, the following post may provide a few things to consider as you try to determine how to resolve what is unsettled and what needs action.
This is a post that cannot be managed without looking to the lawgiver as well as the laws. An attempt will be made to speak to ethics, morals, and justice as carefully as possible.
Let’s start with a few concepts
Retributive Justice
The focus of retributive justice is to assign consequences to the offender for harm caused once guilt has been established. In this situation, there is knowledge of what law was broken and who broke the law. In most cases, there is an established understanding and social agreement of the consequences.
When there has been “Targeted Partner Abuse©,” likely there have been excessive lies told, people who hold the victim equally to blame, and many misinterpreted assessments due to the lack of willingness by the bystanders and those who collude with the abuser to understand the real dynamics of men who use “targeted partner abuse©” on their wife.
Retributive justice is an understandable need when abuse has been ongoing and executed by one who should have provided the greatest safety.
Restorative Justice
The objective within this construct is not only is there an obligation to repair the harm done, but there is also the hope of rebuilding relationships between the victim and offender. There is communication between the parties and there is agreement that harm will be attended to and that there will not be a repeat offense.
One might conclude this is the approach churches attempt to achieve. The bigger problem is that this approach brings additional harm to the victim. In these social conditions, the wife is often not believed, or if she is to any degree, there is a weighted burden placed on her to forgive, forget, and be a more submissive wife to avoid upsetting her husband. or more often. (*This makes me want to throw up just to write it out.)
God’s Justice
In God’s economy, not all courts will be held in real time, here in mortality.
Matthew 5: 44-46 (KJV) states,
“But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the even and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not the publicans the same?”
God’s justice will always be restorative, though many of us at this point in our human journey may find it difficult to make sense of this process. As Isaiah taught, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord” (KJV).
In the meantime, while you are working hard to make sense of the life you are living, do the best you can to trust the learning journey that you are on. God will not give up on those working to have a right heart even in the most difficult of life experiences. He does not pressure us in the process. Many in our faith communities may push you to forgive, forget, and move on – that is pressure for someone else. It is not the way God works with us.
Control and Autonomy
When someone causes harm to another person, blame is one of the first assessments made. At times, some of that blame is even turned upon God. This way of thinking holds expectations of protection from misfortune if we are followers or believers.
Human beings hold a deeply held set of what we term “entitlements,” as though rights have been granted to some above others. This caste-centered thinking has been a part of our human economy for generations.
As noted above, God does not hold to this lower set of standards. Laws given by God do not place conditions upon these laws. There is no stated language of except or unless to separate accountability. Governments hold no freedoms above the people.
Though laws have been expressly stated, God does not live our lives as a controlling puppet master. He has given us agentic authority over our learning and our decision-making. It is up to each individual to learn to appropriately discharge the stewardship of agency and not to act against the will and well-being of others.
The Deep Hurt of Intimate Treason
When you commit your heart and life to another human being, it is the furthest idea from your mind that you will experience some of the most treasonous and abusive actions from the man to whom you made those commitments.
Marriage will be full of ups and downs. You’ll experience challenges big and small. We all know that going in. What we do not expect is for there to be lies, cheating, secret-keeping – especially around their sexual practices. We do not anticipate there will be gaslighting, and history revising that destroys our ability to figure out what is real and what isn’t. We never think for a moment that our husband will attempt to destroy relationships with our children, family, friends, or our faith community.
All of this happens – and so much more.
“There is no Magic Eraser for Abuse” – Coach Joi
Gentlemen – No matter how much therapy you do. No matter how many so-called “recovery” programs you engage in (including the infamous and unhelpful SA 12-Step group). No matter how often you say you are sorry or that you will do whatever it takes. Nothing will erase the past or the ongoing hurt of your abuse – regardless of the kind or duration.
Your behaviors cannot be whitewashed from the record. In marriage – nothing is expunged from the story you helped to write.
Let me repeat that – “Nothing you do will be expunged from the marital record. Please consider every word and every action as though it is set in stone” Coach Joi
This does not mean that there is no hope for the future. What it means is that words and actions have a memory. Listen carefully – memory is not the same as grudge or resentment. Read that again. In fact, read it as many times as you need to have it sink in deeply. You hurt your wife in a way no other human being can hurt her. If you think lame apologies, or a few years of attempting to halfway control your mouth and maybe even stop all the sexual secret behavior, will make it all go away and you can get back to normal. It will not!
If you do not have a soul deep, heart deep change, including a full accounting of how you have wronged your wife. If you do not intend to spend the rest of your life living in an amended state – a wholehearted change – any forward trajectory will be difficult to achieve, if at all.
Normal is Dependent on How Well You Change
Normal is Dependent on How Well You ChangeHere’s another Coach Joi quote, “There will be no return to normal. There may be an opportunity for you to show your wife true remorse and appropriate sorrow for what you did to her. Those conditions are not demands you can place on her. There is no unlimited use of her willingness to wait and see. If you do not learn how to live in amends – you will use up the limited grace a human can offer. Your wife is not Christ. She is not required to forgive and forget. If you intend to return to your abhorrent and egregious actions as soon as she’s pacified and distracted – do everyone a favor and find a way to excuse yourself as honorably as you can” (2018).
Living in Amends© Does not Equal Retributive Justice
The practice of “Living in Amends©” is to change your character and nature from a man of abuse to a man of peace. Every inappropriate, unkind, thoughtless thought, word, and action requires constant monitoring and correction.
This practice is the normal practice of every human being who makes value decisions daily as they interact with others in society.
You will never earn a gold star for being a decent human being. An expectation for attaboys or recognition for being a decent human being indicates your pro-social bar is too low. Back up a few paragraphs to the quote above and re-read that a few times for clarity.
Gentlemen, you were never confused about your obligations as a husband. If you have received the privilege of being a father, that stewardship should never be abdicated — not to your wife, the educational or religious system, or anyone else.
You committed to your wife to parent alongside her to raise children in a safe and healthy environment. Your abuse has and will continue to cause untold harm to those who lived in the home, regardless of what they know or do not know about your secret sexual practices.
Life is not Fair – Change is Possible
There will be as many life variations as individuals living on this planet. This life is an ongoing lesson in the law of opposition. Many families will have deeply painful experiences, while others seem to escape difficult challenges.
If part of your adversity is to wrestle with the unfairness of an unfaithful husband, change is possible, but it is a choice only he can make. Some men will not choose to live as loving, kind husbands. If you are trying to wrestle with decisions about change and fairness, please join us at Center for Peace.