The Story of (part of) My Life

I participate in a forum for women who are supporting each other through their spouse's addiction to sexual sin of all kinds, and the subsequent pain of the betrayal it brings, if you are looking for a place that is Christ centered and NOT your mainstream support forum for this kind of thing, then I invite you to check out More Than Desire forum for women. Recently on the forum my friend Ashley started a topic for us to share the story of our lives, she asked us to give as much or as little detail as we'd like. I entered my story and thought I would share it here, it is really putting myself out there but I think I have already done that. My hope is that it will give a little more insight into why the betrayal of a spouses pornography and lust addiction hits a woman so deep. This is only part of my story, I am still writing it!

I am the only child born of my parents 4 year marriage, they both remarried (mom when I was 5 and Dad when I was 11) people who had children from previous marriages but never had any more children, so I am their one and only child. My parents divorced when I was 3 after a year long separation, so I dont remember what it was like to live with both my mom and my dad in the home. Growing up I had 3 houses, I dont mean we moved 3 times I mean, I stayed at grandma's house several nights a week and went to elementary school down the street from her house, on weekends I would go home to my moms and when I got into jr high started to stay at my dads one or two nights per week, all though out my childhood I was teased relentlessly about my weight,it started to get really bad in jr. high I was always aware of the fact that I was fat and I learned early on to hate the way my body looked, my step dad had stacks of "magazines" in his bathroom and was always watching inapropriate movies, he even had pictures of nude women hanging in our home, that was supposed to be "art" and my mom never seemed to have any problem with this, to her she acted like this was just normal. My real dad became a christian when I was about 5 years old, and he started to take me to church pretty much every Sunday, though my dad had his own demons in his life that did not vanish after he became a christian he pretty much tried to always teach me to do the right things and honor God in my life, even though he did not always do this in his. I made it through jr. high with all the normal things girls that age go through, boy crushes and the like, made it into high school and was still overweight and still feeling like an out cast, I carried so much pain about the way my body looked that I wanted to find a new identity for myself instead of the "fat girl" so I began to party, started to smoke pot and drink, started to steal my moms cigarettes, sneak out, do all the things that rebellious teenagers do, I met a boy in my freshman year that I liked so much, and the thing was that he liked me too, he just would not admit it to anybody besides me and one of my best friends because I was fat, so he would ignore me at school even deny that he really knew me and talk to me on the phone after school, and spend time with me some weekends. I ended up losing my virginity to him at the tender age of 15. Not too long after this he moved a few cities away (thank God) and I saw him a few times after this and then our relationship ceased. I continued to party, experiment with more drugs, and was hardly ever home, ditching school to get high a lot of the time, still running from the fat girl identity and running to what ever acceptance I could get, which at the time was partying with my friends and doing stupid things. I had a good friend that I liked and wanted to be more than just friends with, he and I knew each other since we were 14, we partied together, and one night when we were 16 we kissed, which then shortly after (a few weeks later) turned into him asking me to be his girlfriend, he liked me, he accepted me, and he was not ashamed of me. Soon after this we became inseparable, we wanted to be together all the time, we stared having sex just 2 months into our relationship, he often stayed the night at my home and i at his, not sure what our parents were thinking to let this happen, but they (both set of parents) didnt have much to say about it. As we were approaching senior graduation, my mom and step dad decided to move out of state, by this time I left high school and went to continuation school to make up on all the credits i had lost from ditching and subsequently failing most of my classes. They did not move right away, but put our house up for sale, we graduated high school. The following spring when my mom and step dad said they were moving this put panic into me and my boyfriends hearts and minds, and we decided that he would move with us, which was not going to go over very well with his parents, even though we were both 18 at the time, and when I told my dad about it he said, "why dont you just get married" "living together is sin" so I told my boyfriend this, and it was like "yeah, we know we want to get married anyway, so why not just do it now?" that was May of 1997 and by August of 1997 we were married, and my mom and step dad did not even end up moving out of state for 2 more years! So now we were married teens and God started to work in my heart, I knew in my heart that it was time to grow up and move on from the party life, I wanted more, I wanted God. Little by little God called us to himself, we began to change, to grow up and take on responsibilties, and then I got pregnant with our Son, he was born is August of 1999 just 3 days after our 2nd wedding anniversary, and our marriage was good, we loved each other and we loved God and we were moving forward, moving forward with all the baggage we both carried into our marriage, I always struggled with major insecurites though out our relationship, I never felt good enough because I had been told by numerous people and the media that I was not good enough, I was fat and that was just NOT acceptable, so I was always painfully aware of provacative images and beautiful women around us and watched my husbands eyes to see if he was telling me the truth, that he only had eyes for me, sometimes I would see him look at other women and it would crush me, I would confront him and he would tell me it was not true. Over the years I dont know how many times he told me, you are my one and only, I only have eyes for you etc. We had two more children both daughters and God brought us so far, fast forward to the last couple of years, My husband was an elder at our church we lead small groups and taught in sunday school, I, believe it or not I started to ease up on my insecurites, I had come to a point where I was so tired about worrying about it, I really had come to the resolve that my husband loved me and he was a godly man and i really did not have anything to worry about. I worked hard and lost 100 lb's through diet and exercise, I would diligetnly get up early every morning and go to the gym, I would work out and literally the thought that I used for my motivation was I was going to be thin and sexy for my husband, I was going to wow him! (turns out while I was working out all those early mornings to get sexy for him, he was at home looking at porn) through out the years I struggled with anxiety and depression, some times it was really bad and I could not let go and move past irrational fears, I put so much pressure on myself to do it all, homeschool 3 kids, loose 100 lb's, run my household, earn money from home, that I hit burnout, my marriage suffered terribly and my husband began to seek companionship elsewhere, all he could see in me was how I was not meeting his needs, not affirming him, or there for him, I had no idea about the porn, and then no idea about the emotional affair that lasted 5 months (it was one sided, she had no interest in him but he pursued her) when all of the porn and lust and emotional betrayal came out last August just a week after our 13th wedding anniversary, I was crushed to say the very least. All the insecurities and fears I had through out the years where confirmed, he did not always have the porn addiction the entire marriage that was only the last 18 months prior to finding out but the lust was always there from one degree to another, he even told me that he struggled with my weight from time to time too, ouch! so here is this man, that I have put in the highest place of my life, believing that he could do no wrong to me and that I could trust him more than anybody in this entire world and my reality was shattered to a million tiny pieces, and I slipped around and got cut on those tiny shards for quite some time, but what this whole experience has taught me, it that God is God, he is my savior and there is NO OTHER that deserves that highest place in my life, I love my husband, love him, even now, with all of this out on the table, But he is not my savior and he never will be, his is not my creator and he does not determine my worth, i had mistakenly given him that right in my life.God is so amazing that he has brought me from a place of fear, a place of darkness and taught me that with him ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE! He has broken chains off of me and allowed me to face painful realities in my life that ALL GLORY TO GOD have made me a better person, and I am still a work in progress, My husband is still a work in progress, but we have hope, we have a God who does not disappoint! A God who makes all things new! A God who has a good plan, and God's plan is worth it, HE is worth it!