If you are caught up in an abusive marriage, would you obey your church’s injunction not to divorce?
My name is Mide and I have been married for four years but I am already fed up because my husband has turned out to be a monster » .
I met Andy in the church when I moved to Lagos and started worshiping at this new generation pentecostal church. He is one of the associate pastors and passed across as a very dedicated man of God.
He is also a very handsome man with a good job and at that time, he was single and when one of my new friends introduced us, I became the envy of other ladies who had been scheming to get him.
After a few dates, Andy proposed to me, telling me that God had revealed to him that I was his wife. Though I was quite elated, I decided to seek the face of God through the senior pastor who also told me that Andy was the man God had designed for me.
Barely six months later, we got married and for the first one year, my marriage was blissful but after that, everything changed.
Andy began being abusive though it started with emotional abuse, later graduating to verbal abuse, where he would tell me so many unprintable words, call me names, insulted me and my family. Once or twice, he told me he regretted marrying a prostitute.
I was at a loss at the sudden change in a man who was so loving and caring. I tried to talk to him to find out what I did to deserve such treatment but to no avail. I had to report the situation to the senior pastor who promised to talk to him.
But two days later, Andy came back home drunk and beat the living daylights out of me for daring to report me to the senior pastor.
I spent two weeks in the hospital after that beating. Little did I know that it was the beginning for me as my once loving husband has turned me into his punching bag.
In the past three years, I have spent more time in the hospital than in my home. I have have a broken wrist, torn lips, bruised body and almost every part of me has been injured.
After most beating, I will pack out of the house only for Andy, our senior pastor and other church members would come begging me with my husband blaming the devil and vowing never to raise his fingers on me again.
But the same pattern would repeat itself again and more brutally. I have contemplated filing for a divorce but our senior pastor has made it clear that their church doctrine forbids divorce no matter the circumstances.
But should I die in a man’s house because of a church’s doctrine?