Category — The Tale of a Passionate Housewife Desperate for God by Journey

by Journey

One thing I struggle with, as I painfully write some of the facts of my QF Patriarchal Marriage, is that the abuse wasn’t as obvious as you might think. I’d venture to say that 99.9% of the people we were around had no clue. I always get a kick out of how most patriarchy supporters speak up so quickly about how they are “opposed to abuse.” Are they really? Abuse always seems so stark, so obviously abusive, when you *read* about it, but in real life? Generally, not so much. For example, Mark’s abusive and strange behaviors are crystal clear, the way I’ve written the story for NLQ, but in real life, it wasn’t as easy as all that. I think that, in real life, it’s never like that.

In the story version, you get the play by play of abusive or flat-out weird behaviors, divorced from the people involved, divorced from all the nice moments, the normal-seeming times, the kind gestures and relational dynamics. In the real life version, the abusive behaviors are often experienced as tiny (usually completely private) bits of what seems to be an otherwise fairly normal life.

Are they small or tiny? No, not at all. They are earth-shattering, cataclysmic events that shape who you are in the relationship, and yet part of what makes them so confusing, part of what makes it so difficult to see them for what they are, is that they happen in the midst of many good things, and the earth-shattering parts happen in the deepest places of who you are, the kind of metaphorical bruises and broken bones that you can’t see, that you don’t even realize are there.

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by Journey

Mark said we were going to move to Oregon.  I didn’t want to move to Oregon (I hated the rain), and I told him so, but that didn’t matter.  He had heard from God.  More specifically, he had heard God tell him to, “Go to Oregon and build an ark.”  What that meant, we did not know, but Mark had heard it quite clearly.  I wasn’t about to argue with God.  The strange thing was that Mark regularly mocked people who “heard from God” about things.  He felt that spiritual gifts were generally abused, and that God didn’t speak as much as people thought He did.  It bothered him how our mildly-charismatic church used spiritual gifts.  He thought it was indecent and uncontrolled, that the use of spiritual gifts was dangerous because anybody could come in off the street and say that God said something.  He prefered moderating the use of spiritual gifts and only allowing approved people and leaders to openly use them, if that.  When Mark heard from God, though, we knew it was really God, because, well, it was Mark.  Mark was amazing.   

We moved to Oregon, driving there.  It was actually a very fun drive.  I had solely given my heart to Mark, and he knew it, and we had a wonderful time driving through the states.  He shared with me many things that he’d never shared with anybody before, and I felt so special, like I was getting to see inside of this man of God’s heart.  I was truly awed by how wise he was, and so thankful that I had made the godly choice to submit my will to his.  At one point on the trip, we stayed for a week in the home of Mark’s old Bible College dean and his wife.  There we watched the marital interactions between this professor and his wife, interactions where she had an opinion and wasn’t afraid to voice it.  We discussed how sorry we felt for this man, that he had to put up with a wife who didn’t live to serve him—and what a greater man he could have been if only his wife had laid down her wants and desires and worked to please him only. 

Mark shared with me that she was the perfect example of a, “hard woman.”  To Mark, there was little that was worse than a hard women.  Hard women weren’t soft and vulnerable.  They had strong minds and strong opinions and they didn’t feel guilty about it or try to hide it.  In the Bible, the word, “hard,” is used to describe the evil Pharoah’s heart, or the hearts of the Pharisees who would not listen to Christ, and so Mark’s definition was not lost on me.  I knew that before I met Mark, I, too, was a hard woman, and I resolved to do my best to never be one again.  The fun and light-heartedness we experienced as a married couple on our trip confirmed to me that I was obeying Mark to the glory of God.  What a blessing God was shining on my marriage.  He was showing me that I was on the right path.  

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by Journey

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When I shut off my brain and became willing to do whatever Mark said, he was delighted. Absolutely delighted. And everything changed. Everything. The first thing he did was give me a list on how I was to clean the bathroom. I had daily chores and weekly chores from him, down to minute details.

I remember the first day I followed his list. I was humiliated. It was as if I was a child again and he was the parent. I told him that, too (in a humbled and submissive way, of course) and he smiled and said, “Exactly. Your parents did a terrible job of raising you when it comes to cleaning, and now God has given you to me so that I can raise you and help you become the way you should be.”

I worked through the humiliation, swallowed my feelings (something I would do daily from there on out) and soon obeying Mark’s whims and will became the norm. There wasn’t really much choice. I mean, every time I didn’t obey Mark, even in the slightest thing, I was in rebellion against God and in league with Satan.

Plus, if Mark wasn’t there to patiently and gently correct my rebellion, my own head would do it, so fearful I was at being the rebellious woman that the prophetic word from God had warned me about. No. I loved God and because of that, I *would* obey my husband and do it cheerfully.

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by Journey

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Another problem, a major problem, but one that I felt so guilty for, was that my husband was seeing another woman, and that woman was the Bible. Mark was obsessed with the Bible. I remember feeling so guilty for hating the Bible because, you know, a good Christian shouldn’t hate the Bible, right? Here I was, at Bible College, and casting dirty looks at the Bible. I felt like it was no different from him taking a lover, or being an addict, because he would read it non-stop.

He didn’t want to eat dinner together. He would come home from work and class and then go into our spare bedroom and study the Bible until late into the night. I would lay there at night and quietly cry, feeling so guilty for being jealous of the Bible. Shouldn’t I be grateful for such a spiritual giant of a man?

Talking with him would never help. He would explain why it was all my fault, and I would believe him, and then feel worse. That was how all our talks always ended up. As the years went by, I would just stop trying to talk about problems at all, except when they finally burst out 2-3 times a year.

