I have been married 11 years to my husband. After we were married I found out that he was addicted to porn and had started viewing it at 7 yrs old. I was concerned because, it was such a big part of his life but, I learned to deal with it. And we were generally happy and didn't fight. We had a beautiful bab girl about 3 years after we got married.

About 4 years into our marriage I started finding cyber sex emails to women on our computer from him and he insisted that it was not a big deal and he was not cheating. I consider cyber sex cheating but whatever. I delt with it begged him to stop and he promised that he did stop cybering.

I didn't find anything for quite a while but, then he started sleeping with his cell phone. I asked if I could see it and he got really mad and all offended said that I was invading his privacy. I said I don't keep stuff from you and you can look at mine. He refused and walked out. About a month later I found out that I was pregnant with our son we had a 2 yr old at the time and when we first got married he said he wanted 4 kids with me. When I told him he didn't even act happy like he did with our daughter. He was like oh. He was acting so weird that one day when he forgot to take his phone in the shower with him, I took it and found tons of sexting messages from a girl in town and messages saying that they were meeting in town. He insisted that they were not having sex and he only met her to talk about a legal problem that she had. I asked him to stop and he said that it wasn't cheating and he didn't think that it was a big deal but, promised to stop. I continued to find texts to and from her. Then found some from another woman. Gezze we lived in a really small town and he was sexting two women that I knew of. I confronted him and he promised never again. See a pattern yet?

Our son was born and we seemed happy for a while. I didn't find much but, his text history was also always erased no texts at all not even the ones that I sent. Then this young girl started asking to go on ride alongs in his police car. She was legal but, bairly. I warned him and told him that she was pursuing him and he said she wasn't and I was just jealous B#@&& for no reason. I didn't belive him but, couldn't prove that there was anything going on. We were ok for about a year after that. Though I suspected he was cheating, I had no real evidence that he was physically cheating.

The day before we were to go on family vacation and about a week before our 7th anniversary, he went to work (he WAS a cop and worked 12 hr shifts) and about 20 minutes after he left he came home and said "I'm suspended." I asked why and at first he refused to tell me but, I told him if he didn't I was taking the kids and leaving and he said he was acused of having sex in his police car with "ridealong girl". I asked if it was true and he said no she has ONLY given me blow jobs while I was working and she was mad that he had now broken it off so she went to the cheif of police and turned him in. This girl was the dispatcher's daughter; nice right. I asked him if he had any other affairs in the past gave him a free pass to confess it all and he said he had 1 other and it was one of the girls that I caught him sexting with. (A few years later actually only about 6 months ago he admitted that it was reall 3 other affairs all of which I asked him about when they must have been going on and all he adimantly denied.) As you can guess that vacation sucked and so did our anniversary because, we still had to go we had promised the kids and had already paid for everything. I had to play nice and happy when I was really dying.

We came home to newspapers exposing his indiscretion. We lived in a small town; so everyone knew including our church. He had a hearing and the police cheif allowed him to quit in lieu of being fired as the investigation was supposed to be confidential and was it leaked to the paper. We had to move and lost our home and all our cars and friends and my trust for him was gone. We ended up having to file bankruptsy because, he can't get hired as a police officer now and for a while he was making only 1/3 of what he had been,

When we got to our new town, we started counseling and he promised that it would never happen again... I tried so hard and he still wouldn't open up and be honest finally when marriage counseling was not helping we switched counselors and went to counseling on our own and he started going to SA. This seemed to help for ahile and we were somewhat ok except he was cybering again an going to check out dating web sights.

Recently he has locked his phone again and has beem acting distant and mean like he did before and I found out why... He has been putting up and answering Craigs List adds to women and men to meet for sex. Honestly I was not really that surprised by the woman thing but, when I found an email saying that he had has BJs from a few men and wanted to try more and asked to meet some random guy for sex I just couldn't believe it.

He insists that he never followed through and that he was only joking with the guy to see what he would say and that he is in no way attracted to men. He was very angry with me and said I acused him of being gay. I never said that. I only asked if what he wrote in that email was true. He still inststs that it was a joke but, I don't think that I can believe he because, it just doesn't make sense and he lies so often its hard to ever believe him.

We have been married 11 years and I don't think that I can take his lies, cheating and sexual addiction anymore. I'm devistate as I don't believe in divorce but, I think that I have no choice he doesn't want to get better or be better. I have dealt with this for years and tried to support him in his sobriety but, He wants a wife who cooks and cleans for him and will turn a blind eye to his affairs with men and women and that is not me anymore. I'm not a door mat. I deserve love and respect. Not distance and lies.

Welcome to MB and sorry for your pain.

Do you want to save your marriage or go straight to D?

Have you exposed his affairs?
Exposure 101

Mama, I just wanted to let you know I read your thread. I didn't want you to feel alone.

