September 11, 2001

Sunday night September 9, 2001

Six months pregnant, I felt so tired. My husband Mathew didn't have much time to help me in the home with our three children.

I wasn't prepared for the pregnancy. I knew I should of had surgery before the pregnancy, but I tried to exercise as much as I could by walking. I knew to much would put the baby and I at risk.

I was just trying to be strong.

My husband came home from a week long fishing trip with the men. I missed him so much. But I tried not to be to needy when he came home, because I knew that would annoy him.

I will never forget the way he looked at me when he saw me.

I saw fear, stoic anger, betrayal, fierce condemnation in his eyes as he glared at me.

I had no idea why he was angry.

As we went to bed, he turned to speak to me. He used short confusing sentences.

He was upset that I was pregnant. He was angry. He told me he was unhappy with what I had done. He told me he had been patient with me. He said he wasn't going to ask for a divorce quite yet. But I needed to get my act together.

He realized that I was the cause of all the unhappiness he felt in his life.

I sat there stunned. What was he angry about? He was upset about the pregnancy? What did he mean by that? Was he upset with himself for getting me pregnant? What was I doing wrong? I felt distant from myself and him, not understanding.

He expressed his anger without explaining anything. I was afraid if I asked any questions he would get angry at my ignorance. I was still worried about the baby.

On March 10, earlier that year, I told him that if we got pregnant our child would be at risk. After he ignored my warnings and we got pregnant, I felt it would be offensive to remind him. I had gone through the first half of the pregnancy terrified of the consequences, but dealt with it silently. Earlier I decided not to say anything about it ever again, even if our child had disabilities. I had decided to forgive him of the ultimate offense.

My mind was spinning. I had every right to be angry with him for the pregnancy, but I forgave him. Why did he feel the need to punish me? To reprimand me.

I was petrified and very, very confused.

Monday September 10, 2001, he was short, stoic and cold to the children an I. We went through the day mechanically.

As I pondered what was going on, trying to understand, I thought of how little time he spent with us. How little effort he spent on his relationships with the children and I. I thought of how much happier he would be if he worked at our relationship.

I remembered how my sister lived in the Bay Area during the great earthquake of 1989 in California. I pondered on how it woke everyone up to stop and look at their families and loved ones and to care for them.

How convenient it would be if the timing for our own family crisis could be timed in such a way that it would wake up my husband to the needs of his family. To stop thinking about just himself.

Tuesday September 11, 2001

Mathew took our oldest son to school after I prepared the children. He came home in a panic and we turned on the news.

We watched stunned and horrified as the second plane crashed into the World Trade Center.

I m trapped, I can't leave you and the children now. The world is falling apart. I m trapped. Mathew said. He sat on the couch with his head in his hands.

Not quite what I was expecting. On Mathew's part or God's part.

The next few days were awash with emotion and confusion as I processed what was happening in the world. What was happening in my world.

Friday night, September 14, 2001, Mathew asked me to go with him on a drive. I got into our little old Toyota Camry, he drove around, then stopped at a local park. It was dark as we walked on the paths and park lawn.

We sat down in front of a baseball diamond and watched men play ball.

My mind was a complete blur while he spoke.

Here is what I can remember of it.

He said I was a complete disappointment to him.

That it was wrong for be to be pregnant, but that he wasn't a jerk, he would stay with me until the child was born.

I sat there with my hand on my swollen belly, feeling her.

He said he understood that everything I did was to manipulate him. That this pregnancy was to trap him into marriage. I couldn't quite grasp that.

He said he never loved me and our marriage was a mistake.

He related the things I done in the past that had seemed like were kind and loving, but they weren t. Everything I had ever done that was kind, affectionate and loving was just to trap him and control him.

He told me my religious faith was just to control him. My faith taught me to forgive him, and I did a hundred times over. My faith taught that the Lord gives us our entire lifetime to overcome our weaknesses. So I sought to give him his lifetime to overcome those things he did that hurt me. My faith taught me that God loved me and him also individually. My faith taught me that I could pray and ask God for help and guidance, and that he could too.

Mathew frequently asked me to do things that were difficult. Each time I prayed to God and asked if I should support him in his pursuits. Each time the Lord responded that I should. My faith in God gave me faith in my husband.

I trusted in the Lord continually. And that trust led me to trust in my husband. Why do we trust?

He asked me where I wanted to live, California, Utah, or Idaho? I asked him where he wanted me to be. He said Idaho because his family was there. So I agreed to go to Idaho.

We had spent years in poverty while he attended school. Now he finally had a good job. All those times he promised me the hardships were for our future together, for our family.

I told him that I loved him, that I wanted to save our marriage. So he lectured me on my body, on the condition of our home, what he believed I should have done to save our marriage.

I sat there stunned and in total emotional pain, confused under the night sky.

A man walked off the baseball diamond toward us. As he approached, I recognized him from church. I still don't remember his name.

Are you okay? Do you need help? As I sat next to my husband. Something inside my heart cried out. I wondered if I should ask him for a ride home. I was taught never to ride with another man. But what should I do.

But I sat. I don't know if it was me or Mathew that said, That's all right. We re okay.

Mathew drove me home that night and we went to bed.

I had until the birth of our child to fix everything. I believed that if I was just kind enough, loving enough, no matter what he did, it would prove to him that my love for him was genuine, not faked, and not to control.

I looked back on how we met. On how loving him made me feel complete.

By Mormon Doctrine, we believe that families are forever, if you live worthy. Mathew and I were married in the temple, that meant that we would be together forever. It gave me an incentive to forgive him so many times and to overlook the small things.

I knew that because we were married in the temple, our covenants were not to each other, but to God.

My covenant to love Mathew was to God, and thus I could not make it conditional on his behavior.

Love is a choice, we choose to love by our thoughts words and actions.

The sealing to spouse and children is dependent upon the keeping of that covenant. If one spouse breaks that covenant and chooses not to love and serve faithfully, the remaining parent is still sealed to the children.

As long as I continued to choose to love him, and do everything I could, my children would
still be seal to me for eternity no matter what he chose.

But I believed that if he didn't keep his most sacred covenant to love and protect his wife and children, he would not only be cut off from me, but the children.

God's custody issues are a little simpler and a little more all knowing.

The thought of eternity without him ripped me up inside.

I felt that Mathew never really spent enough time with the children and I to know what he was giving up.

I was and am a woman of great faith.

I knew our family was and is sacred.

I knew that anything I asked of God, that was honorable, he would do on my behalf, and the behalf of my family and children.

I was determined that with the Lord's help our marriage could be saved.

I never doubted it.

I was scared, heartbroken and overwhelmed. But I would be kind enough to prove my love, to prove it was real an not some manipulation.

I couldn't let my husband destroy our precious family for things that were not even true.

What I didn't know, was that this hate rhetoric Mathew came home with was older than time itself.

That most the great wars, death and destruction was fueled by it.

That Jesus Christ himself was crucified by the same rhetoric.

I didn't know that once someone is convinced you only do good to manipulate, the destructive enslaving circular logic ensnares the believer.

I didn't know that the more I served him, the more he would believe I was manipulative.

The believer in manipulation will valiantly retaliate against kindness and love.

I didn't know that once I chose to fight back it would only serve to prove I was manipulative.

With this rhetoric, the more valiant someone is, the more manipulative they are in the eye of the beholder.

This believe destroys all love, compassion, mercy, tenderness and humanity in the believer.

And the believer in this Universal Rhetoric of Hate actually thinks they are valiant as they withhold compassion.

I didn't know.