Authors of Fireproof Seem to Claim Forgiveness Would Save Abusive Marriages

Another comment by the Kendrick brothers, that Catherine’s “bitterness” is the result of her failure to forgive Caleb on a daily basis, seems to suggest that the marriage of Caleb and Catherine would not have degenerated if Catherine had forgiven her husband daily. This belief is frequently voiced in the Christian community and needs to be examined. Does a spouse’s forgiveness stop her abuser from escalating his abuse as is commonly believed? Many people quote Proverbs 15:1 “A soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger.” Is this verse always the case?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think forgiveness is great and necessary, and a soft answer does turn away wrath in many cases. But is this true in abusive marriages?

To find out, I want to follow through on what their reasoning would produce. Remember, I personally have been abused and for years did my best to forgive and believe the best of my husband and also responded with a soft answer. Other abused women report experiences similar to mine. Yet none of us claim to be perfect. Thus, I want to imagine what the results would be if a wife WAS able to forgive her abusive husband every day.

Let’s start with Caleb saying he wants to withhold a third of his income to save for his boat and that he pressures Catherine into agreeing to this. According to Brothers Kendrick, Catherine should forgive him for being so self-centered and for not seeing her needs. So let’s say Catherine sacrifices her needs and even tries to help him save for his boat. She forgives him, loves and serves him, while she sees him in the best possible light as an unselfish man.

Caleb sees her love, service and forgiveness as his due, and takes his 2 days off doing whatever brings him pleasure. (This has been his pattern for 6 years of marriage, according to the writing of the Kendrick brothers.)

Catherine comes home from work on his second day off, picks up Caleb’s mess, buys groceries, cooks his dinner, dares to take his clothes to the dry cleaners while the food cooks, all the while thanking God that she has such a wonderful husband and again forgiving him for leaving all the work to her. At the dinner table, Caleb complains that the roast is tough and the lettuce hasn’t been cut fine enough. Catherine forgives him, and brings out the dessert, which he tells her is not to his liking, either. After dinner, she struggles with resentment, but chooses to forgive him. She sweetly gives herself to him that night, and he uses her, giving nothing in return. Catherine cries herself to sleep, and when she wakes in the morning, again chooses to forgive her husband and love him unconditionally.

This becomes a normal part of Catherine’s life. Her husband puts her down and expects special service every day, justifying his behavior by emphasizing how much he contributes with his pay check and with saving people’s lives. Catherine forgives him, and acts like a normal wife would by telling him how her dad has to work so hard to help her mom because the wheel chair and bed are not right for her mom, but Caleb dismisses Catherine’s concern, saying it is their problem, so Catherine drops the issue as a good Christian wife is taught to do.

Catherine tries to do all the little things to encourage her husband, to raise his self-esteem, and he continues to get nastier. (Bruce Ware and followers would blame Caleb’s nastiness on Catherine because she is not submissive enough, but in real life once abusers get what they want, they soon raise the bar and increase their demands. This seems to be caused by a mix of believing they are entitled to get special service and special privileges that their wives do not have and by a desire to feel a sense of power over their wives.)

After a year goes by, Catherine is secretly crying herself to sleep every night, while Caleb is getting everything he wants, and becoming discontented that he doesn’t have more or get even more service from his wife. He would like her to stay at home so she can do more for him—especially on his days off, but he also wants her to continue bringing in her paycheck, so he can buy his boat sooner. He asks her to cook meals for him to eat while she is at work, and she complies with that request, too.

Catherine keeps forgiving her husband, and doesn’t keep a record of all the things he does to hurt her every day, yet her inner pain keeps growing. She makes a bigger effort to forgive him, thinking that is her problem, but she ends up bursting into tears at work. She tries to control and hide her tendency to cry, but it slips out at times.

When Gavin makes his overture at work, she tells him how wonderful her husband is, which results in Gavin leaving her alone. Everyone thinks Caleb and Catherine have a wonderful marriage.

