Betrayal Trauma Recovery – Details, episodes & analysis

If your narcissist ex won’t leave you alone—even after the divorce—you know how exhausting it is to feel like there’s no real break, no matter how much space you try to create.

Here are six powerful strategies you can use right now to create distance from a narcissistic ex-husband who won’t back off. As you’ll see in this interview with my guest Lee, these are real, battle-tested tools—clear, practical, and effective.

If you’re married and quietly wondering if what you’re experiencing is emotional abuse, you don’t have to figure it out alone…take our free emotional abuse quiz for more clarity.

1. Believe Yourself

 You can believe yourself because he’s gonna lie about you and about everything.

For example, many women send clear messages about like pickup times, pick up locations, and he’ll message back and say, “You don’t communicate with me. You never tell me what’s going on.”

I had to really anchor myself in reality and to do that, I did number two.

2. Get Everything in Writing

 I limited all communication to a parenting app, and I used our Family Wizard. There’s others out there.

For me, it was a game changer because there was a calendar, an info bank, everything I needed to keep everything in one place. It didn’t magically change the outcome of my custody case, but it did keep me grounded in reality, which is what I really needed.

So, no more phone calls. No more casual conversations. Everything goes through written communication.

3. Use Strategic COMMUNICATION

 Knowing how to anticipate what he’s going to say and then, what specific words and phrases to use in response will protect you and get you out of his cycle of chaos. I’ll be covering some of the strategies I teach in The Living Free Workshop later in this interview, as Lee shares how she used them in her situation.

4. Learn Strategic Boundaries

 They are things that you can do to protect yourself with literally no words and no communication. Say he’s stepping on your foot over and over, and you keep telling him, “Hey, please stop stepping on my foot,” and you go to therapy about him stop stepping on your foot. And he keeps doing it.

It’s like wearing steel toed boots. You don’t have to explain it to him or announce it. You just put them on and protect your foot, no words required.

5. Focus on YouRSELF AND THE LIFE YOU WANT TO CREATE

 He is going to do everything he can to make that impossible, because he is always trying to get your attention by doing crazy things.

I remember standing in my kitchen and I was like, I want to help my kids with their homework. I wanna be present with my kids. And the notifications on my phone were like blowing up in that moment. I just turned it off and focused on the thing that I wanted to do that day. As I started to focus on what I wanted rather than his chaos, I really felt a shift.

You deserve more than just getting through the day. You deserve to rebuild a life that feels steady, peaceful, and yours again.

Start small. It doesn’t have to be dramatic to be powerful.

Transcript: When Your Narcissist Ex Won’t Leave You Alone

Anne: A member of the BTR community, we’re going to call her Lee, is on today’s episode. She’s going to be sharing her story. And then also how she implemented the strategies in the Living Free Workshop.

Welcome Lee.

Lee: Hi, thanks for having me.

Anne: Many women in this situation go through years and years of emotional abuse and psychological abuse and they don’t even realize it. So let’s talk about your experience. You married really young. In the beginning did you realize it was abuse?

Lee: No, I did not. Not until pretty much in my mid 30’s. I got married at 19 and we were really young. so I thought it was just a maturity thing and that eventually we’d get past that. There was also addiction and again I thought that was a just a thing. That we would be able to at some point get over once we grew up.

I Thought Divorce Would Remove Me From My Ex-Husband’s Chaos

Anne: What were some of the things that he was choosing?

Lee: He really struggled throughout our entire marriage with exploitative material. Unfortunately, it just became a bigger and bigger problem. It was always in our home. I think I just became immune to that part of it. So I thought, Oh, as soon as we grew up, he’ll stop drinking and looking at it.

Anne: A lot of victims have that feeling. Like okay, once he can get this thing under control, then he’s not going to act like this anymore. That’s hard to recognize that they are experiencing betrayal trauma in marriage. That all of these behaviors are abusive. They’re not going to get better. What do you think was the biggest contributing factor to not recognize it was abuse throughout those years?

I Didn’t Recognize How Comparing Myself To Other Women Kept Me From Seeing The Truth

Lee: Comparison, and I feel like so many women do this, and this is something that I am so glad we get to talk about today, because I’ve been thinking a lot about it as I hear different stories from friends and family members.

Just the idea that someone else’s situation is worse than yours. Or your life isn’t that bad because you have a nicer home, or my life isn’t that bad because he doesn’t say this to me. Or he comes home at a decent hour. Hearing other people’s stories and finding one thing that might have been better in my life than someone else’s. It made me assume that it was still okay to stay in that relationship with my narcissist ex.

Anne: That makes sense to me. What were the things that you thought were better?

When My Narcissist Ex Won’t Leave Me Alone It’s Because He Wants My Pity

Anne: What are the things you are proud of?

Lee: It’s crazy because you don’t see the things that are in your relationship at that time. He might have done the dishes one night. And I took that one night and pulled it along for everything else. He never cussed me out or called me a name. Even though he was really unsupportive, he was very generous with his time.

Anne: So, at times you’re thinking, well, he doesn’t scream at our kids, so he must be a good guy. Or he didn’t scream that one time, or the other night he was great, so I’m lucky. A lot of women don’t realize he’s abusive because they think, I’m so lucky. He’s such a great guy, that’s really common.

Lee: I also don’t think women realize how much effort and work they put in to make their spouse a good guy. And what I mean by that is. A lot of the things I was proud of were what I was doing, not him. I would make sure we were at family gatherings. And also made sure our kids looked good.

I made sure we were going to church on time. And you know, all those things that were important to me. Things that I felt were essential to building a good family, I did. Instead of looking at how much work I was putting in I included him in that. I made it like it was his, like these were his accomplishments.

I think that that’s where my mind got a little bit skewed. Like we had a good family and I looked at it like that. But I didn’t realize that so much of it was my own work and wasn’t really the work of my narcissist ex.

I Felt Shame & Pressure To Communicate With Him

Anne: Yeah. A lot of women do that. They attribute characteristics to him that actually she has. That comparison is interesting because there’s always going to be someone who seems like they have it worse. So you think well all marriages must have problems. But the problems we have seem “manageable” or something like that. So here you are thinking these are just maturity things or that you’re so lucky in some ways.

Were there any other factors that kept you from seeing the abuse?

Lee: Shame. I married really young and a lot of people questioned that. Also I had family and friends both tell me I was too young. I felt the pressure to stay and keep it together. I think that’s why I kept it together and stayed a lot longer. And I didn’t want to admit to anybody that I failed.

Anne: You weren’t failing. You had a spouse that was failing, but it feels like that when you’re being emotionally abused. Because you think everything is your fault, right? Or that you’re responsible for everything . So that’s common as well.

My Narcissist Ex Won’t Leave Me Alone, I Need Support

Lee: I had just a few friends that I would communicate with about it. The problem with those friends, even though they were a good outlet for a release. They didn’t really understand my situation because they didn’t have a spouse like that.

I mean, they knew it was bad, they felt sorry for me. I could feel that they understood it. They gave me the space to be able to talk to them, which I appreciate. But they just weren’t in the same situation. And a lot of times, the friends that I did communicate with had pretty decent marriages. It made me feel again, like I needed to be more like them. I needed to maybe not complain as much, you know?

Anne: Okay, so how do you recognize that it is abuse

Lee: I ended up in a Facebook group with one of the members of Betrayal Trauma Recovery, and she was very open about it, which I’m so grateful for. And I’m so grateful for women who are open about it. The group that we were in had actually nothing to do with this topic. She was just open and shared a lot of her personal life.

Again, I’m so grateful for that. And the BTR community, opened up a whole new world for me. I started to understand that everybody’s looks different. Even still then at the very beginning. I don’t think I was ready to let go of the idea of keeping my marriage together.

My Turning Point: When He Texted Me Emotionally Abusive Videos

Lee: Then it started to get really bad, my husband sent me some really abusive videos. Videos of him talking to me in a very violent and perverse way.

I didn’t know what to do. I finally sent them to the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group. Within 10 minutes I had a whole group of women together supporting me and helping me through this.

Anne: With the support of the women in the BTR Group. Is this the moment you realized that woah, this is really serious?

Lee: I really believe that was the moment. It became very clear to me. I always felt like maybe I was being dramatic. So when someone actually got to witness it and said to me, this is not okay. Then they said, this is abusive. I realized that it was time, probably, to make a big change and to open up and start sharing a little bit more of my experiences with my narcissist ex. I wanted the BTR community to understand the magnitude.

My Ex Won’t Leave Me Alone, It Creates So Much Chaos

Lee: It seems so big at the time and so scary. I worried about his reaction, my finances, and my kids. Also about this home we just rented together what would we do. We just got a new dog and there were so many things that I was worried about. I was scared. Each step in divorcing a narcissist was a step that I didn’t think I was capable of doing. And they told me I could. And so I kept taking that step.

Anne: What about your real life friends and family? What did they think?

Lee: I had left him seven different times before this time. He just kept pulling me back because he wouldn’t leave me alone. I think family and the friends that I opened up to were hesitant to believe it this time too. They were excited, all of them were going to continually support me.

Anne: Let’s talk about the first few months after you left. How did you get through that time?

Lee: So that was a really, really hard time for me. I would make fun of the the situation, by saying I lived in a house of depression. After work I would come home and lay on the couch. I watched the same movies over and over and over again every night. Lord of the Rings and Forrest Gump. I was just really sad and fearful and I didn’t know if I could really do it financially. It didn’t feel real to me because I had tried so many times

When My Narcissist Ex Won’t Stop Contacting Me Little Miracles Can Give You Hope

Lee: While I was living in that house of depression, I didn’t really feel like I had a lot to live for. Then I bit into a delicious peach. I started looking for tender mercies. That’s what held me up along with the women from the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group. Constantly looking for those tender mercies and finding those simple things. A lot of times it feels so dark. And we feel like we need something of a greater magnitude to take us out of that darkness.

Instead of looking for those little things, that speck of light almost. And I do want to share one significant tender mercy. It’s a night I came home exhausted. I just wanted a bowl of cereal and a clean spoon. Like I said before, I hadn’t really been keeping up with my housework. There’s probably a lot of dishes and I just wanted there to be that one clean spoon.

When I opened up the drawer, there was one last clean spoon. I just remember thinking, thank you. Because that’s all I needed was a bowl of cereal and a clean spoon. I feel like it’s so important for women to hang on to those little moments every single day. To try to find something in their life that is small but so significant.

The Right Strategy To Live Free From My Narcissistic Ex

Anne: Oh, I love that story in the Living Free Workshop. We have an exercise about this. We call it the best possible tasks And best possible moments.

Here you’re calling it a tender mercy. So that’s awesome because those little things. can really give us a feeling of peace.

There’s another part of Living Free, where we’re focusing on our dreams, and what we want. Was there anything that you decided, Hey. I have a goal and I’m going to accomplish it.

Focusing On Personal Goals Brings Peace When Your Narcissist Ex Won’t Leave You Alone

Lee: I’ve had so many, but the one biggest one, this is crazy, I painted my piano pink.

In my relationship, I was always told that I couldn’t do anything, I would always want to do these projects. And he was a carpenter and he would always tell me that they were too hard. If I explained to him what I was going to do, he would tell me it wouldn’t turn out right.

He was always saying that it would look like garbage. So I was scared to do anything. I started painting this piano, I thought it was going to look like garbage. Because that’s what I had been told that anything I did was going to look like. And it is so beautiful.

I love that piano and it turned out so good and I moved into a permanent home this year, too. I want to remodel and do a little interior decorating that I’ve never gotten to do either, really. To really learn how to play that piano that I just finished painting and then set better boundaries for myself. I’m trying to work on boundaries. Then just strengthen my faith in my home and in myself, continue on with that.

What I Told My Friends Who Were Going Through The Same Thing

Anne: Do you have any advice for women who might have the same fears that you did?

Lee: Yeah, you need to find support. Betrayal Trauma Recovery is a great group for that. And I know I’m on this podcast. I want everyone to know I’m not pitching this because I’m on here. It changed my life, being a part of that group. I do not think I would be able to get out of my situation without their support. And that support hasn’t ended. That support continues on and it just keeps growing.

I haven’t ended those relationships, I’ve only grown and extended those relationships. As my situation changes, I just meet new people and new women and new friendships. That I’ve created in that group. The other thing is what we talked about in the beginning, and that’s don’t compare your situation to someone else’s.

I Found Out Some People Weren’t On My Team

Lee: That is so important and something that I wish all women would stop doing. I don’t think women recognize when it really, truly is doing them so much harm. Women should not look at someone else and say their situation’s worse, and mine isn’t.

I would encourage women to look more at, is the behavior acceptable? Are they happy? Is what their husband is doing in line with their beliefs and standards? And if they’re not, that’s the problem. It doesn’t need to be someone else’s standards or beliefs. It’s what they’re comfortable with. I wish a lot more women would look at that.

Anne: Meaning I’m not okay with exploitative material in my home, or I’m not okay with yelling, this is not acceptable for me in my home, and I don’t feel safe.

Lee: You also might find someone that says that it’s okay. I had a lot of friends tell me that, like, why was I upset? Or, I had people tell me that it’s okay that he’s drinking, we’re having a good time, those kind of things.

Again, that put a lot of shame and guilt on me. Because I thought I was taking the fun out of our lives. Or, I thought there was something wrong with me that I thought that it was wrong, and maybe it was okay. Maybe it was beneficial to our relationship.

How Personal Standards Can Protect You When Your Narcissist Ex Won’t Stop Creating Chaos

Anne: Having the confidence , to think other people might feel differently, but this is my home. This is my life. I deserve to feel safe. I want to be able to live a life that is consistent with my own values.

Lee: Yes, absolutely. I really wish I would have looked at those and told myself I wasn’t willing to accept that or put up with it. Now I’m going to be 35 and I know that there are so many things that I’m just not willing to put up with. Even though someone might tell me that they’re not significant enough or they’re not really a problem, I will go by my own standards.

That’s something that I’ve learned and would like to tell my younger self. Hey, don’t go by the world’s standards, I would go by my standards.

Anne: Even some women don’t go by, maybe, your church’s standards. What I mean by that is, people who might say, well, you just need to love and serve and then everything will be okay. Don’t judge or something. Those types of things that an external church or a therapist or somebody might put on you. To be like, no, tolerate this for some reason, or be patient with it for some reason. I deserve to feel safe in my own home.

This Analogy Helped Me More Than Anything

Lee: What you’re comfortable with, right? It’s what you’re comfortable with. Would you be comfortable with a rock in your shoe? And would you continue to walk with a rock in your shoe? Or would you remove that shoe and take out that rock? Even if someone said, you could walk a little bit longer, it’s okay. No, you’re uncomfortable with that rock in that shoe. You would take the time to sit down, and take off that shoe and take out that rock.

Anne: If someone said but don’t you feel bad for the rock? What’s the rock gonna do? How is that rock gonna get around without you? You can be like, the rock can do whatever it wants. It’s not going to be in my shoe. It’s an adult rock. It can handle it. Me taking it out has nothing to do with the rock. Whatever helps women to be like, I can do this, is what works. It’s different for everyone.

The Best Support I Could Find Got Me Through The Hardest Parts

Lee: I just want to say, because I know they’re gonna listen to this, to all my Betrayal Trauma Recovery women. That helped me through this, and the ones that I’m gonna meet in the future. I am so grateful for each and every single one of you. I really don’t think I could be where I am. And I don’t think I could be going where I’m going without their continual support. So I’m so grateful.

Anne: Have you found that being away from him has enabled you to grow stronger?

Lee: Absolutely. It has made me recognize it more, too. I actually have been dealing a lot with anger lately, as well. There’s those five or seven, grief cycles. I am in the cycle of anger. The anger for me is a protection. It’s like a shield. The problem with showing anger to an abuser is, it gets them the same amount of attention they’re seeking.

Anne: They’re not looking for peace. When peace becomes your absolute top priority.

Using The Most Effective Strategies To Get Your Narcissist Ex To Leave You Alone

Anne: Many women start using the strategies and the BTR Living Free Workshop. So you were really interested in implementing strategies to get some peace in your life. First of all, let’s talk about what your concerns were.

Lee: A lot of the women in the group I know experienced some alterations of reality. Because of the situations that their husbands have put them in. They like to twist your thoughts. I lived in that false reality. Anytime I had concerns where I knew something was real. He would alter my reality, confuse me and just convince me.

That what I was thinking was completely illogical or not accurate. As I went through my divorce he continued to do this, to manipulate things. He continued to tell me that I said what I never said. Or things that I did say he would say I never said.

That was really difficult to live like that. Always questioning my own reality and not knowing if what I was thinking was actually real. It was very confusing.

Documenting His Ongoing Behavior When Your Narcissist Ex Won’t Stop His Abuse

Lee: So, why I wanted to go into this is because I needed documentation of what I was saying and what he was saying. So I could trust myself almost more. And trust that what I knew to be true was truth and I had that evidence in writing.

Anne: So you have this evidence that he’s gaslighting you, emotionally and psychologically abusing you. You have this evidence that he’s trying to alter your reality. You’re thinking, I can’t communicate with him in any way, shape or form without him lying to me. Without him twisting the truth, without things going sideways.

Lee: Yeah, without crazy making because that’s what it was.

Anne: What were your concerns ? You’re thinking oh that would be amazing if I could stop interacting with him, but I’m scared it won’t work. Because what were the things at the beginning before you decided? Hey, I’m gonna try this out that held you back from even considering it at first.

Lee: When I tried to implement a little bit of this in the past, he said he was computer illiterate. Or he didn’t really know how to use technology.

The second was that he would use it to not communicate certain things about the children. While they were with him. Again, it would fall back onto, oh I was computer illiterate. So I forgot to tell you that I was going to drop them off later. Whether maybe not telling me that the kids were uncomfortable and wanted to come home. He would use it as an excuse to say oh, sorry couldn’t communicate with you.

I think that was my biggest fear was with the children. That if there was an emergency, how would we contact each other?

Overcoming Fears Helps Leave Behind The Chaos When Your Narcissistic Ex Won’t Stop

Anne: You were like, I really want to do this, but it just seems impossible. And I remember talking to you on the phone. And I said, the first step is believing that it’s possible. To know that you can. And then you just have to figure out the how. How did that change in mindset from, I don’t know, I can’t do this. How did that change of mindset help you to start actually looking for solutions?

Lee: How that helped me is I took away the impossibility of it and thought I need to do this. It wasn’t even that I can or can’t do it. I needed to do it. For my own sanity. I had to start implementing this. Otherwise, I just knew that this was going to be a constant cycle and a constant battle. I was going to constantly be questioning my own reality and I would just stay stuck in that cycle of his manipulation and abuse. So it just came to the point where there was no option. There was no choice. I had to do it.

Anne: So when you decide, now I know I’m doing this. Now I’m in the problem solving, how do I do it phase? What were the first things that you needed to consider before implementing it?

Lee: One of the first things that I needed to consider was. In case of an emergency, if something happened while the kids were in his care or my care. How would we communicate to each other? And I thought of a plan immediately. It wasn’t even that hard.

What Happens If I Don’t Really Want My Narcissistic Ex To Leave Me Alone?

Lee: All of a sudden it was fixed. I think that was my biggest hurdle. If I were to be honest with myself I think it was losing that connection with him. Even though I was going through this divorce process. Even though I was so badly hurt for so many years by him. There was still a connection that I had to him, losing that was somewhat painful for me.

I sold a car and even that had a connection to him that was painful for me to let go of in a weird way. The reality sank in. That can go two ways when that reality sets in. No hope of it getting better. That can lead to wanting to run back to that bad situation. That could lead to growth.

Actions To Take To Distance Yourself From Your Narcissist Ex

Lee: There was a pivotal moment where I knew I needed to do your Living Free Workshop. One catastrophic day my son had actually had a confrontation with him and I went to pick him up. We had an altercation outside of his family’s house. He did end up getting a little bit physical. Later on that evening, he took my daughters. And told them he was dropping them off in the middle of nowhere.

When I came to pick up my son, my narcissist ex wouldnt’t leave, I talked to him and I rolled down my window just a little bit. He was able to reach in the car and take my phone. During our marriage he was really obsessed with my phone too. He would wake me up in the middle of the night to go through my phone and keep me up all hours. He was really obsessive about it. And so it didn’t surprise me that he went for my phone again.

When I got out of the car to grab it from him, he started smacking me. Telling me to get away. Eventually, I gave up and thought, you know what, this isn’t worth it. I’m gonna walk away, and he threw the phone after that. It was after that day that I thought, you know what? I cannot live in this anymore.

Can I Get a Restraining Order Against a Narcissistic Ex Who Won’t Leave Me Alone?

Lee: So, that’s when I implemented what you had encouraged me to do. But I don’t know if you remember during that conversation. The other thing that you encouraged me to do, which was to get a restraining order. Finally I get that implemented and these two things came together.

Anne: Let’s talk about some common concerns I bring up in the workshop. Were you concerned that he wouldn’t participate?

I had a smile on my face when you said this, because they can’t not participate. If you block them on your phone, there’s nothing they can do about it. They can’t call you. They could call you from another number. But if you have a boundary for yourself that you never answer the phone, if it’s an unknown caller. You just wait for them to leave a message. If you block them on your email and delete your social media accounts. There’s nothing they can do about that.

Lee: How the protective order works here in Arizona is once they grant you that protective order. They send it to the sheriff’s department. It just automatically goes out. So it takes away you having to sit there debating should I, or shouldn’t I. Once it’s done, it’s done.

During that time, I was able to notify him that we would no longer be communicating verbally. Everything would go through email and he did put up a fight. This was through texts and he did put up a fight and say, that’s not going to work. I don’t do good with electronics. Now we’ve been doing this since June. He can email just fine. He is not computer illiterate and is perfectly capable.

My Narcissistic Ex Won’t Leave Me Alone — It’s Pushing Me to the Edge

Lee: Again, it goes back to him altering my reality or confusing me or making me believe something that’s not true. He had convinced me that he doesn’t understand, he’s not good with electronics. And that was part of my hesitation, was him convincing me he couldn’t do this. So there was no way. Like, how was I going to be able to communicate with him? When he didn’t know how to really write an email, which is what he told me.

And it ended up being not true. So, again, it goes back to that crazy making, and me questioning myself. And is this possible, based off of his lies. So he can’t call me and can’t text me. And isn’t supposed to be within a certain feet of me. He can only email me.

If he needs to contact the kids, they have their own separate phones, so he is able to communicate with them. But if he has any specific questions for me, or we’re making plans, it all has to go through email. I mean it’s almost impossible to know how to leave a toxic relationship with kids.

I Hate That He Won’t Leave Me Alone, But I Still Miss Him, What’s Wrong With Me?

Anne: And how have those been? Have they been gaslighting?

Lee: This is something interesting. Most people think if you go through email, it takes away all the manipulative communication. But it actually doesn’t. You have to still be very aware and very careful.

Lee: In the beginning, they were very emotionally filled. Both of us trying to express our hurt and our pain.

Anne: I don’t think he was really trying to express his hurt and his pain. As much as he was manipulating your emotions.

Lee: Oh, of course, yes. And in me, I was trying to express hurt and pain and it just didn’t work. Now I try to answer everything with what you taught. They’ve been incredibly helpful, especially when dealing with my narcissistic ex who refuses to leave me alone.

That’s it. No more than that. I have been doing that for a while now. There’ve been two times recently where I have gone out of my way to email him. And to address things that are not appropriate to address anymore. After that, I knew I made a mistake and then I got back on course.

I do not need to go into these pages of explanations or reasonings or even comforting him. I just need to respond very simply. Another thing you taught that I love is the broken record.

The Broken Record Technique: A Strategy For When Your Narcissist Ex Won’t Leave You Alone

Lee: One of the things is right now he’s on supervised visitation and he keeps asking me to pick up the kids. I have one line that I say to that, I’m sorry, you can’t do that right now. Then he’ll say something like, well, it would just be easier and nobody else has time to pick them up today. And when my narcissist ex won’t leave, I just say, I’m sorry, but you can’t do that right now. He might come back with something else. I just keep repeating it until finally he’s exhausted and doesn’t even ask.

And it’s just that you pick a line, you stick with that line. And every single time they come at you, you use the same line over and over again. Until finally they run out of questions. They run out of things to say, and they’re exhausted.

Anne: Yeah. The Living Free Workshop clearly explains why and how to use them with real life examples from real messages. From women like you who have applied it in situations with their narcissist ex. Anything you see now that “shows” he can communicate as a good person is grooming and manipulation. This and a lot of other strategies can apply when your narcissist ex won’t leave you alone.

Lee: There still is a big part of me that hopes that he is a good person. But like what you’re saying, there is trickery to it. Yeah, I always tell people. I can’t really give him anything because he is a give an inch take a mile kind of a guy.

Is It Okay to Block My Narcissistic Ex if He Won’t Leave Me Alone?

Anne: How has it felt to be free of his phone calls?

Lee: So good, I don’t have that pit in my stomach anymore when I see his name. My phone isn’t something to fear anymore. I’m not sitting there wondering if he’s sent me a text message on my phone. Now I can go to my phone and it’s not a place of worry. The other thing is so much comfort in knowing the things that I say and the things that he says. Also being able to go back and know that my reality and what I know is true.

I have that evidence now, and that is such a gift for me because I really do struggle with that still. Even outside of our marriage, I really do struggle with confidence in myself and trusting myself still. Because of 15 years of somebody questioning my truth or making me question my truth.

Lee: Now. Again, it’s that rebuild. I’m rebuilding that trust in myself and knowing that what I’m saying is truth because I have proof.

When He Won’t Stop Messaging Me Is There Some Type of Template I Can Use To Get Him To Stop?

Anne: So, if you’re interested in using the strategies in the Living Free Workshop to eliminate that fear and worry from having to communicate. And have the proof that Lee is talking about. These concepts will work for women in any situation, even if you’re still married.

We describe it when a protective order is in place, but you don’t need a protective order to implement them. You don’t have to be separated. Maybe you’re co-parenting, you can just know the concepts. and then use them in whatever way works for you. Having strategy makes a big difference when you’re trying to heal from emotional abuse.

When Your Narcissist Ex Won’t Leave You Alone, Enroll In The Living Free Workshop

Anne: If your narcissist ex won’t leave you alone, The Living Free Workshop uses an amazing workbook. If you want to you can dig really deep level and process things. Some women don’t even use the workbook the first time through, or they never use it. They just run through all the videos super fast and they don’t even answer the questions below the videos.

There’s no right or wrong way to do it.

Lindsay, a member of the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Community shares her experience doing an in-home separation, Lindsey offers valuable insight to empower listeners. If you need support, learn about Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions.

Why Choose In-Home Separation?

Sometimes women want to separate themselves from their abusive husband’s behaviors, but for one reason or another can’t physically move to another space.

In-home separations offer temporary safety (if your husband respects the separation agreement), while not causing financial strain on the family.

Further, in-home separations can preserve the current family dynamic if children are struggling to adapt to a more intense separation.

An in-home separation is rarely a situation that a couple can/wants to maintain long-term. Eventually, the abusive husband will choose to change and become non-abusive and honest, or will simply continue on the destructive path of betrayal and abuse. When your in-home separation isn’t providing you with the safety that you deserve, it may be time to ask your husband to move out, for you to move out, and/or consider filing for divorce.

It’s important for victims to understand that abusive men hitting benchmarks (going to therapy, attending support groups, etc.) does NOT mean that they are changing. As women become empowered, they are better able to understand what real change looks like.

Transcript: Can In-Home Separation Help Me?

Anne: I have my friend with me today, Lindsey, not her real name. She’s actually here in my basement where I record. I was talking to a woman at a conference and she said, I wasn’t meant to live one day at a time. And I thought that’s so true. Like I want to be able to plan. I want to be able to have peace. I want to be able to have emotional safety. There are obviously painful things that happen. No matter how hard we try, we can’t avoid them.

The Concept of Betrayal Trauma

Lindsay: Because whether it’s betrayal trauma or whether it’s a child dying, whatever your trial is, that is way too hard. It’s not fair.

Anne: Yeah. What about your situation left you feeling hopeless

Lindsay: When I discovered that there’s this thing called betrayal trauma. On top of that, not just betrayal trauma, but also there is secondary trauma and it’s real. You can have secondary trauma from ecclesiastical leaders, from therapists, therapists out there, resources out there that claim we help with betrayal trauma and yet they don’t.

Lindsay: It’s real and yet I have nowhere to turn because I don’t know who is safe.

Anne: That’s why I created Betrayal Trauma Recovery.

Trusting Your Gut & Finding Safety

Anne: Since then, have you developed a system where you can feel like, when you can’t trust your husband. This is how I would know if someone’s safe or not?

Lindsay: Mainly trusting my gut. I mean, learning to trust myself and to trust God. When I feel safe, I feel peace. And if there’s something that isn’t safe or that feels off, it’s almost like a little flag goes off in my brain that says, wait, this is either totally unsafe or I just need to learn more. Ask some more questions and figure out what’s going on. Because sometimes people say things in a way that is unsafe, but they didn’t intend to say it that way.

Anne: Like me! I did all the time. In fact, right when Lindsay got here, she was like, look at this new pamphlet! And I was like, ah! They took the word abuse off! And I went on a, what, how long was it? Maybe four minute rant about how mad I was that they removed the word abuse. And then I was like, I gotta calm down. I said a prayer, and I’m feeling fine now. And do you feel safe now?

Lindsay: Absolutely.

Anne: But I bet while I was on the rant, you were like, Oh, this can’t be good. Right? You were kind of like, Oh, no, we can’t record with her like this. And I was recognizing it.

Triggers & Emotional Reactions

Anne: It’s funny, it’s funny when I get triggered. I don’t know if you think it’s funny when you get triggered. When I get triggered, I think it’s funny because I can see it. I’m like oh, I know I’m doing this and I have to make that mental shift to say what would be the most helpful thing to do right now? So I apologize that I went on my rant.

Lindsay: It’s been helpful for me to reevaluate my perspective on life. It’s really a hard process to do, that is to say, I am questioning everything. Thinking about what I understand about my world, my higher power, relationships with my family and with my friends. Yet that process of questioning has been, in a lot of ways, very healing for me. I can feel the growth that I’ve had over the last two years.

Anne: Yeah, that’s what I experienced too. And I loved that. Looking back, I didn’t so much like it when I was going through it.

Lindsay: Absolutely not. It’s so hard.

Anne: It was miserable.

Growth Through Hardship

Anne: But looking back, I’m like, wow, I have changed and I have grown so much, and I’m still growing.

Lindsay: Absolutely.

Anne: It’s almost like the growth happens in this other place, and then you look back. You’re like, whoa, I changed. How did that happen?

Lindsay: It happens in a way that I didn’t expect. I don’t see it coming and and then it happens and it’s this beautiful amazing thing. Yeah, it’s pretty cool. One thing that I love about this process is you talk about sweeping my side of the street. It’s totally not about that because that can be a really dangerous metaphor to use. If you take that out and you just say this isn’t about my side of the street it’s taking the situation that is already happening.

About awful, terrible, ugly, hard, painful and saying, I can either sit here and live in the unmanageable. Live in it, and that’s okay to do, or I can take it and give it purpose. I can take my suffering and give it something meaningful.

Pain With Purpose

Lindsay: Pain with purpose is much more tolerable than pain that’s totally meaningless. Viktor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning, it’s this idea that if I don’t have any reason, this pain is just happening, and it’s just going to keep happening, and there’s no reason for it, and I can’t do anything about it. I mean, I’ll go crazy. I will. And I may still go crazy.

Anne: You’re not crazy yet.

Lindsay: But to have purpose to it, and for me to say, no this is not my fault. It’s not fair and I can’t control it, but with God, I can make something beautiful out of it.

Anne: For me, it was definitely Betrayal Trauma Recovery.

Lindsay: Absolutely.

Anne: Because everything that I have now, my children, my house, BTR that I founded is because of what I went through.

https://youtu.be/ZcCaYcaS5eA

I would not have anything else. It’s everything that I love and care about and hold dear to my heart now. I’m super grateful that I went through it because there’s no way I could do what I do without it. People who haven’t been through it have a hard time wrapping their head around the realities of what happens. I also think it’s super cool how for all of us who have been through this, to be able to understand each other and empathize with each other, but also disagree.

Lindsay: Absolutely.

Anne: And have different experiences. That certain things are helpful for some people that aren’t helpful for others. And leave a space open for that.

Anne: Knowing that emotional health looks pretty much the same. Honesty, accountability, kindness, you know, all that stuff looks the same, but we can get to it from many different ways.

In-Home Separation Experience

Anne: So on the topic of in-home separation, which some women may use to establish safety. Lindsay has done both an in-home separation and now is separated out of her home. Can you tell us why you felt unsafe in your own home?

Lindsay: So when he went through two months of acting out behavior without disclosing it to me, that’s when I felt unsafe and knew I needed to change something.

Anne: Did you feel unsafe before you found out he was lying to you, or was there something in your gut that you knew was wrong and you just didn’t have quote unquote evidence until you found out?

Lindsay: I definitely felt uneasy, that’s for sure, and I knew that he wasn’t communicating with me, but until I really had the direct evidence, I didn’t want to move forward yet. And it was only a matter of months.

Anne: So once you determined that you felt unsafe and that your husband’s behaviors were unsafe, mainly that he had been lying to you, why did you choose an in-home separation for your boundary at that time?

Lindsay: At that time, I knew I felt unsafe and I knew that something needed to change. It was actually Almost a month between me knowing that there was dishonesty happening and me actually coming to the conclusion that an in-home separation was the boundary that I wanted to move forward with, mostly because I just didn’t know what to do.

How Can An In-Home Separation Help In Situations Of Abuse

Lindsay: I was, you know, Totally at a loss, but I had some really amazing experiences with meditation that helped me come to the conclusion that I really needed to have safety within my home, and I needed to have a place in my home that could be my safe place. For me, the easiest way that I could envision that happening would be to have an in-home separation where I could have my bedroom be that safe place.

Anne: I’m going to talk about safety for a minute.

A lot of women listening might think, okay, he was lying to you and so you felt unsafe. Were there any other evidences that you felt unsafe. Which there doesn’t need to be, but I want to talk about this because a lot of women think, well, he’s not yelling at me. He’s not punching walls. He’s not screaming in my face.

So, yeah, I’m safe. When emotionally they might not be safe because they’re trusting someone or they’re interacting with someone who’s lying to their face. Talk about how you came to realize that you deserved more than just, well, he’s not yelling at me.

In-Home Separation Is A Boundary

Lindsay: My husband is in a lot of respects, a good husband and a good father to my children. You know, he’s respectful. He helps around the house, does all the right things on the surface. He doesn’t put me down. Obviously, the lying is abuse in and of itself. But for me, it was just these little red flags. Each one of those in and of itself isn’t totally wrong. But when you look at the big picture and you look at red flags like not communicating. He’s not telling me what he’s thinking.

Anne: So at the time when you’re telling your family, I don’t feel safe. I’m going to have an in-home separation. Were they like, why don’t you feel safe? I’m confused. What is he doing?

Lindsay: Yeah, absolutely. And honestly, even to this day, it’s something that I’m not sure I have words to capture exactly what it means. Which is hard because in a certain sense, you want to feel justified when you’re talking to your family or when you’re talking to your friends about the actions that you’re taking. And so that’s been a struggle.

It’s kind of a back and forth and just a continuing conversation with my parents, with my siblings, with other people who are aware of what’s going on. Just trying to share with them how I’m feeling. When I do come across podcasts or if I come across a quote that I feel captures what I’m feeling, I’m more inclined to share that with them to help communicate, but it’s hard.

In-Home Separation Allows Time For Observation

Anne: Do you feel like you’re better at communicating how you feel now than when you first started the in-home separation?

Lindsay: Yes and no. In some ways, obviously, I’ve definitely grown and read more, listened to more. But in other ways, no. It’s still something that’s hard to describe to somebody who hasn’t experienced it themselves. For me, one of my personal boundaries for myself has been to say, it’s okay for me to not be able to describe what I’m feeling to somebody. That’s okay. It doesn’t mean that my feelings are unjustified.

Anne: Both that and then also, it’s okay that I can’t explain all my reasons why I feel unsafe. But my decision to set a boundary I don’t have to justify it to other people. It’s okay. It’s just a tough position to be in.

Lindsay: Yeah

Anne: So you were doing an in-home separation for how long?

Lindsay: About a year.

Anne: Okay. And during that time, all you could see is he doesn’t seem to be interested in meetings or therapy, and that was your indicator that you were probably unsafe? Because you’ve got somebody with a history of lying to you and someone with a history of infidelity.

Lindsay: Exactly.

Indicators Of Abusive Behavior

Anne: Okay. I’m thinking right now that those of us who can clearly see through their behavior, right, they’re very irritable, are kind of lucky, maybe? I mean, not, but yes. Behavior can be more extreme. But the weird thing is, it doesn’t mean you’re in any less danger from being lied to.

Anne: And the spectrum of these abusive behaviors is so vast. It can look so different. Okay. So, you’re doing an in-home separation for about a year. You’re living upstairs and he’s living in the basement. I am personal friends with you, in the same area. So I know you’ve been making an effort to have friends come over in the evening when you’re lonely, and you’ve just been learning new skills on how to navigate a life where you’ve been separated in your home.

Then you find out he’s been lying again, he’s been using exploitative material again. We’re already doing an in-home separation, so now what do I do? Talk about how you felt in the process that you went through to determine what steps to take next.

Red Flags During In-Home Separation

Lindsay: I actually need to back up a little bit, because that process started a little bit before I knew that he was lying to me. I had some other pretty bad experiences. Big indicators that something was really wrong.

Anne: Can you tell us what those were?

Lindsay: I had a conversation with him shortly after one of his therapy appointments. He was on his way out the door, so it was not a good time to be talking, but I had just asked him about how his therapy went.

He was sharing with me about being in a slump and had shared that with the therapist. The therapist was working with him on determining his motivation for recovery, trying to do pros and cons of working recovery. Then he shared a question that the therapist had asked him, how long do you think this is sustainable to stay in this slump? He told me that his answer to the therapist had been something like, Well that depends on my wife.

Anne: That depends on Lindsay.

Lindsay: Yeah. And I was like, oh, that’s not okay with me. I don’t know if I could put words at the time to why that wasn’t okay with me, but that did not feel right.

I want his recovery to be his own. for him to be motivated to do it for his own well being. Not to work recovery as long as I’m not making his life unbearable or harder.

Anne: Yeah, so it’s like well if she doesn’t bug me anymore then now then maybe forever. It just depends on Lindsay.

Considering Moving From In-Home Separation to Out-Of-Home Separation

Lindsay: It came across really as a big, big red flag for me. At that point, that was actually the first time that I had ever considered the reality or the possible reality of an out of home separation. And that scared me. It terrified me. So the thought had been planted a couple weeks before.

Anne: Before we go on, can you put in words why, if all other behaviors seem healthy, why lying and exploitative materials use to you is unacceptable?

Lindsay: Yeah, absolutely. The lying. It just is a really not okay foundation for any relationship, because if he’s lying about this, who knows what else he could be lying about. Yes, on the surface, the things that I see and experience seem to be okay, but who knows?

Anne: It would be interesting to see if someone else were in your situation.

Lindsay: Right? It would be so different.

Anne: If she was like, well, no, these things are really bad. These other things that maybe for whatever reason, you’re not recognizing or whatever. That would be interesting to know.

Lindsay: Yeah. Oh, I’m sure it would be very different.

Anne: Or if she was like, I agree. Who knows?

Pornography Is Not OK

Anne: Gail Dines was on the podcast. If you have not heard that episode, please listen to it. She’s amazing. She was saying, Women, even if nothing else is going on, you cannot accept this in a relationship, period. It is an abusive act and is not okay. This is what is exploitative about the whole industry. I’m proud of you for saying, even though I don’t exactly know how these behaviors are affecting me, I know that it is and I will not accept it. That is a really brave thing to do.

Lindsay: For me personally, exploitative material is something that goes against my values, my spiritual belief system. That has been very clear from the start. This is not okay. But I didn’t know that anything could be done about it. I was told by clergy what felt to me like contradictory statements. Like, recovery is possible, sobriety is possible, and yet addiction is going to be a lifelong thing. I didn’t get how those two things that felt to me like opposites could both be true.

Anne: It’s possible for him to change, but if he doesn’t, it’s actually possible for you, the victim, to find peace and happiness. It takes a long time to figure out what that looks like and how that’s going to go. They also get all caught up in the causes of sexual addiction.

Exploring Boundaries & In-Home Separation

Anne: Because these are unacceptable to you, then you start this process of determining what is my next step for safety. I’ve already done an in-home separation, and it seemed to work. It kept me safe for a little while, but it didn’t motivate him to change, which wasn’t your point. Your point was just to keep yourself safe.

Now you’re realizing, I’m not any safer. How do you decide that you need to increase your boundaries yet again? Because you’re still unsafe.

Lindsay: Yeah, that was a long thought process for me, because realistically, the boundary of an in-home separation has a wide range of levels of connection, even within that. I thought about it, and I realized I had pretty much explored that range at least as far as I knew how. We had a period of time fairly early on in the in-home separation where things were awful he was acting out every week and telling me about it.

Anne: When you say acting out you mean using exploitative material?

Lindsay: Yeah, so that was happening on a weekly basis. It felt to me like it was endless. That was really hard for me.

Low Contact During Separation

Lindsay: At that point in time, our in-home separation was very low contact. Like, I would very much schedule the times when I would be seeing him. It would be family dinner with the kids. Outside of that and maybe a few other things, I was pretty much saying, okay, text me if you’re going to walk through the upstairs. So I know that you’re walking through the upstairs.

Things like that where I would very much know where he was and where I was and that those were separate places. Versus when things were a lot better. We did spend time together, he still slept in the basement and I still slept upstairs. I still maintained my bedroom as my safe space. So he wasn’t going in my room. If I was in the room at all, ever. I had felt like I had explored that range.

