# Need responses, broken normal meter



## tirionontuna (Mar 4, 2016)

Background: DH and I are married over 15 years. We have 3 kids. Oldest DD14 is moderately developmentally disabled. Middle DD had some issues due to our rocky marriage of late; therapy has helped her immensely. Youngest (3) has CHD. I'm in therapy to work out issues stemming from our marriage. DH is highly educated, terminal degree, and flushed his career over a 5 year span (publish/perish). I've been a SAHM since oldest was born. Our youngest was the result of me hysterical bonding to DH after finding out he had started an EA (left himself logged in on my computer, their chats came up as they were talking when I tried to log onto my email.) DH pressured me extensively to abort, even after chromo testing that DS was healthy. Due to a blood disorder, this would be surgical option only, the girls were brought about by infertility treatments in the thousands, I couldn't do it. DH started his military career in the middle of this cluster. There was one isolated incident of DV that I rugswept, right before he shipped to basic. This all was a few years ago.

Fast forward, Dh was home for the holiday from a deployment over the holidays. He logged into his email on one of our devices and didn't log out. A few days after he left I was typing a search and a suggestion came up that was from his search history. It was an erotica site. The title was suggestive of material not ok with me. I clicked on it and read it. It is a story of incest, underage/underage (12-15) and adult/underage (12-15). To my knowledge, this is fiction stories, not exploitative material. DH is reading stories with the same themes about twice a month. Some stories are of watching while someone else has sex with wife. Some stories are of rape (not underage). Most are the incest scenarios above. He says that he is curious how it feels for a girl. I'm okay with most erotica or porn, but this stuff is too much for me, because...

When i was pregnant with middleDD, DH informed me he wasn't putting out research to support his career; he was still in school and I was 7mo along. He was impersonating me in certain ways as a person online, who is a writer in a role-playing game. So, his "out of character", or what was supposed to be real self, was a woman, and he was interacting with others online as if he were pregnant, with specific details he obtained from my personal journal. I found out all this from a package we received after having middleDD, addressed to a miscarried child's name, and they wrote of details only I had known. He said he was curious about how being pregnant felt. So, the "how she feels" "her POV" thing is a trigger for me. 

I've discussed the details of this with my therapist who basically says you need to choose to leave, or stay to protect the children (nothing has actually happened afaik, so no legal leg to stand on.) 

There's been a ton of crap in our marriage. It has been bad, to worse, from 2008 to 2015. I was planning to go back to school (long time sham due to oldest behavior/medical needs) with a liberal coparenting schedule as most of my classes are night (masters accommodating working schedules.) and he is willing to help me get on my feet. He's been making the remorseful words over the last few months, after things escalated over a job in another state. He says he understands if I want to leave, and is still willing to help me back on my feet, since I supported him through grad school. In 2012 he 'stepped out' of the marriage for awhile, not physically but emotionally and I had no clue until he was 'back in'. He said he never told me, he just stopped being in love with me, but wouldn't tell me. I found out he was pursuing a HS love interest (ignored him) and then a former student (left his gmail chat up so I found out this way). I had no idea that "not being in love" was code for "I want to be with someone else". Instead, I spent 6 months with him mocking me reading to the kids, treating me crappy, etc and not figuring it out because we were fighting about his career going south and I figured that was the reason for all the nastiness.

Recently, our oldestDD has started to develop. She, due to behavioral issues, has less modesty than she should have. DH has gotten upset at her for this, and it kinda skeeved me out at the time, but she *was* acting out inappropriately so I chalked it up to that, and talked to him about not body-shaming her, nor getting angry as it just fuels her oppositional behavior. Now I worry it was more than that, and my feeling of something being off when he got mad at her is related to this.

Do I have a reason to worry about the children around DH?

I'm really sorry that this reads all over the place. Thanks for reading.


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## *Deidre* (Feb 7, 2016)

I'm sorry you're in this situation.  It's hard to entirely say if he'd harm your children, but he doesn't seem like a suitable partner for you whatsoever, or a very reliable and responsible father, and perhaps it's time to separate, and look at other options. The relationship almost seems...abusive, in an emotional way.


