What happens after you leave an abusive relationship? Leaving may be the first step toward freedom, but healing doesn't necessarily end when the relationship does. In this deeply personal episode of The Making Love Podcast with Tish and Pastor Roy, Tish shares her experience of surviving an abusive marriage and the emotional work required to move forward. Together, they explore how abuse can affect trust, communication, confidence, and future relationships. This isn't only a conversation about leaving. It's about what happens after you leave and realize you still have healing to do. When the Relationship Ends, But the Impact Remains Tish explains that leaving an abusive marriage was only one part of her journey. The fear, emotional wounds, expectations, and relationship patterns she carried afterward didn't simply disappear. She had to confront what the experience had taught her about love, marriage, herself, and what she believed a relationship should look like. Healing required intentionality, self-awareness, and learning that her past did not have to determine her future. The Red Flags We Sometimes Ignore Tish also talks honestly about recognizing warning signs but convincing herself things would eventually change. Maybe marriage would make things better. Maybe having a baby would change things. Maybe changing circumstances would change the person. This conversation isn't about blaming someone for remaining in an abusive relationship. It's about understanding how hope, love, fear, and family expectations can make it difficult to acknowledge what is happening. What Did We Learn About Marriage From Our Families? Tish and Pastor Roy explore another important question: How much of our relationship language comes from what we watched growing up? The way our parents communicated, handled conflict, expressed anger, used silence, or resolved problems can influence our own relationships. Sometimes we carry those patterns into marriage without realizing it. Creating a healthy marriage may require identifying those behaviors and intentionally deciding which patterns need to continue and which need to stop. Abuse Doesn't Only Happen to Women Pastor Roy reminds listeners that domestic violence and abusive relationships can affect men as well. Abuse isn't always easy to recognize, and it doesn't always look the same from one relationship to another. Control, intimidation, manipulation, anger, and unhealthy communication can all be part of dysfunctional relationship patterns. The important thing is recognizing that abuse is serious and that people deserve safety, support, and a path forward. How Do You Help Someone You Love? What do you do when you believe someone you love is in an unhealthy or abusive relationship? Do you speak up? Do you stay out of it? What if they become angry with you? Tish shares from her experience working with organizations focused on family violence and helping people understand that there can be another path. Sometimes the hardest conversation is the one someone desperately needs to hear. Healing Enough to Love Again Perhaps the heart of this episode is what happens when someone who has experienced abuse chooses to love again. How do you learn to trust? How do you communicate without assuming the worst? How do you recognize when your past is affecting your present? And how do two imperfect people build a healthy marriage when they both bring their own experiences into the relationship? Tish and Pastor Roy talk honestly about grace, communication, healing, and the intentional work required to create a healthier relationship. Because a healthy marriage isn't simply something you find. It's something you build together. In This Episode Surviving an abusive marriageHealing after domestic violenceEmotional effects of abuseRecognizing relationship red flagsWhy people sometimes ignore warning signsDomestic violence and unhealthy relationshipsHow family history influences marriageBreaking unhealthy relationship patternsRebuilding trust after abuseMarriage communicationHelping someone in an abusive relationshipCreating a healthy marriage after abuseFaith, grace, and healingLearning to love againJoin the Conversation Have you ever realized that something you learned about relationships growing up was affecting your own relationship? Maybe it was the way you handled conflict. Maybe it was anger, silence, fear, or believing that love meant simply staying no matter what. Tell us in the comments. Your story or perspective may help someone else recognize a pattern they haven't been able to put into words. About The Making Love Podcast The Making Love Podcast with Tish and Pastor Roy is where love gets real, faith leads the way, and marriage becomes something you can actually enjoy. Through honest conversations about marriage, communication, intimacy, faith, friendship, conflict, and connection, Tish and Pastor Roy explore what it takes to build a relationship that lasts. Because when love is made, it doesn't just last. It gets better every day. domestic violence, surviving abuse, abusive marriage, healing from abuse, emotional abuse, domestic abuse recovery, healthy marriage, marriage after abuse, rebuilding trust, relationship red flags, toxic relationships, marriage communication, healthy relationships, Christian marriage, faith and marriage, overcoming abuse, relationship healing, breaking unhealthy relationship patterns, The Making Love Podcast, Tish and Pastor Roy #MakingLovePodcast #SurvivingAbuse #HealingFromAbuse #HealthyMarriage #MarriageAfterAbuse #DomesticViolenceAwareness #RelationshipHealing #EmotionalAbuse #HealthyRelationships #ChristianMarriage #MarriageCommunication #FaithAndMarriage Tish and Pastor Roy Times have been making love and making it last for more than three decades. They met at Joy Center in El Paso, Texas, dated for two whirlwind weeks, got engaged, and married four months later. Thirty-plus years, three grown sons, and two-and-a-half grand-babies, they're still each other's favorite people. Roy serves as the local pastor of Joy Center Phoenix, shepherding his community with the same steadiness he brought to a 13-year career as a government contractor and many years in sales and technology. Tish is an ordained minister of nearly 20 years and the CEO of Tish Times Sales Agency, where she helps high-achieving women build companies that scale beyond them. Together they bring the head and the heart strategy and Scripture, candor and compassion to every conversation. On the Making Love Podcast, Tish and Roy pull back the curtain on what it really takes to build a marriage rooted in friendship, faith, and purpose. They're not interested in the filtered, picture-perfect version. They're here for the real thing the laughter, the growth, the hard conversations, and the practical, faith-filled tools that help love get better every day. They live in Phoenix, Arizona, where you'll most likely find them loving Jesus, chasing good coffee, and out on a hiking trail together. www.themakinglovepodcast.com
