Has Your Husband Betrayed You? You Are Not Alone – Missy’s Story

Has your husband betrayed you? You are not alone. Anne and Missy share insights on healing from betrayal through recognizing betrayal, understanding manipulation, and finding support.

If he’s betrayed you, there are resources available to support you. You are not alone, check out the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session Schedule.

Transcript: If Your Husband Has Betrayed You, You Are Not Alone

Anne: Missy, a member of The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Community is on today’s episode. She is technically still married, although they’ve been separated for two years. She has two children. One is a teenager and another is a preteen. Let’s start with your story. Talk about how things first started and if you recognized your husband’s abusive behaviors at first.

Missy: I don’t think that I did recognize his abusive behaviors at first. I think in a way I was the perfect person for his abusive behaviors. I grew up in a home where my father was very detached. He adopted me. My mom and I came as a package deal. There’s a lot of provision, but not a lot of love. My mother is also a very broken person. She grew up in an alcoholic home, a lot of domestic violence.

There were a lot of behaviors and things. I learned, to love people despite it. I didn’t really question if this behavior or these words or any of this stuff was abusive. It was just when I married my husband. I think we were about two years in. We were in the ministry, he was a youth pastor. I had noticed a charge on one of our cards. I asked him, you know what is this? He was just very easy about it.

He said something like, “Oh, it’s just a fraudulent charge. I’ve already called the credit card company. I’m working on getting it refunded.” I assume it’s a charge for porn, yes. I’m not even sure exactly what it was. I’d never seen it before. It is something x rated. I think that was my first instance with it.

Confronting The Betrayal

Missy: Then another one happened. I went to him again. What is this? What’s going on? Do we need to change this card? This time he wasn’t as easy with it. He was a little bit more agitated, a little more ugly about it. My questioning it, I think that was the seed for me then. When I started to realize the doubt, possibly this is not just an error. Maybe there’s something more. He was acting so weird about it.

Maybe he wouldn’t shut down the card. He was like, we don’t need to shut it down. The first time he said it was fraud. We’re just going to take care of this. I think his exact words were, “You just need to get off my case about it.” We were still in the ministry. We lived considerably far away from my family. I didn’t have children at the time and would go home and visit for a week or two at a time.

I had gone to visit and I came back. There was a VHS videotape that I found. Really dates me there. I remember handing it to him, I knew that it was a pornography tape because of the name. That’s when it blew up. Unfortunately, that night we were heading to a youth activity.

Public Outbursts & Feeling Alone

Missy: We were fighting all the way to the youth activity. We get there and there’s a youth team that’s waiting to come together in prayer. He and I are fighting. We pull up and he just loses it, jumps out of the car and starts walking down the road.

Anne: That is a really common abusive thing to do. Did you know that? I don’t know if you know that. Jumping out of a car to say, I’m not going to take this anymore. Sort of, I’m not going to participate. It’s a strange form of control that most people aren’t aware happens. I just want to point that out if other women have been like, oh he has jumped out of the car and stomped away.

https://youtube.com/shorts/mHgIHT2Dtrw

Missy: Yeah, it’s a rural area. There isn’t any mistaking that he’s walking down the road. I’m so embarrassed because he’s basically throwing this temper tantrum walking down the road. I’m not gonna tell people what’s going on. The youth leader was like, what’s going on? He knew something had happened, he’s upset. He went and talked to my husband. They came back. I thought I was stuck.

I didn’t know what to do at that point. We’re miles and miles away from support and family. We’re brand new to this ministry, this is our livelihood. He’s supposed to be the leader of the home. What am I supposed to do? There’s so much shame. You definitely don’t want to betray your husband by saying anything to anybody. It didn’t die, it just became this ugly thing between us that slowly deteriorated the ministry and us. I felt so alone.

Truth Sinks In

Anne: Did you go down the pornography addiction recovery route at all at this time? He needs help, let’s get him some help? Was there any of that? Did you go down that road?

Missy: Not at first because it was so shocking and not how you picture you’re going into the ministry. You’re in the ministry,. spreading the gospel to teenagers and watching teenagers get saved. I think I just threw myself into the ministry.

Anne: Did you think if we pray enough, if we work on the ministry enough, it’ll just kind of go away?

Missy: I hoped that he would love the ministry enough to give it up for it. I dove in. This is what we came here for. This is what we’re going to do. I love doing this. You say that you love doing this. We even did a purity conference.

Anne: Did you think, wait a minute, he’s a hypocrite, at all? Did you think if he does it enough, it’ll save him?

Missy: I think at that point I did still look to him and respect him as my leader. I believed that this was just a struggle. He just needed to dig in. It doesn’t define him, it’s not what it became. No, I don’t know if it became that, or I just opened my eyes more.

Anne: It was that way all the time, and then you realized more what was going on over time maybe?

Missy: I stopped, for lack of better terms, making excuses for it.

Church Principles

Anne: When you say leader, so your faith background is different than mine, can you explain that a little bit? Is that the typical, like, uh, We submit to a man because he’s the head or something like that. Can you explain that for women who might be in a different faith paradigm than you are?

Missy: Sure. I grew up believing that the man was the head of the household, but not in a misogynistic way. Like he says everything, he does everything and I just got to abide by it. I was taught we were still equal, that we still were responsible for what we brought to the marriage. Ultimately the decisions were by him. I could weigh in, definitely, and did. I was not un-opinionated, but I did grow up with the man being the head of your household.

Anne: Okay, so even though you thought we’re equal, it wasn’t technically equal because you didn’t have equal say?

Missy: It’s hard to answer that question because I’ve heard this phrase before where the man is the head, the woman’s the neck. We can turn the head any way we want. I do know that my husband absolutely respected the way I thought. There were a lot of times when it came to decisions, he would want me to weigh in, especially relational. You have a better understanding than me. Can you tell me what you think about this? Tell me what you think about that.

I would say that he was very fair in that way. When it came to things like money and things that he was just going to do, he just did them.

Anne: Maybe he just didn’t care about the other things. Who knows?

Pornography Addiction Recovery

Anne: Talk about when you went down the, pornography addiction recovery route for a little while because clearly that did not work. We know that ends. We know the end of this. Let’s talk about once you knew it was a pornography thing. How did things go with that?

