We have been married for almost 2 decades, vows said in 1995.  Jason was an intern at Microsoft.  Just after graduation (when I was getting to know him) his parents moved to CA.  They decided he had a good opportunity here in WA so he should stay and moved him into a house with a room to rent in Seattle.  We first started to meet each other for the first time at going away parties for mutual friends that were going away to college or the military.  He tried to win my attention by bouncing a tennis ball at me over and over to get my attention.  Instead it annoyed me.  Although as he left one night he wanted to know 2 things about me and one was if I was single.  As the summer went on we got to know each other and become good friends and just never seemed to leave each others sides.  It wasn't until our friends said we were dating that we said "oh I guess we are".

As time went on and I went to college and he continued to work in the fast growing tech world.  He was traveling at trade shows and was gone for sometimes a week at a time.  Back then I knew I was in school and that this was his job so I had to trust him when he was working.  Although, as a young woman with growing feelings it was hard to not think of what could be happening when he was working late or on the road traveling.

As I finished school and we got married during my last spring break.  I went into computing as well and worked at Microsoft too.  Now we were both spending long hours there and newly married.  It was a crazy way to start out life together.  We didn't leave much time for each other.  We had weekends which we cleaned up the apartment, did some things together, went to church, saw some friends, but not much.  It was also during these first years too that as we started to try to figure things out also porn started to show up in our marriage.  At first we would just be watching tv and oh my guess what this is on late night tv.  To sometimes I would think he would be working on something in our office in our apartment and I would find him looking at online porn.  I started back then not knowing and thinking well it was bad if he was hiding it from me so if he wanted to do it at least do it in front of me so I knew what he was doing.  But I still didn't like it.  I didn't know why it took something like that to make him happy and to get into it and to feel that way and I couldn't do that to him and for him.  I then started to feel so bad about myself.

With in the first couple years I went through 3 exploratory heart surgeries.  I was the 3rd in the nation to have a surgery that is now common.  I had to wait for a tool to be developed once diagnosed to fix my heart.  After we battled those medical issues we started to try to have a family.  After having feelings of not being able to make my husband totally happy and now this of having to try so hard to have a baby.  All the drugs and doctor appointments I started to gain weight.  I was not the person I when we met.  After a couple of years of trying we went through over 5 years of infertility.  I lost track of the amount of miscarriages and I had 2 DN&C's.  We never got to deal with any of this because they didn't want us to loose a month or to loose momentum.  So we got numb to everything and each other. 

In 2002 we found our we were pregnant with twins.  We were so happy to be parents finally.  We didn't want to keep it in we wanted everyone to know so that they could walk through this amazing event with us.  At 3 1/2 months we lost one of the babies.  It was hard to learn of the loss but we knew that we still had one baby.  We kept going with a good pregnancy so as we thought.  We had all these monitors and I was high risk after the heart problems.  So I was watched closely.  At one point they did one of the blood tests and told us that our baby could have downs syndrome.  They told us we could terminate the pregnancy.  We said without a doubt no way that we would love this child no matter what. 

So during my pregnancy I my dad & mom came to visit and my dad got really sick.  He collapsed at my house.  I had to call 911 and have him taken to the hospital where later he passed away.  For me I was devastated.  I had lost the one person that was my rock, my best friend, my everything.  That moment changed my life forever.  I also around this time lost both of my grandmothers, my uncle, and other people in my life that were center people in my family and my life.  I felt as my whole world was falling in around me.  It has truly changed my family forever. 

After my son was born we tried to enjoy this new little family of ours.  I was excited to be a stay at home mom.  I even tried some at home businesses too.  We traveled with our son because we were use to that from my husband's job.  He had all sorts of miles so we took him all sorts of places.  When it was our 11 year anniversary we tried to kick start things in our love life again after so many years.  Things didn't go as planned.  We had a good trip but my husband got sick so it wasn't the relaxing romantic time that we had in mind.  After that trip we both realized that we were not who we married and had gained weight and things through the life and struggles we had gone through so we wanted to work on making some changes for us and our family.

