Hey Tabi!

The Ultimate Truth About Emotional Abuse in Christian Marriage (Every Survivor Needs to Hear This)

• Tabitha • Season 2 • Episode 25

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Is emotional abuse being hidden behind Christian language like submission and forgiveness?

In this episode of Hey Tabi, trauma therapist Tabitha Westbrook sits down with bestselling author Leslie Vernick to expose the truth about emotional abuse in Christian marriage, and why so many survivors are told to stay silent and endure harm.

If you’ve ever wondered:

  • Is my marriage emotionally abusive?
  • Does God want me to stay in an abusive marriage?
  • Am I being abused or just “too sensitive”?

This conversation offers clarity, validation, and biblical truth without shame.

You’ll learn how to recognize emotionally destructive patterns, understand why submission without choice becomes oppression, and begin trusting your instincts again.

Resources:

Leslie Vernick - https://leslievernick.com/

The Emotionally Destructive Relationship - https://amzn.to/3Kz7c6J

The Emotionally Destructive Marriage - https://amzn.to/4919P9E

Wanna say hi? Send a text!

At The Journey and The Process we strive to help you heal. Our therapists are trauma specialists who use evidence-based tools like EMDR, Brainspotting, Somatic Experiencing, and Internal Family Systems to help you heal - mind, soul, and body. Reach out today to start your healing journey. https://thejourneyandtheprocess.com/

 This book is for every Christian woman who has been harmed sexually, whether that happened in childhood, adulthood, or even within your coercive controlling marriage, and you're longing to feel safe in your body again. We talk about the hard stuff, shame, desire, faith, and even questions like, is this sin or is this trauma?

You don't have to untangle it alone. Body & Soul, Healed & Whole is for you. Get a copy here today - https://a.co/d/8Jo3Z4V

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🚨 Disclaimer: This podcast is not therapy and is intended for educational purposes only. If you're in crisis or need therapy, please reach out to a licensed mental health professional.

Need to know...

Tabitha Westbrook: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hey Tabi, the podcast where we talk about the hard things out loud with our actual lips. We'll cover all kinds of topics across the mental health spectrum, including how it intersects with the Christian faith. Nothing is off limits here, and we are not. Take two verses and call me in the morning.

I'm Tabitha Westbrook and I'm a licensed trauma therapist, but I'm not your trauma therapist. I'm an expert in domestic abuse and coercive control and how complex trauma impacts our health and wellbeing. Our focus here is knowledge and healing. Trauma doesn't have to eat your lunch forever. There is hope.

Now let's get going.

 Welcome to this week's. Hey, Tabi, and I have somebody here with me that I'm really excited about. First of all, she's a good friend and she's somebody that I deeply respect and admire and look up to, and I'm just so thankful that God let me know her. So we'll just start with that. But then I'll read her actual bio for you.

So this is Leslie Vernick. If you don't know who she is, I can't believe you don't know who she is. She's [00:01:00] amazing. But she's a former licensed clinical social worker who was in private practice for more than 40 years. She's a very popular speaker, author, and relationship coach, and Leslie is the author of seven books, which as an author just blows my mind, including the bestselling books, the Emotionally Destructive Relationship, and the Emotionally Destructive Marriage.

She's been featured as a guest on Focus on the Family Radio, family Life Today, new Life, radio and Television, and Moody Midday Connection. Leslie's taught on abuse in Cuba, Romania, Russia, the Philippines, Hungary, and Iraq. In 2013, she received the American Association of Christian Counselors Caregiver Award.

If you wanna know more about Leslie, you can go to leslie vernick.com and we are gonna have all of that linked in the show notes as well, so you can find her along with her books. And Leslie, welcome. It's so good to have you here. 

Leslie Vernick: Thank you. It's good to be here. 

Tabitha Westbrook: So we are gonna talk today about the bestselling books, the Emotionally Destructive Relationship, and the Emotionally [00:02:00] Destructive Marriage.

Tell me what made you write them, because they have been around a minute When I look at the landscape of what books have been where and for how long yours are at the top of the list. So how did we get there? 

Leslie Vernick: Well, it's interesting, Tabi, you know, obviously God, has a part to play. So there's a long winding road here.

So I was abused as a child. I went to college thinking I was going to be a. Parole officer helping delinquent children because that's what I was, you know, I got arrested for stealing as a kid. I, stole all of our Christmas presents when I was in eighth grade. I went downtown Chicago, was able to steal everything that I was going to give for Christmas.

So I thought as I became a Christian, my dad got custody of me when I was in high school, thank God, where I probably would be in jail, now or. Pregnant and a mess. But, so I went to school, in ninth grade, failed [00:03:00] algebra because I didn't really go to school in seventh and eighth grade. But, God got a hold of my heart and I began to really understand what it felt like to be loved, both in my dad's household as well as by God and the family of God.

I went to a really little church and, my youth pastor took me under his wing. He was in seminary. He was trying to learn how to counsel. I was his practice client. It was just hilarious and fun. And I would challenge him with things and he said, you know, I see a lot of leadership qualities in you. I had a pioneer girl leader who was like a mama to me. And she taught me about wisdom and dating and all of the above. 'cause I didn't have any boundaries. And so God was using all these people in my life to help me learn to trust, learn to feel safe. My new family, my new church. And so I thought I was gonna be this parole officer.

