Divorce isn’t just paperwork. It’s patterns, timing, and energy. Most people only track what’s on the surface; the filings, the texts, the dates. But the real power? It’s in tracking the silences, the cycles, and yourself.

When you track, you stop being blindsided. You stop reacting. You start playing chess while everyone else is still throwing tantrums on a checkerboard. And the best part? Tracking isn’t obsession, it’s sovereignty. It’s how I stay five moves ahead, and it’s how I teach my clients to do the same. 😉

The Chessboard Revealed

Once I started mapping the board, I realized abuse wasn’t random, it was systematic. Every move had intent: to destabilize, to discredit, to isolate. And while each abuser adds their own twist, the patterns repeat so often they might as well be scripted. That’s why I decided to break the game down play by play. Below, I name each tactic for what it is, reveal how it looked in real time, explain why it works on the psyche, and show you how to spot it if it ever shows up in your life.

For a moment, Maine felt like freedom. No stress. No one watching me. The boys were thriving; mud, books, bugs, laughter. It finally felt like home again.

Then I opened the door of communication with my son’s dad. I told him the truth: I couldn’t afford Florida anymore. Instead of a conversation, he hired legal counsel and filed an emergency custody motion. I never withheld my children, never cut off communication. I hadn’t even listed my condo yet.

Days later, the judge himself called my personal phone, while on Zoom with my ex and his attorney. No notice, no hearing, no due process. Just a threat: if I didn’t turn Finn over, I’d spend 180 days in jail.

That same week, an ex started sending emails using the exact language my other ex had used against me. The overlap was impossible to ignore.

This wasn’t random anymore. The pieces were moving together.

There comes a point where battles stop feeling separate. The weight you carry from one crisis bleeds into the next until the storms overlap. That was the merge for me, the moment I realized I wasn’t just facing one conflict at a time. I was holding financial strain, co-parenting breakdowns, and escalating threats all at once. It wasn’t just about me anymore; the pressure began to spill over onto my children. And when the safety nets failed, the truth became clear: these weren’t isolated struggles, but a larger game playing out on the same board.

I thought he was different. Steady, attentive, calm. But underneath, he was just another ego-driven man who twisted every scenario until he was the victim. Déjà vu with a different face.

It started with the red flags I ignored; dark “jokes” about killing me if I ever left, promises that if he couldn’t have me, no one could. Then came the money problems. He borrowed thousands, rarely paid his share, and when I managed his finances and pulled him out of the hole, he resented me for it.

Resentment turned into fights. Fights turned into silent video recordings I took for my own safety. He drank more, ranted louder, sat with a gun across his lap, and pinched bruises into my arms when he didn’t get his way.

The breaking point was his affair. The night I confronted him ended with cops at my door, a 2 a.m. scene of blasting music, and one final fight where he clipped me with his truck before disappearing.

A few days later, he emailed: he had spoken to someone and “knew the entire truth of my life.” Then he went silent, except for the truck that kept showing up around town.

We agreed it would be amicable. List the house. Sell at the peak. Cash out and move on. Instead, while I was away on a pre-planned trip, he moved back in, filed for divorce, and changed the locks.

From there, the game escalated. Lavish vacations with his new girlfriend while he buried me in custody motions. A private investigator tailing me, feeding false reports to DCF. Urgent orders designed to bleed me dry, one $225 test at a time. Even my own attorney played both sides.

The house I invested $150,000 cash into became leverage. By the time he was done, it looked like a squatters’ den, appraised $150,000 lower than the year before. On closing day, cornered and desperate to move forward, I signed away almost everything.

Abuse isn’t always a fist. Sometimes it’s a filing. Sometimes it’s a lock changed behind your back. Sometimes it’s watching your investment rot while your name is still on the deed.

This wasn’t just divorce. It was sabotage dressed up as strategy. And in the end, I realized: the only way to win was to play the game better than they did.

Abuse doesn’t always show itself on the first date. Sometimes it hides behind a pressed suit, a charming smile, and a real estate license.

When I met my youngest’s dad, he looked like safety: successful, professional, and put together. After years of divorce battles, feeling undesirable, it was easy to fall for the illusion. But underneath, he was a master manipulator. A stalker. A man who fed on feminine energy until nothing was left but survival.

What started with small rules; check your phone, avoid this person, keep friends at arm’s length, ended in violence, surveillance cameras inside my home, and isolation so thick I nearly lost myself. The mask slipped fast. Locked doors. Slaps across the face. Other women paraded in front of me to “remind me of my place.”

I cut my hair, gained weight, and tried to disappear, because in his world, shrinking was the only way to survive. It wasn’t until another woman moved in that the truth began leaking out. She saw the rages. She heard the words. And she was the one who told me plainly: “If you don’t leave soon, I’m going to come home and find you dead.”

She was right.

This wasn’t the end of my chess game. It was only the beginning.

Abuse doesn’t always look like bruises. Sometimes it looks like a shut-off notice on the kitchen counter. Sometimes it looks like an attorney smirking while your child is taken under false orders. Sometimes it looks like black toilets, rotting food, and soiled diapers passed off as an acceptable home for your baby.

That was my reality. My name is Marissa, and I’m an abuse survivor who learned to play chess in a courtroom that only ever offered me checkers.

This isn’t just my story, it’s my strategy. I document every lie, every filing, every desperate move. I hold the line for my kids when the system won’t. And I share it for the women who feel invisible, disbelieved, or too exhausted to fight.

Because when you realize the abuse has a pattern, you stop playing defense. You start playing to win.