Faith

We were married for 18 years when it became painfully clear that I’d been sexually and emotionally abused for most of our marriage. I’d endured years upon years of coercion, sexual assaults, gaslighting, stonewalling, and lots of blame shifting.

And then I found Nat on TikTok, and felt less alone and less lost.

I wanted out of our marriage but we had four kids together. Financially, it didn’t make sense to separate, as we were low income to begin with. So he agreed to couples therapy. As a side note, couples therapy with someone who is committed to being an abuser can be absolutely unsafe for their victim. The difference for us is that he repeatedly took full accountability for the multiple ways that he had harmed me.

But I no longer loved him. I also didn’t view him as a friend or someone I could trust, and that was the biggest hurdle of all.

For over a year, he remain consistent. He also went to individual therapy. He took accountability over and over. He became a healthy partner and respected my boundaries, which were that I did not ever, under any circumstances, want to be touched by him.

So during that time, we slept side-by-side in our bedroom but we never hugged, never held hands, never touched in any way. His touch was not welcome to me and he knew it, but more importantly he respected it.

Even though we were consistent in therapy and he was doing everything “right”, mentally and emotionally, nothing changed for me.

And then, one day he opened up to his mother about what he’d done to me. Which shocked me because he has a big mother wound and historically never confided in her at all. That was when I knew that he really changed. He wasn’t focused on protecting his image, rather he was revealing the truth to the people who would help support me and the kids in the event that we divorced. And that sparked something important in me.

After that, I began feeling trust again, and we gradually became friends once more. In April of 2022, we celebrated 20 years of marriage. Our relationship isn’t “back to normal” by any means. With the awareness we both have, neither of us want that, as our version of normal was harmful. We’ve had to work through a lot of triggers. We’ve occasionally had to dial back on intimacy when I’d hit an emotional rough patch. We’ve had to maintain certain boundaries around sex. It hasn’t been all dreams and rosy, but it’s still 100% better than it ever was.

Yes, my husband abused me. The knowledge of that will never be forgotten by either of us. And statistics show that when people who’ve engaged in abusive behavior seek help (therapy), only 5% of them are able to change. He has proven to be part of that 5%.