Domestic Violence & Parenting Adult Children with Stacy Womack

James Moffitt (00:01.346)
Hello and welcome to ABC's of Parenting Adult Children. My name is James Moffitt and I will be your host. Today we have a special guest speaker named Stacy Womack. Stacy, how are you? Good. Hey, why don't you introduce yourself to the listening audience.

Stacey Womack (00:13.033)
I'm good.

Stacey Womack (00:19.318)
Okay, well, I guess I'm born and raised Oregonian, so that's where I live and I am the daughter of a pastor. So I grew up in and around the Christian community and married young. And so had my children very young. I have six children who are all grown now and who have children of their own. have four adult grandchildren and my 13th grandchild on the way.

And just a few months ago, we had our very first great grandchild. That's what happens when you marry young and then your daughter's marry young and we all have babies quickly. So there you go. Yeah.

James Moffitt (00:47.778)
Wow.

James Moffitt (00:54.467)
Yeah

James Moffitt (00:58.254)
So I guess she could say your husband's quiver is full.

Stacey Womack (01:02.282)
You can, we're coming up on our 45th anniversary. Yeah. And, in the midst of all this, and really I was homeschooling back in the day when nobody really knew what that was. in the midst of that, God began to speak to me about ministry beyond my family. So in the midst of that time, God opened the door to dealing with domestic violence and abuse from a faith perspective. So I am the founder and executive director of abuse recovery, ministry and services.

James Moffitt (01:05.955)
my!

Stacey Womack (01:31.87)
which we provide services for both victims of survivors nationally and internationally. And then we also provide services for those who use abusive behaviors, whether they be male or female, all from a Christian perspective.

James Moffitt (01:46.926)
Well, that's wonderful. So Katie and I have been married 34 years. We're going on 35. So you're, you're about a decade ahead of us and, we don't have grandchildren yet. So, I know my wife would like to have some grandchildren. She tried to talk me into being a foster parent. was like, no, not doing that. But anyway, so I'm going to read something from your, from your profile.

Stacey Womack (02:01.91)
Ha ha ha.

Stacey Womack (02:07.04)
Ha ha ha.

James Moffitt (02:17.1)
So the episode could explore how faith communities can support parents of adult children experiencing domestic violence, anchoring spirituality as a cornerstone for recovery, and offering insights into creating safe spaces for survivors and their families. So do you want to speak to that a little bit?

Stacey Womack (02:35.71)
That's a mouthful. Yeah, I break it down a little bit. Yeah, okay. Okay, so the main population that we serve is women who have experienced abuse and we allow 14 and up to whatever age we serve that that population. And so one thing about abuse is it's very cyclical. So it's just something that's very generational. It's often something that

James Moffitt (02:37.386)
yeah. Just, unpack it. Yeah. Unpack it a little bit at a time.

Stacey Womack (03:04.694)
someone learns and they're growing up years and then because it's the only tools they know to use they end up repeating those those same cycles the same patterns and and we all learn good and bad from our families and that's that's true. So this is also true of people use abusive behaviors. It's something that they learned along the way. It's learned how they cope with life dealt with life whether they're male or female and and then in the midst of doing all this work we get

parents calling us who were saying, do I do? My daughter's in an abusive relationship. How do I help her? so we have all of, have, it's so complex. Domestic abuse is such a complex issue. I actually believe that most of our social issues are born out of abuse because statistically children who witness abuse growing up, even if they're not the direct victims, have the exact same effects as those who are the direct victims, except for one thing.

Children who only witness it usually have higher rates of mental health issues. So, you know, it's an issue where statistically children in these environments are more likely to drop out of school, run away from home, get involved in crime, abuse, drugs and alcohol. I mean, the list goes on and on. So you can see how a lot of our social issues can be born out of the brokenness that happens in homes where abuse is present. And since statistically,

One in three women have experienced abuse at some point, if they're not currently experiencing it at some point in their life. That's a huge number. And I'm one of the lucky ones that didn't have to experience abuse. I wasn't called into this work based on my own personal experience. I was called into it as God said, this is what I want you to do. So I've had to grow and learn like the average person, because when I stepped into this, I knew almost nothing. So, you know, there's

There's so many directions that we can go with this, James. You can just kind of tell me what thing would you like me to hit first and then we can go from there.

