Does God Really Hate Divorce? What the Bible and Peer-Reviewed Research Actually Say

What if everything the church taught you about divorce was based on misquoted research and a mistranslation? In this episode, Tabitha Westbrook sits down with the one and only Gretchen Baskerville — Christian author, speaker, and founder of LifeSavingDivorce.com — to dismantle the myths that keep abuse survivors trapped in destructive marriages.

With 25+ years of biblical and evidence-based insight, Gretchen unpacks the peer-reviewed research the church rarely talks about: why divorce is not universally harmful to children, how no-fault divorce laws reduced wife homicide rates by 10% and domestic violence by 30%, and what the Dead Sea Scrolls reveal about the infamous "God hates divorce" verse.

Whether you're a pastor, a people helper, or someone in a coercively controlling relationship, this episode will challenge what you've been told and give you the research to back it up.

Find Gretchen:
Website - https://lifesavingdivorce.com/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/gretchenbaskerville/

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Transcript

Welcome And Why This Podcast Exists

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Welcome to Hey Tabby, 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 well-being. Our focus here is knowledge and healing. Trauma doesn't have to eat your lunch forever. There is hope. Now, let's get going. Well, welcome to this week's episode of Hey Tabby, and I am really excited to have somebody here with me today that is an icon, in my opinion. She's a legend, she is an icon, she might be the myth and the legend, but she is an incredible author and speaker. And her name is Gretchen Baskerville. She's a Christian author, speaker, and founder of lifesavingdivorce.com. After navigating a life-saving divorce, she raised two children as a single mother and began leading divorce recovery groups in evangelical churches in 1998. I was barely a legal adult when she started. She later remarried and continues her work with more than 25 years of biblical and research-based insight. A Wheaton College graduate, she is the author of The Life-Saving Divorce. And this was one of the original books out there that really began to help women in the church in particular start to understand that maybe God would not hate them if they left a destructive or abusive marriage. So tell me how you even got to write this book. Obviously, it's part of lived experience, but like what made you go? I need to put this on some pages.

Stories That Shatter Church Myths

SPEAKER_00 2:53

You've got to write a book. And so I thought, oh, how will I ever do this? But he said, it can't be about you, because your experience is not the same as everyone else's. What about those who had different kinds of divorces than you did? So even though I'd been running uh face-to-face leading uh divorce recovery groups in my church for on and off for 20 years, uh, I went out and I interviewed people. And I interviewed dozens and dozens of people just for this book, even though I had a lot of experience myself already. And I even I was blown away. I heard stories. I used to say when I first started doing this after the first 10 years, I used to say, you can't tell me a single story I haven't heard before. And I, after doing these interviews, it was like, oh yeah, there's a lot of stories I haven't heard before. I heard stories that kept me up at night, uh, shocking stories from both men and women, uh, where I was so horrified and so grateful to the Lord for his rescue in helping them find relief from the emotional, uh, sometimes physical abuse, the just like the crushing indifference. Some people would be sick on the floor, sick lying on the floor, and their spouse would just walk over them, walk out the door. And so all these different stories had to be reflected in the book. And the stigma and the shame is different in every part of the country. Um, I interviewed a woman who said I was told that I was going, it would be better to burn than to lust. And that is why every time I met a man who said he was a Christian and we really hit it off, when I started feeling lust, I knew that was the sign I had to marry and marry fast. And she even tells the story of one time marrying over lunchtime because not because she was an impulsive woman or because she was sinful. It was the exact opposite. She wanted to follow the Lord, she wanted to follow scripture perfectly, and she didn't want to disappoint God, she didn't want to be disqualified for serving him and loving him and being blessed by him. And that's why she did it. And she ended up getting in numerous, very bad marriages, which ended in divorce. And so it were it was these stories that were so powerful for me. And um, that's uh a lot of the impetus for writing the book. And then I had always been curious about um is divorce really universally destructive to children? Uh what does real peer-reviewed evidence-based research say? And that was amazing for me to research. I'd already done quite a bit of research before starting into this book, but I I kind of doubled or tripled what I had done, reading real peer-reviewed research and evidence and really understanding wow, we've kind of been misled. The information we heard from very well-meaning church leaders, I was brought up evangelical, I've been in the church since probably the week I was born. Um, these loving pastors and church leaders and even youth leaders, they meant so well, but they were just passing on what they had heard. And it wasn't correct. And uh so doing a whole chapter just on the research on the outcomes of children after divorce was so powerful. And then I worked with uh David Instone Brewer. He helped edit my entire chapter seven on the Bible and divorce. So that's kind of how I got going. I had been one of those young women who loved the Lord all of her life. As a teenager, I was in youth choir, youth grew. I got into trouble by reading my Bible too late at night. My parents would come in, it's midnight, honey. Turn off, turn off the light, put down your Bible, and go to bed. And I got a degree in Bible and Christian Ed from Whean College. So I'm not, you know, I believe in the sanctity of marriage. I believe that marriage should be holy, undefiled, loving, and lifelong. But what happens when it's not? And what happens when it's very much not? And that's what the people that I've been ministering to for nearly 30 years have faced. These were good, devout, many of them just Bible-believing, rule-following Christians. And now they had to face the stigma of divorce that they had always uh heard in their churches. And, you know, would God, you know, they they believed that they had a black cloud over their head, that they would never be happy again, that their children would turn out to be emotional basket cases and juvenile delinquents. That's what we were told over and over. And worse yet, that we would somehow be disqualified from ever serving the Lord again and meaningfully have any ministry. We were brought up to feel that our job was to serve the Lord and minister in any way we could. And uh, so the whole idea that you might need a divorce was unthinkable to us. And so after doing 20 years of face-to-face uh, you know, divorce recovery ministry, I realized, wow, see, I'm I'm a sexual infidelity survivor, a sexual immorality survivor. And I hadn't known very many 20 uh 30 years ago, I didn't know a whole lot of emotional abuse survivors. Uh and wow, after listening to their stories year after year, week after week, people would get child care. They would, which was very expensive and hard to do when you're a single mother and you have no money. And they would come and sit on cold, hard plastic chairs in my church's uh Sunday school classes on Tuesday nights or Wednesday nights, and and I would have a front row seat of watching the Holy Spirit change lives, um destroy the stigma, help them to hold their heads up high and help them to see. Uh actually, I I don't feel like I did much except for just listen and provide them with uh Bible verses about how the Lord loves them and he's walking with them through these difficult times. He loves the brokenhearted, he wants to bind up our wounds. And so that's kind of a long answer to your short question. How did I get the idea of doing this? It just was flowed out of um ministry itself and being on church volunteer staff for so many years.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

