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Getting past the past and over the hurt of dishonesty.

12K views 128 replies 27 participants last post by  hurt and alone 
#1 ·
Hello. I’ve been Googling for months and I came across this board and found some insight, but I haven’t really found any answers that meet my situation exactly.

This coming September will make 19 years that we’ve been married. We dated for about 2 years before getting married. We have 3 children aged between 8 and 10 years old. We were both in the military at the time we met.

Prior to getting married, we had the talk about past partners (Yes, I now know how stupid that was). At 21 years old, I had been in several relationships that were never sexual. I had only had one partner with whom I had any sexual contact and that was only after I was engaged to that person. So my only sexual partner was someone with whom I was in a relationship with. Prior to “the talk” I had expressed my lack of respect for the women in the barracks who slept around freely. When we had “the talk”, she said she had been with three partners, but then quickly changed that number to two partners (the third she had just shared a bed with on a trip with friends, there was no sex or touching). I did question her changing her answer at the time, but I was truly in love with this girl and decided that it didn’t matter what she had done.

We got married after the talk. We eloped and got married at a courthouse. After eloping, we wanted a church wedding in a military chapel. To do this, we had to go through pre-marital counseling. In this pre-marital counseling session, her past partners came up. She stated that there were 2 partners. The first was a guy who was pursuing her but she had no interest in him. Six months before she met me, she decided it was time to lose her virginity, so she got drunk and had sex with this guy in a hotel. A few days later, she decided to have sex with him again in her room. Her second partner was someone she said she had a crush on. She had never dated this person, but she hoped that having sex with him right before she moved would result in a long distance relationship. She said she forced herself on him a few weeks before she left that assignment and had sex with him on the couch at the place they worked together. She never contacted him after the sex or even went on a date with him after the sex. While not easy for me to accept this, I did accept it. It was who she was and while I wasn’t totally cool with what her past held, I was willing to look past it for the person who she was with me. I felt that she was still very much the person that I wanted to be with forever.

After the church wedding, things started to slow down in the bedroom. We were still having sex, but not as often. I was attributing much of that to us both being in college (Thank You GI Bill) and working at the time. There was part of me that still questioned her past due to her answer changing from 3 partners to 2 partners. I would sometimes ask about her past, but she was consistent in her answers. She had slept with 2 other men, she used condoms every time, she never had an orgasm with the others, she had never given or received oral sex. She reassured me that I was the only one who had given her an orgasm, that I was the only one she had performed oral sex on, that I was the only one she had ever had unprotected sex with. I came to believe that she was telling me the truth and never really put much thought into the matter. Any time that I mentioned that we were not having very much sex, she always came up with an excuse for not having sex. School, stress, work, children, "mommies don't have sex". I was in school (and even completed grad school beyond her Bachelors degree), I had stress, I worked more hours than her, I took care of the children as much as she did, and daddies do want to have sex!

Over time, the frequency of sex continued to decrease between us. It was not due to a lack of desire on my part. I still found my wife incredibly sexy. I had repeatedly expressed my desire for more sex with her. I repeatedly told her that I still found her very physically attractive. I purchased her the Panty of the Month for about 3 years, took “glam” photos of her for to use as my computer desktop wallpaper and as the photo for my monthly calendars. I planned a tropical vacation for us alone. Eventually the rejection started taking its toll and I stopped pursuing her as much.

About 8 years ago I started trying again to spice things up. I was begging her to put some effort into thinking about sex every once in a while. Things would cycle regularly. I would beg for sex, things would be good for about a month, things would be stale for 3 or 4 months, I would beg again. Several times I wrote pages of things that she could to to show me she was interested in sex, that I was interested in sex, and that I still found her physically attractive.

Her response was that after being together for so long I couldn't still find her attractive. This was based on an episode of "Cheaters" that we saw one afternoon that showed a guy who was cheating on his wife because he was just tired of her. I repeatedly assured her that this was not the case with her. I was VERY attracted to her still.
After the first 2 kids were born, she attributed the lack of sex to me prying into her past. She said that she thought I was not over her past and that it was the root of our problems. To the contrary, I was fine with her past. I had tried having her fantasize about the other 2 people she had slept with to get her stimulated and to get her interested in sex with ME again. It didn’t work.

Fast forward through several years of the same cycle of little to no sex.

June of 2013, I decided I would see just how much sex she desires. We had sex one night and I decided that I would wait to see how long it would be before she had the desire to have sex again. I would not reject her, but I did not pursue her. In the past, we had gone for 3-4 weeks at a time without sex. To go 2 weeks at a time was normal for us despite my begging. As it turns out, it was 8 weeks before she decided that she wanted to have sex. I didn’t mention this to her at the time it was happening. I only mentioned it to her about a year later. At that point, I decided I was done with begging for sex from her. I was committed to being faithful to her, but I had just given in to accepting that we were going to have a sexless marriage.

Fast forward to March 2014.

One evening after having sex, my wife decided to tell me that she had lied to me and that she had slept with four other partners before me.

