A huge brick of a contraption called a car phone was given to the Reverend. Only he used it, and now along with me would keep his secrets.

It wasn’t long before he was getting cryptic phone calls, but of course I had no way of checking or verifying them. I would ask questions…

…But the Grey area served its purpose for the Grey One’s benefit.

This became a very difficult time, because the Grey One’s deeds were completely invisible. All I had were suspicions regarding his secret private life. He didn’t need to write letters or buy magazines. Contact details could be all stored in his cell phone and I wouldn’t have any access to it.

I spiralled into a deep depression, but not really recognising it as such. I knew nothing about the symptoms of depression, I just soldiered on managing the home and children,

Suspicion caused the most torturous anguish. Then it turned back on me with accusations of paranoia and an overactive imagination in an attempt to down play my suspicions and cause me to question myself. This only caused more anxiety as it cast doubt and confusion on my mind.

How could I avoid the possibilities of treachery, when trust was extinct?

The Reverend did create disorder in my head, but I had no problem regaining order over the years, when so much evidence supported suspicion. Then equalled by the eventual exhibit of proof.

The Reverend loved me for sure. I never doubted his love, and I do not doubt his love for me today. He demonstrated his feelings for me remarkably. Through the many wonderful ways he expressed his affections, I became willing to protect him. He was worth it, we were forever, never to part.

Then, there came the Internet. I could not compete with this new remarkable technology. The Internet became my most dreaded antagonist. I would lose my ground to it with increased regulatory.

The Internet made it impossible for the Grey One to resist his compulsions. It also made it easier for me to find him out. He was actually quite careless and would forget to shut down websites before leaving the house. He was not very good at covering his tracks.

By now we were in home number nine and relocated to yet another town and congregation.

I began to discover more inappropriate pictures and emails, of sexual content.

The age of technology brought worse revelations of pornographic interest. It was more or less with us to stay. We would continue to argue, row and fight! I was tormented daily beyond my limits. I had no sound proof that revealed he had gone beyond a computer screen to this date in our history. There was much evidence, but no actual proof.

It would be very boring to fill in all the gaps with the mundane seasons of our life and marriage. There was a lot of ordinary every day stuff just like every other family. Our children believed we were just like most other family’s.

All the pornography and Internet addictions and contacts with others, was all undercover, never to be seen.

I became very depressed again for many months. I would at times be unable to see people, and I couldn’t answer the door or the phone. Sometimes I just couldn’t face a day.

The children would have gone to school, the Reverend and I had finished breakfast. At that point for many months I feared when he left the house for work, it was bursting the bubble of safety for me.

What websites would he view today? Who would he send messages to today? What plans would he make today? Trust was dangerously weak.

The Reverend knew I would keep his secrets. That I would not expose him. He knew I knew the stuff he got entangled in. Why would he not talk to me about it, how gluttonous was his need to cause such uncertainty and instability?

We continued the cycle of discovery, confrontation, arguing, and then silence and too soon came imminent forgiveness and reconciliation.

It was usually me that broke the silence as the Reverend had the ability to make me feel sorry for him. In my upset and anger I would harangue how his behaviour affected me. I would then find myself feeling as though I had gone too far with my hostility towards him.

He would go quiet, I interpreted his silence as him being hurt because I didn’t believe his lies. Alternatively he was struggling desperately to protect me from the truth while forcing the Grey One back into the basement. Out of sight. It was like trying to get the genie back into the bottle.

I didn’t make it easy for him. If I kept the pressure up for the truth, the Reverend’s only option was to leave, as he could not under any circumstances be honest. I would put the events behind me, so that our relationship recovered until the next time.

This subtle practice became an art we were both familiar with.

Of course my role in Reverend Greys duplicitous life was the sacrificial selfless one.

If I went off script to dominate the scene, by strongly holding my ground insisting on the truth, I would suffer the most. It would get me nowhere. For the sake of moving forward I would step back into the script I had written for myself.

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If anyone reading this is recognising similarities in a loved one and you’re getting lost inside a painful and protective role for the person who should be equally loving you in return. Then find the table turns in such an eluding way that you haven’t identified it yet?

Talk to someone you trust confidentially. There may be time for you to gain your identity back and salvage an equally selfless relationship with equal expectations of each other. There is always someone to go to, someone who wants to equally protect you. I should have talked to a member of my husband’s family, who loved him as much as I did.

EC.

What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.

And many a word at random spoken, May soothe or wound a heart that’s broken.

Sir Walter Scott

I now had evidence that elicit sex, one night stands and affairs of the Grey one were going to haunt me. If only in my suspicious mind. Irrelevant if anything physical happened or not.

When I look objectively at my marriage, I can see that the first love I had for my husband transitioned slowly into a sacrificial selfless love of unrequited allegiance. More than a certificate of marriage and our love bound us together, from that moment.

An unspoken pact that was menacing and would eventually ruin us. We signed and sealed an unholy alliance between us from that day.

Had the Reverends crimes been against the law, I too would now be detained courtesy of Her Majesties pleasure. Guilty as charged. Deprived of my freedom and at the mercy of judge and jury, until I could prove I had reformed my character. I haven’t ever been in prison, but I have been institutionalised for over thirty years in a cell of secrets, locked up by my own silence.

Now in present day I know I should have exposed the Reverend. I should never have been culpable in burying the evidence! By not exposing it, I hosted the Grey one and gave him my permission to coexist with the Reverend. I was unknowingly sending out the message that he could do his worst. His secret was safe with me.

There was now a life beneath the surface. A basement room to our marriage that no one must see. There were no windows, only the trap door that was covered by a rug with a thick, twisted pile of secrets. Cloned in an image of intimacy. We were emotionally shackled to a course of actions that were steered by the Grey ones perversions.

Everything the Grey one did, everything I found, went into the ‘Cellar of Secrets’, padlocked with an unspoken alliance of silence.

The Grey one is charming, but charm comes in many disguises. It can be turned on at will to attract likability. Charm cannot be trusted as a characteristic of substance.

One of our colleagues, older, with more experience, who we respected visited us for a special event, he was our guest speaker. He sat with us for a meal in our home during his visit. We were still in our early to middle thirties. He was unrestrained by convention and was audacious enough to ask us about our intimate relationship. Was it healthy, were we enjoying regular sexual pleasure with one another, he asked?

Of course the Reverend was very quick to answer all the positive responses. Which were true. In all honesty I would not have confessed anything to the contrary, based on his enquiries.

I was astonished there was someone brave enough and willing to ask those questions, because I knew too well that they needed to be asked.

God bless that man for his insight at the time.

For us to survive, and prevent our current separation, we needed deeper questioning with the promise of confidentiality. We needed counselling and healing. Without it we grew more and more disabled.

The exchange from Reverend to the Grey one could happen in a moment. Any kind of hostility or confrontation would push the buttons of the Grey one bringing the Reverends immoral rival to the surface. Who would be stifled with gritted teeth and bated breath.

The fine line could also be crossed in a thought. The Reverend disappointedly gave the Grey one rights of entry into his head, rather than evicting him years ago. The Reverend could not resist him. He was exciting, risky and a rule breaker.

He avoided the light and resisted the dark. He had no conscience, no regret or guilt, and very little empathy. There are no rights or wrongs in the Grey ones world. He believed he was free to satisfy his sexual dependency, with no judgment call on his morals and values, or spiritual and emotional responsibilities.

Too many leaders are forfeiting the confidence and betraying the trust of the people they are supposed to protect, and care for. All for the selfish hunger of extra marital sexual gratification.

My husband the Reverend was doing just the same, and it has cost him everything.

I could have severed myself from the heartache at any time, but an alternative life looked even more heartbreaking. Not only for me, our children’s lives would have turned into chaos. No matter how damming the Grey ones foolishness was, I was able to focus on the many things that made me very happy. I was in love with the Reverend, he was worth standing by. He loved me, we were solid, and we would grow old together.

I now know I was deceiving myself! There was no one to tell me what to do, there was no one to tell me things would get worse, that addicts cannot fix themselves.

To anyone in similar circumstances, do not be as blind as I was.

It was my uninformed and naïve choice to remain in the painful situation. Always believing the Reverend would one day master the Grey ones wild and rebellious conniving forever.

The Reverend never placed any pressure on me to keep quiet of his misdemeanours. I knew I was resilient, and I knew with the determination of grit that my children were not going to pay a price in their childhood for their fathers’ sex and pornographic abuse.

Through choice I have lived under thundering black clouds of suspicion that has been slowly corroding my wellbeing for the most part of our marriage.

