If you’re trying to heal from your husband’s emotional abuse, here are three important factor to consider. These factors will have a significant impact on how quickly you’ll be able to recover.

1. Has His Emotional Abuse Stopped?

The first factor that affects how long it will take to heal from emotional abuse is making sure the emotional abuse has stopped. Emotional abuse includes a variety of behaviors that come out of his exploitative privilege. If he thinks his “needs” and “rights” are more important than yours, chances are he’s emotionally abusive.

Is he currently doing any of the following?

• Lying
• Blaming you for things that aren’t your fault
• Stonewalling
• Criticizing 
• Gaslighting
• Using pornography / infidelity

If the emotional abuse is currently happening, whether you’re still married, separated, or divorced, if his emotional abuse hasn’t stopped or you haven’t put enough distance between you and his abuse, your healing from it can’t begin.

2. Have You Learned How to Separate Yourself From His Emotional Abuse?

Healing from emotional abuse takes as long as it takes you to learn how to separate yourself from the abuse. If you have the right information, healing time can be reduced significantly.

The good news is, you’re strong and capable. The only thing holding you back has been having the correct framework for what’s been happening to you. It’s not your fault. No one teaches the general public about how to separate from emotional abuse. 

The other good news, you’ve come to the right place. Betrayal Trauma Recovery specializes in teaching women how to recognize emotional abuse and exactly what to do if you’re experiencing it. 

• The FREE BTR.ORG Emotional Abuse Quiz is a great place to start to both get educated about emotional abuse and see if it’s happening to you.
• The BTR.ORG Living Free Workshop teaches victims of abuse exactly what’s going on and exactly what to do to make her way to emotional safety.

3. Do You Have the Appropriate Support to Heal from His Emotional Abuse?

Healing from his emotional abuse takes time, but the duration of the healing process can be significantly reduced when you have appropriate support. 

Appropriate support comes from women who have experienced their husband’s emotional abuse and have developed emotional safety. It’s validating and empowering.

You’ll heal faster if the support doesn’t blame you for any of the abuse or suggest that you somehow caused it or enabled it.

Betrayal Trauma Support Group, a daily support for women who want to heal from emotional abuse is the safest place to both learn about and heal from emotional abuse. 

On the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast, emotional abuse expert Anne Blythe shared her insights on how she developed specific strategies to heal from emotional abuse as quickly as possible. 

In this episode, Anne covers these points about Emotional Abuse:

• Anne shares how she discovered effective strategies for healing from emotional abuse quickly. 
• The strategies are completely different from couple therapy and addiction recovery. Those modalities usually suggest that victims had some part to play. BTR strategies assume that victims are strong, brave, and capable.
• The strategies Anne teaches in The BTR.ORG Living Free and Message Workshops are effective in to heal from emotional abuse because they put emotional safety first. 
• These strategies are legally sound, nonviolent, and socially acceptable. They’ll make you look great in court (if you end up in court).
• Abusers always escalate the emotional abuse when a victim begins to live free. These methods are the safest way to begin the journey to healing from emotional abuse. 
• Strategies applicable to those married, divorced, or separated.
• IF you’ve benefited from The BTR.ORG Living Free Strategies, Anne would love to talk to you. Similarly, if you have questions about the workshops and want to talk to Anne personally, message her assistant at [email protected]. She’ll be happy to talk to in a podcast episode so that everyone else can benefit from hearing your questions or thoughts.
• Those struggling to apply the strategies in a way that works for them can schedule with a BTR Coach for help, specifically Coach Janet and Coach Brianna if you want help implementing The Message Workshop tools.
• The BTR.ORG Workshop Strategies – especially the Meditation Workshop can bring you immediate peace and comfort.

Personal Notes:

• Anne is committed to helping women heal from their husband’s emotional abuse. 
• She could really use your support right now through prayers, podcast follows, and social sharing.
• Anne is so grateful from the support she receives and the feeling of belonging the BTR Community has brought into her life and the lives of so many of her sisters who have shared their insights. 

 

https://youtu.be/0dV3vEKQ0lg

Anne: Many of you have listened to the podcast for a long time and you took the Living Free Workshop. When we used to run it live, there were several issues with the live version. One of them was in four parts, and so people missed a part and they got behind.

How to Recover from Emotional Abuse: The Evolution of Living Free

I decided that we were going to do it online. Let me give you some background on Living Free. I developed the strategies in Living Free and the Message Workshop as I was attempting to deliver myself and my children from my abusive ex.

I had been divorced and he was still being emotionally and psychologically abusive, like post-divorce for eight years. My life was very difficult. Every single day.

I lost a big court case to him. He got more custody. I mean, things were just hard. He was counter parenting. He was canceling my kids’ medical appointments.

Emotional Abuse Post-Divorce

(00:51): Many women still experience emotional abuse even after divorce. For example, my ex wasn’t paying half of what he was supposed to pay from the divorce decree. He justified it through constantly undermining me and our children.

So those of you who are married, when we were married, he was difficult the whole time, but I didn’t realize it. I thought back then that boundaries meant telling him very clearly how upset I was with his behavior. Also, maybe giving him an hour long lecture, which didn’t help me be any safer.

He never changed his behavior. We’d go to a lot of therapy. We’d do a lot of pornography, addiction recovery stuff, so that didn’t help. As I started BTR I started thinking, how do we really genuinely get to safety? What is the path?

Anytime any woman who is experiencing emotional and psychological abuse and sexual coercion, if her husband’s using pornography or if he’s having affairs. If you try to go the therapy route or the pornography addiction recovery route.

Why This Workshop Helps Heal Emotional Abuse

(01:48): Over the years dealing with thousands of women that come to BTR and just my experience helping people, that doesn’t tend to get us to safety.

In fact, we end up being more and more unsafe. Especially because we’ve been vulnerable with someone who’s just weaponizing our emotions against us. As I’ve been the executive director at BTR for eight years, I’ve been podcasting forever.

I thought, we need clear action steps and they need to work. We ran Living Free for a couple of years live. I found that live, it was really hard for people to understand the concepts.

When I decided to change living free into a video workshop, it was really nice to be able to film the scenarios so that you could see it in the New Living Free Workshop.

There are examples of men who will have this same facial expressions that your husband is giving you. So you’re actually able to see the concepts and process them a little bit better.

Transition to Online Video Workshops

(02:58): Those of you who have been waiting, thank you so much for waiting patiently. I wanted to get it right. The other thing I wanted to do was make sure that the concepts worked. So over the years as women have practiced these strategies, we’ve kept in touch with them.

I’ve made sure to talk to them in person. I’ve made sure to see, did it work? Did it help you get to safety ? All the reports back are that the concepts are amazing and that the strategies work. Same thing with the Message Workshop.

I worked with women over two years personally writing their messages, helping them so that we could see does this work? Yes, it does. I know it works. Any effort that we take to get to safety is awesome.

We could resist it in ways that are effective. We can resist it in ways that aren’t effective, but resistance in and of itself is great.

Testing and Proving How To Heal Emotional Abuse

(03:55): As we try to think, how can I resist abuse more effectively? That’s where Living Free and Message Workshop come into play.

In the upcoming months, I’m going to have the women who I helped write their messages on the podcast so that you can listen to their stories and listen to the experiences that they had. It was an incredible time to be with them on their journey to safety.

The messages they received were traumatizing. I sort of got secondary trauma from being like, wow, how are we really going to get you to safety? So it was through their help that we developed this and so many women are so brave to experiment to try new things.

It’s not really that hard for the women who I helped to be willing to be sort of test cases for the Message workshop and the Living Free workshop because they’d already tried everything else.

Effective Resistance Against Emotional Abuse

(04:52): They tried everything. The therapist had told them they had tried everything that Clergy had told them, and there wasn’t really anything else to try. This is that. It’s totally different than anything else, because it’s strategic.

I, along with my kids, achieved complete liberation from my ex outside of court, proving it works better than anything else. The other issue is that whenever any woman starts to make her way to safety, the abuser is not going to like it.

No matter what type of strategy you use to resist abuse, the abuse will escalate slightly. The only way it doesn’t escalate is if you’re not actually getting to safety. If he feels like, oh, this is the same thing, I’m still able to exploit her, then it’s not going to escalate that much because you’re not actually getting safe.

He’s still actually just exploiting you. So for a lot of women who think he’s not so bad, he’s really good, and then they keep having things happen over and over and then we start using the living free end message workshop strategies,

Abuser’s Reaction When You Start Healing From Emotional Abuse

Anne (05:57): They do see a bit of escalation like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I actually can’t exploit her anymore. The women feel better because they’re actually getting to safety.

It is kind of a delicate dance at that point to continue to use those safety strategies through that phase until he finally is just like, oh, I’m never going to be able to exploit her again. These strategies are effective while you’re in a marriage.

They are effective after divorce. They are effective if you are separated, and the good news is they’re all in line with just general good person principles. So they’re kind, I want to put kind in quotes. They don’t involve violence.

They don’t involve behavior that society in general would frown upon. It’s all upstanding behavior. If you have in writing or if they recorded it or if they somehow documented it, you would look great in court.

Applying the Strategies Across Different Situations

(06:57): So that’s also really cool. I so appreciate your patience. So many of you have been waiting for this. I just wanted to get it right and so that’s why it took so long. It matters to me that they are tested, that they are proven.

It mattered to me that they would actually work. I know the principles are correct and true principles. My job is to educate you in a way that makes sense. And then there’s the second part, which is application.

The application is where it always gets tricky because it might be different for everyone in their own situation. Application with any principle is an experiment. As you enroll in the Living Free Workshop, as you enroll in the message workshops, just so you can have a base understanding of these safety strategies, keep in mind that the way you apply it is going to make a difference.

If you’re having trouble applying it in a way that’s working, then please schedule a session with one of our coaches.

Educating and Applying Workshop Principles

(07:57): Coach Maddie and Coach Brianna are specifically trained to help people with their messages, and then any of the coaches can help with the strategies and living free in BTR.ORG Individual Sessions.

If you have enrolled in the Living Free workshop and you’d like to come on the podcast to share your experience, or if you enroll and you have questions and you want to talk to me about it.

I would love to talk to you about it on the podcast so that we can kind of keep an open discussion about how to apply it and learn as a group as you guys start applying this stuff.

So please email my assistant at [email protected] if you’d like to talk about it on air with other people, and I can answer your questions. We can talk about your specific situation, enroll and then email her at podcast at Betrayal Trauma Recovery and then we can talk on air and that will help everybody.

Anne’s Journey from Emotional Abuse Crisis to Expertise

(08:44): You can go to btr.org/workshops to get more information, and I cannot wait for you guys to enroll. You’ll love it. I also want to talk about social media. When I started BTR, I was crying in my basement. I just felt so much pain and I was so scared and so worried.

In the process of the last eight years, I’ve become an expert on emotional abuse through reading and studying, but also experimenting and applying the principles to my own life, delivering myself and my kids from the abuse.

It’s been so fun to help the other women with their messages. I decided, okay, I’m going to be the one that does the social media videos and I’m going to start posting. It’s hard. I don’t want to post about what I ate for breakfast.

The Mission to Reach Women Who Need Help Healing From Emotional Abuse

(09:44): That just doesn’t interest me. I don’t want to share stuff I’m doing personally in my life, apparently besides the most personal parts, haha.

This is serious stuff, I want to reach women who need help. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do for the last eight years.

It is my personal mission to make sure that every single woman who cannot figure out what’s going on, who is praying, who is concerned, who is thinking, what therapist do I go to or what program can I get for my husband.

How can I heal my marriage, so that they get correct information about what’s actually going on. My heart is heavy. Thinking about all the incorrect information floating around about emotional and psychological abuse. Especially sexual coercion, especially when it comes to the pornography addiction recovery community and couple therapy community, and how they approach this in a way that they just do not recognize the abuse.

Challenges in Addressing Emotional Abuse

(10:52): So I’m on social media doing these videos. If you’re on social media and you wouldn’t mind following and sharing the stuff, I would appreciate it. If not, that totally makes sense. Social media stresses me out.

It’s a little bit scary, but it has been an awesome opportunity to interact with women all over the world and hear their stories. It’s very humbling to know that there are just so many women who need help. I’m grateful that you found BTR.

I’m grateful when any woman shares the message of truth about abuse, about how abusive pornography, addiction or pornography use in a marriage is so that we collectively can reduce the amount of suffering to women throughout the world.

I would love to save marriages, and make families whole. I used to refer to some men’s programs for abusers. In seeing the aftermath of it, they weren’t solving that root cause of his abuse, and in so many cases, the men were weaponizing the stuff they learned in these programs.

Anne’s Reflection on How Men’s Programs Don’t Stop The Emotional Abuse

(12:00): You’ll see that if a man wants to change, this is what he’ll do and you can see it in living free really, really clearly. He will of his own free will take action after eight years of witnessing women and talking to them about how did it go in this men’s program?

How did it go in this type of therapy? How did it go? Usually at first, they think it’s great. Usually at first they’re like, oh, it worked really, really well. And then I talked to him a year later and they’re like, oh, my word. I didn’t know he was still lying to me.

The therapist said that I could trust him and I couldn’t, or in some cases he did a polygraph and he passed the polygraph, but they still felt uncomfortable. Then later found out that he lied really well because he passed the polygraph, but he was still lying. Women’s emotional and psychological safety is my absolute top priority.

https://youtu.be/Zph1yh2jOjA

Disillusionment with Men’s Recovery Programs

(12:56): I just don’t recommend men’s programs anymore. It’s just not something that I think a victim of abuse should ever even have to consider. Rather than think about how can I help my husband be a better person, really need to focus on their emotional and psychological and sexual safety.

Hopefully, as a result of her getting to safety, she can observe from a safe distance and he will realize as he wants to change. That is the best case scenario, and as described in Lundy Bancroft’s book and the verbally abusive relationship and basically all really solid abuse books.

That’s the only route, I wish there was another one. I tried to figure it out for a few years, I did., I thought, can a program do this? I tested it out. It didn’t, and I feel bad about that, but probably all of you were curious too, right?

Marriage vs. Pre-Marriage Counseling Discrepancies

(13:52): All of us were. If I could go back in time, I was hoping so much for a program to save my family, and now I don’t think that ever would’ve existed. The hope is, I hope that he figures it out because when it comes to these behaviors like, don’t lie to your wife, is pretty low bar.