I think that is awesome. And I love that you did additional research and then pulled research yourself. One of the things that I have heard over and over from different authors that do research is that that really does make a difference because we can hear those things that are just passed down almost like, you know, old mythology, and we just accept them until we go, wait, is that true? What does it actually say in the research? And that's such a vital piece. I know when I was writing my own book, Sheila Gragoire was like, do your research and make sure it is well researched, don't just take opinions. And I was already on that path and I was like, I agree completely. And I love to hear you say that. And I think that is one of the reasons that book still resonates, that your book still resonates with so many men and women. And I love that you included both men and women. And I see that in the support places that you provide is that it is a place where anyone who is in a destructive marriage can come, whether they're a man or a woman, and get some support. And I think that is wonderful. Why else do you think that your work has stood the test of time? It is still one of the ones that we have on our referral list. Yours and David and Stone Brewers are like two of our first-line books, and then Leslie Vernick's The Emotionally Destructive Marriage as well. So why do you think the life-saving divorce has been one of the books that have stood for quite some time now?

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Um, for a lot of reasons. I think the evidence-based research is huge because we were always told that divorce universally destroys children. And when I actually started going through the peer-reviewed research, reading the books, reading uh the famous uh best-selling book, uh, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce by Judith Wallerstein. And I've been told that, you know, this is the book that, you know, shows that it's universally destructive to kids. And she says right in the intro, you know what? I don't believe that divorce is universally destructive to children. And in her, in her whole group of works, her group of books, she comes out clearly and says, absolutely, when should you divorce, you know, if there's abuse? Well, as soon as you possibly can. Don't stay for the kids. And she says this over and over in her books. Why does this never surface in um in the sermons we hear, uh, in the in the uh articles we read from Christian organizations, it's not there. Another one is um the another piece of research that always gets misused is the Institute for American Values uh study. Uh and you instantly, as soon as I tell you what this is about, everyone will will know what this is. This was the study that found that if you stayed five years in an unhappy marriage, if if you started in an unhappy marriage five years later, it would become happy. Um and that's actually not what that study says. It is true that two-thirds, two and three couples that they studied did become happier within five years, but they also found that one and three did not. Which ones didn't? Those were the ones with infidelity, with addictions, with abuse, emotional control. Those are the ones that don't get better after five years. So if you you know, I I encourage pastors, stop using this this phrase. It it's we gotta stop that, because seven times in that report it says these are the marriages that don't improve. They're um these are not um and they made a distinction between uh marriages with external pressures, job loss, natural disasters, illness, death of a close family member, versus uh the other ones where it's the relationship itself. Your spouse is causing the tension. Your spouse is engaging what in what Sheila Gregori calls the marriage endangering or the marriage destroying sins. Those, there's not much hope for those unless that person turns around and we know that they very rarely do. And I know you speak to a lot of pastors here. You know, I I've been on, you know, lay ministry roles in my church for years and years and years. We know, pastors know, that if they're following a couple for years, that abuser really doesn't change. And I once asked my pastor, um, can you spot a really dangerous or destructive person, an abuser, uh, as a pastor? And he says, No, I can't. Even though I was brought up in an abusive home, I can't spot them because if they want to befriend me, if they want my high regard, they never show a bit of it in front of me. So that's why these charming abusers are so indetectable uh to pastoral staff. And um, I just loved him. He was just wonderful. He came in and he spoke to my um divorce recovery group, and he said, um, that abuser, you are like their anchor. You are there, it's like you you're they're in a boat and you're their anchor. You're the one steadying their world because their world is not steady. And when you finally say, I'm done, I'm not going to be your anchor anymore. You are responsible for your behavior before the Lord. I can't fix you. Uh, they they drift off. They feel the effects of that. Um, and we don't need to keep trying harder because, as you know and I know, there are people who listen to us who've been in these destructive