Betrayal Trauma Recovery

If your husband never apologizes, that’s a problem. But there’s an even bigger problem many people don’t talk about: if your husband apologizes, how do you know if it’s genuine? Especially if he has a history of lying.

If it’s hard to tell whether his apology is truly genuine, look for these 5 things. And keep reading as I’ll share a personal example from after my divorce.

1. DOES HIS APOLOGY FOCUS ON ONE SMALL MOMENT, WHILE IGNORING THE BIG PICTURE?

My husband would get mad at me almost every single night over the smallest things. And then one morning he said, “I’m so sorry about last night.” But what about the 52 nights that came before that or the credit card I still didn’t know he had? He was apologizing for one leaf and I was living in a whole forest of issues.

If your husband thinks an apology for one incident is sufficient to repair the damage done by his pattern of lying, manipulation, or harm…he’s not taking ownership of his problem. He’s putting a bandaid on one of a thousand cuts and expecting that to heal all of the other wounds.

2. IF YOUR HUSBAND APOLOGIZES, DO YOU STILL FEEL UNEASY?

 I felt relief in the moment when he apologized, but worse later. In the moment I thought it was a breakthrough, like maybe I wasn’t gonna have to drag this marriage up a hill by myself anymore. But then later I’d be brushing my teeth thinking, Why did I have to beg him to apologize?

Many women expect to feel relief after an apology, but if your husband has had a history of being dishonest and diminishing the impact of his behavior, that feeling of uneasiness is often a signal, not a personal flaw. Give yourself space to observe instead of deciding what it “means” right away.

3. IS HIS APOLOGY BACKED BY CONSISTENT BEHAVIOR?

 My husband sometimes cried when he apologized, but he would never cry in the moment when I was really hurting. This one really got me because I realized that when I was trying to share my concerns with him he didn’t really care. He just wanted the conversation to end. So why is he empathetic now that he is apologizing?

Sometimes it’s hard to tell if he’s truly sorry for what he did, or sorry he’s facing consequences. And improving communication can’t fix the impact of emotional abuse and infidelity, no matter how often you’re told it will. Watch his behavior, not his explanations. His actions will tell you the truth.

4. DOES HIS APOLOGY COME WITH PRESSURE TO RECONCILE?

This sounded like, “I’m so sorry. Can I move back in now?” Or “I’m sorry. Are we done talking about this now?” That pressure was the tell that my husband’s apology wasn’t genuine.

Many women are told: “If your husband apologizes, you should forgive him and move forward together.” But those are two different things. Forgiveness is something you can do for yourself. Reconciliation requires evidence of change. You can forgive and maintain distance.

5. DOES HIS APOLOGY RESPECT YOUR NEED FOR EMOTIONAL SAFETY?

 My husband’s apologies gave me hope, but I didn’t realize hope was a manipulation tactic. True emotional safety and manufactured hope are not the same thing. If he’s finally telling you what you’ve always wanted to hear, it doesn’t mean you owe him anything and you don’t have to decide anything today.

If you’re trying to make sense of his behavior—not just his words—take our free emotional abuse quiz for more clarity.

TRANSCRIPT: WHEN YOUR HUSBAND APOLOGIZES, HOW DO YOU KNOW IF IT’S GENUINE?

Anne: So years ago, I recorded a podcast episode about how I receive a restitution letter in the mail, and my husband apologized. In the mail from my then ex husband after we were divorced. If you’ve ever received an apology from your husband or ex husband, it seems like he’s showing remorse. And you’re wondering, can my husband change, what does this mean? Is this genuine? This is the episode for you.

If you need support in understanding if your husband is really changing, check out our Group Session Schedule.

It’ll also give you a snapshot of how I felt years ago. I was still hurting and confused. Just a quick recap. Before we married, he lied to me and was abusive, but I wasn’t aware of it. Because he manipulated me and presented himself as somebody he wasn’t. Instead, I just thought he had an anger problem and needed to go to therapy.

ESCALATING ABUSE WHEN YOUR HUSBAND APOLOGIZES AND TRIES TO MAKE RESTITUTION

Anne: He said he would go to therapy. But continues to lie to me and yell in my face, two inches from my face. He continued to lie about his explicit material use. I believe now, he manipulated me and lied to me about his use our whole marriage. Still lying about it, not only to me, but also to large groups of people as he’s doing public speaking.

Then, came his arrest for domestic violence. Then doing nothing to acknowledge what has happened at all. And, not trying to get back in the home, not trying to repent, not trying to take accountability, not being honest, and not being humble in any way. Then he files for divorce, claiming it’s because I’m not forgiving him or something like that.

Now I want to tell you a little bit about what happens on the day my husband apologized for. In 2015, we spoke at UCAP. He and I were going to speak together about how he recovered from his addiction and how to do it successfully. However, both before and after the speech, his abusive behaviors were escalating.

He put holes in a bunch of our walls. He broke his door. At that time, I thought, well, this is part of the recovery process. So we spoke at UCAP. Right after I said, “You’ve got to shut down your website”. I can’t do this with you anymore. This is a sham, and he got more and more angry.

THE TURNING POINT: LEGOLAND INCIDENT

Anne: That summer we go to Legoland, and on the way there I am driving, he grabs my head in the car violently and screams at me to shut up in front of my children.

I was so terrified that once we parked, I jumped out of the car with my kids and ran into the Legoland hotel. And I just sat there and cried for a while, and then handed my kids to my parents. I thought, well, I guess I can’t leave him in the car. So as I was walking back to the car to get him, I was praying out loud, like, please, I need a miracle. I need a miracle. I cannot do this anymore.

The rest of the day at Legoland, he screamed at me in public, in front of my parents and a bunch of other people. It was awful. And on the way home, I was sobbing uncontrollably, still driving, just to try and get him to calm down and stop. I said, I want you to know that no matter how abusive and terrible you are to me, I will always be respectful to you. I’m sorry if I was not respectful today in confronting you about your abuse, more or less.

I can’t remember exactly what it was, but it was something like that. And he looked at me with the most evil, look in his eyes and said good. How do I know you’ll never act like that again? He blamed me for HIS emotional abuse. There was no remorse, there was no anything. There’s no acknowledgement of me crying, I was taken aback by his response.

I was horrified. So the rest of the trip, I tried to avoid him as much as possible.

RESTITUTION VS. FORGIVENESS WHEN YOUR HUSBAND APOLOGIZES

Anne: I slept in a separate bed. He wondered why he couldn’t be close to me, and why I didn’t want to kiss him. So before I read the so-called restitution letter he sent, where my husband apologized. I want to talk about the difference between what modern clergy and maybe therapists say about restitution. Which they frequently confuse with forgiveness.

My church had their semi-annual conference. In conference to illustrate the “power of forgiveness,” one of the speakers shared a story. About a drunk driver who had killed a couple, a husband and wife. He shares this touching part of the story, where after the drunk driver is sentenced for manslaughter. The parents of the couple killed, and the parents of the drunk driver, broke down in tears and gave each other hugs in the hall of the courthouse.

He wanted to show this as a beautiful moment of forgiveness.

And as I listened to the story, I was like, this story of forgiveness has all the right elements. It has the element of justice, the element of truth, which is what makes forgiveness possible. Reconciliation wasn’t even on the table, because the drunk driver went to jail and the couple was dead.

Even if the couple wasn’t dead, they didn’t need to reconcile because they didn’t live in the same house. There is no way that he would have a touching story of the “power of forgiveness.” If the parents of the drunk driver claimed, your son and your daughter, the ones killed, it’s their fault that our son was drinking.

It’s their fault that this accident happened, and it’s their fault that now our son is in jail. Even though the story of forgiveness in the conference I heard is intended to motivate people to forgive.

THE REALITY OF SEPARATION FROM EVIL

Anne: There are countless stories in the scriptures where God commands the righteous to separate from the wicked. And for some reason, clergy often doesn’t suggest the most likely place to separate yourself from someone who is wicked or abusive is in your own home.

One woman who works in the anti-abuse sphere said, “I don’t believe in evil,” on her Instagram. And I could not disagree more. I believe in evil. I’ve seen it in my ex-husband’s eyes and in his face. He really genuinely looked possessed. His eyes were kind of glazed over. It was like he wasn’t even there.

Or when he would verbally assault me, or when he would punch walls or yell. It was so scary. It was like those films where the victims know they’re not safe, screaming and yelling. Please stop, but no matter how much they plead for mercy or kindness, the bad guys refused. I want to give two analogies before I read this apology letter from my husband.

ANALOGIES TO UNDERSTAND ABUSE

Anne: The first is the analogy of a tree. Imagine your marriage and family is a beautiful oak tree, and you have spent years, years, and years planting it, digging around it and nourishing it. And then your husband starts hacking off random branches all the time, and you’re asking him to stop. You’re saying please, please don’t do that. I love this tree. It means a lot to me. Please don’t do that. And he just keeps doing it, and he’ll hack off a branch, and then he’ll say I’m so sorry I did that.

I love you. I care about you. And the next thing, you know, there’s another branch on the driveway sitting there, and you’re like, what is going on?

I thought we already talked about this. And then one day, in my case, he came and ripped the entire tree out. All that is left is a gaping hole. So that’s the first analogy I want to use.

The second one is as if a murderer broke into my home at night, killed my family with a machine gun, and left my house in complete disarray. The walls have bullet holes all over, there’s blood all over the place, and walked out and did not acknowledge what happened, was not arrested, was not held accountable in any way. And then told people. Yeah, I just went to this home and then got attacked, and I am the victim in this situation. Okay, so those are the two analogies.

WHEN YOUR HUSBAND APOLOGIZED: ANALYZING IT’S MEANING

Anne: So the restitution letter I received validates he’s abusive. I can clearly see absolutely no change. I am not sure why he sent this. Either number one, someone broke up with him or he’d had a bad day, or he felt super bad that we were going on a trip and he couldn’t come with us.

There’s that. If he wrote it of his own volition and didn’t tell anyone about it and is not using it as a, look, I wrote this restitution letter and she still won’t talk to me. And If he really genuinely wrote it and hasn’t used it to brag to other people as part of his story of being a “victim,” Then I can see that perhaps there’s some part of him that understands or can see the harm he’s caused, just a tiny, tiny part.




If, on the other hand, clergy instigated this or a therapist or someone who said, well, she doesn’t talk to you. Maybe you need to write a restitution letter. So someone instigated it. So now he can say, well, I’ve written a restitution letter, and she still won’t talk to me. Then I don’t feel like this is any sign of him recognizing what he’s done wrong. So this is the letter I receive, in it my husband apologizes.

Anne, our son informed me that you may be going to Legoland during your trip to California over spring break. I’m glad to hear that you are taking the children to California and possibly Legoland. I hope it is a safe and enjoyable vacation for all. I am writing to apologize for my negative and hurtful behavior. During that trip to California and Legoland in 2015.

YOUR HUSBAND APOLOGIZES WITH A TOKEN GESTURE

Anne: I acted in an irritable manner and said and did hurtful things during that vacation, which made it difficult for you and the rest of the family to enjoy that vacation. I am sorry. It’s hard to have the memories of that vacation overshadowed by the difficulties I caused.

I hope you can forgive me and enjoy the upcoming trip. I have enclosed a $300 check as a token of my apology, in an effort to make some restitution for the difficulties I caused during that trip to California. Most sincerely, Chuck. His name is not Chuck, I am changing it to protect his anonymity.

So let me talk about the $300 check first, even though he’s apologizing. He refused to give me $100,000 back in pre-marital assets. I used money from before our marriage. Money that my parents gave me, that my grandma gave me, and money that I had from a condo I owned to pay off his law school loans. That money I earned before we married. And he refused to give it back, which confused me so much because our whole marriage was a lie.

So I expected him to at least be accountable for that and say, yeah, I will give you back the $100, 000 you had before we married, but he refused. So, I cashed the $300 check, but it means nothing to me without the full restitution for that $100, 000 in premarital assets. Including all the financial difficulties I have had due to his choices.

At Betrayal Trauma Recovery we understand that abuse includes lying, manipulating, explicit material use, and infidelity of any kind. We’re throwing all these serious behaviors into the category of abuse, which is the only way we can look at it.

WHEN YOUR HUSBAND APOLOGIZES, OBSERVE HIS CHARACTER

Anne: At the time I got this restitution letter, I was observing from a safe distance to see if he would choose to change his character. If your wondering if an emotionally abusive husband will change, I’ve observed that it’s impossible to externally motivate an abusive man to change, especially because his exploitative privilege comes with so many rewards.

What we see in our communities is that emotionally and psychologically abusive men will be reluctant to make significant changes, but they’re not reluctant to apologize or tell people that they’re going to make changes. They’re just reluctant to actually make the changes and how they relate to you.

Because for him, it’s a transactional situation. And because it’s transactional for him. Persuasion, logic, pleading, begging, getting him in some men’s program. Even when he’s in the men’s program, he’s going to convince the therapist that he’s incredible and amazing.

He won’t actually change his behavior, because then he’d lose his ability to exploit you. And that’s what a “relationship” is to him, it’s a transactionship. And so he’s like, what’s the point of being in a relationship with this person if I can’t exploit her? What would I get out of it?

WHAT ARE PERFORMATIVE APOLOGIES

Anne: Because of that, most emotionally and psychologically abusive men, addicts as some people call them, don’t choose to rid themselves of all the privileges the abuse gives them. So, at the time, I’m looking at this letter and analyzing it to see if there’s any evidence that his character has changed since I talked to him last.

This letter doesn’t even make restitution for anything. Even though my ex husband apologized, it doesn’t talk about him grabbing my head. I’m pretty sure he was using explicit material during that time, and doesn’t say anything about the lies or manipulation. It doesn’t even make restitution just for that one moment, let alone the whole tree, right?

It doesn’t even make restitution for the one branch. He doesn’t admit fully his history of psychological, and physical abusiveness. For example, he was online dating and going to a singles congregation long before our divorce was final. Whereas I stayed true to my marriage vows the entire time until the divorce was final.

He didn’t acknowledge that the abuse was wrong unconditionally. And he didn’t identify the justifications he used, including the various ways he blamed me. He didn’t admit he’d been counter parenting or talk in detail about why his behaviors were unacceptable, without slipping back into defending them. He didn’t acknowledge that his behavior was a choice, not a loss of control.

So an abuser, they think, man, if she found out the truth, I would be toast. So to control the situation, I’m going to lie. That is abuse, right there. He didn’t talk in detail about the short and long-term impact his abuse has had, including fear, loss of trust, anger, without reverting to feeling sorry for himself, or talking about how hard the experience has been for him.

WHEN YOUR HUSBAND APOLOGIZES AS A WEAPON

Anne: Again, he is not the victim here. The tree did not just randomly fall on him, as he would like others to believe. He ripped it out on purpose. This acting like the victim goes far with people who don’t know the truth, and that’s why they do it.

One reason I know this restitution letter is not a sign of true repentance, or that my husband apologized in earnest. Is that I sent information about how we could make the children’s schedule more consistent to help them and their emotional stability. And Chuck wrote back and said, “My personal and professional life is more important, so no.”

So he’s absolutely not willing to put the needs of his children ahead of his own needs. That’s another sign to me that he is absolutely not repentant. He is not changing.

Most Betrayal Trauma Recovery clients say they often hear the abuser apologize. And we see patterns that apologies are part of psychological abuse. Abusers use apologies as a weapon. Because they’re transactional and think it’s an equation.

They think, I say, I’m sorry. And that’s payment. Then what I get back is that she can’t say anything else about it. And she can’t expect anything of me after that. Like they think of it as some sort of transaction. Because the abuser’s exploitative privilege is the heart of his character. He’s going to think I’m such a great guy, because I said those words, most men would never even apologize. So she owes me because I’ve stooped so low as to say the words, I’m sorry.

THE TRUE NATURE OF AN ABUSIVE CHARACTER

Anne: Abusers also think. I can act like I’m changing. So that equation I was talking about or making a show of doing this differently a few times. And then that will earn me the ability to just keep doing it. Like they think they need to perform, rather than realize they need to change their character.

