Preventing Domestic Violence Part A
/After years of offering marital counseling to Christian couples, it has become apparent to me that many people don't understand what marriage is—they have the wrong foundation. So many women marry the wrong man for the wrong reasons: age, finances, fairytale weddings, and so on. So many people proceed with the marriage despite domestic violence during the courtship period.
I recall one beautiful woman, a financially independent professional in her early 30s, who told me she couldn't call off the wedding with her abusive, cheating fiancé because their fairytale destination wedding was already booked. She said she was a Christian, but she didn't even know what God said about marriage. Her definition of love was what looked cute, and her man was a very attractive man. On digging further, I learned she started dating him as his “side chick,” when he was engaged to be married to one of the ladies in her church. He eventually decided to dump the other lady for her. Even without bringing Christianity into this, this was a man who clearly lacked character! But she was willing to proceed with the wedding, and needless to say, it was less than a year after the wedding she ended up back in my office with a broken nose. The first exercise I did was ask her to define love. This was a very challenging task, as her definition was limited to what she’d observed at home as a child. Her father had cheated on her mother many times, resulting in two other children out of wedlock, and her mother endured severe domestic and verbal abuse. This had become my patient’s norm as an adult. It took a lot of work to help her redefine love the way God ordained it to be, but we eventually succeeded.
Would you believe me if I told you many marriages are loveless? I was shocked at this discovery! What many people celebrate and call love is not true, unconditional love that can stand the test of time, as God intended for marriages. What many celebrate is romantic love, which is sensual and conditional but not strong enough to withstand the challenges of marriage. What we ought to seek out in our life partners is agape love—God’s kind of love. Agape love is much more resistant to the challenges of life.
How does this apply to domestic violence, you might ask? The Bible tells us that men ought to love their wives like their own body. If they do that, they will not hit or destroy their wives.
So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. Ephesians 5-28-30
Love means different things to different people. It is expressed differently in different cultures, and many times what one partner defines as love is different from what the other person expects. Most people define love as they experienced it while growing up, so if they grew up in an abusive home, where the father bullied and abused the mother, they will probably expect the same in their marriage.
To avoid repeating this cycle of abuse, people must make a conscious choice and undergo a mind transformation through Bible study. This is also true in other unhealthy environments, such as if the mother was very manipulative and spent all the family’s money on herself. Or if material love was the only kind shown, that will become an adult’s yardstick and language of love.