In this episode, my friend Tracy Downing shares her profoundly painful journey through narcissistic abuse in her marriage to and divorce from Progressive Christian writer and speaker, Benjamin L. Corey. Post-separation litigation and parental alienation have been especially devastating for Tracy. I believe sharing stories like Tracy’s is very important, because abuse is rampant in patriarchal churches and families, and awareness of what abuse looks like is low.
It’s difficult to share a story like Tracy’s, with so many layers and contributing factors, without taking the time to label behaviors and name impact. So I wanted to share some more about narcissistic and post-separation abuse in this post for those who may have recognized their own relationship in Tracy’s story.
Tracy spoke about being labelled rebellious in her Independent Pentecostal Church, being called a “bad apple” that needed to be “plucked” before she ruined her sisters, of having five or six men attempt to exorcise demons from her. This was not only traumatic spiritual abuse, this conditioning in her high-control religious upbringing contributed to Tracy being in an abusive relationship as an adult. She was taught to be a “good girl,” to shut herself off from her own feelings and experience in order to please others, to question her own voice and to be disempowered so that men can be centered and deferred to. Her nervous system never felt safe and secure, she was always striving to be more and do more in order to be accepted. This resulted in her being a high-achieving person as well as being disembodied from herself. She was also primed by religious conditioning to make her marriage work, at any cost.
During Tracy’s separation from Ben, her therapist told her she had experienced extreme narcissistic abuse. We cannot say definitively that Benjamin L. Corey is a narcissist without a formal diagnosis, but I believe a very strong case could be made. Let me define narcissism and highlight behaviors that fit into the categorization of narcissistic abuse:
Narcissism is a personality trait characterized by a long-term pattern of grandiosity, an excessive need for admiration, and a profound lack of empathy for others. Narcissism is found in more males than females. Narcissists are pre-occupied with power and success and believe they are superior than others and deserving of special treatment. Core traits include self-centeredness, vanity, and high levels of entitlement. Common behaviors include manipulation, gaslighting, exploitation of others, and intense reactions to criticism. It is either an inability or an unwillingness in narcissists to recognize the needs and feelings of others. They rather tend to be very critical and envious of others. They have difficulty managing their emotions and behaviors, especially dealing with stress and adapting to change. Narcissists are often depressed and moody. And underlying their grandiosity is deep shame, insecurity and fear of being exposed.
Emotional abuse can be just as painful and destructive as physical abuse. Often times, an emotionally abused woman will wish her husband would hit her, so that she could leave the marriage with a clear conscious. Emotional abuse is disorienting and debilitating. When Tracy questioned Ben’s behavior or they disagreed about anything, he employed the classic abuser’s response: DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender). In a healthy relationship, you can bring an issue to the table and work it out in a meaningful and constructive way. In a relationship with an abuser, every issue you bring up gets turned back on you. You learn it is easier to put up with the toxic behaviors rather than be punished for expressing any of your own needs.
Ben’s utilization of DARVO has been especially impactful in the aftermath of their divorce, as he has used the court system to attack Tracy and to paint himself and their daughters as her victims. Here is an excellent resource Tracy sent me about post-separation abuse and parental alienation, High Conflict Education and Resources. I compiled a list of abuse resources that you can find here. Dr. Diane Langberg, Chuck DeGroat, and Natalie Hoffman are great advocates for victims of abuse. If you recognize your own relationship in Tracy’s story, I pray you find healing and safety.
Tracy wrote to me some key things to note about Narcissists:
1. Losing control over you–Their biggest fear is you thinking for yourself. You surrounding yourself with better people. You focusing on other things. When you stop being predictable or emotionally available, they feel threatened because control is the only way they know how to feel “safe.”
2. Being exposed for who they really are–Narcissists work hard to maintain a perfect image. The idea that someone could reveal their cruelty, lies, or manipulation is terrifying, it threatens the entire persona they built to hide their insecurity.
3. Being ignored–Narcissists love attention (you’ve probably noticed this). When you ignore them or act indifferent, their entire sense of power collapses. To them it feels like abandonment, and they panic the moment they can’t get a response out of you.
4. Someone seeing through their lies–They depend on confusion to stay in power. Your confusion, so that they can keep manipulating and gaslighting you. So when you show clarity, self-awareness, and emotional distance, they know they can’t twist reality anymore…and trust me, that makes them anxious.
5. You healing and moving on–Your healing means they no longer have emotional access to you. They’re terrified of you becoming strong enough to no longer need them, miss them, or react to them.
People are not always what they appear to be. Narcissists can be charming and project many admirable characteristics publicly. But who we are behind closed doors matters. We should be the same person with our family as we are with the public. Benjamin L. Corey is a popular writer and speaker in the Progressive Christianity space. Sadly, Progressives often repeat the fundamentalist systems they think they have rejected. To be truly Christlike is to consider others before yourself, lay down your life and interests for others, love patiently and kindly, without keeping a record of wrongs. God is love, and anyone who truly knows God is loving. As Dwight L Moody said, “If a man doesn’t treat his wife right, I don’t want to hear him talk about Christianity.”
You can listen to our conversation on The Beautiful Kingdom Builders Podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Substack, and more! If you find our conversation helpful, please share it with a friend, rate and review, and subscribe so you never miss an episode!
