eight years in a marriage that was neither equal or loving. you were afraid to step up to him? absolutely. eight years of living a lie to the outside world in that big home that she and her husband mike had worked so hard to build. but ellen wouldn t leave. determined to make her marriage work. i wasn t going to be a failure at another marriage. mike hung on as well, but his sister terry says mike was thinking of ending it. ible he was in the process of trying to leave her. he was moving belongings to my mother s house. mike and ellen s daughter elizabeth was now 6 years old and very much daddy s little girl and michael, his son from her first marriage, was 17. she got sick and life inside that home grew much worse for