My Husband Says I’m The Problem. Is He Right? – J.R.’s Story

“My husband says I’m the problem, so I went to therapy for years. But things are still bad.”

J.R. spent nearly a decade trying to improve herself so her marriage would improve. She didn’t realize she was never the problem in her marriage.

To know if you’re the problem, take our free emotional abuse quiz to see if you’re experiencing any of the 19 types of emotional abuse. If you are, it’s unlikely you have anything to do with the problems in your marriage.

Many victims may blame themselves because that’s how a master manipulator will continue to exploit. Convincing her that she’s the problem is part of psychological abuse.

Signs You’re Not the Problem

You’re not the problem if your husband does any of the following:

• Uses gaslighting to contort your perception of reality
• Betrays you, including secret exploitative content use
• Blames you for his choices

Transcript: My Husband Says I Am The Problem, Is He Right?

Anne: We have a member of our community on today’s episode. We’ll call her J.R. She’s a mother of four. She spent almost a decade of her life, married to a psychologically abusive man. Welcome J.R.

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

Anne: You said you attribute your healing to Betrayal Trauma Recovery. Do you want to start there, and then we’ll circle back to the beginning?

J.R.: In 2020, I discovered the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast. To be honest, I was trying to rack my brain to figure out how I found the podcast. I can’t remember, I feel like it’s a God thing for me anyway. I had known about his use throughout our relationship. We had been through a lot regarding his addiction at that point. But I never would have been able to classify it as emotional abuse. I didn’t have the terminology.

At that time, we lived in Washington state, and I was driving through gorgeous Oregon countryside, like mountains, just a really beautiful landscape. Listening to episode after episode of the Betrayal Trauma Recovery podcast, and I remember this feeling, like, this is me. I heard a description of what I was going through for the first time. I think in the past I had seen myself as the villain, because hearing some women talk on the BTR podcast.

And hearing you Anne talk about safety, gaslighting, and emotional abuse. It became clearer to me that was my situation. Because my husband says I’m the problem. So yes, there was the relief in like, my husband says I’m the problem. But I’m not alone. I finally feel understood. I finally feel seen.

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

J.R.: I had no idea what I was going to do, and dreaded that. I wasn’t that far yet. There was a sense of dread. And like, I’m driving right back into this situation. I hear a lot of the women on the podcast talk about their husband’s anger, whether it’s verbal assault or even physical, but with my ex, I didn’t see a lot of those signs, I didn’t see anger. I didn’t see any sort of violence or undertones of agitation. It was so covert.

From the beginning of a relationship, my husband gaslit me. And creating this alternate reality for me. My husband says I’m the problem. And I believed him right away. So I was immediately hooked. I feel like maybe he didn’t need to go to another tactic as far as being more aggressive, or maybe that’s just not his flavor of abuse. I’m not sure why. But I didn’t see him as an angry person.

I just thought I was the problem. We would get into these fights, but he wasn’t actually fighting back. It was just me basically fighting with a wall, because I knew there was something going on. I knew he was lying to me, but I could never prove it. He just capitalized on that and made me believe I was crazy.

So from the beginning, I started therapy and have gone to multiple therapists on and off over the past decade or so looking for what’s wrong with me. How do I change me to make this work?

He Took My Honesty, And Used It To His Advantage

Anne: Would you define his behavior as like problem solving? He seemed reasonable and that you just had some serious problems that you needed to work through. Had he manipulated you to that point? Is that kind of what I’m hearing?

J.R.: Yes, that’s accurate. When you said manipulating, that stirred something in me to remember when we started dating. I have a keen self awareness, and I told him flat out. I’ve struggled with jealousy in the past. And it is something that I am trying to work on and move through, but I just want to be upfront that is a struggle of mine. So I think right there, he took my honesty and used that to his advantage.

Anne: So in that way, he weaponized your vulnerability against you, but you were not aware of this at the time.

J.R.: Right. I had no clue. Because of my spiritual background and upbringing, I saw him as this tool in my life that God used to bring about sanctification in me. So I just really was like, okay, this person is like a mirror pointing out the things in me that need to change, the ways I need to grow. And I was thankful for that.

Anne: Was he using spiritual abuse? So was he like quoting scripture? The effects of spiritual abuse are so intense.

J.R.: I think it was mostly coming from my own values and convictions. And what was ingrained in me. I don’t know he was explicit about it, but I think he definitely capitalized on that. He was on staff at our church. So the spiritual abuse, it did come from him, but I would say, trickled down from our pastor.

Clergy & Therapists Enable Emotional Abuse, When They Say I’m The Problem

J.R.: It seemed like the perfect cocktail that just worked in his favor. Against me to keep me right where he wanted me.

