When Faith Becomes a Cage Instead of a Refuge

How to tell the difference — and why it matters more than you think.

There are nights when he walks through the door carrying something he can't name, and you absorb the weight of it before you even realize that's what you're doing — scanning his shoulders, softening your voice, already editing yourself so the house stays steady. You don't know what the shift held. You don't know if he'll surface tonight or stay somewhere far away in his own head. What you do know is that you need something to hold on to that doesn't require you to disappear in the process.

There is a version of faith that holds you. It steadies you when the marriage is hard, when the night is long, when the job has taken more than you agreed to give. It is the kind of faith described in Psalm 62 — fortress, rock, refuge. It protects the self. It does not demand the self.

And then there is another version. One that looks like faith, sounds like faith, quotes Scripture — but functions like a cage. It tells you to endure without limit. To submit without voice. To pray harder when what you actually need is help. To perform peace when what you are feeling is grief, exhaustion, or fear. It keeps you inside the walls by convincing you the walls are protection.

Many women in law enforcement marriages are living in the second version and calling it faithfulness.

I want to help you tell the difference.

Faith itself is not the problem.

Before anything else, I want to say this clearly: faith is not the enemy here. The Bible is not the problem. God is not the problem.

What we are naming is something more specific — the misuse of faith. The way that Scripture has sometimes been handed to women not as refuge but as pressure. The way that genuinely good theological language — submission, endurance, faithfulness, perseverance — can be applied in ways that silence pain, erase identity, and prevent women from accessing the help they actually need.

This is the same slow erosion I've written about in other parts of this site — the nervous system that stays on high alert, the quiet loss of self, the children who start managing the emotional weather. Cage-faith doesn't just pressure you spiritually. It accelerates that erosion.

There is a difference between receiving Scripture as a source of strength and having Scripture used as a silencer. Learning to tell them apart is not an act of faithlessness. It is one of the most important things a woman in a hard marriage can do.

What cage-faith sounds like.

Most of us were not handed cage-faith all at once. It came in pieces, over years, often from people who meant well. It sounds like this:

"Suffering is what God is using to grow you." This is true in some contexts. It is not a mandate to endure harm without limit. Jesus himself, in Gethsemane, asked for the cup to be removed. The request for relief is not weakness. It is honesty.

"God chose you for this life because you're strong enough." This one feels like a compliment. Its underside is that it makes need feel like failure — as if struggling means you have misunderstood your calling, rather than that you are human and this life is genuinely hard.

"Wives submit." Biblical submission is described in Ephesians 5:21 as mutual — submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. It is not one-directional erasure. Jesus submitted to the Father and also set limits, withdrew to rest, spoke truth to power, and protected the vulnerable. Submission to God never required Jesus to disappear. It does not require that of you.

"God hates divorce." This is one of the most weaponized phrases in the church. The fuller context of Malachi 2 is about breaking covenant faithfulness — not a blanket prohibition against women protecting themselves or their children. God also makes provision within Scripture for departure in cases of abandonment and harm. A woman who is terrified of God's judgment for leaving cannot think clearly about her own safety. That terror is not God's voice.

"Just pray more. Trust God. Have faith." When these phrases are used to discourage a woman from seeking help, naming harm, or taking action — that is spiritual bypassing. It uses spiritual language to avoid the real work. Lament is faith. Exhaustion brought honestly to God is faith. The Psalms are full of raw, unfiltered cries. God does not require the performance of peace.

There is a difference between receiving Scripture as a source of strength and having it used as a silencer.

What refuge-faith actually feels like.

Psalm 62 uses words like fortress, rock, salvation, rest. These are not soft images. They are images of substantial protection. A fortress does not demand anything from the person inside it. It protects them.

Refuge-faith holds the real you — not the performance of you. It has room for your exhaustion, your doubt, your anger, your grief. It does not require you to show up already composed. It is the faith of Psalm 13, where David writes: "How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?" — raw, unfiltered, brought directly to God. That is not faithlessness. That is one of the most faithful acts in Scripture.

Refuge-faith also has room for honest discernment. It does not tell you in advance what the right answer is for your marriage. It does not position staying as more faithful than leaving, or leaving as more faithful than staying. It holds both as potentially faithful — depending on your specific situation, your safety, and your own discernment before God.

God honors the woman who stays in her marriage with clear eyes, maintained dignity, and genuine hope. He also honors the woman who leaves because remaining is harming her or her children. Both can be faithful choices. Any voice — pastoral or otherwise — that tells you one is inherently holier than the other is not speaking for the God who actually sees you.

How to begin telling them apart.

This is not always a clean distinction. Most of us have received a mix — genuine faith that has sustained us alongside messages that have burdened us. The work is not to throw everything out. It is to hold each piece up to the light and ask a few honest questions.

Does this message protect me or pressure me? A faith that functions as a fortress protects the self. A faith that functions as a cage pressures the self. If a theological message consistently requires you to silence your own pain, ignore your own needs, or stay in harm — ask whose interests that message actually serves.

Does this message require me to disappear? God did not design you for self-erasure. That is not in the text. The women in Scripture who are honored — Deborah, Ruth, Abigail, the woman of Proverbs 31 — are not women who made themselves invisible. They are women of agency, discernment, courage, and voice.

Is this God's voice, or someone's interpretation of it? Not every pastor, elder, or well-meaning friend who quotes Scripture to you is handing you God's word accurately. You are allowed to weigh what you receive. You are allowed to say: "I need to sit with that." You are allowed to seek out a trauma-informed pastor or spiritual director who can hold complexity without flattening it.

Have I ever brought my real experience to God — not the edited version? Lament is a spiritual practice. Not a sign of weak faith. If you have been performing peace in your prayers while carrying something heavier, consider what it would mean to bring the real thing. God, according to the Psalms, can handle it.

A word about the church.

Some of you are part of faith communities where what this post names is actively practiced — where you would be pressured to stay, shamed for leaving, or required to submit in ways that endanger you. I want to name that directly: if your faith community is telling you that God requires you to remain in harm, that is not God's voice. That is a misuse of his name.

You may need to create some distance from religious voices that silence you while you are doing this work. That is not abandoning your faith. It is protecting it.

Finding a trauma-informed pastor or spiritual director — someone who understands both the complexity of Christian marriage theology and the specific realities of harm — can make a significant difference. You do not have to navigate this alone, and you do not have to accept every theological voice as equally trustworthy.

The fortress is for you.

The image in Psalm 62 is not complicated. My soul finds rest in God. He is my fortress.

A fortress is not a place of performance. You do not have to earn entry. You do not have to show up already healed, already strong, already certain. You bring the real you — the weary you, the honest you, the one who is not sure she is doing any of this right — and the fortress holds you.

If your faith has felt more like pressure than protection, more like walls that keep you trapped than walls that keep harm out — that is worth paying attention to. Not as a reason to abandon your faith, but as an invitation to reclaim it.

There is a version of faith that actually holds you. You were made for that one.

A few questions to sit with.

Which of the theological messages named in this post have you lived as if they were true — even if you wouldn't say you believe them?

When you pray, do you bring your real experience or the acceptable version? What would lament look like for you?

Does your faith, as you are currently practicing it, function more like a refuge or a cage?

Is there a faith voice in your life — a pastor, counselor, or spiritual director — who can hold both clinical reality and theological complexity without flattening either?

— Carol Crawley, LMFT

Law enforcement wife | Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist | Founder, Love on the Thin Line