Betrayal Trauma Recovery

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Need Counseling For Cheating Husband? Don’t Fall Into This Trap Oct 22, 2024

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When counseling for cheating focuses on what a wife could have done differently to stop her husband’s betrayal, it misses the real issue: her husband made choices in secret and withheld reality from her. It can be soul crushing for the wife, and she needs support that personally understands like the Betrayal Trauma Recovery groups. Here are five things a therapist or counselor may ask you to do, that you’re probably already doing. 5 THINGS DURING COUNSELING FOR CHEATING A THERAPIST MIgHT SUGGEST, THAT YOU’RE PROBABLY ALREADY DOING 1. IF THE THERAPIST SUGGESTS THE WAY FORWARD AFTER HIS CHEATING IS FOR YOU TO BE MORE SELF-REFLECTIVE You may have spent years asking yourself: “Am I too critical?”“Did I communicate that badly?”“Am I being unfair?”“Should I be more patient?”“Do I need to change my expectations?” Self-reflection can be healthy in a safe relationship. But in an abusive or deceptive relationship, self-reflection becomes a trap when your husband or uses it to keep the attention on your “faults” and off of his choices. 2. IF DURING COUNSELING FOR CHEATING THE THERAPIST SAYS THERE’S NO WAY TO HEAL YOUR MARRIAGE IF YOU KEEP SCORE, WELL… You may have chosen grace over confrontation. You may have tried not to bring up the past. Or you may have avoided keeping a mental ledger of who did what, who apologized first, who sacrificed more, or who caused the most pain. And yet, he still lied. A wife can be generous, forgiving, and non-punitive, and her husband can still exploit that kindness. In fact, men who live double lives often benefit from a wife who keeps giving them the benefit of the doubt. 3. IF THE THERAPIST SUGGESTS YOU LOOK FOR SOLUTIONS “TOGETHER” Many wives are already the solution-focused, repair department of the family. When there is conflict, they look for the book, the podcast, the therapist, the date night, the conversation starter, the prayer, the apology, the new schedule, the softer approach, the better system. They try to make home peaceful and emotionally safe for everyone. If a husband is lying about cheating, using inappropriate media, emotional affairs, financial betrayal, or other secret behaviors, then the wife does not have the information she needs about the real problem. The equation is unsolvable as long as he’s lying with or without counseling for cheating. 4. WHEN IN COUNSELING FOR CHEATING THE THERAPIST SUGGESTS YOU RE-COMMIT TO THE MARRIAGE At the first sign of trouble, most wives lean in and try harder. But trying harder does not cure his entitlement. Being more available does not cure his secret behavior. Being more patient does not cure his dishonesty. Offering more love does not cure his emotional or spiritual abuse. A wife can pour herself into the marriage until there is almost nothing left of her, and still not fix his intention to hide the truth. 5. IF THE THERAPIST SUGGESTS THAT YOU SHOULD ASK IMPORTANT QUESTIONS This is one of the most painful parts for many betrayed wives. When a counselor or someone else says, “Why didn’t you say something,” or “Maybe you should have communicated more clearly about your expectations,” it can feel like you’re being betrayed all over again. The truth is that most women did, they: Checked in.Brought up concerns.Asked about inappropriate material use.They asked about the phone.And asked about the distance.They asked about the late nights, the mood shifts, the secrecy, the intimacy problems, the strange feeling in their gut. And their husbands used these concerns as another opportunity to undermine her instincts and reality. To discover if you’re emotionally abused, take ourfree emotional abuse test. Key Points From this episode: How Marriage Counseling After Betrayal Misses the Real Issue How His Lying Undermines Your Confidence and Emotional Safety Couple Therapy is for People Who Tell The Truth, Not Liars Moving on After Betrayal is Not as Simple as People Think Is Online Betrayal Actually Cheating? TRANSCRIPT: WHEN COUNSELING FOR CHEATING MAKES HIS CHEATING “OUR PROBLEM” Anne: I have Hannah, a member of our community on today’s episode. Welcome, Hannah. Hannah: Hi Anne. How are you? Anne: Thank you so much for coming on today. Why don’t we start with your story. Hannah: Yeah, I am about a year out from finding everything out that changed my life forever. I was married for about 12 years. We had five kids. I had known him most of my life. We were best friends. We’re Christian. I was very active in our church community, and even in high school I was involved in youth work, and I was a huge anti-porn advocate. My husband knew all this about me. We talked about this kind of thing nearly daily, as we’re also raising kids, just like how we protect them from the world. We prayed every day together, and then one day he decided to drop the bomb on me, that he had been lying to me since before we were married, that he had been watching porn, and that he had also had a four year affair with a colleague. So he decided to come clean to me. I was completely blindsided. Over the last year, I’ve been realizing the subtle ways, like he was a very good liar, and I do feel like he had this complete double life. I was really grateful to find Betrayal Trauma Recovery, because it was the only resource I found online that didn’t make me want to throw my computer or phone across the room. Because everything was very much just talking about my part in it, which to me felt so wrong. WHEN COUNSELING FOR CHEATING MISSES EMOTIONAL ABUSE Hannah: I knew I wasn’t perfect, what human being is? I knew that throughout our whole marriage, I had been self-reflecting. I had been not keeping score. Anytime we had any kind of conflict, I was all about finding solutions. I was always leaning into our marriage and trying harder. Also when it came to the betrayal, the pornography use. A lot of resources say maybe you didn’t ask, or maybe you were naive. I had asked all the questions. We had all the conversations. I had been checking in all these things, and it was just a lie every time with counseling for cheating. So to be met with what was your part in it? Or anything like that made me angry right from the start. And I just knew that this isn’t something that I contributed to somehow. And at that, Betrayal Trauma Recovery, that’s definitely how you frame things. This is abuse. Abuse is one sided. That’s my story in a nutshell. It has been an awful year, and I still most days can’t believe this is my life. That I had this husband, who I thought we were soulmates, best friends. I thought I knew him so well. I’ve been coming to this realization that I could have just gone down to the nearest bar and been like, You sir, you’re attractive. Let’s go get married. And it would’ve been the same outcome. Because I did all the things. We talked about this stuff constantly. I think people think, he was doing this thing and it’s not a big deal. FINDING OUT HE HAD BEEN LYING THE WHOLE TIME Hannah: Like it was his private life that he kept private. No, you don’t understand the amount of lies, blatant lies, subtle lies, lies of omission, but also the things that we would do together. Like, we sit down to watch a movie. We weren’t like the average couple who’s just oh, put on HBO. We don’t watch HBO, we look up every movie before we watch it, because we’re protecting our marriage, protecting our family. From all the trash out there. Our kids have minimal screen time, they’re not on devices, so that’s exactly the type of thing we’re trying to protect them from. So for him to come out and be like, “Oh yeah, by the way, for our entire marriage, I’ve been watching pornography, and I also had a girlfriend for a huge chunk of our marriage.” Anne: Why now? He’s been lying to you the whole time. I’m sure that’s crossed your mind. Hannah: Oh, it has. I can tell you what he says versus what I think. Anne: Probably a lie, right? Since he is lied about everything else. Hannah: A very close friend of mine called me up and told me that she had discovered that her husband had been watching pornography. So I was very upset and obviously like always I went to my husband. And the thing that gets me about that is, it’s not the first time this has happened. I would read some horrible story on the internet, in the communities that I was in. And I’d go to my husband and be like, oh, this poor woman, she just found out she has cervical cancer, ‘Cause her husband cheated on her. I WANTED TO LEAVE, BUT COULDN’T Hannah: These types of stories. So that alone isn’t enough, because it’s not like it was the first time, but it was someone very close to me. And also close to him. Anne: I wonder if, because it was someone really close to you. He thought, well, maybe this is the time to tell her because this other person did it. Hannah: So I was like talking to him every evening when he came home from work about this couple. My heart was breaking for them. I was in constant contact with my friend, checking with her, wanting to spend time with her. So I was actually planning to go away that weekend to spend the weekend with her. And then he dropped the bomb on me before I left. Anne: Maybe it was to stop you from going. Hannah: It could have been. Anne: Because, these liars don’t think too much about long-term consequences, or counseling for cheating. Hannah: Looking back, something that haunts me a lot is the fact that in those weeks leading up. He asked me, “What would you do if?” I was obviously caught off guard. I mean, excuse me? Are you trying to tell me something? Like, why would you say that? I told him, “I would pack up the kids, and I would go to my mother’s, and you would maybe never see us again.” I didn’t mince words. Funny story, my reaction, I was paralyzed. I couldn’t pack up any kids. I was trashed, laying on the floor, not eating or sleeping, not able to drive a car. In my mind, I wanted to leave, but physically could not. WHEN HE USES THE TRUTH TO MANIPULATE YOU Anne: I had that same thing where I told my husband that. And then found out I couldn’t do it. I’ve come to believe now. This is 10 years post-divorce, and failed counseling for cheating, that he wanted me to do that. He was like, “Okay, I’m gonna tell her and then she’ll leave.” And because I didn’t. Then, at least in my situation, he was like, “Oh, shoot, now I have to act like I am repenting.” Because he didn’t know what to do when I didn’t do the thing he wanted me to do. Because the same thing, he could have told me a million other times, why did he tell me right then? Hannah: There were so many moments when I asked him explicitly. Have you done this? Would you do this? Where I asked to check his phone. I felt like a terrible person. I have this amazing, good, trustworthy husband, and I’m being this paranoid, crazy person. And him being like, sure, of course. But obviously sweating bullets, because he knew that there was a possibility that something could happen. So when he did tell me, I couldn’t drive, I couldn’t sleep, but the next morning I made him drive me to my sister’s house. I said we’re leaving right now. I had all these other health issues at the time that I physically can’t drive. So I think that in his mind he was so deluded, he still thought it was somehow going to be okay. But for me, it was like the whole unraveling of everything. Like any marriage, we’d had our struggles and then to find out that this was going on underneath it all the whole time, for me it was very much a, what’s left? I SAW THE SIGNS THAT HE DIDN’T CARE Hannah: The only thing I was clinging to in this marriage was that you’re this good, faithful, loyal man who’s trustworthy and honest. And turns out you weren’t even that. And I’ve been making all these excuses. He’s tired, he works so hard. The honeymoon phase is over. This is just marriage. So we’re not crazy in love anymore, but we deeply love each other. That’s what I was thinking. And meanwhile, these were all symptoms that he actually didn’t care. Anne: Oh, that’s so heartbreaking. Before you found out, had you been to couple therapy, had you done marriage intensives or counseling for cheating? Hannah: There were moments in our marriage where I checked in with him. “I feel like we’re having a lot of petty fights. Are we okay? I feel like you’re ignoring me a lot, like what’s going on?” There were times when I felt like it was getting to the point that, okay, I think we need counseling for cheating. And I said that to him, and I asked for it, and his reaction was, no, absolutely not. That didn’t surprise me, just because I feel like that’s the way both of us were raised. Our parents think it’s good for someone else, but they’re not gonna do it. “We can get through this. We don’t need some professional meddling in our lives.” Then it would be good for a while, now that I’ve reflected on all these years. I can see it more clearly that he would avoid me and treat me poorly. Then if I started to question it, he would love bomb me and make it okay. He would bring me flowers or he would say something to make it feel all better. HOW HE Benefited FROM MY WORK ON THE MARRIAGE Hannah: I was like relationship low maintenance. I didn’t need him to be Prince Charming all the time. He just had to come home and tell me he loved me and that everything was good, and I just believed him. I would let it go. I thought we went on dates and did things to invest in our marriage, but now that I look back, I planned it, or I nagged you to plan it. And it never was like, “You’re planning these things for me, or for us.” We actually went to marriage retreats to reconnect. But now looking back at that, it’s just cements the betrayal even more. We’re sitting there talking all day about our relationship. And what we can do differently and how we can improve. And you’re just sitting on all this information. These are all the reasons you’re passive aggressive, angry, a little bit volatile, all these things. That explains a lot. I would feel that way too if I was hiding this entire secret life from you. I would be anxious and irritable. Anne: Mm-hmm. Hannah: We never did any kind of counseling for cheating. I thought it was communication. I think I am a terrible communicator. And I think you need to work on your communication too. I just leaned in, I read books, did different things. The typical marriage advice is, don’t keep score and forgive your spouse. You shouldn’t be dwelling on their faults. That’s the type of thing I was doing. Which now makes me feel like I’m a giver, he’s a taker. It made me a very easy target, constantly giving into the relationship. PEOPLE IN HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS DON’T NEED COUNSELING FOR CHEATING Anne: I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, that people in healthy relationships do that naturally. We know that people aren’t perfect. With a healthy relationship with someone who’s not perfect and we’re not perfect, we know that people make mistakes. We know there’s gonna be communication issues, stuff like that. We don’t have to read a book that tells us that people make mistakes. So the people reading the book, we who married an abusive man. I’m almost like those books should never have been written, because the only people reading them are women who are married to an abusive man. Hannah: Oh my goodness, you’re so right. Anne: People in healthy relationships don’t read books like that ’cause they don’t need to. They don’t need counseling for cheating, ’cause they already know. Oh, that was just a communication problem. Hannah: It makes so much sense. One book I read, it even said in the book, you just need to do this, and this week you should work on giving words of affirmation to your husband. Or plan something for him. And at this point you might be feeling like, what is he doing for me? But don’t reflect on that. And I remember being like, okay, I’m not going to. That was a turning point for me where I cemented into my character, that I am not going to keep score. WHY NOT KEEP SCOR…

