Hollywood script writers could not even come close to writing a movie with all the ups and downs in my life. This could probably be said for most of us, but some days it seems truer than others. None of us have lives that fit so nicely into the Hollywood movie formula of "the conflict, the solution and everyone lives happily ever after". With every up, there is a down. Some days there are more downs than up or visa versa, but it is my life and with that I choose to celebrate the ups and learn from the downs.
To continue my story, my husband finally found a job. Right now he is still working through the placement agency but we are hopeful that the company will sign him on permanently. There have already been a few additional pay checks, but it will take a while to get everything caught up. He is not making a ton of money, barely minimum wage, but it is more than nothing and it is a start. He is currently working a second shift, which is great for him and all his requirements. He still has his mornings to get all his necessary things done without it affecting a work day. It also leaves him available to run the kids back and forth for all their outside appointments. However, it is not great for family time, especially when he lives in another house. Unless they have appointments the kids do not see him, except on weekends. I might see him a couple mornings during the week if I have the time to stop on my way to work. The upside for me is that he is not home during the weekday evenings so I am not compelled to leave our house to spend time with him. I have returned to my routine of laundry, groceries and household chores when I have the energy. I am however, driven to get as much of the household stuff done during the week, so my weekends are not so full. This allows us to spend time on the weekends while other things to not get neglected.
With the addition of a job, we needed a second vehicle to allow us to all get back and forth. We actually had to go buy another vehicle. Purchased with a car payment...yuck! I have loved not having a car payment so so long that I hate the idea of making monthly payments. Learning to live so frugally, I am hoping that we can pay it off early. The upside is, it is a nice family size car, my daughter likes to drive it and everyone seems to approve of the purchase.
My husband then received the recommendation from the state for his sex offender designation, without going into great detail, they recommended him a level 2. There are three levels in our state, one being the lowest and least risk, up to a three. This did not make sense to us and it seemed that everything we had been told to do early on was coming back to bite us after the fact. It has been a battle for two months, requiring planning and preparation, but yesterday we won. The judge saw past all the legalese and used common sense and assigned him a level one rating. (No designation would have been the preferred outcome but our system is so screwed up that it would have taken a miracle of biblical proportions for that to happen,) Level one is the absolute best we could have hoped for and means that he can have some sort of normal life. So the outlook today is a good one.
Shortly after my husband came home and was still living with us, he and my daughter went out and picked out a new kitten. Simon was a wonderful addition to our home and seemed to fit in just fine. He was doing well, but I noticed he was no longer playing with his toys and seemed to just enjoying laying with someone. But he must have been sick, one day I noticed that he had not moved from my floor from the night before, I knew something was wrong, and of course it was a Sunday. We had made plans for my husband to take him to the vet first things Monday morning, but at 2:30am Monday, I knew he was not going to make it. I had already buried one beloved pet by myself, I could not do it again. I could not have the kids wake up in the morning and see Simon, so I called my husband and he took Simon to his home. He sat with Simon until he passed away a short time later. I did not tell the kids until later Monday after school. They knew it did not look good but were content to go to school Monday thinking he was going to the vet. What did this mean? The first thing we had done as a family when my husband came home and now he was gone. Simon was a symbol of us moving on and he himself was only with us for three months. I still am unsure of how to understand his short time with us but we have all begun to heal and move on.
My daughter is back in counseling, she is having a hard time dealing with all that having Dad back in her life brings. Having him under our roof meant going there were restrictions on them as well. Restrictions with friends, computers and a constant reminder of the changes in our lives. She is fearful of loosing the quality time that her and I have spent over the years with her softball. She is looking at her life and seeing that it is changing yet again. Right now she sees all the negative changes, I think with time and help she will begin to see the positives as well. She won't loose all the things that she loves, her and I will still be able to spend many long car rides alone and as that reality sets in, things will be good. The irony in this is she had been worried about what to tell people when they asked about her dad, I had the opportunity to introduce my husband to her softball coach and explain where he had been for the last few years, and his response was completely unexpected. He told us that his own father had been incarcerated for 3 years when he was a boy. Who knew!