After another year, Catherine stops going to sleep after being intimate with Caleb, but instead gets up to finish all the tasks she is expected to do, trying to be as quiet as possible so her beloved husband can sleep soundly. She uses this time to pray for her husband, focusing on seeing him in the best possible light. These extra hours of work result in her getting fewer and fewer hours of sleep. Less sleep plus the stress of being continually trampled on by her husband makes her prone to “catching” every cold and flu that goes around, and she develops physical diseases as well. (In a recent study women who had suffered recent domestic abuse were more likely to have been diagnosed with a wide range of diseases and disorders:

The women who reported violence were nearly six times as likely to have been diagnosed with substance use disorders, the researchers found, while they were at nearly five-fold greater risk of "family and social problems." Their risk of depression was more than tripled, while anxiety diagnoses were nearly three times as common among these women.
Other diagnoses that were more common among recently abused women included low back and neck pain; sprains and strains; sexually transmitted diseases; lacerations, bruises and scrapes; urinary tract infections; chest pain; and gastroesophageal reflux disease.

See http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2009-10/13/content_8783419.htm
to read the entire article.) She goes to the doctor for her many maladies, and the doctor recognizes symptoms of depression and prescribes anti-depressants.

Caleb thinks the anti-depressants are not necessary and refuses to pay for them, which leaves Catherine with yet another expense she can ill-afford. She tries to cook more from scratch to save at the grocery store, but time is an issue, so she tries buying cheaper cuts of meat so she’ll have funds to buy some precooked meals. Caleb complains about the cheap meat, so she is forced to skimp on clothing for herself, wearing them until they are noticeably worn out, and getting fewer haircuts. Caleb gripes that she is letting herself “go to seed,” so she tries to find other ways to stretch her income.

There never is a solution. Catherine is always viewed as the problem, and over time she also believes if she could be more perfect, Caleb would be happy with her.

The prescription doesn’t help. One day when Catherine’s heart is breaking because of her husband’s recent “verbal unkindness,” (John Piper’s term) she focuses so hard on trying not to cry and on trying to get rid of her anxiety and the fear she still feels because Caleb overwhelmed her by threatening her with his fists and screaming in her face that she steps in the street without thinking and a car hits her and kills her. Everyone thinks it was an accident. No one suspects suicide, since they believe her marriage to Caleb is so happy. A few blame the anti-depressants. But no matter, Catherine is dead and everyone feels so sorry for her husband who “adored” her.

A second possible ending is that one day threatening her with his fists wasn’t enough, and Caleb gets his bat and hits her with the same viciousness he used on the garbage can. Caleb either breaks her jaw and fractures her eye socket, or hits Catherine so hard she falls and hits her head on the counter, killing her or putting her in the hospital for a long time.

The point I’m making is that in both Fireproof and in the Love Dare and in the Kendrick Brother's commentary there is a complete lack of teaching about a wife confronting her husband and holding him accountable for sin. Instead they say when Catherine confronted Caleb she may have been disrespectful. In other words, they suggest wives shouldn't express anger or disgust to their husbands concerning their behavior. With their repeated comments about Catherine's “bitterness” and lack of forgiveness and trust, they apparently would have us believe an abusive marriage will become healthy if the abused wife will just forgive and love unconditionally. If she will get rid of her bitterness and completely die to self. But they picture Caleb being REJECTED when he "dies to self," not TRAMPLED on, screamed at, threatened, punished, and assaulted—perhaps even killed.

Indeed, it appears to me the life they picture for abused wives is a life-time of degrading slavery and cruel punishments, neglect, overwork, and imprisonment, coupled with a spirit of forgiveness and service on the part of the abused wife which amounts to voluntary self-degradation. The Kendrick Brothers compound this by neglecting to clarify that it is the abuser who must use the Love Dare.

Once again, the focus is on finding yet another way to condemn the abused wife. When are Christians going to hold abusers accountable, instead of transferring that accountability onto abused wives?

