127: False Redemption: It's Not A Marriage Issue Guest- Melissa J. Hogan

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to episode 127 of the Untangled Faith podcast. Here's
a situation you've probably observed a million times. You hear that
someone you know or someone you admire as an author or speaker or leader
is in a marriage where there has been a serious breakdown of trust. Maybe it's
infidelity, maybe it's abuse outside of the marriage.
Maybe the person you know is the offended party, or maybe they are the

(00:22):
offender. What should happen next? I bet you've seen situations where there
is a strong encouragement to restore the marriage and use it as an
example of a redemption story. There are a lot of different ways
something like this plays out, but that's the basic model. Today I'm joined
by attorney and Institutional Response specialist for Grace,
Melissa J. Hogan, and we're going to talk about some things communities

(00:44):
and leaders and friends should know about situations like this and
why our first inclination as believers whose desire to protect
marriage is likely unhelpful and possibly harmful.
I'm glad you're here for this important conversation.
I'm Amy Fritz and you're listening to the Untangled Faith

(01:05):
Podcast, a podcast for anyone who has found themselves
confused or disillusioned in their faith journey. If you want to hold on to
your faith while untangling it from all that is not good or true, this
is the place for you. Just a note before we
get going that this conversation mentions abuse. Please take
care when listening. Here's my conversation with Melissa J. Hogan. So

(01:28):
I framed this as what do you do when your
spouse the person you promise to love
and cherish forever, the person you committed
to under God? And an inherent in that is
the desire to support them and protect them and cover their faults and
believe them, give them the benefit of the doubt. What do you do

(01:50):
when someone accuses them of harm?
Or what happens when you suspect them of
harm to you or to other people? And it's
just almost an impossible situation? Yeah, I
love that framing. I had been thinking about this
conversation for a little while and so I was really glad to get it on

(02:11):
the calendar and also glad to have you come, Melissa, because
I felt like you have seen this from
a lot of different angles and so you can wear several hats in this
conversation. So, Melissa J. Hogan, welcome to the podcast. I'm glad
you're here. It's good to be back.
Should we start with a scenario kind of like what you just

(02:33):
framed that we've seen? Very often a wife
somehow or another finds out that her husband has
betrayed her one way or another, either
cheated on her or has done something else that the world
is aware of, her community is becoming aware of.
And then what. What does the church in

(02:57):
so many times, so many times say,
let us figure out how to restore this marriage so that everybody's back together
and moving along as fast as possible. And then
it becomes a big testimony. I would actually
reverse that because I think that is how
the church and the Christian community often

(03:19):
frames it as the husband betrayed the
wife. Yes. But really how I see these
situations now is that the. One of the
partners, in my case the man, and often in the
situations we're talking about, the man has harmed
people. Yeah. So when we look at it in the sense of

(03:41):
he's betrayed his spouse, it. It frames it as a
marriage challenge,
whether a severe or light, you know, but it frames it
as a marriage challenge instead of. This is a him issue.
Yeah. And so much of the damage to,
to women or spouses in a marriage have been when

(04:03):
something is taken from it is that person's
character and behavior and pattern of
behavior issue, and turning that somehow into. Well, it's a
marriage dynamic that's happening here. Yes. And
also this unfair idea,
also that. And maybe this is another burden thing

(04:25):
that is unnecessary and, and unhealthy is
that as long as you're okay with whatever's you
decided you're okay, it must be. I'm sure everybody else is fine
too. Like, like, I'm sure it's good. And it might be bigger,
you know, and that's really hard. It wouldn't be
the, you know, offended

(04:47):
spouse's shame on them to carry that.
But many times I've seen the church say, well,
Melissa's okay, so the rest of us should be fine.
We should. It's much easier to do that when the,
the harm is. Is to the spouse or, and, or the
children. So it's much easier to frame it that way in a case of

(05:09):
domestic abuse or alleged domestic abuse, because then, well,
they could be okay with it. Well, in actuality, there,
there are reasons that we have laws against abuse and child abuse
because that is a harm to the whole society. It is also a
harm to those people that they may be so trained in
it, they may not be able to, to understand what's happened to them or to

(05:31):
protect themselves or to protect their children. And so it is
incumbent upon other people to step in,
whether or not the woman or the spouse or the children think
they're okay because it is a
collective harm and because it's a pattern of behavior. When
we realize that abuse, whether that is sexual

(05:53):
abuse to someone outside of a marriage or domestic
abuse within the marriage, that person that is
abusing has an abusive mindset. And
when we realize that, then we realize that they're not
just harming the person that is the
named victim. Yeah, that mindset plays out in

(06:15):
all of their relationships in some way. It
plays out to people maybe they're not harming because they're grooming them or they
don't need them for something, but it plays out if, even if they're
abusing someone outside of their marriage, let's
say that they're. They've sexually abused someone of
equal age or that's under their authority, or they've sexually

(06:37):
abused children, minors. People can
say, oh, well, that victim, that's the victim.
But really, there's many different types
of victims in that. Because when you say that, I think of an example that
is pretty well known, or no, people aren't talking about it these
days, probably. But I think about Bill Hybels and his assistant

(07:00):
coming forward and speaking for an article with the New York Times
about how he basically assaulted her. Yeah, I mean,
there, there are probably other victims in the same vein
of the primary abuse that we don't know about because it's a
pattern. But then there's also these other primary victims
and secondary victims. Let's take this scenario that we have

