What If My Husband Says He Doesn’t Love Me?

 It’s hard to know what to do when your husband says he doesn’t love you anymore. If this has happened to you, here’s what you need to know.

Did you know there are 19 different types of emotional abuse? To see if you can recognize the 19 different types of emotional abuse, take our free emotional abuse quiz.

Transcript: What to Do When Your Husband Doesn’t Love You

Anne: Today we’re gonna cover what happens when your husband says he doesn’t love you anymore. We have a member of our community on today’s episode. We’re gonna call her Denise. This happened to her. Here’s a preview of what she said.

“I felt like he hates me. He hates my guts. I had asked him , “When did your heart turn against me?” So then he tells me…”

You’ll find out what he tells her later on in the story.

If this has happened to you, where your husband has told you he doesn’t love you anymore. Here are two things to consider.

Number one, get educated about emotional and psychological abuse because there’s a chance that this is part of your story, even if it doesn’t seem like it. You’ll hear about how Denise’s husband used two psychological abuse tactics: mirroring and countering. So as you listen, see if you can identify when that happens. And number, two is to observe their actions. And I’ll talk more about that in today’s interview.

So welcome, Denise.

When your Husband Says He doesn’t Love you

Denise: Yeah, I met my ex online. I was in my 40s and had never been married. I always said I didn’t want to get married until I met the one. Like, the one, and I made sure, because I didn’t want a bad marriage. Um, turns out that I apparently didn’t know what that looked like.

So Yeah, he’d been, married before, was a widower, he took care of his late wife, and, seemed to be financially responsible.

The first date was great.

But then on the next date, we went for a hike, and I was asking him questions, and he couldn’t answer simple questions, like, what’s your favorite movie?

Maybe He’s Just Not Ready

Denise: The third date was just awkward, something feels off. And I told him I wouldn’t date him.

I didn’t think he was ready for a relationship, like maybe he needed to heal some more.

Anne: How long after his wife’s death did you start?

Denise: Like three and a half months

So I told him I wouldn’t date him.

But we were hanging out as friends and we would argue all the time. People would say, “what are you arguing about?” Like, I don’t even know, I don’t know what we were arguing about. It was really confusing to me because I’m not a really argumentative person, but for some reason I was drawn to him.

His Sudden Heart Change: Maybe He Does Love Me

Denise: And then all of a sudden, literally one day, he changed and there was no more arguing. It was almost like this happy wife, happy life thing. I thought okay, he hadn’t dated in a long time, that was a fluke. That’s what I thought. That was a fluke. He’s realized he was just being an idiot and now he’s ready to step up and be himself and be respectful.

Anne: Wow! That was a sudden heart change.

Denise: Yes, exactly. And then after that, we got along really well. I had so much fun.

Looking back now, I can see things that I didn’t notice at the time, but at the time, everything seemed great. I just kept telling people like how blessed I was. This was amazing. His friends were all telling me how wonderful he was and random people we would meet would tell me like, “you are lucky, he is a good man.”

My family loved him. I mean, it was like everybody. No one thought there would be a time where I’d have to figure out what to do if he said he didn’t love me anymore. No one ever thought something like that would ever happen.

Anne: Did he have kids from his first marriage?

Denise: He did. They were preteen, and early teen.

His Sudden Heart Change: Confusion

Denise: There were a couple of little other flukes that happened while we were dating or after we were engaged and I thought they were flukes, one of them happened when my niece was graduating from college and I wanted to go to her graduation.

We were engaged at the time and he had never been to that area of the United States. So, he’s like, “why don’t you plan the trip then, since you’ve been there before and we can do our family vacation and go to your niece’s graduation at the same time.” I’m like, Oh, that would be wonderful.

Like I’d been there. He hadn’t. So, we asked the kids if they wanted to do anything like specific in that area. They didn’t want to look anything up. So I was like, I guess I’m planning it. And he was like, “I trust you.”

