I don't even know where to begin. We are in our 30s, I've never been married and have no children. When we met, he told me he'd been divorced and had 3 children, all from that relationship. We met about 3 years ago and hit it off instantly. He moved in with me by bringing me home one night and never left. This was about 1.5 weeks into our relationship and we have both said we moved way too quickly way too soon. About 3 weeks after we met, he decided he wanted a facebook but said he didn't know much about computers. I created an email address for him and a facebook acct. A week or so later, I was checking it and found some emails where he'd set up accts at sites similar to adultfriendfinder.com. I was floored. We'd been together less than a month! He was telling me how much he loved me and we were in the honeymoon stage. WTF?!? I confronted him and he denied it. His ex or his sister must have done it to mess with him. Really, that's your excuse? I should have left then and regret that I didn't. One day he's in the shower and I decide to snoop in his phone. Hindsight says if you have to snoop in his phone after that short amount of time, there's a problem. I found a text from his sister saying, "Its not fair to XXX and the kids. You need to figure out if you're going to be with her or get a divorce. XXX needs to be able to move on with her life." His response was, "I know". Again, floored. I immediately confront him and he was all "my sister doesn't know what she's talking about. Now it's possible the text from his sister came first and then I found out about the emails because I initially believed him about his sister not knowing what she was talking about and I would have blown it off, had it not been for his response. He acknowledged it! And every time we talked about it after that, he said he didn't remember what his response was and of course the conversation was conveniently deleted. The next month, the kids are talking about another kid all of the sudden. I ask them who they were talking about and they said "our brother". I about passed out. I asked him about it and he said the boy was a foster kid. Ok. Few weeks later, someone I know through work saw a pic of my BF sitting on my desk. She says "OMG, are you dating him? He's my nephew's dad." Again, about pass out. Confront him and there's a weird history with the mom (the aunt confirmed this before I confronted him) and he never thought he'd see his son again. But you don't lie about your child!!! He regrets everything about it and I push him to have a better relationship with him. He's done a lot better about it over the last year than he did at first.
A few months go by and we are having the normal new relationships issues, trying to find our footing. Only issue I'm aware of is him not having a job. We sat down and I explained that I couldn't and wouldn't pay for everything myself and I needed help. He did get a job but his work history has been very spotty for the entire time we've been together. His job is about 20 minutes away and ends up meeting someone and one day she texted while he was in the shower. "Oh it's a work friend". I find out of course it's not. I have no idea how long it went on and he of course denies any physical contact. I threw him out and he begs me back. I stupidly let him. A month or so goes by and I find a text to his subordinate reminding him to clock him in early the next morning and that he would be there about 9 or 10. He left our house at 6. Of course, denies anything happened. "I wanted to sleep in with you [it was a Saturday] but forgot about a deadline so I just went ahead and went in at normal time". I ended up calling her, looking for him and she denied knowing him.
Before this happened, we had been talking about marriage. Evidently because I'm an idiot. The text from his sister kept popping in my head so I asked to see his divorce papers. Oddly enough, he just couldn't find them. So I told him to go to the county courthouse and get a copy. He procrastinates until I pitched a fit and he finally goes to the courthouse to get the papers and comes home empty handed. The divorce was never final. Now his sister's text makes sense and he is STILL denying she knows what she's talking about. I flipped the fuck out on him. Papers had been filed (and I did inadvertently get proof of that, via a conversation he had with the "ex" on speakerphone where she confirmed). I insist it get finalized or he get out of my life. Looking back, THAT is when I really should have walked away. I had no business coming in between a marriage. The divorce took TWO years to complete, due to lack of money, he was going to fight for custody of the kids, a bad lawyer, etc.
During this time, we continue to live together, fight like crazy, and just have an overall unhealthy relationship. Fall of 2012, things take a turn for what I thought was the better. Between Christmas and NYE, he gets a text that says, "this is the day my grandma died 2 years ago, I'm gonna light a candle for her and I gotta get the hell outta my house". He has this listed under a guy's name he works with. But he has 2 numbers for this guy. He comes up with every excuse in the book, all flimsy and see through. At this point, his phone is in my name so I look the number up on the bill. Sure enough, there's TONS of texts back and forth. I explain that a) that text is something a dude would never say to another dude, b) I can't believe he would do this to me AGAIN!, and c) I told him to call her right then in front of me and end it. For the first time ever, he didn't act remorseful. He got ugly and said no, it's too late to call. I said, "Fuck that, she just texted you at 10 pm." We went round and round and I didn't back down. He finally calls and it went to voicemail. I told him to leave one and he wouldn't. After a couple more hours and horrendous fighting, I gave up and went to bed.
