Betrayal
Hi I am new here and in April I found out my husband was lying to me for years. He is an alcoholic and stopped drinking prior to me finding out dec 2022. He lied to me 15 yrs ago he was talking to a coworker behind my back nothing flirty and she invited him out but from the message she sent that I found it seemed like they had never seen each other out of work. He made an excuse not to go out on message. The message was her saying sorry that you couldn't come out and maybe one day you will decide to come out and we can hang out outside of work. I confronted him he was very immature and at 1st blamed me that he was just venting and talking. Nothing flirty was going on from the messages I found other than her trying to get him out of work which he said no prior to me finding the messages. His reasons I started my career was going out a lot and it was making him insecure. He said it was him telling her how it made him feel and asking for advice but when she asked him to go to a bar he said no. I was furious and I left the home and later agreed to work on things only if he ended all contact and was transparent with phone and all paychecks which he was already doing. The phone he never kept it from me it's just i never felt a need so I guess he took that for granted. I found because he left his phone on bed while he was in shower and I heard it thinking it was family or one of our friends as I usually would answer his phone and discovered it. He hid it under a man's name but it was obvious it was a woman since men don't text I hope you decide to hang out of work. He agreed to everything and cried and begged and eventually he did everything I asked of him but his drinking got worse and worse over the years. He was always home on time, left his phone open, was a very caring and loving partner when he wasn't drunk. Every now and then he acted up after drinking too much trying to argue. I became bitter and harder and I stopped caring about what he did or so I thought. After 1 or 2 yrs it's like it completely disappeared. He was always catering to me, wanting to do things for me,and very caring, and other than his temper tantrum every now and then he showed me he waw committed making sure I knew where he was calling me constantly everyday and me knowing at all times what he was doing. He never disappeared or went missing. He didn't hide his phone mostly would throw it on the floor when we slept. He never left house unless he was at work or at store while calling me from there. He didn't improve his appearance he ate more and became more overweight and he sometimes didn't shower daily. I know he has dealt with depression and childhood trauma. Fastword to March 2022 I started wanting a different relationship since I became bitter I mistreated him a lot and didn't care about his feelings and he always complied with what I wanted most of the time without push back. So I brought up the past and immediately started feeling like something was off. I checked records-phone,his icloud accounts, social media without him knowing I was going to check and other than a few jokes male banter not a lot like 5 and he only sent one picture forwarded to another male. I kept digging and digging and nothing. Then we started doing well again me thinking ok he's telling the truth and in April I found messages between him and male name number again no flirting just hey how you been , how's life, how's the family, where you working now. No flirting at all. I would of thought he was talking to a man except I only knew it was female due to her saying her daughter got married and she cried a lot and her husband is sick with cirrhosis. I confronted him and he said he knew her in his past and ran into her at store years ago and exchanged numbers and it was her reaching out for help registering her kids he works at a college. He said she would call ask for advice on different things. I am furious he hid it and I want to say he's a liar and he had an affair but the messages and the way he's been all these years just don't add up to an affair and none of the messages found seem emotional either. I asked for divorce but he is opening up to changing he is transparent with everything and says he justified it in his head that he was just helping someone to feel good. It was not sexual or anything like that. He said the way I treated him made him feel so small and he knows it was his fault for not dealing with what he had done in past and all his other issues. He said he doesn't justify it at all he chose poor coping mechanism to feel like he was a good person helping. He said he never dealt with his depression, low self worth, and childhood trauma instead he drank and lied. His actions are matching his words but he copes very poorly when i am upset he throws tantrums or cries so much that attention is on him. I don't know what to do. We have been married 23 yrs. Our son is 10 years old and we fight constantly because I'm so mad he lied for years. Maybe there is more lies or he won't say the things he really did. He tries to calm me down but if I say something mean he becomes a mess. We are stuck in a cycle. He's in counseling for months now and I've seen some improvement but honestly I don't know if he's even capable of permanent change. Please any advice. I want to seek counseling as well as I know being in a rage isn't helping me either. I sometimes can't control it because I spent most of my life with him to only be betrayed again. I'm so heartbroken. I love him but I sometimes think it's easier to move on. I feel selfish because I see him really putting himself through a lot to keep us together but I don't know if it's even worth it anymore.
5 comments posted: Tuesday, December 5th, 2023
