When Betrayal and Violence Tried to Break Her, She Rose - Sha Sparks

Surviving Abuse. Breaking Cycles. Reclaiming Life.

Sha Sparks, a survivor of more than a decade of domestic violence, shares her journey of courage, healing, and transformation. Her story reveals manipulation, deceit, and the shocking discovery of her partner’s double life, underscoring the emotional and physical toll of living in constant fear.

Through clarity and empowerment, Sha broke free from the toxic relationship and began reclaiming her life. Now, as CEO of Sparks of Fire International, a Certified Fearless Living Coach, author, speaker, and podcast host, she dedicates her work to helping others set boundaries, break cycles of abuse, and embrace freedom, healing, and self-worth.

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https://www.shasparks.com/

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Book: Why I Survived; Where Survival Becomes Strength

Transcript

Transcript

 Please note I need, blue does contain sensitive topics, which could be triggering. Please seek help if needed. And remember, you always come first.

 As the bond tightens, the connection is slowly revealed. I don't believe in coincidences. And when I met Shay Sparks, I knew I needed to get to know her. We met at a coffee shop, each of us with two toned hair. Our need to be creative, already visible. We shared some experiences in how they influenced us to become podcast hosts and authors.

Like many Shea has experienced many adverse life events and during coffee, she shared her experience of surviving domestic violence. She is prepared to share with us today. Remember, there is always something more significant than the details of our story. The challenges overcome are where the real strength is discovered.

She and I often discuss our comfort zones and how challenging them leads to growth. We can't wait to share that message with you today. Shea Sparks is the c e O of Sparks of Fire in International. She is a certified fearless Living coach and a fearless communicator. She is an author, speaker, and host of the Power of Investing in People.

Podcast Shea is my friend. We each grabbed a cup of coffee and look forward to sharing with you todays Speaking of sharing. We encourage you to share this podcast with one person. There is healing and sharing. Shea, my friend. Welcome to the I Need Blue podcast. Oh, well thank you for having me. I am truly honored and I love when we get together and, and share coffee or stories or.

You know, just laugh cuz you know we do that. Absolutely we do. We just took a little road trip over to the other side of the state for our podcast meeting and we absolutely loved that. The energy is just strong and fun when podcasters get together, no matter what topic we talk about. Mm-hmm. There's this understanding of honoring free speech and, and people's opinions and learning from each other.

So that was great. Yeah. It was. Okay, so as I noted in the introduction, one of the first conversations you and I had with each other is we are both survivors of domestic violence. That is the first story that I share in my book, uh, why I survived Today. We wanted to talk a little bit about your situation, because domestic violence happens way too often.

Absolutely, it does. So, I was in an abusive relationship for 12 years and it was mental, emotional, physical, and financial abuse. And the word that I use to describe it is toxic manipulation until the word, the buzzword of narcissism and, and gaslighting was around. Now I really understand that that's what I was dealing with.

It was more of the, the gaslighting and the narcissist. So everything that I went through, it was for a reason. And, um, I'll share with that reason in a little bit. And, um, if you want me to go into more detail of the relationship, I can. Yeah, that would be great. Sharing the lived experience is important if you're comfortable, of course, because I, I find that when people kind of hear examples of the behaviors of things that were said, then it makes them stop and realize, oh, wait a second.

Maybe that was me. Maybe that's my sister. So yes, please. So we were together and about year four, I believe it's so hard to tell cuz it was so long ago. Um, we were living together and I get a, a message on the answering machine cuz that's how long ago it was. We had answering machines and the message was from a woman saying that she was married to my boyfriend and had two children with him.

And I was. Blown away. I was like, what? And then she said, and if you don't believe me, you can ask his sister. And the gut wrenching feel that you feel when you hear disturbing news like that. And the betrayal is undescribable. But it is. If someone had kicked me in the stomach and I lost all of my air to breathe.

In that moment, I had no idea really how to process that or even to ask, because I know that. I had to, I learned at this point that I had to be careful of the things that I said to him. I was walking on eggshells again, is a term I know now because something might set him off and make him, you know, get in my face and, and scream and yell at me or push me and try to choke me and that type of things because that's what had happened in the past, right?

