Flying Free

Rhonda is here to give you all the advice on all things having to do with finances plus divorce. Money and divorce can be a tricky, scary topic, but our expert today wants to provide you with tips, tricks, and guidance on how to make the divorce process that much easier. You’ll learn about how to build credit, how to create a support team of people around you, how to be your own private investigat...

Does the Bible tell women that they need to stay with their abusive husband in the hope that her good behavior and great example will convert him? And how in the world are you supposed to respond to church leadership when they tell you that you need to submit to them?  Let’s look to the Bible for answers to these tough questions (that I bet have crossed your mind once or twice!) and find out what...

Have you experienced being discarded by your husband, either emotionally or physically? Yvette Stone has experienced both. Being discarded is a pain that cuts so deep, even the strongest person is not immune to it.  Yvette is here to tell us about her life story, from marrying her narcissistic abuser at nineteen to thriving as a trauma-informed psychotherapist who now helps other women just like h...

Marriage intensives: What are they? Do they work? Are they worth the money? Can a marriage intensive change an abuser? I get these questions often, and I asked the same questions myself. In fact, I believed in marriage intensives so fully that I spent $7,500 just for a man to take pictures of my angry face and talk about his own practice and family for one-third of the time. (Need context? Me too,...

Annette Oltmans is here to help us better understand reactive abuse and reabuse. After having personal experience with an emotionally abusive husband and reabuse from her church and therapists, she is on a mission to help other women in similar situations. Let’s dive into the messiness surrounding reactive abuse, what we can do to protect ourselves from reabuse, and how we can heal.  Key Points Fr...

Are we unconditionally loved by God or not? How you answer that question will play a role in how you live your life.  Key Points From This Episode: Why Natalie relates to our listener’s anxiety over this topic. Why Natalie thought her own mother’s treatment of her was how God must treat her, too. Spoiler alert: This was not a fair comparison. How spiritualizing everything can be detrimental to you...

What does showing up for your children mean once they are adults? It is selfish to “let them go,” make mistakes, and struggle as they make their own way in the world? Also, why in the world would an abuser file for divorce from his victim? Isn’t it usually the other way around? Natalie is back answering listener questions, and her insights will encourage and support you. Key Points From This Episo...

Have you ever wondered what divorce would be like from the perspective of a teenager? The members in my private program, Flying Free, asked my daughter, Aimee, a ton of questions about her experience with divorce as a teenage girl. We’re here today to answer all of them: the awkward, the hilarious, and the intense. Aimee was fourteen-years-old when my ex and I separated and seventeen-years-old whe...

It’s not often that we get a listener question from a man, and less often that we actually answer it. But today’s question of, “Should I continue to hold out hope for my marriage after abusing my wife? Should I fight for my wife? And what, in your opinion, does that look like?” struck me as being a question that we could all benefit from, so I’m going to give you my honest answer and hopefully hel...

Learn about one of the fastest growing and most effective healing modalities in the therapy world right now—and how it can change YOUR life! Internal Family Systems (IFS for short) may change the way you think about yourself, God, others, and your whole life (in a good way!)  Professional therapist Jenna Riemersma and I talk about IFS, how it ties into our faith, where we can find IFS in the Bible...

There’s a lot of confusion surrounding the term “codependency.” Is codependency bad? Am I codependent? How do I know? And what can I do differently if I want to break some of my codependent habits?  In this episode, I break down eighteen different codependent thoughts and beliefs that many Christian women are taught. I also explore nine codependent “rules” that abusers and abusive religious commun...

Have you ever wondered what Genesis 3:16 really means? Or perhaps your abuser is accusing you of forcing him into a transactional relationship simply because you’ve set down some boundaries he doesn’t like? How do we deal with these tough questions? In this episode, Natalie answers these questions by getting into the nitty gritty of Genesis 3:16, why we can trust ourselves, how not to get hooked i...

Modern Christianity tends to champion Bible worship over Christ worship, and in this episode, we are joined by Keith Giles to discuss the implications of essentially replacing Christ with the Bible. Keith is a former pastor who “left the pulpit to follow Jesus.” He is the author of notable books such as Sola Mysterium , Jesus Unbound , and Jesus Undefeated , the podcast host of  Heretic Happy Hour...

