Betrayal Trauma Recovery

Have you noticed that your husband now criticizes the very traits he once loved? Narcissists groom victims by presenting themselves as safe, loving, and trustworthy at first, to gain trust and lower a woman’s defenses before causing harm. When women understand three common ways narcissists groom victims, they can begin to see what’s really happening. Grooming often works quietly. Emotional abusers use a cycle of praise, pity, and confusion to keep women questioning themselves instead of questioning his behavior. This is why grooming feels good at first, because the intent stays hidden until the damage is already underway. To know if it’s grooming, you’ll also need to know if he’s using any one of these 19 different emotional abuse tactics. Take our free emotional abuse quiz to find out. 1. Narcissists Groom Victims With Compliments He’ll Later Use To Attack You Narcissists groom victims with compliments that feel personal and sincere. Early on, they pay close attention to what matters to you, what you feel good about, and what you’re insecure about. Later, they use those same things to criticize, confuse, or control you. This is why many women don’t see red flags before a relationship or marriage begins. At first, it feels like he truly sees you and appreciates who you are. Over time, you realize that what felt like love and admiration was actually preparation. 2.Narcissists Groom With DARVO DARVO means Deny, Attack, and then Reverse the Victim and Offender roll. This is when someone who is truly hurting you claims that you are hurting them. 3. Narcissists Groom Victims With Sob Stories Playing the victim is a common tactic narcissists groom victims with. The truth is that many, many people have had traumatic childhoods and it’s not a reason to abuse anyone. In fact, many people with traumatic childhoods are the healthiest people you’ll ever meet. Abuse is a choice. When a narcissist says he’s lying (or any other abusive behavior) because of his traumatic childhood, he’s just trying to groom you into thinking he has a good reason or excuse. He’s also trying to make you feel sorry for him. He’s NOT choosing to be a healthy person. If he was, he wouldn’t have done it in the first place. To hear Chelsea’s entire story, read on or listen to the full podcast episode above. Full Transcript: 3 Ways Narcissists Groom Victims Anne: Today, I’m joined by a member of our community. We’re going to call her Chelsea. Chelsea shares how her husband was grooming her in ways she couldn’t see at the time, and how his true character revealed itself gradually. It wasn’t obvious cruelty at first. He was charming, praised her, and even showed empathy. As Chelsea shared her story, I noticed three familiar ways narcissists groom victims in the things her husband did repeatedly to confuse her. I want to briefly name these so you can listen for them as the conversation unfolds. First, early compliments that later became weapons. Traits he admired at the beginning were eventually used to criticize.Second, DARVO—deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender. When confronted about harm, he claimed he was the one being hurt.And third, sob stories designed to pull empathy, which later became excuses for harmful behavior. So listen for these as Chelsea shares her story. Welcome, Chelsea. Chelsea: Hi. I’m so glad to be here. Betrayal Trauma Recovery has helped me so much. Anne: When you first met your husband, or maybe when you first got married did you recognize his behaviors as abuse? Chelsea: No, I definitely didn’t. I guess everything’s hindsight 20/20, but at the time I was a single mom of two kids myself, so I don’t know if it was just insecurities. It happened slowly, and it circled around insecurities I had so I didn’t really notice it at first. Anne: When did you start recognizing like something’s not quite right? 1. Narcissists Groom By Giving Compliments They Will Later Attack You With Chelsea: I would say it was like, a few months into dating. I guess the biggest thing for me was all the things he originally complimented me about or liked about me, he made comments about that in a derogatory kind of way. So, I guess that’s why they recognize it as abuse. I remember being emotionally distressed but not really understanding why. Anne: So, he kind of changed his tune? So, I’m just using this as an example. Maybe he said you’re so beautiful, I’m so attracted to you, and then later maybe he was like you’re not attractive to me. Chelsea: Yeah, a couple of examples early on where I was single and I have a really good co-parenting relationship with my ex-husband. I had the perfect situation for me, I had my kids during the week and on the weekends. I was 25 years old back then; this was five years ago, and I kind had the best of both worlds. I’m a very social butterfly, life of the party kind of person and I love to wear red lipstick. That’s just a small example because he did end up using that against me a lot. It was like one of those weird off to the side things, but stuff like that. He complimented me that I am so fun, and he likes how I do my makeup and stuff like that. And then even like how I am a good mom. Then fast forward a few months, it all slowly started going downhill. He started saying things like you have children at home, why are you acting like this? And why do you wear makeup like that? That’s really how the very beginning of it started. Recognizing The Abuse Anne: This is the first way narcissists groom victims, by giving us compliments. And we’re so grateful to have someone see us. Notice us appreciate us. Then later they use those same things that they once complemented us about against us. So later they weaponize what they learn about us, and then they use the thing that they complimented us about against us later. These narcissist husbands don’t want us to leave. Which is such a betrayal. So many victims don’t see any red flags before they get into a relationship or marriage, because the grooming is so specific to us. They’re very good at manipulating us to feel like they truly see and appreciate us in the beginning. Then they purposefully compliment us, then later weaponize it. So at the time, were you thinking, okay, once we’re married, then he’ll go back to realizing how great I am. Chelsea: Yes and no. I got getting pregnant about a little less than a year of dating, and that was a whole fiasco. Right before I getting pregnant, I tried to cut it off. It took me years to realize it was abuse. So that definitely never really came into my mind, but it was so emotionally tumultuous. I don’t know if that is a good word to use. I was like I can’t do this anymore. The way he would degrade me or like the way fights would go. I was like, I don’t want to do this anymore. And then that cycle of abuse was already in play. That wasn’t really any different than after we were married, but I tried to break up with him. Narcissists Groom Victims Off & On To Keep Them Hooked I actually moved away, a couple hours away, for a job. This will help me cut it off because it’s really hard to cut things off with an abuser. To me that was like my way; you know, emotionally I was having a hard time cutting it off because he would always come back around. I thought if we’re physically not in the same place this should be good. Well, he came to visit me on the weekends. It would always be this big whole thing. Narcissists groom victims using the cycle of abuse, and that definitely was happening still. Then I ended up finding out I was pregnant. https://youtu.be/gvxpK9yloco In hindsight, I tell the story sometimes now; I have multiple kids and this instance was like the only time I remember just like falling and sobbing on the floor. At the time, I just had started this new job, I was trying to start this new life. I think it was more of that subconscious knowing that what was really happening underneath all of it was the abuse I was going through. How that was just going to make it so much worse, and it did. Anne: So, you were married because you were pregnant, essentially? Chelsea: Basically, yeah. Like he ended up begging for me back and like wanting to make it work and of course, add a pregnancy in there and you’re already vulnerable. Like in these cycles, at least that’s how it was for me, these cycles come around and add a pregnancy in there and it’s like, I really want this to work now. Horror Honeymoon With an Abuser I already have two other kids. I don’t want to have another kid and be a single mom. At that point, I still really wanted to be with him, but I was like fighting that war with myself. I just wanted to believe him when he said he wanted to make it work. So yeah, we ended up getting married, and even our wedding night was just horrible. Anne: A lot of people have horror honeymoon stories or wedding night stories. Yeah, that’s awful. So, you’re married and you’re pregnant. So many victims of emotional and psychological abuse, try to resist the abuse. By trying to stop it through common marriage advice, like loving serving, forgiving. Like being more understanding, thinking that if they act differently, it will protect them from the abuse. It’s a really common form of resistance to abuse. What was your experience with this type of resistance to the abuse? Chelsea: So, we end up getting married after the baby was born, he was a few months old at the time, because all this whole drama played out for a while before I ended up moving back and everything. But I didn’t notice, I moved back and that’s when I quit my job and like pretty much left my career. I had a corporate career at that point, to be with him and be a stay-at-home mom. That’s like really what I thought I wanted at the time. Anne: Yes, that is common, narcissists groom victims by making them dependent on them. Really quick, what’s his job? Chelsea: He’s in the military. Anne: Okay, so he’s got a stable, respectable job. Narcissists G

If you’re searching for a support group for marriage problems because your husband’s behavior is starting to scare you, or because traditional counseling hasn’t helped, you’re in the right place. Most women who find BTR begin exactly where you are right now: scared, unsure, and trying to figure out who they can safely talk to when their marriage feels confusing or frightening. But here’s what almost no one tells you: Not every support group for marriage problems is emotionally safe for women. Not every counselor understands. And not every institution knows how to help you. Today’s episode explores why the struggle to find the right type of support group for marriage problems is actually a systemic issue. You’ll hear from sociologist Dr. Nicole Bedera, whose research exposes how universities often fail women who are scared, even if they follow every “correct” path to get help. And then you’ll meet Haley, a woman whose college experiences mirror what so many married women face in counseling offices, churches, Title IX, and even courtrooms. Their stories may not be about marriage directly, but the patterns are heartbreakingly similar, where women are seeking help blamed or minimized told to “be fair” to the man who hurt them pushed into silence left without the clarity or support they needed If you’ve been wondering where to turn, or what kind of support group for marriage problems can actually help, here are five truths from this episode that will help you find the right support. 1. A Support Group for Marriage Problems isn’t usually Built for Clarity A lot of marriage-based groups focus on: communication skills mutual responsibility serving each other But since you’ve already tried these things, more of it likely won’t help clarify what’s actually going on if you’re confused about what’s going on in your marriage, 2. If You’re UnSURE what’s Going On With Your Husband, It’s Likely Not A Marriage Problem Women often think: “He isn’t always like this.” “I’m probably overreacting.” “He’s stressed. Maybe that’s all this is.” But confusion is information. Your body senses something is amiss before your mind has language for it. Any support group for marriage problems or helper who tells you you’re “too sensitive” or “too emotional” is not equipped to help you. 3. Institutions Often Protect the Person Hurting You This is the clearest thread between Nicole’s research and the stories we hear from married women every day. When women are confused, universities, churches, pastors, counselors, or courts, don’t support women who need answers. They act as a mediator between two parties, but if he’s lying, it will just be more of the same. The best support group for marriage problems will break this pattern and give you clarity, without you having to communicate with him more, especially since communicating with him hasn’t cleared up confusion in the past. 4. WHEN Manipulative Men Use Systems to Their Advantage, a support group for marriage problems is essential This is one of the hardest truths women aren’t told, but one of the most important. When a woman is confused by her husband, it’s usually because he’s lying to her and … charming counselors throwing her under the bus with church leaders appearing calm while you appear shaken using systems to make you look “unstable” or “dramatic” That’s why Haley’s story matters for married women too. Her abusers used university structures the same way husbands use counseling or clergy, to stay in control and keep the woman quiet. A safe support group for marriage problems knows these patterns and can help you navigate them. 5. The Best Support for Marriage Problems Is Confidential A true support group for marriage problems should: protect your confidentiality help you trust your instincts give you clarity never push you toward something that scares you Women deserve to have clarity about what’s going on, long before they ever step into a counseling office or try to get help from an institution that may not understand. We understand and you can receive live support, attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session As You Listen to This Episode… Notice how both women in these interviews talk about trying to get help in all the “correct” ways and how each system responded, they were… doubted blamed minimized If marriage counseling, recovery programs, support groups for marriage problems, religious leaders, Title IX offices, or courts have left you confused or unsafe, today’s episode will help you understand why. If you need clarity in your marriage, here’s my Clarity After Betrayal workshop. Transcript: When You Don’t Know Where To Turn For Help Anne: We’re gonna start with Dr. Badera. She’s a sociologist, an author of the book, On The Wrong Side: How Universities Protect Perpetrators and Betray Survivors. Her research focuses broadly on how our social structures contribute to survivor trauma. Nicole puts her work into practice at the Center for Institutional Courage. After I get done talking to Nicole, I’ll have Hailey share her story. Welcome Nicole. Nicole: Thank you. I’m so excited to be here. Anne: I’m excited too. Listeners to this podcast are trying to get clarity after betrayal. They often start by searching for a support group for marriage problems. And most of the time, they can’t get clarity because the people they go to to get help aren’t able to help them because they don’t know what’s going on. Your work focuses on students trying to get help on college campuses, but I think it really intersects. Because in both cases, they don’t get the information or support they need. Can you talk about your research? Nicole: I focus on what happens for students still in school. Victims report to most of the Title IX office most of the time. You might have heard about it in the news.  It’s been everywhere over the past 10 years, but it’s quieted down quite a bit recently. I spent a year inside one of those Title IX offices interviewing the victims, perpetrators, and school administrators who had the most control over their cases. So in that setting, all knew something was wrong. They might not know how to label it, or how to label it in a way that the system would recognize. That’s something survivors deal with a lot. Especially since a lot of this stuff is just made to feel normal for women. Seeking help through the Title ix office parallels seeking a support group for marriage problems Nicole: There’s this idea that this is what you should expect when you go to college. And so there were some that they weren’t sure what was going on, but they knew that something had affected usually their education. Or they felt unsafe, unsettled, and they ended up in my study because they went to their school for help. Either through the victim advocacy office, which on a college campus, can help survivors with whatever they need, but many things that have nothing to do with the perpetrator. Including things like they need an extension on an assignment, or there’s a specific class they want to take, but their perpetrator wants to take it. So they’re trying to coordinate to figure out when they can take it in the semester that they won’t be in the same classroom, things like that. Or they went through the Title IX office to try to report what happened to them, to try to seek some kind of safety or justice. But many themes are not that different from all the other places that maybe you’ve considered going to for help. Anne: When a woman has a situation where she needs help, but she doesn’t quite know where to go to find help, it’s so heartbreaking for me. I see this often with wives trying to figure it out after their husband’s betrayal. We usually do couple therapy, or maybe like addiction recovery, trying to figure out how can I start to feel safe again in my marriage. Why do you think this idea of safety and how to feel safe again is just so hard for pretty much everybody to understand? Like what do you mean she feels unsafe and what are we supposed to do about it? The Primary concern of the title ix office Nicole: There are a couple of issues that we run into. One of them is that a lot of the systems that we think are going to help, won’t help. If you think about a college campus, for example. Students are told, if you’re experiencing sexual violence, sexual harassment, or any kind of gender discrimination, come to the Title IX office and they will help you. But that’s not what the Title IX office is concerned with. Their primary concern is what do we do with this perpetrator. Sometimes doing something about the perpetrator would help if the school would, which they often hesitate to do. But a lot of the time, that’s not meeting a survivor’s need in a real way. That’s the same issue that comes up if you go to a couple therapist or support group for marriage problems. I think many people who’ve tried for help at any of these institutions have an experience where you’re coming in for something really tangible for yourself. So an example I gave earlier is you are, let’s say you’re a victim in a university setting, and you show up on the first day of class. And you see your perpetrator is in class with you, and that the class will discuss sexual violence as a topic. So this just feels impossible for you to be safe in this environment, because it’s going to remind you of your trauma. You might have to watch your perpetrator interact. It’s going to be just a place where your body and mind respond to the traumatic experiences you’ve already had. Anne: And the trauma you continue to experience because the likelihood of him gaslighting you through this whole thing is like off the charts. the System focuses on what it means for the perpetrator Nicole: You’re right. It’s unlikely that if you’re in that class with your perpetrator. You and your perpetrator will share the same public narrative about why you can’t sit next to him in class. And so the perpetrator might disparage the victim, might te

If you’re searching how to deal with angry husband, it’s probably because you’ve already tried everything—being understanding, being patient, being quieter, being “better,” being the emotional shock-absorber for the whole house. And yet… nothing changes. Before you take another step, here’s the most important truth you need to hear: Your safety—emotional, physical, spiritual—is the priority.Everything else is secondary.His “anger issue” is not yours to decode. So many women spend years trying to figure out why their husband is angry: Is he stressed? Does he need therapy? Did I say something wrong? Is it childhood trauma? Is it me? But here’s what women discover in our Betrayal Trauma Recovery community again and again: Men who don’t want to be angry, aren’t. Men who use anger to control the people around them use anger as a tactic. Can He Control His Anger? Watch What He Does in Public One of the clearest signs something deeper is happening is this: He has no trouble keeping it together in public.Around friends, coworkers, church members, your kids’ teachers… he’s calm, charming, composed. But at home? He unleashes. If you’re living this split reality, there’s definately something deeper going on. You’re not imagining it. I Used to Think My Husband Had an Anger Problem How to deal with angry husband? I thought my husband needed anger management. He even took multiple courses, including anger boot camp. Nothing changed. Because he didn’t have an anger problem. His problem was something else entirely. How to Deal With Angry Husband: 10 Questions That Reveal the Truth If you’ve been wondering how to deal with angry husband, start here.These 10 questions help clarify whether his anger is situational… or something that’s eroding your sense of safety. If you answer yes to any of these, it’s worth paying closer attention to the pattern—not the excuse. Do you often feel hurt, ashamed, or embarrassed after his anger? Are you afraid to upset him because you fear he’ll leave you or punish you emotionally? Have you spent time searching for clues about why he’s angry—as if there’s a hidden code to crack? Has he made subtle or direct threats?(Example: “Touch is my love language… I get depressed when you pull away.” Translation: Give me sex or pay for it later.)  Do you find yourself trying to predict his moods and make things perfect for him anticipating his anger?  Have you tried describing how angry he gets to other people, but they don’t seem to understand? Do you feel confused about what’s true versus what he claims when he’s angry? Have you ever used sex to smooth things over or prevent him from becoming angry? Do you feel emotionally abandoned because of his anger?  Do you feel like sometimes you caused his anger? If any of these hit close to home, it’s important to know your husband’s anger has nothing to do with you, other than the fact that he’s using it to control you. So actually… How to Deal With Angry Husband? Well, it’s sort of a trick question. Women in our community start feeling clearer when they shift from: ❌ “How do I help him?”to✔️ “How do I help myself and my kids be safe, emotionally and physically?” That shift changes everything. Our daily online group for women who have been betrayed in this way can validate and support you. Your Next Step Toward Clarity For deeper clarity, my Living Free Workshop walks you step-by-step through understanding what’s really going on, without pressure for you to do anything, without therapy jargon, and without being told to “just work on the marriage.” You’re not asking for too much. You deserve emotional safety and peace. To discover if you’re actually experiencing emotional abuse, take this free this test has 19 emotional abuse examples that women often miss. Transcript: How to Deal With Angry Husband Anne: Welcome to Betrayal Trauma Recovery. I’m Anne. I have Janice and Cameron on the podcast today. They’re gonna share a part of their story about how to deal with angry husband. Janice, why don’t you go ahead and let’s start with your story. Janice: Thank you, Anne. I appreciate it. I was a victim of domestic abuse, but I didn’t recognize it. All of those years, while in that marriage, we would reach out to counselors, pastors. Usually we’d go to a pastor first and they would treat it like a marital problem. And most of the time, the attempts to get help made things worse. It really just boggled my mind that everywhere I turned to get help, whether it be the courts, law enforcement, counselors, nobody knew how to deal with our situation. I came through a church where the pastor didn’t know what to do. He thought that I should just get out of the marriage. And when he told me that, I thought, well, this man doesn’t know Jesus. I went to a church that believed more like I did, and they told me, well, you need to submit as long as he’s not asking you to sin. And the more I submitted or obeyed or bowed down to him, the more things would get worse. Submission was taught Like obedience Anne: Yeah, I went through a similar experience. I felt like I was like facing this problem head on. I just don’t know exactly what the problem is. And everyone I went to for help didn’t tell me what it was. And so I did everything right. But the people supposed to help me did not help. You mentioned your pastor said, “You should consider divorce,” And you thought to yourself, this man doesn’t know Jesus. I actually hear that a lot. Women hear my podcast and they think I’m like pro-divorce or maybe not Christian or something. When I very, very much am. And I think Jesus doesn’t want women abused. Janice: Absolutely. I had actually grown up in a pretty liberal church, and then after marriage I moved to one with strict teaching on men’s and women’s roles. Submission was taught like obedience. And then of course all the years I became a homeschool mom, listening to things like Focus on the Family. Where they talk about how your children will be better off if you stay married, that a divorce is so painful and hurtful to children, and my own parents had divorced. So I really did not believe in divorce. And it got to the point that my daughter, who was 12 years old at the time, said, Mom, why don’t you just get out? And I said, God hates divorce. I kept asking myself, what does God say about divorce and marriage? But I had about a million things in my head that I had come to believe, put there by my husband. He would say things like, You need to submit. I’m the head of this house. He would use scripture to keep me under control. Interpreting abuse as only physical Anne: How did you realize that submitting to abuse or evil wasn’t what Jesus wanted? Janice: I don’t even know if I came to that recognition until after I got out. My ex was a physician, so we worked with a psychologist one-on-one for a week. I had been telling myself, this is not abuse. He doesn’t mean it. He just flips out and he really can’t control it. It’s like a little nervous breakdown, but I realized he used everything against me, and that is not physical violence. Before that, I interpreted abuse as only physical, and I had had some incidents, but they were few and far between. We could go years with no physical abuse, but then when they did happen, I would get shoved or blocked in a room. it did build up and was worse there towards the end than in the beginning. Anne: Me too. I think I only had maybe three like episodes where he actually touched me, and he didn’t really even harm me except for the last time when he got arrested, he sprained my fingers. But for me, the emotional and psychological abuse was way worse. And that’s what took me forever to wrap my head around. And that’s what’s hard is that if we don’t recognize what’s happening and we go to get help from like a therapist or the church. They don’t recognize it, so they’re not gonna help us. Janice: Their church is not understanding, just like victims. We don’t understand the dynamic, so how can we expect them to understand? How to deal with angry husband: Quoting scripture and praying doesn’t make someone righteous Anne: Yeah. Church is especially problematic when it comes to abusers because they go to church and they read their scriptures and they pray and they know how to act like a God-fearing man, you know? And so you can’t wrap your head around that. They’re intentionally lying and manipulating you, and neither can the people at church, but just because they can quote scripture and pray and they sound righteous. If they are lying, if they’re using inappropriate media, if they’re having affairs, if they’re screaming at their family all the time, if they’re like throwing their weight around because they’re selfish. ‘Cause they don’t wanna have to cook dinner, they don’t want a dirty toilet. They’re not righteous, no matter how many scriptures they can quote. They should be studying scriptures on betrayal. Janice: Yeah, and they know that. Jesus talked about wolves among sheep, right? So I think that they know that and they will actually use the church for their own gain. I mean, Paul talks about it in his epistles. Anne: You and I both have physical abuse as part of our story, and with mine it was extremely minimal. I’m not trying to minimize his abuse. I’m just saying like one time he pushed me into the bed, but it didn’t hurt me. It was just scary. And then there was all the punching walls and physical intimidation, which is also physical abuse. I just didn’t see it as that at the time, I could tell that he was getting really mad because he wanted me to back off and I wouldn’t back off. Emotional abuse is dangerous, how to deal with angry husband? Anne: I would just keep going and I thought like maybe he’ll punch me and then at least I’d have a bruise. I know a lot of women who think that, ‘ cause without the physical violence, you’re still being severely abused. It’s just so much harder to figure out. How to deal with angry husband? Janice: I would muc

