The Destruction

There are stories we carry in silence because speaking them feels like opening a wound that never healed. But silence was how he controlled me. Silence was how he buried me alive. I’m done being quiet. Remaining silent empowers abusive behavior.

After years of emotional torture, manipulation, and soul-warping blame, he took things further than I ever imagined possible. The year that followed was not a life—it was a slow, calculated erasure.

He blamed me. He blamed our children. He blamed my parents. He blamed anyone who dared exist outside of his control for the monster he had become.

And when he decided we were the problem—not his rage, not his cruelty—he made a list of demands. These weren’t compromises. They were acts of war against everything that kept us human.

1. Sell everything we own. He wanted to strip us bare. And when I resisted—when I questioned why we had to gut every trace of ourselves—he told me it was my fear, my selfishness, my rebellion that made life hard. He wanted us disoriented. Dependent. Hollowed out. And in that emptiness, he planned to fill us with his version of truth, his version of family, his version of faith. A version where he was the god. He was the savior. And no one else mattered.

He didn’t want to sell everything. He wanted to own everything that was left.

2. Hand over all our finances to him. He was adamant about having total control over our finances. And just like that, he wanted to make me invisible. Not just financially—but legally, emotionally, spiritually. He wanted me to disappear behind his name on every account, so he could say he provided—even as I starved. So he could say he led—even as he left us drowning.

What he wanted wasn’t financial management. What he wanted was ownership. He wanted me dependent. He wanted the children dependent. He wanted to be the only one with the power to say yes or no to anything.

He wanted us to need him so badly, we wouldn’t dare leave. Because when someone controls your money, they control your options. Your dignity. Your future.

That’s what financial abuse is: It’s not just about dollars. It’s about domination.

He used faith as a weapon, pretending this was spiritual order. He used love as a leash, saying I “just needed to trust him.” He used shame as a muzzle, saying that if I questioned him, I was “not a true wife.”

But I know now what was happening--He wanted to strip me of power. He wanted to strip me of choice. He wanted me broke in every way—spiritually, emotionally, financially—so he could stand over the ruins and call it leadership.

3. Move far away. Alone. No one else allowed. He said it was to protect us from “toxic influences.” What he meant was: cut off your parents. Cut off the kids’ friends. Cut off every support system we had. He wanted isolation so complete that no one would see what he was doing. No one could challenge his lies. No one could rescue us.

4. Acknowledge the man who abused us as “the spiritual head of our family.” This was the one that broke something in me. He stood there, stone-faced, and told me that unless I submitted to him—the man who terrorized me and our children for years—I wasn’t “godly,” and I didn’t respect his leadership. He asked me to betray my children. To betray their truth. To bow to the very man who hurt them, while he stood by and did nothing. I said no. And he punished me for it in every way a man can punish a woman without leaving a bruise.

That year was not just hard. It was relentless. Every day was another demand, another accusation, another sermon about how everything was my fault—his moods, his failures, his cruelty. If I cried, I was “manipulative.” If I begged for peace, I was “rebellious.” If I disagreed, I was “disrespectful.”

I began to disappear inside myself. But somewhere, in the smallest corner of who I used to be, a voice fought back. A whisper that said:

This is not love. This is not leadership. This is control. This is abuse.

This is what abuse looks like. It’s not always black eyes or broken bones. Sometimes, it’s rules. It’s ultimatums. It’s being blamed for the very trauma you’re trying to survive.

If you’re in a place like this, I want you to know something:

You are not crazy. You are not the problem. And you are not alone.

You don’t owe loyalty to your pain. You owe it to yourself—and to your children—to live free.

And freedom, no matter how fragile at first, is everything.