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D-Day Story: How I Found Out My Husband Is Addicted To Porn
Today we have a brave woman sharing her D-Day story.
If you are interested in sharing your D-Day story please email me at anne@btr.org.
I’d also like to ask those of you who are working the SALifeline Twelve Step Betrayal Trauma Recovery program with a sponsor to consider sharing on this podcast as part of your Step Twelve work. I’m grateful for those who went before me to share their stories and help me find this program. It’s wonderful to help others come to the program too. So here is one of my sisters sharing her story:
I wanted to do a share about my D-Day, mostly because today is the three year anniversary of my D-Day.
My Husband A Pornography Addict? No Way.Three years ago, it was a Sunday and I had been at church. At that time I had a young colicky baby. So church for me meant a lot of walking the halls and dealing with sad baby. But that particular day the third hour of church they had a special kind of visitor come. It was two missionaries from the LDS church's addiction recovery program specifically on pornography recovery.
They came and talked to the women and the men of my congregation about the addiction recovery program and about their stories. I only was able to hear a little of it because I was in and out with the baby. But I was just thinking at the time “Wow, I’m so grateful I don’t have to deal with that.”
So we went home after church and we got the baby and my older daughter down for a nap and I was just talking to my husband and I said something like, “I’m really glad that you don’t have that problem so we don’t have to deal with it.”
And he got this look on his face, just this like green, almost sick look.
And I said, “Am I right? We don’t have to deal with that, right?”
And I had thought, I mean I had thought it wasn’t even an issue. Before we got married I had asked him about it, he had told me he was fine, and so in my mind I had covered that. But he hadn’t been truthful because, hello, addict! So we had been living a lie.
So, his face goes green, and he said, “Actually I have a problem.” And went on to shatter my life. It was three days before our three year wedding anniversary which really pissed me off too, let’s be honest, because it just, I mean I was looking forward to our anniversary. I can’t even remember right now what we had planned, probably just dinner, but it just changed the whole thing.
I kept thinking. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to do. I wondered, "Do I check up on him? How do I check cookies? How will I know if my husband is lying again?"
And after that I just froze - Is My Husband Really Unfaithful?I felt like I couldn’t trust my husband anymore that trust was completely shattered and I didn’t know where to go from there. I am one who struggles, who has struggled with emotions. Dealing with, sharing with, just feeling emotions. I grew up in a home where especially negative emotions were not ok. We, my siblings and I joke that we grew up in, like our family is British. We don’t talk about real things. We don’t talk about negative emotion. We don’t talk about depression, or anxiety, or pornography addiction.
I didn’t know how to handle it, so I just froze. It took me a long time to start my own recovery. In fact it wasn’t until this year when my husband had another relapse and I just kind of was done and decided to stop focusing on him and started focusing on me, and that has helped me to be in recovery.
It’s kind of been neat for me to look back on this the third anniversary of my D-Day and see just the crushed person I was back then because I was, I was so crushed and so sure that it would lead to divorce or sadness or just how it effected the next, you know, two or three years of my life where I was terrified to have another child with him or terrified to make any plans because my fear of the future was so great.
But then now, today, being where I am, where I have a sponsor, I’m in good recovery, I’ve found my serenity, and luckily my husband has been working too, I’ve been blessed with that so he’s been in recovery and our relationship is the best it’s ever been. So I guess I just wanted to share my experience of D-Day those crushing feelings that I’m sure others recognize and just kind of where I am now these three years later that you can have good recovery and you don’t have to let one moment destroy your life. It definitely works when you work it! I’ve seen that and I’m just really grateful for the programs available and for the support I have and where it’s led me.
Anne: Those of you interested in scheduling a support call with one of our APSATS coaches, to explore how she can help you in your recovery process, click here.