← Betrayal Trauma Recovery
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, it's Anne. If you've listened to this podcast, you know I interview women who are dealing with their husband's lies, anger or infidelity. I've interviewed over 200 women and counting. If you relate to anything you hear in this episode, we can help you today. I created our daily live group sessions because when I was going through it, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find the help I needed. We know exactly how to help women in this situation. The entire BTR team has been through it, so we know how to anticipate the issues you're likely to face. And when you discover your husband's lies or infidelity, no matter where you are in the world, we can help you immediately. Check out our group session schedule@btr.org group everyone knows divorce isn't just paperwork. It's a complex emotional and logistical process that's almost impossible to navigate alone. Divorce and emotional abuse go hand in hand. So if you're struggling after divorce, the right support can make all the difference. Felicia told her story nine months ago on a podcast called this is why you're Not Codependent. She has come back to give us an update about how she's feeling before we catch up with her. There are three things that are really important for navigating emotional abuse after divorce. Number one is getting the right information. Did you know that many women are or were emotionally abused to the point that it resulted in divorce, but they blame themselves and they still don't even know that it was emotional abuse? If you're listening and that might be you, take our free Emotional Abuse quiz, go to btr.org podcast search for this podcast episode at the very top there is a link to our free Emotional Abuse quiz. Number two, getting the right support is imperative. Women who attend our Betrayal Trauma Recovery group sessions say it makes such a difference to know that they're not alone and they're not crazy. And number three is what you'll hear Felicia talk about today. It's having the right strategy. My meditations in the workshop helps women heal from the inside out. And then the strategies women learn in the Living Free workshop make all the difference. And you'll hear Felicia talk about how they improved her situation after divorce today. Welcome back, Felicia.
- [02:24]
B
Thank you so much.
- [02:26]
A
So five months ago, when I interviewed you, you were feeling rightfully very sad and frustrate because your community had turned against you and you felt very alone. Can you talk about what's happened in the months since you came on the podcast?
- [02:41]
B
At the time That I was about to get a divorce. I thought my whole community were supporting me. So it was like the bottom dropped out when I did get the divorce and my ex managed to turn everybody against me. And I had people calling me and telling me how awful I was. And I said before it was not happy for me to meet someone in the grocery store. It felt like, how could I be right and all these people be wrong? I felt like I had been in a safe place, like a really good place when I got the divorce. I felt really healthy. And then suddenly I started to question my health. And in Christianity you learn you can't be the only right person. So you need your community to help tell you if you're wrong. If everybody says you're wrong, you probably are. And that just wasn't the case. I really had to find where I was and cheer myself on because integrity is when you are right and have to stand alone. And that's actually what I was doing.
- [03:51]
A
During our last interview. You were really struggling. What changed?
- [03:57]
B
I did the BTR meditations in the workshop and it was just like, I'm already traumatized. Why do I need to work so hard? The BTR meditations give me truth that I think about and meditate on that. It's just true things about me and believing myself and regaining confidence. And that's what I've done. I have my confidence back. I feel like my brain is healthy for the first time in a really long time. I have community now. I attribute a lot of the confidence I have from living free meditations and the truth that it led me to be my own best friend and know the truth about myself and stop second guessing myself based on how everybody's treating me. I first started playing the meditations while I went on a walk. And I would just think about the meditations as I walked. And they were all centered around the truth about who I am as a person. And they really helped me because the thing that I needed the most was the truth in the meditations about who I am. And I didn't need to dig and try to change. It was right there for me.
- [05:12]
A
Yeah, I love that about the meditations that women don't need to change or be anything different. Who they are right now is good enough is exactly who they need to be.
- [05:21]
B
Women need to learn about how beautiful they already are. The only thing that needs to change is for them to realize the truth about themselves. Last time we talked, I wasn't that spunky about finding new friends because I was still just so upset that my other friends dropped me, and I just figured, why find new ones? It's just gonna be like, more fake. But what happened is I just kept going to this church, and it's really small, and they're like older women. And lately I needed help legally because I'm fighting against my ex. I needed some people to write letters, and I've been going there a year now. And they know what's happened to me, and they're just really for me. Everything I want to do, they want to back me up on. And they have seen me be a mom, and they think I'm really good. And it wasn't until I needed these letters written that I realized I have so many people that are helping me at a time that I really need it. Whereas all my friends have always been out of convenience and then just conveniently dropped off when I needed help. I realized I still had lifelong friends that I just hadn't kept up with. And now I'm realizing how many people I have. But more importantly, the depth of support that they've brought me.