We have to realize that if they actually wanted to change, they wouldn’t be that way in the first place. The character they have now is what they chose through every little choice they make up until this point. And so they actually became who they want to be. This is the most overlooked point about abusers, that an abuser has an abusive character, because he developed it through choice after choice. If he’s not internally motivated to change, because he hasn’t been in the past.

I mean, this is who he has become. Then he criticizes you for not realizing how he’s changed. Even though he hasn’t changed at all. My husband performs a performance of an apology. For a few weeks or months, or sometimes even years. And then he’ll criticize you for not trusting that. His changes don’t last. They criticize us for considering him capable of behaving abusively. Even though he has done it in the past. He’s like, I would never do that, even though he has done it.

Something like, well, I would never lie to you. When he is lying to you. He might remind you about the bad things he would have done in the past but isn’t doing anymore. Which amounts to a subtle threat.

WHAT TRUE REPENTANCE LOOKS LIKE WHEN YOUR HUSBAND APOLOGIZES

Anne: He doesn’t realize that criticizing you, you don’t believe he’s changed just because he’s apologizing. Or that you kind of doubt what’s going on is another sign that he’s abusive, a healthy person would be like, that makes sense. I get it. I understand. Now in my ex husband’s case, if he fully repented. It would look like I’m going to start working on repaying the $100, 000 of premarital assets that you would never have given me had I not lied to you from the beginning.

Basically, he needs to come replant that tree, refill in the dirt with beautiful topsoil full of nourishing vitamins for that tree. He needs to water it, fertilize it, take care of it, grow it and protect that tree. That kind of restoration doesn’t happen quickly. It takes years—sometimes decades. It also answers a question many women are quietly asking: how long does it take to heal from emotional abuse? Healing and rebuilding trust follow that same timeline. They can’t be rushed, and they can’t be created with words alone.

That’s what real restitution would look like.

When I received that letter, I felt a sense of peace. I knew I was doing the right thing.

THE ALTERNATIVE REALITY OF THE ABUSER

Anne: I don’t know what this letter is or means, except that he seems to be living in an alternate reality. With the two analogies I gave, this is as if there’s still this gaping hole in the ground and the tree is still gone. And he’s sending me a letter with a tiny stick in it saying, Remember that time I knocked off a tiny little branch on the north side of the tree? It was the branch that was three branches up.

I’m so sorry about that little branch. Here is a branch. And he’s not acknowledging the giant tree he destroyed or the gaping hole left. Similarly, with the analogy of the murderer, he’s saying something like, “You know that one time I came into your home?” I am so sorry that I forgot to wipe off my feet.

And this is to make restitution for the dirt I left on your carpet. I am so sorry for the dirt I left on your carpet that night in 2015. This is not what a restitution letter, when a husband’s apologizes, looks like.

MOVING FORWARD DESPITE INSINCERE APOLOGIES FROM MY HUSBAND

Anne: I don’t know what this is, but it totally validates my boundaries. And I will continue to hold them until I see full restitution.

It’s been years since I received that restitution letter, and I’ve never received another one. That was the only apology I ever got about any of it. And he continued to abuse me and the kids. Undermine their medical care, undermine everything, for years after that. So, I don’t know why he wanted to say he was sorry for that particular specific thing.

In 2015, he was careful to be very specific about it and send a $300 check. But, so, that’s how you can tell if the apology is real. Like some of those things that I talked about. Does he do those things? So listen to this, when you receive an apology and see like, wait a minute, is he really apologizing or is this something else?

I talk a lot about this and other safety strategies in The Living Free Workshop.

When counseling for cheating treats a husband’s betrayal as a marriage issue instead of focusing on his pattern of lying, it can be a soul crushing realization for his wife. Women who’ve been betrayed by their husbands need support that personally understands this truth, like the Betrayal Trauma Recovery groups.

Here are five things a therapist or counselor may ask you to do, that you’re probably already doing.

5 THINGS A THERAPIST MIGHT SUGGEST IN COUNSELING FOR CHEATING, THAT YOU’RE PROBABLY ALREADY DOING

1. YOU SHOULD BE MORE SELF-REFLECTIVE

Women who enter into counseling for cheating after discovery of their husband’s betrayal, often say that they’ve spent years wrestling with questions about their own expectations or behaviors in the marriage. Many of them have already been asking if they were “too critical or sensitive,” or how they could have “communicated better.”

Husbands who have a pattern of manipulation and lying often use their wife’s willingness to look at her own “faults” as a way to distract her and the therapist from seeing the truth.

2. YOUR MARRIAGE CAN’T HEAL IF YOU KEEP BRINGING UP THE PAST

Betrayed wives often want to know more details about their husband’s betrayal or his patterns of behavior after they’ve discovered he has been lying to them and living a double life. It’s a natural part of the healing process. What’s not natural or healthy is for a counselor or a husband to tell a betrayed partner that she needs to “put it in the past” in order for the relationship to move forward.

Men who have lived double lives have already benefitted from their wife’s integrity and her decision to give him the benefit of the doubt over and over again. If he wants to move forward in a healed relationship, he should take responsibility for his deception and be willing to answer questions.

3. IF THE THERAPIST SUGGESTS YOU LOOK FOR SOLUTIONS “TOGETHER”

Many wives are already the solution-focused, repair department of the family.

When there is confusion, they look for a book, a podcast, or a therapist that might help them understand what’s really happening and how to fix it. They’ll schedule the date nights, pray the prayers, make the apologies, and have the conversations with a softer approach.

They’ll try to make their home peaceful and emotionally safe for everyone.

But, if their husband is lying about cheating, using inappropriate media, emotional affairs, or financial betrayal, even in therapy, then none of the above solutions is going to solve the real problem. His lying.

4. COUNSELING FOR CHEATING SUGGESTS YOU RE-COMMIT TO THE MARRIAGE

Most wives lean in and work hard to keep their families together after discovering their husband’s betrayal.

But trying harder won’t cure his entitlement. Being more available and more patient won’t cure his dishonesty. Offering more love does not cure his emotional or spiritual abuse.

A wife can pour herself into the marriage until there is almost nothing left of her, and still not fix his motivations for hiding the truth.

5. IF THE THERAPIST SUGGESTS THAT YOU SHOULD ASK IMPORTANT QUESTIONS

When things feel off in their marriage most women will ask questions or speak up about odd late nights, mood shifts, secrecy, intimacy problems, and the strange feeling in their gut. But their husbands have used these concerns as another opportunity to gaslight, blame-shift, and undermine her instincts and reality.

When a counselor suggests that the betrayed partner should ask more direct questions they’re just adding more pressure on her to mine for truth. The burden of truth and change should rest on the shoulders of the betrayer.

To discover if you’re emotionally abused, take our free emotional abuse test.

Key Points From this episode:

How Marriage Counseling After Betrayal Misses the Real Issue

How His Lying Undermines Your Confidence and Emotional Safety

Couple Therapy is for People Who Tell The Truth, Not Liars

Moving on After Betrayal is Not as Simple as People Think

Is Online Betrayal Actually Cheating?

TRANSCRIPT: WHEN COUNSELING FOR CHEATING MAKES HIS CHEATING “OUR PROBLEM”

Anne: I have Hannah, a member of our community on today’s episode. Welcome, Hannah.

Hannah: Hi Anne. How are you?

Anne: Thank you so much for coming on today. Why don’t we start with your story.

Hannah: Yeah, I am about a year out from finding everything out that changed my life forever. I was married for about 12 years. We had five kids. I had known him most of my life. We were best friends. We’re Christian. I was very active in our church community, and even in high school I was involved in youth work, and I was a huge anti-porn advocate. My husband knew all this about me. We talked about this kind of thing nearly daily, as we’re also raising kids, just like how we protect them from the world.

We prayed every day together, and then one day he decided to drop the bomb on me, that he had been lying to me since before we were married, that he had been watching porn, and that he had also had a four year affair with a colleague. So he decided to come clean to me.

I was completely blindsided. Over the last year, I’ve been realizing the subtle ways, like he was a very good liar, and I do feel like he had this complete double life. I was really grateful to find Betrayal Trauma Recovery, because it was the only resource I found online that didn’t make me want to throw my computer or phone across the room. Because everything was very much just talking about my part in it, which to me felt so wrong.

WHEN COUNSELING FOR CHEATING MISSES EMOTIONAL ABUSE

Hannah: I knew I wasn’t perfect, what human being is? I knew that throughout our whole marriage, I had been self-reflecting. I had been not keeping score. Anytime we had any kind of conflict, I was all about finding solutions. I was always leaning into our marriage and trying harder. Also when it came to the betrayal, the pornography use.

A lot of resources say maybe you didn’t ask, or maybe you were naive. I had asked all the questions. We had all the conversations. I had been checking in all these things, and it was just a lie every time with counseling for cheating.

So to be met with what was your part in it? Or anything like that made me angry right from the start. And I just knew that this isn’t something that I contributed to somehow. And at that, Betrayal Trauma Recovery, that’s definitely how you frame things. This is abuse. Abuse is one sided. That’s my story in a nutshell. It has been an awful year, and I still most days can’t believe this is my life.

That I had this husband, who I thought we were soulmates, best friends. I thought I knew him so well. I’ve been coming to this realization that I could have just gone down to the nearest bar and been like, You sir, you’re attractive. Let’s go get married. And it would’ve been the same outcome. Because I did all the things. We talked about this stuff constantly. I think people think, he was doing this thing and it’s not a big deal.

FINDING OUT HE HAD BEEN LYING THE WHOLE TIME

Hannah: Like it was his private life that he kept private. No, you don’t understand the amount of lies, blatant lies, subtle lies, lies of omission, but also the things that we would do together. Like, we sit down to watch a movie. We weren’t like the average couple who’s just oh, put on HBO. We don’t watch HBO, we look up every movie before we watch it, because we’re protecting our marriage, protecting our family. From all the trash out there. Our kids have minimal screen time, they’re not on devices, so that’s exactly the type of thing we’re trying to protect them from.

So for him to come out and be like, “Oh yeah, by the way, for our entire marriage, I’ve been watching pornography, and I also had a girlfriend for a huge chunk of our marriage.”

Anne: Why now? He’s been lying to you the whole time. I’m sure that’s crossed your mind.

Hannah: Oh, it has. I can tell you what he says versus what I think.

Anne: Probably a lie, right? Since he is lied about everything else.

Hannah: A very close friend of mine called me up and told me that she had discovered that her husband had been watching pornography.

So I was very upset and obviously like always I went to my husband. And the thing that gets me about that is, it’s not the first time this has happened. I would read some horrible story on the internet, in the communities that I was in. And I’d go to my husband and be like, oh, this poor woman, she just found out she has cervical cancer, ‘Cause her husband cheated on her.

I WANTED TO LEAVE, BUT COULDN’T

Hannah: These types of stories. So that alone isn’t enough, because it’s not like it was the first time, but it was someone very close to me. And also close to him.

Anne: I wonder if, because it was someone really close to you. He thought, well, maybe this is the time to tell her because this other person did it.

Hannah: So I was like talking to him every evening when he came home from work about this couple. My heart was breaking for them. I was in constant contact with my friend, checking with her, wanting to spend time with her. So I was actually planning to go away that weekend to spend the weekend with her. And then he dropped the bomb on me before I left.

Anne: Maybe it was to stop you from going.

Hannah: It could have been.

Anne: Because, these liars don’t think too much about long-term consequences, or counseling for cheating.

Hannah: Looking back, something that haunts me a lot is the fact that in those weeks leading up. He asked me, “What would you do if?”

I was obviously caught off guard. I mean, excuse me? Are you trying to tell me something? Like, why would you say that? I told him, “I would pack up the kids, and I would go to my mother’s, and you would maybe never see us again.”

I didn’t mince words. Funny story, my reaction, I was paralyzed. I couldn’t pack up any kids. I was trashed, laying on the floor, not eating or sleeping, not able to drive a car. In my mind, I wanted to leave, but physically could not.

WHEN HE USES THE TRUTH TO MANIPULATE YOU

Anne: I had that same thing where I told my husband that. And then found out I couldn’t do it. I’ve come to believe now. This is 10 years post-divorce, and failed counseling for cheating, that he wanted me to do that. He was like, “Okay, I’m gonna tell her and then she’ll leave.” And because I didn’t. Then, at least in my situation, he was like, “Oh, shoot, now I have to act like I am repenting.” Because he didn’t know what to do when I didn’t do the thing he wanted me to do. Because the same thing, he could have told me a million other times, why did he tell me right then?

Hannah: There were so many moments when I asked him explicitly. Have you done this? Would you do this? Where I asked to check his phone. I felt like a terrible person. I have this amazing, good, trustworthy husband, and I’m being this paranoid, crazy person. And him being like, sure, of course. But obviously sweating bullets, because he knew that there was a possibility that something could happen.

So when he did tell me, I couldn’t drive, I couldn’t sleep, but the next morning I made him drive me to my sister’s house. I said we’re leaving right now. I had all these other health issues at the time that I physically can’t drive.

So I think that in his mind he was so deluded, he still thought it was somehow going to be okay. But for me, it was like the whole unraveling of everything.

Like any marriage, we’d had our struggles and then to find out that this was going on underneath it all the whole time, for me it was very much a, what’s left?

I SAW THE SIGNS THAT HE DIDN’T CARE

Hannah: The only thing I was clinging to in this marriage was that you’re this good, faithful, loyal man who’s trustworthy and honest. And turns out you weren’t even that. And I’ve been making all these excuses. He’s tired, he works so hard. The honeymoon phase is over. This is just marriage. So we’re not crazy in love anymore, but we deeply love each other. That’s what I was thinking. And meanwhile, these were all symptoms that he actually didn’t care.

Anne: Oh, that’s so heartbreaking. Before you found out, had you been to couple therapy, had you done marriage intensives or counseling for cheating?

Hannah: There were moments in our marriage where I checked in with him. “I feel like we’re having a lot of petty fights. Are we okay? I feel like you’re ignoring me a lot, like what’s going on?” There were times when I felt like it was getting to the point that, okay, I think we need counseling for cheating.

And I said that to him, and I asked for it, and his reaction was, no, absolutely not. That didn’t surprise me, just because I feel like that’s the way both of us were raised. Our parents think it’s good for someone else, but they’re not gonna do it. “We can get through this. We don’t need some professional meddling in our lives.” Then it would be good for a while, now that I’ve reflected on all these years. I can see it more clearly that he would avoid me and treat me poorly.

Then if I started to question it, he would love bomb me and make it okay. He would bring me flowers or he would say something to make it feel all better.

HOW HE BENEFITTED FROM MY WORK ON THE MARRIAGE

Hannah: I was like relationship low maintenance. I didn’t need him to be Prince Charming all the time. He just had to come home and tell me he loved me and that everything was good, and I just believed him. I would let it go. I thought we went on dates and did things to invest in our marriage, but now that I look back, I planned it, or I nagged you to plan it. And it never was like, “You’re planning these things for me, or for us.”

We actually went to marriage retreats to reconnect. But now looking back at that, it’s just cements the betrayal even more. We’re sitting there talking all day about our relationship. And what we can do differently and how we can improve. And you’re just sitting on all this information. These are all the reasons you’re passive aggressive, angry, a little bit volatile, all these things. That explains a lot. I would feel that way too if I was hiding this entire secret life from you. I would be anxious and irritable.

Anne: Mm-hmm.

Hannah: We never did any kind of counseling for cheating. I thought it was communication. I think I am a terrible communicator. And I think you need to work on your communication too. I just leaned in, I read books, did different things. The typical marriage advice is, don’t keep score and forgive your spouse. You shouldn’t be dwelling on their faults. That’s the type of thing I was doing. Which now makes me feel like I’m a giver, he’s a taker. It made me a very easy target, constantly giving into the relationship.

PEOPLE IN HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS DON’T NEED COUNSELING FOR CHEATING

Anne: I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, that people in healthy relationships do that naturally. We know that people aren’t perfect. With a healthy relationship with someone who’s not perfect and we’re not perfect, we know that people make mistakes.

We know there’s gonna be communication issues, stuff like that. We don’t have to read a book that tells us that people make mistakes. So the people reading the book, we who married an abusive man. I’m almost like those books should never have been written, because the only people reading them are women who are married to an abusive man.

