Has your husband betrayed and gaslit you? Are you considering an intensive couples therapy near me to attempt to save the marriage? Here’s the truth about couple’s therapy. It does more harm than good in this situation. Here’s why.

Ruby learned for herself that the truth about couple’s therapy, is it’s harmful in abuse situations. Her abusive ex-husband, like many abusers, weaponized it. To discover if you’re emotionally abused, take this free emotional abuse quiz.

Abuse Is Not A Couple’s Issue: It’s HIS Issue

The truth about couple’s therapy is that it harms victims. One of the key reasons is that abusers see it as an opportunity to blame the victim equally. Rather than taking full responsibility for their abuse, they can take the approach that the marriage has all sorts of issues, and triangulate with the counselor or therapist so that the victim feels obligated to take on a degree of accountability. The truth about couple’s therapy is that abuse is NEVER the victim’s fault. The blame lies solely with the abuser.

Abuse Gets Mislabeled In Couple’s Therapy

The abuse is often mislabeled as:

• A communication issue
• Codependency (on the victim’s part)
• Pornography addiction
• A personality disorder
• Jealousy
• Anger management issues
• Passion
• A lack of humility and submission (on the victim’s part)
• An attachment disorder or issue

Clergy and most therapists are simply not equipped to identify and deal with abuse and trauma. We understand that abuse is never, ever your fault. We don’t blame you, in even the smallest way, for his abusiveness.

Our Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions provide a safe space for you to find the validation, safety, and community to process your experiences. Join today and begin your journey to healing.

Transcript: Considering Intensive Couples Therapy? What You Need To Know

Anne: I have a member of our community on today. We’re going to call her Ruby. In addition to sharing her story, she’s also going to share a poem with us. We’re going to talk about the truth about couple’s therapy. So I’m excited about that. Welcome Ruby.

Ruby: Thank you, Anne. I feel privileged to be here and help other women in my situation, if you will, feel like they’re not alone.

Anne: Let’s talk about your story. When you first met your now ex husband, there were so many things to know before getting engaged. Did you realize that some of the things you were seeing were abuse?

Ruby: Not at all. We met through a mutual friend. That friend now totally sees all that he is, and is devastated about it. I remember him saying to me that he actually pursued her, and realized I was easier to con. He did tell me that he had come to pursue her and decided to pursue me instead.

Anne: So he told you that, and your feeling is you are the easier “mark.”

Ruby: Yes, her parents and their relationship were more stable. Mine wasn’t. She had an extremely well aware mom, which was a force to reckon with, and a good dad. I have a mom still in the midst of abuse and an abuser dad. They used scripture to justify keeping me in my childhood home until I married.

Anne: Looking back, you realize that wasn’t true. That you were experiencing the effects of spiritual abuse, is that what you’re saying?

Ruby: Correct, technically I could have left, but there was such a condemnation that went with it.

Living With Shame & Coercion

Ruby: They said, oh, you shouldn’t do that. It isn’t of God to leave home, not married. We met when I was 19. He used the church, God and scripture to seem like this great man who wanted the life, marriage, and family that I wanted. I thought I was going toward a good and righteous man. To me, he was full of life, fun. He said all the right things. We were long distance at the time, which helped his con go well. He said the time was well spent.

And then getting married 14 months later, when I was 20 and pregnant. I had been pulled into premarital sex, which was never my plan. I’m a stubborn person. I never wanted to do that. It was also part of the con. I devastated my family. It was really hard for me. He never felt that shame. I lived with that shame for years. I had people shun me and my family because of it.

Anne: I’ve talked with several women who have had this experience where it was not in their value system to have it before they were married. Their boyfriends coerced and manipulated them into having it. They didn’t realize the coercion was at a level tantamount to rape.

Ruby: Correct.

Anne: And then, this “righteous” guy who’s not righteous at all, but wearing this mask of righteousness. Ends up using that against them pretty much the rest of their marriage. Even the truth about couple’s therapy. Was that your experience too?