James Moffitt (05:08.302)
Alright, well tell us what was the pivot point when you felt that you heard God calling you into this ministry? What was the turning point or pivot point in your life that you felt that calling?

Stacey Womack (05:25.162)
Well, I felt called a couple of years before I even really told anybody. I knew that God had put a call on my life. I just didn't know what it was. And I felt like I was continually giving me these broad strokes, but nothing very specific. And then after about two years, I have a really crazy story to go, I don't need to go into the whole story. But basically this crazy story of how God brought me to this door to partner originally with another organization that was

just starting to do work with victims and survivors of abuse from a faith perspective. And very quickly that door shut and God had already had his plans. Cause all I was gonna do, James, was lead a couple of groups of helping women through the healing process. I had no intention of starting a nonprofit, but God had other plans. So very quickly we got incorporated. had a nonprofit status within three months. And then I was having all these other women come to me saying,

how can I do what you're doing? Which at that time I had begun leading the group. And so we were quadrupling every year. This hasn't been something I pushed, it's been something more like I've held on to the end of the tornado and I'm just trying to keep up with it of what all God is doing. And that's why, you when I say that we're now in seven countries, I'm like, how does that happen? You know, we have our women's recovery program called Her Journey translated into five languages. And right now we have a Polish working.

James Moffitt (06:45.263)
wow, that's crazy.

Stacey Womack (06:53.342)
woman who's working on a polish translation for us. So again, it's just been kind of like God moving on the hearts of people. And we just are the vehicle to equip others to help those in their own community. So we've come up with a system and a way to do that. It's been very successful. So even though I haven't experienced abuse, the Herd Dreaming program has weaved into it things that God has taught me about healing from really deep hurts and which we've all had.

And God's truth remains the truth no matter what. So, however the hurt comes to us, the healing process is still generally the same. And so this class is free and the women can join at any time. They don't even have to give us their real name. They can bring a female support person with them and they can just come and go as they please. And even though it's 15 weeks long, we lead it year round. the women...

Like I said, can join whenever they don't have to wait to week one and there's no cost, which is really rare when you're looking for especially a faith based recovery program. So that way when the women are calling in, we can help them immediately because otherwise the abuser goes into doing usually tactics to get to woo her back into the relationship. But if we can start helping her when she's in that place of, Hey, I need help. want help.

and we can help her that day and not make her have to wait a month or hour long until the next program starts. And that's great. So we have virtual options and we have in-person options and we train people to do what we do. We do that all virtually online. So that's why we have people from all over the world. We train people in Israel, in Vienna, in Australia, in England, mean all over. So not all of them became leaders, but we've trained them in domestic violence intervention from a faith perspective.

James Moffitt (08:38.52)
Well.

Stacey Womack (08:46.678)
not intervention recovery work. Intervention is the other side of it, is the side of working with those who use abusive behaviors, which I'm also very passionate about. Because the reality is, that if we're only helping those who are suffering the abuse, but not doing anything to stop those who are using the abuse, it's kind of like, you know, you're catching the people falling off the cliff, but you're not going up to the top of the cliff to find out who's pushing them off to stop that. So

James Moffitt (09:13.442)
Right. Right.

Stacey Womack (09:15.606)
So I'm very passionate about that as well. And I've worked with the men and the women here for the, since 2021 is when we started those programs. And we are an accepted part of the domestic violence community. And maybe some of your listeners know that Oregon is pretty liberal and pretty independent minded. And yet we are considered to be an important part and a respected part of that domestic violence community as a whole.

So we're seeing experts in dealing with this issue from a faith perspective. So we actually contract with Community Corrections and the Department of Human Services, which is crazy. mean, it's really, crazy. So God has just given us favor and we do a really good job. And so that's why we continue to have these opportunities, these doors that open to us.

James Moffitt (10:07.374)
That's awesome. believe my, I think my 28 year old daughter, Christina lived in Oregon for awhile. Yeah. She, she got out of high school. Well, actually she dropped out of high school and got her GED and she, got a backpack and a boyfriend and her dog. And they just traveled all over the United States and went to, went to California and Wyoming and Oregon and all those different States, Louisiana.

Stacey Womack (10:08.662)
Bye.

Stacey Womack (10:14.001)
really?