Hannah: Oh my goodness, you’re so right.

Anne: People in healthy relationships don’t read books like that ’cause they don’t need to. They don’t need counseling for cheating, ’cause they already know. Oh, that was just a communication problem.

Hannah: It makes so much sense. One book I read, it even said in the book, you just need to do this, and this week you should work on giving words of affirmation to your husband. Or plan something for him. And at this point you might be feeling like, what is he doing for me? But don’t reflect on that. And I remember being like, okay, I’m not going to. That was a turning point for me where I cemented into my character, that I am not going to keep score.

WHY NOT KEEP SCORE?

Hannah: If this is neglect, he’s not investing in the relationship, he’s not paying attention to you. And the kind of things I thought was when is the last time he held my hand? Why am I always the one reaching out for physical contact? Why is it that every time he touches me, he wants something more? He doesn’t wanna sit next to me. When we’re out in public, he’s far away from me, and he’s okay with that. Why am I always the one feeling like I’m chasing him? That book shouldn’t have been written.

Anne: No, that’s what I mean. I don’t think people keep score in healthy relationships. They don’t need counseling for cheating. I’m saying this tongue in cheek, but like, why not keep score? What’s wrong with being like, wait a minute, I do all this stuff and he doesn’t. In fact, when it comes to abuse, it’s almost the opposite. Literally, write down these are all the household tasks that I do all the time, and these are the ones that he does.

And then just look at that list, see what that looks like. How many hours a day do we have? And if he’s not abusive, you could take that to him and say, you know what? I actually wrote all this down. And look at the disparity between our household tasks. A non-abusive person would be like. Wow, maybe I should stop watching so much football. Where an abusive person would be like, you don’t respect me at my job! What’s wrong with assessing the truth of the situation, which is essentially what they’re saying when they say don’t keep score. They’re basically saying, “Don’t assess what’s really happening.”

COUPLE THERAPY IS FOR PEOPLE WHO TELL THE TRUTH

Hannah: Yeah, when you’re on the abuse side of it, what marriage counselors say is all wrong. None of it works. Which is actually why I wrote to BTR, why I wanted to speak to you. What does counseling for cheating look like if you stay with your partner? Because I feel like with that history of abuse, that never goes away.

If the person does genuinely change and stops all their abusive behaviors, and then you’re rebuilding trust and in this relationship with someone. How do you approach counseling for cheating in the future? Because it’s unethical. Even if it’s 10 years down the road and you’ve stayed together. For the women staying and are rebuilding their trust. What do you do?

Anne: Yeah, so couple therapy is for essentially healthy marriages. It’s for two people who tell the truth, genuinely care about each other, have integrity, and make good choices. And they’re having trouble communicating or something. All the marriages I know that are like that, where they genuinely care about each other, where they’re both honest, they would never need to go to couple therapy. So the whole idea of couple therapy now to me is frankly ridiculous. If it were as healthy as it needs to be to go to couple therapy, you wouldn’t ever need to go.

Hannah: This dynamic seems unethical. The therapist automatically has to side with you. If this was any other kind of abuse, they wouldn’t put you in the same room, and they will have to side with you. So even if you were doing something wrong. They have to look at it through the lens of okay, but you’ve been traumatized.

IS COUNSELING FOR CHEATING UNETHICAL?

Anne: They would ethically have to, but I’ve never met a therapist that does in counseling for cheating. The very foundation of it is family systems theory, basically their ethical standards bind them to not see a perpetrator and a victim. If they do, they have to stop doing the therapy.

Hannah: Right.

Anne: ‘Cause it’s not ethical. So if they’re not noticing the abuse and doing the therapy, that’s unethical. And then the second they noticed it, which should be right away, but most of them aren’t doing screenings for it. They should quit, but most don’t. So I think all couple therapy is not a good idea, because healthy couples who don’t lie to each other don’t need to go to couple therapy.

Hannah: Mm.

Anne: In general.

Hannah: And that does resonate with me. There’s part of me that’s like individual therapy.

Anne: Yeah, the problem with individual therapy in this case is that assumes for the victim that something’s wrong with her. Because the purpose of therapy isn’t to fix what’s wrong with someone else.

Hannah: Mm-hmm.

Anne: It’s to fix what’s wrong with you.

Hannah: Yeah.

Anne: Therapy for an abuse victim depends on the therapist, victims might need skills. We might need confidence.

Hannah: It is about coping skills. I think I even have a visceral reaction. It’s like when someone loses an arm, it doesn’t grow back. You just learn to cope with it. You’re not healed from it, really. And I feel like that’s how I see my life now. Talking to many people who have experienced this, it stays with you for life.

MOVING ON FROM CHEATING IS NOT AS SIMPLE AS PEOPLE THINK

Hannah: It’s a scar. You don’t forget it. You don’t have this magical I don’t remember anymore. That doesn’t happen. And so I guess for me it’s like for the women who are staying, how do you even frame that? For me personally, I am separated from my husband, we’re not divorced. I’m still trying to make a decision. I don’t wanna be that person who strings him along or is in limbo for years and years, but we have five kids, he’s gonna be in my life, permanently, whether I want him or not.

So I feel like he trapped me there. But there are women who choose to stay. And when I look at that, it’s like there’s always this dynamic of abuser and victim. Even if all the abuse stops, it’s like that’s still part of your history.

So how do you deal with that moving forward? Because even therapists who talk about if you decide to stay, then you have to work on yourself. Which like you said, what am I working on? What’s wrong with me?

Anne: Nothing’s wrong with you.

Hannah: You have to commit to the marriage, and you have to stop ruminating, stop bringing up the past, be all in. That language used in counseling for cheating obviously deeply bothers me, because I’m not choosing to remember this.

First of all, it’s like when people say you’re ruminating, no. It’s not even once or twice a day I get this flashback moment. It’s like from the moment I wake up, every thing reminds me all day long. So it’s on a loop all day long. ‘Cause this has been my life. So it’s not like I’m choosing to hold it against him. It’s just, it’s our life.

MAKING A DECISION TO GO OR STAY WHEN IN COUNSELING FOR CHEATING

Anne: Also that’s just not true. Did they tell him, “Well, if you’re gonna be married, you have to stop looking at pornography and lying to her.” And did he do it anyway during counseling for cheating? Yeah, he did.

So you can feel the way you feel. You can not be committed. When I say not to be committed, I don’t mean to cheat on him. I don’t mean that, but I just mean you can be like, yeah, I’m married to him, but I don’t like him and I’m not committed to him as a person. You could still legit do that. So anybody who’s saying, if you’re gonna stay married to him, then you have to do this and this and this. That’s not true.

Hannah: For me, I’m just thinking about a dynamic of I know all this, but objectively, when I hadn’t had this experience. How I would’ve thought about it. If you’re choosing to stay in a marriage.

If he is genuinely choosing to change, be a good person, I want that. The world does not need another person like him. Good, great, that would be awesome. I don’t know about my personal ability to believe him. I guess that’s what I’m still trying to work out. But I do know that when I’m trying to have empathy and sit in his shoes. And humanize him. Because obviously that’s very difficult for me at this point. He does need to, from a Christian perspective, forgive himself, see himself as a child of God, all these things to have a true conversion.

However, you wanna phrase it if you’re not Christian, genuinely change. I feel like we’re so incompatible now.

FORGIVENESS DOESN’T MEAN RESTORATION OF THE MARRIAGE

Hannah: If I’m staying, my needs and what’s going on in my head all day are exactly the opposite of someone who is trying to love themselves and see themselves as a child of God and needs a cheerleader. Obviously, I’m not capable of doing that, and I’m not going to do that. I don’t think any woman should. I am the survivor over here, and he’s the one who cheated.

I’m the loyal person who can’t even wrap my head around any of the things he’s done, because I loved him so deeply. He didn’t love me at all. And to move forward in a marriage like that. How do you move past, that feels like it’s been thrown off forever. That doesn’t come back.

Anne: However you want, I think is the answer. And you also don’t have to, you can stay married and not move past it.

Hannah: Mm-hmm.

Anne: There is no right answer. And I think that’s the hard thing for everybody, because the right answer has to be that you have to forgive me and start sleeping in the same bed.

Hannah: Mm-hmm.

Anne: Well, that’s just more manipulation and more lies, ’cause that’s not true. You can be married and not sleep in the same bed, not live in the same house. There’s like all of these options out there.

Hannah: Mm-hmm.

Anne: You can do literally whatever you want, but the hard part of it is having the confidence to do what you wanna do.

FINDING CLARITY ABOUT WHAT’S REALLY HAPPENING

Anne: Rather than listening to someone who tells you, well, if you’re gonna do this, then you have to do it this way. And I think that’s where a lot of us get tripped up in counseling for cheating.

Hannah: I did the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Workshop. I got the workbook and worked through. It was very helpful, especially recognizing gaslighting. I think I was a frog in the boiling water. You would hear about all these other people who’ll stay through abuse. How will you do that?

Now when I reflect, how is that me? I saw him as this person I’ve known my whole life. So when he would say things, then he’d say, well, I didn’t mean it. And I believed him, it felt genuine to me.

That’s just him. That’s just us. He is just joking. He doesn’t mean it that way. And he does love me. It didn’t feel that bad to me when it was happening. Even though the logic, hang on a second, you’re just joking. What part of that is funny? I don’t think you’d speak to a colleague this way. Or find myself saying things like, you just changed your story. What is happening here?

Anne: The “excuse or the reason” doesn’t happen until after we call them out on it. So they say something, we call ’em out. Then they say it’s a joke. They don’t say, I’m gonna tell a joke. I know it might hurt your feelings, but I just thought of this. It’s funny, I actually don’t mean it. Are you ready? ’cause I think you might think it’s funny too, and then they say it. No, that would be like someone who’s aware of our feelings, who knows us well.

THERE WAS ALWAYS A GOOD EXPLANATION IN COUNSELING FOR CHEATING

Anne: I think things like that about my kids sometimes I’m like, oh my word. This would be so funny to say right now.

So I’ll prepare my children like, Hey, I wanna say this joke. It’s not meant to hurt your feelings. And they laugh and think it’s funny. But that’s different than saying something. And then if you didn’t call him out, if you didn’t say, Hey, that hurt my feelings. Or if you didn’t say, Hey, wait, a colleague wouldn’t say that. He just goes about his day? The only time he says, oh, it’s a joke, or, oh, I didn’t mean it that way, was after you call him out on it.

Hannah: I’d be like, “oh, that makes sense, because I don’t wanna believe you could ever actually be hurtful and think of me that way.” There were moments throughout our relationship where I would question like oh, you’re talking down to me. There was always a good explanation. So when I did the workshop, that was very eye-opening, I saw the patterns of behavior.

It took really stepping back from it because I just believed he didn’t mean it that way. But obviously there are certain words and phrases, no one else uses it any other way. That was eye-opening.

My kids are getting older. A year has passed, and what am I supposed to do with my life? What does God want me to do with my life? What about my children? What’s best for them? These are questions that I find are very circular. I can answer them all.

THE PERSON I THOUGHT I WAS MARRIED TO NEVER EXISTED

Hannah: Obviously, God wouldn’t want anything bad for me. What’s best for me and what keeps me safe is best for my children. I do know that.

Anne: We know God wants you to be safe . Not knowing what the specifics of that are, is okay.

Hannah: I don’t think anyone is like calling me up and pressuring me or anything like that. But people in your community check in, they ask how are you and you’re Chuck? And they’re asking if we’re back together yet. Or have we been to counseling for cheating? I think there’s always that kind of pressure. I have been realizing that it is mostly my own view. Because ultimately, I don’t know what other people think.

I don’t know what actually goes on in their brains. I just know what I think they think and what I think they think often is how I see the world. Even when this first happened, I knew I would tell me to leave. I knew that pretty much instantly, because I’ve had so many conversations with different people.

My own parents were divorced. My dad married his affair partner. I wanted to avoid divorce, I did everything to find a good guy, looked out for all the warning signs, or so I thought. It seems like I am living the worst version of life possible, the worst nightmare come true. And the acceptance of living every day grieving the fact that this person I thought I was married to never existed. And the man that’s before me now is this person I don’t even know. I don’t even recognize. It’s hard to reconcile that this is the guy who’s made all these choices.

ONCE A CHEATER, ALWAYS A CHEATER?

Hannah: Part of that for me is once a cheater, always a cheater. People say this. It’s not that I believe he can’t change or won’t change, or even that he’s going to do it again. That resonates with me. The once that cheater always cheater. Not just because of the stigma, but because to me, it’s the same thing as a murderer. I know that sounds extreme, but even if you just killed the one guy, we’re not gonna stop calling you a murderer.

Like it has that impact on people’s lives, it changes how we see you to the point where you just earned yourself a new name. It’s the type of thing that doesn’t go away. We as a society try to rehabilitate these people. But if you’re the person who knew that person who did that, they’re a murderer in your mind, just because of how it changed your view. You didn’t know they had the capacity to do that thing, and now that you know that you can’t unknown that even if they never do it again.

Anne: It’s a character issue. There are a lot of people in this world who never do that, like ever.

Hannah: Exactly.

Anne: I’ve never cheated on my husband or lied him for seven years. Good people, when they’re making good decisions, they never do that. And shouldn’t need counseling for cheating.

AN EBOLA ANALOGY FOR COUNSELING FOR CHEATING

Anne: I fully believe that people can change with or without counseling for cheating. Maybe that is not the right thing for someone who is an abuse advocate to say, but I just believe it in my bones. I can’t not believe it.

The way that I view it is more like, I don’t know if you’ve heard my Ebola analogy. My analogy is Ebola is a thing that you can get treatment for and that you can heal from. But nobody would say hey, move in with this person, or sleep in the same bed with a person who has Ebola, ever, ever, ever. That person’s literally gonna be isolated until they legit do not have Ebola anymore and so I think that that’s the way I think of it.

Is that if they have a little bit of Ebola. I’m not going to be around them. So like my ex for example, he still lies. If he didn’t, he would do some things differently. Like there’s some things that he would be doing with our children that I would be able to see with my own eyeballs. He pays zero and when I say zero I mean legit zero child support, zero alimony, zero things for our children. His relationship with them stinks. The way that he interacts with them stinks. So I can see he still has Ebola right now. So it’s not like I’m gonna be like, oh I can hang out with you now.

Hannah: So I guess the limitations for myself are that like everyone thought he was a great father, a great husband, myself included. And he was involved and he did do all the things. Like we prayed together every day.

Anne: So did we.

THE CRUX OF THE ISSUE IS THE CHOICES HE MADE

Hannah: Can’t tell that he had Ebola in this case. It’s like maybe he has Ebola and he’s just hiding it very well.

Anne: Yeah. I love your point about the murderer. It’s okay to be like, you know what? I don’t really wanna be with someone who’s murdered somebody. So if you were dating someone new, And you said I don’t really want to be with someone who lied to their wife for 4 years and had an affair. And used pornography the whole time That would also apply to him. That’s also fine to say.

So just because people can change doesn’t mean that you owe them anything. It doesn’t mean you have to stick around. It doesn’t mean any of that.

Hannah: Yeah, exactly. The the crux of the issue for me is the choices you’ve made and even if those are in the past. That does bring it back to the marriage counseling for cheating thing. There’s no timeline for these things so you might be rebuilding trust for the next 40 years or till you die. Obviously some people are going to be like I’m not here for that, that’s too hard. When someone has broken your trust so deeply you might always have that catch in your gut, oh, what if?

Anne: It might not even be rebuilding either, it might all be manipulation. This question of are they still lying or not? Even if they’re not can I view them differently now? All of that is hard to process. And there is no right answer and that’s also the hard thing. It would be much easier to be like, if this is here and this is here and this is there then this what I should do.

EVERYBODY’S SITUATION IS DIFFERENT

Anne: Nothing that we do we do at BTR is like that counseling for cheating. Because everybody’s situation is different. Everybody has a different feeling for what they want to do with their life. The only thing I care about is that women know what emotional safety is and that’s their top priority. And they’re working toward that in whatever form that takes for them.