That's what had happened in the previous years, and that's how it started. One of the things I've, I've learned from this situation I'll say is that it never starts out like the movies, like you watch the movie and the, the person might punch them and then they're blacked out and they got bruises all over.

That is not how my relationship happens, nor is it how most relationships happen. Most relationships happen is they test you on how they can. Um, manipulate you and conni you and things like that. So the first thing he started to do was really lie to me, obviously, cuz now I find out about the, the wife and um, the children.

So lying was a huge thing and they started out with little lies, like in the beginning. He started out lying about his age. He started about lying about where he worked, started about lying about his car. He had borrowed his sister's car every time that we went out. And he had told me it was his car again.

It's like, why would you lie about that? And it's not about that, that's the big deal. It's that what he's doing is testing you to see what else he can get away with. Right. So before all of the line, when you realized that all of the lies, uh, were there, did you have traditionally that honeymoon stage that some relationships have?

You know, I think, so we had opposite schedules, so I worked during the day and he worked overnight, and so Wednesday evening and Saturday evening were his stays off, evenings off. So we did what we. Did we partied. So we would go out on Wednesday nights. That was, there was always normally a ladies night or something going on, uh, at a bar or a club somewhere.

So we would always go out and go dancing and have a great time. And then the same thing with the Saturday nights. And this went on for probably six months, I would say. And then I got the feeling, oh no, I called one Saturday night to his place where he was staying to his house. And this, again, was back in beeper days, and I had paged him and he didn't call me back.

So I called him, uh, his house and he answers the phone and it sounds like there's a party going on. And he didn't tell me, now we're together for six months. You would think that, you know, you, you would be invited, right? And there's someone in the background that says, is that your girlfriend? And I immediately was like, Poof, like every jealousy thing and, and red flag went off inside of me and I was like, oh no, we're not doing this.

And I went over there, went over there to catch him, quote unquote. And he wasn't there. No one was there. It was completely silent. And I went, okay. I know I didn't make that up. I know that just happened. And I, at the time, had also sold him a car that he promised he was gonna pay me. And it had been. At least two weeks at this point that he was going to get paid and pay me, and he hadn't paid me.

I was like, okay, so what a, what can I do about this? And I still had the title because he was paying me, he had the keys, but I called a locksmith and had keys made and I took the car back and I ended up selling it to someone else. Now, I literally thought in that moment, Something's not right. I need to do something and I need to exit quickly.

And so a friend of mine, I was talking to her about it and she's like, you can come live with me. And so I literally packed up my little apartment in one day and moved to her house. And then I think it was like a day or two later, I took the car. That was my red flag that I should have stayed with and should have listened to that.

And instead, I. Six months go by and I don't hear from him. I don't see him. Literally everything that he knew of me was gone. I even had changed jobs and looking back, I'm really think, okay, had I just instinctively knew that I needed to do all that, probably because it wasn't a plan. It just literally just all kind of fell into place.

And so then a friend of mine called me, and then we saw each other. My friend saw, we saw each other like every weekend, and she's like, you're never gonna believe who I ran into. And I'm like, who? And she told me, she said his name and my heart dropped. And she's like, he asked about you. He misses you so much.

He was tearing up when he was asking me about you and all of this, and I was like, really? And I shouldn't have listened, but my gut told me, don't listen. But my, my heart took over and was like, he asked about me. Oh my gosh. He said He missed me. He teared up. Really like, I can't believe he teared up. Maybe he's changed.

Was what I kept thinking, maybe he's changed. And uh, she's like, yeah, he gave me his number to give to you so you might wanna call him. And it took me a few weeks and I finally called him and we talked and he was all of a sudden that really sweet guy. That I fell in love with in the beginning was, you know, he was kind, he was soft spoken.

He was sweet, he was nice and complimentary, and you know, the, I miss you so much. I love you, and I didn't tell you enough. I didn't do all the things and admit, admit, transparency, vulnerable, he made it all the things he did wrong. I'll do better. And I was like, wow, yes, this is what I wanted. This is what I was waiting for.

I didn't actually think it was gonna happen, but I guess it happened. So here we are. And um, so then we started seeing each other again and taking it slow. And about a couple of months in, I might not have been a couple of months, it might have been a month. He's like, I have something to tell you. And I was like, okay.

