adultery, affair, Betrayal, cheating, divorce, infidelity, other woman

Dating Again

There comes a time when you realize your marriage is over and as part of the moving on process you start to date again.

I had the opportunity to have a fling two weeks after finding out my husband had been having an affair for at least the previous 6 months. It caught me off guard. I wasn’t looking. I wasn’t expecting. I was on vacation with my children. A family vacation we were all supposed to go on together but the discovery of the affair ended that. I didn’t want my ex there and either did my kids. Even though part of our vacation (2 out of 3 weeks) was staying with his parents, he also didn’t want to go (although he said he would have gone if I hadn’t found out he was sleeping with someone else, too).

Every night in Florida my children and I would take the golf cart down to the pool around 9:00 p.m. We would swim and hot tub. For the first week of vacation, it was just me and my younger daughter. On our first night there we met a very beautiful man, inside and out. He was so kind and generous. He was very open about his life and was very interested in our lives asking both of us questions that showed a sincere eagerness to get to know us. He had a beautiful spirit. He was well-liked by the others that lived in the community as evidenced by the regulars that showed up for their evening swim. The caretakers trusted him and allowed us to stay past 11:00 p.m. every night giving him the responsibility of closing the hot tub and locking up the clubhouse and gate afterwards.

As our relationship built, my younger daughter would be watching the clock and if it was past 9:00 p.m. and I was still sitting talking to my in-laws she would come and get me to say that Aaron would probably be there by now so we should go. If we got there first, she was constantly watching the gate for him to come in. Every night he arrived. I found myself anticipating him coming through the gate as well.

He invited us to do a lot of things during the days and evenings and go to places where he was also planning to attend. He told us about beaches we should check out and places we should shop and eat. We met him one evening on the beach where there was a drumming circle (he had learned that I took African drumming lessons so insisted we had to join him for this). There was a fire-pit, hula-hooping and other free-spirited activities as well as arts and crafts vendors. It was a very joyous event. He asked to borrow my camera. I didn’t realize until afterwards that he used it to take random photos of my daughter and me enjoying our time together. It was so sweet and a gesture that meant a lot to me since I was always the one in our family who recorded the memories and rarely did anyone, especially my husband, take a photo of me unless I asked.

My younger daughter couldn’t wait to introduce him to my older daughter and her friend when they arrived the next week. They opened up to him right away and he helped them with their perspective on school, stress and boys really giving them some deep insights on his life philosophy that seemed to make a positive impact.

My older daughter said that he was obviously interested in me and we should go and buy condoms that night. I assured her that I would definitely not be taking our relationship to that level. She wanted me to be with him so much and when I questioned her about it she said that it would serve dad right and that it would help me to heal. I promised her that revenge sex was never the answer and that random sex with someone you barely knew was not beneficial at all (although that was my mom answer to a 15-year old because I did entertain the thought and I did buy condoms just in case).

I think it was God’s sense of humour and his assurance to me that I would be fine. Aaron would show up at the pool in a white bathing suit that didn’t leave much to the imagination. He had an amazing body. He was younger than me but I never did ask him his age. I showed up at the pool looking my worst–no makeup, over weight, wearing a mom bathing suit that was completely lacking sex appeal, and my hair would be wet and/or pulled back in a pseudo bun/ponytail thing. But Aaron made me feel desirable and wanted. It turns out that he was a nude model. He showed me photos of sketches taken on his phone that students had drawn of him as he posed. When my girls were distracted he showed me the real thing. I saw that there was definitely “more” out there. It was all such a funny and surreal situation coming on the heels of the devastating realization about the infidelity of my husband just a couple of weeks earlier. We had each others phone numbers and although he invited me to his place after taking my girls home I couldn’t be that example for my kids. Plus I was staying with my in-laws! I considered sneaking out but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

On our last night there he brought 5 Chinese lanterns and took us into the field behind the pool where we lit them and released them making wishes. When we were saying our good-byes he reached up and touched my lip. As inexperienced as I was with another man touching me, I assumed there was something on my lip. He said, “No, I just think you are beautiful. I think you are an amazing person, a great mom and that you are so lucky to have the kids that you have. I am very envious of your family.” Then he kissed me. My daughter’s friend saw this and was so excited to let me and my girls know that she saw this happen.

