Learning how to set boundaries in an emotionally abusive relationship may seem confusing and overwhelming.

Setting Boundaries With Your Emotionally Abusive Husband Will Establish Greater Safety

Have you ever tried to set boundaries expecting more safety and security, only to feel more exposed to harm than ever? That’s because traditional boundary-setting models simply don’t work in abuse scenarios.

Before I share what does work, here are a few resources:

To find out if your husband is emotionally abusive (and if you even need to set boundaries), Learn how to set boundaries, click here take my free emotional abuse test.
If you discover that he is emotionally abusive, and you want to go more in depth into how to set boundaries, my Living Free Workshop uses visuals to teach women how to set boundaries through easy to follow steps.

Okay, so here’s what you need to know to set boundaries if your husband is emotionally abusive.

Effective Boundaries are:

Not communicated to the emotional abuser with words
Courageous actions that evolve to fit YOUR emotional safety needs
Essential to emotional and psychological safety

Setting Effective Boundaries Does Not Include:

If-then statements given to the abuser verbally or in writing
Stating your values or what you need
Telling him if he does it again, you’ll do something in response

How To Set Boundaries in My Emotionally Abusive Relationship?

Establishing effective safety boundaries is new territory for many women who find Betrayal Trauma Recovery.

If you’re wondering how to set boundaries, begin this process, ask yourself these questions:

What actions can I take today to begin creating more emotional & psychological safety for myself?
How will I learn effective strategies to keep expanding my emotional & psychological safety? The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop teaches you step-by-step how to set boundaries effectively and maintain boundaries in an emotionally abusive relationship.
Where will I seek support as I begin the process of establishing safety boundaries? We recommend Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions.

Elsa, a member of the Betrayal Trauma Recovery community, shares how she learned how to set boundaries with her emotionally abusive husband.

Transcript: How To Set Boundaries With An Emotionally Abusive Husband

Anne: We have a member of our community on today’s episode. We’re going to call her Elsa and talk about how to set boundaries. Welcome Elsa.

Elsa: Thank you.

Anne: She’s been a podcast listener for a long time. It’s always an honor to have podcast listeners on. So thank you so much for supporting the podcast by listening to it. Let’s start with your story. Tell me about the beginning. Did you recognize your husband’s abusive behaviors at first?

Elsa: When I first met him, two days in, he told me something that wasn’t the truth. But I thought, “Wow, how vulnerable. He told me he cheated on a past partner.” One partner, one time.It’s grooming. I had no idea what grooming was, it was a way to get me to trust him. I thought, “He was up front and told me this information. It’s all there is. All the skeletons are out of the closet.” And they weren’t.

Anne: If your husband is grooming, he makes you think, “No one who is a liar would tell me this . He must be telling the truth.” He tells a part of the truth that is the tip of the iceberg. If he told the truth, he’d say, “I look at pornography and masturbate every day. I’ve cheated on every partner. And I have every intention of cheating because I don’t want to be with one person.” But he doesn’t. He says just a tiny bit and then claims, “Now everything’s out on the table.”

When He Gives You The Impression You Don’t Need To Learn How To Set Boundaries

Elsa: It creates a false sense of safety, yeah.

Anne: Exactly, then you are left wondering what to do when your husband betrays your trust. Exactly, and it’s actually super scary because if it was before you were engaged, it’s really alarming that they think in these sick, twisted ways, like, “Oh, if I lie to her and she trusts me, that’s the kind of woman I wanna marry rather than a healthy person thinking, ” I would like a healthy relationship where we trust each other.”

And you had no concrete reasons to learn how to set boundaries.

Elsa: It was mind blowing that it was that planned and calculated. Before we married, I noticed some things regarding his behavior. There was an instance when he omitted some information. And I didn’t consider it abuse. I addressed it with him. He agreed and said I was right. I thought, that’s it. That’s solved. I felt like he heard me, and we moved on.

After we married, I noticed he was more contemptuous when I brought things to him. And that’s when I started to have some questions and feel quite out of sorts because it felt like such a change from when we were dating.

Anne: What was the nature of the information that he withheld?

Elsa: We hadn’t dated that long, and I had a trip planned with a couple of my girlfriends to go to Europe. I’d be away for a couple of months. He said, would you want to be exclusive? It was like a big yes for me. But I felt like communication was difficult during the trip. I felt like he was hard to pin down.