She said the first one was the one in the hotel and again a few days later in her barracks room. She was not interested in him, but chose to sleep with him because he kept asking her out despite her repeatedly rejecting him. She decided he was the one to lose her virginity to because the rumor was that he had slept with many women. She had sex with him on the first date which involved taking her out for dinner and wine and then to a hotel. A few days later she had sex with him when he just showed up at her door. There was no relationship.

The second was another person in the barracks. Several friends were going to get together to watch a movie in the guy’s room. She was the only one that showed up, so she watched the movie and then decided to sleep with the guy. She said that he had given her an orgasm. She said that as soon as he was done, he got up and went to playing a game on his computer and left her naked in the bed. She just sat there for a while before getting dressed and going back to her room. There was no relationship.

The third was a guy she had met 3 days earlier. She went with a friend to his house. While her friend and his sister went to look for something, the guy asked her if she was ok with having sex. She had sex with him while waiting on her friend to return. There was no relationship and she never saw the guy again.

The fourth was the coworker previously mentioned. She did have sex on the work couch and, despite previously denying it, she did perform oral sex on this partner. She did not have a relationship with this person either.
She lied about the number of sex partners.

She lied about having orgasms with others after telling me that I was the only one that had given her an orgasm.

She lied about having performed oral sex on anyone and had told me that I was the only one that she had performed oral sex on.

As for condoms, she says she really does not know if any of these guys used condoms or not, but that she just assumes that they did even though she doesn't remember seeing any condoms.


So now here we are today. We have gone through almost a year of marriage counseling and things between us are still hit or miss. We have some good days, but I think we still have more bad days than good days. She has started working with a coach to improve her outlook and her self-esteem. Certainly both of these are things that could improve our relationship. She has also started exercising some. She has started dressing much nicer around me. She has started keeping her hair nicer around me. She has started keeping her nails painted around me. She has starting trying to let me know that she wants to make this work between us.

How do I feel?

I’m not upset by the number of her partners. I am completely disgusted by her dishonesty. If I ask questions about her past now, she gets angry with me. This does nothing to build trust. She also frequently does not remember what happened back then or does not know the answer to what I ask. While these other partners were 20 years ago, I understand that memory fades, but an “I don’t know” or an “I don’t remember” does nothing to help boost the trust right now.

I feel that I had accepted her for who she was a long time ago, but now I am being forced to accept a person who is much worse than the person that I accepted so many years ago.

I no longer feel attracted to her. It’s not just a physical thing. I am finding it hard to be attracted to someone who gives herself up so easily to so many people in such a short time. She basically had 4 one night stands within a 6 month period. There was actually going to be a 5th person (not anyone she was emotionally attached to), but her roommate walked in on her while he was fingering her. I am also finding it hard to be attracted to someone who lied to me for so long. I am finding it hard to be attracted to someone who disrespected me by lying to me. I find it hard to be attracted to someone who disrespected my values (she knew I was not interested in being with a woman who slept around freely as she had done prior to marriage). Physically, she had gained some weight over the years, but was still attractive (still a size 6, and has gotten more toned with her recent decision to start exercising). In fact, prior to this issue coming up, I still would tell her how attracted to her I was even after 3 children. She was still smokin’ hot! The problem is that I sometimes see the dishonesty and the “skank” side of her showing through. This is not an all the time phenomenon. There are times that I see past these ugly characteristics and see someone I am attracted to. I wish I could see past the ugly stuff more and see more of the person I was attracted to. As it is now, when I'm desiring sex, most of the time I'd rather take care of it myself than sleep with her.

I am having a hard time with trusting her. She says that she has never cheated on me, but with the very long stretches between us having sex, where was she having her physical needs met? I know that I had to meet my own needs by “taking matters into my own hands”. The long history of deceit and multiple lies cast a shadow of doubt over everything she has ever told me. I'm not even sure I believe the version of her past that she is telling me now. She now says that she was forcing herself to not think about sex for fear that if we had sex, I might bring up her past and she would accidentally reveal that she had been lying to me. Along with the trust issues, I feel that she cheated me out of 18 years of happiness. It could have been 18 years of happiness with her (had she dealt with her own past and/or been honest with me) or it could have been with someone else (Yes, I know that if there had been someone else instead of my current wife, things may not have been any better; this is just speculation). She seems to justify lying to me about this as she was just presenting me the best version of herself that she could and that sleeping with random people was not who she really was.

I feel as if she has totally disrespected me by lying to me. She knew what my values were long before we were married. She lied to me about her past because she had done things that didn’t meet what my values were. She wants me to respect her while she seems to have no problem with disrespecting me or seeming to have had no respect for herself based on her past.

I know it’s stupid, but after all of the rejection, I feel as if she’s settling for me. I know she’s said the other guys meant nothing to her and that it was just meaningless sex. However, I feel less important to her than her meaningless sex because she felt that keeping her meaningless sex a secret was more important than her relationship with me. I feel as if I have been the only one truly present in our relationship because she has been off guarding her book of secrets instead of being present with me.