The physical, indescribable pain sat deep in my stomach and at its worst crept round to the sides of my back at the waist; the tormenting pain of anguish is harrowing and emotionally crippling.

Because pornography and sex addiction is not directly life threatening, does not mean they do not threaten life. They are dangerous, they threaten mental and emotional health, and they threaten the stability of children. They fracture the culture of honesty, loyalty and trust that underpins emotional and mental health. To ignore its destructive intent, undermines the efforts of ensuring safeguarding policies, procedures and structures are in place and followed to keep society safe and well.

As precious as my husband is, and all his love and generosity was, it was compromised by the continued foolishness of the Grey One. I continued to hope and pray we will see the end of him for ever one day.

I became the keeper of more secrets. I was the rug that it all got swept underneath, then walked on top of.

Reverend Grey risked my health, and was extremely selfish! I had feet, I could have walked. He never made me feel physically unsafe. In fact he was the opposite. What i failed to recognise until recently was the impact on my emotional wellbeing.

It wasn’t necessary to use magazines or Royal Mail for pornography and prostitution anymore.

Because another, far darker opportunity came on the market to enable discretion and deceit…!

 

Don’t get trapped in the inescapable net of ruin,

By your own senseless want.

The desire to get free is never as strong as the want that traps you.

I cannot stress how desperate I am to make young people, parents, grandparents youth leaders and all who are in positions of care and protection over young people and families, aware of the possible results of secret porn addictions that remain undisclosed.

You may not want to know this or believe it, but it is probable that pornography will be viewed by your children your grandchildren, and any young child or young adults in your care, by the time they are thirteen.

The faceless intruder makes her move on the curious defenceless minds of youth. To lie unseen discreetly coiling her tentacles around the confusions and experiments of the innocent. Allowing the soul she has claimed to believe they are armed well against her temptations. Then over time the grip is to strong and will wreck intimacy, careers, callings, relationships and families.

Through my own story I want to shout out to everyone I can, to expose this silent enemy  whenever and wherever it raises its ugly head. Pre pubesant girls and boys are at risk of daily exposure to inter~Net pornography. Their innocent minds are vulnerable to becoming shaped with anticipations of future intimate relationships through what they view being acted out on-Line.

The future expectations of romance our children are exposed to is totally back to front, upside-down and twisted, in comparison to every other relational development between people, socially or professionally.

We would never dream of applying for a job demanding all the perks and privileges the company offer before submitting ourselves to an interview. Or expect the employers to offer us exclusive rights to the highest and most prominent positions ahead of our proven competences and training programs.

Neither would we expect to make what is precious and valuable available to someone we barely know or are not certain we can trust.

Yet it is a known fact that teenage girls expect to give away their very precious nudity and or virginity in the hope of a possible date. Boys don’t have to demand it, it is becoming the ‘way it works’ to get a date. The Net images model to girls what gives the boys pleasure, and models to boys that girls appear to enjoy giving such pleasures.

Boys were historically modelled what gives girls pleasure, and girls understood that boys enjoyed giving such pleasures… as flowers, chocolates or a coca cola at the local cafe.

So when did it all become so twisted? Not that long after time began relationships were getting messed up. It’s humanity, we’re imperfect, there have always been inappropriate and perverted sexual encounters and behaviours. With pornography in some form, being readily available.

That said. The possibility of being caught behind the bike shed, or by vigilant parents was a strong deterrent for most. Purchasing top shelf magazines was risky for underage young people. Should that have been accomplished, the evidence would have been discovered under the mattress or in a school bag at some date in time.

In this age of the World Wide Web these deterrent and protective boundaries have disappeared. Catching our young people out today would take impossible measures. Not forgetting how incredibly skilled they are with technology. They could out achieve many parents.

There is software available to download and worth paying for, but they have their limits. There is always going to be a friend at school who’s parents are more trusting, or naive, or aren’t so bothered. Need i say more.

I believe we need to go after pornography itself and expose it, bring it into the light. How do we do that? By talking about it. As with eating disorders, drugs, smoking and alcohol. ‘Soft porn’ needs to be taken out of advertising, then promoting it as dangerous and debilitating to intimacy within marriage. Pornography messes with the head, it creates a disability for sexual arousal without the involvement of ‘porn star’ type role play being involved or available.