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Women Say THIS Is The Best Support For Betrayal Trauma Oct 15, 2024

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Have you been searching for the best support for betrayal trauma? Do you feel alone, scared, heartbroken, and sick over the betrayal and the consequences of his emotional abuse? Victims of betrayal and abuse deserve a safe space to process trauma, openly speak truths, ask hard questions, and receive validation. What is the best betrayal trauma support group? Here are 4 things to look for . . . 1. Is Your Emotional & Psychologial Safety The Top Priority? The best betrayal trauma support group will make your safety the top priority. No matter if you’ve discovered your husband’s betrayal today or been on your healing journey for decades. Here are some indications that a betrayal trauma support group isn’t safe: They don’t identify what the trauma is from They don’t identify you as a victim of emotional and psychological abuse You’re encouraged to not make any decisions that would distance yourself from the abuser Maybe they ask you to ignore what your husband is doing that is harming you Here are some indications that the betrayal trauma support group IS safe: No one cares about what’s going to happen to the abuser or how you getting to safety will affect him. You are validated. The other women in the group have been through what you’ve been through, and so they understand it on a very personal level. You’re not made to feel like your deficient or that you did anything wrong. In our Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions, abuse is abuse. We’ll never blame you for any of it. 2. They Do Not Offer Services For Abusive Men Before you start attending a support group for betrayal trauma, make sure the professional you’re going to doesn’t offer services for abusive men. True experts on emotional and psychological abuse know that working with abuse victims AND abusers simultaneously is unethical If any therapist or program lets you know that they offer services for abusive men, you can know that’s not a support group for betrayal trauma that will be safe for you. 3. No One Will Ask You To Look Into What Part You Played Unlike traditional addiction therapists, we do not use the codependency model. We use the abuse model. This means we’ll never label you “codependent.” Too many therapists and clergy focus their energies on blaming the victim, rather than accurately treating the betrayal as abuse. If you go to a support group for betrayal trauma, and anyone there even suggests you played some part in your own emotional and psychological abuse, this is not a group that understands abuse. To avoid a support group that blames the victim, before you go, ask someone who goes to the group what the “trauma” you need a support group for is from. If they don’t say emotional and psychological abuse and coercion, don’t try to convice them. Just move on. 4. They Trust You To Follow Your Own Intuition If the betrayal trauma support group mentions or implies that you’re too sick or diseased or weak to follow your own intuition, it’s not ethically run. One of the hallmarks for abuse is undermining a woman’s confidence. If they’re telling to you “trust” them or they know better than you, look elsewhere. Women make a lot of progress by enrolling in The BTR.ORG Living Free Workshop that gives women lessons and exercises to get back in touch with theselves, so they can make decisions that are in their best interest. If you’re looking for the best betrayal trauma support group, Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions are facilitated by specially trained betrayal trauma specialists who understand this type of abuse. We’d love to see you in a Session TODAY. Transcript: The Best Support For Betrayal Trauma On this week’s episode, I asked women their thoughts about the best support for betrayal trauma. betrayal trauma share their experiences with our coaches to see if Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session Clients would want to stay after their group session and share their feelings and experiences with our podcast listeners. Some of them wanted to talk, and others wanted to write their thoughts and have me read them. Additionally I’m also going to read some reviews that we’ve received. When Therapy for Betrayal Trauma Falls Short Betrayal Trauma Victim #1: I had been to three therapists who told me it was all my fault and I needed to go do my family of origin work and stop trying to control my husband, but my husband was just continuing to stomp all over everything that was sacred that I was trying to build with him. He and the therapist and I were sitting there. I felt like there was a severed artery. It’s just spewing all over and nobody’s saying a word, and it felt just like gaslighting to me. I think therapy was very abusive because three different therapists in that codependent model were telling me those things. It’s infuriating that women are made to feel this way when they’re trying to get help. That’s all we did for the last two to three years we were together was S groups and CSATs it just got worse. Everybody was like, read this book, and I was like, um, I don’t need a book. I need help. I felt this mentality too that like, we’re gonna go to therapy and everything is gonna get fixed, and that’s just kind of ridiculous. We have to feel safe and we have to feel heard, and we have to feel valued, and I did not feel any of that until I found BTR. Gift Of Finding Betrayal Trauma Recovery I listened to the BTR podcast for about four years. The betrayal trauma support group combined with the podcast were the two things that saved my life. I’m so filled with gratitude. Betrayal Trauma Victim #2: after how many years of being in the codependent model therapy groups out there, and I don’t wanna name them, but they’re basically following the alcohols anonymous. Models recommended by my husband’s CSAT I’ve done years of research and going through different rabbit holes, even suffering trauma from a very invasive local, so-called Betrayal trauma CSAT. I Googled, betrayal trauma support and discovered BTR. I listened to the BTR podcast and I said, I’ve, I’ve gotta join the group. I’ve gotta join the group. I’ve done all the other groups. It doesn’t hurt to try. Right? I’ve tried. I’ve paid so many memberships and I’ve been to so many meetings, so I know it’s not out there except on BTR. To finally find an online group, and it’s really the only one, where you actually have the most educated well-trained coaches who actually facilitate the group. ’cause I’ve had to stop attending another group because they allowed cursing and the rules were not really well thought out. Finding The Best Structured Support For Betrayal Trauma So to have a group that has structure, that has guidance, the safety protocols and the anonymity. Is the best investment that you can make especially for betrayal trauma. To hear yourself in the stories of others. The coaches have been through trauma themselves. That to me was just such a huge bonus to actually speak to women who’ve been through what you’ve gone through and they’ve survived and they’re thriving, and now they’re helping all of us to have all of that in one package. It’s not about being ready because in trauma you’re always gonna feel like you’re not ready. So it’s almost like you’ve just got to take that medication that you need right now, even though you don’t feel like taking it. It’s the medication that you need, like as we speak, and it’s the most healing. No one’s here to judge you. No one has you under a microscope. You know everybody’s very much in your shoes. Walking the same journey. You’ll find yourself finally healing. And it is one day at a time, one session at a time, one coach at a time. If you’ve just discovered your husband’s infidelities, whatever it is that you’ve just discovered. IT’s not too late if you are 10 years after discovery, and even if you’re divorced or separated, or even widowed, but you’re still suffering from the trauma and you still wanna heal. BTR has the best way to explain betrayal trauma and treat it. You wanna connect heart to heart and mind to mind with other women. Connecting with the BTR coaches, that’s my lifeline too sanity and serenity. At the same time. I’m a mother of eight children, and my children need me. I need them to know that they can conquer this and build beautiful, successful lives. We are worth it. BTR: Finding Safety, Value & Growth Betrayal Trauma Victim #3: my whole life, you know, I’ve been told what I’m feeling and what my intentions are. I’ve been searching my whole life to try to figure out what was going on because there’s always that part of me that told me that. There’s something deeper going on, up until BTR, I didn’t know what the truth was. and this group has changed my life. This is a group that actually helps women recover from betrayal trauma. could finally find a place where I could identify what was going on. I feel a lot more empowered because of this group, I feel because of this group, I’m gonna get my life back. the coaches and all the women being vulnerable and speaking their truths, this group gave me safety and the chance to decide for myself what I want. Betrayal Trauma Victim #4: When I first discovered BTR on the podcast, I felt. All of a sudden validated, I’d felt not alone. It took me a while, several months actually, to join the BTR group, honestly, because I was afraid that I would just become an angry, bitter woman who hated men. And I found that to be absolute opposite of what has happened. I have felt completely empowered. I have felt validated. I’ve felt heard. I’ve felt seen. When I couldn’t see myself. Yeah. It’s the very best thing that’s happened to me. The Power Of Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions Betrayal Trauma Victim #5: I did think I was alone, um, and so isolated for over two decades BTR groups have definitely helped me know that I am not the only one who has experienced, um, emotional and psychological abuse and coercion. Finding the group and hearing so much of my story in other women’s stories has really helped me feel connected and less isolated and I am able to make plans and know exactly what I’m doing to help my life move forward. The groups I’m coaching have really changed me. I am so grateful. Betrayal Trauma Victim #6: The skills that I’ve learned in BTR and the education that I’ve gotten has transitioned to so many areas of life that I am able to use the restored intuition. I have to see these people who feel entitled to my life, my skills, my story. To use for themselves, and I’m grateful I have those skills. Women Who Found The Best Support For Betrayal Trauma Betrayal Trauma Victim #7: For me, The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop has been so beneficial. Going through that workshop, seeing the visualization, and building upon what I had already learned in groups took me from a place of being stuck to moving me to where I know God is carrying me and gonna take me. Also, just understanding the past 20 years of my life and why, like why I became stuck, and now that I’m out of that cave, I’m never going back because at this point I’m living in the light. And once you’re in the light. It’s not gonna happen anymore. The workshop it’s taken me to the next level. So thank you. Betrayal Trauma Victim #8: I did not have knowledge of what was going on in my life and how I was being abused to the extent I was. I am very grateful to BTR. thank you, Anne for your podcast. BTR coaches have given me courage to continually move forward and strengthen me and guide me. They’ve saved my life. The encouragement has been incredible. I am just beyond blessed, and I couldn’t have done this without the BTR coaches. They have been a godsend. Betrayal Trauma Victim #9: BTR has been amazing for not just me, but my family, because it’s provided a safe place for myself and then also my mom to process the abuse happening in our respective relationships and get to safety, so I’m extremely grateful for BTR and all the coaches here The Impact Of BTR On Family And Friends Betrayal Trauma Victim #10: Some of the things I’ve heard through 10 years of therapy with my husband . Like, what are you doing? Or , how can you support him more? And even, why are you crying? This has nothing to do with you. Minimizing I spent a year with one therapist trying to explain, giving her books. Another therapist, he’s like, how can you keep him from getting access. I had no idea BTR Group Sessions have been amazing for me. To get on every day if I need to, not being blamed for something out of your control that a grown adult person is doing to you. The BTR Podcast makes sense. I’m thankful. Thankful is an understatement. Just god bless. Thank you so much. Betrayal Trauma Victim #11: BTR Group Sessions for me have allowed me to feel less alone and be inspired by amazing women. Coaches Are The Best Support For Betrayal Trauma Betrayal Trauma Victim #12: For me, BTR Group Sessions have been with me through the entire process, from first figuring out what was going on in my life to navigating post-separation issues and custody issues. I just cannot put enough value on practical advice, emotional support, and community with other women. So,it’s really helped. https://youtu.be/126Il6pSQPI Attend a Betrayal Recovery Recovery Group Session TODAY and receive the best support for betrayal trauma.

