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Abusive relationships often take years or decade to crumble, but when they do, it’s often quick and severe: a thread: 1/14
Abusive relationships are marked by relational debt. The manipulator uses their relational credit (I’m your parent, uncle, partner, friend) to offset the cost of their abuses 2/14
If a stranger walked up and called me lazy and ugly, that would probably be the beginning and end of our relationship. If a stranger assaulted me, I’d run and/or call the police. If a stranger persecuted me because of my gender/sexuality, I wouldn’t trust them 3/14
But when someone with a lot of relational credit does abusive, violent things, it’s like they take out a loan from the abused. Often the victim has no other choice: they have less power, are financially, emotionally, or physically dependent on the abuser 4/14
Sometimes a loan is huge - a mother who beats a child. Other times they’re many small loans - a relative who manipulates a child into conversion therapy. Other times the vulnerable party doesn’t even know how to recognize abuse at the time the loan is taken 5/14
Regardless, abusers are always taking out relational debt, whether the abused recognize it or not 6/14
These debts, of course, accrue interest, and based on our vulnerability levels, the interest rate can be higher or lower 7/14
An abuser can sometimes pay off the debt by taking the initiative to come forward, stop the behavior, and make amends in proportion to the debts with interest - even then it’s wise not to give more credit 8/14
Or an abuser won’t come forward, and when the abused is in a place of strength, either emotionally or socially, they will see the relational debt and rightly come to collect 9/14
The abuser will say, ‘That was years ago’ or ‘That was not proportional to what I did’, but it’s debt - debt doesn’t shrink with time. Unless it‘s paid off, it grows 10/14
The abuser will try to tell the abused how they plan to pay. But debtors don’t tell creditors the terms of repayment. If they will not repay as the creditor, the abused, asks, the relationship goes bankrupt 11/14
This is why all of a sudden, you recognize abuse and can not tolerate a relationship anymore - the debt becomes more than any person can pay. Abusers borrow trust beyond their means, and when the bills come due, they lose it 12/14
So when the debt comes due, justice warrants an equal and opposite action. Anything less than that is mercy. Non-punishment is godlike charity 13/14
Someone will quote ‘Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors’, but it’s the abused’s place to decide whether forgiveness is on the table. But note that Jesus asks his followers to forgive, not to keep extending credit without a good reason 14/14