I am not a vet, nor can I give advice quite yet b/c I'm in my own mess with also a serial cheater.

My WH was also turned on to porn at a very, very young age by his father.

Hang in there, I'm going to follow your thread. Wait for the vets they will take care of you. It's slower on the weekends but I bet someone shows up.

I'll be thinking of you tonight when I say my prayers, which I have been doing everynight.

BH did show up! I knew someone would

Thanks. I have tried for the last 5 years to save this marriage. He says he is getting better and then I always find out he is cheating again later. Its really hard to want to stay. I love him but, he has hurt me so much I have a hard time believing he really loves me. I would never do to him what he has done to me and I have forgiven him so many times. I think he believes its ok to cheat.

I asked hime once if he even fet sorrow for what he has done and he said he dosent know what sorry or guilt feel like cause he doesn't really recognize them. That is scary. It means there is nothing to keep him from cheating because, it doesn't make him feel bad.

I don't believe in divorce but, I am seeing no option here. I don't want an STD and I don't want to feel unwanted anymore.

Thanks so much this is so hard.

BH I think he would leave if I exposed him. He made me tell all my family when we moved back here that he got laid off from work and that is why we lost everything. Making it not his fault.. My brother knows people from where we lived so he knew the truth but my WH was so mad that my brother knew. He blamed me said I told him and was trying to make my family hate him.

Sounds like he's pretending to be a narcissist.

I dont know if he is pretending or not. I hope he is pretending. He really acts like he has done nothing wrong most of the time and that he is sorry he got caught not sorry that he did it.

Dear Mamalea,

I am all for saving marriages and this site is probably the best online resource to attain that.
BUT
Please read your own post again carefully.
Your husband sounds like someone who has never been the man you thought he was when you married him.
He did not have an affair because he got caught up in an emotional relationship with a woman at work, nor because he had loose boundaries.
He had multiple affairs and sex with no strings attached because he is actively looking for it! He is actively grooming women, even young girls for his own gratification without thinking if it hurts his family.

Of course he wants to keep you too, as a friendly housekeeper and mother to his children, to iron his shirts and to be the family facade he can show off to the world outside.

He has even had sex where it hurt his family because you have lost everything because of his irresponsible actions. And even after that, he did not come to you feeling sorry, he has even accused you that you did not do enough to keep up his facade. And now he is trying to have sex with men?

Dr Harley can help you restore your marriage and to make the best of it. But do you really, really want to be married to this person, impersonating husband material, where he is just a bum, thinking nil of his family as long as he gets wgat he wants? Dr. Harley cannot magically make him an altruistic person. He may be able to get him to change his behaviour, but as he is a chronic cheater, chances are not that good.

I am sorry, Lea, but you are pulling this cart alone and have been for a long time. He does not have your back. Of course you would rather be married to the father of your children.
Only you can decide if the three of you will be better of without him, or if you are willing to give him another last chance.

May God bless you and your family,

Happyheart

P.S.
Start using condoms immediately. You can tell him the doctor told you it is medically nessecary. (I am a doctor and I am telling you so.) The rate of veneral diseases among men who have sex with men is ten times higher than among the rest of the population.

I work in child welfare and really wonder if your children are even safe around him. I would immediately enter plan B and file for divorce with supervised contact until he completes a psychosexual evaluation and follows the recommendations.

I encourage you to visit a counselor ( not a marriage counselor) and brainstorm with the counselor on your choices

Hi Mama and welcome to Marriage Builders.

MB will give you a PLAN to try to save your marriage, or save yourSELF and your children from this continued life of abuse and devastation. You are right, you do not deserve that, and understanding that fact and the fact that you can have a fulfilling and peaceful life without your spouse is a big step.

You can offer your WH a plan for recovery from his A's, but you cannot make him accept it. You cannot make him have remorse if there is none, or want to have a better marriage if he doesn't. You CAN tell him that you will not accept crumbs any more, and you CAN tell him the boundaries that you are setting for yourSELF, and you CAN offer him the chance to have a great marriage if he is willing to put 100% into a recovery effort.

What you have been doing for the last 11 years is to enable him to have a SSL and to pursue A after A after A. You need to STOP enabling, right now. Can you do it? Can you take the actions that are necessary to stop enabling him and start protecting you?

MB is an action based plan. There is no option to sit around and complain yet do nothing to change the status quo. If that's what you want to do you will not get a lot of help, because WE don't want to enable YOU to continue this abuse.

Are you ready for some hard work?

The first thing you need to do is expose his A's far and wide.

This is the point where many newbies run. Expose? That's scary! He will be so angry! Blah blah blah blah blah...

Understand that this SSL he is leading is only possible when nobody knows what he is doing. He has already discovered that, when the OW in your old town made his indiscretion (at least one of) public knowledge and you paid incredible consequence for it. You may view that as a bad thing, but it is a GOOD thing. It became impossible for him to carry on that SSL in that town, so you had to move to a new one. However now he has sworn you to secrecy in your new town, so he can resume his SSL.

