Everybody has different feelings on what adults should and shouldn’t do when it comes to personal choices in relationships. What’s right for me isn’t necessarily going to be right for you, or vice versa.
You’re certainly free to say Claire overreacted in this case, but the fact is, she knows herself best and what will and won’t work for her in a relationship. And we don’t get to tell people how they’re supposed to feel, especially during times of personal crisis.
If anything, her story is just a reminder that honesty — both with your partner and with yourself — is always the best policy for everyone involved in a relationship.
Claire Dalton is happy now, but her life hasn’t been without heartache, and for her, it happened at just about the worst time possible.
In a blog post , Claire described how her “entire world came crashing down within seconds” just six months after getting engaged, and with days to go before her wedding.
“I still remember that night as if it were yesterday,” she wrote. “I was sitting on my couch with my fiancé, and everything seemed blissful.”
What changed her life? A fateful decision to run an errand. “For whatever reason, I stood up and reached for his phone instead of mine to see when the store would be closed,” she wrote.
She found three words typed into his search bar that changed her entire life.
“The three words that concluded he’d been searching for pornography possibly just hours ago.”
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It wasn’t just the search history, however, but multiple windows open with what she called “sick and twisted ideas of what women supposedly look like.”
Claire wrote that her fiancé tried to deflect the blame at first, saying that his brother had a problem and must have taken his phone.
But, later, after many hours of difficult discussions, he owned up to it. “I’ll never forget when the truth finally came out,” she wrote. “Those words still sting. ‘It’s me…I have a problem.'”
“I felt paralyzed. I felt traumatized. I felt worthless,” she wrote.
That was the end of the engagement for Claire. “I firmly called my wedding off as I sat across from the man I loved who suddenly seemed to be a stranger.”
At the time, she was clearly in pain, and when some time had passed, she was able to look back on it with some perspective.
While many people might not see an adult watching porn as a big deal, for her, there were two big concerns. Firstly, there was the act itself. “I felt like I’d been cheated on,” she wrote in a follow-up post . “It made me feel worthless and unlovable. It made me feel like it was all my fault, and [if] I would have just done one thing or another differently, I could have changed something.”
And, secondly, there was her fiancé’s deception.
“In an instant I could never trust those lying eyes ever again,” she wrote. “In order to lie to somebody you spend such large amounts of time with, it takes expertise, thought and effort to hide such a big secret. So not only did he lie, but he planned carefully how to lie to get away with it. And not once did it ever cross his mind how much that would hurt me.”
She also tried to set the record straight about why she wrote her attention-grabbing posts in the first place.
“I didn’t write them to get attention (why on earth would anyone actually want this much attention?),” she wrote. “The reason I wrote these articles is because there are hundreds and thousands of women out there (and I’m sure some men too) who have been through similar things.”
Calling off the wedding was no small decision.
“We already had over 300 invitations to our wedding sent out, she explained, “We had to call every single one of those people and tell them what happened to inform them the wedding was off.”
Claire’s posts were pretty personal and heartfelt, and in their aftermath, she received some harsh feedback.
Her religiosity, as a Mormon, struck many readers as self-righteousness, and many accused her of shaming her ex-fiancé and being too quick to dump him.
Despite backlash, she defended her decision.
In yet another post , she defended her decision, saying “to those who think I ‘jumped ship,’ you’re right…I did. Because when someone in an engagement decides to violate God’s laws, honesty doesn’t exist. And neither does love.”
However, she’s forgiven her ex for what he did.
“I feel sad because I know how much it destroys love, family, and happiness,” she continues, “But I do not feel hatred towards people who struggle from addiction.”
She’s letting other women know that they aren’t alone.
“I write for these women so they can see that despite the men or other people in their lives who betray their trust, they still have worth,” she continues, “and there is hope that their hearts will be healed.”
Claire has not changed her stance against pornography.
“Pornography addiction does not just affect you,” she says, “Pornography addiction affects the people around you, and it’s only so long before the truth is going to come out.”