Addiction, Deception, and Living a Double Life — But God Never Gave up on Him: Martin Onken’s Story (Part 1) - LDS Podcast "Latter-Day Lights" - Inspirational LDS Stories

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, I'm Scott Branley.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
And I'm Alicia Coakley.
Every member of the church hasa story to share, one that can
instill faith, invite growth andinspire others.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
On today's special two-part episode, we're going to
hear how one man lived a doublelife, battled a 30-year
addiction and realized the powerour choices have to affect the
lives of others, even yearsafter making them.
Welcome to Latter-day Lights.
Hey everyone, welcome back toanother episode of Latter-day

(00:36):
Lights.
We're so glad you're here withus today.
We're really excited tointroduce our special guest,
martin Onken, to the show.
Welcome, martin.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
Hi, hi, thanks for having me yeah, of course.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Thank you so much for reaching out.
We had a um a few minutes wherewe were able to talk to you a
little bit more about your storyand we decided it is just.
There is just so much to itthat we're going to put two
parts to your story so that youcan truly just get everything
out in a way that doesn't feelrushed, where people can really

(01:10):
understand like all thedifferent things that led to the
different things.
And I, I'm just, I'm so excited.
And, martin, I'm going to givea little spoiler.
You shared with us that youhaven't ever really shared your
full story with anyone before,that this is going to be the
first time that you haven't everreally shared your full story
with anyone before.
That.
This is going to be the firsttime that you're you're just,
you're just going, you're justripping the band-aid off.

(01:32):
There's no like you're justdiving right in, right so we're
so honored that you, that youfound our, our podcast and that
you chose to let this be theplatform where you share your
story first, and we're justwe're very excited to hear about
your testimony and how it'sgrown and just the way that all

(01:53):
the things you went throughhelped you to become who you are
today.
So before we get into that,though, we need to know who is
Martin Alkin Like?
Tell us a little bit aboutyourself.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Sure, sure.
So I'm an immigrant to theUnited States.
I'm of Dutch Indonesianheritage and we immigrated here
when I was five.
I lived most of our life inSouthern California.
I'm married there, I have afamily of four children that I

(02:23):
have there, and I have a smallbusiness that I operate.
I'm a convert to the church andI jumped in with both feet in
activity in the church and I'mreally grateful for it.
It was one of the bestdecisions of my life, so I'm
glad to be here, thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
That's awesome.
So you have a small business.
What's your business?
Can I ask?

Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah, I rent RVs to people that are going on
vacations.
Oh, it's a really fun business.
Everybody's in a good mood, youget to share stories with
people and the good and the badand you get to be part of
people's lives as they try to dothings together with their
family and their friends, tocreate bonding experiences, and

(03:08):
so we're a part of that.
I love that.
Yeah, it's a great business.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
So you rent RVs, I rent a venue space.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
So your people can get in their.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
RV and come, travel to my venue and then have a big
old party and then, scott, Idon't know you're going to have
to do something with theircomputer or their Google reviews
.
Scott's businesses are nerdyand helpful and super important,
but I can't even explain them,if I tried.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
It was close.
I can collect the reviews forthe party.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Perfect.
Well, I know your story.
There's a lot to it.
Some of it is kind of more onthe adult side, so if you have
kids watching this, you mightwant to just watch it first
maybe.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah, nothing inappropriate.
But no, there's just some adultthemed content that might be a
little hard for kids tounderstand and yeah to fully
grasp.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
So, um, but we want, we want you to be able to share
your story.
That's why I'm just giving thatlittle disclaimer out there,
because I want you to be able toshare it the way you want to
share it, but I don't wantanyone to have any surprises.
So, yeah, um, yeah, we, we lookforward to hearing what you
have to say and I think this isgoing to be a great episode.

(04:38):
Thanks for having the courageto yeah, yeah, the first of two
episodes, but thanks for havingthe courage to actually come on
and share it.
A lot of times, when people gothrough the things that you're
going to talk about, they don'twant to share it because it's
hard, people don't want to admitthat they've made mistakes in

(04:58):
life, and but actually, bysharing it, you give other
people courage and you give themthe ability to maybe make
different choices in their lives, and, and so I appreciate that
you're willing to do that.

Speaker 3 (05:16):
Yeah, you're welcome.
I'm uh, I'm eager to do it, butI'm scared to death to do it
because, yeah, it is my firsttime, and one of the effects of
the kind of choices I made andthe lifestyle that that led to
was that you conveniently forgetmany things because they're

(05:38):
just too painful to remember andcarry with you.
And so through my journey, Ihave forgotten a lot of things,
probably deliberately,psychologically and so I am to
this day, you know, 10, 15 yearslater still trying to piece
stuff together.
So I definitely still am in aprocess, but I have come a long

(06:02):
way.
I am grateful that I've madebetter choices now than I had
earlier in my life, and so, asit comes together, I'm sure that
my memories are going to comeback.
It's going to be a lot better,yeah, a lot better.

(06:23):
But yeah, my story reallystarted with my parents, because
my parents are immigrants and Ijust want to give you a little
bit of a background because itkind of will help you understand
how I got the way I am.
So both my mom and my dad livedin Indonesia, which is a colony

(06:47):
of the Netherlands.
Well, during World War II,indonesia because it was rich in
natural resources, especiallyoil, was invaded by the Japanese
and both my mother and myfather were placed in Japanese
prisoner of war camps when theywere teenagers and because of

(07:10):
that they didn't really have achance to grow emotionally very
well, and so they both aresuffering from PTSD.
After the war they finally getout of prisoner of war camp.
They're now living in Indonesiaagain, but they have only the
clothes on their back.

(07:30):
Everything that their familieshave is taken away.
Because they weren't purebredIndonesians, because they also
had the Dutch colonial blood inthem, also had the Dutch
colonial blood in them, theywere kicked out of Indonesia

(07:51):
because Indonesia at that timebecame communist and only wanted
to have pure Indonesian peopleliving in the country.
So they were forcibly made toleave Indonesia only with their
clothes on their back, so tospeak, and they had to go to
their mother country, which wasthe Netherlands.
Well, they moved to theNetherlands totally different

(08:13):
climate, totally differentculture.
They had no idea what.
That was Very traumatic forthem, just exacerbated their
PTSD.
And after a few years in theNetherlands I was born there and
then they were forced to leavethe Netherlands because of the
great amount of prejudiceagainst the Indonesians, who

(08:34):
they were looked at as inferiorpeople and so again they were
forced to leave.
So they immigrated twice to theUnited States and then, at the
age of five, we arrived here inthe United States a week to
maybe two weeks after.
I am here in the States, I amenrolled in a public school.

(08:55):
I don't know the language.
I look different, I smelldifferent, I dress different.
You know everything about me isdifferent.
The kids there, the teachersthere, think I'm really weird
and really strange.
They've never seen anIndonesian.
They have no idea anythingabout me.

(09:16):
I don't know what's going on, Idon't know where to go, what to
do, and so I become very, very,um, introverted and very shy
and I also become the object ofa lot of prejudice.
So this is in the early 1960sand so prejudice was pretty

(09:38):
common and um, yeah, so um,together with my parents being,
you know, like, suffering fromPTSD and this also being a new
country for them, they reallyhad a hard time emotionally
bonding with me and beingsensitive to my needs.
They brought a lot of theIndonesian culture, the Dutch

(09:58):
culture and their interpretationof the American culture into
our home and tried to act likethe best parents they could, and
they tried really hard but theyhad no idea.
Especially having gone throughthe war, where they were so
protective of their feelings,they had no idea how to express
their feelings.
So, for instance, in my home,my parents never said I love you

(10:23):
.
Home, my parents never said Ilove you.
My father especially neverhugged me, and my mother very
rarely.
There were always a lot ofrules, there's always a lot of
structure, but there was noaffection.
There was no real conversationsother than giving instructions.
This is what you have to do.
This is what you have to learn.
So it was a really difficulthome.

(10:45):
How it affected me was that Ihad a hard time feeling any love
from them and that I carried oninto my early years in grade
school.
I have a brother and sister.
They're both younger than me.
They rebelled and they suffered, suffered terribly.
They both have passed fromleading hard lives, a lot of

(11:09):
drug abuse and stuff like that,and so they passed as a
consequence of that behavior.
My behavior was I tried to bethe good kid, I tried to be
obedient.
I tried to do what they wantedto do.
I wanted to try to earn theirlove.
I figured that if I followedall the rules and I said the
right things and did the rightthings, that I would get their

(11:32):
love.
So from a very early age Ireally wanted to get their love.
My brother and my sister didn'treally care because they just
fought it and rebelled.
So that's the kind ofbackground to what I was like
psychologically was a lot likeother kids.