Anne: So because you spent so many years in therapy, thinking that it was you that had the problem. Rather than realizing what was going on. What are your thoughts about all that time you spent in therapy now?

J.R.: I’ve been able to do a lot of personal work that has made me a better mother, friend and person in general, so I don’t regret it. But when I started, I would not talk to any therapist who wasn’t Christian based. And had a religious, specifically Christian background.

That was something important to me. And now when I look for someone to confide in or get advice from, I’m very wary of Christians. This is sad, because I still have a strong faith, and my spiritual journey is important to me. But I lost a lot of trust in the church community and in Christians who are in positions of influence. Because I saw so many that could have helped me, and not only didn’t help me get to safety, but actually very firmly rooted me deeper into the abuse.

Anne: Yeah, that’s so hard. Did you experience that layer of spiritual abuse where they blame you by asking you, if you’ve prayed hard enough, or if you have enough faith or submitted? Were you in the type of Christian Church that wanted you to submit to your husband? Was that a thing in your faith?

J.R.: Growing up? Not so much. I didn’t grow up in what I would consider complementarian, male led, spiritual atmosphere.

I Was Drawn In To Complementarian Views

J.R.: Once I met my husband, he swept me away with many of these toxic patriarchal teachings. They used those against me saying I’m the problem in our marriage.

Anne: For people unfamiliar with complementarian views, or that paradigm of gender roles, can you talk about that?

J.R.: It’s this hierarchical structure that God put in the Bible that puts husbands as heads of their wives, but then in a church structure, it would put men in positions of authority. In many areas, it completely disqualifies women for even holding a leadership or authority position in the church.

Anne: When you were first introduced to it, what spoke to you about it? Now with where you are in your life, my guess is that you wouldn’t be drawn to it. Back then, what ideas did you find compelling about it?

J.R.: I wasn’t interested when it was first introduced. It was John MacArthur who…

Anne: I have no idea who that is.

J.R.: Oh, good, bless you. I’m glad you don’t, because it’s terrible. My ex, we were at his Bible college. And we were sitting in an empty room on campus, and watched this sermon. By the end of it, I was just bawling. I had never heard someone be so cruel, ruthless, and just not compassionate at all from the pulpit like that.

He talked about women and our roles. And why we’re made the way we’re made. I hadn’t even started my journey of being a wife or motherhood. So I didn’t have personal experience. But I just sat there feeling like if I was a woman who either didn’t want to have children. Maybe I wanted to be married, but didn’t find the right person.

Complementarian Influence & Coercion

J.R.: Or maybe I was struggling with infertility, hearing this would feel like a slap in the face. That God designed you for these things, and basically apart from these things, you’d don’t have worth. The way he framed it, I wasn’t fulfilling the purpose of my life. I remember crying. I remember resisting, but I loved Jesus. My faith was sincere, very important to me, and between my ex and the pastor.

I just felt like they’re using scripture. That’s what it says. I guess that’s what it means. I guess I need to conform to this. And so I did it reluctantly, to be honest. I mean I’d just be asking him about his day and my husband always thinks I’m attacking him.

Anne: It’s not like it spoke to you. You’re saying, I resisted it, but I was coerced, maybe?

J.R.: A hundred percent. I would use that word, especially now that I’ve done a lot of my own growing and reflecting. Yes. I would say coerced. Because there were instances where I’ve always been involved in things like music, musical theater, and different things. I signed up to audition for The Voice, okay.

Anne: Ooh, sing for us now.

J. R.: Ah no, no, no. But it was like this fun thing I was going to do with my mom. It was right when I first got married.

I remember my husband and pastor at the time, talked at our dinner table in our home. Scripture was used against me. I was told I was being selfish. I was using worldly wisdom instead of seeking godly wisdom, because you’re not singing worship. So why would you even do this? I would be in the secular world. I was basically guilted and shamed out of auditioning.

My Husband Says I’m The Problem, So I Had To Give Up My Dreams

Anne: Coerced, did your fiancé have a job?

J.R.: Fancy that you would mention that.

Anne: I just want to bring up the misogyny here, right? Did the pastor say to him, You should not work at this job because it’s in the world.

J.R.: That’s the thing. My fiance was the only other staff member on the staff at this church. This upset my family. And it caused a huge argument and rift between me, my parents, and my sister. Because they were like, what are you doing? This is your passion. This is what you want. Why are you not pursuing this? And I pretty much parroted all the scripture back to them. Personally, what I experienced in this complementarianism bubble.

I needed to protect my marriage, because I wasn’t my own autonomous person. We were one, but I had to defer to him. So there was no me, there was only him. Because if there’s one and I don’t have a say, well, who’s the one? It’s him. So I parroted all this back to them, and they were concerned. But I was newly married, and I thought, this is my husband.