(07:22):
a. A man in a marriage who has sexually abused one or more
people outside the marriage under their authority. And because that person
has an abusive mindset in that marriage, that
the spouse, the woman, has also been groomed in
certain ways to believe them, they've been deceived,
because that person starts by deceiving themselves. The deceit starts

(07:44):
there first. The abuser deceived themselves about
their behavior, about their need to
minimize it, to deceive other people in order to achieve it. So they're
deceiving themselves, and then they're deceiving everybody else in their life. And
so that the spouse, the woman in that
situation is also very harmed because the psychological

(08:07):
damage from having to reframe your entire
relationship with this person and your entire life. Also, the person
has likely used other deceitful strategies like gaslighting.
So you may question your reality. They might intimidate you
or create unhealthy framework so that you
don't become suspicious of their behavior or you don't look at their stuff. So you

(08:30):
have learned these unhealthy patterns that maybe you also knew them
from childhood as well, and they don't seem abnormal. But then
also the children in that family
have taken in that type of behavior as
normal. So even so, somebody could say, well, those children aren't
seeing him sexually abuse someone. They're, they're not witnesses to

(08:52):
this. And they try to separate out that person's
abusive mindset that exists when they're
abusing and when they're covering up their abuse and say that
doesn't affect how they treat their spouse or their children
or other people. And it absolutely does.
Children have taken in these very subtle

(09:13):
subconscious behaviors that play out in their relationship
and they're either going to think these certain types of behaviors are
normal, like deceit, the nervousness of when you
kind of COVID up something or you're not telling the truth, or the distance between
their parents. They're taking that as normal and they're going to
carry that through their life or they're going to learn these other

(09:35):
subtle, abusive, controlling
dynamics and then they're going to learn that that is
normal. So they might be
victimized in the future. They might learn that
controlling people is how you get what you want and what you need and then
to justify that or how do you confuse someone that's

(09:57):
suspicious of you? So absolutely,
this mindset and these behaviors play out in the
relationship with the non primary
victims if that abuser is abusing outside of the marriage. Now if he's
abusing within the marriage, the, the wife and children, obviously
it's there and it's, it's terrible. Yeah, we just

(10:20):
jumped right in to the deep end with this. But I think it's
important to have this frame
of mind that says this bigger than
a one time thing that we know happened.
Generally when we hear of accounts like this, we
hear that this person was discovered

(10:42):
because of something they did. And it's one thing, and we
don't put it into context of their life that what would happen to
make somebody willing to do that? One thing
that we know it generally is part of a pattern of
behavior that is bigger. But I would love to
have you speak to the idea that sometimes an

(11:04):
outsider would say that spouse must have
known that person was a creep and a terrible person.
Why didn't they stop them?
Wow, that, that's a heavy question. And the
reality is there's several reasons why you
wouldn't consciously know. Yeah. And

(11:27):
the first is our training and what, what is normal for
us. So a spouse may have normalized from
their childhood into adulthood. Whatever. These types of behaviors
are not necessarily the abusive behaviors,
but the ways that it's covered up and the ways that it's
ignored, the ways that their partner deceives them or

(11:49):
gaslights them, that may seem normal, that existed for me,
like I. The patterns
of deceit and even the patterns of
serial adultery. That was from my
family. And I learned that you
forgive and you work and restore

(12:12):
and forgive means you forget and you know all of these
things. So you don't often see it as a
pattern either if we don't learn that abuse is a
mindset and that these things are unhealthy.
Also, our training in the faith, in the church, it's
both. There's the training as the wife that your role

(12:34):
is to believe them, you know, to, you know,
discount bad things that people say about them. I listened to your most recent
podcast, and she said, you know, as a wife, you are
trained to be super positive about your spouse. And you. You are his PR
agent. Yes, you were. I. I
literally used to say, oh, I'm your biggest note for the audio, because I

(12:56):
want. Raising her hand. Melissa's raising her hand. Yeah.
I wanted my spouse
to be the best he could be and
succeed and be proud of himself and
fulfill his potential. Not for glory for me, but because I
believed in him and loved him and wanted that for

(13:19):
him, like you would want it for people you care about. So there's this
training in the church and
historically as wives to. To do
that. And so we. We dismiss
what seem like minor things and we downplay
allegations, because also this person is all the

(13:40):
time reinforcing that this is
our marriage and that they love us. Even in, like, a cycle of domestic abuse
in the marriage. We've talked about this. It. Abusers don't
abuse all the time. So there is this intermittent
reinforcement that happens and that keeps you in
this dynamic because you are getting sometimes this

(14:02):
love and attention that you. You crave
from this person. And then other times, they're a
complete aggressive bully. And so
similarly, in. Even if they're abusing someone outside the marriage,
you are getting this intermittent reinforcement that they're this wonderful
person that you think they are, and sometimes

(14:25):
they're really, really good at it, and you're only seeing the mask
slip every so often. And it's very easy to attribute that to
the exception and that the rule is that they are this wonderful
person that you should believe and forgive
them for every small slight. And we're also
trained as women to make our husband the

(14:47):
hero. So then if something happens outside the marriage, whether
it's abuse or an affair, we want to blame
the other woman. Right. I Mean even in clergy sexual
abuse for decades and even now in
some cases it's framed by the pastor who has,
has done this. I can think of a certain pastor down in Florida who

(15:09):
committed clergy sexual abuse and it's an affair. It's. I'm air
quoting it's an affair as opposed to. No.
He used his power to manipulate someone into a sexual relationships. So
as wives, we want to buy that. We want to believe them and blame the
other woman. She tempted them. You know, it was a time of weakness
and then betrayal, blindness. You know, Jennifer