(11:54):
I think One of the good thingsthat happened to me when I was
in the third grade is that myparents put me in Catholic
school and so we started goingto school, catholic school, we
started going to church and Istarted learning about God and
his love for me.
And I'm triggering on that wordlove and I'm saying, okay, all

(12:15):
right, maybe they can't do itfor me, but they're putting me
in the right place.
You know they're going to do itand the priests are going to do
it, you know, and I'm learningabout God's love and I really,
to heart, I just gravitated tothat.
That was my thing.
I was going to develop arelationship with God and it did

(12:38):
happen.
As I went through school and Iwent through all the classes and
went to church and stuff likethat, I really considered, you
know, god and Jesus Christ to bemy best friends and I could
talk to them about anything.
I could just share everythingand in doing that I could really
feel their love and that reallyworked for me for a long time.

(13:00):
It saved me in those early years.
So I didn't.
It saved me in those earlyyears so I didn't have a lot of
hatred from my parents or angeror anything like that.
I was able to accept them forwhat they were.
They were doing the best thatthey could do with what they had
and that I could compensate forthat by a relationship with God

(13:25):
and Jesus Christ.
And that worked out really good, and in fact it kind of worked
out too good, because what washappening now was I was getting
friends and like they were doingall kinds of stuff that was fun
, you know, in high school andjunior high.
You know they were getting abottle of Spaniada wine and
going out in the neighborhoodmortuary and having a good time

(13:48):
and I was sitting at home, youknow, thinking about God and
talking to Jesus and I was likeleading a kind of a boring life.
And as a 16-year-old I was justlike thinking, okay, I'm doing
good, but I'm feeling love, butI'm not really happy Because I
see all my friends doing otherstuff and they seem just fine.

(14:11):
They're going to the samechurch, they're going to the
same school and they're doingstuff that I'm not doing.
So that's when I made a bigturn in my life, and I would say
that this is probably one ofthe top two or three events well
, maybe not two or three, maybefour or five events in my life.

(14:32):
And at the age of 16, I clearlyremember getting in the car and
it was an old Buick Special thatmy parents bought me for $400.
And I drove it up to the localcanyon near my house and I sat
there and I was thinking and Iwas praying and I finally made

(14:54):
this decision.
I told myself you know what?
I don't have to be that good,martin.
You don't have to be good allthe time.
You don't have to try to begood all the time.
It's okay to sin sometimes.
God will forgive you, you'llsurvive it.

(15:15):
It's okay to do that.
And I remember saying that tomyself and I remember thinking
to myself ooh, that could be alittle dangerous, you know,
playing around with sin, butthat's about as far as I went as
a 16-year-old.
I didn't really think about itany more than that.
And so I thought, okay, I'mgoing to do that, I'm just going

(15:37):
to be cautious, I'm just goingto sin a little bit, but God
will still love me and myparents are fine and my friends
are fine.
You know, I'm going to get alittle bit more relaxed than the
friends I have and I will juststart picking, you know, a
bigger variety of friends thatcan take me to parties and, you
know, get me my bottle ofSpaniada and, you know, get me

(16:00):
in the R-rated movies and stufflike that.
And so I made that decision.
Little did I know at the timethat that decision would change
my life, and I forgot about itfor a while and I just started

(16:20):
doing things just like normalteenagers in high school.
I would go to a lot of partiesand I would drink and I would
get drunk.
I tried marijuana.
I wasn't really bad, but I wasjust playing around with that
stuff you know as enough so thatI could tell myself, yeah,
you're still really a good guy.
Yeah, you're still, you know,jesus's best friend.

(16:40):
Yeah, you know, you've kind ofbroken some rules, but it's not
that bad because you're alwaysgoing to the right side.
At the same time, I was learningsomething in school that I'm
not sure if the nuns meant toteach me this or if that's just
how I interpreted it, but theytold me, or I heard.

(17:06):
Maybe what I wanted to hear wasthat if you sinned and did bad
stuff, then that would be onething, but yet you could offset
it by doing more good stuff.
So it was kind of like acounterbalance or a balancing
scale.
Also, you've got the sins overhere, but you've got a lot of

(17:29):
the good stuff over here, and Iwas really good at doing a lot
of the good stuff.
So I thought, okay, you know,so if I do sins as long as the
scale is still in my favor, thenI'm good, you know.
And at the end of my life, youknow, and I meet God or whoever
is going to be the judge inheaven, they'll open my book of
life and they'll see all my sinson one side and all my good

(17:52):
deeds on the other side andthey'll say, oh, you're in
because you did way more goodstuff than bad stuff.
You know what?
I really believe that?
And you know what I reallybelieve that.
In fact, I hate to admit it,but I told that later on, after
I joined the Church of JesusChrist of Latter-day Saints, I

(18:16):
told some other people, churchleaders, that that was what I
believed, that they just startedlaughing at me.
You know as like what?
You know, where do you get that?
And that's when I finallystarted thinking about well,
that's not right.
But up until that time, whichwas in my 30s, I really believed
that if I could just balancethe good and the bad, everything

(18:38):
would work out fine.
Little did I know that thosetwo events in my life were Satan
starting to try to take controlof my life.
And he led me to these just twolittle things that seemed like,
you know, innocent enoughdecisions, but that if I had

(19:02):
spiritual eyes to see later inmy life, I would have seen that
they were probably two of themost dangerous things that I've
ever done.
And those two things changedthe projection of my life
because now I felt I had alicense to do more sin if I felt

(19:24):
I needed to or wanted to, andall I had to do was try to do
more good stuff in order to tipthe scale in my favor.
And I taught that to mychildren and I'm just ashamed
that I did that, but I didbecause I was just so convinced,

(19:48):
you know, that I believedeverything the nun said.
So of course that was right andso I did that.
So now that's the attitude thatI carry on into high school.
It's not really a big problem.
I was an athlete in high schoolso I tried to take pretty good
care of myself.
So you know, I didn't do a lotof drinking or a lot of

(20:09):
marijuana or anything like that.
I didn't smoke a lot but justdabbled a little bit.
I didn't, you know, getinvolved with girls.
I went to an all-boys Catholichigh school, so didn't have too
much opportunity for that.
Of course, that led to anotherseries of problems later on, but
I graduated and did fine, andso I thought, oh, I've got it

(20:33):
made.
I graduated from high school.
I got a soccer scholarship toplay soccer in Hawaii, the
University of Hawaii, theUniversity of Hawaii.
I got it Another scholarshipoffer to go to Loyola Marymount
University, here Academicscholarship.

(20:54):
So I was like my life is good,the decisions I've made so far
in my life are good, so I'm justgoing to keep working those
decisions and I'm just going tokeep this balance in my life.
And so I always started thisbalance and I was feeling good
about myself.
But as I got older I started towant and need love again,

(21:23):
especially love from femalesfrom the other sex, because I
was getting romantic and I wasbecoming attracted to girls and
stuff like that.
And so this attraction and thisneed to feel affection and love
from women came into my lifeand so I applied the two to my

(21:49):
life and so I applied the twolaws or the two guidelines that
I had in my life in myrelationship with women, and
that then exploded into someterrible decisions.
So the first decision was thatI met a woman.
I was in college, I turned downthe University of Hawaii

(22:11):
scholarship and I took theacademic, went to Loyola and was
doing homework in a library onetime and I met this girl.
She's older than me, she'sattractive, she's outgoing.
We started talking there in thelibrary, come to find out she's
also Dutch-Indonesian like me.

(22:31):
There's like two of them in allof California and I met her
there at the library and my mindof course, not having dated a
lot in high school because Iwent to an all-boys school I
thought, jackpot, this is it,you know she is it.
And we started having arelationship and the

(22:58):
relationship quickly became veryintense, quickly became very
intense.
I kind of wanted intensitybecause I wanted to feel a lot
of love, because I got like nextto no love from my parents and

(23:18):
I was trying to get somethingthat would break through the
rules and really touch my heartand just really give me that
kind of happiness.
It's hard for me to explain,but I started this relationship
with her and it became very,very intense.
My parents saw that happeningand they tried to put on the

(23:43):
breaks right away, but but ofcourse I interpreted that as
being you know more rules.
I'm trying, you know, more andmore strict with me.
So I I ended up breaking upwith my parents and and um,
telling them, hey, because theytold me, uh, you know, it's
either us or her, but she'spoison for you.