But when I went to school in college, I really began to see that God had given me a [00:04:00] story to use, and so I decided that I would be a counselor and I would try to help people grow and heal. But my first experience where God shifted that a bit was I was a social worker in a hospital, and the laws on child abuse had just changed.

So before 1974, nobody got arrested for child abuse. Nobody got caught for child abuse hospitals, had no idea what to do with child abuse. And in 19 74, 75, the laws began to change. And so I was hired as a social worker in a mid hospital in Michigan to help, social workers and nurses and doctors identify in the emergency room what might be abuse.

But I was in my little church in Michigan, and one Sunday the pastor said. We're having a Boys' Brigade sleepover, this weekend, and we need five more chaperones. Anybody wanna volunteer? And so three men in the church raised their hand, and afterwards I went up to the pastor, I said, are you gonna let these men sleep in a tent [00:05:00] with these little boys?

And he looked at me like I was crazy. And he said, of course. I, I asked for volunteers. I said. How do you know they're not pedophiles? And he laughed at me and said, Leslie, you're being ridiculous. You're paranoid from your childhood. These are Christian men. And he totally ignored me. And that's when God said, Hey, I need to stand up for the abused.

And so I began my work with abused children, both in the hospital and in the churches. I was pounding on church doors. You need guidelines, you need to check, you know, background checks. All of this above. They were thought I was crazy, crazy. And the only way it changed Tabi was that insurance companies started to get large lawsuits.

From parents whose children were being abused by people in the church and they were not vetted well. And so insurance companies said, Hey, we're not gonna cover you unless you have a vetting process. So it was sad. It wasn't the [00:06:00] children's welfare that they were concerned with. A big scandal. The Catholic church broke.

It was the money. That was being paid out, that motivated them to start putting some laws in place. And so my work at the beginning was working with children, working with adults who had been abused as children as I had been. How do we help them heal? How do we help them grow? But then God turned my attention to the mamas of those children, and I began to work with depressed women in my counseling practice over and over again.

I would see one common theme. These depressed women were in destructive marriages. And so I had done my own work with my own mother in the emotionally destructive relationship book. I talk about that, what does it look like to set boundaries. There was no Cloud and Townsend boundary book at that time, and so I really had to study the scriptures and I really had to do my homework on is it okay for me to forgive my mother but still not wanna see her?

Is it okay for me not to invite her to my wedding? Is it okay for me to say no, she's not allowed to babysit my kids [00:07:00] because I don't feel she's safe? Is that Christian enough? Can I do that and still forgive her and love her? Without seeing her, I didn't see my mom or even speak to her for 15 years. And so that was my work to do.

And I talked about that in the emotionally destructive relationship. But now I'm seeing women who are not talking about their childhood. They're talking about their current reality, and their husbands are being abusive. Their husbands are being oppressive. And I remember one woman telling me that every night her husband would demand all kinds of kinky sex and she would have to drink like, I don't know how much, but enough vodka.

And take enough Xanax to be able to totally numb herself out. And I'm thinking, this can't possibly be God's will. 

Tabitha Westbrook: Definitely not. 

Leslie Vernick: And so God said, speak out. Speak out. And that's what I began doing. 

Tabitha Westbrook: Yeah. And. I know just because I've been around the church a long time, that wasn't [00:08:00] always popular. The speaking out, speaking out oftentimes, sadly, isn't popular, which is a bit of a bummer since God tells us to tell the truth.

But I remember. In the church that I was going to at the time, your books were forbidden reading. You are on our Do Not Read list, and part of my first act of Freedom and maybe rebellion was to go read them, like, what's so bad 

Leslie Vernick: about these books? Yeah. 

Tabitha Westbrook: I was like, I feel like they're very scriptural. I'm so confused.

So what was it like for you? 'cause the emotionally destructive relationship came out first and then the emotionally destructive marriage. So what was the pathway like for you releasing those books and having them out in the world? 

Leslie Vernick: Well, you know. If anyone chooses to read those books, you will find that I was really, really careful in both books, not to use any psychological language.

So I was trained. I had my degree from the University of Illinois. I was trained in a secular social work [00:09:00] position. And so the mantra at the time when I graduated was, you might have personal values, but they don't influence your counseling. And so not only did I work in the hospital at the child abuse section.

I also was targeted to work in the newly developed abortion section, and I haven't ever shared this story publicly, but I was the abortion counselor because doctors were now allowed to do abortions and they wanted to make sure that the woman who is getting the abortion was psychologically ready to do that.

'cause nobody had ever done that before, publicly. And so I was interviewing these girls. You know, between 15 and 30, you know, like wanting to get abortions. And I could understand totally why they wanted to have an abortion. They had been raped. They had been, you know, in a one night stand, they had been date raped.

They had been stupid. All of the above. I get it, I get it. But God told me that wasn't [00:10:00] my job. I needed to exit myself out of that job, to not facilitate that procedure, even though I had a lot of empathy for those women, and I really cared about it, but as I began to speak out about my own values and my own convictions, you know, if I spoke out things that were traditionally biblically, okay, like, oh, I can't do abortion counseling anymore.

I was patted on the back and said, oh, Leslie, you're so wise. But when I spoke out at my church about these men who volunteered. And another instance in my church where I worked in the nursery, everybody had to take a turn working in the nursery. When you work in a small church, everybody works in the nursery.

