Hi all, this isnt my first time here but last time, I didnt stay around to post and get more advise and here I am in a bigger mess.

Last year, exactly a year this past week, my husband left me for someone he met on an online game (3000 miles away). I was absolutely crushed. We had been together 10 years married 9, and had two beautiful kids. It didnt come out of no where but I was still shocked and so were all of our friends and family. I didnt know where he was or who he was with, but had done enough snooping on the computer to figure it out. He didnt call me for 4 days and when he did he said he was sorry and he missed me and the kids. I told him he could come home because I truy felt that he had a nervous breakdown (he was on the verge of one for weeks) He said he would and that he hadnt slept withher. I was over the moon and immediately ordered 5 books from this site. I had been reading here for a few weeks because I knew we were not on a good path. He came home and we talked, and talked, and talked. I was so strong, He told me that he did in fact sleep with her but wanted to tell me in person. He saidhe was in love with er and that he felt we had run our course. By the 3rd day of being home though, we did alot of apologizing and I really thought we were making progress. Day 5, he wakes up and is packing. I said what are you doing he says HE HAS TO GO TO HER. I beg and plead, he wont even look at me. He gets in the car, and I am crying and begging him not to give up on us. He said he has to, she loves him and needs him, but I am strong. (at this point I feel the strength I built up worked against me)

So he is gone again, and I am even more devestated. I didnt think the pain could be worse then the first time, but it was. I pick myself up and say I am no ones fool. I start tearing the house apart and had big plans (no money to do it but big plans) I pack all his stuff away and I am starting over. 2 days after he leaves, he emails me. He is so sorry, he doesnt know what to do, shes not what he wants he knows that, but he fears he has hurt me to much. I am his soulmate and the mother of his kids. I tell him, I will always love him but we have to work on this or else its going to destroy us. He says he is coming home, of course this time he takeshis time.

He comes home, he is so cold. Very very cold. Almost like I somehow pulled him kicking and screaming 3000 miles. He slammed me all he could. He was not my loving husband. He was evil. I held on though, I read about the fog. I asked him if he was done. He said yes, he would not contact her but would contact her son(who is the same age as my DH) to make sure she was ok, cause she was so devastated. Yes my blood boils because he didnt care about how devastated I was. I keep my cool. I take off a few days from work, let my oldest child skip school so we could have a mini vacation with each other. My husband is depressed, doesnt speak nothing. I can see how much he misses her. He tells me we cant go to the mall, it makes him thinkof her. I suck it up. Killing me though. He has no job at this point because he had quit it to move away. Economy sucks here, no jobs. I tell him that I had plans to fix the kitchen and since he was home would he like to do it tgether. yes he says and is actually happy. THis had been one of the love busters. I never helped him fix things. I am trying to fix everything that drove him away. On a diet, taking an interest in myself, not yelling, cooking meals and not eating out, helping him fix the house, and cleaning the house. I am taking care of the kids and keeping them behaved and working full time. I was wiped but it was going to be worth it. Then, he logged into the game again. I didnt know at first, but figured it out quickly. I ask him to stop. He does not. I remember sitting on the couch one night just with tears running down my face, wondering what do I do. And he even turned around and said, I dont know why I am doing this to you.

A month or so prior to this, an old friend had contacted me (yes a guy) It was basically catch up, how you been fr 10 yr, I didnt even let him know about the marriage problems. In fact it was probably about an email once every few weeks. I finally confide in him that I fear my marriage is over, that my husband truly loves someone else. He confides in me about his parents (who I also know) That his mother had a nervous breakdown and was awful to his father, left him, cheated and was doing things completely out of the ordinary (like my husband) He said finally they convinced her that she needed help, and she got help and after a month or so on meds started coming around. His dad stuck by her and they are so much happier now. He told me not to give up. I said I wouldnt. He said he knew how much my husband meant to me and thats why he didnt contact me for so long because of his feelings for me (yes big red flag)

My husband continues to trample my feelings daily and I continue to confide in this man. I threw everything I learned on hre and in books out the window. I was now angry and thought my husband deserved it. I still wanted hm desperately but not at my expense. He then brings in someone else. His first girlfriend. He is now cheating on me and the OW. The first girlfriend is an EA since she is in another country. I see this as not a threat, and push him towards her because it will get him away from the other one, and the 1st gf is not a threat to me. HAHA.

