Naghmeh Abedini files for legal separation

Saeed has issued a statement yesterday:

Warm Greetings Dear Saints!

We Love because He first Loved us. (1John 4:19)

This is my first post on Facebook after 4 long years of imprisonment. I see there is a LOVE story between us as I went through hardship of imprisonment by you showing your support with sending hundreds & thousands of letters of encouragement and LOVE to the prison. 1000’s of cities and countries and locations gathering for pray vigils, sending gifts to my wife and children, etc.. .
You created a LOVE story that even Muslims in Iran talked about.

My beloved sisters and brothers, I want you to know how much I LOVE you and how much Your prayers and support changed my situation and how much I am thankful for your heart and Care.
I am grateful for marriage counselors who have been helping me but my wife’s relationship with me is not good at this point, so we need prayer that she joins this counseling process with us.

Free By Christ For Christ
Saeed Abedini

[Julie Anne]

Saeed has issued a statement yesterday:

Warm Greetings Dear Saints!

We Love because He first Loved us. (1John 4:19)

This is my first post on Facebook after 4 long years of imprisonment. I see there is a LOVE story between us as I went through hardship of imprisonment by you showing your support with sending hundreds & thousands of letters of encouragement and LOVE to the prison. 1000’s of cities and countries and locations gathering for pray vigils, sending gifts to my wife and children, etc.. .
You created a LOVE story that even Muslims in Iran talked about.

My beloved sisters and brothers, I want you to know how much I LOVE you and how much Your prayers and support changed my situation and how much I am thankful for your heart and Care.
I am grateful for marriage counselors who have been helping me but my wife’s relationship with me is not good at this point, so we need prayer that she joins this counseling process with us.

Free By Christ For Christ
Saeed Abedini

There are two ways to take that last paragraph. Without making a statement on whether Saeed is an abuser or not, it is helpful to understand that an abuser often will try to recast an abuser/victim relationship as a marital spat, which insinuates that both parties are to blame.

In fact, a victim of abuse should likely not enter into marriage counseling with an abuser for that very reason. The dynamic at work is not a marital spat and different counseling is helpful. The abuser needs to get help and repent. The victim like needs counseling as well to overcome the conditioning he/she received.

Of course, an abuser would love to choose the marriage counselor and then blame the victim for refusing to play along with his game. In the court of public opinion, it plays well. He is willing to repent and she refuses to work on the marriage.

In fact, if Saeed’s wife was abused, she is entirely right to refuse marriage counseling at this point and certainly the marriage counselor selected by her abuser. It is laughable actually.

Since we’re speculating… What if Saeed never abused his wife, other than the act he confessed to and served court appointed counseling for in 2007?

Yes it is weird. A man gets out of a foreign prison only to be crucified in the media because his wife is all over facebook and tv interviews calling him an abuser and porn addicted.

​What would you do?

[Mark_Smith]

Yes it is weird. A man gets out of a foreign prison only to be crucified in the media because his wife is all over facebook and tv interviews calling him an abuser and porn addicted.

​What would you do?

If it is true, I applaud her for standing up to him instead of enabling him by continuing to hide his sin as she admits she did in the past. Calling him out is not easy. It takes guts.

And by the way, if he is guilty, she does not owe him any loyalty whatsoever. It is perfectly fine for her to stand publicly against him. A wife does not owe anything to an abusive husband except divorce papers. She does not have to be his PR man. She does not even have to be quiet about it.

If she is making the story up, she deserves to be outed as a fraud.

Gentlemen, yes, you speculate much :)

I do not think Pastor Bob Caldwell would remain quiet knowing that Naghmeh was “crucifying” Saeed in the media if it were not true. They were receiving counsel by him after the abuse conviction. Naghmeh stated publicly that Franklin Graham was notified by key individuals about the abuse before he was released. I’d have to look at my notes, but I’m pretty sure Bob Caldwell was one key individual.

Naghmeh has not been very outspoken. The media has spread the story. Look at her Facebook for yourself, and her Twitter account. If you remember, she did not intend for her private e-mails to be released publicly. She was forced to address them publicly after Christianity released the info without her permission.
BTW, I communicated with Nagmeh last night (and this morning). It is important to note that she has never heard from Saeed about marital counseling directly from him. She has only heard it via Franklin Graham and then it was with Franklin Graham’s choices of marital counselors. She told me that she has been in counseling and is currently in individual counseling, and she named her counselors to me. She will not go to couples counseling with Saeed because it is inappropriate to go to couples counseling when there is abuse in the marriage. Bob Caldwell (and her counselors) also counseled against her going to couples counseling. (She gave me permission to share this info - and I also did on a blog post today.)
I’m very happy to see that Naghmeh is receiving such wise counsel.

1- Its kind of creepy and odd to me that you claim you talking with Naghmeh and then posting on here what she said. Please keep it to yourself. That is my recommendation.

2-Assuming you really are talking to Naghmeh, do you realize that her story is just that, her side of the story. It can be true. It can be FALSE (have you thought of that???). It can be partially true/partially false.

3-Whatever the case, what you say Naghmeh says is called hearsay to everyone here.

4-My purpose for posting here is not to defend Saeed. My purpose for posting here is not to attack Naghmeh. But, as long as people are claiming this is all Saeed’s fault here, assuming with no reason as independent observers that all of Naghmeh’s claims are true, to attack Saeed as a symbol of all of the abusers before him, I am going to take up that position just so that he isn’t steam-rolled.

5-Can you define abuse?