(15:31):
frayed her work in that area. The cost
to seeing that they're doing these behaviors or they're
harming someone or that they're deceiving us or that they're bullying us. The
cost to that would mean we would have to do something.
Yeah. And especially if you are in a
marriage where the church has said you, you can't get divorced

(15:54):
unless you have some hard evidence, we will not support you getting divorced. Or in
my case where I swore I would never get divorced because my parents,
divorce was so damaging, there's no way
out. So your brain tricks
you and hides this stuff from you into your
subconscious. Jennifer Frayed calls it the whoosh in the intro to

(16:15):
her book. And I just about fell over because I, I
literally experienced it as a whoosh so many times and it was just
gone. Her book Blind to Betrayal
is so good. I will link that in the show notes. I haven't had the
experience of domestic abuse, domestic violence, or somebody like
really in my marriage situation or like in my

(16:37):
family growing up. But the principles apply to
any relationship or community that you're a part of, that you really value
that. Your brain says if you see that it's going to cost you
something that you don't want to pay. And I mean,
that's not a shame on you that you didn't see it. Your,
your actual brain's working against you. So I,

(17:00):
I think that is a good thing to keep in mind when we think she
must have known, he must have known.
Why was she protecting him? I don't know that
she did. No. No. And, and I mean, it's really
interesting you point out the fact that the dynamics of
abuse are the framework for

(17:22):
that is really the same in all types of environments, whether it's
domestic abuse, sexual abuse, institutional abuse. If you love
your church or your ministry or your self
described Christian workplace, you don't want to
believe that these things are bad or these things are
true. And so you, your brain

(17:44):
doesn't Allow you to see it until the weight of evidence sitting on
the shelf breaks the shelf. And all of a sudden
it's. So many people have described this. It's like within
a day or a couple things over a week, all of a
sudden their eyes open, it's like the scales fall off and you're
like, oh my gosh, this

(18:06):
is, this is real. I have a question that I think
is a really good one for you to, to
field because of your, your own
personal experience as well as your professional expertise and
spending a lot of time researching in the
field of abuse and learning about the dynamics of

(18:29):
tricky, abusive people. I would think
this sort of thing happens in this pattern in these situations
where the bad actor, someone finds out.
It's undeniable at this point. And at that point
a decision is made. And sometimes in our
Christian bubbles, the decision is made by the

(18:51):
bad actor that says, oh, I just figured out,
I have this one problem. And they have a, they
put a label on it really quickly and
you know, whatever that might be. And now I've gone to,
I've just went to therapy. We see so many times where people are sent off
to like an intensive thing and,

(19:14):
and I would imagine the spouse feels relief.
That is what it was. That I have wondered somewhere in my
head something wasn't right. And I bet they even feel relief at
that point of like, that's the answer. Yep.
What I, you know, tell
me about

(19:37):
what kind of concerns we should have with that
framing of like, now we know and we're good and we're
going, we're moving forward. Right, right.
I mean, I think as long as you frame it as
something other than
an abusive mindset, you are in

(19:59):
danger of minimizing what has happened, the risk
of what will happen in the future, and the
remedy. Because if you say it's an
affair, oh well, gosh, we got the Billy Graham rule
and that's how we fix that. We don't let them be alone with women
or if it's that they touched a

(20:21):
child sexually. Well, we don't want to let them be around children and
they just need to, to realize and go to go to therapy.
But when you realize that this comes. The Bible talks about
everywhere our actions come out of our heart. Yes. And
so this is a deep set heart problem
when you abuse other people and use them for

(20:44):
your own needs. So when we look at it that
way, it becomes a little more obvious that this is a
pattern of behavior with. There's probably a number of
things that, and a number of other victims. There's things we don't know
about, there's behaviors we don't know, and they're not telling us
the truth. I can't tell you how many times. I

(21:06):
personally or not the entire truth. Right. But, but
especially that's a huge sign when you're having to pull
information out and they're only admitting things you already know.
Ye. But, but generally you are only finding out a little piece. I mean,
I personally went through a number of
experiences over the course of my 21 year

(21:28):
marriage where I would find out one thing and okay, we'll
admit that. Is there anything else? No, no,
nothing else. And then I'd find out another piece and it would be like at
the beginning, I probably knew 5% of the reality and,
and even by the end of that episode or whatever, I still maybe, maybe
knew 50% y. And over the course of my marriage, I

(21:51):
think I probably know 10% of what is the truth. I've
seen that in a lot of abusive situations where you're just
told a little bit or they admit a little bit. And
that's just a sign that this is not a person who is
repenting or changing at all. But even if
they do, because it's a mindset, it will

(22:13):
take a long time,
as in years, decades to
change. And you won't know along the
course of that if it's actually real because you are
undoing hard wiring in that brain that has
existed for a long time. And it's not just like the actual

(22:35):
acts of abuse. Again, it goes deeper into this self
deception and deception of other people. It takes
a lot to undo that. And that's what the person who wants
to get better and often abusers,
it takes a lot and years for them to even get to that place
where they want to actually get better. Don't believe their

(22:56):
words. Do not believe the words. Only believe
actions that literally turn the other direction and
run and them being a completely different
person over years and decades is
how you could say, oh, this person. But, but a weekend,
A weekend at a retreat center or a week. A

(23:19):
week. Yeah. I think we're both thinking of the same place.
There's a specific retreat
place not that far from us where we've seen
a laundry list of men
in the Christian realm who have had
accusations of some kind of abusive behav.

