# Hi. My long sad backstory



## BeyondRepair007

This is my backstory. I’m not really asking for any advice, I’m just introducing myself. But I absolutely will listen to any words of wisdom.
I didn’t even realize how badly messed up I was until mid-2020. I’m 58 and now realize the full impact that infidelity and unresolved emotional baggage had on my life. I also have discovered that I am a naïve idiot. Maybe the worst ever.

TLDR;
A tragic summary:

Married W1 at 17/19, I quickly became a BH. This crushed me and effectively ended my life.
Divorced W1 and rebound-married W2, I became WH with a MOW (SBW3).
Divorced W2 and married W3. This was good for 10 years until cancer took her from me. During M3 is when my life restarted (~8yr post-M1).
During my grief from W3, I started an online EA with another MOW (W4). She left her BH and M4 has been good for 20 years now, sort-of.
In 2020 I started to realize all that I had done and why. I searched and found SI, LS, & TAM and began a long healing journey which I am still on. I’m trying very hard to not hurt M4 in the process.

W1 – The beginning of the end
We married young (17f/19m) while I was in the military. I credit this too-soon marriage to having minor daddy issues; I was clamoring for validation because he was harsh, and I felt unworthy. W1 was amazingly beautiful; way above my league and I gave her my whole heart. I would have moved heaven and earth for her but it turned out that she was the ***** of Babylon and an all-around terrible wife. I should have guessed that’s what it would take for a beautiful girl to fall for me.

I didn’t know it at the time but she was never faithful in our whole relationship. She traveled with me overseas (military) and had many ONS and even some longer affairs with my buddies as well as locals. My job was 24 on 48 off, so when I was “24 on” …so was she. On her knees, on the bed, whatever. Bring a drink or some wacky weed and she’s all yours.

I found out about the some of the betrayals maybe half-way through our 4-year marriage and my world was destroyed. After much soul crushing pain I rugswept the whole thing and sure enough, history repeated a few weeks later. After that we were in a rinse & repeat cycle until near the end of deployment. Looking back I feel like I was in perpetual shock during that time.

We had decided to divorce as soon as we returned home since I didn’t know how to do it from another country. When that time came, we had been getting along pretty good so we decided to try one last time…clean slate and all that bs (I’m such a naïve idiot how could I be so stupid). 6 months later I came home early from work one day and our marriage ended when I walked in on them. She had picked up some guy at a bar and brought him home to our bed. Later in life I realized this probably wasn’t a rando and most certainly wasn’t the first time she strayed since we had been home, but I never thought to ask. What a naïve idiot I was. Nobody had 2x4s back then to help me, and anyway I never talked to anyone about it.

After I threw him out I told her “I’ll start the D process and send you home” (a few states away). It was not really a question but when I asked if that’s what she wanted, she said “I don’t want to hurt you anymore”. That statement would haunt me later. What I heard was, “Yes I will do it again if I want. We have to divorce so you won’t be in the way and I don't have to deal with days like this anymore”.

She effectively killed me that night. I was never the same after she crushed my heart so many times before and then sealed the deal by squashing my last hope so viciously. I literally felt my emotions and masculinity drain away like yesterday’s dishwater.

After this, most of the events of M1 I suppressed, or at least I suppressed a lot of the details. I blocked them out. I remembered being married and there being some infidelity, but my mind never went there and quite honestly, I forgot about it. But my ego, self-confidence, and self-worth were shattered and would remain so for a long time. I blamed myself for not being enough for her and I accepted every bad thing anyone did to me after that. Lord, I wish sites like this existed back then.

W2
Immediately coming out of D from W1 there was an old girlfriend that made herself available. After a short period of dating (a few months) I told myself she was so perfect that I would grow to love her. I mean, just look at the hell I had been through! We married and after a couple of months I realized just how stupid that was. Then for no apparent reason my feelings completely changed and I became angry with her. I was angry all the time and for any reason (or no reason).

