Betrayal Trauma Recovery

Many women quietly search how to prepare for divorce long before they say anything out loud. Preparing for divorce isn’t just paperwork. It’s emotional, strategic, and deeply personal. How To Prepare for Divorce: A Practical Guide for Women Below are four essential steps to help you prepare for divorce with clarity. 1. Get Educated About Divorce When women start researching how to prepare for divorce, they often focus only on legal logistics. But emotional and communication strategies matter just as much. It’s important to understand… How to set boundaries during separation How some spouses escalate when control shifts What communication patterns protect you What NOT to disclose too early 2. Profile Your Husband One of the most overlooked parts of learning how to prepare for divorce is predicting how your husband will react. Why this matters: Divorce often changes dynamics. A man who seemed calm in marriage may become reactive when he realizes he is losing control. Knowing likely behaviors ahead of time allows you to: Plan communication carefully Avoid unnecessary confrontations Protect documentation Prepare emotionally Strategic preparation reduces chaos. The Living Free Workshop walks women through identifying patterns so they can anticipate reactions before filing papers. 3. Find the Right Emotional Support Preparing for divorce can feel isolating. Even strong, capable women feel shaken. You may need: A space to process fear Validation when others minimize Guidance on specific issues that aren’t covered on divorce “checklists” Community with women who understand A support group like Betrayal Trauma Recovery provides emotional support tailored specifically for women navigating betrayal and separation. The team at Betrayal Trauma Recovery are not just certified divorce coaches, they’re trauma-informed coaches who understand the emotional toll of deception, gaslighting, and chronic instability. Divorce may be a legal process, but it’s also an emotional journey. Having the right support can make the difference. 4. Have Hope That You Can Thrive After Divorce When researching how to prepare for divorce, many women feel fear about the unknown: What will life look like? Will I regret this? Will my kids be okay? Can I really rebuild? Worry is normal. But listening to stories from other women who have walked this road can provide strength. The FREE Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast shares real experiences from women who navigated divorce and found clarity, safety, and stability on the other side. Hearing those stories can help you see that divorce isn’t the end of your story. Transcript: How To Prepare For Divorce Anne: I have asked my friend Debra Doak author of High Conflict Divorce for Women, Your Guide to Coping Skills and Learning Strategies for All Stages of Divorce. So for women wondering how to prepare for divorce, this interview is for you. Welcome Debra. Debra: Thank you. I’m thrilled to be here. How Common Is Divorce Regret? Anne: So many women who have been through a divorce are like, ah, things would have gone so much better if I would have known this. Or if I would have known that. Debra: We don’t know what we don’t know. And as traumatized women, we often either underreact or overreact. Both of those things can put us in a poor position when it comes to divorce. We’re also often the lower earners, or stay at home parents, and can get hurt quickly in this process if not prepared, get caught off guard. We’re also more likely to make emotional decisions, instead of strategic decisions looking out for long-term well-being. And as we know, we are also likely to trust when trust isn’t really deserved. When you trust an untrustworthy person in divorce, sometimes that can come back to bite you. Anne: A lot of women aren’t interested in doing the Living Free Workshop, even though it’s for married, separated and divorced women. It’s just about strategy, but they don’t want to do it because they think. I only need to think about strategy in the worst case scenario. They want to focus on their marriage working out. Debra: When women are trying to make that stay, wait, or go decision. Having been through betrayal trauma myself, we take baby steps. Let’s get copies of financial documents, get a little more in the loop on finances. Let’s start setting a little money aside. So we kind of just put the tip our toe in the water of getting ready. Observing from a Safe Distance Debra: While we’re going to give 150%, 100% to the marriage, and maybe 50 or 40 percent to setting yourself up just in case. Anne: Yeah, that’s exactly what the Living Free Workshop is about, how to observe from a safe distance. While determining his true character, what reality anticipates is what’s going to happen next. Also focusing on your own goals. So there is a section of Living Free that educates women about divorce. If they’re not interested, they can skip that part. But it’s just basic divorce education, which is important for every woman to have no matter what her situation is. Debra: Yeah, definitely is. I mean, preparation makes any divorce go more smoothly. Because when we act out of fear, we don’t make good decisions. And so even if you don’t have a high conflict person, divorce can still be very conflicted. In the case where you’ve been with an emotional abuser, you need to be prepared for what could happen. There’s a great test to see if he’s emotionally abusive, click here for that. The sense of entitlement that’s allowed them to behave in the ways they’ve behaved during the marriage. It is also a sense of entitlement that can cause a switch to flip when the woman decides to divorce them. Anne: Yeah, it’s hard to even wrap your head around the fact that they might flip that switch. And that happened in my case, it happens in almost every case I see. Where a woman was manipulated to think he would always pay child support or alimony. How To Secretly Prepare For Divorce Anne: And to be in the position where he’s not even remotely, the person you thought he was, is so alarming. And because we’ve all been through that stage where we think, he’s not going to do that to me. That’s not going to happen to me. I think all women, I mean, in high school or college, or somewhere, we all need education about divorce. Debra: For the women who don’t believe it’s going to happen to them. A common, what I call, dirty divorce trick is spousal starvation, and suddenly he reroutes that paycheck. Now you don’t have gas and groceries. What are you going to do? I hope your husband is a nice guy and negotiates fairly throughout, but what harm would it do if we had a little emergency savings account? What would it hurt if you took a few steps to protect you just in case? Anne: Yeah, because as you start getting healthier and setting boundaries. They will either improve, and they’re going to get it, or they’re going to get worse. But it’s not going to stay the same. Debra: It’ll change one way or the other. Either they will have a sense of guilt, remorse and empathy. Or, like I said, that sense of entitlement will come bubbling to the surface, and suddenly it becomes their money. And how dare you? So we just ask the what if questions. You’ve had a friend that went through a bad divorce. What if your husband did that? Maybe take a few baby steps to protect yourself. How To Financially Prepare For Divorce Debra: In this day and age, it seems like betrayal is rampant. Sometimes it’s financial betrayal. And sometimes they actually don’t know for sure. They don’t have any proof, but a wife knows the truth. She may not know the facts, but she knows the truth. When you’re with an emotional abuser, there’s often financial abuse involved. So women may not have access to information about their marital finances. That makes it hard to get started if you don’t even know what’s on the table to be divided. If you don’t have access to your own money. So that makes things really hard. Often the abuse will still keep her in a one-down position. And she still feels like she doesn’t have the power and voice to stand up for what she deserves. Anne: To all my listeners, this is important. They’re going to get mad no matter what. So please don’t make decisions thinking, okay, he’s going to get mad if I do this. So I’m not going to do it to avoid making him mad. He’s going to be mad, no matter what. So just do whatever you want. That’s very, very important. Because so many women are trying to stop the abuse by doing what he wants. And that is not going to happen. Debra: Not at all. Not at all. Women in abusive situations need to start creating this exit strategy in stealth mode. So that when he gets crazy, she’s at least got a few things in place. So she has copies of financial documents in a safe space, because they disappear. She’s got some money set aside because money disappears. Those kinds of things. How To ThrivE After Divorce Debra: There are no winners in divorce. So everyone walks away feeling like they didn’t get what they wanted. One thing I see often with betrayed women is expecting the court system to mete out emotional justice. He cheated on me, so why do I have to do with less? Why do I have to live in a small apartment? Why do I have to drive a used car? Whatever the what if is or why. And unless it’s something really egregious that’s going to shock the court, there’s no emotional justice. What we want to come away from a divorce with is a settlement where we made intentional decisions. And that we can feel good about. So we had all the information we needed, and every choice was intentional. Sometimes you will give up something that you were entitled to in order to get something else. And that’s okay, as long as it was an intentional decision as you prepare for divorce. So we just don’t want to come away feeling like we were missing information or a victim. Because what that does, and you’ll get this, it impacts their ability to recover from it afterwards. Divorce can be a bump in the road. It doesn’t have to be your destination. And so the more empowered you feel during the process, even though crappy things are happening, and he’s mean and unfair. And you may not get everything you want. If you can feel like you were informed you’re going to recover and move through that healing phase so much faster. Anne: Yeah. that’s the point of the Living Free Workshop. How To Prepare For Divorce Emotionally Anne: On our BTR Team, our coaches are betrayal trauma coaches. They’re also certified divorce coaches, so they can walk you through this and help you implement the Living Free strategies. They can help you prepare and stealth mode. Like she was talking about. The other thing our coaches do is help you work through those emotions. Debra: Yeah, when we talk about preparing for divorce, I talk about two people you need on your team. And that’s, I call a BFF backup. This is the person you can call at three in the morning, who can pick your kids up from school. Who knows what you’re thinking before you do. When they say, how are you? And you say, I’m okay. They go, no, you’re not. So you need a BFF backup and a taskmaster. Your taskmaster friend is someone who might not sit with their arm around you, but there’s someone who will research attorneys for you. We’ll do all the real estate legwork. We’ll go to the grocery for you. Someone who will do the things that you’re too emotionally crippled to even deal with. And then you need a safe place to share and be real. Because emotional regulation is key during this process, and by regulating or managing your emotions, I don’t mean stuffing them. What I mean is having some place safe with a coach, a super healthy friend or family member to get that stuff out. So that you can be strategic in your planning, and you want to have a safe place to get those emotions out. And then you also want to get the affirmation that what you’re feeling is normal as you prepare for divorce. Preparation For Divorce​ makes A Huge Difference Debra: Women say, I can’t remember where my keys are. I’m crying all the time. Of course you are. Of course, you feel that way. Look at what you’re going through. In divorce care, they tell you that sometimes, I think 80 percent of your brain can be occupied with thoughts about divorce. If you think about a computer, 80 percent of your computer’s RAM is busy processing thoughts about the divorce. And only 20 percent is available for your daily living. Of course, you’re going to forget your keys. Anne: Here are two concrete examples. I wasn’t able to read written instructions well. And so I asked a friend whose daughter was in my son’s preschool at the time. My son and her daughter were going to the same preschool, and we would get these emails or texts about what was happening. I couldn’t process them. I would try. I’d look at them and I’d be like, Oh, something about a hat. You know, I couldn’t figure it out. And so I asked her, I said, I can’t process written information in these emails and texts. So keep this in mind when your preparing for divorce. If something is important, will you please call me or send a text and say, send him in a hat like the simplest text possible? Just one thing, so I didn’t have to read the explanation or whatever, and she was happy to do that for me. And so she would call or send me a very simple text. Now, a lot of people don’t have a friend like that, but I think they can develop a friend like that. Help With Divorce Paperwork Anne: There might be someone who goes to church with you, someone in your neighborhood, another woman maybe who has been through it, who you didn’t realize who could help you out. It’s scary to ask, but I have found that a lot of people say yes. I think the scariest part is actually asking. Debra: It is. People will tell you, if you need anything, let me know. But they don’t know what you need. But they really do want to help. If you have a leaking faucet, someone wants to fix it for you. Someone wants to help you go over your documents. Someone wants to help you do those things. They don’t say that out of routine or ritual. They want to help. Because they just don’t know what you need. Anne: I think another traumatic situation here is the person who used to fix your faucet. And the person who helped you with your legal documents is your husband. There’s this other element of I need help, and the person who is helping me isn’t here, and what do I do? I’m alone! Like, he used to fix the faucet. That is also really traumatic through this time. Debra: It is because for your support, you need a coach, an attorney, a financial person. But you need to think ahead, so that you can keep yourself more centered and stable. Anne: This is why you need all these people in your corner. Because you’re rightfully and normally reacting to a really, really hard situation when you’re preparing for divorce. Debra: Exactly, it’s normal. Of course you are. Let’s get you set up for success. Make Self-care a Priority When Filing For Divorce​ Anne: Because if you say you should be able to handle this, why can’t you read? Why can’t you blah, blah, blah. You’re just going to get more and more depressed and overwhelmed. Debra: Right, yeah. Just to know that it’s normal. There are things you’re going to have trouble with. So how can we put measures in place to fill those gaps until you’re ready? And it might be a month, and it might be six months, but let’s think through who can help you. And that’s one of the things your taskmaster can do. Your taskmaster can find other people. Well, who can fix my faucet? Who can cut my grass? Who can do these things? Your taskmaster friend can do that. Anne: What do you believe are the most important things for listeners facing a high conflict divorce to know ahead of time? Debra: First of all, self care. When we’re going through a stressful time, one of our first tendencies is to cut back on self care. Because we have our normal life. Plus, now I have to fit in attorney appointments and financial appointments. And like I’ve added to my daily stress. And so we tend to cut back on self care, but what you need to do is double it. Because especially if you were in an abusive marriage, you developed coping mechanisms to get through the day with that partner. Those aren’t going to work anymore during divorce, so you have to make sure your tank is full. So increasing self care is important. We talked about safe people and a support team. You cannot do divorce alone. It’s too hard. You’re too traumatized. So get the right people around you as you prepare for divorce. Using Social Media During A Divorce Debra: Work on regulating your emotions so that you can make strategic decisions. Get the right help to process them. Vent to safe people. Because you want to make decisions you feel good about. Again, you may not get everything you want, but you at least want to feel empowered and informed. Shut down your social media. Block everyone he’s friends with. If his family supports him, block them, unfriend them. Don’t post anything. Live like a nun, especially if you’re going to be in a custody battle. Anne: I could not agree more. I deleted all my social media accounts, and I would highly recommend that for people. Debra: Don’t be out at a concert with a cocktail in your hand. Just don’t do it. Even though it’s fun and you want to show your friends that you went to the Jimmy Buffett concert, don’t do it. And then be careful of Switzerland friends. Those