(24:05):
And I said, well, you know, Ichoose her.
And so I cut off my relationswith my parents.
Now that was really difficult,and so I became even more
emotionally involved with thisother woman and I moved in with

(24:28):
her.
I lived with her.
We had a very intenserelationship that had Mount
Everest highs and had the lowestabyss that you could think of.
But every time I was thinking,well, if this is a bad time
we're going through, if I'm justgood enough, then it'll balance

(24:48):
off and I could earn her love.
And so it became this thing ofyou know, real high highs and
real low, lows.
And then we got into otherissues.
In that love, in thatrelationship, jealousy became a
real real.
She became super, super, superjealous of me.

(25:09):
In fact it cost me twodifferent jobs because she was
just, you know, calling me allthe time at work like call me,
hang up, call me, hang up, callme, hang up, that kind of thing.
It just got crazy.
In fact I do.
You, you know, refer to her asmy crazy girlfriend, but I found

(25:32):
that very exciting.
In addition to um being a lotof trouble, it was exciting
because I felt wanted right, Ifelt like her jealousy was that
she wanted me because she lovedme, and she loved me so
intensely that she would dropall her boundaries in order to

(25:55):
have me and to possess me.
So that's the third big mistakethat I made is I decided to drop
my boundaries, my safeguards,the rules that I had been taught
by the nuns in the CatholicChurch and by my parents.
I decided that I could live onand make decisions based on my

(26:18):
feelings alone and not have tohave a structure of boundaries
or rules.
And not have to have astructure of boundaries or rules
.
And not having that, of course,allowed me to have lots of
really intense love-like orlove-imitating experiences with
this other woman no-transcript.

(27:09):
And so I just now have reallynothing solid to lean on in
making decisions in my life and,because my parents or I had cut
things off with my parents, Ididn't have really anybody to

(27:29):
talk to about this, and that wasmy fourth big mistake was that
I isolated myself becauseeverybody that knew about it was
against this, and so I isolatedmyself and I did not talk to
anybody about it.
I did not let anybody know whatwas going on, and she was

(27:55):
really happy with that becausenow she had me all to herself
and she would reward meaccordingly.
And so this relationship justkept growing and growing and
growing in intensity.
More and more boundariesdropped, more and more I was
relying just on my feelings,especially the feeling of love.

(28:17):
You know, through physicalcontact and through all these
mind games, that that intensefeeling of love, of being wanted
, of the attraction, of thechemical attraction, that that
was all good and that the pricefor that was that the people who

(28:38):
didn't like it just you know,had to go away.
And so I was in thatrelationship for four years.
And when I got out of highschool, you know, into my early
20s, it cost me my collegeeducation, cost me my, my uh
scholarship, you know.

(29:00):
I had to go to work and somejobs that I couldn't keep
because she would always, youknow, show up over there or call
or do all kinds of crazy thingsthat would interfere with my
work there, and so I'd get firedfrom them.
So I quickly ran into debtreally, and for a young guy in

(29:22):
his 20s, you know, I didn't havemuch education, much work
experience, right yeah, but Ikept spending money because I
wanted to police her.
So if she wanted to go out, ifshe wanted to do something, I
did it, and I just found a wayto not pay my bills so I could
afford to please her.
Yeah, at that time too, and itwas a sign that I just ignored

(29:51):
was that she became a hoarder,that she just self-abused
herself.
Number one and number two wouldhoard everything.
So the little single apartmentthat we had together was just
filled with more and more junkand I'd clean it up and then
she'd just get more into it, andso it just became unbearable

(30:14):
into it and so it it just became, became unbearable.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
So it sounds like you both had like some deep trauma.
That was really kind of playinginto all of your decisions,
Right?
And it's like and she's feedingyours and it's just making it a
terrible situation for you both.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
Yeah, it was like you know her, you know our fit if
you want to call it a perfectfit was maybe like the perfect
storm.
Yeah, you know, we both fedinto each other's weaknesses or
traumas, or whatever you want tocall it, and it really just

(30:55):
became crazy making and, um, Ididn't know what to do.
You know, I didn't have anybodyto talk to because I I have cut
off my parents and my family,and my brother and my sister
they kind of had their ownissues too.
So so that was it.
I was focusing mainly on myfeelings, and she knew it, and

(31:17):
she knew how to work my feelings, you know, and I knew how to
work hers, so that I could getthat kind of love that I thought
that I needed or that I wanted,and so I was willing to do
anything to get that.
So that was the beginning of myaddiction.
so I had the start of a sexualaddiction or an addiction to a

(31:41):
person yeah so I would go lateron, um, I would go to arp
meetings and stuff like that,and I couldn't really.
I didn't really relate to thepornography guys because I had a
different thing, and so I had alittle bit of a difficult time

(32:02):
in recovery from that.
But I didn't realize that I wasbecoming addicted.
And now, looking back on it,you know, and saying, okay, well
, what did I learn from all that?
You know, besides the four bigmistakes that I just told you
about?
I learned, or I startedthinking, where did this change

(32:24):
happen and how could I have madethat decision to start sinning
and be okay with it, to startsinning and be okay with it?
When did I start deciding thatI could counterbalance a sin, no
matter what it was, with goodstuff?
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (32:43):
You know, and I did have this thought, that sin
comes from Satan.
I had learned that in Catholicschool, and so I thought it must
be Satan.
I had learned that in Catholicschool and so I thought, yeah,
it must be Satan.
And I thought, okay, now that Iknow it's Satan, I can fight it
.
And just to kind of show youhow crazy my thinking was at the

(33:08):
time, this movie the Exorcistcame out one time Right right, I
remember that.
So it had just come out.
So I take this girl I mean wego to see this movie the
Exorcist and I get this thingabout, oh, satan can like the

(33:29):
devil can like control you andpossess you, and stuff like that
.
And so my mind said she's crazybecause she's possessed.
That must be why she has that.
I didn't have the maturity tothink, oh, she has these

(33:49):
emotional problems or whatever.
And so that night, okay, shehas another.
I'm going to call it a crazyepisode.
And so here's what I did.
I said to myself okay, satan,you are controlling her and I
love her so much and she lovesme so much that I am strong
enough.

(34:09):
I want you to come into me andI will take that.
And I tell you what.
That was the most scary night ofmy life.
My body started shaking.
It started getting really hot.

(34:30):
I felt like I was starting tolift off the bed.
I quickly shut that off and Isaid no, I changed my mind, I'm
not doing this anymore.
Yeah, that was really dangerous.
You know, I didn't reallyrealize at the time.
You know what Satan was allabout.
I definitely have a strongtestimony now of Satan's power

(34:57):
and Satan's cunning and Satan'sintelligence, and you know that
understanding now has served mewell because he continues to
tempt me and test me almostevery day, and so I'm glad that
now I'm more able to see it andunderstand what's happening.

(35:19):
But at that time I didn't.
At that time I was too caughtup in my addiction and I needed
to explain that woman'scraziness to make it okay,
because the scales were reallyduring this time, they were

(35:41):
really out of balance.
I wasn't going to church, Iwasn't doing any good stuff
because I was totally immersedin my relationship with her.
So the sin part now reallyoutweighed the good part.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
And were you already a member of the church at this
point?
Sin part now greatly outweighedthe good part.
Were you already a member ofthe church at this point?
No.

Speaker 3 (35:59):
I was a member of the Catholic church.
A non-practicing member.
I quit after high school, goingto church, because everybody
had it all figured out right.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
You knew everything at 18.

Speaker 3 (36:10):
You knew everything already, you know.
So I was like aye, aye, aye.
Anyway, I lived through thisfor four years at that level.
Finally it just got to be morethan we could bear.
It became a matter for me ofsurvival.

(36:32):
I could not survive thatrelationship.
I feared for my life.
The love wasn't enough.
I certainly still felt the love.
It certainly was intense, itcertainly was everything in that
.
But the crazy part just got toocrazy and so I feared for my

(36:55):
life and so I broke it off withher.
Just as kind of a sidelight, wedidn't really.
I broke it off with her prettysuddenly.
It was really difficult.
So we still had some unfinishedbusiness.
Well, to make a long storyshort, we break up.

