“How do you listen to a podcast and stay undiscovered?” might seem like an odd question to most people, especially at a time when technology makes access to media so easy.
But for women who are in relationships with emotionally abusive men, the answer to that question is often the key to finding the help they need without risking exposure, especially if they share devices, or he keeps track of their browsing history.
In this article we’ll cover the following:
Let’s get started.
A podcast is typically a short, recorded discussion or interview about a specific topic of interest by a host and guest.
For Example: The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast is a discussion for women who have been betrayed by their husbands. Our episodes are released weekly, they’re short (usually around 30 minutes), and you can listened on a phone, tablet, computer, or smart speaker anytime that is best for you.
Most smartphones already have podcast apps installed for you.
For iPhone users:
For Android users:
These apps are free and they don’t require you to sign up for anything to start listening.
Open your app and search for: “Betrayal Trauma Recovery”
You’ll see our podcast cover (with Anne Blythe’s name on it).
Tap on the show and then tap “Follow” (or “Subscribe” depending on which app you’re using).
You can stream episodes instantly (using data or when connected to Wi-Fi)
OR
If you want to save an episode to listen to later, tap the download icon (a little arrow pointing down)
Once you’re done listening, you can delete it from the app, so it doesn’t show up in your history.
Here are a few extra tips for women concerned about privacy and safety:
Even 10 minutes can calm your nervous system and help you feel seen. This is emotional self-care.
If Betrayal Trauma Recovery has helped you feel less alone, and it’s safe to do so, consider leaving a short review. It helps women find the support they desperately need.
Just open the app, go to the podcast’s main page, scroll down, and tap “Write a Review.”
If you’re wondering what’s really going on in your marriage…
Or you’ve been blamed for your trauma…
If you’ve spent hundreds (or thousands) on therapy that only made things worse…
Or your wondering how to recover after infidelity…
Start here:
🎧 Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast 🎧
It’s for women only. It’s free. And it just might be the first step toward clarity and peace.
Try these listener favorites:
You can find all episodes at btr.org/podcast.
Anne: We have a member of our community on today’s episode. We’ll talk about how do you listen to a podcast and stay undiscovered as you seek help. We’re gonna call her Elinor after Elinor Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility. Welcome Elinor.
Elinor: Hey, thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to be here. I found BTR on Instagram. And it really resonated with me. At that time. I was still with my husband. And I would listen to your podcast in my car when I was alone, and it helped me gain clarity about my situation. And start to put some words to the things I didn’t recognize I was experiencing.
Anne: How long had you been married when you found BTR?
Elinor: 21 years, so a long time.
Anne: Yeah, and how many children do you have?
Elinor: I have three children with him.
Anne: Can you talk about the progression of what you thought was wrong, all the ways you tried to solve it or approach it before you found Betrayal Trauma Recovery and our support group?
Elinor: So I guess I always knew he was controlling and wanted things a certain way. Before the pandemic, I started becoming more afraid of him. But things were worse and worse. I thought when the pandemic hit, our marriage was going to get better, because there we were all at home and we were gonna have all this time together, and I thought that would improve it.
Elinor: Things were really calm at first, but then escalated rapidly within the next few months. Before that, I hadn’t said a word to anybody. I had normalized it. So all kinds of horrific things were just a Tuesday for me. He had told me that we should keep any of our disagreements or problems just between us, and not even tell like our parents or anyone.
He’s like, we just need to work this out together. That’s how you solve things. So that really silenced me from telling anyone. During the pandemic, I finally told someone, and they told me that I should speak to my bishop at that time. I was going to, and hadn’t yet, and ended up leaving for the first time.
Just fleeing the house with my children, and my littlest didn’t even have her shoes on, and stayed with friends. At that point, I knew something was really wrong, but I didn’t understand. I hadn’t looked up any of this stuff. I hadn’t even searched something basic like, how do you listen to a podcast privately, because I didn’t know I was in an abusive situation.