6-Can you list examples of Saeed’s abuse other than the 2007 event (which according to the police report was what I would call relatively minor abuse) of abuse Saeed did to Naghmeh? You seem to keep quoting Naghmeh that, essentially he asked her to lie to help get him out. Is that the abuse she refers to?

7-Does anyone else find it odd that, from Iran’s worst prison, Saeed was supposedly Skyping with the outside world?

8-Naghmeh claims that Seed continued and worsened his porn addiction in prison in Iran. How did that happen as claimed?

9-Edit- Just to be clear, I am totally sympathetic to spousal abuse. I support wives who come forward. At the same time, I realize that abuse claims can be a weapon. In this case we know nothing objectively, even people in contact with one side of the couple. Patience and privacy are the best policy for them.

For those who advocate divorce in cases of abuse, could you please give the Biblical justification for that advice? I am not unsympathetic to abuse situations - But I would like to see the Biblical justification.

One thing I’d note is that all too often, the modus operandi of abuse activists is to assume the guilt of the accused, presume their lack of faith (we can assume faith by a murderer like David or Moses, but if he’d hit one of his wives, all that goes?), and assume that they’re some kind of narcissistic super-manipulator instead of a guy who lost his temper and struck/injured the woman he’s married to. From Scripture, I think we’ve got to be really suspicious of this, and from a practical standpoint, I would hope we’d agree that automatically telling a victim “we believe you” all the way until the defense lawyer does cross examination is just plain cruel. Think about that one for a minute.

But regarding this case, I don’t know that these very real issues are at play. We have a guilty plea. We have a pastor who at least tacitly acknowledges some other issues. And in that case, we have a very simple question; is it better for Mr. Abedini to confront his demons alone, or with his wife? The Scripture suggests (see Ananias and Sapphira, David and Nathan, etc..) that one on one confrontation is the way to go, no? So whatever Mr. Abedini’s motivations in seeking couples counseling, I think that might just well be premature and unBiblical at this point.

Finally, I don’t believe marital abuse short of adultery justifies divorce, but I can foresee that if churches took their Matthew 18 responsibilities seriously, a fair number of abusers would fail to repent and would be excommunicated from their church. I would also imagine that responsible deacon/elder boards would recommend the victim of physical abuse separate, and in that case, you would likely get a situation fairly quickly that would correspond to the Biblical requirements for divorce, adultery or abandonment.

1- Its kind of creepy and odd to me that you claim you talking with Naghmeh and then posting on here what she said. Please keep it to yourself. That is my recommendation.

2-Assuming you really are talking to Naghmeh, do you realize that her story is just that, her side of the story. It can be true. It can be FALSE (have you thought of that???). It can be partially true/partially false.

3-Whatever the case, what you say Naghmeh says is called hearsay to everyone here.

1) Mark, I do not accept your recommendation. I reached out to Naghmeh after reading how Saeed put Naghmeh under the bus publicly by saying she was not open to counseling, putting blame on her for the demise of the relationship under the guise of asking for prayer. Since she has not discussed the abuse publicly for some time, I believe the public deserves to hear from her as well. It’s strange that you would be okay with Saeed painting a dishonest narrative to the watching world.

2) Of course I realize that some will take her word and some won’t. But I also notice that most people would rather hear a hero story about some poor man who chose to go to Iran against the recommendation of many, who paid $$ to get his pastor’s license within a year of a domestic violence conviction. How odd!

3) Hearsay is hearsay. Some people will trust that I have vetted what I post publicly, some people won’t. I really don’t care. But I do care that voices of those harmed do not remain silenced.

[Julie Anne]

1) Mark, I do not accept your recommendation. I reached out to Naghmeh after reading how Saeed put Naghmeh under the bus publicly by saying she was not open to counseling, putting blame on her for the demise of the relationship under the guise of asking for prayer. Since she has not discussed the abuse publicly for some time, I believe the public deserves to hear from her as well. It’s strange that you would be okay with Saeed painting a dishonest narrative to the watching world.

2) Of course I realize that some will take her word and some won’t. But I also notice that most people would rather hear a hero story about some poor man who chose to go to Iran against the recommendation of many, who paid $$ to get his pastor’s license within a year of a domestic violence conviction. How odd!

3) Hearsay is hearsay. Some people will trust that I have vetted what I post publicly, some people won’t. I really don’t care. But I do care that voices of those harmed do not remain silenced.

About your second point Julie Anne:

You will find this attitude rife in Fundamentalism (most wanting to hear a hero story). Fundamentalism is filled with cronyism and concern with preserving *the ministry* instead of trying to find the truth as foremost.

It just doesn’t ring true if she were lying. The pastor would publicly defend himself against the charges and it would be easy to then investigate who is telling the truth. None of that is happening with this pastor. Instead, he is calling for couple counseling. A porn addiction disqualifies him from the ministry according to Jesus’ words of lust= adultery. He is no longer a “one woman man.” He is not repenting but intransigent. There is not much hope for this relationship if things continue as they are. Abuse also disqualifies him from the ministry. He is no longer an example to the flock.

And how do you know Saeed is intransigent and not repenting?

And, Saeed is NOT a fundamentalist in the “fundamental baptist” sense.

How do you know Saeed is painting a dishonest picture of their relationship to the world? You have talked to Naghmeh, at least you have claimed to. Have you talked to Saeed? Do you have a magic truth detector that no one else has?

8-Naghmeh claims that Seed continued and worsened his porn addiction in prison in Iran. How did that happen as claimed?

https://en.iranwire.com/features/6932/

I know there’s one more article that had even more detail about cell phones in Iranian prisons and I can’t seem to find it now. If I do, I”ll post it.