timeline

My childhood wasn’t terrible but I do not have memories of “being” happy. My first memory I am being molested by my grandfather. I don’t dwell on it but the memory has always been there and I’m sure it did something to my subconscious. Like, there was always a shame there I guess. And when I’m an adult, I find out that he molested other family members, including two of my brothers and nothing was ever done about it. It took me a while but I have forgiven him. I’m naturally a forgiving person so it wasn’t that hard to do.

As a teenager, I learn that money does not buy happiness… My father had his own business and made a decent living. I had material things when I lived with him but I did not have my father. And actually I feel abandoned by my father. He first abandoned me in middle school, not seeing me or my two brothers for two years, then again the summer before my senior year of high school, lying to me saying we were going to the grocery store but instead he takes me to the bus station and gives me a one-way ticket to Las Vegas where my mom lived, (probably why I can’t stand being lied to today). And then a few more times as an adult. I haven’t talked to my dad in a few years – partly my fault too because I haven’t called, because I feel rejected, and like a disappointment. I miss my dad though. I wish my dad was a part of my life and my kids lives. Maybe one day.

Eleventh grade, I have biology class and learn about abortion. My teacher brought in pamphlets on abortion that had pictures of babies torn apart. I decided then I would never get an abortion, not knowing I’d be pregnant the following year, which ultimately changes the course of my life. I know had I not learned this, I would have aborted my daughter without a thought.

Because of my father and his success of owning his own business (a commercial tire business that he started by himself with my stepmom doing the book-work -working by himself with one service truck, on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to having a shop with employees), because of his example of what could be achieved, I believed I too one day would be “successful”. I thought I was going to be a cosmetologist, own my own salon and have my own beauty products too! I didn’t even think about having a family. I didn’t dream of one day getting married and having kids. Those thoughts just were not in my head, however I knew I didn’t believe in abortion now.

So at 17 years old I’m in a new state and I’m pregnant and not together with the father -we broke up before I found out I was pregnant. I have no thoughts of killing my baby. I’m keeping it even though the father asked me to get an abortion. It would be nice if her father is in her life but I do not force it, this is my baby regardless. We are not together during most of my pregnancy, however, (unknowingly to me) after being pressured by his family to “do the right thing”, we do get back together at the end of my pregnancy and get married a few months later.

Eighteen years old, a mother, a wife… I had no clue.

I went from basically being a child to being a mother and a wife… 2 years prior I was not allowed to stay home by myself (at my father’s), and now I’m responsible for myself AND someone else, I’m responsible for keeping a whole other person alive!

Being a mom seems to come naturally though.

At first he, (my husband at the time and we will refer to him as X from here on out because I do not like to say his name or refer to him as my husband) he works doing construction making a decent living with benefits and I stay home with our daughter. He does not want me to work and I’m okay with that because I want to be with my baby. I do not think about the future and I don’t think about cosmetology.

I end up working in less than a year though to pay for a car we had to buy after his broke down. I end up working two jobs (at $5 an hour, this was 1993) and he is not working, because he quit, to create art (pictures sandblasted on mirror which he was really good at so I supported). The problem was that he wasn’t trying to get work after he had sold a couple of pieces, and if you aren’t getting work then you aren’t making money, and if you aren’t making money, we can’t pay bills and that’s a problem. I can’t afford diapers and that’s a problem. And we’re living with his parents.

One of my jobs is at a 24 hour daycare center where I work the grave yard shift. Well guess who works in the middle of the night in Las Vegas! That’s right, Strippers!! And these strippers are driving up in BMW’s and Mercedes, and I think to myself -if they can afford that kind of car then I’m sure I could afford diapers. So I tell X that if he does not get a job then I am going to go strip. Well…a month past by and he didn’t so I did. He didn’t think I would do it. I’m not a talker, I’m a doer… I don’t say I’m going to do something if I’m not going to…

The first night I have to audition (and I did it completely sober because I did not drink or do drugs) and they ask me to stay and “work”. X says if I stay he wants a divorce. He had never said that to me before so I believed him and I chose to provide for my daughter over him. I made more in one night at the club than I did all week at my other jobs!!

But somehow I ended up cheating on him that night, (after work with one of the managers). I cried while it was happening because I couldn’t believe I was cheating.

The next night X tells me that if I go to the club he will not be home when I get home, and I believed him again. Well I go to “work” and after work I end up cheating again. I get home and he is there. The next night he says the same thing, but I still go to work and end up cheating again (with the same person). I get home and he is still there. The next night the same thing. I realize he is not going anywhere so I tell him. “I cheated on you.”

He says, “I cheated too. I thought I wanted a divorce, but I don’t, I love you.”

We separated a few months later but stayed married for nearly nine years, in an on and off sick, dysfunctional relationship full of infidelity on both sides resulting in me having two sons by two other men (AND of a different race) -but he was their father, even carrying his last name. We never, not him nor I ever once said anything about him not being their father. He was their father. And when we’d get “back together”, I wouldn’t strip. I’d just end up stripping again because he kept quitting his jobs.

The problem with staying was that he was very verbally abusive. And even became physical at times. The hard part about leaving was that he was the only one there for me when I got pregnant with my second child. Like… my son may not be here if it weren’t for X. I had an appointment for an abortion because everyone, including the father turned their backs on me. And actually, we got back together (after a year+ separation) when I got pregnant with my second child. But it wasn’t enough to stay, he was too abusive.

We separate for the last time in August 2000 and I have everything. I have the kids, the house, the vehicle, and even his pit-bull. I had it all because the house was in my mothers name and he couldn’t kick ME out this time.

And then I lost it all. I lost it all within a year. I lost it all because of drugs. I made the choice to use drugs because I gained 11 pounds. Because of the drugs I stopped going on stage at work which is why I made a good chunk of my money (because it was advertisement) and I started gambling… a bad combinations.

I knew better! I did not do drugs and I didn’t gamble. But because of the verbal abuse, I made dumb choices. Because I was called a fat B****, a fat C***, a fat whore for years (even though I only weighed 115 lbs.), when I gained eleven pounds I saw fat, I saw roundness.

I know, ridiculous. Huh.

But the drugs didn’t even work! I didn’t lose weight! (Probably because of all the Long Islands I drank at work.) I lost everything else though including myself. I had to give up custody of my kids because X filed first, and we both were using drugs and if I fought, I was afraid my kids would be taken from both of us and put in the system -something that never would have happened had I not used drugs.

I thought about killing myself. I did not want to live. How could I let this happen? Not only did I lose everything, especially my kids but I ended up a prostitute, giving my money to pimps. I thought about ways I could take my life without it looking like suicide, like a car accident or something. I didn’t want X to tell my kids that their mom killed herself. I did not want them to feel like they were not enough for me to live for because they were all I lived for. I thought my kids were better off without me though.

I fell and I didn’t know how to pick myself up. I didn’t know how to fix what I had messed up… my life.

But God had a plan and already had the meeting set up.

April 1, 2002 was that day! Eight months after my divorce, I met Eric, my husband now for 16 years!

This man walks into my life and wants to love me despite my faults and failures. I have nothing to offer him but me and that’s enough for him. He loves me so good. I literally can feel his love. I feel loved and wanted. AND he tells me Jesus loves me, which did something to me. He loves me and he’s not going to let me self- destruct.

Everything changes for the better but I am unaware of the storm ahead. I am unaware that I will be fighting the biggest fight of my life -a fight for my sanity, a fight for my salvation, a fight for my faith for what I’ve come to believe.

So I met Eric at the Oakland Airport where he was working. (I flew in for a week to “work” for my first sons biological father who is a pimp -thinking he’d make sure I was taken care of since I had his son, we had stayed in touch). We meet and he insists on helping me with my “baggage”. He persists to get my number. I give it to him but I tell him not to call me for a week. He put my number aside, away from all the other numbers he would collect throughout the days. He hung on to my number and called me exactly a week later. (If that wasn’t God…) And May 15th we’re moving in together. This man moves from another state to be with me… me…

Life as I knew it changed. I was working a regular job within 7 months at the McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas with Eric, runnin’ bags to TSA for $8 an hour, and I was HAPPY.

AND I had sole custody of my sons within a year of meeting this man. Thank God I didn’t kill myself!

I never planned on taking my sons from X, he was their father. But he became not a good father. He would use my kids to hurt me and control me and Eric wasn’t haven it. And a situation happened and X told me I could keep the boys and change their last name and so that’s what I did. And I’ve never regretted it.

The layers pile on here… a lot happens… good and bad… because you see, God was doing something here and the devil was and has been trying to destroy it. (I believe)

So something major happens in the first year Eric and I are together. We have a huge fight and we break up (for a day). Like, my stepdad came and moved all of my stuff out and tried to forbid me to see him because it happened with my kids there. We basically break up only for a day because he pursues me and doesn’t want to lose me and I don’t want to lose him -he is amazing, we did have an amazing relationship… but I don’t move back in with the kids until I get sole custody of my boys a few months later. The major thing is that I was late. My period was late. I don’t wait, I take a test and it comes back positive!! F***!!! I can not have another baby when I don’t even have my other kids, and I don’t know what’s going to happen with this relationship. If we do not stay together, I’m sure he’d go back to Cali. Before the fight it wasn’t even a thought but I don’t hesitate, I get an abortion and he doesn’t stop me. And I’m devastated. I couldn’t believe I killed my baby. I was only six weeks, I didn’t tear my baby apart in pieces but I still killed my baby and I’m devastated.

However life does have to goes on… I couldn’t let that bring me back down. I’ve come to think maybe I had to go through that to have compassion for others that have had to make that decision.

We move past it. We’re liven life and working at the airport together. Life is good, I got my boys back and about nine months after the abortion I end up pregnant again. We get married at the courthouse on December 15, 2003 and our son was born the following June. We didn’t have a wedding because I couldn’t smile. I couldn’t smile because I was missing a tooth. The tooth next to my front tooth was a crown and it broke off so I was like no way are we going to have a wedding and he was like you’re not having my baby while you still have your exes last name so we just went to the courthouse.

My daughter stops seeing me after I take custody of her brothers. I don’t force her to come visit at first, not thinking weeks would go by and weeks would turn into months and months would turn into three years. I saw my daughter three times in three years. From the time she was eleven to fourteen, I saw my daughter three times and only because my mom would pick her up for a visit and bring her to me. That was extremely hard for me because we did not have a bad relationship.

Soooo…. come to find out my husband has a gift, a talent making music. He’s a drummer and he learns how to produce music. He sets up a studio in the home and has artists come over and records.

I’m like whaaaaat….he’s pretty talented. I hear him create beats starting with one sound, then he adds another, and another, then another, then he’ll put a breakdown in the beat – then someone will spit somethin’ on it and then he’ll mix it together and ta-da there’s a song.

2005 he has a group that opens for Lil’ Wayne in Las Vegas!! And then the next night they open for D’wayne Wiggins in California!! I thought they were about to be at the BET awards and Sh**. Like… I really thought that was about to happen. I thought they were that good.

Well everything fell apart. Eric lost his job (for the second time) and the struggle begins. No job equals no income and with no income, no studio. No one was paying for studio time, not a dime. And the group fell apart.

I wasn’t working for a couple of reasons. First, I ended up on bed-rest when I was pregnant taking a medical leave and I never went back because Eric was making good money, and shoooot… I thought we were about to be doin’ somethin’ else, he was about to “Make It” with his music. Plus my teeth, I couldn’t smile!! For some reason my teeth quickly rotted and I lost other teeth. Where I once had a nice smile and could show how “happy” I was, I lost that. Not being able to smile and laugh for 2 1/2 years did something to me. But before Eric lost his job, he was able to pay for me to get my smile fixed.

I try looking for a job but I have no luck so I go back to what I know, the strip club. Eric doesn’t mind, he actually likes it. He likes that other men find HIS woman attractive. He likes that other men will pay me $20 for 3 minutes. The problem was… that he said, I would not go back there as long as I was with him, but here I was going back so I started to have resentment towards my husband.

I strip for a year and then switch to serving cocktails when my business licence expired. Eric works on his music with other artists, doing a couple of local shows with one artist (that was on the first Flavor of Love show) but she sucked on stage, so that didn’t go anywhere. Eric didn’t know to speak up to help make her better (and neither did I).

The struggle continues… It is now 2006, I am working as a waitress and at first it is good. I’m making better money until they change management and start over staffing and sending people home early. Eric isn’t working a job because he’s working on his music but I’m not making enough so we have to move again -for like the sixth time since we’ve been together. We have to move into my mom’s (which her house was my house that I lost, remember it was in her name… I lost the house but she didn’t.)

We were only supposed to stay a few months but we end up living there for nearly two years because I end up losing my job. We’re living in what use to be my daughters room and the boys are in their old room.

My daughter moves back with me. It is so bad at her fathers (who is an addict now) that she comes back to me. I’m so happy to have her back but she’s not my little girl anymore, she is now a teenager and does not want to respect my husband so needless to say there becomes conflict. He doesn’t know how to deal with a teenager who is rejecting him and disrespecting him (and me) so his response to her makes the situation that much worse and now I’m lookin’ at him differently. She goes back to her dads a couple of times, she runs away a couple of times and then she ends up at my moms (in 2009 after we already moved out) ending up pregnant at the same age I was when I got pregnant with her. I contemplate leaving my husband (in 2008) because of my daughter but I had to consider my other children, I couldn’t leave because of one child that is about to be out of the house but destroy the other kids lives.

In 2007 Eric goes back to California to get his job back at the Oakland Airport because he couldn’t find work in Vegas. And while there, he was going to work on his music with the people he originally started doing music with. The problem was, some of their lifestyles and the people that were around, they were using drugs and he didn’t want to be around that so he didn’t get much recording done.

During the time my husband is in California I read a couple of books that affected me, that made me think differently. One book was A Purpose Driven Life which made me realize God has a purpose for me, for my life and I needed to live for that purpose on purpose. And the other book was Just Like Jesus which let me know that God loves me the way I am but He wants me to be just like Jesus… loving, righteous, kind… everything that Jesus is.

At the end of 2008 Eric gets a job again at the airport in Vegas and moves back and brings one of his cousins that does music also. We get a big house together but nothing works out. Eric isn’t working the position (skycap) where he makes good money (tips), his cousin isn’t working AND they ain’t doin’ nothin’ with the music and we all move out in less than a year. I try getting another job but there is now a recession and thousands of people are getting laid off.

So… I go back to what I know, the club. But only for a year (the length of the business licence) because I can’t stand it anymore, God has been changing me and showing me things like I’m helping men sin. I’m a temptation. So needless to say I’m not really making much money. I’ve started writing my book already so when I quit the club, I think I’m just going to finish my book and get it published. I did not think about it not getting published. I didn’t even consider that.

2009 we move and Eric does not set up his studio. He keeps all his music equipment packed in the garage.

What I believed was going to happen was becoming a fading dream.

Everything that I thought was going to happen had not so I had to figure out what I was doing with my life because I thought I was going to be helping my husband somehow on the business end of his music. And I thought I was about to be a Pastor’s wife because my husband said he wanted to be a pastor like his father. Eric was nowhere close to being a pastor.

I have always believed that God put this man in my life for a reason, and not just for me to have a man. I believe God put this man in my life for something greater than ourselves.