We’re still going to marriage counseling. I’m still trying to make things work. In the beginning I had a strong desire to hurt her (emotionally, not physically!). I was wishing that I had done something in our past that I could reveal to her that would cause her a great deal of emotional pain as she had caused for me. I had nothing. About 3 months after she told me the truth, I was going to a conference and thought about how great it would be if I could meet someone and have a one night stand to come home and rub in her face. Once I got to the conference location, I couldn’t speak to anyone and spent every evening locked alone in my hotel room knowing that I could never cheat on her.

There is a part of me that wants to just divorce her and go on with my life. But even when I think about that, I want to be able to finish paying off our house and leave her and the kids with that so that I know she and the kids will have a stable place to live. She makes about $100k/yr, so with a paid off house and no other debts, she’ll be able to live comfortably on that income. But wanting to take care of her in this way tells me that I know I’m not really ready to divorce her because I still care for her and want good things for her. But in staying with her, what do I end up with? I end up with someone that has no problems lying to me and that has sexual morals that I don’t agree with. Ultimately, I am a man of integrity and I have committed to raising a family with her and I feel that my duty as a father and commitment to family trumps my desire to divorce her.
When this first erupted, she wanted to have sex a whole lot. We had sex several days in a row and several times per day. In fact, there was one weekend where it was 10 times over 3 days. It was exhausting! However; I felt that she thought that the only problem was that we hadn’t been having sex and that now the only thing she had to do to fix things between us was to have sex more often. It seemed as if she just wanted to have sex because she felt guilty about what she had done. She wanted to have sex one time and it didn’t feel right to me, so I stopped her and said that more sex wasn’t the root of our problems. Since then, the sex has again dried up with it pretty much being 2-3 weeks between us having sex including another 6 week stretch back in November/December. I’ve tried to explain it to her, but there is a delicate balance here. I do want to have sex, but I don’t find her attractive all the time and I also am committed to being faithful to her so I can’t get sex elsewhere.

Since this erupted, she has complained that she’s unhappy because of the state that we live in. I’ve said we can move to any state she wants, but she can’t un-sleep with the people she randomly chose to sleep with. I’m open to moving, but she’s not really interested in moving anywhere now because she is happy with her present job. I just accepted a VERY well-paying job that I couldn’t get anywhere else and I am willing to give it up to move and make her happy. I don’t honestly think that moving will make either of us any happier right now.
My main problem at this time is trust, respect, and attraction for her.

I know I’ve rambled on, but any help or advice would be appreciated. Many times the advice is that if the marriage has been great, just let the new information go and enjoy your great marriage. Our marriage hasn’t been great. It’s been far from it. Much of the advice I’ve read also says to let the past be the past. I understand it, but that isn’t helpful. This isn’t jealousy. I’m actually proud that I don’t have the emotional baggage that she has from all her partners. I only had sex with one person whom I was very emotionally involved with. I don’t regret not sleeping around when I was single. I have no desire to increase the number of people I have slept with. I do not want that baggage to carry around.

I'm open for any constructive help that can be offered.
 
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#2 ·
Sorry to hear about your situation.

Like other issues, its not really the "issue" that is the problem, its the lie and dishonesty that is kept up for so long that is the real issue.

Do you think your wife "really understands" why she lied?

That may be the first step.

Good luck.
 
#3 ·
I agree that moving will not make either of you any happier.

If you are not ready to divorce her, than I think you would do well to get into individual counseling to deal with all the stuff raddling around in your head.

You said that it's not the # that she had sex with that bothers you, it's the lies. But then later you said "I’ve said we can move to any state she wants, but she can’t un-sleep with the people she randomly chose to sleep with."

Clearly the number of 6 instead of 3 is something that you cannot handle. It's not just that she lied.

I don't see your marriage improving if you are not willing to figure out how to forgive her for lying. I also don't think that there is any way that she can prove to you that she is not lying now.

From what you have said, you both would be better off divorced.
 
#5 ·
Clearly the number of 6 instead of 3 is something that you cannot handle. It's not just that she lied.

I don't see your marriage improving if you are not willing to figure out how to forgive her for lying. I also don't think that there is any way that she can prove to you that she is not lying now.

From what you have said, you both would be better off divorced.
I'm afraid I have to agree w/ Ele here. You're fretting over your wife not telling you about previous relationships, orgasms, and whatnot? Why?

She chose you, did she not? When things went cold in my relationship, sure I fvcked up by straying, but I never once obsessed over previous partners. I'm afraid you either should get over it or move on and get some therapy to address how you feel about yourself. Not trying to be harsh, but you really shouldn't be fretting over her past relationships. Just my .02 and I wish you the best. :)
 
#4 ·
Also, I doubt that sex and her lying is the only problem in your marriage. But it seems to be the only ones that you are concerned about. Perhaps this is part of the problem?
 
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#6 ·
For some reason, as I read your posting, I kept thinking of the movie East of Eden. Maybe you remind me of Adam Trask.