The other thing I really care about is that women are living their own life. There is a part in the workshop that I love. That’s like what are your dreams, what are your goals? What do you want to do with your life? Knowing that it literally is your one life. When you’re with someone who’s lying to it really feels like your life, my life is on hold. Helping women in whatever way overcome that so that they can start building the life that they want to live.

Hannah: Yes, It’s helpful obviously hearing other people’s stories and trying to work through. I do recognize that everything I’m going through now is through this somewhat narrow lens of my own experience. Some people feel a lot differently, because their experience was different. It’s not a one size fits all.

I was very active in the community and obviously it blind-sided me, just having to take time off from all the things I was involved in. I told him, I’m not explaining this to anyone. If you wanna be accountable, if you wanna prove yourself, go ahead I don’t care. I’m not policing you, I’m not doing anything. I’m just gonna take a step back from everything. I didn’t want to be the person checking his phone. ‘ Cause in my mind there’s no point.

I CAN’T CONTROL YOU IN COUNSELING FOR CHEATING

Hannah: I can’t control you. You hid this so well for so long. You were already pretending to be open and transparent. Also you already let me go through your phone you already pretended like you had nothing to hide. So with his job, he travels. I knew where you were before cause you were where you said you were I just didn’t know you were with someone. You could have a whole second family and I wouldn’t know. There is no point in me trying.

He said he genuinely wanted to change, that he didn’t want to be that person anymore. He’s like, I don’t deserve to be with you. I don’t know.

Anne: I know that could either be true or it could be manipulation. In your case, the way that you’re feeling right now, for you, it doesn’t matter and the reason I’m saying that is because even if he is telling the truth you can still make different decisions. Just because he told the truth doesn’t mean that you owe him something. Or that you have to go to counseling for cheating.

As a Christian myself, in the scriptures over and over it talks about forgiveness in the context of debt. That’s what Jesus is talking about, He’s like forgive the people indebted to you so that you’re not stressed out all the time, By like hey you owe me money, you owe me money. If you forgive the debt they can go on their way and you never have to see them again.

He owes you a good marriage. If you forgive him, you could rip up the contract and be like, I’m forgiving you of the debt that you owe me of a good marriage and we can move apart.

THE GOOD NEWS

Anne: In the scriptures forgiveness is a way of moving away from someone, not toward them. So I think it’s weird that so many Christians have interpreted it that way when it’s continually used in the context of debt. There’s just different ways of processing it and you will figure it out. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders and whatever the right thing is for you. You will do it. That’s the good news.

Hannah: Well, thank you.

Anne: Well, you are awesome. Thank you so much for spending time with me to talk about cheating and counseling for cheating today, Hannah.

Hannah: Thank you for having me. It’s been really helpful And I hope that this conversation helps other women who come and find your channel. I know that your channel has been really helpful for me. It’s been wonderful meeting you and talking to you. So thanks for everything you do, Anne.

Anne: Thank you.

IS ONLINE BETRAYAL CHEATING?

Anne: And now you’re gonna be introduced to my mom. The first time I aired this, women were like, “I love your mom. She’s awesome.” And I love her too.

So a lot of women wonder if their husband is “just” looking at inappropriate media online is that cheating and do we need counseling for cheating? I think it is, and my mom thinks it is. In fact, the word we use is adultery. And so here’s a conversation with my mom about why a husband secretly using inappropriate media online is actually, and technically adultery. Some husband’s actually secretly film their wives.

My mom is joining me today because lately she’s been on a soap box, an awesome soap box. That we should talk more about how inappropriate media isn’t just viewing videos, or pictures. It almost always involves self-pleasure.

It involves the bonding chemicals that you release during intercourse. I have a section of this in my book that will be coming out soon, about how masturbation is always part of the equation.

COUNSELING FOR CHEATING? IT’S CHEATING BECAUSE OF WHAT HE’S ACTUALLY DOING

Anne: Can you explain why you think that instead of calling it what we normally do, we should just say virtual sex?

Mom: Well, the reason I thought it’s important is because a lot of the world doesn’t think it involves anything else other than just looking.

But when they look at those pictures, there are real women who had their picture taken. They’re somebody’s mom, they’re somebody’s daughter, somebody’s sister. They are real women. The other thought I had is that, usually in connection with the it, men masturbate. Just like Anne said at the opening, that involves the same chemicals. The same hormonal response that a man would have with a live woman.

So, I just felt instead of everybody saying, well, avoid exploitative media, blah, blah, blah. You need to call it virtual sex. Because that’s what it is. Back when I was younger, many men used phone sex. That’s what they called it, phone sex. They would call on the phone, it was a real woman, and she was responding in real time. Of course, he would be masturbating at the same time. So that was where I came from. There wasn’t talk about counseling for cheating.

WHAT SCRIPTURE SAYS ABOUT ONLINE BETRAYAL

Mom: And then also the quote in Matthew, I think it’s in chapter 5, and I believe it’s verse 28, where it says, If a man lusts after a woman, he has already committed adultery in his heart. That isn’t the focus in counseling for cheating.

Anne: Many people don’t think that it’s adultery. But if you combine it with masturbation to create a sexual experience that someone’s having or performing with another person or thing. In this case, with a virtual scenario, they are actually having sex with a computer.

Mom: Yeah, you wouldn’t say computer. That conjures up all kinds of other issues, but no, I mean …

Anne: It’s not just a picture though. it’s a video.

Mom: A video of a real person, yes. They’re just providing their own physical stimulation.

ONLINE BETRAYAL IS ADULTERY

Anne: Through the masturbation part. My Mom’s idea, and I liked it, is for all of us rather than saying pornography is to say virtual sex all the time. Which is gonna be hard because everyone says pornography. But I’ve started saying it, and it’s actually been kind of cool. Like the responses I’ve received from the few people I’ve said it to so far. That virtual sex is adultery. And what includes virtual sex isn’t just a virtual reality, like goggles that you would wear. But actually viewing anything and masturbating is virtual sex. That’s what it is. Why do you think people think it’s not adultery?

Mom: I think they have in mind that it’s just this innocent thing. On the man’s part, I guess I should say, but it doesn’t involve a real person in real time. But these women, many of them, are either sex trafficked. Or forced into doing this by virtue of drug abuse or slavery.

Anne: Regardless of how they got there.

Mom: Right.

Anne: They’re a real person.

Mom: Yes, they are a real person.

Anne: And the man still has real, actual sex with that person. That he does not know, that has no name, that’s on the film. The other thing is that he actually has real sex with himself.

HOW HE HIDES HIS ONLINE BETRAYAL IN COUNSELING FOR CHEATING

Mom: Maybe I’m wrong, maybe when people hear that he just uses this stuff all the time, they don’t view it as innocent, just looking at a picture type of thing.

Anne: Or a video.

Mom: Or a video, yeah. But I think, this is my soap box here, it really is virtual sex. And we should call it what it really is, so that there’s no confusion about it.

Anne: When you think of a man sitting in front of a computer or his phone. Just looking at it.

Anne: People do not envision him looking at their phone or computer while masturbating. Because who wants to think about that?

Mom: Yeah.

Anne: No one.

Mom: Yeah, it’s too awkward, it’s too uncomfortable. Many people have trouble even saying the word masturbation.

Anne: Right

Mom: It’s not a comfortable thing.

Anne: No, so it makes sense that when you say it, that’s what people envision. That they’re looking at their phone or computer.

Mom: Many people in the world, me not being one of them, think masturbation is fine. So, that’s the other issue. It’s not just that we don’t see them as maybe not having sex. But they don’t view that as “sex” when it really is. It involves the same hormones, the same body responses.

Anne: They’re having sex with themselves.

Mom: Yes.

RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVES ABOUT ONLINE BETRAYAL

Anne: We want to know what you think about this. We would welcome your comments. If you relate, comment below. Do you think it’s adultery and why?

Mom: When it involves someone in a committed relationship.

Anne: If they’re not in a committed relationship, is it fornication? Yes. In my opinion. If you are a religious person and believe in the commandments and law of chastity, then it would be fornication.

It’s either fornication or adultery, but in neither of those cases, in my opinion. Is it okay. Maybe you disagree. We’d love to hear your thoughts on it and counseling for cheating. Again If you relate, comment below.

We’d also like you to share this on social media, see what other people think. You’re going to get a lot of people who think it’s crazy, and that’s okay. But that’s what we’re here for. So many people don’t know what is exploitative. To validate women who feel this way, and let you know that if you do feel this way, we feel the same way too. You’re in good company.

Mom: Or bad company.

Anne: Or you’re in very bad company. We’re such an evil influence.

Mom: Dangerous.

Anne: I know. We’re laughing because people call my ideas dangerous a lot of the time. So, it’s so dangerous to say that exploitative media is adultery. Woo! When Christ himself said it. In what, Matthew?

Mom: Matthew chapter 5.

Anne: I love my Mom.

WHAT WE’VE LEARNED ABOUT ONLINE AND EMOTIONAL BETRAYAL

Anne: I’m super grateful that she came on today, and I love her opinion that we should start saying virtual sex.

If you agree with our stance, that it’s adultery. And is lying emotional abuse? If you agree with us, maybe because your husband does this with women online, and you need support, and you totally get it. You know what we’re talking about.

We’re here for you. There are many so-called betrayal trauma therapists, coaches or groups out there. But they don’t approach using exploitative media or infidelity, as an abuse issue. Or they try to “treat” both the abuser and the victim in the same setting, which is unethical. BTR groups sessions are different.

We get it. We never victim blame, and we are here to support you. So if you relate to anything we said in this episode, check out our daily support group schedule. We’d love to see you in a group session today.

There is no fear or pain quite like the trauma a woman experiences when your ex uses the kids to hurt you.

Whether it’s through the family court system, co-parenting, or everyday chaos, abusers know one of the most effective ways to harm a woman is through her children.

If you’re going through this and need support, come to our online support group for betrayal trauma.

FIVE TRUTHS: WHEN YOUR EX USES THE KIDS TO HURT YOU

My ex husband’s emotional abuse didn’t stop after divorce. I thought leaving would end the chaos. It didn’t. It just changed form. In my case: My ex husband used the kids to create more chaos. He undermined their care and disrupted their schedules by canceling appointments and refusing to take them to activities.

The system didn’t protect me. I believed that if I showed the truth in family court, they’d support me in protecting my children. What actually happened: When I went back to court six years later to request a reduction in his parenting time…they granted him more. When your ex uses the kids to hurt you, the system doesn’t always see his interference for what it is.

Doing more didn’t fix it. I had documented everything and communicated my reasonable requests clearly. But: None of that changed his behavior. When your ex uses the kids to hurt you, more communication and effort on your part just gives him more material to twist, escalate, and use against you later.

He didn’t want resolution, he wanted control I kept thinking we could figure it out. That we could land on something that worked for the kids. But his goal wasn’t peace, or parenting, it was control. He contradicted what I said, ignored what the kids needed, and created conflict, even when it made no sense.

Strategy, not effort, is what changed everything. The turning point wasn’t trying harder. It was doing something completely different. For me: I stopped focusing on getting him to understand, or getting the court to fix it. When your ex uses the kids to hurt you, the only thing that changes the outcome is strategy.

This led me to develop the strategies that eventually became my workshop that teaches women what to do after betrayal.

And about a year later…everything changed.

LETTING ANGER FUEL STRATEGIC ACTION

Abusive men use the courtroom to not only torment victims, but also to manipulate court professionals and seek validation. They don’t want parenting time or a peaceful resolution, they want to win. It’s impossible to co parenting with a narcissistic parent. They want chaos and enjoy the fight.

To know if your ex is emotionally abusive, take our free emotional abuse quiz.

When he uses the kids to hurt you in the courtroom, it is essential that you seek support, practice radical self-compassion and self-care, and develop good boundaries.

Family court systems all over the world are broken. Outcomes are completely unpredictable. However, you can determine now to love and accept yourself no matter what happens. You can determine now to surround yourself with people who love you and build you up. You will need support and community as you face your abuser in the courtroom.

It’s understandable and reasonable to be angry. Your anger is a powerful force that can drive you to take action. Anger is a catalyst for change. The reason why so many people fear an angry woman is because an angry woman is unstoppable—she takes action and challenges the status quo. This is precisely why abusers and oppressors work so hard to suppress women’s anger.

They know it can dismantle their control. Anger, when channeled constructively, becomes a tool for empowerment, inspiring bold steps toward justice.

WHEN YOUR EX USES THE KIDS TO HURT YOU: ABUSE BY PROXY

If an abuser harms or manipulates the children to harm you, it’s known as “abuse by proxy.” This tactic involves using the children as tools to control, intimidate, or emotionally damage you, often by turning them against you or causing them emotional distress.

It is considered a severe and harmful form of post-separation abuse, with long-lasting effects on both the targeted parent and the children involved.

TRANSCRIPT: WHEN YOUR EX USES THE KIDS TO HURT YOU

Anne: It’s just me today. You’re about to hear something that I recorded years ago before I really understood what my ex-husband was doing to me and my children, and I certainly didn’t know what to do about it. At the time of the recording, I was divorced. On paper, I had a decent custody arrangement.

But behind the scenes, my ex is an attorney and he was still emotionally and psychologically abusing me and neglecting the needs of our children on almost a daily basis. In fact, he still is now.

I have a son with a processing disorder. He was undermining his medical care. Canceling his appointments. He refused to support any of our children’s extracurricular activities. Every day was chaotic. So I did what I thought was in the best interest of my children. I went back to court thinking that if I could just present the truth, things would get better for my kids.

Instead, he got more custody. I was devastated, and you’ll hear that in my voice in this recording. Fighting a narcissist for custody is awful.

If you’re in a situation where your ex-husband is using the kids to hurt you.

These are a few things that I wish I understood back then.

THINGS I LEARNED THE HARD WAY, WHEN YOUR EX USES THE KIDS TO HURT YOU

First. If you share kids, emotional abuse doesn’t stop after divorce. It just changes how it shows up. Since he can’t control you directly, he’ll use the kids to control whatever he can.

Second. The civil court system is not likely going to protect you from his ongoing abuse. In fact, they’ll probably think that you’re making it up or that you’re overreacting.

Now, this isn’t true. I totally get it. They perceive that just two adults can’t get along. They don’t understand the truth. There’s no way that you can get along with someone who is undermining you and lying all the time.

Third, doing more doesn’t fix it.

I tried being clear, cooperative, reasonable. None of it helped.

Fourth, it was hard to wrap my head around the fact that he actually did not want solutions.

He wanted all the privileges of being a parent without any of the responsibility.

Once I understood that, everything started to make more sense.

Fifth for me, strategy, not effort, changed everything.

My turning point was not trying harder.

It was actually doing something completely different.

I’m a woman of faith and I believe in God and I study the scriptures a lot, so I’m gonna talk about how I came to know these strategies. We are interfaith inner paradigm here. So even if you’re not religious or you don’t believe in God, hopefully the way I explain these strategies will be helpful to you.

‘ Cause right after I recorded this, I was so devastated I changed my prayers. I started asking God, like what strategies I should use so that he could deliver my children from their emotionally abusive father.

And that question led me to study the scriptures on betrayal and deliverance and to pray.

DISCOVERING STRATEGIES THAT WORK WHEN YOUR EX USES THE KIDS TO HURT YOU

More importantly, discover these amazing strategies that did deliver us from his chaos. We’re completely free from him now, and it’s awesome.

These aren’t courtroom strategies or communication strategies to get him to understand. They were strategies that reduced his ability to create chaos in our lives.

So after using them for about a year, my ex signed what I called my miracle decree where his parent time was only one short weekend a month from Friday night to Sunday night, only two holidays a year, every spring break and Thanksgiving, and only two weeks during the summer.

And I was given full decision making power.

So as a result of this, my children had significantly less exposure to him and I didn’t have to deal with his like constant chaos, undermining the kids or using the kids to basically harass me with long legalese type messages.

WRITING THE LIVING FREE WORKSHOP

Because they worked for me, I wanted to know if they would work for other women. So there were about five women who were going through what I was going through, and I said, “Are you willing to try these strategies?

