Hi everyone. I'm new here. Was invited by another user.
My H and I have been seperated since October 2005. The M had been in bad shape since our daughter was born in 1999. I wasn't giving him enough attention, was making decisions about work vs. daycare without his approval (mostly because he wouldn't express an opinion, except that I HAD to work -- while I felt being a full time mom was more important), etc.
We'd been together since 1993, and married since 1997, but communication had become excruciating. He got mad and bruised me one day, then disappeared and stayed gone for 5 days back in September; but after that he came back. In October, he told me that he still loved me, but wasn't "in love with me". He also told me that he had "come back too soon". This was the first inkling that I had that he wasn't entirely devoted to our M, even though it was no secret between us that things had been rough since the baby was born.
He went to work that day and didn't call or come back. Two days later, for the first time in our M, I searched his car <he'd left it in the garage, and taken his work car when he left> and I found a photo of him with strippers all over him. Two days later, the cell phone bill came. I found that he had been spending thousands of minutes (4,000 per month on average!) on the phone with many, many other women.
I started calling the numbers, and found one affair that went as far back as October of 1991. My H plays walk-on arena league pro football <he's a police officer at home> and while out of town on a game weekend, he had an A with another woman. She told me that over the past 4 years, she has travelled to other cities to meet him out of town when he played ball (she's a sports rep), three or so times per year. She knew that he was a cop, and he told her he wasn't married, no children.
There was another girl with whom he used to play basketball. She knew he was married, and had chastised him for not "paying more attention to his wife". After she moved 3,000 miles away, he continued to call her, until she told him to leave her alone.
There were many other women, just from a 1 month phone bill. Most were EA's, and some of his "just friends" were fiercely defensive of their relationships. It was excruciating to go through, and complicated by the fact that I have a serious STD, that H didn't bother to mention to the OW.
Some were relatively "new" relationships, where he had met someone at a bar <was supposed to be at Denny's having after-game meal with the guys>, and said he was "divorced". He apparently had a whole gamit of different relationships going.
I immediately filed for divorce, which I know now was not the Plan A/B thing to do. *sigh* Without getting into the complicated details, he has refused to communicate with me whatsoever, and has been sporatic, at best, in keeping in contact with our 6-year old daughter. Those two were not very well bonded before the split (probably because he just hasn't been around that much since she was born, duh), and now she's seems perfectly happy to NOT have him around. I've had her in Christian counseling since the seperation, and he has had a psych eval done; and her counselor suggests that I not push her to have relationship with him, as they think he's just going to dump her eventually anyway, and move on.
When when my friend pointed me here, I got hope that I could at least TRY to reconcile, and that's what I've been doing, starting by <I guess plan B in the process> getting him the message that I'm forgiving of him, that I think there's hope for the marriage, that I see where I didn't give him love bank deposits <in layman's terms, of course> ... generally trying to let him know that I'm warm, open and willing to talk.
I had even, these past few days, inadvertantly thrown our little girl into the mix, and I had begun suggesting to her that we forgive Daddy, and open our lives back up to him. At first she seemed open to it, but once he did respond positively to an invitation for the three of us to have lunch <it took him several days to accept the invitation <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />>, she had already decided that he couldn't be trusted, and she refused to go to the luncheon today. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />
Now I don't know what to think or to do. I told his voice mail today how sorry I was that she had refused to come to lunch with him. I didn't feel it was appropriate for me just to show up to the lunch alone, knowing as I do that it's really our daughter that he wants to have relationship with, not me. It's so ironic. He wants a relationship with his daughter, but she'll have nothing to do with him. I want a relationship with him <and for him to have one with our daughter!>, but he'll have nothing to do with me. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />
Having found this site, I'm convinced that I'm married to a serial cheater. His psych eval revealed him as paranoid narcissistic. I have no idea if I'm up against one woman, or if there are many other women. Rumor has it that he already has another baby on the way with someone else.
What do I do now?
At what point is proceeding with the divorce simply the only realistic answer? We go to court on March 20th. When he left, he tied my hands financially, and we are about to lose the house.
If he isn't even willing to TALK about it, what chance is there that he'll commit to a program like this one with contracts and honesty/accountability agreements? At what point do I focus on helping my child and myself to simply move on without him?
It sure doesn't look like he's thinking about coming back.
Thank you for listening.
My name is Ronda.
