Rosie shares how she slowly recognized the abuse, secretly planned an international escape with her daughter, and found the courage to move forward without knowing exactly what would happen next.
Together, Zander and Rosie explore fear, toxic relationships, identity, the power of choice, and why our experiences can shape us without defining us.
It’s a powerful conversation about taking ownership of your future and choosing not merely to survive, but to live.
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You Always Have A Choice – Even When It Doesn’t Feel Like It With Rosie Aiello
I got a good one for you. I am joined by Rosie Aiello.
Rosie, welcome. Tell us who you are and what you do.
Breaking Free From Relationship Blindspots
I’m so glad we were introduced by Cindy Lee. You’ve been such a delight when we’ve chatted before. I am Rosie Aiello. I am CEO and Co-founder of the Love is Kind Network. My daughter and I had created this in response to our international escape from domestic violence. This is a movement and a business to give women a voice for themselves to celebrate their freedom from abuse. What I do specifically is I work with women who have been in toxic relationships, don’t want to get into another toxic relationship, and to help them find kind love, and to know what that means.
I have spoken to women who’ve been out of relationships for divorce 10 or 12 years, and not until they heard me speak did they even know they were in a domestic violence relationship. Unless what you’ve experienced, because I didn’t have the vocabulary then. I was in it for decades before I even had the vocabulary. I talk about what the vocabulary looks like, what it is, and what it looks like to have kind love. That’s only half the equation. People talk about abuse all the time, domestic violence all the time but we don’t want to stay there. I don’t want my ladies to stay there, and they don’t either. How do you move forward?
I would agree. We all have a degree of bad things that happened to us. We have a choice every day. Do I want to stay there? As I say when I talk about sibling loss, define your loss. Don’t let it define you. I can imagine in an abusive relationship, you may not want to sit there and go, “I am the victim of domestic violence.” You may say, “I’m here. That was part of my past. I’m not forgetting it. It’s an important part, but I’m redefining myself here,” which is good. If you don’t mind, let’s go back and talk a little about this unhealthy relationship you were in. You said you were international, so where were you living with your daughter?
We were in the Middle East. As soon as I say I was in the Middle East, people will automatically come to the conclusion that everybody in the Middle East is bad. It’s very patriarchal. Part of it is true, but it’s like that everywhere around the world. I want to just say that there is no difference. There might be a degree, but I’ve spoken to women literally all over the world. It’s like we’re all married to the same man. We had a few complicating factors. I lived in a war zone many times. For me, there was terrorism on the outside of my doors and within the four walls of my house. I felt like I was living in my own personalized terrorist camp.
Do you want to share what country you were in? You don’t have to. I’m just curious.
I’m not sharing it now because I’m writing a book and we’re having some legal issues about it. I haven’t quite figured that, but it is in the Middle East. It is in a hotbed.
It’s fine, Rosie. Unfortunately, in the Middle East, there are many places that meet the criteria that you just said where there’s ongoing terrorism and stuff. For you, what was that epic moment where you decided, “No more. I have a choice and my choice is not to do this anymore?”
Turning A Crisis Into An Escape Plan
This is a good question because for me, it was many moments, and I’ll tell you why. In the Middle East where I was living, and I think most of the Middle East, is that I have a daughter. Custody automatically goes to the father between the ages of 7 and 18. There was no way in heaven I would ever, in a million years, leave without my daughter or leave and then have her taken away from me because it was breaking the Hay Convention.
You can’t heal what you don’t recognize. Learning the vocabulary of toxic behavior is your first step toward real freedom.
I had to take that all into consideration. I didn’t know I was in an abusive relationship until after eighteen years of marriage. It was many years ago. There wasn’t the internet. I couldn’t just Google something and find out and write down what my symptoms were or what I was experiencing. I had to get it piecemeal. We came back to the United States often to visit my family and friends. I would go to a bookstore and I found a book. After eighteen years of marriage, it didn’t mean that I didn’t want to get out of there. I just didn’t know what I was going through and I knew I couldn’t leave.
There’s a lot of complicated factors. After that book, which is called The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans, I thought, “Oh my God.” I told my daughter who was sixteen at the time, probably not realizing what a big thing it was, and I went, “When you’re ready, we’ll leave.” It wasn’t until she was in college, still at the university where we were living. She came to me one day and said, “You’ve got to take me away from my abusive father.” Within four months, I planned the escape of our lives. That was the impetus to get me out, so we saved each other.
Fueling Resilience With Daily Mantras
I do want to share. While I was packing up and doing all the planning, I didn’t know anything about personal development. I didn’t know anything about mantras. I knew nothing, but I created what I now learned was a mantra. I said, “My daughter and I deserve a happy and joyful life. I don’t have to be a martyr. I have one life and I want to live it.” I repeat them a thousand times a day to keep me going.
