Your description of his responses was actually triggering (a word I don’t like to use often). My WH is a lying, manipulative, self-serving jerk who has never been able to be honest, face (or care about) what he has done to his family, or comprehend the reality of his own actions. He is an expert at lying to himself and convincing himself that he is the victim of everything and everyone. Everything you described him doing/saying in your confrontation could have been my WH.
you aren't even telling me what you think you've seen! How do I know how to respond if you're not giving me specifics?"
He could always just tell the truth. The truth isn’t dependent on "what you think you’ve seen." This is an easy gaslighting, blameshifting manipulative technique. There isn’t what you actually know—there’s only what you "think you’ve seen." And since you’re obviously not reliable (hormonal, irrational, accusatory), you shouldn’t trust yourself.
Don’t get sucked into questioning yourself. He could just tell the truth. It isn’t that he CAN’T. It’s that he WON’T. The truth isn’t dependent on what you know. It’s just the truth. He’s the only one who has it. But he’s not going to give it to you. I’m sorry to say that you will likely never get it.
And then he said something like look, let's sleep on this and then talk about it again tomorrow, I need to get my thoughts in order, etc etc.
Translation: I need some time to scrub records, clean my phone, and destroy as much of the trail as possible. Trust me—he spent the day doing exactly that. It will be much harder now to get more information, and from experience I can tell you that he will never tell you anything that you don’t know about. He won’t give you one ounce more than he absolutely has to.
. "I may need your help more than ever"
Nope, nope, nope, nope. The night that I confronted my WH, he tried telling me that I had saved him. This is just the height of entitlement, selfishness, and fuckery. I told him that I was not in that business anymore, and I officially quit that job. He did not include you in making these decisions, and you have ZERO responsibility to help him. More than that: you CAN’T help him with this. If you try to save him from himself, you will just enable him to continue manipulating you and blaming you and everyone else in the world for him being messed up. He’s on his own for this one. You’ll need all your energy to help yourself and your son.
The worst of this shit is when the person who destroyed your world, your family, your security, makes HIMSELF the victim that needs help and feels sorry for HIMSELF when he has devastated the people who trusted and loved him most.
He is clearly broken. The level of bullshit, manipulation, lying, blameshifting, gaslighting, and self pity that he pulled out of his hat in an INSTANT without any difficulty shows how long he’s been developing these techniques. This level of mastery doesn’t just pop up out of nothing.
Please don’t let yourself forget that, in the moment of greatest crisis for his wife, partner, and love, THIS is the behavior that he chose. THIS is who he is. The real him. I also asked my WH who he was on D-day. He acted like he didn’t know either. But he was the ONLY one who knew what he’d been doing.
I told him he fucked sex workers while I was pregnant, he put me and our child in danger.
This one. Keep thinking about this one. Trust me—over time, you’re going to feel more and more enraged about the truth of this. That rage will help inoculate you against feeling sorry for him. Also. . .
I said I've also spoken with attorneys and he was SHOCKED. Like he looked up from his lap like I'd just smacked him, I could actually SEE the blood drain out of his face! He asked if I was serious.
Of everything you said, his biggest reaction was to the fact that you actually saw an attorney and your comment about him spending marital funds on sex workers. His sense of entitlement and arrogance was so high that he couldn’t believe that he couldn’t control you. This is very common. Waywards of this type are convinced that they can control everyone. They are just that good at deceit and manipulation. My WH had actually expressed a weird kind of what I can only call pride that he was able to manipulate and control people through deception. He was PISSED when those techniques stopped working on me and, like your WH, he lashed out in especially mean and despicable ways trying to regain control and make me doubt myself.
I can’t give you much hope that he will be R material from my experience. As I said, he’s been at all of this horrific behavior for a LONG time. All of these habits are so ingrained he thinks they’re normal and natural. He probably doesn’t recognize the truth anymore. He has had to buy a lot of idiotic rationalizations and bullshit to be able to convince himself that what he is doing is justified and okay.
The "only lying by omission" is especially challenging because he has convinced himself that this isn’t lying. A close second: only answering the question that was asked. When I found one piece of evidence, I at first thought that the AP had sent it to my WH. He let me believe that for almost 2 years when I happened to look at it again and realized that he had actually sent it to her. When I confronted him, he admitted it but blamed me since I hadn’t ASKED him if he had sent it. It was MY error to assume that she had sent it.
You are doing so well. And we also all know that it’s horrific and unbelievably painful and a million other things. You’re getting such great advice here. One piece I’d second is that you refuse to continue any conversation that is anything but him telling you the truth. There is NO point in talking about anything else with him. If you allow it, he will continue to fuck with your mind and try to make you doubt yourself. He will say horribly cruel things designed to try to make you feel guilty and responsible and ultimately weaken you. It will do unbelievable damage to you. Ask me how I know.
Sending you huge hugs of sympathy and strength.