James Moffitt (10:36.428)
New Orleans and she's traveled she's traveled and been more places than I have and So I know I know she she landed in Oregon for a while. She's back here now but so

Stacey Womack (10:42.176)
Yeah.

Stacey Womack (10:50.326)
I was just going to say that, you know, even being raised in a healthy home, a relatively healthy home, doesn't keep someone from falling into this cycle of abuse. So I have two daughters and four sons, and both my daughters ended up marrying men who were abusive. And so here I was doing the work and now they were in these relationships. And so as a parent, knowing those boundaries of what do I say and what do I not say has been really difficult.

to navigate, they're both out of those relationships now, but it was very hard at the time because women who are in these relationships love their partners. And so we couldn't speak negatively or push anything because we just needed to love them right where they were at. And that's really hard. I feel like it's been harder to be a parent of adult children than it was when they were little because it's heartbreaking to watch your adult children go through adult heartache.

and you can't do much about it, right? So pray for them. Yeah, and if they're not open to help, then you just, can't.

James Moffitt (11:54.243)
Yeah, because

James Moffitt (11:58.51)
So as a parent of an adult child, you're no longer in a parent-child relationship. You're not in control of their day-to-day activities. You're not in charge of setting boundaries or putting guardrails up to protect them for whatever reasons. Well, the reason is you don't want them to get harmed or hurt, right? And so you turn into more of a mentor when they become adults. And we're a support system that is there for them.

Should they want, should they want to access that, you know, the, mentoring or the support system and, our.

Stacey Womack (12:33.386)
Our kids would say that we're a safe place because the one thing about my husband and I is we've been consistent, always consistent in the way we live our lives and the things that we believe. So when they've had their heartaches, especially for our sons, they've all boomeranged back into our home. That was one of the things that one of our sons says is that it's like a man who is standing there and crying and not wanting us to hug him, but just saying, you know.

I'm grateful for the fact that you guys are a safe place to come to, that you guys, you're consistent, you don't change. And that's a really important thing, I think, as a parent, to create that safety for your kids as adults.

James Moffitt (13:14.221)
Right.

James Moffitt (13:17.614)
Well, that was, that was one of the things that I was going to say, or have said on this podcast is that if we as parents are modeling the correct behavior and we're living the type of life that honors our faith and honors God, then our hope as parents is, that when our children become adults, that they will feel we'll have a good enough relationship with them that they'll feel, they'll feel safe to come back to us and go, Hey, this is what's going on.

And we've, we've talked, I've had episodes that talked about boomerang children, you know, going out into the world and it's so expensive to live out now and you know, college debt and the cost of living. all know, you know, I'm, we're just doing good to put food on the table and keep the lights on. And, and, we've been adulting for quite a while now. Right. And so our adult children, you know, they leave the nest, you know, we have, we have several episodes about failure to launch, you know, and,

Stacey Womack (14:03.146)
Yeah.

Okay.

James Moffitt (14:16.398)
And then, and then you have, you know, episodes where the kids launch and, despite their best efforts, uh, they fall flat, you know, they wind up in tent city or wind up at a homeless shelter or, know, or worse, you know? And so, you know, the, the, family unit is the support unit and hopefully the kids feel, uh, safe enough to come back home and ask for help. And of course that doesn't, that doesn't mean that.

They can just go hog wild. You still have to have boundaries in place and you have to have expectations of behavior and what's, know, no drugs, no alcohol, no wild parties. You know, you're, you, you're an adult, but we still want you to be home by 11 o'clock ish, you know, so that we can walk the house and go to sleep and not have to worry about you. Or I told my daughter, my 28 year old, said, Hey, if you're not back here by 11 at night, I'm locking the doors, turning on the alarm and you're on your own.

Stacey Womack (14:57.064)
Okay. Okay.

Stacey Womack (15:02.858)
Right. Yep.

Yes.

James Moffitt (15:15.042)
You can go spend the night on somebody's couch or whatever you're going to do, but that was an expectation I sat with her. There were several times that she did that. So, so let's circle back around to abusive relationships and,

What are some of the warning signs that some of the red flags that abused, you know, I don't want to single out women. I want to say women are the only ones that are abused, I think in the society or the world that we live in is predominantly women and wives and mothers that wind up being the victim of domestic violence.

