SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Heavy Sigh...this was kinda hurtful...((Also - using your spouse as your only friend and conversationalist is a helluva lot of burden to have placed on him in life. You want to feel like his partner, not his legal dependent, to stay married.))...kinda unnecessary too. Yes, I said that at this time I have no girlfriends...I have had them through marriage, been unlucky as that two moved to other states. Yes I realized recently that I have turned down many friendships if he appeared to find them attractive..I also have a big family that I am involved with. Even if this was not true, am too raw to be criticized about my marriage and about putting any kind of a burden on my husband.

His legal dependent to stay married? Don't even know what this means.

And this.?....

"using your husband as a life-raft to protect you from the world"

I don't use him and the protection I need is FROM him

Going in the corner to lick my extra wounds, now

Mainlyinpain,

No one should be psychoanalyzing your faults like that, especially when you are at your most vulnerable. I agree it was un called for.

Your IC will help you discover any changes, work you need to do. If it means anything at all, I did not see those things as true, (or false), I don't see how someone could know that about the dynamics of your life, just from what you posted. I am sorry you are hurting.

Hugs to you honey...that was a heavy 2x4 to throw your way...remember...all we offer is perspective and advice, take what you like and throw back what doesn't feel accurate right now. One thing we seem to all agree with...you don't deserve this...

I don't know the facts of my own life. My memories of every day are skewed with the knowledge of the behind my back stuff

(((MORE HUGS)))

I am so sorry for what you're going through right now. The first sentence I quoted is one that staggered me for the better part of two years post DDay. I've done my own digging & discovered an astounding double life my STBX was leading. Each discovery destroyed me again & again, yet it was critical that I know, KNOW, the truth about my own life.

I couldn't have survived it without lots of counseling. Please please please get yourself into counseling immediately. For a couple of months I went 2x weekly! Then stepped down to 1x weekly. Then 2x monthly, then 1x monthly. Now I'm back to 2x monthly, although right now I need to be going 1x weekly because my divorce is almost over & the pressure is on.

You need to find a counselor.

BTW, I am doing all this, the starting over, and I'm in my 50's. It's not impossible to start over at this age. I'll be GD'd if I'm gonna let a cruel pervert like STBX ruin the rest of my life. Right now I'm really low & struggling, but that's because of all the stress. It's not going to kill me. I can do this.

You can do this, too.

Thank you NatureGirl and everyone for the good thoughts.

Perhaps when I said "my world is gone" it was supposed that I meant my husband, but what I really meant was that my world (or my past) that was what I thought it was was now colored with what had really been going on behind my back, so was no longer my reality. And I really have no idea what was really my world then because only she and he know that part of my life. Hate that. And hate how much work it is to get that information about my own life, my own marriage.

My original postings were very raw and visceral and it hurts to reread them. I feel sorry for that woman.

I don't recognize any part of my true self or my marriage or relationship with my husband in what HeavySigh said so I will just let it roll off my back.

Nature_Girl you are very strong and a good example for me.

I am searching for a counselor, it is hard to know who to pick. In 2004 the first time, the one I went to was not really effective, seemed to coddle my husband (he is good-looking and personable) so I am thinking maybe a male but don't know if that would be comfortable.

Nature_Girl, do you feel like you were able to find out enough to give you peace of mind finally?

I feel like I don't want to die without these pieces of my puzzle yet I have no control over which little morsels of my life I will be able to discover, unearth, or have someone else decide to tell me.

Almost like being an amnesiac and trying to construct your past from what people tell you.

Sorry you are hurting. MIP. I am afraid that I agree with the points of Heavy Sigh's post, even if it was not expressed as sympathetically as you need at present. Those of us who are several years out are of course a little removed from the immediate pain of Dday. That may mean that we come across as unsympathetic occasionally. But it also means we have a distance and experience that offers a long term perspective, and it is with both of these thati I tell you that the 180 is your best friend now.

To re-find yourself and break your dependency on your H.

This is no criticism -- so please do not react to it as such - it is life-saving advice. Be your own friend.

Well...hell...you agree that I specifically use my husband as a life raft, that I, in my marriage have used my husband as my only friend and conversationalist and placed this heavy burden on him in life? I must have missed you in the rooms of my house and the years of my marriage. Were you another woman I didn't know about? Where, pray tell did you glean this information from the posts that I have made since Monday? Perhaps this was hers and your own projections of your particular lives but it is not my life. So unless you are saying that you believe this to be true of every BS and is a factor of every case of infidelity... You are saying that all infidelity is based on the BS relying too much on their spouse and this caused every case of infidelity. And my original DDay was 7/2004 so I have perspective. I am not dependent on my husband for my life. I do depend on him to be faithful to me. It is going to hurt when he is not even if I am the strongest emotional person in the world and the most varied conversationalist. No one is perfect so everyone can have issues to better themselves but none of them make the pain of infidelity less and none of them are the reason for infidelity. Not in my world.

