We are a Christian family with four kids, if you were to see us in church you would think that we have a great family, and we do. You would never guess that we have such a messed up story. We are white, middle class and both my wife and I were brought up in reasonably good homes. Ironically I now know that those things mean nothing.

We married young when we found out that my wife was pregnant, this is back in 1996. I started to have issues with internet porn, ever since we got the internet which would have been about 1998. In 2000 my wife caught me with my pants down, literally and our relationship was forever changed. I promised her I would never get back into porn, a promise I couldn't keep.

After staying away from porn for nearly a year I snapped and took the next step in my addiction which was to pay for sex. This continued for the next 7 years, acting out sexually 2-5 times a month.

Towards the end of my 7 years I decided that I was tired of paying for sex and I started looking online for a sexual partner for a casual relationship. This was what brought me to my end. Without the safety of the money to separate me from this woman, I felt very exposed. I saw her two times before my world crashed and I decided I couldn’t live with myself anymore.

I left my family and found a shared apartment. Over the next month our pastor worked with my wife and I and after a full month apart I confessed all of my sexual exploits to my wife. As much as she was hurt she desired for reconciliation and for me to come home.

I learned a lot about myself over the next year. I had a thirst to dig deep into my past and through reading and talking with others who had gone through similar addictions I learned some of the reasons why I did what I did.

For the next year and a half things seemed to go well and it seemed like we were healing, but I did start to notice that my wife was not really pursuing her own healing, and there were numerous out breaks of bitterness that would come out without warning. I also started to notice that she was drinking more and more. Alcohol wasn't a part of our marriage for the 12 years, but when I left my wife started drinking. Over the last year the drinking got worse and worse, she couldn’t feel normal unless she was drinking, she started hiding alcohol and lying about the amount that she drank.

Three months ago I started going to Alanon, they helped me to understand boundaries and how I didn’t have any with my wife. As I started to put these principles into practice my wife’s mental state deteriorated, eventually she agreed to go to an alcohol treatment center.

She went to the treatment center at the beginning of September as I became a single Dad of four which was a very scary journey for me. It was a big sacrifice but I was willing to make it for her if it would help her get better. She did well for the first two weeks but started getting very distant in during the following two weeks. It was discouraging but I was just looking forward to her coming home.

I picked her up October 2nd and noticed right away that things were not right, she was acting extremely strange, big smile pretending like everything was perfect. Later that day she got a phone call from the treatment center, they had found a note from a guy who was in the same group as my wife at the treatment center. In this note he had written her, he spoke of a sexual relationship that occurred during the last week of her stay. They told my wife that they would give her two days to tell me, otherwise they would inform me themselves. My wife confessed everything over the next couple hours. She had started crossing boundaries with this guy already in the second week of her stay. He sweet talked her, gave her the compliments that she desired to hear, and in the beginning of the fourth week their relationship turned sexual and continued for the next 7 days.

Needless to say I did not take this very well. I freaked out, I drove out to the treatment center to try to find the guy, not sure what I was going to do but I knew I wanted to hurt him. He was already on a plane back to his home town. Later that night I checked myself into the hospital and told them I was at risk for harming myself. They kept me there for a couple of hours and released me into the care of my pastor. Eventually I went home.

My wife stayed in our home for the next couple of nights until I found out that she was continuing to have contact with this guy and was making plans to be with him again. I kicked her out of our home on the 12th, she was very mad and took off to a friends house that she knew would support her in destructive behavior. She drank and got high with them. She says, and my prayer is that it is true, that through these events she has finally hit her bottom.

She has been living back at home with myself and the kids for the last 4 nights, things have been going well.
On Tuesday she took a pregnancy test, she is pregnant. I had a vasectomy about 4 years ago, the child is not mine.

Praise be to Jesus that through all of this I can abide in His peace. And with His strength I can start to try and figure out how to take to steps to heal myself so I can be the best father and husband I can be. Nobody said it would be easy, just that I wouldn't have to do it alone.