Husband Is Ignoring Me? 3 Shocking Truths You Need Now – Mary’s Story

Have you caught yourself thinking, my husband is ignoring me and feeling that knot in your stomach when the silence drags on?

You’re not making it up. Silence can be its own form of punishment, leaving you anxious, second-guessing, and desperate to fix things. In today’s episode, Mary shares how her husband used ignoring as a weapon, vanishing for weeks, shutting her out after their honeymoon, and withholding attention to stay in control.

If you’ve felt the sting of silence, this conversation will help you see what’s really going on.To see what types of emotional abuse you also experienced, take our free emotional abuse quiz.

3 Reasons Why Trying To Connect With Your Husband If He’s Ignoring You Doesn’t Work

1. Silence isn’t a misunderstanding. It’s a tactic.

When he withholds attention, it’s not an accident. Ignoring someone is often used to punish or control someone.

2. vulnerability gives him new tools to use against you.

If advise you to open up more to him to try to get him to talk, that’s going to put you in more emotional danger.

3. your connection can’t solve his accountability problem.

No amount of extra effort, patience, tenderness on your part is going to solve his accountability problem. There’s nothing you can do to undo the choices he’s making. If he’s ignoring you, that’s entirely his problem.

At BTR, we know how long, lonely, and painful the road to healing can be. Don’t travel this road alone. Attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY.

Transcript: My Husband is Ignoring Me

Anne: I have a member of our community on today’s episode. We’re gonna call her Mary. A large part of her story is that her husband ignored her, and I know a lot of you are dealing with that. A lot of times we feel like we need to repair something. If someone ignores us because they’re upset with us. Here’s a part of Mary’s story, and you’ll hear the context of what happened around this a bit later.

Mary: I thought, why is my husband ignoring me? I didn’t know what was going on, and I spent the whole time crying in another room. Thinking, this is tragic. I thought our marriage would be something kind and loving, but it wasn’t.

Anne: So Mary, I’m so sorry that ignoring you was such a big part of your story. Welcome.

Mary: Hi, Thanks for having me.

Anne: I’m so honored and grateful that you would share your story. So let’s start at the beginning.

Mary: I met my now ex-husband of 10 years at church. He was so godly. He was very exciting, had amazing stories. And he had this great contagious laugh. He was great around people, or so I thought.He is just checking all the boxes. Eventually, we started dating. In this church culture, there were many rules around intimacy. No sex before marriage. You could maybe hold hands, go on your date once a week, very structured and not very natural.

Anne: How old were you at the time?

Mary: I had just finished my master’s, so I was 26 or 27. We dated for one year, and on the anniversary of that year, he proposed.

Dating Red Flags: Why My Husband Ignoring Me Isn’t Just Stress

Mary: But during the dating relationship, there were so many red flags that I didn’t know were red flags. I had no context for that. It was easy to make excuses, because he’s this great guy, spiritual, loving, thoughtful, serves at the church and always takes care of other people. And I didn’t know that was just a facade.

During that time, a lot of strange things would happen. I remember one time he just disappeared for a couple weeks. I was wrought with anxiety and worry, and I had no idea. Nobody had heard from him. We were in this tight-knit community. Everybody knew everybody’s business. Nobody knew where he was.

Anne: Wow, that’s like intense.

Mary: I tried reaching out, texting, calling, there was no response. I was trying to not overdo it. I don’t know about your experience with church culture and other people’s. But for me, you had to have this kind of privacy and respect for the other person, and not overdo it. Because then you idolized them. Eventually, he sent me a picture of his face with a black eye, and tells me this outrageous story about him and his brother getting into a brawl, and somehow he was the good guy trying to help direct his life. He’s the oldest of six.

They were refugees from communist Russia with this intense life. And he raised all of them, basically a parent to them.Anyway, I had had it, I had gone through all the emotions at this point. I was like, this guy doesn’t seem to care. I had gotten to a place where I was like, I’m not doing this, because I don’t wanna be involved with someone like this.

The Mask Slips: What It Really Means When My Husband Is Ignoring Me

Mary: But somehow he said all the right things and got me back in, begged me, gimme just one more chance. And I thought, I guess that’s a good sign. I didn’t know what to make of this. So I forgave him, and within a month or two, he proposed. Looking back, I realized he saw how close he was to losing control of me. And so he had to do something to lock it down. I was starting to feel that church pressure of, well, you’re getting kind of old and you’re gonna have family, you’re gonna get married, you gotta do it soon.

I still believed this is a good guy. He’s just having a hard time. It’s easy to excuse what we think are blips in their behavior. When I think they take a mask off for a moment. ‘Cause they’re tired of pretending. And then you see the real them, thinking it’s the other way around.