And uh, what? And he's like, well, while you were gone, I met someone else and she's pregnant with my baby, and I know that you're gonna be the best stepmom ever. So I just wanna let you know that this is happening, like this is on the way, and finally, you and I are gonna be a family. And even if it's part-time, you know, we'll have the kid part-time and and will be a family.

And I was like, again, kind of felt like I was kicked in the gut and yet I went, huh, well, I've always said I probably couldn't have children, so why not be a stepmom? I mean, that idea kind of resonates with me. Okay. I could do that part-time. Okay. I'm a pretty, or so I thought I was a pretty independent person, so I don't know about children.

I hadn't had children before, and so I was like, well, I could do that, I could do that. And um, then. Several months go by and we're just doing the same thing we had done before, going out on the, on the weekends and partying and all of that and having a great time. And then the baby is born and he's calls me from the hospital and said, the baby is here.

Can't you come see him? So I go to the hospital and I see the baby and see him in the, uh, nursery area and pardon me, I was kind of hoping it wouldn't look like him. Not that you can really tell by a baby, you know, a whole lot. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. But I was like thinking it might not be his.

And um, I just had this like really icky feeling. Again, I didn't listen to it. Icky feeling like here I am at a, at a hospital that I am not allowed, quote unquote, to go see him and her, but I'm looking at this baby. And so then I leave and, um, a few days later, you know, we were talking about it and he's like, oh my God, I can't wait for you to meet the baby.

You know, we should maybe move in together. And so we started looking for apartments. And then that few months after the baby was born, we moved in together for the first time. Yeah. And how long had you been together at this point, total from when you first met? Well, so we were together for six months and we had broken up for six months and by this time we were probably back together about probably six months.

And we started looking and then we found a place and we moved in in September, so about nine months, cuz it was from January to September. So we move in and everything was great. And then one day, I don't even know what happened. All of a sudden he, he pushed me and I thought, Why is he pushing me? And I have two older brothers.

And so I was always taught that if someone pushes you, you push back. And so I pushed back and he was not very tall and on the thinner side. And so to look at him, you think he doesn't have any strength, but when adrenaline kicks in, he has the strength of 10 people. And so it was as if I was poking a bear.

Every time I would fight back and it would kick off that adrenaline, and all of a sudden this strength outta nowhere came. So then I pushed him back, and then that got him even madder, and he came back and pushed me down in a recliner. We flipped the recliner over on its back, and he's on top of me and he's trying to choke me.

And I'm, I'm, I'm thinking to myself like, What did I do? What happened? What's going on here? But it was more about what did I do, you know, what did I say? What did I not do? And of course, part of it is he's yelling and screaming at me that it's my fault that if I had whatever, again, it's been so long ago, I don't remember words exactly, but it was just so foreign to me.

And yet I had this unbelievable guilt that was going on. And so this went on on a regular basis. The police were called, our landlord was actually a detective for the police department, and, um, I, he sweet talked the landlord into saying, you know, the guy below, there's no insulation here. He'd heard us walking around and he basically, you know, got out of it.

He said, I don't know why he called the police. And he threatened me. Of course, you know, if you call, if you talk to him and tell 'em what really happened, he said, I'm gonna kill you and I'm gonna come to your job and I'm gonna kill them, and you know, I'm gonna get your family and all the things. And I was like, you're threatening me.

And then it became so often that I started to believe him that he could really do it, could really come kill me, could really come kill my family, and things like that. So jump ahead now. Here we're year four. And I get this phone call. I don't even know what, what I'm gonna do, what am I gonna do? And so I knew I had to carefully plan, um, because if he was going to kill me, then I didn't want him to find me.

So I decided to move in with my dad. I talked to my dad and he lived about an hour away. I didn't tell my dad what happened. I just told him I needed to move out, but I didn't change jobs, which I probably should have, but I didn't. So I move out one day while he is at work and the next day he calls me probably a hundred times and the next day, I think it was over the weekend.

And so on Tuesday, cuz I work Tuesday through Saturday. On Tuesday he shows up at my work and at this time he's working days. So he shows up at my work and he's like, Comes to my work and he's like, I need to talk to you. And I'm like, I'm busy. Why are you here? And I was kind of a manager of a salon at the time in a mall, and he's like, well, it's mall property.