One thing, as a mental health provider. I’m listening to you and some of the readers might be like, “How did you not realize?” Again, like anything, we just know what we know. Our experience is our experience. We don’t know necessarily differently because there isn’t a reason or a way for us to know differently. You’re just like, “Although, I don’t like this. I don’t like when he yells at me and demeans me,” or whatever was going on. As you said, you didn’t have the internet. Even if the internet existed, you may not have had access to it. This is terrible, but it’s the way that it is.
I thought, “I’m married. I’ve got to make this marriage work. I have a daughter.” I teach women these things, too. You start to make excuses for the other person’s behavior, which to me is a huge red flag, but I didn’t know it then. I would say that, “I got to make it work. I have to make it work. I have no other choice. I don’t know what to do.” I couldn’t just hop on a plane either. I already told you about my daughter’s age, which already was an impediment to me leaving when I would want to get us both freedom but I couldn’t just hop on a plane.
Overcoming The Sunk Cost Trap
I’ve talked about this in the past, but so often, even with knowledge of, “This isn’t right. I’m not happy.” There’s the fallacy of some cost. I’ve already done this far down the road. I know personally, I had that back in my twenties. I was in a relationship. Intuitively, I knew that I didn’t want to continue it, but I was like, “I’ve already been dating this person for years and we’re expected to get married,” and all of those things.
It was interesting because we both realized that something was not right and we went to couples counseling. One day I was asked a question, which on the surface seemed simple. Are you happy? Seemed like a simple enough question but I took the time to think about it. It’s obviously a much deeper question. What is happiness? What does happiness look like? How do I imagine happiness? How do I imagine a healthy relationship? The answer was no.
I wasn’t and I realized that I had a choice. I didn’t have to keep doing this. It didn’t matter what everyone else thought. It didn’t matter what society thought, be it my family, my friends or her family. I have a choice. My choice is I don’t want to do this anymore, so I broke up. It was unbelievably hard. I could tell you I was terrified, because I’m like, “What if I am alone for the rest of my life?”
I hear you. When my daughter was very little, I had told myself, in my own mind, “I can’t spend the rest of my life like this.” She was pretty young, but getting out was a different story. The more you’re in it.
You don’t have to be a martyr. Remind yourself every day that you deserve peace, happiness, and a joyful life.
Ladies, gentlemen, readers, you do have a choice. I will own that sometimes your choices are crap and crappier.
Difficult. We know Sophie’s Choice, that book.
I’m not trying to make it all rosy. Your daughter comes to you. She goes, “I don’t want to be around my abusive dad.” How did you get yourself out? I’m guessing you did not have access to vast amounts of financial means to get yourself out.
My daughter and I were writing a memoir. It’s still in draft form, but I wrote 40 pages on that subject.
I don’t want to take anything away, but it’s interesting.
I’m just teasing, but I’m telling you that I had to figure it out. We as a family would always go to the United States every summer. It just so happened when she told me this message, it was in April of 2009. We always go. I couldn’t hop on a plane by myself. I thought, “We’re going to all go together.” At that time, I remember I told you it was eighteen years of marriage.
After I read that book, I told three of my brothers and my two best friends in the United States. I told two friends in the country where I was living. Five people in almost 25 years of marriage knew. Nobody knew before. You know the topic of shame, which we can address later if you want. I did that. I got my brother to start helping me because on a scale of 1 to 10, my stress level was probably like 110.
I can imagine.
Executing Under Pressure In Plain Sight
You know how the prefrontal cortex starts to just break down. Your mind is already rewired and you’re not thinking. Fortunately, and I didn’t realize this until much later, that I was in strategic planning and forecasting in my old days working in corporate finance. That works. That brain started to kick in. Even despite that, my brother was extremely helpful. I can’t even believe I did these things. God must have been watching me. I slowly started to take things out of the house and even off the walls.
I would replace whatever I took off the wall with something else. One of the two friends that I had locally in the country, I would drive down and put it into their house for shipment later. They were going to help me with all of that. Slowly over those months, I did that. I did that for several months until I had to go. After the day arrived when we were all leaving, I don’t know if you probably are familiar with Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, his book. In any shape or form, am I going to compare myself to him? Nor did I read about him and know about what he did. I only found out about it later.
