Send Lisa a question for her to reply in a future episode!

If you've ever been told your standards are too high, that you're trying to change him, or that real love means accepting everything he does - this episode is going to name something you've been feeling for a long time but maybe couldn't say out loud.

Therapist, educator, and LCSW Aishia Grevenberg is back for her third conversation with me, and this time we're getting into why abusive men genuinely believe love should be unconditional - and why that belief has nothing to do with love. What they're really asking for isn't a partner. It's a mother. And once you understand the dominance dynamic underneath that demand, so much of what happened to you starts to make a different kind of sense.

We talk about why your needs feel like a threat to a man who needs control, the difference between pity and compassion and how men use one to keep you stuck, what love bombing actually does to a woman who grew up without a baseline for healthy love, and why having conditions in a relationship isn't selfish - it's the bare minimum. If someone has ever made you feel like your standards were the problem, this one will make you feel a lot less crazy and a lot less alone.

Find Aishia: @mytherapistlife on all platforms

Join Lisa Sonni & Dr. Peter Salerno in Boston, MA November 13-15, 2026 here: https://lisasonni.com/unbreakable-and-irreplaceable/

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New episodes drop every Tuesday.

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You know what gaslighting is.

”You're too sensitive.” ”I was just joking.” ”That never happened.”

But there is a version of gaslighting that is much harder to name. It does not announce itself. It works slowly, through tone and framing and forgetfulness and calm. And by the time you notice it, you have already started doubting your own memory, your own perception, and your own mind.

Lisa sits down with Dr. Robin Stern, therapist, author, and co-founder of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, to go deep on the 5 covert tactics that most people never recognize as gaslighting.

Dr. Stern is clear that these tactics are not always conscious, but in the hands of someone who uses them consistently, the effect is the same. You stop trusting yourself. You begin organizing your life around avoiding his reaction. You forget who you were before the confusion started.

Because sometimes the calmest person in the room is causing the most damage.

Resources mentioned:

• The Gaslight Effect by Dr. Robin Stern
• Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence

Join Lisa Sonni & Dr. Peter Salerno in Boston, MA November 13-15, 2026 here: https://lisasonni.com/unbreakable-and-irreplaceable/

Support the show

This is the podcast they don't want you listening to.

👉 Find me at lisasonni.com 

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New episodes drop every Tuesday.

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Send Lisa a question for her to reply in a future episode!

If you have ever wondered whether you are the toxic one, the narcissist, the problem…that question is not a coincidence, it was put there on purpose.

Lisa sits down with Emma Davey, trauma-informed counsellor and master's candidate in the psychology of coercive and controlling behaviour, to break down exactly how abusive men flip the script. Together they walk through how self-blame gets installed from the very beginning, why the fawn response has so many women working overtime to manage someone else's mood, and what DARVO actually looks like in real time inside a relationship and in court.

They also get into the fight response, the moment you finally explode after months or years of being poked, prodded, and worn down, and why that moment gets weaponized as proof that you are the unstable one. Emma is clear: that reaction does not make you the abuser, it makes you human. Your nervous system was doing exactly what it was built to do.

One of the most important reframes in this conversation is also one of the simplest. The person genuinely causing harm is not lying awake at night wondering if they are hurting you. They are not on YouTube looking for answers. You are. And that tells you everything you need to know.

Resources mentioned:

• Mynara app by Emma Davey (evidence tracking, disguised as a calculator)
• My Trauma Therapy: mytraumatherapy.co.uk

Join Lisa Sonni & Dr. Peter Salerno in Boston, MA November 13-15, 2026 here: https://lisasonni.com/unbreakable-and-irreplaceable/

Support the show

This is the podcast they don't want you listening to.

👉 Find me at lisasonni.com 

Book A Session with Lisa

Join my online survivor community called She Rises Collective where we are breaking free, rebuilding and dismantling patriarchy. 

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New episodes drop every Tuesday.

Subscribe, share it with someone who needs the truth - and remember:
You’re stronger than they ever wanted you to believe.

Send Lisa a question for her to reply in a future episode!

You knew it was coming. Maybe not the exact moment, but you felt it building.

The tension in the room. The stillness before it broke. Your nervous system clocked it before your brain caught up.

