Chap 2: Moving On

I Married My Dad

Chapter Two

Moving On

January 15, 2018

Eight more years had passed, and now Rick and I had been married sixteen years. He had been downsized with his employer two years prior to this. The job market had been saturated where we had been living. So, he found a job in another state, which is where we were now living. This was then our tenth residence in all the years we had been married to each other, thus far, and it was our seventh state, and the seventh city for us.

We had moved from a very large city to a very small city; from a multicultural city, to a 96% white and closed (to outsiders) southern community. And, we had moved away from a church family we loved, where we had good teaching, and good fellowship, to a church which was not very welcoming of outsiders.

In fact, one woman told me after Sunday School class one Sunday that I was not one of them. She said, “If you were one of us, then we would listen to what you have to say. But, you’re not one of us, so we don’t want to hear what you have to say.” Wow! The people there were just not friendly at all!

So, I was feeling very isolated and lonely. My youngest child had just entered kindergarten, and we finally had a second vehicle, so I joined the YMCA and Newcomer’s Club. Our kids were all now involved with scouts, so I was helping with that, too. But, I was not making any friends, and I had no Christian fellowship, and my husband Rick was now gone two weeks out of every four with his new job.

Struggling with Emotions

I had another complication, too. My uterus had prolapsed during my fourth pregnancy, so it was still prolapsed after our child was born. So, I chose to have a hysterectomy six months after the birth of our son. I still had my ovaries, so I was not supposed to go into menopause, but I did anyway. My emotions were going haywire, and I had hot flashes, and the whole bit.

I know that I saw a doctor at that time, and that he put me on some kind of tranquilizer, but that didn’t help. It didn’t solve my problems.

I cried a lot, and I prayed a lot, but I had no physical relief, and no emotional relief in the form of friendship or fellowship, either.

The Fall

Then, my husband Rick and I were helping out with a local volunteer organization. The man in charge was very nice to me. The three of us worked closely together. And, I found myself attracted to this man, but not sexually, not at first. I was lonely, hurting and vulnerable, and he treated me kindly, or so I thought. I was pretty naïve, and I was struggling with my emotions. I felt like I was falling in love with the guy. So, I went to my husband Rick. I asked for his help. I asked him to pray with me and to help me with this. I pleaded with him, in fact, to help me to not sin.

But, instead of helping me, Rick helped himself. Because of his sexual addiction, he saw an opportunity to feed his own flesh through this. So, he kept putting me with this guy, and leaving us alone together, and even after I told him about this, Rick invited the guy over to our house when he was at work, to use our computer, which we had just gotten (our first home computer). This guy and I both remarked to each other that it felt like my husband was throwing us together, and, he was.

I prayed and prayed. And, I wept. And, I resisted Satan. And, I fled the temptation. But, we remained with that volunteer organization, because of certain circumstances, and because my husband wanted me to fail, in reality. He wanted me to give in to my flesh and to have an affair with this man, probably to ease his own conscience, although he never had a conscience. None of this ever pricked his conscience, so it was more like he just wanted to bring me down with him. But, I had a hard time believing that he would actually do that, so I think I just denied it.

But, then this guy and I ended up being put in a situation where we worked closely together for a week, but not by my choosing. In fact, I was angry with the guy, for he had set this up. But, I didn’t have the courage to run away from the situation, and by the end of the week, I had committed adultery, but not like normal adultery where a man or a woman cheats on her or his spouse, but more like I finally yielded to the pressure, both coming from my husband and this guy, and I gave in, and I sinned!

Afterwards, I was crushed in my spirit that I had just done that. I wept before the Lord for a long while. I didn’t ever want to go there again. I was devastated, but even more devastated by the fact that my own husband had fed me to the lions, even after I cried out to him for help. And, you know the real irony of it all? By this time, we were church planters (first time around), and Rick was pastoring this small church plant. So we were pastor and pastor’s wife. What hypocrisy!

I Was Undone!

What came next just totally undid me. I was working to get back on my feet, and to get back walking with the Lord in faithfulness again. I had journaled my experience, because I journaled regularly then my times with the Lord, and my thoughts. Well, my husband got a hold of it somehow. I don’t know if maybe I let him read it. But, he made a copy of it, and he turned it into a sexual fantasy for him to get off on. That just killed my heart. And, I didn’t have anyone I could tell. I felt so ashamed.

The Aftereffect

We moved again, after living in that small southern town for three years, because my husband got transferred with his job. So, I was relieved that we didn’t have to live in that city and state anymore.

The next city was much better, or so I thought. But, we brought our computer with us. The internet, like we know it today, still hadn’t come out yet, but we could get on something that did connect us to people throughout the US, at least, and that was something totally new to us. I think it was called “Prodigy,” which was a bare bones internet, I think.

He Pushed Me

My husband continued to push me in the direction I did not want to go, and which I had gone before, and I think something snapped in my mind, and I just gave up and gave in. I was so deeply wounded by Rick’s actions towards me and how he was so willing to just farm me out to other men, that I finally just did what he wanted, because I felt so unloved and so dirty and worthless.

I was tired of fighting against him and against Satan, and I was so angry with my husband. I hoped that he would wake up, and that he would see what he was doing to me, but he didn’t care, and I was too afraid to tell anyone else, and really, I had no one to tell but God. But, I was now running from God and shutting him out, because, in reality, I was angry with him, too. And, so I chose sin over my relationship with my Lord.

There were several more of these situations over a period of several years. But, then I finally told my husband “No,” and that I was not going to do that again, and I got back on solid footing in my relationship with the Lord, and I began going in the direction I should go, even though Rick would still try to tempt me to fail, time and time again. Telling him “No” just angered him, though. For now he could no longer use me to feed his lust addiction.

And, since we had a computer, and there was access on there to any kind of pornography, by this time, he then went to the porn to get his fix. But, those were not the only things he did. Some of the other stuff I mentioned before continued, but I had no idea all of this was going on unless, during a time when I was not doing so well, he told me some of it, in hopes it would excite me like it did him. But, I blocked most of that out, and I completely forgot about it until he told me again, during a time when my mind was clear, and then it just undid me to hear all of it.

Much Later

Seven years had now passed since I told him “NO!” I had been walking with the Lord, and Rick and I were leading a ministry to college students in our home. My mom was now dying, and I went to be with her 500 miles away from where we were living. And, where I was staying, I was by myself. Being around my dad so much, and him acting just like he always did toward me was hurting me so much. Again, I cried and I prayed, and I even started reading a book, “Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway.” And, it was helping.

But, before I drove those 500 miles to see my mom, my husband had set me up to get on classmates.com, I think it was, and I found some people I knew from high school, and I ended up talking with a guy I had once dated, and Rick encouraged me to look him up, and I was stupid, and I did, and then I had an affair with him, too, while my mom was in the hospital dying.

It took me many years to forgive myself for that. I still cry when I think about it. I was escaping my pain and suffering, and I was running from God instead of to God in my pain. No excuses! There are no excuses for willful sin against God. But, there are sometimes circumstances that play in to our wrong choices, and this was mine. I was very wounded by my dad and then by my husband, and they had both used me and my body for their own sexual addictions, and I caved to the pressure.

But, then I got my life back on track again. I went through a revival two years later, and it was then that I said my final “NO!” to my husband and to Satan. I closed the door on my past, and I yielded myself to the Lord to obey him from this moment forward, and two years after that is when the Lord called me to my present ministry. I was a very broken vessel, but he healed me, and he pulled me up out of that pit, and he set me free, never to go down that path again, by God’s grace, in his strength, and in his power within me. All glory to God! Amen!