Anne: Right, I have an interesting story I’ve never told before. I was dating a guy who was an abuser, and I didn’t know he was an abuser. And he was getting closer to maybe being serious, and suddenly, he just fell off the map, kind of what you’re saying. Couldn’t get a hold of him, like nothing.

He then reached out to me and said, “I’m back. I’m ready to move forward with our relationship. I just needed some time to think about it. I need to talk to our ecclesiastical leader to clear some things up, and then we can move forward.” Like you, I was ready to move on by the time he came back.

WHeN He takes a Sudden break In The Relationship

Anne: It was weird to me that he didn’t ask me how I was doing at all. It was like, I’m ready to move forward with you, so I’m gonna do this. And then we’ll move forward without asking me anything. So it turns out that while he was “taking that break to assess what he wanted out of his future.” He had gone and lived with a woman for three weeks and had sex with her a ton, and then realized he didn’t wanna marry her. He wanted to marry me. So our church excommunicated him. And came to me and said, “Okay, I got excommunicated, but I’m ready to move forward.”

And I was like, what are you talking about? I’m never talking to you again. We’re not dating. This pattern that he thinks he can do what he wants, and that you’re not gonna notice? Because during that time when they’re gone, they don’t think about us. They’re distracted doing the thing they wanna do. They’re not thinking how it affects us. They have such a lack of understanding that we are going through something during those times.

Mary: Yes, they are self-centered. In fact, we went to premarital counseling. The husband of the couple that was counseling us pulled me aside and in confidence said, “Hey, just so you know, while you were dating, he confessed to me about how he had gone to a bar one night and did some very questionable things with another woman. And I’m just trying to get him to confess it so that you and him both know that he did it.” I was shocked. At this point, my future husband is ignoring me and keeping secrets.

Anne: What?

He doesn’t confess anything

Mary: He never did confess it. He just acted like he had no idea. And so I thought, well, what’s the truth then? Did he actually do something? He seems innocent and has no clue.

So we married. And the moment we leave the wedding reception and drive off to our honeymoon, that whole week we were gone, we fought. Oh my goodness. I didn’t even recognize this person. We slept in separate rooms. I cried every night, and when we got home from the honeymoon, he just ignored me. It was like I was invisible. I wasn’t even in the home as far as he was concerned. There was no consideration, no conversation, and I was devastated.

Anne: Wow.

Mary: So I am on the internet Googling annulment, and anything I can think of, what is this behavior? I don’t know why my husband is ignoring me. I couldn’t find any answers. So I finally called up his mentor in the church, one of his best friends. I just left a voicemail and said, “Hey, here’s what’s going on. I don’t know what to do. Can you talk to him?” I never heard from this friend of his, but the next day, he finally acknowledges me. He is on his knees begging me to forgive him, but I didn’t know what for. To this day, I still have no idea what he was doing for those months.

Anne: Wow.

Mary: The strange part is that, probably for the next two years, it was the most blissful marriage. We were partners, we talked about things, we were able to be connected. And I thought, oh, this is amazing.

From Bliss To Fear: My Husband Is Ignoring Me As Punishment

Mary: And so one day, he says to me out of the blue that he’s tired of pulling the weight of this marriage. He is not doing it anymore. And that, if I want this marriage to work, I have to do all the work. I thought, when did he start feeling this way? I still don’t know what made him suddenly decide that I’m just this terrible wife.

It just went on like this over the years. Every so often he would throw me these curve balls and major ones like that. He would ignore me to get what he wanted. I was working and trying to rise up in my career. And he had complete control over all my paychecks. I couldn’t touch them. Everything I had, he took. At some point, I decided I just needed a secret stash. Like I need to have a couple hundred dollars tucked away in case I need gas for the car.

He caught whiff of it and became obsessed with finding it. One day I came home, and he had dumped all the contents of my closet all over the living room. He was becoming more and more unstable and erratic. And he starts, telling me, oh, you should be ashamed of yourself. At this point, I’m thinking, what am I not doing right? The whole mental load of running the home is on me. Like I do everything. And so at the time I’m just thinking, I just have to show him. I just have to work harder, be more submissive, more gentle with him.

My Husband terrifies me

Mary: He’s depressed, so maybe I need to make doctor’s appointments for him.

As the years went by it only got worse. He prided himself on the fact that he never hit me, but he was battering me emotionally. He’s like, “I’ve never hurt her” whenever I would bring it up with church counseling.

Things started escalating when my body could no longer tolerate this behavior. I was so stressed trying to make this work, trying to understand. We actually went to marital counseling. The very first session, he stars berating the therapist, questioning her authority. I think we went maybe twice. All it did was fan the flames of his anger.

Three or four years into the marriage, we started meeting with another couple in the church that felt more like peers. Every Sunday night, we would have dinner with this family. At one point, I confided in them. Hey, there is a problem here with alcohol. He’s going through a whole bottle of liquor in 24 hours. This is scary, he’s not well. And they both say we’re not going to bring it up until you’re ready. So what happened? The very next session, the husband brings up my ex-husband’s alcohol use. And confronts him with the details no one is supposed to know.

