If your daughter confided in you that her husband uses emotional or psychological abuse, here are 3 ways to help your abused daughter.
If you or anyone you know needs support, our daily online support group helps women experiencing emotional and psychological abuse. Attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY.
1. Help Your Abused Daughter Recognize Emotional & Psychological Abuse
Introduce her to the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast, as well as the Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube Channels that Betrayal Trauma Recovery has in order to educate women about abuse.
2. Help Your Abused Daughter By Giving Her 100% Unquestioning Support
Abandon the “it takes two to tango” mentality, and invest your time and energy into supporting your daughter. This means that you are NOT:
- Bailing him out of jail if he’s arrested.
- Meeting the abuser one-on-one for heart-to-heart talks about how he can change or win your daughter back.
- Trying to convince your daughter to consider salvaging the marriage.
- Fraternizing with the abuser’s family and friends – Your energy is best spent on your daughter (and her children).
When your daughter has experienced psychological and emotional abuse, financial control, sexual coercion and betrayal, she is experiencing significant trauma.
As you become more trauma-informed and educated about abuse, you’ll naturally empathize with her, be more sensitive to her trauma, and help your abused daughter. If you want her to feel safe with you, learn what you need to learn from The FREE Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast.
3. Know That She Is Capable & Strong, She Just Needs Help Until She Heals
Your daughter may feel like her entire world is crumbling around her. The last thing that she needs right now is to feel like she has to earn your love, respect, and support. You need to help your abused daughter
Offer her:
- A place to live
- Financial resources so that she can afford a good attorney
- Your unequivocal support
- A listening ear should she ever need to vent or confide in someone
- Your absolute belief in her story, without any need for proof
- Be willing to make a safety plan if the abuser tries to harm her or the children
- Your willingness to testify on her behalf
Your support can be the difference between your daughter feeling completely alone in a terrifying world – and feeling loved, safe, and resilient. Be the parent your daughter deserves. Help your abused daughter.
Transcription: How To Help Your Abused Daughter – 3 Things To Know
Anne: I have a special guest today. It’s my dad. A man named Jim reached out and asked if he could talk to my dad. So I thought, hey, let’s just do a podcast. Jim is the dad of a victim. Rosie has three young children. And she and her three young children live with Jim and his wife right now, as she heals from the emotional and psychological injuries she received from the years of her husband’s emotional and psychological abuse.
After this interview, I picked out three themes that ran throughout the entire episode. Both my dad and Jim talked about these themes. Number one: Help your abused daughter recognize emotional and psychological abuse. Number two: Help your abused daughter by giving her 100% unquestioning support. And number three: Help your abused daughter by knowing that she Is capable and strong, she just needs help until she heals.
View her as if she’s severely injured by a drunk driver. She needs a lot of help right now. So listen for those three themes as the interview progresses. Welcome Jim.
Jim: Thank you.
Anne: And Dad.
Bob: I’m happy to be here.
The Turning Point, Trying To Figure Out What Is Happening
Anne: So Jim, do you want to just start with what’s going on with your daughter?
Jim: Sure. She had married about 10 years ago, and has three children. The youngest one is a year and a half. So about the time she had the baby, she came to me with a little experience when the baby was about a week old.
She asked for some newborn photos or something, and her husband basically just came unglued on her to the point that she was shaking. It was the turning point for her. She came to me and told me and my wife about that. I think it was a turning point for us to basically tell her, “You do what you need to do, we’ve got your back.”
1. Help Your Abused Daughter Recognize Emotional & Psychological Abuse
Jim: You know, I’m not sure when the words came, because certain things happened that helped give us vocabulary. The term that came to my daughter first was verbal abuse.
She looked it up and started saying, “Well, I’m getting a lot of that.” She was concerned about their marriage for at least a year before that. In hindsight, even much before that, but particularly enough that she wanted to do something, and she started asking him about it. And toward the time of the baby, did some marriage counseling, which worsened things.
And he suggested she was suffering from postpartum depression at some point. So this would have been after that experience I described. She went to a counselor who was recommended. And the counselor specialized in postpartum depression. And in the first session, she said, “You have no postpartum depression. I think you’re emotionally and psychologically abused.”
And that helped confirm, and I can’t remember the order of things. Obviously, she told us her experience before the counselor. But a few things just started to lock together and give her the ability to describe what was happening. In hindsight, they were there all along, even from the beginning of their marriage. When you’re trying to support your kids in their marriage, you’re not like looking for those sort of things to help your abused daughter.
It’s kind of a goodwill attitude that you have towards it. And I must mention that he is very, very skilled at reading people and manipulating them. It turns out, he’s quite personable and funny, and that was the big thing for me. How can somebody be so friendly and personable to everybody else and treat his wife so badly?
Her Personality Isn’t To Blame When You Need To Help Your Abused Daughter
Anne: Can you tell us about Rosie’s personality?
