Even when clergy counsels you to forgive. Even when family sides with an emotionally abusive husband. Rather than focus on emotional abuse vs normal conflict, focus on emotional safety.

Emotional safety IS the “treatment”.

If you’re wondering if you’re experiencing emotional abuse, take our free emotional abuse quiz.

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Understanding Emotional Abuse vs Normal Conflict

Emotional Abuse: Emotional abuse is manipulating someone’s emotions to exploit them. Because it’s aim is exploitation, it causes significant damage to the victim’s sense of self.

Normal Conflict: Normal conflicts are an inevitable part of any relationship. These types of benign conflicts are caused by differences in opinions, values, or expectations, but there’s no exploitation involved. Normal conflicts happen with two healthy people who care about each other and want the best for each other.

When a husband uses online explicit material or cheats on his wife, it’s a form of emotional abuse that deeply affects her. Normal conflicts don’t cause Infidelty, it’s emotional abuse.

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How To Seek Safety

Many women in the BTR.ORG community share stories of feeling alone—when friends dismiss their accounts of emotional abuse. Sometimes clergy or therapists discount emotional abuse victims, especially when their emotionally abusive husband lies to the clergy or therapist about what’s going on.

In many religious communities, marriage is more important than a person’s feelings or emotional safety. Which doesn’t make sense, since the point of marriage is emotional safety. This type of abuse violates the essence of marriage. Choosing safety doesn’t mean ending your marriage. Your husband’s decision to be emotionally abusive has already broken that trust.

At Betrayal Trauma Recovery, we emphasize that safety encompasses several aspects of life:

• Physical Safety: Make sure you meet basic needs like shelter, food, and clothing. Removing yourself from immediate emotional threats.


• Emotional and Psychological Safety: Finding an environment where you can express yourself without fear of judgment or retaliation.


• Spiritual Safety: Your beliefs are respected and not used against you.


• Financial Safety: Gaining control over your financial resources and decisions.


• Sexual Safety: Having autonomy over your own body and choices.

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Steps To Begin Your Journey:

1. Separate Yourself from Harm:

• Enroll in The BTR.ORG Living Free Workshop to learn what type of abuse you’re dealing with (or even if he’s actually abusive), and then what strategies to use to keep yourself emotionally safe.

1. Surround Yourself with Support:

• Connect with support groups or communities like Betrayal Trauma Recovery where you can share your story without judgment. Attend a BTR.ORG Group Session TODAY.

1. Practice Self-Care:

• Focus on basic needs like nutrition, hydration, and sleep to maintain your physical health.

1. Educate Yourself About Abuse:

• Understanding abuse dynamics can empower you and provide clarity on your situation. Listen to The FREE Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast.

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Transcript: Emotional Abuse vs Normal Conflict?

Anne: Welcome to Betrayal Trauma Recovery. This is Anne. I’m so excited to have Natalie Hoffman on today’s episode. She’s the host of the Flying Free Now podcast. Which is a podcast dedicated to teaching women about emotional and spiritual abuse. She’s also the author of All the Scary Little Gods, and I’m so excited to have her on today. Welcome, Natalie.

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Natalie: Thank you so much. I’m excited to be here.

Anne: You’re amazing. I’ve always appreciated your work. Especially all the interesting and fascinating deconstruction that you do with spiritual abuse. I love it. You’re so smart. And it’s just, it’s fun to have you here.

Let’s start by talking about your new book, All the Scary Little Gods.

Natalie: I wanted to tell my story. Because I wanted to help women stuck in fundamentalist programming. Who maybe weren’t able to read. Or had the capacity and interest in reading a scholarly type or non-fiction book about deprogramming. In fact, that might even scare them off a little bit. But they might want to read a story about it.

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So, instead of telling people how to walk this journey, you know, do step one, two, and three. I wanted to show them what a potential journey of deprogramming and deconstructing might look like. Especially for women who weren’t ready to give up their faith. But wanted to figure out how their faith aligned with goodness and love and their core values. I think it was like the English teacher in me saying, show, don’t tell.

Anne: I loved that it felt so honest, you are expressing that inner dialogue. Helping women know you’re not crazy. Everybody thinks these things.

Discussing All the Sca