SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

The chances of this being a ONS are slim. The chances that he has stopped cheating on you are slim to none. I'm sorry but he has shown you who he is. Believe him.

I have a DD who is very close to your age,so Im going to give you the advice I would give her.

You are young. And have the rest of your life ahead of you. You love the image you had of this man..but the man he is showing you today,is who he is. You don't want to spend the rest of your life worrying that he will do this again..and he will. This time is devastating. A second dday will shatter you. The longer you stay with an unremorseful WS,the more it will change who you are. It will cost you..emotionally and mentally..and when/if he brings home at STD it may rob you of the ability to have children..or kill you.

He hasn't been committed to you. And I would bet that he has a long history of cheating on you.

Run. Don't allow this boy screw up the rest of your life.

I concur with advice given by Tush and Confused615.

To borrow the title of the book and movie, "He's not that into you."

You've been holding onto him too long, and you should have been done and gone the minute you began to suspect you were "second place," because he was no doubt in subtle ways making SURE you felt second place with eye contact with her or in other ways. Drop both of them, and you may have to cut free of that whole crowd. They're both bad people - your husband, your ex friend. Him, for seeing her after his wedding day (and probably before, when you didn't know it) and her for criticizing YOU for not letting her date your boyfriend before you married him and she slept with him? What kind of monstrous piece of work is she to write that, after having slept with the bridegroom the day after his wedding. Screw that beyotch. Oh.. right... your husband already did. So leave him now - it doesn't matter that you love him and want him, any more than it matters that an addict might love cocaine when they must stop and walk away from that bad thing.

Tell him you are soooo outta there and away from that twisted little "Cruel Intentions"/"Dangerous Liasons" kind of sick game.

Then be brave enough not to stay to wait around for his reaction hoping he will declare undying love and beg forgiveness. WALK OUT OF THERE. Also, notice your friend told you your husband "wasn't doing well" when you left. Are you sure about that? Most cheaters get all sadface to make friends feel sorry for them rather than criticize or dislike them for their bad behavior. Sympathy for the devil attempt. Not sincere. Or was your friend enjoying the drama, wanted to see you return to amp it up for pleasure of watching the fireworks? Or just saying that to make you feel better when maybe your husband was doing well - in fact, doing everyone, when you were away?

Walk. NEVER take his calls again for the rest of your life except over legal stuff required, and file tax separately if you're in U.S., because chances are he lies about everything financially, too, and you don't want the IRS to come audit you. Walk out cleanly. Liars lie.

See a lawyer about an annulment or divorce. He keeps other women on a string - your friend and his former FWB - is not remorseful and will likely continue to do this for the rest of his life unless he has a religious epiphany or something similar.

Seeing you walk out hasn't changed him a bit. He's hiding his phone, so the risk of losing you hasn't changed his player status. He just loses more respect for you and treats you more like some hanger-on girlfriend who will do for now, as he looks for someone "better," than like a cherished wife. You are already better than him or anyone he knows.

Wipe that slate clean. If you're embarrassed the marriage lasted such a short time, then either tell the truth and your family will understand. Or keep quiet for some time, move to a third city, preferably getting a job in a place you've always thought would be a great place to live, and let them know a year from now when the divorce of annulment is final and you've healed a bit.

If he doesn't care all that much about you during the most romantic and sexual intense stage of a relationship, then he's incapable of it. Notice that not only did he cheat on you, he's cheating on the friend he cheated on you with when he added the FWB to his flirtation rotation.

It's best to hurt a year than 20 years.

[This message edited by Heavy Sigh at 9:00 AM, July 23rd (Tuesday)]

now I'm damaged goods and if I ever get out of this marriage no one will want me because I've already been used

Sweetie, he is the damaged goods. He is the one who broke your vows one day after your wedding.

This isn't the 17th century.

You are 21 years old and because you are no longer a virgin does not make you damaged goods.

Stop being the victim to his manipulative, controlling, egotistical ways. He is using you in any shape or form he wishes. And you are allowing it.

You owe him nothing. He has continually beat you down, humiliated you and is now telling you to "get over it"

GET OVER HIM

I suspect that he cheated on you when you dated and he will cheat again. Buying gifts is not remorse. It is manipulation.

Please go to the healing library in the upper right hand corner and read, read, read.

Stand up and be strong. You are young and have the whole world in front of you.

Get your marriage annulled based on false intent. His sleeping with someone else the day after your wedding proves this and chalk it up to a hellva lesson.

But get out now. He is NOT going to change.

Good luck.

Oh wow, thank you all for your responses and support! I did not think I would get many replies as we have not been married as long as others on this site and figured our situation was trivial in comparison.

You have a great benefit: you KNOW. You KNOW what you married, right away.

He is not showing you any intention of doing what is necessary to truly R.