Out of Options & Making Decisions

Lindsay: I felt like I was out of options. That’s a hard place to be because I don’t like making decisions from a place where I feel like there’s no other options. That was a place where I had to sit for a while to think about, okay, have I really explored all my options?

Anne: I think that’s really interesting because people don’t understand that women married to emotionally abusive men want the relationship to work. That they try every single option. Every single one. And it’s only when they are out of options that they think, alright, I have to do this because I’m out of options. Before, when you did the in-home separation, that seemed like the only option at the time, right? Or the best option.

Lindsay: It did seem like the best option. I did feel like I had a lot more options when I was making that decision.

Anne: What options were you considering at that time? You were considering an out of home separation, an in-home separation?

Lindsay: Honestly, I didn’t even consider an out of home at that time.

In-Home vs. Out-Of-Home Separation

Anne: So it was just options within an in-home separation?

Lindsay: Or just within a relationship where I could say, okay, I need to not go on dates or I need to have variations in the space? The amount of space that I have emotionally and physically.

Anne: Then when his abusive behaviors continue now you’re thinking, I’ve exhausted all those in-home separation options and now my only option is an out of home separation. Does this out of home separation include variations?

Lindsay: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Because I know that there is a huge range of options in terms of does he still spend time at the house? Does he spend time with the kids? Is it really just a different place to sleep? Or is it like we’re living in different states? There’s a lot of options within that.

Lindsay: It felt like I was at one level and I was jumping up to like five levels higher in terms of, you know, my boundaries, yeah. And that’s a big jump to make.

Anne: I was talking with you while you were trying to make this decision. You would text me and call me and be like, am I thinking through this straight? Are these boundaries appropriate? What do I want to do? You finally decide, yes. I am going to ask him to move out.

Family’s Confusion & Judgment

Anne: Your family, again, was confused.

Lindsay: Absolutely.

Anne: They were like, why are you asking a perfectly capable, non violent man who holds down a job, who is active in our church, who is seemingly a good dad to move out? This is confusing to us. At that time, did they understand it? Any more or were they still baffled?

Lindsay: I don’t know if I can make a good judgment on that, honestly, because I was in such trauma myself. My perspective on what they were thinking and feeling is probably very skewed.

Anne: Eventually you move forward, regardless of what your perception of how other people felt. You’re currently separated with him out of the home.

Assessing Safety In Separation

Anne: How have you felt about your level of safety now? It’s so difficult to assess your safety in this situation because both scenarios feel unsafe. Having them stay in the home feels unsafe because they’re lying to you and using exploitative material and it just feels uncomfortable and it’s against your value system.

Then secondly, having your children’s dad move out, financial ramifications that this might cause, emotional ramifications, the fact that this could result in divorce. You’re not quite ready to consider if you should prepare for divorce. Which you don’t want, feels unsafe too. So it’s like, which “unsafe scenario” do I choose and why? The decision is very complex. It’s not easy at all. But since you asked him to move out, have you felt, generally speaking, more emotionally safe?

Lindsay: I would say I’ve felt more at peace. I don’t know if I would say more safe because realistically, I don’t know. I felt a lot of unease around asking for the out of home separation simply for the financial aspect of it. That was another reason why I hesitated for a long time. The conclusion that I came to, and it worked for us, this doesn’t work for everyone. I asked that he cover the cost with extra work. He come up with a cost so that it doesn’t dip into our normal finances.

That gave me a lot of peace going into it saying this is possibly temporary. It could be temporary. And if it is temporary and he does end up moving back in, we end up reconciling and our relationship moves forward in a healthy way. It’s not going to impact us negatively in terms of our financial future.

Husband’s Dishonesty & Expectations

Lindsay: My husband in particular, one of the roots of his dishonesty is he wants to fulfill people’s expectations of him. I made a very conscious decision. I’m not going to outline a plan for him. I’m not going to outline what I need to see. In order for this to be better.

Anne: Yeah, that’s exactly what I teach in the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop. That women don’t make a list of all the things they want to see, and I explain exactly why you don’t want to do that. The type of list that’s not going to help you get to safety would be something like, I need you to go to group every week, I need you to go to therapy every week, I need you to do this, I need you to do that. They can fake all of that. They can check off all those boxes, but it doesn’t mean anything.

It’s a good idea to just say, I don’t know. I’ll keep praying. keep pondering, keep observing and I’ll see how it feels. Yeah. as your friend, I feel like his behavior right now shows that he’s more concerned about his own comfort, than your safety. The stages of deliverance from abuse begin when you see the truth.

Lindsay: Well, absolutely. That’s why we’re in this place right now. That’s the heart of it.

Anne: Yeah. I’m mad. I’m mad because I’m your friend and I care about you.

The Long Process Of Healing

Anne: And this process to determine whether or not someone is going to actually learn and apply and practice and live healthy behaviors takes a long time.

Lindsay: It took me a while to come to terms with the fact. That simply because I had started to do my own healing didn’t mean that he has, that he’s ready, and he’s committed.

Anne: I think that’s why safety first is the best way to go. If you’re thinking, I need to establish safety for myself and for my home. And I don’t exactly know how to go about that, but safety is the top priority. I’m going to continue to set boundaries until I feel safe, whatever that looks like, then you’re never going to go wrong.

Lindsay: It’s my goal is to keep moving in that direction.

Conflict & Prioritizing Safety In Boundaries

Lindsay: One thing that I feel. maybe some caution around the word safety is the idea that any relationship, whether it’s marriage or just with a friend or a family member, you can’t expect there to be no conflict. You can’t expect there to be no risks. So I feel some caution around the word safety simply because I don’t want to be so focused on the goal of safety that I don’t open myself up to deep, meaningful loving relationships.

Anne: That’s interesting, because I don’t feel that way at all. I feel very safe with my close friends and family, but we’re getting in fights all the time. But it’s a safe space. I’m not abused. I’m not lied to, accused of things and not gaslit. Is there conflict? Totally, I’m very confrontational. As are many of the people around me.

Lindsay: That makes sense with your background and personality. For me, who I am naturally, I know this about myself, I’m naturally conflict averse. I’m careful about me pushing safety too far.

Anne: Or you confusing, I think might be the better word. Confusing safety and peace with a complete and total lack of conflict.

Lindsay: Maybe. Because safety can mean not being in pain, to some people.

Anne: For sure, but I wouldn’t say I’m in pain. I mean, I have conflicts that hurt my feelings or whatever, but it’s resolvable. With a safe person, you can resolve it. I guess what I’m saying is the pain can be resolved, not quickly, but like rather quickly. Like, if you get in a conflict, you can resolve it. Within a week, which is great. These other conflicts with your spouse or ex spouse are unresolvable.

Pain Of Growth in Relationships

Lindsay: I guess what I’m saying is, it’s not just like pain from getting feelings hurt, but I want to be open to the pain of growth. The growth in a relationship. That may come from conflict that lasts for a while.

Anne: Right, but that doesn’t mean you’re unsafe.

Lindsay: No. But to some people, and in some situations, the idea of being in pain, period, may feel unsafe. So, for example, in my relationship with my parents, I have a lot of growth to do there. I feel like that is the pain of growth, saying that, okay, I’m in pain. It’s okay for me to feel the pain of saying, I’m wrong sometimes.

Anne: Yeah, totally. But that again, safety is about, is this person lying to you? Are they trying to manipulate you? Are they hurting you on purpose to try and take the attention away from their unhealthy behaviors? So if the person is. genuine, they really genuinely care for you.

They’re not trying to manipulate you. Like my mom for example. I’ll just bring her up. She really wants me to do certain things and she tries to convince me in a lot of different ways. Could I call it manipulation? Maybe, but not really because she’s very direct about it. I don’t like those shoes you’re wearing. I don’t want you to wear them. Let me tell you the 17 reasons why they’re ugly. Then she’ll tell me that over and over and over. Right. And I’m like, I like those shoes.

Is Conflict Abusive?

Anne: She’s doing that because she genuinely loves and cares about me, which is so different than coming from a place of, I’m trying to hide things from you. Also I’m trying to make sure that you don’t confront me about my abusive behaviors. I think safety with people, even if there’s conflict, is totally achievable. So we can agree, we can maybe agree to disagree.

Lindsay: Absolutely. I’m definitely okay with that.

Anne: I’m like, wait a minute. No, you can get to safety. You really can.

Lindsay: I do believe that. I just know that from my perspective where safety has been a very unclear thing to me and to people who are around me, it can be misinterpreted very easily.

Anne: Maybe I need to go back and fix all my podcast episodes. Because I’m always talking about safety and people are like, well, that means that we never get in an argument or that means this. I’m like, no, it doesn’t. It’s never meant that. But I’m wondering now, are people interpreting this differently than, than how I intend it? Which they do all the time.

Does Safety Mean No Conflict

Anne: But that’s really interesting. There’s no way we can ever have a life free of fear or conflict. And actually we don’t want that. Right? Which would mean someone is lying or someone isn’t.

Lindsay: But I used to think that that’s what I would want. I used to think that if I was in conflict in a relationship that things were not okay. That relationship is not okay.

Anne: I think it depends on what you’re having a conflict about. You’re having a conflict about your shoes. Right. That relationship is fine. If you’re having a conflict about whether or not someone is stabbing people, that is not okay. It’s not going to be okay over here. What are your next steps? Are you feeling like you want to just settle into this?

Lindsay: No, I don’t. I don’t want to settle into this because this is not my ideal. So for me, on the relationship front, it’s a waiting game. Wait and see what happens. Right. See what he does, see how he acts. I don’t think I mentioned this earlier, so I’ll mention it now.

Trusting Higher Power For Guidance

Lindsay: The key to that, for me, is developing and keeping my relationship with my higher power, such that I feel like I can trust my higher power to let me know if something is off. Because realistically, I don’t know if he’s lying to me. I don’t know if he’s acting out. There’s a lot that I don’t know. However; I have had multiple key moments in my relationship with my husband where I know that my higher power has made me aware of things that I did not know.

Anne: Do you feel like your relationship with God, has improved over time?

Lindsay: I still struggle with connecting with my higher power on a regular basis. I still struggle with having the motivation to want to do the things that I know I need to do to keep that connection strong.

Boundaries & Out-Of-Home Separation

Anne: Boundaries are hard, especially having your husband move out is a very difficult boundary. If you could go back in time and talk to your younger self, to tell her some things about boundaries that you have learned. What would you tell her?

Lindsay: That it’s okay not to know what you’re doing. Because realistically, I don’t know that I would have learned the things that I needed to learn in order to set these boundaries any sooner than I did. Even if I told myself anything, any advice I could have given myself. And that’s okay. It’s okay to make mistakes. It’s okay to not have it down right now. It is something that’s gonna take time.

Anne: I agree. I am now such an expert at boundaries, but I didn’t set a boundary at all before my ex was arrested. That was God telling me, let me help you out. You clearly are having problems, and just let me do this for you. I feel like that’s what happened. Then I was like, thank you! I can breathe now, and then I could figure out how to set boundaries.

I’m just so grateful. It’s basically kept the boundary that God gave to me. Thank goodness. I don’t think I ever could have done it otherwise. Going back in time, I’d be like, you’re really, really bad at boundaries. That’s what I would have told myself.

Advice for Women Considering An In-Home Separation

Anne: For women right now who are considering a separation, either an in-home separation, or an out-of-home separation. Do you have any words of wisdom you could share with them?

Lindsay: I just know what I did. Reach out to somebody who may be a little bit ahead of you on the journey, and then the people that are right there in the trenches with you. It helped to talk it out. It helped me clarify what my thoughts were and my feelings were.

Also being open to guidance from my higher power. I can’t honestly say It’s something that I knelt down and prayed about because that’s just not the place I’m at right now, but connecting in other ways.

Anne: Yeah, this is a tough journey. It’s intense. It’s unpredictable. I think peace is a good goal to work toward. I do think it’s possible and boundaries make that possible.

Final Thoughts & Gratitude

Anne: I teach women how to create and hold healthy boundaries in the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop. A great big thank you to my friend, Lindsay. I’m so thankful for her. She’s a great example to me of someone who sets boundaries and is doing the best she can to be as healthy as possible.

I genuinely admire her and I’m grateful for her friendship.

Divorcing a narcissist is a nightmare. Anne Blythe, M.Ed. continues her heartfelt conversation with June from the BTR Community one year after she shared the first part of her story. Here the next chapter of her journey divorcing a narcissist.

If you need support while experiencing narcissistic abuse, learn about BTR Group Sessions here.

This episode follows June’s Story:
Part 1: He Blamed Me for the Emotional Abuse – June Checks in One Year Later
Part 2: Divorcing A Narcissist – June’s Story Part 2 (THIS EPISODE)

Transcript: Divorcing A Narcissist June’s One-Year Follow-Up: Divorcing A Narcissist

Anne: I checked in with June one year later to see how she was doing. This interview happened one year after the episode you heard last week, but still a long time ago. You’ll hear my today voice popping in from time to time talking about The Living Free Workshop that I developed years after this time. I actually use these strategies and tools to completely deliver me and my kids from abuse without going to court.

If you didn’t hear the beginning of June’s story last week, listen to that first. It’s called He Blamed Me for the Emotional Abuse June story part one. Then come back and listen to this interview, which we did one year later. Welcome June. It’s been a year since we spoke. How are things going for you one year later?

June: We left off last time going through the court process of the custody issues and the divorce proceedings. We have since concluded at least custody for now because my husband appealed the custody from the family court and he appealed it to the circuit court, which in my state is the next higher court. It took us six to nine months to get into the circuit court to have that case heard.

That was an eye opening experience for me. I feel like we’ve had all of these issues, divorcing a narcissist is horrible. All of this bad behavior, all of this conflict between us and it really hasn’t been between us. It’s been him finding the gray areas in the order and exploiting those in ways that might be small and minor, but when you add them all up, it takes its toll.

Experiences With Her Ex’s Divorce Demands

There shouldn’t be any changes, or at least any big changes. Get this part over with and we can move on. In the circuit court, it was just a different experience. The judge had a lot less patience. The judge labeled the conflict as marital fighting and just conflict between my husband and I rather than abuse. That is very, very problematic. I brought two witnesses.

The judge didn’t want to hear from them, so he didn’t hear from them at all, which was a problem. I can say I’m happy with the outcome. For the most part, the custody didn’t change too much. A lot more freedom, discretion and leeway are in the order. In The BTR Community, that translates to a lack of boundaries in our new order. I know that will be a problem.

It already has been a problem. That’s what I’m dealing with right now. Currently it is just an order for custody. I’m still the primary parent. I have the kids 75% of the time, which is great. I feel that my influence on the kids and having a safe and stable home environment for them and a connected parenting relationship with them is super important.

When they’re going through this, their dad does get a certain amount of days each month and it’s when he wants to see them. He can get a certain amount of days. That creates a bit of a problem.

Husband’s Narcissistic Behavior

Anne: We’re personal friends, so we talk a lot about this. One of the things that surprises me, and I’d like to know how you feel about it, is that so many of the things that your soon to be ex does are just not smart. He doesn’t seem smart at all. He seems narcissistic, clueless, and way more confident in his own abilities than he actually is.

At the same time, he can exploit all these little areas of the law and he actually is really smart at the same time. He is a doctor, he’s not a dummy. How do you reconcile this crazy, nonsensical, irrational behavior and all of the bad choices that he makes with this ability to exploit the law in a way that works for him? This is a huge part of divorcing a narcissist. He’s sort of like this evil genius kind of thing. How do you feel about that?

June: I definitely feel that is such an accurate representation of reality of what is going on. There are times that I feel his chaos and disorganization is really, really to his detriment. Obviously it is to the detriment of the kids. It affects them. It’s chaotic. He can’t show up for appointments on time, he can’t get the kids to where they need to be on time. He won’t return things that they need, important things.

For instance, when has the kids on vacation, the court order says that the kids call me on the middle day at a certain time. Up to this date, I have never received that phone call at a certain time.

Concerns Children’s Safety

He does not let me talk to them. Honestly, as a mother, as a person who he assaulted, as a person that is very well aware of the effects of trauma, abuse, narcissism and how those things all go together and create really the perfect storm. That could be disastrous.

I worry about my kids during those times, I worry that he’s snapped, they are not okay and they’re not safe. I almost feel like it’s happened so much at this point it’s purposeful. He must know that I worry and that’s why he does it, the control. He’s definitely spiraling.

I’ve had several people in the community come and tell me that they have seen problematic behavior from him. People tell me that they have heard things that have happened at his previous workplace. I’ve had two people tell me that they’ve heard that he assaulted a female in his previous workplace. He has since lost his job because he missed several days of work, missed shifts and didn’t show up on time.

There were several other people that complained of his treatment of patients, how he was medically treating them. Some of that is also really an indication of his unhealthiness

Anne: Because with a lot of abusive men, they pick and choose. They’re very together at their job at church, they look really good. At home is when they lose their temper, they don’t lose it anywhere else. It’s a display of control at home. You’re saying his dysfunction is starting to leak out into his public persona?

Narcissistic Dysfunction

June: Yes, the dysfunction definitely is. Now that is something different than the anger and abuse. I even feel like sometimes he uses the dysfunction as a ploy to get people to feel sorry for him. He’s this broken down dad that just wants his kids so much and he’s just floundering without them

Anne: He’s a single dad and it’s so hard for him because he is a victim.

https://youtube.com/shorts/tVUVAwZzedU

June: Yes, and I feel like that’s very much what’s going on now. On dating sites, for example, He’s on all the dating sites. He clearly says, I’m a single dad. Here’s a bunch of pictures of my kids, and by the way, I have my kids 50/50. Somehow that’s supposed to mean that he is a better dad or people can trust him more,

Anne: But that’s a lie. He doesn’t have them 50/50.

June: That is a lie. He does not have them 50/50.

Anne: Mine says the same thing. He’s got these pictures of him as a dad and he’s also got this Christian for life, I love Jesus stuff going on on his dating profiles. Okay, but he doesn’t obey the commandments, whatever. I think that’s really interesting because if he did start dating someone, they would soon see that he didn’t have them 50/50. He’s really not setting himself up for a good relationship.

June: Exactly right. I think that a lot of these guys see mechanisms that can give them instant trust. Yes, being a Christian is one thing that can give them instant trust. Being a single dad is one thing that can give them instant trust with whoever their next person will be.

Financial Revelations In Divorcing A Narcissist

Another thing that I found very interesting in court this past time is that we were going over support of course, because that’s all wrapped up in custody. He testified that his church, my church, has been paying for his mortgage and car payment and that is almost $2,000 a month. This person is a doctor. He makes $24,000 a month, well over $300,000 a year.

He said the church paid for his expenses because he is so broke. That he cannot even pay for these things. In preparation my lawyer subpoenaed all of his bank records, all of his pay stubs, everything like that, all of the financials. The intern went through it and categorized things by item. It turns out that he has spent thousands of dollars on liquor, hundreds of dollars on pornography.

Anne: When we say liquor, I just want the audience to know that June’s soon to be ex and June are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Alcohol is something they do not do. His clergy is paying his house payment while this man is going out and buying alcohol, which is really, really a big deal.

June: And he had contributed tens of thousands of dollars into his own retirement during this time that the church was paying for his expenses

Anne: Acting like, oh, I’m going through so much help me. Right?

Financial Status Of Narcissistic Husband

June: And my ex-wife took all of my money. Really anyone that has gone through the courts would know. It’s a straight calculation. After this, I became very, very disturbed. I know the process, a little bit of receiving church welfare. My dad was a bishop. He had to help people meet their urgent and emergent needs on occasion. I began to really think, I need to know the story of this.

I need to know how far this went. The bishop was the same bishop that was spiritually abusive to me. This bishop had very, very clearly taken aside. Financially he had even taken a side in this divorce where he chose to support my husband and not me. He is paying these expenses, thousands of dollars a month for these things.

He has really enabled him to continue legal abuse and also continue really unhealthy behaviors and to pay for those.

Anne: If he had been paying you the $2,000 a month, you could have purchased groceries. I mean it’s crazy. Sorry, just for our listeners, steam and fire is coming out of my ears right now.

June: Really if he had just paid his own mortgage and his own car payment, then maybe he would not have as much money to pay his lawyer. Then we could move on and get everything wrapped up and not be in constant legal battle

Anne: And not have to go to the next higher court up and all that business.

Seeking Support For Divorcing A Narcissist

June: Exactly. I became very alarmed, like I said, and as soon as court was over, I began my research. In my research, I reached out to the congregation that he currently attends. The leader of it, a bishop, by this point the previous bishop had been released from that position. A new bishop was put in

Anne: For listeners who are not familiar, all of the clergy in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are volunteers. Someone is asked or called to be the leader of the congregation for a period of usually around three to five years. Then a new volunteer is called and it just rotates around. You’re saying that the old bishop was released and a new volunteer bishop was called?

June: Exactly. I felt safe reaching out to this new bishop because he was not the same one that I spoke about on the earlier podcasts who was very spiritually abusive. To this new bishop and to the leader above him, which is a stake president, and to the area authority, the person above him just to get some answers.

I had emailed a couple times with no response and explained the situation in emails. I just wasn’t getting any response. And so I just kept kind of adding more people to these emails, trying to get some sort of answers on how long has this been going on? The thing that really concerned me is that I didn’t verity anything. Because we are married, I am still the property owner on things that the church paid.

Deciding To Meet With New Clergy

I’m still on the loan for the house. I’m still on the loan for the car that is still legally my property and nothing was verified with me. In that process I learned mine and my children’s records had been transferred back to that congregation.

Anne: When June says records, I am so sorry for people who are like, we don’t want to know the workings of your church. The it will help understand the context of why this is such a big deal. That’s why we’re explaining it. The congregations are set up in geographical areas, you do not choose what congregation you go to. It’s called a ward, each congregation has a boundary to it.

You can have your records transferred in or out depending on your situation. What she is saying is that she had her records transferred out with the impending divorce and that the records were back with that congregation where her soon to be ex is going. Where your records are is where you attend church, so you find out that your records are in his congregation.

June: Upon finding that out, I just set up a meeting with the bishop because I figure,

Anne: Oh, he’s my bishop, right? This is my congregation. Yeah, he’s my bishop now.

June: Yes. I set up a meeting, I went and talked to him. I brought up the misuse and misappropriation of fast offerings, which are tithes in a way. It’s like a collection plate in another church or another religion. I brought this up to the bishop.

Meeting With Clergy About Divorcing A Narcissist

I told him I have documentation of the discretionary spending that the church would not approve of. Why is a man that is making $300,000 a year receiving this assistance when I know for a fact that we have people living in dire poverty in the congregation. We met for about an hour. The bishop listened to me.

He stated that he doesn’t know when this started, but that he did make a couple of payments for my husband. He did not verify any of this because he felt like there was a need and he just took him at face value. I also talked to him about the history and the abuse, the betrayal, the trauma, the assault, all of those things. And he was very gracious to listen and we had a very, very good discussion.

I felt very, very hopeful after meeting with him. We talked about how to deal with some of these behaviors of my husband and if this bishop had any interest in doing that because it was never dealt with.

Anne: You mean like a church court or holding boundaries or some things like that?

June: Yes, but now that I’m in the ward and my children’s records are in the ward, how to navigate that situation,

Anne: Especially if you have a protective order.

June: I did., yes. He said he really didn’t know anything about the situation or anything like that. He said that he was more interested in current things that were happening, current abuse. So I described some situations and post-separation abuse, post-divorce abuse is a lot harder to really identify. It can just look like someone just being a jerk to the other parent. Describing what it’s like while divorcing a narcissist is difficult.

Protective Orders & Church Policies While Divorcing A Narcissist

I did describe situations of my husband swearing at me at drop off in exchange, purposely keeping the kids from talking to me. Situations that I would say are very much in this gray area that one or two things by themselves don’t really do anything. I said, I’ve been living this for over two years and I can tell you it’s just repeated abuse. It’s just in a different form. It was very interesting to hear his take on that.

I asked him what kind of training he received for dealing with abuse and trauma. He said that he has the spirit and that’s the training.

Anne: Yeah. Oh my gosh. Because narcissists seem like they’re telling the truth and so it unquote feels right. Yes.

June: I tried to gently push back on that a little, and I just said, okay, but you realize that when you gave him this money, you would’ve had that same discernment, the spirit and it didn’t work right. You understand that, and I could see the wheels were turning. I could see that he was thinking about that. I also took in the policy on abuse.

The church has come out with a policy, I think it was in March of 2018, and it’s very, very clear. There’s a very clear directive that abuse is not to be tolerated. That people who come reporting abuse in any form should be believed and that false accusations are just not the norm. In fact, they are very, very rare. And so I really came with that policy in hand

Conversations About Repentance & Church’s Role

Anne: Before you go on, the false accusations are usually from the abuser, right? The abuser is usually saying, I was abused.

June: I could refer to it at different points in our conversation. I said, now that I’m reporting this, is it your intention to look into this and to handle it in a way that is conducive with the church’s own policy? Again, I felt like he probably had good intentions, but he said, well, yes, I’ll bring him in here and I’ll talk to him. Every story has two sides.

Anne: The abuser is never going to be like, oh yeah, I was the abuser. And then he is going to say, okay, then let’s go forward with the policy. If the abuser goes in and says, no, that’s not what happened. She’s the abuser. Then they’re just left confused and they’re like, well, I don’t know what to do and I don’t know what this policy means now,

June: And this is where I feel like the behaviors of my husband and the acting really come into play.

Anne: You mean his hypocritical slash, I’m the victim slash, I’m a good guy stuff.

June: Yes. I described this actually for the bishop, I said, I was married to this person for over a decade. This always goes the same way. I said, he will come in here and he will say, I’m so sorry, I just feel so horrible and I’m just damaged. I said, then he will start crying, and my husband is a very big guy. To see a grown man cry is shocking. Because it is so shocking, we think, oh my gosh, this is so shocking.

Telling Clergy About Husband’s Narcissism

He must be in complete and utter turmoil. Then because we’re distracted in our thinking and not centering on the subject matter of what we wanted to talk to him about, it kind of gets swept under the rug, and that’s that. I said, I’ve seen him do this so many times

Anne: He also starts blaming you and telling him how abusive you were and all the bad things you did, but if you haven’t listened, she ended up with a night in jail. So I’m sure then he pulls that out. She went to jail. Because he has covert narcissist traits.

June (00:21:35): That I kidnapped the kids. Remember the arrest has now been expunged, and so legally I do not have to say that I have been arrested anymore, but usually to build my credibility, I’m very upfront with that. There’s not a lot of shame there for me at all anymore. So I really did tell the bishop that I was very concerned because not only does he come in here and act like this, but he’s also looking like it.

He looks disheveled and remember people are telling me he doesn’t look so good. I said, everything that you’re seeing and that you’re hearing will be telling you that, oh yeah, maybe he does have a plausible story. Maybe this is the truth. That is what I think is so harmful about this situation in particular, is that he is using his own unhealthiness as a means to be able to prove his story.

Advising Clergy To Ask Victim About Repentance

That he is so despondent and just in despair at what has happened when that is not the truth. I was very clear also, I told the bishop, I will be the first person to know of true repentance by my husband. I will be the first person to see it, I will be able to see and clearly be able to identify change behavior.

Anne: If you want to know if someone’s repented, ask the victim.

June: Yes. I got into a really important discussion with him about that, and I’m so glad that I did because I asked him, how do you assess for repentance? How do you assess change in behavior? Do you ask the victim? Do you ask the person that it was directed to? He said, well, yeah, of course we would.

Anne: But you’re like, but they never have have with me.

June: Exactly.

Anne: From all the women in our community. I can’t remember one of them being asked when they’re still married and they’re both in the same congregation. If they’re in a separate congregation, they don’t call the victim.

June: Exactly. I had a really important discussion with him about that. I also said that at one point in the marriage with a previous bishop, this was a completely different bishop that my husband had admitted to infidelity and that we had gone to the bishop. We were trying to work through it. This was sort of at the codependent phase of my process

Anne: When you were doing the codependent stuff.

June: I was doing the codependent thing with my husband and really trying to connect, thinking the more that we could connect, the less that he would have these behaviors.

Anger & Its Legitimacy In Divorcing A Narcissist

Anne: The more you attach to your abuser, the less he would abuse you during that stage.

June: We did go to the bishop several years ago, and this bishop actually did call him to a church disciplinary council, and it was very small. It was just talking to a few of the leaders about the nature of the harm that was done. At the time this bishop said, I would invite you to come, but I feel that you’re just too upset and too angry, and there is no place for that there.

Anne: What? There’s no place for the victim to tell her experience.

June: Yes, there’s no place for your anger within the council because it’s a council of love and we want to be able to feel the spirit.

Anne: Oh, you don’t have any right to be angry and your anger is unjustified basically. This is so crazy.

June: I didn’t end up going at all. Like I said, this was several years ago. I didn’t end up going. I relied solely on my husband to tell me what the outcome of that particular event was. He said that the brethren had prayed about it and everyone had the spiritual experience that he was changed and that there was to repentance. I still kind of wonder what actually happened.

Anne: Yeah, you don’t know what went down.

June: I don’t know. I told my current bishop that I felt like that was harmful. The more that I’ve proceeded and progressed in my own healing, the more that I have recognized anger is such a healthy thing.

Understanding Divorcing A Narcissist Issues

Anne: Is totally normal. How else would you be?

June: Exactly. It’s completely normal. And I said it even kept me safe. It kept me safe from being with this person intimately, emotionally, physically, spiritually. It kept me safe at that time, and that is the only thing that kept me safe.

Anne: Yeah, because you sure weren’t doing it.

June: Exactly. Like I said, I didn’t realize it at the time because I was in this codependent model of therapy.

Anne: We’ve all been there.

June: I told this current bishop that the anger that I was labeled with and that being harmful was really, really nothing compared to the harm that I had suffered. In my marital vows being betrayed and in putting my unborn child at risk. I was 37 weeks pregnant at the time that my husband was intimate with another person, all of these lies, deceptions, betrayals and, of course, I would be angry.

Of course, I would be so upset and distraught and everything else. We had another discussion about legitimate anger and I said, I don’t see anger as a bad emotion. No emotion is bad. They just have different purposes and different meanings.

Anne: Well, and it also depends on what caused it. If your abusive perceptions of the woman who should make the meal are causing your anger. Then she doesn’t make the meal and that’s why you’re getting mad. The abusive perceptions are what’s causing the anger rather than healthy perceptions.

I think it also depends on if your perceptions are coming from a healthy place or if your perceptions are coming from an entitled, objectification, power, control, and manipulation place too.

Discussion Of Legitimacy Of Anger In Divorce

June: If they come from that place, that means that is abuse. I would say the abuser who’s angry because he’s entitled to a hot meal and the wife didn’t get it together that day and he flies off the handle, that’s abuse. That is past the point of anger into abuse.

Anne: For people who don’t know about abuse, they think, well, they’re both angry. They don’t recognize the difference between the two. Yeah,

June: Exactly. We had another really important discussion of that mechanism of abuse and violence really, and betrayal trauma. I took the time to educate him a little bit on betrayal, trauma on how women feel in this situation and how devastating it is and how expendable if felt.

When the betrayals reached a point for me that my boundary was divorce and separation. Not to mention I was unsafe, I was assaulted and that was just a boundary for me that I had to do what I did. I tried to explain that to him, I felt like it was eye opening. I felt like it was a good conversation.

Anne: It was eye opening for you or him?

June: I felt like it was eye opening for him. I had this conversation about a week ago. It’s difficult to describe what it’s like divorcing a narcissist

Anne: It’s been a week, but my guess is that over time he’ll ponder it and he’ll either move closer to the truth and he’ll get softer toward you and more protective of you, and he’ll set more boundaries around him. Or he’ll get farther away from the truth, start treating you worse and start treating the abuser better. It’s going to go one way or the other.

Church’s Financial Assistance Policies

The more he ponders it, he’s either going to start making excuses for the falsities and dig himself deeper that way, or he’s going to get better. Only time will tell.

June: Exactly. He did say that it’s very clear that he needs to speak with my husband, and he said it’s clear that he does not feel like giving him any more assistance would be appropriate without verifying and looking at his financials closer. It’s hard because in our particular religion, we have these donations set up for the needs of people, and I was always very happy to tithe and to give extra to help meet these needs.

I was under the impression that there was kind of a requirement for this to be temporary, to help people in emergency situations, you get employment somewhere else, take a second job or something like that.

Anne: Or in long-term situations with a widow for example, you would be a good candidate for a long-term situation. You’re a single mom of four. I would be a good candidate. Widows would be good candidates. It’s not that it’s always going to be short-term. There are going to be cases where it’s appropriate to have long-term help, but he’s not one of those guys.

He’s not disabled, he’s not a widow, he’s not mentally or physically disabled except for with his narcissism. He’s a doctor.

Most Painful Time Of Divorcing A Narcissist

June: Exactly. Conversely, when you compare this to the time in our separation that I was so destitute because he had paid nothing in support for almost five months. I had gone to the bishop and asked for a couple of food orders, which the church has a really great welfare program for food where they deliver food to people in local congregations.

I had asked for a couple of orders until wage garnishment could go through, and the Bishop gave me a couple of orders for me and the kids. Then all of a sudden cut me off completely and said, you don’t need this anymore. I’m not giving it to you anymore. I still hadn’t received any child support checks. I still hadn’t received any sort of support. The despair that I felt at that time when that happened is still so painful.

It is still one of the most painful feelings that I could describe. I didn’t survive because the church helped me. I survived in spite of them not helping me. That has hurt me for years.

Anne: When they’re simultaneously helping your abuser.

June: Yes.

Anne: Obviously not cutting him off.

June: No, I tried to blow the whistle in my local congregation. At the same time I was doing this, I had also called church headquarters, got the name of someone that I could speak to in the auditing department, and I shared my story with them. They were horrified about my story.

Anne: That’s great news.

Don’t Know Ultimate Result Of Speaking Up

June: It is great news. They did say that they’ve had problems in this area before that they would see about investigating it. It seems like I really kept running into these brick walls. And on top of that, it was everyone that I spoke to or had the chance to speak with, were men. They had never been in this situation.

Anne: I want to tell a story here because you don’t know what the fruits of this will be. When I was a teacher, there was something that went down that was not right. I wrote the superintendent. I just wrote a really short email and said, Hey, this is going down. It’s not cool. I didn’t hear anything for probably six months.

Then all of a sudden this superintendent showed up and had a meeting at our school with all of the teachers, and I was the facilitator of that meeting. I was the one who had brought it up in the first place. I had all of the teachers testify of what had happened. A couple of people resigned because of the email and because of what I did. I didn’t really see it immediately.

A lot of women call somebody, they write somebody, they go to a meeting, they speak up and the person just looks at ’em weird and they’re like, that didn’t go well.

You don’t know what the long-term effects of that will be. It might not be that someone resigns or that someone gets fired. It might not be that big, who knows? I don’t want this glazed over look that we get from male leadership, clergy, pastors, therapists, whoever it is to stop us from speaking unless we go in and have these meetings.

Returning To Church As A Divorcing Woman

Even though my guess is you were pretty terrified after all of the abuse that you’ve been through with clergy. I’m so proud of you and I want to encourage women. Our safety’s on the line, our emotional safety, our reputation. People call us crazy. People call us man haters. We need to keep speaking up. We will never know the extent of influence that we have.

June: More than ever, I feel so strong about that. It is easy to get discouraged. It is very easy to say, well, they listened to me. They didn’t take action right away. That just means that they’re never going to,

Anne: I don’t think that’s true. If enough of us went in and spoke, they would take action eventually. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next year. But if every woman who has been through this in every church or in every paradigm or with every single therapist spoke up, we could change the world.

June: Yes. So after this all happened, I also made the decision to just start attending this congregation and it kind of came out of the blue today. I had someone invite me and I trusted this person and sat by her and I went, and I could not have had a more positive experience when I went to church today.

Anne: For our listeners. She has been avoiding church.

June: For years, for over two years..

Anne: In our church, if you don’t go, it’s sort of like you’re the guilty one. See, she’s the problem because she’s not coming to church. Victims are labeled with that all the time.

Positive Experience With Church Members

June: Since this happened, I’ve definitely dealt with my share of flying monkeys in the congregation, and that’s a term where people do the bidding and the dirty work of the narcissists by spreading rumors and lies and gossip. Let me tell you, all those people were there. I have done a lot of work. I’ve gone to the BTR groups, I’ve done guided meditation and I have done all of this work on healing.

I’ve read books today. I can say that I went there and I was really strong and felt for the most part, unaffected emotionally. I felt that my boundaries were my boundaries and that those people and what they say or what they think really didn’t have to affect me. And I do not for one second want to make it seem that we have a choice all the time for these things not to affect us.

I am saying that healing takes time and that healing can happen. You can get to a place where it will be okay. It will be okay for you. Actually, my husband’s affair partner was also in the ward.

Anne: Also your really good friend before he had an affair with her.

June: Yes. My really good friend who was also in the ward, it was her mother who was teaching one of the lessons today. I was like, oh my goodness, what are the chances? But it was a wonderful lesson. It was on mental health challenges and the stigmatization that doesn’t need to happen. She taught the lesson. It was fantastic. I added some things because I work in the area of mental health.

Verified Lies & Affair While Divorcing A Narcissist

We got to talking and she didn’t know who I was and she wanted to know who I was. In the parking lot afterwards, I told her who I was.

Anne: She’s probably heard horrific stories about you. She just didn’t know you were the one that she had heard these horrific stories about.

June: Yes. I just said to her, I believe that your daughter and my husband had an affair. I said, I don’t want you to feel any way about it. I’m just telling you that I’m the wife. She said that she was very aware that they had a relationship and she didn’t know that he was still married. We kind of became friends and talked about our similar career interests.

There is no way I could have had a conversation like that two years ago when this was fresh. There is no possible way. Today I had a conversation. It was a very difficult conversation with someone that I would’ve never dreamed I could have a conversation with before. It’s a lot like the conversation that I had with the bishop.

I would’ve never dreamed I could have such an impactful and pleasant and peaceful conversation while saying exactly what I needed to say.

Anne: This is also a testament to being away from your abuser for years, that you’re talking about it. You didn’t have as many boundaries. The manipulation and fog that they can create is really dark. The longer you set the boundaries for safety, emotional, physical, psychological, sexual safety. The longer you set those, not only do you get more and more out of the fog, so do other people.

Setting Boundaries For Narcissistic Behaviors & Results

June: Yes. And I feel that that has really been also a roadmap to trying to co-parent with a narcissist. We are still having major issues, major issues and issues where the kids’ safety has even been a concern. Issues of abusive things going on.

The more that I am in these situations and the more that I just do not react and just set those boundaries, set the boundaries for safety, the more that I find it not affecting me as much. Now it’s hard because I do see some of this affecting the children, and that is a big challenge. It breaks my heart.

They will use the children to hurt you when they can’t hurt you directly anymore. I feel that that is what is happening, that is horrifying. It’s horrifying.

Anne: It is. Yeah. Well, and the boundaries you have to set are really rough too. For example, I set a boundary that my children go out in the clothes that they came in with. The reason I set that boundary is because he was stealing my clothes. I would send them out in nice clothes and he would send them back in hand me down rags from his family.

I asked repeatedly, please send them back in the clothes I sent them out with. And he said, it’s impossible. He was like, well, you wash their clothes. He just did all these things. Finally, I just said, okay, I’ll send them back in the clothes you send them in. I saved some of his clothes from when they came back in their rags. One day I sent them out in his rags, and we’ve been doing that ever since.

Discussing Boundaries While Divorcing A Narcissist

It breaks my heart. My children do not want to put those rags on, and I don’t want to send them out of the house like that, but that is the boundary. I said, you guys, I’m so sorry. Your dad’s choices hurt everyone. They hurt me. They hurt you. I am sorry that you don’t have snow boots when you go to his house. That’s his job and I’m divorced from him. The challenges of divorcing a narcissist are immense.

I don’t need to babysit him anymore or make sure that your needs are met when it’s his job to take care of you. It’s so hard to make those choices. I don’t think that women can start making these boundaries unless they have a lot of support.

When I say support, I mean someone who understands this type of abuse to help them set the boundaries, because otherwise, that type of boundary seems really hard. I seem like I’m this awful, terrible person who’s sending my kids out in rags, and I had to make that decision based on assessing my values, assessing the consequences of his behavior to his own children.

Do you think you could have set the boundaries that you set without The BTR Community without Betrayal Trauma Recovery?

June: Definitely not. When I first started learning about boundaries, it was a foreign concept to me. I was never taught this growing up or my faith. I was never taught this in college even. It has really been a learning process. When I started learning about boundaries, I inevitably made mistakes along the way as everyone does.

Support From BTR Group Sessions While Divorcing A Narcissist

Anne: How did The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Community help you progress in your knowledge and your application of those boundaries?

June: I could come with a scenario. I could come with a real life problem and be directed into what my values were, what my boundaries should be around those values. What that ultimately looks like in practice and being supported, being supported in whatever boundary I chose. That was my boundary and I was going to be supported in that, and I knew I had backup, and that was huge.

Anne: The other thing that’s so hard about boundaries is, let me read you this quote I just saw. So this is a line from ancient Sanskrit scripture. It says, you are only entitled to the action, never to its fruits, which I think is really good. That’s how boundaries are. And that’s why people are so afraid to set them, because you set a boundary and you have no idea what the consequences are going to be.

You just have to know that what I’m doing is for my safety, and this is what feels right now. You can always adjust, I set that boundary and maybe that wasn’t the right thing to do. Next time I’ll do it differently. Right? Like you said, you’re going to make some mistakes. Things will need to adjust. My boundary that I set, I didn’t want to get divorced.

