Betrayal Trauma Recovery

We’d all like to believe that divorce stops abuse, but post separation abuse is so common. The truth is, abusers don’t stop wanting power over their victims, even after divorce.

To learn if your ex-husband is continuing to abuse you after your separation or divorce, take my free emotional abuse test.

What Is Post Separation Abuse?

Post-separation abuse refers to the continuation of emotional, financial, and psychological abuse by an ex-partner after a relationship has ended. It can manifest in various ways, often leaving the victim feeling trapped and stressed. Understanding and identifying the signs of post-separation abuse is crucial for taking steps towards healing and protection.

1. USING THE LEGAL SYSTEM TO STAY IN CONTROL

Post-separation abuse often is enabled by the court system that court orders women to co-parent with men who are manipulative and undermining them, lying to them. It causes so much chaos.

He might be threatening to take you to court or using court orders that are meant to help you co-parent, to make things harder.

2. MAINTAINING FINANCIAL CONTROL

Many men withhold things like child support or alimony so that you have to contact him to get it. That is actually a form of post-separation abuse, and they do it on purpose to make sure that they’re still relevant, that they can control what you’re doing so you have to be put through the wringer of contacting them every single time.

3. Manipulating Your Children’s Lives

Post-separation abuse can also include creating chaos for your children in order to exert control over you. Such as, refusing to adhere to set schedules or neglecting to take your children to extracurricular activities. They may also send subtly intimidating emails. They are difficult to pinpoint as dangerous. But they intend to cause fear and anxiety.

Get The Right Support while you are experiencing Post-separation abuse

At Betrayal Trauma Recovery, we recognize the difficulty of understanding post-separation abuse. And are dedicated to providing the support you need. Our community offers:

Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions: Join one of our many group sessions for support, guidance, and understanding from women who have been through similar experiences.

Betrayal Trauma Recovery Individual Sessions: Receive one-on-one attention and strategies tailored to your situation with our specially trained betrayal trauma coaches.

Why Choose Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions?

Expert Support: Our professional coaches experienced personal betrayal trauma. They are equipped to help you find peace and protection for yourself and your family.

Accessible & Affordable: For just $125 a month, you have access to over 92 group sessions—providing real support at the cost of just one therapy appointment.

Immediate Help: Attend a group session within hours and start receiving the support you need today.

Take Action to Protect Yourself During Post-separation Abuse

You don’t have to face post-separation abuse alone. Betrayal Trauma Recovery is here to help you take the steps necessary to protect yourself and your children. Attend a group session today, and join a community that understands your struggles and supports your healing journey.

If you’re going through post-separation abuse, consider enrolling in The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop to learn the secrets of why an ex would continue to cause chaos after divorce.

With Post Separation Abuse, Boundaries Are Key

Boundaries help victims separate themselves from abusive behavior. Boundaries are not:

Ultimatums

Consequences for bad behavior

Mechanisms to control another person’s behavior

Instead, boundaries are courageous actions that victims take to ensure they are as protected as possible from harm. Setting and maintaining boundaries in a divorce is key to navigating post separation abuse.

What Are Some Boundaries That Can Help Me Navigate Post Separation Abuse?

Remember that boundaries aren’t going to stop your abuser from being abusive, but they are intended to limit your exposure to your ex-husband’s post separation abuse tactics.

Some ideas of boundaries you can set and maintain include:

Using a parenting communication app, like Our Family Wizard, as your sole mode of communication (consult with your attorney).

Determining certain times of day, or days of the week, that you will check and respond to messages from your ex

Bringing a family member or friend with you to drop off/pick up the children

A Strong Support System Is Essential When Navigating Post Separation Abuse

Post-separation abuse can sometimes feel overwhelming. It’s imperative that victims develop a strong support network.

Post separation abuse victims can find support from:

Safe family members

The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group

Trauma-informed specialists, like Betrayal Trauma Recovery Coaches

Transcript: The Truth About Post Separation Abuse

Anne: What is post-separation abuse? Marcie’s here to tell her story. We’ll talk about the post-separation abuse she experienced since her divorce. Welcome Marcie

Marcie: Hi.

Anne: Can you start at the beginning of your story?

Marcie: Before that, I’d like to share a funny story. This was when we had originally separated. I tried to send something to my husband to help him understand the situation. It happened to be something from you. And I didn’t know it was from you at the time. It just resonated with me, and I thought it would help.

And since that time in all his communication, he references you as this horrible person trying to break up families. And do horrible things for women.

Early Relationship Dynamics

Marcie: And I feel like it’s ironic that now I’m actually part of that community and maybe helping other women in bad situations, like I was and currently still am.

Anne: So he introduced you to Betrayal Trauma Recovery?

Marcie: Well, I saw something I read and didn’t know it was Betrayal Trauma Recovery.

Anne: And then you showed him, like, hey …

Marcie: Yeah.

Anne: … this will help you be a better person.

Marcie: Yes.

Anne: And since then, I am the devil.

Marcie: Of course.

Anne: And it’s my fault that you’re setting boundaries, rather than his abuse, of course.

Marcie: Yes.

Anne: I get that a lot, no worries. I’m happy to take that heat for you. So talk about the beginning.

Marcie: I met him in high school, and I was young. It was actually before I started high school, so I was very inexperienced with relationships or this type of behavior. And at the beginning, like most of us, it doesn’t start feeling wrong, it starts feeling great. This person is loving. I misunderstood controlling things as loving things.

Like, oh, you shouldn’t do that with your friend. That might not be safe for you, but it was a controlling issue. Then we married fairly young and had kids. Then a lot of these things that now I look back with eyes open and see were wrong or damaging. I was told this is normal, I’m crazy, and all the typical things that most of us hear in these situations.

And then we feel like, well, that must be true. It must be us.

Appeasing Him

Marcie: I am now, in my fifties. Our relationship started when I was 14 and we married when I was 21. I feel like it took me a long time to realize that it was such a problem. But I basically tried to appease him in every way possible, because when I didn’t, it was miserable. So that happened for a long time. And then there was the fear of not appeasing him or doing things his way.

Anne: So back then, you were doing that to protect yourself.

Marcie: Absolutely.

Anne: You didn’t know that you were resisting back then, but that was a form of resistance, trying to get it to stop.

Marcie: Absolutely, I felt like if I was what he wanted me to be, then it would stop. And of course, in whatever discussions we had about it, or arguments, it was usually my fault. Whatever reaction I was getting was because I wasn’t doing something right. Or I wasn’t being what he needed me to be. So I kept trying to resist his behavior by doing whatever I could to be the best wife I could be.

I literally ran myself ragged trying, but it was impossible. And it never really made things better.

Anne: Hmm, when did you notice that wasn’t improving things for you?

Marcie: I noticed it a long time ago. But I just kept trying, because I didn’t know what my options were. And the longer it went on, I think the more I felt like it was my fault that I couldn’t be what he needed. He kept telling me that, or that I was crazy.

Understanding Post Separation Abuse

Marcie: There was one point where he, this was quite a while ago, like at least 20 years ago. He said I needed antidepressants because I was hard to deal with. Before I actually left, I realized, of course, I was depressed. I lived with someone who made it impossible to function. He made it impossible to have any type of normal life. He constantly made me feel like I was inadequate, horrible, or bad at everything I did.

It was confusing. And honestly, I didn’t have much time to think about how I felt, because I was the sole financial provider for our family of eight. And I worked a lot, plus I had all the responsibilities at home. I attributed it to my busyness. Or that, I don’t know, I didn’t have much chance to think about how I was feeling. When I realized I was depressed, we tried therapy. It doesn’t work in abusive situations.

And the therapist we went to was horrible, because he wouldn’t let me talk about the past. He felt like I’m going to fix this and this magical person who’s going to fix your relationship. We’re going to build from right now, and we’re not going to go into the past at all. And that was really empowering to my ex husband, because he didn’t want to talk about the past either.

There was actually discussion before I went to the therapist about, you can’t talk about certain things. And I told him, well, if we don’t talk about those things, that are some of the major issues. How will we resolve our problems? And I couldn’t say certain things without fear of what the reaction would be when we returned home.

Therapy & Depression

Marcie: And the therapist would not allow me to speak. And we did have a test. There were a bunch of questions that we were both supposed to fill out. I answered things honestly, and it came back that I was depressed. He mocked me for that, made fun of me for that. And it just emphasized that I was the problem because I was depressed. It emphasized his impression that it was my fault, and yeah, I couldn’t handle everything.

Anne: He’s like, you’re going to work full time and take care of these kids full time. Your depression is causing me problems because dinner’s not on the table. He’s an exploitative person with an exploitative character. One of the things I want women to think about is what do they want? What is the goal of him telling you that you’re depressed? Is it to get you to work harder? Or is it to get you to feel bad about yourself? Is it to get you to stop trying to get him to do something?

They usually have something in mind that they’re trying to accomplish. In your case, I think he probably worried you might find out who he was, because he relied on you for everything.

Marcie: I definitely believe that was the case. That was towards the end of our, I don’t know if you could call it a relationship, whatever it was. And I had started to question him a lot more. I had started to say no a lot more, which, by the way, for anybody before they get into a relationship, there’s a simple test.

The “No” Test, Manipulation & Control

Marcie: It’s the ‘no” test. You say no to something and see how they react. And that’s the simplest, easiest way to figure out how people react. But I started saying no. And of course, I became more problematic. I became more difficult.

Anne: He wanted you to continue to say yes. So he’s manipulative when he says, that’s why you’re saying no. Because you’re certainly not saying no, because it’s an unreasonable request I’m making.

Marcie: Most of us in this situation experience the fact. That the way we do things for them, the way we bend over backwards to make them happy, they love. It’s not a problem for them at all. So they have a hard time seeing that there’s a problem in a relationship, because for them, they get what they want. And if they don’t, they throw a fit, and then usually they do.

Anne: It’s working for them. If they can scare you enough or manipulate you enough, the victim resists this type of behavior by doing what he wants. They think that will reduce the behavior, he’s happy about that. She’s still resisting the abuse, and still trying to make things better.

She’s always trying to improve her situation. And if she’s trying to improve it by being like, if I do this, he won’t get mad at me. Or if I do this, it’ll improve things. Then he’s like, cool. But he’s not thinking about you. He’s not thinking about your feelings. He’s just trying to get what he wants out of the situation.

What Is Post Separation Abuse: Recording Conversations To Maintain clarity

Marcie: Absolutely, that depression thing was such a small slice of, there’s gotta be something wrong with me. I started recording things to help me realize that I wasn’t crazy. At first, the only reason why I recorded was he keeps telling me something that didn’t happen. Or he keeps telling me that this conversation didn’t go the way that it did. We’d had circular arguments about well, yes, you said this and this is what you said.

“No, I didn’t, I never said that. You’re wrong. See, you can’t remember things correctly. Your brain doesn’t work,” all those negative things that would make me go, what’s wrong with me? Why am I remembering these things incorrectly, or why am I remembering it differently from what he said? And in my mind, I know it went that way. So the only way I could confirm that in my brain was to record the conversations.

I want to emphasize how dangerous recording can be if he found out. Because he doesn’t want that, doesn’t want to be contradicted. I started feeling empowered when I realized I’m not crazy. I’m not making this up. Sometimes he accused me of like screaming and yelling at him, and I’d listen to it.

I’m like, well, I didn’t scream and yell or this didn’t happen. Whatever it was, it confirmed that what he was saying wasn’t true. And it was so helpful for me to start seeing this as abuse or to see that, there was a problem.

Anne: Yeah, that’s very brave of you. And also really awesome.

Journaling & Trauma Response

Anne: When I went through it, one of the things I did for a very short time was write in my journal, good days and bad days. Because in my head, I thought, okay, he’s just wonky three days a month. And I did the math and I was like, oh, that’s only 10 percent of a month. Is three out of 30 in an ideal marriage, 27 days and 3 days a bad marriage. Is three days worth it?

And I did these calculations, but when I actually wrote it down, it was happening every day. I just didn’t notice it was happening every day when I wasn’t tracking it. Recording it or journaling is so helpful.

Marcie: I also journaled and feel like that was tremendously helpful. I did that before I started recording. Like what you said, to get an idea of what was happening. Quite a few years ago, I actually had called to get help for him because he threatened suicide. If I didn’t do things his way, he threatened suicide.

And so I called for help for him. They referred to someone else, and they told me about power and control wheel. Which helped me understand this too. But I also went to a therapist at that time. And I expressed to her, we’ll have these horrible arguments in the evening. And then the next day I cannot remember them.

I can’t remember what they were about. It’s like, I can’t remember anything, no matter how hard I tried. And she explained to me that that is a trauma response to help you function.




Living In Between Horrible Things

Marcie: She basically explained it to me, as if you remember these difficult situations, you might not be able to function the next day. And so that’s a trauma response. So writing them down is hard, because you have to address them. But then, like what you said, you thought it was only three times a month when it was every day. I think our brains want us to forget the horrible things, so we do.

Anne: Well, and also, the next day he seems normal, at least in my experience. I thought, well, maybe I’m crazy. He seems fine today. It wasn’t like the next day he woke up and he was terrible. He acted fine. That made it confusing too like thinking, oh, it’s fine.

In those times where you feel desperate for help, that’s a great time to take action. To call a local domestic violence shelter, or attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery group session in that moment. Because you often let it sit for a minute, and then things seem fine, and it doesn’t seem weird to you until it happens again. So you’re always living in between.

Marcie: That’s making sense. The only thing is for myself and my situation, I had a fear to reach out for help. Which probably a lot of us do. I just intuitively knew that would be crossing a line of his, which would send him into a negative way.

Confronting the reality of Abuse

Marcie: And there was a time when we had this situation. Where he chased me through the house and backed me into a corner. I put my hands up, and he was so close to me that my hands were on his chest. And I said, you need to leave me alone. And after that happened, I don’t remember how it ended. But he kept telling me that I had put my hands on him, and he could call the police and say I assaulted him. Because I put my hands on him and he didn’t touch me at all.

I was trying to explain to him how that doesn’t sound right. It wasn’t the case, and he said you could call anybody and they would side with me. It was just another typical thing that he would say, how other people would feel about certain situations. And so I said, okay, well then let’s call the domestic abuse hotline right now. And he’s like, go ahead, call. He didn’t think I would call, but I did. They immediately told me, this is not a safe situation. This is not good.

But after that call, he was angrier with me than I’ve ever seen him. He explained it to me as the biggest betrayal he has ever felt from me. It was worse than if I had an affair. And I feel like that was because being found out or proved wrong was the worst thing he could experience.

Anne: Or he’s just lying in that moment.

Marcie: Or lying.

Anne: To make you feel like he feels super betrayed for you calling the domestic violence shelter, in order to intimidate you.

Marcie: Yes.

Lies & Recording Conversations

Anne: They lie so much that it’s hard to be like, yeah, that was so devastating for him. Because he told me, I’m thinking, was it? Was it devastating for him? Because he’s a liar. We just never know what is going on in their minds, since they lie so much.

Marcie: Well, in looking back, there are so many things that are lies that I didn’t see as lies. Or didn’t want to see as lies or didn’t want to believe as lies that now I know. But that brings me back to the beauty of recording. So flash forward many years from that, that first original recording to now, where four years ago. I got a restraining order, which allowed me to record conversations between him and me, or him and the children.

It’s specific for victims of domestic violence who have a restraining order. To record, so I could record and use those recordings in court.

Anne: Did he know that you were allowed to do this?

Marcie: Yes.

Anne: Okay, so he knows he’s being recorded?

Marcie: He knows he’s being recorded, but I don’t know if most of these people are like this. He’s very cocky. I think he’d forget, too. Or he didn’t care or didn’t think what he was saying was wrong. In fact, at the beginning, he definitely didn’t think what he was saying was wrong. There were recordings from when he had phone calls and supervised visits. And these were during those phone calls, and he felt okay, because this was the way he was feeling.

Differences Between Counties Dealing With Custody

Marcie: So it was a right for him to let them know. But when I transcribed those recordings, things such as your mother is trying to kill me by doing this, and your mother hates me. And just things that were not appropriate for children to hear.

Anne: You’re recording his phone calls with your kids. This is one way to combat his abuse when fighting a narcissist for custody.

Marcie: Correct, and this has been going on for four years. In the meantime, because of those recorded conversations, they’ve limited his phone calls to a shorter amount of time. As well as took away the supervised visits. Which he wasn’t doing anyway, because when I stopped planning them for him, it was too much work or whatever. I don’t know. He didn’t want to pay for it, but he didn’t do it, but they took away that right and made it just phone calls.

But another important thing for people in the situation to know is that. The county in which you reside is the court where your custody issues will be heard. And I don’t know if that’s in all states, but I know in California, that’s the issue. So there are many counties that understand domestic abuse. And they try to understand that dynamic when they make decisions regarding the children.

There are other counties that do not understand that dynamic. They tend to feel that both parents should be with the children no matter what. And they don’t take into account the background or danger. So for many women who are having some big challenges within the court system, that if they live in another county, they might get a different viewpoint and a different result.

Post Separation Abuse INcludes legal maniplulation

Marcie: I’ve also experienced, legal abuse where he keeps going back to court.

Anne: His post separation abuse includes him taking you back to court, even though you’re divorced and even though he has a protective order? Is his protective order still in place?

Marcie: It was made permanent. But in his communication with me previously, he threatened me that he’s going to keep going to court. He has said, this is the only thing you understand. And he’s been in contempt in some ways that have caused me to respond to things worse that have cost me money.

Anne: Yeah, it’s so frustrating that they can wreak so much havoc, and the court system doesn’t stop them. It’s a very difficult situation, and that’s why strategy, I think, is so important. And why I created The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop. Because confronting them or communicating better, or all the things the therapist might tell you.

Or a guardian ad litem might tell you, or reunification therapists will tell you, do not work. So many of you have experienced the trauma of all that. And strategy, we found, is the only thing that can help us stay sane.

Financial Manipulation

Anne: I mean, he’s costing you all this money. Since you were the primary breadwinner, did he actually start working?

Marcie: No.

Anne: So he’s doing legal abuse, how is he paying for his legal stuff?

Marcie: He keeps saying he’s borrowing money, but I know he’s getting it from family members. It’s just his way. He always has people take care of him or pay for him. And it ties into his narrative of how he will describe what’s happening and make me the villain.

Anne: To place him in the victim role.

Marcie: Yes.

Anne: Rather than the perpetrator. You were the primary breadwinner, did he get alimony from you?

Marcie: No.

Anne: Whew, he’s probably mad about that. He lost his meal ticket.

Marcie: He did.

Anne: Yeah, I bet that’s the thing that’s the most anger producing for him.

Marcie: Yeah.

Anne: You’re not good for anything now.

Marcie: I am useless.

Anne: Yeah, you’re completely useless to him. That’s what we want to be, we want to be useless.

Marcie: Yes.

Anne: To these guys. Let’s talk about the smear campaign he started. Smear campaigns are common with post separation abuse. Was this, I guess, during your divorce proceedings?

Smear Campaign

Marcie: Yes, all along, he leaves out small details, sometimes large details. Or sometimes totally represents things differently from how they are to be the victim. And when I originally contacted you, I asked how do you deal with the smear campaign. This is happening with my in-laws, and it was so upsetting to me to feel like I had lost my in-laws. I’m sure many women have felt the same feeling. I’ve known them since I was a teenager.

I feel like they thought of me like a daughter, and the ironic part is they knew how he was. Not to the extent of what I knew, but they knew, and several times his dad said, I’m sorry he’s acting that way. I don’t know why he behaves that way to you sometimes, it doesn’t sound right.

His mom would say similar things, things like, if he keeps treating the children that way, they’re not going to want to talk to him. They knew how he was. He would treat them that same way, but they don’t want to talk to me. My adult children have refused to talk to their father, and they feel like that’s horrible. His post separation abuse includes his lies to everyone about me.

They don’t interact with them. They barely interact with their younger grandchildren anymore. And it’s just sad, but at first it was really, really upsetting. And then I realized, well, if they’re believing him. If they’re going to stand beside him when he’s abusive and believe things that aren’t true. I guess it has to be okay that those people aren’t in my life anymore.

What Is Post Separation Abuse: False Memories & Manipulation

Marcie: Oh, that’s so hard. So, on the phone calls with the kids, he tells them things that aren’t true. Well, gosh, there are so many things that he does to them that I feel are so damaging for them. They’re not small, tiny children, but still. He plants false memories. Do you remember when we did this together, and this together? Or I have the memory of whatever it was, being miserable because he didn’t want to go, or they weren’t behaving,

Like, for instance, my youngest is 12 and my oldest is 31. My ex-husband was really into baseball. He played when he was a kid. None of the kids had done any type of baseball or organized sports. The younger children wanted to, but weren’t able to when we were together. There was always an excuse we’re not going to have time, whatever. But after I left, it was the first time my youngest son was enrolled in Little League, and he loved it.

My ex husband kept saying, remember when we used to go outside and play baseball all the time? I always wanted you to be in sports, but it couldn’t work because of mom’s schedule.

Anne: It’s your mom’s fault that you couldn’t take baseball. Yeah, Um hmm. That’s one example of manipulation being a tactic of post separation abuse. Your ex is using the kids to hurt you.

Marcie: And I think, well, before I would have fallen into that and felt the guilt. But now I think, well, okay, if it was my fault, then how come I did that after I left you? But I couldn’t do it when there were two people in the home?

Impact On Children

Marcie: It was so much harder to do anything. But just the false memories of, we used to go out and play catch all the time, which is not true. A lot of those type of things. The criminal things or the things he did to break the restraining order. There were so many more things, but they don’t address it in the way you’d like. Let’s put it that way.

But I don’t talk to the kids about the court cases or anything like that, because I feel it’s not for them to be concerned about it. I don’t want them to be part of that. But he would tell them incorrect information about what they’re about, leave out all the important things, and tell them that Mom’s doing this because she doesn’t want me to see you. Those types of things damaged my relationship with the children.

Anne: And that’s the point. He’s purposefully doing that to do damage. It damages you and the kids, and that is the intent of post separation abuse, which is so unfortunate.

Marcie: It is very hard. Only two out of six of my children will speak with him. Of the two that do, that’s obviously where it’s the most damaging. I’m having trouble with my 17 year old because he’s trying to be the cool dad. He’s encouraging him to stay out late on school nights, not with friends, but with him, and he’s missed school. And he’s actually not supposed to see him, but that’s another thing. He’s luring them with being able to buy them things.

Anne: Does he have a job now?

Marcie: No, he does not. He gets money from family members, and he claims to be homeless. Yet he purchases things for them.

Processing The Abuse

Marcie: That’s where recording comes in wonderfully, because we do have a court case that he started. He wants custody again. And I think this time I’m including a lot of recordings that I’ve transcribed, which has been helpful.