It happened that one of the counselors in my bishopric was a counselor. He talked to me about how I needed to set boundaries with my husband. I was like, oh, yes, that’s going to fix it. I’m going to set boundaries. I was so excited and I ended up coming back, because I was worried that I had ruined my marriage by leaving. And I was so afraid I’d done the wrong thing. I don’t know how to describe it, but I think people in such relationships understand. I felt like I had to be with him.
Elinor: Now I realize because he had so belittled me and my opinion of myself, that I needed him to believe that I was worth something, to feel like I was worth something.
Anne: That counselor in the Bishopric after that first time you had fled. Did he say, like “You can go back as long as you set boundaries”? Can you talk more about that?
Elinor: He was like, if you want to work things out, you’ll have to set very firm boundaries. I had gone back. Right away, the bishop reached out to me. I started telling him all about what was going on, and he immediately called it out as abuse. Which I understand now from a lot of other people’s experiences is rare. And I’m really grateful. Because I didn’t wanna believe myself. Because if it was abuse, I had to change my whole life.
Anne: You don’t have to change, but you may need to alter your situation.
Elinor: Yes, drastically.
Anne: Which is daunting.
Elinor: I’d met him right after my 18th birthday. He was my first serious relationship and I didn’t have a lot to compare that relationship to, which now I tell my children, date a lot. Date that person for a long time before you get engaged to them. We dated for a few weeks, and he was quite a bit older than I was. He was seven years older, and he seemed so confident and charismatic. I thought this was like true love, and he was wonderful. I see now, he was abusive from the get go, but I didn’t recognize the red flags when they were glaring in my face.
Anne: Yeah, how did he present to other people? Did they think he was a good guy?
Elinor: I thought they did at first. But I can say that now that I’m out on this side and have talked to a couple of friends, they did not like him. My parents did not like him. My dad said he is a very proud man, which was strong verbiage from my dad, who’s a very gentle soul.
Anne: That’s as intense as your dad would get. I think when someone’s married to someone, they don’t wanna throw someone’s spouse under the bus. ‘Cause it’s like, how is that going to help her to think her husband’s a jerk? And I’m like, it would help her. I promise it would help her.
They also don’t wanna alienate her. Because they think if you say your husband is a jerk, that you’ll be like, well, then I’m not gonna talk to you. And so it’s a really hard place to be for an outsider. To wanna support your marriage, but then also want to support you. It’s really hard to figure that out. For women in situations like yours finding out how do you listen to a podcast safely and getting the right information is vital.
How did you feel finding out that other people didn’t like him?
Elinor: In some ways I wish they had told me, but I see for myself that I wouldn’t have believed them at the time. I was so excited about my new husband, and I thought everything was so wonderful. If they had told me he was a bad guy, I would not have listened, and I would’ve been like, something’s wrong with them. They think so badly of him.
Anne: They’re so judgmental. Something like that, maybe. Especially if he’s set that up. A lot of abusers like this, they’ll say something like, people don’t understand me. Or, people are so judgmental. They see that I do this thing, and they assume I’m a jerk, but I’m a good guy.
They set it up like this on purpose. We don’t know that, because they’re lying. And if anybody says that, then you’re like, oh yeah, he warned me that people were gonna say this.
Elinor: Yes, he said he’d had other relationships before, and he felt like trust was a big deal. And right away he was like, it’s important to me that you trust me implicitly. And now I know trust is to be earned. But when I was so young, I just thought, oh, I need to show him how I trust him.
And that became several decades of me trying to prove that I trusted him. I think some hallmarks of the marriage were, kindness must be earned. Which is absolutely wrong, he was always carroting things out. If you do this and this, then I’ll do this. I felt like I was on this constant hamster wheel of proving myself, proving I loved him. He would often use the term, if you love me. If, that is insidious if.
Anne: One of the message strategies in the Betrayal Trauma Workshop Is to agree. I love it in this scenario, because of course, he’s gonna say, “you don’t love me. If you love me, you would…” They do that to manipulate us, but we don’t realize that.
Anne: So if he says, “You don’t love me.” When we agree and say, “That’s a good point. I hadn’t thought about that. Let me think about that for a little while. Thanks for bringing that up.” It changes the whole dynamic. Because then it’s hard for them to manipulate you. When you don’t respect me. “I don’t? Oh, I might not.”
