Betrayal Trauma Recovery

*/ ?>

Latest Episodes:

How To Know If My Abusive Husband Is Changing – Claire’s Story Nov 07, 2023

Show notes

How to know if my abusive husband is changing? Perhaps like Claire, you hope he can change. If you want to discuss the possibility of your abusive husband changing with other women who feel the same way, attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Support Sessions. A man who is changing will consistently reject misogyny. This means that he will: Not expect or ask others to cook, clean, or “take care” of him. Not expect, ask for, or coerce you or others for sex. Clean up after himself and others, taking on household and yard tasks without being prodded, asked, or encouraged. Avoid organizations and situations where misogyny and patriarchy are systemically significant. Reject patriarchal leadership roles. Forfeit financial control and take proactive steps to learn how to have a mutual financial partnership Heathly Men Don’t Exploit Women Healthy men don’t use exploitative material, period. They understand that it is exploitative and abusive to the victims in the industry, as well as destructive to their wives and themselves. It’s NOT a “temptation” to a healthy man. It’s a no-brainer. If your husband is truly changing, he has done the work to understand the exploitative nature of the industry. To know if your husband is emotionally abusive, take our free emotional abuse quiz. How To Know If My Husband Is Changing The effects that his use has had on you and your family. And he will never return to it. Not even once. A healthy man respects your right to make decisions, large and small. He understands that he has zero right to make demands on your time, body, and energy. He gives you space. But you’re not a mind-reader and abusers are VERY good at mimicking these healthy behaviors. So how to know if my husband is changing? At BTR.ORG, we know it can be dangerous to live in close proximity to an abuser who claims to be changing. If you’re invested in staying married to the abuser, believing he is willing and capable of change. To discover your husand’s true character and learn emotional safety strategies, enroll in The BTR.ORG Living Free Workshop. If you need live support today, attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session. Transcript: How Do I Know If My Abusive Husband’s Changing? Anne: I have a member of our community on today’s episode. I’m going to call her Claire. Claire and I are from the same faith background. We’ll be talking about some particular programs specific to our faith, but it will relate. Because a lot of you have been through programs similar to this. Either faith based or secular programs, or maybe 12 step programs. As always, all faiths, all paradigms are welcome here. So no matter what your faith or paradigm is, if you’d like to share your story. Email me at podcast@btr.org. We want to help you know if my husband is changing. So Claire, tell me your story. Did you recognize your husband’s abusive behaviors at first? Claire: Not at all. I went into the marriage thinking it was going to be equal. Not knowing anything about intimacy and what’s normal. We just had our 25th anniversary. The abuse is mainly coercion and covert emotional abuse. He wants to look like the good guy. And so I had put in a lot of effort. This is the whole like love, serve, forgive thing, like our whole marriage. Trying to be a good person and learn how to communicate. And I had been listening to some podcasts about intimacy and how it should be for both people. I was really frustrated with that, because I felt like it’s a true principle. That marriage and intimacy are supposed to be for both people, but it still wasn’t working, and I could not see why. Anne: Did his coercion involve using exploitative material? While giving you the impression that he was a faithful Christian man? The Role Of Faith & Misconceptions Of Abuse Claire: So this is actually my main frustration with our church’s addiction recovery program. They want to tell you that marriage is hard work, That he did tell me about the use one year into marriage. But he felt entitled to it. On the podcast, you said this is abuse, and I was like, no, I totally didn’t believe you. I was like, he’s like needy. And then I listened to one of your podcasts about, emotional abuse. I was just completely blown away. How to know if my abusive husband will change is so important. This is the part that I feel is super important, because it took me a little bit of information to see the pattern. Like all I needed to know, abuse is a pattern of control based on entitlement. Emotional abuse is just a tool that is part of domestic abuse. And the whole thing with, like, abusers typically looking like they’re charming. They’re the ones that look good, and they’re the ones that show up for service projects. That the one being abused is more likely to look crazy. And I’m like, hey, that’s me. And yeah, so that kind of blew me out of the water. But it was still like anyone seeing my husband, he’s like very good natured and jolly. It was rare for him to say things that would look abusive or where you could figure it out. But he feels like, yeah, he’s entitled to it as much as he wants. It’s like, I’m this toy on a shelf. He idolizes me, but I’m not a person. So I can’t have bad feelings against him. I can’t put space between us. If I want to go to activities when he’s not working, he’ll pout. But if I’m reading a book around him, he’s not okay with that. How To Know If My Abusive Husband will Changing: He’ll Treat You Like An Equal (& Reject Misogyny) Claire: Interrupting someone when they’re reading a book. That’s not a big deal. The big deal is that you shouldn’t be doing that. The trying to control. Anne: I’m entitled to your attention rather than, I know you’re reading this book, but I would really like your attention., yeah. Claire: Yeah, but that’s being equals, right? So the coercion looked like if we hadn’t had it for 48 hours, then he would start criticizing me. And just like pouting, frowning, and being toxic until we did. I had read the LaHaye book, the act of marriage. And also in any marriage books or church materials. The whole love, serve, forgive, don’t be critical. In the first year, I didn’t know that he was addicted. I was so sincere, trying really hard to have a good marriage, I wondered is marriage meant to be this hard? And I couldn’t see or understand what was going on. In all the things I read, there was nothing about like hey, love, serve, and forgive. https://youtube.com/shorts/jf3qujhSwdk But if you see these red flags, like if you’re bringing up concerns and the person doesn’t listen. Or sincerely take it seriously. Or if you have someone lying to you, there was nothing in the materials that said anything like that. They don’t tell you that lying is emotionally abusive. And I don’t think that’s just our church. That’s something I’m really angry about. And I think that’s a huge deal. Like, especially if you’re saying that you care about marriage that’s supposed to last forever, let’s actually try to have a relationship that’s heavenly. Anne: How to know if my husband is changing? Guess what they never talk about. I don’t think any religion does. I’ve just thought of this. So this is like an epiphany for me. Are you guys ready for this? Here we go. The Need To Know How To Know If My Husband Is Changing: The Church’s Oversight on Spousal Abuse Anne: No one ever talks about. What would a hell marriage look like? No one’s like, this type of marriage is a marriage made in hell. And you would be in hell if you lived in it, and that is abuse and you do not want this type of marriage. They never talk about that. Or how to know if my abusive husband is actually changing. Claire: I read the most recent handbooks and stuff. They’ll say abusers tend to be people you know, and they list parents, sibling, uncle, but they never say, spouse. Even the patterns of abuse, it’s more like child molester, predator, grooming, but they never say spouse. They have lists of red flags and yellow flags that you look for when you’re dating, like things to know before getting engaged. But I’m like, why do you stop looking for that when you’re married? I think the focus on we’re just going to preserve the marriage as an institution, instead of helping people have healthy marriages. And if that was your focus, wouldn’t you teach about red flags and abuse patterns more specifically? You need to if you abusive husband can change. Anne: This is James 1:27, Religion that God, our Father, accepts as pure and faultless, to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. That’s interesting that the world part pollutes, because abusers also believe and manipulate them. Here’s the new living translation: pure and genuine religion in the sight of God. The Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress, and refusing to let the world corrupt you. The Unspoken Truths About Marriage Anne: So meaning like actually saying the truth. The truth is, this man is abusive, and this woman needs help, and she’s going to need help in the form of maybe food or housing. Claire: We talk about helping the defenseless. And if you’re in an abusive marriage and you can’t see it, that’s where I was at for more than two decades. And that’s a very vulnerable place to be in. Anne: Yeah, being abused and not knowing you’re being abused. Claire: Yeah, and I was sincerely reading all these communication things and marriage books. Anne: Yeah, I did the same thing for seven years. I did addiction recovery, where I like needed help, help. I need help. And going to all these therapists and clergy. And no one for seven years says abuse. Claire: Yeah. That’s why I feel so frustrated. Yeah, especially when we knew that he had a problem the first year. And that’s what I love from you was the whole compulsive entitled sexuality and the lying. That’s one of the huge things where you guys have rocked my world. Was the whole if you are lying about pornography, besides that, just if you’re lying in general, you’re not safe. But if you’re lying about it, then it’s abuse, because you’re not allowing her consent. The Power of Truth & Consequences Claire: And I read this quote yesterday, lying is about controlling someone else’s reality, hoping that what they don’t know won’t hurt you. And what it means to tell the truth is to give someone else her freedom, to allow her to have a reaction, even if it leads to negative consequences for you, to give her the voice that lying takes away. Anne: That is so good. There’s a church talk, it’s one of my favorites, by one of our apostles, who is now, passed away. But he tells this story about how he loved football. And he had the football, and he was just like two inches away from the end zone. The whole pile was on top of him, and he could push the football a little more, and no one would ever know. And I don’t know what happened in that game, if they won or not. One of the things he said was, tell the truth and let the consequences happen. Because you can’t alter God’s reality. He knows what it is. Essentially lying is also trying to, what, alter it for God? Like, that’s not gonna work. So anyway, I’ve always thought that, like, tell the truth and accept what the consequence of the truth is. Even if it’s not good for you. Claire: Yeah, that’s the emotional immaturity going along with abuse. That you can’t handle someone else thinking you’re bad or seeing something bad that you’ve done. Then you lie to other people about your intentions or what you’ve done, so you can keep hiding. And you don’t know if he will change. Misinterpretations & Misguided Help Anne: So while you’re reading these communication books, what reasons did you give for his behavior? Just that he needed it, what did you think at the time? Claire: I didn’t think it was control coming out of entitlement. I thought he was like hangry, like when you’re fasting. And I thought he was being a little bit bratty. And I also thought it was my job to manage him. So I would try to placate him before he would be a jerk. Anne: So like, if I am intimate with him like right now. Claire: 48 to 72 hours, then we won’t fight, and I can avoid the drama and all that. Because he’s going to get hangry, and then he’s going to get grouchy. And I just didn’t see that it was a choice. I’ve kind of operated like a robot. I didn’t know if my abusive husband would change. Anne: Even if you feel like you’re choosing it. Would you choose that if you knew the truth? Well, there are moments where I wanted to. He was grooming me. And so I thought he was very loving. And then later I find out, wait, had I known he had used the day before and lied to my face. I would not have wanted it. I thought he was changing. Claire: Yeah. How To Know If My Abusive Husband has Changed: He Will NEVER Go Back To Pornography Use Anne: So you attended your church’s addiction recovery program, which is a program for wives of addicts. Talk about your experience with that. Claire: So, initially, I loved going to the meetings because I was a hermit. I didn’t have any friends, because I wasn’t taking care of myself. So this was like the only time I was talking to women. But, the main thing I am upset about is that they didn’t teach that lying is abuse. When they said women whose husbands use have PTSD symptoms. I felt like seen in that. I felt like, oh, like I feel super stressed out, but that’s normal. So it did like take a weight off of me. But at the same time, it was like, oh, has he really changed. Because I feel like he’s cheating on me. When he’s looking at exploitative material, but he’s not. So it’s like this illogical emotional response. Anne: Wait, so they told you you’re logical because you feel like he’s cheating on you. But we’re telling you no, this isn’t cheating. Claire: I don’t know if they taught that or that’s what I got out of it. So like, that is not safe. So you don’t feel safe. And you have these PTSD symptoms because you’re actually not safe. So like, your feelings are legitimate. And that was a huge piece missing. I was like, why don’t you teach that lying is abuse and you’re actually not safe? Anne: Also, what is the PTSD from? It’s from abuse. It’s not from, “pornography.” It’s from the whole system of coercive control. They’re not saying you have PTSD from abuse because you’re being abused. Entitlement Attitude, Lying & Abusive Behaviors Claire: It’s so interesting. If you had someone who was using, but they weren’t lying about it. You would still feel scared because they’re doing something that’s demeaning to women. To me, it seems like I feel at least 80 percent safer, because if you’re telling me, I know what’s happening. That’s the piece I didn’t see until you split that out for me, that the lying is part of the abuse. Anne: Yeah, I see this a lot with victims, and I want to say, like, beware of this. They’ll be like, yeah, he was using, and then he says he stopped, and he didn’t use for a while. I’m like, who said he wasn’t using for a while? And how do you know that? There is literally no way for us to know that they’re not using except for their behavior. So when women say to me, they stopped using, but they were still angry. I’m like, if a user says I’ve stopped, but their behavior is still the same. There’s literally no reason to believe they’ve stopped. And even if they have, who cares? Claire: Even if they stop, they already have an entitlement attitude. Like I’m entitled to women, and women should show up like this. And then you’re watching, which has abuse, besides being demeaning to women in general. If they stop using it, they still have abusive behaviors that they learned from it. The whole attitude of being entitled towards women is the source of abuse. So even if they stopped using, you’re likely to still have the abusive behaviors after the fact. If they stopped in the first place. The Need For Abuse Education Anne: My goal in life is that wh…

Full show notes at the publisher

Can An Abuser Be A Good Person? The Dangerous Ways The Media Portrays Abusers Oct 31, 2023