W2 was the model wife in many ways, but I was an emotional black hole. Nothing ever came out and whatever entered was destroyed. W2 was a good woman and didn’t deserve what I did to her. I’m not sure why she married me, maybe she was an idiot too or just had fond memories from our previous relationship. But I never treater her well in M2 and I was not faithful; I didn’t even want to be.

I was so crushed and emotionally destroyed after W1 that I believed that I was worthless as a man. In bed, out of bed, socially, privately, emotionally, the whole package. I was broken.

W3
After a few months of being married to W2 I started pursuing SBW3. SBW3 was married but I pursued and caught her. She was an unhappy W and was looking for an exit affair from a miserable man. This I knew to be true even at that time. So I intentionally manipulated her and we started an EA/PA. After a short time we fully committed to each other and she left her BH. A few months later I left W2 and then after the D’s were finished I married W3. I’m just great aren’t I? Freaking homewrecker on rails.

W3 started out the same as W2…I lost the feels after a few months. Our marriage deteriorated and she was unhappy but only to the point of wanting to fix things. She would have left me eventually (100% my fault) except that a couple of things happened. First, we started going to church. After going to church for a few months I genuinely came to faith and remain fully committed to Christ even now as I write this. And that was the turning point in this sad story. My downward run of crappy decisions and bad choices were coming to an end (but not quite yet).

The second thing that happened was that W3 got cancer. After coming to Christ I remained an idiot but I was becoming better. I started trying to behave like a husband. I stood by her and never left her side. Every appointment, every surgery, every cry, every “telling the family bad news”, any of it, and all of it. I never wavered. I supported her with all my strength and held her tight every moment that I could. I wish it had been enough. I prayed my eyes out for healing but it wasn’t to be, and she passed away. As much as M1 crushed me, the death of W3 was worse. It was a different kind of hell.

W4
While still deep in my grief from W3, I connected with internet strangers in chat rooms (which had recently became a thing in the timeline of OLD). Chatting was helpful to me…in the same way this post is helping me. In my grief, I thought maybe some kind internet strangers would connect with me and let me ramble on about W3. And that’s what SBW4 did. We met online and slowly started a LDEA (she was many states away).

SBW4 was a MOW and was also wanting an exit affair which I did not know at that time. In my heart of hearts I swear that had no thoughts of starting an EA or finding another woman but I fell into the same emotional trap many WS would tell you about. Honestly I just wanted to talk through my grief, but the EA blossomed anyway. Such an idiot.

W4 left her BH after a few months of our EA and we married 1yr later. This was the last of my destructive choices and I’ve cleaned up my act now. M4 is my current M and I have changed drastically from those days of raw stupidity and recklessness. The bleed of bad decision-making and emotional dependencies have ended. I credit all of it to Christ changing my heart because as you can see, I’m crap at figuring things out myself.

W4 has her own set of issues (child SA, abuse, etc.) but we are good together. Our M is not perfect, but it’s solid. We are active in our community, our church, and we travel when & where we like. But now I worry about breaking M4 because of what happened 17yrs later in 2020.

2020
For some reason, during the summer of 2020 I was constantly being triggered about M1/W1 in major ways that had never happened before. My heart was being ripped out daily, and mind movies were on constant shuffle. I guess my mind was finally done holding everything in from M1 idk. I was in deep emotional pain all the freaking time, having flashbacks of fights, red flags I missed, catching her, almost catching her, etc.

To top it off I was coming to the realization how massively naïve I was. All of the times I caught her, I thought were one-offs. I thought those were the only times she was unfaithful. I was such a naïve idiot and didn’t even consider my beautiful wife could do that to us, to me. Serial cheating W1 was queen of lies & TT. I’m pretty sure I never heard the truth about anything ever. 

All that summer I was crashing hard emotionally. In true idiot fashion I hid all this from W4 and just carried on like normal. I wasn’t trying to be deceptive I just didn’t want it to hurt her that I was so wrecked by W1/M1 after all this time.

