Welcome to Betrayal Trauma Recovery, BTR.org. I'm Anne. I'm sure you remember what it was like when you were searching for help, maybe for your husband, hoping to find the right program or therapist. That's why I started podcasting. I supported my husband through seven years of pornography addiction recovery and not one therapist during that time told me I was experiencing emotional

and psychological abuse and sexual coercion. I didn't want any other woman on the planet to be in

the dark. If you're like the majority of my listeners, you're experiencing the type of abuse that's

invisible and difficult to wrap your head around. Your husband is using porn or having

affairs or lying to you, and you're getting the same bad advice about how to improve communication

or your relationship. If you need support from women who totally understand, check out our daily

group session schedule at BTR.org slash group. We'd love to see you in a session today. One simple, anonymous way to help spread the word

is to click, follow, or subscribe to the Betrayal Trauma Recovery podcast on your favorite

podcasting app. While you're there, every five-star rating helps make this podcast more visible

and will help save other women from getting the wrong kind of help, like a couple

program that will make this type of abuse worse. For those of you who follow or subscribe to this

podcast, thank you so much. Your support means so much to me. I have a victim we're going to call

Janice on today's episode sharing her story. She loves traveling and spending time with her family, especially her 10

grandchildren. Welcome, Janice. Thank you, Ann. I appreciate it. So let's start with your story.

I was a victim of domestic abuse for 23 years of my life, but I didn't recognize it until about

the 23rd year. All of those years, while in that

marriage, we would reach out to counselors, pastors, usually would go to a pastor first, and they would

treat it like a marital problem. And most of the time, the attempts to get help made things worse.

And so as it got worse over time, it was getting really volatile,

and it really just boggled my mind that everywhere I turned to get help, whether it be the courts,

law enforcement, counselors, nobody knew how to deal with our situation. I had come through a church where the pastor didn't know what to do,

and he thought that I should just get out of the marriage. And when he told me that, I thought,

...