I can be here, blah, blah, blah. And I had never replaced a restraining order or anything like that, but I was like, don't come to my place of business. He's like, well, technically this is the mall. I can come shopping if I want and I just wanna see you. Like, how could you leave like that? And I'm so sorry.

And here we go again. I'm so sorry. And. And I said, well, you are married. And he said, oh, that's such a mistake. That's not what it looks like. I only got married because of my son to see him and, and things like that. I'm not with her, I'm with you. And, and I said, and she tells me that you have another kid.

And he's like, oh, she's lying. She's just trying to break us up. You know, all the lies that you can imagine that you really have no idea which is true or not right. After months, and I mean months, probably three or four months of him randomly showing up at work telling me this, I caved and I was like, okay, let's get back together, but we're never living together.

We're not living together until you figure this out. And so we lived separately for the rest of our other relationship and it was got to the point where he had a job, he didn't have a job. He begged me for money. He said he'd pay me back. He never did. You know, things like that. He was an alcoholic. Um, I realized cuz at one point during the first four years, he had one of our nights out drinking.

He came, he came home and he said to me, you know, you do really stupid things when you drink. And now of course, look, hindsight is always 2020. I realize, oh, he's talking about himself. He's the one who does stupid things when he drinks. Got it. But I was thinking, oh my God, do I? So that morning I decided that I would quit drinking because I realized that someone had to be sober, and so I never drank again.

And coming from a teenage alcoholic, that was a big deal. So now here we are, we're living separately, and for the next, I couldn't tell you many years, there were times where he would choke me. I would choke him back. I never called the police. There were times where he would have his arms around my throat and I would have my hand in his mouth ripping of his creases, of his mouth open.

He had his, um, thumbs in my eyes. I had my thumbs in his eyes. Uh, while he is on top of me, I was just trying to do anything to get back at him. He, if he was gonna hurt me, I was gonna hurt him the then the makeup of, I love you so much. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And then the flip side might be 24 hours, might be an hour later, might be three months later.

It was never consistent like a woman having her menstrual cycle. It wasn't like once a month type thing. I literally could never have found a pattern in what would trigger him. And then he, uh, one day held a gun to my head and, um, I just said, pull the trigger. I don't want this anymore. Pull the trigger.

I'm done. I was dead serious. And, uh, he chickened out. He didn't pull the trigger and thank God he didn't pull the trigger. Thank God he chickened out. And yet that's when I knew that when I would hurt him back, there was a point where my conscious kid had kicked in and said, I don't wanna hurt him anymore.

And I don't necessarily know. If his conscious kicked in a longer time later, or if he didn't have that consciousness about himself, I don't know. And, and then it got to the point where every day after work, it was the same routine. Like he wanted beer and cigarettes and I would get them go to go to his house.

And for the first hour he would cuss me out and accuse me of cheating with every male client that came into the salon. And I used to just sit there and cry. I felt horrible. And then something inside me clicked one day and I was like, you know what f you, you're right. I am sleeping with everybody that I'm that comes in the salon.

Yep, sure am. Yeah. And it's in a, we're in all surrounded by windows, so you should can only imagine the people that come watch. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Uh, you know, just things like that where, um, I was done like emotionally dead, inside numb. I thought, I'm just waiting for him to kill me at this point. Then, um, his aunt and uncle came for a visit.

And so right before his aunt and uncle tell me this, I was at home. I was on the couch and I'm on the phone with him. I'm like, you know what? I'm done. I can't do this anymore. You're killing me. Literally, I, I can't do this anymore. And he starts crying and I hear this voice as if there's another person sitting next to me on the couch saying, in my right ear, saying, not now.

Not now. And at the time, I really thought it was my fear. I like my fear is telling me to not do it because, you know, it's been a long time since I've been alone and we're in the car and he's getting gas. They are telling me how his mom took him, aside from his other siblings and abused him, not his twin brother and not his older brother and sister, but just him and the things that they told me that I was like, you're kidding me?

And they're like, oh no, that's, it's awful. And I go, well, she hasn't. She's not very nice to him now, but I didn't, didn't know why. I just thought, cuz he is, he does lie. So I thought, well, maybe she just got tired of his lying all these years. And then after they left, he started to tell me at night what his mom would do to him.

She would beat him with anything that wasn't nailed down. She would lock him in his room and then I'll feed the other kids and then he was able to come down and eat whatever was left over on their plate. While she was cleaning up the kitchen and telling him how much she hated him, how much she wish she'd never been born.