are people, they love both of you. He’s a great guy. We just want to be friends with both of you. No, absolutely not. And you don’t have to be cold or cruel about it, but take a step back. If you run in the same circles and you’re around them, just be very cautious what you say. Don’t discuss your divorce. Don’t discuss your partner. We talked about Switzerland friends, shutting down your social media, those kind of things. If you don’t keep control of yourself and what you say and do, it could be used against you. So it can hurt your case. If you’re preparing for divorce you need to keep this in mine, if you act out or send that email or send that text. Those things could be used against you. So it’s not in your best interest. How To Mentally Prepare For A Divorce Debra: Other people can get hurt when you’re not managing your emotions, and specifically your children. It’s the hardest thing to model healthy behavior to your children while you’re under this stress. It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do in your life. Yet it’s the most important thing. And then finally, and you talked about this, we can’t make good decisions when we’re crying, and we can’t think about it. And our brain isn’t working right. So being able to maintain that sense of calm and clarity and focus on our purpose. Focus on the end game instead of living in the moment. Is critical to making good decisions as you prepare for divorce. Anne: Did you watch Marriage Story? Debra: I did. The emotion of it didn’t surprise me, the hurt, you know, the pain, the anger. What surprised me was how realistic their portrayal was of how our legal system creates litigious situations. When they don’t have to be. Anne: It was interesting that he had an affair, so there’s a betrayal. I listened to Pop Culture Happy Hour. They reviewed it, and they were like, this is a situation where you’ve got a nice man and a nice woman, and this is how divorce goes. They didn’t weigh the betrayal at all. It carried no weight in terms of fault. Instead, they focused on the idea that the couple had grown apart or weren’t really compatible. And I thought this is why so many women feel so betrayed in general. Because society in general doesn’t understand this. Although it showed the legal system well, I don’t think it got to the heart of the cause. Preparing For Divorce: Common Themes Debra: I agree. They glossed over the betrayal, and I think that’s just so indicative of culture. Culture says, eh, no big deal. Or culture says, well, you know, she wasn’t sleeping with him, so what’s a guy supposed to do? That patriarchal attitude is still so prevalent in society that nobody blinked at that. Anne: I know, I thought the part where her attorney, Nora, said you have to be perfect, and he doesn’t have to be perfect. It was so spot on. Debra: Spot on, the judges need to hear what they want to hear, and see. This is important as you prepare for the divorce, the judges and magistrates are looking for something from you, and you better present it. Anne: Well, yeah, I mean, it’s so traumatic. There are so many reasons why divorce is so traumatic that it just overwhelms your brain, you know? Debra: There are so many reasons, and they’re always individual. But there are three common themes: money, kids, and conflict. So often, women have been kept out of the loop in terms of finances, or stay at home moms or lower earners. And they’re worried, can they support themselves? They’re often worried about the impact this will have on their children. And they’re worried about the conflict, because we know that when we’re married to abusers, they don’t like to be told no. Sometimes you have to pick your hard when we’re on the fence, and work through that decision. Because it’s also hard to stay married to an abuser. The Right Support When Preparing For Divorce Anne: The thing that so many women appreciate about Betrayal Trauma Recovery Services is that our goal is to give women information. And then to validate and support them. So there’s never going to be a time when someone comes to Betrayal Trauma Recovery, where we say you have to get divorced. We give women the education they need, give them their options, and then help them assess what’s right for them. Can you talk about how Betrayal Trauma Recovery coaches support women through making their own decisions? Debra: The first thing a Betrayal Trauma Recovery coach will do is help a woman seek peace and safety. So helping them observe their partner’s patterns of behavior, helping them set the boundaries they need. And determining if they need to set the next boundary, the next boundary, and the next boundary. So when the boundaries aren’t working and they have to set tighter or stronger boundaries, that’s when we start to see separation or financial separation or start to take those bigger steps. And so when they get to that point, that’s when the word divorce starts coming up in their mind and they start thinking, Hmm, I wonder if this will have to be the next step I take. So you can pray your husband recovers. And simultaneously, get yourself knowledgeable about what it would look like if I took this other path toward divorce. And for many women, we go back and forth for a long time. When I prepare divorce, how will I know when it’s time to go? How To Prepare For Divorce As A Woman Debra: You will have a crystalline moment of clarity. There comes for most women, a time when the heavens open up, a spotlight shines down, and you know, today’s the day. When that happens for you, when you have that moment of clarity, I want you to be ready and not afraid. So if we have all this information, you will be prepared for what divorce will look like, and you know what you’re stepping into. When the heavens open and the spotlight shines on you, and you know today’s the day, you’ll simply nod your head and say, okay. I’m not scared. Anne: And that day might never come. Debra: It might never. It might be next week, a year from now or it might never come. But if it does, you’ll be ready. Anne: There are so many things that those who have gone through divorce wish we had known long before we even started considering it. Because it would have helped prepare us. So at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, like I said before, our coaches are certified divorce coaches. They can help women anticipate things, and women can get assistance through group sessions or individual sessions. Can you talk about the difference between group and individual sessions here at BTR? The BTR Team Can Help You Prepare For Divorce Debra: Sure, Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group is where you can get help tackling a particular high level issue. For instance, can you give me a few tips on how to talk to a six year old about this? And so, in three or four minutes, a BTR coach might give a couple of high level tips about age appropriate conversation, great. In an individual session, they can look at your finances. Look at your budget. Talk through a strategy to get back to work. They can help you make negotiation decisions, get into the meat of it. Talk about how to pick the right attorney for your case, who else you might need on your team. Like, they can dive into the details of your particular situation that probably aren’t appropriate for group. And so you can get really individual stuff there in order to prepare for divorce. It makes a big difference to actually look at your spreadsheets and numbers, especially if you haven’t been involved in your finances. Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions can educate you about some of that. Anne: Exactly, and some of that’s kind of DIY in the Living Free Workshop, or if you need help implementing those strategies, you can do Group or Individual Sessions. So, if a woman is listening and she thinks divorce might be in her future, what are some of the first steps that she should take? Debra: The first thing I want to say is what you shouldn’t do. Please do not tell your spouse. I don’t want you to put that out there until you can get educated about it in the workshop. Just make sure you aren’t deciding not to divorce, because a fear that’s not rooted in truth is standing in your way. Here’s How To Financially Prepare For Divorce​ Debra: A woman who lived in the San Francisco Bay area where it’s expensive. She thought I can never ever afford to leave. There’s no way. I’m miserable, I want to leave, but I can’t afford to. And when she looked at the numbers, her budget was only short a thousand dollars a month. Then she thought, I can find a way to earn two hundred and fifty dollars a week. So is that fear holding you back? Make sure it’s not a false fear that’s holding you back. I’m not trying to get you to decide, I just want you to have truth. At Betrayal Trauma Recovery, it’s all about truth. All truth all the time. Anne: Yeah, and it’s painful, especially when so many of us come from a religious background. So it feels like maybe “betraying” our husband. I’m going to say that in quotes, because obviously we’re not, because he betrayed us. Also in so many ways it feels like we’re betraying God. Debra: So that’s another one of those fears. Decide to face our fears. See if they’re real. Because regardless of the conflict and regardless of the parenting. For the most part, divorce is breaking a legal contract about money. That’s what many decisions will be about. That’s what the law is written about. So, understand the money involved as your preparing for divorce. Do you have access to your tax returns, your husband’s pay stub, or W 2? Do you know how much is in your retirement account? How much your house is worth? What’s the balance on your mortgage? Do you know what your monthly expenses are? It’s good to have the financial information before you consult with an attorney, so that an attorney can estimate of spousal support and child support. How To Tell Your Husband You Want A Divorce Debra: That’s what we need to help fill in our budget. If one of your fears is, well, I’ve been a stay at home mom, I don’t think I can support myself. Well, then the income line in your budget will be mostly child support and spousal support. So that’s important information to know. So gather some of the financials before you consult with an attorney. That way, that meeting will be much more productive for you. Anne: If a woman decides she wants to divorce, she’s prepared. She’s worked with a Betrayal Trauma Recovery coach. She’s done everything she needs to do, and she’s ready to do it. When is the right time to tell her husband that she wants a divorce? Debra: You are an expert on your husband. One of the preparation steps, and you’ll go through this in the workshop, is setting up a bank account. And making sure you have emergency funds, because a dirty divorce trick abusers like to play is move their paycheck and not give you access to any money. So if you think that’s the case, you tell him the same day you file the paperwork. Anne: So many women in our community, me included, did not think our husband was like that. And then we found out that he is like this. It was shocking to us during the divorce process. Like in my case, he shut down our bank account. And really, the abuse starts to be very overt. Where perhaps, before it was covert. For me, it was shocking and upsetting, but it was also like, I guess, I made the right decision. When Can You File For Divorce? Debra: It’s confirmation, yeah. Anne: Yeah, because it was like, whoa, when divorcing an abusive husband, he’s getting more and more deliberate and harmful through this, not less. And it will hurt you, but you can also think, Oh, okay, this is another sign that I’m making the right decision. Debra: We, as women, have such a tendency to wait until the bullets start flying before we put on our armor. And I want women in abusive relationships to know, if he says, don’t worry, I’m going to be fair. Don’t worry, I’ll always take care of you and the kids. If this is a person who’s been deceiving you for a decade, I’m not sure we should take that statement at face value. Let’s prepare for divorce and assume it’s not true. And if it turns out that he negotiates in good faith and takes care of you, that’ll be a bonus. Anne: Because this is someone who looked you straight in the eye and said, of course, I’m faithful to my marriage vows and had an affair. Debra: Let’s just make sure we have on our Kevlar vest just in case. So the best time to tell him is when it’s done. This is another thing a Betrayal Trauma Recovery coach can help with is preparing you for that conversation. One alternative is not to have the conversation. If you are already separated, you can simply file and have him served. If you want to have the conversation, the conversation is very simple. It’s, this is a decision I’ve made, it’s what I need to do for me. What Happens When You File For Divorce​ Debra: When he rails against it, you can say, I hear you’re mad, I hear you’re upset, I hear this isn’t the way you wanted it to go. This is the decision I’ve made for me. He’s gonna throw accusations at you, and you don’t need to defend yourself. You don’t need to explain why you chose to do it. Or you don’t have to tell him all the ways he hurt you. You simply repeat, this is a decision I felt like I needed to make. Anne: Yeah, because as I explained in the Living Free Workshop, if you try to explain it, or you’re hoping somehow, you can get some resolution with an emotional abuser like this. It’s not going to go that way. He’s going to use it to abuse you more. Debra: Correct, we don’t mention divorce when we prepare until we are doing it. It is never a threat. It’s never an incentive. It’s never a punishment. So, this conversation is only a notification conversation. Then he may throw declarations, you’ll never get a penny, you’ll never see the children, I’m getting full custody, you’ll be homeless. Whatever these declarations are, my best response is to say, we’ll see, that’s it. This is not a time where you’re going to negotiate, don’t fight back, don’t explain, you simply say, this is a decision that I feel like I need to make. If he throws those accusations or declarations out, you simply say, we’ll see, and that’s it. that’s the end of the conversation. Anne: Yep, I learned the hard way, which was why I was so passionate about writing the Living Free Workshop. Because I didn’t want any other woman to learn the hard way. The Best Preparation For Divorce: The Living Free Workshop Anne: But I totally get it. If you’re listening and you’re like. I don’t want to do the Living Free Workshop. I’m not interested in learning about this. I get it. Because I was there for a long time too. In my own experience, I just wish I had known what I know now. That’s all. And that’s why I want to share it with you. Especially because the strategies in the Living Free Workshop feel so counterintuitive. It’s not like anything a therapist will tell you or anybody else. It’s completely different. Debra: Yes. Anne: Can you go deeper about why it’s important to work with someone who understands this abuse dynamic when they’re getting a divorce. Instead of just getting support from like a regular therapist, or even trying to get emotional support from your attorney or sister? Debra: I just demonstrated one of them, helping you plan for that conversation so that it goes well and you can stay as safe as possible in that conversation. If you let your emotions, or your amygdala, your fight, flight, or freeze, reflex, drive what you’re doing in the divorce. You won’t fare as well. If a coach can keep you calm and emotionally regulated, so that you can make informed strategic decisions. You will do a lot better emotionally, financially and relationally. You’ll be a better mom through the process. You’ll help your kids navigate the process better. Your attorney is not an expert on the emotions in divorce. They’re an expert in the legal process. Anne: Many women want to talk to their attorney a lot, getting validation from their attorney. Or even want their attorney to be their therapist, which is an expensive way to go. How To Start Preparing for divorce Anne: The Living Free Workshop and Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group are much less expensive than an attorney’s hourly fee. Debra: And they’re better at it. Anne: Yeah. Debra: Just to say that. They’re better at supporting women in trauma when they prepare for divorce. An attorney is not skilled at it, trained at it, and they haven’t been through it. Anne: Don’t look to your attorney for emotional support or validation or anything like that. It’s not what they’re trained to do, and it will be frustrating and extremely expensive. Debra: And they won’t help you be a better mom, stay grounded, and make the best decisions for you. They’ll tell you what the law says about how it works. Mediation can be a decent choice, but you have to be prepared for that. And you need someone strong in your corner helping you prepare for mediation. Anne: To get more information about the Living Free Workshop, click this link. It’s amazing. It’s helpful. You also need support. And that’s what Betrayal Trauma Recovery group sessions are all about. Group sessions you can get in every day. It’s an amazing resource. So thanks for your help today. Debra. Debra: I love it. I love it. Betrayal Trauma Recovery is an amazing organization. it’s what I wish I’d had. Anne: Yeah, me too.

