*Names have been changed to protect confidentiality.
When Peter* and I got married, I had an eating disorder. I saw this strong man who loved me and who would take care of me. I felt peaceful around him and he calmed my nerves. He was an LDS returned missionary who was the son of a seminary teacher. I thought I was getting someone golden and safe.
For Christmas, after we had been dating for about 5 months, he gave me the VHS animated version of Beauty and the Beast. Along with that movie he gave me a Christmas card which mentioned that he saw us walking hand in hand into eternity together. I hadn’t even thought of marrying him to that point, but after I read that, I checked in with myself and I was hooked. I wanted to marry him. My patriarchal blessing mentions things about my husband and I thought Peter fit those descriptions.
A couple of weeks after that, Peter told me he had something to tell me. I was pretty numb because I was self-medicating with an eating disorder. He tells me that he has been seeing someone else. He minimizes it and said she was just a friend. At this point, our physical relationship was very close. I felt betrayed. But I didn’t want to show it. A couple of weeks later he asked if he can celebrate his birthday with her, because they share the same birthday. I think I just looked hurt and we didn’t talk about it anymore. But as far as I knew, he didn’t see her anymore.
Later on, shortly after we were married in the LDS temple, he mentions to me that when we were dating he had gone to spring break to Las Vegas with this girl and her brother. I was shocked and hurt, but he acted like I shouldn’t be upset because nothing had happened, it was all innocent. I felt betrayed again, but set those feelings aside and didn’t really mention them. Peter had told me matter-of-factly that I was a jealous person and I didn’t want to confirm that negative trait he attributed to me.
During the first year of marriage, I actively pursued my eating disorder, and Peter was gone a lot. This was convenient for my eating disorder. He was having to travel to finish up his college degree. I got down to a very low weight and at some point decided that I didn’t want to die. I knew I knew how to keep losing the weight, and it scared me. So I didn’t try to starve myself for the most part anymore, I just was bulimic.
During that first year of marriage I came home from work to get something I had forgotten one night and he looked so guilty. I knew he was hiding something. I knew from my addiction what getting caught looked like and felt like. I think he was watching something pornographic on our t.v.
I also noticed that Peter would hardly ever talk about himself or feelings. I started snooping through his things trying to figure him out. I thought I was needy and that it was my fault for wanting to know those things. I admired his strength to have such inner control to not need anyone to share all his thoughts and emotions with. I admired his strength to never let his emotions control him.
The next year I found a Playboy hidden in our bathroom. He told me it came from his brother and it was nothing. It felt so surreal. I felt like I shouldn’t be mad or hurt, so I just drowned those feelings in bulimia and self-hate.
Not too long after I found a VHS that he had recorded several multiple pornographic clips. At this point I knew he had a problem. I knew it was something that he could not stop doing and was obsessed with it. I was so hurt. I tore through all of our boxes of stuff he had packed away so neatly. I was trying to find more pornography. I did not trust him anymore. But I still thought the problem was me. I cannot remember if I confronted him,or if I just left the VHS there, or if I destroyed it. It’s strange to me that I can’t remember.
At the same time, I was still very much completely in love with him. I never said anything bad about him to anyone. I thought he was so wonderful and my best friend. The parts that hurt were just shoved down and covered up. At that time I felt we had a great sex life. I felt loved and attractive and we had sex 3-5 times a week.
I saw a counselor a few times for my eating disorder and she asked me why I hadn’t had any children yet. I felt like it was obvious, so I asked her if she thought I should. She said yes. I am so grateful for this because it changed the course of my life. I was soon pregnant and finishing up my college degree and working full time. I was ironically miserably nauseous the whole pregnancy, but I still did binge and purge a small amount in my pregnancy.
After I had my son, my life changed. I wanted to be a better person for my son. We got the internet around the same time that I had him. I researched ways to overcome bulimia and I slowly was able to recover. I stopped by positive thinking about myself and my life, and because of fear that it would kill me. I had frequent chest pains that frightened me.