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Women Say THESE Are The Best Betrayal Trauma Resources Oct 08, 2024

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You deserve the best betrayal trauma resources as you navigate the deeply personal journey toward emotional safety. What is Betrayal Trauma? Betrayal trauma in marriage occurs when your husband violates your trust. But here’s the thing: Some resources for navigating what to do about betrayal trauma can be more traumatizing than helpful. In This Article, We Cover These Best Betrayal Trauma Resources Accessible online betrayal trauma support groups Helpful betrayal trauma podcasts Workshops to explain betrayal trauma The best betrayal trauma meditations Good books about betrayal trauma Resources if you’re experiencing betrayal trauma while pregnant Herbal Medicine for Betrayal Trauma Transcript: The Best Betrayal Trauma Resources For Women Anne: My friend Lindsay and I were hanging out in my basement and talking about why I started Betrayal Trauma Recovery. I wanted all the educational material: the podcast, the website, and the transcribed articles to be free. And I wanted women to get our professional betrayal trauma resources from anywhere. And they needed to be accessible within hours of an abuse episode. You could either get into an individual session or a group session that you never had to call your therapist and get the sad news that they couldn’t see you for two weeks or that you had to be on some wait list. I just wanted to make sure that women had a safe place to go for the best support for betrayal trauma. When I first started Betrayal Trauma Recovery. I thought BTR would be to shorten the time span between trying to get help while in the abuse cycle. It was basically to shorten the time span to find out about their pornography, and immediately notice abuse. So women could figure out the difference between emotional abuse and normal conflict. And immediately you can set boundaries, with their emotionally abusive husbands, right? That was like, okay, I’m gonna like make sure that no woman has to go through 10, 20 years of this again. Well, what I have found is that most women have to go through that stage. And so for women who are like, oh, I’m so stupid. Why didn’t I see it before? Why didn’t I do that? Almost like you had to go through that. No woman goes straight from, I found explicit material on his phone to the hardcore boundary. Usually, I mean, maybe if you’re the miracle out there, email me and we will have you on the podcast. The Importance Of Education That would be awesome, then I realized, no, this podcast is to educate women. We’ll just speak our truth and wherever they are is okay. Lindsay: Yeah, take you where you are. Anne: Yeah, and we’ll grow together from whatever stage we’re in. And hopefully in the process, number one is safety, and number two is that post traumatic growth. That people talk about a lot. Being able to grow. And I feel like I’m finally getting to that stage. I mean, I’ve changed a lot and grown a lot, but I also now, I’m like, oh my word, I’m wearing makeup! There are so many things now that I’m working toward, and it’s so exciting. So many women come on the podcast and share their emotional abuse survivor stories, and it’s so inspiring. Now, you’re at a really, really tough, messy stage. Lindsay: Yes. Anne: Right now, you are separating as a boundary for repeated lies and infidelity. You don’t know what the outcome of your boundary setting will be. Lindsay: Absolutely. Anne: Right, it’s I believe, your best chance for a happy future, and I also believe it’s your husband’s best chance to get healthy. But how are you feeling now in the context of your own personal growth? We’ve All Been There Lindsay: One thing that was truly powerful was just remembering. Not that I didn’t know this before, but remembering that this is painful and will be painful. If I am stabbed by a knife, I can’t control whether that hurts. It’s going to hurt. And so letting myself feel those emotions, in a real way. That’s awful. It’s awful to sit there and bawl and cry and have a pile of Kleenexes. Anne: We’ve all been there. It’s the worst. You feel like all the liquid in your entire body has come out. Lindsay: Yes. Anne: It’s awful. And you need the best betrayal trauma resources. A lot women try all sorts of stuff like herbal medicine for betrayal trauma. Embracing Pain & Healing Lindsay: It’s awful. And none of it will be fun, and it’s not going to be easy. And I’m going to make mistakes. I mean, yes, I’m holding a boundary, but oh my word, I have no clue if this is the right thing, the right answer. And that’s okay. I don’t have to be perfect at this. And it’s okay for me to be messy, raw, and in pain, and that has been one thing. Your emotional abuse test helped me a ton. Anne: For me, it’s been years of pain and unresolved things that I can’t fix. And they’re still here. I still can’t fix them. There’s one woman I talked to on the phone, and her situation was bleak. She had no support. Nobody understood what she was going through. She actually lived with her in laws. And they didn’t understand. So everything was bad. I just prayed with her on the phone. Because I was like, you can get a coach, but still, your situation is so bad that you need help from God. And she believed in God, so that wasn’t a stretch for her. So we said a prayer, and she emailed me a little later and said, you know, I haven’t had any huge miracle happen, right. I told her there were so many times where I was screaming, yelling and jumping up and down. And saying like, send help now. I need help now, I need something to change now. And nobody came and nothing happened, but things have happened slowly over time. Then I developed my business to have the best betrayal trauma resources. That has been cool to watch. And I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen 10 years from now. Betrayal Trauma Resources For Newcomers Anne: It makes it exciting knowing that it’s all working for my good. And having that faith that it will, even if I can’t see it. Lindsay: Right, so I had a question for you. So, let’s say there is somebody out there, and they’re totally new. I mean, this is their first introduction to anything recovery. Anne: This podcast right now? Lindsay: Yes, Anne: Okay. Lindsay: What betrayal trauma resources are available? And if the resources available to them aren’t healthy. What can they look for in what they have available to make it still work for them? https://youtube.com/shorts/Xz2bZTjFYcU Anne: Yeah, you’re in the right place now. If this is your first time and this is the first thing, and you’re like, what resource? You are at it, Betrayal Trauma Recovery is the best betrayal trauma resource. I created it so I’m a little biased. And the reason I feel confident about saying that is because women have gone to lots of other places and then come back and said, well, that wasn’t safe for me. But let’s say a woman tries something and it’s not, right? She goes to a COSA group, for example, or a different 12 Step Group, and it’s like, no, this doesn’t feel right. It just isn’t safe. So I would say that’s why I built Betrayal Trauma Recovery. Knowing that you’re looking for a place that sees it as a victim and perpetrator situation. So someone said to me the other day, how do you feel about the drama triangle? You know about the drama triangle, right, victim, perpetrator, and rescuer? Lindsay: Yeah. Choosing The Right Resources For Betrayal Trauma Anne: In this context, there is no triangle. Lindsay: Right. Anne: Right? And the same thing when people say it takes two to tango, both sides of the story. There is one truth. Lindsay: Right. Anne: And for me, for nine months, I prayed every day to know what the truth of my situation was. And I was open to knowing exactly what that was. So that if it is me, I want to know. Lindsay: Right. Anne: And what I discovered was I was in experiencing covert emotional abuse. That was the truth of my situation. Being educated about what abuse looks like, what manipulation looks like, is important. For someone just starting out, I’d say, my betrayal trauma workshop is a great place to start. It helps you determine what your husband’s true character is, and gives you safety strategies. It’s important to know what those are in the beginning. So that you can start practicing those while you observe to figure out what’s going on. Obviously listening to a good podcast about betrayal trauma, and finding a solid online support group for betrayal trauma. I’m like, now? And you’re like, it’s okay if you get around to it, like, in a week. Lindsay: It’s their journey, right? Anne: I know. It’s your journey. And so with inexpensive books to read, our books page is a compilation of all those books. Betrayal Trauma Books Anne: And most of them you can get at your local library free. Lindsay: Yeah, even on audio book. Anne: Yes! Lindsay: Which is awesome. Anne: And guess which of the betrayal trauma resources are free? This podcast! I was just recently reading, I hadn’t done it before, the ratings on iTunes. I was like, oh, they’re so nice. They said like, listening to your podcast has done more for me than 10 years of therapy. Stuff like that. And I was like, really? I’m so glad that’s the whole point of it. Healing from abuse is long-term, emotionally, physically, and financially expensive endeavor. Lindsay: It is. Anne: It is worth it, though. So whatever resource you choose, even if it’s just reading books, even if the only thing you do is go in your closet and pray. And that’s your “recovery plan.” It will be worth it. Something that concerns me regarding 12 Step Groups as a resource for betrayal trauma. Is the way some women are made to feel responsible for their husband’s choices. Or the healthiness of the marriage, even though they are not and have not been the abusive one. Here’s an example. When I went, women said, when I started coming here, that’s what made the difference to my husband. Lindsay: Right. Anne: And I just was like, stop saying that. The other thing I thought was interesting is that in that stage they thought their husband was doing well. I’m not saying one particular person, but I’ve seen this happen many times. And then later they find out that he wasn’t even in a good stage, and they thought he was. Shortage Of Safe Betrayal Trauma RESOURCES Anne: So that’s another thing that’s difficult about this journey. Is that understanding what a safe person looks like takes a lot of time. Lindsay: So much time. I mean, even for me, I’m still developing my understanding of what that looks like. I gather all the resources I can. Anne: Lindsay is a very intense researcher. Lindsay: Yes, I am. Anne: I would say, very organized. Lindsay: I’m working on letting that go. It is still a work in progress. Anne: Well, I’m grateful that you felt safe enough here. Number one, just with me as my friend, that means a lot to me. But also to share your story here to help women know where to find the best betrayal trauma resources. And again, any route is fine. Anything that works is great, because there are so many women in this situation of marriage being hard work. There’s no shortage of victims. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of resources. Lindsay: Yeah. Experiencing Betrayal Trauma While Pregnant? Navigating the emotional chaos of betrayal trauma is challenging enough, but experiencing betrayal trauma while pregnant adds a whole other layer of complexity. If your husband has been unfaithful during this critical time, know that you’re not alone. This guide aims to provide you with the support and strategies you need to prioritize your well-being and that of your unborn child. The Impact of Betrayal Trauma While Pregnant Understanding the unique challenges of experiencing betrayal trauma while pregnant is crucial. Here’s how it can affect you: Physical Symptoms: Increased stress levels can lead to complications such as high blood pressure, preterm labor, and other pregnancy-related issues. Mental Health: Anxiety, depression, and emotional instability may be exacerbated by the betrayal, affecting both your mental health and your ability to bond with your unborn child. Nutritional Deficiencies: The stress and emotional turmoil may lead to poor eating habits, affecting both your health and your baby’s development. Healing Strategies for Pregnant Women Experiencing Trauma 1. Confide in Your Practitioner It’s essential to inform your healthcare provider about your emotional state. They can offer resources and support tailored to your situation. 2. Prioritize Hydration and Nutrition Your body needs additional nourishment during pregnancy, especially under stress. Focus on a balanced diet rich in essential nutrients. 3. Create a Safety Barrer If possible, consider putting some physical distance between yourself and the source of your trauma. Creating a safe environment is vital for both your mental and physical health. 4. Attend A Support Group Joining a community of women who understand your experience can be incredibly healing. BTR.ORG offers group sessions where you can share your story and receive support. 5. Meditation and Music Meditation for betrayal trauma can help you manage stress and emotional pain. Additionally, listening to calming music can also be therapeutic. Here’s some songs about healing from trauma. 6. Engage in Physical Activities Simple physical activities like walking or gardening can be beneficial. The goal is to keep moving and focus on activities that bring you peace. Check out this betrayal trauma playlist we put together to empower women. Understanding Nutrition in Pregnancy Trauma Proper nutrition is crucial when dealing with the physiological impacts of trauma during pregnancy. A balanced diet can counteract some of the negative effects of stress and emotional pain. Tips for Better Nutrition Healthy Fats: Incorporate healthy fats like avocados, nuts, and seeds into your diet. These can support both your brain and your baby’s brain development. Hydration: Keep yourself well-hydrated. Water is essential for maintaining your body’s functions and reducing stress. Balanced Meals: Aim for meals that include a variety of nutrients. Think colorful plates filled with vegetables, lean proteins, and whole grains. The Role of Meditation in Healing Betrayal Trauma Meditation can be a powerful tool for healing from betrayal trauma. My betrayal trauma workshop includes 13 betrayal trauma meditations designed to help women recover from emotional and psychological abuse. These meditations are easy to follow and can provide immediate relief from the stress and anxiety that often accompany betrayal trauma. Experiencing betrayal trauma while pregnant is a deeply challenging situation, but there are steps you can take to protect your well-being and that of your unborn child. Prioritize your health, seek support, and consider joining a community like BTR.ORG to find the emotional and psychological support you need. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJRa1S7Gq-o If you’re ready to take the next step in your healing journey, consider attending a BTR.ORG Group Session today. You don’t have to go through this alone. Betrayal in a marriage can be a devastating experience, leaving you feeling lost, hurt, and overwhelmed. For women dealing with betrayal trauma, finding a path to healing is essential. Herbal remedies offer a natural way to support your emotional and physical well-being during this challenging time. Below, we explore the benefits of herbal medicine for betrayal trauma and provide actionable steps to incorporate these remedies into your healing process. Betrayal Trauma Affects The Body It’s important for victims of betrayal and abuse to understand that our bodies can be deeply affected, even when physical violence is never used. Many women in our community express that they have experienced: Depression Anxiety Sleep issues Digestive issues Autoimmune diseases Paranoia Chronic pain, including pelvic pain Can Herbal Medicine Help Me Heal From Betrayal Trauma? In o…

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If Marriage Is Hard Work, Watch For 5 Things Oct 01, 2024