It drives me crazy when people are like, oh, well, you’ve just set the bar too high. All men use porn, and if you want to be in a marriage then you kind of have to deal with abuse. I don’t think that’s the case. I don’t think all men are abusive.

It’s not too high of a bar to expect that your husband doesn’t lie to your face. I don’t think it’s too high of a bar that you expect your husband genuinely cares about you and that he’s not just manipulating you to exploit you.

Programs for Emotional Abusers Don’t Work

(14:39): I mean, that’s the very lowest bar to think that these men haven’t heard it somewhere before, like church or therapy or their work, sexual harassment training. Really, do we think these men are that ignorant and if they are, you see the concern there?

I’ve been thinking a lot about how, at least in my faith, they would for sure be like, okay, if he doesn’t treat you well, if he lies to you, if he uses porn, do not date him anymore. Break up. But if you are in a marriage then they don’t give the same advice.

They’re like, well, he’s a good guy and he’s trying to get help, or he’s going to get better. I’m wondering why the difference in counsel between pre-marriage and after marriage, it’s mind boggling to me.

Before you’re married, if you said, does this guy know that lying is wrong? They’d be like, well, if he doesn’t know it’s wrong or if he knows it’s wrong and he does it anyway, you should not date him anymore.

Dealing with Abusive Behavior Without External Programs

(15:41): But after marriage, oh, he didn’t learn that anywhere. No one’s ever told him that lying is bad, so he needs to go to a program that’s just not true. He for sure knows, and he’s choosing to do it in order to be able to exploit you.

These issues are complex. They are long-term. I feel like the strategies in the BTR Living Free Workshop and the Message Workshop really accurately describe what’s happening and will give you actual action steps that work that don’t put you in danger, and that also leave space for him to change.

They leave space to just observe, to see does he want this? Is this the kind of lifestyle that he wants? That was one of the things that was, I think the hardest for me was when I was observing from a distance, and I mean at first I thought somebody needs to tell him he doesn’t know.

A Woman’s Safety From Emotional Abuse as the Central Focus

(16:42): After a while, I thought, of course he knows because he would act so awesome sometimes, so he knows what to do. He just doesn’t want to lose his exploitative privilege. It was heartbreaking to watch him continue to make those choices as I was waiting for him to make different choices, which he didn’t make.

I ended up divorced and then being abused for eight years after.  I have heard stories of people who use these strategies and then he realizes, which is cool. Neither of those scenarios involves trying to get him in a program or trying to help him change.

Center on a woman who is getting to safety from emotional abuse, emotional, and psychological safety, so those workshops give those action steps. Very clear step.

I also did the meditation workshop because there were so many times where I was so stressed out. I was crying and I couldn’t stop or I couldn’t really feel anything. The meditation workshop helps women feel peace and loved immediately when they need comfort and they can’t get comfort any other way.

Relief through Meditation Workshop

(17:56): That is also available through btr.org/meditation. Anyway, sorry. Just a lot of information today, but I’ve had so much going on. I’ve been so busy for the last three or four years developing these things, testing them, trying them out with women, and I’m really tired actually.

I’m really tired. If you’ve been listening for a while and you’re so inclined, I would appreciate your prayers. Especially as I embark on new things like social media and I’m almost done with my book. It’s been a hard road and I’m really tired, and as much as I want to rest this second.

I hear a woman in need or I get a message on social media or someone emails or I find out that someone that I know in real life is going through emotional abuse. Then my exhaustion sort of gets set aside and I think, how can I not help?

Appreciation for Support For Healing from Emotional Abuse 

(18:58): There’s no way. There’s no way I could see a woman in pain and in need who needs these strategies and not be there. Because I can’t help everybody personally, that’s why I developed the workshops, and that’s also why we have coaches here.

They’re so well trained, they’re incredible. I cannot be everywhere at once. I wish I could be though. I’m just of course exhausted. I think you’re probably exhausted too.

Emotional abuse has a way of doing that. As much as it’s very energizing to help emotional abuse victims is also just exhausting to be dealing with abuse all the time, so thank you so much for your prayers.

Thank you so much for your well wishes and your support. It has meant so much to me over the years. I am here, working hard. I will continue to work hard, so, so glad that living free and message workshops have finally launched.

Request for Prayers and Continuing the Mission

(19:55): I’m so glad to finally have the energy, I don’t know. I wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t have learned these things and I wouldn’t have had the time or the ability to learn these strategies and then also experiment with them with women.

Had you not supported BTR by listening, so thank you. One of the main ways that you can help get the word out is just by following the podcast, just click follow on Spotify or Apple Podcast.

That helps a ton sharing social media if you feel like I do and you don’t want any other woman to suffer, those are really good ways to help out. I love your comments.

It’s not often that I fish for validation, I guess, but I could really use your prayers right now. I’ve been in really tough spots. It’s you, the listeners, the BTR community who have got me through it.

Gratitude for Listeners Who Are Likely Experiencing Emotional Abuse Themselves

(20:53): You tell me or you tell the coaches. It was BTR that helped me get through this hard time. You helped me get through the hard time of being on the front lines every day, interacting with women all over the world who are going through this.

It’s such an honor to be on these front lines and to hear your stories, to sit with you in the pain. It is an honor to know you. It is an honor that you listen, and I’m so grateful that we work together to make this world a better place. Thank you so much.

In a world that has normalized pornography and romanticizes unhealthy relationships, parents need help to learn how to teach healthy sexuality to their children. Luckily, there are resources to help parents teach healthy sexuality in a way that works for everyone.

This episode is Part Two of Anne’s interview with Dina Alexander.
Part One: The “Sex Talk”: What YOU Need to Know
Part Two: Learn How to Teach Your Kids Healthy Sexuality (this episode)

3 Ways Parents Can Teach Healthy Sexuality

When it comes to teaching healthy sexuality, it’s important to make sure the resources you use really help your kids:

• Initiating open & honest conversations to teach healthy sexuality. Conversations relating to various aspects of sex, body image, pornography, the potential influence of media, and relationships.
• Teaching media literacy. As children and teens begin to understand the intents and impacts of the media, they may be better equipped to seek out and develop healthy relationships and a healthy understanding of sex.
• Emphasizing the importance of healthy relationships. In the BTR community, we understand how difficult it can be to teach healthy relationships when emotional & psychological abuse have been present in your home. However, Educate and Empower Kids has a wide variety of resources available to assist parents in teaching these concepts. Not only do they have incredible resources for children, but for parents as well.

Removing Sexualization to Teach Healthy Sexuality

Anne (00:00): Talking about “modesty” is one way to bring up healthy sexuality. Well, I think about a professional surfing competition. For example, a women’s professional surfing competition, their uniform is going to be a swimsuit.

(03:05): If you’re going to be like, well, I can’t interact with people or I’m not going to take this seriously. If you don’t teach your kids, this is not a sexual situation. This woman is a competitive athlete. I think it’s so anti-porn to be like women exercising in competitions, women on track teams, women doing gymnastics, whatever. This is not a sexual situation.

This is their uniform that they’re wearing to do a sport and that needs to be respected. It’s crazy to me that there are men who are so conditioned to view women as sexual objects that they think of surfing as a sexual situation or track or the hurdles. It’s not. The hurdles is not sexual.

She’s just jumping over hurdles. We need to take that analogy way too far. That’s another thing I want to talk to my kids about is if you use porn, you might start thinking that there’s sexual things going on all over the place. In your head, you might make it sexual because you’re watching someone in a surfing competition or a track or any other scenario.

The Impact of Media on Perception on Healthy Sexuality

Dina Alexander (04:16): Our brains are conditioned that way for everybody who’s like, oh, porn is not addictive. If you don’t believe that, that’s one thing, but also to think that it does not change your brain and affect you.

I always refer back to the few months, I don’t know how long ago, maybe 15 years ago. I read romance novels for a few months and I could see that I was starting to objectify people.

It did not take long for me to start thinking of other people as sexually available before they had just been other people that I walked past or worked out next to in my little community center gym.

Again, these are great, great discussions to talk about how media, social media, television, videos, porn. How they are just so powerful to our brains and that we are getting different messages about sex all the time, but that we have to really stop and think, and so that’s why this is such a great discussion to have over and over again. Now is always the time to talk to teach healthy sexuality.

“I want my kids to form their own ideas and opinions about what is amazing about sex.”

Dina Alexander, Educate and Empower Kids

(05:19): You’re watching sports, okay, maybe you pause it and talk about isn’t that an amazing athlete? Look at her do the high jump. Can you believe that she is able to jump that high? Are we talking about how powerful and important and special our bodies are.

But, also talking about what is it that might cause us whether we’re walking past Victoria’s Secret at the mall or something else that what is it that affects us? Because each of us, it’s individual and helping our kids see that within themselves and identify what impacts them and what is healthy and what is not so that they can form.

Because to me, what really angers me about pornography is that it forces on our kids this idea of what is sexy and what is not hot and what is not.

I want my kids to form their own ideas and opinions about what is amazing about sex, what is amazing about their body and their partner’s body, not what this industry of McDonald’s sex is saying is sexy and wonderful. So that’s why I think that’s just a great discussion.

Teach Healthy Sexuality: Discussing Media Manipulation and Its Impact

Anne (06:29): Yeah, it is. Nothing about it is unquote sexy. It’s just gross and violent and vile and evil and exploitative.

Dina Alexander (06:41): It’s abusive, like you said. I love that you said that. To put that in that context for our kids, to help them to see how manipulative it is, because that right there is a great discussion.

Maybe this is an easy sex talk for a parent who’s intimidated of looking at different media and seeing how it manipulates us. A movie I liked, but I cannot watch again, is Interstellar.

To me, it’s a fascinating movie, but to me it is so emotionally strong and in a sense manipulative, because I get so involved in this movie and the sadness and this and that. It’s a tool that is used that media is so powerful.

Whether it’s by music, whether it’s by what we’re seeing, whether it’s by an explosion or whether it’s by a naked body, and helping our kids see how this is meant to manipulate us, and at the end of the day, it’s about making money, right?

Navigating the Challenges of Pornography in Modern Relationships

(07:35): It’s not about educating us, helping us feel good about ourselves, helping us to have great sex lives. It’s not, it’s about manipulating us to make money, and so boom, it’s so important for our kids to see that because this is their future. This is what they are going to be seeing around them.

So my youngest right now is 17, and I remember when I first started this a decade ago, talking to my daughter and saying, Hey, it’s very likely that the boys you go out with are going to have an issue with pornography. She had four boyfriends in high school.

Three of them happened to be a member of our church. I’m a Latter Day Saint, and they all had an issue with pornography.

Anne (08:15): Didn’t we have your daughter on the podcast talking about these? It’s also something that comes up in BTR.ORG Group Sessions a lot.

Dina Alexander (08:18): Oh, yes. That’s right. Thank you. Then, but also having to now tell my sons, when they started dating. Saying, the days have changed because that industry, that porn industry is now targeting our daughters so much that you are going to need to have those discussions when you’re dating.

When you’re thinking about marrying your partner, you’re going to have to have discussions about porn and how that has affected your and your partner’s ideas of sex.

Whether you’ve seen porn once or five times or 50 times, it is going to affect how you think about sex and how you think about your own body. You’re going to need to have those discussions that it’s our sons need to be aware of that as well. Now, it’s no longer just preparing our daughters.

30 Days of Sex Talks for Ages 12+

Anne (09:03): Alright, Dina, so I’ve got 30 Days of Sex Talks for Ages 12 Plus, the Second Edition in my hands, and I’m just going to randomly flip this thing open and see what we’ve got and let’s just talk about this concept here as we close today. Does that sound like a plan? It’s my favorite book to help me teach healthy sexuality.

Dina Alexander (09:50): Sounds great.

Anne (09:51): Alright, here we go. So I’m closing my eyes and I am randomly doing this. Hopefully we won’t get your least favorite one. Alright. Oh my word. You’ll not believe this. Page 17, “Pornography,” literally, that was just completely random.

Completely random. So when I’m looking at this book, I can see a couple things. There are some definitions, for example, so it’s got the definition of pornography, how to start the conversation.

Exploring the Interactive Features of Dina’s E-Books to Teach Healthy Sexuality

Dina Alexander (10:23): The Kindle version, these are all clickable links. If you buy the book on our website, you can choose to buy the Kindle version or another kind of ebook that is good for any kind of tablet or laptop. So then those are linkable.

If you buy the print version, then you would have to type in the name of the article. Most of these are articles going back to our website that have just a little more information or if you want to go a little deeper on certain topics. That’s why we have these additional resources. But like I said, if you buy it from the website as a PDF or as a Kindle, those are all clickable links.

Anne (11:04): Awesome. So one of the sections is questions for your child. What an great way to teach healthy sexuality. So you’ve got a start the conversation and then you’ve got some ideas and then questions for your child. Let’s just read run of ’em randomly. Okay.

I’m going to close my eyes and I’m just going to point to one of these questions. Here we go. Ready there. Okay. How do your friends feel about porn? That’s a really good question. When you got feedback from parents, how did they feel about this question section?

Thoughtful Questions to Teach Healthy Sexuality to Kids

Dina Alexander (11:32): They loved it because we don’t just pick typical questions of, oh, okay, what do you think pornography is?

Where have you seen it? It’s like, yeah, those are important foundational questions, but again, we want to create this big picture for helping our kids understand the world around them. Especially something like pornography or in the lesson proceeding.

It’s just about more different media and how it affects our sex life. These are simple questions. How do your friends feel about porn? It’s typically not as threatening because you’re not putting your child on the spot, you’re letting them just think about what are the attitudes around sex?

That’s been one of the most eye-opening questions for me to ask my kids what they’re hearing at school. For my daughter, for my two sons, it has been amazing and sometimes scary.

When I did a few years ago, I did a little thing on predators for my YouTube about how to identify predators, et cetera. I had my son at the time, my middle son who was 16, edit it, and he goes, Mom, everything you said in there was right.

Helping Children Identify Harmful Behaviors

(12:41): And I said, what do you mean? In my mind, I’m like, well, of course it’s right. But he said, I had a kid in my class one time show me pictures of nudes of his girlfriend, and I asked him, what are you doing with those? How did you get those?