Pornography is a disease that carries the equally fatal symptom of shame. Then shame becomes its own sickness. Then like leprosy isolates through fear of being exposed. 

There is much that is wonderful to appreciate about the inter~Net and the World Wide Web.

Like everything else, a great strength can also be a great weakness. What is ‘User-Friendly’ is also ‘Abuser-Friendly’.

Nets, Lines and Webs are necessary in the food chain. Without fishing nets or fishermen’s lines, we could never eat fish. without webs, spiders couldn’t catch flies. They are all a means of trapping and capturing unsuspecting victims.

Much like our young people who are curious and will experiment with everything available to them. To then find themselves caught in the trawlers Net, at the end of a fisherman’s Line or stuck in a spiders Web – unable to set themselves free from capture.

When my husband eventually gets the help he needs to set him free, it will take him years to recover. Just as an alcoholic must avoid alcohol and licensed premises, my husband will have to avoid the NET, the LINE and the WEB!

EC.

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I welcome you to follow my story, in the hope that it will travel the world to expose the horrors of pornography and sex addictions.

I have a chapter written that spells out some of the signs, patterns and habits practiced by unseen and silent addictions. Compiled from over thirty years of personal experience. They are not an exact science, but enough to raise the concerns of the vigilant to then be watchful and ask the right questions.

 

I don’t plan to keep changing the subject,

But I randomly remember things and get so stirred up.

That I have to talk about them…

Like now!

Thank you for coming back to my blog.

For the sake of balance I must write about other extremes and areas of my wonderful life with the Reverend. Yes, I said wonderful…

We had little expectation of what we encountered as young leaders. We managed each situation to the best of our biblical knowledge, according to our faith.

We found ourselves confronted by many demonic forces in our early career, without much understanding on spiritual warfare.

Due to our lack of experience and immaturity did we leave our marriage vulnerable for the ‘Grey One’ to be able to strengthen its hold over the Reverend’s personal conflict? Then subsequently over our marriage?

While the ‘Grey One’ was gaining ground, it was my anger and depression that was spilling over the edge.

When evil manifested itself to me in such an recognisable presence in our bedroom, it was immediately vanquished by the name of Jesus. That never happened so directly again. Were ‘evil’s’ subsequent intentions so subtle we failed to recognise it?

Our houses are safe from trespassers when our points of entry are securely locked, bolted and alarmed.

Evil has no legal (spiritually speaking) rights into our lives. If we fail to guard our soul – the doorway to our mind emotions and will, evil will break the rules and charm or manipulate its way in.

Part of our simple and uncomplicated philosophy was to be available for any opportunity to practice Kindness, Hospitality and above all Love. To those who were members of our church community, and those who were not. Irrelevant to whether they became part of our congregation, we sought to bring some spiritual help to their lives.

Indiscriminately, without judgement or prejudice, with acceptance we were always willing to help and enable people in some large or small way. To hopefully make a positive difference in their lives.

Our vocation was to impact people with the good news of the Christian faith. That is all we had to offer.

If lives were being transformed and broken people and families were strengthened and others becoming whole, physically, mentally and spiritually. That was success.

We were not qualified in social services, welfare, education, law or medicine. We knew where to direct or accompany anyone who needed professional assistance.

All we could offer was our loving Heavenly Father, to become their Father too. 

To offer insight into the toxic side of the distinctive cultural background we lived in. A colleague asked the Reverend if he would look after a young man who was travelling from Venezuela to present his Art in the ‘City Of Culture’ Exhibition. Venezuela is a small South American country that boarders Columbia.

My husband agreed and picked the person up from the train station, drove him to the exhibition Centre and helped him put his masterpiece on display to be judged. This would take a few hours.

Meanwhile he came to our house for refreshment, until it was time to pick up his model of the ‘Last Supper’.

At the time we were living in a fairly small three-bedroom flat, we had three very noisy, physically active, squabbling children running around. In my mind, our family of five all at home together meant chaos in every way, until the little people were in bed.

Our Venezuelan guest walked through our front door following the Reverend. He then closed the door behind him and leaned back against it in a manner that suggested exhaustion after travelling for many hours.

“It’s mad out there,” he said. “In here, there’s peace”, we didn’t get it! Whatever did he mean? It was bedlam in our house! He continued to explain that he could sense every evil force out there as he was travelling the four to five miles to our house. He mentioned alcoholism, drugs, prostitution and violence and many other common problems.