​Are you looking for a therapist for trauma bonding​ because someone told you that you’re trauma bonded with your emotionally abusive husband (or ex)? Here’s what no one will tell you: What People Get Wrong About “Trauma Bonding” People often use the phrase “trauma bonding” to describe a victim’s attachment to an abusive partner. But traditionally, a trauma bond refers to something very different. True Trauma Bonding Examples A trauma bond forms when people go through a traumatic event together, such as: Siblings growing up in the same abusive home Friends surviving a violent घटना together A family experiencing a natural disaster In these cases, shared trauma created a bond. Both people were victims of the same event. That’s not what’s happening in an abusive relationship. Why “Therapy for Trauma Bonding” Can Be Misleading If you’re thinking about getting a therapist for trauma bonding, you may be trying to understand why you feel attached to someone who hurts you. But labeling your experience as a “bond” can unintentionally shift responsibility onto you. It can make it seem like: You’re choosing this connection You’re emotionally dependent in a way that’s your fault You need to “break your attachment” But what if the attachment isn’t something you created? What if he manufactured it? The Manufactured Relational Tether Instead of a trauma bond, what many women experience is something different: A manufactured relational tether. This happens he creates a cycle of: Chaos Confusion Emotional harm Intermittent relief He destabilizes you…then becomes the one who soothes you. Not because you chose it. But because it was engineered. It’s actually emotional abuse. To find out if you’re experiencing this, take my free emotional abuse test. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QleyqobSRCQ How to Break a Trauma Bond without Therapy If you’ve been told you need therapy for trauma bonding, you may feel… dependent on him, even when you don’t want to both drawn to him and repelled by him confused by his words vs. his actions frustrated with yourself for not “just leaving” like this must somehow be your fault relief when he’s kind—even if it’s brief That doesn’t mean you’re “bonded” to him. But it does mean that he’s lying to you by creating cycles of harm and relief. If you’re trying to heal from your marriage without therapy, there’s another way. I’ll share it with you below. 14 Signs You Don’t Need a Therapist for Trauma Bonding​ He withdraws, then gives affection when you’re distressed when he… isolates you from supportive people makes you doubt your perception of reality alternates between kindness and cruelty controls resources like money or access undermines your confidence creates problems he later “fixes” pushes your boundaries repeatedly positions himself as the victim uses other people to provoke insecurity gives approval only sometimes acts different in public vs. private promises change but doesn’t follow through blames you for his behavior witholds affection This isn’t a mutual bond. It’s a pattern of control. Why This Distinction Matters If you believe you’re “trauma bonded,” you may think, I need to heal myself to break this bond. But if what you’re experiencing is manipulation, then the path forward is different. You don’t need to fix yourself. You need clarity. One woman shared: “I thought I was the problem because I couldn’t detach. But once I understood the pattern, everything changed.” Moving Forward (Without Blaming Yourself) Here’s the think, I don’t think you need therapy for trauma bonding, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need support. You may need someone to help you: See the pattern clearly Understand emotional and psychological abuse Learn how to protect yourself Rebuild trust in your own perception At Betrayal Trauma Recovery, women learn how to step out of confusion and into clarity. And once you can see it clearly, you can begin to move forward—with truth, with support, and with your sense of self intact. So how do you break free… Open up to a safe person or safe group, check out my online trauma bond support group. Become educated about betrayal trauma and what causes it Practice radical self-care daily Take my Living Free Workshop. “Best information source for betrayal trauma. Instead of unhelpful trauma bonding examples, this gave me hope that I could move forward. Thank you, Anne, for writing this.“ Many women don’t realize how dangerous this type of manipulation is. In fact, experts who work with trafficking victims describe the exact same cycles: grooming confusion emotional dependency intermittent kindness fear of leaving hope that he’ll change

How do you listen to a podcast without your husband knowing? Here’s a step-by-step guide for women who need truth, privacy, and peace. Have you ever thought, “I need help, but I don’t want anyone to know I’m looking for it”? If so, this guide is for you. Maybe you’ve seen videos from Betrayal Trauma Recovery and want to dive deeper, but you’re not sure how do you listen to a podcast, or do it privately—especially if your husband shares your devices, tracks your history, or even works with you. Don’t worry. You’re not alone. And you don’t need to be tech-savvy to start. By the end of this article, you’ll know: What is a podcast? How do you listen to a podcast safely and privately. How to subscribe to a podcast, including the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast The best podcast apps for women in your situation When to listen to ensure you’re stay safe Why this podcast is different (and why it might change your life) Let’s get started. WHAT IS A PODCAST? At its core, a podcast is like an on-demand radio show you can listen to anytime, from anywhere—right on your phone, computer, or smart speaker. The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast is a weekly show made for women who have just discovered her husband’s lies. Each episode is short (usually under 30 minutes), free to listen to, and 100% private. HOW TO LISTEN TO A PODCAST (IN 3 SIMPLE STEPS) You don’t need a computer science degree or a secret burner phone. Here’s how do you listen to a podcast without your husband knowing: STEP 1: CHOOSE A PODCAST APP If you have a smartphone, you’re already halfway there. For iPhone users: Open the Apple Podcasts app (already installed on your phone) OR download Spotify for free from the App Store For Android users: Download Spotify from the Play Store OR download Youtube Music from the Play Store This app is discreet, free, and don’t require you to sign in to start listening. STEP 2: SEARCH FOR THE PODCAST Open your app and search:“Betrayal Trauma Recovery”You’ll see our podcast cover (usually with Anne Blythe’s name on it). Tap it. Then tap “Follow” (or “Subscribe” depending on the app). STEP 3: HOW DO YOU LISTEN TO A PODCAST: STREAM OR DOWNLOAD EPISODES You can stream episodes instantly (if you have Wi-Fi or data)ORTap the download icon (a little arrow pointing down) to save an episode for later. Once you’re done listening, you can delete it from the app. No trace. No history. 5 WAYS, HOW DO YOU LISTEN TO A PODCAST WITHOUT YOUR HUSBAND FINDING OUT Here are a few extra privacy tips for those in sensitive situations: 1. USE HEADPHONES OR AIRPODS Even a single earbud can let you listen during chores, errands, or lunch breaks—without drawing attention. 2. USE PRIVATE BROWSING Go to btr.org/podcast in an Incognito or Private browser window. That way, nothing gets saved to your search history. 3. HOW DO YOU LISTEN TO A PODCAST: DELETE YOUR LISTENING HISTORY On most podcast apps, you can delete your playback or download history manually. (Quick Google search: “how to delete podcast history [app name]”) 4. USE A HIDDEN APP FOLDER If you’re concerned about someone checking your apps, tuck Spotify or Apple Podcasts into a discreetly named folder—like “Utilities” or “Weather.” 5. USE BREAKS STRATEGICALLY Take a “walk to the mailbox” or a “cleaning the back room” break and press play. This is emotional self-care. BEST TIMES TO LISTEN TO A PODCAST (EVEN IF YOU’RE EXHAUSTED) You don’t need an hour. Or even need total silence. You just need some laundry to fold. Try listening during: Morning routine (shower, makeup, coffee) School drop-off or pickup Folding laundry or doing dishes Grocery shopping (one earbud in your hoodie) Late at night when the house is finally quiet Even 10 minutes can calm your nervous system and help you feel seen. HOW TO LEAVE A REVIEW (SO MORE WOMEN FIND HELP) If Betrayal Trauma Recovery has helped you feel less alone, consider leaving a short review. It helps other women—maybe even one sitting in a salon storage closet on her break—find the support she desperately needs. Just open the app, go to the podcast’s main page, scroll down, and tap “Write a Review.” THE PODCAST THAT COULD SAVE YOUR SANITY If you’re wondering what’s really going on in your marriage… Or you’ve been blamed for your trauma… If you’ve spent hundreds (or thousands) on therapy that only made things worse… Or your wondering how to recover after infidelity… Start here:🎧 Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast 🎧 It’s for women only. It’s free. And it just might be the first step toward clarity and peace. BONUS: NEED A QUICK PODCAST RECOMMENDATION? Try these listener favorites: The Best Betrayal Meditation To Heal From Infidelity My Husband Won’t Stop Lying To Me – Angel’s Story 3 Ways Your Husband May Be Gaslighting You with Dr. Robin Stern You can find all episodes at btr.org/podcast STILL WONDERING HOW DO YOU LISTEN TO A PODCAST? The truth is, you don’t need permission, a tech degree, or your husband’s blessing. You just need one quiet moment—and the right voice in your ear. The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast is here when you’re ready. And we’ll be here as long as you need. TRANSCRIPT: HOW TO LISTEN TO A PODCAST AND STAY UNDISCOVERED Anne: We have a member of our community on today’s episode. We’ll talk about how do you listen to a podcast and stay undiscovered as you seek help. We’re gonna call her Elinor after Elinor Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility. Welcome Elinor. Elinor: Hey, thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to be here. I found BTR on Instagram. And it really resonated with me. At that time. I was still with my husband. And I would listen to your podcast in my car when I was alone, and it helped me gain clarity about my situation. And start to put some words to the things I didn’t recognize I was experiencing. Anne: How long had you been married when you found BTR? Elinor: 21 years, so a long time. Anne: Yeah, and how many children do you have? Elinor: I have three children with him. Anne: Can you talk about the progression of what you thought was wrong, all the ways you tried to solve it or approach it before you found Betrayal Trauma Recovery and our support group? Elinor: So I guess I always knew he was controlling and wanted things a certain way. Before the pandemic, I started becoming more afraid of him. But things were worse and worse. I thought when the pandemic hit, our marriage was going to get better, because there we were all at home and we were gonna have all this time together, and I thought that would improve it. THINGS ESCALATED RAPIDLY Elinor: Things were really calm at first, but then escalated rapidly within the next few months. Before that, I hadn’t said a word to anybody. I had normalized it. So all kinds of horrific things were just a Tuesday for me. He had told me that we should keep any of our disagreements or problems just between us, and not even tell like our parents or anyone. He’s like, we just need to work this out together. That’s how you solve things. So that really silenced me from telling anyone. During the pandemic, I finally told someone, and they told me that I should speak to my bishop at that time. I was going to, and hadn’t yet, and ended up leaving for the first time. Just fleeing the house with my children, and my littlest didn’t even have her shoes on, and stayed with friends. At that point, I knew something was really wrong, but I didn’t understand. I hadn’t looked up any of this stuff. I hadn’t even searched something basic like, how do you listen to a podcast privately, because I didn’t know I was in an abusive situation. It happened that one of the counselors in my bishopric was a counselor. He talked to me about how I needed to set boundaries with my husband. I was like, oh, yes, that’s going to fix it. I’m going to set boundaries. I was so excited and I ended up coming back, because I was worried that I had ruined my marriage by leaving. And I was so afraid I’d done the wrong thing. I don’t know how to describe it, but I think people in such relationships understand. I felt like I had to be with him. HOW DO YOU LISTEN TO A PODCAST: SETTING FIRM BOUNDARIES Elinor: Now I realize because he had so belittled me and my opinion of myself, that I needed him to believe that I was worth something, to feel like I was worth something. Anne: That counselor in the Bishopric after that first time you had fled. Did he say, like “You can go back as long as you set boundaries”? Can you talk more about that? Elinor: He was like, if you want to work things out, you’ll have to set very firm boundaries. I had gone back. Right away, the bishop reached out to me. I started telling him all about what was going on, and he immediately called it out as abuse. Which I understand now from a lot of other people’s experiences is rare. And I’m really grateful. Because I didn’t wanna believe myself. Because if it was abuse, I had to change my whole life. Anne: You don’t have to change, but you may need to alter your situation. Elinor: Yes, drastically. Anne: Which is daunting. Elinor: I’d met him right after my 18th birthday. He was my first serious relationship and I didn’t have a lot to compare that relationship to, which now I tell my children, date a lot. Date that person for a long time before you get engaged to them. We dated for a few weeks, and he was quite a bit older than I was. He was seven years older, and he seemed so confident and charismatic. I thought this was like true love, and he was wonderful. I see now, he was abusive from the get go, but I didn’t recognize the red flags when they were glaring in my face. MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY DIDN’T LIKE HIM Anne: Yeah, how did he present to other people? Did they think he was a good guy? Elinor: I thought they did at first. But I can say that now that I’m out on this side and have talked to a couple of friends, they did not like him. My parents did not like him. My dad said he is a very proud man, which was strong verbiage from my dad, who’s a very gentle soul. Anne: That’s as intense as your dad would get. I think when someone’s married to someone, they don’t wanna throw someone’s spouse under the bus. ‘Cause it’s like, how is that going to help her to think her husband’s a jerk? And I’m like, it would help her. I promise it would help her. They also don’t wanna alienate her. Because they think if you say your husband is a jerk, that you’ll be like, well, then I’m not gonna talk to you. And so it’s a really hard place to be for an outsider. To wanna support your marriage, but then also want to support you. It’s really hard to figure that out. For women in situations like yours finding out how do you listen to a podcast safely and getting the right information is vital. How did you feel finding out that other people didn’t like him? Elinor: In some ways I wish they had told me, but I see for myself that I wouldn’t have believed them at the time. I was so excited about my new husband, and I thought everything was so wonderful. If they had told me he was a bad guy, I would not have listened, and I would’ve been like, something’s wrong with them. They think so badly of him. THE CONSTANT HAMSTER WHEEL OF PROVING MYSELF Anne: They’re so judgmental. Something like that, maybe. Especially if he’s set that up. A lot of abusers like this, they’ll say something like, people