Anne: It started when you were 14, and has continued this whole time, and everything he’s done has been part of that con. And he continues to do that con. You are experiencing post separation abuse. He lies to your kids, and he lies to everybody else. So the whole thing has been the show. So if you can think of it in that overarching way of, it’s been this show. And then, how do you tell the story within that con? That might help you process it.

Marcie: When you put it in that sense, it is just a continuous con. He’s just reaching and grabbing for different cons that will work. That helps put it in perspective.

Anne: Yeah, because he’s doing the same thing over and over. Even though it’s maybe not the same lie. It’s lying in a different way, but it’s still just lying.

Marcie: Looking back at it, it feels so surreal. Like it feels like it’s not real because it’s so insane. Does that make sense?

Anne: Um hmm, totally.

Marcie: And I feel like people aren’t going to believe me, because how could that be true? How could anyone act like that? Plus, he’s saying something different. So I think I still have a lot of healing to do, which is frustrating.

What Is Post Separation Abuse: We can help you understand

Anne: That’s the purpose of this podcast. It’s a safe place where everybody gets it and believes you. We don’t care what he says or thinks, we know he’s a liar. Here, you’re 100% believed. What is post separation abuse? We know and can help. So because of that, it’s such a safe place to be. Like, I can share my story, and he’s not going to talk back to me.

Marcie: Sometimes when you share your story with people who don’t understand, they back away or it’s just too much.

Anne: With me, I’m like, tell me more. So thank you so much, Marcie.

Marcie: Thank you so much.

FROM CONFUSION TO CLARITY: ANOTHER WOMAN’S STORY OF POST SEPARATION ABUSE

Anne: I’m so excited to have another member of our community on today’s episode. We’re going to call her Mykell. She’s a single mother of three and believes women can discover a life of peace, power and purpose post separation. Even if they’re experiencing post separation abuse. Welcome Mykell.

Mykell: Thank you so much for having me. I’m so glad to talk to you.

Anne: Your story is similar to so many of our stories where you didn’t know that you were being abused. And you figured it out. Can you tell us your story?

Mykell: For me, the story is a slow unfolding one. I met my ex-husband when I was in high school. Anybody who knew us could say that our relationship had been rocky from the start. Me, being 17 years old and not knowing much about myself or relationship dynamics. I just thought, all relationships are hard, and I’m not perfect either.

And gradually over the years and decades, as things unfolded. It became clear that there was a spiritual separation in our relationship. As he continued to make various choices. It got rockier, and the thing that’s confusing in these situations is I’m not a shrinking violet.

So when someone consistently attacks you, sometimes you will stand up for yourself, you’ll fight back. So that’s what kept things confusing for me for a long time. Going round and around and around was this thought that I’m participating in how this relationship is shaping up. As time went on, I started to say, I don’t want to respond this way anymore. I don’t want to live my life like this anymore.

Seeking Help

Mykell: And I started seeking counseling on my own, and in the midst of that, the relationship actually got worse. So in choosing to disengage and better ways of handling my own emotions in the situation. It made it clear that we were on two separate paths. As life continued to go on, there were some choices he made that eventually were deal breakers and broke everything apart.

I started getting language for what I was going through, and started getting clarity. It’s been three years since the marriage ended, but now through the community to connect with other women who are going through the same things. I started that healing process. And get help with post separation abuse.

Anne: What brought you to understand that what you experienced was abuse? This it wasn’t just that marriage is hard work. Overall, you were realizing, wait a minute, these behaviors I’m seeing in him are unhealthy, the healthier you got. But what actually helped you consider abuse?

Recognizing Abuse Patterns

Mykell: I went to a counselor about a totally separate issue. It started to unravel as I explained to her, well, this happened, and then he said this and yada, yada. She said to me, you know, this is abuse, right?

And I thought to myself, really? I don’t know that I fully grabbed onto what she was saying. But I started reading some books, and I started seeing my story in what these experts were writing about.

Mykell: And I thought, how did I ever miss this? We think we’re going to see this thing coming from a mile away, and it’s going to be so obvious that we’re going to know. But so often something feels off, but you probably would not put that word abuse to it. You’d probably say this person has anger issues or this person had trauma in their backstory or …

Anne: They have an addiction.

Mykell: Yep, it’s something that we end up couching underneath this banner of imperfection that we all have. Not realizing that the power dynamics are intentional, that there’s something bigger at play.

https://youtu.be/t-Kt15CpMdY

I said, I didn’t want to be part of that kind of thing anymore. And so that was how the road started to get to being healthy. It became so clear that we had different intentions about the way that was all going to happen.

Anne: Different ways of viewing the relationship. You were viewing it as a partnership, and he’s viewing it as I have power over, essentially. Which continues with post separation abuse. Especially if they’re doing an in-home separation.

Mykell: I hesitate to say relationship. The only way this sort of arrangement continues is when there’s a disparity, and one of the parties is seeing this as a means to an end.

Post Separation Abuse: Power Dynamics In Relationships

Anne: He has some goal is controlling the information. For example, there’s a power differential because they have more information than someone else. Before you ever defined it as abuse, did you define it as a addiction?

Mykell: This was something completely. under the radar for me. I was not even aware of all the things going on. Some behaviors and things unbeknownst to me started to come out in the midst of that process. But there was nothing before. That was like a precursor.




Anne: So you were like, something is wrong, but you couldn’t put your finger on it. And the abuse came first. And then later you realized, Oh, and he’s also using pornography. That’s important to talk about, because so many people don’t include the this when they talk about abuse. And I always want to bring it into the story to say, and there was an issue here. So people know it is part of this mess of unhealthiness.

Mykell: Yeah, and I think the thing we have to recognize with the mess of unhealthiness. There are so many types of abuse when you’re looking at the classification of what’s domestic violence. So often we think that’s only physical. And there’s emotional, there’s sexual, there’s spiritual, financial, so many ways that someone can gain power over another person.

And often it’s not even just one or two. It often covers all these categories, and so because it can be very encompassing, it makes it hard to see.

Anne: Yeah, if it were just he’s absolutely shutting down the bank account and won’t let you have any money. That might be a little more obvious. Especially with post separation abuse.

Challenges of Co-Parenting

Anne: But the little ways he’s financially abusive, or if he said God told me I can beat you up. You’d be like, well, that’s clear it’s spiritual abuse. But it’s unclear if it’s spiritual abuse if he’s kneeling down and praying by you and saying, please help my wife be more godly. Help her understand how to be a better wife, when biblical submission becomes abuse. That doesn’t necessarily feel like spiritual abuse. From your experience, what issues do single mothers commonly encounter when raising children with an abuser? Especially counter parenting.

Now, when I say raising them with an abuser, meaning you’re divorced from them, but they’re still in your life because they’re your child’s parent.

Mykell: Right, one of the difficult things is constantly trying to explain things to your former partner or trying to make decisions with them. As though they can have effective, honest, open communication. So often, it’s just a continued open door for manipulation and control to continue with post separation abuse. It is so essential to understand that it is possible to continue this walk without continually having to hand your life back over to this person.

Anne: Even if you’re expertly skilled at dealing with your ex, and you’ve got great boundaries. And you’re detached and you have all the skills going for you. Your ex can still technically abuse you because you’re being lied to, you’re being manipulated. It’s still not your fault if you don’t “communicate perfectly” with your abuser. He’s abusing you. You can do your best to be as highly skilled as possible in communication with an abuser.

Living Free Workshop

Anne: But it still has nothing to do with you, and it’s not your fault if they still don’t react well to whatever you try. I struggled with post-separation abuse for eight years after divorce.

Until I found the strategies that really, really worked, and was able to completely.deliver myself and my kids. I put those strategies in The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop.

It saved me, it absolutely saved me. I mentored five different women to ensure that these strategies worked. And those women’s actual real life messages are in that workshop.

Mykell: Yep, having specific tactics is great, and also having a certain mindset. So if this person has lied to you, manipulated you, you can expect that’s still happening.

Post Separation Abuse: Use Our Family Wizard

Mykell: What you do in your communication is limit the opportunities for that to occur. I’m not going to get into the emotions or reason, or I don’t like that you did that. Not having to get too deep into the weeds. When you’re getting stuff hurled at you, absolutely have those safe people you’re like, I can’t believe this happened. They can help you work through the frustration, disappointment and hurt that is necessary.

It makes it easy to say, okay, I’m only gonna show what needs to be forward facing to this person. In terms of the logistic side of this. But when it comes to all my emotional stuff, I’ve got safe people, and I know where to get the support I need.

Depending on your situation, it may cause things to get a little riled up. For a while, they want to see if they can get a reaction from you. But over time, if you’re consistent and don’t offer reactions, and we’re not trying to be friends. Then it can get to a workable place in many instances.

Anne: So for a long time on the podcast, I touted no contact, which I did through my father, and that worked, and I was like, everybody should do this. But then I had a custody case that I lost. In the process, I needed to switch to Our Family Wizard, rather than go through my dad, so that I could communicate directly with him, which I do now.

I still have blocked him on my phone, blocked him on email. And I only communicate with him through Our Family Wizard. I never communicate with him in any other way. It needs to be taken seriously for all women dealing with an abusive ex-husband.

Manipulated Parenting

Anne: Many people have this idea in their heads. One of the manipulative things he told me was, I dream of a day where we can sit on a park bench and watch our kids play and get along. He said that to me to manipulate me into communicating with him. And I’m like, that’s never going to happen. Let’s talk about that idea, the concept of co-parenting when it comes to post separation abuse. Can you co parent with an abuser?

Mykell: The word co-parenting suggests you have two people who are parenting together. We have to recognize that in some divorce cases, people can maintain an amicable relationship. In which the children are not being used as power weapons. The relationship dynamic is not this push-pull. These two people are going on with the best interests of the kids.

Because if this person is not going to put the kid’s best interest first, and is not going to play by the rules. If you can’t establish any rules without them being manipulated. Then you know that you are parenting on your own, and this person is parenting on their own.

Anne: I wouldn’t even call it parenting. It’s like you’re parenting on your own, and this other person is like actively trying to cause problems, which is not what I would call parenting.

Mykell: It’s difficult, because we want so much to have influence over what is happening in that household, and we’re just not able to. That is the part that gets really hard, it gets heavy, it’s disconcerting, it’s scary. When you’re in that kind of situation while your kids are with you, that you are present with them.

Being Your Kid’s Safe Place

Mykell: If you can bring wonderful, healthy people into their lives to do outings with them, and I’m not saying you have to be super mom. I’m not saying you have to throw these elaborate birthday parties. This is about being your kid’s safe place. So if there are unsafe things happening when they’re away from you, and this is something we would want. Whether that unsafe stuff was happening at a parent’s house or in school.

They know Mom is safe, that when I bring her my problem, she will listen and comfort me. Maybe offer some support or solutions. Learning how to do that when you yourself are underwater is hard. The investments that you put into yourself as far as your own healing and support groups will pass on to your kids. If you’re like, that sounds overwhelming. That’s a lot of things.

Even focusing on getting stable, healthy, and strong yourself, you’ll know what conversations you should bring up. You’ll know when your child says, I don’t like that, the other parents doing X, Y, or Z. They can come to you and offer them real compassion. For every little thing that happens, we worry so much that, this is not going the way I wanted. And this is going to be their doom. God is so much bigger than all the things that we’re going through with post separation abuse.

If we look at this from a long range perspective, I want to be that safe place for my kids and do the best I can to be there for them. When they start to feel the friction, and start to feel like something is wrong. They know they have an option, and whether they choose it, that’s also out of our control.

Post Separation Abuse: Use Parallel Parenting

Mykell: There are so many parts of life in general, and this is one of them, outside our control. We do our best to create a safe and solid place, beginning with our own health.

Anne: So the short answer is no. You cannot co-parent with an abuser. Parallel parenting is the way to go. You just worry about what’s going on when you’re the parent and do the best you can. And then the things he’s doing, you could confront him about it, but we all know where that goes. Speaking of parallel parenting with post separation abuse, can you talk about that for a minute?

Mykell: This goes back to trying to manage the feelings. Let’s say there’s a divorce decree, and let’s say dad is supposed to take the kids on this night and this night. It’s a fine balance here when they perhaps would say something like, oh, well, I can’t take them that night. I’ll take them this one or, oh, sorry. I had to do this, and I can’t come get them tonight. We want to say, well, this is what the paper says, this is what the agreement is.

Sometimes we might get so caught in those very specific rules. Hey no, you should want to take your kids, or you should want to be with them, or you should be coming to their things. We’re re-engaging, and it’s an open door for a discussion or argument. Their choices are their own choices. And so if the child’s not being picked up and hurts their feelings. The fix is not necessarily to say, I need to figure out a way to get him to pick our child up.

Managing Expectations

Mykell: This is a way for the child to understand his choices. Sometimes it’s hurtful to have to walk our kids through that. We can’t cover up or try to get them to do what they’re supposed to do, or make excuses. In this instance, the sugar coating is more harmful, they’re not able to discern the truth. That’s the biggest thing: always give kids as much age appropriate truth as they can digest. And that’s where learning how to offer support is so important, because it is truth, with love.

It’s truth saying. I know this is hurtful, and I’m sorry this is happening. We’re not going to be able to fix it. If we want our kids to understand where that road to healing can come from, if we’re truthful with them all along the way. How we empower our kids by giving them truth, rather than trying to sweep it under the rug, fix it, or cover it up.

Anne: Or manage an abuser’s relationship with his children.

Mykell: Yeah, I love that word “management.” It’s such a perfect word. You can’t go in there and manage everything with post separation abuse. Sometimes the best thing you can do is simply allow that thing to play itself out. And as much as we would not want to see our kids hurt, as much as we would not want them to suffer anymore. It is a greater disservice if you are whitewashing the whole thing. Making it look like it’s not, because then eventually the truth does come out.

And then they will be frustrated with you for not being truthful with them. It can cause them to feel alienated. It can cause them to feel that you’re not safe.

Empowering Children

Mykell: That’s the biggest thing that we can offer our kids in these situations with post separation abuse, is that safe place.

Anne: Yeah, that drives me crazy when someone does something clearly not a good thing that a parent would do. And a neighbor or some “helpful” bystander will say, well, of course he loves you. He’s just busy. Or of course he cares about you. He just, and I’m like, no, no, no you’re not his top priority, not that I would necessarily say that, but let that play out. And never tell your kid, of course, he loves you when you’re like, he’s incapable of loving anyone.

Mykell: And the thing that ends up happening if you do that is you’re essentially gaslighting your kid. You’re causing them to question their own reality when you call it something else.

Anne: Because they don’t feel loved, for good reason, because their dad is selfish or incapable of loving them. So in that way, what are your thoughts about raising a child in ways that prevent them from being manipulated or deceived? How can we help our kids recognize the truth with post separation abuse?

Mykell: This is something built up over time. You’re not going to have a one-time conversation with your child about the things they’re going through. Or, hey, watch out for this, and then that’s it. If you’re having ongoing conversations with them, this can even be manipulation at school with bullies. Recognizing, how did you feel when that person treated you that way?

Practicing with them what it is to identify feelings gives them the ability to process, watch and give context.

Post Separation Abuse: Equiping Children

Mykell: As they get older, they start to look at inconsistencies, recognize them, and try to make sense of them. If they do bring you a concern, that validation of what they see or feel is so good. You can do that in a way that is not making the thing personal, it’s not bashing, it’s simply saying you see a behavior and it makes you feel uncomfortable. That is normal. As they start to have those conversations with you, they can trust you.

That instinct, or that move of the Holy Spirit, the inner voice that says, something feels unsafe and uncomfortable here. What often happens, I think, in manipulative dynamics. There is some sort of off moment, some red flag, something that is seen and not acted upon, or it’s explained away.

So one of the best things we can do for our kids in post separation abuse situations is equip them. When they see something strange or bad, inconsistent or manipulative. That we can put that right word to it and say, yeah, that is confusing. It makes sense that you’d be confused in that situation. This is where, in parallel parenting, you’re not able to control what happens over at that other house.

But you can send your kids into any environment with an understanding of what to do if they feel uncomfortable. That may look different depending on whether they have devices, whether they can drive. But it’s teaching them what are those healthy ways to address these situations. Because very often they’re not going to feel they can stand up and say something, and they may feel even in the moment, like they can’t even go anywhere.

Helping Children With Safety

Mykell: It’s letting them know. Hey, if you feel something’s funny, write it down. Or if you need to text me or you need a FaceTime or you need to leave the room and go to your bedroom. Whatever it is you devise with your child, to let them know some way to get to safety. If they’re in a dangerous situation, we want to make sure they understand how to get hold of safe adults or support authorities.

Anne: Yeah, for good little kids, I liked the book, Say No, and Tell. There’s a girl version and a boy version. It’s generally about sexual abuse, but it gives many examples: this is safe, this is unsafe, this is safe, this is unsafe. Even just using books like that to start conversations about it.

My kids now tell me all the time when they feel safe or unsafe, or when they feel uncomfortable. My little six year old is so good at saying, mom, I’m uncomfortable. This makes me feel uncomfortable, and I’m grateful.

Mykell: That’s so good. Just saying uncomfortable is great. Sometimes they can’t figure out what the feeling is, or even like the word overwhelmed. Like there’s a lot of feelings. I don’t know what they all are. Saying if you don’t know what all those are right now, that’s okay. All you know is your body’s giving you an alert that you can honor that alert system. And that you can get to safety.

Anne: One of the things that victims feel, Sheroes who have pulled themselves out of the depths of abuse. They make their way to safety, and don’t feel confident. Because a lifetime of abuse or years of abuse or continued post separation abuse has really messed with our brains.

Building Confidence As A Mom

Anne: This can be true when dating when an ex has covert narcissist traits. And our psychology, and the amount of doubt we have in ourselves from emotional and psychological abuse, is pretty extreme. We’re learning to trust ourselves again. We’re learning to trust our intuition again. There are so many things that as a victim of abuse, you’re learning to do either again or for the first time. So in what ways can moms be confident in raising their kids, even in a less than ideal situation?

Mykell: Yeah, I love that you pointed to the fact that there’s a lot of doubt that every mom experiences. And then with abuse and post separation abuse, there’s this added layer on top of it. And it’s the inability to discern sometimes what is even going on. Sometimes it’s a paralysis of not knowing what to do. Giving yourself grace to know that’s the boat you’re in right now.

Just because you’re there right now. It doesn’t mean you’re always going to feel that way, or that if you do feel that way, you’re always going to feel powerless about it. You’re not doing this all by yourself. For me, figuring out how to raise my kids with this different life, this life I didn’t intend for us. Wonderful people dropped into my life that had walked the road before me that could show me. What this thing was supposed to look like.

And it didn’t mean everything was going to be exactly cookie cutter. Sometimes it’s moms sharing the things they’re going through in Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group. Sharing their legal troubles or discipline issues. In support groups, you realize, I am not alone. I’m not the only one who feels like this.

Post Separation Abuse: Confidence Starts With Validation

Mykell: I’m not the only one whose kid is doing this or whose ex is doing that. So much confidence starts when your experience is validated and you’re being heard. And you see that many people are going through similar things. And when there are so many ideas around things you could do or avenues you could take. That I think is so empowering to say there’s actually more than one way to walk through this. Though I may not get it perfectly, we’re all in this together.

When you’re coming out of this kind of situation, you feel isolated, and sometimes you’ve been isolated. So self isolating is a normal thing. And forcing yourself back out and learning how to trust people can be hard. I’m so thankful that we’re in this digital age where these virtual groups are possible, a community. So when you think about what is the practical step, how do I start to do this?

Working through your own healing journey is a big part of that. And God brings the ultimate transformation for us as we walk through these things with him. But one of the practical ways we experience is with other wonderful, safe people around us.

Anne: We’ve seen that a lot at Betrayal Trauma Recovery and Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group. It’s awesome, because there’s no right way to do it. There are principles. Using boundaries to detach and keep safe, self care, a network of support. Anyone who’s worth their salt in recovering from abuse or post separation abuse will tell you those things. Those are important tools, but sometimes implementing it is hard, and how you’re going to implement it in your own life is hard.

Group Meetings Are Important For Recovery

Anne: Being part of a group and hearing how other women do it, or hearing other women and realizing, that doesn’t sound like it’s working. You don’t have to say that out loud, but at least you can hear it and think, okay, I don’t want to try that. It’s cool to share what’s happening with you and hear what’s happening with other people. Then the freedom to choose what you want to do. At Betrayal Trauma Recovery, we don’t recommend any particular life decisions.

We put safety as the top priority, emotional, psychological, and physical. How you do that is up to you. I think women need the support of a community without the dogma of the community. Does that make sense?

Mykell: Yeah, the thing that is so critical about what you’re saying is the style points. She did it this way, and that doesn’t fit my personality, but she did it this way. There’s so much in recovery that is about finding your own voice and making choices for yourself. And so many of these things, like you said, boundaries is a perfect example. Boundaries were so hard for me. I didn’t realize I didn’t have any. Or I didn’t realize that mine were so porous.

And I would look at other women and be like, oh, no, that’s so abrupt. I don’t like the way they’re doing that. In the midst of getting to know different people, though, it was like, oh, that style works for me. It’s rediscovering, and I actually don’t like to say rediscovering, because I don’t know if we ever knew ourselves. Sometimes with these things, it’s discovering who you are, what your unique voice is, and how you can assert yourself in these instances of abuse and post separation abuse.

Christian Perspectives On Abuse

Mykell: It’s empowering. I’m feeling juiced up as I say this, to start to recognize how much agency you have. That’s what makes many of these tactics come to life. When you start to figure out your own voice.

Anne: At Betrayal Trauma Recovery, we’re interfaith, inter paradigm. We have atheists who listen, we have agnostics, and all denominations of Christianity, Jewish women, everyone is welcome here. Talk about some of the Christian myths or unhealthy cultural ideas in Christianity that harm women and keep them stuck in abuse.

Mykell: One of the things we have to separate out, and this is not just when it comes to abuse or post separation abuse. There are so many areas. Not always do people reflect the heart of God perfectly. People, whether intentionally or unintentionally, can hurt each other with the banner of the gospel to justify their choices or behaviors. And recognize that there are some things that maybe a woman’s been told.

Maybe she’s witnessed, maybe she’s experienced, maybe she’s been raised up in systems, all these kinds of things that don’t necessarily reflect the heart of God. So often there is this sense that whether it’s the husband or ex-husband who’s the abuser. Often women receive advice, and it’s well meaning in abuse or post separation abuse. But sometimes the advice is, you be the best you can be, and this person will change.

Biblically, the word says God hates abuse. He hates it. In Proverbs 6, you can read through there. It says there are seven things God hates, and it lists off lying lips and hands that shed blood, and all these things. That if you look at them, they are the behaviors of an abuser.

Anne: Adultery, lust.

Post Separation Abuse: Biblical Teachings On Abuse

Mykell: There’s a passage, and I’m going to mess it up right now because it’s not sitting in front of me, but I believe it’s in 2nd Timothy 1. Paul says to Timothy, in the last days, people will be lovers of self. They’re going to be abusive. They’re going to look like they have godliness, that they’re going to portray godliness, but be totally lacking its power. And that we should avoid such people.