Ruby: Yes, he used anything he could to break me down. He knew I felt guilty.

When He Used The Truth To Manpulate Me

Ruby: He would have what I call lucid moments. He looked at me once, and he told me. He admitted to 100 percent fault we slept together before we married. And then several weeks or months later, no, he completely backtracked. But he knew everything he’d done. He knew the truth.

Anne: And he likely knew the truth the entire time, and that day, for some reason, he decided to tell you that small portion of the truth. Because he probably didn’t tell you the whole truth about anything, but just that small portion he admitted.

Ruby: Yeah.

Anne: I think they’re just taking their mask off to say, I’ve known this the whole time. And then they pretend like they didn’t know it.

Ruby: Yes, I agree a hundred percent. He would do that over the years, where he would have these rare, lucid moments, where he would just say these things, and knew what he was doing. At one point, he told me that the kids and I would be better off with another man. And then the next day denied that he said it. So. It definitely became a pattern.

Anne: These lucid moments that you’re calling them. I also wonder if they’re a different type of abuse. That they know that in that moment, the real truth would hurt you more. I’m talking about the universal you, not you specifically,

Ruby: Right, yes, of course.

Anne: The universal you in that moment, they’re trying to hurt us. And so in that moment, they think the truth would hurt her more right now. You didn’t know the truth about couple’s therapy.

Ruby: Yes.

Our Couple’s Therapy Didn’t See Through His Pathological Lies

Anne: Or alternatively, they think she would just kick me out, it would look like it was her fault. So they tell the truth to try and get you to kick them out or try to get you to do some kind of action. Did you ever sense that that was going on? And maybe that was the reason he told you that little bit of the truth on that one particular day. There was no truth about couple’s therapy.

Ruby: I agree with both. I definitely think that as the years went on, he wanted me to know somehow that he had the control that he was able to twist it.

So there’s definitely a different kind of almost pathological abuse going on, because it was extremely thought out. And on the other hand, it was passive aggressive. He wanted to make me seem extremely unstable. In the beginning, part of the reason he got me, if you will, is that he’d been in the Navy and wild, and told me he didn’t drink anymore after waking up on the bathroom floor.

So that was fine with me, because I was not a partying person. And he told me he’d never slept with anyone before. But then he would allude to things, a coworker and undressing herself in front of him. And I believed all of it. He eventually became discharged from the military, and not honorably. Things were always someone else’s fault. It was always a problem with what someone else did.

I did not believe he was a virgin when we got together. I think that that was part of his con. That’s how he got me. We’ve made this mistake together, and we’re meant to be. I now believe that is a lie.

Thinking The Good Outweighed The Bad

Anne: That’s highly likely. You know all these things looking back with hindsight.

Ruby: Yeah.

Anne: Let’s go back in time. What did you think it was back then? Did you think he had a personality disorder or he was stressed at work? What were your thoughts about what caused the problems?

Ruby: I think I just thought there was enough good to outweigh the bad, if that makes any sense. He was family oriented. He cared about his parents. So I’m not sure what I thought it was, other than that. Oh, everyone has their mistakes or quirks, as long as there are more rights than wrongs.

Anne: Did you ever think it was your fault? Did you ever think, well, if I did this better, maybe he wouldn’t get mad or upset?

Ruby: In the midst of the dating? No, he had a lot of honey, and made himself seem like the more stable one. Because he would tell me, you’re emotional, and excited about things. He probably did things I didn’t understand, making himself look like, You want to be with me. I’m a grounding force in your life. I can help you.

Anne: So as the relationship progresses and you’re thinking. Okay, well, this is just his personality, and my messed up family has created some problems for me, and I’m trying to fix it. Was there ever a point that you decided to go to couple’s therapy? Thinking maybe we may find the truth about couple’s therapy. Or get help from maybe clergy, and if so, how did that go?