- [06:42]
A
When I interviewed you nine months ago, you thought you had no one. But I'm going to restate here and see if I'm hearing you correctly. Number one, you didn't realize there were more people who supported you than you thought. But also maybe, number two, that a lot of those people who you were mourning the loss of.
- [07:03]
B
Yeah, I was. In a time of when you're believing two realities. I know everyone was saying, like, they're not your real friends, but they felt so real. And then when the rubber hit the road, they weren't actually there at all. I was mad. I really wish that they would have not left me and supported my ex who was abusive, and they knew he was abusive and they knew he was inauthentic, and they still left me. I don't want friends like that. But I really did want friends like that. They were my friends. Now I'm able to fully realize how unfriendly they were. Really my enemies. I call them my enemies now because they were really mean to me when I was thought I had their support. So now I'm fully realizing who they were, I guess because I fully realized who I am and how I've only been trying to do the right thing. Not only did I not do anything wrong, I've been trying to do everything right and found myself and I don't want them in my life. And they just happen to all be moving out of town now, which is awesome. I can't believe that happened.
- [08:14]
A
That is awesome. I had a neighbor I really did not like, and I actually put on my miracle board, which is like a vision board that they move. I wrote on there that this family moves. And I walked out of my house one day, and the for sale sign was in their front yard. Oh, my gosh.
- [08:32]
B
Yes, I know. That's how I feel. It was actually my pastor's wife that was, like, my best friend who chewed me out and, like, swore at me on the phone. And. And on the way to this interview, I just drove by your house, and the for sale was at the end of her lane, just like you said.
- [08:47]
A
And I was like, yes, just now. You just saw it?
- [08:52]
B
Yes, I just saw it now. Yes. I just found about all these people moving last week. I found out about all three of them moving on the same week.
- [09:01]
A
That is awesome. Yeah, that is awesome. I'm so happy for you.
- [09:06]
B
Yeah. I'm like, I can go to the store now, and I have my local church all to myself without all these hateful people around me. Someone has told me they're afraid of me and that's why they're leaving. It's the spiritual thing. But honest to goodness, I became healthy, and now I found out that they were gone.
- [09:21]
A
So you're feeling good, which is awesome. That's the benefit of living free. Even when you're still in a tough situation, you can start feeling peace inside. So you've struggled with his legal abuse since the divorce? Right after the divorce, he started suing you for all sorts of things?
- [09:41]
B
Yes. Since the divorce, he immediately started legal pursuit, and it was hard because his abuse was always hidden, and he got more aggressive. So my family got to see who he really was for themselves. But the legal pursuit has been really hard. Before I did the Living free workshop, I tried to give him what he wanted so that he would leave me alone. And then I found out you don't give an abuser what they want so they'll leave you alone. They're bullies, and they're always going to just make it worse. It has escalated to the point that he's telling lies in court under oath about me. But what's good about it is anytime we've had a hearing and a trial is coming up, the judge has ruled in my favor. And I was just overlooking that because I was so scared and I feel so powerless. But the judge really surprised me this last time and ruled that we keep the child support the same. And I thought that he was totally gonna drop it. And then my lawyer Told me, do what's best for your family, and that's all you need to do. And when the judge asks you why you did something, you can tell him that you actually thought it was what was best for your family. And it was that statement that started to make me feel free again, because I was like, why do I need a lawyer to tell me to do what's right for my family? Why did I not feel like I could do that? But in this legal battle, I honestly felt like I don't even know if I can do what's right for my family because of the gaslighting to where they make you question if you're really doing something right. And when my lawyer said that, it made me realize, yeah, I can do what's right for my family. And then the excuse I will give will be that I thought it was right for my family.
- [11:38]
A
That's exactly what it was. You are trying to do the right thing. They are not trying to do the right thing. I'm so happy to hear that you have a good attorney and that you had a good ruling. That is very rare. Did you think nine months ago that you would feel the way you feel now?
- [11:55]
B
Months ago you told me it would get better. And you encouraged me to. To the point that I was like, oh, my word, we could do an interview again and I could see if I could heal. I had a BTR coach talk to me at the very beginning and say, what do you want? And I actually said, I want to be a better mom and stop yelling at my kids. And I felt like that was totally unrelated to what I was going through. And she said, that's what's going to happen then. And she started asking me, what do you want here? What do you want there? And I wanted these healthy things. And she said, you will get those healthy things. And now I've tried and I've tried over the last months. Plus, the whole time I've been divorced, I've been like, where is my healing? And what surprised me the most, I was just like striving and all of a sudden it just came attributed to God. But when I went on Facebook in a healing from trauma group and I shared that God healed me, they said, would you please put trigger warning religion? And I was like, no, it wasn't religion at all. Like, none of the religion healed me. God healed me. And bam, it just happened. I just want people to be encouraged. You can be trying to heal, trying to heal, and then all of a sudden it will come.
