If you stay married to him, I can’t visit you anymore.

Sound harsh? It sounded like music to my ears.

In fact, I leaned on these words many times for many years because they represented a vital piece of the puzzle of my marriage – someone saw what I saw. The monster I lived with worked hard, every day to make me believe that I was the problem and that all of our friends stuck around because of him.

I was to believe people tolerated me because they loved him.

He mocked me so relentlessly with my own words that it was hard to make the distinction between reality and his fiction.

My instincts told me he was evil and a liar but some of what he said made sense.

It made sense because that little doubting voice in my head tried to tell me that I was not worthy of friendship and love.

The trouble was, I KNEW BETTER.

I had proof of my strength, intellect, worthiness every day but I also had someone working hard to beat that out of me every day too.

Even after my wise friend drew a clear line in the sand, it still took a while for me to get the courage to file for divorce because my husband terrified me.

Once I did, another angel kicked in and I got a call from a Domestic Violence Study group. I explained to them that physical violence wasn’t his shtick very often so they probably didn’t want me in the study.

The nice lady on the phone seemed to know about my situation (but wouldn’t tell me how), she just told me over and over that victims of domestic violence talk about the emotional abuse leaving deeper scars than the physical abuse.

I resisted this information but she kept after me until I accepted the fact that I belonged in the study.

To this day I don’t know who put my name on the study list but I am grateful that they did. For several years I received a call every few months (and then every six, then once a year) to check on the status of the situation and my recovery. I might never have seen my progress as clearly if it had not been for this study.

When my friend made her position clear she gave me the gift of a life line to the truth.

She stated her belief that he was the problem so clearly that I had to make a choice. I may never be able to thank her enough for the gift of seeing into my world but one way I can try is to serve others who are living in an emotionally abusive relationship.