Those are pretty clear statements to say that you need to get away from somebody who’s abusive, someone who is using spiritual means to manipulate other people.

And Paul thought it was so obvious and so dangerous that he thought to write to Timothy about it. And so we should take that same warning. With a community of believers, there’s vulnerability, and with that comes manipulation from people who would use it for selfish gain.

So the intention in our communities should be to offer safety and vulnerability, and to ensure that we are clear about rooting out what would take advantage of that. That’s not always the message that people receive that are in abusive type of circumstances.

Anne: In the church, when you talk about evil, or you talk about wolves in sheep’s clothing. You’re thinking about it as someone outside the church who’s trying to lure you away from the church. Or trying to influence you to not live the commandments. And it’s so infrequent that anyone addresses evil in the church. Or in your own home.

Recognizing Evil

Mykell: Yeah, and the Bible says Satan will masquerade as an angel of light. We need to recognize that. Yes, can there be people from the outside trying to come in and infiltrate the inside? 100%, but do they also exist on the inside? Also, yes, 100%.

Anne: Right, and it might be in your own home.

Mykell: Mm hmm, that’s right. We have to recognize, and Jesus goes through the steps in Matthew 18. We are called to see it, call it what it is, and we’re called to move ourselves away from that and get to safety. That is a biblical way of handling an abusive situation. Your life is precious to God, and all that is designed to keep you very much fixed in the center of his love and protection for you.

There’s only so much you can do to walk with somebody when they are resistant. They don’t want to see the truth, that we’re called to move ourselves away from that, so that they can walk in their own path. God desires safety for his people, does desire them to flourish. He desires each woman in this instance to become the woman he had designed her to be, and not sacrifice that for the sake of a person who is not willing to turn their lives over.

Anne: They’re essentially sacrificing it to evil almost. And women think of it as sacrificing themselves to something better, because they’re trying to protect their families. But the reality is they’re not sacrificing themselves to something better. They’re sacrificing themselves to abuse, which is not the better way.

Calling Out & Separating From Wickedness

Mykell: Calling it evil is so important. If the Bible says God hates it, we should hate it. If it says it’s evil, we should call it evil. It’s not a bad behavior. bad manners, or short temper. It’s evil. All of these things are considered abuse.

Anne: The scriptures don’t say abuser, the scriptures use the word wicked. I’m loving that word.

Mykell: Right, in Proverbs often you’ll see the word wicked, mocker, sometimes fool. Proverbs uses a handful of different words to describe people who do these things. But in all these instances, it says to get away. It says if you rebuke a mocker, they’re going to abuse you. So that says you’re not going to have a reasonable conversation with this person. Sometimes your separation, your distance, your movement away from this person is the communication.

It’s certainly meant for you to gain some distance and safety, because it’s much more likely they’re going to influence you than you’re going to influence them.

Anne: We suffer from betrayal trauma, which changes the way we think, changes our brains, changes our chemistry in our bodies. So many women suffer from health problems and depression. It’s a serious issue. Thank you so much for coming on today’s episode.

Most women would probably not describe their husband as misogynistic. But some examples of misogyny are so subtle, you may be surprised to realize your husband is doing them.

3 EXAMPLES OF MISOGYNY

1. HE NEEDS A LIST FOR EVERY HOUSEHOLD CHORE

Your husband might say he is happy to help around the house, but only if you tell him exactly what to do. He might expect you to write detailed lists, remind him to finish chores, or walk him through basic childcare tasks. By waiting for your directions before lifting a finger, or leaving things unfinished, he forces you to carry the entire mental load of running your home and maintaining your relationship.

When your husband doesn’t help with the housework it shifts those responsibilities completely onto your shoulders, because of misogyny, leaving you feeling more like his personal assistant or his mother than his equal partner.

2. HE CHOOSES INAPPROPRIATE MATERIAL OVER TRUE INTIMACY

Many women might not even know this is happening. He might hide his misogyny. What a woman might notice is that her husband doesn’t seem truly interested in her. He might ignore her by spending long hours in his office or on hobbies, until he needs something from her. He may give excuses like, “I have a ton of work to do. You go to bed. I’ll come when I’m done” or “I’m stressed and I need to go cool off,” while he secretly uses that time to pursue fantasy over his real-life marriage.

This behavior undermines the emotional and physical intimacy that is foundational to a healthy marriage, leaving you feeling isolated, unwanted, and unloved.

3. HE APPLIES DIFFERENT STANDARDS TO YOU THAN TO HIMSELF BECAUSE OF MISOGYNY

Misogyny often shows up when your husband holds you to different standards than he does for himself. For example: he might criticize you for buying clothes or something for your home, while he spends freely on his personal hobbies, or he expects you to keep a tidy house while leaving his belongings scattered in every room.

This double standard often extends to shared finances. He may hide money, refuse access to bank statements, or pat you on the head with phrases like, “I’ll take care of the finances, you don’t need to worry about it.”

This behavior strips you of your voice and agency, leaving you in the vulnerable position of not having access to betrayal trauma resources you need to live in emotional safety.

To find out if your husband is using any one of the 19 different types of emotional abuse, take my free emotional abuse test.

For strategies to deal with this type of abuse and establish peace in your home, enroll in The BTR.ORG Living Free Workshop.

Key takeaways from the interview:

Recognizing Patterns of Misogyny in Relationships

How Misogyny Interferes with Truth and Healing in Therapy

When Your Husband Uses the Truth to Lie

The Connection Between Misogyny and Inappropriate Media

TRANSCRIPT: FINDING SUPPORT AND NAMING THE REALITY OF EXAMPLES OF MISOGYNY

Anne: Welcome Virginia.

Virginia: Thank You for everything you do. I would be lost without BTR. You have seriously brought me back to life.

Anne: Oh, I’m so glad to hear that. How did you find out about BTR and betrayal trauma in marriage?

Virginia: It was the oddest thing. Something came up on YouTube that showed BTR.ORG. I tell you fate, whatever you wanna call it, I checked it out and that’s how I found BTR.

When I started attending the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions. The first session, I couldn’t believe in a sense of relief that, oh, I’m not the only person living in this world. And not that it’s relieving to know that other women suffer in this manner.

You feel like you’re on your own planet. And you don’t know what to do. Hearing the other women’s stories in what they’ve been through is just heartbreaking. But the ability to share and validate each other is amazing. And the coaches listen so well. The feedback they give is invaluable. They’re on top of it and they remember everything. I don’t know how they do it. I’m not on very often. I know other people are on much more often than I am. But I’m telling you, this is a lifesaver. It really is. I don’t know what else to say. I can’t say enough about it.

Anne: I am so grateful. It’s helpful. I think our coaches are incredible. Our whole team is incredible. I think one of the reasons we’re incredible is because we’ve all been through it with misogyny, so we understand it on such a visceral level. And then we have really great training and we know what we’re talking about.

UNDERSTANDING WHAT EXAMPLES OF MISOGYNY ARE IN MARRIAGE

Anne: I’m really happy that it was helpful to you. Let’s start with your story and the misogyny you endured.

Virginia: So I married my Chuck in 2002. I married once before for seven years. I have two children from that first marriage. It occurred to me after realizing what was going on in this current marriage. That I was also experiencing more physical abuse and sexual abuse in the first marriage.

So this has been an eye opening experience. The entire beginning of our marriage, he made me feel unattractive. That he did not want to be intimate. He was tired, too busy, and worked so hard and all this. And I would think to myself, that doesn’t seem to add up to me, and I couldn’t quite understand.

But as a woman, you take it out on yourself and think, what am I doing wrong? What am I not doing right? Am I not pretty enough? I had discovered so many things, pornographic materials, books, cross-dressing clothes in his car. Magazines everywhere. And I confronted him on this. Because here I am, newly married, with two small children of eight and six years old. My thought was, I can’t put them through this again. I can’t have another divorce, it will devastate them.

And I knew at the time that it was wrong. He told me he was going to get help and take care of this. He brushed away a lot of it as nothing. I was just in shock and trusted him.

FINDING INAPPROPRIATE MATERIAL – MY HUSBAND BLAMED IT ON OUR SON

Virginia: Fast forward a little bit. My son was about 10 and the basement was not finished at the time. I had it set up so the kids could play. And there was a little TV down here for them. Well, I found pornographic videos tucked into the couch and behind the couch. I went to my husband and said, “You’ve gotta be kidding with me right now. The kids play down there. You can’t do this. This is unacceptable.”

And his answer was, ” Oh, it must be our son’s, he must be looking at the videos.”

Anne: It’s just so offensive to me that they don’t even care about kids. They’ll exploit and use children. There’s no excuse for the misogyny.

Virginia: Right . then three or four years later, I had upstairs in the kitchen, a computer. Because I want them to do their homework in there.

This one night they went to bed. I was going to play solitaire and I find porn. So I called him out into the kitchen and again he swore, “I will get help. I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that.” And went to therapy and all of this.

So here we are. He’s been going to a 12-Step program for all this time. It’s been 20 years. This is an interesting thing, and I find common through conversations that I’ve heard through the other women. You know something is wrong, and I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was wrong.

DISCOVERING THAT HE’S HIDING MONEY

Virginia: The first thing I found was the money. He was hiding money all throughout the house in books, you name it, thousands of dollars hidden. I didn’t tell him I knew that there was money hidden everywhere. He figured out that I found it, because all of a sudden the money was all moved out of the hidden places. I still, till this day, have no idea where all that money went. This is evidence of misogyny.

He said, “We spent it”.

I said, “No, we didn’t.”

Then we started to redo the basement. I cleaned out the basement, and found every single one of those magazines. He supposedly threw away 20 years ago. I was furious and didn’t say anything.

I packaged every single one of them up in trash bags. And I put them in the back of my car with a bunch of other boxes that I had cleaned out. And when I dropped off the donations, I was going to bring the trash bags with the magazines to the dump. He emptied all of those bags out of my car, every bag. And I never told them I found them. I didn’t say a single word.

And I found them in the garage. I took them, and again, I didn’t say anything. I brought them out to the fire pit, and God forgive me, I burnt every single one of them because I was so mad. And two weeks later, he went out to the fire pit, and he came and he said, ” Hey, do you wanna help me clean up that mess out in the fire pit that you made?” And I said, “No, I really don’t.”








EXAMPLES OF MISOGYNY – LOSING MY INDEPENDENCE

Anne: Was he calm when he said it?

Virginia: He’s always calm.

Anne: That’s so scary. It’s like that chilling kind of calm, right? It’s like terrifying.

Virginia: This has been a really difficult situation, because I was supposed to have retired. I am retired, but now I have no independence. And I’m trying feverishly to find a job, so I’m relying on him to pay the bills. I bought this house as a single mother with two small children. And I put his name on it when we married. So now, I’m in a difficult position, so I am here with him in the home with no choice right now, but to stick around until I can find another job.

Anne: Until you can figure it out and realize the effects of misogyny.. I am so sorry.

Virginia: It is so hard, yeah.

Anne: I was gonna ask, before you found the money or the pornography, he was going to 12 Step ?

Virginia: He would go every week. He wouldn’t discuss his sobriety, but it was SLAA , Sex, Love, Addiction Anonymous. It’s based off the same 12-Step that AA is based off of. Nobody knew he was going except for me. So in a conversation that we would have privately, his response would be, “Well, I know I go to a 12-Step program every week. I don’t know about them.” He would lord it over people.

EXAMPLES OF MISOGYNY – MY HUSBAND THINKS HE’S THE VICTIM

Virginia: And by the way, I am also very well educated and have had a fantastic job, and have made the same if not more money than he at times. Someone could take your self-esteem and twist it like that, and make you feel so bad about yourself.

Because they’re doing something wrong, and so they’re just sort of taking it out on you. I couldn’t understand. And I’ll be honest with you, I still cannot understand that this person can still continue to lie and do these things after all of these years and look me in the face and say, “I didn’t do that. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

They asked him to leave. I actually paid for him to live in Airbnbs for a few months. Through this, he’s been going to see a therapist, but he’s clearly not telling the truth. What I’m getting is he’s feeling sorry for himself. He’s the victim. He’s the one that’s doing all the work, and he’s trying to make himself better. He left until this last Saturday. And I found more pornography links on his Facebook site, more chat rooms. So all this time we are going through this, and he’s swearing, “I’m doing the very best I can.”

And he’s still doing the same things. I found out that it’s worse than I thought it was. So I’m living in a house with this man, who I really have no idea who he is. Because he cannot tell the truth. he’s trying to make me feel bad. And he’s using my son in the whole process.

Anne: I am so sorry. That sounds like a nightmare.

WHEN THERAPistS ARE FOOLED BY HIS LIES

Anne: Before you understood what was happening, did you guys ever go to couple therapy for help?

Virginia: I asked him years ago to go to therapy, because I felt he was depressed. His mood swings were so significant.

It’s this heavy negative presence. Unnecessary anger, taking things out on people you don’t need to be taking things out on. The entitlement of misogyny. He would come in a room, and you could just feel the negativity coming off of him. He did go to see a therapist. I also went to a therapist. At one point, we met together. But it wasn’t working. The therapist recognized that, which I thank God for. I’d been going to therapy, a specialist, to work with somebody that is addicted to pornography, but also childhood trauma. I did not feel his therapy was working.

I asked if I could be invited into one of the sessions. Because I wanted to give her the information that not only is he continuing to do what he was doing, but it’s worse than ever. Her response to me on that was, ” He’s telling a very different story from what you’re telling. And I’ve been doing this for a very long time. It’s very difficult for people to fool me.” And then she said, “Would you like him to get rid of his Facebook page? It seems like you have trust issues.” And I don’t mean to laugh, but I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW IF A LIAR IS TRUTHFUL, WATCH THEIR ACTIONS

Virginia: She said to him, ” Would you be willing to get rid of your Facebook page?”

He’s crying, and he, says, “Yes.”

And she said, “Would that make you feel better?”

I said, “This is not my call. I’m not here to be his mom or his parent. or for couple therapy. I’m here to give you the information. It’s in black and white. I have photos of what I found.” So just as I’ve heard you talk about, and I’ve heard in group sessions. “This person is now lying to you, and you’re telling me that you believe what that person is saying.”

And I also said to her, ” I’ve been married to him for almost 24 years. I know what is true and what is not true.”

Anne: It’s crazy to me that a therapist would say, “I’ve been doing this a long time. I know how to tell the truth.” When they have no other way of verifying the truth other than what he’s saying. She just thinks she’s a walking lie detector test or something. You don’t realize with a liar that in order to know the truth, you have to not talk to them, because talking is how they lie.

So if you wanna know if a liar is telling the truth or not you have to watch their actions. And how they use misogyny to excuse themselves.

THEY DON’T RECOGNIZE THAT TALKING IS HOW THESE GUYS LIE

Anne: So any therapist who purports to work with liars, AKA sex addicts, and says to you, “I’ve been doing this a long time, I know when they’re telling the truth.” I’m like, did you hire a private investigator? Are you following them around all the time? How would you know that they’re telling the truth? You’re talking about a master manipulator. It’s crazy to me that they don’t recognize that talking is how these guys lie.

Virginia: It makes perfect sense. At the beginning, I had been waiting for him to have an epiphany and say, I’m sorry, I lied. He continues to deny the fact that he blamed my son. He doesn’t remember blaming him on two separate occasions. You don’t remember? Boy, it seared in my brain pretty hard that was an accusation you made towards my son at the age of 10 years old, and the age of 13 years old. Also does not remember how the magazines got back downstairs, cannot recall how that happened. There’s no recollection at all.

That’s quite convenient if you ask me. And the therapist’s response is, “When people suffer childhood trauma, sometimes they tend to forget or they block things out.”

Anne: Something not related to their childhood trauma. That’s not logical. Yeah, a childhood trauma, maybe they forget things related to their childhood trauma. But you’re saying somebody with childhood trauma forgets what they said to someone yesterday? What? The two are not even related in the least.

Virginia: Exactly.

THEY JUST DON’T STOP MANIPULATING

Virginia: So it’s been quite a frustrating journey, and I don’t even have words. For me, the worst part of it is that I had confided in my son and told him we were separated and shared with him. My son is very much like me, very inquisitive. He wants to know, And he wants to know to the point where he wants every detail.

He’s 31 years old, but I don’t care. He does not need to know significant details. I gave him enough information, and he made the decision that this must be my fault, meaning me. That I must have pushed him too far. And I thought to myself, he’s always been unkind to my son, and it’s been a bone of contention. I’ve always tried to make a bond between the two of them to build a relationship. And he refused to do so.

All of a sudden now he said, ” My father got in touch. To say he was taking me out for dinner.” And he’s asking our son to join us. I thought after 20, however many years, that I’ve been asking you to build a relationship with child, now man, all of a sudden now you’re going to go out and have dinner with him. So I did speak up last night and I said to him, I don’t think that’s appropriate. You need to leave him out of this.

In my opinion, in my experience, they don’t stop. They’re such good manipulators, they just don’t stop manipulating. And that I think is a hard road for most people to navigate.

EXAMPLES OF MISOGYNY – THEY USE THE TRUTH TO LIE

Virginia: Epecially when you’ve trusted that person for so very long, or even for the shortest period of time when you love somebody and they betrayed you. The betrayal is beyond comprehension.

Anne: Yeah, it is. At least for me, when I realized that everything that came out of his mouth was a lie, a switch flipped for me. And then I couldn’t believe anything he said. Even things that may be true that he said. He even uses the truth to lie. So if he’s telling the truth, that’s fine, but that doesn’t mean he’s being honest.

It’s really hard to flip that switch, because there’s gaps. Why would a really good guy get mad over milk? Our brains automatically fill that gap with what we “know”. And what we “know” is that he’s a good guy. So of course, we’ll fill that gap in with, “Oh, he had a bad day,” or “He’s stressed out, or He’s tired ’cause he didn’t get enough sleep. So one thing that I wanna encourage women to do who are listening is just leave that gap blank instead of trying to think of a reason why. The reason why is often how they manipulate us, because we’re naturally going to look for reasons.

Virginia: Correct, yeah, I agree. And I’ve seen that over and over again. Even to the point of he does not necessarily get angry. It gets very passive aggressive and will say things and then you follow up and say, Did you just say what I think you said?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t say What kind of a man would I be if I would ever say something like that.”

THE SIGNS HAVE BEEN THERE ALL ALONG

Virginia: The signs of misogyny have been there all along. Constantly working, managing the house, taking care of the kids, doing all of that and finally I retire. I could not believe what I was finding.

Anne: As we wrap up, is there anything that you’d like to share with listeners? Somebody who’s new.

Virginia: When I first started listening to your Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast. It just hit me. And I really thought, thank God. It gave me courage. I’m actually getting goosebumps, a little emotional. And then I went on and joined into the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions. This is so important for women going through this type of situation. It is real. It is so important for your mental health.

If you are in a situation like this. Please listen and join, because it is significant emotional abuse. And the cruelest thing about it is to try to prove it because nine times out of 10, I keep hearing. But he was such a great guy. How could that be? This truly is emotional abuse. Listen, take care and be part of the community.

WOMEN MAKE SO MUCH PROGRESS

Anne: Thank you so much for taking the time to share your story. If you are interested in coming back on to share with me how you’re doing in six months to a year since he’s still in the home. And you’re still in the middle of this. I would love to hear the rest of the story. Especially when women are getting services here, women make so much progress.

I love to have women come back on and hear them sound more confident and more sure of themselves, because they aren’t liviing with misogyny. And you sound sure of yourself now, like you sound amazing now.

Virginia: Thank you. Thank you for hearing my story. I appreciate it.

Anne: Yeah, thank you so much.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MISOGYNY AND D-DAY STORIES

Anne: Now you’re going to hear a recording that Corrie sent in about an example of misogyny that so many women in our community experience. It’s frequently called D-Day for Discovery Day. It could also stand for Destruction Day. That’s the day women discover something awful about their husband, and it’s seared in everyone’s memory. Women who’ve gone through it often divide their life between what happened before this day and what happened after.

This level of betrayal and deception is rooted in a profound sense of entitlement. So if your husband completely disregards your need for emotional safety, and he’s fine with lying to you, he’s basically deciding your pain and trauma and the negative consequences to you are really not that big of deal compared to what he wants.

Over the years, I’ve heard hundreds, maybe thousands of D-Day stories. I personally experienced three D-Days, and you can read all about those experiences in my book, which will come out soon. To get on the mailing list for when that comes out, go to any page on my website and scroll all the way down and put your email into our community.

If you’re listening, I want you to think about if you’ve had a D-Day or how many D-Day you’ve had and know that you’re not alone.

There’s a whole community of women who totally understand what you’re going through. So here’s Corrie’s story.

CORRIE’S D-DAY STORY

Corrie: I just wanted to share about my D-Day, mostly because today is the three year anniversary. It was a Sunday, I had been at church, and that particular day, they had a special visitor come from the Church’s Addiction Recovery Program, specifically on pornography addiction recovery. They came and just kind of talked to the women and men of my congregation about the Addiction Recovery Program

I only was able to hear a little bit of it. Since I was in and out with the baby, but I was just thinking at the time, wow, I’m so grateful I don’t have to deal with that. So we went home after church, and we got the baby and my older daughter down for a nap. And I talked to my husband, and I said something like,” I’m really glad that you don’t have that problem. So we don’t have to deal with it.”

And he got this look on his face, just this like, green, almost sick look. And I said, am I right? We don’t have to deal with that, right? I thought it wasn’t even an issue. Before we got married, I asked him about it. But, he hadn’t been truthful. He was living a lie. It was three days before our three year wedding anniversary, which really pissed me off. Because I was looking forward to our anniversary. I can’t even remember right now what we had planned, but it just changed the whole thing, and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to do.

LOOKING BACK ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF D-DAY

Corrie: After that, I just froze. I couldn’t trust my husband anymore. That trust was completely shattered, and I didn’t know where to go from there.

I am one who has struggled with emotions, dealing with, sharing with, just feeling emotions. I grew up in a home where, especially negative emotions were not okay. We don’t talk about real things, like negative emotion.

We don’t talk about depression or anxiety or pornography addiction. I didn’t know how to handle it. So I just froze. It took me a long time, in fact, it wasn’t until this year. When my husband had another relapse, and I was done. I started focusing on me, and that has helped me. It’s been good for me to look back on this, the third anniversary of my D-Day, and see just the crushed person I was back then and how it didn’t destroy my life.

Anne: Corrie thank you so much for your bravery and recording your D-Day story. And how misogyny affected your marriage.

If you would like to record your D-Day story, you can record it on your phone using voice memo, and then email it to podcast@btr.org. And if I get enough of them, I’ll compile them into one episode and air that in the future.