At the session with them in their home, my husband was very agreeable, humble, apologetic. “Yeah, I really need help. Thank you so much.” We get in the car to go home. My husband is upset with me for talking about him behind his back, sharing his dirty little secret. Well, he drives past our home and goes off to this dark isolated riverbank. I was terrified.

When My Husband is Ignoring Me Escalates From Silence To Threats

Mary: Yeah, he’s never laid a hand on me. But what if tonight’s the night? He’s so mad, and he had this evil, horrible presence. I thought he could actually kill me. It was so scary. I froze in fear.

At one point, he just turned home, and I knew better than to say a word. I was just silent and hoping I wouldn’t ignite it or make it worse. That presence that I felt in him that day was terrifying. I didn’t think it could escalate, but it did. It got to where he was punishing me. Like, “You need to sit in the corner on your knees as punishment until I say.” Or he would jokingly put his hands around my neck. Really, these are veiled threats.

Anne: Even not so veiled threats. They’re overt threats with a smile on his face.

Mary: That’s right. It got to the point where he was leaving his handgun laying around. It would just be laying around. With the way his behavior was lining up with a gun in our house, that was scary for me. Plus, I live where I have no family. I felt isolated. I called up a friend and said, “What do I do?”

And her advice was, “Why don’t you take a weekend, pack a little bag. Take some time and think it through without his presence weighing on you?”

I said, “Oh, that’s a great idea.” But even then, I was so scared to leave, because what would he do if I left? So I went and stayed with some mutual friends.

He destroys my wedding dress and vandalizes my car

Mary: And I remember him calling around, threatening all of our acquaintances and friends. So people were finally starting to see some of what I was dealing with.

They told me, “We can’t have you here anymore, so we will relocate you an hour away.” I had tried to go back to get more of my things. He had changed the locks on the house. So, I ended up breaking into my own home to get my things. I found my wedding dress ripped to shreds, our wedding pictures smashed all over the floor with divorce papers, his wedding ring, and the gun all piled up.

Anne: It changed from my husband is ignoring me to fear tactics. You just said divorce papers.

Mary: Blank divorce papers.

Anne: So he got blank divorce papers and staged them in your house.

Mary: Yes, as a threat, or a way to scare me. So I go onto the third location, and I’m at my friend’s house with my car. The title was in my name, as was our home. I bought one of those steering wheel clubs to lock the car.

He didn’t have a key to the club, but he had a key to the car. That night, he came over to get the car, and he couldn’t take it. So he pulled out a four inch knife systematically, calmly, slashing all my tires. That was so scary, I got a restraining order. I have this restraining order, and I’m working with the elders of the church and with different mentors, peers, friends. And a lot of the advice is that you just need to focus on your own spirituality.

Church Culture Missed The Danger, But God Didn’t

Mary: So I’m thinking, all I know is that I made a vow to this man before God. I couldn’t imagine standing before God, on judgment day, trying to explain myself, why did I rip up my marriage? Because I still couldn’t see that my husband is ignoring me as abuse, after all that. I spent about a year separated from him, trying to save my marriage.

Anne: So you’re wondering why is my husband doing this, and no one you talk to is saying this is clearly abuse as well?

Mary: Nobody spelled it out that way.

Anne: People rarely, if ever look you straight in the face and say, you are in danger. This is abuse.

Mary: Over the course of that year of that restraining order, there were provisions on it. He could email me about our bills, financial things we had to keep in order, and each time he as behaved more in line with what I needed, I would become more lax. At one point. I dropped it because he had started behaving so angelically.

I’m so sad for myself at that point. If I had only known. But we get back together and have a child, so by then it had been eight years of marriage. And we’re living in that same home, and he still has this drinking problem. And he would just do things that were really scary. I eventually got to the point where I remember being on my knees, begging, God, can you please just take him out of my life? Can you please do something? If you’re not willing to do that, at least give him a DUI so that he stops driving drunk and possibly hurting other people.

Therapist finally Confirms My Husband Ignoring Me, Is abuse

Mary: I kid you not. I get a call at 3:00 AM from the jail, him crying, saying he’d been arrested for a DUI. I couldn’t believe it. And I thought in that moment, God has my back. He really does. And I can get outta this, but it wasn’t until my daughter was almost two years old, when the final straw happened. She was crying, she called out Mama over and over, and he shut her in the room, locked the door and wouldn’t let me go in. I remember just putting my head on the doorframe, realizing this is never going to get better.

If I can’t even have connection with my child, what am I doing here? So I called up my therapist and I said, is this abuse? Is this domestic violence?

