I was reading the article that Kerry posted recently about losing a spouse when your marriage wasn’t perfect and it resonated with me deeply. I have not shared my story with hardly anyone because I have kept this secret for my husband (and if I am completely honest – for myself too). I decided to share this now because I feel isolated by my secret and by coming out (even if anonymously) hopefully someone else will feel not alone. So here goes..

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We were the “Joneses” that everyone else was trying to keep up with…the power couple who people always asked how we managed it all…until my husband died from suicide last year.

Everyone assumed he must have been depressed and hid it well (he was always smiling and joking, so this was a huge shock out of nowhere for his friends and family). At first I felt I was lying by letting everyone assume it was depression, but now I realize he was depressed; it was just more of an acute sudden-onset depression.

It all started 4 days earlier. It was a normal Tuesday morning. My husband had gotten up ahead of the alarm clock like usual and was downstairs. I had already hit the snooze button once. I was awoken a few minutes later by a loud pounding on the door then a strange voice commanding, “This is FBI, come downstairs and bring your daughter“.

I am completely confused, scared, and half asleep. I grab my daughter and come downstairs to police officers in my house. They usher us outside (without our shoes in the middle of the winter) toward one of the police cars – there were at least 12 on my street in front of my house. As I walk down my driveway, I see my husband standing there in handcuffs. I have no idea what is going on as my husband is the epitome of a law-abiding citizen. After what seemed like an eternity (probably 30 minutes) they let us back in but still would not tell us what was happening. We sat in our living room for hours while they searched through our house. Every room was labeled and photographed as they moved through. We sat in silence waiting.

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Finally after several hours, they took my husband outside to one of the parked cars to talk with him. When he came back in, he was white as a sheet. All he said was “I f*#@’d up“.

Next, they brought me outside to talk. They asked me if I knew anything about BitTorrent sites. Apparently they are used to share files discreetly and they told me that my husband had been downloading child pornography. My entire world came crashing down in those few minutes. I was in shock.

Then, one of the agents says to me, “In this kind of situation, many men attempt suicide. Would you like me to take your husband’s firearm?”

I hated guns. I hated having one in the house, but my husband felt very strongly about his gun. I knew how vulnerable he would be feeling and taking his gun away would only make that worse, so I turned down the offer (besides they told me if he requested it back they would have to give it to him).

When I go back in I see my husband looking very pale and sick. I stood next to him and I held his hand, but I couldn’t look at him. In that moment, as angry as I was, I couldn’t imagine how devastated he must feel. Hours later the officers left the house (it would be awhile for the forensics). As soon as they left, my husband asked me if I was going to divorce him. I told him that I wasn’t sure, but for now my focus was on getting him through this – for better or worse, right? He seemed relieved and asked if I would hold him – he never talked like this – so I did. I asked him some questions, like the ages and he told me it was just teenagers he had been seeking (which somehow made me feel a little better since my daughter was not yet a teenager). He promised me he only looked and never met anyone, talked to anyone, touched anyone, and that he never ever had those kinds of thoughts for our daughter. I told him about the officer asking for his weapon and he promised me he would not use it. Unfortunately, I believed him.

He got physically ill several times over the next couple of days and I had to pull it together for him because he hardly left the bed. I did research on what the consequences of his actions were and what kind of lawyer he needed and set up consultation appointments. He kept asking me to push back the appointments because he wasn’t ready.

We soon got another knock at the door and a cop car outside. This time it was child protective services. They had visited my daughter at school, asked her a bunch of questions, and now they wanted to schedule time with me to discuss a safety plan. It turns out my supportive approach to my husband made them question my ability to put my daughter’s safety first. This sent me into a spiral.

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Fast forward to Friday. My husband tried to get me to cancel the last lawyer appointment and begged me to wait until Monday but he had now been in bed 3 days trying to figure this out on his own and I knew that the weekend was not going to help. I decided to be more firm and tell him that if I were going to continue to be supportive, I needed him to do this for me. That this wasn’t just about him anymore, it was about all of us. I told him that I was going either way because I couldn’t keep doing this by myself. I told him I didn’t know if I could keep being so supportive if he didn’t fight for himself. He laid there in our bed crying and just kept saying he wasn’t strong enough (I thought he just meant not strong enough to talk with the lawyer yet). I was angry but didn’t once raise my voice and I knew I was doing the right thing for him by going to the lawyer.

Before I left, I made him tell me how to change the combination on the gun safe. I felt safe leaving him there for a couple of hours. I left the house at 11 a.m. When I returned at 2 p.m., he was not there. I panicked and drove around town looking for him. Finally I went home waiting for him to show up. Instead around 4 p.m., two more cop cars. I remember thinking when will I stop having law enforcement show up at my house?

But this time they made me sit down so they could tell me that my husband was gone – he had shot himself. They asked me where my husband kept the key to his safe. How was I supposed to know there was a key that overrode the combination I just changed? The guilt for leaving him alone when he told me he wasn’t strong enough set in.

Now I was faced with a choice: What do I tell everyone? A friend helped me write a very eloquent and non-specific announcement that kept people from asking me a bunch of questions. Other than a small handful of people who I needed help from, I have kept his secret to keep his friends’ and family’s memory of him intact and to be honest, I was fearful of the isolation I would feel from people who had been my friend and who would now be concerned about the times their children were in our house.

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So here I am… Young, Widowed, and Dating. I found the group after reading one of Kerry’s articles last year and saw hope and optimism in its title and in the people who posted there. I have embraced the group and feel like they are an extension of my friends and family even though we have never met.

I was always the person who wondered how a woman could stand by her husband when he did something terribly selfish and hurtful, and now I know. I love him and I hate him all at the same time. I also feel guilty because in addition to my grief, I feel relief. What life would I be faced with if he were still here? What life would he be facing? How would it affect our daughter who hasn’t yet learned about sex and would have a registered sex offender as a father? I would never have chosen this path but now I am trying to make the best of what I am stuck with.

I have decided to share my story partially because I am hopeful this will be therapeutic for me, but also because I want something positive to come from all of this. I knew that my husband had issues with pornography (I didn’t realize the nature of his problems, but I knew that there were times where I was begging for sex and he was on the computer instead). I knew he needed help and tried to get him to talk with a counselor but never could get him to go. I couldn’t save him, but maybe this story will resonate with someone and help them with their struggle.

This article was submitted anonymously to protect the privacy of all parties. If your spouse is depressed and/or suicidal, please consider reaching out to a professional or the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.