I understand your "my world" point of view. It took me a very long time to come to terms with the knowledge that my entire marriage was based on lies. My husband was not who he portrayed himself to be. Therefore, my marriage was not what I thought it was. All of the events were now recast in a different light since I had new information. Certain behaviors of his or certain incidents were no longer as I understood them, they were completely different, and not in a good way.

All my life I used to read stories about the wife who finds out that her husband is a __________. And I'd think, oh, she knew or she's an idiot. Then to realize that *I* am that wife? To find out that I'd been utterly duped? And worse, to look back and acknowledge that I'd willfully ignored certain clues & red flags, all in the name of blind trust and fidelity? Horrors!

Yes, it is like an amnesiac trying to reconstruct a past. Yes, I do feel I have enough pieces of the puzzle that I can have a large measure of peace of mind. No, I'll never know it all. Heck, he won't even admit to what I do know and have proof! So I'll never know everything. I'll never understand him because he's a character-disordered person. I'll never trust him with the children because he's a pervert as well as a character-disordered person. But I have enough information about him now as well as about our life together that I can make some sense of things. I am able to rewrite my life with what I think now is accurate information. Unfortunately the part I play in that life is often titled "Fool", but oh well, I was but am no longer. Now I reach out to people when I see in them similar themes as what I saw in myself. The only way I can tolerate having the disgusting black smears in my past is if I can use that heartbreak to help others.

Nature_Girl,

You are helping me the most here. Every sentence you write is like me talking to myself, me comforting myself. I think you endured much more than I have and to see your strength in the face of your horrors is amazing and uplifting. You make me cry for you which is good because empathy is good, too give and to get.

I don't want to die without these pieces of my puzzle

And hate how much work it is to get that information about my own life, my own marriage.

^^^This issue became my *hill to die on*. Unbeknownst to me until a couple of years ago, Sultan cheated throughout our entire 20 year marriage. And suddenly, everything that I thought was true.....was turned into fiction. And it made me angry. I knew that *my* part in the marriage and life events had been authentic, but I highly resented that I had made a whole shit-ton of decisions based on *bad* or manipulated information.

Sultan never did 'fess up completely about all of his shenanigans and I finally decided that I was done with the *tooth-pulling* conversations. He wants to keep his secrets? Ok, fine. He can put them in the drawer right next to the divorce papers that he got.

See, there was no way that I could remain in a marriage with a person that insisted that I just *ignore* my distorted past.

I used to feel that I needed to *know* all the pieces to the puzzle. And that would still be true if I were to remain married to him. But I cut the cord....and now it's just not important anymore. I just don't give a flip. I've pretty much *wiped* any nice thing that he said or did for me in the years before I found out...and written them off as either guilt-assuagers or outright manipulation since he never cared to sufficiently *explain* why they weren't.

All I know is that *I* had my head in the marriage and the things that *I* did were done in the best interest of the family. Him?....not so much. So, whatever.

I am struggling with what to believe. I am afraid to have faith in something because so fearful of believing and then finding out not true.

Husband had original EA ?99 to 11/21 and then escalated to include PA until 7/2004

I believe there was some kind of contact for maybe another year but not much

Found out new contact 11/2011.

Supposed to have ended but just found out new contact last Friday or not ended since 2011 more probably.

Sorry, I have to keep this straight for myself.

Anyway, there was the PA and this time he says there was no sex with her since 2004. He still won't admit to any contact at all though, I can see him struggling with this and he cries and says he needs to see a psychiatrist before he talks about this but that he can assure me that he has had sex with no one but me since 2004.

Can I believe this? At all?

He is a disordered person, I would say a pathological liar, so he is stopping himself now from denying contact, which he did at first even after I played his phone messages. He is no longer saying I am crazy, he just says please let me see a psychiatrist before we talk about that but I want you to know that I have only had sex with you since 2004.

I don't know if he is lying to himself which is does or if I can have faith in this. It is important to me.

It would be the height of cruelty of him if he insists on this and it is not true. I want to believe but I also know that he can lie to himself and truly believe it to the point where I think he would pass a lie detector test. I know he needs help and he really wants it. He really wants to save our marriage. I have agreed to let him see a psychiatrist before we talk about what he has been doing but can I have any faith in what he says about no sex? Would he be cruel enough to say this and it not be true?

I'm not understanding why he *needs* to talk to a psych before he has a conversation with you. It's giving me a *bad vibe*....

You need to take control as this will give you what you need to move forward...whatever way that is. See a really great attorney right away. This does not mean you will divorce in the end. But you will have knowledge and that is power.

Now in the beginning all of this is overwhelming and I do not like any negative criticism, especially in the beginning. No need for that at all.

Disregard anything that makes you feel worse and take in only what empowers you.