They did and these women said it changed everything. After I knew, this wasn’t just a fluke. We replicated it with five different women. I created the Living Free Workshop, so every woman who was going through this could learn it. In fact, we used the real life messages of the five women we worked with for the Workshop.

So in section three, communication strategies, you’ll see their messages, and I think you’ll be surprised that they’re really similar to what you experienced.

As you listen to this recording from the past, remember that at the time I recorded it, I didn’t know any of the strategies. We hadn’t been delivered. If you’re like, “Ah, I’m there, I’m where Anne was.” I want you to know that I totally understand what you’re going through, and there is a way out.

These strategies really can protect your peace and your children’s peace without court even if he doesn’t change, but especially if he doesn’t change.

For more information about my Living Free Workshop and these strategies, go to btr.org/living free.

LOOKING BACK, THIS CHANGED EVERYTHING

Okay, let’s cue the recording.

Most of you know that I am religious, that I follow a faith tradition, I’m Christian. Specifically a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am grateful for the foundation that provides me of faith and hope in God and my Savior, Jesus Christ.

For you non-religious listeners, atheists or agnostics, you are welcome here. We’re so glad you’re here, and I’m so grateful that you listen and are part of this. Because this issue affects every woman, regardless of her paradigm, her faith, or the way that she sees the world.

PARABLE OF THE WHEAT & THE TARES

Anne: I’ve been studying the parable of the wheat and the tares. For women of Christian faith, you’re probably familiar with the wheat and the tares. For everyone else, please indulge me. In Matthew 13, verse 25, where it says, but while men slept. Sometimes I wonder if that means that while the clergy, legal system, and basically any man who could stop the abuse, but won’t.

They will not hold the abuser accountable. They won’t believe us or listen to us. That as these men sleep, the children of the devil grew and grew until you could see their fruits, basically, is what this is talking about. Many victims of abuse try to justify not setting healthy boundaries with the abuser, because he’s “a child of God.” Well, he’s a child of God. So I’m going to love him, God loves him. But that doesn’t mean he’s not hurting our kids.

But in this parable, starting in Matthew 13, it clearly states that there are children of the “wicked one.” And I’ve been thinking about the way the scriptures, both the Bible and the Book of Mormon, describe men who are not obeying the commandments.

They don’t say, and he didn’t obey the commandments because he felt shame. They actually call them a word. And the word they call them is wicked. This is a common term used throughout the scriptures. Part of me wonders why don’t we use this term anymore?

And part of it is the Christian aversion to passing judgment. But Christ also asks us to decipher between good and evil. That’s part of the reason why we’re here on earth. There are those of us who have set boundaries.

SETTING BOUNDARIES WHEN YOUR EX USES THE KIDS TO HURT YOU

Anne: We’ve removed everything the abuser can use to hurt us. Essentially, there’s nothing left for them to use to hurt us, except for one thing, our children. Your ex uses the kids to hurt you. Because they’re the dad, they can assert control that way. Every day, I hear stories of sheroes, victims of abuse, who are not believed or supported by their churches.

Every day, I hear about how their children, these children of wicked men and righteous mothers. Are dragged through chaos and pain regarding custody in the courts, because the wicked have no desire for peace. That’s not their goal. Their goal is to win.

I wonder if you would do something with me, and if our whole community will do this. And for you atheists, maybe just hold it like a moment of silence or something that works for you. Like offer it up to the universe. Will you pray every morning and night for the next 30 days that the tares can be gathered and burned? Talking about that classic parable from Matthew 13 about the wheat and the tares. I know it’s apocalyptic. It sounds intense.

We’ve also talked so much about boundaries on this podcast. Healthy boundaries in marriage separate us from harm. No matter what boundaries you use, they can still actually be abusive. So the only thing you can do is separate yourself from the harm. You can’t stop the harm, but boundaries are definitely the most important and basically the only tool in our toolbox to get to safety.

Self sufficiency brings us peace. Boundaries bring us as much peace as possible. Even after we have essentially said, get thee hence to our abusers, these children of the wicked one, they still have a way to hurt us through our children.

SCRIPTURAL HELPS & SAFETY

Anne: There’s nothing you can do in many cases, when your ex uses the kids to hurt you. We’re not able to command armies like the men in the scriptures to protect their families when they go to war. We don’t have that ability, but we do have an army of angels to help us. One of my favorite scriptures regarding the wheat and the tares says, behold verily, I say unto you, the angels are crying unto the Lord day and night. Who are ready and waiting to be sent forth to reap down the fields.

And then another scripture in Mormon 8 verses 40 through 41 says, Yea, why do you build secret abominations to gain and cause that the widows should mourn before the Lord. And also orphans to mourn before the Lord for vengeance upon your heads? Behold, the sword of vengeance hangeth over you, and the time soon cometh that he avengeth the blood of the saints upon you. For he will not suffer their cries any longer.

The parable of the wheat and the tares is related to Matthew 24:40. Where the scriptures say, Then shall two be in the field, and one shall be taken, and the other left.

CALL FOR PRAYERS FOR PEACE & DELIVERANCE

Anne: Will you pray with me morning and night for the next 30 days? That the tares in our lives, the children of the wicked one that are fully ripe and have the fruits to prove their wickedness. Will be removed from our lives so that we can have peace?

Here’s another scripture. In second Nephi 26, three through four, it talks about the wheat and the tares. It says, and great and terrible shall that day be unto the wicked, for they shall perish. And they perish because they cast out the righteous (women). I’m paraphrasing there, and stone them and slay them.

Wherefore, the cry of the victims of abuse shall ascend up to God from the ground against them. Verse four, where for all those who are proud and that do wickedly. The day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, for they shall be as stubble. And in Isaiah 35:4 we read, say to them that are of a fearful heart, be strong, fear not, behold, your God will come in vengeance. Even God with a recompense, he will come and save you.

Personally speaking, you may have heard several podcasts where I said I was going through a difficult thing. And I didn’t say much about it, because it had to do with a custody case regarding my children. Which I actually lost. So I wanted to share with you that I did everything right.

PERSONAL CUSTODY STRUGGLES WHEN YOUR EX USES THE KIDS TO HURT YOU

Anne: I was honest. I was forthright. I said my concerns and the people involved just did not believe me. And I saw the writing on the wall. I lost and settled the case. As a result, my children have a much more difficult custody schedule.

Something else that came out of that was that instead of going through my dad. I know I’ve talked for years about how we’ve communicated through my dad, and I’ve done no contact. It became obvious to me that the court did not like that at all. So I switched from my dad being the mediator to using the Our Family Wizard app. I don’t have it on my phone, but I do have it on my computer, and I check it every day. That’s another way I don’t get emails, phone calls or texts that trigger me.

So that it’s at least separated from me, all the contact goes through Our Family Wizard. That’s been working really well. A lot of prayer to figure out how to do this right. It’s been a process. So my custody situation is worse for my children now. Things are very hard, and I’ve just recognized that the court system, the clergy system, the religious system, really doesn’t help victims. We really do have to be our own sheroes.

REPORTING ABUSE CAN BE UNSAFE

Anne: If you have physical abuse happening, reporting is a good idea, but it can be unsafe in so many ways. So if you have something criminal to report. I highly recommend you schedule an individual session with Coach Renee, who can help coach you on how to do that with your local authorities. The outcome obviously cannot be guaranteed, but to give you the best experience possible, because it’s going to be traumatic. Regardless, the court system is a mess.

I brought Tina Swithin on and Wendy Hernandez, and I’ve just been doing a ton of study on custody things. And really, the conclusion I came to is that God is our only hope, or the universe, or whatever you believe in, but for me it’s God.

Our only hope for justice is through our Heavenly Parents, and our Savior, Jesus Christ. I’ve turned my heart to Him and realize that there isn’t anything worldly that can protect me in this instance. Where I share children with my abuser. The laws require us to maintain contact with the man who harmed us. He continues to lie and abuse, harming us and our children.

So after losing this case, me Anne, I don’t know everything you guys know. I don’t know everything. I’m just like you and I’m in the process of learning, but I thought I could figure it out. Like I followed Tina Swithin’s advice.

I followed Wendy Hernandez’s advice. I had a good attorney, and I prayed, prayed, and prayed. It still didn’t go the way I wanted. So here are a few things I’ve come to grips with.

HOPE & FAITH IN GOD

Anne: One part of me wonders if the reason I didn’t win and why things are harder for my children is because I believe God asked me to start this organization and to podcast here. My ex used the kids to hurt me. Maybe your ex uses the kids to hurt you.

He’s asked me to talk to you. In the past when I said, do no contact. And you guys were like, it’s hard to do no contact. The court won’t let me. I was like, no, you can do it. Now I’m thinking, man, I never had that experience when the court was like, no, you can’t do that.

Now here I am. So. I wanted to empathize and apologize if I made it seem easy. Because for six years, my custody situation was fantastic, and then my ex got remarried. And with that, he has his new wife to care for the kids. So of course he wanted to take them more, because he doesn’t have to take care of them.

Now that I’m here, my heart goes out to all of us who have been through this, and I’m sorry if I made it seem easy before. It’s not, it’s really hard. Also, for all of us who have done everything right, we’ve done every single thing. We have reported crimes, set boundaries, and separated ourselves from the harm. And we’re still not able to actually stop the harm to our children.

It is the most excruciating difficult situation. And it’s long term, and it reminds me of the people in the scriptures who are in bondage. The Israelites and in the Book of Mormon, there are Nephites in bondage. This bondage scenario keeps coming to me over and over again.

WHEN YOUR EX USES THE KIDS TO HURT YOU, PRAY FOR DELIVERANCE

Anne: So in addition to praying for the tares to be removed from our lives. Rather than prayer for your husband to change, might I suggest praying for deliverance? In the scriptures, people in bondage pray for deliverance, knowing that God is their only option. The law can’t help them, and in the Israelites’ experience, the law was the Egyptians. The law ruled them in bondage. So they have no way to get out.

I think that’s the case with us. The righteous, currently speaking, are in bondage from the wicked in their homes or out of their homes from their ex husbands. And how do we get delivered? In my opinion, we need to humble ourselves and let God know that He is our only option. That the courts don’t understand this. They think he’s just trying to be a good dad. But that’s not it, and therapists don’t understand he’s just using the children to hurt you.

That we only have one option. And that is our Savior, who somehow leads us out of bondage, and delivers us. So my suggestion is to pray for deliverance, rather than to pray that your husband will change. Or pray he’ll get it, or see the light, and pray for deliverance. That deliverance can come in two ways. It can come through him repenting. That would actually deliver you from abuse. The second option for deliverance is that he could be removed from your life somehow.

That deliverance would be a miracle. I don’t want to put limits on God. Maybe there are 10 other options that I don’t know about, but there are at least two. And I think praying for deliverance is what we need to do and we’ve missed the boat when we pray for something else.

PRAYING FOR CUSTODY CASE & MY SITUATION GOT WORSE

Anne: I was praying for my custody case, and my custody situation got worse. My child support situation got worse. There was literally nothing in the last case that I went through that got better. Every single thing I wanted, I didn’t get. After we settled, all the things I thought would happen are happening now.

It just shows me that his only concern or interest was winning, not the best interest of the children. How do you negotiate or do the best thing for your kids? If every time you suggest what you think is the best thing, that other person cares about winning. They just want to contradict everything you do or say, it just doesn’t work.

It’s a difficult place to be. There is a popular Instagrammer who was abused for a long time. She doesn’t recognize it as abuse, and now she’s super positive about her divorce.

She is like, I wish him well, and now we’re co-parenting together, and it’s co-parenting with a narcissist. And never acknowledged the abuse or what was happening. She is now going on to live her best life. And I’ve been really triggered by it, actually. Because I want to live the life I want to live. But I’m still faced with this oppression from an abuser. I don’t know, I just have so many feelings about it.

I have so many feelings about it, like, if I just think about it differently, will it be different? There’s that like new age thinking, you know, if you’re grateful, that will fix it. But it’s hard to be grateful when your ex is using the kids to hurt you. Here’s a comment similar to this, that we got on the podcast the other day.

YOUR COMMENTS HELP OTHERS FIND US

Anne: By the way, please comment on any of the podcast episodes. Every one of your comments helps isolated women find us. I love hearing your feedback, what you think about the episodes, and your experience. If something I say on an episode or something that one of the guests says is something you’ve been through, like if your ex uses the kids to hurt you.

Please go to BTR.ORG, find that episode and comment. I want to know if this has been your experience too. So a woman commented and said, “I just wanted to reach out and let you know that I am with you too. Your words struck a chord, especially the parts about your husband lying, even when you had proof, minimizing the situation and not facing the truth. Not knowing everything is driving me crazy.

“The scenarios I am now imagining are far worse than any truth could be. And yes, how do we begin to move forward when looking back at our lives is so excruciatingly painful when faced with the cold fact that it was fake. And we were taken for a fool.”

“I hope you’re doing okay in this new painful reality we seem to find ourselves in. I read somewhere that we have three possible choices after betrayal: To become bitter, go mad or grow. And I wish you love and strength on your path.”

I’m grateful for this comment. One of the things that struck me was these three possible choices after betrayal. This Instagrammer I previously talked about who’s now facing divorce with resilience. She’s pulling her bootstraps up, and happy, and will live her best life. She’ll say things like that. Either become bitter, go mad, or grow. So I’m going to choose growth.

IT’S OKAY TO BE ANGRY WHEN HE’S HURTING YOU AND YOUR KIDS

Anne: The woman who commented on this, I’m not sure what her status is. But I think, “You have these three choices,” is a misogynistic trope. I hate to call her out, but I need to point this out when I read that. That this misogynistic trope is that women can’t be bitter or angry, that women must grow through this.

I just want to relieve every woman on the planet of the concern about being angry (bitter). If you were not angry about what happened to you, you would go crazy. Like, you would be a robot. I don’t know, something would be wrong with you. Like, it’s not normal to not be angry in this situation. Being angry is a normal reaction when your ex is hurting your kids. One of my goals is to help women embrace their anger to get to emotional and psychological safety. So please don’t ever worry about being bitter.

The anger will dissolve once you are safe. Men generally tell women not to be bitter when women are justified in their anger. And the abuse hasn’t stopped yet.

So generally speaking, when a woman is still angry, they’ll say, well, she’s been angry for a long time. So now she’s bitter. And maybe she’s angry because he hasn’t stopped hurting the kids.

PERMISSION GIVEN TO BE ANGRY & BITTER

Anne: Even in my case, I’ve figured out how to separate myself from harm well. It’s still happening. I have no legal recourse, no way of stopping it. People saying, “Hey, don’t be a bitter woman, angry woman, or crazy woman.” It’s simply a manipulation tactic to how abusers gaslight women into not taking steps to safety.

I want to give everyone permission to be angry, be bitter even. It’s not like you just become bitter, go mad or grow. Those are not the three options you have. You have one choice, one path. The path is to get to real, true emotional and psychological safety.

That is your goal. If you’re on that path to safety, you’re angry, great, or you seem crazy to some people because you move out. And they think, your husband’s so great. Why are you moving out? You seem crazy. Fine, the goal, the one possible option for you is to get to safety. I believe the actual distance you put between yourself and the harm, the safer you feel, and the less angry you will feel over time.

And that’s because your anger is a gift from God. That will help you take action, and the reason why everybody is afraid of an angry woman is because an angry woman takes action. People do not want women to take action. So, please, anger is the best. I love anger right now. I’m excited about it.

Think about what anger can do for you. Can it help you get to safety and feel happy and peaceful? That’s the goal. Anger is not the goal. Think about what spurs you to action? Anger is a great resource God gave us to use when your ex uses the kids to hurt you.

THE CHARACTER OF ABUSERS

Anne: Many times in the scriptures, it talks about prophets or people angry with the wickedness of the world. They took action to bring peace for themselves and their families, and that’s awesome. Another thing that we’ve talked about many times on the podcast is that abuse is a behavior. Like when your ex uses the kids to hurt you.

If you say look at their behaviors, there’s also this manipulative kindness that can happen, grooming. When they groom to manipulate can leave women wondering is my husband grooming me? There’s one other factor here, and it could be that yelling at you is a sign of his abuse. Well, what if you yell at him? Is that a sign of your abuse? Or is that a sign of you trying to stand up for yourself? Are you trying to take action when your ex is still hurting the kids?