After the discovery of betrayal, life may feel overwhelming. Here’s what I learned about recovery after betrayal from interviewing four women who experienced betrayal in their marriage. Recovery After Betrayal: Here’s What No One Tells You Name it. It’s important to name betrayal as domestic abuse. Emotional safety first. It’s important to put your emotional safety above anything else. Drop the shame. His betrayal and his lies have nothing to do with you, and you didn’t cause it. Observe, since the betrayal couldn’t have happened without all his lies, it’s important to watch his behavior and make sure it matches his words. Your body knows. Many women live with insomnia, digestive issues, chest tightness, and anxiety long before they understand that betrayal is happening. It’s important to listen to our bodies. Anger can help you. Anger can power your next steps toward emotional safety. Grief comes in waves. There’s so much grief involved with betrayal, and it’s really important to be with people who understand. Quick FAQ on Recovery After Betrayal How long does recovery after betrayal take?Longer than you want, shorter than you fear. It’s nonlinear; measure by stability and peace, not calendar dates. Do I have to leave to start healing?No, you can start with simple emotional safety strategies and see what the next day brings. To learn more about emotional safety strategies after betrayal, enroll in The Living Free Workshop. To find out if you’re experiencing emotional abuse, take my free emotional abuse test. It has a lot of emotional abuse examples. What if therapy made things worse?You’re not alone. That’s why we have our daily, online Group Sessions. You deserve emotionally safe support to recover from betrayal. Transcript: Recovery After Betrayal Anne: After interviewing four betrayed wives. Here’s what I learned about recovery after betrayal. Number one, name it. It’s important to name betrayal as domestic abuse Number two, emotional safety first,. It’s important to put your emotional safety above anything else and take steps to learn how to heal from emotional abuse. Three, drop the shame. His betrayal and his lies have nothing to do with you, and nothing you did or didn’t do was the cause of cheating. Number four, observe. Since the betrayal couldn’t have happened without all his lies, it’s important to watch his behavior and make sure it matches his words. Number five, your body knows. Many women live with insomnia, digestive issues, chest tightness, and anxiety long before they understand that betrayal is happening. It’s important to listen to our bodies. Six, anger can help you. You’ll likely go through stages of anger after infidelity. Anger can power your next steps toward emotional safety. And number seven, grief comes in waves. With betrayal, there’s so much grief involved, and it’s really important to be with people who understand. Before I get to their interviews, I want to go back in time. When I went through this, I felt overwhelmed. I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t know where to turn. Doing my dishes seemed impossible as a single mom. It seemed completely overwhelming. A place like Betrayal Trauma Recovery, this place I founded didn’t exist. I didn’t wanna get divorced, and so I went to 12-Step. My 12-Step sponsor told me my character defects were the real problem. She said that if God removed those defects from me, I would have my best chance of saving my family.e character defects from me, that was my best chance of saving my family. Going back in time Anne: During that time of recovery after betrayal, I was crying a lot. And I just found this recording of my son, who pulled out a vacuum and like had the vacuum handle as the microphone. Watching that video took me back to that place, although I’m not gonna show you the video. Here’s the audio recording of that. 6 Year Old Son: When you’re feeling sad. It’s okay to cry whenever you’re feeling sad. It’s okay to cry, it’s okay to cry. If someone’s mean to you… 3 Year Old Son: Telling me to 6 Year Old Son: …cry. 3 Year Old Son: Ends up crying again 6 Year Old Son: Stop you’re interrupting it. 3 Year Old Son: No I’m not. 6 Year Old Son: Yes you are. 3 Year Old Son: No I’m not. 6 Year Old Son: And if you are a little baby. You can still cry. If you’re really, really old, you still can cry. If you’re really, really, really young, you still can cry. Yay! I love you Mom. Anne: He was so brave and so strong now he’s over six feet tall. And he is doing really well. And he is such a good person. I love my children, they are so close to me. I don’t think I would’ve ever had the relationship I have with them if my ex-husband had stayed in our home. So I’m reaching out across the void to you. And if you are overwhelmed, let me sit here in this overwhelm with you. If you have no idea how you’re going to pay the bills, if every option seems terrible. I’ve been there. Trying To Survive during recovery after betrayal Anne: I felt like I couldn’t even say anything during recovery after betrayal. Speaking the truth was getting me in trouble, and I didn’t know how to do anything else. There was no other option for me. It was maddening. After a year of 12-Step, I started realizing it wasn’t addiction. My husband was abusive. And then I started podcasting and interviewing women who listened and wanted to share their stories too. I meet women every day who are in that place. Where they don’t know what will happen. They’re trying to survive the best way they can. I’ve interviewed you in those moments, and I’ve also interviewed you after the fact. You know, years later when you’re feeling better. So today I have four women from our community who will share their stories: Charlotte, Luna, Rhonda, and Cassandra, so they know because they’ve been part of Betrayal Trauma Recovery. I developed the Living Free strategies, and I teach them now. Our team teaches women’s strategies in our Group Sessions. We also have The Living Free Workshop, and they’ve benefited. So many other women have benefited from the support they receive here at BTR, so they’re gonna share experiences today. Charlotte, let’s start with you. Charlotte: Anne, I’m so sorry. I heard your podcast, but to hear your story today, my heart just breaks. Prior to our engagement and subsequent marriage, he disclosed to me that in his teens and twenties he had struggled with pornography and compulsive sexual behaviors. I was young and naive Charlotte: And I was young and naive, so I said, well, that’s fine. It’s in the past. And for the first year he was “sober”, if you will. I had no idea. But during our second year of marriage, I felt a disconnection during recovery after betrayal. I remember thinking, I don’t believe what you’re saying. You’re saying one thing, but I’m feeling something different. So I think what I picked up on was there was a real disconnect emotionally. . He was saying all the right things, but I didn’t feel it in my gut. And it was shortly after a wedding anniversary. I caught him in a lie, and things started to unravel. Three weeks later, I found out the truth. I felt devastated. I was angry. It was brutal. I would hear the outright lies, it doesn’t make sense to me. I think gaslighting is absolutely abusive. What was crazy making for me was on one hand here was this respectable, responsible man that I admired, respected, trusted. My husband is a trained therapist, and at the time he worked in clinical mental health. On the other hand, here is this hidden life that I didn’t know about. At that point, the gaslighting and the betrayal trauma just increased exponentially, the longer the woman is subject to that man living a lie. The third year of our marriage, I caught him in another lie. And the shame, because even though we as women haven’t done anything shameful. So many of us feel ashamed of what our husbands have done. And I can’t make a decision right now. So then I’d watch and wait and see what happens. Is he angry, defensive, blaming? Is he evasive? He lied to everybody about whAT HAPPENED Anne: Yeah, I was in that boat too with me, the psychological abuse was so extreme. There was literally not one interaction that I had with him where he didn’t gaslight or blame me. But I didn’t want to get divorced during recovery after betrayal. So I waited and I watched, and it was really disturbing to watch his decisions. He shocked me and shut down our bank account. He lied to everybody about what happened. Every single choice he made was like a nightmare, and in fact, he’s still lying about what happened years later. He’s an attorney, and back then he became a mediator too. When I found out, I was just devastated. I thought he was full-blown gone. Charlotte: The gaslighting and the blaming are so emotionally and psychologically damaging. That the person that you’ve trusted that’s supposed to have your back is actually the one that’s tuned against you in such a vicious way. So sorry. Anne: Ditto, Charlotte, I’m so sorry about everything you’ve been through. It’s so difficult. Knowing what you know now, if you could talk to your younger self, what would you tell her? Charlotte: Well, you know, I would tell her it’s not her fault. I think I would reiterate that to my young self. You know it’s not your fault. Whether it’s pornography use or other acting out. It’s not my fault that I trusted, it’s not our fault if they’re compulsive liars, deceive us and gaslight us. Anne: Yeah, thanks Charlotte for sharing today. We love having you in our community. Charlotte: Absolutely I’m so grateful for BTR. I can’t tell you how grateful I am, thank you. Discovering Husband’s so-called addiction Anne: All right, Luna, your turn. Thanks for sharing today. Why don’t you start with discovering your husband’s so-called addiction. Luna: So like the slowest, most drawn out discovery story you’ve ever heard. We were married. I had a feeling really early, like even on my honeymoon, something’s not quite righ

One of the first and most powerful steps in understanding how to recover after being cheated on is naming what’s actually happening. Many women don’t have the words at first. Lies, secrecy, and deceit separate you from your own sense of reality, leaving you to wonder: Is it me? Am I overreacting? Is this normal? That confusion is part of betrayal trauma. The truth is, betrayal trauma is real, and naming it doesn’t make the pain bigger, it validates it. If you’re wondering how to recover after being cheated on, Shelly’s story proves you’re not alone, and healing is possible. Support your healing with Betrayal Trauma Recovery’s Group Sessions. This episode follows Shelly’s StoryPart 1: What If I Can Never Trust My Husband Again? Part 2: How To Recover After Being Cheated On (THIS EPISODE) 7 Things Every Woman Should Know About How to Recover After Being Cheated On Are you trying to recover after your husband cheated on you? If he cheats on you, his lies, secrecy and deceit separate you from your own sense of reality. Here are seven things women need to know about this. 1. Recovery begins with identification. Betrayal trauma is what you’re experiencing. Naming it helps connect the dots between what happened and how it affected you. 2. Intimate lies are domestic abuse. The harm doesn’t start once you find out about his cheating. It begins when he starts deceiving you. Recovery begins with accepting this truth. 3. Your body will tell you the truth. Many women experiencing betrayal trauma have physical symptoms like insomnia, stomach issues, chronic pain. Your body always resists, even if your mind doesn’t quite understand what’s happening. 4. Recovery isn’t about him even though the need to recover is entirely about him. Recovery takes knowing how to focus on our own emotional safety.  Take our free emotional abuse quiz to find out if you are a victim. 5. Self-compassion is a turning point. Recovery means treating yourself like you would treat a friend. 6. Ignore bad advice. People might tell you to just move on or don’t give away your power. That’s not helpful if you’re trying to heal from this type of trauma. 7. The right support makes recovery from this type of trauma possible. It is important to find a support group where women understand what you’re going through because they’ve been through it too. Transcript: How To Recover After Being Cheated On Anne: I have Shelly, a member of our community, back on today’s episode. I interviewed her six months ago. I asked her to come back and check in. And let me know how she’s doing now. Welcome back, Shelly. Shelly: So we’re at about a year and a half now since the initial D-Day and it’s still difficult, but we’re still together. We’re still working through things. I’ve had no more D-Days since the four or five months of D-Days I had. Nothing new has come to light. But it’s hard. That’s sort of where I am at the moment. Anne: Will you talk about any epiphanies that you’ve had as you’ve been learning how to recover after being cheated on. Shelly: There’s been a lot of deepening in my understanding of objectification, as a social issue, and the conditioning everywhere. Society subjects men and women to that conditioning. How human souls are made into objects and literally sold for the purpose of use in a sexual way. And it’s dark. Last time, I gave you a bit of a backstory. There’s a long line of betrayal trauma history in my life, being born into that. And for me, understanding my own power and choice has been freeing. Eighteen Months Into Healing: What Recovery After Being Cheated On Looks Like Anne: Like how did you see it before and how are you seeing it now? Shelly: So listening to our original podcast the emotions I felt. When I was going back, to when I was young, and then when I was in an abusive relationship. It wasn’t a relationship. I was a victim of abuse in my teens with a much older man. The emotions I felt then were quite powerless. Just listening to that, it felt powerless. Whereas when I fast forward to now. I can feel there’s a difference. Like, I have choice. I didn’t realize that I had choice then. Like I didn’t understand it. I wouldn’t say naive, because I wouldn’t understand because I was so young and being coerced in such a horrific way, that I didn’t see anything beyond that. Whereas now my adult self understands all this stuff. And actually, through everything I’ve listened to on your podcast and understanding that betrayal is abuse. I feel the foundation now that I didn’t have before, an understanding of what betrayal trauma is, where I’m standing in a place of power and knowing how to recover after being cheated on. I’m in a different space. I felt that, just listening through my own story in the podcast that we did before. Anne: For our listeners, we recorded this the same day her previous episode aired. So she listened to it and now we’re talking. It’s a different type of experience than talking with a coach, therapist or group session. Because you’re listening to yourself from the outside in a way that you wouldn’t normally. Can you talk about your experience as you listened to yourself share your story on the podcast. Listening to Yourself: A Surprising Step in How to Recover After Being Cheated On Anne: Do you feel like it enabled you to feel for yourself in a way that you hadn’t before? Shelly: I do actually, because I disconnected so much. I had a strong sense of dissociation before. And that has changed. I feel it is important, because that’s reconnecting to the self. Where the dissociation was before, it was like someone else’s life that I recounted or told a story about somebody else’s life or a different lifetime. It didn’t feel connected to me. So having that connection back and feeling those emotions for my own story is important. In being whole, and rebuilding myself, it was helpful. I felt really emotional. I felt the heartbreak for myself. And I have empathy for myself, which is a strange concept. I feel for myself, my own story. I was able to release it. Anne: I imagine it will take you a while to process hearing your own story. It’s not like you’re gonna have all the epiphanies all at once. It will happen over time. But I think it’s beneficial for women to hear themselves and recognize how human they are. If they heard someone else share the story, how much compassion they would feel for that person, and love and lack of judgment. Shelly: Exactly. Anne: It might be something they’ve never experienced for themselves before, partially due to all the abuse they experienced. The abuse in and of itself separates us from ourselves. That’s how abusers manipulate their victims. Abusers do not want us to process it in a way that we can feel or understand it. Why Seeing Things As They Really Are helps and shows how to recover After Being Cheated On Shelly: Yeah, they disempower you, so you haven’t got the power to step out of it, change it, or even see it. Having that compassion for yourself and hearing it as if you are listening to a friend is huge. I’ve always struggled with self-love. I completely understand why now, because it’s been throughout my entire life. Hearing that if I was sitting with a friend and told me my story, I would have nothing but love for her. What I’m dealing with right now is that I’m heavily processing the current stuff with my current partner all the time, which has such a huge impact on me every day. Things still trigger me. There are still moments where it feels overwhelmingly hard. Anne: In the past, you didn’t understand what was happening to you, so processing it in real time was not available to you in any way, shape or form. But processing your situation now that you have the information in real time, you can talk to other women. You went to BTR group sessions. You can process it, which makes a difference. Shelly: Yeah, that’s definitely part of it. I’m also aware of positive coping mechanisms that I’m doing. There’s a general sense of awareness I wouldn’t have had before. Anne: Once you’re aware, you can start looking at it more objectively in terms of not being manipulated like we were before. Shelly: Yeah. Anne: Which helps us make better decisions in the long run. It takes a minute to figure out how we feel and what we wanna do. We’re just a lot more capable of making decisions that are in our best interest when we have this type of information. It’s just impossible without it. Embracing the Hard Truth that Sets You Free: His Cheating Isn’t About You Shelly: Yeah, learning how to recover after being cheated on is like being in a dark room with a blindfold on and then suddenly walking out into the light and seeing everything for what it actually is. Anne: How has that felt? Being able to see things for what they really are? Shelly: It’s liberating. I’m glad that I see now, but it’s painful process. I wouldn’t change it. Anne: I think some women, and I was one of them, want to unsee it a little bit, ’cause it is so painful. But once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And so there isn’t anywhere to go but forward. Shelly: Yeah, I understand wishing to unsee it. I can totally get that, because it’s such a traumatic thing to go through. I’m glad I’m not living in the dark anymore. I’m glad I’m not living in an illusion of this perfect fairytale in my head. I would never want anyone to go through this. But I’m glad that I’m now living informed as to who I’m with and where I am. Anne: The Living Free Workshop intends to help women see the truth. Shelly: Yeah. Anne: It doesn’t give any instructions in terms of like pack a bag and move out. Nothing like that. It’s more safety principles and how to get enough space to observe. Shelly: Yes, I loved the group sessions. Feeling that connection with people, seeing the same faces, feeling familiar with the coach. Each coach had a different sort of energy and beauty about the way they held the space. I found that helpful. I remember in one