So, we go on this trip and he starts getting angry at me for not having planned it better and I was like, really confused. That’s what a lot of this whole thing was, a lot of confusion. Like, you asked me to plan it, if you wanted to do it a certain way, you should have stepped in and planned it yourself or said you wanted something else. I mean, it’s common sense. I saw on that trip what he was just, angry, bitter, and yelling at me.

Pre-Wedding Tensions

Denise: That was, before the wedding and I thought it was a one off.

Anne: like a fluke.

Denise: Mm hmm.

And then, there was one more that I see now as major. I thought it was him being under a lot of stress. It was right before the wedding. He said he wanted our bank accounts to be merged, which is what I wanted. I wanted 100 percent commitment, all in, everything shared.

I wanted to be a stay at home mom. That was my goal. He was totally up for that. So, right before the wedding, he starts getting angry that he’s paying more for the wedding than I am.

And I was like, weird, cause we’re merging everything. He wasn’t arguing that he didn’t want something at the wedding. He was saying he wanted me to pay for it.

Anne: Are you okay if we pause right here?

Denise: totally

Mirroring Explained

Anne: This is how mirroring works. He’s not gonna tell you how he feels until you tell him how you feel, so he can just mirror back to you your own interests and your own opinions. So he’s gonna find out what your favorite movie genre is, and then he’s gonna say, me too. He’s gonna wait until he knows how you feel about politics. And then he’s going to mirror your opinions back to you. And then later he’ll have a “change of heart”  when really he didn’t have those opinions in the first place.

So in terms of choosing a good husband, if you’re thinking about dating or getting to know someone, try asking them questions like this before you tell them how you feel and see how they respond.

Denise: That actually makes complete sense. I hadn’t thought of it in that way but now that you say that, I was thinking back, like, after I told him what my favorite movie was, then he said that he liked that one too. Most everything, it seemed like it was a fluke that he liked the same things I did, it was like, oh my , we’re like exactly the same.

This is crazy. I’m like, yeah, this is crazy. I never, imagined that we would like this many things the same.

Countering Explained

Anne: So when you talked about this period of time where you were just friends and he was arguing with you quite a bit.

My guess is that he was countering. Countering is an abuse tactic where they counter basically, everything you say. It’s very similar to like a 15 year old. My son counters right now from time to time, cause he’s 15 and I’m like legit every single thing I’m saying you’re disagreeing with.

And he’s like, “no, I’m not.” I’m like, there you go again. This is happening right now. It’s a really immature way of trying to overpower somebody else. He was countering maybe, to determine how confident you were in your opinions.

And when he realized you’re very confident in your opinions, he also realized he wasn’t gonna be able to groom you that way.

And then, he made an abrupt heart change to acting kind and egalitarian. That’s where you saw that shift when he realized you weren’t looking for the strong, like take charge type. She’s looking more for a partner. It sounds like it was either arguing or everything was perfect.

Denise: Yeah, that is how it felt and that’s the way it was. It was extreme.

Better Communication Won’t Make His Heart Change

Anne: They use communication in this way to manipulate. That’s why learning to communicate better doesn’t solve an abuse problem, and that’s why the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free strategies are so important. Using those strategies will help you see what their true intent is and what they’re actually doing.

So he was using those tactics on you, and you didn’t realize it because, why would you? We’re not educated on what to do if he says doesn’t love us.

Did you know about any porn use?

Denise: That was really important for me to talk to him about before the wedding. He said he had a box of Playboys in the basement. And he was like, “I don’t want to have anything to do with that, I just need to destroy those.” So he told me he burned all of them and I tried really hard not to push him, because I wanted anything like that to come from him.

He wasn’t Catholic. I didn’t ask him to become Catholic.

I just told him going to church was really important to me and going together was really important to me. So we went to both churches.

His Sudden Heart Change: Post-Wedding

Denise: But then, I noticed on the honeymoon that he was doing things on purpose to hurt me. Like there were things before that hurt me, you know, I didn’t like that, or we need to work on this. He would like, abruptly turn away from me in bed, just like a rejection.

