Chapter ??: Secrets, Betrayal, and the Lord’s Divine Interventions

Things get tough from here on. I will warn that the content to follow may be upsetting to some. I share this not to humiliate or defame, (which is why I don’t give names) but to share the truth, and how the hardest things we face in life can be eased and tenderly overseen by the Lord. What I’m about to share has brought me closer to God in a way I cannot begin to express. I have witnessed His hand in remarkable ways, and if I don’t share the miracles I have been given, I would be incredibly ungrateful. I know the Lord wants me to tell my story, for whatever reason He sees fit. He knows far more than me, and I’ve learned to trust Him and obey when He gives me direction. My direction now is to tell how I came to be divorced.

At the beginning of 2019, as mentioned, I had begun to feel things were off in my marriage. My husband had become increasingly closed off and distant, and the Spirit left the house whenever he arrived home. Tension filled the air whenever he was around.

My husband was incredibly protective of his phone. He had locks and passwords I couldn’t crack, and even though he knew how to access everything on my phone/laptop etc., he refused to let me even touch his and would get angry if he saw me pick up his phone. I became paranoid and agitated as I watched him texting but refusing to tell me who he was talking to. His phone was completely off limits to me, and I would be severely reprimanded if I so much as looked at it.

I want to make his protectiveness of his phone clear as much of what is to unfold revolves around his use of it, and how the Lord gave me miracles so I could find what I needed to escape. I won’t mince words here and I will say directly that my husband had become verbally and emotionally abusive. After our separation he was diagnosed by a professional as narcissistic, impulsive, and would do harmful things to garner reactions and attention. In the midst of the dark part of our marriage at the end, he used these things against me to keep me quiet and submissive. He made me believe I was useless, lazy, ugly, mean, selfish, and a terrible wife and mother. I worked as hard as I could to try to mend things. I worked a thirty-five-hour work week, I was enrolled in online college classes, and I was expected to tend to all the needs of our children while also somehow maintaining a house and making sure he had dinner every day. Sufficed to say, I failed at juggling all the balls I was supposed to juggle. At the time, I felt overwhelming guilt for failing, especially because I would be heavily criticized for it from not just my husband, but his mother and other family members, and even some of his friends. I was exhausted and beaten down, so questioning or fighting over my husband’s overprotectiveness of his phone fell low on my priority list.

However, one morning, he left his phone unlocked and, on the bed, while he took a shower. This was one of the rare mornings he got out of bed before I got our children and me out the door for work and school, because yes, I did all of the morning routine on my own. An image on his phone caught my attention. Horrified, I picked up the phone and flicked through several images of anthropomorphic homosexual pornography. With shaking hands, I held up the phone and asked him to explain. He couldn’t. He stood dumbfounded looking between me and his phone. Finally, he said he couldn’t explain it away. He knew he’d been caught. He tried to grasp my shoulder, but I pulled away. I felt sick to the stomach from his betrayal and confused by what it meant. I hurried to leave and get the girls and me as far from him as possible. Before I left for work, I told him he needed to either go to the bishop or move out.

He chose to go to the bishop.

After his meeting with bishop, he came to me and explained himself to me. He said he was what is called a “furry” and so his sexual desires are piqued by the animal imagery, costumes, and so forth. He also confessed to being drunk on a recent work trip to the point where he vomited in the hotel room and had a massive hangover in the morning.

When I asked him if he had same sex attraction, he flat out denied it and said he liked to imagine those images were him. I was foolish enough to believe him.

He told me to help him overcome his porn addiction I needed to be more sexually available. With my desire to help him, I agreed. Unfortunately, this meant I suffered from degrading and humiliating sex. I felt like a piece of meat to release his excessive sexual needs. To put it bluntly, he’d hump me to the point where it hurt me, but he wouldn’t stop until he had his release. Then, he’d simply roll over and ignore me. It made me feel like trash. I hated it.

Soon after this, I underwent gastric sleeve surgery. I told him before going in that it meant we wouldn’t be able to have sex for a while as I recovered. Looking back now, this lack of sex likely became his undoing.

In the time that followed, he became increasingly distant and irritable. I knew he’d gotten involved in furry chatrooms and I felt uncomfortable with it. Whenever I voiced my objections, he yelled at me and told me to stop being paranoid.

During another work trip, his car was repossessed while he was gone, leaving me standing in the street with my confused and distressed eight-year-old daughter. He had lied to me! He told me he’d been making the payments, but he was more than three months behind. When he returned home, I dragged him to the bishop and explained that I was just about done with his money mismanagement and something needed to change immediately. Bishop agreed and encouraged us to get marriage counseling again. While my husband’s parents bailed him out with his car so he could have his vehicle back, I also discovered we were on the brink of foreclosure on the house, which was another bill he had lied to me about paying.

I’d had enough. I took over all the bills and the budget, giving him strict and tight funds to use. Although I managed to catch up the mortgage and most of our other bills, he saw this take over as a personal insult, like I wanted to ruin him and refused to support him. From my perspective, I had gone years trying to support him, trusting him with our finances even though I watched him blow our money over and over. I’d tried to do the financial self-reliance class with him, among other things, but he still couldn’t stop the hole money burned in his pocket. And so, I took drastic measures in a desperate attempt to keep our family afloat so our children would have a roof over their heads and food on their table.

We started counselling. After our first session, he told the counselor he wanted me to stop yelling and make dinner every night. I said I wanted him to read scriptures with us in the morning and lead as the priesthood holder in the house.

I did what he wanted. He didn’t do what I wanted.

When we returned to the counselor, my husband’s excuse was that I’d done the things he’d asked with a bad attitude. He justified not doing what I wanted because I was horrible and miserable to be around and my attitude about doing what he wanted killed his motivation to do what I asked for in return. The counselor said, “But she did do what you asked.”

This just made my husband angry. Counseling wasn’t going well.

During this time, I managed to pick up pink eye from work. Working with kids has some downsides at times! As pink eye is highly contagious, I had to stay home. It was probably the worst case of it I can recall having. My eyes were sealed shut in the morning and I had to feel my way to the bathroom to flush them out. I’d barely gone back to work after my surgery and I was out again.

