Proverb 2:16-18
Wisdom will save you from the adulterous woman,
    from the wayward woman with her seductive words,

who has left the partner of her youth
    and ignored the covenant she made before God.
 
Surely her house leads down to death
    and her paths to the spirits of the dead.

My husband said recently that everything he reads and everything he hears people say is that he will face temptation and he will more likely than not, mess up again. Even though he feels strong, resilient and determined at the moment.

It’s the same for me. Every thing i read and every word I listen to, as friends and family who care for me tell me he will fail again and lapse into his addiction.

So why do i want to reconcile?

• Because the alternative is not an option for me.
• Because i cannot give up hope in my husband committing himself to conquering his failings and being honest and truthful for the rest of his life.
• Because God hasn’t finished with him ~ then neither have I.

The past twelve months have been the worst and the best for both of us.

Almost four weeks have passed since we made our reconciliation official.

In these few short weeks i have missed a huge part of my husbands character. It feels incredibly weird without its presence.

It makes me feel redundant from a long running role i have functioned in and managed with a nervous strain of anxiety.

The Grey One is seemingly gone from his life and therefore, gone from mine too. This feels wonderful, but i feel his loss in such a way that life is uncluttered without rubbish. The days are lighter and brighter and unusually whole.

Not one secret has sabotaged us and the weight of a hidden identity is no longer carried underneath the surface of an outward apparel.

All kinds of explanations and questions run through my head as they have in the past when change has been promised.

In the past i knew the changes were fragile and were more of a wish than a want for change.

I do still question and will for a period of time i am certain. 

• Has he learned new behaviours to keep the Grey One from my sights?
• Is he practicing virtual loyalty rather than practicing actual loyalty?
• Lies have been an integral defence in his life ~ Have they gone? Or are they only sleeping?
• Is he dissacociating?

There will be no room for lies and secrets of the Grey One’s behaviours in my life again.

I have changed ~

I do not have a secret compartment now ~

except for good secrets of course.

I have limitless access to all his devises and if he calls me to look at something on his computer screen, as usual i still scan the top line to see what windows are open. Nothing alarming has appeared ~ So far so good.

A friend of my parents who i don’t know very well recently told me he had a dream about my husband and me…

He (my husband) was sitting in a green field, blooming with colour from a meadow of beautiful flowers. A lake was in front him and a boat moored on his side of the lake.

He was looking across to the other side of the waters and the grass looked green and inviting. He got into the boat and sailed to the other side.

Then in the dream he was sat looking from the opposite side at what he had left behind and saw that it was far more beautiful and valuable. He wanted to go back because he knew that was where he really wanted to be.

When he got to the waters edge the boat had drifted away ~ back to the other side.

There is no way back he remorses to himself with regret that he had left.

The I got in the boat and sailed to the other side to bring him home.

well there it is…

I pray the boat has gone ~ and the lake has got wilder, wider and deeper ~ impassable…

 

 

 

 

“I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free” Nina Simone

I wish I could share
All the love that’s in my heart
Remove all the bars
That keep us apart
I wish you could know
What it means to be me
Then you’d see and agree
That every man should be free

I wish I could give
All I’m longin’ to give
I wish I could live
Like I’m longin’ to live
I wish I could do
All the things that I can do
Though I’m way overdue
I’d be starting anew.

Well I wish I could be like a bird in the sky
How sweet it would be
If I found I could fly
I’d soar to the sun
And look down at the sea
And I sing ’cause I know
How it feels to be free

My Husband has played this Song over and over almost every day this year. He told me that he would cry tears as he listened to the words in his desperation to be free.

He played it to me while we were waiting for food to be served at a restaurant about ten weeks ago. The tears poured down his face as we listened to the words.

He confessed that he deeply regretted that he didn’t look for a different solution last summer. He profoundly regretted that I had to walk away. He also bitterly regretted that he did not say NO to her countersigning the contract on the flat and consequently allowing her to move in  with him.

We spent over three hours together. He talked about his determination to detach himself from his circumstances including her. But he asked me if i would be patient for him as it would be a long way back, because his mess was so huge it could take him until after Christmas.

All i could say was that he needed to do what he needed to do for himself without my involvement. I needed to stay out of his way in terms of his personal process.

He broke us, only he can fix us. I cannot be the solution, but i will respond positively to every good and healthy choice he takes ~

I will stand with him as we walk through the difficulties together.

I cannot be the one that makes demands or places conditions on him. He must come up with all the solutions to the very many concerns that we will face as we take each step forward.

My husband had already told her in January that he was unhappy and that he wanted out.

Following our conversation he made changes much quicker than he expected and now as i write ~ he is free ~

How do i really know this is true?

I hear this question many times from people who care about me and my well being.

I totally understand why the question is asked… We both know we would ask it ourselves if the circumstances and history were about someone we knew and loved.

My response for now is that he is different, all his characteristics regarding his loyalty to me are like nothing i have seen before. None of the familiar cover up, lying, transference and avoidant angry and defensive traits are visible to me, and haven’t been since before Christmas 2016

Why didn’t he simply pack his bags and walk away when he was so unhappy? I asked him this question, family and friends said this is what he should have done.

He had his reasons ~ I had to leave him to manage his own way through what were very complex steps towards his freedom.

We are separated, this was his business and as difficult as it was, it was his process not mine.

He took full responsibility for bringing her into his mess.

Back up… I butted in… she walked willingly into your mess. You did not invite her to live with you. You did not intend her to share the contract on the flat. They were her intentions and suggestions.

“I have to take full responsibility” he confirmed…  “I cannot lay the blame with someone else” He continued.

The only way to become a responsible husband and father was to own and accept my sin”.

Is this my husband I pondered to myself?

This is not who I have known for over three decades. To hear him making such clear and decisive statements regarding his personal and private mess without a shrug of his shoulders or stroke of his face  or a scratch of his head was shockingly enlightening in the best possible way.

This was not the Grey One… 

We are taking what has now become our joint process a day to day and step by step pathway. We are not rushing the transition.

Had i not have left our home last August, my husband confessed he would have returned home to me within weeks. Had that been the way our reconciliation had played out I feel we would have stood little chance of my husband making the lasting changes that he is making now ~

~ had he not experienced the worst year of his life ~ His words…

 

Thank you everyone who has been reading this blog. My many followers and thousands of visitors from all over the world have encouraged me to continue blogging and writing.
My book Reverend Grey will be published soon. Please look out for my website, titled…

…’Born Of Fire Media’

It will go live before book release. I will provide a link here once the site is ready.

This blog from now will change direction slightly.

The following chapters of Reverend Grey can be read when the book is published and on sale from the website. The remaining chapters cover the most difficult and yet at the same time the most amazing year of my life, where the Grey Identity in my husband got darker than ever. Hope for both our reconciliation and my husbands future with his family became paper thin and could have vapoured into total obscurity through the autumn of last year ~ 2016.

It was also the year where i developed a confident strength of purpose and a healthy independence once the thunderous storms of anger and frustration passed from over my head.

It’s as though I fast tracked forward to catch up with the me I should be now in 2017. I had lost sight long ago of a possible future without the Grey One to manage and a basement to keep guard of, that I got stuck in the role of policing my husbands morals.

In reality I was no more than a cardboard cut out in the shape of an authority figure, with no way of enforcing a penalty for his wrongs.

Now in the present August 2017, both my husband and i admit that as dreadful as the last year has been it was the best thing that could have happened to us.

I had no idea that during the dark months of last year my husband who is not at all vulnerable to the choice of taking his own life, told me he can understand how people in his lost and desperate state could believe there was no other option but to take their own lives.

It was such a dark and hopeless time, many would choose death as their only escape – were his words.

When we met during those months he would weep, convey his deep love for me and how he missed me, then leave me to go back to his dark choices.

This would make me angry for at least two days i would take my anger out on him by emailing and texting him, copying her in to make sure she knew what i was saying to him. Then I would express my anger and  hostility to my children.

They were angry too so we fed each other’s feelings over those weeks ~

even though I was desperate to rescue him from his grave of despair that he had dug for himself.

Once he was back there and out of my reach i knew i had lost sight of him again. It took me months to finally let him go, realising i could not rescue him.

The blog has only touched the surface of my husbands dark identity. The book tells it in its rawness where it is necessary for the purpose of warning others to stay well away from those destructive websites and where they can lead to. One day i believe my husband will tell it all himself, he will fill in the gaps and join me to rescue others from a similar trap.

When i write about her, she represents many others, she personifies pornography and all its subtle seductions. Yes she is a real person, valued in the mind of God, made in the image of her creator God. God loves her, Jesus died for her. I sincerely hope she discovers her Saviour one day.

She also represents the many others ~ she was not the only one. Even during the time he was involved with her, there were others, i have their names and all the messages and emails they also wrote to my husband. when i refer to her, i am also including them.

It was a spirit of seduction he fell for, pornography is a seduction of lust.

There are many other seductions out there who want to capture us. We may not be vulnerable to the lure of lust, but what about the enticement of wealth and possessions that are gained illegally at the cost of others. Then there’s position that is gained by usurping authority or by manipulation. Gluttony, pride and lying or stirring up conflict and causing division. There are those who without thought align with wicked plans. All of these and more can make us feel powerful and in control.

They fill a void in need, or is hungry for significance.

There only power is over the individual they sweet talked into their plans.

Yet most of the ones who get cheated into these seductions, can be blind to the damage and destruction they are causing themselves and others as my husband and she were ~  

she still is…

I invite you to walk with me through my ‘now’. If i can help you, walk with me and we will do it together.

This next season of my life may be the most tricky and topsy turvy pathway i have ever walked.

The path of reconciliation…

Here goes…!

 

 

 

 

 

God saw every sin

an open book to him

i poured out my tears

in anguish and prayers

his answer ~ always love

in him did hope not move

I am not usually so self-absorbed, but this last year has been one big fat drama blown up within proportion to its demands.