Jim: She is fairly quiet, contrasted with some of her other siblings. She was always the type that interacted with friends, but not with adults so much. Whereas a lot of her siblings enjoyed adult conversation with adults. And so she was different that way, just a little less assertive. I guess in her mind, marrying somebody who was outgoing was supposedly good for social things. The opposite was true.
Anne: The reason I ask that is because as my dad talks, my personality is assertive, like extremely. Many people, when I started talking about it, were like. Well, you couldn’t get abused because of your personality. You’re going to confront everything. That was one of the things that was hard. I think for my family to process. That’s helpful to know where she was coming from when you help your abused daughter.
When she initially said that, was it easy to wrap your head around? Were you like, oh yes, like did light bulbs come on? Or was there a time or a moment where you’re like, oh, I’m not sure if she’s processing this correctly, from your point of view?
Jim: A little of both. I mean, I don’t think I was surprised because I’ve observed all along. But my initial reaction is to try to fix things. That’s how my personality is. And so it’s like, well, this great marriage book here, this great marriage book here.
There Are Nuances To The Four Horsemen Of A Marriage In Crisis
Jim: And one in particular Gottman’s book, where he talks about the four horsemen of the apocalypse. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it.
Anne: Yeah
Bob: Yes, we are.
Jim: We’ve discussed that with her. She’s like, he does all those, I’m defensive, but he does all of them. And so it’s like, it’s hard to come to terms at first that your daughter’s marriage is going to fail. It feels like a big letdown. And so when you bounce it against the four horsemen, and you’re like, there’s got to be some way out of this. But the more you look at it, the more you see that he isn’t owning it much, so not much chance of change.
Anne: The interesting thing about Gottman is that he doesn’t use the word abuse. He says criticism, stonewalling but he doesn’t say this is psychological abuse, which it could or could not be. It depends. Like a victim, for example, she might be trying to protect herself.
And so she decides she’s going to stop talking, which could be “stonewalling,” but she’s doing it to protect herself. Whereas an abuser with an abusive character is going to stonewall in order to control. And so because the goal is different, it’s not necessarily abuse. I think that’s interesting to help your abused daughter, and people have a hard time knowing the nuances of victim and perpetrator relationships.
The Impact Of Words Is Increased When Helping Your Abused Daughter
Jim: Yeah, the words are important, because abuse words get people’s attention. In fact, when she left, it wasn’t her idea to leave. She asked him to leave for a while, do a separation. And she basically used the word emotionally abusing. Well, that word sets people off if they don’t like being accused of that. And, you know, within a day, it changed his mind from thinking he might leave to, no, I ain’t going anywhere. And he never left the house.
Anne: Mine vacillated between I’m leaving. I hate it here. You’re terrible to me, and I’m not going anywhere. Did you know or were you aware of any pornography use?
Anne: But highly likely in this case.
Jim: Highly likely.
Anne: Yeah.
Bob: So how did he eventually leave the house or is he still in the house?
Jim: He’s still in the house.
Anne: Is the divorce final?
Jim: No, yeah, after a year, we finally got to some temporary orders that were basically negotiated outside. The judge’s chambers, I think, because both attorneys were afraid to go in there. I don’t know. That’s what it felt like.
Realities Of Legal, Financial, & Custody Difficulties
Anne: Unfortunately, the court system does not protect victims, and actually makes it much more difficult for victims. So I’m really sorry that that’s happening. So he’s still in the home and your daughter lives with you. And what’s the custody arrangement?
Jim: The temporary is 50-50 right now. The attorney is convinced that’s what they would give no matter what.
Anne: Did your daughter work before this?
Jim: Part time.
Anne: Okay, and what is the soon to be ex’s financial situation? Does he make really good money? Is he the average person?
Jim: Just a little above average, I would say.
Anne: Let’s talk about whatever you want now. Do you have questions to help your abused daughter, Jim?
Jim: Do you, I mean, in some ways, in thinking about this this morning. I thought, you’ve done a lot of these podcasts, and I’m thinking that many of your listeners might like to hear you and your dad talk a little bit, so if I could throw out some questions.
I think I listened to at least one of yours where you told the story about a protective order or something that happened, such that it created space where you figured this all out. And then I guess the question is, how did you approach your family about it? And how did that go over?
A Violent Outburst: The Breaking Point
Anne: Well, I have the privilege of a very awesome family. My parents are amazing. They’re really involved, but not annoyingly involved, and also not overly involved. And so they were always here at the right moments and helpful. Do you want to tell the story from your perspective of the day he punched the wall in the therapy appointment?
Bob: Yeah, that’d be a good place to start.
Anne: So my ex and I were in a therapy appointment, a couple therapy appointment. It was online. And both of my parents were here to tend the kids, and they were upstairs, and we were downstairs. During the therapy appointment, he started pounding on the desk and like yelling in my face and spitting, and he broke the door and put two holes in the wall. And during this therapy appointment, this is after seven years of therapy. I went upstairs and told my parents.