Of course, once we got the internet, I started finding pornography on the computer in the history or the internet cookie list. I would go through times of searching manically through Peter’s stuff and the computer, trying to find the pornography. I feel like if I found it I would know what was going on with him. I could know what he was doing so maybe he would stop. If he knew how much it hurt, maybe he would stop. At this point our marriage was still good to me. I still loved him so very much.
During this time of life when our first two children were born, he worked a lot. He worked at a hospital that would have him take call all night. He wouldn’t tell them no. He worked 7 days in a row, 7 days off. So whatever holidays were on his work week, he would have to work them. He worked so many Christmases and Thanksgivings and weekends. I parented on my own pretty much right from the beginning. One night on his way back into the hospital I just cried and pleaded with him to stop working so much. I told him I had never thought about divorce and never thought it was something I would ever, ever do, but I told him I couldn’t handle the pain anymore. I told him I was getting to a point where the pain was so bad I might feel like I didn’t have a choice. He didn’t say anything but he worked a tiny bit less for a little while.
I worked a full time job that was seasonal. I worked the day shift, and Peter would work the swing shift at the hospital so that the kids wouldn’t have to go to a daycare. He helped me out with the kids and the house a lot while I was working.
I wanted to stop working and have more kids. I also thought that it was bad for our marriage to not see each other so much. So I talked with Peter and we decided to have me stop working and have another baby.
Peter did not tell me how he was feeling. I think he felt a lot of pressure to provide and didn’t feel support from me to help financially. So he went back to school while I laid on the couch and the kids watched t.v. all day long while I was very sick and pregnant. That is when I started to feel absolutely alone in my marriage. I felt like he had disappeared emotionally from our marriage. I was no longer bulimic so I had nothing to dull the pain and I felt abandoned and unloved.
I immersed myself in my kids and their lives and thought my positive thoughts about everything, except Peter. Resentment was growing and growing. I started thinking about having an affair. I was so starved for the emotional intimacy that I was not getting from him. I had sex with him every week because Dr. Laura Schesslinger said that was the way to a happy man. But I was hurting deeply.
It all came to a head when he told me that he no longer believed in the LDS church. He thought Joseph Smith was a fraud. That was IT for me. He was a pornography addict, he was a work addict, and now he didn’t believe in our religion?? A voice came to me and I heard the words to not divorce him. Thank goodness I listened and stayed so that eventually I could find my own betrayal trauma recovery. I think I would have just made more of a mess of my life by marrying another addict.
I wanted more kids. If I “had” to stay with him, I still wanted my dream of a big family. So I got pregnant right away with my 4th child. I was so very sick. It was so hard to be pregnant and keep up with the other kids. I felt so alone in this pregnancy. Even my three best friends in my church congregation had moved away. Peter told me I had wanted this so he had no empathy for me being sick. It seemed like he even found it amusing.
After having my 4th child, I discovered pornography again. We went to a marriage counselor who was LDS. We talked about the pornography and the counselor and Peter looked at each other, and shrugged their shoulders. I felt like they thought I was a bitter, angry wife that was mad about something very trivial that was very common with men. Peter went once on his own to this counselor out of compliance. He told me that they just kind of stared at each other not knowing what to talk about. The second time we saw this counselor together, I felt that no one cared that I was in pain. I thought I was probably overreacting and too emotional. This time though, I knew I couldn’t go on the same. I told Peter that unless he stopped, things would be different. He didn’t seem to care. At that very moment in the counselor’s office, I shut myself off emotionally to him. I hated him. There was now a big angry cement wall between us in my heart. I would stay married to him because God told me too. I would have sex with him so he wouldn’t divorce me or treat the kids badly. But he no longer had a place in my heart. I hated him.
After our 5th child, I had postpartum depression. I was exhibiting it with anger. I was angry with everyone except my kids and oddly Peter. He was oddly somewhat compassionate and helpful at this time. After about 9 months of this, I was reading that postpartum depression could be shown with anger, I knew that was what was going on with me. So then I just got sad and depressed for a long time.