Show notes

Have you ever read a news article that describes a domestic abuser as a “good guy”. Can an abuser be a good person, really? Jane Gilmore, award winning journalist from Australia, talks with Anne Blythe, M.Ed. about how media coverage of domestic abuse doesn’t help victims recognize the truth. If the media didn’t help you recognize your husband’s abuse, attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY to get the support you need. Transcript: Can An Abuser Be A Good Person? Anne: I’m honored to have Jane Gilmore on today’s episode. She’s an author and award-winning journalist. And has a master of journalism degree from the University of Melbourne. Welcome Jane. Jane: Thank you, lovely to be here. Anne: I’ve invited Jane to talk about news stories, movies and TV and how the media portrays domestic abuse. When it comes to journalism, I’ve had some personal experience with this, because my friend, Leah Moses’s son, was murdered by her ex-husband, and Leah asked me to be the spokesperson for her in the immediate aftermath of that event. And so I was on the news quite a bit. If you go to our YouTube channel Betrayal Trauma Recovery, you can see I’ve created a playlist for that. It’s called Betrayal Trauma Recovery in the news. A lot of the news outlets at that time, all of them actually reported it as a murder suicide, but they didn’t talk about abuse at all. Most reports said this murderer was a respected psychologist. They interviewed people who knew him, who said the abuser was a good person. Knowing Leah’s story, he was one of the most abusive people. There were multiple DCFS reports for the welfare of her children. Police called multiple times. This was a classic domestic abuse situation. Why would any reporter put in print that an abuser is a good person? So the question of, can a murderer be a good person? Why is that even a question? Parth Gandhi was a murderer. He murdered his son. There’s no more proof. Like if murdering your own son isn’t proof that you’re an abuser. There’s never enough proof for them, not in the media, not in the courts. Not anywhere. The Impact Of Media On Society’s Perception Anne: Instead, they said, it was the result of a prolonged legal battle. And some reports suggested that due to the prolonged legal battle, he was so upset or frustrated, it led to a breakdown. Rather than both the prolonged custody battle and the murder were due to his abuse. This is one of the things that can happen when fighting a narcissist for custody. So Jane, let’s talk about how the media reporting of abuse cases shapes society’s perception of abuse and abuse victims. Jane: We had a case a few years ago where a man killed his wife, his daughter, and his three grandchildren. I think the youngest was three, and he was reported as a loving father. It was just obscene. It developed this huge debate in Australia about journalists calling abusers goog people. I swear to you, debating whether it’s okay to call a man who killed his wife, his child, and his grandchildren a good guy. And women in Australia were just like, I’m sorry, what? He’s just killed his family. Of course, he’s not a good guy. Anne: Why were they arguing for it? Jane: Because one of the things journalists will do after something like that happens is they’ll interview people in the community. Like people in his church, people in his sports group, or people on his football team. And somebody inevitably will say, Oh, but he was such a great guy. They weren’t married to him or living with him. They saw him once a week where he’s doing that good guy act. And that was all they ever saw. And journalists will say, well, it’s a legitimate thing to report because somebody said it. People used to say Ted Bundy was a great guy. Clearly he was not. The Role Of Gender In Media Reporting Anne: Yeah, objectively speaking, how do women know if their husband is abusive? No, it is incorrect reporting to say he was a good guy. Yes? Jane: Or just because you can find somebody who says he was. It doesn’t mean it’s true. It’s not like journalists are sitting somewhere stroking a white cat and thinking of ways to excuse the terrible things that some men do to women. A lot of it happens without them knowing it. Particularly when it’s men that journalists feel similar to. If journalists can make sure that, it’s some other, he’s not a good guy like me. He’s nothing like me, my friends, and the men I know. He’s the balaclava clad stranger that jumps out of the bushes at you. But most types of exploitation and abuse aren’t from strangers. Then that’s okay. But if it’s, and often is, somebody they think, Oh, that could be my friend. That could be my brother or even worse. That could be me. They’ve got to find a way to make it either not his fault. The abuser is such a good person who just snapped or she drove him to it. Because it is so hard to believe that men we love, respect, and care about. Men who are our friends, our family, or our colleagues can be abusive. Jane: But I can guarantee you, if you know, 10 men, you know, a man who has been abusive to a woman. Anne: Yes. Jane: And that is sometimes hard to face. It’s almost like it’s a not all men thing, they’re not defending all men. They’re defending themselves. Not all men are abusive. What they’re saying is you’re talking about me, and I’m not like that. Can An Abuser Be A Good Person? The Reality Of Abusive Relationships Jane: I find the ones that are the most defensive about that are the ones I’m looking at going, why does this matter so much to you? Why are you getting so angry about this? But that need to say about the abuser it’s not his fault, he’s a good person, he just snapped. He just lost control for a moment, but he’s actually a good guy. Is about saying men are not responsible for these things. Women drive us to it. And until we can all say, we are all responsible for our own choices. I may not control how I feel, but I can control what I do. And if you pick up a gun and shoot somebody, that is a choice. And the only person responsible for that is you. If you get really angry and go, I’m going to go to the gym and have a session with a punching bag, or I’m going to run and run and run until I almost vomit, or I’m going to talk to my friends and let it all out. They’re all choices. Or I’m so angry that I’m going to hurt somebody, that is equally a choice. Anne: Yeah, right now, the Addiction Recovery Industrial Complex likes to make the cause shame. He felt shame, he used pornography. Or because he felt shame, he had an affair. And I’m like, you know what? I feel shame, and I eat ice cream. What are you talking about? There are so many options. Shame has nothing to do with it. That’s not the cause of him choosing it. The cause of the abuse was his choice, he’s not a good person. They do good things to manipulate. Patterns Of Abusive Behavior Jane: And particularly with something like that, where it’s an ongoing choice. It’s not just that he chose it once, he’s choosing it again and again. And then he’s choosing to lie about it. And then he’s choosing to do it again, and then he’s choosing to lie about it again. That’s a pattern of behavior. You often don’t realize when you’re in that situation, because it’s like the frog in the boiling water. It starts slowly, and you don’t realize it’s happening. You look back and think, how did I become this person where I feel responsible? Because my husband is gambling or drinking or watching or cheating. It’s my fault I’m doing something wrong. So I’m going to try and change so he will be better. Anne: Many women have seen Sleeping With the Enemy or Safe Haven. So, they think this is what abuse looks like. He’s going to be screaming in her face, spitting, punching walls and locking her in her bedroom. Why do you think we don’t see depictions of emotional and psychological abuse often in the media? And I have also noticed that women depict psychological abuse, like in Gone Girl. Jane: Remember that most of the media is controlled by men. So they’re not going to show these things from a woman’s point of view. They want to show a nuanced view of oh, but maybe he is a good person. Because they don’t understand it, and don’t want to. Psychological Abuse In The Media Jane: It’s not like there’s a huge crew of powerful white men in the media in any country in the world going. Let’s make women aware of the manipulations men do to keep them under control. So they don’t show the sort of things that are really corrosive, but not obvious. I remember talking to a woman who told me her husband could look at her, and she would be so overcome by fear and insecurity. She said, I couldn’t think straight. Because all he would do was look at me. Once a year or so, he would do something terrifying. And then for the rest of that year, all he’d have to do to remind her, to put her back into that space of terror, was just give her that look. And what do you do? Do you go to the police and say, well, he looked at me like, right? Anne: That’s right, absolutely. Can an abuser be a good person? When they want something, they can. Well, and that’s what’s really difficult for women in court cases. When they’re trying to say, look at these messages he’s sending me, they’re so abusive. And the court looks at them and they’re like, what are you talking about? To outsiders, it seems normal. But it’s not. https://youtube.com/shorts/7_ZAkeOtE2s Jane: Yeah. I’ll never forget that woman. Because most of the time certainly to outsiders, he seemed like a good guy and had he killed her. And I honestly wouldn’t have surprised me if he had eventually. Journalists would have gone to his friends afterwards and said, what was he like? And they would have said he was such a good guy. And then the journalist would have reported it that way. Can An Abuser Be A Good Person? Challenges In Recognizing Emotional Abuse Jane: But this was a man who terrorized his wife, never physically hurting her. Just making sure that she always knew that he was the one in charge, that she had to obey him, placate him, be wary of him. And be stepping around his feelings all the time and looking after him. He would just sit back and not have to do anything. And it was so hard for her to explain to anyone what he was doing, or why she was so miserable. Or why she couldn’t leave, because it wasn’t obvious. I’m not here to make a lot of excuses for the media, but that kind of manipulation is hard to show in a one and a half hour movie. Because it builds up over time. It’s about how it starts, then it stops, and then he’s sweet, then he’s cold. He’s lying, but all you’ve got is a gut feeling, You’re not sure what to do with it. And that constant back and forth and back and forth exhausting, unsettling weirdness is hard to show in a movie. Any woman who’s been in that will instantly recognize it. And this is where women have the power to talk to each other. Because if I talk to a woman who’s in that, and I say, like when you wake up at three in the morning and feel sick. And your brain’s just spinning, spinning, spinning, and you’re trying to work out what’s going on. Am I crazy that I’m imagining this? Is he right? But I feel like this, but I don’t know what to do. And I’m too scared to tell anyone. Because I’m going to feel like a fool. An abuser can act like be a good person. Support Systems For Abuse Victims Jane: Any woman in that relationship will be, yes, I’ve done that so many times. It’s familiar, because the patterns of abuse are familiar. When we start sharing it, we can instantly recognize those stories. Anne: Yeah, women find so much support and validation in a group, like our Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions. If you’re listening and relate to this. That’s such a great place to start. Talking with women who can validate your experience, because in terms of the media, it surrounds us all the time. We might not recognize all the manipulation not to recognize abuse. Because an abuser can act like a good person. To discover if you’re emotionally abused, take thisfree emotional abuse quiz. Jane: I think it’s huge. We underestimate how much the things we don’t notice influence us. The most dangerous ideas are the ones that we don’t notice. The idea that women are responsible for abusive things that men do. How many headlines have you seen about the jealous lover, the jilted husband? Anne: Even if they just say they were having an argument. As if the two of them were causing the problem, and it just ended badly. The abuser can make himself look like a good guy. Jane: Yeah, cheating wife is common in a headline. And it’s all about saying that men aren’t responsible for what they do when they get angry or lose control of their emotions. Men can’t be held responsible for the actions they commit, because it’s women that drive them to it. It happens a lot in headlines, but also in other kinds of media, like TV shows, movies, and video games, that we consume all the time, where you don’t even really notice it. The Double Standards In Self-Defense Jane: Once you’ve seen something, you can’t unsee it. When you start to look for it, suddenly it’s almost everywhere. Women are responsible for men’s choices. We drive them to it. We make them so angry, so jealous that they just lose control and then it’s our fault. But actually, if you think about it, the reverse would never be true. And it’s not true. On the rare occasions that women commit violence, and it happens. They’re monsters. They’re evil. There is no excuse. But we don’t talk about men in the same way. Anne: That’s evident with self defense. For example, if another man comes into another man’s house and shoots the guy in self defense. Everyone’s like, yeah, self defense, no problem. But if a woman is being raped and shoots him, people are like, she committed murder. Apparently some people think an abuser can be a good person. Jane: Oh, definitely, absolutely. If a man kissed another man, like a sexual kiss, and the man being kissed punched him in the face. Most people, yeah, sure. If a man wants to kiss a woman who didn’t want to be kissed, and she reacted with violence. Whoa, why are you like that? If you reverse it and go, would that still make sense? If a woman is being attacked, and she fights back, and she’s to blame for fighting back. Violence is always a choice, no matter what you’re told. Violence is always a choice. If the person who made that choice is not responsible for it, in the way it’s depicted, then something’s a bit off. And then again, you reverse it and you put a woman in that situation. Would she be held responsible for making that choice? Yes, she would. Can An Abuser Be A Good Person? Violence As A Choice Jane: Would you ever say, a woman who forced sex on a man had no choice? He flirted with her, was wearing tight little pants and was smiling and winking at her. He drove her to it, and she was so overcome by lust that what else could she do? It sounds ridiculous when you put it like that, right? Anne: Right. Jane: That kind of thing would be, well, yeah, that can happen. Men lose control of themselves. And if she flirted with him and teased him, and wore a skimpy little top and showed off, well, what did she think was going to happen? He flirted with her, took his t-shirt off. He showed off all his muscles. What did he think was going to happen? It’s so ridiculous that it’s almost funny. If you can do that juxtaposition and it becomes ridiculous, then you know that something is going wrong there because women are not responsible for men’s choices. We have to stop infantilizing men. Adult men are as responsible for their choices as adult women. Think about how they behave in front of other people? Almost 99% of the time, an abusive man is not violent emotionally or physically in front of other people. He does it in private, which means he can control it, which means it’s a choice. Anne: When he wants to, he can act very loving, he can a…

Full show notes at the publisher

What Do Emotional Abusers Look For In Their Victims? – Leslie’s Story Oct 24, 2023

Show notes

Too often, we expect abuse victims to look a certain way: downtrodden, economically-dependent, and submissive. But that’s not true. Abuse is exploitative in nature. What do emotional abusers look for in their victims? Strength and ability, here’s why. If you relate to this episode and wonder if you’re experiencing emotional abuse, take this free emotional abuse quiz. Leslie, a successful doctor with multiple degrees, a victim of her ex-husband’s horrific abuse – shares her story. Here’s What Do Emotional Abusers Look For In Their Victims: Financial Resources Financially independent women may have difficulty accepting they are being abused. Because they are well-educated and respected in the workplace. The discrepancy with the way their abusive husband treats them at home may cause them to question reality. And create a disconnect in their ability to identify as a victim. Interestingly, financial abuse is a very sad reality for women who are breadwinners in their families. This form of financial abuse may occur when the abuser: Refuses to work and/or contribute to family expenses. Uses the victim’s earnings to fund extravagant expenses and/or abusive expenses (dating apps, pornography, drugs, alcohol, etc). Takes the victim’s paychecks and diverts them to his account. Demands a portion of the victim’s paycheck and refuses to account for where the money goes. Attempts to sabotage the victim’s career. Promises to earn an income, but either cannot hold down a job or doesn’t try to secure a job. Forces the victim to be the breadwinner, then makes her feel guilty for doing so. Places an expectation that all expenses are the responsibility of the victim. Is constantly resetting the time horizon as to when the financially playing field will be leveled. Refuses to contribute to daily household tasks while the victim works to support the family. But I Thought I Was Smart” Many victims berate themselves for “allowing” abuse. They say things like: “But I thought I was smart!” “How could I be so stupid?!” “I don’t look like an abuse victim.” “Resources for abuse victims go to them – I should get myself out of this.” “I was stupid enough to get into this, I need to get myself out of this.” Victims who have the capacity to earn a living can be extremely hard on themselves. If you have experienced financial success, you are just as valid as any other victim of abuse – you deserve safety. You are entitled to every resource available to victims. Transcript: What Do Emotional Abusers Look For In Their Victims? Anne: I have a member of our community on today’s episode. Leslie is a successful doctor caught in the throes of a horrendously abusive relationship. All of our listeners get that. One of the purposes of having her on the podcast today is to talk about how abuse does not discriminate, and how difficult it can be for even successful or well spoken women, and all of you are like that. Maybe we didn’t recognize it because we didn’t identify as victims, but also no one else would identify us as a victim. And so we want to dig into that today: What do emotional abusers look for in their victims? So welcome Leslie. Leslie: Thank you. Thank you for having me on. I hope my story can help others. There were many dark times that I never thought I would get to the other side, but here I am. Not only surviving, I am thriving. Anne: Like you, now that I’m thriving, the podcast sounds so much different than it did when I started. So if those of you who are listening. If it’s a little difficult or you’re like, don’t talk to me about the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m never going to feel good. My life is over, Leslie and I have been there. I just want to acknowledge that many of our listeners will be like, oh, I don’t want to hear that. That’s not possible for me. Leslie: I agree. I lost myself so much within that whole abusive relationship, it was hard to think that I could ever climb out. Recognizing Red Flags Leslie: Then I joined the BTR.ORG Group Sessions and listened to the stories told. They’re all so similar, but different in their own ways. And then I saw women change things around. I greatly appreciate it. Anne: So Leslie, let’s start at the beginning of your story. Did you recognize your husband’s abusive behaviors at first? Leslie: He was my second husband. My first husband was my high school sweetheart. Unfortunately, we lost him. So I was at a very vulnerable time when I met my second husband. And I think he knew that. Maybe that’s part of what he was looking for in a victim. I think he used that to his advantage. He was a coworker with whom I worked a few years before that, just kind of an acquaintance. We connected on Facebook, and of course, he came in on his white horse and shining armor. And when I look back now, can I see every single red flag? Yes, I can. However, in the throes of it, I used every excuse why those red flags were not red flags. Anne: So at the time, were you also giving what you thought perhaps were valid reasons? Like maybe he had a traumatic childhood, or maybe this is new and we’re working on our communication skills. Only because you didn’t know it was abuse. My guess is, back then, had you been educated in abuse, you would have known what you were looking at. You just did not know what you didn’t know. Leslie: Exactly, 110%. https://youtu.be/QleyqobSRCQ He Hadn’t Ever Been Married Leslie: He was six years younger than I was and hadn’t ever married. I had been married for 27 years, with three kids. So when we started talking, I kind of saw him as a person who was totally enmeshed in his family. My enmeshed husband’s life had been wallowed up by his family. I obviously, as a doctor, it’s my job to fix things. I see broken things and try to help. He hadn’t been in stable relationships, because he had never met anyone like me. That was one of the wonderful lines that he always used, you know, and how everybody always cheated on him. Emotional abusers look for women who they can groom for their victims? I just hooked on to all that hook line and sinker. So of course, it was my initiation to get married. He didn’t want to get married. I’m sure everybody has either watched or knows about The Maid. And I will tell you, it took me a long time to get through that series. Anne: The Maid is a series on Netflix. I highly recommend it. It is triggery, especially depending on where you are in your healing process. But there are many super important principles that they bring up, and they cover all the basics. Leslie: My friend recommended it to me. She said, “I probably shouldn’t have recommended it so soon.” I was still fresh, and it took me a long time to watch it, all those red flags that I didn’t see. I continued with the relationship. We were actually in therapy before we ever got married. My 18 year old daughter, there was one point where she was like, mom, what are you doing? Struggles With Pornography Addiction: What Do Emotional Abusers Look For In Their Victims? Leslie: I just couldn’t see it. So it was just one of those things where it became, you know, years of being pushed down. And then I was diagnosed with breast cancer. And I did get him into therapy, probably nine months into our relationship. Because he had never been in therapy in his entire life. And he used those to check the boxes. It wasn’t until we got into a couples therapist that the relationship became even rockier, more abusive. He was more emotionally abusive, getting in your face. The one part I love in The Maid, the series, is when she says, but he’s never hit me. When I listened to that, that hit me to my core because I said the same thing. Well, he’s never hit me. It’s not abuse. He’s never hit me. What do emotional abusers look for in their victims? You know, I’m strong, independent, I run two hospitals, I’ve got six degrees, I’m not being abused. I was the one researching everything, I was the one always trying to find answers. The first time I caught him with exploiatative material was probably the first year we were together. He had probably over 50,000 pictures of naked women of all ages on his phone. Which ended up escalating into many other areas of, you know, finding him on dating websites and you name it. Anne: So when you say of various ages, here at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, we use the term child abuse material because that’s what it is. So did you also find that on his phone? Understanding Abuse & Addiction With Therapy Leslie: They were young looking. Yes. And then actually that was his M. O. was younger women. Maybe that’s what he was looking for in his victims? And he actually later in my journey with him, when we kind of identified a potential addiction. But honestly, now that I’m at where I’m in my life and journey, I think he just went along with that diagnosis. He went to an expensive inpatient treatment center for three weeks, and checked all his boxes. Because he knew that was the only way he could stay in, in the marriage. But yet, he continued to exhibit all the behaviors when he came out. He ended up getting fired from his job for harassment of a younger person, younger than 21. Anne: Let’s talk about the addiction recovery. When you went down that road for a minute. Did anyone in that space or at that clinic tell you that you are an abuse victim? Was abuse brought up? Leslie: I caught him in multiple online affairs. And we were at our last straw. We were seeing a couples counselor. The counselor goes, “I don’t understand what’s wrong with him.” He keeps getting caught. He knows what he’s got to lose. The counselor said it’s almost like he has an addiction or something. And I go, well, is there such a thing as addiction? And of course, then I started researching everything with my analytical brain. We started going down that path. We did start with CSAT counselors, which stands for Certified Addiction Therapist. He had one, I had one, he did end up doing one of the well known programs out in Los Angeles. Never said domestic violence, never said abuse. Leslie’s Realization & Empowerment Anne: Most of the time, you can’t have infidelity without emotional abuse and when people go down the addiction recovery route, they don’t hear the word abuse. Leslie: Nope, I agree. Anne: So, here at BTR.ORG, some people don’t agree with us, in fact many people don’t agree with us. You might not agree with us. Is exploitative material addictive? Sure, I prefer to define it as abusive behavior rather than an addiction. Leslie: Yes Anne: Because I think that gets to the heart of the matter. The whole addiction recovery complex does not view this man as an abuser. It concerns me greatly, because I do not think they’re addressing the correct thing. Leslie: I 100 percent agree with that. The two CSAT counselors that we were working with, his and mine, were two different ones. Mine actually had been married to an abuser, and she divorced hers. The other one that my ex had seen, she had stayed with hers. It’s actually interesting to see the dynamic of what they brought to each of the therapy sessions. Anne: Did she ever say, um, well, he’s checking boxes. That’s also called grooming. Did she ever bring that up? Leslie: She didn’t, she said, the whole trauma bonding thing. Anne: Can we talk about trauma bonding examples for a minute, Leslie? Leslie: Sure. Anne: I’m not sure if you’ve heard our episode about this. I made up a different term for it. Because I don’t like the word trauma bond, because it feels like you actually maybe have a bond. If trauma bond is useful to you, and it’s helped move you forward and get to safety, continue using it. I didn’t like it because it seemed like a lot of women, feel stuck, right? What Do Emotional Abusers Look For In Their Victims? The Manufactured Relational Tether Anne: They’re like, but I’m bonded to this person through this trauma. And so the term I invented, and we have a video on this that is amazing. So I’ll put that in this episode. So if you go to our website and find this episode, the video will be in there. I call it the manufactured relational tether. Actually, I think I’ve seen that. The reason I call it is because you think you’re bonded to them, but they are not bonded to you. And they have manufactured this tether to keep you stuck. And that video clearly shows it. Do you remember that video? This is one of the ways emotional abusers keep their victims stuck. Leslie: Yes, I do. Anne: What did you think of it? Leslie: I thought it was awesome, because I saw so many things. Like people who saw like our relationship from the start to the end. If they know now that we’ve divorced, they are just shocked. They’re like, Oh Mike, seemed like such an amazing person. He brought you flowers every day. I hate flowers now. Just an FYI to me, that is a huge trigger. Because when he would be trying to hook up with someone and get caught, guess what he did. Brought me flowers or he was abusive that night. That’s what he did the next day, brought me flowers. So flowers to me are a huge trigger. But those are all the outside things they manufacture to everybody else. So nobody will believe your story. Nobody will believe, because they just see this “awesome person.” They don’t see what goes on behind closed doors. They don’t see the reactions. The Turning Point: Breast Cancer Leslie: The reason I brought up my breast cancer story was that when I first started to say, okay, I think this is not going to work. But then I found out I had breast cancer. I’ve got three grown children who don’t have their own father still alive. And I was like, and now I’m going to leave them motherless. I cannot fight him and fight for my life. So I decided that all would go on the back burner while I fought for my life. I feel like that gave him a little more leeway to continue that whole, keeping me down more and more. And it wasn’t until after I’d been through the chemo, been through the double mastectomy. And had been through months and months of CSAT counseling, we had done a therapeutic separation. Once I got out of the situation, I woke up one morning and looked in the mirror. And I just didn’t recognize the person looking back at me anymore. I was like, wow, you would never in a million years allow this ever, ever in your life. How are you allowing this now? And that was when I started to take my power back. That’s when I started the change of not necessarily working toward our reconciliation. But working more on focusing on myself and what I needed. And if that happened, then it happened. And if it didn’t, I was okay with that. Anne: Let’s talk about the therapy disclosure. I think that is insane when you’re looking at abuse, right? In an ideal world, which never happens. What Do Emotional Abusers Look For In Their Victims? Leslie’s Academic and Professional Achievements Anne: It does happen here at BTR.ORG. That’s why I love BTR.ORG. It’s an amazing oasis of truth. But what should happen is the second you go in there, and it’s hard. Because it took you forever to figure out they were an abuser. So, why is a therapist smarter than you? They’re not, right? You, you have six degrees. Some emotional abusers look for very accomplished women to be their victims. By the way, can you just list your degrees real quick? Leslie: So I have a bachelor’s in nursing. I have a master’s in nursing with family practice, and a master’s in nursing and neonatal. I have a doctorate, and I just went back for a neonatal fellowship that I just finished last year. Anne: And you’re a medical doctor? Leslie: Yep. Anne: Okay. So you have your MD as well. Leslie: Yes. Anne: All right. And you run two hospitals. Okay, so Leslie is no dummy, people. So if you were like, why didn’t I see it? Why didn’t I know what was going on? And then Leslie is so smart that she starts researching things. And in this case, her research actually kept her in the abuse longer. Accidentally, right? It’s not your fault. But beca…