Stacey Womack (15:52.98)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (15:58.062)
Uh, what are, what are, and it's like you said, it's an important thing to say is, is that just because they're a victim of domestic violence, uh, whether they're married or not, you know, that's, that's their soulmate or that's their, partner. And they, they, they love that person. Right. And we're, of course we're talking about a man and a woman. We're not talking about anything else here. Uh, but it could be an inclusive of.

same-sex marriages or whatever, know, blended families, whatever. But you know, what, what, what, what are, what are some of the, yeah, what are the, what are the red flags that show up?

Stacey Womack (16:32.47)
warning signs. Yeah, okay. So one of the things that you should watch out for, and you're right, I think the stat that we use is that there's lot floating out there. 76 % of primary victims are female and 26 % would be male victims. And then there's some lateral sometimes abuse going on.

But anyways, with someone who is a power and control person, because that's really what abuse is about, when they meet somebody, they're going to be absolutely wonderful. Usually, just, you know, they're hard to identify, but they move very quickly. So most of these women will find that he will want them to move in with him or marry them in less than six months. And he might do things like begin

acting like it's love, but he just, he just wants to spend time with her. So she wants to go spend time with maybe friends or family. And he's like, but I just want to just spend the evening with you. So he begins to isolate her from those people that are around her.

James Moffitt (17:44.536)
She being, he's being controlling. Right.

Stacey Womack (17:46.134)
He's being controlling, but it sounds like love, okay? Because he's telling her that it's because he loves her. He just wants to be with her, right? So then he begins moving more to controlling who she's even allowed to talk to. It could be telling her how she should dress or wear her makeup. So it could be saying things like, really, is that what you're gonna wear? So just these controlling behaviors.

that begin to, at first she was so loving and kind, but begin to tear her down, and so she begins to question. And even if he has something a little bit more overt, he's gonna quickly come back and apologize and love bomb her basically, so that she comes back into the relationship and is interested in continuing that relationship. And because we don't get into relationships for them to end, we keep trying to make it work.

Abusers are often jealous and jealousy is not, the Bible tells us that love isn't jealous, it leaves room for other people. So someone who is jealous and I think our younger women struggle with this, sometimes they think that, he acts jealous and it shows that he loves me. But actually it could be a really serious warning sign because jealous abusers are more likely to stalk. So really calm and stalking behavior among our younger generation, it'd be multiple calling.

multiple texting and expecting a response right away and wanting to always know about her whereabouts, who she's with, who she's talking to, all those kinds of things. that, and stalkers have a much higher rate at committing domestic violence, homicides, like they're 75 % of all domestic violence homicides are committed by men and women who have stalked their victims. So, and it's so easy to stalk these days because you can GPS them.

James Moffitt (19:41.109)
sure. Yep. Air tags.

Stacey Womack (19:42.274)
And it's free, lot of air tags, all kinds of ways. So any type of behavior like that, would be anybody who's doing that. Or if they talk about their ex-partner in a negative way, like, they were crazy. And I mean, they just make them out to sound like the other person was a villain and they're the victim. One thing about those who perpetrate abuse is that they always see themselves as the victim.

Abuse victims don't actually see themselves as victims. They would not actually define themselves that way, especially if it's never been physical. But even if it's been physical, they often wouldn't define themselves that way. but those who perpetrate abuse will say that. And so a lot of times when we got people calling in, I'm listening for their words that they say, you know, because whether they're male or female, male victims say the similar things to what our women say.

Female primary aggressors in a relationship say and do similar things to what male primary aggressors do and say. And so I'm looking for that type of language as we're working through things. And then in between that is what we call a secondary aggressor. They're using abuse, but they're not gaining necessarily gaining control from it. They're getting just more payback. So, you I think that, you know, even my sister ended up marrying an abusive pastor actually.

And he raged at her before they got married. Rage, just horrible rage. But he told her that he was sorry and he never does that. And when she finally got to the point after 11 years not telling anybody what was going on, she separated, she fled from him. And then he contacted each one of our family members and he would rage on the phone. I would say, if you're gonna yell, I'm gonna hang up. And then I would hang up and then he'd call back my husband to pick up the phone. And he just held the phone out for 15 minutes, man rage. And then he calmed down.

And he said, I'm so sorry, I never do that. But then he'd go do it to my dad and to my brother. I mean, he did it to everybody. So raging, if you're surprised or afraid of a person's anger, that is also a really big important thing. should not be ignored because it's probably not a one-time event. And even though this man had experienced abuse as a child, it does not excuse his abuse that he's using as an adult.

