Transcription
[Music] Hey McKenzie, what's up?
Hey, how's it going? Uh, okay, my heart is literally pounding right now.
But mine too, mine too. It's not really. What's up? What's up? Uh, so I'm just gonna read it right off because I don't think on my feet very well. Okay. Um, about a month ago, I kicked my husband out with a temporary protection order after he hit our 13-year-old, uh, son. And now, due to some pushback from my church, I'm having second thoughts on continuing to pursue a long-term protection order.
What? What? Oh, geez, McKenzie. I was having a great day. Now you gonna get me all fired up. All right, so, uh, what happened at your house?
Um, so our 13-year-old has ADHD. He is, uh, currently seeing his own therapist, which has been really great for him. Um, he gets frustrated very easily and, as a, because he's ADHD, he can't really control his body very well. Uh, he got frustrated and accidentally broke our TV.
And what does that mean? He, he shook the TV trying to make it work and it broke.
Okay. Uh, and when his dad came home, he got really mad, like, like really pissed, and punched him in the shoulder. According to our kid, he punched him three times.
Has he hit y'all before?
Um, not me. He has smacked our 13-year-old upside the head a couple of times. Um, this is the first time it was really that violent.
Okay. Does he have anger issues?
Oh, very, very much.
Okay. Um, can I be real honest?
Yeah.
Um, there's a part of this you're not telling me because you're trying to protect him, and I need you to be just totally honest with me. Um, I have several friends that have been throwing around the word narcissism. Um, I don't want to hear any diagnostics or any like, like Google like MD. Like, what is your experience inside your home? Seven years ago, he raped me.
Okay, now we're getting to it. And when I reached out for help seven years ago, all my church friends couldn't seem to give me a straight answer as to what actually it was that happened. That the wording they used was, "I gave up." So technically, that makes it a gray area.
What? Mackenzie, that's madness. You fought your husband to not have sex? Or was he your husband at the time?
Yes.
And you fought him to not be intimate? You fought him to not have sex? You fought him to not have sex and you finally just relented so you keep the house safe?
I stared at the, I stared at the clock wondering how long he would push me for over an hour. I was physically pushing his hands off of me, telling him no, please stop, begging him. And then I, I just gave up. I'm sorry. And so when I heard from the church that that isn't necessarily rape, um, also he's your husband, there's some confusion regarding that.
So, there's no confusion, McKenzie. There's no confusion. Why are you still at this church?
I guess I keep hoping that they'll change.
They're not going to because they're more concerned with the purity of their image and the safety of the people that attend the, the, their, their building.
Yeah, that's what my friends keep saying.
Okay, listen to your friends. I think what hurts the most right now, because for seven years I've just sort of pushed that down and I guess pretended it didn't happen, despite the fact that he was still pressuring me in the bedroom nearly every night. Um, and it was when he hit our son that I, I, that was the moment I realized I, no matter how much I don't deserve the treatment, I can't, I can't stand by and watch him do the same sort of things to our kid.
And it's escalating.
Yes. And as your son gets bigger and his ability to, um, uh, he's just got bigger muscles, he can, instead of pushing over a glass of water, he can push over the TV. And then instead of pushing over the TV, he can wreck the car. Like, it's just going to escalate.
Yeah. And I am 100% confident. I don't want you to tell me anymore, but there's been a lot going on in the last seven years.
Fair.
Yeah. Yes. And I know that it's scary to think of what's next and I know it's scary to think of, "How am I going to eat?" and "How's this little boy going to eat?" And bullies like that, that rape their wives, that punch around on their kids, and there's a difference, by the way, everybody listening. There's a difference between bopping each other on the shoulder and bonking each other. There's a difference. I have an Olympic-sized wrestling mat in my living room upstairs. Like, my kids and I wrestle, we get after it. There's a difference in hitting your kid out of rage and, you know, the difference in your own home. Yeah. And I hate the fact that you went to a group of people that say, "Come see us every week. We're the safest people for you. We represent Jesus and we represent love. Come, come talk to us. We represent wisdom and counsel." They've told you to remain in a, in a holy unsafe place. I'm sorry. I'm not going to tell you what to do with him other than to say, you've lived it and you've lived it for longer than seven years because that when he raped you, when he pushed you way past what you had said for, for an hour or more, that kind of behavior was going on before that, right? So it's time to go be able to go home and be safe in your own place. You have a job.
