Why Smart Women Stay In Abusive Relationships with psychologist, Faye Evans

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text **Content note:** This episode discusses domestic abuse, coercive control, threats and PTSD, and includes a brief reference to suicidal ideation.  Faye Evans was 17 when she met him.  He was a lecturer, 12 years older, at the university where she was studying psychology, and she was engaged by 18.  Over the years that followed, control arrived in small doses and dressed itself up as care: what she wore, what she read, who she saw, where her money went.  In this moving episode of Big Stuff, Faye tells Danielle how she disappeared inside that marriage, convinced the problem was her, and about the wedding day she wanted to run away and couldn't. Faye talks about the awakening that came after her second child was born, and what happened when she left: friends who closed their doors, a family divided, work contracts that vanished.  She tells the story of running away to Australia with her two children on a one-way ticket she kept secret, the threatening phone calls, and the PTSD that stayed in her body for a decade. Faye has been a psychologist for 30 years and is an EMDR therapist and the author of *Soulful Simplicity (out now through Hardie Grant Publishing)* *Chapters -*  - 00:00 Welcome - 01:30 Meeting him - 09:00 Losing herself: gaslighting, self-blame and trying to be the "good wife" - 17:00 The wedding day she wanted to run, and why she stayed - 27:00 The awakening after her second child - 33:00 The doors closing: family, friends, work and money - 38:00 Shame, the search for meaning and the years of rebuilding - 41:00 Leaving for Australia and the PTSD that followed - 45:00 EMDR and healing - 49:00 Reauthoring the story and Faye's closing message *Takeaways from this episode -*  1. **Control doesn't announce itself.** Faye describes it arriving as advice about what to wear, what to read, which friends to see and how to manage money, always framed as help or love. 2. **Intelligence and training aren't protection.** Faye says psychology gave her theory, but it didn't tell her what coercive behaviour feels like from the inside. 3. **Shame keeps people quiet.** After a lot of gaslighting she came to believe that if the marriage failed, "it would be I failed." 4. **Leaving isn't the end of the story.** Faye lost friends, income and support, and lived with hypervigilance and PTSD for around ten years. 5. **Your body keeps the record.** EMDR helped Faye process what talking and understanding hadn't, and she now works as an EMDR therapist herself. 6. **You can reauthor the story.** It happened to her, but it doesn't define who she is. **Where to find Faye Evans -**  - Book: *Soulful Simplicity: A Neuro-Spiritual Path to Living with Intention* (Hardie Grant Media) - Website: ⁠https://soulfulsimplicity.com.au/⁠ - LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/fayeevans/⁠ - Facebook: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/psychologist.faye.evans/⁠ - Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/psychologist\faye\evans/⁠ **Support** - 1800RESPECT: 1800 737 732, text 0458 737 732, or chat online at 1800respect.org.au (24/7). The number can appear on a phone bill, so call from a different phone if you can. - Lifeline: 13 11 14 - Emergency: 000 **Where to find Danielle:**  Website - ⁠daniellecolley.com.au⁠ Instagram - ⁠@iamdaniellecolley⁠ Book - ⁠The Chocolate Bar Life, Hembury Books⁠ available wherever you buy your books online Thank you for being here. If anything in this conversation brings up big feelings, or highlights something happening in your own life, please reach out to the services above, to friends and family, or to us here at Big Stuff.