I was born in 1979 to two loving and godly parents. I was their first-born, and the only daughter they ever had. My maternal and paternal grandparents were both Christians (my paternal set has passed away). I grew up very close (relationally and in proximity) to a large extended family, and have many wonderful memories of a full and happy childhood. I have some missing time between age four and six. I have always suspected (and have had vague flash-backs of) molestation during this time. While that is definitely relevant to the rest of the story, this story is not really about my childhood.
I do remember coming to know Jesus Christ, as my Lord and personal Savior, at the age of four. I also remember many people questioning whether I had really made that decision at such an early age. So, at seven years old, when I asked my dad to pray over me for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I also recommitted my life to Christ. I was water baptized a few weeks later.
My father was a pastor, and often returned home drained after ministering all day to his congregation. He rarely had energy to spare upon returning home to us. I remember resenting, yet understanding, this at a very young age. My mother's only real dream in life (or so she's always told us) was to be a great wife and mom. So when my dad would fail to understand and/or appreciate her (and he could/can be extremely insensitive, even cruel), conflict would follow. Often times it was loud and boisterous conflict. I remember being deeply disturbed by this as a young child, and perturbed by it as a teenager. I thought that they were hypocritical, but at the same time, I knew that they loved the Lord. I know that their marital problems gave me the excuse I needed to disrespect them. I think I have always thought that I was just a little bit more stable than they were. That is not a healthy attitude to grow up with!
I witnessed basically all of my parent's conflicts, because I was home more often than the average teenager. I began having terrible headaches at age 13, and was severely ill for the first few months of seventh grade. I improved enough to go back to school, but didn't fully recover until eight years later when I was supernaturally healed. My sickness added stress to my parents’ marriage, and increased the level of conflict in our family.
Boy/girl relationships, even crushes, were not discussed in my strict Christian home; although I was interested in boys from a very young age, as were my brothers in girls. I don't remember a single dating or relationship talk with my parents until one that I had with my mom when I was in high school (I never got the sex talk). I finally worked up the nerve to ask her if I could date, because someone I really liked was going to ask me to our Jr. Prom. She said "No", so I just ditched the girlfriend that I had gone with, and hooked up with him for a little while at the after-party. Wow, what a rebel;). I do remember having a horrible headache that night, and feeling relieved that I wasn't on "my first real date". Maybe my parents knew more about what I was ready for than I did. Maybe.
I moved to the mountains immediately after high school, because when I had vacationed there over school breaks, I'd been free of pain. It was in a small mountain town that I fell in love for the first time. I was nineteen. He was the party animal son of an alcoholic (the exact opposite of my dad). I didn't fall in love with him because he was the "bad-ass" though. I loved him for his huge heart, and for the way he had forgiven his abusive father. I was going to save him, and change him (although I would never have realized it at the time). And I did, but only for about three months. And when he decided to walk away from his short lived relationship with God, he walked away from me as well. We hadn't told anyone that we were secretly engaged, so the pain of his abandonment was much more difficult than I could convey to anyone. He still isn't walking with God, and I hurt for him to this day. I guess you never get over your first love.
I'd never even kissed anyone until I fell in love at nineteen, so to say I was "pure" would be completely accurate. But the pain of my broken heart began to lead me to places I had never intended to go. It was in this state of depression and heartache that entered my first, albeit brief, “party stage”. Not much of consequence happened during this time, and I was soon drawn, temporarily at least, back into reconciliation with God. It was during this time of reconciliation that I was healed.
My healing brought me closer to God than I had ever been before, and then, offered me a freedom from God that I never had while sick and bedridden. At twenty-two, I decided to move to "the big city" and taste my fair share of freedom. Although this was not an exclusively dark time in my Christian walk, I was in no way living a holy life. I never lost my virginity, but I was no longer pure, in mind or in body.
It was in the midst of this backslide that I met the man who has been my husband for the past 3 and a half years. He spent the night in my apartment on our first date, even though I had met him only two days before. Our story has always been that we stayed up all night "talking," but that is not entirely true. He was in the military, and was only home on leave. We only ever had the one "date". After my "encounter" with him, (the lowest moral point of my life up to that time) I involved myself in six more ungodly relationships. It was in the sixth that I fell in love, and had my heart broken for the second time.
