Does submission mean I have to stay in a harmful marriage?
By Will Bourne · Question 47
The direct answer
Submission never authorizes abuse. A person may separate to protect life, safety, and dignity without rebelling against God. I understand sexual betrayal, abandonment, and serious abuse as covenant violations that may justify divorce. Remarriage requires careful pastoral discernment, but a person is not required to remain exposed to harm while every interpretive question is debated.
Fuller explanation
First clarify what harmful means. Disagreement, chronic disrespect, coercive control, sexual violence, and physical assault are not interchangeable. Naming specific conduct helps people respond appropriately. A marriage does not have to look dangerous to outsiders before a person’s account deserves to be taken seriously.
Ephesians 5 includes submission language and commands husbands to love and care for their wives. Christians disagree about how authority and mutual submission work in the passage. None of that grants a spouse ownership of another person’s body or a right to threaten them. A command about love must not become a tool for concealing cruelty.
Churches also differ about grounds for divorce and remarriage. They should disclose those positions honestly. But telling someone they must continue living with danger while leaders debate an exception is a separate decision with real consequences. Practical protection and a final judgment about marital status are different questions.
A person facing abuse may need confidential help outside the couple’s usual religious circle. A response should preserve their choices and consider their circumstances rather than demand an immediate confrontation or a joint meeting. The person causing harm remains responsible for changing their conduct; the spouse cannot make that change for them.
Preserving the public appearance of a marriage is not the same as caring for the people in it. A ministry should never require silence, unwanted intimacy, or renewed access as proof of submission or forgiveness.
The objection we still need to face
But does Jesus not prohibit divorce?
Jesus' teaching about divorce matters and must be read alongside the wider biblical witness. I believe sexual betrayal, abandonment, and serious abuse may violate covenant so deeply that separation and divorce are morally permitted. Protection can include leaving, seeking independent help, reporting crimes, and limiting contact; it does not have to wait for every interpretive disagreement to be resolved.
Scripture and its use
Ephesians 5:21–33; Matthew 19:3–12; 1 Corinthians 7:10–16; Colossians 3:19.
Read these passages in their surrounding chapters alongside the explanation.