(37:17):
She leaves to go to Hollandagain to be with her parents and
recover.
She's gone for about six months.
She feels she's recovered, shefeels she's back, she's normal.
Now she comes back and, becausewe have some unfinished
business, we make contact againwith each other.
Within a week we're back intothe same relationship over again

(37:41):
.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
Wow, that really is like an addiction, yeah, and for
those who haven't been in it,they don't understand it and
they just think why are you sodumb?
Why are you?
They don't understand it andthey just think, well, why are
you so dumb, why are you doingthat?
Don't you know?
Whatever, whatever.
But when you have that, whenyou have that person that,
you're like what, why is thisperson?
My kryptonite?
And yet I still keep going backand I still, you know, there

(38:06):
really is something, something,some hole that they fill, some
need that they fill on a weirdlevel that makes it so, so hard
to be logical and to use commonsense.
And you're like it's don't.
I don't know about you.
For me it always felt like anout-of-body experience, like I

(38:28):
would watch myself make a badchoice in being in a
relationship with someone Ishouldn't be with, and I just
couldn't stop doing it and I'mlike what are you doing, alicia?
Like, I'm like yeah, yeah.
Was that similar to you or?

Speaker 3 (38:40):
That's so true.
Yeah, because the you know thedopamine you get I didn't know
that was what it was at the time, but the chemical thing that
goes on in your brain, just youknow, recreates reality for you,
and I really believe thatthat's what addiction does is

(39:02):
that your mind gets reprogrammedto create its own reality,
based on whatever its traumas orits needs are Love.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
that explanation.
That is the simplest, mostaccurate explanation I've ever
heard.
Ever.
The addiction recreates areality.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
Yeah, it really does.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
It's so so instantly too.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
Yeah, and so it justifies the addiction.
It's like, okay, so that's whatit is.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
Okay, that's reality.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
I'm good with that.
Wow.
And that reality is twisted notonly by your emotional needs or
whatever, but also becausechemically your brain now gets
rewired right.
I learned that later on thatyour brain then gets

(39:56):
reprogrammed and rewired.
So you've got both thepsychological and emotional side
and now your chemical in yourbrain.
Your physiology has changed, sothe addiction is just really,
really difficult, and I didn'treally understand that at the
time.
And so, anyway, we're backtogether again Within two days.

(40:21):
Her recovery has gone to heckand my recovery, whatever it was
, didn't last any, and we wereback into it.
Luckily, within about sixmonths or so we both realized

(40:43):
that it wasn't going to workagain, and so we did split up,
and that was one of the bestdecisions of my life.
And that's when something elsereally great happened in my life
, which, looking back on it now,is Heavenly Father interceding
in my life.
He's let me go on this long andhe's just kind of let me work

(41:16):
it out and learn it on my own,because I was really stubborn
about it.
I was just so convinced I wasright.
So here's what happens I breakup with my girlfriend, she
leaves and I haven't to this dayspoken to her.
Two days later, my dad is at mydoorstep.
My dad is at my doorstep.
He knocks on the door, open thedoor.
He says hi.

(41:40):
He says, can I come in?
And I said, okay.
I'm still mourning this loss.
I feel totally out of whackbecause my addiction, love
source, all of that supply isgone.
And my dad comes in and he sayscan we start over?

(42:05):
And he gives me the biggest hug.
Oh wow, that's all he says canwe start over?
He's never hugged me whileplaying.
He's, you know, kind of givingme bear hugs, but he's never
hugged me out of affection.
He's always been judgmentalyou're doing this right?

(42:27):
You're not doing this.
You can do this better.
You should do this.
That's what prisoner of war wasrules and following rules, and
if you don't, you get punished.
So that was his way of runninghis life.
He didn't judge anything, hejust said can we start over?
Can we forget everything in thepast?

(42:49):
Can we start over?

Speaker 2 (42:51):
Now, who does that?

Speaker 3 (42:52):
That is a Christ-like thing.
I didn't realize it at the time.
I just thought it was my dadjust wanting to start over.
But now I realize that somewhere, somehow I don't know how that
happened but Heavenly Fatherstepped in and said I know

(43:16):
you're hurting right now.
I know you're lost.
I know you need your family.
Your family is important.
That's what he said to my dad.
And then my dad said your momdoesn't know that I'm here, but
I want you to come over in anhour for dinner.

(43:41):
And so I did.
So I said okay, he got back inhis 64 Chevy station wagon,
drove home and an hour later Ishowed up at the door.
It was a surprise to my mom.

Speaker 2 (43:57):
How did she take it?

Speaker 3 (44:05):
Oh my gosh, she just started crying.
She couldn't move her legs.
She was standing in the kitchenjust making dinner because my
dad said somebody's coming over,so of course the Dutch thing is
to make a big meal foreverybody, right?
And she couldn't move her legs,she just started crying and so
I walked in and I gave her thebiggest hug, and then my dad

(44:28):
came in and we had this grouphug and it was wonderful.

Speaker 2 (44:32):
Wow, had your siblings passed away at that
point.

Speaker 3 (44:36):
My siblings?
Yeah, no, my siblings werestill alive.
They were still alive, yeah,but they were not very close to
my parents.
They both were heavily intodrugs and that lifestyle.
And my sister had married a guyand was living in Arizona.
My brother had married a galand they were living somewhere

(44:59):
else in Southern California, sothey didn't have too much
contact with them.
So that was Heavenly Father tothe rescue.
It really was.
That was a great thing.
That was really a great thing.
So that started to help me healand I didn't realize at the time

(45:29):
that.
And my friend, to this day, hetells me he says god's in charge
.
You know, there are nocoincidences, even though I
wasn't a member of the church,even though I had this modified
catholicism going on in my head,um, god is in charge.

(45:51):
When need it, when we reallyare down, we need it, he will
step in with as much influenceor as much force or whatever it
is to get our attention.
I believe that If we need alittle whisper, he can give us a
little whisper.
If we need a pop on the side ofthe head to get our attention,

(46:15):
he'll do that and I'm sograteful that that's the God
that I worship, and he did thatfor me when I was not deserving.
So I had a great relationshipwith my parents after that until
the days that they died.
They're both passed now andit's wonderful.

(46:38):
It was really, really wonderful.
And I got back on track with mylife.
I got a better job to work forWalt Disney designing rides for
the amusement park.
Really, I got like, ah, I'vegot a good job, you know, in
this.

(46:59):
Went back to school this time,went to a local Southern
California university there Metanother woman there in the
political science class, therein the political science class,

(47:20):
and this woman was like okay,she's not crazy, that was like
the first criteria.
And so that worked out.
Great, she wasn't crazy, shewas smart.
She, you know, was a legalsecretary.
She was beautiful.
We clicked, you know.
We felt a lot of affection,attraction, I mean, it all was
like the perfect formula, exceptthere wasn't the craziness.

(47:48):
And so I met this woman at thebeginning of the semester in
September and by February wewere married and so that was
like, okay, my life is going inthe right direction.
Now, you know, I've got, youknow, a woman.

(48:12):
That isn't crazy that we clickon so many levels.
We both were about 25 at thetime, so we both had been in
other relationships.
So we kind of thought that weknew what we wanted and we just
got married.
And she comes from a greatfamily and they didn't practice

(48:32):
any particular religion, butthey were a good family and so
we were married in February.
The next January we had ourfirst child.
The next January after that wehad our second child.
So we ended up having four kidsin five and a half years.

(48:54):
That took years, cloth diapers,right.
So we were in cloth diapers,you know, up to here for five
years, you know, because theydidn't really have too many
years for diapers those days.
So I was like you know.
So we did that.
But my addiction started to popup during that time.

(49:17):
We were married.
When our third child came, wejoined the church, or I joined
the church.
He was already an inactivemember and I joined the church.
After a really long conversionprocess, I joined the church.
After a really long conversionprocess, I joined the church and

(49:39):
immediately became reallyactive in the church.
But this addiction thing came upagain and so I kept feeling
this need she was giving all herattention to the kids.
She really didn't want to havekids to begin with.