That's pattern recognition, and there's a reason these conflicts follow a script.

Lisa sits down with Bill Eddy, lawyer, therapist, mediator, and co-founder of the High Conflict Institute, to break down exactly why escalation in high conflict relationships is predictable, what triggers it, and how it plays out differently across three distinct personality patterns.

Bill explains why setting a boundary isn't just uncomfortable for these people, it's experienced as a threat that requires a response. He covers how they move from verbal attacks to punishment to recruiting others into the conflict, why they see themselves as the victim even while causing harm, and what survivors consistently get wrong when they're in the middle of it.

One of the most important moments in this conversation is a simple reframe: escalation is not proof that you did something wrong. It's proof that the system was challenged. Once you understand that, everything shifts.

Resources mentioned:

• SLIC Solutions: Setting Limits and Imposing Consequences by Bill Eddy
• Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder by Bill Eddy
• High Conflict Institute: highconflictinstitute.com

Join Lisa Sonni & Dr. Peter Salerno in Boston, MA November 13-15, 2026 here: https://lisasonni.com/unbreakable-and-irreplaceable/

Support the show

This is the podcast they don't want you listening to.

👉 Find me at lisasonni.com 

Book A Session with Lisa

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New episodes drop every Tuesday.

Subscribe, share it with someone who needs the truth - and remember:
You’re stronger than they ever wanted you to believe.

Send Lisa a question for her to reply in a future episode!

You keep trying to make sense of it. 

Maybe he didn’t mean it. Maybe you misunderstood. Maybe you’re overthinking.

The reality? Confusion is not the problem. It’s the outcome. When someone can hurt you and comfort you in the same breath, your brain tries to reconcile two realities that don’t belong together. He loves you and he harms you. He apologizes and repeats it. That contradiction is what keeps you stuck trying to figure it out. 

In this “Best Of” Real Talk episode, Lisa pulls together powerful insights from Dr. Peter Salerno, Aishia Grevenberg, Dr. Les Carter, and Brent MacLerie to expose what is actually happening beneath that confusion. 

They break down how manipulation often hides behind subtle behavior, how entitlement drives repeated harm, and why the idea that “he doesn’t know what he’s doing” keeps you trapped longer. 

When behavior repeats, especially when it hurts you, that is not confusion. That is information. 

The clarity you’ve been searching for is not in understanding him better. It’s in seeing the pattern clearly and trusting what it’s already showing you. 

🎧 Listen to the full episodes: 

Dr. Peter Salerno: https://youtu.be/_gKCmT1YazY 

Aishia Grevenberg: https://youtu.be/-LeQ9ZwtcGY 

Dr. Les Carter: https://youtu.be/kU5siEWppf8 

Brent MacLerie: https://youtu.be/aibF4SAjX_8

Join Lisa Sonni & Dr. Peter Salerno in Boston, MA November 13-15, 2026 here: https://lisasonni.com/unbreakable-and-irreplaceable/

Support the show

This is the podcast they don't want you listening to.

👉 Find me at lisasonni.com 

Book A Session with Lisa

Join my online survivor community called She Rises Collective where we are breaking free, rebuilding and dismantling patriarchy. 

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New episodes drop every Tuesday.

Subscribe, share it with someone who needs the truth - and remember:
You’re stronger than they ever wanted you to believe.

Send Lisa a question for her to reply in a future episode!

"Physical touch is his love language." "If you loved him, you'd just do it." "If you were having more sex with him, maybe he wouldn't cheat." 

You've heard these. Maybe you've even believed them. These aren't relationship truths. They're the exact language used to override your instincts and make you question what you already know. 

In this Best Of episode, Lisa brings together the most powerful moments from her conversations with Dr. Danielle Kramer, Dr. Kate Balestrieri, and Nat LaJune, four voices, four perspectives, all pointing to the same truth: sexual entitlement inside a committed relationship is coercion. 

Coercion is abuse. If your bedroom feels like an obligation instead of a connection, that's not a you problem. When someone believes your body is something they're owed, intimacy doesn't just suffer, it dies. And it's being killed on purpose. 

Your feelings matter. Your discomfort matters. Your no matters. 