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## badsanta (Oct 13, 2014)

He could be reading stories that is related to something that happened to him when he was younger. While society generally discards the idea of young men being abused by mature women, it happens, and it leaves the respective person confused about their bodies when they grow up. 

I'm not saying your husband was abused, but if so, he may be asking himself "why" it happened or "what it felt like" for the person that did it to him because he does not understand events that happened. 

I have a cousin that when he was young (16), a 40-something divorced woman used him as her toy for a few years. His dad brags about it, but his mom not so much. This woman would tell my cousin's mom that she raised the most polite son that she had ever known. In my opinion, it messed him up because he does not know how to have a healthy relationship to this day.

...my point being, the potential victim here could very well be your husband. 

Regards, 
Badsanta


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## alte Dame (Aug 7, 2012)

So, your H got a PhD and then went into the military, going through basic training, etc.? He has had at least one affair, wanted you to abort your child, enjoys incest pornography, pretends to be you on online sites, and had abused you physically?

Do I have most or all of this basically correct?

If so, then the answer is a decided 'no' on the normal. If you think any of this is normal or standard, your meter is indeed broken.

If your question is about the incest porn, then, yes I would worry about that.


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## tirionontuna (Mar 4, 2016)

Yes on most, the incest isn't videos or images, but written stories. Literotica type. I asked whether this was a concern on another forum and was met with vitriol about kink having nothing to do with someone being a safe person to their kids. I *might* buy that, without the other problems in our relationship, but it adds up to red flags to me, at least that was my first reaction.


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## tirionontuna (Mar 4, 2016)

BadSanta, I suspect this in some fashion. Both parents were alcoholics. There was a court order to keep his mom away from him when he was a toddler. He says he does not recall why. But he remembers spending a lot of time with grandparents and at daycare for a few months. His mom was in and out of mental health crises her whole life. His grandfather hated the woman but would never elaborate.


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## PhillyGuy13 (Nov 29, 2013)

No offense but he sounds like a psychopath that I wouldn't want myself or my kids to be around.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## MattMatt (May 19, 2012)

tirionontuna said:


> BadSanta, I suspect this in some fashion. Both parents were alcoholics. There was a court order to keep his mom away from him when he was a toddler. He says he does not recall why. But he remembers spending a lot of time with grandparents and at daycare for a few months. His mom was in and out of mental health crises her whole life. His grandfather hated the woman but would never elaborate.


Oh. Mothers do not get issued with court orders just for the heck of it.

You need to find out why, if you can.


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## badsanta (Oct 13, 2014)

tirionontuna said:


> BadSanta, I suspect this in some fashion. Both parents were alcoholics. There was a court order to keep his mom away from him when he was a toddler. He says he does not recall why. But he remembers spending a lot of time with grandparents and at daycare for a few months. His mom was in and out of mental health crises her whole life. His grandfather hated the woman but would never elaborate.


Sorry to hear that. Regardless of what happened, his mother did not likely provide him with a good role model. 

Psychologically speaking it is thought that men that have a kink for their wife being with other men have "fear of abandonment" issues. It is a way of struggling to confront that fear and control it. If you were to go out with another man, and then choose to return to him, the effect would be like playing peek-a-booh with an infant. It would be really exciting for him. So if you ever confront him about this, this kink is about working through his fears to see if you will always come back to him. 

I may be talking gibberish, but this could give you at least a way to talk to your husband about his kinks in a non confrontational way. You don't have to date other men, you can just pretend or role play as a way to help him confront his fears.

Badsanta


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## alte Dame (Aug 7, 2012)

What field is he in? I can't think of many fields where there is a publish or perish ethos in the graduate years. This usually happens afterward and almost solely in academic jobs. In most areas there are options outside of academia to use your credentials & these most often are not associated with publications.


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## Peaf (Feb 8, 2016)

If you have come to a forum to ask people if you think your kids are safe around this man, then I think you already have a gut feeling and are looking for validation. 

My 2 cents: I wouldn't take a chance when it comes to my kids.


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## PhillyGuy13 (Nov 29, 2013)

alte Dame said:


> What field is he in? I can't think of many fields where there is a publish or perish ethos in the graduate years. This usually happens afterward and almost solely in academic jobs. In most areas there are options outside of academia to use your credentials & these most often are not associated with publications.