(49:59):
She was a professional, youknow.
She was a legal secretary, shehad a professional career.
She didn't really want to havekids.
If she did, maybe one, maybetwo, but she didn't feel that
traditional motherhood wasreally her role.
And so when we had kids soquickly, they all were a big

(50:21):
surprise.
Especially the first one was areally big surprise.
You know, she had a hard timewith it and I had a hard time
not with the kids so much, butthat she became depressed and we
had all these kids together atthe same time and so it was

(50:45):
really difficult for her.
You know her affection, thechemistry that we had just
started to go away With eachsubsequent child.
I felt that that love that wehad was starting to dwindle on

(51:06):
her part.
I felt that she was forced intomotherhood, that she didn't
really want, that she had togive up her career, that she
didn't really want to give up,that she worked hard to achieve,

(51:27):
and that those two things andseveral others.
We ended up having someintimacy issues at the time and
stuff that I started feelinglike, hey, she's changing.
She's not the woman that Imarried.

(51:47):
That was a big mistake.
I started focusing.
It's like I did a really cruelthing.
It's because it's like, okay,we're married now.
We didn't have any children ornewlyweds.
We were really happy.
We had our first child.

(52:10):
It was a surprise, my oldest son, we had our first child.
It was a surprise, my oldestson and she started changing as
her body changed and stuff, andso, you know, the relationship
started changing.
So the cruel thing I did wasthat I said, okay, she'll get
back on track, so I'll give hera year, get back on track.
So I'll give her a year.

(52:34):
And I just made this kind of anyou know internal clock or you
know a deadline, so to speak,and okay.
But then what happened was thesecond child came, you know, 13
months later.
And so, guess what?
She was back in the same thingthere.
And so, guess what?
She was back in the same thing.
Yeah, so it's okay, I'll giveher another 12 months.

(53:00):
So, of course, me in my mind,I'm suffering through my
addiction, isn't getting fed,I'm suffering through this.
I am the victim, right?
I love these children, but mywife is gone, no-transcript, and

(53:21):
when we had the second child, Iwas almost totally convinced
that she was a totally changedperson.
I didn't realize that she wasgoing through depression, or
maybe it was postpartumdepression or something.
I had no idea that washappening.

(53:42):
I did know that she feltterrible and felt resentful and
somewhat angry for having togive up her career to be a
mother, which she didn'tparticularly want to have,
especially when we didn't planthese children.
And so we talked about it andwe decided that what she should

(54:05):
do would be to go back to work,and so we arranged for her to go
back to work as a legalsecretary, okay.
And we got a babysitter to takecare of the two kids and that

(54:28):
worked okay.
For a while she was starting tofeel better about herself.
She was getting out of thehouse, she was getting more
dressed up to go to work becauseshe was working for a law firm
again and stuff.
So she was feeling better aboutthat.
And then, boom, third childcomes, and so after a short

(54:56):
while she's forced to quit again, and so it spirals back in the
same way and this time I'm surelike she's changed now because
she could have, in my mind, shecould have, you know, either not
gotten pregnant the third timeor she could have, um, continued

(55:20):
in the job longer.
She could have realized thatthe that, you know, this was a
temporary thing and she wouldeventually be able to go back to
work.
So I just had all these thingsgoing through my mind of what
the possibilities were, of whatshe could do so that I could get
, and I never, during that time,really looked at myself as to

(55:48):
what my part in this was.
Why didn't I?
Well, guess what?
I was really active in thechurch, okay.
I was the elders quorumpresident.
I was a member of the bishopric.
You know, I visited the poorand the needy, I gave people
blessings, I taught all theseclasses and I did all this good

(56:09):
stuff.
So my personal scale was that,oh, the good stuff was really
high and the sin part now wasreally low.
So I was feeling good aboutmyself in that respect, like I
don't have to change, I have aright now to get what I want.
And so that was like the startof the end really, because at

(56:35):
that point I had started toreally started writing the
relationship off.
I remember we hung around withsome other families in the
church and we became really goodfriends and one of them would
tell me he was aware of some ofthese issues that were going on.

(56:55):
He kept telling me divorce isnot an option.
Divorce is not an option.
You will not even mention thatword and that helped me for a
little while.
But I didn't know what to dowith that.
You know I started interpretingthat like okay, you have to

(57:17):
suffer through this for the restof your life and I'm like and
I'm like what I'm not going tobe able to get any love for the
rest of my life.
I have a wife now who'sresentful, who's angry, who's
depressed?
What do I do?

(57:38):
And so I just started going toa really bad place.
I started trying to do more andmore good stuff.
I tried to be a good husband.
I figured maybe if I do morethings, she switched professions
later on to be a nurse and so Iwould take her lunches in the

(58:01):
middle of the night and take thekids with me in the car and
we'd go do that.
I would do a lot of things toshow her how much I loved her,
to try to rekindle that.
But it didn't seem to happenand I didn't really take enough
effort to try and understand herside of it.
I was just focused on my sideand what a good guy I was.

(58:25):
Because I was doing all thisgood stuff in the church and
everybody loved me.
All the people in the wardloved me.
All the people in the stakeloved me, especially the older
women, because I would alwaystake care of them.
I would always take care ofthem.
I'd give them front seat atstake conference, you know, so
that they could be close towhoever the visiting authority

(58:46):
was and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
And everybody loved me except my wife, that's where
you really wanted it from, huh.

Speaker 3 (58:55):
Yeah, yeah.
And so I felt stuck and so Istarted more and more thinking
divorce.
The fourth child came and I waslike, okay, almost unbearable.
Then I was more and moreconvinced that she didn't love

(59:15):
me anymore.
She had changed, she was justgoing through the motions and
now she felt trapped in themarriage.
Maybe I was projecting becauseI was feeling trapped and so I
started let me back up a minute,so anyway.

(59:40):
So this is where we were.
I'm super active in the church.
She's marginally active in thechurch.
She would do things like ditchout in the second hour or the
third hour and go to Taco Bellwith her friend after sacrament
meeting and come back when thekids and I got out of the block,
that kind of thing.
And anyway, I was everybody'shero, I was the spiritual guy.

(01:00:09):
I gave the best blessings andthe best prayers and all that
stuff, and I didn't really tryto see her side of it.
Later on she would tell me, aswe were getting divorced, she
would tell me Martin, you don'tget it, you don't get it.

(01:00:33):
I kept telling her what don't Iget?
What don't I get?
I'm doing everything I possiblycan to be a good father and a
good husband what don't I get?
She goes you don't get it.
Still to this day I'm not 100%sure of what I didn't get.
I wish I could.

(01:00:55):
I think about that every day.
What didn't?

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
I get.

Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
Because I didn't get it, our marriage fell apart.
To prevent that marriage fromgoing to divorce, my brain made
big mistake number five.
What I thought I could do wasthat, if I needed that love and

(01:01:26):
that physical expression of loveand that excitement and that
dopamine and addiction andeverything like that, there was
a woman that expressed interestin me and I responded and I
started a relationship withanother woman.
And I started a relationshipwith another woman and so I
figured okay, I have a wife athome and a family at home and my

(01:01:51):
church life and all of that.
I have that, but this one holethat I didn't have filled I
could fill with this other womanand I thought that all I would
need to do would be to do it,you know, for a month or so,
just temporarily, when thingswould get better.
Well, it didn't.
And so that's what started a30-year relationship with this

(01:02:17):
other woman, concurrent with allthe other stuff I was doing,
concurrent with all the otherstuff I was doing.
And my wife, when she finallyfound out, she says well, how
did you have time to do all that?
And I was a really good liarand I was a really good cheater

(01:02:46):
and I kept trying to do more andmore good things to offset the
bad things, and so that's wherewe ended up.
So this woman that I startedthis relationship with I can't
even call it an affair, becauseit was much more involved than

(01:03:07):
that.
It didn't really involve a loverelationship other than the
physical love I felt from herand the desire that she had for
me.
I interpreted that as love, butI didn't feel that same desire
back and so I used her.
I just used her.

(01:03:28):
You know, she was willing tocome at my beck and call, so to
speak, and as long as I gave herher hour a week or whatever you
want to call it, she was happywith that hour a week or
whatever you want to call it.

(01:03:48):
She was happy with that, andthat fit right into the
convenience slot that I had inmy life.
I didn't have more than youknow, theoretically an hour a
week, but that was enough tosatisfy my addiction and still
keep my regular life intact.

(01:04:09):
And by being such a good guy atchurch and at work, I was
developing some reputation in myRV rental business and stuff
like that in the industry that Ifelt like, okay, I'm doing all
this good stuff and so that'sjustifying it.

(01:04:30):
My next big mistake was thatduring this 30 years, heavenly
Father reached out to me manytimes.