He was so ugly and things like that. And I thought, wow, you say the same things to me, huh? And right after this, his older brother died, and then he became so distraught with grief. That he was suicidal, telling me he's gonna commit suicide and I'm the only thing that's keeping him alive, and blah, blah, blah.

So this went on then for a couple of years, but then when he became on, uh, suicidal, I thought it was my quote unquote duty, my responsibility to make sure that he, he lived, to make sure that he survived and he was on his best behavior for probably nine months. At this time, I think they were still married, but they weren't living together.

They weren't together. I was with him every day. Um, I literally with him every day, I spent the night all the time because again, he is on suicidal watch. I'm trying to make sure that he's doesn't do anything stupid, all the things right. And he was so sweet and so kind for those nine months and then switch flipped and, uh, Uh, he pushed me onto the ground.

He worked in a factory at this point and he's has his steel toe boots on and he's stomping on my legs, and I have had bruises of his shoe print on my thighs, and I am reaching up. He had his table set as if it was on display, and I would reach up and grab the dishes off the table and I was throwing at him and hitting him over the head with it to get him to stop.

That was the last time that he physically touched me, and then it was about, Another year later, I think, I don't, it's such a blur now, but another year later, I got to the point where I'm like, I'm not coming back. I'll see you after work, but I'm not coming back. I'm done. Uh, again, just waiting for him to kill me.

And uh, then he was in a car accident and he was on his way to my house at four in the morning. I believe he had been out drinking. He may have cheated on me. Again, or whatever had happened, and this was the day he was going to try to kill me and God stopped him. He had hit the, the tree in the yard of the church that I've been going to, and he had done it in a way with the police report.

It's like it looks unfathomable that he actually did this, but he slid sideways, backwards, over a curb in probably 20 feet. Into a tree where the driver's side was wrapped his car around the tree and he had to be cut out with jaws of life. He was in the in icu, had a brain injury, and that's where I found him.

About 12, 13 hours later. And, um, I had to track him down. His mom was trying to get me to file a missing persons report, and then when we got to the hospital, his mom and his sister were trying to get me to take responsibility, and yet they were calling me and enabler because here I was giving him all this money and enabling him and making sure he wasn't gonna commit suicide and paying just child support, like all these things.

And I just remember thinking, how did I get here? How did this happen? And I hear, I was thinking I was being the person that God wanted me to be and doing things that he wanted me to do, and yet I just had destroyed my own life so bad, my own self-worth so bad that I literally was just waiting for him to kill me, and I didn't even know what was next.

So then as I'm driving home from the hospital, I am on the street. I lived on the same street as my church where he had the accident. It hit me just like a snap that, oh God, it not now means I have to hand him back to his family. Got it. Because they don't know the truth because he compulsive liar and, and I don't even know what the truth is.

I only know certain things. So, Okay, got it. That's what not now means. And so, um, that's what ended up happening. So he went from I c U to a long-term care facility to a nursing home. And over the course of several months, I started Christian counseling Immediately. I, I will say this, I never called the police, even though I probably could have and should have many, many, many, many, many times I didn't because I fought back and thought I.

I could go to jail that he has marks on him too, rather than thinking if I went to jail, I would be safe. I thought, well, if he goes to jail, he's gonna get out and come kill me. He's gonna track me down and find me. Because at this point now I had a business, uh, had a salon, and I wasn't about to give that up or move just because some in my, in my mind, some guy is, Coming after me to kill me.

So I wasn't gonna change that. So I think I was protecting him because that's what often a, um, victims do, is a protective of abusers. And at the same time, I felt like I was protecting my myself because I thought, well, I don't wanna have to change this. Um, I wanna have to change my life because he's the screw up, right?

Uh, he's the abuser, he's the one that hurts me. I don't wanna change who I am. So I never called the police, however, didn't even say the word abuse until I went to Christian counseling during that first week. And um, I told him, I told the counselor, I said, he's choked me and held a gun to my head and pushed me and scratched me and everything, but punched me.

And he said He abused you. I said, abuse. He said, yeah, you were abused. And I said I was abused. And for that, for me to say that out loud was like a foreign language to me. I think I had grown up with the expectation that being the only girl you, you were treated like one of the boys, and that you grow a tough skin.