And he started telling my son how he got those, and he said, Mom, it was everything that you had said in that predator conversation. It was the grooming her, giving her compliments, making her feel special, blah, blah, blah.

And so that right there, great conversation with my son about predators, but helping them to see that these things are going on around them.

Unfortunately kids are learning predatory behavior at younger and younger ages, thanks to pornography again. Is just a simple question that for any of these topics.

When you go to the masturbation topic, abusive relationships topic, or the positive aspects of sex section in this book, asking them what they’re hearing in school. Asking what their friends are talking about is eyeopening. If we don’t teach healthy sexuality, they will learn it from somewhere else.

“We want our kids to understand that we’re a safe place.”

(13:46): But my youngest now, again, who’s 17, him telling me about kids, talking about their recent sex-capades of their body count in the locker room. Talking about, oh, that they’re dating and now they have moved on the fifth or sixth date have moved to oral sex.

These things are just helpful to us as parents to get that understanding of what our kids are going through, what they are experiencing. It is up to us to teach healthy sexuality.

And also it typically helps us realize, okay, I need to talk about these because everyone else in a sense is talking to our kids about sex in some way. We want our kids to understand I’m a safe place. I’m not going to be angry or judgmental. If you’ve heard something, if you’ve experienced something, I’m here to love you, give you information and help you be a strong human being.

Helping Children Understand the Abusive Nature of Pornography

Anne (14:37): Well, and for me, always teaching them that these things are abusive. So this is pornography, but it’s not just wrong. The reason why it’s wrong is because it’s abusive. It’s not wrong because your pastor said it’s wrong.

It’s not because it’s embarrassing, it’s wrong because it’s abusive to another human being. In order to engage in that type of behavior, predatory behavior, you are being abusive, you’re harming someone, and that is so, so important for people to learn.

I think back in the day, well, if I use porn, it’s going to hurt me. Maybe I’ll go to hell, but at least I’m not hurting anybody else. They didn’t realize 10, 15 years ago.

But anytime you do any of the behaviors surrounding porn, deceit, hiding any of those things, using using manipulation, you are abusing someone and that makes you an abuser and you need to stop in order to be healthy

You can learn how to teach healthy sexuality.

Dina Alexander (15:35): And that we can do better that just because again, other people are doing it, our neighbor, our friends at school, our friends at lunchtime, that we don’t have to do that. And that again, that there are simple ways that even that our kids can stand up and say to their friends, that’s not cool.

That’s bigger than you have any idea of, and I love that you said that about just, again, teaching our kids that it’s abusive because that’s what I love about our books is we’ve made them very open so that you can put your knowledge, your experience, your research, your values into each conversation.

All of us have different things that we want to emphasize, that we understand that we’ve been through. To teach healthy sexuality we just get on this whole other level and we want our kids to get it. And so that’s where these can be such powerful discussions.

“We took them to that place of safety and openness.”

(16:26): One of the best side effects of when we were preparing these books way back was how great the conversations were. We would set out to have a five minute conversation, maybe 10 minutes, and our kids would come back to us with such great questions. It was a great opportunity to teach healthy sexuality.

The discussion usually went 30, 40 minutes because they had such insightful questions, because we took them to that place of safety and openness.

And also we were asking these questions from the books that were, again, not just typical, okay, do you understand penis and vagina? It’s like, okay, great. They get that there’s so much more to sex these days that we want them to understand that full amazing picture.

Anne (17:08): Or the full just blah picture. I mean, it’s great. I simultaneously tell my kids sex, for some people feels really good and it’s awesome. And for me it was just not great. I didn’t like it. And maybe your dad is abusive. Most likely, yes, that is why, but I have never had sex with someone who wasn’t abusive.

Teach Healthy Sexuality: Inaccurate Media Portrayals of Sex

Dina Alexander (17:30): But I love that they’re getting that picture. That they’re understanding all the pieces to it, that it’s not like television. It’s not this amazing screaming simultaneous orgasm every time, and everyone lives happily ever after that again, that there is –

Anne (17:45): It’s like never like that for the people who are like, oh, sex is beautiful. I’m always like, is it? I don’t know. It’s fine. It’s fine. I’m not anti-sex for sure, but I just didn’t enjoy it at all because of my situation.

To let our sons know and our daughters that sex can be, I hear from other people, I believe you, that it can be great. That’s awesome. Shine on, good for you.

But if there’s abuse involved, it’s not going to be fun. It’s not going to be enjoyable. It’s going to be miserable for somebody. And also the person who even is the predator in that situation, it might feel good for that moment, but they’re not getting what sex was meant to be about.

Understanding Abusive Sex

Dina Alexander (18:33): There’s just no way for an abuser or a predator like that to not go to that dark place after maybe they got off, but then they go back to that dark cave. So again, it’s –

Anne (18:44): Well, it’s all about them.

Dina Alexander (18:45): Absolutely.

Anne (18:46): It’s all about them. It’s about that hit and it’s about their orgasm and it’s about their relationship to themselves, but it’s never about the we.

Dina Alexander (18:55): That’s a perfect analogy for porn because it’s never about the partner. It’s always about themselves, my own orgasm, my own pleasure, and what I’m going to do to you, not what we’re going to do together and create and share together as sex partners.

So that’s exactly right. And again, helping our kids see the ins and outs, but I think also helping them understand the power that they have within them to have good relationships. Also to help to create that life for themself by empowering them with this kind of knowledge, to understand that full picture, that yes, sex can be amazing, but sex can be horrific if not done kindly. 

Sex Is Not One-Size-Fits-All

Anne (19:42): Or just boring. It can also just be boring. I remember telling my ex, is it okay if I read, can I just read during this? Because this is so boring.

Dina Alexander (19:56): Oh man. I would’ve loved to have seen that face when you said that.

Anne (19:59): Yeah. I was like, what’s going on? I just feel like you’re just like this hairy bear and you’re literally, you’re poking me with a stick on the inside and it’s just not that fun. I’m sorry. Would you want to get poked with a stick? No, no. Anyway, he was always so offended when I was just like, this is just whatever. Why is this happening?

Dina Alexander (20:20): I love you. I love you.

Anne (20:28): Alright, well, you’re amazing, Dina. Thank you so much for spending time with me today, and talking about how to teach kids healthy sexuality Dina,

Dina Alexander (20:41): Thank you so much for having me. I loved it.

J.R. is back on The BTR.ORG Podcast sharing her story. She struggled to know if she should divorce her emotionally abusive husband. Then she struggled to know if her her religious beliefs allowed her to divorce him for emotional abuse. She also struggled with whether or not she wanted to divorce him. If you relate to this, hopefully this information and her story will help you.

This episode is Part Two of Anne’s interview with J.R.
Part One: My Husband Says I’m the Problem. Is He Right?
Part Two: Divorcing Your Emotionally Abusive Husband: What You Can Expect (this episode)

Should I Divorce My Emotionally Abusive Husband?

Here at BTR, your emotional safety is our number one priority. If you’re wondering if you should divorce your emotionally abusive husband, that’s a question only you can answer, but here are some things to consider:

• Should any woman be married to a man who emotionally abuses her?
• Should any woman be married to a man who genuinely doesn’t care about her well being?
• Should any woman be sacrifice her emotional and psychological safety for other perceived values (ie money, child-care, religion, etc)

Can I Divorce My Emotionally Abusive Husband?

Some women wonder if they can get divorced if it’s “just” emotional abuse. Unfortunately, some inaccurate religious scripting or societal scripting has given women the impression that they’re not able to divorce an emotionally abusive husband just “emotional abuse”. Here are some questions to consider.

• Does God love you? Would He want you to be abused in anyway: emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, financially, sexually?
• Can you go to college or get a job? (Psst: The answer is YES!!)
• Is it good for your children to witness a woman think that God doesn’t love her or that she’s incapable of taking care of herself or her children?

Do I Want to Divorce My Emotionally Abusive Husband?

So many women in this situation have a hard time deciding what they want to do because they share children, they remember the good times, they think about the so-called good qualities about their husband (often not realizing it’s just part of his manipulation). Here are some questions to consider when women are wondering if the want to divorce their husband due to his emotional abuse.

• If you knew exactly what he was like when you met him, would you marry him now?
• Do you want to be married to someone who you would not want to marry?
• Do you want your children emulating his behaviors or character?

Anne breaks down why victims feel crazy during this stage of the process. If you want to talk to one of our coaches today about your situation, attend a BTR.ORG Group Session today.

Anne (00:01): We talked about the beginning of J.R.’s story in last week’s episode. J.R. why do you think it takes victims so long to understand that they’re being abused? All of these years that you went to therapy and you went to help with clergy and they further abused you. Why do you think it takes so long?

J.R. (02:02): That’s a great question.

Anne (02:04): I want to say it’s not the victim’s fault, that’s for sure.

Why is it So Hard to Identify the Emotional Abuse?

J.R. (02:06): Yeah, it’s obviously, it’s not the victim’s fault. I think maybe for some people they might say nobody even tried to tell me or warn me, but I will say I did have family and friends who were concerned about my relationship, but I saw them.

I had such a high view of the marriage relationship because of the spiritual upbringing and because of sort of the twist that my ex put on it through the theological training in school that I just saw all these people as their opposition to my marriage.

It’s a spiritual attack on my relationship. But I will say that my relationship with the church and religion has become very complicated because I do attribute a lot of the way of thinking that kept me for so long in that relationship to spiritual or religious teachings that I think personally I believe are not biblical and don’t actually align with what I believe Jesus teaches.

But when you’re told that from so many sources that you are supposed to be able to trust and people who are supposed to be leading and being guided by the Holy Spirit, it’s really hard to undo some of that indoctrination.

Realizing Your Husband is Emotionally Abusive

Anne (04:05): Yeah, I agree. And also you care. It’s really sad how perpetrators know how to take the things that women really, really care about and weaponize it against them. It’s benefiting the abuser and it’s not benefiting her at all.

And to realize that God loves us, he genuinely thinks we’re delightful and funny and fun and awesome, and he created our talents, and some of us might not have cooking talents, and that’s okay because we have other talents, and when we were created for the good of humanity, including ourselves, we’re part of that.

And so it’s so sad to me when these have all just been subjected to what would benefit him to our expense. It’s so hard to see that. So you find BTR and you realize, whoa, he’s abusing me. You’re listening to the podcast. Can you talk about what steps you start to take at this point?

Attending Couple Therapy With An Emotional Abuser

J.R. (05:20): I think at this point we had already been seeing a therapist together, which I do not recommend. I mean, obviously I didn’t know that I was in an abusive marriage, an abusive relationship, but now hindsight never go to couples therapy with an abusive person.

But we were seeing a couples therapist who actually, I will say even before I found BTR, she feels like this guardian angel sent from heaven because

I think that God moved me all the way across the country to meet this therapist because she started seeing us and when we started talking to her, the pornography thing came up, but it wasn’t the crux of why we were there. But she immediately started talking about betrayal trauma and had him write a therapeutic disclosure.

A Therapist Who Identified the Emotional Abuse

Anne (06:34): Was she a pornography addiction recovery specialist?

J.R. (06:38): I don’t think she was certified, but she herself had walked through this type of betrayal,

Anne (06:50): So she knew kind of enough to do a disclosure, which we don’t recommend here. But not enough to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we got to stop the couple therapy.

I Became Aware it was Emotional Abuse

J.R. (07:01): And I would say with the disclosure, I don’t think any of this was a great way to go about this. The route that my story went was incredibly painful and I think unnecessarily so because when she had him do the disclosure, I just knew in my heart that he wasn’t going to be honest and told her as much in one of our meetings.

I said, I don’t even want to hear this because I know that it’s going to be a bunch of lies. I think it started to wear him down. It started to poke holes in his facade.

It started to get me thinking, and I think that’s probably how I did find your podcast. I started to become aware of this concept of betrayal trauma. And so searching for resources found BTR, and then I got partial disclosure after partial disclosure. It was very painful.

It was all right around the time that my third child was born, and about a month after my third child was born, things were pretty rocky between us, me and my ex. And one night it just came out of him like a flood. He told me his version of this is the whole truth.

Partial Truths, Trickle Disclosures – Key Tactics of An Emotionally Abusive Husband

(09:59): I like how you said his version, this is a common pattern that they’ll say, this is the whole truth, and they’ll tell a really kind of horrific thing that they’ve done. Sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh.

J.R. (10:11): It’s horrible.

Anne (10:12): And then you think, wow, that has to be everything, because he’s like, I’m getting it all out on the table, and then you find out later it was not because there’s something else he doesn’t want to say. So he tells you his version of this is the whole story?

“That’s the device I use to look at porn.”

J.R. (10:26): Yes, and actually we’re sitting in our living room. He points across the living room at a computer that was actually used for ministry related purposes and specifically with kids’ ministry. So it wasn’t even his own personal computer, but he points at this computer, this laptop, and says, that’s the device that I use to look at porn. So it was never on my radar. No one was monitoring it.

It was never something that I ever would’ve even thought that he was using for lots of reasons. I mean, it didn’t belong to him. And not only did it not belong to him, it belonged to a church and it was being used for kids’ ministry. So it’s a great place to go looking up porn. I think I got up and I think by the next day I had purchased tickets for me and my kids to fly back home to Pennsylvania.

Separating from an Emotionally Abusive Husband

(11:33): And at the time, we were just going to separate. At this point, once again, divorce, it’s not even an option. It’s not on my radar, but I knew I needed space from him. I needed to get away from him. I needed lots of distance for me and my children.

So we actually bought tickets for him, a ticket for him as well. Mine was just a one way because I didn’t know when I would return to Washington. His was both ways so that he could help me get there with the kids. I would’ve been flying with three kids, three and under. So he flew with me and then was going to get right back on the plane and go back to Washington and we were going to separate.

Navigating an Emotionally Abusive Husband Being Manipulative During Separation

(12:23): And long story short, it didn’t take too long into our separation for me to realize that I was never going to go back to Washington. If he wanted our marriage to work and if our marriage was going to work, he would have to come back to Pennsylvania where my support system was so that we could potentially salvage our marriage.