don’t understand me. Or, people are so judgmental. They see that I do this thing, and they assume I’m a jerk, but I’m a good guy. They set it up like this on purpose. We don’t know that, because they’re lying. And if anybody says that, then you’re like, oh yeah, he warned me that people were gonna say this. Elinor: Yes, he said he’d had other relationships before, and he felt like trust was a big deal. And right away he was like, it’s important to me that you trust me implicitly. And now I know trust is to be earned. But when I was so young, I just thought, oh, I need to show him how I trust him. And that became several decades of me trying to prove that I trusted him. I think some hallmarks of the marriage were, kindness must be earned. Which is absolutely wrong, he was always carroting things out. If you do this and this, then I’ll do this. I felt like I was on this constant hamster wheel of proving myself, proving I loved him. He would often use the term, if you love me. If, that is insidious if. Anne: One of the message strategies in the Betrayal Trauma Workshop Is to agree. I love it in this scenario, because of course, he’s gonna say, “you don’t love me. If you love me, you would…” They do that to manipulate us, but we don’t realize that. HOW DO YOU LISTEN TO A PODCAST WHEN COUPLE THERAPY ISN’T AN OPTION Anne: So if he says, “You don’t love me.” When we agree and say, “That’s a good point. I hadn’t thought about that. Let me think about that for a little while. Thanks for bringing that up.” It changes the whole dynamic. Because then it’s hard for them to manipulate you. When you don’t respect me. “I don’t? Oh, I might not.” Elinor: It flips the tables, doesn’t it? Anne: We respect them with our actions, because we’re deferring to them and making sure dinner’s ready. When he says, “You don’t respect me,” we’re thinking, “of course I do. I clean up the house. I tell people nice things about you.” Because of all your actions, you respect him, but in your mind, something’s wrong. In our minds, we’re suspicious. They know how to use that Catch 22 against us. And that’s why safe, private access to information matters so much. Some women are still at the stage of quietly asking, “how do you listen to a podcast” because they need help, but they also need to stay undiscovered.Did you guys ever try couple therapy? Elinor: No, I knew inside my head that it would not work for us. He had told me, “The only way I would ever go to couple therapy with you would be for the couple therapist to tell me that I should divorce you.” Anne: Wow, so he didn’t wanna go to couple therapy. The way he manipulated you to not go, which actually worked in your favor, you just didn’t know that. ‘Cause the couple therapy would’ve been worse. But was to say, we’re going to couple therapy, and the couple therapist will tell me to divorce you. And that was his way to manipulate you not to go to couple therapy. Elinor: Uh-huh. DISCOVERING SIGNS OF ADDICTION Anne: Wow, I have never heard that one before, by the way. That’s a new one. Were you aware of pornography use, affairs? Elinor: When I finally told someone about his behavior, they were like, “Oh, have you asked is pornography an issue?” So he’s staying up super late. His door’s always closed. He’s upset, all the classic hallmarks. And I was like, oh, of course he’s not. But I’ll ask him just in case. Anne: Whenever someone says, “Did you talk to him about?” I’m like, they’re going to lie. So don’t ever tell someone, did you ask him about pornography? That’s never gonna help. But you didn’t know that at the time. So you asked him? Elinor: He’s like, “Oh yeah, I did look at pornography. Sometimes I do that, but it’s not a big deal.” And I was like, “Well, when did you start doing that? Has it been going on during our marriage?” It sounded like from his description, the entire marriage. And then I was starting to be worried, “So maybe is a portion of our marriage you didn’t use pornography? Is there maybe a gap somewhere that I could base the behavior with the behavior without?” He mentioned one 18 month gap in the entire 20 something years of marriage where he hadn’t used. And I was like, “That sounds like an addiction.” And he was like, “Oh no, it’s not addiction. I could quit anytime.” HE WAS PROUD THAT HE KEPT ME FROM SEEING THE TRUTH Elinor: And then I knew it was. I’m like you could quit anytime, right? So why haven’t you? I didn’t ask him that. At that point. I was like, oh wow, we’ve got a deep addiction here. I didn’t see anything he used. He was proud that I never saw anything. I remember asking him, ” Where are you looking at these things? Like where are you finding them?” And he was like, “You’ll never find out.” He had that little side smirk smile. And I never did, but that just sickened my soul. When he gave that answer, he was proud of it. And he was not sorry. He was not in any way taking any responsibility for its effect on anyone else. And he never did. I realized I needed to know how do you listen to a podcast undiscovered, for my emotional safety. I thought maybe if we solved the “pornography” problem, our relationship would improve. Now I have something to point at, oh, it’s this. That’s what the problem is. And as I talked to my bishop about it, I remember sitting in his office just shaking and shaking. That shook my whole world, ’cause I believed he was faithful to me. I consider pornography deeply unfaithful. Anne: My book is coming out soon, explaining why he was lying all the time to everyone and proud of it. And probably because he was such a liar, he was doing other things that you didn’t find out about either. That you may find out later. HOW DO YOU LISTEN TO A PODCAST: WHEN HE PULLS YOU BACK IN Anne: Are you divorced now? Elinor: I’m still in process. Yeah, it’s gonna be long and ugly. Anne: Those of us who have been divorced for a long time. It’s almost been 10 years for me right now. We find out stuff like years later, it’s pretty crazy. You’re like, what? I thought this was what was happening, and then you find out somehow that it was something different. It’s like the truth finds you. I bet you’ll find out a lot more as things progress. When you know how do you listen to a podcast for help. Elinor: I read it takes an average of seven times to leave an abusive relationship, and how there’s just gravity that sucks you back in the hoovering, right? But when I read about that, I thought it would never be me. I wouldn’t go and come back and go and come back, but oh my goodness, it was me and the “hopium” that things were going to change, that it was going to get better. It really pulled me back. The first time I left, I was gone for three days and then, okay, so this is terrifying. He hunted me down and found us in a different town, which is super creepy. I didn’t immediately go back. And he was like, I am so sorry. Which is a big deal, because the rest of my marriage, he was never sorry, never. Things happened, he would make me apologize for it. I would beg, there would be silent treatments. I would have to do physical punishments to make up for it, and we never talked about it. So they just got shoved in the back of my mind, all the horrible things that happened. IT WAS BETTER FOR TWO WEEKS Elinor: There was no acknowledgement. When I left the first time, he was down on his knees when he found me and said, “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry.” I was like, oh, wow, he finally admits he’s been so angry and so crazy, and life has been horrendous, and the children are afraid, and I am afraid. And he was like, everything’s gonna be so much better. He of course promised the whole world, I believed him. I went back the next day after talking to my clergy and trying to set some boundaries. And the next two weeks were amazing. He was so great. I was like, wow, this has changed. Our marriage is gonna be so much better. And it was better for two weeks. And then it was worse than ever. These stories you read about where people say, “Oh, if you go back, it’s gonna be worse.” I can 100% testify if you leave and come back, it’s going to be worse. I left and went back three times, and it was definitely horribly worse each time. And each time there was a section of time where he was so much nicer for a little while, and then he would make me pay for it later. It was just sickeningly awful. I kept my bag packed, because my friend had warned me sometimes this behavior doesn’t keep. Sometimes they don’t change. They just want you to believe they’re gonna change. Oh my goodness. It didn’t keep, and I started not being able to sleep, not being able to eat. I LEFT again, but MISSED HIM AND WANTED TO GO BACK Elinor: Probably the knowledge of just finding out my husband has been using pornography for 20 years, like the sickening awareness that my husband was betraying me for so long. Then I left again, because his behavior was horrifying, and he actively tried to turn the children against me. I flew home to my parents. That time when I left, my bishop’s wife actually came and helped us leave. We escaped down the basement door during a rainstorm. It was pretty traumatic, especially for the children. I needed help. I learned how do you listen to a podcast and stay undiscovered, for our safety. After learning more I thought, well, I’ll never come back. I stayed with my family and missed him. Then I started second guessing myself on everything. I thought, oh, I’ve just misunderstood things. He always told me I misunderstood things and that I was stupid. Lots of things don’t make sense to me because of the way I am. That’s what he would say. Only I know that’s not so now, but I wanted to go back. At that point my oldest child would not come back with me. She was like, Mom, don’t go back to him. And I was like, but we need to keep our family together. And she sat in the bathroom and cried for two hours and wouldn’t come out. I should have learned more from that. But I thought, “well, we’re gonna make this so much better.” But no, she never did come back. She was 18 and she just lived on her own after that. Which must have been so incredibly hard, and my heart breaks for her. She knew she would write me, and say, “Mom, when you’re ready, come be with me.” HOW DO YOU LISTEN TO A PODCAST: WHEN HE’S STILL ABUSIVE Anne: I think what was happening was all the abuse was still in your head. And you didn’t know that it wasn’t your own thoughts, it was all his abuse, and he was still abusing you. Elinor: Yes. Anne: Even though you were away from him. People don’t understand that. You’re still being abused. So it takes a while for the abuse to drain out of your head, and you have to be away from it in order for that to happen. It wasn’t that you weren’t ready. You hadn’t learned to separate that out. You were in the early stages of learning safety steps like, how do you listen to a podcast and find help online. And the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Workshop, has a way to write down what your thoughts are, and then to realize they’re actually not your thoughts. They’re the abuser’s thoughts. That’s helpful for victims. This story haunts me. And the way I came up with some of these workshop strategies comes from this. A woman was like, I will separate from my husband. I feel right about it. She’d prayed about it a ton. She could see all the abuse. She was like, check, check, check. He’s abusive. And she went to the temple, and she came out and said, the spirit told me I needed to stay with him. Elinor: Oh my gosh. Anne: She felt so strongly about it. And I was like, who am I to say that’s not the spirit? But I started wondering, why are women thinking that the spirit tells them to stay in proximity to evil? And then, over time, I realized it’s because the abuser’s abuse is so tangled up in their head that everything feels bad. THE THOUGHT OF LEAVING FEELS TERRIBLE Anne: So when they think about leaving him, it feels really bad, and that doesn’t feel like the spirit. It feels like something else. So you’re like, every time I think about leaving, I feel terrible. And so those who want to follow the spirit and the spirit is peace. The spirit is calm. When we think about leaving, it doesn’t feel peaceful. It doesn’t feel calm. And nobody warns you about that. They’re like, follow the spirit. And you’re like, “Okay, well the spirit is not telling me to leave. ‘Cause every time I think about leaving, my body’s like, no, that’s not right.” And your alarm system is going off. Really what’s happening is your alarm system is going off. It’s telling you danger, danger, danger. But he hijacked it long ago. And so he’s twisted your own internal warning system to tell you to move closer to him rather than away. So you’re just trying to do what the “spirit” is telling you to do, in that moment. So to help explain it to a woman when she’s in that, is what the Betrayal Trauma Workshop is about. Something as simple as learning how do you listen to a podcast safely, can lead to finding help. Yeah, so that she can see the difference between his lies and her actual warning system and what it’s been warning her about. Because they’re so good at manipulating us that they know how to use even our own survival mechanisms against us. Elinor: That is so true, that feels really true to me. IT FELT WRONG TO BREAK UP OUR MARRIAGE Anne: Yeah, so you weren’t doing anything wrong. You just didn’t know what you didn’t know, and you didn’t wanna go against what you thought in the moment was the truth. Elinor: Yeah, definitely, it felt wrong to break up our marriage. I still hadn’t fully admitted to myself how deeply abusive he was. And I kept thinking, oh, we’re gonna make this better. I was so beaten down about every aspect of myself because of all the things he said and did. That I didn’t know who I would be without him. And in my mind, believed that without him, I was lost and worthless. Which obviously is not true. But I felt that way at the time. So I went back and then I stayed there with him for the next year and a half. And my bishop kept checking in on me. People would check in on me, like people knew it wasn’t good, and they were trying to help me, but I wouldn’t go. ‘Cause I’m like, this is my marriage. I’m going to save it somehow. I studied all sorts of psychology things, like I wondered what sort of disorder he might have. Went down all the rabbit holes and had to stop. I left again the third time with my parents’ help, rented a house and lived separately. and stayed separate from him for a couple of months. I actually had a protective order for a few weeks, trying to keep us separate and safe. He was doing all sorts of things, psychologically and spiritually. Just on every single level of abuse. The Moment I Realized How Bad It Really Was Elinor: I had started keeping a journal for my own sanity about what was happening. And I’m glad I did, because one of the things I told myself was, oh, he’s not doing these things very often. But when I started writing it down, I realized he was grabbing me by the throat every two weeks. Every two weeks he would do that, and he had groomed me for this. He just groomed me probably on every level. Learning how do you listen to a podcast and finding yours was so helpful. But with this whole throat grabbing, he would call it holding my throat. Obviously, this is choking, right? But that’s what I would call it. He holds my throat. And when I would tell people about it, they would just be horrified. But to me it was another Tuesday. When he would grab my throat, he would make me say things and do things. And obviously when someone is holding your throat, you just do what they say. And he would make me repeat things. He would say, “Tell me that I own you.” and I would have to repeat these horrible things. And before I left the third time, it was becoming so overt. He was like, “Tell me about how stupid you are. How stupid are you? Go ahead, humble yourself. Say it out loud.” And I would mumble out the words, because it sickened me. It felt so wrong. And I would say, ‘I’m stupid.” He would say, “Go on, say