Begin the pity part
At some point I realized that not dealing with M1 all this time had caused a lifetime of self-inflicted devaluing and degrading. There’s probably some clinical terms for it, but I never let myself feel good about myself ever. I lied to myself for years. I was a “nice guy” because I had no right to expect anything from others, I would sufferer because it was the right thing to do for “someone like me”. 

No one actually likes me or wants to hear from me, no one cares what I think. People placate me so they can live with themselves. Therefore anyone who showed affection or validation toward me I clamored to be around at any cost.

I did have success in life, at work, friends, etc. I’m fairly intelligent and rose up the ranks in Corp America. But 100% of the time I felt like a fraud, a fake. I didn’t deserve it.

The end of the beginning
These sites are lifesavers, literally. You people are heros. From reading here I realized how wrong I was about myself and M1/W1. She destroyed me because of who she was not because of me or anything I did. I didn’t know that people were broken like her until I read the horror stories here. In retrospect, M1 was a typical run-of-the-mill cheater story where rugsweeping ended in continued devastation until M1 ended.

Dealing with all this crap from M1 made me realize there are problems in M4, in the sense that I’m still the nice guy and W4 could end up looking for something better if I let it go. My alpha/beta mix was wrong and I knew she could be happier. So I read many of the resources here and on other sites and started learning. 

Before taking any action, I had a full disclosure day with W4. I told her everything I had been going through, my conclusions, what I thought my healing journey would look like, and told her we needed to talk to MC to make sure I was on track and didn’t mess anything up. W4 was shocked and scared about what might happen but there was no hesitation to go to MC. At 58 I don’t even know if I can become who I should be, but I plan to try.

Today I stand by W4 and will guard M4 with everything I have. I made crap decisions in my life that put us were we are, but I’m not a nice guy anymore. MMSLP was also a life-changing read for me and W4 loves the changes.

So that’s the end of my sad story. I welcome thoughts, observations, and will answer anything I can.


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## Rob_1

Well, it's never too late, but one point you made:



BeyondRepair007 said:


> I literally felt my emotions and masculinity drain away like yesterday’s dishwater.


In reality, you let your masculinity drain away the very first time you knew W1 cheated on you, and you let it pass. I wonder how your upbringing was/ did your father ever talk to you about self respect dignity, pride when dealing with relationships? You let another person make you a prisoner. Actually, from a very basic biological point of view you failed on one of the most primitive instinct that every living thing possess: self preservation. You let that woman decide your life. 

All that is in the pass and the only thing that you now can do is to be a secure, positive, and confident man that knows what he wants, and that that what he wants is not detrimental to himself.


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## BeyondRepair007

Rob_1 said:


> In reality, you let your masculinity drain away the very first time you knew W1 cheated on you, and you let it pass. I wonder how your upbringing was/ did your father ever talk to you about self respect dignity, pride when dealing with relationships? You let another person make you a prisoner. Actually, from a very basic biological point of view you failed on one of the most primitive instinct that every living thing possess: self preservation. You let that woman decide your life.


Thanks for the reply, you're spot on.

Growing up with all the high school crap I made all the right calls about standing up for right things, moving on when in doubt or cheated on, etc. But I didn't have a healthy model of a marriage. Bio-Dad was out of the picture and adoptive-Dad was not a good model of leading the family. Don't get me wrong, adoptodad was a great guy but 100% doormat for my mom. Worked like a slave and did anything she asked, but it was clear she was the boss and he absorbed everything negative. I expected M1 to be similar. I guess it sort of was.

As for me... adoptodad tolerated me. We didn't share interests and he didn't make any efforts. Any effort I made to connect was met with ridicule. It's one of the reasons I signed up with the military at 17. Most of this crap I recognized what was happening and could deal with. How many times did I say "I'll never treat my kids like adoptodad". But the marriage model...I didn't expect that one. 

But I'm not trying to fully cast blame on daddy (rip), I was an adult and should have figured things out. But I didn't and that's on me then and now.


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## Rob_1

It's sad, but I figure as much. Children raised in homes where the environment is not propitious for their self confidence, normally suffer as adults in relationships.


