Free to be Me

I was married for 19 years to an emotional abuser and finally got enough strength and courage to leave about one year ago. I'm just now starting to realize and understand
the reality of what Ive been subjected to all these years.


My X husband was a master manipulator and oh so subtle to the point where my thoughts, opinions and beliefs were not my own anymore.

He controlled everything even choosing what house we would live in. I inherited a very large sum of money in the beginning of our marriage and he slyly manipulated his control over it. Which resulted in him exploiting what did not belong to him for his own selfish gain.


I thought once I was out of the clutches of my X husband and he was no longer able to control me anymore that the pain would go away and I could me my true self again.

What Ive come to experience is I cannot even remember who I was before I entered the relationship. The best way I know how to explain it is.....


I entered a dark foggy tunnel fully clothed a whole and happy person with everything I had to give and have come out the other end naked and empty.


I was stripped bare of everything; all my posessions, my identity as well as my dignity and it left me to feel poor and destitute physically, emotionally and spiritually. My questions are for anyone who can answer will these feelings ever go away?


Will I ever be able to give and receive a healthy love, when I don't even know what its like to truly be loved by a man?

Dear Sharer,

You have made the hardest step already, and that is the first step! Yes it will take awhile to get there, but when you made the choice to remove yourself from that abusive relationship that is the hardest part. It is the spark of you beginning to love yourself, and make that primal statement, that declaration of 'I matter, I am important, and I deserve love.'

As you begin to focus on that truth, you will begin to act it out, and it will attract others to you who will give you the love you so richly deserve.

Yes you will be able to find that healthy boundary-respecting love from a devoted man.

He is out there, waiting for you to find yourself first, then he can come into your life. Focus on your self esteem, and discredit the lies that took it away, and when those are grieved through, He will be there, we promise, because that is how God works!

All the best,

Shayne and Lori North in Aurora, Colorado