Soul Conversations Question And Answer Session by Rev. Christie Bature: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Soul Conversations — Q&A with Rev. Christie Bature

A live question and answer session with Rev. Christie Bature, a trauma therapist with a PhD in trauma management, addressing questions on marriage, abuse, and family submitted by women in the audience.

Financial Abuse From a Spouse

Question: How do you handle financial abuse from a spouse whose debt has grown to $100,000 with no explanation and no attempt to repay?

Debt doesn't reach six figures in a day — it starts small and grows because the wife keeps quiet to avoid conflict. "After the boat finishes rocking, it will stabilize." A greedy spouse who takes over a good financial decision and runs it into the ground (illustrated with a story of a wife whose $1,000 online trading investment grew to $13,000 before her husband took control of it and lost it all) is worship of money, as defined in Colossians and Ephesians.

• Watch the trend early and put your foot down
• If he won't listen, separate your money — a covenant that has been broken becomes a contract, and contracts carry default penalties
• Involve whoever he listens to — pastor, father, brother. Don't marry a man nobody can speak into
• Don't let fear of losing the marriage be leverage the enemy can use to keep you trapped in abuse

Trusting God After Betrayal

Question: How do you continue to trust God and guard your heart after deep disappointment in marriage — a cheating husband?

If you know you can't handle the offense without it coming between you and God, leave — you have that right. Staying while carrying bitterness can cost you eternity, since many women will not make heaven because of bitterness over a husband, and marriage is temporary while eternity is not.

If you can forgive and choose to stay, still take a next step: safeguard your body. "I will stay, but my body is no longer available as long as you have not decided to be faithful." Fidelity is your marital right too — ask why you're the only one expected to bring it.

On physical cost: at least three women personally known to the speaker died of cancer traced to the pain of what their husbands put them through. Suffering the betrayal once is enough — don't let it sit in your soul and become a sickness your body pays for twice.

When a Husband Threatens to Report a Wife to the Pastor

Question: A husband threatens to report his wife to the pastor because she has withheld sex over his infidelity.

Let him go. Pastors must hold the standard of God across the board — you cannot make the victim responsible for fixing what she didn't break. The first failure is not validating her pain before asking what she did to drive him out. Righteousness should not depend on someone else's unrighteousness — a wife's appearance or habits are not justification for infidelity.

There's a code among men that covers for each other's cheating, even close friends who know and deny it. Pastors need to break out of that code, validate the pain of whichever spouse was cheated on, and hold the offender accountable rather than defending him.

What "Leverage" Means

Abuse thrives when a spouse has no income and no support system of their own — those two things are powerful protections.

• Isolation from friends and family is a warning sign — an abuser cuts you off from people so you have nobody to run to when they mistreat you. No single relationship, not even a spouse's love, is enough on its own; you need the love of family, friends, and church too.
• Have your own money. It isn't about showing off — it commands respect, including from in-laws, and means you can rescue your husband if he falls into hard times without becoming permanently responsible for the household once he's back on his feet. If he starts leaning on your income as a permanent arrangement, address it directly and kindly rather than resentfully.
• Confront issues instead of sweeping them under the carpet and hoping they resolve themselves.

Handling Hostile In-Laws

Question: How should a woman handle in-laws — specifically a sister-in-law who paints her negatively to her husband's brothers?

If the husband isn't defending his wife from his own family, he is failing a duty that goes beyond material provision — a husband owes his wife psychological safety and emotional protection too.

• Confront the husband first — why is he allowing it?
• Wives married into the same family can unite and set consequences (a "wives on strike" approach — no cooperation on chores, joint finances, or family gatherings until the matter is addressed). Abuse continues where there are no consequences.
• Your happiness is your own responsibility, not anyone else's — control your internal dialogue and perspective.
• Don't react visibly to provocation. Four horsemen of mental balance: strategic withdrawal, disengagement, detachment, indifference. A predictable emotional reaction is what an antagonist is fishing for; a blank response starves it out.
• Don't discuss in-law conflict with your children — protect their minds, and use play as therapy for yourself in the meantime.
• Pick your battles — don't fight over everything, so that when you do draw a line, it's taken seriously. Told from personal experience: letting a painting taken by a sister-in-law go without a scene, but having a husband firmly correct his sister when he noticed it missing.
• Treat in-laws first as you would treat your own family, and let them prove they don't deserve that grace, rather than arriving already defensive.

Healing Before Remarrying

Question: After divorcing from an abusive marriage, how do you open your mind again to the idea of remarriage without carrying the trauma forward?

Predators know how to spot prey — something in a person can attract an abuser, and healing means identifying what that was so you stop attracting the same pattern. Work through the pain, get counseling if needed, and be intentional about growth: if you were too nice, too pliable, too silent, or endured too long, those are the things to build strength in. Second marriages fail more often than first marriages because people carry the same blind spots and trauma into them unhealed.

The Story of Oluchi

The speaker once drove past a woman in visible distress sitting by the road and talked herself out of stopping. Three hours later, the woman had died there, alone.

Months later, she began noticing another woman — crouched, disfigured, living outdoors, mad — appearing along her daily route. The Holy Spirit told her to stop and help. She resisted at first, remembering the guilt of the woman who died, until she felt compelled to obey. She began bringing the woman, whose name was Oluchi, food each day. Over time Oluchi's wounds began to heal from being fed regularly.

One rainy day Oluchi was missing from her usual spot. The Holy Spirit directed the speaker to a dumpster, where she found Oluchi collapsed in a puddle, unable to lift herself. Though she had never physically touched Oluchi before, she was told to lift her up — and did, despite her hesitation. A few days later, Oluchi disappeared and was never seen again.

The lesson: obey what the Holy Spirit asks, even when it's inconvenient or uncomfortable.

Closing Word

Don't cap the capacity of your own mind. The speaker's children once called her "broke mommy" — she has since written 13 books (available on Amazon and her own website), built one of Nigeria's most respected rehabilitation centers in Port Harcourt (now expanding onto 45 acquired plots near the airport), and started Sarah's House, a safe home named after her mother offering battered women 90 days of free shelter and support to plan their next steps.

Testimony: a South African woman brought to Nigeria by her husband, isolated for three years without even knowing her own address, was tracked down and rescued using landmark descriptions after reaching out through an online trauma coach. She was moved to a safe house, then reunited with her family in South Africa within four weeks with help from the South African Embassy — despite her husband later having the rescue team's staff briefly arrested on suspicion of trafficking.

Never say it's over. God is never done with you as long as you have breath in your nose. Ask him to let the dreams he deposited in your heart find expression, and to reactivate your zeal and vigor regardless of what has happened to you.