I Married My Dad
Chapter One
When We Started
January 15, 2018
When Rick and I started to become friends, back in college, I really liked him. He was witty and charming, and tender and considerate. He opened doors for me, and he seemed like he was a really nice guy. We had good times together. We seemed to connect on so many levels. I enjoyed our conversations immensely. And, we both loved to sing! That was a big one for me. But, most important for me was that I needed to be certain that he was a believer in Jesus Christ.
We both went to church (of different church denominations), and he said he believed in Jesus. But, his church was more liberal than mine, so I was not sure exactly where he stood in relation to faith in Christ.
Then he began going with me to InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, on our college campus. The gospel of salvation from sin was presented to him there, and there he said that he prayed the sinner’s prayer to receive Christ as his Savior.
During our dating years, though, he didn’t seem interested in praying with me or in sharing his times of devotion with God with me, and that concerned me. So, I encouraged him that direction, but it was a continual struggle for him. But, I figured that would come in time.
When we would go out on a date, if we could afford it, or if he could afford it, for back then the guy usually picked up the tab, we would go bowling or we would go to movies. Movies were a big thing for us back then, especially drive-in movies. And, soon enough he was pushing me towards being sexual with him, in one form or another.
Backing up
Now, to back up a little here, I need to tell you that I was abused sexually by my dad. My dad was a big bully who abused those weaker than him. He physically abused my mom and me and my siblings, and he verbally and emotionally abused us all, as well. He was mean and hateful most of the time. He was scary, in fact, and most of us were afraid of him. My dad also raped me, probably beginning when I was five years old, but not violently, but via grooming, persuasion, and via the power he had over me and the fear I had of him. I was deathly afraid of my dad. And, the rape (sexual abuse) continued on and off for about ten years, until I reported him.
So, having someone try to get me to do sexual things with him was not a new thing for me, but it is not what I wanted. It is what I didn’t want!
I wanted to follow Jesus Christ with my life, and Rick knew that. I told him about my dad, thus, to try to convince him to not treat me the same way, but that only encouraged him more. He had no clue what I had gone through. In his mind, he just decided that, since I had grown up on sex, that I must like it, and that I must want it like he did. Wrong! But, I was conditioned (vulnerable) that direction.
So, our dating years were like a roller coaster or like a teeter-totter. He would talk me into stuff (we never went all the way), and then I would feel guilty, and I would cry it out to God, and then I would tell Rick that we could not do that, and for a while he would back off, but then he worked me again, and eventually I gave in, and then we repeated the same thing all over again. And, then we got married. But, marriage was not what I had imagined it would be like.
Married Life Early On
Although Rick and I were best friends, and we were seemingly compatible in so many areas, it didn’t take long before we realized that we were not compatible in bed.
As I learned, many years later, my husband had his own sexual dysfunctions which he brought into our marriage. He had been exposed to pornographic images early on in his life, via his dad, who to this day still does not see any problems with it at all, even after we told him how it had destroyed our marriage. Rick also learned from his father’s example how to view and how to treat women, not as human beings, but as sex objects and as commodities, rather than as people with hearts and souls. His dad was and is still an extremely selfish person.
My husband, thus, had this idea that all his sexual fantasies would be fulfilled in his relationship with me, now that we were married. He thought that we would have sex five times a day, in fact.
My husband had no clue about intimacy, though, or sacrificial love, or compassion, or patience with me. His idea of intimacy was for him to just attack my body and get his release, and that was that. And, I felt raped every time. So, we talked about it, and he finally reached the conclusion that he had to put his needs aside, and he had to focus on my needs, and to work on meeting my needs, and that worked, at least for me. I was then able to enjoy sex with him, because he was being loving and kind, and he was thinking about how to meet my needs, and he wasn’t just jumping my bones like I was a horse he was getting on to ride.
But, it didn’t last. And, pretty soon, it was back to business as usual, just thinking about what he wanted, and about getting his release, and not considering my needs at all, or very little.
The Fallout
After Rick and I had been married two years, we had our first child. This only put more of a strain on our relationship, because now he had competition for my time and affections, and he was jealous of the time I had to now give to a newborn. Then a second child came 2 ½ years later.
Although I did not know about these things until many years later, it was at this time that Rick began expressing his sexual addiction in many different ways, via voyeurism, exposing himself, and extra-marital sexual affairs. I was clueless, though. I knew he was not living the Christian life, and that it was still a struggle to interest him in leading me spiritually or in having family devotions, but I had no idea all this other stuff was going on behind my back. I knew we had issues, but I mostly felt good about our marriage, and I still considered him my best friend.
Then, he talked with me about wanting to go to Bible College, because he said he felt called to go into the pastoral ministry. Since I had no knowledge of his secret life, and I believed God was telling me to go with him, we packed up our little family and we moved to another state so he could go to school.
Even though he was now a Bible college student, that did not change his behavior. He still acted out his sexual addiction in various ways, but I was still clueless.
After a year of Bible college, he wanted to go to seminary, so we visited two seminaries, and while we were visiting the second one, I realized I was pregnant with our third child. The insurance we had purchased, we learned, was only going to pay for the doctor bill, but not for the hospital bill, so we went back home, because there was no way we could afford seminary at that time.
Another Move
Then, a year and a half later, he felt God was calling him to be a lay pastor, so we did some homework on that, and we found a church who would sponsor him, so we moved again, and he began ministering underneath the leadership of a pastor of a small church. That seemed to go well, for a time, and then that came to a halt.
In the meanwhile, I became pregnant with our fourth child. My uterus prolapsed three months into the pregnancy, so I had to stay off my feet the bulk of the pregnancy. We had to put our two youngest children in day care, and that just broke my heart having to send them off every day. But, while they were gone, and our oldest son was in school, I had lots of time to spend with God in prayer and in Bible study, and my relationship with the Lord really deepened during this time.
By this time, we had been married eight years. And, Rick’s relationship with God seemed to be taking a nose dive. He was staying up late at night playing some type of electronic game. This was before anyone had home computers, smart phones or I Pads. So, this was not an internet or a computer game. But, I could tell in his eyes, and in his body language, that he was not doing well, and I was greatly concerned. If he was doing anything else, I have no knowledge of it.
But, something did happen at that time that opened my eyes. And, it was because of something he did, in acting out his sexual addiction, that I first began to see a similarity between him and my dad. But, at that time, I had no idea how much he was like my dad. That realization didn’t come until many years later.
Walking Wounded 