Women who have discovered their husband’s lies often wonder, “What if I can never trust my husband again?” The first step to knowing if you can trust your husband again is to determine the truth about what’s going on. It may be that he’s using invisible emotional abuse tactics. To uncover if his lying is emotionally abusive, take our free emotional abuse quiz. This episode follows Shelly’s StoryPart 1: What If I Can Never Trust My Husband Again? (THIS EPISODE)Part 2: How To Recover After Being Cheated On Getting Support While I Determine If I Can Trust My Husband Again Most women need support as they work to figure out what’s going on. To get support from women who understand, attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY. Transcript: What If I Can Never Trust My Husband Again Anne: I have a member of our community on today’s episode. I’m going to call her Shelly. She’s here to share her story of wondering what if she can ever trust her husband again? Welcome Shelly. Shelly: Hi, thank you. Anne: So Shelly has experienced betrayal trauma in multiple relationships. Let’s start at the beginning. Shelly: Okay, so I was actually born into betrayal trauma. I didn’t know that until recently. But my biological father cheated on my pregnant mother. So literally all that stuff in her body, all those hormones, feelings, and emotions when she was pregnant with me were going into me too, with so many me too examples. She sank into deep postnatal depression after my birth. And then, and obviously, betrayal trauma. And she couldn’t fully take care of me. My mother neglected me as a baby, not through any fault of her own. Because she wasn’t able to cope emotionally with what she was going through. When I turned seven, she met my stepdad. Who I didn’t trust. I had this sense that there was something wrong, even as a child. And later, when I was in my teens, he was also leading a double life. He watched pornography, and made advances towards some of my male friends. When I was a teenager. This led me to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire. Because a much older man groomed me in his forties when I was around sixteen. I believed I was in a relationship with him, but now I understand it was not, I was his victim. Teenage Trauma & Abuse Shelly: He abused me on every level you can imagine. He was an addict. And chose to use explicit material every day, like degrees beyond comprehension. He made no effort to hide this and was completely open about it. He humiliated me. I had betrayal trauma from infidelity. I was a young teenage woman, and he took photos of me and showed them around. Even now, I know they’re still in the world. Years later, after leaving him, I found out from friends that he’d shown them. He tried to make money off those, I don’t doubt that. I got pregnant at 19, and left him to protect my son. He beat me while I held him, this wasn’t unusual at all. He worsened the violence when I was pregnant. So when I had my son, I think I’d just turned 20, I was in the hospital for a week and he was having sex with someone else. I was with him for a very short time after that. And then I fled, and I left all my family and friends behind. And I left the county to try and find safety for my son. While learning to be a mother, I was also going through what I didn’t understand was PTSD, which I now understand. It was only years later that I understood this. Anne: Have you ever considered yourself a victim of trafficking with that man who took pictures of you and disseminated it as online? Shelly: I do now,. I was not comfortable. Because I saw the photos that he was like parading around, and you can see how uncomfortable I was. I have a son who’s not much younger than I was now. Grooming & Exploitation Shelly: I was a child, and he was friends with people in that world. I remember him saying to me, I could have you in prostitution if I wanted to. He said it like, I look after you so well, I’m not putting you into that world. Look how well I treat you. There was definitely the whole relationship, grooming, it was an abusive relationship. It was someone preying on someone who was young and naive. There are so many types of exploitation. Anne: Your story sounds similar to trafficking victims. They’re not aware of grooming. They think it’s a relationship, but they don’t realize he’s targeted them for this purpose. Shelly: A hundred percent, yeah. I’m aware of that now. But it took me a few years to, in fact it was fairly recently. I actually looked back and was like, that wasn’t a relationship. I was just, it was like trafficking. He used me and my body in any way he desired. He cheated me, lied, and now I’ve heard he’s in the industry. Shelly: Yeah, so I don’t have any contact with him. I disappeared, feared for my life, and ran away. Anne: He now is, but it sounds like he was at the time too. Shelly: Yeah, and he was around a lot of people in that sort of lifestyle. Anne: The exploitation business. Shelly: Exactly, he completely exploited me. I stayed there for four years with him through mental, emotional, physical, he’d used humiliation. He used to enjoy humiliating me in that way. It took a long time to get over. But then you can’t heal them. Finding Safety & New Relationships Shelly: You fall into another relationship and you’re abused again. Anne: I’m so sorry. That sounds awful. Shelly: Yeah, it was years later. So since I had my son, I was looking for a safe family. I just wanted to bring my children up in a happy home. So I fell into another relationship with a man I believed I loved. Later, I found out he’s a complete pathological liar. He wasn’t violent with me. So I thought I was safe, because of my experience before. I didn’t recognize what he was doing to me as abuse, but he was verbally vile to me a lot. He broke my identity apart. He told me who I was and who I wasn’t, and chipped away at me. He’d go out all night, not come home, be full of lies. I knew, my heart knew he wasn’t loyal to me. So because of my past, I thought I had trust issues. And the men I’ve been with have propagated this idea. They’re like, oh yeah, you’ve got trust issues. This is the damage that you’ve got because of your past. Anne: Did he tell you you had trust issues as a way to manipulate you? Shelly: Yeah, completely. At the end of the relationship, I turned into a detective. And found out I was still breastfeeding my daughter when he had an affair with someone else. And the way I found out was so horrific. I got an itemized phone bill, and there were thousands of the same number. My instincts told me something wasn’t right. So I got this itemized phone bill. I rang and a woman answered, and I just knew. He Tells So Many Lies Shelly: When I confronted him, the gaslighting went, like, through the roof. He pulled out all the stops. And so I called her with a completely open heart. And believed my husband lied to her too. Because I knew he was a liar, he was good at it. I’d seen him lie to people around us, and just think, like, why? I don’t understand why you’re lying about this stuff, when there’s no need to. He was just pathological with it, and I approached her. I messaged her. And said look, I believe he’s married and lying to you too. And she didn’t reply for a while, but then when she did, she sent me 17 screenshots of their messages together. I had a baby that was one years old, that I was breastfeeding. We’d not long been on our first family holiday. And he messaged this woman with my daughter sitting on his knee whilst we were on holiday. She verbally attacked me and called me every name under the sun. I approached her with no venom. He is lying to you as well. Because this is what’s actually happening. He is married. And she, the abuse I got off her was horrendous. She threatened my 16 year old son, messaged him and threatened him, she was awful. And, yeah, I lost a stone in two weeks after that. I stopped eating. I was in what I now know to be, strong betrayal trauma. My whole world was falling apart. My Friend Becomes My Partner Shelly: That’s when my now partner came along. I regarded him as a close friend. We’d been close for 20 years, even though we hadn’t seen each other all the time because we lived in different counties. He came along and he was like, he’s lying to you because he was pulling me back in. This guy twisted my head to the point where he called this other woman crazy, saying she was a stalker. He tried to pull me back in, and my sons, my oldest sons, said, mum, he’s lying to you. It was really hard to get out. It seemed like an orbit that I was in. I’d get so far away from him mentally and emotionally, and then he’d pull me back in. I’d be questioning what was real and what wasn’t. Again, my now partner helped so much with that. Maybe a year later, my now partner opened his mouth and confessed that he’d always had deep feelings for me, which I’d always felt deeply for him. We’d known each other for 20 years, so it was like, suddenly everything in me lit up. It was like everything switched. All my ex’s power over me went, and suddenly I was full of love and light. So, we had the most beautiful love story. I had a fairytale level love story, like star crossed love that had been going on for 20 years. Neither of us ever spoke about it. And we’d been in different relationships. We went to each other’s weddings as friends. There was never anything lustful. It was always deep heart, caring. We share children now from past relationships. Can I Ever Trust My Husband Again?Discovering Another Betrayal Shelly: So I actually felt for the first time in my entire life that true love healed me. And that everything I’d been through before was leading to this, and it was like trials of fire to get to the other side. Or the island in the ocean of where stormy weather doesn’t go, but I’d found my safe space, I’d found my person. Anne: I’ll quote a country song from Rascal Flatts, “God bless the bro

When you can’t shake the feeling your husband is lying, you start living in two realities at once. The version he presents… and the version your gut keeps whispering about. Most women tell me that whisper eventually becomes impossible to ignore. I’ve interviewed over 200 women who discovered their husband’s lies—affairs, double lives, hidden behaviors, shifting stories.Almost all of them said the same thing: “I wish someone had told me what was actually happening so I didn’t waste months—or years—trying to make sense of the confusion.” The Subtle Signs Your Husband Is Lying (That Most Women Miss) Before you hear Stacey’s interview—where she discovered her husband was living an entire double life—you need something women rarely get: A framework that makes sense of your confusion, before you… go through one more circular conversation spend years in couple therapy doubt yourself one more time If you’re wondering whether your husband is lying, you do not need more conversations that go nowhere.You need answers. Fast. If You Think Your Husband Is Lying, Start Here My Clarity After Betrayal Workshop ($27) gives you the exact tools women told me they wished they’d had before they went to clergy or therapy for help. It helps you: recognize when conversations are meant to confuse you stop second-guessing yourself see what’s actually going on in your marriage know your next steps with confidence This is the foundation. Without knowing these things, the women I interviewed said they went around in circles for years after they discovered his lies. 👉 Get Clarity After Betrayal When Your Husband Is Lying, It’s Not Your Fault You Don’t SEe It The women I interviewed on the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast described the same unmistakable patterns: 1. The rehearsed pauses In my interviews, I heard about a moment when she asked a simple question… and he paused. She remembered his blank look. His delayed answer. His strange shift in his tone. Turns out he needed that time to think about which version of the story he was going to share. Which version put him in the best light and kept her in the dark. 2. The “You’re overreacting” deflection Women told me about how he redirected the focus onto her tone, her timing, or her memory so she stopped noticing the inconsistencies in his story. 3. The polished image Many women discovered that her lying husband often looked impressive everywhere else. He appeared: deeply spiritual charming and respected responsible and accomplished gentle, “could never hurt anyone” values-driven This is partially why his lies were so difficult to comprehend. The disconnect between how he was perceived and who he really was left most women feeling more isolated than the lying itself. Why It’s So Hard to Trust Yourself When Your Husband Is Lying When women began to ask questions, many describe an internal battle: “Maybe I misunderstood.” “Am I too sensitive?” “I shouldn’t push him.” “Is it just stress?” But here’s the truth: You don’t start questioning your reality unless something is already destabilizing it. If your husband is lying, he’s consistently creating tiny confusions constantly, shifting explanations. Because of that, it’s natural for women to doubt themselves. And that doubt isn’t a flaw, but it is a signal. What To Do When Your Husband Is Lying: You Need Answers, Not Circles Trying to “get to the truth” with him if he’s lying can keep you trapped in cycles of: confusion self-doubt temporary solutions that don’t pan out long term You deserve to know what over 200 women told me they wished they’d known. That’s why I put together my Clarity After Betrayal workshop. Stacey’s Story: The Day She said out Loud, “My Husband Is Lying” On my podcast, Stacey shared how she spent years trying to make sense of her husband’s inconsistencies, until she discovered he had an entire second life she didn’t know about. Her answers didn’t come from more conversations with him. It came from recognizing the pattern behind the confusion, the same pattern hundreds of women describe. And once she saw it, she couldn’t unsee it. Transcript: I Think My Husband Is Lying To Me Anne: I have a member of our community on today’s episode. We’ll call her Stacey. She’ll share her story. Welcome, Stacy. Stacey: Thank you. It’s great to be here. Anne: Can you start at the beginning? Did you recognize your husband’s behaviors as abuse when you began your relationship with him? Stacey: No, not at all. You were the first one that made me ever consider it abusive, just from listening to your podcasts. Before that, it had never even crossed my mind Anne: Let’s start with that. What types of behaviors were you experiencing that led you to want some help? What made you think,”My husband is lying to me?” Stacey: Well, he had an affair. About five years after the affair, things weren’t moving forward. I couldn’t figure out why. And that is the first time I heard the term gaslighting. And that’s when I started to search more for answers. I realized the extent of what had happened, and how I had been emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually abused, I mean everything he said was practically an example of emotional abuse. Just the extreme gaslighting that had gone on and was still going on. Anne: Learning how abusers gaslight can help figure out what’s going on. Had that gaslighting and manipulation happened throughout your whole marriage? Once you knew what you were looking at and looked back, did you recognize it had been happening the whole time? Stacey: For sure. I discovered he was looking at online explicit material just about a month after we married. And I think that’s when I knew I didn’t marry who I thought I had. But I felt stuck, because the next day after I found out he was looking at it, I found out I was pregnant. And that’s when I just thought, there’s nothing I can do, I’m stuck. When You Can’t Shake The Feeling Your Husband Is Lying Anne: So what persona did he use to manipulate you? Of course, this is going to hurt you because lying is emotionally abusive. Stacey: Well, he’s super spiritual, and we did all the religious things. I just thought I married a spiritual, religious, truthful person. I didn’t think he was capable of the lies and betrayal that ensued. Anne: So how long between discovering it and when you discovered the affair? That you figured he was lying. Was that, I’m guessing, like 10 years or something? Stacey: Yeah, 10 years. Anne: Oh, see, I’ve become a psychic now that I’ve been doing this for so long. So 10 years, and how did you discover the affair? Stacey: Our marriage was just falling apart. I could not explain why. And I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I thought it was me. He called me mean throughout our marriage. And also unattractive. Stuff like that. So I thought, you know, it’s just me. We ended up moving. I thought maybe it was our neighborhood and we moved across the state. And after we moved, nothing changed, and it still kept falling apart. Then I heard him one time on the phone, and he was talking to someone. I heard him saying things that just really sounded wrong. Like he said, you know, we just met the wrong way. We can’t continue our relationship, we just started wrong, and I’m like, oh my gosh, he’s talking to a girl, and he is having an affair and he’s lying to me. Because it had crossed my mind, and I had brought it up to him before, asking him if he had an affair. I said, my brother and his friend actually said it sounds like you’re having an affair. Uncovering the Affair SHe WasN’t Supposed to Know About Stacey: He was so defensive about it and was like, I can’t believe your brother would ever accuse me of that. That’s so ridiculous. I can’t believe you’d ever think that. And now looking back, he was having an affair at that exact moment and lying to me. But he was so good at making me think I was crazy to even consider that. So anyway, I overheard him on the phone and I thought, Oh my gosh, he is having an affair. And he turned the corner and saw me listening to him, and his face just said it all. It just said it all, but he talked his way out of it. I said, who are you talking to? And he just stared at me. And then finally, like a half an hour later, he finally answered and said, it was the guy from work. I just feel bad. Because I was talking about me and you, and how we started wrong, and how we were just friends and shouldn’t have gotten married, but that was my first clue. And then later on, I found him texting her about a month later. Anne: It took him a minute to figure out a story to tell you that he thought you would believe. One that made you look bad. Stacey: Absolutely. Anne: Let’s talk about that stare for a minute. He just stares at you in space, right, for a little bit. Kind of a lack of blinking, would you say? Sort of a flat affect on his face? Stacey: Yeah, absolutely. Anne: Had you seen that ever in your marriage before? Stacey: I guess from time to time. I can recognize it now for what it was. The “Stare of a Liar”: Recognizing That Frozen, Blank Look Stacey: To me, it’s so obvious now, looking back on it. Like, of course, he’s trying to come up with a lie. Why wouldn’t he just answer me if he wasn’t going to lie? But I wanted his story to be true. So I would accept it, because it was so much easier to think, okay, ah, he’s not having an affair. It’s okay. It’s just me. I’m the one that needs to change. Anne: I saw this stare recently with a neighbor kid. Which I thought was interesting. So he had been singing a very off-color song, and my son picked up on it and he was singing it. I’m not sure he knew what he was saying, my son. So when this neighbor kid came over, I said, “Hey, that song is not okay.” You cannot sing it around my kids. You shouldn’t be singing it at all. This is a nine year old kid. He stares at me with this blank stare for a minute, for a while, doesn’t say anything, nothing. And then after, I don’t know how long, he says,