He's not a "bad guy." But his pride blinds him to things.

I guess if you haven't seen it, you have no idea what I'm talking about. You should watch. It's a great movie, even if none of the characters resonates with you or your wife.
 
#7 ·
Why does it matter what your wife did sexually before you two were mariied? She didn't cheat on you. You shouldn have asked about her past it's none of your business. Most people do lie about how many sexual partners they have been with. Men add partners and women subtract partners. I think you are just resentful because she won't have sex with you and that's not a good reason to break up your family.
 
#35 ·
I understand that many people lie (as she did to me). However, I disagree with you and feel that it is my business. I feel that honesty should be the foundation of any relationship. I was and still have been completely honest about who I was and who I am.

I feel that her sexual past is a moral characteristic that I should be able to judge just as any other characteristic. If you don't find redheads attractive, you can exclude them from your selections. If you don't like tall women, you can exclude them from your picks. If you don't like xyz characteristic, you exclude them from your dating pool. I do not find a woman who has no problem with casual sex encounters attractive. When I was single and in the barracks, I was 19-20 years old, incredibly horny. There were plenty of women who made themselves available to me, but I did not find that characteristic attractive so I denied their offers of a casual encounter. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with casual encounters, I just don't find it an attractive feature in a woman. No offense intended for redheads (whom I do find attractive) or tall women.
 
#9 ·
This is going to be hard decision making and you need to think through all angles. On the one hand I would be furious with this lie that went on for years and years. Would I divorce over it....maybe, guess I would have to be there and feel it to know if that was the right thing. Fact is she lied, about something she knew was important to you, that is a marriage by deception on my book.


So suppose you divorce...you have to be around what 40 now. Any woman you will meet now will like have far greater than 4 sexual partners and a huge past. Point is if this is still going to be a Hangup for you you're going to struggle with dating post divorce. Things wont be all green grass on that side of the field i can assure you

Have you communicated with her that you have had thoughts of leaving? Has that come out in the counseling? If not you need to be clear and see where she is at.

What stuck out in your very long post is that now...after all these years she tells the truth...doubt this was weighing on her or it would have come up sooner. Sounds like maybe she is done with you and knew this would be something she could bring up to get you to leave. People do this sometimes to force the other person to pull the plug on a relationship because they can't do it.

Do you want this marriage to be saved.... Does she?

Ps don't cheat. That will just make you feel miserable about yourself and invalidate anything you are feeling about this situation because then it will become all about the cheating YOU did.
 
#37 ·
I did think about the fact that maybe she thought it would be a trigger for me to leave. However she's the one that finally spoke up to get us to counseling and she's putting more effort into the counseling exercises than me. She seems to want it to work more than me on most days. I guess I'm less motivated because in the end I'm still going to be with someone who gave me 19 years of mediocre marriage (despite her saying that she wants to make our marriage fantastic from this point forward).

I'm not going to cheat. I don't want that emotional baggage to carry around.
 
#11 ·
I can understand why you would be so upset. Lying is unacceptable. For someone to lie to their partner makes me wonder if there's something fundamentally wrong with their moral compass. Does it not work? Are they broken in some way? How are they capable of it?

When DH and I got together, we had a brief discussion at some point about previous partners. It never even occurred to either of us to be deceitful over it, HOWEVER, neither of us placed any great importance on the subject.

You made it a big deal, even a deal breaker. If it were me, I would've told the truth and if you didn't like it, screw you, I never doubted I had other options if a relationship didn't work out. I don't get the feeling your wife has much self-respect.

The thing is, you didn't pick someone like me, you picked someone like her. Someone with very little courage to be herself or self-respect. You can claim you didn't know stuff, but I firmly believe that we know a lot more instinctively than we could even comprehend. For some reason, you still wanted her despite that, now you need to learn to live with that choice.
 
#12 ·
You can claim you didn't know stuff, but I firmly believe that we know a lot more instinctively than we could even comprehend. For some reason, you still wanted her despite that, now you need to learn to live with that choice.
So, it's his fault she lied, just suck it up. Is that basically what you are saying? Or, he should have just 'known' she was lying, and since he should have 'known' she was lying, this is still his fault?
 
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#15 ·
You're not being truthful about her number of sexual partners bothering you/not bothering you. What Elegirl bolded in her first response proves that.

Personally, I think you have every right to be hurt over the lying. But, you clearly have resentment over more than that by the way you describe IN DETAIL her sexual experiences. Why in the world did you even WANT that much information? So you can keep playing it over and over in your head, resenting her more and more each time? (I'm also shocked she even provided you with so much detail).
 
#17 ·
But, you clearly have resentment over more than that by the way you describe IN DETAIL her sexual experiences. Why in the world did you even WANT that much information? So you can keep playing it over and over in your head, resenting her more and more each time? (I'm also shocked she even provided you with so much detail).
Perhaps he has a value system around sex which makes a person's history important to him. So he had "the talk" with her before marriage to suss out her values and her view of sexuality. He believed she held a compatible set of values to his.

