Episode Details

Women who feel, “my husband is taking advantage of me,” may often be confused by the damaging advice they receive when they go for help. And what you know right now may only be the tip of the iceberg.

See If Your Husband is Taking Advantage of You: 3 Ways

1. IF HE USES YOUR TRUST TO HIDE WHAT’S REALLY HAPPENING

Most women don’t enter marriage looking for problems. They enter it assuming he’s telling the truth, and if something feels off, there must be a harmless reason. So when he’s distant or irritable, you might think he’s stressed or he’s had a bad day. But what if that’s not the reason he’s stressed?

Stay with me…You’ll see more about how this plays out in real time.

2. He LIEs TO YOU ABOUT HOW HE SPENDS HIS TIME OR MONEY

 If your husband is taking advantage of you in this way, you’re not going to know, but it’s definitely going to feel like he’s taking advantage of you, because things are not adding up. If you need help figuring things out, join our Betrayal Trauma Support Group online.

Even if you don’t have all the details, patterns of secrecy + financial behavior + outside relationships are enough.

3. HE’S TRYING TO GET YOU TO DOUBT YOUR OWN INTUITION

 If he’s saying things like, you’re overreacting or you’re imagining things, or he’s saying he didn’t say something he definitely said, he’s trying to take advantage of that conversation to manipulate you.

 If you relate and think you might be experiencing emotional abuse, take my free emotional abuse test.

Transcript: MY HUSBAND IS TAKING ADVANTAGE OF ME

Anne: We have a member of our community on today’s episode. We’re gonna call her Misha. Welcome, Misha.

Misha: Hi. Thanks for having me. I have listened to the podcast. Hearing other people’s story is the reason I wanted to share my story. And be part of this community of very strong women who have experienced a lot of things, similar to what I’ve experienced. We were married six and a half years, when I found out my husband was cheating on me.

I was sitting on the couch with my two children, and scrolling through my apps on my phone, and I found four NSA dating apps. NSA is no strings attached. Not just one, but four. And I didn’t know where they came from, because I saw them on my phone, not his. And then I realized that we have a family share plan that shows all the apps within the family share plan. If you toggle at the top, it shows the other devices and they were on his device.

That’s what triggered my story, but it is so much more explosive than that. The things that I found out after was horrifying. I knew I needed to start teaching children how to set boundaries.

WE WERE THE PERFECT FAMILY

Anne: So that was what some women called D-Day. You realized something was amiss. Can we go back a little bit? How did you feel about him and how your relationship was before you found those apps?

Misha: We were the perfect family. He was charming, well-liked in our community. He’s high ranking military. We had adopted twins from birth, who were two years old when I found out. It was like Prince Charming, and he was perfect. So I thought, looking back now, there were a lot of signs that it wasn’t.

Anne: And you couldn’t have known. I think this is the thing people don’t understand. They might say you didn’t see the red flags, and I don’t think that’s the case. I think you see them, you just interpret them through the lens you have at the time. So if he’s grumpy, for example,