James Moffitt (22:04.856)
Right.

Stacey Womack (22:05.43)
It means he needs to get help for that, but it does not excuse his behavior. And a lot of women want to know, well, why does he do this? Because I figure if they can figure out why, then they can help stop it. But that's not really the most important question is knowing why, because you can only work on you. that's what I would tell my daughters. You can only change you, so you cannot change the abuser. So you need to figure out what you need to do in this situation to be safe and to be healthy.

And if you want to have any chance to your relationship working, then he's got to go to a program where he's getting help for this. And you're going to have to wait a long time to see whether or not it's going to be true change. And we have couples that make it, you know, who really the abuser, the person who's being the offender in this relationship gets accountability on multiple sides and spends a year or two or three.

really, really intensely working on it by going to a group, going to counseling for his childhood trauma, which was something we recommend because men and women who don't get help for their childhood trauma aren't able to sustain the changes they make within a group. So, yeah.

James Moffitt (23:18.55)
Right. So I would imagine that one of the sources of acting out is mental issues, mental health issues that they need to get addressed.

Stacey Womack (23:32.534)
you

The domestic violence community does not consider this a mental health issue. Now, do we serve people with mental health issues? Absolutely. have men and women in our programs who have mental health issues. But really, it's not what drives abuse. Mental health does not cause abuse, just like drugs and alcohol don't cause abuse. Drugs and alcohol lower someone's inhibition so that they're going to act on belief systems that they hold, even if they're unaware of those belief systems, so that

James Moffitt (23:36.782)
to certain degree.

Stacey Womack (24:03.798)
You know, we tell even when we're working with men, it's like, you may say you don't believe this, but your behavior shows that you do believe this. And so it lowers your inhibitions. And of course, somebody who has mental health issues may have a harder time regulating things. But again, they don't, the domestic violence community does not view domestic violence as a mental health issue. just have, nope, just have people who

James Moffitt (24:29.006)
Really?

Stacey Womack (24:33.338)
use of abusive behaviors who also then have sometimes coexisting issues like mental health. mean, most common things probably for our men and our women in our intervention programs is ADHD. Sometimes it's me. yeah. So, but it's not other things. mean, it's, know, I mean, sure we have some people with bipolar disorder and things like that, but that's not the vast majority. Yeah.

James Moffitt (24:49.784)
Right. Okay.

James Moffitt (25:01.58)
Right. So what's, what's the root cause of abusive behavior then?

Stacey Womack (25:08.522)
I think that it's a deep seated insecurity. so power control is just one tool that can be used to try to create some sense of feeling secure and feeling, maybe trying to feel better about yourself when you don't feel good about yourself. So we really work on in all of our programs, work on someone not just knowing their value and their importance and their...

James Moffitt (25:08.814)
I mean, that's.

Stacey Womack (25:37.844)
the fact that God loves them, not just knowing that, but believing it. Because when you believe it with all your heart, not just from a head place, then it will change your behaviors. And so we see that with our women who have experienced abuse, such an amazing thing to watch their transformation from coming in and feeling so broken down and so insecure and such a low self-esteem to grow in their sense of worth and value. And then they begin setting boundaries. They begin

looking to their future and figuring out what do they want in life and how can they achieve and things that they didn't believe they can achieve. We watched them go back to college and see these great things. It's just an amazing journey. I love all the groups out actually. I love walking alongside people in their healing process and working with the men is especially difficult. The women who use abuse can be a tricky one because they definitely have more victim issues also mixed in with their

use of abuse. So you kind of have to address that, but at the same time, hold them accountable for their choice to be abusive. And really we're teaching healthy relationship skills. And in our men's program, always say we're teaching men how to love their wives like Christ loves the church, or just love people like Christ loves people. And so we just always keep bringing it back to that. What would that look like? So when they bring up examples, like, well, you know, I had a guy just recently go, well,

I just don't understand. She cheats on you, that's it. I'm just done. I said, you know, it's so interesting because the Old Testament is all about, these are lights who prostituted themselves to other nations and God drawing them back in over and over and over again. So it's like, you know, women a lot of times will give men more opportunities than men will give women in that category. And so was pressing them on that a little bit. And also I'm saying, so had you been loving her like Christ loves the church, would she have been vulnerable?

to that person who came and is also unhealthy because they're pursuing somebody in an intimate relationship. So if you've been living here like Christ loves the church, would she have been vulnerable to that? So the men get to a point where they can even take accountability for the fact, because they were horrible to her, that it made her such an easy target for someone to come along and be nice, who's probably an abuser himself, because these women just kind of.