2009 my mom leaves her (4th) husband. I thought he would have got mad and left the state but he didn’t. He was devastated and clung to the family. He and I became closer and he’d always watch Joyce Meyer and he’d tell me to watch Joyce Meyer.

Even though I believed something now, I wasn’t reading the Bible or listening to Preachers until my stepdad pressured me enough and I finally watched Joyce Meyer. I ended up recording the episode I watched and started recording all of them. I was hooked. I was hungry! I was hungry for the word of God. I wanted more. I had to know more. I found T.D. Jakes also and liked him and started recording and watching him too. I also came across another ministry called Marriage Today that helped save our marriage by saving our sex life. I stayed watching the “church” channels.

After basically getting spoon fed the word of God for a few years, I kept seeing the same message every night about the Battlefield of the Mind, with Joyce Meyer and I kept hearing “you have to read the Bible for yourself.” She kept saying “you have to read and study the Bible for yourself”…

So in 2012 I read the whole New Testament. I read The New Testament to know about Jesus. I had started to read The Old Testament back in 2007 but I did not finish. I read it to know what it says. I had no idea it was going to affect me. I had no idea it was going to change everything. As I read -I was like… Oh! I’m suppose to be like this… and Oh!…we’re suppose to be like that… I wanted that… I wanted to be like that… like Jesus. I thought that’s what WE were about to be…

I was already a cool a** chic, until… until I’m triggered and then… And then I’m not so cool. I cannot deal with lies and manipulation. See normally I would just remove myself, leave… but I can’t. And that makes me angry. I become angry about this situation. I have a bad temper now, because I cannot leave. And I hate it!… I have rage!! I have destructive and abusive rage. I did not want this! I did not want to get married again! I did not want to have more kids!! I did not want it because I did not want to lose it! I did not want a divorce again!

However…

The first scripture that spoke to me… that stood out to me was, Luke 1:37 – For nothing is impossible with God.

God became real to me. I met my heavenly Father. I met Jesus!

My faith was growing and I was changing. I was believing in something that is real, not imaginary.

Another scripture I read was exactly how I felt -Acts 20:24 However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me -the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.

As I was changing my marriage was changing as I thought it would, but it wasn’t changing for the better. We started fighting about me loving him or I should say not loving him. Yeah you read that right. Did that make sense? Didn’t make sense to me neither. After TEN years MY HUSBAND is trying to TELL me that I DON’T love him! Ummm…yes I do.

But really what was going on was… he was deflecting. And he was/is so good at it that it seems that our problems are his complaints. It seems like what we fight about is his problem with me, like me not loving him, and then we were fighting about me working, because I wasn’t working. You see, I’d confront him on something and he would turn it on me… and next thing I know we are fighting about me not loving him and then it turned into “get a job”. I didn’t feel I needed to get a job as he was now making around $2,000 a week… again!! Yes per week! He is working as a skycap again…

I didn’t realize I was seeking The Lord. I had a one track mind. It was like I had tunnel vision and all I wanted to see was Jesus! I didn’t want to seek a job. And I want to be a good mom and good wife… And pursue Jesus.

2013… I take two trips to Hawaii, by myself. It was suggested by one of my four sister-in-laws that I get away and my husband said maybe I should. Maybe I should go visit my brother in Hawaii. I was like… you’d let me go? You wouldn’t mind if I go to Hawaii by myself? I was shocked. And I was surprised that he suggested my brother but I went and it was a BIG deal for me to go. At least for me it was, because I never went anywhere -much less across the ocean. I never left my kids -that are now 17, 14 and 8. My daughter is grown and doesn’t live with me however she does end up living/ staying with me/us a few times in the coming years as she kinda follows in my footsteps.