TRANSCRIPT:
Ruth Perry (00:17)
There’s a quote from Dwight L. Moody that says, “If a man doesn’t treat his wife right, I don’t want to hear him talk about Christianity.” Today I’m talking with Tracy, who was married to popular progressive Christian writer and speaker, Benjamin L. Corey. In our conversation, Tracy shares parts of a decades long story that carries many layers and deep emotional trauma. It’s impossible to unpack everything in less than an hour, but Tracy offers a powerful glimpse into the realities that she has endured.
Before we begin, I want to acknowledge that abuse is often hidden and insidious. Silence protects abusers, not victims. And so this isn’t an easy topic, but real lives are harmed when abuse goes unaddressed and we’re called to bring light into darkness. When someone speaks up about abuse, it usually comes after tremendous courage and it deserves to be taken seriously.
After listening, you can go visit thebeautifulkingdombuilders.com for show notes, where I’ll highlight key aspects of Tracy’s story and include resources for anyone who may recognize similar dynamics in their own life. Without further ado, here is today’s episode.
Ruth Perry (01:26)
My guest today is Tracy Downing, a leadership coach and grief coach and a personal friend of mine from living in Maine. And so I’m so pleased to have you here today, Tracy.
Tracy (01:36)
Thank you. Thank you, Ruth. So good to be here with you.
Ruth Perry (01:40)
This is a conversation abuse and about coming out from conditioning in conservative Christianity and then reliving those patterns marriage. Your story has so many layers that I think people are gonna relate to sadly. And the best place to start is at the very beginning. So where did you grow up Tracy? And what was your faith background?
Tracy (02:03)
Well, I grew up in Maine, small town in Maine. I was part of the Pentecostal movement from, I think, birth and ended up in a Independent Pentecostal church, meaning it was its only kind. It had no sister churches or, you know, home church, if you will.
Ruth Perry (02:21)
Similar to Independent Baptist probably culturally, but different worship style for sure.
Tracy (02:26)
Different worship style, yes. And it wasn’t like, I think like Assembly of Gods, or like the Catholic Church, or the Vineyard. This was just a one and done church.
Ruth Perry (02:35)
So I met you in Maine as an adult, so way beyond little Tracy. And the way that I met you was I reached out to your husband online because I had found his website, Formerly Fundy, I think was the name of it at the time. Benjamin L. Corey is a pretty well-known writer and speaker now as a progressive Christian.
And when I was kind of beginning my deconversion from fundamentalist Christianity and rethinking my faith, I found his website and I really enjoyed reading his writing. And so I reached out because you guys were in Maine. And we ended up meeting and having a couple of meals together. And I really connected with you. But how did you and Ben meet each other, Tracy?
Tracy (03:24)
Yeah, so he’s my former husband now and we met actually at one of his family members weddings. We met there and it was a small wedding. And so he was doing the photography at the time and we struck up a conversation and very quickly landed on the topic of adoption and found that we both had a desire to adopt in our future.
Ruth Perry (03:47)
So that was the primary thing that you connected over, adoption?
Tracy (03:50)
It was the primary thing we connected over and you know the the idea to care for the orphan and the stranger and you know the love your neighbor and all of those things were sort of secondary but the command to care for the orphan was really forefront at that time.
Ruth Perry (04:08)
And how long did you know each other before you got married?
Tracy (04:10)
We knew each other for two years and that, interestingly enough, that dating time, looking back now, had what one might call red flags. But for my nervous system, it felt familiar.
Ruth Perry (04:22)
How old were you and Ben married?
Tracy (04:26)
So yes, sometimes these parts are embarrassing because I was 32. And so, you know, from a logical standpoint, should have known better.
Ruth Perry (04:34)
Well, how can you? I mean, it seems to me like when I started unraveling things, it was because things weren’t working. And so a marriage is a great place to find out the way that you’ve been taught isn’t working, isn’t it?
Tracy (04:48)
Well, yes, and interestingly enough, you know, I think this is an important part of my story. It comes up later and it’s really it was a really a gift. so I had met him shortly after a breakup. I had been a good girl, you know, gone to church and done the things and followed all of the rules and spoke openly about my struggles, got in a lot of trouble when I was younger for asking too many questions, pointing out discrepancies. I was labeled rebellious, which if you know anything about the Pentecostal movement and maybe even just conservative Christians, that’s rebellious is equivalent to witch craft.
And so I had been sent to the Christian school of the church one year because I was a bad apple in a bag of good ones in my family. And the elders had instructed my, particularly my mother, that I needed to be plucked out to save the family. So lots of that kind of talk, they tried to pray demons out of me and they wouldn’t come out. And of course, that was my fault.
I had done all of the things, tried following all the rules, pondered what it would look like, how to help people see my heart and not find me to be rebellious or the villain that my heart’s desire was to love God and to be a good Christian girl. And I just didn’t get it right.
At 26, I was at a conference, a two-day conference, and with a colleague slash friend, and there was a lawyer there. She worked with him. She had a couple of shared clients with him. So we had lunch with him. We sat with him. We had lunch with him and I thought he was hilarious. And on day two in the afternoon, my heart started racing and I thought, I think he might be flirting with me. I think he might be interested.