Full show notes at the publisher

Why Does My Ex Lie About What Happened? An Interview With Kate Moore Oct 17, 2023

Show notes

It’s super common for an emotional abuser to lie about his ex, but did you know that tradition is centuries old? If you’re wondering, “Why does my ex lie about what happened?” Here’s a bit of history you absolutely need to know. Why does my ex lie about what happened? Labeling a woman as crazy is a powerful tool that men have had in their arsenal for centuries. And it’s a little confusing: when a woman is clearly sane and healthy, why in the world would someone lie and say she’s crazy, unstable, and even dangerous? This is a form of emotional abuse. To discover if you’re experiencing any of the 19 types of emotional abuse, take this free emotional abuse quiz. This is WHY Your Ex Lies About You Rather than own up to his lies, some abusive men convince those in power that the victim is crazy. It isn’t hard to convince others that women are crazy. The odds are stacked against us. Kate Moore, best selling author talks about why abusive men lie about their ex’s. Transcript: Why Does My Ex Lie About What Happened? Anne: Kate Moore is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Radium Girls. It is a winner of the 2017 Goodreads Choice Award for Best History. And voted U. S. Librarian’s Favorite Nonfiction Book of 2017. And named the Notable Nonfiction Book of 2018 by the American Library Association. A British writer based in London, Kate writes across various genres and has had multiple titles on the Sunday Times bestseller list. Her latest book is The Woman They Could Not Silence. Welcome, Kate. Kate: Thank you so much for having me. Anne: It is such an honor to have you. Thank you so much for all your hard work, like bringing these issues to light for women all over the world. It’s really important, and I appreciate your work. Kate: It’s my honor to do it. And I have to thank you for the work you do. You do so much. What you’re doing is helping people. Having worked with survivors of domestic violence and abusive relationships, I know how important it is to have that support network. So thank you for inspiring people and supporting them through these difficult times. Anne: It’s an all hands on deck effort to stop abuse. And help women asking the question, Why does my ex lie about what happened? Kate: It needs to be across the size, you know, so you’re doing an awesome job. So thank you. Synopsis Of The Woman They Could Not Silence Anne: For those in our audience who may not be familiar with your book, without revealing too much, can you please provide us with a synopsis of your book, The Woman They Could Not Silence? Kate: It is my honor to introduce your listeners to The Woman They Could Not Silence. Her name is Elizabeth Packard. It’s not surprising if none of your listeners have heard her name before. Because as often happens to feisty women who stand up for themselves. History has chosen to commemorate instead those men who tried but failed to silence her. And Elizabeth’s story and voice have been lost in time. Her story starts on the cusp of the American Civil War in June 1860. It starts with Elizabeth, a 43 year old housewife and mother of six, lying in bed in her marital home. It starts with a simple question. What would happen if your husband could commit you to an insane asylum just because you disagreed with him? Anne: You know, that question is strangely relevant today. Why does my ex lie about what happened? Not that men commit their abuse victims to an insane asylum. But they are committing them metaphorically to other people, thinking they’re crazy. So this concept is relevant today to abuse victims. Anne: How did you come across Elizabeth’s story? Kate: How I came across Elizabeth’s story is a little bit topsy turvy. Because I decided what I wanted to write about first, before I even knew her name. So I wrote The Woman They Could Not Silence because of the Me Too movement. And you probably remember how incredible that fall was, when everywhere women were speaking up against abuse and harassment. The Silencing Of Women Through History Kate: Crucially, people listened and believed us. And that got me thinking, well why has it taken so long, because it’s not like the fall of 2017 was the first time. That people had spoken out about these things. People took us seriously for the first time. I thought that for centuries, whenever women used our voices, we are called crazy. That is something that resonates with your audience so much. Because gaslighting and calling you mad is going on in relationships every single day. It happens also, I think, on a sort of political stage, you only have to look at Nancy Pelosi or any sort of public female political figures. She is called crazy because she speaks up and uses her voice. I decided to write about the way women are silenced through our mental health. I searched for a woman to whom that had happened, and found Elizabeth’s story. Elizabeth’s story is amazing, not only because she survives this experience. Her husband dispatches her to an asylum. Even though she’s sane. What’s incredible about it is that through that crucible of suffering, she actually becomes the woman they could not silence. She finds her voice, and she uses it to change the world. Anne: I’m getting chills. Like, seriously. This is one of the ways abusers gaslight women. Kate: She is a seriously impressive person. I think for me, she is the most inspiring and resilient woman I’ve ever encountered. Because everyone told her she was mad. Her husband, her doctor, her community. But Elizabeth knew she was not. Her husband lied about her. Why Does My Ex Lie About What Happened: Elizabeth’s Famous Quote Kate: A famous quote of hers is, “I, though a woman, have just as good a right to my opinion as my husband has.” But just because she believed that. Because she asserted herself, and what she believed in. In terms of the science of the age, it was enough to have her sent away to an insane asylum. Anne: That is just, I don’t know, I’m feeling a lot of emotion right now. Not just for her, but all the women, throughout time. Who we stand on their shoulders, right? Like for Elizabeth, like the work she did, just for standing up for herself. She stood up for all of us. All of us who ask the question, why does my husband lie about small things, and big things. Kate: Yes, completely. I think she is. Even though she herself was exceptional, I think she is also an everywoman. I think she saw herself in that way. She meets the other women in the asylum to whom the same thing happened. Husbands and fathers sent them away. You know, these are women who simply have defied domestic control. They’re causing too much trouble. They’re just themselves, frankly, and that’s enough to get them dispatched. She meets these women, and she calls them sisters. And what’s remarkable about Elizabeth is that she could have saved herself countless times in her story. She could have got out early, she could have done enough to help her own situation. https://youtube.com/shorts/KrRxSCGxPys Then he determined that, you know, she wasn’t going anywhere. She was here to make a difference, and she was going to take every single woman with her as she fights for freedom and independence. And that fight continues even outside the brick walls of an insane asylum. Elizabeth’s Fight For Freedom Relates To Modern Abuse Victims Kate: She becomes a political force, and she has made the world better for all of us. Not just the sisters she personally met, but for every sister in America, every sister across the world. Elizabeth spearheaded a campaign to make things better for us all. Anne: This book, which I’m sure now everyone is like, how do I get my hands on it? You can go to our books page. We have a curated list of all the books we recommend there, it is on that list. Our links take you straight to Amazon. So I’m sure you can find it on Amazon. Our community consists of women surviving narcissistic abuse in their relationships. People call them crazy and all kinds of things. Like gold diggers sometimes, or that they want to ruin their families, or crazy stuff that is not at all true, and particularly they suffer from emotional, psychological, and spiritual abuse. Most innocent bystanders, they do not see an abusive man calling her crazy as abuse. They just perceive it as, “His side of the story.” So, in terms of Elizabeth’s experience, how might they relate with Elizabeth in this way? Kate: I think Elizabeth’s story will resonate so much. And I actually want to share a quote with you from Elizabeth herself, because I think she grasped exactly that situation that you’re describing. Elizabeth’s Anticipation Of Modern Laws Kate: I think she almost anticipated some of the laws that we’re finally seeing today in the UK. For example, there’s now a law about coercive control. Elizabeth wrote, and this is back in the 1860s. She said, “When a woman is brought before our man courts and our man juries. And has no bruises, wounds, or marks of violence upon her person to show as a ground of her complaint. It is hard for them to realize that she has any reason to appeal to them for protection. While at the same time, her whole physical system may be writhing in agony from spirit wrongs.” Elizabeth understood it wasn’t necessarily about physical abuse. A man trying to crush your spirit, a man trying to dismiss what you’re thinking and feeling. In itself, it is enough to make you writhe in agony. She appreciated that because this was an invisible abuse, most people didn’t credit it. They didn’t give it the time of day, the attention it deserved. And the protection that women deserved from these abusers. She was anticipating all of that in the 1860s. Anne: Did Elizabeth ever go through a period where she wondered if she was crazy, where she thought, maybe it is me. Maybe I am crazy. Kate: I think remarkably, she didn’t, actually. Her strength of spirit, that sort of confidence in herself and her self belief, is actually what gets her through everybody telling her the rest. Why Does My Ex Lie About What Happened: Elizabeth’s Mental Strength Kate: What I will say though is that she’s been shut up in an insane asylum. She’s moved to the worst wards. Because she calls out the doctor on his misogynist, abusive regime. So she’s moved from a pleasant ward to a ward, as they would describe it at the time, full of maniacs. She is locked up with no promise of release. No hope of ever getting out or ever seeing her children again. And there are moments, she writes, where she comes near the precipice of madness. Not because she was mad originally, but simply because it’s so hard for anyone to endure that continued abuse. And endure that lack of hope without it affecting your mental health. So she wobbled sometimes on her journey, but I think ultimately the faith in herself and in God is partly what gets her through. What I will say is that she does go on a journey. And something that resonated with me is what she talks about at the start of the book. Feeling small, feeling that nothing she said was worth saying or hearing. And I know I’ve been that woman. To see Elizabeth grow from that position to someone who eventually becomes a political campaigner. Someone who takes on her husband, takes on her doctor, takes on the world, and to have confidence in herself and in her voice. That journey is so inspirational for me. And others as they wonder, why their ex is lying about what happened. Empowering Victims To Help Others Anne: That sounds so exciting. When victims think, I want to help other victims! Maybe be a therapist, or a coach. I want to encourage everyone to take a deep breath, and think about when you were 8 or 9, what did you want to be? Did you want to be an attorney? Did you want to be a florist? We don’t all have to be a therapist, to help victims. Like you could help victims as a florist, or as a horse trainer. You can advocate for women in anything you do. There are people like Elizabeth, maybe like me or you, who have made our life mission to directly advocate. Through politics or a podcast or other ways. But I want victims to know that you don’t have to run for office, be a therapist or something to affect the world. The best way to make the world a more peaceful place is to get yourself to safety. No matter what your husband or ex is lying about. Kate: Yeah, absolutely. I think that advice about trying to center again on who you are and what you’re passionate about is so important. Because I think often when people have been in those abusive relationships, the abuse wears them down. Their very person is called out so much, is questioned so much that you question yourself. Actually, to try and re- center it on who you are and what’s important to you is a really important thing. And I think that’s something Elizabeth Packard experiences. She has to go back to basics. And experience of being locked up in that insane asylum for years. It forces her to confront who she is and what matters. Elizabeth’s Transformation Kate: Ultimately, she decides that this thing is not the worst thing that could happen. That this thing is actually the best thing that could happen to her. Because she says, “The worst my enemies can do, they have done, and I fear them no more. I am now free to be true and honest. No opposition can overcome me.” It’s like she has to hit rock bottom, but from that she can then rise like a Phoenix. To become the woman she was always destined to be. Anne: That is so inspiring. And I want to tell all our listeners that you have your own destiny and mission. You can rise from the ashes and live a life of peace. In Elizabeth’s case, it sounds like the most amazing journey and adventure she was on. Suffering the results of her husband’s lies. Kate: Yes, yes, I think it was ultimate, and it’s one of those strange things, isn’t it? Had none of this horrific stuff ever happened to her. She would have continued in her home, being a homemaker, mother and wife. Because of these horrifying circumstances, it actually leads her to this completely different public life. Where she travels from coast to coast across America. Changing laws, minds and hearts as she goes. Inspiring women and inspiring men to help women. And none of that would have happened had her husband not tried to silence her. So, good can come from the bad. I guess there is another chapter that comes after it. And it’s a chapter that you can write yourself and make yourself the heroine of that story. The heroine of whatever journey you’re going to go on. Protecting Women from ex’s who lie: Elizabeth’s Legal Impact Anne: I feel like that now in my own personal journey from recovering from abuse. I feel like my life has become this amazing adventure, and I feel immense gratitude for what I’ve been through. I also want to acknowledge that many of our listeners are in this place where they can’t even fathom sunlight again. There is just a tunnel with no light at the end of it. My ex lies about what happened still. And it feels almost offensive. When people say, I’m so grateful because I’ve been there, or it’s like, why would I be grateful? So, to have examples like Elizabeth, especially from the 1800s, is so inspiring. You talked about the laws that Elizabeth had an influence over, and some of the work that she did here in America. For American women today, or women all over, do we have a direct benefit that we didn’t even realize we had from Elizabeth’s life work? Kate: Definitely, she was born in Massachusetts. The story takes place in Illinois, because they move west at some point during their marriage. But, yeah, she was born and grew up in Massachusetts. I think many people don’t realize how unjust laws used to be for wives. Even today, we see that society has rules that mean women are on the back foot. And are not the people with power. Coverture was a law. Which was inherited from England in the 1100s. It was in operation in America at the time Elizabeth was sen…