So I told him that and he spent a considerable amount of time negotiating, didn’t want to lose his job at the church out there, didn’t want to lose his position of power and authority, didn’t want people to know the truth, spread some lies about what was really going on between us, made it seem like I was going through postpartum depression, and that’s why I was away.

People from the church were texting me and telling me to use this essential oil and to eat this kind of food and oh, the baby blues are so hard, aren’t they?

“I wasn’t going to be heard unless I had men vouching for me.”

(13:38): And it was a very difficult time. And throughout it all, it was becoming more and more clear to me how bad the situation was, and I was becoming a lot more realistic about the fact that it was not going to change. So we were supposed to be separated for six months and that didn’t happen. I was living with my parents temporarily with my three young kids in a very small house. We went through this whole thing with the church out there that he was working with.

Of course, I had to have men in church leadership speak on my behalf and stand up for me in any way to even be heard. That whole thing was very complicated as well. I feel very grateful for those men and I love them. I feel like they are like brothers to me, but it was very eye-opening to see that I wasn’t going to be heard unless I had men vouching for me.

So when he realized that the church out there actually gave me his stipend and released him from his position, he realized that he had nothing else out there.

Anne (15:12): Good for them. That does not happen very often. So that’s great news.

When It’s All Just Manipulation

J.R. (15:17): Yes. I think once we got over the hump, once they actually heard me and listened to what was going on, I do think they handled it very well. So he came back to Pennsylvania, got a bunch of praise and glory for coming back to his family to make things right, and he was the big hero for coming back. And I was like, you just came back because you didn’t have anything else out there.

You tried so hard to salvage a life that you knew your wife and children were never going to be a part of. And then when that didn’t work, you came back. But he made some steps that I guess kind of looked like progress to me when he moved back here. In hindsight, it was all just manipulation just to get what he wanted, which was for us to be living together again.

“I Moved Back in With My Abusive Husband”

(16:18): So we moved into an apartment together again to try to salvage the marriage. It was way too soon. I had to set boundaries. I had set the things that I needed to see during our separation for me to be able to move towards reconciliation with him. And he didn’t meet any of those. I mean, he bucked against everything, but I so desperately wanted it to work that I still moved back in with him.

We were only living together for about two months, probably a little less. And the thing that finally made me leave him for good unfortunately, was being hospitalized just to clear the air, wasn’t physical abuse from him, but it was a mental breakdown and I was suicidal and committed myself to the ER.

What Happens When An Emotionally Abusive Husband Doesn’t Go Away After Separation?

Anne (17:22): I’m so sorry to hear that. I did want to say that so many women, when they do let him back in the house, things get way worse. Maybe he’ll promise that things will get better and maybe not necessarily physically. He didn’t put you in the hospital by punching you in the face, but mentally you were in such bad shape after six, seven weeks of being with him in your home, in your vicinity, that that’s where you were at. I mean, that’s how bad things got.

I always want to warn women it’s going to get worse. Lundy Bancroft talks about if that happens, then they think they have to assert even more control or they’re going to lose control of you again. So once they get you in their vicinity again, then at the very least the emotional and psychological abuse is going to ramp up.

“Why am I going crazy?”

(18:16): But it might not seem like that to you because it might seem very nice. They might seem kind, and that’s when you really think you’re going crazy because you’re like, he’s not yelling at me, he’s not angry. Why am I going crazy? I’m not sure what his behaviors were, but some women experienced it like that because he’s being great. He’s doing the dishes and he is doing the stuff.

And in my ex’s situation, he was reading scriptures every night and initiating family prayer and that kind of thing. And I thought, I’m genuinely going crazy. What is happening? I always felt like my sanity was hanging by a thread, and I was like, is that thread still there? So as you’re hospitalized, is that your indication to you about how bad it is?

Processing the Self-Blame Helped J.R. Leave Her Emotionally Abusive Husband

J.R. (19:00): Yeah, once again, grew up in a very religious home. So most of the time felt like, oh, well, I just need to pray more, or I just need to read my Bible more.

And that just wasn’t doing it, obviously, because my mental health matters and I needed more than that, but I wanted so badly to make it work, not so much because I loved him, but because we had children, and obviously this wasn’t the case, but I felt like if I left him that I caused our children to be in this quote broken home, which I hate that term, but that’s what it is, what people would see it as.

So I think being hospitalized, having that breakdown, realizing that I didn’t want to live it, took that for me to say, well, if I’m not around for my kids, that’s not what’s best for them either.

Anne: I wrote The BTR.ORG Meditation Workshop for women who are going through this type of absolute mental trauma – because there’s a point where you’ve done as much as you can. You just can’t do anymore. The Meditations help women heal without any effort. Women don’t have to do more, they can just relax and listen and it will heal them.

“If you stay with him, you’re never going to get better.”

J.R. (20:12): Yeah, I started to think if staying in this maddening relationship is abusive, relationship is what’s best for my children, they might not have a mom by the end of it. I remember being at my sister’s house after being hospitalized. My sister was really amazing.

She took a week off of work just to be there for me and my children, whatever I needed. And I remember being at her house. She cared for all the kids, hers and mine. They were just going in and out of the bath. There was eight of them, so just one after the other. And I just remember her saying, J.R., if you stay with him, you’re never going to get better.

She was talking about my mental health and my depression and how I felt, and it seems like such a simple statement, but I needed to hear it in that moment. And it was like, yeah, if I want to get better for, and at the time, it wasn’t even for my own sake, it was for my children’s sake. So if I want to get better for the sake of my children, I cannot be with this man. That’s the bottom line. That’s when I filed for divorce and felt really confident about that decision.

What Would J.R. Say to Her Younger Self?

Anne (21:42): So JR and I are actually going to talk more about the divorce part and then what happened after and what she’s been dealing with since at a later time. But to conclude now, J.R., if you could go back in time and talk to your younger self, what would you tell her?

J.R. (22:03): I would tell myself that you are so smart. You are so worthy, you deserve better. And I would tell her, trust your instincts. Just trust yourself. That’s the biggest piece I’m still fighting with. Honestly. Just trust yourself.

Re-Establishing Trust With Self After Leaving Your Emotionally Abusive Husband

Anne (22:28): It’s hard to reestablish that after I would say his and society sometimes, or a misogynistic church. They’re systematic, intentional dismantling of that, trying to dismantle it for you so that you wouldn’t trust yourself. Being up against that is really hard.

And that’s why I have people like you J.R., on the podcast to talk about it because it is, I think, so much more systematic than people realize. There’s so many places that try and talk us out of it, and if you follow it, they call you crazy or she’s too much or she’s not enough, or all the things that really, they want to trap us.

And so being able to see that for what it is is so difficult. So thank you so much for sharing your story so far. I can’t wait to hear the rest of it. Listeners, stay tuned because it won’t actually be for a couple of months. Sometimes we do it like the next episode, but in this case, we’re going to wait a couple months and then revisit. So thank you so much for sharing this part of your story, and I cannot wait to hear the rest later. Thank you.

J.R. (23:41): Thanks, Anne.

J.R. spent nearly a decade “working on herself”, trying to be a better wife to improve her marriage. She didn’t know she needed to learn about emotional and psychological abuse to realize that she wasn’t the problem. If you’re husband says your the problem, there may be something else going on.

This episode is Part One of Anne’s interview with J.R.
Part One: My Husband Says I’m the Problem. Is He Right? (this episode)
Part Two: Should I Divorce My Husband for Emotional Abuse? Can I?

Could I Be The Problem in Our Marriage?

Many victims may blame themselves for the emotional and psychological abuse because that’s what the abuser wants them to think. Convincing her that she’s the problem is part of the psychological abuse.

You’re Not The Problem (His Emotional Abuse is the Problem)

You are experiencing emotional and psychological abuse and/or sexual coercion if your partner:

• Uses gaslighting to contort your perception of reality
• Commits sexual betrayal, including secret pornography use
• Establishes a pattern of manipulation and table-turning
• Blames you for their choices
• Creates an environment where “walking on eggshells” is required for emotional survival

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKes84VS8GE

J.R. talks about how she experienced both relief and dread when she realized she wasn’t the problem.

If this resonates with you, we’d love to see you in a Betrayal Trauma Support Group Session today.

Full Transcript:

Anne (00:01): Welcome to Betrayal Trauma Recovery. This is Anne.

Today we have a member of our community. We’re going to call her J.R. She is a 29-year-old mother of four. She spent almost a decade of her life in a psychologically abusive relationship. Welcome, J.R.

J.R. (01:41): Thank you, Anne. I’m so happy to have this opportunity.

Anne (01:45): You said that you attribute the beginning of the end of your abusive relationship to BTR. Do you want to start kind of there and then we’ll start at the beginning.

When J.R. Discovered The BTR.ORG Podcast, She Still Thought She Was The Problem

J.R. (01:57): In 2020, I discovered The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast. To be honest with you, I was trying to rack my brain to figure out how I found the podcast, and I really can’t remember. I feel like it’s a God thing for me. I was going through some things with my ex-husband. I’d known about his pornography use throughout our relationship. We had been through a lot at that point regarding his addiction, but I never would’ve used the term abuse. I would not have been able to classify it as emotional abuse because I didn’t have the terminology.

I just remember actually at that time, we were living in Washington state and I was driving through this gorgeous Oregon countryside mountains, just really beautiful landscape on my way home from dropping a friend off at the airport, and I was listening to just episode after episode of the BTR podcast, and I just remember this feeling of, well, to be honest, it was dread.

Identifying Gaslighting & Emotional Abuse

(03:19): It was like, oh my gosh, this is me. And it was the first time I was hearing anyone really describe what I was going through. I think in the past I had seen myself as the villain because what I didn’t know at the time was my trauma response was very explosive, very intense.

So I always felt like the villain in certain situations with my ex. But hearing some of the women talk on the BTR podcast and just hearing you, Anne, talk about safety and gaslighting and emotional abuse, it was becoming clear to me that that was my situation.

Simultaneous Relief & Dread When You Realize You’re Not The Problem

Anne (04:04): Well, I’m so glad that listening to the podcast helped you. I’m guessing simultaneously relieved that someone could describe what you were going through and then also, wait a minute, it’s this bad. Can you talk about that?

J.R. (04:21): I had moved across the country with this man and our two children, pregnant with our third child. I had just dropped off the last of, we had some visitors all right in a row because I had just given birth to my third child.

We had some visitors. I had just dropped off the last of the visitors and I was driving back to my home with this man. So yes, there was the relief in like, oh my goodness, I’m not alone. And I finally feel understood. I finally feel seen.

But the dread was I am driving back to this place and I don’t know what I’m going to do. My children were there. I had no idea what I was going to do. So there was a sense of dread, and I’m driving right back into this situation.

When Physical Battering Isn’t Present, So You Figure You’re The Problem

I hear a lot of the women on the podcast talk about their husband’s anger and whether it’s verbal assault or even physical.

(05:22): But with my ex, I didn’t really see a lot of those signs. I didn’t see anger. I didn’t see any sort of violence or undertones of being agitated. It was so covert because he just immediately from the beginning of the relationship began gaslighting me and creating this alternate reality for me.

I just believed him right away. And I feel like maybe he didn’t need to go to another tactic as far as being more aggressive, or maybe that’s just not his flavor of abuse. I’m not really sure why, but I didn’t see him as an angry person. I just thought I was the problem.

“I knew he was lying to me, but I could never prove it.”

We would get into these fights, but he wasn’t actually fighting back. It was just kind of me basically fighting with a wall because I knew that there was something going on between us. I knew he was lying to me, but I could never prove it.

And so he just kind of capitalized on that and made me believe I was crazy. And so actually from the very beginning of our relationship, I started seeking therapy and have gone to multiple therapists on and off over the past decade or so, most of that being me, looking for what’s wrong with me, how do I change me to make this work?

“He took my honesty, and used it to his advantage.”

Anne (07:07): In terms of how you were viewing it at the time, you would define his behavior as problem solving. He seemed like he was engaging and that he was talking to me and that he was reasonable and that I just had some serious problems that I needed to work through. He had manipulated you to the point of that, is that what I’m hearing?

J.R. (07:29): Yes. I think that’s really accurate. And actually even where you say manipulating, that stirred something in me to remember when we first started dating, I have a very keen self-awareness, and I told him flat out, I’ve struggled with jealousy in the past and it is something that I am really trying to work on and grow in and move through, but I just want to be upfront with that.

That is a struggle of mine. And so I think right there, he took my honesty and used that to his advantage.

Abusers Weaponize Your Vulnerability To Make You Believe You’re the Problem

Anne (08:07): So in that way, he weaponized your vulnerability against you, but you were not aware of this at the time?

J.R. (08:15): Right. I had no clue honestly, for so much of our relationship, because of a lot of my spiritual background and upbringing. I saw him as this tool in my life that God was using to bring about sanctification in me. So I just really was like, okay, this person is a mirror pointing out the things in me that need to change, the ways I need to grow. And I was thankful for that.

Identifying Spiritual Abuse

Anne (08:45): Spiritual abuse. Was he using spiritual abuse or was he quoting scripture or saying God wants you to change or anything like that? Or was that just how you were sort of interpreting in the moment?

J.R. (08:56): I think it was mostly coming from my own values and convictions. What they taught me. I don’t know that he was really explicit about it, but I think he definitely capitalized on that. And he was a church leader. He was on staff at our church.

And so really the spiritual abuse, I think it did come from him, but it sort of, I would say trickled down from our pastor who he was on staff with. It felt like the perfect cocktail that just worked in his favor against me to keep me right where he wanted me.

J.R.’s Thoughts on Therapy

Anne (09:43): So because you spent so many years in therapy thinking that it was you that had the problem, rather than realizing what was going on, what are your thoughts about all that time that you spent in therapy?

J.R. (09:56): I don’t regret it. I think I’ve been able to do a lot of personal work on myself that has really made me a better mother, a better friend, just a better person in general. So I don’t regret it.

But I met my ex in 2011 and 2012 is when I started in therapy and when I started I would’ve said I would not talk to any therapist who wasn’t Christian based and had this a religious specifically Christian background. And that was something that was very important to me.

And now when I look for a coach or a therapist or counselor or someone even that I’m just going to go to confide in or to get advice from, I’m very wary of Christians. Which is really sad because I still have a very firm faith in my spiritual walk and my spiritual journey is very important to me. And so I lost a lot of trust in the church community and in Christians who are in positions of influence because I saw so many that could have helped me.