And Christian men weren’t particularly interested in me. I was pretty bold and asked lots of questions and I didn’t come across as meek and mild and submissive. Not because I was a bully, but because I was just bold. I asked questions and that was not acceptable. So when I had this experience with him, I was like, my goodness. And I, I remember going to the ladies room. I still go to this place at the Augusta Civic Center and you know where that is.
I’ve been there like three times and I go there and I get the flutters. I remember getting up and going to the ladies room. I could still show you which one it was and looking in the mirror like to see myself. And I thought, is this real? And I’m 26 years old and lo and behold, the afternoon goes on and he asks my colleague and I if we would like to go for appetizers after at the end of the day.
And I had just started, I had already had a master’s degree, but I had just started my master’s work in clinical counseling. And I had a class on Friday afternoons via webinar. And so I declined, we declined. I said, I have class. And he’s like, just skip. And I was like, no, you know, good girl, follow the rules. Got to go to class. And he ended up calling me the following week and asking me on a date.
And I was so scared. Because I thought, my goodness, what if he’s not a Christian? What am I gonna do? But I didn’t know how to say no. I didn’t wanna hurt his feelings. And so I was like, okay, I’ll just go on one date. And then I found myself on a second date and I was worried about how to do this because he was a kind guy, I really liked him. And then I, you know, was right away clear that he was not a Christian and didn’t know what to do with that. And then, you know, a few dates led to a few dates.
And I was like, okay, well, here I am. And what do I do with this? And I thought, okay, well, I’ll try to convert him. Let me just try to convert him. So I can date him with the intention of converting him. And when that didn’t happen, five years later, he ended up moving back to his home state for a job. And I didn’t move with him because we were not married.
We were not married because we had different beliefs and he was very gracious and respectful. I would say he lives his life like I understand a Christian’s life should look like. He was kind, he cared for people, he was gracious, he was forgiving, he was loving and we weren’t of the same faith and that ultimately ended our relationship.
Ruth Perry (08:46)
Yeah.
Tracy (08:57)
And then shortly thereafter, I met Ben. During that relationship, I had many friends concerned about us being unequally yoked and that I was living in sin, that I was dating him, was an affront to God, and that I knew better. And so when I met Ben, and he was a Christian, and he was interested, it was, you know, if I was obedient, God would honor, he would bless me. And so it appeared I was being blessed for obedience.
Ruth Perry (09:23)
I just can’t get over that they tried to exorcise demons. That is some severe spiritual trauma you’ve experienced. I’m so sorry. And I bet they were calling you like a Jezebel spirit and stuff too, huh?
Tracy (09:38)
Yes, and I was on the ground. There was five or six men. I was on the ground on my belly. The carpet was blue, but I don’t think it had any padding under it. And they were like, you know, asking for the spirit of rebellion and another one to come out of me, as well as rejection, rebellion, rejection, and another one. I can’t remember.
Ruth Perry (09:56)
I have married a Pentecostal. My husband grew up Pentecostal. And so I’ve been to a of Pentecostal churches and we went to a Charismatic Church for a little while after our third child was born. so I believe there are healthy expressions of every kind of faith denomination and then there’s very unhealthy expressions. And it’s just interesting.
We should, especially a Pentecostal you would think would be living in the freedom of their salvation in Christ and living freely, but they were like shoving you into this little box or this little shape that you didn’t fit into violently. And they did so much harm to you. And it’s heartbreaking.
Tracy (10:35)
Mm-hmm. As well as the teachings of Dr. James Dobson, but we won’t get into that today.
Ruth Perry (10:41)
Yeah, yep, he was playing in my household every day too. Lots of factors. All right, so you get married to Ben. What is the early days like? What is your marriage like initially?
Tracy (10:48)
Mm-hmm. So we got married, we moved in together. He became a, some of the details become a little bit fuzzy, but in the time that we were engaged till the time of our wedding, he lost his job and became a student. So he was a student and I was in the mental health space. I was in leadership and climbing the ladder of leadership quite fast.
And it became apparent to me that I felt like we were in competition and I couldn’t understand that. And he at the time had an associate’s degree from the military and was working to finish his bachelor’s with a goal of going to seminary. And so wWithin the first six months well, gosh, it started on our honeymoon. If you really want the truth, I started thinking, this is marriage? And thinking my expectations were too high, thinking that I just needed to practice being a good wife. Like all the things just started coming right there for me.
And within the first six months of marriage, he had written to his second wife, his first wife. I gave him that she had cheated on him per his report now that she cheated when he was at boot camp. He married her right out of college. And the reason that they were married for a couple of years was because he was in the military. I no longer know if that is the truth or not.
But it gave him that marriage. as his second wife, the story of his second wife was that she actually tried to kill him. She was a nurse in the military and that she had tried to kill him. And because she did not want to live as a Christian any longer. I see why now. I don’t know if that is true either. Because what I know now is that as his third wife that as things began to end, well, as things ended, that he started to construct that I abuser and that our children were in danger. So there’s a pattern there.
But within those first six months, he had written to that wife who tried to kill him for his report and told her he regretted the divorce and that he had learned a lot from me around grief and she actually sent it to me on Facebook and we were sitting on the couch nearby when I saw it and he and I was like what is this and there ensued a physical altercation for him to get my computer away from me and at that point he blamed that he had had one too many to drink the night before.
