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So, I've been here for about a year and in IC for about 4 months. My focus has been entirely on my FWH , his ONS, 6 years ago, which resulted in an OC he has hardly ever seen seen and my hatred for OW.

It is all over between them and was 6 years ago. FWH has done and is doing everything he can to care for me, make me safe etc. Last week he left his job of 28 years and will never have to work with or see OW ever again. And yet, I still get upset and angry.

This week, my IC got me to talk about my first husband and my feelings towards him. I am realising that although my current husband has treated me badly, betrayed me etc, what I experienced at the hands of my first husband was so much worse. I have buried all that and all the anger I feel against my first husband, who was never remorseful, I am now directing against my current FWH, who apart from a 20 minute ONS (and then lying about it for 5 years, because he didn't want to hurt me) is and has been my perfect husband. I really should not allow a stupid 20 minutes to define my whole life.

Amazingly, this has come as a revelation to me. My IC suggested that I need to work through my feelings for my first husband as that is blocking me reconciling with the man who truly loves me. I think she is right, but it is so painful, as it seems a lifetime away, and I thought it was all in the past.

So here goes. The story of XH. Getting it out here will help me, even if it is painful. I so wish that I had found SI 10 or 15 years ago. Very few people know these details. My current husband knows and my lawyer and IC know, but I have never told ours sons the full details, my parents don't know, nor do my brothers or any of my friends.

We were married in 1985, having been together 5 years through school and college. We were each other's firsts and onlies ( or so I thought) and virgins on our wedding night. We had 2 sons born in 1990 and 1994 and 3 miscarriages in 1991, 1995 and 1999. From around 1992, he began to drink more and more, although I never realised how much until about 1999. As an alcoholic, he was expert at hiding it and I became an expert at covering up for him. Gradually, he was unable to hold down a job, having been a stay at home mum, I went back to work in 1996 and by 2001, I was effectively the sole breadwinner, and unwittingly funding his alcohol habit, as well as paying for the childcare and doing everything around the home.

He switched off and away from us, kept losing the jobs he did manage to get. I worked more and more to keep the money coming in for the family. I grew up believing that one did not get divorced, you stayed with your husband whatever he did, you supported the family unit and to break up the family would be damaging for the children. I covered up. I tried to get him into rehab, but he always refused.

Roll forward to 2004 and in a particularly busy time at work, I left my mobile in a cab. He lent me his old mobile, until the replacement one arrived. I was working late that night and when I used the phone, I discovered hundreds of text messages in it between him and make and female prostitutes arranging to meet for sex in toilets etc etc. when I got home the next day, I confronted him and demanded to know everything. It was very difficult to talk to him, as he was always very drunk ( at least a bottle of whisky a day). I don't think I ever got the whole truth out of him. Over the next few weeks, he admitted that he didn't know whether he was gay or not, he used to frequent prostitutes, male and female, sometimes 2 or 3 a day, he had stashes of porn in the back of cupboards, in the loft etc etc, he used to go to dodgy cinemas and have sex with strangers.

Over the next few months, we had numerous rows and I made it clear that if he stayed with me, he had to get sorted out. He still refused rehab either for the alcohol or for the sex addiction. I filed for divorce and shortly afterwards got together with my current husband. my first husband refused to move out and stayed in bed drinking all day. Doctors, lawyers, nobody was able to help me get him the hell he needed or help me and the boys feel safe in our home.

July 2006, when the final divorce papers came through, he started to get very agitated. He started assaulting me physically and sexually in front of the boys who were now 17 and 13. My elder son stayed up all night talking him out of suicide, one time the night before a public exam. One evening, I was talking to my elder son in his room and XH comes in as well. Son asks him to leave his room as he thinks he is going to assault me again. He doesn't leave, so my son ( who is not violent) in defence of me pushes Xh away and knocks him flat ( he was completely drunk). When he comes round, XH calls the police and reports his own son for assaulting him. This was the worst thing I, as a mother, could imagine happening. The police came and instead of arresting our son, arrested my XH for sexual and physical assault and he was taken away. He was granted bail and issued with a restraining order not to contact us. He went back to Scotland to live in his mother' s old house. I never saw him again, but I took the boys up to see him once when he had been in hospital and their uncle took them round. He died in May 2007. We don't know the exact date as his brother discovered his body a few days after they had last seen him.

