SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

My fiancée and I have been together for 7 and a half years and he just proposed Christmas Day. The last 6 months have been the best six months of our lives with traveling, connecting, and feeling like life is finally on track. Out of no where I feel like my whole life got turned upside down.

My fiancée got a new job, we got engaged, and his almost adult children where put back in our lives all within the last 60 days. He was being extremely short with me, working 18 hour day, which is only about 2 hours more than usual, and I felt this distance between us. I get on the computer to get some tax stuff together and I notice he has over 90 emails in his deleted folder. He never deletes anything so it raised a red flag. It was all these song titles that him and a women he works with we're emailing back and forth. I felt betrayed at this point just by the fact that he has no time for me and is always short with me but he has time to email her and look up songs and joke with her. I confronted him about it and he snapped. He said he couldn't do this anymore, he wasn't going to live his life with me always looking over his shoulder, he didn't want to have this same argument 5 years from now. He has broken my trust in the past by having friends that I didn't know about or approve of but I have never caught him cheating, in fact he is the least sexual person I've ever met, even in the beginning. He is motivated by money and power not women.

My fiancée has had a tough life losing his mom at 1 years old and his dad taking off so his mothers parents, his grand parents, raising him. His grandfather pasted when he was in junior high and his grandmother even though she was not well survived on dialysis for 15 plus years. She passed his senior year in high school and he was homeless sleeping in his car, showering at the gym, and going to school. He got a scholarship for baseball but turned it down because he got a girl pregnant. He thought his options were limited so he joined the marines, married the girl he got pregnant, and she was pregnant again 2 months after the first child was born. While deployed in another country the girl decided to moved back to their hometown and give custody of the kids up to her aunt. My fiancée comes back and his kids are with these family members and his wife is pregnant with another guy's baby. So needless to say my fiancée hasn't had a typical childhood and I've allowed that to be an excuse for him.

Back to the present, my fiancée has been staying in hotels telling me that he doesn't know what he wants, he says he doesn't like himself right now so how can he love me, he says he knows he's destroying this life he built and can't do anything about it.

So last Friday, about a week ago, I drive over to this girl that he's been emailing's apartment after a work dinner and our car is park on the 6th floor of the visitors parking. I call him, no service on his phone. He has told me a guy friend of his lived there but I knew better. I get in our car, the one he drove, and there is a bag that he takes with him everywhere. In the bag there is this holistic book, which I know this other women is into, and in the little inside pocket there is a Viagra pill. I kept praying to know the truth and find the smoking gun and that was my moment, I was enraged and call her house phone from the directory and she answer and I told her to send my fiancée out. She hung up on me so I called back and my fiancée answered her house phone.

I was devastated and drove home. My fiancée walked home and called me and said the most hurtful things to me. He said that nothing was going on but come on, it doesn't get more obvious than that.. He will not admit anything and won't apologize for anything and that is the most frustrating part. I had him pack his stuff that day after we fought all night and now he's already lined up this high rise apartment with 24 hour valet and some professional basketball player living 2 floors above him. It is so unbelievable he can just move on like that and he says it's because he's done nothing wrong.

What I need help with is where to start??? My whole life has been him from me cooking him dinner and rubbing his feet every night to me getting up at 4am to put his jeans in the dryer so he has warm unwrinkled pants to put on when he gets out of the shower. I have a great career, no kids, and a heart of gold. I feel like I'm the only one hurting. This guys is just going on with his life and I'm not eating, sleeping, or able to function. I've lost 14 lbs in 10 days and that's about 10% of my body weight. Please help with any advise with anyone that's been through something similar. I feel so confused, blindsided, scared, and most importantly sad. He is so manipulative he keeps trying to leave to door still open that he will change but he need to focus on himself right now. How could I of loved someone like this???

I'm so sorry. I don't understand how these people can.just do this to those who love them the most. They are loyal to their parents, children, and don't forget guy code! They dont screw over those mentioned it takes nothing for them to cheat on us. Kills me. :( So sorry

Thanks for your support Raspberry. It's the unknown that is the hardest thing to deal with. It's so hard to find solace when your heart is in another's hands.

[This message edited by Desirelily at 1:24 PM, April 19th (Saturday)]

HI Desirelily,

I am so sorry for your pain...I am glad you found us so early in your journey. I promise you, it will get better.

You are in shock. Your first priority right now should be remembering to breath, eat, drink and sleep. It is survival mode for you right now as you process this bomb that has gone off in your life. Please see your doctor if you need extra help getting though..either from therapy or medication, or both. There is no shame in it. Do you have a good support system in real life? Family and friends? Reach out to someone you trust who can support you.

Please don't blame yourself for his actions. You did nothing to cause the cheating, and, based on his family history, it seems like there was nothing you could do to prevent it. He did this, he is the one who is broken. You are NOT to blame.

I can tell you that it is not uncommon for the wayward person to deny, deny, deny, even in the face of solid evidence of cheating. It is also common for the wayward to shift blame onto the betrayed partner. Really, affairs are not special, and most unremorseful waywards follow a script.

Please do not call him and beg him to come home. Do not ask him what you can do to win him back. Remember that you cannot control his behaviour, only your own. You have seen who he really is now...perhaps one day you will feel lucky that you got out before the wedding. You cannot nice him back, you cannot love him back. Being a doormat and begging ALWAYS fails. Always. Either the wayward sees the betrayed spouse (BS) as pathetic and detaches fully, or they see the BS as willing to put up with their shit, and they will come back and keep cheating.

My suggestion for you is to practice good self care, and read up on the 180 in the healing library on this site. You will find lots of good advice and support here. Keep posting. We will get you though this.

((((((((deirelily))))))) <---those are hugs.

Thank you soooo much Bravenewgirl. I do have a wonderful family and great friends so I am very fortunate there. I did seek a theapist this week and he is how I found out about this forum, which I feel very blessed to be a part of. I copied and pasted the 180 approach on my iPad to help me stay focused and strong. I can't help my weak moments but you are right I can't fix him and he is definitely broken. I feel like I am on a roller coaster with my emotions and thoughts fluctuating from minute to minute. I am trying to steer clear of him but our lives were so intertwined it has proved to be a larger task than I thought. Should I cut off all ties completely to avoid having to interact with him period?

I have a question for anyone... If a guy views sex as unimportant and something you use women for, not an intimate act of love then why cheat? When sex is not motivating why do that with someone else?

If a guy views sex as unimportant and something you use women for, not an intimate act of love then why cheat? When sex is not motivating why do that with someone else?

Oh honey, I think a better question is why you would waste your life on a man with this viewpoint. You deserve better than a man who treats women like the are the sum of their holes.

Is this what he has told you about how he sees sex, or something you have concluded based on your observations?

Should I cut off all ties completely to avoid having to interact with him period?

This is just my opinion, but its based on experience. If he is not begging you for forgiveness, giving you all his passwords, telling you the whole truth (and allowing you to verify), willing to go to counselling, send the other woman (OW) a no contact letter, and what ever else you want then yes, you should cut him off. At this point, if you want him to fart the alphabet while standing on his head, he should do it.

No contact (NC) = No New Hurts. He sounds like he is very manipulative and is trying to get you to just sweep the whole thing under the rug. Dealing with him while he is in this state of mind will be a giant mindfuck for you and will prolong your pain.

Cutting him off as much as you can will do one of 2 things: Snap him out of his fog and make him realize what he is losing, and then YOU can choose if you want to reconcile, on your terms.

OR

He will welcome the lack of contact, proceed with the breakup, and never come back.

In either case, you win. You are just taking the shorter, less painful road to whatever the outcome may be.

Bravenewgirl you are so right. At this point he's not willing to do anything to make it up to me because then that would admit he's doing something wrong. I don't feel like I can ever trust him again. He changes his email passwords all the time, is vague when he talks about anything with work, and carries his phone with him like it's his oxygen tank. He's so shady I'm just tired of always worrying about what he is doing or could be doing, it is exhausting.

My comment about how he views sex is an observation not by his own omission. When we met 7 1/2 years ago it was never hot and heavy even in the beginning, I think he thinks sex is something dirty. In that whole amount of time we have been together we've probably had sex about 40 times, maybe. He has made comments before though like if I was a girl I would make a guy wait until we were married, and he's not a religious guy that's just the way he thinks. It's pretty confusing.

I know I will get past this with the help of you all and all your great advice and encouraging words. Thanks SI.

(((hugs))) Keep coming back to vent or to talk. We're all here for you.

I'm new here too. I don't really have any advice just thoughts and prayers. I'm sorry you are here.

Today is my weakest day yet. Easter was the first time my fiancée got me a card and a gift for a holiday. He doesn't like holidays so Easter, for him, was a way to get in on a holiday without the big to do of like a Christmas. Today I miss him. I miss talking to him. I miss him being here at our home. I feel like this isn't even real half the time, like I am just going through the motions. I want so badly to just fast forward through this beginning phase and move on to when I can breath again. When I don't think about him every 5 seconds and hold back tears when everybody tells me I'm doing so good. I want to not want to want him and our crappy relationship that I've convinced myself isn't that bad. My head knows I deserve better but my heart hurts for him day in and day out.

I'm so sorry you're here Desirelilly. It's not a fun place to be.

"I want to not want to want him and our crappy relationship that I've convinced myself isn't that bad."

This is the most important thing you said and you need to repeat it to yourself over and over and over. After my my husband left me for the OW, I had an 8 year relationship with someone who treated me like garbage. I knew it with my brain. But I wanted to have a relationship, any relationship, so badly all I could think of was "But I love him". I kept telling myself it wasn't that bad, because being alone had to be worse.

You know what. It wasn't worse. It was way better than being alone in a relationship. He can just walk away because he hasn't been in the relationship. You have.

What I learned the hard way was that I was stupid to stay in a relationship for 8 years with no commitment on his part. I got a ring too near the end. And then he abruptly dumped me again. I realized the ring was only to keep me in the game. He was never going to marry me or anyone else for that matter. Once I finally got that, and asked myself honestly if I could settle for that, the answer was a resounding no and I dumped him. And I saved myself from a lifetime of "Not That Bad". You deserve more than "Not That Bad" too.

Hi, Sorry you are in this club with us. It will get better. My D day was over 40 days ago and it does get a little better. Once you get out of the initial shock phase then you can look at the situation more clearly and try to figure out what is best for yourself. I have done a lot of praying and my WH is coming around for R. It won't be easy but I am going to give it a shot. I wish you peace and strength during this time, I know how hard it is because I am there too.