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People often told me, “marriage is hard work”, when I tried to explain the confusion, fear, and emotional exhaustion I was experiencing in my marriage. I kept wondering: is every marriage really this way? I had nothing to compare it to. Especially when even couples who seemed happy said marriage is hard. If your marriage is hard work all the time, you may be dealing with something other than the “normal” hard work of marriage. Take our free emotional abuse test to find out. DOES THE HARD WORK OF MARRIAGE INVOLVE THESE 5 THINGS? If the hard work you’re talking about involves these 6 things, it’s likely there’s something else going on: 1. IS CONFUSION PART OF MARRIAGE IS HARD WORK? Confusion is often one of the first signs that what you’re experiencing is not just “normal” relationship stress. Of course, every marriage has its ups and downs and its misunderstandings, but confusion is usually not a through line in a normal marriage. What’s worse is that when women try to describe what’s happening to friends, family, or counselors, they might give us basic relationship advice, or even just healthy living advice, because they don’t see the overall patterns. 2. ARE YOU SEARCHING FOR EXPERT HELP OVER AND OVER AGAIN? If your marriage keeps sending you to another therapist, clergy member, recovery program, or another book, that is not necessarily a sign that you are failing. Women experiencing hidden emotional and psychological abuse often seek help because they are willing to learn, change, and work hard. The problem is that many professionals are not emotional abuse experts, so the help they offer may not address the real issue. Pay attention to who is doing all the hard work and who isn’t. 3. DO YOU NEED A “DIAGNOSIS” IF MARRIAGE IS HARD WORK? If your marriage is hard work and you’ve been searching for help, your search may have resulted in incorrect diagnosis after incorrect diagnosis of the problem. You may have been told your husband is an addict, or he has a personality disorder, or he’s struggling from his traumatic childhood. Maybe he has “anger management issues.” Those explanations can sound compassionate and believable, especially when women are desperate to understand what is happening so they can save their marriage. But does their husband’s “diagnosis and treatment” keep women in proximity to harmful behavior longer? 4. DOES THE HARD WORK OF MARRIAGE INVOLVE DESPAIR? The hard work of marriage might involve despair if it’s about your kids, or if it’s a shared despair because your husband has cancer or someone gets in an accident. But if it’s the type of despair that comes when you can’t seem to solve basic problems, like “Why can’t we communicate?” Or “Why is he always getting mad at me?” That’s something different. Despair sets in when they do everything that smart women do to resolve issues in their marriage, but the help they received led them down a path of thinking they were a part of the problem instead of correctly identifying their husband’s patterns as emotional and psychological abuse. 5. SHOULD I EDUCATE MY HUSBAND ABOUT BASIC HUMAN DECENCY? When women learn about emotional and psychological abuse, maybe from my podcast, or somewhere else, they often think, Maybe if I explain it clearly enough, he’ll finally understand. Maybe if I use the right words, send the right article, play the right podcast episode, or describe how much pain I’m in, he’ll stop. But most women aren’t trying to teach their husbands some complicated, mysterious relationship concept. They’re trying to educate him on things he should already know by now: don’t lie, don’t manipulate, don’t intimidate, don’t blame your wife for your choices, don’t use her faith against her, don’t punish her for having feelings, don’t betray her, and then expect her to comfort you. Key Takeaways from this Interview: The importance of telling the whole truth about his “recovery” The good and bad news about knowing it’s emotional abuse The impact of a husband’s chronic patterns of deceit How professionals blame victims and disregard their emotional safety Creating boundaries for emotional safety with him and others TRANSCRIPT: IF MARRIAGE IS HARD WORK, LOOK AT THE PATTERNS Anne: Welcome to Betrayal Trauma Recovery, this is Anne. We have a member of our community on today’s episode. We’re going to call her Lynn. Welcome, Lynn. Lynn: Hi. Good to be here. Anne: Lynn was in one of my Betrayal Trauma Recovery Q&A group sessions, and as she shared what she was going through, it reminded me a lot of my story. So Lynn, you ended up reading my book. What did you think of it? Lynn: I just wanna burst out and say, I loved your book. First of all, I loved the format because it painted the picture of patterns and how these patterns are really universal. While at the same time, instances are so specific and unique to each person. And I think that’s an element of what I experienced that kept me in the dark. Just thinking that all marriage is hard work. I was married to Chuck number one for 18 years and we have five children together. And Chuck number two and I have been married for five and a half years. I’ve been grappling with this. How on earth did I end up here? Because the specifics were so different. Zoom out a little bit. The patterns are the same. You illustrated that so beautifully in the book. Anne: Or horrifically. Lynn: Yes! Yes, horrifically. I couldn’t wait to get to the next section and watch it unfold. LEARNING ABOUT EMOTIONAL ABUSE FROM SURVIVOR’S STORIES Lynn: And every time I would get a little feeling inside of “Oh, but not me.” And yet, as the next part would unfold, it’d be like, “Oh, yes, me.” Layer after layer, each chapter, I would find again, oh, actually these patterns are the same. And it was so validating. One of the biggest things that I just kept feeling the whole time, and especially at the end, was, I want to get this book in the hands of everyone I know. And I want my church leaders to read it. I want my family to read it. I want other women who are in the dark or don’t know they’re in the dark. Because they are thinking marriage is hard work. That’s what I walked away feeling like. I think the book works so well, because it used a lot of symbolic teaching. And that allows so much depth and detail to be communicated in a simple way. But the horrific part is that it’s not a lovely experience. It’s abuse, which is vile. I’m also feeling empathy, because I feel like I know what that feels like. How painful and hurtful, because I’ve been there in my own story. Anne: You’ve heard my podcast. And you’ve been to BTR Group Sessions, you’ve been in Q&As with me. Were you surprised about my story? I’ve never told all of it in one place. It’s just been in tiny parts, like here and there. Lynn: Yeah, actually I thought that I knew you. I’ve heard bits and pieces over the years, and you referenced sort of your past experience in the sexual addiction world. THE IMPORTANCE OF TELLING THE WHOLE STORY Anne: So you saw me back in the day when I was doing public speaking. That is crazy! Lynn: Yes, yes. I didn’t see you in person. Anne: But you saw me online. Lynn: Yes, I was involved in different groups and I had seen videos and I remember hearing, I think a podcast, like the church had a podcast back then. Anne: Yes, it was huge, that got millions of listens. Lynn: Wow. Anne: When I discovered what really happened, I contacted them and requested that they remove it and they did, which was great. Lynn: I had seen Chuck’s blog linked, and I remember seeing when it disappeared and going, huh. Anne: No, it’s just some people witnessed this with their own eyeballs. I thought it was a public total downfall, and it just felt so embarrassing. Lynn: My own experiences with this, and especially with my ex, I had my own assumptions. However, when you don’t know the full story, it’s mind blowing, and yet it’s not. Because I have my own Chuck. I’m like, of course. But at the same time, it was shocking. The depth, like the layers of the onion that were unpeeling, even towards the end of the book. And you look back to previous incidents from the beginning and detail out oh, this is more likely what was happening. It’s just man, the deception. And just thinking that marriage is hard work. WHEN YOUR HUSBAND “SOUNDS” AMAZING, BUT MARRIAGE IS HARD WORK Anne: My ex and I, when we were married, were on a really big podcast with our church, so if you heard that. You know, or at least maybe remember, have an inkling of how good he sounded. Lynn: Oh yeah. Anne: He got up in front of people and spoke and sounded amazing. When I’m writing it all out, it was like, what? To myself, it was like, I can’t believe this actually happened like this. But when you’re in it you really can’t tell. You can’t see what’s happening, because you’re taking one moment at a time, one day at a time, one week at a time, rather than the whole thing in view. If you know what patterns to look for, I hope I lay those out really well. Then you can start seeing them in real time. But if you’re not educated about it, how would you know? Lynn: Yeah, exactly. I would’ve said, oh, he was the model recovery example. I could see everyone going, oh, I wish my husbands were just like, you know? But why is my marriage is hard work? Anne: I’m guessing you were thinking, oh, if I just do this recovery stuff, then we’ll improve like them. Is that what you were thinking at the time? Lynn: For sure, yeah. At that time, I definitely was deeply involved in my own recovery work with specialists, group therapies, individual therapies, joint sessions and 12-Steps and all of that. Anne: So much stuff. Lynn: So much, when you look back. THE truth was that his “recovery” was not a success Anne: Well, and that’s why I started podcasting. So when I quit all that stuff, when I realized what was happening. I was like, I have to tell the rest of the story. That was the thing that kept coming to my mind. I was like, I have to tell the rest of this story. If I stop now, and people are like, where did she go and why aren’t they speaking anymore? And they don’t know the rest of the story. That is like leaving a lie that I didn’t know I was living hanging out there. People will think that all the couple therapy or addiction recovery worked for us. There’s a section of the book that I say, “I think therapists think it works because when a couple leaves them, they don’t know what happens next. They don’t know the rest of the story. And if it didn’t work, the couple is not gonna go back to that therapist because they think, “Oh, that therapist just wasn’t working for us, or that particular type of therapy wasn’t working for us.” And so it’s pretty rare that a therapist is like, “Oh, that was not a success story” after somebody leaves, because most people aren’t public about what happens to them. That was the part that I was like, we have to tell the rest of the story. And that’s what I hear every day at BTR, is the rest of the story. People like you who went through that. THE GOOD AND BAD NEWS ABOUT KNOWING IT’S ABUSE Lynn: There’s this misconception that because we didn’t continue that work, that is the reason why the marriage failed or things didn’t improve. If we had kept that or tried another therapist, even though we’d gone to several. At some point, I walked away. I did have an individual therapist. I’ll never forget one day talking about something and then reflecting to my therapist, saying, “My gosh, I sound like I’m an abused woman” or something. Like, why do I sound so crazy? I was judging myself for sounding this way. And she was like, “Yes, you do.” Like for good reason. I was feeling so lost, depressed, anxious, and it was like a weight. You think it would be the opposite. Like being told you’re an abusive relationship, but it was more like, oh, I was already feeling all the effects of the abuse, the pain and confusion, not knowing what’s causing the feeling that something is off because my marriage is hard work. Anne: Especially if you’ve been to years and years of therapy and no one has told you this. It’s not good news, but it’s also not bad news. It’s this weird middle place because if someone tells you it’s abuse, that’s good. But the problem is if it’s in conjunction with your husband and you’re going to couple therapy or addiction recovery with him, then the next step would be, okay, It’s emotional abuse, it’s psychological abuse. So now let’s get you some help for your emotional and psychological abuse, which is also not going to go very well in general. The likelihood of someone identifying it as abuse and then him being like, well now I’m gonna change, is slim to none. MARRIAGE IS HARD WORK, THE WORKSHOP WAS A POWERFUL TOOL Anne: But I’ve interviewed so many women who go that route. They’re like, okay, now that I know what it is, now that I know it’s emotional and psychological abuse, now we can get him help for that. I just don’t think people understand the depth of the patterns of lying. Let’s talk about that for a minute. So the book is about intimate deception, it’s about lying. Did you expect it to take that hyper-focus on lying, and why lying itself is domestic abuse? And not that marriage is hard work. Lynn: Hmm, I have a mixed answer on that. I think that I have the benefit of having BTR in my life. It gives me the heads up where it wasn’t shocking. However, it wouldn’t have been how I imagined you were telling your story. I couldn’t help but connect the book to your Clarity After Betrayal Workshop. The workshop was a powerful tool for me. I had been attending your groups because I knew I needed support from other women who got it. There was an email that talked about your workshop. And I thought, I’ll understand the lingo better and probably gel more with your groups if I do your workshop. And so I grabbed it. So glad, so glad I did. It took bits and pieces that I knew almost subconsciously, and cut past all that mental fog that happens when you’re in an abusive relationship. It spoke to me in a way that hit where I needed it. And it gave clarity so fast. Even before changing behavior, just feeling that in my body, that truth. Man, it made a difference. THIS IS WHAT I NEEDED to put the puzzle pieces in place Lynn: Like the anxiety lowered. It was like, whoosh, not like I don’t still have hard things, but I’m not exaggerating. When there’s truth that resonates with what my body was feeling. It was like, oh, my body could just breathe. And I didn’t need anyone outside of me to tell me, this is what is happening. Marriage is hard work when your husband is lying. Anne: With the workshop and maybe with the book too. I feel like this, and of course, I wrote the thing, so maybe that’s why I feel this way. It’s two pieces of the puzzle, but they fit perfectly together. And this is something you already knew. And so when you read it or watch the videos in the workshop, you’re like, this is it. This is what I’ve needed. And then at the same exact time, it’s so radically different than what anybody else says. In the book, I take women through the lies he’ll tell, and they’re really simple. Even stuff about his own childhood trauma or his shame, or anything like that. Literally no therapist on the planet, if he says that is gonna be like, that’s just a lie. You’re just lying. They’re never gonna say that. I’ve never heard a therapist say that. I’ve never experienced that. They’re all like, okay, tell me more about your shame. Instead of being like, “Oh, you’re still lying.” It’s like the light bulb, the aha moments are going off because it’s not like someone has said, he’s just lying about that before. Lynn: To be frank, that was my favorite part of the book. How Survivors’ stories VALIDATEd my experience Lynn: One of my biggest frustrations is that I have to be careful how I say this, because therapy has been a good thing and it’s also been very damaging. I’ve had more than one experi…

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Has Your Husband Betrayed You? You Are Not Alone – Missy’s Story Sep 24, 2024