Ruby: Oh, I love this question. So he’s adopted and has an adopted sibling. And there were some issues with that, and so he’s against counseling, and he made this extremely known.

Problems with Intensive Couples Counseling

Ruby: He said counseling messed me up as a kid, I don’t do counseling. These kind of false traumatic kid statements about how trauma messed with him as a child, and how his parents did it wrong. I should have caught on to, before I answer your question. He always talked very family oriented, but always had something negative to say about his parents behind their backs.

Always, it would happen daily sometimes. I started to notice that one a little bit when he told me I was so against them. I’m like, hold on. Our first experience in trying to do counseling, which he was very against. So it took a lot of convincing from me. It was totally screwed up, that is the truth about couple’s therapy that we attended. The couple who headed it up at the time clearly should not have been there.

They wanted you to go through this whole personality test and everything, and how you would be compatible. And I’m like, well, we’re already married. So what are we trying to do here? And then they were very much on how your sex life was. I’m thinking, I don’t want to tell you. And so we didn’t continue, of course, because what good was it going to do?

What I now know is that the biggest issue was that we were trying to seek counseling, but you can’t go into marriage counseling when there’s abuse happening.

And so he fooled some good friends of mine. Because they’re not his anymore. We needed big marriage counseling, and that was going to help. Many ladies maybe don’t understand that marriage counseling in the midst of abuse makes abuse worse.

Couples Counseling With An Abuser Makes It Worse

Ruby: Because he not only controlled everything else, he now had a narrative when he finally agreed to it. Then he didn’t want to talk about anything that was actually real. I wanted to talk about his abuse and treatment of our son.

Anne: This is so common when you are dealing with your abusive husband’s therapist. Did you call it abuse at the time or was that not in your vocabulary yet?

Ruby: I think I called it his treatment of our son. I think is what I called it. He ended up getting mad and walking out. He walked out of the session. That one might’ve been more pointed to me, the next counselor and therapist, because clearly it was the issue. I found out later that my own parents went to this same counselor, and my dad didn’t like him either. And I went, huh, that’s interesting.

And I think that when you go for marital counseling, or you go to your church, your elder, or whoever you’re asking for help. Whenever you’re not getting along as a couple, they always assume you’re having marriage problems. And I don’t know what all the right questions are, but I know the church is asking the wrong questions, and I have experienced this.

Anne: They don’t know it’s abuse. So you go in and you’re describing this behavior to them. They don’t think it’s abuse. They don’t know the truth about couple’s therapy. And think maybe it’s a communication issue, or maybe you’re not having it enough, maybe an anger management issue. But you also don’t know it’s abuse. That’s what makes it so difficult, is you’re going to get help from someone.

The Therapist Didn’t Identify The Real

They misidentify what you’re describing, and then because it’s misidentified, you go down the wrong road for a long time. In my case, it was pornography addiction.

Ruby: Yeah.

Anne: It might be true. They might have a personality disorder. They might be addicted to pornography, but that doesn’t make it not abuse. It’s still an abuse issue. You would think therapists would know that it’s abuse when you describe it. But the average therapist isn’t trained in abuse. That is the truth about couple’s therapy. And even if they knew it was abuse, they wouldn’t know what to do. They would be like couple’s therapy.

Let’s dig into your childhood trauma. We don’t know, and the people we go to for help also don’t know. I’m really sad that women don’t know to go immediately to this podcast and listen. And recognize that’s exactly what I’m dealing with. Oh, it’s abuse. and have it identified early on.

Ruby: Yes, they need to ask the right questions. I think they first need to ask if you feel safe at home or if your kids feel safe at home. If you have kids, look at them. It might not be as hard as you think.

Anne: I think they need to ask, “Do you feel emotionally safe?” Because so many women asked that question, will say, yeah. I don’t think he would ever hit me. If you said, do you feel emotionally safe? They would be like, actually, no. Do you feel psychologically safe?