When he left us with the police, I discovered piles of male and female porn and numerous notebooks going back to before we were married detailing sexual encounters with hundreds of prostitutes, coded with symbols for what exact services had been provided and how he rated them. The dates showed, that he had visited these people sometimes 10 a week, once the night our younger son was born, once when I was miscarrying at home, waiting for him to come back to take me to hospital etc etc. he told me he had never loved me and that I was no good at sex.

My first H was consistently unfaithful with hundreds of men and women over a 27 year period, he was a sex addict , an alcoholic and probably gay. He was never remorseful. In fact, he said it was my fault because I was no good at sex.. He is dead now, I cannot find out the full truth. I can not shout or get angry with him. I can never give my sons back the father they should have had. And yet, I am directing all this buried anger and hatred towards my loving. Current husband, who is remorseful and truly loves me. I need to get my perspective right.

Not necessarily looking for answers or advice. Just needed to get all that out there. I should have done it years ago.

So, I've been here for about a year and in IC for about  4 months. My focus has been entirely on my FWH , his ONS, 6 years ago, which resulted in an OC he has hardly ever seen seen and  my hatred for OW.

We were married in 1985, having been together 5 years through school and college. We were each other's firsts and onlies ( or so I thought)  and virgins on our wedding night. We had 2 sons born in 1990 and 1994 and 3 miscarriages in 1991, 1995 and 1999. From around 1992, he began to drink more and more, although I never realised how much until about 1999. As an alcoholic, he was expert at hiding it and I became an expert at covering up for him. Gradually, he was unable to hold down a job, having been a stay at home mum, I went back to work in 1996 and by 2001, I was effectively the sole breadwinner, and unwittingly funding his alcohol habit, as well as paying for the childcare and doing everything around the home.

Roll forward to 2004 and in  a particularly busy time at work, I left my mobile in a cab. He lent me his old mobile, until the replacement one arrived. I was working late that night and when I used the phone, I discovered hundreds of text messages in it between him and make and female prostitutes arranging to meet for sex in toilets etc etc. when I got home the next day, I confronted him and  demanded to know everything. It was very difficult to talk to him, as he was always very drunk ( at least a bottle of whisky a day). I don't think I ever got the whole truth out of him. Over the next few weeks, he admitted that he didn't know whether he was gay or not, he used to frequent prostitutes, male and female, sometimes 2 or 3 a day, he had stashes of porn in the back of cupboards, in the loft etc etc, he used to go to dodgy cinemas and have sex with strangers.

Over the next few months, we had numerous rows and I made it clear that if he stayed with me, he had to get sorted out. He still refused rehab either for the alcohol or for the sex addiction. I filed for divorce and shortly afterwards got  together with my current husband. my first husband refused to move out and stayed in bed drinking all day. Doctors, lawyers, nobody was able to help me get him the hell he needed or help me and the boys feel safe in our home.

July 2006, when the final divorce papers came through, he started to get very agitated. He started assaulting me physically and sexually in front of the boys who were now 17 and 13. My elder son stayed  up all night talking him out of suicide, one time the night before a public exam. One evening, I was talking to my elder son in his room and XH comes in as well. Son asks him to leave his room as he thinks he is going to assault me again. He doesn't leave, so my son ( who is not violent) in defence of me pushes Xh away and knocks him flat ( he was completely drunk). When he comes round, XH calls the police and reports his own son for assaulting him. This was the worst thing I, as a mother, could imagine happening. The police came and instead of arresting our son, arrested my XH for sexual and physical assault and he was taken away. He was granted bail and issued with a restraining order not to contact us. He went back to Scotland to live in his mother' s old house. I never saw him again, but I took the boys up to see him once when he had been in hospital and their uncle took them round. He died in May 2007. We don't know the exact date as his brother discovered his body a few days after they had last seen him.

Not necessarily looking for answers or advice. Just needed to get all that out there. I should have done it years ago.

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