Re: Sovereign Grace Ministries
Date: January 23, 2013 12:55PM
STUNNED'S STORY
The SGM machine has done so much damage to people and families. Then
and now. It is too late to save my children the lives they had. But it
isn’t too late to speak out for the sake of other children.
I was one of those wives who was told by her SGM church that she would
be in horrible sin to leave her horrific, hellish marriage.
I remember my two small children having to watch their father going
into their room at night to remove my clothes from their closet. (Our
master bedroom only had one small closet which fit my husband’s
clothes so mine were kept in the kids’ room.) I remember him yelling
and raging as they sat up in bed, confused as to what he was doing. I
remember them watching him take all of my clothes out of the closet,
screaming about what a so and so I was. I remember him taking my
clothes and throwing them out on to our front lawn and screaming,
raging at the top of his lungs, calling me names and telling them and
the world what a horrible person I was. I tried my best to protect my
children. What should I do? Hold them and comfort them, or try to
prevent him, through my tears and begging to not throw my clothes out
in the front yard, for all the neighbors and worse, for our children
to see? And then for my children to have to see me have to retrieve my
clothes from the front lawn in what is a very humiliating act? I ran
and begged him not to take my clothes and throw them out the front
door. But out they went amid his screaming and cursing and threats.
I remember trying to get my clothes and comfort my kids and all the
while try to figure out how to make them not so scared. (Of course,
now that I am away from his controlling fog which I lived in for 22
years, I know I should have taken my precious little ones and run for
my life. Unfortunately, that realization happened 22 years too late.)
And the next day when I was in my pastor’s office, seeking his counsel
of what I could do for my family I was told that I had no right to
leave. That I would be in sin. That it was WRONG. Instead, I was to
focus on my sin. What had I done wrong to make him behave that way?
What had I done wrong? Had I betrayed him? Cheated on him? No.
Heavens, no. If I had even noticed that someone in the world was
attractive, I used to go to “confess” to a friend. So it wasn’t that.
Had I cussed at him or abused him in any way? No. Had I denied him
sex? Never. Never once in our couple decades of marriage would I have
ever denied him sex and “sin” against him in such a way.
(Wait, I take that back. Once, when I had a bad flu and he suddenly
wanted sex I had told him I was too sick. I was literally crawling
from our bedroom through the hallway and into the bathroom to vomit,
begging him to wait until I was better, then I would do what he
wanted. He came after me and rolled me over, screaming and raging at
me. He straddled me and trapped me between his legs. I begged him to
let me go so I could just vomit in the toilet instead of there on the
rug, on my back. Instead, he bent down, putting his face inches from
mine and screamed at the top of his lungs at me. My children watched
on, scared and confused. So yes, this one time I turned him down. But
this was years after the clothes on the lawn incident.)
So what was my crime which was responsible for him flying into another
rage and my children scared and me terrified? I can’t even remember. I
know how I was then with him. I know I wouldn’t have “crossed” him. I,
also, have learned that with people who are angry narcissists, you
don’t have to DO anything. Their rage and anger is within them. It’s
not your fault for getting abused. (Only my own stupid fault for
staying because I somehow believed that the only thing worse for my
kids than living in this hell was divorce. Now I realize that for
them, anything would have been better than the world we all endured
within the walls of our homes.)
But as my SGM pastor (who, to this day I believe truly loves me as a
sister, and I surely love him) reminded me, I must have done something
wrong. And I was to focus on that. And that to take my children and
leave would have been selfish and sinful.
So I stayed. And endured cheating and abuse for another couple of
decades. I would have done anything for my children to have had a dad
who put them to bed at night. I would have given my left arm (without
hesitation, my own life) for my children to have had a father who
cared for them, who wanted to be with them. I would have done anything
for my children to have had a father who loved their mother.
Unfortunately, I foolishly listened to the counsel of the wise men and
women who seemed to have wonderful family lives. (How else could I
give my children a healthy, peaceful home, if not listen and follow
the advice of those who had one? Or so I thought they had one.)
It is too late for my children to have had anything but a horrible
childhood and they still live with the ugly scars of what their world
was like. But to have someone seem to shrug (and I am not thinking of
anyone in particular) and seem to say, “Oh, that was back then, things
are fine now so that didn’t matter” when my kids and I all live with
the trauma of what was… when I still live in fear…when people who know
me and my situation well try to persuade me to buy a gun, because you
just never know when he is going to come back… when I have moved
several times but I am just too scared to change my address on my
license because maybe then he’ll find out where I am.
If there is anyone reading here, anyone who some day may have to face
a move- I don’t want them to be terrified of it. Please, if anyone
ever has that challenge, please, try it. Get help, if it’s hard. But,
please, if you can, for the sake of your family, for your kids,
please, try to move and see it as a blessing. And if your spouse is
anything like mine, please, I beg you, take those kids and run like
hell. If you’re able to, devise a plan to get to a safe place and plan
for a future for your little ones. Divorce is not worse than the hell
they are living in now.
SGM Survivors