Has your husband betrayed your trust, lied to you, or left you feeling confused about what’s really happening? Many women think, “Maybe we just need couples therapy near me to fix this.” It makes perfect sense to want support when the marriage feels unstable. But here’s what most women don’t learn until much later: After interviewing over 200 women who experienced their husband’s betrayal, I discovered that couple therapy often makes things worse if he has a history of lying. Many women told me they walked out feeling even more confused than they were when they walked in. Before you schedule couple therapy near me, here’s what you need to know. Why Couple Therapy Near Me Often Backfires After Betrayal Any couple therapy, whether it’s near you or if you do in online, is designed for two people who are honest, transparent. But when betrayal or deception happened, couple therapy sessions tend to shift in the wrong direction. Women describe: feeling talked in circles being treated as if both partners contributed equally having their concerns minimized or reframed leaving sessions with more confusion instead of clarity Instead of addressing the real issue, his choices, his patterns, and his secrecy, therapy often redirects the focus onto “communication skills,” or “relationship dynamics.” Meanwhile, the woman is still left without the one thing she needs most: Answers. What You Need Before Looking For Couple Therapy Near Me Before you sit in a room with a couples therapist near you and try to explain what’s been happening, you need a clear, simple framework for understanding: what his behavior actually means the signs that indicate whether therapy will help—or harm That’s why I created the Clarity After Betrayal workshop. It’s the resource over 200 women I interviewed told me they desperately needed before spending months or years in therapy that didn’t address the real problem. The videos series helps you: understand the patterns behind gaslighting and mixed messages stop second-guessing what you’re experiencing see your situation clearly, without anyone minimizing it be confident about your next steps If you’re trying to figure out whether couple therapy near me will help your marriage, the workshop is the essential first step. 👉 Clarity After Betrayal ($27) Transcript: Considering Looking for Couples Therapy Near Me? What You Need To Know Anne: I have a member of our community on today. We’re going to call her Ruby. Welcome, Ruby. Ruby: Thank you, Anne. I feel privileged to be here and to help other women in my situation feel like they’re not alone. Anne: Let’s start with your story. Ruby: We met through a mutual friend who now completely sees what he is and feels devastated for me. He once told me he wanted to pursue someone else and realized I was easier to con. Anne: Wow. Ruby: Her parents were stable, and mine weren’t. She had an aware mother and a really good dad. For me, scripture influenced my choices in a way that made me believe I couldn’t leave my home unless I was married. Anne: Looking back, you realize that wasn’t true? Ruby: Correct. Technically I could have left, but heavy condemnation surrounded any thought of it. People insisted that leaving without being married “wouldn’t be of God.” We met when I was 19, and he used church language, God, and scripture to present himself as someone who wanted the same family life I wanted. I thought I was choosing a righteous man. He acted fun, lively, and said all the right things. I had no reason then to imagine I might one day start searching for clarity or wondering if a couples therapist near me could help. Early Red Flags Even Before Thinking About a Couples Therapist Near Me Ruby: The long-distance relationship made his con easier because he controlled what I saw. He always said our time together was “time well spent.” That illusion made it harder for me to question things later. Fourteen months later we married, and I became pregnant. He pressured me into premarital sex, something I never wanted because of my values. That pressure created shame that stayed with me for years. Ruby: My family felt devastated, and people shunned me. He never carried any of that shame. That contrast should have warned me long before I ever wondered whether a couples therapist near me could help make sense of what was happening. Anne: Many women describe that same pressure. They don’t recognize it as coercion until much later. The so-called “righteous man” eventually uses the shame against them for years. Anne: Was that true for you? Ruby: Yes. He used anything he could to break me down. He recognized my guilt and took advantage of it. The Pattern of “Lucid Moments” That Created More Confusion Ruby: Sometimes he had what I call lucid moments. Once he admitted our premarital sex was his fault. Weeks later, he denied ever saying it. He always knew the truth, but he twisted it whenever it served him. Those moments confused me and made it harder to see the bigger pattern, something a couples therapist near me would likely misinterpret as miscommunication. Anne: They sometimes drop a tiny bit of truth to manipulate. Then they pretend they never knew it. Ruby: Exactly. He did that for years. He once told me the kids and I would be better off with another man, then denied it the next day. His motives were calculated and passive-aggressive. He wanted me to look unstable. Anne: Do you think he sometimes told the truth so you would be the one to take action and then he could blame you? Ruby: Yes. He wanted me to feel responsible for everything while he stayed in control. His Image vs. His Private Behavior Ruby: Early on, he told me he’d been wild in the Navy but stopped drinking after waking up on a bathroom floor. That was fine with me because I wasn’t a partier. He wanted to look reformed. He claimed he had never slept with anyone before, but then he hinted at inappropriate situations, like a coworker undressing in front of him. I believed him because he framed those stories as accidents instead of choices. Later the military discharged him, and he tried to blame everyone else. Looking back, the pattern stood out clearly, and no couples therapist near me could have fixed a man committed to deception. I don’t believe he was a virgin when we met. He used the idea of “we made this mistake together” to bind me to him. Now I see that as another lie. Anne: That’s very likely. Ruby: Yes. What Ruby First Believed About the Problems in the Marriage Anne: Let’s go back in time for a moment. What did you think the problems were back then? Did you believe he was stressed at work, overwhelmed, or dealing with normal marriage challenges? Ruby: I thought the good outweighed the bad. He acted very family-oriented and talked about caring for his parents. So I assumed everyone had flaws, and as long as more things went right than wrong, we were okay. Anne: Did you ever think it was your fault? Did you ever think, “If I do this better, maybe he won’t get upset”? Ruby: During dating, no. He acted like the stable one and framed me as emotional or overly excited about things. He positioned himself as the grounding force in my life, someone steady. Confusion Growing Before Ever Considering a Couples Therapist Near Me Ruby: Looking back, he probably did things I couldn’t see, but he made it seem like he was strong and I was the one who needed correction. That dynamic made me less likely to question the confusion. Anne: As the relationship progressed and you thought, “This is just his personality,” did you reach a point where you sought help? Did you consider counseling, clergy, or even looking up a couples therapist near me? Ruby: Oh yes, absolutely. He’s adopted and has an adopted sibling, and he used that as an excuse to say counseling ruined him. He strongly insisted, “I don’t do counseling,” and blamed his parents for forcing him into it. The First Attempts at Counseling and How They Failed Ruby: I should have noticed the contradiction between how he presented himself as family-oriented and how he criticized his parents every day. He claimed I was “against them,” even though he constantly complained about them. Our first counseling attempt went terribly. He resisted the idea from the start, and convincing him took a lot of energy. The couple leading the session didn’t have the skills to guide us. They asked us to take compatibility tests, and I thought, “We’re already married. Why does that matter now?” Then they focused on our sex life, which felt intrusive and irrelevant. We ended up stopping because it helped nothing. Many women don’t realize marriage counseling can actually worsen things, even before they search for a couples therapist near me. An abusive partner can twist counseling into another weapon. He Finally Agreed to Counseling — And Used It Against Her Ruby: When he finally agreed to counseling, he loved it because he controlled the narrative. He pretended to want help, but he shut down every real issue I raised. When I tried to talk about his behavior toward our son, he became angry and defensive. When you go into counseling with someone who mistreats you, the counselor often assumes you’re dealing with ordinary “marriage problems.” They focus on communication or stress instead of harmful behavior. Their assumptions end up protecting him. Anne: Exactly. They think you’re not communicating well or not having enough sex or that he needs anger management. They misidentify the entire issue right from the start, and once they do, the help becomes harmful. Misdiagnosis and the Limits of a Couples Therapist Near Me Anne: In my case, people assumed pornography addiction caused all the problems. That might have been part of it, but it wasn’t the thing destroying my marriage. Most therapists don’t recognize abuse even when you describe it clearly. The average therapist misses the pattern, and even when they see pieces of it, they often don’t know how to respond. They default to generic coupl

Counter parenting is one of the most overlooked forms of abuse, where one parent actively works against the other instead of with them. It undermines stability, confuses children, and normalizes emotional abuse in ways that often go unseen. In this episode, we talk about how to recognize counter parenting and why understanding it is vital for creating safety and freedom for you and your kids. To see if your partner’s behavior is emotionally abusive, take our free emotional abuse quiz. Six Truths About Counter Parenting Every Mom Needs To Know 1. Counter parenting looks harmless IN public, but it’s cruel IN private. In public, it may sound like jokes. It may seem like teasing, but in private it cuts deep. What seems like humor or sympathy actually erodes a child’s respect for their mom. 2. counter parenting keeps you busy and confused. He creates constant fires with the kids that keep you spinning your wheels so that you have to be involved and he can exploit you for parenting. You’re left doing the chores he forgot. Fixing problems he “didn’t know how to handle” or covering responsibilities he shrugs off. The chaos robs you of energy for real parenting and distracts you from the core issue, a pattern of deception and control. 3. counter parenting normalizes emotional abuse. His anger issues or stress mask his manipulation. He uses secrets and favors to pull kids into his corner and create distance from you. 4. counter parenting grooms and isolates the protective parent. I went through this. I was so stressful all the time. People thought it was my fault, and they distanced themselves from me. Which was very difficult. While redefining you as unstable, he love bombs the children with gifts, leniency, and special treatment to position himself as the fun one and undermine your authority. It’s important to know that healing doesn’t happen in isolation—it happens in a community of women who truly understand what you’re going through. Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions are designed to offer just that. 5. The kids will figure it out sooner than you think. Kids quickly learn who they feel safe with eventually they will come to know who they can count on. 6. if he’s a terrible husband, he can’t be a good father. A man who lies and degrades women can never be a good dad. If this list resonates with your experiences in your marriage, there is a strong possibility you may be facing emotional abuse. To learn effective strategies for protecting yourself, consider enrolling in The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop. Transcript: Counter Parenting Hidden Truths You Should Know Anne: I have A. S. King on today’s episode. I think you’ll resonate with her story, especially when we get to this part. Her latest book is called Pick The Lock. Amy: I didn’t know this at the time, and I really know it now. One can’t be a terrible husband and a good father. We can take something terrible and somehow survive in it. Anne: So yes, our topic today is counter parenting. A. S. King is incredible. The New York Times book Review called her one of the best YA writers working today. And is one of YA fiction’s most decorated. She’s the only two-time winner of the American Library Association’s Michael L. Prince Award. She won the LA Times book prize for Ask the Passengers. And in 2022, Amy received the ALA’s, Margaret A. Edwards Award for her lifetime achievement in YA literature. So as you listen to Amy, you’ll hear each of those six things in her story. Welcome, Amy. Amy: Thank you for having me, Anne. From the very beginning, I followed you on Instagram. I often link your graphics in my stories in Instagram. Your graphics are educational, when you will find yourself in a situation where there is abuse. It mattered so much to me, because I lived almost 30 years with abuse. I had this one book called Still Life with Tornado. It came out in 2016. A lot of recovery groups for women who have been through abuse use that one, specifically psychological and emotional abuse. Which of course is always present when any of the other stuff is there. This year I just released a book called Pick the Lock, which is very close to, a lot of the things I’ve been dealing with. Before I finally divorced, and since. The Silent Tyrant: The Subversive Tactics of the Counter Parent Amy: Actually, the book for this year is all about what I found out about counter parenting. This is part of why I wanted to come here. I know that some listeners in that space I can help and fix this, and they’re stuck. Because I was stuck for 29 years. I believed so many things and I thought so many things. We all know hindsight’s 20-20. You learn life backward, right? That’s how it works. And what I learned in the last few years really taught me. That a huge part of the rest of my life will be trying to compassionately warn women and young women. And that our levels of comfort and safety are actually incredibly important, even though society constantly tells us that they are not. Yeah, I just wanted to talk to you about why I love your work so much. Anne: I’m so grateful that you reached out, and excited when artists, writers, use your unique talents to help other women. So as you’re considering teaching a generation of women through YA fiction about how to recognize abuse, what are some patterns that every woman needs to know regardless of their age? Amy: One of the best things about writing fiction for me is that it’s not implicating somebody, even though it’s all true. It’s sort of, like showing the behaviors. And showing the reactions to the behaviors. In Still Life with Tornado, for example, the mother has a point of view part. So she speaks from her own point of view. But the father, he’s just that silent tyrant. Sort of that quiet abuse that’s really easy to get away with, because it’s quiet and it’s only aimed at disrespecting his wife in that book. Treating you terribly in front of the children Amy: Chad is always doing small things that are unhelpful and disruptive, but he thinks no one else can see it. Now from the point of view of the 16 year old daughter, she can absolutely see it. And in my own life, I was like, isn’t that interesting? I write books about how young people see abuse, recognize it, and harmed by it. It’s not possible to do that. And while that seems unfair, he takes them to the movies. Yes, I understand he does all those things, but he also treats you terribly in front of your children, and behind your back is doing some form of counter parenting. And counter parenting is a term I only really just learned, and really understood that is what my life was made of. And I didn’t know it, because it’s all done behind your back. That’s the whole point. Turning your kids against you without even you knowing it. Because you’re so busy trying to fix him and fix the situation, and get him back to the guy he was when you got married. Who didn’t exist, by the way. So for me, the pattern of the person being abused is what I’m focusing on, because there’s domestic violence in many of my novels, even my middle grade novels for younger readers. Because that young person is in the house trying to help mom see it. And help mom escape. I guess I’m writing about my own mistakes. I’m looking at my own mistakes and saying, look, I’m putting this on the page so I can learn from it. Counter Parenting in Action: Breaking What Matters Most to You Amy: And I mean, Anne, I wrote a middle grade book called Attack of the Black Rectangles. It’s about censorship. and book banning. She still invites the ex-husband over for the sake of the child. She feeds him dinner once a week. And her father, the grandfather, lives in the basement. So it’s like an interesting kind of new family structure, and there’s this scene where the son is sitting at the table, the mom is doing some stuff in the kitchen, she’d been looking for this mug. It meant a lot to her, and she couldn’t find it anywhere. She’d asked her dad, she’d asked the son. So then this ex-husband shows up and she says, “Oh, by the way, have you seen my mug?” And he says, “I smashed it.” The kid’s sitting right at the table, and the grandfather’s too. And she said, “Wait, you mean like it broke on the way out of the dishwasher?” He goes, “No, I smashed it because I was angry.” And he kept that terrifying tone. It was interesting because when my editor read that, for some reason, that’s when he texted me and said, oh my gosh, the mug scene. And I wrote back to him, I’m like, that happened. It’s the idea that we go, he has anger issues. Really? Did he smash his boss’s mug? No. Did he smash a stranger’s mug? No. He only smashed the things that were important to you. And in the end, he takes things from the house, and the only things he takes are things from the son and the ex-wife, so it’s these sort of things I don’t have any time for anymore. Counter Parenting Disguised as Humor Normalizes Abuse Amy: I don’t have any time for it, because I got free. It’s the best thing ever. I wake up every morning going, oh, putting my hands up like I just won a race every single morning, because I’m free. And it’s wonderful. So Pick the Lock came out and I’m a weirdo too, right? So I write weird stuff, but I also write trauma, specifically, because regardless of what kind of trauma I’m putting in there, I think weirdness really helps. There’s an emotional currency in weirdness. Because when one has gone through trauma, you feel weird because the world’s like shhh, we don’t want to hear about that. “Why don’t you just solve that problem by yourself? Be cool, shhh.” And that’s a terrible way to deal with trauma. That’s how we’ve been dealing with this, is most people are kids. Everybody’s like no, but don’t talk about that. I believe people should talk about their trauma. So in Pick the Lock, it’s really about the counter parenting I learned about after the divorce. I got to tell you the story about the guy at Target, classic counter p

When your husband’s infidelity comes to light, the truth doesn’t just hurt, it can completely shatter your sense of reality. For many women, discovering your husband has had a secret life brings shock, confusion, and a desperate search for answers. Learning how to recover after infidelity isn’t about fixing the relationship; it’s about finding emotional safety, clarity, and courage to stop chasing explanations and start protecting your peace. How to Recover After Infidelity: Four Questions Every Betrayed Woman Asks Women who go through this generally ask four questions: If he really loved me, why did he do this? If he lied to me for so long, how do I know he’s being honest right now? How can I ever trust him again? Did I ever really know him? So if you’re trying to figure out how to recover after infidelity, Bethany’s story will help you understand what emotional safety and clarity look like when the truth feels impossible. Discover if you are a victim, take our free emotional abuse quiz. Transcript: How To Recover After Infidelity Anne: I have a member of our community on today’s episode. We’re gonna call her Bethany. Like many women who contact BTR, she didn’t just deal with his lies, she dealt with the shock of realizing that her entire reality may have been built on lies. Bethany: The first time I found them, I was getting ready for work and it popped up on his phone. And then I went down a rabbit hole, I guess, looking through his phone. I found out that he was messaging both men and women. Anne: Today’s episode is about that moment of discovery, the one that changes everything. She found messages she wasn’t meant to see, and those messages exposed an entire secret life. This is her story about how to recover after infidelity. Welcome, Bethany. Bethany: Thank you. Anne: I’m so grateful that you would share your story today. So, Bethany, let’s start at the beginning. Bethany: I’m very grateful to have found Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group. I was searching for some sort of support and community after everything that had happened. So when we were dating, things progressed quickly within our relationship. He was successful in his work. I was successful in my work. He was charismatic, he made me laugh, he was into fitness, and that was important to him. Looking back, I may have ignored some pretty large red flags to focus on all the things I liked about him, like his personality and his physical appearance. Within the first month of dating, I could see there were a lot of highs and lows. And I focused more on the good rather than the lows. Early Discoveries and Dismissals That Pointed to Infidelity Bethany: But, about two months into dating, I started seeing text messages. He was reaching out and soliciting oral sex and other inappropriate messages. Anne: How did you find these texts ? Bethany: The first time I found them, I was getting ready for work, and it popped up on his phone. And then I went down a rabbit hole, I guess, looking through his phone. I found out that he was messaging both men and women. I was not religious. He denied it was anything, and I don’t remember exactly what he said, but I did end up believing him. Very quickly, we got engaged, and then we found out we were pregnant. There was more verbal abuse while I was pregnant. And ended up getting married a month later. So it was very quick. This is the person you’re giving your life to, and the one person you should trust the most. I found out that he watched pornography. He denied it. It’s extremely confusing. I didn’t know how to recover after infidelity. Then, I found out he was on same sex dating apps and reaching out pursuing men and I’m wondering, is my husband gay? He’s always been very homophobic, almost, and critical of gay people. He would get very defensive if you confronted him about it, and I don’t know what any other explanation there is. Anne: What explanation would he give? How to Recover After Infidelity When the Truth Keeps Shifting Bethany: He said there was no excuse for his actions, except that he started watching pornography early, and it became more graphic which led to being curious about other things. He denied he is gay. He said he’s disgusted by what he has done. Anne: I think the most confusing thing was that I couldn’t ever get a straight answer because the answers didn’t make sense. Because so many things seemed so, elusive. I’d try to hold onto it and I couldn’t quite. It would just disintegrate in my hands. I’ve come to believe he chose to do that. How to recover from infidelity when everything keeps shifting? Bethany: Yeah, it’s a hard realization, and you wanna try to figure out the reasons why he’s lying or the causes of sexual addiction. But he made that choice. It doesn’t make sense to me. I’m like, if something disgusts me, why would you do it? Anne: Well, it could have been that you didn’t wanna try it, but peer pressure or coercion. Women do things they don’t wanna do all the time due to coercion. So many women have sex when they don’t wanna have sex, due to coercion. I’ve never wanted to smoke cigarettes, so it’s never been difficult for me to not smoke cigarettes. Because no one was coercing him to look at gay pornography. People generally, from my experience, don’t look at gay pornography unless they want to. Bethany: Exactly, at the end of the day, it was something you desired and wanted to do and chose. I think lying definitely was one of the hardest things, because when there are secrets, it’s hard to go from there. How do you trust someone after that? When Faith Communities Don’t Understand: How to Recover After Infideltiy Bethany: I first turned to the church, to my pastor, and she had me put together a list of boundaries. So I put it together all in writing. Because I believed God can work if you take that step and let the Holy Spirit lead you. I did one COSA meeting, I felt like it was blaming me. Then like I started to feel like I was codependent and that’s why all of this happened. We did a marriage intensive. Anne: For sex addiction? Bethany: Yes, emotional intimacy and sex addiction. Because I feel like that is the first place you look when you’re trying to work with someone. I told my story within counseling and the church support groups. It brought on a whole different level of confusion and hurt. It was just, like distorted reality. Almost like I go out and have fun, and then pretend like it didn’t happen. I wasn’t facing the issue. I didn’t want to believe it. So I believed what he said, and then it just escalated to the point where I had no other choice. I had to get to the truth and learn how to recover after infidelity. I was at work. He lost his job. It was over the weekend, and my husband is on phone all the time. And we have a baby. We were all spending time with the baby, having a family day, and went to bed that night. I find out he was, on his phone again, messaging on different dating apps. It was really traumatizing to see how many people that there were. And then there were explicit videos and messages. He had someone in our house with our children there Bethany: And how I came to find that I was on my five-year-old’s iPad and a location share came up. I recognized the name from early on in our relationship. It was a man and I asked him about it and he got very aggressive and upset. So I find out that he had this individual over while I was at work. I think I didn’t really know how to feel in that moment. I went through all of the stages of trauma and grief in terms of numbing and isolating. It was just gut wrenching to think about the fact that he was messaging these things and asking someone to come over to our home with our children there. It added a whole other layer to my confusion. The person I loved and committed my life to has a secret life that you don’t know about. So I don’t know who this person is, and I’ve been sharing my life with a complete stranger. And there’s a lot of fear with that. I was searching for more specific support from someone who had already been through it, other people that you can relate to. I came across BTR. And I was like wow, this is really, really helpful. I started listening to the podcast, and the resources made available through BTR helped me navigate that next step in learning how to recover after infidelity. The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group sessions gave me live support. The BTR resources I’ve used a lot considering where do I go from here? I’ve been looking at how to tell if your emotionally abusive husband will change. And I’m still using that, because the signs of changing, you have to see consistently over time. It’s not something you can tell him to do. Safety is the most important thing Bethany: You said in there, don’t do it. So I didn’t, ’cause I wanted to know for myself if he was going to change. I utilize It as a guideline to determine if I’m going to stay in this relationship or what’s my exit strategy. I’m still evaluating. We separated, I first turned to my best friend, and she stayed with me. And then my mom flew in and stayed with me. Anne: That’s exactly what to do because observing and just watching, you’ll always know the truth and that’s the safest place to be. Bethany: Following the BTR podcast, hearing other people’s stories brought me additional comfort. And learning from those too. Cause I feel like it acknowledges the pain it caused, and being honest about the effects and consequences of the other’s actions. I think forgiving just means you’re doing it for yourself, and that the person owing the debt still owes that debt. Anne: Yeah, they do. I think they sometimes don’t realize that part. Just because you forgive the debt doesn’t mean they still don’t owe it. Bethany: Right, knowing other people have been through this same thing. And they’ve been able to leave, or move on, or whatever stage they’re in their process. Anne: Whatever is the right thing for them to do. Because at BTR, safety

