If you’re wondering, “Is my relationship safe?” It’s important to look at patterns of abusive behavior. Physical abuse never happens without emotional abuse, so the first step is to understand the patterns of emotional abuse.

To discover if your husband is using any one of the 19 different types of emotional abuse, take our free emotional abuse quiz.

This Is the Second Episode With Dave Cawley
Warning Signs Your Husband Is Dangerous – Susan’s Story With Dave Cawley
Patterns To Look Out For In Your Relationship (THIS EPISODE)

Anne: I’ve invited Dave Cawley, an investigative journalist and host of the Cold podcast, back on today’s episode. We have already talked about season one of the Cold Podcast, which we re-aired last week. He calls that episode Signs your Husband might kill You. It’s important for every woman experiencing emotional and psychological abuse to recognize it, and know is my husband abusing me? Because physical abuse never happens in a vacuum.

Dave and I will talk as if you’ve heard all the Cold podcasts, seasons one, two, and three. And if you haven’t, don’t worry. You’ll still benefit from listening to our analysis as we discuss the themes of all three seasons. Welcome Dave.

Dave: Thank you so much, Anne. I appreciate being with you.

Anne: So the three seasons of the Cold podcast, Dave, you cover in season one, the murder of Susan Powell. In season two, the Murder of Joyce Yost. And in season three, the murder of Sheree Warren. And you started season three by introducing us to a man named Cary Hartman. You describe his abusive behavior toward women in the form of what some people might call prank phone calls. Law enforcement called it an obscene phone call.

Really, these phone calls abused the women who received them. Even if they didn’t realize it. And even if they didn’t define it that way. Can you talk about why these abusive phone calls define Cary’s character?

Dave: Sheree Warren disappears in October of 1985. She was dating this man, Cary Hartman at the time, and at first Cary Hartman is not on the radar of the investigators.

Dave: Police identified Cary Hartman as a suspect in a series of home invasion assaults a year and a half later. Where he literally breaks into women’s homes and attacks them, raping them. And so I actually start this story way before we ever meet Sheree with Cary Hartman’s first arrest in 1971.

Where he makes one of these calls, he tells this woman, basically a threat, that if he she will be harmed if he doesn’t get what he wants. And to your point, Anne, she was a victim. He abused abused her, right?

Anne: Yeah, at the time you interviewed her, did she recognize she was a victim of his abuse? Or did she just think like, oh, a criminal called me and I helped the police identify this guy?

Dave: At this point in her life, she was I wanna say about 86 years old when I interviewed her. Heidi Posnien, she’s an amazing woman, but her life experience was so different. I mean, she literally survived Berlin at the end of World War II as a child. And so her perception of how much risk she may or may not have been in at the time. I think it is different than you or I in the same situation.

And I think like many victims of abuse, she doesn’t like thinking about whether her husband is abusing her. When I sat down and interviewed her about it, it brought up bad memories even after all these years. It brought up emotions that she was uncomfortable with. You do this kind of thing.

Dave: Every day Anne, talking to people who have been through abuse. You know how difficult those conversations are. I was grateful Heidi was willing to take us there for the story. Because it allows the listener to begin to see the bigger picture. Like, what are the systemic things that are taking place in our society? That caused these kinds of things to be brushed off? It’s a minor crime, voyeurism, telephone harassment and nothing serious.

Anne: He has all these abusive episodes. Law enforcement doesn’t define them that way. There’s a difference between an obscene phone call, which is what they had written on their documents, right? And an abusive phone call. Like when people say something like, one out of every four women are domestic abuse victims in the state of Utah. Then women wonder is my husband abusing me and if so how do I divorce an abusive husband? They’re not saying a man abuses one out of every four women in the state of Utah.

Dave: Yeah, that’s a great point. I think, the investigators at the time, thought they caught him. He’s shamed, he’ll change. And if you have that perspective in law enforcement, you’ve gotta step back and look at it and say pattern wise, like what is happening here?

And with Cary Hartman, we know these phone calls escalated over time. He ends up calling thousands of women in a harassing way. Where he would try to get women to talk about their bodies, their clothing, in a way that titillated him. It’s still today thousands of victims who will never receive any measure of justice, and many probably brush it off. Eh, I just hung up on the guy.

Dave: And I think there is definitely a need to, at least from the perspective of a journalist. To think about how we talk about those kinds of situations, because we have to be objective. We have to be as unbiased as possible, but I think there’s also room for journalists to call a spade a spade. These are the actions that Cary Hartman took and you’re right, they are abusive. Let’s just call it what it is.

Anne: Yeah, I’m reminded of an interview I did with a man who spent, 10 years in prison for abuse. He considered himself an addict. And he said, I acted out in my addiction. That is how he described it. And I said, well, there’s another word for that. It’s that you were an abuser. And he was like, oh, I never thought about it like that. Women think that they can figure out how to deal with an addict husband not understanding that it’s abuse.

Dave: The, the focus on himself rather than on the person he was harming.

Anne: Yeah, If he’s an abuser, he hurts someone else, rather than he is an addict. He just acted out in his addiction.

Dave: Right, that’s a really good point.

Anne: Right?

Dave: I mean, part of the process for somebody who goes to prison for this kind of crime. If they will ever be paroled, it is usually that they have to go through some kind of therapy or treatment program. The DSM tailors this for mental health professionals trying to diagnose people.

Anne: It’s not about their victim. The DSM is thinking maybe we can get him to stop having this.

Dave: Paraphilic disorder.

Anne: There we go. Maybe we can get him to stop doing that, rather than maybe we should figure out how to protect other people from this person. And at least from all the victims I have interviewed, it has not worked. In fact, the domestic violence shelter will tell you that most of the time an abuser rehabilitation class, for example, makes them worse.

Dave: There is an argument that in some ways it might teach them to just be better about hiding it.

Anne: Exactly, and many accuse their victim of being an abuser, and then it gets confusing.

Dave: They learn all the language. They learn the terminology.

Anne: Exactly.

Dave: As far as the Sheree Warren case with Cary Hartman, as long as we’re talking about treatment. I mean, I think an interesting thing to note is that Cary Hartman ends up going to prison for 33 years in these cases. And during that time, they repeatedly require him to go through offender therapy. He needs to pass that. It is as a condition for release on parole.

Dave: They release Cary Hartman on parole in March of 2020. He got out of prison. And during the next four years, I lived in our community here in Utah, where I live and work. He was recently returned to prison because it was discovered he had been stalking a woman. According to the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole while he was out.

Dave: So you have to stop and say, wait a minute. Did those 30 plus years in prison and repeat trips through offender therapy. Did they help Cary Hartman not harm people while back out in society? And it appears the answer to that question is no. So I wanna hope that those systems can work, but in this case specifically, it seems like it did not.

Anne: And me listening to that, at least the way you laid out the facts. As an abuse expert, I came to the conclusion that he figured out what the parole board wanted to hear. Victims wondering if their husband is abusive, might know their husband is saying what they want to hear. He went to offender therapy and eventually learned the words he needed to say. And he parrots that back to the parole board to their satisfaction, in order to be paroled.

I was so grateful they kept him in prison for so long. Because they could have let him out sooner. So that was a good part of the story, I thought.

Dave: Yeah, in conversations with law enforcement. People who investigated that case, or in the legal profession who tried that case in court, that came up repeatedly. They said, look, in a homicide, or let’s say a manslaughter, somebody who kills another person, they might do 10 years and get out. The fact that Cary Hartman was in for more than 30 years was a big deal, and the reason he was in so long is because he refused to accept responsibility.

And like you said, as a listener, I think it’s a fair takeaway to listen to all those years of him going before the parole board. And just slowly creeping forward.

Dave: The little bit of accountability he would take until he reached that sweet spot where they said, okay, that’s enough. We’ll let you out.

Anne: Cary Hartman is a scary guy, but how much scarier would he have been had he learned faster? Let’s say he had gone to offender therapy sooner and taken accountability sooner. And sounded better sooner. He could have been let out sooner. The scariest ones to me are the ones who know that’s what they need to sound like. In terms of my listeners husbands, that’s what they sound like in couple therapy.

Or they might sound like that to clergy. And clergy might be like, yes, he’s repented. How do I help my listeners see, is this someone who is now safe or are you currently in danger? It’s so hard to idently if your husband is abusing you. At least, in danger of being emotionally and psychologically abused. In danger of an STD, being lied to is a concern when you’re supposed to trust.

Dave: So if I can segue off of that. In season one of Cold. When we talked about the case of Josh and Susan Powell, so this is a married couple. They’ve got two young sons, and there’s this extreme strife going on in their marriage. Susan is upset that Josh is controlling the money. He’s controlling her ability to spend time with friends and family, and she tries to drag him into therapy.

Dave: She tries to drag him in front of clergy. We actually have evidence from writings that Susan left behind after she was killed. She talks about, Josh says, if I call the police, if I call 9 1 1 and say he’s threatening me. When the police get here, he’s gonna be calm, I’m gonna be hysterical. And he’ll make me the one who’s irrational. She was conscious of these very things.

Moving forward, when we entered season two in Cold. There’s this story about Joyce Yost being murdered by this man, Doug Lovell. Doug Lovell goes to prison. He’s still in prison and had been sentenced to death twice. He’s had his death sentence overturned twice, and part of the reason is because since he went to prison. He has built relationships with clergy, people who go to prison to work with inmates, to help them hopefully become better people.

They prepare them to be released. Doug Lovell will not be released. He is, as I said, serving a death sentence or in limbo while they figure out whether his death sentence will go forward. But those relationships and the way he talks to clergy have allowed him to essentially create a group of supporters. who, when he goes to court, when he goes to trial, are willing to stand up in front of a judge or a jury and say, I believe Doug Lovell is a man with a good heart.

I believe he’s a man who’s changed. I believe he deserves a second chance. What we know is Doug Lovell murdered Joyce Yost and has refused to return her body.

Anne: Right, flat out manipulation Doug Lovell used to convince some people that he has a “good heart.” The evidence would be that he tells people exactly where that body is, which he has not done.

Dave: Right, that’s how you show true remorse in my mind, yeah.

Anne: In our community, we actually call this meatloafing. It’s from The Meatloaf song I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that.

Dave: This is interesting, and it gets into the weeds of the court case. Lovell, there’s no question he’s responsible. He did admit to it, but that was part of a plea deal in 1993, where he was trying to get a chance for life with parole. At the time, Utah did not have a law that allowed life without parole, so the choice was life with parole or the death sentence. And he thought, if I admit to it, there’s this plea deal on the table. And I will have a chance of getting out of prison.

Before the case actually went to sentencing, though, the law changed, and the prosecutors pulled life with parole off the table. And at that point Lovell said, I don’t want to plead guilty anymore. And this is part of why that case ended up going through appeal after appeal. The death sentence ended up being rescinded because the appeals courts determined that Lovell was not appropriately advised of the rights he was giving up. So he goes back to trial in 2015.

The problem is that he’s admitted on the record that he killed Joyce Yost. That fact is not in dispute.

Dave: How do you go in front of a jury and say, yes, I killed this person. But and that’s where these religious leaders came in. They went before the court and said, in all those years, Lovell is a changed man.

Anne: Listening to the manipulative letters Doug Lovell sent those religious leaders was surreal. Because they sound almost exactly like the manipulative letters that so many of the victims I talk to receive. In fact, I have actually created a workshop to show women the patterns of these types of manipulative letters. It’s in my Betrayal Trauma Recovery Message Workshop.

So listeners, if you want to learn more about that, click that link. I show women how abusive it is, so they can identify the abuse. And then how to respond in terms of Doug Lovell. It was very unnerving to hear that these religious leaders fell for this type of manipulation. In fact, judges fall for this type of manipulation too.

There are cases in Utah where the abusive man is in jail, but he writes manipulative and abusive letters to his kids, and the victim is court ordered to show these manipulative, abusive letters to her own children. Which to talk about Susan Powell again. I mean, she was killed, but Josh Powell, her murderer, still had parental rights.

Dave: Yeah, so let me set the table for that a little bit. Josh Powell, after his wife, “disappears” in 2009. Within a couple of weeks, he takes his two sons, Charlie and Braden, with him. He leaves Utah and goes to Washington state. And he lives under his father’s roof. A few things happen there.

Dave: The West Valley City Police Department has a circumstantial case that Josh murdered his wife, and that’s getting stronger as time goes forward. What they don’t have is direct physical evidence. Like a body linking Josh to Susan’s death. And so in the absence of that, the prosecutors would not give police an arrest warrant. The police are aware that these two boys are potentially at risk.

Early in the investigation, a detective from Utah contacts the Child Protective Services Agency in Washington and says, can you intervene in any way? And the state of Washington tells the West Valley City Police Department, unless there’s an allegation of like ongoing or immediate abuse happening, that’s not our job.

Anne: I mean, the likelihood that he killed his wife is like a hundred percent. So he’s a murderer, but he’s an appropriate caregiver for children.

Dave: Right, unless he’s charged and arrested, they don’t intervene, was the position at the time.

Anne: This letter of the law is a thing, and then there’s like, how do we actually protect people? I mean, someone who kills their wife is an abuser, but they’re not defining him as an abuser.

Dave: And this was the insidiousness of Josh Powell. Josh Powell was good at cloaking abuse in a way that it didn’t look like abuse from the outside, right? I think you and I rationally can sit back and say the act of murdering his children’s mother is abuse of those children until the police can prove it. The Child Protective Services workers in Washington weren’t going to do anything about it.

Dave: And so the investigation for her murder is mostly here in Utah. But there’s an aspect that’s taking place in Washington, and it culminates in the latter part of 2011. Because there’s a big police operation that we learn about in Cold season one called Operation Tsunami. And part of this whole investigation is the service of a search warrant at Josh’s dad’s house in Washington.

When police go in there searching, they discover Steve Powell was obsessed with his daughter-in-law, Susan. And they find all kinds of voyeur materials focused on Susan and other women. Steve Powell had been recording women without their knowledge, and among those were two neighbor girls who were underage. Under the definition of the law, this is treated as CSAM. Steve Powell is arrested at that time for two crimes, voyeurism and CSAM.

The state of Washington says, wait a minute. These two boys, Charlie and Braden, were in that house. This is an unsafe environment for those children. So they take temporary protective custody of Charlie and Braden. So it took the investigation to that point where there was a catalyst. There was an event that took place with the discovery of those voyeuristic materials. That triggered the state of Washington to take action.

Once those boys were in temporary protective custody, that didn’t mean they were going to stay there. Josh immediately starts a campaign to get custody of his kids back. And he was actually within a step or two of clearing every hurdle that the court put in front of him and was probably going to get custody of his children back.

Dave: And then police in Utah who were under a court seal. They couldn’t talk publicly about the case, even to other police agencies. They get permission from a judge to share evidence with the state of Washington family court, they send this information up. And it’s troubling enough that the judge in Washington says, before we give Josh Powell custody of his children, we are going to require that he undergo a psyhologial evaluation.

So they’re going to do a very invasive psychological evaluation. Looking into, is there anything happening with Josh in his mind that would put the kids in danger? Now, during this period, the court allowed Josh to visit the children. At first, the visit is required in a neutral third party secure environment. But over time, he convinces the court that he’s safe. That they can allow his kids to visit him at a home he had rented. And the judge did not revisit that idea, After this major change, right?

Requiring Josh to go through this invasive psychological evaluation. And within a matter of days during a court authorized supervised visit, we know Josh locks the supervised visitation coordinator out of the house. He murders his sons, a horrific ending to this entire investigation. They definitely know that Susan knew her husband was abusing her. She knew the answer was yes.

What about Susan’s parents? What could they do in the aftermath of that horrible event? They sued the state of Washington, the agency, and the individual social workers involved in that case. The case wound through the courts for a long time, more than 10 years before it’s resolved.

Dave: The individual social workers were deemed immune because they were state employees and working on behalf of the state in that capacity. They couldn’t be held individually liable, but the agency could.

Susan’s parents ended up taking that case to trial. So a jury in Pierce County, Washington hears weeks and weeks of testimony. About all the details of the ins and outs of this back and forth with the criminal investigation with the family court in the state of Washington. Long story short, they end up giving a verdict. And they say the state of Washington was negligent in allowing the children to be in Josh Powell’s custody while he went through this process.

And they awarded Susan’s parents $100 million, give or take in damages. Of course, nothing that helps them bring the kids back. But their hope was that it would inspire some kind of change. Part of the reason we know as much as we do about what happened in the state of Washington behind the scenes is the law there. It required an inquest when Charlie and Braden were murdered in 2012. And the law also required the results of that inquest to be made public.

Transparency is one part of it, but the action to say, okay, these are the things that failed. Let’s fix those, is the next step. And I think that’s where often we see agencies and individuals drop the ball. They can acknowledge that yes, a murdered child is a bad outcome. But what are you going to do about it? That’s where we often fall flat.

Anne: Just recently, within the last couple months, there’s a victim. Her perpetrator has 27 protective order violations. This is in the state of Utah right now. So she reported one of these violations in Salt Lake City, and they didn’t do anything about it. So the department over that heard about it somehow, and gave her a call. Now this is a victim who’s been working with the domestic violence shelter Safe Harbor for more than three years. And she can’t even divorce this guy.

They’re still in custody court, but the department that oversees things interviewed her and did a lethality assessment. They called her back like a week later and said, we have the findings for you. You’re at a really high risk. Holy cow, this is bad. And we’ve come to the conclusion that you need services from the domestic violence shelter.

Dave: That’s it?

Anne: And she’s like, what? I’ve already been going to Safe Harbor for three years. That’s the state of domestic violence services, it’s like going around in circles. There’s how it’s supposed to work, and then there’s how it’s actually working. A lot of victims will tell you that when they tell other people that the system isn’t protecting them. People generally assume you must have done something wrong. Like maybe you didn’t fill out the right form. How else can someone prove that their husband is toxic.

Not realizing you can do everything right and still not get the help you need. It is so difficult when trying to identify if their husband is abusive. And that’s such a fine line for me as an educator. We need to give women hope that they can move toward a better life. But also be aware of all the obstacles they might face.

Dave: And Anne, I think about this a lot, because from my perspective as a journalist, I tell these stories. Part of the reason to do it is to educate, but there’s a parasocial relationship between myself and a listener. Somebody listens to me for hours talking about these cases. And I’ve had the experience many times of somebody listening, going, oh my gosh. What he’s talking about, like this story, this is my life.

And reach out to me, and in many cases, they’re asking for just somebody to hear them. But other times they’re more specific, like, help me, you seem like an expert. You seem to know what’s going on. What do I do in this situation? And I feel so ill-equipped. I want to help. So I’ll try to connect them with domestic violence resources, and I have to ask myself, did I actually help that person? It’s so hard.

Anne: Yeah, here at Betrayal Trauma Recovery we have Group Sessions, and Individual Sessions, and Workshops for women to learn safety strategies. Whether they’re married or not. All of these tools can help a woman to know if her husband is abusing her. I mean, it’s my mission to ensure that they get the help they need. Speaking of abusive partners in both Season One and Season Three of the Cold Podcast, an abusive partner plays a role.

In season one it’s Josh Powell, and in season three, Chuck Warren is an abuser. He married Sheree Warren. I can say that because I can see the markers and the things that you reported. He is also a suspect, and in every single season, every single perpetrator.

Anne: And Chuck Warren as well, has a history or patterns of objectifying women. With Cary Hartman, there ares tons of evidence of the obscene phone calls and assaults.

Like what was going on in the eighties in Ogden, by the way. Like that was wild. I was like, holy cow. I mean, season three, there are three serial rapists in Ogden. Anyway, all the guys in seasons one, two, and three show a pattern of objectifying women. Can you talk about that?

Dave: Yeah, all of them are different in their own ways. Josh, when I started looking into his background, his youth, and his relationship with Susan. There are a lot of indicators that Josh was, in many ways, wasn’t interested in physical touch.. But Susan, his wife, would write about this. He wouldn’t hold her hand, he wouldn’t kiss her. He would always find an excuse for it, I’m gonna get sick. So he had something going on, right?

And the problem with Josh is the evidence I talked about earlier. They sent it to Washington State in the child custody proceeding. They found it on a computer in the Powell home. The belief of the investigators at the time was that it was material belonging to Josh.

What we know is Josh Powell’s father was absolutely deviant in his views toward women generally, and to Susan specifically. There was a dynamic back and forth between Josh and his dad. Josh was aware of his father’s inappropriate advances on Susan, his wife, and he did nothing to stop it.

Anne: A lack of interest in your partner is definitely a characteristic of excessive exploitative content use. This is one thing help to know if you are experiencing abuse from your husband. Because they’re masturbating all the time, and they’re not into it with a real person. So even though that is a marker, in Josh’s case, there was no evidence.

Dave: Directly for him, you can understand why the police would believe it, given what you said.

Anne: Yeah, exactly.

Dave: Season two and season three, both take place in Ogden, Utah in 1985. I find it fascinating that Doug Lovell, who first assaulted and then murdered Joyce Yost, operates at the same time. Cary Hartman, we know, is attacking women. And you’ve got Sheree divorcing Chuck Warren at the time. In a lot of ways, very similar to Susan Powell, right? There’s a custody issue going on. Chuck Warren, we later find out, was soliciting who are also victims, right?

And did Sheree know about that? Probably not, so he’s lying to her, presumably, which is a form of abuse. There was a lot of that kind of dynamic going on, and part of the reason with Sheree’s case in particular. I wanted to focus on the immediate aftermath of Sheree’s disappearance. You know, the first days, weeks, months, her estranged husband, Chuck Warren, looks like Josh Powell. He looks like a really strong suspect.

He’s not forthcoming. There are stories about him having done a horrific act of physical abuse against his first wife. Sharee’s his second wife. You can understand why law enforcement is looking at Chuck.

Dave: Holy cow, this looks like all those abuse markers, and it’s the same story we’ve seen. Then all of a sudden, Cary Hartman comes into orbit over here, and you realize Sheree had this unlucky confluence of bad men in her life. If Chuck Warren was a more standup guy. If he was a better husband.

I think the investigation would’ve more quickly focused on Cary and some steps that I believe or suspect Cary took to potentially obscure his activities. Around the time that Sheree disappeared. They would’ve looked at it much sooner than 15 years later, as we see happen. I’m not somebody who likes to stand up on a soapbox and say, every man is a bad person.

Anne: Me either. We do need to help victims figure out if their husband is abusive.

Dave: But I also like to stand up and say, guys, we gotta do better than this. Even if you are not harming your wife, your partner, you probably know somebody who is. You talked about those statistics, the one in three or one in four women who will experience domestic violence in their lives.

If I can turn that around from like a man’s perspective. How many of the guys I would consider friends are at home behind closed doors doing those kinds of things? And what behaviors am I maybe seeing but choosing not to react to? Or am I just putting those blinders like we all have a role in seeing it for what it is, calling it what it is, and standing up to it.

Anne: Dave thank you so much for all of your hard work to bring these really important stories to light. And helping victims identify if their husband is abusive.

Dave: You’ve been a supporter and booster, if I can say that for a long time. That’s not lost on me. You’re doing the work in the trenches. I mean, what I say when I talk about how hard that is. And I just hope for your sake, that you find ways to cleanse yourself of it from time to time, because it’s so hard. So thank you for the work you do and all the women you’ve helped, honestly.

This kind of work takes a toll on you. And while I feel a strong obligation to continue building on the work done in these three seasons of this Cold podcast, I also need to watch out for my own emotional and mental health. I’m hopeful I can again, as you say, help educate people so that we don’t have to keep telling these kinds of stories.

If you’re searching for warning signs your husband is dangerous it’s important to know that many victims “only” experience emotional abuse until . . .

Anne Blythe, founder of Betrayal Trauma Recovery, talks to Dave Cawley, host of the Cold podcast series, about the Susan Powell case, empowering victims to protect themselves and seek safety now.

This Is the First Episode With Dave Cawley
Warning Signs Your Husband Is Dangerous – Susan’s Story With Dave Cawley (THIS EPISODE)
Patterns To Look Out For In Your Relationship

Many abuse victims do not have proof. They don’t have bruises or broken bones to show the world that their partner is abusing them.

Instead, their bruises and brokenness are hidden beneath the surface. They can be found in the way they doubt their own worth, in the way they feel they are responsible for their husband’s choices.

Other forms of abuse, just as serious as physical battering, include:

Like many women in the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Community, Susan Powell was not a victim of physical battering, as far as experts can tell. But she suffered deeply from the abusive behaviors of her husband, Josh. To see if you’re a victim of this type of abuse, take our Emotional Abuse Quiz.

Questions and statements like:

Even after Susan Powell’s ten year disappearance, many still blame her subtly by asking, “If it was so bad, then why did she stay?”

As Dave says, the societal focus should be on why so many men are abusing women, not why women are staying in abusive relationships.

Josh Powell was diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. However, even those who are not diagnosed with NPD can be narcissistic abusers. The mental and emotional toll that narcissistic abuse takes on victims is extreme. Becoming educated about narcissistic abuse. And protecting themselves through effective boundaries can help women find safety from this insidious form of abuse.

Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group meets multiple times a day and offers women a community of supportive, validating, and knowledgeable women to help them find safety from betrayal and abuse. Join today and share your story, process your trauma, ask hard questions, and vent painful feelings.