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Has your husband betrayed you? You are not alone. Anne and Missy share insights on healing from betrayal through recognizing betrayal, understanding manipulation, and finding support. If he’s betrayed you, there are resources available to support you. In fact, you may be a victim of his emotional abuse. There at 19 different types of emotional abuse, and some are really subtle. To see if you’re experiencing emotional abuse, take my free emotional abuse test. Transcript: If Your Husband Has Betrayed You, You Are Not Alone Anne: Missy, a member of The Betrayal Trauma online community is on today’s episode. She is technically still married, although they’ve been separated for two years. She has two children. One is a teenager and another is a preteen. Let’s start with your story. Talk about how things first started and if you recognized your husband’s abusive behaviors at first. Missy: I don’t think that I did recognize his abusive behaviors at first. I think in a way I was the perfect person for his abusive behaviors. I grew up in a home where my father was very detached. He adopted me. My mom and I came as a package deal. There’s a lot of provision, but not a lot of love. My mother is also a very broken person. She grew up in an alcoholic home, a lot of domestic violence. There were a lot of behaviors and things. I learned, to love people despite it. I didn’t really question if this behavior or these words or any of this stuff was abusive. It was just when I married my husband. I think we were about two years in. We were in the ministry, he was a youth pastor. I had noticed a charge on one of our cards. I asked him, you know what is this? He was just very easy about it. He said something like, “Oh, it’s just a fraudulent charge. I’ve already called the credit card company. I’m working on getting it refunded.” I assume it’s a charge for porn, yes. I’m not even sure exactly what it was. I’d never seen it before. It is something x rated. I think that was my first instance with it. Confronting The Betrayal Missy: Then another one happened. I went to him again. What is this? What’s going on? Do we need to change this card? This time he wasn’t as easy with it. He was a little bit more agitated, a little more ugly about it. My questioning it, I think that was the seed for me then. When I started to realize the doubt, possibly this is not just an error. Maybe there’s something more. He was acting so weird about it. Maybe he wouldn’t shut down the card. He was like, we don’t need to shut it down. The first time he said it was fraud. We’re just going to take care of this. I think his exact words were, “You just need to get off my case about it.” We were still in the ministry. We lived considerably far away from my family. I didn’t have children at the time and would go home and visit for a week or two at a time. I had gone to visit and I came back. There was a VHS videotape that I found. Really dates me there. I remember handing it to him, I knew that it was a pornography tape because of the name. That’s when it blew up. Unfortunately, that night we were heading to a youth activity. Public Outbursts & Feeling Alone Missy: We were fighting all the way to the youth activity. We get there and there’s a youth team that’s waiting to come together in prayer. He and I are fighting. We pull up and he just loses it, jumps out of the car and starts walking down the road. Anne: That is a really common abusive thing to do. Did you know that? I don’t know if you know that. Jumping out of a car to say, I’m not going to take this anymore. Sort of, I’m not going to participate. It’s a strange form of control that most people aren’t aware happens. I just want to point that out if other women have been like, oh he has jumped out of the car and stomped away. Missy: Yeah, it’s a rural area. There isn’t any mistaking that he’s walking down the road. I’m so embarrassed because he’s basically throwing this temper tantrum walking down the road. I’m not gonna tell people what’s going on. The youth leader was like, what’s going on? He knew something had happened, he’s upset. He went and talked to my husband. They came back. I thought I was stuck. I didn’t know what to do at that point. We’re miles and miles away from support and family. We’re brand new to this ministry, this is our livelihood. He’s supposed to be the leader of the home. What am I supposed to do? There’s so much shame. You definitely don’t want to betray your husband by saying anything to anybody. It didn’t die, it just became this ugly thing between us that slowly deteriorated the ministry and us. I felt so alone. Truth Sinks In Anne: Did you go down the pornography addiction recovery route at all at this time? He needs help, let’s get him some help? Was there any of that? Did you go down that road? Missy: Not at first because it was so shocking and not how you picture you’re going into the ministry. You’re in the ministry,. spreading the gospel to teenagers and watching teenagers get saved. I think I just threw myself into the ministry. Anne: Did you think if we pray enough, if we work on the ministry enough, it’ll just kind of go away? Missy: I hoped that he would love the ministry enough to give it up for it. I dove in. This is what we came here for. This is what we’re going to do. I love doing this. You say that you love doing this. We even did a purity conference. Anne: Did you think, wait a minute, he’s a hypocrite, at all? Did you think if he does it enough, it’ll save him? Missy: I think at that point I did still look to him and respect him as my leader. I believed that this was just a struggle. He just needed to dig in. It doesn’t define him, it’s not what it became. No, I don’t know if it became that, or I just opened my eyes more. Anne: It was that way all the time, and then you realized more what was going on over time maybe? Missy: I stopped, for lack of better terms, making excuses for it. Church Principles Anne: When you say leader, so your faith background is different than mine, can you explain that a little bit? Is that the typical, like, uh, We submit to a man because he’s the head or something like that. Can you explain that for women who might be in a different faith paradigm than you are? Missy: Sure. I grew up believing that the man was the head of the household, but not in a misogynistic way. Like he says everything, he does everything and I just got to abide by it. I was taught we were still equal, that we still were responsible for what we brought to the marriage. Ultimately the decisions were by him. I could weigh in, definitely, and did. I was not un-opinionated, but I did grow up with the man being the head of your household. Anne: Okay, so even though you thought we’re equal, it wasn’t technically equal because you didn’t have equal say? Missy: It’s hard to answer that question because I’ve heard this phrase before where the man is the head, the woman’s the neck. We can turn the head any way we want. I do know that my husband absolutely respected the way I thought. There were a lot of times when it came to decisions, he would want me to weigh in, especially relational. You have a better understanding than me. Can you tell me what you think about this? Tell me what you think about that. I would say that he was very fair in that way. When it came to things like money and things that he was just going to do, he just did them. Anne: Maybe he just didn’t care about the other things. Who knows? Pornography Addiction Recovery Anne: Talk about when you went down the, pornography addiction recovery route for a little while because clearly that did not work. We know that ends. We know the end of this. Let’s talk about once you knew it was a pornography thing. How did things go with that? Missy: I think we had been married 24 years by the time the divorce is final. I would say we were separated quite a few times throughout our marriage and it all was pornographically related. When we got back together, the longest time that we kind of stayed together, I got pregnant with my son shortly after us getting back together. Bringing kids into the picture changed the picture for me. It’s terrible to experience betrayal trauma when you’re pregnant. Maybe that has a lot to do with growing up in an emotionally abusive home. I had a tolerance for myself, but then you bring an innocent into the picture and I had zero tolerance. Anne: For the abuse? Missy: For any kind of abuse. Anne: In this case, if you don’t know what’s abuse, maybe the nonsense, you might call it, right? Missy: Right. Because I don’t think I start calling it abuse until probably the last five years. that I really actually realized the way he was acting, the way he was treating me and the children was abusive. Anne: So before you used the word abuse, what word would you use? Missy: Addiction. It was his addiction. His addiction. Anne: Okay. Pornography addiction. Okay. Alone With Husband’s Betrayal Missy: Right. Then we were back together and had our son, he was only nine months old, when it reared its ugly head again. I was working overnight at a hotel and the hotel was right across the street from the apartment buildings and they had an especially scary night. My work was in the night. I went down to the end of the hallway and I was trying to call him. No answer, no answer, no answer. I got home the next morning and the computer was sitting on the coffee table. I flipped it open, he had just closed it, not shut everything off. There it was in my face. I was really angry this time. I responded in a way I had never responded, I woke him up, plunked the laptop on his stomach. He just was really cocky, said that he left it there on purpose, wanted it to end. He didn’t want it to become an issue. And my response to that was, I took everything that was on the long dresser and threw it at him one at a time. Anne: He wanted what to end? He wanted his pornography use to end. So he left it out there so you could catch him. Missy: Yes. That’s what he said. Anne: Because he can’t stop using by himself. Seeing that, he kind of said, it’s your responsibility to help me stop. Betrayed And Seeking Help So You Are Not Alone Missy: I left for a week or so, took my son and left. I told him he had a lot to think about. When I came back, I came with an arsenal. I said, this is what’s going to happen if we’re going to stay together. I’m not going to do this game that we did before. I’m not doing it. The first place he went to was a Celebrate Recovery. He completed it. They do it like in one year. Then the following year, I went to A Heart’s Restored. It was in the same church. I went through the program, and he had to be gone. He stayed home then. They asked me if I would co-teach the next year, and I co-taught the next year. Anne: At any point during this time, did they tell you infidelity is emotional abuse? Missy: No, the Hearts Restored group centered on, it’s going to sound terrible, but it wasn’t. It really did center on our relationship with God and the things that were broken within us that allowed these behaviors to continue. Anne: Kind of a codependent model a little bit? Missy: Maybe, because what I did actually work out was a lot of stuff in my past. My grandmother dying from alcoholism. How alcoholism affected my parents, my mother, my stepfathers, it’s connected. There was actually a lot of freedom for me gained from those things. Anne: You found it to be helpful for your own personal. improvement in your own personal healing, even if it didn’t point out the abuse at the time. Alone, Betrayed & Angry Missy: He had fallen again. This time, instead of going to a celebrate recovery, because he was just, no I’m not going to do that again. He started meeting with a pastor for an accountability. Anne: Okay for his “pornography addiction.” Did this pastor point out to you that this was abuse at all or was abuse ever mentioned during this time? Missy: No, because unfortunately this pastor had his own hidden closet agenda. He actually was In some of his own personal sins in regards to something along the same lines. That also came out within a year or two of this. I remember the first meeting we had with him. We just talked about why we were here and what we were hoping for, for counseling. He sat back and he leaned back in his chair and he said, Missy, this is nothing new under the sun. This is very common, and I just remember immediately just feeling hot, and pretty much everything he said after that, I don’t even remember. We got out to the car, and I remember my husband looking at me and saying, Go ahead, I know you’re mad. I said, It’s not anything new, it’s not that big of a deal, but it is to me. This is not right. He did counsel with him for a while, and I don’t remember anything beneficial ever coming out of that. And so then the next thing was, Covenant Eyes. Feeling Alone & Responsible Missy: Covenant Eyes entered our story. The biggest mistake that I made with Covenant Eyes was I became his accountability partner. Not good. That just became a cat and mouse game. Something would pop up in a report and he would blame it on spam or phishing. He opened up his email and it’s some ad on the side that’s triggering it. It’s just constant. It was just a game. I can’t tell you how many times we went from flip phone to smart phone to flip phone to smart phone because he would get exhausted with the flip phone and say he’s fine. Then he went to a smartphone and he would fall and, seriously, we must have owned 10. It’s just disgusting how much money we probably threw away. The last and final one we went to was Purity Boot Camp. It was at another church. He finished the boot camp, graduated, went to the next level of the boot camp. It was while he was at this boot camp that everything just fell completely apart. Anne: During this pornography addiction recovery period of time, can you talk about what you did to try and establish safety and peace? Talk about during that time, how you’re, I’m sure making this effort, right, to love and serve and forgive and support him and whatever you need to do to help him with his addiction. Nothing Is Working, You Are All Alone Anne: When do you start kind of realizing this is not working? Or maybe you don’t, maybe you don’t realize it until it does fall apart. I don’t know. Talk about that. Missy: I think it was a slow process. It erodes. I think it’s probably the best way to describe it. It erodes. It didn’t erode my faith in God, it eroded my faith in him. I think it wasn’t necessarily the pornography that did it, it was the lies that it takes to keep the pornography alive. There’s a lot of lies, financial lies. Where were you, lies. The bus was “always late”, or traffic was always super heavy. He’d get home really late, hour, hour and a half past time. That’s because he would pull over and watch porn. I don’t think I had peace. I mean, my husband was toxic. Anne: Maybe peace is around the corner. If we go to this camp, maybe we’ll have peace. If we pray more, maybe we’ll have peace. Was it sort of that kind of place? Missy: I think for a long time, it was this, we’re in this together, you’ve got this, let’s pray, let’s make sure that we’re being careful about what’s going to be on TV. We downloaded apps like Common Sense Media that would take things out, swear words and scenes and as long as we kept your eye on the prize. A lot of my effort went into that, one of the faults that I realized I started doing was I got in the Holy Spirit’s way. Trying To Help & Feeling Alone As long as I created this perfect environment for him, you know, sun, moon, and stars, everything risen and aligned. Then he wouldn’t be stressed because that was one of the things he said. I don’t go look at pornography because I want to look at these women. Pornography started when I was 17 and it became this salve or this balm for rejection. Anytime I feel rejected or stressed in…

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How To Recognize Victim Blaming – Jenna’s Story Sep 17, 2024