And there was this family that I just got the heebie-jeebies from. I just didn't like the man. He was an elder in our church. He was harsh. His wife was always very sullen. She always looked haggard, she always had her head down and I just knew in my spirit there was something really [00:11:00] wrong with his family.

And I didn't have the word. I mean, I was 25 years old. I didn't have the words, I didn't have the experience to understand domestic violence or what was going on in that family. But I remember talking to my husband about it and. My husband was an elder too, and he said, yeah, he loses his temper a lot on the elder board and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But nobody said anything to him. Nobody questioned his wife. Nobody dug deeper until his daughter finally said at school, my daddy is abusive. She didn't use those words, but she had bruises all over her back and her rear end and her legs, and so she was taken outta the home and it made me sorrowful that I never spoke out.

Not that I think my church would've done anything, but maybe they would've. Maybe they would've spoken to him. Maybe they would've talked to his wife. Maybe they would've had an intervention that would've prevented that child from losing her one good parent because she was removed to foster care and helped the wife to get stronger and deal with the husband.

But they didn't do that. And it, and it [00:12:00] just spoke to my heart that we need to do better as a church. We can do better. God put me on a path to begin to not stay silent. And sometimes it was heard and a lot of times it wasn't. 

Tabitha Westbrook: What was it like for you not being heard? Because I think, you know, we hear so much in the church about why say anything anyway, they're not gonna hear you.

And I know I don't take that tack, I'm gonna say the thing, but what kept you going when so much wasn't heard? 

Leslie Vernick: You know, God gave me a passage, and I don't have my Bible with me here, but it's an Ezekiel two, and he said, I'm sending you to, he said this to Ezekiel and he said it to me. I'm sending you to a stubborn and rebellious people, and whether they listen or do not listen, they will know that a prophet's been among them.

Now, I'm not the prophet, but it wasn't about whether they listen. That wasn't my job. My job wasn't to make them listen. My job was [00:13:00] to speak the truth in love. In the best way. I knew how and invite someone to listen. Whether it was my client who wasn't willing to listen. Hey, I don't think you're safe. I don't think taking vodka and Xanax is the best strategy to, to handle your husband's sexual needs.

I don't think that's gonna serve either one of you really well to speak the truth in love, whether they listen or they don't listen. Or when I had to go to my pastor and say, Hey, I am not comfortable with the advice you're giving women who are coming to me for counseling, that they have to suffer for Jesus and stay in this destructive relationship because that honors God more than a divorce would.

And so I just told myself. Almost like Esther, if I perish, I perish professionally. You know, when I wrote my book, the Emotionally Destructive Marriage I was close to, yeah, I think I was close to 60 at the time and I thought, you know, this is probably gonna kill my career.

At least the book will be out there because I actually said it might be better to get [00:14:00] divorced than to stay in a destructive marriage. God does not care more about the sanctity of marriage and the safety and the wellbeing of people in the marriage. And so, I thought, you know what? I'm probably gonna be done counseling.

No one's gonna see me anymore. All churches are gonna blackball me, but this is what I need to say. And I probably wouldn't have had the courage to say it at 40, but I did have the courage to say it at that time. 

Tabitha Westbrook: I think God also grows us into places. You know, there are messages that even if we're holding them at times, it's not the time for the message, right?

There's other messages, there's other things, and then when he's like, and now, now is it, now's the time. You know? I wonder if it's more to do with what's inside of us and also all the moving parts of the environment that we're in. Because when you were in your forties, it wouldn't maybe have been heard because of the landscape, because of the social landscape that we lived in.

But at 60, we were in a different [00:15:00] social landscape. That's a 20 year difference. 

Leslie Vernick: Yeah, you're right. Mm-hmm. 

Tabitha Westbrook: So do you think mm-hmm. 

Leslie Vernick: I do. And you know, it's, it wasn't just God who spoke to me. There were people who spoke to me. And I think this is really important when we're trying to discern, God's story for our lives.

God puts people in our lives to give us direction or take us off track and we have to learn to discern what those things are. But I remember having a coach and I had just finished the book, Lord, I just wanna be happy and I thought. I think I'll write a happy book about marriage, like what makes a good marriage and all of that kind of stuff.

'cause you know, writing books on destructive relationships is heart wrenching and hard. And so I thought, you know, I'll just write a good book about, you know, what makes a good marriage. And, my business coach at the time said, I don't think that's a good idea, Leslie. And I said, why? And he said, because first of all, you're a woman.

Women don't write marriage books alone. They have to write it with their husbands, or they won't be heard in the church community. Second of all, you'll never be invited to speak on this because [00:16:00] you don't speak with your husband. Not that my husband couldn't speak, but he's not a speaker. And so we're not a partner.

We're not a pastor partnership where a lot of couples go and speak at conferences. So you're never gonna be invited to speak. You will never be invited to speak on a pulpit because churches won't let you speak on a pulpit. So your book is gonna die, even if it's a great book. He said, I think you should write a book on destructive marriages because you just wrote this book two books ago on the destructive relationship and I think you need to follow up with marriage because you didn't go into detail on that marriage piece.

And that marriage piece is big. And that's where I really felt I got pregnant with a new book. You know what that feels like? And it was like, oh no, I've gotta write this book on marriage. So it was someone else in my life who actually challenged me to change directions. 

