The following is a recounting of some of the coercive control and abuse that I experienced in my second marriage. Consider this your trigger warning if you have a hard time with these subjects. It it not a polished narrative in my usual style. It is in chronological order of how the abuse that I experienced over the course of several years began and how it continued to escalate. If this helps one person understand that they are in an abusive situation to get the help they need and get out then I will be happy. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Last weekend I traveled solo for the first time in 20 years, and by solo I mean single. There was no one waiting for me at home except my cat. Since my separation last year and my divorce this year I’ve taken a few road trips but hadn’t yet flown. All week long before my trip I had massive anxiety and for the longest time I couldn’t figure out why. Then it dawned on me that for the past six years I’d been with a co-dependant covert narcissist with borderline personality disorder who anytime I flew anywhere without him would find a way to sabotage my trip. He did this twice while I was overseas. If he and I were traveling together I would have to co-regulate him because of his volatility. It made travel, something that I love, much more stressful and challenging.

This was my first trip truly without him in my life in any capacity. I can’t tell you how freeing that felt. The first time we traveled together we did a road trip down south to see his father, stepmom, and siblings. Me being me I made it a point to spend time with both his father and his stepmom in whatever capacity I could because I like to facilitate strong connections with my in-laws. It’s how I was in my first marriage and it’s how I intended to be in my second. But he thought that I was favoring his father too much and even had it in his mind that I had slept with him, this was a major red flag that I hadn’t recognized for what it was. It took everything I had to reassure him that that had not happened. Later I would find out that he only placated me and that he never actually believed me. So after that anytime we visited his family I had to make sure that I wasn’t spending too much time with my father-in-law and that I wasn’t favoring him over his son.

The following year I flew to Norway for my level one training in Norse Shamanism. This was my first international trip where I didn’t rent a car because quite frankly it wasn’t in my budget. So everyday on my trip I’d have to workout my logistics around travel in a country I’d never been to, all the while dealing with jet lag. A daily task that I had to manage, and really was my highest priority, was a call with my daughter. It’s something we’ve always done in the years following my first divorce. So making sure that I was able to do a call with her every day was my main concern…not my fully grown husband who I thought was capable of taking care of himself. But my husband had an un-communicated expectation that I would “take him along” on my travels with constant check ins, phone calls, messages, and pictures. So when I wasn’t able to or simply didn’t because I wanted to be in the moment of what I was experiencing he got angry. I was in fact sending him pictures and updates, just not up to his standard. In the days following the workshop I took an overnight train south from Trondheim to Oslo. In my state of sleep deprivation and stress I forgot to tell him that I was sharing a cabin with one of my male classmates from the workshop. I remember that train ride as a night of motion sickness laden hell. It was all I could do to survive it. I had never taken a sleeper car before and I don’t know that I ever will again. When we got to Oslo the next morning I was a wreck of a human being. When I told him that I had shared the cabin with Josh he became angry and accused me of infidelity. Needless to say I did not spend any real time in Oslo. Instead I got back on a train and headed further south to Horten to stay with a female friend from the workshop who had kindly offered her place when I explained the situation. By the time I got to Horten a few hours later I was a sobbing mess. Jamie very kindly scooped me up and took me to her house and put me to bed. I slept a lot while I was there because I finally could, I finally felt safe. Over the next two days I managed to calm him down so that he would pick me up at the airport.

While I was away his mother had been visiting and his middle daughter had had her baby. So for most of my trip he at least had a little bit of a distraction but honestly it hadn’t helped much. At the end of twelve days it was finally time for me to fly home. I updated him constantly at each leg of my trip; from waiting in Oslo, boarding, taxiing, my layover in Iceland, and finally boarding for the final flight back to Boston. It was when I was in Iceland that I knew something had shifted in him again and it wasn’t going to be a sweet reunion after being gone for almost two weeks. He had planned to have his mother drive down to Boston behind him, take all of us out to dinner, and then she would continue on south towards home and we would go north back to Vermont. But that was it. He hadn’t made a reservation anywhere and on a Saturday night in Boston good luck getting a table anywhere without a reservation. When I came out of the arrivals area to meet him he didn’t hug me. Instead he took my bag and handed me a stone to hold while he smudged me with sage, like I was contaminated and needed to be cleaned. And he hadn’t even planned that very well given how awkward the whole thing was. Even after that there was still no welcome home hug. We got into the car and merged into Boston traffic with him in an unregulated state of agitation. He was escalating quickly into rage and telling me to look up a seafood restaurant we could go to with his mom who was in the car behind us. I froze. I knew that if I looked up a restaurant he wouldn’t be capable of navigating Boston traffic in his current rage filled state. So I did nothing until finally he realized that dinner was not going to be possible without having planned it first. We were stopped in the middle of an intersection when his mom got out of her car, said goodbye, and went on her way while he got angrier and angrier.

