One of our listeners submitted a heavy question asking about how long she has to let the abuse continue. The snagging point? She had an affair. So, what does one do if they have an affair while in an emotionally abusive relationship? Does that mean they now deserve to be in an abusive marriage until they die? What are their options, and how can we think about this?

Join my candid conversation with Susan Estringel, one of our coaches within the Flying Free program, as we untangle this situation and speak with compassion to those of you who have lived this reality.

Read the show notes and/or ask Natalie a question here

Related Resources:

• Connect with Susan on her website and on Instagram.
• My newest book, All the Scary Little Gods, is a spiritual memoir about healing from religious trauma and toxic programming.
• Are you wondering what is happening inside your own painful and confusing marriage? I wrote another book just for you called Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage: A Christian Woman’s Guide to Hidden Emotional and Spiritual Abuse.
• Flying Free is my online membership program designed for Christian women in emotionally abusive marriages. Whether you want to stay in your marriage or leave, we want to equip and support you through this program.
• Flying Higher is my online membership program for divorced Christian women. Come rebuild your life after divorce with women just like you.

Susan Estringel is a Life and Relationship Coach, Yogi, and Music Therapist with a message of self-compassion and resilience. Drawing from her own journey as a survivor of emotional abuse, Susan brings a personal perspective to conversations around Christian abuse survivors having affairs. With a passion for lifting others up to find and reclaim their voice, Susan offers a unique blend of lived experience and professional expertise in navigating the complexities of healing after having an affair. She specializes in rewiring limiting beliefs, setting boundaries, and shedding the heavy burdens of shame and guilt associated with affairs.

“Does God really hate divorce? And why haven’t my years of praying brought any fruit?”

Abuse survivors ask me these two questions regularly, and today, I’m going to use Malachi 2:16 as well as a chapter from my newest book, All the Scary Little Gods, to answer them both. Beautiful butterfly, I pray this episode is an encouragement to you as you wrestle with these important topics.

Read the show notes and/or ask Natalie a question here

Related Resources:

• Links to resources about the idea that God hates divorce
• My newest book, All the Scary Little Gods, is a spiritual memoir about healing from religious trauma and toxic programming.
• Are you wondering what is happening inside your own painful and confusing marriage? I wrote another book just for you called Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage: A Christian Woman’s Guide to Hidden Emotional and Spiritual Abuse.
• Flying Free is my online membership program designed for Christian women in emotionally abusive marriages. Whether you want to stay in your marriage or leave, we want to equip and support you through this program.
• Flying Higher is my online membership program for divorced Christian women. Come rebuild your life after divorce with women just like you.

Joining me for today’s fascinating episode is Dan Koch, podcaster and spiritual abuse researcher. Dan has created an incredible tool called the Spiritual Harm & Abuse Scale, and he breaks it down for us as we talk about spiritual abuse and the heavy impact it has on people’s lives.

Read the show notes and/or ask Natalie a question here

Related Resources:

• Check out Dan’s Spiritual Harm & Abuse Scale. Also mentioned in today’s podcast episode was Dr. Keller’s Spiritual Abuse Questionnaire.
• Connect with Dan on his website as well as Instagram.
• Listen to Dan’s podcast, You Have Permission, and especially Episodes 10 and 123.
• Grab your copy of one of my favorite books, Faith Beyond Doubt.
• My newest book, All the Scary Little Gods, is a spiritual memoir about healing from religious trauma and toxic programming.
• Are you wondering what is happening inside your own painful and confusing marriage? I wrote another book just for you called Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage: A Christian Woman’s Guide to Hidden Emotional and Spiritual Abuse.
• Flying Free is my online membership program designed for Christian women in emotionally abusive marriages. Whether you want to stay in your marriage or leave, we want to equip and support you through this program.
• Flying Higher is my online membership program for divorced Christian women. Come rebuild your life after divorce with women just like you.

Dan Koch is a licensed therapist in the state of Washington, the host of the You Have Permission Podcast and a spiritual abuse researcher who has developed the Spiritual Harm & Abuse Scale, currently in use by religious trauma clinicians around the world.

