The Restored Podcast

From Heartbreak to Healing Together

• Frank & Darcie Montgomery • Season 1 • Episode 1

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Frank and Darcie Montgomery share their powerful journey from chaos to restoration, exploring the trials of early marriage, struggles with domestic violence, and the impact of addiction on their lives. Their heartfelt testimony encourages others to seek help, embrace faith, and understand the transformative power of God’s love.

• Frank and Darcie introduce their love story and the challenges they faced early in marriage 
• Discussion on the impact of domestic violence in their lives 
• Insight into addiction and its toll on their family dynamics 
• Turning point with police involvement leading to profound change 
• The role of community and church in their healing journey 
• Encouragement for listeners seeking restoration and hope in their relationships

Frank:

Welcome to the Restored Podcast with Frank and Darcie Montgomery. We're your host and this is our first episode, so we wanted to take this time and introduce ourselves to you, give you our story, our testimony, and let you understand a little bit about who we are. And through this testimony and through this podcast, our main goal is to shine the light of Jesus, to shine the light of God's restorative power in our lives, in our marriage and in our family, and to help you along your walk with Christ and understand that there is absolutely nothing too big for God that he cannot handle. Quick disclaimer we will be discussing sensitive subjects such as domestic violence. I don't know how graphic we will get in description, but there's just a little FYI for you that will be coming up.

Frank:

So if there are young ears around and you don't want them to hear that, and also if you are a victim of domestic violence, if you find yourself in an unsafe situation you or a child we do not advocate for you to stay there. Or a child, we do not advocate for you to stay there. God can do his works Without you living in the same home as somebody who is with somebody who is making it unsafe For you or a child. You can call the domestic Violence hotline At 1-800-799-7233, or text BEGIN to 88788. Our story begins almost 19 years to the day of this recording. I was 23 years old when we met and you were 20?.

Darcie:

Yes, I had just turned 20.

Frank:

You just turned 20 in October and we met at the beginning of February. We had met online originally and after about a week of communicating online, we met in person. About a week of communicating online, we met in person and then, approximately a month after we met in person, we were moving in together.

Darcie:

Yes, I don't recommend that.

Frank:

Well, we were both young and we were going to do things our way, and we didn't involve God in our decision-making at that time.

Darcie:

No, we didn't.

Frank:

So we moved fast, we moved in together and we did what I call playing house. We weren't married, but yet we moved in together and within six months of our first meeting in February, we got married on July 3rd of 2006. You were pregnant.

Darcie:

I was.

Frank:

And that's part of the reason why we rushed the marriage. I mean, I wanted to marry you. I think I told you that at one point, that I wanted to marry you, I wanted you to be my wife. But then, when we found out you were pregnant, because of my upbringing in the church and my parents I mean they were devout Christians I knew the right thing to do was I needed to marry you Right and make it right. And that's where all the fun really began.

Darcie:

Yeah, and that's where all the fun really began.

Frank:

Yeah, you were diagnosed with epilepsy while you were pregnant with Hayden.

Darcie:

Yes, that was coming after a misdiagnosis that I had had since I was nine, because my seizures didn't present as the typical seizures.

Frank:

What do you mean? The typical seizures?

Darcie:

Well, what people would think of as normal seizures, mine presented as staring off into space, which are called partial seizures. And after I got pregnant, I started having the typical epileptic seizures, the typical epileptic seizures.

Frank:

So again we're moving at warp speed here. We've gone from complete strangers. I had no idea who Darcie Watkins was and you had no idea who Frank Montgomery was. Before January 20th I don't know the exact date that we met online, but Right. And then by July of the following year, we were married, pregnant. You had been diagnosed with epilepsy and during that first year my dad got really sick. Epilepsy, and During that first year my dad got really sick. It was towards the end of your pregnancy. My dad got really sick and for the last two weeks of his life he was on a ventilator Helping him breathe and we were at the hospital seven days a week. Oftentimes we would get up in the morning by 8 am.

Darcie:

Sometimes before that. We'd spend sometimes 12 hours a day there.

Frank:

Every day and you were nine months pregnant. Yes, I mean, I have pictures. You look like you were carrying a beach ball inside your overalls.