I also thought academia, where there are plenty of 17 year old children around.
******

Do your kids ever have friends over the house to play? I assume you have let their parents know that your husband is potentially a sexual deviant, so they can make a fully informed decision to allow their kids in your house?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## tirionontuna (Mar 4, 2016)

Alte dame & Phillyguy13, the field is a social science field. Graduate study can lead to jobs outside academe. However, his subfields do not translate well outside of it. I tried to push towards subfields that would provide a larger job pool but he didn't switch. He said he was bad at mathematics (stats/quant research.) 

BadSanta, I won't try the role-play aspects of this, and DH says he isn't the least interested in doing anything he reads about. You have given me a lot to think about. This information, along with everything else I've seen and heard to this point, is helping me figure out what I think makes him who he is. 

I did come here looking for validation, I posted elsewhere and got a 200+ post thread bashing me for overreacting to what he was reading. Lolita is common, VC Andrews etc. I talked to DH first, he confirmed these weren't oopsie popups, then my therapist who reacted, and from there I freaked out. I talked to my friend of 20 years, who has been a survivor and is still open-minded about sex. She was adamant that he not be around the kids unsupervised. I'm continuing to get more upset, so I talked to a mutual friend of us both, of 17 years and known as discreet (she's been a confidant before) and she said, he's not identifying with the man, but the girl(s). Basically a virgin complex. She said, as a military wife also, have a CTJ talk with him, this stuff could cost him his military career. So finally, I went anon on another forum and got told I was trying to trash his reputation, lose him his friends, set him up so I'd get sole custody. I know well enough that unless something actually happens, CPS won't act and family court would give him generous parent time. I know that because I've talked to an attorney, before any of this ever even came up. My therapist confirms this information. So my exit plan has to change. 

I really want honest opinions. If I am overreacting I do not want to string up someone just because I can't see him as human due to the "typical" crap, DV, EA events listed above.


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## tirionontuna (Mar 4, 2016)

Phillyguy13, I found this information out after he left back on his deployment. He is not home, and has been deployed since last September. He is coming back next month.


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## tirionontuna (Mar 4, 2016)

One thing that bothers me in his answers, is from one of our conversations, where I played devils advocate. Since all the stories were ages 12-15, I asked him why none of the stories were of 6 year olds? He immediately got defensive and said that was really sick, he couldn't believe I would even think of that. I was saying it in a very serious, yet flippant tone. I then told him 12-15 year olds are not consenting, nor physically built to have sex yet. So what is the difference? And he answered the same way as always; it is a fantasy, not reality. He said he is aware of the sickness of the reality of it, and it is purely fantasy material for him to get off on. He disassociates it completely from real life. I was buying that he could separate fantasy from reality up until that point. I mean, if you could completely separate fantasy from reality, there's no limit of the sick stuff that one could imagine/enjoy. He used to be in a LARP extensively before I met him. He is/was a prolific writer of fanfic. He has a thing for fantasy worlds. The LARPing/writing never set off alarm bells. So many of these problems started in the pregnancy of our second child and he must be the same person, but has done such a 180 on me since then. I mean, this stuff didn't even escalate or surface during the darkest days of my oldest's health scares, and there were some way ****tier times (not between us, but with her issues) before our second came along. I've wracked my brain trying to think if he could've done something to the kids but come up with zip. But again, broken normal meter.


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## PhillyGuy13 (Nov 29, 2013)

I'm sorry you have to go through this. I agree with your friend, I would not be comfortable with him being alone with kids. Maybe it's a psychological problem, maybe it's some kind of sexual fetish.

I'd hate to find out the hard way.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## SunCMars (Feb 29, 2016)

He got a PHD, no small achievement. It took a lot of drive, focus and determination to do this. That is the good "side"of him. 

The other "side" is unsteady, high-strung, impulsive, grasping, making poor decisions, gripped by [demons.. or something equally low and basic]. Continuous stress is his Achilles Heal. It spins his mind.

He joined the military to escape stress, to start over in a new venue. The military [in popular lore] gives one formality, rigidity in thought and behavior. He wants that to counter the chaos within. Mistake, again; military life is very stressful [I am retired Military].

