Scared and Unsure? Best Private Support Group for Marriage Problems

If you’re searching for a support group for marriage problems because your husband’s behavior is starting to scare you, or because traditional counseling hasn’t helped, you’re in the right place. Most women who find BTR begin exactly where you are right now: scared, unsure, and trying to figure out who they can safely talk to when their marriage feels confusing or frightening.

But here’s what almost no one tells you:

• Not every support group for marriage problems is emotionally safe for women.
• Not every counselor understands.
• And not every institution knows how to help you.

Today’s episode explores why the struggle to find the right type of support group for marriage problems is actually a systemic issue. You’ll hear from sociologist Dr. Nicole Bedera, whose research exposes how universities often fail women who are scared, even if they follow every “correct” path to get help.

And then you’ll meet Haley, a woman whose college experiences mirror what so many married women face in counseling offices, churches, Title IX, and even courtrooms.

Their stories may not be about marriage directly, but the patterns are heartbreakingly similar, where women are

• seeking help
• blamed or minimized
• told to “be fair” to the man who hurt them
• pushed into silence
• left without the clarity or support they needed

If you’ve been wondering where to turn, or what kind of support group for marriage problems can actually help, here are five truths from this episode that will help you find the right support.

1. A Support Group for Marriage Problems isn’t usually Built for Clarity

A lot of marriage-based groups focus on:

• communication skills
• mutual responsibility
• serving each other

But since you’ve already tried these things, more of it likely won’t help clarify what’s actually going on if you’re confused about what’s going on in your marriage,

2. If You’re UnSURE what’s Going On With Your Husband, It’s Likely Not A Marriage Problem

Women often think:

• “He isn’t always like this.”
• “I’m probably overreacting.”
• “He’s stressed. Maybe that’s all this is.”

But confusion is information. Your body senses something is amiss before your mind has language for it. Any support group for marriage problems or helper who tells you you’re “too sensitive” or “too emotional” is not equipped to help you.

3. Institutions Often Protect the Person Hurting You

This is the clearest thread between Nicole’s research and the stories we hear from married women every day. When women are confused, universities, churches, pastors, counselors, or courts, don’t support women who need answers. They act as a mediator between two parties, but if he’s lying, it will just be more of the same.

The best support group for marriage problems will break this pattern and give you clarity, without you having to communicate with him more, especially since communicating with him hasn’t cleared up confusion in the past.

4. WHEN Manipulative Men Use Systems to Their Advantage, a support group for marriage problems is essential

This is one of the hardest truths women aren’t told, but one of the most important. When a woman is confused by her husband, it’s usually because he’s lying to her and …

• charming counselors
• throwing her under the bus with church leaders
• appearing calm while you appear shaken
• using systems to make you look “unstable” or “dramatic”

That’s why Haley’s story matters for married women too. Her abusers used university structures the same way husbands use counseling or clergy, to stay in control and keep the woman quiet. A safe support group for marriage problems knows these patterns and can help you navigate them.

5. The Best Support for Marriage Problems Is Confidential

A true support group for marriage problems should:

• protect your confidentiality
• help you trust your instincts
• give you clarity
• never push you toward something that scares you

Women deserve to have clarity about what’s going on, long before they ever step into a counseling office or try to get help from an institution that may not understand. We understand and you can receive live support, attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session

As You Listen to This Episode…

Notice how both women in these interviews talk about trying to get help in all the “correct” ways and how each system responded, they were…

• doubted
• blamed
• minimized

If marriage counseling, recovery programs, support groups for marriage problems, religious leaders, Title IX offices, or courts have left you confused or unsafe, today’s episode will help you understand why. If you need clarity in your marriage, here’s my Clarity After Betrayal workshop.

Transcript: When You Don’t Know Where To Turn For Help

Anne: We’re gonna start with Dr. Badera. She’s a sociologist, an author of the book, On The Wrong Side: How Universities Protect Perpetrators and Betray Survivors. Her research focuses broadly on how our social structures contribute to survivor trauma. Nicole puts her work into practice at the Center for Institutional Courage. After I get done talking to Nicole, I’ll have Hailey share her story. Welcome Nicole.

Nicole: Thank you. I’m so excited to be here.

Anne: I’m excited too. Listeners to this podcast are trying to get clarity after betrayal. They often start by searching for a support group for marriage problems. And most of the time, they can’t get clarity because the people they go to to get help aren’t able to help them because they don’t know what’s going on. Your work focuses on students trying to get help on college campuses, but I think it really intersects. Because in both cases, they don’t get the information or support they need. Can you talk about your research?

Nicole: I focus on what happens for students still in school. Victims report to most of the Title IX office most of the time. You might have heard about it in the news.  It’s been everywhere over the past 10 years, but it’s quieted down quite a bit recently. I spent a year inside one of those Title IX offices interviewing the victims, perpetrators, and school administrators who had the most control over their cases.

So in that setting, all knew something was wrong. They might not know how to label it, or how to label it in a way that the system would recognize. That’s something survivors deal with a lot. Especially since a lot of this stuff is just made to feel normal for women.