And you grow, uh, tough and you just be independent and tough and you're never a victim of anything because some things happened to me in childhood that, you know, was never taken seriously. One of my brother's friends attempted to rape me, and when I tell my mom this, she's like, oh, you had your first kiss.

And so I realized that a victim doesn't really get their voice heard. It doesn't really get to be, it doesn't really get to be a victim. So as I was saying, sitting in the counselor's office saying I was abused, it was so bizarre to me. And then right after that, I met my best friend for lunch. And I'll never forget we were sitting in.

In a restaurant and in a corner, and I asked, please put me in a corner far away from everyone cuz I was so raw and still crying. And I said to her I was abused. And I whisper whispered it cuz I couldn't even say it out loud as she said, you were abused and you never told me. I said I never told anyone until now.

And that in itself became the, the multitude of healings. But just by being able to take my voice, get my voice back, was taking my power back and really being able to say, I don't deserve this. I was abused. I was a victim, and I'm going to use this to help others. That's an amazing story, and as you tell it, I can hear the raw, honest vulnerability in your voice and over and over.

You know, when you're in a relationship, you question yourself like, what am I doing? What am I doing? It's like we know that something isn't right, but they know how to manipulate us. And as you say, toxic manipulation. And bring us back in now, when you had gotten the call from his wife and you know, she said, I'm his wife.

You can ask his sister. Had you met the sister? Were you, had you met relatives? I met everyone. I had met one of his family members, his aunt and uncle, his siblings, cousins. And he had a dad's side of the family and a mom's side of the family. And I even met at this point, I even met the dad's side of the family.

And um, they were just two separate, totally, excuse me, different types of people. Like his mom's side was inner city scarcity mindset, where his dad's side of the family was suburbs. And more like abundant mindset and they all had college degrees where the mom site did not. I knew secrets kind of on both sides, but I didn't really grasp the magnitude until again, after you're out of it and can really see it.

What I realized is that his mom also, I call it a double life, so he had a double life. And at some point before his accident, I can't remember when, but at some point he did get divorced. It was finalized. He did have divorced, he did have shared custody of his kids, and yet I still never met them. But as his looking at his family, his mom had a boyfriend who was married, so she had a double life, and then his dad had cheated on his wife with his mom and kept.

Him and his twin brother, a secret from his, this man's wife the entire lifetime. And he had a double life. So I don't know if it's genetically or if you wanna say it was a generational curse, but definitely he had all of this trauma stacked against him. Right. And we're certainly not justifying his behavior.

No. But when you have childhood trauma, that is. Undiagnosed untreated or you choose not to, to deal with it and get help and heal. The cycles tend to continue. Many people, they use the word I wanted to break this cycle. When they grow up in an alcoholic home or whatever it is, when they get to a point where they recognize this as toxic, I don't wanna be this way, I'm gonna change.

But for him, that did not happen. No. No, his mom was an alcoholic too. And, and he became an alcoholic and he never once, it wasn't until, I think that was nine years even into the relationship when he started to tell me about the abuse from his mom. Like, I didn't know any of that. It was because his aunt and uncle were honest and they were there.

So then I started counseling. I started to go through my healing, uh, peeling away the layers of the onion that I am. His sister was still trying to get me to get legal guardianship of him, and I was like, absolutely not. I've been trying to break him up with him for, for years, so I'm handing him back to you like I, I'm breaking up with you so you can let him know, uh, if and when he ever comes out of this.

And, you know, I, I made a plan with my counselor, like how I want to quote unquote wean myself off of seeing him because I had this tremendous amount of guilt, um, which I know now is survival guilt. But I had this tremendous amount of grief and guilt and worry and concern still for him, even though he had done all those things to me because now he's incapacitated.

In a coma and his eyes were the only thing that were quote unquote alive. And I learned through this healing journey that when this happens. So, um, hopefully your, your audience will hear this loud and clear when typical dynamics change in a relationship, meaning, There is a man and a woman typically. So I'm only speaking to that.

That's cuz I only know that, so I don't know about same sex. So bear with me if that's your case. So if a man is not the provider as a, a stereotypical way and the woman becomes the provider, uh, financially, and then the man becomes the aggressor manipulator, but then has this. This side that is extremely vulnerable.