Uh, I'm trying to build, um, an editing business.
I don't think it's time to build a business right now. You need to go make money. I don't, getting into your finances would be a whole other call, but you need to go get money. You need some economic security because I know it's really easy for a guy like me to be like, "You got to get out of there, that guy sucks." And then you're going to look at me and go, "Okay, cool. Where am I going to go? How am I going to eat?" Yeah. And I know that's, that part's scary. And I know you want to build a business, and it's going to be yet another thing that this guy took from you. I get that. So I'm not going to tell you to follow how long the restraining order should be or any of that kind of stuff. I'm going to tell you, you know the people who are closest to you and who love you know what the next right move is. And I want you to follow your heart, follow your gut, and follow the counsel of your friends who've been walking alongside you all the time. Okay? And if that means you go to police, that means you go to police. And your son is going to think he did all of this. And he needs to be sat down and looked in the eye and put with your hands on both sides of his face, letting him know there are things that have been going on in this home for years that you have nothing to, no idea about. What happened to you has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with your dad.
Yeah. And I've, I've told him that.
Times. You cannot tell him that too much.
Yeah, because he's gonna equate, "I broke the TV" to "I broke up our family."
Yeah. And he's probably already known it's his job to make sure Dad doesn't get mad for most, if not all, of his life.
Fair.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And it's probably been his job to make sure Mom is safe for most of his life, right?
Yes.
So he's been carrying that responsibility his whole life. This is just going to upend all that. Yeah. But here's the literal steps. You need to get with either a social worker or a mental health professional or a close friend that you trust, and you'll make a game plan on A, B, and C, and D. Here's my plan. Here's how much, here's how much this plan is going to cost. Here's where I'm going to go for month one, for month two, month three, month four. Here's the stipulations I'm going to put on this man. If we're gonna, if this marriage is going to survive.
Sounds to me like you've been dead in this marriage for a long time.
Fair.
Yeah. All right. I'm throwing a lot at you and I want you to hear, my anger is not at you. It's at this, at this guy who thinks he's tough and he can push around a little kid and he can push around his wife.
How's it sitting on you?
Um, that's sitting okay. Okay. I think you knew when you called, right?
Yeah. Your church is wrong. They're wrong. And any church that tells a woman who's getting raped inside her own home and her husband is punching around on their kids and screaming and yelling, that says, "Yeah, no, no, no, no. He gets to do that. Dude, dust your sandals off and go on to the next church." Yeah. You have a friend you can call tonight?
Where's your husband now? Is he, is he still in proximity to your son?
Do you need to call the police?
Or you've got a temporary, you got temporary order.
We have the temporary protection order, so we are in the home.
Have you gone to court yet?
Um, we've a couple of times. He keeps pushing the date back.
Okay, okay, cool. I even broke a couple of old wedding plates 'cause it pissed me off so much.
Is he, is he pushing it back 'cause he doesn't have the money or he's scared of you or because he's playing a game?
I honestly have no idea. I, I'm so used to his ability to manipulate every conversation.
Do you have an attorney?
I don't, at the moment.
No? Okay, let's get one. Let's get one. And then their job is to fight for you. And a good attorney is a hired, a hired gun. They're an assassin. That's their job. And if they're good, they don't get conversations turned around on them. Okay? Yeah. Your job now is you doing the work you need to do to go well, to go heal from having the safest place on Earth, home, what should be the safest place, be the most terrifying place in the world for you. You and your son need to heal from what all you've had to live through. You're going to have to heal from leaving your son in this mess for 13 years because it's been pretty radioactive for a long time. You're going to have to, that's going to be hard for you. You have to deal with that. And that's not me casting judgment at all in any way, but just that's going to come up. Your son's going to have to heal as well. It's going to be a long road, but I want you all to begin that healing process in peace.
My God. In peace. I'm so sorry. And I'll, I've said it before, I'll say it again, church leaders, if you, if you take on the responsibility of speaking for God and you take on the responsibility of shepherding a group of [Music] people, then you take on the job of keeping them safe and making sure they're whole, man. Be a good steward of that responsibility, man.