I didn’t say anything. I was too afraid. We drove in silence until I asked to stop so I could pee. We pulled into one of the state rest stops on I-89, you know the big ones with the liquor stores next to them. I used the bathroom while he sat outside stewing and fuming. I asked him to unlock the car which he did but he didn’t move. Finally when I said something he told me to take the keys and leave him there, that he’d find some other way home. I was being tested to see if I’d take the bait and abandon him or if I’d plead for him to come home with me. I should have left him there, but I didn’t because I thought I had done something wrong. I begged him to get back into the car. After an hour he finally did and again we drove home in silence. In the last few miles before we got home he was falling asleep art the wheel and I’d have to shake him awake. It was terrifying. When we finally got home he wouldn’t come to bed, instead he slept on the couch. I took a shower and then went to bed, alone. I woke up sometime in the middle of the night not knowing where I was and feeling confused and disoriented. I managed to get a few more hours of sleep after that and then proceeded to beg for his forgiveness in the morning. He had convinced me that I was the problem, that I didn’t include him enough on my trip, that I had abandoned him, and that I was the selfish one. He had supported my going on this trip from day one. Looking back what I now know is that a covert narcisist will publicly support you and privately tear you down. Me advancing in my shamanic training, particularly with this specific teacher, made him look good but deep down he resented it. I can’t remember what was said in detail mainly because I was saying it through tears. He finally calmed down enough for me to start talking about the trip and ease into being home.

The second time I went to Norway in July of 2024 was almost a repeat of the first time, but far worse. When I finally arrived at the Air B&B the day after I flew he was anything but kind on our call. He had no sympathy for how jet lagged I was and blamed me for being exhausted. He then proceeded to tell me about how his new job wasn’t working out very well because his new boss was an asshole. That had me worried since he had been fired from another job a few months prior due to an outburst he’d had at work towards a co-worker. I did my best in the next few days to send him pictures and messages but he was cold and distant. It was hard to be present and really focused on where I was which was Oslo while he was being so mean. Then it came time for me to head to my friend’s island home in the bay of Oslo with some other friends from the workshop. I let him know what our plans were and he told me not to contact him for the rest of my time there. Hearing that hurt deeply. Then, on the Saturday of our workshop he had spiraled out of control, accused me of cheating on him, and told me to find someone else to pick me up from the airport. I was devastated. He even told me to stay in Norway and that he would send me my things (I have a child and a business, delusion is another aspect of covert narcissism). He also changed the locks on the doors. He only shifted his tone when, on Monday after the workshop, I ended up in the emergency room from an injury I sustained the day prior in an alpine lake. I was in massive amounts of pain and had an active infection. It took my being injured in a foreign country to get him to snap out of it.

After I left the ER I got myself a hotel room in Trondheim and did what I do best in an emergency. I assessed and organized. With my injury I was stuck and just needed to go home as soon as I could put some logistics into place. I called one of my clients who was a retired police officer and asked what my options are. He recommended contacting the Women’s Freedom Center and talking with them about what to do. He also suggested that I contact my police department at home and let them know what’s going on as well. I tried to file a restraining order online but unfortunately it was not granted…I finally got one in August of 2025 after a solid week of verbal and psychological abuse.

After a full day of rest and recovery I could start making plans. I looked into getting an earlier flight home. Thank god I had enough room on my credit card to do it because I actually had to just buy a whole other ticket. I informed some friends what was going on. During that time of waiting and planning I also contacted our tenant to get a sense of what his mental state was. It wasn’t good. He wasn’t coming or going from the house, no lights on at night, he wasn’t watching TV, our tenant didn’t even smell him cooking anything. There was literally no activity from him inside of our home. Once I had arranged my new flight home I asked our tenant to pick me up at the airport and bring me to my friend’s house not far from where we live. I posted in my stories that I was taking 24 hours to tend to my mental health. I did this just before leaving for the airport to buy myself enough time. I took enough pictures that I could post as if I was still in Norway once I got back to the US to make him think that I was still there. Somehow it all worked and I was able to get home safely and remain hidden until I could safely get back into the house and talk with him. Looking back I wish I had initiated divorce proceedings then.

A few months later, and after a lot of tears and continued coercive controlling behavior on his part we flew to Colorado for a concert at Red Rocks. Overall we had had a good time on the trip. I think because we were there with friends he realized that he had to be on his best behavior so during our time there he was fairly amenable. It was on the way home that things went south. It was the weekend after hurricane Helene had devastated the south. The vice president had flown into Charlotte, North Carolina which had delayed our flights home by a couple of hours. In my attempt to manage his emotions in a people filled airport he could tell that I was stressed but didn’t help me to calm down by hugging me or comforting me in anyway. No, instead he criticized me.