My second day of home remedies, I couldn’t tolerate the itching and goop any longer. I called my husband and asked him to stop on the way home and get me some eyedrops. I promised to have dinner ready, and he told me he’d get the drops and be home by six.

I made dinner. Six came and went. I fed my children while the food was still hot. Seven came and went. I bathed the girls, got them ready for bed, read a story, and got them in bed. Eight had passed by this time. At eight thirty, I called my husband to find out why he was more than an hour and a half late when I had explained how miserable I felt with my sickness. He answered and told me he had driven a friend home. I thought he meant stopping somewhere on the way, but that didn’t explain the two and a half hours. When I asked where he was, he said he was on the other side of Phoenix. I was mortified. Hadn’t I explained my sickness clearly? Hadn’t I told him I would have dinner ready for him if he just grabbed me some eye drops and given a specific time? I begged him to come home because I desperately needed eyedrops. He said he’d come home when he was ready because he was helping this friend with his college classes. I became frustrated, wondering why his wife being sick took a backseat to some random college kid. I yelled at him, trying desperately to get my message across since he clearly wasn’t hearing me. I was highly infectious and had our children in bed. I couldn’t go anywhere and I needed relief from my misery. He yelled back, telling me to stop being so selfish and he would come home when he was good and ready. He hung up.

I tried calling back. Again and again. I tried texting, but he ignored me.

Finally, exhausted and miserable, I flushed out my eyes again and climbed into bed. Not long afterward, a crippling pain erupted from deep within my belly. It felt like a tearing inside me, ripping me from the inside out. I couldn’t move. Tears rolled free from the agony, and I begged to the Lord, confused and alarmed by this strange and debilitating pain. It spread over my body, radiating from my core and the Lord answered, “I cannot stop this. You need to feel it.”

Never have I felt anything like this pain before. It was different to childbirth or dislocating joints which I had experienced. It was like it came from something beyond the physical. However, although this pain lasted for almost a half hour, I felt the Lord with me. He couldn’t take it away, but He could help me through it.

After the pain finally subsided, I looked at the unanswered texts and calls and I knew, deep in my heart, that my husband had just cheated on me. I sent him a message saying as much.

It wasn’t until much later when I mentioned this event to a friend that I realized what the pain was. The pain came from my temple marriage covenants literally breaking. My husband had broken them, and I felt it. I’d always held my temple covenants as sacred and knew they were extremely powerful, but now I know how deep and binding they truly are. To feel that pain from the breaking of sacred covenants made in the temple affirms to me their divine power and my responsibility to keep those vows with the Lord.

When my husband arrived home close to midnight, he woke me just to yell at me and say how dare I accuse him of cheating. Still sick, and alarmed by what had happened to me, I didn’t resist his barrage of insults and demeaning remarks, I just wanted to sleep. My heart hurt, and I knew what he’d done.

At our counseling, my husband brought up my accusation. I couldn’t say anything in response. I’d felt he’d done it. I had no proof, but I felt it. He kept saying “I’m a good guy,” over and over like he needed to prove it to everyone else and himself. Deep in my heart, I felt the pains of his words as the whispering came, “He was once, but now he casts all that’s good aside.”

Somewhere in there, we had another fight. I’m not sure exactly where it fits in, but he left to go—surprise, surprise--help his mother. I stayed home with the girls and worked on my college classes. I was studying Eternal Families at that time and did work on what to value most and whether to be more concerned about winning a fight or preserving a relationship. So, that evening, when I went over to meet my husband, I took the time to apologize. I tried to hug him, but he pushed me away. He said, “What’s wrong with you? You’re bipolar or something.”

I told him about my lesson, but he didn’t care. He scolded me for being the most selfish and mean person he knew and then told me he didn’t love me anymore because I was impossible to love. He went on and on about how horrible I am and how everything wrong was my fault and I needed to change.

The worst part? I believed it. I believed I was the most horrendous person alive and I deserved to feel like the scum between his toes. He had successfully whittled down my confidence and perception of myself that I now believed every horrible insult he threw at me. I believed I was fat, ugly, selfish, mean, unsupportive, lazy, a terrible mother, hateful, and the list goes on. I was so destroyed inside that even when I prayed, I didn’t see that all these things were completely false. I couldn’t feel the Spirit tell me they were wrong, but sought out answers on how I could change myself to please a man who didn’t want me to please him, a man who had turned me into his personal punching bag to project all of his own self-loathing onto.

Earlier that year, before I even found the porn on his phone, he had stopped attending church. He said it was because I harassed him about getting ready, but even when I stopped and focused on getting the girls and me ready without him, he still didn’t come. The only time I recall him attending church was Mother’s Day, and even then he ignored me and spent the entire time on his phone. In the special Relief Society held, Bishop said some beautiful, tender words that really struck my heart. I had to leave and hid in the bathroom to cry. Everything the bishop said I didn’t experience. In fact, I’d been made to believe I was a horrible wife and mother and didn’t deserve any respect.

On my way back to the room, I hesitated outside the door. I didn’t know if I could face a room full of women who were amazing when I was so pathetic. The husband of a friend of mine walked into the building. He and my friend had both gone through terrible divorces before finding one another, and I have tremendous respect for them both for their strength to go on. He saw me standing by the door to the room and complimented me for being a strong and wonderful mother. I burst into tears again. It was hard for me to fathom such a thing when my own husband constantly told me otherwise. Poor guy gave me a hug, clearly not sure what to do. But when I pulled myself back together, I could return to the room. And I’m glad I did. The women embraced me and loved me and so many told me how amazing I was to be able to work, study, raise children, and still attend church on my own. All of it on my own. I would say, “My house is messy,” and they’d laugh and say, “If that’s all that’s wrong, you’re doing pretty well!” My ward sisters gave me strength. This was the beginning of a turning point for me.