He went on to explain to us that in Venezuela, at certain times of the day many people would begin to manifest demonically. Traffic would come to a halt, drivers would get out of their cars. he would see them writhing and hissing like snakes on the side of the road.

It would be extremely dangerous for anyone who crossed their path.

Seemingly, as soon as anyone in his country became a Christian, they learned to take command of demonic spirits very quickly.

“Here, in your home, it’s peaceful”. As he came through our front door, immediately those evils were absent! Then we understood what he was saying!

Though no one was openly manifesting demonically in our City streets, he was very much aware that evil was rife.

It was fascinating to spend those few short hours with that young man.

In that same home there were two women who arrived at our door at different times, completely unconnected.

One woman, who was quietly spoken and timid, asked if she could come in. The Reverend showed her into our living room. It was during the evening, I was ironing, our children were in bed..

We offered her a cup of tea; she didn’t want a cup of tea. Something to eat? Same reply! I carried on ironing the Reverend was working. We were silent waiting for her to speak. We asked if there was anything she specifically needed. In the half an hour or so she sat in our house all she said was that it was nice to just sit, nothing else. She wasn’t relaxed, sitting upright on the edge of the sofa. After thirty minutes or so she left, thanking us for letting her sit there. We never saw her again.

The second woman, as soon as I turned the doorknob she pushed open the door, walked in past me and ran into the first room she passed. The Reverend had a visitor at the time. She sat crying and shaking violently.

We were quite taken aback. The Reverend suggested I go in and speak to her. I sat beside her and held her hand. She didn’t say anything when I asked her how I could help. After some time she eventually stopped crying and shaking. Though still agitated she said thank you then left as swiftly as she arrived.

Then there was a little boy, he was about six years old. He knocked our door, he was a neighbours little boy, he lived two doors away. I thought he had come to play with our boys. I directed him to the room our boys were playing in but he hadn’t come to play.

He said he liked it in our house could he just come in and sit. How did he know he liked it in our house when he had never been through the front door before having only played in the shared garden?

He refused food and a drink as he sat on our sofa. Our children were playing in other rooms. Every now and then he would repeat how nice and quiet it was in our house and that he wanted to just sit. Suddenly got up, said thank you, and left.

I was so incredibly unaware at the time of what women and children in our neighbourhood were possibly suffering. The area was extremely needy, there was much poverty.

Faces of many women and children reflected despair and sadness. Not all. There were plenty of happier faces and families. But no, domestic abuse wasn’t something that was happening ‘next door’, on the other side of ‘my walls’. It was on the news and documentary programmes.

Then there was Jed, a single man in his thirties or forties. He lived opposite us. It was past midnight, we were in bed. Jed knocked on our front door loudly. The Reverend got up answered the door to find Jed standing in a pool of blood. He asked if he could get a lift to Hospital because he had been attacked.

He was almost home and a car stopped beside him, one man held him down while the other man shredded the soles of his feet with a knife. It was a revenge attack he explained. The Reverend grabbed two plastic bags to put his feet in, and helped him to the car. On the way to hospital he said he had lived in the street for fourteen years and the Reverend was the only person he could trust to help him.

We thought nothing more about these incidents other than being available to those in need in our neighbourhood. It’s only now as i recall them, that the visit from the Venezuelan, and all he talked about the City, was possibly linked to the lives, relationships and families of those who came to us for refuge.

A few weeks previously there was a disturbance in the street because Jets Pit Bull Terrier had jumped from his first floor living room window and attacked another dog on the street and killed it.

We certainly didn’t need a television because one evening we heard a commotion. We looked out of the window to see a woman had got hold of a man by his crotch, with her teeth. Another man had got her by her legs trying to pull her off.

There are very many more similar evil, sad, and humerous experiences I could write about. All these events have been used many times to relate to an area of significance throughout our career. Plus dining out on many others I could bore you with just for their comedy value.

We were both very unaware of the scale of our impact on that community over those years.

I am not suggesting that anyone who reaches out to people in similar circumstances is likely to suffer as we have. Our threshold was already vulnerable due to the Reverends involvement with pornography and sex addiction.

Many times for many months, even years the goodwill and character of the Reverend outshone the Grey One and he was out of sight.

But the Grey One would eclipse the Reverend with increasing momentum.