Your marriage can survive his anger, it canNOT survive a SSL wrought with constant A's.

Exposure serves many purposes. It serves to end current A's, to give him consequences to his actions, to put his SSL in the public eye so he has a much more difficult time sneaking around, and to also offer support to YOU, the BS! I think it is necessary in every A situation, but it is IMPERITIVE in a SSL situation, which is what you are dealing with. He has had a lifetime of living a lie, and that will not stop without drastic measures.

I am not an expert in exposure, there are vets on this site who are GIFTED at advising on exposure. Wait for one of them, they will give you a roadmap of how to do it correctly. Meanwhile, make a list of who to expose to. In your case I would make it a very LARGE list due to the vastness of his SSL. Include all family, friends, etc. of yours, his, and any questionable OW's he has had.

You are done with the days of 'just dealing with it.' You need to set better boundaries for yourself. If you do not want him viewing porn (and you shouldn't) then it needs to stop.


Repeat. Also, no more 'begging for him to stop' anything. You need to set boundaries for yourself that say, 'if you wish to remain married to me, then you will discontinue ANY form of cheating, including porn, cyber sex, etc.' You are also going to need to stop TAKING HIS WORD FOR THINGS. Your WH has been gaslighting and lying to you for many, many years. You seem to want to believe whatever he tells you, even though I can read in your post the gut instinct of disbelief. Time to get your head of the sand mama! You know his words are meaningless, and that when his lips are moving a lie is escaping.


People who have nothing to hide hide nothing. He was protecting his cell because he had LOTS to hide on it. And I am guessing you knew it. No more sand!


Yes I see a pattern of a WH gaslighting and lying to his BW while continuing to have A after A after A, and his BW ignoring her gut instinct and putting her head in the sand. No more of that, OK?


You DID find something then, that he was hiding his life from you.


It pains me to read how many times you say you were 'ok' or 'doing good' followed by 'except he was cybering again...' or something of that nature. This is NOT OK.


You SHOULD NEVER BELIEVE HIM. Never. He has gaslighted you to the nth degree. You should not believe a word that comes out of his mouth. He needs to show you in ACTION and not in WORDS if he is willing to leave this SSL and recover your M from his years of abuse.


I hope you don't think I am being rough on you here mama. Many of us have been in A situations, have been gaslighted, etc. We know exactly where your coming from!

But like I said, you can't change him. You can offer him a very solid path to recovery, but HE has to choose whether he takes it or not.

You, however, can choose your own path. You can control your own actions. I wanted to point out the err of your ways and thinking for the last 11 years, so that you can see it needs to change. Blind trust, ignoring your gut instinct, sticking your head in the sand, has sent you down a very dark path and has done absolutely nothing to save your marriage. You can change this TODAY. You can take control of your own life and the lives of your children and you can demand more for yourself!

Are you ready to do that?

Having said, "Jump off!", I want to add that there is a very teensey-tiny possibility that the shock of losing everything may evoke a healthy response from your wayward. I doubt it, but it IS possible.

It is highly likely that your wayward will feign a healthy response once you "jump off the crazy bus". It is also highly likely that you will fall for his act, and accept him back into your life too soon.

Therefore, it is my recommendation that your require your wayward to PROVE himself to be a decent man for a year (minimum). If he complains it is too difficult, it's all your fault, he's "trying" ..... then sadly, he's never going to change.

One of the hard truths about being a good parent is that you MUST be strong & tough & be able to draw a line in the sand and mean what you say when you say "This is it, buster. Do not cross this line."

Your children will either learn that bad choices have serious consequences, or they will make bad choices over and over ..... like their parents.

YOU are their only sane parent. Act like it.

You should most certainly expose his affairs. By keeping them a secret, you only enable him. And it is almost impossible to save a marriage when you are enabler. Affairs thrive on secrecy, so your keeping it a secret is damaging to any hope you have.

Please take the time to go read the exposure thread linked in my signature at the bottom of this post.

Because you are not dealing with a run-of-the-mill wayward ..... I strongly recommend you go directly to Plan B.

Plan A will not work for you. You have a history of enabling his addiction (porn) and plan A is NOT advised when there is another addiction besides the affair partner. Unfortunately, you (and your children) are dealing with a lifestyle, not just an affair.

Skip Plan A.
Directly go to Plan B (once you get your ducks lines up)
Make no threats.
Make this a complete surprise.

READ & PRINT the following notable post:

How To Plan B Correctly <~~~ CLICK THIS LINK

Be sure to read and understand the comments following the first post.

Remember, you are the only sane parent. It is up to you to be tough. You do not want your kids to live the life your husband and you have modeled so far, do you?

Change is difficult.
Not changing will be detrimental to your future, and especially to the future of your children.