I dont know what to do

I’ll try to keep this as short as I can. So I’m 28 and my husband is 30. We’ve been together for 8 years and married for 7 months now. We got engaged 2 years ago and started planning our wedding but then last November he left me, his reason being he was a horrible person and didn’t deserve to be with me. I’m still not sure why he thought he was such an awful person. January can around and we got back together and carried on with our wedding plans.

We’ve been together for a long time (8 years) and in the main its been great and we’ve been really happy. However he has text other girls so I have a few trust issues anyway but a month before the wedding I found out he was texting a girl at work. He played it down and said there was nothing going on which I believed.

We got married and had a perfect day. On the 2nd week of honeymoon he started to act a bit odd and really distant, I felt like he kept going off on is phone but I don’t know if I’m just really paranoid! We got back from honeymoon & he disappeared for the weekend and had his phone turned off the whole time. Then a week later he left and said that he didn’t deserve me etc, the same as the last time. He acted really erratically, one min saying what a horrible person he is, the next that he loves me and misses me. This carried on for months and after christamas I inally got him to go to the doctors and he was diagnosed with depression and has anxiety. Also he has admitted to having $40k debt! We’ve been to couples counselling which started to get to some of the issues he has with his dad and his upbringing. Things kept getting better and then he’d flip out and be really down. We’d talk and things would get a bit better and then he’d get down again, its like a circle, the same thing kept happening. He kept moving back and saying he wanted things to work, he even booked us a holiday for a couple of weeks time so we could spend ‘quality’ time together. I tried my best to support him through what I thought was really bad depression.

For 6 months I’ve lived in limbo, not knowing why hes been acting like he loves me one minute then couldn’t care less the next. Two weeks ago I found out my husband has been cheating on me. The worst part is that he’s been seeing someone for over a year. ….I can’t believe it. I found out his work doesn’t know he got married and I’ve even found out that he went away with this girl 2 weeks before our wedding and also after our honeymoon. I’m so shocked!!
When I confronted him he was absolutely distraught and since has ended things with this girl. He told me he’s been a totally different person the last year, she meant nothing to him and wants to get back to the old him. He’s constantly been texting/calling/turning up begging me to give him a chance to let him prove to me he’s changed and that im all he ever wants.

I’m finding it really hard as all I’ve ever wanted is to have the life id planned with him and now he’s offering it to me. the only problem is the MASSIVE betrayal , lying and cheating and I don’t know if I could ever trust him. I know what I should do, its just not I want to do. My head is telling me to run but my heart is still wondering what if he could get back to the man I fell in love with. I really would appreciate your any advice you have. Help!!! xx

Hi Minky,
Welcome to wiki, but sorry you find yourself here.
The best advice I can offer is go with your head...its telling you to run.
The man you fell in love with has proved to be a lie. He has cheated on you and shown you utter contempt you are worth so much better, but if you let him back he will do it again.


LB

I am so sorry you find yourself here. Truly I am! You are so young and have your life ahead of you. No one on this site can tell you what to do and ultimately it is up to you.... but I have to be honest.. trust your instincts, they are never wrong.

Oh Darling, Run for the hills right now. I might be a stranger to you but trust me, he will not change because he cannot change.

Your heart will mend but only if you take it away from having a knife continually plunged in. The damage to your head, your self esteem should not be underestimated. He is playing the victim, making you feel sorry for him, and yet all that is a horrible controlling method of turning you into a doormat, forgiving his appalling behaviour whilst he continues the same betrayal over and over. You are the real victim, the vicious trick he is playing on you is to make you believe he is.

The debt is very bad now, it will only get worse and you will lose more and more, as currently your are as liable for it as he is. Start separating your money immediately and protect yourself with a divorce as quickly as you can, you will save yourself from so much fear in the future.

I have been exactly where you are now, and I had my chance to run quite a few times over the years, but each time he would appear to show how much he loved me. I realise now that he was also having the odd dalliance, but I allowed myself to be convinced he wasn''t. After over 30 years together I ended up older looking than my years, dowdy, overweight and in constant pain. He left me when I just couldn''t work anymore for him, and took up with a woman considerably younger than me, who has children who he takes on expensive holidays, yet he denied me the chance to be a mum. When everything finally imploded, although my heart was ripped to shreds and I could barely get myself out of bed in the morning, I was so lucky that help came to find me, and strangely I blossomed, and he blamed me for that too. Over the years he has spent thousands on himself, whilst I ended up wearing his cast off tracksuit bottoms and tops. I understand now how it happened, but at the time I just didn''t think I was feminine and so worth anything, and that started right from the start. That is what such men do to women.

I''m asking you to embrace heartache now, it is horrible and almost impossibly difficult, when it seems that only he can offer you the happiness you want, and that is the trap that you must escape.

You are so very young, opportunities abound for you, but only if you are free. There are wonderful men out there who will make truly loving companions, give yourself the chance to meet them. Please please please listen to me, please don''t find yourself like me, at 54 completely alone when I know I deserved to be loved, and be allowed to be a mother, and I gave up so much for a rotten man who used me and threw me away when he thought I was useless. I am rebuilding a happy life, but it is so very hard and still frightening - don''t be like me.