Tabitha Westbrook: Yeah. I think that's such an important piece and then to sit with it.

Right. You said you got pregnant with a book, like I know that feeling so well because of my own book and God being so clear that this is not gonna be a million book [00:17:00] bestseller, though I think it should be honestly. But it is a book that women need. It is a book that the church needs. It's a book that pastors need if they'll dare to pick it up.

And I feel very much about your book in the same way that, you know, I've heard so many stories of unlikely places it's ended up and how God has used it. One of my favorite stories is someone who has talked about, she saw it in an Amish store. It was just on the table of books, and she bought it and it changed everything for her. And it got her really thinking about what kind of marriage she had and she was able to get free from destruction. And I think like had you not written that book, this dear sister would still be oppressed. And there's a million stories like that. How is it for you, looking back on it now, but this is, we're talking more than a decade later.

How many years has it been now? It's a lot of years. 

Leslie Vernick: It's like, I think 12 years. 

Tabitha Westbrook: Yeah. What's it like for you looking at what God [00:18:00] has done with it in the last 12 years? 

Leslie Vernick: You know, I'm grateful. I'm grateful that I didn't get blackballed as much as I thought I would. That there was a time in history where people were ready to say, wow, maybe we've made marriage like the Sabbath and the Old Testament that we've.

Regulated it, we've legalized it, we've made it oppressive instead of restorative marriage is, you know, man. Marriage was made for our welfare just as the Sabbath was made for our welfare to rest and to recharge and to renew our relationship with God every week. And marriage is made to be the safest sense of family connection and community in which to raise young children into healthy relationships for future generations. That's what God designed it to be. And so when it becomes something other than that, like the Sabbath became oppressive, Jesus just broke all those rules and didn't think twice about it because he [00:19:00] knew it was oppressive and it was being misused as a means to control.

And I think that we have in some churches and in some marriages, misused some of the wisdom of scripture as chains to oppress and control someone in the marriage, a wife, children, and abuse them, and think it's justified and it's not. And scripture never talks about that. God's highest value is love. And when we treat others with disrespect, disdain, we try to control their choice, that dishonors them and it dishonors the institution that God created.

And so I think it was time, it was time that people heard something different. And one of the things that I think is unique about both of my books, the Emotionally Destructive Relationship and the Emotionally Destructive Marriage. I was thinking when I wrote this, I was thinking about the biblical counseling community.

I was thinking about the Amish community. I lived right near Lancaster, so I was often in the Amish community. And I was thinking about women who would not ever pick up a [00:20:00] secular book, and if they've picked up a Christian book and had secular, like You're married to a narcissist or those kind of words, they would turn it down because, oh, this is too worldly.

I can't read this. This is unbiblical. So I just used the Bible straight through the whole time, and I think that gave women a breath of fresh air of who God is and what God really says. 

Tabitha Westbrook: Absolutely. The big criticisms I heard years ago about your book before I was bold enough to read it on my own was, oh, she just says everyone should get divorced.

And all of this stuff that's not actually in the Bible or in your book. Like it's not in either place. And I remember reading it for the first time and going, huh. I don't think the people criticizing it perhaps have read it. I think they're fearful. I think they're afraid this might be in it.

I think they're seeing some women get stronger and set boundaries and say, no more to oppression, and they don't know what to do [00:21:00] with that because they maybe didn't have a paradigm for it. And so they thought, oh, well this must just condone divorce. And I'm always interested when I hear those comments to go, well, did you read it?

And if you did, let's talk about it. But if you didn't, then. How can you make an assessment? 

Leslie Vernick: Yeah, yeah. And you know, to be honest, I did say, yeah, sometimes divorce is the best option for you. But it's not an easy decision and it's not something you should take lightly. It's a heartbreaking, heart wrenching choice, but it is a choice.

And you know, Tabi, I was speaking just recently, I dunno if you were in the audience or not, but I was at the American Association of Christian Counselors Conference and I was speaking on this whole thing about choice. And I think it's really hard for some strict patriarchal. Cultures and like the Amish and religious cultures, to agree that even though we believe in biblical submission, and it's not just for women or wives, we believe in [00:22:00] choosing to submit submission is a choice.

And when you don't have that choice, that's not called submission. It's called oppression and coercion. Mm-hmm. And so to really. Begin to honor that women can decide for themselves even they can decide for themselves to disobey God like Eve did. She decided, and Adam decided too, and so God gives us that.

And so when we take that ability from someone under spiritual language, like you don't have a choice, your husband is your choice. Even in the patriarchal political movement right now that women shouldn't even have a vote anymore, it should be a family vote. Your husband should choose for you. Who you should vote for.

Is not biblically sound. 

Tabitha Westbrook: It is so not biblically sound. It is the worst version of crappy hermeneutics I think I have ever seen. If I can be that direct, because I look at some of these things and go, what in the [00:23:00] world? Like what Bible are you reading? Are you reading the Bible? I have so many questions.

And just knowing what I know about how you'd appropriately handle the word of God, good hermeneutics, good exegesis, what does that look like? Right? Knowing who it was written for and what time and what God was saying and all these things, and to come up with some of those things is such a distortion of the word of God.