Seeking help through the Title ix office parallels seeking a support group for marriage problems

Nicole: There’s this idea that this is what you should expect when you go to college. And so there were some that they weren’t sure what was going on, but they knew that something had affected usually their education. Or they felt unsafe, unsettled, and they ended up in my study because they went to their school for help. Either through the victim advocacy office, which on a college campus, can help survivors with whatever they need, but many things that have nothing to do with the perpetrator.

Including things like they need an extension on an assignment, or there’s a specific class they want to take, but their perpetrator wants to take it. So they’re trying to coordinate to figure out when they can take it in the semester that they won’t be in the same classroom, things like that.

Or they went through the Title IX office to try to report what happened to them, to try to seek some kind of safety or justice. But many themes are not that different from all the other places that maybe you’ve considered going to for help.

Anne: When a woman has a situation where she needs help, but she doesn’t quite know where to go to find help, it’s so heartbreaking for me. I see this often with wives trying to figure it out after their husband’s betrayal. We usually do couple therapy, or maybe like addiction recovery, trying to figure out how can I start to feel safe again in my marriage. Why do you think this idea of safety and how to feel safe again is just so hard for pretty much everybody to understand? Like what do you mean she feels unsafe and what are we supposed to do about it?

The Primary concern of the title ix office

Nicole: There are a couple of issues that we run into. One of them is that a lot of the systems that we think are going to help, won’t help. If you think about a college campus, for example. Students are told, if you’re experiencing sexual violence, sexual harassment, or any kind of gender discrimination, come to the Title IX office and they will help you.

But that’s not what the Title IX office is concerned with. Their primary concern is what do we do with this perpetrator. Sometimes doing something about the perpetrator would help if the school would, which they often hesitate to do. But a lot of the time, that’s not meeting a survivor’s need in a real way.

That’s the same issue that comes up if you go to a couple therapist or support group for marriage problems. I think many people who’ve tried for help at any of these institutions have an experience where you’re coming in for something really tangible for yourself. So an example I gave earlier is you are, let’s say you’re a victim in a university setting, and you show up on the first day of class. And you see your perpetrator is in class with you, and that the class will discuss sexual violence as a topic.

So this just feels impossible for you to be safe in this environment, because it’s going to remind you of your trauma. You might have to watch your perpetrator interact. It’s going to be just a place where your body and mind respond to the traumatic experiences you’ve already had.

Anne: And the trauma you continue to experience because the likelihood of him gaslighting you through this whole thing is like off the charts.

the System focuses on what it means for the perpetrator

Nicole: You’re right. It’s unlikely that if you’re in that class with your perpetrator. You and your perpetrator will share the same public narrative about why you can’t sit next to him in class. And so the perpetrator might disparage the victim, might tell lies about what happened to avoid accountability.

You’re right. A victim in that scenario reasonably is just thinking, I just want this guy out of my class, right? I want to take the class I want to take and complete my degree on time. Why is this affecting me in this scenario? Most people, if you think about it rationally, would say, that’s a reasonable set of requests. You know, you’ve already experienced a sexual assault. That’s enough of a burden. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice your education too.

But in our current university system, there is no way to get that outcome. And so instead, when a victim comes forward and says, “This is what I need,” the entire system is focused on, “But what would this mean for the perpetrator? Is it fair to him? Is this going to be too much for him?” That happens within a support group for marriage problems. The focus can be on the perpetrator.

This is one of the stories I start the book with. Even if the system works as it claims, it can’t fix it. There is no version of a sexual assault response in our society that can intervene in two weeks. We don’t really have a version of that right now. That’s a big part of why coming forward is so harmful, because they will tell you to wait. They will re-traumatize you. They will force you back into communication, into being in the same room with your perpetrator.

Metaphor of hot stove with women in scenarios including a support group for marriage problems

Anne: I help all sorts of women in all sorts of scenarios. But one that I’m thinking of right now is a woman with a protective order, and he continues to violate the protective order. And she keeps calling it in, and then they have to have a hearing about it. And the hearing isn’t for like three months. In the meantime, there’s no protection for her.

To hear the prosecutor talk about the date of the court hearing, rather than to hear somebody say, “I care about you. We’re going to do something so that he can’t come around you anymore.” That’s what she needs to hear. But for some reason, that’s like beyond their comprehension.

Nicole: I use this metaphor putting your hand on a hot stove. Right now, our systems just tell the victim, pretend it’s not burning you. Just keep being burned while we decide what to do. And if it is burning you and you can’t handle it, there must be something wrong with you. And a better system would say, let’s turn off the stove. We’re just going to turn it off and we’re going to take a minute to figure out what to do next.

Anne: This happens in marriages all the time. Because the support group for marriage problems, the professional counselor, clergy, or any number of people she’s going to for help, don’t identify that “the stove is on,” to use your metaphor. They’re like, “Something’s wrong with you because you’re burned for no reason.”