Stacey Womack (28:03.286)
find themselves going from one abusive relationship to another until they get the help they need. Some understanding around this and to understand God's heart around this issue that this is never the way God intended it. And James, a lot of times we explain to people, especially from the biblical standpoint, it struggled with, I don't see abuse in the Bible. Well, it's in there and started with Canaan and Abel house of Christian, Christian, but it really is oppression. And the Bible has a lot to say about oppression.

James Moffitt (28:27.193)
yeah.

Stacey Womack (28:33.438)
And God never meant for a marriage to be about oppression, or even your children when you're raising your children. We're not to be parents who oppress our children. We're to guide them and carry them through that. And even as a parent of adult children, it's not my job to judge them or to lecture them. If they don't invite me into that conversation, I have to just be supportive. And my daughter who got out of her abuse,

Later told my husband, he said, I heard what you guys were saying, because every once in we would get this opportunity to say a little thing. She goes, I heard you guys, but I just, couldn't take it at that point. I couldn't take in that information because they want to hang on to the dream of that happy marriage. And it went so badly for it to work out. And I totally get that. I would try everything too. Why wouldn't you try everything? So when people go, why didn't she just leave? It's not that easy. And it's not, honestly.

Almost probably 98 % of all those we serve want the relationships to, they want to reconnect with their partner and have a healthy relationship.

James Moffitt (29:46.446)
Does codependent behavior come into play any?

Stacey Womack (29:50.944)
think codependency is a really great thing to look into. But again, the domestic violence community does not see domestic violence as a codependent issue because it would be like saying that she is enabling his abusive behavior. And that is not true. He's choosing to be abusive. She's not, doesn't matter what her behavior is, is not okay to be abusive. It's not okay for her to be abusive either. But her abuse, if she's being abusive, does not justify.

his abuse or anybody else's abuse. Just like the law would say, we are responsible for our own choices that we make. So while I think codependency, going through a class on that can be really helpful, or reading books on that can be really helpful, we don't see it as the main issue of domestic violence.

James Moffitt (30:36.044)
Okay. Interesting.

Stacey Womack (30:39.39)
Yeah. So yeah, it's just a very complicated issue with no easy answers.

James Moffitt (30:47.16)
Well, relationships in and of themselves are very complicated. And family relationships can be very complicated.

Stacey Womack (30:50.441)
Absolutely.

Stacey Womack (30:55.231)
Absolutely.

James Moffitt (30:56.966)
so let me ask a couple of questions out of your profile. I you already answered the first one.

What role can spirituality play in supporting families dealing with abuse?

Stacey Womack (31:11.732)
think that's one of the reasons why we have the success rate that we have. I think that the fact that when you believe that God is the one who created us, he planned for us, he's so intentional about that. He loves us so much that he planned our lives before it even came into being, right? And so as we help people to understand how much God loves them and their value in him, it changes.

Every single client male or female we go over and over this we talk in the men's program We talk about them as true values. They are true regardless of whether you believe them or not You're important. You're regarded. You're forgiven if you've asked you're accepted. You're powerful. You're you know, you're lovable you're you know, I'll we have a list of like eight different words that we use but

The whole thing is to help them to understand that God makes a difference. So for instance, James, in our men's program nationally, they've done studies on, we started this back when there really wasn't any laws around intervention work. But now it's been around for 25 years or so. And so they've got studies done and they say that men who go through a program, 50 % of them are likely to reoffend in the first five years after they complete.

We've been running our numbers since 2011 and we've been running it at 5 % recidivism rate. And I believe that God is the key point to that. And actually most of our men and women who join us are not people of faith. They need to believe God exists and be okay with their Christian approach. They may not even be the same faith as us, but they have to be okay with that. And we talk to them though, we pray in groups. We talked to them about this issue from a faith standpoint. What does God have to say about this? It's not a Bible study.