How he escaped is that he hid himself in a truckload of dead bodies. That’s how he got out in plain sight. I went out in plain sight with him. When we arrived at San Francisco International Airport, as soon as we went through the gates, I knew exactly where my brother was going to be. I didn’t have to look in the crowd. I knew exactly where my daughter and I would go. We all had our luggage carts because we had lots of luggage. I rolled our carts behind my brother. My brother knew. I told him what to tell my husband because I knew my husband doesn’t like to be embarrassed. You have to know that.
Use that to your advantage.
I told my brother, “Tell him that Rosie needs some time away from you.” I was so terrified of my husband I couldn’t even have my brother say to me, “Tell him that she’s leaving you.” I couldn’t do that. I needed a lot of psychological help to be able to say that. We walked out, leaving him standing alone, stunned.
Good for you. I talk about epic journeys all the time, and this is definitely an epic journey. That first night, there you are. I’m guessing you stayed with your brother. How did that feel knowing that this plan that you had put together worked?
On the drive up to my brother’s, he was calling everybody’s phone number. My phone number, my daughter’s phone number, and my brother’s phone number. Nobody was answering. He finally called my sister-in-law, who’s out. My brother and I drove us. After 24 hours of being on flights, we drove to get a new phone for us. We were so exhausted. By the time we got home, I didn’t even know if my brain was even functioning. You just can’t even believe it’s true but I knew it wasn’t going to be the end.
I knew he was going to put up a fight. The roller coaster of a relationship, of those kinds of abusive relationships, it was all, “You’re the only love of my life. I’ve never loved anybody but you. I knew that was all going to be coming.” I was ready for it this time. I wasn’t going to go on that slippery slope of the roller coaster.
He wants to change.
I didn’t say he wanted to change.
I know, but as you said, there’s a lot of justification when you’re in a relationship that is not healthy. That’s abusive. Be it physical, mental, verbal, some or all of those.
When high stakes threaten to freeze your brain, lean on structured planning to take your next decisive step.
Financial. I check them all.
Burning The Boats With No Plan B
You absolutely say, “They said they were sorry. They promise they won’t do it.” I do find it funny, on the psychological side. Give advice to friends and family who may not be in a good relationship. You can’t do that. You’ve got to leave. Yet you will not apply that philosophy and advice to your own life. Even though you see something going on with someone else. You know that it’s going on to you but somehow it’s different. That is one of those funny things about human beings.
As I told you I didn’t know much about abuse by the time I left. I’ve studied it and learned a lot about it since then, but the whole point was that one of the traps I got into what women get into is that it’s not bad all the time. That’s the roller coaster, it’s good and bad. I’ve had enough of those ups and downs that I knew there was no way in heaven I was ever going to go back to him. Never. This is the other thing. I did not have a plan B. I just knew it was going to work. I wasn’t sure how it was going to work, but I knew. No plan B.
A lot of our epic journeys, we obviously don’t know how it’s going to turn out, but you want to know what? We’re going on the journey. We’re taking those steps forward because there is no other choice. Like anything, there is no set path in life. We don’t know what’s going to happen. I say this on the show all the time. I’ll ask you this question, Rosie, as I ask my guests this. Do you have all the answers to all the questions that you’re going to get?
You are going to find out, aren’t we?
No.
I don’t know what all the questions are.
You don’t have all the answers, but it doesn’t stop you from getting up and starting your day. As hard as this journey must have been for you, as you said, “I didn’t have a plan B, so I had no choice but to walk forward.”
Reclaiming Agency Beyond Past Labels
That was or still is my personality. I’m a move forward person. I never adhere to being called the victim ever. I don’t even like the term survivor. I don’t use any of those terms. I don’t like to be put in a box. That’s not me. I’m not a survivor. I survived it. I’ll use it as a verb and the past tense. Victim as a noun, so I guess I was a victim if you want to put that, but that’s not how I live. I never have.
Your past shapes your story, but it doesn’t own your identity. Take ownership of your choices and rebuild on your terms.
Again, I’ll go back to, you’re defining this. It’s not defining you. That’s an important distinction. If we go, “I was in an abusive relationship, an abusive marriage,” that is not all of who you are and it’s not who you are now. That’s important. That’s part of that healing journey. It’s to say, “I’m owning. I’m taking ownership of this. It doesn’t own me.” That’s important. Kudos to you. Kudos to the work that you are doing to help other women.
Part of my past is that my older sister was murdered in 1996. I’m originally from the Boston area. When I was living and working in Boston, my parents called me. I had about a seven-mile drive into my parents’ house that first night and I got thinking about all the things that had to happen. I said, “What do we do in lieu of flowers?” It just popped into my head. There was an organization that my sister Lucy had done work with called Jane Doe, which is for women and children who are coming out of abusive relationships.