And that had also been an issue. He would not come to bed with me because he needed time alone because he was an introvert. But that introvert time was resulting in a lot of beer cans. And I was married and for the long haul. And so I shared one thing of my concern and then he accused me of breaking our vows and not respecting him. And that resulted in a lot of me needing to be back in his good graces. Somehow it turned on me and I lost that message. He deleted it and I was never able to respond to her.
But she was gracious enough to let me know that that was what he was doing in his free time and he did blame her and say she was just doing that because she had emailed him for money and that that was her thing and so the chaos ensued and I was alone in my story.
Ruth Perry (14:02)
So right off the bat, honeymoon, wow. I mean, that is the typical story when you’re married to an abuser, that just, the mask falls away. The energy that they were putting into keeping that mask on during the courtship and the dating and engagement and all of that, at some point, if they’re a person with a maladaptive personality type, they were exerting a lot of energy to hide that. And so it just goes away.
Tracy (14:29)
Well, when we dated for the couple of years, there were a couple of breakups. I had broken up with him initially, which ended up getting back together. And he broke up with me because I wasn’t Christian enough. And I cannot remember the Scriptures that he quoted. He knew the Bible inside out. And so there was never going to be a day where I could sort of keep up with him or out argue him on a Scripture. And that was really him tapping into the spiritual abuse.
And it’s when he started to identify suddenly he had grown up in a cult. Surprising family members. He did not grow up in a cult, but suddenly taking my experiences and becoming his own. And that was what he was leaning into to hook me, that shame of I wasn’t enough, I wasn’t Christian enough, right? The very things that I had been trauma bonded with the church around for my lack of faith or my too many questions or my inability to release demons became the very tool that he used to then further hook me in to being with him.
Ruth Perry (15:26)
So how long had you been married when you started pursuing adoption together?
Tracy (15:30)
So, well, despite that incident, and I was married and there was an apology and the number of other things, we ended up moving after nine months to Massachusetts for him to go get his M.Div. That was the original plan. And so the plan was to adopt at some point and then he really became eager about that and to say, you know, if we were going to adopt, why do we have to have biological children first?
And so I started researching the countries of how long you needed to be married and where you could adopt and what their criteria was. So during that adoption process, you have to answer a litany of questions and I really struggled with those questions in the home study and I asked him, how do I answer these questions? It feels like I’m lying. And I don’t want to lie. And there was a lot of contortion around that and reasons why it wasn’t that I was lying. It was that I had been mean or I had been prickly or I had been
Ruth Perry (16:25)
I don’t want to skip anything up until this point. Are tracking your story well, Tracy?
Tracy (16:28)
Yeah, we’re tracking the story. Yeah, we moved to Massachusetts. He started seminary. He started coming in. I remember him coming in one night from class. I was in the shower and he came in and he started asking me what I believed about you know, this or that. And I just told him that I believed option A and he’s like, why? And I was like, because, and he’s like, well, why not B? And I, you know, I shared and he’s like, well, you can’t, you can’t cherry pick. And I was like, well, I guess I am. And he’s like, you can’t do that. And I was like, well, I am. And those kinds of sort of putting my feet in the ground and not being swayed. I didn’t realize that at that point in time, but those were just things that were stacking up against me for later.
Ruth Perry (17:14)
He was keeping a record of wrongs, huh?
Tracy (17:17)
Yes!
Ruth Perry (17:17)
Yeah, all of this story is not love. This is not what love does.
Tracy (17:22)
No, but the nervous system recognizes the chaos and the not enough and the coming back and the trying, right? This is what I tried to do with God, right? Show God that I was enough, that I did wanna be a Christian, that I did wanna follow his ways. so this nervous system activity, what I know now, looking back like, yeah, right? It’s like that love bombing and that making up and then that like always going after to please. I was well conditioned to be a pleaser even though I was bold and vocal, I was well conditioned as a pleaser.
Ruth Perry (17:56)
And I’m kind of curious how your education to become a clinical counselor, was there any kind of dissonance in yourself as you’re learning about how the brain functions and emotions and everything? Were you really keying in at all yet on how your background was malformative in those areas?
Tracy (18:17)
It’s interesting. I did clinical counseling in education. And so I was already a clinician when I met and married him. But the focus of the clinical work is what does it mean to be a clinician and learning a lot about the process and the ethics and practicing counseling skills. It’s very little on diagnosis and treatment. In fact, you take one class and it’s more focused on at the time, giving away my age, Axis I, right? Anxiety, depression, some of the the bipolar, you know, but the Axis II, which is really where back back in the day, that’s what it was called. That’s where the personality disorders lived was not really, it was sort of like glossed over.
So it wasn’t anything that I had on my radar in terms of I had worked in hospitals with sociopaths and it didn’t look exactly the same and also that dissonance for me of what it meant to be with somebody who was constantly telling me my reality wasn’t real, that I was confused, that didn’t happen. You were misremembering. Those became lines that were on repeat.
And sometimes you’re lying or you lied. And I didn’t identify as a liar. And so there was a lot of trying to recall situations and give the benefit of doubt of what was my part. Always what was my part? How could it have been misinterpreted? How could it have been interpreted? What could I have done better?
