The Emotionally Destructive Marriage Quotes

“Jesus commands us to love God first, with everything we have, not only because God deserves our love and is worthy of it, but because he knows how crucial it is to our long-term well-being. God knows that whatever we love the most will rule our lives. That’s why the Bible counsels us to let the love of Christ control us (see 2 Corinthians 5:14), not the love of lesser things.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“Your core value does not rest on the words of your husband or your mother or your father or your children or even your best friend. It rests on God’s words because he’s the only one who will always tell you the truth all the time. People change. They fail. They lie. Their knowledge is limited, their thinking distorted, and their hearts are not always pure or good. Therefore it’s dangerous to allow them to determine your worth.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“When you put your foot down and say, “I will not allow myself or the kids to be treated this way anymore. It’s destructive to me, to them, and to our marriage,” you are not going against God by speaking the truth in love. You are standing for goodness, for truth, and for the healing and restoration of your marriage.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“He needs a wife who will love him enough to tell him the truth and to respectfully challenge his selfishness, his self-absorption, and his self-deception.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“An emotionally destructive marriage is one where one’s personhood, dignity, and freedom of choice is regularly denied, criticized, or crushed. This can be done through words, behaviors, economics, attitudes, and misusing the Scriptures.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“Even the best truth tellers (like Jesus) are hated and abused by those who prefer darkness to light.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“Marriage does not give someone a “get out of jail free” card that entitles a husband to lie, mistreat, ignore, be cruel, or crush his wife’s God-given dignity. To believe otherwise is not to know the heart of God.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“In some marriages, trying harder does not engender a reciprocal response. It has the opposite effect. It feeds the fantasy that the sole purpose of your life is to serve your husband, make him happy, and meet his every need. It feeds his belief of entitlement and his selfishness, and it solidifies his self-deception that it is indeed all about him.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“Our emotions always serve a purpose, like the warning lights on a car dashboard. Ignoring them doesn’t make them go away, and often ignoring our feelings only makes the problem worse.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“There are times you must risk unraveling the life you have in order to create the life God wants for you.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“God is gracious and compassionate to the saint and unrepentant sinner alike, but he does not have a close relationship with both. He says our sins separate us from him”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“It is not your husband’s lies that will do the most damage to you. It’s the lies you tell yourself.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“Pretending or keeping up appearances for the sake of staying married won’t bring healing to serious marital wounds any more than a Band-Aid can stop arterial bleeding.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“Maybe you think that God is more interested in preserving your marriage than the well-being of you and your children, but that is not true.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“When deceit and attack become a regular part of marital interactions, there is no clear communication, no resolution to the problem, and no healing. It’s impossible to have a close, loving relationship with someone you can’t trust, can’t talk with, or who won’t take a look at himself when he hurts you.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“When you are the only one in your marriage caring, repenting, being respectful and honest, sacrificing, and working toward being a better spouse, you are a godly wife, but you don’t have a healthy or biblical marriage.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“Marriage and family are important to God, but just as important to him are the individuals within those marriages and families.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“God calls us to be biblical peacemakers, not peacekeepers or peace fakers.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“In addition, staying together regardless of the costs continues to enable the husband to grossly sin against them with no consequences, which is not biblical.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“Indifference says you are not a person to love, but an object to use.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“Is biblical headship synonymous with taking control over someone else and forcing her to comply when she resists? And, does biblical submission require a wife to always do what her husband says? Does it mean she has no choices of her own or can’t ever say no without being labeled as rebellious or ungodly?”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“Biblically loving your husband doesn’t require you to prop him up in order to enable him to continue to hurt you. It involves something far more redemptive.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“Selfishness isn’t characterized by knowing how you feel or what you want; selfishness is when you demand that other people always cater to your feelings, your wants, and your needs.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“Emotional abuse systematically degrades, diminishes, and can eventually destroy the personhood of the abused.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“Dear God, This is so scary, but it’s also freeing. For the first time I see your plan for healing broken relationships. I need to do the right thing, and it’s not to close my eyes and stay silent. It’s to confront him. But I need your help. I’m afraid it won’t go well and I will have to implement a consequence. Help me be strong.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“Let me ask you a question. If you do your part and your marriage doesn’t make it, can you trust God to be enough for you? You must settle this question deep in your heart because until you do, you will be too afraid to make the changes you need to make. As you start to do things differently, the destructive marital boat you’re on will start to rock and there are no guarantees that it will right itself. But I do know one thing for sure. When your marriage has been in a downward spiral of dangerous sin and destruction, and everything you’ve tried up to now has not resulted in any lasting positive change, it’s time to change your strategy. There are times you must risk unraveling the life you have in order to create the life God wants for you.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope

“REACTIVE ABUSE Reactive abuse occurs when a husband or wife or both are unable to manage their negative moods, the frustrations of life, or their tempers in a mature way. As a result, when situations are provocative or there is stress, an eruption occurs. In reactive abuse, a person doesn’t stop to think about the wisest way to handle a difficult or irritating situation; he or she just reacts. We criticize, curse, yell, threaten, throw things, belittle, punch, slap, and even murder. The Bible warns us, “In your anger do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26, NIV).”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope