If you have not followed this blog for very long, you may want to check out these posts for context or more details before/after reading this one:

1. Why I Stopped Believing in God, Part One
2. The Most Harm, Part One (at least read this one first; it’s part one of this series)

I am still debating whether or not to share the entire story. Only a few know the entire thing. Most are given a watered down version of it. Looking back, I don’t think it is my fault, but I still blame myself.  Even on the days where I feel I have enough courage to post it, I think about my daughter and wonder how she would view her father and me if she knew the whole thing. Bob is still a decent father, though not perfect and there are many things he does (or doesn’t do) that I don’t like. I don’t want to hurt her or damage their relationship. But at the same time, he did what he did, and I don’t want to stay silent for the sole purpose of protecting him from his actions, so I will just write and see what I can and can’t share. I may eventually pull the post.

Note: the story does get a bit graphic, though I have tried to share it as tastefully as possible. Also, some names and revealing details have been changed. Finally, I apologize because the writing seems choppy to me. I did my best, but don’t know how to make this sound “pretty.”

Julieanne and me at church the summer before it all came apart.

The Most Harm, Part Two

In 2007, I was at a point in my life where I felt completely trapped, depressed, and hopeless in a never ending cycle of loneliness and pressure to do more, to be more. I wanted, needed a night to relax. I think Bob felt it, too. Because of this, I can understand how he failed, but I do not understand what prompted him to go further in doing what he later did. We both wanted a night away from the pressure. So we joined Bob’s friend Mark for dinner and drinks in Branson (we lived about an hour away in a dumpy little town at this point).  Bob encouraged me to relax and drink some more because I’d had it so rough. I had very little experience with alcohol (another religious idea), and only knew a little about my limits. Because we’d been drinking, we took a taxi to Mark’s to spend the night. I was pretty intoxicated, and the two of them helped me inside. I felt rather stupid, not having meant to become intoxicated, but simultaneously not caring as tired as I was from living underneath everyone’s microscope–my parents as a child and people in the church as an adult. I felt a sense of freedom I had never felt.  Even now, I don’t regret it. If you spend your entire life in a cage, even the most horrible consequences of freedom seem a small price to pay for a moment to fly.

We turned off the lights and went to bed. Bob, of course, decided to assert his husbandly prerogatives. In the middle, he decided it would be hot if someone watched, so he asked Mark. Apparently, he did not think that inviting someone else into the bedroom was hot enough, so climbed off. “Here Mark, you take a turn,” he offered. Mark happily acquiesced.

That’s all I remember from the hazy details of my mind. I remember wondering what he was doing, but not caring. I know I would never do that sober, not even now as an “evil atheist.” I also fully trust Steve to never put me in such a despicable situation like that.

That is about 95% of it. The part I just can’t write, it will be suffice to say that Bob planned the entire thing. My fault in it lies in that I suspected he planned it, but I never, ever expected it. He was my husband, a minister. I never thought he would do something like that. The betrayal I felt stung. I felt like he had given me away. A mutual friend later forwarded an email to me where he had told them that I had had an affair, and that is why I left.

I left him a month later. Why did it take me a month? I have no idea. The only thing I can say is that that is how little self respect I had. That and I didn’t realize it wasn’t normal. My parents never talked to me about sex beyond the basic mechanics. I didn’t know what people did or didn’t do in the privacy of their homes. I knew something was wrong with it, but I thought people on both sides of the coin would blame me for what happened: liberals would blame me for being prude, and conservatives would blame me for not knowing how to satisfy my husband in a purer way. I felt very ashamed and alone.

I also had to find money and the courage to leave when I knew I would have very little support in the Christian community (unless I told my story, but why in the world would I tell the little old ladies at church the intimate details of my sex life? And yes, I had several women tell me they couldn’t help me if I didn’t tell them exactly what happened. Bullshit!). It took me a month to find somewhere to go that would not separate me from my daughter or take me right back into another Christian community that would judge and condemn me for leaving my husband on top of all of my other shortcomings.

I left, and still cannot find a job. My dismal resume and lack of job references crushed my career opportunities. I am actually very good in my field, but I can’t find the most mediocre job in it. Being a stay at home mother for three years is no longer impressive to an employer. In my mother’s generation, it was possible to delay a career, then jump back into it once the children were older. Now, so many have college degrees that it is very difficult to start once leaving the work world for several years, unless you really do have some good experience. I did not. When I left my husband, I left all job references behind. I attended a Christian school, and lost some academic references there, too. I want to earn a higher degree in the interim of finishing medical school prerequisites and matriculating into medical school, but I am uncertain if I will be able to.

It was very hard to trust again. Trusting Steve is hard for me, but he has been very patient through it all.

More to come.

(Click here for part 3.)

This entry was posted on Friday, March 13th, 2009 at 4:06 am and is filed under Life in General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.