There are moments in life when someone says a word or a phrase and everything changes and nothing is ever the same.

“I lied about what I did to that girl” was the start of the end of my life as I knew it.

12 years before, a small purple handwritten note with no return address, unsigned, contained two sentences: “When I was your daughter’s age, your husband behaved inappropriately towards me”. I thought you should know”

I confronted my husband with the note. He said that he knew the sender to be a relative of his first wife. He explained that he had been drinking, had a hole in the crotch of his jeans as was the style 20 years before, wore no underwear, she saw, and he knew she saw. He said his first wife’s family were involved in a nasty estate dispute, and that this note had something to do with it.

In shock, I made him leave our home immediately.

My husband left, saying that he would prove to me that what happened was innocuous and a misunderstanding.

Over the next few months, my husband enlisted our pastor, a man I trusted, to plead on his behalf. Our pastor, David Miller, admonished me for my lack of an open heart. He told me that my husband, a lay minister at our church, was a fine man, one to be trusted, and that I should not throw away a 15 year marriage for an innocuous transgression so many years ago. Pastor David Miller persuaded me to attend couple’s therapy with my husband.

I acquiesced. I allowed my husband back into our home with the proviso that he would seek counseling himself, and attend a 12 step program for his drinking.

Over the next several years, I attended over 400 hours of couple’s therapy with my husband. The focus of the therapy was my inability to trust, due to my own relationship to my father.

I became severely depressed. I now know that what I was experiencing was the cognitive dissonance that comes from my “gut” being strategically dismantled. I went through the motions of being a mother, a wife, an actor, but I was inhabiting my body less and less. The me that was “I” was disappearing. I became a shell of my self. I became bedridden.

“I lied about what I did to that girl”.

We were in my husband’s therapist’s office. My husband said he had something to tell me, and that he could only do it in front of his therapist. I was instructed by my husband’s therapist that on this day, my husband would speak, and any questions I had would have to wait a week until the next “session”.

My husband told me the truth was that he put the child’s hand on his penis for several seconds. Then he told me about two other children he sexually molested.

I consequently found out that he was lying then about what he actually did to all of those children-downplaying the horror even when he claimed he was telling the truth.

Learning that your husband is a sexual predator is an out of body experience. I do not remember getting home that day. I do remember opening his closet to find he had taken his things. I remember the ecclesiastical robe he wore as a layman pastor in a ball on the floor, discarded.

Above everything else, I felt protective of my husband’s victims. What was left of my gut was telling me that there were more out there than he disclosed. His demeanor when he told me about what he had done, in addition to the other horrendous things he disclosed, made me fearful that he would molest again. He was full of remorse, but it was self referential- all about how what he had done made him feel. How sad he was about his predicament. I saw absolutely no remorse for his victims.

I consulted with a police detective, who urged me to record the next meeting with my husband’s therapist. When I contacted the LAPD the very next day and gave the detective the information, I was told that my husband was protected by 2 state’s Statutes of Limitations, because of the dates of the offenses, all10 years apart. I was told “Find me a newer victim”.

I called Child Protective Services, as my soon to be ex was working with pre-teen children in a television series. Long hours on a set. Los Angeles Child Protective Services refused to take my complaint. When I spoke to a supervisor, I was told that she would not take a complaint about a celebrity from “an estranged spouse”.

I gave the recording to the LAPD and NYPD. They did nothing.

California is a “Community property state”, which meant in the divorce, everything would be split equally. We had no debt, no minor children, so I believed we could handle the divorce quietly, quickly, and inexpensively, through a mediator.

Divorcing while severely traumatized is an out of body experience. My now soon to be ex hired a notorious Hollywood divorce lawyer who immediately went on the attack, publicly saying that I was trying to extort money from my soon to be ex husband, that I tried to enlist a housekeeper to say her children were molested as well, that I had shopped the recording to media outlets. All blatant lies.

I was ordered by the court to fire the mediator I hired, and was instructed to hire a litigator.

The journey of my now “Hollywood Divorce” commenced with a series of unethical attorneys. I learned that “high stakes” divorce lawyers in California have a secret system where they meet and agree ahead of time what percentage of the overall estate of their (opposing) clients they will reap, and work backwards from there. I was outraged that judges allow this to continue, but soon learned that Los Angeles family court judges are equally unethical. It takes a plethora of “winks and nods” to maintain salaries in the millions for divorce lawyers in a community property state. While in the halls of court, I saw my ex’s lawyer engage a coterie of reporters from “reputable” outlets.

