Many thanks to one of our readers for writing the following to us:
It’s not called gossip once a wife’s murder is reported after many years of hidden domestic abuse, but it’s called gossip if she talks about it before her murder. It’s not called gossip when it is reported that a company/man goes into bankruptcy, but it’s called gossip if his wife talks to people about her husband’s laziness and refusal to work (financial abandonment) prior to the bankruptcy.
As anyone familiar with the mentality and tactics of the abuser knows, false repentance is a common ploy of such people. They can be very convincing. They have changed. What they did was wrong, but they are finished with it forever. If their victim will only forgive them, all will be well. So it is vital that all of us – victims, Christians, pastors, counselors – become wise and discerning rather than naive and foolishly trusting.
King Saul was an abusive man. I think that is safe to say. Anyone so jealous that he would launch a spear at one of their most loyal subjects certainly qualifies for the abuser label. And Saul played the “repentance” card very well. It didn’t work, of course, because he was trying to deceive the Lord Himself by deceiving the prophet Samuel.
For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (Isaiah 53:2-3)
Abusers are the children of their father the devil. So it is not surprising that they share one of his favorite tactics — accusation. And one of the very common charges that abusers level at their victims is something like this: “You never keep friends. Your friendships never last. You always reject them eventually. Or they reject you when they see how weird you really are.” Ever heard that line? I have. Plenty of times.
Continue reading “Accusation by Abusers to Victims: “You Cannot Keep Friends””