marriages for 10, 20, 30. I have people in my group, as you well know, who left after 40 and 50 years, these gray divorces. There had been so much abuse and infidelity of all different kinds, betrayal of all different kinds throughout that marriage. So I think it this book uh restores people's identity. It helps them reject the stigma and the shame. Um, I wrote down a couple of notes here. It does restore your calling because as we learn from trauma recovery books like Judith Herman's uh uh trauma and recovery. One of the things we need to do to recover after we've gotten to safety and we've found a support group and we've found others who walked through it with us, uh, who we can share with after we've shared our story a thousand times and cried a thousand tears. We need to get back in the saddle and start doing ministry again. And uh we need to find a place to minister. A lot of people have started Facebook groups or or groups on um social media where they tell their story and they reach out and they give hope and healing to people who have uh you know gone through the trauma of betrayal. And so getting back in the saddle and embracing that you're not disqualified from you know from ministering and from serving the Lord. You're you're right back in and welcome back, come back. The other thing that I found in doing a lot of research is that uh Lunfway did a study, uh, several studies actually in 2015, commissioned by Focused on Family. And I don't know what they were planning to find, what they thought they would find. They interviewed 1,000 church-going Christian divorcees. One of the things they found, and nobody ever talks about, is that six in ten divorcees actually give the same or more money, they donate the same or more than they did when they were marvied. I mean, that's just mind-blowing. How is that possible? And yet that's what they found in this study of a thousand church-going Christian divorcees. There were so many counterintuitive things they found in that study. And for anyone who wants to look it up, I think you're probably going to have it in your show notes. I've I've um I've uh written a whole blog post on just tips to pastors to just fine-tune your ability to minister to abuse and infidelity um uh victims, and that that life way information is in there.

Trauma In The Body And Church Idolatry

SPEAKER_01 21:09

I think that's such a vital thing to know. And I one of my favorite quotes of all time is from Leslie Vernick abuse is not a marriage problem, abuse causes marriage problems. And, you know, and my contention here on this show is that all abuse is physical abuse because unless you can take your brain out and stick it in a jar, it is actually a body part and it dumps out all kinds of neurochemicals. And a lot of my survivors, especially when they're 20, 30 years in, are being pickled in their own juices. And we know from neuroscience how destructive chronic stress is. And emotional abuse, financial control, all of the things that are in the destructive marriage, those things are things that essentially pickle you. They're chronic stress. And so we're seeing all kinds of autoimmune disorders, cardiac issues, obesity, all kinds of things in people who have been in long-term destructive marriages or abusive situations. And that should give the church pause because we should be doing something different. A, we should not look like the world, and B, we should be caring well. You know, God said that He came to set free the oppressed and, you know, release the captives and help the lame to walk in all of those things. And if we're not doing that as the body, then we are way off somewhere. And I think the evangelical church has idolized marriage. I think honestly, it's idolatry if we call it what it is, that we've elevated the institution of marriage above the people in the marriage and above the way that God sees people. And I love what you said about the study that shows that the flourishing that can happen when you are free from destruction, when you have been set free from a destructive marriage, that you actually can grow and heal. And the folks who listen to this podcast heard me talk to my friend Don, who has a ministry in Texas, and all of the goodness that has come out of that for these women who are now flourishing. I had the good pleasure just a few weeks ago of having dinner with 12 of these women. And they are powerhouses. You know, we got to talk about their stories over pasta, and it was fantastic. And to see the things that God is doing in each of these women who are now becoming free and healthier, you know, and even the ones more at the beginning of their journey, just that they had the freedom to sit in this restaurant with other people who got it, was just really delightful. And those are the things that the church misses out on when we don't go, well, let's look at this differently. And let's also speak from the pulpit about these kinds of things. And I did see your blog post on the focused on the family and life way research because we often do not have high praise for things focused on the family because they do not typically language abuse and destructive dynamics very well. In fact, they they are very often harmful, unfortunately.