it a little louder. I couldn’t hear you.” And I would say, “I’m stupid.” He was like, “Go on, say it like you mean it.” I would find myself repeating these horrible things over and over and over again. HOW TO LISTEN TO A PODCAST AND PROTECT YOURSELF Elinor: The psychological abuse is so disturbing. Then right before I left with that protective order, I woke up one night and he was holding me by the throat while I was sleeping. It was hard to breathe, and I just laid there, stock still. I think if anyone else had been in this situation. They would be screaming and like, oh, let go of me, stop it and you have this reaction. But I had been in this so long, I knew I must hold very still. I must not say a word. And then hopefully he will let go, because I knew if I tried to fight against it, it would get worse. Anne: I disagree with you, anyone who’s been through what you had been through would’ve stayed still too. Elinor: Okay. Anne: A hundred percent. What you did sounds totally normal under the circumstances. We know about abuse, and share it so others can learn. Elinor: That’s self preservation. Anne: Yes. Elinor: A lot of the things that I did sound so wackadoo to me now, like they just sound like nonsense. But I appreciate that you understand that’s exactly what you have to do in those circumstances. Just to stay safe. Anne: Yeah, to survive. Elinor: Yeah, my children sometimes talk about how people say, “Oh, you should have done this and you should have done that.” And they’re like, “Sometimes you say it too, Mom, now that we’re out. Like, if I was there again, I would’ve done this, or I wouldn’t have done that.” And they said, “No, we never would’ve, because we all knew it was going to get worse. We all felt that undercurrent of like he was holding back.” I HADN’T RECOGNIZED PHYSICAL ABUSE Anne: That is the manipulation. I think people don’t understand that is the abuse. That you know instinctively that you can’t do that or you’re going to be very injured. Anybody would do that. I look back at what I did and think, what is wrong with me? I would do the opposite. He’d be physically intimidating, like he was gonna punch me in the face, and in my mind I’d be like, let’s see if I could make him punch me in the face. And so I’d push through it. I thought, if he punched me, I would know. Elinor: Yeah. Anne: So I’m pushing through, and he never punched me in the face. So then I was confused. Wait, I guess he’s not abusive. That’s the hard part about it. He could punch you in the face. He could not punch you in the face. Either way, it’s abuse. Elinor: That was one of the things I recognized from your podcast. When I learned how do you listen to a podcast safely, different kinds of things surfaced that I hadn’t recognized were physical abuse. Obviously the throat holding, but like there was a ton of sexual abuse and coercion that I had not put in the physical abuse box. I think many people do this. I categorized, punching and hitting, and like, oh, he pushed me down the steps. That would be physical abuse. But there were so many other things he did that were physical abuse that I learned from listening to you and the people on your podcast. That I was like, oh he’s doing all these things and more. He is physically abusive. HOW DO YOU LISTEN TO A PODCAST FOR SAFETY WHEN SYSTEMS FAIL Elinor: Like it’s not when he’s gonna be physically abusive. He is now, and he doesn’t always need to get to the next point for me to step in line with what he wants. He just does as much as he needs to, to control me. Which was very effective. Anne: Yeah, it’s scary. Elinor: Yeah, I feel really blessed that we are on this side of it now. I’m glad I know, I’m glad I do not have the desire to ever go back. The third time I left with a protective order. Both times my protective orders failed. I’d have ’em for a couple weeks, and then I would go for the full protective order, and I could not give enough evidence to prove what had happened to me in the eyes of law. And that was so frustrating and demoralizing for me, because all these physically abusive and terribly scary things were happening. But during a six hour court hearing. There just wasn’t enough evidence, the judge said, to bring a protective order against him. And of course, he was so good at presenting himself. He came in not looking like the “abuser”. He presents like a first class citizen, well educated, active in his church and a pillar to the community. And it was so believable that the judge was like, well, he seems like a great guy, and you seem like a great person, and you guys just need to work it out. And that was so heartbreaking for me to tell my story in court in front of other people and policemen, and just such a terrifying environment. Your podcast and learning how do you listen to a podcast would have helped me. HOW DO YOU LISTEN TO A PODCAST FOR SUPPORT WHEN YOU AREN’T BELIEVED Anne: And have them not believe you. Learning how do you listen to a podcast and finding ours for support could have helped prepare you. Elinor: Not believe me. Anne: That is a nightmare. Elinor: Yes, and to do that twice and still not be believed. I was grateful at the end of the first court hearing, not joking, six hours. There was a recess for lunch in the middle, it went on so long. The lawyer had told me they averaged 10 to 20 minutes, and I sat through several, and that is how they average six hours. At the end, after the judge dismissed it, and I am just in tears. This lady had to sit through all my court, came up to me, and she was like, I wanna tell you something. I believe you.” That meant the world to me to have her believe me. Because at that point, it’s hard enough to believe myself. It’s hard enough to get up there on the stand and be cross examined, but to have the judge throw it out. The second one was three hours. I knew it would be long. Anne: Was it the same judge? Elinor: Different judge, different state. Anne: What? Elinor: He presents so well. He is so believable, so charismatic, and he knows how to present himself as this wonderful guy. Anne: Also, his abuse of you doesn’t leave marks. I mean, he might, “hold your throat”, but it didn’t leave a bruise. Elinor: ‘Cause he knew when to stop. everything was behind closed doors. There was never a mark, like you said, there was nothing to go to show someone. FLEEING THE HOUSE FOR THE LAST TIME Elinor: I remember my daughter at one point telling me, “Mom, I just wish he would hit you. I don’t want you to be hit.” But she was like, “What can we say that he’s doing? If he hit you, we could say he hit you, but everything else he does is right at the edge.” She was like, “I wanna call the police, but I don’t know what I would say when they got here.” And we all know he would’ve just turned the tables on me entirely. Anne: A hundred percent. Elinor: After the protective order failed, we ended up fleeing the house with a couple of suitcases and our library books. Which I was somehow worried were gonna be overdue. That’s my brain. We lived in hiding and started the whole court process, which is an absolute nightmare. The post separation abuse, the court abuse, it’s like a stress ball. You squeeze it one way, it’s gonna come out somewhere else. His abuse just pops up in all sorts of creative ways, he just doesn’t stop. Learning how do you listen to a podcast helped keep me focused on our safety. The children in two years have not been able to access their clothes, their toys. There’s a court order saying we should be able to go get our stuff. He placed logs across the driveway, so we couldn’t drive up. I hope to be divorced from him someday. I’m glad to hear that you are now 10 years divorced from your abuser. I hope for that for myself and my children too. HOW DO YOU LISTEN TO A PODCAST: THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL Anne: There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and when people told me that, I was very mad. Because it didn’t feel like that. I was like, my whole life is ruined. I will be in this tunnel the rest of my life. Then post-divorce, when I experienced continued emotional and psychological abuse, due to his “co-parenting”. Take our free emotional abuse test to determine if you are being abused. So I was divorced, and he was still wreaking absolute havoc on my life and my children’s life. It felt like torture. I’d say in my case, and I want to stand up for abuse victims everywhere. ‘Cause you did the right thing. Teach people how do you listen to a podcast to get help. You thought you should do at the time, and it makes total sense. You’re trying to survive. But to outsiders, they’re like, why did she do that? In my case, I did everything right. So for me, I always fought him. Or I was like, no, you’re not doing that to me. I did everything “the right way”. So an outsider wouldn’t be like, “Well, why did you do that?” Because I did everything right. The weird thing is they blame you for it, even if you do it right. So it’s a trap either way, because I got a protective order and kept it and didn’t break it, and the second it was going to expire, I got another one. So I had a six year protective order that he was still able to abuse me via co-parenting messages. When I went to court to try to take custody away. I had 40 pages of documented physical abuse and other abuse. It didn’t make a difference. IT DOESN’T MATTER IF YOU DO EVERYTHING “RIGHT” Anne: So being the person who “did everything right” and still couldn’t get help. That’s why I’m like, I have to stand up for abuse victims all over. Because it doesn’t matter if you’re doing everything “right”. The victims who are not doing it the way other people think they should. That’s not why they’re being abused. It’s still not their fault. It has nothing to do with them. So the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Workshop really came out of my absolute frustration that somebody like me could do everything right and still be forced to be abused by the court system. The system was supposed to protect me. ‘Cause at some point I was like, God is the only way out of this. As a Christian, I was like, Christ is the deliverer. As I studied deliverance and the scriptures, the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Strategies came out of that. And for women who aren’t women of faith, these are secular strategies that work no matter what, and people don’t have to pray for them to work. They work great, period. ‘Cause a lot of women have been really spiritually abused, and they don’t wanna pray. And I don’t blame them. So I’m like, these work no matter what. You can learn how do you listen to a podcast and get help. That’s where the strategies came from, and they delivered me completely. He signed the kids away. In some cases, they don’t actually physically sign the rights to the kids away. He did out of court, but some of ’em just start leaving you alone. I don’t ever recommend that women take men like this to court if they’re not in court already. You’ll see when you take it. Elinor: Glad to hear that. HE CONTINUES TO DRAG THIS OUT Anne: ‘Cause court usually works in their favor. Even if you win after five years and spend $250,000. That’s not a win. You were just abused for two more years, and you’re in debt, like you just bought a house that’s not a house. Elinor: The lawyer bought a house. Anne: Exactly. Elinor: I participate in the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Workshop, because I definitely need extra tips. Like right now in this legal side of it, I am drowning. Last year, I felt so hopeful, just finally being away. The gratitude and freedom like not missing him was so awesome. And this year, I thought we’d be divorced by now. I thought I would be free in more ways. And, oh no, that’s not his plan. He will continue to drag this out. So I am really glad to hear about more tips. I need them. Anne: Would you mind coming back? And let me know how it’s going. Elinor: I would love to. Anne: For women who are maybe listening, like you did in your car, if someone’s listening and maybe they’re in the same boat you were, where their body is screaming out, don’t leave. That seems really unsafe. HOW DO YOU LISTEN TO A PODCAST: I KEPT PRAYING FOR CLARITY Anne: Do you have any words to share with them? Elinor: I appreciated the things you shared when I knew how do you listen to a podcast and listened to yours about asking yourself, are you safe? And getting yourself to a safe place before you make that decision about them. That helped me. I started asking myself, am I safe? Am I in a place where I can feel peaceful enough to get an answer? It was so crazy in my home. I kept praying for clarity, but you can’t get clarity in that kind of situation. I just kept praying and praying, and it just didn’t come. When I finally did leave, that’s when the clarity came. I look back now and I’m like, I just wanna give myself a huge hug and be like, girl, it is okay. You didn’t know what you didn’t know, and you did the best you could with what you had then. And you wanted to keep your kids’ lives together and keep them safe. One of the things that I read somewhere that really helped me make the decision to go though, was that children witnessing domestic violence is child abuse. That was really powerful for me, and I was like, oh my gosh, my poor children. There was so much behind closed doors, but they could feel it. The things that I hear from them now about what they felt and what they saw and heard that I didn’t think they had experienced, oh, my heart for these little ones. IT’S HARD TO KNOW WHAT TO DO Elinor: I wish I could just give all the people experiencing the kinds of things that I’ve experienced and many other women have experienced. I wanna give them a huge hug and say, it’s going to be all right. And ask them to be kind to themselves. Because we’re second guessing, we’re living in such fear. It’s hard to know what to do. I’m just looking back on myself and giving myself a lot of grace and saying, “You did great. You left, good job.” Anne: Yeah, and I think it helps women to hear somebody like me say, I did everything right and still couldn’t get out. If you know how do you listen to a podcast, you can hear other’s stories. Elinor: Oh my gosh, yes. Anne: Because then it’s like, oh, it wouldn’t have mattered how I acted. He was going to abuse me, and the way the system is, the way everything is getting to safety, is very difficult and miraculous. So there’s nothing that any of us could have done better under the circumstances. At the same time, there are some principles that had we known them. But nobody tells us. So it’s still not our fault. We didn’t learn about it in high school. We didn’t learn about it in college. There is no therapist out there. That has the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Strategies. I’ve never heard anybody say it. It’s not anything like I’ve ever heard. ‘Cause all anybody else has is don’t talk to him at all, and you’re forced to talk to him. So that’s not helpful. HOW DO YOU LISTEN TO A PODCAST LED ME TO THE LIGHT Anne: And, communicate better. Elinor: Oh yeah, the communicate better is such a bunch of garbage. When you’re dealing with this kind of person who’s going to use all communications against you. Anne: Yeah, so either way it’s a disaster. Well, I’m proud of you. You are brave and strong. And you’re incredible. There is a light at the end of the tunnel for you, even if it feels like there’s not. I always have to say that. ‘Cause every time somebody said that to me, I was so mad at them that I was really frustrated and wanted to tell them they didn’t know what they were talking about. If you’re feeling like that, I totally get it. And in that case, I’ll just sit here in the dark with you. It’s okay. People may recommend listening to a podcast, and you may not know how do you listen to a podcast, but taking that first step could be the one thing that helps the most. Elinor: Thank you so much. Anne: Until the light comes to you. Elinor: Thank you, Anne: Thank you so much. Elinor: Thanks for having me.