We need to take our divided paths through the valley of doubts and climb back up to find a new landscape that will bring closure to suspicions and deceptions.

We need to rediscover ourselves in our own time.

We both have to face our failings, travel through the tunnel of an uncertain outcome and come through the other side before we can fully know if our future will lead us back together or not.

There was not a single cross word between us while we prepared for separation. We were not talking about the details of our situation so much. It was incredibly difficult for my husband to watch us dismantle our home and marriage, due to his infidelity.

I was intentional about my attitude as knowing my husband and the Grey One as I did it would have made things far easier if I was hostile. I didn’t want to be hostile at all during our final days together. I wanted them to be remembered as a peaceful and positive process. That is how I felt ~ peaceful and positive.

My story is extreme, and I still only know that because of the expressions of shock on the faces of my family and friends, as they hear me unveil another layer of the depth of addictive and promiscuous behaviour to which my husband declined.

I wasn’t aware of how spoiled my mind had become. It was friends and family who recognised my inability to see how wrong things were, due to my blind loyalties towards Reverend Grey.

I will need help to unwrap the layers of impairment, and then to erase the stain and contamination my mind has been programmed to accept as normal. I will need to reboot my sensory receptors to achieve a correct perception and understanding to what a marriage relationship should truly reflect if I am ever to be able to trust again.

I am who I am because of the unconventional fashion of my marriage. I now know that I can and will recover mentally and emotionally.

Over the years I have normalised my husbands addiction and become desensitised to the impact it has made.

I do not respond, as I ought to the degree of emotional violence it caused.

My husband didn’t master control in the early days to separate from the Grey One’s influence when pornography came to seduce. She knew the Reverends deepest and darkest want. She knew how to stroke his ego until he could not resist her lure. She did not stop enticing until she had stripped reputation, dignity and hope.

Then the fool was duped into paying the bill of consequence.

A high-end price tag of designer disbursement and the currency was his wife, family, many fond friends and two very successful careers.

I feel sad that for now my husband is completely dominated by the giant he is foolishly aligned with, and cannot say no to. I should feel humiliated and degraded, yet I feel I am rescued from the final outcome of a neglected sea vessel wrecked by a turbulent and raging storm. I was bailed out, overboard and I am safe, wounded but recovering, while my husband is stuck to the wreckage and is still going down with the ship.

To print our thirty-four year history is worth every word if it can prevent such extreme recklessness that exists to steal the soul from the core of other families.

Someone needs to break out of the silence and unmask the ultimate depravity uncontrollable lust will crave!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was good to be back in the town I have called home for many years.

I had a few days with my daughter and her family, and then we were away together at the annual Festival, where a year before Reverend Grey’s morals were exposed.

What a fabulous week it was back in the bubble of love, care and affection from many wonderful people.

Spiritually it was a remarkable time for me – but that is another story!

One of my brothers in law asked me what was the worst thing my husband has ever done. There are a few worst things that have affected me in different ways.

I chose not to say what they were. But they did involve her crossing the threshold of our family home.

My marriage that was consecrated at the alter, was desecrated.

It was my hope that we could be a positive example by the way we handled the shameful and humiliating exposure. That as a whole family we would stand united to defeat the assailant of my husbands public demise.

We still can, it’s not too late for my husband to beat the Grey One into nonexistence.

The family and I are rebuilding together estranged from him for now.

This will not be the end of my story!

I am on an assault against everything that facilitates deception and betrayal within an intimate relationship such as marriage.

I know that deceit and betrayal go hand in hand with humanity, affairs will continue, relationships will end, pain won’t stop.

My argument is with those who both encourage and facilitate lies, betrayals and deceptions. And those who carelessly target married people to satisfy their need for sexual porn style significance through the secrecy of the Internet.

The details of the Grey One’s betrayals left me sick in my stomach.

To see emotional investment in her was cruel. Must he please her to the degree of agony he causes?

 What he cannot see for now is the squalid ambience of mystique that plots to underhandedly influence the atmosphere to achieve its sinister design.

For now he is so morally corrupt he is blind to the depth of degradation he has blindly succumbed to that he will believe his life is manageable. He will be clean and shaved; he will smile in the right places and be funny at times. His flat will be spotless, tidy and well managed with no one to answer to ~ Yet!

Until the day his conscience invades his lonely-hearts door and penetrates through the lies he mistook for truth. The darkness he mistook for light and the lecherousness he mistook for love.

It is my prayer that pure love will devise a way and the means to cast a warmth that will draw him like a moth to a flame, to melt the icy precipitation of his own cold demise so it will drain from his feet.

The sponsored talk-a-thon had begun, this was how it worked.

I was clearing out the trash ~ The whole grubby lot of it.

I was able to go over and over again the details of my real life drama, with lovely family and friends. Every time I arrived at a different home I took a deep breath and relished the opportunity of going over it all again.

Thank you Friends and family ~ you know who you are…

Psalm 34:17&18 The Message

Is anyone crying for help? God is listening,
ready to rescue you.

If your heart is broken, you’ll find God right there;
if you’re kicked in the gut, he’ll help you catch your breath.