If you’ve just had a D-Day the first one or the second one, no matter what D-Day it is. And you don’t know what to do. The first step is getting educated about this type of abuse and getting the right support. Patriarchy fuels abuse. When I went through it, even though I went for help, the professionals I went to knew nothing about abuse

THERAPISTS DIDN’T HELP ME IDENTIFY ABUSE

Anne: And so their help actually prolonged my suffering. The couple therapists we went to, the pornography addiction recovery therapists, even the individual therapists, didn’t help me identify that I was a victim of emotional and psychological abuse.and sexual coercion. With a man who justified misogyny.

That’s why I started podcasting, so that no other woman had to go through what I went through. So if you’ve had a D-Day and you’re wondering where to turn. This podcast is a great way to learn about the reality of your situation. Also to educate you about abuse, so that when you are ready to date again or you have a teenager you want to protect, you can identify it.

And then to talk to women who are going through it. We totally understand what you’re going through. Our Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions are the safest, professionally facilitated group sessions on the planet. You deserve appropriate support, that doesn’t blame you for any of this.

To see the group session schedule, go to /group/.

We’d love to see you in a group session

If you’ve been thinking, “I dislike my husband,” but you feel guilty about it because he’s supposedly improved himself lately, here’s what you need to know.

Why Disliking Your Husband May Signal Something Deeper

Here’s the thing: if you dislike your husband, you’re not weird and you certainly haven’t done anything wrong. But I bet you’ve been asking yourself…

Why do I dislike my husband when he’s trying?

Is this normal resentment?

Am I too unforgiving?

Or is my intuition picking up on something deeper?

In emotionally abusive relationships, there may be times when he apologizes or he may use language he learned in therapy to make it sound like he’s making progress. But real change is measured by consistent patterns over time, not short bursts of “Mr. Nice Guy.”

It’s Okay to Dislike Him Even if He’s Getting Therapy

If it’s unclear whether he’s emotionally abusive, or not, take this free emotional abuse test.

Feeling like “I dislike my husband” may not mean you’ve fallen out of love. It may mean you’re having a reaction to a person who no longer feels emotionally safe to be around.

This is exactly what we walk through in the Clarity After Betrayal Workshop, how to discern the difference between if your husband can really change into someone you could enjoy being around and how to evaluate emotional safety without pressure to stay or leave.

Whether victims stay married, separate from, or divorce a man they dislike, boundaries are absolutely essential in protecting women and their children from further harm.

BTR.ORG Supports Victims Of Emotionally Abusive Husbands

For women who choose to stay married wondering “can my husband change into someone I like?” We believe that as women educate themselves about trauma and abuse, they are better equipped to make informed decisions and become empowered to begin their journeys to healing. Tune in to The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast to learn more about the real, valid reasons you probably have to dislike your husband.

Transcript: I Dislike My Husband

Anne: Welcome to Betrayal Trauma Recovery. A member of our community, Cece is here to share her story about the emotional whiplash so many women experience after betrayal, when apologies and effort create hope, but something still feels off. How do you know if he’s truly changing? If you’re sitting with that quiet tension, thinking, “I dislike my husband, but don’t want to feel this way.” So what am I supposed to do now?” You’re not alone.

So Cece, you’ve experienced this whiplash, and you’re gonna talk about your story today. Welcome.

Cece: Hi Anne, thanks for having me on.

Anne: I’m so grateful for women who share their stories. For many listeners who quietly wonder, “I dislike my husband… but he says he’s changing,” conversations like this matter. I’m honored to talk with you about how to tell whether an emotionally abusive husband can truly change. So Cece, you’re divorced now, but let’s start at the beginning—when you first met your husband. How did you feel about him at that time?

Cece: So I went to a Christian college, and there was a lot of the purity culture stuff going on there. I had grown up with an alcoholic dad and was kind of a scapegoat in my family of origin. So my self-esteem was at the bottom of the barrel, unfortunately.

But he and I were friends, and we got to be friends the first week of my sophomore year in college. He was a freshman. He was actually studying to become a youth pastor. So when I met him, I thought, oh, he’s this nice Christian guy. He had a girlfriend at the time, and I was not interested in him like that. We really did hit it off as friends.

Early “Green Flags” That Later Made Me Question Everything

Cece: And I didn’t see any red flags at that point in his character. Interestingly enough, he was dating a girl in my hall. It was actually an abusive relationship where she was abusing him. Which made me think he could never be that way towards someone else.

Anne: Really quick, what made you think she was abusing him as you’re observing this?

Cece: I would see the way she would talk to him, and she actually hit him a couple of times. So it was very serious. And other people were witnesses to those things even when I wasn’t, so…

Anne: The reason why I ask that is that we don’t know what he was doing to her.

Cece: Right.

Anne: A lot of times when you see a woman doing that. It could be that she’s resisting abuse, and you don’t know what happened before that.

Cece: That is possible, but just from what I observed, it seemed like he was just a people pleaser. And he was always just bowing down to her every whim. That’s what is looked like from the outside.

Once they broke up, he actually pursued me. And I just was caught off guard at that point. And thought, oh, he’s one of my best friends, let me just think about this. But he waited a long time for me, respectful of all my boundaries. Especially the physical boundaries were really important to me.

Because I knew I wanted to wait, even for engagement. Because I had some bad experiences in the past in High School. where guys pushed boundaries. And he didn’t do that. So I thought, oh, that’s a green flag.

I Dislike My Husband, Does That Mean He’s Emotionally Abusive or That I’m Burnt Out?

Cece: I guess a couple of the red flags I saw before we were married were emotional immaturity. Which I didn’t know at the time. I think just because I couldn’t even spot the red flags having grown up in an abusive home. I thought, oh, this is how guys are. And at one point he called me out of the blue and was like, “Hey, I don’t have any food. I need you to take me to the store.”

I said, “Oh, well I have something going on today or I have to study or something.”

And he would not take no for an answer. I said, “Can’t you get someone else to take you? Can’t you call another friend?”

“Oh no, you have to take me or else.” He just really put so much guilt on me. And said it was a food emergency.

Why It’s Okay To Dislike Your Husband

Anne: It’s a food… I’m sorry. That’s funny. It’s a food emergency. Before marriage, you didn’t know he would be abusive. Plus everyone says will couples counseling work.

CeCe: right. And nobody could take him but me. So I just went ahead and did it, but I felt really just. I think it was love bombing, but honestly, it didn’t seem like he was trying to manipulate at that point. It seemed like he was immature, I guess. And so, you know, he would mirror me a lot too. I was into poetry, and I think he just took all my interests in. You know, and thought, oh wow, she’s such a cool girl. I want to be interested in everything she is.

And it made me think, we’re into the same things, like, I think we’re gonna be the perfect match. For many women, “I dislike my husband” starts much later, after the mirroring fades and the control begins.

Experiencing Love Bombing & Mirroring

Anne: Mirroring is the worst. I did not realize it back when I was dating before I got married. So I would be like an open book, and men would be like, me too, me too. Now I like to sit back. Well, not that I date, I do not date. So don’t get that impression.

But when I meet people, I like to sit back and ask them what they think first. Because I know I’m not going to mirror them. I’m going to be like, cool. I’m glad you like that. I don’t like it, but congratulations. I’m not going to be like, me too, if I hate it.

Cece: Yes, for sure. And he did tell me, actually, before marriage, that he had an online explicit material problem. Now, I did not know what that meant. I thought, well, you know, guys struggle with lust. That’s what I’d been led to believe. So, it’s a struggle for him, but I think he can overcome it. So I was very naive at that point.

Anne: So you married at some point. When do things start to go south? Like where you recognize, oh, something feels off. Worrying If your emotionally abusive husband can change or not?

Cece: We married right after graduation. It was about a month after we were sitting on the couch, and housework was already an issue. It was like he was, he would leave all these messes just for me to clean up. He treated me like a maid and stuff. I thought, well, I guess this is just a sacrifice I have to make being married. But I was frustrated.

When Things Changed After Our Wedding, I realized “I Dislike My Husband”

Cece: And so we’re sitting on the couch, and he spills this bag of trail mix on the couch. I was at my breaking point that day, just with all his messes. And I was like, well, I guess I’ll get the Dustbuster and clean this up. And he hit me with a flip flop. Isn’t that crazy? He took his flip flop and hit my leg and made this red welt on it.

Anne: Not like, gently.

Cece: No, I mean, it was like he wanted to punish me. And immediately, I just said, we need to go to our pastor about this. We have to tell somebody, I am not going to put up with this, because I knew it was only going to get worse. That was a wake up call.

So we went to our pastor, and he said, “You need to go to anger management.” And he set him up with an anger management class. And then he said, “You need to have a plan for where you’re going to go if he continues to do this. You know, you need to figure out a neighbor or somebody you can stay with immediately.”

Anne: You’re resisting abuse. Immediately, you’re going for help. You’re like, this is not right. So you’re doing your job, which is resisting abuse. So the person you go to for help says, “Put yourself in the position where this could happen again and wait and see if he will change. And have a plan, if it does.” Rather than, don’t put yourself in this position again, oh.

Cece: Definitely, my husband went to the class, and he was actually able to largely stop the physical abuse. There were a few more rage incidents.

Anger Management Looked Like Change—But It Wasn’t Real Change

Where he would pull back the shower curtain if I was in the shower and yell at me, or he would just restrain me, things like that.

And I would fight back sometimes, but I quickly realized, this is dangerous. I’m not gonna fight back. Then, after learning some techniques, I guess he stopped that form of abuse. And I think I was confused, because I thought, well, the abuse has stopped, we’re good. And he’s becoming a new man and making changes.

Soon after, I got pregnant with my first child that November. So we married in June, and then in November, I got pregnant. At that point, I was teaching, I was working full time, and I was so tired. You know how in your first trimester, it’s just you’re wiped out. And so, he was still being a slob, and he was actually in school, going through a different program at this point.

And just working part time. So he was home most of the day. He wouldn’t do any laundry. He wouldn’t do any cleaning. I was like holding down the fort basically with all the housework and working full time. Plus dealing with pregnancy and exhaustion. I remember I was folding a load of laundry one day, just crying because I thought I had no help at this point.

And I just felt so alone and lost. But I also had a D-Day at that point, and I can’t remember what exactly it was, but I think I did find online explicit material again. At this point I’m starting to think my husband won’t be able to change his harmful behaviors.

Discovery Days, “Recovery Talk,” and Why I Dislike My Husband

Anne: Well, I’m going to pause you, right? If someone listens to this podcast for the first time, I just want to define D-Day quickly. D-Day stands for Discovery Day. But clearly it’s also a double meaning, because it’s the day your world sort of falls apart. So you’ve got a D-Day in that you’re discovering explicit material.

Cece: So, some people have, like, one major D-Day. I had dozens, probably. And I think that was the death by a thousand cuts. At that point, I had actually heard from one of my friends. Her husband was in SA which is a program for men with addictions, and she was in S-Anon, which was the complimentary program for wives. She told me how much it helped both of them. She thought her emotionally abusive husband had changed.

And I thought, okay, maybe there’s hope here. I mean, he was just totally checked out. It seemed like being selfish, not caring what I had to say. And I said, “You need to go to S. A. and you need a sponsor.” And he did it, so I thought, okay, things are going in the right direction.

But although he would pay lip service to it a lot, telling me how much he had learned and how much it helped him, I did not see any changes in his actions. So it was discouraging, especially just seeing how he was putting basically zero effort.

Anne: Um, so this whole time you’re resisting the abuse, you’re trying to get help, you’re trying to figure it out. In your efforts to resist abuse, did you reach out for help with clergy or with couple therapy? Anything like that?

I Dislike My Husband: Wondering What He’s Really Doing When I’m Not Around

Cece: Yeah, I was trying to get help from the ladies in S-Anon, but it didn’t resonate with me. There was one incident that stuck out to me that year. I came home unexpectedly from work. And I walked in on him and I was like, what the heck is going on?

He says, “No, I swear I’m not talking to someone. I just, I’m being dumb, this was just stupid. I was just trying to figure out what size I am.

And in that moment, I remember thinking, Who did I even marry? Who is this man? I drove back to school in tears and was completely checked out the rest of the day. That was a turning point. I started realizing I didn’t actually know who my husband was when I wasn’t around.

That’s when the starting realizing, I don’t like my husband. And it kind of freaked me out.

Anne: Being obsessed with your penis size is definitely a sign of addiction. So, of course, you didn’t know that at the time, but like, how alarming is that? He obviously wasn’t changing his abusive behaviors.

CeCe: It definitely was. Like many other incidents, I just thought I had to make this work somehow, even though it became more and more traumatic. I didn’t even know who he was or what he was doing when I was not around.

Anne: And knowing that was how you were resisting, you’re resisting any way that you know how. But you don’t know how to define it.

Cece: Yeah, that’s true.

I Dislike My Husband: Starting Marriage Counseling With False Hope

Anne: Realize that you were trying to figure it out the entire time, and then you run into these roadblocks all the time. So when people ask like, why do I dislike my husband, why didn’t you just get out? Be like, I was trying to get help, but I went to a therapist, and the therapist told me to communicate better. So, It’s so hard. What do you think is going on at this time? In your efforts to make yourself safe? And wondering if your husband will change? What are you telling yourself?

Cece: I think at that point, I was telling myself he’s got a serious problem. He needs somebody to get through to him, and I hope it’s his sponsor or counselor at that point. Because we started going to individual and marriage counseling. With our marriage counselor, it seemed like she would have been helpful. But she never got to the root of the problem. I don’t blame her, because I don’t think she was informed about what was going on.

There was one session that I just remember her talking about trust and how important that is. I was like, we need to go for more of this because she had been talking about fondness and admiration. It was like this kind of triangle and I can’t remember who came up with that, but it was like a couple’s triangle where you were getting closer together and closer to God and you had to go up the triangle.

But I was thinking we’re not even at the bottom right now because of how he’s actively destroying our marriage.

Counseling Didn’t Help My Husband Change

Cece: Yeah, I definitely did not feel helped by that. With my individual counselor, I think it was helpful to start unraveling my family of origin stuff. Cause I thought I would have saved my marriage at all costs. I don’t want my trauma to be a factor in this. I don’t want to get in the way of anything we’re doing together. My marriage was my number one priority the whole time. And so I thought I needed to heal from my past.

Anne: We have found that most marriage therapists don’t get to the heart of the problem. And then even if they do, let’s pretend like the therapist. Is like, okay, he’s abusive. The solution is also not going to work, because they say, okay, why are you abusive? And they’ll give reasons.

Oh, my childhood trauma. Instead of saying no, there are people who experienced childhood trauma and they’re not abusive. So no, that’s not why you’re abusive. Oh, this happened. No, that’s not the reason. You chose this. So therapy isn’t good for abusers. Their choices over time to have created this type of character and to give them validation. Like, now it makes sense that you’re abusive because of your childhood trauma. But now let’s not be abusive anymore.

That’s not what they need. They just dig themselves deeper and deeper. Instead of realizing, I made choices over time based on entitlement. I have a thinking problem that is not due to anything that happened to me. I am just a misogynistic, exploitative abuser, and I need to change. Even if you did get to the root of the problem, they’re abusive.

I Dislike My Husband: Why Emotional Safety Must Come Before Deciding If He’ll Change

Anne: How would you help him with that? By validating his childhood trauma because you had childhood trauma. Were you abusive? No, did you lie? No, so the whole therapy thing for an abuser does not make sense.

Cece: Right, and if somebody had told me that I was living with abuse, it would have made so much sense to me. Like I could have figured things out so much faster. I remember during our marriage counseling, I told the counselor this. I said, “I’m not suicidal, but I honestly wish one of us would die so that I could get out of this misery.” Thinking, I dislike my husband, and then immediately feeling guilty for even having that thought.

Good wives don’t feel that way. So I assumed I must be the problem.

Anne: Yeah, that’s very common. What did the counselor say?

Cece: She just empathized with me and said, “Oh yeah, this is really serious.”

https://youtu.be/oeMVZ5334VE

Anne: Did she say, you are abused?

Cece: Never, when my oldest was one, I got pretty sick. Because my immune system was not good at that point, just with all the stress. During that illness, I remember having this sudden clarity, like this is not of God, what’s going on.

And I believe He spoke to me in that moment, when I felt so physically terrible, somehow I could hear the Holy Spirit better. And, He was like, This is not what I want for your life. This is not a marriage that glorifies me, that is what I believe the Holy Spirit told me. I just remember thinking, okay, I need to come up with a plan, and not try to get him to change.

More D-Days & Emotional Withdrawal, Awakening & Planning

Cece: I was so ashamed. I didn’t want to return to my family of origin. I didn’t want to rely on them for any help. And I was also thinking, there are so many people who supported our marriage. What would they think if I separated from him? So I just felt stuck. We eventually got back to the status quo, and I got pregnant with baby number two. I did have more D-days after that.

There was one specifically at a friend’s house. We were having a Superbowl party there, and I just grabbed his phone to look something up. It was just, I wasn’t even thinking. And I saw that he had searched this girl’s name. In the search bar, and I just snapped at him.

I said, What the heck is this? And pulled him outside. I was so mad, and he just had this way of placating me, I think, whenever I would find stuff. So he just groveled, basically. He was like, I’m so sorry. I’m struggling right now. It made me feel empathetic towards him, because I thought, well, he just has this problem. This kept me stuck in a pattern of waiting for him to change. So I started to feel myself pulling away emotionally and I’m like “I dislike my husband,” of course.




Anne: You were resisting.

Cece: Yeah.

Anne: That I just have this problem, and I can’t stop the eliciting of empathy and almost pity. Abusers don’t mind it when people pity them. Like I hate it. If people pity me, I’m like, oh, I’m fine. Leave me alone. It’s not something that I enjoy. It feels bad to me, but they’re like, Oh, good. And I think it’s because they use it to manipulate people, it’s gross.

Changing Churches & Hoping Things Will Improve

Cece: For sure, so I wasn’t sure how much longer this could last at that point. I knew I’d always wanted a bunch of kids and to live the stay at home mom life. But I dislike my husband and I started to realize that maybe our marriage was not going to last. I thought it, it’s got an expiration date at some point. Especially, I can’t keep having kids with him when he’s doing this, but I wanted more at the same time.

Probably the biggest thing that happened that year was that we changed churches. We just didn’t agree with some of the stuff they were doing at our church. So we wanted to change churches. And we ended up at a super conservative Baptist church. It felt safe there. I had stopped going to my S-Anon meetings, and I had started to look into more traditional marriage materials.

Not anything super fundamentalist, but more complementarian ideas. I thought, wow, maybe I can at least improve my marriage. Even if your emotionally abusive husband will change or not, I can’t get him to change. At least maybe I can have a halfway decent life if I follow these rules.

Waiting For Change When I Dislike My Husband

Anne: So at the time you’re thinking maybe complementarianism is the answer.

Cece: Yes, all the women there were stay at home homeschooling moms, like I was, so I thought I fit in here. I got into the trad wife kind of movement. And started following all those social media accounts, like baking bread and gardening. I think looking back, that was a flight response where I was trying to escape the situation almost.

Anne: You’re still resisting it because you’re thinking, if I do this, it will stop it, which is a form of resistance.

Cece: Yeah, if I dislike my husband, maybe I can survive if I live my life largely separate from him. I would be working 13-14 hour days at home doing stuff. Because I loved hosting holidays, decorating the house. And making it super shiny and clean, just because I was trying to keep myself occupied. And keep myself fulfilled doing stuff.

Anne: You’re trying to thrive in the sphere that you think you have power over. So if you can’t be the best stockbroker, because you’re not a stockbroker, you’re like, I’m going to be the best host. I’m going to be the best homeschooling mom. You’re trying to thrive in whatever sphere you can. Your waiting to see if your emotionally abusive husband will change, you want to give him a chance.

And they’re also promising things. They’re saying, hey, if you treat a man this way, he’ll treat you well. If you have dinner on the table, if the house is clean, if you give him intamacy, that’s what men want. And so this is the answer to your problems. They’re also suggesting this is a way out.

I Dislike My Husband: How Boundaries Protect Women and Children From Emotional Abuse

Cece: Yes, this was when I started setting serious boundaries around intimacy. I was like, if I’m just gonna live here and be a house slave. I’m not a wife anymore. It seemed gross when I didn’t want to do it. That was a whole other thing.

It was like he would would start a fight. Then I would be so confused, because I wouldn’t be in the mood. And then he’d be like, you’re never in the mood. And I’m like, you just started a fight with me! It was like he was covertly withholding from me. And that was disappointing to me, honestly.

Anne: Also, making it your fault that he didn’t want to with you, because he was busy using and masturbating, and whatever else he was doing. He doesn’t seem like he truly cares about making a change. It’s impossible to figure out how to live with a husband you don’t trust.

Cece: Yes, and I figured that out after I got out. I could probably count on my fingers the number of times we did. But I got pregnant one of those times. Not on purpose. I was excited to have a boy and It was a time of hope in my life.

It seemed like he started to make changes at that point too. Because I read a book that was helpful for breaking spiritual strongholds, and it seemed to help me in my life.

I Dislike My Husband: Another D-Day and the Numbness That Followed

Cece: He read it, and he seemed to want to change after that. He was much more intentional with me, actually wanting to spend time with me. Instead of doing his own thing all the time. Then when I was 25 weeks pregnant, I had another D-day, and I saw he was looking up a girl on Instagram, and I thought. What is going on? I mean, I thought we were good now. Apparently not. So after that, I was just existing and numb. And thought, he is just gonna do this no matter what.

So it was this new level of having to accept that I dislike my husband and it was super depressing. So then it was Christmas, and I was doing my housewife thing. We had family over, I was trying to clean the house. He was just sitting on his butt doing nothing. I could tell he was a new level of checked out. I didn’t know why, but my intuition told me something. He wouldn’t come to bed with me ever, he would stay up until 3AM.

And just this thought creeped into my mind, could he be cheating in real life? But then the other part of me was like, he would never do that. I was confused. I got him some lingerie for Christmas, thinking maybe I can rekindle our romance. So I put it on, and he did not even look at me. He was just bored. And I was thinking, if he’s not attracted to me at all, we’ve got serious issues. That was the turning point.

Discovering BTR & Eye-Opening Stories

Cece: I did start listening to The FREE Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast at that point, and it was honestly a little too much for me at first. I just had to take a long time to digest everything. So that was a good resource for me. And I started gradually listening to it more. I had been starting to follow on Facebook for a month or so, because I was at the end of my rope. It was just eye-opening to read all the stories there, and I thought, oh, this is my story.

And just the fact that these guys did not give up explicit material for any extended period. They would keep finding stuff over and over, even when they thought their husbands were in good recovery.

Anne: Can you talk about why it was a little too much for just a second? Was it too painful to hear other people’s stories, or you just didn’t feel hope? Or that seemed like for so many women that their husbands didn’t change.

Cece: I thought you were a little too feminist for me. I don’t think that now, but I did think that before. I thought, well, you know, not necessarily the guests, but like, Anne is so honest. It’s a compliment, but I just thought you were so hard hitting. With the fact that this is abuse, and these men will do what they’re going to do. I’m like, well, yeah, I dislike my husband, but some of them might want to change.