Bob: We heard the noises, the doors being broken and the walls. We knew something bad was going on. Then Anne came upstairs, and I went right downstairs. I wanted to talk to him and find out what was going on, and had a pretty good relationship with him. I could talk with him. We talked for 45 minutes. You know, do you want a divorce? What will happen if you get divorced? What will the financial arrangements be?
And then I was just asking him questions, and he was responding and making comments. It was clear to me through that conversation that he did not want to remain married, but couldn’t figure out an acceptable and financially feasible way to get out of the marriage. And there was nothing definitive that happened out of that conversation.
Family Support: A Crucial Element To Help Your Abused Daughter
Anne: Remember when you said something about the police and he was like, Oh, I, I know how to deal with them.
Bob: Yeah, I said, you know, the police could come over right now and arrest you for abuse from what transpired here today. And he said, “Oh, I’m not worried about that. I can talk my way out of that.” And he said some other things about divorce and money, so that kind of laid it bare between us, knowing where he was at and what was going on in his head. And it was only a month after that.
Anne: He actually was arrested. So from your perspective, Dad at that moment where you’re like my daughter is married to someone who does not care about her. He wants to divorce, but he can’t figure it out. What were you thinking in your head?
Bob: I’m going to admit where I think I went wrong and where my thinking was wrong at that point. Jim, you mentioned something I think was critical to that. In terms of telling your daughter that she needed to do what she needed to do, and you had her back. I think I was deficient in that area, still, of the mode of, what will correct this. And it takes two to tango. I didn’t understand the nature of abuse. I was not as unconditionally supportive as I should have been at that time.
2. Help Your Abused Daughter By Giving Her 100% Unquestioning Support
Bob: And that’s one of the big issues that I would like to communicate to all listeners in terms of family support, to help your abused daughter. My observation is that in abuse, the tendency to say there are two sides of this goes out the window. The abuse victim needs 100% unquestioning support from those close to her, in particular her parents or siblings and other family members. Again, from reading and observation, I think that’s one of the things that is damaging and lacking in these abuse cases.
Jim: You know, that moment when I told her I had her back was after I finally woke up. Because, there were a lot of signs along the way. In fact, I’d been sent up there a few weeks before to talk to him and ask him to leave. I was unsuccessful, but because he’s a good talker. And to be honest, we had a great talking relationship, because I guess I like to talk, and he liked to talk. We had common interests.
Although my daughter makes it clear now that sometimes she thinks some of the interests are faked interests, to groom the parents too.
Bob: That was going on in our case, and maybe I am being too hard on myself, but I don’t think so. I was too willing to hear and listen to him. It was damaging to her. And it damaged my relationship with my daughter.
Anne: Well, I think one of the things that hurt me during that time was that I’m not perfect. To have, obviously, my abuser using my weaknesses against me, and weaponizing those. And then also, my strengths he was exploiting, and weaponizing those.
A Father’s Reflection To Help Your Abused Daughter
Anne: And then, being able to word it in a way that my dad knew me so well was like, well, I can see his point of view. Because Anne is opinionated, and she is very direct. And so, because of that, instead of being like, that’s not the issue, the issue is your abuse. He had misogynistic empathy, would you say, toward him?
Bob: Yeah.
Anne: That was hurtful to me, because there are many women who are quiet, like Rosie, or maybe assertive, like I am, but they’re not being abused. So that doesn’t have anything to do with it.
Bob: This is a broader issue than just a parent. I think a bishop or pastor, minister, therapist, anyone in that role, interacting with an abused victim, will have these kind of tendencies. I recognized afterwards as hurtful and detrimental to my daughter.
Anne: Also, just flat out not true. So, for example, he could say, well, if she would just do this and that. And those weaknesses in her may be true, but it’s not true that if she were different, he would stop abusing her. That’s where it’s just not true.
Bob: That’s what I didn’t understand.
Anne: Yeah.
Jim: I think that hits it exactly right. Because I will say one thing about her, in our family, she’s probably the best at self care. I’ll just say that, and that sometimes annoys siblings. And those are the kind of things that he would, in fact, I think he would bring up, especially around her family, those kinds of things.
Anne: And weaponize them.
Jim: Yeah.
Anne: I’m guessing she’s not selfish per se. She’s good at self care.
Weaponizing Strengths & Attacking Her Character
Jim: Yeah, if everybody took care of themselves as good as she did, the world would be a better place, you know.
Anne: Right, attacking that strength, saying she’s selfish. Taking it farther than it needs to go to attack her character. That’s the type of thing an abuser would do.
Jim: Yeah, pretty much, yeah.
Bob: Those are some of the things going on, in my mind, I’d had a prior interaction with him about pornography years before. I was really direct, but I was also empathetic and trying to be understanding.
I wasn’t trying to be an ogre and beat him over the head, but I did beat him over the head in as nice a way as possible. So, we had that history coming into this, but I did not understand the nature of abuse and the continuum of abuse. And I didn’t understand the damaging nature of my lack of unequivocal support for my daughter.