Have you caught yourself thinking, my husband is ignoring me and feeling that knot in your stomach when the silence drags on? You’re not making it up. Silence can be its own form of punishment, leaving you anxious, second-guessing, and desperate to fix things. In today’s episode, Mary shares how her husband used ignoring as a weapon, vanishing for weeks, shutting her out after their honeymoon, and withholding attention to stay in control. If you’ve felt the sting of silence, this conversation will help you see what’s really going on.To see what types of emotional abuse you also experienced, take our free emotional abuse quiz. 3 Reasons Why Trying To Connect With Your Husband If He’s Ignoring You Doesn’t Work 1. Silence isn’t a misunderstanding. It’s a tactic. When he withholds attention, it’s not an accident. Ignoring someone is often used to punish or control someone. 2. vulnerability gives him new tools to use against you. If advise you to open up more to him to try to get him to talk, that’s going to put you in more emotional danger. 3. your connection can’t solve his accountability problem. No amount of extra effort, patience, tenderness on your part is going to solve his accountability problem. There’s nothing you can do to undo the choices he’s making. If he’s ignoring you, that’s entirely his problem. At BTR, we know how long, lonely, and painful the road to healing can be. Don’t travel this road alone. Attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY. Transcript: My Husband is Ignoring Me Anne: I have a member of our community on today’s episode. We’re gonna call her Mary. A large part of her story is that her husband ignored her, and I know a lot of you are dealing with that. A lot of times we feel like we need to repair something. If someone ignores us because they’re upset with us. Here’s a part of Mary’s story, and you’ll hear the context of what happened around this a bit later. Mary: I thought, why is my husband ignoring me? I didn’t know what was going on, and I spent the whole time crying in another room. Thinking, this is tragic. I thought our marriage would be something kind and loving, but it wasn’t. Anne: So Mary, I’m so sorry that ignoring you was such a big part of your story. Welcome. Mary: Hi, Thanks for having me. Anne: I’m so honored and grateful that you would share your story. So let’s start at the beginning. Mary: I met my now ex-husband of 10 years at church. He was so godly. He was very exciting, had amazing stories. And he had this great contagious laugh. He was great around people, or so I thought.He is just checking all the boxes. Eventually, we started dating. In this church culture, there were many rules around intimacy. No sex before marriage. You could maybe hold hands, go on your date once a week, very structured and not very natural. Anne: How old were you at the time? Mary: I had just finished my master’s, so I was 26 or 27. We dated for one year, and on the anniversary of that year, he proposed. Dating Red Flags: Why My Husband Ignoring Me Isn’t Just Stress Mary: But during the dating relationship, there were so many red flags that I didn’t know were red flags. I had no context for that. It was easy to make excuses, because he’s this great guy, spiritual, loving, thoughtful, serves at the church and always takes care of other people. And I didn’t know that was just a facade. During that time, a lot of strange things would happen. I remember one time he just disappeared for a couple weeks. I was wrought with anxiety and worry, and I had no idea. Nobody had heard from him. We were in this tight-knit community. Everybody knew everybody’s business. Nobody knew where he was. Anne: Wow, that’s like intense. Mary: I tried reaching out, texting, calling, there was no response. I was trying to not overdo it. I don’t know about your experience with church culture and other people’s. But for me, you had to have this kind of privacy and respect for the other person, and not overdo it. Because then you idolized them. Eventually, he sent me a picture of his face with a black eye, and tells me this outrageous story about him and his brother getting into a brawl, and somehow he was the good guy trying to help direct his life. He’s the oldest of six. They were refugees from communist Russia with this intense life. And he raised all of them, basically a parent to them.Anyway, I had had it, I had gone through all the emotions at this point. I was like, this guy doesn’t seem to care. I had gotten to a place where I was like, I’m not doing this, because I don’t wanna be involved with someone like this. The Mask Slips: What It Really Means When My Husband Is Ignoring Me Mary: But somehow he said all the right things and got me back in, begged me, gimme just one more chance. And I thought, I guess that’s a good sign. I didn’t know what to make of this. So I forgave him, and within a month or two, he proposed. Looking back, I realized he saw how close he was to losing control of me. And so he had to do something to lock it down. I was starting to feel that church pressure of, well, you’re getting kind of old and you’re gonna have family, you’re gonna get married, you gotta do it soon. I still believed this is a good guy. He’s just having a hard time. It’s easy to excuse what we think are blips in their behavior. When I think they take a mask off for a moment. ‘Cause they’re tired of pretending. And then you see the real them, thinking it’s the other way around. Anne: Right, I have an interesting story I’ve never told before. I was dating a guy who was an abuser, and I didn’t know he was an abuser. And he was getting closer to maybe being serious, and suddenly, he just fell off the map, kind of what you’re saying. Couldn’t get a hold of him, like nothing. He then reached out to me and said, “I’m back. I’m ready to move forward with our relationship. I just needed some time to think about it. I need to talk to our ecclesiastical leader to clear some things up, and then we can move forward.” Like you, I was ready to move on by the time he came back. WHeN He takes a Sudden break In The Relationship Anne: It was weird to me that he didn’t ask me how I was doing at all. It was like, I’m ready to move forward with you, so I’m gonna do this. And then we’ll move forward without asking me anything. So it turns out that while he was “taking that break to assess what he wanted out of his future.” He had gone and lived with a woman for three weeks and had sex with her a ton, and then realized he didn’t wanna marry her. He wanted to marry me. So our church excommunicated him. And came to me and said, “Okay, I got excommunicated, but I’m ready to move forward.” And I was like, what are you talking about? I’m never talking to you again. We’re not dating. This pattern that he thinks he can do what he wants, and that you’re not gonna notice? Because during that time when they’re gone, they don’t think about us. They’re distracted doing the thing they wanna do. They’re not thinking how it affects us. They have such a lack of understanding that we are going through something during those times. Mary: Yes, they are self-centered. In fact, we went to premarital counseling. The husband of the couple that was counseling us pulled me aside and in confidence said, “Hey, just so you know, while you were dating, he confessed to me about how he had gone to a bar one night and did some very questionable things with another woman. And I’m just trying to get him to confess it so that you and him both know that he did it.” I was shocked. At this point, my future husband is ignoring me and keeping secrets. Anne: What? He doesn’t confess anything Mary: He never did confess it. He just acted like he had no idea. And so I thought, well, what’s the truth then? Did he actually do something? He seems innocent and has no clue. So we married. And the moment we leave the wedding reception and drive off to our honeymoon, that whole week we were gone, we fought. Oh my goodness. I didn’t even recognize this person. We slept in separate rooms. I cried every night, and when we got home from the honeymoon, he just ignored me. It was like I was invisible. I wasn’t even in the home as far as he was concerned. There was no consideration, no conversation, and I was devastated. Anne: Wow. Mary: So I am on the internet Googling annulment, and anything I can think of, what is this behavior? I don’t know why my husband is ignoring me. I couldn’t find any answers. So I finally called up his mentor in the church, one of his best friends. I just left a voicemail and said, “Hey, here’s what’s going on. I don’t know what to do. Can you talk to him?” I never heard from this friend of his, but the next day, he finally acknowledges me. He is on his knees begging me to forgive him, but I didn’t know what for. To this day, I still have no idea what he was doing for those months. Anne: Wow. Mary: The strange part is that, probably for the next two years, it was the most blissful marriage. We were partners, we talked about things, we were able to be connected. And I thought, oh, this is amazing. From Bliss To Fear: My Husband Is Ignoring Me As Punishment Mary: And so one day, he says to me out of the blue that he’s tired of pulling the weight of this marriage. He is not doing it anymore. And that, if I want this marriage to work, I have to do all the work. I thought, when did he start feeling this way? I still don’t know what made him suddenly decide that I’m just this terrible wife. It just went on like this over the years. Every so often he would throw me these curve balls and major ones like that. He would ignore me to get what he wanted. I was working and trying to rise up in my career. And he had complete control over all my paychecks. I couldn’t touch them. Everything I had, he took. At some point, I decided I just needed a secret stash. Like I need to have a couple hundred dollars tucked away in case I need gas for the car. He caught whi

Co-parenting with a narcissist seems impossible. I know I’ve been there. If your husband or ex is narcissistic, here are 7 ways your he might try to undermine you and your kids, along with 7 ways to overcome it. To find out how bad it is, see which of the 19 different emotional abuse tactics he uses. Take our free emotional abuse quiz. The 7 Ways A Narcissist Will Undermine Co-Parenting Gaslighting: Narcissistic men are good at making you doubt yourself. They might say you’re overreacting when you’re not. They may say your helicopter parenting when you’re not. Be on the lookout for how he tries to undermine your self confidence. Using The Kids To Hurt You: A narcissistic ex may manipulate the kids to hurt you. Or they may want to go into chaos, and so they undermine the children’s medical care, extra curricular activities, or school work. Playing the victim: Narcissistic men might twist things to make themselves look like the victim. They may exaggerate situations to get sympathy from others and make you seem like the bad one. Undermining your authority: They might try to take control by making decisions without asking you. Or tell your children that you’re not smart or not a good parent. Using money as leverage: A narcissistic ex could use money to control you by withholding child support or making unfair demands. Seeking revenge: Narcissistic men may hold grudges and act out of spite. Lack of empathy: A narcissistic husband or ex won’t understand or care about your feelings. This will make co-parenting with a narcissistic parent really hard. How Do Stay Sane When CO-Parenting With A Narcissistic Parent Co-parenting with a narcissistic parent requires a strategic and mindful approach. Here are seven ways to make the process more tolerable: 1. Know Communication Won’t Help When Co-Parenting With A Narcissist Since communication is just another way for the narcissist to manipulate us, at Betrayal Trauma Recovery we’ve learned that we can’t count on communication to resolve anything. It helps when you know that communication won’t do anything to stop him from causing chaos. Instead, use effective boundaries that don’t need to be “communicated”, like the ones we teach in The Living Free Workshop. 2. Learn About Strategic Boundaries To learn how to set boundaries strategically, consider enrolling in The BTR.ORG Living Free Workshop. “I’d been to so many therapists. They just kept telling me to “set boundaries”. What a joke. It never worked. But then I enrolled in The Living Free Workshop at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, and holy cow do these ladies know what they’re doing. I could tell immediately they’d been through it. And figured out safety from these dudes. Thanks so much BTR!!!” 3. Use a Parenting App when co-parenting with a narcissist Parenting apps can help, because everything is documented. There are calendars and info banks to use to limit communication as much as possible. 4. How Do You Co Parent with a Narcissist When He Undermines Everything? Prioritize Self-Care Taking care of your own physical and emotional well-being is crucial when co-parenting with a narcissistic parent. Engage in activities that bring you joy and relaxation, and seek support from friends, family, or an online support group for women. 5. Focus on Your Children’s Well-being Keep your focus on what’s best for your children. Avoid hurting your children by promoting their narcissistic dad’s behavior as “love”. Instead, say, “I’m so sorry. I felt that way too. He hurt me too. I’m sorry he doesn’t seem capable enough to love someone as lovable as you.” 6. Develop a Support Network Surround yourself with a supportive network of friends, family, and professionals who understand your situation and can offer guidance and encouragement. If you need support, here’s our daily group session schedule. 7. When Co-Parenting With A Narcissistic parent, Stay Informed Educate yourself about narcissistic behavior and its impact on co-parenting. Listen to The FREE Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast to hear other women’s stories and how they coped. transcript: 7 Ways To Make Co-Parenting With A Narcissist Tolerable Anne: Tammy Guns is here today. She’s going to share her story. She started her career in auditing and accounting for two big four public accounting firms. Then she served in leadership roles in large scale healthcare organizations before her career as a certified divorce financial analyst. Her expertise extends beyond the advisory realm as a trusted expert witness in courtrooms, offering invaluable insights, utilizing forensic accounting. She has also served on two boards of directors and completed Deloitte’s certification program for women board readiness. We will talk about co-parenting with a narcissist. Welcome, Tammy. Tammy: Thank you for having me. I’m excited to talk with you today. Anne: You mentioned that your personal story is part of what interested you in becoming a certified divorce financial analyst. So can we start there? Tammy: Yes, well, you can only connect the dots backwards. And when I look back to my dating of him. There were so many signs that showed he was a narcissist, but I was so young. My wonderful father was incredibly involved in our lives. I’m one of four children. When I met my ex husband, I did not believe a man could not be a good husband and a good father, because I had such an amazing example of one. I was right out of college when I met him. I was just captured. He’s good looking, charismatic. He’s super intelligent. He was a football player in college. I’m like, of course, he’ll be a good dad, of course he’ll be a good husband, because that’s what I had as an example, and I was looking for all the wrong things. “I Couldn’t Have Known”: What I Wish I Knew Before co-parenting with a narcissistic parent Tammy: Today, I’d have a phone conversation with him and realize absolutely what a narcissist he is. And co-parenting with a narcissist can feel impossible. Anne: Well, we don’t know. It’s not our fault. I think even if you learned about narcissism, until the mask comes off, you still wouldn’t know that they were a narcissist. We don’t even have the context for it. You might see the red flags. But because of your context, you think, oh, he’s tired or stressed out. So to say, people saw red flags and then ignored them. I would say people saw the red flags, and the context they had for them was not that context. Anne: Knowing what you know now, what would you do differently? It’s like, would you do anything different? When you knew what you knew then. And the answer is always I couldn’t do anything different. Tammy: Correct, I couldn’t. So I was married for about 17 years when my then husband came home and basically said to me, “I’m done being married to you. I know how much you love the children, so you can have them.” It was pretty traumatic to have the rug pulled out from underneath me. So I ended up going on the journey of a divorce, certainly not understanding anything that was going to happen. In today’s environment, it’s more of a 50/50 situation. But, I went from being a stay at home mom to going back into the workforce, as well as having the children a hundred percent by myself. I do have four college degrees, so I was in the workforce for a while, but at the time I was a stay at home mother. He Didn’t Want To Be Responsible For The Children, But He Still Wanted Control Anne: Wow, that is very unique. I don’t hear that every day, where you got them 100 percent of the time. So many women, at least who listen to this podcast or who are co-parenting with a narcissist, are fighting these narcissists or abusers in court for years. So that is like a miracle. Was that happening with many people back then? Tammy: Even back then, dads had the kiddos every other weekend, probably one night during the week for dinner, like a Wednesday night. What happened in my particular situation is that my ex went through a midlife crisis. He started dating a 25 year old girl who reported directly to him at work. His midlife crisis was, not only do I not want to be married, I also don’t want the responsibility of caring for children. He wanted to travel the world with her, do all sorts of fun things, and of course children get in the way. At the time, I was incredibly scared. How will I take care of these children full time, as well as work full time? But as you said, Anne, in hindsight, it was the greatest blessing that could ever happen. That way I did have the children by myself as far as not co-parenting with a narcissistic parent. I spent 10 years in court with him, but it wasn’t over the time with the children. It was a matter of him actually paying me. Our ink was not even dry on our divorce decree, and he was already not paying me spousal support, not paying me child support, et cetera, et cetera. Hindsight: Unrecognized Signs of Narcissism Tammy: So I was unfortunately wrapped up in the court system for a very long period of time. Until my youngest child went off to college, but I never had to fight him for time. Like I said, I feel fortunate. Anne: How did you know that he was a narcissist? Tammy: He told me, on our wedding night, I will not fail. I do not fail at anything. And so I believed our marriage was for the rest of our lives. I didn’t think he would want to be divorced, because that would be a “failure”. Of course, everything’s crystal clear in hindsight. But certainly not when that’s happening. I looked up a lot about narcissists. He meets the Mayo Clinic definition of a narcissist, like every point. He lacks empathy. I know that many times people throw the word narcissist around loosely. And that could be just somebody who’s self-absorbed, but he actually meets the Mayo Clinic definition. He didn’t physically abuse. However, emotional abuse has lasting scars. Anne: And talking about emotional and psychological abuse, which the court doesn’t recognize. And so there’s no way to protect your kids