Anne: So from the time you think my husband is ignoring me to now, how long had you been going to therapy, until you thought can my husband change?

Mary: For maybe six years.

Anne: I’m just shocked. You realize how insane that is. You’ve told the therapist all of these stories.

Mary: So, she says, “Yes. It’s the worst case in my career I’ve ever seen.”

Anne: This is why I don’t recommend therapy. It’s not that this therapist is a bad person or anything, but you’ve been going to her for six years. At this point, she says it’s the worst case she’s ever seen. Instead of telling you, you don’t need therapy, he’s an abuser. So I am not gonna see you anymore. You do need to go to the domestic violence shelter, though, because there’s nothing wrong with you other than being abused. That would’ve been the appropriate thing to tell you. You don’t need therapy, but you do need safety.

So many miracles happened

Mary: Absolutely, I got all my ducks in a row. I started going to centers that help abused women. I got a grant where they paid for me to get a mover and a truck. The day I was going to leave, I got a call from a domestic violence fatality specialist. She says, “Hey, I heard your story, this one bedroom apartment just opened. It’s not even cleaned yet. They’re still moving out, but it’s yours if you want it.”

They let me stay for two years, and while I was there, I got my career going again, started saving money, figured out babysitting, finalized the divorce, the whole nine yards. There are so many miracles that no one can convince me that God wasn’t helping me. And what I finally realized was God would never want someone’s safety and wellbeing and their mental clarity compromised. I matters to God. Once I figured that out, I thought, ” I don’t owe anybody anything. I need to be safe.”

Anne: I’m so glad you had those resources available to you. The social safety net is so important. I had somebody ask me, if you could wave a magic wand, and be like, what could stop domestic violence? The two things are healthcare available for everyone and childcare available for everyone. Because women can’t get a job that would pay for childcare. And so then you’re just stuck. And also, so many women who are abused have serious health problems and need insurance. They can’t pay for insurance because they have their health problems.

Mary: I know. There were so many things that pointed toward him being the problem. After I left, I could see that more clearly.

My husband is ignoring me: Manipulation & mind games

Anne: Originally the issue was your husband is ignoring you. Talk about what you noticed once you could observe him from a safe distance. How did your mind start to clear?

Mary: Once I got my own place, I could see much more clearly these games that he’d been playing, and that gave me a little more power and autonomy over my own actions, decisions, and thoughts. I knew I could go ahead and move on with my life. And he’s gonna make a fuss and act out and say all these things, but probably nothing will come of it.

Anne: To manipulate us, they know that we need to believe them and pay attention. In the Living Free Workshop, I teach safety strategies to help women perceive what he’s doing differently, so that they can create space in their own minds. If they can’t create any physical space at that time, or if they don’t want to create physical space. Some women don’t want to get divorced. I felt that way, and you felt that way. So we totally understand. Especially when the institutions around us, like therapy and clergy, didn’t give you the right information.

I think that is so insane that our society is set up so that an abuse victim who doesn’t understand that she’s being abused can actively go to get help and still not understand that she’s being abused for years. Because of the institutions and the way they respond to abuse. Most of the time, they don’t know it’s abuse either.

Mary: A friend of mine who’s a licensed clinical social worker recommended your podcast to me.

Strength from other’s stories

Mary: As I listened to your podcast, I started looking forward to this validation that this guy is in his own class of special. And there are a bunch of guys out there that do this to women like me. I would sit there with my headphones on my breaks at work and try to cram in as much as possible, because I knew this is giving me strength to keep healing after the fact.

Anne: I’m so glad. You sound incredible, smart, capable and successful, and you’re a good mom. I’m grateful for women like you who share their story. It still makes me feel better after all these years. Because your story sounds like mine. The details are different, but the pattern is the same, and it is so validating. It’s nice to be part of a sisterhood of incredible strong women who are smart, who were manipulated, and it’s no fault of our own. Maybe they relate to you and how your husband is ignoring you at first.

You’ve mentioned God a few times, and then I also hear your hesitation about the church, which makes complete sense. I’ve been in that exact same space where, you know God is coming through for you, but the institution itself, at least in this case, was very damaging.

Mary: I would say that with the church I was attending for about 20 years, their involvement in my situation was horrifyingly, hands off. There were members here and there, who I could trust and talk to. When I would go to the elders, they wanted to sit down with him and I together and talk about what was going on. They don’t know what to do when my husband is ignoring me.

Not addressing the underlying issue of abuse

Mary: Looking back, that is not helpful at all, because I’m just getting re-traumatized, re-abused with them, seeing it or him gaslighting, everybody. in these therapy sessions with elders, they’re all seeing a different side of him. The side of him that I initially thought I had fallen in love with. Nobody’s really addressing the underlying issue of abuse.