Elinor: It flips the tables, doesn’t it?
Anne: We respect them with our actions, because we’re deferring to them and making sure dinner’s ready. When he says, “You don’t respect me,” we’re thinking, “of course I do. I clean up the house. I tell people nice things about you.” Because of all your actions, you respect him, but in your mind, something’s wrong. In our minds, we’re suspicious.
They know how to use that Catch 22 against us. And that’s why safe, private access to information matters so much. Some women are still at the stage of quietly asking, “how do you listen to a podcast” because they need help, but they also need to stay undiscovered.
Did you guys ever try couple therapy?
Elinor: No, I knew inside my head that it would not work for us. He had told me, “The only way I would ever go to couple therapy with you would be for the couple therapist to tell me that I should divorce you.”
Anne: Wow, so he didn’t wanna go to couple therapy. The way he manipulated you to not go, which actually worked in your favor, you just didn’t know that. ‘Cause the couple therapy would’ve been worse. But was to say, we’re going to couple therapy, and the couple therapist will tell me to divorce you. And that was his way to manipulate you not to go to couple therapy.
Elinor: Uh-huh.
Anne: Wow, I have never heard that one before, by the way. That’s a new one. Were you aware of pornography use, affairs?
Elinor: When I finally told someone about his behavior, they were like, “Oh, have you asked is pornography an issue?” So he’s staying up super late. His door’s always closed. He’s upset, all the classic hallmarks. And I was like, oh, of course he’s not. But I’ll ask him just in case.
Anne: Whenever someone says, “Did you talk to him about?” I’m like, they’re going to lie. So don’t ever tell someone, did you ask him about pornography? That’s never gonna help. But you didn’t know that at the time. So you asked him?
Elinor: He’s like, “Oh yeah, I did look at pornography. Sometimes I do that, but it’s not a big deal.”
And I was like, “Well, when did you start doing that? Has it been going on during our marriage?”
It sounded like from his description, the entire marriage. And then I was starting to be worried, “So maybe is a portion of our marriage you didn’t use pornography? Is there maybe a gap somewhere that I could base the behavior with the behavior without?” He mentioned one 18 month gap in the entire 20 something years of marriage where he hadn’t used. And I was like, “That sounds like an addiction.”
And he was like, “Oh no, it’s not addiction. I could quit anytime.”
Elinor: And then I knew it was. I’m like you could quit anytime, right? So why haven’t you? I didn’t ask him that. At that point. I was like, oh wow, we’ve got a deep addiction here. I didn’t see anything he used. He was proud that I never saw anything.
I remember asking him, ” Where are you looking at these things? Like where are you finding them?”
And he was like, “You’ll never find out.”
He had that little side smirk smile. And I never did, but that just sickened my soul. When he gave that answer, he was proud of it. And he was not sorry. He was not in any way taking any responsibility for its effect on anyone else. And he never did. I realized I needed to know how do you listen to a podcast undiscovered, for my emotional safety.
I thought maybe if we solved the “pornography” problem, our relationship would improve. Now I have something to point at, oh, it’s this. That’s what the problem is. And as I talked to my bishop about it, I remember sitting in his office just shaking and shaking. That shook my whole world, ’cause I believed he was faithful to me. I consider pornography deeply unfaithful.
Anne: My book is coming out soon, explaining why he was lying all the time to everyone and proud of it. And probably because he was such a liar, he was doing other things that you didn’t find out about either. That you may find out later.
Anne: Are you divorced now?
Elinor: I’m still in process. Yeah, it’s gonna be long and ugly.
Anne: Those of us who have been divorced for a long time. It’s almost been 10 years for me right now. We find out stuff like years later, it’s pretty crazy. You’re like, what? I thought this was what was happening, and then you find out somehow that it was something different. It’s like the truth finds you. I bet you’ll find out a lot more as things progress. When you know how do you listen to a podcast for help.
Elinor: I read it takes an average of seven times to leave an abusive relationship, and how there’s just gravity that sucks you back in the hoovering, right?