Anne: So at the time we were like, Anne is too feminist. She’s kind of too extreme in her, this is abuse stance-ish.

Cece: Right.

Anne: That is true. Many people think that about me, and I’m like, yeah, it’s true.

Confronting My Husband, From Trad Wife To BTR

Cece: Yeah, just being a trad wife and starting to listen to your content was, I mean, it was, it was so good. It was what I needed.

Anne: Going from trad wife to BTR.ORG was like whiplash, yeah.

Cece: Right, I think I felt like a chandelier had just fallen from the ceiling on top of me when I thought about my marriage. This has crashed down, and I don’t even know what to do. So, I sat my husband down and gave him the choice between me or explicit material, and I was like, this is it.

This has gone on long enough, and I was totally serious. I was crying and I said, “This is a crap sandwich either way.” That’s what I told him. And I said, “I can’t believe I brought three babies into the world with you if I have to just leave.” And I said, “So you’ve got to quit.” He actually did a disclosure. I don’t know if it was a full disclosure, because we didn’t do a polygraph or anything. And I know polygraphs aren’t the be all end all either.

Anne: This is an addiction therapist?

Cece: Well, eventually we went to one of those. But this was before we had our appointment with them. So he just wanted to do it. He said, “I have to tell you everything.” I got to get it off my chest.

Anne: This is a non-therapeutic one, he’s just, like, gonna tell you. Maybe, if he doesn’t want to change, at least he’s being honest.

Disclosure & Accountability

Cece: I thought, okay, let’s just sit down after the kids went to bed. I know I needed to know everything. And found out he was playing explicit video games on the TV when the kids could have walked in any minute. I was like, wow, I need to get myself and my kids out of this situation if he continues to do this. This is crazy. So I was nauseated and had to stop partway through, but I wanted to know everything.

We came back after that, and I found out a lot of stuff. So I wrote up this contract. It wasn’t official or anything, but it just said, I promise to like fully provide if things don’t work out. And continue to pay for everything they need, and let her continue to homeschool and support her. So he signed the contract, and we also put accountability software on his devices, like, so I could see everything he was doing.

Anne: Part of me thinks, this might be why you didn’t like listening to me in the podcast in the beginning, but here we go. Part of me thinks you said, okay, explicit material or me. He was like, I’m going to tell her everything. And then she’s going to kick me out. And when you didn’t do that, he was like, shoot, now I got to lie to her again.

Cece: That’s possible.

Anne: Because why would he tell you at that point, and not at a different point? Why does he just volunteer it?

CeCe: I don’t know.

Anne: That’s my thought that he thought, “I’m going to tell her everything. She’ll be so disgusted. She’ll be like, you’re obviously choosing explicit material. I’m done.” He’s trying to tell me that he’s not going to change.

I Dislike My Husband: I Was Done With Betrayal, But He Relapsed Again

Anne: But instead, your husband won’t stop lying, because for some reason, they cannot just be like, you know what? I want to use. Cool, let’s get divorced. Like I’ve never seen an abuser do that. If you’re listening and thinking, I’m going to confront him and tell him it’s either explicit material or me. He will always choose you, because he’s going to look terrible if he chooses explicit material. Y

So he’s never going to do that. It’s a good way to try to resist abuse, but abusers don’t work like that. They’re always going to lie because abusers always have to manage their image.

Cece: That is true. I will say this is the first time I think there was any force behind my boundaries. Because I was kind of bluffing the other times. I didn’t have it in me to leave, but the point was, I was done. I was like an animal caught in the trap, wanting to chew off its own leg.

So he seemed to change for five months. And it seemed like he was actually repenting and like wanting to have a relationship with me.

Anne: Maybe if your emotionally abusive husband will change, you could stay.

Cece: It went from him having no interest in me to wanting to be close, but it was like a pendulum swing like, Oh no, please don’t go. I had just been through the ringer and couldn’t handle any more betrayal. But five months later, he relapsed. He did a drip disclosure. He told me part of the truth and then more came out. And that was doubly traumatic. In that moment, the thought returned stronger than ever: I dislike my husband—not because I’m unforgiving, but because I’m exhausted from cycles that never truly end.

Taking A Two Week Break At Mom’s

Cece: I zoned out, staring in his face when he told me this. I could barely handle it. Basically, you shouldn’t be my accountability partner, you’re my wife, and need to get back in your place. I thought, wow, it was 180 from what he said before. He said, I’ve not taken my role as a husband seriously, and I need to humble myself.

Anne: It sounded as if he could change.

Cece: Then it was like, get back in your place, woman. Right after that, it was so crazy. I was like, I dislike my husband. We’re not doing this. I kicked him out of our room and told him he needed to sleep in the guest room. He got in bed with me and would not get out. I was like, get out. And I knew it would create a toxic situation for our kids if we were sitting there yelling.

I thought, I have to get out of here. So I went to my mom’s for two weeks. She is the one family member I am close with. I reached out to his accountability people. Just like, my husband is not okay. I need you to check up on him. He has a brother, he and his wife were on my side this whole time. Which was a blessing, and I still talk with them. His brother called and said, “You have to confess to your wife what you did.”

He called me on FaceTime and told me he was doing the video games again. I thought there is something more. I mean, his eyes just went black. It was like a demonic kind of thing, which I couldn’t have explained until experiencing it. It was wild, it seemed like his soul was gone at that point.

Knowing My Emotionally Abusive Husband Won’t Change: Kicking Him Out

Cece: I had these panic attacks at different times. It was the weirdest thing, it was almost like I dislike my husband. He came to visit the kids, and it was awful. I felt this strong urge that I needed to get away from him. I told him he needed to move out before I came back to town. There was verbal abuse in front of the kids, and I knew he couldn’t be in the house.

My oldest, she drew a picture of us shouting at each other, and it said, “Mommy and Daddy are not getting along.” That broke my heart. I thought we needed to be apart, so he moved out. When I returned to town, we set an appointment with an addiction therapist he went to an individual counselor.

When I went to his counselor with him, I was so desperate to be believed. I was talking fast, please believe me. This is happening, and he’s like, why are you acting like this? Looking back, he should have known that this was an abuse situation. It was obvious I panicked trying to tell the story. And I said, “I just want someone to believe me.”

Anne: If your emotionally abusive husband could change, he wasn’t

Cece: It was bad. I was finding stuff. I found videos he watched, different social media accounts. So now he’s got an accountability partner from the church, which was the assistant pastor. Which was a total joke, because I thought okay, nobody does better research than a betrayed wife. This is crazy pathetic. He thinks he can help him. And I have my own suspicions about the assistant pastor and what he’s into. He thought your husband could change.

The Church’s Role Turns To Blame

Cece: But I found all this stuff, and the people from church wanted to sit down with me. The pastor and assistant pastor and their wives were there. And the pastor says, “I think your husband is doing well.” It seems like he’s taking things seriously.

And I said, “You want me to show you his accounts?” I said, “This accountability partner stuff is a joke. The only person who knows what he’s up to is me. And he’s up to no good.”

I wanted him to go to rehab. That was my line in the sand. I said, “I will not consider getting back together unless he goes to rehab.” At first they were on my side. They’re like, yeah, maybe he needs rehab. But then the assistant pastor turned it back around on me towards the end of the meeting. Asking me, why do you feel the need to be so controlling? Saying, if your emotionally abusive husband will change, it’s up to you.

It was awful. I knew I needed to stop going to that church. I just cut off communication with them. Thanks to what I’ve learned on this podcast largely. Because I thought, oh, this is going the same way as everybody else’s churches. So I’m grateful for what I had learned at that point.

Anne: What are you thinking about Betrayal Trauma?

Cece: I was thinking I am all ears at this point.

Anne: If you’re like, should I get services at Betrayal Trauma Recovery? The betrayal trauma support group near me was incredible. They take a woman where she is. They don’t push women or their agenda. They’re like, I’m here to help you get to safety, and figure out if your emotionally abusive husband will change.

Betrayal Trauma Recovery Helps Women Get To Safety

Anne: How do you want to do that? Everything you’ve done in the past is resisting abuse. How do you want to move forward?

I’ll talk to victims in real life. They’ll come to my house because they’re part of my community. At church or something. So me in real life. I’m looking at this person in the eyes. And usually they don’t love it. They’re like, this seems too extreme. But almost a hundred percent of the time they return six months to a year later. And they’re like, if I had done that, I would be in such a better position now. I always look at them with empathy, give them a hug, and say, “I am you.”

I did that exact same thing. And I was like, oh no, I’m going to do the addiction recovery thing for a while. I’m going to go to couple therapy. It’s almost like you have to try it for yourself to realize that it’s not going to work. When I first started BTR.ORG, I thought, Oh, I can cut that off of the pass. I can be like, don’t do it. That is what I do. But I’ve come to realize that because it’s your marriage, because you want to resist through saving your marriage.

And because all of us care that we almost just need to know for ourselves. So that stage of trying is an important stage that most victims will go through. And it’s not our fault, because the manipulation is so intense from everywhere. From the abuser, clergy and therapists, it’s hard to be like, okay, I’m going to go against clergy, therapists, and my family. That’s a really hard place to be. Can you talk about that for a little bit?

Letting Go of Hoping He Would Change and Finding Safe Support When I DisLike My Husband

Cece: It was hard to feel like my entire church had turned against me. I was just the outcast. My pastor’s wife was part of our homeschool co-op. I just felt like she was looking down her nose at me every time I was there with my kids. By that point, I had already been quietly wrestling with the thought, I dislike my husband — and I felt ashamed of it. They are not trauma informed or giving me any kind of good advice. They told me that I needed to suffer well and I was just done at that point.

I ended up going to my old church, and they were supportive. Because one of my friends who had walked through the same thing told me they were helpful and understanding. Everybody was very kind whenever I went and welcomed me back. I also quickly found the safe people. It was hard at first, because I didn’t know who would be understanding and who wouldn’t. So I felt like I had to over explain myself to everybody at first.

But then, my intuition got stronger over time. I could tell the friends I know who are in healthy marriages. They were shocked when I told them what was going on. The friends I could tell were in unhealthy marriages, and just staying there. They were the ones who gave me the advice, “You need to keep trying.” I couldn’t take any more of that. My husband’s parents actually offered us a marriage intensive to send us there and pay four or five thousand dollars for it.

I said if you’re gonna pay that money, you need to put that money towards his rehab. Because that’s actually going to save our marriage.

My Husband Moves Back In Saying, “I Don’t Trust Him”

Cece: Oh, no, you need a marriage intensive. I was like, okay, whatever, and he didn’t want to go to rehab. So he moved back after a month of being out. He said you’re not believing me. You’re not trusting me. So I’m going to move back in.

Anne: What? What? Blaming you if your husband will change or not.

Cece: Yeah, I mean, isn’t that crazy? You don’t trust me, cause I was finding stuff, still.

Anne: How could you not trust me, because you’ve done it in the past? Like what? Like they don’t make sense. Sorry, it’s crazy. Like if your emotionally abusive husband will change or not, it depends on you.

Cece: Yeah, he moved back in, and I moved to the guest room. We basically had a parenting schedule. Like where he would parent at this time, and I would parent at that time. And I’d always go in my room and lock the door if he was home. So, in the fall, he had a few moments of clarity where he was like, Oh gosh, I’m about to lose my family. But then he would be back to where he was before the next day.

I was, my panic attacks and stuff were starting to even out at that point. I was like, I’m just going to observe and see what’s going on. At one point, I said, “I just want to sit down with you and pray for you. I don’t know why, I just think God is leading me to do this.” And looking back, God was trying to open my eyes at that point, even more. So I prayed for him and just cried.

Trying To Save Our Family & Mini Stroke

Cece: I was like, God, I love this man. Please change him, help him see what he needs to do and save our family. And he said, “You want to go out to dinner?”

I said, “Sure.” So we went to dinner, and I was trying so hard. It was like there was this glass wall between us. I pounded on the glass to wake him up, to understand my view. But he would not hear any of it. He was in the complimentarian BS, like, “You’re my wife, you need to be submissive.” I could tell he was obviously taking a lot of it from what he heard from the church.

That night I had a TIA stroke. It’s like a mini stroke. It doesn’t usually impact you long term, but it is a warning sign that you might have a stroke in the future. My head felt like it was gonna burst, it was like I couldn’t even formulate any thoughts. It was the weirdest feeling. I just felt like my brain was shutting down, and afterwards it was scary.

After that night, I knew I had to set a permanent boundary that I would not discuss any type of relationship stuff with him. Because I thought it was going to be the real thing next time. I moved to a camp. We stayed there for three weeks, and it was fun. It was like a camping trip. That was the first time my kids ever spent a night away from me. And that was really hard. I was still nursing my 18 month old. And so my boobs were leaking. I cried so much, but after that, it got easier.

Contesting the Divorce & Legal Battles

Cece: And I started using the time to refresh myself, listening to helpful resources to combat the negative impact of thinking I dislike my husband, and meditating on scripture. One of the most helpful scriptures to me was Malachi 2. Just talking about how much God hates when men are unfaithful to their wives. It was so encouraging to me. In those days, I would just open the Bible, and God would always lead me to the right passage. That was one of the main ways I could regulate my nervous system.

And then I interviewed two lawyers. I was so broken over having to do that. Because in Tennessee, we don’t have legal separation. You either stay together or file for divorce. Without filing, I could not get him to move out of the house. I also couldn’t get child support or anything set up, so I knew I needed to file. But the night before I went to the first lawyer’s office, my son knocked our marriage license off the wall and the frame broke. I was like, wow.

And God led me to this passage from Psalm 81, which was referring to when he delivered his people from Egypt. It was talking about how he set their hands free from the basket and delivered them. And that was amazing to me, thinking, wow, okay. I have heard God and I’m peaceful about it. So I went to the law office, and eventually he got served. He said he wanted to contest the divorce, even though we didn’t have any assets to divide.

So he just made me waste a bunch of money on the lawyer fees for a contested divorce, even though we didn’t go to court at all.

Custody Threats & Emotional Manipulation

Cece: It was interesting, he was almost gleeful when we talked about the stuff that we were going to divide up. And he was like, Oh yeah, we’ll do that. It was weird. It was like, he was happy. And I thought I had made the right decision. He just wanted me to do the dirty work, which I was devastated to have to do.

Anne: My ex was like that too. He was so happy to get divorced, or at least he acted like it. It was so weird. He was showing now that he never wanted to change.

Cece: Weird, one time I was getting the kids ready for co-op, and out of nowhere, he came into the room. He said, “I’m going for 50/50 custody.” And he knew that was something that would devastate me, because I’d always been a stay at home mom. And I’d always done all the stuff for the kids. And I thought, what are they going to do spending half their time with him? That would totally disrupt their lives. He caught me so off guard. I freaked out, I said, “Are you kidding me?”

It was in front of the kids. I’m ashamed to say I yelled in front of them. But said, “You’re going to be calm. You’re not going to show your triggers.”

My ex is big on homeschooling. I said, we won’t be able to homeschool because you work a nine to five, so we’ll have to put them in public school and daycare. This is expensive, because we would have two that need to be in daycare. And you’re going to pay a lot more for that than if I just take them to work with me or just work around their schedules.

Birthday Drama With A Public Confrontation

Cece: He always spiritualizes everything. I said, God’s gonna be good and faithful to us no matter what. So you know, I’m not worried either way.

Anne: We teach how to tell if your husband will change in my workshop.

Cece: Totally, then I just poured out my heart to my safe people when I could get away from him. We worked out the parenting schedule. We have 70/30 now. But one thing that I remember from that month he moved out is my middle child, her birthday party was that month. We already had it planned and everything, and we were both going to be there.

I was thinking, Oh, how’s this going to go? Especially since infidelity is abusive. He started drama at the birthday party. Saying I was planning to take the kids out of state, because I was planning to visit my mom at one point. That was the first time he ever found out about it. And he freaked out in front of everybody. And I said, “I’m not doing this again. We’re not having birthday parties together if you’re going to continue this.”

I used to cry when he guilted me and said I was breaking up our family. I used to internalize it. But this time something shifted. I realized that the reason I was thinking, I dislike my husband, wasn’t because I had become unloving—it was because I was tired of being blamed for his choices.

Finding Peace By Setting Firm Boundaries When I Dislike My Husband

Cece: We got to Christmas. We split time with the kids. Things were much more peaceful once I started having firm boundaries with him. And I eventually moved out. He bought me out of the house, because unfortunately I had no employment history or anything. My mom helped me get my rental place. Which I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t helped me.

But God provided the perfect place for us. I was so sad to leave my house and all the work I put into it. But now we live in a three bedroom house on two acres. Because I posted on Facebook and someone responded, and we found the perfect place. I can just send my kids outside. It’s great. I’ve just been able to build a business. God has just provided every step of the way. Because it’s very public now. It’s just out there that I dislike my husband.

I’m divorced because my husband was a addict. I’ve had other moms contact me from my different social circles, even those who are still in their marriages just suffering. Which I feel terrible about. And I’m going through the same thing. You’re the only person I’ve told about this. It’s so common, it’s everywhere. God has confirmed to me that I made the right decision. I’ve learned to sit with grief, journal about it, and talk to my safe people.

Anne: Does it help knowing that the good parts weren’t actually good? Do you know what I mean? That they were grooming and part of the abuse? Does that help? How do you feel about that? It’s so hard to tell if your emotionally abusive husband will change, when he’s groomed you for so long to keep believing he will.

Bravery & Strength: Thriving After Abuse

Cece: You’re right. At the same time, I view myself as alone in those memories. Like, I had a good experience, but I was alone. So even saying my wedding vows, that was me being my honest self. But he was not being honest. His heart was not sincere in it. Actually, he remarried just a few weeks ago. I feel bad for his next victim. He definitely picked someone vulnerable and naive. I tried to be friendly with her, just in case she ever needs to reach out.

Anne: If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself?

Cece: I thought about that question. And I honestly don’t know if there’s anything I could have said to myself that I would have listened to.

Anne: I think that’s such a good answer, because that’s how I am too. I just have to say like, yay, because I’m not the same way now. Like you listened to The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast, but at the time you thought the best way to resist abuse was help your emotionally abusive husband change.

CeCe: Right, there’s so much wisdom in it, but you have to be ready to hear it. ha ha.

Anne: Ha ha, I would not have listened to myself either. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story. You are so brave. You are so strong, and it’s so good to hear that you’re thriving and doing well. And I appreciate you sharing today.

Cece: Thank you so much.

If you constantly feel confused, exhausted, or to blame for every issue in your relationship, you might be dealing with covert narcissist traits that are difficult to name. Once you see them, everything changes.

HOW TO SPOT COVERT NARCISSIST TRAITS: 5 BEHAVIORS TO NOTICE

1. HE’S YOUR INSTANT SOULMATE

Notice if your relationship moves incredibly fast, and he seems perfectly tailored just for you.

 It may be hard to remember this phase if you’ve been married for 10 or 20 years, but think back to when you met. Did it feel very serendipitous? Did it feel like you’d met your soulmate? That part can actually be grooming.

Stay with me until the end, where I go into detail about my strategy for spotting this mirroring trap when you are dating.

2. CIRCULAR CONVERSATIONS OVER TINY ISSUES

You gently ask him to text you if he is going to be late coming home. Somehow, it turns into an exhausting debate about how “you’re so suspicious” or “you don’t appreciate how hard he works.”

Instead of discussing plans together, these conversations become emotionally draining loops. It might look like simple “miscommunication” on the surface, but the pattern shows something else. Healthy communication leads to clarity, while this manipulative type of communication leads to pure exhaustion and self-doubt when dealing with covert narcissist traits.

3. THE BLAME-SHIFTING VICTIM TRAP

 If you try to share a concern with a covert narcissist, he’s likely to put it back on to you. That happened to me. I’d tell him maybe that a sarcastic comment hurt my feelings, and the next thing I knew he would tell me that I hurt his feelings without acknowledging what happened to me at all. In my relationship, I would end up apologizing or trying to help him feel better, and meanwhile, my concerns were never addressed.

If he’s constantly the misunderstood victim, he’s avoiding taking responsibility for his own bad behavior.

4. SPENDING TIME ALONE WITH HIM FEELS DEPLETING

 You might notice that out and about, you have a good time together, like if you’re going to a movie or doing a project together. A lot of women describe how they might go to a dinner party with him, and everything is great. But the second they get into the car together, alone, he’s like cold, silent, completely disconnected. Maybe blaming her for how the party didn’t go well, even though the party went just fine. Or a vacation with the whole family usually goes pretty well. But if you just take a couple trips, it’s like not fun at all.

Healthy relationships usually feel really great in downtime together, but if he has covert narcissist traits, alone time will feel a little weird.

5. HE HIDES BEHIND EXPLANATIONS WITH COVERT NARCISSIST TRAITS

 If he continues to do really harmful things that you’ve never done and your healthy friends have never done, and then he explains it away by saying he had a traumatic childhood, or maybe stress from work, maybe an addiction, maybe even anxiety or depression. He might even say he’s struggling, confused, or working on himself.

But if the behavior stays the same, those explanations only keep you stuck. Look at what he is actually doing right now to manipulate reality and harm your wellbeing.

If you’re unsure if you’re experiencing covert narcissist traits, take our free emotional abuse test to see if he’s using any one of the 19 different types of emotional abuse.

Key takeaways from the interview:

Early Signs of Covert Narcissist Traits

When Therapy and Labels Miss Emotional Abuse

How to Help Victims of Covert Emotional Abuse

Rebuilding Self-Trust After Covert Narcissist Abuse

TRANSCRIPT: WHEN YOU SEE HIS COVERT NARCISSIST TRAITS EVERYTHING CHANGES

Anne: I interviewed three women from our community. We’re gonna start with Cynthia’s story, and then after you’re gonna hear from Maisie and Lorna.

Welcome. Cynthia.

Cynthia: Hello, Anne. It’s great to be here.

Anne: So Cynthia, let’s start with your story.

Cynthia: In the beginning he was so kind, generous. He had a great relationship with his mum. He was very outgoing and he built a very quick relationship with my mum as well. It made me feel very safe. This is great, like we’re all getting along. I had no idea he was hiding covert narcissist traits.

We had a huge fight before the marriage, actually, and he got counseling that week. He came to me and said, “My therapist thinks you are the angry one, actually, not me.” So he’d managed to convince the therapist that I was the bad one.

Anne: They very easily manipulate therapists. Because there’s lies. And then there’s levels of lies on those lies. We have no way of knowing what somebody said or didn’t say. But it wouldn’t surprise me if the therapist said that.

COVERT NARCISSIST TRAITS APPEAR AFTER THE WEDDING

Cynthia: absolutely.

On the wedding day, his best man talked about him and showed pictures of him. There was one picture that was really awful. My family is quite conservative. I just remember feeling really embarrassed, like, what on earth have I done?