Are you ready to deal with the things you’ve been avoiding and find out how to get unstuck? Joining us today on Flying Free is the incredible speaker, therapist, and author of The Science of Stuck , Britt Frank. Through Britt’s abusive relationship, substance abuse, and spiritual challenges she has learned that mental health is a commitment to reality. In this episode, we discuss why Britt wrote h...

The holiday season can be a very emotional time. While it’s festive and fun for many people, this time of the year isn’t necessarily a happy or carefree period for everyone. Last week, we answered some questions posed by our Flying Free community about how to get through the holidays when life feels like it’s falling apart. In fact, we received so many questions from the women in our program that...

The holiday season can be bittersweet, imbued with magic and pain in equal parts. For many people, it can be a very emotional time, with all the Christmassy sounds and smells unearthing memories from the depths of their childhoods. It’s important to be kind to ourselves during this time, and in this episode, we’re tackling some of the questions posed by our Flying Free community in order to equip...

Is abuse more widespread than ever before or are we more aware of it? Are churches listening to the cries of abused women? Is anything getting better? I’m joined by advocates Sarah McDugal, Ngina Otiende, and Gretchen Baskerville, and my former podcast sidekick Rachel Harden as we celebrate the 200th Flying Free podcast episode and discuss the incredible support and awareness that’s growing in the...

Would you play a card game with a cheater? Once maybe, right? Then, it’s a solid H-E-double-hockey-stick no.  What about for a month? A year? Five years? Twenty? Would you tell your daughter to play with a cheater? Your best friend? I’m gonna guess the answer is “abso-freaking-lutely not!” So why do we think we “owe” a husband who has shown himself to be abusive any more of our precious time? In t...

Learning about emotional and spiritual abuse is dangerous.  You start to see patterns in your marriage, your family, your friendships, your church…and your faith. You start to understand why God often doesn’t feel safe. Why you feel like a constant disappointment. A regular failure. A busted, broken, rejection-worthy woman.  You were taught that God is love… And that God wants (and demands) perfec...

I'd like to introduce you to my friend Myrtle. She's a backseat driver. The kind you can't ignore.  She's MY backseat driver. And yours. Myrtle thinks she's the help-iest thing ever.  She’s a big reason behind many of our behavior patterns. The places and ways we're stuck. Our self-sabotage. Myrtle is the explanation for a lot of our recurrent fears. She’s loud, proud, and she never shuts up. She...

I remember thinking that if I could just hit on the right inflection in my voice maybe or the correct tone or the perfect combination of words or the right attitude — you know, one of subservience and humility so as not to trigger his fragile ego and bring down his wrath — I’d finally get through. He’d finally get it. The wall would come crumbling down. Nope. When I finally filed for divorce, he s...

“Unless you forgive and come back to me, you’re disobeying God and the Bible!”  If I were your abusive husband, I’d say the same thing. Why? Cause then I’d get what I want. Woohoo! Isn’t that what the Bible is all about?  Oh, begging your pardon. I was basing my opinion off how I see most church leaders and many legalistic Christians approach the Bible.  Which means that if you’re looking for advi...

“You don’t know God,” the elder leaned forward and said to me. He knew I was preparing to divorce my emotionally abusive husband. My body began to tremble. My voice shook.  I realized later that he was right. His god was vindictive and cruel, like a mythological Zeus.  The God I know — deeply, intimately, since I was a child — is gentle and kind and leads me away from fear and control. That was th...

If marriage is for life, then the only way out is death. Right?  I’ve been asked that question, or a variation of it, many times. I used to wonder that question myself.  Marriage IS for life, but not in the way you’ve been told. It’s for the sake of bringing life TO you. And when it’s destroying you instead, THERE IS A WAY OUT.  But the very Bible verses written to bring protection to abused women...

“I’m going to be ninety-two next month, and I have waited my entire life for a book like this.”    A woman said this to Tiffany after she spoke to a Sunday School class about her book, “Gaslighted by God: Reconstructing a Disillusioned Faith.”   Many Christians are told their doubts are a sign they haven’t prayed or fasted enough. That their spiritual frustrations are an indication they’re backsli...