Well that plan backfired big time.  We both started to work out and loose weight.  Heck I lost about 100 lbs.  but that was the start of something huge that would change our marriage forever.  We started going out to night clubs, dancing, I started taking trips to Vegas with my girl friends to just get away and hopefully come back and have him miss me and have a spark or something.  I just wanted to know I was attractive and I liked the new person and mom I was becoming for my son.  It was all I wanted to be a healthy mom that could play and get on the floor with him and not drag around so much extra weight.  Porn also came into our marriage full force as well as infidelity.  My husband called me into his office one day and he was on an online chat with couples to get together with us.  He told me it was to spice up our marriage.  I told him no way.  One night we were at the mall and we ran into these people and he knew them and started talking and they had their kids and I thought maybe from work or something so I was nice.  They came to dinner with us and at dinner it was more than dinner.  I found out later they were a couple he had found online and they were there to meet us.  I was shocked.  Things were just out of control.  I have seen and experienced things in my marriage that have scared me.  And I knew it one night when I looked at my husband with eyes like who is this man?  I put up a wall and I was hurt so much.  But the next morning after I put that wall up I also knew too that something wasn't right I took an old pregnancy test I had and took it and it was positive.  I stepped into the room with shock and tears and told my husband that I think I was pregnant.  He sat up and said to me well we can get an abortion.  My life and marriage at that point was totally changed right there forever.  I became numb. 

We went to the doctor a few days later to confirm the pregnancy and they said we were.  I looked at my husband to see if he was going to change his mind about the abortion and he didn't.  He told the doctor that we were thinking of an abortion.  I couldn't say anything and neither did my doctor.  I kept going to the appointments and just hoped that if I made it past the point we couldn't get one or that he would see this is a baby and things would change.  I did make it through the pregnancy and we did have a beautiful little girl.

Because of all of this I have had such a bond with her and have had problems letting her get close to him because I didn't want harm to come to her.  I wanted to be with her and protect her always.
During my pregnancy the economy also changed and so did my husband's job.  In order for him to keep his job he made a home office while I was on bed rest and pregnant.  Since he has worked from home and travels still from time to time.  It has changed our marriage and our relationship to have him around but locked away where no one can touch him.  It has been hard for us to find a balance and to know how to make this situation work.  We have really struggled with this.

After all of these things and driving for 10 years to church that was 40 minutes away just because it was the church I grew up in, we got married in, and my mother still went to and all the other things that has happened in our marriage we were having a hard time getting up, getting ready, piling the kids in the car to go walk through the doors to go serve others.  I was the nursery director and my husband was involved in the church too.  But still we just weren't being fed.  We had no support and we were so broken.  After all these years and making the drive and then to have our kids be told that they weren't there enough to know the Christmas program to participate well that was our last straw.  We were done.  We knew we needed something and well we didn't know what but this wasn't it.  So we left.  We didn't look back we just walked out like every other Sunday and left. 

We didn't even go to church for a couple months until one weekend our son asked us if we were going to church this week.  Well we know if we weren't going back or where?  So we started to search.  We looked and tried.  And after much fail and still feeling so broken with little hope we were almost ready to give up.  Until one Sunday at a last effort we looked up and found our church Eastlake and we walked in.  We felt something we hadn't before.  But it was more...it was the first message.  It was about abortion.  And I was a mess.  Here I was so broken, hurting, not knowing where to turn, if I could be loved.  But then I heard this message and it changed my life forever.  I had found a safe place for me to cry where no one could see how bad I was hurting in side.  I found a place that no one was there to judge me for all the things that has happened to me or my marriage.  I found a place that I finally felt safe.

It has taken me a year but I finally I was able to share to one of the people that shared that first day at Eastlake how special they are to me.  I never told them my story I just said thank you for sharing that day.  I also after over a year was finally able to ask for resources and prayer about my marriage.  I was able to be specific some so that I could start to heal so that we could start to heal.  It was a big step but one that I am so thankful for and one that I will never regret. 

According to American Christian standards and human statistics, we shouldn't have made it through any of this to be left standing as a family unit, but God had a different plan for them that included humility and a change in lifestyle. After 12 years of marriage, the harsh pain of porn, night clubs, and infidelity came into and forever altered our lives.  Pornography seems to be something that I at first didn't think much of.  I caught him watching it at times but then he would try to make it OK if we watched it together.  I didn't want it on I wasn't interested in it.  But being young and I was never taught about this stuff other than at school I didn't know if it was normal or OK.  So when I told him I wasn't interested he just wouldn't do it with me anymore.  It wasn't something that would happen all the time and it wasn't the same way all the time.  It could be on tv, computer, whatever.  After the 12 years it took it to far and wanted to bring other people into our marriage.  That was not OK with me.  I should have left him but I didn't.  I could not believe that my best friend would do this to me or his kids.  I could not believe this was him doing these things.  This was not the person I married and met.  I got in his face and said what are you doing?  What are you doing to this family?  Why would you do this to us?  He started to realize that what happened to us and what he was doing scared him.  That what he was doing that he could loose me.  That if he didn't stop I was going to leave him and take our son. 

Now we are on the hard journey of reconciling our marriage and down a path of salvation, forgiveness, trust, and grace that to hopefully be a beautiful but hard journey.  I know God has bigger plans for us I don't know what they are but I know that the steps we are taking and taking together now are we are doing it together.