But we throw some scriptures in there and we talk about this. have discussions about this. And it's absolutely transformative. The vast majority of the women seeking us out who have experienced abuse are women of faith and sometimes multiple faiths. And for them, it's just so affirming to know that this was never part of God's plan. He never intended for man to rule over his wife. It was a consequence.

Stacey Womack (33:26.386)
of Adam and Eve sinning. It wasn't the way God intended it to be. created them, know, male and female, he created them to be like him as equals and gave them equal authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and animals on the land. It wasn't until they sin that this consequence of man ruling over his wife became an issue. And then that creates conflict. That wasn't the way God intended it to be. So.

Part of having healthy relationships is understanding how do you be one? know, like in a business partnership, if you're a 50-50 % partnership with someone, you cannot make a decision independent of the other person because they own 50 % of that business. In a marriage, you're one. It's very much like a 50-50 business that way that you work together. And that means you wait sometimes when you can't quite come to a decision on it. And all this is done for me and my husband.

has made our relationship stronger. So we've already had a good relationship. I was raised complimentarian. I get that and I understand it really well. But I tell you, this isn't as big a shift as most people would think. It really is a consensus where we talk about things and then we make decisions together. You know, even in raising your kids, know, that you, you know,

you can take those conversations and they don't have to be done in front of your children, even your adult children, so that you can make sure that you come back united on how you're going to address the situation so that you can model healthy partnership to them. And that can be in every area. It could be financially, can be relationally, can be spiritually, it can be all kinds of different ways, right? So, you know, and like you said, relationships are messy and difficult.

And my husband and I have learned that relationships have seasons. Some seasons in our marriage have been great. Some have been horrible. Some have been just okay. And right now I can say that on this latter end of our relationship is that it's probably stronger and better than it's ever been because we've worked through so much. And we stuck in there when we didn't feel like it. And actually even that modeling.

Stacey Womack (35:46.838)
for our own children. When they've gone through hard things, and I've had a couple of kids who have gone through divorces, I had a couple of kids who were close to divorce, but they're able to work through it and they're still together today. And it takes, mean, people have forgotten what commitment really means and how hard it is. And that love isn't a feeling, it is a choice, even when you don't feel like it. And I think that showing our, even,

James Moffitt (36:05.038)
Mm-hmm.

James Moffitt (36:10.648)
Right? Right.

Stacey Womack (36:15.523)
Whatever age your kids are, that model of that isn't really important. I think we've lost that over the years.

James Moffitt (36:26.818)
How does ARMS equip faith communities to address domestic violence?

Stacey Womack (36:32.511)
Well, we love to come into churches and speak to their leaders or to the people in their church and do some training on abuse. We also have trainings online that they can download and listen to. We also have, we published this book on the front lines of abuse. Strategies for the faith community, it's really tiny. I had one pastor say, I love it, Stacey.

James Moffitt (36:50.786)
Okay.

Stacey Womack (36:56.382)
So many pastors are given so many books to read and he said, this is just the right size. He says, I had some ideas, but this gave me so much more. And this book is written to the entire faith communities, to those who were like me who didn't know anything about abuse, to those women who were experiencing abuse, to those who are using abuse and to pastors and church leaders. And it gives some ideas of what they could do and how they can handle it, what they should and should not do in those situations in a very simplistic way.

So it's not overwhelming, but then we are here to serve them as a church ministry. We understand and as knowing my pastor, my father's a pastor, he would say, people would always come to him saying, well, I think we should be doing this. And he'd go, well, it sounds like God's calling you to that. Pastors cannot do everything. It is too much. It's not their job to carry everything. So we're an organization that comes alongside churches to help them with this very difficult topic. They can send.

people directly to our phone number and they don't know what to do. They just send them to us and we will help them. We will walk those people through those issues.

James Moffitt (38:02.606)
That's awesome.

Last question, what are common misconceptions about domestic violence and faith settings?

