🦚Are you still sitting on the suffering bus?

"We’re taught to normalize suffering. Not me. I got off that bus!"

As I heard these words, spoken by Dr. Raquel Martin on a podcast I was listening to during my morning run, I raised my arm in mid-jog and went, “Hell, yeah!”

I imagined countless listeners going, “What, I’m not supposed to suffer?” Decades of cultural conditioning have taught women to endure, to be long-suffering, to absorb abuse with the air we breathe and the water we drink. We’ve been raised on stories of women who suffer beautifully: religious and secular martyrs and saints who transform pain into virtue.

Contrary to what so many of us were led to believe, there’s nothing wise about this narrative. It just imprisons us.

When you’ve left an abusive relationship, just to find out that the abuse continues in new forms, through family courts, custody battles, financial manipulation, and ongoing psychological warfare, the message that suffering is noble becomes particularly insidious. Post-separation abuse victims often find themselves trapped between two equally damaging narratives: the expectation to suffer gracefully, and the toxic positivity that tells them to just “move on” and “choose happiness.”

The trap of sanctified suffering

Post-separation abuse creates a unique form of torment. You’ve done the “right” thing by leaving, yet you’re still under your abuser’s control. The systems that are supposed to protect you, like family courts, child services, and even well-meaning friends, often just end up retraumatizing you. In this context, the cultural programming that women should be long-suffering becomes a trap that keeps you paralyzed.

This programming wraps itself around your brain with these trite platitudes:

• “Just co-parent better” (as if abuse is a communication problem you can solve)

• “Don't alienate the children from their father” (as if protecting them from harm is manipulation)

• “Rise above it” (as if your trauma responses are character flaws and his actual character flaws are excusable)

• “Good mothers put their children first” (translate this to “we expect you to twist yourself into the most ridiculous pretzel shapes for your ex”)

• “Stop living in the past” (but let’s not put any pressure on an abuser to change and let’s indulge him as he dredges up ancient history)

• “He's still their father” (well then, hold HIM to that standard instead of letting biology be an excuse for his ongoing harm and expecting you to do the same)

But suffering isn’t a virtue. Enduring abuse doesn’t make you strong. There’s nothing noble about letting yourself be a punching bag for an abusive ex-partner. It makes you unavailable to live the life you and your children deserve.

The fatalistic surrender of some support communities

Ironically, some of the spaces that are supposed to provide refuge, like online support groups for post-separation abuse victims, can become echo chambers of sanctified suffering. While these communities often provide crucial validation and understanding, they can also inadvertently promote “fatalistic surrender”, i.e. the belief that “you’re trapped until the kids turn 18.”

In these groups, members can become so bonded by shared hopelessness rather than shared solutions that any suggestion of strategic empowerment within the current system gets dismissed as toxic positivity or victim-blaming. Small victories are lost in the negativity, and the identity of victimhood becomes so central that possibilities for change are rejected out of hand.

This creates another kind of suffering expectation: that enduring powerlessness is proof of understanding how broken the system is. Any attempt to reclaim agency and joy can be seen as betrayal or naivety. The message becomes: if you’re not constantly dwelling in the impossibility of your situation, you’re not taking it seriously enough.

The toxic positivity trap

On the other extreme lies the equally harmful territory of toxic positivity. This approach dismisses the very real constraints and dangers you face with cliches like:

• “Just focus on the positive!”

• “Everything happens for a reason!”

• “You create your own reality!”

• “Choose happiness!”

Toxic positivity is particularly cruel to post-separation abuse victims because it places the burden of healing entirely on your shoulders while ignoring the ongoing trauma you’re experiencing. It suggests that if you’re still struggling, you’re just not thinking positively enough. This is a form of victim-blaming disguised as empowerment.

Spiritual bypassing: the pretty package for painful dismissal

Spiritual bypassing takes toxic positivity and wraps it in mystical language. It sounds enlightened, but it’s actually another way of avoiding the messy, complex reality of healing from ongoing trauma. In the context of post-separation abuse, spiritual bypassing might sound like:

• “Your ex is your greatest teacher!” (🤮)

• “This is all part of your soul's journey!”

• “You manifested this to learn something!”

• “Send him love and light!”

• “Forgiveness will set you free!”

While spiritual practices can genuinely support healing, spiritual bypassing uses them to skip over the necessary work of establishing safety, setting boundaries, and acknowledging harm. It’s particularly seductive because it offers the illusion of control and meaning in situations that often feel chaotic and senseless.