After having my heart broken again, actually while I was in the process of having it broken, I moved in with two of my very best friends (and very godly women). I cleaned up my act, and didn't date anyone at all for nine months. I got back in church, after an almost one year absence, and took some college classes. During this period of restoration I was receiving regular phone calls from the man who is now my husband. We became very good friends. He was a shoulder for me to cry on, and he ALWAYS made me laugh. He started telling me that he loved me about nine months into our friendship. To which I usually replied, "Shut up!". I told him that the night we had shared did not in any way reveal “the real me”. He said that he understood, and that he already sensed that.
He came out to visit me and my family (I had moved back home) almost one year to the date that we met. My parents, brothers, and friends all loved him, but I assured everyone that I felt nothing but friendship for him (even though my mom caught us making out in the hot tub). My dad had the chance to witness to him during his stay, and even baptized him before he left. The friendship evolved toward love when I learned that he was being sent to Iraq. I decided that I couldn't live without him, and in a letter that he received after the start of the war, I asked him to marry me. This was my way of saying "yes" to what had been a recent deluge of marriage proposals.
We were married by a judge as soon as he got back from Iraq. We called it an elopement, but our friends and family all knew what we planned to do. It was an elopement, but not a secret one. We promised (and followed up on) a renewal ceremony one year later, once he had been discharged and was home for good.
I wasn't "in love" with my husband when I married him. I was attracted to him, but not because of his appearance. I never actually saw him as being very attractive. I was attracted to the intense way that he made me feel beautiful, and loved. I thought that it must be right, that he must be the one, for the very fact that I was falling in love with him "because he first loved me" (just like it is with God). I didn’t think that he deserved me, and I felt proud to be the wonderful gift that God was bestowing on a sweet, simple man. I hadn't been in any long term relationships before marriage, and I don't think it really hit me that marriage was "forever" until about three months in. I remember crying myself to sleep that night.
We didn’t live together the first year of our marriage. I went out to visit him twice, (two weeks for each visit) and we spent two-weeks together over Christmas at my grandparent’s house. Adding in our two and a half week honeymoon, we spent about two and a half months out of our first year of marriage as a real man and wife. My visits with him were single focused: to fit as much sex into two weeks as was humanly possible. I didn’t think this was unreasonable, or in any way unromantic. We were simply being newlyweds. I fell in love with him after six months of marriage, during the time we spent at my grandparent’s for our first Christmas. This visit, because we didn’t have our own place, was less about sex, and more about talking and hanging out. We did a Bible study together everyday, and it was the first time we had ever connected in a spiritual way. We both point to this time as a highlight in our marriage.
After he returned home, the first two months were amazing. Our sex life was wonderful, we had an active social life, and we were both very involved in our church (although he was not being discipled like he should have been). Life was perfect, so why not have a baby!? We got pregnant on our first try, and we were both ecstatic! I noticed that my sex-drive dropped significantly, almost as soon as I got pregnant, but I managed to fake a decent amount of enthusiasm. Around my sixth week of pregnancy though, I started throwing up, and I didn’t stop for nine weeks. If I stayed completely still, I only threw up five or six times…every day. I expected to be taken care of, because I could not take care of myself, but my husband grew more and more distant. It’s hard to see people you love hurting. I thought that’s all it was; I thought it was a selfish, but normal reaction. Looking back, I guess that we were never quite the same after that point.
I developed sepsis, from a very nearly fatal kidney infection, when I was twenty weeks pregnant. I remember the look on his face as he sat by my hospital bed. He seemed so detached, like it wasn’t really happening. I was packed in ice to lower my high fever, and with a low shivering voice, I remember asking him if he was scared. He just answered, “No. I know you’ll be fine.” It was while I was in the hospital that we learned we were having two babies. Twin girls!
During the difficult early stages of my pregnancy, rumors began to circulate about him and a very immoral girl from our town. She was not attractive, or in any other way appealing, and I still thought of our marriage the way it had been weeks earlier. I wasn’t worried at all. I defended him to the point of losing friends, and damaging my reputation. Still, the thought had been planted in my mind, and I began to notice more and more inconsistencies in his daily life.
