He Looked Perfect on Paper: Maile's Story [340]
Flying Free
Natalie Hoffman
5 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 12 August 2025
⏱️ 73 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ever fallen for someone who looked flawless on paper, but in real life turned out to be your personal nightmare with a Christian smile slapped on top?
In today’s episode, I sit down with Maile, a bright spark in our Flying Free community, who thought she’d landed in God’s will when she married her second husband. Instead, she found herself suffocating under spiritual gaslighting, emotional sabotage, and escalating violence, all hidden behind the shiny veneer of “good Christian marriage.”
This is a real story of what it looks like to wake up, break free, and rebuild your life, even when you’ve already done the divorce thing once before, and the church ladies are clutching their pearls at you for round two.
In this episode:
- The red flags Maile ignored during dating (love bombing, control, snooping)
- How spiritual abuse kept her stuck under the “good Christian wife” lie
- Why COVID became the unexpected wake-up call she needed
- How she found the courage to leave, even after already being divorced once
- What freedom and faith look like on the other side of abuse
Read the full show notes and/or ask Natalie a question here
Related Resources:
- Book mentioned: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk.
- Some other survivor stories: Shelley’s story and Stacie’s story.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Natalie Hoffman of Flying FreeNow.com, and you're listening to the Flying Free |
| 0:07.8 | podcast, a support resource for women of faith looking for hope and healing from hidden |
| 0:14.2 | emotional and spiritual abuse. Welcome to episode 340 of the Flying Free Podcast. |
| 0:23.1 | Today I have with me a survivor. |
| 0:25.8 | Her name is Miley. |
| 0:27.1 | She's been part of my programs for many years. |
| 0:30.4 | Miley and I have met up at Butterfly Boot Camp a few times, |
| 0:34.8 | which is a kind of a meetup that we do for all of the members in Flying Free |
| 0:39.4 | and Flying Fire. She is part of an amazing group of women in the Southern California region |
| 0:46.5 | who have been members of Flying Free and Flying Higher. And my daughter and I went to a wedding |
| 0:53.1 | down there a couple of years ago, and we got a chance to meet up with those women and see what their group is like and it was so much fun. |
| 1:01.0 | Miley is like such a spark in our programs and I was really excited when she agreed to tell her story for the Flying Free Podcast. |
| 1:11.3 | And she's also been on a couple of the divorced Christian Woman podcast episodes as well. |
| 1:16.9 | So if any of you are listeners of both, you will, you maybe will recognize her from over there |
| 1:23.3 | as well. |
| 1:24.3 | So welcome, Miley. |
| 1:25.6 | Thanks. |
| 1:26.6 | Thanks for having me. It's it's such a privilege. |
| 1:30.0 | And my favorite part is I get to hang out with you for a bit. Yay. Yay. Yes. I know. |
| 1:35.4 | These interviews, it's like, it is just kind of like hanging out with a new friend. |
| 1:39.9 | Well, you're not a new friend. I think you're an old friend, but it's so much fun. I love it. |
| 1:44.7 | And honestly, the listeners love these survivor stories. They eat them up like crazy. |
... |
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