When Ella married Joe Carpenter, it was supposed to end the way it's always supposed to: happily ever after. In her case, she thought the odds were in her favor. Her husband was five years older and a brilliant young military officer who eventually rose to the rank of colonel.

But over the next thirty years, she'd discover that he was also a master manipulator and an alcoholic with strange sexual propensities. He also had no desire to battle his demons.

In fact, he convinced Ella she was the impetus for his abusive and destructive behavior. At every turn, he saw injustices that he used to justify his evil ways.

Ella wondered how the man she loved could have morphed into someone so unrecognizable—a man who ruthlessly sought to control her and their two sons.

Drawing on the notes she drew in the white spaces of how-to guides, devotionals, church programs, calendars, and on scraps of paper hastily stuffed into drawers, Ella seeks to reassure others trapped in abusive relationships that they are not alone—and that there is hope—in Colonel, That's My Dress!