Peter signed a paper when he signed for the mortgage on a short sale home he was buying for an investment. This paper said that we would live in the house. To prevent my husband from going to jail, we moved our family of 7 to a house 40 miles away. We shortly moved back when I knew I wasn’t going to be able to handle all the new things in a new place with all of those kids ages 11 and under and with no help from Peter.
Peter I feel, continually abused me financially. He had invested in stocks a $10,000 profit we had made from selling our condominium and lost it all. He invested in a soap scheme before I said it was ok and lost $25,000. He bought that investment home without me, I had come home early from being at my parent’s home at Christmas time to sign for the home. He had signed for it without me without seeming to care how it affected me. He was making major financial decisions without me, but told himself and me that I had agreed to them.
The culmination of the financial abuse was when my mother passed away and I got some life insurance money from her. I had put it in Peter and I’s bank account. I had told Peter that the $5,000 that I had moved to our checking account was for an overseas trip I was taking with my Dad. Right before I left, Peter told me he had paid off some bills, so there was no money in our account (not mentioning that it was with my mom’s life insurance money). But I needn’t worry, he would try to come up with some money so I would have enough for my trip. I was stunned. He was creating his own reality. He used money that was sacred to me. My mom had passed away unexpectedly and I wanted to use that money for things she would want me to use it for.
My whole trip I was worried that my card would not work because of there not being enough money in the account. It felt like he stole from me. He was portraying himself as the hero saving me financially when in fact he was hurting me so badly.
He also had always managed all our money our whole marriage. I had credit cards in my name that he had used for real estate purchases that I had no idea how much had been charged on them.
I had given away all my financial power and responsibility to him.
One night, a week before Christmas, I was lying in my bed, so lonely, when a thought came into my head. I wanted to hurt myself. This wasn’t like me. I hadn’t had any self-destructive thoughts like this for so many years. An alarm immediately went off inside me. Something needed to change.
So, after 19 or so years of marriage, I finally told someone about his pornography use. Up until then I had thought that this was his problem, not mine to share. I went into counsel with my LDS bishop and told him what was going on. My plan was to divorce Peter when my youngest turned 18. He was then about 5, so I had a long way to go.
My bishop told me that that wasn’t a good plan. I should consider divorce now. It was some of the best advice I had ever gotten. I felt like if a church leader could tell me to consider divorce, there was validity to my pain. I had thought that unless there was an affair or physical abuse, you should never divorce. It wasn’t righteous. This talk with my bishop was giving me a new perspective.
I told my parents what was going on and I told a couple of close friends. I told Peter what I had done, that I was considering divorce and that I wanted to go to marriage counseling.
Peter started developing a relationship with his kids. Up to this point he was always working, he was never home. They didn’t know him. I think he knew that if we divorced they would never go see him, he was a stranger to them.
So we went to a regular therapist who told me that there was no official thing saying that pornography addiction was real. Besides, Peter was saying it had been years since he had looked at it. I hadn’t found any pornography in 7 years. But, I had stopped looking and caring. So they both tried to fix me. I was told to have more sex with Peter. I was told to not be so bitter.
I knew Peter had a problem. Because of my experience with my eating disorder I knew that even though he said he wasn’t acting out, he was white knuckling it and the symptoms were the same. He still wasn’t available emotionally for me.
One afternoon in May, 2012, I had driven Peter’s car to my daughter’s soccer game. I got in the back trunk to grab a chair, and I saw a bag. I knew if I looked in it, my life could change. But I still did. Inside this big, black bag was a stash of pornographic dvd’s. There it was. I was in shock. I now would have to do something. It felt like my life was changed forever.
I told Peter I had found them. He lied and said that he hadn’t watched those in years, he just hadn’t gotten rid of them yet. I didn’t know what to do. I told my counselor the next time I went in alone to him what I had found. Our counselor was so angry. I could tell he felt betrayed by Peter as well. When we went in again he referred us to a therapist who specialized in pornography addiction who ran a program called LifeSTAR.
