I’m a 19 year old wife and mother of two, soon to be three kids. My husband just turned 30 and I met him when I was 15. He was my first everything. When I met him, I was being abused and my family supported it. He was all I felt I had. I didn’t want to lose him.

I dropped all my friends, guy friends and basically my high school life. 6 months before graduation I left school and married him. We had already had a baby a year before. I made him and myself believe I had no desire to be like the other girls my age and that I could be a wife. I stayed in the house for over a year and only went out with him and his family who runs our church.

it wasn’t until I started my job three months ago that I realized that I had a longing. It was my first time back out in the world really. I’m surrounded by girls around my age. None are married no one has kids. I talk to almost all of them and a part of me wants to be like them. However, they constantly but harmlessly flirt and talk about guys around me and my husband would tell me not to talk to them if he found that out. The worst part is that I’ve become so involved with them I’ve even found myself attracted to a guy in that crowd.

I can’t tell my husband this he will think I’m weak and irresponsible and a whore on top of that if tell him I’m attracted to someone, He’ll think I want to sleep around. He thinks this of the many young girls who act this way. He will not be so understanding nor will his family. I think that is because he constantly compares me to his grandma, our pastor. she married an older man at 14 and always submitted to him and her children. She’s with him today. She’s a wonderful person, but I also know there were different standards back then.

When she married us she said I shouldn’t have single friends. It’s easier for him to find friends if he wanted. A lot of guys his age are married. I don’t feel too comfortable having to be 100% like somebody else, however my husband would be very angry if he saw me acting like them and would leave and I would have no where to go.

This behavior may not be wrong for them, however, I made a decision for my life that opposes this and this would destroy my family. I’m happy parenting, but the wife he wants me to be is hard for me right now. He keeps to himself all the time and doesn’t even associate with people unless they are family or pastors or what he calls “church guys” and we’re always home. I like talking to people and making people laugh and going places. I understand I shouldn’t be inappropriately involved with other guys, but I still have a desire for friends and freedom after all. How do I be who I need to be without quitting my job and staying away from the outside world?