We gone on for months like this. Me acting like I dont really care anymore but that I do love him. I never deny that I love him but that I will set him free if thats what he needs. We live to gether like a married couple, we go out with the kids, fix the house together and have genuine good times. I loved it. I cant imagine us not being able to make it work if we get along so good when we arent even trying. I at this point drinking and having a full blown emotional affair that had red flags all over it. I am hurting this other person because I wasnt even good to him, all I did was use him for a void to make me feel better. I going to my husband for sex and vice versa but emotionally we are both elsewhere. He though, does not know about the OM. In Jan of 08, 1st gf comes to visit, they are supposed to be just friends but I know deep down its not, but I dont have a say anymore. He comes home from her and says they did not have sex and thats not what its about, its about her helping him figure out what happened when they were teenagrs and what messed him up. He says that he thinks we should divorce because he can b happy on his own and is breaking up with OW (the first one) I am again devastated. More then I thought I would be since I had been cheating on him emotionally. OM doesnt take it very well since as far as he is concerned, I am practically divorced even though I hadnt even filed. Mine was always emotional, never physical.

Then the world stopped. 2 days before valentines day. My husband and I go out. We sit and have this incredible time together. Reminincing and trying to have closure but it wasnt closure, it was us telling each other how we truly felt. The love we had and still feel. We are filing for divorse that very week, on Vday. We go home and make love like we hadnt before. It was amazing and hewas staring at me and I knew, I had him back. Until, he logs into my email account that he had the password to from a keylogger. He wakes me at 2am devasted, tear stained face. He had read it all. Every email, every detail. He was beyond pissed and I left the house withthe kids. I tell the OM we are over, that my marriage is destroyed and that it was because of us, I was no better then my husband. Later that dayI get a text from OM that my husband is emailing him and telling him that he is oing to kill himself. My father who has watched his man hurt his baby girl,goes over and sits with him and talks to him. Tries to take him to get help and stop drinking (my husban was very drunk) After 2 more days of non stop drinking, my husband checks into a local emergency room and is Baker Acted. I have no clue where he is. No one calls meuntil he is finally settled in the mental hospital. I go se him, and he is shooting me daggers. The Drs and nurses are so sweet. He tells me he is still angry about OM but wouldnt have put me on list unless he wanted to see me. I go everyday for a week. The last day I am there, he tells me he never wants to see me again. I have the flu, and give up. His sister calls me and is completely inconciderate and talks to me about her sons wedding. I tell her everything I ever thought of her. About how, he called her for help and she didnt even respond. I went on and on.

A few days later my husband moves back home, but Ihave already moved out. I am with my parents and cant go home. I had put myself in therapy and was going to save me and the kids. I go an see him and tell him that I will not move back until he says that he wants me to and stops talking to OW #2. We fight quite a bit and things are strained. I am doing al ot of activities with the kids and always invite him. He starts coming after a few weeks. We start getting closer but I know he is still talking to OW, I have access to phone logs and see how long they talk. He asks me out on dates and we have a nice time but I always go home to my parents. Kids are doing good, and we still have great times inspite of everything. I had not talked to OM since that awful day. In April I ask when are you going to give up OW so we can move on. He says they are just friends, I said but I am very threatened by her and I cant liv like that. I ask is she coming to visit again and his face says yes. I immediately try to stop it. I beg and plead, to both of them. Nothing works, and in May she comes back. This time,they still didnt sleep together but admitted feelings. THey are in love. SHe just comes out of a relationship, he has been a mess for over a year and she is losing her mom to cancer, to me looks like a train wreck. I tell him I am done, I have been supporting him(he still has no job) paying for our house and bills and helping my parents pay for our part on their place. i am broke and physically and emotionally drained. I need him to move out. He does, TO ANOTHER COUNTRY!!!!!! My kids are crushed. I am there to pick up the pieces. I set it up so that they can talk to him on the lap top, but I am no where around for him to see or talk to at the same time. I never contacted him, if he contacted me, I waited 2 hrs before responding so that it wasnt emotional and then gave simple answers. I start getting the I miss you emails. I ignore them. I am done going down that road.

