Taking Back My Power

Wow! It has been a long and winding road.  Can it really be ten years since I took that step into the dark abyss of betrayal?  It was about this time, November 23, 2015 to be exact, that I learned my husband was cheating on me. I decided to leave him the next day. It is true what they say, “The hell you know must be more painful than the one you don’t know” in order to have the courage to change.  That was very true for me.  I did not know what would happen to me.  All I knew is that anything had to be better than this… 

Ten years ago, I received a very shocking text from a woman I did not know that contained a picture of husband’s genitals as proof that she knew him as well as I did. I was filled with disbelief and rage at what I was seeing as text after text of his infidelity was shoved down my throat without my consent. I was literally gagging on what I was witnessing which made me nauseous as the searing heat of betrayal enveloped me. I was so overcome that I could barely breathe. It was ten years ago but I can recall nearly every detail in vivid detail. Every moment was seared into my brain with a white hot anguish that I still cannot fully describe, even now.  You only know what I am talking about if you have “been there.” I’ve learned that going through a “dark night of the soul” is only ever understood by those who have walked into hell and lived to tell about it. It’s a club that I never expected to be in.

The details of what happened after this are in the book that will hopefully be finished next year. A lot of it is also in my other blog posts. I don’t want to revisit all of that now except to say - it just got worse from this point on.  I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said it got 100 times worse.  So much so, that I have second guessed if I should have left dozens of times since then.  Even now, “the devil you know” and all of that. But those thoughts have come and gone with less and less frequency and intensity over the years since.

When it is all said and done, given my choices, I did absolutely the right thing, but knowing that doesn’t make it any easier. It makes some things harder because I know that if I were given other choices the outcomes would have been so much different, and possibly better.  Now that it is all said and done, at least I hope it is done, I can absolutely say that leaving was the best thing for me to do. I know now that I would have, and should have, done the same thing if faced with the same choices. It is never what I wanted, but I cannot control the choices of another.  I can only respond to their choices.  This is where agency sucks!

What I did not know then is that there are many ways and instruments of torture that exist to inflict pain on the betrayed. It reminds me a lot of the torture of Wesley in The Princess Bride as his torturer shouts out gleefully, “to the pain.”  Death, you see, is so much more merciful.  Every time that I thought I had been through the worst of it, something else surfaced to prove just how utterly naive I was. It has been this way for a decade now. The most recent one has finally resolved and it is this one that is the most empowering to me. 

The realization that my Ex wasn’t the only one contributing to my abuse has been very difficult to digest. All the usual suspects were involved, friends, family, church members, all took their turn. I got very good at blocking people on social media. But the one that stung more than the others was church leadership. That was the most shocking of all!  I didn’t expect church leaders to be in on it too.  That one smarted. 

As it turns out, the church seems more concerned with reclaiming the wayward soul (my ex) than it was with protecting the victims (me and my children). I cannot tell you how many times his interests vetoed the best interests of his victims. He had been excommunicated and all they cared about was bringing him back into the fold, victims be damned!  This is how it felt. So many letters were written and phone calls made as we tried to explain to church leadership that his repentance was hollow and nothing had changed in the way he treated us. It didn’t matter. All of it fell on deaf ears. We were treated with everything from a cold shoulder to contempt. I cannot tell you how my times I was treated to a lecture on forgiveness and repentance. Never at anytime was the subject of restitution ever entertained. It seemed as if I was speaking a foreign language to them. What became painfully clear is this was not an anomaly. It was across the board. Nine Bishops and eight Stake Presidents later (yes he moved that many times) all the decisions were made in his favor until it was determined that he would be allowed to be sealed in the temple to his affair partner.

Nobody in our family was pleased with this news, especially me. They asked him, not me, if he wished to also remained sealed to me. He, of course, told them yes.  So now I was (against my will) forced to be in an eternal love triangle with my ex and his affair partner.  Yes, the very one who ultimately broke up our marriage. As you can imagine, I was devastated. The whole idea of it was offensive and shocking! I had no idea that this was even allowed!  In my mind, the church was condoning, dare I say - blessing, his adultery by giving them access to these most sacred of covenants!  If anyone had bothered to ask me, I would have absolutely wanted to cancel my sealing to him under these circumstance. But no one bothered to ask me! I cannot tell you how many times my agency was taken away from me by “well meaning” church leaders. For a decade now the church has upheld his agency while, squashing mine. It is an abuse I never expected to experience. But here we are. These are the ugly truths I was forced to face about an institution that I believed in and loved so much. What is clear to me is that something needs to change. This is not right. There is no excuse good enough to just brush it off. I can only hope and pray it is corrected soon. Certainly nobody will listen to me!

Now before all of you well meaning church members want to explain to me how “my sealing would never be in effect anyway” and ‘it will all get settled in the next life”, let me tell you that you are missing the point! Save your breath. I’m not in the mood to listen, and here is why;

A. I should have been asked how I felt about it.

B. I should have been able to give input about what I needed in the way of restitution.

C. I have not been asked how I felt about any of it for 10 years.  Mostly, I was ignored.

The problem with being ignored, especially as a victim, is that it equates to more abuse.  Peer reviewed studies show that being ignored has the same effect on the body as being physically harmed.  Essentially, I was put into a trauma response by church leaders who should have been interested in how this was affecting me and treated me accordingly. Instead I was being abused further. It wasn’t fair, but nothing about any of this has been fair.