Anne: They should never ever pull him in to talk to him about it. Even if the victim wants them to. if they understood abuse, they would say, that’ll actually put you in more danger. Which is why I don’t recommend men’s programs anymore. Any confronting him whatsoever about his behavior will not help you see what he is like.

Letting women know that going to therapy or clergy can go bad, ’cause they can abuse you worse overtly, or covertly. Meaning they can groom a lot better, and that gives them the opportunity to do that. And that’s the most dangerous, is when they can hide their true nature.

Mary: A hundred percent agree. The grooming is scary because it’s so easy to be blinded to it, and it’s not just the victim, it’s everyone around too.

Anne: For any woman listening, maybe this is their first podcast they’ve ever listened to, and maybe they’re wondering like, is it abuse? Am I making a mountain out of a mole hill? What would you say to them from my husband is ignoring me to other abuses, and what you’ve been through?

Mary: What I would say is when somebody shows you, their true colors, believe them. When they make you feel anxious, stressed out, and then blame you.

My husband is ignoring me turned into Post separation abuse

Mary: If you feel uncomfortable or ask yourself, why is this marriage or this relationship so hard? Your marriage is probably involving somebody who’s abusive.

Honestly, listening to this podcast helped me sort through many uncertainties. By the time I found this podcast, everything I had been through made so much more sense. From my husband is ignoring me to overt abuse. I think if there’s any confusion about your situation, don’t brush it off. Listen to your instincts. If you’re not comfortable, your body’s not comfortable, there’s a reason, and it’s probably not you.

Anne: Can you talk about post-separation abuse and the stuff you had to deal with since you separated and divorced.

Mary: Oh man, it’s been tough, honestly, having any communication at any point. It’s almost as bad as when we were in our 10 year marriage. We are seven years post-divorce. He’s pretty manic and depressive at times, and demanding.

I went through the Living Free Workshop, and I got to this one section and it talked about my brain. There’s this image of your brain filled with all this abuse, taking up so much space in your life and your thoughts, and you feel so squeezed out.

And the visual is so clearly depicted, showing what it’s like to be the victim. There’s no room for you. There’s no space for your own thoughts or desires. It’s all about catering to this unstable person who is controlling your life. That was when I thought, this is going to be a good workshop because Anne gets it. It’s like walking through it with a good friend who understands what they’re gonna say, how they’re gonna react, why they’re doing it, what their goal is.

Your Eyes are opened to their games

Mary: When I got to the end of the workshop, I had to respond to something from him that was super coercive and controlling. I thought, oh, perfect. I’m gonna finish these last few lessons in this workshop. And I’m gonna figure out how to respond and see if this works. I implemented those strategies, and I didn’t get any lip back, I got no punishment. I thought, this is exactly what I needed all these years. And I wish I had found this sooner. I thought, oh my goodness, this is what women need to know

Anne: I wanna talk about that, because many people might perceive there’s something you can do to improve your situation. Even when my husband is ignoring me. I wanna make it clear that you’re not changing him in any way. What the Living Free Strategies enable women to do is see him for who he is, predict what he will do.

Mary: Absolutely, I think what you’re saying is spot on. It’s almost like your eyes are opened to what their game is, and now you have the rules. So now you’ve got a playbook. And it’s just a different type of strategy that feels counterintuitive. None of their communication is based on actually trying to solve anything. They just want the dopamine hit of confusing you and making you struggle. To communicate more strategically puts the power back in my court.

Anne: I’ve mentored so many women through that divorce process using these strategies. After doing the workshop, their messages are absolutely court approved.

Taking away your vulnerability

Anne: If this guy’s like, “Look how terrible she is, look at her messages.” They show up to court, and every time they’re like, “These are great.” The way she presents looks good in court. It looks good to anybody else. If he shows those messages to anybody, they’re gonna be like, this is fine. It’s like win-win for you. The other thing is that it doesn’t give him what he wants, so it’s confusing to him. They’ve always been able to manipulate your emotions. The “husband is ignoring me” is a tactic.

Can you talk about the counter intuitiveness of the Living Free Workshop? I think people think that maybe it’s the stuff they’ve heard from another influencer, like Gray Rock or maybe, something they heard from a therapist, like how to communicate. And it’s so different. It’s not anything a therapist would say.

Mary: This Living Free Workshop helped immensely. As a victim, most of us we’re really kind, we’re good hearted. We wanna solve problems, we wanna work together. You’re always trying to have this honest vulnerability and I think that’s what you take away, is that emotional vulnerability. But it doesn’t look like it in your messages to this person. You don’t make yourself vulnerable to this person in that sense of trying to solve the problem.

Anne: Having been abused post-divorce for eight years myself, before I came up with these strategies, people would tell me, just don’t let him affect you And I was like, that is crazy. So post-divorce, I did not experience any physical violence.