(01:04:50):
Many, many times and I knew itat the time because now I'm
smart enough in the church.
I've been in the church now for20 years or so and I'm smart
enough in there.
I know the doctor now.
I know that Heavenly Fatherreaches out.
I knew he was reaching out tome.
I'll give you a couple ofexamples.

(01:05:12):
One time I had a birthday.
This woman that I had therelationship with she gets
tickets tickets for his and herspa massage.
I walk into the the day wedecide to do this.
I walk into the spa.

(01:05:32):
Guess who's at the receptiondesk?
A girl who was in the seminaryclass that I taught just a few
years previous.
Oh, oh, my gosh.
I ran out of there so quick.
I pretended I was a doctor thatgot an emergency call and had
to leave.
There was another time.

(01:05:55):
There was another time thatthis other woman became pregnant
and we had a daughter together.

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
Yeah, how did that work?
Did you see your daughter?
Yeah, did you see your daughter?
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:06:30):
During that hour a week I would also see the
daughter, and of course therewere some times when it would be
an evening or something likethat, more time, but it was on
pretty much the same kind ofarrangement and the same
schedule.
Of course, now there was a lotof tension between her and I
because she wanted me now to bethe father of this daughter.
She wanted both of the familiesto blend together, or for me to

(01:06:55):
leave my wife and my family andbe with her and the daughter,
and so there was this.
You know, anyway, all thattension was a little exciting to
me because of the addiction,because of the desire that she
had for me, which I wouldinterpret as love, even though I

(01:07:21):
was trying to push it away.
The fact that she wanted me andwould do just about anything to
get me made me feel reallyintensely loved.
So another time Heavenly Fatherreached out to me.
So I agreed one time to takethis daughter, who was probably
three, maybe four years old atthe time, to Disneyland four

(01:07:42):
years old at the time, toDisneyland.
So I took a day off andfabricated some story that I
told my wife and I went and tookthem to Disneyland.
I'm at Disneyland and I runinto a member of my ward and his
family there.
Wow, you know it's like eachtime.

(01:08:02):
I know this is Heavenly Father.
Now he's stepping up his gameto try and touch me, try to wake
me up and say Martin, what areyou doing, you and your other

(01:08:24):
life, with church, people rightin your face while you're
sinning?
Come on, now, wake up.

Speaker 2 (01:08:33):
And.

Speaker 3 (01:08:34):
I didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
So did you feel guilt , like while you were having
this relationship with thisother woman, or did you just
kind of feel numbness, or didyou feel totally justified, like
what was, because like did youcompartmentalize it?
Yeah, how do you?
How do you, you know, feel thespirit and go to church and do
all the things and, like for 30years, have this whole secret

(01:09:02):
life?
That is very not in line withthe gospel.

Speaker 3 (01:09:09):
I violated every covenant that I made.
I made every temple covenant,everything, and I knew it at the
time.
But I would just stuff it awayin a compartment Saying I have
to do this in order to keep myfamily together.
That's how twisted theaddiction had become over 30

(01:09:33):
years.
Because when I was 16 years oldI made that decision that it
was okay to sin a little bit.
Well, there's nothing likesinning a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:09:48):
Wow yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:09:53):
It got so bad one time.
So I was driving to meet thiswoman and I was.
You know, there was so muchstress between us because of her
wanting to be the father ofthis child and be with them and
the family that I was prayingfor Heavenly Father to help me

(01:10:15):
get out of it.
I couldn't get out of it Forthe last eight or nine years of
the relationship.
I really wanted to get out ofit but I couldn't.
Eight or nine years of therelationship, I really wanted to
get out of it but I couldn't.
And I remember at that kind ofa junction time I was going to
see her.
I hadn't seen her in a whileand I was praying and I was

(01:10:42):
talking to Heavenly Father and Isaid I know I tipped the scales
in the wrong direction.
I know that this is wrong, Iknow this is bad, I've got to
change this.
And then I remember in a splitinstance saying I don't care, I
don't care if I go to hell, Idon't care, I don't care if I go

(01:11:09):
to hell, I don't care.
Wow, and I meant it at the time.
I didn't care Because theaddiction, the sin, which is
addictive in and of itself, hadtwisted my mind that I could
compartmentalize stuff, I couldrationalize stuff that I'm doing
.
I'm having this relationshipwith this woman to save my

(01:11:32):
family and my marriage.
I'm doing it for my family.
I mean, how much more twistedcan reality be?

Speaker 2 (01:11:42):
I'm violating my covenants, but it's okay because
I'm doing this for my familywow it's so layered, like the
emotion and the tying, thetrauma from your childhood and
into this and bringing all ofthe problems that were occurring

(01:12:05):
in your marriage.
And then now you have thisother relationship.
It's like there's.
I know it's easy for anoutsider to look at it and just
be like, oh, what were youthinking?
Why would you do that?
That doesn't make any sense.
I would never.
That's the thing that alwaysgets me is when you go, but I
would never do that.
Well, you don't know.
You don't know until you get tothat point what you wouldn't do

(01:12:28):
.
And you don't know how subtlysatan is working on you, for how
long he's he plays the longgame.
Yeah, he really does.
He plays.
Well, he plays both.
He plays long and a short game.
You know what I mean?
like yeah it doesn't matter tohim if he gets you right now or
if he gets you in 100 years.
Yeah, it's you, that's all,that's all he cares about, you

(01:12:49):
know.
It just seems like incredibleto me to think, even if you
could compartmentalize, justhaving such a big secret for so
long, and even it's not evenjust your wife and your, your
kids with her, that you had tokeep it from everybody because

(01:13:09):
you're a business owner andyou're in the church and you're
you know, like, like, and I'm Idon't know how close in town you
guys were, or like you know,like how, how far were you and
the other woman Like was shelocal to you or?

Speaker 3 (01:13:25):
She lived about an hour away.

Speaker 2 (01:13:28):
Okay, so you had a little bit of separation there
or maybe like you guys wouldn'treally run into the same people
as much, but even still not.
That's not like a crazy hugedistance either.
So I can see how that wouldjust be like emotionally
draining to carry something allthe time, to constantly be
checking your lies and checkingyour like what story did I tell

(01:13:51):
someone and where did I say itwas going to be and what's the
excuse?
You know, like you have toconstantly be creative and think
of something new in order tocontinue to perpetuate the
relationship with the otherwoman and that I just my mind
was so messed up.

Speaker 3 (01:14:11):
I'll tell you so.
When these instances happen,like the family at Disneyland or
the girl in the spa, you knowwhat my mind would tell me.
Burlap in the spa you know whatmy mind would tell me, and I
take full responsibility for itbecause it's my thoughts.
But I thought this must be okay.

Speaker 1 (01:14:38):
It must be okay with Heavenly Father, that I do this
or else I would get caught.
Wow, so not getting caught wasjustification that you was, that
you were okay to do it.
Yeah, in my mind I thinkthere's there.
There must have been some typeof a twisted sense of, uh,

(01:14:59):
integrity for you to not walkout from the other lady and her
and your daughter right rightwell, yeah I did, you had like
this morality and integrity onboth sides, because now you had
kids on both sides and thisyou've made commitments on both
sides yeah, and so leavingeither one made you the bad guy

(01:15:26):
for, for that person in there inthose children, right?

Speaker 3 (01:15:30):
so and being the bad guy was really I.
I hated that thought of beingthe bad guy.
I had to be the good guy.
I had to have more good thanbad.
And so to be the bad guy, to behonest, to confess it all, to

(01:15:50):
come out with it I couldn'tcomprehend surviving that.
I just couldn't.
My life would crumble and Ijust couldn't.
I literally couldn't survivethat.

(01:16:10):
It literally would cost me mylife is what I thought.
And so, when I was trapped inboth relationships, I was
relying on this addiction togive me any relief or joy or
happiness or love or affirmationthat I could find, because I
was making all of these baddecisions everywhere else.

(01:16:32):
And so that's where I gotmyself.

Speaker 2 (01:16:41):
So can I ask?
There's going to be people, andprobably a lot of listeners,
who were in the position whereyour wife was at, where they've
been cheated on, and there's alot of trauma that comes from
that right, from being cheatedon finding out or having your
spouse leave you for someoneelse.