And I felt like in a lot of ways there were key players throughout my story that not only didn’t help me get to safety, but actually very firmly rooted me deeper into the abusive relationship I was in.

When Clergy & Therapists Enable Emotional Abuse

(13:08): Therapists only know what you tell them, right? And so if you go in and you’re talking about your jealousy, for example, or things that you’ve sort of integrated into you, maybe things that aren’t even true that you’ve integrated that the abuser has told you they’re only going to go with you there, they’re not going to say,

Hey, wait, stop, who told you that? Why are you thinking this? Is it true? They’re just going to go where you go.

And so an abuse victim can end up not ever identifying the abuse even after going to therapy. And then similarly with the church, they don’t identify the abuse. In fact, they add this layer of spiritual abuse sometimes of have you prayed hard enough or do you have enough faith or have you submitted, were you in the type of Christian Church that wanted you to submit to your husband? Was that a thing with your faith?

Submission to Your Husband – Does that Make Him Right

J.R. (14:02): Growing up? Not so much. But when I first got married to my ex, so we dated for about four years, and then we got married right before he graduated from college, and he graduated from a very reformed evangelical Christian college, and he got sort of inundated with this certain type of theology and doctrines and that he sort of fed all of that to me. And I was just so excited and passionate about Jesus that I wanted to do what I felt like I wanted to find.

Well, what is God’s will and if that’s God’s will, then I’m going to do it. And that kind of led me as an adult. I kind of flipped 180 from what I grew up being taught.

So I grew up around very strong women, women who were very, very opinionated, very loud, and then I kind of flipped over to, oh, the only good type of Christian woman is a submissive one. I need a quiet spirit, I need to be shy. Maybe not shy, but timid. I need to be meek. All of these things.

And I really struggled with that because it didn’t resonate with who I felt like I was, who I felt like God made me to be, but I just latched on and believed that that was my role in life and that I just wasn’t very good at it.

“You’re so good at being you. We’re so good at being ourselves.”

Anne Blythe, Founder of BTR.ORG

Anne (15:46): That breaks my heart because you’re so good at being you. We’re so good at being ourselves, and that’s who God made us to be. I think. So it breaks my heart when women are trying to contort themselves in this misogynistic view of who they are, that because they’re being spiritually abused, they want to do God’s will because they love God. What gets lost in that is God loves us, God loves you, and he created you for you not to be subservient to someone else.

And it really gets lost when that spiritual abuse comes into play. So you’ve talked about how you went to therapy. You’ve talked about how you really were manipulated to altering the way that you viewed yourself and religion to try to survive this situation thinking because he told you this, that it would make things better.

The Moment You Realize You’re NOT The Problem

J.R. (16:52): I guess I would say it wasn’t until 2020 that I finally realized it didn’t matter what I did. It wasn’t going to change. It wasn’t going to quote unquote work because he was the problem and I was believing for so long that I was the problem. So really, I spent so many years and adding child after child into this mess of just banging my head against the wall.

And I remember when I was a stay-at-home mom for the beginning of my children’s lives, and I remember just saying things to him, it’s hard to do all of the things in a day that you want to get done in the house, make the meal, keep the house clean, do this and that with the kids and all this stuff.

And so I said, I can’t do it all, but what is one thing that would mean a lot to you that when you come home from work, it’s like, oh, I’m so thankful that this thing is done.

The Belief That “Divorce is Not an Option”

(18:05): And I would ask him things like that because I wanted it to work, and I was convinced that I was the problem. I think I knew it wasn’t working, but it was so ingrained in me that divorce is wrong. Divorce is not an option. That I was like, well, it’s got to work. So if it’s not working, I’m not doing the right thing or I’m not trying hard enough because if I put it on him, then I can’t control it anymore.

Then I feel hopeless. Well, if it’s up to him and he’s not willing to change, then I’m just stuck in this horrible marriage forever. It made more sense to me to just take it upon myself because at least then I had some sense of control.

When You Realize That ABUSE Is The Problem, Not You

Anne (18:55): I think a lot of women feel like that because for me, realizing I was a victim and saying I am a victim of abuse was simultaneously liberating. I can’t do anything about it.

And then also horrifying. I can’t do anything about it at the same time, and it is horrifying to realize that this situation, there’s nothing that you could do to improve him.

You can improve your own life and your own situation once you know that you’re a victim of abuse, but you cannot improve your quote marriage or the situation with your family, and that’s devastating to realize because then what do you do?

That’s the next step. During this time, did you ever discover porn use? Infidelity? Can you talk about that for a little bit?

Is His Pornography Use the Problem?

J.R. (19:50): At some point in 2012, I found pornography on his phone, and I can remember it so clearly. I was sitting in his car and he had run back into the house that he was living at at the time to grab something. He came back out to the car and I just was sitting there staring and showed it to him. Just didn’t even say anything.

I just showed it to him and he just sitting there just looked me in the eyes and denied it, and it took me aback. Looking back now, it’s like, now I’m not going to lie, Anne.

It’s really hard not to be very hard on myself and almost mad at myself because right then and there, I knew what was in front of my face. I saw it with my own eyes, and this man is sitting there just lying through his teeth about something that it’s like, why would you even lie about that?

(20:55): I have it right in front of me. He kind of pushed back for a little bit, but eventually I’m just like, well, I don’t really care what you say. I’m seeing it in front of my face, so I don’t know why you’re trying to pretend this isn’t what it is.

So that was the first time, but I didn’t have the knowledge, the understanding of what this really was and how it really worked to think anything more than, obviously I was crushed. I was devastated, but I just thought, okay, I guess this is just maybe a part of me thought this was just going to be everybody.

The Discrepancy of Abusive Men and Their Public Personas

Anne (21:33): Did you find that finding porn, but then his behavior at church and the persona that he portrayed at church, what did you think about that discrepancy?

J.R. (21:46): So at the time, he wasn’t in any kind of church leadership. He was still in college. He went to a Bible college. It was almost trendy. It’s for the guys to talk about accountability and –

Anne (22:06): his “struggle” with porn?

J.R. (22:08): – if I hear the word –

Anne (22:10): “struggle”

J.R. (22:11): YES!! ARG!!!

Pretending It’s Not A Problem to Survive

J.R. (22:13): Yes, I didn’t like it, but I just was like, well, this, that’s what it is. It’s a struggle and he’s trying and you don’t know what you don’t know. I found that. And throughout our dating relationship and then our engagement, I would say it would go months at a time where I wouldn’t find anything.

He wouldn’t say anything, but then it would always be me discovering something on his phone.

So that would happen. And whenever that would happen, I would get all upset and we’d have this big blowout and I would just decide, well, he’s not going to be honest with me about this, so I need to let it go and stop thinking about it because I’m going to drive myself crazy.

Because I didn’t see getting out of the relationship as an option. I didn’t know about setting boundaries. I didn’t know how to reach out for help. So I just thought, well, I guess I just have to pretend things are fine in order to just survive.

Having to “just survive?” That’s The Problem.

Anne (23:29): Well, and that’s why some people call abuse victims survivors is because you’re surviving and everything that you do in this scenario is to survive. And so that’s where the term surviving comes from. I’ve always not liked that term. It feels like you survived something that you didn’t. You’re still in the middle of, right. I’m like, I haven’t survived anything yet. I’m still on the boat and the boat is still sinking. I don’t feel like I’ve survived. But that is why some people use that. I like the term victim. It’s just pretty straightforward. But other people don’t like that because they feel like it’s maybe unempowering, but I feel like it’s very empowering.

Once you realize no one’s coming to save me. We’ve got to get myself to safety because this is not going to turn out well unless I start making my way to safety. J.R. and I are going to pause the conversation here, but stay tuned. We will continue it next week.

The global severity of human trafficking and sexual exploitation is clear. Melea Stephens is on The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast to explain what you can do to stop human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

Here at BTR.ORG, we deeply appreciate the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) and the important work they do. Learn more about NCOSE here.

Help Stop Human Trafficking & Sexual Exploitation Today

You can join the fight today. Start by:

• Subscribing to NCOSE emails
• Subscribing to NCOSE Updates & Actions alerts
• Reading and sharing the 2023 NCOSE Dirty Dozen List
• “Lending Your Voice”

BTR.ORG Stands with NCOSE in Fighting Against Human Trafficking & Sexual Exploitation

At BTR, we know how deeply personal and painful the realities of the sex trafficking industry can be. When a spouse secretly uses pornography, solicits a sexually exploited person, or sexually assaults or coerces a partner, the results are devastating.

We are here for you. Attend a BTR.ORG Group Session today.

Full Transcript:

Anne (00:01):
Welcome to BTR.ORG. This is Anne.

I have Melea Stephens on today’s episode. She is on the National Center for Sexual Exploitation, also known as NCOSE board. They do amazing work on sex trafficking. So if you’re really interested in being involved, NCOSE is the place to get real information about how to help with that. Melea got involved with NCOSE because for over 23 years she has been a practicing therapist and she has seen young children be addicted to pornography. She wanted to help make sure that we protect kids.

Melea lives in Alabama, so she’s currently working on passing a bill in her state. We’ll also talk about how you can get involved in helping out in the location where you are. So stay tuned for that. Can you tell us about what’s going on in Alabama right now?

What is a “Filter Bill” and Can it Stop Human Trafficking?

Melea Stephens (02:16):
Thank you for having me. Last legislative session here in Alabama, we worked to pass what we essentially would call a filter bill. It’s a bill that would require tablets and smartphones to have the filters defaulted on. One of the names that it’s had was the default to safety bill. We’ve had different names at different points. Utah passed a similar bill a few years ago. We have wanted to pass it in Alabama and several other states are interested in introducing it as well.

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

Helping Trafficking Victims is Something We Can All Do

(03:17):
We have Supreme Court precedent that says that it is preferable for protections to come at the filter level on devices. So we know the courts would uphold this bill. We’re pretty confident that it would be very enforceable. All it is simply doing is asking that three major companies, which would be Amazon with the Kindle, the Apple products, and Google with their products that have smartphones and tablets that a software update would happen, which is a very simple fix.

We’ve talked to software experts who work closely with device manufacturers and they say this would happen in a matter of hours. That they would just do a very simple update that would allow for phones that are activated in Alabama to have the default on instead of off with the content filter so that parents or caregivers don’t have that responsibility of trying to figure that out.

Broad-based Protections for Young Children

(04:16):
And it automatically has broad-based protections for young children so that they’re less likely to stumble across pornography at an early age. And people would say, well, you can get around that. Kids are going to find ways to get around it. Obviously kids can begin to try to figure this out, but when we’re talking about very young children who aren’t even thinking about pornography that stumble upon this content and it is very traumatic to them to not understand what they’re looking at and the way it affects their brain and then how it affects their behavior and their development. This gives them extra years of innocence and safety and protection.

“Anytime a child is exposed to pornography, that’s sexual abuse of that child.”

Anne Blythe – BTR.ORG

And I had the honor of speaking to different parent groups. I have spoken to schools and churches that are in some of the areas where kids really don’t have involved parents. Those children, child on child harmful sexual behavior is just rampant in those communities because children are just handed devices. No one’s looking out for them. Very early on they can become addicted to pornography. They act out what they see because that’s what children do.

Fight Human Trafficking to Stop the Cycle of Abuse & Trauma

(05:23):
They copy what they see, and then there’s a cycle of abuse happening and a cycle of trauma. So I especially think about those children. When I think about this bill, we’ve been excited. There was a great response last session. We had 67 bipartisan co-sponsors in the house, and it passed through committee with bipartisan support. We got to the Senate, it passed through committee with bipartisan support. It was poised to be passed through the Senate and become a law for the governor simply to sign.

But we had one person in the Senate who refused to allow it on the calendar because it really only takes one or two people that set the calendar and they blocked it because there was a lot of opposition that we had to fight along the way. And that’s been true in every other state. There’s been opposition from big tech and telecommunications companies have shown up at all of our hearings with their lobbyists as well.

Why Does Big Tech Fight Against Protecting Children?

(06:25):
Even though our bill has zero to do with companies like AT&T or Verizon, they’re not held liable and it’s explicitly stated in our bill, but they would show up because unfortunately, big tech and telecommunications companies and the pornography industry will sometimes band together to fight common sense protections for kids. It’s really sad, but that’s one of the things we dealt with and unfortunately this gentleman that blocked it, we assume that there was pressure from lobbyists and one company in particular. So we’re going to do it again this session, and I’m grateful.

I don’t feel discouraged. I’m very encouraged because the draft version we have this session is even better. I think has even more protections built in, and we have major support across the state. So I’m excited about getting the ball rolling again this session.

Money, Power, & a Resistance to Any Form of Regulation

Anne (07:19):
What’s the real reason they don’t want to do it? Because they’ll say all kinds of reasons that aren’t really real. What do you think their legit reason is? Is it just simply money?

Melea Stephens (07:28):
Money is a big factor. We know that historically, if you look it up, Google, AT&T, or Verizon, do they get back channel profits from pornography? They do and they have. There would be potentially a loss of revenue that way. But then you have big tech. Big tech hates regulations. They do not want to be restricted in any way, shape or form.

They don’t want to give up an inch of their authority to determine what they do when they do it. So I think money, power and a resistance to any form of regulation, which this really is to me, it’s like a safety feature on a car or something requiring that they have proper antilock brakes on a car, something that’s very reasonable. And in this case, it’s just a simple software update. All the technology is there.

Can the Government Stop Unwanted Pornography Exposure?

Anne (08:19):
I hope this does not sound too political, but I’m a patriot in saying I’m really grateful for all of the government services that we have. We have roads, we have a military, we have things in place to keep us safe, and that’s only something that the government can do because the government is all of us.

So I am so grateful that we have these opportunities that we can pass things to protect us because no company is going to do that for us. We need to do that through the government because nobody’s going to willingly do that. Although some companies have willingly done some of the things right. I’ve seen NCOSE has worked well with some companies, so that has been exciting.

