What To Do When An Abuser Denies His Abuse – Annie’s Story

Many people say the key to restoring a relationship is forgiveness, but what should you do when an abuser denies his abuse? Is forgiveness even possible? Here’s what you need to know. Many clergy, therapists, family or friends tell victims to “just forgive” their abuser. But this advice often ignores the trauma victims face and the need to focus on protecting themselves so they can heal.

When people talk about forgiveness, they’re often really asking victims to accept abuse and move on. This creates more harm and trauma for victims who need protection, understanding, and support. There are 19 types of emotional abuse. Most abusers refuse to admit that what they did was abusive. To see if you’re husband has been emotionally abusive to you, take our free emotional abuse quiz.

If Forgiveness Matters To You, Keep This In Mind

If forgiveness is important to you, it’s okay to redefine what it means. Instead of reconciliation, think of forgiveness as “letting go.”

• Let go of the relationship if it’s necessary for your emotional or physical safety.
• Let go of self-blame by recognizing that the abuse is not your fault, no matter what the abuser may have said or done.
• Hold on to justice and accountability. It’s healthy to desire safety and justice.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting what happened or allowing further harm. It’s about taking care of you.

How To Support A Victim When An Abuser Denies His Abuse

If you’re supporting someone who has experienced abuse and are tempted to suggest forgiveness, consider saying these things instead:

• “What can we do to make sure you’re safe?”
• “Do you want to hold him accountable? How can I help with that?”
• “How safe do you feel right now?”
• “What resources do you need to feel supported and functional?”

By asking these questions, you’re shifting the focus to the victim’s needs and reinforcing her right to safety and healing. Remember, when an abuser denies their actions, it doesn’t erase the victim’s experience. Abusers may never admit to the harm they caused, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t cause harm. In fact, denying what happened amounts to more emotional and psychological abuse and causes even more harm.

At Betrayal Trauma Recovery, we know how painful dismissal and minimization are by others. When they repeatedly tell you to try to forgive the abuser – it’s excruciating to try to explain yourself over and over. Our Group Sessions are a safe place to process your feelings, because we get it right away. Attend a Group Session today.

Transcript: What To Do When An Abuser Denies His Abuse

Anne: I have Annie on today’s episode, she’s a member of our community. And a mom of three beautiful kids. She was raised in a conservative Mennonite church. And she’s passionate about talking about her experiences with sexual and religious abuse, and all the challenges she faced. Annie follows us on social media, and she comments on social media posts. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.

Anyway, she commented about someone else’s post about forgiveness. They claimed forgiveness is what restores relationships. And so these questions come up: How do you forgive an abuser when they deny it was abuse? Is forgiveness, even an option without repentance?

Because the post she commented on said forgiveness is the key to restoring relationships. It did not say accountability is the key to restoring relationships. And to be accountable, the abuser would have to admit the abuse. So Annie, when you saw that post and you were like, this is not right. If the abuser denies the abuse, we shouldn’t be talking about forgiveness. This is part of knowing if an apology is genuine.

Can you talk about your thoughts when you saw this post on social media? About how it was your job as a victim to restore the relationship with your abuser.

Annie’s Personal Story Of Abuse

Annie: So as a young adult, memories of sexual assault from various sources began to surface for me. A group of male adults from the Amish and Mennonite culture group raped me as a very young child. As a result, I grew up in a culture where forgiveness was something preached and taught. But it was the kind of forgiveness where everything was back to normal. It was basically the abuser denies it and everyone moves on. If I can put it that way, nothing is done.

So that’s how I grew up, and for many years I did not even remember what happened to me. Because trauma can cause somebody to disassociate for obvious reasons, in order to survive. I was no exception with that. It wasn’t until I moved away and got married that all those trauma memories began to resurface for me.

Then I started asking questions like, what does forgiveness look like? Because the first time I told someone my story about what happened to me as a child, They told me I needed to become a victor and not a victim. And that I needed to forgive. And the forgiveness basically meant that if you forgive, it never really happened. About five years ago, I did report it, but the county I grew up in, there are many rumors that there’s corruption in the county.

And many cases involving Amish Mennonite girls never make it to court because an abuser denies his abuse. In fact, I don’t know of one that has ever made it to the courthouse. I found out years later that the way they actually tried to get a confession in my case, something that is not normally done.