If you’re considering marriage infidelity counseling, you’re not alone. Most women in crisis start here, Googling late at night, hoping a professional can finally make sense of what’s happening in their marriage. Counseling can help in the right situation, but there are some realities women wish they had known before scheduling that first session. 5 Things to Know Before Starting Marriage Infidelity Counseling Here are five things every woman should understand before going: 1. Counseling Follows the Story You Bring Into the Room Most marriage infidelity counseling isn’t designed to identify emotional or psychological abuse. Counselors are trained to help with communication, reconnection, and repairing trust, not spotting betrayal trauma in relationships, coercion, or chronic deception.So if you walk in unsure of what’s happening, the therapist often follows your frame, even if something much more serious is going on under the surface. 2. Couple Counseling Can Accidentally Reward His Manipulation Women often tell me they felt worse after marriage infidelity counseling, not because the therapist was unkind, but because the process unintentionally gave their husband new ways to twist the narrative.Men who are actively lying, hiding, or manipulating can look reflective, apologetic, and “committed to change,” while the woman who has been mistreated looks exhausted, overwhelmed, or reactive.The result? He’s praised. She’s pathologized. 3. Marriage Infidelity Counseling Can’t Fix a Pattern It Can’t See Many counselors assume both people tell the truth. They rely on transparency, good faith, and mutual honesty, qualities your husband may not bring to the table.If the root issue is chronic lying, coercion, or secret-keeping, no amount of worksheets, empathy-building exercises, or compromise strategies will solve the real problem. 4. You May Leave With More Confusion Instead of Answers Thousands of women have come to BTR after months or years of marriage infidelity counseling, saying the same thing:“It didn’t get better. I was just blamed more.”When a therapist can’t name the deception, the blame shifts onto the woman, her “communication style,” her “triggers,” her “expectations.”They might recommend other treatment programs, like addiction recovery or codependents anonymous. You end up working harder, while he becomes more skilled at hiding the truth. 5. You Deserve Clarity Before marriage infidelity Counseling—Not After If you’re already exhausted, confused, or walking on eggshells, you don’t need more pressure. You need tools, language, and a framework to understand what you’re actually facing—before deciding whether marriage infidelity counseling is the right path.That clarity protects you. It also prevents you from spending months (or years) trying to repair something you didn’t break. A simple place to start is The After Infidelity Free Email Course, a private way to explore the patterns so you can walk into any counseling environment fully informed.Or, if you want deeper guidance at your own pace, the Living Free Workshop gives you the tools I wish someone had handed me the first time I stepped into a marriage infidelity counseling office. Transcript: The Risk From Marriage Infidelity Counseling No One Shares Anne: I have a member of our community on today’s episode. We’re gonna call her Sarita. She went to marriage infidelity counseling, and was unaware of the risks. If you need live support, attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session today. Here’s what Sarita said. Sarita: “I wish that I had found the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast before I tried therapy and spent thousands of dollars. Your podcast, is what I needed.” Sarita: We were young. We started dating when I was 19. As a young girl, it looked like he just had some anger problems. When he would get really angry, he would walk around the school and actually punch the walls. When Pastoral marital Counseling Misses The Hidden Patterns Sarita: My very first step actually was trying to do counseling with our pastor. This was probably about a year and a half into our marriage. I really noticed him drift from God. That’s what it seemed like at the time. Because prior to that, he was this alleged devoted Christian. He would wake up early in the morning and do his devotions and pray. And I started to actually get worried about him, thinking, “Oh no, like, is he depressed? Is he struggling in his faith?” I wanted to come alongside him as the wife. “What can I do for you? How can I love you, support you, pray for you, and make your life easier?” And I didn’t realize what was happening back then. We started doing marriage infidelity counseling with our pastor, and that was the worst idea on the planet. I did not know that, obviously. Anne: Because that’s the most common thing people suggest when someone’s having “relationship problems.” People will suggest couple therapy. So can you talk about how that went? Sarita: I never really felt heard. I felt like our pastor made a lot of excuses for him. What we did in counseling was watch this video series by Paul Tripp. I remember feeling frustrated after each session, just not feeling like we were getting anywhere. I felt like there was a lot of downplaying, a lot of blaming me, and a lot of, “Oh, he’s just really struggling in his faith. He’s really broken, and he needs your support. He needs your love. He needs your help.” Why Marriage Infidelity Counseling Often Leaves Women More Confused Sarita: The responsibility was all on me, not on him. There were many excuses for him. We both actually decided marriage infidelity counseling was not working. And we decided to stop going. We actually found a church an hour away, so we decided to check it out, and we loved it. That church was going to save our marriage. And so we actually moved an hour away to be part of this church. Anne: How did that go? Sarita: Not good. It ended up being years and years of spiritual abuse symptoms from this church, a lot of gaslighting, pounding passages into my head, about how you’re going to help save your husband. Just pray for him and love him through your actions, and stop constantly trying to say things to him. Peter 3, verse 1, “Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves by submitting to their own husbands, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.” Anne: Wow, that’s quite the interpretation of that. Why in the world would God tell anybody not to fear something frightening? God doesn’t want us to submit to evil. The interpretation of that doesn’t even make sense. The Burden Placed On Wives In Spiritual Communities Sarita: Exactly, so that is the passage that was drilled into my head for years and years. Win him without a word. Just basically be as perfect as you humanly can. As a wife make sure you are upkeeping the house, taking care of the children, removing every possible stressor at home for him, so that he doesn’t explode on you. I remember friends telling me, Sarita, it’s actually absurd to me to think about how much time you spend cleaning and cooking, because your house is always spotless. And we had four kids in four years. I was always pregnant or always nursing. He pretty much always came home to a warm home-cooked meal. I took care of everything for him. I took care of finances and scheduled marriage infidelity counseling. Throughout this time, he actually almost killed me. He went to jail for that. I came to the elders and my mentor, and I told them, look, this is where I’m at. So I am feeling a lot of bitterness. My husband has no empathy. I do not feel an ounce of empathy anymore for him. And I need help, because I want to forgive him. I want to care about what’s going on with him, but I just don’t anymore. I don’t want to stay in this place. Can you please help me? And then one week after, our elders came to our house with papers in their hands, and gave us papers of church discipline. The church disciplined him for emotional abuse, harshness with his wife, not stepping up as a husband. The church disciplined me for unforgiveness and bitterness toward him. Anne: Wow. Sarita: And so that was a really big slap in the face. i cried myself to sleep desperate for help Anne: Yeah. Sarita: Because it was like, I came to you desperate for help, seeking marriage infidelity counseling, and telling you I don’t want to stay in this place. Instead, you slapped me with church discipline. Anne: Did you know of any pornography use and infidelity at the time? Sarita: Oh yeah, he was very cold, extremely cold. I remember feeling like he hated me. I remember begging him in tears almost every night to just come to bed with me. Telling him like, “I love you, I want to spend time with you,” And I remember him essentially telling me to “F” off. And I would cry myself to sleep. This went on for years. And he watched pornography or played video games. I actually remember having to hide finances from him. If I didn’t hide that money, it would be completely gone. He woke me up many times in the middle of the night. There was a lot of sexual coercion. And I remember telling him, no, I’m not ready for another baby right now. The way I actually conceived our fourth child was marital rape. I obviously would never take back that baby ever. Every pregnancy of mine, I was on bedrest, in mass amounts of pain. He did not care. My body was his, and he essentially owned it. He was going to make sure he got what he needed. I remember many times asking him “Hey, honey. Are you doing okay? Like how is the pornography use going? Is there anything I can do as your

Learning how to set boundaries in an emotionally abusive relationship may seem confusing and overwhelming. Setting Boundaries With Your Emotionally Abusive Husband Will 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. Before I share what does work, here are a few resources: To find out if your husband is emotionally abusive (and if you even need to set boundaries), Learn how to set boundaries, click here take my free emotional abuse test. If you discover that he is emotionally abusive, and you want to go more in depth into how to set boundaries, my Living Free Workshop uses visuals to teach women how to set boundaries through easy to follow steps. Okay, so here’s what you need to know to set boundaries if your husband is emotionally abusive. Effective Boundaries are: Not communicated to the emotional abuser with words Courageous actions that evolve to fit YOUR emotional safety needs Essential to emotional and psychological safety Setting Effective Boundaries Does Not Include: If-then statements given to the abuser verbally or in writing Stating your values or what you need Telling him if he does it again, you’ll do something in response How To Set Boundaries in My Emotionally Abusive Relationship? Establishing effective safety boundaries is new territory for many women who find Betrayal Trauma Recovery. If you’re wondering how to set boundaries, 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 Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop teaches you step-by-step how to set boundaries effectively and maintain boundaries in an emotionally abusive relationship. Where will I seek support as I begin the process of establishing safety boundaries? We recommend Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions. Elsa, a member of the Betrayal Trauma Recovery community, shares how she learned how to set boundaries with her emotionally abusive husband. Transcript: How To Set Boundaries With An Emotionally Abusive Husband Anne: We have a member of our community on today’s episode. We’re going to call her Elsa and talk about how to set boundaries. Welcome Elsa. Elsa: Thank you. Anne: 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? Elsa: When I first met him, two days in, he told me something that wasn’t the truth. But I thought, “Wow, how vulnerable. He told me he cheated on a past partner.” One partner, one time.It’s grooming. I had no idea what grooming was, it was a way to get me to trust him. I thought, “He was up front and told me this information. It’s all there is. All the skeletons are out of the closet.” And they weren’t. Anne: If your husband is grooming, he makes you think, “No one who is a liar would tell me this . He must be telling the truth.” He tells a part of the truth that is the tip of the iceberg. If he told the truth, he’d say, “I look at pornography and masturbate every day. I’ve cheated on every partner. And I have every intention of cheating because I don’t want to be with one person.” But he doesn’t. He says just a tiny bit and then claims, “Now everything’s out on the table.” When He Gives You The Impression You Don’t Need To Learn How To Set Boundaries Elsa: It creates a false sense of safety, yeah. Anne: Exactly, then you are left wondering what to do when your husband betrays your trust.  Exactly, and it’s actually super scary because if it was before you were engaged, it’s really alarming that they think in these sick, twisted ways, like, “Oh, if I lie to her and she trusts me, that’s the kind of woman I wanna marry rather than a healthy person thinking, ” I would like a healthy relationship where we trust each other.” And you had no concrete reasons to learn how to set boundaries. Elsa: It was mind blowing that it was that planned and calculated. Before we married, I noticed some things regarding his behavior. There was an instance when he omitted some information. And I didn’t consider it abuse. I addressed it with him. He agreed and said I was right. I thought, that’s it. That’s solved. I felt like he heard me, and we moved on. After we married, I noticed he was more contemptuous when 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: What was the nature of the information that he withheld? Elsa: We hadn’t dated that long, and I had a trip planned with a couple of my girlfriends to go to Europe. I’d be away for a couple of months. He said, would you want to be exclusive? It was like a big yes for me. But I felt like communication was difficult during the trip. I felt like he was hard to pin down. The Camping Trip Incident He said he was going to go camping one weekend. I had this gut feeling that he may go camping with somebody he worked with. Who was quite a bit younger than him. And I asked him if he did, and at first he said he went with just my dog because he was taking care of my dog. And then he said, “Oh, I went with some coworkers.” I found out the truth about six months later. That he had gone 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 at the time, I was already pretty invested. And he denied anything happened. At first he understood, but after a few days of listening to my concerns about him withholding that information, he pressured me to “get over it.” And I worked through it. Anne: Yeah, under those circumstances, I would have been hard to figure out you needed to learn how to set boundaries. Did you ever find out later that there was something that happened between them? Elsa: Exactly. Looking back now and the knowledge I have, I think he was grooming that co-worker. So I think it probably confused her quite a bit, if I was to put myself in her shoes. He told me she shot him down and said no. Anne: Totally, so had he been able to, he would have. Trickle Disclosure & Manipulation Elsa: Yes, and he said that. Six months later. Anne: And then when they decide to tell you, it’s calculated to hurt you. When they feel like you’re maybe having a great day or something’s going well for you. They calculate it to hurt you. So can you tell me when he told you this? Elsa: He did do that to keep me kind of destabilized. This particular instance was before we got engaged. I think he was afraid I would leave him. So he told me he lied. And told me, “Now we have everything out in the open. Now you know everything.” It was a lie. I didn’t know how to set boundaries. How To Set Boundaries: Grooming Anne: What types of reasons did you give in the beginning for this behavior that seemed kind of off? How To Set Boundaries In Counseling Elsa: Before I met him, he’d been in the city with a lot of college students, young women, and he was in that kind of party atmosphere. So we were newly married and we moved to a different college town and his behavior towards me changed. I thought, “It’s probably me.” Plus, my husband says I was the problem too. And I wondered if I should go to therapy. And he said, “Yeah, I think you should.” So he really let me believe I needed therapy and I needed to do my own work. When You Blame Yourself So I started counseling, and he did come to some early counseling sessions with me. And we found out there was an addiction. Anne: Did you find the therapy helpful? Did the therapist talk about how how to set boundaries with your husband? Elsa: No. I was pregnant, feeling anxious in the pregnancy, and I wasn’t able to put my finger on what was going on. I worried about the impact on my unborn child. So the goal was to reduce my anxiety. Anne: Did you get diagnosed with anxiety at that time? Elsa: No, we used it for insurance purposes, but I’ve never had a diagnosis of anything. Anne: That’s good. So many women get diagnosed with something during this time because instead of their therapist saying, “This is your internal warning system telling you something’s wrong. You are reacting in a totally normal way. Let’s figure out why your warning system is going off.” Instead of saying that, the therapist is like, “You’re just another crazy woman who’s having too much anxiety and you’re hysterical for no reason.” Elsa: That’s the only message I was getting. Anne: So the therapist doesn’t help you figure out what’s going on. She doesn’t help you figure out that you’re abused or how to set boundaries. How did you discover his use? Was your husband on his phone all the time? Discovering Addiction Elsa: Turns out my gut is sensitive. So I kept bringing my concerns to him over and over. “Something doesn’t feel right. Something has changed.” Then one day I thought to ask him, “Do you look at inappropriate media?. And he said, “Yes, I do. So that I don’t bleep other women.” How To Set Boundaries: He Goes To SAA He shocked me. It’s a moment etched in my memory. I was shocked he never offered that information. That conversation never came up. Anne: Also, his opinion, his viewpoint, was that if he did not look at it, he did not have the integrity, ability, or adult skill of not having sex with someone who wasn’t his wife. That was his reasoning. “I’m looking at this awful stuff for you. because if I didn’t, I would be out having sex with other women. And you don’t want me to do that, do you?” Elsa: It was progress in his mind. Anne: That must have been devastating. I’m so sorry. When

 It’s hard to know what to do when your husband says he doesn’t love you anymore. If this has happened to you, here’s what you need to know. Did you know there are 19 different types of emotional abuse? To see if you can recognize the 19 different types of emotional abuse, take our free emotional abuse quiz. Transcript: What to Do When Your Husband Doesn’t Love You Anne: Today we’re gonna cover what happens when your husband says he doesn’t love you anymore. We have a member of our community on today’s episode. We’re gonna call her Denise. This happened to her. Here’s a preview of what she said. “I felt like he hates me. He hates my guts. I had asked him , “When did your heart turn against me?” So then he tells me…” You’ll find out what he tells her later on in the story. If this has happened to you, where your husband has told you he doesn’t love you anymore. Here are two things to consider. Number one, get educated about emotional and psychological abuse because there’s a chance that this is part of your story, even if it doesn’t seem like it. You’ll hear about how Denise’s husband used two psychological abuse tactics: mirroring and countering. So as you listen, see if you can identify when that happens. And number, two is to observe their actions. And I’ll talk more about that in today’s interview. So welcome, Denise. When your Husband Says He doesn’t Love you Denise: Yeah, I met my ex online. I was in my 40s and had never been married. I always said I didn’t want to get married until I met the one. Like, the one, and I made sure, because I didn’t want a bad marriage. Um, turns out that I apparently didn’t know what that looked like. So Yeah, he’d been, married before, was a widower, he took care of his late wife, and, seemed to be financially responsible. The first date was great. But then on the next date, we went for a hike, and I was asking him questions, and he couldn’t answer simple questions, like, what’s your favorite movie? Maybe He’s Just Not Ready Denise: The third date was just awkward, something feels off. And I told him I wouldn’t date him. I didn’t think he was ready for a relationship, like maybe he needed to heal some more. Anne: How long after his wife’s death did you start? Denise: Like three and a half months So I told him I wouldn’t date him. But we were hanging out as friends and we would argue all the time. People would say, “what are you arguing about?” Like, I don’t even know, I don’t know what we were arguing about. It was really confusing to me because I’m not a really argumentative person, but for some reason I was drawn to him. His Sudden Heart Change: Maybe He Does Love Me Denise: And then all of a sudden, literally one day, he changed and there was no more arguing. It was almost like this happy wife, happy life thing. I thought okay, he hadn’t dated in a long time, that was a fluke. That’s what I thought. That was a fluke. He’s realized he was just being an idiot and now he’s ready to step up and be himself and be respectful. Anne: Wow! That was a sudden heart change. Denise: Yes, exactly. And then after that, we got along really well. I had so much fun. Looking back now, I can see things that I didn’t notice at the time, but at the time, everything seemed great. I just kept telling people like how blessed I was. This was amazing. His friends were all telling me how wonderful he was and random people we would meet would tell me like, “you are lucky, he is a good man.” My family loved him. I mean, it was like everybody. No one thought there would be a time where I’d have to figure out what to do if he said he didn’t love me anymore. No one ever thought something like that would ever happen. Anne: Did he have kids from his first marriage? Denise: He did. They were preteen, and early teen. His Sudden Heart Change: Confusion Denise: There were a couple of little other flukes that happened while we were dating or after we were engaged and I thought they were flukes, one of them happened when my niece was graduating from college and I wanted to go to her graduation. We were engaged at the time and he had never been to that area of the United States. So, he’s like, “why don’t you plan the trip then, since you’ve been there before and we can do our family vacation and go to your niece’s graduation at the same time.” I’m like, Oh, that would be wonderful. Like I’d been there. He hadn’t. So, we asked the kids if they wanted to do anything like specific in that area. They didn’t want to look anything up. So I was like, I guess I’m planning it. And he was like, “I trust you.” So, we go on this trip and he starts getting angry at me for not having planned it better and I was like, really confused. That’s what a lot of this whole thing was, a lot of confusion. Like, you asked me to plan it, if you wanted to do it a certain way, you should have stepped in and planned it yourself or said you wanted something else. I mean, it’s common sense. I saw on that trip what he was just, angry, bitter, and yelling at me. Pre-Wedding Tensions Denise: That was, before the wedding and I thought it was a one off. Anne: like a fluke. Denise: Mm hmm. And then, there was one more that I see now as major. I thought it was him being under a lot of stress. It was right before the wedding. He said he wanted our bank accounts to be merged, which is what I wanted. I wanted 100 percent commitment, all in, everything shared. I wanted to be a stay at home mom. That was my goal. He was totally up for that. So, right before the wedding, he starts getting angry that he’s paying more for the wedding than I am. And I was like, weird, cause we’re merging everything. He wasn’t arguing that he didn’t want something at the wedding. He was saying he wanted me to pay for it. Anne: Are you okay if we pause right here? Denise: totally Mirroring Explained Anne: This is how mirroring works. He’s not gonna tell you how he feels until you tell him how you feel, so he can just mirror back to you your own interests and your own opinions. So he’s gonna find out what your favorite movie genre is, and then he’s gonna say, me too. He’s gonna wait until he knows how you feel about politics. And then he’s going to mirror your opinions back to you. And then later he’ll have a “change of heart”  when really he didn’t have those opinions in the first place. So in terms of choosing a good husband, if you’re thinking about dating or getting to know someone, try asking them questions like this before you tell them how you feel and see how they respond. Denise: That actually makes complete sense. I hadn’t thought of it in that way but now that you say that, I was thinking back, like, after I told him what my favorite movie was, then he said that he liked that one too. Most everything, it seemed like it was a fluke that he liked the same things I did, it was like, oh my , we’re like exactly the same. This is crazy. I’m like, yeah, this is crazy. I never, imagined that we would like this many things the same. Countering Explained Anne: So when you talked about this period of time where you were just friends and he was arguing with you quite a bit. My guess is that he was countering. Countering is an abuse tactic where they counter basically, everything you say. It’s very similar to like a 15 year old. My son counters right now from time to time, cause he’s 15 and I’m like legit every single thing I’m saying you’re disagreeing with. And he’s like, “no, I’m not.” I’m like, there you go again. This is happening right now. It’s a really immature way of trying to overpower somebody else. He was countering maybe, to determine how confident you were in your opinions. And when he realized you’re very confident in your opinions, he also realized he wasn’t gonna be able to groom you that way. And then, he made an abrupt heart change to acting kind and egalitarian. That’s where you saw that shift when he realized you weren’t looking for the strong, like take charge type. She’s looking more for a partner. It sounds like it was either arguing or everything was perfect. Denise: Yeah, that is how it felt and that’s the way it was. It was extreme. Better Communication Won’t Make His Heart Change Anne: They use communication in this way to manipulate. That’s why learning to communicate better doesn’t solve an abuse problem, and that’s why the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free strategies are so important. Using those strategies will help you see what their true intent is and what they’re actually doing. So he was using those tactics on you, and you didn’t realize it because, why would you? We’re not educated on what to do if he says doesn’t love us. Did you know about any porn use? Denise: That was really important for me to talk to him about before the wedding. He said he had a box of Playboys in the basement. And he was like, “I don’t want to have anything to do with that, I just need to destroy those.” So he told me he burned all of them and I tried really hard not to push him, because I wanted anything like that to come from him. He wasn’t Catholic. I didn’t ask him to become Catholic. I just told him going to church was really important to me and going together was really important to me. So we went to both churches. His Sudden Heart Change: Post-Wedding Denise: But then, I noticed on the honeymoon that he was doing things on purpose to hurt me. Like there were things before that hurt me, you know, I didn’t like that, or we need to work on this. He would like, abruptly turn away from me in bed, just like a rejection. And I told him I didn’t like it and he just kept doing it. I was like, okay, this is meant to hurt me, which was very shocking to me because I thought I married my knight in shining armor, the countering got so bad while we were… I don’t even like to say intimate because it wasn’t reality, like within weeks of the wedding, he was screaming at me, telling me that I was selfish and that I didn’t care about him. I’m like, what is happening here