Darcie:

I had put on about 100 pounds.

Frank:

yeah, but you did that every day. Yes, you were there supporting me.

Darcie:

Yes.

Frank:

You were there supporting my family. Yes, and my dad passed away the day before Hayden was born. We can get into that story in more details later on, but I firmly believe that my dad waited until he had confirmation that he didn't hold on until he was born. But when we told him Hayden's going to be born tomorrow and we're naming him after you, he was born through C-section so we had scheduled that for the next day.

Frank:

We scheduled that there was a couple things working in our favor. A well, not necessarily Darcy's favor, but mine.

Frank:

Hayden was a big boy, nine pounds two ounces, and I want to say the circumference that they, through the sonogram, they measured his head. It was going to be quite large. So and then, with everything going on, with my dad not knowing when he was going to pass or any of that, the doctor scheduled a C-section and then my dad passed away that evening and Hayden was born the next day. So we're two young adults, we were kids pretty much, and we'd gone from living with parents because, even though I was 23, I hadn't gotten my act together and I was living at home with Mommy and Daddy. So we'd go from that to married child, living on our own, living on our own, and because we move so fast, we had no idea who we were marrying or what we were marrying into or who the other person was. You had no idea of my childhood, the things that I went through that made me into the person that I was, and the baggage that I carried along with that.

Darcie:

Right and the same for me. You had no idea. And not only that. When they say opposites attract, that couldn't be more accurate in this situation.

Frank:

But you know, I learned something last night. And you say that opposites attract. In Genesis, when God looked down and saw that it wasn't good for Adam to be alone and that he needed a suitable helper for him, that he needed a suitable helper For him. In the English language we look at helper as somebody beneath, Somebody who's not qualified enough to. You know, take the lead. You know they're subservient To the person they are helping. But that Greek word for helper and I don't have the definition right in front of me but the gist of that definition is that the helper is somebody who has strength in the areas of the weaknesses of the person they are helping. So when you say opposites attract you, God is putting two people together who might appear to be opposite. But the fact that they're opposite your strengths or my weaknesses, and vice versa, my strengths are your weaknesses.

Darcie:

Right.

Frank:

And the world looks at that as opposites attract. But god has a plan and purpose and god knows exactly what he is doing yes, he does because some of the stuff that I brought in to our relationship in our home is my addictive personality. It doesn't matter whether it's scratch offs, whether it's snuff, whether it's scratch-offs, whether it's snuff, whether it's smoking pot, no matter what it was, I had an addictive personality. If I was going to do it, I was going to do it. 110%.

Frank:

Right and you didn't touch any of that stuff. No, you didn't touch any of that stuff.

Darcie:

No, and I think that came from seeing it in my life and seeing it in my family and losing my brother to addiction, and I didn't want that and I always felt like and it didn't occur to me until later I had a calling on my life to be a generational curse breaker and an atmosphere changer.

Frank:

And you're, God's just so great. Not only are you breaking those curses in your bloodline, but you've been an example for me, but you've been an example for me, for me to also break those curses so that Hayden has a fighting chance and Hayden's children have a fighting chance. But we struggled as young adults trying to raise a family. We would get involved in the church and then we would get uninvolved in the church.

Darcie:

Not only that, we wouldn't do what we needed to outside of the church to build ourselves spiritually Right, to build that foundation.

Frank:

I think a lot, at least for me at that time. I was going to church because that's what my family did, that's what I was supposed to do, but I hadn't completely surrendered my life to Christ at that time. I would put on a good show at church. I would act like everything is hunky-dory and we have no issues and all hell would break loose the second we left church.

Darcie:

Or on the way there.

Frank:

Or on the way there. Abuse started before you even had Hayden. I started abusing you. We would fight. I would lose my temper. I didn't know how to control my emotions. I had a feeling that you loved me and that you were there for me. You were there for me and I think that opened the door to where I didn't have to control my emotions with you. I didn't have to control myself with you because you were going to be there and I was carrying around so much unforgiveness For things that I had no control over as a child and it affected me to where my anger was out of control and I began abusing you.

Frank:

We'd fight and it wasn't an everyday thing, it wasn't even a weekly thing. I mean, we had a lot of good moments. We had a lot of good moments, we had a lot of good times. But those bad times we could go three months without a fight and then have a fight and it's like that entire three months of good memories is wiped away because of the fight.