Full show notes at the publisher

If Your Husband Has No Empathy – Norine’s Story Oct 10, 2023

Show notes

If you’re like many women in the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Community, you’ve spent hours scouring the internet, researching why your husband has no empathy for you. Is it mental illness? A history of trauma? Is it physiological? Due to addiction or pornography use? Or is it a choice? Maybe he’s emotionally abusive? To discover if he’s using any one of the 19 types of emotional abuse, take our free emotional abuse quiz. Nora is on the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast with Anne, taking a deep dive into why some men abuse their partners. And refuse to connect in a compassionate, healthy way. All The (Wrong) Reasons… Many women in t have tried to find the cause for their partner’s cold, distant, abusive behaviors. That do not include abuse – hopeful that their partner can change or be fixed so that the marriage can stay intact. Therapists, clergy, internet research and others may point them in the direction of: Mental illness Addiction Alcoholism Anger problems Pornography use Personality disorders Childhood trauma Stress Poor examples of marriage/relationships While abusive men may have any combination of these. Abuse is a choice that men make – not a condition that they cannot control. So alcoholism, for example, may exacerbate abuse, but it is not the cause of abuse. Abusing You Is His Choice: Now What? Understanding that he is choosing to abuse you. Despite whatever his “reason” is or a “reason” his therapist may give you. Victims may feel trapped, wondering how to proceed. When a disorder, addiction, or other external issue is to blame, victims get distracted from their own emotional safety. Women seeking education regarding an abusive partner may benefit from these resources: Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast Transcript: What To Do When Your Husband Has No Empathy Anne: I have a member of our community on today’s episode. I’m going to call her Norine. She’s a victim of betrayal and emotional, psychological, and financial abuse. Her ex-husband is a former police officer and serving a sentence in federal prison after a child abuse material conviction. Sometimes people call that child pornography, but we know it’s child abuse material. Her ex-husband staunchly denied he knew anything about the abuse material on his computer, and insisted she was responsible for “planting it there.” Welcome. Norine. Norine: Thank you so much, glad to be here. Anne: As women are trying to figure out what is going on, like is he an addict, does he have a personality disorder? Sometimes CSAT therapists start start going down that path, so I think many women will be interested in your story. And the ways you have processed this. Norine: I’ve thought, you know, personality disorder, narcissism, abuser, and he was abusive. But at the time, I’d only done as much research as I could and loved him for as long as I wanted to fix things. He was involved in a shooting incident at work. As a person in law enforcement, I assumed PTSD, but he said, “No, you’re my problem.” Therapy & Misguided Support With Assessment Norine: So, my ex got his own therapist, wonderful, through work. He told them, I don’t need support, I need this because my wife is so awful to me. My husband had no empathy. That therapist even called me in to talk to me and didn’t believe me. He dismissed me. He invited me in and then didn’t want to hear from me. I think, again, he was looking for me to be the problem. There’s something wrong with her. He spent our entire marriage thinking any emotion I had was wrong, so I was just whining. And didn’t seem to understand that I had feelings, he had no empathy. He wasn’t capable of compromising often. Context blindness was another aspect, it was the forest for the trees issue, which he couldn’t see. He couldn’t see what I call the connective tissue between decisions we made or things we were arguing about. He cannot take responsibility for his own actions. That’s one of the primary issues. He believes he’s always right, despite plenty of evidence. I was hurt by the time he spent on his computer, even if I wasn’t aware of what he was doing. I was just trying to, it’s what everybody views as a label, but I wanted an answer, a reason. So I started with personality disorder. I said, can you look into this? I want to help him, I want our family back together. This wasn’t to label him and… Anne: It was to solve a problem. Norine: Right, the assessment I booked it and I paid for it. We drove to the assessment together. I went home with him. He Received A Diagnosis Norine: And yes, buying into this idea that oh, it’s a disorder. We can address this now, because we know what it is. I hadn’t identified it as abuse, from my point of view at that point. My husband has no empathy. He blames me for everything, what I’m not doing. I didn’t see it as abuse. There was no discussion of that, and I wasn’t surprised for that to be the case. Because law enforcement chose this therapist. And that’s another bullet on my list of people who weren’t safe people to go to, because they exacerbated the problem. Anne: The things that you just said on that list are the traits of abusers who do not have a disorder. When he received his diagnosis, how did he think about it? Norine: We didn’t talk about it much, so I don’t know fully. But the next day it was, you know, this is not me. You’re just looking for an excuse to deflect and minimize your responsibility for the problem we have. And the situation we’re in now. It was right back to the script he followed for the entire time. That I had done something wrong, and I needed to toe the line and get my behavior back in order. So that we could put our marriage back together again, and that I wouldn’t take responsibility. Anne: Yeah. Searching For The Cause When Your Husband Has No Empathy Anne: This is something that I think is super important for every single listener of this podcast. I say it repeatedly, but I want it to hit home for everyone. It does not matter what the cause is, if it’s abusive to you, it’s abusive. It breaks our hearts, because it could be something that is completely not their fault. Someone could be a super healthy person and get like a head injury, for example. And their head injury alters their personality and causes them to be abusive. In that case, you can, with compassion, look at them. And say, this is such an unfortunate situation that they had this head injury and it caused them to be abusive. But that doesn’t mean the abuse is okay. If you’re harmed, it’s okay to get to safety regardless of the cause. That’s really hard, because women think if they can figure out why he’s doing these harmful behaviors to their family. This is a powerful truth about emotional abuse. If they understand why their husband is not empathetic. They might not use the word abuse, they think. If they can figure out why, then we can solve it. As you tried to get help and explain what had happened to people at the time, you didn’t have the words. And so the thing you were talking about the most was a diagnosis. Norine: Yes, and thank you for saying that. Because if there’s one take home, let’s say six years out from the major crisis. Is that I have come to understand it’s abuse. I amplify that message that it’s abuse, and you need to take care of you and your children. He Plays The Blame Game & Seeking Answers Anne: Many men would not go in for a psych evaluation, or some sort of testing. So what prompted the test to get a diagnosis? Norine: It was, of course, my idea. Because I came out of our second couple’s therapist of three where the therapist told him, “Her needs were important to you, and you wanted to honor those.” And his immediate response was, well, no. I thought she was going to leave me, so I had to. It was so devoid of any sort of care for me, or even an awareness that he should be at least putting on a show that he cared. And it just hit me wrong, and that’s where I went down the rabbit hole and hit on the term alexithymia. Which is this difficulty connecting with the feelings of others and identifying them. So I pushed, and he was I think so wholly convinced that I was the problem, that he was willing to do that. Because it would prove that I was the issue, and there was nothing wrong with him. The fall apart stage was after the birth of my second child. When I decided I wanted a third child. And he didn’t want one. It was the same fight as through all those years. But I held my ground with what I wanted for the first time, thinking that surely this time I will convince him. He did agree. And so I got pregnant. So we were on a family vacation, and he was cold and distant. My husband was so cruel had no empathy. Then said, “You blackmailed me into having this child, and I can’t accept it.” And so here I was pregnant with two little guys, and he was ready to move out. Discovering The Truth Norine: Honestly, I did not learn until two days after I testified at his federal trial that confirmed 100 percent, that he was cheating. But when he left the house, he originally said I was sticking him with the children as much as possible. At every spare moment he had, and he didn’t want them. I said, okay, I’ll keep them. Then suddenly he wanted them. And he was taking my children off to hang out with his mistress. I suspected, but I kept putting it aside because I wanted to believe it wasn’t happening, and we could still fix the marriage. That was months and months before I got really suspicious. He said we didn’t have enough money for a third child, but he spent a lot of money. That’s when I logged into his computer looking for evidence of whatever was going on with him. And that’s when I found quite a bit of exploitative material. And then I thought it was being deleted from the hard drive. So I set it aside, turned it off, disconnected it, and still wanted to work on the marriage. His behavior was then erratic. Through this whole period, he would disappear with my kids. And that’s how he took them someplace, and I thought he was taking them for good. He was just doing various suspicious things. Like putting a trash can in front of my car, in the driveway in front of the garage door. So I would have to get out and move it when I opened the garage door. Or trash the house and say the dogs spread garbage around. So he was starting to get really manipulative in that way. When Your Husband Has No Empathy: Forensic Evidence & Legal Battles Norine: Ultimately, I said to myself, I have to investigate what’s on this computer. This is where I think it connects with what you talk about here on your podcast. I thought surely the courts will say, well, this man has tens of thousands of images on his computer, that he’s downloading all the time. He can’t be an effective parent, and I would get custody and the kids would be safe. So I sent the computer off for forensics, still not letting myself believe any more than moments at a time. And it came back with CSAM on it, my husband got caught using CSAM. Anne: So CSAM is the term Child Abuse Material, So how did your experiences with DV and counseling professionals, law enforcement, the courts exacerbate your trauma? Norine: In so many ways. Whenever I think of this now that I’ve been listening to your podcast, I think of one episode you did and I’ve listened to them out of sequence. So I don’t know how long ago it was, but it was when you were so raw, honest, and vulnerable. About having been in court and having gotten nothing of what you wanted and needed for you and your kids in terms of custody. That feeling came right to the surface for me. Again, I don’t think I cried so hard as I have in family courts. Because people have not recognized this idea of describing these experiences, and not believed by friends, family, and professionals. And I faced it over and over again. Emotional Turmoil In Family Courts Norine: When he was arrested, the people in his department went to the FBI agent, and they said, oh, you know, of course she set him up, right? He didn’t do this. And the FBI agent said, go read the filing documents. And then I think some of them believed, but they weren’t a resource for me. I even have one domestic violence counselor, because I’ve been to several of the centers in my various towns, and one said, oh, well it’s very nuanced. Because I went to them at one point thinking, am I the abuser? Is this all my fault? Did I do something wrong? Oh, it can be very nuanced. Because she didn’t hear anything I said that made her say, oh, yes, he’s abusive. So there I was already in this fog of self doubt, and that set me back. The courts just don’t have space to listen to any of the categories you discuss in your podcast. They’re so focused on, this must be two parties who contribute equally to a problematic dynamic. And they’re both acting childish or irresponsibly. We’re just going to shut this down. Because the best thing for children, except for extreme circumstances that we can’t identify here. Is their access to both parents. Autism doesn’t make people abusive. It also doesn’t make people bad parents. It has to be about the behaviors and traits, and I’m not sure I ever got that bulleted list together for myself. Of what is going on here that makes him unsafe, because it was so nebulous. That’s the reason why I’m not believed. A Husband with No Empathy Neglects the Children Norine: If I say, he called me up and had custody of the kids, and he hadn’t fed them dinner at 8 o’clock. My husband has no empathy for the kids either. They were all under the age of 7. People were like, well, that’s not child abuse to not feed them until 8 o’clock at night. I just kind of felt stuck at the how do I demonstrate that this is problematic behavior regardless of its label. And then I got the deus ex machina situation, well, he’s been lifted out of here. He’s clearly unsafe because he’s looking at CSAM, but I have colleagues whose partners don’t do that, and they’re just as unsafe in other ways. Anne: Yeah, a lot of people said, oh, your ex got arrested for abuse. I have a guilty verdict with a 14 month probation and a protective order. And the courts didn’t see that as dangerous around children either. It’s so interesting when you try to define these sort of psychological and emotional abusive things, they’re like, well, he just isn’t into trombone, when I say he will not support my son in his trombone. Things that when you’re in it, you know, how abusive it is. But from the outside, they just think, oh, people parent differently. There are different styles. So it’s also interesting that there’s no abuse diagnosis. There’s no space for that. Even though the courts say there is. It’s crazy making for those of us who have tried to get our kids to safety. Courts Don’t Understand Emotional & Psychological Abuse Norine: You know, I read the entire transcript three years out. I testified, and then I promptly left the courtroom, never to return because I didn’t want to hear it. But I felt ready to read it and understand what I’m up against when he’s released. At a sentencing hearing, the federal court judge who sat there and heard all his testimony and all the lies he told. That’s all explicitly on record. You perjured yourself, you blamed your ex wife, you are at fault and you will not admit it. During his house arrest period, he was not to go near me or the children. In the next breath, he said, I released this hold. You can have unsupervised visitation with your children if the family courts allow it. Anne: And the family courts don’t understand emotional and psychological abuse. They don’t understand these issues of coercion, safety, unless they’re in prison or there’s some kind of severe bruise. Norine: Right, it wasn’t enough that the content he was watching, I will not get graphic, but incest was a theme. So how would you say my children are safe? Anne: I had a guardian ad litem look over it when I…