I need to respect him. So I bought into everything my husband and pastor told me. I didn’t like it. But I believed it was what the Bible said. And that was enough for me to be like, okay, I guess this is what I do now.

Anne: Are you surprised and shocked to find out that it was psychological abuse? That it wasn’t God, because God created you, and he gave you these amazing talents. Don’t hide your candle under a bushel. So I guess the scriptures only apply to men.

Realizing Psychological Abuse

Anne: They don’t apply to women, because you’ve got this candle, and they’re telling you to hide it under a bushel.

J.R.: Right, until it came to leading worship in the church, which they used me for and didn’t compensate. It was very, yeah, yeah, oh yeah. Honestly, it was until I started listening to the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast. It took a long time to use that word and see it for what it is.

Anne: Many women love truth and love God. They want to do the right thing so much that they’re willing to sacrifice themselves. I’m like, wow, women are brave, strong and powerful. They’re making these decisions because they’re such courageous, incredible people. There’s nothing about sacrificing everything about yourself that is weak. Then to realize that your husband and pastor coerced you. To unknowingly sacrifice it to wickedness is devastating and heartbreaking.

J.R.: They inundated him with this type of theology and doctrines, and fed all that to me. And I was so excited and passionate about Jesus. I wanted to find what is God’s will? And if that’s God’s will, then I’m going to do it. I flipped 180 degrees from what my parents taught me growing up. I grew up around strong women, women who were opinionated, loud. And then I flipped over to, oh, the only good type of Christian woman is a submissive one.

I need a quiet spirit. I need to be timid, I need to be meek. And I struggled with that. Because it didn’t resonate with who I felt like I was. Who I felt like God made me to be. But I just latched on and believed that was my role in life, and that I wasn’t good at it.

You’re So Good At Being You & He’s The Problem

Anne: That breaks my heart, because you’re so good at being you. We’re so good at being ourselves. And that’s who God made us be. So it breaks my heart when women try to contort themselves in this misogynistic view of who they are. What gets lost is God loves us, God loves you. He created you for you, not to be subservient to someone else. That is lost when spiritual abuse comes into play.

You’ve talked about how you went to therapy. You talked about how your husband manipulated you to alter the way you viewed yourself and religion to try to survive this situation. Thinking because my husband says I’m the problem, this would make things better.

J.R.: It wasn’t until I discovered the Betrayal Trauma Recovery podcast that I finally realized it didn’t matter what I did. It wasn’t going to “work” because he was the problem. And I was believing for so long that I was the problem. So I really spent so many years adding child after child into this mess, banging my head against the wall.

When I was a stay at home mom for the beginning of my children’s lives. I remember just saying things to him. It’s hard to do all the things in a day that you want me to do in the house. Like, make the meal, keep the house clean, do this and that with the kids.

And I said, I can’t do it all, but what is one thing that would mean a lot to you? When you come home from work, it’s like, Oh, I’m so thankful that this thing is done. I would ask him things like that, because I knew it wasn’t working.

Discovery & My Husband Lies And Says I’m The Problem

J.R.: I wanted it to work, and I am convinced I am the problem. Because my husband says I’m the problem. And it was so ingrained in me that divorce is wrong. Divorce is not an option. So I was like, it’s got to work. If it’s not working, I’m not doing the right thing or I’m not trying hard enough, because if I put it on him, then I feel hopeless.

If it’s up to him. He’s not willing to change. So then I’m stuck in this horrible marriage forever. It made more sense to take it upon myself, because at least then I had some control.

Anne: Did you ever discover infidelity?

J.R.: I found exploitative content on his phone and I can remember it so clearly. I was sitting in his car. He had run back into the house to grab something. He came back out to the car, and I was sitting there staring. And I showed it to him. Didn’t even say anything. Just showed it to him, and he looked me in the eyes and denied it. And it took me aback. Looking back now, I’m not going to lie.

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

He pushed back. And eventually, I’m like, well, I don’t care what you say. I’m seeing it in front of my face. So I don’t know why you’re trying to pretend this isn’t what it is. I’m crushed and devastated.

He Struggles With Accountability & I Pretend Things Are Fine

J.R.: I didn’t know what this was and how it worked to think anything. I just thought, okay. Maybe a part of me thought this was going to be everybody. At the time, he was still in Bible college. It was almost trendy for the guys to talk about “accountability” and, you know. Oh my gosh. If I hear the word struggle.

Anne: Their struggle.

