When Faith Becomes a Cage: Untangling Spiritual Abuse in Emotionally Abusive Marriages

Lately, I’ve seen an undeniable uptick in women quietly exploring divorce, not because they’re angry, disillusioned, or impulsive. They’re exhausted. They’re heartbroken. They’ve been carrying the weight of a marriage that looks nothing like love, but everything like control. And for many of them, the thing keeping them stuck isn’t fear of the unknown or financial insecurity, it’s their faith.

And let me be clear, this is not a criticism of faith. I honor it. I honor every woman’s personal relationship with God, every verse that gives her strength, and every sacred tradition that has shaped who she is. But there’s a line. And that line gets crossed when spiritual beliefs, so often rooted in love, grace, and freedom, are weaponized to keep women in harm’s way.

That’s not God. That’s abuse.

 When Scripture Becomes a Weapon

Spiritual abuse isn’t always loud. It doesn't always show up in a sermon. Sometimes it hides in the silence. In the unspoken rules. In the verses cherry-picked and delivered with authority by someone who benefits from your silence and submission.

“Wives, submit to your husbands…”

“God hates divorce…”

“You made a covenant before God…”

These phrases are often thrown like grenades into the lives of women who are already drowning in self-doubt and emotional chaos. But we rarely talk about the other side of Scripture, the parts about justice, mercy, protection, and freedom from oppression. The parts that require accountability from those in power.

What I see in my work is this, many women are staying in emotionally abusive relationships not because they don’t know it’s wrong, but because they’ve been taught to believe that leaving would be even worse.

 I Wrestled With This Too

When I went through my own divorce, I wrestled with these very things. I remember lying awake at night, wondering if I was betraying God, if I was walking away from something sacred, or if I was just finally listening to the truth I had been trying to silence for years.

I had been told that a "godly wife" endures. That if I just prayed harder, submitted more fully, kept quiet a little longer, something would shift. But it didn’t. The pain just got quieter, more private, more tangled up with shame.

There came a point when I felt much like Job. Everything I had clung to—my marriage, my community, my sense of self as a “faithful wife”—was stripped away. And for a while, I denounced my faith as I had known it. I was angry. I was broken. I no longer knew what to believe, or who to trust, including God. And yet, that season became its own kind of sacred. That unraveling was part of my spiritual journey. I needed to tear it all down before I could rebuild something honest, something rooted in love and truth, not fear and obligation.

What finally set me free wasn’t the absence of fear or doubt. It was the realization that a relationship built on control, manipulation, or cruelty was not something God called me to submit to. That wasn’t love. That wasn’t covenant. That wasn’t God.

 The Church’s Silence Is Loud

In too many faith communities, abuse is only taken seriously if there are bruises. If there are police reports. If it’s the kind of abuse that can be photographed.

But what about spiritual gaslighting? What about financial control, chronic invalidation, manipulation masked as “headship”? What about the wives who are isolated, silenced, made to feel like they’re always falling short, yet told to “pray harder” or “be a better helpmate”?

When churches look the other way, or worse, advise women to stay in dangerous dynamics for the sake of appearances or doctrine, that is not spiritual leadership. That is institutional betrayal.

 Faith Should Be a Lifeline, Not a Leash

God is not glorified by your suffering. He is not honored by your slow unraveling. And I don't believe for one second that a loving God asks His daughters to submit to emotional destruction in order to preserve a broken image of marriage.

There is nothing holy about staying small to keep the peace. There is nothing righteous about enduring spiritual abuse in the name of submission. And there is no sin in telling the truth about what is happening behind closed doors.

Sometimes, the bravest thing a woman of faith can do is choose herself, and still choose God.

To the Woman Who’s Wrestling

If you’re reading this and you feel like I just read your diary, I want you to know, you are not alone, and you are not crazy.

You can be a woman of deep faith and still recognize that something is wrong.

You can love God and still say “I can’t do this anymore.”

You can walk away from an abusive marriage and still be walking with God.

Leaving isn’t failing. Leaving isn’t giving up. Sometimes leaving is the most spiritual, most courageous, most self-honoring choice you’ll ever make.

And if the people around you can’t see that, find people who do.

If you're navigating emotional or spiritual abuse in your marriage and trying to make sense of what comes next, you don't have to do it alone. This space is here for you, with no judgment, no shame, and a deep respect for your values and your healing.