The “Saving Him” Illusion: Love, Loss, and Finding Freedom

Hello, welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. I'm your host, Dr. Zoe. And today we have a guest. Her name is Siobhan Scott. She is a licensed psychotherapist, and she wrote a book about the story of an abusive relationship that ended with a revenge suicide of her husband. She's a therapist for 35 years, and she's written 4 books. The latest is Nightbird: A Memoir, and it's the story of the revenge suicide of her husband on the day that she told him she wanted a divorce. So we're going to talk to her really about relationships, about navigating difficult relationships, and about this very specific type of abuse that does happen sometimes. So our guest is Siobhan Scott. Listen in. Siobhan, welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad that you are coming on today to share both your story and your wisdom.

Thank you so much. It's great to be here.

Thank you. So I have to say, when your publisher or publicist reached out to me and shared some of your, your story and your information, I definitely felt I need to talk to this woman. I need to hear about your story. And I really would like to share what you've gained from your story with my audience. Mm-hmm. So can you just tell us a little bit about how did you come to be here? Writing, having written the memoir?

Yeah, I went through a really traumatic episode with a man I had been married to for 17 years, and there was a lot of abuse and coercive control, which took me a long time to figure out because as a mental health therapist who worked in a domestic violence shelter, I was still blind to things that I was tolerating. And so there was a gradual awakening on my part, and of course, my own personal therapy, And after 17 years of anger outbursts and fists through the walls and threatening, I was done. And the day I told him, there had been an anger outburst the night before, and I was very clear the next morning, I want a divorce. I will be fair to you, but I, I will not live with you anymore. And I think he knew I was very serious.

Right.

And I went to my office. I worked all day. I came home that evening to a dark house. Things seemed very off and very strange. And I'll skip the gruesome details, but in essence, I walked in and found his body hanging in the dining room. Wow. And he had left a message that was really scary and strange, blaming me. And I then, of course, broke. I would say I lost my thinking ability for quite a while.

Of course.

But just as trauma breaks your brain, there's healing. And I had wonderful help, wonderful support, wonderful therapy, and eventually came to understand that this was a unique kind of suicide, a subtype of suicide, because it really wasn't about depression. It was about rage. And ever since then, I have been studying this phenomenon, and I've certainly seen it come up with clients. And sometimes it's a murder-suicide. Sometimes it's, you know, we hear about these awful stories every month. Someone kills their entire family. And people externally will often look and say, but he was a very nice guy.

Mm-hmm.

And so this is sort of my mission now, is helping women understand that there can be a really deadly outcome in a marriage that's been abusive. And 75% of the women murdered are killed by an intimate partner, and most of them when they're trying to leave the relationship. So it's just something I'm really passionate about.

Yes. Oh my goodness. Thank you for sharing your story. And although most people listening, thank God, have not had this experience, um, We did have a friend of the family who had a similar experience years ago, maybe over 20 years ago. He did that as well. He— his wife asked for a divorce and he committed suicide and, well, killed her first and committed suicide. So it does happen.

It does.

And I don't want to bring this to my community to scare anyone, um, from standing up for themselves, from having those hard conversations, because we know how important it is to do that.

Mm-hmm.

But I think, I know what's important is to understand what do the signs look like, right?

Mm-hmm.

And then a number of women, even though someone might not have gone to that extreme, will have the experience of a threat of something like that.

Yes. And so there's that, that's common,

right? There's that hint or that threat that if you then, And that is enough to keep a woman from not responding or staying, um, very

much

in an unhealthy relationship. So I guess maybe the first question, it's kind of a deep question. What do you wish you had known that you share with somebody now?

Yeah, I, I wish I had known that love is not about tolerating mistreatment. And for many years I told myself, I made excuses for him. Well, I think he's bipolar. He wasn't. I think he may have ADHD. He didn't. And when the times were good, which they were often good, it was wonderful.

Mm-hmm.

But I look back now and see that this was a trauma bond. I was very closely bonded with him, and I thought I could help him. I thought I could fix him. And if I could get one message to women out, it's— well, I guess it's 2 messages. Don't accept mistreatment. Don't call it love. And don't believe that you can help someone change. Because I, those were 2 hard lessons for me that even after I cognitively knew it, I didn't feel it for quite a while. And I, and it was, as I say, a gradual awakening for me.