I know what you are going through. Truly I do. My ex was unfaithful pretty much through our entire relationship. For example, when I was off having wedding dress fittings he was arranging meetings to see the woman he was having an affair with at the time. The serial adultery continued right the way through until finally one day I couldn''t cope with it anymore. The cycle of lies then promises to change had come within an inch of destroying me totally.

It''s hard for others to understand unless they have lived through it. One minute in your husbands eyes, you are an angel the next they look at you with contempt. You don''t know which way is up in the end and its very distressing.

I expect right now you are trying to desperately find that magic key to his heart and just see that side of your man that treats you like an angel. I''m sorry to say, he knows exactly what he is doing. It''s a control thing designed to keep you in the one down position, constantly guessing always on edge. I lived this life for well over a decade so I know how this slowly destroys your confidence, self esteem and self respect almost without you noticing. That''s why you are so vulnerable to taking someone back who has done nothing but lie and cheat. I took my serial adulterer back, had the tears, the promises to change and the short term improvement in behaviour. Truth is that he only modified his behaviour until the heat was off so to speak and then he started again.

I lost count of the amount of times he promised to change. He never did. It was all words you see, it''s the actions that count. Words are cheap. Easy to say. His actions have shown you over an extended period of time that he is not capable of being in a faithful committed relationship. These emotional problems he has are not easily or quickly fixed and he is making false cheap promises that he has changed. He is in denial about his problem. If he wasn''t he would be saying that he isn''t capable right now of controlling his compulsive behaviour but he is doing x y z to try and fix himself over time.

Compulsive behaviour can''t be controlled by willpower of vowing to do things differently. He needs to understand why he tramples all over your heart and feelings first before he can say he''s changed. If he can''t explain his behaviour then there is nothing to work with. Sorry is not enough. Recovery from the behaviours he exhibits is measured in months and years rather than weeks. Cheating in this way is an extreme act of moral cowardice and a horrible thing to do, he is lying to you and himself.

I''d like you to look up a couple of things on line for me. Just to see if these things resonate. Look up emotional unavailability and passive agressive behaviour. It isn''t down to you and it was nothing you did that made him do these despicable things to you. Books are available off amazon if you want to explore these things further.

Sweetheart, take it from someone who has been round this chaotic merry go round more times than I''d be prepared to admit in public. Your man is nowhere near being able to be the husband you need or deserve. I''m sorry, so sorry because I know how much it hurts to face the truth.

I was 30 when I found out the truth about my husband and his secret seedy world of lies and cheating. I was 35 when he finally left for one of his tarts and 36 by the time I had the courage and the conviction to refuse his final attempt to get back into my life after the OW dumped him. You can waste years of your life listening to the I''m sorry tales of woe that never get backed up by true action to change. If my story can help one woman to find the inner resources to say no to the merry go round of pain then it''s not in vein.

It takes courage for these adulterers to face the nightmare and pain that they have caused others. Problem is most are moral cowards that never find the true emotional strength to fix their issues. They just repeatedly hurt and sadden the women they leave behind in their trail of devastation.

It''s very likely if you take him back that you will just be prolonging the agony. Short term not taking him back is the hardest decision. Medium term you will be grateful you took control and got your life back before you wasted more years on someone who isn''t capable of giving you what you deserve from a husband and a marriage.

Take care and do think about counselling. It''s a hard road ahead but I can say hat eventually it does get better. It just takes time and work in equal measure.

Take it from a bloke.
Men who shxg around always shxg around.
They can''t stop.
They are inherently dishonest.
They love the deceipt.The doing it behind your back.But still having you in the dark and loving them.
They rack up bills lots of debt because it''s expensive leading a double life.
They are clandestinely taking the other bird out for meals,holidays buying them gifts(yes men do have to pay for sex one way or another)that''s why there''s so much debt.
Drop him on his rse.
all the best
HRH x

Hi Minky and welcome.

I''m so sorry you find yourself in this awful situation but I think you have an opportunity to not let this man ruin any more of your life. I''m sorry to say that these men rarely change & I think you''ll be in for a life of pain whilst your self confidence is gradually eroded away to nothing.

I was married to my cheating ex for 12 years until he finally left me 4 years ago for the latest slapper. Not only was this woman awful, but she had children which he told me he never wanted. I gave up having a family to be with this man and it meant nothing to him. He had been unfaithful before & had countness flirtations with other women but I stuck with it (for better for worse)& thought I was ging mad when he denied everything at the time. I found out everything afterwards. Like Shoegirl, mine wanted to come back in the end but the more I thought about it, the more I knew I couldn''t go back into that snakepit of his infidelity & lies. I''m so glad I had the strength to say no and keep saying no. He has since run away to the middle east with the slapper ...he never learns or changes.

I know how hard it is when the person you love seems to have changed beyond belief. The thing is that they haven''t changed - they were always that person underneath, capable of lies & betrayal. Don''t invest any more of yout time with this person - he has shown such a lack of respect for you & tresated you so awfully. You say he was devestated when he knew you had found out. He wasn''t devestated enough to end his affair for the 12 months prior though. Same as my ex - they just think they can have it all - their arrogance knows no bounds.

I know the pain & devestation that a marriage break up causes - but things get better and you will be happy again like lots of us on here. There are some truly wonderful men out there & you deserve much better. Your husband is right about that.

Take care,

Dazed x