A “Very Tooth and Nail Fight” to Help Victims

Melea Stephens (09:06):
Absolutely. Yeah. There’s opportunity. Companies respond to positive communication and sometimes negative pressure. We have what’s called the Dirty Dozen list where we name and shame the main promoters of sexual exploitation. We have had tremendous success because once things are brought to light, it’s been refreshing that several companies have changed their corporate policies to better protect citizens, to protect them from sex trafficking or from unwanted exposure to pornography.

This has been a very tooth and nail fight all along the way, the opposition will say, well, you should just be fighting the pornography instead of asking the manufacturers to do this at the device level, which I agree. And we are. The National Center on Sexual Exploitation along with many of our allies are constantly fighting the pornography industry to make changes there. But here’s the truth about that is it goes back to our government. I wish our government was stepping up in this issue because the laws on the books on a federal level would prohibit the production and distribution of hardcore pornography, which is the majority of pornography that’s on the internet.

The Truth about Federal Obscenity Laws

(10:23):
And it also, our laws prohibit the distribution of all pornography, be it softcore or hardcore from being on our internet. But our Department of Justice for many years now has not been enforcing federal obscenity laws. So that leaves us having to take this gulliver approach to tackling this issue of illegal pornography through corporate strategies, through legislation, through lawsuits. We have lawsuits against PornHub that we’re winning right now. We’re gutting the mind geek and the PornHub industry because of lawsuits that we have with survivors.

So we’re having to go at every different angle, but this is one of the most practical, simplistic things we can do to protect children. And as I’ve talked to families across the state of Alabama, they really, really want to see this passed, and they’re very upset that it was blocked last session. Whether they’re democrat, republican, it doesn’t matter. I think the main part of this is that there’s opposition from big tech, the pornography industry and telecommunications companies, and to everyday citizens that want to make a difference and make an impact when it comes to fighting sex trafficking and sexual exploitation in general.

Going Upstream to Fight Human Trafficking & Sexual Exploitation

(11:38):
Yes, at NCOSE, we understand that you’ve got to go upstream. I don’t know if you’ve heard the metaphor or the analogy of you’re seeing people floating down the river that are drowning and you rush in to try to pull out as many as you can, and you’re struggling to get as many to safety as you can, and you do this for a long time until you’re exhausted, but you’re not able to get to everyone.

And so eventually you come to this idea of like, I’ve got to go upstream and figure out who’s throwing people in the river. And so you go upstream and you find out there’s someone that’s shoving all these people into the river, and in this case, that’s the pornography industry because today’s mainstream pornography, as you know, is highly addictive and changes the way that they operate. It changes their belief system.

Fighting Human Trafficking at the Root Level

(12:25):
It gives them permission, giving beliefs about rape and sex buying and things of that nature. People become objects. So we’re raising up a generation of kids to have a different type of sexual appetite, and it’s creating a world of harm.

So we fight things at that root level, and we know that if we don’t address that issue in addition to sex trafficking, we’ll be just putting out flames forever. If we did not have rampant hardcore pornography, if it was restricted to just the adult bookstores like you had back in the eighties with soft core porn, as bad as that was, if we just lived back in that world, that’s what the laws on the books say our world should look like when it comes to pornography in the United States.

Striving for “A Shift in Cultural Expectations”

There should be nothing on the internet, nothing on cable, satellite tv, all that stuff. And if we just live like that and our children were able to flourish freely without feeling like they’re going to be exposed to pornography around every corner, can you imagine how different our world would be if they were able to go through their developmental years without that atmosphere?

So that’s what we strive for is a shift in cultural expectations. But then there are also very practical things we’re doing to interrupt the cycles of things that are feeding sex trafficking. So we’d love for them to come and look at our website.

The Truth About Sexual Exploitation & Human Trafficking

Anne (14:07):
I really recommend NCOSE because so many people are talking about sex trafficking these days. And I have a really interesting story that is super alarming. So one of my friends was on an airplane and she was sitting next to a man and they started talking about politics a little bit and he said, I’m voting for this person because of his record on sex trafficking because he is going to protect the children.

And her ears perked up. And she was like, oh, really? Tell me more about this. And he said, yeah, there’s just these people who are stealing these kids and we’ve got to stop it. Then she said, well, what do you do for a living? And guess what he did for a living? What? He owned a strip club.

Melea Stephens (14:52):
Oh my gosh. You’re kidding. No.

Use NCOSE Resources to Work Toward Ending Sexual Exploitation & Human Trafficking

Anne (14:55):
Everyone wants to end sex trafficking. Everyone wants to end pornography. I mean, everyone that listens to this podcast. Sure.

Melea Stephens (15:04):
Yeah.

Anne (15:05):
So here’s a man who is an actual literal sex trafficker. He owns a strip club, and he’s talking about this nameless, faceless group of people who’s kidnapping kids when we know who they are, it’s PornHub. We know who the pornographers are. It’s very obvious. Getting involved with NCOSE is so awesome because it makes it very clear what’s happening so that you can say, okay, this particular senator, they’re the ones blocking this bill so we can write to that particular senator and we can make sure that this bill gets passed.

So I love that NCOSE clears out all the confusion because at least this man who owned the strip club, he was loving saying, oh yeah, we got to stop sex trafficking as a way to distract from the fact that he was a sex trafficker.

Finding a Anti-Trafficking Organization You Can Trust

Melea Stephens (15:55):
Talk about denial and hypocrisy or else just a really good marketing scheme there.

Anne (16:01):
That is scary these days. So I love that. NCOSE is a very reputable organization that has been around a long time.

Melea Stephens (16:08):
They really do their research, and they are very careful about the details before they speak out. That’s one reason I’m always hesitant when I’m a spokeswoman. I want to make sure I do my best to present the facts accurately because they have such a high standard when it comes to what they share and what they do. They’re very intent, and I respect that about them, and they will correct themselves if there is something that they find out is inaccurate, but they do things with a lot of integrity and they get a lot done with a very small budget in a small group of people.

Join the NCOSE community to Feel the Momentum & Fight Human Trafficking

Anne (16:43):
Well, that’s the other thing that I love about NCOSE, because so many people when they talk to me about it, they’ll be like, nobody’s doing anything right? And I’m like, well, every year NCOSE with their dirty dozen list, they make progress. It’s so amazing to be a part of that because you can feel the momentum.

And as much as pornography is this overarching exploitative, abusive, systemic problem that is affecting every single woman that listens to this podcast and so many families all over the world, and it’s horrific, it needs to be stopped. It’s an abuse issue, and there are people who do not want to stop it, and they want people to get distracted.

I also think that the pornographers and the exploiters, I think they don’t want people to know that progress is being made. I think they want people to think that it’s a lost cause. So either it’s fine and what’s your problem? We should just let this go. Or the alternative, which is there’s nothing you can do.

What the Human Trafficking Industry Doesn’t Want YOU to Know

Melea Stephens (19:14):
They want it to seem that it’s a right and it’s an entitlement first and foremost. They don’t want people to know that it’s illegal. Pornography is illegal. They want people to feel that this is a free speech issue when it’s not protected speech, but you would think that’s the case given everything that they do. And they have all these organizations that are under misleading names, such as this Free Speech Coalition, various names that make it sound like they’re anti exploitation as well.

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

So you have to really do your homework and dig deep when it comes to these issues, just like in our state and in other states that this filter bill was being presented, several groups came in acting like they were pro-family pro children presenting Trojan horse bills that sounded anti pornography and people fell for it. It’s a very sneaky opponent. Thankfully, the law is on our side, science is on our side, and as we educate the public about the harms of pornography to the brain and relationships in society, as we educate the public about what the law actually says, they’re empowered to push back against this evil industry.

NCOSE is the Place to Get YOUR Information About Human Trafficking

Anne (20:49):
So look over here so that you don’t actually accidentally support a sex trafficker or a pornographer. NCOSE is the place to get your information from. They’re trustworthy. They’ve been around for so long, and they really do their homework, and they know who the specific people are. They talk about specific things that are happening that we know about that are actionable, and that’s what makes us so effective.

Melea Stephens (21:32):
Well, thank you so much. Enjoyed my time with you.

Learning how to set boundaries in an emotionally abusive relationship may feel confusing and overwhelming. But here at BTR.ORG, we know that with the proper tools – including support and self-compassion – you can master boundary-setting and begin your journey to emotional safety and healing.

Elizabeth, a member of the BTR.ORG community, is back on the podcast, sharing the second part of her story. As she learns and grows, so do her safety boundaries. Tune in and read the full transcript below for more.

This episode is Part 2 of Anne’s interview with Elizabeth.
Part 1: Is The Cycle of Abuse a Myth?
Part 2: How to Set Boundaries in An Emotionally Abusive Relationship (this episode)

Boundaries in an Emotionally Abusive Relationship Should Establish Greater Safety

Have you ever tried to set boundaries expecting more safety and security, only to feel more exposed to harm than ever? That’s because traditional boundary-setting models simply don’t work in abuse scenarios. Strategies like:

• If/Then Statements (“If you yell at me, I will move sleep in another bedroom);
• Statements of Values (“I want a healthy partner who treats me kindly and non-abusively); and
• Ultimatums (“If you don’t stop gaslighting me, cheating on me, and lying to me, then I’m filing for divorce”);

Have been touted by relationship “professionals” as solutions to emotional abuse, when in reality, they usually keep victims exposed to harmful situations.

The BTR.ORG Boundaries Model Actually Works in Emotionally Abusive Relationships

We created the BTR.ORG Boundaries Model because we want victims to actually experience greater emotional and psychological safety.

Effective Boundaries in an Emotionally Abusive Relationship are:

• Courageous actions that evolve to fit the needs of the victim
• Often unspoken
• Essential to emotional and psychological safety.

Boundaries are NOT:

• If-then statements given to the abuser verbally or in writing
• A statement of ones values, or of what a person hopes for or needs
• An expected behavior with an attached consequence or threat.

https://youtu.be/9aa5bgEY3bY

How Do I Learn to Set Boundaries in My Emotionally Abusive Relationship?

Establishing effective safety boundaries is new territory for many women who find BTR.

If you’re wondering how to begin this process, ask yourself these questions:

• What actions can I take today to begin creating more emotional & psychological safety for myself?
• How will I learn effective strategies to keep expanding my emotional & psychological safety? (The BTR.ORG Living Free Workshop teaches you, step-by-step, exactly how to establish and maintain effective boundaries in an emotionally abusive relationship)
• Where will I seek support as I begin the process of establishing safety boundaries? (We recommend BTR.ORG Group Sessions)

Full Transcript:

Anne (00:01):
Welcome to BTR.ORG. This is Anne.

Elizabeth, a member of our community is back on today. We’re going to continue the conversation that we had last week. We were talking about how she was going to move back to Canada, so if you haven’t listened to last week’s episode, listen to that first and then join us here. We’re just going to jump right in.

Canada’s laws are much more effective when it comes to domestic abuse. Did you end up moving to Canada?

Elizabeth (01:56):
I did.

Anne (01:57):
Okay. And was that before or after your divorce?

Setting Boundaries Requires Strategy

Elizabeth (02:00):
After. I didn’t have a green card. I was just authorized to work in the United States, and he had thought I would continue to pursue my green card and he could help me so that I could remain in the United States. So I didn’t tell him that I had changed my plan and that I changed the plan to, I’m actually going to move back to Canada where I’m a citizen.

So for a couple months he believed that he still had a certain amount of control over me after we were separated, and then I pursued to do everything legally and upfront. When he found that information out, he was obviously very upset, but it protects me. I’m not a citizen there and I don’t have any support.

“This guy sounds like a coercive controller”

Anne (02:40):
And at that time, in that instance, protected you from prolonged legal abuse in terms of the divorce, but maybe not in terms of custody. I have a feeling that you’re going to bring up custody because this guy sounds like a coercive controller. This type of abuser really enjoys chaos and pain, and they will even hurt themselves because it’s so fun for them to see someone else in chaos and pain. And so it’s very strange.

They do things that seem really stupid because it’s hurting them, but it’s also hurting you, and it also seems very smart. And women in this situation are usually like, how can you be so smart and so stupid at the exact same time?

Elizabeth (03:31):
It is a question that’s crossed my mind.

Anne (03:33):
So let’s talk about the post divorce abuse. What happened after?

The Bank Record Subpoena Process

Elizabeth (03:39):
They asked, do we want to subpoena his bank records? And we had never shared banking. I’d never looked at any of that. They said it’s just something we typically do during divorce. So I was like, okay, sure. And his bank records showed when we first separated the first couple months after, he was at a college bar every second night.

So he was right back into the kind of behaviors that he’d been used to. I just said that because when we first were moving away, I think he was busy with his own thing, so he wasn’t as intent and wasn’t as involved. But then maybe something changed in his life. And when we were, in fact, across the border, he started to really just harass me a lot through the parenting app. And we had created this parenting plan when we lived in the us and when the borders finally opened and we moved to the area we moved to, we had no real concept of the impact it would be on my daughter, who was two at the time, barely two.

That Moment You Realize You Need To Set Boundaries

(04:36):
But it was a rigorous, rigorous schedule for her. And I worked full-time. She was in daycare, and two nights a week she’d have to be away from home for 12 hours. We’d have to meet him at this neutral location. It’s dark, it’s raining, the roads are bad. He had no intent.

As much feedback as I gave him that this was so hard on her and can we please possibly figure out a different way for him to get that one and a half hour visit by extending his weekend visits or something? He just wouldn’t budge and he could see the difficulty for her in terms of her sleep schedule.

Anne (05:14):
And for you. Because it was hard for you too. And he’s thinking, awesome, awesome. It’s hard for her and it’s hard for the baby.

When You Set Boundaries With An Emotional Abuser, You May Find They’re “All Talk, No Action”

Elizabeth (05:23):
Exactly. I’m sure he knew and he didn’t care if it was hard on me, then she was just kind of a byproduct of that or whatever. So that went on for about six months, and then I just said, enough, you can take me to court, but I’m decreasing this to one night a week on her weeknights, and this is where I find him to be kind of a lot of talk, but then no action.

I think if you get down to the truth of everything of what he actually wants, it’s not that extra one and a half hours. It was more that, like you said, it was kind of impacting our lives and we had no free time. We’re exhausted all the time. We’re bending to his will. And so that’s been the main thing, still kind of a lot of crazy making in that he’ll say, you never give me any time, dah, dah, dah.

Setting Boundaries is Empowering!