And I've said on this program a million times that. I think the best defense against being oppressed is to know the word of God for yourself. When you have good biblical literacy, it's very, very hard to deceive you. Not that it can't happen, we have to be wise, we have to have discernment, but it makes it a lot harder for someone to say, the Bible says this, when that in fact does not.

Leslie Vernick: And it's interesting, you know, when I used to do counseling with couples in these situations, and husbands would say, well, the Bible says this. And I would say, well, the Bible also says this. This, and Jesus said this, [00:24:00] and those people who say the Bible says this often don't know their Bible at all, or they're not living what the Bible says.

They're great at speaking certain phrases of the Bible. But when you really look at the character, and this is what I challenge women who are in destructive relationships and destructive marriages to do those who claim to be Christians. I mean, actually, I think John Piper said this first, Satan knows more true truth about God than you and I will ever know.

But he doesn't live it just because someone can spout. Theology or spout words from scripture doesn't make them a Christian. And so what we look at is their behavior, their actions, and you will know they're Christians by their love for one another. And so when we treat one another with hate, disrespect, disdain, oppression, that person cannot call themselves a Christian authentically.

They might say they believe what the Bible says, but they don't live it. And living it is a [00:25:00] litmus test, not saying it 

Tabitha Westbrook: right. Absolutely. What do you think keeps your book at the top of the charts? Because it still sells and people still use it. I know. It is one of our go-to resources in my practice.

We often refer people to your book, although we do tell them, please don't buy it and then stick it on your husband's nightstand. That's a terrible idea. But we do refer to the book quite a bit. 

Leslie Vernick: Actually. Speaking of husbands, this doesn't happen often, but I do have instances where husbands do read the book.

And I get either emails or sometimes someone stops me. I was at a conference once and a man stopped me and he said, are you Leslie Vernick? And I said, depends. I was in my workout clothes and I had my baseball hat because I wasn't sure if this was a man who wanted to thank me or hurt me. And, he said, I saw my wife reading your book.

This is a very funny story, this, I saw my wife reading your book, and I thought, are she reading that book on destructive marriages? Am I a destructive [00:26:00] husband? Good question. So he ordered the book and he read it and he said, I was, he goes, I realized I was an unhealthy, destructive man. And he said, and then I went counseling and we're doing good, huh?

And she laughed and she said yes. And then later she comes up and whispers in my ear, she goes, I didn't even know I was in destructive marriage. I bought the book from my friend. As she read it, she realized she was, but she didn't buy it for herself. But God used it in their marriage. And so that has happened.

But I've also, yeah, had women who have been really afraid that their husbands would see it, and husbands who have seen it and said, you've ruined my marriage. And I said, you know, I'm not that powerful. I think I've just put it in paper what your marriage looks like. You know, I haven't ruined your marriage, but I think that.

And I think there's, you know, and you've, you and I have talked about this before. When we talk about destructive men, I think there's two main categories of destructive men. One that are just wicked. They're just wicked men. They're wicked, and they [00:27:00] believe that they're entitled to use people. And they do.

And wife is a useful object, just like a cell phone is a useful object. I like my cell phone as long as it does what I want it to do. And so that becomes the type of marriage you have. And then there's men who don't know any better. That they've grown up in that way, that they are just ignorant. They're immature.

They're ignorant. They don't know better. Maybe they're more in the foolish category and some fools can learn and some fools can't learn 'cause they don't want to. But I think my book has been longstanding because it's solidly biblical. It gives practical steps forward both for a woman and a husband if he wants them.

And I think it works. People have found that there's fruit. If they do the work, they see the results. Either they get healthier so that they can be the one healthy parent for their kids, or they get clear, this is destructive and I need to leave. [00:28:00] Or they get clear and Well, I need some help. And if I wanna be the husband that I wanna be, I need to get some help to not keep doing this.

Tabitha Westbrook: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's such a good. Breakdown of the change process, right? And look, we know from the work that we do that someone who is destructive, they have benefited from the destruction. They have benefited from things being their way all the time. They have benefited from the dominance and the power and control.

They've benefited when they can humbly go. Oh no. And really, as I say it to the destructive men that I've worked with sit in the suck, then they can change because they hold the weight of their sin and how they've sinned against someone else, and they can make changes. I wish it happened way more often, I'll be honest.

I know you do too. I wish we saw. More repentance and more humility. And I think that might [00:29:00] be what I say to the church, and this is what I've said out loud a number of times, I know you've heard me say it before, is that the most unloving thing the church can do is not invite someone to repentance and let them think that they are a sheep when they might actually be a goat.

And that is heartbreaking to me because these are, you know, often brothers, and I'm not saying that women don't. Engage in destructive behaviors? They can. They absolutely can. You know, I always tell people, look for the power and control that's gonna tell the real story, right? Because it can be tricky and you do need to get education to really understand this well.

But we need to invite people to repentance. Are we looking at the behavior of the elder per se, and saying, you're popping off in meetings and people don't like it, and that's not gonna be tolerated here. We don't treat people that way. The Lord doesn't treat people that way and invite them into a different space, and they can do with that whatever they will.

Right. But if we're not making the [00:30:00] invitation, then how loving are we as the body of Christ? 

Leslie Vernick: I agree. You know, and I think we've come to a place in our culture where we are popping off, but we're popping off in non relationships. We're hate speeching over social media. We're demonizing people who disagree with us instead of having valid conversations.