(23:41):
They go to this place and it's. I,
I'm not saying there's not good work done there and that there's people
who have experienced trauma that are not served there but in those
instances, it appears to be a way to
massage the tarnished image of the
male Christian leader. Because I'm going to

(24:02):
this place and getting help. And in fact, I think we know of one person
who actually went there and used it to find other way. Other victims.
Yeah, people who had experienced trauma. You know,
I'm thinking of somebody that had like been very public about how they had gone
to this place several times. And
after saying that on podcasts, you know, there was

(24:25):
a big article that came out with victims came naming this
person as being sexually abusive. This was after
saying they had gone to this place several times. So
anytime I hear about somebody, especially if it's a high
profile person that has undeniable
allegations against them of something that's really bad, I

(24:47):
say to myself, I bet they're going to this place. And I bet I'll see
them again in a month, month and a half,
six months talking about how they went to this place.
And my fear is they're just given a lot of really good
words to explain away what they did. Not
that some of those things aren't true that are explaining what happened inside of

(25:09):
them, but I think sometimes is used as a bypass of
doing deep, ongoing work. It's a start.
But the real proof of transformation
cannot be something that happens quickly.
As you were talking, Melissa, I was thinking about how
the burden might be more

(25:31):
appropriately placed. And I don't know if this is the right word, but
like I think the community surrounding the people that are
harmed, especially family members who have been harmed by somebody that's
made really terrible decisions, that the
community around them, being aware of the dynamics of
what it means to be an abusive person, the

(25:52):
friends, the mentors
and faith community leaders in their lives of
how important that them
understanding because they're not in the same crisis
place and they don't have the same betrayal blindness going on for
them that somebody that lives in a house with somebody

(26:14):
might have. And so tell me a little bit about
how, what you would say, how, how could
I be a good friend to somebody who I know,
whose marriage is in crisis? What
are some good things or what are some things you would advise against? I gave
this some thought. I gave this some thought about the stages

(26:37):
that at least I went through and other
people that have experienced similar situations go
through when you first learn of these
situations or you first open your eyes. And so
I think understanding these kind of stages is also
how people can come around that person and support them.

(26:59):
And first is understanding that if they are still in close
relationship with that person, they are going to
be constantly re traumatized,
re deceived, re groomed
about what is and isn't true.
And often it is in their best

(27:20):
interest to separate them from that person.
So that does not happen. Because it is really
hard to get a handle on anything when you are in that
constant cycle now, especially if it's domestic abuse,
it's going to be even worse because that's
what's been happening at a high level anyway. But

(27:43):
if they've abused other people, that dynamic, like we said, is still
there. So being in that situation, it's really hard to see
what's happening. So talking through that and
helping them understand that and trying, even if they're going to stay in
that, how do you support them with the
understanding that that's going to happen? And then here, at

(28:05):
least for me and from what I've seen in others, are the
stages you kind of go through. First you start to try to understand
the dynamic you're in and then you start to try to figure
out how do you care for yourself and then also if you
have children, how do you care for your children? If
the person abused outside the marriage and then you're reaching the

(28:28):
understanding of understanding the dynamic
of their abuse if it's different than what
occurred with you. And then at some point in there
or overlaying all of this, you are dealing with possibly the
enablers of the abuser. So they
may muck up this whole thing all along the way. But

(28:49):
you know, backing up, understand the dynamic, dynamic you're
in is part of that realizing
that this is a deceitful person
because again, you want to trust them, you want to believe them,
this is your spouse. You are blind to their
betrayal because of the cost. So maybe at this point as you're waking up,

(29:11):
you're counting that cost. But reconciling the
fact that this person has been deceiving and they are
likely still deceiving you on an ongoing basis
is part of understanding the dynamic you're in.
And you know, we hear about wolves in the Bible. Yeah, we
don't think it's going to happen to us. We don't think we're going to be

(29:32):
married to one. We, the church, I think also does a
terrible job by acting like the wolves are out there. The wolves are
the culture, the wolves are the leftists or whoever the wolves are in
the church. That the Bible is very clear about
that. And, and we also think, well, how did I miss it? It's
easier to think I need to get back to work. I need, especially with the

(29:54):
other pressures maybe that this person has brought to bear,
it's easier to. To think I have all these other responsibilities, which you do,
and I'm gonna kind of not deal with it
and not appreciate the gravity or realize that they're
deceiving everybody, including me and children and everyone,
and just get back to work. So that's part of learning to understand the dynamic

(30:17):
you're in. So helping someone to the extent that they're
able and that they can tolerate it in their window
of tolerance in the trauma that they're in.
Now for a quick break. Now back to the show.
And then it's also, how do you care for yourself? So obviously
one of the first steps in therapy is

(30:39):
to stabilize someone because often
as you're in that first stage of understanding the dynamic, the.
The trauma is so intense because
everything you knew about this person
is now under question. You are

(31:00):
reframing your entire relationship with them, your entire
dynamic. The grief there is
so overwhelming because you're grieving
the timeline of, you know, for me, it was timeline of 25
years of this person. I knew that nothing was as I thought it
was. You're grieving the future losses

(31:22):
of what you thought you were going to grow old with this person. And now
what's this going to look like? You're grieving who this
person is, not who they were,
not who they won't be in the future. And then
the harm to other people, to your children. Did
you ignore red flags? You're wrestling with all of this stuff. There's a