When a woman finds out her husband has been lying, one question she usually asks is, “Is my husband addicted to…” Here’s what you really need to know. Before reading on, did you know that the real issue may be emotional abuse? To test this theory, if your husband uses p***graphy, take this free emotional abuse quiz. See if you’re experiencing any of the 19 types of emotional abuse. When My Husband Said He is Addicted To… If you’ve just discovered your husband has been lying to you and he claims struggling with addiction, but it doesn’t feel right—trust your gut. The truth might not be about addiction at all. Often, the real issue is emotional and psychological abuse. At Betrayal Trauma Recovery, we help women recognize the patterns of invisible abuse that hide behind lies. Here’s how to tell if your husband’s behavior is less about addiction and more about control and manipulation. What You Need to Know About “Addiction” in Marriage Addiction might seem like a reasonable explanation for your husband’s lies, but if your husband’s actions hurt your peace and confidence, it’s important to only focus on how they affect you. This shift will change everything. If your husband repeatedly chooses behaviors that hurt you, it’s more than a personal struggle. It’s abuse. Lies Aren’t Addiction—They’re Emotional and Psychological Abuse If your husband says he’s lying because he’s an addict, ask yourself this question—does he take responsibility for the pain he’s caused? Or does he make excuses, shift blame, or manipulate you into feeling sorry for him? Addiction doesn’t justify: Lying about his whereabouts Playing the victim, so you’ll feel sorry for him (when you’re the one who has been harmed) Hiding money Denying conversations or gaslighting you when you ask questions Using phrases like “You’re too sensitive” or “You blow things out of proportion” to dismiss your concerns These actions aren’t slips from an addict—they’re tactics abusers use to maintain control. Addiction & Emotional Abuse One common lie many women hear is that exploitative materials use is just a private problem or a personal addiction. But here’s the reality: It Fuels Exploitation: Using materials that involve the abuse and exploitation of women and underage girls. Watching it creates demand for more harm. Coercion In Marriage: When your husband lies about use, pressures you into uncomfortable situations, or refuses to be honest, he’s engaging in emotional and physical abuse. It Breaks Marital Trust: Trust is the foundation of any healthy relationship. Withholding the truth, managing secret habits, or blaming you for his choices destroys intimacy and care. How to Protect Yourself From an “Addicted” Husband If your husband’s actions have harmed you, the best step is to learn how to protect yourself from further harm. Here’s where to start: Learn about what it means when your husband says he’s an addict by listening to The Free Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast. Get the RIGHT support. Check out the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session schedule to connect with other women who know exactly what you’re going through. Learn safety strategies. Enroll in The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop to determine the truth about your husband’s character and learn strategies to protect yourself. Here’s Most About Why Your Husband’s Addiction is Likely Abusive To You Abusive online content is accepted, encouraged, and normalized in our society. While its effects are denied, minimized, and even justified. When men choose to use exploitative content, they exploit and abuse women – many of whom are underage. Violence against women is common in this type of material. Men literally have a response to the video proof of women and children brutalized and raped. How could that not be abusive? But What If It’s So-Called “Ethical”? Many so-called addicts will rally against the truth that this content is abusive. They claim that “ethical p****graphy” empowers women. However, this fallacy is both dangerous and offensive. “Ethical” is the ultimate oxymoron. There is no healthy way to view something created through coercive, exploitative tactics. Viewing This Type of Content Leads to Spouse Abuse When men consume this type of material, they are, by default, abusing their wife because: They’re engaging in a secret life—manipulation, lies, and withholding the truth are forms of emotional abuse. If he’s not honest about his use of this content, it’s coercion, because she can’t make an informed decision. Users of this material often pressure their wife to engage in dangerous, dehumanizing, and painful acts. This is coercion, a form of abuse. Users often resort to psychologically abusive behaviors, including gaslighting, blame-shifting, and abusive defensiveness. When His Addiction Has Taught Him How To Abuse Women As men consume this type of abuse, they’re being conditioned to coerce and abuse women and underage girls. We understand the depth of horror and pain women experience when betrayed. Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group offers victims a safe place to process trauma, share hard feelings, and ask questions. Attend a session today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUSQmWdjAdU Transcript: Is My Husband Addicted to…? Anne: It’s just me today. If you just found out about your husband’s lies. And you’re wondering is my husband addicted to whatever he just lied about? Here’s what you need to know. If you caught your husband lying. And then your husband said, I’m addicted to … And he claims he’s struggling with addiction. The truth might not be about addiction. Often the real issue is emotional and psychological abuse. So here’s what you need to know about addiction in marriage. Addiction might seem like a reasonable explanation for your husband’s lies. But if your husband’s actions hurt your peace and confidence, it’s important to focus only on how they affect you, and this shift will change everything. Because if your husband repeatedly chooses behaviors that hurt you, this is about more than just his “personal struggle.” Lies aren’t addiction. Lies are emotional and psychological abuse. So, if your husband is lying and his excuse is that he’s an addict, ask yourself this question. Is he taking responsibility for the pain he causes? Or does he make excuses, shift blame, or manipulate you to feel sorry for him? Because addiction doesn’t justify lying about his whereabouts. Or that he plays the victim, so you feel sorry for him. He’s actually harming you. It doesn’t justify hiding money, denying conversations, or gaslighting when you ask questions. It doesn’t justify psychological abuse in telling you that you’re too sensitive or blowing something out of proportion, when what he’s done is serious. Is my husband addicted: Tactics of Control Anne: These actions aren’t slips from an addict, they’re tactics abusers use to maintain control. You may ask, is my husband addicted? So let’s talk specifically about addiction and why exploitative material is an abuse issue. It’s not so much that I think talking about it as an abuse issue is fun, because everything about abuse is miserable. But educating women about this type of abuse is my absolute favorite thing to do. I have a master’s degree in education. I’m an abuse educator. And because I talk about abuse all day long, I’ve developed a dark sense of humor. So I appreciate your patience. When it comes to abuse, it’s not a “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” situation. It’s what doesn’t kill you, really harms you, and limits your ability to function and feel joy for a long time. It’s miserable to learn why it is abusive from experience. And extremely difficult to learn how to protect yourself from this type of abuse. Most people don’t give victims of this type of abuse, the correct information. So that’s my intent today. I don’t want any woman to experience this type of abuse, not know what it is, and not know how to protect yourself. That’s why I’m doing this episode today. So exploitative materials use is a form of abuse. And there are multiple reasons why it’s abuse. I’m going to work from the outside in as we go over these reasons. Reason number one: The Reality of Exploitative Media Anne: So reason number one: it fuels trafficking, and most exploitative media is video evidence of a victim’s coercion or assault. The industry says women are happy being abused. In fact, they’ve “consented” to it. But they are coerced. The money is the coercion. There is no woman wants to be filmed being violently attacked. Because that’s what most of it is today. I’m a feminist. There are some feminists who say this somehow empowers women, and I absolutely disagree. Women have contracted diseases. The toxic “work” environment breaks them emotionally. Anyone who insists that it empowers women is not operating from a trauma-informed perspective. On the type of psychological grooming, emotional manipulation, and verbal manipulation that women encounter in the industry. Is my husband addicted? There’s a general naivety among the mass consumers of exploitative media about how things work. Talking with the amazing people at the national center on exploitation. I’ve learned over the years. Statistics show if you watched 30 minutes of it. You are guaranteed to see someone who is there against their will. So even if somebody thinks they’re watching “ethical or free trade material.” There are a ton of euphemisms out there. That’s not true. Women entrapped in this type of slavery are considered products. Producers use and sell their bodies as products. So if somebody views it, they’re getting pleasure from someone else’s abuse. There’s no healthy way to do that. Reason Number two: Personal Experience with exploitative Material Anne: Is my husband addicted? The second reason why it is an abuse issue is that my husband’s use is abusive to me. Use is directly tied to loss of intimacy, reduced empathy, and addictive behaviors. The effect of

Healing emotional wounds in relationships, especially from a toxic marriage, is vital to our emotional health. Here’s how to find the right support. To discover if you’re experiencing any one of the 19 types of abuse that cause emotional wounds, take our free emotional abuse quiz. Step 1: Recognizing What Caused The Emotional Wounds Understanding emotional abuse is the first step to getting help and staying safe. Before you go to any helping professional, it’s important to be educated about emotional and psychological abuse. The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Workshop helps women identify exactly what is causing the emotional wounds. Once you know what the true cause is, you’ll be ready to find the right support to heal. Step 2: Getting Safe Help For Healing Emotional Wounds in Relationships If you discover the emotional wounds are from your husband’s abuse, the next step is to get the support to heal. If you need live support, attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session today. Here are some examples of when support isn’t emotionally safe enough to help heal your wounds: Has the professional or therapist given equal weight to his abusive narrative, his lies and the truth? Does the support person think that you played a role in causing the abuse? If you haven’t found the right support yet, know that we’re here for you. Listen to The Free Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast to hear women’s share what resources helped them define what really caused the emotional wounds. Transcript: Healing Emotional Wounds After Trauma Anne: Today I’ll interview a woman who was victimized by a helping professional. We’re gonna call her Esther. Before we get to her story, I’m going to talk about healing emotional wounds from relationships. Step one is recognizing what caused the emotional wounds. If you don’t know what caused it, it’s hard to get the right kind of help. Healing emotional wounds takes the right kind of help. If you go to a professional or therapist, and they give equal value to his abusive narrative or his lies and the truth. That’s not safe. You can’t heal the emotional wounds if they’re still occurring, especially if they’re coming from a helping professional. As Esther shares her story, you’ll see that she correctly identifies what happened to her in her marriage. Then she’s gonna talk about the emotional wounds she received when she went for help. And it wasn’t a safe situation, welcome Esther. I’m so honored that you’d share your story. Will you go ahead and start? Esther: Hi, thank you for having me. So I was married and had a lot of kids. I was a homeschooling mom. And I went online looking for answers. I took some quiz. I think it was a domestic violence recovery organization in the UK. At the end, it said you are being abused, you are being mistreated. And it was the first time those words or thoughts came into my mind. I just never saw that. I always thought, oh, he has ADHD, or depression, or it’s his culture. Seeking Help & Initial Steps Esther: And the fact that I might be intentionally harmed, controlled, and manipulated was a shocking, painful realization. So, I went straight away into the helper mode, okay, what can we do, what can he do, what can I do? And, I went into, support for myself, for DV victims, through my county. I put my kids in counseling, and I asked my husband to please go to abuser counseling. Because I didn’t understand what a deep entrenched issue it was. I thought it was like a mistake or something that could be unlearned. I wasn’t focused on the deep emotional wounds that were occurring at the same time. And I was thinking, well, he’ll just go to a class and realize that this is bad, and we’ll just move on. I just saw it as, okay, let’s fix this. I said, you have to go to a abuser intervention program, you have to do this, or my thought was separation. Divorce wasn’t part of my view as a Christian at that time. I’ve since changed my view. I don’t believe God wants abuse. But at that time, I gave him a list of things to do. They were supposedly proofs that he was changing. It included having a mentor, going to therapy, and going to an abuser program. He went to two abuser groups. He would apologize a lot. And I’d get all these words and flowers. And he just lied to the therapists. He’d manipulate therapists. And that was disturbing, because he used them against me. Anne: Were you aware of any pornography use, cheating, infidelity, or anything like that? Esther: His views of women were warped, very misogynist, using me as an object. Understanding The Depth Of Abuse Esther: I used to put religious labels on this and make it a holy thing. But as I started to get more and more free, I recognized that his view of women was a big part of the mistreatment of me, the emotional wounds were so deep. And unfortunately, that would cause harm to my daughters. That showed me that this was a lot bigger than me. I remember looking at his computer I was like, who is this man really? There were secrets in his life, because he’d hide money from me in a weird way. I homeschooled four kids, and one of them has an autism diagnosis. So that took all my time. And I didn’t really have time to notice or pay attention to myself. I was all about the kids. I was all about trying to teach my son well. When I recognized, I’m an abused woman, I pivoted in my mind, like, how did this happen? How did I end up here? I had a million questions, so I just started reading every book I could. What is abuse? How do I recognize it? What about me made me vulnerable? How do I know he’s changing? So I was just a sponge reading every book I could find. God opened my eyes and I started to see he could stop. It was possible, but he wasn’t. And because of that, we did get divorced, and I started running for personal healing. Anne: Were you partially running toward healing because you were still experiencing abuse? Esther: Oh, that’s an excellent question. I was experiencing post separation abuse. I was still trying to find help. Healing Emotional Wounds While Experiencing Post-Separation Chaos Esther: I went to a parent coordinator, told him everything. It was very traumatizing, because he’d asked me these personal questions. Well, when you did this, how did you feel? When you did this, how did you feel? And I would just be bringing up all these emotionally abusive episodes that resulted in deep emotional wounds, crying, and my ex had no empathy whatsoever. And hoping for help. He just sat there like a stone while I’m crying. And when my ex went to the bathroom, the parent counselor said, I know what’s going on with you. I’ve seen it before. I just want you to know, even if you win, he will make you lose. And I’m like, what? He’s like, yeah, so if you get what you believe is owed to you in court, this guy’s going to come behind you in a covert way and take revenge. And that ended up being true. When I was winning in court, he went after one of my kids in a vicious way. And so I’m trying to get him in home therapy and advocate for him at his school. Meanwhile, he’s just telling lies about me. And I started to wonder, like is he having a psychotic break? Is he actually perceiving reality wrongly? Or is he just lying? Why would he do that? Yeah, so the post divorce time was awful. Anne: I’m guessing people are treating you as if you just need to heal. Rather than recognizing that you can’t even begin to heal because you’re still being abused post divorce. So when women talk to other people and they say well, didn’t you divorce him a year ago? Don’t you just need to move on? Seeking Validation & Understanding Anne: They don’t realize that the abuse you’re experiencing is still real time, like it happened today or yesterday. It’s not something that’s in the past. So many women talk about their PTSD, and I’m like, it’s just TSD. Because it’s not post, it’s current. It’s happening now. You can’t heal from these deep emotional wounds while still experiencing harm. Esther: That’s right. A big question on my heart was, why did he do this? I loved him, I had children with him, why would he treat me this way? And part of that understanding was to help me navigate that extremely difficult post separation period. I read this book by a famous author. Like, oh wow, look at this, look at that. And I remember being very impressed and motivated by the book. Certain ideas in the book were very empowering for me. Because of that, I would quote it to my friends. A lot of us didn’t really have a correct understanding of intentional control or coercive control. When a person intentionally controls another person. By controlling their emotions, information, and I guess the main idea in the book is that it is intentional. So the book felt empowering. Like, this man is choosing to do this to avoid chores and helping with the children. He’s doing it to avoid being equal to me. He’s doing it to gain an advantage over me. And it seemed to answer certain questions I had in my heart, because my ex was covert. In certain ways, I mean, I see it pretty clearly now, but it was so covert. Attending The Retreat To Heal From Relationship Wounds Esther: I had to constantly return to he’s not wanting an equal relationship, he’s wanting power over me. He’s willing to wound me to have that. And I had to continue to go back to it to survive emotionally and help my kids survive. What happened next is, I went to the famous author’s website and found that he offered a retreat for women, leaving abusive relationships. So that they were post abuse. And I thought it might be a good thing for me. So I got someone to watch for my children. Got time off work. I went to the retreat. It was held in a beautiful location. It was green. I went, with a very open heart. Ready to be vulnerable. I was looking forward to a place where I could be very open about what I’d gone through in the marriage. I think many moms who are survivors who have to go to work. We are not really letting

It is crucial for women to recognize the signs of clergy misconduct, as those who experience betrayal or emotional abuse often turn to their faith communities for solace and support. Here’s what you need to know. If you relate to this, you need support. Attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY. Dave Gemmel, Associate Director of the NAD Ministerial Association, joins Anne Blythe, M.Ed. to discuss clergy misconduct. Congregants seek spiritual guidance, compassion, and leadership from clergy. When pastors, bishops, and other spiritual leaders use their authority to destroy a congregant’s trust or faith in God through misconduct, that sacred role is diminished, and victims may experience severe trauma, which often includes a crisis of faith. Dave enumerates some of the ways that clergy can violate trust and commit misconduct: abuse adult sexual abuse harassment rape sexual assault sexualized verbal comments or visuals unwanted touches and advances use of sexualized materials including pornography stalking sexual abuse of youth or those without mental capacity to consent misuse of the pastoral/ministerial position Failing to protect a victim of abuse Can include criminal behaviors that are against the law in some nations, states, and communities. Understanding How Clergy Misconduct Happens As Dave explains, pastors have spiritual authority, which makes it impossible for an “asymmetrical relationship” between himself and a congregant. Because of the lack of “considered mutual consent,” a sexual relationship with a pastor or bishop is not an affair, but abuse. Women who have experienced this form of abuse may blame themselves, but abuse is never the victim’s fault. When clergy take advantage of their position of power, congregants may feel disloyal or unworthy if they report misconduct. Furthermore, congregants, especially abused women, may not know they have betrayal trauma. Utilizing women’s intuition helps prevent clergy misconduct. Because women have adept intuitive abilities to decipher safe or unsafe individuals, Dave suggests all religious organizations implement a 50% policy. This means that in search committees, boards, and other leadership committees that determine who is leading a congregation, women make up at least half of the group. When women discover betrayal and identify abuse in their relationships, they often seek support from clergy. Dave recommends that women and couples do not seek therapeutic counseling from clergy. Instead, women suffering from the effects of betrayal and abuse can utilize professionals who are trained in trauma and abuse. Trained coaches lead the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions. If you are seeking validation, empowerment, knowledge, and support, join the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group today and find the community you deserve. Transcript: The Truth About Clergy Misconduct Anne: Today, I’m with Dave Gemmel. He’s an associate director of the NAD ministerial association. He received his doctorate of ministry with an emphasis on multicultural leadership from Fuller Theological Seminary in 1992. He began pastoring in the San Francisco bay area in 1978. Welcome Dave. Pastor Dave: Thank you very much, Anne. It is a delight to be with you, and I love your mission. Betrayal Trauma Recovery aims to protect women from emotional abuse, psychological abuse, and coercion. We are on the same page. Anne: Let’s just dive right in to talking about clergy misconduct. Many think it is only preying upon minors. Could you please define it? Pastor Dave: Yeah, that’s a mouthful, isn’t it? Clergy misconduct, typically, we think of all the stories in the news, stories of the Catholic Church with pedophilia, abusing little boys in the church, and so that’s what comes to mind when we think of clergy misconduct, but the scope is actually a lot bigger than that. If I could just give a little preface here before we jump into it. Clergy, many, if not most, have advanced education and have been carefully screened before endorsement by their congregations. Most are highly trained, behave with great integrity and professionalism. Having said all that, there is a segment of volunteers and professional clergy who violate sacred trust, and in doing so damage the reputation of all clergy. That’s the segment that we’re going to zoom in on today. So what is clergy misconduct? It’s a betrayal of sacred trust, as I mentioned. And it can be on a continuum of abuse or gender directed behaviors by either a lay or clergy person with a ministerial relationship, whether they’re paid or unpaid. The Scope Of Clergy Misconduct Pastor Dave: Here are some of the things it can include. Abuse, adult sexual abuse, harassment, rape, sexual assault, sexualized verbal comments or visuals and unwelcome touch and advances. The use of inappropriate materials. Including pornography, stalking, sexual abuse of youth, or those without capacity or consent. Also misuse of the pastoral ministerial position, and sometimes criminal behaviors that are against the law in some nations, states, and communities. So that’s an official definition of misconduct by clergy. That’s in the Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church, which is one of the best out there. Anne: So in your definition, you said gender directed behaviors. Are you talking about misogyny? Pastor Dave: Yeah, that absolutely is misogyny. And that is proclaiming that women are not as valuable as men. And men have the right to dictate women’s behavior. Anne: Let’s talk about your contention that pastors can’t have affairs with church members. And why when people say, oh, he had an affair with a member of his congregation, that’s not a thing. Pastor Dave: Sometimes when a spiritual leader had an inappropriate relationship with a member of the congregation, and we write it off as an affair, I don’t believe it’s an affair. Here’s why, the word affair implies mutual consent between two adults. But there’s an asymmetrical role between pastor and congregant. In other words, the pastor has spiritual authority, which does not put them on the same playing field. That’s why it’s asymmetrical. So any intimate relationship between a pastor and a congregant, I believe, is clergy misconduct. and cannot be considered mutual consent. Even if it’s not physical coercion, the clergy is the one in a position of spiritual and emotional power and must be held responsible for the abuse of power. Therapists & Clergy: Positions Of Power Pastor Dave: So, any relationship between a spiritual leader and a member is not having an affair. It is clergy misconduct. Anne: Thank you for making that so clear. It’s the same type of thing, where can you have an affair with your therapist? And the answer is also no, because he’s in a position of power. His role is to treat you for a mental illness. I think that that would fall into the same category in terms of therapy or other professionals. Pastor Dave: Absolutely, and a therapist should lose their license and be barred from practicing. It’s on a continuum, and the reality is there are some predators who’ve managed to become clergy. The biggest study was done, it’s from the Journal of Scientific Study of Religion, titled Prevalence of Clergy Advances Toward Adults in Their Congregations. It was a twofold study. Victims of clergy misconduct were studied from a wide range of religions. They were asked to tell their stories of abuse. And in almost all these cases, the clergy offenders in a series of small acts broke down the natural defenses. And took advantage of a position of spiritual power to eventually make the relationship inappropriate. But what do we call that? That’s a predator. And somehow there are a few of these predators that have managed to get in among the ranks of spiritual leaders. It’s so dangerous, and here’s why, because the victims, the families, and the congregation did not seem to notice it. Or they refuse to confront the clergy. So there’s this special fog in a congregation that people aren’t looking for that, and so they don’t see it. And it makes a nice cloaking place for these predators in the ministry. Predators In Religious Authority Anne: Would you say this also applies to people in some type of religious authority, even if it’s just volunteer, when they’re not their congregants? So, for example, a neighbor who thinks, oh, this man is amazing because he’s a pastor. He might not be her pastor, but some religious title. In my church, we would call it a priesthood calling. So even if they don’t belong to their same congregation, do you find that these types of predators use their titles for grooming others, not just people in their congregation? Pastor Dave: You know, predators use whatever tools they can and if they can use a spiritual position they’ll do whatever they can to achieve their goal. Anne: I think it’s an automatic way to gain people’s trust. So what steps can churches take in the prevention of clergy misconduct? Pastor Dave: A few things. First of all, make sure that at least 50% of your search committee, policy committees, or boards, or however your church or synagogue is set up, 50% need to be women. And here’s why. I believe God created man and woman, and they complete humanity. If you just have one gender, you only get half of the picture. And so if there are only men on these committees, you’re half blind! Many times women can pick up on things that men were clueless to. So it’s imperative that there is a 50% at least on all these committees. Does that sound wild to you? That’s my goal. Anne: I think it sounds amazing. In my particular faith, that is not even an option right now. Gender Balance On Church Committees Anne: I’m like, oh, that would be a miracle if a woman complained and said, Hey, this was creepy. So many men would just be like, Oh, he’s just a nice guy. Don’t worry about it. You’re overreacting. And so, having women make up 50% would make a huge difference, because men seem to dis