When he later found out she had lied to him about who she was, it destroyed his view of her. Previously she had been his loving loyal trustworthy honest wife. Now she is a liar who intentionally deceived him the entire length of their marriage. If she wasn't who she said she was, who is she? If she would lie to him about such an important topic, what else has she lied to him about.

None of this may have anything to do with her number or which acts she did.

Once trust is broken, just as with an infidelity, the betrayed needs to feel the full truth has been revealed. In part this is to establish a belief that the liar is now being fully honest. Because if they are not being fully honest there can be no security. He needs to hear her telling truth even if it is painful for both of them.

Additionally, she was not who she represented herself as, so now he needs to understand who she really is. The only way to do that is for her to provide truthful corrections to past lies.
 
#16 · (Edited)
H&A, welcome aboard. Your post was too long for me to digest it all in one go. There are couple of key points in it which make your situation unusual. 1) You were a virgin when you met your wife. 2) She had very limited experience with PIV before you (according to her initial disclosures).

The first point does make you pretty unusual here. I was also a virgin when I met my wife. She admitted to 3 long term boyfriends she had sex with before me. We met in college. Married 30+ years now. In recent years a lot more came to light about her past. I've been through a lot of the same thought processes you are describing in your posts.

The general comments from others is going to be that this is all your problem, you never should have asked, she had the right to keep the info from you (aka lie to you) about her history, her history has no bearing on her relationship with you, just get over it, etc. But none of those comments are from your perspective as a virgin when you met her.

Is there a reason you were a virgin when you met her? Was it intentional from a religious or moral standpoint?
 
#19 ·
OP have you discussed these things with your wife:

  • She seems like a sexual person (based on her ability and desire to have sex without emotional attachment) so how is she getting her needs met now ?

  • Why did she lie about the number of partners ?

  • More importantly, why did she come clean now ?

  • Ask her, does she really want to stay in this marriage or is she looking for a way out.
 
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#44 ·
I don't know how she is getting her needs met now. It's been pretty cold between us. She does not masturbate. The entire time we've been together it's been long stretches of no sex. She says she just does not think about sex.

She says she lied so that she could present the very best version of herself.

She says that she came clean because she felt like I could handle the truth. She also said that the burden of deceit was really starting to bother her.

She says that she really wants to stay in the marriage.
 
#21 ·
What could she do to improve your marriage? Probably get her butt in gear sexually and learn how to reassure you over her lies and show concern and remorse for causing the pain.

Is she willing to work on her part of this damaged marriage? If not, you have your answers.

It takes two. Make sure you're doing your part as well. Moving isn't the answer and if she is unwilling to dig deep and improve, you two probably don't have a shot.
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#23 ·
After the church wedding, things started to slow down in the bedroom. We were still having sex, but not as often. I was attributing much of that to us both being in college (Thank You GI Bill) and working at the time. There was part of me that still questioned her past due to her answer changing from 3 partners to 2 partners. I would sometimes ask about her past, but she was consistent in her answers.
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One evening after having sex, my wife decided to tell me that she had lied to me and that she had slept with four other partners before me.
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She lied about having orgasms with others after telling me that I was the only one that had given her an orgasm.
Look at the good side of this, which is that she decided to tell you the truth. This shows some growth and some feeling of guilt on her part for not telling you sooner.

I want you to really think about this next question: Why is it important to you that she had an orgasm with someone else?


Any time that I mentioned that we were not having very much sex, she always came up with an excuse for not having sex.
There are lots of reasons why she might not want sex, but whatever she said to you was not really it. Either she is low drive or she has some toxic shame around sex. Her history as you describe it could be explained by either one of those. In a way she is being quite consistent.


Over time, the frequency of sex continued to decrease between us. ... Eventually the rejection started taking its toll and I stopped pursuing her as much.
Yup, a common story. I suggest you read "No More Mr. Nice Guy" by Dr. Robert Glover. He discusses some reasons for this.

It sounds like you have a Pursuer-Distancer relationship with her. You want a closer and more physical relationship, while she wants a distant platonic relationship. You are uncomfortable with the status quo, so you chase her. She dislikes the closeness and so she flees from you.

If this is correct, she is actually quite comfortable with the low sex relationship. So while you are acutely unhappy, she is not, and she may not understand or believe you are legitimately distressed.

Her response was that after being together for so long I couldn't still find her attractive. This was based on an episode of "Cheaters" that we saw one afternoon that showed a guy who was cheating on his wife because he was just tired of her.
That is pure baloney! All the way around. On her part to use the show as a reason, and on the show for portraying the cheater's faulty reasoning.

After the first 2 kids were born, she attributed the lack of sex to me prying into her past. She said that she thought I was not over her past and that it was the root of our problems. To the contrary, I was fine with her past.
How often did you question her about her past? What kinds of questions did you ask?

I had tried having her fantasize about the other 2 people she had slept with to get her stimulated and to get her interested in sex with ME again. It didn’t work.
Dude, really? Ouch.

