“At Sarah’s Inn, we listened to each other and cried, trusting each other with our secrets, developing friendships, as if this was as commonplace as a book club or volunteer group. We laughed. We did therapeutic, guided exercises and set goals…The months that I went there, I lived this oddly dichotomous life, where I worked and shuttled the boys to swimming and school, basketball, language class, and after-school sports. Living the American dream with the house in the suburbs and children who were clean and well-fed, I would appear to any objective observer as blessed as every other modern mother with a carpool of small children and a list of errands that needed to be done.

But once a week I drove to Sarah’s Inn, where I saw no one I had ever known before, It seemed to be a place in such contrast to the rest of my life, but a place where I could really be who I was. 

Each of us was different, in age, race, appearance, experience, careers and lifestyles. But all of us were worthy of being loved; none of us deserved any of this, asked for it, wanted it, searched for it. What we had in common was our desire to heal…  

In opening my eyes and breaking the silence, I have made friends I never would have known in the brutal shroud of secrecy that was my marriage...

For the hundreds of lessons learned by being married to an enigmatic, complicated man, I am thankful. These are lessons millions of women have learned, that love for another sometimes is underserved, that sometimes someone who loves you hurts you. I learned that I cannot control or influence someone else’s behavior; that I can only choose my own path. A husband or partner is not a project to conquer like an old house in need of renovation or a book that needs to be written. ..

I am grateful that on this odyssey I have earned the right to see clearly and to listen closely to the wisdom of my own heart… I don’t tell myself I was not really the victim of domestic violence, but only married to a good man with a bad temper. The truth is, my husband abused me. I was his victim. I no longer shrink from that truth; it is as persistent, as healing, and ultimately nurturing as the rain. And I let the rain wash me, the truth heal the anger and the hurt.

Sadly, mine is an ordinary, very common story. But there is nothing ordinary about me or any woman who has awakened from the nightmare, who has stopped the damning dance with an abuser who has opened her eyes. My story has a happy ending. I give thanks for that. For every woman - any woman - like me, I pray for the strength to emerge to find her own happy ending.

May we all have cause for endless thanksgiving.”

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