Difficulty Communicating With A Liar

I didn’t think divorce was going to be where that led, I needed no contact. I cannot have any semblance of communication with this person without him lying to me, manipulating me, trying to pull one over on me, nothing. There can be no communication without that. I didn’t know what the consequences would be. Some women set a boundary and their husband thinks, wow, I’ve been abusive.

I’m sorry. We don’t know what the consequences are going to be. That is one thing that you need support for. You need support to know, even though this could lead to something awful or good. We have no idea, if we focus on the now and the safety in the moment, then it will always lead us down the right path.

June: Exactly. Boundaries can change. When I first started in this process of going through litigation for custody it is expected that we co-parent and communicate. I took what that judge said very seriously. I would write detailed email updates every month with the kid’s appointments, how they were doing with pictures, all of these things to him and do it very quickly.

This last court date, I found out that he used a lot of that against me. A lot of it was sadly very, very sadly used against me. This judge didn’t really care about that so much. He actually made a comment that these people are divorced. They’re not going to co-parent, who cares. While I am totally and willingly invested in co-parenting with a healthy person, I doubt very much that that can happen when divorcing a narcissist.

Now I’m left renegotiating, alright, where does this leave me as far as communication and how much do I want to have?

The BTR Living Free Workshop Helped

Anne: Yeah. The BTR Living Free Workshop teaches these tools and the phrases to use to ensure that the communication is safe and is leading towards safety. We found that these tools work whether or not you’re married or divorced or separated, these tools work no matter what stage you’re in.

June: My emails to him are short, to the point, unemotional, straightforward and full of facts. That’s it, nothing else. Nothing else needs to be there. My communication is polite but brief. It is the communication that I would have with someone like a boss or a coworker or something like that.

Anne: The reason why I love having women from our community on the podcast is because everyone can benefit from hearing other women’s stories. As you listen, if you relate and you would like to come on the podcast and share your story, please email us at podcast@btr.org.

June: It’s very, very important. I can not stress this enough. It is so important for women in this situation to do research on divorcing a narcissist. A lot of these guys that have porn issues and infidelity issues, have narcissistic issues as well. You do not see that until, I often say, I was married. I could manage this behavior. I could manage him a little bit because I kind of knew how to work around these things.

Anne: I’d say the same of me managing it. Yeah.

Abuse Escalation While Divorcing A Narcissist

June: Yes. A friend told me when I was being severely abused every day, verbally abused, emotionally abused, spiritually abused. She was aware of the situation. She even said to me, just make sure what is in your future because it can and it will get worse. At the time, I thought, there’s nothing that could be worse than going through this constant and daily abuse every single day.

I felt like I was losing my mind, I didn’t know which end was up, I didn’t know reality. I had such a fog, fear, obligation, and guilt I was really, really just not a healthy person. Now I begin to see what she was talking about. Yes, the abuse is worse because now it is directed towards my children. Now it is directed within the community. Now it is directed in different ways that are so much harder to prove.

It’s like if you went into court, do you think a judge is really going to care that he sends your kids in rags?

Anne: No.

June: I mean, the judge that I went to, he would say, get out of here,

Anne: Or Why are you so judgy? Or whatever. That’s not the thing that I think is abusive. The abusive thing is stealing my clothes, not respecting anyone’s time and all those things. He has plenty of money. He could buy him boots or whatever, but he doesn’t.

Manipulation Of Proceedings When Divorcing A Narcissist

June: Right. And the thing is that I feel like a lot of the family court professionals, judges, things like that, have really been desensitized. They hear horrific cases of abuse. When a dad can’t get the kids somewhere on time or can’t return their clothes, it just does not register with them as the abuse that it is. It is abuse because we feel it. We know that.

I think these things are purposeful because he knows no one’s going to care. He knows I care because I can’t afford to go out and buy a new coat every time that he forgets to return theirs.

Anne: Exactly. Yeah. Well, you’ve got a doctor for an ex or soon to be ex, I have an attorney.

June: Yes

Anne: They know what they can and cannot do. And so they go right up to that line and they don’t cross it.

June: Yes. And going back to your original point, that is very much within their realm and their playbook of abuse and narcissism. They know what they’re doing and they not only know, but they exploit that in a way that sometimes is unbelievable. It’s unbelievable. Yeah, I do feel like things have gotten worse, this is what happens when divorcing a narcissist.

I have spent probably close to a hundred thousand dollars trying to get divorced. I’m still not divorced. That is the reality of divorcing a narcissist. That is the reality.

Anne: That’s financial abuse.

Escalation Of Abuse In Divorce Proceedings

June: It is financial abuse. It’s legal abuse. It’s everything. Things are worse. The difference is that now I’m not in that constant state of abuse in my own home. I can deal with this other abuse. Now I feel like I can function. I am a functional adult. I’m not only surviving, but I am thriving despite all of this other abuse. It’s horrible, horrible abuse still, but I’m able to handle it.

Anne: So you’re not finished with your divorce yet, but do you have some tips for our listeners? I want you to start way back with even listeners who are not thinking that divorce is in their future. Even listeners who are thinking, No, he seems to be understanding what I’m saying. He seems to be getting better because you and I both went through a phase where we thought, oh, things are getting better. He understands.

I’m not saying that listeners who are in that phase are going to get to the divorce phase. Maybe he will continue to improve, and if so, both June and I are very happy for you. That’s great. We wish that would’ve happened for us and it didn’t. Let’s start there. Even for women in that phase, what tips do you have about what is coming, what to expect and things that you wish that you would’ve known?

June: It would’ve been very helpful for me to know that really the natural progression of these cases when they are taken to court. If a dad goes back and asks for more time, whatever. Any information about divorcing a narcissist would be helpful. The court will oftentimes just give him a little bit more time. Like I said, my situation was that there has been all this bad behavior.

Narcissistic Husband’s Lying in Court

Surely he won’t be rewarded with a big change. He wasn’t rewarded with a huge change, but it was enough of a change that he could exploit the lack of boundaries, like I said, and now that’s what we have. Now that’s what I’m going to deal with. Be prepared for them to paint a picture of you that is literally unrecognizable.

He lied about many, many things. He said all of these things about me not caring for the kids or the kids being dirty and all of this other nonsense.

That’s very hard. It’s very hard when I feel like so many times I have literally been the bigger person. I have invited him to the kids’ events, made sure to save a seat for him and been very aware and doing the emotional labor to include him in those things. To have that used against me is horrible. It feels horrible. It’s a betrayal on its own.

After this last court date, like I said, I was in shock. I was in some trauma because I know what boundaries, the lack of boundaries would do to my husband in this situation. It’s only going to get worse. That was very hard. If I had expected that a little bit more, I think it would’ve been maybe a little bit easier. You talked to me right afterwards and I was pretty distraught. Now I’m feeling okay about it.

Divorcing A Narcissist: Documentation In Preparation For Future

I feel like I’ve gotten some good coping skills and that documentation is going to be huge. So the other thing that I learned is that documentation is key. It is paramount. You have got to document everything. That can be a challenge sometimes. One thing that I’ve learned that has helped me immensely wherever I am is I use the BTR boundary log.

Anne: The boundary log is a log that is available to women who have taken The Living Free Workshop that teaches all of these strategies about how to think about it, how to set boundaries, and how to communicate. The boundary isn’t just an independent book that you would buy, it’s for you specifically for women who have enrolled in The Living Free Workshop.

June: Yes, that has been great. Anytime there is some kind of an issue, the kid’s not getting somewhere on time, an offhanded comment, him swearing at me, him forgetting to return one of the kids’ items and refusing to go get it. I just write that down and that is my log. The way that you document your evidence is very, very important. Keeping a timeline of those things in real time is huge.

Another thing that I’ve learned is that I think that a lot of times the narcissistic ex is really in the mindset of winning. This is about winning for him. I don’t think that he really wants the kids asking for 50/50, and mind you, he hasn’t gotten it. He keeps asking, acting like he wants it. I think that this is about winning for him. It’s not that he actually wants to have the kids but that he wants the appearance of wanting the kids.

Husband’s Public Persona Backfires

On dating sites, it says that he has them 50/50. Sometimes I think that you can use that to your advantage. I am aware of a woman who allowed her ex to say that he had 50/50 when in reality it wasn’t, and he didn’t actually want it. He just wanted to be able to say that.

June: However you can make that and use that to your benefit, I think is important.

Anne: Before you move on, I want to stress that you might get really upset in court about things like, oh, they’re saying this thing and I don’t want that thing to happen. The reality is once that paper is signed and the divorce decree is done, what happens may be very different. You might think, oh, okay, I got everything that I wanted, or I didn’t get anything that I wanted, or whatever it is.

In reality, it might not even function like that. Just note that what they really want is the appearance of things. If they’re saying things, but it’s really not affecting the way you and your kids live, oh, for heaven’s sake, let them say it. That’s a type of battle that’s not worth fighting. This is like win-win because they get to live their lie and you get to get away.

June: Yeah, that’s exactly right. Part of me thinks that once we get the divorce finalized, divide the property and everything. Maybe things will calm down a little bit. I’ve often said I can deal with whatever crazy schedule we have, whatever he is going to do to me for the amount of time that he gets the kids every month, then fine. Most of the time I am peaceful, and that’s everything.

Build Community Support For Divorcing A Narcissist

That’s another tip that I want to share, please build your community and engage in your self-care and get to know the ropes. I can’t stress that enough. If I had the choice not to go through the court system, I would do that because this has been traumatizing. It is awful. It makes you feel victimized again and again and again. I feel like the narcissist. Really press on that.

Anne: The court system tends to work better for them than it does for the victims, and mostly because the victims are telling the truth and they’re willing to lie about anything.

June: Sometimes I find myself almost shocked at the stuff they would lie about. It’s almost so obvious that you don’t think they would lie about it. You will be shocked at what it’s like divorcing a narcissist. You don’t think that you’re going to have to prove it wrong. I mean, why would you ever think that you had to prove reality? Well, with a narcissist, you do.

Anne: If you can get away with not proving it by not getting in the argument about reality in the first place, that’s the best case scenario. There’s no way they’re ever going to say, oh yeah, you presented all these facts. Okay, good point. That’s never going to happen.

June: Now that we’re done with custody, I have asked my husband if it is possible at all for us to just reach a settlement in terms of the divorce and property. I filed on grounds and in my state grounds go to fault. I did file a fault divorce as opposed to a no-fault divorce. A fault divorce, if proven, can influence equitable division of property at this point.

Husband’s Sabotaging Himself

Now that it’s been two years, I am more than willing to forego that whole process and move on with my life. Not having to go through all of that to be able to prove grounds and establish grounds and fault. I asked him recently if he wanted to come to a settlement. We don’t have that many things to divide up.

I can’t imagine why we couldn’t come to some sort of reasonable agreement, which is what the courts would do anyway, really divide everything.

He told me, no, I intend to go through the courts for this. The reason is beyond me, and I’m still trying to figure that out. When we start digging into affairs, adultery, abuse, cruelty, when we start digging, we will deposition people. That’ll be people from church, people from his old workplace, people from the community. I imagine that that will bring up things that he probably does not want to see the light of day.

I cannot, for the life of me understand it, I sat here and I tried for about a week to figure out what he is thinking and why on earth he would be doing this, wanting to do that. Doesn’t he realize what’s at stake? Well, I finally figured that because to him, he feels so entitled and because to him, he has really gotten rewarded for lying.

He came into court and told completely falsified story. He really hasn’t felt the consequences of that. I almost feel that his response was also a peek into how delusional his thinking is and how entitled and untouchable he really feels.

No Longer Afraid Of Narcissistic Husband

He has not felt the consequences of his actions. I feel that his response was really indicative of that, that he doesn’t think there will be any consequences.

Anne: Do you think there will be? Are you more hopeful about him having the consequences of the property settlement? Or are you, after what you’ve been through, thinking oh my gosh it’s going to go bad too. Well, it can’t go bad because the worst thing that can happen is they divide everything up equally. He’s willing to spend a ton of money to try and avoid the inevitable, really.

June: Exactly. Let me just cut my losses and get out of this. I don’t want to have to go through depositions. Do you think I want to sit here and go through all of these women? I have no desire to do that, but because now I can kind of see the writing on the wall and I can say, okay, I guess if this is what you’re going to want to do, that’s what we’re going to be doing.

It’s kind of a bluff game. I think for him it is well, I’m going to make her so scared that I’m going to actually do this. In my case, I don’t have anything to be scared about. I feel like that’s a very interesting point, I feel that never, never underestimate reasoning with them. I thought for sure that we would be able to reason and reach a settlement especially when he has things like this at stake.

While divorcing a narcissist their entitlement gets in the way of their self-preservation, if that makes sense.

Hope For The Future After Divorcing A Narcissist

Anne: Yeah, I agree. And they just make really, really poor choices. Wow. Well, we’ll see how it goes. It’ll be interesting to see over the years, especially with our ex’s because we have very similar ones. They’re both very professional. They’re both supposedly active in church. They both show up in the white shirt and tie kind of thing. It’ll be interesting to see over time the consequences that happen.

The good news is, even if we don’t worry about them at all, which is hard because they’re still dealing with our kids. June and I are getting exponentially stronger and more and more firm in our boundaries. The safety in our homes is increasing and we’re healing more and more. We’re finding more peace and safety in our lives. That’s exciting. Any woman can find that even if your ex is not as horrific.

Even if you’re considering whether or not you need to set boundaries with your current husband.

Even if they’re not showing these types of horrific behaviors, you still get to decide, how am I going to think about this? What boundaries do I need to set? How am I going to communicate? All the information that you need to know in order to make really good decisions is in The BTR Living Free Workshop that can take you through these strategies.

This interview was actually years ago, and I’m talking about it now after getting to safety. When I did this interview, I was not completely safe like I am now, but now I’m a hundred percent safe and I use the strategies in The Living Free Workshop.

Too often, we expect abuse victims to look a certain way: downtrodden, economically-dependent, and submissive. But that’s not true. Abuse is exploitative in nature. What do emotional abusers look for in their victims? Strength and ability, here’s why.

If you relate to this episode and wonder if you’re experiencing emotional abuse, take this free emotional abuse quiz.

Leslie, a successful doctor with multiple degrees, a victim of her ex-husband’s horrific abuse – shares her story.

Here’s What Do Emotional Abusers Look For In Their Victims: Financial Resources

Financially independent women may have difficulty accepting they are being abused. Because they are well-educated and respected in the workplace. The discrepancy with the way their abusive husband treats them at home may cause them to question reality. And create a disconnect in their ability to identify as a victim.

Interestingly, financial abuse is a very sad reality for women who are breadwinners in their families. This form of financial abuse may occur when the abuser:

• Refuses to work and/or contribute to family expenses.
• Uses the victim’s earnings to fund extravagant expenses and/or abusive expenses (dating apps, pornography, drugs, alcohol, etc).
• Takes the victim’s paychecks and diverts them to his account.
• Demands a portion of the victim’s paycheck and refuses to account for where the money goes.
• Attempts to sabotage the victim’s career.
• Promises to earn an income, but either cannot hold down a job or doesn’t try to secure a job.
• Forces the victim to be the breadwinner, then makes her feel guilty for doing so.
• Places an expectation that all expenses are the responsibility of the victim.
• Is constantly resetting the time horizon as to when the financially playing field will be leveled.
• Refuses to contribute to daily household tasks while the victim works to support the family.

But I Thought I Was Smart”

Many victims berate themselves for “allowing” abuse.

They say things like:

• “But I thought I was smart!”
• “How could I be so stupid?!”
• “I don’t look like an abuse victim.”
• “Resources for abuse victims go to them – I should get myself out of this.”
• “I was stupid enough to get into this, I need to get myself out of this.”

Victims who have the capacity to earn a living can be extremely hard on themselves.

If you have experienced financial success, you are just as valid as any other victim of abuse – you deserve safety. You are entitled to every resource available to victims.

Transcript: What Do Emotional Abusers Look For In Their Victims?

Anne: I have a member of our community on today’s episode. Leslie is a successful doctor caught in the throes of a horrendously abusive relationship. All of our listeners get that. One of the purposes of having her on the podcast today is to talk about how abuse does not discriminate, and how difficult it can be for even successful or well spoken women, and all of you are like that.

Maybe we didn’t recognize it because we didn’t identify as victims, but also no one else would identify us as a victim. And so we want to dig into that today: What do emotional abusers look for in their victims? So welcome Leslie.

Leslie: Thank you. Thank you for having me on. I hope my story can help others. There were many dark times that I never thought I would get to the other side, but here I am. Not only surviving, I am thriving.

Anne: Like you, now that I’m thriving, the podcast sounds so much different than it did when I started. So if those of you who are listening. If it’s a little difficult or you’re like, don’t talk to me about the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m never going to feel good. My life is over, Leslie and I have been there. I just want to acknowledge that many of our listeners will be like, oh, I don’t want to hear that. That’s not possible for me.

Leslie: I agree. I lost myself so much within that whole abusive relationship, it was hard to think that I could ever climb out.

Recognizing Red Flags

Leslie: Then I joined the BTR.ORG Group Sessions and listened to the stories told. They’re all so similar, but different in their own ways. And then I saw women change things around. I greatly appreciate it.

Anne: So Leslie, let’s start at the beginning of your story. Did you recognize your husband’s abusive behaviors at first?

Leslie: He was my second husband. My first husband was my high school sweetheart. Unfortunately, we lost him. So I was at a very vulnerable time when I met my second husband. And I think he knew that. Maybe that’s part of what he was looking for in a victim. I think he used that to his advantage. He was a coworker with whom I worked a few years before that, just kind of an acquaintance. We connected on Facebook, and of course, he came in on his white horse and shining armor.

And when I look back now, can I see every single red flag? Yes, I can. However, in the throes of it, I used every excuse why those red flags were not red flags.

Anne: So at the time, were you also giving what you thought perhaps were valid reasons? Like maybe he had a traumatic childhood, or maybe this is new and we’re working on our communication skills. Only because you didn’t know it was abuse. My guess is, back then, had you been educated in abuse, you would have known what you were looking at. You just did not know what you didn’t know.

Leslie: Exactly, 110%.

https://youtu.be/QleyqobSRCQ He Hadn’t Ever Been Married

Leslie: He was six years younger than I was and hadn’t ever married. I had been married for 27 years, with three kids. So when we started talking, I kind of saw him as a person who was totally enmeshed in his family. My enmeshed husband’s life had been wallowed up by his family. I obviously, as a doctor, it’s my job to fix things. I see broken things and try to help.

He hadn’t been in stable relationships, because he had never met anyone like me. That was one of the wonderful lines that he always used, you know, and how everybody always cheated on him. Emotional abusers look for women who they can groom for their victims?

I just hooked on to all that hook line and sinker. So of course, it was my initiation to get married. He didn’t want to get married. I’m sure everybody has either watched or knows about The Maid. And I will tell you, it took me a long time to get through that series.

Anne: The Maid is a series on Netflix. I highly recommend it. It is triggery, especially depending on where you are in your healing process. But there are many super important principles that they bring up, and they cover all the basics.

Leslie: My friend recommended it to me. She said, “I probably shouldn’t have recommended it so soon.” I was still fresh, and it took me a long time to watch it, all those red flags that I didn’t see. I continued with the relationship. We were actually in therapy before we ever got married. My 18 year old daughter, there was one point where she was like, mom, what are you doing?

Struggles With Pornography Addiction: What Do Emotional Abusers Look For In Their Victims?

Leslie: I just couldn’t see it. So it was just one of those things where it became, you know, years of being pushed down. And then I was diagnosed with breast cancer. And I did get him into therapy, probably nine months into our relationship. Because he had never been in therapy in his entire life.

And he used those to check the boxes. It wasn’t until we got into a couples therapist that the relationship became even rockier, more abusive. He was more emotionally abusive, getting in your face. The one part I love in The Maid, the series, is when she says, but he’s never hit me.

When I listened to that, that hit me to my core because I said the same thing. Well, he’s never hit me. It’s not abuse. He’s never hit me. What do emotional abusers look for in their victims? You know, I’m strong, independent, I run two hospitals, I’ve got six degrees, I’m not being abused. I was the one researching everything, I was the one always trying to find answers.

The first time I caught him with exploiatative material was probably the first year we were together. He had probably over 50,000 pictures of naked women of all ages on his phone. Which ended up escalating into many other areas of, you know, finding him on dating websites and you name it.

Anne: So when you say of various ages, here at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, we use the term child abuse material because that’s what it is. So did you also find that on his phone?

Understanding Abuse & Addiction With Therapy

Leslie: They were young looking. Yes. And then actually that was his M. O. was younger women. Maybe that’s what he was looking for in his victims? And he actually later in my journey with him, when we kind of identified a potential addiction. But honestly, now that I’m at where I’m in my life and journey, I think he just went along with that diagnosis.

He went to an expensive inpatient treatment center for three weeks, and checked all his boxes. Because he knew that was the only way he could stay in, in the marriage. But yet, he continued to exhibit all the behaviors when he came out. He ended up getting fired from his job for harassment of a younger person, younger than 21.

Anne: Let’s talk about the addiction recovery. When you went down that road for a minute. Did anyone in that space or at that clinic tell you that you are an abuse victim? Was abuse brought up?

Leslie: I caught him in multiple online affairs. And we were at our last straw. We were seeing a couples counselor. The counselor goes, “I don’t understand what’s wrong with him.”

He keeps getting caught. He knows what he’s got to lose. The counselor said it’s almost like he has an addiction or something. And I go, well, is there such a thing as addiction? And of course, then I started researching everything with my analytical brain. We started going down that path. We did start with CSAT counselors, which stands for Certified Addiction Therapist.

He had one, I had one, he did end up doing one of the well known programs out in Los Angeles. Never said domestic violence, never said abuse.

Leslie’s Realization & Empowerment

Anne: Most of the time, you can’t have infidelity without emotional abuse and when people go down the addiction recovery route, they don’t hear the word abuse.

Leslie: Nope, I agree.

Anne: So, here at BTR.ORG, some people don’t agree with us, in fact many people don’t agree with us. You might not agree with us. Is exploitative material addictive? Sure, I prefer to define it as abusive behavior rather than an addiction.

Leslie: Yes

Anne: Because I think that gets to the heart of the matter. The whole addiction recovery complex does not view this man as an abuser. It concerns me greatly, because I do not think they’re addressing the correct thing.

Leslie: I 100 percent agree with that. The two CSAT counselors that we were working with, his and mine, were two different ones. Mine actually had been married to an abuser, and she divorced hers. The other one that my ex had seen, she had stayed with hers. It’s actually interesting to see the dynamic of what they brought to each of the therapy sessions.

Anne: Did she ever say, um, well, he’s checking boxes. That’s also called grooming. Did she ever bring that up?

Leslie: She didn’t, she said, the whole trauma bonding thing.

Anne: Can we talk about trauma bonding examples for a minute, Leslie?

Leslie: Sure.

Anne: I’m not sure if you’ve heard our episode about this. I made up a different term for it. Because I don’t like the word trauma bond, because it feels like you actually maybe have a bond. If trauma bond is useful to you, and it’s helped move you forward and get to safety, continue using it. I didn’t like it because it seemed like a lot of women, feel stuck, right?

What Do Emotional Abusers Look For In Their Victims? The Manufactured Relational Tether

Anne: They’re like, but I’m bonded to this person through this trauma. And so the term I invented, and we have a video on this that is amazing. So I’ll put that in this episode. So if you go to our website and find this episode, the video will be in there. I call it the manufactured relational tether. Actually, I think I’ve seen that.

The reason I call it is because you think you’re bonded to them, but they are not bonded to you. And they have manufactured this tether to keep you stuck. And that video clearly shows it. Do you remember that video? This is one of the ways emotional abusers keep their victims stuck.

Leslie: Yes, I do.

Anne: What did you think of it?

Leslie: I thought it was awesome, because I saw so many things. Like people who saw like our relationship from the start to the end. If they know now that we’ve divorced, they are just shocked. They’re like, Oh Mike, seemed like such an amazing person. He brought you flowers every day. I hate flowers now. Just an FYI to me, that is a huge trigger. Because when he would be trying to hook up with someone and get caught, guess what he did.

Brought me flowers or he was abusive that night. That’s what he did the next day, brought me flowers. So flowers to me are a huge trigger. But those are all the outside things they manufacture to everybody else. So nobody will believe your story. Nobody will believe, because they just see this “awesome person.” They don’t see what goes on behind closed doors. They don’t see the reactions.

The Turning Point: Breast Cancer

Leslie: The reason I brought up my breast cancer story was that when I first started to say, okay, I think this is not going to work. But then I found out I had breast cancer. I’ve got three grown children who don’t have their own father still alive. And I was like, and now I’m going to leave them motherless. I cannot fight him and fight for my life. So I decided that all would go on the back burner while I fought for my life.

I feel like that gave him a little more leeway to continue that whole, keeping me down more and more. And it wasn’t until after I’d been through the chemo, been through the double mastectomy. And had been through months and months of CSAT counseling, we had done a therapeutic separation. Once I got out of the situation, I woke up one morning and looked in the mirror.

And I just didn’t recognize the person looking back at me anymore. I was like, wow, you would never in a million years allow this ever, ever in your life. How are you allowing this now? And that was when I started to take my power back. That’s when I started the change of not necessarily working toward our reconciliation. But working more on focusing on myself and what I needed. And if that happened, then it happened. And if it didn’t, I was okay with that.

Anne: Let’s talk about the therapy disclosure. I think that is insane when you’re looking at abuse, right? In an ideal world, which never happens.

What Do Emotional Abusers Look For In Their Victims? Leslie’s Academic and Professional Achievements

Anne: It does happen here at BTR.ORG. That’s why I love BTR.ORG. It’s an amazing oasis of truth. But what should happen is the second you go in there, and it’s hard. Because it took you forever to figure out they were an abuser. So, why is a therapist smarter than you? They’re not, right? You, you have six degrees. Some emotional abusers look for very accomplished women to be their victims. By the way, can you just list your degrees real quick?

Leslie: So I have a bachelor’s in nursing. I have a master’s in nursing with family practice, and a master’s in nursing and neonatal. I have a doctorate, and I just went back for a neonatal fellowship that I just finished last year.

Anne: And you’re a medical doctor?

Leslie: Yep.

Anne: Okay. So you have your MD as well.

Leslie: Yes.

Anne: All right. And you run two hospitals. Okay, so Leslie is no dummy, people. So if you were like, why didn’t I see it? Why didn’t I know what was going on? And then Leslie is so smart that she starts researching things. And in this case, her research actually kept her in the abuse longer. Accidentally, right? It’s not your fault. But because it wasn’t abuse out of the gate, it’s like addiction, maybe childhood trauma, it’s some other things.

You go in and you’re given this, like, let’s do a therapeutic disclosure, or other things that a CSAT would tell you. If you went to church or when you went to church, how did he present in the, in a religious setting? A Catholic father raised me and a Baptist mother. So they never agreed on religion.

The Church & Misogyny

Leslie: So I found my religion and spirituality later in life. It was always funny to me that he would say how Catholic he was. He went to a Catholic high school. His family went to church every Sunday, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. All the lies, all the abuse, the stealing, things that he would do that were immoral. They just never added up to what a good Christian would do.

Anne: So my guess is that even though you didn’t go for help with the clergy route, many women do. Many of our listeners have tried to get help from clergy, their pastor, bishop or rabbi. They have gone to get help, and they are more abused in the process because the clergy does not know what they’re looking at. And they might be abusive themselves.

They might be steeped in misogyny. And also, they may like him. I think that’s probably the biggest problem, is they know the guy and think he’s a great guy. And so they are like, what are you talking about? Because many clergy respond well when they don’t know the man.

Like if they listen, they’re like, wow, that sounds abusive. How can we help? But if they know him, they believe him over you. So it’s good that you didn’t try to get help from clergy. Because my guess is that would have been traumatic. But let’s focus then on the trauma that came from therapy. From basically prolonging the abuse. When do you start realizing that being a supportive, helpful spouse is working against you?

Leslie: It was when I realized I had totally lost myself. I was not the person I was.

The Breaking Point

Leslie: I wouldn’t engage in activities. I wouldn’t go out with my friends anymore. There were so many things that gave me joy that I would not do anymore. Just because I just existed. I was the major breadwinner. He did not work. He couldn’t hold down a job. And my breaking point for the first time we separated was that we were actually in the car dealership getting him a new car. Because his lease was up.

And I looked over and he was actually on Tinder making a hookup. While we were in the car dealership, buying him a new car. He moved out, and that was a very explosive time. We tried to navigate through that, with our couples counselor.

Anne: Sorry, it’s interesting. The words you’re using, you’re using the word we. So he’s trying to like reassert control here, which is emotional abuse, which is why things are escalating. And we as a couple are not working on anything. But because your perspective is we, even now, talking about it. It’s really interesting that victims still may be looking back and thinking, well, we were trying. When that was never happening in the first place,

Leslie: it was, it was only me. You’re 100% right.

Anne: Yeah. Because you’re in the relationship. You have a relationship, but they don’t have a relationship with you.

The Illusion Of Partnership: What Do Emotional Abusers Look For In Their Victims?

Leslie: That has been one of my biggest challenges. Because being successful, being a helper, a doer, I did a lot of medical relief work pre-COVID. And he ended up piggybacking or riding my coattails on many of my trips. I would go on these trips, and maybe five photos the whole time. I was there because I’m there to work, I’m there to help. I’m there doing medical relief work. He was looking for a victim who could make him look good.

He had thousands of photos all over social media about what a wonderful thing he was doing, and him and him and him. And I remember early on in our relationship. saying to him, what are your dreams? What are your aspirations? What are your goals? And I accomplished two more degrees. When I was with him. I always would say, you know, don’t you have a dream? Don’t you have an aspiration? What do you want to do? I said, you can’t always ride on my coattails.

I have my dreams, my aspirations of what I want to do with my life. You, you should have your own, and then we should have together goals. That was a really hard thing for me to wrap my brain around. That somebody would not have goals or not have the same drive and ambition that I had. So looking back and seeing how much he groomed and took from me.

My brother said this a few months ago. I know he didn’t mean to say it. I’ve learned to not take things personally when people say things. People sometimes just don’t know what to say. They don’t mean to say things the way they come out, but they were friends, and I think they’re loosely still friendly.

Family Dynamics & Realizations

Leslie: We don’t talk about it. And they used to go snowmobiling together. My brother went on a yearly trip, and all the guys, I guess, asked where my ex was. He said, “Well, he’s not a kept man anymore.” He said, “My sister got smart to his ways, and he’s not a kept man anymore.” Which kind of stunned me a bit, because I was like, That is exactly what he was. He was looking for someone to take advantage of.

He had his cake, and he could eat it too. Who wouldn’t want that? He had the nice house on the lake, and all the toys. He got to travel the world. And he still got to screw around on the side. So, you know, who wouldn’t want a life like that?

Anne: So, what he wasn’t looking for, which is so painful to recognize in hindsight, was a true partnership.

Leslie: Correct.

Anne: Emotional abusers look for someone they can exploiat. All his behaviors were intent on grooming you. To use you for finances, travel and also prestige. Like he’s the husband of this great, amazing, successful woman, but he didn’t want to be your partner.

Leslie: 100%, and that was a really hard pill for me to swallow when I finally realized that this was not a partnership whatsoever.

Anne: And when you started going to therapy, like right at the beginning, before you were even married. Did the therapist tip you off to this?

Leslie: I think she did. And then when we had been married for a year. We moved to the West side of Michigan, away from his family. Because honestly, if we hadn’t, we probably wouldn’t have stayed married as long as we did.

Therapist’s Insight & Warnings

Leslie: When we moved to the West Side, I started seeing a new therapist, and she is amazing. She called me out on it almost immediately. She’s like, you realize he’s a narcissist, that he’s using you, that this is abuse. I would always have excuses, and she was very blunt, and she’d be like, no, I’m telling you. That is what abusers look for in their victims, someone to use. And then when I stopped seeing her, because we went down the whole addiction road.

So then I got my own CSAT. When I finally got out of that. I ended up going back to my original one, and I had a final session with my CSAT. She said, why are you stopping seeing me? And I don’t mind, because I just wonder. And I said, because the reason I’m seeing you no longer exists. I said, I don’t need to see you anymore, because this isn’t a CSAT matter.

Anne: Yeah, the interesting thing was it was never a CSAT matter.

Leslie: No, you’re right.

Anne: And the unfortunate thing is the CSAT didn’t tell you that, right? Because they do not see it as abuse. And I think they are clinically negligent.

Leslie: Although I will say I have the utmost respect. We were recommended to a counselor, who is a CSAT counselor who only sees married couples, for couple therapy. So he would have his, I’d have mine. And then we were going to see this couple one. We went to him the first time. And at the end of it, he looked at us and went, “I don’t think I can help you guys.”

Leslie: And I was so blown away.

What Do Emotional Abusers Look For In Their Victims? The Role of A Couples Therapy

Leslie: I go, what do you mean? I said, he just spent all this money on this program. You know, he’s “checking the boxes,” dah, dah, dah.

He goes, “No, he’s not.” He goes, “I see all the things he’s not doing. And you want me to tell you to trust him when he’s not trustworthy? I can’t do that. And I will not take your money.”

I have the utmost respect for him, because the fact that he saw, I mean, he could have just kept taking our money and kept saying, Oh yeah, I can fix you guys. This is fine.

He did say, I want to have one individual session with each of you, and then I’ll make my final decision. And even in my first session with him, he was like, what are you doing? He’s like, really? You know, it’s funny. Lake Michigan is known for being very turbulent, and he goes, you know, they put those red flags out in the middle of the lake when they tell you not to go swimming. You saw all those red flags, and you still went swimming.

Anne: Well, it’s because you didn’t know how to process the red flag. So as you saw the red flag. To you, it said, okay, he’s got childhood trauma. He needs therapy.

Leslie: Exactly.

Anne: It didn’t say red flag abuser. You saw inappropriate stuff on his phone, red flag, maybe he’s an addict. It didn’t say red flag abuser,

Leslie: Right.

Anne: That’s the other issue, is that women might see the red flags fine. But they don’t know how to process it or define it.

The Dangers Of Couple Therapy In Abuse Situations

Anne: They’re trying to be good, nice people. We know people aren’t perfect. And know that we can’t expect people to be perfect. I don’t think we’re missing the red flags. We just think we’re processing them incorrectly, and most addiction or regular therapy would say work on communication, connect with them.

You know, there’s so much misinformation in an abuse scenario, which at BTR.ORG we see exploitative material use as abusive, right? So in an abusive scenario, they should never be doing couple therapy ever, ever, ever. So in my opinion, CSATs who do couple therapy are clinically negligent.

Leslie: I agree.

Anne: Because you’ve got an abuser, and you should not be doing couple therapy with an abuser. So it’s like an oxymoron, but they don’t see it that way because they don’t see it as abuse. So let’s actually focus on that for just a minute. Your original therapist that told you. Hey, this is abuse. And then you went to a CSAT. Talk about what happened.

How did he use that manufactured relational tether at that point? Maybe you went home and said, hey, she said you were abusive or something. Or maybe you didn’t, but how did he reel you back in? To go down the addiction recovery route? Talk about your thought process or how he manipulated you after that.

Leslie: You probably know the whole Gottman thing about marital therapy. So our initial therapist would use Gottman stuff with us.

Anne: When we talk about Gottman, this is classic couple therapy stuff that does not account for abuse.

Reactive Abuse Misconception

Leslie: Exactly, exactly he would use the tools that we would get in therapy as weapons against me. And he would say, “But this is what the counselor said, and you’re not doing this, and you’re not doing that. I’m trying to take a break.”

But it would always be the get in your face, that whole reactive abuse.

Anne: So we also don’t use the word reactive abuse here at Betrayal Trauma Recovery. The reason I want to pause there is that people have said this, they say something. And then you react, maybe you yell or I don’t know, whatever, right?

Leslie: Uncharacteristic, yes.

Anne: And at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, we just see that as trying to defend yourself.

Leslie: Right.

Anne: That’s it. You’re not abusing them reactively or anything like that.

You are trying to defend yourself, and that’s it. I do not want victims labeled as also abusers. In trying to defend themselves from abuse, that’s what the abuser wants. What do emotional abusers want to see it as like, well, we both have problems and we’re both unhealthy. When it needs to be viewed as you’ve got an abuser. And then you have a victim trying to survive.

Leslie: And that’s exactly what I was trying to do. And he would use all those therapy things as weapons back against me. I thought I was going crazy so many times. You feel like you are spinning in circles, you’re hopeless, you get to a point where you just don’t know where to turn. You don’t know what to do anymore.

What Do Emotional Abusers Look For In Their Victims? Escaping The Fog Of Manipulation

Anne: So my guess is he’s escalating at this point because he’s losing control. When he’s in treatment, he knows that you have the time and space to clear out the fog. They can’t manipulate you when they’re not in constant contact with you, right? So my guess is that he’s freaking out at this point. He’s not into the treatment at all, but he’s trying to act like he is to groom you, but realizing you have space.

So at this point where you have space. You’re finally able to get your wits about you. Because so many women are trying to sort it out, while still being manipulated and lied to daily. And they’re still deep in the fog. So talk about how that space helped you see clearly.

Leslie: The space was key. It probably took me a good six weeks before I finally started to see things as they were. And the reactions he would have when we would have interactions. We had been separated for three months, and we weren’t doing any couple of counseling. He ended up getting fired from work for inappropriateness. But he did get his job back, but right then is when he was going to go away for treatment.

The day after he left for treatment, I came home that night. The following night, all three of my kids were at my house. And my kids are grown, they’re adults. And I thought, okay, what is going on? This was not a planned family thing. My daughter lives three hours away. Like, why is she here?

Family Intervention & Legal Steps

Leslie: So when I walked in, I said, what is going on? And apparently one of my children found out that he was fired for inappropriate things. And found out he had been stalking younger women. I had already spoke with an attorney before, but it was the following day that I ended up going through and filing while he was away at treatment.

Anne: One of the things that I recommend victims don’t do, which is crazy hard to do. I find that all of us needed to do this. I wish there was some way to circumvent it, but I’m not sure if there is. When you find out about the abuse or some behaviors, our natural reaction is to tell the abuser this, right?

Leslie: Right.

Anne: To say, “Hey, I just found out I have an STD. What happened?” Or, “Hey, I just found pornography on your phone.”

I wish that emotional abuse victims would instead of talking to the abuser and trying to help him see the situation. That they would take steps back and get to safety. Because every time we confront the abuser or try to like, help him understand the situation, we just get more abused. Similarly, you are more abused through all the therapy because he started weaponizing all the therapy language.

Once this happened and you contacted a lawyer, did you try to talk to him about what had happened or anything after that? And did you have that experience where in trying to say, hey, look, I’m going to get divorced? Did that set you up for more abuse?

Leslie: It did in a certain aspect, but we were not living together at the time. So I still could keep that.

Legal Battles & Postnuptial Agreements

Leslie: Before he left for treatment, I had enough wits about me that I contacted an attorney prior and had a postnuptial agreement drawn up. I made him sign that if he wanted to stay married or “save the marriage”. That he needed to sign it. He did sign it. And that was my only saving grace, because it basically said, “You leave with what you came with. I leave with what I came with. You’re not entitled to any spousal support X, Y, and Z.”

And that was the only thing I can say that I could have my wits about me, so that I could walk away and not get totally. For lack of better words, screwed over in the end.

Anne: This is what you have to do if you have a narcissistic husband. So the post nup goes well, you win by default, which is awesome. He doesn’t get an attorney, and that is amazing. That doesn’t always happen when fighting a narcissist for custody. Sometimes they use legal abuse and drag somebody through legal things for years. So that was a miracle. Good, I’m so happy that happened for you. But you have had to actually take him to court.

Leslie: He has neglected to take me off his house, so I’m still financially liable for the mortgage on his house. He is dragging that out. I have done everything in the post nup that I was supposed to do. Everything was taken out of his name, which was supposed to be. I have sold the house we had together. So his name’s off that. I have my own new house. He owes me approximately 30ish thousand dollars for things he took out of my accounts. He just kept dragging it out.

What Do Emotional Abusers Look For In Their Victims? Preparing for Legal Warfare

Leslie: He wouldn’t answer emails for weeks at a time. I didn’t want to incur any more legal costs. I kept trying to think, okay, this is going to resolve. He’s going to get his act together, dah, dah, dah. It didn’t happen. About a month ago, I finally contacted my attorney back. I said, okay, he still doesn’t have my name off the house, and he still owes me this money. What are we going to do?

Leslie: And he’s like, okay, are you ready to play by my rules? I said, I said, yes. He goes, because if we play by my rules, he’s not going to like it. And I go, I’m just done dealing with him. So we go back to court on June 6th. They will actually hold him in contempt of court times two, one for non-payment of what should have been paid. Which he hasn’t paid for a year and a half.

And the second is, is they’re going to make him list his house for sale. And he will only have 15 days to get it listed. This house was always a bane of our existence, because it was always his. He would never sell it. So the fact that they’re going to try to make him sell is a little disconcerting on my part. Just because I know this will put him over the edge. But when you don’t do what you’re supposed to do in the beginning, and you act like an idiot, then this is the consequences.

Anne: Yeah. Because you don’t share kids with him.

The Importance Of Boundaries

Anne: Have you blocked him on your phone?

Leslie: He’s blocked on my phone, he’s blocked on social media. I’ve blocked all family, any friends that were mutual friends that weren’t my friends prior to us getting together. They have all been taken off all my social media.

Anne: So you’re prepared.

Leslie: Yes.

Anne: Yeah. It’s going to be all out war for him, and he’s going to want to drag it out forever. And one of the things to think about is telling your attorney to minimize legal costs as much as possible. Because he’s going to want to drag this out for years.

Leslie: And the nice thing is in the postnuptial agreement, it specifically states that if we have to go back to court for one of us not complying with the postnuptial, that person must pay all legal court costs for both parties.