(01:17:03):
There's all I mean.
It's just so complicated, right.
And so I what I've heard fromsome of my own friends who have
gone through a situation likethat, where they they've been
cheated on.
They've said things like I justdon't understand.
If you know, if he didn't loveme, why didn't he just leave?
Right, or he must not haveloved me or he wanted to hurt me

(01:17:26):
.
Like they, they turn thecheating in on themselves.
Like they like what what theirspouse did, they did to them,
right.
But on the flip side, I haveanother friend who was the
cheater and they have told methey said the funny thing is it
actually had nothing to do withmy spouse, it had everything to

(01:17:50):
do with what I was going through.
Where do you like?
Where's your perspective ofthat?
Like, do you feel like you werebeing malicious towards your
your wife at the time, orvindictive?
Were you trying to hurt her?
Or vindictive?
Were you trying to hurt her?
Did you hate her?
Like what was kind of the?
Or did it?

(01:18:12):
Or was it just?
You just were so focused onwhat you needed and what you
were lacking and you didn't knowwhere else to get it.
How did how was?

Speaker 3 (01:18:17):
that for you, I guess ?
Yeah, there were.
There were a lot of mixedfeelings.
I wasn't angry with her.
I didn't want to hurt her orget even with her or anything
like that.
I still loved her kind ofliving on that initial love that
we had.
I still had a lot of thosefeelings, but I was really
disappointed.

(01:18:38):
I don't know, I wouldn't say Ifelt betrayed, but I was
heartbroken that she couldn'tlove me the same way anymore and
that I just had to accept thatshe was a different woman now.
And that was my perception.
That may not be true I'm stilltrying to figure that out, but

(01:19:02):
that was my perception.
She's changed and I can acceptthat was my perception.
She's changed and I can acceptthat she's changed.
She has a right to change.
But now we have these childrenand it affects my life, and so
I'm staying in this relationshipnow for my children.
Did your?

Speaker 1 (01:19:20):
relationship with your wife get any better over
the years, or did you kind ofjust keep that
compartmentalization and thatemotional separation from?

Speaker 3 (01:19:32):
that, you know, it did have its times when it was
good, but it's because we werevery compatible intellectually
and for some of our values wewere compatible, and so those

(01:20:04):
times when we focused on thosekinds of efforts, we had a great
time.
There wasn't really anyintimacy there, but there was
intellectual stimulation, therewas social stimulation that
carried us through those times,or carried me through those
times, but as far as the youknow, the intimate love, the
kind of heart-capturing love,intensity wasn't there.

(01:20:30):
And so those films when I wasworking for that, it wasn't.
And so I felt like, okay, Ihave to accept her as she is,
but I have a hard time beingtotally immersed in love with
who she is.
So you know.
So you know I didn't.

(01:20:53):
So that's why I started.
That relationship with the otherwoman Lasted 30 years, 30 years
.
Okay, at the end of the 30years, towards the end there, I
was about ready to just dowhatever it takes to get out of
the relationship.
My relationship with my wifewas deteriorating and our family

(01:21:27):
.
We went on a vacation to Caboand we had a great get, great
time down there.
My wife and I still were reallydistant from each other during
that time, but we had a greattime with the kids.
The other woman, um, got reallyon me that I took them to Cabo,
so she wanted me to take hersomeplace.
So I fabricated a big story formy wife I got to be a really

(01:21:51):
creative liar, that's for sureand I took her to Hawaii.
During that time in Hawaii, sheused my laptop to register for a
class of some kind or other.
And come home from Hawaii, lifeback to normal.

(01:22:15):
My wife gets into my laptop.
She never gets into my laptop.
She never does because she hasher own and blah, blah, blah my
laptop.
She never does because she hasher own.
And blah, blah, blah.
She uses my laptop and thefirst thing that pops up is that
registration screen with theother woman's name and boom,

(01:22:36):
everything now explodes how didthat come out?

Speaker 2 (01:22:41):
like like?
My first thought wouldn't behe's cheating.
I'd be like who is this womanand how like?
Why is this stuff?
Who are you confused?

Speaker 3 (01:22:54):
but we know that, we, um, we know that woman because
she used to babysit our kidswhen we were younger, yeah, and
my wife had suspected that Imight have had something going
on with her and so she wanted meto cut things off with her.

(01:23:15):
And so she wanted me to cutthings off with her.
And in fact I think that shedid catch me one time doing
something with her, with theother woman, and she forgave me
for it and we started over.
But I went right back into thatrelationship and so she knew

(01:23:37):
who she was, and so the minutethat she saw that on my computer
you know when it was dated,right when I was in Hawaii that
blew it wide open.

Speaker 1 (01:23:51):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:23:53):
Did that feel like a burden or a relief, even though
it was like big and bad andcrazy and horrible?
What were you feeling then,when it all came out, when it
was all in the light?

Speaker 3 (01:24:12):
Well, the first thing I felt was just like okay, I
give up, I can't do this anylonger.
I'm getting older, you know,and it's been a long time and I
just can't keep doing this.
I wish I could say myconscience was killing me.
It wasn't, but I just knew thatI couldn't keep doing this.
So the first words out of mymouth were okay, you're right.

(01:24:35):
Words out of my mouth were okay, you're right.
And then after that, when Isaid those words, it was like
there were big boulder was takenout of my gut and I felt much

(01:24:57):
more open about sharingeverything with my wife.
Because then I kind of figuredout okay, I can't control this
anymore, I can't manipulate heranymore and I just have to let
go and if I die, I die.
I was sure I was going to die,I was sure I was going to die,

(01:25:19):
but I couldn't carry that anylonger.
I wasn't able to carry that anylonger.
Of course, my wife thinks thather finding out and seeing that
laptop was Heavenly Fathermaking it happen.

(01:25:43):
And Heavenly Father stepped inand said Okay, you've gone too
far, I will not let you die, Iwill not give up on you.
You need to be saved now and insome respect, I hope that

(01:26:04):
that's what happened.
I want to wish that that waswhat happened, because I was the
vilest of sinners.
I was the vilest of rebellion.
I was a vilest of rebellion.
I told God I don't care, Icould go to hell, I don't care,
this is what I want.
I couldn't imagine survivingthat.

(01:26:29):
I couldn't imagine HeavenlyFather cutting me any slack.
It's like okay, you crossed theline and that's it.
Even with all the supposedknowledge of the gospel that I
have, I just felt like nobodyhas ever sinned as bad as I have

(01:26:49):
sinned and I have broke themold.
And so, whatever was going tohappen to me, if I was going to
die, I was going to die.

Speaker 1 (01:27:05):
What happened with the other woman and the daughter
at that point?

Speaker 3 (01:27:14):
Kind of jumps into the second section a little bit.
But I cut it off cold turkeywith the other woman.
She kept calling me and callingme and I didn't answer the
phone.
Didn't answer the phone, shewould drive by my house and
stuff like that and I'd see hercar and she'd drive by my work,
but I wouldn't answer her callsand I wouldn't come out to see

(01:27:36):
her or talk to her or anything.
So I had to promise that, ofcourse, to my wife right away,
that whether we stayed togetheror not, whether I died or not,
they had to be cut off coldturkey.
And so I had to do something.
So I said, okay, I just gave itup, I was just going to do
whatever I needed to do.

(01:27:56):
So I cut it off cold turkey Ayear, almost a year, to the day
I later find out that she had apersonal appointment with my
state president.

Speaker 2 (01:28:18):
Your wife or the other lady?

Speaker 3 (01:28:19):
No, the woman that I was having the relationship with
.
She went almost a year to theday to my state president and
said I've been having thisrelationship with Martin.
At that time I was serving as abishop.

Speaker 2 (01:28:37):
Wow, so was she a member of the church then too.
She just knew you were.

Speaker 3 (01:28:42):
She knew I was.
She had a friend who was amember of the church, inactive
angry member of the church, yeah.
So as soon as this happened,I'm sure that friend told her Go
tell on them.
And yeah, Sure, because it wasobvious I wasn't going to have
the relationship with heranymore.

(01:29:02):
I couldn't.
I had to make that choice.

Speaker 1 (01:29:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:29:09):
And so the stake president calls me.
I'm right in the middle of abishopric meeting.
Calls me and he says I need tomeet with you right now.
I'm coming over.
I'm in the middle of abishopric meeting.
Calls me and he says I need tomeet with you right now.
I'm coming over.
I'm in the middle of abishopric meeting.
He says I don't care.
End the meeting wow.

