I was leaving Virginia to fly to El Paso to get my animals and …optimistically 😬… my belongings. I had not posted anything since for first months ago, and I didn’t even respond to everyone from that who wrote me. It’s not natural to put personal “baggage” (for a lack of a better word) on Facebook; it’s even more horrifying to put your lame relationship on blast. I’ve not even felt confident enough to begin posting advocacy articles or something benign – like a purple frame around my photo. But, I was about to get my things, my abuser told the courts there was nothing for me to fear, as…

I’d definitely learned to walk away, to close my mouth, to “just stop” as my husband demanded anytime he felt I was questioning anything he had to say. Were there times where I continued to disagree with my husband – yes. Should I have been able to have a calm conversation with my husband where I expressed a different opinion or thought – yes. Should I have been able to express a different opinion than my husband without him raising his voice at me, buffing, and raging – yes. I fought to understand why I was so “argumentative” as my husband would tell me. I bought freaking self-help books to…

First it was irritating, then it was confusing. My husband would do hateful things; especially while he was drinking. I would go to him the next day, while he was sober to have an adult conversation with him about what happened and resolve it. It was rare that he would ever actually participate as an adult in a mature relationship – normally he would deflect to tell me all of the things I have ever done wrong, tell me that I was confused and lying – that it was actually me that was doing those things, create an entirely new story, or explain why I made him have to punish…

A common practice in Family Court and divorce settlements is including gag-order clauses. The intent of these clauses is to protect the child (if there are any) from having one parent bash the other, or finding one parent’s Facebook post bashing their other parent. Seems reasonable. The problem is if there is domestic violence in the relationship. Gag Orders where there is domestic violence silences and hurts the victim while protecting the abuser. I was not in a place to tell anyone what had been happening in my relationship with my husband, how crazy it had become in the last couple of years, what was going on at the latest…

I have been going through my divorce for almost six month now, and the date for the divorce hearing is in two more months, August 11, 2023. The only thing that I have been super focused on wanting is “my stuff”. My husband is active-duty Army. The Army has a regulation that mandates my husband has to give me a certain amount of money each month (if I’m not living in housing provided by him) until the divorce. There are also other benefits that my lawyer could ask he give me; but, the money was never important to me. What I was holding onto so tightly as direly important, were…