Family Violence – When Charm Tips Quickly Into Control

“CHARM is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting,” says Proverbs 31:30; “but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”

It’s not a woman’s fault that she is seduced by a charmer.

Romance is high on the list of all people entering a romantic relationship. But there is a correlation between charm and control.

The more charming a man is in his romancing his woman, the more potentially controlling he could actually be, when the romance has worn off. Men who have violence issues are often men who lay on excessive charm.

Charm is Deceptive

Oh how easy we’re all charmed. But charm is deceptive. It’s a perversion of the truth. And yet there’s authentic charm in the way humour is poised that makes light of a non-truth so long as everyone’s aware it’s a joke.

Charm maybe deceptive, but that doesn’t mean some people aren’t blessed with certain genuine virtue. But when it comes to a person feeling just a little too good — a marvel of charm — we ought to be wisely sceptical.

There’s no substitute for time when it comes to trust. People should earn our trust if we’re going to give them the keys to our heart, especially if we’re going to put them in contact with our loved ones.

Beauty is Fleeting

What looks beautiful initially doesn’t always last.

Isn’t it bizarre that we often make our first and heaviest commitment to a relationship before the romance phase is finished and the power struggle starts?

The initial beauty we saw in a person is likely transformed into disgust before long, before an evening takes place in the relationship (if it survives this transition) and moves into a stage of stability.

But a Woman Who Fears the LORD…

What praise there is for the woman who sees the charmer for who he actually could be! She is cautiously sceptical.

Charm for her is a toggle into the imagination for the shadow experience: control. Could this man be a control merchant? What’s his shadow side? If he has excessive charm does he also have a need of (excessive) control? How much potential is there that he might be ‘controlling’?

The woman who fears the Lord, who hides her heart under the shelter of the Holy Spirit, in such a way that a male prospect would have to encounter the Lord before finding her open to his advances — she, is to be praised.

But we must reserve every sympathy for the woman who has trusted a man unworthy of that trust. Too often as a society we have excused the man’s violent behaviour, and caused the victim of violence to bear what can never be their responsibility.

We put the woman who fears the Lord up on a pedestal to the shame of other women who’ve made the sorts of mistakes we all make. If there’s one temptation we’re all susceptible to it’s to the charm that makes us feel worthy of a worthiness we may not, deep down, feel we even deserve.

How wonderful it is when a person of the opposite sex sees us worthy of lavishing their love. But let that thinking also be a trigger for what we do not want to see, but are wise to be open to seeing (if it’s there).

A woman who fears the Lord deserves a partner who, too, fears the Lord.

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Many men who are controlling to the point of being violent with their partners started out as charming men. They still charm people. They charm their partners’ family, so much so that she has perhaps been disbelieved and discredited.

But such charm is fleeting; know them long enough and well enough and their true form will become apparent. Everyone’s fruit matures. Every piece falls from the tree ready to taste. Not all fruit is delightful to our taste!

Again, men who have violence issues are often men who lay on excessive charm.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.