Missy: I think we had been married 24 years by the time the divorce is final. I would say we were separated quite a few times throughout our marriage and it all was pornographically related. When we got back together, the longest time that we kind of stayed together, I got pregnant with my son shortly after us getting back together. Bringing kids into the picture changed the picture for me. It’s terrible to experience betrayal trauma when you’re pregnant.

Maybe that has a lot to do with growing up in an emotionally abusive home. I had a tolerance for myself, but then you bring an innocent into the picture and I had zero tolerance.

Anne: For the abuse?

Missy: For any kind of abuse.

Anne: In this case, if you don’t know what’s abuse, maybe the nonsense, you might call it, right?

Missy: Right. Because I don’t think I start calling it abuse until probably the last five years. that I really actually realized the way he was acting, the way he was treating me and the children was abusive.

Anne: So before you used the word abuse, what word would you use?

Missy: Addiction. It was his addiction. His addiction.

Anne: Okay. Pornography addiction. Okay.

Alone With Husband’s Betrayal

Missy: Right. Then we were back together and had our son, he was only nine months old, when it reared its ugly head again. I was working overnight at a hotel and the hotel was right across the street from the apartment buildings and they had an especially scary night. My work was in the night.

I went down to the end of the hallway and I was trying to call him. No answer, no answer, no answer. I got home the next morning and the computer was sitting on the coffee table. I flipped it open, he had just closed it, not shut everything off. There it was in my face. I was really angry this time.

I responded in a way I had never responded, I woke him up, plunked the laptop on his stomach. He just was really cocky, said that he left it there on purpose, wanted it to end. He didn’t want it to become an issue. And my response to that was, I took everything that was on the long dresser and threw it at him one at a time.

Anne: He wanted what to end? He wanted his pornography use to end. So he left it out there so you could catch him.

Missy: Yes. That’s what he said.

Anne: Because he can’t stop using by himself. Seeing that, he kind of said, it’s your responsibility to help me stop.

Betrayed And Seeking Help So You Are Not Alone

Missy: I left for a week or so, took my son and left. I told him he had a lot to think about. When I came back, I came with an arsenal. I said, this is what’s going to happen if we’re going to stay together. I’m not going to do this game that we did before. I’m not doing it. The first place he went to was a Celebrate Recovery. He completed it. They do it like in one year. Then the following year, I went to A Heart’s Restored. It was in the same church.

I went through the program, and he had to be gone. He stayed home then. They asked me if I would co-teach the next year, and I co-taught the next year.

Anne: At any point during this time, did they tell you infidelity is emotional abuse?

Missy: No, the Hearts Restored group centered on, it’s going to sound terrible, but it wasn’t. It really did center on our relationship with God and the things that were broken within us that allowed these behaviors to continue.

Anne: Kind of a codependent model a little bit?

Missy: Maybe, because what I did actually work out was a lot of stuff in my past. My grandmother dying from alcoholism. How alcoholism affected my parents, my mother, my stepfathers, it’s connected. There was actually a lot of freedom for me gained from those things.

Anne: You found it to be helpful for your own personal. improvement in your own personal healing, even if it didn’t point out the abuse at the time.

Alone, Betrayed & Angry

Missy: He had fallen again. This time, instead of going to a celebrate recovery, because he was just, no I’m not going to do that again. He started meeting with a pastor for an accountability.

Anne: Okay for his “pornography addiction.” Did this pastor point out to you that this was abuse at all or was abuse ever mentioned during this time?

Missy: No, because unfortunately this pastor had his own hidden closet agenda. He actually was In some of his own personal sins in regards to something along the same lines.

That also came out within a year or two of this. I remember the first meeting we had with him. We just talked about why we were here and what we were hoping for, for counseling. He sat back and he leaned back in his chair and he said, Missy, this is nothing new under the sun.

This is very common, and I just remember immediately just feeling hot, and pretty much everything he said after that, I don’t even remember. We got out to the car, and I remember my husband looking at me and saying, Go ahead, I know you’re mad. I said, It’s not anything new, it’s not that big of a deal, but it is to me.

This is not right. He did counsel with him for a while, and I don’t remember anything beneficial ever coming out of that. And so then the next thing was, Covenant Eyes.

Feeling Alone & Responsible

Missy: Covenant Eyes entered our story. The biggest mistake that I made with Covenant Eyes was I became his accountability partner. Not good. That just became a cat and mouse game. Something would pop up in a report and he would blame it on spam or phishing. He opened up his email and it’s some ad on the side that’s triggering it.

It’s just constant. It was just a game. I can’t tell you how many times we went from flip phone to smart phone to flip phone to smart phone because he would get exhausted with the flip phone and say he’s fine. Then he went to a smartphone and he would fall and, seriously, we must have owned 10. It’s just disgusting how much money we probably threw away.

The last and final one we went to was Purity Boot Camp. It was at another church. He finished the boot camp, graduated, went to the next level of the boot camp. It was while he was at this boot camp that everything just fell completely apart.

Anne: During this pornography addiction recovery period of time, can you talk about what you did to try and establish safety and peace? Talk about during that time, how you’re, I’m sure making this effort, right, to love and serve and forgive and support him and whatever you need to do to help him with his addiction.

Nothing Is Working, You Are All Alone

Anne: When do you start kind of realizing this is not working? Or maybe you don’t, maybe you don’t realize it until it does fall apart. I don’t know. Talk about that.

Missy: I think it was a slow process. It erodes. I think it’s probably the best way to describe it. It erodes. It didn’t erode my faith in God, it eroded my faith in him.

I think it wasn’t necessarily the pornography that did it, it was the lies that it takes to keep the pornography alive. There’s a lot of lies, financial lies. Where were you, lies. The bus was “always late”, or traffic was always super heavy. He’d get home really late, hour, hour and a half past time.

That’s because he would pull over and watch porn. I don’t think I had peace.

Anne: Maybe peace is around the corner. If we go to this camp, maybe we’ll have peace. If we pray more, maybe we’ll have peace. Was it sort of that kind of place?