But I wasn’t on the wavelength until actually Ruth, until we were divorced or in the divorce process when I went to a therapist and she was an older woman. She probably could have been my mom and I was sharing some of what was happening for me in In those moments, in those days and she leaned forward and she said, may I? And she put her hands on my knees and she said, I’m not here to diagnose anybody. I cannot diagnose anybody that I don’t see that is not my patient. But what I can tell you is what I’m witnessing right now in your story is aligned with narcissistic abuse. And it’s of the rather severe kind. And I just burst into tears because it was the first time those words had been used. And I knew it was true.
Ruth Perry (20:48)
And you’re exactly the type of person that a narcissist is attracted to because you’re nurturing and caring and you would take ownership of your own part and question your own ownership of problems and want to do better and be better. And you’re such an overachiever and such an amazing person. And narcissism is kind of like leeching off of that.
Tracy (21:11)
You know, family members stopped reading his blog because they said, that’s not him, that’s what Tracy would say. Or he’s just, you know, lifting up Tracy’s words and taking credit for it and they felt anger. But of course I was on the Ben train trying to support him, encouraging him. Another interesting piece that I lived with in that marriage was that another way that he had used to control me was suicide. So he had experienced a family member’s completed suicide when he was 17 and had done his research. And so anytime something wasn’t going as he desired, he would say, I need space. I’m not feeling safe or I’m feeling suicidal.
You know, I grew up with forgive and forget, forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness. I did not grow up with forgiveness being two separate things. First you forgive and then you assess if reconciliation can occur. I learned that when I started doing my grief work around you know, wow, that’s what happened. It wasn’t forgiveness and reconciliation, it’s forgiveness. And then there’s a choice around reconciliation.
So there was never opportunity for reconciliation because I was always put on the back burner or he needed a break or he needed space and it was often indefinite with a looming suicide worry hanging over. And of course I was a clinician and you believe people. And so he was always just this side of an attempt per his words.
Ruth Perry (22:38)
So when he started to leave fundamentalism and embrace a more open and loving faith, did his life transform in loving and beautiful ways, Tracy?
Tracy (22:49)
Interesting enough, when the breakup happened, we had been about an hour away and we were, think we’d gone on a nature walk or something. And something was said about being a fundamentalist. And I was like, I am not a fundamentalist. I am not a fundamentalist. I am not. I was not giving. I said, bring me home. I was like, no, bring me home. I was clear I was not going down that, because that word for me had a very strong connotation.
And we ended up chatting later, because fundamentalism didn’t mean that. Who knows now, right? But the conversation became, we had different definitions of what fundamentalism meant. This is what I meant. Okay, so we ended up getting back together. See red flags in hindsight potentially.
Well, let me back up for a minute, because you had asked me about about school when I was in school. I had come a long way from you know, I had left the religious organization I grew up in at like 16. And although I left the church, obviously a lot of those beliefs were just in me and I didn’t recognize which ones were which.
So we went to seminary, you know, he would have just taken like every class and it was very kind of disorganized. So I’m very organized and offered to help. And I said, Biblical Global Justice, this man needs this class. He was racist and he was deep in the patriarchy. And so he took the class and it was life changing for him.
But much like anything, when he would change, he’d go from here, whoop, way over here. And in that process, what I came to learn, a lot of what I learned about his own process came from me reading his blog later. I wasn’t allowed to comment on his blog. I wasn’t allowed to interact with any of his followers. But I would find out things and eventually said to him like, Hey, before you tell the world, can you, can you tell me? Like, can we talk about some of these things that you’re sharing? Like they include me or the family. I’d like to have some consent and he said, well, I’m a writer and this is my creative authority. And I was like, I understand, but if you’re going to talk about us in there, I’d like to have a level of comfort and awareness and consent.
That didn’t go over well. So what that did was just sort of when he moved away from fundamentalism into progressivism, what I learned very quickly was that there was fundamental progressives. You probably encountered that too. Yeah. And so I did not swing with him that way. My thing was more about love God, love your neighbor, care for the poor, the sick, the stranger. That had become my faith. I left kind of everything else behind. I didn’t really care about any of the rules. I didn’t care about if you were a pacifist or a Calvinist or any of those, all those things like that. It didn’t matter to me. It was like, if I spend the rest of my life loving others, my plate’s full. I don’t need to decide on any of this other stuff because it’s hurt, hurtful, harmful and divisive, quite frankly.
So that became the place where, he was interacting with other people and making friends with Matthew Paul Turner’s and those people became their circle. And those people were individual in nature. They didn’t include their spouses. So it didn’t look odd that I was kind of very on the outskirts.
Ruth Perry (26:18)
What would happen if you did comment or interact with his works?
Tracy (26:22)
So I didn’t I didn’t interact because by that point I was just you know I was looking for ways to keep peace. Sometimes I would read it and be like hey there’s a typo. But you know I was I was thinking okay. I’m just being respectful. This is his work. I Always felt like he didn’t want me to be known he didn’t want me to take the spotlight from him.
In fact, we were first married that first year, he was doing photography and I was his second photographer. And he stopped having me as his second photographer because his clients loved me. We’d leave every wedding and he would just be stone cold silent. And I was like, what did I do? What did I do wrong? And I could never get an answer. He would just say, you know what you did.