Anne: So he was arrested at night, and I called my parents, they were helpful that night. But the next morning, you were like, well, should I bail him out? And Mom was like, no, you remember that? Cause he was like, what do we do? Did you feel like he was your responsibility?
Bob: Well, yeah, I mean, he’s family. I mean, yeah, again. The detachment of being family, and you referenced this, Jim, as to accept defeat and to recognize, the situation you’re in, and I was still in this, this can be reconstructed, and what can I do to help?
If You Help Your Abused Daughter, You Need To Have A Good Attitude
Bob: And I didn’t realize it had passed beyond at that point. There’s that pivotal transitional point where, and Jim, you alluded to it. You don’t want to be a nitpicker and actually damage their marriage when it’s salvageable. So when do you recognize you need to make this pivot and change the way you’re viewing it?
And the way you’re seeing it, and the way you react to it? That’s a tough one, but I think the transition needs to be made more intentional and more conspicuous to help your abused daughter.
Anne: I was thinking about the necessity of getting help, and how many women don’t reach out for help. Because they don’t want people to be mad or upset. And in this episode, my dad talks about how he had a bad attitude at one point. And my mom, thank goodness, was like, well, let him have a bad attitude. You need help.
And then I was talking to my sister about it, and she was saying that. Their attitude is their choice, but if they will help you, even with a bad attitude and you need help, it’s okay. It’s okay to get help. You’ll hear about that.
Jim: You know, one thing that happened after the separation. There had been a group text between his parents, my wife and I, and the two of them. And it was mostly, you know, sending pictures of grandkids. Well, when she left, he blew up through the text.
So we said okay, let’s put it in here in the family group. Thinking that in front of his parents, he wouldn’t be such a jerk, but that didn’t work at all. He was just as bad of a jerk there.
His Real Character Shows Up
Jim: But, through all that, we got to see the real thing underneath. It made us wonder how did I let the wolf in, how did this happen?
One of my good friends that I talked to that first week and explained it to him, he’s pretty direct. He said, “One of us loves my daughter, and it ain’t him,” was his summary of what was going on.
Bob: Maybe that’s a good time to get to this other issue, to help your abused daughter.
Anne: That you wanted to hear about.
Bob: Yeah.
Anne: Thank goodness when he left, I was texting with him. But it got so out of control, and every time he would text, my heart rate would go up. I would just go into like full trauma mode.
Taking a Stand: Blocking To Help Your Abused Daughter
Anne: So my dad, I’ll let him tell the story. Wrote him and said, “Hey, you are not gonna talk to her anymore. I’ve instructed her to block you on her phone from now on. You have to go through me.” So the divorce was final. And my dad sent that message to him. Then after that, for years, the messages went through him. Can you talk about that Dad, you seeing it with your own eyes? And desiring to help your abused daughter.
Bob: Oh yeah, he was very trifling, and he’s a lawyer, so he used legal language and intimidating language. And it was in that time that I was still not where I should have been in terms of totally supportive of Anne. But one of those emails snapped. And I drafted an email back to him that was stronger. He had been using some church language in there, in terms of his responsibilities to the church, and I just debunked that.
Anne: You said your religiosity. I remember that word. You were like, I’m not going to put up with this ridiculous religiosity.
Bob: That’s exactly what I said. And then, I will not allow you to continue to abuse Anne through your communication interactions. And from now on, you’ll communicate directly with me. The most important part of that email and me doing that was the support of Anne and how it made her feel. And what it did for her, and her ability to cope, and to get up in the morning and do what she needed to do.
Anne: Yeah, I was grateful when I saw the message he wrote. He said, “I’m going to send this.”
The Aftermath Of Legal & Emotional Battles
Anne: I was like yay, because it was so direct, it wasn’t trying to be nice, or trying to negotiate to help your abused daughter. It’s like she is blocking you on her phone. I have told her to do this, and this is what is happening, and I’m not putting up with this anymore.
And it just felt good. I did block him on my phone, and I blocked him on emails. He didn’t have a choice, because he couldn’t get hold of me. He would call sometimes or text my dad, but most of the time it was through email. And after that, he started attacking my dad. And saying my dad was a bully, if you don’t remember.
Bob: He did, I thought about it at the time, but not much. And that is whether it was legal under the divorce decree for this to happen. For me to, insert myself into the communication, but the consequences legally were so minimal. I mean, no judge was going to…
Anne: It did come back to bite me in a custody situation later, and they were like, this isn’t good. And at that point, I started using Our Family Wizard, and since it had been five years of communicating with him through my dad, I was a lot stronger then. And now I communicate strategically with him through Our Family Wizard, and it works fantastic.
But that’s because at that time, I had discovered the strategies from the Living Free Workshop and the Message Workshop. And I was using those strategies. In fact, now I kind of enjoy it because I can see what he’s doing and know how to combat it.
