How The MEND Project Has Helped Me
The MEND Project has helped me better understand the resources, tools, and skills needed for healing after domestic violence. As a survivor, I have learned that healing is not simply about leaving an abusive situation—it is also about rebuilding trust in myself, recognizing unhealthy patterns, establishing boundaries, and reconnecting with my sense of safety and worth. The MEND Project has given me practical resources and a deeper understanding of trauma-informed healing, while reminding me that recovery is a process that requires compassion, support, and patience with myself.
The Abuse I Didn't Recognize
I was exhausted.
I had talked to my coworkers. I had talked to people at church. I had asked for support, suggestions, feedback—anything that might help me figure out how to make my marriage work.
The advice was familiar:
Pray.
Go to therapy.
Connect with a small group.
Spend more time together.
Fight for your marriage.
We tried them all.
Or at least, I did.
Looking back, that distinction matters.
Because while I was searching for answers, trying to repair what was broken, and doing everything I had been encouraged to do, only one of us seemed to have the intention of actually changing the things that were hurting our marriage.
Still, I did what so many people encouraged me to do.
I hung in there.
And sometimes, “hanging in there” can sound like faith.
Sometimes it looks like commitment.
Sometimes it is called perseverance.
And sometimes, without us realizing it, it becomes a reason we remain in places that are becoming increasingly unsafe.
The Accusation
At one point in our marriage, I learned that my husband had told my sisters that I was featured in multiple videos on an adult website.
I wasn't.
I had never participated in anything like that.
The videos weren't me.
In fact, they were videos of same-sex couples.
But for several weeks, he used this supposed “evidence” to accuse me of infidelity and repeatedly remind me that I wasn't perfect.
I was confused.
I had never even had a conversation with another man through text that would have violated the boundaries of our marriage—or even the boundaries of our relationship when we were dating.
So I couldn't understand why he was on the website.
Why would he tell my family that I was in those videos when he knew that was impossible?
Why would he spend months trying to convince me that I had done something I knew I had never done?
When he finally showed me what he claimed was his evidence on my birthday, I was hurt and embarrassed.
And confused.
There was anger.
There was sadness.
There was disbelief.
It was a roller coaster of emotions.
I can laugh about parts of the absurdity now.
But it took a long time before I could find any humor in that story.
Several weeks passed, and he decided he was ready to move beyond the incident. He asked for forgiveness and once again promised he would go to therapy.
We agreed to try one final time to make our marriage work.
I searched for therapists.
Every week, I would send him names and contact information for providers.
And every week, he refused to discuss it.
One More Try
Not long afterward, he proposed that we take our children to his home country for the first time so they could meet his family.
His proposal was simple: we would take the trip, return home, and then focus on healing our marriage through individual and couples therapy.
Reluctantly, I agreed.
Over the next several months, the conversation surrounding the trip became increasingly difficult.
He suggested that I pay for the entire trip and that his mother host us once we arrived.
I explained that the trip was expensive and that we needed to share the financial responsibility.
That conversation quickly turned into accusations that I was trying to sabotage the trip.
Eventually, I reached my breaking point.
One day, while I was folding clothes and being scolded by him, I calmly told him that the children and I would no longer be going on the trip.
He told me I could stay home.
But the children were going.
They would go wherever he decided they would go.
And something inside of me panicked.
The momma bear in me came alive.
The next day, while I was at work, I called a divorce attorney.
I began telling her pieces of my story.
She listened.
Then she waited for me to pause.
And she said something that changed the way I understood my own life:
“You are in a domestic violence relationship.”
She began talking about safety.
I immediately corrected her.
I told her I wasn't in a domestic violence relationship.
I was a therapist.
I knew the signs.
I understood domestic violence.
I knew what abuse looked like.
She listened respectfully.
Then she firmly explained that domestic violence isn't limited to physical violence.
She told me that despite the absence of physical violence, the patterns I was describing were consistent with domestic violence.
For the first time, pieces of my life began connecting.
The Feeling I Couldn't Explain
When I arrived home, I told my husband that I had retained an attorney.
I told him that I wanted us to work together.
He laughed.
Then he said:
“I'll never leave you. I'll never divorce you.”
For the next five days, I continued my normal routine.
I worked.
I cared for my children.
I went through the motions of everyday life.
But something felt different.
I couldn't explain it.
I felt uneasy.
I felt unsafe.
And that scared me because I couldn't identify what I was afraid of.
I didn't believe he would hurt me.
I didn't believe he would hurt our children.
But for the first time in our marriage, my body was telling me something my mind hadn't fully understood.
I bought pepper spray.
I started researching other forms of protection.
I still couldn't explain why.
I just knew something wasn't right.
The Day Everything Changed
I went to church.
I ran errands.
I played sidewalk chalk with my children.
It was an ordinary day.
The kind of day you don't realize is ordinary until you would give anything to have another one.
Eventually, I went into our bedroom to take a nap.