J.R.: Oh yes, I didn’t like it, but I was, well, that’s what it is. It’s a struggle, and he’s trying. You don’t know what you don’t know. Throughout our dating relationship and then our engagement, I would say it would go like months at a time. Where I wouldn’t find anything. He wouldn’t say anything, but then discover something on his phone.

Whenever that would happen, I would get upset, and we’d have this big blowout. I would just decide, he’s not honest with me about this, so I need to let it go and stop thinking about it. Because I’m gonna drive myself crazy. I didn’t know how to reach out for help. I just thought, I guess I just have to pretend things are fine to survive.

Anne: Well, and that’s why some people call emotional abuse victims survivors, because everything you do in this scenario is to survive. So that’s where the term surviving comes from. I’ve always not liked that term, because you’re still in the middle of it. I’m like, I haven’t survived anything yet.

I’m still on the boat, and the boat is still sinking. I don’t feel like I’ve survived. I like the term victim, it’s straightforward, it’s very empowering. Because once you realize no one’s coming to save me, I need to start making my way to safety.

Complicated Relationship With Religion

J.R.: Yeah, obviously, it’s not the victim’s fault. Some people, might say, nobody even tried to tell me or warn me. I did have family and friends concerned, but I saw their opposition to my marriage as a spiritual attack on my relationship. So my relationship with the church and religion has become complicated. Because I attribute a lot of the way of thinking that kept me for so long to spiritual or religious teachings. That don’t actually align with what I believe Jesus teaches.

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

Anne: I agree. It’s really sad how perpetrators know how to take the things that women care about and weaponize them against them. It benefits him, at our expense.

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

Finding BTR.ORG & Seeking Help And Discovering That I’m Not The Problem

Anne: So you find Betrayal Trauma Recovery, you’re listening to the podcast. You realize, whoa, I’m being abused. Talk about what steps you take at this point?

J.R.: We have already been seeing a therapist together, which I do not recommend. Obviously, I didn’t know he was abusive. But, now in hindsight, never go to couples therapy with an abusive person. She started talking about betrayal trauma and had him write a therapeutic disclosure.

Anne: So she did a disclosure, which we don’t recommend here. And didn’t say whoa, whoa, whoa, we’ve got to stop the couple therapy.

J.R.: Yeah, I don’t think any of this was a great way to go about this. The route this went was incredibly and unnecessarily painful. Because when she had him do the disclosure, I just knew in my heart that he wasn’t going to be honest. And I told her, I don’t want to hear this. It’s going to be a bunch of lies. It started to get me thinking. That’s probably how I found your podcast.

I started to become aware of this concept of betrayal trauma. And so, searching for resources, I found Betrayal Trauma Recovery. And then I got partial disclosure after partial disclosure. It was very painful. And one night he told me his version of this is the whole truth.

He Uses A Church Computer For Inappropriate Content

Anne: I like how you said his version. This is a common pattern that they’ll say this is the whole truth and they’ll tell a really horrific thing that they’ve done.

J.R.: It’s no, no…

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

J.R.: Yes, we’re sitting in our living room. He points across the living room at a computer. That was actually used for ministry related purposes. Specifically with kids ministry. So it wasn’t even his own personal computer, but he points at this computer, this laptop. And says, “That’s the device I use to look at stuff.” It was never on my radar. No one ever monitored It. It was never something that I would have even thought he was using for many reasons.

I mean, it didn’t belong to him. He didn’t own it. The church owned it, and it was used for kids’ ministry. So, the next day, I purchased tickets for me and my kids to fly back home to Pennsylvania. At this point, divorce is still not even an option. It’s not on my radar, but I knew I needed space from him. I needed lots of distance for me and my children. We were just going to separate. We actually bought a ticket for him.

Going Home To Get Away

J.R.: Mine was just a one-way, because I didn’t know when I would return to Washington. His was both ways, so that he could help me get there with the kids. Because I would have been flying with three kids, three and under. So he flew with me, and then was going to get back on the plane and return to Washington. And it didn’t take too long into our separation to realize that I was never going to return to Washington.

If he wanted our marriage to work, and if our marriage was going to work, he would have to return to Pennsylvania. Where my support system was, so that he could potentially salvage our marriage. So I told him that, and he spent considerable time negotiating. He didn’t want to lose his job at the church, didn’t want to lose his position of power and authority, and didn’t want people to know the truth.

And he spread some lies about what was going on between us. He said I was going through postpartum depression, and that’s why I was away. People from the church were texting me and telling me to use this essential oil.

Anne: Wow!

J.R.: And eat this kind of food. And oh, the baby blues are so hard, aren’t they? It was a very difficult time, and throughout it all, it became clear to me how bad the situation was. I was becoming more realistic about the fact that it was not going to change.