unknown 24:12

Yeah.

The Hard Reality After Divorce

SPEAKER_00 24:13

Yeah. Yeah. And and and we can address that if more if you'd like to. And I want to go back to what you said. You were sitting with these 12 powerhouse women. And that's what I find. But that doesn't it feels like you'll never get there within the first three years of your divorce. You feel like, oh well, that's great. Yeah, that's that's super that they turned out okay. But I'm miserable, I'm broke, my children are crying. Um I feel awful. Half the time I feel like reconciling because I'm so lonely. I'm overwhelmed by doing two adults' work in this household, which I only before had to do half or maybe three quarters. And sometimes higher than three quarters, maybe a lot higher than that when it comes to emotional labor. Um and I remember thinking to myself six months into my divorce, I was like, I don't know that I really miss him, but I sure do miss having an extra driver's license and a somebody who can drive a car. You know. And when you're going through it, when you're in the thick of it, and research does show that the first two, maybe it takes two to three years to kind of start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, to really have a full belly laugh, to really get that smile on your face, to see that there's going to be some hope. For me, it took a full five years to even get uh financially stable. Um, so it is a long process. And and I don't want people to think, I've had people say, well, I thought it was gonna be wonderful after I got my divorce decree. No, there's there's there's a big adjustment. And one of the things that someone else brought up to me that I had never thought about before, if you had to move, switch schools, get a new job, uh, you know, get a new home, if you had five years to do that in, you could handle that. There's nothing wrong with our ability to deal with change. But when it's all squished in a into a six-month period, no wonder we're stressed out. No wonder our cortisol is going through the roof, no wonder that we have anxiety and panic attacks. It's because high-intensity decisions and changes are being compressed into this tiny period of time. So there's nothing wrong with you. It's just happening too fast.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

And it's not just the decisions, right? So, like in the best case scenario, that's the truth. But when we're looking at destructive marriages or abusive marriages, that can also be because there is real terror because the person that you are married to is destructive. They are a coercive controller and they're unsafe. So any decision is going to have to be a quiet one, a very carefully thought out one, one with your safety in mind. And though that's not lightweight. I think sometimes people think, well, why don't you just sleep? And it's like, well, there's some very real ramifications here to that. First of all, maybe they're a stay-at-home parrot, they've not been in the workforce for some time. Um, they've got littles, and littles need things, you know, and they have no financial control of their own. There are so many things. And the statistics show that you are 75% more likely to be killed when you leave. And that's not a lightweight statistic. So for people who are in coercively controlling marriages, there is real imminent danger. So not only are we making a compressed timeline of decisions, we're making decisions that could get you killed. And that's real and that's terrifying. And then for so many people, like you were saying, it's not a one and done. And I've heard pastors say, well, they're out. I don't know why they're still so up, you know, stressed out. And I'm like, well, let's have a little chitty chitty chat chat about post-separation and post-divorce abuse, because 90% of women in particular who were abused in their marriage will go on to experience continued abuse after divorce. And a lot of it's through the court system and other ways that abusers, you know, attack them. So not only are they not like at least sleeping with the enemy, but they still have to deal with this person for quite some time, months to years, is what it shows. So it's not an easy process. So even, you know, you and I are both on the other side of our life-saving divorces, but it does take time to heal. And I do worry a bit for the people who are like, and then I, you know, hopped on the dating apps and you know, just dove right back in. I'm like, you're still blading in the water. You're gonna attract sharks. Stop it. You know, think you're not there.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

Let it dish in a barrel. You look delicious to somebody.