Communication Strategies That Really Work
Anne: When you’re in trauma and probably where Rosie is right now. You’re thinking, how do I explain this? How do I respond to this message? It’s so overwhelming. And so, because I hadn’t figured out the strategies to have the support of my parents at that time was awesome. But the Living Free strategies and the Message Workshop strategies work way better than going through my dad.
Also, just having you read them and validate me and be like, this is insane. He’s insane. He sounded so nice, and he uses legalese, and he never swore or wrote in all caps or anything. So it didn’t seem abusive, but if you really read it and understood what he was saying, it was awful. And included lies, manipulation and gaslighting .
Bob: And entitlement, I mean, everything was, he was entitled to this, to that, and to the other. But anyway, I think there’s some upsides and downsides to what I did. I would do it again had I had the opportunity, even knowing what I know now.
Jim: I think if there’s no kids involved, never communicate with them again.
Anne: Absolutely, yeah to help your abused daughter.
Jim: it’s good. With kids.
Anne: You’re forced to communicate with an emotional and psychological abuser if you have children. What communication is she using with him right now?
Jim: She’s using that, My Family Wizard, because I think I heard that on one of your things.
The Power Of Workshops & Strategies To Help Your Abused Daughter
Anne: Yeah, has she enrolled in the Living Free Workshop or the Message Workshop? Do you know?
Jim: I don’t think so.
Anne: So the Living Free Workshop is the first to enroll in. And that outlines the foundational strategies for how to think about it. What boundaries to set, and also the basics of communication. And then the Message Workshop builds on those principles to teach women how to write messages that look great in court. But also cut off his ability to abuse you. And help your abused daughter.
Because he’s trying to gain power over her. These strategies neutralize his ability to do that and level the playing field. And I developed these strategies and delivered myself and my kids. Then, I used it with other women to see if it was going to work for them. And it did. So then I made it into a workshop.
Frustration, Faith & The World’s Worst Victim
Anne: I developed the strategies because I was so frustrated. I was like, are you kidding me? I have done everything right. And I resisted the abuse the whole time I went to therapy. When I found out, I set boundaries, and I’m divorced, and I’m still going to have to deal with his abuse the rest of my life. Like this is not fair. I was so angry about it.
And I was like, there has to be a way. And since I am Christian, I thought Jesus is the deliverer. He can deliver me if I have faith, and I’m going to figure out a way to do this through Jesus. Which is what happened. And even though the Living Free Workshop is secular, because we’re interfaith here and interparadigm. That’s how it came to be. So that might help your abused daughter, Jim, know how to strategically message him.
Jim: Yeah, good suggestion. it’s good to have, particular rules.
Anne: Well, I was like the world’s worst victim. He even told me once, he said, “You never do what you’re supposed to do.”
Your abuser has a goal in mind. And then apparently the victim is supposed to be like, “Oh, that made him mad. So I’m not going to do that again. Cause I don’t want to make him mad.” I was like, “If I give in to this, then he’s just gonna get madder.” So heck no, like I don’t care if it makes you mad. I’m gonna do it anyway, and he hated it. I was the world’s worst victim.
Bob: He has some strong resentments towards me, which are fine. And playing that role and taking some of that flack I think was helpful.
Dealing With Financial Responsibilities & Divorce
Jim: Yeah, I received plenty of that. Right soon after she left, his message was like, “You’re the last person in the world I’ll take marriage advice from.”
Anne: Can we get to like a sensitive topic? You guys might be like, Oh, I don’t want to admit this, but can we talk about the weight of financial responsibility? That you may feel as a father to help your abused daughter in this situation, and how maybe wanting to avoid having to help her financially weighed into your decisions?
Jim: I think that’s what many women struggle with, because culturally nobody wants to take that responsibility back on. This has opened my eyes to previous divorces and different things over the years with relatives and friends. To see things in a different light. And some of those poor women were left on their own, and I can see it now. And I didn’t support them because I didn’t understand. But yeah, it’s a major concern.
In church, the preacher, he’s a divorce attorney, and he’s talking about how divorce equals poverty in his mind. That was his definition of it. I told my friend, I said, yeah, and some things are worse than poverty. And that’s, I think, the point my daughter got to. You know, I can’t take this anymore. And so come what may move forward now. Fortunately for us, she’s towards the older part of our family, and the younger part of our family was straggling in the home.
Help Your Abused Daughter By Understanding Her Independence
Jim: And once she brought three kids here, they quickly found a place to live, so we had room. From that aspect, it works out, but if we weren’t able to take her here and him holding onto the house. And, her not wanting to be there with him there. I guess her options were to go to an abuse shelter.
I don’t know. What women’s options are, but it’s not pretty and it’s a very trapped scenario. And I’ve even looked at some, different situations with suicide that I’ve been aware of. And I wonder if that wasn’t the cause.
