I want to thank everyone who has supported me emotionally over the past year. While counseling, medication and prayer have helped me get through my husband's trial, I am equally grateful to have found this community when I did. So many of you have given me desperately needed "REALITY CHECKS" checks, when I needed to regain my prospective. I was speaking with our District Attorney one day, about the reasons why most sexual abuse cases involving children aren't reported. She told me that she believes the number one reason, is that, women who are willing to stay the course and not give in to the temptation to drop criminal charges, WILL have "their reality" distorted.

This has been ~and continues to be ~ the most terrifying aspect of dealing with the judicial system. Here you are, doing your very best to cooperate with law enforcement, child protective services, and the district attorney's office, while attending to your child's needs. This would be stressful for any mother, under the best of circumstances. But to successfully pull this off when you are constantly being confronted with such hostility ~is that much harder.

I expected to be treated this way by my husband, his family and the defense. That's a given. But I NEVER envisioned being held in such contempt by many of the "professionals" I had to answer to; the very persons and agencies that I looked to for guidance and assistance. The ones you intuitively believed to be on "your side." I can remember looking at the actions of certain judges and prosecutors and wondering, "are they working for the defense?" Loyalties become distorted.

96 percent. Your case is the perfect example of this! I honestly don't think I would have made it through, if I had been mistreated to the extent that you have. If my daughter's allegations had been received as poorly as your children's.

The most insidious part of all of this, is that, over time, you begin to question your own perceptions!

In my last post, I mentioned how the media's coverage of the sentencing was so skewed, that my husband was held up as a veritable "Saint," whereas, I was cast as a bitter wife, an unfit mother. A liar. Someone so psychologically damaged, that, my very intentions throughout all of the legal proceedings, are held suspect.

The truth, is that, I am so traumatized, hurt and confused right now, that I am starting to believe the media's lies and distortions. For the past week, I have been tormented by fears that maybe my husband IS innocent. Maybe I am that woman the defense claims me to be. Everyday, I am besieged by these intrusive thoughts. "Well. My husband WAS a good provider. . . .he is religiously devout. . . . .therefore. . . .Maybe. . .

This is what I am talking about.

I've had nightmares where my husband is found to be innocent.

Where he has successfully overturned his convictions. (He does have a new attorney who is helping him file his first appeal),

I've gone to my therapist, my friends, even to the junior prosecutor with my fears and concerns.

They all try to reassure me that I'm not crazy, that my husband is truly guilty of his crimes.

The prosecutor keeps restating that the evidence is too overwhelming.

Meanwhile, my daughters are unable to sleep at night and are finding it more difficult to concentrate in school. One of my daughters is convinced that I am going to die.

There is also the reality that my husband's family has such hatred for me. . . Not merely disliked. But despised. One of my husband's cousins wrote, "I hope she (me) burns in hell for having destroyed an innocent man's life. And for destroying her daughters." Another relative claims that my husband is, "a martyr to my mental illness." This is all over social media.

Sometimes I am afraid that his family will retaliate.

One of my Sons thinks that we are "in danger," and that I should leave the State.

All 3 of us ~ my daughters and myself ~ are living in fear.

I cannot help but look at what the trial has done to us and come to the conclusion that, "the ends don't justify the means." Wanting justice is all well and good, but at what cost?

Most days, I wish that this had never gone to trial.