It was never Mark’s fault. It was always mine, and usually directly due to some spiritual flaw in me that needed corrected. Mark wanted the kitchen bleached down every single night, for example, and that fact that I didn’t want to do that was a moral flaw in me, not anything wrong with him. It was always my fault, always some flaw in me that only he could see, that only he could fix. I was so lucky to have him. Or that’s what he said.

That first year, I didn’t buy it half the time. Half the time I did, half the time I was sure he was full of crap, even though I was totally confused and didn’t quite understand why, but my gut said that something was really wrong, and I was still a strong enough person to listen to my gut and had enough strength to at least mutter quietly in my head that something was wrong.

So I was slowly gearing up the strength to get a divorce, scared in that I was pregnant and never imagined in a million years that I’d be divorcing Mark, but at the same time, I was quietly seething towards him, and beginning to think about figuring out how to escape (even though, at the time, I thought that only proved how awful I was, since I had yet to realize that what he was doing to me was wrong).

This was when Mark had a major “word from the Lord.” He informed me that he had something very important to tell me, but that he wouldn’t tell me until our “meeting,” which he scheduled for the next day (giving me time to fret, worry, stew). This was also normal: if Mark wanted to talk, which was rare, he would do it on his time table and expected me to be submissively waiting until that time. Always, control. Always.

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by Journey

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When we got back from our honeymoon, it was so exciting to set up our new apartment on our Bible College campus. The “married dorms” seemed so big and grown-up, and I put those thoughts about our honeymoon behind me…until Mark told me the news that “God” had told him I needed to give away my car.

He said were going to be a one-car couple, and that one car was going to be his old van. This was brand new news to me. I was shocked. What? I tried to bargain with him, but he would hear none of it. Again, he was the male, therefore the one who was supposed to be the “leader,” so though I pleaded, I had no choice but to do what he wanted.

The books and the teachings all said that a wife must submit to everything except for sin. And making me give away my car wasn’t sin. In fact, it was a good deed. Why was I so selfish? What was wrong with me?

So I sadly but obediently gave away my cute little car to a poor man who worked at our Bible school (not telling him that I *had* to, of course) and then had to get up an hour early in order to drive Mark to work every morning. That hour early was horrid. I had to drop Mark off and then sit in the parking lot of my work for an hour every morning until my job’d doors opened for the day. It was miserable.

He was very displeased at my lack of cheerfulness about the situation, and made sure to let me know, in a pastoral way, that it was a mark of my lack of spirituality. A good Christian would have gladly given up her car at the request of her spiritual leader/husband, you see. Spiritual leaders know best, and the role of a follower is to cheerfully submit.

I believed him, and then felt terrible for the way I felt, even though I still couldn’t force myself to be all bubbly about the situation… “Something must be wrong with me…” This would become a theme.

Mark then decided we weren’t going to have a TV, and had me give away my television and VCR. The same thing occurred as before; I protested, he refused to give an inch. I gave away my TV and VCR. I had to.

He also decided that the expensive limited edition guitar (that my famous song-writing relative had sent me) was going to be his. I protested and he declared his right to have it, and that was that. I was not given any options. He just took it, and played it without a pang of guilt. It was his. He said he was the better guitar player out of the two of us, so the guitar rightfully should be his. Plus, he bought me one from a pawn shop, so I should be happy and grateful for his gift. I tried to be happy, trying to be a good Christian, but inwardly I felt so violated.

The sad thing was that I was so confused by that time that I didn’t understand WHY I felt violated. In fact, I didn’t even know that “violated” was what I was feeling. I just felt really bad. I knew that something was really wrong, but what? If I approached him with my problems, my concerns, it was somehow always my fault. He was never to blame, and I, young and gullible, always believed him. By the time he was done talking, my brain was in knots and usually, I was apologizing. The something that was wrong—-it was me.

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by Journey

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The overt abuse began the day we got married. The wedding was wonderful. I was so excited, so happy. As we drove away to our honeymoon, two Bible College students having just pledged to the Lord their love for one another, I had stars in my eyes.

Then my new husband reached over and put his hand on my breast. Not fondling, not foreplay, just putting it there firmly, eyes still on the road, much like a robot.

I left it there for a few seconds, stunned, and then tried to gently push it off. He pushed back, and held it tightly, right where he’d put it, firmly on my body. I pushed back harder, but Mark’s large muscles were stronger than mine. I felt like I was going to throw up. I told him to stop, but he said, “But I can. I can do it now. We’re married, so it’s okay. It’s not sin.”

He kept saying that over again, while firmly resisting my attempts to move his arm. I wanted to scream, or cry, or just turn the car around and take the vows back. But my heart sunk as I realized, “Oh my god. I’m his wife. He can do this. It’s allowed now…” Shades of my own childhood…a world where wives submit to their husbands in everything. Wives don’t even have rights over their own body. These sick ideas from my fundamentalist childhood about the roles of men and women were at the forefront of my mind as I realized that I had to let him do as he would with me, as long as it wasn’t sin… So we drove on towards our honeymoon, Mark’s hand firmly planted on my breast, his new possession, me trying to pretend like what was happening wasn’t happening, in a state of shock.

And, as I would later learn was my “new normal,” he was so sweet, so nice for the next week or two. If I tried to talk about whatever it was that violated my personhood, he would deny it, or justify it, or tell me that wasn’t what really happened and that I was all wrong. I thought, as I would many times again in the future,

“Okay… I must be wrong, it must not have happened like that. He’s so nice now, and a nice person would never do what he did, so somehow I must have interpreted it all wrong…”

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