How Dynamics of Power and Control in Religion Set Me Up for a Domestically Violent Relationship
I still remember the October day, over a decade ago, sitting in a coffee shop with a friend of mine. My hands began shaking, heart pounding, and I could feel my face begin to flush as I told her that he would be coming over that night to get the rest of his things. I was angry and wanted to cry all at the same time–I didn’t want to have to see him again, but I didn’t want his things in the house–our house…now my house–either. Even though I had spent many days removing all of his belongings and neatly stacking them in the garage, I knew that it wouldn’t be as easy as him simply loading up his truck and leaving.
Two months prior to sitting in that coffee shop, I kicked him out of our house. It was months in the making, but in a move of boldness, I kicked him out one final time and hadn’t let him weasel his way back in. Of course, he tried. He would show up at my doorstep, call me, text me, beg me to take him back. He made up excuses as to why he needed to come over, he would try and sweet talk me by reminiscing about the days that were fun and easy.
But this time my resolve was unwavering. The third time was the charm. My previous two attempts to get him out of my life had failed, but I would not fail again. However, we had been living together so I knew I would have to see him again. I waited until I needed him to help me with something–I knew he would jump at the chance to try to get back into my life–and invited him over, fully intending to make sure he left with all of his belongings.
My friend that I sat in the coffee shop with was also a therapist. She, too, had been in a relationship characterized by dynamics of power and control. I wasn’t ready to use those words yet, but as she watched my physiological reactions as I shared that he was coming over that night, she quietly asked me if I had considered the diagnosis of PTSD. I tried to laugh it off–no way, not me. (Spoiler alert: I was absolutely traumatized!)
I was resolved to not let him intrude on my life any more and I am happy to report that when he came over that night, I was strong and brave. He was enraged that I would make him take everything–this had never happened before. But I stayed resolute and breathed a sigh of relief as he drove away.
Then everything fell apart.
While it took almost four more months to get him out of my life for good, his attempts toward reconnection were not what made life fall apart. Something in my body knew, when he drove away, it would be the last time I would see him. Me falling apart was because for the first time in a long time, my body was safe.
Unfortunately, my therapist at the time had just left for maternity leave through the end of the year and I was stuck processing on my own. I was grappling with all sorts of new revelations and things that I was finally seeing–seeing with accuracy and honesty–in regard to what our relationship actually was. I watched YouTube videos, TED Talks, read books on domestic violence and scoured the Internet for any information I could get my hands on that would help validate and cement the truth that I had been in a domestically violent relationships.
Finally, on a whim one night, I opened my journals. Journaling had always been a practice of mine that had been helpful. Even as a little girl, my journals were the one place where I could be honest about how I was feeling; in my teenage years and early twenties I used my journals to lament over why I was still single. Though my journaling practice had decreased a bit since he came into my life, I was still shocked at what I wrote.
As I flipped through the pages of stories, thoughts, anguish, and confusion, I noticed an odd thing: I couldn’t tell if my abusive ex-partner had said certain things, or if the things I was writing about myself were first learned from God and the spiritual authorities in my life.
I spent the next several weeks trying to wrap my mind around what I was reading. I gathered my journals from prior to the relationship and found myself both shocked and saddened to see that the words I had written about myself in relation to God were not so different than the words my former partner spoke to me and how I thought of myself during that relationship.
I’ll spare the details of the entirety of the process of healing. What seems more important for this post, today, is that not only was the perusing of my journals that helped me see the similarities regarding the patterns and messaging of the high control religion I grew up in, this was a motivating factor in really digging into the abusive nature of certain religious practices, theology, and doctrine.
Many years ago, the Duluth Project (also called the Duluth Model) came up with a diagram that recognized certain behaviors and patterns of behavior that underlaid relationships where physical and sexual abuse had occurred. What was unique about this information was that many of the behaviors (such as: isolation, jealousy, minimizing, denying, and blaming, strict gender roles, etc.) were not alarming unto themselves. In many cases, most humans have been known to engage in these behaviors a time or two.