Why Survivors Stop Telling Pastors

SPEAKER_01 29:14

I'm like, we we don't need that. And also your people picker probably needs a little refining and things of that nature. And those are things that I think we do want to keep in mind. But it would be my hope that the church in particular would start recognizing it and giving resource to helping people recover well and to also protection in the places that they need, you know, that people need protection. Call to Peace Ministry is back in 2018 did a survey of women that go to their pastors. 71%, I believe it was, would go to their pastors first, and only 4% would ever go back. And that's saying something about how the church has mishandled, you know, coercive control cases.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Well, that explains a lot why W Lifeway found that only half the people, fewer than half of people told their senior pastor before they divorced. They don't expect um to get, especially when they hear these really powerful sermons from the pulpit, they don't expect to get um, I don't know, the support they need. And so uh I actually had a woman come to my divorce recovery group many years ago. She said, I checked my denomination's policies and I discovered that my denomination's not going to let me, they will not bless, they will not condone, they will fight me if I want a divorce for emotional abuse. And that's why I've now switched to your church. I was like, oh my goodness, I didn't. That was not on my bingo card. That's one of the thousands of things I've learned from just sitting in the rooms and learning these things from other people going through divorce. Um, and I appreciate that you've got all this this evidence and all, you know, it, because it is so very important. And pastors need to know that, you know, if you're not, if it's all, you know, fair and good. You're gonna uh be speaking on marriage at least once a year, probably. But be sure you put in those exceptions for you know, abuse, infidelity, addictions, complete neglect and indifference. It's an emo it's not just physical abandonment, it's a complete emotional abandonment, like you don't matter, like you don't even exist. And those things need to be brought up in marriage sermons every year. Otherwise, the people in your pews are gonna think, okay, there's no good reason uh that the covenant ends. And yet we know biblically that abuse destroys the covenant, infidelity, sexual immorality destroy the covenant. It's not the person who walked into the courtroom and filed for divorce. So I I'm really glad that you're you're talking about these things.

Forgiveness Versus Safety And Trust

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Yeah, I think it is it's vital for pastors to understand that the victim is not breaking the covenant. The covenant was already broken. They're just making sure that it's finalized in the court, realistically. And and that, you know, is a different shift. It's a paradigm shift for some pastors. And for pastors who are like, well, I mean, I can't say everything in a sermon. Oh, you say plenty of things in sermons. And I actually timed it. I did an episode about things that pastors say that are not helpful and why pastors do need to speak about it directly from the pulpit. And I timed how long it took me to say just a couple caveats about abuse, and it was like less than three seconds. So don't tell me your sermon's gonna go over time when you can take five to 10 seconds if you want to be super generous with your time and cover it well and just say, hey, we have resources here. You know, reach out to our care team or the assistant pastor or the church secretary, whatever your structure is. That doesn't take any time at all. And if you already have the resources baked in, then it is not any extra anything really. Then and and and I last time I checked, pastors are supposed to look a lot like Jesus and lead people to Jesus. And Jesus cares for broken sheep. He cares for, you know, the the broken among us and helps them, and he calls to repentance those who say they are believers and act anything but, which incidentally would be a destructive and abusive individual. And I think it is remiss and unloving if we do not call to repentance those who are destructive. So as a pastor listens to this, I need 10 seconds of your time and a plan in place. And then you've got lots of good things. And that doesn't feel as overwhelming. I think sometimes, you know, the big C church hears these things and is like, oh, it's gonna take billions of dollars. Okay, I mean, could it always use more money? Yeah, for sure. But one of the things I think about, and this is you're gonna get me on my soapbox here at this moment, is I am super worried. So tired of church care budgets being like such a small percentage of their overall distribution. And when they're like, oh, we got to take the gospel to the nation, that's awesome. But who are you sending? And if they're not discipled well here, why would you send them? Because I have seen more than a few destructive individuals out on the mission field, and I have done the aftercare for their spouses and children. So, you know, maybe we disciple better here, and that's our first wave of discipleship. And then we go, man, and if the Lord is calling someone, then we have a lot better, you know, hopefully assurance, you know, that they're going out there in a healthier way, right? So if we're really talking about what does it look like to be a healthy marriage, what does it look like to be a healthy individual? What does it look like not to be a sexually addicted individual who's getting their pleasures in the places they ought not? What does that really look like? And then giving people help to heal or safety if they need to get out of a you know destructive relationship, wouldn't that be a better spend than sending a bajillion dollars in destructive peoples all over the world? Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

