49: Unveiling the Truth: Overcoming Sexual Abuse and Finding Your Voice With Beth Brunk

In this powerful episode, part 4 of the Reclaiming Safety & Power After Sexual Abuse series, I welcome Beth Brunk, a woman who has triumphed over unimaginable pain and betrayal. Raised in a strict fellowship, Beth faced years of sexual abuse and pornography addiction in her marriage, leaving her with deep emotional scars. Through faith and relentless healing work, she is now living a life of freedom, self-forgiveness, and abundance.

Beth opens up about the painful moments in her marriage, the struggles with religious teachings that kept her trapped, and the personal transformation she’s undergone through prayer, self-care, and breaking generational strongholds. She shares her journey to reclaim her power, the difficult decision to divorce, and the healing that followed.

This conversation is raw, inspiring, and may be triggering for some, but it’s also a beacon of hope for anyone struggling with betrayal trauma or toxic relationships. Join me as Beth shows us how to navigate the path to healing, forgiveness, and reclaiming your true power in the face of unimaginable adversity.

If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, Beth offers practical advice on seeking support and finding your way out. This episode is a reminder that, no matter the depth of your pain, there is a way to heal, grow, and step into the life you deserve.

Find Beth Brunk at: 

Website: https://www.bethbrunk.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089464266376

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bethbrunkcoaching/

Find Darla Ridilla at:

Website: https://www.highvaluewoman.info

Send me an email: highvaluewoman7@gmail.com

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darla-ridilla-3179b110/

Transcript

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (00:00)
Because we went to a minister in our fellowship for help with our sex life because I wasn't interested. I like I told my former spouse, what woman wants to have sex with her rapist? We just don't. I mean,

If you are a healthy woman, you don't want that. And in that meeting, the minister told me that in order to help his pornography addiction, I just needed to have more sex every single day, multiple times a day, if that's what he wanted, instead of holding the sex addict accountable and saying, well, you know, if you fixed your problem,

you might just fix her problem. That wasn't what happened. I was victim shamed. I was the one held accountable and told I needed to be even more intimate with this man that has raped me.

Darla Ridilla (00:52)
Welcome to You Have the Power, the road to recovery from trauma and narcissistic abuse. I'm Darla Vardilla, a certified somatic trauma informed relationship coach. I help high achieving women be as successful in love as they are in their careers. If you're the woman who has it all together on the outside, but deep down you feel unseen, undervalued or stuck in unhealthy relationship patterns, you are in the right place. This podcast is your space to break the cycle, to understand the real reasons you feel disconnected in your relationships.

and to heal so you can finally feel safe, seen, and deeply loved without sacrificing your success. Each week, I share raw stories, practical tools, and unfiltered truths about trauma recovery, healthy love, and what it really takes to reinvent your relationships. Let's get started with today's topic.

Darla Ridilla (01:43)
Hello friends, we have yet another guest today and she is gonna be talking about her experiences and her healing journey as well. It's gonna be a great story. It's gonna be ⁓ inspiring. It may be a little difficult to hear. I do wanna kinda give a heads up that there may be some out there that may be triggered by the topic. But if you are able to listen and hear the story, you might even find some healing in that even among those triggers.

but we're going to get right into it.

Okay, so Beth Brunk is a believer in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. She sees his hand in everything around her and in her life experiences. Beth gives him all the glory, praise and honor for the healing from sexual betrayal.

he has brought to her through different modalities.

After being in an abusive marriage, riddled with pornography, addiction, sexual abuse and blatant lies, Beth wanted her pain to end the tightness in her chest to ease so she could take a deep breath. The physical pain in her heart to dissipate and for whirling swirling thoughts to vanish. She wanted the pain of 23 years of trickled disclosure to go away. Beth wanted the pain she had been carrying since her wedding night when

he did his thing, then rolled over and went to sleep to disappear. She wanted the horror of watching her new husband masturbate on the honeymoon to fade away. She wanted the trauma of being raped by her husband numerous times over the years to evaporate. Beth doesn't believe that we can be fully healed in this life. We are human and full healing will come later. However, she is fully convinced that the Bible teaches us to continue to work on healing.

and breaking generational strongholds, agreements and curses. She does the work daily. She now has the energy to get through her day without a nap. She has the freedom in her thoughts, no more swirling thoughts and all that pain is dissipated. While she's not fully healed, she is well on her way to living in abundance and freedom from the pain of intimate partner betrayal. Beth, welcome to the show. I am so excited that you're here today.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (03:58)
Thank you. I'm glad to be here. I'm looking forward to this conversation.