One month after he left the country,I contact OM. I explain what had happened before and that I should have never been involved with him, and also told him that he hurt me also because I had told him so many times how confusedand tired I was but that he pushed for the relationship and I needed attention. I apologize for hurting him. Emails are simple. About 6 weeks after leaving I get an email from DH, can we try again. I reply no, that i am sure his g/f wants him divorced so she could have him. He said that she was not his g.f and that he wasnt even living there but was at his sisters. He said he respected what I wanted though and very dramatically says have a good life (which is stupid because we have kids) Anyway, he also sent me a pic of him with his real bro and sis(he was adopted) in that pic, was a key logger LOL. and he is in my email. HE then starts the freak out #2 because he sees I am talking to OM again. At this point, I dont care. I was broken and didnt want either one of them and told them both that when they tried to "fight" over me.

Week goes by and my husband says he has the return part of his tickt still and wats to come home. I said too bad, I am hurt and I took you back 2 times only to be hurt agian. We fight bad, very bad, and hurl horrible things at eachother over the computer cam. Day of his return ticket comes up and I still say, that while I would love for him to come home for his kids, he needs to get his own place, because i cant live with him right now. He stops talking to me because now he was ready to work on the marriage.

This was in June. In July we started talking daily again and I still had those strong feelings. He tells me story about how OW kicked him out because she felt he still loved me, and he couldnt deny it. He of course blames her that she knew what she was getting and wanted him to come anyway and he flew half way around the world for her, and that she ruined his life. Here we are now almost 4 months after he left and I want him home. I think we can make it. He is still hurt about OM. I dont know how to fix something with 3000 miles between us. I feel that we are two of the dumbest people on earth because we threw something special away because we were hurt. My oldest says he doesnt miss his dad at all, my youngest lights up whenever he calls and draws him pictures and wants him home so bad. I can tell he still has feelings for OW andwonder if that is what is keeping him there. THey are still in contact, just not living together. THis week was a year after he left the first time, and it was rough. He could tell I was depressed and apologized again for all that happened. I did the same. He saId he doesnt understand how he loves a woman that wont do anything for him but has someone who loves him and has proven to do anything for him but he is scared of getting involved again. I try not to let things fester to much but I dont know what to do anymore. I dont know if there is anything else to do. I am sorry this is so long, but it all came to the surface.

THank you

Amanda

Welcome to marriagebuilders. I'm glad you found us.

Your husband sounds like he might be a sex addict. He can be helped, but needs to want to get help.

But you can learn a lot here about how to change so that he will have to change.

He used to say he was a sex addict. I did too, but I do not think he has slept with OW2. I can say alot about my husband but he can not look me in the eye and lie. I know him way to well. I havent caught him in any lies. He has been way to honest with me in fact. I would almost prefer he lie to me to cushion my feelings. He cant though. THats why he has such a hard time with me lying to him abot the OM. A little back story on my husband (Iknow the other story was already to long) He was fostered as a child because his mom had mental breakdowns and was very sick. His dad could not care for him. His mom ended up with cancer and in hospice for most of his childhood till she died when he was 10. His 1st foster mother gave him to her mother because her husband wanted thier own kids. The mother raised him (she was a grandmothers age) and there wasnt very much affection or communication. He met this 2nd OW when he was 15 and the foster parents forced them apart when he was 16. At 17 he met a much older woman and they tried to force them apart so they ran off and got married when he was 18 she was 34. The marriage was violent and she beat him. He didnt want to go back home and tried to stay with her because she ended up pregnant. He left when the child was 6 and met me 2 yrs later. We got involved very fast and I got pregnant very fast. We got married when my son was 3 months and we worked so hard to have a house and things after we had nothing at the beginning. We had a very physical relationship. I do admit my failings in the marriage. I become depressed from a chemical balance and I gained alot of weight. I pushed him away because how I felt. He really was a very loving husband. I do feel he is an alcoholic, and so does he.

I know this is long, but please any advise?

FL_Drewdrop, Welcome to MB. What a story you have.

Just something to think about since you both have had As...your H having more than one...I read once Dr. Harley saying something along the lines of people who engage in A's have a tendency to be dishonest and/or selfish.

In my FWH's case, I wouldn't have labeled him "dishonest" but he definitely has never been the "radically honest" type and this is still a struggle for him. I also wouldn't call my H "selfish" but I would say he has a hard time sticking to the POJA... both of these things have caused us problems in our R over the past six months.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if one spouse has issues with radical honesty or selfishness (POJA), R will be difficult...if both do, I am going to guess it will be nearly impossible.

