Hello, everyone. Long time lurker, first time poster. I’m sorry we had to meet this way.
D-Day was 6 weeks ago.
I’ve been dating my boyfriend seriously for more than 2 years, living together for a year and a few months. He was clear with me when he suggested we moved in in May of 2012 that he wanted it to be a step towards marriage.
We are a cross-cultural couple – He is Japanese and I am a westerner, living and working in Tokyo. He has lived abroad on business and speaks fluent English, but I’m sure through the past 6 weeks of hell, we have come across more snags than most because of our cultural differences and subtle language barrier (we communicate mostly in English, but he’s not a native English speaker. It makes fighting very difficult because there’s no room for metaphor or nuance.)
Although we had a cordial relationship (by any measure, a “great one”… Enjoying time together, travel, etc.) I always had the lingering gut feeling. About 8 weeks ago, I was going through a pretty stressful time (my best friend and main support system was leaving Japan and I was starting to wonder if my relationship with my boyfriend would give me the support I was losing in my best friend… He had spoken more seriously about wanting to get married next year and, although I was, for the most part, on board with the idea and very happy, I still sensed that something wasn’t “right” and thought it would be in the best interest of my future to snoop and find out once and for all if I was right.
And as most of you know, the gut doesn’t lie.
Sadly, it took me all of 3 seconds to discover his indiscretion. I almost wish he’d tried harder to hide it. I went onto his laptop, clicked on the only file folder on his cluttered desktop, and found about 10 sex videos of him and the same woman. I went through all the usual stuff, shock, denial, etc. in the first 30 seconds and then decided that they must be old videos. Unfortunately, the next gratuitous shot in the video scanned across the room, where it showed very clearly his business bag that I bought him for his birthday in May of 2012, just a month before we moved in together.
I deliberated not telling him until I had gathered more evidence and snooped more, but after a day of feeling like I would drop dead at any second, I told him. Shaking, I told him I knew. I screamed at him. I accused him of never loving me.
Of course, he denied. Said they were old tapes. Only admitted when I told him I saw the bag.
Then the truth came out. Ex-girlfriend from when he was living abroad in China had been transferred to his Tokyo office.
They broke up the first time because, get this, she began seeing their mutual married (with children) boss. He broke things off with her because she was being “immoral.” The best part is she transferred to Tokyo to get married to another Japanese guy. What a prize fiancé.
She and my boyfriend met on two occasions (that he admitted) in June of 2012 (a week after he asked me to move in) and then in September 2012 (2 months after we had been living together). He kept the videos as “tools” for his own pleasure devices. Tools. A screwdriver if I’ve ever seen one. He said they haven’t contacted one another since (even though they were still friends on FB). Even though they work in the same company, they never see one another because it’s a huge building and she’s in a different department.
He (on my request) blocked and deleted her, but not before sending her a lengthy message about how he regrets what he did, how she meant nothing, and how he hopes that she starts living better. She responded a day later simply with “I understand.” That was it. Blocked. Done. I believe him when he says he is NC. I believe that she was meaningless to him.
He was genuinely sorry (for being caught, or for what he did, I’m not convinced). We went to see a counselor several times. After much discussion, he told me that he wasn’t committed to me last year and that he had rationalized that the two times with her were okay because it was just sex and no love. That he always knew in his mind that he loved me and wanted to be with me and that he was just taking the opportunity for easy sex. That he had no concept of morality then, but he does now. That he recognizes that he has intimacy issues and that he’s willing to work on them if I’m willing to be patient. That he’ll never do it again because he never realized that his actions had consequences before this point. Selfish prick.
At no point has he wavered. He wants to continue the relationship. I don’t know if it’s because he just feels so consumed with the guilt of this shitstorm his idiocy created or if he actually genuinely loves me. Last night, I said to him in one of my familiar rages, “don’t you think I deserve someone better than you?!” He said, “yes. You do.” But he still wants to continue.
He has been doing everything right. He has completely changed for the better, has been a loving, supportive, caring boyfriend and has been completely open and transparent with me. But it’s 6 weeks later and I still feel stuck. It’s really hard to unsee your significant other videotaping and fucking another person. We’ve only had sex once in the past 7 weeks. We were both drunk and it was rather uneventful. Neither of us spoke of it after.
One side of me really wants to continue because I think, if he is serious about making these changes and being a committed person, that we have a good chance to have a good relationship.
The other side doubts his sincerity and it hurts so goddamned much that I was duped into loving someone who didn’t love me back. I thought I was a pretty good judge of character. I guess all of us here did, though. Reminding myself that I am in no way special has gotten me through a lot of the past 6 weeks.
How do I decide whether or not to continue? How do I stop losing my shit on him every night? It’s been 6 weeks. When do I stop this Jekyll and Hyde thing and start being my normal, rational, loving self again? I don’t even remember the last time I cried or yelled or felt angry at person. It has now become a daily occurrence.
Also, because he is Japanese, the introduction to the family is quite important. His mother had a stroke 2 years ago and has been in recovery since. This past year, although I’ve never met her, she and I have been sending letters back and forth in English. In her past several letters, she made reference to being incredibly excited to meet me and become my mother in law. My boyfriend and I were meant to make the trip to his hometown in the next couple of months to meet the family. Of course, marriage is completely off the table now, and in the past week, I started thinking that he really should tell his family about this whole thing (but I’m still not sure whether I want him to tell because I don’t want them asking where I am when he had been promising me, or if it’s because I still don’t feel like he has owned up to his actions enough…). Should I make him tell his family? Or is that just a recipe for disaster?
Oh, and his cheating with the slutty ex-girlfriend also gave me HPV (warts) which I stupidly thought were skin tags until I finally put the pieces together.
I really need support right now. I have read so many threads on here in the past 6 weeks that I feel like I’ve become an infidelity expert. Not really something anyone expects to be able to throw on their CV though, is it? Sigh.
Any support is welcome. I need a hug and a beer right now. And a new set of eyes, if possible.