At work, I had coworkers who had become wonderful friends. They showed me love and lifted me up, telling me I was the opposite to everything my husband would tell me at home. Meanwhile, he was coming home less and less, and later and later. He told me to cancel our counselling because I wasn’t learning or changing so it was pointless. But I had begun to rise up inside. I would watch him and see how mean and selfish he was, not me. I realized that he had been projecting onto me, blaming my struggles to keep a clean house and make dinner for him, as well as my doubts regarding his lack of real estate work as the reason why our marriage was failing. Truth be told, he never once supported me. He openly objected to me returning to school and hated the choices I’d made for employment because it didn’t fit what he wanted me to do. The only reason he had for me being a bad mother was that the girls looked “scruffy”. I made sure they had a bath every night and clean clothes, and if their clothes became scruffy, I couldn’t replace them because he’d already blown our budget. It began to sink in that, considering what I had to work against, I was doing a pretty decent job. However, calling me a bad mother was another projection of his. One evening, while he was laying on the bed using his phone again, I got into an argument with our oldest who refused to do her chore. After some yelling back and forth, he stormed into the living room. He grabbed her and yanked her over his knees and started smacking her hard, over and over. She was screaming and crying, and I said he needed to stop. He paused his beating to glare at me and said how dare I undermine him, and he would keep hitting her until she stopped crying. I was so frightened and scared, all I could do was watch my child be beaten by her father until she finally managed to suck in her sobbing. When he released her, all she did was run and cry in her room. Her chore never got done, and instead, she treated me with more contempt.

Despite everything, when it came to saving our marriage, I was fighting a losing battle and it had exhausted me.

One Friday night. It was a rare occasion when I stayed up later than my husband. When I came to bed, he had left his phone on my pillow. When I picked it up to move it onto the charger, I saw messages from strange people, some of them suggestive in nature. I tried to unlock the phone to figure out what was going on, but I couldn’t. Instead, I took a photo of his screen with my phone and went to bed.

In the morning, after his phone had woken me several times during the night, I tried to unlock it again as it had even more of these strange messages on it. He woke to me doing this and turned savage on me. He raised his fist to me, but somehow didn’t actually hit me. I thought he would. He stormed from the house swearing to not come back all day because of my behavior, leaving me frightened and shaken. I went into the kitchen to prep breakfast for me and the girls while they were still in bed and cried the whole time. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I’d tried counselling with the bishop and a marriage therapist, and he had cancelled them. I’d tried church classes, and he openly hated them and told me he didn’t need them, but that I clearly did. I worked hard and studied hard, but nothing I did was good enough for him or good enough to mend our relationship. Standing up for myself caused fights and backing down made him treat me like garbage. Apologizing made him call me bipolar and crazy.

While I worked in the kitchen that morning, a friend called. When I answered, she simply told me that she felt impressed to call me and tell me to go to the temple that day and she would watch the girls. This made me cry all over again. God knew me and knew my pain, and through this friend, He was calling me to His house. So, I got my girls up, dressed, and fed, and dropped them with my friend.

I didn’t know what to expect at the temple. Honestly, I just needed to find some sort of peace. After being told by my husband he didn’t love me and no one around us liked me, I felt pretty hopeless. After years of being rejected by his family and treated like a pariah, I’d become beaten down. My fight had just about been extinguished. The people who were supposed to love me hated me. There are no words to describe how lonely it is to feel worthless. Thinking back, I think all I wanted at the temple was to feel like I meant something again. That there was some point to my existence.

For years I have exclusively taken family names to the temple, and this day was no exception. There is something about doing the work of your own family that draws the Spirit in a stronger way. Listening to the words of the session and keeping a prayer in my heart for direction and guidance, the Spirit encompassed me throughout the entire time.

In the Celestial room, I found a quiet place and began to pray. I needed help with my marriage. I’d run out of ideas, and everything I’d tried fell flat and often made things worse. We were supposed to have an eternal marriage, so I needed help getting it to a place where I didn’t feel so destroyed. The Lord knew my husband better than I did, so I needed direction to make this work.

The comfort of the Spirit wrapped me tightly as a warm voice whispered, “I am here.”

It’s months later while compiling this that I realized that those were the same words He whispered to me as a broken-hearted teen alone in the bush. He reminds me while I’m at my loneliest that I don’t need to feel alone because He’s always right beside me if I just be still and listen.

After having a good cry from the overwhelming strength of the Spirit, I asked, “What do I need to do to repair this marriage? I’ve done everything I can think of, and still I can’t make things better. Lord, you know my husband better than I do, please, help me.”

His response: “Let it all go and leave it to Me.”

Leave it to Him? Okay, I’d learned to trust Him over the years, but what else could I do?

“Let Me take care of it,” He repeated. “I know all, and I will provide a way. What will come will be hard, but you are strong enough to do this.”

“Strong enough?” I thought. I felt so broken. “I’m not strong at all,” I told Him.

A flood of memories, trials, heart aches, torment, all rushed to my mind. I’d gone through all of it and survived, even came out stronger for it. He had given me trials to make me stronger, and I had enough strength to get through what was to come.

“You husband will be brought low,” He told me. “He needs to hit bottom to remember who I Am.”

In a moment of fear, I begged Him to keep my girls and me safe. So often, we’d suffered from my husband’s poor choices more than he did. Car repossession, severe debt, being left stranded with a broken-down car, air conditioning not working mid-summer in Arizona because we didn’t have the funds to maintain or replace it. I feared that bringing my husband low would drag us down right with him, and I didn’t want that for them. My girls deserved better.

The Lord promised He would watch over and protect us. He would get us through, but again, I would need to be strong.

“I don’t think I’m strong enough to do this,” I told Him.

“You are,” He responded, “But I’ll give you support.”

It was as if the veil had lifted. I felt so much love around me. Five distinct presences drew close to me, and one said my name, and said, “I’m here.”

I knew his voice. Years had passed since I’d heard it, but I still knew it. The voice had filled my childhood and youth with love and kindness. That soft, English lilt in the way he spoke my name brought me to tears. My dear maternal grandfather. I believe he was the one who spoke because I would recognize his voice. I felt as if he stood right in front of me.