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Victim blaming is an insidious form of abuse in and of itself. In the betrayal trauma community, abusers, clergy, therapists, and others blame victims for “their part” in the betrayal and abuse they experience at the hands of their partners. Recognizing victim blaming is an essential skill in the toolkit of every victim. Our Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions meet daily in every time zone and offers women the unique opportunity to process trauma, share their stories, ask important questions, and express hard feelings in a safe place. Victim Blaming Is Harmful To Women “We see time and time again women thinking: If I would have done something differently, if I looked different this wouldn’t have happened to me.” Anne Blythe, founder of Betrayal Trauma Recovery When women are blamed by abusive partners, family, friends, and professionals for their partner’s abusive and compulsive behaviors, there can be deeply harmful effects. Because victims are conditioned to be compliant, many internalize false and harmful claims and begin to blame themselves. Furthermore, those close to the victim have the unique opportunity to help and support her. When they choose to blame her, overtly or covertly, they are enabling the abuser and putting the victim into harm’s way. What Does Victim Blaming Look Like? Wonder if you have experienced victim blaming? Here are some common statements that indicate that others are blaming you for the abuse and betrayal. How have you contributed to your husband’s infidelity? If you make yourself more available, he wouldn’t need to act out. If you take care of yourself a little more, he would be more interested. You need to be a safe person, so he won’t lie to you. You should forgive him and move on. How can you ever stay with him after this? Listen to the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast for more information on what victim blaming looks like. Transcript: How To Recognize Victim Blaming This episode follows Jenna’s Story:Part 1: Is It Wrong To Check Your Husband’s Phone? – Jenna’s ExperiencePart 2: The Best Way To Explain Betrayal TraumaPart 3: How To Recognize Victim Blaming – Jenna’s Story (THIS EPISODE)Part 4: When He Lies About Small Things, This Brilliant Analogy Offers Insight Anne: I have Jenna on today’s episode, she’s a member of our community. And she follows us on social media. We have accounts on Instagram @btr.org_ we’re on Facebook. You can see our page if you search betrayal trauma recovery. We’re also on YouTube at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, and TikTok @btr.org. Online Encounter with Misogynistic Advice Anne: Jenna has been seeing a lot of misogynistic advice. That’s actually common, and people don’t realize it’s misogynistic. She’s not seeing it on our social media accounts, of course, but other therapists or so-called experts. Also from family and friends, so she contacted me because she wanted to talk about this harmful advice. That she hears both on social media and in real life. Welcome. Can you talk about how this topic became important to you? https://youtube.com/shorts/f42gMRWCYd8 Realization of Victim Blaming Language Jenna: I had never noticed it before, because it was so normal. I had heard these phrases or words. terminology used quite often. So I never stopped to think about the way words are used, or how we talked about women in our everyday language was actually very damaging to women. I had a friend point it out, so I thought it would make a good conversation, because maybe there are other people who haven’t realized that yet. Anne: I think it’s interesting that it’s not just men who use this type of language. It’s women too. Jenna: Right. I mean, I still catch myself using terms or phrases or making assumptions about other women. I’m catching myself and trying to shift how I speak. Anne: Can you state the specific example that brought this to your attention on Facebook? Jenna: There were a couple. Personal Experience: Happy Wife, Happy Life Jenna: One of them was, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” The one that was personal to me was, “A happy wife. Happy life.” Because that one was actually shared the night before my wedding. At the rehearsal dinner. My then father in law gave a toast, and he shared his advice to my then husband. The only thing he had to share was “Happy wife, happy life”. That was it. At the time, I laughed, and everyone kind of laughed. And I never stopped to think that just seemed off. Throughout our marriage. I felt like my husband had that mindset, but it wasn’t authentic. Of I want to live in a way that we can both be happy, comfortable, and safe, but it was like whatever I can get away with as long as you’re happy is okay. If I can just fake it, if I can just put on this facade, if we can just keep women placated and hide these things that we’re doing, then it’s okay to do them. Anne: Wow. That’s so good. Absolutely. Sort of like what a woman doesn’t know won’t hurt her kind of idea, as long as she’s happy. As long as she’s happy, I can do whatever I want. Like, I know what I’m doing would make her miserable. So I need to make sure to hide it from her. Heaven forbid she is justifiably angry about my betrayal of her. Before we go back to hell, hath no fury like a woman’s scorn. Cause I want to talk about that. Misogynistic Victim Blaming Statements Anne: I just want to list the misogynistic victim blaming that many women hear when they find out their husband has been lying or having an affair, when you can’t trust your husband. So I’m just going to list some of them out really quick. “What did you do to cause your husband to seek love and comfort outside your marriage?” So that’s blaming her for his affair or his. Untoward behavior. Something like “if you make yourself more available, he wouldn’t need to get it somewhere else.” “If you take care of yourself a little more, he wouldn’t need to get stimulated elsewhere.” “You need to be a safe person, so he won’t lie to you.” As if it’s your fault that he’s lying to you. “If you would forgive him and stop being so angry, everything would be fine. You’re the reason things are falling apart,” instead of his abuse, is the reason things are falling apart. And. “Why did you stay? If he’s abusive?” You’re like, because I didn’t know he was abusive. I was trying to figure it out. Or “I would have never put up with that.” You don’t want to put up with abuse either, you are resisting every way you know how you’ve been resisting since day one. You just didn’t know what you were dealing with. Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorned Anne: So those are some pretty common victim blaming statements, so now let’s get back to “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Is that Shakespeare? Jenna: William Congreve, an English playwright and poet, the quote reads, “No hell hath fury like a woman scorned.” Anne: Let’s talk about this. Anne: Apparently there’s no justification for a woman’s anger. I would argue that if a woman wasn’t angry, sad, or upset, her husband lied to her and cheated on her, she’s wondering if her husband is toxic. That’s coercion. So it would be strange if she didn’t have a pretty intense reaction to that. Because women are humans. They’re not robots. And so a logical, absolutely justifiable reaction would be feeling extremely upset. Angry. Ecetera Anyone would feel that way. He severely harmed her, she thought he cared about her. In this case, she’s the one feeling the bowels of hell gave after her. Hell hath no fury, like what a woman feels when her husband betrays her is how the saying should go. I mean, do people expect women to be robots and not to feel justifiable, anger, and rage? When their husband made choices that he knows will hurt her. And that’s why he’s kept it hidden. Jenna: Right. There’s no room for women to be human. Double Standards in Anger Anne: Think about a man. If he told a story where a business partner lied to him and manipulated him. If he’d been showing anger, everyone would think his anger was justified. In fact, I told a therapist in the addiction recovery industrial complex. I said, “Imagine if your business partner cheated and lied and you were telling the story, would anyone ask you, were you safe enough for him to tell you the truth that he was embezzling money?” You got angry with him, no wonder he was embezzling money. You weren’t safe enough. He was like, that’s a completely different thing. And I was like, uh, no, it’s not. It’s the same thing, only with a wife, it’s worse. I thought like, okay, so you are a misogynist. Victim Blaming Phrases and Their Impact Jenna: I hear it a lot of times, almost used sarcastically to provoke humor, you know, used maybe facetiously or in a way that mocks women, as it implies that women are emotional and that’s not acceptable or appropriate. It’s almost like their pain or anger is mocked, as women, in general, like emotion that women feel is comical in some way. Anne: It’s overreacting, it’s nonsensical, their expectation of women being robots is the nonsensical thing. That is nonsensical. That is what should be mocked. Like, Oh, so you think women should just sit still and look pretty. So in your thinking about this, did you come up with some other things that you’ve seen? Jenna: I did. I started to make a list of things that came to mind, and I just jotted a few of them down, and I’ll just read them off. Common Misogynistic Statements Jenna: “Boys will be boys.” “Wear the pants in the relationship.” I think that one’s often used when people talk about a woman with a strong personality, or who just has opinions and speaks them, and is not quiet all the time. I’ve heard “She wears the pants in the relationship.” “She’s crazy.” “You’re too intense, too loud, too bossy. Women are impossible to understand. If mama ain’t happy, no one is.” Expectations of Respect and Accountability Jenna: And this is just a general observation, but I’ve noticed that when we as women want or even demand accountability and respect. We often get the label that we’re man haters or bitter women, when in reality we’re not. Men take responsibility for their actions, and that we are treated with respect. Anne: Yeah, it’s not that much to ask. To say that a woman expects respect and fidelity in her marriage, and not be lied to, manipulated and abused, that’s a pretty low bar. Jenna: It is. And it’s common. I mean, if you think about how often people mock Have you even seen on the BTR posts people mocking the idea of fidelity or expecting a husband to not use pornography? That is so often just people almost think it’s a joke. Like wait, you’re asking your husband not to look at it, like who do you think you are or you know all men do this. You would think it would be basic, but it’s not Before I married. In my late twenties, I was still single. I remember my mom saying, “You have these super high expectations”. What do you want from a man? As if like, I couldn’t, there’s no, man. That could fill your expectations. And I remember telling her mom. It’s pretty simple. I just want someone I want to call. When they call me, I’m happy they called. It’s not that complex. This is before I understood addiction or abuse or anything like that. I feel the same way about this. Men are trying to say. Men and some women are trying to say. That women’s reasonable, normal expectations are too much. Lowering Standards for Women’s Treatment Perpetuates Victim Blaming Jenna: We’ve really lowered the bar. I feel like the bar for how women are treated has been lowered in so many ways. Anne: To the point where it’s like, you can’t expect them to be faithful. You can’t expect them to tell the truth unless apparently you’re perfect. You have to be a Stepford Wife robot to merit a man to be faithful to you. Otherwise, if you do or say anything that someone could construe as not the right thing, then you could get blamed for this. Jenna: Right. It’s like it gives the man permission to act in abusive ways. If you’re not that robot. Anne: I think the most common is when men say, yeah, she was controlling, she was crazy. She just asked me a ton of questions. That seems like a very red flag for an abuser. Anytime a man claims he was abused, it is a red flag that he was an abuser himself. Why do you think that is? Jenna: Well, abusers. In their very nature, they are always trying to put on a show, on a face for other people. They always want to be perceived as the victim, and they’re good at manipulating the situation to, you know, deny, attack, reverse the victim and the offender. So they use truth and twist it. They are pros at victim blaming. Abusers Use DARVO To Blame The Victim They turn it against the victim to confuse the victim. They try to put the victim and the offender on the same even playing ground. I feel like they do that to try to minimize their abuse. Then create this illusion that the reaction of the victim is abuse. When it’s not. Anne: Right. If a woman is concerned and worried, and she’s just found out her husband is using pornography, and she’s wondering if he is having an affair. Her motivation is safety, peace, and truth. So if she’s trying to look and see what he’s got going on on his phone, it’s because she’s desperate for safety. She’s desperate for truth. Whereas if an abuser is going through his victim’s phone, he is looking for ways to manipulate her or harm her. Jenna: Yeah, so you described it exacty how it is. Shifing Blame By Labeling Her As Controlling Victims get blamed by someone asking, “Why are you so controlling?” I got that a lot. But the reality was, I was doing those things to try to create. safety for myself to exist in a safe way. It was not, my intent was not to gain power over anyone. It was just to feel comfortable and safe in my own home. Whereas, he used that against me to hide his own behaviors and deceive me. Anne: This is something we talk about in The Living Free Workshop. Misinterpretation of Narcissistic Traits I think this is where many victims of emotional and psychological abuse and coercion get tripped up. They might watch like a popular narcissist. YouTube channel, for example. In that YouTube channel, somebody might say, okay, here are seven things that narcissists do. And as you listen to them, you might think, Oh, I’ve done that. I have tried to isolate my abuser from his flying monkey family, because every time we get around his family, I end up more abused. Because they believe him and they end up putting me down, and so am I the narcissist or the abuser? In one popular narcissist video that I recently saw, the Youtuber was suggesting that a narcissist can never answer this question. Why is it so difficult for you to admit your flaws? Abusers Manipulating the Narrative To Blame The Victim And supposedly, if you ask a narcissist this question, and they can’t answer it, then it’s proof that they’re a narcissist. And that might be the case. But in an abuse situation, if an abuser asks his victim, why is it so hard for you to admit your flaws? He’s gas lighting her, so what I looked at it but why is it so hard for you to admit your flaws? That would be a question an abuser would ask a victim to trip her up, and many of these YouTube channels on narcissists. If you don’t interpret what they’re saying correctly, then you might think, well, am I the narcissist? I don’t think I would answer that question, because he’s asked me that. And I’m like, uh, what are you talking about? Like you just cheated on me and you just lied to me for 20 years. Now you’re asking me what my flaws are, excuse me. In that moment, a victim shouldn’t play into that. A victim should not say, “Oh, you’re right. You’re right. I didn’t do the dishes. So I deserve to be lied to.” Like no, no, no, no. Jenna: Yeah, this victim blaming statement stood out to me. “Why do my differences threaten you?” I think maybe it’s not worded like that, but I think that general sentiment is often used. Like, why do my hobbies, you know, maybe…

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7 Truths About Emotional Abuse You Need To Know Sep 10, 2024