We never know the stories of all the people around us. So many of us have so many sides, that to assume everyone is perfect, is to put yourself at a disadvantage and set yourself up for disappointment. I like meeting people who are flawed like me and imperfect. I think they are so much more interesting than those people that maintain a facade of perfection. The stories you can share and conversation you can have are great opportunities for growth and understanding. If Hollywood tried to make a movie of my life, it would go on forever and never really seem to find that happily ever after ending, but I admit that sometime I sit back with a snack and laugh at the chaos of it all.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Walking Through the Narrow Door
Many people may think I am crazy or do not understand why I choose to stay with my husband. Certainly it would have been much easier to separate myself and my children from him and move on with our lives. What kind of example would I be setting for my family? If you do something wrong, it is acceptable for others to turn your back? And truthfully, if I thought for one minute that my husband was a danger to anyone I would have left a long time ago. But he is anything but dangerous, he is kind and giving to a fault and if you asked, he would give you the shirt off his back.
It is in my journey to understand this "flaw" in his character that lead me to a greater understanding of those charged with these types of crimes. For many it is a natural progression from the legal pornography, for some it is a curiosity and yet others simply stumbled upon it with a download or opening a pop up message. A vast majority of these offenders are not dangerous and will never be yet they are lumped with heinous offenders and treated the same. Here is the injustice of our time. My husband served his punishment inside the fence but now is facing a very ugly world outside the fence.
I can not imagine him having to go through this all on his own. It is hard enough for the two of us, but to think of the offenders who come out and must navigate this maze of restrictions and requirements all on their own scares me. It is in fear, stress and uncertainty that a newly released offender will re offend sending them right back behind bars. It is with love, support and good treatment that many find success in the long run and return to normal lives.
He made one bad choice in the twenty plus years we have been together, albeit a big bad choice, but one that should not completely cancel out all the good that he has done. The greatest gift we can give another is to forgive, yet for many it is the hardest. I see him working hard to be the father, husband and provider he once was while now trying to juggle all that the justice system asks of him. He feels he is a burden on an already tenuous household financially and is trying to becoming a father again to children he is not allowed to live with simply because of the location of our house. It is not easy and probably will not be for many more years, but I believe he is worth it. I believe our family is worth it. I believe that he has so much to offer this world in the future that I want to be there to see it all happen.
So to those who question why I stay...I am working my way toward that narrow door. I am taking the road less traveled because it is considered politically incorrect. I am standing up for him and for our family by standing beside him.
It is in my journey to understand this "flaw" in his character that lead me to a greater understanding of those charged with these types of crimes. For many it is a natural progression from the legal pornography, for some it is a curiosity and yet others simply stumbled upon it with a download or opening a pop up message. A vast majority of these offenders are not dangerous and will never be yet they are lumped with heinous offenders and treated the same. Here is the injustice of our time. My husband served his punishment inside the fence but now is facing a very ugly world outside the fence.
I can not imagine him having to go through this all on his own. It is hard enough for the two of us, but to think of the offenders who come out and must navigate this maze of restrictions and requirements all on their own scares me. It is in fear, stress and uncertainty that a newly released offender will re offend sending them right back behind bars. It is with love, support and good treatment that many find success in the long run and return to normal lives.
He made one bad choice in the twenty plus years we have been together, albeit a big bad choice, but one that should not completely cancel out all the good that he has done. The greatest gift we can give another is to forgive, yet for many it is the hardest. I see him working hard to be the father, husband and provider he once was while now trying to juggle all that the justice system asks of him. He feels he is a burden on an already tenuous household financially and is trying to becoming a father again to children he is not allowed to live with simply because of the location of our house. It is not easy and probably will not be for many more years, but I believe he is worth it. I believe our family is worth it. I believe that he has so much to offer this world in the future that I want to be there to see it all happen.
