In Her Own Words (Part 3 of 5)

We had twins 14-1/2 months later--a boy and a girl. He had been told as a child that his first child would be twins. That was the first thing he asked the doctor when we went to the first appointment, "Is it twins?" In so many ways it seemed our life was charmed. We got the house we wanted, our children were robust and healthy even born a month early. I landed a job that made it possible for me to work at home ... the list goes on and on.

When our children turned 6, he told me that he had been cheating on me since 2-1/2 years into the marriage. We went through therapy through a well-known psychiatrist in Salt Lake City, and now I suspect that psychiatrist was gay although married. He would tell me that we had a chance all the while telling my husband "You are nice looking; you can easily find a partner."

We made it through that situation. We determined to stay together. I gave him leeway -- I didn't want him to go and he didn't want to go. I had learned early on that his gay attraction and his cheating had nothing to do with me (but that doesn't mean it didn't hurt). This was between him and God, and I loved him. We WERE --and I mean this from the bottom of my heart--WERE the best of friends. We were close, closer than most couples we knew. Of course, we had our issues that all couples have, but he was the one I always turned to, and he to me, emotionally.

He had a hard family life and we were everything to him. He was an EXCELLENT father. My children still tell me how they had such a happy childhood—they spent hours and hours hiking the hills, hunting bones, lighting fires up the canyon, and we went on trips. He bought an old camper and fixed it up and we camped all the time.

It was always hide-and-seek when dad came home: the children would hear him come in the garage and they would hide, and he would hunt them down. If he got home and we weren't here, he'd hide and they'd find him. We had a really good life. Why let it go?

He was also in many church callings. He is the outgoing one and I'm the "reserved" one. We had a lot of friends in the ward, and I had several people tell me that he was the nicest person they had ever met. They adored him.

Then my older brother had a brain hemorrhage while going to University of Utah at age 42. I went down several times a week to go to rehabilitation with him. My husband met me on Friday evening in Primary Children's Medical Center parking lot so he could go to a Family Fellowship Conference while I took the kids home with me. He came home on Sunday and told me that divorce was inevitable.