A few weeks after the girls were born, I found some men’s magazines hidden in an old suitcase. I gave him a strict what-for, and told him that I wanted him to get involved in a Christian guy’s group. He said OK, but didn’t follow through. A few weeks later, after more and more reasons for suspicion, I sent him an e-mail from a fake e-mail address asking, “Do you want to see me naked? Just say yes.” He was sitting right beside my and the girls when he checked his e-mail that day. After he left the room, I logged on to see if he had responded. He had replied with one word. “Yes.” My heart was in my throat. I went downstairs to confront him, and with a soft and tearful voice, I asked, “Why did you say ‘yes’?” He looked so disgusted and ashamed. I thought he had learned a real lesson that day. Oh how I wish it had been that easy!
Over the course of the next ten or eleven months, I went mad. I checked the phone bill, but never called the suspicious numbers (You see I didn’t really want to know the truth…not yet!). I went through his pants, and his drawers…everyday. I sat in the room with him every time he was on the computer. When he came home late, I asked him for a detailed description of his day. He had a thorough answer for everything. I thought that I must just be sleep deprived and crazy. Then, I got pregnant again, this time accidentally. Just a few weeks into my second pregnancy I became convinced that my suspicions had been justified. I stayed up late online, telling people that my husband was cheating, and asking for help and advice from anyone who would listen. We lived with my parents, so I put on a happy family show most of the time, and kept my pain to myself. When we moved out, a month before our girls’ first birthday, I lost my husband completely. He no longer had to put on a happy family show either. He made up any excuse to leave the apartment, and “worked” very long hours, with very little money to show for it. I knew that he was cheating, and this time I really did want to prove it. I still held out some hope that I was just crazy, but either way, I was more miserable than I had ever been in my life before.
I remember discovering a very suspicious phone message on the way to my second ultrasound appointment. That was the day I found out that we were having a girl, and a boy. I cried all the way home because I knew that we were not ready for a boy. I immediately began rebuking generational sins over his life, and I still pray this way on a regular basis.
Right after our girls’ first birthday, almost three years into our marriage, all of my suspicions, and very worst fears, were confirmed. A stripper called me on my cell phone to tell me that she had been my husband’s girlfriend for the past five weeks, and that he had just dumped her for cheating on him. I didn’t pick up the phone, because the Holy Spirit warned me about what was happening as soon as the unknown number came up on the screen. She was kind enough to leave me a message.
After the horrible fight that inevitably followed that phone call, (I broke my arm in a fall while trying to chase him through the parking lot- not to hurt him, but to keep him from leaving before I was done raging) he asked for my forgiveness. I told him that I would try. I did try, very hard, for about two weeks. I tried to heal too quickly, because I wanted to keep my heartache a secret from my friends and family. But I was still so hurt and wounded, and tired of even having to look at him. I was very suicidal, and after he came home one day to find me passed out on the floor with a carving knife in my left hand, I told him that I needed a couple of weeks away. I packed up my things and took the girls to my parents’ house. They had, up to that point, no idea of our problems.
Here’s where it gets rough. My parents were of course very curious as to why I had left. I asked them not to ask me any questions for a little while, and told them that we were just having some problems. They could not respect this wish however. After a few days at their house, and about a million questions from each of them, I broke down and told them that he had cheated. Immediately afterward, I called my mother-in-law and told her the whole story (or what I thought was the whole story – I was still missing a lot of details. He had admitted to five affairs.). My mother-in-law (who has been married and divorced three times) told me to immediately stop talking to him, and to pack up the van and drive the hour to her house. I obeyed. My husband freaked out. He called and called, and sent dozens of text messages. I only replied to one that he sent asking if we (the girls and I) were OK. I said, “Yes.” After five days of no communication, I answered the phone when he called. He asked if I would please come back into town (he didn’t know where I had gone), and I said that I thought I was ready. I told him that I would be back in town, at my parents’ house, the next day.