The Camping Trip Incident

He said he was going to go camping one weekend. I had this gut feeling that he may go camping with somebody he worked with. Who was quite a bit younger than him.

And I asked him if he did, and at first he said he went with just my dog because he was taking care of my dog. And then he said, “Oh, I went with some coworkers.” I found out the truth about six months later. That he had gone on a one-on-one camping trip with a 21 year old when he was in his mid thirties.

So that’s obviously a red flag. But at the time, I was already pretty invested. And he denied anything happened. At first he understood, but after a few days of listening to my concerns about him withholding that information, he pressured me to “get over it.” And I worked through it.

Anne: Yeah, under those circumstances, I would have been hard to figure out you needed to learn how to set boundaries. Did you ever find out later that there was something that happened between them?

Elsa: Exactly. Looking back now and the knowledge I have, I think he was grooming that co-worker. So I think it probably confused her quite a bit, if I was to put myself in her shoes. He told me she shot him down and said no.

Anne: Totally, so had he been able to, he would have.

Trickle Disclosure & Manipulation

Elsa: Yes, and he said that. Six months later.

Anne: And then when they decide to tell you, it’s calculated to hurt you. When they feel like you’re maybe having a great day or something’s going well for you. They calculate it to hurt you. So can you tell me when he told you this?

Elsa: He did do that to keep me kind of destabilized.

This particular instance was before we got engaged. I think he was afraid I would leave him. So he told me he lied. And told me, “Now we have everything out in the open. Now you know everything.” It was a lie. I didn’t know how to set boundaries.

How To Set Boundaries: Grooming

Anne: What types of reasons did you give in the beginning for this behavior that seemed kind of off?

How To Set Boundaries In Counseling

Elsa: Before I met him, he’d been in the city with a lot of college students, young women, and he was in that kind of party atmosphere. So we were newly married and we moved to a different college town and his behavior towards me changed. I thought, “It’s probably me.” Plus, my husband says I was the problem too. And I wondered if I should go to therapy. And he said, “Yeah, I think you should.” So he really let me believe I needed therapy and I needed to do my own work.

When You Blame Yourself

So I started counseling, and he did come to some early counseling sessions with me. And we found out there was an addiction.

Anne: Did you find the therapy helpful? Did the therapist talk about how how to set boundaries with your husband?

Elsa: No. I was pregnant, feeling anxious in the pregnancy, and I wasn’t able to put my finger on what was going on. I worried about the impact on my unborn child. So the goal was to reduce my anxiety.

Anne: Did you get diagnosed with anxiety at that time?

Elsa: No, we used it for insurance purposes, but I’ve never had a diagnosis of anything.

Anne: That’s good. So many women get diagnosed with something during this time because instead of their therapist saying, “This is your internal warning system telling you something’s wrong. You are reacting in a totally normal way. Let’s figure out why your warning system is going off.”

Instead of saying that, the therapist is like, “You’re just another crazy woman who’s having too much anxiety and you’re hysterical for no reason.”

Elsa: That’s the only message I was getting.

Anne: So the therapist doesn’t help you figure out what’s going on. She doesn’t help you figure out that you’re abused or how to set boundaries. How did you discover his use? Was your husband on his phone all the time?

Discovering Addiction

Elsa: Turns out my gut is sensitive. So I kept bringing my concerns to him over and over. “Something doesn’t feel right. Something has changed.”

Then one day I thought to ask him, “Do you look at inappropriate media?. And he said, “Yes, I do. So that I don’t bleep other women.”

How To Set Boundaries: He Goes To SAA

He shocked me. It’s a moment etched in my memory. I was shocked he never offered that information. That conversation never came up.

Anne: Also, his opinion, his viewpoint, was that if he did not look at it, he did not have the integrity, ability, or adult skill of not having sex with someone who wasn’t his wife. That was his reasoning. “I’m looking at this awful stuff for you. because if I didn’t, I would be out having sex with other women. And you don’t want me to do that, do you?”

Elsa: It was progress in his mind.

Anne: That must have been devastating. I’m so sorry. When does the word addict come into play?

Elsa: He told me he was a sex addict and I kind of laughed. I didn’t think it was a real thing. Then he said he was going to go to sex addicts anonymous.