The middle path: acknowledging reality while you reclaim your power

The truth lies in neither sanctified suffering nor spiritual bypassing. You can acknowledge the reality of your constraints while still reclaiming every possible scrap of agency and joy in your life. This middle path calls for:

Radical acceptance without resignation

Accept what you can’t control—your ex’s behavior, the snail-like pace of the court system, other people's reactions—without accepting that this is how things must always be. Acceptance isn’t the same as resignation. It’s just the starting point for strategic action.

Strategic empowerment within constraints

Even in the most restrictive circumstances, you have choices. They may be limited, they may all be difficult, but they exist. Focus on what you can control: your responses, your boundaries, your support systems, your self-care, your children’s sense of security within your home.

Honoring your experience without drowning in it

Your pain is valid. Your exhaustion is real. Your trauma responses are normal reactions to abnormal circumstances. Honor these truths without letting them become your entire identity. You’re not just what was done to you. You’re also what you’re becoming in spite of it.

Practical liberation within ongoing abuse

The answer to experiencing freedom while you’re still experiencing post-separation abuse doesn’t lie in transcending your circumstances through sheer willpower. It involves finding pockets of peace and power within the storm.

Create micro-sanctuaries

Since you can’t eliminate all sources of stress, create small spaces of peace. This might be a morning ritual, a locked bathroom where you can breathe for five minutes, or a corner of your home that feels entirely yours.

Document strategically

Keep records not from a place of helplessness, but as an act of empowerment. Every piece of evidence you gather is you refusing to let your reality be distorted or denied.

Build your support network carefully

Surround yourself with people who understand that you’re not complaining or dwelling when you talk about ongoing abuse. What you’re doing is processing and strategizing. Distance yourself from people who offer empty platitudes or victim-blaming disguised as advice.

Nurture your future self

Every little action towards your future, whether it’s taking a course, developing a skill, or saving a dollar, is an act of rebellion against the narrative that you’re trapped forever.

The revolutionary act of refusing to suffer

You’re not meant to suffer unnecessarily. This doesn’t mean you won’t experience pain, loss, or challenges. What it means is that you’re not required to accept ongoing abuse as your fate. You’re not obligated to transform cruelty into wisdom or to find meaning in senseless harm.

The most radical thing you can do is refuse to make your suffering sacred. Refuse to believe that enduring abuse makes you virtuous. Refuse to let anyone tell you that your pain serves a higher purpose.

Your job is not to suffer beautifully. It’s to survive, to protect your children, and to create whatever pockets of peace and joy are possible within your circumstances. Your job is to remember that you are not the abuse you’ve endured. You’re the person who survived it, who keeps showing up for your children, who refuses to let cruelty have the final word.

Moving forward without bypassing

Healing from post-separation abuse isn’t a straight line from suffering to enlightenment. It's a messy, nonlinear process of learning to hold multiple truths: that you've been harmed and you’re not broken, that you have constraints and you have choices, that your situation is difficult and you’re capable.

You don’t have to forgive your abuser. You don’t have to be grateful for the lessons. You don’t have to turn your trauma into inspiration for others. You just have to keep moving forward, one imperfect, human step at a time and do what works for you.

You're not meant to suffer needlessly. As Dr. Raquel Martin said, you can get off that bus. It might be a slow walk to your destination, and the route might be more complicated than you hoped, but you don't have to stay seated in suffering just because someone told you that's where you belong.

You don’t need to accept suffering as your fate

Are you exhausted from being told to “just co-parent better” while you’re dealing with ongoing abuse? Wouldn’t it be nice to talk to someone who understands that rejecting the expectation to suffer is strategic empowerment, not toxic positivity?

Feel free to contact me for a 30-minute consultation, free of charge, where you can finally talk honestly about what post-separation abuse really looks like without being dismissed as “dwelling in the past.”

You’ll have space to explore your constraints without being told you’re “choosing to be a victim,” and we’ll look at what pockets of agency and peace might be possible within your current circumstances. Together, we’ll identify what’s keeping you stuck and where you want to be.

You’ll leave feeling heard and validated, with a clearer sense of what’s actually within your control and what obstacles you face.

Want to know more about what I do?

Resources

The video that triggered this newsletter is a great one to watch. I’d never heard of Dr. Raquel Martin before this, but now I’m a huge fan of hers. She had so many great takes that I wanted to write them all down, print them out and frame them all over my house.

Here it is, from the “Jess a couple of things” channel. BTW, I’m so out of it when it comes to current culture that I don’t know who Jessie Woo is either, but I was gripped by her description of how she was treated when she reported the abuse she experienced, both as a child and as an adult. I loved her questions too.

Here’s the video that Dr. Martin refers to in the interview above with Jessie Woo.

You can access the videos by clicking on the images.