In June of 2019, I asked my husband, who I will refer to as H, to go to counseling to deal with some anger management issues that were coming out at our son who was 7 years old at the time. He agreed. I found a licensed professional Christian counselor recommended by a trusted LPC & longtime friend of my mom. She recommended Jane, and H began weekly counseling.
Things seemed to be improving, but at the end of September 2019 a new wrinkle surfaced– I accidentally discovered an email with 4 porn websites….1st time in 14 years of marriage.
I disclosed my discovery to H, and his reaction mortified me. He told me that he tried to commit suicide with sheets in our bedroom closet. I called H’s counselor and met with her 1x.
H assured me he had no issues with porn and was most certainly not going to repeat the closet escapade again. He convinced me that he was “just like any normal man who had looked at it a handful of times.” He told me to look up the statistics, and I did. His counselor confirmed that this hadn’t been an issue in their counseling, and that was the end of that.
In June 2020 H asked me to go to counseling with him. I was puzzled but happily agreed. I thought “things were fine” between us—not great but fine, but realized he had a need for me to go, so I wanted to meet that need.
In our first session together, Therapist Jane did a “trust” assessment. I said, “I trust H 8 or 9 in all areas, except “porn use” and that was around a 5, but he had told me he had no issues and I believed him, and I was just working on building trust by reading some books and articles. It turned out that my trust of H was much higher than his “trust” of me. I was quite puzzled, and he expressed even more puzzlement over my high rating of trust in him. All of this was indeed confounding and a bit disturbing.
We were on lockdown for the summer due to the onset and surge of Covid 19, and I had tons of time on my hands- unlike every other summer where I was a very active volunteer at church camps.
Since I had time, I dove in to solve a long-time problem that H “couldn’t figure out”– why me and my mom’s phone shared notes…it was the most baffling thing, but I hadn’t given it too much thought. Too save my parents’ money, we had added them into our family plan per H’s recommendation.
I tried to call the phone company, and I was not able to access my phone account due to my phone, my mom’s phone, and my dad’s phone being named “H.” I was nowhere on the account. H didn’t even have a phone with AT&T because work provided his phone. This made NO sense to me. Again, I was quite puzzled…and a bit disturbed.
After I got added to the account, I found out that all 3 of our phones shared an Apple ID with H, and that he had access to share notes, messages, phone calls, location, and photos …I HAD NO IDEA…for 14 years. I had been “sharing”…I was even more puzzled and quite disturbed.
A few mornings later, I woke up startled with 2 words on my mind…”bank account.” If I had no access to my phone account, did I have access to my bank account?
I called the bank. I…had…no…access…I was a member on his account but had no authorization to access it. Apparently, when we married, I was “added” to an account that H and his mother shared. Again…I had…no…idea…that we “shared”, and for how long? The bank only keeps records 8 years back…so I will never know. Another peculiar thing is that my “signature card” which is required to join was missing. They had no actual record of me joining. This was no small banking system…Bank of America.
I then thought car. Do I own my car? Nope. The names on both cars were, as you guessed it, “H.”
Credit card? Nope, I didn’t have access to that either. In fact, my card number was the same exact number as his number. I didn’t even know that was possible.
Then there was discovery of another online bank account with a sizeable amount…that I…was…not…even…listed on.
This was just the beginning of what will forever be remembered as 2020- the year COVID-19 took the world by storm, and the year our marriage was taken by storm—a year of decimation, destruction, and discovery of what I thought was a stable, solid, and secure marriage….
The year of discovery brought out a new side to H I had never seen. It was as if I opened pandora’s box, and with each discovery that I brought out in our counseling session, a new manifestation of H shockingly exploded out of the box like the vintage toy where the melodious song “Pop Goes the Weasel” dribbles on…then “POP” goes the weasel. That popping continued incessantly throughout the year. I never knew when, I never knew how. I just knew out of the melodious song of life, the eruption would come aggressively forth and seize every moment of peace with each question, with each discovery, with each new unveiling of “truth.”
You see, I have a Ph.D. and am a very thorough researcher, so my investigative researching skills were very effective in unveiling secret after secret after secret when put into practice. I had never seen the need to utilize my skills in our marriage, because I did not know to look for it. When I realized that things were not as they appeared I began to dig deeper, and with each unveiling, another piece of the onion was peeled back. The layers were 14 years deep, so once my eyes became opened, I searched frantically for the truth, a truth that refused to be told by his lips and would only be found by my very skillful detective work that was matched with a master of deception.
This was not the life that I had imagined, or I had dreamed of. This was no fairytale with a happy ending. What I then faced was something I had never faced, nor will I ever forget. During the discovery period I lived in a relationship seeped in emotional and verbal cruelty. It was an utter shock to my very naive and trusting nature. At one point my counselor asked me to stop my “investigating tendences” and “mute myself.” She also asked me to make safety plan, hide a set keys, and pack a bag .
After I had devoted an entire year (June 2020-May 2021) to “Christian marriage counseling” with Therapist Jane, I recognized the futility of it all and the sheer danger for me to continue with my countless questions and endless investigations. I chose to accept Therapist Jane’s advice to “mute” myself and discontinue my detective work, and with that I graciously withdrew from counseling.
I went into counseling full of faith, hope, and love, and I came out a year later disheveled, shell-shocked, having no idea who I married and to whom I had been married to for 14 years. I went in fully expressing myself, fully questioning, fully trusting…and I came out scared to question, silent, muted, and walking on eggshells.
My life as I new it was over. In a moment, in a flash, everything that I thought was true was gone. My entire 14 years married to this man and the 6 years knowing him prior to marriage formed what I thought was a beautiful, solid vase, full of labor, love, built with aged cracks due to what I considered normal striving and struggling and suffering and sifting together…
“The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.” Proverbs 27:12