Then it was the evening, I went to sleep. He said he was going to say goodbye to people, and I just thought he would come to bed maybe half an hour later, and I woke up at 4:00 AM alone in the bridal suite. Things just got worse from then on. I’d wanted to be a mum since I was seven years old. I was actually going through fertility treatment with him. And he was starting to blame my hormonal imbalance. It was just his way of putting me down every single month.

He even got my mum convinced that I was in perimenopause. And at this time, I’d already engaged with a psychologist, because I just felt like this is impossible to do anything with him.

I was on antidepressants.

We went out for a walk one day and I said, “Okay, so if we’re going on holiday in December and you want to do the fertility treatment in January, does that mean you’re not going to use the sauna in the spa hotel that we’re staying in?”

And he was like, “No, no, I still wanna use the sauna. Maybe I’ll just use for one minute.” I said, “Well then we’ll have to wait until April then, ’cause we have to wait then three months after the holiday to do the treatment.

HE PRIORITIZED HIS PLEASURE OVER MY PAIN

Anne: So was he like a huge sauna fan before this? When you’re dating and when you’re, first married was he like, “sauna is my life. It is the most important thing to me.”

This is a clue for women to look for, this is a piece of the puzzle. If there’s something that he hasn’t really cared that much about before, and then suddenly he’s caring about it a lot, that might be an indication to you that he’s lying.

Cynthia: In the year leading up to the treatment, he didn’t once use a sauna. Why isn’t he just use the sauna now if he’s desperate? He didn’t. All of a sudden became a tactic for him, I felt, to control me. He knew I desperately wanted a child and I spent thousands on freezing my eggs and all of a sudden using a sauna was more important than that.

And you know we were talking about the whole sauna thing for about six weeks.

Anne: That’s crazy. I just wanna tell you how crazy that is. you’re talking about a sauna for six weeks.

It’s so heartbreaking ’cause it feels like he cares about this one thing more than he cares about me, not realizing that he cares about everything more than he cares about us. In the moment, it feels like this is just about that, but they somehow twist it to be well, you don’t want me to enjoy myself on this vacation? You don’t want me to relax. Like, I do everything for you and I work so hard for you, and you won’t even let me have fun on vacation.

COVERT NARCISSIST TRAITS RUIN HOLIDAYS AND VACATIONS

Anne: The likelihood of a couple therapist saying that this issue is a sign of something deeper, which is true, except for then they would go, that he’s not having his needs met.

Cynthia: Yeah.

Anne: That’s where they would’ve gone with it. They wouldn’t have said, he’s just not a good person. Because you’re just asking him not to go in a sauna. Like what is the big deal. It’s so stupid.

Cynthia: Yeah.

Anne: Holidays or vacations are something that generally we look forward to. We think we’re going to be able to connect. Although that can happen and sometimes it does. ‘Cause sometimes they amp up the grooming and the vacation is amazing. Generally speaking, vacations are miserable.

I had a few of those where I didn’t wanna go. Both times before I told my family, I don’t even wanna go, is gonna go bad? And they were like, “no, of course it’s gonna be fine.” And it went so bad. And so I got to a point where I was like, I don’t ever wanna go on vacation with him again. Did you have any good vacations with him?

Cynthia: Yes, because generally our vacations were with family, so we would always go back to the UK and during that time there was other, people he could get attention from. When it was just me and him alone, it was the worst.

HOW YOUR HUSBAND HIDES WHAT HE’S REALLY DOING

Cynthia: The thought of going alone to this place, just the two of us, I was not looking forward to that. What I noticed is that when we had long weekends together, the two of us, I didn’t feel energized. I felt completely depleted.

Anne: I have a few theories about pornography use related to vacations and weekends.

Cynthia: I was just going to mention about the pornography. There was pornography use as well.

Anne: Totally during the weekdays, they’re able to use porn at work, or they’re able to use work as an excuse to use pornography.

But like a Saturday and a Sunday, there’s no reason to get away to do porn except manufacture a fight. And even if it doesn’t go super bad, he just isn’t able to connect for that long. that’s as deep as he goes. You’ve reached the bottom of the barrel. But that also might explain why he was okay on vacations with other people. Because when you’re on vacation with more people, you could be talking to your mom or friends, and he could say something like, “Oh, hey, I’m just gonna run over here to the store real quick.”

And you wouldn’t say, oh, I’ll go with you. You’d be like, oh, cool. I’ll talk to my mom. When other people are around, he can sneak away, use porn. It’s just way harder to do what he wants to do when you are the only person around.

Cynthia: And I also noticed a shift in his behavior in the evening, so we would very rarely go to bed together. His excuse was that he wasn’t tired. I think he was using in those times, as well.

THEY DON’T VIEW WOMEN AS PEOPLE

Anne: There’s a huge connection between pornography use and men with covert narcissist traits. Women might think their husband’s don’t use pornography, that he is cleanbrowsing. I’m like, wait, tell me all the clues. And they’ll tell me and I’ll be like, that clue points to pornography. That one points to pornography. So, the likelihood is so high. It also means that they don’t view women as people.

Cynthia: Oh yeah, absolutely.

I remember I had a lot on with work, coming home every night and it was like I was going into this roundabout like round and round and round talking about nothing and never resolving anything. He was traveling a lot. And during that period where he was traveling, I had a bit of mental space. That’s when I discovered Betrayal Trauma Recovery.

I wrote this into Google, “When your husband blames you for being upset about his behavior.” And your website came up, Betrayal Trauma Recovery. And I was like, “Wow. I’m being gaslighted.” And that was like my D-Day. That’s when I first started to discover that I was in an abusive relationship.

I just started to feel. I’m not alone. It’s not me. I saw the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Workshop. I immediately signed up for it and I did the whole thing, in one night. It’s really easy to follow.

COVERT NARCISSIST TRAITS: HOW LABELING HIM ISN’T HELPFUL

Cynthia: I was so grateful for the website. The Betrayal Trauma Recovery podcast. I was listening to those every day and then I signed up for the BTR group coaching. If I hadn’t discovered Betrayal Trauma Recovery, I don’t know what I would’ve done because no psychologist was able to help me.

BTR Group sessions were better therapy for me than a therapist, because I felt understood.

I have not met any therapist that can explain things in the way that you’re able to, Anne. I really appreciate that because I feel like some of these tags, are being overly used these days.

Anne: Those labels tend to explain why he does it rather than focusing on just the plain old fact that he does it. It doesn’t matter why he is abusive, he’s abusive.

I don’t really care why he’s lying. He’s lying. I like focusing on what is happening rather than why it’s happening.

Because the focus on why tends to end up accidentally taking women into, well then if I understand the why, like he’s a narcissist or he has childhood trauma or something, then you keep your focus on him. like, how can I help him? Or how can I solve this? Even how do I explain it to other people? Which still keeps you in that vortex.

Cynthia: Yeah. My psychologist didn’t really understand what was happening.

SUPPORT OF THE BETRAYAL TRAUMA RECOVERY GROUP SESSIONS

Cynthia: I remember hearing, one of the podcasts when you interviewed another lady and she was saying about going in this roundabout. You get into a discussion and you can’t get off the roundabout. And it got to the stage where every time I came home from work, it was like I was being sucked into the black hole again. Discussing something and never resolving it.

The support of the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group sessions made me realize that this is someone who doesn’t care about me or my feelings. And I also had a Betrayal Trauma Recovery one-on-one coaching session with one of the BTR coaches to decide, should I really just separate from this man? I’m living a normal life now, and able to go out and socialize. I’m promoting this to every woman that is in an abusive cycle.

Anne: Thank you. You and women like you are exactly why I do this, because we’re the same. I went through the same thing. I know the confusion. And it’s just awful when you go to therapy and you can’t get help or when you’re going to clergy and they’re giving you the wrong information. It’s so hard to navigate. So thank you for your support. Thank you for sharing this. ‘Cause, if more women knew about it, I think we could really save women from years of pain in dealing with their husband’s covert narcissist traits.

Cynthia: I would not have been able to recover without all of the material that you have. Especially, during the divorce process. It really helped me because I decided to use the best solicitor I could find that could manage the transaction with him. Removing myself from having any interaction with him, really helped.

HE’S USING HER INTERNAL WARNING SYSTEM AGAINST HER

Cynthia: So I can live my happy life now.

Anne: That is my life mission. It’s what I focus on every day, all day long.

Cynthia: I have a really good friend her daughter is in an abusive relationship cycle, and she’s bought the BTR Workshop. But the problem we have is we can’t get her to Betrayal Trauma Recovery . Because she thinks that maybe we’re pushing her for the divorce and we’re not doing that.

And what I say to my friend is, ” Well, the great thing about Betrayal Trauma Recovery is they don’t promote divorce, actually. Your daughter can keep herself safe and protect the children.

So anyway, I bought her the Workbook. She’s gonna be fine when she sees the truth, but she doesn’t want to educate herself on what to do.

Anne: I wouldn’t even say she doesn’t want to, she’s naturally being very confused. That is going to feel bad. I’ve talked to so many women who say something like, I’ve been praying and praying and praying about it, and it just can’t be that because it doesn’t feel right.

I get that because we need to get back in touch with our intuition. Your intuition is warning you, something’s wrong. You can feel that and they’re interpreting it through, “Well, it’s wrong. And so i’m gonna keep trying to talk to him, I’m gonna keep trying to work this out.”

So he’s using her internal, warning system against her. Of course it’s going to feel bad. It’s abuse and even when you’re doing the right thing, it’s still going to feel bad.

IT’S ONLY GOING TO WORK WHEN SHE’S READY

Cynthia: I have this other friend who’s been in this cycle for six years. I keep sending her your podcast. It’s too scary for her. There must be thousands and thousands of women like this, feeling in this fog, and they just can’t get out. So when she’s ringing up her mum to say, “Hey, Chuck just did this, he just screamed at me or punched the wall.” What can the mum say to help her? Is there anything apart from just listening?

Anne: Listening’s good to help women deal with the confusion around their husband’s covert narcissist traits. I found that women I meet in my congregation, for example, I’ll be like, I know what to do here. And I take it over to them. They don’t tend to watch it. Because they’re like, I don’t need this. I’ve got my therapist kind of a thing. And that’s really sad. ’cause then I see them in that same cycle for years and years and years. And I keep asking, have you watched it? And they’re like, no, I don’t have time.

So it’s women like you who are like, I’m gonna enroll in this. Who actually see the value in it.

Cynthia: The sad thing about that though is the BTR Workshop, it doesn’t just make you feel seen. It also can help you prevent being with an unhealthy person in the future. Whether that be a friend, whether it be, unhealthy family members. Once you start to know the signs, there’s so many self reflective exercises. It’s very empowering, for women to go through that. Especially when they’re in a time of need. I agree with you. That’s why I said to my friend, “It’s only gonna work when she’s ready.”

IF THEIR HUSBAND HAS BEEN MANIPULATING THEM WITH COVERT NARCISSIST TRAITS

Anne: The other problem is that if their husband has been manipulating them and using covert narcissist traits. And they’re going to a therapist. They’ve gone to multiple therapists, they’ve gone to multiple clergy and they’ve tried all these things. Everyone is like, “This is what to do.” And it never works.

Then why in the world would this random lady be the answer? She’s just like everyone else. What else is she gonna tell me? It’s really hard to be like, I promise the BTR Workshop is nothing like anything you’ve seen before.

Cynthia: Absolutely.

Anne: Not what any therapist is gonna tell you. Because they haven’t experienced it, they can’t really understand what I’m talking about. I had to set it up step by step to really understand it. Because there’s no way to just explain it. It goes into extreme depth, but it’s very clear. If I try to explain it without the videos, which I did for years. It just got all muddled up.

Cynthia: No, you need the videos.

Anne: Because the visual, seeing it is what helps it click for women.

Cynthia: I was wondering, as we’re talking now for all these women that are going to these therapists. How about if they were educated on this? Because it feels like that’s really the only avenue to reach those women watching the workshop videos.

I STARTED FEELING BETTER AS I DID THE BTR WORKSHOP

Anne: I’ve had people do it, then they go to therapy. Or do other things like art therapy. And do that for years. And then they’re like, oh, wait, wait, wait. There was that Workshop. I gotta do that again. They do it again. And they’re like, Ahhh!

Cynthia: What I loved about the whole thing, is I needed help immediately when I had my D-Day discovery, where I was like, wow, I’m being gaslit. So I have this recording now. I wanted to know what I could do, and the BTR Workshop enabled me to just do that.

And I think I started, eight in the evening and I couldn’t stop. I was starting to feel better as I was working through it. Like, wow, I’m starting to see the light and I feel good.

I’ve had very expensive therapists. I’m talking thousands for just a weekend retreat. And the Workshop helped me tenfold. Because I was able to have the tools to take care of me.

Anne: I appreciate you and any of the other listeners out there who are getting the word out about BTR, to everybody that you can, because I kind of get lumped in the same category as maybe like a covert narcissist traits influencer or something. Rather than realizing the services that we have here and the information in the workshop is very solid.

Cynthia: Oh yeah.

Anne: Rather than just “selling some online course.”

IT TAKES YOU ON A JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY

Cynthia: Yeah, it’s been very well thought out, and it takes you on a journey of discovery about your husband’s or your partner’s true character. And then it gives you specific tools, to protect yourself from covert narcissist traits so you’re in a safe place. It’s for women that are in a relationship that don’t want to leave the relationship to protect themselves at home, maybe in home separation. It’s for women that want to educate themselves, that want to understand why they’ve been feeling like they’ve been living in this fog.

When I’ve been joining the group sessions, there’s been women of all different stages of the recovery. There’s people like me that were in the initial discovery. For me, the workshop is the beginning of the recovery journey, and you really have to start there to know that you are not the problem. I mean, it’s the most amazing thing I’ve done. It’s better than anything. It’s helped me the most in my life.

Anne: Thank you. It’s such an honor to hear your story and it feels really good that it’s helping people. Especially because sometimes I feel like I have this amazing information and there’s also no risk.

There’s a lot of risk to therapy. It’s expensive and it’s a lot of time. And I don’t think people realize how risky it is. Whereas our BTR Workshop is zero risk. It’s not too expensive, and it doesn’t take a ton of time. And listening to the Betrayal Trauma Podcast is also zero risk. There’s just this one little tiny risk, and that is that your whole life might change.

Cynthia: Yeah.




COVERT NARCISSIST TRAITS CAN BE EXHAUSTING AND CONFUSING

Anne: I guess that is the risk. And that seems too risky, maybe for some people. Anyway, thank you Cynthia. I so appreciate your help, and spreading the word and sharing your story today. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Cynthia: Thank you. It’s been wonderful to be here. And please, uh, continue doing all the great work you’re doing.

Anne: I’m so grateful to Cynthia for sharing her story. Her experience shows how exhausting and confusing these covert narcissist traits can be when you’re in the thick of it. So next we’re gonna shift gears a little bit.

One question I hear often from women who are doing the work of healing is, “How do you start trusting yourself again and how do you make sure you don’t miss those subtle red flags of this covert narcissism if you ever start dating again?”

Two other members of our community, Maisie and Lorna talk about what these patterns look like if you’ve left a narcissistic abuser.

But before we hear their stories, I’m gonna share a little bit about my own dating history.

Anne: I didn’t get married until I was 30 and I dated so much before I met my ex-husband. At that time, I thought I had a really strong self worth. When I met him, was like, this is the man I’ve been waiting for. I have no regrets.

EXPERIENCE WITH COVERT NARCISSIST TRAITS WHILE DATING

Anne: I’m so grateful that I married my ex because I wouldn’t have my kids or the life that I have now without his amazing contributions that he’s made to my knowledge about emotional and psychological abuse and narcissists. Um, I’m not gonna diagnose my ex as a narcissist per se, but when you read the definition of narcissist, he definitely has those characteristics.

So I don’t really want to go back in time to avoid marrying him. But I didn’t do some things that I would do now if I were dating.

My main problem was I laid it out on the table. This is exactly what I want. I would talk a lot. And my talking was the perfect setup because all they had to do was agree with me and nod their heads. And I thought I’d met the man of my dreams. If I date now, I don’t say very much, and I ask them questions and then observe , because I don’t want to put all my cards on the table and say, I love Star Wars. Me too. I love Indiana Jones. Me too. Rather I say, what kind of movies do you like?

When you’re having a conversation with them, do they ask you questions about yourself and your life or do they monologue and then they let you monologue. So you feel like they’re a really good listener because you talk and talk and talk and they listen. Try pulling back on your conversation and just see if he listens, when you just say one thing. Okay. I want to do this and then pause. And see how he responds when you give very short answers without a lot of context or without a lot of explanation.

MAISIE TELLS HER STORY

Anne: Maisie, can you tell us just a tiny bit of your story about dealing with covert narcissist traits in relationships?

Maisie: I was married for 10 years. Even before I was actually married, I had maybe three bad relationships, one which was violent. The guys I have tended to get in relationships with have been just emotionally unavailable or not being able to show affection.

Women can get confused. And I think that’s probably why I was confused before I really researched it to try and help myself is. People think abuse is just violence or really severe mental abuse. Is infidelity abuse? Actually like a lot of intricate parts of a relationship, someone cheating on you or someone being emotionally unavailable and withholding affection and you know you come home and they just don’t want to be around you or don’t want to talk to you and that kind of thing is abusive. So I didn’t really know that I had low self esteem.

I knew there was something not right. Cause you ask yourself, why does this keep happening to me? I have two children now, two daughters. That’s with my husband, who I was with. And when we split up and I ended that relationship, I was really at rock bottom. That’s probably the lowest point I’ve ever been.

That was only three years ago. We separated. And I think the whole year I must have read about a hundred self help books. I mean I just read night and day. Every spare minute I had, I read. I didn’t really go out much or socialize. I thought I have to help myself because there’s something wrong here.

IT ISN’T UNTIL YOU HIT ROCK BOTTOM THAT YOU DO SOMETHING

Maisie: Because of all these continuous cycles I was putting myself in. I think that’s what can happen with a lot of women. You go along, you think you’re fine, you’re fine, you’re fine, you’re fine, and it isn’t until you hit rock bottom that you’ll actually do something about it. Doing everything I could to help me, and I remember at the time thinking, I wish there was somewhere I could go, something affordable. I was on my own with my two children, just ended the marriage, so finances and everything was changing for me.

Obviously, at the same time, I was also working as a domestic abuse advocate, so I’m working with high risk victims at work, and I’m going through my own thing as well. It just made me completely reflect on everything, with everything that I’d researched and, you know, learned for myself, trying to pull myself out of this hole.

Anne: When you set out to discover what your “problem” was, you discovered that you do not have a problem.

Maisie: That’s right. Yeah.

TRUSTING YOURSELF AGAIN AFTER EXPERIENCING COVERT NARCISSIST TRAITS

Anne: . Lorna , can you speak to that for a little bit?

Lorna: Yeah, when you’re in a relationship like that, all you do is overcompensate, you’re always thinking it’s your fault, you should be doing more, you should be a better person. It’s almost like your whole life revolves around trying to please this person.

When you get to that rock bottom place, I’ve been in exactly the same place, where I want to just be out of this universe. I felt like I cannot deal with this pain anymore. My ex partner, who I have children with, he was exactly the same. We have a very similar story with that.

I just couldn’t believe that I had children with a person who treated me so badly. Thinking, okay, well, he’s doing this because of who I am. It’s not because of who he is. It was exhausting. I would do everything I could to try and please this person. It never happened, until one day I just thought, I cannot do this anymore.

Or I thought it was going to kill me, I did. Now looking back, I think there must have been some kind of inner strength within you to do that. All I could do was really reflect on and think to myself, I cannot allow this to happen to me again. I only live once. I need to have the best quality of life for me and my children. And I will never allow that to happen again. And I can’t control what he done. I can’t control about what half the men do out there. But I can control how I act on it, and I can control my happiness. And I am on my own now.

HE SAYS HE’S GOING TO CHANGE

Lorna: And all I think about is my own happiness and my children’s happiness.

Maisie: When you’re in a good place and you’re going into a relationship.

It’s a win win situation. A few years ago, I don’t know what I was willing to tolerate. I would just see, oh, this guy’s gorgeous, oh, he’s got a good job, he’s so nice, he’s treating me so amazing. And then I could find out, oh, well, he may be cheating on me. Oh, okay, well, I’ll just give him another chance. I’ll just give him one more chance. He’s saying he’s going to change. So I’ll just give him one more chance. So that’s why Know your worth and know your boundaries.

Anne: When women really know their worth. Many abusers accuse them of being selfish, or prideful or not respecting men. What are your thoughts about dating after recovering from being abused by someone with covert narcissist traits?

Lorna: It’s a peaceful silence within you. All your power and all the light comes from within. A lot of the times, the narcissist is the light and life of the party. I think a lot of people that you do see as really outgoing, they’ve got lots of issues right underneath. And no matter what kind of personality you have, if you stick to your beliefs and your values, you live by what you believe, because you’re not going against anything just to please other people.

Maisie: It can be misconstrued even by women that they think, yeah, you’re manipulating a situation. This is treating men badly. No, it’s not. It’s all about you knowing what you’re worth, having the ability to be able to make choices and be confident about them.

GIVING PEOPLE THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT

Maisie: I mean, I never used to be able to make a decision. I used to have to run to my mum forever. Mum, I don’t know what to do. Like, should I do this? Should I do that? And now I’m like, it’s my decision. Women have got a lot to give.

Anne: Yeah, after covert narcissist traits abuse, you might have that value conflict of being confident in what you want, but then also giving people the benefit of the doubt or wanting people to like you. And that’s totally understandable. something I always say to my kids and something that I apply in dating. Don’t put your best foot forward because you don’t want them to fall in love with your foot. You want them to fall in love with you.

Well, I appreciate you reaching out. Thank you so much for sharing just a tiny bit of your story.

Maisie: Well, thank you for having us.

Lorna: Thank you so much. It’s been lovely.

Anne: And to our listeners, think about what you think women should look for after narcissistic abuse. If you relate, comment below.

​

If you’ve ever searched for a marriage bible reference because someone told you, “A good Christian wife shouldn’t say no,” you’re not alone.

Many women, especially when we’re juggling children, church expectations, and a husband who says he has “needs”, go looking for scripture to settle the question: Does the Bible really require me to submit to intimacy that feels one-sided or emotionally detached?

Why women need thiese bible references

In this interview with Sheila Wray Gregoire (co-author of The Great Sex Rescue, based on research from more than 20,000 Christian women), we unpack something most marriage conversations miss: The Bible repeatedly tells believers to resist evil, guard their hearts, and seek protection—not to submit to harm in God’s name.

Let’s walk through the powerful marriage bible reference no one quotes when women are pressured into “intimacy” out of duty.

The Marriage Bible Reference For Women in a Confusing Marriage

A common problem in Christian marriage teaching is defining intimacy almost entirely around intercourse and male climax.