Anne: That is awesome. And they’ll have to take that out?

Leslie: Yes.

Anne: Of the house he sells.

Leslie: Yes, yes.

Anne: So you’ll have the money. Ah, that’s great. Well, I hope it goes well, because sometimes, not sometimes, all the time, most of the time, these court things go really haywire. So you think, Oh, I’m all prepared and everything looks good. And then it hits and it does not go the way you want. I hope that that happens for you. It seems like you’re well prepared.

Warning For Listeners About Abusers In Court

Anne: But for our listeners out there, I want to give everybody a nice healthy, sad, horrific warning. That no matter how well prepared you are, they are so skilled at manipulation, lies, and throw all kinds of crazy things your way. And even when you think, okay, I know what the worst case scenario is. And I’m okay with the worst case scenario. It can even be worse than that.

Emotional abusers are tricky in court to their victims, and the courts don’t understand it. So I hope things go well, and it sounds like they will, but I just want to do a little warning for my listeners.

Leslie: I agree with that, because I feel that it’s a toss up either way. The judge can go either way on it. You know, you think you’ve crossed all your T’s and dotted your I’s, but you know, when push comes to shove and he gives his sob story or whatever he decides to do, who knows what’s going to happen. Everybody says, you should just write right off that money, you’re never going to see it. Just let it go, move on.

And I’m like, no, he’s taken enough of my life from me. Like, why would I give him the satisfaction of giving him another 30, 000? I don’t have to deal with it. My attorney is dealing with it. It’s kind of more principle to me that no, you will not continue to abuse and take and not have consequences.

Anne: Especially because you share that house. Getting your name off that house is super important. So I have a theory that successful women have a harder time getting out of abuse.

What Do Emotional Abusers Look For In Their Victims? The Power of Sharing Your Story

Anne: And it’s because people don’t perceive them as a victim, so it’s harder to get help. What do you think about that?

Leslie: I think it’s pretty true. I’ve become much more outspoken for survivors of abuse. And it actually was my own medical doctor when I was sitting there sobbing to her, telling my story to her. She was just so taken aback. She said, “You could still do good work. I know you want to do your medical relief work again.”

And she goes, “But you know, the biggest work you could do is get your story out there.” She said, “Because there are so many people who don’t have the resources you had. Or don’t know where to turn or think just because they’re not successful. This is why it happened to them.”

No, it happens to anyone, anyone. Emotional abusers look for victims who they can exploit. It can happen to anyone. And it’s so devastating when you are in the thick of it. It is so hard. And I say this all the time, stay your course. You will get there today. It might not seem like it tomorrow. It might not seem like it.

And I will tell you, even probably six months ago, I was not the person I am today. And I would not have been as positive even six months ago, as I am today, just by staying my course and not deviating from my own personal growth and what I needed to do for me. I stopped focusing on us and the marriage and started focusing on me.

Anne: In some ways, your resources worked against you because you could pay for couple therapy, you can pay for CSATs, you can go that direction.

The Right Resources Matter & Children As The Abuser’s Leverage

Anne: When people say there are lots of resources available, it’s important for me to point out the right resources matter.

Leslie: Right, exactly.

Anne: You can waste so much money on addiction recovery. You can waste so much time doing that. Getting the abuse resources is the most important thing, and sticking with that course. The other thing I wanna say is that you’re doing so well right now. And I’m so happy for you, is that you do not share children with this man.

Leslie: Yes.

Anne: And so you can get completely away, right? Even if his court case doesn’t go great and you lose $30, 000. That’s a bummer, but his name will get off the house. Many listeners to this podcast, myself included, are forced by the court system to continue to interact with our abuser. Who is also psychologically and emotionally abusing our children.

And this is for years and years. What happened at the end of the Netflix show The Maid, exactly. The end was like, oh, finally she could get out. And I think society wants us to think that I think society is like, if you keep putting one foot in front of the other, you will get out eventually.

And the harsh. awful terror is that the court system is actually not helpful. We are still forced to interact because we share kids. The Maid could have ended completely differently, where he didn’t let her go, right? And I would say that’s the majority of what women are experiencing. So that had a happy ending, but that happy ending is rare.

The Harsh Reality Of Court Systems

Anne: So for those who don’t share children, this could be your story.

Leslie: Right.

Anne: And I want to provide hope for you that you can move on. It is there. It is waiting for you. And you can have a complete and total separation from those injuries. And then for those who share children, and you’re facing that every day.

For me, even up until probably a year ago, stories like yours, I was happy for you. But so triggered and mad for me.

Leslie: Yeah.

Anne: But like, nobody would protect me. Then in fact, the court system supposed to protect victims was actually not the domestic violence shelter and everything. They’re like, get out, get out and get out, but you can’t get out.

You’re stuck. And so I was always like continually mad. I have now used a type of strategic communication to be in a better place that isn’t dependent on court. Using this type of strategic communication, I was able to deliver myself and my kids completely. So they don’t go with him hardly at all anymore.

You can find those strategies in The BTR.ORG Living Free Workshop.

Leslie: And I do feel for the people who have children, and I will say, I am so grateful that I did not have children with him. I can so see where that is such a struggle. But I believe there are ways of communication and learning how to respect yourself enough to keep your own boundaries with them. And I think that was my biggest thing. I always lacked boundaries in many areas, so the biggest thing was teaching myself boundaries.

Strategies for dealing with Emotional Abusers

Leslie: Boundaries with my own kids. Boundaries with, strangers, with people. The biggest takeaway is learning how to deal with that part of it.

Anne: It’s a skill we all need to learn. This is not a, like, high school class they offer, so it’s important. What do emotional abusers look for in their victims? We talked a little bit about targeting, being used, grooming, the manufactured relational tether. You learned a lot through this about how you were never in a relationship. But that you were targeted.

If you could go back in time. And talk to yourself before meeting him, and teach you some of the things you never wanted to learn, that you never knew you needed to know. What would you tell yourself?

Leslie: I would tell myself to one, respect myself enough to listen to my inner self and my inner gut feelings. I think that is the biggest thing emotional abusers target is getting you to start doubting yourself. I always prided myself on having a wonderful, amazing ability to have that inner gut feeling as many medical professionals do.

That’s how we guide our practice a lot of the time, but that was used against me, because once he stopped my ability to trust my own gut. That is where I feel he was able to worm himself in and keep me off balance. I would say to myself trust your gut. Actions speak louder than words.

I remember saying your actions are not matching your words early in our relationship. And if I had just kept true to myself in that statement, his actions showed me exactly who he was, not the words. I think that would have been a totally different outcome.

The Trap Of Trying To Resolve With Abusers

Anne: It’s interesting, so when we recognize that his actions are inconsistent with his words. Because we perceive them as a partner. The first thing we want to do is talk to them about our feelings. That is where they keep us trapped. They would like us to think it’s a partnership, because in a partnership, that’s what you would do. You would try to resolve it, to talk to them about our observations.

So, as we say, “Hey, I noticed your actions don’t sync up with your words”. Then they can talk more and groom more. Like, okay, well she noticed that. So now I’m going to try this other tactic, or now I’m going to lie better. Unfortunately, with an abuser, all they hear is, I need to deceive better, manipulate better, and groom better.

You can’t determine that unless you have those conversations. So giving grace to all the victims who tried to talk to their abuser, only to be abused more. If you’re in that boat now, and you’re listening to this. Let’s pretend that on this podcast you have heard something and you’re like, this is how he is. An aha light bulb has gone off in your head. I would encourage you, do not go to your abuser and tell him about it. Do not go to him and say, “Oh, you have to listen to this podcast.”

Before you decide to do that, please enroll in The BTR.ORG Living Free Workshop. At least learn how to communicate strategically with them before you make a decision about that.

The Importance Of Using Strategy

Anne: If you enroll in Living Free and learn the strategies, and then you decide, you know what, I’m still going to talk to him. Then at least you’ll be making a decision, having all the information you need to make that decision.

Leslie: I can’t tell you how many times I would confront him immediately on something. And afterwards, I would say to myself. Why didn’t you just stay quiet? Why didn’t you just continue to gather your “evidence” to realize what was going on? But as soon as I found something or something would happen, it would immediately come out of my mouth. That is the biggest thing. What you just said.

Don’t confront them like they’re using all your words against you, and that is the hardest thing to do.

Anne: For that reason, BTR group sessions are useful, because you need to share that it’s inside you, and it will come out. BTR.ORG Group Sessions are the perfect place, or Individual Sessions with our Betrayal Trauma Recovery Coaches are the perfect place. Emotional abusers look for wonderful women who they can use.

Leslie: And I so appreciate everything Betrayal Trauma Recovery does to help women in these situations, because it seems so hopeless. I just want to encourage everyone that one day there is a light. There is. Just keep looking for it.

Anne: Thank you so much, Leslie.

If you searched “is watching inappropriate media cheating” you’re probably looking for clarity. Because for a woman who have just discovered what her husband has been secretly doing with his time, it feels like a betrayal because it is. It’s a betrayal if her husband is sharing his energy, attention, and loyalty with other women (thousands of them online). This episode is a two-part conversation with experts from the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.

This article answers the question: is watching inappropriate media cheating? But it also answers the question underneath it: “Why does my husband’s use of inappropriate media hurt me so much… even apparently all men do it.”

Quick answer: Is watching inappropriate media cheating?

In marriage, yes. Because it meets the basic definition of cheating: He is engaging in sexual behavior outside the marriage, directed toward other people, often in secret, while withholding truth from his wife and expecting ongoing access to her trust, body, and partnership.

And your gut response to think that he’s cheating is logical. In fact, it’s how most women feel. I’ve interviewed over 200 women who told me how terrible it felt to find out about all his lies, including his lies about how he’s been spending his time online. Over the last almost two decades, my team has helped over 8,000 women thrive after betrayal. So here’s what we know:

Is watching inappropriate media cheating? yes. here’s Why

Below is the “wife-brain” list, the one that finally puts words to what you already know.

1) It’s Intimate access to other women

If your husband is getting stimulation from other women’s bodies, watching them, searching them, he’s directing intimate attention outside the marriage. He may argue “it’s not real.”

But your marriage is real. Your nervous system knows what it means when the man you married is aroused by other women.

2) It’s almost always built on secrecy and secrecy is betrayal

I interviewed Christen Price, an attorney at The NCOSE and we talked about how the strongest tactic of coercive control is lying to maintain power and a preferred narrative.

For many wives asking “is watching inappropriate media cheating”, their husband’s use of innappropriate media comes with:

• hidden accounts
• secret apps
• erased histories
• minimized language (“it was just a little”)
• anger or mockery when confronted

That isn’t “privacy.” That’s deception, which is an obvious marker of cheating.

3) It removes your informed consent inside the marriage

This is the piece many women can’t explain, so they blame themselves.

But here’s what’s really going on. Women generally consent to a marriage with a certain set of sexual boundaries they expect both partners share.
If he’s not staying inside those boundaries (but lying about it), she’s not able to consent, either to the relationship itself or to intimacy in the relationship.

She’s being kept in the dark so he can keep living a double life. Because he wants to keep the benefits of the relationship, without staying within the boundaries. That’s not partnership. That’s exploitation.

4) It’s not “just content.” It’s Actually Evidence of Abuse

in my interview, Christen defines image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) as the creation, threat, sharing, or use of sexual images/videos without consent or for exploitation.

And then she lists what falls under that umbrella:

• sextortion
• nonconsensual sharing (often called “revenge porn”)
• hidden-camera recordings (locker rooms, showers, bedrooms, hotel rooms)
• “upskirting/downblousing”
• AI-generated or manipulated sexual images made from real photos
• harassment using sexual content

Here’s the gut-punch for wives: Her husband is watching other women being abused.

So when a husband says, “I would never hurt anyone,” the reality is watching inappropriate media means he’s supporting an industry that is based on the abuse of women.

5) It’s relational infidelity—he’s bonding Sexually outside the marriage

Even when there’s no emotional “relationship” with a specific person, there’s still a pattern: He goes to a screen for arousal and release.

And you—the real wife—are left with:

• distance
• disconnection
• irritation
• sexual pressure
• “Why do I feel like I’m competing with strangers?”

If he is pouring his sexual energy elsewhere, that’s infidelity.

6) It often comes with gaslighting: “You’re the problem”

Of course a husband using inappropriate media wants to maintain the narrative “I’m a good guy.” That’s why he lies about it.

So when women are hurt by these lies, she gets labeled:

• insecure
• controlling
• prudish
• too sensitive
• the reason he does it

That type of gaslighting is emotional abuse. To learn more and to see if you’re experiencing this type of emotional abuse, take my free emotional abuse test.

7) It puts wives at real risk, sometimes criminal risk

In helping women face this type of betrayal for almost two decades, I’ve heard some chillingly specific stories of husbands secretly recording wives in showers or during sex and posting it for financial gain. This is nonconsensual recording and distribution. Even if you’re husband isn’t doing this, if he’s watching it, that’s what motivating other men to harm their wives or girlfriends.

8) It Teaches Men entitlement, not intimacy

“Everyone does it” isn’t a moral defense If something is common, that doesn’t make it healthy. A lot of harmful behavior is common. That’s why Melea describes a system where industries resist regulation: they don’t want their profits to decrease. When his consumption is easy, private, and constant, it shapes expectations:

• women exist for viewing
• arousal should be instant
• bodies are commodities

Wives often experience the downstream effects as:

• feeling compared
• increased sexual pressure
• decreased empathy
• decreased emotional presence
• less willingness to repair

And yes, most wives call that cheating because he’s breaking his vows in daily form.

9) It impacts kids—directly and indirectly

Another board member at The National Center on Sexual Exploitation, Melea Stevens’ talks about a “filter bill”, which creates default safety settings on phones/tablets.

Even if your husband swears “it’s private,” it rarely stays private in a household full of devices, shared Wi-Fi, curious kids, and normalized secrecy.

And so there’s the deeper betrayal many moms feel: He’s not just risking his marriage. He’s risking the emotional safety of the home your children live in.

Most women searching “is watching inappropriate media cheating” Don’t Know To Search: “is It exploitation”

They’re searching because they feel betrayed, but they don’t realize what their husband is actually involved with.

• It’s not just cheating, he’s cheating by participating in the real exploitation of women and girls.
• The same mindset that says “it doesn’t hurt anyone” is the mindset that allows harm to be dismissed, mislabeled, or hidden.

So—is watching inappropriate media cheating?

If your husband is consuming it, hiding it, minimizing it, and expecting you to live inside the lie? Yes, it’s cheating, but it’s actually so much more. Christen Price and Melea Stevens from the National Center on Sexual Exploitation are on the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast to clearly articulate why watching it is so harmful to women.

Transcript: Is Watching inappropriate media Cheating? Here’s What You Need To Know

Anne: I have Christen Price and Melea Stevens on today’s episode. Christen serves as Senior Legal Counsel for the National Center on Exploitation Law Center.

She engages in legal advocacy to end impunity for all forms of sexual exploitation. In her role at NCOSE Christen works to influence courts and legislatures. Toward protecting human dignity and equality on behalf of exploitation survivors, as well as resources to stop human trafficking. Through legislative advocacy, litigation, and support for other attorneys. Particularly in terms of trafficking, prostitution, child abuse, and image based abuse.

Malea is on the board of the National Center for Exploitation.

Welcome Christen.

Christen: Thank you so much for having me.

Anne: I met Christen in person a while back. She impressed me with her passion for protecting victims. I want to jump straight into talking about image-based abuse. What is image based abuse?

Forms of Image-Based Abuse

Christen: Image based abuse is a broad term. That includes a wide range of harmful experiences involving the weaponization of explicit images or videos. IBSA involves creating, threatening to share, sharing, or using recordings without the consent of the person in them or for exploitation purposes.

So sometimes people call one form of this revenge posting of intimate media, but at NCOSE we try to avoid this term because it implies that the person victimized by it did something wrong to the perpetrator, and that this is some kind of punishment payback. But the reality is that men do this to women for any reason or for absolutely no reason at all.

Anne: Right! I’ve spoken to human trafficking survivors who share their experiences with this. When you say men do this to women. This podcast is specifically for women, victims of exploitation perpetrated by men. And so all of our listeners are women. Well, my intent is to help women.We do have some men listeners, but when you say that, does it ever happen the other way around?

Christen: It definitely happens the other way around. And also women can victimize other women, men can victimize other men. But the victims are disproportionately women, and the perpetrators are disproportionately men. And I think the figures vary somewhat.

In a 2017 US survey conducted with 3, 000 or so participants, one in eight people were targets of distribution. Or threat of distribution of intimate images without consent. Women were roughly twice as likely to be targets of this abuse. Compared to the men in that particular survey.

News Highlights

Christen: But there was another survey by the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. And in their survey, over 90 percent of the victims were women, mostly between 18 and 30 years old. So there’s some variation there, of course. That IBSA affects women and girls disproportionately isn’t in dispute.

Anne: Because I advocate for women, I appreciate those statistics. And letting people know that this is a woman’s health issue. It’s important to women, especially my listeners. Are there news stories that highlight this issue?

Christen: So there is one. It’s significant because it shows the level of impunity people at least think they have when they perpetrate this. They arrested the mayor of a town in Maryland, called Cambridge, late last year. It’s maybe an hour and a half outside of DC where I am. They charged him with 50 counts of non consensual distribution.

The CEO and the COO of —-hub, or MindGeek, the company that controls it, have resigned. You know, this is in the wake of years of reporting, but especially over the last two years. Of how their flagship site facilitates and profits from image-based abuse in the United States. In all of its various forms.

Anne: When Christen says image based abuse, what I want you to think in your mind is pornography. This is what we are talking about. So husbands who are constantly on their phone looking at this stuff. Would you say all of it, or most of it, is image based abuse? For our listeners who are so traumatized by their husband’s use?

Image-Based Abuse Is Happening

Christen: So one thing that might be helpful would be to go down the list of the different things that fall under this category. And then you realize, wow, this is what is on sites and drives traffic to these sites. The whole industry, because it is an industry, is a profitable enterprise to exploit other people in this way. This obviously has implications, even for people who don’t end up portrayed on the websites.

There’s a sense that exploitative materials use is abusive to people in general, especially women and girls. Because it’s incompatible with their full equality in society. If this is a way they can be portrayed with impunity. It has implications for everyone.

Christen: But just to go down the list of the different things that fall under image based abuse (IBSA). One is sextortion, which uses inappropriate images or materials that the perpetrator blackmails the victim. Or coerces them to produce increasingly inappropriate content. So that in exchange, the initial content is not released. So that’s sextortion.

Then, this is the one I think most people think of when they hear the term image based abuse. Non-consensual sharing of images. Which is sometimes accompanied by doxxing, which is you share the content. But then you add the person’s name, their address, or other identifying or locating information.

Anne: Many women in our community have had their husbands secretly video them in the shower or while they were in their bedroom. This kind of behavior is also what marital coercion is. They did not know. And then he posts that online, and other people watch it as “pornography.” Not knowing that they’re actually viewing abuse. That happens frequently to women in our community.

Non-Consensual Recordings & Harassment

Christen: Yeah, that’s actually the next one I was going to say, which is non-consensual collecting. Swapping and posting of these types of images in groups or in third party platforms. As you noted, if IBSA is used, absolutely. I mean, they didn’t have consent to take the image, let alone to distribute it. Non-consensual recordings of images or videos of other types of activities, they’re not doing anything intimate.

They expect they’re in a private context, like showering in the gym or even in their home or hotel room. So restrooms or locker rooms people put surveillance cameras. We call that downblousing or upskirting. Another form it takes is harassment or assault in virtual or augmented reality. So harassment through direct messaging or assault of somebody’s avatar. Like in a virtual context.

https://youtube.com/shorts/mHgIHT2Dtrw

Sending unsolicited material, also called cyber flashing. Identity theft, where people take someone’s images to make artificial or photoshopped videos. It’s intended to portray them as though they’re really in it. We call that cheap fake or deep fake. And then pressuring or harassing someone to self generate or share inappropriate images.

So it’s quite a variety of offenses that fall under this category. And much of it makes its way onto massive public sites.

The Abusive Nature Of Online Exploitative Material

Anne: I would say the average user has no idea that it is abusive. In fact, when you educate them about it, they dismiss it. They’re like, whatever. In our experience, listeners of this podcast, you’re hurting our family and marriage. You’re also just flat out watching abuse, and it’s like, no, that’s not how it is.

Christen: Do you think people who say that read the tags for the material they’re watching? Because sometimes they tagg it as spycam or locker room or something like that. There’ll be clear indications that it’s not consensual. I’m not saying that’s always the case. But that’s a thing that they to drive traffic. They categorize things.

Anne: What I’m saying is they’re like, yeah, it’s a spy cam, but she doesn’t know. And she doesn’t even know it’s online. So why is it hurting her? One thing I have learned about abusers is they do not want to admit they are abusive. They don’t want to call it abuse. They want to call it anything else, because they want to continue to justify their behavior.

People call this stuff out there spy cam material, not abusive spy cam material. It’s disconnected. In fact, this was fascinating. I talked to a convicted offender. He was like, wow, his mind was blown. He never thought of himself as an abuser, even though he was a convicted offender.

Christen: Wow.

Anne: How prevalent is image based abuse, IBSA and who is the most affected by it?

Is Watching inappropriate media cheating? yes, and it’s Actually So Much More

Christen: It’s impossible to know what percentage of it falls under this, which is one of the big dangers. Because someone taggs it in a certain way. But it’s not necessarily going to be apparent that someone is watching abusive content. Once you put together the fact that this includes CSAM Which is rife on the internet.

Anne: When you say CSAM. Our community commonly refers to that for our listeners who don’t know, as CSCAM. I appreciate that NCOSE and many advocates are trying to change that language.

Christen: No, thanks for saying that. I meant to include that. It is still called in the law in most places. So that’s an important distinction.

It includes extremely violent and dangerous content. Which is pretty obviously harmful, regardless of whether they obtained consent. It includes the type of spy cam and other types of surreptitious recording or non consensually distributed content. So all that is abusive. All of that is exploitive, most of it is illegal in many jurisdictions. Much of what seems to drive traffic to some of these sites is this type of content.

A subreddit on Reddit, I think it’s called wife pic, has 250, 000 members. The abuse is prevalent and rampant. It’s a massive risk. Anyone who consumes it chooses to consume someone’s abuse. A Human Being Is Always Objectified

Image Based Exploitation Is Abusive

Anne: We take the stance at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, people disagree with me, and I don’t care. That all use is abusive, period. It’s abusive to someone, somehow. Someone’s coerced, lied to, manipulated and harmed. That is our stance. So when you’re talking specifically about image based abuse. I think you’re also specifically talking about criminal things. People are arrested for those things.

Christen: Yes, or at least sued, in some cases.

Anne: With our listeners, the abuse they’re experiencing, the emotional and psychological abuse, is not a “crime.” So they have a difficult time figuring out how to get help. But it is good for them to know that anyone consuming this type of material. Or producing it will have some danger to you.

Christen: Yes, there’s no exploitative material in which a human being is not objectified. That’s always present. So much of it is extremely violent and degrading, especially to women. Thinking it’s unharmful shifts the norms and expectations for all women. It’s like basically a form of propaganda. It conditions women to submit to violence rather than resist it, among other things.

Women and girls are most affected by it, disproportionately. So especially younger women and girls.

Anne: Yeah, here at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, even if the wives aren’t the ones filmed, our husbands use continues to affect us. When we think about the victims in image based abuse, and these degrading acts being visible to other people. Where do people generally post them?

IBSA Is Posted Anywhere You Can Post

Christen: They’re posted anywhere you can post things. Google will index searches for this type of content. I mean, it is everywhere. Some sites specifically devote themselves to sharing non-consensually distributed content. Really all over chat groups and texts.

Anne: It’s alarming to think about.

Christen: It really is.

Anne: Apps, anywhere you can find anything, you can find it. But I would say the public is not. When you’re trying to explain to people why exfoliative material is abusive, what arguments have you found useful?

Christen: Thinking about how it works as a tactic, and also thinking about the impact, I make it clear that’s the right category for it. Taking the standard definition of abuse, it’s typically a set of tactics. Usually it’s systematic or calculated. That one person uses to gain and maintain coercive control over another.

And it can be physical, emotional, financial or spiritual. Image based abuse fits squarely within that. It’s ultimately about maintaining coercive control over another person. Men have posted things because women wouldn’t go out with them, or because they broke up with them. And when we look at what effect it has on the victims, that also very much tracks with what we understand abuse to be.

Anne: Coercive control is the main theme. When it comes to the husbands. They’re doing the same thing, but it’s in a different way. So they’re using coercive control to manipulate, lie, to gaslight to hide their use. So they’re lying to them about their whereabouts.

Exploitative Online Imags Are Abusive: Lies & Hipocracy

Anne: They’re lying about their use of time or why they’re angry about something. Or they’re trying to gaslight to make sure their wife doesn’t know the types of things they’re doing. Because they want their wife to live in a different reality. But he wants his wife to think he’s a good guy.

That he’s a churchgoer, that he’s an upstanding member of society. So it’s that same coercive control to maintain the narrative. I’m a good guy. I’m a good husband. You, wife, you’ve got some problems. And if you would cook better, or if you would be more respectful of me, or if you would appreciate my job more. Then maybe our marriage would be good.

That gaslighting happens all the time. And that is why I want to hit home to the addiction recovery community. Or other communities that these men are abusers. They’re not just users. They are abusive to their wives. And it’s important for people to understand. That we’re talking about a specific type of trauma to the women being filmed.

Anne: Why is it so important to recognize that this is trauma? And people actually document it and then post it?

Christen: Yes, I think it’s exactly what you just said. Their trauma is posted. If I were to sum it up, I would say probably for the three reasons that it’s a really prevalent form of trauma.

Trauma & Its Manifestations

Christen: Going back to the statistics from earlier, it’s extremely destructive. People usually commit it with impunity. Impunity just means you’re getting away with it. You’re getting away with the thing in a way that is so clear and obvious, you have no reason to stop doing it. Other people watching what’s happening don’t have a reason to not do the same thing themselves.

Anne: Oh, this is happening in people’s families too. It’s amazing, the parallels between the two, the impunity with the divorce, or they’re still getting child custody.

Christen: Some ways the trauma manifests for the people depicted include high levels of anxiety, PTSD, depression, shame and humiliation, loss of trust and agency.

The risk of suicide is very, very high. Some 51 percent of people responding to one survey said they had contemplated suicide due to their experience with image based abuse. It’s also important to note that this is a form of abuse that never ends. Someone else can always share or upload the images. It may never fully go away.

It’s an abusive situation, a person may never fully exit. Survivors shared with us that their reputations are completely lost. They’ve lost jobs or had to leave jobs because of the level of harassment directed at them. When people realized it was them in the videos. They’re constantly anxious in social situations, wondering if someone has seen the content.

They’ve had family and other relationships destroyed because of this, so it, it really manifests. Like other forms of trauma.

Anne: The federal government passed a law against revenge —ography.

Federal Law Against Revenge Material

Anne: Can you tell us about the law?

Christen: It provides victims with the right to sue for non-consensually distributed content. If the person who disclosed it knew or recklessly disregarded the depicted person’s lack of consent. So when it allows people to sue for damages, it allows them to potentially get a temporary restraining order. Or an injunction, basically ordering the perpetrator to stop displaying or disclosing the image.

There are some exceptions that I think are a bit concerning about who can bring an action under this law. So basically, there’s an exception called matters of public concern or interest. In my view, it is vague and appears to exclude any possible cause of action if something is deemed to fall within that category. And my perspective on that is famous or well known women shouldn’t be public property either.

It doesn’t address the rights of a person if someone is not well known. There was no public interest in appearing in content alongside someone who was. That’s one exception that raises a flag for me. And then there’s another exception related to commercial content.

Basically, it means content with people who appear under 30 if force does not produce it, fraud, misrepresentation, or coercion. They would accept that kind of content. In some ways, it means that the websites most likely to be exempt are ones most likely to have people under 30 exploiting younger people.

It also exempts the websites and people likely to profit from the display of the content. So if someone ran his own website with younger looking people. He couldn’t be sued by his wife or ex girlfriend for non-consensually posting her images on it. As long as she isn’t coerced to make the video.

Image Based Exploitation Use Is Abusive: The Issue of Consent

Christen: To me, these are exceptions that are worrisome, and ultimately I think make the law incomplete. But I think it can be useful for some victims to have legal recourse.

Anne: When you say consent, that word is just fraught in our community. Because women give their consent to marry, for example. They’re giving their consent to be in a relationship, but that doesn’t mean they give their consent to be abused. When you say, yeah, they consented to participate. But they’re not consenting to be manipulated or gaslit. This law is a he said, she said. Is the consent issue clear when it comes to this law? Or does it get caught in the same kind of rape/domestic violence problems? Where you can’t ever prove it.

Christen: It’s a good question. It’s hard to say right now, because no one has tried to use the law yet. I think a lot depends on how judges interpret it, and how it’s actually used. This type of law is not covered in the federal trafficking law, which covers it. The standard for whether something meets the definition of trafficking is whether it features a minor? Or was it produced through force, fraud, or coercion?

So in a sense, consent is arguably not a defense if people mean agreement. People can coerce you into agreeing to something. You can be deceived into agreeing to something. If either of those two things are present, the crime is still committed. So I think it remains to be seen if this specific law will take a similar view.

Legal Recourse & Coercion

Christen: It seems to anticipate that people may produce content through coercion and deception. That’s included in the law. It wouldn’t necessarily let you sue a commercial website, but it would let you sue the person who posted it. So they seem to anticipate coercion as possible in this context, but I think a lot will depend on how things end up being interpreted.

Anne: We’ve spent a lot of time talking about this. I know some of you listening are victims of this. Like your own husband has posted things of you, or you’re a victim of revenge ___ography. You’re a victim of abuse in this way. Many of you, I personally talked to you, and you have been afraid to press charges. Number one, because you’re not sure if you want a divorce, you’re not sure if things will work out with your husband.

I want to encourage you to do something. The best hope for your husband not to be abusive is to actually account for his crime. Even if you think there’s some chance it will work out. I still think if he were truly changed, truly repentant, truly non abusive, he would take accountability for what he’s done.

And so reporting it is an important step. So I know that reporting domestic violence, especially if it is your husband or your boyfriend, is important. It’s a safety issue, so I want to acknowledge that.

Resources For Victims

Anne: At the same time, there are resources available.

Christen: Yes, one of the main resources we recommend is the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. It’s specifically helpful for victims in the United States. They have a crisis helpline, and the number is (844) 878-2274, and you can talk to a counselor 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They also have an online removal guide. Which walks people through instructions for how to address content they found on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Google, Snapchat, and other sites.

And then they also have some international resources for people in Australia, Brazil, Israel, Palestine, Pakistan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. Our main recommendation is definitely to contact them. Listeners are also welcome to contact the NCOSE Law Center. We do have a number of lawsuits addressing image-based abuse. Although at the moment, almost all concern child abuse victims. Adults who were minors when their content was posted.

We have lawsuits against big suppliers

Anne: Many of our listeners actually might be victims and might not know it at all. We are here for you. NCOSE is here for you. And the resources she just talked about are here for you.

If you’re a concerned woman and you want to advocate to make this world safer. You need to check out NCOSE at endsexualexploitation.org.

Advocacy & Public Awareness

Christen: Speaking broadly, there is a market for this kind of content on —-hub and all these other sites. Demand drives markets. So the first thing a regular person can do, especially men and boys, is not consume the abuse. This is a profitable industry. It is driven by the fact that people want to see this stuff.

I would also say if you’re in one of the two states that currently don’t have a law against this type of content. Definitely advocate with your local leaders for such a law. I think there’s a need to educate boys and men and the public about this issue in a way that puts the responsibility for it where it belongs.

I think that in many ways, as a society, the way we talk about assault has changed for the better. We’re not just telling women to watch out or blame them for not fighting back. You know, we recognize that it’s on men not to perpetrate, and I think the same applies with this issue.

We can’t just tell women and girls to watch out or be more careful. We need to teach men and boys not to perpetrate. Part of the importance of this abuse framing is doing that. It’s calling this thing by its right name, calling it by the term that shows how seriously wrong it is. And how seriously abusive to human rights.

The Importance Of Safe Homes

Christen: And I think that’s a big part of what any person can do with any type of gendered violence or abuse. To call the thing by its right name. I think so often men’s violence against women, abuse of women and girls, is disappeared by how we talk about it. Or the fact that we don’t talk about it. So I think that’s a big thing that any person can do.

Anne: I’m reminded of the Jackson Katz quote. “We talk about how many women were raped last year, not how many men raped women.” For our listeners, since they’re not men and boys, the number one thing you can do is get to safety in your own home. The number one thing you can do is learn how to get to safety yourself, and how to ensure your own home is safe. That’s number one.

When your own home is safe, the number two thing you can do if you want to get involved is check out the NCOSE Website. They have many campaigns there. You can get on their email list. I’m on their email list. I love it when I get their emails. Things like, sign this petition or send an email to your Senator. And they give you a template of things that you can do. So at least, that gives you some scaffolding to start making some progress.

If you want to do something, but you don’t know where to start. The NCOSE website, and they have a summit every year, and getting involved that way is a good way to start making change in the world.

Personal Reflections On Abuse

Anne: I want to say for me personally, when I was in my abusive relationship. I was so focused on addiction recovery, I didn’t understand it was abuse. So I went down the wrong road for a while. And I was also involved with NCOSE which was awesome. And I loved it, but I spent a lot of time trying to solve the world’s problems.

Not at that time to actually get to safety myself. And I have found that I am much more effective in making the world safer when my own home is safe. And it’s impossible to make the world safer, so that your home is safe. It’s much easier to make your home safe first, and then help the world, than the other way around. You can actually literally, within a few years, three to six years, actually make your home a safe place. It takes a long time.

It’s hard to learn boundaries. It’s hard to learn these skills, but it is possible. The fight and exploitation that we are all involved in, it’s like a worldwide battle that will take a long time. And so don’t wait for that. Don’t think, okay, well, when, the US passes a law that it’s illegal and my husband can’t watch it anymore, then I’ll be safe.

Please do not wait for that. Get to safety now. There is a peaceful and safe place.

The Systemic Nature Of Abuse

Christen: One final thing from me, it’s just a broader point that I think reflects some of the things we’ve talked about I think the way people often perceive it can follow this pattern. Of the way that the invisibility of various forms of violence and abuse against women is invisible. Whether the abuser is a pimp, a husband, a boss, or a film producer.

Violence and abuse are not seen as political, systemic, as an attack against women as a class. And I think it’s important that we identify this as the sort of systemic thing that it is. Because it’s incompatible with gender equality in a society.

Anne: It is systemic, because when our listeners try to get out, they go to a therapist, they go to clergy, and they get like, oh, it’s a communication issue, or, oh, you’re just not having it enough. They don’t get, oh, he’s abusive. I went to therapy for seven years with an emotional and psychological abuser who also coerced me. I did addiction recovery for seven years. No one told me I was abused. It is insane.

I go to a church with an on the books doctrine and policy that no abuse will be tolerated. And all my clergy were like, oh, he’s such a good guy. They didn’t know it was abuse. I didn’t know it was abuse. Because of that misunderstanding and not labeling it for what it is. Women are continually harmed. And men continually abuse with impunity. And it is absolutely systemic and dangerous, not just for women, but also for men.

The Need For Healthy Relationships

Anne: Because they can’t have a healthy relationship or have a peaceful, healthy life if they’re abusive. So, the answer for everyone is healthy, non-abusive interactions with other people, and non-exploitative interactions. So thank you for all your work again. I cannot stress enough how important their work is. Please visit their website, endsexualexploitation.org.

Anne: Christen, thank you so much for coming on today’s episode.

Christen: Thank you so much for having me.

Anne: Okay, Melea, you got involved with NCOSE, because you’ve seen young children addicted to online inappropriate material for over 23 years, thanks for talking with me today.

Melea: Thank you for having me

Anne: Melea lives in Alabama. She’s currently working on passing a bill in her state. We’ll also talk about how you can help protect children online in your location. Can you tell us about what’s going on in Alabama right now?

Melea: We worked to pass what we call a filter bill. It’s a bill that would require tablets and smartphones to have the filters defaulted on. One of the names it had was the default to safety bill. We had different names at different points, but a similar bill passed in Utah a few years ago. And we wanted to pass it in Alabama. Several other states are interested in introducing it.

One reason we wanted to promote this bill is that we know 47 percent of young children have their first unwanted early exposure on smartphones and tablets. It’s just a common sense protection to have pre existing filters already on smartphones and tablets defaulted on. Versus putting the burden on caregivers and parents to try to go through 30 some odd steps on many devices to figure out how to activate existing content filters.

Details Of The Filter Bill

Melea: We have Supreme Court precedent that says it is preferable for protections to come at the filter level on devices. We know this bill would be upheld in court. And we’re confident it would be very enforceable. And all it is simply doing is asking that three major companies, Amazon with the Kindle, the Apple products and Google with their products, have smartphones and tablets.

That a software update would happen, which is a very simple fix. We’ve talked to software experts who work closely with device manufacturers. They would just do a very simple update that would allow phones activated in Alabama to have the default on instead of off with the content filter. And it automatically has broad based protections for young children, so they’re less likely to stumble across online inappropriate material at an early age.

People would say kids will find ways to get around it, obviously, but we were talking about very young children who aren’t even thinking about it that stumble upon this content. And it Is very traumatic to them to not understand what they’re looking at and the way it affects their brain. This gives them extra years of innocence, safety, and protection. I had the honor of speaking to different parent groups.

And have spoken to schools and churches in areas where kids don’t have involved parents. And those children, child on child, harmful behavior is rampant in those communities. Parents just hand children devices. They need resources to stop human trafficking and this behavior. No one’s looking for them, and they can become addicted to online inappropriate material and they act out what they see. That’s what children do. They copy what they see.

Challenges & Opposition

Melea: Then there’s a cycle of abuse happening and a cycle of trauma. So I especially think about those children when I think about this bill. We’ve been excited. We had a great response and had 67 bipartisan co sponsors in the House, and it passed through committee with bipartisan support. We got to the Senate, it passed through committee with bipartisan support. There are people working hard to stop human trafficking and help with this effort.

It was poised to be passed through the Senate. But we had one person in the Senate, who refused to allow it on the calendar. It only takes one or two people to set the calendar. They blocked it because a lot of opposition turned up to fight along the way. And that’s been true in every other state. Big tech has been our opposition. And telecommunications companies have also shown up at all our hearings with their lobbyists.

Even though our bill has zero to do with companies like AT&T or Verizon. They’re not held liable. It’s explicitly stated in our bill. They would show up, because unfortunately, big tech and telecommunications companies and the industry will sometimes fight common sense browsing protections for kids. And it’s really sad. But that’s one of the things we dealt with. Unfortunately, this gentleman blocked it. We assume there was pressure from lobbyists and one company in particular.

It’s Not Just Cheating, It’s Exploitation

Anne: They’ll say all kinds of reasons that aren’t real. What’s the reason they don’t want to do it? Is it just simply money, this type of exploitation is sadly about money.

Melea: Money is a big factor. We know that historically, Google, AT& T or Verizon, do they get back general profits from online explicit material?

Melea: They do, and they have. There is potentially a loss of revenue. Big tech hates regulations. They do not want to be restricted in any way, shape, or form. They don’t want to give up an inch. So I think money, power, and resistance to any form of regulation. To me, it’s a safety feature on a on a car or something like requiring that they have proper antilock brakes on a car, something reasonable. And in this case, it’s just a simple software update. All the technology is there.

Anne: I hope this does not sound too political, but I’m a patriot saying, I’m grateful for all the government services we have. We have roads, we have a military, we have things in place to keep us safe. And that’s only something that the government can do, because the government is all of us. So I am so grateful that we have these opportunities to protect us. We need to do that through the government, because nobody’s going to willingly do that.

Although NCOSE has worked well with some companies. So that is exciting. They provide resources to stop human trafficking and are helping this bill to pass.

Resources To Stop Human Trafficking: The Dirty Dozen List

Melea: Absolutely, yeah, there’s opportunity. Companies respond to positive communication and sometimes negative. We have what’s called the dirty dozen list, and name and shame the main promoters of exploitation. We have had tremendous success, because once things are brought to light, it’s been refreshing that several companies have changed their corporate policies and resources to stop trafficking or unwanted exposure to online inappropriate material.

This has been a very tooth and nail fight all along the way. The opposition will say, well, you should just be fighting the online inappropriate material, instead of asking the manufacturers to do this at the device level, which I agree. We are like the National Center on Exploitation, and many of our allies are constantly fighting the industry to make changes there. But I wish our government was stepping up in this issue.

Because the laws on the books on a federal level would prohibit the production and distribution of hardcore online inappropriate material, which is the majority of harmful on the internet. And also our laws prohibit the distribution of all online inappropriate material, whether soft core or hardcore, from our internet. But our department of justice for many years has not been enforcing federal obscenity laws. That leaves us to tackle this issue of illegal content through corporate strategies and legislation.

Through lawsuits, like we have lawsuits against providers that are, we’re winning right now. We’re gutting companies because of lawsuits that we have with survivors. So we’re having to go at it every different angle.

Practical Steps & Community Support

Melea: And to everyday citizens that want to make a difference and make an impact when it comes to stopping and resources to stop trafficking and exploitation in general. At NCOSE, we understand that you’ve got to go upstream. I don’t know if you’ve heard the analogy of seeing people floating down the river drowning. You rush in to try to pull out as many as possible, and you’re struggling to get as many to safety as possible.

And you do this for a long time until you’re exhausted, but you’re not able to get to everyone. Eventually you come to this idea of like, I’ve got to go upstream and figure out who’s throwing people in the river. And so you go upstream and find out there’s someone who’s shoving all these people into the river. And in this case, that’s the industry because today’s mainstream online inappropriate material is highly addictive.