Darla Ridilla (04:03)
Awesome. So if you would just share just a little bit about your story, that would be great.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (04:11)
Okay, so I was raised in a Christian home in a plain fellowship. ⁓ I was raised Old German Baptist brethren. The women look like, well, the women are often mistaken for being Amish because they wear cape dresses and a white covering, but they are not Amish. They drive cars, they have electricity, ⁓ they have computers. I went to public school growing up.

but the women all wear a uniform that's, they can make it in their own fabric choices, but the patterns are all the same. So that's how I was raised in the Midwest. And in that fellowship, we're taught to not get divorced. And if you do get divorced, you don't get remarried. And so I was raised in that fellowship.

Many generations on both sides of my family go back in that fellowship and I got married at 20 to someone else who was also raised in that fellowship. And what I didn't know was that he had been a pornography addict since age 12. And because of my upbringing, I thought I was stuck. I could never get out of this marriage. I was just gonna have to make the best of it.

But thankfully, Father got a hold of me about seven years into the marriage and started teaching me that he actually, well, yes, he hates divorce. It's not his design for marriage and for family.

He doesn't want us to stay in abusive marriages. He hates the abuse that leads to divorce. So, ⁓ I started to believe that divorce was fine. We could actually get divorced, but I didn't believe it was for me. I really clung to the idea of that he would restore my marriage and he would make everything be okay. But.

It quickly took me a while, several years, a lot of years, but it became apparent that ⁓ that was not his plan to restore my marriage.

my bio mentions that my wedding night was horrible. The next morning I was trying to eat breakfast, choking it past a lump in my throat thinking I'm stuck. I can never get out of this. What have I done? And

A month after we were married was the first time that he raped me. He raped me multiple times throughout the marriage. And I did not know, but my oldest daughter at 12 years old figured out that he was raping me. ⁓ and it's very heartbreaking when you, when your children start telling you things that you thought you were hiding. You thought you were doing such a good job of keeping it away from them, but you find out that you weren't.

Darla Ridilla (07:23)
as a mom myself, I can't even imagine how painful that would be. It. Yeah, it's hard enough when we bear our own trauma. But then when we become aware that our children are aware of it as well. that adds a whole other layer to that. And

you know, as as you were experiencing all that, was it your faith that got you through? you talked about, that divorce wasn't for you, but then you came to that conclusion that that it was your first night you were married and then from then on, how did you hold yourself together?

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (08:06)
definitely my faith He's never left me. He's never let me down. He has always taken care of me. But I literally went into survival mode where I just got through each day. I don't have a lot of memories of my children's childhoods. My older children's childhoods, I have five children. My younger children, it's a little bit better because I started working on healing.

six years ago and so I've had six years that I've been able to be with my younger children and not be in survival mode but literally I was in survival mode and just just sloshing through mud every day getting through the day and ⁓ not being present so it was like my it was my ⁓

my mechanism for surviving was to just kind of shove it away and not think about it and not think about what truly was happening.

Darla Ridilla (09:15)
Yeah, sometimes that disassociation, it's, it's really the only thing we have. As a rape victim myself, I am blessed in some ways that well, first of all, I didn't even know it until 2016. And I have to say that my last husband knew he, he picked up on something. And he told me at one point, you've been raped. I was like, No, no, I have not. And he's like, No, you have, I can tell.

And I maybe that opened the door because within a couple of years, I started to have really hazy memories. And they still aren't clear to this day. And I still don't except for one instance where I'm pretty sure I know who it is. ⁓ I know at least once as a child and at least once as an adult. And I get this deep knowing it's more than that. But that's all my mind can handle. And there I at one point wanted to ⁓

be hypnotized to go back and then decided against that. Because I think it's okay. I don't remember everything. Maybe it's better. But that is just our brain protecting us because it's so traumatic. You know, some people cope in other ways, they have multiple personalities or you know, but that's our brain holding it together and helping us that is the survival technique.

You talked about your faith and you refer to it as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Can you share more what that means?

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (10:45)
Yes, so I was raised in a Christian home, but I don't consider myself a Christian now because I, kind of interesting, but in 2004, I started to understand the Bible a little bit differently and started to understand that because Romans talks about,

Paul talks about in his letters to the Romans that we are adopted into the family of God. And I started to understand that as someone who's adopted into the family of God, I needed to be keeping the seventh day of rest. I needed to be doing all of the biblical feast and I needed to be eating clean, so no shellfish or pork. And I needed to not be doing Easter and Christmas.