Strategies that work when my husband is ignoring me

Anne: So this is an analogy, because when they are emotionally abusive or psychologically abusive, you discover a lie. Again, they’re undermining your children, it feels like a punch to the gut. So I’m going to use that analogy, even though I’m not actually talking about physical violence here. So every time he’s lying about the kids, it feels like a punch, and so the analogy is if he’s punching me in the face.

I have a bruise, and you’re telling me, just don’t get a bruise. It’s not possible. What the strategies do is put a barrier between you and his fist. So, he’s punching, but, it’s not touching you. The more I did the strategies, the more he kept punching, and it was almost like I was in this protected bubble.

Mary: That’s a great analogy. Yep. I am no longer getting punched in the face, even though it doesn’t stop them from trying. It’s not about stopping them, it’s all about, Hey, you know what? You wanna be this type of person. Go ahead, I don’t wanna be exposed to that type of person. I’m not opening the door for you.

Anne: Yes.

Mary: I’m not allowing you to have access to me.

Anne: The Living Free Workshop came together after years of interviewing women and my own study and all kinds of experimentation. A well-known addiction recovery therapist would tell the men that he worked with, as long as your wife is angry, then we have something to work with. The thing you need to fear the most is apathy, which he was legit teaching them how to manipulate women. Would he say that he was doing this? No, he was saying he was, saving marriages. A “husband is ignoring me” is a tactic for manipulation.

Finding out about his pornography use

Anne: If you’re saving marriages through teaching this man how to manipulate his wife better or exploit her more, you’re not saving a marriage. You are enabling an abuser.

Because your story involves that your husband was a pornography addict, I’d like to talk about that specifically. Another part of the Living Free strategies in relation to pornography addiction or addiction recovery is that a lot of addiction therapists will say something like, connection is the solution to his addiction. Or couple therapists will be like, the problem is you’re not connecting on an emotional level.

And so then in couple therapy or addiction recovery therapy, you become more vulnerable with someone who is just using all those things to manipulate you. Including my husband is ignoring me. So it becomes exponentially worse for you throughout that process. Looking back, can you talk about how that affected you?

Mary: I didn’t even realize when we got together that any kind of sexual addiction, pornography addiction was even on the table. We got together through church, so it didn’t occur to me that there would be anything immorally going on with him. During that time, he would get really moody, and I remember thinking, I don’t wanna deal with this.

This is how my Christian boyfriend is treating me and we’re not even engaged or married or anything. It wasn’t until we got engaged that he started talking about how we need to confess our sins. We really need to be honest about what we’re getting into as a marriage and like our commitment. We got together with another couple in the church who were gonna do our premarital counseling. And during that time it came out that he would look at pornography.

My husband is ignoring me because of pornography

Mary: And that’s when he started saying, “Well, we need to be open and honest and confess our sins to each other.” And I tell you what, and it was like he would confess this to me every time I saw him, I was like, what is wrong? I thought, maybe it’s just because he’s so excited to get married and then we can finally have intimacy.

We followed all the rules and then we get married and I realize, I am in this deep black abyss of sin with this man. It was scary to see how deep involved in it he was. I could always tell when he had been looking at pornography because his mood would shift.

He would become very punishing. He would become very cruel. We got home from our, horrible honeymoon. We just fought the whole time because he wanted sex to go a certain way. It felt really unnatural and not loving to me. I didn’t really know what was going on and now my husband is ignoring me. I spent the whole time crying in another room and I thought, this is a tragic sad way to enter into a marriage covenant. I thought it was gonna be something kind and loving but it wasn’t. We get home from this honeymoon and I feel like a ghost.

I’m just living in this house with this guy who I feel like I don’t even know. So I’m online looking up annulments. How do I get out of this? What does God think? Questions you start having and not feeling like there was anyone I could talk to because it was such bizarre behavior. I had never heard of anything like this. As the years went by, it was the same pattern.

Twisting the whole narrative making it my fault

Mary: He’d become very mean and abusive and angry and sullen and pouty. I started to recognize the pattern. He’s been looking at pornography.

So then I started to bring it up because I don’t wanna live in this sullen and guilty, stressed out environment where my husband is ignoring me all the time and so I thought, let me address it. I’ll bring it up, and I’ll just try to forgive him. After a while, you get numb to it. In the beginning, I’d be heartbroken. I would be sad or like, what’s wrong with me? That you don’t want me. I’m the real thing. Like I’m a real woman that you can have sex with. I’m your wife.

Anne: Yeah.

Mary: But then he doesn’t prefer that. He doesn’t want that ever. It was always on the screens alone, behind closed doors by himself. And I thought, this is exhausting. I’m gonna confront it. I’m not gonna live like this. And then it became my responsibility. It was like his sin, his problem, and his addiction became my issue to confront, deal with, address and forgive.