When we finally arrived back at the airport in Connecticut we had a two hour drive home ahead of us. Once out of our gate we sat down on a bench while he looked for the car keys. He couldn’t find them. I suggested he take everything out of his bag while I called the hotel in Colorado where we had stayed to see if they were there. He thought he had left them in the hotel room. I had done the final check of the room and had not seen them. He had left them on a shelf in the room while we were there. I would have seen them on my final sweep of the room. I did not see them. There is some important backstory here about keys that you should know about. He had conditioned me to not bring my keys with me whenever we would go places, something I was never comfortable with but agreed to in order to make him happy. If I brought an extra set of keys I’d be chastised for being too paranoid. Little things like this are how I feel safe. Having my own set of keys just incase the other set gets lost is something I am always mindful of. But no, in his mind I was being paranoid. So I didn’t bring my other set of keys. I wish I had if for no other reason to finally be able to say to him, “see, aren’t you glad I had extra keys with me?” But I would never get that chance. When he was certain we didn’t have the keys with us I booked a hotel room for the night near the airport. I told him that in the morning we can reach out to a friend and see if they can get into the house and drive us down the spare set of keys. I could tell he was agitated and didn’t like that I was taking charge of the situation. Between his anger and stress he was in no shape to make decisions or problem solve our way out of this. He was annoyed at everything after that, there are too many things for me to list.

As soon as we got to our room he found the keys. He immediately wanted to go downstairs and cancel the room. I knew that it would be more trouble than it was worth so I told him I didn’t want to pursue it. He got mad about that and stormed out of the room saying he was going to walk to go get the truck and that he would sleep in it tonight. By 2am he was in the parking lot with the truck. By 3 am he was back in the hotel room because it was too cold in late October. We got maybe two or three hours of sleep that night, I’m not sure. The next morning tensions were still high and I didn’t know what to say anymore so I didn’t say much. We packed our things and head down to checkout. As we were loading the truck he said he was sorry and what more did I want? I finally ended up telling him that I realized that if the roles had been reversed, if I had been the one to lose the keys that he would have been absolutely enraged and I would have suffered the consequences of that. In coming to this understanding my heart sank because in that moment I knew that he lived inside the delusion of double standards. When I told him about our roles being reversed he became defensive and then accused me of being the angry one. I had stayed calm the entire time that we thought the keys were lost.

We drove home in silence. I sat there wondering how this was going to end, knowing that it would eventually, but knot knowing how. I think that moment when your heart sinks, when you realize that the other person won’t change, and that you are stuck, is one of the worst feelings inside of a relationship. In that moment I felt very stuck. After that trip he stopped sleeping upstairs with me and he began to sleep on the couch. A few months later we separated once our tenant moved out of our apartment. A year later and I would be moved out of the house. As of April 24th, 2026 we are now divorced…a lot more abuse would happen inside of the “sleeping on the couch to divorce” timeline, I just didn’t know it yet.

The following January we had been separated and living separately but still under one roof, I went away on a girls weekend with some friends. I gave him all of the details beforehand knowing that the only way I’d get to have any peace of mind was to tell him everything about the trip. He messaged two of my friends who were also going that trip to confirm our plans. I didn’t know this until later. I sent him pics the whole time. I gave him updates every few hours about what we were doing and how much fun we were having. Again, if I hadn’t done this I would have come home to the consequences of having not done so. I had picked up a few things for him from a witchy shop which I gave him when I got home. He appreciated that. A few days later he told me that while I was gone he had come close to hanging himself but ultimately decided not to. After that I knew that I could no longer go anywhere without him.

Now that I’ve completed my first solo trip since my divorce I’ve had time to reflect on a few things, one of them being the need to safeguard my travel intentions leading up to my trip. There is a small handful of people in my life with whom I share my future plans and that feels safe. When I visited my bestie in upstate NY in April I told almost no one where I was going or that I was even leaving for the weekend and it felt so unbelievably freeing. There was something so intoxicating about just packing a bag, getting into my truck, and leaving the world behind for a few days. Going forward I will be cultivating more of this for myself. I’ve been a global traveler since age 12 when I embarked on my first trip to the UK for two weeks with a summer camp program I had attended the year before. No parents, no friends, no digital cameras, no phone calls home, no internet. Just a dozen kids with the two chaperones, disposable cameras, and an itinerary that took us along ancient roman walls, excursions into the Yorkshire countryside, and most importantly the commencement of my education in the fluency of travel. Sometimes I wonder if his sabotaging of my traveling came from a place of jealousy. I’m well educated, well traveled, and cultured. Three things that he is not and never will be. While we were together he was ineligible for a passport due to child support arrearage that he owed. He would talk about us traveling together internationally with no plan on how to accomplish the necessary work he’d have to do in order to obtain a passport. I now know that this was another red flag. Endless dreams with no evidence of action behind them.

In my first marriage we gave each other total freedom if the other person was traveling alone, it didn’t matter in what capacity either. We both knew the inherent stress that comes with traveling even when it’s for recreation instead of professional development. We had total trust in one another when it came to navigating our trips. If we wanted to text or call we would, if we were too tired or too busy we didn’t. And, when texts or phone calls didn’t happen, guess what? No one got upset because the other person understood all of the logistics involved with leaving home for a period of time. When we got home we’d make time to sit down together and share pictures and stories from our trip. It was healthy and it worked. I’ve come to understand that this level of independence was threatening to my second husband and that that’s one of the reasons why he would become so co-dependent anytime I’d leave. I’m glad that I no longer have someone in my life who not only doesn’t understand this but also doesn’t honor what I need around traveling. It’s refreshing to say the least and I am reveling in the fact that I am now truly free to move about the cabin.