- [13:16]
A
The healing comes when we're validated. And when we're safe, the safety is the healing. So maybe something to consider is the reason why you healed is because you were learning safety strategies. You were learning how to protect yourself. And over time, you got more and more safe from the abuse. Like the judge ruling in your favor. That is instant healing.
- [13:44]
B
Yeah.
- [13:45]
A
Justice is a form of instant healing. If your ex moved to a different state and never talked to you again, that is instant healing.
- [13:53]
B
Oh, my word. Yeah.
- [13:54]
A
People who say, you just need to learn how to deal with it. You just need to learn, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, no, she just needs to not be abused anymore.
- [14:04]
B
Yes.
- [14:05]
A
She needs to be in a safe place. And when you're in safety, healing happens. I saw that same thing. I struggled with post divorce abuse for eight years. I lost a court case. And then I was like, I've got to figure this out. I need strategies. That's when I discovered the Living Free message strategies. It's also when I wrote the meditations for the workshop for myself. Like, I did the meditations myself, then using the Living Free strategies, delivered my kids. My ex basically signed the kids away out of court when they brought me safety. And then I replicated that with other victims, and they told me how amazing these strategies were once I knew they worked for everyone, not just for me. I wrote them in the Living Free workshop so that everyone could learn them. When he signed the kids away, I was instantly healed. It was instant. Because we're not crazy. There's nothing wrong with us. We're just being abused for women. Listening, if they're like, that's great, but that doesn't really help that it just comes. What am I supposed to do in the meantime?
- [15:18]
B
Exactly.
- [15:19]
A
Let's talk about those things that you did in the meantime. You enrolled in Living Free. You did the meditations. Can you talk about the dance class?
- [15:28]
B
It's actually an app, and I'm just dancing every day. I always wanted to dance, like, through my pregnancies and stuff because it's so healthy. But I've never danced, so I just wanted to learn the different types of dancing. And I try to dance for 10 minutes a day. Everything, little by little, is helping. I'm on depression medication too, so part of me wants to be like, oh, it's just that. But no, I've been on depression medication before. It's not that. Actually, you know what I think happened? My ex always wanted me to think that everything was me. It was all me. And I had to change. And I had to become better. I talked in our last episode on how I thought I was a monster. When I got married, I always thought everything was my fault, and that wasn't true. That abusive mindset where everything's my fault and it's all because of me is what he wanted me to think. And that's what he still wants me to think. But the good thing was, the healthier I got, the more distant we became. And that's exactly what's happening now. I found myself. So, yeah, things are super hard still. Abuse is rampant. We have a trial coming up, but there is something about focusing on the.
- [16:45]
A
Truth in the Living Free workshop. It talks about how these men are exploitative, so they want to exploit you. They don't want you to go away. They want you close so they can exploit you for energy. Your ex right now loves to play the victim in court. She's ruining me. She's doing this. And he feels fit. Court is a great place to showcase how you've wronged him. But if you really had wronged him, he would want to be away from you. That's how we can tell the victims from the perpetrators. After divorce, victims desperately want to be away from them. Like, we don't ever have to talk again. I don't want to have anything to do with you. And the abusers are the ones who are like, wait, I can't exploit her anymore. What excuse can I use to message her? Oh, maybe I left, like, my rock collection at her house, which they never cared about before ever, ever, ever. And then suddenly they're like, this is the most important thing to me. And you took it from me when they just could have come and picked it up. So that exploitative character that they have is what keeps them around. So the Living Free strategies are how to be unexploitable, which does escalate them for a second because they're like, wait, wait, wait. I was using her for this, and now I can't use her anymore. But then eventually, there's nothing for them to hold on to.
- [18:15]
B
I am still waiting for him to finally de escalate. But, yeah, I do use the Living Free strategies exclusively. That's the only thing I use to communicate with him. It was life changing. I only use those because they are so helpful. I go back to them like, let's see, how am I supposed to respond to this right now? And it is helpful.
- [18:38]
A
Well, with your dancing and the meditations and the Living Free strategies, I'm so happy to hear that. Even though it's still hard that you are feeling better. Felicia, thanks for coming back on and giving us an update.
- [18:53]
B
Thank you so much.
- [18:54]
A
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