Anne: I recorded this interview in 2019. At a very intense time during my ex-husband’s post-separation abuse. I interviewed Dave Cawley, host of the cold podcast. And I want to give a shout out. He was so willing to listen to me back in 2019. So thank you from the bottom of my heart for using the interview to learn more about my story and other victims. I genuinely felt like he cared about me personally and that he cared for all victims.

So thank you to Dave Cawley and all men who are standing up for abuse victims.

Dave is a graduate of the University of Utah’s journalism school. And then went to work as a field reporter in Salt Lake City. Dave joined KSL. And then in 2018, he moved into a new role as executive producer of digital content. On December 14th, 2018. KSL and Dave launched the podcast series Cold.

The first season focused on the unsolved disappearance of Susan Powell. That story was close to Dave because he reported on Susan’s suspected murder from the beginning in December 2009. And continues to dig for new details. Cold reached number one on the Apple podcast chart on the day of its release.

Welcome, Dave.

Dave: Thanks, Anne. I really appreciate being on.

Anne: The story of Susan Powell broke the year after I was married. I got married in 2008. And so in 2009, when Susan first went missing, I closely followed the story. I had a sense at that time that something was wrong in my own marriage. I wouldn’t say at the time that I could comprehend what was happening, or even verbalize that my husband was abusive.

Something about Susan’s story was calling to me. On the day Josh murdered his sons and proved himself a murderer, I was at a family dinner with my parents and siblings, and also my husband. I said, out loud, “If anything happens to me. He killed me.”

I wanted to make sure he heard me say that to everyone because I thought that would help keep me safe. Six years later, in 2015, he was arrested for domestic violence. And that is what helped me understand what was happening. From your research of Susan Powell. Can you talk about how she felt at the beginning of her relationship?

Dave: Yeah, I can speak specifically to the circumstances of Josh and Susan’s marriage, because I had a unique opportunity to research and study those. Certainly, I don’t know the totality of Susan’s mind at any given point in time. All I can go on are the clues she left us, what she wrote in her journal.

What she wrote to her friends in emails, messages, things like that. That we drew in to use for the cold podcast. But I will say Susan and Josh met when Susan was barely out of high school. She was very young. And if you look at Susan at that time, she was a great student.

Dave: She was very hardworking, going to cosmetology school easily. In my opinion, she could have walked into any of the colleges around Washington where she lived at the time. But Josh quickly, after they started dating, isolated her. And he made her life all about him and their relationship. He did it very subtly. He used the creation almost of a mythology for their relationship. That this was a very almost fated kind of thing. That they met and fell in love.

And they’re so about each other. One another when in reality, from I think an objective point of view. You can look and say, well, it was all about how she served him, not how he served her. He was not doing things in their relationship that were advancing her best interests. He wasn’t going out of his way to do things to make her happy.

But because of her age and because of, I think some of her experience dating as a teenager, when she met Josh and he talked the big talk. She kind of fell into the idea of being in love and in this relationship. They get married quickly. So within six months of beginning to date, they’re married.

And it’s pretty clear from the get go that things are not good in their relationship, because Josh can’t keep a job. And every time he loses a job, it’s the fault of the employer. It’s never his fault. Something keeps him down. And so Susan, from the beginning, has to work multiple jobs to try to make ends meet. And help Josh get in a better place where he can hold a job.

Anne: I mean, when do you notice the signs your husband might kill you?

Dave: They have to move in with family several times, which is not a good situation. As we later learned, her father-in-law is a very unsavory individual, to put it mildly. Then it gets more complicated when children enter the mix.

Josh and Susan move away from Washington in part to get away from Josh’s dad. And some bad things and make a fresh start. So Susan at that point, in my opinion, still doesn’t see the origin of the problems. And thinks, hey, if we just get away from Washington, if we get to Utah. And we get away from the complicated family dynamics, then Josh and I can make it work.

Anne: She still doesn’t see signs her husband might kill her. But almost no one does until it’s too late..

Dave: No sooner do they get here than it’s the same dynamic, right? Susan’s breadwinning. She can hold a job, her husband is holding her back.But they conceive their first child. And that is when Susan starts to see the problems, because Josh as a father is not helpful. That is in 2005, and then it’s a downhill slide from there for a couple of years.

After they have their second child, Brayden, Josh disconnects. And the conflict comes out into the open. Josh has been dismissive of Susan for many years. But once she starts sticking up for herself, she has things that matter to her that are of value to her in her life, her religion, and her standards.

Dave: And Josh is unwilling to practice those himself, but also to allow her to practice her own religion. Do things like pay her tithing, attend church with her, things like that. And he’s also actively undercutting her to the children, talking about how bad it is that mom goes to church, and how they don’t need to go to church with mom. And don’t listen to stuff mom says. Which I think any rational person in a marriage would say is not an okay dynamic.

That is when I think Susan starts recognizing that things are not good. She starts dropping hints to friends that she feels in danger, but then when other people tell her hey, you’re in a bad situation. You need to get out of here. She will justify why she’s staying in.

Anne: Well, having been in that situation myself. It’s really a situation where you have two bad options. Staying in the marriage is bad, and divorce will also be bad. You’re trying to figure out which bad scenario is the least bad one. I was struck in the podcast. Susan did what she was supposed to do as a victim of abuse.

She reached out for help. But clergy told her that if you both work on your issues, this can be worked out. She wasn’t told her husband is dangerous. Since we have over 150,000 women in our community. I hear women report this all the time. Instead of recognizing his abuse they get their abusive husband into therapy or they’re told to go to couple therapy. Can you talk more about what happened when Susan went for help?

Dave: That’s tough. Let me speak to some of the circumstances with Josh and Susan and counseling, and we’ll get there.

Dave: Because conversations with clergy are confidential. We’re pretty limited in knowing exactly what kind of advice Josh and Susan received. But Susan did write in a couple of places about going to see her bishop, both with Josh and on her own. You can imagine this is a marriage at a very low point.

They’re at each other’s throats. And yeah, Susan is argumentative. I mean, she’s not one to passively just go with the flow. So when she’s unhappy, she’s venting about it. Josh points at her as she’s the one causing all this conflict.

Anne: What she’s “complaining about,” and I have that in air quotes, is his abuse.

Dave: Right.

Anne: Right.

Dave: She’s not identified it as such at this point, right?

Anne: He’s basically saying, I’m mad at her for being mad at me about my abuse.

Dave: Right, in so many words, yeah.

Anne: Yeah.

Dave: Every indication I have is that the clergy they spoke to said. “We are not qualified to be your marriage counselor, so let’s connect you with services.”

So that’s how Susan originally gets involved with marriage counseling. It’s 2008, and Josh refuses to go. The counselor she was talking to in 2008 identified and said you are being abused.

Anne: Oh, okay.

Dave: And this is when Susan first understood that because her dad was in town and actually went to the session with her. Chuck Cox, Susan’s dad, talks about how afterwards she turned to him and said, Do you think that’s true? Am I being abused? And her dad’s going, yes.

Anne: Yes, but she doesn’t see signs that her husband may harm her.

Dave: I think too, Anne, what happens is specifically in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You have lay clergy, and oftentimes, especially at the local level, these people are your neighbors. It can feel very close, I think even for some of those members of clergy. To be in the business of the personal lives of their neighbors, and that’s uncomfortable.

And I don’t want to say there’s not accountability in the same way that maybe a professional clergy. But it’s a little different in that religious community. Just because of the way those relationships exist. Sometimes between the people approaching, a bishop or stake president, or something like that, as opposed to other faiths.

Anne: Yeah, and many times clergy, rather than tell the victim, this is an abuse situation, your husband is dangerous, you need to get to safety. They focus on helping him. Like to reactivate someone into the church or to repent. But they don’t realize it’s keeping a victim in proximity to the abuse.

I listened to the cold podcast, and surprisingly how pornography played such a large role in developing Josh’s character. Can you talk about the role that it played in his abuse before the murder?

Dave: Yeah, this is a very interesting topic for discussion, because we have a pretty good record thanks to the divorce filings for Josh’s parents going back into the mid 90s. So Josh is a teenager, and his mom divorces his dad. In part because Josh’s dad did a lot of things that were not good. There’s some pretty good indication in those filings, that he introduced his kids to explicit content when they were young, both sons and daughters.

Dave: Because of that, we know Josh was exposed to explicit material at an early age. We know Josh was actually, by his own disclosure later to a psychologist. He is arrested at one point for stealing explicit magazines from a convenience store. You see early on that this is part of his life. It’s not until after Susan disappears, and police seize computers out of their home. And those computers are scoured for evidence, we see what happened in the meantime.

After he and Susan were married, they found many very concerning images on Josh’s computer that had been deleted for the most part. They were in what’s called free space, but Josh regularly watched it on the computer. And Susan talked a lot to her friends in messages and things that Josh was protective of his computer. She was not allowed to use his computer except to do his chores, scanning his papers, receipts, and things.

She wanted to get on the internet and Facebook and things like that. He would not allow her to do that on his computer. She had to have her own computer, which he was unwilling to pay for. So that protective behavior, I think, personally speaks to Josh knowing that there’s material on this computer that he does not want her to find.

I know there are people in law enforcement who believe the catalyst for Susan’s disappearance and murder may have been her locating something like that, calling Josh’s attention to it. And saying this is a step too far. We’re done. That’s speculation, but I think Josh’s viewing of it played a role, especially because Susan writes a lot about how he wouldn’t touch her.

Anne: This abuse and secret explicit materials use might be signs your husband is dangerous.

Dave: He wouldn’t show the normal types of affection that you would expect in a relationship like that. He would not hold her hand. He wouldn’t kiss her. When they were physically intimate, which was rare, he did not view it as beautiful and shared. It was very clinical. I’m trying not to be too graphic here.

I want to be careful to protect Susan’s privacy. When they had intercourse, it was not something that was a beautiful and affirming experience for Susan. It was almost, I think, traumatic in itself because of the way he insisted on it being very quick and clean and then over.

Anne: Women in our community assume their husbands are not viewing explicit material because they attend the temple or go to church. Because they’re under the impression that the relationship is a certain way, and they’re not being given all the information they need to make a decision. Interesting, so that form of coercion is, I would say, the most common. But it’s still coercion.

I don’t think explicit material users understand that in and of itself is a form of abuse. Just thinking about Susan, how would she feel about this? Didn’t enter Josh’s mind.

Dave: No.

Anne: He wasn’t concerned about Susan at all. All of these are red flags that her husband might kill her.

Dave: Not in the least, yeah. Continuing through their marriage, Josh and Susan moved from Washington to Utah to escape Steve Powell. But Steve Powell continues to groom his son well into adulthood through these long phone conversations. Steve Powell was dysfunctional in his views on intimacy. He wrote more than 2, 000 pages of explicit journals detailing his desire for his daughter-in-law, Susan.

Dave: And so he is interested in poisoning his son’s marriage on the belief that it will allow him to spark his relationship with Susan. Which was never going to happen. Right, but because of that, Josh is being fed this constant stream of negativity. If you look at some of Josh’s writings, going back even into his teenage years, he struggled. Even dating, before he met Susan, with being close. Just being in physical proximity to a girl or a woman, made him uncomfortable.

And when he takes that dysfunction into his marriage with Susan, it’s Susan’s fault. Because he tells his dad, Susan wants it all the time. By the time their marriage really bottoms out, they are maybe having intercourse a couple of times a year, if that.

And so you can imagine, Susan feels as a 27 year old woman, a 28 year old woman, unfulfilled. By a husband who will show her no care in daily life, no care in the bedroom. Seems repulsed by the thought of giving her a kiss or holding her hand.

And going back to your earlier point about not recognizing it as abuse. Yeah, abuse carries a lot of connotation in our society. We expect it to be hitting, to be shouting, you know, slamming of doors. Well, I think it’s arguable that if you are in a relationship with somebody and you are withholding and playing these kinds of mind games, that is a form of abuse. And unless we can call it such, we can’t address it.

Anne: Yeah, right before my ex’s arrest, he started telling me that I was unattractive. And that he never thought I was attractive, and that he hated me. I was like, whoa. And he would say, I don’t love you, but I love the kids. So finally I was like, well, then you should leave.

Dave: Yeah.

Anne: And then he wouldn’t leave. And I was like, okay, this is weird. You think I’m ugly, you don’t want to have intercourse with me. and you hate me, but you won’t leave? It was so nonsensical. It was insane. All right, so we’ve talked about the psychological abuse Susan endured. We’ve talked about how she didn’t recognize it, I didn’t recognize the signs that my husband may harm me either.

I want to talk about Josh’s behavior after the murder. It’s like many abusers after divorce. They blame their situation on their victim. They continue to lie, hide and manipulate people. And in Josh’s case, he had this huge crime, and all these people looking at him and reporters trying to get to the truth.

In my case, nobody’s been trying to investigate. My ex is still an attorney, he’s still doing his job, and he’s still lying about me. So, his current congregation thinks he’s this amazing saint, and his crazy ex-wife has done him wrong. and they feel so bad that he’s this victim.

So even in this case with Josh Powell, where there’s a murder and someone is missing, and all these police are investigating. You’ve got all these reporters, and Josh is still walking around. Lightning didn’t strike him, a bus didn’t hit him, he’s not in jail. He’s got his kids. He’s still functioning.

Anne: I mean, he’s not well, obviously. But he’s still free. Why do you think society is so bad at holding these guys accountable? Even though there are he is dangerous.

Dave: I think, in a legal sense, and especially in the United States here, we have this concept of innocent until proven guilty. That is important to remember when we’re talking about someone being accused of something criminally. But a marriage is a civil contract, not criminal. So you are married to somebody who is abusing you. You seek a divorce, and through the divorce.

The mind games that manipulative men, in particular, can work that system to their advantage. Or to try to hurt or undercut their former spouse. It doesn’t rise to that criminal level. I think many people in broader society don’t want to feel like they are passing a judgment on somebody without proof or evidence.

The very nature of this kind of abuse, that manipulation, that financial control, that emotional abuse, is that there is no trail of evidence. And even if you could take it to a police officer or prosecutor, they would say, well, what is the crime? There’s nothing in criminal statute that this violates. So that person is able to go back into society and say, well, look, I’m a good guy. I didn’t do anything wrong.

Anne: I’m the victim. My ex says, “She kicked me out of the house for no reason. And then she wouldn’t talk to me.” He doesn’t say, because I sprained her fingers and had a no contact order from the courts. He doesn’t tell people that part.

Dave: We need to, in a cultural sense, in the broadest way possible, confront our own perceptions on abuse. And start retraining ourselves.

Dave: Me telling the Susan Powell story resulted in more people than I can even tell you reaching out to share their own personal experiences. Even talking to you here, Anne, about your relationship, I think, is in a similar vein. Many women are dealing with this right now. And have never found someone who they felt safe, being very candid about what they’ve gone through.

And I think many of us hold these personal experiences close. We don’t share them. There’s shame attached to it. There’s fear of not being believed. What I personally learned was that when people are willing to share those stories with me. When women say, hey, your podcast sounded like my life.

The most important thing I can do is express belief and empathy. And say, I’m so grateful that you’re safe. I’m sorry, you have gone through or are going through this horrible circumstance. I believe you. And that opens conversation. I strongly feel that is the path forward. In trying to address why abusive men can just walk away cleanly. And say, “Well, hey, I did nothing wrong.”

Anne: Or, “You know, it didn’t work out somewhere. It just doesn’t work out.” People just dismiss it even though there may be signs her husband might harm her. That’s why I created this community to be that safe place. Because other places are like, oh, all guys use it. Why are you so worried about it? So here, at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, we are all about safety, safety, and more safety. We will help you figure out what is going on.

And we recommend you get to safety quickly. While you don’t know what’s going on. And then, from a safe place, you can objectively observe and find out what’s happening.

Anne: I get the impression that Susan didn’t know about the explicit content use until the very end. Was there any indication that she knew about it early on?

Dave: I doubt she did. I mean, like I mentioned, there is speculation by some in law enforcement that maybe she discovered something and that was a catalyst. I’m under the impression that Susan had no clue Josh was viewing explicit materials.

Anne: I’ve always wondered why reporters don’t include the alleged perpetrators pornography use when reporting crime or murder. If it was a factor? I think that would highlight how it is an element of domestic abuse. And to watch for signs the signs he might kill you.

Dave: And to the point about why do you not hear it reported, it’s a difficult spot. Especially early in reporting, we often work from a limited amount of information. The Powell case is unique in that in putting together the cold podcast, we had access to a lot of information that was not available to us when Susan first disappeared.

Material gained through search warrants and subpoenas, and things like that. So, when I sat down to tell Susan’s story, I was more informed than I think many of us were at the time she disappeared. About what was going on behind the scenes. Say somebody came forward and said, yeah, you know, Josh goes on the internet and looks at explicit material.

You need a nexus that ties it together. And without all the context of Josh’s journals and Susan’s journals, and all the stuff with these recordings, it’s difficult to put that together in a way where you see the broader context.

Dave: So I’m grateful that with the rise of podcasting and some of this longer form of investigative reporting. We’re better able to make those associations clear than you’ll ever see on the 10 o’clock news. Think when you look at Josh as somebody who’s leading a double life, he clearly did not ever allow Susan to see his true self.

Josh was a narcissist, and I say that in the sense of a psychologist actually said you have narcissistic personality disorder. He created a persona. The persona of Josh as a young man, and the older he grew, the more solidified that persona became. And the inner core, the true identity of Josh Powell, was not something that anybody ever would touch because of that outer shell. Especially his wife. And so, yes, he will never concede to her that he’s viewing it.

That he’s taking all these steps. Which, in my opinion, were preparatory for killing her and cashing in on her life insurance. Others around her were not interpreting warning signs he might use lethal violence. The exterior was about, he’s the expert at everything. Nobody’s smarter than me. My kids are the best kids and can do no wrong, because they’re extensions of me.

It’s a very interesting thing, I think, with men who are abusive in this way. It’s one of the signs he might do something drastic. That they, you know, similarly tend to show some of these narcissistic traits where they have this secret life. They protect that secret life to the exclusion of everything else. And I think part of what creates this danger, right, is the idea that when you are exposed, when say a spouse discovers this, now this will collapse that entire world.

Dave: And as a man exhibiting this kind of narcissism, when you face that reality of your world collapsing. I’ll just make this person who discovered it, who sees the real me, go away. I think that’s part of why we see violence, and especially homicide, come into play in those moments.

Anne: Yeah, I think so too. I discovered my husband’s use 18 months after we had married in the temple, and he had promised me he didn’t use explicit material, so he had been lying to me and manipulating me the whole time. That’s when I got really scared because that’s a sign of something very serious.

I think it’s interesting that he went into “recovery”. And when I say that, I mean in quotes. He became like the model addict in recovery. And we were actually public speaking about his amazing recovery, and I didn’t know that he was still lying and manipulating me. I thought I knew how to deal with an addict husband. So near the end, I was like, this is a sham.

You are a fake and not in recovery. You haven’t been, and you’re speaking to people as if you are. And that is when the violence escalated. Escalating violent is a sign he might harm you. I was like, I’m not speaking with you anymore, and quit my job. I was the PR director of a popular addiction recovery practice. And so I quit my job and I was like, no, I am done.

In the addiction recovery space, which you may or may not be familiar with. When someone enters recovery, everything in that family becomes about him and his recovery. Let’s make sure he’s okay. Let’s treat him like he has cancer. I believe that’s actually a continuation of the abuse.

Anne: I think they should say, okay, she’s a victim of abuse here. She’s been a victim of abuse for 10 years when she didn’t know about his use. Now we know that explicit materials use is a sign that he may use violence against women, because that’s all it is these days. Let’s treat her like she has cancer, and let’s make sure she’s safe. And then let’s wait at a safe distance to see if he is a safe person to be around.

That’s not what happens right now. When a couple goes into clergy and says he’s using they’re like, oh, okay. Well, wife, you support him, be supportive. And I’m like, what? No, no, no. That should never happen, because you don’t know what else is going on. Like get her to safety. I mean, I can’t tell you how many women spend tons of time reading books about addiction. How can I support him?

How can I make sure I don’t shame him in and on and on? And he’s like, Great. It’s all about me. The relationship’s all about me. Meanwhile, she can’t live a life, because the whole life is about him and his addiction. They have to adjust everything to fit this new reality, and it’s, as you can tell, really making me mad.

Dave: With Susan and Josh, he is unwilling to go when Susan is in therapy. Susan writes repeatedly that she hopes that if she goes, and he sees it improves her. He will then be willing to go. I want to go back in time and sit down with Susan and say, Susan, you do not understand the way your husband’s brain works, that is never going to happen.

The only time he ever goes to therapy is when she confronts him with, I’m leaving. Susan is the meal ticket and is doing child care, bread winning, and taking care of the house. If Susan leaves, Josh will have to work. He’ll also have to explain why his wife left, right?

He reluctantly goes along, does the minimum necessary in that situation to keep her on the hook. The idea of being supportive of your husband, you’re working together, he’s going to see how it improves me. Josh has no interest in improving. And I think many of these men who are psychologically abusing their spouses, who are violating that trust, are not interested in self improvement for self improvement’s sake.

Anne: When people say, well, he’s going to therapy, I’m like, but why is he going to therapy? Like, is it because he genuinely wants to change? From your podcast, we can see why it was difficult for the law to stop Josh Powell, who was under investigation for murder. Because they were trying to gather evidence. So what hope do victims like me and my community have of getting help when it’s “just emotional abuse.” I mean, it’s so scary that they’re not seeing how dangerous he is.

Anne: What would you say to Susan before the murder? Let’s say five years before.

Dave: Susan dealt with a lot, I think, of self doubt. She knew something was wrong in her marriage, and took steps to begin extricating and protecting herself. And in my opinion, there is no clear answer why she stayed in that relationship. I hear that a lot, right? Why did she stay? Which in my opinion is the wrong focus. It should be on why do we have an abusive man perpetrating on his wife?

But for the sake of argument, if we take this question of why Susan did stay, many people want to blame the church. People that maybe aren’t from the community, or even who are, who say, well, clearly she was deluded by her religion. You have other people who want to blame it on X, Y, Z. The truth is, I think there are many influences in any of these situations. Susan feels some fear because Josh has made, I think, some threats to her in probably some very subtle ways, right?

She expresses a fear that I’m riding my bike to work on 5600 West in West Valley City, this busy road, and how easy would it be to have an “accident?” When her father-in-law writes in his journal that Josh has mentioned, boy, he sure wishes a car would get hit Susan. So, I’m looking at that saying, yeah, he’s probably told her as much, right? I wish a truck would just hit her. And she’s thinking, oh my gosh, my husband wants me dead.

So you have fear. Fear is definitely not a good sign. Susan goes to the temple and prays about it. And she has a feeling that she needs to stay. So you have all these contrary forces, emotions.

Dave: What I would tell Susan is, A, trust your gut. Clearly, you were concerned enough to feel a fear, and then you basically talked yourself out of it. Second, you have more support than you realize. Susan had a network of friends and family who we see after she disappears, catalyze and become this amazing force to advocate for her and her story. And they’re still doing that now, 10 years later. That’s to me amazing. And I don’t think she recognized how strong her support network was.

The other thing I would tell her is, Susan, if you leave, you’re gonna be okay. Because, living with somebody who, year after year, undercuts you. And robs you of your positive self image, who makes you feel like dirt, like you’re unlovable. Makes the idea of going out into the world by yourself with your two children and trying to support yourself.

I have the benefit of looking at Susan from outside of that relationship and seeing somebody who is incredibly hard working, who is bright, who loves her boys. Who has plenty of admirers, who has many friends, who makes friends easily, right?

And even for somebody who doesn’t have all those things, it’s scary to leave and take that step. But it’s also not as scary as you probably think, once you are on the other side. Like, Susan would have been okay as long as she was safe from Josh. There were signs he might kill her, but no body educated her about them. So going back to your point, get to safety, do whatever it takes to get to safety. And then start rebuilding your life, and you’ll be okay.

Dave: But seeing the impact that Susan’s story has had opened my eyes in a big way. Even today, having this conversation with you, Anne, is a continuation of that process. It’s a matter of learning and forcing the uncomfortable. And that’s my biggest takeaway. Honestly, I think seeing that abusive relationship in very close detail is, at its core, a lack of empathy on Josh’s part, not showing what I would consider a human care for another person’s well-being.

Anne: Yeah, there’s a lot that goes into this whole topic of misogyny, believing women and the Me Too movement. All these other factors that came about after the Me Too movement happened, after Susan’s disappearance. Then what are signs your husband might hill you?

Dave: And it’s not political. I think Me Too gets a little politicized. And people start wanting to say well, you know, but not all guys, and it’s like no no, no. Let’s not do that. Let’s focus on believing and showing empathy for people in bad situations who need help. That’s all.

Anne: Yeah, your podcast was amazing. It was gripping. If you have not yet listened, it is called Cold. If you have not heard it, I would highly recommend it. It is excellent.

Thank you so much for your time, Dave. We appreciate you being here.

Dave: Thanks, Anne.