I think the better way to think about abuse, rather than behavior, is that it’s a character. An abusive character means even kindness is for an alternate purpose. Even kindness has a goal behind it. It’s not to care for that person. It’s to manipulate or use them. That’s what we’re looking for, is their character the character of manipulative kindness or exploitative privilege? Or is it genuine care and protection for you? I’ve had many conversations about the term entitlement.

We know that one of the four pillars of abuse. You can find this infographic in the back of my book, Trauma Mama Husband Drama. You can also see that four pillars of abuse floating around on Instagram and Facebook pages of Betrayal Trauma Recovery. And one of the four pillars of abuse is entitlement. This is not a strong enough word. We need a stronger word.

EXPLOITATIVE PRIVILEGE, WHEN YOUR EX USES THE KIDS TO HURT YOU

Anne: I came up with the word exploitative privilege. Which means they use their privilege as a man to exploit women. As a woman, you owe me intimacy, dinner, you owe me to take care of the kids, and I don’t need to do any of that.

These are the things that I’m entitled to as a man. And I’m going to avail myself of these things. That is exploitative privilege and it’s abusive behavior. People who don’t have an abusive character don’t want to exploit other people. It makes them feel uncomfortable.

But people with an exploitative abusive character will sometimes be kind, because it’s goal oriented. So that’s another word that I want you guys to think about. Rather than entitlement, although entitlement can work, and if it works for you, great.

This other term exploitative privilege, I think, defines what’s happening more. That it is the exploitative privilege that misogyny affords them. Because of that, all their actions and conversations are through that lens of exploitative privilege, it’s important to try to prevent exploitation. https://www.btr.org/how-to-prevent-exploitation/ That is always an abusive situation. Rather than a relationship with someone who sees you both as equals, both your needs are equal, both your responsibilities are equal.

Where you’re an equal partner. Someone who sees you as an actual equal partner, not someone to be used, is not abusive. Their character will not be abusive. Even if they yell because you got a flat tire or something, it’s not the yelling necessarily that is the abuse, because some of these abusers never yell. They do everything with a smile on their face, and everything they do is well crafted and looks good. But it’s the goal. What is the goal? When your ex hasn’t stopped hurting the kids.

MY CURRENT REFLECTIONS

Anne: So, that’s where I am in my life right now. I’m thinking about the wheat and the tares. I’m thinking about deliverance and I’m thinking about how anger can help us with that. So, will you pray with me for the next 30 days that the tares can be removed from our lives? That we can be delivered? And consider how anger can help us take action to separate ourselves from the wicked. Separate ourselves from those who would do us harm, rather than those who want peace. And use our anger to take action when your ex hurts the kids.








Because abusers goal isn’t peace. Their goal is control. Our goal is safety and peace. It really is. I don’t know of any woman who necessarily wants to control things. They just want things to be peaceful. I appreciate your prayers. If you have prayed for me, if you knew about the custody thing, now my only hope is through my Savior, Jesus Christ. That my children and I will be delivered, and that through the grace of God, we can live the peaceful life that I want to live.

That is promised to the righteous. Then maybe it’s not in this life. I also consider my situation much better than some. So gratitude definitely has a place. I am much more peaceful now than ever. Even though my custody situation is worse. And even though my child support situation is worse. I’m grateful. I’m grateful for what I’ve learned. And I hope our faith will fruit a miracle, and move a mountain.

MIRACLES COME THROUGH HARD WORK

Anne: My nine year old son lately has been saying the most interesting things. We’ve been out weeding the garden, for example, and he’ll say, Mom, we have a miracle here. I’ll be like, what are you talking about? And he’s like, we have a miracle of this beautiful garden. Do you know what made the miracle happen?

And I’m like, no, what? He’s like weeding, our weeding made a miracle. And he said the same thing about grocery shopping. He’s like, we went grocery shopping, and that made the miracle of this dinner.

And I said, so what makes a miracle? And he said, Mom, work, hard work. At this point, we’ve done the work sisters. So many of us have done so much work. We have worked and worked. My hope is that through our prayers and faith, we can rest in the Lord and ask him to deliver us. And ask him to remove these tares from our lives, so we can rest.

No, I don’t want us to bring on the second coming if you’re a believer in that. That sounds miserable, and I’d rather be safely dead than experience that. But maybe that’s what God’s waiting for. I don’t know.

Being able to share my own experience, has been a blessing to me personally. I’m grateful to have met all of you wonderful sisters along this journey. So thank you.

It’s both validating to hear how far I’ve come, and also sad. I’m like I look back and think, wow, I was being harmed and I didn’t even recognize it.

If you’re in a dark place and you don’t know how to get out of the chaos your husband or ex-husband is creating, learn about The Living Free Workshop.

Are you looking for the best emotional abuse support groups online? Here’s what you need to know.

1. DO THE EMOTIONAL ABUSE SUPPORT GROUPS ONLINE HAVE OTHER RESOURCES?

The best emotional abuse support groups online have educational resources like a podcast, workshops, or even quizzes to help you understand exactly what’s happening to you.

For example, did you know there are over 19 different types of emotional abuse? Take our free emotional abuse test to see if you’re experiencing any of the 19 types.

2. DO THE EMOTIONAL ABUSE SUPPORT GROUPS ONLINE COVER ALL TYPES OF EMOTIONAL ABUSE?

If the emotional abuse support groups online don’t understand betrayal trauma, which is trauma resulting from emotional abuse caused by infidelity and deceit, then the group may not meet your needs.

3. DO THE EMOTIONAL ABUSE SUPPORT GROUPS ONLINE MEET MULTIPLE TIMES A DAY IN ALL TIME ZONES?

There’s no telling when your husband will be emotionally abusive. When something happens and you need support right away, consider attending a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session for emotional abuse. Check out the Group Session schedule.

4. DO THE EMOTIONAL ABUSE SUPPORT GROUPS ONLINE ACTUALLY HELP YOU GET TO EMOTIONAL SAFETY?

A lot of support groups blame you for what’s going on. At Betrayal Trauma Recovery, we never victim blame. Instead, we help victims figure out exactly what’s going on and what to do next through our Living Free Workshop.

Key takeaways from this interview:

The Long History of Women Being Left Without Support

How a Culture of Misogyny Undermines Legal Support for Women

How Institutional Betrayal Creates More Trauma

When Leaders Fail to Enact Policies that Support Women

Why So Many Women Don’t Know What to Search For

TRANSCRIPT: HERE’S WHAT MAKES THE BEST EMOTIONAL ABUSE SUPPORT GROUPS ONLINE

Anne: I have Elizabeth Estabrooks, MSW on today’s episode. She’s a writer, speaker, author with subject matter expertise on survivors of personal violence gained during her nearly 30 year career. She holds a bachelor’s degree in gender studies and political science from Eastern Oregon University and a Master of Science and Social Work from Columbia University. From 2021 to 2022, she served on the VA National Domestic Violence Task Force.

The secretary’s task force on inclusion, diversity, equity and access. The VA Sexual Assault Prevention Committee and the National Gender Policy Council Work Group. Her book, Broken in the Stronger Places: From Resilience to Resourcefulness is a memoir that spends her life from joining the military through her exit from the VA and the one year solo healing road trip that followed. We are talking about the lack of emotional abuse support groups online or support in general.

Welcome, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me here, Anne.

Anne: Were you in the military before you became a domestic violence expert?

Elizabeth: Yes, I was in the military. It was post Vietnam. They had done away with the draft. And there had been a lot of changes. Women have served since the American Revolution. But many people are unaware, for a long time only 2% of the military could be women, and they couldn’t be officers. There was a lot they couldn’t do. For black women, it was even worse. WASPs were the Women’s Air Service Pilots.

SERVICE WOMEN’S FIGHT FOR SUPPORT FROM THE MILITARY

Anne: They are so inspiring, by the way. I encourage everyone to look them up.

Elizabeth: Oh, it was amazing. Mostly white, but there were some Japanese women and there was one, indigenous woman. I don’t think black women were allowed. Because there was so much discrimination.

Anne: Mm hmm, There were no emotional abuse support groups online.

Elizabeth: So these women entered and they received special training so it was a big deal. The WASPs, flew 60 million miles. They flew into danger, all that stuff. When the war ended, the military sent women home without so much as a benefit or anything. There were a number of women who died in service and their family members were responsible for paying the money to send them home from England or wherever they were.

The military considered women not real military members. That was the status of women. So in 1948, Truman signed the Women Armed Forces Integration Act, post World War II. It gave women full-time permanent status in the military.

The exception prior to that act was that a certain number of nurses could remain ’cause they needed medical. And so as time went on, it began increasing.

After the draft ended, volunteerism among men decreased, and they were having trouble staffing up the military. There were the WACs, Women’s Army Corps. The Navy informally called women WAVES. They had separate training. Their training included things like how to wear makeup.

WE HAVE TO DO BETTER FOR WOMEN

Elizabeth: Then they disbanded in 1977. Jimmy Carter, being a feminist, said, “We have to do better.” The military started to send women to co-ed basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. I was in the second wave of women to go through co-ed.

Anne: I feel honored to talk to you right now. This is a huge deal, and I am so proud of you. Helping women who had no emotional abuse support groups online or any other support.

Elizabeth: Thank you. So, I talk about this in my book. We’re all a bunch of 18 and 19 year olds. You start at the welcome center, and then you get on the bus, and they take you to the company where you do your basic training. There’s camaraderie, we’re all joking and laughing, and being a bunch of teenage boys and girls. And we got off the bus and hustled into a formation, which was ragged as hell. ‘Cause we didn’t know what it was.

The drill sergeants say to us, “This is your family now.” There were five male drill sergeants. “We help each other out.” They said, “Look to your front, look to your back, look to your left, look to your right. These are your brothers and sisters. They will always be there for you. They will always have your back.”

And in the next breath, literally they said, “And for you females out there understand that we think there is no place in this man’s army for girls. And we’re gonna spend the next eight weeks showing you just how much we mean that. If we have anything to do with it, not one of y’all will make it through.

EMOTIONAL ABUSE SUPPORT GROUPS ONLINE: ADDRESSING MISOGYNISTIC CULTURE

Elizabeth: Being in the field you’re in, you understand how that sets a culture. It set the tone to the men that had just been our buddies.

Suddenly, we were othered and heard mumbles of, “Yeah, you don’t belong here, and we don’t have to be nice to you.” The drill sergeants just gave permission.” When I wrote the book, it occurred to me that what they did was set the direction of our future. Sexual harassment, you’re going to experience it and we don’t give a damn. So just deal with it. We’re gonna encourage it so that you’ll leave. There were no resources, no emotional abuse support groups online.

Throughout basic training, there was a lot of real sexualized, misogynistic stuff that happened. From there, I went on to my training. I was in supply at Fort Lee, Virginia.

That was only moderately better. We had more freedom, so we weren’t just confined to being in formation all the time and being with our drill sergeants. We would be walking by, say, a billet full of men. And they would literally hang out the windows and yell obscenities at us.

If they were standing on the streets, they would grab their crotches, they would make all the obscene sounds and gestures that you can imagine.

THE LAW ALLOWED WOMEN TO SERVE, THE CULTURE TRIED TO PUSH THEM OUT

Elizabeth: That program at the time was a go at your own pace thing. It was a 12 week program, but you could get out anytime you finished. So I finished it six weeks, because I was like, I gotta get the hell outta here.

Anne: Yeah.

Elizabeth: Then I was stationed in Kissingen, Germany at Harvey Barracks. I was the first woman in my company, and one of only, maybe not even a hundred on the whole base. It was brutal. It was constant harassment, constantly grabbed, assaulted in various ways. I consider myself lucky. I was one of the few women never raped during her military service. This was ongoing. Every minute of every day I was in uniform on base.

Anne: I am so sorry. The overall feeling would have to be that my government doesn’t care about me as much as men.

Elizabeth: That’s the vibe. Yeah, we were only there because the law forced them to have us there.

Anne: That is so sad. It’s also so awful that the culture would permit people to treat other citizens like that, people who have signed up for service.

Elizabeth: At that time, Ruth Bader Ginsburg made it possible for pregnant women to remain in the military. Up until that time, if you got pregnant while in the military, legally they could throw you out. Even though you could have a baby while in the military, you couldn’t join the military if you had babies unless you gave up custody.

THE DOUBLE STANDARDS OF MILITARY POLICY

Anne: Wow, so no man has to give up custody to join the military, but women do.

Elizabeth: I said that exactly to the recruiter. And he said, “Oh, they’ve got wives and mothers. We don’t need to worry about them with their children.”

Anne: That’s crazy.

Elizabeth: He said that to me. He was such an asshole. So my friend couldn’t join, because she was like, “I’m not giving up my children to join the military. That’s never gonna happen.” We were gonna join the buddy system, so I signed my name on the dotted line. I had no idea, I was 18 years old.

Anne: I wanna just point out to you that you did the same thing that every other 18-year-old man would do. You’re not any different than any other person who’s joined the military.

Elizabeth: Thank you. That was my entrance into the military. I didn’t know they could discriminate. I didn’t know all that because I was a young feminist. So I understood discrimination, pay gap, and all of that stuff, even at that age. So I was shocked when I began understanding.

Anne: Institutional mIsogyny, with no emotional abuse support groups online.

Elizabeth: That’s exactly right. I stayed in, they tried to push me out, but I said, “No, I know my rights. I get to stay in the military as a pregnant and or single mother.” When you joined, and I think it’s the same way today, it was a six year enlistment. So it could be any combination of six. It could be a full six years active duty, it could be three years active, three years inactive, two years, whatever that combination was.

EMOTIONAL ABUSE SUPPORT GROUPS ONLINE: I GOT A SHELTER FUNDED

Elizabeth: They had told me when I joined, okay, you’re active duty for three years, and then you have to join the reserves. Stay at the reserves for three years when you get out. They told me when I left, “You’re a hundred percent done. We don’t want you, you can’t ever rejoin.”

And today women can rejoin. Then a friend asked me to join the board of the local Domestic Violence Crisis Intervention Center. And that started my career in the field of domestic violence and sexual assaults. I eventually became the director, and there was a lot going on around that.

OJ Simpson had killed Denise Brown and Ron Goldman. When something national like that happens, it instills fear in every survivor and victim across the country. There are now emotional abuse support groups online at BTR.

No matter how long they’ve been separated from their abusive partner, we were dealing with that. I got a shelter funded, and eventually I got my bachelor’s degree in gender studies and political science. I expanded my vision and my work.

So I did community safety. I did gender specific services, for most of my career. The government had a huge budgetary crisis. All my contracts were with government agencies. They all got canceled ’cause they were all about domestic violence, sexual assault, and gender specific sources. That was deemed unimportant, and that’s when I focused on women veterans.

So all the time before that, I had focused on communities, civilian women.

THE SECONDARY TRAUMA OF INSTITUTIONAL BETRAYAL

Elizabeth: Although looking back, I know that there were probably some women veterans I was helping, and I just didn’t realize, ’cause I didn’t talk about being a veteran. Women then didn’t talk about being a veteran, and many still don’t today.

Everything I did was on women veterans and sexual assault in the military. So when you’ve had experiences of harassment, assault, and or rape in the military that cause trauma. They call it military sexual trauma. And I didn’t learn until years later that I had that.

Anne: I’m so sorry for everything you’ve been through. And also so proud of you that you kept putting one foot in front of the other, you kept providing for yourself and your family. Um, with all your experience, can you talk about just some overall themes that you see in relation to domestic violence in general, perhaps specifically in the military, but perhaps more like culturally?

Because I think the military has its own culture, obviously, but it’s also sort of indicative of the overall culture. So maybe you could talk about how those all intersect. And how emotional abuse support groups online could help.

Elizabeth: That is so true, the difference is that when their partner assaults them, or someone in the military assaults them. They also face extreme institutional betrayal. We know that women are sexually harassed in their work places, and Anita Hill brought that to light. They don’t talk about it because of so much fear. Women in the military, even if they talk about it, it’s like tough We have to stay.