In the interview we discussed a study of over 20,000 Christian women. Here’s what we found.

Women who feel emotionally disconnected report far lower satisfaction intimacy.

Obligation-driven intimacy correlates with increased pain and emotional withdrawal.

Yet many Christian books interpret these bible references to frame physical intimacy as:

His need

Her obligation

A way to prevent him from using inappropriate or exploitative media or infidelity

For a mom who already carries the emotional weight of the family, this adds another invisible burden:
“Keep him stable, or it’s your fault if he sins.” That framing erases the pain she feels from the infidelity because apparently she caused it. This is actually a form of spiritual and emotional abuse. To find out if you’re experiencing this, here’s my free emotional abuse test.

The Marriage Bible Reference No One Quotes

When women are told to endure their husband’s harmful behavior in marriage, certain verses are often quoted. But others, just as authoritative, are quietly ignored.

Here are the powerful passages that show God consistently calls His people to protect themselves from harm.

1. “Deliver Us From Evil” — Matthew 6:13

Jesus Himself taught believers to pray for deliverance from evil. Not “Help us tolerate evil” or “Help us endure harm silently.”
Deliver.

The Lord’s prayer tells us to pray for deliverance and it means God wants to protect us. God makes it clear that evil exists and we should seek to be delivered from it.

To talk to Christian women who understand your situation, attend one of our daily, online Group Sessions. There you can fellowship with faithful women who are discovering their husband’s true character and figuring out what to do through prayer and scripture study.

2. “Guard Your Heart” — Proverbs 4:23

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

If physical with your husband feels soul-crushing, if your body recoils, if you feel used rather than known, this verse supports protecting your emotional and spiritual core. Guarding your heart is not rebellion. It’s what God wants women to do if their husband hurts them emotionally.

3. “Resist the Devil” — James 4:7

“Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

Resistance is biblical. Spiritual language is being used by wicked people to override your righteous boundaries. , that pressure should not go unquestioned. Scripture does not command passive compliance with manipulation.

4. “Put On The Armor of God” — Ephesians 6:10–18

Here’s the thing, many scriptures are actually marriage bible references, even if they don’t say “marriage” because they talk about how believers should deal with people who hurt them. For example, why would God tell anyone, even women, to put on the armor of God? Because harm is real.

The imagery of spiritual armor teaches you to stand firm and defend yourself.

Often, women don’t realize the man she married is lying to her, pretending to be righteous when he’s actually undermining her and their marriage. This causes real harm and God wants everyone, including women to protect themselves.

5. “God Is Refuge” — Psalm 46:1

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”

Refuge means safety. A marriage should provide emotional safety. But if it doesn’t, there’s something wrong. If the way your husband treats you leaves you feeling invisible or emotionally unsafe, that does not align with how marriage should be, according to God.

6. “Hate What Is Evil” — Romans 12:9

“Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.”

Marriage does not transform evil into righteousness. Coercion does not become holy because you made a vow with a man who lied and doesn’t keep his vows. If he doesn’t keep his vow to cherish and protect you, it’s not your fault. God wants you to hate being harmed so you can learn to protect yourself.

How The Wrong Interpretation of a Marriage Bible Reference Hurt Generations of Women

Certain marriage bible references have been interpreted incorrectly, and have told women that…

“She must be available for physical intimacy or he’ll sin.”

“All men struggle with lust, so this is normal.”

“Her body is the solution to his sin problem.”

The research tells us that when women are told these untrue interpretations they have

Lower marital satisfaction

Higher pain

Greater emotional disconnection

Meanwhile, women who report emotionally close marriages experience:

Higher mutual satisfaction

Better intimacy

Greater physical responsiveness

The data does not support obligation intimacy as “saving” marriage. It supports emotional health as the foundation of a healthy, fulfilling marriage.

What This Means for Women With Children

If you’re raising kids with a man who is harming you, you’re trying to figure out what God wants you to do because the situation is complex. You have children to raise and you’re likely financially dependent on your husband. Here’s a powerful truth to help you.

Scripture consistently calls believers to pursue righteousness, safety, and protection.

Examples in real life might look like:

Saying, “I am not willing to have one-sided intimacy. If fact, if it is, it’s not really intimacy is it.”

Refusing to accept sexual sin as “normal male behavior.”

Stop seeking counsel from people who don’t take your concerns seriously.

Praying for deliverance, not just for endurance.

Reframing the “Marriage Bible Reference” Requirement

Women tell me they were discouraged to protect themselves from their emotionally unsafe husband by people quoting scripture. But there are countless marriage bible references that encourage people to separate themselves from wickedness.

If someone is using scripture to coerce you to stay close to someone who harms you, they’re not being Christlike. Christ would put his arms around you and tell you you deserve to feel emotionally safe in your own home.

The Bible does speak about marriage.

But it also repeatedly commands believers to:

Flee evil (1 Thessalonians 5:22)

Stand firm (1 Corinthians 16:13)

Seek wisdom (James 1:5)

Protect the vulnerable (Psalm 82:3–4)

Nowhere does scripture teach that a wife must endure coercion to prove her godliness. It DOES NOT say that male desire overrides female consent. Nowhere does it command women to sacrifice their emotional health to preserve appearances.

Transcript: Marriage Bible Reference No One Quotes

Anne: So many women are looking for marriage bible references to figure out if they are being a Godly wife. If you’re not Christian or you’re agnostic or atheist, this episode has a lot of data that will be useful to you. We’ll talk about the incorrect interpretations of scripture that show up in secular places as well, and how it’s harmed women.

Women looking for God’s help to save their marriage (or improve it) aren’t dumb. They’re humble and are reaching out for help. The problem is people are telling them the bible says certain things about marriage that it actually doesn’t say.

So today I’m talking with Sheila Rae Gregoire. She’s best known as the blogger of to love honor and vacuum. And she, her daughter Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach and Epidemiologist Joanna Sowatski, surveyed more than 20,000 Christian women. About their lives, marriages, and beliefs about marriage and intimacy. Together, they wrote a book called The Great Sex Rescue, the Lies You’ve Been Taught, and How to Recover What God intended.

After reading it, I’m like, throw all your other Christian intimacy books in the garbage. Today, Sheila and I will focus on how to recognize intercourse that’s unhealthy. So, Sheila, you started writing about intimacy in Christian circles a long time ago. What got you interested in this in the first place?

Christian Books Containing Bad Advice: Sheila’s Journey Into Intimacy Writing

Sheila: Thanks so much for having me. We had such a great time chatting before we even recorded this, that like, hey, we’re just besties. Well, it’s like nobody grows up thinking I’m going to become the Christian sex lady. Like that’s not anyone’s plan, and it certainly wasn’t mine. I started blogging and I was just talking about marriage, you know, and parenting and housekeeping, and just the normal mom blog stuff.

But simultaneously, my husband and I were speaking at many marriage conferences, and we always had to do the talk because nobody wanted to do it. And so we would just get plugged in there and he’s a doctor. He’ll talk up at anything. He doesn’t care. And I don’t care either. So it seemed like we were always the intimacy people.

And I just started writing about it more. The more I wrote about it, the more people showed up at the blog. And I think ever since then, my blog has been mostly about intimacy.

Anne: Hey, I get where you’re coming from. I never thought I’d be the pornography podcaster. So I totally get it. My mom always says the anti-pornography podcaster. So tell me about this study that you did.

Sheila: It seemed like no matter how much we said, and no matter how much good content I produced. People still had all the same problems. And it was like I wasn’t making a dent in it. And I started to wonder, maybe the issue isn’t that people don’t have enough good resources. Maybe it’s that our foundation is faulty, and there’s something seriously wrong underneath. But until we address that structural flaw, nothing’s really going to work.

Huge Study About Identifying Messages Hurting Women

Sheila: And so we did this huge study of Christian women in every denomination, every sect, every everything. Trying to figure out what correlates with good a good intimate life, and what correlates with a bad one. And how we can identify what messages in Christian books hurt women. And I think one of our big problems is just a definitional one.

So if I were to say to you, did you have it last night? Okay, which I won’t, because that’s really creepy. But if I asked you that, chances are you’re thinking something specific. Like, you’re thinking, did he put his thing into her thing and move around until he climaxed? You know, that’s our definition.

Anne: You can say penis and vagina, by the way. So let’s just say really quick, for this particular episode, if you do have young ears listening, we will be saying that. So you may want to pause and restart when they’re not in the car.

Sheila: I’m probably going to say orgasm too. So anyway, yeah, did he put his penis into her vagina and move around until he reached climax? And that’s what we think it is. But, in our survey, what we found is that only about a third of women who do reach orgasm can reach orgasm through intercourse alone. Okay, so most women need something other than just intercourse. And most women find it easier to reach orgasm in other ways.

Biblical Perspective On Intimacy

Sheila: So if we say intercourse is just man puts thingy into her thingy and moves around until he climaxes, we’re leaving her almost entirely out of the description. Like she could lie there counting ceiling tiles, she could write a grocery list in her head, and that still counts. And that’s just not how the Bible talks about it. First of all, it’s not only physical. The Bible talks about it as a deep knowing, you know, Adam knew his wife Eve. Like it’s a deep knowing between two people.

So it isn’t just. physical. It’s also supposed to be spiritually intimate. Then it’s supposed to be mutual and pleasurable, where both get something out of it. And instead, we’ve condensed it to one-sided intercourse. When we do that, all kinds of bad things happen. And I think our primary problem is that we see it mostly from a male perspective, that it’s only about intercourse.

Well, Biblical intimacy is something which is life giving. It’s something which binds you together and helps you to feel more intimate. The way we often talk about it is actually something which is soul crushing. We see it as an obligation that she owes him. So it’s an entitlement on his part. It’s an obligation on hers. Many Christian intimacy authors write books with bad information. And that’s got all kinds of repercussions. What we saw over and over again in our survey responses and in the focus groups we did afterwards.

Is that the women with the best lives, the most responsive, and enjoyed it the most. Were the women who felt emotionally close to their husbands, both inside and outside the bedroom.

Emotional Closeness & Satisfaction

Sheila: So, the people in the happiest marriages tend to have the best intimacy, and that shouldn’t surprise us. Like, well, that’s kind of intuitive, right? But the problem is, we talk about it as if it can be a substitute for those other things. Like, if you don’t feel close, you should just have it so that you’ll be closer. What we found is that that doesn’t actually work. When women have it for years. And they feel emotionally distant from their husbands, they just can’t sustain that.

When you have it, which is supposed to be deep knowing, and when it becomes only physical. It actually becomes a rejection of you. Like if it is supposed to be a knowing, it means both people matter. But if it becomes something that you only do because you’re supposed to, then your needs are no longer being considered. And that means you don’t matter, and then it becomes a rejection, and that’s not right.

Think about it this way. When you get a driver’s license, you can now drive. It doesn’t mean you get a car. And when you get married, you now have the relationship in which you can have it. It doesn’t mean you get it. You’re just now in the relationship where it is sanctioned by God. But that doesn’t mean it has to happen anymore than having a driver’s license means you get a car.

It just means you have permission to drive. And it’s the same thing with intercourse. You know, when we get married, it’s not like we’re promising now I will have it with you whenever you want. We’re now saying this is the relationship in which life giving it can occur.

The Impact Of Forced Intercourse On Women

Sheila: And that’s healthy. That’s a good thing. That’s what we should be aiming for. But God does not require us to have soul crushing intercourse. And if you’re told you need it, or else something bad will happen. right? Or else he’s going to watch explicit material, or else he’s going to have an affair, or he’ll be grumpy and treat you terribly.

Then that’s not a free choice that you are making. When you can’t freely say no, you can’t freely say yes either. And that’s a big problem. And we’ve got the numbers. I’m a numbers person. I love it. But we have so much data of what happens when you have it for years, simply because you feel like you have to. And you feel almost forced into it, and it is not pretty. This does not end well for women. This is soul crushing.

And what I often tell women to say is something like this, “hon, I would love to have a passionate life with you. I would love to make love with you. But that’s not what’s happening right now. What’s happening right now is that I feel used and so I am no longer willing to have it one-sided with you. I need to connect in every way, and I need to be able to trust you and I need to feel safe. And until that happens, I am no longer willing to have it with you.”








That’s okay to do because when God created us for relationship and marriage, he didn’t create us so that we were now slaves to someone else, as many Christian relationship books state.

Personal Experiences & Struggles

Sheila: He created us for connectedness, for community, for relationship, for emotional health. God never wants you to feel used. That is never his will.

Anne: I remember when I first got married, I was 31 and a virgin. I remember telling my friends who were also virgins, I said, I feel like a machine. It was really one-sided. I didn’t enjoy it from the beginning, and I said, it’s weird. Because I just feel like some object he use. I thought I would get it, but I don’t get it. And I remember thinking that and telling people that because I was trying to get help. I was trying to be like, what is this?

How do I navigate this? There were so many things I didn’t understand. I didn’t know he was using it. I didn’t know I was being gaslit. But I think many women have that thought of like, am I just? A robot? What am I? Who am I? What is my identity in this? And how do I fit into this? What does lack of true intimacy do to a woman? Can you talk about what the data said about women who have traditional views on gender roles? Or who get their information from popular marriage bible references that have been misinterpreted?

Sheila: Yeah, I found this interesting. Okay, so let me take my daughter, for instance. One of my daughters is a real homemaker. She loves everything about being a housewife. And she came home last week because her husband is in the military and he’s away right now. She came home last week, and cleaned my entire kitchen, got behind the fridge, got under the stove. Like she totally cleaned everything.

Christian Promote Harmful Traditional Gender Roles And Mandatory Intimacy

Sheila: She lives for this sort of thing. And her husband, like I said, is in the military. Okay, he likes to shoot things for fun. Like he loves doing skull art. He will shoot animals, and he will turn the skulls into things on the wall. All right. Now, what we found is that when you look at couples like my daughter and son-in-law, if those roles are freely chosen. So if she decides to stay home and be a housewife, and if he decides to work outside the home.

Because that is what they individually want to do, that’s great. But if they make that choice because they think I have to stay at home because I’m a woman, and I have to go out and earn a living because I’m a man, their emotional intimacy suffers.

Anne: Does it also apply to something, like I have to clean the toilet, make dinner or do the laundry because I’m a woman? And the man thinking, you have to clean the toilet because you’re the woman?

Sheila: Probably, I would assume, but we can’t speak to that because we didn’t specifically ask about that. There are some more words that we didn’t put in. We didn’t say we’re egalitarian. Even though we are, we didn’t say lots of words like that. And that was deliberate. That was a deliberate choice that we made. And the reason is because the people I need to reach, the people whose minds I need to change. Are the people who are buying in the most to many of these negative teachings.

Trying To Change People’s Minds

Sheila: They tend to be the people in the most patriarchal churches. That’s another word we didn’t use, patriarchal. We wanted to present the data and let it speak for itself. What we found on the blog over the last few years is that every time I try to talk about gender roles or something, we end up talking past each other. People start debating doctrine and they start debating. What does the Bible say about this?

I don’t find that gets us anywhere, but if I can say something like, you can believe that if you want. But she’s going to have a 38 percent lower orgasm rate. I find that works better. We try to bring it back to the data and get it out of the political realm or the doctrinal realm. And talk about the data. I think this can help change people’s minds. I think this is the way in, because most people want good intimacy. Like, most people don’t want this to be wrecked.

And so if I can show them, Hey, when you believe these things, it is more likely to be terrible. They’re going to listen to me much more than if I start talking about how misogynistic everybody is.

Anne: I like it. I do use those terms I don’t think of them as political, you know, but some people do. So I respect that you did that and that makes total sense.

Sheila: Well, I think you’re a different spot though, right? Like you get people who are coming to you, who have already felt betrayed or are thinking about it. I’m trying to reach a broader audience and change the conversation. I just hope we’re doing that. I think we are.

Popular Christian Books & Their Flaws

Anne: Oh, I think so too. Can you talk about these popular Christian books and some of the main themes that you saw that were unhealthy for women?

Sheila: Yeah, one of the biggest ones is summed up in a Christian book called Love and Respect, where the author says, if your husband is typical, he has a need you don’t have. And that says so much. Like, first of all, it says it is for the guy. It’s not for the woman. It phrases it in terms of his need, rather than just a drive. You know, I don’t believe it is a need. I think we all have a drive, but it’s not a need.

And when we talk about it as a need, we frame it as something which she would be depriving him if she ever said no.

Anne: He’s gonna die if you don’t have it with him.

Sheila: Yeah, exactly.

Anne: It’s like air and food.

Sheila: So that’s highly problematic. That was typical, that framing of it as something about him, not about her. And then the other one, I think, which was big. Which goes throughout most resources is that you’re just not allowed to deprive him. So it is an obligation that women owe.

Kevin Lehman in Sheet Music said, “You know, when you get married, realize you’re signing up to have it at least two or three times a week for the rest of your life. And sometimes you might have to force yourself and you might want to shove him off of you. But you have to do it anyway as an act of obedience.”

Marriage Bible References Don’t Promote Marital Coercion

Sheila: So we actually measured that. We said, what happens if women have it when their primary motivation is because I have to. And it just leads to all sorts of terrible things in terms of marital satisfaction. And it drives the couple further and further apart.

Anne: I appreciated how you brought up what marital coercion is, which, to my knowledge, is not mentioned anywhere in any of these popular Christian books. They never say, if you don’t get your wife’s consent, then it’s rape, right? And I love how you brought that up. Were there any questions about marital rape in your study? Are Christian relationship books addressing this? No.

Sheila: What we did is we talked about it in some focus groups and in some follow up surveys. And what I can tell you is that of the women who left their email addresses, which was about 20 percent of the women who took our survey. About 20 percent of them said they had stories of marital rape to share with us. Which is a very high percentage. Now, obviously that was a self selected group, but none of the evangelical resources we looked at even said the word consent.

John Gottman’s book is the best selling marriage book on the secular market. Which we used as our control book Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, that one spoke at length about consent. And so this is something which is talked about all the time in the secular world, which the Christian world has no idea how to talk about.

Every Man’s Battle: A Critical Look

Anne: Mm hmm, yeah, many of our listeners have experienced marital coercion. And so that number does not surprise me at all because we talk about it all the time. I don’t mean to make light of it, but it’s just something that’s common around here. So can we talk about Every Man’s Battle?

Sheila: Okay, so Every Man’s Battle basically says men will lust, and the book is strange, okay. Because it’ll give a lot of lists of things that men do. Like maybe you find yourself opening the door for her, but not out of honorable means. Just so that she can go first, and you can stare at her behind. You know, maybe you find yourself looking across the room at a woman where a button has come undone.

Maybe you find yourself masturbating in a gym car parking lot to see the women exiting the gym. And it’s like, excuse me. Or they’ll tell a story about this guy who’s watching TV. His sister-in-law is lying down on the floor on her stomach, and she falls asleep. And she’s got really short shorts on. So he masturbates there while she’s asleep on the floor. And they portray that as a sin against his purity, when really that is a sin against her.

This is the problem throughout that book. Every time he lusts, it is a sin against his purity. And she never enters the equation. Like whenever they talk about women, they give this gross discussion of this jogger at the beginning of the book. How her glistening flesh, ample bosom, and skin tight tie-dyed jogging suit, it’s just gross.

Treating Women Like Objects

Sheila: And then they say the solution to lust is to bounce your eyes and not look at women. And then to transfer all your energy to your wife. Stop lusting after everybody else and just lust after your wife. But, you know, lust is a sin, even if it’s after your wife. Like lust is just simply using someone else for your gratification. That’s what lust is. So you shouldn’t be lusting after your wife either.

You should love your wife and enjoy an intimate experience with her. Not just using her, but they think it’s okay to use her because she’s just your wife. Like you can’t defeat lust when you agree with lust’s definition of women. Lust’s definition of women is they exist as objects.

So the way I’m going to defeat lust is to never look at a woman because she’s a object. And then to treat my wife like a object, so that I don’t want to treat all these other women like objects. How about just simply learning how to respect women as whole people?

Anne: It’s not only a disservice to women, but also a disservice to men to say that men are incapable of treating women with respect. So you have to like what? Shut your eyes and Mr. Magoo through life.

Christian Books Magnify The Stress Of Maintaining Purity

Sheila: In the first chapter of Through A Man’s Eyes. It describes how stressful this man’s life is, because he’s trying to remain pure for his wife. So his entire workday is stressful. Because what if one of his coworkers is sitting across from him in their meeting, and her button is undone? Or what if another coworker, what if her skirt is too short? And what if the barista at the coffee shop, what if she’s wearing something tight?

What if he sees these billboards and he’s trying not to look at anybody all day, and then he gets home and he’s so happy that now he gets to look at his wife. And I read that and I’m like, Are men really that stressed their entire life? Like, is it that difficult to be a man? So I asked my husband, who’s a pediatrician, and he works in an all female environment. So all the other doctors are female. The nurses tend to be female. The parents who bring the kids in are female.

So I thought, if life is really this stressful, he’s going to have a terrible time. So I said, are you stressed all day because a woman might have a button undone or she might be too attractive? And he laughed at me. He didn’t think I was serious. And I said, no, no, I am serious. Like, is this difficult for you? That’s what some Christian relationship books say.

And he still laughed at me. But the book had told me that men will not confess this to you. Men will not tell you the truth. And so your husband won’t tell you the truth. So I’m wondering, is he just not telling me the truth?

Respecting Women As Whole People

Sheila: And then when he realized I was serious, he’s like, wait, no, there are guys like that? No, there’s not. I don’t want to share too much information, but my husband is not a low drive man. Like, okay, he’s got testosterone and everything.

And he thought this whole idea was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard, because my husband respects women. And he was really offended. He was offended that people would think a man can’t just respect women. And I just wish more men would get upset at the demeaning, horrible way these and other Christian books treat men.

Anne: I mean, I talk to my sons often about that. Like, when we went to a water park. And one of my sons was like, Mom, I don’t know if I want to go there, because there are so many girls in bikinis, and it kind of bothers me. And I said, well, what do you think would happen if they didn’t have a stomach, these women? What is their stomach for? I’m like, is it for you to look at? Or is it so they can eat?

And he was like, Oh, so they can eat. And I was like, and what are their legs for? What if a woman didn’t have legs? I’m trying to help him realize that women, regardless of what they’re wearing or doing, are people. And she’s not wearing a bikini to ruin your day. She’s just wearing a bikini, because she wants to go to the beach and soak up some sun.

Navigating Life With An Addicted Spouse

Anne: So many women when they find out about their husband’s explicit content use. They go into this mode where they’re like, we can’t go to the beach. We can’t go swimming. We can’t watch the Super Bowl. And suddenly, the things they can do narrow and narrow. And I’m not saying people should do things unethical or immoral. But I like going to the beach, you know, I want to go to the beach.

I want to go to a water park with my kids. And want to enjoy regular wholesome activities with my children. I have a lot of empathy for this, because I went through the same period where I felt traumatized when we went to the beach. I felt like we couldn’t watch movies. It’s such a weight to bear, your husband’s inability to treat women with respect.

