This is Part Seven of the Survivor Wisdom Series. Here are the other articles in the series:

Part One: What I Wish I’d Done Differently During My Marriage
Part Two: What I Wish I’d Done Differently During My Divorce and Dealing with Others
Part Three: How I Realized My Abuser Would Never Change
Part Four: Tips if You’re Still Wondering if Your Abuser Will Change
Part Five: How I Realized His Abuse Was Intentional
Part Six: Why I Stayed
Part Eight: How God Guided Me to Divorce
Part Nine: How Divorce Made My Life Better
Part Ten: Seeing Spiritual Abuse
Part Eleven: How Your Church Should Respond When You Disclose Abuse

I’m delighted to once again share the hard-earned wisdom from other abuse survivors. I asked the women in my Confusion to Clarity Facebook Community:

How did you come to realize that it was time to separate? What helped you make that decision?

Here are their answers:

I came to the point after a decade of marriage where I realized there was nothing I could do that would change the way he behaved or treated me. I couldn’t pray hard enough, be meek enough, loving enough, enduring enough, strong enough. I realized that to stay on the path we were on would require me to give up on him ever changing and for me to learn to accept and live with the psychological abuse. I knew that I would eventually commit suicide because one person can only withstand so much emotional torture.

I realized that being intimate with him was destroying me and I had begun to realize I was valuable enough to be able to say “no” to something that was hurting me so much. The final straw for me was, after months of talking about what was wrong and what needed to change, he looked me straight in the eye and told me “I’m tired of being blamed for a problem I didn’t make.” Something snapped inside of me and I began to make plans to remove myself, since he wasn’t going to leave.

When I lost about 10-13 pounds in one month from stress and feeling like I will never amount to anything in his eyes, then someone shared a post about emotional abuse on Facebook. And then narcissistic abuse. After watching tons of videos and educating myself, then praying, fasting, and asking God for direction, I knew in my heart he wasn’t going to change and knew God was speaking to me to leave and get out of this toxic marriage for the sake of my sanity and my children, seeing so much damage that had already been done to them.

When my medical doctor told me my child was suffering symptoms of DV, I sought help from a therapist and DV shelter. Together they helped me see what was happening and there was such thing as emotional and spiritual abuse.

We had been arguing a lot and I always felt like I was walking in eggshells. I felt like I couldn’t bring up any topics that had to do with our financial situation without him getting defensive and yelling at me. I suggested he go spend some time with his family and he did.

I realized that his commitment to his sex addiction was far higher than his commitment to our family and marriage. I got the results of his polygraph and realized he had been lying and saying he was sober, when he was actually frequenting prostitutes, while pastoring. At that point I was done.

God told me that if I didn’t leave I would die. I knew in my core my heart had to change.

When I realized that my Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue were a direct result of my body reacting to the abuse and I had to take care of myself or just keep getting sicker.

I knew I was going to leave eventually, thinking after the kids left home. But I had a couple of lovely friends gently telling me that what I was experiencing was not normal or healthy. One day I just made a decision and within a week I was gone. I felt like I was drowning and I needed to get out. I needed to show my kids a different way, that my life mattered and, as an example to them, I did not need to put up with shit from anyone and they shouldn’t either!

I believe God told me it would happen long before my point of acceptance. We tried a healing separation. He learned nothing from it. We got back together for two months before he sexually assaulted me.

When I kept setting more boundaries and his anger kept escalating.

When I asked him not to cuddle with me in bed because we weren't getting along, and he told me I needed to sleep somewhere else if he wasn't allowed to touch me. I said, "Fine." I would spend days at the house when the boys were home from school, but every night I would sleep at my mom's, next door. This little bit of distance gave me a lot of clarity and time to come out of the fog his confusing behavior put me in.

When I realized what I was living was actually abuse and that there was little chance he would actually change. My understanding that "God can change a man's heart" had to make the drastic shift to "God can only change a heart that wants to be changed." My whole understanding of the gospel had to shift to accept my reality.

After years of being made to believe the problem was me, I began going to counseling. It was there that my eyes were opened to the truth. He was emotionally abusive and I was afraid of him. I began researching and was so angry to realize it wasn’t me after all.

I read an article about emotional abuse. This was my first realization about what was happening in my marriage. I was aware, validated, and I knew I must separate.

I tried so hard to fix what was broken. He did not. I prayed, I asked questions, I did research, I read books, tried talking to him, went to counseling with him and alone, I journaled, I wrote verses and put them on our fridge. I finally decided to make a list between me and God what things need to be done by the first of the year and if they all couldn’t be checked off then I would know it’s time for a divorce. Not a single one could be crossed off. That list I prayed over, it’s still in my Bible – proof that my husband never loved me and was never capable of loving me more than himself.