So since 2004, I have not celebrated Christmas since then. So this year will be 11 years that I have not celebrated Christmas. And I started keeping Passover. We actually just went through the, we just did Passover Saturday evening and now we're in the Feast of Unleavened Bread this week where we eat matzah or bread that has no yeast in it. So it was because of him calling me out of the Old German Baptist Fellowship.

and calling me into this understanding that I began to understand divorce in his heart, what divorce is and why it's the abuse he hates that leads up to the divorce and not, well, yes, he hates divorce, but he also loves us and his love for us and our relationship with him is way more important than us being in a covenant of marriage.

Darla Ridilla (12:38)
that you say that I grew up in a Christian home. While I'm more spiritual now, I'm kind of like a la carte, you know, take a little bit of everything. New thought, I got involved in a spiritual center in Denver, and it was based on Ernest Holmes. It was often confused with Scientology, but it wasn't it was the mind of mind and spirit. It's been a long time, but basically, it was a little bit of everything.

But the one thing that I loved about it is that it came not from a place of oppression, but from a place of also love and honoring who we are. And the, you know, when you talk about, well, God doesn't like divorce. Part of my upbringing was you didn't get divorced. And usually it was the woman who was the one who was enduring the pain and that, well, you'll go to hell.

if you get divorced, but you're already in hell, right? And God didn't create us to be miserable. He created us to thrive and you can't thrive in those types of environments.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (13:39)
Right. Exactly.

Right. Yes, exactly.

Darla Ridilla (13:56)
I just really love that you acknowledge that I can even remember when I left my first husband who was not abusive. I just got married too young. And I realized in my mid 30s that I had changed a lot and he hadn't and it no longer resonated with where I was. And I can remember one of our family friends saying, you can't don't do this. How what will this do to your daughter? And I go back to

What would it have done for her mom to be an example of just staying somewhere where she's miserable?

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (14:27)
Yes, I have a lot of regrets.

Yeah, because I see.

I'm just gonna take your thought there and run with it. I see.

Darla Ridilla (14:41)
Mm-hmm.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (14:46)
My oldest son is 19. My second son is 15. My oldest daughter is 23. My youngest daughter is 11. I have a child that died. So I have five children, but only four living. ⁓ And.

the environment that my children grew up in and the impact that I see on them.

Versus what I see in my children now that they've been that I've been separated and divorced from their father and they don't have any contact with him. There is a restraining order in place that they have no contact with him. The difference that I see in them, my two youngest children versus my two oldest children.

is astounding. Yes, they all have their issues, but my two youngest children, the mother that they're experiencing is so different than the mother that my two older children experienced. And I just look at it and I think if I had left

20 years sooner.

I wouldn't have three of my children for starters, but my children wouldn't have the issues that they have now because of the trauma that they went through. There was abuse towards my children. I know for sure that he was grooming my girls. I suspect he was grooming my boys from behaviors that I've witnessed in my boys.

I just look at my children and I think, what if I hadn't been taught that divorce was wrong? And what if I had left the morning after the wedding? I wouldn't have my children. And I don't regret my children at all. Those are five things I don't regret is my children. But I regret the years that I stayed and I subjected them to the abuse because I see behaviors in my boys.

because of what they witnessed, the treatment of me that they witnessed, that I was less than, that I wasn't deserving of respect, that I wasn't deserving of love, that I wasn't deserving of even honor. And I see behaviors in them and their attitudes towards women that really I don't like because I know where it came from. And if I had left sooner, those behaviors probably wouldn't be there.

Now the behaviors from my oldest son to my second son, they're quite different because my second son, I got him out a whole lot younger than my oldest son. And so I'm able to shape his view and his behaviors of towards women.

in a more positive way versus my oldest son who picked up his father's treatment of me.

Darla Ridilla (18:05)
Yeah,

it's something that we often don't think of is how it is affecting them. But in those, mean, it's something I've had to work through with my own mom, and I'm still working on it is that I have to remember she did the best she could with what she had. It wasn't, it wasn't good for me. And there's still a lot of anger or resentment about that. But at the same time, she was also a human being. I did an episode with a lady who said that we have to see our mothers as people.