Missy: I think for a long time, it was this, we’re in this together, you’ve got this, let’s pray, let’s make sure that we’re being careful about what’s going to be on TV.

We downloaded apps like Common Sense Media that would take things out, swear words and scenes and as long as we kept your eye on the prize. A lot of my effort went into that, one of the faults that I realized I started doing was I got in the Holy Spirit’s way.

Trying To Help & Feeling Alone

As long as I created this perfect environment for him, you know, sun, moon, and stars, everything risen and aligned. Then he wouldn’t be stressed because that was one of the things he said. I don’t go look at pornography because I want to look at these women. Pornography started when I was 17 and it became this salve or this balm for rejection.

Anytime I feel rejected or stressed in my life, pornography won’t reject me. I’m going to go to it. I thought if I created this environment of perfection, then he wouldn’t do that. That’s why I say, I don’t think if I had peace, I was just constantly like running and keeping everything perfect and straight.

Anne: I view those reasons why they use porn, not as an actual reason, but as a way to manipulate us to make us feel sorry for them. There could be someone else who didn’t have peace as a kid and they didn’t look at porn. They don’t give you some sob story. You know what I mean? Now it’s, wow, I did not realize all the ways he elicited my compassion were not legitimate. It was actually him manipulating me into managing him and to feel sorry for him and not hold him accountable.

And it’s hard to recognize, to admit to ourselves, wow, we played into that manipulation rather than setting boundaries.

Missy: Absolutely. There were so many times that I would feel this compassion. He would be standing there, you know, talking about himself. What came on board in the midst of all this was a mental illness diagnosis.

Feeling Sorry For Him

So in the midst of all this came a suicide attempt, then several weeks at hospital for therapies and a diagnosis and medication.

Anne: Okay, this is also making you feel sorry for him, I’m sure.

Missy: Yes. He’s mentally ill. This is why he struggles. He’s weak. He needs me to step up to the plate. I’m going to have to, take on some of the stresses. Help with some of the finances and this kind of stuff. Keep the kids quiet. Don’t let them be too rowdy when he gets home from work. He needs things to be quiet. He doesn’t like things to be out of control or whatever. I didn’t have peace until I left.

Anne: Let’s talk about when things fall apart. You don’t recognize it’s abuse. You’re just doing the best you can. not feeling peace, but trying to get to safety. You’re trying to get help.

Then what happens when things fall apart? I’m guessing even when they fell apart, you didn’t exactly realize this is an abusive relationship, even in that moment. Let’s talk about how you get to that point where you recognize he’s an abuser. Start with the falling apart and then how you came to recognize it.

Missy: We had separated the first time with children. We had just gotten into a fight again about the pornography. There were just phenomenal, colossal lies. There were points where I would catch him in the act of something. I would focus on making him pay. Stand up and be accountable for what he had said or done, within this lie.

Lies & Blame

Missy: He would present evidence to the contrary, but then make me feel really bad. Like, are we going to struggle with this our entire life? I mean, for example, he had gone to a video store, rented some videos when I was gone. I saw the charge, asked about it. Why did he go to video store? We can rent movies on TV. Why’d you have to go to video store? He was like, I just wanted to get some Westerns. They remind me of my dad. I called the video store. Can I get a copy of this receipt?

No, we don’t do that. I called him back and I said, I need proof. You know where we’re at. I need proof that you’re not lying. He went to the video store. He came back with a handwritten receipt. I called, I said, I need to know. He gets me on the speakerphone with the company, the video store. The guy answers and he said, I just came in and got a paper receipt from you. Can you explain to my wife that you can’t send receipts or you can’t do receipts over the phone or anything like that?

He’s like, Yeah, ma’am, we can’t do any, we can’t do any of that. What I sent is what we got. I’m sitting there. He hangs up and he turns to me. Kids are crawling around us. Are we going to struggle with this our entire life? Are you just not ever going to trust me? I started crying. I felt bad. Am I so horrible that I can’t even trust him for the smallest thing? Am I gonna struggle?

Using Repentance To Manipulate

Missy: I found out that was a lie. He came clean with it and let me cry. He let me apologize to him, and they asked him to forgive me with the children crawling around us. But he knew it was a lie, and he forgave me.

Anne: That’s evil.

Missy: It is evil. So things like that kept happening and I finally had enough and we got into a just a giant fight about it. He found a roommate and left us just before Christmas. Just left.

I didn’t even know what to do. He cut us off financially because he had everything in his name and just left us. About, I would say, two months after he left he started realizing that, “I should have done this.” He stepped back in a few months and came to one of the visits with the kids. He claimed to have this Jesus moment and cried and begged my son to forgive him, begged me to forgive him, and promised that he was gonna do everything that he’s supposed to do. He wanted to come back home.

I said no. You don’t just get to come in here and say all the things you need to say and come back home. I’m gonna have to see real proof. He reinstalled Covenant Eyes and found two accountability partners. He went back to his group and was all in and I bought it.

Misapplied Christian Principles

Missy: I didn’t want the kids to grow up without a dad and he was showing repentance. I knew it was my place then to forgive and restore and step back in, step back up to the plate. We got back together and four months later. It was porn, again.

Anne: How do you feel about those sort of misapplied Christian principles forgiveness and love, and what do you wish you knew about those principles that was misapplied? Misapplied in this scenario that you didn’t know at the time?

Missy: I think one of the strongest ones that I do know is when this all blew up, and I just had my moments of anger and just having to throw things against the wall. One of the things that I was most angry with was, and here I’m just a good little Christian girl taking it. Feeling like I should take it because for better or for worse. I’m supposed to stand by him. This is the covenant that I made. It’s almost, I don’t know, self harming. It’s like, I chose him, so I have to put up with the abuse.

Anne: When do you start calling it abuse? When do you recognize that, wait a minute, all this porn, all these lies, all this gaslighting, This has not been, I mean, sure, he’s probably addicted to pornography, right? Sure, he’s addicted to these things, but this isn’t an addiction issue. This is an abuse issue. I have an abuser on my hands. When do you start recognizing, whoa, I’ve been looking at this through the wrong lens?

Missy: I think it did start to turn when he had that come to Jesus moment, supposedly, and how quickly he turned on and off his Jesus.

