Emotional abuse affects your body in a variety of ways. Many women in The BTR.ORG Community have experienced devastating emotional, physical, and mental symptoms. Here’s Joyce’s story.

Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions are here for you if you’re experiencing negative health affects of emotional abuse.

Transcript: Emotional Abuse Affects Your Body

Anne: I have a special friend who came to my house today. She is in my basement recording with me. We’re gonna call her Joyce. She’s a member of The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Community, and I know her in real life. The story takes a dramatic turn.

We’ll start with her story and then near the end we’ll talk about how all how emotional abuse affects your body and your health. When you met your husband, soon to be ex, Joyce how would you define his behavior?

Joyce: We met on Tinder and I had actually canceled our first date because I was getting very exhausted by dating.

But when I got home from my first date, I thought he was so nice because he told me that he had picked a smoothie place because it was public and it was short and there were cameras. He thought that would make women feel safe. In my mind, I thought, oh that is so considerate. This guy is looking out for women’s needs. Awesome.

Anne: Man

Joyce: Within a month, we were dating, and within three months, we were engaged.

Anne: I, too, had a very quick engagement. Ah.

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Even First Time Emotional Abuse Affects Your Body

Anne: When did you start recognizing that some of his behaviors weren’t what you were looking for?

Joyce: You know, I struggle with ignoring my first instincts. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Even while we were dating, there were times where I was like, that’s a little odd. I am better at doubting myself than doubting other people. I remember he got really angry at a bill on one of our dates. He thought they had overcharged us and he apologized to them after. It was not something I was comfortable with and didn’t really know how to address.

If I’d known better or was more comfortable with accepting that something is a red flag, I would have made different choices. Even first time emotional abuse affects your body.

Anne: We’ve all been there. You just don’t know what you don’t know, right? Right. Yeah. You get married and when you start recognizing things are really kind of strange, what reasons do you give for this behavior?

Joyce: Yeah, it happened really fast.

Honeymoon Red Flags

Joyce: On our honeymoon, in fact, we went to Hawaii, his choice. At a restaurant, I ordered a ginger beer, which is a non alcoholic beverage, it reminded me of my childhood. My dad would get us ginger beer around Christmas, it was fun.

The drink cost six dollars, it infuriated him that I had spent that kind of money on something. He wasn’t yelling, but he was very stern in the restaurant. When we got into the car, he wouldn’t speak to me.

A tactic that he started using then and used throughout our marriage was to say, “Help me understand why you made that decision, Joyce. Why did you do that?” I said, “I don’t understand what the big deal is. I I don’t know when I’m coming to Hawaii again. It’s our honeymoon. I just thought it would be fun. Why you’re so upset about a drink.” He apologized.

I think that’s one of the few times he apologized for an overreaction. I know it’s triggering to say overreaction, but it is actually an overreaction. Oh, for him, yeah.

Joyce: Yes, for additional context, I paid for the meal. I was not putting an expense on him, I was paying for it. The next morning I was still feeling unsettled, emotional abuse affects your body. He was still asleep. I went for a walk around the block and I thought, okay, this must be what marriage is like. It’s going to be fine. It was in fact, not fine.

Anne: It was not fine, but you didn’t know that. Right, you didn’t know that.

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Marriage & Emotional Abuse Isolation Begins

Anne: Did you tell anyone about this back then?

Joyce: No. For context, this was his second marriage. He was married before, very briefly in his mid twenties. Other people potentially inferred he was the issue. He said he was very uncomfortable with us talking about things to other people.

He started putting restrictions on what I could and couldn’t say to people very early on. The restrictions increased. Anytime he caught me talking to someone, or if I said anything out of line, it would result in a serious argument.

Anne: Okay. An emotional abuse episode. But you didn’t know to call it that back then? No.

Joyce: Yeah.

Anne: What did you think about him? Did you think it was you? Did you think it was him? What was your thought process back then?

Joyce: I one hundred percent thought it was me. Absolutely, I thought it was me. I’d never been in a long term relationship. He seemed more well spoken than I, and he framed himself as more intelligent.

He’d been married before. Right, more experienced. I felt, I thought, oh, it must be me. I don’t know what I’m doing. He would frame my friends and family as weird or odd.  I didn’t have good influences. I didn’t know how to appropriately, in his words, behave.

Anne: for the amount of time I’ve known you, you are always behaving appropriately. I can’t even imagine what he would be talking about.

Emotional Abuse Affects Your Body: Sexual Coercion

Anne: Did you know about any porn or infidelity

Joyce: Yes, shortly before we got engaged he told me that he had a porn addiction that had surfaced after his first marriage. He told me it was not a problem while he was in a relationship.

Only when he was not in a relationship did he have this problem. In other words, in my mind, if he’s getting his needs met, if you know what I mean, then it’s not a problem. I just responded with empathy and I said, I know it must be so difficult. Is there anything I can do to support you? He said, that’s it.

That’s all you need to do. I did go into the marriage knowing he had a porn addiction.

Anne: Did he use that against you? Threaten, like, you know I have a porn addiction if I don’t get sex?

Joyce: It was definitely implied that if he was getting his needs met, then he would not have that issue.

The pressure definitely was on me and if I didn’t comply with what he wanted, then I was the instigator of his porn addiction at that point. He would use it as a tool to manipulate me in other ways. Like if he wanted privacy, he would accuse me of spying on him, which I was absolutely not doing. I would just come in to see him and say, Hey, how are you doing?

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Psychological Abuse Affects Your Body

He would be in his office. He said, I don’t like it when you do that. If I’m in here, you have to knock. If I don’t give you permission to come in, don’t come in. Otherwise I feel like you’re spying on me, which out of context is insane. In the marriage, it just made me feel like, oh my gosh, I’m the worst wife ever. That he thinks I would spy on him.

Anne: He knows by now that all wives observe their husbands. So, he had something going on that he didn’t want you to know about.

Joyce: I do believe that now. I have no proof of that. I never spied on him. Never opened his phone, his computer, anything like that. I have no evidence of that, but his behavior would suggest that, yeah.

Anne: Well, and he told you that.

Joyce: Right. Misplaced trust as it turns out, but that’s how I