Just because don't send them overseas if they're not doing well here, we don't want to export them. You know, we want to be hands-of-feed in pieces, you know, we don't want to teach, you know, people in more vulnerable countries um, you know, how to abuse better or how we're going to sweep it under the carpet with with our forgiveness before safety teachings. Um, or and it's just so important. And and and I don't mean to to say anything bad about forgiveness, um, because it is it is a Christian tenet. It is what something we are called to do, but safety needs to come first. And we need to separate the concept of forgiveness from ever trusting again and from ever reconciling, because we can choose, I I define forgiveness as not taking vengeance, uh, not getting revenge on that person. But that doesn't mean we need to enter the same house, walk in that door ever again. In fact, you know, you probably talk about 1 Corinthians 5 11 quite a bit on on your podcast, you know, yes, that we aren't even to associate with, not even to eat with fellow Christians who act and who names themselves. Yes, exactly. So it's not like they get a free pass just because they are a believer, that they're a Christian, that they attend our church, that they know the Bible backwards and forwards. That doesn't count. We aren't associated, we aren't we are called not to associate them with them based on their behavior, not how they identify themselves. We have to look at the behavior, not the words that come out of their mouths. Right.

Male Victims And How To Discern

SPEAKER_01 37:11

And Rachel Denhollander says it so well. She said it on a podcast with our friend Ann-Marie Gowsward, and Anne Marie made a t-shirt out of it because it's amazing. But she said, you know, wolves look like sheep. They do sheepy things, they look like sheep, right? And that is the thing, but the fruit of what they're doing is the tell, right? So when people are like, well, we don't judge, that actually isn't what the Bible says. Like it, there's there's talk about non-judgment, but we should look at things in context. Like if you're gonna exegete scripture, do it right. Like actually do it the way that you're supposed to. And it says that we're gonna know each other by our fruit, we're gonna know each other by our love for one another. You know, if the fruit that's being exhibited in a relationship is destructive, then they might not even be a sheep. They might be a wolf. And we should ask that question because if they think that they're around just, you know, being a sheep and all, and they're really a goat, and I don't mean greatest of all time, I mean like the kind Jesus says, get far from me. Like that is such a disservice that we would let someone live in deception like that. And again, I think that as believers, that is part of our call is to go, I don't think you're looking very sheepy and I have questions. And that is a call to repentance. And I've told guys I've worked with destructive men, and I've co-facilitated groups for them as well. And one of the things I say to them is I don't care nearly as much about your marriage as I do about your soul. And if you're in this group, then I have questions about your eternal salvation, realistically, because if you're telling me that you're a Christian and you are doing destructive things in your marriage, you're absolutely outside of what God has said and you're in sin. And I need to invite you back into the full. And, you know, they don't know what to do with that sometimes. And I'm like, I'm saying this because I care deeply. I wouldn't do this if I didn't care. Like, why would I work with destructive people if I did not care for them and want them to come to repentance? I have better things to do. Honestly, like I could do something much less stressful. But I think that's, you know, something that the church can definitely grow in. And I think, you know, again, calling any destructive party. And one thing I do like about your work is it's an equal opportunity offender, if you will. So whether you're a man or a woman, you can be in a coercively controlling relationship. We tend to see it more, I think, in evangelicalism, we do see more with the men as the perpetrator and the woman as a victim, but it is not always. There are plenty of men in some of your support areas that truly have been in destructive places.

SPEAKER_00 39:43

Yeah. I mean, I for for people who want to understand more about male victims of abuse, husbands who are abused, I do have several YouTube videos on male. In fact, I have a whole playlist of just of male victims of abuse. And I'll tell you, if you can listen to David's story without losing some sleepless nights, I mean, you're tougher than I am. I just, I, I, his story of his abusive, manipulative wife, even a sexually abusive wife, um, are just shocking. And um, so if you need feel like you need your heart tenderized in this area, I mean, one of one of the people who really opened my eyes to male victims of abuse was um a pastor friend of mine. We worked in the same Christian organization, and he um years later, uh when we were no longer uh co-workers, he pulled me aside and he said, uh, my wife has divorced me, but I need you to know what was going on behind the scenes. He was a big man, she was a little woman, and he would wake up in the middle of the night with her poised over him with a skillet raised in her fist over his head, getting raised she had beat him, she had humiliated him in every possible way, and I had no idea. So we have no idea what's going on behind closed doors in our churches, um in what look to outsiders as you know the the gold standard Christian couples. Um, and it's so humiliating to men to admit what's been done to them. I I like to say women's abuse is minimized, but men's abuse is ignored. These male victims of of uh abuse are erased. They they don't, nobody wants to hear about them and they deserve. This is real, genuine harm. They deserve to be heard. So, yes, thank you for bringing that up.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