God Is There, You Are Not Alone

Anne: You start recognizing, wait a minute, this is grooming. This is not sincere repentance.

Missy: I remember saying one day when we had gone and had communion. I remember sitting there in communion, when I have communion it’s me and God. I’m just thinking and asking the Lord to help me, to remind me of things that I should repent of, just me and God. I don’t open my eyes. I don’t pay attention to what anybody else is doing. It’s just me. This moment I remember opening my eyes and looking at him.

He’s not, his head’s not even bowed, not even in the moment. He’s holding the cup. I remember asking him later, I said, what does communion mean to you? What does that symbolize to you? I said, do you realize that in that moment watching you not participate in communion, I realized in the 20 some years that we’ve been together that I’ve never seen you fall on your face.

Anne: When you say fall on your face, what do you mean by that?

Missy: It’s an act of submission. I’d never seen it.

Anne: Do you mean like completely totally submit himself to God’s will?

Missy: Not in our home. Not sometimes they’ll have altar calls. I just had not seen a genuine call. He got really mad when I said that, but it was things like that. Those were the evidences.

BTR: You Are Not Alone

Missy: I started to turn my head away from what was actually happening and watching all of the things he wasn’t saying. Those were the things that I realized in the moments when he would make me cry. He would get very ugly. He would sit there and tell me he liked to make me cry. It made him feel powerful. I would tell him, that’s really sick that you’re saying that. He didn’t want to be made to feel ugly that way, so if I cried, he would just leave.

He would leave the room. It started to become things like that. I started actually looking up, what is it? What does this mean? Why would someone treat you like this? I stumbled across Betrayal Trauma Recovery. I finally said to myself “You are not alone.”

Anne: We see the most progress with women healing when they listen to the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast every week, when they attend Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions as needed, and when they take some space to apply the things they’ve learned outside of group. How did you find Betrayal Trauma Recovery? What happened that made that possible for you?

Missy: I think like anybody, when you’re going through something, you’re looking for help. You’re looking for anything to guide you to the next step, because it’s all so confusing. There’s so much shame connected with it. It’s not, how do I make spaghetti sauce with friends or anything like that. You go incognito and do searches. I looked online and typed in different things. There were multiple helps out there, books.

You Are Not Alone

I happened to come across a video for a course that talked about pornography and trauma. It was the first time I had ever seen those two words put together. It was that word that actually drew me in to Betrayal Trauma Recovery No one else said that. Recognized, acknowledged that to go through this and to repeatedly go through it, basically almost alone, is traumatic.

Missy: You’re constantly questioned how you feel as a woman, as a mother, as a wife. It hits you on every level. I remember, it’s been a while, but remember watching the first two or three episodes. I remember feeling yes, yes, it acknowledged the pain, the shame and the betrayal. Finally feeling like, “You are not alone!” It acknowledged the true trauma of it too. To put the word trauma to it really opens you up and speaks of a pain that goes beyond what anybody has ever described before.

It’s almost like oh, well your spouse is looking at other women and it’s harmless. At least he’s, It’s coming home to you and it almost belittles it. It was so refreshing to have someone, for once, put the word to the pain that I already felt.

Anne: At that time, did you start listening to the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast?

Missy: You know, I wish I could pinpoint exactly. It was several things. I remember delving into stories and reading, and I can’t remember if I actually clicked on a podcast, but I do remember there were stories that were told.

Recognizing Abuse

Anne: All of our podcast episodes are transcribed so that you can either listen to them on Apple podcasts, listen from our website or read them from our website. For people who would prefer to read, they’re there. After finding us, you started thinking about the word abuse. Was Betrayal Trauma Recovery also your first introduction to considering that what you had been experiencing was abusive?

Missy: Yeah, I think to actually hear it put that way, it’s also along the same lines as the trauma. It almost goes hand in hand. It helps you to realize that this is something that is happening to you and something that hurts you. I think we endure it, for better or for worse, so this falls under the worse part. You don’t really categorize it as abuse because who wants to admit, I’m abused, who wants to feel that way or think that way, or even accept the title.

Anne: Once you start considering that you’re abused and things are falling apart for you, what happens now?

Missy: I think actually the separation is what started me realizing that this was abusive. Once you actually step outside of looking at it. This is my bed. I need to sleep in it. You step outside of it and you realize that you’re being abused. You’re able to recognize all that follows from being abused and how it affects you. How it affects your children because of the decisions you make to make it work.

Waking Up To Being Alone

I definitely know that as I started waking up to the truth of what was going on, instead of it being, okay, I’m just going to stand by my man, I’m going to pray for him, I’m going to be that help that I’m supposed to be. To realizing I’m a being abused by this person. Through me, he’s also abusing our children because it’s giving a false narrative to what marriage is as God intended it to be.

Anne: Do you think that you would have been able to recognize the extent of the abusive behaviors had you not separated?

Missy: No, absolutely not.

Anne: Talk about why. I agree. After my ex got arrested, I had this period of no contact, that was when everything became very clear to me. I thought, if I wouldn’t have had that separation time, I don’t know if I ever would have recognized it. Will you talk about that for yourself? And how that period of separation helped you kind of come out of that fog?

Missy: Well, I think it’s probably indicative of all abuse victims. When you are in the abuse, you go into survival mode. You do what is necessary for the love of your family, your home, your children to make peace. In making that peace, you absorb the abuse, you take it. There isn’t healing. You can’t even look at healing or even look at what’s really happening to you when you’re just surviving.

Manipulative Apologies

Anne: Yeah. I think the other thing is when you’re being abused, you can’t see that you’re being abused. It’s kind of a catch twenty two, right? Because if they’re kind to you in a moment of grooming and they’re nice and they say they love you. That does not feel like abuse. That feels pretty good. It doesn’t feel like grooming at the time. It is grooming, but you don’t recognize it as part of the abuse.

You think, Oh, he’s Jekyll and Hyde. You don’t realize. The good guy is actually still the bad guy. Does that make sense?

Missy: Oh, absolutely. For you to say the phrase Jekyll and Hyde, I can’t even tell you how many times I use that phrase when I would talk to my friends or family about what would go on. They would see him at church or in social situations. He was so helpful and so like loving towards me and the kids. I would say that many times. I’m like, that’s, you know, Jekyll or Hyde. I don’t know which one’s the evil one. I don’t know.

