# is it even possible to come back from this?



## smorgasbord (May 28, 2013)

hi, i'm new. yeah, i signed up just to get some feedback on this because i'm driving myself nuts and i figure even if i don't get any feedback, writing everything out might help.

my husband is 24 and i am 21. we have been together almost 2 years, married for almost a year, and we have a 4 1/2 month old daughter. we definitely didn't do things the "right" or conventional way. we got married when i was 4 months pregnant. at the time i believed it was an inevitable event that had just been sped up due to my pregnancy and i know that i personally wanted to marry him, but he has recently let me know that he only married me because he felt it was the right thing to do.

2 weeks before we got married, i found out he had signed up for several dating websites and was messaging and texting (also sexting) other girls. i was never the type to snoop and i completely and totally trusted him, so my finding out was a total accident and if it hadn't happened i'm not sure when i would have found out. he is the type to lie and deny until confronted with physical proof and even then he will try to spin it to his advantage.

i confronted him about it, he got very angry that i was snooping on him but expressed remorse and deleted his email. i was dumb and emotional and believed him. then in march of this year i had an uneasy feeling and i found his new email and got into it (he is not very creative with his passwords), and lo and behold he had been doing the same thing all over again, with evidence here and there that he only stopped for maybe a month before starting up again.

again i was stupid and confronted him about everything, giving him a chance to delete it before i could gather a decent amount of proof. this time he expressed very little remorse and it was extremely difficult to even talk to him. i cried and came off as weak and allowed him to walk all over me. he again deleted his email but also deleted all the accounts on the different dating sites/apps he was using in front of me. he agreed to let me monitor his phone (he doesn't have a laptop so he does everything on his phone) when this all happened, but a week later i was feeling insecure and asked to see it and he snapped at me and said absolutely not.

i took this to mean nothing had changed so i packed a suitcase for me and my daughter that night and i left to stay at my parents' house. i am extremely fortunate in that i can literally walk to my parents' house, they are that close, and will always support me no matter what. i didn't want to separate or divorce but i had told him that i would if it came to that, if he didn't put an end to everything and then agree to go to counseling with me. i really only left because i was hoping that would shock him into an epiphany of some kind. the next day we had a huge argument over texts, because i had been talking to his dad to try and gain some insight on this whole thing which he perceived as tattling and he BLEW up at me.

that night he asked me to come over to talk and he apologized for everything and said he didn't want me to leave and seemed very heartfelt and remorseful and he agreed to counseling. he is a former marine and he also had a very difficult childhood and was in and out of foster care a few times, and he has been showing signs of depression for a while now. i don't know if he has been able to admit to himself that he may be dealing with mental issues but he hasn't admitted it to me. all of this plus the state of our marriage is why i mandated counseling as a condition to continue things.

to make matters worse, he frequently travels for business and although i do not believe he has ever physically cheated on me (he is not in shape anymore and has self-esteem issues from that which is why he uses old, athletic pictures of him when he talks to girls online, another thing making him depressed), it just doesn't help things and i think he's honestly to the point now where if he could physically cheat on me and get away with it, he might.

last week i caught him making new profiles on more dating apps and messaging other girls just constantly. i still have not straight out said to him that i know, but i think he knows i know. i have turned into the biggest snoop and privacy violator because of all this and i hate that. i hate the person i've become. and it just drives him to dislike me further because he knows i check phone records and anything i can get my hands on and he feels like i'm controlling him. this prompted the discussion that brought us to where we are now: he told me he is unhappy, has been for a while, and the classic "i love you but i'm not in love with you anymore." 

i asked why he didn't tell me any of this and why he let it get to this point, and he said he had been trying to be happy but it wasn't working. i'm not sure what he meant by trying other than hoping his feelings would magically change, which obviously doesn't and didn't work. yet after this confession, he said he didn't necessarily want a divorce. i have no idea why because i asked him if he cared that it hurt me every time he went behind my back to talk to other women and he said "not anymore, really."