Get the lawyer, read and enact as much of the 180 as you can. Get a grip on anything you can. Start with your finances.

Put your mask on first!!!

I don't understand the 180 thing.

I am supposed to ignore what happened and kind of remove myself from him almost? But also go into mc with him? Aren't I supposed to spill my guts there with him? Or should I delay that?

I respect that many people recommend the 180 but if we are at a crisis point where he is making a decision about who he wants to be with how is showing him a cold shoulder showing how I truly feel? Is it just that I accept that I have no influence on him and only on me? Then why can't I behave like me? Confused.

I'm not understanding why he *needs* to talk to a psych before he has a conversation with you. It's giving me a *bad vibe*....

I agree. That's a really disturbing thing to insist on. That's troubling.

Also, I agree that you need to get yourself to a divorce lawyer ASAP. You need information. Right now you have discovered you've been in the dark, that your husband is the one who's deliberately kept you there. He is treating you like a mushroom as far as darkness and diet. It's up to YOU to shine the light on this situation, whatever it is. It's up to you to decide what you'll stomach.

Talk to a lawyer. Don't let your husband delay talking to YOU via the trumped up need for a psychiatrist. He's buying time. He's taking more power & control over you. I urge you to be the driver, here.

If you're wondering if cheating spouses truly do lie right to our faces, the answer is yes, they do. My husband invoked his mother's grave and our children's lives, screamed those invocations, actually, as he insisted he was a faithful, loving husband. He screamed for God to be his witness, he begged God to strike him down with a lightning bolt, if he'd ever been unfaithful or lied to me. He sobbed, he blubbered, he despondently whispered that everything was all untrue... He pleaded & begged me to believe him.

During most of our marriage I would have believed him. Surely no one could say those things and be lying, right? A man wouldn't become that hysterical if he wasn't telling the truth, right? But after DDay, and after each successive discovery? That line from Shakespeare kept ringing in my head, "Methinks the [man] doth protest too much."

I have been where you are.

Ex-H had affair with HO-worker. Started 2000-lasted a year and threw her under the bus when I found out. They started up again in 2006 and didn't stop.

Mine did what yours is doing..said he wasn't doing it, said I was crazy, wanted counseling but in the end he just took it more underground.

Nothing I said to him or the Ho-worker made a difference...(btw--my OW's kids were friends with mine as they went to school together, played together and visited each other's houses). So she knew my kids and didn't care that she was breaking up my family...

The problem is not with OW as she doesn't care about you or your kids or how much you hurt. Your problem is with your H as he is the one that made vows to you..and you have to let him know that you will no longer tolerate 3 in your marriage.

1) See a lawyer and find out your options.

2) File for divorce. I say this because he will not take you seriously unless you let him know the consequences of his decisions/actions. You can put the D on hold if his actions change and you have proof that he is no longer in contact..Most states will let you put a D on hold for up to a year before you have to decide if you are going to go through with it or have them dismiss it..but he has to understand that you are serious about what you expect in your marriage...

My SI friends told me this for 6 years but I just wanted to save my marriage..problem was, I was the only one trying to save it. I filed and it took me a year to get D but he wouldn't stop seeing her.

He suffered the consequences by losing his family (my oldest does not talk to him), his home (I got the house)and he got all the debt (he had more in retirement so instead of giving me half, he got the debt). He also pays child support every month...

I am happier now, I have peace and I have a wonderful SO that gives me the respect I deserve...And BTW, I filed at the age of 52...I was scared of being alone, of losing everything, of the future. But I could no longer put up with his A.

It can be done but you need to get strong, make a decision about what you will tolerate and take action..

I am praying for you!!!

If you are able...hire a PI. He may be hiding money in hidden accounts. I am deeply sorry for all this pain. I an 54 years old, and maybe its just us who have entered that back 9 of life, but it seems that all the dreams/plans we had for a peaceful/serene transition to our elderly years get ripped apart by those we trusted most.

Heck Nature_Girl...just last night he swore on everyone's graves, my son's, mine, his mother's...My son is traveling and I have been worried about him because of this.

Why do you think he is insisting on psych? I just can't think of reason and just want to know of possibilities? Any ideas...don't care how awful...want to steel myself

Let's see, why might he insist on a psych? Well, maybe it's just BS, he's simply stalling, hoping you'll "forget" or be lulled back into complacency. Or, maybe he's actually seeing men as well as women. So he wants to delay telling you THAT. Maybe the OW is a psychiatrist. Maybe he's just stalling for time while he cleans out the bank accounts and sets himself up in an apartment with or without the OW. Maybe he's a polygamist. Maybe the psychiatrist is actually a divorce lawyer, and he's going to surprise YOU with being served.

You already know he's a liar and a cheater. You heard him with your own ears. You need to talk to an IC. Not MC, and IC. Get your own head screwed on straight, let a professional help you sort your thoughts out. MC can come later.