And I was like, I thought that went well. I was helping to, you know, the wedding parties after the wedding, everybody’s happy and everybody’s going their own way. And I’m corralling people and people appreciated that, especially brides really appreciated that I was thinking of them and the details. But it took the limelight off him. And in hindsight, I realized that. But he ended up in Massachusetts, hiring a seminarian friends that he met, his wife. And that is actually how I found out I was getting divorced.
I was actually in our room and he always had his computer. Everything was always locked down. For some reason he had left that day and I was picking up the floor and his his sound was on very loud and he got a ping and the sound went off and the computer lit up and it was Amanda and she and I just kind of turned naturally and looked and I saw that it was Amanda so I looked and he had said I’m actually getting divorced as well. So I was like, okay, all right. And she had written, I’m so sorry to hear that. And I just kept it to myself.
Ruth Perry (28:03)
How long were you married?
Tracy (28:04)
Well, we were married and living in the same space for 10 years. We were, by the time we got divorced, it was more like 14. And a month after we got divorced, he moved on the next street over. A month after our divorce, our daughter’s senior year, using his veteran status and her disabilities as a way to sway the the homeowners to sell the home to him because he was a disabled vet and she needed to be close to walk between parents.
Ruth Perry (28:33)
What do you want to share about your adoption journey, Tracy?
Tracy (28:36)
Yeah, that’s a story. I’ve always struggled with sharing that story because it involves my daughters and their consent. But we adopted older children. It was difficult from the get-go.
The truth is that he wanted to leave our oldest in country, but the country said you’ve got to take both of them. She ended up having some significant issues that they did not disclose. And he really attached to the idea of our youngest. He had targeted her from photos. In fact, I remember him saying she’s going to be my little girl. And I remember when he said that I was like, they’re both going to be your girls.
And so our youngest had a lot of needs, a lot of needs, way more than I would have ever imagined. And I spent years doing tests and advocacy and therapies and treatments and behaviors and he was present. But I did the mornings, I did the nights, I did the appointments, I did the advocacy. IEP meetings were really hard. If you know anybody or have ever been a parent with a child with an IEP, the school really has a responsibility to follow very basic needs and her needs were significant, which left me in the position of having to really kind of lobby and advocate hard. Not just for, well, you typically give speech one time a week, like, no, no, no. Like she needs speech three times a week for 30 minutes and here’s why, and here’s why an outsider evaluator.
And the way that an IEP is supposed to work is that you’re supposed to vote. And so for the very nature, I needed him to come with me for numbers purposes. And after every single IEP, we’d have a fight. And he would tell me, I don’t know why you have to fight. I don’t know why you have to do this. And I was like, because we gotta give her the best fighting chance in life. And I understand this process. I did this for other kids before I met you.
But they were too long, the meetings were too long, and they took his time, and he didn’t like it. He also did not use his own voice there, he just sat there quietly. And at one point I had asked him, this is so much to study the law and to understand the nuances and to the diagnoses, could you help me? And he had said, no, we can’t both be tied up doing this, somebody has to work. Thank you very much. Somebody has to work.
Ruth Perry (30:49)
So I was just listening to the Mel Robbins podcast this morning and she was talking to a divorce lawyer and I was really surprised that he said the vast majority of divorces are easy and amicable and that when you have a challenging divorce it’s because there’s someone in the process with malintent. Would you say that your divorce has been easy or difficult Tracy?
Tracy (31:14)
Well, I’ll say this. I was what is considered a protective parent. I advocated hard. And what I’ll say to you is we waited till she was 18 to get divorced. I walked away with absolutely nothing. I never saw one red cent of any of his book monies. He had royalties that came in. He had a big chunk for his second book that came in. He had that in separate accounts. I never saw any of that money, but I walked away with nothing, none of his military retirement or disability. I walked away with absolutely zero, nada, nothing. Because she was 18 and I just needed it to just be over and I needed to not be accused.
Now, having said that, I learned a couple years ago that my daughters believe I’m living in his home and that it’s a home he bought, which is not true. But what’s classic in divorce is post-separation abuse. I didn’t know about this. But it’s where the abuser takes you back to court for frivolous things because they’re now out.
When he has a supply, when he’s had a girlfriend, had a girlfriend when we were separating. It was his, he had, he, was a student, but she was his, the person he interviewed for a big part of his doctoral work and I found out from my daughter that she helped him graduate seminary and finish his second book. She said, mom, weren’t you married? And I said, yes, yes, we were married. She said, isn’t that wrong? And I said, yes, that’s wrong. But I knew when we went out to California for his, for his graduation and I kept saying we should, we should have dinner with her or whatever. And he’s like, no big deal. Was not biting on it. And then at his graduation, I basically did a photo shoot and he didn’t ask me to be in one photo.
And then it was a couple months later where I saw that to Amanda. So I started putting, you obviously pieces to the puzzle together. So when he had her, it was okay because he had a supply. But when they broke up or he wasn’t dating, that post-separation abuse really, it’s the control and it’s the using the children. And although our youngest was by age, not an adult, emotionally, mentally about six was still a child. So he had that child attachment. So even though she was 18, she was still going back and forth and there was some communication and I cut that off finally. I just couldn’t do it and that had its ramifications and when all that sort of started to go away he really, he took me to court for the house.