The other four presences were female. I believe one was my paternal grandmother. She knew my pain, and she knew what I would soon face because she had gone through similar trials herself. The other three women I cannot say who they were, but I felt their love. I knew as my ancestors they watched me closely and we have some deeper bond I don’t yet understand. I felt them all pledge their strength to me.

I left the temple feeling like a different person to the one who walked in. My heart was full and I felt powerful. I could face what was to come.

After arriving home, I tried to reach out to my husband. He didn’t answer my call but responded to my text where I said I’d gone to the temple and had an incredible experience. He told me I needed to stop being so self-righteous. As a result, I kept what I’d experienced in my heart. I feared he would mock it and sully it.

Instead, as I looked at my phone, the prompt came to download the app I’d found on his phone and get into the furry chatrooms. I did not want to do that. I’d felt for months something was off about the chatrooms he’d gotten involved in. But the prompt came through stronger. Get in there.

So, I did. It took some prodding around, but I eventually found my husband’s alias. I sat on it for a few days, concerned he’d figure out who I was. During that time, many of the furries confirmed my suspicions that the scene was a shady one. I was asked to meet up for sex, have threesomes, and sent crude and pornographic images, even of the guys' genitals themselves. I wanted to get out, but the prompt came to engage with my husband.

So, I built up my courage and dove in. I started simply, saying I was new to the furry scene and seeking guidance. It didn’t take him long to start trash talking about me to me. I didn’t even try to get it out of him. He talked about how his wife was crazy and certifiably bipolar but refused his suggestion to get treatment. I don’t recall him ever suggesting I get treatment for being bipolar! I brought up the question with my counselor after filing for divorce, and he gave me a look like, why would you think that? and told me I was quite normal. A bit damaged, but not bipolar.

Anyway, Tuesday, after talking for less than a few hours, he told me he is bisexual. I was absolutely gutted. He’d lied to my face saying he didn’t have same sex attraction, then was trashing me to the furries saying I didn’t understand and I was horrible for not accepting him as he was. How could I accept someone as they were when they lied to me about their feelings?

After work, I couldn’t bare the thought of facing my husband. I’d arranged to visit with my host mother that afternoon a few days earlier, and I couldn’t be more grateful I had. So, we went over to their place. My host mother immediately noticed something was wrong. She asked if I wanted to talk, and I began to tear up. She asked her daughter to watch the girls and took me into another room so we could talk.

There, I went into great detail. I explained everything, pouring my heart out to her. I told her he didn’t love me, he blamed me for everything, resented me for trying to fix our money problems, and he was bisexual. I cried the whole time, feeling terribly betrayed, and hating that lying to me had come so easily for him. Yet, hating even more that I’d been blind enough to believe the lies.

After I’d finished, she asked her husband to come in. Being on the stake presidency, he had better insight into the repercussions of what I’d revealed. He and my host mother counseled me to talk with my bishop because things had become very serious. While still in that room, I contacted my bishop. He was still at work, but he heard my concerns and arranged for me to go to the Relief Society President for support in his absence.

Before I left my host family, my host mother invited me to join them at their family cabin that weekend. I needed a break, she told me, and I had to agree.

After leaving, I headed straight to the Relief Society President’s house. We talked about all that I’d discovered, and she was shocked. One thing my husband has a talent for is putting on a good face. He has charisma and knows the best way to sell himself to people. Even now, people refuse to believe what I say happened because he is that convincing. I was abused, but he convinces people I was the one who did the abusing. However, this kind woman believed me and she hugged me and told me she and so many other would support me through this hard time.

Still, I did not consider divorce. I hoped, with some help, the truth would bring us to a point of healing.

But I had yet to discover more truths. Worse truths.

Over the next few days, I kept him talking on the app. He would spill without any prompts, willingly trashing me to someone who was essentially a stranger. He had no idea who I was under the alias, yet he talked more to someone he didn’t know than he did to me.

Meanwhile, as of the Saturday when he yelled at me and stormed out, he told me flat out that I wasn’t allowed to talk to him. All week, not only did he not come home until late, but when he did, I was met with a deafening silence.

On Wednesday night, as I was heading to bed, he stopped me. With every part of me aching from his betrayal, I stopped, wondering what he could possibly say to someone he told the world was basically the devil incarnate.

He said I had permission to talk to him.

I had permission? A bubble of rage popped inside me. Permission? I was his wife and I needed his permission to talk? It took all my effort to keep walking to the bedroom. Except, he stopped me and forced me to the living room to talk. I could barely look at him knowing what I did, but I didn’t want him to know. Not yet anyway. I felt like there was more. I wanted him to admit to me the truth on his own. To my face.

He started telling me how impossible I was, and how he couldn’t stand living with me. He tried to convince me that I needed to leave. Where would I go? I argued. My family lived on the other side of the world. He told me to go live with my friend if she’d have me.

I said I couldn’t leave the girls. They needed me. He told me they needed a decent mother, and I’d do them a favor by leaving them with him. After years of him telling me that I wanted the kids so I needed to deal with them, and me literally being the one who “dealt” with them 95% of the time, that cut deep. They were my babies, and I would never go anywhere without them. A voice inside me lit a flame, saying, “You are not the bad mother he says you are.”

That night, he tried to force me to leave. He bullied, belittled, demeaned, insulted, made me feel like the salt of the earth, but I wouldn’t budge. Not for him, but for my girls. I’d never leave them. I’d fight to the death for them. I’d suffered through infertility, aggressive tantrums, sleepless nights, postpartum depression, fear of them being harmed, and years of being accused of being a bad mother just for them. They were my blood, sweat, and tears, and I’d never let them go.

I tried to push him to admit the truth to me. I said I felt he was keeping things from me. I knew it deep down. He told me I was paranoid and I needed therapy. But I knew I wasn’t. I knew he was lying to me.

Somehow, I managed to escape and go to bed.

Thursday. After work, I prepared to leave for the trip to the cabin the next day. It meant putting off my oldest’s homework, and I had my own assignments for college I wanted to complete before going away. It was one of the few evenings my husband arrived home when he was supposed to. When he walked in, I was engaged in an argument about homework, and had barely managed to get my youngest to go to her room to leave her sister to do her work. Basically, all three of us being in a tense state, didn’t register him arriving home hours earlier than usual.