And I told him I didn’t like it and he just kept doing it. I was like, okay, this is meant to hurt me, which was very shocking to me because I thought I married my knight in shining armor, the countering got so bad while we were…

I don’t even like to say intimate because it wasn’t reality, like within weeks of the wedding, he was screaming at me, telling me that I was selfish and that I didn’t care about him. I’m like, what is happening here? Screaming isn’t one of the types of physical intimacy, haha.

I am super confused. I mean, you know, you’ve been through it, all the torture, the angst.

Anne: So when he starts doing this on the honeymoon during intimate times, and I agree with you, calling it intimacy is like a joke because it wasn’t intimate at all, and you recognize this is on purpose. What did you think was the cause of this sudden heart?

Denise: I just thought he needed healing, you know, he had a rough childhood. He was married. She was ill for a long time. He said she was depressed all the time and then she passed away. Raising his kids on his own, like he couldn’t handle stuff.

Financial Control And Isolation after he says he Doesn’t Love You

Denise: At this point I had lost my job. We had spent all of my money on groceries. My bank accounts were empty. I had absolutely nothing.

He wouldn’t put me on the accounts. He kept saying he was going to like, “Oh, I forgot. Oh, we should have done that.” So, I had no income, no job, and no money in the bank. I’m destitute.

At this point, I had already had one miscarriage, and I took another pregnancy test. It was negative, but he thought it was positive and he thought I was pregnant. He was like, “yeah, I think you should leave.”

Anne: And you’ve been single, so you’re used to being independent. You’re used to to paying your own bills.

And then to be in this vulnerable position of realizing that your husband doesn’t love you for the first time must have felt like a trap.

Denise: yeah.

Different Paths and No Mercy When He says he Doesn’t Love You anymore

Anne: that is shocking.

Denise: But I thought we were on the same path going the same direction and there were these like little jolts off of the path, but that he really wanted to be on that path and he would come back and we would keep moving in the same direction.

Four months after the wedding, things had gotten so bad. He was screaming at me all the time. I kind of laugh, but it’s not funny at all. I mean, I look back and I’m just like, what the heck?

It was just insane. He kept bringing up that trip we had taken, blaming me because we didn’t do things that were kid friendly and, literally, I was begging him, like, I’m trying to be the best mom and wife that I can be please give me some mercy.

For, not knowing what the kids would enjoy, like I’m doing the best I can, yeah, I’m going to fail. I’m not perfect. Don’t you think I deserve a little bit of mercy?

And in front of one of his kids, he said, “you don’t deserve mercy.” It’s just like, there’s nowhere to go, nowhere to go with that.

Facing The Truth When Your Husband has stopped loving you

Anne: So, at this point, when you see that your husband says he’s had a drastic heart change, what did you do?

Denise: I finally started telling people what was going on.

And I have a few friends who told me about the cycle of abuse.

I didn’t have any bruises or anything, I was confused, and knew this wasn’t healthy. So, I looked it up and I was like, this is exactly what’s happening, but It’s not just like I’m dating and he’s abusive to me. There was a wedding. And of course, like most women do, oh, but this is the way he was.

Is he going to get back to this point? So, when I was shown the truth, I started searching for a therapist and trying to do everything I could to to heal it.

Seeking Help and Therapy When He Doesn’t Love You anymore

Denise: During the time that we were together, we saw four different therapists. Three of them sided with him, even after he was either abusive to me in front of them or he told them he was abusive to me. They still sided with him.

At one point he is sitting face to face, my hands in his hands and he’s telling me how much he loves me and he’s so sorry and one therapist was like, “don’t you hear him? Can’t you hear him?”

I was just like, I don’t even know if he means it right now, but in five minutes he’s not going to, that’s the problem. And she didn’t get it.

Anne: This is crazy pants! Were you surprised at how unhelpful therapy was? Because couples therapy is kind of like everybody’s solution. And many therapists don’t consider the possibility that your husband doesn’t love you or he is abusive if he’s coming to couples therapy with you.

Denise: Yes. One of the questions I asked before we chose this therapist was, “Can you spot narcissism?”

Anne: Did she say yes?