Church’s Role & Support, He Still Says I’m The Problem

J.R.: We went through this whole thing with the church in Washington. I had to have men in church leadership speak on my behalf and stand up for me to even be heard. I feel grateful for those men, and I love them. They feel like brothers to me, but it was eye-opening to see that I wasn’t going to be heard unless I had men vouching for me. I was temporarily living with my parents with my three young kids in a very small house in Pennsylvania.

The church out there gave me his stipend and released him from his position. He realized he had nothing else there, and returned to Pennsylvania, got a bunch of praise and glory for returning to his family. He was the big hero for coming back. And I was like, you just came back because you didn’t have anything else out there. You tried so hard to salvage a life that you knew your wife and children were never going to be part of. And then when that didn’t work, you came back.

He made some steps that I guess looked like progress when he moved back here. In hindsight, it was all just manipulation to get what he wanted. So we moved into an apartment together again, to try to salvage the marriage. It was way too soon. The things that I needed to see during our separation to move towards reconciliation with him. I didn’t see any of those.

He bucked against everything, but I so desperately wanted it to work that I still moved back in with him. We were only living together for about two months. And the thing that finally made me leave him for good, unfortunately, was being hospitalized.

I Experience A Mental Breakdown & Escalation Of Abuse

J.R.: It wasn’t physical abuse from him, but I had a mental breakdown. I was suicidal and committed myself to the ER.

Anne: He didn’t put you in the hospital by punching you in the face. But mentally, you were in such bad shape after six, seven weeks of being with him in your vicinity, in your home. That’s where you were at. That’s how bad things got. I’m so sorry to hear that. I want to warn women that things usually get worse if he moves back in after a separation. Because they think they have to assert even more control, or they’re going to lose control of you again.

So once they get you in their vicinity again, at least, the emotional and psychological abuse will ramp up. But it might not seem like that to you, because it might seem nice. They might seem kind. And that’s when you think you’re going crazy, because you’re like, he’s not yelling at me. He’s not angry. Why am I going crazy? I’m not sure what his behaviors were, but some women experience it like that because he’s being great. He’s doing the dishes.

With my ex, he read scriptures every night and initiated family prayer. I felt like my sanity was hanging by a thread. And I was like, is that thread still there?

J.R.: Yeah, most of the time, I felt like I needed to pray more. I just need to read my Bible more. So it was still all my problem. And that just wasn’t doing it. I obviously wanted so badly to make it work. Not so much because I loved him, but because we had children, and obviously this wasn’t the case.

The Breaking Point & Filing for Divorce

J.R.: But I felt like if I left him, I was the reason our children would be in this “broken home.” That’s what people would see it as. So having that breakdown, being hospitalized, realizing that I didn’t want to live. It took that for me to say, if I’m not around for my kids, that’s not what’s best for them either. If I think staying in this abuse is what’s best for my children, they might not have a mom by the end of it.

That was really hard. After being hospitalized. My sister was amazing. She took a week off of work to be there for me and my children, whatever I needed. And I remember being at her house. She was bathing all the kids, hers and mine. There were eight of them. They were just going in and out of the bath, one after the other. And I remember her saying. “JR, if you stay with him, you’re never going to get better.” It seems like such a simple statement, but I needed to hear it in that moment.

When I came out of the hospital, I still wasn’t going to leave him. But his actions that week following that incident just solidified for me that he would never change. That it would never get better, that I couldn’t put myself back in that situation. And it was like, yeah, if I want to get better for the sake of my children. I cannot be with this man. That’s the bottom line. That’s when I filed for divorce and felt confident about that decision.

Systematic Dismantling of Self: Because He Said I’m the Problem

Anne: It’s hard after his and society sometimes or a misogynistic church, their systematic, intentional dismantling your sense of self so that you wouldn’t trust yourself. That’s why I have people like you, J.R., on the podcast to talk about it. It is so much more systemic than people realize. There are so many places that try and talk us out of it. They call you crazy, she’s too much or she’s not enough.

I’ve talked with women all over the world from every religion, no religion, atheist or agnostic. They have faced the same problems. But in different ways, through the court system or their workplace. It’s so hard that there’s all this gendered, emotional and psychological abuse happening.

We got Om’s Law passed in Utah because my friend, Leah Moses, her son was murdered. Some of you have seen me in the news about that. If you go to the Betrayal Trauma Recovery, YouTube channel. We have a playlist called BTR.ORG in the news. And you can see the news broadcasts about it.

I bring that up because even agnostic or atheist women experienced it in the court system and are shocked, like, wait, wait, wait. I thought the justice system was supposed to protect me from abuse. What is going on? Why is it getting worse? Are you surprised at how systemic the misogyny is, and how difficult it is to get out of abuse?