But when I read about that, I thought it would never be me. I wouldn’t go and come back and go and come back, but oh my goodness, it was me and the “hopium” that things were going to change, that it was going to get better. It really pulled me back. The first time I left, I was gone for three days and then, okay, so this is terrifying.
He hunted me down and found us in a different town, which is super creepy. I didn’t immediately go back. And he was like, I am so sorry. Which is a big deal, because the rest of my marriage, he was never sorry, never. Things happened, he would make me apologize for it. I would beg, there would be silent treatments. I would have to do physical punishments to make up for it, and we never talked about it. So they just got shoved in the back of my mind, all the horrible things that happened.
Elinor: There was no acknowledgement. When I left the first time, he was down on his knees when he found me and said, “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry.”
I was like, oh, wow, he finally admits he’s been so angry and so crazy, and life has been horrendous, and the children are afraid, and I am afraid. And he was like, everything’s gonna be so much better. He of course promised the whole world, I believed him. I went back the next day after talking to my clergy and trying to set some boundaries. And the next two weeks were amazing. He was so great. I was like, wow, this has changed. Our marriage is gonna be so much better. And it was better for two weeks.
And then it was worse than ever. These stories you read about where people say, “Oh, if you go back, it’s gonna be worse.” I can 100% testify if you leave and come back, it’s going to be worse.
I left and went back three times, and it was definitely horribly worse each time. And each time there was a section of time where he was so much nicer for a little while, and then he would make me pay for it later. It was just sickeningly awful. I kept my bag packed, because my friend had warned me sometimes this behavior doesn’t keep. Sometimes they don’t change. They just want you to believe they’re gonna change. Oh my goodness. It didn’t keep, and I started not being able to sleep, not being able to eat.
Elinor: Probably the knowledge of just finding out my husband has been using pornography for 20 years, like the sickening awareness that my husband was betraying me for so long. Then I left again, because his behavior was horrifying, and he actively tried to turn the children against me. I flew home to my parents.
That time when I left, my bishop’s wife actually came and helped us leave. We escaped down the basement door during a rainstorm. It was pretty traumatic, especially for the children. I needed help. I learned how do you listen to a podcast and stay undiscovered, for our safety.
After learning more I thought, well, I’ll never come back. I stayed with my family and missed him. Then I started second guessing myself on everything. I thought, oh, I’ve just misunderstood things. He always told me I misunderstood things and that I was stupid. Lots of things don’t make sense to me because of the way I am. That’s what he would say.
Only I know that’s not so now, but I wanted to go back. At that point my oldest child would not come back with me. She was like, Mom, don’t go back to him.
And I was like, but we need to keep our family together. And she sat in the bathroom and cried for two hours and wouldn’t come out. I should have learned more from that. But I thought, “well, we’re gonna make this so much better.” But no, she never did come back. She was 18 and she just lived on her own after that. Which must have been so incredibly hard, and my heart breaks for her. She knew she would write me, and say, “Mom, when you’re ready, come be with me.”
Anne: I think what was happening was all the abuse was still in your head. And you didn’t know that it wasn’t your own thoughts, it was all his abuse, and he was still abusing you.
Elinor: Yes.
Anne: Even though you were away from him. People don’t understand that. You’re still being abused. So it takes a while for the abuse to drain out of your head, and you have to be away from it in order for that to happen. It wasn’t that you weren’t ready. You hadn’t learned to separate that out. You were in the early stages of learning safety steps like, how do you listen to a podcast and find help online.
And the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Workshop, has a way to write down what your thoughts are, and then to realize they’re actually not your thoughts. They’re the abuser’s thoughts. That’s helpful for victims. This story haunts me. And the way I came up with some of these workshop strategies comes from this. A woman was like, I will separate from my husband. I feel right about it. She’d prayed about it a ton. She could see all the abuse. She was like, check, check, check. He’s abusive. And she went to the temple, and she came out and said, the spirit told me I needed to stay with him.
Elinor: Oh my gosh.