(31:43):
constant cycle as well, that you just wish, well,
if. If this person would just wake up and realize what
they did and the harm they caused other people and the harm they caused us,
this would all go away. And it. That makes it even worse when you are
around them and they're acting like they are doing that.
Yeah. And so that gets confusing. So

(32:05):
that's also. In caring for yourself, you're wrestling
with the inner. The intertwining doctrines of, like, the permanency of
marriage, forgiveness and repentance.
And, you know, what does this look like? And you don't realize you're wrestling
with all this, but it's all swirling around and it overwhelms
you like waves of grief

(32:27):
and then depression. If you were a primary
victim yourself, the rates of suicidality are so high
because you don't see a good way out. You don't want
to get divorced. This person is abusive. There's this habit of
just moving forward because to the extent that there were signs in the
past, you moved forward by minimizing them or

(32:50):
by whooshing them out, you know, you, you probably didn't ask
for help or tell anybody about any of these signs. And so
you have to start to break that pattern and start to be willing
to depend on other people and ask for
help. And then you've got to consider in that caring for your
children. And like I said, to the extent we don't understand what

(33:12):
abuse is early on, we don't realize
the harm that may have come to them, especially if
they weren't the primary victims. Even if they
were the primary victims or
one of them understand, you're probably not going to understand
at the beginning the depth of the harm

(33:35):
and even the actions that
happened and you're wrestling with. We don't want them to hate that
parent. But you also need to protect them and model
healthy behavior. And how do you do that?
So that's all before you get to. If your
spouse abused somebody outside the marriage, these

(33:58):
are all the survival things that are happening before you
can even sometimes deal with
this external abuse and understanding the dynamic of that because
you are in survival mode and you're
responsible for your children. And then like I said, if the
enablers are pressuring you

(34:20):
during this time and are there pressure campaigns to silence
you to minimize the behavior, you know, that was
something I personally experienced. Is that
silencing and manipulation and it makes
all of this process just eek out
so slowly because making sense of it without a

(34:42):
good strong protective support system is really
difficult. Yeah. Tell me about how
your thoughts on the very common
response from faith communities to
this to say the first thing you need to do is go to marriage therapy.
Nope. That goes back to starting from

(35:05):
the foundation that the, the problem we have
here is an abusive mindset
that results in patterns of behaviors. This is not a marriage
problem. This is a abuse
problem. Going to marriage counseling
is a remedy for

(35:26):
interpersonal communication,
responsibility dynamics within a
marriage wholly inapplicable to
how you deal with an abusive mindset. Now
the, the non abusing spouse definitely
should get the support of a trauma informed

(35:49):
therapist and maybe even a support group.
I was in pretty much weekly
therapy for five years. I was in a DV
support group and still am. And it's been, you know, what, six,
six years now? Yeah. And those two
were vital for me. So a support system, helping

(36:12):
that person get plugged into those kind of resources. But marriage
counseling? Absolutely not. If the issue
is serial adultery, if the issue
is abuse of any kind, whether
domestic abuse or abuse outside the marriage, Marriage
counseling is not appropriate and not called for. I think that's a good point

(36:34):
to make. I also think it can derail the whole, the process
slows it down. I mean, if there is a small
chance of somebody turning their life around and deciding
to do the hard work, it's not going to start in
couples counseling. It's going to start on an
individual level. And they can

(36:56):
do that as long as there's a message being sent that there must be
two sides to this. And you know, and
this idea that if a man strays
from his marriage, if that happened, that the wife was not
caring for him in a way that she should have. And that's a
terrible, horrible message that we've sent to

(37:19):
too many spouses for too long. Yeah, I actually have a personal
story related to that and backing up. I'll say
it doesn't serve the abuser well to allow them an out
to say that this is someone else's fault versus things I've
got to deal with in my mind. But I will say, early on in my
marriage, in one of the

(37:41):
first series of affairs that I knew about,
there were people in our life and one
did say, well, you know, there's two,
there's two people in a relationship.
And that stuck with me. And
that was part of how this

(38:03):
just kept perpetuating. And so
finally at the end, when it was very, very clear
this was a long standing pattern, not just the serial
adultery, but the interpersonal
abuse long standing pattern, a couple
different people came to me and said, hey, because I, I said to them,

(38:25):
hey, this is what you said and
explicitly and suggested. And that was
really harmful to me. And they apologized.
They apologized. And I
cannot tell you how meaningful that was
because when you are dealing with someone that

(38:46):
is pathologically deceitful
and, and I say pathologically because it is, it is so
a part of their everyday life. It's, it's a
pathology. Yeah. Someone that's deceitful in that way
and you're twisting into pretzels to try
to support them and meet their needs in,

(39:10):
in ways that over time become very, very unhealthy. There's
nothing else you could do. And that, and that's something you have to learn for
yourself that this wasn't me. There was nothing else I could
do. This is a them problem. And that sounds kind
of blase to say it that way, but
continuing to remind yourself when you come out of that situation that

(39:31):
there's nothing I Could have done that, could have made this any better.
Yeah. And that isn't to say that you are a perfect
person, is to say that somebody, one person, is responsible for their own
behavior. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I can say that now,
especially being in a very healthy relationship, it is just. And. And
I know you're in a healthy relationship. It is light years

(39:54):
different. The dynamics in a healthy
relationship, in how things are handled, how you
communicate, how you feel
safe all the time. Yeah, it's so
different. One of the things I see as a problem, and you alluded to this,
and I want to talk about it a little bit more, is this is something