Sometimes a woman will say, “I decided to leave, but now my abuser is being so nice to me! What should I do?”

Unless an abuser has found a new source of supply, the abuser will want to maintain control over you. He’s been observing what makes you tick for a long time. He's been observing what works and doesn’t work to emotionally manipulate you. He knows how to both push all your buttons AND pull on your heartstrings.

One of the ways he knows he can pull on a nice girl's strings is to simply make a show of being nice to her, and then the victim thinks, “Oh, let's give him another chance. He's trying so hard, poor hapless man. I must be the wind beneath his wings.”

We've been programmed to believe these kinds of things. A man can be chronically abusive, but when he’s nice, we think that just negates everything else he has done, but our body knows it’s not true. Our brain has been programmed to believe that if he is nice or says “I’m sorry,” that means he has repented, and we just need to take him back, suck it up, and sweep everything under the rug. But that's not what true repentance or forgiveness is.

This is taken from today’s episode in which I share part of a live emotional abuse Q&A I recently did for my email subscribers. These are people who have requested help and resources from me over the years. Sometimes I create free workshops or special events for everyone on that list. (If you don’t want to miss any articles or events or resources I create for you, be sure to get on that list by going to my website, flyingfreenow.com, and signing up at the top of the page!)

Here are some of the questions I answered in today’s episode:

• Should I tell my adult children and close friends about the hidden emotional abuse I’m experiencing?
• I feel guilty because we’re in the middle of the divorce process, but all of a sudden, my husband has started being nicer than he’s ever been!
• Why am I so afraid to tell my husband that I am done with the marriage?
• How do I avoid being triggered in a situation where my needs are being ignored or misunderstood?
• Is my husband abusive, or just selfish and immature?
• And MORE!

Read the show notes and/or ask Natalie a question here

Related Resources:

• Books I recommended in today’s episode: Forgiveness After Trauma, The Body Keeps the Score, The Tools, Divorcing a Narcissist: One Mom's Battle, and A Failure of Nerve.
• I also mentioned my interview with the author of Forgiveness After Trauma, Susannah Griffith, my article called “How to Leave an Emotionally Abusive Relationship: 10 Steps,” and another podcast episode, Episode 280, “Projective Identification in Abusive Relationships.”
• My newest book, All the Scary Little Gods, is a spiritual memoir about healing from religious trauma and toxic programming.
• Are you wondering what is happening inside your own painful and confusing marriage? I wrote another book just for you called Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage: A Christian Woman’s Guide to Hidden Emotional and Spiritual Abuse.
• Flying Free is my online membership program designed for Christian women in emotionally abusive marriages. Whether you want to stay in your marriage or leave, we want to equip and support you through this program.
• Flying Higher is my online membership program for divorced Christian women. Come rebuild your life after divorce with women just like you.

“In this book, I want to share parts of my journey paired with reflections based on my background as a biblical scholar to make available forgiveness paths different from the harmful ones so often proffered in the name of God.”

Susannah Griffith’s book, Forgiveness After Trauma, does exactly that, and it is now my absolute favorite book on forgiveness. In today’s episode, Susannah and I sit down and talk about how we can look at forgiveness in a more healing way than we are accustomed to.

Read the show notes and/or ask Natalie a question here

Related Resources:

• If you read any book about forgiveness, let it be Susannah’s: Forgiveness after Trauma: A Path to Find Healing and Empowerment. She also has another book called Leaving Silence: Sexualized Violence, the Bible, and Standing with Survivors.
• Connect with Susannah on her website and Instagram.
• My newest book, All the Scary Little Gods, is a spiritual memoir about healing from religious trauma and toxic programming.
• Are you wondering what is happening inside your own painful and confusing marriage? I wrote another book just for you called Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage: A Christian Woman’s Guide to Hidden Emotional and Spiritual Abuse.
• Flying Free is my online membership program designed for Christian women in emotionally abusive marriages. Whether you want to stay in your marriage or leave, we want to equip and support you through this program.
• Flying Higher is my online membership program for divorced Christian women. Come rebuild your life after divorce with women just like you.