“Being ignored causes the same chemical reaction in the brain as physical injury.” Dr. Kipling D. “Kip” Williams, Professor of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University.“

I needed to know that I mattered to someone in church leadership.

I needed to feel heard.

Seen.

For me, this level of rejection was the last straw.  Church suddenly became a very unsafe place for me to be. Something that had always been my refuge, became just another abuser. The result was - I was done with the church.  I walked away with the thought that I would probably never return in this lifetime if this is how I was going to be treated. Along with not trusting anything else in my life, I just added my religion to that long list of things not to trust. This left me with a feeling of spiritual schizophrenia. On one hand I still deeply believed in the gospel of Jesus Christ, while at the same time, I was completely let down by the institutional structure of the Church, in particular - the Priesthood. I never in my life imagined I would feel this way. My initial response was that I had already lost so much, what is one more thing?  The problem for me was that the church had been my spiritual identity for most of my life. So essentially, I now have also lost my spiritual identity on top of everything else. I thought that this would just devastated me further. Surprisingly, it didn’t. At some point, when you get knock down as much as I have it becomes easier to just stay down. I could feel myself giving up inside. After all, there is only just so much a person can take, right?

I came to understand deep within my heart that none of this is what Jesus would do.  He had nothing to do with it and I knew He saw me even if no one else did. I became acutely aware that He wasn’t at all happy about it either. The only thing I knew was that I couldn’t go back to church feeling this way. So I decided I would venture out on my own spiritual journey with just Jesus by my side. It seemed like the only thing I could do. I wasn’t mad, I was just sad… in my soul, that it had come to this. At this point it just felt like another “pile on.” One more thing for me to overcome and heal from. I was just exhausted by the idea that I needed to heal from one more thing someone else had done to me. I was even contemplating having my name removed from the records of the Church just to get out from under this spiritual threesome I found myself in. It was THAT important to me! I was not, nor would I ever be, content to just wait for it to “get worked out” in the next life. I needed relief from all the crazy of the past decade, and I needed it now!

Enter my Ministering Brother. (I hate that name, but whatever.) When he heard my story it really bothered him! To the degree that he made it his mission to help me resolve this terrible wrong that had been done to me. Not in the entire last decade had anyone made it their mission to be my champion! NOBODY! But he did. Without me knowing, he went to all of my Priesthood Leaders to get all of my questions answered:

1. Could I cancel my sealing to my Ex?
2. Is this even allowed?
3. What would it do to my own personal covenants?
4. What about the sealing between me and my children?
5. What were the eternal consequences for me, for my family?
6. And so on…

I wanted my questions answered but I just couldn’t handle another rejection or judgment from men who could not imagine where I was coming from. I felt like a bother or a nuisance.  I wouldn’t put myself in the position of another rejection by asking for myself so I would never get the answers that I needed. I was stuck feeling powerless again.  I also knew I would never be able to come back into church activity until this was solved for me.  This became my “bridge too far.” I decided to just leave the whole thing in God’s hands. If He wanted this fixed for me then He would have to figure it out. I couldn’t, because it wasn’t safe for me to go back to church. It took months for this kind Brother to grasp my whole story and understand me enough to discern what I needed. That he even bothered listening to me was astonishing!

Then about a year after he first appeared on my doorstep he revealed to me what he had been doing for me behind the scenes.  I was overcome with gratitude.  This was one of those gifts that is without price, something so precious that money could not buy! The result was that I COULD cancel my sealing and stay sealed to my children. In fact, church policy is that I should have been given the option in the first place.  It wasn’t right for my agency to be usurped in such a manner.  This was music to my ears! Not only had he come back to me with all the answers I needed, but he had arranged a meeting for me with my Bishop and my Stake President so that I could have this taken care of as soon as I was ready. He took it upon himself to recognize that I wasn’t able to handle anymore rejection so he decided on his own to provide that cover for me. Never in my life had I experienced that level of going the second mile.  I had done it for others, but I never experienced it in return until now. Something that seemed so hopeless was all taken care of for me.

This past Sunday I walked back into church for the first time in 4 years (including the Covid shutdown). It was a long time in coming.  I am hoping this experience will begin to restore some of my lost faith in the Priesthood.  I’ve learned in a very profound way that God is very aware of me and what I needed. He sent the right person to me at the right time so I could experience, after a long line of abuses that I have suffered, that there are still good men who will step up and do the right thing for the right reasons. I’m am not ignored by God! That means everything to me!

I’ve also come to understand just how important my own moral agency is to me.  I deserved to be able to make decisions for my own spiritual, emotional, and mental wellbeing while I am in this earth life and I should not have to wait for it all to be “worked out in the next life.” Can I just say that this is the most nonsensical explanation? Members of the Church really need to stop saying it! I still have a ways to go in healing from this, but Sunday I took a very important step in that direction. Little by little I am reclaiming myself, my life, and my power to exercise my own agency in my behalf.  After a decade, it’s long overdue.

Note: I share this not to draw undue attention to myself or my struggles, but because I know I can’t be the only one who has experienced this or something similar. So I am sharing it to give permission to other women to reclaim their power over their own agency as well. To this end I hope you will feel empowered to advocate for yourself. You are not ignored.  God sees you even if nobody else does. 

I see you too.