I'm not at all sure that I can explain our situation very well, but I'm going to try.
Because of abuse by different men in my life along with other factors, I have never really trusted men. In any relationship, I always wondered if I was being cheated on or lied to. That changed when I met my husband. (This is my 2nd marriage, his first.) For the first time in my entire life, I totally and completely trusted someone. I believed that he was an honest, sincere person, plus the communication in our relationship was excellent...we talked about anything and everything! We had a very strong relationship with very few problems. We are approaching our 5 yr wedding anniversary and everything has completely changed. He has completely destroyed my trust in him with lies that he's told over the last few years. He has lied about different things, has started looking up porn online, and most recently started going into chatrooms (such as "Married & Flirting") and even created an alternate chat ID that very obviously states what he is looking for. Everytime these problems come up, he refuses to talk about them, says it won't happen again, and eventually we moved past it & life returns to normal (except that my trust gets lower & lower each time). Now our relationship is a mess. It's very hard to describe where we're at now. He says that he has an addiction & doesn't know how to stop. He doesn't know why he does those things, but can't seem to stop himself. For example, the alternate chat ID.....when I found out, he said that he felt bad as soon as he created it & couldn't explain why he did it because he really doesn't want to hurt me. I don't know what to think or do. I don't trust him at all. I (mostly) believe that he has never had an actual affair, but I don't believe that he will never have one either. I don't believe he will stay away from the porn & the chat rooms & the lies. I'm terrified everytime I leave the house wondering what he'll get involved with that day. (FYI: he does not do this everyday...only on the occasions when he's alone at home...sometimes it's less than a week between incidents, sometimes it's months) There is no trust left. And now there is no emotion either. I feel nothing at all. I considered leaving him a few years ago when it all started, but after going to visit my mother for a few days I missed him so much that I decided to stay & work things out. I don't miss him anymore. I detest sex with him now. We rarely have it anymore. Everytime he betrays me, I tell myself that I won't let him touch me until the emotional side of things is resolved....but everytime I give in & then I hate myself...I feel ashamed because I wasn't strong enough to say no & instead tried to force myself to enjoy it. After his most recent incident, so far I've been better at saying no. When he touches me, I cringe inside, I grit my teeth, I force back tears. I can't stand to have him touch me. It's very odd because on the surface our relationship is good....anyone looking at our relationship might not realize there was a problem. We get along very well & enjoy each other's company...on the surface. But underneath it all, I'm falling apart. We've written a few letters back & forth to discuss the problems, but there's so much more going on in my head that he still doesn't know. He's already moved past it all & wants to pretend everything is great. But I'm still left feeling nothing....I don't care about anything anymore. I could leave him, but it's too much hassle. I don't really care whether I'm with him or not. I don't like not caring. I'm starting to feel very much like I did when my first marriage (to an abusive man) fell apart. I don't want to go through that again. I want our relationship to be strong, healthy, happy again but I don't know how to get it there.
