I had been married less than a year when I found out about my husband’s struggles with pornography. I didn’t know before we were married; I hadn’t even thought to ask, and he hadn’t told me. My husband is a kind, gentle, faithful man with a good heart; he is from a good family; we were married in the temple. I thought that meant our marriage would look a certain way. It didn’t.

We spent the next 18 years battling his pornography issues. (I have learned not to call it addiction; it is a compulsive behavior, certainly, but actual addiction to pornography is much more rare than you might think.) I didn’t tell anyone. Everyone I knew, he also knew, and at the time there was a stigma attached to this kind of struggle…I didn’t want anyone else to think less of him because of it. So I walked that very lonely road all alone. He struggled alone for a long time too, talking to bishop after bishop when he needed to repent but not really getting the support that he needed to learn how to get out of that awful habit and finally be free.

Initially, I thought it would be a one-time thing: that when he saw how devastated I was by his actions, he would stop. I was hopeful and optimistic. But after a few disclosures, my hope gradually faded. My naivete turned to hopelessness. I remember distinctly one disclosure when I couldn’t even muster sadness anymore…all I could think about was a line from a children’s book, The Little Engine that Could:

I had become that rusty old engine, tired and hopeless.

I couldn’t stay in that place, though. I am, by nature, an optimist, so I fought my way back to hope, thinking that if we just fought this fight together, we would conquer it. I became his accountability partner, checking in daily or weekly with a “how are you doing?” and offering support and ideas and walking him through mental exercises for what to do when he was tempted. We were going to beat this thing, I was sure of it.

Then, when that didn’t work, I got fed up. I told him he had to figure this out because it was killing me. If he really cared about our marriage and about me, he’d better prove it. Take some initiative. DO SOMETHING. He started going to Addiction Recovery meetings. He got some support that way, and it did help, for a while. But, again, it wasn’t enough and it didn’t last.

By this point, I had been a stay-at-home mom for 15 years. We had 6 beautiful children. Money was tight, always, but we were scraping by. I had the opportunity to work from home for a company I believed in, and I felt strongly it was right for me to take that opportunity. I am so grateful that I did. Years of betrayal were wearing on me, and my light was going out. I believe that opportunity was God’s way of staging an intervention for me. He was calling me back to myself. I realized through that experience that I was more than my struggling marriage; I was capable and smart and passionate and talented. I had forgotten all of that. Through my job, I was blessed with wise friends who taught me about boundaries and helped me see that I was worthy of more than the bare minimum of support and resources, that I didn’t have to be perfect to be good enough, that I could be myself and be accepted for who I am.

As I learned more about boundaries, I realized I didn’t have any. I wasn’t just living my own life, I had also taken on the role of protector for my husband – I thought, mistakenly, that if I just shielded him from all the stress of life, he wouldn’t slip up. That thought set me on a path of toxic perfectionism. It was essentially codependency – trying to protect myself by trying to protect him, holding myself responsible for his choices. But it didn’t help him, it just hurt me, by putting me into a high alert, super vigilant state that never allowed for rest or sharing of burdens or making mistakes. It was especially difficult when our babies were born, because postpartum hormones + sleep deprivation + trying to carry every burden alone left me in very real danger of postpartum depression. I didn’t ever go all the way into that, but in reading about depression recently I found that I could relate to many of the feelings and experiences that depressed individuals go through, because of those months of trying to recover from childbirth and take care of everyone else without being able to share my burdens with my spouse. It was very lonely and very heavy.

I finally realized that I didn’t have to stay in that place of darkness and victimhood/codependency anymore. I essentially handed all the management of my husband’s issues back to him, telling him (very bluntly, which was unlike me) that he could go to hell if he wanted to, but I wasn’t going to go with him. I resigned as his accountability partner. I put boundaries in place to protect myself from future trauma. I worked on myself and my own healing. A friend referred me to Tammy’s Live Your Why podcast and I binge-listened to all of the episodes four times, so desperate to learn what healthy relationships look like and how they happen. I started journaling, not the “for posterity” kind I had been doing before, but an unabridged/uncensored version where I could pour out all the thoughts and feelings I had been keeping inside for far too long. I started walking every day, which slowly began to rewire my brain back to a default state of safety, rather than the high alert state I had been in constantly for so many years.