I called him when I got back into town. We were supposed to get together to talk, but he was agitated, and said that he had had a really bad day at work. He wanted me to wait until the next day to come over. I angrily agreed, but then drove over anyway. He wasn’t there, but I’ll never forget what I saw when I opened the door. It was all I could see when I closed my eyes for months afterward. There was a strange curling iron on the chair by the front door. The air was smoky, and there were cigarette butts, and beer and liquor bottles everywhere. I went into the bedroom to find another woman’s bra and jeans by the bed. No one was at home, but it was obvious that a woman had been “living” there. I sat down in the living room, and called H on my cell. He answered in higher spirits than he had been before. “I’m in the apartment.” I said. “So?” He replied. “Why did you tell me that you wanted me to come back?” “Because I do.” He said. “Well, I guess it’s over now.” I said with no expression, trying to hide my tears. “Why? I just had a party! We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” “No, there’s nothing to discuss.” I said, and then quickly hung up the phone.
I drove home slowly, sobbing behind the wheel. I called my mother-in-law, and promised her that I would never let her lose touch with the kids. She had always been very encouraging and hopeful in the past, but this time she just kept saying, “I am so sorry.”
I never ever wanted to go back to my parents’ house, but my girls were there, and I had nowhere else to go. As I walked through the front door, I took off my rings and handed them to my dad. I told him to try and pawn them, because I was going to need money. In a moment of pure humiliation, I told my parents what had happened, and what I had found in the apartment. When I had first admitted to my dad that H had cheated, he told me to leave him immediately. But this time, to my utter shock, he said, “Maybe it’s not over.” What!? A few minutes later I received a very dramatic text message from my husband saying that he was going to get the highest dollar life insurance policy he could, and then go back to Iraq. He said, “I’m sorry for ruining your life. I wanted to change so bad, but I guess I never will.” I tried to call him, but he wouldn’t pick up. He was high (recreational drugs were his newest addiction). I got very upset, and started having contractions. I told him this in a text message, and he said that if I calmed down, he would talk to me. When we finally spoke, he admitted that he had been with a lot more women than he had previously said. I said, “I know that.” And I did. He admitted to eighteen women, and one man. I was shocked about the man, but it put everything into perspective for me. He said, “I have a serious problem. It’s an addiction.”
OK. Something clicked in me at that moment. “It’s not us,” I thought, “It’s him!” I walked upstairs and into my parents’ bedroom. “He’s says he has an addiction.” I said. “Oh my gosh.” My mom replied. “You should go see Doug Weiss!” I had never heard of sex-addiction, let alone Christian counseling for it; neither had she until two weeks earlier when a friend prophesied to her about me and H. Now she could see that God was offering us a way toward restoration, and she started to get very excited. I told her that I would get online and check out Weiss’ ministry. I immediately did, and as I read over his site, I was overcome by peace. I sent an e-mail saying that my husband and I needed to come in, but that we didn’t have money or insurance. I got a call back first thing in the morning. They said that they didn’t offer a payment plan. I was crushed, but told the receptionist that God would work a miracle. And in less than five minutes, He did. I received a letter from my grandmother saying that she was sending us almost the entire needed amount as a gift. She was, of course, not aware of the circumstances.
I went upstairs, asked Mom and Dad to watch the girls, and then drove to the apartment to tell H the news. All of the windows were darkened with quilts and bed sheets. Whoever was inside loved the darkness. I walked inside expecting to see someone scurry away, but instead found the two of them (H and the stripper who had called my phone) passed out in our bed. I sternly called out H’s name until he awoke. I ordered him out of the bed, and onto the living room couch. I was about six months pregnant with twins, and had no intention of getting into a confrontation with a woman who I knew to be morally reprehensible. H obeyed, and followed me into the living room. He was still “rolling” from the methadone and cocaine, and his eyes were soulless and unrecognizable. He fell asleep on the couch, and I sat in the recliner and read John Bevere’s Drawing Near. The stripper remained, unconscious, in the bedroom. When he woke up a few hours later, I sat him up, looked him in the eye, and told him about what I had read on Weiss’ website. Some clarity, and a look of hope, returned to his eyes while I spoke. I told him that our counseling was paid for if he was interested in getting well. He said, “What if they can’t help me?” I said, “What if they can?” Over and over in my mind I kept hearing Beth Moore, and the phrase, “You do not have the right not to forgive!” I set my mind on the fact that I had been saved from hell, and forgiven from all my sins and indiscretions. I felt no anger at all. He looked up and me and simply said, “Yes, yes I want to be well.” I said, “OK, then it’s time for her to leave.”
