Hi, this is Natalie Hoffman of Flying Free Now, and you're listening to the Flying Free

podcast, a support resource for women of faith, looking for hope and healing from hidden

emotional and spiritual abuse.

Welcome to episode 128 of the Flying Free Podcast.

Today I have with me Ami

and she is going to be sharing her story.

We call them butterfly stories in the Flying Free Sister

group, but her story of going through an emotional and spiritually abusive

relationship and how she got out and hopefully we can learn some things through her experience.

So welcome, Ami.

Thank you so much, Natalie, for having me.

I am so excited to tell my story.

Your ministry has been one of the key ones that helped me get out so it's nice to be able to give back.

Oh that's awesome I'm so happy to hear that. Why don't you start by telling us how you met your husband and if you remembered

noticing any red flags? I know a lot of us didn't know what red flags were back

then but was there anything that you noticed that kind of was off or that was like, made you think there could be problems up ahead?

So let, I want to talk about that first, like, you know, I didn't know and I think ignorance about the whole behavior patterns probably is so negative for women.

My conscience, my idea of domestic abuse was informed by

Hollywood. You know, he comes home drunk, beats her up in the kitchen, she has to go

the hospital, right? So it took me so long even when I was told I was being abused to recognize, oh my gosh, you know, that was abused.

So when I met him, I did not have the clue about red flags or that that was even part of it. I met him at

graduate school and he was the president of our graduate student association.

...