Then the woman no longer becomes the wife in the relationship or girlfriend the partner. She becomes the mother, and so then the partner becomes child. So the fear that I realized I had. Yeah. During that, that healing portion of how, why I needed to wean him, wean off of going to see him is because I had a fear of abandonment myself and I thought, oh my God, I'm going to abandon him.

And that's what happens when you have these stereotypical roles flipped. And so, because I became then the parent and he was the child, I, even though I didn't have children, I knew that I could never abandon a child, and my heart and my brain were literally feeling like that he was my child. And so it took lots of support, lots of conscious conversations with that support, and really figuring out what it was I was feeling, which I had never talked about or was vulnerable with ever in my life until that moment.

But really being able to dig through that and say, I am a fear of abandonment, so I wanna make sure no one else feels abandoned. And that's why I had stayed and walked and did all the things that I did. And the same with his children. You know, I didn't want them to feel abandoned as well. So about three months in, they moved him from a long-term care facility to a nursing home.

And I had been going less and less and less and, and once he moved, I said, no, that's it. I'm not going anymore. And his sister said, begged me. She called me and begged me to go, please, please, please go. I said, why? She said, I just feel like you need to see him. She told me, and by the way, he's only communicating my blinking in his eyes.

And so I go and I get there and he's laying in his. His hospital bed in the nursing home in a very small room. So small that he had a twin bed and he was sharing it with a twin bed, but they weren't side by side. They were perpendicular. There was no one else in there. It was just him. And the uh, TV was on to cops.

I'll never forget cuz he loved that TV show. I don't know why he should have been arrested, but he left that TV show. Maybe he was learning something how to get out of it. I don't know. Anyway, he. That was on, and he was snoring. So I thought, okay, he's asleep. And so I just stood there for a minute and watched the cops thinking about what do I do?

How long do I stay? Do I leave a note? Why do I leave a note? I'm done. Like this is all the things I have to process. What am I feeling? Am I grieving? Am I relief? Like, what is this? And all of a sudden the snoring stopped and I looked over and he was just staring at me. His eyes open, wide open. And if you've ever heard that, you know, people sometimes gone before they're actually dead.

He was gone. It wasn't, the life wasn't in his eyes anymore. And so I said, can you hear me? Blink your eyes? And he blinked his eyes a whole lot. And I said, do you know who I am? And he didn't blink his eyes and I repeated the questions, got the same results. And I said goodbye, and I turn and walk out, and of course I'm crying.

And as I opened the nursing home doors, the sun was shining on my face, and all of a sudden I felt this eerie feeling of relief and grief at the same time, and knew that I had to make, I had, was making the best decision for me. And he was in a nursing home for 13 years in a wheelchair and he just passed away last year.

Yeah. As you share this story today, how do you feel? What emotions go through you? And this ended how many years ago? 2009. So 14 years ago. 14 years ago. Yeah. So 14 years later. As you share this story, what do you feel? What is going through your mind? It's interesting because I started to use that term like I was abused and I would always feel a little bit of vulnerability, but a little bit of embarrassment.

And then there were people who. Would give me some backlash about it. And I had to defend why I stayed, because I got the, well, you're smarter than that. You're too pretty to be abused. Like why did you stay in that relationship? So what I feel today when I talk about it, it's like a movie that I had watched once that I'm recalling.

That's how I feel that I'm recalling the details of a movie. It's so completely removed from me. That I don't have any emotions in it. I don't have any feelings in it. There are times when I'm talking about it, I get a thought of, oh, right, I had a completely different life many years ago, or, I was a such a different person back then.

I'm not who I am now. Like, it just blows me away sometimes that like, wow, how far I've come, how far I've healed. Is what I feel and that's what I think. Nothing about him. In fact, when I got the text, I got a text that he had had passed away this last summer. And, um, sharing it with my brother who knows all the story, his first reaction was, how do you feel?

And I said, I don't feel anything. I didn't have a. Reaction in my body at all. I'm very self-aware now, very self attuned and there was no, not even a deep breath when I read that and I was like, wow. It is literally a movie that I once watched and I have the privilege of honoring who I was back then and being able to honor all the healing that I've done now.