As my oldest did her homework and I retreated to do my assignments, he sat on the couch, waiting for someone to acknowledge him. When no one did, he stormed out.

The next thing I knew, he sent my alias a message showing him with a glass of beer. He said his wife had made sure everyone ignored him when he got home and started trashing me while he drank.

Alarmed, and knowing he didn’t have house keys, I locked down the house. He spoke such ugly and hateful things about me that, with some alcohol in him, I had no idea what he’d do to me.

He didn’t arrive home until well after the girls had gone to bed. I’d shut the house down to go to bed myself when he first started banging on the doors. He went all around the house, banging on the windows and yelling at me to let him in and stop being crazy. He grew so aggressive, I called in a mutual friend who lived nearby. This friend managed to coax him into leaving, but told me later he had to stop my husband from throwing a brick through a window.

He went to this friend’s place briefly, and after he left, this friend called me and told me he was very upset. I explained that I knew he’d gone out drinking and I feared for my safety. He said he hadn’t smelled any alcohol on him, so I sent him the picture. Concerned, he said I should probably try to talk to him.

The forty-five-minute conversation that follow I recorded. As I made the call, the distinct voice of the Spirit spoke to me telling me that I needed to record it. When I played it for a professional, they explained to me that it showed prolonged gaslighting to the point where he knew exactly how to manipulate me into bending and thinking I was completely to blame. Even though I made valid points for concern, the way he twisted my thoughts made me buckle and even ask him to come home, despite my fears and best judgment. He made me doubt my own judgment and even my sanity.

He stayed with his parents that night. However, at some point we did see him because he wanted me to take the more reliable car to the mountains. I don’t recall much about that encounter aside from telling him there was an extra box of Ritz in the cupboard.

We settled in at the cabin, enjoying the cold. The girls ran around and had fun with my host brother’s kids, while I felt mellow. I simply wanted to savor my time with these people I’d grown to love, but hadn’t seen much of due to life getting in my way. The family all knew something was wrong, but no one said anything. They were just kind and loving, like always.

That night, over the app, my husband started to sext my alias. He talked about his fantasies with men and what he’d do to my alias. He talked about how his wife was fat and refused to do things he wanted to do and how unsatisfying I was. He also sent me pictures of his penis, and a video of him getting off.

First thing in the morning, he told me about his sexual encounters with men. Two men, specifically, one aged twenty-one which he’d had several penetrative encounters, one time on a Sunday when he waited for me to leave for church and went to meet this guy. The other was a nineteen-year-old whom he was working to convince to let him penetrate, but they were having oral.

I thought I was devastated before. This took my pain to a whole other level. When I managed to go downstairs, I asked to speak privately with my host mother. She took me to her room, where I sobbed as I told her of my husband’s affairs. She, having watched him grow up, was mortified and in many ways, quite heartbroken herself. None of us saw this coming. Once, my husband had been a good man, an honest, loving, loyal man, but somewhere that man had died. The man I loved had gone, and I think that was more heartbreaking than death. Death means someone going to another place and one day I would see them again, but this, this was the complete vanishing never to be seen again of someone I loved. A new person resided in his body; someone I didn’t know nor did I want to know. My husband, who had been tender and caring for years, no longer existed.

I told my host mother that I had to divorce him. She agreed that things had gone too far and I needed to get out. She invited her husband in to update him on the situation, and he too knew that divorce would be the best route for me and the girls. We decided that I needed a blessing, and my host brother, who was the same age as me and my husband, was invited in to help. The poor guy just saw this sobbing mess but had no clue what was going on. To his credit, he didn’t ask either.

The blessing from my host father was tender and so affirming. He said I was doing the right thing and, down the road, my girls would look back and admire me for the choices I would make and would love me for being strong. The blessing confirmed that I’d done the right thing, followed my promptings, and that the Lord would be with me.

That night, I discovered my husband’s affinity for beastiality. My resolve was set.

The following evening, after a series of texts regarding everything that I’d learned, my bishop called. I sat outside in the cold night air as we went over everything that would unfold. I sent him the screenshots of what I’d learned, being careful to select shots without the pornographic images and just the descriptions. He agreed that divorce was the only course to take and sent me details for an attorney. After our conversation, he contacted our stake president and shared the screenshots with him as well. Excommunication began to be a definite possibility.

The problem was, my husband still lived at the house. Somehow, I had to convince him to leave. As I drove home, I worried over how I would do this. I prayed over it, fearing his explosive temper. Then, I received a message from him that answered my prayers. He had moved out. I sent up a prayer of gratitude, relieved I didn’t have to face that horrible encounter.

Then, with my burden lightened, I told the girls. My oldest started to cry, but my youngest sat quietly.

I asked her, “Do you understand that means Daddy won’t be living with us anymore?”

She said yes, then, in her three-year-old innocence, said, “I’m glad because you can be happy now, Mommy.”

It broke my heart. She’d seen how much her father hurt me, and with him gone, she hoped her mother would finally be happy.

Over the next few hours, I was frightened when he showed up, and even more frightened when he took the girls to his parents’ house. In tears I made his dad promise to bring them back.

The next day, I went to the attorney, signed a contract with him, and filed for divorce.

The day after that, my friend who had told me to go to the temple just over a week earlier, took me back to the temple. I cried through large portions of the endowment session, feeling the grief of broken covenants.

Afterward, in the Celestial room, my friend left me to converse with the Lord. I asked again if I’d done the right thing. I believed so fervently in the sanctity of the temple sealing and eternal marriage, yet I’d taken action to end mine. The Lord reminded me of what He had told me before, that He would take care of things. He showed me that He’d made the truth come to me, and for the wellbeing of my children and me, we needed to escape. The Lord told me that He wanted me to get out of the marriage, so He made it so.

The best part? He told me He had greater plans for me, and because of my faith, He would guide me down that path, remaining at my side the entire time.