It changes their belief system, gives them permission, giving beliefs about consent and buying. People become objects. It’s creating a world of harm. And we know that if we did not have rampant, hardcore material if it was restricted to adult bookstores. Like you had back in the eighties with soft core material. As bad as that was, if we just lived back in that world, that’s what our laws on the book say.

Resources To Stop Human Trafficking: NCOSE’s Action Center

Melea: Our world should look like when it comes to online inappropriate material in the United States. There should be nothing on the internet, nothing on cable, or satellite TV. Can you imagine how different our world would be if our children could go through their developmental years without exposure to it around every corner? So that’s what we strive for is a shift in cultural expectations.

But then there are also practical things we’re doing to interrupt the cycles of things feeding trafficking. So we’d love for them to come to our website. It’s endsexualexploitation.org. And if you go to the action center, you can immediately get involved in helping us stop human trafficking and winning these victories.

Anne: I recommend NCOSE because so many people are talking about trafficking these days. And I have a really interesting story that is super alarming. So, one of my friends was on an airplane, and she was sitting next to a man, and they started talking about politics. He said, “I’m voting for this person because of his record on trafficking, because he will protect the children.”

Her ears perked up and she was like, oh, really, tell me more about this. He said, yeah, there’s these people are stealing these kids and we’ve got to stop it. And then she said, what do you do for a living? And guess what he did for a living?

Melea: What?

Anne: He owned a strip club.

Melea: Oh my gosh. You’re kidding.

Anne: No, so here’s a man who is an actual literal trafficker. He owns a strip club. And he’s talking about this nameless faceless group of people who’s like kidnapping kids when we know who they are. It’s him.

Getting Involved With NCOSE

Anne: We know who the exploiters are. It’s obvious. Getting involved with NCOSE is so awesome, because it’s clear what’s happening. So that you can say, okay, this particular Senator, he’s the one blocking this bill. We can write to that particular Senator and ensure that this bill gets passed.

So I love that NCOSE clears out all the confusion, because at least this man who owned the strip club loved saying, oh yeah, we got to stop trafficking to distract from the fact that he was a trafficker. We need the resources to stop human trafficking, which NCOSE has.

Melea: Talk about denial and hypocrisy, or else just a good marketing scheme there, yeah.

Anne: That is scary these days. So I love that NCOSE is a very reputable organization that has been around for a long time.

Melea: They do their research, and they are careful about the details before they speak out. That’s one reason I’m hesitant as a spokeswoman for NCOSE. I want to make sure I do my best to accurately present the facts, because they have such a high standard when it comes to what they share and do.

They’re very intentional and I respect that about them and they will correct themselves if there is something that they find out is inaccurate, but they do things with a lot of integrity and they get a lot done with a very small budget and a small group of people.

Anne: Well, that’s the other thing I love about NCOSE.

NCOSE’s Credibility & Integrity

Anne: Because so many people talk to me about it, they’ll be like, nobody’s doing anything. And I’m like, every year, NCOSE with their dirty dozen list, they make progress. They have wins. And if you’re on their mailing list, you’ll get messages, and it’s so amazing to be part of that, because you can feel the momentum. And as much as this online stuff is this overarching, exploitative, abusive, systemic problem. It affects every woman who listens to this podcast.

And so many families all over the world, it’s horrific. It needs to be stopped, it’s an abuse issue. The exploiters, they don’t want people to know that progress is being made. They want people to think it’s a lost cause or fine, and what’s your problem? We should just let this go. Or the alternative, which is, there’s nothing you can do.

Melea: They want it to seem that it’s a right and an entitlement, first and foremost. They don’t want people to know that it’s illegal. They want people to feel this is a free speech issue. And it’s not, it’s not protected speech, but you would think that’s the case given everything they do. They have all these organizations that are under misleading names, such as this free speech coalition, various names that make it sound like they’re anti exploitation as well.

They have some groups that sound like they’re anti trafficking, that they’re actually the industry putting up a false front to sound like they’re being benevolent, and they’re doing everything they can to undermine decency in society.

The Best Resources To Stop Human Trafficking

Melea: So you have to do your homework and dig deep when it comes to these issues. A legislator presented this filter bill, just like in our state and in other states. Several groups came in acting like they were, pro family, pro children presenting Trojan horse stills that sounded anti exploitation, and people fell for it. It’s a very sneaky opponent. Thankfully, the law is on our side, science is on our side.

As we educate the public about the harms of it on the brain and relationships in society. And as we educate the public about what the law actually says. They become empowered to push back against this evil industry.

Anne: And so that my listeners are not distracted by actual traffickers who say, Hey, I want to stop trafficking. So you don’t accidentally support a trafficker. NCOSE is the place to get your information to stop human trafficking. They are trustworthy, they’ve been around for so long, and they do their homework. And they know who the specific people are and talk about specific actionable things. That’s what makes it so effective.

Melea: Well, thank you so much. Enjoyed my time with you.

Anne: Yes, you too. Thank you.

If you’re like many women in the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Community, you’ve spent hours scouring the internet, researching why your husband has no empathy for you.

Is it mental illness? A history of trauma? Is it physiological? Due to addiction or pornography use?

Or is it a choice?

Maybe he’s emotionally abusive? To discover if he’s using any one of the 19 types of emotional abuse, take our free emotional abuse quiz.

Nora is on the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast with Anne, taking a deep dive into why some men abuse their partners. And refuse to connect in a compassionate, healthy way.

All The (Wrong) Reasons…

Many women in t have tried to find the cause for their partner’s cold, distant, abusive behaviors. That do not include abuse – hopeful that their partner can change or be fixed so that the marriage can stay intact. Therapists, clergy, internet research and others may point them in the direction of:

• Mental illness
• Addiction
• Alcoholism
• Anger problems
• Pornography use
• Personality disorders
• Childhood trauma
• Stress
• Poor examples of marriage/relationships

While abusive men may have any combination of these. Abuse is a choice that men make – not a condition that they cannot control. So alcoholism, for example, may exacerbate abuse, but it is not the cause of abuse.

Abusing You Is His Choice: Now What?

Understanding that he is choosing to abuse you. Despite whatever his “reason” is or a “reason” his therapist may give you.

Victims may feel trapped, wondering how to proceed. When a disorder, addiction, or other external issue is to blame, victims get distracted from their own emotional safety.

Women seeking education regarding an abusive partner may benefit from these resources:

• Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions
• The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast

Transcript: What To Do When Your Husband Has No Empathy

Anne: I have a member of our community on today’s episode. I’m going to call her Norine. She’s a victim of betrayal and emotional, psychological, and financial abuse. Her ex-husband is a former police officer and serving a sentence in federal prison after a child abuse material conviction. Sometimes people call that child pornography, but we know it’s child abuse material.

Her ex-husband staunchly denied he knew anything about the abuse material on his computer, and insisted she was responsible for “planting it there.”

Welcome. Norine.

Norine: Thank you so much, glad to be here.

Anne: As women are trying to figure out what is going on, like is he an addict, does he have a personality disorder? Sometimes CSAT therapists start start going down that path, so I think many women will be interested in your story. And the ways you have processed this.

Norine: I’ve thought, you know, personality disorder, narcissism, abuser, and he was abusive. But at the time, I’d only done as much research as I could and loved him for as long as I wanted to fix things. He was involved in a shooting incident at work. As a person in law enforcement, I assumed PTSD, but he said, “No, you’re my problem.”

Therapy & Misguided Support With Assessment

Norine: So, my ex got his own therapist, wonderful, through work. He told them, I don’t need support, I need this because my wife is so awful to me. My husband had no empathy. That therapist even called me in to talk to me and didn’t believe me. He dismissed me. He invited me in and then didn’t want to hear from me. I think, again, he was looking for me to be the problem. There’s something wrong with her.

He spent our entire marriage thinking any emotion I had was wrong, so I was just whining. And didn’t seem to understand that I had feelings, he had no empathy. He wasn’t capable of compromising often. Context blindness was another aspect, it was the forest for the trees issue, which he couldn’t see. He couldn’t see what I call the connective tissue between decisions we made or things we were arguing about.

He cannot take responsibility for his own actions. That’s one of the primary issues. He believes he’s always right, despite plenty of evidence. I was hurt by the time he spent on his computer, even if I wasn’t aware of what he was doing. I was just trying to, it’s what everybody views as a label, but I wanted an answer, a reason. So I started with personality disorder. I said, can you look into this? I want to help him, I want our family back together. This wasn’t to label him and…

Anne: It was to solve a problem.

Norine: Right, the assessment I booked it and I paid for it. We drove to the assessment together. I went home with him.

He Received A Diagnosis

Norine: And yes, buying into this idea that oh, it’s a disorder. We can address this now, because we know what it is. I hadn’t identified it as abuse, from my point of view at that point.

My husband has no empathy. He blames me for everything, what I’m not doing. I didn’t see it as abuse. There was no discussion of that, and I wasn’t surprised for that to be the case. Because law enforcement chose this therapist. And that’s another bullet on my list of people who weren’t safe people to go to, because they exacerbated the problem.

Anne: The things that you just said on that list are the traits of abusers who do not have a disorder. When he received his diagnosis, how did he think about it?

Norine: We didn’t talk about it much, so I don’t know fully. But the next day it was, you know, this is not me. You’re just looking for an excuse to deflect and minimize your responsibility for the problem we have. And the situation we’re in now.

It was right back to the script he followed for the entire time. That I had done something wrong, and I needed to toe the line and get my behavior back in order. So that we could put our marriage back together again, and that I wouldn’t take responsibility.

Anne: Yeah.

Searching For The Cause When Your Husband Has No Empathy

Anne: This is something that I think is super important for every single listener of this podcast. I say it repeatedly, but I want it to hit home for everyone. It does not matter what the cause is, if it’s abusive to you, it’s abusive. It breaks our hearts, because it could be something that is completely not their fault. Someone could be a super healthy person and get like a head injury, for example.

And their head injury alters their personality and causes them to be abusive. In that case, you can, with compassion, look at them. And say, this is such an unfortunate situation that they had this head injury and it caused them to be abusive. But that doesn’t mean the abuse is okay. If you’re harmed, it’s okay to get to safety regardless of the cause.

That’s really hard, because women think if they can figure out why he’s doing these harmful behaviors to their family. This is a powerful truth about emotional abuse. If they understand why their husband is not empathetic. They might not use the word abuse, they think. If they can figure out why, then we can solve it. As you tried to get help and explain what had happened to people at the time, you didn’t have the words. And so the thing you were talking about the most was a diagnosis.

Norine: Yes, and thank you for saying that. Because if there’s one take home, let’s say six years out from the major crisis. Is that I have come to understand it’s abuse. I amplify that message that it’s abuse, and you need to take care of you and your children.

He Plays The Blame Game & Seeking Answers

Anne: Many men would not go in for a psych evaluation, or some sort of testing. So what prompted the test to get a diagnosis?

Norine: It was, of course, my idea. Because I came out of our second couple’s therapist of three where the therapist told him, “Her needs were important to you, and you wanted to honor those.” And his immediate response was, well, no. I thought she was going to leave me, so I had to. It was so devoid of any sort of care for me, or even an awareness that he should be at least putting on a show that he cared.

And it just hit me wrong, and that’s where I went down the rabbit hole and hit on the term alexithymia. Which is this difficulty connecting with the feelings of others and identifying them. So I pushed, and he was I think so wholly convinced that I was the problem, that he was willing to do that. Because it would prove that I was the issue, and there was nothing wrong with him.

The fall apart stage was after the birth of my second child. When I decided I wanted a third child. And he didn’t want one. It was the same fight as through all those years. But I held my ground with what I wanted for the first time, thinking that surely this time I will convince him. He did agree. And so I got pregnant.

So we were on a family vacation, and he was cold and distant. My husband was so cruel had no empathy. Then said, “You blackmailed me into having this child, and I can’t accept it.” And so here I was pregnant with two little guys, and he was ready to move out.

Discovering The Truth

Norine: Honestly, I did not learn until two days after I testified at his federal trial that confirmed 100 percent, that he was cheating. But when he left the house, he originally said I was sticking him with the children as much as possible. At every spare moment he had, and he didn’t want them. I said, okay, I’ll keep them. Then suddenly he wanted them. And he was taking my children off to hang out with his mistress.

I suspected, but I kept putting it aside because I wanted to believe it wasn’t happening, and we could still fix the marriage. That was months and months before I got really suspicious. He said we didn’t have enough money for a third child, but he spent a lot of money.

That’s when I logged into his computer looking for evidence of whatever was going on with him. And that’s when I found quite a bit of exploitative material. And then I thought it was being deleted from the hard drive. So I set it aside, turned it off, disconnected it, and still wanted to work on the marriage. His behavior was then erratic.

Through this whole period, he would disappear with my kids. And that’s how he took them someplace, and I thought he was taking them for good. He was just doing various suspicious things. Like putting a trash can in front of my car, in the driveway in front of the garage door.

So I would have to get out and move it when I opened the garage door. Or trash the house and say the dogs spread garbage around. So he was starting to get really manipulative in that way.

When Your Husband Has No Empathy: Forensic Evidence & Legal Battles

Norine: Ultimately, I said to myself, I have to investigate what’s on this computer. This is where I think it connects with what you talk about here on your podcast. I thought surely the courts will say, well, this man has tens of thousands of images on his computer, that he’s downloading all the time. He can’t be an effective parent, and I would get custody and the kids would be safe.

So I sent the computer off for forensics, still not letting myself believe any more than moments at a time. And it came back with CSAM on it, my husband got caught using CSAM.

Anne: So CSAM is the term Child Abuse Material, So how did your experiences with DV and counseling professionals, law enforcement, the courts exacerbate your trauma?

Norine: In so many ways. Whenever I think of this now that I’ve been listening to your podcast, I think of one episode you did and I’ve listened to them out of sequence. So I don’t know how long ago it was, but it was when you were so raw, honest, and vulnerable. About having been in court and having gotten nothing of what you wanted and needed for you and your kids in terms of custody. That feeling came right to the surface for me.

Again, I don’t think I cried so hard as I have in family courts. Because people have not recognized this idea of describing these experiences, and not believed by friends, family, and professionals. And I faced it over and over again.

Emotional Turmoil In Family Courts

Norine: When he was arrested, the people in his department went to the FBI agent, and they said, oh, you know, of course she set him up, right? He didn’t do this. And the FBI agent said, go read the filing documents. And then I think some of them believed, but they weren’t a resource for me. I even have one domestic violence counselor, because I’ve been to several of the centers in my various towns, and one said, oh, well it’s very nuanced.

Because I went to them at one point thinking, am I the abuser? Is this all my fault? Did I do something wrong? Oh, it can be very nuanced. Because she didn’t hear anything I said that made her say, oh, yes, he’s abusive. So there I was already in this fog of self doubt, and that set me back.

The courts just don’t have space to listen to any of the categories you discuss in your podcast. They’re so focused on, this must be two parties who contribute equally to a problematic dynamic. And they’re both acting childish or irresponsibly. We’re just going to shut this down. Because the best thing for children, except for extreme circumstances that we can’t identify here. Is their access to both parents. Autism doesn’t make people abusive. It also doesn’t make people bad parents.

It has to be about the behaviors and traits, and I’m not sure I ever got that bulleted list together for myself. Of what is going on here that makes him unsafe, because it was so nebulous. That’s the reason why I’m not believed.

A Husband with No Empathy Neglects the Children

Norine: If I say, he called me up and had custody of the kids, and he hadn’t fed them dinner at 8 o’clock. My husband has no empathy for the kids either. They were all under the age of 7. People were like, well, that’s not child abuse to not feed them until 8 o’clock at night. I just kind of felt stuck at the how do I demonstrate that this is problematic behavior regardless of its label.

And then I got the deus ex machina situation, well, he’s been lifted out of here. He’s clearly unsafe because he’s looking at CSAM, but I have colleagues whose partners don’t do that, and they’re just as unsafe in other ways.

Anne: Yeah, a lot of people said, oh, your ex got arrested for abuse. I have a guilty verdict with a 14 month probation and a protective order. And the courts didn’t see that as dangerous around children either. It’s so interesting when you try to define these sort of psychological and emotional abusive things, they’re like, well, he just isn’t into trombone, when I say he will not support my son in his trombone.

Things that when you’re in it, you know, how abusive it is. But from the outside, they just think, oh, people parent differently. There are different styles. So it’s also interesting that there’s no abuse diagnosis. There’s no space for that. Even though the courts say there is. It’s crazy making for those of us who have tried to get our kids to safety.

Courts Don’t Understand Emotional & Psychological Abuse

Norine: You know, I read the entire transcript three years out. I testified, and then I promptly left the courtroom, never to return because I didn’t want to hear it. But I felt ready to read it and understand what I’m up against when he’s released. At a sentencing hearing, the federal court judge who sat there and heard all his testimony and all the lies he told.

That’s all explicitly on record. You perjured yourself, you blamed your ex wife, you are at fault and you will not admit it. During his house arrest period, he was not to go near me or the children. In the next breath, he said, I released this hold. You can have unsupervised visitation with your children if the family courts allow it.

Anne: And the family courts don’t understand emotional and psychological abuse. They don’t understand these issues of coercion, safety, unless they’re in prison or there’s some kind of severe bruise.

Norine: Right, it wasn’t enough that the content he was watching, I will not get graphic, but incest was a theme. So how would you say my children are safe?

Anne: I had a guardian ad litem look over it when I was saying he was unsafe. And say, I don’t understand why she’s saying her ex is unsafe. He seems safe to me.

Norine: He looked at me two weeks before I gave birth to our third child and said, I want nothing to do with this baby. And I told a guardian ad litem. She said, well, he wants to be a parent now, so we need to let him.

Struggles With Friends & Family

Anne: Let’s talk about friends and family, apart from counseling professionals in the court. How did they see this? Did they believe and support you? Or realize your husband has no empathy?

Norine: On the side of my friends, you know this, and listeners probably know this. That you learn who your true friends are. You learn who your tough friends are, because it’s not easy to process. For the people who can hang with you and listen to it, they’re your people. My friends group, I have some of my longstanding friends. But a lot of my tribe now are newer people who came in when I was in the midst of the story. Or post the story and were okay with me telling and retelling it.

And visiting it as I need to. My family not as much. My ex’s family, I suspect they knew about the behavior. Because it didn’t start during my marriage. It started in his tween or teen years, and I think they’ve been covering for him. They’re a family with some social status and money. They’ve funded all his lawsuits in the family court, all his federal trial, an appeal, and whatever legal steps he’s taking right now.

They supported him, and in fact his parents, petitioned me for visitation of the kids. They were already taking steps before he was even arrested. So to me that said, they knew I had his computer. And it was only a matter of time before I figured out what was on it and before something happened.

So they pursued visitation rights, got them. And the opening questions when I was cross examined at his federal trial were about how I was keeping the grandchildren from their grandparents.

My Husband Has No Empathy: Ongoing Accusations & Letters

Norine: Because the whole narrative for him was that I was a vindictive spouse who just wanted the kids and money and to make his life miserable.

Anne: So this was at the federal trial for his child abuse material case. They brought up that you were withholding the kids from the grandparents because you were vindictive, to blame you. Is he still doing the, you set him up?

Norine: Yes. I mean, he hasn’t actually said those words. He sends bimonthly letters to my children and still says, I’m pursuing this aspect of my case again. It’s going back to the courts and they’re looking at it, and they passed the first step, which is important because it shows that I’m telling the truth. The way I read it, it’s plausible deniability.

Well, you can’t prove beyond a doubt that it was me, because it could have been her because she knew this password. Or he’d make up lies just to make it seem as if I could be responsible. He keeps insisting they have not proven that I did not know it was there, that I didn’t put it there. That’s because I had a shared computer and we shared passwords, It could be me. So he’s not let go of that no.

It puts my children in this position. We can talk about my children. It’s, you know, I’m laughing now, now I’m in this laughable space. But my kids are in this, and this is not funny, unfortunately. Because he blames me, and it’s on public record. As is his infidelity. He’s putting my kids in the position of having to believe one or the other of us, because it’s either or.

Anne: Ugh, it’s a nightmare. It’s a nightmare.

He’s Currently In Prison & Future Concerns

Anne: So he’s currently in prison. How long will he be in prison?

Norine: Another two and a half years, roughly. A little bit more than that.

Anne: And I imagine that for the moment you’re like, okay, we have a little break. But you have anxiety and worry about him getting out.

Norine: Exactly. And I thank you for validating that. And I think that’s where the friends network breaks down a little bit. Why do you keep worrying about this? Why don’t you just live your life? Worry about that later, you can’t predict the future, so many things. And I don’t live in that moment every single day of my life. But I have to be prepared for it, because there’s no doubt. This is his entire life right now, standing by that he’s innocent and planning to come out and be super dad.

Anne: Oh, it is. It is really, really rough. So in addition to your justifiable concern and worry about when this horrible non empathetic man he gets out of prison. How has his behavior affected your children in other ways?

Norine: He sends letters. Every other week, the court ordered he’d be allowed to do that. But his letters are so out of a fantasy world that it’s confusing for them. He talks about going to the beach and how he has neighbors. And he had this special meal for dinner and all these wonderful things happening. It’s a sanitized version of reality that’s confusing for them. Because they say, doesn’t he know that we know where he is?

It’s threatening to pull them into his way of being. That’s not healthy. So we have to work against that when we’re living as a family or working with their support system.

Moving Forward & Keeping Privacy

Norine: And then unfortunately, it’s perhaps forever unknown whether he actually harmed them in any way. They were fairly young, and I’ve had dealings with child protective services who have investigated this. So my kids have been put through that too.

A positive is that we’ve moved a couple of times since this all happened. So we no longer live in the town where this took place, and they were young enough that their friends weren’t talking about it at great length. There’s a chance they can keep it private in their school and friend circles if they so choose. So that’s a positive.

Anne: Oh, it’s really sad and disheartening to realize that the justice system is more about the rights of perpetrators than protecting victims. Making sure the victims are safe is not high on the priority list. So I’m so sorry you got that sort of hanging out there in space. When was your divorce final?

Norine: It took a while. I filed and then worked on the marriage for another year, and it finally was finalized. I don’t know what compelled him to sign the paperwork, because part of his profile is also to be demand avoidant. And I don’t know if he wanted to look good for the courts. But he finally let me go. So it’s completely done. It took so long, in part because my attorney advised to wait until we found out the outcome of his trial. Before we moved to finalize things.

Men who have No empathy is a red flag: Experiences Of Dating After Abuse

Anne: So since you’ve been divorced and dating again, can you talk about how your experience with abuse and betrayal, and also the nightmare of the court system. How have your experiences affected your dating life?

Norine: Yeah, I’m vigilant. As, as one would be, and probably many of your listeners are, if they’ve stepped into this realm. I’d look for signs. The signs of abuse pop out. I’ve come to be an expert at reading a dating app profile for red flags. But even so, I would say I’ve ended up in personality disorder relationships.

So I stepped back when I found myself in those situations and took a break, because I had to be honest with myself. And say, I didn’t have a baseline for what a normal relationship was like because we started our relationship in college. So I entered the dating realm for the first time as a true adult.

I remember having this moment at the time. I was given estimates of what content was on his computer, and they’re saying 50 to 100 thousand images. And I looked at my therapist, who was a man, and I said, is that a lot? Because it was so normalized, men look at this stuff. Every man looks at it. So it was just what men do. So that another man was shocked by what he was doing, that my husband had no empathy, was a wake up call for me.

And I had to be mindful of that. I had to learn where to set my boundaries. Based on what my expectations could be. And to learn that I could set my expectations as high as I wanted. And I did. My ex husband has no empathy, and I don’t want to repeat that.

Finding Hope In Healthy Relationships

Norine: And I am actually in a wonderful relationship right now. So I listen to these stories all the time of women who aren’t ready. And I celebrate them that they know they’re not ready. And I listened to women who are hurt again, and I hurt for them because I’ve hurt too. Anybody who wants to be in a relationship again, I want that for them because I believe it’s possible.

Anne: Yeah, when I was with my ex and I was in this addiction recovery world, and helping him with his addiction, I genuinely felt like. All men are addicts. Now that I’m out of that and have been introduced, and I interact with many healthy men, I have more hope than ever. Personally, I don’t want to be in a relationship, but simultaneously, I agree that it is possible.

I don’t want abuse to ruin what they want and care about. So many abusers ruin their victim’s faith, for example. They want a faith in God, or a faith in anything or something. That gets ruined for them, or a belief that they could have a healthy relationship.

Norine: Yeah, I think many of us end up in these relationships because we’re kind, caring, flexible people. That want to be invested. There are plenty of other ways to invest all your kindness and love. Youand you can put it into things like podcasting, children, so many things. Yeah, but if that’s what people want, it’s absolutely doable.

Anne: Yeah, I’ve met quite a few advocates who are now married to healthy men after an abusive relationship. And one of the things they tell me, and I don’t know if you would agree, is it’s so easy. So different than when your husband has no empathy.

Marriage With A Healthy Husband Is Not Difficult

Anne: Like you don’t even know how easy it can be. That also makes me happy, because that whole marriage is work. And it has to be, I’m not saying marriage isn’t work, is sort of a way to manipulate women into thinking that a marriage has to be hard and really difficult. And rationalize when your husband has no empathy. When with a healthy person, it maybe doesn’t need to be that difficult. How do you feel about that?

Norine: Oh my goodness, that speaks to my experience so well. My partner and I joke about this. We will mock language of what the conflict might be. I bought a deck of relationship questions for Christmas, and we snicker our way through it. Because we’ve already discussed three quarters of the content on these cards.

I think it’s meant to prompt like deep conversation. We already did it on our own. And anything that delves into areas of conflict, we snicker because we don’t feel like we’re ever going to be in that position. Because we’re so open. Communication, which was the biggest challenge in my marriage, is so simple. Not like when your husband has no empathy.

I think, you know, arguing could be healthy in a relationship. I believe that, but we don’t get to that point because the communication is so good. It’s just discovering something that we all deserve, and it’s so exciting.

Anne: It is exciting, yeah. That’s good news. And I’m so happy that you found that. That’s awesome.

Tools For Safety & Communication: Living Free Strategies

Anne: In terms of abuse in general, but also specifically with your abuser who is in prison right now. There maybe flying monkeys or others who don’t understand our situation. When our husband has no empathy or natural care for us, what tools and strategies do you use to keep yourself safe?

Norine: My favorite genuine tool, you’ve mentioned on your podcast and used it. I use the Our Family Wizard app to communicate with my abusive ex in-laws. That allows you to document and timestamp all communication. It’s all in one place. You access it when you want and need to, and feel safe doing so. There can never be any misunderstanding about whether a message was received, and what it said, because it’s all documented.

Anne: Yeah, the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop builds the foundation for safe strategies, thoughts, boundaries and communication strategies and also teaches women how to use Our Family Wizard to their advantage.

There are several key reasons to use Our Family Wizard. One of them is that you only have one point of entry. Where the abusive person can contact you. Because they can’t contact you on your phone or in an email. And you have everything written down and it’s all in one place, like you said.

It’s awesome. So if you haven’t checked out the the Living Free Workshop, check it out.

Norine: Absolutely, yeah, so helpful.

Ex Husband Has No Empathy, Dealing With Manipulative Communication

Norine: Another thing related to communication, and I hope your listeners will understand this. This is certainly something that I struggled with a lot. I believe my ex dog whistles. So the idea that only dogs hear a certain frequency of a dog whistle, my ex will say things in letters to my children. That are designed, I believe, to get a reaction from me that no one else would see as problematic. Still, my ex husband has no empathy for me or the kids.

And of course, that works beautifully in the courtroom too. I would have panic attacks every time one of the letters hit the mailbox. Because I felt I had to read them, because I’m the line of defense between my children and whatever content is in this letter. But I have friends, they’re fabulous in terms of the gallows humor. I send them a copy of the letter, and we read it together.

They help me remove myself from getting hooked into that feeling of being controlled by that message. And just finding the humor in the moment. It’s a small thing, but you know, it hits my mailbox every other week. So I’m constantly dealing with them, even though I’ve exited the relationship. I still have to engage in this way, so I make sure it’s done in a way that supports me.

Anne: It is so sad to me that the justice system does not recognize that an abuser can still abuse their victim from prison.

Norine: Yes, yes.

Anne: The fact that he’s allowed, and not only allowed, but also the court protects his letters to your kids. Like you said, I’ve exited the relationship, but I am still forced to interact with him and he’s in prison.

Challenges With In-Laws Creating Chaos

Anne: If it was a stranger who had, let’s say, raped you once on the street. And then let’s say he got 15 years prison for that. If you said he writes me a letter every other week, they would be like whoa, whoa, whoa. You should not be reading those letters. He should not be sending these to you.

Norine: Exactly, I mean, he’s shored up this line of attack too. Because that’s another reason why I believe my ex-in-laws are in this picture. They have weekly phone calls with my children, and they engage in the same behavior. They have the right to send gifts, so they create their own chaos. I won’t necessarily go into that, but yeah, we all know as the abuse victims that these are tactics they use. But they fly right under the radar.

You know, I’ve also thought about this, with respect to the in-laws having access. I thought the same thing as you just said. If my ex husband and I were together and on the same page and decided our parents or in-laws were toxic. We could say, no thank you.

You cannot spend time with my children. But because he and I do not see eye to eye, my in-laws get to step in and create whatever scenario they want. I feel like if I had a dog, I would have more say about what choices I make about my pet than about my children and their safety. The only hope is for our children to age out of the process. And they’re trusted to make their own good choices about their future and relationships with their parents.

Dealing With Public Exposure & Its Effects

Anne: One aspect of your story is that some of it was publicized in the news. How do you think having it in the news, even if you didn’t know people. Just knowing that it was out there, how did that affect you? And how has that had an ongoing effect on you?

Norine: There’s nothing like your partner cheating on you and then having everybody know. I’m grateful that I didn’t find that out until I had processed the possibility, and I was beyond wanting to be with him. Because my ex husband has no empathy and he is trying to actively harm us. But it’s hard to think about my children reading it, and my almost 12 year old right on developmental target has been Google searching.

So we’ve been talking a lot about it. I had news reporters in my driveway. There was social media chatter. It’s hard to stomach. I created a healthy distance from it. But it’s so interesting to watch the people who said she shouldn’t have said anything, and she’s ruined her kids’ lives. And why didn’t she say something earlier? Which I couldn’t because I didn’t know. But it was misreported. I think that’s a hard thing, but an interesting thing because.

We’re all consumers of the news, and we read a story and pass judgment. Or don’t, I guess, but based on our life experience and what we read. And how discriminating we are in the kind of news we consume. But when you have that experience of mistruths, it shows how often the news gets it wrong. Especially because they can’t comprehend that some of these husbands have no empathy.

Believing Victims & Seeking Justice When An Ex Husband Has No Empathy

Norine: So I try to process everything I hear now, even more deliberately. But going forward, part of me wants to speak out, continue speaking out, and put the story out there. I also want to be shut down by my ex, because he certainly doesn’t think I’m speaking the truth. So I have these mixed feelings about what it means to have it be public. I want to make good use of it, but it might work against me in some ways.

Anne: I wonder when he does get out, the climate has maybe shifted a little bit in terms of the media, thank goodness. People seem to believe victims more than they have historically.

Norine: I thought it was super interesting that the jury convicted him. And I worked with victim witness specialists in the courts. They said, yeah, when the jury heard him, he’s unfaithful, and the way he was treating you. Your testimony was credible. He was not winning over many people. And they said, particularly the mothers on the jury, they saw you just trying to protect your children.

So I don’t know if the climate makes a difference, because ultimately it comes down to who’s on the jury or who’s on the judge’s bench. I think that has a lot more to do with it.

Anne: Yeah, it’s too bad that in our divorces, we don’t have a jury of moms.

Norine: That’d be fabulous.

Anne: That would be awesome.

Messages Of Support & Community

Norine: I just want to reiterate the kind of message you share on the podcast all the time. Get to safety, you’re not crazy. Something we say in group a lot. I believe you, this is happening, trust your instinct. All those things we say them over and over again. They’re powerful, say them to yourself and trust yourself. That’s ultimately how you can get to safety. So, don’t discount you.

Anne: You are amazing, and all of our listeners are amazing. It is a big warning sign if your husband has no empathy. You have been through the most horrific, nightmarish experiences, all of us have, so many women are in that super, traumatic time. And the wonderful thing is that as a community, we support each other. We help each other, and give each other spiritual hugs or hugs from across Apple podcasts.

Knowing that there is a whole community of women who completely and totally understand. We are all different and look different. We all sound different and made different choices. But the things we have experienced, the patterns of lying and gaslighting, deceit and blame, all of that is so similar. I’m so grateful to not be in this alone. And also grateful that as a community, we are becoming more and more healthy. We can teach our children and hopefully one home at a time. We’re making this world a better place.

Norine: Absolutely, thank you so much for having me. And for all that you do.

You don’t have anything wrong with you if you left an emotionally abusive marriage and your new husband is abusive too.

This episode follows Chandra’s Story:
This Is How Abusers Manipulate Their Victims – Chandra’s First Marriage
Part 2: When My New Husband Is Abusive Too – Chandra’s Second Marriage (THIS EPISODE)

When women experience a second abusive husband, they may blame themselves:

• I’ve already been through this once, how could I make this mistake again?
• What is it about me that attracts me to abusers?
• Why didn’t I see the signs sooner?
• Why didn’t I do this, this, and this differently?

Here’s the truth: you are not to blame for his behaviors when your new husband is abusive too.

Blaming yourself for abuse by another man is needless torture. You have been through enough – please exercise compassion for yourself rather than judgment. Many women, including Chandra, experience embarrassment and shame when they realize their new husband is also abusive. This shame and embarrassment may deter them from seeking safety early on, believing that with enough grit and determination, they can make the marriage work.

BTR.ORG Is Here When Your New Husband Is Abusive Too

Victims of abuse who have a new husband may feel discouraged, embarrassed, and hopeless. Sometimes, victims express feeling silly or pathetic for having entered into a second marriage.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be loved. In fact, this is a normal part of being human. What is NOT normal, is being abusive. You are not the problem here – the abuser is the problem.

If you are experiencing trauma from a second husband, please join our BTR.ORG Group Sessions today. You deserve a healing community of loving, compassionate women who understand.

Transcript: When My New Husband Is Abusive Too

Anne: Chandra, a member of our community, is back on today’s episode. Last week, she told the story about her emotionally abusive first husband. This week, we’ll talk about her second husband, her new husband is abusive too. If you haven’t heard about her first marriage, go back and listen to last week first, and then join us here.

Chandra, welcome back.

Chandra: I’m still wrapping my head around grace for myself for not knowing before that my new husband was abusive. And getting into that situation again. I feel like, why didn’t I see the red flags after what I’d been through? Maybe it was too soon? I hadn’t learned the lessons I needed before another relationship. And I thought I was ready, but I must not have been right.

Anne: I’m going to disagree with you, sorry.

Chandra: That’s okay.

Anne: It’s not your fault that someone abuses you. There are so many women who don’t know much about abuse, or who don’t know how to recognize red flags. And they marry great guys.

Chandra: Yeah.

Anne: Because the guy’s not abusive.

Chandra: Right.

Anne: It’s never your fault if someone intentionally deceives you. It’s never your fault if someone intentionally grooms you, and you don’t know. Those who’ve been through it tend to know more, I would say, than the average person. The average person who marries a healthy person doesn’t know about it. Their husbands didn’t abuse them.

Anne: Even though you went through an abusive situation, this second abuser abused differently than before. I remember talking to a friend who was in a horrific abusive situation. And I was newly married. I went to her and said, “Hey, you know, what’s happening with my husband? Is this kind of what you experienced?”

Early Signs Of Trouble & A Vulnerable Time

Anne: She said, “No, your husband’s amazing compared to my guy.” Right, and so she thought my husband was healthy and great. She’s like, yeah, but nobody’s perfect. But like, man, he’s so much better. And so I was like, Oh, okay, well then he’s not abusive because she would know. Because she’s been in an abusive situation.

But that’s not necessarily the case, because abusers know how to groom people. They can groom you in a way that “works for you.” So I just don’t think it’s ever our fault. However, I think we learn a lot of skills along the way.

Chandra: Oh my, yeah.

Anne: So saying that, I just want to say no. Not your fault.

Chandra: Yeah, that helps. It’s nice to hear that. It’s just frustrating to have spent another eight years with somebody that was also not a great partner and hurt me again. And especially after all the promises. Like, oh, your first husband did you wrong, and I’ll take care of you and never let that happen to you blah, blah, blah.

So, I met my second husband at work. He was not working in the same company. But he was in sales and would visit and attempt to get me to specify his company’s equipment on projects. He was smooth, Mr. Debonair, a lot of fun and interesting. I felt super vulnerable too, and had a broken heart, and wanted to be loved.

And I was vulnerable, and I think sometimes these men can see that. These men look for somebody that is maybe compliant. And it’s a bit weaker and easy to control.

Visiting Back & Forth Without Kids

Anne: I don’t know about that either. Some of them are looking for someone who will manage them. Someone who’s strong. Someone who can organize things and do stuff so they can just kind of coast along. So I also wouldn’t say that’s your fault for everything. You could say, oh, I was weak. So that’s what he was looking for.

There’s also very kind and loving men who might be like, oh, she’s weak, so I need to protect her. So I just don’t think again that it’s your fault. Every time you tell me there’s some reason, I’m gonna say no, no, no. It is not your fault that your second husband is abusive too.

Chandra: Definitely. I’m a high functioning woman. I make stuff happen. I do it. Probably both husbands saw that and went, I want me some of that, right? I want that high functioning woman looking after my life, because let me tell you, I did that. I took care of things. What’s interesting, and this will just tie into my story a bit about my second husband. Is that I would visit him or he would visit me when we didn’t live in the same city, when my kids were visiting their dad.

And so I wish I had seen him more around my kids. If I had, I probably would not have married him, because he didn’t want my kids around. I didn’t discover that until after I married him and moved in with him. And whenever I visited him, his house was spotless. Okay, it looked great, his life looked great. He was looking after things. It all looked good. It didn’t look like my new husband would also be abusive.

The Disappointing Reality Of Living Together

Chandra: I will tell you that the day I moved in, I hadn’t visited for three months. And I am pretty sure he didn’t pick up a single dishcloth. He did not pick up a broom. He did not touch the bathroom. It was a pigsty the day we moved in. It was late at night, and we got there, and my kids needed baths. I remember 10 o’clock at night cleaning the bathroom, thinking, what have I gotten into? This guy wants me to do all the cleaning. He wants me to do everything around here.

I was never able to get him to pick up a broom or vacuum to help. From then on, he said, well, you’re the one with all the kids, so the mess is mostly yours. You need to clean up.

Anne: Was he a member of your church?

Chandra: No, he wasn’t.

Anne: And I’m not saying anything about, if he would have been, it would have been good, no, no, no.

Chandra: I remember thinking when we dated, should I date someone from my faith community? Well, first of all, the pickings were pretty slim where I was living. I lived in a remote northern community north of Toronto, not a lot of choice up there, I would say. There’s some good people up there, but I thought to myself, does it matter?

I married somebody who checked all the boxes I was taught to look for. And look what happened, he was also abusive. So do you think I care if he’s a member of my faith community?

Realizing The Extent Of The Problem

Anne: That’s exactly how I feel now. Yeah, I do not care.

Chandra: I did not care. I just wanted to be with someone who would love me and treat me right. And I thought that’s what I had, but quickly after moving in with him. I realized I was in another abusive relationship. The first Monday morning that we woke up to go to work, he woke up late, his alarm hadn’t gone off or something.

And he looked at me and said, “Why didn’t you get me up?”

And I was like, it’s my job to do that? What have you been doing all this time that you’ve been living alone? It’s not my job to get you up in the morning. And I thought, oh my gosh. He would come home at 10 o’clock at night, and I would not hear from him, and I didn’t know where he was.

And he would come in, and I would say, where were you? And why didn’t you let me know where you were? Like, you’re married, you should tell me where you are. He felt entitled to go wherever he wanted and do what he wanted, and he didn’t have to answer to me.

Anne: Had he been married before?

Chandra: No, and he was a few years younger than me. But his maturity was well below what he had presented. Like, he got into fights with my 10 year old son. And behaved in ways similar to my son. As if his emotional development was arrested at age 10.

Leaving A Second Abusive Marriage

Chandra: It was strange. I started noticing things about him. He had no empathy for my kids, and he did not treat them well. It didn’t take me long before I realized I needed to leave. And I actually moved out about four years after we moved in with him.

I mean, I tried for a while to make things work. But I knew right away I was not in a good situation. But I’ll tell you the shame of making a mistake. That’s what kept me in that situation much longer than I needed to be. That’s one thing I wish I could change, is just, you know, don’t worry about what people think, that I got myself into another abusive marriage. If it’s not right, do something about it. I know that’s not easy. It’s not that simple. I know that. But if I could change anything, that’s one thing I would change.

He had an affair, in the process of me preparing to move out, and I was not expecting that. I mean, we didn’t get along that great. And I was upset with him for his behaviors and the way he treated my kids. But I wasn’t expecting him to do that.

But I recognized the signs right away. And a week after I moved out, I had gone to his place to do my laundry. Because the place I’d moved into was getting a new washer dryer, and it wasn’t there yet. So I went over to his place and lo and behold, there’s a vehicle sitting in the driveway I didn’t recognize. it was unlocked.

My New Husband Is also Abusive: Confronting The Affair

Chandra: So I’m the wife. I’m going to open the door and look in the glove box. And it was a woman’s I. D. in there. And I looked her up on Facebook, and I went into the house. He had taken all the pictures of us, and any evidence that I existed, and swept it into drawers. Basically, he hid every possible evidence that he had a wife. I realized, oh, he’s out on a date with this woman, and he plans to bring her back here.

