Katie: Leaving an Abusive Marriage, 20 Years Later

Twenty years ago Katie packed a minivan one outfit at a time, took her two small children to karate, and drove a different way home. They followed a stranger's car from a restaurant parking lot, because the shelter does not give out its address.

Katie is not a professional guest. She is a survivor who spent about two decades not talking about most of this, and agreed to talk here because she thought it might reach someone. Her marriage began in 1989 and turned once the children arrived; the divorce took five years, largely because her ex had unlimited free legal help through his father's connections. She had no car for a while, a minimal allowance, and a transcription job she did after the children were in bed. Her name here is her first name and nothing else.

In this episode Katie walks through the whole arc. The early control, over who she saw and how long she was gone. Gaslighting she had no word for at the time, where objects moved or vanished and she was told she had imagined them. The cover stories she was instructed to repeat when he lost another job. Nights barricading a bedroom door with a dresser and turning it into a game for a three-year-old. The bank teller who gave her the first real plan she had. Two weeks in a shelter over Thanksgiving. And the round of protective orders, violations and hearings that followed.

She and Lisa spend a long stretch on court itself, and Katie is unsentimental about it. What opposing counsel said to her attorney before the first hearing. What happened when she testified about marital rape, and how the resulting attack on her credibility followed her through every appearance after. Why the marriage counselor stayed silent when her husband threatened her in session, and the reason she gave afterwards. What everyone involved treats as a business transaction while it is your entire life. Katie then covers what she would do differently: shielding the children from her own distress, not waiting for them to be older, and using the time they were with their father to look after herself, which she resisted for months and later called the thing that kept her functioning. Both children later needed inpatient and intensive outpatient mental health care. Both graduated college. The family is still in therapy, and Katie's parting instruction is to stop being cruel to yourself, because that is the abuse continuing after the abuser has gone.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• What a safety plan actually contains, from the paperwork to packing one outfit a day
• Why you have to call a shelter before you go, and what to bring that they will not have
• How opposing counsel works on you in a hearing, and why you can feel it but not show it
• What can happen to your credibility when you testify about sexual abuse in a marriage
• Why the people you expect to help often will not, and where help does come from
• What Katie would do differently with her children, starting with what they saw
• Why taking the parenting time you are not with your kids to look after yourself is not selfish
• Why being cruel to yourself after you leave continues the pattern the abuser started

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Meeting Katie, and how the marriage changed once the children arrived
5:00 Control, cover stories, and gaslighting she had no word for
11:00 Barricading the bedroom door, and explaining it to preschoolers
18:00 The bank teller who gave her the first real plan
22:00 Two weeks in the shelter, and the stories that all matched
26:00 Protective orders, violations, and the first hearing
30:00 The marriage counselor's silence, and the reason for it
32:00 On the stand: credibility, and what testifying cost her
43:00 What she would do differently with her children
50:00 Physical outlets, taking care of yourself, and full custody
57:00 Where the family is now, and being kind to yourself

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.