Consequences & Corruption

Annie: And so again, it leads me to believe there’s corruption there, because things did not go far in my case. There would have been multiple felonies involved. So it wasn’t like it was something small, put it that way. Victims don’t have a choice about what kind of consequences there are.

Anne: I am so sorry that this happened to you. That is awful. Yeah, you dealt with the consequences every single day. Fundamentalism and patriarchy fuel abuse. They never had to face the consequences of their actions. But I believe they will in the afterlife. In the meantime, of course, when an abuser denies his abuse even occurred. Can you talk about what happened when you started speaking up about what happened to you?

Annie: I began blogging about abuse, but I was still in the middle of working through my own story. I realized how much need there was and began writing. I realized that there were so many other women like me who had gone through horrific things like that. And whenever you’re in the middle of something like that, you feel so alone. My heart just went out to those women, and I began connecting with some of them.

I have been Mennonite all my life, except for the last eight months. So we only recently left the Mennonite culture. And that’s a whole new story in itself that I probably won’t get into today, but yeah.

Anne: In a nutshell, did you leave because of these issues?

Annie: Yes, I would definitely say that played a part in it, for sure.

When An Abuser Denies His Abuse Forgiveness Is Weaponized

Annie: So whenever I think about forgiveness and the things that it is not, I often hear a lot of cliches about forgiveness. That are just unhelpful, and honestly they’re so untrue in so many ways. Things like forgiveness restores relationships, really? I mean, did that happen when Jesus forgave the people who nailed him to the cross?

Doesn’t there have to be genuine repentance on the part of perpetrators in order for the forgiveness Jesus extends? To restore the relationship? Things like forgiveness heals you. I don’t think forgiveness heals you and takes the pain away. It didn’t take Jesus’ pain away. It definitely did not take my pain away. When they denies the abuse does Jesus say, I forgive you?

I mean, I would have flashback after flashback, and for years I’ve had flashbacks. And there was a time in my life where I forgave every time I had a flashback. But forgiving did not make it go away, make it less, or heal me. If that makes sense. Some people will say forgiveness frees you.

Man, I’m kind of on the fence with that one. Because, I guess, it depends on what you think of as free. What do you mean by that? I don’t think forgiveness freed Jesus from the suffering he was dealing with. So, what do people mean when they say that? I definitely would not say forgiveness is freeing. Just because I think it gives victims a false narrative about what it does.

Forgiveness & Moving On

Annie: Some people will say forgiveness helps you not stay stuck in your past and helps you move on. All these cliches are things that just rubbed me the wrong way. Did Jesus move on? What is meant by moving on? How does that look? People will say.If you still talk about what happened to you, you haven’t forgiven. And my response is, I find it interesting that Jesus showed his scars without fear after his resurrection. Forgiveness is different.

And then also there are people who will say. That if you can’t be around the person who hurt you, how can you say you’ve forgiven them? And again, I come back to that whole repentance thing. Jesus loved the people who hurt him whenever they nailed him on the cross. But as far as having a personal relationship with them. That was not there unless they repented.

And I also want to say this before I get much further. I find it ironic that I’m even talking about forgiveness. Because forgiveness is one of my major triggers. And I just want people to understand that if forgiveness is triggering for them. I totally get it. And it’s okay if you just click off the podcast and not listen to this, like I get it, I’ve been there. And I sometimes won’t even listen to whatever it is or read an article.

If I don’t know the person speaking about forgiveness, and I don’t know if they’re safe or not. That’s how triggering forgiveness is for me. People use forgiveness against me way too many times.

Anne: Yeah. Forgiveness can be used as a form of spiritual abuse, and the effects of spiritual abuse are severe.

Annie: Correct, yes.

Forgiveness As a Trigger

Anne: I just thought of a little example I never thought of before. When you said, if you talk about it, then you haven’t forgiven. That’s like saying, if you talk about when you went to college, then you didn’t actually graduate. As if someone’s supposed to pretend that time of their life didn’t happen. Or you’re not supposed to talk about your pregnancy or your baby didn’t get born.

It’s a weird thing to be like, okay, you can talk about your pregnancy, college, high school and job. You can talk about all these things, but you can’t talk about this. Or it means you are severely damaged, or something’s wrong with you. It’s ridiculous. Like, we should all share anything that happened to us. Whether we’re still in a lot of pain and trauma, or feeling better. I can feel fantastic and still be like, oh man, I remember the time my husband screamed in my face.