And I hope someday that your kids also are able to do that. And maybe for yourself too. We're people and we make the best decisions we can in that moment. But what a blessing that you at least had that moment where you realized, hey, this is a change I need to make. And while I can't undo what's been done, now you have the opportunity to at least turn it around.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (19:00)
Right, right. And there's been a lot of self forgiveness that I've had to do. Lots of self forgiveness. And about the time I think I'm done, something else pops up and I'm like, ⁓ you mean there's more? But of course there is. Yes, Yep. And if I could speak to my children, so my oldest daughter,

Darla Ridilla (19:06)
Yeah, totally.

Yeah, it's that onion peeling thing. It just keeps showing off, right?

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (19:31)
I, there were things I didn't know that my former spouse did to her until she wrote, because she was an adult when I divorced him. And so she was able to write a declaration for me. And when I got her declaration and I read it, I just crumpled because there were things in it that I did not know had been done to her by him. And she actually, I witnessed him say to her one time,

When you wear that, makes me want to have sex with you. And I lit into him. I was so angry. Fathers don't think of their daughters that way, let alone say something like that to their daughters. This is not okay. But I didn't know the other things that he had done to her as a child.

So she actually after that incident, she actually ran away from home. And when she left home, she said, do not contact me when I'm ready to be in a relationship with you. I'll get in touch with you. That was very hard. Lots of pain through that time. But it came to the point that she was going to get married and she sent my sister a wedding invitation, but I didn't get one. And I was devastated.

And I was at a friend's house and ⁓ he said, Beth, you need to get in touch with her. And I was like, I can't. She said she would get in touch with me when she was ready. And I need to honor that because I didn't honor her and I didn't hear her. couldn't hear her growing up because I was in such survival mode. So I need to honor her now with this boundary that she set. And he convinced me that I needed to get in touch with her.

And so I did, and I called her and I said, I'm divorcing your dad. And ⁓ I just wanted to, you know, congratulate you on getting married. And I left that voice message and within five minutes, my phone rang and we talked on the phone for an hour. As long as I was in relationship, married to her father, she would not have anything to do with me. But as soon as she heard

I was divorcing him, she was willing to be in relationship with me. And she had told my mother and my sister and some others, and she has since told me I always wanted to be in relationship with my mother. Just as long as she was connected to him, I could have nothing to do with her. So I've walked the path of my marriage, destroying relationships with my children. And I say it plural because my son

was lied to about why the marriage was ending. He was told that it was ending because of me. I was the one who had destroyed the marriage and I had no reason to divorce his father and I was wrong to divorce his father according to the Bible even though his father had supposedly came to the same understanding I had came to. So he wouldn't have anything to do with me for over a year.

because he believed the things that his father told him. So I have had to rebuild relationship with both of my oldest children. And there's been a lot of grief in that, but there's also been a lot of joy, a lot of healing and a lot of... ⁓

forgiveness and understanding for each other. And where I'm going with this is my children, believe, you know, they're still young, 19 and 23, but my daughter especially has began to see me as a human being, not just her mother, but I am a human being and I was doing the best that I could, especially given what I was taught myself growing up. I was doing the best that I could.

And I think my son at 19, I think he's beginning to get to that point where he's seeing me as a human being, not just mom, because there's, you know, things are changing. ⁓ Things are still a little bit, a little bit treacherous, but way, way better than they were a year ago.

Darla Ridilla (24:04)
You know, I really honor you for doing that. You know, there's a part of me that wished that that had happened with my mom before she died. You know, part of the big contention with us was that and I haven't talked a lot about this, but I think that talking about it gives us power. So my father molested me several times. And it was a very tumultuous relationship between the two of them for sure very unhealthy and

before that had begun, I had said things like, I would do anything to break you up. That should be red flag number one to a mom. Why is a kid wanting the parents to divorce? But second of all, when he did start to sexually abuse me and I started to tell my mom, she immediately discounted it. Like, you're lying. I asked him about it. He denied it. Well, of course, he's going to deny it. ⁓ And you said you'd do anything or say anything to break us up. This is just an attempt to do that.

there were other moments where he was attacking me and I had to, you know, it's unfortunate, you know, as a teenage kid girl that I had to defend myself against him. ⁓ And we never reached that point. It was just even as an adult years later, she held on to that you're lying. And you know, maybe some of that was she didn't have the ability to believe or wanted to believe that he could do such a thing.

you know, and I have no knowledge if that transferred over to other members of my family, I only know what my story is. But it, it, it destroyed the relationship between me and my mom. I mean, if you look at it on the other end, it did because I didn't speak to her for two years. And even though I rekindled my contact with her, that last year of her life, I, it,

When she died, I didn't have the normal reaction that people do. neither of my parents, don't, to be honest, I don't know what it's like to have a human being close to you die. I have grieved more over my dog dying than I have a person because that relationship was so damaged. When my father died, it was like, ⁓ thank God he's dead. I'm done with him. He can't hurt me ever again. And with my mom, there was a sadness.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (26:22)
Right.