Fast forward through several years of the same cycle of little to no sex.
Your dynamics in the relationship never changed, so of course the sex never changed.

So now here we are today. We have gone through almost a year of marriage counseling and things between us are still hit or miss .... She has starting trying to let me know that she wants to make this work between us.
So far so good. But I think you both need some IC.

I’m not upset by the number of her partners. I am completely disgusted by her dishonesty.
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I feel that I had accepted her for who she was a long time ago, but now I am being forced to accept a person who is much worse than the person that I accepted so many years ago.
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I no longer feel attracted to her. It’s not just a physical thing. I am finding it hard to be attracted to someone who gives herself up so easily to so many people in such a short time. She basically had 4 one night stands within a 6 month period. There was actually going to be a 5th person (not anyone she was emotionally attached to), but her roommate walked in on her while he was fingering her.
The first part is belied by the second and third parts. You are fully entitled to have whatever value judgement you want about a person's behavior. If you in fact find her # to be acceptable, why do you then have such negative judgements of her previous sexual activity?

I am also finding it hard to be attracted to someone who lied to me for so long. I am finding it hard to be attracted to someone who disrespected me by lying to me. I find it hard to be attracted to someone who disrespected my values (she knew I was not interested in being with a woman who slept around freely as she had done prior to marriage).
Totally justified on your part.


The problem is that I sometimes see the dishonesty and the “skank” side of her showing through. This is not an all the time phenomenon. There are times that I see past these ugly characteristics and see someone I am attracted to.
Again there is the judgement of her history when you use the word "skank". I do wonder if it is the events which are bothering you or if it is something slightly different. I wonder if you are attaching your anger and hurt from her dishonesty to her sexual activity. Are you subconsciously moving your anger from her dishonesty (and all that it implies about her level of respect for you) onto her sexual activities. Or are you hurt by her lack of sex with you and thus are angry about her being sexual with others?


I am having a hard time with trusting her. She says that she has never cheated on me, but with the very long stretches between us having sex, where was she having her physical needs met?
Given your descriptions, she does not sound high drive. I could believe she has little interest in sex and thus there is no reason to believe she's being skanking around behind your back. Nevertheless, I understand how the destruction of trust makes you question everything. But I think you are over reacting on this one.


The long history of deceit and multiple lies cast a shadow of doubt over everything she has ever told me. I'm not even sure I believe the version of her past that she is telling me now.
Sure, and she may not be telling you the entire truth yet. How important is it that you know the full truth, vs knowing she is today trustworthy? Do you really need to know if there were other men or other acts? Or do you need to get back that feeling of security in your relationship? Either or both are ok, but your next step depends on you knowing which it is.


She now says that she was forcing herself to not think about sex for fear that if we had sex, I might bring up her past and she would accidentally reveal that she had been lying to me.
Possibly true if you were interrogating her about her past every time you got naked with her! She would develop a negative association with sex. However, your words indicate she still doesn't understand the gravity of intentionally deceiving you about something important. Her statement should end with "but now I know how wrong it was to keep it from you".
 
#47 ·
Look at the good side of this, which is that she decided to tell you the truth. This shows some growth and some feeling of guilt on her part for not telling you sooner.

I want you to really think about this next question: Why is it important to you that she had an orgasm with someone else?




There are lots of reasons why she might not want sex, but whatever she said to you was not really it. Either she is low drive or she has some toxic shame around sex. Her history as you describe it could be explained by either one of those. In a way she is being quite consistent.




Yup, a common story. I suggest you read "No More Mr. Nice Guy" by Dr. Robert Glover. He discusses some reasons for this.

It sounds like you have a Pursuer-Distancer relationship with her. You want a closer and more physical relationship, while she wants a distant platonic relationship. You are uncomfortable with the status quo, so you chase her. She dislikes the closeness and so she flees from you.

If this is correct, she is actually quite comfortable with the low sex relationship. So while you are acutely unhappy, she is not, and she may not understand or believe you are legitimately distressed.



That is pure baloney! All the way around. On her part to use the show as a reason, and on the show for portraying the cheater's faulty reasoning.



How often did you question her about her past? What kinds of questions did you ask?



Dude, really? Ouch.



Your dynamics in the relationship never changed, so of course the sex never changed.



So far so good. But I think you both need some IC.



The first part is belied by the second and third parts. You are fully entitled to have whatever value judgement you want about a person's behavior. If you in fact find her # to be acceptable, why do you then have such negative judgements of her previous sexual activity?



Totally justified on your part.




Again there is the judgement of her history when you use the word "skank". I do wonder if it is the events which are bothering you or if it is something slightly different. I wonder if you are attaching your anger and hurt from her dishonesty to her sexual activity. Are you subconsciously moving your anger from her dishonesty (and all that it implies about her level of respect for you) onto her sexual activities. Or are you hurt by her lack of sex with you and thus are angry about her being sexual with others?