He has contacted me a few times since, most recently 2 weeks ago. He always sends some nude photos but they are always tasteful, professional, amidst nature or with some artistic flare. I showed my girls just one photo of his nude bum this weekend and we all laughed hysterically. For them I think it is just funny to imagine this young man sending these images to their mom. He asked initially for me to send him some nude photos of myself but I told him I would never do that. He has never asked me since. He tells me that he remembers me fondly, always wants to make sure that I am doing okay and he always asks me when I am coming back to see him.

cheating, children, divorce, infidelity, Love, separation, the other woman

Homecoming

I was very excited to pick up my daughter last Friday night for her first weekend home after leaving for university. She took the ferry from Vancouver back to Victoria for the Thanksgiving long weekend. Her roommate was supposed to come with her. We had a lot of plans to show her roommate around Victoria for the first time but she had the stomach flu and wasn’t able to travel.

My daughter and I stayed up past 3:00 a.m. talking. She was very emotional coming home. She cried when she saw her pets. She knows that my dog died when I was at university living away from home and her roommate just received the same sad news. It is one of my daughter’s biggest fears. She asked me to please make sure I call her to come home and say goodbye if any of our pets needed to be put down.

She also cried about her past mistakes. She says she has no regrets but I know her wounds run very deep and she has scars that will remain constant reminders. She says she doesn’t feel the need to experiment with anything now and she thinks she will choose boyfriends more wisely. I told her that I didn’t understand her choices to remain with people who were harming her on many levels or to make decisions with so little care for the well-being of her own body.

She said, “Mom, I clearly had daddy issues.”

I told her that I understood how terribly hurt she was by her dad’s behaviour but she only ended up hurting herself more. Why did she choose to punish herself? I feel so remorseful over things she went through and don’t know if there was anything that I could have said or done differently to prevent it all. I certainly tried. I tried to get her in counseling, tried to involve her dad for help and support, was at her school regularly and on the phone with her home room advisor, counselors and even arranged a meeting with all of her teachers and dad to try to get her back focused on school. Living with her dad only allowed her to get into more trouble. She liked being there because there was no parental involvement. She said it was like having her own place; she could do whatever she wanted whenever she wanted.

She thinks she came out of it all okay. She thinks she has a better relationship with her dad and with me. I don’t think she is okay. I think it is a child’s justification. I still see some concerning behaviour. I don’t see her relationship with either parent as “better”. The relationships are just more “real”. The parent/child lines blurred and disappeared. We all displayed and exposed human nature at it’s most real, flawed, frightening, vulnerable, ugly, wounded, hurt, sad, selfish, scared and out of control. I wasn’t able to protect my daughter from anything. I couldn’t even protect myself from the decisions of my husband. She lost every bit of security she knew when her parents were no longer a solid, unified front and her family foundation crumbled.

Then she started to cry for her sister. She said that she is so afraid her sister is going to do what she did. She said she loves her sister so much and tells everyone how much she respects her. She doesn’t want anything negative to happen to her. She mourned for her sister’s relationship with her dad. She sobbed, “Mom, you did not deserve to have happen what dad did to you. Dad is such an asshole and you are so much better off without him.” Then she hugged her dog and said, “You hate Janice, don’t you, Bingo. You hate her, too.” Then she went on to cry, “But I am not sad for you, mom, and I am not sad for me. I am sad for (sister’s name).” And she just cried.

She said that her sister hates her dad. I told her that wasn’t true. She said that her sister is Team Robyn and lets Janice and her dad know it to their face. I told her that her sister protects her dad to me, too. However, I told my daughter that her dad has also let her sister down time and time again (which she nodded and said she knew) and that it is not her responsibility to fight for her dad and sister’s relationship. I let her know that I had done that repeatedly to no avail and had to just let it go. It hurts me equally to see her dad ignore her and choose other people and things over our child but all I can do now is let her dad know he can see her whenever he wants and I am there when he choses not to see her.

Thanksgiving weekend was “his” weekend. And yet, he played hockey Friday night instead of picking our youngest daughter up from dance and having dinner with her or getting our older daughter from the ferry. He had his own plans all day on Saturday. He saw the girls for 4 hours on Sunday and then didn’t see them at all on the Monday holiday. And that was “his” weekend.