Full show notes at the publisher

3 Ways Your Husband May Be Gaslighting You with Dr. Robin Stern Oct 03, 2023

Show notes

“Is my husband gaslighting me?” If you’ve asked yourself this question, here are three types of gaslighting to watch for. Dr. Robin Stern, director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, details the three types of gaslighters and the tactics they use to make YOU feel crazy. To discover if you’re experiencing this type of gaslighting, take our free emotional abuse test. The Glamorous Gaslighter The glamorous gaslighter grooms victims by using manipulative kindness – a tactic that lures victims into believing they’re loved and safe. The Good Guy Gaslighter The good guy gaslighter uses covert abuse to condition everyone, including the victim, into believing that the victim is the problem, rather than his deceit and manipulation. The Intimidator Gaslighter The intimidator gaslighter uses overt verbal abuse, bullying, and physical abuse. If you need support, attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY. I Think My Husband Is Gaslighting Me Transcript: Is My Husband Gaslighting Me? Anne: I am delighted to have Dr. Robin Stern on today’s episode. She is the co-founder and associate director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. And a senior consultant at the Yale New Haven Hospital. She is a licensed psychoanalyst with 30 years of experience treating individuals, couples, and families. She’s the author of The Gaslight Effect, How to Spot and Survive Hidden Manipulation Others Use to Control Your Life, and The Gaslight Effect Recovery Guide Your Personal Journey Toward Healing from Emotional Abuse. Dr. Stern has been a guest on many local and national radio shows and has traveled widely to lecture on emotional intelligence, women in leadership, and relational bullying. Welcome, Dr. Stern. Dr. Robin Stern: Thank you so much, Anne. Thank you so much for having me on this show and for doing this work to help women. I’m delighted. Anne: Let’s start with the definition of gaslighting, because a husband gaslighting is crazy making. Since you’re the gaslighting expert. Dr. Robin Stern: So gaslighting is a form of manipulation in a power dynamic. Where the person more powerful seeks to sow seeds of doubt in the person less powerful, to lead them to question their memory, sanity, and character. Anne: What is their intent in doing this? Dr. Robin Stern: Most of the time gaslighters intent is to destabilize their gaslightee. To cause them to wonder if they’re going crazy, and stay connected to them. So that they, the gaslighter, become the source of stability and reality. And undermine the ground they’re standing on. Anne: Are you familiar with the Allegory of the Cave by Plato? Dr. Robin Stern: Yes, of course. Using The Allegory Of The Cave To Describe Gaslighting Anne: We use that allegory of the cave quite often, and instead of having the fire, and then people walking in between the fire with the shadows. We make the man the fire itself, and he’s holding up these objects. So basically, he wants to be the person who defines reality. Oh, one other thing, Dr. Stern. I talk in a gender segregated way, because this particular podcast is specifically for women who have been emotionally and psychologically abused by men. Dr. Robin Stern: That works for me, because even though gaslighting happens in any relationship, the pairing I’ve seen most often is where the man is the gaslighter and the woman is the gaslightee. Anne: So we use that allegory where he is setting himself up as the person who’s defining reality, keeping her oppressed, and stuck. And that’s interesting that you also say they want to define reality for this person. Dr. Robin Stern: More than that, in a moment of feeling out of control, a gaslighter will go to gaslighting to feel more cohesive, grounded, and in control. And so it’s not just, I want to do this. It’s I need to do this to feel in control of the moment and the relationship. Anne: Control, it always comes back to that. I have heard some people say, “Well, everyone gaslights, but just some people are more dangerous than others.” This example that maybe a mom might gaslight a child into, like, eating a salad. What would be the main difference between telling a child, like, “Oh, of course you like vegetables. Eat your vegetables.” When they’re like, I don’t like vegetables. What would be the difference between that and someone intentionally deceitful? The Husband Gaslighting Her Is Intentionally Deceitful Dr. Robin Stern: Just what you said. There is an intent to deceive to maintain control with a husband gaslighting.. And most importantly, it becomes the core dynamic of the relationship. In a moment, a mom might gaslight a child either to eat a salad or eat their vegetables. Or my favorite is when you go into a grocery store and you see a mom grab the child’s hand and say, “You’re not hungry, you’re tired.” Sometimes you’ll see a kid saying, I don’t know, “I’m not, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not, I’m really hungry.” And then the mom says it again. I don’t know, maybe you’re right, maybe I’m tired. So, the message is not just vegetables are good for you, or you’re not hungry, you’re tired. It’s, you don’t know what you feel. I know what you feel. In that way, it’s similar to more diabolical gaslighting, if you will. For the most part, I would say there is not an intent when parents are gaslighting to cause harm. I’m guilty of it myself, I’m sure. My kids, who are grown up now, will once in a while say, uh huh, I think you’re trying to gaslight me. But in the gaslight or gaslightee dynamic, that causes people pain. That causes people to feel like their souls are being destroyed and their identity is being destroyed. There is that intent to destabilize someone and lead someone to deny their own reality. Even something they actually saw or heard in favor of the lie or the made up reality of the gaslighter. So the gaslighter can control the reality. Men who are, for example, having an affair or seeking pornography to gratify themselves. Those are things that most men don’t want their partners to know about. Lies & Diversion Away From What Is Really Happening Dr. Robin Stern: So they will lie, and then they will gaslight. So, the wife or girlfriend can be kept off track of what’s going on. It’s very common. “So, honey, you know, I haven’t been able to reach you when you say you’re working late at the office. Like, I’m nervous. What’s going on? Are you seeing someone? Are you doing something? It’s just not been …, so honey, what’s wrong with you?” The response is, “Why are you so paranoid?” And that happens once, and maybe the woman even thinks. You know, I am feeling a little paranoid. It still doesn’t answer where he was, so of course it already threw her off track. But by the second time, or the third time, or the nth time he says, you’re paranoid. When she asks him a question he does not want to answer. The gaslightee thinks to herself, maybe he’s right. Maybe that is a problem for me, and maybe that is our problem. Anne: That I’ve been so paranoid that I don’t trust him. If maybe I trusted him more, we would have a better relationship. Dr. Robin Stern: And we wouldn’t be having these arguments. Anne: Exactly, when reality is, you wouldn’t get any arguments if he was not having an affair. Dr. Robin Stern: Exactly. Anne: But you don’t know that, yeah. Because of the husband gaslighting. Dr. Robin Stern: And one case in particular that I’m thinking about, one man told his wife that It was her fault when she finally found out that he was having the affair. Is My Husband Gaslighting? Yes, The Goal Posts Always Move Dr. Robin Stern: He said, well of course I’m having an affair, because you won’t travel with me on my business trips. She was devastated, but couldn’t believe she couldn’t convince me that he was right. Because, of course, it becomes a closed loop. Like, if she traveled with him, he wouldn’t be having the affair. So, isn’t it her fault? Because she didn’t travel with him. Anne: It’s also a dangerous loop. Because, let’s say she starts traveling with him. And then he might say, “Well, when you travel with me, you need to be at the hotel at 8 when I get back, and we need to have sex that night.” https://youtube.com/shorts/5khd-xStltQ And she’s like, “Wait a minute. We got in a fight. I don’t want to.” And he might be like, “Even though you travel with me, now that you’re not having sex with me on this trip.” They’re always going to move the goal posts. Her husband gaslighting her will continue. Dr. Robin Stern: Right. Anne: So tell me about the three types of gaslighters. 1. The Glamour Gaslighter Dr. Robin Stern: The three types of gaslighters I identified in my 30 years: 1. The glamour gaslighter, who is like it sounds. He brings glamour into your life, buys you gifts, showers you with love and affection, and tells you you’re amazing. He makes you feel like the most special person in the world, and that the two of you are soulmates. You have something so special. Then your husband gaslighting you will start. After he has been missing for a couple of days. Or after he won’t answer your questions or has lied to you. And you’re feeling confused and crazy and complaining about that. He will come in and shower you with everything I just said. How amazing you are. Don’t you know how much I love you? Oh my goodness. Don’t focus on that. Tonight we’re going to the theater. We’re going out for dinner. I love you. This is candlelight. This is magic for us. Any way that he can use love with a capital L, romance and his big personality to distract you from what’s just happened. So, what you’re focusing on, then, when you look at the picture of your lover, husband, or boyfriend. You’re focusing on, like, yeah, he did that, and that totally sucks. But he told me I’m the most special person he’s ever met, and he adores me, and I can feel our connection. That connection’s amazing, so I’m just gonna move on from this. Anne: We call that grooming too. That’s the grooming part of the abuse. Dr. Robin Stern: Of course, like getting into a cult, right? Anne: Right, yeah, gaslighting is such a perfect word for when you feel like you’re losing touch with reality. But it also covers grooming, emotional and psychological abuse. It overlaps. 2. The Good Guy Gaslighter Dr. Robin Stern: You know, people are not born gaslighters. But it works. It’s effective in keeping somebody connected to you, and keeping someone dependent on you. And looking to you for a standard setting, for reality setting. Because when you are feeling anxious and don’t know what reality is. If you’re with somebody who’s telling you that they are certain of what reality is, you don’t learn what reality is. The second type of gaslighter is the good guy gaslighter. If that good guy gaslighter were right here with us now, he would be affable and pleasant. And he’s someone who people like. It’s very accommodating. Even in the way he approaches you and talks through things. It’s hard to spot the good guy gaslighter because often you get what you want on the surface. For example, if the woman, let’s call her Janine, decides she wants to visit her family for the weekend, and her husband, Doug, doesn’t want to go. And says, “I don’t want to go, and I don’t know why you want to go, we never have a good time.” They start like that, but he’s pleasant, and they continue to talk about what they think and feel about going to visit. And the conversation is going on for hours and hours, and she’s exhausted from it. She says, “I just want to go.” And so finally he says, all right, we’re just going to go. They go. And while they’re there, he’s basically pouting and not engaging in conversation. And then in the car ride home, he’s basically punishing her and telling her they didn’t want us to be there, and it wasn’t fun anyway, and it was basically miserable. Is Her Husband Gaslighting when he Punishes Her When She Visits Her Family? Dr. Robin Stern: But at night, when she gets into bed and is exhausted, she doesn’t want to be intimate. I’m just not feeling great about this weekend. He says, I don’t understand. What’s your problem? You got exactly what you wanted. So he’s manipulating her into feeling like, What is wrong with me? He’s right, I got to go. Never mind the conversation about whether they should go, or whether she’s wanted. Or whether it will be good lasted so long that she was depleted and exhausted. Never mind that he punished her when they were there and on the way home. But there’s something wrong with her for complaining. Exactly, I just hear you breathing. Anne: Frustrating, right? Dr. Robin Stern: And then you say to your friends, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Because he does everything I want I get my way, but I’m just not happy. 3. The Intimidator Gaslighter Dr. Robin Stern: And then, of course, there’s the intimidator gaslighter. The intimidator gaslighter is just, as it says, somebody who’s a bully, somebody who uses verbal abuse. Somebody who might be on the threshold of using physical violence. And like in the example I shared earlier. Somebody said, I don’t know if I’m being abused Dr. Stern, because I came home late from work and my husband doesn’t like it when I come home late. So he feels abused, and he tells me I’m abusing him. Then when he puts his hand around my throat or is physically violent with me, he says he’s not abusing me during that time. He’s just reacting to my abuse. And so… Anne: Even without the physical assault. Dr. Robin Stern: …telling you you’re a moron, and being critical, screaming and cornering you perhaps. I was studying subjectivity and reality at that time, and several people in my class were talking about how you can’t tell someone they’re not being abusive. Like, I couldn’t tell someone, they said. They’re not being abusive, because the guy felt abused. So she maybe was abusing him because he felt abused. We got caught up in this high level conversation about it. I ended up saying in class, and along with several of my colleagues supporting me. Whatever you want to call it, this woman has to move out of that house. Because she’s in danger, with her husband gaslighting her. If you’re saying she ought to stay till they figure it out, which is what I heard from them, I just don’t agree. Maybe this is a confusing example. But there’s something important about that, people will try to convince you of realities that may be different than the way you see the world. Some Abusers Feel Oppressed When They Can’t Do What They Want With Impunity Anne: Well, that are frankly false. She might be like, why aren’t we having sex? Are you having an affair? Or why aren’t we having sex? Is it because you’re masturbating to pornography? And he’ll be like, no, it’s because you’re emotionally abusive to me. He might say something like that, which is not true, she isn’t. She’s asking questions, curious, and wondering what’s going on, because she genuinely cares. She’s trying to figure it out. We have found that these types of psychological abusers feel oppressed when they can’t do what they want with impunity. It actually feels oppressive to them, because they’re like, she’s stopping me from soliciting prostitutes. It feels like she’s oppressing me, not realizing that he actually oppresses her with her husband gaslighting as well. The reversal of victim and perpetrator roles when perpetrators attempt to defend themselves is gaslighting in and of itself. It’s also abuse. So when people listen to these two people and they’re like, “Oh, we don’t know who the abuser is because she says he’s abusive and he says she’s abusive. We can’t figure it out.” I want to say she’s telling the truth. She is being abused. And his accusations that she is abusive are abuse. With her husband gaslighting. He’s doing it to destabilize the situation, like you talked about before. Dr. Robin Stern: Absolutely, it reminds me of when I was in high school. People would sit around at the end of the party, and people woul…