You might think you already know the answer to this question: “What does God say about divorce?” But here’s the thing, the Bible has told righteous people throughout all of time to separate themselves from wickedness. The word we use today for “wickedness” is abuse. So the first step to knowing what God may want you to do about your marriage is to discover if you’re experiencing emotional abuse. Click here to take my free emotional abuse quiz. Transcript: What Did God Say About Divorce? Anne: I have a member of our community. On today’s episode, we’re gonna call her Kayla. She’s going to be sharing her story. Kayla is a woman of faith. Part of her story is sharing when she realized she didn’t need to listen to what her pastor said. Or people at her church, so that she could develop her own relationship with God. And find out for herself what God says about divorce and marriage. If you’re not a woman of faith, if you’re agnostic or atheist, her story will still relate to you. I don’t know why modern Christianity has taken this stance that the “other people” are dangerous. But refuse to see that maybe someone living in your own home is dangerous. The scriptures are clear about God’s stance on divorce and marriage. 4 Scriptures That teach what God Really Says About Divorce Here are four that might help: Proverbs 22:3 “The prudent see danger and take refuge.” So that means that we should separate ourselves from dangerous people. II Corinthians 6: 17 “Therefore, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing that I will receive you.” They’re talking about somebody who lies to you, somebody who is exploiting women. Matthew 10:16 “I’m sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves.” That’s talking about strategy, and you can learn more about what strategies we recommend. By enrolling in the Living Free Workshop. Get more information about that by clicking on this link. John 16: 13 “The Spirit of truth will guide you into all truth.” Obviously, God wants us to be safe and loves us, and that clergy or anyone else interprets scriptures to oppress us and tell us what God says about divorce and marriage,That’s spiritual abuse. And Kayla’s gonna share her story. The Holy Spirit warns and guides us. He helps us recognize danger and make decisions to protect ourselves. Kayla’s Early Relationship Anne: So welcome, Kayla. Kayla: I’m glad to be here. Anne: Let’s start at the beginning when you first met, did you recognize his abusive behaviors? Kayla: Well, no, from the start he carried himself as a complete gentleman. We worked together at a Fortune 500 company. When we met, he kept boundaries. That made me believe he had values. He appeared to have everything I wanted, handsome, courteous, church going and a family man. We had a lot of the same interests, new restaurants, bowling and cruising. His family loved me. My family loved him. He put me on a pedestal. And of course. I loved it. So I painted this picture of him, like this church going person with character. I couldn’t see him for who he was. You know, his behavior was subtle, like of financial, understanding or miscommunication. And I just kind of attributed to his upbringing. We had kids pretty quickly. So three to four years into our marriage, I wasn’t feeling the connection anymore and I was trying to improve our relationship. I thought that God was clear on divorce and marriage. I tried having deep conversations with him, but he often fell asleep or said we can talk later. But later never came. And he had this tendency to not follow through, and he was having this trouble not only at home, but also at work. Work & Home Challenges Kayla: He was an IT person, and when he wasn’t going to his customer’s desk to help them, he would fall asleep. When he did his work, he made mistakes when he had to write-up. The write up of what he did, he forgot to do it. Many times it went missing. He didn’t follow through. So he was getting to the point where they were putting him on probation. Because he was sleeping on the job because he wasn’t doing his job. And the same things I was seeing at home, not following through, falling asleep in the middle of a conversation. So it’s what led me to say maybe you need to get in a professional evaluation. Anne: Okay, so you’re thinking, let’s see if something’s wrong. Just hearing this part, I wonder if he wasn’t paying attention, because he was doing stuff late at night. Where he wasn’t getting a lot of sleep and distracted with the double life he had going on. That’s my prediction, so we’ll talk about it a little later. Okay, so he gets diagnosed? Kayla: He was diagnosed with ADD. He got on a DD medicine, and that seemed to help him at work. I didn’t get the benefits. Even though he claimed to be taking a second pill when he got home. I didn’t see the benefits of the follow through, the discipline, the focus at all. I thought his forgetfulness, his lack of follow through, his emotional distance were all symptoms he couldn’t fully control and I just felt I needed to be patient and supportive. What Does God Say About Divorce And Marriage? Efforts to Improve Kayla: Like I set times, let’s talk every night at nine o’clock. Let’s talk about our feelings, let’s talk about our relationship, our finances. But most of those conversations, I was left feeling empty and unimportant. And yes, we sought counseling. We went to yearly marriage conferences with our church. We went to a pastor for advice and support. I was trying to hard to honor what God wanted in my marriage and to save us from divorce. So I suggested and we attend couples therapy to help our relationship. I met with the therapist. He met with the therapist, and we met once a month. We paid over $7,000 for 13 weeks Christian transformation sessions. And besides, we were the president of the marriage ministry, helping others with their marriage. I did a lot of personal reflection and improvement. I took the time when he came home, that first 30 minutes, to let him be to himself. Here’s What God Says About Divorce And I remember coming home from the marriage conference, learning that our bodies were not ours. And we should meet our spouse’s needs. Whenever they asked, I tried it. And without the emotional connection, I felt hollowed, used. I just couldn’t do that. Anne: Right. Kayla: I read books, books like Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, How to Have a Healthy Marriage. Our marriage vows before God made it harder, I think, for me to see the truth. Because I was deeply rooted in the idea that my marriage covenant was sacred and unbreakable. So it kept me focused on holding the relationship together at all costs. So I stayed with prayer, effort, and patience, while my ex-husband didn’t seek to improve. And I just kept praying and putting the effort in. Thinking I knew what God thought about divorce and marriage, and that I had to make it work. Realization Of Deeper Issues Kayla: I don’t know anyone who has put more effort into trying to hold their marriage together. I just did a lot to try to hold our marriage together. Anne: When did you start realizing that all of this concerted effort was not working . Kayla: Wow, so we attended this 13 weeks of extensive Christian transformation marriage sessions. It required that we work on a different aspect of our marriage every night. So we met in the weekly sessions. We had sessions directly with the Christian coaches, and we did something at night. Anne: Was there abuse education as part of this intensive? Kayla: No, it was all about seeking God, praying for your spouse, building your spouse up, looking at things differently. It was all saying that God hated divorce, and I had to save my marrriage. Anne: So there was no abuse education whatsoever. Kayla: Not at all. So we were talking every night. He started to come to bed, which you were alluding to. Many nights he did not come to bed. He stayed up all night long. And so things started feeling better. So much so that I believed we had reached a good place. But then things started happening again. I started feeling disconnected, and I went to him for some tweaks. Instead of trying to understand what I was feeling, what I was thinking. He started deflecting and minimizing, and started talking about how he didn’t feel loved. And I put my feelings aside, and I asked him. Send me an email to explain why you don’t feel love and what it would look like for you to feel love. Confronting The Truth Kayla: He emailed me a letter. In this letter, he wrote things like, I would like you to serve me a plate of food and bring it to me. After intimacy, I want you to get me a cold drink. I want you to dress provocatively for our nights out. I was just floored, he wanted me to do his chores. That was his responsibility in the house, like taking out the trash, pulling the cans to the street. And that letter, I realized I didn’t know this man I was married to. And I realized it had to do with his wants and removing his responsibilities in the house, more than me showing love to him. Anne: Right. Kayla: And that’s when I realized something is desperately wrong. And then I went back to our therapist, and I said, I want to ask him about watching exploitative material. Because early on in our marriage, it had come up. I caught I caught him looking at it, and he said, oh, if you don’t want me to look at it, I won’t look at it anymore. I believed him, but didn’t believe him. So what I mean by that is, every now and then I would check his computer. I would check his phone, nothing. Nothing was there at all. But in that therapy session, when I asked the question, he looked down, his face looked flooded with shame, almost in tears. And he admitted he was addicted and had been since he was a teenager. He rationalized it in his mind that it was okay, because he wasn’t touching a woman in the flesh. It was at that moment t

Has your husband (or his therapist) weaponized codependency language to harm you? Here’s why codependents anonymous might not be right for you. Is Codependents Anonymous the Answer for Betrayed Wives? When a husband lies and cheats, many women are told: “You’re codependent. You should go to Codependents Anonymous.”But here’s the truth: men often pick up “codependency” language from sexual addiction therapists or marriage counselors, but it’s actually a form of victim blaming. When a professional slaps the “codependent” label on a wife who’s been betrayed, it shifts responsibility for his lying or cheating onto her. Suddenly, she’s told her “neediness” or “lack of boundaries” is part of the problem. How Your Husband May Use Codependents Anonymous Against You Men who abuse and betray find blaming their wife’s codependency useful because if you’re “codependent,” then you share the blame. And you end up working on yourself while he keeps lying. Women already blame themselves enough. Adding a “codependency” label just deepens the confusion, leaving victims focused on self-improvement instead of safety. That’s how the cycle of emotional abuse keeps going. A Better Path ForwardIf you’ve been lied to or betrayed, you don’t need to be labeled. You need support, safety, and clarity. Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions meet daily and offer women the safe space. Transcript: My Husband Weaponized Codependency To Hide The Truth Anne: I’m welcoming Melinda on today’s episode, who is like all of us are. She is the wife of a sex addict. The reason why I wanted her to come on today is that she commented on one of the articles on btr. org. Every single podcast that we do is transcribed and turned into an article and put on Betrayal Trauma Recovery’s website, btr.org. We love people’s comments here. So if you haven’t joined the conversation, I welcome you to do that. Just comment below. And that’s how I met Melinda. So welcome, Melinda. Melinda: Hi there. Thanks for having me. Anne: So let’s start with your story, Melinda. How did your husband weaponize codependency language? Melinda: My husband revealed he had been having an affair. And later revealed he had been seeing a sex masseuse and also abusing pornography. We entered into a process of trying to figure out what was going on. I understood it was not my fault, and that it was something that I felt we could overcome together. He struggled a lot with all of it, and ultimately showed that he couldn’t meet me where I needed to be met, so that I can recover from the betrayal. But for a period of time, he entered 12 step, and he also actually, I should say, has been trained as a counselor. Therapy & Codependency Melinda: And when we entered therapy after the revelations of his betrayal, something kept coming up that was baffling to me. Our therapist reinforced it, that somehow there was something in our dynamic that I was responsible for. That’s why he did what he did and was acting out in the way he was. I was trying to wrap my head around it because I’m a person who takes a lot of responsibility for our own behavior and actions. But I’m like, this doesn’t make any sense. I have also done a lot of work professionally, understanding trauma. So I was already under a trauma orientation, thinking I’m traumatized. Why am I not getting understood here? Why does it keep coming back to something in my psychological makeup that’s creating this dynamic of his acting out behavior? Anne: Essentially, it was trying to get you to take some form of accountability for the situation. Melinda: Yes, and later I kind of understood where this is coming from when I started learning more about 12 step and codependency and what that means. How therapists and some in the 12 step field think about codependency. I realized that a lot of that thinking was damaging to me. And neglected that his acting out was really, I’ve heard you use the term abuse, and I don’t know if I want to use that term, but it was definitely abusive. And a lot of his behavior, aside from the sexual acting out, was passive aggressive covert abuse, Codependency as an Excuse Anne: Emotional abuse in the form of lies and manipulation. Melinda: Yeah, and a charming and playful facade. A lot of it was gaslighty as well. What I realized is that codependency was a great excuse for him to not take responsibility. We had problems prior to this throughout our relationship. The problems in my view was that he did not take accountability for behavior and responsibilities. When the word codependency or the concept of codependency came into our relationship. It just became another tool to gaslight me and deflect. It was confusing for a while, because I want to take accountability. But he used it to not actually address the harm he caused. Anne: There’s that, and then it goes further than that. Because he’s not just using it to avoid accountability for the harm he’s caused. He’s also using it to try and pin it on you. That’s why I call that abuse, because he actively attempts to harm you. Melinda: Yes, yes Anne: I mean, he doesn’t see it that way. He just thinks he’s trying to get away with it, but that is the end result. The end result is that he’s harming you even further by lying about your part. Melinda: Yeah, I became a scapegoat for many, many things, and this just allowed even more scapegoating. You know, his decisions to cheat and all the other stuff were part of that scapegoating. I didn’t understand why this was happening. I was reading a lot of books on how to help your partner heal, and what does reconciliation look like? And I was bringing them to him, and he kept coming up with, why don’t you focus on yourself? Focus on Self vs. Relationship Melinda: And I’m thinking, I’m focusing on what I need to allow you back into my life. And anytime I said, you know, your defensiveness is hurting me. I don’t trust you, you’re not doing trustworthy things. He said, well, stop focusing on me and focus on yourself. It didn’t make sense until I started looking at what codependency tells people. It tells them to focus on themselves, not on others. Which sounds great, but in the hands of an abusive and exploitative person, it can go awry. Anne: Well, and also it’s what they want you to do. They would like you to stop confronting them about their abusive behaviors. So because that’s what they want, they want you to “work on yourself,” which to them means leave me alone. Melinda: And a lot of this is about thinking that you’re controlling. And my orientation, philosophical and spiritual frame. I have a Christian background. But I have more alignment with Buddhist mindfulness practices, as well as I’ve become more of a feminist. I think about feminist psychology much more. I look at it in that frame, and I see a lot of women being held responsible for men’s behavior in the culture. And I think that was just a natural extension of the woman is making me do this. He even intimated that the affair partner was the aggressor in this situation. And that somehow she was this temptress. Anne: What could I do? She kissed me. I couldn’t do anything about it, right? Melinda: So I’m always aware of the gender dynamic, and our therapists played along with it. Therapist’s Role in Abuse Melinda: She was a new therapist. So that was like the double trauma of facing the reality of his infidelity and all that. And then a therapist reflecting it back on me in our supposedly safe setting. Anne: It sounds like the therapist became an extension of the abuse. So let’s go back to where you’re being supportive of his recovery. Did you ever attend 12 step or COSA, which is co sex addicts? Did you ever attend either of those groups? Melinda: I did. What struck me was that I felt in COSA, I had to align with codependency. One of the few times I went for instance, there was one woman agonizing over her partner. Who was holed up in the basement with the computer looking at pornography. He wouldn’t leave the house, and I hear her describe the story. Instead of saying how angry and indignant about how wrong that was. And how inappropriate that was, she went back to, well, I’m going to focus on myself, take care of myself. Challenges in Confronting Abuse Melinda: And I thought, are you allowing abuse in your home because it’s easier? Because you don’t know how to set the boundary or even draw a line? I just felt like she just caved in to feeling like she’s beholden to the situation and must allow it to continue. Anne: I think that happens a lot. Women don’t know what to do, and confronting it seems so difficult. Also the consequences of confronting it seem so difficult. Like, I can’t do that. And so, I’ll focus on myself, which becomes a way for them to do something. I feel a lot of compassion in this stage for victims, because it’s difficult to know what to do. Living with an abuser or divorcing an abuser. Both choices are not good. The best choice is if you could have him not be abusive anymore, which you have no control over. So it’s a way that victims try to empower themselves sometimes. And I think that all of us go through a stage like that. We can hold a space of compassion for ourselves when we were in that stage and others in that stage, as they work through exactly what they need to feel safe, because it takes time. Melinda: Yeah, absolutely, I certainly had to accept where he was in his path. And that it was not in alignment with where I wanted to be. So that definitely took time. Empowerment and Boundaries Melinda: Just really allowing myself to feel how terrible the codependency situation was. And that allowed me to move forward. Realizing that I wasn’t the kind of person who was gonna say, well I’m gonna focus on making myself happy. And let him have his life in our home in our relationship. That wasn’t gonna work for me. I could not abide a relationship with a person taking advantage of the situation to gain advantage of my compassion, my understanding