(must read) FASCINATING: "The Courage to Leave" | The Network

BTW (by the way) I FELT I WAS RAPED (emotionally) by HUGH HALFORD (a pasadena city attorney) when I was in civil litigation against the Pasadena PD. He really took big advantage of me.very wrong & unfair of him. Not just unfair but criminal. Yes criminal. And even members of my own family sort of glossed it over,unfortunately.
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"Unfortunately for believers who are abused, especially
women, leaving an abusive spouse can require almost
superhuman courage, as it must often be done with
little to no support from their brothers and sisters in
Christ, and often times hostile opposition from the
people who should be most supportive: their spiritual
leaders. In a vicious cycle author Jonathan
Hollingsworth calls "mob forgiveness" and "selective
grace," the church first bands together to minimize the
wrongs committed by the abuser, then lavishes him
with support, love, and forgiveness that they, who have
not been wronged, have no right to give.
Hollingsworth says, "By extending mercy to the
perpetrator when no one else will, the mob hopes to
prove to a watching world just how "edgy" and
"countercultural" Christian forgiveness is. The more
visible the forgiveness, the better the witness … Too
often, Christians mistake the transgressors, not the
transgressed, as the ones most in need of grace. This
is where grace goes too far. Not when it forgives the
unforgivable, but when it reaches so far in the
direction of the abuser that it leaves the victims
behind." In the end of this cycle, the victim is the one
framed as the greater sinner: hard-hearted, bitter, and
unforgiving, and faces the impossible choice of either
standing alone against abuse, or returning to abuse to
regain her "support" network...."

http://network.crcna.org/safe-church/courage-leave