That is many times how I described it, and what you said too, about not being able to recognize the abuse. I think when you’re being told by this person, oh I’m so sorry, I love you, I don’t mean to hurt you, I’ll do better next time, I recognize this isn’t good and I’m not easy to live with. Those were the things that I was told. That kind of almost puts it on me. When it’s so manipulative to tell somebody, I know I’m not easy to live with, you’re so loving, kind, forgiving and encouraging.

Grooming & Betrayal

It puts it back on you. I need to be more loving. I need to be more encouraging and you get to be a monster.

Anne: It’s also very misogynistic because the wife is to sacrifice her happiness, her needs, her interests, her whatever, in order to make sure that he’s a decent person. That’s just crazy. So what happens next?

Anne: I’m assuming, tell me if I’m wrong here, that he starts to groom again while you’re Separated here because we see one of two things when women set a boundary. They separate and they get one of two things. They start grooming. Oh, I’m gonna be better. I’m, sorry I’ll get into a program, you know something like that. Or they just literally give up and abandon their family and don’t try to do anything. I’m guessing it was one of those two things. Maybe I’m wrong. I can’t wait to hear.

Missy: I actually had a mixture of the two at first. It was abandonment in finances and it was abandonment in just spending time with the kids. I was spinning my wheels like, okay, we need to make sure we get together and the kids want to see you.

It would be him who, you know, he had headaches, stomachache, he was tired. The week was too long and you know, the kids were desperate to want to connect with him. And then when he would call to talk to them. He would call maybe once a month and I would mention something to him. Hey, you know, like probably should call the kids like every other day.

Relationships With Children

Missy: Like you’re not here. He said, he actually had audacity to say that he doesn’t like calling them because they barely seem interested in talking to him.

Anne: Because it was all about him. Is that what you’re saying?

Missy: Right. Yeah.

Anne: Oh, yeah. Because they’re not asking him about how his day was.

Missy: Right. He said they don’t talk to me, they don’t answer my questions, they don’t seem interested in talking to me. It just feels like a waste of my time. I remember I came back with, this isn’t about you, you’re supposed to be asking them about their day, how they’re doing, what’s going on, this isn’t supposed to be fulfilling for you. It’s you showing that you’re interested in their life as a father, and you’re trying to be there in any way you can.

Anne: Yeah, they don’t have the capacity to understand that, I don’t think.

Missy: No, then he would vacillate between the two. I didn’t know which one I was going to get, to be honest. There would be times when, as long as he didn’t feel slated by me in any way. Things were fine and child support would come and helping with shoes and school and this kind of stuff would come.

I stepped on his toes wrong and then he just would go. Turn like a spoiled child and not speak to me and not help with money. It was continuously abusive and manipulative, even though we were separated.

Anne: Post separation abuse is really common. I wouldn’t say it’s really common, I’d say it’s the norm.

Divorce Decision & Feeling Alone

Anne: A lot of people will say, all you need to do when you have an abuser is to get divorced. They don’t realize that there is ongoing abuse even after divorce or during a separation. That’s very difficult.

When did you make the decision that you were going to get divorced?

How did you make that decision, right? Because that’s a very difficult decision for a Christian woman who has been trying to “help her husband” for all these years. Let’s talk about all those factors.

Missy: I didn’t come by it easy. That’s absolutely for sure. I think it probably, we separated twice, was from the point that I first separated to the point that I knew that I was done was about three years. There was quite a bit of just being so unsure. One of the things that I brought up numerous times with different people that I took counsel with was that I don’t want to be displeasing to God. I know that I’ve made this covenant.

What do I do with this covenant, this promise that I made? Oh, that just tore me up.

Anne: Was there a way that you resolved that? How are you feeling about that now?

Missy: Yeah, well, my story is a little bit different in the fact that it just didn’t end with him constantly being abusive with pornography and being narcissistic or anything like that. My story ends with, at the time that I found this out, we had already been separated for a solid year, but I definitely was on the path to divorce.

Husband’s Behavior A Nightmare

I will admit pre finding out what I found out, we had made the decision between us because we didn’t want to drag the kids through a court process. We didn’t want to bring the government into our life and our children’s lives. We had decided to stay separated until the kids were of age and then divorce then. I figured we could make this work between us, figure out finances between us.

I really think that 99 percent of that was going to be me giving a lot, out of love for my kids. He really was a nightmare. I mean, there were months when we just decided not to do visitation because he would have mental meltdowns and mental temper tantrums.

You know he didn’t want to come to church and the kids wanted him at church. It was always something with him. He was such a child. I dreaded. Visitation weekends because I knew I would just have to put up with him until it was over and there after it was over I always had a headache. I wouldn’t allow him to come to our home because the home that we had before we separated was just not right. The atmosphere was not right and I knew it was him.

I wanted a space where the children were secure and safe and that being our home. I’d never allowed him to come to our home. All of our visitations were at a restaurant or movie or park or something like that.

When I Recognized, You Are Not Alone

Anne: If you could go back in time, do you feel like that? Let’s not involve people, let’s just try to settle this between ourselves was a bad idea? Would you do that again? Or were you like it was okay. It turned out okay, or were you like man, I should have just gone for it back then. What are you thinking about that now?

Missy: I will say there’s a lot of elements of bringing in help that I had a lot of preconceived ideas about.

Anne: Talk about that.

Missy: I really believed CPS was evil, to be honest.

Anne: For our listeners who don’t know, she’s talking about Child Protective Services, which is a government agency. That is supposed to protect kids, but we have heard some horror stories. Yeah, I know what you’re talking about.

Missy: Right, I really believed that. I’m going to invite the bad guy in and this is going to be horrible. Of course I was mortified and I didn’t ask for them. Once we proceeded, the way we had to proceed, she was assigned to me. There were a lot of things that I’m now looking back at where I see they happened the way they had to happen. I can’t sing her praises enough. She has been as close to a friend as she can be because of her professional position.

Anne: So you went from thinking that CPS was evil and you were terrified of them to being very grateful for their help.