It’s shocking how common financial abuse in divorce is. Here are the best ways to protect yourself. Divorce is hard. If you’ve been married to a narcissistic abuser, it can feel even more impossible to break free. These individuals often don’t stop their controlling behavior after a divorce is filed. Instead, they escalate their attempts to assert power.

One of the most common—and devastating—ways narcissistic abusers do this is through financial abuse. If you’re a woman divorcing a narcissist, it’s vital to understand how financial abuse works and how to protect yourself. To discover if you’re emotionally abused, take this free emotional abuse quiz.

Financial abuse is an abuser’s way of gaining and maintaining power by controlling access to money and resources. During a divorce, this often includes tactics like withholding financial support, hiding assets, or intentionally complicating legal and financial processes. To wreak havoc on their victim’s stability. The abuse doesn’t necessarily stop after divorce—it can take on new, cruel forms, keeping victims entangled in elaborate schemes long after ties should have been cut.

Narcissistic abusers are motivated by control. They want to undermine your autonomy, manipulate your decisions, and make you dependent on them.

Anne Blythe, the founder of Betrayal Trauma Recovery, explains it clearly, “Narcissistic abusers are very calculated. They control where, when, and how they show their true colors. At home, they ‘lose their temper.’ Outside of it, they maintain a polished, socially acceptable image. Financial abuse is yet another method for them to assert power at your expense.”

When you understand that financial abuse stems from their need for control—not because of your mistakes or shortcomings—you’re better equipped to set boundaries and protect your well-being.

Financial abuse takes many forms. These are some of the most common examples of what narcissists might do to use financial abuse in divorce proceedings to maintain control over your life:

An abuser may attempt to conceal money, savings accounts, or investments to make it appear as though they have less than they do. This could limit the entitled financial settlement.

One victim shared, “He told us he was so poor that our church had to pay his mortgage and car payment—almost $2,000 a month. But when my lawyer looked at his financial records, we found out the truth. He spent thousands of dollars on alcohol and other bad stuff, and even putting a lot of money into his retirement account while pretending he had no money.”

It’s not uncommon for abusers to cancel shared credit cards or refuse to pay child or spousal support during the divorce process, leaving victims unable to meet daily expenses.

Dragging out divorce proceedings is another method of control. By filing unnecessary motions, refusing to negotiate, or missing deadlines, abusers increase costs and prolong the emotional strain to maintain dominance.

Some women report that abusers interfere with their ability to work—such as creating emotional stress, harassing them at work, or withholding child care arrangements—to keep them dependent on the abuser’s finances.

The abuser uses these tactics to exhaust you, and designed to make you feel stuck. The good news? You can overcome them.

They might withhold child support payments or use visitation schedules to intentionally disrupt your financial planning.

Post-divorce financial abuse can feel relentless. Another victim of financial abuse after divorce said. “For over two years, I dealt with him purposefully withholding child support and blocking me from accessing what the court decided was mine.”

Protecting yourself from financial abuse requires awareness, preparation, and boundaries. Here are the most effective actions to take:

Financial abuse is one of the hardest forms of abuse to endure, especially during something as emotional as divorce. However, with the right tools, planning, and support, you can rise above it. Remember, what they do says a lot about them—and nothing about you. Focus on building your own emotional and financial security, so you can live free from their control.

If you’re struggling to process or prepare for financial abuse, Betrayal Trauma Recovery is here to help, join one of our group sessions for women or explore our workshops to gain valuable skills in navigating financial and emotional abuse.

You deserve safety, security, and peace.

I have Brenda on today’s episode. She’s going to share her expertise as a financial advisor about financial abuse in divorce. Welcome, Brenda.

Brenda: Hello, Anne. It’s really good to be here

Anne: Thank you so much for coming on today. Let’s talk about finances.

Brenda: Because everyone is always so excited to talk about finances, right?

Anne: One of the things I want to ask victims is, if you had a billion dollars, would you stay married to him? And the answer is usually no. They’re so afraid because they’re trapped. They don’t know how they’re going to take care of their kids, and they don’t want to work. They didn’t sign up for that.

Sometimes they do work, but figuring out how I support a family by myself is so overwhelming. What are the best ways to take financial stuff off the table, so women can make decisions based on their safety, not finances?

Brenda: I love your question about if you had a billion dollars. I think that’s very clarifying.

Brenda: And that gives an indication of, are they staying in that space, relationship or marriage because they hope things will change? Or is it simplified? Is it solely financial? And then if the answer to the billion dollar question is no, I would not stay here. I would want out. Information is power. So that’s where you start gathering information. And oftentimes, an individual who does leave an abusive relationship might have the means, they might be protected.

They might be okay financially. But someone keeps them in the dark, perhaps about their financial situation.So they might not have the financial records, they might not know what their spouse makes. They might be on an allowance. If you don’t have financial information about your family. Or if your family’s financial situation is in shape. It’s hard to know. You’re just in a space of fear because it’s unknown. Will you face financial abuse in divorce?

So the first thing is to become knowledgeable, if you can, about your true financial situation. Sometimes it can be overt. They could talk to their spouse about needing access. And depending on whom they’re dealing with, they might get it. Or, if they don’t have any access, then it becomes, let’s call it a treasure hunt. Where you’re picking up bits and pieces of the financial picture to try to understand what your options are, what your situation is.

The other piece of that, if you’re considering leaving and if leaving means divorce, is to get smart about what the rules are in your area. I’ve heard it said there are like 33 hundred counties in the United States, something like that. Don’t quote me on the exact number.

Brenda: And there are just as many ways to be divorced. So rules vary state by state rules and rights. They vary from municipality to municipality. That at least gives people grounding or information data to start figuring out, you know, would they be okay?

Anne: In The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop, we have a section about finances, and Living Free is not about getting divorced. It’s about seeing reality. In the beginning, when women got to that part, they were like, does she want me to get divorced? And the answer is not yes or no. I’m not trying to push anybody in any direction, but I want them safe. And financial safety is such a huge part of this puzzle.

In Living Free, when people talk about physical abuse, many people who listen to this podcast are not necessarily physically assaulted. They’re not being punched, they don’t have bruises. They’re experiencing emotional and psychological abuse and coercion, it’s difficult to see. I want people to start to think about the threats of not having a home, not putting food on the table, not having a roof over your head, not being able to pay for gas to get around, that is a physical threat. This is why getting to physical safety is part of deliverance from abuse.

Brenda: Sure. It’s your basic fundamental human needs.

Anne: Exactly, so if they’re threatening, if you divorce me. Then you’ll never be able to take care of yourself. There will be financial abuse in divorce. Are you thinking that in your mind is a physical threat? It’s extremely physical, and I see it as physical abuse. So think, is this threat of physical harm the thing that keeps me from getting to safety?

Anne: Being educated about your finances and what you need is one step toward not just financial safety, but also physical safety. Because if you know you can take care of yourself, that is such a relief. Even if I never got any money from him, I could keep a roof over my head, pay my bills and buy food. That sort of thing.

Brenda: And it lets people figure out what other information they need and what decisions they need to make. If baseline is, oh, I could… Everyone is different. I could go back to work. In our area. There are programs that help women in abusive situations retrain and get to a living wage. Is that available near you?

Do you have enough assets that you have every right to take? Every situation will be different. But unless you have the information, you can’t figure out what your next steps are.

Anne: When you said talk to him, that made me nervous, because I was like, whoa. You might tip him off, and then he might start hiding money, which is financial abuse in divorce. And he might start manipulating you. So aside from talking to him, what tips do you have for how they can start to find information about their finances?

Brenda: I’m just going to backtrack to talking to him for a minute. Yes, it could. And everyone knows their relationship and situation better than anyone else. I have had people who will get the information, and they do use a ruse. It will be, I need it to sign Susie up for soccer, or I want to go to this workshop with my sister, and learn how to understand taxes. Can I have our tax return?

Brenda: So it might not be overt, and they still have access to the information. I would say anywhere you can get it. If you can get logins, yes, then you can go online. However, there are flags there, because if you log into the bank account, that bank account or credit card might register the login.

They might be set so that there’s an alert. Someone logged into your account at 2:24 this afternoon. You got to be aware that that’s out there too. If. You are in such a situation where you’re cut off from all of that information. So it just as asking someone directly could present danger, know that logging into things could as well.

Anne: That is a good point, I hadn’t thought of that. I like the ruse idea, that, hey, I’m going to be logging into this thing, can I have the login? Because I’m doing blah blah blah, that is a reason not related to him. Not like, you seem like you’re an abuser. I’m considering leaving you, and I don’t want to experience financial abuse in divorce. Can I have the login? It’s probably the worst idea, I think

Brenda: You’re exposing yourself. So unfortunately, as you and your listeners all know, you’re walking a fine line, and they’re in a precarious situation, but they also usually know. I know from my own experience, I would often know the things that were going to, like tee up an issue, explosion or anger. Sometimes you don’t. And sometimes that’s another problem, right? It’s out of the blue.

Brenda: Hey, I just put cheese on that sandwich. I didn’t think it was going to. …cause World War III.

Anne: They get unpredictable when they feel like they don’t have control. And so that’s why I’m concerned about like, so many women have told me, oh, he’ll never do that. Never underestimate how much your narcissist ex doesn’t want to leave you alone. So many of our clients here at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, they’re like, oh, I’m getting divorced, but I’ve got it all ready to go. It’s going to go well. He told me he’ll always take care of me.

And then, like a hundred percent of the time, it does not. They experience financial abuse in divorce. And it goes the way he manipulated her to think it’s going to go, it always goes sideways.

Brenda: And the system is built for that. People often going through divorce think, I will be heard, finally. The system will protect me. I trust the system to do its job. It’s not going to. We don’t even know what the job is half the time. If you get all the way to trial, the decisions are being made by a judge who might be late for a dentist appointment.

They’re paying half or no attention to your story. And then they’re going to rule. You can’t trust the system, you can know the rules. You can try to figure out what is your bottom line? What’s your worst case scenario? Where are you protected? Where are you exposed? But circling back to like where you can get the information.

Brenda: You turn yourself into a little sleuth. So your own little private investigator, do you get the mail when the mail comes in? Do bills come? You can order a credit report, and you can do that separately. So at least, you know what credit cards exist, and how long they’ve existed. That’s another way that sometimes exposes hidden debts or hidden money.

It depends on your situation in your household and where the safe conversations are. And a lot of that is, I would say, catering to the abuser.

Anne: I would say strategically talking to him rather than catering, but yes.

Brenda: Yes, so you’re figuring out. What is the information you’re looking for? How can you get it? What is a viable reason for having it that isn’t going to create a situation that’s going to make life more difficult for you? And worsen financial abuse in divorce.

Anne: Getting a credit report. That’s a good idea, because then you can see the stuff that he’s pulled. Can he have his own separate credit report that she can’t see some stuff on?

Brenda: Yes.

Anne: Okay, so she wouldn’t be able to see like a credit card that he applied for all by himself.

Brenda: Depending on the information she has, she might order a credit report for him.

Anne: Oh, if she knows his information, she could order it.

Brenda: And the question you ask is what’s the bounce back? Is he going to be alerted that there was a credit pool, but you can find that out before you do it, rather than be surprised after. So it’s just a question to ask.

Anne: Yeah.

Anne: What I have found with victims is that the whole situation is so overwhelming. Trying to make decisions, trying to figure out what to do, is so overwhelming. It feels like you’ve got problem after problem, after problem just piled on top of you. That’s why figuring out how long it will take to recover from your husband’s emotional abuse is impossible. And there’s no way to get out from under it. Talking about maybe just doing one thing today to try to reduce the overwhelm when it comes to finances, any ideas there so that it’s not so overwhelming?

Brenda: So are you asking in the case of someone who plans to leave the relationship?

Anne: No, here at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, we only talk about safety. So just so that you are financially safe, so that you feel financially safe. And also so that you know how much money you would need if he divorced you, for example. So this physical and financial safety, what I’m talking about, is just being. educated about your financial situation. How much your house payment is, how much houses cost in your area, how much you could make if you got a job at the library.

You know, just basic information. I feel like information leads to emotional, financial, and physical safety when it comes to like, how much do I need to have a roof over my head? And I think regardless of what path you take to safety, you need to know this. There may be financial abuse in divorce.

Brenda: You’re looking at four major categories. What you have, what you spend, what you owe and what you earn. And anytime you start accumulating that information, it’s also future casting, right? You can then picture yourself perhaps in a different situation or safer situation, because you’ve got a little bit of that information.

Brenda: What can you earn, like you said, what can you earn working at the library? Were you working, and maybe you were a teacher, and your credentials are out of date? What would it take to get those back? So you can be hired. Are schools in the area hiring? Is that something you would want to go back to? So it’s all building information. So you can be more prepared if there is financial abuse in divorce.

That would be in the what you earn category. What it takes to live? You can get online, or if the newspaper still exists in your area, get a newspaper. What does an apartment cost? Do you need a car? What would that cost? Do you currently have one? Just starting to put together the pieces of what would it take for you to be secure food, shelter, clothing?

Is that available to you? What are your options there? Every little bit of additional information you can gather is more than you had before. And hopefully both empowering and putting you in a safer place, just because you are then more informed.

Anne: You saying that reminds me of this class I had in high school. In high school, we were paired up with a partner. Mine, his name was Tony. I remember this well. And then we drew little slips of paper for, like, your job. Different things about you and you pulled them out. That was your scenario. I was paired up with Tony because he had a car and I didn’t, and we were to go out and find an apartment. that we could afford and buy groceries and figure it all out.

Anne: So we would drive around, and that was so helpful. I was like, whoa, it was at that time that I personally decided to go to college. Because I had a job at the time, and I knew there was no way I could afford this apartment on the job I currently have that I do after school. And it helped me put two and two together as a teenager.

But then I’m thinking about the divorce coaching clients we have at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, because many of our coaches are certified divorce coaches. And I remember one of them was talking about one of our clients, who she thought I could never do this. I can never do that. But once they went through all the financial stuff, she realized that all she needed was an extra thousand dollars a month. That was it.

Then when she figured that out, she thought, Oh, I can easily get a job that earns me a thousand dollars a month. And I’d still afford my house. And once she had that information, she could move forward on the path she thought was the safest for her. Getting this information is so helpful. And especially if you don’t know what you want to decide, I think getting the information will help you make that decision.

Brenda: When their faces light up and they’re like, Oh, I can do this. I’m going to be okay. And sometimes at first blush, the first pass at looking at what it’s going to cost might not be okay, but at least then they know what it’s going to take. Maybe we can’t be in safety right now, but this is what it will take me to get there.

Anne: You’ve had personal experience with this. Can you talk about how these issues came into play with your own personal experience? How did infidelity or financial abuse affect you in divorce?

Brenda: As I went through years and years of my relationship, it became more abusive and more covert. And when I look back now, I can say, Oh my goodness, what was I thinking? Who was that person? And there’s a lot of shame. There’s a lot of guilt. There’s a lot of baggage in the things that became okay over the years. And I didn’t see it until I was away from it. I knew in my heart that it was not okay to be screamed at in the street because of some small thing, right.

And called names, and repeatedly verbally abused. But it happened so gradually over time. That it was just my normal. It was what I was used to. And it took starting to step away from the relationship to look back and reframe and see how bad things were. There were times when my husband literally asked other women out in front of me, and then gaslit me. Like, oh no, it didn’t happen that way. You’re making a big deal out of it.

She’s just a business connection or whatever. Which it sounds telling now, like how on earth could you stand there and watch that happen? Go home and make dinner, and put the kids to bed or whatever our normal was. And I think it was just normalized. And the only way I got clear on this is not okay. Was with people, either friends or professionals, who after a while could see and validate.

Brenda: Oftentimes, we’re told, oh, that’s not a big deal. Oh, he had a bad day. Oh, whatever the excuse is, it’s still an excuse. And it is not okay to diminish people, swear at people, abuse people and hide information. And then with people who are, again, professionals, the therapist who, instead of saying, this is how you accommodate him. Who say, how do we support you?

And I see you and the behavior. It’s not normal, rational or acceptable, but sometimes it takes getting permission, I think from others. Who instead of saying, suck it up, you can do this, you just have to keep accommodating. Say you are worthy, whole, valuable, and this is the only life you have. You don’t need to live it this way. Once you start getting more voices who are giving you that support, you can start to see a different reality.

You can start to see space where you can have a valuable life. Where you can control your own decisions, where you’re not always walking on eggshells waiting for the next blow up or bad thing to happen.

Anne: Yeah, I think so many women, at least women, who come to Betrayal Trauma Recovery, have been to a lot of therapy. They’ve asked their friends and family for help, and often, no one has told them, this is abuse. Many of them have experienced financial abuse in divorce.

Brenda: It’s how you can change, how you can accommodate, how you can change yourself and make it okay. But the answer I think is, it’s not okay. It is abuse, and no one deserves that.

Anne: Once women realize, once I realized it, through whatever way they do it. Some women learn it from listening to the podcast. There are many ways that you can realize, oh, this is abuse. Then when you’ve got the right pair of glasses to actually see reality for what it is. Then you can start making decisions, that help you start healing from this hidden abuse. Which I think comes into the financial piece. Because once you know the reality of your financial situation, you can start making decisions.

I’m thinking of another woman who thought her husband had a ton of money. And so she thought that in divorce, she would get a lot, so she wasn’t worried about getting a job. She wasn’t opposed to getting a job at all. She just didn’t think about it. Then when she found out more, she realized he was in so much debt that it was better for her to not take anything from him and just let him have his debt.

And then she was free to build her life the way she wanted, and not be saddled with all the debt he had accrued. And in her situation, that helped her move forward, realizing I’m going to go back to college and start a career.

Brenda: We are then working through their finances and what’s feasible, and just call it, what does it cost to live? That’s what we’re really figuring out. A woman in an abusive relationship trying to figure out what her options were. And at first blush, she looked at what now she had access to their finances. And could protect herself from financial abuse in divorce. But she looked at what they had. She’s like, oh, I’m going to have half a million dollars. I’m set for life.

Brenda: Let’s work through this. Let’s do the math and figure out what would it take for her to live for her kids, for their schooling, for their, all the things. And it came up to about a hundred thousand dollars a year. So half a million dollars after taxes, call it $350, 000. That’s going to get you through about three and a half years. So now you have that information, good. You’re going to be okay for three and a half years. And then what?

Or, if you don’t want to dip into that, what are your options now? For me, every little bit of information you have adds to the pieces of this puzzle you’re putting together for what your life can look like. What is safety to you? What is acceptable to you? The more information you have, the better you are able to make your own decisions. And protect yourself from financial abuse in divorce.

Anne: In some cases, I hear about women hiring a forensic accountant, and professionals like that help with their divorce cases. Can you talk more about specialized services like a forensic accountant? What does somebody like that do? Things that women might need to consider when looking at finances.

Brenda: So a forensic accountant will dig deep into the nitty gritty of the family finances. Sometimes looking for misspending, hidden money, things like that. Sometimes involved in putting values to things. So if you’re dividing things, you got to know what you’re dividing.

What is it worth? So a forensic accountant is often worthwhile when there are big financial questions or money might be hidden somewhere. It’s harder and harder to hide money. Because there’s an electronic trail, a paper trail, and tax trails, for almost every transaction we do.

Brenda: Unless you’re dealing in cash or trade, it has a trail, so it’s harder to hide. It’s not impossible, but it’s harder. For most people, it’s not necessary if you don’t have a complex situation. Often hired, often overkill, if there’s not a lot of money at stake. So I had a client come to me about a year ago, and she was sure, absolutely sure her husband was hiding money. But when we kept talking about it, the amount she thought he was hiding.

It would have cost her so much more money to find it than it was worth. So we’ve got to figure out what it’s worth. Is it millions at stake? Are there tens of thousands of dollars missing? Then it’s probably worthwhile. If we’re talking a thousand dollars, that might have set aside. You will probably pay much more in professional fees to track that down. Than you’re ever going to get back.

As you’re approaching all this and trying to get smarter about your financial situation. Whether you’re aware of everything. Some of the good questions to ask yourself are at what cost? What’s the return on that investment? If you get that information, is it $5 or $50,000? How much are you willing to spend to get it? A forensic accountant is expensive.

The spouse took out a credit card that his wife wasn’t aware of, and spent it on pornography, and a woman in Eastern Europe he kept sending money to. So he would draw it off the credit card. She was incensed, and she was very hurt. They actually went through the divorce process, and she wanted an accounting of what he had spent. So she wouldn’t be a victim of financial abuse in divorce.

Brenda: And I completely understand that. They weren’t in a financial situation where they could throw money away freely. But in fact, what he had spent was about $500. It was a lot, but it would have cost so much more to trace that money. It wasn’t worth it. So in that case, she knew about it. They could use it in their discussions. She’s never going to get that money back. He already spent it, but tracing it wasn’t worthwhile.

Another woman did go through, it was 10,000 pages of credit card bills they gave her in a hard copy. But we found $250,000 that he had spent on a girlfriend. That was definitely worth it.

Anne: So, depending on what it is, I feel the same way about alimony, for example. If the lifetime value of spousal support is $80,000, let’s say, like $10,000 for eight years, and you spend $150, 000 getting that. You should think about the numbers here. When dealing with financial abuse in divorce.

Brenda: Do some math.

Anne: Yeah, you do some math and figure that out on the flip side of this. I have heard of a few victims who are like, I will start hiding money, and they have the impression, and this may be true. I am unschooled on this part of it. So they’re like, I’m going to start putting money here so they can’t find it, so I’m not going to get stuck paying him alimony.

Can you talk about that? Is there a way to legally protect yourself from that? For women who think there is a way to hide the money, can you maybe talk them through this situation?

Brenda: Maybe, but at what cost?

Brenda: First of all, is there a legal way to hide money? Not really. In that case, if you’re going through divorce, you’re signing a contract on file with the court. And you’re essentially saying whether it’s mediation, collaborative process, litigation, whatever you go through. Every document I’ve ever seen says I told the truth and disclosed everything. So that’s pretty heavy.

If you’re going to hide money and you’re still okay with signing that, and then it’s found out later, you’re not in a good situation. So again, was it worth it? Is there a legal way? There are tricks that people and groups will share about how to stash away a little cash. Sometimes it might be necessary. I’ve seen partners cut their partner off and stop paying the bills out of spite. That is financial abuse in divorce.

Anne: That happened to me. I was completely cut off from finances, yeah.

Brenda: If you could be at risk and say physical safety of not being able to have food, shelter and clothing, you’re not able to live safely. Can you set aside money? Yes, the hiding it part is where it gets tricky. If the money is marital, you have a right to it. It is not uncommon. I’m here not working, raising the kids, and I don’t have anything of my own. Yes, you do. You have just as much right. You’re not being paid for your work, but it’s not his retirement account. It is marital.

There’s a caveat to everything. If he had it before you got married, that part’s not marital. But anything earned or saved during a marriage, unless it’s a gift or inheritance, because again, caveat, is marital, you have a right to it.

Brenda: It’s not like you’re hiding and stealing if you’re taking money to ensure you can live.

Anne: In my case, I had paid $100,000 of his school debt when we got married. That was pre-marital assets in my case, because I was a teacher for 10 years and saved well and a bunch of stuff. And I did not get that back, because I apparently commingled it. Then my grandma, when she died, had given me a small sum of money. You’re saying if it’s an inheritance, it’s yours.

During mediation, instead of saying it’s the law, I’ll give it to her. He said, I know how much she loved her grandma, and I would never want to take that away from her. As if he was just being so nice. Instead of me realizing in that moment, he was just trying to look good when he had to give it back, no matter what.

Brenda: He had to give it back if it stayed in your name. If you put it in a joint bank account, not the case.

Anne: It was in a joint bank account. So maybe he was “being nice.”

Brenda: Yeah.

Anne: He wasn’t.

Brenda: Exactly, he was looking good.

Anne: For whatever reason he wanted to look good.

Brenda: I guess this is the difference between a financial advisor who you might have to help plan your retirement and what have you. And a certified divorce financial analyst, because divorce has its own money roles. They are actually different partnerships, depending on the state you live in, and can have their own money rules. Some recognize it like a common law marriage, even if you’re not married. Others don’t, and your rights vary depending on where you live.

Anne: Yeah.

Anne: That’s good to know. With your financial experience, what would you say to women skeptical about their financial future, victims of financial abuse in divorce?

Brenda: I would say you have value and rights, it is in your best interest to know them. Sometimes you’re not going to like what you learn, but you’ll have the information you need to start seeing a different future. To take control of your own situation. Even if it’s a little thing at a time, if you are not safe, and that doesn’t feel good. And you’ve been gaslit or brainwashed to believe you don’t have rights to have financial information.

Everything in the marriage belongs to the abuser, not to you. You have been told you’re lucky to be there. I would say you’re probably not lucky to be there. The more you surround yourself with the support of people who tell you that you have value, that you have worth. As challenging or huge as moving out of that space might seem. Even a little step, like a little crack in the situation, can then become bigger.

Hopefully, you’ll find yourself in a space where you are safe. Whether it’s married or not in a relationship, where you are safe and valued. Often in an abusive situation, you are made to feel small, and as though you owe something to the abuser. You don’t, you are complete, whole and valuable. You don’t have to give in to financial abuse in divorce.