Yeah. There are 3 things that you said. So one is trauma bond. The second, um, was, what was that? Thinking that it was ADHD or thinking it was whatever. So I want to talk about those 2 things, but the third thing that I wanna talk about, and this is what I hear from so many of my clients, is when they're in a difficult relationship, they spend so much of their emotional and psychological energy trying to understand or create some type of reason.

Yes.

And/or trying to convince themselves or wanting to figure out, does he love me?

Mm-hmm.

As if, if he loved her, then what? Then it would be okay for all of these things that are happening. Mm-hmm. And just like you said, I was, I, I made an excuse. So he's got ADHD. Or he's got, you know, whatever. And my answer is always, and so what if he did? All of these things are still the same. All of the behavior is still the same. And you're actually walking— what is it— barking up the wrong tree.

Yes.

You're looking at the wrong thing. And so for a woman out who's out there, who is trying to decide, well, maybe this is what's going on with him, or maybe it's this. maybe he has autism, or maybe, you know, all these things I have women write me and ask me, do you think that this is what's going on?

Yeah.

My answer is, look at the behavior.

Yeah.

And look at what you need, what's happening to you. Yes. And if that is not okay, let's address that. Because that's the best, fastest direction to go in. Um, rather than trying to figure out motivation and intention and diagnoses and all of these other things, because they just keep you— No.

Yeah, and it really does not matter as to outcome, and it wouldn't matter if he had had all those diagnoses. Obviously, he had had the opportunity for help. He had gone to therapy and just bamboozled the therapist because he was very manipulative, and that's what I eventually saw is that it really didn't matter.

Right.

What had caused this personality disorder that he had, it, it was not my job To try to help him and try to fix him. And obviously after 17 years, it hadn't worked. And I think I knew, knew much earlier that it hadn't worked, but I just wasn't emotionally strong enough to make that break. And it took me, took me far too long. And that's really what I have grief for, is those lost years that I spent with someone who kept me walking on eggshells.

Mm-hmm.

And I have grief For, you know, the possibility of having— I'm married to a wonderful man now. I could have been married to someone else all those years, and it would have been much better for me and much better for my nervous system.

Right.

So that's where my grief lies, not for missing him. Of course, someone asked me, were you glad that he was dead? No, of course not. I would not have wished that, but I was Still relieved to not be living with him.

Mm-hmm. So you use 2 words. One of them was trauma bonded. Can you explain to my listeners what is— what does that mean?

I think it's this incredibly tense, intense emotional experience. And we know a lot of it's kind of neurohormone driven, where we just really feel this compulsion like an addiction. to be bonded, and we call it love.

Mm-hmm.

But it's actually— if it's with someone who's hurting us because of their own problems, it has nothing to do with us or our behavior. They're acting out their own mental health condition, whatever the cause of that is, on us, and we become an object for them to use in that way. But we still feel this incredibly intense connection, and there tends to be this There's this honeymoon period after a bad episode where they'll apologize, they may shed tears, they'll promise never to do it again, and they make us feel— us meaning women who are caught in that kind of relationship— that we're so wonderful and we're so special and we're beautiful, and we get the flattery. And, you know, it's this reward system that allows us to tolerate the mistreatment. Right. that comes like clockwork, whatever the pattern is. My husband would have about one bad episode a week.

Wow.

And that was— it might last 30 minutes, it might last an hour, but then there would be a honeymoon period. And I think it was that honeymoon period that I kept believing in the fantasy of, well, this is who he really is.

Right.

And so I kind of split those parts of him off. Well, there was, you know, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And I hear that in my own work with so many women. Well, he's like 2 different people. And when he's good, he's wonderful. And that's the fantasy. That's the person that they think is eventually going to be with them all the time. And this other side, that's going to get fixed or just go away. And it's definitely a hard thing for people to see. Yeah. I think, you know, some people suffer really well. I can say I suffered well because I had a difficult upbringing. Difficult family. I was in a very strict faith that taught me that self-sacrifice was a virtue.

Mm-hmm.