Yeah, and and I will say for you know the survivors listening who are like, yes, but and for the pastors listening who go, I don't know what to do now. Because there is such a thing as Starvo where the perpetrator denies, you know, attacks and reverses victim and offender. That is a thing. It happens a lot. Yes. Um, however, here's how you tell who's what is who has the power and control. And sometimes, you know, as people helpers, we have to slow it down and really get more information on who has the power and control, because a dysregulated victim can look, you know, kind of crazy, to be honest, right? And are doing things that maybe are even outside their value system and things like that. But when you start to dig into who has the power and control here, then that can help you ferret it out. And so this is why I advocate, and anybody that does this work, you know, as a people helper on a regular basis, advocates a team approach. You need more eyes on it than just your own, typically, in order to really be as helpful as possible. And that will help you ferret out what's really happening. And all of the, all of the perpetrators who have ever said, Oh, it's really my wife, um, you know, after a time, you can bear out that that is not in fact a true statement and that they are in fact the ones with the power and control. And in the cases that I've worked where the man is the victim, you still get to the, you know, power and control. Like who has the power and control? And it does look a little bit different at times. Um, you know, with men versus women and some of those things, there is a lot of how can I say this if I'm a man, just like you were saying. So there are some unique facets of it. I encourage folks get trained if you're gonna do this work. If you're gonna work in marriage ministry at all, you need to be trained in coercive control dynamics so you do know it when you see it. Otherwise, you're gonna see it through a lens. You know, if you've never experienced abuse, you may not have the imagination for it. As uh biblical counselor Brad Hambrick states that that can make it harder to see as well. So yeah, absolutely all of that. And I think, you know, that can make some people's hearts palpitate because then they're like, this seems even more tricky, you know, but it is tricky.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

Well, you know, it's it's interesting. If anyone does want to look at David's story on my YouTube channel, he he was um even the professionals had a hard time figuring out because even the professionals were confused. They said you're being accused of being an abuser, but you sure act like you're the victim, not in what you say, but in the choices you've made in your life, how you've sac just like we hear with the women victims, you've sacrificed your comfort, your finances, your time to appease and to care for your wife, you're not looking to dominate her. And it took them a long time, it took them days and hours of working with him to realize wait a second, we're beginning to think you're the victim. Um, you're not the abuser. So it's it is tricky. Um, I think another way of of saying it is follow the fear. Who is afraid that the divorce will happen and who is afraid of being harmed? Yeah. Uh an abuser wants to keep the marriage because the marriage works for them, you know. They get what they they've figured out that abuse is a great way of getting what they want very quickly. Follow the fear, the person who is fearful of harm being done to them, that says something.

No-Fault Divorce And Malachi Reframed

SPEAKER_01 45:56

Yeah, I agree. I agree completely. And I think that's such a wise, a wise way of looking at it. So as we get to landing the plane today, and we are gonna have like every way to find you in the show notes because I think people should find you, and I don't mean in creep. Ways. I think they should access your resources and learn from you. Let me just be very clear that since we're talking about destructive people. What is something that you would like to leave our audience with today?

SPEAKER_00 46:26

Um may I leave something for the pastors and then someone for a newly divorced? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 46:32