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 right. But at the same time, just thinking, “Oh it’s not a big deal. I really don’t know what husbands are like. This is my first experience.” I just dismissed those feelings. I was pregnant with our first son. It happened to be the same year that our house was wired for the internet, and I was big, tired, and struggling with my body image. And then my husband was in the office at home, and I remember thinking “What’s happening in there?” But at the same time, just thinking, “Whatever he wants to do in there, I don’t care.” And told myself that for oh, another three years, kind of embarrassing to go through the slow discovery. Anne: Oh, don’t feel bad. Everyone goes through that period where they don’t know what to do. Where they’re trying to figure it out. I sure did. It’s totally normal. That’s why it’s awesome that you’re part of our community, so you can feel like you’re not alone, right? Luna: Definitely, so then our son was born, and I remember being awake to feed him in the night. I noticed the light was on in the home office, and I just thought, “Oh wow, my husband’s awake too.” And I walked right over and opened the door. But like instantly felt this horrible flood of emotion. It felt so tangible, and I saw pornography on the computer screen, so now this thing is right in front of my eyes. Recovery after betrayal: I COULDN’T GO THERE Luna: But I shut the door and walked away. There was an awareness on his part that I had seen what happened, but my mom was in town. And she was with us for another week. Like I just couldn’t, I couldn’t go there. Anne: Mm-hmm Luna: And then I really didn’t go there, just going through the motions and coping, and existing and busy life. It just kind of dragged on. Anne: Did you have a religious background or ethical background that caused you to think that pornography in and of itself was wrong? Or was just an icky feeling from finding that he was viewing pornography? Luna: Definitely, the spiritual upbringing was the first thing that made me feel uncomfortable about pornography. That feeling was like just a confirmation of what I believed. Anne: So what happened like years after not talking about it? Luna: Well. I like to say, “I got a gift.” It wasn’t in a pretty package with a matching bow, but it was a gift to me. And that’s the gift of anger. I ended up being a very angry woman, lived with this constant low level irritation and blow-up over little stupid things. And thinking like, “This anger scares me.” I was okay being sad. And I was okay being lonely and being depressed, but the anger terrified me. Feeling the effects of trauma Luna: I had chest pain, I had insomnia, I had anxiety especially at night. I would lay in bed at night, and just feel like my heart is going to fly out of my chest, and feel so anxious about the reality of my life that I had coped with for so many years. And so it was working through owning the reality of my life, where now suddenly I began to feel the effects of that trauma. It was really traumatic to pull my proverbial ostrich head out of the sand. It was the shock. I remember thinking, Can we go back, because dealing with what is actually happening in my life felt worse. It really did for a while. Anne: Yeah, I felt the same way during recovery after betrayal. I felt the most trauma after I recognized that what I had experienced wasn’t addiction, but abuse. I mean, I had been experiencing his emotional and psychological abuse for seven years. But because I thought it was addiction, I didn’t process what I was going through. And then after we separated and I started to see what it really was, the trauma just kept coming in waves and waves. And it was intense for a long time. Luna: I was a little bit offended with God that this was my story. I didn’t deserve it. I never asked for this to be in my story, and here I was, and how was that okay with him? So I was on the outs with God for trauma as well. I remember thinking like, “If I stay, then at least I can keep an eye on him. And I can sort of be there to protect my boys.” Recovery after betrayal: I didn’t know where else to go Luna: That sort of became, “If I stay, then I can make sure he’s moving forward and my kids don’t end up growing up with a pornography addict for a father.” Because you know whether our marriage makes it, that was a big question. I thought, well if I stay, I can make sure he’s doing the work and moving forward, and then that’ll make him a better father for my boys. And so I’m staying to keep an eye on him. Not the best reason, of course, to stay in a little while. The bottom line for me is I didn’t know where else to go. It really was the catalyst that forced my hand. And made me say, “I need help. I have to get help. Something has to change inside of me, I can’t live like this.” And that’s when I found you. One of the things I love about your stuff is it’s small bite-sized serving of hope. A couple of things to take action on or to reflect on. Anne: Absolutely, yeah, I created it in bite-sized pieces because when I went through recovery after betrayal, I couldn’t really process information. I couldn’t read, I was so overwhelmed. I just needed to take one tiny step at a time. Luna: Exactly, in the middle of the trauma, like I couldn’t even read two pages. You give women something that they could chew, and they could swallow, and it would just carry them through one day. Maybe help them take one step, and we just need something to hold onto. Anne: So that’s why I decided to do a podcast. Hearing other women’s stories helps us process what we’re going through. There’s a life beyond pain and trauma Anne: The podcast is just one episode at a time. You can listen while doing laundry. You can listen while vacuuming. With Living Free, you just do a tiny bit at a time if you want. The total runtime is like two hours 50 minutes, so you can do it all at once or a little bit at a time, however it works for you. Luna: I love that it’s so manageable for women in trauma. With your stuff, there is a way for every woman to move forward. It’s not about whether your relationship is restored. But knowing there is peace available, and regardless of what ends up happening in your marriage, there’s a way for you to move forward. There’s a life for you beyond this pain and trauma that you’re dealing with right now. Anne: Yeah, and you’ll have women who will walk through it with you during recovery after betrayal. Luna: Exactly, you know, however your story ends, there is hope. The pain I experienced was so difficult and so altering. But at the same time, I felt like I found a way through. I knew I had to share it. Anne: Well, thank you so much for sharing it. You sharing your story will help other women, so thank you Luna. We don’t know which way is up or where to turn Anne: Okay, Rhonda, you’re up next. Would you mind sharing what helped you heal from betrayal trauma? Rhonda: It’s really hard Anne, because a big part of trauma and abuse is the chaos inside of ourselves. We don’t know which way is up or even where to turn. Coming to a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group is a great place to go, because I immediately feel understood. There’s not a whole lot of explanation that has to happen. When you come to BTR, you see a lot of nodding of heads. Anne: Yeah, there’s definitely a lot of head nodding and heart emojis going up in group sessions for sure. Yeah, you know, when I went through recovery after betrayal, I really wanted a quick solution. I wanted my family to be like put back together again really fast. Many women feel guilty or pressure to have some sort of timeline for healing. How have you felt about that as you attended Group Sessions? Rhonda: One of the things I love about BTR is that BTR coaches use methods that have been tried, that work for everybody. But another thing I love about BTR is that every individual is different. Timing is different. And so a lot of freedom to figure out really what is best for me just being guided by the coach. That’s unique to each situation, but it’s not fast for anybody. The BTR coaches, it’s a synergistic group. It’s a bunch of ladies who come from all different situations who really understand, but approach healing from a different perspective. Recovery after betrayal: Everything is turned upside down Rhonda: I can get the little gems from each of the coaches. And when I could put a name to what’s going on, abuse, once you’ve labeled it and recognized it, all those actions they land on him, not on you. Anne: Yeah, it helps know what you’re actually healing from when you’re in recovery after betrayal, like you said, abuse. Yeah. So for women listening who are hesitant to call it abuse, they’re maybe thinking he’s got like childhood trauma or maybe an addiction. Maybe they’re looking for a men’s program, like to get their husband into. Do you have any thoughts for them? Rhonda: You may label it as, you know, just a little problem that he has, something that he’s trying to overcome. But we can’t get rid of the effects. Everything is turned upside down and chaotic, because that’s what abusers do to us. It’s so scary to label it correctly, because of what the future might bring. You get to decide, and you get to decide again tomorrow and the next day. And the next day, your path will lead you. You don’t have to be afraid of your path. If you don’t want to get divorced, you don’t have to get divorced. If you don’t want to be separated, you don’t have to be separated. I love doing the BTR Meditations. The different topics and guided meditations help me let go of all the heavy things and focus on peace and calm. I do the meditations, because sometimes we can’t get our minds and bodies to do what we know we need to do. Meditation really helps with that. And meditations allow our minds and hearts to start to release some of the pain. Meditation helped Anne: Oh, that is so great to hear. At some point in my recovery, meditation was like the only thing that helped, which is why I wanted to include it in the Living Free Workshop. I’m so glad you’re finding those meditations helpful. If you’re listening and you’re like, where are these meditations? You can go to btr.org/livingfree and find the meditations inside the Living Free Workshop. But they provide immediate peace when you can’t sleep or need peace right away. I mean, it’s really good to feel that peace, especially when we didn’t do anything wrong and you feel terrible. But we’re always doing the best we can. We’ve been doing the best we can the entire time. Rhonda: I love that. I love that. We’re always doing the best that we can. We say, “Oh, I was such an idiot then.” No, no, I was not such an idiot. I knew my body had stored what my mind and heart couldn’t process. And sometimes the miracle is just recognition. But sometimes the miracle is physical healing. Anne: Yeah, I have talked to so many women who had like autoimmune disorders or physical problems. And once they separated themselves from emotional and psychological abuse, their symptoms just cleared up immediately, which was an absolute miracle. So many women pray for a miracle, maybe a physical miracle of healing. This garden is a miracle Anne: We were gardening. And my son said to me, “Mom, this garden is a miracle. It’s so beautiful,” and he said, “Do you know what makes the miracle happen?” And I was like, “What?” This is the same son that you heard earlier on my recording. He said, “We do these little actions of planting these little seeds and watering, then we hope it will grow and fruit something good. And then the miracle occurs.” And I was like, ” Wow, you are so wise.” When I thought about the Living Free Strategies, I thought about the Israelites. There was a miracle that they could leave, but they actually had to like pack up their bags and physically walk out. God didn’t just like, you know, teleport them to the promised land. They had a lot of work they had to do to get there, which was miserable. But eventually they did get to the promised land. So as we’re thinking about miracles, always remember the planting of the seed or that we need to pick up our bags or whatever it is that we need to do, even though it’s not our fault, to receive the miracle into our lives. I think the most important thing is to focus on, not the outcome, but a state of being. Like we want the miracle to be emotional safety, not necessarily saving our marriage or getting divorced. Then we take steps toward emotional safety, and we can see the miracle occur in our lives. And we’re not tied to any outcome. We hope for emotional safety for you and your children. recovery after betrayal: Feeling Hope for my life again Rhonda: Anne, you pointed out that if we put our work towards a state of being rather than a specific outcome, God’s will grant that for us as we work towards it. And that’s where talking with people who are safe, like BTR coaches. That’s a huge miracle. Anne: I’m so happy to hear you say that I hear so many women who come to BTR groups, like it’s so hopeful. I feel hope for my life again. Yeah, and that’s why I appreciate so many of you writing a five-star review Apple podcast for this podcast, or doing an review on Spotify, or reviewing one of my books on Amazon. Because as you help get the word out, other women can feel this hope too. Because all of us have felt that overwhelm and just absolute sadness during recovery after betrayal. And then when women find BTR through that. They tell me over and over again, I just wish I had found it sooner. I wish I had known sooner. So thank you to those who help me get the word out, so that we can help other women find it as soon as possible, so that they can have this information. And that being said, I always tell women, “You found BTR at just the right time for you.” Like, let’s trust in the timing of the universe. It brought you, Rhonda, to us right at this time. Thank you so much for sharing today. Rhonda: Thank you Anne, it’s a pleasure to be with you and I love BTR. Survival of betrayal by two different men Anne: Thank you. All right Cassandra, it’s your turn now, go ahead. Cassandra: Yes, I am a survivor of betrayal, betrayed by two different men. But the emotional infidelity of one that I was engaged to at the time was terribly wounding for me. I didn’t understand what was wrong, really. We went to two different couples therapists to try to get help for what I now call emotional domestic violence through his infidelity, and it was unclear if it was a physical infidelity. It was absolutely clear it was at least an emotional infidelity. I was just called too sensitive or overactive, and neither therapist could see it. But at the time, I was too dependent on him to leave. I just couldn’t imagine life without him. And eventually he broke up with me. Which was a great gift he gave me at that time. And then another man’s sexual infidelity, which was incredibly painful, though thankfully by that time I was in a different place. I was more independent on my own, so I could end the relationship. Anne: With your experience with the therapists who weren’t able to identify the abuse in the betrayal, did you feel betrayed by them as well? Cassandra: I felt angry. I felt enraged, but because they were in an expert position and I was struggling, I didn’t know for sure. I mean, I guess I can look back and say that they tried the best they could, but I think that healing from betrayal needs to be looked at from a domestic violence lens. Support groups have been powerful Cassandra: Now, looking back, I think they lacked insight. They lacked training, they lacked perspective. It certainly was therapy induced trauma. So gaslighting, it felt traumatic at the time, and yeah, it felt like a betrayal. Anne: As you know from group sessions, so many women have that experience of the therapist not recognizing this as domestic abuse during recovery after betrayal, which is what it is, yeah. Cassandra: Yeah, in group, we shared stories about how many therapists had blown us off. I think the most was six. Group is where we’re feeling safe, so we can define what fits and what doesn’t, to know where to get ready. Group is very helpful to talk about what it’s like to be betrayed and unhook the blame of self that the addict, the person doing the betraying, can place on us or the therapist who doesn’t understand, or the judgmental culture. So definitely support groups have been really powerful. I think part of the problem is we don’t talk about it. So to hear women talk about things they did at the encouragement or coercion of their sexually addicted husband that made her feel uncomfortable, regretful, or ashamed. Like looking at pornography with her husband. She didn’t want to, but she did it because he was so insistent. Anne: Yeah, what you’re describing is sexual coercion. It can be overwhelming Anne: So in group or individual sessions, women are really lucky at BTR to have coaches who understand. Our team understands to relieve us all from the guilt of being coerced when we didn’t understand what was happening during recovery after betrayal. Cassandra: Yeah, I hear that a lot. We talk a lot about what the sex addict does, and all that can also evoke great shame. I can’t believe he did that. I can’t believe he did that to me, we feel so much guilt and shame. Sex addicts can be relentless, and it can be threatening, or blackmail, or chronic manipulation, and it can be overwhelming. And I think that’s one thing that is missed in the conversations of so-called, you know, pornography being an okay way to explore sexuality, and there’s no harm caused by it. For me personally, I only worry about the labels as much as they help me. Part of healing from Betrayal trauma is trying to get our stories out there. Anne: Thank you so much.