Nicole: Right. Or let’s try to evenly manage this. There’s this real temptation in a lot of these systems to say, “Well, why don’t both people come to the table and offer something?”

victims just want to feel safe

Nicole: And so that would be akin in the same metaphor to saying, “Well, why don’t we have the stove turned down a little bit? And why don’t we have the person with their hand on the stove stop complaining they’re being burned?”

And that doesn’t make sense. We as a culture are comfortable asking for more sacrifices from victims, as long as it’s in the name of giving an advantage to their perpetrator. But we know that abuse takes place when there is a power inequity. And so if that’s the reason we’re saying both people have to do something or the victim can’t get what they need. Because we want to give a benefit to the perpetrator, that will always deepen that inequity. It’s always going to deepen that power disparity, and that can make the abuse worse.

Anne: My eye is twitching. The other thing I think is interesting when it comes to reporting or not reporting. For me and many women who have been through it, reporting wasn’t the issue. We just wanted to feel safe. I didn’t necessarily want my ex husband to go to jail.

I just wanted him to leave me alone. In my personal case, I had a protective order. The criminal court said, “Do not talk to him, you have a protective order,” but the civil court ordered me to talk to him because we share children. So for eight years, my ex abused me post divorce. A man I have a protective order against, who I do not want to talk to. But the civil court forces me to talk to him because of my kids. I didn’t want to report his abuse, so he went to jail.

the Title ix debate

Anne: I think that’s the thing that people have a hard time with, especially with custody cases, where the judge is like, “Well, I can’t take away custody because then I’d be calling him an abuser. And then what? He’d go to prison.”

Victims want to be safe. And in many of these civil cases, especially with kids. The safe parent, the mother, is seeking a support group for marriage problems, she is not trying to throw him in jail. And same thing in college, victims are just asking that he doesn’t go to this class, maybe he transfers schools. But for some reason, they equate it to prison.

Nicole: That’s exactly right. And I want to say that this is a new problem. And the Title IX debate is actually the center of why this is happening throughout society. So, a little history, in 1972, a law passed. And that law said sex discrimination is illegal on college campuses that receive federal funding.

And that’s all schools, to be clear. Even Harvard accepts a lot of funds from the federal government to keep their doors open. They would have a very hard time keeping their doors open without those federal funds. And the law itself is just a single sentence. The law isn’t super clear about everything that’s included and not included.

So there were a series of court cases to try to figure that out. One of them was in 1980, Alexander v. Yale, and that was the first court case that said that sexual violence should be illegal on a college campus, that it should be something that schools should do something about, and they should have their own internal proceedings to manage sexual violence.

Colleges don’t follow the law and women seeking a support group for marriage problems

Nicole: And the focus here wasn’t about sending people to jail. That’s what you could call the police for, if that’s what you wanted. This is specifically for scenarios where victims’ educations were impacted by their sexual assaults, intimate partner violence, stalking, or whatever they experienced.

And so, the Department of Education had argued that schools need to do something to ensure that violence doesn’t interfere with the quality of education you receive from the school, including things like if there’s a known perpetrator on campus. Let’s say he’s a professor, let’s say he’s withholding good grades unless students provide sexual favors, which is what that 1980 court case was about.

Part of what Title IX would require is removing the perpetrator from campus, because obviously no woman can get a fair education from that person. And so the focus is on restoring those educational rights. The issue was that schools just didn’t do it. And so every few years, the Department of Education would remind schools that they had to do something about sexual harassment and violence, and they just didn’t do it. And for the most part, it didn’t capture much attention until the Obama administration.

Anne: Was part of their justification for not doing their job them thinking, “If it was bad enough, she’d call the police.”

Nicole: Certainly. Inside Higher Ed conducted a survey in 2015, where they asked university presidents, do you think campus sexual violence is a problem on your campus? And the vast, vast, vast majority said, “No, that’s a problem at other schools. We don’t have to worry about it,” which is not true.

The Law captures national attention

Nicole: By the way, we have yet to find a university that doesn’t have sexual violence as a problem. And so, yes, that’s part of how they justified it, “We don’t want to handle this, this is a criminal act, not a civil act.”

But that’s not what the law said. And so, the Obama administration sent out another one of these reminder letters, and for whatever reason, it became hotly politicized. And in that moment, a group of Harvard professors, law professors, wrote an essay saying the Title IX approach the Obama administration required wasn’t right. Because it didn’t allow the same kind of due process protections that the criminal justice system does.

So exactly what you’re saying, that’s what they said. And to be clear, a lot of these Harvard Law professors were not specialized in issues of gender based violence. And the average lawyer gets very little training during law school about sexual violence or harassment, especially in civil settings. So they were just wrong. They were just flat out wrong.

But this argument captured the national attention. It went viral. Other judges and lawyers think there are due process protections on college campuses that never existed before. Prior to this moment, if you faced student disciplinary proceedings on a college campus, your only rights were to know your accusations, and what the violation would be, and have some chance to respond, but there were no rules about how you would do that. So some schools did it in writing, some did it through hearings, some weren’t doing much of anything.

