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God isn’t glorified when women stay in marriages where they’re abused

Too many women have sat across from church leaders, bruised and broken, only to be told they must “bear their cross” and return to their abuser. Too many have heard that leaving would be disobedience, that their suffering has spiritual purpose, that divorce is never God’s will. But what if everything they’ve been taught about suffering, submission, and divorce has been taken dangerously out of context? What if the very scriptures being used to trap abuse victims were never meant to apply to their situations at all?

Something interesting has been happening on social media lately, where I keep getting posts sent to me where others accuse me of being “pro-divorce”, and talk about how I’m training women to divorce husbands. That’s quite laughable, considering my whole point here is to help people have healthy marriages! 

But here’s the thing: when the marriage is destructive (and at least 25% of evangelical marriages are), then leaving is actually better for everyone. And the Bible makes room for this, because God didn’t create us for marriage; He created marriage for us. His first concern is for our well-being, not just that the marriage stay intact.

When people complain about me being pro-divorce, what they’re actually upset about is that I’m pro-accountability for abusive spouses. They want to be able to have power and do whatever they want in their marriage without accountability; and I’m here saying that’s not of Jesus.

But you know what? What I say isn’t even that important.

Let’s look today at what the Bible says about divorce for abuse.

The refrain we hear constantly from the “marriage at all costs” camp is that since Jesus sufered, we should suffer too.

But when church leaders quote passages about enduring suffering, they’re often referencing scriptures written about persecution from the Roman Empire—not spousal abuse.

This distinction matters. When Jesus and the apostles spoke about suffering, they were facing martyrdom. They were not counseling victims to endure domestic violence or any kind of abuse from their spouse.

They weren’t sitting comfortably in positions of safety, telling vulnerable people to suffer while they themselves remained protected.

Yet today, these passages are routinely twisted to trap abuse victims in dangerous marriages.

This is a topic I recently dove into on episode 299 of The Bare Marriage Podcast. Dr. Helen Paynter, author of the book The Bible Doesn’t Tell Me So, and I sat down to discuss what the Bible really says about divorce from an abuser.

Spoiler: it’s not what so many evangelical church leaders talk about.

Here are seven reasons why it is Biblical to divorce over abuse:

1. The Suffering Passages In Scripture Are About Persecution From The Empire, Not Spousal Abuse

When Jesus and the apostles talked about suffering, they were all martyred. They weren’t sitting comfortably telling others to suffer while they remained safe.

When Jesus and the apostles talked about suffering, they meant suffering at the hand of the empire—not at the hand of your spouse!

Many pastors telling women to suffer aren’t walking the walk!

2. The Old Testament Explicitly Permits Divorce For Neglect

If a husband deprives his wife of food, clothing, or marital rights, she can go free.

Now, this passage was written in the context of polygamy, but commentators for millennia have believed that it applied to any marriage–that if she’s neglected, then divorce is permitted. And since neglect is a form of abuse, abuse is clearly grounds for divorce.

3. Jesus Never Overturned The Old Testament Divorce Permissions

When Jesus said divorce was allowed “because of hardness of heart,” he was talking about the abuser’s hardness of heart, not the victim’s. When He addressed divorce, He did so from the point of view of protecting the one who was being hurt and who often had less power–aka the woman.

We have to remember that in the Old Testament, it was men who were allowed to divorce, not women (which is why that allowance in Exodus 21 is so important). When Jesus was questioned about divorce, He was being asked to weigh in on the idea that a man could divorce a woman for any reason that He wanted, a perspective that was commonly taught in His day.

And since in those days women could not support themselves, when men divorced them women were desperate and destitute. They often had no other recourse except prostitution, or get into a relationship with a very bad man (and I do wonder if that was the Samaritan woman’s story). Jesus corrected that, saying, essentially, no, you cannot just abandon women for no reason.

Do you get that distinction? He wasn’t addressing divorce to tell the one who is being abused you cannot ever leave; he was addressing the problem where men were hurting their wives by leaving them destitute. And yet we have used these passages to do the exact opposite.

4. Passages From Both The Old AND New Testament Have Been Twisted To Enable Abusive Spouses

Church leaders are taking Bible passages about persecution and suffering out of their context and weaponizing one-dimensional interpretations to keep women trapped in marriages that God never intended them to endure.

For instance, one of the most commonly misquoted verses is Malachi 2:16, which is often quoted as “God hates divorce.” Here’s the actual passage in the NIV:

Now, the translation of verse 16 is tricky. But you can see from the wider context that God is addressing a situation where men are being unfaithful to their wives and leaving them and sending them away. And these women have no recourse, and thus their husbands are “doing violence” to them.

These verses are being used to tell the victims of domestic violence that they cannot divorce, when the original verses were actual written to the perpetrators of domestic violence to tell them to treat their wives well. We have completely turned these verses upside down, when God’s heart was to protect those who were being mistreated.

5. Abuse is covenant breach

Just as adultery breaks the marriage covenant, so does abuse. A woman divorcing an abusive husband isn’t breaking the covenant—her husband already broke it through his abuse.

Divorce is merely making apparent and public what the abuser has already done in private.

The one who divorces the abusive spouse does not end the marriage; the abuser already did.

6. Separation without divorce is dangerous and ineffective

It maintains financial, legal, and social entanglement. Often you are still responsible for your spouse’s debts. Custody arrangements are trickier. And it means that you cannot remarry, even if you find a wonderful partner who will love you and your children (I always weep whenever I hear Brad Paisley’s song to a stepdad–”I hope that I’m half the man you didn’t have to be.”)

Focus on the Family doesn’t condone divorce for abuse, and tells women that they must separate with the goal of reconciliation (though divorce is allowed if the husband ends hte marriage). But this leaves women in terrible, dangerous limbo.

7. Harmful Doctrine On Divorce And Marriage Are Pulling Abused Women Away From God

When pastors teach abused women that they must stay with their abusive spouse AND that God intends for them to endure unimaginable harm in their marriage, the church is placing an obstacle between that woman and God. Now God, who is supposed to be her safe place, is the one who demands her continued suffering.

How can she serve and get comfort from a God who is ignoring her pain, and even cheering on the abuse?

The Bible does not require anyone to stay in an abusive marriage.

This harmful teaching is built on a foundation of misinterpreted scriptures, passages ripped from their contexts, and a selective reading that ignores what God’s word actually says about protection, justice, and covenant breach.

If you are in an abusive relationship, please know: leaving is not sin. Protecting yourself and your children is not hardness of heart. You are not the one breaking the covenant: abuse already broke it. God does not call you to be a martyr in your own home.

And to church leaders: every time you counsel an abuse victim to stay, you are not representing Christ. You are representing the abuser. The Jesus who overturned tables in righteous anger, who called out religious leaders for placing heavy burdens on people, who consistently protected the vulnerable: that Jesus would never send a woman back into harm’s way while calling it faithfulness.

It’s time we got this right. Lives depend on it.

Learn more about what the Bible has to say about divorce in cases of abuse on the podcast:

What do you think? Are people’s minds changing? Do you think the church is understanding that divorce for abuse is often necessary? Let’s talk in the comments!