Before we could get into that recovery program, I had started going to the LDS church’s 12 step program. When I saw the pain in the other women’s faces that first night, I knew what Peter had been telling me wasn’t true. He had been telling me that I shouldn’t feel so bad. That he didn’t really have a problem and it wasn’t really anything and I was dumb to hurt so much. When I saw the devastation on the faces of these other women, I felt I wasn’t alone anymore. I wasn’t crazy that I hurt so badly. There were others feeling the same pain.
When I went in the first day of the LifeSTAR group in 2012, I was planning on divorcing Peter. I was just going to this first phase of the program to say I had tried everything. The moment they started talking about betrayal trauma, things changed. I was all in. There was finally an answer to all the craziness and pain I had felt. Someone understood what I had been going through for 19 years. I now knew I needed to heal from the trauma. Just divorcing Peter would not solve my problems.
Peter did the LifeSTAR workbooks compliantly, but still was not open and honest with me. At the end of April 2014, I set a big boundary that he wasn’t allowed in our bed. We have not slept in the same bed regularly since. We separated for 21 months on December 3, 2014.
Peter and I have been attending LifeSTAR for 4 years now. I also started attending a SA-lifeline 12 step group a year ago. I got a sponsor shortly after I started and started working and surrendering with her. I am now on step 4. I use the SA blue book and a 12 step manual called Healing through Christ. The Healing through Christ book has been extremely helpful in my recovery work.
In April 2017, Peter and I were able to finally complete a full-disclosure with our therapist and support groups.
Some of the most helpful concepts I have learned in recovery are: the drama triangle, boundaries, the importance of connection, reaching out, and support. The book “Running on Empty” by Dr. Jonice Webb has been helpful as well. Most of all, centering my recovery on Jesus Christ has been the way for me to find serenity and healing in the middle of the storm of betrayal.
During the last four years I have suffered with a lot of depression and anxiety. At one point I started fantasizing about killing myself. Since I have started working the steps and surrendering with my sponsor, those things have gotten much better.
I don’t know what lies ahead for my marriage, but I am more hopeful than ever that I will be happy and God will take care of me no matter the choices my husband makes.
When Peter* and I got married, I had an eating disorder. I saw this strong man who loved me and who would take care of me. I felt peaceful around him and he calmed my nerves. He was an LDS returned missionary who was the son of a seminary teacher. I thought I was getting someone golden and safe.
For Christmas, after we had been dating for about 5 months, he gave me the VHS animated version of Beauty and the Beast. Along with that movie he gave me a Christmas card which mentioned that he saw us walking hand in hand into eternity together. I hadn’t even thought of marrying him to that point, but after I read that, I checked in with myself and I was hooked. I wanted to marry him. My patriarchal blessing mentions things about my husband and I thought Peter fit those descriptions.
A couple of weeks after that, Peter told me he had something to tell me. I was pretty numb because I was self-medicating with an eating disorder. He tells me that he has been seeing someone else. He minimizes it and said she was just a friend. At this point, our physical relationship was very close. I felt betrayed. But I didn’t want to show it. A couple of weeks later he asked if he can celebrate his birthday with her, because they share the same birthday. I think I just looked hurt and we didn’t talk about it anymore. But as far as I knew, he didn’t see her anymore.
Later on, shortly after we were married in the LDS temple, he mentions to me that when we were dating he had gone to spring break to Las Vegas with this girl and her brother. I was shocked and hurt, but he acted like I shouldn’t be upset because nothing had happened, it was all innocent. I felt betrayed again, but set those feelings aside and didn’t really mention them. Peter had told me matter-of-factly that I was a jealous person and I didn’t want to confirm that negative trait he attributed to me.
During the first year of marriage, I actively pursued my eating disorder, and Peter was gone a lot. This was convenient for my eating disorder. He was having to travel to finish up his college degree. I got down to a very low weight and at some point decided that I didn’t want to die. I knew I knew how to keep losing the weight, and it scared me. So I didn’t try to starve myself for the most part anymore, I just was bulimic.
During that first year of marriage I came home from work to get something I had forgotten one night and he looked so guilty. I knew he was hiding something. I knew from my addiction what getting caught looked like and felt like. I think he was watching something pornographic on our t.v.