Sheila: Well, first of all, I’m so sorry. You should never have to bear that. But in terms of how to handle that, if he can’t go to the beach, you can still go to the beach with your kids. Like, don’t wreck your own life. But the other thing is to remember what victory should look like. Victory means he can look at women as whole people. And that means that he needs to stop blaming women for his use and his lust.

The reason he’s lusting is not because of what she’s wearing. The reason he’s lusting is because of how he chooses to see women, and it is not her fault.

Christian Books Wrongfully Compare Your Wife To Methadone

Anne: Absolutely, we see that type of behavior and disrespect for women as an abuse issue. Here at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, we’ve got an emotionally and psychologically abusive man. Who is unable to view women as people, and that’s going to include you. In Chapter six, you say your wife is not your methadone. Around here, I say alcoholics abuse alcohol, drug addicts abuse drugs, and addicts abuse people. They use people as drugs.

Sheila: Yeah, when we first read the Christian book, Love and Respect, I was absolutely floored. Up until that time, I hadn’t read many evangelical marriage books or Christian marriage books, so I wasn’t aware of the prevailing interpretation of marriage bible references. Because I was always so scared of plagiarizing. So I read Love and Respect, the chapter said men need it in a way that women don’t. If men don’t get physical release, they’re going to have an affair, and women need to understand men’s lust problem.

And that’s all it said. It was terrible. And I wrote a blog post about this, and I was trying to convey how awful this was, like how absolutely abhorrent this was. I was talking to my daughter, and she said, well, it’s almost like he’s talking about women like they’re methadone. And I thought, yeah, that’s the perfect analogy. So we said like, women are not methadone.

And then I’m reading Every Man’s Battle, and they actually think that’s a selling feature. Like they use that line twice. They said once he quits cold turkey, be like a merciful vial of methadone for him.

Anne: Wow.

Sheila: Like they did it unironically. We were saying it ironically, they did it unironically.

A Disturbing Comparison

Sheila: Like they thought this was a good line. They have no clue. Let’s think about what that’s saying. Okay, methadone is a substitute. So if you’re addicted to opioids, what you want is the opioid. But you will settle for methadone, because it satiates you enough that you don’t feel the need to go after the opioid. So if we’re talking about this in the context of marriage and explicit content, what we’re saying is what he wants is to masturbate to that hot woman on the screen.

But he will settle for having it with you, because that will satiate him enough that he won’t go for the it right now. Like that’s disgusting. Women are not methadone.

Women are whole people made in the image of God, and we should never have been treated that way. And it’s absolutely unconscionable that the book series sold 4 million copies. Like where is the discernment and where are the leaders saying women are worth more than this? And I guess that’s what I want. I want people to understand that women are worth more than this.

We are precious, and it was never meant to be reduced to. Hey, let him ejaculate inside of you so that he doesn’t watch it. That is abusive in every way. Thank you for what you’re doing, because my heart is for those who have been betrayed. I pray this message will get out there, and that it will be a message of real freedom. And just to know that God wants wholeness, He wants real intimacy, and it is never ever his heart that any woman feel used.

Processing Trauma From Bad Advice

Anne: I am so grateful that you have shed light on these dangerous ideas. That many Christian women have had as the foundation of their understanding of what it is and what their “role” is in it. So the question is, how do we process the trauma we’ve experienced from all the bad advice? That we may have received from these Christian books and society over the years?

Sheila: I was in that culture, you know, that evangelical culture, which said men need it and women want affection. It’s usually the guy who’s frustrated. And women, what we need to do is understand how much he needs it. And in The Good Girls Guide, the Original, there was an element of it there. Because I was in that culture, and I was never comfortable with it. I always knew there was something wrong with it.

And I was actually one of the first people to talk a lot about higher drive wives. Because I did a big survey back then, and found out how many women actually have the higher drive. And it’s like they don’t exist, like they’re unicorns. No one ever talks about that. It’s just, Oh, he needs it and she doesn’t, but not always true. But you know, the more I listened to women.

The more I realized that we were missing out on a huge part of the story, and that was actually the impetus for doing that huge survey of 20, 000 women. We wanted to understand, do some evangelical teachings hurt women? Just like you said, they can cause actual trauma, and we were able to measure that.

Measuring The Harm Of Incorrect Interpretations of Marriage Bible References

Sheila: We can now say, Hey, if you believe all men struggle with lust, it’s Every Man’s Battle. It’s no wonder you don’t feel heard in your marriage. You’re like 47 percent less likely to feel heard in your marriage. Or 59%. less likely to feel like your opinions matter as much as his. This has major repercussions, we need to change the way we talk about it.

Anne: When you start peeling back these layers of maybe Christian teachings that you get from incorrect Incorrect Interpretations of marriage bible references, general clergy or even societally. We have listeners who aren’t Christian, agnostics or atheists. They tell us the same thing. Maybe in a movie there was a man who was cheating. The woman was like, okay, I’m going to put on cuter outfit and I’m going to get him back or win him back somehow.

So this isn’t just coming from Christian authors, but I think it’s more traumatic coming from Christian authors. Because you have some belief and trust that what they’re telling you is true, and it will help you. And if you follow their counsel or their teachings it’s God approved.

Sheila: Yeah, I think one of the problems actually is that it steals our last place of safety. Like when we say God wants you to have it with your husband, so that he doesn’t watch it. Then who do you go to now when you feel betrayed? Who do you go to now when you feel desperate? Like this is God sanctioned now, so you can’t even pray. Like you have nothing left. They’ve stolen God from you too. And I think that’s where a lot of the source of trauma comes from.

The Problem With Frequency Over Quality

Anne: That’s spiritual abuse. It’s spiritual coercion, essentially saying you’re not a godly person if you don’t give it to your husband when you don’t want it. And they’re also not saying, maybe you don’t want it for a good reason. Maybe because you don’t feel safe. Maybe because he’s been lying to you.

Sheila: That’s the big difference, what is the aim of all the advice? What are we actually working towards? And what we’re working towards is an emotionally healthy relationship. The way that we believe God intended. So we’re working towards a life which is intimate, pleasurable, and mutual. It’s going to be emotionally healthy. And that means you don’t do things that are emotionally unhealthy, that will hurt someone.

And yet, if you look at the advice often given in Christian circles and in the world, the aim is not necessarily emotional health. The aim is to keep your marriage together. Or make sure he feels good, or do this so that you will feel like a good wife. And it’s not actually about health, and should we be surprised when people end up hurt?

Anne: Yeah, it’s almost like the goal was simply to ensure that women have it with their husbands. Like that was the top priority. Because it seemed like the concern was, heaven forbid, a wife not having it with her husband. That is the, like, biggest problem in the world.

Sheila: Yeah, you know, what are the outcome variables for many of these negative teachings? And I know that sounds like outcome variables, super academic. But basically what we meant was if you believe certain things. How can we measure the harm it does or the good it does?

Measure Of A Healthy Marriage

Sheila: So for instance, if you believe women are obligated to give their husband it when they want it. We know that marital satisfaction goes down, l pain rates go up, and orgasm rates go down. If you believe you need to give your husband it or he’ll watch it, same thing. Marital satisfaction plummets, orgasm rates plummet. Same thing if you believe all men struggle with lust, same thing if you believe women have to be the gatekeepers.

So all these things we know have negative outcomes in terms of marital and satisfaction. But, and here’s the crucial but, they also have slightly higher frequency rates. Not like a huge amount. We’re not talking like six times a week versus once a month. We’re talking like, you know, 2.8 times a week instead of 2.3.

And so the question we had was, does this mean that Evangelical leader’s main measure of a healthy life is how often they have it? Rather than how good the it is and how good the marriage is? And we would argue that, yeah, that’s what it means. They think frequency is everything.

Anne: Mm, so in some of the incorrect interpretations of marriage bible references religious they think anything that would decrease frequency is some kind of threat.

Sheila: Yes, healthier marriages tend to lead to happier people, but that’s not considered a viable alternative. You and I were talking before we started recording about how he said that even though we shouldn’t feel obligated to have it with our spouses, we need to realize that it should be a sacrifice. At least some of the time, and you should have to give it, even if you don’t want to.

Obligation Intimacy: A Harmful Message of Incorrect Interpretations of Scripture

Sheila: And so it’s like he’s saying on the one hand that obligation intercourse is bad. But then, on the other hand, he’s saying to women. In the same way that you get up in the middle of the night and feed your newborn, even with your sore nipples and everything. So, we need to consider the needs of the other person. And so it’s like he just can’t get rid of this obligation message.

And I think it comes down to the fact that many evangelical pastors, leaders, and probably many people in the wider culture just believe women don’t like it. That if you give them the choice, they won’t have it. That women are not intimate beings. They truly believe that. And so the only way to get women to have it is to tell them they have to. And that’s what we’re arguing against.

We’re trying to set the record straight and say, obligation intimacy doesn’t feel good. That’s not what you want. If you treat your wife like she has to give you it, you will wreck it.

Anne: Yeah.

Sheila: Can I tell you the story about Bob?

Anne: Tell me the Bob story. What about Bob?

Sheila: What about Bob? Okay, his real name is not Bob. I like that name. But anyway, he was a commenter on my blog. And he told me his story. So they’ve been married for 40 years, so I assume he’s in his sixties. And he said, when they first got married, they would have it several times a week, and she always enjoyed it.

The Story Of Bob: A Lesson in Intimacy

Sheila: Like he always made sure she came to orgasm. But then he would say things like, I don’t understand why we don’t do this more often. It’s so great. You like it so much. Why don’t we do it more often? He constantly said this to her. And over a series of years, she just started wanting it less and less. She still has an orgasm, but she has it maybe once every six weeks.

And he says, you know, I would be glad to give up my orgasm so that I can give her pleasure, but she won’t let me. She doesn’t understand that it is how I feel intimate. And I’m reading this and I’m thinking, Okay, so she’s having it several times a week with you, and she’s having a good time, and she’s reaching orgasm, and what do you do? You keep telling her that what she’s doing is wrong and not good enough.

And then you tell her that you don’t feel intimate with her unless she’s having it with you. So that means that all the times she feels like she’s connecting with you her way, don’t register with you. And so eventually she’s going to feel really cheap, and she’s going to stop wanting to have it.

This woman simply didn’t want it as often. It wasn’t that she didn’t want it. It wasn’t that she didn’t like it. She just didn’t want it as often. He treated that like a problem, and it created a problem.

Intimacy and Emotional Health: A Crucial Connection

Anne: So, this is interesting, because many abusive men say the same thing. They say, there’s no problem with me using it. And she’s saying it’s a problem, and then it makes it a problem. The way they interpret these marriage bible references tends to say to women is that you don’t matter as much as I do.

If you’re trying to make it a problem, it’s not really a problem. And if I’m trying to make it a problem, it’s for sure a problem. And the one who decides is the man. Whatever his opinion is about it, either way, is just more valid than yours.

Sheila: Yeah, absolutely, like we said earlier, what is the goal? If the goal is emotional health, then what we want is an emotionally healthy relationship. And an emotionally healthy relationship means you connect not just sexually, but also in other ways. And what often happens today is that many men do not feel any drive for any kind of emotional intimacy. So they’ll play video games for eight hours a day, and then they’ll want it.

Like, one of my pet peeves is calling sex intimacy. It is not intimacy. Like, they’re not synonyms. And yet we treat them like they’re synonyms. One of the most depersonalizing, dehumanizing, unintimate things is to have it with someone who is not there with you. Who is fantasizing about someone else, who is obviously not thinking about you. Who is using you. That is the opposite of intimacy.

Anne: I have been on very few dates, um, since my divorce, but I did go on a date the other night.

A Personal Story: Prioritizing Emotional Health

Anne: And in the course of the date, I said to him, you know, I don’t care if I ever have it. I’m good with it either way. Like it doesn’t matter to me. If I never have it again, it’s fine. And, apparently, you’re not supposed to say this on a date, Sheila. And he spent the rest of the night mansplaining to me how this was not a way to talk to a man on a date. I was going to have a marketing problem, he said. And I said, well, if I’m not selling anything, then I don’t have a marketing problem.

So I don’t see what the problem is, because I don’t care what you think about me having it or not. Anyway, it was a very interesting exchange, and the more I thought about it. The more I thought, I’m will say this on every first date. Because it does NOT motivate me at all.

I want to be motivated by an intimate emotional relationship, and then if that leads to an intimate relationship sometime in the future, fine. But like it is not my motivation. But it also led me to think that it is this guy’s motivation. And that’s not what I’m looking for.

Sheila: You know, John Gottman said something interesting in his book, Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. He said he believes the next great stage in human development. The next big breakthrough we’re going to make, is men’s emotional health. That right now men as a whole, and this isn’t me man bashing. This is just simply look at the stats. If you measure relative emotional health, emotional maturity, that sort of thing, women outscore men almost universally.

Women Tend To Outscore Men

Sheila: And by universally, I don’t mean every woman. I mean, throughout classes, throughout ages, like different age, different demographic groups, women tend to do better than men. Now, obviously there are some men who are extremely emotionally healthy, and there are some women who are not emotionally healthy. But just on the whole, in these different segments, women tend to outscore men.

And he thinks this is what’s changing. And I actually believe it. If you look at the way millennial dads parent, and increasingly Gen Z. I’m like how Gen Z dads, the young ones parent, are much more emotionally available. And they’re much more engaged with their kids. You know, this is something that we’re trying to bring home, is that it does not replace intimacy.

And often the reason someone has this insatiable drive, they can never get enough. It’s not actually their drive. If they feel insecure, they need it to make them feel better. If they feel bored, they need it to make them feel better. And If they’re worried about rejection or stress, they need it. And they’re not turning to it because they have this urge to feel close to you.

Anne: Well, and in that case, the partner is just being used to feel better about themselves. So it makes her feel more isolated, more and more used. It can create more and more feelings of resentment and sadness if he’s just thinking about an orgasm. He’s not going to care that it’s miserable for her.

Sheila: Right. And again, it’s only been more recently that I’ve started listening. That I’ve understood how wrong a lot of our understanding of it is.

Changing Beliefs

Sheila: Because you know, when I got married 30 years ago, I believed he needed it to feel love. Because that’s what everyone told me. So if he said I just feel like we never connect, I would feel so guilty. I would feel like he is experiencing a kind of rejection that I will never understand. I’m incapable of understanding how much he needs this because he’s a man and I can’t understand as a woman what a man goes through.

And so no matter what I’m experiencing, what he’s experiencing must be worse. Because this is what we’re told, and I played a part in teaching some of that. I did say some of these things.

Um, it’s funny. My publisher contracted with my husband and me to write The Good Guy’s Guide to Great, because they wanted a companion book. And we were all for that, because we just wanted to tell men how to do this in a healthy way. But I begged them to let me rewrite The Good Girl’s Guide. And it was a bit of a fight because it was still selling really well. It’s always sold well since it came out.

But I was like, I can’t sell it in all good conscience. Now that I’ve listened to people with that survey of 20, 000, I’ve changed the way I think about libido. The way I think about frequency, and the way I think about intimacy. So they went up several committees, and finally let me rewrite it. And I didn’t get paid anything to do it. I wrote an entirely new book, but I think we’re getting healthier.

The Importance of Setting Boundaries

Sheila: Like the discussions, so encouraged me that have been happening. And I feel like you and I are on different sides of the same discussion. Like how do we get to what is healthy, and how do we acknowledge what is harmful and deal with it appropriately?

Anne: Yeah, I remember when I recognized my life was unhealthy, so I stopped initiating it. But I was the one who initiated it all the time. And I told my husband at the time, we’re now divorced, I’m not going to initiate anymore. I need to figure myself out, I’m not blaming this on you. And then he never initiated. There was nothing. He never talked about it. He never said anything. It was like it didn’t exist. And I thought, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait.

I’ve been initiating it for seven years, and then I say, hmm, I’ve got to figure some things out. I’m not having a good time anymore. You go ahead if you want, and he never initiated it. So if I tell people that timeline, you could probably say she stopped initiating, they stopped having it. And then within six months he was arrested, and then they got divorced. So was it my fault for stopping it? Many women might think this, and they’re afraid to set boundaries in marriage with their husband.

They’re afraid to say, wait, whoa, I have some needs here. I don’t feel safe. I’m going to step back. They’re afraid of this happening. They don’t want their marriages to fall apart. Their marriages are top priority.

Abuse vs. Divorce: Understanding The Real Problem

Anne: To these women, I want to say, if you take this route and end up divorced like me. I do not want you to get from my story. Don’t have it with your husband equals divorce, and it’s your fault. Or that you’ve done something wrong. Because the problem in my case was that I was not enjoying it because I was being abused. And I stopped having it for good reason, and it was healthy for me to do so. Then I ended up divorced from my abusive spouse. Which is not a bad thing.

Even though I don’t necessarily believe in divorce, I certainly don’t believe in being abused. So, many people are like, divorce is the cause of all these problems or whatever. And I’m like, actually abuse is the cause. Like, abuse is the problem. Abuse is the thing that is hurting you. So, just get clear about what is causing the problems. It’s not necessarily you deciding, wait a minute. This isn’t fun for me.

Sheila: Well, I’ve got two thoughts on that. The first is, again, what is the goal? Things aren’t magically going to get better, because you keep having it and you keep trying to be nicer. If your goal is emotional health, then doing things which protect your emotional health will be helpful in the long run. And, you know, by saying, I’m not going to initiate anymore, what you did was allow a light to be shone in an area where it needed to be shone. because we’re still connecting.

Making Health, Peace & Safety A Priority

Sheila: But when you stop having it, it lays bare all these other things. And so I don’t think anyone should do that lightly. But if having it causes me emotional unhealth, that needs to be addressed. You need to protect your emotional health. And when you do that, the health of every other part of your relationship is more likely to be evident.

Anne: My listeners are married to abusive men. So when we’re talking about my particular skills. I don’t want to say that. But when I talk about these listeners, I think their main concern is setting boundaries and being afraid of things getting worse. And it’s true. When you have an abuser and start setting boundaries, things get worse before they get better. And I understand that concern.

But I always say if you make health, peace, and safety your priority, you will make your way through the fog. It is a scary road, because you’ve got clergy and people around you, accusing you. What? You didn’t have it with your husband? Like that’s a mortal sin. And you might get accused of being abusive. In fact, I’d say most of our listeners have been accused of being abusers themselves. But the thing to consider is, do I want a life of peace?

And you’re never going to know what’s possible until you start making your way toward that. And it might mean you end up divorced, and it might mean you can have a healthy relationship with your husband. That you’ve never had before. Maybe he’ll step up to the plate. We don’t know these things until we start making our way.

The Role Of Prayer In Finding Peace

Anne: And I think it’s interesting that all the pressure is on the woman to not start down that road, rather than being on the man.

Sheila: And I think there’s a reason for that. There’s a reason why the pressure is on the woman. And that’s because she’s actually invested in saving the marriage. He doesn’t want to save the marriage. He just wants someone to control. The wife often wants to save the marriage. And so she can be convinced to change. They can’t convince him to change, and I think about all the marriage books and bible references that Christian women read desperate to find the formula to change their husband.

They read Power of a Praying Wife, and they pray so hard. I really had a problem with some of these Christian interpretations, because it had a whole list of husbands that can be changed through prayer. And abusiveness was one of the things that you could pray against. And it’s like, no, honey, if he’s abusive, you don’t just pray against it. You get help. And I would just say to desperate women. I know you want to save your marriage.

I know you want things to be better, but please don’t think prayer is the answer. Prayer is the answer to helping you find peace and health. Yes, but God doesn’t force someone else to change. It gives us all free will. You can’t pray your husband to health. God won’t force your husband to change. What God can do, I think, is give you strength, fortitude, wisdom, insight, friends and support. And all kinds of stuff to navigate these roads that are ahead of you.

Pray For Deliverance

Sheila: But I think so often we’re searching for that magic formula. That magic prayer, that magic way to behave that’s going to change everything. And it just isn’t there. So ultimately, we have to decide, what does emotional health look like for me? And where am I likely to find it? That’s the scary thing. I know, but I hope we don’t add guilt to the mix where you feel like it’s a failure. If you start saying, no, I’m not going to initiate it anymore. You know, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad wife.

Anne: A good wife sets the bar high for an emotionally healthy, happy marriage. And I’m going to make my way toward that. And if you want to do that, fine, if not, I’m on my way to health, regardless of what you’re going to do. That is what the world’s best wife would do. When it comes to praying. I always recommend women pray for deliverance. I think that’s the best thing to pray for. Because then God can metaphorically part the Red Sea, and you can walk through.

It’s not going to be fun. You’re going to have a lot of opposition, but God can deliver you and make your way out. And in some women’s cases, the deliverance from the abuse may come in the form of their husband changing. It might, but we don’t know what the deliverance is going to look like. I do think deliverance is a prayer God can answer.

Sheila: Exactly, I love that. That is so good.

Encouragement For Women: Speak Up

Sheila: And, as someone who talks to the other side of this whole issue. How do we get other religious leaders, Christian leaders and society leaders to listen? Because your audience has been crying out for years, and people aren’t listening. And I just want people to know that I’m trying to listen and want a healthy message to get out there. But as a little encouragement, your voices are strong.

And I know it feels like everybody is against you. And if things fall apart, you’re going to be blamed, and that often is the case. But in the broader scheme of things, we are seeing people start to wake up to this stuff. So I just want to tell people who, maybe you’re on the other side of abuse. Like speak up, leave book reviews, leave comments on social media. Like let’s be loud, because I think our voices are making a difference. I really do.

It might be that in your personal circle, no one’s listening, but in the wider circle, they are. And people often have an easier time listening to strangers than their sister, which is terrible. It shouldn’t be that way, but it’s true. And so there’s probably an abused woman out there praying for someone to get through to their pastor or best friend.

You may not get through to your sister, but you might get through to someone else’s sister. And they might get through to your sister.

Finding Emotional Health & Safety

Sheila: So the more we speak up to the strangers, the more we help ourselves in a way. So just be encouraged. I think God does see you, and God’s doing an amazing thing. He’s shaking everything. I think He’s going to war for his daughters. Who have been mistreated, and so take heart and courage. We just want emotional health and safety for people.

And if you’re not in that kind of community, then I hope you can find one. Because they are out there, even if they are hard to find, but they are out there. Again, the saddest part is that we’ve stolen God from people.

Because when we tell women, God wants you to give your husband it when he wants it. God wants you to perform sexually, so he doesn’t watch pornography. We make God into our abuser, and we make God into the one who is coercing us. So I hope that as women go through the process of deconstructing all these messages. They will realize that was never God’s voice, and that that message hurt God too. Because he never, ever wanted you to feel that.

Anne: Thank you so much, Sheila. I appreciate all your hard work and willingness to stand for the truth.

Sheila: Thanks for having me. It’s always a pleasure.