Ruby: Yeah. I think they need to know if they feel spiritually safe, because my poor mom, she is not spiritually safe. Which is really sad. I heard my mom say multiple times, regardless of what my dad did. She was strong, and she committed to God in her marriage, regardless of what my dad chooses to do or be.

Feeling Stuck In His Manipulation

Ruby: The bondage that goes with that just devastates me. I kept my vows and God set me free from the abuse of it. I will never feel bad for being divorced. And I think there are many women who need to hear that.

Anne: People who’ve been listening to the podcast for a long time know that when I started podcasting, I sounded different than I sound today. I’m much stronger, I’m happier. I want to remind everyone that I thought, I am not breaking my marriage vows, period. I will never ever file for divorce. The truth about couple’s therapy is that it made it worse.

I sat and waited, waited and waited with a no contact order from the court, not communicating with him for nine months until he filed. I started podcasting after he filed. If I knew then what I know now, I would have filed for sure. Now, I’m confident about it, but back then I did not want to disappoint God. Now I feel the opposite, I feel God is commanding women to separate themselves from evil and wickedness, and they make a decision.

Okay, I’m going to do this. The truth about couple’s therapy is that it doesn’t work when abuse is present. Then clergy or family or something stops them, and they might try again later. I’ve heard so many women lately tell me, yeah, God told me to get out seven years ago. It was clear, but then when I tried to do it, my clergy told me not to. I keep hearing that same story. There was a point where I knew that’s what I needed to do. And I felt like God was telling me to do that, but I couldn’t at that time for some reason.

After The Couples Therapy Intensive, He Filed For Divorce

Ruby: There was a particular time for me, I was going to go for legal separation. He talked to me out of that. He didn’t want legal separation. I realized later he’s very money oriented, and he knew that I would get money out of him for the children, myself, et cetera. So, he did not want to lose money. Later, he beat me to filing for divorce. He was mad that I had the upper hand in his mind, I’m sure. He was going to make me pay, in his mind, he filed for divorce.

I believe he wasn’t working at the time, so he got to file for free. He put that he didn’t want to pay anything except the minimal amount for the kids. That he didn’t want them, didn’t want anything. He just wanted out. He thought that would devastate me. What he didn’t know is what God had been doing in my heart. The truth about couple’s therapy is that it didn’t help.

In the midst of all this time that I should have called the police for what he was doing to me, what he was doing to my son, I was pretty scared of him at this point. I remember sometimes driving home and thinking I did not want to go home. I would take the kids everywhere with me, I possibly could. And be there when my son was getting home from school. At different ones here and there, trying to juggle four kids. In the midst of all this, crazy enough, we got a puppy, of all things.

Then the puppy was in the mix. And I was like, God, I need some guidance. He left of his own volition, packed his car, and literally left two days before Father’s Day.

A Day Of Deliverance

Ruby: Stupidly, I tried to talk him out of it for two days. I said, the kids have made you something for Father’s Day. And please wait, they want to give it to you. He said, “I don’t need any more meaningless crap.” The truth about couple’s therapy is that it doesn’t change an abuser. He got in his car and left. There was such freedom in him leaving. It’s one of the greatest days of my life. And my kids feel the same.

Anne: Have you thought of that as deliverance? That you were delivered that day?

Ruby: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And at the end of that month, God spoke to me, and I don’t say that lightly. He inadvertently reached down into my heart, and he took my ex out and he said, enough. You’re done. Let him go, because all it was doing was killing me. And at that moment I was free. So I had filed for the second restraining order, got it without problem. And we were just sitting and breathing.

And I couldn’t see past it at that moment, because you’re just barely starting to see. That moment was pretty big, and it was pretty freeing for me. For whoever, whatever woman out there right now feels condemnation for being divorced. You didn’t break your vow. You didn’t do that. He did that. And God let you go, because he does not want you to be connected to that person anymore.

