I am the face of an emotionally abused woman.

Meeting me today, I hope you would  find it difficult to believe I would ever have tolerated anything less than kindness and respect.  And today,  I do require nothing less than kindness and respect  from others.  Today I am no longer a victim. I own my place on this earth. I am an adult woman and I do not apologize for or defend against my feminine nature.  My strength, my tenderness, and my passion are all intricately connected. Each are vital components of my essence.  I know today each must be acknowledged and respected for me to thrive.  

I did not come to this realization overnight. It took me decades of pain, denial, and desperation to fully acknowledge the devastating effects of emotional abuse. I share this with you today because if this resonates with you, if it sounds in the least bit familiar, I want you to know that your life can be different.  I want to share with you what I have learned so your journey can possibly be shorter and less painful than mine.  

All I ever wanted was to be in a relationship with a man who would love me and care for me. I felt that I was somehow incomplete if I didn’t have this. When the man I chose to be in relationship with told me I was selfish and self-centered, I naturally  believed him and blamed myself and tried to change. When I was told that I was not a good mother, not good at the most sensitive core of my identity, I responded by trying harder.  And I worked so hard to do better.  I twisted myself up like a pretzel trying to please my husband and everyone else.  

My greatest fear was that I really was all of those things  he said I was: selfish, uncaring, inadequate, a bad mother.  I would go to great lengths to be sure I was not those things. I took on the personal motto that I would live my life “above reproach”.  Striving for the perfection of being “beyond reproach” is exhausting and  there always seemed to be something I was doing that warranted his reproach. 

My husband had an innate ability to put just enough truth in his criticism of me that I would believe him and take it on.  And, he would claim he was only telling  me these things for my own good.  My personal expectations were so high that I felt I should be able to fix this – whatever this happened to be.  However, I was also conscious of something that didn’t feel exactly right. I would get so confused I couldn’t really articulate what was happening.  My world was slightly askew, tipped just enough to be disorienting, but not enough to make me fall.  I call this – Crazy Making.  

I knew my arguments and opinions were reasonable, however he always had a rebuttal that caused me to question myself.  I would work hard to please him, but it was never enough.   

The day I realized there was something very wrong was the day I first had this thought: I wish he would just hit me so I would be justified to leave him.  

The reality is he was hitting me, daily.  He was hitting me with criticism.  He was undermining me in the guise of helping me.  I began to recognize what I called his “drive by shootings”.  This was when he would start the day by walking up to me, regardless of what I was in the middle of – diapering a newborn, helping two tweeners get off to school,  checking my work calendar for the day – and he would  pepper me with 3 or 4 of his complaints – his examples of the things I had done that were selfish and insensitive. Then he would leave.  And there I was, stunned, indignant, incredulous; with a crying baby, kids looking for their lost shoes and backpacks, and my cell phone ringing.

There is no knowing how long I might have stayed in this relationship had the abuse only been directed at me, however, when it started including my two children from my previous marriage, that was a boundary I recognized.  

We divorced and I assumed things would change, however my fear of him, of displeasing him, did not abate. I was afraid to confront him about little things for fear of his criticism.  I learned not to ask him for anything, no matter how reasonable, for fear he would turn my request into evidence of my self-centeredness. I took everything on myself and did not complain because I could handle it. I was Superwoman.

But, I wasn’t Superwoman and I couldn’t maintain the pace.  I became angry, indignant, self righteous.  I was distracted and I started to make mistakes.   While balls were dropping around me  he was  walking through life calm, confident, and in control. The idea that I feared him did not occur to most people. It didn’t even occur to me.  But I  was afraid.  From my outward appearance, you would not expect me to be afraid of him or to be  anyone's victim.  I was an executive at a Fortune 500 company. I was juggling work and the needs of 3 children, participating in girl scouts, basketball, and music lessons - all those things that go along with raising children.  I had a new home, a new car, nice clothes, a nanny. What would I have to be afraid of?  

Inside I was terrified of being the failure he said I was. I was overwhelmed and exhausted, angry and indignant.  I felt as though I was living in a warzone, continually warding off his attacks.  I began to sound defensive and shrill.  I started to drink more.  I yelled at him and talked constantly to others of how crazy he was.  I became the crazy one.

Eventually he filed suit asking for full custody of our then 3 year old daughter.  The case dragged on for years.  My older children, a son 14 and daughter 16, were dealing with some significant issues, and he used their challenges as evidence of my unfitness as a mother.  I was subjected to, and paid for, days of depositions including my own 10 hour deposition in which I was asked, under oath,  invasive and irrelevant questions such as: “What age were you when you first had sexual relations?”  

