We drove across the country, found an apartment, and life… continued.
I stayed home and cooked and cleaned.
He made messes and stayed up half the night looking at porn.

This was not an equal division of labor.

The next bishop—new state, same God—told me I needed to keep monitoring his computer. For accountability.
Why did these men think I should be The Appointed Witness?

I tried to explain that this approach was actively harming me.
He nodded.
Then told me to keep doing it anyway.

One day, while performing my sacred duties as Director of Questionable Tabs, I saw a site in his history that made my stomach drop. The girl looked young. Sixteen? Fifteen?

So, I did what any calm, emotionally supported newlywed would do:
I panic-Googled.

What is the legal definition of child pornography?
What is the age limit?
Is this illegal?
Is this illegal?
Please God let this not be illegal.

According to the internet, she was technically in her early twenties—but specialized in portraying girls much younger.

Which was not comforting.
It was like finding out the poison technically meets FDA standards.

Meanwhile, I was doing everything I had been taught a good Mormon wife should do.

Fix it.
Forgive it.
Pray it away.
Be nicer.
Be quieter.
Be cleaner.
Be less emotional.
Be more emotional—but only the helpful emotions.
Don’t be depressed.
Don’t be needy.
Don’t be angry.
Don’t be anything that requires effort from him.

Ideally: disappear.

I tried to find joy where I could.
Boiled peanuts.
Steak ’n Shake.
The aggressively air-conditioned movie theater down the road.
Watching Georgia rainstorms dump from the sky like God was rage-cleaning.

My parents flew out with Jason and Estela to do Disney World and Universal. We drove to meet them. Later my dad told me he knew something was wrong because I didn’t laugh. At all. Not once.

That’s when you know it’s bad.
When even rollercoasters can’t help.

I was depressed. I was thinking about suicide. And I told TJ.

His solution?

“We should have a baby. That’ll give you something to do.”

Ah yes.
The cure for suicidal ideation: introduce an unwanted infant and see if that distracts you from the void.

Instead, I got an IUD—a T-shaped plastic device a doctor jams up your hoo-ha that prevents pregnancy for years.

Still one of the smartest decisions I’ve ever made.

Then I went to see another doctor, because I was running out of ways to pretend I was fine.

She asked what was going on, and I did something radical.

I told the truth.

All of it.
The porn.
The control.
The money.
The way my life had slowly shrunk to the size of his moods.

She listened. Like an adult. Like a professional. Like someone who had never once hosted a Relief Society lesson.

Then she said, very calmly,
“I can prescribe antidepressants. But honestly? What you really need is a divorce.”

Divorce?

I had been raised with very clear ideas about divorce. According to my mother—reinforced by church leaders and a steady background hum of conservative talk radio—there were only three reasons for it:

1. You married for the wrong reasons (meaning: sex).
2. You didn’t try hard enough.
3. You were selfish.

None of these categories allowed for trapped and slowly disappearing.

I thought I had come in for antidepressants.

Though even that idea was complicated. My understanding of depression—again courtesy of my mother and a quorum of elderly men—was… flawed.

Depression was not an illness.
Depression was a character defect.
Medication was what people took when they didn’t want to fix themselves.

Which meant that if I took antidepressants, I wasn’t just sad.
I was failing.

Still, I couldn’t see another option.

But when the doctor said, “What you really need is a divorce,” something clicked.

I’d thought about it before. Quietly. Briefly. Like you think about jumping off a moving train but then decide to sit back down and be polite.

But suddenly it didn’t feel extreme.

Divorce wasn’t a moral failure.
It was an exit.
A clearly marked exit.

God bless that woman.
May her pillow always be cool, and may she never ever step on a Lego.

A divorce. Yes. That was the answer.

And then clarity melted immediately into fear.

What would my parents say? They had no idea what was happening. I was only allowed to call them when TJ was home, so he could supervise the Happy Couple Act. Smiles required. Tone monitored.

Would they judge me?
Tell me to try harder?
Be disappointed?

I didn’t know. So, I called my brother Alan.

He’d been divorced himself, so he’d understand—though the last time I’d called him was for the “What does the C-word mean?” incident, so he answered with appropriate caution.

“Hello?”
“Hi Alan. I need to tell you something.”
“…Okay…”
“I think I’m going to get a divorce.”