J.R.: I feel like I’ve never been a super optimistic person. I would probably call myself a realist. And I definitely had more hope in the system and in our institutions, especially in religious institutions, in people in general. So I’m working through a lot of bitterness about the system and the church specifically.

Announcing the Divorce & The Custody Battle Begins

J.R.: So, I asked friends of mine if they would be present for me to tell him that I wanted the divorce. I had written a letter and read it to him. The friends were so shocked at his lack of any kind of feeling, like they’re watching, as I’m telling him the heartbreaking story of why I need to divorce him. And he’s just emotionless. At this point in time, the children are like 3, 2, and less than a year old, and I have been a stay at home mom with them their whole lives.

I already had a lawyer come up with an agreement that I would be the primary caregiver. He started fighting me on that. I was saying something about me being the primary caregiver, and he was like, I don’t see how you’re the primary caregiver. I was like, wait, I’m literally with them more of the time. It’s not in question.

Anne: Also all this complimentarian stuff.

J.R.: Right, that’s my job.

Anne: Didn’t you tell me the whole time I was supposed to be the primary caregiver? Like you’re gonna suddenly throw it out the window?

J.R.: Right, exactly.

Anne: They’re not logical.

J.R.: No, no.

Anne: These abusers. Because this goes against all his complementarian values. He’s told you multiple times you are the primary caregiver, because that’s your “role here on earth.” And without that, you’re nothing. And then suddenly you’re not supposed to do it anymore.

J.R.: Right, they have to grasp at straws when they realize it’s all falling apart. I’ve just seen in co-parenting with this person that they’ll say the craziest things. They will contradict themselves all over the place. And so this is why I’m here.

Nervousness Before Speaking Out

J.R.: Right before, I was so nervous. I was like feeling sick to my stomach. I was like, I don’t know why am I doing this? What am I doing? I’m remarried and my current husband, he’s like, You’re doing this because it’s important to you and the lies and voices in your head that they don’t want you to be speaking out, to be confident, to help other people, to share your story. The gaslighting of my husband says I’m the problem.

So, all that being said, you feel crazy. It’s horrible. It’s what I felt for so long, and it’s what BTR.ORG helped me realize that I wasn’t. Even though my husband says I’m the problem. But you feel that way with the justice system, or injustice system. The people who are supposed to help, where are they? It’s infuriating.

Anne: Talk about how that went down in court.

J.R.: At the time, I had just come out of the hospital, I was just trying to get on my feet again.

I got my kids into a daycare, I got a job, I got health insurance for all of us, which he never had for us, all within like a week.

Rebuilding After Hospitalization Because I Took All The Blame

J.R.: So I say I wasn’t in the greatest place, but I just want, yes, thank you, thank you. I was so tired and so done. And I wanted it to be over. And he wasn’t gonna concede to me being the primary caregiver or having primary custody. Hindsight is 20/20. If I knew better. Then I would have taken him to court, and I would have easily gotten the custody, but I’m still trying to be reasonable.

Anne: Like at the time. You’re assuming he’s capable of being reasonable. But learning since then, oh, I am reasonable. He’s incapable of being reasonable. So I need to be strategic with him. Which is why I wrote the The BTR.ORG Living Free Workshop. To use strategies because they are not reasonable.

So you can’t treat them as if they’re going to react in a reasonable way. You have to be very strategic with how you deal with them.

J.R.: Yes, exactly. And I was like, I don’t have the money to go to court. I don’t have the mental capacity right now to go to court. I just want to be divorced and move forward. At the time, I would say to people, he’s a fine dad. He’s just a terrible partner.

Of course, I made him look like a good dad when we were together. I made him look like a good dad. So now we’re not together, he’s shown his true colors. And it’s obvious that he is not a good dad. So I just said, okay, we’ll do 50/50. And I have regretted that every day since.

Experiencing Courtroom Misogyny

Anne: Are you still on 50/50 now?

J.R.: Unfortunately, I took him to court last year, and it was a brutal experience. The judge slut shamed me. My ex brought in a local politician he’s somehow connected with. Who for some reason could sit and observe when my husband wasn’t even allowed to come in. He brought people in who had a bone to pick with me, who perjured themselves on the stand.

it was a mess. By the end, nothing changed. They said, everything seems to be working just fine, so we’re not going to change anything.

Yeah, it worked fine because I picked up all the pieces, I love my kids. Of course, I’m going to do everything for them. I’m never going to let a custody agreement stop me from making sure they have what they need for school, but it just became a pattern. And so I was like, if I’m doing more than oh, it’s such a joke.