A guest speaker example

Nicole: And so, this new idea that anything involving sexual violence must be held to a criminal standard of due process. It is only a few years old. It’s not too late to reverse it, and we should, because the stakes are so different. I call it “Accumulated Fantasies of Disaster.” Where, exactly like you’re describing, a victim says, “I need one thing,” and sometimes on college campuses, that is safety for their kids.

Married people live in student housing on college campuses with children, living in essentially the dorms, but family dorms. And that’s often what they’re looking for. I am trying to escape an abusive marriage. I need a support group for marriage problems. My partner is still on campus, and we’re still living in the same dorm. And is there another unit I can move into with my kids as I go through divorce proceedings, as I go through a custody battle, essentially saying exactly what you are.

“Well, if we do that, it could lead to all these other issues for the perpetrator down the line.” And some stories that I heard during my time in the field were really unreasonable. For example: A guest speaker who came to a campus sexually harassed a woman.

The guest speaker was CEO of a company. And he stalked and sexually harassed her since meeting her. He had no other tie to the campus community. So from a legal perspective, the university had no obligation to him. They don’t have to let him come back and speak again. They don’t even have to let him come on campus if they don’t want to, because he’s not a student. He’s not a professor. He has no rights to this space.

Men accused don’t have bad things happen to them: finding a support group for marriage problems

Nicole: But instead, the Title IX investigators wrapped themselves in knots to think of all of these horrible things that could happen to him if they took the victim’s wishes into consideration, which was just, please don’t invite him back to be guest speaker again. I don’t want this to happen to anybody else.

And they said things like, “He could get a bad reputation, he could lose his job, he could be incarcerated.” And it’s not true. Because a lot of these proceedings are private. They can’t hand private files to the police.

That’s illegal. That’s not how it works. People have privacy rights. Educational documents, in particular, are really private. But that’s what they’re thinking. They’re saying, “If you come forward, every bad thing will happen to this person.” And yeah, we’re talking about a CEO. Who’s going to fire him, himself? It doesn’t make sense.

Anne: Also, heaven forbid, a bad thing happen to a rapist.

Nicole: I completely agree. I think we can all see from just examples in pop culture, presidential races, whatever it might be. Men accused of sexual assault tend not to have bad things happen to them. Women seeking a support group for marriage problems face this as well. If anything, I argue they tend to get benefits. The Johnny Depp trial is a great example. He made an entire comeback. He was having a hard time finding work in Hollywood because of his own behavior on set. Now he’s getting this second chance. Because he’s known as a perpetrator of domestic violence, which he never refuted, by the way.

Accumulated fantasies of disaster

Nicole: He never refuted that he had physically harmed Amber Heard. He never said that. And he simply argued that she deserved it, which worked.

Anne: That’s insane, it’s wild. We should see through it, but we don’t, because we come to a place from victim blaming first. I kept seeing people worry about worst-case scenarios…accumulated fantasies of disaster about what might happen to perpetrators. And how bad it’ll be if we say out loud what they did.

But I interviewed the perpetrators, and those things didn’t happen to them. If anything, many of them enjoyed these accountability proceedings. Because, like we’re talking about, there’s these contradictions in them. Court proceedings constrain the victim’s behavior. They don’t allow the victim to do X, Y, and Z, or it’ll hurt their credibility. While simultaneously, forcing them to be in contact the perpetrator regularly. And that’s something perpetrators enjoy.

Anne: Yeah, they like it.

Nicole: Yes!

Anne: Sorry, we need to focus on this. I created a strategy workshop. It’s called the Living Free Workshop, Click on that link and learn more. It helps women see why abusers like this enjoy it. And what these types of abusers get out of it. So that women can use strategy to protect themselves and find emotional safety in a support group for marriage problems. Because we don’t enjoy it. That’s what you discovered. I’m like, yes, they enjoy it. And it’s because they never lose.

Nicole: Even if they lose, the losses are hollow. They expelled one student for intimate partner violence while I was on campus.

The dean of students facilitated a perpetrators transfer

Nicole: So it is rare, I was on campus that year. But what that expulsion meant was because of this rush to protect the perpetrator. This rush to make sure nothing bad happened to him. The Dean of Students had already helped facilitate his transfer to another university by the time he was expelled.

It was close enough, he didn’t even have to move apartments. And they had slowed down the proceedings for two years. Originally with the hope that he would graduate before they had to hold him accountable. But he didn’t graduate for a whole host of reasons. Instead, the victim had to take a leave of absence, for those two years. Because he was so violent and so dangerous that she couldn’t safely be on campus.

And so they told her, you know, the same thing we’re talking about before. Until he’s been through this process, we can’t offer you any kind of assistance. So if you can’t handle being here, you’re the one who should leave. And that’s one of the big things that I hope people take from all these conversations. It is that every time we do something like this to protect a perpetrator, every time we say, “I’m going to be fair to both people, I’m going to invite both of you to this place, and anybody who can’t handle it, don’t come.”