(06:11):
But then there’s evidence of all through the parenting app. And the parenting app has been so great because it’s all there. It’s all documented and you’re not having to fish through to find, and it’s very validating to look back and go, oh, this is all the times I offered, or these are all the things. So it contradicts itself. And now here we are three years since we moved, and I can just say you’re contradicting yourself. Well, now I don’t even really say that much. He knows.

But at first I was overexplaining and deflecting, and now I don’t do any of that. He doesn’t really try to make up any extra time with her so that it’s kind of playing itself out. And the less I engage, the less of a rise he gets from me. The more I have cut down any interaction on the app to the bare minimum, he kind of shrinks away. That being said, now he won’t let me talk to my daughter when she goes away on the weekends. So that’s a way to kind of unquote make me pay.

The BTR.ORG Living Free Workshop Teaches YOU How to Set Boundaries in an Emotionally Abusive Relationship

Anne (07:11):
So the strategy that you used, that’s one of the concepts that we teach in The BTR.ORG Living Free Workshop. It’s how to think about the abuser so that you are in a state of mind to be able to respond to them in a way that protects you, how to communicate with them, and then how to set boundaries the way that is effective, where they can’t actually cross them because it’s all you. And these types of boundaries that we teach in the workshop, they’re never anything that you say.

Elizabeth (07:44):
I love that.

What Will The BTR.ORG Living Free Workshop Teach You About Setting Boundaries?

Anne (07:45):
Because women who take the workshop will learn this with an abuser if you tell them, Hey, I don’t like it when you wear green, just for example, they’ll be like, sweet, now I know how to bugger. I’m going to wear green. It’s never a way to solve the problem. You’re always just giving them a sign how to harass me. It bothers me when you do this. They’re like, great, thanks for letting me know. I’ll keep doing it. We never ever want to tell them what our boundaries are or what we need or what we want or anything like that, because that only puts us in more danger.

So The Living Free Workshop talks about that, but one of the things that you said is a really important principle that we teach in The Living Free Workshop, and it is, do not believe them. So many times these abusers will say, well, I’ll take you to court. And you’re terrified, right? You don’t want to lose your rotter. Yes. So you think, well, I better do what he says, or he’s going to take me to court.

When You Set Boundaries, He May Threaten Family Court – Here’s What to Do:

Elizabeth (08:39):
And that went on for a couple of years. For me.

Anne (08:42):
The better way to respond is, oh, okay, sounds good. This is my attorney’s phone number. Have your attorney contact him. Just be like, oh, alright. That sounds good. Here’s my attorney’s phone number. Let me know how it goes and leave it at that. Some of them will take you to court, so just know that it’s not always going to end up like that.

But the majority of them, they just want to make you do what they want and they think threats are going to get them that, but they don’t actually want to spend the time and energy to take you to court because in reality, their actions very rarely match their words. And that goes the same for promises. Of course, I love you. I’m not going to look at porn.

And then it goes the same for threats too. Usually if they’ve threatened to harm you physically and in your state, that enables you to get a protective order, get it, because that will always help you. And the criminal route is always better than civil for protection. So if you can get some kind of criminal action, that’s always going to help you more. So that’s good that at this point, more or less, you’ve been delivered because you stopped believing him.

The BTR.ORG Boundary Model Teaches You How to Set Boundaries in an Emotionally Abusive Relationship

Elizabeth (09:54):
Exactly. And I just advocate for myself and my daughter, and like I said, I have the documentation to support decisions and all of that, so I’ve just kind of protected myself that way. What you said about the boundaries, I think of that all the time, and I share it with other people because I learned it from the podcast. It’s an actionable, it’s not words because many people think it’s a lot of words to describe your boundary, and I love that. It’s an action, an action you take.

Anne (10:21):
Yeah. That’s the only thing that will actually protect you. And if you tell them your boundary, it’s a big giant flag that says, Hey, this is how to abuse me. So you never, ever, ever want to tell them once they’re an abuser. Of course, in the beginning you’re trying to figure out is this abuse what’s going on?

And instead of asking him or talking to ’em about abuse again with living free, we recommend that you just observe, just watch. You don’t have to ask him, Hey, are you abusive? Or This is abuse. You don’t have to bring it up. You can just observe and you could see that he’s abusive. If you see that he’s abusive, you don’t have to tell him you need to get to safety, but you don’t need to say anything about it.

SAA and COSA

Elizabeth (11:04):
He’s heavily just projected that towards me. So the parenting app, I had to go through some of the documentation recently, and I think it was over 30 counts of being, he accusing me of being a parental alienator and a narcissist, and I don’t comment. I learned that early on too. I’m not here to diagnose him, but I will comment on his behaviors at times, but I really refrain from that as well. No point to it.

But yeah, he’s very heavily projects on me that I’m mentally unstable and where I was living, like I mentioned there just, it’s in the northern states near the Canadian border, and I just couldn’t find anything in the city I was at for support. And so I mentioned he started SAA, they did have a group, and then I found a COSA group of about four or five women in that area.

How Did Elizabeth Find BTR.ORG?

(11:58):
I just didn’t find that I got much from it, and so I just started looking for podcasts and different information, and I stumbled across BTR and where I was being so isolated, it was what was my main support really, and just starting to connect the dots. I did read some books as well, but I would say the podcasts from BTR were the main thing that kept me rooted in reality, where I was like, yes, this is what matches, because like you said, certain parts of COSA, there were certain things that I was like, yeah, sort of.

But then listening to the podcast and the different people you would have on was kind of the main thing that rooted me in reality of what I was experiencing. It was like a big, yes, this fits with what I’m experiencing. That’s kind of what helped me in a lot of my decision making. His counselor even said to him at one point, he said, she’s reading these books. He didn’t know about the podcast. She’s reading these books. And she kind of silenced him and said, she’s becoming empowered. It threatened him that I was learning what I was learning then I was no longer kind of trapped in the chaos.

“This makes sense as to what I already know.”

Elizabeth, BTR.ORG Community Member

Anne (13:09):
Was the BTR podcast when you found it, was it kind of revelatory? Was it something totally new that you hadn’t thought of or heard before? Or was it something that you did know inside but you just didn’t know you knew it?

Elizabeth (13:22):
Looking back, I would say the latter for sure. From working in healthcare, I have some knowledge of mental health knowledge from books I’ve read and things like that. And so I think as I started to listen to it, I’m like, yes, this makes sense as to what I already know. I talked about the addiction side of it and attachment. I knew about attachment kind of.

Omar Minwalla’s “Secret Sexual Basement”

So it kind of brought everything together at that time. It was like in 2018, and you had the gentleman on who’s written a couple books, he talks about the secret sexual basement. Those episodes were around that time and just starting to kind of put pieces together. It was like I knew that this was ill treatment, but I didn’t think it was as calculated as it was.

Anne(15:57):
I think the thing that is really interesting is that women, when they find the podcast, they’re like, yes, they knew it, but they didn’t have words for it, or they couldn’t really bring it to the surface.

“How did I not know? How did I not understand?”

And then I think the other interesting thing is that they’re, how did I not know? How did I not understand? That’s how I felt when I read Why Does He Do That? I was like, how am I a college graduate with a master’s degree who doesn’t want to be abused?

I’m not afraid of divorce, and how can I not realize I’m being abused? This is crazy. So it’s both a, I knew it, and then how did I not know it at the exact same time? And it’s such a strange place to be where at least I felt so stupid that I didn’t see it.

But then also not stupid at all because I’d never been educated about it. And all of the abuse checklists are like, does he control your transportation? And you’re like, no. Does he trap you in a room? No. I mean, maybe he might trap you in a room. I’m not saying that he wouldn’t. I’m just saying the classic abuse checklists didn’t seem to fit my situation. It was just confusing.

Secret-Keeping is Power Over

Elizabeth (16:40):
The idea of secret keeping, secret is power over. That really resonated with me. I’m like, yeah, because at first I thought he didn’t realize that it was painful for me, or he didn’t realize the depth of his actions, the impact of his actions. But then I kind of circled to the fact that I didn’t really matter to him, is what I kind of came to.

Anne (17:03):
Well, it’s even the opposite. He does it on purpose.
He uses your feelings against you to control you rather than listens or caress about your feelings. So the only reason he pays attention to your feelings is to be able to manipulate you, control the situation, control the narrative, and that’s where women, well-meaning awesome, caring women, they don’t know what they’re dealing with.

And so of course, they’re going to share their feelings with their husband because they think in sharing their feelings, they’ll be able to resolve the issue. But with an abuser, sharing your feelings is literally offering them a list of how to manipulate you better. And so that’s why it’s so important to know what you’re looking at. So Elizabeth, if you could go back and talk to your younger self, what would you tell her?

As You Set Boundaries, “Trust your gut”

Elizabeth (18:00):
It’s kind of cliche, but trust your gut. How do you feel around that individual that you’re with? That was a big one for me. I never felt calm or always felt like something wasn’t right. I would teach myself and I teach my daughter. How do you feel when that happened to you? The feeling attached to being around someone or how their behaviors make you feel, and then boundaries, because he was sometimes snide or joking, and I’ve experienced this with other people I’ve dated.

If you put up a boundary that he, in the beginning would be like, oh, yes, you’re right, I should have that boundary. But then I felt like there was undermining surrounding, it kind of diminishing me, invalidating me, and those things I just pushed aside. I was like, oh, when I brought it to him, he did say he would go along with it, but there’s the whole understanding of boundaries and the response to them.

Learning How to Set Boundaries in an Abusive Relationship Can Change Your Life For Good

(18:50):
I watch my own daughter give a no if she’s having a video call, no, I don’t like that book. Or no, and I watch the response, and I’m like, oh, I know that. Of course you like it. You just don’t know. You do get this constant kind of harassment almost. So I think just that knowledge about boundaries, it shouldn’t be something that they come around the back door and harass you about, obviously, or make snide remarks about or attack your character if it’s something that you have made clear that you stand for or that align with your values.

Anne (19:26):
Thank you so much for sharing your story. I appreciate the time that you’ve taken to talk with us today. Thank you so much, Elizabeth.

Although it might not necessarily look like a cycle, emotional abuse shows up in patterns. If you know what to look for, understanding the cycle of abuse can help you understand your situation.

“I felt like something was off…but I didn’t know what to look for.”

Elizabeth, like many victims of hidden abuse, felt unsettled early on in the relationship. But she didn’t have the language or professional support to identify that her abusive husband was putting her through the devastating cycle of abuse. Tune in and read the full transcript below for more.

This episode is Part 1 of Anne’s interview with Elizabeth.
Part 1: Is The Cycle of Abuse a Myth? (this episode)
Part 2: How to Set Boundaries in an Emotionally Abusive Relationship

The Cycle of Abuse Makes You Feel Crazy

Like many women, Elizabeth sought professional help early on in her marriage because she felt crazy in her relationship. If you are feeling crazy in your relationship, please know that gaslighting, blame-shifting, secret intimate betrayal (including porn use), and sexual coercion are abuse issues and must be treated as such.

Understanding the cycle of abuse can help you identify what’s really going on, early on.

What is the Cycle of Abuse?

The Cycle of Abuse Consists of Four Main Phases:

• Grooming: this phase is often called love-bombing. We also refer to it as “manipulative kindness”. This phase can last minutes, hours, days, weeks, years, or in some cases, decades. Abusers groom victims by presenting whatever version of themselves seems most safe, secure, “attachable”, and healthy to you.
• Tension: this phase is often very painful for victims. Women experiencing abusive tension often blame themselves, feeling responsible for the abuser’s neglect and verbal abuse – because it’s starkly different from the grooming behaviors that the abuser used to manipulate them into the relationship.
• Action: the action phase is unique to each abuser, but consists of the harmful behaviors that constitute hidden abuse, including: gaslighting, manipulation, intimate betrayal, financial betrayal, etc.
• Denial: women are often on the cusp of setting safety boundaries, including separation or divorce, during the denial phase. Abusers use gaslighting, manipulation, and blame-shifting, to “erase” the harmful behaviors of the cycles before – but often, victims come to a place where they’re simply done with the pain and confusion of hidden abuse. Tragically, this is also the phase where abusers tap into a deeper level of manipulation and coax the victim into the grooming phase, where the cycle starts all over again.

BTR.ORG Is Here For You

The good news is that many, many victims are identifying the cycle of abuse in their relationships, earlier and earlier.

If you’re realizing, maybe for the first time, that you’re experiencing emotional abuse, please know that you are not alone. Consider attending a BTR.ORG Group Session today.

Full Transcript:

Anne (00:01):
Welcome to BTR.ORG. This is Anne.

We have a member of our community on today’s episode. Her name is Elizabeth and she is going to share her story. Welcome, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth (01:34):
Thank you.

Anne (01:35):
She’s been a podcast listener for a long time. It’s always an honor to have podcast listeners on, so thank you so much for supporting the podcast by listening to it. Let’s start with your story. Tell me about the beginning. Did you recognize your husband’s abusive behaviors at first?

“It felt like such a change from when we were dating.”

Elizabeth (01:54):
I noticed some things before we were married regarding his behavior, specifically with social media. There was an instance when he omitted some information and I didn’t, of course at that point consider it abuse. I just addressed it with him, was honest upfront and he was agreeable and said that I was right, and I thought, that’s it, that’s solved. And I felt like he heard me and we kind of moved on.

Once we were married, I noticed that some of his responses to me, I just felt like there was a lot more contempt. He kind of was less agreeable if I brought things to him, and that’s when I started to have some questions and feel quite out of sorts because it felt like such a change from when we were dating.

Anne (02:46):
Do you mind me asking what was the nature of the information that he withheld before you got married?

The Early Stages in the Cycle of Abuse

Elizabeth (02:52):
We hadn’t been dating that long. I had a trip planned with a couple of my girlfriends to go to Europe. and it had already been for quite a while and I was going to be away for a couple months. I had felt like I wanted to pursue the relationship and he said, do you want to be exclusive? And it was a big yes for me.

So when I was away, I felt like communication was difficult. I felt like it was hard to pin down, and he had said he was going to go camping one weekend and I had this gut feeling that he may be going camping with someone he worked with who was quite a bit younger than him, and I don’t know why, but I just had this gut feeling and I asked him if he did and first he said he went with just my dog.