Anne: Thank you so much for coming on today’s episode and sharing your thoughts. I appreciate it. Her website is bridgingdivorcesolutions.com. Brenda, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today.

Brenda: Thank you, I appreciate it. I appreciate the work you do. It’s incredibly important.

When a woman uncovers her husband’s infidelity, she might seek help from an addiction therapist. The therapist may recommend a therapeutic disclosure. What is a therapeutic disclosure? To summarize, here are 4 things you need to know.

A therapeutic disclosure is a process that involves the addict disclosing their full history to a therapist and his wife. In theory, the purpose is to provide the betrayed wife with all the information she needs, so she can make informed decisions about the relationship moving forward.

However, at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, we don’t recommend it. Here’s why

A therapist may suggest that your husband needs a therapeutic disclosure, but what exactly is he disclosing? If the things he’s disclosing qualify as emotional, psychological or some other type of abuse, it’s not recommended that you participate in his therapy or a therapist led disclosure in any way.

To see if any of the things he’s disclosing qualify as emotional abuse, take our free emotional abuse quiz.

Because therapeutic disclosures keep women in proximity to possibly abusive behavior, it’s important to know that abusive men often use the “trickle” method to selectively “disclose”, but it’s really calculated to manipulate and control her.

Abusive men aren’t abusive because of things like childhood trauma or feeling ashamed. They’re abusive because they choose to be. If they have problems like trauma or shame, they could choose other ways to cope, like exercising, eating too much, or even building model trains. Abuse is always a choice.

Therapy helps figure out why someone acts the way they do. But an abusive man can confuse his therapist and wife by making up lots of “reasons” for the so-called root cause. These excuses can take over and become the focus. It’s better to avoid being part of an abusive man’s therapy altogether.

Instead of convincing a husband to do a therapeutic disclosure, women who experience betrayal can focus on their own emotional and psychological safety.

Anne: It’s just me today. I’m going to be talking about therapeutic disclosures. When you discover your husband is looking at online content, lying, having affairs, or soliciting. Someone might tell you, or you may think he’s a sex addict. And if you go to addiction therapy. There’s a high likelihood that an addiction therapist, will have him do a therapeutic disclosure.

So we’re going to talk about why I think therapeutic disclosures are dangerous. And then you decide what you want to do after listening to what I have to say. So, first of all, what is a therapeutic disclosure? It is a process that involves the addict disclosing their full history to his wife. In a “so-called structured way” with the guidance of a therapist.

In theory, the purpose of a therapeutic disclosure is to provide the betrayed wife all the information she needs. For her to make informed decisions about the relationship moving forward. Now, I want to talk about all the reasons why that doesn’t make sense. First of all, their history does not include all the times they manipulated their wife over little and big things. All the lies, all the emotional and psychological abuse, and the coercion.

It does not address his abuse, which is the actual problem. If you take that to the next logical step, you might say, then I’m going to get them in an abuse program. Well, an abuse program is pretty much the exact same thing. It’s in a couple setting where the wife says, Hey, these are the things I need to see. This is what I want to know.

Anne: There’s really no difference. Your abusive husband can manipulate the therapist. He can take his time and drag it out. Like he has a lot of control to exploit that situation. So abuse experts understand that anything therapeutic will worsen the abuse. Because men aren’t abusive because of their childhood trauma or shame, or for any other reason other than they want to exploit people.

I know many people with childhood trauma. I feel shame. And I watch a lot of TV sometimes, or I might go for a walk. I call my sister, you know, some people use model trains. Abuse is not the only option here. There are so many other options. Nothing’s gonna stop him from wanting to exploit the situation. Except for him wanting to stop. And if he wanted to stop, he wouldn’t be like that in the first place. So abuse is a choice.

The purpose of therapy is to uncover the underlying cause of a person’s behavior. So in therapy, an abusive, manipulative, deceitful man will run the therapist and his wife in circles. He’ll give both of them all sorts of reasons. And most of these reasons are lies, and then these “reasons” take on a life of their own. So it’s best to stay away from being involved in an abusive man’s therapy, treatment, or program at all costs.

A therapist could tell you that a therapeutic disclosure is important, to “avoid trickle disclosures.” And that sounds like a good idea. If a therapist tells you we’re going to do this, so you can get the whole truth. So he doesn’t just give you a little information. here and there.

Anne: But what they won’t tell you is this is just an abuser lying. He’ll disclose bits of information tactically to manipulate, distress you or drag things out. They know that this process of disclosing things at tactical times gives them control. So they’re going to prolong the process for as long as possible to maintain that control. Throughout that whole thing she’s still unsafe. She’s unsafe at every point.

Not realizing she’s being lied to and manipulated, staying in contact with his constant abuse. Most often in the form of grooming. And because they’re doing this, victims undergo immense trauma for that time. Now, even if they don’t realize it, it seems like it’s going well. So many women come to Betrayal Trauma Recovery, and share six months after the disclosure or two years later. They realize what was happening.

And they realized it was all lies and manipulation. They are so traumatized that they spent that much time basically just in this fog. With a therapist possibly enabling their continued abuse. Years ago, when I started podcasting, I interviewed a C-SAT about disclosures. She disagrees with me and thinks disclosures are great. And she uses them in her practice.

When I interviewed her, it was really at the beginning. I didn’t love disclosures, but I was willing to have an open-mind. I posted the interview on my podcast, and then pretty soon after removed it. Because I realized this is problematic, and I don’t want to hurt someone’s reputation. My podcast isn’t a gotcha podcast. I appreciate everyone who has spent the time to come and be interviewed.

Anne: Sometimes I disagree with people. And because of the way the interview goes, I don’t air that episode. Because I want to make sure I’m putting out the best information that I feel good about. I also want to acknowledge that some of you may have actually gone through this process, and it worked out great for you. If you feel that way, go to the bottom of this transcript, and comment. You can interact with our community about your experience.

If it worked for you, I’m so glad it did. I don’t want to recommend it to anyone. And I’ll tell you the reasons why, but I also don’t want you to feel bad if you did it and it worked out great for you. Everybody is different. But reading the transcript of this podcast from years ago, which hasn’t even been in circulation, right? I took it out of circulation years ago. We talked about what is a therapeutic disclosure. There are so many important points that I wanted to talk about.

Now part of that episode was that we sent out a call for questions about disclosures at that time. And women wrote in their questions. So here’s a question that we received. One community member asked. Shouldn’t it be up to the wife to know or ask anything she needs to, even if it hurts her and causes her more pain? Is pain the enemy here? Isn’t unknowingly being in an unsafe situation far more dangerous? So that was the first question.

Anne: Now this therapist said she thought it was up to the partner to decide the level of detail they wanted in the disclosure. Which is fascinating to me that this therapist assumed this guy would somehow tell the truth. Or that she could get the level of information she actually wanted. He’s super manipulative. So putting a woman in this position where you’re giving her the impression that she can get information. If he is a liar who manipulates people, is super scary.

The woman who asked the question says, isn’t unknowingly being in an unsafe situation, far more dangerous? Yes, a hundred percent, but the disclosure itself is an unsafe situation. I’m going to talk about what to do, instead of a disclosure at the end. So keep listening, because I will give you an alternative.

This therapist said when she starts disclosures, and I’m going to do a quote here. She said, “For me, when I’m leading disclosures or doing trainings about disclosures, I encourage partners to start with the least amount of detail. You can ask more, you have a right to ask for more information, but let’s be slow and careful. That it’s not too much information for your brain. Some of this information will be traumatic for you.”

Like, you know, it’s going to be really traumatic for you. And so maybe you shouldn’t find out that it is insane for a therapist to say this. I can’t believe I had this episode up for a while.

Anne: This therapist said, “So sometimes people get caught up in the emotion, and they want to know more and more. And that’s fine if they want to know, but I always ask them. Do you want to know? Is it going to be helpful in your healing?” Why would not knowing the truth be helpful in any situation? Like you can’t heal without the truth. Because if you don’t know what the truth is about the situation, you can’t make good choices.

So why would anyone imply it’s okay? To not be aware of who your husband really is. Why would a therapist want to hide a man’s true character from his wife? Then I asked the therapist. What about safety issues, like isn’t that the most important thing? And she was like, oh, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We need to think about safety, but that was not the first thing she said. And she didn’t even mention it. Instead she was like, Does she want to know the truth or does she want to heal?

And when it came to safety, the only thing she mentioned was getting an STD test. She did not tell me how to set boundaries. And I thought. You’re not going to mention that lying is emotional abuse, or the psychological abuse, or grooming? The fact that the thing you’re doing right now, her involvement with his therapy, his addiction recovery. Is counter-indicated when it comes to abuse. And you’re not talking about abuse. That’s dangerous.

Anne: So when I asked her this. This was her response. She said, “I work with addicts and their partners. When I work with an addict and help him prepare his disclosure. What is a therapeutic disclosure? We’re looking at all the categories of behavior and addiction. He may not have behavior in all categories, but I want them to go through an inventory of every category. And then she starts talking about literally the details of the acting out, like specific ways he has behaved.

And she starts delineating these things, and I’m like, what about abuse? She’s still not even saying this man is abusive and manipulative. How does all the different ways he had cheated, help her know that this is abuse? So then I asked her. What about other questions that aren’t related to this kind of behavior? Like lying. So I keep trying to go back to this, and she said that’s a hard one, because addicts have lied for so long.

It’s hard for them to go through all the lies and correct all the lies in a disclosure. But isn’t that the point of a disclosure to find out the truth? You’re just going to hear me getting frustrated as I talk about this interview and the things she told me. Because it starts going around and around in circles. And I’m trying, but she doesn’t want to connect the dots. And so it got more frustrating as time went on.

Then she says something that we absolutely do not recommend. And you’ll know why at the end. What is a therapeutic disclosure? She says the addict prepares a disclosure document.

Anne: So basically, you’re giving this man a lot of time. What is a therapeutic disclosure? He writes down all his manipulative reasons and craft this narrative any way he wants. To paint himself any way he chooses. Usually they paint themselves where they’re a victim in some way, they’re a victim because their dad didn’t love them enough. Or they’re a victim because their relationship with their mom is bad or they’re a victim because their dog died.

So really, this disclosure is just putting her in the position to be lied to more. And the therapist said, okay, so she’s going to get this paper of this narrative that he concocted? And that’s when she gets to start asking him questions about it. But if he’s going to continue to lie. Do you see the problem? We’re going in circles. And this is a direct quote.

She said, “Sometimes the disclosure can be a time for lies. Sometimes there are so many lies. The addict will never be able to tell the truth about them all. And the question is, Is the addict trying to live, honestly? Has he lied to her to protect her?

What? No, nope, that’s not the reason. And then she says this, and this is what I just talked about. “And usually the lying comes from a behavior much younger, and from another time. It doesn’t excuse it, but it does explain it. And then we can get to the root of it.” Like, no, he just lied because he chose to, and he’s continuing the lie because he chooses to.

Anne: Then I say to this therapist, she doesn’t need to worry about why he’s lying. The lying in and of itself is dangerous, and she needs to be shielded from being lied to. All she needs to understand is the type of character he has. That this was emotional and psychological abuse, and coercion. And he’s continuing to do it. So I go back to the safety issue. Because like, you’re still not getting . Like, are you going to get it in this interview?

What is a therapeutic disclosure? She says, “I think the disclosure is important, because one person has knowledge and information about the relationship that the other doesn’t.”

Absolutely, but do you think someone who is hiding something on purpose, who has for years. Who is now being forced to do it by will be like, okay, I’m going to do it now. Like, no, this is just an opportunity for more of it. So the therapist said, “This is a rebalancing of the information” and I’m like, no, it’s not. That is not what is happening. It is not a rebalancing of the information. If they’re going to continue to manipulate and lie through the whole process.

So I never really got anywhere. We just talked in circles. And then here was the second question we had from our community. Why is the couple involved in a disclosure? Isn’t that couple therapy and couple therapy is counter-indicated when there’s abuse. And the therapist was like, I would never want clients to go to couples therapy when there is abuse involved. Uh, it’s all abuse. And you were working with the couple to do the disclosure.

Anne: Like can we put two and two together here? What is a therapeutic disclosure? It’s not necessarily couple therapy, but she is involved. She is talking about what she needs and wants. She’s telling the therapist things that the therapist will tell him. There is some communication. This is definitely a couple endeavor. I don’t ever hear of addicts doing disclosures completely by themselves. Without their wife being involved.

That might be the only scenario where this might work. If he went in completely by himself, went to therapy all by himself, his wife was not involved. But then wouldn’t he be like, I’m going to tell the truth. So we wouldn’t even need therapy. So I asked her specifically, aren’t you concerned about grooming that’s taking place during this disclosure process or during this time of therapy?

That’s not considered “couple therapy,” but basically it is because the therapist is in communication with both people. Sometimes they’ll meet together. And she said, “I’ve never seen it from a grooming perspective.”

There are a few individuals who learn a little bit. And then they use it against their partner. And at Betrayal Trauma Recovery we say that almost exclusively. So the fact that she thought it was just a few people and we’re like, um, this is on a like grand scale that this happens. So then I talk more about grooming and I talk about empathy scripts.

Anne: So, what I’ve seen with men’s programs, even abuse programs. The therapist will be like, Okay, you don’t know how to be empathetic. So I’m going to help you learn what to say. But because they’re not genuinely empathetic, the therapist is like, well, I’m going to teach them. And they’ll just have to act like it until they become it. That sounds okay in theory. But in real practice, if they are not empathetic, they are not safe.

If you’re in a room with someone who genuinely does not care about you at all. They’re not concerned about your emotional safety, your physical safety. They don’t care. They just want to exploit you and groom you. Them grooming you better with an empathy script is extremely dangerous. Because then they sound better. They can manipulate you more. So I brought this up, and the therapist said empathy scripts. Wow, I haven’t heard of that before.

Then she said, “The way I look at it is if he comes home and uses the words I gave him or taught him, I always say, this is a good thing. Now I assume his intentions are true and his intentions are good. Because he’s trying new skills, and doesn’t have his own language yet.” So do you see the problem here? If he doesn’t have the ability to be empathetic, he’s mimicking it. He may use that and concentrate on what is a therapeutic disclosure to groom.

She assumes he’s trying to connect. But maybe he’s not. Maybe he’s like, okay, I’ve got to check all these boxes to continue to exploit the situation.

Anne: So then I asked her, how do you tell the difference between practicing a genuine new skill he wants, or is he using this to manipulate her? And she said, trust is built over time, which is true. And then she said, let’s sit back and watch. Which I also agree with. So why not just sit back and watch from the beginning? Why teach him all the empathy scripts? What is a therapeutic disclosure? Why have him write out a big thing about his disclosure and all the lies?

Is it just because you want them to spend a ton of money on therapy? Like you can sit back and watch without all that. In fact, instead of putting yourself in harm’s way—to be lied to—you can observe at a safe distance from the beginning, and not spend any money to know if he’s safe or not. All right, another question from a community member.

What is a therapeutic disclosure? She asked, Why do some therapists not include the state of the family finances in the full disclosure? This is a very important piece of information for a woman to have. The therapist says, “That is something that, I’ll say, unless a partner brings it up I will forget to ask that. It’s not on the top of my brain.” So if abuse is not on the top of the therapist’s brain, do you see how they’re not going to identify the abuse?

And then the therapist says, I don’t know that it’s forgotten on purpose. I’m just not sure it’s on the top of our to-do list when we’re assessing for addiction and lies. So does this therapist think hiding money is not a lie? Because it is.

Anne: What is a therapeutic disclosure? Then I asked the therapist. Are there any abuse issues you have found helpful for women to ask about in the disclosure? And she said, no, she didn’t think so. And that she just saw it as a data exchange. Which confirms my theory about couple therapy or therapy in this instance. When it comes to abuse, he is basically facilitating his transactionship. That he’s like, I’m going to check all these boxes.

I’m going to write out a big document where I can craft a narrative that paints me as a victim. And if I do these things, she’ll let me back in the house. And the therapist is like, yep. Check, check, check. Sounds right, using the empathy scripts. We’re good to go. But he actually is still that exploitative person. And he used that whole process as a transaction. So the fact that she’s like, this is just a data exchange. She even uses the word exchange, which was super alarming.

All right. Another question from the community. The question from the community is, do you have any tips on how a spouse or former spouse who is not getting a disclosure moves forward? All she said basically was that it’s very hard when you don’t get the answers and don’t get the information you need. And that’s going to take a lot of time and coaching to come to grips with, she actually said coaching. Which I thought was interesting.

But she’s not acknowledging that even with the disclosure process, you’re still not going to get all the information. All you’ll get is a bunch of checked boxes and a document that he’s carefully crafted. That’s it, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.

Anne: What is a therapeutic disclosure? Prepping for a therapeutic disclosure sometimes takes six months, a year or two years of going to therapy once a week. And a victim often goes to therapy, maybe not once a week, but often to be part of this process. While he takes all this time to manufacture the narrative. That seems absolutely dangerous. And a waste of time and money.

I do have some tips about it, and I will share them with you now. I want you to think about what you know, so rather than going with your abuser to addiction therapy. Take one hour. Get out a pen and paper. And sit down at your kitchen table. And list all the things that you know. So for me, it would have been, I know he leaves the house at 10:00 PM, and I don’t know where he goes. And he gets home at like one in the morning or two in the morning. And I don’t know where he’s been.

I’ve never been able to get a straight answer, I know that. I know that he screams in my face. And I know he’s punched a few walls. I know that he doesn’t make sense. I know that he has lied to me about this, this, this, and this. So write all the things that you know. I’m not sure why they would take two years to force a known pathological liar to tell the truth. When they could just say, you already know. Let’s focus on what you know.

Anne: Now once you have everything you know written down. Compare that to what abuse is, and then you’ll answer, is he abusive? Observe over time to see what his character is. And that’s all you need to know. When you know who he is, because you can see him clearly. Then you’ll feel confident in your choices. But if you can’t see him clearly, it’s hard to be confident about your choices.

What is a therapeutic disclosure? Women who are going through the therapeutic disclosure process are having a hard time because they’re still exposed to all that manipulation. Here’s the last question from our community members. She asked how accurate are lie detector tests? There are many addicts who won’t do them because they say they’re not accurate. Do you use them in your practice?

If so, can you debunk misunderstandings about their accuracy and effectiveness in re-establishing trust in relationships? So I know a lot of women whose husbands have done disclosures and had polygraphs. And they’ve said they were helpful. So if they have been helpful to you, I’m glad they worked for you. This therapist said, she likes polygraphs and lie detectors. So she uses them in her practice.

She claims they have an 80% accuracy rate. And then she said in my world, that’s better than not knowing. And I’m like, if it’s only 80% accuracy, you still don’t know. So it’s not better than not knowing, because it’s the exact same thing. Again, the reason why I don’t like polygraphs is still, the focus is on trying to get him to tell you something. Rather than having confidence in yourself and what you already know.

Anne: Anytime we’re trying to protect ourselves from his abuse by trying to get something from him. What is a therapeutic disclosure? Or having someone else get it through his brain, like clergy or a couple therapist or an addiction recovery specialist. That is how the abuser will manipulate you. The thing about polygraphs that makes me nervous is they might tell the truth about the questions that the polygrapher is asking. But there’s so much that we wouldn’t know.

I’m a woman of faith. If you’re not, you’re welcome here. But just for my own faith perspective. I don’t think there is any human earthly ability to genuinely detect if someone is lying, other than through observing them. Also I don’t think there’s a way to force them to tell the truth. I think God created this earthly life with that scenario, because it’s part of our earthly test. I think the only person who knows the truth is God.

And so, I would prefer to turn to God to pray to feel the spirit, and then observe from a safe distance to know. That’s a safer situation. Because it focuses on what you know, and what God is telling you. Rather than rely on anything the abuser is saying, or someone he is manipulating, like a therapist or clergy is saying. This therapist, this is a direct quote. She says, “The thing about the polygraph, I really want to make sure folks understand, is that it’s not a statement of truth.”

I’m reading this word for word. She said, “It’s not a statement of truth. It’s what he says is true.” And then she gives a confusing example that didn’t make any sense. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

Anne: And then she says this, “The polygraph is only checking what he thinks to be true. It doesn’t check his memory. It doesn’t check if he’s forgetting, it doesn’t check if his memory is wrong. So that’s an important piece that partners need to know before they go in. So, if he says this is everything and passes the polygraph, there are so many times when by virtue of exploring, investigating, or researching the data.

She’s referring to all the months he spends crafting his narrative about. Apparently, “all the addiction acting out.” Okay, quoting her again now. “So he goes into a polygraph and passes. And then the next night, the victim will say, wait, what about this? And the addict will say, oh, I forgot about that.”

So she is saying I use polygraphs, but a lot of the time. The truth isn’t included. And then she says this. “This is not them manipulating. This is them remembering one more thing.”

So they always have some excuse, apparently according to a C-SAT to not tell the truth, I guess. That just sounds like chaos and pain. What is a therapeutic disclosure? So then I tell her a few examples of women who came to Betrayal Trauma Recovery and told us their disclosure horror stories. One of them, a man went in to do a polygraph and he passed. But the things that he said were true, she knew were not true.

And the therapist said, well, he passed the polygraph, so he’s great. I don’t know why you don’t believe him. It was just a nightmare for her.

Anne: And I talked about that, and the therapist said, “Sometimes the guy is not yet out of his layers of denial enough that he’s seeing the full picture.” I think it’s more that he’s manipulating on purpose. That he’s good at lying and manipulating. And then she said, “but any disclosure is better than none.”

Basically saying that even if it’s all abuse and a mess, and he’s saying certain truths in a tactical fashion to manipulate the whole situation. That’s better than not being abused. I disagree. What is a therapeutic disclosure? I don’t think any disclosure is better than none. because the disclosure in and of itself is just abuse the whole time. I think no disclosure is better than any disclosure at all.

So then in the end I asked her, is there anything else you want to share about disclosures? And she says, “I think your community is amazing and that you’re doing a great job.” That’s nice of her to say that, even though now I’m like throwing her under the bus. And the reason why I didn’t want to do her voice is because I have no intention of harming anyone’s reputation, but I want to educate you about the dangers of disclosures.

What she wanted to say at the end was that she knows that women in our situation want to know the truth. They want to know exactly what happened. And then she said, and sometimes we need to break the disclosure into two pieces. Get the safety items taken care of immediately.

Anne: Uh, that’s like 10 minutes after she said you have to observe and wait to know if they’re safe. You can’t get any safety items taken care of immediately. That’s not how safety works. You have to observe from a safe distance for a long time to see what their actions are. So I don’t even know what she means when she says get the safety items taken care of immediately. That’s just not a thing.

She’s not only contradicting herself, she’s also showing that she doesn’t understand how safety works. And then she says, if they can wait a little longer, it will take a lot of time. And if you’re more patient, it’s going to get better. So she assumes you can create safety immediately. Then you need to take a lot of time to see if he’s safe, almost in the same breath. That doesn’t make sense to me.

So, what is a therapeutic disclosure? All right now, I’m going to talk about what you should do, instead of asking for a therapeutic disclosure. I know that in your desire to have a therapeutic disclosure, couple therapy or get clergy to help him. You are resisting the abuse. You’re doing everything right. You’re trying to stop this, because you want a safe place for your family.

So you’re doing amazing. You’re doing everything you’re supposed to do. This is not your fault, and this is not your problem. This is the problem of addiction therapists who don’t know anything about abuse, who are putting women in harm’s way. That has nothing to do with you.

Anne: What is a therapeutic disclosure? Instead of doing a therapeutic disclosure, the number one thing is to educate yourself about abuse, so that you can start seeing the truth of your situation. You might find that he’s not as abusive as you thought. You might find out that he’s really abusive. But getting educated about abuse will help. Number two, determine your husband’s true character from your own observations.

That’s why I created The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop. It takes you through step-by-step how to observe from a safe distance. You could still be in your home. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to move out to observe from a safe distance. It gives you strategies to do this, whether you’re in the home or even if you’re divorced, they work no matter what.

So that you determine if he has a safe character from what you know, and you don’t have to rely on him for any information whatsoever.

Anne: And then the third is to get the right support from people who understand abuse. That could be a group at your local domestic violence shelter. It could be a therapist who understands abuse, who does not know your husband. Who will not talk to your husband. Who’s not going to have anything to do with him. It could be our online Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions. You don’t need to worry about what is a therapeutic disclosure.

Or scheduling an individual session with one of our coaches. But getting the right support so that you’re protected. Because anyone who talks to an abuser will be manipulated. So that puts you in a dangerous situation, because you’re trying to see the truth. You’re trying to see him for who he really is. So you don’t need him manipulating any more people. He’s already manipulating you. To get more information about The Living Free Workshop click this link.

Hidden abuse is characterized by lies and manipulation, and it causes trauma that’s hard to recognize.

To discover if you’re experiencing any of the 19 types of hidden abuse, take our free emotional abuse quiz.

This episode follows Penny’s Story
How to Start to Heal From Emotional Abuse – Penny’s Story
Healing Trauma From Hidden Abuse – What Gets In Our Way? – Penny’s Take (THIS EPISODE)

One of the biggest obstacles in healing from hidden abuse is understanding what’s happening to you.