I would need Him with me, as the worst and ugliest was yet to come.

Blitzes, Reviews, and Release Date Announcement

Today, Widow of Papina has a blitz going on, so I'm being tweeted links to blogs like crazy! I'm glad to see it getting some noise around it, and I hope it picks up a bit of momentum.

The blitz for Quest for a Popstar is on January 16th, which is also it's release date! It's coming up so fast. If you want to join the blitz, sign up HERE.


Both books are available for review. I'd love to see some reviews up on the day of QfaP's release, and I'd love to see some reviews on Amazon and Goodreads for WoP. You can request Quest for a Popstar HERE and Widow of Papina HERE.

Quest for a Popstar is also available for pre-order which you can find on Amazon

Curiosity Quills has ARCs available for Dwarves of Calcus (Fairytale Galaxy #3) Here are the details to request a copy:

Simply email your request to marketing@curiosityquills.com, along with your preferred digital format - Kindle (mobi), Nook (ePub), Adobe Reader (PDF) - and one of the team will have copies sent to you as soon as possible.
If you're interested in reading a book that's a sequel, but have yet to read the previous books in the series, please let us know, and we'll send you all the books in the series! 

I'm still waiting for a cover for this one, but the insides are all ready to go for what I believe is going to be a MARCH 6TH release. 

In other news, I am now back in college! I intend to earn my degree to become a Secondary English Teacher! So excited. I'm currently working at an Elementary school as an Interventionist, so I'm getting some real world skills while studying. But, because of work and school, my releases will likely slow down for a while. I'll work on keeping the series current, but new projects won't be in the works for a while. The studying should help improve my writing skills though, which, in the long run will be beneficial for my readers! Yay!


That's it! Update complete.

The Safe Place: Nobility in Womanhood

Last week I talked about the honor of Motherhood, so this week I'm going to discuss something that is hand in hand with that; the nobility of womanhood. The two are closely entwined, and I love that they are. As a woman, I know I think and feel differently to men, and I'm fine with that. It creates a beautiful balance, one that allows me to respect and honor both men and women around me.

But being a woman isn't about making babies and blindly accepting what men tell us. Having children is a wondrous part of being a woman, a great gift that men can never receive, but it's so much more than that. Being a mother, and as a result, being a woman, means being a leader. To be able to guide people, little children, down the paths of life means being intelligent, compassionate, and most of all loving. Women have that capacity built into us, whether we've thrown it away and ignore it or not.

"God sent women to earth with some qualities in extra capacity."

~Margaret D. Nadauld 

But having the gentler nature of the sexes doesn't mean we're weak either. There are so many incredible women out there who embrace what they are an use it as a tool to win influence. It's a beautiful thing to watch, and I myself work hard to embrace it as well in my own life.

"...[femininity] is the divine adornment of humanity. It finds expression in your … capacity to love, your spirituality, delicacy, radiance, sensitivity, creativity, charm, graciousness, gentleness, dignity, and quiet strength. It is manifest differently in each girl or woman, but each … possesses it. Femininity is part of your inner beauty."

~James E.Faust 

A quote that hit me while I've been pondering on who I am and my own nobility as a woman is below:

"The world has enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender. There are enough women who are coarse; we need women who are kind. There are enough women who are rude; we need women who are refined. We have enough women of fame and fortune; we need more women of faith. We have enough greed; we need more goodness. We have enough vanity; we need more virtue. We have enough popularity; we need more purity."

~Margaret D. Nadauld

That quote has hit me hard. The "tough" woman is something that is so popular in today's world, and I can't say I haven't worked hard to be tough myself. But we can be strong while retaining our tenderness. I feel like I have maintained that with my heroines when I write, which makes me proud to know that I had that understanding of womanhood without realizing it. Then of course there's kindness, refined, faith, goodness, virtue, and purity. These beautiful things are so important, but so easily thrust aside because we don't perceive them as worthwhile. But they can do more good in this world than harsh words, casting a vote, or being the driving force behind a protest rally. I've seen it first hand. More often than not, people respond better to these qualities when interacting with them. Children especially, my own in particular, but those at the school where I work too, can do complete 180s with their temperance and attitudes when shown tenderness, kindness and so forth.

There's nothing wrong with womanhood, in fact, it's incredibly noble and can have a powerful influence on the world for the better. I love that I have this gift simply by being my gender, and I hope I can share the beauty of it with others by how I behave and present myself.

The Safe Place: Motherhood; the Greatest Honor.

Being a mother is exhausting. I have two very high energy little girls. It's insane how hyper they are, especially when I see other kids sitting quietly while mine are climbing up the furniture, letting out high pitched squeals just because they can, and eating. Constantly eating. It's melt-your-flesh-off hot outside and they're running and playing on scolding play equipment like it's only 75F. Going to the store raises my stress levels through the roof because they're constantly touching, grabbing, crying, whining, needing the bathroom, and begging. Then, my almost 2 year old loves taking off her clothes, even when we're in public. There have been several times she's managed to pull her diaper off from under clothes and I have no idea where it ended up. Then there's how impossible it is to get a sitter just so my husband and I can get some time together on a date or to go to the temple. Even me time to recover is almost non existent.

So, how is this the greatest honor? No matter how hard it is raising these kids, I wouldn't trade them for the world. I'd go all mama-bear on anyone who lays a hand on them. Here is a Facebook post I wrote near the end of my pregnancy with my now almost 2 year old:

In the last seven months, I've gained just over 20lbs. Some might think that's discouraging after just fighting so hard against my PCOS to lose the same amount, but it's really not. Instead, that number means so much more than anything in this world. That number means miracles do still happen. It means despite the tears, the struggling, the heartache, I can give my daughter a sister.I've learned so much from all this. I've learned that sometimes women can pop them out in a bat of an eye, and sometimes women suffer in silence because they just can't make it work. I had people say and do insensitive things to me while I struggled, but from that, I know how to be empathetic to those who still do.
I've also learned my body is no longer my own. This child inside me needs me to care for her, because she can't care for herself. I need to be a responsible adult and acknowledge that I have a gift, so I better treat it right.
But my body also belongs to a 4yo. Although she is far more independent than an unborn, she still needs me to hold her when she's sad, to cry on my shoulder when she's hurt, to teach her, and guide her.
I'm a mother, and although I'm not perfect at it, it's so important that I'm not obsessed with how I look or ensnaring myself in self loathing. I don't want my daughters to learn that. I want them to know I have these scars and lumps because I have them, and they are worth it.