“At first he was understanding, but then he became quite pressuring that I get over it”

(03:36):
He was taking care of my dog. And then he said, oh, I went with some coworkers. I found out the truth much later. 6 months later. He went on a one-on-one camping trip with a 21-year-old when he was in his mid thirties.

So that’s obviously a red flag. But I was already pretty invested. He denied anything happened and I kind of worked through it. And at first he was quite understanding, but then he became quite pressuring that I get over it in his words after a few days of him listening to my concerns that he withheld that information. That was the situation. But nothing had happened between them that –

Anne (04:17):
You knew of.

Elizabeth (04:18):
Exactly.

What Actually Happened on the Camping Trip?

Anne (04:19):
Did you ever find out later that there was something that happened between them?

Elizabeth (04:23):
He told me that she shot him down and said, no. Looking back now and the knowledge I have, I think there was a certain amount of grooming going on with that coworker and that she maybe saw him as an older brother type and in the reality there was a different motive on his end. So I think it probably confused her quite a bit if I was to put myself in her shoes.

Anne (04:48):
Totally. So had he been able to he would’ve.

Elizabeth (04:51):
Yes. And he said that.

Anne (04:53):
He said that at the time, back in the day or –

Elizabeth (04:57):
Six months later.

Is Lying Part of the Cycle of Abuse? (Spoiler: Yes)

Anne (04:58):
I was going to say, that doesn’t sound like something he’d say right away. It’s really interesting to me when they decide to lie and not tell you information, and then when they decide to tell you the information, it’s almost this calculated time that is meant to hurt you, not necessarily a time to bring you closer when they feel like you’re maybe having a great day or something’s going well for you or something like that because it’s calculated to hurt you. So can you tell me the nature of when he told you this?

The “Trickle Disclosure” Can Keep Victims Stuck in the Cycle of Abuse

Elizabeth (05:31):
I definitely identify. There has been times when that’s the case. I used to call it the trickle disclosure. That’s kind of what I got in my relationship was, oh yeah, this flashback came back to me and it would be gut wrenching for me. And looking back, I think he did do that sometimes in that way to keep me kind of destabilized a bit.

“He was afraid I was going to leave him.”

But this particular instance for this situation, I think he was afraid I was going to leave him. So he told me about this camping trip and the fact that he lied, omitted and told me at that point that now we had everything out in the open. We were still dating. And so that was like, okay, now you know everything. It was a lie.

Looking back, he did that when I first met him two days in. He lied, but I thought, wow, how vulnerable. He told me this difficult part that he had cheated on a past partner, one partner one time, it’s grooming. I had no idea what grooming was. It was a way to have me kind of trust him to say like, oh, he was upfront and told me this information, and it’s all there is. All the skeletons are out of the closet and they weren’t. But it was a way to kind of silence me a bit.

Manipulative Truth: A Key Piece of the Cycle of Abuse

Anne (06:42):
I’ve been thinking of a name for this, but I don’t have one yet. But manipulative truth, which is never the whole truth, but they make you think, no one who is a liar would tell me this thing. So they must be telling the truth, but they’re telling a part of the truth that is the top of the iceberg. And if they were to tell the truth, they’d say, well, I’ve cheated on every partner. I still masturbate every day and I still look at porn and I have every intention of cheating on you because I don’t really want to be with one person. And then they say, now everything’s out on the table.

Elizabeth (07:19):
So it creates a false sense of safety.

Why Do Emotional Abusers “Test” Victims? (Is This Part of the Cycle of Abuse?)

Anne (07:22):
Exactly. And they do it on purpose. I think the other issue there, if it was before you were engaged, was it test? If I tell her this partial truth, that seems horrific and she’ll still get engaged to me, this is the kind of girl I want to marry. She believes me.

Elizabeth (07:38):
Exactly.

Anne (07:39):
So they’re going to tell a partial truth that feels really true in order to test, is this the kind of woman that I can exploit sometimes, and that’s not your fault. It has nothing to do with you. It’s really, really, really scary and sad and awful. That is their intention from the beginning. That’s what was always so alarming.

Elizabeth (08:03):
It was mind blowing it to have that level of that it was that planned and calculated.

Anne (08:09):
What types of reasons did you give in the beginning for this behavior that seemed kind of off?

Abusers Use GASLIGHTING to Stop Victims from Identifying the Cycle of Abuse

Elizabeth (08:14):
Initially. I think there was some self-blame, and that’s kind of the work I’ve done in my own journey. I sort of thought, well, maybe the problem lies with me. And he agreed. He agreed that the problem was probably me. I had said, well, I had done counseling in the past and I think I should take it back up. And he said, yeah, I think you should too.

So he really let me kind of go down that road of I just need to do my own work, that it was my neediness or anxiousness or this or that, that was the problem. And that there was nothing had changed really on his end, but I just felt this sense of it was sort of night or day.

We moved to a different town and it was kind a college town. There was younger women around in this college town, and I feel like maybe he was triggered from his own past because before I met him, he’d kind of been in a city where it was a lot of college students, young women around, and he was in a kind of party atmosphere and I didn’t know all the extent of it.

When Therapy Harms, Instead of Helping Victims Identify the Cycle of Abuse

(09:14):
So when we moved to this new city and we were newly married and his behavior towards me changed, he helped me in that way of thinking it was me. So I started counseling and he did come to some of those early counseling sessions as well with me, and that’s when we found out there was an addiction.

Anne (09:29):
He came to confirm to the therapist that it was your problem. Did you find the therapy to be helpful in this particular situation?

“Something doesn’t feel right, something has changed.”

Elizabeth (09:37):
No, I’d say no. I think she was just trying to figure things out as well. Also, I was pregnant, so the goal was to kind of help reduce my anxiety. I was feeling very anxious in the pregnancy and I wasn’t able to put my finger on what was going on.

So it felt very crazy making, and that’s what I internalized was coming from within me and that I had nothing to worry about. And here I was quite worried and that impact on my unborn child, and so she was just basically trying to support me with my anxiety. Well, turns out my gut is pretty sensitive, and so then I kept picking at the wound kind of thing and just bringing my concerns to him over and over. Something doesn’t feel right, something has changed.

Anne (10:23):
Did they diagnose you with anxiety or anything like that?

Pathologizing Victims Instead of Helping Them Identify the Cycle of Abuse

Elizabeth (10:27):
No. Okay. No. We used it as a diagnosis just for insurance purposes, but I’ve never had a diagnosis of anything.

Anne (10:34):
Okay. That’s good. So many women get diagnosed with something during this time because instead of their therapist saying, oh, this is your internal warning system telling you something, something’s wrong. You are reacting in a totally normal way. You are great. Let’s figure out why your warning system is going off. Instead of saying that they’re happy to be like, oh yeah, you’re just another crazy woman who’s having too much anxiety and you’re hysterical for no reason.

Elizabeth (11:06):
That’s the only message I was getting.

Is Secret Pornography Use Part of the Cycle of Abuse?

(12:25):
So the therapist doesn’t help you figure out what’s going on. She doesn’t help you figure out that he’s abusing you. And then you realize he’s addicted to pornography without the help of that therapist. How did you discover his pornography use?

Elizabeth (12:40):
I kept asking, something has changed, what has changed? And I thought, is it because I’m pregnant? Again, a lot of focus on myself, but I knew something was different. I asked him. It’s never been on my radar. And I said, do you look at pornography? Because something in the conversation led me to ask the question and he said, yes, I do so that I don’t bleep other women. And it shocked me. It’s a moment kind of etched in my memory because I was in shock that he had never offered that information. That conversation had never come up.

Odd logic 😳

Anne (13:15):
Also, that his opinion or his viewpoint was that if he did not look at porn, he was not in control of himself enough and he did not have the integrity or the ability or the adult skill of not having sex with someone that wasn’t his wife. That was his reasoning. Otherwise, if he didn’t look at porn, Hey, Elizabeth, you are lucky. I’m such a giver. I’m looking at porn for you because if I didn’t do this, I would be out having sex with other women and you don’t want me to do that.

Elizabeth (13:52):
It was kind of progress in his mind.

Anne (13:55):
I’m doing great kind of a thing. Oh, that must’ve been devastating. I’m so sorry. So you find out, when does the word addict come into play?

Going the “Sex Addiction Route” Can Keep Victims from Identifying the Cycle of Abuse

Elizabeth (14:03):
I don’t think until he started, he sought out the Sex Addicts Anonymous. I think it had been a decade since I’d even heard of the terms someone having a sex addiction. And I kind of laughed. I didn’t think it was a real thing.

Anne (14:14):
Why did he seek it out?

Elizabeth (14:15):
Much like when he confessed about the six months, the story about the girl, the 21-year-old, I think he could sense that I would potentially leave him or have him leave the house. And so he found an SA ad in the paper. He said, I’m going to go. And he went. I at that point started on the journey of thinking that was our only issue.

And then I found out it was a much bigger issue than just looking at pornography, the ingrained pattern of his character and everything. But at the time, once I started to learn about the world of sex addiction because of the group and my own support group, I thought that was the only issue.

The Problem with the COSA Model

Anne (14:58):
It’s interesting to me that it is the issue, but the issue is larger than just that this is a systemic issue, and it breaks my heart when women don’t go the abuse route, when they go the addiction route first because it keeps women in the abuse so much longer.

And in a strange way, because the answer in COSA is stay on your side of the street, work on your own things, which is kind of the right answer a little bit, but only when you know exactly what you’re dealing with. If you know you’re dealing with abuse, then you realize, oh, I don’t need to work on my side of the street. I need to get off the street.

Elizabeth (15:40):
Yes, I missed that point. That’s what I was seeking support from professionals, and I didn’t really get that direction.

🚩🚩🚩Chaotic Counsel

Anne (15:51):
Did you ever go to a pornography addiction therapist?

Elizabeth (15:56):
I did. I thought, okay, once I knew he had an addiction, I started reading and that was what was recommended. And she recommended after meeting with he and I that we do a 90 day separation, and she reported to me, she did not feel like there was any remorse or anything on his end is what she felt from meeting him and talking to him. So that was devastating in its own right. I had a small infant and his counselor on the other hand was not certified sex addiction therapist.

Marriage Counseling Does NOT STOP the Cycle of Abuse

She was giving us conflicting information or conflicting direction, and she was trying to handle what was going on in a different way. So I was getting direction. I was still breastfeeding. I was getting direction like, You leave the house on a Saturday for 12 hours and then he can leave the house the next day for 12 hours. But the whole time I didn’t have safety. I didn’t feel safe in my home around him, but I was trying all these different things.

Question: Is his behavior an extension of the addiction, or another phase of the cycle of abuse?

Anne (16:50):
Even if the person would’ve been a certified sexual addiction therapist, the likelihood of them identifying the abuse is next to zero because they don’t see it as an abuse issue. They’re not certified abuse specialists, they’re certified sexual addiction therapists, so they will identify anything he does as an extension of the addiction. So he’s in addict mode, he’s not in recovery, something like that, rather than he is abusive, which is a totally different thing for a woman to hear. I applaud that first therapist though, for saying, I don’t think that he feels remorse or anything. So even though that was hard for you to hear, at least it was maybe a wake up call.

Elizabeth (17:36):
It was definitely, we did try the separation as well, so we did separate for a short time.

Anne (17:42):
So at that time you did separate based on her counsel and then you ended up getting back together?

Elizabeth (17:47):
Yeah.

“He raged and tore things apart.”

Anne (17:49):
Tell me how that happened.

Elizabeth (17:50):
He wanted to separate from me as well, definitely, but he didn’t want to leave the comfort of the home. So his idea was that he would sleep in the living room. We had a loft in our garage. He’d go sleep out there, and I took a trip four day or five day trip to California to visit a friend and to kind of have some space. I had my daughter with me, and when I came back, he picked us up at the airport. He barely acknowledged me.

There was a lot of feeling of contempt, and I was like, you know what? I want this separation, but I want him out of the home. And so I told him and he raged and tore things apart in the house, and I did call the police accidentally. I said, I will call nine one one, called the number. They came, he left. After that for two months, he still had access to my daughter. He’d still come and get her, but we really had no interaction.

Anne (18:42):
Did you get a protective order at that time?

6 More Months of The Abuse Cycle

Elizabeth (18:44):
I did not. So fast forward a couple months, he’s still coming to get my daughter, but I kind of try to have little to no contact with him in that exchange. And then we’re at church on Easter and I go out to use the bathroom or something, and I walk by where my daughter is in the playroom and he’s standing at the doorway of the playroom, and I thought it was this reconciliatory event in my mind. And from there, he doesn’t move in right away, but we start communication again.

I don’t even know if he ever said he’s sorry, maybe once. But I thought this is where we both take accountability and we start to move forward and repair our relationship. And he eventually did move in after about a month. We were together for another six months, and it got worse. It got much worse.

The Isolation and Emotional Abuse Escalate (This is Part of the Cycle of Abuse)

(19:36):
And looking back, he cut off all communication that I had with his counselor. She would allow me to call her. He wouldn’t allow me to talk to her. He wouldn’t talk to anybody in the church with me. And he wouldn’t let me be around if he was talking to his sister, who was quite a bit older than him who had been kind of a support.

For those six months he completely isolated me. I would say definitely the abuse escalated. I don’t think he really wanted to be there. He just wanted to change the narrative of the story so that when he left, it was because I was crazy and unstable versus what was the initial story. He kind of looked like the bad guy.

“This is it.”

Elizabeth (20:18):
After that six months, he left and I said, this is it. He was going on a trip to see his family. I just knew. I knew that this wasn’t something we were both invested in repairing. and so I just kind of said, when you leave this time there, you’re not coming back in the home. Then I move forward on my own pretty quickly to pursue divorce because I was going to move back to Canada.

So it was kind of, part of it was that I had to kind of secure my future because when he first left, all I could think about was, how do I keep my daughter close to him? How do I make this work for him? My whole way of thinking was what would he want? And then I started to think about, what do I want and what brings me peace, and that led me to make some choices for myself and my daughter.

Anne (21:12):
We are going to take a break right here, but stay tuned. Elizabeth and I are going to continue her story next week.

Vicki shares her courageous journey leaving an abusive marriage, including the challenges, interventions, and empowering choices that led her to safety.