D-Days
My D-day, as some people call it, was so long ago that I don't even remember the exact date. All I really remember about the time frame is that it was sometime between my first and second child. My husband admitted to me that he had been viewing pornography and masturbating. He disclosed this as we were lying in bed ready to go to sleep. After he confessed, he went right to sleep. I was up pretty much all night. At first, I remember lying in bed stunned by his confession. Then I remember starting to cry, so I left our bedroom and went downstairs to the living room.
I had so many thoughts go through my head. I know most women get angry. I don't think I felt the anger. I felt devastated. Surprisingly, I felt compassion. One thing that kept going through my head was, "I can't leave him to fight this alone." I don't know where the thought came from. Maybe it was God's way of telling me that I needed to stick this out, and to not make a decision about anything in that moment. Maybe it was just my desire to fight for my marriage that brought that thought into my head. Maybe it was fear. Fear of what, for whom, I don't know, but fear was probably a huge motivator. I think I had so many emotions going through me that I couldn't pick any one emotion out.
After his confession, or disclosure, we decided that he couldn't be alone to do his homework (he was in college at the time), so we went together with our toddler to the office of the family business (we lived right behind it on the same property), so that he could work on his homework. This office was just filled with clutter, and dusty, and dirty, and had years and years and years of accumulated stuff in it. Not the ideal place for a toddler to hang out. This was a time before Netflix, and personal devices, so I couldn't even entertain the kid for very long. There was also no room for him to actually play. I couldn't be my husband's babysitter, so that didn't last for very long. That's when we decided that we would get the internet in our home. It would be easier for me to keep an eye on what my husband was doing.
A year or two goes by and then came another D-day. I don't remember the date. Heck, I don't even remember what year it was. He confessed again, and, this time, he asked me to install an internet blocker on the computer. No problem, I was the only one with the password. I was proud of him for having the idea. In the meantime, I decided I needed to talk to our bishop about this problem that my husband was having. All I remember being told was to make divorce the "D-word" in our home, meaning don't even talk about getting a divorce. I was a little shocked that that's all the counsel I received from the bishop. I hadn't been considering a divorce. I just needed help in dealing with this. By this time we'd had another baby (two total). I thought we were good. I thought my husband had dealt with this problem of his.
Then, baby number three came along. Another confession. I started noticing a pattern. Sex was always extremely uncomfortable for me toward the end of my pregnancies, then there was the six week waiting period postpartum, and the fact that I wasn't getting enough sleep to want to even think about sex. I didn't know if I wanted anymore babies if he was going to be viewing porn and masturbating right after I had a baby.
With three babies, the home was getting a little louder, and it was getting harder for him to do his homework at home, so he started staying at school late into the night to get his homework done. I think there was another confession. My husband had completed his Bachelors program and received his degree. I was so proud of him. When our third child was 9 months old, he graduated and we took a trip to Disneyland without the kids. It was my first time, and he hadn't been since he was a kid.
When we got back, we felt that it was time to buy our first home and move. We moved an hour away from his work, which also meant an hour away from family. Except for his younger brother. The brother that he is really close to. The one he went into business with. We lived five miles away from them, but we were in the same ward, again (they had also lived behind the family business).
While we were waiting for our new home to be built, I got pregnant again. It was a very spiritual experience for me this time, finding out I was pregnant. Then came the first appointment with a new OB (we were moving too far away from my other OB). He did a vaginal ultrasound. He said, "Either you're not as far along as we thought, or it's an early miscarriage. Come back in two weeks, and we'll do another ultrasound."
Two weeks later, I went back to the OB, BY MYSELF (this is important, and I'll talk more about this later), and if I hadn't seen three previous early ultrasounds, I would have thought the doctor was lying. All that was there was an empty sac. I saw it with my own eyes. Where there had been an embryo two weeks before, there was now an empty sac. The doctor called it a blighted ovum. I just started bawling. I felt so alone. The doctor was super awesome and told me to take all the time I needed. He then asked if I wanted to call my husband to have him pick me up. I was in no condition to be driving safely, so I called my husband, and had him come pick me up. I ended up having a D and C because the my body did not abort the sac at all.
After we moved, and we had been there for about a year, my husband confessed again, and went to talk to the bishop. I think it was about the time I got pregnant with my fourth living child, and right around the time of a major car accident that the kids and I were involved in. The bishop in our new ward told my husband he need to go to the Addiction Recovery meetings. Addiction?!? This was the first time that it had been said about this problem. Then it dawned on my husband that it really was an addiction. It was nice to have a name for it, finally. It made sense that it was an addiction to him, and to me. My husband started attending these meetings sporadically, but it took him a few years to actually start working on recovery.
