The Courage to Walk Away: When Staying Becomes Unloving

I was 35,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, headed to Africa to teach a workshop on hearing God's voice, when I found myself under a blanket crying out to the Lord in what would become the most honest prayer of my life.

"Lord, if you want me to stay in this loveless struggle for the rest of my life, I'll do it. I'm pretty bullheaded—I will just do it. But if that's not what you want, then you have to do something because I'm not going to."

What I didn't know was that while I was wrestling with God over my future, my husband was preparing to cross a line that would change everything. Sometimes God's answers come in ways we never expect.

Living in Relationship Purgatory

For those who've never been there, let me describe what I call "relationship purgatory"—that space between heaven and hell where you're not quite living but you're not quite dying either. You're walking on eggshells constantly, managing another person's triggers, hoping that if you can just be good enough, quiet enough, accommodating enough, things might improve.

In my case, I had spent nearly twenty years believing we were going to have a happy ending. I really did. I had poured myself into marriage ministries believing my own marriage would work out. Every technique I learned, every principle I applied, every prayer I prayed was fueled by the hope that breakthrough was just around the corner.

But after two decades of trying, I was exhausted. We kind of lived a life where you walked on eggshells all the time. I was pretty good at manipulating our circumstances so that the triggers weren't hit that would cause outbursts. My husband had a drinking problem—he was what we would call a binge drinker who would drink himself to a stupor for days, then get so sick he would fall out and be dry for a while.

Even when he wasn't drinking, the behaviors didn't change. It was still very self-centered, very broken. You almost feel like you're going crazy. Like, am I making this up? Should life be better than this? Do I have unrealistic expectations?

When "Staying" Becomes "Enabling"

Here's what I've learned: there's a difference between suffering for righteousness and enabling someone else's sin. There's a difference between laying down your life in love and slowly dying from neglect and abuse.

Through all the marriage teachings I had encountered, nothing I did could change our dynamic. It became almost more hopeless. I began to just shut down—not giving up entirely, but not investing as much energy in trying to fix what couldn't be fixed through my efforts alone.

The teaching I had received suggested that if I loved enough, if I was sacrificial enough, if I gave enough, if I put up with enough, if I respected enough, that alone would create an environment where transformation would happen. But one person choosing to love does not automatically mean that's going to fix the union.

Religion had made me feel like my perfect performance could guarantee someone else's transformation. But that's not how love works—that's how manipulation works.

The Permission to Choose Love Over Fear

What I discovered during that airplane prayer was that I was operating from fear, not love. I was afraid of divorce, afraid of being judged, afraid of admitting failure, afraid of disappointing God. But fear-based decisions rarely produce the fruit of love.

When I prayed that desperate prayer—asking God to either fix the situation or release me from it—I wasn't giving up on marriage. I was finally choosing to value what marriage was meant to be over what my marriage had become.

Two weeks later, when I returned from Africa, I learned that my husband had attempted to have an affair with my eighteen-year-old son's fiancé. Church leadership had already investigated the situation and were waiting to support me when I returned.

What struck me most was how my elder responded. Instead of pressuring me to forgive and stay, he sat in my office and said, "Susan, do you understand that the God who hates divorce was Himself divorced? He divorced Israel. He later took her back, but He Himself went through the tragedy of divorce. He knows what that feels like."

Then he added something that shattered my religious paradigm: "Do you understand that God told Moses to give them the gift of divorce? When He gave them the writ of divorce, it was a gift, and it was a gift because of hardness of heart."

Redefining Righteousness

This elder helped me understand that the certificate of divorce was actually a pro-women statement in ancient culture. It legally enabled women to remarry, which was often their only means of survival. Without it, they faced starvation, prostitution, or returning home in shame.

But more than that, he helped me see that sometimes divorce isn't the enemy of marriage—it's the friend of what marriage was meant to be. When we refuse to accept counterfeits, we're actually honoring the real thing.

As I write in my book BLIND SPOT, sometimes divorce is the righteous option precisely because of how highly we value marriage. We're not devaluing marriage when we say sometimes divorce is right—it's because marriage is so precious that there comes a time when we must say, "This is why divorce must happen, because we are fighting for marriage in its right form."

The Tragedy and the Relief

I went through the tragedy of divorce. And for anybody who's been through it, it is a tragedy. Nobody wins. There is no win. A covenant has died. You really do grieve—it's like somebody died.

But in my case, the divorce was also a relief. When I realized that through all of the marriage teachings, nothing I did could change things, and I began to just shut down, I was dying inside. My children, when they talk about their childhood, say their happiest year was the year we were separated. That's sad for me to think about, but it's also revealing.

Sometimes staying isn't loving. Sometimes enduring isn't faithful. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do—for yourself, your children, and even your spouse—is to say, "This cannot continue."

The Freedom to Love Again

I'm now happily married to Gregory, and our relationship is built on mutual submission and honor rather than hierarchical control or enabling dysfunction. Gregory has never once used intimidation to get his way—not physically, not financially, not emotionally. Not once. Ever.

This is what love looks like when it's not constrained by fear or powered by obligation. This is what becomes possible when we choose to honor what relationships are meant to be rather than accepting what they've become.

If you're currently living in relationship purgatory, I want you to know: staying isn't always faithful, and leaving isn't always failure. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is create space for truth to emerge and real change to become possible.

The Kingdom Perspective

In God's Kingdom, love must be freely chosen to be genuine. Just as He put two trees in the garden—giving humanity the freedom to choose—real love requires the freedom to say yes or no. If marriage becomes a legalistic prison where you can never leave, you begin to suck out the ability for love to grow.

As Paul wrote, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Corinthians 3:17, ESV). If you're in a situation where there's no freedom—only obligation, fear, and control—you may not be experiencing the Spirit of the Lord, no matter how religious the language sounds.

This doesn't mean divorce is always the answer. But it does mean that the willingness to walk away—the refusal to accept what isn't love and call it love—sometimes creates the only opportunity for real transformation to occur.

A Word of Hope

If you're struggling with these questions right now, know that Holy Spirit sees you. You're not alone. The principles we share aren't another set of laws to condemn or shame you. We really do believe these truths have power to release the love of God into the world and bring real transformation.

But that transformation may look different than you expected. It may require you to value love over security, truth over peace, and freedom over familiarity.

Whatever Holy Spirit is calling you to, know that He will guide you through these difficult times. Sometimes the path to resurrection leads through crucifixion. Sometimes finding your life requires the willingness to lose it.

You are loved. You are seen. And you are not alone.

If you're in a crisis situation, please reach out to trusted counselors, pastors, or domestic violence resources.

Blessings,
Susan 😊