The constant barrage of lies and manipulation from the abuser can make it incredibly difficult for women to see the reality of their situation. Gaslighting, a common tactic, can distort a woman’s perception of reality, making her doubt her judgment and experiences.

Traditional therapists, clergy, and even well-meaning friends and family may not recognize hidden abuse for what it is.

If you’ve tried to figure out what’s going on and you haven’t been able to feel more emotionally safe, there is help.

The Free Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast helps women learn more about how to spot hidden abuse.

If you’re struggling to heal the trauma from hidden abuse, consider attending a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY and take the first step toward a brighter, healthier future.

Anne: Penny is back on today’s episode. You can find her story in an episode called How to Start to Heal from Emotional Abuse, Penny’s story. We wanted to talk about the aftermath of emotional abuse, how it’s misunderstood by people in general, and how to face that. So welcome back, Penny.

Penny: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Anne: So this type of hidden abuse where you don’t have someone charged with domestic violence. Why do you think it’s so hard for people to understand what it takes to heal trauma from hidden abuse?

Penny: Yeah, I think like you said, they don’t see any bruises, scars, or black eyes. We want to fit in and be accepted. We don’t want to be different. And so we look normal on the outside, but the inside is where the pain, results, and leftover baggage from emotional abuse is.

Things like fear, anxiety, and unsureness. Am I doing the right thing? Am I saying the right thing? And so this kind of stuff lingers with a person for a long time, or at least in my case, a very long time. And still does, even though I’ve been working on recovery for decades.

Anne: Yeah, the lack of self confidence is due to emotional abuse, because that was the purpose of the emotional abuse. This is why it’s so important to find a betrayal trauma support group. For years, someone intentionally undermined your sense of self, and also purposefully undermined your, I call it a sacred internal warning system, where you know something’s wrong.

Anne: You’re trying to resist something that’s harming you. You don’t have the words to describe it. You’re going to the person who is harming you and telling him, “You’re harming me”, but he already knows. He knows he’s exploiting you.

So he takes that as a cue, “Okay, I need to undermine her sense that something’s wrong.” Otherwise, I’m not able to exploit her.” So it doesn’t help to share your feelings with him. He purposefully erodes your sense of self over time. And when you’re safe from the abuse and not exposed to it anymore, rebuilding that sense of self is such a process.

Penny: Part of the emotional abuse I was put through was with my stepmother when I was a child, and it carried with me to my young adulthood when I married early. My stepmother told me constantly, you’re dumb, you’re stupid, you’re worthless, you’ll never amount to anything. So, of course, I had a low opinion of myself going into adulthood. Even though on the outside, you may not have seen that. It was trauma from hidden abuse.

And so when I married young and married a partner who tried to control me and told me that I was in sin. Because the pastor told him that I was in sin, he wouldn’t listen to me. There was nothing to talk about, and I was wrong. And as soon as I repented, we would be back to normal, and all would be fine.

And I think it was pressure to have me confess to something, because I was too strong willed for this particular church and this particular pastor. I was too questioning. And wasn’t as docile as they wanted women to be.

Penny: And they actually taught that women should submit to husbands, that they should glorify God by glorifying their husbands. This is when biblical submission becomes abuse. So anything I said or did that wasn’t according to the pastor or my husband’s wishes was considered wrong. And I was told this constantly.

So, when I left that abusive situation finally at 32, I questioned everything I did and said. Because my whole life, my childhood, my young adulthood, my early 20s. I was told I was wrong and my thinking was wrong, and who I was wasn’t good enough. The trauma from hidden abuse doesn’t go away overnight. And it takes a community. In my case. I moved far away and left the church.

I stopped practicing that religion, and I surrounded myself with people who were smarter than me. That liked me and accepted me for who I was. And here’s an example of how I rebuilt it. One of my friends said, Penny, you should apply for this job. We have an opening at my firm.

This woman was college educated, and I wasn’t, and she worked in finance, which I hardly knew what that meant. And she said, “You should apply to this job.” And I said, oh no, I can’t. I’m too stupid. And she said, Penny, you’re not stupid. You’re smart, and we’ll train you. You should apply. Guess what? I applied and they hired me over 30 or 40 other resumes that they had on their desktop. I saw a stack of resumes.

Penny: So I knew, wait a minute, maybe my stepmother, ex-husband and pastor, maybe they were all wrong. And that’s how I slowly started rebuilding my life, surrounding my life with people who believed in me and held up a mirror to me that said, “You’re not stupid, you’re not ugly, dumb, or worthless. You are able, and here’s the proof.”

And then I started college. I put myself through community college, and I started getting A’s and B’s, and the teachers started calling on me in the classroom. They held me up as an example of here’s some good thinking, here’s a person who read the work, or here’s the person who gets this idea.

And slowly over time, and I’m talking decades, with the help of friends, holding up a mirror to me and showing me who I was. I started to change my opinion of myself. But it took a long time, work, and struggle and pain. Because those old thoughts and those old scripts still played in my mind.

Anne: One thing I want to point out to victims is that exploitation is such a huge part of trauma from hidden abuse. It is abuse in that they want something from you, your labor, your admiration. They want you to cook them dinner, have sex with them, or go to a party with them. They want something from you. So instead of caring about you, they care about what they can get from you.

Anne: And because of that, anyone who hears, you’re not good at this. If we knew what was happening, the best defense is to say, in a strategic way. I actually teach this in The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop. Is to say something like, oh, you’re right. I bet you don’t want to be around somebody like me. That makes sense. Then leave. Then they’re like, wait, no, you can’t go.

We know exploitation is the issue, because if they think so poorly of us, why would they want to be around us? Why do they not want us to leave when we say, oh, okay, we’re going to leave? Suddenly they’re like, you can’t leave. And then they want to stop you from leaving by being even more abusive, which also doesn’t make sense. If you weren’t capable, powerful and talented, they wouldn’t have anything to exploit from you. I think that’s the thing they’re trying to hide.

I think they’re thinking she’s capable, smart, and awesome. If she finds out how capable she is, how smart she is. She’s not going to want to stay here. So I’ve got to hide that from her, because I want to use her talents for myself. Heaven forbid, if she used her talents for her own self and her own life. Do you think your step mom was exploiting you?

Penny: I absolutely do. She was handicapped, crippled and in pain. My father was no help to her at all. He didn’t provide well, or help around the house. She needed me, but there was more to it than that. These people who exploit us, who hurt us emotionally, psychologically and physically. In her case, she was bitter and angry.

Penny: Now that I’m a much older person and look back on it, she was angry at herself. She married my dad, who was a complete loser. Her parents warned her. Her parents said, don’t marry this guy. He’s a liar. They saw through him. She didn’t. Or she did it anyway, because she wanted to get out of her house.

They not only exploit us for our labor, in her case house cleaning, babysitting, and chores. We become their punching bag, because there’s nobody else to defend us. She knew my dad was never home. So she did it when he wasn’t home, of course, and when he came home late at night, was drunk. She had hours, she had all day until 8 or 9 at night to take advantage of me and create trauma this abuse was hidden from everyone else.

They break us down and make us feel small to exploit us for our labor or whatever they want from us. Because if we’re smarter than them, yes, we will leave. And eventually I did when I was old enough and had the wherewithal. But I couldn’t leave at 8, 9, 10 or 11. I had no idea where to go or how to do it.

Anne: Why do you think it’s so hard for other people to see this type of trauma from hidden abuse? When a victim is either in it or healing, and they might blame her. Or say something like, you’re just bitter or you need to move on, or why can’t you get over it? Even when you’re out of it. You’re not married anymore, for example, I’m talking about the universal you.

Penny: Yes.

Anne: A victim is not in the relationship anymore. She’s relatively safe.

Anne: Most of us experience post separation abuse. I was abused after my divorce for eight years through my ex’s messages about our children. So most women deal with post-separation abuse. And that’s why you know, we’re not “moving on” because the abuse is right then, like it happened today. He wrote me an abusive message and lied about me today.

But in terms of women who are healing trauma from hidden abuse, and maybe in a stage where they need to talk about it. Or they’re trying to process what happened, and bystanders say things like. You need to move on, or why can’t you just forgive, or give your power away? Or any of these like super hurtful things, because they don’t understand that she is healing from this type of trauma.

Penny: Part of it is that for people like you and myself, and those who have experienced hidden abuse. We get how deep and painful those wounds are, and how they don’t go away. And those fortunate enough to not have that happen to them, they don’t get it. They really don’t.

That’s one of the reasons why we need somebody to talk to that will validate us and help us heal. And give us a safe place where we can talk about the everyday nightmares and fears that come up in routine life. Our friends, it’s quite possible they just don’t have the capacity. And someday they will.

Penny: One of the reasons to read memoirs that may be different than your life is so that you can learn what other people have to go through to survive and to succeed. I mean, that’s why I read memoirs and I think that’s how I learn about other people and how that happened to them.

Anne: Reading is so valuable. You can get inside someone’s head in a way that you can’t from, like a movie or other experience. To develop compassion for others. But I also think that’s why it’s so important to ensure you’re connected with other women who understand. That’s why we do The Betrayal Trauma Recovery daily Group Sessions and Individual Sessions. Because everybody at Betrayal Trauma Recovery has been through it. We all totally get it.

Even a good therapist who hasn’t been through it will have a different take. Than someone who has been a victim who understands hidden abuse on that deep personal level. What it’s actually like. Because we’ve had so many women come to us who have gone to therapy, and the therapy actually made the situation worse.

Because they didn’t understand that she was resisting the abuse the entire time. In your story, if you haven’t heard it again, her episode is called, How to Start to Heal from Emotional Abuse, Penny’s story. There’s a part, Penny, where you move out into the country. And you did that as an act of resistance.

You thought, maybe it will improve our marriage if I do this. Maybe I can make things work. The same thing with the church. But some therapists might say, why did you do that? If you knew things were so bad and didn’t like him, why did you move away?

Anne: And the answer is I’m resisting, I’m trying to improve things. I realize it did not improve things, but my intent was to improve things. Same thing with women who are being lied to and yelled at. They might have sex with their husband, for example, and a therapist might say, why did you do that? And it’s because I thought if I did, he would not be mad at me anymore.

Penny: Nobody wants to be abused. Nobody wants to be exploited. We just don’t realize, especially if you’re stuck there financially and have children. It’s hard to leave if you’re financially dependent. And they make us emotionally dependent. It’s not your fault. If you’re a victim.

Anne: They’ve done a lot of damage, but I think even if it’s not a therapist, just people around saying something like, why didn’t you do this? It’s just so not helpful.

Penny: Not helpful. It’s actually hurtful, because then it makes you feel like something was wrong with you for not doing more. I don’t think you had a choice.

Anne: As I interview victims experiencing hidden abuse, it’s interesting. Because I’m asking questions like, and then this happened, or tell me about what you were thinking? And that’s not to victim blame or say they did something wrong. But to help other victims realize that this thought process that all of us go through is common, and that they’re not doing anything wrong.

They are actually doing what anyone in this situation would do. Another point to make is the “right” thing to do, for example, stand up for yourself. Which you would think would work is not the solution.

Anne: Your background is that you had a low opinion of yourself due to your stepmother’s abuse. In my case, I had strong self esteem. And I thought I was super smart. And so I would fight my abuser and be like, what? No, you don’t have this right. And I would usually win our arguments. And he was confused, and he would say things like, “Wait a minute. How are you winning this argument? I went to law school.”

My ex is an attorney, and I would say, “because you don’t make any sense.” And the reason why I would say that is because he wasn’t making any sense. Because he wanted to either exploit me or do something terrible for our family. And he was trying to give me like a bogus reason. This will be good for our family, because we’ll have this awesome rally car in our driveway, and it will make our neighbors think we’re cool. Something like that.

And I was like, what are you talking about? You are not making any sense. But the reason why I bring this up is that so many women are actually confident and don’t have a low self-esteem. But it’s not keeping them from being exploited or abused, because fighting with the abuser also doesn’t actually stop the abuse.

Penny: Right.

Anne: Then you just end up in an argument.

Sometimes it ends with you just giving up. In my case, I didn’t give up. So our arguments would last a long time, until basically he would pretend to give up. And then, like literally 10 minutes later, that rally car would be in our driveway. That’s just a metaphor. You know what I mean?

Anne: So that’s what’s really hard for women too, because I think inside of ourselves, we’re thinking maybe if I would have been quieter, maybe if I hadn’t asked so many questions, maybe if I hadn’t stood up for myself more, what if I had done this or that, would it have changed things? And the answer is no, they’re going to choose to do this no matter what.

Penny: Yep, all of us, I think, are taught as young girls to believe in the happily ever after. And most of us take our marriage vows seriously. I did. And so I couldn’t fight, because I was under the dictate of women submit to their husband. So I could try to express my view, but it didn’t carry any weight whatsoever. And I just had to live with it until it reached a point when I realized I can’t be here anymore. This is not who I am.

This is not where I belong. The church is asking me to do stuff that I don’t want to do. My husband, I no longer respect him or love him. If standing up for yourself or fighting will get you emotionally hurt. It’s time to step back and say, you know what, I made a mistake, and it’s okay to make mistakes.

I didn’t have all the information. I did not know who he was. He didn’t show me who he really was. But now that I know, and I don’t feel comfortable, I feel exploited and have trauma from hidden abuse. It’s time for me to step back, keep my mouth shut. Until I can find a plan, because that’s how you stay safe. You have to stay safe for yourself and your children until you can make a plan.

Penny: And that means find community, find help, whatever it takes to successfully extract with the least amount of trauma.

Anne: Absolutely, and that’s why I wrote The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop. Because in my experience interviewing all the victims I’ve interviewed over the years, over 300 on the podcast and in person. In our efforts to resist this trauma from hidden abuse, we’ve all tried different things, but it usually falls into two categories.

Either we’re trying to stay safe by keeping our head down, thinking that if we do what he says, it will get better. Or we’re trying to fight it. That’s not right. You can’t do this to me. You need to go to therapy. I’m gonna explain this to you. Those are the two categories that resistance falls under, but it could fall under any form of resistance. But because neither of those things work, the victims need safety strategies.

What safety strategies do is they enable you to resist in a way that you’re not doing what he wants, so he can’t exploit you. But you’re also not fighting him, so he can’t fight back, really. And so it’s this interesting middle place. Where it took me so long to figure it out is because I could not figure it out. Eight years post divorce with I’m still experiencing hidden abuse. He’s writing me messages almost every day about our children, medical neglect, all kinds of things going down.

I try to go to the court to say, hey, this is what’s happening. Please stop this. He got more custody due to that court case, and things just got worse. And so I prayed and developed these strategies, and they worked. And now I have full custody of my kids.

Penny: That’s great.

Anne: So I think having safety strategies is important, but many people don’t understand that. They think, oh, everything would be fine between you and your ex. If you just take him seriously or, and it’s like. That’s not what’s going on here. It’s so much more.

Penny: I think it’s important to surround yourself with people who think highly of you and support you. Because the people who say those things again don’t get it. And it’s not helpful to hear. When you, even if you had left sooner, or done something different, you did the best you could. Nobody submits to abuse willingly, nobody. And so those people just don’t get that. And it’s not helpful.

Anne: In your healing, I love that getting more education was part of your healing process. Can you talk about how your college education helped you heal?

Penny: It helped in many ways. One, I was a waitress, right? I was financially at the bottom of the food chain. I couldn’t work enough hours in one place to make enough money to live in San Francisco at the time. It was expensive. So I worked two or three jobs at a time to make enough money to pay rent and have groceries and stuff.

I was much older than the people around me. I was living in a roommate situation with somebody five years younger than me. And all these people had college degrees, and the people I lived with were pursuing a graduate degree. They had what I looked at as cool and interesting jobs. So I said to myself, I need what they have. I need a college degree. And I started going.

Penny: And so it did two things for me. Number one is I vowed never again to depend on a man to support myself. I didn’t like living in a roommate situation, I wanted my own home that nobody could take away from me. Because now this was two homes, one I left home at 16. I ran away from home, so that’s one home lost. And second, I left my marriage and left my home and everything in it to my husband, my ex husband.

So that was two homes I lost, and I vowed I would never lose another home. So the college degree, first of all, as I started accruing classes, I could only take two or three classes at a time. Because I worked during the day and went to school at night. I started getting A’s and B’s. Going to college built my self esteem.

And I went to school with other adults who were also working during the day and going to school at night. Everybody had a different story. Some people were immigrants. Some people just didn’t have the money to go to school during the day. They were married, and now they’re going back to college. So it boosted my self esteem and my value, my thinking about how smart I was.

And number two, I was able to work in finance with a college degree, which is a rewarding career that allowed me to make enough money to own a house. And eventually, I remarried and have a partner who shares expenses with me. But had that not happened, I could maintain this lifestyle on my own. And so that was my goal.

Penny: And it created the college degree, created financial independence and huge self-esteem for me. And since then, got a master’s degree. And so again, graduating for a second time is huge. It’s a huge honor, thrill, and achievement. And I’m proud of that. It took a lot of work. It took a lot of time, sweat, loss of sleep, and loss of money, right? Because college costs money. It wasn’t free.

I also paid for it out of my own income, as opposed to taking out loans, which was pretty important nowadays because student loans can really create financial problems in the future.

Anne: That’s wonderful. For women who doubt themselves, they’re listening to this podcast and thinking, great, good for you, Penny. You did this. But I’m never going to do that. I have kids, they’re little, or I have this going on. And what type of encouragement might you give them?

Penny: I would say yes, I was lucky in that or unlucky. I was unable to bear children. I didn’t have children when I went through this. So that was the good luck, bad luck, right? Bad luck. I couldn’t have children. And also good luck, I didn’t have children. I was able to go to school at night. I didn’t have any responsibilities besides getting up for work the next morning.

But I would tell them that to find a way or wait until the kids are older and all in school. And see if they can find an online program that they could take maybe one class at a time.

Penny: And even if it takes you 10 years to graduate college, if you can do one class at a time. And start accruing credits and grades, A’s, B’s and C’s, and improve the C to an A and B to an A. You’ll start feeling such a boost of self-esteem and pride. And say to yourself, I’m a quarter way through college. I’m a halfway through college. I’m three quarters of the way, or even a certificate.

Like maybe some colleges offer like certificates. That’s maybe an 18 month program for, I don’t know, dental hygienist or nurses aid or something like that. Some certificates then allow you to move up the food chain financially and get a respectable position. Maybe in a large organization that provides benefits. So you might have to shelve it now if you have little children dependent on you and can’t afford daycare. But when they get to school, you could do that.

And I think you could also go to your community and say, Hey, can we do a trade? Can you watch my kids this night so I could go to class? And I’ll watch your kids that night, so you can go to bingo, right? So there’s always a way to do it. It gets easier when the kids get older, I think. But make it your goal, set your mind on it, and don’t stop until you have that goal. Your certificate, your associate’s degree, or your bachelor’s degree.

Anne: And even if it’s not school, like you said, like a radiologist tech or something like that, or just a job, even if it’s not school.

Anne: I think the thing that breaks my heart the most is when victims feel like, and for good reason. They can’t do anything about their situation. And it’s a fine line between victim blaming, which we do not do here at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, and letting victims know that having experienced hidden abuse is not your fault. Nothing about the situation is your fault, and it has nothing to do with you. There are things that you can do that will improve your life.

They’re not going to change him. They have nothing to do with him. But you can take tiny steps. I talk about those in The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop. There are tiny little baby steps that you can take that are free, that are just minute. But I think that’s why some people accidentally victim blame. Because they realize, yeah right, there’s nothing she can do to stop him from harming her or her kids.

She can even get divorced, and he can continue to do that. And so how can we help her make her way to safety? And most people don’t have an answer for that. They can’t figure it out, except you need to do this differently. Rather than realizing that some safety strategies are simply because someone’s never heard it before. And they didn’t know it was possible or they didn’t feel it was possible for them.

And so the thing I want to let everyone know is that there is a better life possible for you. I don’t know what that looks like. I don’t know how that’s going to come to be. But I want women to believe it’s possible.

Anne: Because when women believe safety is possible, they believe they can improve their lives somehow. And believe they can heal trauma from hidden abuse and readily apparent abuse. That is when the magic happens, when they start taking steps to improve their lives. And also start taking steps to get themselves out of a situation that they absolutely did not cause and had nothing to do with them in the first place.

Penny: Yep, I agree.

Anne: Is there anything else you wanted to cover?

Penny: I would love to mention to your listeners that I wrote a memoir of surviving both an abusive marriage and abusive childhood. And how I made a recovery, became successful, happy, and rebuilt my life. It’s called Redeemed, a Memoir of a Stolen Childhood, by Penny Lane, and available wherever you buy books.

It’s inexpensive, and available at most libraries. So I’d love them to look at that, and I hope to inspire people to make some choices. And to know that I’m nobody special. I’m just a kid from Queens, a runaway from Queens, and that if I could do it, they can do it too.

Anne: Yeah, thank you. And to hear her story on the podcast was amazing too. She only told a small portion of it, and hearing her whole story and how far she’s come in, her memoir would be awesome. So thank you so much for sharing your wisdom accrued over the years in thinking about this. And it’s so inspiring to talk to victims who have taken something so difficult and made it into something beautiful.

Penny: Yeah, I think it is possible, and I want to tell your listeners that once you start making the baby steps, to stand up for yourself and change your own life. And to stand up to people who abuse you, oppress you, verbally attack you or denigrate you. You will start feeling a power and strength in your soul that you’ve never felt before. And so I encourage you to start taking those steps. Because it’s the beginning of change.

Anne: That’s awesome. Thank you so much for talking with me today, Penny.

Penny: You’re very welcome. I wish all your viewers well and happiness and safety

Is it possible to heal from emotional abuse and betrayal trauma? Everyday, brave women resist in a variety of ways. Penny shares her story of how she resisted abuse and finally was able to heal from emotional abuse.

Attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session today to share your story with other women who have endured the same type of emotional and psychological abuse and begin healing from emotional abuse TODAY.

This episode follows Penny’s Story
How to Start to Heal From Emotional Abuse – Penny’s Story (THIS EPISODE)
Healing Trauma From Hidden Abuse – What Gets In Our Way? – Penny’s Take

Anne: I have Penny Lane on today’s episode. She’s a writer, wife, and mother with an insatiable passion for life and books. Originally from Queens, she loves being outdoors. Cycling, hiking, traveling, and connecting to and inspiring people.

She has a master’s degree in industrial and organizational psychology from Golden State University. And in her spare time, she helps underserved youth learn to read, apply to college and find jobs.

Anne: Her book, Redeemed, A Memoir of a Stolen Childhood, she recounts how she was pressured into marriage and endured years of forced confessions, Salem style accusations, secretive disciplinary actions, and excommunication. Penny finally reached her breaking point, and we’re going to talk about her story today. Welcome, Penny.

Penny: Thank you for having me.

Anne: Why do you feel it’s important for you to speak out about your abuse and write this memoir?

Penny: For one, I feel compelled to write it. Because I met a lot of people who have childhood trauma of different sorts and they tend to be ashamed of it. And the opposite is actually true. When we talk about it is when we begin to heal from emotional abuse, find relief, solace and community.

I think it is important to write my story to remove some of the stigma involved with abuse or trauma. It will help others heal from emotional abuse as well.

Anne: You were coerced into marrying your husband. Can you talk about the abuse that led to that and then also the abuse that you experienced from him?

Penny: I was a 16 year old runaway when I met my husband. He was my boss. I worked at an IHOP as a waitress and he quickly saw that I was a very hard worker. He promoted me and then took me out on dates . Because I was a runaway, you know, it was basically living with a family and paying rent. I had no time to heal from the emotional abuse from my upbringing.

Pretty soon he said, why don’t you move in with me? Then I was working for him and living with him. I didn’t have any friends. I didn’t have any family because I was a runaway. He started asking me to work more hours. At first I said yes, because he paid me a little bit extra and I made a lot of money waitressing. It was great.

But then he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Let’s say I worked three double shifts in a row. Even though I was 16, it’s exhausting to be on your feet in a very fast moving restaurant for 12 hours, 14 hours a day. I tried to say, no. I’m too tired. Get someone else. And he’d say, this wasn’t a question. You need to get to work. Be there in five minutes or I’m coming to pick you up in five minutes.

Anne: How old was he?

Penny: He was six years older than me. He was 23, he left college, and was a restaurant manager for four or five years before I met him. So he was managing a staff of 30 or 40 people in a very busy, high revenue restaurant in a busy location.

And he was domineering. A little while after we started dating, he started disappearing and I didn’t know where he was. The girls I worked with said, Oh, he’s got another girlfriend, blah, blah, blah. You know, I didn’t think that was true. Half of you doesn’t believe and half of you does.

Penny: So one time I went along with him to where he was going, because he said he was going to church. I thought, this guy gambles, drinks, curses and I didn’t think he was a very honest guy. And I didn’t think he would possibly be going to church. So I went along with him.

And he had indeed gone to church. He went to a very fundamentalist, Bible believing, evangelical type church. This was in the 70’s, and it was quite emotionally wrought. The services were long and drawn out. At the end of the service, there was a call to walk the aisle, to accept Jesus as your personal savior.

I wanted nothing to do with that. I thought it was totally weird. Besides, I had just run away from home. I didn’t want to belong to something else. I wanted to be free.