I also noticed that Peter would hardly ever talk about himself or feelings. I started snooping through his things trying to figure him out. I thought I was needy and that it was my fault for wanting to know those things. I admired his strength to have such inner control to not need anyone to share all his thoughts and emotions with. I admired his strength to never let his emotions control him.
The next year I found a Playboy hidden in our bathroom. He told me it came from his brother and it was nothing. It felt so surreal. I felt like I shouldn’t be mad or hurt, so I just drowned those feelings in bulimia and self-hate.
Not too long after I found a VHS that he had recorded several multiple pornographic clips. At this point I knew he had a problem. I knew it was something that he could not stop doing and was obsessed with it. I was so hurt. I tore through all of our boxes of stuff he had packed away so neatly. I was trying to find more pornography. I did not trust him anymore. But I still thought the problem was me. I cannot remember if I confronted him,or if I just left the VHS there, or if I destroyed it. It’s strange to me that I can’t remember.
At the same time, I was still very much completely in love with him. I never said anything bad about him to anyone. I thought he was so wonderful and my best friend. The parts that hurt were just shoved down and covered up. At that time I felt we had a great sex life. I felt loved and attractive and we had sex 3-5 times a week.
I saw a counselor a few times for my eating disorder and she asked me why I hadn’t had any children yet. I felt like it was obvious, so I asked her if she thought I should. She said yes. I am so grateful for this because it changed the course of my life. I was soon pregnant and finishing up my college degree and working full time. I was ironically miserably nauseous the whole pregnancy, but I still did binge and purge a small amount in my pregnancy.
After I had my son, my life changed. I wanted to be a better person for my son. We got the internet around the same time that I had him. I researched ways to overcome bulimia and I slowly was able to recover. I stopped by positive thinking about myself and my life, and because of fear that it would kill me. I had frequent chest pains that frightened me.
Of course, once we got the internet, I started finding pornography on the computer in the history or the internet cookie list. I would go through times of searching manically through Peter’s stuff and the computer, trying to find the pornography. I feel like if I found it I would know what was going on with him. I could know what he was doing so maybe he would stop. If he knew how much it hurt, maybe he would stop. At this point our marriage was still good to me. I still loved him so very much.
During this time of life when our first two children were born, he worked a lot. He worked at a hospital that would have him take call all night. He wouldn’t tell them no. He worked 7 days in a row, 7 days off. So whatever holidays were on his work week, he would have to work them. He worked so many Christmases and Thanksgivings and weekends. I parented on my own pretty much right from the beginning. One night on his way back into the hospital I just cried and pleaded with him to stop working so much. I told him I had never thought about divorce and never thought it was something I would ever, ever do, but I told him I couldn’t handle the pain anymore. I told him I was getting to a point where the pain was so bad I might feel like I didn’t have a choice. He didn’t say anything but he worked a tiny bit less for a little while.
I worked a full time job that was seasonal. I worked the day shift, and Peter would work the swing shift at the hospital so that the kids wouldn’t have to go to a daycare. He helped me out with the kids and the house a lot while I was working.
I wanted to stop working and have more kids. I also thought that it was bad for our marriage to not see each other so much. So I talked with Peter and we decided to have me stop working and have another baby.
Peter did not tell me how he was feeling. I think he felt a lot of pressure to provide and didn’t feel support from me to help financially. So he went back to school while I laid on the couch and the kids watched t.v. all day long while I was very sick and pregnant. That is when I started to feel absolutely alone in my marriage. I felt like he had disappeared emotionally from our marriage. I was no longer bulimic so I had nothing to dull the pain and I felt abandoned and unloved.
I immersed myself in my kids and their lives and thought my positive thoughts about everything, except Peter. Resentment was growing and growing. I started thinking about having an affair. I was so starved for the emotional intimacy that I was not getting from him. I had sex with him every week because Dr. Laura Schesslinger said that was the way to a happy man. But I was hurting deeply.