Anne: She felt so strongly about it. And I was like, who am I to say that’s not the spirit? But I started wondering, why are women thinking that the spirit tells them to stay in proximity to evil? And then, over time, I realized it’s because the abuser’s abuse is so tangled up in their head that everything feels bad.
Anne: So when they think about leaving him, it feels really bad, and that doesn’t feel like the spirit. It feels like something else. So you’re like, every time I think about leaving, I feel terrible. And so those who want to follow the spirit and the spirit is peace. The spirit is calm. When we think about leaving, it doesn’t feel peaceful. It doesn’t feel calm.
And nobody warns you about that. They’re like, follow the spirit. And you’re like, “Okay, well the spirit is not telling me to leave. ‘Cause every time I think about leaving, my body’s like, no, that’s not right.” And your alarm system is going off. Really what’s happening is your alarm system is going off. It’s telling you danger, danger, danger. But he hijacked it long ago. And so he’s twisted your own internal warning system to tell you to move closer to him rather than away.
So you’re just trying to do what the “spirit” is telling you to do, in that moment. So to help explain it to a woman when she’s in that, is what the Betrayal Trauma Workshop is about. Something as simple as learning how do you listen to a podcast safely, can lead to finding help.
Yeah, so that she can see the difference between his lies and her actual warning system and what it’s been warning her about. Because they’re so good at manipulating us that they know how to use even our own survival mechanisms against us.
Elinor: That is so true, that feels really true to me.
Anne: Yeah, so you weren’t doing anything wrong. You just didn’t know what you didn’t know, and you didn’t wanna go against what you thought in the moment was the truth.
Elinor: Yeah, definitely, it felt wrong to break up our marriage. I still hadn’t fully admitted to myself how deeply abusive he was. And I kept thinking, oh, we’re gonna make this better.
I was so beaten down about every aspect of myself because of all the things he said and did. That I didn’t know who I would be without him. And in my mind, believed that without him, I was lost and worthless. Which obviously is not true. But I felt that way at the time. So I went back and then I stayed there with him for the next year and a half.
And my bishop kept checking in on me. People would check in on me, like people knew it wasn’t good, and they were trying to help me, but I wouldn’t go. ‘Cause I’m like, this is my marriage. I’m going to save it somehow. I studied all sorts of psychology things, like I wondered what sort of disorder he might have.
Went down all the rabbit holes and had to stop. I left again the third time with my parents’ help, rented a house and lived separately. and stayed separate from him for a couple of months. I actually had a protective order for a few weeks, trying to keep us separate and safe. He was doing all sorts of things, psychologically and spiritually. Just on every single level of abuse.
Elinor: I had started keeping a journal for my own sanity about what was happening. And I’m glad I did, because one of the things I told myself was, oh, he’s not doing these things very often. But when I started writing it down, I realized he was grabbing me by the throat every two weeks. Every two weeks he would do that, and he had groomed me for this. He just groomed me probably on every level. Learning how do you listen to a podcast and finding yours was so helpful.
But with this whole throat grabbing, he would call it holding my throat. Obviously, this is choking, right? But that’s what I would call it. He holds my throat. And when I would tell people about it, they would just be horrified. But to me it was another Tuesday.
When he would grab my throat, he would make me say things and do things. And obviously when someone is holding your throat, you just do what they say. And he would make me repeat things. He would say, “Tell me that I own you.” and I would have to repeat these horrible things. And before I left the third time, it was becoming so overt.
He was like, “Tell me about how stupid you are. How stupid are you? Go ahead, humble yourself. Say it out loud.” And I would mumble out the words, because it sickened me. It felt so wrong.
And I would say, ‘I’m stupid.”
He would say, “Go on, say it a little louder. I couldn’t hear you.”
And I would say, “I’m stupid.”
He was like, “Go on, say it like you mean it.” I would find myself repeating these horrible things over and over and over again.
Elinor: The psychological abuse is so disturbing. Then right before I left with that protective order, I woke up one night and he was holding me by the throat while I was sleeping. It was hard to breathe, and I just laid there, stock still.
I think if anyone else had been in this situation. They would be screaming and like, oh, let go of me, stop it and you have this reaction. But I had been in this so long, I knew I must hold very still. I must not say a word. And then hopefully he will let go, because I knew if I tried to fight against it, it would get worse.
