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    Truth Be Told: Healing from a Traumatic Relationship Can Only Come from Honesty

    by Tassel Shanebrook, Ph.D. Oct 29, 2019 5 minutes
    Truth Be Told: Healing from a Traumatic Relationship Can Only Come from Honesty by Tassal Shanebrook. Photograph of a woman's back with "Love Shouldn't Hurt" painted on it by Sydney Sims
    Photograph by Sydney Sims

    A personal story about how one woman finally let go of the painful trauma within a relationship by courageously embracing the truth

    —

    Three years ago, on the eve of my birthday, I was awoken in the middle of the night by my former spouse.

    He had burst into my daughter’s bedroom where I had been seeking refuge from our divorcing situation. He was heavily intoxicated as he engaged in a terrifying tirade towards me — including threatening to violently harm me physically. When the police eventually came, during the questioning, my former spouse stated that he had engaged in a brief, polite interaction with me and then had been woken up by the arrival of the officers.

    These kinds of interactions were no stranger in our marriage. Within the first month of our living together, my former spouse — in an argument — threatened to kill my dog. There was explosive anger:

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