But he lied on the court paper saying he was a veteran with no housing. He had a house in my backyard. Like really blatant things. During that time, he moved my daughter’s, she was in a special program at a college for people like her. And I’m trying to stay vague for her purposes of respect. And he had moved, he had forged her name and moved money from an account, the account that she was managing for school to his own, telling her that I was stealing her money and that he was doing to protect her, but he forged her name. He’s committing crimes.
And so many things were happening and then took me back to court again for the house. That time he took me to court with a lawyer and the paperwork said that I could or didn’t have to attend. So I was like, I’m not attending. And he still lost that case. And it came back to me, know, so he had paid a lawyer and he still lost the case. In fact, the house is mine and I paid for it. And we did get an initial loan under his veteran stuff. But that was all worked out.
So the post separation abuse has been terrible and the worst part happened about a year and a half ago. Really maybe two years ago when my daughter came home from his house crying. And she very clearly said, she ran in my door and I was like, what are you doing here? What’s the matter? She’s like, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live in my father’s fantasy land. And I was like, okay, well what happened? And I followed the parenting rules to, you know, don’t talk bad about the other parent. You always encourage them. And hindsight is 20-20. What I since learned once I realized what was happening and my reality was that.
You have to be honest with kids when bad things, maladaptive things are happening. You have to point them to truth. I did engage in bring her to counselors and tell other people the stories, but it’s so disorienting for somebody like myself. I can only imagine what it’s like for one a child and then a person with pretty significant disabilities.
So I sent her right to her counselor and he worked with her and she would tell him things. And one of the things was she was very concerned about his suicidality and he would tell her. And that was concerning and the therapist told her that that was not for her and that’s not something he should be telling her.
And then eventually she started to talk to him. She came home and I didn’t realize. During that time he had sent me a suicide letter, a very gruesome, very detailed, blaming me, accusing me, telling me very few people and that I had the power over her to change her in one second. And it just went on and on and I sent the email to my sister and I was like, this is a suicide letter and it has intent and it has a plan and I’m not gonna respond to him, right? I hadn’t been responding to him and I wasn’t going to use a suicide letter as an attempt. So she called the police and the police went and checked on him.
And they let my sister know. We checked on him. We did a well-being check and he’s fine. And she said, you need to read this letter and then tell me he’s fine. And so she emailed it to the officer and they made him go to the hospital. And I was like, I am in for it. This is not gonna go well for me. But I couldn’t sit on a suicide letter in my email box. And he was saying basically the blood is gonna be on your hands.
And so I knew I was in trouble. I knew. And sure enough, it didn’t take long when she came home from her program in May and she saw him for his birthday. She said, my dad wants to see me. And I said, sometimes when people are reconciling, they’ll say, well, I’ll go to dinner, and I’ll do it in public. And so I was trying to give her tools, encourage that relationship. And.
Long story short, he started having her over there more and I was trying to get her some work and I was always the one that was sort of like the heavy hand. You’ve got to go see Voc Rehab. You’ve got to do this. You know, was kind of dragging her along. He was always blaming, you know, well, they didn’t do this and they didn’t do that. No, we’ve got to help her set her up for success as an independent adult.
And what really happened was that he became the easier parent. He also became the parent where it’s common for kids to side with the abusive parent is really what it’s called under this behavior because they’re fearful for that parent and they turn on the what’s called protective parent. And that’s exactly what happened. And he wrote a four page accusation against me.
And she was angry at me for making her go to Roke Rehab. She left my house on foot and I was calling to her and I explained to her, you’re an adult and you get to make adult choices, but you have to be responsible for those choices and you can’t just move, you know, move back and forth between mom and dad’s house. If you move to dad’s house, you’re going to move to dad’s house. You don’t just get to get back when you’re upset with dad. Right. That’s your choice. But if you go, you’re going to go. And that day she’s like, I’m moving out with my father. And I was like, OK, but that will be your final choice. There’s no coming back. I could not do that with him.
So she went over. And I decided to… She had been very foul, her language. She spoke to me like she’d never spoken to me before. And I decided I’m going to get in my car and follow her. And I did over to her father’s house to see her there and he wrote in, sorry this is so hard to tell. He wrote in the report that she was afraid I was going to kill her.
He wrote a very long four page, this is a girl who can’t write a two sentence text. And so you had a very elaborate four page, Mr. Writer, a four page complaint. The fourth page, by the way, was well outlined as a diagnosis for post-traumatic stress disorder. And all she had to tell the court was that she was afraid I was gonna kill her with my car.
And I said, yes, I followed her. And the court definition of protection from abuse is if someone fears of bodily harm. And because if I had had guardianship of her and followed her, that would have been OK. But because she was an adult with a disability, who I managed all aspects of her life, it didn’t matter. And then they gave her an opportunity to choose how long and the longest being two years And she chose two years. She doesn’t have a concept of two weeks and there it is, two years, in around the two years.
My heart has had to say it’s, you have a funeral for a living person, living people, my children. I had seen that he had been working on our older daughter for a long time. That relationship I helped to mend. Lots of lies. And so when I would talk to her, I would be very careful, very careful because everything was going back. So it’s hard to have a relationship.
The same thing with my youngest. I see now based on the things she would say, she would say, my dad says you abused me. Why does my dad say that? And I would say, well, what did you tell him? And then in the summer when she had taken some space from him because he was trying to adopt his step sister’s daughter who was an adult and he was trying to get my daughter to help him tell her, you should let my dad adopt you. And she just thought that was, she just couldn’t do it.