Denise: Of course, of course, they all say yes.

And after that, she wouldn’t even answer my calls. I think she was probably so confused by the whole thing.

Anne: It’s really hard when you go to someone for help, and you have to educate them about what’s happening rather than the other way around.

First Attempt to Leave

Denise: Then about a month later, I left him the first time. I called someone to tell them I was leaving and that I was worried about his kids.

This person told me, “we all knew it wasn’t going to work out…He was completely fake the whole time you were dating.”

I was like, why didn’t anybody tell me this?

They said it was “because they were afraid that, he wouldn’t let them have a relationship with the kids.”

But this person hadn’t been really nice to me. So I was like, Oh, do I trust this person or not? I have no idea.

Are they playing me?

I must’ve been looking up betrayal trauma, and I found the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast and I ended up listening quite a bit. I was able to use all the tools from the betrayal podcast and from the group, because I was in the group a total of a year and a half. Going to Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions was so enlightening. I could not have done this without BTR.ORG.

Unfortunately, after that, he was like, “there’s this retreat thing. A Catholic retreat for people on the verge of the decision to divorce, to try to heal the relationship.” And they say in there, “if there’s abuse, this doesn’t work.”

So he set it up. We went to that and he said, “I want this, I want to be with you, blah, blah, blah,” and of course, he acted like everything was great and we’re all healed. That was right when all the COVID lockdowns were just starting and I was like, I should be with him to figure this out.

Temporary Reconciliation

Denise: So, I moved back. and it was actually decent, for quite a while.

And then eight months later, it started going downhill really fast.

So I was trying to get to another therapist and on the same day that we’re meeting with a therapist, he tells me he has a meeting with a divorce lawyer.

Just like why are we meeting with a therapist if you’re meeting with a divorce lawyer, and then he told one of his kids he was divorcing me. I felt like this guy hates me. He hates my guts. I had asked him, when did you stop loving me? Because I still didn’t understand that it was all fake beforehand.

My Heart Change: The Breaking Point

Denise: So then, he tells me that it was at our reception.

Anne: Your wedding reception?!

Denise: Yes…I know, right?!

Anne: What in the world?!

Denise: …He overheard this friend saying, “she’s got herself a sugar daddy.” And that was it, according to him, which is just a lie anyway.

Like, you don’t turn against your spouse because somebody makes a joke!

Anne: yeah.

Denise: Even if you don’t like the joke.

Anne: No.

Denise: Yeah. I was just in shock, and I was like, well, the timeline makes sense.

The Real Timeline of “He doesn’t love me anymore” Unveiled

Anne: The true timeline was the second he married you, he was like, now I don’t have to wear the mask anymore.

Denise: Yeah.

Anne: “She’s stuck with me.” So that’s the real timeline. After the reception, he didn’t feel like he had to treat you well anymore. Not that he overheard somebody tell a joke.

Denise: Yeah. I think honestly, he was telling people negative things about me before the wedding.

There were people who weren’t going to go to our wedding, because they didn’t like that he was marrying a Catholic. It didn’t cross my mind that he would be complaining about me to his friends.

So, a lot of his friends didn’t want to come to the wedding.

If he says he doesn’t love you, it could be Manipulation

Anne: Um, through all the interviews I’ve done, I see a lot of patterns. One I see frequently is goldfish brain. They only care about the thing they want in the moment, like right then, like what is right in front of them.

And so they’ll say something to get that thing. And then literally two hours later, they’ll want something else, hence the heart change. So, they’ll say the opposite thing to get the other thing, and it’s so confusing. So, to have him throw you under the bus at his own wedding, thinking that’s going to benefit him somehow, while also grooming you long term…this is a sure sign that he never loved you.

There’s these two simultaneous things that seem contradictory, but they have a goal in mind and they play the long game to get what they want.

They’re able to groom you until they get what they want. It just shows how unsafe the situation is for you, psychologically and emotionally.

Denise: Yeah, it’s just some crazy stuff so, I ended up leaving again.