Given your descriptions, she does not sound high drive. I could believe she has little interest in sex and thus there is no reason to believe she's being skanking around behind your back. Nevertheless, I understand how the destruction of trust makes you question everything. But I think you are over reacting on this one.




Sure, and she may not be telling you the entire truth yet. How important is it that you know the full truth, vs knowing she is today trustworthy? Do you really need to know if there were other men or other acts? Or do you need to get back that feeling of security in your relationship? Either or both are ok, but your next step depends on you knowing which it is.




Possibly true if you were interrogating her about her past every time you got naked with her! She would develop a negative association with sex. However, your words indicate she still doesn't understand the gravity of intentionally deceiving you about something important. Her statement should end with "but now I know how wrong it was to keep it from you".
Thank you for your thoughts. I wasn't interrogating every time, but I did occasionally question her. Before I knew the truth, there was a significant amount of feelings of rejection whenever she would just roll over and go to sleep and show no interest in sex. I would frequently think "Wow, you can sleep with someone you have no interest in having a relationship with, but you can't show interest in sleeping with your husband!" Now that I know the truth, it had made those feelings of rejection amplified.

More than anything, I need to know that she is trustworthy today.
 
#25 ·
Self-fulfilling prophecy.

Anyway, I agree with Thor on many points, the main one being, I also think she is LD. Where is she having her sexual needs met? Answer: what needs. As with any LD person, no doubt she could go months/years without feeling that no sex was a problem for her. For LD people, sex is a choice, not a requirement.
 
#28 ·
Principles for re-establishing respect: Once a couple has fallen into a pattern of treating each other disrespectfully it is often difficult to change. If both spouses or partners are angry and hostile towards each other a standoff may ensue, with neither partner willing to change his/her behavior until the other changes. Similarly, if one person makes a good faith effort to change things, this effort may go unnoticed or may even be rebuffed. To help couples re-establish respect we draw on two basic principles: (1) only work on changing your own behavior; and (2) do not police your partner’s behavior. Specifically, we work with you to recognize that given the level of tension in your relationship it is unlikely that either you or your partner can effectively influence each other. Instead, we encourage both of you to focus on your own behavior: follow the golden rule, and treat your partner as you would like to be treated. In addition, we focus with you on working to only police your own behavior. The temptation to correct your partner's behavior may be great, but it is unlikely to work, at this stage. Once a greater level of respect has been established couples can then begin to work on how they can communicate more effectively, make requests, solve problems, and accept differences.
Re-establishing Respect: The Key to Successful Relationship Repair
 
#36 ·
I bet you would find many many women would do the same. If they think you are going to get angry or lose respect for them, they will lie.

One thing is for certain. She will and has lied about anything that might upset you or make you uncomfortable around her. Bet on it. So, you no longer have to trust her. Check anything important for yourself. Find the answers on your own, then ask her. You can learn who she really is that way and figure out what you can live with. In the mean time, spice up the bedroom and take advantage of her experiences. She's probably more open than you thought. What do you have to lose, the respect of a woman who doesn't respect you enough to tell the truth? pfft...Just don't abuse her in doing so.
 
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#54 ·
"I love you, or will love you, except if you tell me you're what I consider to be a dirty skank, then I won't."
~except if you want children
~except if you have been in prison
~except if you are poor
~except if you don't brush your teeth

Or any other reason that can be thought of in a minute or less.


Is this really love? Is this admirable?
Love is doing nice things for someone you care about. An easy way to understand is to look up the word, "charity", in the dictionary. That is what love looks like to the person we are in love with. Of course, with variations depending on the individual.

It is admirable to know your own boundaries and make them known to the person you intend to create a life-long bond with and have children who will need to be taught and trained. It is easier to attempt this with someone who is compatible and complementary(that doesn't mean someone who tells you nice things. It means,
...combining in such a way as to enhance or emphasize the qualities of each other or another.

https://www.google.com/search?q=com...57.2942j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8
Doesn't seem like they are complementary when they have to lie to each other because they don't accept each other's lives. I think it's a worse offense to tell that lie when it is going to affect another's extremely important decisions about life and how they choose to live it.

No one should have to tell every little thing, but just in general be truthful enough to allow the other person to make an honest decision. Seems like his wife has been living a lie. It's a fairy tale life for her as long as the clock doesn't strike twelve. I guess it has now and the ball is over. Her prince will have to find her again. He did once and could have been given the opportunity to show what kind of man he is....how mature.

So now, she only has herself to blame. She could have found someone who was just fine with her past. The whole thing is really sad and extremely needless. I actually am on both their sides. They both got screwed.
 
#64 ·
~except if you want children
~except if you have been in prison
~except if you are poor
~except if you don't brush your teeth

Or any other reason that can be thought of in a minute or less.




Love is doing nice things for someone you care about. An easy way to understand is to look up the word, "charity", in the dictionary. That is what love looks like to the person we are in love with. Of course, with variations depending on the individual.