That's not a word I hear often. Honor, can you describe what honor means to you? Yeah, and I'll share this even more about honor, cuz there's more to that about the honor of the My Healing. So honor is about really loving yourself so much that it becomes. Your duty to heal. So just like it was my duty to take care of him when he was suicidal, it is now my duty to make sure that I peel away all those layers.

It's hard and icky and horrible and tearful. They are to look at it is important. It is imperative, it is life giving that I heal. And the reason is, is when you honor yourself, you automatically give permission to the people around you to honor themselves. And I will tell you the, and I am a person that always tries to find the happy ending in things.

And even though his, his life was unfortunate, I forgave him. Long ago, and that's why I'm able to talk about his past because hurt people, hurt people because they're hurting. And I, on the opposite side of that, empower people. Empowered empower people because they're become empowered through healing. And over my journey process, I remained friends and cordial with the dad's side of the family.

They would, periodically I would see them, I would travel and, and I would go see them. What if I was in, in their city? And I said, uh, his brother asked me how he was doing and I said, honestly, I don't. I cut all ties, um, after his accident. I said, but, I've been thinking about connecting you to his ex-wife and maybe then that way you can be informed because I am not informed.

And he says, what? He was married and I said, yeah, he, he wasn't very logical or rational and he was married the whole time we were together, or most of the time we were together. And he said, huh, runs in the family. And then a couple of months later, I reach out to his ex-wife on Facebook. I meet with her, meet his daughter for the first time, who's now 20.

I answered any question that she had and explained to them the trauma and everything. And she explained to me that I was the other woman. And I explained to her that I thought she was the other woman. And I said, because I was with him every day. I knew everyone. I said, unfortunately no one ever told me about you guys.

Which tells me a lot about his family too. Right. His dad's side of the family didn't know as you just heard, but his mom's side did. I said, I'm here because I really wanna connect you with the dad's side of the family. And she was like, you know the dad's side of the family. And I'm went, yes, cuz we were in a relationship.

So I was able to connect the daughter to the dad's side of the family. They got to meet and then a year later, She introduced the twin brother to the dad's side of the family, which is his half brother, and they met for the first time in 54 years. And I am in awe of how, I'm a very spiritual person, so how God worked through me to heal.

So that when he said to me, not now, not now, many, many years ago. I was able to hand him back to his family and heal his family and they were able to meet. That's pretty amazing. Yeah. And that to me is what honoring my feelings meant. And now at the other part of honoring your feelings and empowering others is you have a podcast and you've written some books.

Can you share some information on that with us? Yeah, absolutely. So the first, uh, book I wrote was called How to Get Your Voice Back. And it was, uh, really six steps that God gave me to journal through, uh, during my healing process. And even before, actually he started some of this work many years before.

So he was laying the groundwork of things that I would really need to focus on during my healing process. And uh, so that's my first book, how to Get Your Voice Back. And then my podcast is the power of investing in people. And it is really how business and military leaders have hit some sort of obstacle, like all of your guests have myself, my own story.

We've hit an obstacle and then that propels us in a trajectory where then our business can AC actually starts thriving differently rather than what it was before. And that's what happened to me. Um, I started to go through this healing journey because of this relationship that I was in and started to help become a coach and I started to help other women get their voice back who had been through abusive relationships and now I'm helping men who have also been abused, which we don't talk about as a society to help them get a, their voice back and being able to rebuild their self worth.

As well. And can you share a website of where they can find, um, your information? Absolutely. You can go to shea sparks.com. That's s H A S p A r k s.com and you can reach out to me there, or you can reach me on all my social media, which is other links around that as well. Thank you so much for sharing, and I, I wanna end.

This by saying, I appreciate your courage to come forward and share your story. And the moment when you realized you were abused and you had to say that word out loud, sharing that part of your story is gonna have such an impact on men in women who are listening and going through a similar situation.

So, um, I really. Appreciate you being my guest today. Mm-hmm. Well, thank you for providing this amazing platform and. For writing your book and for being you and being my friend, so thank you. Absolutely. Being your friend is easy, I have to say. It's easy. Anyway, Shea, thank you for being my guest on the I Need Blue Podcast, this Ishan Lee, thank you for listening.

You can find all of my episodes on Apple Podcast, Spotify, as well as my website. Www dot, I need blue.net. And remember, you are stronger than you think. Have a good day.