My story is so very much the same as everyone else's. I was married once before (8 years), have a 10 year old son..met my STBXH through a blog on healing after divorce and we spent 2 years getting to know each other long distance. I felt that I had found my soul mate. We took it very slowly. He didn't even move to my state until 2 years after we had met. Took a long time to introduce to my son. Met his daughters after an appropriate time. He had his own apartment here. Didn't move straight in to my house. Kids finally met. We got engaged. Got married. We had made it work. I felt like the ultimate success story.
October 5th, I found out that he had been sexting with other women, multiple lies throughout the five years, emotional connections, pictures, videos, obsessively chasing these women through secret email accounts and IMs and getting pictures of these skanks. I called him at work and told him we were through. This had happened once before we were married where I found an inappropriate email to a woman he worked with and it definitely crossed the line (bolstering her up, telling her she was pretty, etc) and I told him if he didn't get help and if it happened again, we were done. finished. He sought therapy and realized he had tremendous boundary issues and constant needs for attention/validation from external sources. He was more transparent after that. Left his phone out. His ipad. Didn't lock down his computer, etc. The couple times I would check his computer, I saw that his history was always gone. Red flag.
But we were so happy, I thought to myself. He couldn't do enough for me. Always surprising me, thinking of me, texting me throughout the day, cards, getting my coffee in the morning, etc. He wasn't even really absent at all. Came home when he said he would, didn't go out with friends after work; spent all his time with me and my son.
So that day (D-DAY), I told him we were through. Done. Over. He came home, somber, said he had never really changed. I deserved so much more than this..he was so sorry. He had never really done the work on himself. He was selfish. Weak. He grabbed some things and left the house. I had his Ipad (that's how I found the text to another skank) and I was a mess. My friend came over and she had her husband call him, just to see where he went, etc. He wouldn't pick up. For anyone. His mom. His sister. No one. Then we saw that he had sent his girls a text message through iMessage saying 'Daddy loves you very much'. Then I got scared. I went upstairs to the gun vault. Gun was gone. I called the cops. No matter how I felt about him and how much he had hurt me, he had daughters who would never understand this pain.
The cops finally tracked him down and he admitted he took the weapon out of the house, but just needed to cool down. He would call me soon. Hours later, he called. He had written out suicide notes, checked in to a hotel to do it, begged me to just forget him..we'd all be better off without him, etc. I told him that his kids needed him. No matter what happened between us, he didn't get to do that to his girls. They would never understand.
He came back the next day, broke down in front of me and said he needed help. I took him to the psych ward of the hospital in town. They admitted him and he was there for a week. It was very hard to process what had happened when his mental needs were sucking up so much room and importance. I was so hurt and angry and couldn't even begin to understand what my life had become. I began IC that week. I was asked by his doctor to get rid of the pills (found out he had took those too as well as a razor) and I flushed them down the toilet.
He was released and I picked him up. I didn't have to, but I did. He came back into the house and I had a list of things that I required for him to walk back in the door. Obvious ones: no secrecy, accounts cancelled, passwords shared, complete transparency, etc. He eagerly agreed to all of these things and more. He had to continue counseling and it was an hour-to-hour situation. My child didn't know where his stepfather had been. I hadn't told my family. It was a nightmare.
That week was one of deep conversations, a lot of crying and pain and a glimpse of maybe rebuilding something better for the future. He had asked me to change his email passwords so he couldn't go in and I did. I, of course, couldn't help myself and kept snooping. Then I found something that changed the whole deal.
I saw that he had requested that an account I did not know about be cancelled. I re-activated the account. Nothing in Inbox, deleted, etc..very smart. Then i found message history. A year's worth of filthy back and forth with a woman he told me was just a friend a few states away. This was months before our wedding. I was sick to my stomach. I copied them all. They were vile. And they were constant. He was always checking in with her, called her his 'bunny' and on and on. I called him and told him he would have to find a new place to live. I was done. The emails were from two years before but it was the final straw. Seeing it in writing gutted me. I took my son out of the house that night so he wouldn't witness a scene. I told my parents. I made it real.
The last few weeks have been hell one earth. He is remorseful, guilt-ridden, a mess...but I have seen this play before. And I know how it ends. I have had to see him a few times for things with the house and car and getting things separated and he is a sullen, sorry bag of sad. I alternate between being a raging hateful bitch and a crying, inconsolable mess. The last time I saw him, I said 'why did you do this? i thought we were happy!' and he said, as hard as it is to understand this had nothing to do with me. It has to do with him and the holes in his soul and the gaping wounds he has tried to fill in with external things. He told me he would never have anything as good as he had with me. that he would spend eternity ashamed and remorseful for what he had done and given up. I just feel so tossed aside. We had one rule: ONE. TRUTH. And he lied and he lied and when he came home from the hospital. MOre lies.
I realize now that I have to get through this and heal NOW because if I gave him another chance, I would be typing all this out in 5 years and I don't want to waste another five years of my life on someone who would lie to me, tell me how much they love me, plan a wedding with me, where our children became a family together and all while that was going on, he was skype-sexing some whore. I have gotten tested for STDs (negative thank god) - I have a prenup and I have contacted a lawyer. I know the direction I need to move but I feel like I am dead inside. Like I am never going to be okay again. Like the one person who swore to love me and honor me and take care of me has taken my heart out of my body and smeared it against the wall.
Please help me get through this.