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Abusers are enabled, as these myths are embedded into the population: therapists, clergy, friends, family, and neighbors, and random people on the internet, like a recent Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast reviewer who left a comment riddled with the 7 Toxic Myths about Emotional Abuse. If you need support from coaches who really understand abuse, check out our Daily Group Session Schedule. 7 Toxic Myths About Emotional Abuse Women with strong opinions, religious views, and world views should not be taken seriously. Emotional abuse advocates usually try to find someone to listen to their own story, and aren’t actually helping victims. If it doesn’t include physical violence, it’s not abuse. If it only happens once, or occasionally, it’s not abuse. A man can harm his partner, and it’s not technically abuse. Pornography use isn’t abuse. Betrayal isn’t abuse. These myths are dangerous: they enable abusers to keep abusing and they encourage victims to stay in abusive situations. 7 Powerful Truths About Emotional Abuse All women deserve a voice, especially victims of emotional abuse. As women share their stories, they can begin the journey to healing. Furthermore, strong world views, opinions and perspectives are absolutely necessary for women to begin healing. In an abusive situation, it is black and white: there is an abuser and a victim. There is the truth and there are lies. It does not take “two to tango,” and there are not “two sides” to the story of abuse. The most powerful advocates for victims of abuse, are survivors of abuse! As women courageously tell their stories to other victims, powerful communities filled with hope, healing, and validation are created. Physical battery is absolutely abusive, but there are many other forms of abuse that are equally destructive to another human being. Emotional abuse, psychological abuse, coercion, and betrayal are all forms of abuse that are just as serious as physical violence. When a man harms a woman, even once, it is abuse. Pure and simple. The phrase “isolated incident” has enabled too many abusers and has put too many women in mortal danger. Harm is another word for abuse. If someone is harming you, they are abusing you. Pornography is abuse: it’s abusive to partners, it’s abusive to children, it’s abusive to the women and children used in the industry. Betrayal is an excruciating form of emotional abuse. Transcript: 7 Truths About Emotional Abuse Anne: Today, I’m going to talk about seven toxic myths about emotional abuse. What Can Be Learned From A Bad Review? And this man’s review illustrates every one of these toxic myths. It’s the perfect example of what every victim is accused of when she’s trying to get to safety. It’s a perfect example of all the reasons she can’t get help, of all the reasons people dismiss her concerns. There are so many emotional abuse survivor stories and his review enlightens their struggles. So here is his review. He says, “To be fair, there are some nuggets of truth in this podcast. But there are still disproportionate numbers of problematic things going on with it. First of all, there seems to be a clear agenda with this podcast.” This statement makes me laugh, because it’s obvious there’s a clear agenda. He’s saying that like it’s a bad thing that I have a clear agenda. Of course, there’s a clear agenda. I say every week that men who use explicit content and commit adultery lie, manipulate, and psychologically abuse their wives. Adultery, lying manipulation, gas-lighting are abusive to your wife. So, yes, you hit the nail on the head. https://youtube.com/shorts/oK159VgBNyo Religious Overtones and Anti-Porn Sentiment Then he says, “It has lots of religious overtones and strong anti-pornography sentiment.” So here, he says if you’re religious, you should be dismissed. Because if you’re religious, then your opinions don’t matter apparently. And then secondly, if you oppose pornography, then you should be discounted. Why? I don’t know. On the betrayal trauma recovery team, we have agnostics, Catholics, Evangelicals, women from different faiths. We are interfaith and inner paradigm here. And all the women on the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Team are anti pornography because it is abusive. So, if he says we shouldn’t be listened to because we think it is abusive. He’s entitled to his opinion. We just disagree. So sir, religious people can be logical, and they can have something important to say. Also, people opposed to it can be decent logical people. But people who don’t want to see it as abusive will use any reason they can to discount people opposed to it. Validating Personal Experiences Anne: Then he says, “It comes across as the host uses the podcast to validate her own experiences and values”. Yes. Totally. And all of the other women’s experiences too, because we all share the same story. My name Anne Blythe is from Anne of Green Gables. It’s symbolic of the universal story. That all of us who have experienced this type of abuse share. I podcast and share my personal story as a spokesperson for all of us and an archetype for all of us. Then I invite you to share your stories, and they all sound so similar. This podcast gives victims a voice, because we’ve all been silenced. Men like this, institutions and therapists, and all kinds of people, have tried to silence us. Effective Advocacy: A Misunderstanding Then he says, “This is not what effective advocacy looks like.” But he doesn’t suggest what effective advocacy for abuse victims should look like. Also, how would he know? Is he an abuse victim? According to him, a good advocate can’t have a clear agenda. They can’t speak from their own personal experience, they can’t be religious. They can’t hate it. And they can’t highlight other women’s stories and educate women about emotional and psychological abuse or coercion through stories. I think this is an abuser who doesn’t want any woman to talk. Or any abuse victim to share their story? Or would he like us to advocate like the therapists do or the clergy where they’re like? Maybe the abusers should come on and share his side of the story. Like no. No. He says, “This podcast is about promoting a specific perspective.” Absolutely. This is about the specific perspective of the victim. I’m not interested in hearing from the abuser, if that’s what you mean, is that what he means? Who wants to hear from the abuser? The Definition of Abuse Then he says, “The host is not using definitions of abuse universally accepted by professionals in the field.” That’s just not true. All domestic abuse advocates universally accept that manipulation and lying are psychological abuse, gas-lighting is psychological abuse. This is just industry standard abuse education. Then he says, “Not all dysfunction and harm is abuse”. And while it’s true that not all dysfunction is abuse. If someone consistently harms someone all the time. What would he call it? Because that’s maybe what the therapists are trying to say too, that, oh, he doesn’t do it on purpose. But if someone does something harmful over and over. What else would we call it? Would we just say, well, your husband is consistently harmful, but he’s a good guy? There’s a word for it. It’s called the abuse. Then he says, “Harm is still harm and it’s not okay. But abuse is one partner systematically using tactics to gain and maintain control over the other partner”. Well, he nailed it there. That is the definition of abuse. But gas lighting is doing that manipulation, lying, and betrayal. They’re trying to keep the truth from their wife. So they can continue to cheat on her. That’s exactly what we’re talking about. He has the correct definition for abuse, using tactics to gain and maintain power and control, but then he’s denying that manipulation, gas-lighting, lying, deceit, are abusive. That makes no sense. Then I love the next thing he says. The Complexity of Abuse He says, “It’s not about isolated incidents of harm or even ongoing issues of betrayal,” so he’s saying abuse can’t be isolated. Apparently, and it can’t be ongoing. All abuse is one of those two things. Then he says, “not all explicit content use is abuse”. He has a right to his opinion. I just 100% disagree with it. All of it is abusive, and then he says, “It’s dangerous to conflate the two.” Which I just flat out disagree with him. I think all of this material is evidence or documentation of someone being coerced. They might be being coerced with money. Then he says, “Being betrayed is not necessarily a systematic attempt to dominate the other partner.” Uh, well, then what is it? To discount the other partner. To undermine the partner. Betrayal Trauma Recovery, is the best betrayal trauma resource because we see systematic lies, and systematic gas lighting is an absolute systematic attempt to dismiss her as a human being, to dismiss her concerns. To dismiss her feelings, to dismiss her values, to dismiss her needs, her emotional needs and her psychological needs. Then he writes, “There are many instances through this podcast where it’s suggested victims should try to work it out or give their spouse a chance”. Um, I don’t know if I’ve ever said that. Safety Over Divorce Anne: All I’ve ever talked about and advocated for is safety. Safety safety, safety, emotional safety, psychological safety. I think the thing bothering this guy is that I’m not going to tell victims of abuse what that means for them. I always say safety should be the top priority. Does that mean divorce? Maybe it doesn’t mean separation, maybe. I’m not about to tell you what it means. This man apparently thinks he knows what safety means for abuse victims. Not just this guy, but many people accuse me of two completely different things, which is like pro divorce or anti man, or anti-family. Then also telling people that what I talk about isn’t abuse. And I’m like, number one, I’m not pro divorce or anti man. Number two, it is abuse. So let’s talk about this dichotomy, that men, therapists, and other people are so confused about. So pro-safety just means that I want women to be emotionally, psychologically, physically, spiritually safe. That’s it. I never encourage women to stay in an abusive situation. Divorce Doesn’t Solve The Abuse But what people who’ve never been through this don’t understand is that divorce does not solve the abuse. My ex post divorce abused me for eight years. We help women who are still being abused. Post-divorce at BTR every day. So whether a woman is married or divorced, she could still be abused. So that’s why safety must be the goal. Not necessarily divorce. Could it include divorce, or should it yes, maybe, or maybe not like? Who am I to say? I just want her safe. That’s it. So he says, “I understand the sentiment, but if it truly is an abusive relationship, encouraging a victim to stay as dangerous.” I’m encouraging her to get to safety. The other problem with his solution is like, okay, if it’s abuse, get divorced. Which is what every domestic violence shelter will tell you. Then they can’t help you once you’re divorced and still being abused. So safety isn’t the top priority in these cases. Empowering Victims to Make Decisions Anne: The other issue is the most victims who are being abused. They don’t know that they’re being abused. And so they’re not at the point where they can like, think about their emotional safety yet, because maybe she goes to a therapist, probably like this guy. He tells her this is not abuse. Then she doesn’t necessarily realize she’s not emotionally safe. It takes a while to figure out. So to try and tell a woman like the second, you know, it’s abuse, get divorced. Doesn’t make sense, because it takes a while to figure it out. Women have to try a few things. They have to go through the process. I’ve never met any woman in the world who immediately is like, he’s abusive. Usually, they try to have a conversation with them. They go to therapy, they do a bunch of things to figure out if he’s abusive, and that process takes time. Clearly, he has not been through this, or he would understand that. At BTR, I want to give victims space to make the right decision for themselves, whatever that is. I also want to educate them about what abuse is and what safety is. I’m Also A Trained Domestic Violence Advocate He says one more thing. “As a trained domestic violence advocate and community educator, I feel the need to point out some of these problematic things.” I’m also a trained domestic violence advocate and a community educator. So. Who wins you or me? Like. Does he not know that I’m also a trained domestic violence advocate and a community educator. Apparently he doesn’t know this. So if that’s. His criteria, then he should be like, oh, I didn’t know that she was a trained domestic violence advocate. Now that I know that. I guess everything she’s saying is okay. Or now that I know she’s a community educator. He’s dismissing all of us victims. He’s dismissing me. For all the reasons he just said, he’s dismissing you. He’s dismissing all our experience. It’s an example of those seven toxic myths about emotional abuse that I started with. And you might get these from clergy therapists, professionals, your abuser, you’ve probably heard them already. And that’s why I started Betrayal Trauma Recovery, and as Anne Blythe, I’m a spokesperson for you. I take the heat for this, because I get messages like this all the time. I appreciate your prayers and support, because this type of confrontation is something I regularly experience online through emails or people accusing me of things that aren’t true. Obviously, like this guy who is contradicting himself throughout his review. It’s common for people who haven’t been through it not to understand how complex the situation is for victims. They’re trying to simplify it and not give victims the power to make choices that are right for her. So safety, safety safety here at BTR. Okay. Seven Powerful Truths About Emotional Abuse Anne: And now to the seven powerful truths about emotional abuse. Let’s start with #1 Truth About Emotional Abuse Any time a man knowingly compromises his wife’s emotional safety, or psychological safety, and harms her emotionally, physically, spiritually, or psychologically, he is abusing her. #2 Truth About Emotional Abuse All women deserve a voice, especially victims of emotional abuse. As women share their stories, they can begin the journey to healing. Strong opinions and perspectives are absolutely necessary for women to begin healing. In an abusive situation, there is an abuser and a victim. There is truth and lies. So we don’t need to hear two sides of this story. Just hearing the victim story is enough. #3 Truth About Emotional Abuse The most powerful advocates for victims of abuse are survivors of abuse. As women courageously tell their stories to other victims, we build powerful communities, filled with hope, healing and validation, and our community here at Betrayal Trauma Recovery is incredible. #4 Truth About Emotional Abuse Physical battery is absolutely abusive, but there are many other forms of abuse that are equally destructive to another human being. Emotional abuse, psychological abuse, coercion and betrayal are all forms of abuse that are just as serious as physical violence. And for myself, I’ve experienced both, and I would say the emotional and psychological abuse were much more difficult to heal from. #5 Truth About Emotional Abuse When a man harms a woman, even once. In an effort to overpower her or gain control. It’s abuse. Pure and simple. The phrase, isolated incident, has enabled many abusers to put many women in danger, emotional danger, psychological danger, but also physical danger. An isolated incident of murder. It’s all it takes. But also an isolated incident of soliciting a prostitute. He would like you to think it’s an isolated incident, but the likelihood of his use, his betrayal, or his lies being an isolated in…

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Divorcing A Narcissist – June Checks In One Year Later Sep 03, 2024

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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 LaterPart 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…

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He Blamed ME For The Emotional Abuse – June’s Story Aug 27, 2024

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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 manipul…