I have been on this healing journey for about a year and a half now. It has been a slow process. Living with ongoing trauma can be like living in a house that someone else keeps shoveling garbage into. You can keep the main floor clean, but the basement is crowded with someone else’s garbage, and as long as there is more garbage coming in, you can’t fully clean things up. You have to put boundaries in place to keep that garbage from coming into your house, and then you can start digging in and cleaning it. Even when you think you have everything cleaned up, you will sometimes open up a cupboard and have stuff fall out onto your head. Your job is to deal with those cupboards one by one until you have tidied them all, and it could take years. Trauma is good at hiding in dark places, and we don’t even know all the corners in our own souls. But it does get better. I still run into triggers in areas I thought I had already worked through, but their frequency has decreased as I have actively worked to process triggers as they surface and to work through old wounds one by one. It has taken lots of work and lots of patience, but I can see my progress and I am so thankful.

Opening up to trusted friends has been life-changing. Just knowing I have people in my corner who will stick with me as I work through all of this has made a world of difference. I have a dear friend who has walked a similar path, and her validation of my feelings was like the Balm of Gilead for me. Trauma can mess with your head, and I had spent so many years gaslighting myself, telling myself that I shouldn’t feel how I did. My friend’s assurance that I was normal, and the trauma I had experienced was real, and I was feeling exactly the way I should be feeling, lifted the burden of guilt I had been carrying, and replaced it with peace.

I am giving myself lots of grace related to my relationship with my husband. I have worked to forgive him, but I struggle with trusting him, and I’m not really trying to change that right now. In a recent talk entitled Trust Again (linked below), Elder Gerrit W. Gong said, “While our individual circumstances are personal, gospel principles and the Holy Ghost can help us know if, how, and when to trust in others again. When trust is broken or betrayed, disappointment and disillusionment are real; so is the need for discernment to know when faith and courage are merited to trust again in human relations.” I am leaving the door open for trust to come back, but I am not forcing it. Trust has to be earned, and when it has been broken repeatedly over a long period of time, it’s going to take lots of time to earn it back.

Betrayal trauma is real. It is an actual wound in our souls that occurs when we are betrayed by those we trust, especially those with whom we have primary attachment relationships. It is not just a mental or emotional response; it is physiological, meaning there are actual physical components of the trauma that is stored in our bodies, and triggers can bring those reactions right back to the surface. It affects our ability to trust other people; it can lead to anxiety or depression or PTSD (and often does); it can be completely debilitating. But it can also be healed. With the help of trusted friends, journaling, meditation, yoga, therapy, and most of all, the healing power of Christ’s Atonement, those who feel irreparably wounded can find hope and healing again. I know this, because I have felt it.

I want those who have been or are going through this to know four things:

1. It is not your fault. It has nothing to do with you, no matter what your spouse or anyone else may say to the contrary. You didn’t cause it, and you can’t fix it. It is theirs.
2. The way you feel – all of it – is normal and okay. Nothing is wrong with you if you are having a hard time getting over it. You have been through major trauma. You are allowed to feel all your feelings. 
3. You are worthy of support and help. Please, please don’t suffer in silence like I did for so long. You don’t have to tell everyone, but find a trusted friend you can talk to, and share your story. Go to therapy (find a good therapist with experience in working with survivors of betrayal trauma). Go to support group meetings. You need support too. 
4. The way you are feeling right now does not have to be your story forever. There are answers. There is hope. Whether your spouse stops their pornography use or not, you can find help and healing. You can be happy again. You are worthy of that, too.

Helpful Resources:

Trauma Healing as a Sacred Gospel Practice, Jacob Hess 

He is Risen with Healing in His Wings, Patrick Kearon

Trust Again, Gerrit W. Gong

Boundaries book by Henry Cloud and John Townsend

From Crisis to Connection podcast by Geoff Steurer

Grace for Betrayal Trauma website