Charis

I am doing a Matthew 18 work with Matt. …
Matt is not responding well to correction….
Matt
-bore false witness against me
-berate me as a heretic
-claim that he has not slandered me.
I had hoped that he would be humble enough to be willing to be corrected but as you can hear, he is not.
He is just so angry… and I appear to be his main target for his anger and frustration. ….
I am hoping that Matt will be willing to repent publicly in the same forum that he slandered my good name.

So, Cheryl, what sticks out to me is the striking parallels between what is going on between you and Matt and my situation with my husband (When Daddy verbally abuses the children, how can a Christian wife and Mommy respond?)

You said this about marriage:

I remember … asking him [God] why … he wasn’t doing anything with my husband to correct him. I heard the Lord as clear as a bell. He said that it was none of my business what he was doing with my husband. It was only my business what he was doing with me. That changed everything for me and I stopped trying to change him. … What I have learned is that we belong to the Lord Jesus and it is in his timing and in his way that we will change. Yes, we confront sin when the person is sinning against us, but sometimes the bad behavior is best left alone to only the Lord to deal with and when we walk in forgiveness, it seems to be the catalyst that God uses to start the change in the other person.

Frankly, I feel quite confident that God wants me to stand up to the sin in a way which is quite confrontational and unpleasant for my husband.

I believe that my ostensibly “respectful” and “submissive” behavior tiptoeing around his “fragile male ego” for 22 years at the expense of the vulnerable tender hearts and spirits of our children was destructive and sinful on my part. (This enabling behavior on my part was reinforced by just such teaching as your post here highlights. I thought I was being “biblical”.)

So which is it?
Is it confront sin and attempt to hold him accountable?
Or is is “forgive” “love covers a multitude of sins” and “blessed is she who overlooks an offense”?