Breaking Bonds Read online

  BREAKING BONDS

  How to Divorce an Abuser and Heal

  A Survival Guide

  Rosemary Lombardy

  Freedom Press

  NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

  CONTENTS

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Introduction

  PART ONE: MARRIAGE—IT TAKES TWO

  Chapter 1: The Truth about Him

  Chapter 2: The Truth about You

  PART TWO: THE GREATEST LOVE OF ALL—

  TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF

  Chapter 3: Body

  Chapter 4: Mind

  Chapter 5: Soul

  Chapter 6: It Takes a Village

  PART THREE: TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS

  Chapter 7: Preparing for Battle

  Chapter 8: The Divorce Process

  Chapter 9: Money Matters

  Chapter 10: Financial Decisions

  PART FOUR: THE NEXT CHAPTER

  Chapter 11: Life after Divorce

  Chapter 12: Life Lessons, Forgiveness, and Purpose

  Acknowledgments

  End Notes

  Resources

  About the Author

  COPYRIGHT NOTICE

  Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reproduce lyrics to “The Gambler,” words and music by Don Schlitz. Copyright © 1977 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC. Copyright renewed. All rights administered by Sony/TV Music Publishing LLC, 124 Church Street, Suite 1200, Nashville, TN. 37219. International Copyright Secured. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard LLC.

  Copyright © 2019 by Rosemary Lombardy

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher (except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review). Contact [email protected].

  Freedom Press

  www.breakingbonds.com

  Book Layout © Book Design Templates

  Cover design by Gus Yoo

  Editing and production by Stephanie Gunning

  Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by schools, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at [email protected].

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018967020

  Breaking Bonds/Rosemary Lombardy —1st ed.

  ISBN: 978-1-7329918-2-8 (epub)

  DEDICATION

  To all who suffer from abuse.

  INTRODUCTION

  “The need for change bulldozed a road

  down the center of my mind.”

  ―MAYA ANGELOU

  The decision to file for divorce is never easy. No one wants to admit that her marriage has failed, especially when children are involved. If a woman is married to an abusive man, the situation is much more complicated. There is the potential for an escalation of the abuse, which may include violence, as well as destructive and outrageous behavior and verbal harassment. If this is your situation, you need to take steps to protect yourself and your children. Things will not get better if you stay. In fact, they will probably get progressively worse. I wrote Breaking Bonds to help you assess if a divorce is right for you, and then, once you decide that it is, to help you navigate the process of divorcing your abuser.

  You cannot live your best life or fulfill your divine purpose while being subjected to the tyranny of abuse. You also cannot truly give your best to others while being subjected to marital abuse, whether it’s physical, mental, or emotional. No one else can change this awful situation for you. You must act while knowing in your heart of hearts that for some period of your life you gave your power away and must now take it back.

  It is time to honor and protect yourself. You are worthy of being treated with dignity, kindness, and respect. You deserve to be loved, happy, and safe. So, resolve right now to stop letting someone victimize you. Decide that you are no longer going to be a victim. Choose not to live in fear and misery. If you are being abused, acknowledge that your husband is a sick and dangerous man who is causing you great harm, and then make whatever changes you deem necessary to protect yourself and change your circumstances.

  By making these decisions and acting upon them, your life will improve greatly. As will the lives of your children. By standing up for yourself against abuse, you will give permission to your children to take care of themselves, and teach them to treat themselves and others with the dignity, kindness, love, and respect that they deserve. You, as their mother, are their first and greatest teacher. You are their role model. If you are unwilling to act merely out of regard for your own happiness, your responsibility for their young lives should give you reason enough to act.

  For convenience, from now on I will assume that you have children rather than indicating that this may or may not be the case each time the issue comes up. Even so, I assure you that this book is for all women, not just for mothers. If you don’t have children, simply ignore what doesn’t apply to you and draw what is meaningful to you from the rest. Most of the information provided in this book will benefit every woman married to an abusive man.

  Throughout Breaking Bonds, I am going to share my experiences as well as those of other women I know who have gone through a divorce. Not all were married to abusive men. Still, not one of them had an easy experience. Divorce is almost always adversarial. Learning from our mistakes and successes will be valuable to you.

  WAITING FOR HERCULES

  “If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just

  have to be a horrible warning.”

  ―CATHERINE AIRD

  If I am going to accomplish what I intend to with this book, it is necessary for me to expose very personal and humiliating truths about my life in the pages of this book to help you avoid making some of the mistakes I made. You see, I am an independent, highly educated, and successful woman. For most of my career, I have earned an income well into the six figures. So, there are a lot of reasons I should have known better than to marry this man or than to have stayed married to him for so long. I should have noticed the signs while we were dating. I should have picked a better partner. I should have ended the relationship sooner. I should have stopped making excuses for his behavior. And yes, I should not have allowed my children to see him belittle me.