Much like when he confessed about the story about the 21 year old girl, I think he could sense that I would have him leave the house. And so he found SAA, and said, “I’m going to go.” And he went. At that point, I thought that was our only issue. I didn’t realize I needed to learn how to set boundaries.

Trying Therapy

But later, I found out it was much bigger than looking at exploitative material. I needed to protect myself by learning how to set boundaries.

Anne: Oh yeah, for sure. This is a systemic issue and it breaks my heart when he lies. If he says he is an addict and he is gonna get help for addiction, the help for wives of addicts centers around sort of leaving him alone and staying on your side of the street and working on your “codependency” or your problems.

If he’s abusive, you need someone to help you get off the street all together because none of it is you.

Elsa: Yes, that’s what I was seeking from professionals. I didn’t get that.

Once I knew he had an addiction, I started reading. And that was what was recommended. I didn’t feel safe around his counselor, who was not certified sex addiction therapist. But I was trying all these different things.

Anne: Even if the person was a certified sexual addiction therapist, the likelihood of them identifying the abuse is next to zero, because they don’t see it as an abuse issue.

They’re not certified abuse specialists. They’re certified sexual addiction therapists. So they’ll identify anything he does as an extension of the addiction. So they’ll say, “He’s in addict mode. He’s not in recovery.” Rather than, “He’s abusive.” Which is a totally different thing for a woman to hear.

Separation & Escalation

Elsa: For sure. Yeah. They didn’t tell me that. So he didn’t want to leave the comfort of the home. We had a loft in our garage. He’d go sleep out there. And I took a trip to California to visit a friend, to have some space. I had my daughter with me. And when I came back, he picked us up at the airport. He barely acknowledged me. There was a lot of feeling of contempt.

And I was like, I want him out of the home.

So I told him, and he raged and tore things apart in the house. And I did call the police. They came. He left after that for two months. He still had access to my daughter, he’d still come and get her, but we had no interaction.

Anne: So you’re starting to learn how to use boundaries to separate yourself from his harm at this point.

Elsa: Totally. So fast forward a couple months. He’s still coming to get my daughter, but I try to have little to no contact with him in that exchange. Then we’re at church on Easter and I walk by where my daughter is in the playroom, and he’s standing at the doorway of the playroom.

It was so pleasant to talk with him. And he was so kind, he says he’s sorry. So from there, we started communication again.

How To Set Boundaries: False Hope Of Reconciliation

And we start to move forward and repair our relationship. And he eventually moved in after about a month. We were together for another six months, and it got worse. It got much worse. H e cut off all communication I had with his counselor. She would allow me to call her, still no knowledge of how to set boundaries. He didn’t allow me to talk to her.

He wouldn’t talk to anybody in the church with me. And he wouldn’t let me be around if he was talking to his sister. She was a bit older than him, and was a support to me. So I was basically completely isolated and the abuse escalated.

So he was going on a trip to see his family. And I just knew. So I said, “When you leave this time, you’re not coming back in the home.” When he first left, all I could think about was, how do I keep my daughter close to him? How do I make this work for him?

Final Decision To Divorce

My whole way of thinking was what would he want? And then I started to think about what I wanted and what brings me peace. And that led me to make some choices for myself and my daughter.

I didn’t tell him that I changed my plan to move back to Canada, where I’m a citizen.

I was authorized to work in the United States. He thought I would continue to pursue my green card, and he could help me so that I could remain in the United States. He believed he still had a certain amount of control over me, but I took action, which is how to set boundaries.

When he found out, he was obviously upset, but it protects me. I’m not a citizen in the US and I don’t have any support.

Anne: And protected you from prolonged legal abuse in terms of the divorce. But maybe not in terms of custody, because I have a feeling that you’re going to bring up custody. Because this guy sounds like a coercive controller. It’s strange, because they do things that seem stupid, because it’s hurting them. But it’s also hurting you.

Finding Support Through Betrayal Trauma Recovery

Anne: It also seems smart. Women in this situation are usually like, how can you be so smart and so stupid simultaneously?

Elsa: It’s a question that’s crossed my mind, yeah.