Missy: Absolutely, she jumped right in and I mean, she knew the games almost like the back of her hand. She had resources available to alleviate those places and offered them before I asked for them.

Fear Of Government Agencies Kept Me Alone

Anne: Why do you think victims are so afraid to get help from the police, for example, or from a government agency, CPS, maybe a domestic violence shelter, or maybe other various and sundry agencies. Why do you think victims are so afraid?

Missy: To be totally brutally honest, I really believe it’s because we definitely don’t feel like the government has your back if you are a believer.

Anne: I’m a believer and I have never thought that. That’s why I’m asking. I’ve been a believer my whole life and I’ve always been very pro-government. I don’t know if I’d say pro-government, but I’ve always thought, I can call the police. The police will help me. I can go to this agency, this agency will help me. For me, I did not have that experience. From your experience, that’s what you’re saying. Growing up you thought, this isn’t a good idea. They’re not going to help me.

Missy: I think to understand where I come from in that capacity, my parents did foster care my entire life from the time I was 13, all the way up. We had a lot of, social workers coming in and out of our home. A lot of experience, of course, listening to your parents and dealing with the social workers. To be really honest, we’d never had a really great experience with social workers.

Then my only experience with CPS workers were because of relatives that struggled with addictions and had children taken from them. That’s on the complete opposite end from where I was coming. In a way it was probably a little bit naive, thinking that they’re just going to make things harder.

Civil Court: You’re Not Alone

Missy: So I actually took my husband to civil court for two purposes. One was to gain physical and legal custody of my kids. The other was to impose child support. I remember when I was appointed a guardian ad litem for the kids, because she was going to interview us and talk to us, them separately, then me and then my ex. She was going to give recommendations to the court in regards to the civil case. I remember also feeling fear.

Oh my goodness, like, can I be who I am? Can I speak freely of my faith? Will she deem my faith as crazy and side with my ex? Because I know there are some people that don’t believe in a deity. Of course I struggled with that. Again, she ended up being wonderful.

Anne: That did not end up being the case.

Missy: Not even close.

Anne: That being said, I’ve never been afraid, but I have heard some horror stories. Like a guardian ad litem who made it worse or a custody evaluator. I have heard horror stories, but I’ve also heard really great stories. I think it feels like a crapshoot.

Husband’s Betrayal & Abuse

Anne: I’m like, pray, pray, pray, right? For God to be with your lawyer, to get the right guardian ad litem, to get the right custody evaluator. Let God be the warrior because the family court system is really tricky.

Missy: It is tricky and so far I feel blessed in that capacity.

Anne: That’s so great. Part of what I’m wondering, and the reason why I’m bringing this up, is this fear of outside help. I’m wondering if it’s part of the way that the abusers isolate their victims to say the outside world, perhaps the government, perhaps agencies, perhaps whatever is evil and they’re scary and you don’t want to get help from them.

You don’t have anywhere to go. Do you think that was part of it a little bit?

Missy: Oh, absolutely. I remember when we would talk about getting a divorce, we would talk about a divorce and he would bring up stuff like that. He wanted me to be alone. They’re going to pull our kids in one direction and another direction. If I dare bring up anything about the pornography, they’re going to label him a pervert and like just all these different things.

Right away, of course, if you bring anything up that has any impact on the kids, that’s going to resonate with me. Being afraid of asking them for help, I wasn’t afraid when we had to go to the police. That was a knee jerk reaction, I knew it was going to be okay when I talked to them.

Pending Situations & Encouragement

Anne: Missy has some situations that she can’t talk about right now because they’re pending. If you’re thinking, is there something going on that we didn’t hear about or that we don’t know, the answer to that is yes. We can’t talk about it now.

Missy: Well, I think if anything I probably would want to talk about is that if you are sitting on that cusp and you definitely don’t know which way to turn, you feel all alone. You feel full of shame because your husband has repeatedly abused you with porn, that you are not alone.

That there are other women out there, there are people who do care, and you don’t have to sit in the dark by yourself. More than anything, in the darkest times that I had, it may sound cliche, and it may sound hard, and it may feel weird in the beginning but you have a father. You don’t have to talk in thees and thous, and you don’t have to have all the right words to say. He is your Father, you can go to him, tell him how awful this is, how much it hurts you, and how much you need him.

Faith & Medications

One of the verses that I clung to many, many times was he heals the brokenhearted and he binds up their wounds. I can’t tell you how many times I prayed and I asked him to heal this part of me that was broken. Heal the part of me that sees myself as a failure, that feels ugly and unattractive. Jealous of these women who get their attention and he looks at them in a way that he doesn’t look at you.

You can ask your Father to help you heal that part, to bind up the wound that is caused from that. Whether you’ll choose to admit it or not, every time that they take you there. Whether you find out or whether you don’t, or you just suspect something is wrong. Your Father’s there and He can hear those and He can bind them. He can pull you close and you are not alone. You are not alone.

Anne: I appreciate you saying that there have been so many times where I have cried and I haven’t been able to stop crying. You’ve probably had that experience too, right? Currently speaking, maybe my listeners have heard it in my voice lately, but I’m on Lexapro. It’s an anti-anxiety, anti-depressant medication. I’m a little less emotional lately, so I don’t tear up at all when I’m on this. Normally, I’d be like, I know how you feel.

Feeling Alone & Grief

I’m the same. I felt that way too. Right now, because of the medication that I’m on, I can’t cry. I remember when I would cry and cry, could not stop, go in my closet, lay in my bed and my pillow would be soaking wet. I remember not being able to feel comfort from the Spirit and praying, Heavenly Father, please help me.

Please send someone to help me. Feeling this black void of nothingness. I kept praying, reading my scriptures, obeying the commandments and believing. Even though I believe, help Thou my unbelief sort of thing. The fog did move eventually.

Missy: You know what that is though? Those are layers of grief. That’s why they feel that way. It’s just layers upon layers of grief. You’re not going to feel anything while those layers fall off except grief. It’s a part of the healing process. We mistakenly think God is not near. It’s not that’s not true. It’s grief. You are not alone.