You know, I would love to sit with an abuser and I have, I remember a counseling session and this is pretty funny. So I'm in this counseling session and this CEO and his wife and he was very domineering and I didn't identify it as abuse at first 'cause this was like their second or third session.

I didn't really know why they were there, first other than just normal marriage stuff. And so she said, I wanna talk about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah today. And he said, no. And he's like, he just, you know, like he didn't hit her, but he just dismissed her. No, we're gonna talk about this. And so immediately I saw this entitlement.

I get to decide you [00:31:00] are worthless. You don't get to say anything. And so I said to him, actually, this is my office and I get to decide and I wanna hear what she had to say. And he looked at me with these eyes and he said, no one's ever said that to me before. Like no one has ever said to him, you're being a bully.

Tabitha Westbrook: Mm-hmm. 

Leslie Vernick: Right. And so I think you're so right that sometimes people need feedback. Your zipper's down, you've got food in your teeth. You know your hair is a mess in the back. Let me fix it for you. I remember walking out of the bathroom one time when I was speaking. And my skirt was tucked into my pantyhose in the back.

I was grateful for a woman who came after me and pulled my skirt out, and the Bible tells us that we are to give each other feedback, and we're doing it in non-personal cruel ways. But I think if we could give each other feedback, even in a marriage where, you know, how you talk to me feels very demeaning and I don't like it.

That gives us a chance to [00:32:00] see if the other person wants to change and cares about how we feel, right? I remember just coaching a woman two weeks ago in our Conquer group, and she said, I've never told my husband how I felt. And I said, well, how about we start there? How about we just start there? Because once you do that, you will see if he cares about how you feel and if he doesn't care about you, how you feel, then you don't keep doing it.

You don't keep doing it. That's like casting your pearls before swine. 

Tabitha Westbrook: Right. 

Leslie Vernick: But at least give 'em a chance. 

Tabitha Westbrook: Yeah. 

Leslie Vernick: To care about how you feel. 

Tabitha Westbrook: Absolutely. And I think that's again, an invitation to churches, right? So by the time someone in a destructive relationship comes to you, she's already done said to him.

You know, I don't like this more than likely, at least in some way. And so when we go in the, well, you got a Matthew 18, I'm like, baby, she's already Matthew 18 all over him. And now it's time for you to step in and help out and ask good questions and not let her dysregulation be [00:33:00] your guide. You know? Or her sass.

Like sometimes when women get in front of somebody that they think can help them, they are gonna say all of the things that they have been holding for 20 years. You have to sift through that. Now, I advocate good emotion regulation on behalf of all humans. I do, but you know, some things are what they are.

And for pastors and elders and leaders and lay counselors, you are oftentimes the front lines. You know, doing more listening than talking is such wisdom. And then looking for discernment. I heard Brad Hambrick say on a podcast very recently that one of his critiques of the story he was listening to was.

The pastor saw things through their own understanding and their own paradigm instead of getting more information and looking at it in a broader view. And I thought, gosh, what a word. What a word. Because we do, and we all have that tendency. I do too, to see it through my own understanding, but. The Lord says, leaning on our own [00:34:00] understanding is the way of death.

And to look at what the broader picture is and to ask for the discernment and what is really happening here for this person and to go slow. Right? And churches honestly have that luxury of going slower than maybe another community organization would. 

Leslie Vernick: And I think you said something really wise that I just wanna be more visual about the practicality of this.

You're always gonna see two sinners in a relationship. Because we're all sinners, right? And so the woman may look far more sinful in the moment than him because she is maybe being harsh in the way that she's describing things, or she's being loud, or she's angry, or she's not forgiving, or all of the above that.

Looks like, ugh, she might be really hard to live with. I've been in those counseling sessions and I'm sure you have too, Tabitha. And so you said something earlier, if a pastor's listening or a counselor's listening to this, it's really important to look for who holds the power in this [00:35:00] relationship, because it might be that she is either being resistant to that power or trying to fight against that power, or she's, you know, frustrated with that power or whatever. And she's not handling herself well for sure, and that might be something she needs to learn to do. However, this isn't mutual abuse. Because, and I think this is where you look at who holds the power in the relationship, who makes the decisions, who's the scary person?

Who's the one who dominates things? And so I think if you can recognize that the other person may be resisting that power, and we can resist power in a sinful way, or we can resist power in a godly way. But even when women resist power in a godly way, like, no, I'm not willing to submit to that. They get demonized by the counselor, by the church sometimes, like you have to submit again.

She doesn't have the choice to make on her own. She has to do, or , the church says, no, [00:36:00] you need to do marriage counseling. She goes, I don't feel safe doing that. I don't wanna do that. Well, then we're not helping you if you don't do it our way. And we have to recognize how much we use power to control people.

Tabitha Westbrook: Absolutely. And I wanna kind of circle back around this reminded me of something you said at the beginning, right when you confronted your church about random dudes in the congregation, sleeping in tents with boys and going, we should probably have an assessment process. This is something I see over and over and over again, missing in churches, a lack of procedures, a lack of standards that are clear and that are assessed.

And this is something I had said to my own church a while back was I would love to do an internal systems audit of your procedures. And they looked at me like I had three heads. 'cause I don't think anybody's ever said that to them. But for the audience that doesn't know, my previous career before I became a therapist was in clinical quality assurance.

