Helping Your Wife Heal After Abortion

“My wife seems to have lost her mind,” the husband shared with deep concern. “I knew she had an abortion but she never talked about it. When her friend died, her grief exploded and all she can talk about is her aborted child. Please tell me how I can help her heal?”

Couples that endure an abortion experience rarely remain together afterwards due to their decision to allow their unborn child to pass away. In searching for another love, women often share their abortion truth quickly, without many details. When they discover a heart that does not judge them for this choice, they often marry quickly. It can then take many years for their husbands to hear their abortion story.

As years pass, this secret sin is often locked away in the deepest areas of a woman’s heart. She may experience many aspects of after-abortion pain – guilt, shame, sorrow, trauma and tears – but never connect those emotions to her abortion.

Then the moment arrives when God pulls the curtains off her eyes so she understands she lost a real child during her abortion. In those realization moments, Isaiah 42:6 is a comfort – “I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth… I will not forsake them.

Abortions are typically decided in times of great turmoil. When women share that they had an abortion, the deep details rarely follow this truth. By sharing just the simple truth that they had an abortion, these hearts watch the listener’s reaction closely. If judgment is perceived in any way, the discussion ends. Women often then recoil into shame and work to pack away this truth deeper in their soul.

When God’s anointed time arrives to reveal that their abortion took the life of a tiny human, the woman is often overwhelmed and grieves immediately. God will use triggers like the deaths of other people to bring the individual to a point of understanding their own loss.

Abortion stories can then spill out uncontrollably regardless of potential judgment. When the story has been shed, women often end up in piles of grief and pain, shocked at the level of emotions that has been trapped in their souls over this choice.

In these moments, spouses can be very helpful in not only comforting their loved one but also participating in their healing. Here are several ways spouses can help their wives as they embark on the unfamiliar path to God’s healing:

Prepare Your Heart to Hear Her Total Truth

If you have never heard her abortion story, be ready to hear more details about how she lost her virginity and ended up in an abortion clinic. There are often side variables that will be shared like sexual abuse, promiscuity, and/or drug use related to the abortion time-frame.

Enduring confessions from your wife’s past of being with another man/men sexually, remember Proverbs 4: 23-24 – Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.  Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips.

React internally, not externally, to these revelations so as not to wound her further. When she’s finished her story, comfort and assure her that you love her no matter what. There will be time to ask deeper questions when she’s further along in her healing journey.

Help Offset Her Shame with God’s Truth

Sharing the secret of abortion is likely the most difficult confession in our world. Shame is the immediate emotion women encounter in revealing this often horrifying experience. When God shows them the truth that they lost a child versus something else in the abortion, the guilt and shame work to silence them again.

If she is enduring deep shame, take a moment to comfort her with God’s word. Here are some points to include:

• There is no sin that God cannot forgive and heal – Hebrews 8:12– For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
• Outline that the problem may be she does not forgive themselves for making this choice and additional help might be needed.

End by praying with her that God would lead and help her discover His path to healing.

Understand Marital Intimacy Will Return

Making love is one of the biggest reminders of an abortion experience for two reasons:

• A surgical abortion experience is one of the greatest forms of sexual abusethat endures in our world. A delicate part of the woman’s body is invaded and a tiny human is confiscated and dies. Any other touch in that area can trigger abortion memories. Medication abortion can be more traumatic as women often view their child’s placenta which typically reveals a very human looking child inside.
• Sex is the reason they ended up in the abortion clinic. In order to cope with the horror endured, a deep dive into other sinful behavior can be the result. The promiscuity that often follows an abortion decision added many additional sin layers to an already wounded heart which interferes with women enjoying intimacy with their spouses.

When tucked away in a secure marriage, many post-abortive women become frigid, leaving the husband feeling rejected and unable to bond with his wife. Through a healing program, the sexual abuse and promiscuity can be addressed and healed, allowing women to enjoy intimacy with their loving husband at long last.

Make Sure Her Abortion Recovery Program is Biblical

After 25 years in this ministry effort, helping tens of thousands discover the blessing and peace of God’s healing after abortion, I do not believe there is any real healing outside of God. As a support person, please review the abortion recovery resources that are being used to ensure they include God’s word.

Many secular resources remove or reduce God’s Word in their healing process. Due to this potential, our ministry only refers women to leadership using the Her Choice to Heal or the Forgiven and Set Free abortion recovery programs.

Enduring Her Tears

Grief can be overwhelming after being pent up for many years. You may be astounded by the flow and even become uncomfortable. Please hang in there. Every time you comfort her, your support will be remembered deep in her heart. She will feel your arms as an outpouring of God’s love and power, drawing her close to your heart.

Please don’t attempt to make her stop crying. Tears are the body’s way of releasing toxins. Abortion’s toxins in a soul can be deep and dark. Psalm 56:8 shares that God records our tears –  Record my misery; list my tears on your scroll— are they not in your record? When God expels the last tears from her body for this lost child, He will restore joy to her heart and set her free from this pain.

If a person is not bothered by a past abortion, it’s best to leave them alone and pray for them. Do not assume that they do not regret that decision. The mind has the ability to place a secret in a low corner of a heart and lock it up with many keys. Only God’s love can open that gate and allow His Son’s love and healing to seep into their soul with conviction that they lost a child in that choice.

If you or someone you know is hurting after an abortion, visit our abortion recovery on-line website to begin to understand this pain at a deeper level and continue to pray that God would use you to help them discover His healing after abortion.