What you’re really saying is the perpetrator is going to be here and the victim won’t. Because you’re not giving them anything that’s possible to do. Victims can’t turn off their trauma and peacefully coexist. Even if they do manage to share space with the perpetrator, it always takes a toll, and that’s unfair.

Everything is backwards: victim blaming and finding a support group for marriage problems or victims

Nicole: It’s not right. Everything is totally backwards.

Anne: Yeah. Well, the other issue that people don’t recognize is that he is still going to be abusing her. It could be a basketball game, whatever. The way he acts, the way he’s lying about her, the way he’s like, “Oh, she’s so crazy.” That is abuse. And he’s still doing it right now. So you haven’t stopped the abuse. It’s not like this happened in the past. She still needs some sort of support group for marriage problems or victims of emotional abuse.

Nicole: And I would argue that even if nothing happens, that still is a continuation of the abuse as well. Because I think of all these scenarios where the perpetrator and victim are forced to share space. Again, kids are a common scenario. And everybody watching wants to see this cartoon villain of a perpetrator that doesn’t exist. And so instead they say, “He seemed nice, he was friendly to you, you seem like you’re the one who’s overreacting.” And that’s part of the plan too. A big part of that abuse is showing they can follow social norms, and treat people appropriately.

And ultimately, it still leads to often, in this case, other people blaming the victim, questioning their legitimacy. That’s a lot of what perpetrators do in these proceedings. They come in and they don’t scream and yell. They’re not physically violent in that setting. And so people think, “Oh, he must be fine.”

Anne: It’s called grooming, and grooming is abusive. So that IS the abuse. And they don’t realize they’re abused too, because he’s lying.

No one is helping victims transfer to a new school

Nicole: A good point.

Anne: The same thing happens everyday with the courts with civil custody cases. that part where you said the university helped him transfer his stuff to the new school. No one is helping the victims do these things. No one’s helping wives in these scenarios. They have to find their own support group for marriage problems.

Nicole: And that was one of the most glaring disparities of all. And there’s actually an academic concept that I think would be helpful to your listeners. It’s this idea of institutional betrayal. And institutional betrayal is defined as an institution’s actions or inactions that exacerbate trauma.

So when they behave in a way that makes the traumatic experience more traumatic, and that’s one of the big things. How violent and traumatic an experience is for a victim is not set from the end of the violent event. It actually depends on everything that happens afterwards.

So, you know, if you tell your friends, do they believe you? Do they take your side or your perpetrator’s side? Do you get control over what happens after the violence is over? Or is somebody reporting to the police against your will or putting you into these scenarios that you don’t want to be in against your will?

Abuse is ultimately a violation of autonomy. And so every time an institution violates our autonomy again, that’s going to trigger those traumatic experiences. We find survivors experiencing institutional betrayal show the same traumatic symptoms as a sexual assault victim a second time in studies. It is an equal severity to that original act of violence.

Institutional betrayal is overwhelming

Nicole: Which is why it’s important that our institutions get this right, and for our friends and families to get this right too. Because a lot of people find this overwhelming. And I think it is overwhelming to think, “Wow, I thought the worst was over, but I could actually encounter something just as bad when I seek help,” is really overwhelming.

But on the other hand, if we do get it right, we actually have the capacity to make this violence less damaging to victims. And that’s the place where I come out on a hopeful side. Survivors who, when they seek help and get it, have fewer traumatic symptoms. The traumatic impact of that original event is lessened. So that’s got to be our goal here: to step out of these damaging patterns just because it’s the way things are, or it’s what we’re used to, and oh, it would take work and change to do something different.

Those aren’t good reasons. We should do the right thing because the stakes are really high. And we could really help a lot of people.

Anne: I talk with victims every day. When couples therapists don’t help them, when clergy don’t help them, when police don’t help them, when the civil court system doesn’t help them, and when a support group for marriage problems doesn’t help them, my eye twitches.

Nicole: I wanna say one of the things about institutional betrayal and the reasons why I think it’s important that people know how institutions can harm victims is that institutional betrayal can’t happen to the same severity if we already have some distrust for the institution.

Setting realistic expectations when seeking a support group for marriage problems or victims

Nicole: One of the key components is going to get help, and thinking you’re going to get it, and then not getting it. And so setting realistic expectations, not to lower the bar for these institutions, to know what can happen.

Anne: That’s what the Living Free Workshop is for, anticipating. If you talk to clergy about this, this is likely what’s going to happen. Like know these things beforehand.

The Living Free Workshop helps victims anticipate, because this has been driving me crazy for years. In my state, at the bottom of every article about domestic violence, every single one, there’s like a “Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline and then call our state domestic violence hotline.”

And everyone thinks that’s the solution. They think reporting is the solution. They don’t realize that’s not the solution at all. In fact, one victim that I know, she recently had the department that oversees victim services contact her. And they were like, “Hey, we heard that you had a bad interaction with a police officer in this certain county.”

We’re going to interview you. So she told them, ” Yeah, I’ve been working with this domestic violence shelter. I have a victim advocate.” She told him the whole story. She’s been working with a victim advocate at our local domestic violence shelter for over two years. They reviewed her case.