Anne: I disagree with you, anyone who’s been through what you had been through would’ve stayed still too.
Elinor: Okay.
Anne: A hundred percent. What you did sounds totally normal under the circumstances. We know about abuse, and share it so others can learn.
Elinor: That’s self preservation.
Anne: Yes.
Elinor: A lot of the things that I did sound so wackadoo to me now, like they just sound like nonsense. But I appreciate that you understand that’s exactly what you have to do in those circumstances. Just to stay safe.
Anne: Yeah, to survive.
Elinor: Yeah, my children sometimes talk about how people say, “Oh, you should have done this and you should have done that.”
And they’re like, “Sometimes you say it too, Mom, now that we’re out. Like, if I was there again, I would’ve done this, or I wouldn’t have done that.” And they said, “No, we never would’ve, because we all knew it was going to get worse. We all felt that undercurrent of like he was holding back.”
Anne: That is the manipulation. I think people don’t understand that is the abuse. That you know instinctively that you can’t do that or you’re going to be very injured. Anybody would do that. I look back at what I did and think, what is wrong with me? I would do the opposite. He’d be physically intimidating, like he was gonna punch me in the face, and in my mind I’d be like, let’s see if I could make him punch me in the face. And so I’d push through it. I thought, if he punched me, I would know.
Elinor: Yeah.
Anne: So I’m pushing through, and he never punched me in the face. So then I was confused. Wait, I guess he’s not abusive. That’s the hard part about it. He could punch you in the face. He could not punch you in the face. Either way, it’s abuse.
Elinor: That was one of the things I recognized from your podcast. When I learned how do you listen to a podcast safely, different kinds of things surfaced that I hadn’t recognized were physical abuse. Obviously the throat holding, but like there was a ton of sexual abuse and coercion that I had not put in the physical abuse box.
I think many people do this. I categorized, punching and hitting, and like, oh, he pushed me down the steps. That would be physical abuse. But there were so many other things he did that were physical abuse that I learned from listening to you and the people on your podcast. That I was like, oh he’s doing all these things and more. He is physically abusive.
Elinor: Like it’s not when he’s gonna be physically abusive. He is now, and he doesn’t always need to get to the next point for me to step in line with what he wants. He just does as much as he needs to, to control me. Which was very effective.
Anne: Yeah, it’s scary.
Elinor: Yeah, I feel really blessed that we are on this side of it now. I’m glad I know, I’m glad I do not have the desire to ever go back. The third time I left with a protective order. Both times my protective orders failed. I’d have ’em for a couple weeks, and then I would go for the full protective order, and I could not give enough evidence to prove what had happened to me in the eyes of law. And that was so frustrating and demoralizing for me, because all these physically abusive and terribly scary things were happening.
But during a six hour court hearing. There just wasn’t enough evidence, the judge said, to bring a protective order against him. And of course, he was so good at presenting himself. He came in not looking like the “abuser”. He presents like a first class citizen, well educated, active in his church and a pillar to the community. And it was so believable that the judge was like, well, he seems like a great guy, and you seem like a great person, and you guys just need to work it out.
And that was so heartbreaking for me to tell my story in court in front of other people and policemen, and just such a terrifying environment. Your podcast and learning how do you listen to a podcast would have helped me.
Anne: And have them not believe you. Learning how do you listen to a podcast and finding ours for support could have helped prepare you.
Elinor: Not believe me.
Anne: That is a nightmare.
Elinor: Yes, and to do that twice and still not be believed. I was grateful at the end of the first court hearing, not joking, six hours. There was a recess for lunch in the middle, it went on so long. The lawyer had told me they averaged 10 to 20 minutes, and I sat through several, and that is how they average six hours.
At the end, after the judge dismissed it, and I am just in tears. This lady had to sit through all my court, came up to me, and she was like, I wanna tell you something. I believe you.” That meant the world to me to have her believe me. Because at that point, it’s hard enough to believe myself. It’s hard enough to get up there on the stand and be cross examined, but to have the judge throw it out. The second one was three hours. I knew it would be long.