And you are still valuable. You are still precious and you are still whole. And you’re not damaged goods in God’s eyes. You’re just not.

Separation From Wickedness

Anne: Throughout the scriptures, Old Testament, New Testament, I study from the Book of Mormon. Throughout all the scriptures, we see righteous people trying to get to safety. The most famous one is the Israelites coming out of Egypt. When women think about divorce, you frame it as separation from wickedness. Or separation from unrighteousness. It’s sort of a different take on it.

Because so many women think I need to hold my family together. I need to hold my family together, rather than separate from wickedness. Maybe we should do couple’s therapy. But the truth about couple’s therapy is that it worsens abusive marriages.

Scriptures say I will deliver you, have faith, have hope, work toward deliverance. And their deliverance might come in the form of their husband changing. God can do anything, but it could also come in a different way.

Ruby: So what drives me to speak is to help other women out there see they don’t have to be in spiritual bondage. Because they’re still trying to honor God in the midst of abuse, and they’re still trying to not break up their family. You’re not breaking up your family. He already did that. His choices already did that. God wants you to be safe. Despite anything I tried to do. Like still pretending like everything was okay, and covering for him was only making the abuse toward me and them worse.

And not speaking the truth was going to make their abuse worse. Because he had it out for my son. Because he now looked at him as a threat, and he started getting more volatile and irrational.

The Truth About Couple’s Therapy: The Role Of Control

Ruby: We became afraid of doing the wrong thing. Because if you think about it in the midst of abuse, at least in my experience. It was my job to ensure that my husband’s world was perfect. The house, the kids, because he trained me to control his world. So that he could just function in it without having to have any self control. But because he trained me to do that, he said I was very controlling.

So I think we’re afraid of people not understanding and being condemned for doing the right thing. My good friend was told she was a husband basher because she spoke the truth. And I went, uh uh, no, she is not. But that was what their mutual friends told her, because they were not willing to listen.

Anne: Or they just flat out, just don’t believe you, and they believe your abuser. I tried everything to help our marriage work, and found out the truth about couple’s therapy, it makes abuse worse.

Ruby: Yeah, exactly.

Anne: So part of your healing process has been writing poetry. And you’ve written a poem called unsafe arms. And then I actually wrote a poem about my custody case, which I’m going to read after. So can you read that to us? Unsafe arms?

Ruby: Yes.

Ruby’s Poem: Unsafe Arms

It feels as though the walls are closing in being hurt
like this by a supposed trusted friend.

I gave so much and cared even more.
You know, at last. What was it all for?

To be burned and thrown aside without a fleeting thought?
How was I to know it was doomed from the start?

For you put on the best con and played your part well,
believing your own lies. So that no one could tell.

You made me believe that I mattered to you,
that there was no one else, Just us two.

You let me believe that you were my dream that I was perfect for you.
That is how you made it seem.

You were selfish and cruel when you didn’t get your way.
And if I didn’t agree with you, you made me pay.

You did this in small ways at first, so others wouldn’t see.
And use words to put me down to others so you could get sympathy.

You were jealous of anything good in my life, trying to make me feel like nothing,
but still calling me your wife.

You told me that you loved me, but only to take from me more.
And always spent money on yourself, and then got mad that we were poor.

You found fault with everyone because they didn’t do it your way.
You were mean and disrespectful,
and didn’t care who you ripped down along the way.

And used your own parents, and were jealous of your children.
You told stories to get sympathy from unknowing friends.

Unsafe Arms Poem Continues

You used our families in any way that you could.
You pretended to be a godly man and faked a Christian brotherhood.

The bad behavior and abuse grew so slowly,
you hoped I would not see how you were nothing
that you were pretending to be.

You blamed me for everything and then refused to talk.
You didn’t want other Christians to see, that you don’t walk the walk.