Darla Ridilla (26:28)
But it really wasn't that grief that parents or kids talk about when they lose their parents. How sad is that?

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (26:36)
Can I just say that I'm sorry?

Darla Ridilla (26:40)
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Darla Ridilla (27:24)
You can, thank you.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (27:26)
I'm sorry. And can I also say I was that mother? ⁓ Recently, I was talking with my daughter and I don't remember what she said and I just came back with, I know I did that. I know I didn't hear you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. ⁓ I know what it was. ⁓ We were talking about some issues in today's world with women being oppressed. I mean,

Darla Ridilla (27:31)
Mm-hmm.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (27:55)
And that might be a really heavy, word, but...

No, women still not being allowed to preach women still being the the main ones to carry everything in the home, whether they work or not. You know, women being the ones who are the gatekeepers for men and their wandering eyes or

we have to dress a certain way so that men don't look at us and lust, know, those kinds of things. And I made a comment ⁓ and she was like,

You really have grown, you really have changed, you really have healed. That's not what you would have said. This is coming from the woman who told me that I was a raging feminist and that I couldn't believe that way and I couldn't talk that way and I was like, yeah, but I've done a lot of healing. I've done a lot of ⁓ growing.

because of what I've been through and ⁓ recognizing that I was wrong. I was wrong in those beliefs that I held. So. ⁓

I'm sorry that your mom never heard you. I'm sorry that you never got the closure and the relationship that you needed with her.

Darla Ridilla (29:30)
Yeah, this conversation actually has been kind of enlightening to me because I'm looking at it from a different perspective. Like it's been I've been invited to do that. But it doesn't change the damage. But I've really been thinking a lot about that, that that episode are recorded a few weeks ago. And she was a human being, her mother was abusive. So she didn't have healthy examples either.

to know who to pick as a husband and how to be a healthy parent and wife. She just didn't know. And generationally, our mothers also, back then, mean, first of all, divorce was pretty much out of the question. And ⁓ you didn't talk about those things. You just didn't. We have more freedom, for sure.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (30:25)
Right.

Darla Ridilla (30:29)
you when you talk about your healing and then you did decide to to go, you know, what did that kind of look like? How did you navigate that?

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (30:38)
Well, part of why I stayed so long, there's it's multifaceted, of course, but I've identified some of those facets. ⁓ Part of why I stayed so long is because of the teaching and I was clinging to the thought that he would restore my marriage. Also, ⁓ part of why I stayed so long was

Darla Ridilla (30:45)
Mm-hmm.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (31:05)
I was praying to be released from my marriage because I'm that personality that I would always question. What if he did change? And I've had to honestly, I've had to recently even just be like, Beth, it doesn't matter if he did change. There could be no restoration because he was grooming. was sexually grooming your children to accept things that are wrong. Morally.

Everything in all ways they're wrong. So there could have never been restoration and that was a new thought to me that actually if anyone wants to have issue with me getting a divorce and I do have a lot of family members who have an issue with me getting a divorce and Told me that I need to be open to his repentance and to him to getting back together with him And I just kind of look at him cross-eyed like you have no idea what you're saying. You have no

You have not walked in my shoes to know exactly what I was dealing with. And so I was praying. I'm going to be very, I'm going to be very upfront and blunt and honest and vulnerable right here. I was praying that he would have an accident. He would be out on the winter icy roads. I live in Washington state, central Washington state. We get snow, we get ice. He could be out in the winter roads.

Darla Ridilla (32:19)
Mm-hmm.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (32:31)
have an accident, one car, one person in the vehicle, and that would take care of my problems. The children's father would die, I'm sorry, yes, we'll grieve, but I wouldn't have to deal with him anymore, right? That was my ideal, my ideal plan. It was not the plan of the father. And when that didn't happen, I changed my prayer to, Father, I just want to be released.

