by Elisabeth | Jan 12, 2023 | abuse, difficult marriage
Question: What if our marriage never changes, what if the bad things he’s doing aren’t just a phase, like people keep telling me? There was a period of a few months when I lived in the most emotionally uncomfortable place I’d ever been. I had woken up fully to my...
by Elisabeth | Jan 5, 2023 | abuse, emotions, healing, heart, judgment, pain, wholeness
For most of my life, I’ve felt just a tad less normal than most people. Less put together. Way needier. A huge disappointment. Less capable of taking care of myself. Not a grown-up. Weak. Lazy. Pretty much a screw-up. As if every day, at the end of my day, I could do...
by Elisabeth | Oct 7, 2022 | abuse, difficult marriage, pain
Let’s say your husband hits you. Or pushes you. Or slaps you. Or let’s say he has never hit you. But he has forced you – forced you – to have sex when you said no. Or let’s say he hasn’t hit you and he hasn’t forced you to have sex. Let’s say it’s not that obvious....
by Elisabeth | Sep 30, 2022 | abuse, friendship, wholeness
tox·ic /ˈtäksik/ poisonous, venomous, dangerous, destructive, harmful, unsafe, injurious tox·ic person someone who is poisonous, venomous, dangerous, destructive, harmful, unsafe, injurious I think that when we think of a toxic person, we tend to think of someone who...
by Elisabeth | Jul 22, 2022 | abuse, Church, difficult marriage
(originally written in 2014) Picture a closet, bursting at the seams. Now picture a girl, back to the door, doing everything she can to brace herself against it to keep the contents from tumbling out all over the place, because what a mess that would be. Hi, I’m that...
by Elisabeth | Jul 15, 2022 | abuse, divorce, emotions, healing, pain
The aftereffects of living under abuse are long and complicated. It’s a bit like a brain tumor that has wrapped itself around the brainstem and all throughout your skull. There’s not just one easy way to undo all that’s been done. There’s no off switch. One of my...