Annie: Exactly, and the whole thing of forgiveness healing. One of the things I keep going back to is that I keep comparing trauma to, you know, physical trauma basically. And saying forgiveness heals you, and telling somebody that after a drunk driver has hit them. We would not say that to somebody who is a paraplegic that a drunk driver hit.

You know what I mean? It’s just dumb. We don’t, we don’t say stuff like that. People say that to abuse survivors all the time. Why? I just wish people could understand how much these cliches hurt. Especially when an abuser denies his abuse and has never been held accountable.

When An Abuser Denies His Abuse: Annie’s Definition Of Forgiveness

Anne: I think the main reason is misogyny. I think the main reason is because they do not want the perpetrator to experience the consequences. This is why they are fine with the abuser denying the abuse. They don’t want the consequences of his actions to affect him. They do not mind if it affects you.

Annie: Correct, so how would I describe forgiveness? I don’t like cliches, so this will sound cliche, and I hate that. But when I look at forgiveness, according to a biblical standpoint, forgiveness basically means to let go. And if I had to put into words what that looks like, I would repeat the words of Jesus when he was being nailed to the cross. And he said, Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.

I think that shows how Jesus let go. It wasn’t that he denied the pain. There was no denial involved, but he understood that God was just and that God would execute justice on his behalf. And that’s why it was safe to let go. And one of the verses that started me on the whole forgiveness journey. It’s the verse in Ephesians 4:32, where it says, forgive, even as God, for Christ’s sake, hath forgiven you.

And I kept saying, well, what does that look like? What does it look like to forgive, like Jesus did? And then I went back to the crucifixion and I was like, so what did forgiveness for Jesus look like? And again, it’s not this thing of relationship. It’s this thing of letting go and knowing that God will execute justice on your behalf. That’s, to me, what forgiveness is.

Christ’s Acceptance Of Consequences

Anne: With that example of Christ on the cross, one of the thoughts I just had is acceptance. Accepting that this person is the way they are. Christ is all powerful, so in that moment he could have been like, oh, I’m going to get myself off the cross. I will shock these guys into repentance or something. I’m going to send hail down on their heads, and they’ll take me off this cross. He could have gotten himself off the cross, but he didn’t.

He accepted they were the way they were, and he accepted the consequences of their actions. In our case, I think so many victims who are married to their abuser, in the case of spouse abuse, the woman does not want to break up her family. She wants him to be an appropriate, kind, healthy person, to be in a relationship with him.

And so, Christ’s example of accepting that that’s the situation, and also accepting the consequences of that. That would mean it’s appropriate to separate yourself from the harm. It is appropriate to keep yourself safe. In Christ’s case, it was okay that he died. And that’s an awful consequence. But then he was resurrected in three days. God always has a plan. So knowing that God has a plan for us, it’s okay to accept reality. It’s okay to accept the consequences of this.

Annie: A hundred percent. I agree with that. And I also want to say that like, there will be people that sometimes twist things to say that letting go and giving it to God means you can’t get the state involved with consequences.

You Need To Separate Yourself Or Be Delivered From Wickedness

Annie: And to that I just say, why then in Romans 13, it says those who execute judgment on evildoers are ministers of God. Letting go does not mean I don’t do my part to see justice is done even if the abuser denies his abuse. Again, through what God has said about ministers of God executing judgment on those who do evil.

And so I just want to make that clear that’s not where I’m going with this at all. Because I know there are people who believe that, and that’s how I would have believed at one point too.

Anne: Throughout the Bible, that is not the way to go. It’s that they need to be judged, and that you need to separate yourself, or be delivered from wickedness. Judges who appropriately protect victims from abuse are agents of God to deliver people from wickedness.

My story generally speaks only about emotional and psychological abuse and coercion. One of the few instances, it was only about three, that were physical harm. The police actually came to my house and arrested him. They were angels of mercy. I recognized what was happening, and that is what delivered me from the abuse. So having someone recognize and hold someone accountable is a godly thing. Helping someone separate from evil is the righteous thing to do.

Annie: Correct, yeah.

When An Abuser Denies His Abuse: Justice vs. Revenge

Annie: I grew up believing there was no difference between justice and revenge. But in my own words, I would say revenge is getting someone back, you know, 10 times worse than what they got you basically. But justice is different in that it’s basically a consequence. Like there needs to be consequences when wrong is done. And God is both justice and mercy, and we see it over and over again. He holds both of those at the same time.