Speaker 2 (01:29:27):
So your wife didn't talk to the bishop or anything
like that when she found out.
You guys just no so she kind oflike forgave you and swept it
under the rug.

Speaker 3 (01:29:40):
No, the first thing that we did was that we decided
that we needed to take a yearbefore we made any decision
about anything.
Wow, and that during that yearwe got that counsel from several

(01:30:04):
different people, because shewent and told all her friends
right away and that's counselthat we got.
So we decided to not doanything for a year and we went
to counseling during that timeand she didn't really finish up

(01:30:32):
on the counseling so muchbecause she didn't really feel
like she had that.
This was my problem and it surewas my problem.
I would have appreciated it ifshe would have gone a little bit
more so she could understand myproblem.
But I could understand why shedidn't want to.
She had her own journey to gothrough from that.
Oh, yeah, ok the story does endup with something good in there,

(01:30:58):
I can tell you there from thatpart of the journey.
At that point my mind was sojumbled and even the reality
that I had created that was myown perfect creation just
crumbled and fell apart.
So I was a mess.
The creation just crumbled andfell apart.

(01:31:23):
So I was a mess.
But looking back I do rememberthat Heavenly Father never gave
up on me, and in the secondportion I'll tell you some
examples of where I gotconfirmation of that over and
over again.
But even during that time whenI rebelled, when I was a vilest
of sinners, when I couldn'tforgive myself, when I couldn't

(01:31:47):
look anybody in the face becauseof the shame and the disgust
that I felt for myself, I knowHeavenly Father was reaching out
for me and I ignored it everytime but I know he Father was
reaching out for me and Iignored it every time.
But I know he was there and so Ican tell anybody.
I'd wrestle you to the groundand tell you Heavenly Father
will not give up on you, nomatter what you have done.

(01:32:09):
It's not going to surprise him,because he already knows you
and he's going to be crying foryou, but he will never, ever
give up on you.
I know that.
Because of that, I know thatthe gospel is true.
I know that during all thistime I grew to love the prophet

(01:32:31):
and the apostles and thepriesthood, and I've seen
priesthood power in action and Ihad felt it at times that power
being exercised in my behalf.

Speaker 1 (01:32:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:32:52):
Wow, wow.
I feel so bad for our listenersbecause we're stopping right
here.
You guys are going to have towait for the part two to see how
and affect everyone around us.
Right, like so many people wereaffected by the decision that

(01:33:32):
you made back when you were 16,just to be okay with a little
sin.
It's just a little sin, it'sjust a little this, a little
that.
And you know, I, I do want topreface, I do want to say a
heavenly father knows this, heknows it's going to happen, but
it's.
It's a little different whenyou intentionally make it happen
, right, like when you likepurposely open the door and you

(01:33:55):
purposely like go looking for it.
It's a little different thanwhen you get yourself in a
tricky situation and then youmake a bad choice and they're
like, oh, I shouldn't have donethat.
So in, in the sense, you, youare kind of right that you know
there's, I believe, going to besome form of a scale.
But I think intention, trauma,experience, relationships, I

(01:34:16):
think Heavenly Father takes allof that into effect.
And so it's not as easy as goodchoices versus bad choices.
It's like, why are you makingthe bad choices and why are you
making the good choices too,because the scriptures talk
about a gift given grudgingly.
It's like no gift at all.
So sometimes we can make goodchoices for all of the wrong

(01:34:38):
reasons and it's like do wereally get all the points Right?
Sometimes we make bad choicesfor all the right reasons and
maybe we don't get deducted asmuch.
It's so complicated.
But I love what you said aboutno matter what Heavenly Father
is there for you.
He might cry for you a little.

(01:34:58):
He might be a little sadwatching you go through what you
said about.
No matter what Heavenly Fatheris there for you.
He might cry for you a little.
He might be a little sadwatching you go through what
you're going through.
But I love that, even in thislong three decades worth of
double-lifing and justcomplicated situationship, right

(01:35:21):
that you recognized that youhad a heavenly father who still
loved you and was watching outfor you and who was not going to
let you fall too far, like Imean.
It seems like you fell farright, like anyone would.
How, how much?
You still there.
You know he still trusts us totry to work through things and
so I.
I love that.

Speaker 1 (01:35:38):
We're ending on the dun, dun, dun, but, but then
we're also ending with rememberthis, that even in your dun, dun
, duns, heavenly father's neverdone with you, you know he's
never so yeah, wow, I just I I'mtrying to wrap my head around

(01:36:04):
just the the decisions you hadto make, that the inner battles,
the constant just strugglesthat you had, that the difficult
choices and and things that youhad to make most of your life.
But I agree with Alicia, Ithink the thing that I'm getting

(01:36:28):
out of this, too, is that, evenwhen you think there's no way
that God could ever forgive youor ever love you because of all
the bad choices you made, he'sstill there and you're living

(01:36:48):
proof of it.

Speaker 3 (01:36:50):
Yeah.
Yeah he could have smitten mewith a bolt of lightning, you
know, and he didn't, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:36:57):
He didn't.

Speaker 3 (01:36:58):
Right, he just let me survive until I got to the
repentance side of it.

Speaker 1 (01:37:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:37:08):
Got over that hill of the confession and the truth
and getting out in the open.
And then when I was in theconfession the repentance side
he came out with both barrels,going about blessings and, you
know, revelations andinspirations and people in my
life, and it was just overloadedwith his giving me his personal

(01:37:35):
attention, his one-on-oneattention.
My appreciation for theatonement now that I've felt on
the repentance side of thisprocess has just changed so much
the love that is given to me.
When I was the worst of theworst, when I hadn't a pure

(01:38:00):
thought in my mind, it seemed,and the Savior still atoned for
me Every nail, every thorn,every whip that he took, each
one he took for me, knowing whatI was going to do, and he still
took it and took it gladly.

(01:38:23):
He didn't regret it, he wasn'tforced into it, he took it
eagerly.
And I see that now from therepentance side of it.
I didn't see it in the middleof all of this hell that I
created for myself.
But I do now and so I do thingsmuch more out of gratitude
today and humility than I didthen and I don't really use

(01:38:47):
those scales anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:38:49):
They're gone Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:38:51):
Wow yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:38:56):
There's a lot more to your story.
So we, yeah, we appreciate yousharing up to this point, but
there's a whole, nother secondpart of what happened after you
told your wife.
So I think we're going to wrapit up at this point.
Part one, but everybody staytuned for part two next week and

(01:39:18):
we're going to have Martin backon and he's going to share the
other half of his story.
Alicia, do you have anythingelse you want to say?

Speaker 2 (01:39:27):
Just stay tuned, guys .
I I'm really looking forward tohearing the rest of the story.
Um, and I, you know, I thinkabout uh, that there's like a
cute little slogan or sayingthat goes around and says
something like um, just remember, if it's not okay, it's not
done, right, everything will beokay.

(01:39:47):
And if it's not okay, it meansGod's not done yet.
So we're just going to leavethat with our listeners and
invite you guys to make surethat you tune in for our part
two next week with Martin Guys.
We love when you reach out andwhen you are wanting to share
stories with us, so we're justgoing to thank you guys for

(01:40:08):
listening and ask that, if youhave a story you want to share,
be sure to email us over atlatterdaylights at gmailcom, or
you can visit our website andthere's a contact form,
latterdaylightscom, at thebottom of the page that you can
fill out.
You can get in contact with usand you can just let us know
what your story is.
Um, martin is a beautifulexample of bravery, coming and

(01:40:30):
sharing his story for the veryfirst time.
Uh, this is a huge story and wedefinitely want to keep giving
it the the attention that itneeds and the time that it takes
to tell it.
So, um, yeah, let us let usknow what you've thought so far.
Let us know in the comments.
You know what part, what partkind of resonated to you and

(01:40:51):
what.
What questions do you have forMartin Cause?
I'm sure I'm sure everyone'sgot questions too that are like
wait, but what about this, whatabout that?
We would love to hear from youguys.
Just want to make sure you guystune in next week.

Speaker 3 (01:41:05):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:41:07):
We'll talk to you next week with the second half.
Stay tuned, Take care everybody.
Bye-bye.

Speaker 3 (01:41:13):
Bye guys, bye, bye guys, bye.

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Addiction, Deception, and Living a Double Life — But God Never Gave up on Him: Martin Onken’s Story (Part 1)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Addiction, Deception, and Living a Double Life — But God Never Gave up on Him: Martin Onken’s Story (Part 1)