I was named a Woman of the Year. It was the lowest night of my life.

It should have been the highest moment of my life, being recognized as one of Idaho’s Women of the Year at the age of 34.

Instead, it was one of my lowest. 

Outwardly, I had achieved everything. I had helped lead the social media campaign that raised $12 million to save my college. I was married to a seemingly successful entrepreneur who had invented virtual reality technology that got us meetings with Disney, Samsung, Google, Intel. I had two beautiful children. 

I had outer success, external validation.

But inside? Inside I was a mess.

It had been a mere week or two since my aha moment where I had entertained the possibility that I was in an abusive marriage. After I had gotten home that day, I started keeping track of all of the bizarre goings on with my husband.

“I think I’m being emotionally abused,” I said to him, still unsure what to even call the last ten years of marriage. I thought if I told him that his behavior was abusive, he would change. Or I would fix him. My husband had a way of making you think he was incompetent instead of deliberately manipulative. And then we could go on pretending that everything was fine. I would still have to ignore the multiple Ashley Madison accounts and the emails I had found soliciting women on Craigslist. In my mind, those weren’t character problems. They were impulsive one-offs. At least that’s what I believed until that February day.

Bizarrely, my husband said in response, “I’m so happy. I’m so happy.” It seemed like an odd thing to say after your wife tells you they are concerned there is a decade of abuse to untangle. “You will be honest with me now” he added.

He then got down on one knee (which is more than he did when we got engaged, to be honest) and said “If I change, will you marry me in six months?” I think he was trying to distract me, turn my focus to planning a vow renewal. But I wasn’t interested in that, not this time. I was already starting to see that words weren’t enough. I’d have to see actual behavior changes.

Over the next week, he would say things like “I can sense people’s emotions so I know when you are lying to me” or “Everyone thinks you’re a bitch.” It was unnerving, at best.

What I started to notice were the ways I was being forced to stay in constant contact with him. If he sent me a text and I waited even ten or fifteen minutes to respond, he would accuse me of ignoring him or doing something deceptive to undermine him. Once we started talking, I would endure ongoing rants that could last for thirty minutes to an hour – or longer. It was exhausting.

On the night of the Women of the Year banquet, my mom, sister, husband, and the few friends I still managed to stay in touch with came to honor and celebrate me. I already knew that my husband hated that I was getting this award. He thought it should be him (even though he wasn’t a woman). He especially hated that a man nominated me for the award. All day long, he sulked about my being recognized. And then once we got there, he started acting like I was going to be given an even bigger award. I knew that I wasn’t. And I wondered if he was trying to set me up for disappointment.

It was finally time for all of the honorees to be called on stage and individually recognized for our contributions over the previous year. I stood in the dark behind the stage with my head down. I’m a fraud. I don’t deserve this. How can I accept an award when I can’t even stand up for myself?

It would be easy to blame X for those thoughts. He certainly made me feel small and undeserving. But these weren’t his thoughts – not anymore. These were mine.

I looked like I had it all from the outside. But no one could see the inner turmoil and struggle. If I was the strong woman they were about to celebrate on stage I would leave. But if I was the good girl, the pleaser, the fixer, the person I believed that the world truly wanted me to be, I would stay.

I held back my tears and plastered my fake smile across my face as they announced my name. Wife. Mother. Leader. Friend. Imposter.