Elsa: I lived, in the northern states near the Canadian border. I just couldn’t find anything in the city for support. I mentioned he started SAA. They did have a group. Then I found a COSA group of about four or five women in that area. I just didn’t find that I got much from it. So I started looking for podcasts. And I stumbled across Betrayal Trauma Recovery. Being so isolated, it was my main support.

The Betrayal Trauma Recovery podcast helped me connect the dots. I did read some books, but I would say the podcasts from Betrayal Trauma Recovery were the main thing that kept me rooted in reality. Where I was like, “Yes, this matches.”

When You Can’t Find the Right Support To Set Boundaries

Because like you said, in certain parts of COSA helped kind of. But then listening to the podcast and the different people you would have on was the main thing that rooted me in reality of what I was experiencing.

It was like a big, yes, this fits with what I’m experiencing. And that’s what helped me in a lot of my decision making. His counselor didn’t know about the podcast. But it threatened him that I was learning what I was learning. His counselor even said to him at one point, “She’s reading these books. She’s reading these books.” Like it threatened him cause then I was no longer trapped in the chaos.

Anne: When you found the BTR podcast was it? Kind of revelatory? Like, was it something totally new that you hadn’t thought of or heard before? Or was it something that you did know inside, but you just didn’t know you knew it?

Elsa: I’d say the latter, for sure.

How To Set Boundaries: Realizing The Extent Of Abuse

I work in healthcare, I have some knowledge of like, mental health. So, as I started to listen to it, I’m like, Yes, this makes sense as to what I already know. Like I I knew about attachment and addiction . it was like I knew it was ill treatment but I didn’t think it was as calculated as it was. BTR episodes started to put pieces together.

Anne: When women find the podcast, they’re like, “Yes!” Like they knew it. But they didn’t have words for it or couldn’t bring it to the surface. And they’re also like, “What!? How did I not know?” That’s how I felt. I was like, how am I a college graduate with a master’s degree who doesn’t want to be abused? And not realize I’m being abused? This is crazy. It’s both like, “I knew it.” And then like, “How did I not know it?” at the exact same time?

And it’s such a strange place to be, where at least I felt so stupid that I didn’t see it. But then also not stupid at all because I’d never been educated about it. And all the abuse checklists are like, does he control your transportation? And you’re like, no, does he trap you in a room? No. I mean, maybe he might trap you in a room. I’m not saying he wouldn’t. I’m just saying the classic abuse checklists didn’t seem to fit my situation. It was just confusing.

The Role Of Feelings In Identifying Abuse

Elsa: The idea of secret keeping his “power over” resonated with me. I’m like, yeah. Because at first I thought he didn’t realize it was painful for me. Or he didn’t realize the depth of the impact of his actions. But then I circled around to the fact that I didn’t matter to him.

Anne: He uses your feelings against you to control you.

Elsa: Yeah, and that.

Anne: Rather than listening or caring about your feelings. So the only reason he pays attention to your feelings is to manipulate you, control the situation and the narrative. And that’s where women, well meaning, awesome, caring women, don’t know what they’re dealing with. So of course, they’re going to share their feelings with their husband. Because they think in sharing their feelings, they can resolve the issue. They want to know if their abusive husband is changing.

But with an abuser sharing your feelings, it is literally offering them a list of how to manipulate you better. That’s why it’s so important to know what you’re looking at.

Boundaries & Responses

Elsa: For sure, yeah. Trust your gut. How do you feel around him? That was a big one for me. I never felt calm, I always felt like something wasn’t right.

During our divorce, the lawyers said, “Let’s subpoena his bank records.”

So I’m like, “Okay, sure.”

And his bank records showed he was at a college bar every night. Then, he started to really just harass me a lot through the parenting app. We had created this parenting plan when we lived in, in the U.S. Which was a part of how to set boundaries.

And when the borders finally opened and we moved , we had no idea of the impact it would have on my daughter. She was barely two at the time. I worked full time, and she was in daycare full time. It was a rigorous schedule for her. Two nights a week, she’d have to be away from home for 12 hours. We’d have to meet him at this neutral location. It’s dark. It’s raining. The roads are bad.

How To Set Boundaries: Using the Parenting App For Documentation

As much feedback as I gave him: that this was so hard on her. Can we please figure out a different way for him to get that one and a half hour visit by extending his weekend visits or something, he just wouldn’t budge. And he could see the difficulty for her in terms of her sleep schedule.

Anne: And for you.

