Maintaining visibility of objects that were not initially visible

I’m using visibility states to gradually display parts of a menu as learners move through the course. It’s no problem to make them initially not visible and have individual buttons become visible on each page, but they don’t maintain visibility. Subsequent pages have to include actions to make previous buttons visible, which is do-able but seems like jumping through hoops.

Will objects that are not initially visible always revert to invisibility unless told otherwise (over and over again)? Or is there a way to make an object visible and keep it that way?