Ep. 24- Anarie's Story

Becky and Tiffany sit down with Anarie to share her story. Anarie shares that she is currently in a Master’s program in school, majoring in Social Work. She has two children, raises goats, and is an accomplished pianist, who loves yoga.

Anarie shares that growing up, she cared a lot about her relationship with God. She placed a lot of pressure on herself to always be better, pushing herself to unreasonable levels. She knew God was important to her, but she wasn’t sure she was important to God. She shares she felt He didn’t need her, but only tolerated her.

To connect with God, I was taking my shiny, Sunday self to Him. Not my messy self.

Anarie says that she took this approach with her into her twelve-year marriage. Religion was a big part of their marriage, but spirituality was something she felt like she was doing on her own. When she discovered early on that her husband struggled with pornography, she took on damaging beliefs about herself, and felt a lot of shame.

I believed the cultural message of it being the wife’s responsibility to prevent him from consuming porn.

Anarie shares that these negative beliefs caused her to believe she couldn’t tell anyone about her husband’s problems. She says she felt lonely, unhappy, and isolated. Over the years, Anarie’s husband lied about his porn use, and their sex life suffered. She shares she wanted so much to believe what he was telling her was true that she denied what her body and mind were telling her. She says she had to override her gut feelings to stay with him.

When the truth of his sex addiction finally came to light, Anarie discusses how she and her husband entered intensive therapy that was crucial to their individual healing.  “But there were other things in our relationship that were going on besides pornography addiction that weren’t addressed that we weren’t able to work through,” Anarie says. “Ultimately our best choice was to divorce.”

Anarie shares that knowing she needed to end her marriage was difficult to accept. “I was really, really angry with God… I was upset that He hadn’t revealed more to me that might have spared me this pain.”

However, with the help of individual therapy, group therapy, and SALifeline, Anarie started to claim her own thoughts and feelings without shame.  She also talks about how she utilized boundaries. Through a lot of work, Anarie shares that she learned that God could handle her anger. “I could scream and rage, but God was still there. He understood why I was angry…He validated it and didn’t correct me. I was amazed that my relationship with God could hold all that space.”

I’m a person in process, and that’s exactly who I should be. I’m important to God and am known as an individual. He has turned my ashes to beauty.

Anarie’s Recovery Resources:

Brene Brown’s work, especially her book Rising Strong

Self-compassion by Kristin Neff

Jennifer Finlayson Fife’s work

Kristin Hodson’s work

Heart of a Woman retreat

Yoga with Adriene YouTube channel

Relationships with other women in recovery

Anarie’s Song:

“Stand by You” by Rachel Platten