Darcie:

And.

Frank:

I would pull your hair. I would put my fingers in your face, in your nose, on your forehead, and not just putting them there, but banging my fingers into your face. I would hit your leg when we were sitting in the car. Um, at home, I'd push you onto the bed. I'd push you onto the bed. I'd push you onto the couch. I'd drag you off of the bed. If you went to the bed, for safety, I wasn't a good person and we separated Several times because of that.

Frank:

But along with that I was also blowing money like crazy, talked about my addictions. I would get paid and before I would make it home I would stop at a convenience store. Before I knew it, my entire paycheck, I'd thrown down the drain buying scratch-off tickets.

Darcie:

Which caused a lot of issues, because I was a stay-at-home mom and that was what you wanted for me was to be a stay-at-home mom. But how am I going to be a stay-at-home mom and feel secure if I can't trust you to handle providing?

Frank:

And you were a stay-at-home mom because in my eyes and not only in my eyes, but we did the math and it was with the cost of child care and the fact that you did work a little bit when Hayden was first born after maternity leave and the sitter that we had would let him lay around in dirty diapers all day and he would come home with rashes all over him and just really hurting because he had sat in that dirty diaper all day. But aside from that, I mean it was cheaper for you to stay at home right than it was for you to work, because by the time we paid child care, fuel, everything, it would have cost us money for you to work. So I convinced you to be a stay-at-home mom.

Darcie:

And I was good with that. But when your addiction took over and we weren't able to pay our bills and there was issues there, it was hard for me, it was scary for me as a wife and a mom and again you're 21, 22, 23 during that time frame right and so you're still young right with a lot on your plate, and it's only by the grace of god that we made it through that, and and it gave way to.

Darcie:

I have always struggled with depression, but postpartum depression hit and I ended up in the hospital three different times because of the mental health issues that were coming well, and it caused you to start drinking. Yes.

Frank:

And you were hiding that drinking.

Darcie:

And I hated alcohol. I hated alcohol. I hated alcohol. I didn't hate the alcoholics themselves, but I hated the disease. I had seen it affect my family. I had seen it affect my brother. I lost my brother to addiction. So I didn't want any kind of addiction or anything controlling my life. But it had gotten to that point, just so I could cope.

Frank:

Because, like we had said, we were basically just going to church for show, right, we didn't lean on God when times got rough.

Darcie:

And I'll be honest, I had a hard time leaning on God. My grandmother was a wonderful Christian woman. My grandfather was a pastor for over 50 years. I knew God. I had a relationship at one point, but when everything was going on, I had a hard time trusting him, because why would he let all this happen?

Frank:

Well, same. I mean, I grew up in the church. I was adopted by a family that was very strong in their faith and they instilled that in me at an early age. I would every night with my mom and most of the time my dad, but he would fall asleep early sometimes. We would read the Bible. We would start at Genesis and read all the way through, and when we got to the end of Revelation we would start back over in Genesis. We would do that every night and we would pray, and I had that foundation. I knew Christ as a young child. I felt the power of the Holy Spirit as a young child, as a child in junior high, at youth conventions, at youth camp. But again, I hadn't surrendered my life. Whenever I got older and started doing my own thing, I wasn't surrendering to God. I was doing what I wanted to do and again we were just going to church because that's what you were supposed to do.

Darcie:

Right.

Frank:

And you can go to church. You can sit in church every time the doors are open. But if you don't submit your life to Christ and follow the lead of the Holy Spirit, then going to church does you absolutely no good.

Darcie:

Right.

Frank:

There was also infidelity in our good Right. There was also infidelity in our marriage. Yes, we've been separated a total of three times, four times, and all of those, except one, were because of the way I treated you physically and emotionally.

Darcie:

Right.

Frank:

But one time was because I wanted my cake and I wanted to eat it too. My cake, and I wanted to eat it too. And I had a. She was a young girl at the time. I mean, she was of age, don't get me wrong, but she was a good. She was your age when we met, but I didn't do anything sexual with her, but yet I was spending all my time with her. I was spending money on her, taking her out to eat, buying her little gifts.