Anne: Were you raised religious at all?

Penny: No, I was born Catholic and communion at 12, under duress. I didn’t know anything. We didn’t really do anything. else.

Penny: So, long story short, once I went to the church, he would ask me each time he went. He went Wednesdays, Thursdays and twice on Sundays. He would just wait for me at the restaurant and say, okay, we’re going to church. I’d get in the car with him and we’d go. I wasn’t really given a choice .

I went two, three weeks of this, going three or four times a week. People started pressuring me to accept Jesus and the story is very compelling. I’m sure you and your readers know this. It’s don’t you want to be loved forever? Yes, of course. Who doesn’t? Don’t you want to have a forever family?

Don’t you want to have God’s love? Well, the answer to all of that is yes. I didn’t feel loved. Don’t you want to belong? Of course. I didn’t belong anywhere. Didn’t belong in my family. I didn’t have a family at the moment. So eventually I gave in to the emotional pressure of accepting Jesus and I walked the aisle

Anne: At the time, did you feel like you were doing it of your own free will or at the time were you like, I don’t really want to do this, but in order to stay in his good graces, I have to do this. It’s hard to identify the effects of spiritual abuse. Can you talk about a bit of your thought process at the time?

Penny: At the time I thought I was doing it for my own free will. But look, I was 17. And I was a runaway, working for this man, living with this man. I thought that he loved me. I loved him and this is what he’s doing with his life. In hindsight, I don’t know if it was really free will or if it was emotional manipulation and pressure.

Because I knew that if I didn’t do this, I would have to walk away from the whole package. Leave him, my job, my living arrangement. And remember I was 17 and I didn’t know how to negotiate in the world. I didn’t know how to find an apartment or find a new job.

Anne: This is also your first experience with religion.

Penny: Yes, and he is my second boyfriend. I had a boyfriend while I was going through high school and I broke up with him because he wasn’t ambitious enough. Then I started working at the IHOP and I met this man. Though here’s the interesting thing that happened. It was a bait and switch.

Penny: At first it was all lovey dovey and Jesus loves you and you’re part of this forever family. But pretty soon the pastor’s wife and the other women in the church pulled me aside. And said, you can’t dress like that here. And again, I was 17. It was the seventies. We wore blue jeans, platform sandals, high heels, lots of makeup, long shaggy hair, and tight clothes.

That’s what we wore, and that’s all I had. And all of a sudden, I couldn’t dress that way anymore. I had to wear skirts and I couldn’t wear makeup or wear less makeup.

Anne: Only at church or all the time?

Penny: Well, they talked to me about it at church. I really kind of didn’t have any other life. I worked in the restaurant, and I had a uniform. Then I went to church. We didn’t really do anything else. Because previously his life was drinking and going out to eat and drinking. We didn’t do that anymore because he stopped drinking and he stopped smoking.

He didn’t pressure me outside of church, but at church I was required. And I kept arguing with the pastor and saying, you guys didn’t tell me this. Like, I don’t want to change. I like this and I liked that. It was a lot. And let’s fast forward three or four months. The pastor said, I want to meet with you guys on Friday night at my house.

And so of course I was told I was off work and went to the pastor’s house and the pastor made me wait in the living room. He took my boyfriend into his study and they were gone about 10 minutes, maybe more. When he came out, my boyfriend looked very troubled.

Penny: He looked preoccupied. And he said, Penny, will you marry me? We’re living in sin and I can’t live in sin anymore. So will you marry me?

He had talked to me about that before. My boyfriend had said to me like three or four visits after I got saved. He said, you know, we’re living in sin, right? I really didn’t know what he meant because I didn’t really have a concept of sin or hell or heaven, even though they talked about it at the church.

I wasn’t absorbing it. Like my little 17 year old brain was looking at people and looking at clothes and looking at the guitar player and looking at the piano. I wasn’t able to comprehend that. So it meant nothing to me. And I didn’t feel guilty. Like, I hadn’t been a, what I would call a terrible sinner, right?

I know now, because I’ve read the Bible, that like any sin, even jealousy is sin. At the time, I didn’t even think sleeping with your boyfriend was sin. I kind of knew it was wrong, but I didn’t equate it to sin. I didn’t feel any guilt in my heart whatsoever. However, unbeknownst to me, because he didn’t tell me yet, that my boyfriend did.

He had been stealing from his boss, he had gambled, he had drank and slept around. He felt very guilty. And so he really absorbed this Christian thing and became all in from the minute he got saved. He immediately quit drinking and quit smoking cold turkey. And that wasn’t the case for me. So then we have this meeting with the pastor.

Penny: He comes out and he says, will you marry me? Nobody twisted my arm physically, but again, I knew in that moment that if I didn’t say yes, I was out. I was out of a place to live, a job and out of the church.

I thought I loved him at the time and I didn’t see a lot of dangerous signals yet. Again, I’m 17. The big thing was he didn’t beat me. So I assumed I was safe. We got engaged and we started planning a wedding. The church was very, very heavily involved. Very heavily, from the get go. I did end up finding another apartment and moving out.

So I didn’t live with him anymore after that. The church would talk to us about things like birth control. And again, I’m 17, and I’m thinking, Are you kidding me? If we can’t use birth control, I could have a baby a year for the next 20 years. I said, this is ridiculous. I was pushing back and I was pushing back so much that the pastor said to me, you have a rebellious spirit. We need to send you to Bible school.

Anne: I’ve heard this before. You have a rebellious spirit thing,

Penny: So they sent me away to Bible school, literally. And you know what? I didn’t mind going because the pastor was overbearing and my then fiance, became overbearing. Because the way he looked at the world was different than the way I look at the world now.

He looked at the world like the pastor said, therefore you need to do it. No free will. No your own relationship with God, even though that’s what they preach. He became like my spiritual director and enforcer. So I had to do whatever the pastor said. Whether I wanted to or not, whether I was ready to or not.

And the pastor made me do some really strange things that I did not want to do. But again, under pressure from my boyfriend, here’s an example. The Bible says, children obey your parents. Well, that’s great when you’re living with your parents, maybe, but what happens if your parents beat you? So the pastor made me go back to my stepmother and ask her forgiveness for running away. Now I still had no opportunity to heal from emotional abuse from childhood, and this kind of advice compounded the problem.

Anne: Even though you ran away because your stepmother was beating you.

Penny: Beating me, mean to me, calling me names, withholding food. I was humiliated. And again I knew, if I don’t do this I have to walk away. So I did it. He even said, if she wants, you need to move back home. And I thought, you’ve got to be kidding me. I have been gone a year and a half. I have my own apartment, job and bank account. I’m engaged. Are you kidding? Nope.

They weren’t kidding. So luckily, my stepmother said, no, I don’t have to move back that I would disrupt the family. I had a little sister and I’ve hurt my sister by running away. I wasn’t able heal from emotional abuse from childhood while still being abused. So luckily I didn’t have to do it, but that’s the kind of thing I mean about domineering and overbearing and making me do things.

Now, as a middle aged woman, I look back and say. Why didn’t that tell me right then and there? Who’s going to be in charge of the relationship? That whatever my husband will say will be right. Not whatever I feel in my heart is right, but I didn’t see that. So I go away to Bible college for a year and it’s a wonderful, wonderful experience.

Penny: During this time, things change at the IHOP. My husband quits and opens up a restaurant. The restaurant ends up failing. Now he’s out of a job and he’s out of money. He gets another job at IHOP, but it’s in Maryland. I’m thrilled to move away from this overbearing pastor. I finished Bible college. We get married after Bible college by that same pastor and immediately move away.

Anne: And of course you would have had no idea how fundamentalism and patriarchy fuel abuse. Really quickly, how did you like Bible college?

Penny: I loved it, and the reason I loved it is because it was in a beautiful, beautiful setting in upstate New York. I lived in an all girls dorm. I’ve never had friendships with girls my age before because I wasn’t allowed to.

Anne: You have this good experience where you’re safe, you’re housed, have food. You’re getting an education, even though it’s something you didn’t expect.

Penny: The college is a lot less focused on rules. I mean, there are rules. For instance at Bible colleges, Christian colleges in that time, I don’t know how it is today. You couldn’t wear pants. Even though it was winter, we wore long wool skirts over boots. It gets really cold in upstate.

We had long coats. And there’s rules like that, but you can live with that, right? Because of the rest of it. You’re having a great time, studying and you’re going on little field trips. In the summer, you’re a camp counselor at a Christian camp. So it’s fun. It’s fun to be around other girls my age, something I’ve never had before.

I graduate, we get married, we move away, I’m a New Yorker so I dress up. I’m back to wearing jeans and high heels and makeup and pretty dresses. I’m myself.

Penny: We live in Maryland for about three years, and it’s rocky. It’s not an easy marriage because he’s domineering.

Everything is his way. I feel lost but I don’t know what to do because the church teaches that divorce is sin. And further they teach that if you deliberately do something that you know is sin, like divorce. You may not even be a Christian at all, which is scary, right?

Because if you’re a Christian, which I thought I was at the time, then you’re afraid of hell. You’re afraid of displeasing God. It’s a mind game. They differentiate between accidental sin, like, Oh, I fell into temptation. I committed adultery. That would be accidental sin.

Anne: Which is not accidental at all. That is 100 percent on purpose. Your penis just doesn’t fly out of your pants. In this context when there is this dynamic biblical submission often becomes abuse.

Penny: Right. But that’s what they teach. And I’m sure you’ve heard that before.

Anne: Oh, 100%. And then what? You just trip and then you accidentally have it with, no! It’s misogynistic because it always benefits the man. The man, it’s always accidental. But women, it’s always on purpose.

Penny: Right.

Penny: At some point, We meet up with this guy who runs a Bible study in his home. He’s in Bible college in Maryland. My then husband is an acolyte of this pastor, right?

Anne: What does acolyte mean in that context?

Penny: He loves this pastor and is a follower of this pastor. He thinks he’s the greatest. This pastor finally graduates from Bible college and he tries to get ordained. And he’s having a very hard time getting ordained. Which should have been a red flag, but it wasn’t.

Finally, this pastor finds a sect that will ordain him. He gets assigned to some rural church in the middle of very rural Michigan in a town of 200. A church that’s been around like a hundred years. It’s a handful of old ladies that are just keeping this church alive. The pastor moves away and my husband misses him so much. He arranges a trip to visit this pastor. I think, great, it’s just a one week trip.

We drive to Michigan from Maryland. We go to visit and I’m out of my element. I’ve never been in a place so rural. before. The church is weird and it’s small and I’m uncomfortable. I grew up in a city and these people are people that have never left their hometown. They’ve maybe never left the state. They’re just different. Nothing wrong with them, just different from me. So we go back to Maryland.

Penny: I go back to work and I’m happy. I’m focused on being a good wife. I don’t think about church. We’re visiting different churches every weekend. All of a sudden the pastor who lives in Michigan, his wife calls and says, Hey Penny, I found you guys an apartment.

I said, what? She said, Oh yeah, your husband told me to look for an apartment for you guys, that you guys are moving. He hadn’t asked me and he hadn’t told me. So I’m very upset because I did not want to move. I knew that place would kill me. I knew it was too weird for me I didn’t want to move, but he’s making plans.

He said, listen, I’m moving. So you need to get your head around this. I’ve given my notice to my boss. We’re moving in two months and I don’t know what to do.

Penny: And I remember talking to his, brother’s wife. So my sister-in-law, and she’s also born again, Christian, but she lives in New Jersey and she’s an independent woman. Back then I would have called myself a weak person, because I had no freedom as a child.

I hadn’t healed from my childhood trauma. So healing from emotional abuse seemed daunting. I was scared and timid, and had never lived on my own. My sister-in-law, on the other hand, was a strong woman. She went into her marriage as a strong woman. She was already a Christian when she met my brother-in-law, and she kind of called the shots for her life.

When she got married, for example, she said, I don’t want children. In the evangelical church, that’s huge. That’s a big no no. Because that’s your job as a woman, to be a good mother and keep house. So, I trusted her. I called her up and said, what do I do? I don’t remember exactly what she said. But she somehow, in a way that I can’t even remember, talked me into it. By saying, look, he’s your husband.

This is part of God’s plan. You think you won’t like it, but God’s plan is always wonderful. And you’re probably going to like it once you get there. So I think you should go. That sort of thing. She didn’t pressure me. She didn’t threaten or ultimatum. There was no hell, nothing like that, but somehow she made it okay. I don’t remember how, probably cause I was traumatized.

Penny: So we moved and uprooted everything we knew. And it was very weird. I was very young. We got married when I was 18, three years later, I’m 21. And we moved to this place where everybody is at least 10 years older than me.

And they had never been to college. The women never worked outside the home. They got married to their childhood sweethearts at 17, 18 or 19. And now they had a bunch of kids. And the area was very depressed. People didn’t have a lot of money, they literally stretched a giant jar of peanut butter week to week.

It was very dependent on the auto industry, so people were needy. People were very committed to the church, because really that’s all they had. I think I’m judging here. I’m making a judgment. Whereas I always looked at things wide open. Like why aren’t we going anywhere on weekends? We lived an hour and a half from Ann Arbor and two hours from Detroit. But nobody ever went to see museums, art or theater. Nothing. I didn’t fit in.

Penny: And I started questioning things again. I didn’t like what was being taught. They were teaching some really weird stuff. The church becomes your authority and you have to ask the church’s permission before you do anything. Like buy a house, go on vacation or to have another baby.

I was trying to have a baby at the time. And instead of encouraging me to have a baby. They were having me babysit people’s children while they went away for a few days. Kind of to teach me how hard it was to have a baby.

Anne: But like, didn’t they ultimately want you to be a parent?

Penny: It’s hard to say now, yes and no. But I had been trying for three years and I was not getting pregnant.

Anne: Oh, maybe they’re trying to “make you feel better”.

Penny: Or here’s the thing, like in the church, everybody has a gift. And wouldn’t it be convenient if I had the gift of serving and I don’t have my own children to take care of? Because then I could serve the church a lot. I could serve other people in the church.

Anne: Be people’s free babysitter.

Penny: Right.

Penny: Some people I get along with in the church and some people I don’t. And we typically had somebody over for Sunday dinner, or they had us over. We were supposed to fellowship and meet with people and have coffee with them. We weren’t supposed to have relationships with anybody outside the church.

So none of us had friends outside the church, unless of course you had family there, which we didn’t. It ended up that you only spent time with people in the church. I was not happy, but I was doing my thing. I was doing all the reading the Bible, going to prayer, fellowshipping with the women, helping out in the church and that kind of stuff.

Penny: And at some point, a cousin of mine was getting married on the East Coast and I had asked to go.

Anne: You asked the church to go?

Penny: I asked my husband to go and my husband went and asked the church, went and asked the pastor.

Anne: Wow, that’s intense, ok.

Penny: Yeah. The pastors came over and met with the pastor and the elder came over and met with me and they said, Penny, why do you want to go to this church on the East Coast?

You know, I didn’t tell them the real reason. It’s boring as heck here. But I just said, My cousins, it’s fun, I haven’t been away, haven’t been back. I haven’t seen them and I want to go.

Anne: Wait, why do you want to go to this church? You’re just going for like one day, right? For the wedding. You’re not like becoming a member of this other church, right?

Penny: Oh, it wasn’t even at a church. It was just a wedding, a cousin’s wedding somewhere on the East coast. Right.

Anne: Wow. Why do you want to go to this wedding? Okay.

Penny: What they said was you pray about it. If the Lord tells you to go, that’s fine with us. Well, of course I didn’t hear voices and I didn’t hear a yay or nay. And so I decided, well, I didn’t hear no. So let’s go. So we. Packed up the car, we drove, it’s, you know, eight hour drive or something back to the east coast from Michigan.

Penny: We get there, we’re there for the whole weekend. We stay with cousins or grandmother, I can’t remember. And we had a great time. But as soon as we start driving, getting close to Michigan again, I start feeling this uneasy feeling in my stomach. Like, Oh, I wonder if I’m going to get in trouble for this. Sure enough, there’s a knock on the door.

The day after we get back, the pastor and the elder come and they say, Penny, tell us about your trip. I look over at my husband and he’s looking at the floor. I’m like, well, we went, we had a great time. We danced, we socialized and they say, we don’t believe you. Like, what do you mean? You don’t believe me.

He said, we don’t believe you had a good time. I said, I had a really good time. And he said, are you sure you didn’t just try to have a good time? I said, no. And they said, we think you’re lying. We think God told you not to go. So we think you’re lying about going and having fun.

Penny: So we’re going to excommunicate you. We’re going to discipline you is the word they use.

Anne: Did they think you went somewhere else?

Penny: No.

Anne: So this is just like a huge manipulation thing. They know you actually went.

Penny: My husband went with me and my husband’s in the room. Yeah.

Anne: And he doesn’t stand up for you?

Penny: Nope

Anne: Or defend you?

Penny: Nope. He defends everyone but me. As a matter of fact, he must’ve called the elders behind my back. To say, We’re back.

Anne: He was abusive. We know he was abusive, even though you didn’t know it at the time, right? He’s emotionally abusive, psychologically abusive. What do you think was his abusive reason for calling the elders on you and getting you excommunicated?

Penny: I think he thought that it was his job to keep me holy and keep me righteous. Therefore, anything that the pastor thought was wrong?

Anne: But you hadn’t done anything wrong.

Penny: That’s correct.

Anne: He was just trying to put you down. I’m just trying to think of his abusive reason. He goes to this wedding with you and he sees you happy and dancing. He sees, Oh my word, she could notice that I’m abusing her and that she’s so exploited and sad. I don’t want her to recognize when she’s happy. I’m going to try and shut this down. Maybe something like that. We don’t know.

I so wish I could have given you The Living Free Workshop at this point in your life, I made it so women could recognize when someone is manipulating them and help them get to safety.

Penny: Possible. So the elder says, you’re on discipline, we’re disciplining you. Discipline means you don’t talk to anybody in the church. You don’t call them, say hi to them on the street, meet with them or come to services. You’re excommunicated. You stay home or you stay away from anybody in the church and we’ll get back to you when we think you’re repentant.

So here I am, we have a tiny, tiny apartment, it’s a studio apartment and I’m an outgoing person. I’m an extrovert, and I’m left on my own. My husband leaves for work in the morning, and you can clean the whole apartment in half an hour. I wash the dishes, do the laundry, and do the shopping. I mow the lawn, and do all the stuff.

Luckily I love to read. So I go to the library, but I’m heartbroken. I’m crestfallen and depressed. I stay in bed most of the day. Because this has happened to me and I don’t know how it happened.

I didn’t lie, I didn’t know how to change it. So I’m powerless and stuck. Again, I don’t even think of leaving at this point, right? Because now I’m three years into a marriage, into the church. I’m a good Christian and believe what I’m taught. I believe the Bible but yet, God’s not helping me

Anne: And you’re exactly where they want you.

Penny: I’m depressed and I’m not eating and I’m not sleeping. Again I call my sister-in-law or my sister-in-law calls me. She must have heard about it and she calls me. And she says, Oh Penny, you know, we’re all in sin one way or the other we’re all in sin.

Penny: So just confess to the elders that you lied and get it over with and they’ll take you back. It’ll be fine And so I say to myself, Oh my God, I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. That’s what I’m going to do. So I do it. I tell my husband, I’m ready to confess. He goes and tells the elders. A couple of days later, the elders come back to me and they come to the house and they’re all smiling with these fake smiles.

Cause there’s a verse in the Bible that says that there’s more joy in heaven over the one son who comes back to the faith and the hundred non believers that convert. I don’t remember the exact verse, but it’s something like that. So they say, we forgive you. And we’re so happy. This is midweek so stay away from the church . And We’ll invite you back to the church at the Sunday service.

Penny: And what I didn’t know, which they didn’t tell me at the time, was that when they invited me back to the Sunday service, I basically sat outside until the elders brought me in.

And then they said, congregation, we have something to tell you. We have something to rejoice in. Our sister Penny has repented of her sins and she’s been in sin for a month. Thank God, praise God. She’s repented. She’s come back to us and the Bible tells us to welcome her with open arms.

Well, a couple of people in the church stood up, a husband and wife team that were kind of newish to the church. They’d been there maybe a couple months. They got up and they said, this is wrong. And they got up and they walked out.

Anne: Were they like, we don’t want her back? So that’s why they left?

Penny: No, I think that they were upset that this happened to me.

Anne: Oh, okay. So they were on your side. Good for them.

Penny: Everybody else in the church was dead silent. Nobody said a word and everybody’s staring at me. I had no idea this was going to happen.

In those days we sat in a circle, so a great big circle. Imagine we were in like a a ballroom. We were renting an old, old, old hotel in this town, a big giant ballroom. We’re all sitting in a circle all facing each other and everybody’s staring at me aghast. He doesn’t tell them what the sin is.

Penny: So you can imagine people are thinking, was it adultery? Was it child abuse? Does she need to heal from emotional abuse? Was it theft? Is she a gambler? Is she a drinker? Does she take drugs? Nobody knew, right?

Anne: I just want to pause here for a second to point out why this is happening, not necessarily to you in particular, but just in general. It’s psychological abuse to try and force someone to think that something happened when it didn’t. And then they also want to ruin someone’s reputation. It’s so hard to heal from emotional abuse when you can’t get the right help and are still being abused.

So they could be like, okay, the sin was you jaywalked, but we’re not going to tell people that . And we’re just going to leave it up to everybody’s imagination in order to ruin your reputation and harm you. Wow.

Penny: it was really horrific.

Penny: And then here’s the other thing that happens to me as a person. On the inside because I didn’t do anything wrong to begin with, and they told me I did. From that moment on I walked on eggshells every minute of every day. I could never relax because I never knew if I was doing something wrong.

And I didn’t know if I was lying because if somebody said to me, how are you doing today, Penny? But really I was nervous in my stomach, but I didn’t want to say that. Then I would run back to that person and say, I’m okay, but I’m nervous in my stomach and I didn’t want to lie to you. I was constantly going back to everybody and correcting myself. I looked like a fool. Now people don’t know if they trust me.

Anne: I want to point out, this is what an abuser would do to undermine your confidence to exploit you more or control you more. It is a purposeful tactic that someone would do to stop them from healing from emotional abuse.

Penny: I did not know that at the time.

Anne: Right. I’m just pointing that out to my listeners. So that if they’re like, Oh, emotional abuse is happening to me right now it’s impossible to heal. It is a purposeful thing to undermine someone’s confidence.

Penny: this went on for another couple of years, living in fear and turmoil and insecurity. Something else happened and I was accused and disciplined again, for a very long time, for a year. I was really broken as a person, suicidal, very broken. And when it came time, the elders decided enough.

Penny: They said, you either leave or you confess. I decided to leave and that meant leaving the church. I left my husband and I left the state. Clearly I was a completely broken person. I was 31 by that point. And I basically had to start life all over again. Meaning I didn’t have a job, money, degree or career. I was scared of everybody, I thought my life was over at 31. Nobody would love me and I would just be a street beggar and maybe a waitress.

But that’s not what happened. Because once I was free I became a full human being . It’s been a powerful, powerful thing. Once I began to heal from emotional abuse, I became a highly successful and highly paid salesperson. I have a master’s degree and undergrad degree, am highly respected and retired early. I adopted a son, have a wonderful husband and home. It took a lot of work and it’s still work.

Anne: If you could go back to that 17 year old that you were and talk to yourself when you’re working at that IHOP. What would you say to yourself? When you weren’t yet asking the question, “am I being spiritually abused?”

Penny: I would say don’t do it. There are many people in the world. He’s not the only one. This isn’t your only job in the world. There’s many jobs in the world. You don’t need them. You’re stronger, you’re wiser, you’re smarter. You can do it on your own.

Anne: That’s what I want to share with our listeners is I don’t know where your journey to psychological and emotional safety will take you. It’s so different for every single person. But the important thing is that you are brave and you are strong and you can do it. The abusers want you to think that you can’t heal from emotional abuse.

They want you to think you’re dependent on them. They want you to think that you’re not smart or incapable. And that is not true. You are brave and strong. You are capable. When you heal from emotional abuse, you can do anything. So Penny, thank you for your story, and wish you well as you heal after emotional abuse. I appreciate you coming on today’s episode.

Penny: It’s my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Making the decision to divorce is a challenging time for any woman who is facing her husband’s addiction or emotional abuse.

Anne Blythe, M.Ed. and Caroline talk about complexities surrounding her decision to divorce, shedding light on the profound impact of her husband’s pornography addiction. If you’re struggling with the impact of your husband’s addiction, attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY.

Caroline’s journey began with awareness of her husband’s secret explicit online materials use, a revelation that unfolded over the course of their relationship. Initially, she had difficulty articulating the reasons behind her divorce.

One critical element in Caroline’s journey is the revelation that addiction is not isolated; it often fuels other destructive and abusive behaviors. She enrolled in The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop to determine her husband’s true character, and began using emotional and psychological safety strategies.

Many victims of betrayal and abuse can identify red flags after they’re already married or pursuing separation or divorce. Often, those who don’t understand abuse will covertly blame victims for identifying red flags “too late” or choosing to “ignore” red flags. It’s important to understand that most abusers are master-manipulators and mimic healthy behaviors to lure victims in.