And so my job was to make sure people followed the rules and God used that a lot [00:37:00] to keep me like. He beat the people pleasing right out of me with that job because you can't tell people what they're doing wrong and be a people pleaser. It doesn't work. But one of the most valuable things was, is there a procedure in place?

Is it being followed and is it adequate? And those are things missing in the church now. I don't think churches should run like corporations. That is part of, for lack of a better way, the evangelical machine where it can get off track. I think. There are reasonable procedures, like how do we assess for abuse?

How do we make sure that people don't end up in our marriage ministry, that shouldn't be in marriage counseling, and how do we get them into an off ramp that's appropriate for them? Where we're protecting victims and inviting perpetrators to repentance. How do we do the same when we have a ministry for problematic sexual behaviors?

You know, like let's say you're running a Pure Desire seven pillars group and a betrayal and beyond. How do you lean into those spaces so that we are putting [00:38:00] people. With the greatest help. How are we educating our staff and lay counselors and volunteers to notice these things? And churches I think sometimes are like, we do a background check and I'm like, well, praise God.

I'm glad you do at least that. But also, what is their character like? What is their walk with the Lord like? What is their wife saying about it? And I know big church organizations that assess church planters and ministers, and they talk to the husband and wife together, and that is literally the worst possible practice.

But they've never thought about doing it differently because it's never been a paradigm that, oh, maybe we should have a separate conversation. They ask the dude it, if he's using porn. Which also good questions, but are you asking about other problematic sexual behaviors, what they're requiring of their life?

Are they getting, you know, prostitutes for their, what are we doing here? What are they forcing their wife into? That kind of thing. Like there's a million questions. And look, I know I ask a lot of questions around sex. I am a certified sex addiction therapist. I've seen [00:39:00] some things. I've heard some things.

I've heard them sometimes from pastors in full honesty. So what are we doing? To have a robust process for both protection and healing. And I think that that is an area that the church can grow in. And I know I said that to you once, like a long time ago. It was a couple years ago. I was like, there need to be procedures.

And you're like, oh, Tabitha, you're speaking a different language than the church. And I was like, but why? Why is this a different language for the church? 

Leslie Vernick: You know? Because they have given, unleashed power to certain individuals who have a lot of charisma, and those people are attractors for people who give. And sadly, the giving might go down if we get a little stricter on some of that, or the attendance might go down if we get a little stricter on that. And so I think that right now we have a culture in the church that values [00:40:00] numbers both in population and in finances, and, doesn't value as much accountability and, responsibility in leadership. And so I think that we're in for a reckoning. We're in for a reckoning, I think. And, I hope it doesn't, you know crash and burn a lot of people's faith because I think that's been happening on a smaller scale with individuals, but it could in a large scale if we have a real reckoning from God saying enough is enough already.

But, I think that, you know, we have, you're talking about all these procedures and what I would love to see is I would love to see better teaching. I would love to see, I don't know why seminaries aren't. Preparing pastors to be better teachers of the word, not just discerners of what the word says and mean, but what does, like how do we teach our children to get along with one another?

How do we teach our children to speak up [00:41:00] for themselves? How do we teach our children good boundaries? How do we teach our teens to recognize coercive control with a man who's so into you that it feels like love when it really is coercive control? How do we teach our teens? You know, teens are in destructive relationships.

Teens are in 

Tabitha Westbrook: yes, 

Leslie Vernick: abusive dating relationships. How do we. Help our teens be wise in who they go out with and who they select as friends. And if they don't wanna have that friend, how do they learn to say no? And how do they have boundaries? And how do we teach their parents to teach their children? And how do we teach young married and premarital classes?

How do we assess in premarital counseling for abusive tendencies? So that they don't get married. If we can help it, there's so much that a church could do around these areas to not just, I think the church has gotten off track and they have become more concerned with being theologically sound than practical theology and application.

Tabitha Westbrook: Absolutely. I would agree. And I think, churches. [00:42:00] Also feel more comfortable doing things like feeding the poor, which is great, and they should without question. But also, what about the poor in spirit? What about those who mourn? Right? Where are we stepping into those places to say, Hey. I mean, like oftentimes you hear the dissolution of a marriage due to abuse as a non casserole grief, which means you go it alone, you bear it alone, and nobody brings you a casserole like they do when someone dies of cancer.

And that is a lonely place. And it can be such a lonely place in a church that idolizes marriage at all costs. You know, for someone who's like, do I even fit in here? You know? And. I have long said that we need to have really solid sex education starting in elementary school because if you do not think your 8-year-old has been exposed to pornography, then you are foolish because that is the average age that it starts.

And if we're not having those direct [00:43:00] conversations about what does this mean, not just don't look at naked bodies doing things, but what does it mean? It is domination. Pornography is inherently violent. It is inherently misogynistic. It is inherently problematic. Nevermind the immorality of it, right? And if we're not having these conversations about what draws you to it and how do we language differently relationship in the church and brother sister relationships and healthiness, and we don't start young.

We're doing a huge disservice. And then we see, I think Pure Desire's, recent study with Barna said something like 70 something percent of pastors are struggling with or have struggled with pornography use. And that's heartbreaking because then what are they doing with their wives and what is it like for the betrayed wife and all of these questions that come up for me.

