The story that moved me to start my blog

http://www.poyi.org/63/11/02.php

I got an email today from a friend that she had forwarded from one of her friends. By chance I happened to notice her friend had a link to her myspace account embedded in the email and for some fateful reason I clicked on the link. Nothing on the page was very interesting, but as I was about to click off the page, the photo in the above link caught my eye. I read the story behind the photo, and it made me profoundly sad.

The photo was taken by Todd Heisler The Rocky Mountain News. The caption states:

[The night before the burial of her husband's body, Katherine Cathey refused to leave the casket, asking to sleep next to his body for the last time. The Marines made a bed for her, tucking in the sheets below the flag. Before she fell asleep, she opened her laptop computer and played songs that reminded her of 'Cat,' and one of the Marines asked if she wanted them to continue standing watch as she slept. "I think it would be kind of nice if you kept doing it," she said. "I think that's what he would have wanted."]

My husband is addicted to internet pornography. As such, pornography has tried to define my life for the past seven years. What I would give to have those feelings back for my sweet husband, the strong love of that woman in the photo for her dead husband. I am grieving and it is time to share my story. I know, unfortunately, I am not alone in this dilemma, so I am not holding my feelings inside any more, or taking them out on my children or other people around me.

I feel like the wife in that photo in one poignant way...I feel like my husband is already dead, because the person I thought I married was killed off by porn addiction. And here I am, camped out with his casket day after day after day.

It's not much different, really (no offense to widowed military women). One day you are marrying the person of your dreams, your soulmate, your best friend. All the usual cliches. And the next thing you know, you wake up next to this stranger, this shell of a person.

I have to go for now. I don't know how often I will be able to post, but I know that I need to do so. I need to get my feelings out and I need for other people going through this to know that they are not alone. We have a voice, even though porn addiction has taken so many other things from us. It's one thing we've still got left.