Financial Abuse Exposed

Denise: We ended up going to counseling and while we were in front of this counselor he tells me that “he took all of the money out of the account so that I couldn’t have anything.” I had a new job at this point and I was making a decent amount of money. But he says that in front of the counselor. This is financial abuse.

Anne: Absolutely, yeah!

Therapist’s Denial

Denise: I mean, he said it right in front of the counselor. So months later, when I was trying to get the counselor to write something for me the counselor said, “well, I can’t lie and say he was abusive.”

Anne: WHAT?!!

Denise: I was like, I’m not asking you to lie. He was abusive right in front of you. He told me in front of you that he took all the money out of the joint account so that I wouldn’t get any. Didn’t you take notes? He never responded.

Anne: He wouldn’t even admit your husband doesn’t love you?!

Denise: Guess not.

Anne: Sorry. This is the woman who’s always telling people therapists don’t get it and I’m like, what?

Denise: And then you’re shocked. Yeah. Yeah.

Anne: It’s still shocking. When it’s clear…I’m thinking that he’s financially abusive in my head and I’m not saying that out loud. But then, to hear that a therapist just completely doesn’t acknowledge that it’s abuse, is so crazy.

Denise: Yeah, I was in like crazy land.

Separation and Counseling When He says he Doesn’t Love You

Denise: So we’re apart and I’m in my own apartment.

I think I just knew myself well enough, that I had to keep trying until I got to a point where I was absolutely sure this was never going to work. So we were apart for like 10 months. I told him I wasn’t going to move back into that other house it’s like, I’m not moving back in there. These are the things I need.

While we’re apart, I’m going to the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions that are super helpful and really eye opening, but I didn’t quite get it. Then, we ended up getting this house, everything fell into place. I told him, do you really want this? Because if this happens again, I’m leaving and it’s for good. There’s not going to be any more back and forth.

He said, “This is it. And of course, oh, yeah, of course. I’m so sorry and all this stuff.”

He doesn’t love me anymore: False Promises and Conversion

Denise: He decided to become Catholic, so he started learning about the faith and going to church. And he’s like, will you be my sponsor? I’m like, no, if you’re doing this, you’re doing it on your own, cause I knew if I helped in any way he would accuse me of forcing him. So I was like, if you want to become Catholic, that’s your own thing.

I never asked you to do it. I’m not pushing you. So he went through the whole process and became Catholic and things got, you know, “better and better.”

Denise: And, um, yeah, within nine months, I moved out again.

My heart Change: Realization and Education

Anne: That point, you’d been going to Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group sessions.

You’d been more educated about abuse from hearing other women’s stories on this betrayal podcast.

So at this point, was it a little bit, I don’t want to say easier cause it’s never easy. And I don’t want to say that it ever is easy. There seems to be some kind of point where it clicks that he never loved you, he’s abusive, and I need to make some changes.

At least there was for me where I just knew I wasn’t going to do it anymore. And up until that point, I don’t know if I could have anything else. You know, I was doing the very best I could.

Denise: Yeah, absolutely.

I knew it was abuse. My friends knew it was abuse.

Understanding Abuse Cycles When He says he doesn’t love you

Denise: I thought the abuse was happening more often and getting worse over time.

We were weaning out of this abusive pattern is what I thought. And so I was like, all right, we’ll just deal with it when we’re in this abusive pattern.

Observing and Setting Boundaries

Denise: He started seeing a counselor he liked, and things got better. I saw the changes, but I didn’t feel as confident about it as I did before.

Before I would argue.

When I went back, I was like, I’m not arguing anymore. I’m just going to state what I need and want. That’s it. Then, when I went back the second time, I understood to observe. And then I knew it was time to get out of there. It wasn’t safe.

Confrontation with the Priest

Denise: He was going to see the priest.

And I said, I wanted to go too. So, we went, and literally he was screaming at me the whole time. The priest stood in front of him and tried to talk about integrity. He looked frustrated and finally asked my ex, “Do you even want to be married?” And my ex with this shocked look on his face was like, “Yes. Like, how could you ask that?”