Solus this is very spot on. I'm not sure what he considers R but he feels like he's been doing a fantastic job of treating me well and that he's been good. Sometimes it makes me feel crazy because whenever I am triggered he tells me I throw what happened in the past in his face after how hard he has been trying. I just wish I'd known what he was capable of before I got too deeply involved with him.

It might be hard to hear, as it was for me, that this man does not respect your or your relationship with him. He may not respect the other women, either, if that's any comfort-for me it was a little so I will mention it.

This is probably very true, Ashland. I think its easy for him to disrespect me and this relationship so easily because I have shown to have no respect for myself. Thank you for your support and kind words.

All passwords, access to all phones, computers, tablets, etc.

No, absolutely no contact with AP.

Counseling for him, you, and both of you together.

Complete transparency. Period.

K that is very good advise and an awesome outline for a game plan. When I initially took that time to myself to come up with a game plan this was in the cards. When I told him I would need complete transparency he said he didn't even know what that was/meant! Earlier last week he told me that I can't keep taking my anger out on him by making little snide remarks about the affair and that I had to find another way to deal with my emotions. I asked him to help me find another avenue to express my emotions and he said he didn't have any ideas so I told him I would take care of it. I found this site and decided not to tell him and when he asked about how I was controlling my emotions I told him that I would not be telling him, that it was incredibly personal and I didn't want to share. You know what he said? He said: I THOUGHT YOU WANTED COMPLETE TRANSPARENCY BUT YOU WONT COMPLY TO YOUR OWN RULES! It made me so angry.

You have value far above your hymen or sexual activity status.

Thank you, Nature_Girl. Sometimes it's easy to forget. I just needed my first time to mean something to me only to find out that it didn't. I can't even remember it because every time I try to think about him movies of him and her together pop up in my head.

What's his appeal?

Sohowam that is a very good question. Everyday I make a list of the pros and cons of staying in a relationship with him and every day the pro side has gotten shorter until now all it contains is "I love him". But I realized that in loving him I leave no room to love myself.

I am guessing by the information you have shared about your spouse that he is not focusing on your pleasure when you are intimate

Tushnurse, this has a bit of truth in it. He enjoys pleasuring me and I liked the closeness of the act but otherwise got nothing from it. A few days after his confession I found I couldn't keep my hands off of him and it made me sick to my stomach every time after we were done. I ended up getting BV for the very first time in my life (that I know of/that showed symptoms) and it was very embarrassing and painful and he took the lack of intimacy quite hard. Even after I got better I declined to do anything sexual with him as I've found I'm not even attracted to him anymore. After my week of NC I told him that it would be a long time before I ever wanted to be intimate with him again and he told me that he would not accept that and he would leave if I didn't.

I married a monster.

I just needed my first time to mean something to me only to find out that it didn't.

It did mean something to you, though. It meant something.

When I made my marriage vows I meant them. Those words meant something to me. That they meant nothing to STBX doesn't change the fact that *I* meant those words.

Hon, my STBX was involved with an EA (at the least) in our first year of marriage. I wish with all my heart that I'd divorced him when I found out, and I found out only a few months into the marriage. I wish, I wish, I wish I'd divorced him then, BEFORE we bought a house, BEFORE we comingled all our money, BEFORE we had kids, BEFORE I left Corporate America to start my own business/be a SAHM mom.

You have been given a tremendous gift, the gift of knowledge.

Use it.

I had issues early on (sexting, porn, horrible boundaries w other women) 6 years later, boy was I kicking my butt for rugsweeping everything. DO NOT RUGSWEEP this early on especially...he couldnt have been bored or realized he was unhappy, you were just married for goodness sakes! NO REMORSE equals no security this wont happen again soon, if its not still going on. If there are no kids, run away and do not look back. Do not waste your time and efforts building with a bomb...they will simply ruin everyting and leave you in a heap over and over. Im 26, I was pregnant when I caught the 1st issues and I just expressed anger and he didnt want to fix so I pushed forward making my career and my family and now I just sit back asking why I wasted my time building a family with nobody. Staying as long as I can so the baby can at least see what a normalish family is...waiting for the next exposion.

DONT BE ME.

I agree to not rugsweep. I did it, and my anger only increased as time went on.

My Wbf said a lot of the same things that your WH is saying to you. It makes me mad just reading your post, because I've been in your shoes.

I had an IC session today where we discussed boundaries. What boundaries can I (and you) put on our WS after an A? What is fair, and what is not fair? And then, I'm having the same problem as you in that my Wbf wants to put those same boundaries on me (like reading the forum, or me stopping to talk to some same sex friends that he doesn't like) even though I'm NOT the one that cheated. Anyway... she pointed out to me that there should be boundaries after an A. But that the boundaries have to be created because the WS wants the boundaries, not because the BS forces them. If the WS does not want the boundaries (or to do the hard work for R), nothing the BS says or does is going to make a difference. Technically, you can be the WS's mother and enforce boundaries. But that won't work long term. You can't force him to do stuff, he has to want to.

Listening to that really helped me today. At first, I kept telling IC that he had an A so he should have to deal with my boundaries. Something she said just clicked with me though, and I realized that boundaries won't fix anything if he's not motivated and wants to change himself.

I stay away from giving advice to leave the M, because I haven't been able to leave myself. It's very hard to walk away. But please know that it's going to get harder at first. You're so young. I know you love him. And love is important. But this stuff is hard to get through.

[This message edited by Lonelygirl10 at 3:00 PM, July 23rd (Tuesday)]

UPDATE: Packed a bag this evening after I returned from classes. He was still at work and I dropped my things off at my parents' home before returning to our own and waiting on him. He walked in with a weird mood and one worded me all the way to the bedroom. Don't know what's the matter with him but I let him know I needed to talk to him. An hour later he had still not come out of the room and I went in there to find the video game and computer monitor on with him sitting on the bed staring blankly at the wall. I asked if everything was okay and he said yeah but he was feeling in a really apathetic mood.

I said i needed to talk to him and he sighed and said, "is it more questions like last night" (Last night I was asking him about OW/ex friend again). I said yes and no, I don't want to talk about your affairs but something else. He gave me an irritated look and said, "The second one wasn't even cheating. People talking about sex they had a long time ago is not an affair. That's the type of friendship I have with that girl and nobody thinks that is cheating." I think differently but I just told him I wouldn't be staying in our home for the night and wasn't sure when I would be back or if I would be back. He gave me this really tired look and said okay and just lay down in bed and I left.

Thank you Callmecrazy and LonelyGirl for your replies! I too have gotten really resentful and enraged more and more everyday. It's getting harder to control my outbursts.

So proud of you. Good for you for standing your ground and taking control of your path going forward.

We all realize it is not easy but it is so worth it.

People talking about sex they had a long time ago is not an affair. That's the type of friendship I have with that girl and nobody thinks that is cheating

He still doesn't get it. Yes, talking with anyone about sex other than your spouse is cheating. Ex or not.

Stay strong and count your blessings. You deserve better.

Thank you Faith! I am trying to stay strong but I feel like one mean word will shatter my facade.

Can I ask you all something? Because this has been bothering me a lot. DDay wass in mid February and DDay two (when I found the sext messages) was last month. They were dated March 19. He swears on everything that they are not considered cheating to anybody. Take a look:

Him: yeah, I told her but I am not sure now if she will stay

Her: oh yeah? sucks

Him: if she did I would hit [ow] it again. she swallowed. I remember when you did that that one time :)

Her: haha! you liked that a lot, huh?

Him: yeah I did...

Thoughts?

They were sent on March 19th, the day we went out to a movie to try and spend sometime together and OW called during the film. I cant even describe the feelings that rushed through me when I found those texts and he yelled at me for being a snoop and I apologized for looking through his things but he kept saying nothing happened with her and that they were just friends that talked to each other that way. He said that there had been things said between them much worse than what I'd found but it still wasn't cheating.

Hi Cheerio,

I'm so sorry this has happened to you, but at the same time, I'm glad for you that you found out so soon!! You have a chance to get away from him and start a new life without having to drag any residual "him" with you...it will be much easier for you to get away from him, as you won't have guilt feelings from breaking up a home with children. NOW is the time to end it...he has proven who he is...he will not STOP CHEATING and will only bring you misery...D him and never speak to him again. You will be happier.

His texts sound sexual...disgusting talk with someone who is not his own W. He does not respect you, nor does he respect whoever he was texting. She is trash...get them both out of your life.

((((cheerio)))))

He is a lying self centered minimalizing fence sitting rugsweeping pos.

You deserve much more than that level of disrespect. You deserve to put on a pedestal and treated like a queen. If you accept this, his manipulations and rugsweeping you will never feel safe, and the likelihood of him repeating this behavior is about 100000000%

I'm so sorry that you are going through this but it's really a blessing that you have discovered this so early on.

(((and strength)))

A married man should NOT, repeat, should not!, talk to another woman in that way. A married man should not dredge up sexual memories with old girlfriends. My STBX did just that very thing. And now he's my STBX.

Not only were those texts way out of line -- LISTEN to what he said in them!

If she (you) stays, I would hit it again...because she swallows??? Really? That's all it takes for him to break his vows!

Do not go back, please. You are so young, you have your whole life to find a decent man to treat you as you deserve to be treated.

He is going to start hounding you to come home. Please come here instead and talk to us.

UPDATE 2: Just had the worst phone conversation of ever with the man I love the most in this world and who has hurt me more than anything. He called me about two hours ago to ask what was up and when I would be back. I wrote out a list of questions for him that I came up with that would determine whether or not our relationship was worth salvaging. He got very upset and said I was always asking about the affair and it's been four months and I should just let it go. I told him I needed complete transparency with his email, phone, facebook etc. and he said no and that he would resent me if he gave them to me. He feels like I have no right to invade his privacy and I should trust him because he says he's not doing shady stuff and he isn't. I said he's done nothing to fix our relationship and he said he didn't know what to do. I yelled "Look it the fuck up"! and he got quiet and said he didn't know what I expected him to do.

So I told him I was done

I told him I was done and that I was filing for divorce/petitioning for annulment. He was in shock at first, really quiet and kept using phrases like "If you were going to leave me". He started to get really upset and I started to cry. I asked him what it was about this marriage and me that he loved and he said he was never comfortable answering that type of question but then turned around and asked me. I told him I loved him because of the color of his eyes, the shape of his smile, the sound of his voice, the way he inspired me to be better, the way he made me feel safe, and how the way he looked at me made me feel like I was incredibly loved for today, yesterday, and tomorrow. He was speechless. I said I was too tired to try working on us anymore without any of his help and he began to scramble to find ways to make our relationship better. I declined all of his suggestions and he hung up the phone.

Then he called right back.

He called back and plead with me to stay. Promised to be a better husband and person. Said that I had made him better (yeesh, I hope I don't have this effect on people that I would make them cheat on their spouses) and that he has never loved anything as much as he loved me. Tole me all the reasons he loved me, which were wraiths and shadows of the EXACT words I said. Said he was going to figure everything out and give me whatever access I wanted and do whatever it took to keep me. He begged for the better part of an hour while I kept saying gently, "No...No...I'm sorry, I can't...No...I'm not doing this anymore...You cheated on me, I will never forgive you for this...Let this go...No.."

Then he started to have a meltdown, crying incredibly loud. Told me through tears that he had to go because he didn't want to have me hear it over the phone and he hung up.

Now I feel so sad and lonely, tired and in emotional and physical pain (where in the world did this headache come from?) and all I want to do is rush home and gather him in my arms and comfort him. But I also feel lighter, as if a great weight has been removed from my shoulders. He asked if we would go NC and if I would block him and I said I wouldn't block him but I would not be trying to contact him. I'm very afraid he will harm himself in some way. Though that worry is unfounded as he's never done anything of the sort before (although he did punch through a wall once when we were arguing). I've just never heard him so broken...

And now I'm so tired I think I will just go to bed. Thank you all for your kindness, advise, motivation, and support. You all have been a bigger help than you can ever imagine.

Until next time, take care of yourself and each other.

I'm so sorry for your pain and everything your so-called husband is putting you through. In your situation I have to agree with tushnurse. Your WH is an immature SOB and will continue to hurt you. You deserve better.

It will not be easy for you to stay away but the longer you do the easier it will get. He is not good for you. He is not making you a better person. You said it yourself, you feel like damaged goods. If you feel that way now, imagine how damaged you will feel if you give in and go back. He is a controlling, manipulative, unfaithful, abuser. His behavior is emotional abuse. If you go back, it might be better for a little while, until he has you sucked in again and then the abuse will escalate again.

You are so, so young. You have your whole life ahead of you. Learn from your mistakes. Do not find yourself having children with a man like this. It happens to women all the time. Don't be another victim. Walk away and be proud that you did not continue to tolerate abuse. Take your life back. Take the long wonderful future you had ahead of you back.

Keep posting here and let us cheer you on. If you slip, let us know and let us help you stand back up again. It is too late for a lot of us to have have this kind of reboot. You get a reboot, almost as if it never happened. The experience will change you but not as much as continuing this relationship will change you.

And his not so veiled threat to do something stupid is typical of controlling, manipulative abusers. If he does do something stupid, that's his choice and more proof, you are better off without his kind of crazy in our life. He's already done enough damage to your life. The only thing he is right about is that you need to move on... You just need to move on without him.

Just so you know, it is rare for people at SI to tell people to RUN. But, I am saying just that.

Bravo! You did exactly the right thing. You have enforced your boundries and trust me this will be for the very best down the road.

Now don't waver. At all. Believe it or not you finally got the upper hand in this crazy game of infidelity that you did not ask to join....and now YOU make the demands and the choices. If they are not met? You drop out of the game.

The reason why? Because if he does not give you absolutely 100% of what you are asking for? He wasn't going to do it anyway.

I admire you. I've been in that conversation several times now, and I always give in when he starts making the promises and crying. I'm not strong enough. But you are strong enough. You stood up for yourself. Be proud of yourself.

I'm sorry you're feeling so much pain. ((((((hugs)))))))