Episode Details

What is marital coercion? It can take many forms, but maybe the most common is when a husband uses pornography and hides it from his wife. Karen, a victim of betrayal trauma (and a therapist), joins Anne on the to explain why this is sexual coercion.

To find out if he’s using any one of the 19 different types of emotional coercion in your marriage, take our free emotional abuse test.

If you are experiencing marital coercion, we’re here for you. Learn about Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions.

Transcript: What Is Marital Coercion?

Anne: I have Karen on today’s episode, she is a member of our community. She’s also a therapist. She’s going to use a pseudonym today to separate her professional work from her personal story. Welcome Karen. Why don’t you just start wherever you feel comfortable.

Karen: Sure, basically, my husband was unfaithful. And what happened to me was what happens to so many partners. It was a very slow, leaky discovery. Whereas I initially thought there was one affair. And just as I was ready to move on from that discovery and had actually handled that well, I began to discover, of course, the rest of it.

There was addiction involved, including multiple affair partners and acting out. As well as exchanging photographs and so forth. That was the beginning for me to discover what was actually going on for probably eight years before my discovery of it.

Anne: You mentioned you handled it “quite well.” I want to point out that I’ve had so many victims at the beginning who feel they have to deal with it in an “appropriate way.” Like somebody told them, they can’t react with anger, sadness, or depression. And so if you could talk about your experience dealing with it “quite well.”

And then also maybe why women are pressured to deal with it. In a way that a therapist, their church or society would be acceptable. Rather than allowing a victim to respond in any way that would be helpful to her.

The Extent of Coercion in Marriage

Karen: I think what is involved, at least for me. Is that I didn’t know the extent or depth of what was happening. And in fact, did not have the awareness of the emotional abuse and the depth of that either. Even though I knew something was wrong, I was in the dark.

But it made sense to me that my husband at that time and stage in his life had taken a wrong turn and made a bad choice. That people make mistakes and we are all flawed, and that now he was back on track. And he was very motivated to heal the marriage.

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