Stacey Womack (38:11.382)
in common misconceptions in the faith community is thinking that doesn't happen in their church. In fact, we've been told by churches, by pastors saying, no, that doesn't happen in our church. But I can tell you that if one in three women have experienced abuse in their lifetime, then one in three women in their church, no matter how big or how small, have. They're just not talking about it because it's not something that the church really is open to talking about, nor is it safe because while clergy is the number one place people go for help,

James Moffitt (38:22.904)
Mm-hmm

Stacey Womack (38:41.534)
It has also been the least helpful and not because people don't care, but because they're uneducated about this. So they'll often send a woman right back into the abuse. And we had one pastor who called us because he sent a woman back home and that night her husband killed her. He called us crying going, I need help. need, I need some help to know how do we better handle the situation. And so, you know, I think that misconception that it doesn't happen in our church is also a misconception that only happens among.

impoverished people and the reality is that 53 % of all domestic violence happens in middle class and the rest is split between the upper and lower class. So it really is an equal opportunity offender.

James Moffitt (39:20.076)
Right?

James Moffitt (39:26.136)
Well, I'm glad that God called you to that ministry and that you're able to provide hope and healing and restoration to the people that need the ones that are being victimized, whether it be male or female. So let me give you...

Stacey Womack (39:40.842)
Yeah, right. And we want to bring out those who are hurting from it too, because the men who are using abuse or the women who are using abuse are hurting themselves as well. Yeah.

James Moffitt (39:50.806)
Right. So, so let me give you a three to five minutes for an elevator speech to where you can talk directly to the listeners, the listening audience, which is primarily females, moms, daughters. What would you, what would you say to them?

Stacey Womack (40:07.23)
Okay. I would tell anybody who is experiencing this or maybe you have a family member who's experiencing this is that we are here for you and that we want to help you. On our website we even have a how healthy is your relationship like a little quiz they can go through. We have a ton of information on there. Our website is abuserecovery.org. So abuserecovery.org.

You can contact us through that. If you're interested in training to be a leader so that you can offer it in your church or your community, they can sign up for trainings. run about every eight weeks. We have a training of 15 weeks long. Our Her Journey program, again, is our largest program. It's free. So women can join it anytime you have, and maybe in the past are currently in abusive relationships, can join it anytime and come at no cost and continue coming as long as they

find it helpful. And we just had such great success. We served like close to 50,000 women doing this work. So that doesn't even include the ones that call in and we minister to that way. So we just want people to know that we are here for them. And we're hoping to, within the next maybe six or seven months, maybe to be able to start a online national men's group for intervention.

And the reason we haven't done that yet is because we're just a little shorthanded. My husband and I will actually be leading that one. And we look forward to doing it. Doing it virtually isn't as good as in person, but it's better than nothing. And it gives these men the opportunity to kind of see things from a different perspective, be challenged on some of the systems that they hold that are unhealthy, and create problems in their relationships.

So I just want the people who are listening know that we are here and that we want to serve them and that in any capacity that they want us to help them that we can, we will. So we're just a phone call away or an email away.

James Moffitt (42:15.256)
Well, I will want to get your website URL and the ISBN number for your book and all that information so that when I, I've got a podcast website that I can actually do a blog post and put all that information on there for people to see. But I also want to put that in the show notes as well when I release that episode, which will be in August sometime. Stacey?

Stacey Womack (42:43.803)
It's on Amazon right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

James Moffitt (42:45.698)
There go. Amazon. Everybody's going through Amazon. Yay. All right. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. I've really enjoyed listening to what you had to say. And I know that our listening audience, so we'll be blessed and we'll, I'm hoping that if there are people out there that are struggling or experiencing abuse, that they will, be a little more educated and they'll know what some of the, the warning signs are and we'll reach out to you or other organizations.

in their local community to get help. so for the, Stacy, thank you for being here. you can listen to this podcast on activate FM, Amazon music, I heart radio, Apple podcast, which is a majority of where most of my listeners go is Apple podcasts and public radio. I also upload the video version of this podcast to rumble, not YouTube, but rumble, are you MBL?

Uh, our website is located at parenting adult children.org that's parenting adult children.org. Uh, you can, you can see, you can see my contact information. leave me emails, you can leave me a voicemail and I'll respond. Upcoming show schedules are there. Uh, and there's a place that you can leave a review for any podcast episode that you listen to. So you've listened to a podcast episode, let's say on Apple.

On Apple, can, you can leave a review right there and it'll, it'll come to me. Um, so please leave a review on any of the podcast episodes that you listen to and let people know, uh, how you liked it. And that way it'll encourage them to listen as well. I release a new episode every Friday morning at eight o'clock. And I want to thank you for the privilege of your time and have a blessed day. And thank you, Stacy.

Stacey Womack (44:35.712)
Thank you.