And so I didn't feel like I deserved better treatment. And the gaslighting, the, well, if you hadn't have done this, I wouldn't have blown up, which was absurd because it would be some tiny little thing, but I would start to believe that. And that Can make you very confused.

Well, that's part of the codependency too, is that you, you know, you co-sign with that belief, and then your job now is to make sure that you're controlling his emotions by your behavior. And yes, it does. It can create a very crazy-making type of soup. And so when we look at that, that you just described, the trauma bond, it's like the trauma is the abuse, right? And you guys It's interesting because people don't necessarily think about the fact that you're both experiencing that abuse together, whether it's emotional abuse, financial abuse, physical abuse, whatever could be going on. And then you have the honeymoon period, right? Which creates that glue. And so you guys have both gone through this difficult experience together, and then you've got this honeymoon period which creates this glue, and you have that what they call trauma bond. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And it's a cycle, right? And it's a cycle and the bond kind of unfortunately often gets, gets, um, stronger and stronger.

Mm-hmm.

But you're bonding over something very toxic.

Very, very toxic. And, and often blind to how much it's affecting you. You know, people, I got migraine headaches.

Mm-hmm.

People get all kinds of stomach problems. And often when they get out of that toxic relationship, they start to get their health back in so many ways.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So for a woman who might be listening and feeling like, well, I don't want that to happen to me, so what do I do if I'm feeling stuck in a difficult relationship? Maybe not to the same extent of, you know, some of the abuse that you experienced. Um, what would you suggest to her as a first step?

Find, find a safe person to talk to. And be honest, because I knew on some level that what I was living with was not okay. I knew that for quite a while, but I didn't disclose it. I didn't talk about it. Even when I went to my own therapy, I never disclosed the worst of his episodes. And I think I had a great deal of shame about it. And once I started being more honest with someone else—

Mm-hmm.

And that was a very close friend. Then I started looking at it differently, and it's like the light bulbs started to come on. Another thing that I often have my clients do is, you know, because they get lost in the fantasy of the good times, I'll say, I want you to make a list of the worst times and bring that into your conscious awareness so that you're not splitting that off and living with denial of what it's really like.

Wow. I'm thinking about asking a client to do that. And I know that that can feel really hard. Because part of what happens, and with a lot of women that I work in— work with in difficult relationships, is they feel like, well, if I face that, then I feel like I have to do something.

100%.

I don't want to do anything. I don't— I'm not ready to do anything. I don't know that I want to do anything. I just want to make this better. I just want to be able to survive this better or, or, or be healthy in this, right? And so, right, reminding her of all the bad can feel like too much.

Mm-hmm.

So I wonder, when would be the best time to write those things down? Would it be when they're in the honeymoon stage? Would it be after, you know, there, there might have been some interaction between the two of them that was negative, difficult, or abusive?

Yeah, I, I find— and again, it probably wouldn't be something you do real early on in therapy because it could be overwhelming and cause flooding and you don't know the person well enough. But generally, I think people are more ready to do it when they're starting to gain some awareness. But it comes and goes, you know, and it's like during the honeymoon phase they lose the awareness. So probably people would be less reticent to do it after episode, you know, if you can catch them soon enough. And it's like, let's write this down because a part of you is going to want to forget this, that this happened and how bad it was. So sometimes even in session, I'll take notes of what they're telling me. I'll write it down and then I'll give it back to them to take and say, this is what you need to remember because you know there's going to be a switch. And even then I'll have them predict, okay, when will he apologize? When will he start giving you compliments again? What is he going to say? And just try to bring that conscious awareness that you're living with a pattern here and the bad, the bad episode is going to happen again.

Hmm. That's so good. And I think we can apply that to relationships even that aren't, you know, marital or romantic relationships that are unhealthy because you already know the pattern. You're just not wanting to pay attention to it. That's such a great point. And when you recognize that you can identify the pattern, you already know kind of how it goes. I think that, that, that's really helpful to bring it to awareness. Now, for someone who would say, okay, so I'm not ready to end this relationship, leave this relationship, I don't want to, I have no interest in doing that. So what am I going to do with this information? What should I do with it once I start to have this awareness of the, you know, dishealth of my relationship if I don't want to leave right now?

Yeah, yeah. It certainly took me a long time. And so I think so often we can shame women when they're not ready, and that is not— shame is just never helpful.