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How to Live with a Husband You Don’t Trust – Cristy’s Story Aug 20, 2024

Show notes

Women often ask, “how do you live with a husband you don’t trust?” If you’ve discovered something about your husband that made you question if you could live with him, he’s likely using at least one of the 19 different types of emotional abuse. To find out, take our free emotional abuse quiz. Did His Manipulation and Lies Break Your Trust? Most women who can’t trust their husband discover he’s been manipulating, gaslighting, and lying. It’s important for emotionally abusive men to protect their secret behaviors and maintain the privileges they receive from being “good guys”. Manipulation, gaslighting, and lying may follow, it can look like: Flat-out denial of the pornography use, whether there is evidence or not (in cases where there is evidence, he might say, “I have no idea how that got on my phone, it must have been the kids/my brother/a co-worker) Blaming the victim (if you would ____, I wouldn’t have to use it) Minimization (I downloaded it but I didn’t look at it; I texted her but never had met with her) Blame-shifting: “Why are you checking my phone in the first place?” Partial truths: “I was just studying for a test and it popped up – I did look at it, but I wasn’t searching for it” Gaslighting with questions like, “Do you really think so low of me?” “How could you accuse me of something like that?” When You Find Out You Can’t Trust Him, It’s Usually The Tip of The Iceberg Women who can’t trust their husband almost always discover he’s participating in some type of destructive behavior, like… Coercion Emotional affairs Solicitation of prostitutes Consensual affairs Marital Non-Consentual Touch Marital Assault Voyeurism Eploitation of a spouse If you relate and need support, check out our Online Daily Group Session Schedule. Transcript: How to Live with a Husband You Don’t Trust Anne: We have a member of our community on today’s episode. Her name is Cristy. She’s going to talk about when she discovered something that made her wonder if she could ever trust her husband again. Cristy: Thank you. Anne: Just like so many members of our community, you went through. Years and years of pain, but you didn’t understand what was happening. Cristy: No, I did not. We both went to a Christian college that’s where we met and we talked through our values. after we graduated, we got married. Our first year of marriage, I knew something was wrong and couldn’t pinpoint it. I asked him and he lied he yelled a lot I even at one point had found myself in the car for hours, not knowing where else to go. I knew something was wrong. Discovering I Couldn’t Trust My Husband Cristy: Then I found it on my husbands phone. He said he had looked at it and I firmly said well, I’d like to go to counseling together about this. It’s very hurtful towards me I don’t think this is something good. You know, I want to be there for you and be enough for you like, this isn’t good for either one of us. Cristy: So we went to counseling together, he treated it as an isolated incident. He didn’t yell at me anymore, he was very regretful, remorseful, could see how it hurt me, never wanted to do that again. Now I know he lied, but I didn’t know at the time. Anne: It’s really interesting that you say that, because what I see there is that he became better at manipulating you. Cristy: Yes, I know that now. Yeah. Anne: It was less obvious because he wasn’t yelling at you anymore, but he was still lying to you, manipulating you, and hiding the truth from you. So really, he just got better at psychological abuse as a result of couple therapy. Even your husband’s therapist won’t know this. It’s so hard for us to understand. It was hard for me to understand. The things that I viewed as good, like once he started going to therapy, he didn’t yell as much. Sometimes he acted nicer. But I didn’t get that it was coming from a place of manipulation, so it wasn’t like he was good and then he was bad. He was always bad. But then the bad felt good sometimes because of the grooming. So he’s grooming you. Secret Alcohol Use Anne: But things still don’t feel right. What do you do at that point? Cristy: I’m like, Oh, are you still looking at it? He said he had people he felt comfortable talking to about that and I said, okay, are you talking to them? You know, I just try trusting him and then life got busy. I pushed it to the back of my brain like, this isn’t going on. I think he got a smartphone. It was happening. but I couldn’t see it and didn’t know it was going on. Anne: In the meantime, I’m guessing your husband’s gaslighting and manipulation and the lying was still occurring. Cristy: It was. We fast forward a couple of years and now I see lying in other sins. So in our basement, like hidden away, I found a vodka bottle. So now I know he’s hiding and lying about drinking liquor alone. And I expressed that concern. I don’t think it’s healthy for either one of us to drink alone and can we come to that agreement? He agreed to that, but later on continued that as well. I knew when I found evidence that those were lies, but until hearing The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast, I didn’t realize how much it was emotional abuse. He knew what he was doing the whole time. But until I heard The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast this pattern continued. Surprise Pregnancy Cristy: I was on birth control. I take it like religiously same time every day. It had worked for years and it did not. We were having a surprise baby and he made comments like, now I’m going to have another child. I’m going to screw up and he’s going to end up in counseling because of me. I’m never going to have freedom ever again. When I had to tell him that was pregnant, that’s when I first started seeing him spiral. I was four weeks postpartum, and he comes home like shaking, having anxiety attacks. This is when I started like, okay, I’ll give him space. What do I need to do to love him more? Do all the things in the house. I’m, I stay at home mom, so I’m taking care of a four year old, a two year old, three month old, doing all the things I can, and nothing seems to be working. I went to see my parents for the weekend. Like, you rest up, do everything you can, and I’m going to come back. When I came back, I realized even that wasn’t going to help him. He was blaming it on the baby, like I’m depressed. The drinking and the lying about that increased, so I was noticing all this and for months I worked really hard and realized I wasn’t helping him. I said I’m going go to counseling then because I don’t know how to be the best mom, the best wife, and caretaker for everybody and he was like, okay. Go ahead. So I did. And it was frustrating because, of course, I wanted him to go or for us to go together. But he didn’t want to. A Sign Of A Bigger Problem Cristy: So about a year ago I saw him texting heart emojis on his phone late one night, and I approached him about that. When I did, he deleted it, denied anything was going on. He gave me the code to his phone, saying I’ve got nothing to hide. Even Christmas morning, I was still processing it, crying on the floor. He was in the room with the kids, playing with all the toys. I was sad thinking about having to share my kids with him and another woman and later on I told him and he denied it and said, you’ve got nothing to worry about. He said, “I love you. I want you. I want this family and there’s nothing I do to put that in jeopardy.” And I was like, “Okay.” I had the code to his phone and he would drink at night and it interacted with his antidepressant medicine. I would see just his eyes get so heavy and he’d get knocked out like that. I even tried to wake him up one time to talk to him and he was incoherent. Then I would get his phone. There was a text message from a coworker three years ago when they were on a work trip and it was like, come on back at 12:15 AM or, you’ll have to carry me back to my hotel room at 3 AM. When I Discovered His Affair I showed him, I was like, “What is this? It looks like you’ve been with another woman and you’re texting her and we’re in the hospital with our newborn, or you’re texting about birthday presents.” He said, “You know, no, you’ve got nothing to worry about.” And I he denied anything happened. Regardless, this is an inappropriate emotional relationship. He said he didn’t agree, but would respect me enough to stop. And then as he was walking out the door, he had an anxiety attack on the steps that night too. I was like, is this my life now? Anne: A carefully contrived anxiety attack perhaps. I’m of the opinion it was a contrived anxiety attack to control you and manipulate you into feeling sorry for him. Cristy: Yeah, so these were all little things. Again, I was finding him drinking throughout the day and denying that and he would say this is the only thing I can control. We stopped having it. We would try and he physically could not. I was starting to think, oh, something’s wrong with me or you’re cheating on me. He’d say, no, I love you. I’d never do that to you. I picked up his phone and it’s a different phone than mine. So I had to work hard, but I found a, like on the computer, there’s like a downloads file. I found even more. When I Looked Deeper I Found Out He’d Been Soliciting Cristy: I guess your phone saves what you download to you, even if you transfer phones. I found an STD test result from three years ago, and then also like a menu of, I still don’t know if it was like an affair, but pictures and pricing, uh, with a woman. I said, what is this? What are you doing? I didn’t know at the time, but he fed me another lie of, I was on a work trip. I met a woman, we didn’t have intercourse. And I said, we might as well have, if you felt like you had to go get an STD test. He said, well, you’re not perfect either. And I was like, Oh, I never said I was. And I, you know, I’ve held up every one of our marriage vows. The next day was our daughter’s first birthday and he had to stay in the house. Like I couldn’t wake up the next day and he not be there for this daughter’s birthday for some reason. So he stayed in the house for about five to seven days. So I continued to see my counselor and when everything went down, I said, I need to see you every week. She said, but I’m not trained in this. She’s really into the Enneagram, which has helped me too. When I Couldn’t Trust Him, Betrayal Trauma Recovery Helped Me Figure Out What To Do Next I just started Googling betrayal trauma groups, recovery, I came across The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast and I’m a big runner. When I run a lot on the treadmill while the kids are still asleep, but I just listened and it just opened my eyes hearing other people’s stories similar to mine. I think there was one in particular and I wrote this down cause it spoke to me. She said, “I had to work hard”. It was on me all the time, because everything was falling apart because of me. She did her best to please her husband and be the best she could be, but it was never enough. And she gave and gave and gave and all he did was take. I remember I sent that one to my mom, and I said, this was my story too. Then I started to reduce time with my counselor from once a week so I could add in the funds to go to The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group. I can go while the kids are asleep, it’s a safe place. Anne: Once you started listening to the podcast, were you surprised that you had been abused for so long and that you didn’t know? Cristy: Yes. I think on The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Instagram had the picture of alcoholics abuse alcohol. Drug addicts abuse drugs and addicts abuse people. He admitted it to later on saying, I took advantage of you. I knew what I was doing the whole time. I would have never told you. Things would have gotten worse. Hearing that and hearing from the podcast, how it’s so oftentimes we say like, oh, bad. I’m sorry. There Were So Many Reasons Not To Trust Him I did it. It’s okay. Like just don’t do it again. It’s not that scenario. It’s no, he admitted I wanted to live two separate lives. I knew what I was doing the whole time, and that just opened my eyes like he did this anyways, like he risked me our marriage, our kids, and he said yeah, why did you let your addiction ruin our family? All he could say was like, I’m sorry. I’ve told him, I’ve looked him in the eyes and said, I could never trust you again because of the way you’ve emotionally abused me. You looked me straight in the eyes for years when I said, Are you cheating on me? Are you doing this? No, I love you. I’d never do that to you. Trust me. I want you. I want our family. And he was doing that just so I wouldn’t continue down the detective mode rabbit hole trying to figure out what was going on and wasn’t getting any answers. After I just looked at him and I knew we couldn’t keep doing this. Cristy: He had kept the finances from me, our whole marriage. He would like screenshot the statement that would answer my question. I would be like, no, can I have the logins. He was like, oh yeah, yeah. But never would give them to me because he knew there was evidence there. Finally I was pushing, I need every login, I need to see exactly what’s being spent where? He had called me after binge drinking for a little bit. He Had So Many Secrets Cristy: He said, I have more to tell you. I have paid for services. I’ve been with at least four prostituted women. When you saw me text messaging over Christmas, I was inappropriately texting somebody. I was like, okay, I’m done. Like, do you have anything else to tell me? He said, no. It took me another week. I got into the finances. Actually, my dad was patient and gracious with me to sit down because I was so scared. Finally put it all together. So the first prostitute was in 2017 when you’re on a work trip here. You paid for with cash you got here. I had to get the whole picture. Anne: Yeah, that’s something that we talk about in The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop quite a bit is make sure you have access to the finances. So I’m really glad you got access to the finances and that you could start putting the pieces of the puzzle together and see reality. Anne: You mentioned that you attended Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions can you talk about your experience? Cristy: From the coaches in the other women somebody said this is not a club. Anybody wants to be a part of, but I’m thankful for it. I’m in my young thirties with three small kids and then. I’ve seen a woman in her 70s and 80s been married and has grandkids, and she’s walking the same path I am. Finding Support From Betrayal Trauma Recovery The coaches hear all the stories, right? We have this common thread of addiction. It could also be infidelity, in my case, prostitution. But, they’re also different. So we each get a chance to share that, to get feedback from the other women and coaches. For me personally, just processing it all, what’s it like to move forward? Anne: As victims, once you get the appropriate glasses on and look at this through the lens of abuse, rather than he needs help or has anxiety problems. You reframe everything that happened in the past with the new glasses that make everything so clear. Cristy: When he would feed me this lie of like, I’ll go to counseling with you but he knew the whole time what he was doing and he was never going to say anything. When I found out I couldn’t trust him, that was a lot to take in. Now I have those glasses on, like you said, I would replay as much as I could remember of our whole marriage and trying to figure out what was lies or manipulation and what wasn’t. At this point, one of the coaches made a good point of like, do you know what you already need to know now? When You Can’t Trust Your Husband, You Can Trust Yourself There’s no need for all that, like replaying or digging. You know, I can’t even see his device anymore, but I think I’ve seen and heard enough that I can make my decisions now and moving forward. That’s the harde…

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