I call my brother (this is my younger brother by my stepmom) and he was like heck yeah you can come out here and I’ll pay for half of it. And so I went for nine days. I felt loved and wanted by my brother whom I hadn’t seen since I was a teenager, with the exception when his girlfriend found me through my daughter on Facebook in 2009. They didn’t want me to leave, they tried to get me to stay longer.

I thought me being gone would have done something. But it didn’t. A few days after I got back, I found myself downstairs crying while my husband was upstairs asleep. I thought to myself, I’m going back to my brothers and I’m not coming back until I feel ready to come back.

It was liberating going the first time. I got out of my box and I was around people that weren’t being demanding of me and criticizing me or judging me. I told my husband the next morning that I was going to go back. This time I told him, I didn’t need his permission.

Little did I know something was up. I had no idea what was about to happen. The devil was gonna try to get me. I don’t know how else to put it.

So….. I go back to Hawaii! But I was only going for 3 1/2 weeks because my two younger sons birthdays were coming up (and mine) and they wanted me to be home so I agreed. I figured 3 1/2 weeks should be good, that oughta do it. That oughta do something to this family.

Well…. like I said… little did I know…

So I am in Hawaii and my husband and I are still arguing and I tell him if things were going to be the same then I was not going to come back. And then he got suspended from work and he was scared he was going to get fired so I was really going to stay out there because I was working with my brother and his girlfriend making money. Well….

I end up getting into it with my brother and his girlfriend! For two days! I was shocked! Where I just felt safe suddenly I felt unsafe, not physically but emotionally. I saw another side of them two. It was like being a teenager again back with my dad and stepmom. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough but my flight wasn’t for another week and a half and I couldn’t change my flight. The only way to get home was to buy another ticket so I made Eric buy me a ticket. I took a cab to the airport and left. They did not even know I left because they weren’t home.

See when it comes down to it, he does have my back. We do/ did have an amazing relationship. He’ll do anything for me. He once protected me and wanted to take care of me, the fighting comes from him sabotaging the relationship and when I confront him he flips it. Like I haven’t even been able to tell you all the ways he’s sabotaged because the focus turned on me, so…

While I am on the plane, Eric finds out he is fired! OH SH**!!! Rent is $1,750.00 a month!

Well I gotta get a job now. Right? So I try. Not aggressively, but I try. But I don’t feel led to work outside of the home. I can’t really explain it but it depresses me looking for a job, putting my attention towards something other than what I want, literally brings me down and gives me anxiety. Also I want to be home available for my kids. My daughter is already grown with a kid, but my 2 older sons are in high school about to graduate and I do not want to miss the last few years that I have left with them like I feel I did all the past years. But I end up missing a year anyway.

I read the Bible and Jesus said “Follow Me” and that’s what I was trying to do. I was trying to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit (I now realize). God says to put Him (God) first and that’s what I was trying to do but my husband wanted me to put him first. He wanted me to put money first, making money and providing first, which I get. I totally understand, because I did it for years! However… I read in the Bible -Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean NOT on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your path straight. -Proverbs 3:5,6. So I didn’t lean on my own understanding, even though I didn’t understand I trusted God.

The Bible also says… Jesus said, “Therefor I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” -Matthew 6:25,26

I start calling different ministries. I wanted to help females in the sex industry somehow. A little naive, I thought doors were going to open. They didn’t. But I was told about a safe house in Vegas that was already helping women and I should contact them. I did and they had me fill out a volunteer application and then an employment application. I was so excited because I did want to work, I just did not want to work just any job. But I was not offered a position.

So now me “not working” really became a problem. Eric did get another job driving limos but the income was nothing like it was at the airport. We moved into a cheaper house but we still struggled to pay the bills. We got a five day notice and I panicked and went back to the club. I trusted God but what if He doesn’t make a way and we get kicked out, I didn’t want to be the blame.