Anne: Like, he’s saying, “your husband doesn’t love you. It seems like he hates your guts.”

Denise: Right.

My ex said he felt trapped. And I was like, then leave!

And he wouldn’t leave, I’m like, what is happening?

Denise: Yeah. It’s so like ridiculous. Then the priest looked at me and asked, “Do you want to be married?” But I knew if I said no, that would start a ball rolling that I wasn’t ready for.

Preparing To Leave

Denise: So, I said, I’m not quite sure and, then I got my papers together, got them out of the house, did everything that I could.

One of the kids went out with his family, and I thought, “I need to wait until he comes back.” I wanted him to return to school and get comfortable before I left. So, I waited another four or five days, which felt so hard. During that time, I kept telling him, “You’re going down this road, and you need to remember what I said.”

If I leave, it’s going to be for good. Is that what you really want? Because that’s the direction you’re choosing. I could have left at any time, but I was praying like, I want the time that’s the best for me, that’s going to be best for the kids. If there is such a thing, that’s when I want to leave.

The Decision to Leave When Your Husband is incapable of loving you

Denise: And all of a sudden one morning it was like, today. I’m like, all right, today.

I’m leaving today.

Anne: You bring up a good point, because so many women share, and I was this way, too. It just didn’t feel right to leave and I honor that. And then, at the same time, it’s abuse. There’s no part where you’re going to feel like this is great. It’s just always going to feel terrible. And then, you just realize that he’s never been capable of loving anybody.

Denise: Yeah. And it’s never the wrong time to leave either. It’s not like you have to stay until, you know, you can leave whenever. I didn’t think God wanted me in an abusive relationship, and you need this one more little bit of abuse and then you’re good to go or anything like that.

You know, I just felt like, all right, I’m good to go. Like I’m ready and it’s time.

So, that’s when I left.

Biblical Insight When your Husband chooses not to love you

Denise: I wanted to see what does the bible say about narcissistic abuse. So I found these verses and I want to read you. I don’t hear anybody talking about. And to me, it has spoken volumes.

Anne: Yes, please.

Denise: It’s Second Timothy, chapter three, verses one through nine in the revised standard Catholic edition.
“In the last days, there will come times of stress.

For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers.”

I don’t even know what this word is, “profligates, fierce, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding the form religion, but denying the power of it. Avoid such people.”

I found that and like, a light came down from heaven.

It seems to describe narcissism.

Anne: Perfectly.

Denise: Yeah, perfectly. I don’t know why nobody else is quoting that. And then it says, leave them. Like, don’t be around these people.

Anne: I love that scripture. I don’t know if I’ve ever quoted it on the betrayal podcast, but I’m familiar with it for that same reason. Scriptures say all over the place, separate yourself from wickedness repeatedly, over and over. When he can’t love, it’s wickedness.

It’s shocking that no one calls these guys wicked. Here’s why.

Denise: Yeah. It explains a lot of what evil looks like, and it looks exactly like narcissism.

Really intelligent, but at the same time, this four year old tantrum.

Anne: Yes.

Facing Evil When Your Husband Hates you

Denise: Yeah, I would describe my experience as being toe to toe with evil. It’s not For the weak hearted.

Anne: No.

Women who come and share their story, like you have seen evil, looked evil in the face and had to figure out what to do. When he has never loved us, we felt tricked, but we still tried to do the right thing.

It’s so much more difficult than anyone can imagine.

Personal Growth Through Adversity When Your Husband Doesn’t Love You

Denise: Like at the time, and for a long time afterward, I would not have said this, but I actually am at the point where I look back and I’m like, I like who I am so much better after having gone through this evil situation. If I had to choose between who I was before and who I am now, I would pick who I am now. To become this person, I had to go through this situation, but I would do it all over again. It was hard, but it helped me grow and change for the better.

And I think that’s a testament to God, his whole goal is for us to have good, and can bring good out of any horrendous situation.

Anne: I get it especially when women are new and they’re not safe yet.