Darla Ridilla (32:50)
Right.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (33:01)
I just want to be released. And it was after he told me, he had told me at one point, he had made an agreement with his therapist that if he used pornography again, he would let his therapist and me know within 24 hours. Well, a year later, he said he made a comment to me and I just looked at him and I said, are you still using? And he goes, yeah. I was like, but you told me, he goes, oh, I know.

but I never stopped using and I never told you because you had said if I continued to use you would divorce me. Are you gonna divorce me now? And I was like, well, we have this appointment coming up. We'll see after that. And at that point I changed my prayer to when can I be released from my marriage?

And in about three months time, I had three witnesses in one day that I was released from my marriage. And the next morning I called him and I said, I have been released from our marriage. want a divorce. And that started this. One day it would be a text message that said, you should have did this a long time ago. I don't know why we stayed married. And that very afternoon, it might be a text message. God hates divorce and you can't do this.

And the next day it would be the opposite. And it was just this back and forth, back and forth. And ⁓ I finally said, you know what? The only thing I'm gonna respond to is things about the children and about dividing assets for the divorce. I will respond to nothing else, which made him very angry. He didn't like that. But I did that. I didn't respond to anything else. It was like, I'm done. I'm not.

Darla Ridilla (34:42)
Mm-hmm.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (34:49)
playing this game with you.

until he escalated it ⁓ and made some threats. And I just happened to share that text message with a friend and she's like, Beth, you need to get out of town. He's threatening you. And I was like, what? Like he talks to me like that all the time. What's your problem? She's like, no, he's threatening you and you need to get out of town. I was like, okay. So I shared it with some other friends and they were like, well, we agree. You need to get out of town. And before you get out of town, get a protection order. I was like, you guys are like.

What's the word I want here? You're blowing this out of proportion. Like this is normal behavior. I don't know what your problem is. But they were absolutely correct. And I did pursue a protection order and have had a protection order now for several years.

Darla Ridilla (35:36)
Isn't it interesting when we're in the midst of an abusive relationship or situation where we see it as normal? It is our normal actually. It is our normal. But when we have an outside perspective, you know, I, it wasn't until like I, when I got out of my relationship with my narcissist, it was a year after I left, I don't even know was in an abusive relationship until a counselor pointed out. And of course I was like, no, no, no.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (35:44)
It is our normal.

Darla Ridilla (36:04)
him. It's good. she's like, No, this is abuse. And, and, you know, we do stay, I mean, whether it's sexual abuse or mental abuse, we stay because, first of all, we do. There's this person we fell in love with, or that we married or whatever that situation is. And we want to see the best in people. I that's what I'm hearing from you. I mean, I'm just taking a guess. ⁓ And we want it to work out. And it

There's, I don't, for me, I don't know if this is your story too, but for me, divorce to me, I've been divorced three times and it's not something I'm proud of. And so every time I felt like it was a failure on my part that I didn't do enough.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (36:54)
Yes, I hear that. Oh, I hear that. And actually, someone said to me, I was like, well, you know, there's always both sides of the story. And this person come back with and said, Yes, there's always two sides to the story. But that doesn't mean that your side of the story is 5 % and his side is 90%. And I was like, because I'd always thought like 5050 there's both sides of the story 5050.

Darla Ridilla (37:14)
Mm-hmm.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (37:21)
I was completely taken back by that and I've had to like let that soak in for several years that yes, I did everything I could. If one person could hold a marriage together, I'd have held that marriage together. But he was making choices and had done things that there's no way I could stay in that marriage.

Darla Ridilla (37:47)
You know, one thing that you you talked about family members and who it's been difficult. ⁓ So my dad isn't the only person that was sexually inappropriate that I've had to deal with that backlash of family members. So I had a father in law in one of my marriages that ⁓ he groped me. And when I told my my ex husband, ⁓

he tried to blame it on his dementia. Well, I knew it wasn't because he waited till everyone left the room. People who have dementia do get sexually inappropriate, but they don't have filters. So they don't wait for people to leave the room. And something that you said about your daughter is it turned my stomach so badly because my father-in-law when he was confronted by my ex about why one of the things he was what he started with was openly staring at my chest.

And firstly, after he stopped denying he had done it, then his comeback was, well, I just wanted to know if they were real or not. Father in law is still this father figure like and I still love my ex husband dearly. He was not a narcissist. He's a dear person. He means a lot to me. But I will say

that even though eventually I asked him to confront his father, he still didn't really follow through in a way I needed to. He confronted him and after his father says this to him at breakfast, he still goes out fishing with him. My feeling was he should have walked away and said, that is the most disgusting thing I've ever heard as my wife and I'm never speaking to you again. While that's not what he did, he had to make his own choices. It was devastating to me that he was still in a way taking his side.