Anne: Do you want to talk about that? Because I remember you telling me, and I was mad about this. You said something like, now I’m going to have to be responsible for you. And I was ticked because I was like 37. And I was like, what are you talking about? Like, I just need help. I am fully responsible for myself. And don’t know what you think you’re saying in that. I need help. And, you saying that, really ticked me off. Not something to say to help your abused daughter.
Bob: Yeah, it was the wrong thing for me to say, and I repent of saying that. It was part of that transitional process of accepting what you faced and supporting you. I’m financially okay, and I had the resources to help. But there was a reluctance in me to step in and do it. It helped a lot when I finally made that transition. My wife was there from the beginning. So, she was a great help getting me where I needed to be.
Jim: That’s one thing for sure, is my wife was much ahead of me. In figuring things out as well.
Need For Immediate & Nonjudgemental Emotional & Financial Support
Bob: She needed the immediate support both emotionally and financially, not the reluctance. You could put it in the emotional side of Anne, what did you do to cause this? This is partly your fault. Those kinds of comments, which were terribly hurtful, inappropriate, and wrong. On the other side, is the financial of, oh no, what have you done? Now I’ve got to take care of you, which I’d said to you, which was terribly damaging.
So again, if those of us in this situation can catch this lesson early and make that transition earlier. It would be much preferred and helpful to the victim. I’m just crushed, and those women who don’t have the resources. Either their parents are not in a position to help them or are unwilling to help them, and what do they do?
And there are lots and lots of those people in that situation who are suffering a lot emotionally and financially because they don’t have that support system.
Anne: So many of our listeners do not have a supportive father. I mean, you were helping me, and I have the privilege and liberty to be like. It made me mad when my dad helped me when he said that. But women don’t have anything. They don’t have even maybe a mother who would understand. And so acknowledging that and letting them know that our hearts go out to anybody in that situation. And it’s really hard. It’s an uphill battle to free or deliver yourself from abuse.
Bob: I don’t know that there was anything we weren’t providing. You were being taken care of. It was the attitude. And there’s a terrible situation that is on my conscience. When you didn’t want to help your abused daughter.
The Heartache Of A Valentine’s Day Costco Incident
Anne: Is it Costco?
Bob: Yeah.
Anne: I’m thinking about that too! I was gonna bring it up! Okay, so I’ll lay the foundation here. My family loves Costco, and it was my dad’s birthday, and it was also near Valentine’s Day. And I was living off of food orders. Like, I had no money to buy any, anything extra. And so we went to Costco, and I just started piling stuff in the cart.
Because I was like, this is my chance to get some stuff. And, sorry, I’m crying because it was Valentine’s Day, and there was nobody around to give me a Valentine’s present. So I was like, I’m getting this plant, and I’m getting these pajamas. And I was nervous about it, but I was like, I’m doing this anyway, and my dad was kind of mad.
But he did it, he bought it for me. You weren’t, like, yelling at me or anything, but there was just this hesitancy. Like what, she just expects me to pay for all this stuff in this cart, and I was like, heck yes, I do! Anyway, do you want to talk about that?
Bob: Well, yeah, there was that reluctance.
Anne: And entitlement on my part, that I was like, I can pile all this stuff in the cart and I’m gonna make my dad pay for it.
Bob: But there was a history there as well.
Anne: Of what? Oh, is this where you’re gonna blame me for my part in it?
Bob: No, before you were married. At Costco, then…
Anne: Then you would buy stuff.
Bob: Then I’d buy the whole cart, and…
Anne: Never complain about it.
Bob: Never complain about it.
Help Your Abused Daughter By Having A Good Attitude
Anne: This was before I was married. It was like, okay, she’s single, so whatever she puts in the cart, I’ll buy it for her. Then I get married. Yeah, that’s true. So, I wasn’t entitled, I was just expecting what I’d always gotten. I’m kidding. But you were grumpy about it, and you were like, and on my birthday, you made me pay for a plant!
Bob: It was just a little thing that was important. Well, it was like a little, I mean, it was very important. But it was symbolic.
Anne: To me, it felt like I could relax for a minute and buy a plant and buy some pajamas when I hadn’t been able to get anything extra for what a long time. So that, like a financial burden that a dad might feel, would either lead him to help, but perhaps have a bad attitude about it, or not help at all, or help with a great attitude, either way.
One of the things that I want dads to know is that the solution to help your abused daughter isn’t, “Well, then we gotta get her married to someone else. So someone else can take care of her.” Like, women can take care of themselves, they just need the opportunity. Like, does she want to go to law school? Just like you put the time and effort into your son’s careers. Think about her in that way. What career would be good for her?
Encouraging Independence Yet Giving The Help Your Abused Daughter Needs
Anne: How can she support herself and her family, and put the time, effort and support into making sure she can be financially independent and support her family. How do you help your abused daughter?
I chose Betrayal Trauma Recovery as my way of supporting my. Family and my kids, and myself. My dad was financially helpful. I did Betrayal Trauma Recovery with no money for what, three or four years. I didn’t get paid anything. Child support was inadequate. My dad supported me through that, and I was grateful. And my church did too. So Betrayal Trauma Recovery is here in part because of that.