(40:14):
we've seen over and over again. This is not a one time thing. So if
someone says, I know what Amy's talking about, I'm going to say, well, I'm talking
about, you know, 50 of these situations
is in the Christian world, the return
to position
and that being celebrated and it happening relatively

(40:34):
quickly. I am concerned. And I think one of that is because
things I've learned is for a reason for my concern
is that there has not been a chance for that person
to show that they are a trustworthy person. And
oftentimes what they're being returned to is the
thing that gives them access to something

(40:57):
that was their biggest temptation
to do the worst that they could do. It's like saying, oh,
I'm so glad you dealt with your alcoholism. Come on back to the work in
a bar. Yes. Tell me about your thoughts on that. Especially,
let's say if you were in the decision making position as somebody that's
like, oh, so and so, just finished their

(41:18):
therapy. Should I bring
them back? Is it time they went to their retreat center,
they say they're ready. Nope. And their spouse says they're
ready. Nope. Go
on. Here's my opinion, and I'm
not going to attribute this to anyone else. Someone who has

(41:40):
had power and has abused that power in whatever way
should never have any similar type of
power like that ever. And what we know about it
is the person who truly changes
and repents and appreciates the harm

(42:01):
that they have done to people. They
would agree, they would want to be near it, they wouldn't want to be
anywhere near that because they understand the
harm that they've caused. And I'm going to throw a hypothetical
here. Someone who has harmed
people in some abusive way, they disappear

(42:24):
into obscurity. They
make amends to the extent that their victims
are able or willing to interact,
and they make amends where that person
is satisfied. In. In some
way. And the amends they're making are defined by the person who'd been harmed. Right.

(42:47):
They're never going, well, I did all this. Well, I
apologize. That's a sign they're not repentant, they're not changed.
And they don't have a desire to get back into
that position because they are completely humbled
and grieved by the things they have done.
And I feel like the only scenario that I could

(43:08):
imagine to put them back into some
kind of power is that their victims
champion them. And they say
this. They are such a changed
person. And our relationship has
been. It has reconciled. And I see them as

(43:31):
a completely different person because, again, that. That's what
repentance is. It's turning the other direction. And
so it should be obvious, if it's not obvious to the people
around us, especially to our victims, that we.
That we or the abuser is a completely
changed person. That humility and that

(43:52):
repentance, I don't believe is there because when you are so grieved
by the harm you've caused, when you appreciate it, you
want to make amends to your
victims, and you. You are
just grieved by it. And. And when you see
people, you often hear about this with people

(44:15):
in. In prison who are completely
grieved, and then you hear these wonderful, heartwarming stories.
Were they in the family of the person that they
murdered or something? That there is this restored
relationship that is a sign of
repentance and. And grief over the harm that you've

(44:36):
caused. But have I seen that by a person
in the Christian world or a pastor? No, I
haven't. No. Yeah. What about that? The argument
about forgiveness. Aren't we called to forgive? Isn't that
lacking forgiveness? No, I think
there have been a lot. I mean, I agree with you. Yeah. A

(44:58):
lot of warped definitions of forgiveness. And one of the most
profound things for me, and I talk about this over on
my sub stack and is
tearing apart all of these concepts
that have been conflated in the church and in
ourselves. And they are things like repentance,

(45:20):
forgiveness, accountability, relationship
reconciliation, and trust. And we've put all those together. That
somebody has harmed someone, they say they're sorry,
and the relationship should go back to how it was. We should trust them in
the exact same way we trusted them before. The sorry is the repentance,
and now we're obligated to forgive. Realizing

(45:43):
that all of those things are separate things was so
profound to me. And forgiveness
is really within us and
how we can wrestle with the harm that they've
caused and with them as a person. For
me, my standard of whether I have

(46:05):
forgiven someone and often it's a daily
choice to forgive, especially in a situation where someone
continues to be harmful. And that is,
do I want the best for them? Do I
want God's best for them? Would I be
open for them coming to me and wanting

(46:27):
to apologize and to make amends?
And would I be vengeful or overly
burdensome with what I would need from them? Would I be willing to
have these conversations with them? And also am I able to talk
about the things that they've done and the harm that they've
caused without

(46:48):
extraordinary pain and
anger and emotions like that I've
processed, it could be very, very harmful, but I can talk about
it and I'm not overcome with anger
and I could have a conversation with them about it and
communicate my forgiveness to them. So that's can be different for

(47:11):
different people. But that's how I look at it and try to
evaluate have I forgiven? I can't say I'm
perfect at it, but that's how I look at it. What would you say
to the person that says that kind of
conflates unforgiveness with somebody's desire for
justice? I mean, we have a justice system now.

(47:33):
I will say our American or earthly
justice system is not perfect by any means
whatsoever. But it's not like we don't have
consequences for actions, for murder, for rape.
And we're not saying, well, if that person apologizes and their, their victim
forgives them, they shouldn't go to jail. No, there are consequences.