If you’re asking, “How can i trust my husband again?” there’s a good chance you’re not just asking about him. You’re probably also asking, when will I stop… checking? bracing? replaying every conversation? feeling sick when he’s alone with his phone? wondering if I’m being fooled again? You’re not looking for a cute little trust exercise involving eye contact, worksheets, and a candle that smells like “fresh start.” You’re looking for something real. 5 Ways to Know: How Can I Trust My Husband Again? 1. Your Body Stops Warning You One of the most confusing parts of betrayal and emotional abuse is that you may sense something is wrong before you can prove it. You might feel uneasy when he’s home alone or when he goes to work. Or feel anxious when he takes his phone into another room. Then, because you’re a reasonable woman with children, laundry, bills, and 47 other things to do, you may tell yourself: “I’m overreacting.” But sometimes your body isn’t overreacting. In fact, your body is likely accurately detecting emotional danger your conscious mind hasn’t been able to name yet. So one way to know if trust is actually being rebuilt is this: 👉🏼 Your body begins to feel safer without his gaslighting manipulating you. 2. He Stops Making Your Pain the Problem If your husband lied, hid things, minimized, used inappropriate media in secret, cheated, or created a double life, the issue isn’t that you struggle to trust him. The issue? Is he trustworthy. A man who is trustworthy won’t blame your normal, healthy distrust of someone who has lied to her the problem, while conveniently skipping over the part where he broke your trust. If he says things like, you… “are never going to get over this.” “ are too suspicious.” “need to stop punishing me.” “have trust issues.” That’s pressure. A safe man sounds different. He doesn’t take much. Instead, he… Understands why you don’t trust him. Agrees that you shouldn’t “be okay” after all he’s done to you. Tells the truth even when it means negative consequences for him. Doesn’t act entitled to your trust. 👉🏼 Does he focus more on your reaction or his deception? 3. The Truth Stops Coming in Installments This is a big one. Is the truth coming out a little bit at a time? Each time pretending to be “the whole truth”? First he says it was once. Then it was a few times. Well, it was only when he was stressed. Then it was “not technically cheating.” See, the thing is, “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to hurt you.” Which is such a convert way to say, “I protected my comfort by sacrificing your reality.” If every conversation reveals another hidden piece, your mind has to keep investigating. Not because you enjoy detective work. You ‘re not Nancy Drew. You only keep investigating because your emotional safety depends on knowing the truth. 👉🏼 Every time he does something harmful, does he give a different excuse? 4. His Actions Make Your Life Feel Lighter, Not Heavier After betrayal, many women are told to rebuild trust by doing more. More conversations, vulnerability, forgiveness, patience. Even more therapy. or understanding of his childhood, his stress, his shame, his triggers, his pain, his “journey.” Meanwhile, she’s barely eating, barely sleeping, trying to parent children, function at work, and determine whether her marriage is stable. A man who is becoming safer takes responsibility in ways that reduce your mental load. He… tells the truth without being cornered. answers questions without punishing you. respects your boundaries without sulking. gets appropriate help without making it your project. understands that your anger is not the enemy. His deception was. 👉🏼 Is his “recovery” giving you more peace or more work? 5. You Don’t Have to Betray Yourself to Stay This may be the clearest sign of all. Can you remain in the relationship without abandoning yourself? Does he let you… tell the truth about what happened? have boundaries? say, “I’m not okay,” without him making you pay for it? take the time you need? stop believing his lies, that it was “just a mistake”? acknowledge the sexual, emotional, spiritual, and psychological impact of what he chose? 👉🏼 Can I tell the truth about what he’s done, what I feel, and what I need, without him punishing me, minimizing it, or making me the problem? So, How Can I Trust My Husband Again? You can trust your husband again when he’s trustworthy. And determining if someone who hasn’t been trustworthy is now, takes a long time. If you still feel anxious, suspicious, numb, angry, or afraid, it may mean your body is still trying to protect you. So please don’t rush yourself into “trust” just because he wants relief from the consequences of his choices. You deserve support from people who understand why betrayal feels so devastating and why “just move on” is not a healing plan. If you need clarity now, you don’t have to carry this alone. 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 test. Support To 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, join our daily, online betrayal trauma support group. This episode is part of Shelly’s StoryPart 1: What If I Can Never Trust My Husband Again? (THIS EPISODE)Part 2: How To Recover After Being Cheated On Transcript: How Can I 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 broken road that led me safe to you”. Like all these things, they were worth it. Shelly: Yes, exactly, Anne: I found you. Shelly: Fast forward seven years, I find out that he’s hiding an addiction. I don’t actually believe it’s an addiction. He made a choice and hid it from me. The betrayal trauma I feel now is actually so much worse than anything I experienced before. Because he was the light at the end of the tunnel for me. And this relationship made me believe in true love again. And then, all that came crashing down on my first D-Day. https://youtu.be/CVU-eI3SgeQ I had many D-Days after the first admission. I thought I had damage and trust issues. That was my narrative that I’d believed. And I actually said to him, I’m so sorry I have trouble trusting you, of course I didn’t know if I could trust my husband after that. Because I’m damaged from my previous traumatic experiences with my other relationships, and even how I entered the world. And he took that, and he allowed me to believe it was me. So I felt uncomfortable leaving him. in the house on his own. Realizing The Extent Of The Lies Shelly: I felt uncomfortable with him at work, but I put it all down to trust issues. I’m damaged, I haven’t dealt with the trauma in my past, so I’m ruining my perfect relationship with my trust issues. Which actually everything I asked him, even at the points where I asked him, turned out to be true, and it was completely vindicated. So what has actually happened? So I was carrying this, I’ve got trust issues, I’m damaged for so long. I believed those people around me who were just lying. I released myself from that, and I woke up within myself and realized I don’t have trust issues. I’ve just been around loads of people lying to me, and I can feel it. Anne: Yeah, you have a superpower. Shelly: Yeah, suddenly that thing I’d been carrying for so many years has suddenly lifted. I’m not damaged, I’ve just been around people that have treated me really badly. Anne: Was that a relief to you in some ways? Shelly: I felt relief, because like I said, I thought I damaged my perfect relationship. So it was like a double edged sword. Anne: At the time, you were being manipulated to think that you had problems, that this was your fault, but now that you know the truth and look back. And you’re like, oh no, he was gaslighting me. He really was lying to me. Can you tell me more about why you didn’t want him at home by himself? Or why you were worried about him at work? Shelly: It was just a feeling. It was literally just a feeling. There was no concrete evidence at all. I didn’t have anything. He was very good at keeping that separate, completely separate. The Pain Of Gaslighting Shelly: I just had this nagging feeling, an uneasiness of him being at home alone, an uneasiness of him when he is at work. Anne: What an amazing gift… Shelly: Yeah, Anne: …to you. I’m so grateful that you were strong and brave, and nothing was wrong with you. Even if you had “trust issues”. Because, like, why trust people when they’re not trustworthy? Shelly: Exactly. Anne: But in this particular case, your warning system is going off, and now you’re more confident in it because you found out the truth. But to know that he was weaponizing that against you, that’s why it hurts so badly. Shelly: Yeah, and like being in a relationship where he would lecture me on trusting him and how important trust was within the relationship, knowing that he was lying to me. Anne: That is so devastating. That is absolutely, it’s so bad. Sorry, I don’t know why anyone can think this form of abuse is not severe. Shelly: No, I know. It’s abuse on every level. I described it as a spiritual crime to him. It feels like a spiritual crime against another soul. It goes so deep for me and everybody experiencing this. I don’t understand how anyone can literally look themselves in the mirror knowing everything they know about themselves. And just carry on like it’s fine. Anne: And I can see why that was the most traumatic, because you trusted him the most, and he lied to you on such an intimate level. Can I Trust My Husband Again: He Withheld Information Shelly: Yeah, I asked him, just plainly, often, whether he was using explicit material. And always he’d be like, No, I only have eyes for you. I only have eyes for you. It wasn’t like it just never came up. I asked him a lot because of these feelings, my instincts. So it was, there’s no, oh, I thought you’d be fine with it. It wasn’t that at all. He knew where I was with that. And he still chose to hide that from me. It seems pretty clear at this point that I couldn’t trust my husband again. Anne: Which is abusive on so many levels, especially on a intimate level, coercion. When women say, I feel like I was emotionally raped. Basically, and people are like, what, and we’re not kidding. That’s exactly what happened. Because we would not have maybe made those choices or done the things that we did. Had we had the information that they were purposefully withholding from us. Shelly: Exactly. And the coercion has only really crystallized for me quite recently. Because this has been going on for a year now. Anne: So it’s been a year since he told you. Shelly: The D-Days, yeah, I always say D-Days because there was so much that we took a long time for full disclosure. And it just got worse and worse, the things being disclosed. Seeking The Truth Anne: Tell me more about that. Was he disclosing them to you because of therapy or how did the other disclosures happen? Shelly: No, after the first disclosure, we tried to make it light. And smoked and was like, sometimes. I pulled away and was like, you said you never did that. Instantly my heart was broken. Then he started to lie and minimize, he said. It was only three times in our relationship that I’ve done that. The thing is, once I switched on to the fact that he was lying to me and had lied to me, I could see it, and I could literally see him snaking around in front of me, lying to me. It was my warning system, and not letting it go and saying things like you said this, and that doesn’t add up. And okay, tell me this then, so what is it? There’s more I could feel it, I could feel it in my body every time he was lying to me. And I could see it. So there were a lot of lies after the first admission. Who went through for about four months, maybe a bit more serious, like minimizing half truths. Outright lies with him shifting around and tripping himself up and saying something he hadn’t said before. Or saying opposite things, saying two different things, two different sides of one story. And I said to him, you’re not even allowing me to heal, because you’re not telling me the whole truth. So after four or five months of this. And I was on it, I was on fire. I was just calling it the BS knife, because I was so sharply cutting through all these lies, my husband couldn’t be trusted again. He Gives A Full Disclosure Shelly: It culminated in going away and staying in a hotel room. And he was like, okay, I’m gonna tell you everything. He literally listed everything from childhood, told me stuff like when I wasn’t around. About him looking at other women just gave me what I felt was a full story. And it was incredibly traumatic. Anne: Were you interested in that, or was this like a way of grooming you, or can you talk a little bit about that? Shelly: I wouldn’t leave it until I got the full story. I needed to know everything. I needed to know who I was with. And it felt like pulling the truth out of him. It was my instincts that were telling me, you’re still not telling me the truth. There’s more and more. We had many horrific bombs dropped in my lap, with more and more truth, it got worse and worse. Anne: So how are you feeling now? Shelly: Like I said, it’s been a year. I did have moments where I was like, I don’t even know if I can love you anymore after this level of lies. I don’t think I can trust my husband again. But because of the work he’s done, a lot of meditation. He had a lightbulb moment when we listened to something, and it said the body doesn’t know the difference between what the mind is thinking. So, if you’re reliving your trauma all the time, he compartmentalized and kept this in a separate dark box. And then he was the good dad and he was a good partner. In all the other boxes, he was full of light and this wonderful man, but then he had this dark box where he kept all that stuff. What If I Can Never Trust My Husband Again: Partner’s Realization & Efforts Shelly: So he literally gave that energy to another person. When he’s supposed to be committed and loyal to me. My husband was proving I couldn’t trust him anymore. Anne: On that note, he’s “such a good dad.” It was a feeling that you had, that something wasn’t quite right. But I want to talk about the other types of abuse that you experienced for a minute, the gaslighting and the emotional and psychological abuse. Do you think that even though it wasn’t overt, because I guess he wasn’t screaming in your face, he wasn’t, overtly calling you names that would have been obvious to you. But do you think that might have been what you were picking up on? Even though you didn’t know that you were picking up on it because you couldn’t see it and couldn’t tell. But do you think that was what you were picking up on? Shelly: Yeah, I do. I reckon my instincts were warning me, and self protection was kicking in. Anne: So you and your partner were together in a committed relationship for how long when he disclosed his use? Shelly: Seven years. So it’d been going on for seven years. Anne: Why did he disclose it? That’s a question I always ask, because they could be repentant at this point where they’re like, oh my word, I can’t live like this anymore. I’ve got to come clean. I’ve got to change. That’s a possibility. There’s also a possibility where they want to hurt you. I’m not saying that’s your situation, and I’m not trying to convince you of that. Why Disclose Now? Anne: In my case, when my ex-husband was in addiction recovery, and was doing so well. Then near the end, there was a sudden turn where he started telling me he was using. Before that, he was lying to me about it. When I look back, I’m like, I think he might have been having an emotional affair. There was something going on, and he wanted me to be the cause of the demise of our marriage. And so he was like, starting to