I was like, “Go to Jane Doe,” then I moved on to other things. When I got into my parents’ house, I said, “In lieu of flowers, why don’t we tell people to make donations to Jane Doe?” We had known about it because Lucy had done a walk for them and done some work. I tangentially heard about it. I knew what they did, but I didn’t know where they were located. I didn’t have an address. I didn’t have a phone number. The next morning, I called them up. I’m like, “I’m Zander Sprague, Lucy Sprague.”
It was in the paper, so they had heard her name. They had an inkling. I said, “We’re just going to have donations come to you in lieu of flowers.” They’re like, “Okay.” $30,000 was donated in Lucy’s memory. They created a little library for women with books like the one that you read that help women understand what abusive relationships are, what do you do to get out of them, and how do you start to heal. It feels so good to have done something good in this horrible, tragic moment in my family’s life.
It ties into the work that you do. It’s unbelievably hard, and we forget that we have a choice. When we realize we have a choice, that’s a powerful moment for anybody to go, “I got a choice here.” Even if you’re like, “I have no idea how to execute on my choice,” as you did. You had no idea. You’re like, “I don’t want to do this anymore, but how do I get out?”
It’s worth repeating, we have a choice. Even when we think we don’t, we always have a choice. Sometimes the choice is to stay. Sometimes the choice is to stay for a while. It’s a continuum. It’s not hard and fast any time. We have these choices. Even when you think you can’t get out, I’ve been there a long time. I’ll let you sink in cost. The terminology of using that is so true. People stay because it’s convenient and it’s easy, but is it filling you up? For me to have lived the way I had for a quarter century of my life, I was determined never to accept or settle for anything less anymore. Never.
Life is a participatory sport. Whether you participate in your life or not, your life is going on. It’s so much better when you go, “I’m going to be an active part of my life. I’m going to make choices.” You’re right, choice is a big thing. I talked about it for many years also, about the power of choice. It is empowering. Even if you’re like, “I’m making a choice too. I know I want to leave. I have to set some stuff up.”
There’s some self-efficacy, and some power there. When you made that choice, “I’m going to do it when we go to the US.” That had to be that moment of like, “Now I feel like I have some power in my own life. I’m making a choice.” I cannot even begin to imagine how terrified you were on that flight and landing and knowing. I hope your brother is a somewhat tall man to be able to stand in between you and your soon to be ex-husband.
There was no fear in that. I was so terrified of my husband. I didn’t know what he was going to behave. I knew the reason I had to escape and not just say, “I want to leave,” is because they have a tendency to get more violent when they’re putting against the corners. I started to do some research before I made that decision to do that. I am proud of what I’ve become, what I’m doing, and how I’m helping. My daughter and I created National Love is Kind Day, which is July 27th which is celebrated worldwide. July 27th is the date that we did arrive and got our freedom in the United States. That’s the day we arrived.
That is awesome. How can people find you, get a hold of you, and work with you?
My website is TheLoveIsKindNetwork.com. There’s the Love is Kind pledge that my daughter and I wrote. We’re just trying to get people just to sign it, to say this is what we believe in. I would almost call it an empowerment pledge. It’s there. There’s other free gifts and resources that they can tap into. How not to get into another toxic relationship was one of them.
I do life coaching for women who want to just move past where they are. They’re stuck and not sure what they want to do. Also, for women who want to know, time is passing and want to find kind love. That’s the only way I will say, it’s kind love because love is triggering for women who have been in abusive relationships. I always modify it by kind love.
Rosie, thank you so very much for coming on and sharing your truly epic story.
Thank you. It was my pleasure. I love sharing this story and helping others.
That is great. I want to encourage you to keep doing the awesome work that you’re doing.
Thank you.
You, too. I want to remind everyone that if you’re ready to begin your epic journey, go to EpicBegins.com. If you want some live Epic, I have a live event coming up on January 23rd, 2027. It will be here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Go to Epic-Reset.com to get signed up and to find out. I have the details coming soon. As always, I want to remind you that epic choices lead to the epic life that you want.
Important Links
- Rosie Aiello on LinkedIn
- Rosie Aiello on Facebook
- Rosie Aiello on Instagram
- Love is Kind Network
- The Verbally Abusive Relationship
- Sophie’s Choice
- Man’s Search for Meaning
- Epic Begins
- Epic Live Event
About Rosie Aiello
Rosie Aiello, MBA, is an international speaker, best-selling author, and multi-award-winning entrepreneur. After escaping a 25-year abusive marriage in the Middle East, she guides women who have left toward kind, safe, respectful love. Rosie co-founded National Love is Kind Day and is co-authoring the memoir 11 Hours to Freedom with daughter Sunny.