What Resources Does Focus on the Family Give to Abuse Victims on Social Media?

by gbaskerville | Mar 10, 2026 | Abuse and Divorce, Focus on the Family, Spiritual Abuse

Graphic showing stacked papers with quotes from abuse survivors on the left and the words “Thousands of pleas” with a stamped “SAME REPLY” on the right.

Thousands of Pleas for Help

Every week, thousands of people reach out to Focus on the Family, many “experiencing painful and often destructive situations… even incidents of spousal and child abuse,” according to their non-profit disclosures.

What Abuse Victims Are Actually Saying

Here are samples of recent pleas for help on public social media posts:

Desperation and fear: “Living in hell.” “I can’t take another day.” “Nothing of me was left. I didn’t want to live.” “The very look at this post made me start shaking.”
Being controlled, treated unjustly: “Rejection, blame-shifting, crazy control.” “I was left with no choice.” “God didn’t intend for me to be a slave.”
Neglect and indifference: “Neglect is a covert type of abuse.” “They do nothing, won’t show up.” “They take advantage of you until you stop serving them.”
Cheating and betrayal: “Counseling won’t change a cheating husband.” “Repeated cheating—trust is shattered.” “STDs are real.” “I sacrificed 30 years.”
Physical and sexual danger: “I’m living in an abusive marriage right now.” “Sometimes physical.” “Beaten and sexually assaulted.”
Abandonment by the church and counselors: “Your teaching kept me in a horrible situation for years.” “My pastor told me to submit more and serve more.” “My church kept the tithe-payer and abandoned me… I left with three suitcases and no support.”

The Pattern in Focus on the Family Replies

But sadly, the responses are mainly variations on cut-paste replies, over and over.

Here is one typical Focus on the Family comment on Facebook:

Screenshot of a typical cut-paste response from Focus on the Family when someone mentions abuse or a troubled marriage on their Facebook posts

If you click on that link it goes to a page that asks, “Unsure whether you’re in an abusive relationship?” and shows a number of resources (see image below). But here’s an interesting revelation: many of their resources — including the ones right at the top — go to outside secular organizations.

“You’re Being Too Hard on Them”

Yes, They Mention Abuse and Safety Resources

Yes, we can give them some credit. Focus on the Family does mention abuse in comments and sometimes directs people to safety resources and the DV Hotline. That can help someone in immediate danger.

Yes, It’s Better Than It Used to Be

The fact that they now name coercive control and emotional abuse is progress—and I’m glad for any movement toward protecting victims.

But Better Isn’t the Same as Clear

But the core problem remains. Tweaking wording isn’t the same as moral clarity. They still won’t plainly say, “Yes, you may need to leave and yes, divorce can be the right response to abuse.” For victims, that omission isn’t picky—it’s pivotal.

Why So Many Links Point Outside Their Own System

When people come to them in crisis, asking for help with abuse or domestic violence, Focus on the Family does not clearly tell them that divorce can be a valid, biblical option in a destructive marriage. Instead, what we see is a revealing and uncomfortable reality: they end up pointing suffering people to secular organizations, government resources, and general safety tools because their own framework is too narrow to put safety first.

Think about how telling that is.

Here’s another type of response from FOTF, referring to a secular hotline and their own Christian counseling network:

This is an organization that has spent decades warning Christians about the dangers of secular culture, secular values, and secular solutions. Yet when abuse victims need real help, some of the clearest action steps on their page are links to a secular domestic violence website, the National Domestic Violence Hotline, and 2-1-1, a government assistance number.

One reason Focus on the Family’s “help” can feel rubber-stamped is that they frequently promote articles like “When You Don’t Want to Divorce but Your Spouse Does,” by Ginger Kolbaba, which treat many genuine crises as if they’re ordinary marital conflict. The advice centers the victim’s behavior (“stay calm,” don’t plead, don’t be predictable, find the signs) and even encourages responses that can border on denial (“If your spouse says he doesn’t love you, say you don’t believe it”). For an abuse victim, that framework subtly shifts responsibility onto herself—manage your reactions, outmaneuver manipulation, stay in the same house for a “healing separation”—instead of naming coercive control, looking at the patterns, and prioritizing safety. In other words, it’s generic marriage-preservation counsel where abuse-specific clarity should be.

When the Framework Can’t Put Safety First

They do refer people to their own counseling network. I can’t speak for every counselor in the Focus on the Family Christian Counseling Network, but I can say that Focus on the Family’s “Focus Marriage Therapy” model (FMT) trains their own staff not to advise divorce, even when abuse is severe and life-threatening. That means abuse victims may receive ‘stay-and-try-harder’ guidance in the guise of getting real professional and ethical help.

Here’s part of a page they often send abuse victims to:

Screenshot of the top of a Focus on the Family page where abuse victims are referred. Image shows a video and 4 links, 3 are for secular organizations

Screenshot of part of a Focus on the Family page where abuse victims are referred. Image shows a video and 4 links, 3 are for secular organizations. None of the FOTF links suggest it’s okay to divorce for abuse

The Sentence Abuse Victims Need to Hear

Even their in-house counseling still won’t plainly say the words abuse victims most need to hear: “Yes, a divorce can be the right response to abuse.” They’ll say “go,” “leave,” and “get to safety” in cases of abuse. That matters, and it’s good as far as it goes, but they never mean divorce, the highest legal protection a person can get. FOTF’s official position has not changed: divorce is not affirmed as biblically acceptable for abuse—physical or emotional. See this: Focus on the Family and Divorce: Why Abuse Victims Are Pressured to Stay

Even in cases of child sexual exploitation, their recommendation remains reconciliation, not divorce.

That silence is what I find so telling—because when counselors can’t name divorce as a legitimate response to abuse, victims are left carrying the weight of “try harder” theology while danger continues. Victims are never granted the highest level of legal freedom.

Research shows that restricting access to divorce increases domestic violence, homicide, and suicide. With FOTF’s worldwide reach, that omission has consequences.

Why This Matters

If your theology cannot produce a strong, straightforward, in-house answer for the abused, then your system is exposing its weakness. If you cannot even recommend your own resources with confidence because those resources will not put safety and protection first, that should be a wake-up call.

And frankly, that should be humiliating—for them.

It means that when the stakes are highest, Focus on the Family has to lean on the very secular society it so often treats with contempt. Why? Because secular domestic violence agencies at least understand an obvious truth: an abused spouse needs a path to safety, not pressure to stay married at all costs, and certainly not at the expense of their life, health, or sanity.

I am glad those outside resources exist. I want abuse victims to use every safe resource available to them. But it is shocking that a major Christian ministry still cannot say with moral clarity what should be easy to say: when someone is being abused, safety comes before preserving the institution of marriage.

Ambiguity is not compassion.

Referrals Aren’t Moral Clarity

Telling victims to make a safety plan is not enough if you still stigmatize divorce.
Telling them to watch a video on abuse is empty if you still refuse to condone their exit.
Referring them to a hotline is not enough if your own teaching leaves them ashamed to divorce.
Offering counseling is not enough if the counseling framework is marriage-first instead of safety-first.

That is why this matters so much. Abuse victims do not just need information. They need moral permission to stop enduring harm. They need Christians to say, without hedging, that God does not require them to remain trapped.

I have said it before and I will keep saying it: a ministry response to abuse should make safety and protection unmistakably clear. When it does not, the vulnerable pay the price.

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The Life-Saving Divorce is about divorces for very serious reasons: a pattern of sexual immorality, physical abuse, chronic emotional abuse, life-altering addictions, abandonment, or severe neglect. This book will give you hope for your future, and optimism about your children. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.