I couldn’t do it though. After about a month, Eric said, “Maybe you need to go into the program.” I thought the same thing. This program at this safe house was a year long program and at the end of it I’m supposed to have a job, a new career -hopefully working at the safe house. It is a faith based program and going to church is part of the program which I’m happy about because I want to go to church, I need to be in the house of God. I want to be around other believers. A year is a long time but time is going by fast and I figured what is a year if I could be a new person (since I was the problem) with a new career. It had already been a year since I went to Hawaii.

So I leave my family for a year! I go into this program (that I had to apply to and get accepted) that is a year long and it’s like a jail, a luxury jail, but jail. I only get two fifteen minute (outgoing) phone calls a day and there is no smoking or drinking, which is good because I want to quit. I get visits with my family but I’m away for a year. A year should be enough time for my family to miss me, to see my worth, to value me… right? My husband said he was going to “Man Up” and work on himself and work on being a better father.

But none of that happened. After a couple of months I was questioning why I was in this program. I didn’t need to be in this program. I needed marriage counseling. I didn’t have a pimp! Hadn’t had one for over ten years. I wasn’t in “the game”. So I tried to go home but my husband didn’t want me to come home. He started questioning if he even wanted to stay married to me!

What was supposed to be a time of healing and growth turned into a nightmare. I was devastated and pissed the F*** off and there was nothing I could do -BUT TRUST GOD. If I did leave and go home it just would have been worse than when I left, so I stayed. I felt abandoned by my husband. Staying was the hardest thing I have ever done. I still do not understand why God opened the door for me to go into the program but not to have a job there.

The year goes by and I’m finally home and I am so excited to be home with my family, and my husband was more than ready for me to come home. I do not have a job but I have a new attitude. And I have a couple “hook-ups” for a job so I will be working soon – if that’s God’s plan. I feel like a new person (no thanks to the program, all Glory to God) and I’m motivated and looking forward to the future. I cook meals nearly every night. I clean, not that I wasn’t doing all that before however now I’m doing it with a good attitude. I even “take care” of my husbands needs nearly every day, and the way he likes it. But that is not enough and we fight all the time about me getting a job. My new attitude soon turns to depression.

After about six months of being home I become depressed and stop cooking and cleaning so much. Nothing changed. In fact I’d say things got worse. When I got home, it was like I didn’t even leave, like I wasn’t gone for a Year!

Who was doing the dishes when I was gone? Not me. Who was doing the cooking and cleaning when I was gone? Not me, so why am I doing IT ALL now? I was getting treated like… well you’re the one that wants to stay home… so…you do it. Do it all and go get a job too.

To make matters worse or more complicated, or more devastating for me, I become pregnant! In the past few years I gave my life to Christ and had decided when it was time to take out my ten year IUD (birth control), I was going to put “it” in God’s hands. I have a miscarriage but end up pregnant again a few months later. (We have a very active sex life, always have.) I’m happy about it but it was a horrible pregnancy because my husband didn’t want it, and therefor payed no attention to me or our baby during the pregnancy.

He loves his son now. He’s loved him since he was born, he just didn’t want anymore kids because of money, because of the circumstances. And we don’t just have the one, God blessed me with another son two years later and that was a horrible pregnancy too.

I felt so blessed. I once thought I was going to die a prostitute but here I am with a family. I was supposed to be happy but my husband was ruining it.

Over the years my marriage progressively got worse. The dynamic of our relationship changed and my marriage became everything why I did not want to get married again.

I found myself living a F***ing nightmare. I came to hate my husband and the man he became. I hate our relationship. And I hate the way he makes me feel now! I definitely do not feel loved. I feel like I’m nothing. I have zero value to my husband. He appreciates nothing about me. He once made me feel like I was the best thing since sliced bread and now I feel like nothing. I once felt like he put me on a pedestal. He gave me a different type of confidence, but now I feel defeated, beat down, and tore up, not good enough, a disappointment, unappreciated, sad, and angry…

BUT I HAVE HOPE!!!