It all came to a head when he told me that he no longer believed in the LDS church. He thought Joseph Smith was a fraud. That was IT for me. He was a pornography addict, he was a work addict, and now he didn’t believe in our religion?? A voice came to me and I heard the words to not divorce him. Thank goodness I listened and stayed so that eventually I could find my own betrayal trauma recovery. I think I would have just made more of a mess of my life by marrying another addict.
I wanted more kids. If I “had” to stay with him, I still wanted my dream of a big family. So I got pregnant right away with my 4th child. I was so very sick. It was so hard to be pregnant and keep up with the other kids. I felt so alone in this pregnancy. Even my three best friends in my church congregation had moved away. Peter told me I had wanted this so he had no empathy for me being sick. It seemed like he even found it amusing.
After having my 4th child, I discovered pornography again. We went to a marriage counselor who was LDS. We talked about the pornography and the counselor and Peter looked at each other, and shrugged their shoulders. I felt like they thought I was a bitter, angry wife that was mad about something very trivial that was very common with men. Peter went once on his own to this counselor out of compliance. He told me that they just kind of stared at each other not knowing what to talk about. The second time we saw this counselor together, I felt that no one cared that I was in pain. I thought I was probably overreacting and too emotional. This time though, I knew I couldn’t go on the same. I told Peter that unless he stopped, things would be different. He didn’t seem to care. At that very moment in the counselor’s office, I shut myself off emotionally to him. I hated him. There was now a big angry cement wall between us in my heart. I would stay married to him because God told me too. I would have sex with him so he wouldn’t divorce me or treat the kids badly. But he no longer had a place in my heart. I hated him.
After our 5th child, I had postpartum depression. I was exhibiting it with anger. I was angry with everyone except my kids and oddly Peter. He was oddly somewhat compassionate and helpful at this time. After about 9 months of this, I was reading that postpartum depression could be shown with anger, I knew that was what was going on with me. So then I just got sad and depressed for a long time.
Peter signed a paper when he signed for the mortgage on a short sale home he was buying for an investment. This paper said that we would live in the house. To prevent my husband from going to jail, we moved our family of 7 to a house 40 miles away. We shortly moved back when I knew I wasn’t going to be able to handle all the new things in a new place with all of those kids ages 11 and under and with no help from Peter.
Peter I feel, continually abused me financially. He had invested in stocks a $10,000 profit we had made from selling our condominium and lost it all. He invested in a soap scheme before I said it was ok and lost $25,000. He bought that investment home without me, I had come home early from being at my parent’s home at Christmas time to sign for the home. He had signed for it without me without seeming to care how it affected me. He was making major financial decisions without me, but told himself and me that I had agreed to them.
The culmination of the financial abuse was when my mother passed away and I got some life insurance money from her. I had put it in Peter and I’s bank account. I had told Peter that the $5,000 that I had moved to our checking account was for an overseas trip I was taking with my Dad. Right before I left, Peter told me he had paid off some bills, so there was no money in our account (not mentioning that it was with my mom’s life insurance money). But I needn’t worry, he would try to come up with some money so I would have enough for my trip. I was stunned. He was creating his own reality. He used money that was sacred to me. My mom had passed away unexpectedly and I wanted to use that money for things she would want me to use it for.
My whole trip I was worried that my card would not work because of there not being enough money in the account. It felt like he stole from me. He was portraying himself as the hero saving me financially when in fact he was hurting me so badly.
He also had always managed all our money our whole marriage. I had credit cards in my name that he had used for real estate purchases that I had no idea how much had been charged on them.
I had given away all my financial power and responsibility to him.
One night, a week before Christmas, I was lying in my bed, so lonely, when a thought came into my head. I wanted to hurt myself. This wasn’t like me. I hadn’t had any self-destructive thoughts like this for so many years. An alarm immediately went off inside me. Something needed to change.
So, after 19 or so years of marriage, I finally told someone about his pornography use. Up until then I had thought that this was his problem, not mine to share. I went into counsel with my LDS bishop and told him what was going on. My plan was to divorce Peter when my youngest turned 18. He was then about 5, so I had a long way to go.