If you are now identifying red flags, please understand that it isn’t your fault for “not seeing them sooner.”

To know if you’re seeing red flags in your marriage, take our free emotional abuse quiz.

Anne: I have Caroline on the podcast today. She is a Betrayal Trauma Recovery client who recently made the decision to divorce. So we’ll talk to her about her experience.

Welcome Caroline. What is your response when people ask you why you divorced?

Caroline: Although I knew about my husband’s addiction from the beginning, I didn’t know what that entailed.

Anne: Is it a triggery experience to talk about it with people wondering why you got divorced?

Caroline: It’s definitely like a panic zone, because you don’t know how people react. Some people are educated on addiction, and others believe it’s normal. So the reactions vary. It’s only been in the past few months that I feel like I can actually say the word pornography when talking about my divorce.

Anne: You mentioned you knew about his use while you were dating. Or before you married. Did you see any other red flags?

Caroline: As I thought about it post divorce. I was surprised at how many silent red flags in my relationship there actually were. Some of those narcissistic traits were that our dates were always extremely lavish and expensive. And it seemed he just had untapped funds from the get go, date one.

He would hardly give me any time alone. And always stayed by me, knowing what I was up to, surprise visits. He would fake sick at work just to come see me. It seemed like he almost forced himself into my life. And he flattered me at the time, I thought, wow, this guy likes me. He’s so cute, he’s got all this money. He’s got a good job. But now I see it as him controlling and insecure, and kind of practicing those narcissistic traits.

Caroline: Yeah, he was a strong member of his church until a few months before we met. And he said a lot about his inactivity in the church. He made a lot of excuses. Like how they treated him unfairly. He undermined his parents while still having them in the palm of his hand.

He constantly seeks praise and validation, down to like the littlest things. If he wiped off the counter, he would say, hey look, look what I did, I wiped off the counter. Just fed off of what other people thought of him constantly.

Anne: I was just thinking about my ex. He contacted some people in my life. Because he was trying to find information about filing taxes before we divorced while we separated. He said things like I love Anne so much. I need to make sure I do this for her. And how amazing he was for filing the taxes.

Like he felt like he needed tons of praise for just like everyday normal things. That literally he had to do, like if he hadn’t done it, he would have been breaking the law. And it’s like, you’re not going to get a ton of praise for filing your taxes. Every person has to do that. Like, I don’t know why you’re the hero for filing taxes. Women need education about narcissistic behaviors that is super important, especially if they are making the decision to divorce.

So that they can know, that was not a man being completely and totally in love with me. That is love bombing. That’s about them, not about me. This is an unsafe situation. I need to take a step back. Which is, what woman wouldn’t want to be love bombed.

Anne: We see that in romantic comedies. Our culture tells us that when you meet the right person, amazing things will happen. That amazing situation, meant for a romantic comedy, is like narcissistic love bombing.

Caroline: Yeah, exactly, I really saw him and me creating a family. And becoming a mother and him becoming a father. He talked about all sorts of different things when it came to family and being a major influence and support. To his own mom, who was a widow.

Many times where I saw an authentic reaction to what he was doing, sadness for what he had done. And then the next day it would be like that realization never happened. So I definitely believe he knew what was happening and what was going on. A lot of the mourning is because you do see their potential. Somebody told me during my decision to divorce, as I had many confusing and conflicting thoughts.

Because you feel like such a relief, but then you miss them and you mourn the loss of that potential in that person. You can see it so clearly after spending time with that person, and it’s so hard because you want to take them by the shoulders and shake them. And tell them, hey. I believe in you, see you, hear you and love you. You’ve got all this untapped potential right there.

One thing that helped incredibly with boundaries. Where before I thought of marriage as a free for all when it comes to each other’s feelings. Because well, you married him. But boundaries are good even inside a marriage to keep yourself safe.

Anne: Especially when you married someone who makes sad choices and you’re making the decision to divorce.

Caroline: Yes.

Caroline: I wish I had known that addiction fuels other behaviors. I wish I had known more of the emotional and physical consequences of that addiction. I wish I had known to prioritize my needs and desires. And to have this lesser sense of urgency when it comes to getting married. That it would be okay to just take our time.

I think another big thing for me was that I didn’t need to settle just because he was showing interest in me. Instead, I wish I had realized that I can have everything I want in a man and deserve the full package.

Anne: At Betrayal Trauma Recovery, when we say the full package, what we mean is someone who is not abusive.

Caroline: Yeah, isn’t that ironic?

Anne: We’re not looking for a professional soccer player or an ex Navy SEAL, and a million dollar business. No, no, no, that’s not what we’re talking about. We are talking about a man with whom we can partner, who is not abusive.

Caroline: Yeah, for sure. Just somebody that’s on the same track that I am, you know, I want a lot out of my life.

Anne: So let’s talk about your age for a minute. We’ve had women on the podcast and BTR.ORG clients from all ages and situations. Caroline, how old are you?

Caroline: I just turned 22.

Anne: And how long were you married?

Caroline: Three years almost to the day. I was 18 when I married.

Anne: And no children now?

Caroline: No kids.

Caroline: One of the biggest things that has helped me heal through my decision to divorce is affirmations. They are posted all over my apartment, just small things that remind me of who I am and where I want to be. Divorce does not define me, or that it wasn’t a failure either. I’ve also found it super helpful in the last little bit to share my story.

There are so many people my age who have been married for one to three years that are finding themselves in the same place in the neighborhood I grew up in. They’re between two years younger than me and two years older than me. There were 11 of us who are married, and six of us are now divorced. It’s been super helpful for me to reach out to them and ask how long it takes to heal from my husband’s emotional abuse and share our thoughts, feelings, and progress. And that’s been super helpful.

Caroline: So six of them are now divorced.

Anne: One thing I find concerning right now is that young people think that if they talk about it, they can somehow avoid it. That has not been my experience. In fact, many of the thousands and thousands of wives I’ve talked to, had many conversations with their boyfriends and fiancés about it. They users lie, conversation about it or asking the right questions will not lead us to the truth, usually.

The only thing that will lead us to the truth is observing their behaviors and getting in touch with what do I need? When do I feel safe? Who am I? Being in our own recovery space, so that we can observe those unhealthy behaviors in someone else.

Caroline: Yes

Anne: For example, many people think, well, if I am open and kind, and I don’t shame the person, then it will give them a better opportunity to tell the truth. I think that is the wrong way to go, because we’re still trying to “help” that person or manage that person. They literally need to be honest. Whether their wife or girlfriend is angry, happy, or sad, their honesty cannot, should not depend on the way their wife reacts.

Caroline: Absolutely.

Anne: And right now, when people talk about addiction, it is floating around that women have the responsibility to not be too angry. Or too shaming, or too this or that, and if they do that, great! Then he will open up, and that puts the blame of his lying on her where it does not belong. It is fully his responsibility to tell the truth, regardless of how she reacts.

Caroline: Yes, for sure.

Anne: Betrayal Trauma Recovery does not advocate for divorce. I did not want to make a decision to divorce. I felt strongly that I needed to set boundaries to be safe. So I set a very firm no contact boundary, and also didn’t file for divorce. I’m sure you’ve heard other people say, if you set these boundaries, you’re going to end up divorced. Like it’s your fault, rather than setting boundaries for safety. And if they still abuse you, it’s still their fault that the divorce is happening.

What do you say to people who might ask you. You’re divorced now, and you went to Betrayal Trauma Recovery. I guess, Betrayal Trauma Recovery believes in divorce. What would you say to them?

Caroline: Well, my first reaction is laughing, because before I went to Betrayal Trauma Recovery, which is the best betrayal trauma support group. I definitely wanted to make things work. But I was exhausted and had put off scheduling for a long time, because I was nervous and wasn’t sure what was going to happen. The best thing that happened was that my Betrayal Trauma Recovery Coach helped me identify my core values. So that all my decisions should be made based on those core values that I established.

It was very explicit that Betrayal Trauma Recovery is not an advocate for divorce, but that we should also ensure that we’re in a safe situation. And so the decision to divorce came from me. In fact, when I told my Betrayal Trauma Recovery coach, she was surprised I made the decision to divorce.

Anne: And did you feel supported by your coach?

Caroline: Yes, I definitely felt support from her. The support was to help identify myself, work through and make progress. It was, you’re a strong woman. You can do anything that you put your mind to. And you know, that said it all. After talking with my coach for the first and second time, we talked about boundaries, and I came up with some boundaries that I was going to set with my ex husband. And once the boundaries were set in place, things took a different turn.

It made him upset, much more abusive, a different side to my ex-husband that I never had seen. And so to me, setting a simple boundary. We saw his true colors.

Anne: Was it shocking to you?

Caroline: Oh yeah, I had never seen him react that way, just completely livid. He’d never really yelled at me like that, but was throwing things.

Caroline: Just completely different than I had ever seen him before. And this wasn’t a boundary of no physical contact. We had been seeing a therapist who specializes in addiction. And the therapist told me that my ex-husband would have to make the appointments from here on out.

Because at that time, for months and months, I was the one making appointments and taking him. To the appointments, the therapist said nothing will change until he wants to do this. So, the boundary was set: You need to make your own appointments to see this therapist. That’s when he blew up.

Anne: When I realized my husband was as abusive as he was, and I hadn’t seen it as abuse, I was shocked. When I found out how abusive he was. And when I was managing him and when I was not setting boundaries, I don’t think I ever would have seen abusiveness. It sounds like that was a moment for you where you’re like, whoa, he’s abusive.

Caroline: This is a very simple thing. That’s all I’m asking you. And it was just chaos. Trying to ask him to do very simple things

Anne: Without being totally berated, yeah.

Caroline: That reminds me when I was barely discovering Betrayal Trauma Recovery. I was surfing around on your website to get some more information. And there was a list of behaviors and examples of gaslighting on your website. And consequently, I’m sitting at work in front of my computer and reading these.

Caroline: I just had the biggest epiphanies, every sentence listed, every bullet point was like yes, this is how I felt. I’ve never been able to put words to it. That’s the moment I decided, okay, something has to change. And I’ve got to get help to figure out what needs to happen and change. But I just remember reading those, it was huge for me.

And when people ask me about BTR.ORG or my divorce, and then they go into their own struggles with their spouse, who is a user, I always refer them to Betrayal Trauma Recovery. It’s the same reaction I can see on their face. Every time it’s just, oh my goodness, this is putting into words what I’ve never been able to say.

Anne: I think it goes from knowing that your husband uses explicit material, being frustrated about it, and trying to figure that out. To realize that you’re in an abusive relationship. And maybe you will be making a decision to divorce.

Caroline: Yeah, I never would have classified it as an abusive relationship until then.

Anne: Yeah, so the shift from I’m worried about my husband. He uses explicit material, and it hurts me. To say he is abusive is one of the most traumatizing shifts in paradigm. But once that shift in paradigm happens, women are like, okay, so I need to set boundaries. Because all the love service and forgiveness will not help the situation.

Caroline: Right, absolutely.

Anne: You found Betrayal Trauma Recovery at 22. There are some women who find BTR.ORG at 40 after 20 years of marriage. There are some who find it at 50 after 30 years of marriage. Or women who find it after 2 or 3 divorces. What are you watching for in your future relationships?

Caroline: The biggest thing I watch for is how they treat me and themselves. How they take care of themselves and their sense of personal wellness. I definitely don’t have it like honed down yet. Because I still have belief issues or trust issues. How they interact with other people if they’re constantly seeking validation or having to be the center of the conversation, or reverting stories back to them, and interrupting people. The characteristics of narcissism are definitely what I look for.

Something I do regularly is write about my thoughts. I don’t hide from that place of asking the hard questions of myself, or facing the trauma. So if I am triggered, I like to come home at the end of the day and write about it. And sometimes I keep it, and sometimes I throw it away as a symbolic gesture. I’m done with you, done with this feeling. I notice that I’m much more self aware of my thoughts now that I decided to divorce.

You know, exercise and being outside have helped astronomically throughout the process of feeling whole again, able and strong, just staying connected to my feelings.

Anne: It sounds like also just staying connected to reality.

Caroline: Yeah.

Anne: Because to be with an active user who’s abusing you. You’re either always fighting with them, so there’s like this constant chaos. Or you sort of have to live in their reality, which is not reality. I remember one day I walked out of the house and was walking outside, and I looked up and felt the sun on my face. It felt so new. I looked at the birds, and I remember the birds flying by, and I remember looking at a tree. It was swaying.

Anne: And it was almost surreal. Like, is this real? This is reality. I just thought, wow, I’ve been living in this fog inside my house with this abusive situation. And my reality has been so skewed. And I started trying to do that too. Just walking outside, letting the sun be on my face. I garden, self care is on my list of what I’m doing now to heal and grow. I like the journey of it, and I’m okay. It’s a crazy journey. That I’m not doing fantastic at it, but at least I’m making small steps forward.

Caroline: Yeah.

Anne: Caroline, I know your mom has listened to the podcast and is familiar with Betrayal Trauma Recovery. So many of the things that you learned, she also knew because she listened to the podcast. How has that helped you as you’ve progressed in your healing, after deciding to divorce?

Caroline: Well, obviously the introduction to BTR.ORG by my mom was super helpful. I am forever grateful for the education my mom has about addiction. Because that’s what it boils down to. Gaining an education about what this addiction does, and having my mom there as a support, was super helpful. You know, being able to take the emotion out of the sadness that her daughter is going through, and looking at the facts, was helpful.

Caroline: Nobody wants that to be their friend, their daughter, or their sister. For a brief moment, there was that reaction from my mom of, you need to keep trying. And then the next day she called me and said, honey, I was wrong. I’m sorry and I’m here for you, which she did only because of the education she has.

Anne: I wish everyone who was going through this had a mom who is also listening to the podcast.

Caroline: For sure…

Anne: Caroline, thank you for being here today. I’m so grateful that you found BTR.ORG.

Caroline: Thank you, Anne.

Did you know that it’s considered child abuse to expose a child to inappropriate media? Here’s how to protect children from online threats.

To discover if you’re emotionally abused, take this free emotional abuse quiz.

A child’s accidental exposure to online inappropriate material. It traumatizes children who view it. They need immediate trauma-focused care to process and heal. Trauma from exposure can affect children in many ways. Often, traumatized children experience:

Courageous women who face the devastation of betrayal trauma, emotional abuse, and betrayal can find help, healing, and support as they set and maintain boundaries that keep their children safe from exploitative media.

An example of a boundary that would protect women and children from the chaotic harm and abuse of exploitative media use. Is asking the user to relocate to a different living space. So that his material cannot harm anyone in the family.

Often, children have a trauma response. All children exposed to it are abuse victims. They should be treated with compassion, respect, and the intentional care that any trauma victim would receive for abuse. In addition to trauma-focused care, women may find resources helpful in helping their children understand the truths about it. The book Good Pictures, Bad Pictures may help teach children about it.

Our Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions offer support, validation, and community to women all over the world who seek safety and healing if their husband’s exploitative content use betrayed them. Attend a session today.

Anne: I have a good friend on today’s episode. Her name is Kristen Jenson, and she’s the founder of Defend Young Minds, an organization that helps protect young kids from online threats by teaching them strategies and skills to use as they go about their lives.

Welcome, Kristen.

Kristen: Thanks, Anne. It’s great to be here with you.

Anne: My kids love your books. We have them all around our house. My youngest, loves non-fiction. and so she reads them frequently. So thank you so much. Can you just start off talking about your books?

Kristen: Good Pictures, Bad Pictures and Good Pictures, Bad Pictures, Junior, A Simple Plan to Defend Young Minds. They’re both number one bestsellers on Amazon and have been so for years. And you know, speaking of number one bestsellers, I know your book has been a number one bestseller, Trauma Mama Husband Drama. I love it. I mean, the illustrations are awesome. I’ve read many books that try to rhyme, and some work better than others, and yours works great.

I love how you approach that. It helps it not to be so heavy, and yet you’re talking about serious topics. Women get trapped in this place where her husband looks great on the outside, but there’s a lot of trauma going on. And then I love how in the back, you’ve got lots of charts that help explain a lot of the issues.

Anne: It’s frequently a bestseller in the category of teen and young adult nonfiction on abuse, which is interesting to me because I did not expect my book to be for kids. Many people have said, my children love this book. That surprised me.

Anne: I think the thing that probably surprises both of us is how ready and capable children are to learn about these difficult topics.

Kristen: Kids love these books because they respond to the truth. When a book clearly shines light, I think kids just gobble it up. It’s a relief to them when you’re willing to open up and talk about it or about the effects of expolitative media in a relationship, marriage, and family. Kids are more resilient than we give them credit for, and it’s great that they have these books to help them.

Anne: Can you talk about why some parents might think that not talking about it may be better for their kids?

Kristen: Yeah, I totally get that it may be intuitive, because we want to protect our children from online danger and keep them innocent. Some parents think, what if I tell my kid about it, and then they get curious and look for it. Well, we owe it to our children to teach them how to thrive in this day and age. The goal is not innocence, the goal is teaching a child to make wise decisions.

We teach them about all the other dangers and have drills, but somehow we think that this is different. It’s not, it’s a danger, just like every other danger. You need a proactive, intentional approach where you are working to create digital defense skills. When kids know what it is, why it’s harmful, and what to do when they see it, then and only then do they have a real choice to reject it. And they have the beginning of a defense, which of course in the end, it’s up to them.

Kristen: And I have so many stories of kids. One boy, like seven years old, was just going to ride bikes in the cul de sac. But they went inside and his teenage brothers said, hey, come over. We want to show you something and showed these little boys exploitative media. His mother had talked to him about it. He knew what to do and went home. He told her about it.

She was able to debrief him and help him process and neutralize those memories. And she told me, our plan actually worked beautifully. She could have never predicted that that situation would happen. But she was so glad her son was prepared, and he knew what to do. He knew to tell her, she was a safe person to talk to about this.

Anne: She helped protect children from online abuse. Yeah, because they have so many questions, they’ll hear things at school. One of my sons, when he was in fifth grade, we did the maturation clinic, and I went with him. But I had already talked to him about everything. We’d already gone over everything at home. And he told me that at lunch, some kids talked about the maturation clinic, and they were giving the wrong information.

And speaking of innocence. I just had two researchers on the podcast. They’re PhD level researchers, and they interviewed a bunch of women who have been through betrayal trauma. And one of the things they found was that women felt like their “innocence” had harmed them. They wish they had abuse education. They wish they had had abuse education.

Anne: They wish they had more education about healthy intimacy. In general they were religious. It was like, don’t have it until you’re married. Then once you’re married, your husband will show you what to do. You don’t need education about it. Many of them had experienced abuse from their husbands, their husbands were always on their phone looking at it, and they didn’t even know it was abuse. All of them had experienced coercion, they didn’t know that was coercion.

So the knowledge of abuse is that these are the elements of healthy relationships. What I love about your materials is that they teach these healthy concepts without saying the word, to prepare children for when that conversation will happen in the future. They help protect children from online abuse, and its effects.

Kristen: In the book for kids ages seven and older, talks about objectification, how it objectifies people’s bodies. And instead of seeing them as a whole person, who deserves love and respect, they’re just seen as a body or some sort of compilation of body parts. When you objectify a person, it’s easier to hurt them. And that’s another harm of online exploitation, because it shows people being mean and acting like that’s fun.

And so is hurting people a good way to treat somebody? No, so that just starts to teach that basics of healthy relationships are respectful and kind, and involves the whole person and trust. Whereas it teaches the exact opposite, it involves violence, disrespect, degradation, and objectification.

Kristen: And you can’t tell me that watching it for years and years. And then going into a marriage will not affect your template, your expectations and your behavior. There are quite a few studies that show that is true. People who look at it have a harder time having a healthy relationship. They also give their partner betrayal trauma from infidelity.

So turns out there are quite a few studies that show the mental health harms of it. And how it is associated with a wide range of harming mental health, not only in children and adolescents, but also in adults. I would say there are more studies with adults, obviously, it is associated with greater loneliness.

This content predicts depression and anxiety. There was a study that showed that both general and aggressive use alone were associated with less relationship satisfaction and relationship stability. Even when accounting for a range of potentially confounding variables.

One in Germany was with over 1500 German speaking users, ages 18 to 76. It showed that users with problematic content use scored significantly higher in many problems, obsessive compulsive behavior, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation. Also, they scored significantly worse in every measure of psychological functioning considered, including again, OCD, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, and psychoticism.

They also found that these results were elevated to a clinically relevant degree compared with the general population. The intensity of these problems was categorized as severe psychological distress. I could go on and on, but basically using it creates poor mental health outcomes. Kids should know that it does harm their mental health. There are so many studies that show this is true. There is a need protect children from online abuse to prevent long term damage.

Kristen: The other problem with kids using it: there’s so many problems, but one of them is the dopamine. It sets your dopamine level so high that normal things that kids used to really enjoy, like exploring the backyard and looking for bugs you know, are just boring.

So it’s messing with the dopamine in the brain. What would those kids learn and develop? So there’s lost opportunity for normal development. It appears to delay normal social development and cognitive development. These are all things that parents need to be concerned about when it comes to handing a device to a child. Parents need to know how protect children from online abuse.

Anne: As you’ve been working with parents over the years and how can we protect children online, have you seen any gender differences between the information boys need and girls need?

Kristen: Yes, I have. Girls often get into it differently than boys, but they often end up in the same place. You know, girls are interested in relationships. So they like stories, and they will be pulled in through erotic literature, through fan fiction, even through anime and cartoons.

They’ll be pulled in that way, but often end up with the videos. So I’ve been writing a book for girls to teach them the harms of it, not only themselves as they watch it. But it harms them if they get into a relationship with somebody who is also watching it. There’s quite a bit of research now that shows that if both partners watch it together, they have like threefold risk for infidelity, which is harmful to a relationship.

Anne: Well, and we view it as infidelity at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, so they’re already…

Kristen: Yes,

Anne:…being unfaithful. If they are, they’re both unfaithful.

Kristen: Absolutely. We want to help girls understand that there are other ways to get into it It’s not just the bad pictures you see. It’s also the bad pictures that can be created in your mind through books and stories. And even explicit cartoons are dangerous and addicting. This a way to protect children from online danger.

Anne: Well, Kristen, your work is incredible. My kids love it. I’m so grateful it organizes things in a way that is easy to approach the topic. So I’m like, win, win, win. Go to defendyoungminds.com to learn more about her resources. Thank you so much, Kristen, for spending time talking with me today.

Kristen: Thank you, Anne it’s been a pleasure.

If you’re struggling to deal with an addict husband, we get it.

We’re here for you. Our Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions are for women who have done everything they can to fix their marriage, but their addict husband is still causing trouble.

To see if your husband’s addiction causes him to be emotionally abusive, take our free emotional abuse quiz.

And listen (above) to Evangeline’s story to see if you relate, or read the transcript below. You’re not alone.

Anne: A member of our Betrayal Trauma Recovery Community is on today’s episode. We’re calling her Evangeline. Welcome, Evangeline.

Evangeline: Thank you for talking with me, Anne. I’m so grateful for the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Community.

Anne: Let’s start at the beginning. Can you talk about how you felt about your husband at first?

Evangeline: Ours was like a real romance. I thought I married the man of my dreams, that I earned and deserved this as a good Christian girl and woman. I was in love, head over heels in love. He checked all the boxes. He had faith, honored and respected me, and did many thoughtful gestures.

Anne: Back then, did you notice anything a bit off, and how did you define that?

Evangeline: There were moments. I suspected he may be an addict early on and thought he acted out in his “addiction” in isolated moments. Like, just a few times a year. He’d apologize and say it wouldn’t happen again.

I never told anyone because it was infrequent. I just thought he’s growing up, he’s figuring it out. As long as it doesn’t get any worse, I’m going to be okay. We’re going to be okay.

Evangeline: He introduced pornography into our marriage. I said, no, I didn’t like that. I became uncomfortable.

He’s telling me he’s watching pornography to learn how to be a better husband. How to maybe be a better lover or to be more educated.

Anne: A flat out lie. He’s constantly on his phone, watching it.

Evangeline: Totally. It didn’t help him be a “better” anything. I found infidelity 15 to 20 years into my marriage. The reality was, I can’t tell you how many incidences. I lived in fear. There is no way to deal with this when your husband says he’s an addict.

Evangeline: And really why would I know how to deal with an addicted husband? My parents raised me sheltered and uninformed.

And he seemed to love and adore me. I felt so blessed at the time. This was a godsend, an answer to prayer.

Anne: It makes total sense. That is exactly what you would think, especially under the circumstances. You think he’s a man of God, because that’s what he has told you.

Evangeline: The first 10 years of our marriage were a blur. Our two youngest out of three kids had severe medical issues. Those years were just survival.

I took women’s Bible study and women’s leadership.

I did bookkeeping for multiple churches and nonprofits. He also played a part in my business. He did taxes for some of the customers I had. My business was thriving. About 13 or so years into our marriage, we decided to move across the country. He wanted us to go down to one income, one job.

So I sold my business to another accountant in our city. And I became a full time stay at home mom for the next 16 years.

I didn’t know what would happen when I gave up my financial security and ability to take care of myself. I needed safety, because my husband was an addict, and that was an unsafe situation. The Christian evangelical community promoted and encouraged us to be stay-at-home moms. I didn’t realize that as a woman, I was putting myself at risk for the situation I’m now currently in.

