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I want to say something to the Christian woman who has already named it. You know he is abusive. You know it is not love. You may have already stopped loving him. And yet a part of you cannot let go.
That part is not what you think it is.
A woman sat with me recently who had been through severe abuse over the years. She had been strangled. She had been hospitalized. The Holy Spirit had already shown her what he was. She was on the other side of denial. And still — something was keeping her tethered.
When we sat with it together, she named it herself. I want to let go. And I also want him to still want me.
That is the pride you do not know is pride.
The Pride That Wears the Mask of Hope
I am not naming this to shame you. I am naming it because the Holy Spirit names it, and naming it is the first step in laying it down.
The pride is not the loud kind. It is not arrogance. It is the quiet ego-attachment that says:
If he moves on and finds happiness while I am still healing, that means he won.
If he stops chasing me, that means I was not worth chasing.
If he becomes a better man for someone else, that means I endured all of this for nothing.
That last sentence is the one that keeps so many women bound. The years of late-night messages. The sleepless nights until 4 AM. The hospital visits. The thousands of texts. The wound of having given so much. The pride that whispers — if I walk away now, all of it was wasted.
That pride is real. And it must die.
Death to Self Is Not a Metaphor
In Christian language, we say die to self. For the woman in abuse recovery, that phrase becomes radically practical.
The self that must die is not the daughter God created you to be. The self that must die is the version of you that the abuse formed in survival. The victim-self that learned to appease. The pride-self that wants him to still want you. The fear-self that thinks she will not survive if he stops calling.
That woman — the one the abuse built — has to die. Not by force. By grief. By laying her down in the presence of Christ, weeping for everything she endured, and letting Him gently take her into the ground so the daughter He always intended you to be can rise.
This is not suppression. This is not pretending you do not feel pride or fear or longing. This is feeling the full weight of all of it, in relational posture with God, and letting it move through you into Him until it loses its hold.
Why You Cannot Just Decide to Stop Wanting Him to Want You
I have heard so many women try to white-knuckle this. I should not want him to chase me. I should not care if he is happy without me. They moralize themselves into more shame, and the pride just goes underground.
The pride does not come up because you are a bad Christian. The pride comes up because the abuser became a small god in your inner world. He held the power of validation. He decided whether you were lovable. He decided whether you were worth pursuing. When you walk away, you are not just leaving a man. You are dethroning a god. And the soul who was bowing to him does not let go quietly.
She has to grieve being the one who needed his validation. She has to grieve the years she spent organizing her sense of worth around his attention. She has to grieve the fantasy that one day he would see her clearly and choose her well.
Only when she has grieved all of that can she lay it down.
What Happens When the Pride Finally Dies
When the pride dies, something extraordinary happens. You stop needing him to want you. You stop measuring your worth by whether he is chasing or not. You stop tracking whether he is happy without you. The ground that the abuser held in your inner world becomes ground that Christ holds, and you become free in a way you have not been since you met him.
The woman I sat with described it as her chest opening. The grief was real, and the grief was holy. She was not pretending the pride was not there. She was handing it over piece by piece.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it pride to want my abuser to still want me?
Yes — and it is not the shameful kind. It is the kind that forms in survival. When someone has held the power to define your worth for years, your soul attaches to that power. The Holy Spirit gently invites you to dethrone the attachment, not to shame you for having it.
What does “death to self” mean for an abused woman?
It means the survival-self built in the abuse — the appeaser, the pride-attached, the fear-bound — must die so the daughter God created you to be can rise. Not by force. By grief, by laying her down in Christ’s presence, by letting her go.
Why is it so hard to let go even when I know he is bad for me?
Because the abuser became a small god in your inner world — the one who decided your worth, your safety, your future. Walking away is dethroning a god the soul learned to bow to. That requires grief, not just willpower.
If You Are Ready to Stop Carrying Him in Your Inner World
If something in you exhaled reading this — if you felt the Spirit say yes, that is the pride He is asking me to lay down — I would love to walk this with you.
I offer a free 15-minute consultation for Christian women in recovery from narcissistic and domestic abuse. There is no script. There is no rush. Just a chance to see if this is the work the Lord is leading you into.
Book your free 15-minute consultation here.
He is faithful. The daughter He sees when He looks at you is still in there. She is waiting for the survival-self to be laid down so she can rise.
