Timothy Jensen

Let's start with my relationship to Timothy, who is my children’s father and currently subjecting them to all manner of psychological and emotional manipulation in an attempt to estrange them from me. He was psychologically and emotionally abusive and covertly controlling since the very beginning of our relationship in 2005 when I was 16 years old and he was 22. I could not see his abusive behavior then because my childhood was full of the same treatment from my parents, who unsurprisingly are now fully supporting Tim rather than their own daughter, since I began speaking out about his abuse and theirs in court. Looking back now, at 34 years old, I believe there was some level of grooming from both Tim and Kevin in how we ended up together. Tim and I grew up in the same cult-like church group, known as the Local Church/The Lord's Recovery. A group that has had many allegations leveled against them being a cult since the 1960s, has spent over decade in litigation to fight books written about them including “the mind benders” and “the god-men,” and until 2009 was actively listed on Christian Research Institutes database as a cult. This is an international group that Timothy, his parents, Kevin, Michele are still deeply involved in, and a group I chose to leave despite having been born into it, at the same time I left my marriage.

Tim, by his own admission to me, was a porn addict in his parents’ basement since middle school (and hid his addiction throughout our marriage, which contributed greatly to its failure). He also admitted that he hated people and avoided relationships at all costs. As I would painfully learn in our 15 years of marriage, unless something directly and immediately benefited him, there was no point putting effort into it, and if there was no risk of losing a person, no effort was needed. The moment I signed the marriage contract was the moment there was no more risk of losing me, and therefore no need to put in effort in the relationship.

I would continue to observe this pattern and his antisocial behavior throughout the marriage, and it was true that unless it was people in the church group, he had no interest in cultivating friendships unless there was a direct benefit to him or his image. Countless times he would tell me how much he hated people and seemed puzzled by my love for and understanding of people of all ages, races and belief systems. I believe his motivation in slandering Liana, blaming her for my choices to finally divorce him, leave his abuse and take steps to protect myself and my children is entirely driven by his need to regain control, attempt to get the custody arrangement he feels entitled to, and his complete inability to take any accountability for his part in the failure of our marriage or in his obvious wrongdoing our current divorce proceedings. Tim is driven by rage, anger and hatred of me, of Liana, of my counselor and counseling groups the children and I attend through our local YWCA chapter, and anyone he deems has supported my choices or contributed to my freedom from him in any way. I fear for my safety and the safety of my children when they are with him, as I believe he will stop at nothing to get revenge if his expectations are not met and things do not go his way.

Our relationship (and his grooming of me) started when I was 16 and he was 22. For years I could not see the level of emotional, psychological, and financial abuse and control he maintained over me, and its effects on my wellbeing. I grew up in a home where abuse and control were normalized by both my parents. As I’ve come to learn, through counseling, books, healing programs, therapy groups through the YWCA and my own research, abuse covers a much wider range of behaviors, all of which are deeply damaging to the well-being of the victim, undermining the victims self esteem, beliefs about themselves and ability to trust themselves and others. · I remember a time where he got in my face and yelled “don’t ever speak to me that way again!” My immediate reaction to his outburst was to cower, hide, and thank him for not hitting me after he followed me angrily into the bedroom. I didn’t realize then how much fear I had of this man, and how long I’d been living in fear, because to me, abuse meant being physically hit. But the scars that psychological and emotional abuse leave on your mind and soul are the ones that take the longest to heal.

My parents would visit Tim and I in August of 2021, and when they saw that we were separated my father attacked me verbally. I witnessed Tim tell both my parents lies about his mental state during that family trip, garnering their full support and effectively isolating me. A known tactic of abusers and one he had used throughout our marriage to his advantage. What he didn’t count on was the fact that when I made the decision to finally leave him and choose a better life for myself and my children, I had already anticipated that it would mean losing my family and community as well, due to his tactics of triangulation and isolation and I was ready for that. I continue to build new support and connections in my local and online community to this day that are loving and supportive and it often moves me to tears how there are truly wonderful people in the world making a huge difference in people's lives; I just didn’t grow up with them around me.

The truth is, my childhood was full of abuse, and my subsequent marriage of 15 years was as well.

And I chose a mate who would use many of the same psychological and emotional abuse techniques that my parents had, in an attempt to break me down into a shell of myself that nearly succeeded. I prayed for guidance, and for Jesus to show me the way forward, and he brought me to Liana and her work.

The birth of my oldest child, a decade ago, was the catalyst to my personal healing journey. I became dedicated to becoming the absolute best mother I could be and that took me on a journey of healing the generational patterns and looking at the reality of my family, church and religious abuse, my marriage and friendships. When my daughter was born 8 years ago, I chose to distance myself from my mother, after reading a book that shed so much light on my childhood experiences from the lense of narcissistic abuse. I have no regrets for distancing myself from her, for my own wellbeing, a full 6 years before I would ever hear the name Liana Shanti. It would be after the birth of my youngest child (3) and some physical trauma from that birth, that my memories of my fathers sexual abuse of me would begin to surface.