My ex-husband and I were required to submit to a social study conducted by a court selected Mental Health Professional. This study cost me $20,000 and included personality tests such as the MMNP and the Rorschach as well as home visit. The MHP’s conclusion was that my 5 year old daughter would be better off living with her father because I was too distracted by the needs of my older children. So, in other words, the fact that I was a devoted mother made me the less desirable parent.  

At this point in my story, I had about $200,000 invested in defending myself from this legal assault which amounted to little more than a temper tantrum by my ex-husband. While I was maintaining an external façade of having it all together, inside I was crumbling.  The cracks were starting to show. I had enrolled my oldest daughter in a therapeutic boarding school 2,000 miles from home, my son was participating in a wilderness program, and I got fired from my job. I had exhausted my savings, emptied the kids’ college funds, and I was now unemployed.

 My legal choices were to go to trial at an expected expense of, at least, an additional $75,000 with no guarantee of winning, or I could mediate.  My only rational choice was to mediate.  The compromise that my ex was willing to accept was for me to agree to let my daughter live with him – he became the custodial parent - while we continued to have shared custody.  Essentially - I had lost custody of my child.

Everything I feared had come true.  My children were all suffering, I had no job, and my only pleasure was the wine I drank each evening  I had failed as a mother, as an executive, and as a person.  This  was an emotionally bereft time for me.  I was at what I thought was my rock bottom.

My ex had won!  You would think he would be satisfied and leave me alone.  Well, that is not what happened.  He continued to engage in battles over the simplest requests.  He perpetually accused me of only caring about my needs and not those of our daughter – even when “caring about my own needs” meant I was taking care of my older children or trying not to get fired from my new job.  Anything I did that inconvenienced him was evidence of my selfishness and disregard for the needs of our daughter.  He was still filled with hate and anger that was directed toward me.

So perhaps it was not completely surprising that eight months after my daughter went to live with her father, my ex-husband died from a heart attack. 

I cannot begin to explain the cacophony of emotions I felt upon receiving this news.  

First, I was furious.  My now dead ex had wasted years and hundreds of thousands of dollars for nothing.  Next, I was ecstatic. I had my daughter back .  Finally, I was relieved. I didn’t have to experience his abuse anymore.  

It was not lost on me that it was a little warped that the major emotions I felt regarding my former husband's death were - Ecstasy, Anger and Relief .  And I was aware that my responsibility to my daughter was to preserve for her the memory of a loving and devoted father.  Some pretty mixed up, messed up emotions for sure.

But - He was gone.   I didn’t have to defend myself anymore.  I didn’t  have to fear his verbal and written assaults anymore.  It took months, even years, for this reality to fully sink in.

As I adjusted to life without his constant anger and criticism, I found there was a void where his abuse used to be. I realized I didn’t really know what to do with myself.  I didn’t even know who I was or what I really felt. Could it be that his abuse had been serving some sick purpose in my life? 

By dying, he had the nerve to quit fighting me and deny me the chance to win.  By dying, I didn’t get to be his victim anymore. There was no closure for me.  Who was I without him? Who was I period? I was lost, alone, and afraid.  And I was worn out.  This is the point in my life where I gave in.  I didn’t give up, I gave in.  I let go and chose to be okay with not being okay.  This was rock bottom.

So began my time of hibernation and transformation.  I left my job, at their request – and it was the best thing for me. I took almost a year off.  I learned to live on the bare minimum. I realized  I had spent my life striving for things that were not really my values. I realized I minimized the importance of honoring my values in my choices of husbands and jobs. I had chosen image and things over kindness and love, and I had convinced myself that I could put up with any situation, no matter how unsupportive or unprofessional.  I started the process, the lifelong adventure, of discovering myself.

I learned to be brutally honest with myself about who I am and what I need.  I also learned what it is to be truly, deeply kind to myself.

I set myself on the road to becoming an adult.  I took responsibility for my choices and my needs.  I was able to discern the role I played in the chaos and pain that had been my life and my marriages.  I want to be VERY clear here: Understanding my role did not in any way diminish the fact that my ex-husband was abusive. He WAS.  Coming to better understand myself did not absolve him of that. But understanding my part in the drama allowed me to see how I could do things differently.  I began to understand how my choices and my misconceptions contributed to my situation. I realized I had spent my life thinking if I just changed enough, if I was just better, then he would change – and that is just not true. I cannot change anybody but me. I cannot control anyone else.   And I learned as an adult, I can determine what I will accept in my life.  I learned being a woman is not weakness and reason for criticism, but rather  it is my power.  I refused to continue to hide from my femininity in fear of it being abused or ridiculed.  My love, my nurturing, my sensuality and empathy are all the blessings of my gender and I embraced them and began to heal. 