Think about it: Does forgiveness stop emotional pain? Does forgiveness heal a person who is a paraplegic because of being hit by a drunk driver? Does a victim's forgiveness stop an abuser from abusing? Are marriages that end in assault and murder (till death do us part) more righteous and godly than those that end in divorce to avoid assault and murder? Is divorce a bigger sin than murder and spousal abuse?



Waneta Dawn is the author of "Behind the Hedge, A novel,"a story about a woman who grapples with her husband's demands that she submit--no matter what. Please visit www.wanetadawn.com

Fireproof: Part 1, the Faulty Premise

I watched the movie “Fireproof” again, and the difficulty I had with it before has increased, along with the conviction that if I had tried it on my husband, it may have “worked” and “saved our marriage,” but it would not have provoked my husband to love or respect me, and would have destroyed me. Indeed, his abuse would have increased, as it already had in the years I tried to do all the loving things church leaders recommend that wives do for their husbands. The only way it would have worked in our marriage, is if my husband had committed to loving me with a genuine love. As it is, every time he behaved the least bit loving, I responded with the same. Often the loving behavior was a set up to get me to trust him enough so he could jerk the rug from under my feet and totally humiliate me. As Mrs. Caleb in “Fireproof” did, I also learned to treat any nice behavior from my husband with suspicion. Not once has that suspicion been unwarranted.

But now a closer look at the movie:

First, the premise of the movie is that either spouse can save their marriage by using the Love Dare as a tool. This spouse must commit to loving their spouse unconditionally, no matter what their partner does.

This is just plain bad theology based on a half truth. While it is true that God loves us unconditionally, it is not true that He protects us from the consequences of our behavior. The Bible speaks of God divorcing his wife, Israel because of her continual rejection and whoring after other Gods. The Bible is also clear that even though He loves us unconditionally, continued rejection or advantage-taking or sin will be rewarded with Hell fire. Yet the Love Dare requires that a spouse refuse to confront his or her husband or wife for any behavior—including sinful, selfish, or evil behavior against the spouse—and be all “loving” and nicey-nice instead. If the book and movie limited that to 40 to 80 days, that would be one thing. But the whole idea is that this unconditional love is to go on until one of the spouses dies, regardless of whether the recipient of that “love” chooses to respond with loving behaviors in return or finally grows to “deserve” it.

Because of the abuse scene in the movie, where Caleb screams in his wife’s face and denigrates her, the premise of the movie also implies that a person who is abused should try the “Love Dare,” and implies that they would be successful at “saving” the marriage. However, the “Love Dare” is sold as an ideal that a person should continue to implement even though the initial 40 days did not bring about positive change. This is VERY DANGEROUS for abused spouses. Not only does it ignore the fact that one of the characteristics of abusers is that they see loving behavior as a weakness, and when they see weakness, they mount an attack to totally destroy the “weak” person. In other words, if the selfish spouse is also an abuser, his wife would be quickly damaged by even TRYING the “Love Dare.” And if her belief in the rightness of the “Love Dare” is strong enough to convince her to stick with it, there is a very high likelihood that she would be destroyed through illness—often a mental illness like anxiety or depression, both known for shortening lives and/or being extremely debilitating--or through violent death at the hands of her husband. And the resulting destruction to the children would continue generation after generation, resulting in more abuse and/or murder, or more depression/anxiety/nightmares.


Waneta Dawn is the author of "Behind the Hedge, A novel,"a story about a woman who grapples with her husband's demands that she submit--no matter what. Please visit www.wanetadawn.com

Book Signing Day, Part 2

After the signing, I shopped at a small Mom and Pop establishment, and thought I’d offer the proprietor my novel, "Behind the Hedge," as a gift because she had been so good to me over the years, and because I had heard from several sources that there was un-dealt-with domestic violence in her denomination, too. The store owner said she had read about my novel in the newspaper and was not interested. She wanted to live by the Bible. She wasn’t interested in the teaching of people, and the way she said it, I gathered that she meant something along the lines of “the teaching of rebellious women.” I replied that I, too, thought living by the Bible was important, and that I thought with her work putting her in contact with many people, she would be in a key position to know about domestic abuse, so that she could help those who needed help.