Full show notes at the publisher

What Is Victim Blaming? 7 Ways They Blame You Sep 26, 2023

Show notes

What is victim blaming? It’s when someone blames you instead of the person who harmed you. It’s a tactic used, not only by abusers, but also by everyone else. Victim blaming invalidates our experience as victims of emotional and psychological abuse and coercion. If you’re being blamed for your husband’s lies, manipulation, and infidelity, you need support. Attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY. To discover if you are a victim of emotional abuse, take thisfree emotional abuse quiz. 7 Victim Blaming Examples In this episode, to answer the question, “What is victim blaming?” We’ll highlight seven victim blaming examples: Connection is the solution to addiction Reactive Abuse Drama Triangle Trauma Bonding Stockholm Syndrome Learned Helplessness Pro-dependency The Addiction Recovery Complex uses many of these victim blaming tropes to harm women. Here’s everything you need to know about victim blaming. Transcript: What Is Victim Blaming? Anne: Kate, you’re a member of our amazing community, and you see these themes come up over and over. Anne: Let’s start with number one, connection is the solution to addiction. What is victim blaming about this? 1: Connection Is The Solution To Addiction Kate: “The opposite of addiction is connection,” that is all crap. Connection will not heal or fix them. It’s not going to be, “If I connect with him more, he’s not going to be abusive.” That does not happen. They gave the example of rats addicted to cocaine. Then they put them in the other rat park, and suddenly the rat didn’t want the cocaine anymore. He wanted to be with other rats. That doesn’t happen in reality. If it did, most of our husbands would not be abusive. Because we’ve given them all the connection, attachment, and love in the world. And it doesn’t work. Anne: It doesn’t work because they’re not connect-to-able. It’s like you’re velcro and capable of connecting, and they’re a rock. But after that Ted Talk, where the guy says the opposite of addiction is connection. So many wives were like, oh, I can do that. “I can connect with him more.” That can solve our problem. This is what women need to know about their abusive husband’s therapist. Kate: It’s not even what wives interpreted. It’s literally what the guy in the TED Talk said. He gave examples of helping an addict and wiping the sweat off of his brow and blah, blah, blah. He made it seem like you just got to be there for them and help them through this. That does not work with sex addiction. Addicts Need To Learn How To Connect Anne: If the Ted Talk guy had said, “addicts need to learn how to connect, and until they stop using their drug, people who try to connect with them won’t be able to.” That would have been more accurate. You need to know that many CSAT therapists will blame the victim. Kate: That would have been much better. That’s not what he said sadly. Anne: It is victim blaming if anyone suggests you can fix him or help him by connecting with him, or his infidelity is because he feels shame. Just no, that’s not even possible if he’s not connect-to-able. And then we all know that if he’s connect-to-able, he starts making efforts to connect with you consistently over time. If he initiates it. If he starts the hard conversations, asks you how you’re doing, is vulnerable, is instigating all those things. That might be an indication. Kate: Sometimes wives feel like he was in this raging river, and it must have been so hard. You got to remind yourself that he jumped in that raging river. His choices led him there. If he does show up at the door, one way you might notice he is safe is if he is more vulnerable about his experience versus come rescue me. I need a towel. Anne: “Where’s dinner? Why isn’t dinner on the table? I can’t believe I was out there struggling for my life and you did not make dinner.” Kate: Yeah, instantly walk in there like, “I’m entitled, give me stuff.” So you already know, you’ve got connection, reactive abuse, the drama triangle, trauma bond, Stockholm syndrome, learned helplessness, and pro-dependency. All of these are victim-blaming. 2: What Is Victim Blaming? Reactive Abuse Anne: All right, let’s talk about “reactive abuse” next. What is victim blaming about reactive abuse? Many victims may have heard this term. Can you describe what it is and why it’s victim blaming? Kate: Let’s say a husband is standing in the doorway, a wife wants to get out, and she pushes him or throws stuff. They call that reactive abuse. You are reacting abusively. Or you were being mutually abusive. So he’s being abusive, and you’re being abusive. That whole thing is completely bogus, because of the intent behind it. If an abuser is standing in the doorway, blocking you, and you push him, it’s self-defense. Self-defense is not the same thing as abuse. If somebody came into your home and tried to kill you, tried to kill your family, and you shot them, why would anybody call it reactive murder? What would they call it? It wasn’t murder. It is self defense. Anne: The foundation of this is misogyny and entitlement, and this is why. Abuse is, she should be treating me in a certain way, give me certain things, should act certain ways, and how she should support me. If she doesn’t do that, “abusive” to me because I am entitled to these things. So if dinner isn’t on the table, or if I don’t have intercourse, or if she doesn’t treat me with respect (meaning do everything I want her or to do), she’s not respecting me. Abusers will view themselves as the victim responding to abuse. They will claim their victim is either at fault or abusive. Because of their paradigm of entitlement, they genuinely feel she is abusing him. He is just reacting to the abuse, rather than his entitlements are what makes him abusive in the first place. Misogyny & Entitlement In Abuse Kate: I’ve heard many wives say, maybe I was abusive, I don’t know. I called him a bunch of names. I even threw something at him, so maybe I was abusive too. Who has more control in the relationship? Is it you? Or is it probably him, because he’s been lying, gaslighting, and abusing? Anne: He’s also the breadwinner. He is making the money. You have no money. Kate: Some people say, why does it matter? If I call it reactive abuse, it will still help me not to react that way. The words we use matter. If we call it mutual abuse, other people who hear that will think you’re equally at fault. Even if you don’t believe you are, other people will, even the abuser. For example, they did a study where the participants read, “Lisa was approached by Dan at a party. Dan gave Lisa a drink spiked with a drug. Later that night, Lisa was assaulted by Dan.” Then the participants had to basically rate the level at which they felt it was Lisa’s fault. The researchers then switched the perpetrator to the subject in the sentence, and it had a huge impact. Dan approached Lisa instead of Lisa was approached by Dan. They discovered that people were less likely to subconsciously blame the victim when the perpetrator was the subject. So words matter. Any words that make it sound like the victim is at fault will always make people, even if they don’t mean to, subconsciously view the victim as actually at fault. So we cannot use words like that. It is self-defense. Being Angry Is Totally Normal Anne: There are people out there who tell wives of online explicit materials users. If he ever tells you about his use, if he ever feels safe enough with you to tell the truth. You need to react a certain way. And I’m like, no, a victim never needs to react a certain way in order to help her own abuser. So let’s say he’s been emotionally and psychologically abusive to you for 10 years. He’s been manipulating you and gaslighting you, and he says, to you, “I’ve been using online explicit material.” You, as the victim of these 10 years of emotional and psychological abuse and coercion. You don’t owe him anything. He owes you a lot, but you don’t owe him anything. And if you’re angry, upset, confused, and if you don’t want to talk to him. Good for you. You’re totally normal. That’s how anyone would feel. Anyone who had been abused and lied to would feel angry, upset and confused. A woman who is responding carefully, like, okay, thank you for telling me about your use. I love you. I care about you. Thank you for sharing. She is doing that out of this visceral attempt to protect her own family. She is resisting the abuse in that moment. Because she thinks the safest thing to do in that moment is protect her family or her marriage. But anybody who tells a victim, hey, you need to be careful about how you respond to his abuse. So you don’t hurt him. That’s bonkers. Kate: It is insane. We know it doesn’t work. Don’t do it. What Is Victim Blaming? Confessions Of Lying For Years vs. Child Pornography Exposure Anne: There are many organizations trained to teach parents how to react to their children. When their children talk to them about use. We are only talking about when a woman discovers her husband has been using, and that her husband has been lying to her for years, putting her at risk, and coercing her. If anyone is trying to suggest a woman should respond the same way to her child talking to her about their use that is victim blaming. And discovering that her husband has been living a double life and lying to her face for years. That is crazy. Those are two completely different situations. So when it comes to abuse victims, discovering that their husband has been abusing them. There should be no discussion about the “right way to react” in order to help him out. Because this is a safety issue for her. I needed to learn the safest way to resist my ex’s abuse. And so I discovered the Living Free strategies, and then I developed The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop, Telling a victim, hey, you’ve got to react to him in a different way to help him out. Or that it’s your fault because you didn’t react the right way. If you had reacted differently, he would’ve done something different. That is a harmful victim blaming lie. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not your fault. And now, due to the injuries he caused you, we as victims need to learn safety strategies to protect ourselves. In the back of my book, Trauma, Momma, Husband Drama, there are a bunch of infographics that illustrate how victims are blamed. 3: The Drama Triangle Blames Victims Anne: And one of these infographics illustrates how there is no drama triangle. If you don’t have a copy of my book, you can get it at our books page and there’s that infographic at the back. Women who aren’t familiar, what is the drama triangle? Kate: The “drama triangle”, is also called the Karpman triangle, or the persecutor and rescuer triangle. Whatever, they have so many names. They have three roles: the victim (the woe is me), the persecutor (the bully), and then the rescuer (let me fix you). The interesting thing is that the victim in the model is thought to be the start or catalyst of the entire drama triangle. Anne: Yeah, that tracks because the addiction industrial complex says it’s her being triggered, that’s the problem. Not that he is triggering her, which is the real problem. The real problem is that he is abusing her, not the way she reacts. Kate: Yes, this is just another example where the victim is considered the worst person possible. Way more than the abuser. Even though Stephen Karpman came out and said these are people playing the role of the victim. They’re not actually the victim, they’re just manipulating. If you have somebody who is legit being abused, that drama triangle should not apply at all. Don’t use it. Stay away from it. It has nothing to do with you. Victim vs. Perpetrator Roles Kate: It is victim blaming; you were an actual victim, this is not you playing the victim. Anne: I was going to say that exact same thing. You cannot play the victim when you are actually the victim. In fact, when you are the victim, the abuser is the perpetrator. Then he plays the role of the victim. He also plays the role of the rescuer. He does that to manipulate you. There are not three roles. There are only two roles in reality, real actual roles, the perpetrator and the victim. The perpetrator can act like a victim. He can act like a rescuer and groom. He can Hoover and manipulate, but he is always the perpetrator, and she is always the victim in that scenario. Kate: He can play all those different things, but that doesn’t mean you are part of the drama triangle. There are some people who’ve tried to say to wives, “You need to get out of the drama triangle.” You were never in the drama triangle in the first place. So why do you need to work on getting out of something you were never in? Anne: Totally. https://youtu.be/QleyqobSRCQ 4: What Is Victim Blaming? Trauma Bonding Anne: Alright, now let’s move on to the victim blaming term trauma bonding. The second I heard trauma bond or trauma bonding, I was like, that is victim blaming. So I developed my own model, called the manufactured relational tether. We have a good YouTube video about it. Comment on this episode below. We’d love to know what you think. If there’s some victim blaming that we don’t end up bringing up in this episode, go there and write all the ways you’ve been victim blamed. But yeah, the trauma bonding concept is victim blaming. And I think my manufactured relational tether is a better way to describe what’s going on. Kate: Yes. exactly, these last three are actually my favorite. Stockholm Syndrome, learned helplessness and prodependency. 5: Stockholm Syndrome Kate: Stockholm Syndrome, it turns out the whole diagnosis is bogus. It has no foundation whatsoever, no truth in it. It is only a way to blame victims and make them sound crazy, because their choices aren’t making sense to the rest of the world. Many people thought Elizabeth Smart had Stockholm syndrome. Why didn’t she get away? She had so many opportunities to get away. Why didn’t she escape? Oh, it’s because she had Stockholm syndrome. Stockholm Syndrome was made up in 1973 by psychiatrist Nils Bejerot. He helped the police during a bank robbery, which led to about four people being taken hostage. The police botched it completely from the start. They were reckless and put the hostages in danger. The hostages were actually more scared of the police than the bank robbers. From the beginning, one of the hostages, Kristen Enmark, she’s amazing, was outspoken to the police. She called the radio stations and tried and said, “Tell the police to stop and we will be safe. The bank robbers are letting us call our families, they just want to get away, they will not harm us.” She talked to the radio station two times. She even talked to the prime minister and was like, “Please get the police off our backs.” Police still didn’t listen. They actually ended up hanging up on her at one point. They were just treating her like crap. Whereas I love this story so much. They have recordings of her even talking to the prime minister. Her voice is so calm. You can tell she’s smart and knows what she’s talking about. She’s not somebody who’s freaking out and doesn’t understand. No, she knows what she’s talking about. Misogyny In Stockholm Syndrome Kate: It’s just sad. They then said she had a syndrome and made her not credible, to fit their mold of how they think a woman should or should not react. Anne: Misogyny is the foundation there, because how could this woman know better than the police? Kate: Yeah, exactly. Anne: And all these men and this psychiatrist, how could she know better about what to do? She must be crazy. Kate: Exactly, beause they are like, we’re just trying to help you, and you’re mad at us. Oh, boo hoo, “You’re not helping. You’re going to get us killed. Stop it.” They messed up on so many different things. They even brought in one of the bank robber’s brothers. But it turns out not to be his brother. They blamed it all on her. This d…

Full show notes at the publisher

How Do You Know When Your Marriage is Over? 3 Ways Sep 19, 2023

Show notes

One of the questions I often hear women in our community grappling with is, “how do you know when your marriage is over?” The answer I hear many women give is that you’ll knowif and when it’s time. The truth is, there is no “right” answer or clear path for every woman facing this question, but there are a few things you can keep in mind while contemplating. If you’re asking this question, it’s likely your husband is using emotional abuse tactics. To discover if your husband uses any of the 19 types of emotional abuse, take our free emotional abuse test. 3 WAYS: HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN YOUR MARRIAGE IS OVER 1. YOU NO LONGER TRUST HIM TO TELL THE TRUTH Many women in our community describe a moment in their marriage when they no longer trust their husbands. Maybe it’s something even really small, and they realize this is never gonna change. Not all women choose to leave their marriage when they have this experience. How do you know when your marriage is over? When they have this experience, something shifts inside of them. And they know they’re no longer dealing with the marriage they thought they were. 2. HE WANTS TO SAVE THE MARRIAGE, BUT HE WON’T STOP HIS HARMFUL BEHAVIOR Many emotionally abusive men will use a show effort to “save the marriage” to manipulate their victims. They might agree to go to marriage counseling or join an addiction recovery group. They’re not doing it because they care about the harm that they’ve caused to their wife and children. They’re doing it to manipulate her to maintain the relationship. What he really wants is the consequences to stop. He wants things to go back to the way they were before she knew about his betrayal and lies. 3. THE COST OF ENGAGING WITH HIM BECOMES GREATER THAN THE COST OF DISTANCE Often, when women ask, “how do you know when your marriage is over?”, they’re waiting for like one final piece of proof maybe or some kind of confirmation. But the truth is they already have enough information. How does it feel to engage with him? Do you start realizing it’s just not worth it? That can be a really big sign. No matter what the specifics are, many women describe this as a tipping point where they just knew they couldn’t continue to engage with him in the way they did before. And they realize that marriage as they knew it is over whether they leave or not. WHAT’S NEXT IF YOU’RE ASKING “HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN YOUR MARRIAGE IS OVER?” If you’re asking, “How do you know when your marriage is over?” Consider taking careful, grounded steps regardless of whether you get a clear answer or not. Talk to safe people. Choose people who will not minimize emotional abuse, pressure you to reconcile, or rush your timeline. Document what is happening. Keeping records can help you stay oriented when lies, denial, or manipulation make you doubt your own memory. Prioritize safety. If there is intimidation, coercion, threats, stalking, sexual pressure, financial control, or fear of retaliation, connect with a domestic abuse advocate or a qualified professional who understands emotional and psychological abuse. Get support for betrayal trauma. You deserve help that centers your safety and healing, not just his recovery. Consider legal and financial information. Learning your options does not obligate you to act immediately. It simply gives you a flashlight in a dark room. FINDING SAFE SUPPORT: HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN YOUR MARRIAGE IS OVER? Resources like Betrayal Trauma Recovery (BTR) can teach you how to strategically address emotionally abusive patterns in your marriage. Enroll in The Workshop to learn more. Key points from this episode: When Normal Safety Seeking Reveals The Truth When The “Good Guy” Version No Longer Feels Real His Recovery Is A Performance, Not Real Change How His Emotional Abuse Makes You Feel Crazy When You Stop Chasing Him And Choose Emotional Safety TRANSCRIPT: how do you know when your marriage is over Anne: Welcome to Betrayal Trauma Recovery, this is Anne. I have Tera Lynch on today’s episode. She’s a mother school nurse, spiritual seeker, an accidental comedian. With a heart as big as her laugh and resilience forged in the fire of betrayal, she shares her story to uplift others who navigate the hardest transitions. Like how do you know when your marriage is over. The Orange Post-It Note is her memoir, mission, and love letter to everyone learning to live and laugh again. Welcome, Tera. Tera: Thank you Anne. Anne: It is so great to have you here. So let’s start at the beginning. How did you feel about your husband when you first met him? Tera: Oh, very quickly, madly in love. He was so attentive, Mr. Adventure, supportive man. I was divorced and had three kids. I was in nursing school. We dated for 10 years. He was Mr. Hand Holder, car door opener, evening planner, sous chef. We didn’t fight. We just got along. Our trouble started when he started traveling Monday through Friday to New York City for work. And I didn’t like it, but it was where he needed to be. Anne: Where did you guys live? Tera: We lived in a suburb outside of Chicago. He would fly out Monday morning and come home Friday night. We always just picked up right where we left off. And we were so happy to see each other. We knew what was going on in each other’s lives. I missed him desperately, but we made it work, and we stayed in the honeymoon phase for a lot longer than many other couples. ‘Cause as you can imagine on the weekends, you’re so happy to be reunited. And I was so happy when suddenly he was moving back. HE SEEMED UNHAPPY AT HOME Tera: So he was there for seven years, and right before COVID hit, the business dried up in New York. He worked for a private equity firm, so there were no more opportunities for him to work in New York. And I was ecstatic. I was getting my husband back. I wanted to be the normal couple that took a walk after dinner, and quickly realized he was not happy to be at home, uncomfortable being home. I’m a school nurse, so I eat dinner at six and I’m in bed by nine, and he just wasn’t used to that timeframe. He seemed edgy and a little bit like a caged animal, and I just rationalized that he was making an adjustment. Anne: This is the first time he’s lived full-time with you? Tera: We dated for 10 years, so I had my house. He had his house, and we saw each other all the time. But right before we married and we bought a home together after our adult kids took off to college. We decided that would be a good time to marry. And that whole time, he was traveling Monday through Friday. So we never really did, now that I think about it, have that married full-time together. But he checked in all the time. He knew what was going on. He would call me at work, so I just felt safe in it all. I didn’t like it. But, uh, he was very good at playing the victim. He was the overworked, underappreciated employee who was always working for some villainous, CEO, who took control over his life. HE SPENT A LOT OF TIME ON HIS COMPUTER Tera: And he would call me and say, “Oh, I’m at a bodega again, getting a cold piece of pizza and a wilted Caesar salad, and I’m trudging through the door after working a 12, 13, 14 hour day.” So I always felt sorry for him, and when he came home, I’d have hot, homemade meals for him and be the listener at the end of a long day. And he reciprocated all that. His phone was attached to his hand. It was an appendage, and he was always on the computer. And I knew he had OCD tendencies and he overanalyzed everything, so it wasn’t abnormal for him to work like 10 hours on a Saturday or a Sunday on the computer. Then we would have a great time between or afterwards, but I had no idea what he was doing on the computer or the phone. So one night he fell asleep on the couch. And as he laid his phone down, I got a quick glimpse at it. ‘Cause I didn’t have the code to get into it. I never thought to look into his phone. And I saw a picture of a woman, and it said 23 hours ago. And I was like, oh, my God, what’s going on? Because he was this disciplined, loving, doting man. I was like, what? So then I started snooping, quickly found evidence smack dab on the top of his desk. Anne: Around here. We don’t call it snooping, we call it safety seeking. You might have felt like you were snooping, but you were definitely sensing that something wasn’t right and you were doing what any smart person would do. For women asking, “How do you know when your marriage is over?” this is often where the answer begins. how do you know when your marriage is over – I DID A LOT OF SAFETY SEEKING Tera: I was, and I entered a world I did not know existed, the websites, the alias names. It was shocking to me.I would type in long codes into Google search and Bingo, there it was. He’s on this site, he’s on this site, he’s on this site, and then all these alias names and I didn’t know if it was his name or her name. And still all the while in shock. I just couldn’t fathom that this man was doing this. Anne: Yeah. Tera: So I did a lot of safety seeking, and I was really married to a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde type of person. Because had I not done the Quistodio app and the find my phone and got the code to his phone. And did some recording on occasion when I just felt like something wasn’t right. That’s how I learned the truth, because he was such a master liar. And like I said, we didn’t fight, we didn’t argue, we didn’t quarrel. We just got along, and I confronted him immediately. They only tell you as much as you know. And that became apparent. And if I had one little fact wrong, the whole thing was wrong. So I had to be very correct with everything I was saying. Anne: Let’s go back to the Jekyll and Hyde idea for just a minute. That’s something that so many women describe. I’ve talked about it in my free email course, and I actually have a book coming out soon. So in my book, I outline why this is. ‘Cause many people describe it, but they don’t understand what’s causing it. So I wanna talk about that for just a second. HE WANTED TO BE LEFT ALONE Anne: In my experience, my theory, and I think I’m right or I wouldn’t tell the world this. Is that it’s not so much that they’re changing their mind or have two different personalities. It’s that they are using whatever lie they think will work to get them what they want in that moment. Anne: So in that moment, if they think, okay, if I get mad at her, she’ll leave me alone, and they wanna be left alone. Then you’ll see Mr. Hyde, and he’ll be the mean one. Then that will cause you to push away, and he’ll go work in his office or something like that. If he wants to be alone, let me put it that way. And then you’ll see Dr. Jekyll, the good guy, when he’s lying to groom you when he wants you to come with him to his work party. When he wants other things like that. So for him, his internal way of dealing with his wife is not so much relating as a person and having a relationship. It’s a series of transactions. If I act this way, I’ll get this result. If I act this way, I’ll get this result. And to us, it seems completely random, because we don’t know what result he’s going for. We don’t know what his goals are ’cause they’re hidden. And for women asking, “how do you know when your marriage is over?” this is one of the hardest parts to face. When he plays the Dr. Jekyll part, it feels good, comforting, loving, that it’s really hard to wrap your head around the fact that you may not know any part of him the way you thought you did. I FELT CONDITIONED TO LEAVE HIM ALONE Anne:: It’s really hard to wrap your head around the fact that you don’t know any part of him, the good part or the bad part. Could you talk about that for a minute? Tera: It was different for us because he did all his acting out when he was away, in a different city. Even though I think he was acting out when he was home. I felt conditioned to leave him alone when he worked. And I think there was some grooming there. He knows I’m a person with a lot of interests, and I could keep myself busy all day and at hobbies. I just didn’t bother him until it was about late afternoon, and I would check in and he’d be like, “Hey, what’s going on?” It’s our Saturday night. What are we gonna do? Let’s make some plans. And then that would pull him away, and we would have our fun, and we’d have a fun evening, and we’d have a great morning. But then the next day he’d go into the office under the pretense that he was working all day. So my Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde was Mr. Fun, Mr. Wonderful, Mr. Present, Mr. Engaged. And then Mr. Hyde was now I have to work, so you do your thing and I’ll do my thing. Anne: So it was very subtle because it wasn’t getting mad at you to get some space, but he used work as the lie to get space or get out of help with housework. Tera: Very much so. So heartbreaking, he immersed himself in recovery immediately. Anne: When you say recovery, are you talking about sex addiction, recovery? HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN YOUR MARRIAGE IS OVER – AFFAIR DISCLOSURES Tera: Yes, in the first disclosure, I learned how bad it was. It was a 20 page document with a chart with over 20 women that he had relations with, mostly through Ashley Madison. So he was connecting with other married women who also didn’t wanna be found out and had serial affairs. He said there was no romance. He said it was transactional. It was easier and safer for him. Anne: Said he. Tera: Said he, to be with somebody he felt safe with, didn’t have a disease or didn’t wanna confront his wife or employer. Because she was in the same boat. It was just absolutely disgusting and horrifying. So I did crazy things. I like built a shrine of shame on his desk one day, like all the things that were triggering me and he was out of town. So I went to town, and I just started throwing everything that was triggering me on his desk. Anything from United Airlines, top of food boxes, United napkins, airplanes, every hotel notepad, pen, the liquor that he liked to drink of the color orange, orange post-it notes everywhere. I put a huge angel on the middle of the desk and hung his jock strap on it. it. was just a way for me to throw all the triggers I dealt with every day on his desk. And I thought it would be like an art piece that would speak to him, and he was amazed by it. It was something that I challenge any woman to do, it makes you feel good. Just throw it all out there. HIS “RECOVERY” WAS A PERFORMANCE Tera: And I thought things like that would get through to him and wake him up to the pain I was in. It was token. Seemed like stuff moved him like that. But he wasn’t. And everything seemed token, I would walk by and he would have his 12-Step book and the Rosary, and some 12-Step chips and all the books he was reading and the workbooks. And then the minute I walked away, I would just see it being brushed aside. I think I’m being played. Anne: It was performative. Did he do 12-Step and you said a disclosure, so he had a therapist as well? Tera: MmmHmm he had a CSAT. Anne: Okay, yeah. Tera: He did all that. He didn’t do the 12-Steps or get a sponsor. Anne: But he just looked like he did. Tera: Yeah, he set it all up that way. He immersed himself in it later, but it was just too late for me. There were slips along the way. He was with a really bad support group that just let him get away with murder. I just didn’t like that support group at all. He had a good CSAT, but he was charming. He could charm anybody, anybody would believe him. And that’s when I began asking, “How do you know when your marriage is over?” I kept it a secret for so long, because I had so much hope. And I thought I could get him back. I thought I could resurrect him from all this. But I just didn’t have the power, and nobody would’ve believed what he was doing. Because he was so charming and funny and kind. It was hard to come out with all that in the end and have people believe me. how do you know when your marriage is over – SEARCHING FOR MORE TRUTH Anne: Yeah…

