Ep. 52- Amy Claire's Story

Becky and Autumn sit down with Amy Claire to share her story. Amy Claire is a wife, mom of three kids, dancer, and cancer survivor. She’s currently studying to become a therapist.

Amy Claire shares how she grew up in a religious and structured household, and entered the adult world being very naive. She felt it was hard to learn to navigate life when she’d come from a bubble. 

Amy Claire discusses how she met her husband in college, and he seemed like such a great guy. It wasn’t until about six years into the marriage, after returning from a deployment in Iraq, that things started to feel off with a close male friend of her husband’s. But she was unprepared to see or understand what was actually happening in her marriage.

I had betrayal blindness. My mind was so powerful because it was protecting me. I wasn’t ready to know the truth.

Amy Claire describes how by the thirteenth year of marriage, things had become very rocky between her and her husband. He eventually revealed that he’d been looking at gay porn their entire marriage, and that he’d been unfaithful to her for most of it. She was completely blindsided.

My whole marriage was a lie. My whole life came flooding back like a movie reel.

After discovering her husband had been hiding a dual life for so long, Amy Claire shares that her betrayal was compounded by the revelation that he was gay, as well as by family members withholding information from her and therapists shaming her. She and her husband divorced, and she took a break from both her religion and from God.

She remarried shortly after the divorce. 

I thought, “I’m going to heal my broken heart by finding someone else and he’s going to fix me.”

Amy Claire describes that she did not yet possess the tools to be able to heal from the impact of all she had been through. A short time into the marriage, it became clear that her new husband was also being deceptive and betraying her. They immediately started intensive therapy and twelve step groups. “LifeStar was a game changer. I finally found people who knew my pain,” Amy Claire says. 

Things really began changing for her when her Book of Mormon fell open to Moroni chapter 7. Amy Claire says, “It told me that if you trust in God, He will give you the light and knowledge to know the difference between truth and lies.”  

God was saying, “You can stay [in the marriage], but I will let you know. I decided to let Him lead.”

Amy Claire realized she now had the best teammate, God, and that together, they could do this.

Autumn reminds us that, “true recovery is us giving our addict to God and knowing whatever happens, I’m going to be okay.”

Unfortunately, Amy Claire later discovered her husband was still betraying her, even while engaging in false recovery. She shares how she realized that going to LifeStar was for her, not for her husband because he chose not to use the tools he’d been provided with. After having a dream in which she was being buried alive, she realized she would die if she stayed in the marriage.

Amy Claire describes the feelings she had at this point in her life, when she had tools to recover:

I knew I would still be okay even though I had a second divorce under my belt.

Becky shares that we “often wonder, ‘Why do I have to do this recovery?’ But the healing that takes place is so beautiful.”

Amy Claire explains that this time around, she had a powerhouse of women behind her, and she began using boundaries with both of her ex-husbands. 

Slowly, through the hardships she and her children experienced, Amy Claire describes that she is finding happiness. She is now married to a man who supports her, and she feels peace. 

Becky reminds us that through family challenges, we can remember that we can’t redeem our children or ourselves because we are not a redeemer. 

There is only one Redeemer. He will truly redeem our children.

Becky further shares a fundamental principle: “The most important thing you can do is keep God at your center,” she says. “And you will know. Even if people don’t understand or disagree, you will know [what to do] if you have God at your center.”

When asked how she is finding restoration through Christ, Amy Claire explains that she enjoys self-care, which is, for her, listening to podcasts and going to therapy.

Amy Claire’s Recovery Resources:

Qualified Therapy

Intensive Outpatient Program

12 Step Groups

Podcasts

Self-care

Support system- good women who were there for her

Amy Claire’s Song:

“Need You Now (How Many Times)” by Plumb