My bishop told me that that wasn’t a good plan. I should consider divorce now. It was some of the best advice I had ever gotten. I felt like if a church leader could tell me to consider divorce, there was validity to my pain. I had thought that unless there was an affair or physical abuse, you should never divorce. It wasn’t righteous. This talk with my bishop was giving me a new perspective.
I told my parents what was going on and I told a couple of close friends. I told Peter what I had done, that I was considering divorce and that I wanted to go to marriage counseling.
Peter started developing a relationship with his kids. Up to this point he was always working, he was never home. They didn’t know him. I think he knew that if we divorced they would never go see him, he was a stranger to them.
So we went to a regular therapist who told me that there was no official thing saying that pornography addiction was real. Besides, Peter was saying it had been years since he had looked at it. I hadn’t found any pornography in 7 years. But, I had stopped looking and caring. So they both tried to fix me. I was told to have more sex with Peter. I was told to not be so bitter.
I knew Peter had a problem. Because of my experience with my eating disorder I knew that even though he said he wasn’t acting out, he was white knuckling it and the symptoms were the same. He still wasn’t available emotionally for me.
One afternoon in May, 2012, I had driven Peter’s car to my daughter’s soccer game. I got in the back trunk to grab a chair, and I saw a bag. I knew if I looked in it, my life could change. But I still did. Inside this big, black bag was a stash of pornographic dvd’s. There it was. I was in shock. I now would have to do something. It felt like my life was changed forever.
I told Peter I had found them. He lied and said that he hadn’t watched those in years, he just hadn’t gotten rid of them yet. I didn’t know what to do. I told my counselor the next time I went in alone to him what I had found. Our counselor was so angry. I could tell he felt betrayed by Peter as well. When we went in again he referred us to a therapist who specialized in pornography addiction who ran a program called LifeSTAR.
Before we could get into that recovery program, I had started going to the LDS church’s 12 step program. When I saw the pain in the other women’s faces that first night, I knew what Peter had been telling me wasn’t true. He had been telling me that I shouldn’t feel so bad. That he didn’t really have a problem and it wasn’t really anything and I was dumb to hurt so much. When I saw the devastation on the faces of these other women, I felt I wasn’t alone anymore. I wasn’t crazy that I hurt so badly. There were others feeling the same pain.
When I went in the first day of the LifeSTAR group in 2012, I was planning on divorcing Peter. I was just going to this first phase of the program to say I had tried everything. The moment they started talking about betrayal trauma, things changed. I was all in. There was finally an answer to all the craziness and pain I had felt. Someone understood what I had been going through for 19 years. I now knew I needed to heal from the trauma. Just divorcing Peter would not solve my problems.
Peter did the LifeSTAR workbooks compliantly, but still was not open and honest with me. At the end of April 2014, I set a big boundary that he wasn’t allowed in our bed. We have not slept in the same bed regularly since. We separated for 21 months on December 3, 2014.
Peter and I have been attending LifeSTAR for 4 years now. I also started attending a SA-lifeline 12 step group a year ago. I got a sponsor shortly after I started and started working and surrendering with her. I am now on step 4. I use the SA blue book and a 12 step manual called Healing through Christ. The Healing through Christ book has been extremely helpful in my recovery work.
In April 2017, Peter and I were able to finally complete a full-disclosure with our therapist and support groups.
Some of the most helpful concepts I have learned in recovery are: the drama triangle, boundaries, the importance of connection, reaching out, and support. The book “Running on Empty” by Dr. Jonice Webb has been helpful as well. Most of all, centering my recovery on Jesus Christ has been the way for me to find serenity and healing in the middle of the storm of betrayal.
During the last four years I have suffered with a lot of depression and anxiety. At one point I started fantasizing about killing myself. Since I have started working the steps and surrendering with my sponsor, those things have gotten much better.
I don’t know what lies ahead for my marriage, but I am more hopeful than ever that I will be happy and God will take care of me no matter the choices my husband makes.
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