Full show notes at the publisher

Hundreds Of Years Of Fairy Tales Have Harmed Women With Jane Gilmore Sep 12, 2023

Show notes

Fairy tales have harmed women for centuries. Fairy tales often vilify women’s anger, undermine their pursuit of financial independence, and set unrealistic expectations. These biases shift the focus from abusers to women, making them see themselves as the problem. Join Anne Blythe, M.Ed, Host and Jane Gillmore as they discuss misogyny and fairy tales. If you relate to any of this episode, attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY. Fairy Tales Harmed Women: Vilification of Women’s Anger Society often labels women’s anger as overreacting, in stark contrast to men’s anger, which is seen as justified. This double standard shifts the focus from the abusers to the women, conditioning them to see themselves as the problem, rather than addressing the root cause of their frustration. Of course, women will be angry if they’re oppressed and abused! To discover if you’re emotionally abused, take thisfree emotional abuse test. Fairy Tales Have Harmed Women: Financial Independence Double Standard Women are often condemned for seeking financial independence, a desire celebrated in men. This contradiction highlights the gender bias in societal expectations, undermining women’s right to financial security and autonomy. The expectation for women to set boundaries calmly is unrealistic and unfair. It parallels the absurdity of asking women to call the police without anger if they witness a crime, illustrating how these societal scripts demand unrealistic levels of composure from women, even in distressing situations. Fairy Tales harm Women by Normalizing Misogyny Stories like “Beauty and the Beast” perpetuate misogynistic tropes by suggesting that men need women to become better people. This harmful narrative places undue responsibility on women for men’s behavior and personal growth. Which reinforces gender roles that confine women to supportive and transformative roles. Without considering their own needs for autonomy and respect. Transcript: How Fairy Tales Have Harmed Women Anne: I have Jane Gilmore on today’s episode. Jane is a writer, speaker, and feminist, and you can find her at janegilmore.com. Welcome Jane. Jane: Thank you. And it’s so lovely to be here. Anne: I love talking to you. Jane is on today to talk about her new book, Fairy Tale Princesses Will Kill Your Children. The Little Mermaid is a personal nemesis. So I wanted her to talk about this new book and how it can help all women who are going through abuse recognize it, set boundaries and get to safety. So let’s start, Jane, with what gave you the idea that this book needed to be written? Jane: Well, I’m living in Melbourne, and we had such a long lockdown during the first part of COVID. Like, basically two years we were in and out of lockdown. And you start going into weird places when you’re at home that long. I haven’t paid much attention to fairy tales since I was a kid. For some reason, I watched the Snow White movie on the Disney Channel. I was horrified. This is a children’s movie, mostly aimed at little girls, and the misogyny in it was so deep, but it was more than that. It was this idealization of women being not just helpless and submissive, but actively participating in other people abusing them. And I was thinking, oh, this is just because it’s old. This is not what they’re like. So I started looking into them and the five stories I chose for this book, which I retold. Along with an essay about why, were Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid. I show how fairy tales have harmed women. Themes In Fairy Tales Jane: And when I started looking into them, it was so clear that Snow White was about making other women the enemy, not men. Sleeping Beauty is obviously about consent. Cinderella is about women’s unpaid labor that we are supposed to do, not just uncomplaining, but enjoying our manipulation to serve mostly men. The Little Mermaid is about staying silent in the face of somebody, constantly diminishing you. Beauty and the Beast is coercive control. If you love him enough, he will turn into your handsome prince. This angry, dangerous, violent man just needs you to love him more. And if he doesn’t turn into your handsome prince, it’s your fault for not trying harder. And that’s what these fairy tales are about. They’re telling little girls that the way to be a good woman, a proper woman, a fairy tale princess that the defining characteristic is what they call unselfish. Which is to not ask anything for yourself, to not think that you deserve respect, kindness, agency, or money. That to even ask for those things, to even want those things, even if you don’t ask for them, makes you morally culpable. And you don’t see it when you first look at it because, Oh, aren’t they pretty? They get the handsome prince and everybody gets married and lives happily ever after. And isn’t that wonderful. But the underlying message is, It is wrong for you to want anything for yourself, including self respect, fairy tales have caused women so much harm. Anne: Yeah, I have so much to talk to you about. This also reminds me about how biblical submission becomes abuse. A Friend’s Story: Recognizing Abuse Anne: I want to tell a quick story of a friend who was finally divorced from her first abuser. She was dating, and met this man. She told me how wonderful he is, and his ex was such a gold digger. I was like, whoa, what? Red flag there, we’ve got another abuser on your hands. He said, she’s such a gold digger, she wanted me for my money. Then she says to me, he has a lot of money. I don’t care about that, that’s not what I’m interested in. I just want a good relationship. They go on a trip, and he’s like, get anything you want. What would you like to buy? And she says to him, oh no, I’m not like that. I’m not into money like your ex. I don’t want anything. I was like, whoa, stop again. He’s already groomed you. An example of how fairy tales have harmed women is by silencing their wants and needs. Jane: Yes. Anne: To not want anything already, and you didn’t even know. She thought he was so nice and everything went well. And I was like, he’s already groomed you to say that you don’t want money or need anything. If you marry him, you realize you’ll be like, hey, I’m going to the grocery store and he’ll be like, what again? You just married me for my money, like my ex. He’s setting you up for this. Of course, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I should have kept my mouth shut. And so I said to her, if you’re going to continue dating him, if he says that again, what would you like? Say, oh, I want this and buy something expensive. Something like $150. Not like super expensive, even if you don’t want it. The Gold Digger Label harms Women Anne: If he says get anything you want, try it out. See what happens. She was like, no, what? And I said, never ever say I’m not a gold digger, I’m not like that. Say, oh, that makes sense that your wife wanted a roof over her head and groceries, most women do. Fairy tales have harmed women by this “unselfish” ideal. Jane: To me, the warning sign is always, if you take the word that they’re trying to get you to prove that you’re not like gold digger is a perfect one. Is there an equivalent? It’s a word that can apply to any gender because if it’s just about women, then again, it’s tying into that. Are you a good woman? You’re not like other girls, prove to me that you can be all the things I can use to manipulate you. Gold digger is such a good one, because in men that’s called ambition, and it’s a good thing. Anne: The other one is the that she said, the same woman, his ex never gave him any sex. It was a sexless marriage, and he was really deprived. And I said, anytime a man says that to you, this is how you respond. Again, gave her advice she didn’t ask for. I have a bad habit of doing that. And I don’t know if I’m going to stop. But I said, this is what you say. You say, oh, I’m so glad she did what she wanted to. I love it when women do that. Fairy Tales Have Harm Women because Women Are taking the Blame Jane: Yes, and the other thing always is that I’ve got one of these in one of the regular talks I do. A study found that women become less interested in it the longer a relationship goes on. And then you flip it around and go, what if it’s men becoming less appealing? In a relationship, because they do less to earn your respect, your trust, your joy, your sense of fun, and your desire. And that you are constantly on edge and afraid. And that walking on eggshells feeling, nobody feels like it when they’re walking on eggshells all the time. So if you can’t see that those two things are connected, and somebody is saying to you, this is your fault. This is all your fault. You’re not interested in sex. You’re not trying hard enough and not this is our relationship and we care what goes on here. Again, massive red flag. Anne: As you studied all these different ways fairy tales harm women, what were some of the overarching themes that showed up in all of them. https://youtube.com/shorts/24dkj4GtJ1o Overarching Themes in Fairy Tales Jane: I was surprised about some of them, not because they were shocking, but because I didn’t realize how deeply embedded they are in this fairy tale princess myth. One of them was this constant idea that men are not responsible for anything. That the villain is always other women, the wicked stepmother, the wicked stepsisters. The man is either the prize you get for being unselfish, the handsome prince, or the father who has no responsibility at all. So every fairy tale princess, her mother dies when she’s a baby. Except for a Sleeping Beauty, and the mother doesn’t come into the story at all. And the father is the king who might send people out to run a mission or something, but he’s never responsible for his daughter. He marries another woman, because of course he couldn’t be expected to bring up a child on his own. And the evil stepmother becomes the villain. And there is no point in the story where the men who make choices that affect women’s lives have any responsibility for those choices. Fairy tales have harmed women, because in them women are powerless. So Snow White, for instance, which was the first one I did. I was shocked when I returned to the original story by the Grimm brothers. Snow White is seven years old in the story. She’s seven years old. She is a child. She’s taken off to the woods by a hunter under orders from her evil stepmother. The hunter is ordered to kill her in the original story. He’s supposed to cut out her heart and lungs to take back to the evil stepmother so she can eat them. How Fairy Tales Harm Women In Snow White Jane: So she won’t show visible signs of aging, because the most wicked thing any woman can do is visibly age and still expect to have a place in the world. Snow White is seven, she goes off, finds the seven dwarves, she immediately takes on all their domestic labor and sings songs about how much fun it is. And how wonderful it is that she does all the work to look after seven men, and how much she loves it. Fairy tales harm women by showing them in subservient roles. Then the evil stepmother poisons her, and they think she’s dead. So they put her in a glass box, and a handsome prince comes past and sees a dead child in a glass box. And says, oh, that’s beautiful, that’s mine, I want it. And the seven dwarfs immediately recognize that he’s a rich, powerful man. So he should have the beautiful dead girl that he wants. Oh, brilliant, you’re awake now, you can be my wife. And she says, oh, thank you. Yes, I’d love that. That’s the Snow White story. And that was the one I rewrote. So I didn’t change the plot at all. I just rewrote it to point out all these things about, wow, this is the story we tell little girls, and little girls still dress up as Snow White. They want to be like Snow White. And this idea that when other women are the thing that will put young girls in danger. Which we know is just not true. And I’m not saying that other women don’t have their problems. They absolutely do. We can get into all kinds of discussions about that, but other women are not the threat to your life. Fairy Tale Stories Are Supposedly Safe Jane: Other women won’t commit the kind of abuse your male partner will. But nowhere in a fairy tale princesses story is The handsome prince ever the problem. This is one way fairy tales harm women. The story ends when they get married and the marriage is never a part of the story. It’s why the mother dies at the beginning of all the fairy tale princess stories, because marriage and children and the relationship itself is not the fairy tale princess myth. It’s be good and beautiful, submissive, kind and unselfish. And do everything you can to prove how much you deserve a handsome prince. And then your story ends. Anne: It’s almost like that’s where the man wants it to end. He’s like, okay, you’re beautiful. You do all the domestic labor. You don’t have a voice. And I can do no wrong. Then marriage, and then I own you, and you have to do whatever I say because of coverture laws. You’re literally my property in the day when these were written, and you’re essentially my domestic slave. And that is a happy ending for me. This is how fairy tales have harmed women. Jane: Yes, these are the stories we all grew up on, and it’s not even the Grimm Brothers stories, which were horrific, but the Disney stories. And again, you think Snow White, that’s a hundred years ago. Whoever watches that, Disney plus has over a hundred million subscribers. I’ve got little kids and I’m going, okay, God, I just need an hour to myself, put them down in front of the electronic babysitter. I know it’s not ideal, but we’ve all done it, come on. And you think, well, the Disney channel, they’ve got to be safe there, right? Sleeping Beauty: The Original Story Jane: And then you have the quintessential fairytale princess, Sleeping Beauty. The first published one I could find was from Italy in about 1500. Her name is Talia. Talia has the curse, falls asleep. It’s not a handsome prince. It’s a King from a neighboring country who finds her asleep, looks at her and says, oh, wonderful. Tries to wake her up, fails. So he impregnates her. Now we know what the word for that is, right? That’s? Anne: Rape. Jane: That’s rape. She eventually wakes up after she’s had twins, and is so delighted to find that while she was unconscious, somebody impregnated her. She doesn’t remember who and has babies. So, he meanwhile forgot about her, and this is specifically in the story. Then he remembered her and came back presumably to do it again. Anne: What? Jane: Yeah, he finds her and the babies. And she’s like, oh, how wonderful to meet you. Finally, the father of my children. I’m in love. Let’s get married. And he’s like, okay. Sure. But there’s just a problem. I’ve already got a wife, but nevermind. Let’s go back to my place, and we’ll find the wife. I’ll kill her, and then we can get married, and everything will be fine. In the original story, I think it’s called Talia and the Summer and Stars. It’s available online because it’s not copyrighted anymore. They return to his place. He says he’s going to kill his wife, but then she tries to kill Sleeping Beauty first and the children. Anne: Because she’s the bad one, not him. Jane: She’s the evil one. not him. He’s the hero of this story. Disney’s Sanitization Of Fairy Tales Jane: She fails in her attempts to kill Sleeping Beauty, and the children. Mind you, she does this by telling the servants to kill them and serve them up to Sleeping Beauty and the King as dinner. The servants say, oh, maybe we won’t kill and cook the babies. So no, they tell the King. He sets his wife on fire and burns her alive, and then marries Sleeping Beauty. And they live happily ever after such a cute story, right? Anne: This is horrifying. Jane: So bad. And obviously Disney sanitized this a lot, because we wo…