So when that all happened, she would say like my dad told me this family member was scary and my dad told me. So now when I look back, I wasn’t the first person, I was actually the last person he turned. So she lost, not only is she an orphan once, his actions have caused her to lose a second, like whole family. And when she was not wanting to talk to her dad because he was demanding things and telling her things and continuing to tell her, I’m not the one who abuses you. She was, you know, open with trying to relate with his family, but they wouldn’t see her without him. They were, you know, and that was not the case. You know, like nobody’s protecting me.
Her speech therapist, said to her, know, hey, are you going to be here? Are you going to be your mom or your dad’s on Wednesday or whatever? And she said, I’m not going to be at my mom’s. she said, oh, why? And the therapist was asking because she would miss sessions when she was at her father’s and she was always consistent when she was with me. At 22, she was still in speech three times a week. That tells you the level of disability that I was advocating for and managing.
She said, I’m not gonna be at my mother’s house for a long time, she’s an abuser. And the speech therapist was aghast and said her name and she said, what are you talking about? She’s like, you love your mother. And that was the last time she ever went to speech. He pulled her from speech just like that. And the speech therapist kept saying, I don’t know, this must be just a teenage thing. She’s like, she has always just loved you. She’s been frustrated with her dad. Just hold on, just give her a week. And I was like, no. And she kept checking in six months later and she was like, I feel so bad. She lost her services. She’s like, was so shocked.
Many people have said the same thing, I deferred my hope for other people to hold that. But as far as I hope, I will probably never see my children unless he dies.
Ruth Perry (42:14)
It is so heartbreaking and as a mom, I just can’t imagine what you’ve gone through and I am so sorry, Tracy. I’m so sorry.
Tracy (42:22)
Thanks. Thanks. It’s important from a grief perspective. I do, you for 20 plus years, although I left the mental health world and I’m in leadership coaching and I do lots of change management and high level leaders. I have a specialty in grief and I sit with lots of leaders in grief, right? We grieve more than 40 things in life.
And that’s been a really difficult thing to reconcile because how you move through grief when somebody is alive and you’re constantly feeling, it doesn’t end, the grief doesn’t It’s been hard to know how to navigate through grief, to live grief and to be in the isolation that is grief.
Ruth Perry (42:59)
When you Google Benjamin L. Corey, you learn that he is a writer known for his view about nonviolence. But the story that you’ve told me is about severe violence against you and against his daughters and his other family members and former relationships. I mean, it is just inconceivable what a double life that is and how dishonest that is. And it’s heartbreaking and it’s not an uncommon story. I read an anonymous Substack a couple of weeks ago about someone talking about a man in the progressive Christian faith who really scared her in advances towards her that she wasn’t expecting. She was looking at him as a safe person that she looked up to. And then there’s a story of Tony Jones and his separation from Julie McMahon and the progressive world just swarming to protect the abuser.
Tracy (43:59)
Yes, yes, yes, that happened here.
Ruth Perry (44:02)
You can relate to that story, Tracy?
Tracy (44:04)
In fact, I have a story about that. When Julie’s story first broke, his first response was, can you believe it? And total disbelief, my thing was, people don’t make up stories like that, right? And there’s a risk. But it was then that I realized I was in trouble. I still wasn’t identifying as someone who was being abused because that was cognitive dissonance for me. But I remember him, the antics that he played and the storyline that he chose and of course he believed the abuser. But also he let me know all the people that he had on his side, that nobody would ever believe me. Noted, duly noted.
Ruth Perry (44:52)
I’ve always believed you, just from knowing you both personally and him for a very short period of time, but just feeling like when I met you and met Ben, I connected with you as an in-person relationship. It was genuine and authentic and sincere. And you do have a faith that is really beautiful and does show the fruit of the spirit.
And I just want to let you know, Tracy, I believe you and I’m very, very heartbroken and sorry for you that this is what your wild and precious life has had to experience. I thank God that justice rolls down one day, that, you know, we all have to face up to what we’ve done with our life. And what you’ve done with your life is love people and care for people and advocate for people and go out of your way and sacrifice. And you have a beautiful Christianity that I look up to, Tracy, and a beautiful life and you’re just a beautiful person. And I hope that if people need a leadership coach or a grief coach that they’ll reach out to you. How can they get in touch with you, Tracy?
Tracy (46:03)
Yes, while I’m doing a relaunch, tracy at tracydowning.com is my email. And you know, my reason really for sharing this story and there was, we went off on some tangents and we didn’t circle back. But my reason for, you know, when we chatted for sharing this was that if my story helps one person feel less alone, then I have served well in the world that we live in of injustice and silence in the face of injustice, that my story being my own and if somebody else is to feel as isolated and as alone as I have, sharing my story means they feel a little less alone than I’ve done that. So tracy at tracydowning.com is the best way to reach me. You know, grief is more than death, it’s religious abuse and it’s the normal and natural reaction to loss or change of any kind. And I sit with people in grief from a professional and personal experience.
Ruth Perry (46:59)
Thank you so much for sharing your story here today, Tracy. God bless you.
Tracy (47:03)
Thank you, God bless you too.
Thanks for being here for this important conversation. Believe survivors.
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