So to those who question why I stay...I am working my way toward that narrow door. I am taking the road less traveled because it is considered politically incorrect. I am standing up for him and for our family by standing beside him.
Luke 13:22-30
New International Version (NIV)
The Narrow Door
22 Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. 23 Someone asked him, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?”He said to them, 24 “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. 25 Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’
“But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’
26 “Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’
27 “But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’
28 “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. 29 People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. 30 Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last.”
Thursday, September 19, 2013
The Truth of It All
I have never fully indicated what my husband's charges were because I did not want this blog to be a place to debate right or wrong. I wanted it to be a place where spouses could go to know that they were not alone in what they were going through. The problems and hurdles do not change regardless of the crime that is committed. Many spouses recognized their own story in my entries while reading between the lines and have reached out to me in many ways to express their support and understanding of our situation. We form a tight circle of wives, mothers and fathers continuing to support our loved ones regardless of what the outside world thinks of them.
To begin the story in a very simple way, we have learned that my husband has a addictive personality. It is by the grace of God that he did not fall into a trap of alcohol or drug addictions. It would have been very easy for him to become an alcoholic at a very early age within the environment that he was raised, and thankfully drugs were never a big part of his life. The problem began for him with the discovery of pornography.
Like any other addict, he could go for long periods of time and never want to look at it, but then when things in the world got too hard, and stress started taking over, the desire to view those pictures grew. When we were younger, it was not so easy to view those pictures. You had to go out and buy the magazines in the plain brown wrapper. Then along came the internet, suddenly there are thousands of pictures at your finger tips and they are free. It is so much easier looking at 2 dimensional pictures than dealing with a nagging wife, in depth conversations, household pressures, job stress, and over commitments with your time. It becomes an escape when life got too hard. The real problem arises when they are looking at all those legal pornography photos, and someone sticks in those borderline photos. Suddenly this is something new, more interesting, and more exciting. There is nothing wrong with it, it must be OK or it would not be out there, right? The internet is regulated so nothing illegal is on it, right?
Well that is all wrong. Law enforcement knows these websites are out there. They monitor most of them. They caught my husband when "he was on a site known to traffic in illegal photos". (If they know it, why don't they shut it down). Ultimately, my husband plead to one count of possession of underage pornography, and was sentenced in the federal system to five years in federal prison. They only found 15 "questionable" photos on his computer.
I know my husband, he would never harm anyone, especially a child, but now he comes out of 5 years in federal prison and is labeled a sex offender. I am not saying what he did was right, he did do something illegal, but did the punishment fit the crime. Since all this has started, I have met men who have had hands on crimes and never spent a day in jail because they were convicted in the state system. He spent 5 years away from his family and his children and now his punishment continues outside of the fence.
What has been asked of my family just seems too much at times. So much more has happened since he has been home. He has been forced to leave our home after being there a month, he has been welcomed back by some wonderful people and has continued to hit a brick wall in trying to find work and in dealing with the federal justice system. I feel pulled in too many directions, it is like the rubber band that keeps getting stretched until it just snaps. I am waiting for the SNAP, but I manage to get up every day and keep going.
Don't judge my family to harshly, for what I have learned in my last five years questioning the system is that we are all just one click away from these same charges. They are on everyone's computer if you download anything from the internet or share files. We all know someone who looked once, maybe just to see what it was or maybe it was an accident, but it does not matter in the eyes of the law. You are guilty, and if you are found guilty they will continue to punish you for what they think you might do. If you own a gun, you are not punished because you might murder someone. If you watch murder mysteries and see murder victims you will not go out and kill someone so why do lawmakers think it is OK to punish one particular group they consider "sub-human" for what they might do? And why does the public think this is acceptable? If you believe it is acceptable today, I guarantee that your thinking will change when it happens to someone close to you. Whether it be your son for sex with his girlfriend, your daughter for sexting, or your brother for file sharing, it will touch your lives because it is not getting better. Law enforcement is going after everyone equally regardless of age or the situation.