THE MINDSET OF A MISOGYNISTIC CULTURE

Elizabeth: I complained about it multiple times. They forced me to remain there to work and deal with this on my own. Nobody at my company cared except for my platoon sergeant, but he was never around. The leaders in my workspace didn’t care. They would laugh it off.

So there was no one, no one who cared. Women face that even in today’s military. And men are also sexually assaulted. But as you and I know, we will not stop assault against men until we do something about the misogynistic culture that drives and promotes sexual assault and harassment against women.

We know that when women are raped or sexually assaulted they’re called feminine pejoratives, bitch, pussy, slut. These are the terms used against men, because they don’t meet that toxic male culture standard.

Anne: It’s not their fault. In the minds of the abusers, if these men weren’t feminine, then they wouldn’t have been assaulted. Because that doesn’t happen to real men.

Elizabeth: That’s exactly right. When men in the military talk about being sexually assaulted, they refer to it as hazing. They lessen that, because they’re also called gay or homosexual as an insult. There’s a lot of fear for men.

Around that fear for women is that for years, women who were sexually assaulted received dishonorable discharges. They were charged with adultery. And that only ended a few years ago.

THEY GET A WHOLE HOSPITAL AND I GET A JANITOR’S CLOSET

Anne: Yeah, I can imagine the difference in your story if you showed up at basic training and they said, look to your right, look to your left. You’re all in the same family. We treat everyone with respect, end of story. What a difference that would make from the top. Everyone in our military is a human being who deserves respect. Everyone in our country is a human being. We are tasked with the safety of our country, which includes all citizens.

Elizabeth: Yes, we were less likely to get benefits to have our claims approved. The first time I was at the Boise VA, which is one of the best in the nation, it was all very male.

They said to me, “Come in for your first appointment, so we can get a baseline, third floor.” And I said, okay. So I go in and take the elevator up to the third floor. And the door opened. I look out and there’s mops, brooms, and buffers. It’s janitorial accoutrement. I was standing there holding the door open. I could see a woman down the hall at a desk. And by this time it’s making this obnoxious elevator, binging sound. She said, “Miss, can I help you?”

And I said, “Yeah, I think I have the wrong third floor.”

She said, “What are you looking for?”

And I said, “I’m looking for women’s help. They said, it’s on the third floor.”

And she said, “Yes, ma’am, that’s us.”

I just kept standing there and I said, “So just let me make sure I get this right. I served in the same military as the men and they get an entire freaking hospital and I get the janitor’s closet?”

She said, “Yes, ma’am. I’m very sorry.”

EMOTIONAL ABUSE SUPPORT GROUPS ONLINE: CREATING POLICIES TO SUPPORT WOMEN

Elizabeth: We’re laying on a table with our legs in the stirrups. With nothing but a curtain separating us from the janitorial stuff going on in the hallway. And, now there are women’s health clinics in all VAs. It’s so much better. What I always say to women veterans is try it. If I had walked away from the VA that day, I would’ve missed some good care.

They passed this public law, which mandated the Center for Women Veterans be opened. And that they focus on policy and care just for women. There are 10 directives and two mandates in that law. And that’s what they’re supposed to follow, hard stop. I was recruited to join the Center for Women Veterans because of the work I had done.

So I moved to DC, joined the VA, and everything was going great. I had a wonderful director. We got things done. She had served under four presidents, and she was a phenomenal director and cared deeply about women veterans. And making sure that we were doing the right thing and doing many initiatives. It was fabulous.

We worked with all women veterans, not just women who were survivors and victims, right. But those cases generally came to my desk. When women complained or contacted VA, I handled them.

And then, things changed. People hired had no knowledge of the VA, of government, of budgeting, of any of that stuff. It became clear to me that my new director was uninterested in following the mandates and directives set under the public law that stood up the Center for Women Veterans.

WHEN LEADERS REFUSE TO ENFORCE LAWS THAT SUPPORT WOMEN

Elizabeth: A woman was sexually assaulted at a VA by her doctor, and all she wanted was the VA to stop him from working there.

At the time, my director said it is VA policy to maintain the employment of medical providers accused of sexual assault, as long as they still hold a medical license in that state. I lost my mind and said to my director, “This policy must be disbanded.”

And she said, “There’s nothing I can do about it.” This woman had no emotional abuse support groups online to access.

I said, “It’s literally your job to do something about this. The public law demands you do something about this. It’s your mandate.” And she refused.

Then there was a woman who, her story of all the thousands of stories I’ve heard, Anne, hers was the worst. It was more brutal than my mind could even comprehend. And I spent decades speaking to women and being empathetic, and I crumbled when it was done.

The VA then betrayed and abused her. The next day. I was getting ready for work and sitting on my bed and crying. I texted my boss and said, “I’m not working today.”

She said, “Are you okay?”

I said, “No, and I will never be okay again.”

My psychologist said, “The fact that you got your own sexual trauma and spent 30 years in this field is nothing short of phenomenal that you continue to do this work despite your own trauma. You can never again hear another story. You’re a hundred percent done with this field. It’s to your own mental health detriment if you continue.”

ACKNOWLEDGING RE-TRAUMATIZATION

Anne: Wow, that’s intense.

Elizabeth: Kintsugi, the art, where they repair fine porcelain with gold. In the early nineties, the field of mental health developed a theory around that.

What they say with Kintsugi is that it is stronger in its broken places because of the lacquer and the gold powder added. And so the field of mental health took that up and said, you too can be stronger in your broken places if you go through the CBT and the therapy and the da da da da da.

And during my work, I understood the falsity of that metaphor and why it doesn’t work. Because they don’t acknowledge retraumatization.

A lot of women who’ve read my book say, both veteran and non-veteran, it’s like you told my story. I feel so connected. One of the first women said, ” I had been in therapy, and something happened recently, and I came absolutely undone.”

We women blame ourselves for everything. I’m a loser. I can’t even do therapy right. I’m a bad mother, I’m a bad this, I suck at that. So we’re always happy to take that blame on ’cause that’s what the culture does for us. It’s on the woman. It’s always on the woman.

For the general population, understand that our words matter, that headlines matter. That when we say things like, “Why didn’t she just leave? Why did she stay?” We’re putting the onus on her. What we need to do is shift that, turn that around.

CHANGING THE WAY WE TALK ABOUT EMOTIONAL ABUSE

Elizabeth: So the next time, say, “Why did he do that? Why was he allowed to get away with that?”

Because for decades, we aren’t any better in that field. We keep putting it on the women to escape, to change to dah, dah, dah, dah. We need to put it on the people doing the deed.

Healing is not an event, it’s a process. And trauma gets inside you and you can heal. You can do better, but be aware of something that most psychologists or therapists never talk about, and that is re-traumatization.

Something can happen. We saw that during the OJ Simpson trial. Women across the country were re-traumatized in mass numbers. You’re so confused when that happens, ’cause you’re thinking, I thought I was all better. Don’t beat yourself up, find some help, a group, emotional abuse support groups online. You deserve to be healed and happy.

Anne: Yes, those layers of trauma, not that the trauma isn’t compounding, but it’s easier for us to rebound, gain strength, if we have emotional safety in our own immediate vicinity with the people that care about us. Some have had intimate images shared without consent.

I’m so lucky with my children. I said to my son this morning, “I’m just so angry and I’m sorry if I’ve been very, short lately.”

And he said, “Oh Mom, you’re amazing. You have such good intentions. We love you. We understand why you would be upset, and it makes sense that you would be. You’re safe with us Mom.” And it just made me feel so good. Not everybody has that, so I wanna acknowledge that. Getting to emotional safety is what our Group Sessions are about.

WOMEN DESERVE THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

Anne: You can start building that as you come out of the experiences you’ve had. I guess you’ve made some close friends who have been through similar things you can relate with that. You can call and be like, can you believe what happened? And you can process it together, and at least you have an immediate safe space. So that’s what women experiencing trauma need. They just need that safe space to process what’s happening with emotional abuse support groups online.

Elizabeth: Yeah, and having that shared experience, having a group or person with which you have that shared experience really is a positive in your life. Pursue that, because if you’re in a home where you’re not safe, where you don’t feel safe, where you’re afraid to say your words. I know how hard it is. If you’re not safe, you deserve to be and find that safety where you can.

Anne: Yeah, women deserve the pursuit of happiness just like anyone else.

Elizabeth: That’s right, perfect.

Anne: Yep, well thank you so much, Elizabeth, for sharing your story. Thank you for spending time with me today.

Elizabeth: You’re welcome. Thank you for having me. It’s been a great conversation, Anne, and I appreciate all the work you’re doing. Thank you for giving survivors a space.

Anne: Thank you.

FINDING HELP BEFORE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU NEED

Anne: I met my next guest, Lacey, at a conference. She told me how difficult it was to find emotional abuse support groups online and support before she found Betrayal Trauma Recovery. She didn’t know the term betrayal trauma at first. So she didn’t know what to search for, and that matters. When women don’t have the right words, they can’t get the right help. Welcome Lacey.

Lacey: Hello Anne, thanks for having me.

Anne: Can you start with how it felt to be searching for help when you didn’t know what you were looking for? All you knew was that your marriage was really confusing.

Lacey: Initially just friends and maybe counselors and books, I would read them and listen to it, and it didn’t resonate with me. So as I dug further, I started learning words like betrayal trauma. You know, I didn’t even know that’s what I had. So I didn’t know the words I needed to search for. I just started stumbling across things. I had to weed through a lot of things that were not helpful before I could get to the things that were.

Even with books they suggested, sometimes you’re just not in a place where you can sit down and read and comprehend a book. Betrayal Trauma Recovery for me was just something consistent, weekly that I could turn on and listen. What you said resonated with me. So I took your advice. It was good for me when I found BTR. It’s a consistent voice of reason that I could turn to. Listening doesn’t take nearly as much brain power as sitting down and studying or something like that.

PROMOTING BETRAYAL TRAUMA RECOVERY & HELPING OTHERS

Lacey: You talked about the conference. I wouldn’t have known anything about that if it hadn’t been for the Betrayal Trauma Recovery podcast There are not many resources in my area. Even the counselor I’m seeing isn’t trained in this area. She doesn’t know about resources like books and things that you suggest on BTR. I just want to do my best to help other ladies find it quickly, more quickly than I did.

It’s great with the podcast, I can go back and re-listen. Before I got on with you, I was listening to a few things. You know, I probably will not have my own podcast or website or anything like that. It’s difficult for me to talk about these things with people in person. I want to do my best to promote you in the best way possible to help other people.

Anne: I’m grateful for your support. You’ve listened to the podcast since the beginning, and one of the things you mentioned is that you wanted other women to know about Betrayal Trauma Recovery. It covers things emotional abuse victims need to know. You talked about how easy it is to help women find us. Just follow the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts by actually clicking the follow button. The more subscribers or followers the podcast has, the more the algorithm shows this podcast to women when they’re searching for help.

Like you said, you were searching for things, but you didn’t know to type in betrayal trauma in to Google because you didn’t know what you were searching for, exactly.

Lacey: Right.

Anne: Then finally, when you found the word betrayal trauma, you found us, you found Betrayal Trauma Recovery, and our emotional support groups online.

IMPROVING ONLINE VISIBILITY

Anne: So as women search around, they search for words like infidelity, cheating, or addiction. Lots of women are searching for narcissism stuff, like covert narcissist traits, lying, “How do I help my marriage?” Or betrayal trauma in relationships.

It’s rare that a woman with marriage troubles goes immediately to Google and types in betrayal trauma and finds emotional abuse support groups online.. My goal is to help women get this information as soon as possible. Making sure they can find us online is important.

The first thing I ask people to do is actually click the follow button, and then to help even more rate the podcast on their podcasting service, or iTunes or Spotify. And that five stars means Google or iTunes starts paying attention to it. So podcasts with a lot of ratings get more visibility. And that’s what we need. There are examples of misogyny and how to figure out what is happening.

If someone types in infidelity, for example, it’s so much better to find Betrayal Trauma Recovery if you’re searching infidelity. Than finding that a wife causes infidelity, not meeting her husband’s needs. Or a wife not being safe enough for her husband, or something like that.

You’ll see things evolving over time with BTR as I learn better ways to describe things. As all of us know, it’s an ever evolving process to describe what we’re feeling and what is happening to us. And so I try to update the website over time and all the materials over time when I have a better way to describe something.

EMOTIONAL ABUSE SUPPORT GROUPS ONLINE: ENGAGING WITH BETRAYAL TRAUMA RECOVERY ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Anne: Another way to help other women know about this amazing community is to comment on the btr.org website. Because the way search engines work, the more interaction a website gets, the higher ranks on a search engine. Same thing with Instagram and Facebook, the more comments on each post, the more interaction, the more people see it. That algorithm is like, Hey, this is interesting. And they show it to more people.

So if you’ve been grateful for this podcast and want to help get the word out. Going to our YouTube channel and commenting on all of our videos, commenting on our posts. We’re on Instagram at. At btr.org_. And on Facebook, commenting on our posts.

We have some wonderful supportive women who are part of the emotional abuse support groups online, take five minutes a day while waiting for carpool. And they go through all of our posts on our social media platforms on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. And in the comments, they just do an emoji, like a handclap or a 100. Or the celebration emoji. It can just be an emoji. You don’t even have to say anything. That helps the algorithm so much. So if you’ve been putting emojis on our social media posts or writing short comments on our website, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. .

That’s the cool part about this podcast. It’s by trauma survivors for trauma survivors. So we can make it whatever we want.

https://youtube.com/shorts/QgWLaB34xIE

EXPERIENCING SUPPORT IN PERSON

Anne: So tell me about your experience being around so many women, like having come from an isolated state of not talking to anyone you felt understood by the emotional abuse support groups online by BTR.

Lacey: In my town, I didn’t find any groups that I felt comfortable going to. They didn’t focus on my specific need. I had such a hard time finding a counselor. And I felt like they listened, but maybe didn’t get it. I have friends and family that know that I’m separated. And they know that I’m hurting, but still, again, they don’t know the details or maybe how to listen with understanding.

Being around all these women, even if their situations weren’t the same, or if they hadn’t experienced the same thing, it just felt like they knew how to react appropriately and the right things to say. It felt so good to talk and not worry about filtering what I was saying or trying to remember what I had already told them, or is this person safe or not?

Or when am I going to run into them at the grocery store? You know, or do they know my husband? All these things that are constantly going through your mind when you’re at home and trying to know how to talk to people. None of that was there. And I was able to just talk and share my story, and not feel judged. Sometimes you just want to talk and have somebody listen, and it was a great experience.

Anne: Yes, it has always been my goal to create the best emotional abuse support group online. I have a podcast, a workshop or even quizzes to help you understand exactly what is happening to you.








EMOTIONAL ABUSE SUPPORT GROUPS ONLINE: GRATITUDE AND COMMUNITY SUPPORT

Anne: We do have a free emotional abuse quiz. To get that abuse quiz, click on the link. There are 19 different types of emotional abuse. I’ll talk about that in another episode. But you can also see what those are and take that quiz.

It’s really important to me to have a group at least once a day and multiple times a day. So that you can get support right away that actually helps you get to emotional safety. So many people don’t know what to tell you to do.

Lacey: I just want to throw out there that I’m sure donating helps continue how y’all are already working on spreading the word. I don’t know, I just want to throw that out there. Because I think everybody should donate, and uh, I want to help you any way I can.

Anne: We all built Betrayal Trauma Recovery. There’s no way I could have started it without the emotional or financial support of all the women listening, small and large. Betrayal Trauma Recovery support groups are full of amazing women. They are the best emotional abuse support groups online. And knowing that there was someone on the other side of the microphone listening to me, because when I would feel so dark and sad and just be speaking into a microphone in my basement.

And there’s no way I could have done it without you and without the coaches. So I’m very, very grateful that this is an organization by trauma survivors of trauma survivors. It’s a community that I’m part of, proud of, and grateful for.

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

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

QUICK ANSWER: IS WATCHING INAPPROPRIATE MEDIA CHEATING?

In marriage, yes. Because it meets the basic definition of cheating: He is engaging in sexual activities and directing sexual energy toward other people, often in secret, while expecting ongoing intimate access to his wife’s trust, body, and partnership.