I don’t remember much after that—mostly sobbing and trying not to get snot on the phone—but he told me, very calmly and very kindly, that it would be okay.

And suddenly I wondered why I’d been so scared to say it out loud.

Then I told TJ.

This did not go the way I expected.

There was no yelling. No pouting. No dramatics. Instead, he professed his love for me. Asked if we could still be friends.

And I lied.

I lied because I was tired.
I lied because I needed him calm.
I lied because I was still practicing telling the truth in safe increments.

I told him I needed a divorce because it was “too hard being so far from my family” and “moving around was overwhelming.”

Things he’d already blamed my “bad moods” on—so I was essentially validating his worldview on my way out the door.

We agreed to keep things “amicable.” No lawyers—which was fine, since I had no money anyway. We sat down and “fairly” divided our belongings, which meant he kept everything he wanted.

And I let him.
Because I needed out.

He kept all the wedding gifts except the serving platter from my mission president. I took my clothes, my DVDs that he didn’t feel entitled to, and one of the cats.

He wanted Loki, the one who hated me anyway, so it was fine. Though I’m sure he meant it to be spiteful.

At the last minute, he offered to let me have the giant bean bag chair.

Because one of the cats had peed on it.

No thank you. I did not need custody of the biohazard.

According to the official paperwork, I walked away with:
• one wicker hamper
• a floor lamp
• two sets of bookshelves
• a wool area rug I was allergic to
• and the wine glasses—which is still confusing, since we didn’t drink.

He also agreed to give me $2,000, since he’d drained my savings account and was keeping nearly everything else. But it was conveniently left out of the legal documents when he filed.

It was right before Christmas when we flew home to tell our families. I don’t know how his family took it. I truly could not care less.

My family was elated.

No judgment. No lectures. Just relief.

Apparently, despite my best efforts to smile, deflect, and perform “Totally Fine Married Daughter,” they’d known something was wrong. They hadn’t pushed. They hadn’t pried.

They were just waiting.
Waiting for me to say it out loud.

Turns out I wasn’t hiding it nearly as well as I thought.
I was just the last one to catch up.

My parents immediately planned the 2,000-mile drive to come get me. Jason offered to let me live with him “for a couple of months,” along with my stupid drooling cat. RC Willey gave me my old job back and told me to start whenever I was ready.

And then TJ showed up at my parents’ door.

Uninvited.
Expecting a warm welcome.
And Christmas presents.

We did not invite him in.
But he was not pummeled.
A remarkable display of restraint.

A few days later, we flew back to Georgia so I could gather my things.

And TJ decided this was an appropriate moment to rekindle physical intimacy.

Which was… consistent.

Apparently, whether it was a front porch or a bed, he operated under the same assumption:
If he showed up confidently enough, the door would open.

That particular activity had occurred maybe a dozen times over a year and a half. It was never especially pleasant. I was not enthusiastic, curious, or moved by the timing.

But I didn’t want trouble. Not with the end in sight.

So—fine. Whatever. Let’s all pretend this makes sense.

By then, I was already gone.
Just a body finishing the paperwork.

What I couldn’t articulate then—but see clearly now—was that it wasn’t desire. It was control. A last attempt to reassure himself I was still accessible.

I wasn’t.
Not for long.

My parents arrived the next morning, shocked by how little I had to pack. They joked about almost renting a U-Haul.

While we were loading up, TJ called to say he was coming home early to “say goodbye.” We rushed the final sweep and left before he arrived.

I forgot my floor lamp.
Damn it.

The drive back to Utah was chaos—snow, wind, and a drooling cat perched on my shoulder like a deranged pirate parrot. But we made it.

And once again, my parents pulled me out of hell.

What I didn’t understand at the time was this:
the moment everything shifted wasn’t when I left him.

It was when I told the truth.
To a doctor.
To my brother.
Eventually, to myself.

There’s something about saying things out loud that shrinks them.
The shame loosens its grip.
The story loses power once it’s no longer being protected.

Which is a skill I probably should have applied sooner, considering I was raised in a family where the rule was: if you do something embarrassing, you tell on yourself so everyone can laugh and then move on.

In the end, leaving TJ was oddly anti-climactic.
Much like the marriage.
And the sex