Right. Or shame women who say, I choose to stay.

I choose to stay. And a lot of times I see that with older women who maybe have never worked. They have no way to support themselves. Often men Like this have hidden money. So, um, I mean, it's scary how many times I've talked to a woman who's 60, she's not old enough to even get Medicare, and she's gonna basically fear homelessness if she gets out of a marriage. And so I try to have compassion for that struggle.

Yeah.

And insight, but I always share with them my genuine feelings of sadness. that there doesn't seem to be an exit for them from something that hurts them. And sometimes they find an exit. Sometimes they do. I wish I could say that everybody I talked with found an exit. But I remember when I was a counselor for the domestic violence women's shelter, there was a woman who had been treated so brutally she had been hospitalized. And her husband actually went to prison for a while for it.

Mm-hmm.

And she went back and kept going back. And I was out of ideas. And I eventually said, you know, he was so violent and such a scary man. I said, I think he's gonna kill you. And why don't we plan your funeral? Mm-hmm. And that was my rather extreme attempt to see Can we break through here?

Yeah.

And she looked at me with a great deal of shock and I said, I think he's gonna kill you. And she goes, that's very likely true, but I still don't feel like I can leave. That was the hardest case. It was just hard to witness that. And she did go back. I think she had been in and out of the shelter 9 times at that point and kept returning. And that's where I go, it really can be so non-rational. It just appears to be an addiction. And I don't know how her story ended up. Probably not well.

Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for sharing that. So I always like to leave my listeners with some hope.

Yes.

Because this is, uh, it's a super tough topic. And it's also, you know, it's, it's very real, um, in terms of dynamics in relationship and fear that You know, if you disappoint, hurt, maybe even choose to not stay, you know, leave a relationship, that it could go to this extreme.

Yeah.

Um, do you have some hope that you can leave with a woman who is listening to this episode and may see bits of herself in this? Maybe not everything, but maybe bits.

Yeah, quite, quite a bit. You know, one of the things that helped me so much in therapy when I found somebody who really understood this kind of suicide and the kind of damage that it did, was that everybody makes choices. And just as I didn't cause his problems, I couldn't control his problems, I could not cure his problems. And if this was the way he was making a choice to exit life, that's on him. That's not on me. And I tell women that all the time. You can't control, you can't fix. And he's got the choice here ultimately. And I really found that the power of friendships and those heart-to-heart connections with people who loved me, there were so many people that came forward to be there for me and they didn't know what to do. And often it was just sitting with me and letting me cry or letting me vent. And I'm sure some of them found that hopeless feeling like, there's really nothing I can do to help here. But just those heart-to-heart connections heal and going back to what brings you comfort, what brings you joy in life. For me, it was animals and music and the outdoors and just creating more of a gentle life because my nervous system needed it.

Right.

And I have a better life now. I'm in my mid-60s, a better life than I've ever had. And this event with him happened 20 years ago. Within a few years, I had remarried a wonderful man, and I have the life now that I wish I had had all those other years, but I'm super optimistic. And there is always a way to get out of it, even if it doesn't look like you can see the path. Find resources. There are resources, even resources for financial help and housing. And, you know, there's the National Domestic Violence Hotline, which is thehotline.org.

Mm-hmm.

And there are people there available 24/7. If you can't afford therapy, Find a domestic violence service. They do wonderful work. And always hold hope because we all deserve relationships with respect and kindness and compassion, and we're all worth that.

Amen. Yes. Yes. So true. How can people find your book?

It's available at any source. Any book order store can order it. Amazon has got it. It's called Nightbird, one word, Nightbird, and a memoir, Nightbird: A Memoir. And I hope it does some good in the world. I've been getting messages. The book came out in April, and I've been actually having people message me on Facebook and social media saying, I heard your story on a podcast. I got your book, and thank you so much. This happened to my sister, and things like that. It's doing a bit of good in the world, which makes, makes me happy.

Oh my goodness. That's the— that's what we writers write for, right? Exactly. That's exactly why we write.

And yes, it's all about knowing that we deserve to be loved and love should not hurt.

Yes, love should not hurt. Thank you so much, Siobhan, for coming on the podcast today.

Thank you.