(47:54):
Accountability is separate from their
repentance or our forgiveness. And that's, that is replete in
the Bible. There's consequences for sin. And God
had different consequences for people based on their actions.
Even if they were sorry and repented, there were still
natural consequences for King David who when he was

(48:16):
confronted by Nathan and you know,
yes, I say we shouldn't believe people's words, but
David, he played that out in his
life. Again, not a perfect person, but he still had
consequences. His child died. Yep. And then
his other children child rebelled against

(48:39):
him and there was harm within his family that
was expected to happen. That were consequences for his actions.
Shannon Martin says, and she'll, she'll say this,
repeat, repeat it with me, say it with me. That
forgiveness doesn't equal access.
Yes. And that goes to that trust issue. Trust in

(49:00):
relationship. Again, separate things.
I can forgive people, but
I'm not going to trust them because they're not
trustworthy, and I'm not going to have
relationship with them because they're not a safe person.
And you can argue whether or not that relates to whether they've repented

(49:21):
or not, but they've certainly not shown themselves to be
trustworthy or shown themselves not to continue to be harmful
to people. And, you know, that's, you know, that's
not a person that I'm going to have. You know, they could be in my
periphery. And I think the longer we heal,
we realize that we are going to encounter unsafe people.

(49:43):
And it's, it's, it's part of healing, actually, to be able to hold that tension
and that nuance that not everybody is completely safe and they're
still maybe in your life, but it. They're certainly not in
my inner circle or in my secondary circle or
pretty much in my third circle. Yeah. I just thought of a
situation that I feel like is applicable to this, something that I experienced in the

(50:06):
church that I attended. And I'd love for you to kind of
sit in the seat of the decision makers and how to handle
this. I went to a church where the youth pastor's
wife was found to have been sending,
I think, some messages of a sexual nature with a
somebody in the youth group underage. It

(50:28):
was turned over to the police. It's handled well in that
regard. However, if you are like an elder in that church and
trying to figure out how to handle this, how do you handle the
thing? You're like, well, what if this is going to cost the spouse, the
innocent spouse that didn't do anything by
trying to create safety? How do I handle that,

(50:50):
Melissa, when I'm afraid that by keeping
somebody safe will also harm, cost
that innocent spouse. The boundaries
on the ministry that they're allowed to do. And I think I see that happening
in the whole, you know, Christian world where we're like, but if
I don't let this one person back on the stage, the person they're

(51:12):
married to is going to be harmed because
they're not gonna be able to pay their bills. There's two things in tension
there. Right. There's the fact that
we have to have standards for how to
keep safe, keep people safe, safeguarding.
And that should exist whether or not someone is married

(51:33):
to someone. And it's funny because there is so
much of this crossover in the church or in Christian organizations
between the person and their spouse.
Yeah. That arguably maybe should not exist. I
think Beth Allison Barr's book Becoming the Pastor's
Wife is going to be A really interesting read in that

(51:55):
regard because we have these expectations of what a pastor's wife, whether it's
a senior pastor or youth pastor, what they should do that we probably should
not have. Yeah. What if the expectation is that their house is safe? What if
the expectation. They're trying not to put the expectation on the person that isn't on
the payroll, but they
are hiring that person because they have an expectation that

(52:17):
the household that they live in is a safe place for
them to do ministry and they find out that maybe that
household isn't a safe place for them to, you know, have.
Well, that. That goes back to the standards of if that is part of the
job requirements. Yeah. That person probably can no longer meet
them. It is terrible that there are impacts

(52:39):
to the non harmful
spouse. And that's true. There were
lots in my situation. But
the church's responsibility is to the
congregation and to the youth, especially to young people and to
the minors. And they can support

(53:00):
the non offending spouse in other ways in terms
of helping them consider a different career,
a different job. They can transition them out
with severance. They can help them.
They especially should, as we talked about earlier, help them understand the
dynamics of abuse and what it is they're in when they

(53:23):
are married to an offending spouse. Because
you know that the churches should be the most educated on
this topic so that we can come alongside people
who may not understand and who are in a morass of it
either, you know, during the abuse itself
or. Or afterwards still. Yeah.

(53:45):
And in our church situation, I feel like they
told us what happened in a letter and they read it from the
stage and I don't know that it was ever addressed ever again. And
the spouse that had the offending spouse wasn't allowed to be on campus
for a certain period of time. But then after that time was up, they
just sort of quietly brought her back in. It also makes you

(54:08):
wonder. There's definitely a gender dynamic in abuse
that we cannot ignore in both directions depending on what's
happening. Yeah. And when we look at that, we have to
understand are different allowances or
different judgments being made based
on the offender's gender or the victim's

(54:29):
gender or because it's same sex abuse that people think
is somehow different than opposite gender
abuse. I guess I asked that question because I say, if this had
been a male youth leader who had done this to
a young woman, would they have let him come back?
I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. Some. Some churches absolutely would have.

(54:51):
Yeah. It was Not a shining moment. I think a lot of times churches
just want to just get over it real fast and are
really more upset about media covering
it and see that as an attack on them more than they see the
issue, the abuse that's happened as the
real problem. That really grieves me that so

(55:13):
many times they're detracting from the real problem by saying, oh
look at that, it's the Tennessee. And it's that they're just always out to say
bad things about us. Right. And it's a type of silencing. It may not be
the overt silencing that happens with non disclosure
agreements or them telling their church, don't talk about
this. But it's. If we're not being transparent,

(55:35):
there is kind of a layer of silencing. We're not giving the
information. And so then people don't even know what questions to ask.
People feel like they shouldn't talk about it. And so
being transparent about
situations of abuse and what is
known, what is alleged. Obviously every case

(55:56):
is unique, especially if there's victims
that don't want to be identified
or known. You have to take that into
consideration. But more information
with those caveats is better than less information.
Yeah. And a healthy organization isn't going

(56:19):
to consider you a troublemaker for asking questions. No. I
mean the stakes are really high in these sorts of situations and the
kind of access people have to people
with less power, people who are vulnerable, that's a red flag when they're like you're
talking about it is a problem. Right, Right. Yeah. You
are not the problem if you're. Asking question and that's

(56:41):
why asking the questions ahead of time and
understanding safeguarding policies and having those
frank conversations before there's a situation
where something has happened and then you're dealing with it at that point, then you
can understand are they following even the policies that
they have, you know, put out there? You know, are they willing to talk

(57:03):
about it and what should I expect? But we don't know what to ask
sometimes if we've never gone through a situation like this. So it's not,
there's no shame if you don't know the questions to ask. And I'd also say
every organization is going to say of course we're
safe. Thanks for asking, Amy. We do ministry
safe, we do background checks, we're good. Yeah.