He is struggling with conflicting and powerful forces within. 

Many high achievers are jittery, fragile and crack worthy. They turn to drugs and alcohol for relief.

Might he be borderline schizophrenic? Would anxiety meds help? Get him in therapy.


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## tirionontuna (Mar 4, 2016)

PhillyGuy13 said:


> I'm sorry you have to go through this. I agree with your friend, I would not be comfortable with him being alone with kids. Maybe it's a psychological problem, maybe it's some kind of sexual fetish.
> 
> I'd hate to find out the hard way.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


Phillyguy13, I have read that kids can be molested right in front of your eyes without you seeing it. I've read about grooming. I've read about the things to watch for as possible predations, sexual or otherwise. Disabled kids/adults have a much higher risk of sexual assault than the general population, so I have read extensively so as to arm myself and inform my disabled daughter as much as possible. 

I am of conflicting mind on how to proceed. Given that this could happen whether I am married to DH or not, it shouldn't affect my leaving (which wasn't going to happen anytime soon, as my degree will take minimum 2 years). However, he would get unsupervised time, no doubt, regardless of a shark lawyer in my state. My last therapy session was dominated by my therapist telling me about how the previous week, she had been ready to testify in a case of sex assault on a minor child during a custody dispute, and parties settled outside of court because there wasn't enough to make the case, and the judge was unlikely to reduce parenting time. They got unsupervised time. I feel like I'd rather stay married if it means preventing something from happening.


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## PhillyGuy13 (Nov 29, 2013)

I hear you and understand your reasoning. Yes, at least this way you can keep an eye on him.

How long has he been away? What are his plans once he returns?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## tirionontuna (Mar 4, 2016)

SunCMars, he says that the rigidity is appealing to him. He has had high marks all the way so far. He did take it out on me during AIT, bad enough that I finally started some long-needed therapy for myself. He was top 5% graduating class. 99 ASVAB across the board. His deployment so far has been heaps of praise from the sandbox. He has forwarded the emails to me. However, I still see him as in that "shiny new toy" phase. He sounds like most guys do about getting some tricked-out truck when he's talking about his work, what he can share anyway. He has always seemed ambitious to me, that was what attracted me to him. So when he pulled back on his graduate work and had to take an extra year, he finally got cracking on his dissertation. He had not really started it, barely formed the "bones" of his topic, when he revealed not publishing during my pregnancy. It was not what I thought he wanted in life. He wanted to settle for teaching only posts because research was not necessary to get a job.

Here is the conversation that started the downfall of us. I brought up a job post in his subfield, at the flagship university in my home state. He said he wouldn't apply. I said I understand it's a long shot, R1 is competitive, I didn't expect him to get it. Interview experience, putting together a job packet was important. He said he didn't want to move to my home state. I said it was what he agreed to when we discussed him going to grad school. He then said he wasn't going to publish either. (I could feel my stomach lurch. It is cutthroat in academia, and he who doesn't publish doesn't get a job. It was close to this pre-2008, it is solid fact now.) I said again, this was what he agreed to when we discussed him going to grad school. He said a faculty member at his school told him it wasn't necessary for a job at a community college. (Later found out he asked many faculty, everyone but one said he needed to publish while a student.) 

Do I really not know who I married?


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## PhillyGuy13 (Nov 29, 2013)

Published or unpublished, the problem with securing an appointment at a community college is that in most areas of the country due to budget constraints they are only looking to hire adjunct faculty, who make much less than full time/tenured professors.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## alte Dame (Aug 7, 2012)

I don't think you're overreacting at all. I would be worried about him being alone with adolescent girls, including his own. Yes, it may just be pure fantasy, but who would want to chance it? I can see how this makes you frantic at this point.

Honestly, though, the rest of your description of him indicates that he has some real issues in general. I, too, have a PhD. I published while in grad school and a lot when I finished. I didn't have to, though, as a strict requirement of my degree. It was just something you did to contribute to the field and be competitive. And there are certainly jobs out there in the wider world for highly educated people who don't want to publish.

I have truly never heard of someone going through the work of completing a doctorate and then going into basic training in the military. It's odd, to say the least.


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