I’m using air quotes for “50/50”. Then every time I say that, like I’m doing 50 percent of the work, I don’t have the right to operate as though I have that custody. He would argue with me about medical things. He would argue about anything he could possibly argue about. And it was just things that I always took care of, and he was always happy for me to take care of them.

But now, if I made a decision, and he just felt like it one day, he would just nitpick it, and he would say, I don’t agree, and we’d go back and forth. And I didn’t have the rights, legally, to do certain things, because we’re 50/50.

Anne’s Own Fight For Custody

Anne: I was in the same exact boat you are in for eight years dealing with my abusive ex. He caused problems every day. He would cancel medical appointments. And didn’t want the kids to take any extracurricular activities. He would try to coerce them into not doing literally simple things, like baseball or taking trombone lessons, piano lessons.

I have a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction. At the time, I’ve been podcasting teaching women how to set boundaries, and directing the coaching services here at Betrayal Trauma Recovery for years. And I’m thinking, of course, I’m going to get more custody. So I’ll take him to court and just shut all this chaos down.

I had a stack of documentation at the time about all the chaos he was causing. I had a current protective order, pictures of bruises on me and also the kids. So I thought this is a no brainer. My ex is an attorney. He just walked in the guardian ad litem they like, were in the same attorney club.

J.R.: Oh, I get it.

Anne: The thing was over. He ended up getting more custody, and I was furious. Like what? I’m doing everything right. Like with everything I know. I’m well-spoken and presented all of it. I have all the documentation. I have everything and I can’t be free from abuse. His messages almost every day abuse me. If I can’t figure this out, no one can. So I started praying and fasting about it, and pondering and praying for deliverance.

Anne’s Miraculous Deliverance

Anne: I feel like I was led and guided. I know that if you’ve been spiritually abused, that is triggering. So I try not to talk about that part as much. But I do need to tell that part of the story, because I promised God, like if you deliver me, I will shout it from the rooftops. This was not me. This was an absolute miracle. And my sister, who’s not religious, she was like, no, you did it. You did it through your hard work. You have the ideas. And I’m like, no, no, no.

These were from God. And she’s sometimes mad at me. Because she’s like, no, you’re a hard worker. You should tell people all the hard things you did. Take that with a grain of salt, whether you’re religious or not. So because I was able to deliver myself and my kids from abuse using strategy and not going to court, I was like, is this just a fluke, is this just me?

So for two years, I tested the strategies with local people in my area. To see if The Living Free Strategies helped them get delivered.

Miracle after miracle has occurred with these strategies. And it makes me mad that a victim is doing everything right. She’s reporting, she’s telling people what’s going on. And they’re not listening. This isn’t about how skilled you are at being a mom or communicator. This is about knowing what tactics they use, the traps they use, and how to avoid them through strategy.

The Living Free Workshop Is A Miracle

Anne: And so that’s what I teach in the BTR.ORG Living Free Workshop to give you specific tools to write strategic messages to these abusers to deliver ourselves.

We’ve seen awesome success, and I’ve trained the coaches so they can help women do it if they’re still having a little trouble applying it. So taking that Living Free Workshop helps a ton, because they don’t care about the kids.

J.R.: Yeah.

Anne: They only care about control over the kids, and also control over you. And if they didn’t have the kids to use, they would continue to harass you. Or bother you, or be entertained by the chaos they cause in your life. They wouldn’t have anything because they’re not interested in parenting.

Is he remarried?

J.R.: He dated a lot. He’s moved women and their children into his home with my kids without telling me.

Anne: Wow, wow, wow, wow, the super righteous guy?

J.R.: Oh, yeah. Oh. He’s let his true colors show. Since leaving him, he has been pretty wild, too. About the judge, like, slut shaming me on the stand. That’s because I got pregnant out of wedlock after leaving my ex.

Anne: Your ex had an affair out of wedlock just like you did.

J.R.: Right, right, exactly.

Anne: So there’s the misogyny at play. He can’t get pregnant.

J.R.: I brought that point up, I actually wrote an open letter to the judge.

Issues Relevant To Custody Are Not Used Fairly

J.R.: If our activity was relevant to the custody case for our children, then why didn’t we ask him about his partners? But it wasn’t about our partners. It was about the fact that I had a baby, which I also have taken very good care of and have proved to be a very good mother.

Because of what you said about him, like being a religious guy. People have looked at me and been like, is she who she always said she was? And it’s like, you know what? I don’t know. I’m discovering who I am because for 10 years, it was stamped out of me.

Anne: Yeah, it’s okay to change. It’s okay to say. Religion the way I practiced it before isn’t working for me. I’m assuming you didn’t end up marrying the father of this child. And I’m assuming for good reason. Is that accurate?