(57:25):
And it's going to take probably a little deeper conversation, a little more
awkward conversation if you really care to know the nitty gritty of
how things are handled and you might feel like you're a
problem. I feel like I'm a problem. Sometimes I just
have to ask it one more way because I have seen
people skirt a question because I use the wrong

(57:48):
term about NDAs where I say, now I'm going to ask and say, do
you have any documents or any agreements you require
anybody to agree to in order to work
there, or you feel like you got to be a lawyer
that keeps them from. From speaking freely about
their experience. Right. Like, did I say that exactly right.

(58:10):
Confidentiality clauses. Because I've asked about, like,
do you do NDAs? And I pastors have said, no, we don't.
And then I find out, oh, they do a confidentiality
agreement. It's just wordsmithing. So and so
I'm not saying everybody does that purposefully to skirt it. I'm just
saying people that want their place to be safe don't know how to make

(58:32):
them safe. And they think they are because they did what their insurance company
required to have insurance. Well, and I would say too,
especially in cases of sexual abuse, by the time they're
actually arrested or they have
something that would be on their record for a background check, often they have
a myriad of victims or they're not caught for a

(58:53):
long time. So we do hear about cases in churches
where they didn't check and this person was a known or registered
sex offender. Obviously that's some cases. There's a ton
of cases where this is the first
caught offense, whether that's, you know,

(59:14):
power abuse, sexual abuse, spiritual abuse.
So yes, you have the policies, have safeguarding
policies, have background checks, all of these things. But you also
need to have a full understanding of abuse
because there's going to be abusive people,
I guarantee in almost every church's timeline

(59:35):
that have never been arrested and would, you know, pass a background check with flying
colors. And half of the people they knew would say, they're wonderful,
amazing people. Yeah, yeah. As you were saying that, I was
also thinking about often when there's abuse that happens
inside of that is impacts somebody who
is a member of a church, whether they are a leader or not,

(59:57):
whether on payroll or a volunteer or they're just an attender.
The, the statement you hear from the church, if you hear anything, is,
don't worry folks, it wasn't anybody in our church. What
we heard about was outside of the church. And I would
urge people when they hear that is to say, you just cannot prove a n
negative. And just because the thing

(01:00:19):
they heard about was outside of the church may not
mean you should not assume that person never harmed
anybody inside of the church. You have some work to
do, possibly to make sure you're doing your best to care for the people in
your church well. And the first thing we should feel is
incredible grief for whoever that was. Right.

(01:00:41):
Whoever was affected that way, it doesn't matter if they went to our church. Like
grieving with those who grieve and have been harmed
and being responsible in some way for
that person who did that harm. But also, you're right. Again, this goes back
to. Because abuse is a mindset. People
were impacted by that person.

(01:01:03):
Even if the primary victim that we currently know
about is outside the church.
So people were groomed to believe that person. They were
deceived by that person. The likelihood that they may also
have victims within the church is entirely
possible. There's obviously secondary impacts within

(01:01:25):
their family and friends and, and things like that.
Where would you point people to that say, okay, I want to handle this well.
Where can they learn? Who can they learn from? Right. Well, I
mean, if they want to handle it well, they
should learn about abuse and put into place policies.
There are a number of different organizations that can do

(01:01:47):
that. Grace, or Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian
Environment, has a safeguarding program that can come in and
assist with that. Again, full disclosure. I assist with
investigations that Grace does. Independent
investigations. There's resources.
Dr. Diane Langberg is also a great resource on

(01:02:09):
understanding abuse. The Caring well
conference and materials are online from the Southern
Baptist Convention. I think the key is
becoming educated yourself and
looking at different resources that can really give
you a wide understanding of all the different types of abuse.

(01:02:31):
Yeah, well, thank you. I appreciate that. Thanks for stopping by the
podcast, Melissa. Thanks. Always good to talk. I can't
wait to have you back. I already have plans for our next conversation. I think
it has to do with the talk you're going to give soon, but I'm going
to let you give your talk soon first and then I will talk a little
bit more, flesh it out a little more on the podcast
in a couple months. So it's great talking to you. You

(01:02:54):
too. Thanks so much for listening. I know some of the things we mentioned in
this conversation are things you've never before considered. I'm going to share some
links in the show notes to give you a place to learn more about how
to be a good friend and effective ministry leader to those in your
community. If you want to connect with me, you can find me on threads as
Amy Henning Fritz or Amy Fritz on Bluesky. I'M also

(01:03:15):
untangled faith on Instagram. If you'd prefer email, send me A note to
amyntangledfaithpodcast.com
thanks everybody. I'll see you next week.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}127: False Redemption: It's Not A Marriage Issue Guest- Melissa J. Hogan

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

All Episodes

127: False Redemption: It's Not A Marriage Issue Guest- Melissa J. Hogan

Stuff You Should Know