Susannah is an independent scholar, writer, chaplain, and advocate. Her first book, Leaving Silence, was a finalist for a Christianity Today Book of the Year award. Susannah resides in Northern Indiana with her husband Michael and three young daughters.

Abusers will project their own inner identity and issues onto their victims. Let’s talk about what that means, how it impacts a survivor, and what you can do about it.

Read the show notes and/or ask Natalie a question here

Related Resources:

• The YouTube video that inspired this episode, “Projective Identification Explained.”
• The book by Tina Swithin I mentioned, Divorcing a Narcissist: One Mom’s Battle.
• My newest book, All the Scary Little Gods, is a spiritual memoir about healing from religious trauma and toxic programming.
• Are you wondering what is happening inside your own painful and confusing marriage? I wrote another book just for you called Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage: A Christian Woman’s Guide to Hidden Emotional and Spiritual Abuse.
• Flying Free is my online membership program designed for Christian women in emotionally abusive marriages. Whether you want to stay in your marriage or leave, we want to equip and support you through this program.
• Flying Higher is my online membership program for divorced Christian women. Come rebuild your life after divorce with women just like you.

Dr. Christy Bauman has written yet another beautifully rich book, and in today’s episode, you will get a sneak peek! Her Rites: A Sacred Journey for the Mind, Body, and Soul takes you on a journey through each of a woman’s six rites of passage and empowers women through words, art, and music.

In today’s episode, we discuss

• What does birthright mean for Christian women?
• What is God’s legacy through women?
• How does the rite of exile impact female survivors?
• How does the rite of intuition empower women who have been abused?
• And so much more!

Read the show notes and/or ask Natalie a question here

Related Resources:

• Get your copy of Her Rites: A Sacred Journey for the Mind, Body, and Soul, as well as Christy’s other books, The Sexually Healthy Woman, Theology of the Womb, and A Brave Lament.
• Find Christy on her website.
• Listen to the corresponding music for Her Rites.
• Connect with Christy on Instagram on her main page and her Womaneering page.
• If you loved this episode, you’ll love Episode 45 of the Flying Free Podcast which is also with Christy!
• My newest book, All the Scary Little Gods, is a spiritual memoir about healing from religious trauma and toxic programming.
• Are you wondering what is happening inside your own painful and confusing marriage? I wrote another book just for you called Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage: A Christian Woman’s Guide to Hidden Emotional and Spiritual Abuse.
• Flying Free is my online membership program designed for Christian women in emotionally abusive marriages. Whether you want to stay in your marriage or leave, we want to equip and support you through this program.
• Flying Higher is my online membership program for divorced Christian women. Come rebuild your life after divorce with women just like you.

Dr. Christy Bauman, MDFT & LMHC (she/her) is committed to helping women come into their true voice. She is an author and psychotherapist who focuses on the female body, sexuality, and theology. Christy’s work can be found at christybauman.com

I have been learning and reading and going to conferences and doing ALL the things recently, and I want to tell you all about it! This episode is a fun one where I let you in on what I’ve been up to and share a few golden nuggets I’ve found along the way.

Read the show notes and/or ask Natalie a question here

Related Resources:

• Book I’ve been reading recently: After by Dr. Bruce Greyson, It’s Not You by Dr. Ramani, and Still Life by Penny Louise.
• Check out my new favorite podcast, The BEMA Podcast.
• My newest book, All the Scary Little Gods, is a spiritual memoir about healing from religious trauma and toxic programming. I also made a playlist for this book on Spotify!
• Are you wondering what is happening inside your own painful and confusing marriage? I wrote another book just for you called Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage: A Christian Woman’s Guide to Hidden Emotional and Spiritual Abuse.
• Flying Free is my online membership program designed for Christian women in emotionally abusive marriages. Whether you want to stay in your marriage or leave, we want to equip and support you through this program.
• Flying Higher is my online membership program for divorced Christian women. Come rebuild your life after divorce with women just like you.