Because I don’t see any of my stuff out, I hadn’t taken everything. I thought this was going to be a short-term separation. I didn’t know. So I actually looked her up on Facebook, and I sent her a message. And I said, did you know that the man you’re on a date with is married? You know, I’m at the house, I’m going to do my laundry, and I’m not confrontational, but I’d like you to come and get your car and go home. And they stayed out for a while after that.

https://youtube.com/shorts/xZBJeXvdU4o

I know they’d seen my messages, and there was a bit of back and forth. And I just said, I’m just here waiting. I’m not going to hurt anybody. I’m not going to come out and yell at anybody, but I just want to talk to you. I said that to my husband.

Chandra: So he came in and I had evidence and all he could do was lie and lie and lie.

Dealing With Betrayal & Lies

Chandra: He was just lying his face off, trying to hide it. I’ve got the evidence that you’re with this woman, and messaged her the next day. Because even then, all the lies were shaking me up. And I thought, what if it’s not what it looks like. So I actually messaged her again the next day and asked her for details. She said he lied and was separated for six months. I had literally just moved out.

And I told her we were supposed to work on the relationship. We’ve been married for this long. And we struggle over getting along because of the kids. She had no idea he had lied to her, and made it sound like the relationship was over many months ago. She said, “I’m so sorry, I had no idea he told me these lies.”

And I said, “Okay, don’t worry about it.”

But then I showed him the messages. And said, “Look, she told me everything. I know this has been going on for two months.” And once he was found out, he broke down and cried, and, oh, you know, I’m so messed up. And yeah, let’s work on it, blah, blah, blah. So for the next year, I bent over backwards, like I did before, thinking this was just a mistake, like an accident, haha.

He made this mistake, and it’s just because things have been rough, and we’ve been fighting. And we got separated, and it knocked him loose, so he’s a little upset about that. I was making all these stupid excuses for him. I didn’t realize fully that he was abusive too.

The Impact Of Pornography When My second Husband Is Abusive

Anne: Were you aware that he used exploitative material?

Chandra: When we were dating, I said to him, “I absolutely don’t tolerate that stuff in my relationships.”

And he says, “Oh, well, I used to use that. I only use that when I’m single. I don’t need that. I’m not addicted.” That’s what he said. And I said, it is absolutely not welcome in our relationship. And he agreed. He’s like, okay. I can do that. I’m not addicted to it. But, I noticed right before I moved out, he was on his phone a lot.

At one point he had this friend send him images. And we were in the bedroom one time, and he showed me a picture, and he said, Oh, my friend just sent me this. And I took one look at it, and I went, what the heck is that? I said, “That’s pornography. I don’t want to see that.” I was disgusted by it.

And I was angry at him, and I caught him a couple of other times looking at images. And I realized, he went back to it. Maybe he’s been doing it the whole time, and I don’t even know. And he would have problems performing in bed.

Anne: Yep, that’s a thing. Yeah.

Chandra: Right, yeah, and I didn’t realize that, but it sort of made sense. I thought, well, if he’s fooling around with that all the time, he’s not going to have it for me. But he would tell me, he’d say, oh, you do it for me, you do it for me, that kind of thing. Anyway, I realized that was happening, my second husband was also abusive.

Unsuccessful Attempts To Salvage The Relationship

Chandra: Because I didn’t want that again, I made a big effort the year after the affair to go and see him, spend time with him and be intimate with him. Let me tell you.

Anne: Thinking that would solve the problem. That is marital coercion.

Chandra: Thinking that would solve the problem. Neither of my husbands were deprived of intimacy. I’ll just say that. They were not. There was no reason for them to do anything else.

Anne: Even if they’re deprived of intimacy? There’s still no reason for them to do that.

Chandra: I guess the reason I say that is because my first husband had said he had an expectation. That he expected it every day when he married. That’s what he thought. And somehow I had dropped the ball and not made that happen for him. And so that was one of his excuses for acting out.

So moving right along, basically, I think there was more divine intervention in helping me get past this relationship. A year after my second husband had that affair, a bunch of horrible things happened all at once. I lost my job, had a layoff. And I actually think it was related to all the stress I was under. I struggled emotionally and performed at work, but my attitude was bad.

I was really suffering because he is abusive too. Instead of asking me if there was anything they could do to help, my employer was like, she’s a problem. Get her out of here. At least that’s my interpretation of what happened. And being in an all male work environment was just a tough environment for women to be in. But there was no understanding. You know, I was driving my kids around a lot.

Losing A Job & Coping With Loss

Chandra: Sometimes I would have to leave in the middle of the day to take them to appointments. And I don’t think anybody understood what I was going through a second abusive marriage at the time. Trying to work full time, build my career as an engineer, and take care of four kids. It was insane. And I had no family around to help me.

So, I lost my job. And I had a miscarriage somehow. I was 43 and pregnant, and I actually felt so relieved that pregnancy didn’t happen. Because I wasn’t with a good person. When I went through that, I was at the hospital dealing with that. And he couldn’t be bothered to come. He went fishing instead. And that kind of didn’t sit well with me.

Then, you know how, uh, the phones you can have, uh, share my location with your partner, with family members? We had been trying to get that to work, because I wanted to keep tabs on him. And his phone, I couldn’t get it to work with his phone, I couldn’t figure it out.

It was a Sunday afternoon. He came and had dinner with me and the kids. at our place. Then he just went home. And it was weird, because most of the time we spent time on Sunday evenings together before the work week started. And he just went home. I think he said something about having something to do. And I was just sitting there minding my own business. And suddenly, my phone showed me his location.

Discovering The Truth, abou My New Husband

Chandra: And he was in a part of the city that he shouldn’t have been in at that time of day, or during that time of the week. It didn’t make sense. He was down in a part of the city where they would have festivals, and there was actually a festival in the city at the time. I think this was divine intervention and a way to wake me up to the situation I was in. Because I felt panicky again suddenly, and I followed to the location.

And there was this truck in the parking lot at this festival spot. And I thought, Oh my gosh, he’s fooling around on me still. All of a sudden, he returned from the festival towards his truck. And I got out of my car, and he was with a woman, and I started walking towards him. He saw me and he started walking away from her. And I pointed at him and said, “You’re doing it again!” And I said to her, “He’s a cheater.”

I said, “He’s married to me. He’s basically already had one affair, and now he’s trying to have another one.” And I was like, freaking out.

Anne: And most likely more than that that you never knew about.

Chandra: Well, I did find out a lot more later. Because after that happened, I said, “You have to give me all your passwords.” And that’s when I started checking his emails, Facebook, and doing all this stuff. To try and wrap my head around how big this problem was. But I still remember thinking, this is a pattern. You know how they say, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Uncovering The Extent Of Numerous Betrayals

Chandra: I thought to myself, why am I accepting this behavior? And so I gave him another chance. I think I felt ashamed of the situation for a second time. and thought, I want to make this right. I thought there was still a way to figure it out. So I spent the next few months finding out more about what he’d been up to. And contacting many of the women he had been messaging on Facebook and asking them what had actually happened. Collecting evidence that my second husband is abusive as well.

I was doing my sleuthing, right? They messaged me and said, “Oh yeah, he asked me for pictures, and he wanted to get together.” And they told me about conversations. I did all this research and finally said to him. You know, the only way we’re staying together is if we get some counseling from somebody. That can help a couple heal from betrayal.

Anne: Oh, because you didn’t know it was abuse.

Chandra: I still didn’t know. I still didn’t see it that way.

Anne: I want to hear how this counseling went. Because I would guess it’s not doing any good and not going very well.

Chandra: It didn’t do any good. The counselor was well known and does couples counseling to help them heal from betrayal. His approach was better than anything else we’d done. We’d been to counseling two or three times.

Anne: It seems like it would work. It sounds good, it sounds like, oh, our relationship can be healed. It does not work. And in fact, it puts an abuse victim in further danger. And that is what is so scary.

When Your second Husband Is Abusive Too, You Are Not To Blame

Anne: They are not informing people or even acknowledging that this is a perpetrator and abuse victim, so it’s super dangerous for the victims.

Chandra: Yeah, I think the reason I thought it was better. He identified to my second ex-husband that I was injured. He did identify that. And he was trying to get my ex-husband to take the necessary steps to address the injury that had happened to me. He basically said, “This can’t get better until her injury is addressed properly.”

It was better than anything I came across up until that point, right?

Anne: Yeah. These are big questions when you are wondering if you should stay married after infidelity.

Chandra: And he would split us up and speak to us separately. He would give my ex-husband homework, but he would ask us to report back on how things were going separately. So I got to provide feedback on what was happening myself. You know, it evolved beyond what some counselors do.

But it still wasn’t hitting the mark. I recognized that my ex-husband was just jumping through hoops. And making it look good. I recognized that he was just going through the motions. That’s when I realized I was done. We had Christmas. And he went home on Christmas Eve, and he was going to come in the morning and open presents with us. But when he went home that night. He was upset he hadn’t been the center of attention, and he basically texted me and said, “I’m so depressed.”

Emotional Manipulation Unveiled & No Support

Chandra: I don’t get enough attention from you. I think I’m gonna kill myself. Of course, I was terrified, and when he didn’t show up in the morning, I actually went to his house to check if he was okay. And I half expected to find that he’d shot himself or something. That wasn’t the first time he did that.

I realized later that’s emotional abuse and manipulative. I’m upset, and after that happened, I thought, I don’t want this anymore. This is a cycle. I didn’t call it abuse at the time. I just don’t want to live this life anymore. And I deserve better than this. Basically, the entire experience, the 15 years I’ve had, since my first husband left. I have not found decent support in my faith community.

With a few exceptions, there were a few people who were caring and loving. But for the most part, I found that people do not want to talk about it. They don’t want to look at it, they don’t want to hear your story, and why can’t you get over it already? I also don’t feel like the trauma is well understood, like losing a baby, or the death of a spouse. It’s almost like there’s a hierarchy of what’s considered trauma, worthy of compassion, and what’s not.

I got the sense, I started to think. Wow, it almost feels like I’m being ostracized and treated like I’m second class. Because they think I must have done something wrong to deserve what happened to me. And I thought, why would they think that?

Understanding Trauma & Ostracism Of Abandonment

Chandra: And I think it’s actually a defense mechanism where people are afraid of that kind of thing happening. Like, I don’t want to be the abandoned woman. I don’t want to be betrayed. And if I think to myself, well, she must have done something to deserve it, and I don’t do those things, then it won’t happen to me. Without anybody actually ever saying that, is the sense that I have over the years. From the way people have reacted to me and treated me.

Anne: I tend to agree with you. I think they think there’s some way to manage it. This is one of the powerful truths about emotional abuse.

Chandra: Yeah.

Anne: I also think many women are in that situation. If they talk about it, or if they empathize with you, if they don’t blame you at all.

Then they think that could also happen to me in a very real way, in that they are actually going through it. And so they, they think, okay, well, I’m not going to talk about it or acknowledge it , and then he won’t leave me.

Chandra: Yeah, I’m not going to face it. I’m not going to talk about it. Yeah, totally. And the other thing I experienced was people trying to diminish it, make it into a one-time event.

You know, I understand that something happened to you in the past, and now I’m being abused by my new husband, and that was hard. But you know, you shouldn’t let it affect how you are now. And that is not a one-time event. What happened to me, what happened to me, has been ongoing for 25 years, and I continue to suffer. I watch my children suffer.

The Ongoing Cycle of Abuse: When Your New Husband Is Abusive

Chandra: I continue to be abused. My first husband continues to financially abuse me. It’s not a one-time event, and people don’t understand. It’s a long process to overcome the trauma happening around those circumstances.

Anne: They don’t understand that we’re still being abused. Actively abused. Yes, actively. And when you tell them that, they’re like, “Well, I guess we’re.” They just don’t get it.

Chandra: They just don’t get it.

Anne: There’s nothing that you could say to be like, no, I’m still actively abused. Well, you’re not married to him. So how could he do that? Is he hitting you? Is he coming over to your house and smacking you in the face?

Chandra: Yeah, it’s not, it’s so subtle. But the thing is, I found myself getting more and more angry at those reactions. And, you know, like I said before, I’m a praying woman. I prayed for help, because I knew I was so angry and frustrated. And I don’t think I had ever had the support I needed. Your Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group didn’t exist when I went through my first abandonment and betrayal. I didn’t have any close friends who had been through it.

And even my own family loved me and tried to support me. But no one understood what I was going through. I felt alone for many, many years and was just in executive functioning mode, just trying to make stuff happen for everybody. When I found the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast, I felt validated, supported and understood for the first time.

Finding Solace In Betrayal Trauma Recovery

uuse and healing some of the spiritual and emotional wounds I’ve had. Because of the pain of, my second husband being husband is abusive.

You know, I was high functioning, making stuff happen in my day to day life, and was focused on that.

My youngest daughter turned 18, and she moved out, and I was on my own, empty nester in a new marriage. I realized I had a lot of wounds to heal, and I was feeling angry about some of my experiences with people in my faith community, and I thought I needed help.

I think that’s why I found you, because it was the right time. And I think God knows when we need certain things in our life. And that’s why I found the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast when I did.

Anne: I’m so glad you did. I’ve heard so many stories like that of people who said, I need help. I need help. They say a prayer, a stand up, go to their computer and find the This podcast.

Pay Attention To Your Gut Feelings

Anne: And I’m actually very humbled that they think Heavenly Father directs them here. I’m grateful he helped me start this podcast. And then helped BTR grow so that people can find us. I never imagined it growing in this way.

And so I think. God’s hand really is in this, and he really does love us and care about us, and he wants us to find each other and hear these stories. Because knowing that we’re not alone is so healing.

Chandra: Yeah. What you’re doing is incredible, and it’s inspired, and it’s really, really badly needed.

Anne: Well, I needed it, which is why I started it.

Chandra: Yep, yep, exactly.

I think probably one of the most important things would have been to pay closer attention to the gut feelings. I don’t know how to get over the issue women face when their husbands lie to them. It’s not normal to actually think someone is lying to you. That’s why lying is emotional abuse. I have to, I have to share something.

The Power of Truth Default Theory When Your Husband Is Abusive

Chandra: I read a book by Malcolm Gladwell called Talking to Strangers. He uses some examples to illustrate something called Truth Default Theory. Which came out of Timothy R. Levine’s research. He’s a distinguished professor at the University of Alabama.

He has this theory about how when we communicate with other people, we not only tend to believe them. But the thought that maybe we shouldn’t doesn’t even come to mind. And it allows people to communicate in society. But it makes it really hard for women in these situations to actually detect lying in their husband.

And when Malcolm Gladwell wrote about this, he said, we have a default to truth. Our operating assumption is that people we are dealing with are honest. To snap out of truth default mode requires a trigger. A trigger is not the same as a suspicion or the first sliver of doubt. Also, we fall out of truth default mode only when the case against our initial assumption becomes definitive.

We don’t behave like sober minded scientists, slowly gathering evidence of the truth or falsity of something before reaching a conclusion. We do the opposite. And start by believing, and we stop believing only when our doubts and misgivings rise to the point where we can no longer explain them away.

Doubts trigger disbelief only when you can’t explain them away. In the movies, the brilliant detective confronts the subject and catches him right then and there in a lie. But in real life, accumulating the evidence necessary to overwhelm our doubts takes time.

The Challenge Of Detecting Lies When Our Default Is Believing Others Are Telling The Truth

Chandra: He says in his book, “You ask your husband if he’s having an affair, and he says no.”

And you believe him. Your default is that he is telling the truth. And whatever little inconsistencies you spot in his story, you explain away. But three months later, you notice an unusual hotel charge on his credit card bill. And the combination of that and the weeks of unexplained absences and mysterious phone calls pushes you over the top.

That’s how lies are detected. Default to truth becomes an issue. When we choose between two alternatives, one of which is likely and the other impossible to imagine. Default to truth biases us in favor of the most likely interpretation, right up to the point where believing becomes absolutely impossible.

This is how most human beings are wired. In those rare cases where trust ends in betrayal, those victimized by default to truth deserve our sympathy, not our censure.

Anne: That’s so good.

Chandra: And I came across that, and it was really validating. Because I’d had people ask me after my husband left and his affair came out. And I had said, “I knew something was going on, but I just didn’t know what.”

I knew something was wrong, and I knew he was lying to me. And I remember one woman in particular said to me, then why didn’t you just leave? If you knew, why didn’t you just leave? She was challenging me. And I thought. I couldn’t explain it at the time. Now after reading this, I understand we’re not wired to think people lie to us.

Anne: Especially not our own husband.

Chandra: Exactly, it takes a lot of evidence to get to the point that pushes us over that edge.

Seeing Lying Everywhere After Betrayal

Chandra: And it’s funny, because after all this has happened, I think everybody lies to me. Now, it’s really hard for me to trust anybody. I almost think if I could talk to my younger self, I would want to say don’t believe everything people tell you. Even and especially, not necessarily the people you trust the most. They might not always tell you the truth. Be willing to consider that.

Anne: I’m always telling women in this situation where they find out about exploitative material or something that’s a big lie, huge lie, to reconsider all the other things he said. So for example, if they said, “Well, I talked to my pastor, and he says I’m fine. And that I can, whatever.” Maybe consider, he never actually talked to the pastor. Maybe the pastor never even said that. “I said to my therapist, this, and the therapist said this.” Maybe consider the therapist didn’t say that at all.

There are so many things to consider that you think, okay, well, I caught him in this. And then he goes to the therapist, and the therapist said. And they don’t realize that perhaps the therapist never even said that. So we just don’t know what we don’t know in these situations. Because we hear so many lies. It is impossible to know where the truth starts and where the lies end, or vice versa.

The Importance Of Safety In Relationships When Your second Marriage Is Abusive Too

Anne: But what you can know is that this person is not trustworthy, and I need to be safe. And someone lying to me is a safety issue. Yeah, it’s, it’s not a moral issue. It’s not an annoying issue or an addiction issue. It’s a safety issue. You deserve to be in a relationship where you are emotionally and psychologically safe. Because it’s not psychologically or emotionally safe for you to be in a relationship where someone is lying to you. Especially if they’re constantly lying to you.

That is just super, super unsafe. And it’s also really bad for you spiritually because then you’re having to go against what God is trying to alarm you about. Like the spirit or your internal intuition, whatever you want to call it, is screaming out to you. Something isn’t right. And in order to trust your husband, in that instance, you’re having to go against the ultimate truth. And that is the spirit of God, if you’re religious or your own intuition, or the universe or whatever you want to call it.

In my faith, I call it the spirit, it’s trying to warn you someone is lying to you. Get to safety, right? Safety, safety, safety , but it’s so hard to determine when you’re not safe. That’s the problem. It sounds easy, but determining this is very hard. Yeah, I don’t blame anyone who is going through the difficult time of trying to sort out what is happening. Especially if they’re never getting the correct information.

Which is why I wrote The Living Free Workshop to give women a way to determine their husband’s character. To get enough space to observe what he’s doing.

The Journey To Emotional Safety Is Challenging

Anne: Now that you’re married to someone who is not abusive, I hear from people in that situation. I’ve never been in that situation, so I don’t know what it’s like. But for women in abuse situations, who don’t know it’s abuse. When they go to clergy or friends or therapists or whoever. A lot of people will tell them, “Well, you know, marriage is really hard.”

It’s a lot of hard work. And then I talk to women who have been in an abuse situation, and then they marry a man who’s non-abusive. And frequently, I would say 100 percent of the time, probably 99 percent of the time. They’re like, it’s not hard work at all. Like it’s a little work, but it’s not. I don’t even know what they’re talking about. Marriage does not have to be this grueling, terrible slog. Do you agree with that? How are, how are you feeling?

Chandra: Oh my, wholeheartedly. After the craziness, chaos, pain, and struggle of two abusive situations. I would say being married to a “normal” man is the most, I can’t even describe the difference. It’s so much easier. It’s so peaceful. And so different. And I want to just say this, the difference, being intimate with a man who is not caught up in it. Versus one who is, that is like night and day.

And that’s real love. When the man is not addicted, you are the apple of his eye. What I mean is you are the center of his world, because he’s not distracted and looking around at everything else. I wanted marriage to be like that.

There Is Nothing Wrong With Wanting To Be Loved When even when Your New Husband Is Abusive

Chandra: A situation with somebody that loves me, cares about me, and wants to focus on me. And love him in return. That’s what I wanted. And now I finally have that, and it’s like night and day.

Anne: Well, that’s what marriage is or should be, right?

Chandra: Yes, that’s what it should be.

Anne: The men who marry and don’t want to love their wife. They don’t commit to loving her. They don’t care. What they want is a slave, maybe? Or someone who does their dishes or something?

Chandra: Why do those men even get married? I don’t understand why they marry.

Anne: I don’t either, control, maybe?

Chandra: I’m not sure. Yeah, somebody to do the dishes and make dinner? I don’t know.

Anne: I think they perceive it as a control thing, right?

Chandra: Maybe.

Anne: Someone’s in their power, and many abusers like it when their wives have children. Because then they can entrap them, right? So from a religious standpoint, oh, marry, have kids, and abusers are like, great.! Because then she will be stuck with me forever, and getting away from me is very, very hard. So all the religious scripting too makes it difficult to recognize, like maybe having a kid with this guy is not the best idea.

You know, it’s so complex. And I appreciate you taking the time to share. And thank you for saying that, because the more women I talk to in healthy marriages. That are saying that, it makes me happy. And I just want to share that with everyone else.

Marriage To A Non-Abuser Is Not Hard

Anne: Like, when people say, well, you know, this is an average marriage. Because the average marriage is really, really hard.

Chandra: No, it’s not.

Anne: The answer would be, well, the average marriage to an abuser is, yeah, it is hard,

Chandra: But not a non-abuser.

Chandra: Nope, not a non-abuser. It’s totally different.

Anne: And I’m so happy for you that you’ve got that. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to share your story with us today.

Chandra: Yeah, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to hear it. It helps to talk about it.

It’s common for victims of emotional abuse to say, “He blamed me for the emotional abuse.” If this has happened to you, here’s what you need to know.

To see if you’re experiencing any one of the 19 types of emotional abuse, take our free emotional abuse quiz.

If you need help, the safety strategies in The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop can help you protect yourself from emotional abuse.

This episode follows Junes’s Story:
Part 1: He Blamed Me for the Emotional Abuse – June’s Story (THIS EPISODE)
Part 2: Divorcing A Narcissist – June Checks In One Year Later

Transcript:He Blamed ME For The Emotional Abuse

Anne: June and I did this interview years ago. At this time, my ex was abusing me and my kids on almost a daily basis under the guise of co-parenting messages that were emotionally and psychologically abusive. He was undermining my children’s medical care, their extracurricular activities, and their school work. I constantly had a pit in my stomach.

Although I was actively trying to figure out how to deliver myself and my children from the abuse, the answers hadn’t come yet. When I listened to this episode again, I could hear the anger and frustration in my voice. I was doing everything right, at least everything I’d learned up until that point. I did everything the typical therapist and clergy told me to do.

Everyone told me that I should get over it and move on. They couldn’t wrap their head around the fact that I was still being emotionally and psychologically abused and my children were being undermined. Yet I was being blamed by the court and guardian ad litem.

Thankfully after years of study and prayer, I discovered emotional safety strategies that in stages delivered us from the abuse when I implemented them. I didn’t even have to go to court.

My children and I no longer have to deal with my emotionally abusive ex, and I still use these strategies. I wanted to make sure that my experience wasn’t a fluke and that these strategies weren’t just specifically for me. I tested the strategies for years with other sheroes who confirmed that they worked for them too.

Being Blamed For The Emotional Abuse

Once we knew they would work for any woman in any situation, I created the Living Free Workshop. In our BTR Group Sessions, women ask questions about how to implement these strategies and find support there.

Make sure you check out the Group Session schedule. I’m still angry that women trying to get to emotional and psychological safety are thwarted and blamed at every turn. I think we should all be angry about that. In this interview, a member of the BTR Community, June shared her story.

June found out that her husband used pornography and had affairs with multiple partners. He continued to do it after they were separated and going through the divorce process. At the time, June’s four children were very young and all of them have special needs to varying degrees.

https://youtube.com/shorts/ehlocZ9sLag

We’re going to start by talking about the challenge of having special needs children when your husband is emotionally and psychologically abusive. Then she shared her story of how she met her husband and how she discovered the truth. You guys are going to be really curious about June’s story. June, let’s start with you talking about your children.

The Challenges Of Parenting Special Needs Children When You’re Being Blamed For His Emotional Abuse

June: I have four children. They range from age nine to three, two boys and two girls, and they each have some level of special needs. My 9-year-old has autism spectrum disorder, sensory processing disorder, auditory processing disorder and also ADHD.

He’s probably been most impacted as far as special needs go and on the disability range. My other children have speech and language issues, and all of my children have been affected by trauma. Which is really important to note because the treatment for trauma impacted children as well as special needs children can overlap sometimes.

In my own home and in my own parenting, I do a lot of things to address that; things to help them feel safe, things to help them process that trauma and process those emotions. It really is no different, many times the work I do with my profoundly impacted child as opposed to the rest of my children that have suffered the trauma is the same.

Anne: Let’s talk about your nine-year-old son who is on the spectrum for a moment. Would you say that some of his behaviors have escalated due to the trauma in the home? Do you see that? They’re a little bit correlated.

Impact Of Emotional Abuse On Children”s Behavior

June: I see that my son who has autism can have a very hard time processing those things. He can have a more difficult time than the other kids processing the actual separation and divorce. He can tend to perseverate on that and ask why. Any answer that I give him won’t necessarily satisfy him.

Kids on the spectrum and kids with special needs in general, can all have sleep issues and insomnia and anxiety. I definitely have seen that increase in my son. Yes, to answer your question, some of the behaviors have escalated.

Anne: You’d mentioned sleep, when your son or all of your children are having sleep difficulties due to the trauma? How do you practice self-care in a situation that is extremely stressful and difficult?

June: I feel like it’s very important to teach my kids what emotions look like and how we process emotions. I would say, if I’m angry about something or if the kids are angry about something.

The Strategies I Used When He Blamed Me For Emotional Abuse

We will go outside and we will say, I’m angry and that is okay. Giving them those ways to process and handle those emotions is very healthy. It is very healthy for me to have that self-care time and that alone time should I need it. I do find ways and carve out little moments during my day that I can do that.

Self care is so important not only for anyone who’s going through a divorce due to abuse or separation or difficult time.It’s also just for a parent in general of a special needs child because oftentimes you never get a break.

It is important to take that upon yourself to learn how to get yourself some relief when you need it and be able to implement that in your daily routine. The things I do, I mean of course I love bubble baths, but when I’m out and about and dealing with a crisis situation with one of my kids, I can’t really go home and take a bubble bath and just stop everything.

I will practice mindfulness driving in the car like pulling over for five minutes to do some deep breathing.

I will do some grounding exercises and the most important thing is that I’ve taught my children how to do these things too.

They know little exercises there’s one that’s called Take Five where we go through the five senses, we pick out five things that we see. We pick out four things that we hear, three things that we touch, two things that we smell, one thing that we taste, and there’s definitely a neuroscience behind it.

The Legal Challenges Of Being Blamed

It switches your brain into getting out of the fight or flight symptoms and into a more grounded state. If any of my children are experiencing anxiety, we’ll do these simple exercises. We’ll do teddy bear breathing and all of these little cute names that we have for the things that we may do to help.

Anne: For women who are separated and or divorced, like June and I, do get a quote, “break” every other weekend when my kids go with my ex. June is in that same situation right now where her children go with her soon to be ex every other weekend. A lot of people think that divorce solves the problem. It does not. The abuse continues.

We still have to learn how to deal with it. In my case, the abuse is that he’s still lying about what happened. He’s still manipulating people. Also, there’s some physical things that are happening with my kids when they come home and they’ve felt physically unsafe with him. June is in that same situation.

There’s this dichotomy of really enjoying the break and having that be a time of self-care, but also really worrying about our children. When my children (who are neurotypical) come home their behaviors have escalated. It takes a while to get back to normal. They have trouble sleeping or they have trouble with school or trouble with getting up in the morning. It throws their whole schedule off.

There’s this dichotomy between I like the break but I want to protect my kids and it’s really hard. What to do with your emotions when the children are with an abusive dad?

Challenges Of Co-Parenting With An Emotionally Abusive Ex-Husband

June: Yes, and I do want to say that any child that is going through the divorce of their parents experiences trauma even in the best of circumstances. That is traumatic for a child and the impact of trauma, regardless of what it is, even if it’s a minor trauma, major trauma, it really depends on how the child perceives it and the impact is really the same.

Even though your children might be neurotypical, you can still do things to address the trauma that they may be facing, even if it is, like I said, in the best of circumstances. I really identify with what you’re saying. It’s so important to take that break when your children leave so that you can catch up on things that you need to do.

Cleaning for me is like self-care because so often I’m running day to day with the kids and we’re going to appointments and therapies and school and all sorts of things, and sometimes I don’t get a chance to clean something the way that I would need to.

I’ll do that on my weekends and I also take that time to be very reflective and to plan my week because I know I have a big week coming up. On my weekends, I will often look for chances to increase my own learning when it comes to my children with special needs. No one can be blamed if you just need to rest.

Continued Emotional Abuse Post-Divorce

I go to advocacy seminars, disability symposiums, trainings, and parenting classes. Many times in your own community, these things are completely free. You just have to know where to look.

Get involved in your community services board if your community has one, which most communities do. There are lots of organizations, nonprofit organizations in general that will offer these sort of things: National Alliance of Mental Illness and mental health organizations.

There are a lot of places that will give you free training for children who have special needs or just general children who have trauma or parenting neurotypical children with no trauma.

It breaks my heart to know that my children might be feeling unsafe. We have been in that situation before and if they have disclosed that they have felt unsafe or they’ve been uncomfortable with something when they’re not with me. I have really struggled on how to handle that, some things I will bring up to him and say, Hey, the kids have mentioned this. It very easily gets manipulated.

The next time that he sees them he will say, I never said that and you shouldn’t tell mom that, or something like that. In those situations, I’ve really just started to teach my kids what my husband’s gaslighting was without badmouthing him at all. That way I can’t be blamed for it.

I just let them know if someone tries to convince you that something didn’t happen that really did happen or that they didn’t say something that they really did and you know that to be real. That’s gaslighting and they appreciate learning that terminology.

Addressing Children’s Special Needs When Being Blamed For Emotional Abuse

They come to me and say, this person was gaslighting me today. I also try to give them and teach them the tools that they need to handle any situation that they might feel unsafe in.

If they are made to watch a movie that is inappropriate or scary, we will role play and I’ll say, what can you do in this situation? The answers that they come up with are great. They say, I can leave the room. I can say, I don’t want to watch this, I tell them I can be blamed for it not being allowed. You can go in your room and play Legos, or close your eyes and think happy thoughts.

Giving them the tools for handling those difficult situations that I have no control over is so important. I do the same thing for my autistic child that I do for the rest of my children, they can all use those tools and effectively implement them in the situations that they’re in.

Anne: Yeah,I have found that has really helped too. Teaching them about gaslighting, they come home and tell me there was a gaslighting situation or this is what happened, and it was really weird, Mom. We felt really uncomfortable. I am so grateful that they’re starting to see that and that they can tell me how they feel about it.

They have words now to describe what is happening to them. By the way, a lot of people ask when I tell them the situation, they’re like, what? He still can take the kids every other weekend even though he’s done this, this and you had a protective order and he was arrested?

When Legal Proceedings Blame The Victim

A lot of people don’t understand that in many ways the law protects abusers and it’s super traumatic when you start going through the divorce process thinking, oh, we’ll finally feel peace. You start realizing that maybe your attorney or the judge or other people don’t understand abuse. What they’re deciding is actually keeping your kids in a harmful situation.

A lot of people don’t realize that. Then there’s also the abuser’s family who is supportive of him and thinks he’s great. My ex hit my son in the face while playing a video game. My ex’s mother, he lives with his parents, used it as an opportunity to tell my ex (My son overheard.) that my son should be blamed because he must be an addict, which hurt him so much.

He said, I feel so unsafe around grandma. She doesn’t understand the situation. She didn’t even hear the whole truth of it, but immediately she threw me under the bus and supported her abusive son. He came home and told me that. In your case, it even came down to clergy and your faith community.

I just want to put out there that a child with autism or I have another friend who has a daughter who has Down syndrome, can have a Mom who is going through this with her abusive spouse. Many other women that I know have a disabled child while an abusive husband in the home is currently lying and manipulating. He’s currently angry.

What It Feels Like To Parent With An Emotional Abuser

He’s currently looking at online content and a lot of people see the disability and women feel free to talk about the disability, but they don’t want to talk about what’s happening with their spouse. Can you talk about in the past when you didn’t understand you were being abused and the situation in the context of having a child with special needs?

June: There was definitely this intersection where I was handling the situation with my children that have special needs and really trying to learn what I could and advocate for them in the school system and educationally. Also, I was very wrapped up in my marriage failing and why my husband was doing these things and what I could do to help that situation.

We went to marriage counseling and I went to counseling on my own. I learned all I could about problematic behaviors, affairs. I really delved into it all and took it upon myself to try to understand how I could possibly save our marriage and our family and help him.

The Impact of Emotional Abuse

I very much wanted him to succeed and to be a healthy person because I believe that abusive people can change and I believe that people can make mistakes and right those wrongs. I began to learn about abuse.

It was very clear that this situation I was in was taking away from my ability to be the best parent I could be for my own children.

I spent so much time in trauma over and over and over again, Trauma from daily verbal abuse and from emotional manipulation, coercion, spiritual abuse to awful degrees. It impacted my ability to advocate and look into the issues that were going on with my own children and to really be present for that.

Once I realized that was the case saw that this intersection was happening, it was a collision, I couldn’t do both. My son didn’t talk until he was about five years old. He used sign language up until that point. When he did start talking, he jumped right into speaking full sentences and parroting people and echoing what other people were saying.

My son heard the names my husband called me. When I realized that my son would repeat that very soon because he was talking. They were subjected to hearing it, was the point for me that this is not getting any better. In fact, it’s getting worse and this is normalized for my children. I would not be blamed for continuing to expose him to that.

Learning From A Childrens Therapist

How it was impacting my ability to also parent my children in a healthy way was the basis for preparing myself that I might have to be a single mom one day.

Anne: Have you seen your children’s behaviors improve since you started setting a boundary around your husband’s abusive behaviors?

June: Yes, I love talking about this because it is truly amazing when you receive the help that you need and you receive the care and the love and that you feel like you belong somewhere and you feel like people understand you. When I left my marriage, my children and I had all received services at a center for abused women and their children.

Part of this was I would go to a support group and the kids would go to children’s support group. It was led by child therapists and social workers, and I took advantage of their amazing training. I would meet with the child therapists alone on a different day to ask them, how can I help my children going through this very, very difficult and traumatic situation?

I was not to be blamed. The things that I learned from that and the things that my children learned just from going to a support group like that with other children who were experiencing similar things were amazing.

Encouragement For Women In Similar Emotionally Abusive Situations

One of the things we did was to implement a safe space in our home. We set up a little tent in the corner of one of our rooms. It has pillows and it has all sorts of sensory things, bean bags and smelly candles and Play-Doh. It’s like a designated space for working through those things that they feel.

We also use time-ins instead of time-outs, if one of my children is having some difficult behaviors or being very irritable or not getting along with the other children. Instead of putting them in timeout, their behavior is a call for help and their behavior is communication. The first thing about trauma-informed care is that all behavior is communication.

What my child is communicating with me at that time when they are acting out is that they need help processing what they’re feeling. Instead of being blamed they are being helped.

I take them aside and we do an emotional check-in or we’ll play a short game about what they felt that day. Tell me a time that you felt brave, or lonely, or happy today. Those times we do that and set aside for even just a five minute conversation, can help push the reset button on their behavior.

It really gets them back on track where they need to be. That is a coping mechanism that is teaching them emotional intelligence and how to process those feelings.

Anne: For other women who have a child with special needs, who find themselves in an abusive situation. They start realizing that these fights that they’re getting into with their spouse are actually verbal abuse. Their husband is lying or using without their knowledge. What advice would you give them?

Challenges In Being Blamed: Leaving An Emotionally Abusive Husband

June: I would definitely say to inform yourself and to educate yourself. The more empowered that you can be in your situation to identify what is going on, the better off you will be in handling whatever happens and whatever you decide and whatever comes your way. I also feel like it is essential to stress that I am a much better parent being out of that situation.

I can now focus on my children. It’s like this whole new world has opened up to me about kiddos that deal with trauma and special needs and how to best mentor them and help them through these things and advocate for them.

It takes advocacy on every level in the community, in schools, even in churches. You really have to educate other people and you as the parent are the expert on your child and being in an abusive relationship can hinder that. It can take away some of the ability that you have to really focus on the children that need it.

I cannot stress enough how much my parenting has changed. How much my life has really opened up. My eyes have opened up to a whole new world helping children with special needs or children with trauma or any child in the best and healthiest way.

Anne: As she shares her story, take deep breaths and remember that she is on her way to safety and will get there eventually, getting to safety is a journey. Also, before we start, I want to talk about how women start this journey. They don’t think their husbands are abusive. Being blamed is so painful. They think, okay, we’ve got this problem, he’s got an anger problem or he has an addiction problem, the trauma symptoms aren’t as bad.

Finding Harmful Content On Her Husband’s Computer

Trauma symptoms are lower because a woman thinks that the situation is manageable or that things can get better. Then as she learns more and realizes that it’s abuse and starts to try to confront the abuser and the abuse gets worse, then the trauma gets worse. When you set a boundary around the abuse and it doesn’t stop, but it escalates, then the trauma becomes even worse.

For listeners, I don’t want anyone to think, oh, things are getting worse. This is really bad, and so it’s the wrong thing to do. It’s the right thing to do and it’s the only way out. June, let’s talk about how you met your husband and when you first suspected that he was using exploitative content.

June: I met my husband when I was in college and everything seemed great. He was the man of my dreams. I was young, in my early twenties, when he came along.

I didn’t have too much of a problem with it because he came across so well, my family liked him. He checked all the boxes that I was raised to believe meant he was a safe and worthy person. We ended up getting married, and I remember I was sitting on the bed in our first year of marriage using his computer for something, and I happened to look in one of the files and I saw a bunch of photos from a topless beach.

Recognizing When He Blames YOU For The Emotional Abuse

I was shocked. It was very clear that these were homemade photos. It wasn’t like he downloaded these, this was like homemade photos taken of women on this topless beach. I had known that he had spent some time in a place that had a topless beach. He was in some of the pictures with a friend of his, so I confronted him about it and he gaslit that away and manipulated it and said, oh, he blamed his friend.

He just never deleted them from the device. Looking back, that was my first real D-Day. That was such a little thing compared to everything that has happened since, but that was definitely a huge red flag. If I could go back and speak to the former June in that time, I would teach her that that was a huge red flag and to pay a lot closer attention than she did.

Anne: Why do you think women in this situation dismiss those little experiences? They’re really big experiences, but why do we say they’re little? Not that they should be blamed.

June: I think that we want to believe in the good of people and someone doing something like that, that’s voyeuristic. I would say it’s also stalking, but it goes beyond that. We don’t want to believe that anyone is capable of that and that’s foreign. It’s foreign to me because I have no propensity to really do that, and so we want to believe the best in people.

The Extent Of Being Blamed For Emotional Abuse

These are men that we love. We want to save our families. We want everyone to be healthy and happy. It’s not hard for someone to come in and say, Hey, these weren’t my pictures. Here’s what happened, and give us an explanation. For us to just take them at their word and believe it. Definitely throughout our dating and throughout our marriage, there was abuse all along.

I had reached out to people. I’d reached out to my parents, to friends and other family members. I told them what was going on.

He called very, very horrific names. I remember one time even when we were dating. We had been in a fight about something and I went into the bathroom, shut the door and was sitting down on the floor with the lights off. He came in there and was just yelling over me, the B word over and over and over again. I was huddled in this corner, oh my gosh, what is he doing?

We had probably only been dating a few months by the time that situation had happened, and still he had said he was sorry afterwards. There was a point when he came into my apartment and decorated my whole room with rose petals. I look back, this is a textbook abusive cycle, the love bombing, the apologies.

Then the explosion and the honeymoon phase and then building up the tension and the explosion and the love bombing. It was just very much like that, but every time he would apologize. He just blamed something else for his behavior.

Being Stuck In The Abuse Cycle With Your Husband

I would stay because he’d said he would get better and then it would happen again. Then he would apologize and I would stay and every time that he apologized, things did get better until the next time..

You become invested in how the relationship is. In the first year of marriage, it was a lot of verbal abuse. I would tell people, and nobody else really picked up on it. They were like, marriage is hard.

Anne: He must be stressed.

June: And all this while, I found out later, he was calling friends and family members and gaining rapport with them. Saying that he’s concerned about June because she seems like she’s depressed and really gaslighting me to my family, really for the next 12 years he blamed me. He had done this as the abuse was on and off just like an abusive cycle would be.

All the while he was gaining this trust of my family and of my friends when things escalated to the point that I had to leave. That made it extremely difficult for me because I did not trust some of my family at that point.

Anne: Talk about when you actually started realizing that the behaviors that you were seeing were abusive as opposed to just thinking that he had an anger problem or that he was a addict. Talk about how you made that shift to realizing that these things were abusive.

Seeking Social Support During Divorce From An Emotionally Abusive Man

June: There were things all along the way that I look back on, these were all red flags and I missed them. He would chat online inappropriately with women and he would tell me about it. I don’t know why I didn’t have the capacity to understand what was going on, like I said, he would always apologize and I would always stay.

It was not until I had a friend that reached out to me and confided in me about her situation with her husband who has some very, very problematic behaviors, use and infidelity and things like that, voyeurism. She said, I just have a feeling that I need to be there for you and ask you if you’ve ever thought that your husband is like that. I don’t know what she picked up from my husband.