Leslie Vernick: Yeah. And I think there's just a bigger issue of pornography isn't about getting off [00:44:00] sexually. It really isn't. It's about loneliness. It's about a lack of self-awareness. It's about shortcuts. Like instead of having a real relationship, I can have a fantasy relationship in which I'm the master and she's the slave, and I'm the king, and she's the, peasant, however, whatever you're attracted to in that porn, it's a total disassociation from what God desires for us to have real connection, real relationship, real intimacy, and it just robs people of their humanity and their image bearing, which is what Satan desires to do. And so when we don't teach our children how to embody their God-given image of.

Image bearers, and we don't teach our children to treat one another, not as objects, but as human beings created in the image of God. Then we raise a generation of people who. Use and misuse and treat people dishonorably. And whether that's in our politics or in our churches or in our homes, and it's all over [00:45:00] the place.

And so as Christians, we shouldn't be of the world, but we are, we're doing things just like the world is doing them and Jesus calls us to more. And I hope that, that our listeners here are really, challenged to say, wait a minute. It's not just about. Does God allow divorce. It's a much bigger issue of how does God want us to treat people, both in the home and outside the home, but especially in the home and in the church.

We treat each other like brothers and sisters like how we love one another is how we would love ourselves, right? And if we wouldn't abuse ourselves, why would we abuse someone else? And unfortunately, sometimes we're not even self-aware enough to know ourselves and so we're just a mess. A mess.

Tabitha Westbrook: Absolutely. As we kind of draw ourselves to a close here. 'cause honestly I could talk to you all day 'cause I just love it so much. But one of the things just kind of came to my mind as you were saying that is I would hope that we would embrace that [00:46:00] so fully as the church, that your book and my book are no longer needed.

That we don't have to talk about recovering from emotionally destructive marriages in the church because there aren't any, because people are looking like Jesus. Now I realize that this side of heaven that might not be super likely, but that's definitely my hope. My hope is that it wouldn't be needed anymore.

What would you say as we draw to a close to churches and to all the spouses, both the destructive and the victim. 

Leslie Vernick: I would say to, I mean, the short answer is if you're being victimized, if you're being harmed in a relationship, that is not God's will for you if you're being harmed by a stranger.

That is not God's will for you, right? It's not God's will for you. It's part of sin. It's part of living in a fallen world. But if you're being harmed by a stranger, it's certainly fine to get away from that stranger when you can, you know, you're not having to sleep with them or share a bed or a bank account with them when this person who's harming you is your [00:47:00] spouse.

It's a much more serious issue, both in the propensity for harm and long-term damage to your body, your soul, and your spirit. And so understand that God doesn't care more about you faking it and pretending in order to stay married at all costs at any price. But the more long-term is that you're being deformed.

And by you staying, you're allowing him to stay deformed. And so part of God's will, for both of you is to become more and more like Jesus. More and more like Jesus. Jesus got abused. He did get abused when he was going to the cross, but he didn't have a relationship with those people. They weren't his buds.

They weren't his close companions, they were abusers. And so when we're married to someone, that's a whole different kind of relationship. And so I would just encourage anyone who's being abused to do your work, to do your work at getting safe. But that's not the end of your work. Your work is also to get healthier and whole because when we've [00:48:00] believed some scripture that has enabled a sinner to sin against us without consequence, we've mixed up some scripture and we have allowed ourselves to be harmed and thinking that it's a noble cause.

No greater love that, that we lay down our life. And that's the way we've spiritualized and twisted the scriptures around the whole abuse and marriage. And so I would just encourage the victim, but if you're listening here and you're a leader of a church, I would just really encourage you to get a vision for.

What your church could be like if you actually lived out what Jesus wanted you to live out. You know, Jesus rebuked a lot of the churches in Revelation, and I think he's rebuking our church now. We're too caught up in personality. We're too caught up in glitz. We're too caught up in making everybody like us, and we're not speaking the truth in love.

We're not living the truth in love. We're not developing. Community and family relationships that really hold people together in a crisis. We don't even know our neighbors in our church. We don't even know the person [00:49:00] who's sitting next to us a lot of times. And so I think if you're a leader in a church, really valuing, not keeping relationships together at all, cost any price, but making healthy relationships, inviting people into healthy relationships, and defining what that looks like, 

Tabitha Westbrook: amen.

Judgment begins in the household of God. That is one of my favorite scriptures in this season of life. Leslie, thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for talking about these things. Thank you for taking the risk all those years ago to write a book that. Could have ended your career, but that God had bigger and better plans for it.

And thank you for being a voice that has sounded this alarm for so long and has paved the way for people like me and for those of us that are writing and speaking in the current spaces as well with you, that God has something so much better 'cause something so much better for the church. So thank you for hanging out and being our guest on Hey Tabi, this week.

We're so, so grateful to have you. [00:50:00] 

Leslie Vernick: Thanks for having me.

Thanks for joining me for today's episode of Hey Tabi. If you're looking for a resource that I mentioned in the show and you wanna check out the show notes, head on over to tabitha westbrook.com/hey Tabi, that's H-E-Y-T-A-B-I, and you can grab it there. I look forward to seeing you next time.

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Tabitha Westbrook, LMFT-S, LCMCH-QS, LPC-S, CSAT, CCTP, CCTCP

Host
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Leslie Vernick

Guest