Your stories are all so amazing--thanks for taking the time to respond. Loy, thanks for the great link, too.
I had a hard time getting over the anger I felt towards MYSELF for being so nieve not seeing the blatant signs...H (now ex)had started a new job in a new city while I stayed back home with our baby and tried to sell the house. Not long after that the baby and I moved to be with him (he was in a temporary 1 BR apt.) and I noticed he spent a lot of time with a female co-worker (single)including going out for drinks after work.
The first red flag was when H came home very late one night after work and hadn't bothered to call...he ended up telling me he had gone to the library to research something for work. Totally uncharacteristic of him and I did have that feeling that something wasn't adding up but of course he stood by his story.
Second red flag....H comes home from work (he's working later and later)and is interested in having sex. When I kissed him I could smell Calvin Klein's Eternity all over him....I didn't wear that and neither did he. I stopped him and asked him why he smelled like purfume and he, of course, DENIED smelling like anything other than soap. I remember the minute I smelled it I jumped out of bed as fast as I could almost involuntary like a person would if they saw a snake in their bed (turns out there actually WAS a snake in my bed).
Third (biggest) red flag....H starts fight with me and tells me I might as well take our baby and go to my parent's place for the weekend (about two hours away) to give us a chance to "cool off". I ended up going out shopping all day but didn't go home to my folks. I was at our house for a short time when there's a knock on the door (not a regular knock, but a playful tapping) so I open it and there is the female co-worker standing there (looking surprised to see me). She said she was supposed to meet my H and his friend and she came in. She then asked where our baby was and I told her she was sleeping and the co-worker said she wanted to see her so she proceeded to march right past me and went back to the bedroom. How did she know where our bedroom was and why was she so BOLD in MY house????? Not long after that H came home with his buddy stocked with beer and pizza and ready to party...of course he was very surprised to see me. He wasn't apologetic but more annoyed that I was still there.
I ended up leaving him about two months later and divorcing him shortly after that. I guess it's hard to get in the mind of a liar and cheat unless you yourself are a liar and cheat....I think that's why so many of us can look back NOW and see the signs we couldn't see then.
The dream thing is so eerie, too. I had something similar happen with my current H (then fiance'). When my H was in grad school I had a very vivid dream about he and I being in the same room with a girl from his program. In the dream the girl kept talking to my H and eventually she took off her pants and was walking around in her underwear in front of him(they looked like little girl undies, not sexy). I was very mad at her for doing this in front of my H and I was also mad at my H for not thinking anything was wrong with her walking around in her underwear.
I had met this girl a few times before and she was from another country. She seemed so clueless and almost pitiful, I had never been threatened by her at all so the dream was a puzzle to me. I told my H about the dream I had and he got really quiet and ended up telling me that a few months earlier he was at school late at night and that girl was there and they started talking. She told him how sad and lonely she was here in the US and she was considereding dropping out, etc. etc. He ended up talking to her for quite a while and then offered her a ride home and decided to stop and get a hamburger together.
He hadn't told me any of this because he knew it violated every boundary we had agreed on in our relationship. He swore he didn't do anything with her or have feelings for her (other than feeling sorry for her)and swore he realized his error and wouldn't do it again. Anyway....I think it freaked him out that I had this dream about that girl "revealing" too much of herself to my H when in reality, she had revealed too much of herself emotionally to him and he let her.