Links to the full episodes with Dr. Danielle Kramer, Dr. Kate Balestrieri, and Nat LaJune are below.

Join Lisa Sonni & Dr. Peter Salerno in Boston, MA November 13-15, 2026 here: https://lisasonni.com/unbreakable-and-irreplaceable/

Support the show

This is the podcast they don't want you listening to.

👉 Find me at lisasonni.com 

Book A Session with Lisa

Join my online survivor community called She Rises Collective where we are breaking free, rebuilding and dismantling patriarchy. 

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New episodes drop every Tuesday.

Subscribe, share it with someone who needs the truth - and remember:
You’re stronger than they ever wanted you to believe.

Send Lisa a question for her to reply in a future episode!

You didn’t become someone else overnight. You were shaped into someone who could survive him.

It starts quietly. The confidence he once admired becomes “too much.” Your opinions become “dramatic.” Slowly, almost imperceptibly, you begin editing yourself to keep the peace. What feels like compromise is actually erosion.

In this conversation, Lisa sits down with Dr. Peter Salerno to expose the psychological process behind how strong, self-aware women lose themselves in abusive relationships.  It is patterned, strategic, and deeply disorienting. They unpack how abusers study your strengths, then weaponize them, how intermittent reinforcement conditions you to stay, and how the relationship becomes a system that rewards your self-abandonment while punishing your authenticity.

They also break down the moment everything flips, when you stop assessing him and start managing yourself. The confusion, the self-doubt, the constant internal analysis. None of it is weakness. It is conditioning.

By the time you leave, the deepest loss is not just the relationship. It is the version of you that slowly disappeared inside it.

Healing is not just about understanding what happened. It is about rebuilding self-respect so fully that you can never be trained out of yourself again.

Join Lisa Sonni & Dr. Peter Salerno in Boston, MA November 13-15, 2026 here: https://lisasonni.com/unbreakable-and-irreplaceable/

Support the show

This is the podcast they don't want you listening to.

👉 Find me at lisasonni.com 

Book A Session with Lisa

Join my online survivor community called She Rises Collective where we are breaking free, rebuilding and dismantling patriarchy. 

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New episodes drop every Tuesday.

Subscribe, share it with someone who needs the truth - and remember:
You’re stronger than they ever wanted you to believe.

Send Lisa a question for her to reply in a future episode!

You were never “too sensitive.” You were surrounded by lies repeated so often they started to feel like truth. 

Abuse is rare. 
Women lie. 
Men and women do it equally. 

None of these are facts, and believing them keeps you stuck questioning your own reality.

In this conversation, Lisa sits down with Brent McLearie, creator of the “These Are Not Facts” series, to dismantle the narratives that quietly protect abuse while discrediting survivors. They break down how these myths spread, why they are so convincing, and how they distort the way we interpret harm, credibility, and responsibility. 

When abuse is framed as rare, survivors struggle to name it. When false accusations are exaggerated, survivors stay silent. When everything is flattened into “equal,” the truth disappears.

Brent brings data and context to what survivors already feel in their bodies, that something is off about the way the world talks about abuse. Together, they expose how these narratives shift focus away from perpetrators and onto survivors, forcing them to defend their pain instead of being supported through it.

Join Lisa Sonni & Dr. Peter Salerno in Boston, MA November 13-15, 2026 here: https://lisasonni.com/unbreakable-and-irreplaceable/

Support the show

This is the podcast they don't want you listening to.

👉 Find me at lisasonni.com 

Book A Session with Lisa

Join my online survivor community called She Rises Collective where we are breaking free, rebuilding and dismantling patriarchy. 

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New episodes drop every Tuesday.

Subscribe, share it with someone who needs the truth - and remember:
You’re stronger than they ever wanted you to believe.

Send Lisa a question for her to reply in a future episode!

Sexual entitlement isn’t “a relationship issue.” It’s a belief system. It’s the mindset that your body comes with the marriage, the title, the ring, the label, the contract, the “needs.” It’s the idea that your availability lives on standby, no matter how he treats you, no matter what your body feels, no matter what your nervous system is screaming.

