I dealt with the pain that I experienced many different ways. I dove into work. I did as much as I could in my Church calling that I had at the time. There were some days where the only thing that got me out of bed was my job. I'm kind of an open book. People can really see what I'm feeling when they look at me. So because of that, I had to pull away from my friends and family and really not participate in things that I wanted to, because then they would ask, "How are you?" and they would know that I was lying if I said I was OK.

I did not know early on that I needed my own recovery. I thought, "If he could get fixed, all of our problems would go away. Just fix him, and then I won't have any difficulties, and we won't have difficulties in our marriage or our family." Well, what I discovered was, if I didn't work my own recovery, I would live in the past with fear and the betrayal and victim. Or I would go to fear every single day, like "He's going to act out again." A family member recommended a 12-step program that I embraced fully. At that point, I realized that I couldn't control my husband's recovery--that I needed to really work on myself. Some women find a lot of benefit to going to group meetings, where they're meeting with other spouses who have been through similar experiences. And so as they receive validation, as they hear that other women have experienced similar things, again, it can be very validating, reassuring. So that can be a good experience for them. Then they can also learn from each other, learn what's been helpful for other women in similar situations. At first I hated it.

I just felt like, "I don't want to talk about this with anybody. I don't want to know that anyone else has this problem, because it just makes me mad that this is a common problem. What's wrong with men?" But a missionary there made me want to go back. She said, "Try us for 90 days. If you don't like us, we'll refund your misery." So after I started going and I started really sharing my feelings, I felt a lot of healing. It got my focus off what he was doing and got the focus back on me. I got closer to the Lord, and I became a stronger person. I have a sponsor who I call on a mostly daily basis. She will tell me, "You're allowing fear to rule this decision that you're making." As I went longer and longer, I felt like, "I can help other women." There were women that came in that just found out about this problem, and I remember what that feels like. I can give them my story and maybe give them some hope. A good therapist can provide a place where it's safe to talk about what the wife is experiencing, where she can freely express her experiences, her thoughts, her worries, her concerns. A therapist can provide ideas for regulating emotions if she's experiencing betrayal trauma--ideas for coping, for self-care--and can also help her be aware of resources that might be available to her in her situation. Until I was able to reach out and ask for help and get guidance and allow other women to share their stories and how it affects me, it wasn't until that time that I was able to start healing. I can be happy in my life. I can be happy with my life because I will choose my own recovery, and he will choose his recovery or not. But it's pretty amazing to choose my recovery, and he chooses his recovery, and then we recover the marriage. That has been an amazing journey for us.