be overtly aggressive and abusive. He would tell me he was using, because he knew that was a deal breaker for me. And so that’s one of the questions I want women to think about is why now, because that might help as we’re trying to heal or determine, what do I want to do? Is this safe for me? Is it not safe for me to ponder that question? If my husband lied to me the whole time, why is he telling me the truth now? Shelly: So I questioned him on that, and he said he felt it was getting to a point where it was out of control. He didn’t ever feel good about himself, because of what he was doing and living this double life. But he was scared to tell me the whole lot in one go. He didn’t have the strength to tell me everything in one go. I don’t believe he was trying to hurt me. It seemed like he was lightly slipping the truth in. And then he was like, now I’ve got all hell to deal with. So then he was trying to backtrack and minimize, and giving me non-truth and half truth. How could I ever trust him again after this? Can Ever Trust My Husband Again? I Think He Wanted To Change Shelly: So I don’t believe he was trying to hurt me with that. And I think that he, maybe subconsciously, wanted to change. I hope that’s the case. I definitely don’t believe he was using that to try and hurt me, because he’s not vindictive in that way, and he always wanted to look after me. He knew me in these past relationships, he was my friend, and he came along like this knight in shining armor. And just wanted to protect me. Then had this realization that he’d been exactly the same, and which he’s actually struggled with. We’ve spoken in great depth about the conditioning and objectification of humans. But obviously from this perspective, he was part of that, and he’s horrified with himself, and I believe that’s genuine. He was in groups of friends that were, it was just normal, it was just, this is what guys do, it’s just normal. That might be fine. If you’re in a relationship and you’re fine with that, then that’s fine. But this isn’t, and it wasn’t, and he chose that because he knew my stance on that. He knew he was lying to me, so this wasn’t normal and okay. And to consenting people and the coercion thing, realizing that I hadn’t been giving full consent. We’ve also spoken about that a lot, so he’s horrified with himself. Which I think is good. But, does that change whether or not I can trust him again? Anne: Yeah, that is good. Challenges In Counseling Anne: I wondered about therapy. In my opinion, the likelihood of it worsening is too risky. Shelly: I had the exact same feeling, actually. I wasn’t sure that any form of counseling would be helpful. Because of the tendency in society to normalize this stuff, and as long as you’re not physically cheating with someone else, then what’s the problem? Anne: You’re like, oh, the lying. But yeah. Shelly: Yeah, I was very apprehensive about any form of counseling. We went to the doctors, he wanted me to come with him. We sat with him. A female doctor, and he started talking and breaking down. He said he didn’t understand how he could do this to me. And struggled with his mental health and self perception. He was advised to take counseling. And they offered him a woman counselor on a screen, video calling, and I was like, I’m not comfortable with that. I’m not comfortable with that at all. We’re like, we’re talking about, you’re looking at women on the screen. I’m not comfortable with you having counseling with a woman on a screen. That’s like in this space, I don’t feel safe with that. So he requested a man, and luckily he did end up with a really. good counselor who he was able to express where he was with in a safe place without it being normalized. I felt I was on my way to trusting him again. And the lady doctor, when we went together, she said, do you want me to point you in the direction of addiction services? And he was like, I don’t actually think I have an addiction. It’s more of a choice that I decided to stop, where he didn’t go down that route. Validation & Healing Shelly: We both had counseling separately and thought about couples therapy. But again, my instincts were not fully on that either. So we haven’t, we’ve done a lot of work together just between us, in meditations, and in just hearing each other. A lot of it’s been me, speaking my heart and my pain. Sometimes, he’s struggled to deal with the anger, because he’s got a tendency to defend himself. So he’s working through that now. But his determination to make it right has given me hope and stuck me here. Actually, the full disclosure of everything he did, he could have easily not told me, is that it’s been the truth that’s kept us together. Anne: Can you talk about your journey to find Betrayal Trauma Recovery and want to share your story? Shelly: I was talking to him and I said to him, there’s so much help for you, that it literally feels like there’s no help for me. It was only recently that I’d found out that this sort of trauma has a name. And then I was starting to look into betrayal trauma, and then connecting all the dots from the rest of my life previously. It was actually him that was looking for ways to help me, and he discovered your podcast. And the first one he found was women saying, “This is the best way to heal from betrayal trauma.” And he was like, I want you to listen to this. And that was how I found you. I wanted to share my story, because I think that is another step forward in healing in our journey. Putting this out because I’ve kept it very close to my heart and it’s been hard. What If I Can Never Trust My Husband Again: Finding Support & Community Anne: As part of your journey to healing, to find a community with women who have been through this? Who all worry about if they can trust their husband again. Shelly: And feeling so validated in a world that normalizes this stuff and it’s everywhere. Feeling so validated for feeling so strongly about this and feeling so heartbroken about this. That validation has given me so much. There are other women wondering if they can trust their husbands. Anne: Let’s talk about that validation for a minute. Can you talk about the difference in knowing that women are horrified and traumatized? And they’re experiencing emotional and psychological abuse on these intense levels. And that almost all society doesn’t recognize this type of trauma. What’s your feeling now that you realize you’ve been completely normal and that there are so many other women who feel the way you do? Shelly: I feel like there’s an army of women out there that I’m part of. Before, I felt isolated and we would talk to friends. It would be like, I didn’t speak about this, about my personal experience with friends, but just in conversation. Oh yeah, as long as they’re not cheating and come back to you at the end of the night. It’s the validation that this actually affects people much more than is spoken about. Because people don’t talk about it. It’s giving it a voice. Anne: And that’s why I do this podcast to give women like you the opportunity to share your story, share how you feel, share how this affected you. Belief It’s Possible To Trust My Husband Again Shelly: Yeah, that is a powerful thing. That’s a powerful thing, because before I knew of my emotions, I felt like I was on my own in that. I wasn’t, there are many others who also wonder what if they can trust him again. Anne: I am so grateful that you’re a member of our community and supporting me in my healing process. I am honored and have been honored through the years to hear all these stories. Women who share these stories are in a vulnerable place, and it’s such an honor to like, sit with you. I know I was in the same spot. Maybe a different spot, because my husband’s character, was deceptive. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, about how I believe people can change. And, that makes this job hard, right? Because how do we know if someone is or isn’t when they’ve lied to you all these years, right? How can you tell if you can trust him? So that place where you are right now in your healing process is a vulnerable spot, but it is okay to be there. And there’s no way to get out of it other than to go through it, because you want to make the right decision for you and your family. And we get that. Shelly: Yeah, and you have to feel every layer of grief to release yourself from it. And it’s a hard thing to face, because it’s not anything that anyone would choose to feel. But that, the only way out is to go in, and that’s the process I’m in. And it feels like I’ve been doing it forever now. Reflections On Change & Trust Anne: Hopefully not forever, right? It’s been so interesting. My process, I feel so good now. But there were, I don’t know, 14 years where I felt like this is going to be forever. So I totally understand. I wondered if I could trust him again, and found out I couldn’t. Shelley, if you’re willing to come back and share how you’re doing in six months to a year. I would love to have you come back on and share what’s going on, what you’ve learned through the process. So if you’re willing to do that, I would love to talk to you again. Shelly: Yeah, definitely up for that, yeah. Anne: Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing your story, and keep in touch. Shelly: Yeah, I will do, thank you.

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. Consider taking my free after infidelity email course. 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 couples therapy tools and say, “Let’s explore your childhoods” or “Let’s work on communication,” while the real issue continues unchecked. You don’t know what’s actually happening, and the professionals you seek also don’t know. This happens constantly when a woman’s husband controls the narrative in therapy. Ruby: Yes, exactly. They need to ask better questions. Anne: That’s why I put together Clarity After Betrayal. So women could know what to expect before they schedule with a couples therapist near me. The workshop includes what more than 200 women told me they wish they had known. It’s only $27 and gives answers years faster (and much cheaper) than couples therapy. Religious Messaging Made Ruby Think Couples Therapy Would Help Ruby: I heard my mom say many times, “I made my commitment under God, to God, in my marriage, no matter what your dad does.” That belief created such heavy bondage for her, and it breaks my heart when I think about it now. Anne: When I first started podcasting, I felt scared and confused and fought to keep my vows at all costs. I prayed, fasted, and hoped things would change because I didn’t want to disappoint God. Now I feel the opposite because I believe God wants women to separate from evil and harm. Many women say God nudged them years earlier, but clergy gave them poor advice that kept them trapped. I hear that pattern again and again. Here’s an example of emotional abuse if that helps. When Ruby Realized Couples Therapy Wasn’t Helping Ruby: I remember driving home and dreading walking through my own door. I took the kids everywhere because being alone with him created constant anxiety. Even errands felt safer. Around that time, we also got a puppy, and the responsibility overwhelmed me. I kept praying for direction because nothing made sense, and I felt exhausted trying to hold everything together. Then he left on his own. He packed his car two days before Father’s Day and didn’t try to hide it. I begged him to wait because the kids had made him gifts. He looked at me and said, “I don’t need any more meaningless crap,” and drove away. At the end of that month, God spoke to me clearly and said, “Enough. You’re done. Let him go.” Something inside me shifted immediately. It felt like God lifted him out of my heart. I finally felt space to breathe. In the beginning, everything felt raw, and I couldn’t see beyond that moment. I had just started seeing the truth of what I lived through. I didn’t yet realize how much clarity would come later—long before a couples therapist near me could have helped. For Women Who Feel Guilty About Couples Therapy Making Things Worse Ruby: For any woman who feels condemnation, I want her to know this: you didn’t break your vow. Your husband’s choices broke the marriage. You still have value, dignity, and worth. You’re not damaged goods in God’s eyes. You never were. I speak out to help women stop blaming themselves for harm they didn’t cause. You’re not breaking up your family. His choices already did that. Pretending everything was fine only deepened the damage. Staying silent gave him protection, not me. As he grew more volatile and irrational, I grew more afraid of doing the wrong thing. He trained me to manage his world so he didn’t have to regulate himself. I handled the home, the kids, and every detail. Because I carried that load, he told others I acted controlling. That projection confused me for years. No couples therapist near me could have revealed those dynamics without seeing the truth behind closed doors. The Social Backlash When Couples Therapy Fails Ruby: I think many of us fear that people won’t understand and will condemn us for doing the right thing. A friend of mine was labeled a “husband basher” simply for describing her reality. Their mutual friends didn’t want that truth. I knew she wasn’t bashing him. She was finally naming what harmed her. But when others feel invested in maintaining a certain image of him, they reject anything that disrupts their version of the story. They want to believe you just didn’t complete the therapist’s assignments. Anne: Or they simply don’t believe you. They believe the man who lies and manipulates because it’s easier. It happens far too often and leaves women feeling isolated. This is so common when you are dealing with your abusive husband’s therapist. Healing Without a Couples Therapist Near Me Writing became a meaningful part of your healing process. It let you express your pain. Even though we aren’t sharing your writing today, I know it helped you see truths you couldn’t say out loud yet. Ruby: It really did. Writing helped me turn pain into something I could see and understand. For years I felt split because I tried to serve two masters and live two different lives. I tried to serve God while staying united with someone who wasn’t walking toward God at all. Nothing he did aligned with God. That realization revealed how much confusion I carried. https://youtube.com/shorts/eTzRfKboinw When separation happened, something settled inside me. For the first time in years, I felt aligned with God again. A couples therapist near me couldn’t have created that shift because it required honesty, not mediation. How Women Can Get Education Before Trying Couples Therapy Ruby: Women should ask themselves: Are you living with constant turmoil? Do you feel torn between serving God and staying united with your husband? That inner conflict signals something deeper. The clarity journey is long and exhausting, but essential. Building community supports you through the confusion. Strong community helps you stay grounded when things feel heavy. Anne: Thank you so much. Your story and courage will help so many women who feel alone. Your willingness to share matters. Ruby: Thank you for having me. It has been my privilege. Hope for Women Moving Forward Ruby: The only thing I want women to know is this: don’t assume this is the end. Your life isn’t over, even if it feels that way. Anne: It’s true. Beautiful and meaningful things still lie ahead, even when the path feels difficult. Ruby: Thank you. And thank you for giving women a place to find real answers before spending years in couples therapy.