  The list of my “I should haves” kept me stuck in misery for many long years—even after we were divorced. And it was not necessary at all for me to do that to myself. My husband was the perpetrator of my abuse, and his behavior was awful. But I stayed, so I also did it to myself.

  I refused to accept that I had no choice other than to end a bad marriage to save my children and myself. Years of being tormented without ceasing, like Prometheus chained to a rock and having his liver torn out by an eagle, only to have it grow back and be eaten again the next day, had destroyed my self-esteem. It took me over twenty-five years to realize that Hercules was not coming to my rescue.

  One of my biggest mistakes was my unwillingness to accept sooner that my ex-husband was not sorry for the things he did and said, and was not willing or capable of change. I was in total denial of this fact because I wanted to believe that he was a better person than he really was. I also believed God wanted me to stay married, and that I needed to sacrifice my life for my children so that they wouldn’t grow up in a “broken home.” That idea was stupid. Well meaning, but stupid.

  That does not mean that I am stupid, no matter what my ex-husband says.

  Neither are you.

  Stop waiting for Hercules.

  TO LOVE AND TO CHERISH

  “The real
act of marriage takes place in the heart, not in the ballroom or church or synagogue. It’s a choice you make—not just on your wedding day, but over and over again—and that choice is reflected in the way you treat your husband or wife.”

  ―BARBARA DE ANGELIS

  God calls many of us to marriage, with all its beautiful promises of sharing, caring, and intimacy, unconditional love, and the joyful messiness of daily living. Ideally, this includes overlooking small flaws and quirks in your partner, tenderness, demonstrations of respect, and speaking kindly. Despite my experience, to this day I still think this is how marriage should be.

  If you are reading this, then it is likely you are in deep pain. There is almost nothing worse than being abused and disrespected as a human being by a man who has promised to love and cherish you for the rest of your lives. That he would treat the mother of his children in this way is no reflection on your value as a person. You may be confused because your husband is not always abusive to you and he almost always seems normal and nice to others outside the home. Sometimes he is even nice to you, making you hope that things are getting better. But then he explodes again and again in private for no apparent reason. A better life awaits you once you accept the reality that your relationship is not working.

  Divorce is difficult even in marriages where the partners customarily treat one another with respect. Don’t mistake the subject of this book for “conscious uncoupling.” Divorcing an abuser is not a normal situation where two people split because they have grown apart and fallen out of love, or discover their values are incompatible and they want different things out of life.

  Leaving an abuser is scary because you are dealing with a dangerous and unpredictable man, even if the abuse in your household is not physical. You may be having a hard time trusting anyone right now, especially because at one time you thought that you could trust your husband and you were wrong. If you are married to a habitual liar who is in total denial of what he is doing to you, you may even think that you can’t trust yourself and your instincts. He may want you to believe that what he did wasn’t abuse, or didn’t happen, or that you provoked him—so all of it was your fault. “You deserved what you got coming.” He may say he’s sorry, but it keeps happening over and over. He likely breaks promise after promise. If you are ever going to have a happy life, you must not believe that what he is telling you is the truth or that you deserve to be poorly treated and punished.

  If the man you married is not willing to get counseling immediately, then you are putting yourself and your children in harm’s way by residing with him any longer. If he is willing to acknowledge that he has a serious problem and takes responsibility for it and gets counseling, then your marriage may still have a chance.

  However, if your husband is not willing to make drastic changes, it is magical thinking for you to believe or hope that things will get better. The odds are very high that they won’t.

  Most abusers are not capable of stopping toxic patterns of behavior. There is a dynamic to an abusive relationship that can become entrenched. Even if the abuse is “only” verbal, it may escalate to being physical. In the meantime, verbal abuse is damaging to the psyche. It is not something you or your children should be exposed to in your home.

  If the abuse in your home is physical, you will need to act immediately. Deep down, you already know that you must get out, or you wouldn’t be reading this book. Probably you are dreading what lies ahead, as you know the divorce is going to be very difficult. You have no choice.

  Remember that your children have a bird’s eye view of what a dysfunctional marriage is like and how awfully a couple who supposedly love each other can treat one another. You hurt them by staying. If you think you are hiding what’s happening from them, you aren’t. Children are sensitive to their parents’ tension and unhappiness. Although you may be in total denial of how loudly your husband is berating you, your children aren’t deaf. Looks of contempt and disgust directed at you are not invisible either. Nonverbal communication can be just as damaging to their mental and emotional development as it is to you.