She didn’t really know him very well, and maybe it was things that she picked up on in me. There was definitely a change when I was going through some things privately that maybe she could pick up on. She just shared her story and that night I came home and I just asked my husband, is this an issue for you?

I started tying some of those situations together. There was a time that he had come home and I was 37 weeks pregnant. He said, this woman attacked me in my office, and I was like, oh my gosh, this sounds so dangerous. She was trying to come on to him he blamed her. Well, in reality, I found out that they had been conducting an affair on the hospital’s messaging system.

When You’re Blamed For Your Own Emotional Abuse

He had gone to her office, shut the door and locked it, and there was some kind of encounter, and I was 37 weeks pregnant. When I found that out, he shrugged it off. He had no idea what was going on, and he just blamed her. We are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We went to our ecclesiastical leader who is called the bishop in our church.

He has really no training to be able to identify abuse or handle infidelity or marital problems.

He is a volunteer. We are going to him, and now I look back and I’m thinking, this situation is just so prime for mishandling. Here we are, we’re talking to someone about this huge situation, and yet nobody really picked up on the gravity of it. We went to our bishop and learned some more things about the situation that I felt like I needed to know.

I think my bishop was kind of in shock. He didn’t really know what to say. My husband talked his way out of it. I was 37 weeks pregnant. This was my fourth child. I had three other children under the age of five at the time, one of whom had profound special needs.

Finding BTR.ORG & Feeling Relief From The Blame

There’s no way I believed him when he said it was not his fault. We had our baby and things kind of went back to normal and normal for us. Which was a lot of abuse. I just remember a few months after my baby was born, it was the summer and I had taken all of my kids to go see a movie in the park and to play.

My husband was at work and he had just been nasty to me and hanging up on me all day. I’m just thinking, what did I do? What is going on with him and how do I deal with this situation? The confusion was extremely difficult. After that, I started learning more about addiction, behaviors, use.

I found BTR, which was a beacon of light to me in this situation. I listened to all of the podcasts every single week, I would just wait for the next one to come out. For the first time I had a label of what I was feeling. I didn’t know what this was. When I learned about betrayal trauma, I could understand these symptoms.

This is trauma that happens to someone when they are in the situation of being betrayed by someone that they trust implicitly. When I would listen to the BTR episodes, I remember listening to your story and how horrific it was, but also at the same time, I didn’t place myself in that category. I still didn’t, but the more that I listened and the more that you would talk about covert abuse, the more that connected with me up to that point.

I Was Being Blamed: Escalation of Abuse

There was no outright physical abuse yet. The covert abuse that you would describe was very, very much the same of what I was experiencing. The manipulation and the lying and the psychological harm, even the spiritual abuse. That is one thing that I started connecting with and learning about, and that opened my eyes to seeing and really identifying that I was in a very bad abusive relationship.

Anne: You’re listening to me. I’m sharing my story. You’re thinking, whoa, I’m really relating to this. When did his behaviors escalate to actual physical violence?

June: His behaviors started escalating when I started finding out more and more about some of the extreme problems that he was having. I found out about several inappropriate relationships that he had had with people at his work. He was in a very powerful position. These were people who were under him, so it was an abuse of power. He always blamed the women.

He’s actually licensed also by the state. I knew that could be a very bad situation for him as far as that goes. When I started finding out about this, he would come to tell me and confess these things. It was almost as a way of him gaining my trust.

Anne: My ex did the same thing. He would tell me part of it. The way he would say it was manipulating it so I would view it in a certain way to help him rather than me. I realized later that this was dangerous. What was happening probably should have been reported to the police.

Realities Of Divorcing An Emotional Abuser

Anne: My ex did the same thing. He would tell me part of it. He would say it was manipulating it so I would view it in a certain way to help him rather than me. I realized later that this was dangerous. What was happening probably should have been reported to the police.

June: Exactly. So he would come and tell me these things and say, “ There’s an inappropriate encounter with someone at his work.”, or “This woman sent me these unsolicited pictures of her in a compromising position” or “wearing nothing”. He always blamed the women.These things all accumulated. My husband ended up moving out for two months or so.

He was in therapy with a therapist who claimed to treat addiction and problematic behaviors and everything. I had started therapy on my own and we had gone to therapy together with each of our therapists. They were at the same facility. We had met with them maybe once or twice. My therapist easily identified that I was in an abusive situation. His therapist did not.

Anne: Yeah, we’ve noticed that so much with so-called Addiction Experts. They do not identify the abuse and they’re not helping keep the wives of addicts safe at all. It’s really actually pretty scary and dangerous

June: We were really trying to work things out. He was going to SA meetings and he had shown a lot of humility and improvement. I remember thinking, if this is the man that could be with me all the time, that is who I want. He did move back in and we had a pretty good, I’d say six to eight months of progress.

Establishing Safety During Abuse & Blame

Then things started to slip again, and it was more verbal abuse that started creeping in. It was more psychological abuse. It was these things that would start to come back in and I would ask him, is anything going on with people at work? These abusive behaviors are a really, really big red flag for me.

I had tied it altogether at that point, I had tied the verbal abuse to the other problematic behaviors, and he just insisted, no, no, it wasn’t.

He just came to me one day out of the blue and said, I have actually been lying to you and there’s three women who I’ve had inappropriate relationships with off and on. I am using again, and it was like a D-Day all over again. I’ve given him my trust in thinking he’s a safe person. I’ve let him move back in.

I have overcome part of that betrayal trauma to be able to be intimate with him again and to be able to really want to work on our marriage.

When I found that out, it was a huge D date. You have been lying to me this whole time and you are not a safe person, and at that time, I asked him to move out again. He wouldn’t. He became very mean, very irate, very scary. I received a message from somebody anonymously about his reputation at his workplace and that he made people feel uncomfortable.

There was even one that described a certain situation where he assaulted a female in this closet at work. Once again he blamed her. He was sleeping downstairs, and I went downstairs and I asked him about this and he demanded to see my phone.

June Discovers Even More Abuse & Her Husband Blamed Her

I said, no, you can’t see my phone, and I went upstairs and he was running after me. At that point, I was very, very scared. I had just found out that this person was very unsafe.

Also had confirmation of this from someone who worked with him, and here he was running after me trying to get my phone. I ran upstairs, he pushed me into a wall. He tackled me. He got my phone. I scratched him. I’m five five and I weigh 140 pounds. He’s six six and he weighs 220, so I did whatever I could. I was very, very scared for my life because I had no phone.

I ran outside to a neighbor’s house and called the police. When the police came, they looked at him and they looked at me and he had a scratch mark. It was a male police officer and I was incoherent. I was in trauma, I couldn’t really describe anything of what had happened, I was just trying to process it myself. I had no visible bruising yet, or marks or anything that was bleeding. That did show up a few days later.

He went inside and my husband was just bawling and he blamed me for the whole thing. The police officer said, well, I have to take you away because he has these visible injuries, and so I was taken away that night. I was arrested and sat in the holding area for just a few hours and then they let me go back home. I didn’t have anyone that I could call to pick me up.

Support To Face Blame During Divorce

I have no family around. Nobody really knew what was going on in my situation in my marriage. I felt very much a sense of shame and I couldn’t call anyone and say, I’ve been arrested. Come and pick me up. There was just nobody that would understand that. My husband did call one of his friends who was actually from our church. Looking back, I see that he had set this up.

The more empowered I would become, he would say the more crazy I would get to this friend, and so I think he could see that I was becoming empowered and stronger and being able to identify abuse. At the same time, he was telling people that I was becoming more depressed or more and more angry.

I retained a lawyer and I had injuries of my own, which I had someone take pictures of, and that case was dismissed, but I knew I was in a very unsafe situation. At the library I did research on domestic violence and abuse. I learned that 40% of women who are in abusive relationships, had their partner blamed them and have them arrested for abuse for fighting back.

Suddenly in the shame of that situation, I was able to understand that this was no fault of my own. I also felt more empowered and safer to reach out to people and say, look, my husband did this to me and he had me arrested. He accused me of abuse, and I slowly started gaining support of a few people just in a very close knit circle that I could trust and could see what was going on.

I Was Blamed By My Clergy For His Abuse

It was just a few months after that things really started escalating. My husband started using my arrest as leverage. He said that if I ever left, he would get custody of our children have this history. He blamed me for the whole situation, he said I would be out on the street. I wouldn’t have anywhere to live. It was very much held over me. The abuse just escalated from that point. He got a free pass.

I did reach out to the bishop when I found out about more incidents and many other indiscretions, and my husband and I went to meet with the bishop at that point. After my arrest and after he had confessed a bunch of things to me. The bishop was meeting with my husband privately. They met for probably about 45 minutes before the door finally opened.

I went in and I said, I am really at my wit’s end. I’m thinking that this is not a safe situation and I need support. The bishop looked at me and he said, you need to be a better wife and mom and your husband has told me everything that has happened. You are angry. He called me a feminist.

Anne: Which is not a bad word, by the way. Great word. Thank you for the compliment, sir.

When Your Church Community Won’t Protect You From Abuse

June: It became clear that my husband had gone in there and just said all of these things. June wants to go back to school and I don’t feel like she needs to do that. The bishop said, you don’t need to go back and get your master’s degree. What are you even thinking? You need to just be a better wife and mom and your husband is dissatisfied, he blamed me for my husbands actions. You need to give him more.

Basically, I very clearly saw what was happening. I started just speaking my mind and I said, this is not okay. You cannot be saying this. This is not okay. My bishop started to ask me details of things that I had done when I was a teenager. He said, your husband said that you were not faithful. I said things I did as a teenager have no bearing on any of this.

First of all, I’m a married mother of four and I’m 34 years old. You do not need to be asking me these questions. I didn’t even have the wherewithal to understand what he was doing. I look back now and I see that shamed me for something that I had done a long time ago.

He was trying to shame me into stopping the complaints or pointing the finger about how abusive my husband was.

When The Blame Doesn’t Stop

Anne: He was trying to silence you, right, and say, look, you are the one that’s the problem. Stop causing all this hullabaloo and take your place as a wife and mother. He blamed you for the abuse.

June: The questioning continued. My bishop said that if I submitted myself to him that he could fix me and that he has a very special way with women. That he has insight into women and that he has a unique ability to fix them and fix their problems and help them. It was so far out that I could identify it as inappropriate.

I went there thinking that I would feel safe and protected and loved, and I knew that something was going terribly, terribly wrong. I didn’t have the language to say, this is harassment. It’s inappropriate questioning. It is verbal abuse. It is blaming, it’s rationalizing, it’s deflecting. It’s projecting. I can name exactly what was happening, but at that time I didn’t.

It was so confusing to me why he was asking me these things and why he was taking the position that he did.

I eventually tried to teach him a little bit about trauma, use, infidelity, and abuse and how it all ties in together. He stood up, his face got very red, he yelled at me.

Secondary Emotional Abuse, Being Blamed By Clergy

He said, I’m exhausted and I don’t know what else you want from me. I’m trying to take care of all of these people and you’re making my job difficult and you need to listen to me.

It was very scary, I came to him disclosing that I had experienced verbal abuse. That was very triggering for me. It was very, very traumatizing. I got up out of his office and I actually ran out of the church. It was probably 11 o’clock at night at that point. Nobody else was there.

I had immediately called a friend and I called my mom and explained what happened. From that point on, I had tried to take it up to the person above him. Which is the stake president, like a hierarchy, and explain what happened. This bishop’s behavior, and his questioning was inappropriate. Things are happening in my home that are terribly wrong and I need some help.

The stake president said, I don’t believe the bishop did that. I tried. I tried to report to whoever I could report it to, but there’s really nothing else I could do.

Anne: This story is getting really intense, I’m just going to recap really quickly. She starts recognizing that her husband is abusive. Goes in to see if she can get some help from her clergy, and ends up being emotionally abused by her clergy as well. At this point, June, you’re realizing that you can’t get help from clergy and you need to turn somewhere else. What do you do next?

Moving Forward, Despite Emotional Abuse With Divorce Proceedings

June: I start educating myself. I listened to BTR, I found a lot of comfort and guidance in really identifying the behaviors that I was seeing in my own home from my husband as abusive behaviors. I became empowered enough and informed enough and I did initiate separation. His behavior escalated phenomenally during that time. The name calling was getting much worse.

I had no lawyer. We had no legal separation. I had consulted a couple of lawyers, trying to figure out what the situation would be like. I do suggest that informing yourself is paramount, it’s key. When we would exchange the children, he would come into my home and yell and throw things around.

He berated me for the children’s clothing. When he moved out, he packed up all of his guns and laid them in the hallway.

The kids and I were in the house and it was very obvious that he was doing that as physical intimidation. One day he picked up the kids. He called me horrific names. My children were there. He came inside my house. He wanted to pack up some of their clothes because he said I didn’t do it right.

It was demeaning, demanding, very scary behavior. After seeing this behavior, I did not feel safe sending my kids with him. They were all in the car and I went and I got in the car with them and he grabbed me from the car and threw me on the driveway in front of my children. Then he drove away with my kids in the car. He left me lying on the driveway. I was hysterical, traumatized.

When Law Enforcement Blames The Victim

He injured me. I had an abrasion on my elbow. He tore my clothes in several places. I had bruising on my hip. I called the police. The police came. It was so scary because of what had happened last time when I called the police. My injuries were visible at this point. He still had the children.

The police officer came. He assessed the situation. He talked to my husband who has a prominent position in our community, and he introduced himself with his title, which is impressive to people. I remained calm and I told the police officer what happened. I showed him my injuries and the police officer said that he could leave. The children ended up staying with me, which I was grateful for.

I still to this day have no idea how he didn’t get arrested given the injuries.

Anne: Manipulated the law enforcement.

June: That weekend he called me several times. The next day he came to my house, tried to get in the door, knocking on the door, calling friends and family of mine. He called a bunch of our friends and told them that I was crazy. Meanwhile, I am just trying to figure out how I’m going to survive this situation with an obviously dangerous and abusive person.

I had no time to call anybody to make them see my side of it. That was just not in my capacity. I had this injury, trying to figure out what in the world I needed to do to keep myself and my family safe. I was able to get a restraining order.

The Consequences Of Emotional Abuse

Anne: How did you feel when you went to file the protective order? Did you feel like, what am I doing? How is this happening?

June: Yeah. I was very scared that I wouldn’t be believed first of all because that is what was happening all around me. I was being blamed as the instigator, the angry and scorned woman. Of course I had felt angry. My anger was not driving any of this. My need for safety was.

Anne: By the way, this story. I know it’s horrific and difficult for our listeners to hear this. This is really typical for abuse victims. This period of confusion and what is happening, and he’s blamed you and nobody can understand this is exactly what happened. It happened to me too, but this type of manipulation and coercion with people around is exactly what we start to see. Women can feel like they’re going crazy.

June: Yes, he left me on the side of the road several times when he got angry at me in the car. He would just pull over and kick me out of the car and I would be left there for hours, in different places in front of my children. He withdrew money from our bank account, so I couldn’t buy groceries at this point. I couldn’t buy a birthday cake for my child who had a birthday that day.

He was of course very verbally abusive, but mentally and psychologically and socially aggressive to me and in ways that I couldn’t even recognize because I didn’t know it was going on.

Emotional Abuse & Blame Began When She First Got Married

I didn’t know that he was calling our mutual friends without me present and telling them these stories and painting me as this person who had all of these mental issues.

He would also very frequently embarrass me in public situations that we were together, and make jokes at my expense. He would demean me and be very coercive, trying to get me to do things that I wasn’t comfortable with.

Anne: When you started recognizing the behaviors, did you recognize that he was this way all along, but you just hadn’t seen it?

June: Yes. The trauma became so much greater when I started realizing that I his abuse started from the beginning. On our honeymoon to a foreign country he told me he wanted a divorce. What was he even talking about?

He wanted to leave me in the jungle, alone, in this foreign country. I had no idea how to speak their language or anything. It was very scary. Things like that were happening, but then I would also be so grateful when he would make it right and when he wouldn’t behave in those ways.

It was like this huge relief, it’s almost like he became accustomed to the love bombing and the apology and the honeymoon period that happens.

Getting A Restraining Order But Still He Blamed Me For The Emotional Abuse

The restraining order was for myself and my children. For three days I knew that we were to be safe and secure and left alone. I was unsure if he would even abide by the restraining order. Then, I did make the decision to file for divorce at that point. I went to my parent’s house with my children.

My parents live in a different part of the country, but legally I knew that I needed that protection. I needed to go ahead and file for the divorce and be away from the situation. My children and I left in the middle of the night. We had nothing really packed. We drove for a few days and lived with my parents for about four months. While I filed the paperwork for the actual divorce.

It was over the summer. The kids were in summer camps and in all sorts of activities. I received great services from a women’s center. My children received great services at the same place, and it was very much a time of healing and a time of safety and security. Now, it’s not to say that he didn’t abuse that situation.

He would call every day and demanded that it would be on video, which I did facilitate because I was trying to remain reasonable. He would call at all hours of the day, even into the night. Once I couldn’t answer my phone and he called the police to do a well child check in the middle of the night, which was very scary to my children and to me.

My Emotionally Abusive Husband Cut Of Access To Money

I had asked him also for money to buy diapers for my children, pay for medication and pay for food. I had very little money with me, but I had no means of paying for those things. Before I left in fact, he had taken all of the money that we had, cut me off and transferred it to an account that I did not have access to.

June: I was living on credit cards,

Anne: Took all the money away so you can’t even buy groceries, right? Yeah, that happened to me.

June: I had started on food stamps when I went to this different state. It was purely by knowing that he would not make this right. By getting the restraining order and setting boundaries, his behavior escalated. That was really an answer to me that I did the right thing, because he wasn’t supporting his children. I donated plasma to get some money. We were living with my parents. They supported me and my four children.

At that point, I really liked where we were living. We were around family. His family had also lived nearby. We had seen his family when we were out there. The kids saw their cousins and they were excited about that. I am in a state that very much expects parents to co-parent and to work with each other. It was clear that we would not be able to agree or decide on something that was reasonable together.

Being Blamed By The Court System

We went to court. Unfortunately, there is not a way that the law identifies covert abuse or emotional abuse.

Anne: We see that over and over again where the law does not protect victims of emotional abuse from perpetrators. If there’s no physical evidence and he’s lying and manipulating, there’s no protection for victims. That leaves all of the burden of protecting yourself on the victims themselves.

June: The courts like to give people a chance

Anne: That’s never helpful. If the court held them accountable, it would be more helpful to get the perpetrator to actually make changes and for the victim to be safe.

I think there’s a serious problem in our country right now protecting abusers and it’s scary for the victims.

June: When I walked into the courthouse for our hearing, I didn’t know how it was going to go, and I immediately saw a friend of mine. We had gone to church together and we had done a few other things. She was in a similar situation. She had divorced an abusive person who had an affair. I saw her at the courthouse and she wouldn’t look at me.

My first initial thought was like, oh my goodness, what is she doing here? Maybe she’s here to say hi to me or to support me. She was there with my husband and she was a witness.

Blamed Even By Friend’s

She testified that I planned to kidnap my kids.

When that happened, I put it together that they were in a relationship, they were having an affair. I had some other information from a few other people, other evidences of that. I realized what was happening. He manipulated her and blamed me. She did not know the reality of the situation, she knew about the abuse. She knew about the verbal abuse.

I confided in her my fear and I said, I need to have a plan in place, and so that was the extent of the conversation. She had come to court and said that I had planned to kidnap my kids and make up the assault. My husband manipulated her and blamed me.

The damage she caused to me and my children was irreparable. That was a very traumatic moment. It was horrific to realize that while I was in this really dire situation, living with my parents, with my four kids, that he was here having an affair with her and choosing not to support his kids and actively working to discredit me with an employee of the city.

Divorce Proceedings With Husband Still Perpetrating Emotional Abuse

Anne: Can you talk about the divorce proceedings and how fighting a narcissist for custody has played out? t

June: Yes, so I came back here and trying to co-parent. My children had experienced trauma, they had anxiety. They were unsure of what kind of situation we were coming back to. I wanted to make that as smooth as I could for them. When I did get back here, I came to the home that I would be living in. It was unkempt.

He took anything he wanted, furniture, valuables. Also, he had left a piece of chewed gum as a message to me. He always said divorced women were like chewed gum. He had disassembled locks and doorknobs from the house.

There were feminine products that were clogging the plumbing of the house.

He had taken the liberty of having people in the church move my personal belongings, my intimate clothing and my children’s clothing. We had no discussion about it. That kind of set the stage for how the period of time since I’ve been back has gone.

Emotional Abuse, Blame From Clergy

He does these things blatantly and there really is no recourse. I’ve asked him for some of my belongings and some of the things that he took without permission. I didn’t get any of that back. That’s been a hard thing. When I did return, I went to church. I made the effort to co-parent and keep my kids as stable as possible.

When I went back to see this bishop. I was actually with my father and he went in with me. I felt safer because my dad was there with me.

Anne: For those of you not familiar with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Instead of choosing the congregation that you go to. You find out where your congregation boundaries are and you go there.

That’s why June didn’t just go to a different church because her boundaries were those particular boundaries and that’s what everyone does within the church. I wanted to give you some background on that as to why she didn’t think, oh, I’ll just go somewhere else.

June: Yes, exactly. I went to my bishop with my father. I said, I don’t know if you know about the situation, but I’m happy to share with you the things that have happened and what my children and I have been through. We’re going to be coming to church here. He stopped me and said, I know that you kidnapped your kids.

Clergy & Church Community Did Not Help, Instead Blamed Me For The Emotional Abuse

Everyone says that you kidnapped your kids and you have got a serious issue. It was so uncomfortable. I said to him, I didn’t kidnap my own children. First of all, I had a restraining order. Would you like to see it? And I said, my husband is not paying support. He hasn’t been supporting us. I don’t think he should have a calling.

The bishop said, I don’t care about any of that. That stuff does not matter. He didn’t want to see any of the documentation I had. I mentioned to him that my husband was having an affair with another single woman in the ward, and he had no intention of discussing any of that. It was so uncomfortable. By that time I had really learned how to set boundaries and I saw that this was not a good situation.

I just stopped the entire discussion and left. The bishop didn’t hear my side of the story or look at any of the evidence that I had. He had made his mind up. There were a couple of other things that had happened from that point on in our church.

The women have an organization called Relief Society, it is for providing support for the women in the church and those who are in need and ministering to women.

When Church Blamed Me & Refused To Help

I had called the president of the Relief Society and reached out to her about my situation. My husband was still not paying support. We were going to have to garnishee his wages. That could take a period of time to set up.

I was very much in need at that point, I exhausted all of my credit cards, all of my resources that I had. I was in need of food for my children and had nothing to pay for any other bills. If I can get some food for my children for the next few weeks, that is one weight that I don’t have to worry about, at least for right now.

Anne: The church has a bishop’s storehouse where members of the church who are in need can get food, and that’s what she’s talking about.

June: The Relief Society met with me. We had a discussion. I described what was going on, I did not say that my husband was abusive. I didn’t berate or demean the bishop in any way, I just explained to her my need and she called me up a few days later.

She said she had spoken with the bishop and she didn’t believe that my husband could afford to pay the support that the court ordered. The bishop was also saying this. I told her I actually have no money. It was clear that the bishop had that information from my husband. Clearly my husband said he couldn’t afford to pay for it.

Husband’s Emotional Abuse Expands To Clergy

He declined to help me and my children with food. They said, I need my children to have some food. That’s it. He said, you’re not being truthful with me. You’re not being honest. Your husband said that he would never leave you or the children in this situation.

He was just believing my husband. I said, he hasn’t given me anything. I have not received anything. He took a lot of the food that was in this house. I have texts and emails of many of these interactions. The bishop came to me a few days later and wanted me to meet with one of his counselors who is actually a lawyer. I had reached out to my own lawyer at that point.

She said, that is grounds for filing a complaint against that lawyer.

That’s grounds for disbarment. You cannot do that. We have an open custody case and divorce proceedings and no one should be asking you to meet with someone else who is a lawyer. I declined to do that. The bishop said that he wanted to go over my finances and that the lawyer, his counselor would be there to help.

I showed the bishop screenshots of my bank account and the bills that that I had no way to pay. He said, you can have some food. I think I had two orders, and then I went to place an order with the Relief Society president. At 10 o’clock at night, and the bishop actually texted me back and said, there will be no more food. If you need food, you need to come in and meet with me and the state president.

Emotional Abuse When The Chuch Blames Me

These were the same leaders. One of them had abused me and the other had enabled that abuse, and so I was not going to meet with them under any circumstances alone or with someone. That was not a situation I was going to put myself in. He cut off the food and my children and I didn’t receive any more assistance in that manner from my church. I’ll tell you, that was a very, very dark time.

That was very, very difficult. The year before that we paid 10% of our income to the church in voluntary donations for tithes. Here I was now in this situation having no income for myself. My husband wasn’t paying the support and I needed basic things for my children.

I became a bad person for even asking for that and labeled a liar. I look back now and it is a miracle that I even survived that time. The darkness that I felt from betrayal in so many ways, on so many levels and by so many people was so great. I did set the boundary that I would not attend that congregation anymore.

I knew that was no longer going to be a safe place for me or my children when they were in my care. That was a tough decision. I did know that my safety was first. My children’s safety was first and my family’s safety was first.

Being Far Away From Family When He Blamed You For Emotional Abuse

Anne: . You’re still in divorce proceedings. How have the divorce proceedings gone?

June: We have been in and out of court for almost two years now. When you’re going through divorce in the courts, you have to deal with things like custody and support and visitation, and you have to decide all of these things. If you cannot decide it together, then you go to court. He has violated the order several times in small ways, small ways that I really have no way to address.

He has sworn at me during exchanges and does things to try and elicit a reaction or a response. I never respond, I never react. I have learned to know what I can control and what I cannot control and let the rest go. Going in and out of court has obviously been very expensive. It’s been very time consuming.

Anne: I want to stress that you are in a part of the country that is completely, totally far away from your family and support system.

June: Not only do I not have family here, but because I stepped away from the church and because I have the experiences with my bishop and my state president that I have had. The congregation alienated and ostracized me. They enabled the wrongs committed right in front of them.

Soldiering On Despite Continuation of Emotional Abuse

Many people knew that my husband was having this affair, and yet everyone chose to ostracize me. I’m not considered a person who has a testimony anymore because if I had a testimony, why wouldn’t I be coming to church and I’m painted as this feminist who has gone crazy.

I have also received some very, very troubling evidence that the bishop is defaming me in the community and that members, individual church members are doing the same thing.

They use the same language, they use the same words, they use the same phrases to describe me. They talk about my divorce and they talk about the state of my mental health, and it’s very damaging. It’s troubling, and there’s no way again that I can really address it.

Yes, I’m going back and forth to court doing the best I can for my children, trying to advocate for my children. All have special needs in some way or another, and trying to co-parent with a person who will not co-parent in return. He will use every situation to abuse or manipulate in some way.

When I Discovered He Blamed Me For The Emotional Abuse

All the while just feeling very alone in what I’m going through.

Anne: Yeah, it stinks. It’s really bad. I was thinking of different things we could put on Facebook and one of ’em was it’s really, really bad. We get it because during this situation, so many people try to tell me or you or other victims, it’ll be okay. It’s not as bad as you think it is. It’s really, really, really bad. You are in a super bad situation.

What helps give you peace when you’re having a really difficult time?

June: It’s interesting. I have cultivated an authenticity in myself that brings me a lot of peace and the relationships that I have now. Although they may be few, they’re meaningful to me because there are people that I do feel very safe with. There are people that have seen the other side of life and how awful and ugly it can be. They still love me and we understand each other.

There’s a sense of empathy that comes with going through trials like this that many people, I think never really get the chance to cultivate within themselves. Standing in my truth and knowing that I have survived. I have survived some of the worst situations that I had ever imagined I’d ever be in.

I will continue to survive, I’ll continue to build resilience and I’ll continue to reach out to others. To gain community and connection with those who have also survived horrific, horrible and unbelievable trials in their lives. That gives me a lot of peace, that sense of community with others who know.

Advice For Other Women Experiencing Emotional Abuse

Anne: Yeah, because you’re still in the thick of things with nothing being final. He’s still doing all these things that are just not right. I hope that you do have a little glimmer of hope that things will get better eventually.

What advice would you have for other women who are in a situation that is really difficult like yours?

June: Learning about boundaries is crucial. You have got to learn about boundaries and how to set them appropriately. If someone is saying inappropriate things to you. Or if someone is not offering you wise or sound or righteous counsel. You need to be able to recognize that and empower yourself to leave that situation immediately.

You don’t even have to explain. Cultivating your own worth within yourself. Knowing that you are a worthwhile and wonderful and lovable and amazing person as you are. In these situations, our worth seems to suffer. How we feel about ourselves seems to really plummet.

It’s important to be able to hold on to the knowledge and the core belief that you are worth it. That you do not deserve to be abused, lied to, manipulated and cheated on or blamed. That you deserve safety and happiness and security and peace. You deserve peace in your life.

Anne: Yeah. When you started recognizing, okay, I need to start setting boundaries, did you imagine that it would get this bad?

When The Emotional Abuse Escalates

A lot of women don’t realize, okay, I’m making my way to safety. This is cool, but they don’t realize it’s going to get a lot worse. Can you talk about that?

June (01:16:39): It definitely can escalate with an unhealthy person. Boundaries will make them escalate, and they will make them more abusive and behave in more unhealthy ways. With a healthy person, I believe boundaries can be great. They will respond in a healthy and respectful way. That was not the case in my situation. When I set the boundary, it escalated things astronomically.

I could have been more prepared, although I knew that the most dangerous time for a woman in an abusive relationship is when she decides to separate. It’s dangerous when she initiates separation or when she decides to leave that relationship. Really, when a woman would set those boundaries.

Anne: Yeah. I think a lot of women hear about boundaries, and for some women, their spouse is like, oh, this is a boundary, and they realize that they need to change and they change. It’s a miracle and it’s amazing, but a lot of women don’t talk about when you set that boundary, things escalate and that is terrifying to think about.

Women are more prepared for the escalation of the abuse as they start to make their way towards safety and knowing that doesn’t mean you’re doing the wrong thing. You’re going to be blamed and accused of abuse. It is part of the process of getting to safety. I think it would maybe help women be a little bit more prepared for what’s going to happen.

Difficulties Trying To Protect Yourself From His Emotional Abuse

June: Yes. I really wish that local women’s shelters and local resources and organizations that address domestic violence and domestic abuse would be more acknowledging of that fact. I called and said, I was experiencing abuse, I don’t know what to do.

If you need to leave very quickly, have the children’s medication and their birth certificates and important papers, you need to get a little bit of money and have those things ready. Well, that’s not a hard thing to do.

Anne: I was going to say, that’s the easy part.

June: Right? That is very basic. Okay. What they don’t tell you is that if your spouse or your significant other who is abusive, reacts in an unhealthy way to these boundaries. Years of legal abuse, years of being blamed and years of financial abuse. I mean, I can’t even begin to describe how this abuse has affected my credit.

We share loans together that he just won’t pay.Those are things that I wish that I would have known. I am fully aware that they want to get women to safety. What is hard is I don’t find a lot of resources that address the long-term subjection to abuse.

Lots of these women do end up suffering when they set the boundary to leave.

Hoping For Safety from Emotional Abuse

Anne: And the abuse doesn’t end. The person continues to lie. They continue to manipulate, if you have children with that person, then it really doesn’t end. We have to learn how to figure out how to be peaceful. How can I find strength through this long-term trial? Because it is a very, very difficult situation for a very long time,

June: And so many states expect you to co-parent, and so you need to know those options legally. You have got to consult an attorney, know the law in your state. Obviously, the best thing for my children is that they have two healthy and stable parents. I would love for that to be the case.

He uses things against me in court, something that I’ll tell him. He’ll bring up and twist it against me. Any way I can be blamed. Learn so you can prepare.

Anne: Which is really, really scary. Oh man, this situation feels impossible. There are options for women. I turn to prayer and pondering to determine the best actions I can take. The answers will come to us, and it might take time and it might take effort, but we will find a way to create safety for us and our children.

June: Exactly. I fully agree. There’s always a solution. I look at things that way sometimes through this journey.

Anne: Thank you so much for sharing your story.

June: Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity.

Have you wondered how abusers manipulate their victims? Chandra shares how her first husband manipulated her to keep her in the dark. Chandra, a Shero and member of the BTR.ORG community, shares the first part of her incredible story of surviving abuse despite her first husband’s many attempts to control the narrative.

If you’re in this situation and need support, attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY.

This episode follows Chandra’s Story:
This Is How Abusers Manipulate Their Victims – Chandra’s First Marriage (THIS EPISODE)
When My New Husband Is Abusive Too – Chandra’s Second Marriage

Abusers Control The Narrative By Talking First

It’s strategic – the way they control the story. This is how abusers manipulate their victims. And the first step they take is telling the story first. The first to talk is generally the one that people believe, unfortunately. So if the abuser seeks religious counseling, back-up from law enforcement, or “emotional support” from family and friends before the victim. They are more likely to be believed and discredit the victim.

Furthermore, abusers manipulate their victims by spinning the narrative to make themselves look like the victim. They often do this by admitting to a degree of abuse, but giving an excuse that draws pity or praise:

• “Yes, I did cheat, but I’m working a therapist on overcoming my childhood trauma, and I’m hoping she’ll forgive me for my attachment issues that led to me betraying her…”
• “If it wasn’t a sexless marriage, I wouldn’t have to do the things I do…”
• “My family was abusive, and I’m working so hard to be a better man. I just wish she’d stop ignoring my texts so I could tell her how hard I’m working. Can you ask her to talk to me?”

To discover if your husband is emotionally abusive, take our free emotional abuse quiz.

Abusers Spin The Story: “I’m The Actual Victim Here”

Whether they blame the affair partner, like Chandra’s ex-husband did, or blame the abusive family they grew up in:

“I was raised to _____” (objectify women, use exploitative material, hit, sexually abuse women, etc)

Blame society:

“I’m a man! What do you expect?”

Or blame a host of other situations or people, including their hormones, friends, alcohol, drugs, or stress. Abusers who manipulate their victims and are adept at shifting blame from taking accountability for their own choices. To make it appear they were the victim of just about anyone and anything else.

The message is loud and clear: “I’m the victim! So feel sorry for me! Stay distracted from trying to ask me to stop hurting you, and don’t even think about asking me to be accountable. I want to be catered to. And given all the so-called privileges that I perceive victims receive!”

Abusers Control The Narrative Early & Often

Healthy people are generally compassionate, and abusers manipulate their victims by using this. It’s common for abusers to disclose childhood abuse and other traumas early in the relationship. To elicit a blanket of pity that allows them to behave as they want, without consequences. This way, they can be as awful as they want, and can never be held accountable because of the pain from their childhood trauma. But here’s the thing:

Many, many adults have severe childhood trauma, but they don’t choose to abuse others.

This is how abusers manipulate their victims: When abusers control the narrative, it’s terrifying. Sometimes we don’t even believe ourselves.

But at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, we believe YOU. You aren’t alone, and we know you are not crazy.

You’re safe here. Attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY.

Transcript: This Is How Abusers Manipulate Their Victims

Anne: I have a member of our community on today’s episode. I’m going to call her Chandra. She’s a mother of four children. She’s a professional mechanical engineer, and a running enthusiast. She happens to be a Boston marathon finisher. So yay, good job there! She loves yoga and happily married for three years to a healthy, kind, humble man. Chandra married two separate abusers.

So part one will be about her first marriage, and then part two next week will be about her second marriage. This episode will focus on how abusers manipulate their victims by controlling the narrative. And then of course stay tuned for next week about her second marriage. Because so many women have gone through that. Where they get out of one abusive marriage, and then through no fault of their own, find themselves in a second one.

Welcome to Betrayal Trauma Recovery, Chandra.

Chandra: Thank you, Anne.

Anne: Our stories, Chandra. That’s where do we even start, right?

Chandra: Yeah.

Anne: Yeah, so because you have, I would say, your own story, which is one complete story of your experience, but your story includes two marriages. Let’s start with the first marriage. How old were you when you met him?

And did you recognize that you were experiencing abuse at first?

Chandra’s First Marriage: The Beginning

Chandra: I met my first husband when I was about 17, and we started dating then. He was known for having a girl in every city. When he “chose me,” I felt like I had won the lottery. He was a charismatic, outgoing person, and I wasn’t so much. What I didn’t recognize in these early stages was that he was a bit of a womanizer. And loved that attention from other women. And he loved bombed me a lot at first. I didn’t recognize that’s what that was.

I felt like I enjoyed the attention I got from him and his prolific love letters and professions of love. It’s intoxicating, right? So that’s how things started, and I didn’t see any red flags early on. Right before we married, he actually served a mission trip, a two year mission trip for our church. Right before he left, he gave me a little promise ring. And said, “When I come back, we will marry.”

We’d been dating for about six months when he left, and I was excited about that. I thought, that’s going to be awesome. And I think I’d like to wait for this person, because I was in love with him. And while he was away for those two years, he wrote me a lot of love letters. I thought, this guy isn’t working on his mission. He just writes me letters, and they’re full of all these professions of love.

Early Red Flags & Realizations

Chandra: When he returned, we basically marry within less than a year. We were both 21 at the time. So I was a little young and still in university. A couple of days before we married, he told me something he had just realized. He told me he remembered when he was five, a foster child living in his family home sexually abused him. And I remember at the time thinking to myself, oh boy, what kind of can of worms is this going to be?

And if he’s just realizing this, you know, it sounds like something we’ll have to deal with during the marriage. Because he hasn’t obviously dealt with it up to this point. So I expected some issues. And I knew, because he confessed to me, that during his teenage years, he had made some “mistakes.” And I didn’t know that he was manipulating me.

If you’re thinking about the standards of our church. He’d had some indiscretions and had sorted all that out. He never wanted to get into any details with me. About what that involved. So, I saved myself for marriage, and as far as I knew, he had as well. Our parents raised us that way.

https://youtu.be/TCFNQiZpDsg

He checked all the boxes. He had all the right things when it came to a marriage partner. Even though we were young, I didn’t expect to run into any problems. And I know that everybody liked him in my family, and everyone was excited about our marriage. So we married. The first time I became aware I could have a problem in my marriage was when my oldest daughter was 18 months old.

Thinking I Was Not Good Enough

Chandra: My younger sister had actually just passed away. He decided that was a good time to tell me that he was actually developing a relationship with someone else at work. I remember reflecting later on this. Why did I responded this way? But I immediately thought it was something to do with me. That I was not good enough, he manipulated me to make me think it was my fault.

I was in school, we had a baby and it was a rough time. We were tired and didn’t have a lot of money. And I thought, oh, all the pressures of getting our lives off the ground, it’s been too much for him. So I thought, oh, I’ve got to make life better for him, and I’ve got to fix this, and maybe I’m not good enough. I basically spent the rest of the marriage trying to be the perfect wife, this was the result of staying married after infidelity. And just getting angrier and angrier as I noticed red flags popping up.

I noticed he would lie to me about small things, about money. I could see him flirting with other women. And he became more and more deceptive and withdrawn. He never emotionally connected with me or opened up to me. I think that’s all part of their desire to control the narrative.

As I get into my story more, I definitely have some examples of how he did that kind of thing. Making it about him, and telling me things that were not true, to control the narrative and what I was experiencing. It’s very confusing to be around someone doing that. The first time I had any inkling that I was in something that might be abusive in terms of a relationship and that lying is emotionally abusive.

The Inappropriate Neighbor Incident

Chandra: We lived in this neighborhood. I had three children at the time. I think I was pregnant with my fourth and last child. There was a lady who moved into the neighborhood. She was a single mom, separated from her husband. She had three children, and needed a lot of help. I remember befriending her and having her over with her kids, talking to her and doing things for her. I would watch her kids sometimes.

At Christmas time, she didn’t have a lot of money, and we were doing reasonably well. So I bought some gifts for her kids, took them over to them, and invited them for Christmas dinner. She was in my life, and I think we actually invited her to church with us. She was sitting behind us in the pew with her kids.

The bishop in our congregation at the time actually came to my ex-husband after the meeting and warned him. He said to him, “I think you need to be careful of the woman you brought to church.” And I didn’t know at the time, he was fooling around with her. I didn’t know the extent of what was happening. But I was starting to feel strange about the situation, and I visited a friend of mine.

She, my closest friend at the time, actually married his best friend. And I was talking to them and mentioned the situation. And her husband, my friend’s husband, his best friend, said to me, “You don’t know everything about him, you know.” And I thought, What? What does he mean by that? And I went home, and that was the first thing I asked him. What’s going on with this neighbor?

He Admits To An Affair

Chandra: And I think at the time she’d actually moved out of the neighborhood. He told me he was friends with her and they were working on a business together. And she had this great business idea, and he had this pattern of always starting businesses. I don’t know why, but he loved to start businesses. He made a bunch of money, and then he spent it all or lost it all. It was kind of the cyclical behavior that he had.

So he started a business with her. He told me that she had basically attacked him. He was the one who had taken the high road. And said, “There’s all these people we need to think about. We can’t have this happen, there’s all these children, and my wife.” He was trying to make himself look like he was the good guy, and that he stopped it.

Anne: And at the same time, he’s not cutting off contact with her, he was maniplulating you and her.

Chandra: No, no, and I still don’t know if he completely cut it off. She wasn’t living in the neighborhood anymore, and I honestly don’t know what happened after that. But when my friend’s husband told me I didn’t know everything about him, he actually wasn’t talking about this woman. He was talking about something else that I knew nothing about.

Anne: Wow.

Chandra: He talked about how my ex-husband went to strip clubs. He knew my husband would go to strip clubs. I knew nothing about that until many years later, when my husband did a big disclosure dump on me right before he left.