The hours that followed were not as peaceful. The drugs began to let him down, and his serotonin level dropped dramatically. He became extremely heartless. He said things like, “We were never supposed to be together.” And “I’m not going to stay with you just because I feel guilty.” I begged him to stay, in a faithful way, until after the babies were born. Then he would be free if he chose to be. He agreed, and offered me a month more than I had asked for. In the next few days preceding our counseling visit, his chemical makeup began to balance out, and we actually had a good time together. He took the time off of work, and I had my parents keep the girls. By the time our Monday morning session rolled around, we both wanted to try and salvage the marriage. Neither of us were convinced that this was even possible.
The three day intensive counseling session was a God-send. We were so encouraged, and connected more than ever before. I had hope. He had hope. Hope never fails. But after returning to our daily lives, he quickly began to slip. I heard him talking on the phone to a strange woman, just three weeks after the intensive. I asked him to leave unless he was willing to throw himself into the recovery work. He chose to leave, and was gone for two months. He abandoned us during that time, rarely coming to see us, or offering us any financial support. I was sure, in the natural, that we were through. But I kept praying, and crying out to God.
I probably shouldn’t have let him come back after the two months. He had gotten back into drugs, had done pornographic movies for money, and had lost all of his heathen friends because he was broke. I was all he had, and he humbly crawled back home and asked me if I would be willing to take him back. Because I was almost due, and I had so wanted to give birth as a married woman with my husband by my side, I agreed.
He didn’t let go of his addiction when he came home. He continued to flirt, masturbate, and “act” (cheat) in two more porn movies. He was getting more involved in church, and was reading his Bible everyday, but He just couldn’t “spit out his long-time pacifier”. He tried to hide his dark-side from me, but I was a lot harder to fool than before. When I would catch him in a lie, and threaten to end the marriage, I could tell that he was now the one who was scared of the relationship ending. This brought me a strange comfort.
Then, one day, God took over. We moved into his mom’s house, as a last ditch effort to put everything second, including work, and just focus on God and our marriage. We hadn’t been there for two full weeks before I caught him online, talking to “prostitutes” on MySpace. I told him to get out, and as he was slowly packing his bag, I remember saying, “If you had only learned to tell the truth, you could have been set free.” He responded by saying, “You don’t understand, I could never admit the things I have done to anyone.” I felt the Sprit of the Lord come over me, and I said, and continued to repeat, “Try, just give God a chance, and try.”
After about half and hour, maybe a little less, he began to erupt. He started, very slowly and cautiously, telling me about some really disgusting things he had taken part in as a child and young adult. Completely shocking both of us, we had almost identical experiences, and I was humbled to have to admit to incidents from my childhood that I would have taken to the grave otherwise.
Then, he volunteered the truth about a dozen other stories, some relating to cheating, and some just completely bizarre, that he had been lying about. He didn't kill an Iraqi who was trying to kill Sgt. King! That was someone else's story! That story was the reason the therapist and I believed that he had PTSD. I guess I can stop hounding the VA now!
I starting asking about incident upon incident, in all of which I had originally suspected a lie, but had let myself become convinced by him. Some of them I had asked about a dozen times before, but today, he admitted the lie. It felt good to know I had been right, and terrible to know he'd done even more, even more recently, than I'd suspected.
He said that he understood if I just wanted him gone, but that he really thought that he could recover if he could stay with us. I said that he could stay, but that his time was no longer his own. He agreed.
Life has not been roses, by any means, since that day, but the honesty definitely broke something in him. We’re in a steady climb upward, with an occasional slip, instead of the downward spiral we were in for so long. We’re seeking God’s restoration for our family, and are both trusting Him to work mightily through us.
Please read the specific posts for more detailed and recent information about our journey. I pray that you will find hope in what you read here.
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” – Romans 5: 1-5