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 46:33

For the pastors, there is one piece of research that has been mind-blowing to pastors, and that is the study that was published by Harvard. Two economists were looking at the effects of no-fault divorce laws. As you know, they came into being, and and divorces there is no nationwide divorce law. It's passed, divorce laws are passed by every single one of the states. So as states one after the next passed no-fault unilateral no-fault divorce laws from 1970 to about the mid-80s, that's what it took to have most of them on board, what they discovered, these Harvard economists, these aren't even psychologists, these are economists who study negotiation and bargaining strength. So they're studying power dynamics, negotiating dynamics. And what they found is that when no-fault divorce laws passed in all the vast majority of these states, and the unilateral version, meaning your spouse can't stop you and the judge can't stop you as long as you fill out all the proper paperwork in the right in a timely fashion, they found that the wife suicide rate dropped up to 16%. The wife homicide rate, women killed by their partners, dropped about 10%. And the domestic violence rate dropped 30%. So please, pastors, I know you could be tempted because a lot of big Christian organizations right now are coming out against no fault divorce, but no-fault divorce literally saves lives. And it's been documented. I have a lot of articles on my website about how do we evangelical Christians look at the pros and cons of no-fault divorce? Because we were always taught that it gave an opportunity for, you know, a executive to run off with a secretary. And although, you know, technically that's true, um what it really does is it lets abuse victims go free without having to meet the preponderance of evidence standard, legal standard in court to get free. And I'll tell you, that standard prior to 1969 was so high, your own testimony didn't count. In fact, even if your spouse confessed to you and to the pastor, it didn't count. You had to have third-party witnesses. Can you imagine how difficult that is when abusers typically don't do things in front of witnesses? They want to keep their shiny, burnished image in front of society, in front of the church, and so forth. So I really think we need to be careful before we bash divorce as being, you know, the enemy of Christianity or the enemy of society, because unilateral, no-fault divorce absolutely has been proven to save lives. And I've had pastors say, bingo, that fact is I am I've I'm clear now. I have clarity now. And now I can adjust my message from the pulpit. And I think that's really important. My second thing I want to say is um a little story about my favorite Bible verse. We've always heard that God hates divorce, and this is so powerful. And I don't know if you've had a lot of people speak on this. The book of Malachi was written about 500 years before Jesus, you know, give or take a few decades. And from that point, 500 years before Jesus, it was translated into Syriac and, you know, airman, um it was translated the the Seugen and the Greek and all kinds of things. And for the next 2100 years, it was never interpreted as God hates divorce. Suddenly, 1611, for the first time in history, it's translated as God hates divorce, King James Version. And then for the next 385 years, which includes our birth and our experience and our pastor's birth and their seminary professor's birth, it's traditional to say God hates divorce. Well, what is going to change the scholar's mind? The finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls. For people who understand the absolute importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls, these are the oldest known copies of the original manuscripts of the Hebrew and um the Hebrew scriptures. And so they went back to Malachi 2, 15 and 16. Those scrolls were finally published and made available to scholars in 1996. And voila, they realized to their horror it doesn't support the interpretation of God hates divorce. It says more like a man who is hating and divorcing his wife unjustly. And I've got a wonderful graphic on my website where you I take 21 versions of translations of the Bible over the last 2400 years and show who is doing the hating and what is being hated. And prior to the King James Version, the one doing the hating was the man, and what did he hate? He hated his wife. Yep. Then the King James Version suddenly changes that to the one doing the hating is God, and what does he hate? Divorce. So after 1996, all new major Bible translations, including the Christian Standard Bible, the CSV, which a lot of people I know like, the ESV, even the ESV, which has, you know, got some detractors and some um you know fans, that does not say God hates divorce. And the publishers of the NIV went back to their scholars and said, Do we need to update this? And the scholars said, Yes, we do. So even though the NIV was originally released in the late 1970s, I think, they had to do a revision on it. In 2011, they it used to say God hates divorce, but their 2011 update says, again, it's talking about a man who hates his wife and unjustly divorces her, causing violence to this marriage. And I think we just need to get our minds around that. That is very, very important. I know there are some older translations that are still sticking with that, looking at you, NASB, but um they need to change that too. So, because that is not a reflection of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Final Thanks And How To Find Notes

SPEAKER_01 54:21

Not at all. And when you say you're a word-for-word translation, you actually should be exactly that. And yeah, we we we uh love disentangling that particular verse around here because it does get so misused and it gets put in shorthand if God hates divorce, and it really continues to enslave people in destructive places, and that's not what the scripture says at all. And so I think I love that you brought that up and I love that we're ending with that. So we are big fans at this podcast of biblical literacy for yourself, because a lot of times we are told things that are essentially mythology that aren't scripture. And so go look and see for you. The Holy Spirit lives in each one of us that names ourselves a Christian and it are, you know, believers. He can guide you. Like, go ask. And so we encourage people to do exactly that. So, Gretchen, you are a delight. You are definitely one of the people that has made my job possible. Because if women like you were not speaking out and writing the things that you wrote, then it would make it so much harder for me to have, you know, the reach that I have and to do the ministry that I have. And so I am grateful for you. And I'm grateful for you being on my podcast and for giving your wisdom to our listeners. And like I said before, we will have all of your findable pieces in the show notes. So please, folks, go and check out Gretchen if you have never heard of her before. I don't know how you could not have. Perhaps you've been under a rock, but she's amazing. And Gretchen, thank you so, so much for being on Hey Tabby.

SPEAKER_00 55:54

Thank you so much for inviting me. It's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 55:57

Absolutely. All right, folks, we will see you here again next time. Be sure to like and subscribe and rate this podcast if you haven't. It helps people find us, and we will see you again next time. Thanks for joining me for today's episode of Hey Tabby. If you're looking for a resource that I mentioned in the show and you want to check out the show notes, head on over to tabithawestbrook.com forward slash hey tabby. That's H-E-Y-T-A-B-I, and you can grab it there. Look forward to seeing you next time.