About an hour later, my husband woke me and asked to talk.
The conversation quickly became filled with bizarre accusations.Then he pulled a tracker from behind his back and threw it onto the bed.
He told me he had been tracking me for almost four years—since the birth of our son.
I was devastated.
I felt violated.
I began explaining that what he had done was wrong and that I believed it was illegal.
Then he pulled out a gun.
He had purchased it only about 24 hours earlier.
And he began shooting.
He fired at me ten times.
Two bullets grazed me.
Eight pierced my body.
The final shot was used on himself.
And our children watched.
Our son stood in the kitchen, frozen in shock.
He didn't move.
He didn't speak.
He couldn't process what was happening.
My daughter was nearby, and you can hear her on the emergency call pleading with him to stop shooting me.
At the time, I was only aware of four shots.
It would be a full day before I understood the extent of my injuries.
That day changed everything.
One in Four
One in four.
A Christian.
A therapist.
A woman engaged in her community.
A woman who knew the signs.
A woman who knew about abuse.
And yet, I missed them in my own life.
Or perhaps I didn't miss them.
Perhaps I had learned to explain them away.
I had learned to pray about them.
I had learned to fight for my marriage.
I had learned to forgive.
I had learned to stay.
I had been encouraged not to create another “broken home” for my children.
So I stayed.
And one of the hardest things I would eventually hear was:
“If I had known it was that bad, I would have encouraged you to leave.”
I understand what they meant.
But that sentence has stayed with me.
Because what I hear in it now is this:
We didn't know.
And I wonder how many women are surrounded by people who would help them—if only someone knew how bad it really was.
Why Did I Stay?
I have asked myself this question more times than I can count.
Why did I stay?
Why didn't I leave years earlier when I began seeing pieces of who he really was?
Why didn't I leave when I learned about infidelity?
Why didn't I leave during the years of gaslighting, manipulation, confusion, and emotional exhaustion?
Why?
The answer isn't simple.
I was afraid.
But I wasn't only afraid of him.
I was afraid of everything that came with leaving.
I was afraid of being judged.
I was afraid of being blamed.
I was afraid of disappointing people.
I was afraid of what leaving would mean for my children.
I was afraid of being told that I hadn't prayed enough.
That I hadn't tried hard enough.
That I hadn't forgiven enough.
That I hadn't fought hard enough for my marriage.
I was afraid of becoming another statistic.
Another divorced woman.
Another “broken home.”
So I stayed.
I stayed because I thought staying was strength.
I stayed because I thought leaving meant failure.
I stayed because I thought commitment meant enduring almost anything.
And I stayed because sometimes the people we love most are unknowingly teaching us how to remain in situations they would never want us to endure.
What I Know Now
I know now that prayer and leaving are not opposites.
Therapy and boundaries are not opposites.
Forgiveness and accountability are not opposites.
Fighting for your marriage does not mean fighting against yourself.
And protecting your children does not always mean keeping the family together at all costs.
Sometimes protecting your children means protecting yourself.
Sometimes faith means recognizing that God did not ask you to remain where you are being harmed.
Sometimes the bravest prayer is:
“God, give me the courage to leave.”
I used to think surviving meant that I had somehow failed.
Now I understand that survival is evidence that I kept choosing life—even when I didn't yet know what life after my marriage would look like.
I survived something I never imagined would happen to me.
And I learned something I wish every woman knew:
Domestic violence doesn't always look like what we imagine.
It doesn't always begin with a fist.
Sometimes it begins with control.
Manipulation.
Isolation.
Gaslighting.
Threats.
Financial control.
Monitoring.
Accusations.
Fear.
And sometimes, by the time the physical violence begins, the emotional and psychological groundwork has already been laid for years.
I knew the signs.
I just didn't know I was living them.
And maybe that's the part of my story that needs to be told the most.
Because sometimes the woman sitting next to you in church knows the scriptures.
Sometimes she is the therapist.
Sometimes she's the social worker.
Sometimes she's the woman everyone comes to for advice.
Sometimes she is the woman telling everyone else to leave.
And sometimes she is quietly wondering if she should stay.
So if you are that woman, I want you to know this:
You don't have to wait until it becomes “bad enough.”
You don't have to prove your pain.
You don't have to wait for a bruise.
You don't have to wait until someone else validates what your body, mind, and spirit have already been telling you.
And you don't have to be ashamed of the time it took you to recognize what was happening.
You survived the story you were living.
Now you get to decide what happens next.
You Are Not Alone. Help Is Available.
If you or someone you know is experiencing emotional abuse, domestic violence, or other forms of harm in a relationship, you do not have to navigate it alone. The National Domestic Violence Hotline offers free, confidential support to help you understand your situation, explore your options, and plan for safety.
Call: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)
Text: START to 88788
Online Chat:
https://www.thehotline.org
Support is available 24/7. You do not have to wait until abuse becomes physical to reach out for help.