And if I didn’t forgive him correctly then, I was the one to blame. Because I wasn’t understanding enough. And if I would just be nicer about it, then he could trust me to be vulnerable on his own. And it was almost like he was twisting this whole narrative around to make it my fault that he was choosing to be unfaithful to me with these explicit images.

Anne: Right.

Mary: I was absolutely not on board. He knew how much it broke my heart every single time.

manipulating you to do all the work

Mary: And then I was the one having to ask him to forgive me for not being vulnerable or supportive or fill in the blank with whatever nonsense.

Anne: We see this pattern happen and then we try to anticipate it and do something to change it. In my situation, I would fight him like, Hey, you’re acting weird. Are you looking at pornography? I would confront him. Near the end when I used a few Living Free strategies, not really knowing what I was doing, just experimenting. I just ignored him and took a step back and saw that their pornography use has two benefits to them. Number one, they get to watch porn all they want, and then number two, you are doing all this work.

And so it’s like win-win for them. I didn’t know that was manipulation on his part. It’s not your fault that you were trying to anticipate what to do to manage the situation. He wanted you to do that. You were attempting to protect yourself. You thought that was the good way to do it, because that’s what he manipulated you to think. But that’s also what everybody else is saying. Like if he is feeling sad and grumpy, what can you do for him? How can you be kinder? So that this won’t happen.

Mary: I wish that I had had access to the Living Free Workshop during all of that chaotic time being married to him. There is one strategy that would’ve given me my mental sanity back despite his chaos. There’s this one step by step in Living Free, where you think about what’s the problem.

when my husband is ignoring me, I Can’t make him stop

Mary: Okay, he is gonna look at pornography. Why? Because he wants to do what he wants and he wants to see me cry. So what then? I’ll cry and he’ll look at pornography, I guess. And then what? And you keep going through, all right, so then you’ll cry, and then eventually the reality is he’s gonna do whatever he wants either way.

So what do I wanna do? I can’t change the fact that he’s gonna look at these images. I can’t change the fact that it feels like he’s being unfaithful to me. And I can’t change the fact it hurts my heart and soul and I’m being crushed in all these ways. And my husband is ignoring me. So maybe we don’t have closeness or I sleep in a different room or maybe we get divorced or I go stay at my mom’s house.

When you take a minute and you think it all through, it takes away that fear. Because it gets down to the nitty gritty of what is the end result that you’re so afraid is gonna happen.

You come around to this acceptance of I really can’t make them do anything or stop anything. That was something that, I found very eye-opening because there’s this underlying assumption that somehow I could fix this.

Anne: Mm-hmm.

Mary: And you realize, all you can do is protect yourself, and then learning how to protect yourself was so valuable.

Anne: And it’s no wonder that we think that we can improve the situation because they manipulate us to think, if we only did this, he would make a different choice. If we looked better, he wouldn’t wanna look at pornography.

Setting boundaries correctly

Anne: So you’re like, okay, I’ll reduce his stress as much as possible. And he’s manipulated the therapist or clergy or anybody else to also think that this is a couple problem and that you can do this together. You can’t do it together ’cause it’s not your problem. I think the other issue is so many therapists will talk about boundaries. Like, did you tell him what your boundaries were? You just haven’t set up your boundaries correctly or something. And I’m like, what are you talking about?

If you say to someone, I don’t want you to look at pornography, he can still look at it. If you are like, what actual thing am I going to do to protect myself that I’m not gonna say to him that I’m not gonna say to anybody else that if he looks at pornography when he comes home and says, what’s for dinner? I’ll be like, i’m gonna eat at my sister’s house. That’s a totally different way of seeing and viewing boundaries where you don’t even say a word about it.

And that’s something entirely within your control and it actually works and he can’t cross it. There’s no way for him to cross it because you haven’t told him what it is. You’re just doing it.

Mary: There’s no negotiating. I like what you were saying about how he keeps convincing you with his behaviors and manipulation that you can fix it. The manipulation is to keep you engaged. My husband is ignoring me is a tactic for manipulation. They’ve gotta have somebody engaged, arguing with them, crying about it, serving them.

Don’t give him anything of value

Mary: They have to convince you on some level that you need to stay engaged. Even if my husband is ignoring me. And maybe it’s because you have a certain set of morals. This is a good Christian girl, like it was in my case.

Anne: I do wanna point out, at the back of Living Free, I use my own faith to explain what I thought Christ wanted me to do, for any Christian, scriptures, like, don’t cast your pearls before swine or agree with your adversary quickly. Agree with your adversary quickly sounds like you’re being nice to them, but the second part of that is so he doesn’t throw you in jail. And so Christ is saying to you, pretend like you agree with him so he doesn’t throw you in jail. You don’t have to actually agree with him. Don’t cast your pearls before swine. Your pearls are things that matter.