Evangeline: I can see it now that he wanted more power and control. If he’s an addict, you can start seeing the patterns. Like, when I started going back to school, he was not supportive.

He would call me in the middle of my day, interrupt me when he’d never done that before. This behavior felt like more that just being an “addict husband.” I would keep my study time to only the hours my kids were at school.

I could only study when I had no other duties.

Evangeline: It was obvious he didn’t want me to improve myself, or show interest in any of my hobbies.

And that was shocking. His addiction meant he only wanted me the version of myself he married at 22. He didn’t allow me to grow and change. I wasn’t allowed to be an educated and degreed adult. I had to be the high school graduate.

He simply wanted my attention only on him.

Anne: One part of The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop teaches that we all have special talents and interests. But sometimes, when a husband struggles with addiction, he makes us think our life should only be about him. This workshop helps us realize that we were created to live our own life.

Evangeline: Yes, only certain activities met his approval, such as my kid’s medical issues. I could do ministry and women’s ministry through my churches.

And I’m learning that my husband is an “addict”. But the more my information and knowledge about abuse increased, the more his behavior became destructive and worse.

Evangeline: I think back now, and I’m like, my life was out of control. My personal life was in mayhem. In fact, the only place stable was work. My spouse was an addict to an extreme level. As an “addict”, he was also acting out with other women.

Sometimes I think we just go through a series of betrayals that are so deep and so intense. It’s almost like when he does it again, you’re in such a state of shock. The reverberations from each of these betrayals almost paralyze you. It’s like you couldn’t even react anymore.

My hypervigilance became extreme. I was waiting for the next one to happen.

And at some point, I’m became numb. I developed severe agoraphobia.

Evangeline: We moved four times in 10 years. I lived in four States in 10 years.

These were all moves related to him changing jobs. There were multiple incidents with his employers or with a fellow employee. I would never get the whole story or the whole truth. But I knew enough to know that he was misbehaving and acting inappropriately, unprofessionally with subordinates.

When he started the last job he had when I was with him, he had already started a relationship with a woman at work before the rest of the family moved.

But I didn’t know that. All those years, I was fighting for my marriage. Even though it was a complete disaster, full betrayal, full addiction. It was so exhausting constantly having to manage an addicted husband.

I didn’t realize what his addiction was doing to me. I just thought, “He needs help to overcome his addiction. And I’d still be there for him once he figured it out.” That’s truly what I thought. I said to him, “I’ll give you the freedom to figure out your problems, get help, and do what you got to do.”

Anne: You’re still in this, like, willing to help your husband with his “addiction”?

Because many times a husband will say, “I’m an addict” to manipulate us to “help” him. But it’s just to continue to exploit us.

Evangeline: Yes! He used it to continue to exploit me for sure! I said, “You go get help”. Your addiction is ruining your career. I do not feel safe, my husband is addicted he needs to get into a 12 Step Program.

Also, you need therapy.

So in addiction therapy, the therapist had us create one shared password for all our emails and accounts. We set up accountability and transparency. So I don’t know how he did it, but he still watched explicit material, and had conversations with other women.

He would just “slip up” here and there until life became just one constant slip up. I didn’t realize what was actually happening.

Evangeline: I’d never spoken to anyone about my marriage. I remember telling one woman at church that I had become fairly good friends about with what I’d found on his phone. He had inappropriate texts with a woman at work.

I truly believed the teaching that if you keep your husband busy and satisfied, filling his mind with thoughts of you, it would help him deal with his addiction. She told me that if I satisfy him, he wouldn’t need to seek out explicit material or other women.

When I decide to do something, I’ll go all in. And so I followed that advice, and it didn’t work.

It failed. He cheated, betrayed, and continued in his addiction.

Evangeline: I took a leave of absence. I began to search for any resource I could find, betrayal trauma, addiction and narcissistic personality disorder.

It wasn’t until I started listening to The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast. And I heard other women share their stories of what it was like to be married to an addict. I suddenly heard something I identified with.

And of course, at the beginning, I didn’t understand that you can’t take this information to an addict husband. But I made that mistake of taking him the information I was learning.

Evangeline: And I truly thought if I just approached him the right way. If I had the magic way to say it, he will understand and see the light. I know he’s intelligent, smart and capable. I must be failing. I’m not saying it right. Let me help my addict husband by trying it all in different ways. He’s bound to get it eventually.

Then he began turning what I knew against me. He started saying that I was the abuser and that I was the one causing problems. The scariest part of my story with him happened when we moved to this state for his job. This was the first time he worked at a hospital for behavioral health. He was the CFO at the hospital.

Even though he has no mental health education of any kind. Maybe Psychology 101 that everyone has to take in college. He’s an executive for the facility. But he’s coming home and telling me, you wouldn’t believe the wonders that we see in patients receiving shock treatment. It’s actually still a valid treatment practiced today, and you wouldn’t believe how these people are emotionally stable due to shock treatment. And he’s like, you should look into it.

Anne: For you?

Evangeline: Yes, he scared me so bad. At that point, I struggled with severe agoraphobia. I was terrified, knew no one in a strange city. I had no friends, no family, and no one to call and talk to.

Evangeline: I was completely isolated and terrified. If I can’t trust people I live with, who are supposed to be for me. And the people who are supposed to love me and have my back? How could I possibly trust a stranger? I knew I could trust my coworkers in my child advocacy work, but beyond that, I had no one personally. And I was terrified. I was terrified he would commit me against my will and that I would have a shock treatment done to me against my will.

And you lose memory, and looking back now that I know that’s one of the effects of that treatment. I understand why he wanted it so bad. We had reached a point in our marriage where I had learned so many truths. There was no return from that knowledge.

Anne: Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Evangeline: You can’t unsee it. And I didn’t realize then how desperate he was for me to not know the truth of him. I know it now.

Anne: So you become a child advocate, recognize what abuse is, but still don’t recognize that he’s abusive. Then you recognize that he’s abusive, and you think, oh, if I can just explain it well enough. By the way, this is totally normal. You’re completely normal. I went through the same thing, trying to help my “addicted husband.”

I think every abuse victim does. Because they’ve manipulated us to think they’ve like given us that impression. They’ve gaslit us to think that. So then, you go through that phase, which we’ve all been through, of okay. If I can explain it to him, or if I can get him to the right therapist or something, then he’ll get help.

Evangeline: He went to a therapist, and I went to one appointment not to do a couples therapy. But to say, hey, I want to hear from the therapist that you are telling the therapist everything.

Anne: What type of therapist? Is it an addiction specialist?

Evangeline: They do therapy for addiction. Just a traditional therapist with addiction training. I told both therapists, “I’m not safe, I’m not safe, and I’m not sure what he’s doing next. That’s going to destroy me and the kids, our lives. I’m terrified.” Did you know that neither of those therapists had one thing to offer me? Not one thing. They didn’t follow up, and they didn’t have anything to give me.

Anne: That is unfortunately most women’s experience when they work with an addiction specialist for their spouse. It’s so disappointing, invalidating, and frankly dangerous. And that’s why I started our group sessions and our individual sessions. And also why I wrote the Living Free Workshop. The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop helps women determine their adddict husband’s true character, and then teaches safety strategies.

So basically, it helps women know exactly what’s going on, and then also what’s going to happen next. Because I found most therapists, therapy in general, especially couple therapy or therapy for troubled marriages. They just look at you and blink. They might say the word boundaries, but they don’t know how to actually teach boundaries, because “communication” is always the solution when it comes to therapy. And “communication” doesn’t help with an addicted husband.

So I am so sorry. That’s so discouraging. So they just like stared at you and just like blinked at you.

Evangeline: That’s what they did. They had nothing to offer, no suggestions for a safety plan, and didn’t look to him and say, we need to stop now. At this point, we weren’t addressing the misconduct. We were addressing his behavior with addiction. It was out of control and dangerous.

Anne: Though it felt terrible to you at the time, and they did not do the right thing, there is a silver lining there, and it’s that they didn’t say, oh, I can help both of you. And this is how we’re going to do this. And the reason why that’s a silver lining is that false hope. Sometimes we call it hopium around here that, like, oh, I will treat your husband and make him safe for you, is super dangerous.

We don’t recommend any men’s programs, because we’ve seen them use that to continue to manipulate and control, and they weaponize all the therapy language. It almost makes them like super abusers, because they know how to speak. And it gets scary quickly. When they’ve become these like almost mutants of themselves through learning the therapy language. Did you experience that part, where they’re good at using the therapy language as weapons against us?

Evangeline: When we were separated for a year, I felt it a little. I asked for a space where we could talk and actually work things out. Whenever we talked alone, the conversations just went in circles. We kept jumping from one thing to another without solving anything. I still cared about my marriage and wanted it to work, even though we had been apart for a year.

I requested, can we find a therapist where we will have space to have conversations?

Evangeline: So we’re both held accountable for how we participate in that conversation, not couples counseling. this point, even though I still desire to keep my marriage and future, he said I’m 99 percent done. You know what that did to me? It took me a couple of appointments before I finally understood that statement.

I’m 99 percent done. There was that 1 percent chance, and that dangle. I was the one dangling. He was exercising that power of dangling me, even though he was done. He was already living with a woman for a couple of years.

I just didn’t know it. My kids knew it, he knew it. And no one told me. I was the only one. But he kept saying, I’m just 99 percent done. So I’m thinking, okay, he’s not going to the top. The therapist knew he’d thrown in the towel before I did.

Anne: It’s so hard. And I’m guessing the therapist didn’t mention this is abuse either.

Evangeline: No.

Anne: Yeah.

Evangeline: And that therapist actually with the credentials is trained and should have known it, should have seen.

Anne: Generally, therapists don’t have abuse training. It’s a weird, strange situation. Because people think therapists should have abuse training, but in general, they don’t have a lot of it. They don’t assess abuse.

When they think he is abusive. And I am the best therapist, and I can help him with his abuse. That scares me actually even more than the person who doesn’t recognize it. Because if the guy didn’t want to be abusive, he knows what he’s doing, and he would have stopped his abuse already.

Anne: Therapy isn’t going to help him. It makes me nervous.

Evangeline: I’ve since learned therapy doesn’t fix the abuser.

Anne: For those of us, me included, who thought, he just needs to know what’s going on, where I went wrong there. And I described this well and why this happens in the BTR.ORG Living Free Workshop. He knew what he was doing. So he knew he was lying and what happened. And so if I was like, ah, this is what’s happening. He already knew it wouldn’t change him. Because if knowing would have changed him, he already knew, it would have changed him already.

It was the opposite. He knew exactly what he was doing, and he was doing it on purpose.

Evangeline: It is hard. It’s really hard to come to terms with the fact that the person you committed to your life, that you love, honor, and cherish. And you bring such a beautiful, valuable side to the relationship to the table. It’s so hard to imagine they’re doing these destructive things on purpose.

And they actually don’t care how much you’re harmed, how deep you’re hurt, how devastated you are. And then you get blamed for your response for being emotional or angry. For being any of the valid emotions you’re supposed to experience. When you face betrayal, shock, hurt, devastation, and your life imploding, you’re going to have those emotions.

Those are valid, and they’re appropriate. For those to get judged, I mean, you’re emotionally unstable, you’ve got the problem. But their decades of behavior suddenly is not even the issue or not even the focus.

Evangeline: You know, Anne, there’s one more part of my story. Before I became an advocate, we were actually on a corporate retreat for his work. So all the wives did a spa day together, and we were having healthy girl talk, nothing inappropriate. It was spending this time with these other women who were not from the evangelical community in which I was raised.

They were just average, ordinary, great women. We were talking about marriage and intimacy. And I had made a comment that we have intimacy, and it’s healthy in my marriage. It’s great, in fact, if he feels the need to be intimate, even if I’m passed out and asleep, I was okay if he needed to be intimate. And the reaction from these women.

Anne: You were sharing what you thought was an example of your healthy intimacy, thinking they would be like, oh, that is so healthy that we can be intimate.

Evangeline: Yes.

Anne: …with you when you’re passed out.

Evangeline: I was so ingrained with my only role and goal in life, which is to please him to whatever self sacrifice I need to do. My purpose is to please him. Even if that means using my body when I am asleep and on sleeping medication, I cannot verbally consent or even have any memory or knowledge it happened afterward. I thought that was my duty as his wife to provide that for him, in order to help my husband with his addiction.

No husband should ever do that ever. You have to consent. I’m like, I consented. I and they told me, no, that’s not consent. You have to be conscious in the moment, consent in the moment. And so I started having conversations with my spouse about it.

Evangeline: And it turned out he’d been doing this way longer than I knew, and it was something he continued to do. Even after that conversation, he did it for years.

Anne: I’m so sorry.

Evangeline: You know, it was shocking when I found out. The times I didn’t know, it’s like if he did it and then told me, and I knew it was somehow a little better and okay. But finding out it had been going on for years. And then once this conversation started happening with him, this person inside out. You know, when they start lying, you can tell when they are not truthful with you.

And then it was having all the subsequent conversations. And in each of those, his lies grew more. The retellings, the details would change in his retellings. And then having these conversations with him is when I would begin to get flooded with flashbacks. Where I would have some conscious recall, and I didn’t know what to do with that.

I had nowhere to turn. I was alone in that. And I still stayed married and had a very active, intimate life with him for many more years to come, like eight more years. It was hard to reconcile.

Anne: Absolutely.

Evangeline: When you have the good times, and then you have the falling apart times, and then you have the shock and awe times of like, is he really? Is he that bad? Is he that vile? No, I have to be misunderstanding. That had to have been an exception. That can’t have been the norm. Again, it’s just a series of traumas that never seemed to end.

Evangeline: So when I finally separate from him, I finally realize my marriage is over. That I can’t deal with his addiction anymore. I need a divorce. I had at that point already done betrayal trauma work. It was a 17 month divorce with a full trial. I then turned around, and the week I turned 50, he filed the appeal.

So I had another 17 month long court. I just won the appeal, but he’s still challenging my win. I actually got a text two weeks ago on the 4th of this month, communicating that exact thought.

He said, just be reasonable the way you saw me once upon a time. He wants me to be that 22 year old bride who thinks he is the most amazing person ever. Who can do no wrong. And unless I view him like that, I’m not reasonable. Because I’m asking for something that the law legally entitles me to ask for. From Focus on the Family, “Help your husband be the hero to your children.”

I chose to do it with my kids, and even though he was working late or I didn’t know where he was. I told them, “Oh, your dad wishes he was here. He’ll be here as soon as he can. You have a great dad who loves you.” I said those things, and I didn’t just do it once. I kept saying it for years.

Anne: And you did it because you thought it would help. It was actually an act of resistance on your part. So I want you to, like, hold your head up high. Because you genuinely thought that it would improve things. It wasn’t because you’re stupid. It wasn’t because…

Evangeline: No.

Anne: …your brain doesn’t work. It’s not because you’re emotionally unstable. It’s an act of resistance. It was the only thing you could think of at the time to keep yourself safe. And the sad thing is they’re preying on women’s vulnerabilities. They should educate women about abuse to “focus on the family”, and strengthen a family.

Evangeline: Yes, Anne, I’m 51. It took me decades to understand all the abuse I experienced in my marriage.

No one teaches this in most evangelical groups. Schools don’t really teach it either, especially private Christian schools. I went to a private Christian school for 13 years, and no one ever talked about abuse—not in class, not in church, not even in women’s ministries.

For ten years, I led in my role, but no one ever brought me a lesson saying we should stop supporting addicted husbands unconditionally.

We don’t teach women how to be a good support, how to be a safe place to live, how to be a good friend. Can I walk alongside a woman in the middle of trauma, abuse, and betrayal? What should I say? What should I not say? So big churches we have, is that in their bookstores? These materials are not on their bookstore shelves. They’re not promoting them. It is a missed opportunity.

Anne: That is why I started podcasting. To educate everyone that abuse causes betrayal trauma. A husband’s addiction will always be abusive to you, their wife. The lies, the gaslighting, all that is abuse. You can’t call it anything else.

Evangeline: We didn’t know about erectile dysfunction either. And that my husband needed to begin the pill for that in his early 30’s. I never even learned that fact until my late forties. I didn’t even know that piece of information.

Evangeline: For over 15 years, I didn’t know things that should be simple to understand. Women need to understand what they’re going through. We need to learn the words and meanings to describe it. For example, if your husband is an addict, you are experiencing abuse and betrayal.

Anne: I think one of the reasons why it’s not common knowledge. They want you to think that their shame causes it, childhood trauma, or something. When many of us feel shame or have childhood trauma. We have problems, and we don’t lie to people and deceive them on purpose.

So many people pretend or act like this isn’t a choice, a conscious choice to harm people and exploit them. But that is what it is, and it’s really hard for the courts to wrap their heads around it. For therapists to wrap their heads around it. For friends and family, to realize that abuse is a conscious choice. He knows what he’s doing, and it’s harmful. And of course, she’s upset. Of course, she’s hypervigilant.

Anyone going through that is hypervigilant, because someone was hurting her on purpose. She was trying to avoid the chaos her “addict” husband was causing. Like, it’s hard for people to wrap their heads around it. So I’m so grateful that you were willing to come on today to share your story. Because all of us sharing our story helps other women realize what’s going on. So your bravery today to share has been amazing.

Evangeline: Thank you for having me Anne.

We’re here for you. If you related to any part of Evangeline’s story, we’d love to see you in a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY.

Have you experienced betrayal trauma in relationships? Have you been betrayed, emotionally abused, and abandoned? Disbelieved, dismissed, and even shunned? If so, listen as these betrayal victims share their advice for other women.

If you need actual support from women who understand, attend a live Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY.

If you discover your husband betrayed you, knowing what to is difficult. Sometimes clergy, therapists, even the legal system dismiss women’s trauma after betrayal.

Betrayal Trauma Recovery empowers women when they become educated about what to do. One of the key things to do if you’ve been betrayed is determining if there has also been emotional abuse. To discover if his betrayal includes emotional abuse, take our free emotional abuse quiz.

Anne: We have a very special episode today. Victims of Betrayal, trauma in Relationships share their stories about what helped them heal, I asked them to record what their thoughts were and send those recordings to me so here are those recordings.

Betrayal Trauma Victim #1: We tried many counselors, including CSATS, and have been doing that quite some time. Being on BTR for just a few weeks has made all the difference, and I can see the behaviors now much more clearly, the dysfunction. Being on every day and getting the validation from the coaches and other women has been tremendously helpful to me. Life changing.

Betrayal Trauma Victim #2: I’m grateful for Betrayal Trauma Recovery. I was able to get clear thinking about what I witnessed and what was going on. Listening to the podcast and then having the coaches talk with us individually helped me classify and figure out strategies for handling, grooming, gaslighting, and things that I didn’t have words for until I got into BTR. It’s the best support for betrayal trauma.

But I think the most significant thing was to get that outside myself and apply it in different situations. And one was with my husband’s counselor. Very traditionally, he would like to do marriage counseling, and I learned with BTR that there has to be a certain level of health before that would be successful. I was able to state that with my husband’s counselor to say to him, his sex before marriage, the pornography, all those things are not marriage problems.

They cause marriage problems, but they are his personal problems until he addresses them. Marriage counseling will not be successful, and I will not participate. But it was BTR that empowered me to understand, one, I have a voice, and two, that was a very logical way to handle the situation. And the counselor was taken aback, but he saw what I was saying, and he took another course with my husband, which actually helped my husband more.

So I’m very grateful for BTR and the coaches, and thankful for the daily presence of having somewhere to go. Where the craziness around us can be processed and we can come to a place of peace.

Betrayal Trauma Victim #3:  BTR Group Sessions have amazing coaches who have also walked this path. They can give appropriate advice, encouragement, and help answer questions and guide you along the path of recovery.

BTR gave me the words and the terminology to put to how I was feeling. And knowing the right words to describe my feelings helped calm my soul and helped me to not feel so crazy. There have been several moments when I was full of panic, anxiety, and fear because of the situations at home with my husband, and I was able to get on Betrayal Trauma Support Group within a couple of hours and talk through it, get the comfort and validation that I needed and advice if it was needed.

BTR Group has been a lifesaver for me on many occasions. It’s a safe place where I can cry and let it all out and share my fears, no matter how silly they may seem to others. The coaches and other women in the group understand and get it. It’s a judgment free zone where I can be me and fully accepted for who I am, for all my faults and failures and my accomplishments.

BTR helped me to set and hold appropriate boundaries for my safety, which helped me to feel confident and empowered. The coaches and other women in the group give me validation to know I am not crazy, and that others have been through the same thing. I love being in the group and hearing other women’s stories and questions.

And often they have the same questions I have, and sometimes questions I had, but I didn’t know that I had, or how to ask. And so many times the advice given to other women was just what I needed to hear.

I’ve been doing BTR groups since the beginning, and it’s great to build that relationship with the coaches, and to have them tell me how much improvement and growth they have seen in me. BTR group is the friend I never had and needed so desperately. I have felt so alone for so many years. BTR came into my life when I needed them most, and to have the coaches with me through this journey of healing.

I honestly can say I don’t know where I’d be without the BTR Group Sessions. I credit so much of my healing and strength to the coaches and other women in the group. BTR Group has helped me become a better person, healthier person, stronger, more confident, and empowered.

Betrayal Trauma Victim #4:  I was going through a really ugly part of the divorce. I was dealing with a lot of very covert abuse, very mean and horrible to me and my younger daughter, but nice to everyone else. A family in our church took my 16 year old daughter and I into their home. She was going through some issues also.

And she said, “You’ve got to attend BTR Group Sessions.” And, I started attending BTR Group Sessions and listening to BTR Podcasts, and was surprised at the connection with the pornography. It has the best betrayal trauma resources. I actually went to counseling. I’d been going to counseling for years, with my marital problems. And nobody had ever made that connection before. https://www.btr.org/best-betrayal-trauma-resources

And when I brought it up to my therapist at Kaiser, she said, “Oh, that’s interesting. I’d never made that connection before.” And I just kept listening to BTR Podcasts and it was so intriguing. I hadn’t even thought about the connection of with coercive control.

That hit me really hard. I think it gave me more validation because even though I really can’t confront him about that, we were on zero communication.

It gave me a lot of validation to know that I’m not crazy, that no matter how this looks to everyone else, I’m suffering horribly and I’m not crazy. I appreciate the BTR podcast and the Group Sessions. It’s been invaluable to me, and I just thank you for it.

Betrayal Trauma Recovery Victim #5:  BTR was recommended to me by my counselor. She recommended that I get into group. She said it was important that I get into group while still seeing her. The great thing about BTR group sessions is how they’ve helped me. So you have all different coaches who bring with them all different areas expertise.

I have found that when I get on these groups, I get all this coaching and support, and hearing other from other women’s experiences.

It has helped me know that I’m not alone, because it is so easy to feel so alone in all this. One of the things that’s important is having safe people. If you have people around you that don’t necessarily understand your experience, you don’t feel safe. And BTR creates that safe environment.

So the women in these groups are safe. You never feel judged. You’re not going to have people tell you how you should think or do. It’s completely safe. And while each woman’s experience is unique, we all share commonalities. And having that support helped me through the most traumatic relational experience in my life.

Betrayal Trauma Recovery Victim #6:  I truly believe Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions saved my life. I’ve made lifetime friends, the only ones who understand my feelings, who have gone through the same things. Each coach has their own special traits, and seeing the different views of the same subject or seeing things in different ways or suggestions helps make you feel safe.

Betrayal Trauma Recovery Victim #7:  My husband was in recovery and having. All of these meetings each week and having all the help he needs and counseling. And I felt like I was being left out in the dark. I was at the end of my rope.

So I started searching for something to help me. I found BTR. I decided that’s what would be best for me. So I started attending the group. I have found that having this group has been the best thing that ever happened to me. It has taught me what self care means. It’s taught me a lot of things about gaslighting and DARVO and things I’d never heard of before.

They’ve helped me through a lot of really hard situations. The group has been so supportive. The women are amazing. Everyone has their own story to tell, but each person gets validation and support that they need and feedback from the coaches as well as each other. It’s been great to know that I’m not alone in this, that there’s other women who have struggled the same as I have, and that I can be there to support them, and they can be there to support me.

This group, I lean on it a lot. When I’m going through hard times, and I don’t understand everything happening with my addict, they help clarify situations for me, and give me options. They also give me a place to share, and I feel safe, and I’m not being judged. I just want to let others know how wonderful the BTR group has been for me, and I would recommend it for anyone who’s going through betrayal trauma, so they can learn and grow.

I feel like I’ve learned and grown from the first time I attended to this day. I’ve learned self worth. I’ve learned what self care is, things that I didn’t even understand when I started attending Group Sessions.

So I just want to thank all the coaches, everyone.

Betrayal Trauma Victim #8:  I really appreciate how you validated everybody, first by listening, and then by encouraging them in their own insights and giving them, you know, advice.

permission to do and be whatever they needed to at that moment. I have not experienced that with counseling, though I’ve been through a lot. Yeah, it’s been a trial. And so I recognize the uniqueness of it and it’s just amazing.

To learn more, please check out our Group Schedule as well as The Living Free Workshop.