And they got back to her, and guess what they said? They said, “Oh, your case is really, really bad. You need services. Have you contacted your local domestic violence shelter?”

Nicole: Oh my.

Go to a confidential community

Anne: So it was like a full circle, you know. People in general think how we have to do is put this phone number on the bottom of a newspaper article and problem solved. And if she called that number and she’s still in this mess, it’s her fault because she didn’t use the services correctly.

Nicole: So I think one of the questions I get a lot is, if a lot of these systems aren’t trustworthy, where can we go? And the response is to go to a confidential community like this one. That is different than a domestic violence service. You want one that’s confidential, because your group won’t call the police. The court can’t subpoena you. So if you have questions to try to make sense of all the options in your community, they can work through that with you without things snowballing out of your control.

But that’s what I would say. Make sure you’re going somewhere confidential that will give you a lot of options, not just one option. Anywhere that’s pushing you back to one option is probably not the right place. I talk about these broader trends in how survivors lose their autonomy and become re-traumatized when they’re trying to find a good support group for marriage problems.

What we’ve been talking about this whole time. Which is when a victim says, “I’ve experienced this, I’m dealing with these consequences, and I need help with these consequences.” They’re recast as punishing, and everything is focused on, “But that could be bad for the perpetrator.” That is one of the biggest red flags.

Because you can’t just make that stuff go away. Like, trauma is trauma. It’s a physiological process. We can see evidence of it on the body.

Recognizing consequences are not unfair to the perpetrator

Nicole: You can’t just say, “Oh, you’re right. I don’t want anything bad to happen to my perpetrator.” So it goes away. That’s one of the ones to think about. Conflation between addressing the consequences that are inevitable, that will happen due to the action of sexual violence, or coercion or harassment, or whatever it is you’ve experienced, and acting as if recognizing those consequences is inherently unfair to the perpetrator.

Anne: I was trying to explain this to someone once, and I said, “Can you imagine if a man had a business partner and that business partner stole a bunch of money from the business, and the guy couldn’t hold him accountable in court? And then everyone around him was telling him, “You have to attend church with this guy.”

Nicole: Right, it’s suddenly so clear. It’s suddenly so clear that it would be unfair.

Anne: And people say to me, that’s crazy. This is completely different. And I’m like, “What I’m talking about is like 50 billion times worse.”

Nicole: Yeah.

Anne: Thinking about it in terms of a man being forced to interact with someone who hurt him, they can’t even talk about that because they’re like, “that would never happen.” Women need to find a support group for marriage problems that understands this.

Nicole: I mean, gender is such a big part of it, right? It is. Yeah. On a Title IX case, you would call it complainant and respondents, when those roles are reversed, usually in a retaliatory complaint. Where a real act of violence happened, the victim tried to report it, and the perpetrator responded by filing a second complaint saying, “Actually, I’m the true victim.”

retaliatory complaints by perpetrators: help from a support group for marriage problems or victims

Nicole: So again, a classic example of this is Johnny Depp versus Amber Heard, where he doesn’t argue that there was never any violence. He says she deserved it. Actually, she’s the abuser, and I think I’m the true victim. And the goal of these retaliatory complaints is really to muddle the narrative, to confuse any investigators and to try to intimidate the victim into dropping their original complaint.

In those cases of retaliatory complaints, what I found is that the university didn’t care anymore about due process. When women were in the role of the accused, they faced a lot of consequences. I would actually argue punishment because they didn’t do anything. It can’t be consequences for their actions when all they did was report something someone else did to them.

It really is a gender issue. There is a real sense that we should take the side of the man, no matter what he has done, because he is a leader, because he should have male privilege, or you know, whatever it might be. He’s the more important person, and so we should protect the more important person.

And sometimes that comes out in really overtly misogynistic, obvious ways, and sometimes it’s a little bit more shielded in something more, called himpathy. So this concept of empathy comes from a philosopher named Kate Mann. And what it means is excessive empathy given to men at the expense of women.

What this can look like in practice is somebody saying something like, “Well, you know, sexual abuse is horrible. It ruins the victim’s life. The best we can do is try to make sure it doesn’t ruin two lives instead of one.”

Empathizing with the perpetrator

Nicole: It’s truly unbelievable if I didn’t have the direct quotes from the administrator saying it. But it’s treated as this righteous thing is this idea of I’m a good person if I can empathize with even the most sort of deplorable people in our society. And it’s not hard to empathize with men in these cases. Our culture trains us to do this. The difficult thing is to empathize with the victim.

Anne: Sorry, I can’t even, I can’t, I can’t. No wonder people don’t love me at church because I don’t sympathize with abusive men I’m like, I don’t care about him. And people are like, so offended.

Nicole: Yeah, people are offended.

Anne: And I’m like, why are you so offended? He’s a rapist. Why do you care about him? She needs a support group for marriage problems or victims.