  My point is that they already know what is happening and see that, thus far, you are willing to accept being treated this way. If they grow up to think that this is acceptable behavior, they could lose respect for you and come to believe that you are weak because you allow this behavior to continue. In time, they might start treating you with the same disrespect as your husband. If this is the case, they are more likely to grow up to be abusers themselves, or victims of abuse, because they think that it is normal and acceptable behavior. It is your responsibility to show them that abuse isn’t either customary or tolerable. You are the parent. Set a good example. Our lives are reflections of the choices we make. It’s time for you to look in the mirror.

  PRACTICAL MATTERS

  In this book, I will give you a lot of practical information. I will outline strategies for dealing with your abuser, your children, and third parties who could be your advocates or adversaries in court, and explain how to handle the financial and legal issues that you will have to deal with in order to divorce your abusive husband. This book will give you insights on how to prepare for what is a legal and emotional battle and show you how to deflect or minimize the damage your abuser will likely try to inflict on you and your life, as well as how to recover and heal.

  The first two chapters define the problem and encourage you to take responsibility for what is not is working in your life and to make the decision to change it. The religious stigma of divorce as well as dealing with the judgment and demands of others are also addressed.

  Chapters 3–5 help you to prepare physically, mentally, and spiritually for the battle that lies ahead. I believe that it is necessary to focus on healing and self-care starting now so that you will be able to handle the stress of the divorce and be at your best while you are preparing for and doing battle with your husband. You will need energy and brainpower to deal with a very manipulative and unscrupulous person over a period of many months. You will find informative material on leading a healthy lifestyle—everything from eating sensibly and staying fit, how to sleep soundly, breathing techniques to reduce stress, and how to break bad habits. It is important to have reserves of emotional and physical stamina to cope with the stress of standing up to an angry and abusive opponent day after day for as long as it takes to get your freedom. Building your mental and physical health will help you survive this challenge without getting sick. Begin making changes now in your daily routine so that you get enough nutrients, exercise, and rest to feel empowered and think clearly. This will boost your self-esteem and confidence.

  I also discuss how to improve your self-regard using affirmations and mirror work. Other methods of self-care, including chakra clearing, music, gratitude, and prayer are examined. The importance of repairing and enhancing self-esteem is explained so that you do not repeat the cycle of abuse in your other relationships.

  Feel free to hopscotch around these three chapters and use what is helpful to you at the moment. Some of the subsections may not be relevant to your specific situation. You can go back and review some of this information later, when you have the time and inclination. Many of these tools will also help with your recovery post-divorce.

  Chapters 6 and 7 offer resources, preparation steps, and strategy to enable you to anticipate your husband’s likely maneuvers and control the outcome of your divorce as much as possible. I will teach you how to prepare to leave your husband safely in a manner that positions you for the best results financially and legally when you file for divorce. Among other things, you will find a checklist for what types of financial and legal records to bring with you when you leave the house. I also discuss when to go to a shelter and how, when, and why to file for a legal restraining order. Physical protection for your children so they are not kidnapped is also addressed.

  Chapters 8–10 discuss the divorce process, financial matters, and maintaining control of your financi
al decisions. You will learn how to hire a lawyer and work with a mediator. Investments, credit, life and health insurance, social security, and disability benefits are considered. Pensions, other retirement accounts, child support, and alimony are also explained.

  Advice is given here on getting a job or going back to school so you can support yourself after the divorce.

  The final two chapters address life after divorce, including recovery, boundary setting, budgeting, independence, happiness, life lessons, purpose, and forgiveness. The reason for going through this difficult ordeal of divorcing an abuser in the first place is to be healthy, happy, and at peace.

  I am not a therapist, a doctor, or a lawyer and I make no claims to expertise in the fields of psychology, medicine, or the law. I have had over thirty years of experience as a financial advisor, during which time I have given many people advice while they were going through divorces. My personal experience of divorcing an abuser and of advising clients on their finances, as well as undergoing over twenty years of therapy, gives me an uncommon perspective on divorce and healing that may be very helpful to you.

  Any advice that I offer here is my opinion. I offer it with the intention to encourage you to seek professional guidance, to ask good and productive questions, to do your research and make the right decisions for you, to take appropriate actions, and to heal. Some chapters may be more helpful to you than others. Take what works for you and leave the rest.

  I don’t expect you to agree with all my opinions, which are based on my point of view and are not meant to replace your thinking for yourself as well as evaluating professional advice that you receive for your unique circumstances.

  IN LOVE AND WAR

  “The truth does not change according to our ability