These little people are worth it. At church last Sunday, we had a lesson about nobility in motherhood and I almost burst into tears. At the time, I was exhausted from another week of failing to keep my house tidy, being so busy I didn't get enough sleep,and struggling with growth-spurt induced tantrums. But I know in my heart that being a mother is the noblest of callings in life. Being given the responsibility to care for, mold, and love someone so they can become a functioning and intelligent member of society is so crucial to life itself. So although I have a love-hate relationship with my role depending on the day, I know in the long run, my struggles and tears will be worth it. When these children are grown, I will receive my reward. God has entrusted me with his precious children, and that's the greatest honor of all.

Yes, I've Been Quiet...

You may have noticed I haven't posted much lately. It's true, and here's why!

Things are pretty quiet on the publishing front. I have my second round of edits for Myths of Mish, but my writing and reading have come to a stand still. I've been dealing with personal stuff, like, as I've mentioned before, postpartum depression. Over the last few weeks it's hit me pretty hard and I've been struggling to function in many aspects. 
I talk about PPD a lot because I feel like it's not truly appreciated for how serious it can be. Because it's a short term condition, it's often brushed aside as "it will pass and you'll be fine." Yeah, it will, but right now I feel like I'm barely keeping afloat. I'm lucky in that I don't get aggressive feelings toward my children, where there are plenty of women who do, but I do find myself slipping into dark places in my mind.
I don't want pity of sympathy, I just want people to be aware, especially around new mothers within the first eighteen months, that sometimes these women are fighting a silent battle. From personal experience, they don't want people to know they cry every time the baby wakes them up, or if they have multiple kids that they just can't handle normal everyday things those children bring to them. These women try to be strong and wear a smile in public, and often face scorn when they're not living up to the expectations of others with home keeping and other day-to-day obligations. I know there are times when I just don't even want to get out of bed in the morning.
So, right now, yes, my writing has fallen dead. But that's okay. I'd prefer to wait it out and pick it up when I'm feeling better and not write something terrible. For now, editing will do, and binge watching every anime show on Netflix to keep the creative juices flowing.

8 Years Ago...

December 25th, 2008 was the last time I had Christmas with my family. It was the last time I was in Australia, enjoying Christmas like I had my entire life. My last summer Christmas. My last Christmas when I didn't suffer from a pit of loneliness and homesickness.

But this year I want it to be different. I want to go back with my little family for this Christmas. Eight. Years. Later. This year is mostly different because my little/not-so-little-anymore sister is having her first baby. This is a huge deal in our family that seems to struggle to conceive, and because she's my only sister and we were so close growing up and I can't get there when she has the baby in August due to financial restraints and kid #1 starting kindergarten, I need to be there for her.

So, in a desperate attempt to save up enough money, I'm asking you to  BUY MY BOOKS. Since you're following along, there's a good chance you already have, but maybe not all of them? *puppy eyes*. I'm especially encouraging purchase of the Kiya Trilogy, the Cadence Duology and Princess of Tyrone as these come to me as direct payments.

I'm also selling signed paperbacks of all of my books (except Athenian Rain) for $15 each plus postage. Just email me (katiejteller at gmail dot com) and I'll make arrangements with you.

I'm also looking to do query and first 250 word critiques for $5, query and first chapter for $10, query and first three chapters for $20 and query and full manuscript for $50. Since I work as an acquisitions editor, I can give you pretty solid feedback, hopefully. I'm not a line editor, but can give you points for plot holes, voice consistency etc.

So, there you are. Help me get home for Christmas this year!

Review of 2015 and Goals for the New Year

2015 was a good year for me. More ups than downs in my writing and personal life.

Writing Successes:
2015 saw the release of Deceptive Cadence and Diverging Cadence, my duology about a young woman who goes back to her high school days to have a second chance in life, and spans the years between. Cadence's story is one that, from the moment I wrote it, buried deep into my heart. At times I still wonder if I can ever write anything so deep and stirring as her tale. So, having these books released is something I'm personally really proud of, like I'm leaving something truly me to the world.
Cadence released through REUTS, which hooked me up with some amazing people. I always love having the chance to interact with other great talents, whether in writing, editing, or design.

Another release was Dancing in the Athenian Rain. This novel was one I originally wrote as a teenager, and was my first real novel I ever wrote. I'd written stories before then, but this one turned things around for me. I'd updated it a few times since then, but the basic story and characters are still the same. I'm honestly just happy to see it in print.

Although I took most of the year off acquisitions, I did sign the third book in Sharon Bayliss' December People series with Curiosity Quills. These books blow my mind. How Sharon comes up with this stuff is beyond me. If you haven't read the first two books, do it before the third comes out later this year.

The Kiya Trilogy continues to be my bread and butter as it holds solid ranks. Late in the year, right before Thanksgiving, Kiya 1 went on sale for free and sales sky-rocketed for all three books. Kiya 1 reached a high of #3 of ALL free Kindle books, and when it came out of the free sale, sat at about 300 for several days. Even now, it's still sitting around 12,000-14,000.


Upcoming in 2016:
The first book in my seven book series called Fairytale Galaxy Chronicles, releases early this year. I don't know the exact date, but I believe in Feb sometime. As usual, this part gets a little slow with CQ as I wait for the proof and cover, but it will get there in time, I'm sure. The rest of the books are lined up for tentative release each March for the next, well, seven years.

I have a couple more books in the pipelines, nothing official yet, but I'm hoping to work with REUTS and SMP again this year.

I'd really like to get to some conferences.conventions etc this year, so if you know of any around Arizona, point me that direction.