I told my daughter that she could only be responsible for her relationship with her dad and her relationship with her sister. As an example I shared with her that I knew how she helped her sister when her dad did not. I told her how much her sister appreciated her staying with her during their kayaking excursion when their dad took them back to Ontario in the summer. My younger daughter had never been kayaking before and yet her dad put her in a single kayak on a very choppy day on Lake Huron. Dave and Janice went in a double kayak together. My younger daughter told me she was crying, kept getting pushed back into shore, was last and very far behind everyone else. She told me it was her sister that stayed with her the most and that her dad kept yelling at her what she was supposed to be doing instead of actually doing anything to help her or be with her. Her cousin, who also went out with them, told her afterwards that she sucked. It was the worst experience. Her dad had no consideration at all for her needs or her safety and he was not in the least bit loving, patient, concerned or helpful. I told my older daughter that she can’t be there to protect her sister all the time but I was so grateful that she was there that day to help her.

Thanksgiving weekend made me so thankful for both of my children. On Saturday, we went out for breakfast and the waitress commented that we were having way too much fun for one table. We did a bit of shopping, watched a movie, ate together, played a board game together and all 3 of us stayed up until 1:30 a.m. We made breakfast on Sunday and lounged around all in the same room just hanging out talking and watching t.v. We made cookies, looked at old photographs and laughed so much. Sunday night they went out with their dad but got dropped off at my girlfriend’s house, where I went for dinner. On Monday, again we spent the entire day together. We wanted to go to a new corn maze that a local farm just had designed this year but it was raining and windy. I took my younger daughter to her tap solo practice and then we made brunch, relaxed all day and spent the evening with another family for Thanksgiving dinner. I drove my daughter to the ferry Tuesday morning and she thanked me repeatedly for the weekend we shared.

My daughter is doing very well at university. She has met many new friends, loves her roommate, loves her classes, has gone out with my nieces who live in Vancouver a couple of times, is trying new activities, loves her campus and school but most of all I think she loved coming home.

adultery, Betrayal, cheating, Christianity, divorce, infidelity, marriage

Do angels feel pain?

My older daughter texted me from university with this question, “Angels can suffer right? Like feel pain or die or be sad?”

“Well”, I said. They were created by God but I don’t know about them dying. I don’t think they can die because they are in heaven with God. Although Satan was found to be wicked and got kicked out of heaven, but he’s still alive causing destruction on earth. I don’t know if Satan feels like he is suffering or not as a result of God casting him out. He rules the world and probably feels very successful in that sense. I am guessing they can feel. Satan is described as the most beautiful angel, esd ordained by God and believed he should be higher than God. He must be able to feel in order to be so prideful. I am guessing he can feel because he hates us and it must make him happy to hurt us or why not just follow God?”

My daughter responded, “He got kicked out because he was jealous of God’s love of humans and because of that disobeyed right?” Then she asked another totally unrelated question about coming home this weekend and we didn’t talk about it further. I followed up with her a couple of days later to see if she figured it all out and what prompted the question. It was for a debate she was working on in her Philosophy class. She had to respond in an atheist point of view.

I don’t know how you respond to a question about angels in an atheist point of view except to say they don’t exist but it got me thinking about Satan. I remembered how in Job he was “roaming in and out of the earth” and when I read it again (Job 1-6) it says in the NIV that he was “going back and forth on it.” I wonder how many times in the past few years Satan has been going back and forth over my life. I honestly don’t think there is anything he can do to me to shake my faith in God, or God’s love for me, and promised plan to prosper me (favourite scripture has always been Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you, and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future”.) but I sure don’t want to tempt Satan to bring it on! I feel like I’ve had enough.

As I write this, the song in the background repeats, “If I lose myself I lose it all.” (Naughty Boy, ‘Runnin’ ft. Beyoncé)

I remember talking to my husband about his affair in a spiritual light. I reminded him that after Satan tempted Jesus while he was in the desert for 40 days that he was unsuccessful and left until a more “opportune time.” (Matthew 4: 1 – 11) I suggested that Satan knew everything going on in Dave’s life, heart and mind–probably because he was whispering in his ear, and it was the opportune time to trip him up. I reminded him that Ephesians 4:27 commands, “…and do not give the devil a foothold.” Dave let the door open for Satan even just a crack. That was all Satan needed to stick his foot in and kick it wide open. Dave responded to me saying, “Or maybe we just did a lousy job at taking care of our marriage.” I didn’t think so.

