Reclaiming Life, Career, and Self After Emotional Abuse

Making sense of the hardest parts of our lives helps us build and lead at work

By Jennifer Cloer

For years, Jennifer Monegan lived inside a cage no one could see. Her ex-husband never hit her, but the absence of bruises didn’t mean the absence of violence. The abuse was emotional and included insidious forms of control that left her questioning her worth, isolating her from friends and family, and silencing her voice.

When she finally left after a decade, she realized just how much of herself had been stolen. She hadn’t laughed in years. She hid in closets to cry. She clipped her nails down to the quick to feel something she could control. When her abuser suggested she join CrossFit to look better, he didn’t know it would open up something in Jennifer. When the community at the gym applauded her physical strength, she started to consider how strong she really was, how strong she’d been all along. It was the beginning of reclamation.

Jennifer Monegan

Today, she is the Director of Membership, Development, and Communications at the Nonprofit Association of Oregon, thriving in a role she never could have pursued under her ex’s control. She travels for work, builds sector-wide connections, and pours her energy into strengthening nonprofits across her state. Her kids, too, are healing and learning that love can look like safety, respect, and laughter, and she has a partner now who models safety and respect.

Her story also takes aim at a stigma that still weighs heavily on women: divorce. “I didn’t think I could leave because I’d already been divorced,” she reflected. “I thought it was humiliating. But divorce doesn’t equal failure. Leaving abuse is not shameful. It’s both survival and freedom.”

“When the community at the gym applauded her physical strength, she started to consider how strong she really was, how strong she’d been all along.”

Her message is clear: domestic violence is not always visible, and it doesn’t always look like black eyes. It can live in words, in isolation, in the slow erosion of self. And breaking free is just the beginning of the story, one in which women get to reclaim their lives and their agency to build and create new things.

I asked her what her advice is for other women and she said: “Take up space, and don’t be afraid to use your voice. Trust yourself. And remember, if you’re in one of these relationships right now, it’s about what’s on the other side for you because it isn’t about them.”