J.R.: The father wanted me to abort, and I wouldn’t. And so he said he didn’t want anything to do with it. I considered adoption. He said he didn’t want anything to do with that either. Now I can look back and offer myself compassion, because I was very broken. I was holding down a job whenever I didn’t have my children.

50/50 definitely engaging in pretty risky behavior, things that weren’t good for me. They weren’t healthy for me. But I was just so broken. I always wanted to love and be loved, and that did not happen in my marriage. I spent a long time begging for it. Trying to fix what was broken. And obviously it wasn’t working. I wasn’t actually healing, and I got pregnant, and I thought it was gonna ruin my life.

My New Baby Saved Me

J.R.: But it actually saved me. It stopped me from continuing down the path I was on. My daughter might’ve saved my life. I had been praying for God to send me a Boaz. If you know the story of Boaz it is what’s called a kinsman redeemer. I just found myself praying that God would send me someone who would take up the role that my husband was supposed to do and would fulfill what I felt like I was promised.

Anne: Kind of like, I’ve been faithful to my vows. Now I need someone who will be faithful to the vows as well?

J.R.: I’m not gonna like sugarcoat it. Looking back, the advice I would give to other women is just to wait. Like give it time. So like, I’m not advocating for this. But shortly after that, I met my current husband. Because I was pregnant, things did move pretty fast. Obviously, we’re a work in progress. We should always be growing, but it’s like, why shouldn’t I be ready for a relationship? I was ready 10 years ago when I met this abuser, I wanted a relationship.

I wanted respect and a partnership. Now that I have children and am doing everything I should have done, I am ready. I’m ready. I’ve been ready. I think it’s important to educate yourself and like, be aware of things that maybe you weren’t before. So you can recognize red flags and avoid abuse, like all that is important.

Having Challenges In My New Relationship

J.R.: My current husband had a addiction, which I didn’t know about when we got married. So when I found that out, it was devastating. And I thought, I cannot believe I’m doing this again. He robbed me of the chance to make a different decision. If I knew this, then I wouldn’t have married him.

Anne: That men don’t recognize that abuse is crazy to me. Like, really? You’re literally coercing and scamming someone into marrying you. And then you say she’s the problem.

J.R.: 100% yes. My husband says I’m the problem. We had so many conversations. In the early days of dating of like, I have texts that I’ve gone back to like screenshot it of like me asking Hey, is this an issue? Is this a current issue? Please just tell me. I need to know. I need the truth. And just over and over again, lying. And I feel stupid, but how was I supposed to know? Like I thought he was telling me the truth.

Anne: How did you find out?

J.R.: In my first marriage, I unfortunately had to learn a lot about addiction, it became such a big part of my life. We’d be talking, and some of the things he would say wouldn’t make sense. And I’m like, no, no, no, no.

I’m not crazy if something feels off, then it probably is. So I just pushed and pushed. Honestly, it was brutal. I was like, I know this is a problem. Now it’s just a matter of you telling me the whole truth and not withholding anymore. And since then, I have got some of my close friends involved who have walked with me through everything.

When You Realize That Abuse Is The Problem, Not You

J.R.: Actually, they’re the friends who were there when I asked my ex for a divorce. They’re very close with me, and I’ve got them involved. And the husband, he’s the accountability partner for my husband on the software that we have on his devices. If I could go back, I probably would have stayed single.

Anne: Yeah. I thought the same thing after I found out he’d lied to me before we were married, and he’d been lying to me and saying it’s my fault. And I thought knowing what I know now. I wouldn’t have married him. In fact, I’ve been thinking a lot about that situation recently. I mean, I’m not in this situation now. So it’s easy for me to say, but I thought. Maybe an option I would consider is to say to him, since you scammed me into marrying, let’s get divorced.

And once we’re divorced. I’ll consider dating you, knowing what I know now. Because knowing that I got scammed into marrying you is too hard for me to live with. I would like to date you knowing the truth about you. And the opportunity to say yes to marriage without being coerced or manipulated.

J.R.: Since he did coerce me, that’s a really hard truth. Me feeling the heaviness of that day to day, even if it’s a great day, I carry it with me, you know?

Anne: Yeah. It is hard. I’m so sorry for everything you’ve been through. I’ve been there. I’ve done that. I am you, and you are me, and all of the listeners here have had these thoughts, trying to process what to do.

When You Know Your Not The Problem, Survival Is Possible

Anne: Women are so afraid to get to the edge and look over it, because they don’t know what’s there. It is hard to not believe that and figure out the truth. And for those who have done it, we’re like, it’s okay, it’s not a cliff. It’s just a slope and you’re going to survive. And so sharing your story of survival will help so many women. So thank you for being brave to share that part of you. We really appreciate it.

J.R.: Yeah, thanks, Anne.