If you think spiritually and stay spiritual and have spiritual people guiding you and supporting you in your life, there are spiritual solutions for infidelity. Not easy ones because although I can’t respond for angels I know for sure that as humans we do suffer. We do feel sadness and we do feel pain. We do die physically and can feel like we are dying of a broken heart. We can still be alive but experience spiritual death, separation from God, which for a Christian is supposed to be more painful than physical death. I think that is why as much as the bible makes it clear that God hates divorce, knowing us as humans, he allows infidelity as the only reason for divorce to be granted. How hard it would be to stay with someone who betrayed you.

Comfort on earth in all of this–angels! I have had many angels show up in various forms to me during these last 3 years. And it is confirmed in Matthew 4:11. When Satan failed to tempt Jesus, Satan went away at Jesus’ command. When Satan left Jesus, “angels came and attended him.”

Praying that we all experience the attendance of angels in our life, especially after Satan has played with our lives directly or indirectly.

adultery, Betrayal, cheating, divorce, infidelity, separation

Once Upon a Time

My daughter is home from school sick with the flu so we decided to catch up on a bunch of ‘Once Upon a Time’ episodes from last season.

In the episode that we just watched, Snow White was asking the Evil Queen to keep a secret for her. Her reasoning was this:

“Because when you betray the people you love, when you make them see the worst parts of you, what you’ve done changes everything. There’s no going back. You’ve shattered the bonds you’ve worked so hard to forge. The stronger those bonds once were, the more difficult they are to put back together. If they can be repaired at all.”

adutery, cheating, children, divorce, infidelity, Mid Life Crisis

Fun-draising

I saw my ex and talked to him for the first time since I dropped off receipts at his office more than 3 months ago. We haven’t spoken or seen each other since he hijacked my blog. This time, I was the only one who spoke. He just glared. Even behind those mirrored sunglasses I knew he was glaring. He was completely stone-faced. That in itself made me start to grin but it was the entire one minute exchange that for whatever reason I found completely comical and had me walking away in laughter.

He picked up my daughter for their Thursday night dinner together. He was taking her to watch him get his haircut first. How fun for her. She has fundraising to do for the Peninsula Young Performers and she didn’t want to ask her dad to help her based on past experience. She asked me if I would ask him on her behalf.

What my daughter doesn’t know is that I already gave her dad an opportunity, at the end of last dance season, for his company to be a corporate sponsor for the Peninsula Young Performers this dance season. I offered to give the information to his partners but he said that he would handle it. He asked me to forward the details by email and I did. When I received no response I followed up again at the start of this dance year. Still no response. It is a very inexpensive marketing opportunity for them, with lots of different options from $150 to $1500, and an excellent way to glean community recognition with their company name appearing on the theatre marquis, name and logo on 60 posters displayed around the community, name and logo on a banner hanging outside the dance studio, advertisement in the programs, etc. Some of their clients were sponsors last year. Not to mention how much it would mean to our daughter to have her dad and his company support her.

I told my daughter that it was her responsibility to fundraise if she had any hope of being able to go on the US dance competition trip in Portland, Oregon in March 2016. She said that she would ask anyone else but for me to please just ask her dad for her. So when he arrived we both walked to his vehicle. She got in the back seat and I opened the front door of the passenger seat. The Bove wasn’t there. I guess she didn’t want to go watch him get his hair cut.

I held out 3 coupon books. I asked if he could sell each book for $20. I told him that $10 goes back to our dancer and the other $10 to Compassionate Warehouse Foundation. In the middle of my explanation he took the coupon books and threw them on the seat. He said nothing and just glared. Then I gave him a book of 10 tickets for the Hillside Mall “Night before late night shopping” event. I didn’t even get to explain those (he’s been to this event when we were together anyways) before he took them from me and threw them on the seat, also. I looked in the back seat at our daughter and she had a big grin on her face.

During this exchange, I became aware of my ex’s shirt. It looked like something Don Cherry, from Coach’s corner on Hockey Night in Canada, would wear. It made me smile more. It had a plain white collar but the rest of the shirt had a busy, checkered pattern of various browns, maybe purple but nothing like I had ever seen him wear before. His hair style is different from when we were together. It is shaved on the side and then long on top with some type of swoop happening. Plus he had on coloured, mirrored sunglasses. I wondered if it was all part of a mid-life crisis or if the Bove influenced his new style.