I decided not to engage in the media frenzy that my soon to be ex was perpetuating. I believed that defending myself against the lies would take away focus that children were victims. I was protecting my family.

I refused to engage in anything that would allow my soon to be ex’s lawyer to do the same to me as he historically had done to other women he targeted. My soon to be ex’s lawyer was known for going after the well being of the children first, to “starve out” women by filing unnecessary motions with the court, requiring expensive replies. My ex dragged out the divorce while simultaneously accusing me of delays. My daughter’s well being was threatened. I was harassed, followed, my garbage taken apart and examined on a daily basis in front of my house.

I soon learned that the 11 year old girl my soon to be ex lied about, the “several seconds” of her hand on his penis was in fact a thorough sexual encounter. That she suffered almost 4 years of his sexual abuse since the age of 10. That one of the pre-teens he said he exposed himself to once actually suffered 3 attacks, and that the “amends” he said he made to her years later was in fact cornering her while he starred in a television commercial and she worked serving food. She reported that she was mortified and thought she would be fired if she made a scene. I learned that the third pre-teen was over a several year period, and that he used blackmail to silence her.

The biggest regret in my life is waiting 12 years to track down the girl who wrote that note. I now know that I was manipulated, gaslit, and systematically torn down. I am told to forgive myself. But I don’t think I will ever forgive myself for that.

The husband of one my ex’s his victims threatened to sue me. It was not clear what his grounds were, however, strangely, he did not threaten to sue my ex for what he did to his wife when she was a child. I got threatening letters from people angry at me for robbing them of their television enjoyment, for they assumed it was me who released the recording, and could no longer enjoy my ex’s television show knowing what they now know. Legal and psychological “Experts” on television debated the lies perpetrated by my ex, further cementing their lies as truth. Dr. Phil condemned me on his show, and invited me to come on down to defend myself (sent me a huge bouquet of flowers to extend the invitation).

I was called a gold digger, a vindictive ****** an enabler, a child molester, and much worse.

I did not release the recording to the media. However, as much as it hurt my family, and as humiliating as it was, I did feel a sense of relief.

My ex husband’s media tour repeating the diminished lies about the children he molested included an essay in People Magazine, and an interview with Katie Couric on 20/20 in which he said I tried to extort money from him. I believe it was a misguided attempt to inflict more pain on me for daring to stand up to him. An effort to blame me while deflecting his own behavior, and perhaps engender sympathy from his Christian fan base.

In the Katie Couric interview, I saw a man who does not take responsibility for his choices, who sees himself as a victim. To my knowledge, in our close to 30 years together, my ex-husband never sought help for his predilection to harm children.

I subsequently became involved in the frustrating process of changing the Statutes of Limitations laws governing childhood sexual abuse. In California, after the age of 26, a person can no longer get a police response about being molested as a child. Worse, in New York, after a person reaches the age of 23, childhood sexual abuse can no longer be prosecuted. Senator Jim Beale of California came close to raising the age of reporting to 40. However, at the last moment, another completely unrelated bit of legislation was tacked onto the bill, and Governor Jerry Brown was forced to choose the entire bill, with the added unrelated bit of legislation, or reject it. After years of work, the entire thing was thrown out.

Recently, many courageous women have come forward to shed light on abuse. The message I want to relay to women is this: Your gut is your power. I allowed my gut to be taken from me.

Don’t ever let anyone, no matter how insistent, how charming, how frightening they are take that way.
Your gut is your power.

your strength is encouraging. thanks for your message.

I believe you and I'm so sorry.
I'm going through similar but dead broke - I can't even protect my daughters and just trying I may lose my home and/or custody to a very sick man.
The system is an abomination and one would think in the current climate and in the interests of protecting our precious children things would change and at the very least, the family courts would start taking women's concerns for their children and the likelihood of abuse seriously.
There is no help. There is no advocacy. There is no recourse. And when you finally become brave enough to take a stand, no one believes you. You lose your entire support system, are expected to pay legal fees, and the abuser wins again. It's sickening and heartbreaking. I know many women in these situations. The sense of helplessness is crushing.