And my mom was really helpful. Because she was like, there’s no way she can do Betrayal Trauma Recovery. Because you know, I worked 8 hour, 10 hour, 14 hour days. Sometimes building the website, doing all the stuff I did. And there was no way I could have done it had I had to work another job. Also, my kids were young, so they could watch Octonauts while I built like Betrayal Trauma Recovery at home.
Bob: My general theme through this, Jim, is that again, transition point where you become unconditionally supportive. Financially and emotionally for my daughter, I was slow getting there, and I regret it.
Anne: One thing I want to talk about is that transition period for just a minute is that this person has always been inappropriate to be married to, right?
Transitioning To Support From Misunderstanding
Anne: They’ve been abusive since the very beginning. And so she has been in an abusive relationship since before she even married him, since the moment she met him. And so she’s also been trying to manage it, and so she is also going through that transition period. So for you listeners thinking about the transition you had into recognizing it was abuse to help your abused daughter. To understand what was going on, to realize that you need to separate yourself from the harm.
And then all of us feel anger or I think righteous anger toward, like, why don’t people get this? Or understand, just realize that you had to go through that period to realize what they were like, and so do your loved ones, and some of them might come around later.
Some of your loved ones might not be safe enough to interact with. Like, you might have to distance yourself from them until they understand, because interacting with them will harm you more and make it harder for you to get to safety.
Bob: Some of them may never come around at all.
Anne: Exactly, and that’s really hard when you not only have to distance yourself from your abusive spouse, but also recognize through that process that some of your loved ones or your own family are in that category. And you also have to separate yourself from them.
Jim: I mean, we’re still wrangling through the legal things. At this point, he seems set on this 50-50, seems more symbolic than anything else, because I can’t imagine he can keep working and keep the kids half the time.
Navigating Legal Challenges With An Abuser
Anne: There are two reasons why he wants 50-50. One is to hurt her, and the second is so he doesn’t have to pay child support. So, those are the only two reasons.
Bob: Well, there’s a third reason. The law is specific in leading to 50-50 if you can’t negotiate something else. That’s where it goes, and so it’s an entitlement factor that you experience with your ex.
Anne: Right that I’m entitled to 50%, right.
Bob: Maybe he didn’t want them that much, but he wasn’t going to back down in the face of I’m entitled to 50 % and therefore I’m going to get it.
Jim: My fatherly right.
Bob: Oh, you’ve heard that one.
Jim: My son-in-law is not an attorney, but he’s a wordsmith by nature. And so he loves to pretend a lot of times. He pulls some pretty funny ones, but yeah, he tries to use words to manipulate, tries to use bigger words than he knows what means.
Bob: That sounds familiar. That’s one of the motivations I had for intervening and taking over the communication. It was that kind of wordsmithing.
Anne: My view is that basically the divorce process is like a cage, and the abusers love it. They like to be in the divorce process, because then she’s still stuck to him. She’s in this cage with him, and she wants to get out. She can see what’s happening, but she can’t get out.
Once the divorce is signed, he doesn’t have as much control or power over the situation. And so he doesn’t want it finalized. Like, he wants to drag it out. I don’t know about your particular abusive son in law, but in general, this is like fun for them.
Considering Financial Independence To Help Your Abused Daughter
Anne: So trying to settle out of court to help your abused daughter. They owe you a lot. So this isn’t like, do they owe you something? They absolutely do. But just for your own freedom. I am a fan of literally asking them for nothing. Like, don’t ask them for child support, don’t ask them for anything, and just get out and figure out how to support your own family by yourself. Because my feeling is anything they can hold over your head, they’re going to for the rest of your life.
Being able to say, I don’t want anything from this person. I will support myself. This has been the view I have taken, and I think it has helped me. I’m not saying everyone would be capable of doing that, or women should not get child support. But it’s something to think about, only because they will always use anything that you feel they owe you to entrap you, to control you. So that’s something to consider.
Bob: Not everybody will have that luxury.
Jim: It is a good long-term direction. I mean, they’ll always have the kids to manipulate you with, even as the kids get older. For example, when this happened, I called my mom to tell her, and all I had to do was bring up her best friend, her ex husband’s name. I said, I think we have one of these in our family.
She’s all, oh my goodness, who? And then I told her, and she’s like, just started to click in her mind. I can see that. And it all came to that. She could see it.
Clergy & No Tolerance For Abuse
Jim: And those kinds of people like this guy in particular, her friend’s ex, he passed away recently, but his whole life, you know, he manipulated with the adult kids pretty much to the end.
Anne: Yeah, have you been surprised or pleased at how clergy or other people have reacted to help your abused daughter?
Jim: A little surprised, yeah.
Anne: In what way?
Jim: The comment was something along the lines of, well, maybe you can learn to be a little stronger. And he can learn to be a little. And I’m like, yeah, no help at all.