And when things got so bad, you would throw a love bomb my way,
expecting me to just forgive again and believe what you say.

And if I didn’t move on like you wanted me to,
then you would throw my faults in my face when it most benefited you.

You used scripture to try and hold me in bondage to your will,
and manipulated me with chaos just for a thrill.

Our children were never people to you, only mere pawns in your games.
Your anger would rage when I would stand up to you for abusing them and calling them names.

You hated that I loved them and cared for them so well.
You didn’t want them to see your true colors and be able to tell.

That your love and care for them is conditional and only benefits you.
That’s who you are. And what they need doesn’t matter to you.

That they were only to make you look good and help you play your acting part.
You never loved them like you should have from the start.

You got mad when I chose them over you because of all the abuse.
And just didn’t like it that we were no longer there for you to use.

The Truth About Couple’s Therapy: Unsafe Arms Poem Continued

Ruby: You hit them and me with hands and words and did not care.
You ruled me with threats of breaking things and constant fear.

And now that I am here, I wish I had gotten them out sooner than I did.
That I had listened more to your actions than what you said.

For once upon a time, I thought your arms were safe and true.
But that is what you led me to believe, to get me to trust you.

So what has happened now is that not even your kids want you near.
And we have to fight a battle every day called fear.

And with these extreme limits and boundaries that had to be enforced,
we pray that they will keep you at bay and us on the road to a healing course.

For many of your threats before, and you telling me to die,
or threatening to off yourself, and then saying it was a lie.

All of this makes me not trust anything you will ever say again.
So for the safety of our kids and myself have to come first. On this I will not bend.

For they deserve a happy life that is safe and free,
so they can have a chance to grow into who each of them were meant to be.

Unsafe Arms Ending & Introduction To I’ve Been Here Before

And they cannot do that with your control and abuse in the way, for their own safety and well being, Far away I pray you stay.

Anne: Thank you. I’m sure so many of our listeners are like me, and I felt like you were not just sharing from your own heart, but from all of our hearts. I appreciate that. I found out the truth about couple’s therapy, it makes the abuse worse. We spent so much money on it.

I’m going to share mine now. Mine was in response to when he showed up amazing in court and got more custody. I prayed and prayed and fasted, and had everybody pray for me. And then it didn’t go the way I wanted it to or the way it was right. And it made me think of during our marriage, where every time I would pray and fast and hope the right thing would happen, and it felt like with him always the wrong thing would happen. Like it would never go right.

So this poem is called I’ve Been Here Before.

Anne’s Poem: I’ve Been Here Before

I’ve been here before.
Smells like evaporated tears, like carpet.
Nothing budging.
Peaceful and happy for a weekend
on the couch, reading.

Only to find more pit
in my stomach.
Can God hear me?
Before I cried,
kneeled,
flailed around,
I called people
and told them
the harrowing story,
and then I married him.

The house sold,
the divorce finalized,
it remodeled itself.

How could I doubt?
I had seen it with
my own eyes,
the parting of my sea,
manna from heaven.

I can still taste it,
but I’m here again.
A dark, dead end
where I seem to
make things worse
just by breathing,
just by thinking,

I’m here again.

I flailed around,
tried to prove,
printed every email,
made every argument,
called my people,
told them the harrowing
story, and I’m here again.

And so I wait?
Let the Lord prevail,
I guess?
I don’t like it here.
The cold wind blowing
and I’m drenched.
I have no towel.

And someone says from afar,
wait for a towel.
But there is no one for a thousand miles.
And I know this, no one is coming.
The heat from my body can’t thaw
the frost forming on my skin.

And then I think I’ll get my own towel.
But Walmart is closed
and the sheep are dead.
The cotton field’s decimated.
I stand in the mess
and pray for righteous judgment.

For something to break open.
Something to go away.
Nothing.
I pray to my grandma instead,
thinking maybe she can do something God won’t.