I couldn’t help but laugh. He just seemed like a cartoon character to me. His user name, “Happy” on my blog is the antithesis of his angry personality as anyone who reads his comments recognizes but it made me happy seeing how hard he was trying to be whatever he was trying to be.

As I was about to close the door to his vehicle, I looked at my daughter again who was still smiling from ear to ear. I told her to have fun and that if she was lucky she might get to come with me to my next waxing appointment.

adultery, cheating, divorce, infidelity, marriage, separation, the other woman

Getting Remarried

I attended my first wedding since separating from my husband.

It was the second wedding for both the bride and the groom. I wondered if I would be at all cynical for the exchanging of vows between 2 people promising to be faithful, for better or for worse, and until death parts them. After all, they likely spoke those same words to other people but never kept their promise.

Making it odder for me was the fact that I knew the bride’s previous husband and his new wife. There was talk by guests at the wedding, who didn’t know that I knew the bride’s ex-husband and his new wife, that he had an affair and that was what ended the marriage. I know that to be true.

I was reminded at the wedding that my husband actually stumbled over his vows during the part where he was asked to repeat, “I promise to be faithful.” Laughter came from the pews because of his stumble on our wedding day 21 years ago. My husband explained afterwards that he paused only because he thought the minister was not finished speaking. Now I wonder if he knew then that he had no intention of staying true to his vow and wonder if he cheated in the 4 years we lived together before getting married. I remember some very specific lies he told when we first started dating. Why was that not a huge red flag to me?

I had a lot of fun at the wedding. I was truly happy for the couple. They looked beautiful. They have rhyming names. They are both kind-hearted, fun, generous people who deserve a partnership full of love and respect. At this point they seem to have that in their relationship. I pray it continues for the rest of their lives.

As for me, I have no desire for that in my future. I will never trust anyone with my entire life again. I don’t feel sad thinking that way even though I know how much I valued and loved my marriage and my husband and how much it benefited the security, peace and well-being of our children. I think it is wisdom. Live and learn.

I want my freedom more than anything else. When I am not doing everything for my children, I want to be doing everything for me. Selfish? I thought about that but usually what I want to do benefits other people. I have so many friends: married, single, divorced, separated, male, female, working, not working, parents, no kids, etc. and I am loving my time with all of them. I keep meeting more and more people and am getting to know others who were just acquaintances before on a deeper level. My life is full. I don’t ever want my life to be about only one other person’s needs–a husband. That absolutely makes me cringe to think about it. I want to spend my life doing what I want, with who I want, when I want.

My friend said it well: “It takes a really, really great guy to be better than no guy.”

adultery, cheating, children, divorce, Father/daughter relationship, other woman, separation

Weekend Report

My daughter ended up spending Friday night, after her dance classes, with her dad. I texted her at 6:45 p.m. to see if she needed me to pick her up as she had reported being too ill to go to his place. I knew she was able to be in her dance class when she didn’t respond.

In the meantime, I was invited on a dinner date. I figured that if my daughter managed to participate in her dance classes from 3:30 – 7:45 p.m. that she was going to go to her dad’s place after all. I suspected that it was anxiety about spending the night at her dad’s. If I had picked her up after school she would have sacrificed going to dance just to avoid her dad’s place. When I put the onus back on her to let her dad know she was cancelling because she was sick and when I wasn’t able to pick her up earlier she chose to just go to dance. She could have taken the school bus that goes to our home instead of the dance studio if she was really ill.

So regarding my dinner date, there is always the history with my ex in the back of mind. What if she texted her dad saying she was sick and that I was going to pick her up earlier so she could go home instead? What if she told him she was sick and couldn’t go to his house but still needed a ride home and he told her he wouldn’t drive to the dance studio just to pick her up if she wouldn’t go back to his place? What if he received a better invitation? I wanted to see my friend, as it had been a long time since we spent any time together, so I told him my predicament and that the best I could do was fast food in case I needed to leave quickly.