Nicole: I think that’s the place we need to get to, especially in this moment in society where most people are empathizing with the perpetrator. So this framework I was thinking about where everybody’s saying, “Oh, you know, I’m going to empathize with the perpetrator because it’s a hard thing to do.”

Something administrators would say is, “Everybody’s going to side with the victim, because we all know rape is wrong. And so she’s going to have everybody in her corner. He doesn’t have anybody in his corner. So I’m going to be the person to show up for him.”

And so what we need at the bare minimum is a whole group of people who will show up for the survivor in that same way to recognize the real reality, which is the perpetrator has so many people in his corner.

Victims may lose friends, family and have to switch schools

Nicole: The victim is the person who’s getting pushed out of her entire social group. One of the things that’s so traumatic about sexual violence is a lot of people lose all their friends, a lot of their family. They might have to switch schools or change jobs, because everybody is focusing on being “fair” to the perpetrator.

None of this is fair. If what we’re doing for the perpetrator means the victim has to leave, it’s not fair. When we have an entire society where none of these systems are good at holding perpetrators accountable, it’s hard for people to imagine what that looks like. When we know that we can’t trust a lot of these systems, we have to handle this as individuals and as communities. Because the trauma is going to leave a lifelong impact for the victim. It’s never going away. And so if we say, “Well it’s been five years, why isn’t she over it yet?”

That’s just not how it works. And I do think it’s really reasonable to say, “If you perpetrated a sexual assault, The bare minimum of consequences is if you see the victim in the grocery store at your new job. You turn around and you walk out and you go to a different grocery store, you get a different job.”

This is very, very reasonable to ask for.

Anne: 100 percent,I appreciate this conversation. Nicole, I’m so grateful you’re doing this work. Thank you so much for spending the time to talk about finding a safe support group for marriage problems and victims today.

Nicole: Thank you for having me on. This has been great. These are the kinds of conversations that people need. I’m so glad I got to be here today.

Anne: Yeah, thank you.

Hailey’s Story of reporting on a campus

Anne: So now a woman we’re gonna call Haley will actually share her story of reporting on a campus. Hers is specifically related to my faith, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and what she experienced at BYU. But I have heard stories like this from Jewish women, from Catholic women. We see these patterns everywhere. Including in a support group for marriage problems. Welcome Haley.

Haley: Hi, thank you.

Anne: Before we start, I received my associate degree from BYU Idaho, a million years ago. And when I went there, I loved the honor code. It helped me feel safe. For example, I felt so safe that my roommates weren’t allowed to have men in our apartment after 10:00 PM. Is that what it is? I don’t even remember.

Haley: I think they bumped it up to midnight. I felt the same way as you. I chose to come to BYU because I wanted to be in a safer environment and I knew I was signing an honor code.

Anne: I appreciate that, and I want to be clear: I don’t know exactly how the honor code operates today. This won’t be an anti–honor code discussion. Instead, we’re examining how institutions implement the honor code—and how that implementation harms victims of abuse in multiple ways.

Haley: Like you mentioned, I had two run-ins with the honor code office. One my freshman year and one my senior year. And both times I was left feeling very alone, like I did something horrible.

I felt a responsibility to speak out

Haley: I felt like that my freshman year, and kept my mouth shut. Because I was embarrassed. I felt totally ashamed alone, so I kept quiet. I felt like I was in a different place when they called me in again. To put me back on probation at the end of my Senior year. I felt like it was my responsibility to speak out against what was going on.

I had to wait to speak out until I got my diploma. Initially, I started just because I wanted to see if there was anyone else out there who felt the same way I did. I knew I had a few close friends and a few close family who had been through the honor code office and were treated poorly. So I gathered all our stories together. Really, it was like a support system. Even if five people could see it and feel like they weren’t alone, that would have been good enough for me.

I know that you’re doing the same thing, allowing people to share their stories is healing for everyone. There’s something about being anonymous. You feel safe. Being able to tell other people what happened to you, and having other people say, “I am so sorry. I had no idea. I’m here for you.” I think it is healing.

Anne: Yeah, it is so healing. I’m so grateful that so many women are willing to share their stories on my podcast. And I’m grateful that you’re here sharing yours today.

The first time a perpetrator you had a restraining order against, was the one that turned you into the honor code office. And the second time it was your abusive ex-boyfriend.

experiences with the honor code office

Anne: Talk about how that felt to have the honor code office used as a weapon by abusive men.

Haley: I had moved 2,000 miles away and started school. The first time I got called in, I was told that I was called in by a man from my past who had really hurt me. It was hurtful to sit on my counselor’s couch and tell her this was years behind me. Tell her who this man is, how he made me feel, and how I was scared of him. And how I wanted to put everything that had happened 2,000 miles away in my past behind me.

I sat on her couch crying and said, “Please take my side. Please have my back. Here’s how he’s affected my life for years now, and I really need you to have my back. Especially now that I’m sitting here telling you who it was that reported me, I really need your protection.”

