Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi everyone, thanks for joining me on another episode of the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast. I'm your host, specialist Separation, divorce and Co-Parenting Coach, danielle Black. Let's get into it. Hey, I'm Danielle Black and I'm the coach you need if you're dealing with post-separation abuse. I help you make sense of ongoing abusive behaviour after separation and help you take back your power and control. Let's go. But you didn't have a clue. Today is part eight of post-separation abuse unpacked.

Speaker 1: 0:52

The form of post-separation abuse that I'm unpacking in this episode is cultural, spiritual and religious abuse. Like many forms of post-separation abuse, it's also possible to experience cultural, spiritual and religious abuse during a relationship with a controlling or abusive person. Cultural, spiritual and religious abuse can occur by using aspects of your culture, identity, religious or spiritual beliefs to control, shame or belittle your worth, your beliefs, your practices or your traditions. It can also occur with a partner or a former partner using aspects of their own culture, identity, religious or spiritual beliefs to control you, shame you, beliefs to control you, shame you, belittle you those sorts of things. So it can be using your beliefs, culture and identity against you, or it can be them using theirs against you, if you have different cultural beliefs, spiritual beliefs, religious beliefs With this form of abuse. Your partner or former partner might prevent your children from learning about and participating in aspects of their culture and heritage. Your controlling partner or former partner might undermine and disparage your culture, your identity, your religious beliefs or your spiritual beliefs to the children or in the presence or the hearing of the children. So, for example, it can be your mum's accent sounds funny, doesn't it? Or you don't really want to go to that country with mum. It's not nice there and you won't like it. She might not bring you back. Your mum believes in angels. How dumb is that. You get the idea?

Speaker 1: 2:43

Controlling abusers can use aspects of your culture, identity, religious or spiritual beliefs to undermine your credibility, to isolate you and to further perpetrate coercive control, such as weaponizing beliefs about marriage and divorce as they may relate to the beliefs held by a particular religion. For example, you might be told that you will go to hell if you leave the relationship. You might be told that you won't be welcome in the church anymore. You might be told that God won't love you if you leave your partner. Your children might be told mummy won't go to heaven because she broke up our family, etc.

Speaker 1: 3:21

I wish that all of so common, not just from controlling abusers but also, unfortunately, within cultural, spiritual and religious communities themselves. I have a handful of clients who, when they sought support from members of their cultural or religious community, they were shamed and it was made really clear to them that if they left the relationship, that they would not be welcome anymore. And for my clients who ultimately made the decision to leave the relationship, they were systematically shunned by their church, by their community, and the support was rallying around their former partner, even in situations where intervention orders were required, even in situations where their former partner had perpetrated ongoing coercive control, ongoing post-separation abuse. I wish it wasn't the case. We should be able to rely on our cultural communities, our spiritual and religious communities to support victim survivors. I hope that that is happening in some spiritual and religious communities. My concern is that overwhelmingly, it's the opposite.

Speaker 1: 4:45

Partners and former partners can threaten to out you as being a member of the LGBTQI plus community if you leave the relationship, or as a means to control and coerce compliance after separation. There can even be accusations about your identity, your sexual preferences, regardless of whether or not those things are true. There can be threats about those things which can obviously be really confronting. And again, whether you are a member of the LGBTQI plus community or not, none of that should ever be used against you. None of that should ever be used to shame you, to undermine your worth, to undermine your beliefs, anything of that kind. All of that is abuse.

Speaker 1: 5:35

Controlling an abusive partners and former partners can refuse to allow children to maintain dietary practices such as halal or kosher, particularly post-separation, if that was actually previously observed when your relationship was intact. That can obviously be confusing and sometimes distressing for children. Unfortunately, it's also common for controlling and abusive partners and former partners to cite scripture, religious texts, in order to quote unquote, remind you, and perhaps the children as well, about God's disapproval of divorce or, if not, god, another deity or ultimate creator. Again, so abhorrent to have your culture or your spiritual or religious beliefs twisted in such a way to control, shame or belittle you. Troll, shame or belittle you.

Speaker 1: 6:37

One really common way that I have seen cultural abuse played out with my clients is that a number of them were born in countries other than Australia. A number of them have families of origin elsewhere in the world. This is another reason, actually, why I really love the online community that I've created, because there is also an opportunity for my clients to come together to talk about their lived experiences, because there are a number of them that have parents, siblings, their primary support network, all in another country because they themselves were born elsewhere. Unfortunately, it is common in those situations for controlling and abusive men to refuse to allow you and your children to return to your country of origin for holidays, to spend time with family members, and common for them to manufacture a narrative that you are a flight risk and they are concerned that you are essentially going to abduct the child overseas. I've had some clients where their former partner has confiscated passports and has put them on the watch list, essentially preventing them from being able to leave the country.

Speaker 1: 7:50

In ways that are just so over the top, in ways that are just totally manufactured, we're talking about blatant lies. Blatant lies that are used to control, to shame, they're used as a weapon. And if you're in this situation, if you were born in another country, if you have ties to another country, if you have close family in another country and you're wanting to be able to visit that other country with your children so that your children can maintain relationships with those family members, with your culture, your heritage. Please do reach out if you need support around this. You are not alone.

Speaker 1: 8:30

I wish that this was not as common as what it is, but sadly there are a number of women who have trusted Australian men, have had children with Australian men and are now essentially stuck here. And I'm cautious about referring to it as being stuck here because for the clients that I've got who are from another country but are living here, raising children here, they love Australia. They've got so many friends here. They've got close networks here. Many of them would not want to live permanently in their countries of origin, but that doesn't mean that they never want to be able to see their families. You know of course they want to. They want to be able to go and visit their parents, grandparents, siblings. They want their children to be able to enjoy those things. And it's hard. It's hard when you're being accused of being a flight risk, when it's total bullshit. Thank you so much for your time. I'll talk to you soon.