Every pastor has to deal with the person who comes to him and tries to excuse himself when he is committing a very serious sin and violating his marriage. Why did I use the masculine pronoun? Well, despite the changes in society and the growth of feminism, it is still my experience that the male is the one more likely to look outside the marriage bond. Yes, there are women who cheat, lie, and make false accusations. There is a case currently going on in which a woman falsely accused four college students of unspeakable crimes yet turned out to be lying. Nevertheless, the most common case a pastor encounters is the case of a husband trying to find excuses for why he was unfaithful in his marriage.
Like the comic pictured above, it is incredible how often a husband has a “life-changing” realization at the same time that his marriage is in trouble. And, when such a realization comes, it becomes extremely difficult for a pastor to talk to that husband to try to convince them that what they are experiencing is unreliable. You see, in almost all First World countries we have come to think of our emotions as one of the more reliable indicators of “truth.” Martin Luther talked about how we should not force people to go against their conscience. However, what Dr. Luther did not foresee was that conscience would decay into mere feelings by the 20th century. The reality is that most people will not do the theoretical work necessary to compare their impulses over against Scripture and logical thinking. And, so, the Reformers and the Radical Reformers were speaking from their arguments derived from their view of Scripture. But, too many people today, including supposedly good Orthodox people, equate their conscience with their emotions. And, this is a major problem, because conscience is not equivalent to whatever feelings you may be having at the moment. You see, conscience is supposed to be informed by the Holy Spirit but all too often it is not.
But there is a very sad side to the story I am telling. Almost every pastor encounters the woman who has been brutalized by her husband. And, whereas some husbands try to find excuses to leave the marriage, significantly too many abused women try to find reasons to stay in the marriage. Am I in favor of divorce? NO I AM NOT. Divorce is a sin, but sometimes the burden of that sin is borne mostly by one party, in this case the physically abused woman. While it is all too often true that a no-fault divorce simply hides an unwillingness to reconcile by both of the individuals involved in the marriage, yet statistics show that up to 10% of women have encountered some type of physical abuse. I am not including verbal abuse simply because it is all too hard to define. So, I am not talking about those cases. I am talking about the cases that become obvious to a congregation and which with no one wishes to deal, the case of the physically abused woman.
But, here is the even worse part of the story. Because none of us are perfect, it is all too possible for the husband to find happenings and episodes in which the wife is truly guilty. Those episodes quickly become grist for a mill in which the husband claims that there is a moral equivalency between the wife and the husband. And, because in this country the moral equivalency argument has become the way in which politics is conducted, we have become accustomed to the idea that each side is equally guilty. But, in the case of the physically abused woman there is no equivalency. And, yes, let me repeat that I am not assuming that women always tell the truth. The crime statistics are clear. Physical abuse by women is minimal. Lying by women does exist, but it is the minority of the evidences given in a physical abuse case. Sadly, in most physical abuse cases the truth of what the woman is saying is all too evident on her body, which gives evidence stronger than any that her tongue could provide.
I am not in favor of laws that automatically assume that the woman must be telling the truth. Those laws have already been shown to be inadequate. But, I am also not in favor of pastors who do “pastoral counseling” and always assume that marriage problems are a 50-50 proposition. This a priori sounds good, and actually works in counseling cases in which there is no spousal abuse. But, once the charge of physical spousal abuse enters into the counseling matrix, the pastor needs to change his approach to one in which he needs to be willing to defend the woman, as statistics show that the overwhelming majority of physical spousal abuse cases involve males.
So, look back at the comic above. In the narrative that comic actually points to a male who is being taken advantage of by the woman who has borne his child and whom he proposes to marry. In real life, that is actually the minority of cases. In fact, I have never encountered such a case. Read here to learn more about solving family issues with the right judgement.
Hmmm. In my first marriage (a fairly early teen one) it was my wife who had the revelation that she really wanted to be married to someone else. Lots of failures on both sides in that one. I certainly brought my share of issues into it. But my experience, that of people I’ve known, and the statistics I’ve seen do indicate that divide between men who cheat and women who cheat simply isn’t all that large anymore. We’re close to achieving equality there.
Your second point brings to mind my second wife, a rebound marriage months after the one above to someone I hardly knew at the time. She had serious issues (much moreso than my first wife) including a later diagnosed personality disorder. Life with her was crazymaking and the things she did to our son still make me furious. I gained temporary custody when he was five and though it was almost a decade long fight after that, did keep it. My wife and I made mistakes raising him and sometimes simply didn’t know how to deal with the lingering effects of the trauma he experienced, but at least we gave him a reasonably safe place to grow up. So there are certainly abusive and manipulative women out there. I don’t necessarily disagree that it’s more an issue for men than women, but it is definitely not one-sided.
Maybe the third time is the charm for some of us. Or maybe it’s that I reached the point where I actually got to know someone before marrying them. Or maybe I just got incredibly lucky. But I’ve been married to my third wife now for almost twenty years now and plan to be for the rest of our lives.
I read the comic strip above. And empathize to some extent with Lemont.
Yes, I have seen the statistics changing as well. I can also remember early feminist cant that foresaw the world being changed into a softer and more gentle world once women started gaining their full equality. They, too, assumed that it was men who were guilty of many of the ills of the world by nature. But, that idea has gone by the board, instead women are inching closer and closer to men in bad behavior. That is why I cited the recent case of that woman who made false accusations against some college students.
There is a sad old joke, an all too true old joke, that what you see in society is what you will see in the conservative church in 20 to 30 years. But, for now, the experience of most pastors still reflects the situation 20 to 30 years ago rather than the more current secular statistics. So we still tend to see more males tending to look outside their marriage than females.
But, very sadly, in the case of physical spousal abuse, the statistics still show it to be an overwhelmingly male sin.