She repeated that all anyone had to do was read and obey the Bible, and Jesus said divorce is not acceptable. I pointed out that the problem is that people seem to think the Bible focus is on ‘wives submit’ and they usually do not put nearly as much emphasis on ‘husbands love self-sacrificially’ (my paraphrase for loving as Christ loved the church). She said she hears both sides in sermons at their church.

I agreed that we hear both sides, but that the ‘woman submit’ side is emphasized, and that most of the time marital problems are blamed on the woman. She did not think this was so and replied that God had commanded Eve that her husband was to rule over her. I said, that was not a command, it was a prophecy because of sin; we would not want to promote sin.

She still thought if the woman submits, her husband would not abuse her, and that if a woman submits out of love her behavior would bring her husband to Christ. I told her that abused women are more submissive than most women, and that it is very rare for abusive men to come to Christ because of the submission of their wives. Usually the abusive man becomes even more abusive in response to his wife’s submission. Even with non-physical abuse, the woman is on super alert trying to make sure all is as her husband wants, so that he has no reason to get angry, (I acted out a woman looking this way and that, trying so desperately to make sure all danger was alleviated) and then he pounces from a completely different direction. She ends up getting panic attacks because of his threatening, fear-generating behavior and her constant effort to be so perfect.

I pointed out that the church gets the cart before the horse and tells women that their submission will bring forth love from their husbands, but that the Bible says the husband’s loving self-sacrifice comes first. We don’t love Christ first, and then He dies to sacrifice for us. It’s the other way around, ‘We love Him because He first loved us.”

She simply did not want to be persuaded and kept bringing up reason after reason as to why a man’s abusive behavior was his wife’s fault. She said if a woman makes sure a man loves the Lord and has her parents blessing in her choice before she marries him, he would not abuse her. I answered that abuse does happen, because the man goes out of his way to deceive her and her family into thinking he is a nice man and a wonderful Christian before they marry.

I went on to say that even if a woman made a mistake and her life was a mess because she married a non-Christian and didn’t have her parent’s blessing, that did not mean she had to stay in a marriage where she would either end up dead or insane, and where the children were in danger, too.

At some point in the conversation I pointed out that contrary to her statement that wives were not always the ones blamed, her arguments were always blaming the wife. I tried to end the conversation as peacefully as I could, saying how difficult it is for me to trust men because of this tendency to deceive, and asking if she had a loving considerate husband. She did, and I commented that she is so blessed. I don’t know why I added that it bothered me that even husbands that appear to be nice often make decisions that are at their wife’s expense.

On the way home I felt like I was in shock. How could an offer to give a gift end up with such a blame-the-abused-wife conversation? As I recalled the details, I wished I had remembered to tell her that the man my parents and siblings wanted me to date became a Christian when he was in jail. They told me he had such a wonderful testimony. I wanted nothing to do with him, since I had dated a man like that once and did not want to deal with that again. The man I dated ended up beating his wife, and the man my family wanted me to date ended up becoming an alcoholic and abusing his wife. Last I heard, the first couple is divorced and the second is separated. So contrary to the woman’s belief, marrying a man who loved the Lord and who had my parents blessing, had no guarantee of marital bliss, nor of the absence of abuse.

But this conversation, plus the ones referred to in part one, gave me a very good glimpse into the huge amount of work that is yet to be done. Indeed, blaming the wife for her husband’s abusive behavior—even if one has to blame her for marrying him—is alive and well. Even churches who claim to oppose domestic violence, often secretly blame the victims of abuse and isolate them by refusing to be close and supportive friends, and by avoiding the topic of domestic violence as much as possible.


Waneta Dawn is the author of "Behind the Hedge, A novel" Please visit www.wanetadawn.com