Anne: I haven’t thought of it that way before. That is a good point. I do know, even though I didn’t know to call it grief, that the only way was through it, you couldn’t avoid it. You couldn’t get around it. You could watch TV and you could eat popcorn, which helped, but really there wasn’t anything that could make it go away.

Missy: No, because all of those are distractions. Our kids can distract us. Our friends can distract us. The TV can distract us. Our phone can distract us. But you take all of those away. Everybody goes to bed. TV gets turned off, there’s nothing on your phone that you haven’t looked at a bazillion times, and then you’re in the dark and you’re alone.

Medication & Anxiety

Anne: Yes, and it is awful. With me, when things have been really difficult, it’s so stressful. Medication has helped. I don’t have anything clinical going on. The year that it was so stressful, I was on medication. I have something going on right now. It’s also really stressful. When I talk about it with my doctor, under doctor’s supervision, decided to go back on an anti anxiety medication.

It’s a catch twenty two for me because I still can feel emotion. It’s not as deeply, so I’m very like content and happy and calm most of the time, which is great. There’s not that level of, I don’t know, depth of gratitude that I have felt in the past and emotion. As soon as I make it through this, I’m going to go back off.

Missy: I felt the same way. Like it, was actually really explained pretty well to me, is that when you go through years and years of abuse. Your body learns to run on this flight or fight process, constantly. Then when you have peace, like I did when I finally moved away and had my own space, the peace was just as painful because now my body is still going fight or flight. I would have anxiety attacks. I would pull up to church and be unable to get out of the car.

Anxiety, I Just Felt So Alone

Missy: My kids would go running in. They had their classes. They were excited. I would sit in my car and cry. My family would come out just concerned and I couldn’t tell them anything except this is anxiety. I’m having a full on anxiety attack and I can’t stop this.

I have to just go through this and it was so hard because I could tell they look at you like you’re a little bit nuts, like they’re concerned about you. You’re losing it. I’m concerned, but unless you’ve been on this side of an anxiety attack, you can’t understand, it’s such an out of body experience too.

Anne: Did you ever take or consider anxiety meds?

Missy: It’s a plant based supplement. It absolutely helps. Yes.

Anne: For us, it’s like, whatever helps. There was a time when I decided I’m not where I was a couple of years ago when I was going through a difficult time. I mean, you, my listeners have heard me go in and out of difficult times this whole time and I thought, should I go back on medication? I thought, no, I shouldn’t right now. Right now I need to feel this. This is the time where I need to experience this. This recent one, I definitely was nope, I need to go back on it.

There’s no judgment here. It’s, whatever you need to do to take care of yourself. Self care, so that you can take care of your children, your job, your life, and being gentle with ourselves to make sure that we are healthy. It’s super important when we’re going through this. God loves us will guide and direct you.

Victims, You Are Not Alone

Missy: Yeah, I definitely think that going along with being gentle with yourself about medication is to be brave enough not necessarily to physically walk away. Because, I don’t know, you might get mad and walk away. In this season you’re gonna be hit with loads of advice on how to handle it, how to walk it, how to process it and how it affects your kids. I remember the one phraseology which to this day will set me on fire is to not be a victim and don’t teach your children to be a victim.

You remember that character where he’s got flame shooting out of the top of his head? That sets me on fire because to me, whether you like to acknowledge it or not, we are victims.

Anne: Yes.

Missy: We’re victims. I’m sorry that that makes life uncomfortable for you, and you don’t like to think about the things that we’ve been through, but we are victims. We don’t live the life of a victim. We don’t look for ways that things are going so bad for us. We’re not looking to walk around like Eeyore and woe is me and everything bad that’s happening to me.

We are processing through the pain and suffering. Healing from what has happened. Seriously, it sets me on fire when people say that

Anne: I could not agree more You’re like I’m not acting like a victim. I am a victim.

Missy: Yes. I know it’s meant well. I think the hardest thing for some people is it’s as hard to watch someone go through a tragedy and whether they’ll say it or not. Yes, and you are not alone.

Moving Past The Betrayal & You Are Not Alone

I really believe it’s generational in a way where it’s like, we don’t want that to touch our life. It’s too hard, ugly. It’s uncomfortable. We really just want you to get better and move on.

Anne: I think it’s also a control thing. They can tell you, Hey, you got to do something about this. But when you’re an actual victim, there is obviously a lack of ability to stop the harm. The only thing you can do is try to separate yourself from it. You could build a big wall around you. You could do all these things and the person can still act abusively toward you. For those of us who set a ton of boundaries. Our abuser is still abusive. There’s nothing we can do to stop them from being abusive. You just feel so alone, but you’re not alone.

All we can do is try to protect ourselves the best we can. I don’t think other people can wrap their heads around that. I think they think, well, eventually, they won’t bug you anymore. Or you can just pretend like they don’t exist or something. You’re like, no, if someone’s punching you in the face all the time, you’re going to have a bruise.

This is an interesting thing. I like it when people are like, well, now that you know what it is, when they hurt you, you can just like get better faster. You can be like, that was just abuse. No big deal. They’re an abuser, whatever.

Setting Boundaries With BTR’s Help, You Are Not Alone

Anne: If someone punches you in the face, The bruise is going to take however long it’s going to take to heal. You can’t say to the bruise, hey bruise heal faster. I know that he was crazy when he punched me in the face. The bruise is going to take faster to heal. No, it’s just going to take the amount of time it is to heal. Even if you’re divorced, even if you’ve set all these boundaries.

If there’s a traumatic incident that happens with your ex. During a parenting exchange or a court case, they’re lying. They say things that aren’t true or something, It’s like a punch to the gut. You’ve got a bruise, it’s going to take some time to heal.

The cool thing is the more confident we get, the better we get at setting boundaries, the more we understand what’s happening. I do think we become a little bit like, Superheroes, and we can heal a little bit faster, which is cool, but we still have to heal.

Missy: Right, and we get better at being able to, block those mental and emotional punches, because we now recognize them. I think that goes back to what you and I talked about before, when you get space, you get clarity. And you start to see, what does the Bible say? Let your yea be yea and your nay be nay. You actually really start to see those clearly, especially when they speak now.

Anne: Yeah, I agree. This is the one, it’s been five years. he’s a jerk. I don’t know why.

