Listen to my Voice

Thank you for sharing👇🏻! We are all here to help each other! ✨

I have more to share about pornography. The next realization I had cut deep, and was the final straw, or started the awakening phase for me. I’m not ready to go there yet.

Let’s take a step back today. ☀️

Sex Trafficking. What can it look like?

It can look like your neighbor with the great career and beautiful lawn jumping on Craigs List over his/her lunch hour and replying to an ad. They know what to look for. The code word used to be “Rose.” 🌹

Your neighbor travels to the hotel/motel, meets the victim at his/her room, pays for sex, tucks in their shirt and heads back to work.

That evening, he/she has burgers 🍔 on the grill and waves at you as you pull in your driveway. 🏡

Anyone familiar with other code words? ✨

A reader and friend here, introduced me to the Gray Rock technique for interacting with abusive or manipulative people.

I attempt to use this strategy when communicating with him. I never realized it was an official method!

Often times, I feel like I’m being rude and heartless, limiting my answers to “yes” “no” and “ok”.

In fact, he is ❤️-less.

🪨 Thanks for sharing, Rebekah! We can all learn from each other in this safe space. ✨

Weeks, maybe even days, after my first discovery, I got pregnant with our son.

He was suddenly into me again! This emotional roller coaster 🎢 and pattern continued throughout our entire relationship.

(It wasn’t until I left, and wrote the timeline down in my journal, that I realized 👀 the pattern.)

I went through the daily motions and did what I had to do to survive.

When our son was about 18 months, he was carrying dad’s iPad around the house, and dropped it.

I picked it up and took a look at the screen.

There it was.

“Young teen in tight jeans gets f*cked hard.”

I lost it.

He told me he reset the iPad, and stuff he had looked at YEARS ago, before he even knew me, must have re-loaded.

That’s one thing about him, he always underestimates my intelligence.

Thank you for sharing your stories yesterday. It’s healing for us all. ✨

I always had a gut feeling.

At the time, a childhood friend of mine was going through some struggles with her husband and his addiction to porn.

I was offering her advice, knowing I was marrying someone with similar issues.

We had been married for four months, and I felt so alone. It’s hard to describe the heartache and feelings of desolation.

He always told me “loneliness is normal in marriage” when I’d try and bring it up.

We were sitting on the couch 🛋 one evening. I was watching a show, and he was on his phone. 📱

Suddenly and unexpectedly he aggressively grabbed my breast.

I turned my head to look at him. At the same moment, he accidentally faced the screen of his phone toward me.

He was looking at porn.

If you’ve had a partner with a pornography addiction, what were your early warning signs? ✨

Sometime after that incident, and before our wedding he left his computer 👩‍💻 unlocked while he was at work.

I went into detective 🕵️‍♀️ mode searching for answers.

I found a chat in his Yahoo mail he had with someone the day prior. He was chatting with a gal who invited him to join her webcam. She was asking him what parts of women interested him the most.

At one point, in the conversation he told this person he had a girlfriend that used to have a nice butt ... and is the jealous type so he needed to be careful. 🙄

I never said a word to him about it. At the time, I felt like I was in the wrong for having looked in his e-mail. Instead, I went into over drive mode at the gym. 🧘‍♀️ 🏃‍♀️ ✨

Shortly after he moved up to the Midwest in 2012, I already had feelings of loneliness and was questioning myself. “What is wrong with me?”

I asked myself this often.

One day, he accidentally texted me a photo of his ex-girlfriend’s daughter. “Wow!!!!!” the text read. 🚩

I confronted him about it; I was so confused. He explained that he meant to send it to his ex. He had been very close with her daughters and thought it was a beautiful picture of her middle child.

This was supposed to be a fun and exciting period in our lives, and my world 🌎 had started to become a blur.

I remember thinking to myself, planting the seed in my mind, that perhaps there was a larger issue. I didn’t want to believe it. ✨

As long as you’re comfortable with it, since I have set up how we met, I think I’ll begin jumping around in the storyline as memories come to me, or current events in our situation happen.

Today I’m feeling called to talk about pornography; sharing the effects it had on our relationship and how it relates to the bigger picture of human trafficking.

Some of this may be hard to read - but not as hard as it was to experience. ✨

Hope you all had a beautiful day! ☀️

I got to pick up the kids at 10am today! Typically, I don’t get them until 7pm on the Sunday of his weekends. 💕

He wanted to be sure I knew he was letting me have them early because it’s Mother’s Day ... and not because he booked a 10am work out at the gym. 😜

I picked the kids up at his gym shortly before 10.

We had a fun time exploring a rock 🪨 shop. They each made a bag of healing and protection stones to bring home.

I had just gotten them down for bed, and received a text I’ll share below. You may read it and think: “Ohh, how nice! He’s trying!”

That’s what I used to think and believe too, until I realized every single thing he says and does is calculated.

Everything has a higher self-serving purpose.

I can’t let my guard down or it will come back to haunt 👻 me.

Noteworthy: I’ll go into more detail later on, but the stalking, bugging and hacking into my home, electronics, etc. is widespread. I have to assume every move I make, and everything I say is seen and heard.

It’s no coincidence that about one hour prior to him sending this text I made a snide remark (to myself) out loud while unpacking their bags. “Gee, thanks for washing her bedding (for daycare) and his soccer gear.” ✨

Happy Mother’s Day to all! 🌸 ✨

If you have been in a custody situation before, I’m sure you can understand what I mean when is say this.

When I see the kids and they’re not in my care (ie, at the soccer game right now), it doesn’t feel like they’re my kids.

They’re not the kids I know.

They are completely different in their looks, mannerisms, and behaviors.

My daughter (she just turned four), is my sidekick. Today, she won’t come near me. I always bring each of them a treat, to ease them in. She won’t even accept the candy 🍭 offering. She’s a candy queen! 👸🏼 It’s not her fault, I know.

It still hurts my heart.

The manipulation is clear.

But gosh, it never hurts less. ✨

Can we talk about being an empath for a moment?

When I tell you in the comments that I get goosebumps, or that I feel you. It’s true.

I actually absorb your energy. I REALLY do FEEL what you’re feeling.

It’s powerful!

Thank you for sharing your stories with me. ✨

Meet Elsa!
She is the.best.companion. 💕
I love spending quiet mornings with her.

My mom kept saying the kids and I needed a dog. I thought it was the last thing we needed.

She has helped me and the kids more than ever. She’s our therapy, and doesn’t leave our sides. 💕

I’m feeling pretty anxious this morning. My son has a soccer game ⚽️ and he will be there.

This will be the first time I’ve been alone around him in over year. Of course, he always makes himself comfortable right next to, or right behind me at games.

The last time I was alone around him was at our son’s basketball 🏀 game. He was putting on a good dad show like usual, and had our daughter on his shoulders.

He talked my ear off. He had 1 hour to pump me full of bs. I’m glad I wrote the convo down in my journal. Everything he said was to serve himself.

At one point, he asked me if I was sleeping OK. That opened the door for him to tell me about all the medications he is taking. “They are for men that are going through a tough time.” 😑

After saying several other things, he proceeded to very loudly and repeatedly sing “Happy Trails to You!”

I could feel my eyes start to swell up with tears. I could not get out of the gym fast enough!

We shall see what today brings. I’ve got this. 💪🏻 ✨