This is a rare solo episode, but you’re not listening to me alone. I’m reading three anonymous stories from women who volunteered to share what’s happening inside coercive, entitled relationships, where “no” turns into punishment, pressure, guilt, and emotional warfare. Names and identifying details have been removed, and the audio will be edited for clarity.

This isn’t about different libidos. It’s not about two people feeling disconnected sometimes. It’s not “schedule it in” advice. This is about men who act like sex is owed, men who track it, count it, demand it, punish you for it, and then flip it on you when you don’t comply. It’s about how consent gets turned into a debate, how your character ends up on trial, and how women end up using their bodies to manage a man’s mood, not because they want to, but because they feel like they have to.

If you feel tense instead of turned on when he initiates, that makes sense. If you feel numb, braced, guilty, or like you’re calculating consequences in your head, that makes sense. If you’ve ever found yourself initiating just to avoid the coldness, the slamming, the rage, the sulking, the withdrawal, or the escalation, listen closely. That’s not intimacy. That’s survival.

And when he calls it “withholding,” “rejection,” “weaponizing sex,” or even “emotional abuse,” pay attention to what’s happening. A lot of abusive men use therapy language and “healthy relationship” talk to make you doubt your reality and to force a false equivalency, so you end up defending yourself instead of seeing the pattern.

Join Lisa Sonni & Dr. Peter Salerno in Boston, MA November 13-15, 2026 here: https://lisasonni.com/unbreakable-and-irreplaceable/

Support the show

This is the podcast they don't want you listening to.

👉 Find me at lisasonni.com 

Book A Session with Lisa

Join my online survivor community called She Rises Collective where we are breaking free, rebuilding and dismantling patriarchy. 

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New episodes drop every Tuesday.

Subscribe, share it with someone who needs the truth - and remember:
You’re stronger than they ever wanted you to believe.

Send Lisa a question for her to reply in a future episode!

In this episode of Real Talk with Lisa Sonni: Relationships Uncensored, Lisa speaks with Angela Van, CEO of Family Court Corner, about the realities of divorcing and co-parenting with an abusive or highly destructive partner. Angela shares lessons from her own ten-year custody battle—one that reached the Supreme Court of Canada—and explains how she now helps survivors navigate divorce, custody disputes, and post-separation abuse.

The discussion focuses heavily on strategy. Angela explains how abusive partners often create constant distractions and conflicts to keep survivors emotionally engaged and reactive. This pattern can drain energy, escalate conflict, and damage credibility during divorce or custody battles. Learning to disengage, manage emotional responses, and shift focus back to personal growth and stability can be a powerful way to regain control during this process.

The episode also examines how emotional dysregulation, ego, and understandable anger can unintentionally work against survivors in family court. Judges, lawyers, and professionals observing the situation often see only behavior in the moment, not the long history of abuse behind it. Because of this, maintaining composure, documenting behavior, and refusing to be pulled into conflict can become critical parts of protecting both oneself and one’s children.

Throughout the conversation, Angela shares practical insights on navigating high-conflict divorce, handling custody disputes with abusive partners, and maintaining emotional boundaries during co-parenting with someone who continues to provoke conflict. The goal is not only survival during the legal process, but ultimately growth and empowerment beyond it.

Topics discussed in this episode include post-separation abuse, family court strategy, divorcing an abusive partner, custody battles with toxic ex-partners, emotional regulation during divorce proceedings, co-parenting with a high-conflict parent, and reclaiming personal power after leaving an abusive relationship.

If you are interested in relationship psychology, toxic relationship recovery, custody battles, or strategies for navigating divorce with an abusive partner, this episode offers insight from someone who has lived through the process and now helps others do the same.

Join Lisa Sonni & Dr. Peter Salerno in Boston, MA November 13-15, 2026 here: https://lisasonni.com/unbreakable-and-irreplaceable/

Support the show

This is the podcast they don't want you listening to.

👉 Find me at lisasonni.com 

Book A Session with Lisa

Join my online survivor community called She Rises Collective where we are breaking free, rebuilding and dismantling patriarchy. 

Follow on IG
Watch on YouTube

Get My Books Here

New episodes drop every Tuesday.

Subscribe, share it with someone who needs the truth - and remember:
You’re stronger than they ever wanted you to believe.