The Living Free strategies, make it so that you don’t give him anything of value. That includes your thoughts, your goals, your feelings. Those are valuable things. So, there’s a part in Living Free where I pause to say, what are your values? This fits within a Christian value system. Christ talks about it all the time, and I don’t know why clergy are not focused on scriptures that actually benefit women and help set them free.

In the back of the Living Free Workbook, it shows you, there’s 1600 places it talks about separation and casting out devils, and only 400 that talk about forgiveness. Did you see that graph at the back of the workbook?

strategic communication when my husband is ignoring me

Mary: I did. And it makes me think about the scripture that says to be as shrewd as a snake, but innocent as a dove.

Anne: Yes, especially when my husband is ignoring me.

Mary: You’re not doing anything wrong, but you can be strategic in how you communicate. I think this really opened up my eyes to the truth of a lot of things I wasn’t aware of. Honestly, I feel excited to do the message strategies now that I’ve done the Living Free Workshop.

I think for anyone who’s wondering about this Living Free Workshop, just do it. What can you possibly lose? After so many years of being given either bad advice or no advice or empty promises or blame, I found that going through this workshop, was like a breath of fresh air. These are not strategies any of those other resources provided me. Not my church elders, not my therapist, not my friends, not my family.

Nobody could tell me the things that were in the Living Free Workshop. Support that you’re just not gonna find anywhere else. You really aren’t. I’ve looked, I’ve read so many books, I’ve listened to so many podcasts and gone to so many different therapists. Like, you can just try the Living Free Workshop and it’s gonna change things for you. Implementing the strategies, I already see results. I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t try it, to be honest, because it’s just so helpful.

And there’s this whole section in here about your financial safety, your physical safety. I had to figure out on my own, what kinds of financial things do I need to be thinking of and I wish I had the workshop. Just tangible, effective things to be asking, to think about.

How do I create safety?

Mary: Questions you need to ask your lawyer, not because you necessarily need it right now, but you might. I know I did. I just think for people who are in the middle, wading through the weeds of it all, this workshop gives you so much detail to consider and you can get into the detail as much or as little as you want.

Anne: It’s awesome that with the domestic violence shelter gave you a space to live. They’re very helpful in some very specific ways, but when it comes to writing a message, they don’t know what to do. e.

Mary: Right, your body is safe but what about my spirit or my mind or my emotions, my child? Like how do I create a safety zone in all these other realms. All they care about, and thank God they at least care about your physical safety. But that’s the really the only element of safety I got out of it.

Anne: Yes. Living Free is also for women still in the relationship I just put all the information in there.

Like you can use it however you want, but that way you’ll be educated about all of it so that if anything comes your way, you’ll be prepared for it. Even if you’re just suspecting is my husband lying to me? If you did Living Free, it would show you how to find out if he’s lying to you without asking him.

Mary: Right.

Anne: So just having the basic steps in the back of your mind is very helpful because it keeps you safe no matter what happens.

You need a solid plan to protect yourself

Anne: In some states he has to actually have left bruises to get a protective order. And if you don’t have a crime, you’re never gonna get a space in the shelter, for example. So where do you get help, if nobody knows what to do. if people think that divorce is the answer, they don’t understand what it’s like.

Mary: It’s not the answer that will end his behavior. In my experience, that’s when it escalates.

Anne: Yes.

Mary: That’s when you have to really have a solid plan and know exactly how to protect yourself. You need to have that in order before before you go.

Anne: If I would’ve had Living Free, I would’ve done everything differently and it would’ve gone exponentially better. Now, it’s not my fault that it didn’t go well. It’s his. He was abusing me, manipulating me. I didn’t know. Nobody told me. The domestic violence shelter didn’t tell me. It’s almost like they want women to start from scratch. Every single woman who goes through this, rather than using that collective experience, which is what is in Living Free. This is the stuff every woman needs to know before they even meet the guy.

Before they’re even in a relationship. This is stuff that you need to know, period. It’s gonna keep you safe in any relationship that you have, but especially, if you’re dealing with an emotionally or psychologically abusive husband.

When my husband is ignoring me: you need space to see who he really is

Mary: Anyone could go through this workshop. I don’t care if you’re in a relationship or not, it’s almost like a pre-course to, equip yourself, have your tools, and all the things you need because you need to know who you’re dealing with.

Anne: Yeah. It gives you enough space to actually see who he is. So many women think the answer is to ask about pornography. Before I got married, I asked, and he said he didn’t use it. But if he’s lying, talking won’t protect you. Watch what he does: the “my husband is ignoring me” pattern, disappearing acts, mood flips. Those behaviors tell the truth, and knowing what they indicate helps keep you safe.

Mary: Yes.

Anne: Mary, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today. I appreciate you so much.

Mary: My pleasure. It’s so great talking with you, Anne. Thanks for having me.