Anne: Was it the same judge?
Elinor: Different judge, different state.
Anne: What?
Elinor: He presents so well. He is so believable, so charismatic, and he knows how to present himself as this wonderful guy.
Anne: Also, his abuse of you doesn’t leave marks. I mean, he might, “hold your throat”, but it didn’t leave a bruise.
Elinor: ‘Cause he knew when to stop. everything was behind closed doors. There was never a mark, like you said, there was nothing to go to show someone.
Elinor: I remember my daughter at one point telling me, “Mom, I just wish he would hit you. I don’t want you to be hit.” But she was like, “What can we say that he’s doing? If he hit you, we could say he hit you, but everything else he does is right at the edge.” She was like, “I wanna call the police, but I don’t know what I would say when they got here.” And we all know he would’ve just turned the tables on me entirely.
Anne: A hundred percent.
Elinor: After the protective order failed, we ended up fleeing the house with a couple of suitcases and our library books. Which I was somehow worried were gonna be overdue. That’s my brain. We lived in hiding and started the whole court process, which is an absolute nightmare. The post separation abuse, the court abuse, it’s like a stress ball. You squeeze it one way, it’s gonna come out somewhere else. His abuse just pops up in all sorts of creative ways, he just doesn’t stop. Learning how do you listen to a podcast helped keep me focused on our safety.
The children in two years have not been able to access their clothes, their toys. There’s a court order saying we should be able to go get our stuff. He placed logs across the driveway, so we couldn’t drive up. I hope to be divorced from him someday. I’m glad to hear that you are now 10 years divorced from your abuser. I hope for that for myself and my children too.
Anne: There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and when people told me that, I was very mad.
Because it didn’t feel like that. I was like, my whole life is ruined. I will be in this tunnel the rest of my life. Then post-divorce, when I experienced continued emotional and psychological abuse, due to his “co-parenting”. Take our free emotional abuse test to determine if you are being abused. So I was divorced, and he was still wreaking absolute havoc on my life and my children’s life. It felt like torture. I’d say in my case, and I want to stand up for abuse victims everywhere. ‘Cause you did the right thing. Teach people how do you listen to a podcast to get help.
You thought you should do at the time, and it makes total sense. You’re trying to survive. But to outsiders, they’re like, why did she do that? In my case, I did everything right. So for me, I always fought him. Or I was like, no, you’re not doing that to me.
I did everything “the right way”. So an outsider wouldn’t be like, “Well, why did you do that?” Because I did everything right. The weird thing is they blame you for it, even if you do it right. So it’s a trap either way, because I got a protective order and kept it and didn’t break it, and the second it was going to expire, I got another one. So I had a six year protective order that he was still able to abuse me via co-parenting messages.
When I went to court to try to take custody away. I had 40 pages of documented physical abuse and other abuse. It didn’t make a difference.
Anne: So being the person who “did everything right” and still couldn’t get help. That’s why I’m like, I have to stand up for abuse victims all over. Because it doesn’t matter if you’re doing everything “right”. The victims who are not doing it the way other people think they should. That’s not why they’re being abused. It’s still not their fault. It has nothing to do with them. So the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Workshop really came out of my absolute frustration that somebody like me could do everything right and still be forced to be abused by the court system.
The system was supposed to protect me. ‘Cause at some point I was like, God is the only way out of this. As a Christian, I was like, Christ is the deliverer. As I studied deliverance and the scriptures, the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Strategies came out of that.
And for women who aren’t women of faith, these are secular strategies that work no matter what, and people don’t have to pray for them to work. They work great, period. ‘Cause a lot of women have been really spiritually abused, and they don’t wanna pray. And I don’t blame them.
So I’m like, these work no matter what. You can learn how do you listen to a podcast and get help. That’s where the strategies came from, and they delivered me completely. He signed the kids away. In some cases, they don’t actually physically sign the rights to the kids away. He did out of court, but some of ’em just start leaving you alone. I don’t ever recommend that women take men like this to court if they’re not in court already. You’ll see when you take it.