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

IS WATCHING INAPPROPRIATE MEDIA CHEATING? YES, HERE’S WHY

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

1) CHEATING IS NOT LIMITED TO PHYSICAL CONTACT WITH ANOTHER PERSON

If your husband is pursuing stimulation from searching for and viewing other women online, he’s still directing intimate attention outside the marriage. He may argue “that it doesn’t mean anything” because there’s no physical contact.

But your marriage is real and your natural reaction to his choice to pursue arousal with other women is healthy and real.

2) IT’S ALMOST ALWAYS BUILT ON SECRECY AND SECRECY IS BETRAYAL

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

If your husband has a pattern of using hidden or secret apps, unusual password protected accounts, and deflection, anger, or mockery when confronted, that isn’t him just needing “privacy.” He’s engaging deception, which is an obvious marker when asking, “is watching inappropriate media cheating?”

3) IT UNDERMINES INFORMED CONSENT INSIDE YOUR MARRIAGE

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

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

4) IT’S NOT “JUST CONTENT.” IT’S ACTUALLY EVIDENCE OF ABUSE

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

And then she lists what falls under that umbrella:

sextortion

non-consensual sharing (often called “revenge porn”)

hidden-camera recordings (locker rooms, showers, bedrooms, hotel rooms)

“upskirting/downblousing”

AI-generated or manipulated sexual images made from real photos

harassment using sexual content

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

When a husband says, “I would never do anything to hurt you,” he may believe that he’s not harming anyone because he’s just looking at “images.” But the inappropriate media industry involves the abuse and objectification of women, and by choosing to engage with it, he’s supporting it.

5) IT’S RELATIONAL INFIDELITY WHEN HE’S BONDING SEXUALLY WITH SOMEONE ELSE

Even if he has no emotional “relationship” with the person he’s aroused by on a screen, if his wife is left with distance, disconnection, and feeling like she’s competing with strangers, that’s infidelity.

6) IT OFTEN COMES WITH GASLIGHTING: “YOU’RE THE PROBLEM”

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

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

insecure

controlling

prudish

too sensitive

the reason he does it

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

7) IT PUTS WIVES AT REAL RISK, SOMETIMES CRIMINAL RISK

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

8) IT TEACHES MEN THAT THEY’RE ENTITLED TO SEX WITHOUT INTIMACY

Even if something is common or deemed acceptable by some people, that doesn’t make it healthy. Melea describes why industries like this resist regulation: they don’t want their profits to decrease. When consumption of inappropriate media is easy, private, and constant, it creates a culture where:

women exist for sexualization

male arousal is a “need”

women’s bodies are commodities

Wives often experience the effects of this cultural acceptance as:

increased pressure to compete sexually

decreased empathy and emotional presence

an unwillingness to acknowledge and repair harm

And all of these erode the foundation of safety and intimacy that marriage is supposed to be built on.

9) IT IMPACTS KIDS, DIRECTLY AND INDIRECTLY

Even the most tech savvy husband who thinks he’s keeping it “private,” can’t guarantee that curious kids, with devices on shared Wi-Fi, won’t be impacted his browsing history.

He’s not just risking damage to a marriage. He’s risking the emotional safety of your children.

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

WHAT TO KNOW WHEN SEARCHING “IS WATCHING INAPPROPRIATE MEDIA CHEATING”

Most women search because they feel betrayed, and they don’t realize it’s exploitation.

It’s not just cheating, he’s participating in the real exploitation of women and girls.

Thinking “it doesn’t hurt anyone” dismisses the real harm done to real people and relationships.

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

TRANSCRIPT: IS WATCHING INAPPROPRIATE MEDIA CHEATING? HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

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

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

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

Welcome Christen.

Christen: Thank you so much for having me.

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

FORMS OF IMAGE-BASED ABUSE

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

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

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

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

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

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

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

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

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

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

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

IMAGE-BASED ABUSE IS HAPPENING

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

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

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

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

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

NON-CONSENSUAL RECORDINGS & HARASSMENT

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

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

https://youtube.com/shorts/mHgIHT2Dtrw

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

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

THE ABUSIVE NATURE OF ONLINE EXPLOITATIVE MATERIAL

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

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

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








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

Christen: Wow.

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

IS WATCHING INAPPROPRIATE MEDIA CHEATING? YES, AND IT’S ACTUALLY SO MUCH MORE

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

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

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

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

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

IMAGE BASED EXPLOITATION IS ABUSIVE

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

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

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

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

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

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

IBSA IS POSTED ANYWHERE YOU CAN POST

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

Anne: It’s alarming to think about.

Christen: It really is.

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

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

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

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

EXPLOITATIVE ONLINE IMAGES ARE ABUSIVE: LIES & HYPOCRISY

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

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

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

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

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

TRAUMA & ITS MANIFESTATIONS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FEDERAL LAW AGAINST REVENGE MATERIAL

Anne: Can you tell us about the law?

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

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

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

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

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

IMAGE BASED EXPLOITATION USE IS ABUSIVE: THE ISSUE OF CONSENT

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

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

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

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

LEGAL RECOURSE & COERCION

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

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

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

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

RESOURCES FOR VICTIMS

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

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

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

We have lawsuits against big suppliers

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

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

ADVOCACY & PUBLIC AWARENESS

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

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

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

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

THE IMPORTANCE OF SAFE HOMES

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

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

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

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

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ON ABUSE

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

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

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

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

THE SYSTEMIC NATURE OF ABUSE

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

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

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

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

THE NEED FOR HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS

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

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

Christen: Thank you so much for having me.

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

Melea: Thank you for having me

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

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

One reason we wanted to promote this bill is that we know 47 percent of young children have their first unwanted early exposure on smartphones and tablets. It’s just a common sense protection to have pre-existing filters already on smartphones and tablets defaulted on. Versus putting the burden on caregivers and parents to try to go through 30 some odd steps on many devices to figure out how to activate existing content filters.

DETAILS OF THE FILTER BILL

Melea: We have Supreme Court precedent that says it is preferable for protections to come at the filter level on devices. We know this bill would be upheld in court. And we’re confident it would be very enforceable. And all it is simply doing is asking that three major companies, Amazon with the Kindle, the Apple products and Google with their products, have smartphones and tablets.

That a software update would happen, which is a very simple fix. We’ve talked to software experts who work closely with device manufacturers. They would just do a very simple update that would allow phones activated in Alabama to have the default on instead of off with the content filter. And it automatically has broad based protections for young children, so they’re less likely to stumble across online inappropriate material at an early age.

People would say kids will find ways to get around it, obviously, but we were talking about very young children who aren’t even thinking about it that stumble upon this content. And it Is very traumatic to them to not understand what they’re looking at and the way it affects their brain. This gives them extra years of innocence, safety, and protection. I had the honor of speaking to different parent groups.

And have spoken to schools and churches in areas where kids don’t have involved parents. And those children, child on child, harmful behavior is rampant in those communities. Parents just hand children devices. They need resources to stop human trafficking and this behavior. No one’s looking for them, and they can become addicted to online inappropriate material and they act out what they see. That’s what children do. They copy what they see.

CHALLENGES & OPPOSITION

Melea: Then there’s a cycle of abuse happening and a cycle of trauma. So I especially think about those children when I think about this bill. We’ve been excited. We had a great response and had 67 bipartisan co sponsors in the House, and it passed through committee with bipartisan support. We got to the Senate, it passed through committee with bipartisan support. There are people working hard to stop human trafficking and help with this effort.

It was poised to be passed through the Senate. But we had one person in the Senate, who refused to allow it on the calendar. It only takes one or two people to set the calendar. They blocked it because a lot of opposition turned up to fight along the way. And that’s been true in every other state. Big tech has been our opposition. And telecommunications companies have also shown up at all our hearings with their lobbyists.

Even though our bill has zero to do with companies like AT&T or Verizon. They’re not held liable. It’s explicitly stated in our bill. They would show up, because unfortunately, big tech and telecommunications companies and the industry will sometimes fight common sense browsing protections for kids. And it’s really sad. But that’s one of the things we dealt with. Unfortunately, this gentleman blocked it. We assume there was pressure from lobbyists and one company in particular.

IT’S NOT JUST CHEATING, IT’S EXPLOITATION

Anne: They’ll say all kinds of reasons that aren’t real. What’s the reason they don’t want to do it? Is it just simply money, this type of exploitation is sadly about money.

Melea: Money is a big factor. We know that historically, Google, AT&T or Verizon, do they get back general profits from online explicit material?

Melea: They do, and they have. There is potentially a loss of revenue. Big tech hates regulations. They do not want to be restricted in any way, shape, or form. They don’t want to give up an inch. So I think money, power, and resistance to any form of regulation. To me, it’s a safety feature on a on a car or something like requiring that they have proper antilock brakes on a car, something reasonable. And in this case, it’s just a simple software update. All the technology is there.

Anne: I hope this does not sound too political, but I’m a patriot saying, I’m grateful for all the government services we have. We have roads, we have a military, we have things in place to keep us safe. And that’s only something that the government can do, because the government is all of us. So I am so grateful that we have these opportunities to protect us. We need to do that through the government, because nobody’s going to willingly do that.

Although NCOSE has worked well with some companies. So that is exciting. They provide resources to stop human trafficking and are helping this bill to pass.

RESOURCES TO STOP HUMAN TRAFFICKING: THE DIRTY DOZEN LIST

Melea: Absolutely, yeah, there’s opportunity. Companies respond to positive communication and sometimes negative. We have what’s called the dirty dozen list, and name and shame the main promoters of exploitation. We have had tremendous success, because once things are brought to light, it’s been refreshing that several companies have changed their corporate policies and resources to stop trafficking or unwanted exposure to online inappropriate material.

This has been a very tooth and nail fight all along the way. The opposition will say, well, you should just be fighting the online inappropriate material, instead of asking the manufacturers to do this at the device level, which I agree. We are like the National Center on Exploitation, and many of our allies are constantly fighting the industry to make changes there. But I wish our government was stepping up in this issue.

Because the laws on the books on a federal level would prohibit the production and distribution of hardcore online inappropriate material, which is the majority of harmful on the internet. And also our laws prohibit the distribution of all online inappropriate material, whether soft core or hardcore, from our internet. But our department of justice for many years has not been enforcing federal obscenity laws. That leaves us to tackle this issue of illegal content through corporate strategies and legislation.

Through lawsuits, like we have lawsuits against providers that are, we’re winning right now. We’re gutting companies because of lawsuits that we have with survivors. So we’re having to go at it every different angle.




PRACTICAL STEPS & COMMUNITY SUPPORT

Melea: And to everyday citizens that want to make a difference and make an impact when it comes to stopping and resources to stop trafficking and exploitation in general. At NCOSE, we understand that you’ve got to go upstream. I don’t know if you’ve heard the analogy of seeing people floating down the river drowning. You rush in to try to pull out as many as possible, and you’re struggling to get as many to safety as possible.

And you do this for a long time until you’re exhausted, but you’re not able to get to everyone. Eventually you come to this idea of like, I’ve got to go upstream and figure out who’s throwing people in the river. And so you go upstream and find out there’s someone who’s shoving all these people into the river. And in this case, that’s the industry because today’s mainstream online inappropriate material is highly addictive.

It changes their belief system, gives them permission, giving beliefs about consent and buying. People become objects. It’s creating a world of harm. And we know that if we did not have rampant, hardcore material if it was restricted to adult bookstores. Like you had back in the eighties with soft core material. As bad as that was, if we just lived back in that world, that’s what our laws on the book say.

RESOURCES TO STOP HUMAN TRAFFICKING: NCOSE’S ACTION CENTER

Melea: Our world should look like when it comes to online inappropriate material in the United States. There should be nothing on the internet, nothing on cable, or satellite TV. Can you imagine how different our world would be if our children could go through their developmental years without exposure to it around every corner? So that’s what we strive for is a shift in cultural expectations.

But then there are also practical things we’re doing to interrupt the cycles of things feeding trafficking. So we’d love for them to come to our website. It’s endsexualexploitation.org. And if you go to the action center, you can immediately get involved in helping us stop human trafficking and winning these victories.

Anne: I recommend NCOSE because so many people are talking about trafficking these days. And I have a really interesting story that is super alarming. So, one of my friends was on an airplane, and she was sitting next to a man, and they started talking about politics. He said, “I’m voting for this person because of his record on trafficking, because he will protect the children.”

Her ears perked up and she was like, oh, really, tell me more about this. He said, yeah, there’s these people are stealing these kids and we’ve got to stop it. And then she said, what do you do for a living? And guess what he did for a living?

Melea: What?

Anne: He owned a strip club.

Melea: Oh my gosh. You’re kidding.

Anne: No, so here’s a man who is an actual literal trafficker. He owns a strip club. And he’s talking about this nameless faceless group of people who’s like kidnapping kids when we know who they are. It’s him.

GETTING INVOLVED WITH NCOSE

Anne: We know who the exploiters are. It’s obvious. Getting involved with NCOSE is so awesome, because it’s clear what’s happening. So that you can say, okay, this particular Senator, he’s the one blocking this bill. We can write to that particular Senator and ensure that this bill gets passed.

So I love that NCOSE clears out all the confusion, because at least this man who owned the strip club loved saying, oh yeah, we got to stop trafficking to distract from the fact that he was a trafficker. We need the resources to stop human trafficking, which NCOSE has.

Melea: Talk about denial and hypocrisy, or else just a good marketing scheme there, yeah.

Anne: That is scary these days. So I love that NCOSE is a very reputable organization that has been around for a long time.

Melea: They do their research, and they are careful about the details before they speak out. That’s one reason I’m hesitant as a spokeswoman for NCOSE. I want to make sure I do my best to accurately present the facts, because they have such a high standard when it comes to what they share and do.

They’re very intentional and I respect that about them and they will correct themselves if there is something that they find out is inaccurate, but they do things with a lot of integrity and they get a lot done with a very small budget and a small group of people.

Anne: Well, that’s the other thing I love about NCOSE.

NCOSE’S CREDIBILITY & INTEGRITY

Anne: Because so many people talk to me about it, they’ll be like, nobody’s doing anything. And I’m like, every year, NCOSE with their dirty dozen list, they make progress. They have wins. And if you’re on their mailing list, you’ll get messages, and it’s so amazing to be part of that, because you can feel the momentum. And as much as this online stuff is this overarching, exploitative, abusive, systemic problem. It affects every woman who listens to this podcast.

And so many families all over the world, it’s horrific. It needs to be stopped, it’s an abuse issue. The exploiters, they don’t want people to know that progress is being made. They want people to think it’s a lost cause or fine, and what’s your problem? We should just let this go. Or the alternative, which is, there’s nothing you can do.

Melea: They want it to seem that it’s a right and an entitlement, first and foremost. They don’t want people to know that it’s illegal. They want people to feel this is a free speech issue. And it’s not, it’s not protected speech, but you would think that’s the case given everything they do. They have all these organizations that are under misleading names, such as this free speech coalition, various names that make it sound like they’re anti exploitation as well.

They have some groups that sound like they’re anti trafficking, that they’re actually the industry putting up a false front to sound like they’re being benevolent, and they’re doing everything they can to undermine decency in society.

THE BEST RESOURCES TO STOP HUMAN TRAFFICKING

Melea: So you have to do your homework and dig deep when it comes to these issues. A legislator presented this filter bill, just like in our state and in other states. Several groups came in acting like they were, pro family, pro children presenting Trojan horse stills that sounded anti exploitation, and people fell for it. It’s a very sneaky opponent. Thankfully, the law is on our side, science is on our side.

As we educate the public about the harms of it on the brain and relationships in society. And as we educate the public about what the law actually says. They become empowered to push back against this evil industry.

Anne: And so that my listeners are not distracted by actual traffickers who say, Hey, I want to stop trafficking. So you don’t accidentally support a trafficker. NCOSE is the place to get your information to stop human trafficking. They are trustworthy, they’ve been around for so long, and they do their homework. And they know who the specific people are and talk about specific actionable things. That’s what makes it so effective.

Melea: Well, thank you so much. Enjoyed my time with you.

Anne: Yes, you too. Thank you.