Let’s meet Barb
An attractive woman in her 30s ZOOMed into view.
Barb had reached out to me to help her overcome her inability to orgasm with her husband. She’d given me the basic details in email, where she’d felt brave enough to write her story in frank words. Face-to-face, she was shy.
“Hi, Dr. Brame,” she said nervously, fumbling with the audio.
“It’s so nice to meet you, Barb,” I smiled. She relaxed a little.
“So tell me more about why you’re here, honey,” I said.
She teared up.
“Are you okay?” What had made her cry?
“No one’s called me honey or anything nice in so long,” she said, tears streaming. “I’ll be alright,” she composed herself but the sadness was still there. She’d been married for 10 years and her husband never used endearments with her?
How horrible for her. I knew then I’d do everything in my power to make sure she was alright — for the long term.
Barb had convinced herself she wasn’t being abused
Clumsy. Crazy. Unattractive. Unsexy. Fat. Frigid. Controlling.
Barb heard those kinds of words almost daily from her husband, Rich. She had come to agree with him about many of them. She did bump into things and drop things. She cried too much. She needed to lose weight. Her libido had vanished. When he touched her, she froze up in dread, knowing she was going to disappoint him again and feel his wrath. She faked orgasms just to get him off of her.
She once believed she was beautiful, or at least beautiful enough to attract a man, but it had been many years since any man gave her a second look. Rich’s snipes that “she wasn’t a real woman in bed” and that “fat girls have to try harder” made her ashamed of her body and uncomfortable in the kinds of cute dresses and high heels she once wore. When she switched to looser clothes and sweatshirts, her husband added “butch” to his litany of criticisms, and said he didn’t want to sleep with a man.
A Fish in Water
His insults hurt, but she’d had a rocky childhood, she was used to abuse, so she absorbed his insults like a pain sponge. She did more than that. She internalized his toxic narrative. She was a wimp, a klutz, not enough woman to satisfy a man. She was sometimes weirdly grateful that he stayed married to her. Who else would want her?
Yet she knew, deep down, that something had to change. Something big, something miraculous, or she would lose all hope of happiness. Finally, she made an appointment with me in hopes I could fix her sex drive so she could give Rich the satisfaction he deserved.
Barb was about to discover that the problems in her marriage went deeper than sex.
Identifying the Real Issue
The hardest thing in a committed relationship is admitting to ourselves when we are being abused. We don’t want to rock the boat. We’re afraid of the repercussions. If we had a hard youth or a dysfunctional family, abuse is a sea we’ve always navigated. We know how to swim. And it feels normal.
Barb was in complete denial. She fiercely defended him. He never hit her. It didn’t bother her that he controlled every penny — he was the earner, after all, and he always gave her enough for groceries. Sure, she couldn’t make any big purchases, but in a marriage, it made sense that she would have to let him decide what they could afford. He never lifted a finger around the house, but she felt that was part of the bargain of being the wife.
It exasperated her that he sulked when she spent time talking to her friends and parents. She had to keep calls short to appease him. He didn’t like any of her friends, so they only socialized with his work buddies. They drank until they got stupid, while she sipped her Coke and tried to enjoy being out at a pub. Rich usually treated her like a second-class citizen in front of his friends. She didn’t like it, but went along to get along and buried her hurts.
As she described all the painful inequalities and insults in their relationship, I perceived the damages she had suffered under his merciless judgment. Her self-esteem was in the garbage. Her self-confidence was destroyed. Her expectations of love and happiness were gone. All that was left was her exhausting struggle to gain his approval.
The Discovery Process
The power of sharing your story with an unbiased outsider who carefully guides your thought process creates the path to emotional and sexual healing. It’s the release of your subconscious mind into a safe space. It’s why therapy can be very successful for most people. Those people will be like Barb in their need to get to the bottom of their problems and solve them. They have a hunger to change their lives for the better.
I saw the process liberate Barb a little more every time we spoke. She regained her life energy. She began to smile and make jokes. She had new insights into herself to share every week. Most of all, she prepared herself to leave Rich, one tiny step at a time.
Overcoming Denial
First came the revelations. For years, she told herself that in spite of everything, he was a good catch. That’s what everyone said. Even though she knew better, she had never allowed herself to admit it out loud. But the more she heard her truths spill from her lips, the more she saw how badly he treated her. She was beginning to face the reality of her situation. She had believed him when he told her that she was the problem. Now she saw it for what it was: he was gaslighting her. He was a narcissist.
At last, Barb was willing to face the biggest obstacle in overcoming abuse denial: accepting that you were wrong. She began to see that the man she thought she loved was actually someone she feared. The problem wasn’t that she was frigid, it was that she couldn’t allow herself to feel vulnerable with him. She didn’t trust him. She didn’t even know if she liked him.
Losing her dream — that he would be her husband forever, that they would grow old together — was almost as hard as learning to forgive herself for being so wrong in the first place. The fairytale life she would have with him was, in retrospect, an illusion. She grieved the years she wasted on him, the sacrifices she made to hang on to him. She was angry at herself, but when she finally forgave herself, she felt relieved of her burden and ready to move on.
We went slowly because Barb needed the time to change inside herself before she could effect change in her world. I helped her see that there were greener fields awaiting her, that she had a better future, and it would be a better future because of all the insights she had gained.
Barb takes action
Knowing something in your head is one thing. Acting on it is THE thing.
It’s so painful and scary for some of us, that we may avoid it for weeks, months, even years. It’s understandable.
The longer you are with someone, the more your lives become entangled. Money, kids, social circles, friends and relatives all become so intertwined it feels like a Herculean task to divide everything up and explain why you’re leaving without facing questions you don’t want to answer. Barb rarely complained about him to her family — if anything, she always tried to defend him and cover up their problems. Her family was religious. She assumed they would pressure her to stay married.
She decided to confide in her sister.
Everyone Already Knew
“I didn’t want to say this when I thought you were okay with him but omg I’m so glad you’re leaving that asshole,” her sister said. “If you need a place to stay, I’ve got that extra room.”
Her sister’s response gave her the courage to call her parents. They listened silently. Finally, her mother said, “It’s probably for the best. We never did like him.” Her father grunted in agreement. Barb was overwhelmed. She never counted on their support.
It solidified her decision to leave. We began planning how she would do it and she began lining up lawyers to call. She was shaky but determined. I assured her that her family and her therapist had her back. She was going to make it through a divorce, and she was going to find out that she was far stronger than she ever realized.
So often, clients think that hearing the advice will change things. I’ll say the magic words and their lives will change. That’s not how it works. Only when you act on it do you see your life change.
Smoothing the Road to Freedom
In the next installment, I’ll share the advice I’ve given Barb and other clients who were ready to leave a toxic relationship. Minimizing and managing the fall-out includes a range of skills many lack. A good relationship therapist can be a fount of information on how to exit a toxic relationship with safety strategies in place and management tools for worst-case scenarios. I will tell you all about the steps to take and give you concrete advice on what people in this situation can do to protect themselves.
As for Barb, it was a wild and crazy ride, but she went the distance and left Rich far behind. Today she is remarried. Her new husband tells her she is beautiful every single day. She’s never been happier — or felt sexier!
Do you need some help getting on the road to freedom? Email me to set up an appointment.