It is admirable to know your own boundaries and make them known to the person you intend to create a life-long bond with and have children who will need to be taught and trained. It is easier to attempt this with someone who is compatible and complementary(that doesn't mean someone who tells you nice things. It means,

Doesn't seem like they are complementary when they have to lie to each other because they don't accept each other's lives. I think it's a worse offense to tell that lie when it is going to affect another's extremely important decisions about life and how they choose to live it.

No one should have to tell every little thing, but just in general be truthful enough to allow the other person to make an honest decision. Seems like his wife has been living a lie. It's a fairy tale life for her as long as the clock doesn't strike twelve. I guess it has now and the ball is over. Her prince will have to find her again. He did once and could have been given the opportunity to show what kind of man he is....how mature.

So now, she only has herself to blame. She could have found someone who was just fine with her past. The whole thing is really sad and extremely needless. I actually am on both their sides. They both got screwed.
Thank you for your thoughts. I'm actually hoping she can find the prince again. I am trying to forgive. I am trying to put effort into "us". But I am hurt and am truly disgusted by her choice to lie to me about this.
 
#56 ·
That's not all love is to me, but this will be different for everyone. It's good to be upfront with someone about what you can and cannot live with. DH asked me if I wanted kids and how many on our first date. There's a whole big list of deal breakers for most people, usually dealt with before you even get to dating, or in the very early stages.

I just can't help but see this as a self-fulfilling prophecy though. This issue keeps coming up. Why are the ones that have such a huge problem with a person's sexual past the ones that end up with people who hide their sexual pasts? I can see where his choices led him. Doesn't excuse her lying of course, but that doesn't mean he didn't make those choices. One: He could've chosen to dump her based on what she told him. Clearly what she initially revealed didn't meet his 'standards'. I don't think he's being truthful with himself, and even to this day; if he'd felt they were reasonable, I think he would have had more courage of his convictions. Two: He could've asked about these things much earlier. Might've scared her off, but if it did, so be it.
 
#58 ·
I would sometimes ask about her past, but she was consistent in her answers. She had slept with 2 other men, she used condoms every time, she never had an orgasm with the others, she had never given or received oral sex. She reassured me that I was the only one who had given her an orgasm, that I was the only one she had performed oral sex on, that I was the only one she had ever had unprotected sex with. I came to believe that she was telling me the truth and never really put much thought into the matter.
He did ask her....on top of asking her at the counselors and prior to their marriage. She consistently lied. You just can't get over blaming him for her lying.
 
#57 ·
This is where men just don't get it. Here is an obviously LD woman. She didn't 'give it up' because she was being herself with them and a lie with him. It's the other way around. She *doesn't* see sex as something wonderful. She met a guy who didn't want her to want sex. Fan bloody tastic.
 
#59 ·
OP

I support the idea that a persons sexual past IS their future spouse' business. the magnitude of her lie does not seem to equal that of your resentment. she told you she had casual sex with 2 guys in 6 months and that bothered you, but you wanted to marry her anyway. 19 years later she admits it was 4 men. but how significant is that? she laid the main theme on you from the very beginning -- that she has a limited and strangely casual sexual history prior to you.

seems like you're misdirecting here. her lies aren't the issue its the sexual rejection during your marriage plus some other things I sense you haven't chosen to mention......

besides sex are there other problems? suspicion of affairs. close male friends, emotional abuse....what?
 
#61 ·
  • In light of what you have said I now think that the real issue is why she is not interested in having sex with you.

  • OK so it seems pretty clear as to why she lied to you. She came across as this strong attractive woman who doesn't have sex on the first few dates. If she then told you the truth about her (in my opinion, pretty tame but not in keeping with the image) past, it would shoot down this image. So she went into damage limitation - not honest but understandable at least.

  • She must have been in love with you to marry you, right? Or could it be that she was just looking for a husband? Could it be that you were stable and she settled for you? Sorry to be harsh, but you were there, so only you know.

  • And then when she did have sex with you, was it wild and passionate or soft and tender, or was it cold and let's get it over with? In short, was she always cold towards sex? Was she putting on an act to snare you? Or did she truly enjoy sex with you, genuinely had an orgasm etc and then mysteriously changed after marriage?

  • And now, when she does have sex with you, does she enjoy it? Have orgasms? Or cold fish?

  • You really need to get down to the bottom of this - why she doesn't want to have sex with you. It could be a matter of trust - she gets it elsewhere and/or is simply not attracted to you. Or she has other issues which need professional help.

  • Perhaps bringing up this (and only this) issue with counsellors will help. Forget about her past and lying for now - focus on this and I believe you will find it most productive and helpful.
 
#68 · (Edited)
hurt,

Does it feel like you aren't sure now how many lies she's told over the years? Do you spend time thinking about the things you've done with her and how many of those things were her idea and you were tricked into believing they were what you wanted?

Edit: Do you wonder if you ever got anything you wanted or if you were manipulated into acceptance? Do you wonder if you even know who you are any more? Do you sometimes consider that you've lost yourself and are just an agreeable puppet controlled by your wife?
 
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