I was growing stronger and much more grounded in my values, but there was this nagging anger and self doubt that I could not get past. I still found myself ruminating, obsessing even, on the fact that I had been judged harshly by the family law system.  I was still terribly angry and hurt that the Mental Health Professional had not recognized me for the victim I was, and my ex as the bully he was.  I would stand in the shower having conversations with my dead ex-husband or the Mental Health Professional (MHP) who conducted our social study.  In these imaginary conversations, I articulated all those things they got wrong about me. I would feel all of the indignation, anger, and shame once again.  This injustice was one piece of my experience I could not seem to reconcile.

That is, until I read the following passage in an article on domestic homicide:

“The average batterer is more likable than his victim, because domestic violence affects victims a lot more than it affects batterers,” . . . batterers don’t lose sleep like victims do. They don’t lose their jobs, they don’t lose their kids.” In contrast, “a lot of victims come across as messed up.” 

This was me – the messed up victim being compared to the “in control” abuser.  No wonder the system chose him.  

Granted, the article was talking about physical abuse, not emotional abuse, however the dynamics were all the same.  I had lost all the things  they listed:.  I had lost sleep, I had lost my job - twice- and I had lost my children.  

I began to research the phenomenon of emotional abuse and I learned: 

“In many ways, emotional abuse is more psychologically harmful than physical abuse.”“(What) makes emotional abuse so devastating is the greater likelihood that victims will blame themselves. If someone hits you, it's easier to see that he or she is the problem, . . . . .  .Emotional abuse seems more personal than physical abuse, more about you as a person, more about your spirit. It makes love hurt.”

Since my abuse didn’t leave bruises or broken bones - or kill me – it was not recognized as abuse at all.  But let me tell  you - it WAS abuse.  It undermined my confidence , my health, my self image and left me scared and bereft.  

This information, this perspective, finally freed me from my guilt and shame.  What it said to me is that I am not a failure, and I am not alone.  I realized the system is not set up to recognize and rescue the victim, and by expecting that it was I actually presented myself as the  more unstable individual.  The system will do the best it can to dissolve a marriage in a manner that it determines will best serve the children and deliver equitable results to all parties. But it is not going to deliver justice.  

My justice had to come from inside of me.  I had been looking for my identity and, as an extension, my validation and justice from others, from my husband, the legal system, and before that my parents, and on and on. I was looking outside myself for justice, and my justice was inside me. 

This knowledge, this insight, enabled me to let the victim in me go. I could acknowledge and accept I had done the best I could with the knowledge and resources I had at the time, and I could make different choices going forward.   I chose to know and embrace who I am, what I value,  and what impact I intend to have on this world.  I achieved my justice, I became the victor by choosing to thrive.

As I look back over my personal journey to justice , I recognize  I went through  three phases: awareness, acceptance and finally action.  Awareness came to me slowly and from many different sources.  I read lots of self help books, I attended 12 Step Programs, Church, Career Planning workshops, therapy, and even a grief support group.  My life and my identity were broken shards of glass and I was locating them and piecing them together

Acceptance was that point where I was able to stop fighting  and stop defending.  I looked at the mosaic of myself and realized I was exactly what I was supposed to be.

A pivotal point in my awareness and acceptance was my decision to pursue a career as a professional life coach.  I recognized coaching as my calling and pursued training.  I brought the broken shards of  myself to coaching.  And, this is where the magic occurred.  My loosely connected collage of emotions, values, ideas, strengths, commitments, passions, loves and needs were propelled into action through the coaching experience.  Coaching provided the emotional safety, the insight and encouragement  to transform me into an empowered, complete woman prepared to live my life my way.

Today I feel passionately about using my knowledge, experience and awareness to help other women, perhaps even you, navigate the pathway out of emotional abuse.  I  have the conviction to deliver the “Brutal Honesty” and “Deep Kindness”  that leads to self awareness and acceptance.  I provide a safe space where your experience of abuse is validated and you can acknowledge and experience your very real fear and pain.   My goal is for you to experience justice, the justice that comes from  discovering your authentic self and choosing to thrive. My victory lies in seeing each and every  one  of you standing before us embracing the Adult Woman, the Feminine Power that is you.  

Are you ready to begin your transformation?  My transformation took decades, yours can happen much more quickly. My divorce recovery program will coach you through the awareness and acceptance of your unique self and propel you into action, the action of  thriving.