Ep. 13- Abby's Story

Becky and Tiffany sit down with Abby to share her story. Abby was born and raised in Fairview, Utah. Growing up, she felt her parents had a “fairy tale” marriage because she never witnessed any fighting or arguments. She felt that she would someday marry a returned missionary in the temple, and then she would get to have that “fairy tale” life, as well, and that everything would be “bubbles and roses.” 

Her relationship with God growing up was a bit distant. She knew he was a wonderful being who had given her so many blessings, but because He’d given her so much, she felt she couldn’t ask him for anything more.

She met her husband when they were both on ballroom dance teams at Utah Valley University. Before they got married, he opened up about his pornography addiction. When she prayed about whether or not to marry him, she received the direct prompting that she should continue with the relationship and that the Lord would let her know if she needed to end things down the road.

It did not take long for her husband’s problems with pornography to affect their brand-new marriage. Within just a couple of weeks, he engaged in a days-long gaming binge, leaving her feeling completely disconnected from him. Later she began connecting the dots between his gaming binges with his acting out with porn, realizing they coincided.

It was the complete disconnection from my husband that was so painful.

She soon began distracting herself from her painful marriage by throwing herself into motherhood. The problem was, things with her husband were so troublesome that she didn’t feel like she could be completely present with her child, either. And her husband’s pornography addiction kept getting worse.

On their fourth anniversary, they drove several hours to attend therapy. Her husband had recently disclosed a months-long acting out with pornography and she threw up a wall of anger. However, she was hesitant to allow herself to feel that anger towards him. She knew she was hurt, but she thought acknowledging that anger wasn’t what she was supposed to do. She didn’t understand why her husband couldn’t just stop looking at pornography.

Abby and her husband began going to twelve-step meetings, but they weren’t the right fit for Abby, and her husband was only attending them to go through the motions. Her relationship with the Lord at that time was mostly “non-existent.” 

I felt more betrayed by God than by my spouse.

She kept feeling like she needed to stay in the marriage, but she didn’t want to and felt resentful to the Lord for asking that of her. She thought, “If the Lord’s going to play me like that, then everyone’s going to play me like that.” Out of fear and in a desire to protect herself, she cut herself off from the Lord. She cut herself off from everyone, including herself. She was disconnected from her own feelings and needs.

Around this time, she and her husband began attending separate group therapies. Her husband loved the groups because of the connections he gained. However, there were parts of it that didn’t work well for Abby because of all of the highly charged emotions flying around the room. She did, however, make lasting friendships with some of the wives in the group. 

After this group work, she began striving to focus on her own healing. She realized she actually was angry at her husband, that all those times she thought she was merely feeling hurt, was actually a feeling of apathy.

I had to first pull the apathy down to uncover the anger underneath.

Abby and her husband went to a Three Key Elements class because she told him if they didn’t, she would divorce him. Even though the classes weren’t based on treating addiction, they were very helpful. Soon, from taking these classes, something switched in her husband. He realized he could lead their family, he could take care of his own stuff. She let h

At that time, her relationship with God was still very strained. She still didn’t trust God. It took having her third child for her to begin to trust the Lord. When she was pregnant with him, she had a strong and clear impression from the Lord:

This child is coming with medical difficulties.

God also told her, “This child will come with lessons that you and your family need. He will be your bright spot and the hardest thing you’ll ever do in this life.” 

She began gaining trust in God when time and time again, various doctors told them there was nothing wrong. But the spirit whispered that there was. After many long months of worry, x-rays, procedures, and genetic testing, they finally learned his diagnosis. But there still weren’t clear answers on a treatment plan for him. 

She’s learned there are many parallels between her journey with her husband’s addiction and with their son’s medical problems. There’s lots of difficulty and very few answers. But when she could visualize handing her baby over to the Savior when she was handing him off to the medical personnel, she felt peace.

Abby realized that was what she had to do with her husband. She can’t carry her husband or his addictions and she can’t make his decisions. 

But I can walk by my husband’s side and turn him over to the Savior when it gets really hard.

Her relationship with the Lord has improved because she can now ask Him for things. She engages in a personalized process when she’s triggered or when things feel hard. This process involves listening to various playlists according to her mood, using journaling and physical activity and writing out what she’s thankful for. All of this is bookended with taking it to the Lord, when she says:

I’ve worked through this on my end. What do I need to learn now, what do I need to do, and who can I serve with this?

Abby’s Recovery Resources:

Journaling

Music

Movement

Taking everything to the Lord

Taking things to the Lord again to see what gifts He has for me

LifeStar Therapy- a good start.  Learned so much!

3 Key Elements- Helped us work together again.

Abby’s Song: 

The Sound of Surviving by Nichole Nordeman