I will share more about all the challenges we are facing, because I know there are so many families going through the same thing. It is affecting everyone's lives. And if you think it does not affect you, think twice, as a tax payer you are footing the bill to have all these no risk offenders be monitored, counseled, and on public assistance while the high risk offenders are out there not being watched because 95% of all offenses against children are by people that they know.
Only time will tell how this all plays out, but more battles lay ahead. I will wallow for a moment but I will keep pushing forward.
To begin the story in a very simple way, we have learned that my husband has a addictive personality. It is by the grace of God that he did not fall into a trap of alcohol or drug addictions. It would have been very easy for him to become an alcoholic at a very early age within the environment that he was raised, and thankfully drugs were never a big part of his life. The problem began for him with the discovery of pornography.
Like any other addict, he could go for long periods of time and never want to look at it, but then when things in the world got too hard, and stress started taking over, the desire to view those pictures grew. When we were younger, it was not so easy to view those pictures. You had to go out and buy the magazines in the plain brown wrapper. Then along came the internet, suddenly there are thousands of pictures at your finger tips and they are free. It is so much easier looking at 2 dimensional pictures than dealing with a nagging wife, in depth conversations, household pressures, job stress, and over commitments with your time. It becomes an escape when life got too hard. The real problem arises when they are looking at all those legal pornography photos, and someone sticks in those borderline photos. Suddenly this is something new, more interesting, and more exciting. There is nothing wrong with it, it must be OK or it would not be out there, right? The internet is regulated so nothing illegal is on it, right?
Well that is all wrong. Law enforcement knows these websites are out there. They monitor most of them. They caught my husband when "he was on a site known to traffic in illegal photos". (If they know it, why don't they shut it down). Ultimately, my husband plead to one count of possession of underage pornography, and was sentenced in the federal system to five years in federal prison. They only found 15 "questionable" photos on his computer.
I know my husband, he would never harm anyone, especially a child, but now he comes out of 5 years in federal prison and is labeled a sex offender. I am not saying what he did was right, he did do something illegal, but did the punishment fit the crime. Since all this has started, I have met men who have had hands on crimes and never spent a day in jail because they were convicted in the state system. He spent 5 years away from his family and his children and now his punishment continues outside of the fence.
What has been asked of my family just seems too much at times. So much more has happened since he has been home. He has been forced to leave our home after being there a month, he has been welcomed back by some wonderful people and has continued to hit a brick wall in trying to find work and in dealing with the federal justice system. I feel pulled in too many directions, it is like the rubber band that keeps getting stretched until it just snaps. I am waiting for the SNAP, but I manage to get up every day and keep going.
Don't judge my family to harshly, for what I have learned in my last five years questioning the system is that we are all just one click away from these same charges. They are on everyone's computer if you download anything from the internet or share files. We all know someone who looked once, maybe just to see what it was or maybe it was an accident, but it does not matter in the eyes of the law. You are guilty, and if you are found guilty they will continue to punish you for what they think you might do. If you own a gun, you are not punished because you might murder someone. If you watch murder mysteries and see murder victims you will not go out and kill someone so why do lawmakers think it is OK to punish one particular group they consider "sub-human" for what they might do? And why does the public think this is acceptable? If you believe it is acceptable today, I guarantee that your thinking will change when it happens to someone close to you. Whether it be your son for sex with his girlfriend, your daughter for sexting, or your brother for file sharing, it will touch your lives because it is not getting better. Law enforcement is going after everyone equally regardless of age or the situation.
I will share more about all the challenges we are facing, because I know there are so many families going through the same thing. It is affecting everyone's lives. And if you think it does not affect you, think twice, as a tax payer you are footing the bill to have all these no risk offenders be monitored, counseled, and on public assistance while the high risk offenders are out there not being watched because 95% of all offenses against children are by people that they know.
Only time will tell how this all plays out, but more battles lay ahead. I will wallow for a moment but I will keep pushing forward.
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