You can’t have mercy without justice, because it just becomes injustice, and justice without mercy becomes injustice, too. They go together, and when we let one slide, there’s a lot of injustice that happens. I think churches particularly have really erred without understanding how just God is and that truth and justice go together.

Like you said, churches tend to try to restore relationships between perps and survivors to make the situation disappear when an abuser denies his abuse. I think part of the reason they do that is because it feels way less ugly and way less messy. However, the damage that happens for the victim, obviously, we understand how that leaves a trail of devastation for them. I feel like we pat perps on the back on their way to eternal damnation.

Anne: A perpetrator of lifelong emotional and psychological abuse and coercion gets caught. And then they say, oh, I’m a pornography addict. I’m so sorry. They’re still lying, but they sound like they’re telling the truth. And then their clergy, maybe even their therapist, starts giving them gold stars, patting them on the back. Like, oh, you’re being honest, good job. Oh, you’re the victim because you’ve been an addict and your dad didn’t play baseball with you as a kid.

Churches & Forgiveness Culture

Anne: And you felt shame. Like as if all the victims haven’t had those same things happen to them. We’re so proud of you, good job. Rather than being like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you’ve been abusive for 20 years, and we just caught you. So we’re not going to believe a word you say. We’re gonna like keep our eyes on you from a safe distance, and we’re not gonna believe your denial of abusive behavior.

That would be the appropriate response. Instead, they just start getting pats on the back or good job for finally telling the truth. And we’re so proud of you for repenting when they’re trying to manage their image after they got caught.

Annie: Yes, you explained it well. I think there is a lack of knowing what repentant looks like. It’s not just a simple apology, as you just said. There must be complete acknowledgement, without excuses and without minimization. And there must be acceptance of all the consequences, if not, then it’s a denial that there was abuse. Repentance always respects the boundaries of the victim. And they understand the damage they’ve done, to the point where they’re willing to give space.

They are not there trying to restore the relationship until the victim’s ready. In other words, it’s all in the victim’s hands. It’s not about the perp at all. A repentant perp will not care if the whole world knows about what he did. Like, he’s not out there trying to keep his reputation intact. I think that’s a huge one.

Repentance & Accountability

Annie: That’s a huge red flag when someone’s out there trying to get people to quiet down about what happened. When forgiveness is a culture’s strong point, while genuine repentance is a weak point. There will always be injustice that thrives in that culture. Abuse thrives when just a quick, I’m sorry if I hurt you, is seen as repentance.

It thrives when perps can just cry a few crocodile tears, and everything goes back to normal after that. Abuse thrives when the right words are seen as repentance, and when victims are just forced to forgive. So the thing I keep coming back to is the lack of self awareness that churches and institutions have.

As a group, there’s so much humility that is needed, and there has to be a willingness to listen to victims. Because how else will you know that there are wolves inside your church? If you’re not willing to listen to the people who are saying, this person’s not okay. I refuse to tell someone they need to forgive. And the reason I refuse to tell someone that they need to forgive. Especially if they’ve grown up in the church, is that they know what forgiveness is.

It’s not like a foreign concept, but I don’t get to choose when forgiveness is part of their story. That’s up to God. And I think especially if the survivor, if the victim, is someone who loves Jesus and has a relationship with God. God will show them when that time comes. When and what forgiveness will look like for them. I don’t need to push it. They need space to grieve and lament, and I think that’s the kind of thing the church needs to give them.

Safety & Healing

Anne: Yeah, I don’t even think forgiveness should even be a topic of conversation.

Annie: Yeah, I totally agree.

Anne: I love that you said that. Like, if this is triggery for you, just turn it off. Because it shouldn’t even be brought up in any way, shape, or form. Safety is the only thing that needs to be brought up in abuse cases. Are you safe? How can someone who is being abused get help? How can we help you be safer?

Annie: Yes, and you know what, abuse survivors will absolutely heal when they’re safe.

Anne: And then they’re looking at an abuse victim, wondering why she’s not healing. When she’s still being abused emotionally and psychologically. It would be impossible to heal when you’re still receiving that harm. I mean, it’s more than just observing to see. It’s also watching his actions to see if he is living in restitution for what he’s done. If he’s denying he was abusive, that is a red flag that he’s not willing to change.

Annie, I’m so sorry about what happened to you, but I’m so grateful that you’re sharing your story and educating people about abuse. Thank you so much for coming on today’s episode.

Annie: Hey, it’s awesome to be on with you. Thank you so much.