2013 passes and while I found no more evidence of him cheating, things did not get any better. I couldn't get over everything he'd done, he continued to lie about everything else (even insignificant things), and it just went downhill. We go through the phases were we attempt to fix things but we just couldn't.
2014 arrives and we get a new apt in an attempt to have a fresh start. I'm going to working and going to school and he gets a job 8 hours away. We can't afford for him to not have this job. Jobs here for his line of work are either non existent or don't pay nearly enough. Problem is, 8 hours away doesn't do anything to help with the lack of trust. Just the opposite. A few weeks ago, we were texting back and forth while he's at the bank, waiting to deposit his check. He regularly sends me pics of what he tells me he's doing to instill a little trust. So he sends me a pic of the line at the bank and suddenly he starts taking 10-15 minutes to respond. I ask him what the deal is and he calls and says he has to go pick up his coworker whose truck had died. I ask him to send me a pic. 20 minutes goes by and no pic. I said never mind because it shouldn't have take 20 minutes to send me a pic. He sent me a pic a little while later but I never responded. He texts several more times that night, saying he doesn't know what he did to make me mad, but he wishes I would talk to him. Now, this is a man who has been very possessive and territorial. He doesn't let me out of his sight without knowing exactly what I'm doing and where I'm doing. And he would blow my phone up in the past if he went a few hours without hearing from me. I went a WEEK and didn't respond to his texts. He never so much as picked up the phone to call and see if I was alive. I was so hurt and so angry. He apologized but I'm not over it.
This week has been awful. Constant fighting. We finally had some peace late Thursday night after a long, rough conversation. Yesterday, he was supposed to come home. He calls me at 6 and says his boss wants him to work 4 or 5 hours today and he doesn't know what to do. Hours have been cut back drastically over the last few weeks and I had to postpone my LASIK due to that. He feels really bad and said he's between a rock and a hard place. He wants to come home and spend time with me but he can't complain about not having hours if he turns them down. The phone cuts out and half hour goes by. Normally he calls back, but he didn't so I call him back. I asked him what happened and he said he'd been playing phone tag with his coworker. I said, "oh, I didn't realize he was more important than me". He said he wasn't but he was really annoyed, could he call me back? I told him not to bother and when he came in town this weekend, he could just stay at his mom's. We haven't had contact since then.
He swears he doesn't want anything but a life with me and I am the reason he's out there so we can have a good life. He says he misses me like crazy and he would come home in a heartbeat if he could find a job that paid enough for us to pay our bills.
Since he's gotten this job, he's been very...not him. When he's at work, he's very short (I get it, he's at work and he's busy) and his tone of voice just isn't very nice. I told him that wasn't going to fly. When he's not at work, he's the sweet man I fell in love with. Work is the only place/time he's like that and this is an job where no women work, except the boss's wife and I've met her and know she isn't an issue. But lately his attitude has been awful. I finally called him out on it and he says he's stressed. 8 hours away, not enough hours, the stress of having 2 rents and not enough money to cover the bills, not getting to see me or his kids, the stress of what he knows he's done to me and now it's harder to fix it.
I don't know. In addition to all this, he doesn't think, he doesn't listen, he flies by the seat of his pants. Oh and he has a sexual addiction that he JUST came clean about when I found his google history a couple months ago. I had caught him with porn many times and he always denied it, even when I caught him red handed. So pathological liar and SA can be added to the list. So now that I've told y'all all the negative...here's why I stayed. I love him. He's my best friend. And when he's not doing all the stupid shit, he's really a fantastic man and boyfriend. He can be incredibly thoughtful, he takes good care of me, spoils me rotten with love and affection. And I'm certainly not perfect. I am very manipulative, I play head games (not intentionally but I still do), I am verbally abusive and have gotten violent many times, verbally and physically, and can't let go of the past to work on the present. And when things get rough, I want to quit. We are both incredibly immature in our relationship and we don't know how to fix it.
I don't know how to fix it, if I want to fix it, or where to go from here. If my friend were to tell me this, I'd tell her to pull her head out of her ass and leave him, pronto. I wish it were that easy. I know not being married and not having kids makes people wonder why I have stuck around. After 3 years of living together, our lives, our finances, and our hearts and completely entangled. It's not as easy as just "walking away". I've read the 180 and I'm prepared to implement it. Any advice is appreciated.