Six kids later, I finally started working on my recovery, and that opened up a whole can of worms, and crap hit the fan.
I had so many thoughts go through my head. I know most women get angry. I don't think I felt the anger. I felt devastated. Surprisingly, I felt compassion. One thing that kept going through my head was, "I can't leave him to fight this alone." I don't know where the thought came from. Maybe it was God's way of telling me that I needed to stick this out, and to not make a decision about anything in that moment. Maybe it was just my desire to fight for my marriage that brought that thought into my head. Maybe it was fear. Fear of what, for whom, I don't know, but fear was probably a huge motivator. I think I had so many emotions going through me that I couldn't pick any one emotion out.
After his confession, or disclosure, we decided that he couldn't be alone to do his homework (he was in college at the time), so we went together with our toddler to the office of the family business (we lived right behind it on the same property), so that he could work on his homework. This office was just filled with clutter, and dusty, and dirty, and had years and years and years of accumulated stuff in it. Not the ideal place for a toddler to hang out. This was a time before Netflix, and personal devices, so I couldn't even entertain the kid for very long. There was also no room for him to actually play. I couldn't be my husband's babysitter, so that didn't last for very long. That's when we decided that we would get the internet in our home. It would be easier for me to keep an eye on what my husband was doing.
A year or two goes by and then came another D-day. I don't remember the date. Heck, I don't even remember what year it was. He confessed again, and, this time, he asked me to install an internet blocker on the computer. No problem, I was the only one with the password. I was proud of him for having the idea. In the meantime, I decided I needed to talk to our bishop about this problem that my husband was having. All I remember being told was to make divorce the "D-word" in our home, meaning don't even talk about getting a divorce. I was a little shocked that that's all the counsel I received from the bishop. I hadn't been considering a divorce. I just needed help in dealing with this. By this time we'd had another baby (two total). I thought we were good. I thought my husband had dealt with this problem of his.
Then, baby number three came along. Another confession. I started noticing a pattern. Sex was always extremely uncomfortable for me toward the end of my pregnancies, then there was the six week waiting period postpartum, and the fact that I wasn't getting enough sleep to want to even think about sex. I didn't know if I wanted anymore babies if he was going to be viewing porn and masturbating right after I had a baby.
With three babies, the home was getting a little louder, and it was getting harder for him to do his homework at home, so he started staying at school late into the night to get his homework done. I think there was another confession. My husband had completed his Bachelors program and received his degree. I was so proud of him. When our third child was 9 months old, he graduated and we took a trip to Disneyland without the kids. It was my first time, and he hadn't been since he was a kid.
When we got back, we felt that it was time to buy our first home and move. We moved an hour away from his work, which also meant an hour away from family. Except for his younger brother. The brother that he is really close to. The one he went into business with. We lived five miles away from them, but we were in the same ward, again (they had also lived behind the family business).
While we were waiting for our new home to be built, I got pregnant again. It was a very spiritual experience for me this time, finding out I was pregnant. Then came the first appointment with a new OB (we were moving too far away from my other OB). He did a vaginal ultrasound. He said, "Either you're not as far along as we thought, or it's an early miscarriage. Come back in two weeks, and we'll do another ultrasound."
Two weeks later, I went back to the OB, BY MYSELF (this is important, and I'll talk more about this later), and if I hadn't seen three previous early ultrasounds, I would have thought the doctor was lying. All that was there was an empty sac. I saw it with my own eyes. Where there had been an embryo two weeks before, there was now an empty sac. The doctor called it a blighted ovum. I just started bawling. I felt so alone. The doctor was super awesome and told me to take all the time I needed. He then asked if I wanted to call my husband to have him pick me up. I was in no condition to be driving safely, so I called my husband, and had him come pick me up. I ended up having a D and C because the my body did not abort the sac at all.
After we moved, and we had been there for about a year, my husband confessed again, and went to talk to the bishop. I think it was about the time I got pregnant with my fourth living child, and right around the time of a major car accident that the kids and I were involved in. The bishop in our new ward told my husband he need to go to the Addiction Recovery meetings. Addiction?!? This was the first time that it had been said about this problem. Then it dawned on my husband that it really was an addiction. It was nice to have a name for it, finally. It made sense that it was an addiction to him, and to me. My husband started attending these meetings sporadically, but it took him a few years to actually start working on recovery.
Six kids later, I finally started working on my recovery, and that opened up a whole can of worms, and crap hit the fan.
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