Full show notes at the publisher

This is How Emotional Abuse Affects Your Body – Joyce’s Story Sep 05, 2023

Show notes

Emotional abuse affects your body in a variety of ways. Many women in The BTR.ORG Community have experienced devastating emotional, physical, and mental symptoms. Here’s Joyce’s story. Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions are here for you if you’re experiencing negative health affects of emotional abuse. Transcript: Emotional Abuse Affects Your Body Anne: I have a special friend who came to my house today. She is in my basement recording with me. We’re gonna call her Joyce. She’s a member of The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Community, and I know her in real life. The story takes a dramatic turn. We’ll start with her story and then near the end we’ll talk about how all how emotional abuse affects your body and your health. When you met your husband, soon to be ex, Joyce how would you define his behavior? Joyce: We met on Tinder and I had actually canceled our first date because I was getting very exhausted by dating. But when I got home from my first date, I thought he was so nice because he told me that he had picked a smoothie place because it was public and it was short and there were cameras. He thought that would make women feel safe. In my mind, I thought, oh that is so considerate. This guy is looking out for women’s needs. Awesome. Anne: Man Joyce: Within a month, we were dating, and within three months, we were engaged. Anne: I, too, had a very quick engagement. Ah. Even First Time Emotional Abuse Affects Your Body Anne: When did you start recognizing that some of his behaviors weren’t what you were looking for? Joyce: You know, I struggle with ignoring my first instincts. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Even while we were dating, there were times where I was like, that’s a little odd. I am better at doubting myself than doubting other people. I remember he got really angry at a bill on one of our dates. He thought they had overcharged us and he apologized to them after. It was not something I was comfortable with and didn’t really know how to address. If I’d known better or was more comfortable with accepting that something is a red flag, I would have made different choices. Even first time emotional abuse affects your body. Anne: We’ve all been there. You just don’t know what you don’t know, right? Right. Yeah. You get married and when you start recognizing things are really kind of strange, what reasons do you give for this behavior? Joyce: Yeah, it happened really fast. Honeymoon Red Flags Joyce: On our honeymoon, in fact, we went to Hawaii, his choice. At a restaurant, I ordered a ginger beer, which is a non alcoholic beverage, it reminded me of my childhood. My dad would get us ginger beer around Christmas, it was fun. The drink cost six dollars, it infuriated him that I had spent that kind of money on something. He wasn’t yelling, but he was very stern in the restaurant. When we got into the car, he wouldn’t speak to me. A tactic that he started using then and used throughout our marriage was to say, “Help me understand why you made that decision, Joyce. Why did you do that?” I said, “I don’t understand what the big deal is. I I don’t know when I’m coming to Hawaii again. It’s our honeymoon. I just thought it would be fun. Why you’re so upset about a drink.” He apologized. I think that’s one of the few times he apologized for an overreaction. I know it’s triggering to say overreaction, but it is actually an overreaction. Oh, for him, yeah. Joyce: Yes, for additional context, I paid for the meal. I was not putting an expense on him, I was paying for it. The next morning I was still feeling unsettled and anxious. He was still asleep. I went for a walk around the block and I thought, okay, this must be what marriage is like. It’s going to be fine. It was in fact, not fine. Anne: It was not fine, but you didn’t know that. Right, you didn’t know that. Marriage & Emotional Abuse Isolation Begins Anne: Did you tell anyone about this back then? Joyce: No. For context, this was his second marriage. He was married before, very briefly in his mid twenties. Other people potentially inferred he was the issue. He said he was very uncomfortable with us talking about things to other people. He started putting restrictions on what I could and couldn’t say to people very early on. The restrictions increased. Anytime he caught me talking to someone, or if I said anything out of line, it would result in a serious argument. Anne: Okay. An emotional abuse episode. But you didn’t know to call it that back then? No. Joyce: Yeah. Anne: What did you think about him? Did you think it was you? Did you think it was him? What was your thought process back then? Joyce: I one hundred percent thought it was me. Absolutely, I thought it was me. I’d never been in a long term relationship. He seemed more well spoken than I, and he framed himself as more intelligent. He’d been married before. Right, more experienced. I felt, I thought, oh, it must be me. I don’t know what I’m doing. He would frame my friends and family as weird or odd. I didn’t have good influences. I didn’t know how to appropriately, in his words, behave. Anne: for the amount of time I’ve known you, you are always behaving appropriately. I can’t even imagine what he would be talking about. Emotional Abuse Affects Your Body: Coercion Anne: Did you know about any infidelity Joyce: Yes, shortly before we got engaged he told me that he had a pornography addiction that had surfaced after his first marriage. He told me it was not a problem while he was in a relationship. Only when he was not in a relationship did he have this problem. In other words, in my mind, if he’s getting his needs met, if you know what I mean, then it’s not a problem. I just responded with empathy and I said, I know it must be so difficult. Is there anything I can do to support you? He said, that’s it. That’s all you need to do. I did go into the marriage knowing he had a pornography addiction. Anne: Did he use that against you? Threaten, like, you know I have a addiction if I don’t get sex? Joyce: It was definitely implied that if he was getting his needs met, then he would not have that issue. The pressure definitely was on me and if I didn’t comply with what he wanted, then I was the instigator of his addiction at that point. He would use it as a tool to manipulate me in other ways. Like if he wanted privacy, he would accuse me of spying on him, which I was absolutely not doing. I would just come in to see him and say, Hey, how are you doing? Psychological Abuse Affects Your Body He would be in his office. He said, I don’t like it when you do that. If I’m in here, you have to knock. If I don’t give you permission to come in, don’t come in. Otherwise I feel like you’re spying on me, which out of context is insane. In the marriage, it just made me feel like, oh my gosh, I’m the worst wife ever. That he thinks I would spy on him. Anne: He knows by now that all wives observe their husbands. So, he had something going on that he didn’t want you to know about. This is so common when dealing with an addict husband. Joyce: I do believe that now. I have no proof of that. I never spied on him. Never opened his phone, his computer, anything like that. I have no evidence of that, but his behavior would suggest that, yeah. Anne: Well, and he told you that. Joyce: Right. Misplaced trust as it turns out, but that’s how I thought about it. Anne: Had you done any research about addiction? Did you know how it affected people or how they acted when they were using it Joyce: All of my information on that was just anecdotal stuff you just pick up along the way. People talk about it. in passing and whatever he told me, which was not much. Anne: Okay, not like, oh, I’m going to research a ton about this. Joyce: This is why the accusation of spying was really jarring for me because I try so hard to give people emotional space and I didn’t even research pornography because I thought, well, he’s an adult. He can talk to me about it. We’ll go from there. Exploiting Your Weakness Anne: Do you think you’re naturally that way to give people space, or do you think some of it was him manipulating you to back off? Joyce: I think there was an element of that, I had some abuse from a caretaker when I was growing up, that made it easier for him to feed into. It’s like your insecurities. Yes. I had insecurities. Anne: He was exploiting your weaknesses. Instead of loving you and supporting you in your weaknesses. Joyce: Interestingly, when I opened up to him about the abuse, said that I must be exaggerating. That didn’t happen. He, in fact, did not believe me, which is very odd. Anne: Yeah. Or not so odd since he was an abuser. Joyce: Right. And that actually makes more sense now. I thought, why don’t you believe me? Why would anyone tell you that? Anne: What do you do to try to solve quote unquote, your problem that’s really his problem? The Pain Of Emotional Abuse Affects Your Body Joyce: I went to therapy. So much therapy, including couples therapy. None of which helped, because it wasn’t me. I spent years, I went through three therapists, personal therapists, in our marriage. I was convinced it must be me. The first one was not super helpful. She just told me to journal, and never gave me any other insights. The second one I called to cancel a session. I was distraught after an abuse episode with my husband. I couldn’t deal with it. My husband called me to try to, “work it out.” My dad was listening at the door. I think he started to get an idea that things were abnormal. They weren’t marriage growing pains or things like that. He talked to me after and said, he’s putting everything back on you. Is that normal? I made excuses and said, no, no he’s right. I’m overreacting. I went back the next day. I found a different therapist, because he wasn’t comfortable with me going to that one anymore. Anne: Okay. I think it’s really telling of the state of therapy that so many therapists have a really difficult time helping people identify abuse. That the best marriage counseling don’t have a way to identify it. They don’t want to make the wrong decision, like, maybe this person is the abuser, so I don’t want to say they’re being abused. Even if that person is the abuser. Wouldn’t getting their victim away be helpful? Joyce: Yes, I honestly think it probably stems from people being afraid of lawsuits or losing their license and ability to practice. One hundred percent because their license is a marriage and family therapy license. They could lose their license or be sued. They can’t really help people identify abuse, which is awful. Undiagnosed Abuse Affects Your Body Anne: People can go to therapy for years and years and years and not know they’re a victim of abuse. That none of it is their fault and that they don’t even need to be in therapy. Joyce: That’s probably why there’s such rampant abuse, and such negativity toward women. Right. Anne: If he did go to a therapist, it wouldn’t help him though. Joyce: My soon to be ex, he went to therapy, probably just to tick off the box. He went to two sessions, said he didn’t like the person, so he was not going to look anymore. Anne: Right. Well, even if he had found one, I mean, mine went to therapy consistently for seven years and the therapist loved him. They thought he was awesome because all he did in the session was convince them that I was crazy. He didn’t get any help for himself. I became more and more of the enemy, because what he was telling the therapist wasn’t true. You can’t get help if you’re not willing to tell the truth. He loved going to therapy and lying to the therapist and having the therapist tell him what an awesome guy he was. Joyce: Makes me so angry. Anne: It’s ok to be mad at your husband or people who give you bad advice. Thank you. Sometimes you gotta hear it. You heard it from her. She knows me in real life and apparently in real life, I also am not crazy. Joyce: Very sane. Realization That He Was The Problem Anne: When did you realize that your efforts to fix yourself, they’re not helping your marriage and they’re not helping you? Joyce: Horrifyingly, I only really realized that within the past six months. I felt like a more capable person than I had been in a long time emotionally. The fog was lifting. I was thinking, wait a minute, this is not me. I’ve done all this work. I’ve been doing this work for years. Things started to click that no, it isn’t me. We don’t have children. We have dogs. I was taking one of our dogs to the vet and the words came into my head. “You can’t rely on him.” That is the first time I realized that I cannot rely on this person for anything. To be emotionally available, to treat me with any degree of kindness, to be an equal partner in a marriage. There was no equality in our marriage ever. That was a really stark realization. It was at that point that I started thinking, okay, so what are my next steps? I didn’t know what to do. I talked to my family. Yeah, once you realize there’s a problem. The next problem is figuring out what to do. Finding Help For Emotional Abuse Anne: That is where BTR comes in. First, educating women about identifying emotional abuse, psychological abuse or sexual coercion. Then helping women know what to do. If you’re wondering, what do I do? The Living Free Workshop is a great place to start. If you have kids, it is really important to know how to communicate with them. Most women who come on the podcast have listened to the podcast and they meet me through BTR. We met in an unusual way. We have a new member in our congregation, my junior high choir teacher. He asked me where my husband was. I said, I’m a single mom. He found out that I do abuse stuff. He said, my daughter is in this situation and maybe you can help her. I said, have her call me. Joyce: This choir teacher is my dad. Right, so I did not know her at the time. https://youtu.be/twBoXh_OABA My dad had been concerned for some time, but it was, like I said, only recently that I had been having conversations with him about it. My spouse had isolated me from family and friends. They were not allowed to come to the house. There was limited time that I could spend with them. If left for more than a half an hour, he would start calling and checking in, seeing when I was going to come home. Physical Intimidation Affects Your Body Joyce: My soon to be ex had gotten angry and told me that I was holding him back in life. That I was like the person who abused me. I said, why would you say that to anyone who has been abused? That is not okay. I said, if that is how you feel, we should not be married. He got furious. He broke a TV tray. Anne: Physical abuse in the form of physical intimidation, people aren’t educated about that. They don’t know that it is physical abuse. Joyce: Yeah Anne: Right Joyce: It was scary, right next to one of our dogs. I said, stop, you’re scaring everybody. Please stop. He turned it on me and said, this is your fault. You’re the one making everyone upset. This goes on for a couple of hours. My spouse had been showing me a video of one of our dogs on his phone. We were sitting in bed. I leaned over, looking at this video, and then some time went by, a few seconds, maybe a minute. I felt him grab my face and shove me back. Hard, I had a shooting pain in my neck. I asked him why he did that. He said, oh, you were in my personal space, he was very calm. He wasn’t angry. This one frightened me because he wasn’t angry. Anne: Would you say overall, just for our listeners, 99 percent of the abuse was emotional and psychological, and sexual coercion, right?. Joyce: Yes, he crossed a major line. I don’t know if there was some residual anger. I really don’t know. His physical attack truly affects your body. Anne: Knowing a little bit of the story, I think he’s sensing that he’s losing control. He’s trying to assert control again. Physical Abuse Affects Your Body and your mind Joyce: Yeah. I knew that was a…

Full show notes at the publisher

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected