SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

talk with a lawyer before you put money on a house. Just saying - he's an ugly personality with a bent to abuse financially too. Evidenced by his poor credit so he can't put a house in his name anyway. Please no legal financial entanglements with this man.

Add full transparency on all emails and social media. Also reserve the right to ask for a polygraph if you decide you need that.

I am glad that you know we are all on your side. I would be the first to recommend trying to R if he showed any signs of being able to. But the physical intimidation and violence would be my deal-breaker too.....

What do you all think I should do at this point? Just lay it all out on the table, that these are the things he needs to do for me to consider staying together? I still love him :(

I think you need to get your home in your name alone.

Then if you decide to reconcile you demand a post nup. Either he signs or no reconciliation option. Period. Here is what the post nup says:

Should we Divorce for any reason, the residence located at (address) and bank accounts at (fill in bank) or retirement assets in the name of (your name) are excluded as marital assets and (the cheater) has no claim or rights to said assets. They are considered the sole property of (you) and are not included as part of any divorce settlement.

Then you get a job. The money goes in your own hank account. You spend as little as possible. You save that $ for a day when you need it for situations like this.

Then you demand he gets serious counseling. And he’s still not sleeping in your room or bed. And you tell him the rest is up to him. If you like what you see, you will consider R. If not, it’s over. Make it clear you will not help him. He has to fix this on his own.

Then sit back and watch to see if he does anything on his own. If he sticks with counseling. If he makes you a priority.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 9:24 PM, May 10th (Friday)]

So last night he broke down. It started with him asking me if I could please sit downstairs to hang out with him for a while. I said no thanks, and it started from there. He said he's so sorry for what he did, that there's no excuse for it, that he's wanted to apologize for awhile but was being pigheaded, he's sorry for how he's been acting, he's been selfish and stupid, he misses me and loves me so much and doesn't want a divorce, and he'll do anything to fix it all. He admitted that I've made big changes and that it's him who is the problem, not me. He said he wants help and doesn't want to be this way, he wants to change. I told him how I feel about everything, how I refuse to tolerate any more abuse, and that it's on him to fix it at this point as I've done all I can. I told him how he should have handled the situation that night and he said I'm right. I then let him know what my conditions are, and he agreed to everything. He actually said he wanted to get help before I brought it up, so I hope that means he's serious about it. He agreed to go to weekly counseling, and said he'll find a new doctor to get different anxiety meds. He also said I can check his phone when I want and that he understands why I need to do that. And he agreed to read the books with me. He's aware that he's on the brink of losing me for good and that I'm not going to hound him about doing the things I need him to do. He needs to do it on his own, although I will of course support him. I said I love him but I don't feel the same back from him, and that I'm sick of the yelling and the lies. He said he's ashamed and feels like shit for being such a crappy selfish husband and hurting me. He admitted to a lot of things he's never owned up to before and while there were a couple of times he started blaming outside factors for his anger issues, every time I called him on it and let him know it was no excuse and each time he hung his head and said I'm right, and that he knows it's all on him. We wound up talking for hours. He is still denying purposely downloading WhatsApp and says he may have clicked on something while watching porn. He swears he's not talking to anyone and that's he's committed to me and our family. I told him he needs to prove it then.

I do feel VERY cautiously optimistic, but I'm not going to get my hopes up until I see real ACTION on his part, not just words. I told him that too. At least he knows where I stand at this point and what my expectations are. If he is unable or unwilling to meet those expectations, then divorce is the only option. I told him this too. So now the ball is in his court and it's on him to prove I can trust him again.

I think I'm going to ask him to sign something agreeing the house will be all mine if we divorce. I guess a post nup. I might as well take advantage of him being cooperative and apologetic right now.

He's lying. WhatsApp doesn't just appear on your phone. It doesn't. You have to go to the Google play store and click on WhatsApp to install it on your phone.

I'd have him take a polygraph.

And,in the meantime, since he claims porn put WhatsApp on his phone, I'd make it a requirement that he no longer watched porn.

I'm sorry. I know you're optimistic. I've been watching your posts and it was obvious you were hoping he would just apologize so you could stay in this marriage. I feel he tossed you some crumbs, and you jumped at it.

He cheated. Then he hit you. And he has been loud enough that the kids have heard him. I was a child who grew up in that environment. Trust me,he has scared your kids. They know he hit you. And they know you're staying. It's a very dangerous example to set.

Is there any reason he cant move out,and work on himself?

[This message edited by HellFire at 6:37 AM, May 11th (Saturday)]

Agreed with Hellfire. Even if he did accidentally click on something to download WhatsApp, it would bring him to the app store and show him it was downloading and installing. He made the choice to do it. He knows how to delete apps or at least how to Google it. He's telling you this obvious lie because the truth makes him look very bad whatever it is.

I think you handled that very well, especially in emphasizing that it is on him to SHOW you by his actions that he “gets it” (he should start with the Linda McDonald book to emphasize this).

But what you went through last night is very common and cheaters eventually rug sweep and go back to old ways. It is very, very difficult for people to change the part of their character that lets them cheat. Even more so if they are violent.

So please be very watchful and a bit skeptical for now.

Oh he's absolutely lying about how WhatsApp got on his phone. My hope is that after reading the books and doing the therapy, he'll realize he needs to be completely honest with me. I think him moving out for awhile is a good idea, but not feasible right at this moment due to finances. He doesn't have anywhere he can stay so he'd have to pay for an apartment. I told him I don't want my kids repeating this cycle of abuse. I want better for them. He also knows that if he gets aggressive the cops are getting called.

If you're going to try for marital repair, I can't stress enough how important it is that he show in actions his willingness to change. Do you have a timeline in mind for him to accomplish the promises he's made to you?

(((gently but OMG)))

Oh he's absolutely lying

Please stop right there.

Really? You are actively accepting him lying to you but it's okay because...

You have already had your world blown up and then some but you are willing to "try" and "look the other way" because he said the right things?

No. Don't do this to yourself.

If you are acknowleging he is lying. STOP. WTF?

Don't settle for his lies and deceit.

What you allow will continue.

(((hugs and strength)))

About the lying.

YOU cannot tolerate the lie. Tell him straight up, that he has to stop lying 100% and he has to correct previous misstatements and that if he doesn't fess up to things you KNOW are lies, then all the rest is just bullshit and a waste of your time. If he can't tell the truth about everything, then he is holding onto his secrets and it's more important for him to have secrets than to tell you the truth and keep the relationship.

Tell him you know he is lying about how whattsap got on his phone. Tell him he has to admit that he installed it on purpose. Then walk away. Let him come to you when he is ready. If he doesn't, you have your answer, he isn't going to come clean and he will hold onto a whole host of lies (not just this one) because he just can't bare himself to you.

Most people lie. Almost everyone does sometimes. You probably do too. It's not easy to stop this habit.

When my WH was deep in the fog and refusing to take responsibility for anything, everything coming out of his mouth was totally suspect. He lied about everything. If he confessed, there was a lie built into the confession. He could not just tell the truth, he had to twist things into something they weren't. The gaslighting tendency was so strong he could not break the habit.

I stopped lying, as a BS. I found it made me feel extremely uneasy whenever I found myself tempted to hide what I was doing (as self-preservation) with a little white lie. I had to learn how to answer questions without answering with a lie. Q: "Where are you going?" A:"I'm not telling you." Not A:"I'm going to the store" when I was in fact going to the courthouse.

Work on yourself as you recover from this. I'm not saying you are also a liar like I was, but if you are, stop any kind of statement from coming out of your mouth that isn't 100% true. If you've made white lies to keep people from feeling badly a part of your life, stop it. You will find it's very difficult to do, it's a habit. Don't lie to your kids. Ever. Don't lie to your family, or anyone else.

If nothing else, the best thing that happened to me in the shitshow that was my divorce, is that I made changes to who I am as a person because I could see how damaging they were when certain behaviors got out of control.

You came up with as list of what you need from him if he wants to stay married to you, and that you'd give it to him if he apologized for being physically abusive to you. He did. You said he now knows what your expectations of him are. Did you give him the list in writing?

The reason I ask is that I think you are at grave risk of being negotiated out of all of it. From my experience, I think that going to counseling once a week is going to turn into "I thought you meant going to counseling once, and I did, so what's your problem?" You need him to read all those books. That will slowly turn into "You didn't tell me what books in what order". How will you know he read them anyway? You have already negotiated away "Answering all you questions openly and honestly without getting defensive." He's lying to you about the What's App and you know it. You admit you I know it. And yet you are cautiously optimistic? Score one for him.

You should give him the very specific list in writing with some acknowledgement that he read it and understands it. Not to help him, because let's face it. On it's face such a list is rediculous in a healthy marriage. A spouse shouldn't need a list to figure out what their partner needs. You shouldn't have to say "I need you not to sleep with anyone else" or "I need you to stop being on hook up sites" or "I need you to not hit me". All that was covered in the "Love, Honor and (maybe) Obey, Forsaking ALL OTHERS until death do us part". Short of having Alzheimer's it shouldn't be all that tough to remember.

The list is for you, so you can go back and look at what you specifically required, and compare it to what he's trying to talk you into. So you can see there was no grey area in your expectations. So you can remind yourself that this is the very least he should be willing to do to keep you in his life. And so that in six months, when you look at it and see that virtually nothing has been done, you can walk away. And if you don't then it it's on you. It's not like he can convince you that you didn't make yourself clear.

Thank you so much everyone for all your guidance. It's so awesome to have this community to turn to, since you all have been there and have a wealth of knowledge to share with me. I wanted to give an update on the past week.

I have done a lot more digging and have made some new discoveries. I realized that he was logged into his email on our tablet, so I started rooting around. Back in March I told him I wanted a divorce and he left and stayed at a hotel for a week. During that week, I discovered he opened up accounts on Tinder and Plenty of fish. I was able to reset the passwords for these accounts and get access. Neither account had been used since the night he opened them. It looks like on the night he opened them, he did do some swiping, looking at profiles, etc. but didn't really make a connection with anyone. It's hard to say though, because I think the messages get automatically deleted after a month or so. I confronted him about opening the accounts. I told him someone had seen him on there and told me about it. I didn't tell him that I had hacked into both accounts. He told me when he opened them and that he had used them that night but not after that. He apologized and said he knows it was wrong and there's no excuse. He said he was drunk and depressed and thought our marriage was over. He said he thought the accounts were deleted when he deleted the apps from his phone. That night, he had to get his passwords reset (He didn't catch on that i had changed them, he just thought he forgot the passwords) for both accounts, and then he went on the sites and deleted the accounts completely.

I also was able to get access to all of his location history through his gmail account. I scoured it going back all the way to last summer. I wrote down any addresses he had been to besides the ones I already knew. After doing some detective work, all these addresses were his male friends, most of whom live with their wives/ girlfriends. I did see that there were a few times he lied to me and said he was still at work, but he was actually done work and was at his friends houses who live near us (both are married with families), or he was at his parents house. I also noticed he appeared to be occasionally meeting someone near his parents house. These meetings were very brief, so I believe he was meeting a drug dealer, not a woman. He does sometimes buy anxiety medicine from a guy in his parents neighborhood, but I'm not sure if he could be buying other drugs too. Overall, he mostly just goes to work and then home. I'm not sure if he has physically cheated, but it doesn't look like he's regularly screwing anyone. But who knows? I have not told him I can see his location history because I want to watch him for awhile and see if I catch him in lies.

With all this digging I was doing, I haven't really focused on addressing the requirements I gave him for us to work things out. I'm really not sure if I even want to work it out or just divorce him. I am going to write it out though and hand it to him, and also tell him he needs to tell me the truth about why he had Whatsapp on his phone. I don't feel comfortable being super pushy about it though, because I want to first make sure I have enough in the bank for the down payment. I'm trying to keep control of myself and my reactions so I don't wind up homeless with my 3 kids. I need to play the long game here.

He is still on the couch and will remain there for now. He knows he's stuck there until I tell him he can come back in the bedroom. That won't be happening any time soon, if ever.

This is one sick man. He needs YEARS of therapy and could still be this disordered. You are dealing with a child. What possible pleasure could you be getting from this marriage?

Here’s a quote. “ Men lead lives of quiet desperation.” So do women. At some point you will have had enough.

Yea you're right, he is really screwed up. I wish so much I had known who he really is before I married him and had a baby with him. If I could go back in time, i would have never even started dating him. I don't regret our son, but I never imagined things would turn out the way they have. I don't think I'll ever feel the same way about him. I feel like the man I loved died. As soon as I have enough cash saved I want him out. I still care for him as a person but I don't feel the way I used to about him. I used to feel he was the love of my life. He was everything to me. I fully believed he felt the same way. There was no doubt in my mind. I was so so wrong. I don't think I could ever get those feelings back now that I know who he really is. I feel emotionally detached from him. Even when he's being nice I feel like it's all fake. I don't think there's anything he could do that would make me feel I can trust him again. If I won the lottery tomorrow, I wouldn't even think twice about leaving him. The only thing holding me back at this point is my fear of being able to take care of the kids financially on my own

LP,

my situation is very similar, I won't try & tell you how to deal with your situation as they do differ & I'm pretty new to this whole thing, if you read my story you will see how alike it is,

this part isn't in my story though as I didnt think it was or has been relevant till I read your situation....when my WH had his 1st PA & it was out in the open he used to get pretty violent with either me or the walls/doors/etc, till 1 day a few yrs later after the babies were slightly older I actually fought back catching him very unaware after taking a few lessons in boxing with a friend (unknown to him), he never hit me again or ever will, also having 3 strapping lads growing up in our house was, did, & continues to be a great deterrent, didn't stop his cheating, manipulation, bullying, but it did stop the violence. when backed into corners he used to fight like hell to get out of them,

My WH was/is a true Narcissist.

can you take any self defence classes nearby?

A friend to give you pointers in protecting yourself in the future if he was to do it again? not saying he will of course, but it could actually boost your self esteem (we all need that) & maybe hopefully make you feel a little better in control,

I know it made me feel so much better knowing I had half chance of protecting myself or my kids if/when I needed to.

my WH is 6'5 I'm a shortie at 5'5 1/2...always put the half lol.

so I needed help to put him on his ass!!!

not condoning violence here...I just didn't have a choice in fighting back if I wanted to stop the cycle, I didn't leave him for many different reasons when I probably should have, now after 27 yrs I will never know if that was the right decision or the wrong one, but 1 thing I do know, it WONT happen again.

The one thing I will say is you dont have to make a choice for yourself & your children yet, take as much time as you need, you & your babies are the most important thing atm.

I dont have small babies relying on me to keep a roof over their little heads so take as much time as you need.

we are in a very hard 180 but it seems to be working (honestly I wasn't holding my breath)

very much in limbo...but oddly enough I'm actually happy as I can finally concentrate on myself,

Hes had his chance now it should be all about you,

you dont have to share his S@^T sandwich with him...let him eat his alone.

((((hugs)))) & strength

Good. Let him work on himself. If he works to be a better person it benefits your child always. Even if you don't stay together, if he becomes a better person it's better for him, the people he's in contact with, you and your child. Progress is always good. That's what we're here for to be better and help others be better. We're not just here to use oxygen and eat. Eating is fun though....

No I'm serious. We were given intelligence for a purpose. Let him use his and grow. Encourage every sign of progress. I agree with remind him when you hear a lie. No need for lies. Keep saying you can tell me the truth. Then say thanks when you hear it. It's hard for him to say the truth. Very hard.

He's been living with pain inside for so long. It erupts out on you and he controls and deceives. That's not a person who is at peace inside. To have peace inside feels so good. You feel right with yourself. You are not searching searching for happiness always out of reach. You are not lying to get a joy fix. He's maybe not going to find inner peace but maybe he comes closer. At least he can give up the most destructive habits. That's a better life.

You go toward what's best for you and your child. Find your life of peace inside yourself. No fear, no stress, no hesitation. Slowly a little closer every day.

Thanks so much Scooby and pureheart for your kind words. Scooby, I read your story and you have been through so so much with your WH. I'm happy to hear you're finally turning the tables on him and taking back your power. That's what I'm trying to do right now. There have been a couple of times in the past week or so where he has made threats to leave because I was questioning him or giving him an attitude. Every time, I say to him "Go the f*ck ahead. The door is right there. Use it. No one is forcing you to stay here." And he backs down every time. He's seeing his threats hold no power anymore. Once I close on the house in a few weeks, I'll really be able to speak my mind fully. I've been biting my tongue so hard it hurts. As for the physical abuse, I was afraid to hit him back after he slapped me that night because he's so much bigger and stronger than me. But your WH is even bigger than mine! That's awesome you kicked his ass and put him in his place. I absolutely HATE bullies, and that's exactly what they are. I think some self defense classes would be an awesome idea. I don't think he's a full blown narcissist, but he definitely has some narcissistic traits. I wonder can a narcissist ever become a good partner? It seems doubtful.

I've never seen him so angry as when I've caught him in lies about cheating behavior. I think he lashes out at me because his mask is slipping and he doesn't like his character flaws being revealed. I've decided that I just don't give a shit what he does anymore. I'm focusing on myself and the kids and making sure we're all going to be ok without him. If he decides to go and get the help he needs, great. But if not, then I'm getting rid of him one way or another. I've always been a survivor and I will keep on fighting for myself and my babies. Right now, the only thing he's holding over my head is the money I need to keep us in our home. Once I close on the house, all his leverage will disappear. I can't wait until it's me holding all the cards. He is in for a very rude awakening.

I know you have to wait things out for a bit, but you seem very clear-headed. As the closing date grows closer, however, expect him to be more desperate and threatening. He knows you need the money from him so expect him to use that as leverage.

You might want to give yourself some hypotheticals and plan your responses. Such as, what if he insists you take him back in the bedroom (or have sex with him) or he won’t provide the money? Or what if he wants you to sign a promissory note, so that if you kick him out you have to repay him? What if he threatens to seek custody of your son?

Please also see an attorney before you close. At least find a free legal clinic; law schools often provide these. I cannot counsel you here but I am concerned the house will be marital property, especially as he will be contributing to it.

[This message edited by Odonna at 1:03 PM, May 18th (Saturday)]

Have you talked with a lawyer about the timing of the home purchase? Don't assume that you own anything in the end, if you bought it before the divorce.