His Best Friend Knew, But Didn’t Tell Me

Chandra: What bugs me about my friend’s husband knowing that and not sharing that with me. Is feeling like there was someone else who knew about his destructive behaviors and was complicit in his abuse of me. I was so upset later on just knowing that.

Anne: Why didn’t he just flat out tell you?

Chandra: Yeah, he was like, oh, well this is between you two, and I’m going to let you go home and talk to him about this. And ask him.

Anne: Yeah, but he’s already been lying to you the whole time, right? This is how these men manipulate their wives.

Chandra: Exactly.

Anne: So, why wouldn’t he lie to you again? The other question I have is, did you say it was the bishop that came over that day and said, I’d watch out for her?

Chandra: Yep.

Anne: Okay, I don’t know if he knew what was going on or not, but why didn’t he say watch out for your own husband?

Chandra: Well, he didn’t talk to me. He talked to my husband. And said he thought this woman looked like she was. He just had a funny feeling about the situation, and he said that to my husband.

Anne: And he assumed it was her, rather than him.

Chandra: He assumed it was her, not him. He assumed my husband was innocent in the whole thing. I know, scary, huh? That is super scary. Nobody said anything to me either, so I had no idea.

My Sister-In-Law’s Reaction Shook Me Up

Chandra: This is what happened. I had a sister-in-law living in the same city as me at the same time. And we were close. I was just talking to her one day. And I told her about all this, and I said, oh, this stuff happened. I was just kind of telling her and her reaction. She was so indignant and so upset. About the whole thing, and her reaction actually shook me loose. Because I was going along like, yeah, this happened.

And it’s not great. And I don’t know what to do about it. But she was upset about it. I actually had a fight with him, I think that night or like later that week. And I brought it up again. I felt like he was like telling me all these lies to cover up what was going on, and to manipulate me into not finding out the truth. But I had no proof that anything he was saying to me was true or not. So I could feel there was something wrong, but I had no proof. And I was upset. I went for a walk.

I was like five months, six months pregnant. It’s the middle of winter. I’m out walking for about an hour, and just the sum total of all the small lies. And seeing him flirt with other women, and all the bending over backwards, I’d done. To be the perfect wife, so that he would be happy.

I just thought, I need to get out of this relationship. So I remember thinking that and just thinking, I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to do this anymore. But I was pregnant. I had been out of school for six or seven years. I had no work experience. And I was scared.

Abusers Manipulate With Charisma

Chandra: I was also afraid of how I would be treated by all the people who pressured us to succeed in our marriage. You know, the faith community, the families. I knew nobody would believe me. Because he was Mr. Charisma, and everybody thought he worshiped the ground I walked on. He manipulated everyone and he behaved outwardly made it look like that. So I didn’t think I could do anything at the time. And so I didn’t, I didn’t leave.

I wish I had, because being abandoned is a lot worse than getting the courage up to leave yourself.

Anne: Do you feel like now that was God telling you to leave? I mean, you kind of mentioned that, but do you feel now that that’s really what that was?

Chandra: Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, I believe in God, and I’m a praying woman. And I can definitely see when I look back, many, many situations where God was trying to help me move forward. And get away from dangerous situations to protect me and help me. You know, I do see that.

Anne: God’s telling us something, we can feel that, and yet religious scripting. Or maybe even our religious leaders are telling us to go against the revelation God is giving us. Like we’re thinking, no, we can’t break our vows or covenants. Or we can’t “break up our family.” When God directly tells us, you are not safe. You need to get to safety. And we don’t have the words, the understanding, or the knowledge to interpret it that way at the time.

Abusers Manipulate By Clouding The Truth

Anne: So I don’t think it’s our fault, it’s so hard to do what God wants us to do. When the people we feel like, I’m going to say “represent God on the earth.” Our minister, pastor or bishop, tells us to do something different. It’s confusing.

Chandra: It’s hard to overcome that. I agree with you, so that happened, that whole situation with that woman. And my sister-in-law’s reaction woke me up. I had my fourth child, and we moved out of the city we lived in at the time. He was laid off. An opportunity to take a job came up for me. My youngest was three years old.

I had planned to get my career off the ground and start working towards becoming a professional engineer. I’ve been to school for that. When my kids were in school, so she, my baby, was almost there. And I thought, okay, I’ll take this job and start working. And so one day, I had borrowed his computer and searched for something. So somehow as I searched, this history came up. It basically said something like naked pictures of someone’s name, and I recognized the name.

It was actually the name of a co-worker of his. I’m so glad it was almost near the end of the day, because I could not even function. Like, I just lost my mind. The stress reaction, fight or flight, my heart started beating, and I was like, oh my gosh. All these years. After I decided to stay in the marriage during my pregnancy with my youngest, I had kept doing what I was doing. I kept playing the part and wearing the mask with him, because I didn’t know what else to do.

Discovering Pornography & Waiting For Him To Step Up

Chandra: I kept trying to be the good wife and do everything. And I realized the gig is up. I knew that I was with someone that was never going to change. I confronted him with it. When he came to pick me up. I have never screamed at someone so loud in my life. It was just all the years and years and years of pent up frustration, fear, anxiety and sadness and just all those feelings of not being good enough. And I just thought, this is ridiculous.

So I discovered the exploitative material and we went to see our clergy. I didn’t find him abusive. He was supportive. And suggested we start getting some counseling. Of course, like most people, they go for couples counseling as if it’s a couple’s problem, which it’s not. I understand that now, but at the time I didn’t know better. We arranged for some counseling.

And somehow when we went to the first session, the person didn’t show up. And I’m not sure what happened with the scheduling. But I remember thinking to myself, okay, this needs to be rescheduled. I thought the only way I’m going to know that my husband cares about this relationship. And actually wants to do something about this, is if he makes the appointment. So I stepped back, but nothing ever happened.

He didn’t set up an appointment. He did nothing. And so we continued for another year. A year later, I don’t even know why, suddenly he decided we should buy a new house. And the house we were living in had two separate units. I mean, we lived in the house as if it was one house, but there was a back area that you could rent.

I Ask If Something Is Wrong & He Says He’s Thinking Of Leaving

Chandra: And we decided to hang on to the house and rent it out. And so we bought this new house. This was in June of 2007. After the sale, we were going to be moving in a couple of months. He was working on getting tenants for the house we were living in at the time. He got a tenant for the one main part of the house, but he hadn’t gotten anybody for the back of the house. And he was acting really, really strangely. And this was in July and there was something really wrong with him.

I didn’t know what it was. I read a book called Fierce Conversations, and I thought I would put into practice something I’d learned in the book. And I asked him one night, I’m like, I’ve noticed you’re not yourself. Are you okay? Is anything wrong?

And he’s like, well, nothing is wrong. And I said, well, what would be wrong if there was something wrong? Thinking I’m using my fantastic conversation skills. And he said, oh, well, I’m thinking of leaving. And I was like.

Anne: Nothing’s wrong, but I, I hate you and our marriage is gonna end.

Chandra: Yeah, he said nothing’s wrong. And I’m like, well, what would it be if there was something wrong? And he goes, well, I’m thinking of leaving. I was like, what? This is like right before bed, and of course he goes to bed and has a nice night’s sleep. I was up all night, and I actually called his mother, and I said, “Your son just told me he wants to leave, and I have no idea why.”

Confessing The Affair Can be a tactic of Manipulation

Chandra: I asked him. I said, “Why do you want to leave? Why?” He wouldn’t tell me, didn’t even have an answer. And I just thought, well, it’s related to the exploitative material somehow. I don’t know how, but something’s not right here. And I immediately became like this anxious mess. You know, I felt like I had to get up to speak all the time. My stomach was in knots. It was exhausting.

And it went on for about two months until he finally left. But during those two months, we moved into the house. The back part of the other house is still vacant. I started to clue in that when he left, he was planning to move into the back of that house. He’d been planning this for a while, like since at least May or June.

So we moved in this brand new house. It’s beautiful. It’s everything I could ever want. But I’m sitting there going, do you actually think I’m going to pay for this myself? Because I knew I couldn’t. My job wasn’t full-time hours, and I knew I couldn’t afford the house on my own, and I thought what is he doing? And we went out and bought new furniture. He was doing all these things to set up this life.

This was supposed to be the last house. But then, he’s talking about leaving, and it just made no sense at all. And finally, he wrote a letter, and said he felt terrible. I did not deserve the way he treated me throughout the marriage. He admitted he had many problems and made a mistake when he went on a business trip to Chicago. He had slept with another woman, “made a mistake.”

The Aftermath Of The Affair, He Made A Mockery Of Our Marriage

Anne: “Made a mistake.” Just another way these abusers manipulate thier wives.

Chandra: Right, like I just, I slipped and fell into bed with her, and she landed on top of me. I mean, I don’t know, whatever. Right, he said he realized he’d made a mockery of our marriage. And that, that I didn’t deserve how he behaved. I feel silly about this now, but I remember thinking, oh good, finally. All the discussions we’ve had where I’ve tried to get him to open up. And connect with me and tell me what’s really going on with him.

He finally disclosed the truth. And now we can start working on this, fixing it, and making it right. Solve the problems. You know, I’m an engineer, I want to solve the problems, right? So, he was basically trying to get me to kick him out. And he thought if he admitted to that, I would do that.

Anne: Your story is sounding very similar to mine.

Chandra: Is it?

Anne: Yeah, because at the end, he wanted me to kick him out. I didn’t see it at the time, but looking back, it was painfully obvious. And then he could blame me for it. So he wanted to leave, but he wanted to blame me. Yeah, it’s weird. And they start acting crazy.

Chandra: Yes, yes, oh my gosh.

Anne: And then my bishop and everyone was like, Oh, you kicked him out, you did this to him, and it worked. It just went sideways with me. I don’t know how it went with you, but yeah. It’s interesting.

Chandra: Isn’t that interesting? I mean, I didn’t see it till later either, but I realize now, yeah, he didn’t want to look like the guy that left his wife and kids.

He Didn’t Want To Look Like The Bad Guy Abandoning The Family: So he manipulated the situation

Chandra: He didn’t want to be the man who abandons his family to be with an affair partner, right? He realized the letter didn’t work. Because I was still there, and I didn’t say I wanted him to leave. He wanted to manipulate me so I looked like the one who ended the marriage. And so the next thing he does is he decided to disclose everything he had done, the entire marriage to me.

One night he sits me down and says, actually, that letter I wrote you, it’s not true. And that didn’t actually happen. And by the way, I went to massage parlors and strip clubs, I was with this woman. I did that. There was this big list of things he’d done throughout the marriage. I asked him some questions and tried to get the whole story. But of course, looking back, I think how much of that was actually true?

I don’t even know, because the whole purpose was to tell me enough to kick him out. Without telling me too much, so that he wouldn’t look like the bad guy. Because one important thing he left out was the affair he was having, which no one knew about at the time. So basically, the same thing happened. I thought, oh, now I’ve got the truth. Now I know everything. Now we can start working on it. But a few days later, I realized actually nothing’s changed.

He hasn’t said we’re going to counseling now, or I’m gonna do this to fix it or that to fix it. I realized I was being fooled again, and the tension in the house was palpable, like it was so awful. And I was losing my mind. It was a terrible situation. I realized the kids probably felt it. Like, it was really, really stressful.

Asking Him To Leave & Finding Out About An Affair

Chandra: And I finally said, you’re putting us through hell. I think you should just leave. I can’t take it anymore. Like, I can’t tolerate this. And so, he practically kicked up his heels, packed a bag, and left with this big smile on his face. And I, I still didn’t know what to do. But I suspected there was another woman. I just didn’t know. I had no way to prove it. This is how abusers manipulate their victims.

So, because I wasn’t aware of anything happening at the time, I allowed him to return to the house and babysit the kids when I was at work. Okay? So, he was in the house one day, and I came home from work, and he left. And I went down to our basement where the computer was, and checked my emails, and lo and behold, he had left his emails wide open. I came across the affair had been going on for four months.

And it was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced, reading through the emails between him and her, because they totally demonized me. They criticized me and made fun of me in these emails. And, you know, I realize now it was all to justify himself. He had to feel like I was this awful person to sell it to her. And she knew he was married, and she was married too. They both left their spouses for each other.

But basically, I sent all the emails to myself, and then I sent them to him. And he thought I was gonna try to expose him. And she came from a prominent family in the community. She thought I would send it to the media. Which was funny, because I thought I would never do that.

Abusers Manipulate with Accusations & Lies

Chandra: But he accused me of hacking into his account, and she was terrified of what was going to happen.

Anne: Part of me actually does wonder if he left it open on purpose so he could accuse you of hacking into his account.

Chandra: I guess that’s possible, I know.

Anne: And also thinking it would hurt you if you found it.

Chandra: Maybe.

Anne: They enjoy that. You know? They do things that you think seem strange, but sometimes they have their own sick purposes for it. And the reason I say that, again, not knowing, right? If you feel like he didn’t do it on purpose, that’s likely at the same time. Yeah, they manipulate us on purpose to distress us.

And also to make you look crazy and to be able to accuse you of things. That does happen to other women, even if it wasn’t the case in this specific instance.

Chandra: I mean, it’s possible, but I didn’t get that sense. Like he was upset and said I’d hacked his account. And. I was like, I don’t even know how to do that, so I don’t think so, right? So, yeah, and actually, I did something. Maybe this was wrong, but I sent those emails to his parents too. To say, look, this is what happened.

Anne: I don’t think that’s ever wrong. People say it’s wrong because they don’t want to get caught.

Chandra: I wanted them to know what was happening. I didn’t want them coming back on me and accusing me of being the reason the marriage failed.

Legal Manipulation & Escalation

Chandra: A year later, when we were in court, they did that anyway. It was hard, they were so loving and good people. Also part of our faith community. It was really difficult to be treated like I was the bad guy, it didn’t happen at first. It took about a year for that to happen. Eventually, he managed manipulate them I was the reason why the marriage failed. It was really hard.

I found out about the affair. Once that came out, he became really abusive overnight. The abuse I experienced in the marriage was more lying, manipulation, and gaslighting. It would be emotional, psychological, and he was neglectful. He wouldn’t let me in beyond his thick stone walls around himself. It was more of a neglect than anything, but suddenly he became extremely, extremely verbally abusive.

To the point where I had to start getting other people to communicate with him for me. It took me a long time to wrap my head around the fact that he was not my loving husband anymore. And I would sit there and read things he sent me, or he would yell at me on the phone. And I would sit there and listen and be like, oh, you know, maybe what he’s saying is true, and etc. He was still manipulating me at this point. What happened was actually so many crazy things right after he left.

I actually lost my job because I was working on a project, a production project, that got moved to Mexico. But because I was involved in developing all the documentation for the process and the quality checks, they asked me to work in Mexico for a short period. So I negotiated a contract.

Facing Up To Supporting My Children With Job Changes

Chandra: And went down and worked in Mexico for several weeks on and off. And I had family members and members of the faith community helping me with my children. While I went down, and made enough money to keep us afloat. And in the meantime, I found a job. Unfortunately, at the time, I had so little experience. We lived in the greater Toronto area where there’s lots of work. But mostly for people who have over five years of experience as an engineer, which I didn’t have.

So his parents, who lived more than four hours north of Toronto, helped me find a job. It was in a community four hours north of Toronto. The name of the city is North Bay, and I interviewed for a design engineering role up there. They offered me the job. So I could start out and get my career launched. Because I knew from my experience in the marriage with him that he was not going to be consistent with money.

Almost immediately, he started cutting back on what he was providing. I was just hanging on to that house to keep a roof roof over me and my kids’ heads. While I waited for the school year to end and my contract in Mexico. And then to start this job north of Toronto. in a remote location, far away from all my family and friends.

I didn’t know anybody up there, but I knew I had to go take this job so that I could support my kids. Because I knew it would be a battle to get him to provide anything.

The Role Of Faith & Community

Chandra: So unfortunately, the child support has been sporadic almost the entire time we’ve been apart. And I know you call that financial abuse, and I’m actually in a court case with him right now to make another change, because my youngest turned 18.

He’s $75, 000 in arrears, and he wants to get it reduced by $50, 000. And his motion to the court is full of lies. And it’s so triggering, still 15 years later, to read the things he writes and think, this guy is lying. There was a lot of abuse. When I started cutting off communication with him, he started taking it out on the kids instead of me. Which was really difficult to watch them go through that.

Anne: Let’s pause quickly to talk about how divorce is not the solution to abuse. I am not saying don’t divorce. So please don’t get that impression listeners. Be like, Anne said, divorce is not the solution to abuse. And so ergo, I’m not going to get divorced, if you feel like you need to get divorced. I am saying when you’re married to an abuser, they have some reason to not be full on abusive. Because they don’t want you to kick them out.

Or because they want to maintain some kind of power or control. Once they realize there’s nothing they can do to groom you anymore, it’s full on abuse. And that is usually after the divorce. Or during the divorce proceedings. Now, I think that is a phase of deliverance. So as we pray for deliverance, I like to think about the story of Moses and the Hebrews escaping from Egypt.

Divorce Is Not The End Of Abuse

Anne: If you’re not religious, go with me for a minute. The first stage is Moses bringing them out of Egypt, and they’re backed up against the Red Sea. Then it’s like, Oh, what do we do? That’s the first stage, then the second stage is learning how to protect yourself from abuse. Going through the Red Sea, perhaps on dry ground. There are stages of deliverance in this.

I think that’s what the courts don’t understand. I think that’s what many people don’t understand. They think, oh, we’ll just get divorced and your abuse problems will be solved. We’re thinking, it’s not solving anything. We are still getting severely abused and manipulated after our divorces.

I don’t know if you will disagree or agree that it is exponentially better to not live with them. And to have the court have some type of protection in terms of assets and financial stuff. Even if they don’t obey it, it’s better than having them live in your house. What are your thoughts about that?

Chandra: Yeah, I would agree. Certainly, the abuse became apparent and much, much worse after he left and the affair was exposed. And I definitely noticed that he became extremely abusive. I remember thinking to myself, oh! These were all things he thought before, but never said to me, right?

And he was always building a case and blaming me, because everything was my fault, everything. He blamed everything on me. At one point, he said to me, “Oh, I’ve got 10 people who believe my side of the story.” And I’m like, there’s sides to this? I’m like, okay.

Anne: There’s one truth, buddy, but also, what, you’re like out canvassing for votes or something?

Chandra: That’s what it sounded like.

Abusers Manipulate with Continual Smear Campaign

Anne: What are you talking about?

Chandra: It sounded like he was out, you know, doing his smear campaign and building a little army of his own against me. And I thought, this is insane.

Anne: And also like tallying up the people he’s manipulated.

Chandra: And 10 people said I’m like, okay.

Anne: Crazy talk.

Chandra: I didn’t know, we were building an army like that. I will tell you, I was terrified to go to court with him. And one of the abusive things he had said to me right before I went to court was, “I will never let you divorce me. I know you want to live a celibate life outside of marriage. And so I will never let you divorce me. So you will always have to be alone.” And I was like, what did I do to deserve this, this amount of hatred from you?

Anne: And that’s insane.

Chandra: It’s insane.

Anne: You can’t do that. Like it’s not even believable.

Chandra: That’s what I thought. I thought, oh yeah, watch me, watch me. My clergy at the time was a professor in the university in my town. When I told him that I needed help finding good legal counsel, he referred me to a retired nun. They called her jaws in a dress. She had retired from being a nun.

Court With An Amazing Lawyer Fighting For My Family

Chandra: She’d become a lawyer in the family court system and was there to fight for families like mine. And she was amazing. She died of cancer after my court stuff was done. And she was a blessing, I’ve got to tell you. So she helped me fight. But before I actually started, I remember studying about the battles, and I had always wondered, what is all this stuff in the scriptures for?

And I realized as I read through all of it, oh, this is all about people who went to battle. To fight for their families, for their freedom, and for their rights. I realized I’m not doing something wrong by fighting with him. I’m doing what I need to protect my kids and family.

And I got over the whole fear and the whole like queasy feeling I had about fighting in court with him pretty quickly. Once I’d read that stuff and had that sense again to go ahead and fight. I’ve kicked his butt around the courtroom a few times because I realized I had some advantages over him.

I heard at one point the person with the most paper wins. And so I kept really, really good records, and I always came prepared. He often didn’t even have a lawyer and would try to represent himself. And was disorganized.

Court Is Exhausting, I Knew I Never Wanted Him Back

Chandra: I prevailed in most situations. He was trying to control the situation and control me, I was like, I’m not going to let this happen. I’m will be strong in my career and get to the point where he can’t do anything to control me and my kids.

Anne: It’s amazing what we can do when we believe we can and are willing to work hard. The thing that’s so hard is that we’re so overwhelmed by the abuse, and that is the point. They want to overwhelm us to win, and they want us exhausted. So that’s the part that’s so hard. It is a war.

Chandra: It’s really grueling. This is one tactic to manipulate their victims, exhaustion. I remember being so bone tired. Worse sometimes than how hard it is after you have a baby. And they’re not sleeping, and you’re not sleeping for days. But just the emotional stress you’re going through. You’ve got a broken heart, and like I just want to say, he abandoned me. That was really hard on me emotionally. Once I knew about the affair, there wasn’t a second that I thought I ever wanted him back.

After everything that had gone on, it was five years before he left me that I thought about leaving him. And just felt like I couldn’t do it at the time. I mean, looking back, I wish I had. I wish it had been me that left him, because I would have been in better shape emotionally. But, once he left, and I knew why, there wasn’t a second that I thought I wanted him back. I remember feeling, my life is a nightmare. I remember feeling like that a lot. But I didn’t actually want him back, never.

Abusers Manipulate By Hiding Who they Really ARe

Anne: Yeah, I felt the same way. And tell me if you feel this shock. At who he really is, and that I didn’t realize the extent of the evil and manipulation. I knew something was wrong the whole time. Things were crazy. . But now that I’ve been out of it, looking back and even looking now at what he’s doing now. The shock is like whoa, it’s so bad. Like it’s way worse than I ever could have imagined.

Chandra: Yeah, I remember feeling like the backdrop of my life was pulled out from under me. I felt like I had no bearings, just my sense of reality was destroyed. I remember looking back at pictures and thinking, what was going on when this was all happening?

And I was in this happy little world, in my little dream world with my kids. Thinking I had this great husband, even though I sensed there was a problem too. I didn’t realize the extent of it, like you said. And had no idea how bad it was going to get. It was scary.

Anne: Would you say on the whole in your first marriage that clergy was helpful?

Chandra: I would say yes, the bishop we had when I discovered the exploitative material was supportive of me. He was actually a mental health professional in our local hospital. We thought he might have bipolar disorder. I’m not sure. When he left, he was on medication for psychosis, bipolar disorder and depression. And I believe he had gotten all those prescriptions from our bishop. So, I found him supportive.

Church Leader’s Ridiculous Judgement

Chandra: And actually, when my first husband left, I was in the process of renewing my recommend to attend our temple. And I had completed the part with the leader of our congregation. And was ready to go into the second interview at the stake level. The person who interviewed me asked me how things were going in the family. And I said, oh, actually my husband just left our family. He stopped the interview, and said, “Oh, I can’t give you this recommend.”

And I was like, what, why not? I haven’t done anything wrong. And he said, well, we need to wait and see. I think this man was actually a divorce lawyer, and I just felt icky about that. I found out about a week later, I guess my bishop caught wind of what happened. He called that guy and said, “You need to give her her recommend. She has not done anything wrong here.” And so, they took care of it.

Anne: How creepy!

Chandra: I know. I wasn’t expecting that. It was very strange. As if somehow the whole thing was my fault. And I was crushed and destroyed. Like, in the middle of the trauma. And this guy tells me I can’t go to my place of peace. And I had done nothing wrong. I’m like, this is ridiculous.

Anne: That is absolutely ridiculous. I’m so sorry. Chandra and I had to actually pause the conversation, because I needed to help my kids. So next week, she’s going to talk about how this transitions into her second marriage with an abuser, and what happened there. So stay tuned.

Are you wondering if there’s something wrong with your husband or boyfriend? Here are 5 silent red flags in a relationship that you need to know. If you relate to this episode, did you know that there are 19 types of emotional abuse? Take our free emotional abuse test to see if you’re experiencing this.

1. Coming On Strong Early On

Like most red flags, abusers will often come on very strong early on. In Ayla’s case, her abuser immediately began to love-bomb her with attention, a job offer, flattery, and affection.

Abusers may:

• Tell you they love you
• Ask you to be in a committed relationship
• Initiate sex
• Propose
• Ask you to meet their family
• Give you money or ask you for money
• Divulge “secrets” early on in order to “bond” with you – but later you may find out these were lies

2. Isolating You (It’ll Seem Romantic At First)

The second red flag in a relationship is isolation. It may be hard to spot, because it can be camouflaged romantically. Abusers isolate victims by usurping their time. They spend every waking moment with the victim, which can feel romantic. They may condition the victim to feel dependent on them OR tell the victim that they (the abuser) are emotionally dependent on the victim.

Abusers often take up so much emotional and physical space. Isolation can extend to a physical move to where the victim doesn’t have any friends or family.

3. Pushing You To Have A Child With Them

Interestingly, abusers often request and then push for the victim to bear their child. This is a of the silent red flags in a relationship. Many abusers want their victims to get pregnant, because it’s a way for him to basically control you the rest of your life.

If he is talking about having a child with you early on, or after you have expressed hesitation, consider this a red flag. Having a child with someone legally ties you to them until the child is eighteen. This is a sure-fire way for the abuser to have contact with you and a degree of control in your life and the child’s life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvxpK9yloco 4. “You’re Saving Me” (Also Romantic At First)

Another silent red flags in a relationship is that the abuser may use phrases like:

• I didn’t know what I needed until you came along.
• I felt this void until you were here, now I feel whole.
• When I’m not with you I feel empty.
• I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life until I met you.
• I need you. I’m not okay without you.
• Now that I have you, I’ll be able to be a better man.

Ayla’s abuser coupled this “You are my savior” red flag with isolation when he moved their small family to the mountains.

5. Spending Time Studying Resources About How To Abuse Women (Calling You Out, Robert Greene)

One scary red flags in a relationship rarely discussed is the insidious and calculated effort that abusers take to learn how to abuse women. Books like The 48 Laws of Power and The Art of Seduction by the psychopathic author Robert Greene literally teach men how to coerce and abuse women. In Ayla’s situation, her abuser studied these books and used the tactics to brainwash and manipulate her.

If you relate and need support, attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY.

Transcript: 5 Silent Red Flags In A Relationship

Anne: I have a member of our community on today’s episode, we’re going to call her Ayla. She’s going to be sharing her story. As she shares her story, I’m going to be pointing out 5 silent red flags in a relationship you need to know. Welcome Ayla.

Ayla: Thank you so much. It’s an honor to be here and I look forward to talking with you today and the rest of the community.

Anne: So let’s start with your story. Did you recognize his abusive behaviors at first?

Ayla: At first, no. It was definitely one of those what seemed like a destined type of meeting. It was definitely more like a fairy tale at first. I was working at a ski resort. And he was a tourist with his extravagantly rich friend, who had talked me into joining in a supposed “business opportunity” with a non-profit. They totally stole my heart with that to convince me to quit my job there in the ski resort and then start this non profit.

Which after a month or two I realized was a complete scam and setup. Everything was hyperspeed, and that was another thing, now in retrospect, that was a red flag warning that I didn’t understand at the time. Technically, he stalked me. I didn’t put two and two together. I just thought he enjoyed my company. He wanted to help me get into a better financial opportunity with this non-profit that they were promising me.

The First Red Flag: Grooming

Anne: So that’s the first one of the silent red flags in a relationship, is coming on strong, early on, otherwise known as grooming. Where things happen very, very quickly. Then you leave your job and end up moving in together and having a child. Because you don’t recognize this as grooming.

The Second Silent Red Flag In A Relationship: Isolation

Anne: The second silent red flag in a relationship is isolating you. They get you to move or quit your job. And that happened to you as well. So now that you’re living together and have a child. That’s the hard part. Women don’t know that the great part was part of the abuse. So many times they’ll say, it was good. And then it went bad. They don’t realize it was bad the whole time.

Struggles In The Relationship

Anne: What types of things did you try to improve the relationship?

Ayla: Communication, however, he was so good with word manipulation and gaslighting. It always kept ending up that it was my fault for anything and everything that happened. He bashed my head into a door, I had a severe concussion. And he kept blaming that I wasn’t understanding things because of it. He blamed it on the hormones and everything when I was pregnant. So it was all my fault all the time.

I think when I continuously caught him in blatant lies with the gas lighting. That’s when I realized he might be mentally ill. I understood that I needed to be more particular and deliberate in how I created my existence alongside him. Especially since we were having a child together. He had a bad addiction to weed. I thought that was the main culprit so I didn’t recognize the silent red flags in my relationship.

I read a book called Tell Your Children the Truth About Marijuana. Which focuses on violence being a huge result of somebody who uses substances such as marijuana often.

Anne: Yeah, that makes sense. You’re thinking the reason why he’s been violent is because of his marijuana use or maybe a mental illness. I’m so sorry. Can you talk more about how he exploited you?

Ayla: I have a big heart. I used to do energy work and counseling. And becoming part of a non-profit was something intriguing to me. I wanted involvement in something amazing to help the community.

Exploitation & Lies

Ayla: So with being lied to from the get go about that. I felt that maybe it was just that one opportunity. Because he always had an excuse for something going on. So when we had left together to go to the mountains and start a new life, he said, oh, it was, it was his friend’s fault. That he was behaving the way he was. He said he needed to get away from the bad influence and that coming to a new life will change him. He’s going to be a changed man.

And that was exactly what he needed. I was exactly what he needed in his life to become a better person. And so, of course, I believed it. But then I kept having to call the police to help me out. Because there were times when he wouldn’t even allow me to close myself off into a bedroom. To prevent him from yelling in my face, shoving me, pushing me, grabbing the baby from my arms, like horrible back and forth fighting. That I just was fighting for my safety to get away.

He wouldn’t even let me leave the house too. And he would take away the car keys. He also didn’t allow me to drive the car at times. He had control over that and didn’t register the other cars. So if I tried to leave, he said he would call the police and report the car stolen, and that I was kidnapping my own child. He put up surveillance cameras, wow big red flag, and he then spliced up video footage of me defending myself. I mean, what do you do if your husband filmed you with a hidden camera.

The Third Silent Red Flag In A Relationship: Pushing For A Child

Ayla: He said I have footage that I can show the police saying you were abusive towards me. I realized he had trapped me. He blackmailed me for about the two last two and a half years of our “relationship,” for everyone to call it that. So there were threats that kept an invisible prison around me in my life. My son was unfortunately the pawn to keep that control over me, because the threats were so real.

Anne: So I want to point out the third silent red flag in a relationship that you mentioned. Number three is pushing you to have a child with them. Because these types of abusers know that once you have a child, their ability to exploit, control and threaten you increases exponentially. So pushing you to have a child with them quickly is number three.

Ayla: I had another friend, in the same exact situation, caught into a relationship. And her abuser used a child to keep her in control. Because all he wanted from her was just a child. Like, my abuser just wanted a child from me.

Anne: Or at least that’s what he said. I mean, he manipulated you to feel like he wanted a child, but he wanted a reason to keep you trapped. So that’s why it’s so difficult. And so hard when you find out that it was manipulation the whole time.

The Fourth Red Flag: Manipulative Dependency

Anne: The fourth silent red flag in a relationship. You mentioned that he manipulated you by saying he needed you, that you were going to save him. that. He couldn’t do this without you. You mentioned this type of manipulation. I mean, you experienced overt, non silent abuse, like yelling. Or keeping you from leaving the house. And then you’re also experiencing this silent abuse.

In fact, this is narcissistic abuse. You discovered that he poisoned you to take pictures of you to use to exploit you online. Can you talk about that?

Ayla: One night he pushed very to get me to drink. That was the thing that we often did, but I knew he was doing the course of control with the surveillance camera called the domestic violence setup. So I knew that he already had that in his back pocket. The one night I kept refusing. I don’t want to drink anything. My intuition just said, no, not tonight. Stay away. So he handed me a drink, even despite me saying, I don’t want to drink. He’s like, just take one sip.

I’m like, all right. So I took one sip and gave it back to him. I said, see, I just don’t want it. I’m not in the mood. Then he dumped that drink out. He loves his alcohol, so I thought that was peculiar. So I asked, why’d you dump it out? Oh, well, I just don’t want to drink either, and he played it off. 20 minutes later, I felt really odd, sick. And I tried taking myself upstairs to the bedroom, and I just had to sit and collapsed on the stairs.

Poisoned & Trapped: Visible Red Flags In A Relationship

Ayla: Now my consciousness was still there. Because when somebody is given the Rufalin date rape drug, if they have enough alcohol in the system, their consciousness is not there. But because I didn’t have alcohol in my system that one night, I was still coherent. And I remember feeling him standing over my body and seeing flashes. He was taking pictures, which was scary. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t move. And then he finally picked me up and put me on the bed.

And shut me in there, and he put the baby in bed with me. So I asked him about it the next night. He said, Oh, it was in my imagination. And so I called the domestic violence center to see what they can do to help me. I didn’t know what to do at that point. I was so scared, if he did stuff like that to me.

Anne: Did you find the domestic violence shelter to be helpful in your area?

Ayla: Absolutely not, I was so surprised about how unhelpful they were. It was like chasing a mouse, trying to get them to help me. The woman wouldn’t return my calls in an appropriate time. I tried to get restraining orders, nothing happened. It took a year and a half, he almost killed my son, for them to finally step in.

And say, Oh, okay. Yeah, I guess we’ll help. And even at that they believed my abuser over me and gave up on trying to help me. Because of the camera footage that he introduced in court.

Seeking Help & Facing Challenges

Anne: I’m so sorry. Because he set that up on purpose, right? To splice up the footage to make it seem like you were the abuser, when you were just trying to protect yourself. I’m so sorry. That is awful. Everyone says call the domestic violence hotline, if you’re a victim. It’s going to be easy for you if you just reach out for help. I have found that is not the case.

And they also do not understand the coercion piece of this, the lying, emotional and psychological abuse that you’re under. So they’ll just think, what’s wrong with her? Instead of realizing that you are suffering from severe trauma, gaslighting and you cannot see straight. It’s not your fault, so instead of actually helping you, some blame you. It’s a lot harder than people think.

And I found the same thing. Even though their purpose is to be helpful, that is not exactly what happens in real life. So, this is exactly why I wrote The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop. Because women need to determine his true character. And then know what’s going to happen next, so that they can anticipate it. These strategies help women determine what the right thing is for them and their particular situation.

The Fifth Red Flag: Studied Manipulation

Anne: To introduce this part of your story. So the fifth silent red flag in a relationship is that they actually study this type of manipulation. There are books about how to be a pickup artist, how to manipulate women, how to control women. I highly recommend that every single woman who listens to this podcast read the book Men Who Hate Women by Lara Bates.

She outlines all the ways in which they learn how to manipulate women, and they do it on purpose. You can find that book on our curated list of betrayal trauma books. Can you talk about that?

Ayla: He moved his stuff around, and had left them out and forgot to put them back when he went to work. I looked and found The 48 Laws of Power, which is a detailed brainwashing manipulation book. And then The Art of Seduction at the time, I overlooked it. I thought it was like a couple’s book. But when I researched it after I left, I realized it was a how-to manual about how to catch, a victim.

Ultimately, give them PTSD to make them controllable, discard them. And get a new victim and do the same thing over and over again. It’s just absolutely atrocious. The book uses the term victim 277 times. It uses the word prey 13 times, but it’s still there. It was so shocking, and it is banned from many prisons, state prisons across the United States. Because they understand how damaging these books are.

Discovering Manipulation Tactics

Ayla: And how bad it would be if these inmates started studying these books. Because that’s all they have is time when they’re sitting there. So studying this material would make them have more of a criminal mindset. When I found these books, especially The 48 Laws of Power, it was like that movie moment where the shift in view of the focused camera just completely zoomed in. And I realized, Oh my gosh, it has been a lie this entire time.

And then a few months after we met, after he put me in the hospital, he was never tried, never went and saw a judge to get a sentence. It was thrown out because his story was different from mine. But he sat in jail for three nights, and created this elaborate plan to get back at me. And to make sure that I suffered financially, emotionally, and that he was going to try to put me in jail. So that way I never knew my son and my son never knew me.

His words, I wish I had recorded it, but it was a bold confession of truth because he thought I was breaking up. I left finally a month later, when I finally mustered up the courage to leave.

Anne: A bold confession of truth and also a threat to keep you in the relationship. I mean, he was threatening you. If you leave, these things will happen to keep you there. So even if it’s true, it’s still a threat with the goal to maintain control.

Court-Ordered Visits & Continued Abuse

Ayla: Absolutely, and then I called the domestic violence hotline again to see about a restraining order. I was trying to do it quietly, and not have to see him one more time. So I called the police, filed a report. I had unplugged the surveillance camera. So he came home as I left with the police. They granted me a four year restraining order, even with very little evidence. I was grateful for that. It was a pure miracle. But that’s how I got out.

And I was legally abused for the past year and a half. I’m homeless, living with family. It’s so hard to It would be so hard to divorce without family support. I’ve lost everything. My car has been taken from me. The courts have forced me to continue to have my son keep a relationship with his father. So I am forced to travel once a month to have my son do two four hour visits in two days. I’ve spent over $9, 000 in the past 10 months.

I haven’t been able to get a job because of these trips, because I have to travel around five days for these trips. The plane tickets are too costly, so I have to drive. It’s a 10 hour drive. So, even after this fact, the courts are allowing the abuse to happen because they’re part of the abuse that is now happening in this aftermath. Finally, this last hearing a couple of days ago, the commissioner finally heard me after I spelled it out.

With the details and facts of I’ve spent over $10, 000. I’ve traveled over 50 days for them to do 60 hours of visitation. Outrageous, putting us in icy driving conditions, desolate unsafe areas.

The Court System’s Failures

Ayla: Staying in hotels where there are drug addicts outside. It’s absolutely appalling how much as a victim I was trying to get help, and my life has been completely ruined, blown to smithereens. I’m doing my best to stay grounded and positive, but I didn’t think it was going to be this way. I was anticipating and hoping my son was happy and healthy. And that I was happy and successful. I’m in a place of life right now, with my own home and a place to share love with my son.

For me personally, the hardest part of all this is the guilt that I wish I had disappeared a long time ago when I was pregnant. And he wouldn’t have found me. But now that I have to hand my innocent child over to our abuser. When the image I don’t think will ever leave my head is him throwing my son on the couch and nearly breaking his neck. The courts will never understand what he’s capable of. They believed it was an accident.

Oh, him bashing my head against the wall was an accident. Him nearly crashing the car, screaming in a rage, was an accident. You know, there were so many accidents that turn into that one fatality, and that’s the hardest part. So yeah, I’ve been following your organization on Facebook, and I always appreciate the work you have done. What you guys put out has been so helpful, because I understand that I’m holding hands with so many other strong people.

That went through similar things. It makes me feel so honored to know that the strength is shared from all of you to us. Who are deep in, in the trenches, helping us identify red flags in our relationships.

Betrayal Trauma Recovery’s Opportunities

Ayla: So you guys, and your strength and opportunities for learning and progress, have been so wonderful and so helpful. I don’t think I would be nearly put together right now if I hadn’t found you and the amazing things you have put out. My domestic violence team, when I brought Robert Greene books to their attention. I’m not even kidding you. They scoffed and they said, Oh yeah, that culture. They were completely aware of it.

There is nothing being done to alleviate the damage Robert Greene’s books are doing. Or just dark psychology. I’ll just say dark psychology books in general. The authors attempt to say that people need to educate themselves on how not to be manipulated. If somebody’s completely unaware that they’re being manipulated, how can they even think they need to prepare for that kind of thing?

The situation and scenario when they’re completely innocent. Dark psychology is an abusive tool that needs to be discussed more, because children suffer. My son was caught in the middle of this. Because my abuser learned how to be an abusive manipulator because of psychology books. That hit home. That really hurt, you know, because my son is the most innocent angel, like all children. And they don’t deserve to be put in that position. It’s the worst when your ex uses the kids to hurt you.

I hope dark psychology becomes more of a talked about topic. I’m having the hardest time wrapping my head around that. My focus is so challenged, because I am still in shock in many ways about how everything transpired. How everything is still transpiring. I’m just blown away. And the fact that the court system is fostering this abuse in such a weird way that I was not expecting.

Gratitude Amidst Struggles With The Silent

Ayla: I want people to understand that the courts and the law are not always on your side. So we have to become more aware of preparing ourselves. And not be reliant or expect that the people who say they are there to help us may not actually be there or on our side. I’m grateful for my son every day. I struggle with the fact that I’m stuck to this abuser forever.

Especially when I’m driving at midnight and I still have five hours to go to try to get to this court ordered visit for my abuser. I’m driving in snow, and I’m like, where are my rights? To say that this is a scary situation that I’m putting myself in, and my child too. Yeah, abuser’s rights are more important than mama’s rights, my rights, my son’s rights. It’s surprising. I’m gonna say, this sounds bizarre, but I am thankful that my situation is not that bad compared to a lot of other women’s stories.

That I’ve heard. My heart just started sobbing with some of these other women that I heard in their children’s situations.

Anne: I’m so sorry to hear about the difficult time you’re going through right now. That is why I started podcasting. That is why I want women to share their stories so that we can all identify the silent red flags that identify abuse. They can be educated about the strategies I teach in The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop. They can start realizing all the challenges that have nothing to do with them. And have hope. I want everyone to have hope that safety is possible.

Taking One Step At A Time

Anne: And we can take one step at a time. You’re going to get there. You’re going to get there. So hang in there. And thank you so much. for sharing your story with everybody today.

Ayla: Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate you and all the amazing work you’re doing for all of us.