Hi, this is Natalie Hoffman of Flying Free Now.com, 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 344 of the Flying Free Podcast.

Today I'm going to tell you a story.

The room was quiet, but not peaceful.

Just that thick, suffocating kind of quiet that feels like a held breath you can't exhale. The hotel bed spread was stiff

and overbleached. The lamp in the corner of the room flickered once in a while like it couldn't

decide whether to help me or give up. I was nine months pregnant with my ninth child. But I felt hollow, like a ghost,

carrying a ghost. I hadn't come to that hotel for a retreat. I came because I wasn't sure I wanted

to stay alive. After years of begging for help, pastors, counselors, friends,

anyone who might see what was happening in my marriage, I had been handed shame instead of

support. Submit harder. Don't air your husband's dirty laundry. That's not abuse. That's just normal marriage.

Every time I reached out, I was handed another book, another rebuke, another reminder that this

was somehow my fault, that I wasn't trying hard enough, that I was the problem.

I had followed every rule. I had sacrificed. I had obeyed,

and I was dying inside. That night in the hotel, I didn't feel brave or spiritual. I felt like I was losing myself one breath at a time. But the next morning,

I made a decision. I drove to a bookstore, no plan, no shower, just desperation. I got out my

laptop and I started Googling things like passive aggressive man, painful Christian marriage,

my Christian husband never says he's sorry, and when you've tried everything and your Christian

marriage is still falling apart. I didn't really find anything that morning that I could grab a hold of,

but it did start me down some rabbit

holes that eventually led me to a book called Who's Pushing Your Buttons? By Dr. Henry

...