And she responded and said, “It didn’t matter how I got caught. What mattered was that the Holy Spirit wanted me to get caught.” As a freshman, 18 years old, I was already terrified to be in there. Sitting across from the stranger I didn’t know, asking for help. And she told me it didn’t matter. That just felt sick. It was pretty discouraging. No offers for a victim support.

And then the second time with the ex-boyfriend, it was frustrating because I told her, “Look, I have not talked to this kid in over a year. I’m so sorry for what happened. I’ve already dealt with it with my Bishop. I don’t understand why he can come in and jeopardize my future, my education and my diploma.”

Blame for the problem: parallels with help for finding a support group for marriage problems

Haley: She took his side and told me, “Well, he’s the one that came in, and he came in on his own goodwill, and you didn’t.” It was frustrating too, because he was Elder’s Quorum president at the time.

Anne: For our listeners, that is a calling within the church that puts them in charge of the men’s organization.

Haley: And she brought that up and wanted to remind me of his position in the church. And she told me that the spirit wasn’t in my home. And so it was harder for both parties to keep the commandments. So an ex-boyfriend turned me in. And having his calling thrown in my face was pretty hurtful.

Anne: Wait, so she blamed you. Because apparently the Spirit’s not in your home. I’m being sarcastic here. The reason he acted poorly is all your fault.

Haley: Right. I mean, she’s accusing me, asking if I am going to church, what my calling is, and what my relationship is with God. But she wanted to remind me of his position in church, and then put me in my place. And just for all those reasons, it was so hurtful.

Anne: That is awful. I’m so sorry. I bet you felt so validated when people started sharing their stories, and women feel that with a good support group for marriage problems as well. Because you ended up reading thousands of other victim stories about the honor code office. What were some themes that you noticed?

Theme’s in dealing with the Honor Code Office

Haley: I noticed a lot of people who don’t even want to talk to anyone about what happened, which is scary. Another theme is that when they go into that office, they feel like it is their fault. I have had so many people say, my counselor told me that this is because I did this. This is because I wore this. I said this.

Anne: If he’s using sexual coercion, getting him out of your apartment by 10:00 PM would have been almost impossible. They might say, “It’s your fault you were raped because you let him stay longer than 10:00 PM.” I mean, there are so many elements with sexual coercion. People really don’t understand.

Haley: They did try to separate the Title IX office and the Honor Code office. People are still unfortunately not reporting. Because they’re still afraid that when they go in there, somehow to get looped into the honor code office. And in a lot of cases, it still has. BYU says their policy has changed, but unfortunately, the policy is not what’s practiced.

Anne: We see that with bishops too. The policy is: We have no tolerance for abuse in the church. And yet victims say, “My husband is using pornography. He is lying to me. He’s having sex with other women.” They need an understanding of what safety looks like in a support group for marriage problems. In The Proclamation to the Family, people who engage in infidelity and abuse will be held accountable. And instead, a bishop might say, what are you doing wrong? How could you help the situation?

Have you heard any stories where the victim had a good experience going to the honor code office?

Advice for victims

Haley: I do have stories where women went in and said, “Here’s who it is, here’s what he’s done.” And BYU has expelled them. Someone that I’m very close to has a story very similar to this. Even though they expelled the man, she never heard from the honor code office again. And that’s another issue too.

If you are a woman and finally do have the courage to go tell BYU what’s going on, and let’s say best case scenario, they do kick this student out of school. I can’t speak for the whole school in general, but a lot of these students are still saying they’re not there for me. For the most part. They just don’t feel like the university in general has their back with this.

Anne: So from your own experience and from reading all these stories that you’ve received, what would you want current students who are sexual assault victims to hear?

Haley: I would first want them to know that they are not alone. I don’t know how comforting that can be for everyone, but I know at least for the people I’ve talked with, just hearing that this isn’t just happening to them. And there are other women out there who are feeling this way too. And people that you can turn to and trust and share your story with is really important. Like what happens with a good support group for marriage problems.

Overwhelming and heartwarming to connect with others in a support group for marriage problems or victims

Haley: Also, we do not want these stories to discourage students from turning in these kinds of cases. BYU does have a victim advocate that does a good job, from what I’ve been told at protecting students. I just want every sexual assault victim to know that it is not your fault, and that every time they speak up for what has happened to them, they’re speaking up for all the women behind them.

It’s been overwhelming and so heartwarming to see even other female students who will comment and DM me. Like, if this is your story, message me. I will take you out to lunch. I want to talk to you. I’m here for you. If you ever need anyone, send me a message to this Instagram. I just want them to know that there are people out there who care so much, love them, and want them to be on campus.We love the church and the school. We don’t want to leave.

Students know what they signed. So we’re not here to fight the standards on campus. We are really just looking for protection for our students within the honor code office. Something has to change.

Anne: I’m so grateful for you sharing your story and grateful for anyone willing to have an ongoing layered conversation about these topics and finding a safe support group for marriage problems.ƒ It’s not like we just talk about this issue once and then it goes away, right? It has to be an ongoing layered conversation in order to make meaningful change.

Haley: Right. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. It was so good to talk with you. I would love to meet you one day. I really enjoyed our conversations.