He was saying things like, well, I wasn't there. Well, my dad didn't mean it. And I think this happens a lot with sexual abuse victims where we're not exactly blamed, but the other person isn't fully held accountable either.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (39:54)
Right? Yep. Yes. Yes. Because we went to a minister in our fellowship for help with our sex life because I wasn't interested. I like I told my former spouse, what woman wants to have sex with her rapist? We just don't. I mean,

If you are a healthy woman, you don't want that. And ⁓ in that meeting, the minister told me that in order to help his pornography addiction, I just needed to have more sex every single day, multiple times a day, if that's what he wanted, instead of holding the sex addict accountable and saying, well, you know, if you fixed your problem,

you might just fix her problem. That wasn't what happened. I was victim shamed. I was the one held accountable and told I needed to be even more intimate with this man that has raped me. But we didn't tell the minister that he had raped me. But even if we had, I would imagine the response would not have been any different because marriages have to stay together.

Darla Ridilla (41:18)
Mm-hmm.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (41:22)
and there was a lot of scriptural abuse, like taking scriptures out of context to coerce and hold me bondage. ⁓ So instead of holding him accountable for his pornography use, I was held accountable and said, you need to have more sex.

Darla Ridilla (41:48)
It's insane to me. I mean, it happens and it happens a lot. And I will say, unfortunately, in religious situations, it also happens a lot. There's a lot of patriarchy that goes on. And, and it to me, it's sad. And it's because faith can be a beautiful thing. And then this just muddies the water so badly.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (41:53)
Mm-hmm.

Darla Ridilla (42:13)
particularly for women. I mean, this is part of why I left the church when I was 18, because I didn't want to be part of that. Yeah. Yeah.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (42:22)
Right, yeah. Yep, and

I know a lot of women that come out of these situations similar to mine, ⁓ they question, where was God? Why did God allow this to happen? And one of the things I say to them is, we're human beings and we have free will. And we get to make choices.

And our choices, just like my former husband's choices to do these things, they ripple out to other people. Their choices rippled out to us. Not because God was allowing it to happen or wasn't stopping it, but because they have free choice. And furthermore, we don't know what he prevented from happening. It could have been a whole lot worse.

We don't know what he did prevent because we don't have the ability to see what's going on around us spiritually that he's potentially protecting us from. But it's not his fault. It's not God's fault that these people do these things. It's their fault. The blame lies squarely on their shoulders because they made the choices to do those things. That's one. ⁓

That's one way that I have been able to keep my faith and even to grow in my relationship with the Father is recognizing that He has free will. He can make choices and His choices affect me, my children, and they ripple out even further than that. We don't know how much, how far our choices ripple out and affect people.

Darla Ridilla (44:04)
That is so true. ⁓ That, you know, I've had to switch from why is this happening to me that it's happening for me? While these are uncomfortable and very traumatic experiences. What can I do to turn that around? What can I do? What can I learn? And how can I share that with others? I know that you do some coaching, would you like to talk about how how you do that? How you've kind of turned this into something, something good?

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (44:33)
Yes, I would love to because I have turned it into something good. ⁓ Because of my own experiences and talking to multiple women around the world that this isn't uncommon. I've learned this is not uncommon. And a lot of women aren't talking about it. You know, it's kind of like sex wasn't talked about in my grandparents.

my parents and my grandparents generations. This isn't talked about in our generations and we need to be talking about it. And so I'm trying to open up that conversation. I learned that when I'm vulnerable, other people are vulnerable. When you're vulnerable, people are like, ⁓ she's safe. She's had similar experiences I can share. And so I want to work with, I want to help women know that there is a safe place.

and that they're not alone. There are others of us out here who have experienced similar things. So I put together a program ⁓ where I teach self-care because self-care, know it's a buzzword right now, but I teach it a little bit differently. And when we've been in these abusive relationships, we tend to lose sight of ourself and taking care of ourselves because we're busy holding everything together and taking care of everyone else.

We gotta get back to the basics, self-care. I teach journaling and why journaling is so important. I teach how to pray scripture over your family. I teach that it's okay to be angry with your husband. It's okay to be angry with him. And what to do with that anger. ⁓ I teach sitting down and really feeling.

your feelings, whatever they are, bitterness, anger, disappointment, whatever it is that you're feeling, being able to sit with that and feel it and process it and move it on so that you can continue with your life moving forward forward with clarity and confidence. And part of my coaching package is ⁓ group coaching, because I've learned that when women are in a setting where it's

they learn that other women have faced these similar things. It's very empowering because you realize that you're not alone and others have faced similar things.