Darcie:

And at this time and for the most part At the beginning of our marriage and our relationship, you didn't celebrate special times with me, you didn't take me out and make a big deal about it, you know, and that hurt and this. That was one of the most painful times and in our relationship, trust was always an issue. There was always an issue of trust on both sides, because both of us came from painful childhoods and we had to work through that too, on top of everything else so we separated because of that and I ended up choosing you over her which was a good choice amen.

Frank:

Um, I came home but I still wasn't happy and at some point I manipulated, I coerced and I convinced you that we have sexual needs and it's okay to go outside of the marriage as long as we're both aware and on board with it. And during that time I did go outside of our marriage physically and I forced you to do the same. You slept with another man because I wanted that yeah, I did and it was.

Darcie:

It was soul crushing. It was one of the hardest things that I've ever been through and afterwards I I had a hard time. I had a really hard time emotionally and I had a really hard time with you. I didn't know how to feel about you at that point.

Frank:

And remember, during all of this, I'm still losing my temper and acting a fool whenever I get mad.

Darcie:

Right.

Frank:

And fast forward to March of 2020. The whole world seems like it's falling apart. We were business owners. On March 17th, I had to lay off 27 employees, including you. You were an employee of the company.

Darcie:

Right.

Frank:

I didn't have to lay myself off because I was an employee of the company, but as the owner I had no income coming in either.

Darcie:

Right.

Frank:

I think between march 15th and march 16th we had refunded over six hundred thousand dollars to clients that had booked service that were now counts canceling because nobody could fly, nobody could travel, everybody had to home. You couldn't go out celebrate birthdays, you couldn't go out celebrate anniversaries. So, as a man, my God-given natural instinct to provide for my family is being thrown away. Right, and there's no excuse to my actions and that's no excuse to my actions. I mean, my actions for the previous 13 years prior to that were the same, but it got worse on March.

Darcie:

Either 21st or 20th, 20th or 21st.

Frank:

And I remember it very distinctly, our niece had stayed the night with us.

Frank:

I think we were actually going to church that morning? I think so. But for some reason a fight started and I remember pushing you onto the bed and this was after we had already been going at it for probably five to ten minutes, Yelling and screaming and cussing and whatever else. And we were in our room because, even though our niece and Hayden could hear everything, I didn't want them seeing it. But I remember pushing you onto the bed, jumping on top of you, straddling you to hold you down. I don't remember if I was going for your shoulders, for your neck or for your mouth, because you were screaming and crying and whatever else but I remember telling you do you want to die?

Darcie:

And I thought I was going to die. That day I was terrified and heartbroken and worried about the kids.

Frank:

And you did something that day.

Darcie:

I called the police for the first time. I had never involved law enforcement in 13 years, but I felt like I had to.

Frank:

And looking back, by you having the courage to do that, literally saved my life. I know there's been regrets. I know Satan has thrown it up to you that you've ruined my life because I can't own a gun anymore. Right, I can't carry a gun.

Darcie:

Right.

Frank:

I can't protect my family if need be, and I'm out late nights in some not so great Parts of town and you've blamed yourself For that. But I am so thankful that you made that call that day. Um, I ended up in jail. I think they came and arrested me At home.

Frank:

Like Ten 10 marshals with assault rifles first thing in the morning banging on the door first thing in the morning I'm in my pjs. They wouldn't let me go change, they wouldn't let me put shoes on or anything um and I wasn't here at that point.

Darcie:

A restraining order to no contact order had been put in place about a week before that right that had been put in place.

Frank:

The second, the cops came to the house, um, but I was arrested. I spent two full days and I was began the discharge process about 4 or 5 am on the second night and it was your mom that helped me bond out. I'd called other friends. And they were just learning who Frank was. Your mom had known all these years.

Darcie:

Yeah, a lot of people had known I wasn't quiet about it, but nobody listened and nobody took me seriously but your mom was the one that was there.

Frank:

Um, obviously, through your blessing.