My Personal Life in 2015:
2015 brought a miracle to my life. After years of trying, leaving a 4 1/2 year gap between kids, I finally had baby #2. I have some health issues that I put a lot of time and money into dealing with in 2014, which paid off exactly how I wanted. Now I have two beautiful little girls that I love with my whole heart.

I had plenty of visits from my family in Australia too. My husband finally got to meet my sister's husband, and they hit it off amazingly well, when they came over to visit earlier in the year. I love my sister, and although I was quite pregnant and limited, we did do a trip to the Grand Canyon with them, and my first daughter had a great time tailing her uncle everywhere. There's no doubt that "Uncle Jason" is her favorite uncle!

My parents came right after I had the baby, which was nice, especially when I spent a lot of time focused on the bub, and kid #1 had some jealousy issues.

On the down side, about a month after having the baby, the hubs lost his job. So we had a mountain of medical bills and a very small income in comparison with my royalties. We've been lucky enough to have people help us out here and there, and we've scraped by so far. Hopefully, he'll get some work here soon so we can get back on our feet financially.

Coming in 2016:
Honestly, I really want my sister to get pregnant. Fingers Crossed!!! Like me, she has struggled with fertility issues, and I so want her to be a mother. There's no one more deserving of that role than her.

In August, Kid #1 will be starting school. Mind. Blown. How did she get so big? How is she five??? But school will be so great for her. She's so lively and bright, I really think it will give her the opportunity to get the stimulation mentally and socially that she craves.

When the hubby gets some work and we start to bounce back, we will hopefully be doing some much needed renovations on our house. This place has needed work from the day we moved in, and we've finally set some solid plans in place... we just need the income. So, fingers crossed on that.

I started a book club! We had our first meeting already, and at our meetings we Skype with the author. So far it's been a hit, and I love hearing the ladies say that they're enjoying reading again, and looking forward to reading new genres and types of books. Thanks to the hubs for suggesting doing a book club, and for supporting me as I took the idea and went to the next level with it. I really needed it, as my PPD was really getting me down, and I think he saw that. But, after the meeting, I felt so much happier.

look out for son of a Pitch in Feb! If it goes well, I'll run it again later in the year. Yay!

My Goals for this Year:
To enjoy my kids. To enjoy my husband. To shed all the baby weight (cliche, I know, but if I want to try for another baby in the future, it has to be done) To get to Australia to meet my brother's soon-to-be wife. And to just get to Australia again, because I miss it so bad.
I'd like to get an agent, but I'm at a point where I'm pretty happy with the publishers I work with, so getting an agent would be a bonus, but not a necessity. I feel like my books sell pretty well as it is, and I like the flexibility I have with the publishers I work through.
I'm working on a sequel to the Kiya Trilogy, as well as book 3 and onward of the fairytale novels. There are also a few other things I have up my sleeve, but you've have to wait to learn about those.


All up, I'm in a pretty good place. 2015 went pretty well, and I believe 2016 has just as much promise. It's all about the outlook, right?

Working Mommy Guilt

Being an author is only part of my life. The part that takes up most of my time, and definitely most of my energy is being a mommy to a vivacious three-year-old, and wife. Not only this, but I work out of the home part time too.
Working has been necessary for us to keep us afloat. Admittedly, things are getting better, but working along with my husband is still needed to pay the bills. I don't mind working. My parents raised me to work hard and earn an honest pay, but what about my daughter?
I live in an area and in a community where most women my age are popping out babies and stay at home moms. It's not terribly conducive to the sanity of a woman whose fertility is poor and must work. I see people advocating for the recognition of stay-at-home mom's as working, and I'm fine with that. Maintaining a house and raising children is incredibly hard. But add into that a work schedule. Working mom's may have the opportunity to get out of the house and have adult conversations, but for me, the work leaves me feeling guilty. I could have spent those hours cleaning, teaching my daughter, walking the dog. Instead, my house sits trashed, someone else is playing with my child and the dog is laying around bored.
I love my family. I have a wonderful husband who works hard, and a beautiful, bright little girl. They are my world, but more often than not, I feel like I fail them. I feel like I'm a bad mommy because I'm thinking about work, or marketing my books in someway so we can raise that extra income. I find myself wishing for a moment's peace so I can clear my head and get it in the zone to write something just a little bit inspired or catch up on some reading. I find myself wishing I could get to the gym more so I can take control of my PCOS and have another child so I don't feel like I'm failing as a woman and a wife. I see other women having child after child, delighting in their stay at home opportunities, while I'm being that "working mom".
While people tell me how amazing it is I'm published, and I do feel proud of my accomplishments, I do wonder if it is a substitute for my inability to be a good mother and having more children. I am terrified people see me and think I am selfish for not having another child and working instead.
People talk about mommy guilt with stay at home moms who lose their temper and compare themselves to the blissfully happy images the media portrays of motherhood, but I feel an added guilt to that. When I get home, I'm tired and don't what to deal with the whining of a toddler, but then feel bad because she has spent the last few hours with someone else. I feel bad because I don't want to play with her and her ponies because I've fallen behind on just about everything. Then I feel bad because I want another child and I can't conceive, but then I also wonder why I should bother when I'm fairly certain the one I have is about to make me lose my mind.
People say to me, "You have a wonderful life. A good husband who loves you, a beautiful little girl, a successful, blossoming writing career, and you're only in your twenties!" Yes, I do, and I am so grateful for all of them. They bring me so much joy. But the mommy guilt still remains as I see the things I can't do and slowly they overshadow the good. Each day I struggle to fight back those negative thoughts, but the battle is exhausting and endless.
Does anyone else feel like this? We are not perfect, none of us. Each of us struggles on, but sometimes, women especially, like to hide their struggles by smiling and getting by. We do not want pity, we want people to see us as perfect like we "should" be. That is probably part of the problem; we place too much pressure on ourselves.
Please, tell me your thoughts. photo credit: puck90 via photopin cc

So... see that tab above?

I have a tab above that reads: family blog. This year I'm actually going to use that blog to document my cooking experiment. Head on over and watch me as I struggle through to achieve this year's goal: to cook an entire recipe book.