My Story

Email: brabadges@hotmail.com

My email is open 24/7.  It works like a champ.

When I was a little girl, my aunt gave me the bouquet from her wedding.  She didn't want it anymore... something about a divorce and "why in the world do I have this in here?".  I cherished that bouquet.  I SLEPT with it.  As I drifted off to sleep at night, I used to plan my wedding.  The only reoccurring dream I ever had was in those days -I dreamed of a dark-haired, faceless, nameless groom.

I don't know what happened to that bouquet.
It doesn't matter.
I have one of my own now.

My groom is dark haired -my dream was right.  But for you he will continue to be faceless and nameless.  You'll like him better that way.

Anyway, this is hardly about him.

I didn't realize that two years ago when I had dedicated my life 100% to him -rather, to his porn addiction.  I gave up on hobbies and friends and interest and ME.  My only interest -only hobby -was the art of saving.
I would save him.  He couldn't save him.  He wasn't trying hard enough, wasn't praying enough, wasn't using the Atonement enough... so I would do it for him.

When we were engaged, he confessed to having a porn problem "in the past."  And I said something along the lines of "forgiveness, Atonement, Hakuna Matata!"
A few months into our marriage I started saying something more like, "Why?  Why?  Why?"
A few years into our marriage I started saying, "I'm not enough."
And a few years after THAT, I started saying, "Addiction?  No way."
A few months after, it was, "Addiction... Yes way."
A few months later, "Recovery."
And a year and half later... I'm standing at the gates of my own home, fighting and yet free.  I'm on the defensive, but I'm proudly waving my invisible victor's staff.
Porn may be beating my husband, but it is NOT beating me.  I want to tell the world.  I want to show them my invisible victor's staff, raise my anti-porn flag in my yard right under the Stars and Stripes.

But I can't.
Because then -heaven forbid -the neighbors would KNOW.  They'd all KNOW about my husband and his addiction to, ahem, um, *cough* porn *cough*
So I stand in cyberland next to my sisters in recovery, and we wear our recovery badges on our bras -where no one can see them.
And we're fighting a war as real as any in history.  Our white flags are under permanent lock and key in the closet.  Our combat boots are strapped tight.  Our weapons are locked and loaded.
And we gots our bra badges on.
Jump. back.