we both agreed that we should give it one last shot and go to counseling before we do anything drastic, but he said he cannot envision a future with me anymore so i feel like we're going to counseling to achieve 2 different goals and he's not as invested in actually making this work as i am. he SAYS he will try and he'll do what the counselor says and take things seriously, but i don't know. it doesn't help that he keeps giving me mixed signals, either. one minute he refuses all affection and the next he is pulling me over to cuddle with him in bed. he has said that if i showed a little more interest in his hobbies (especially cars) that this could work, then later i am being annoying and we're probably getting divorced. he is teaching me to drive stick and he's been talking about getting me a new car and various FUTURE things, so i'm just confused as hell.

am i a naive idiot? we do have an appointment with a counselor at 4 pm today and i am genuinely terrified because i have no idea what it's going to bring about. he's been really nice and acting like he wants to be together the past couple days, but he has been so all over the place lately that i just don't know. it doesn't help that he is the type of person who, when he experiences negative emotions, is totally overwhelmed by them. with him, when things are great, they're great. but when they're bad, they've always been bad and they're never getting better. that's how he sees things.

this was a giant post and i apologize for the word vomit. i'm just scared senseless of the future right now.


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## KimatraAKM (May 1, 2013)

Sorry for your pain.. Sucks to have to post..

I'd say it's time for tough love. Why do you have to leave? Kick him out! You're the one with the baby!! Uprooting his baby is unforgivable.

I'd 180 his butt and If he doesn't play along kick him out all the way... Divorce. See a lawyer. You deserve better than all this. Your sound like an amazing person... No one deserves to be Hirt like this. 

Get some IC to help you through this. Glad to hear you have support from your family. Try an stay open and honest with the hubby so you stay in control.

Good luck


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## smorgasbord (May 28, 2013)

he's a stubborn ass and he's very comfy here. i asked him about living arrangements if we were to do a trial separation and he said he would simply sleep in a different room but we would still live together and that i didn't have to uproot everything and go to my parents'. more confusing ****.


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## jorgegene (May 26, 2012)

Dear smorgasbord;

very sorry to hear your problems, but your husband has very serious addiction which probably derives from some other deep seated issues such as you alluded to in your original post.

IMHO your husband needs intensive individual therapy or it's not going away. He has been doing this his whole adult life and its not going to change. 

He has to realize for sure he's going to blow it and lose the best thing in his life.


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## tulsy (Nov 30, 2012)

I don't understand the point in you guys staying together. He is a liar and a cheater, and the cycle will continue over and over. He doesn't love you, he just keeps you hanging on. 

I think you should try for an amicable split, and just hope he is decent enough to stay in his daughters life. Do you want her to grow up seeing you guys constantly fighting? Seeing you always upset and unfulfilled? Is that what you want your child to think a normal relationship looks like?

Forget MC, get some IC and move on with your life. He's not worth it.


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## Eli-Zor (Nov 14, 2010)

You've given him way to many chances , how about you do what is right for yourself and your child .

Stop talking to your husband and get out of this marriage pronto, this man is not husband material, never was and you have no future with him.

Your young enough to move on with life and to meet someone who knows what the words love, trust and respect means.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## ExisaWAW (Mar 5, 2013)

So sorry about your sitch. Know this. HE must fix this if you stay together. HIS behavior is unexcusable. 

I would definitely separate. Do the 180, show him what life will be without you. Keep the pressure on him to change, go through counseling, etc.

If at any point he gets lazy & tries to talk you out of any of your demands, divorce him.

If he really does EVERYTHING he needs to in order to show you by ACTIONS (not words), then there's a small chance you might make it through this.

Remember to pray.

Best of luck.


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## smorgasbord (May 28, 2013)

if we split he will for sure be in our daughter's life. he's a crap husband but a great dad and i'm not the type of person to use my child as leverage.

i feel like an idiot for sticking around and letting it get to this point, but i would also feel like an idiot if him getting help for his PTSD/depression issues would help fix things and i left before we had a chance to do that.

that's why i'm trying everything possible before i leave, because if i do what i did last time and make a rash decision and leave for a day and come back, it's just going to prove to him that he can walk all over me. if i leave, it will be final and i won't be coming back. but i'm not in a position right now where i can do that and trust myself not to come back.