Maybe she has the answers.
Maybe she’s the warrior I need right now.
But she too is silent.
Or perhaps she’s constructing
something better.
Than a towel.
Who knows?

I’m here again.

An Intensive Couples Therapy Didn’t Help

My shoulders ache,
stomach tight.
My throat might implode
from holding back my screaming.
The pressure is like an icy,
invisible blanket from hell.

Weighted. I’m here again.
I weight on the Lord,
I lean. Wonder, how can this be?
But I’ve been here before.
Standing bare with nothing to rescue me.

Tired. Burdened. Shivering. Exposed.
And I know what comes next.
Something worth the weight.
And so I will, because I have no other choice,

be still.

Anne: The end, ugh. I was gonna cry, sorry.

Ruby: Wow. I knew you were gonna cry. That’s deep. Thank you for sharing that with me.

Anne: We heal, and we find ourselves smiling, laughing or feeling the sun on our face. But there’s always something that takes us back to these hardest moments ever. And I’m actually grateful for that. I’m grateful that I can still recall that. Maybe there’ll be a day where I can’t. I can recall it from hearing stories like yours and other women. Especially women who are right in the thick of it. Who are trying everything. And don’t know the truth about couple’s therapy.

The righteous desire to have a peaceful home is something that women have longed for thousands of years. I’ve just been thinking about things like the Bible and the stories in the Old Testament. And how we are standing on the shoulders of so many women who have gone before us. And we have the opportunity now to do what they never did. I mean, they were essentially enslaved to their husbands.

You know, when Jacob waited seven years for Rachel and Leah, he was just working to buy them. I mean, they were slaves.

The Truth About Intensive Couple’s Therapy

Anne: And I think now we actually have the opportunity to be free from an abusive man. We can work, have custody of our own children, and are entitled to our own wages. That didn’t even come about until the late 1800s. I know God is working in us, and I’m grateful that we are here and can stand on these women’s shoulders.

I also think they look down on us. Saying, we sacrificed so much to deliver you. Take advantage of the delivery. I think they want to see us make our way to safety. They know the truth about couple’s therapy, and it doesn’t help.

Ruby: My goal is to help women not turn away from God, because these Christian men are just using the church to continue to do what they do. My reaction was to run even closer to God, and something amazing happened. I couldn’t figure it out. For the duration of my marriage, I always felt split. Because this poem is not, it’s not my first.

I just, God gave me the words to put my pain into, into verse. And uh, it’s not my only one about this topic. And it’s definitely not the shortest one. But it’s that we no longer have to serve two masters, because we can separate ourselves from him or in some men’s cases from her. Because I believe it happens sometimes in the other direction. And to not feel torn and split on the inside, allowing ourselves to have one master, Jesus Christ.

I was having so much turmoil because he wasn’t going toward God. He is not of God, nothing he does is of God. You would know them by their fruits, watch his actions more than his words.

Encouragement For Women Harmed By Intensive Couples Therapy

Ruby: So, now I can serve God truly a hundred percent, and I will never allow anyone. It doesn’t matter who it is to derail me from going toward God. And being on that path with him ever again. For women inside your heart, ask yourself, Are you having turmoil?

Are you feeling like you cannot serve God? Because you have to keep trying to be united with your husband. And don’t know the truth about couple’s therapy? That was one of the biggest telltale signs for me to know what was going on. And I feel like I should say the divorce process is long. It’s tiresome. It’s hard. Get yourself a community, build yourself up in the midst of it, because if you can plan for that, it helps immensely.

Anne: Thank you so much. I appreciate you sharing your story, your insights, and your beautiful poem. And so grateful that you are now sharing your experience with other women to bring them hope.

Ruby: Well, thank you for having me. It was my privilege. And the only thing I can say is, don’t think this is the end. Your life is far from over.

Anne: And it’s beautiful. There are beautiful, wonderful things in store for all of us, even when it gets hard. So thank you again.

Ruby: Thank you.