The Duluth Project noticed, however, that these seemingly benign behaviors, when combined and consistently engaged in, created a dynamic of power and control within a relationship. That is, one person in the relationship had power and control over the other. They determined what was right, good, and ok. They determined the roles each partner played and the consequences for not following the rules that the partner in power created. Overtime, these behaviors often increased in intensity, severity, and frequency; in many cases physical and sexual abuse was the next step in the cycle.
While it’s true that many people in high control religions don’t experience overt physical and sexual abuse (well, except for corporal punishment and spanking, non-consensual sex, marital rape, etc., though many people in those high control religious groups would not consider these things physical or sexual abuse), the underlaying dynamics of power and control still exist. Like domestic violence, the behaviors that religious groups, leaders, and churches follow and require from others may seem innocuous unto themselves or easily written off as having to give up things to follow god or the “no perfect church” myth. However, these seemingly small rules and requirements (such as requiring 10% of your income for tithing, rules around what you can wear, listen to, watch, rigid definitions of gender role and sexuality)--especially given all that the savior figure has done (I’m being sarcastic here), can lead to much more damage.
Overtime, these rules and requirements pile on top of each other and grow in intensity, frequency, and severity. However, in religion there is often an added layer of the authority of God and the people God has put into authority that not only creates a greater dynamic of power and control, but also supplies eternal consequences for those who do not obey. It is at this point that additional abuse, shame, manipulation, and harshness can be doled out–with very little pushback from the victim of it.
I, unfortunately, do not have a pretty bow to wrap this all up in. However, I want to leave you with this: when I work with clients coming out of domestically violent relationships, one of the first things we do is work on getting their voice back. That is, their ability to think and speak for themselves. A perpetrator of this abuse cannot do what they do if they have not broken the will of and silenced their victim. Slowly but surely, we employ curiosity and critical thinking to help a victim tune in to the wisdom they have had to silence in order to survive. It’s at this point that different choices can be made regarding what to do.
Not shockingly, this is similar to how I help my clients coming out of high control religion. They, too, have had to bury their voice and the essence of who they are, deep within themselves in order to survive. We slowly tap into the wisdom held within so that they can learn to trust themselves and make choices.
For victims of domestic violence and high control religion alike, this is often a lifelong process–though it gets easier with time. The messages we were taught and learned from those who perpetrated against us are well-worn grooves in our brain and sometimes it’s easy for us to slip back into that thinking, especially when life gets overwhelming.
It’s been over a decade since my abusive partner drove away from my house. I was right, it was the last time I saw him. Despite multiple voice messages he left me, texts, and showing up at my house and pounding on the door, I never talked to him after that point either. For a long time afterward I spent a great deal of time everyday trying to decipher whose voice was whose. It took me a while to find my own and then to trust it. But slowly and surely over time, my voice became the loudest. Nowadays, it’s infrequent that I hear his voice. But in the brief moments that I do, I bring myself back to the present moment and speak aloud about myself what I know to be true.
Dr. Laura Anderson (PhD, Saybrook University; LMFT) is a therapist, trauma resolution and recovery coach, writer, educator, and creator who specializes in complex trauma with a focus on domestic violence, sexualized violence and religious trauma. Laura has a private practice in Nashville, TN and is the founder and director of the Center for Trauma Resolution and Recovery, an online coaching company where she and the other practitioners work with clients who have experienced high demand/high control religions, adverse religious experiences, cults, and religious trauma.
In 2019, Laura co-founded the Religious Trauma Institute with the goal of providing trauma-informed resources, consultation, and training to clinicians and other helping professionals who work with religious trauma survivors. Laura’s first book, “When Religion Hurts You: Healing From Religious Trauma and the Impact of High Control Religion”, released with Brazos press on October 17th, 2023. She lives with her dog, Phoebe, in Nashville, Tennessee.