Darla Ridilla (47:12)
It is I

feel like it gives them the courage to speak out because there is this in our society of like, that's gonna make me uncomfortable. Like, why is she talking about that? You know, but we you're right, we have to talk about it. We have to honor our feelings. We have to be it's okay to be angry and exactly. It's not the feeling of anger that's dangerous. It's what we don't do with it. And more than what we do with it is what we don't. Yeah.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (47:39)
with it. Yeah, that's a really good point. Yeah.

Darla Ridilla (47:42)
Because then it

unfortunately goes out to the grocery store clerk who has nothing to do with it. You know, if you've ever seen this scene in This Is Us where the mother, she lost one of her babies, ⁓ triplets, and they adopted another child, but she hadn't dealt with the loss of the infant that was born, stillborn. And she got upset in a grocery store over an onion or something like that and lashed out at her. And that's exactly what we do in any situation.

it's gonna come out somewhere, we might as well just deal with it. And I, I actually, I just think that's really beautiful that you're able to help others. What would you say to someone who is in that situation? What advice would you give them?

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (48:35)
First of all, this might sound like it's coming out of nowhere, but I wish someone had said this to me. First of all, if you find yourself in that situation and you have any idea that you may end up ⁓ seeking a divorce, start saving money. When you go to the grocery store, get an extra $20.

tack it onto your grocery bill, get $20 back and start putting that money away because you're probably going to need it. know, quite often we go through divorces and money gets withheld and attorneys are slimy and sneaky and they like, well, she's the one seeking the divorce. So she must have plenty of money and she doesn't need alimony and she doesn't need child support and you know, all of those kinds of things. start saving towards the day that you are free.

If you're in an abusive relationship, Google domestic violence advocacy in your area and go get support from them. They will help you with court documents. They will help you get ⁓ protection orders. They will help you realize what is abuse and what's not abuse. And quite often, things that we don't think of as abuse are actually abuse.

And so they will help you to recognize those things and they will go to court with you. So you know that you have someone in your corner when you go to court. But what I would ultimately say to them is you're not alone. You feel alone. It looks like you're alone. You're ashamed to share this with anyone because their views of you might change or they might judge you, you know, whatever it is, but you're not alone.

Darla Ridilla (50:27)
Yeah, that is so true. Is there anything else that you want to share that I haven't asked you?

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (50:36)
I don't think so.

Darla Ridilla (50:38)
So where can people find you? If they want to work with you, just kind of check you out, follow you.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (50:44)
Bethbrunk.com is my website and I'm on Facebook and Instagram as BethbrunkCoaching.

Darla Ridilla (50:52)
awesome. I'll put that in the show notes as well. So folks can go ahead and just click the link and they can follow you. I really appreciate you coming on today. This is such an important topic. And I personally thank you because sometimes these episodes give me the opportunity to talk about things I talk a lot about my marriages, but I sure don't talk a lot about some of the other things that have happened to. And so it was for me, gosh, I feel like it was a healing experience just kind of talking about my mom and

So I wanna just thank you for that.

Beth Brunk Coaching LLC (51:24)
Yeah. And you kind of gave me a little bit of a different perspective too, being the daughter of a mother, similar to me.

Darla Ridilla (51:32)
Yeah, awesome. Thank you so much. To my listeners, you have the power.

Darla Ridilla (51:44)
Thank you for tuning in to You Have the Power, the road to recovery from trauma and narcissistic abuse. If you're that high achieving woman who looks like she has it all together, but inside you feel unseen, undervalued or stuck in the same unhealthy relationship patterns, know this, you are not alone. Every episode is your space to break the cycle, heal the real reasons you feel disconnected and finally create relationships where you feel safe, seen and deeply loved without sacrificing your success. If today's conversation sparks something in you,

Don't keep it to yourself. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with another woman who needs to hear it. Want to go deeper? Check the show notes for links to connect with me, get support, or take the next step on your healing journey. I'd be honored to hear what resonated for you. Remember, the content shared here is for educational purposes only. I'm not a licensed therapist, so please reach out to a qualified mental health professional for personalized support when you need it. Keep tuning in, because you have the power.

to reinvent your relationships and your life. And I'm here to walk this road with you.