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## ExisaWAW (Mar 5, 2013)

btw, before people jump in & tell you that you got married too young, etc. Let me give you some perspective.

I waited until I was 34 to get married. I did this consciously because I came from a divorced family & I did NOT want that for me or my kids. So I took my time and kissed a lot of frogs before i found my princess.

After 13 years of what I thought was mostly a wonderful marriage & two beautiful girls (7 & 11 at the time of the D), my wife still cheated on me & we ended up getting a D.

So, as Forrest Gump said, Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."

Life is too short to be with someone who would cheat on you. Someone who obviously by his ACTIONS didn't respect you or your little girl.

And, I'm sorry to say this, but I don't believe he is a good father. If he was, he wouldn't be doing what he is doing. He is putting her life and well being at great risk by possibly having her grow up from a broken home. Infidelity makes me furious!


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## smorgasbord (May 28, 2013)

the constant mixed messages are driving me nuts. he still mentions divorce here and there and throws out little messages about how counseling might not work, but he keeps sending me links to cars he wants to get for me and wants to teach me to drive stick.

i don't get it.


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## ExisaWAW (Mar 5, 2013)

That's normal. It's called the fog. He's in it & so are you. I will say this again. If he backs away from wanting to go through counseling or anything else that YOU need to get over his betrayal, you really need to say goodbye to him.

That's the way you can tell if he's truly remorseful.

Buying you a car or otherwise being nice to you is a way for him to "rug sweep" by avoiding the necessary stuff he needs to DO to allow you to emotionally heal & recover.

If he's mentioning divorce at all & he's being inconsistent with wanting to reconcile and not demonstrating by his ACTIONS that he is remorseful, that's a bad sign. Sorry.


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## smorgasbord (May 28, 2013)

oh he's made it clear that he doesn't feel remorse as of right now. and that may just be because he's a scumbag, but he has also been exhibiting several signs of depression, PTSD, and on occasion bipolar disorder. bipolar disorder and depression run in his family, all 3 of his siblings and his father have depression, both of his brothers are bipolar in addition to that, and his mother is bipolar to the point of occasional psychosis.

i don't want to blame any of his behavior on that before he's diagnosed with anything, but i also wouldn't be surprised if he had one or more of those because he's at such a high risk having it run in the family like that. at this moment i am not even concerned with him expressing remorse like a normal human being because he may not even be capable of feeling that way if he is in a manic or depressed episode.

i guess i am just concerned with his motives.... he is apparently unhappy and miserable staying with me but he wants to stay with me but he wants a divorce but he doesn't want a divorce so he'll go to counseling but counseling probably won't work so we'll get divorced but we should give it a shot anyway but he can't see a future with me but we should get me a new car right now.

that is the ridiculousness i am dealing with. OBVIOUSLY if this is going to work at all he has to cut it out with the talking to other women, but seeing as he has no motivation whatsoever to do that because he claims it is the only thing making him happy, i am more concerned with getting to the bottom of all his mental issues and his mood swings first because that is at the heart of everything and if he isn't in a state where he's capable of feeling remorse then he has no motivation to want to cut out the online crap.


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## Overthemoon88 (Jan 10, 2013)

Smorgs ... You are hurt, you are terrified of your future. Tis not an easy road to travel.

My STBX had / has a LTA. I wanted so much to give us another chance. He appeared very blase when I suggested MC (red flag, red flag!!). At the same time, he wanted to whisk me off to Paris for a holiday. See the pattern .....

Sad to say, our R did not have the fairytale ending I had hoped for. 

Unless your partner gives you absolutely NO reason to doubt his remorse, NEVER let your guard down and prepare yourself for an eventual future without him.


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## Overthemoon88 (Jan 10, 2013)

Just read your latest post before mine ... I had a bad case of panic attack a year or so before DD. My mum was diagnosed with chronic depression. Neither one of us dreamt of being unfaithful to our spouse, least of all, act on it !!!!!!!


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