Hi,
I am sorry if I am little inaccurate with the language, I am not a native speaker.
I am new to this site which was suggested to me by my husband.
I have cheated on him for a long time and in different ways. I feel terrible about what I have done. To him, our family and myself. I have killed our marriage and I am trying all I can to rebuild it on honesty and transparency.
It is hard to accept what I have done. I claim all responsability for my actions and I cannot blame him.
Our relationship has always been based on weird, hurtful mechanisms. We both have a damaged past, but we love each other.
For 6 years I sustained the family, he was helpless and with no job. i carried on everything, hoping he would realize that sooner or later his help and support would become essential. No results. I have built so much anger and desperation. I felt helpless and useless.
I screamed at him, begged him, cried and called out for help, but I was always blinded by my rage and my sense of responsability so I stopped seeing love. Slowly, after moving back to my Country (we were living abroad), I started feeling like I deserved more. I was working 14 hours a day, I could only see my family an hour a day and many times not even that. After two years of struggling for money I quit my job and found one closer to home, so that i could spend some time with my husband and daughter. Shortly after this huge change (which also caused less earning and more financial problems)my mother got really sick. I had to quit my job and take care of her. She was going to die soon and she deserved to have someone who helped her in those last few months of her life.
I must say that was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. My relationship with her has always been very damaged, based on fear and obedience, of being the daughter she would have liked, instead of myself. So I can say for sure that lying and hiding were within my expertise. I had mastered that ability so that I could show her what she wanted and be myself outside her circle of power.
She never really loved me. She was abusive, psychologically more than physically. She also exposed me and my brother to all sorts of terrible things, like drugs, pedophilia, sex, masturbation, nudity, menstrual blood, violence, alcohol. We were never a happy family, we were always with someone. There was always a guest at our house and it was for long term stays. Cousins, relatives from both sides. Most of these people were nasty and violent. Some of them abused me and my brother in various ways. I cannot recall being sexually abused when I was a kid. But I must also say that I dont have many memories of my childhood. Some flashes come back every now and then. This is something that I had to deal with during 5 years of psychotherapy. My psychologist told me I was an rare case of survival in a family like mine. I was clean of drugs, which I have always refused to use. I never drank. I stayed a virgin until I was 18 and then after my first time I refused to be touched for another 3 years. Slowly I started getting self confident and allowing physcal acts with men when I was 22.
I grew up with sex everywhere in my house. relatives would have sex wherever. Some would masturbate on the couch or in my bed, or in the one next to mine. While this was going on my mom was having a sexual relationship with my brother. He had to sleep in her bed until he turned 12. That boy was always scared of everything. Always in need of reassurance. I hated him for that. Back then I didnt really know what was going on. I got to grips with it right after SHE died.
Yes, she died 20 months ago. And I am happy she is gone. She destroyed me and my brother. My father was always a weak person. Submitted to her, like us. But he knew, and saw everything. he could have stopped her. Instead he let her free of doing all that. So, I guess he is not different.
No matter how bad she had been to me, when she got sick I decided to stay with her and help her. I thought that might be my way of winning her love and being appreciated for once in my life. Instead I got kicked away.
Since I was 16 she has always told terrible things about me to everybody. Customers of the family business, relatives, strangers. I was forbidden from having friends or going out at all. I was always alone. People would think I was giving blowjobs at 16 because of her, or that i was stealing money from her. That I was a fuckup because I didnt want to play piano or play tennis and become a pro player of something. I was just always so insecure and unhappy. Full of fears. Those fears I would hide behind a temper and a defensive attitude. I would attack no mater what.
After the 5 years of therapy I decided to leave my country and move to the one where I had studied at the university. I was finally happy and free. I thought.
There I met my husband. It was love at first sight. Passion and happiness. Within 6 months we moved in together. He quit his job and (beside a temporary job he had for one year) he's never worked since. I was doing ok with money, but some surprises would keep hitting me. His debts, His son which needed monthly payments and care, the trips to go see him, the extras for our daughter. And more of his debts. To be able to keep him out of jail I sold my apt. I used most of the money to pay off his debts and sustain the family. At that time I had just given birth to our daughter, I had lost my job and had no real income. I was sure this would give my husband a good reason to react, and go work. But I was wrong.
We were almost always angry at each other. I had failed in building trust within our marriage by sneaking ans hiding and getting in touch with an ex boyfriend of mine. Nothing happened I didnt cheat on myhusband back then. But it was wrong. I betrayed his trust and hurt him. In response (or shortly before this happened) he forbid me from having friends or talking to co-workers. He would come with me to work and pick me up. During breaks I had to call him and talk to him. I guess he wanted to make sure I would build relationships. But instead I felt like I did when I was a little girl.
To come back to the past two years, the ones where I started cheating: as my mother got sick I was spending every day at the hospital with her. before this happened I had already cheated the first time.
I remember little details, this drives me crazy because I want to give the full truth, but I am sure that some things are hidden within myself. I am really trying hard to get it all out and hope to get a little help on how to get there by some of you here.
The first guy was a friend of a friend. It was mostly flirting until one night we had sex in my car. This happened a month after I had decided I was not going to reach out to my husband anymore. My husband was not working, not doing much at all except playing videogamesand taking care of our daughter. Playing all night long most of the times. I had tried hard to get inbetween especially with sex. i would ask him and reach out every night after our daughter was asleep and the answers were always "i click this 20 times and then I come to you- "i need 5 turns of 10 minutes each and then i come to yo. Well that was to me a rejection. i already felt he didnt care for me. Putting his games before me was just the manifestation that I was right. So I stopped. One month after I cheated the first time. I never linked the two things as some sort of punishment. i would just tell myself I needed someone who wuld appreciate me ad want me. So id id it.
It wasnt good. It didnt make me feel better. I felt dirty and that at the end my mother had been right all along: I was a whore. i was giving in to be what everybody thought.
Two months after this my mom got sick. I cared for her for 7 months. A couple of months into her tumor my dad got sick (he has a terrible respiratory desease)he was hospitalized and dying. Two days before he got in the hospital my daughter got very sick and almost died. I had my mom dad and daughter at the hospital. All dying. I was alone. Scared. My husband had to leave to go to his son for a serious problem. But my husband had also promised to be near me and help me during this terrible time. Instead I pushed him away. And he never helped me. i was all alone. Two of my friends made a huge difference.
My little one stayed 8 days in that H building and got out ok. But I had to keep caring for my parents. My dad stayed 4 months hospitalized and one week after he came back home mom died. The whole world crashed on me. I was doing everything I could to keep myself together. I arranged the funeral. I got fussed at by my husband the day of the funeral because I came back late and he needed to go to the airport. I had nothing to count on. I felt totally lost.
At her death I didnt know what to do. I felt scared all the time. I needed to keep the light on while I slept. i didnt want to go out. I just stayed home. Every now and then I would my husband to watch a movie. But He would say no and played his games. I guess that is when I started the serious flirting and sexting with a couple of people. At first it was nothing major, but it ended in nude pictures Some on request and some on my free will. It got further with one guy a few months after. I had sex with him. Always protected. But it was nasty. He spat on me and made me feel terrible. Recently my husband asked why I would do this with him, the spitting part. Maybe he thinks I liked it. Instead I tried all I could to deminish myself and feel lower than I was.
When I finally got out of the house i started going to a bar and would only go there, too much, almost every night, despite being tired all the time and sleepy. Ijust didnt want to stay home. The bartender became my later long term affair. I was stubborn and played a game with him. I wanted to win. I didnt even like him all that much. i felt overexcited to play that game.
In these months I had started working at the family business, which would see me there from 1 am till 7 pm. Little sleep, always tired, stressed out. My dad back to the hospital two times for 3 months each time. Bills to pay, no money. Anger. Stress. I was lost. i started drinking. I was smart about it. i would only drink a little but frequently so that the level of dizzyness would stay with me. i would hide the buzz in a baby water bottle so nobody would catch me. I got hurt a couple of times. I was run over by a car. I burned my hand heavily. I hit a car falling asleep while driving. None of this was deadly. None of this had consequences legal or financial.
I would not be able to sleep. i used to drive at night and end up around that bar. seeing the affair sometimes most of the times i would just drive around and go to work. When I was home i felt rejected and not wanted (at my own house!). I would sleep on the couch. Until i decided to sleep at my dads house as he was in the hospital. So I did. I would ses my daughter maybe one hour a day. Tired stressed out, angry and always screaming.
I carried on like that til April from october. Then my dad kicked me out of the business. I was free. I had mixed feelings of anger, failure and freedom. This is when I started thinking to end the long term affair. it took me almost two months but i did it. I ended it on my own. And all the rest. i decided I was better than that.
My husband and I started talking again. After so many lies I was afraid. Afraid he would do what he had promised for so many times: Fear was the strongest feeling I had towards him. In our 8 years together he had abused me verbally with some nasty statements as "I want to punch you till you die" or pushing me away feeling I was following him around (he is ex special forces, trained very well). he would say he wanted to leave me and take our daughter away. I was so scared. I felt totally lost
So instead of picking the truth and telling him everything I lied. Again. When confronted I lied. By omission.
Until 2 months ago. When i finally accepted his deal. The false reconciliation we had last summer was a fake and we were proven wrong in october when I had an abortion. i was pregnant and unable to carry on the pregnancy. So we decided for an abortion. I was lonely and angry. i overreacted and he left me all alone. Or at least this is how I felt. I had done it all over again. Pushed him away
Two months ago we talked. He had already started posting on this site. he confronted me again and one night I told him everything. Everything that to me was true. Instead after giving him access to all my accounts and emails and phone, getting rid of all friends and people thatwere involved in my bad behaviour ina way or another he found out more. I swore I did not remember. emails I had opened I dont even remember about. i felt terrible, because I know that I am telling him all I have. i am committing to us. i want for us to work out. I love him. He and our daughter is all I have, all that is real.
I know he is hurt, i hurt him. I made this mess. But I AM TELLING THE TRUTH. the part that scares me is not remebering it all. every now and then I thnk about it and some new stuff comes out. But how can I really control this censorship I have applied to my own memories? What can I do more to show him I am honest and I am not doing anything bad anymore? I even changed my number. I have no friends left, because I was stupid enough to let them in my dirt. I lied to all of them, including myself. But I know that for a fresh new start I need a clean ground. No contacts from the past.
I am lost sometimes. i cannot afford counselling because of money. i am still in the same position I was in all along. Work, family, responsabilities and solving this mess by showing I am truthful about our marriage.
Every now and then he says hurtful things. i try to explain that it's ok to be mad at me and angry, but I dont think it's ok to apply the same ways that hurt us in the past: screaming, pushing me, saying things like "I am going to pack and go"
We promised to be transparent, but he can do things and tell me when he feels. I am trying hard to tell him everything right away, where I am, what I am doing, every change of plan, send location to reassure him I am honest. I knwo it's going to take time. i know I probably don't even deserve a second chance. i know he is doing what he can. Yeesterday He started sending messages to my affairs. I am afraid he is going to get into trouble. I don't know why he want revenge. he told me he is goint to destroy these people in a way or another. This to me is wrong. Not because i want to protect those people, but because I see revenge as a failure. Nothing good can come from that. I see possibilities of legal problems. I see that instead of using the time to build a better relationship he cares for people that should be just cut off and left behind.
i dont know how to express this, because many times I feel misunderstood.
I am just scared. I am strong enough to live without falling back to those nasty things. Why can't he let go of the bad behaviour and threats?
I am sorry for this long story, which is not even complete or detailed. I felt I needed to give a whole picture of who I am, where I come from and what my intentions are.
Thank you