The idea that an experience can make someone a better person sounds unfair. It feels like saying, “If you were the person you should be, this wouldn’t have happened to you.” This puts the blame on the person, which isn’t right.

Or alternatively, women who are thinking they have to suffer through this, thinking they don’t deserve safety and that God is like using their suffering to make them a better person.

God doesn’t want you to suffer because your husband doesn’t love you. He knows you’re not a bad person, and you didn’t deserve this to make you better.

You’re a wonderful person now, he loves you just the way you are. And through this awful experience, we do learn interesting things that I’m grateful for.

I am grateful that I am the person I am now. Because of what I went through, I have a heart change that values my safety.

Practical Lessons Learned When he can’t love

Denise: I learned a few practical things. Now, I can see similar situations that I didn’t notice before. I noticed that some people in my life made me feel unsafe, so I decided to cut them out. Now I feel better and more at peace. Before, I didn’t understand that. After I left the last time, I thought I would finally feel relief, but I didn’t. That’s when I saw that a few other people treated me the same way, or in a very similar way.

And, it was painful to cut them out, but after I cut them out, I felt the relief.

Anne: And that’s why we’re here. Getting to safety is such an individual journey for everyone.

The only thing any of us can do on this path is continue to listen to our internal warning system (see our educational infographics about betrayal on Instagram) that is telling us if we’re safe or not, and continue to evolve our boundaries until we feel that relief. It’s our own version of a heart change for the better. And I talk about this in the Living Free Workshop. And then you still don’t feel relief and then you try again and it still isn’t quite working and then you try again like, just as an example, that, Catholic retreat you went to for couples on the verge of divorce.

Resisting and Evolving: A heart Change When he doesn’t love you

Anne: Did you know that was you resisting this abuse?

That was you recognizing that he never loved you, and evolving, having your own heart change.
At the time, you thought, “Maybe this couple’s retreat will help me find safety.” And then you learn from experience that it didn’t. So, then you evolved and said, “Okay, now I know I can’t go to therapy with him at all, because he hasn’t had a heart change that made me feel safe.”

We grow and change over time. Now, you might say, “I feel relief and safe.” For me, I felt relief when I used the Living Free strategies and gained full custody of my kids. After my divorce, someone hurt me for eight years. I kept wondering, “How can I find real safety?” Then, I found a way to take control and create a safe life for myself and my kids.

Support and Solidarity When he says he Doesn’t Love You

Anne: I’m so glad that Betrayal Trauma Recovery was helpful to you.

Denise: Yeah, it was a lifesaver. I went to groups. For a while I went once a day, and then, the second time I joined, it was a few times a week. The coaches were always amazing and so kind, but also firm and direct.

Hearing from the other women really helped me, because you’re in this bubble, kind of, in your relationship. I don’t want to really call it a relationship, in your situation, like you’re the only one experiencing it, so you don’t see all the nuances. I really think evil is not creative.

It feels like the same thing keeps happening again and again. That’s why so many stories seem so similar. I remember someone saying she thought she lost something. She searched and searched for it for a long time.

Suddenly, I realized, “Oh, that’s what the hiding was about!” It made me remember, “That happened to me, and I didn’t even know it was abuse.” Learning the right words for these things has helped me so much. I am Catholic, and I’m going through the annulment process right now. Thanks to Betrayal Trauma Recovery, I learned terms like “mirroring” and “future faking.” With this knowledge, I feel confident and clear as I write my annulment letter.

It was helpful to wrap my mind around the truth of this situation, that my husband doesn’t love me.

The Truth Will Set You Free: Your Heart Change When Your Husband Doesn’t Love You

Anne: I’m so glad it was helpful. My whole goal in life is to help women see the truth, like your husband doesn’t love you or whatever the truth is. Whether it’s painful or not. The Living Free Workshop strategies are a way to observe from a safe distance, so that women see the truth, and have their own heart change for their safety.

I’m so glad that you’re safe it’s such a brave thing to share your story and it will help a lot of women. So thank you.

Denise: And thank you for everything you do. You’re very courageous. I tell so many women about Betrayal Trauma Recovery.