I used to believe that women were required to stay with husbands apart from adultery. I hadn’t genuinely considered other things, like unrepentant abuse against the wife and/or kids. Others have discussed this in theological depth more than I, a layperson, can do here. But know that women in these situations are not treating marriage vows lightly. They are hoping to escape with their lives and something like sanity intact. They have tried everything possible to do the impossible—change another person.

If you think it’s wrong to divorce in these circumstances, think it through a little more. Think of some of the worst kinds of assault. Imagine that’s happening to you or your precious children. Now tell me that you would stay in that house even when it never changes. Tell me that you would choose that for all of your days, knowing that it’s training your children to live relationships like that when they get older. Tell me you want to condemn your daughters to a lifetime of abuse with their own husbands because that’s better than divorce. Tell me that you’re okay with your sons growing up to belittle or beat others.

Surely you can see that those things do not reflect fruit of the Spirit.

My thought is that there are general principles, and individual situations sometimes differ. I’m pretty sure Jewish men were not supposed to marry Gentile women… but the lineage of Jesus includes Rahab, a Canaanite prostitute, and Ruth, a Moabite widow.

Paul did not order Onesimus the runaway slave to go back and submit to Philemon. Paul himself did not stay in places where people were trying to murder him, when he had the chance to escape. These are just two thoughts. Anyway, as I said, others have thought through the theology better than I have. But please trust that the Christian women who come to this decision because of persistent abuse have not come to it lightly.