I have hope because The Bible says He Who began a good work in me will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. -Philippians 1:6. It also says to consider it pure joy whenever we face trials of many kinds, because the testing of our faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that we may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. -James 1:2-4

I can do all things through Christ Who gives me strength. -Philippians 4:13

The old Amy would have left… in a heartbeat. Because the old Amy didn’t deal with crap. You cannot talk to me anyway you want. And, you don’t want to be with me? Bye! I knew rejection and I didn’t let myself get rejected… bye, you can’t reject me because if you don’t want to be around me, you do not have to be, I will remove myself. And I do not deal with lies and manipulation, OR cheating!

Why do I stay? Why can’t I leave?

Because I refuse to let the devil win. And God won’t let me.

Who is this man that I am married to? He changed.

I don’t understand how I give my life to Christ and change myself (because I’m the problem, right) and things get worse. I don’t understand that my husband doesn’t understand my faith walk. He is a Christian. He grew up in the church, he should understand. And he should be supportive and leading me but he’s not… At least not yet…

So here we are now 2019!!!!!!! WOW!!!! We almost got a divorce! But we didn’t. Thank God because I still have my family, and my family still has their family.

We weathered the storm. The nightmare appears to be over. I believe I am getting my husband back! I think we are coming out of this wilderness and coming into agreement (aka getting on the same page). And you will witness what God is doing here and how He works it all together for good. I hope.

So these are some of the things that happened… And with all that said, my take on it is… The devil tried it!! The devil, my real enemy, our real enemy tried to destroy Gods plan. He tried it… from my kids to the finances, infidelity… yes he cheated on me after 15 years. The devil who only comes to kill, steal and destroy would have succeeded had God not saved me and changed me, had I not trusted Him throughout the years.

No weapon forged against me shall prevail. -Isaiah 54:17

From my understanding, my perspective is this… From the beginning my husband self sabotaged our relationship because he didn’t think he deserved me (I was his dream girl) and he thought that I’d be the one to get him back for all the things he did to other women (that’s what he said). He self sabotaged in ways like getting a females phone number to “see what I would do” (so he says) (after we were married), and throughout the years I’d find him texting females in a way a Christian married man should not, but what was I supposed to do? Leave? I couldn’t leave because he called another woman sexy, that’s lame. And I learned from the past not to leave in the heat of a fight. I have been faithful to this man, not cheating… not once.

And what I’ve come to realize is that our enemy, the devil was deceiving my husband through his perception of me. In the first so many years my husband was not getting what he “wanted” from me sexually so that made him think that I didn’t care. He wasn’t deprived by any means but he wasn’t getting it the way he wanted so he told himself that I didn’t care. It wasn’t because I didn’t care, it was because of my past. And then because I haven’t had a “job” to help financially, he’s thought it’s because I didn’t care but of course I care… it’s just how the cookie crumbled.

So all these years he has been convincing himself that I don’t care. Or what I’ve been saying… the enemy has been telling him that I don’t care and he’s believed it -because why would you tell yourself that? I looked up the definition and I come to realize there was deception through his perception of me. I have been defending myself against lies. And I’ve had to defend myself for my faith… for the choices I’ve made.

And another deception… my husband says he quit his music because he “thought” I was with him because of the money I thought he was going to make some day.

WWWWWWWhat??

How can you convince yourself of that? And if you thought that about me how could you stay with me? If that was his reality, why did he stay with me?

All this is crazy to me. I genuinely love this man because I chose to. This is the man that God put in my life and I chose to love him for life, for better or worse. But now my perception of things… I’m like I cannot live like this. I cannot live a lie. I cannot live feeling the way I feel.

However I do not make life altering decisions on my feelings. Feelings change. I live by what I know and I know that God is faithful. I know He works everything together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose -Romans 8:28. AND God wins. The devil doesn’t win in the end, God does… so I hang on to my faith and trust God. And push forward with what I’m being led to do – even though I have no idea what I’m doing. Haha…

Not sure what kind of a picture I painted but that’s that…