But they won't, most people don't believe it. I've seen this many times (known way too many abused wives and girlfriends), people simply don't want to believe that someone they like (like their daughter's husband, or their friend, or fellow congregationist) could do that. Nobody ever wants to think they have such bad taste in people as to actually like (or love, the spouse goes through the same pattern of denial, but eventually the bruises force them to admit the truth, the friends and family never actually get beaten so that form of "persuasion" isn't present) an abuser. So they don't intervene, they don't help, often they abandon the abused because the abused, by their very existence, forces them to aknowledge their own short comings in liking a person that turned out to be bad.
We used to say we excommunicated for such sins, we didn't actually do it. In reality we always considered it an internal problem, something the spouses needed to handle on their own.
"We used to excommunicate for such sins. We used to hold people publicly accountable as punishment and require a repentance process as per the Bible."
My mother went to her priest, and his response: my mother didn't love my father enough and that explained why he was abusing her.
Sorry, personal experience has denied me the belief that "the church" has the right to make decisions in relation to marriage and divorce.