Elsa: Exactly. He knew, and he didn’t care if it was hard on me. And she was just a byproduct of that. So that went on for about six months. And then I just said, “Enough.” I learned how to set boundaries from BTR, from you and your podcast and your group sessions. I said, “You can take me to court, but I’m decreasing this to one night a week on her weeknights.”

And he was a lot of a lot of talk, but then no action. Because if you get down to the truth of everything, of what he actually wants. It’s not that extra one and a half hours. It was more like you said, it was impacting our lives. We had no free time, we’re exhausted all the time. He thought it was fun to make us miserable.

A lot of crazy making in that he’ll say, “You never give me any time, da da da.” At first I was over explaining and deflecting, and now I don’t do any of that. The parenting app has been so great because it’s all there. It’s all documented.

The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free & Message Strategies

It’s valid to look back and go, this is all the times I offered. He knows he doesn’t try to make up any extra time with her, so it’s playing itself out. And the less I engage, the less of a rise he gets from me, the more I have cut down any interaction on the app, to like the bare minimum, he shrinks away.

He doesn’t try to make up any extra time with her, so it’s playing itself out. And the less I engage, the less of a rise he gets from me, the more I have cut down any interaction on the app, to like the bare minimum, he shrinks away.

Anne: I love that you’re using The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop strategies. That is awesome.

The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop teaches you how to think about the abuser, so that you can respond to them in a way that protects you. And learn how to set boundaries. Where he can’t actually cross them.

Elsa: I love that.

Anne: It is hard ’cause the way other therapists teach boundaries, women are like, “But he keeps crossing my boundaries.” And that’s because the way the therapists teach it is not helpful to victims of abuse. Because it’s possible to set boundaries where he actually can’t cross them.

How To Set Boundaries: Do Not Believe Your Abuser

And women who take the Living Free Workshop learn, in your case, you were like, okay, he’s threatening to take me to court, he wants me to be terrified of losing my daughter. He’s threatening me so I’ll do what he wants. So I’m just gonna say, “Sounds good. This is my attorney’s phone number. Let me know how it goes.”

I mean, some will take you to court, but the majority of them think the threats in and of themselves will work, and they don’t actually wanna spend the time and money and energy to take you to court because in reality, their actions rarely match their words.

In that way, women can be delivered because the strategy is not believing them.

The Importance of Boundaries

Elsa: Exactly. What you said about the boundaries, I think of that all the time. I share it with other people, because I learned it from you and the podcast. And The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions because many people think it’s a lot of words to describe your boundary. I love that it’s an action, an action you take.I advocate for myself and my daughter. I have the documentation to support decisions. So I’ve protected myself that way.

Anne: Yeah, that’s the only thing that will actually protect you. Like in the beginning, you’re trying to figure out, is this abuse? What’s going on?

If you’re using the Living Free strategies, you don’t have to ask him, “Hey, are you abusive?” Or tell him, “this is abuse.” You don’t have to bring it up. You can just observe. And you can see that he’s abusive. If you see that he’s abusive, you need to get to safety. But you don’t need to say anything about it. And if you tell them your boundary, it’s a big giant flag that says, “Hey, this is how to abuse me.” So once you know they’re an abuser, you never want to tell them.

Elsa: I learned that from you too. I had to go through some of the documentation recently. And I think it was over 30 counts of him accusing me of being a parental alienator and narcissist. And I don’t comment. There’s no point, but yeah, he heavily projects on me that I’m mentally unstable.

I learned from you To Focus On How I Feel

Setting boundaries has protected my peace because otherwise, he’s always diminishing me or invalidating me. Or make snide remarks about, or attack, your character.

Before I just believed him when he said he loved me and he wouldn’t do it again. But now, he can’t do it to me. I’ve even watched my own daughter tell him no, like on a video call. Like she says, “No I don’t like that book.” And there he goes again, telling her “Of course you like it. You just don’t know that you do yet.” It’s constant harassment to her.

So now that I know how to set boundaries because I learned that from The Living Free Workshop, I don’t have to experience that anymore because I protect myself from him.

Anne: I’m so glad the strategies worked for you. I’ve heard that from so many women. Thank you so much for sharing your story. I appreciate the time that you’ve taken to talk with us today.

Elsa: Yeah, thank you so much for everything.

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