Frank:

Um, obviously, through your blessing Right, even if we weren't going to get back together, which I had no idea if that was even an option at the time. But you allowed her to help me at least bond out. She co-signed on the bond, um, and that day, whenever I got released from jail, is whenever God changed my life. We have a guy who is now our pastor, but at the time he was a pastor then. But he wasn't my pastor, he wasn't our pastor, he was a friend. He had worked for the company and we had remained in contact and maintained our friendship after he had left the company and, just random, he had no idea what had happened in the Montgomery house in the past week and a half. But he sent me text that day, and I don't remember the exact words, but he sent me a text that said something along the lines of this is not the end, this is just the beginning, and A it told me at that moment this guy's real Right.

Frank:

He listens to the Holy Spirit Because, again, he had no clue, right. But those are the words that I needed to hear, because at that point I'm at the lowest point of my life. I just got out of jail for being an abuser. I didn't know if I still had my wife and, in turn, my son, and it was that moment. We got a lot of secular help because CPS got involved whenever the police were called.

Darcie:

Right.

Frank:

You got into some individual not individual, but some group support groups for women through Safe Haven and I began taking a BIP class. I began taking a BIP class Battery, intervention and Prevention class I think is what that stands for. It's about 20 weeks long. Every Tuesday night it was COVID, so I didn't have to go in person, but it was Zoom every Tuesday night in 20 weeks, and that secular help helped me realize how to handle my emotions, helped me realize what I was doing wrong and it gave me some coping mechanisms. But more importantly than that secular help, we started going to church at True Grace Church, which is now our home church, where my friend and former employee Troy is pastor. We are now accountable to him and his leadership. But that's where the real change happened. We got in church and we laid down our lives and said, okay, god, we're here for a reason.

Darcie:

Which you knew all along, you were just stubborn.

Frank:

Well, maybe, stubborn, well maybe, but that that's where the change really happened.

Frank:

we got in church and we weren't going to church this time, just because that's what we were supposed to do right when we first started going to church again, it was covid and most churches were just online, right, but I love my pastor and I love the way he operates and he did drive-in church. I don't know if you remember that, but I do. They would pull out a stage outside the church and run PA system and everything and it'd be 90 degrees at 10am and Troy's out there preaching in the heat because he believes so much in the power of corporate worship and being present, not just, but we committed ourselves to Christ at that time and we said, okay, god, you've brought us to this point for a reason and we're going to give our lives to you. And it's been a journey. But it's led us here to this podcast.

Frank:

And, if anybody knows you at all, you are terrified by that microphone sitting in front of you and that's not the reason why you've been so quiet today. You're still getting over the flu and your voice is a little scratchy and you start coughing if you talk too much. But you were terrified of doing this and I've known for a couple years. I was supposed to do a podcast right and I never said anything to you.

Frank:

I think you would see whenever I was looking in Amazon at different stuff, but I never really shared that with you because I didn't even consider that you were going to be a part of the podcast. Because you are so shy.

Darcie:

This podcast is a complete act of obedience. It's not something that I ever wanted. It's not something, like you said, I thought I'd ever be a part of, but it was something that I felt led by the Holy Spirit for us to do together.

Frank:

And when you brought that to me, I guess a couple months ago now, there was no hesitation in me because I knew that if God put that on your heart and you were speaking that out, that it was of God, because it was definitely not something that you necessarily wanted to do. And that's why we are doing this podcast. That's why we are doing this podcast and I hope and pray that our story, things that we've learned, things that we've lived through, are able to help you someday in the future, maybe where you're at right now. But, most importantly, we want you to see and hear God's restorative power in our lives, god's restorative power in our marriage and in our family, and we want God to be glorified through this. And we want you to know I've said it before and I'll say it again there's absolutely nothing too big for God.

Frank:

And we're going to wrap up this first episode. That was a quick overview of our story, of our testimony, of what God has brought us through and where he's brought us to, and we'll share some things about where God is taking us in the future. But we want God to be glorified through this and we want him to receive all of the honor and all of the praise and want you to know that we are nothing Without God and we are nothing Without the blood of Jesus that has made us whole again. If you have any questions, if you'd like us to pray for you, you can email us and I'll put the email in the description, but the email is therestoredcast at gmailcom. Email us your testimonies, email us your prayer request and we will pray for and with you Until next time. This has been the Restored Podcast with Frank and Darcy Montgomery Bye.