So anyway, that being said, maybe you and your H should review all the basic concepts here and the requirements for Recovery(eg, NC, radical honesty, POJA, transparency, 15hrs UA time) to see if this is something you both agree to implement in your M and that would probably be a good place to start.

Good luck.

I think you need to resume your therapy to save yourself and your kids, and let hubby work on his issues. He also needs to get a job and prove he can stick to it instead of flying all over to hook up with other women.

He must address his alcohol problem too.

Personally, I think you should be living with your parents until he proves that he has straightened out his life.

He doesnt even live in the country. I am at our home, but he lives with his sister. He has started getting help for his alcohol problem and has gotten a job there. Oh well, I guess I am doing all I can do at this point.

So is he from another country, or how does he move so easily from country to country? Is he sending you child support?

How many years did he work during your marriage?

FLD,

Remove the keylogger from your computer.

Then, write him a letter or email. Tell him your conditions for recovering the marriage.

You need to write a No-Contact letter to YOUR affair partner, and have your husband mail it off - and send a copy to your husband once that is done. Your husband needs to approve the letter before you mail it. If he wants to, HE can mail it for you, so that he can be sure it got sent.

You should probably post your letter here for us to read first, before you send it, so we can offer some critiques of it before you send the draft to your husband. You can find draft ideas of NC letters in many threads here.

By sending a NC letter to your OM, your husband will get the idea that you have begun to take steps toward your road of recovery, and you do not plan to ever contact that "friend" of yours for the rest of your life. Maybe your H will see that as the opening step to his taking his own steps on his side of the marital fence.

Someone has to start.

In your letter to your H, you need to tell him that he needs to stop all contact with ALL of his affair partners, and send them NC letters.

It would be very nice to have your NC letter right there, for him to mail, with your conditions, wouldn't it?????

Also in your letter, you probably need to state that you want him to move back close to home, where the two of you can begin to date again, and work on meeting each other's needs, which is a step toward making the marriage work. You cannot work on those things with him that far away - and it certainly means that he will find someone else to help him get his needs met, or that you will.

You might also suggest that you as a couple have at least two counseling sessions with the Harleys before you decide to do anything. Since they do this over the phone, that would not require either of you to move at all.

Just some ideas.


SB

Yes he is from another country. I brought him here on a visa after we got together. From the first day he was able to work (after his visa was stamped from work) he go a job and stayed there for 6 years, he was laid off from it and immediately found more work, in fact he worked extra so thatI could stay home with our then 2 month old. I was always very proud of how hard he worked for us. He hadnt been out of work in the almost 9 years of marriage until last September. He could not get a job after he quit but I didnt feel he was trying very hard either, it was like he was just existing. He got a job in the other country when he went there and has been sending me child support, in fact since he lives with his sister, he sends me almost the whole check.

Thank you schoolbus

Unless it is very private for you, I would like to know what country he is from. That would help me kin thinking about cultural influences so I can offer up whatever.

Larry

Hes English

Thank you.

Well, the biggest problem you have is that women think English accents are sexy. Thus those females with a low moral threshold are gonna be all over him.

From what he does, he is under tremendous conflict.

So are you.

And neither of you is going to win a prize for being a real grownup and taking responsibility for setting the tone of the relationship.

I don't care how old you are. Both of you are acting like teenagers discovering relationships for the first time. The drama is near overwhelming in intensity and whatever.

You bought the books. Then you tossed them out the window. It is time you went out in the rain and started reading for guidance instead of quick resolution like you did before.

I suspect you bought the books to get a quick fix. It doesn't work that way. Becoming an adult and taking responsibility for the narrow path of honor, ethics and duty means that you have to understand consequences at the fundamental level. In other words, play by the rules or suffer.

My suggestion is that you draw up a set of rules for BOTH of you, then resolve that you are going to follow those rules, period. Those rules will then become the foundation for the way you build a good relationship.

Ask you husband if it is any fun bouncing from relationship to relationship. Some guys get off on that. Yea, it works for a while, but when the new wears off, and it always does, you are left with a bad taste in your mouth and a mark on your soul.

By all means, get the book renters, buyers and owners. That one should be your mantra.

Add comment: First you fix you, then you help him fix himself. Until you get your own head on straight, it is futile asking him to do so.

Larry

PS: No.more.games. Games are NOT reality, nor are the people who play in them. It is all make believe.