My two best friends had been telling me for years that my marriage wasn't normal and I should leave. Then my mum said to me one day, “You need to make a decision. You need to decide if you are going to leave or stay.” I knew then I had to leave, the neglect and covert emotional abuse was destroying me.

The impetus for my separation was my 15 year old daughter. He was emotionally abusive of her for 2 years and I was in denial. She had suicidal thoughts. I was in denial. She started asking me hard questions like, "Mom, do you think dad is abusive?" How can I lie to my own child? Yet, how can I admit that he’s abusive and allow it to go on? Yet, what's a good Christian wife to do? Tear up the family because he's mean? I still had a long way to go in facing the hard truth. Then he was physically abusive to her, with our 10 year old son witnessing it. My veil of denial was ripped away and I walked into the truth.

A psychologist who knew him well asked me if I knew he was a narcissist. After reading up on covert narcissism, I realized there was no hope that he would ever change.

He told me he’d use my entire paycheck to pay the bills and not give me any of his money. It was the last straw.

When my child shared their deep hurt and it was example after example of emotional abuse that I had no idea was going on. I thought I was willing to stay with him “for the kids” but the second I found out he was hurting one of them it was over.

I had constant headaches, I couldn't sleep, I grimaced around him all the time and I felt physically sick when he was near me. I was having debilitating panic attacks and I wanted to crawl into bed and never leave. I knew I had to leave. My spirit was dying.

I wasn't willing to accept his threats of divorce, the hatefulness, laziness, and my suspicion he was looking at porn. I ended up in the hospital with such intense side pain. I was literally diagnosed with stress. I began to feel hatred for him even though I "loved" him too (trauma bonded). I've never felt hatred and anger like that and I was afraid of who I was becoming.

Three years after his affair, I made one last ditch effort at keeping our marriage together by going to couples counseling again. He lied the entire time we were in there. I was so shocked, my jaw was on the floor. That, coupled with his constantly telling me that I needed to earn his trust back (for what I don’t know) and other demands to work harder on the marriage, I finally had enough.

After 20 years of marriage, I realized we were in the same place – constantly arguing, him putting me down and never satisfied with anything I did, unhappy, and he was so mean and critical to me. His anger was getting worse and the moments and nice behavior were becoming shorter and shorter.

He was ignoring me more and more and paying attention to other women. I figured he was having an affair with someone.

When I could not get through an hour any day without crying. When I had difficulty coming home from work. When I could not mentally function like in a fog. When my doctors and counsellor said my body was telling the truth though my mind was in denial.

I began praying hard for God to show me, without any doubt, my husband’s heart toward me and our marriage, to confirm what I was feeling. He showed lying, deceit, a VERY hardened and cruel heart, saying he doesn’t trust me, and so much more. These words came to me: “I just don’t matter to him”. That was so painful even though I had known for a long time. God confirmed for me and that’s what I needed to go forward.

The most powerful thing that helped were seeds planted over time that my life mattered. It took decades because there was a great deal of religious brainwashing to overcome. This was reinforced countless times when pastors acted passive and indifferent to the physical injuries not to mention the emotional ones. The message, “God doesn't want you happy, he wants you holy, God is using this to humble you and break you,” and always assigning the blame of his behavior to the victim of it created a resistance to the natural response to flee. But in that mix, were a few seeds dropped, "You deserve better than this," "It’s a pattern, and it’s going to kill you,” “God wants you to live." Ironically not one of the hope giving comments ever came from religious people or my family of origin.

We were in a church marriage group. The leader asked my former if he loved me and he blurted out “No.” It was the shock I needed to begin clearing the thick fog in my soul. That moment I lost my unrealistic hope and my mind knew the truth but it took much longer for my heart to know. I kept that tiny bit of hope until we were officially divorced.

I had the physical sensations of feeling cornered by a wild animal and like the floor was bottoming out beneath me. I have since learned to trust my body and my intuition. I made the step to separate first, and then started my journey of building knowledge around disordered people.

When I knew that I had clearly and respectfully expressed my requests and was met with the same behavior, and that it was escalating. When he took a shot at one of my deepest held values, and I could not abandon myself anymore. When I expressed my need to have my experience be held as separate and equal to his, he literally shook his head "no" like a little child.

When I read about abuse being trauma and what it was doing to my body, and I realized that I had the symptoms of Chronic PTSD and that I couldn’t heal while I was still being abused.

If you’ve experienced covert psychological abuse, come join our private Facebook group for women of faith who are covert emotional and psychological spousal abuse survivors!