Elinor: Glad to hear that.
Anne: ‘Cause court usually works in their favor. Even if you win after five years and spend $250,000. That’s not a win. You were just abused for two more years, and you’re in debt, like you just bought a house that’s not a house.
Elinor: The lawyer bought a house.
Anne: Exactly.
Elinor: I participate in the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Workshop, because I definitely need extra tips. Like right now in this legal side of it, I am drowning. Last year, I felt so hopeful, just finally being away. The gratitude and freedom like not missing him was so awesome. And this year, I thought we’d be divorced by now. I thought I would be free in more ways. And, oh no, that’s not his plan. He will continue to drag this out. So I am really glad to hear about more tips. I need them.
Anne: Would you mind coming back? And let me know how it’s going.
Elinor: I would love to.
Anne: For women who are maybe listening, like you did in your car, if someone’s listening and maybe they’re in the same boat you were, where their body is screaming out, don’t leave. That seems really unsafe.
Anne: Do you have any words to share with them?
Elinor: I appreciated the things you shared when I knew how do you listen to a podcast and listened to yours about asking yourself, are you safe? And getting yourself to a safe place before you make that decision about them. That helped me. I started asking myself, am I safe? Am I in a place where I can feel peaceful enough to get an answer?
It was so crazy in my home. I kept praying for clarity, but you can’t get clarity in that kind of situation. I just kept praying and praying, and it just didn’t come. When I finally did leave, that’s when the clarity came. I look back now and I’m like, I just wanna give myself a huge hug and be like, girl, it is okay. You didn’t know what you didn’t know, and you did the best you could with what you had then. And you wanted to keep your kids’ lives together and keep them safe.
One of the things that I read somewhere that really helped me make the decision to go though, was that children witnessing domestic violence is child abuse. That was really powerful for me, and I was like, oh my gosh, my poor children. There was so much behind closed doors, but they could feel it. The things that I hear from them now about what they felt and what they saw and heard that I didn’t think they had experienced, oh, my heart for these little ones.
Elinor: I wish I could just give all the people experiencing the kinds of things that I’ve experienced and many other women have experienced. I wanna give them a huge hug and say, it’s going to be all right. And ask them to be kind to themselves.
Because we’re second guessing, we’re living in such fear. It’s hard to know what to do. I’m just looking back on myself and giving myself a lot of grace and saying, “You did great. You left, good job.”
Anne: Yeah, and I think it helps women to hear somebody like me say, I did everything right and still couldn’t get out. If you know how do you listen to a podcast, you can hear other’s stories.
Elinor: Oh my gosh, yes.
Anne: Because then it’s like, oh, it wouldn’t have mattered how I acted. He was going to abuse me, and the way the system is, the way everything is getting to safety, is very difficult and miraculous. So there’s nothing that any of us could have done better under the circumstances. At the same time, there are some principles that had we known them. But nobody tells us. So it’s still not our fault. We didn’t learn about it in high school. We didn’t learn about it in college. There is no therapist out there. That has the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Strategies.
I’ve never heard anybody say it. It’s not anything like I’ve ever heard. ‘Cause all anybody else has is don’t talk to him at all, and you’re forced to talk to him. So that’s not helpful.
Anne: And, communicate better.
Elinor: Oh yeah, the communicate better is such a bunch of garbage. When you’re dealing with this kind of person who’s going to use all communications against you.
Anne: Yeah, so either way it’s a disaster. Well, I’m proud of you. You are brave and strong. And you’re incredible. There is a light at the end of the tunnel for you, even if it feels like there’s not. I always have to say that.
‘Cause every time somebody said that to me, I was so mad at them that I was really frustrated and wanted to tell them they didn’t know what they were talking about. If you’re feeling like that, I totally get it. And in that case, I’ll just sit here in the dark with you. It’s okay. People may recommend listening to a podcast, and you may not know how do you listen to a podcast, but taking that first step could be the one thing that helps the most.
Elinor: Thank you so much.
Anne: Until the light comes to you.
Elinor: Thank you,
Anne: Thank you so much.
Elinor: Thanks for having me.