Anne: Also, Jim shares our faith. At least in our faith, clergy is supposed to be like a righteous judge, and hold people accountable. And there seems to be a complete lack of accountability and belief. Every time I bring it up, they’ll be like, well, I don’t know if I’d use the word abuse. I mean, yeah, he’s acting like a jerk, and I said, well, I took the church training and it said, I was supposed to report abuse and that you would not tolerate it.
And so I am reporting it. What are you going to do to not tolerate it? And they stare at me and blink. They’re like, well, we don’t tolerate it. And I’m like, okay, well then what are you going to do to not tolerate it? And they’re like, uh, and, um, then I end up being disliked even more by the clergy. So that’s fun.
Lack Of Knowledge of Abuse By Clergy Leads to No Help For An Abuse Situation
Jim: My experience has been, unless somebody, and maybe this is between a rock and a hard place. But unless somebody is willing to admit their wrongs, they don’t seem to ever do anything.
Anne: Okay, if they don’t admit it, then it’s like, well, he says he wasn’t abusive. And history is different, and we don’t know who to believe, right? So that’s that situation in trying to help your abused daughter. If he admits it, the reports we get from the victims are like. “Oh, well, he admits he was abusive and willing to repent.” And so he’s repentant. So I don’t know why you’re not forgiving him. So it’s like, lose, lose.
Okay. So he admitted he’s abusive. So you’re not even going to release him from his calling. Like nothing, but then they won’t do it. Even if there are multiple witnesses either. So there’s like no accountability. Well, there might be some Bishop out there who does hold abuse accountable. But from my experience at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, the overarching theme is that. There’s no accountability for abusers in the church, especially emotional and psychological abuse.
Jim: Here’s one thing I’ll say: This whole stepping on eggshells is what my daughter lived with. And then, we were living with it too, because we wouldn’t be reluctant to bring up anything. I think my wife one time mentioned how the son-in-law should get a better relationship with the three year old, something just in passing. Well, he was in the next room, overheard it, and took it out on our daughter later.
Societal Misogyny & Self-Reflection About It
Jim: Just because my wife had said that, so I think the church does the same thing. Oh, we don’t want to offend any of these people. They might leave, or something, I don’t know. It’s what it feels like.
Anne: There’s that, and then there’s this view that, like wait, she must not understand. Because he’s such a good guy, he shows up at church and gives good lessons. When he talks in our congregation, it’s such a good talk, and he shows up for service projects. So he’s a good guy, I don’t know why his wife doesn’t understand what a good guy he is.
Jim: Yeah, our society is based on good speaking. And if you are good speaking, it seems like you can get away with lots of things.
Anne: It’s also just flat out misogyny. They believe the man and his persona and his image over a woman’s account.
A Father’s Perspective
Jim: Right, and I don’t know how you feel about this, Bob. But this whole scenario has made me examine myself as a husband, and sad to say I’ve made some improvements because of misogyny. It goes through our whole culture.
Bob: I totally agree with you. I’m with you there all the way. And I’ve had to do some real introspection.
Jim: So there’s some good that comes out of it, I guess.
Anne: For your daughter’s sake, after the divorce is final. And she has wings to figure out who she is and what kind of life she wants. And it’s working toward providing that for your abused daughter her and her children. She will gain that strength.
Anne: She will gain that strength, and this will be like a time of her life that was awful. And just hellish, but the person that she will become will be incredible, and you’re going to be amazed and so proud of her. And so just supporting her as she makes her way is exactly how to help your abused daughter.
Jim: Thank you. I appreciate that. I was talking to my younger brother about taking my daughter back. And he said, well, I never gave mine away. I just was willing to share her. I think that’s a healthy fatherly perspective.
3. Know That She Is Capable & Strong, She Just Needs Help Until She Heals
Anne: Maybe, but also she’s not yours, is a healthier thing.
Jim: That for sure. Because now that you mentioned that, that was one of the things that my son-in-law said in the text. The first or second day, “My children, my most precious possessions, you know.”
Anne: It’s great that you want to protect her, but that’s another misogynistic way to think about it. Like, this is my daughter, and you want to help your abused daughter. She will be and can be responsible for herself. She needs support and help, but that doesn’t make her incapable.
Jim: I mean, the only reason she needs financial or other support is because of the three young children. Exactly, she’s perfectly capable of taking care of herself in all ways.
Anne: Exactly.
Jim: Better than me, because when I have the three children. It doesn’t take too long, and I’ve about had it.
Anne: And knowing that the reason why she needs help is because her children need help. Like it’s not because she’s feeling entitled or incapable. It’s because she’s a mom of young children who need her, and they need their mom especially if they’ve got a 50-50 situation with an abuser.
Jim: Yeah, when they come back, they want to be with her. They don’t want us to get in the way, and yes, they want her.
Anne: Thank you so much, Jim, for reaching out. And thank you, Dad, for helping me so much. Even when you had a bad attitude, when the rubber hit the road, you supported me and helped me.
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