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IDeserveMore posted 10/16/2013 09:54 AM

Hi all, I’ve been wanting your advice for so long but I was putting off writing up my history in my profile. I finally did yesterday and man is it long! I thought about why and here is what I think. It’s why I’m still stuck.

He withheld and threw me bones, the usual TT for years and years. We are almost 9 years past DD#2. But for some, many, aspects of the affair, he just won’t tell me things. Now it’s been so long that he can claim he has forgotten. But when I’m sitting there looking at him and asking him the exact thing a person would remember and he is saying his mind is fuzzy, all I can think is “He is still lying”

I have to admit that it makes me crazy. All the info I’ve ever gotten was in response to my very careful and tactical questions and he only answered what was asked, as if in court.

Now, all these years later, he wants to move on. He is trying. I’ll give him that. He is doing things to be helpful. But he simply has never given me what I specifically asked for - to never lie about it again. To answer everything he could.

So I think my profile story is so long and took me so long to write because I so want it to be understood that what happened was horrible. That it was bad enough for me to still be traumatized, especially without the closure I wanted. Because I have my husband, the MC, friends and sometimes family not understanding why I can’t let it go after so many years if now he is trying to be a good husband.

I so hope that some with an affair long in the past can speak to this. I'm so worn out.

heartache101 posted 10/16/2013 10:23 AM

Honey
He just wants his cake and he keeps a eating it.
Sounds to me he wants to live his life like his parents. Did you know he wanted an open marriage?
You need to decide to stay married and have an open marriage or separate. If he does not care about your feelings or your marriage. JMO
Can you stay where you are if you divorce? Or do you have to move back home. You didnt mention if you gave up your citizenship to your country.

[This message edited by heartache101 at 10:24 AM, October 16th (Wednesday)]

IDeserveMore posted 10/16/2013 10:39 AM

Oh, no, I'm back in the states. We did move here 1 year after marrying when he got into residency here. And about a year ago he got his citizenship while retaining his passport for his home county. But he has said for many years that he isn't going back. He likes it here and would stay here if we split.

Now, about an open marriage, I've asked him that many times. By a few years after DD2 he started talking more about the parents swinging and how damaging it was to him. His parents did it from when he was little and they would go away for weekends with other families and blatantly come out of rooms in the morning having swapped partners. He now says he doesn't want that at all.

He does admit, however, that he had no concrete thoughts about the fact that once we married he wasn't expected to be anyone else. To me that is a total WTF but then look how he was raised. His family was ZERO help when I exposed to them.

What he is saying now is he wants a close, monogamous relationship. What he did was wrong. He is agreeing with me.

... but where the affair is concerned he just won't or can't answer all my questions

It's like if I just took him for what he is doing now, it could be alright. Except it's just not.

Smokehouse posted 10/16/2013 13:17 PM

TT for years is really I'm not going to tell you what happened. Only he knows the real reason for not telling you. Maybe guilt, afraid you will leave him, or, he is just that big of an asshole. If you really sit and think about it, you will know which he is.

You can't get over what you don't know. It just lingers. It took my WW months to tell me. I knew she was holding back and I obsessed over it. Couldn't let it go, same for you.

It is terrible he is putting you through this. Seeing you agonize for years over this and still not man enough to tell you, compassionate enough, caring enough, or loves you enough. No way could I stand and watch somebody I love go through that kind of pain knowing I caused it and could end it with the truth.

I know you have thought of all this, but, maybe, he needs to see or hear it again.

Good luck dear!

IDeserveMore posted 10/16/2013 14:51 PM

If you really sit and think about it, you will know which he is.

Oh, I've thought about all this and asked him about all this.

He is a person who has narcissistic traits and always thinks he knows better. He says he just knows that if he would have told me all, it still wouldn't have helped. Yeah, that is his brilliant reason for not doing the explicit thing I've asked for - almost a decade now.

But it's all the other stuff. I definitly wonder if telling all is going to reveal something huge. (that is the problem with withholding, the other person imagines the worst). I worry that he'd reveal one day that he really did sleep with her.

He always said he didn't. Has really stuck to that. Stuck to that in MC. But he pulled that with the first cheating episode (in my profile). He has the potential lie hugely right in my face.

Anyway, maybe there is something big. I also think he is embarrassed, as he has told me before. To that I just say 'tough titty said the kitty but the milk's still good.'

I see NO overriding reason to withhold. If the BS want info, it should trump all.

IDeserveMore posted 10/16/2013 14:53 PM

Oh, and PS, yes to the asshole part. I do think he has a real asshole side to him. He's good about saving the specialness for me though. Our friends think he is the nicest, most mild guy

hard_yards posted 10/16/2013 15:49 PM

just sent you a PM

Smokehouse posted 10/17/2013 03:52 AM

I figured you had reasoned it all out. No doubt we have all done that and in spite of knowing how our ws's treated us, we still stay. I always said it was a deal breaker. I am a strong minded person, except with my WW. I love her that much.

I feel she has really just arrived at the gravity of what she did. When I told her we were over when I first learned of the A, she told me she cried to a friend at work. She just told me that yesterday.

Only you know if your husband is putting in the work, if you know all the truth. The gut is right a lot of times. It is hard to forget what they have done. You have to decide, as I'm sure a lot here have, knowing they don't have the entire truth whether you can finally move on, for good. For good is the tough one!

IDeserveMore posted 10/19/2013 22:10 PM

Thanks everyone for the advice. I’ve been thinking and thinking. Crying some, and more thinking.

So here is an update: I told my husband I’m just not satisfied with where it is at now. If it stays like this, I will never get over it. He way too quickly asked me if I want him to move out. He said he is not sure that my knowing everything would help. He thinks I’d still be holding it against him and still upset and is not sure it would ever have done any good.

I was incredulous and asked if that was his reason for not even trying, because that is a super crappy reason. And I pointed out that what he’d been trying for 9 years for sure hadn’t been successful. He had to agree on that. Well, what we came to was that he would finally write me a timeline. So for once I’d have something in his own words, not just the most brief answers to my questions.

And the next day I sent him this email (below). My girlfriend saw it and was shocked. I didn’t think it was that bad. I was being completely clear and honest. He replied by thanking me for sending it, saying it was accurate and saying that “It's hard for me to see that that's what you think of me/our relationship.” Here is is

-------------------------------

I kept getting confused about what happened what year exactly so I made myself a short timeline. It's interesting, I noticed 5 1/2 years between the big fall outs. Anyway, I though it might be helpful to you and to better see where I'm coming from. (DD - DDay- is the term for the day someone finds out they are being cheated on and EA/PA means emotional and physical affair)

Fall 1998  flirted and eventually slept w/ex b/f we got married (lied about it for the first 9 months of marriage). I find out Spring 1999 DD1
5 1/2 years pass without discussing it, him not thinking it was so bad, lots of marital problems

Fall 2004 DD2 4 month EA/PA w/married woman my age with kids too
5 1/2 years pass with him not willing to tell me anything but what he absolutely can't deny, me alone with all my suspicions, leaving me with chronic stress

Spring 2010 finally gives info only under threat of divorce and me hitting rock bottom and not wearing my ring for the first time in my marriage
3 1/2 years pass with me feeling he hasn't told me everything and that I hate that he only disclosed under threat of divorce

Fall 2013 I realize that after all this I don't love him as much, find him less attractive, it's all worn me out and I'm am so sad, I feel like I wasted what I wanted to be my one marriage. Wasted my youth.

So, June 1998 - Spring 2010 I had such a bad feeling him and didn't trust him. 12 years of my 15 year marriage. The past 3 years haven't been good enough for me to feel better enough.