You Are Not Alone

Missy: That goes all back to it’s these stigmas that come with relationships and with divorce and with what everybody believes is how it’s supposed to go. The fact that it makes people uncomfortable. I really am going to dig in because like I said, my story goes a little bit deeper. I definitely believe that there needs to be something out there on what is the next step.

What do I do? How do I get through this, get up the next day, get up the next morning? How do I make it through that afternoon? Because sometimes it literally is all you can do to do the next five minutes. You’re in so much pain.

Missy: I’m so thankful for Betrayal Trauma Recovery, because there is healing in coming together. I think there’s going to be more and more women that are going to become more brave. To be able to come together and meet each other in a way that we all have great friends. You are not alone. I have phenomenal friends, but to have someone and look in the eyes of someone that knows. There’s healing in that too.

Anne: The other thing I appreciate about the community is that We’re all learning collectively, right? Like when you said that’s a layer of grief, I was like, oh, I hadn’t thought about it that way before. And because we’re talking about it and we’re honest with each other and we’re being vulnerable with each other, collectively, we’re able to learn more quickly. We are not alone.

Generational Silence & Wisdom

Anne: I think back in the forties and fifties when there wasn’t an internet. If women tried to reach out, it was probably pretty hard for them. It wasn’t common for a woman to be like, hey, my husband’s looking at porn, help me. I mean, there was part of society you didn’t really tell. I mean, I’ve talked to many victims who were perhaps in their early seventies or late sixties and they didn’t tell anybody.

For a long time, now they’re able to talk to people about it. They could only learn in this isolated silo and they knew, okay, this doesn’t work. Collectively now, as we speak the truth, as we’re vulnerable with each other, with safe people, that’s the cool thing. We don’t have to be vulnerable with our abusers, but we can be vulnerable with each other, collectively. Yes, you are not alone.

We are learning so much and becoming so much more enlightened, I guess, and safe. I am going to use the word powerful, and when I say that I don’t mean that we’re like trying to take over the world. But I mean like own our own power and our own voice and be able to say, Wait, I know what to do. I know how to do it. I can do this.

Miss y It’s biblical. To bear one another’s burdens indicates the ability to do it. So you can’t bear a burden if you’re weak, and it’s not physical strength we’re speaking of. You know, so yeah, I think there’s power in that too. Absolutely. I know there’s a scripture and I can’t think of it, but where it talks about the fact that we’re supposed to speak truth. Exactly, you are not alone.

You Are Not Alone: Join The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Community

I’ve heard this phrase many times, The church is supposed to be a hospital for the broken. I believe the church is where two or more are gathered together, that there’s healing there. I really appreciate that you said that about the ladies who kept quiet their entire life, you know what, I really believe that they believed in their mind that it was their fault. That’s abusive too.

Anne: Well, and now the cool thing is. We have so many women, various ages, right? In the community, in Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group or ones that I’ve talked to who are in their sixties or seventies or however old they are, whatever, you know, all different ages. We have 30 year olds and 20 year olds and you know, everyone, but I really appreciate the wisdom of the women who bore it alone for a long time. They’re sharing, they’re really strong. You are not alone.

Missy: Yeah, I would love to listen to that and to hear their story. Did they stay? Did they not stay? How that went for them. I bet you there are some huge nuggets of wisdom.

Anne: Yeah. Speaking of that, if you’re listening and you’re like, that was me, I didn’t speak out and I finally found Betrayal, Trauma Recovery, or I finally told somebody when I was in my late sixties or early seventies or eighties or whatever age you are, if that’s you, we’d love to hear your story.

You Are Not Alone Anymore

Missy: I just wanted to make sure you are not alone. I really do believe that you might feel like you’re betraying your husband to speak to someone about your betrayal. That’s okay. You can talk about it. It’s not betraying your husband.

Anne: Yeah. In fact, it’s helping your husband because it’s accountability. It’s speaking truth.

Missy: Absolutely.

Anne: Truth is painful sometimes. Truth is hard. Truth Might lead us down a road that makes, it seem like it’s more difficult. I believe it always leads to more peace in the end, even if it gets harder before it gets better.

Missy: I cannot sing that praise hard enough. I will tell you the last two years have been hard. They’ve been hard financially, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. They have been so hard. I will take that over one more day living the lie. I would, in a heartbeat because now at least the hard is normal. You know, it’s just a normal hard and I’m okay with that.

Missy: Right. I’ll take this. It’s so much more peaceful than when you’re living this chaotic lie and there’s so much chaos and there’s so much manipulation. You just feel so alone.

There’s so much lying that goes on for pornography to exist. It’s, it’s meant to be that way, a destroyer of the home. It’s like a invisible tornado constantly happening.

Seeing The Betrayer’s Manipulation

My ex would play head games with the kids. He would get them in this manipulation mode so that what he was doing could seem less heinous.

Like he would get, you know, Oh, they’re such awful kids. They’re so disrespectful. They don’t respect me. They don’t listen to me. Then I find out a year down the road that my son had gotten after him twice because he found pornography on his phone. Those two had animosity between each other all the time.

I couldn’t understand it. Then I asked my son, but he was too young at the time to even put the two together. I would say son, why are you so disrespectful to your dad? Why when I ask you to do something it’s, yes ma’am, and you’re helpful and you’re thoughtful, and when your dad asks you the gloves come off.

He would do the same thing. He would say, that kid’s so disrespectful. You spoil him. It was always our fault. Then you come to find out he confronted him a couple of times and told him, don’t you dare tell your mom. He left his phone on the bed with stuff open and he would come in and he would turn it off and go hand it to his dad. He would say, you shouldn’t be looking at that.

Like I said, I’ll take the two years that it’s been, the hard, hard that it’s been when I didn’t know if I’d have two nickels to rub together. I’ll take that any day. Than living a lie.

You Are Not Alone, Betrayal Trauma Recovery Is Here For You

Anne: I appreciate her strength and her bravery and her willingness to share her story. Thank you so much for coming on today’s episode. Hopefully this helped you if you’re going through this, so you don’t feel alone.

Missy: Thank you for having me, it was when I found BTR that I said, you are not alone.