My daughter texted me at 7:45 p.m. to say that she was going to go with her dad. Her symptoms were much improved because the Bove wasn’t present. She texted that she would rather be home but that it was only one night. Why only one night, I wondered? If her dad was making a change to make his child a priority wouldn’t he want to spend the whole weekend with her? Or did she set up her own plans to avoid that?

Her dad dropped her off at noon the next day back to my place. She revealed that he was on his way up to Parksville (1 1/2 hours away) for a party and was staying at the Beach Club Resort overnight. Of course he was. I knew it was impossible for him to actually manage to spend an entire weekend with his daughter. (I reported he did spend 2 Saturday nights ago with her but forgot he actually dropped her at a birthday party at 4 and didn’t see her again until noon the next day). This was “his” weekend and yet to him that means playing the dad role only if time permits in between what he really wants to do instead.

Our daughter knows that. She has lived this for more than 2 1/2 years now. It will never change. She will never be a priority in his life, ever. If he keeps his next commitment, he will see her again in 4 nights, Thursday, for 2 hours. So over a 96 hour period he will see her for 2 hours max. Then, giving him the benefit of the doubt that he will see her again in 7 days on the next Thursday for dinner, that will be a 168-hour period in which he sees her for 2 hours. The math doesn’t lie. That is a failing percentage. He is failing his daughter. He is failing as a father. Quantity time matters. If he throws the Bove into the equation that subtracts from time with his daughter. The Bove is equivalent to a big zero and my daughter is left with nothing.

He did come back Sunday night and pick up our daughter to take her to his place for dinner. Afterwards, he took her to the beach to see the lunar eclipse. Sadly, for my daughter, the Bove crashed her time with her dad and once again my ex managed to turn time with his daughter into a big negative.

adultery, affairs, cheating, deceitfulness, divorce, lies, separation

Fake Coins

In Rumi’s poem, The Touchstone, Iblis asked, “Can you tell a lie from the truth, you who are filled with illusion?”

Muawiya answered, “The prophet has given a clue, a touchstone to know the base coin from the true. He has said, ‘That which is false troubles the heart, but Truth brings joyous tranquility.’ ”

When I discovered your coins were fake, I refused to accept them. You now spend your coins elsewhere. You pass your coins off to others who know you committed fraud, know you continue to commit fraud and yet they accept your forgery? Your scheme cost me almost everything. You still try to steal from me.

I examine coins more thoroughly these days. I spend them. I invest them. I melt them down. I check for seams, run tests, and scratch the surface. Then I check my heart.

Rumi says in The Masnavi:

“Fools buy base coins from their likeness to real coins.
If there were no genuine coins current in the world,
How could coiners succeed in passing false coins?
If there were no truth, how could falsehood exist?
Falsehood derives its plausibility from truth.
‘Tis the desire of right that makes men buy wrong;
Let poison be mixed with sugar and they eat it at once.
If wheat were not valued as sweet and good for food,
The cheat who shows wheat and sells barley would make no profit!”

Because of you, I know worthless currency. Because of you, I know true value.

adultery, affair, cheating, divorce, other woman, Twitter

DC@thegoalie29

Both of my children follow their dad on Twitter. He claims my blog will hurt them if they find it yet he feels it is okay to post sexual images and comment on sexual images that exploit and degrade women that the other woman, Janice Andrews, tweets.

Even his profile photo is of a banana taking advantage of another banana.

His comment on the yoga oral sex photo is “Sign me up”.

He mocks the cheating husband sign with his comment “Oh my!”

Another sexual image on his Twitter account.

If he wants our children to think more highly of him then maybe he should be less concerned with my blog and more concerned about his own words and actions.

adultery, affair, cheating, children, divorce, Sexual images, Twitter

Jannypoo@smeepsmeep

The other woman, Janice Andrews, under her user name, “Sally”, insists I should take down my blog and specifically her identifying information for “the sake of the children”. Both Janice and my ex, under his user name, “Happy” as well as the other fake followers they created, insist if my children found my blog it would do them harm.

Yet, they both have Twitter accounts that my children follow. Janice knows my older daughter follows her. They have commented back and forth to each other yet she feels it is okay to tweet images with sexual content that exploit and degrade women and contain inappropriate comments like, “Fox me real good”. She even mocks a story about 23 cheating husbands getting what they deserve and she specifically tweets all of the images to my children’s father @goalie29.

Here is a sampling of how she protects my children from harmful content on line.