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## Ragnar Ragnasson

How's M4 going now? That's the key question.


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## BeyondRepair007

Ragnar Ragnasson said:


> How's M4 going now? That's the key question.


That's the most important question of all.
And that's the reason I posted here in the first place. I'll likely be posting more in one of the Marriage\Relationship forums because I've really come to trust the collective genius here. I'm still riding the rollercoaster of emotions dealing with M1 with frequent nightmares, wild emotions, suspicious of W4 cheating, etc. It's gotten a LOT better in the last week or so.

W4 is precious to me but she has issues of her own and now that I'm working on mine, we're not always aligned perfectly. She's used to me being a doormat after all. So M4 is great and changes are all positive, but it feels like there might still be some choppy waters ahead.

As far as suspicions of cheating...it's totally unfounded in spite of our beginning. I'm a tech guy and we have fully transparency between us. We share the same accounts, passwords, etc. We both have access to everything the other has, including location tracking w/Find my iPhone. She has given me permission to snoop whenever I want, and I do from time to time to kill my self-inflicted paranoia. I have never seen a real red flag from her, and I do know what they look like. She can snoop on me too as much as she wants (I don't know if she does but I doubt it).

I got us in this mess and I don't expect her to fix it just because I now "figured it out". M course corrections will be gentle and loving.

Fun fact, I've never posted on any forum or social media before. I'm a typical introverted lurker while W4 is extrovert & posts on anything she can find. I consider this part of my therapy and learning to come out of my low self-esteem shell. Thanks for helping.


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## Diana7

II 


BeyondRepair007 said:


> That's the most important question of all.
> And that's the reason I posted here in the first place. I'll likely be posting more in one of the Marriage\Relationship forums because I've really come to trust the collective genius here. I'm still riding the rollercoaster of emotions dealing with M1 with frequent nightmares, wild emotions, suspicious of W4 cheating, etc. It's gotten a LOT better in the last week or so.
> 
> W4 is precious to me but she has issues of her own and now that I'm working on mine, we're not always aligned perfectly. She's used to me being a doormat after all. So M4 is great and changes are all positive, but it feels like there might still be some choppy waters ahead.
> 
> As far as suspicions of cheating...it's totally unfounded in spite of our beginning. I'm a tech guy and we have fully transparency between us. We share the same accounts, passwords, etc. We both have access to everything the other has, including location tracking w/Find my iPhone. She has given me permission to snoop whenever I want, and I do from time to time to kill my self-inflicted paranoia. I have never seen a real red flag from her, and I do know what they look like. She can snoop on me too as much as she wants (I don't know if she does but I doubt it).
> 
> I got us in this mess and I don't expect her to fix it just because I now "figured it out". M course corrections will be gentle and loving.
> 
> Fun fact, I've never posted on any forum or social media before. I'm a typical introverted lurker while W4 is extrovert & posts on anything she can find. I consider this part of my therapy and learning to come out of my low self-esteem shell. Thanks for helping.


I wonder how people managed without trackers and find a phone etc. 
In the end we just have to trust or not I guess. We were both betrayed in different ways by our previous spouses of 23 and 25 years. 
We don't do the whole tracker stuff. Not sure I want things to be that way, but one day maybe you can stop that as well. Do you think with both of your histories trust is harder to get to?


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## BeyondRepair007

Diana7 said:


> II
> Do you think with both of your histories trust is harder to get to?


Diana, I appreciate your comment, thank you.

In my case with W4, it was definitely harder to gain that initial trust simply because of how we started. W4 and I had these conversations early on which led to ‘full transparency mode‘ for both of us. Neither of us wanted a repeat, or even the appearance of a repeat, and both knew what we were capable of. Sad, but true. In the long run neither of us has crossed boundaries but there is awareness that we’re capable of it. I guess in some vulgar way, it’s better than finding out the hard way what a spouse is capable of. Not that I would recommend what we did mind you.

As for the tech transparency, I’m pretty sure that if we didn’t have it available (like before the 90’s?) and doubts crept in, I would solve my paranoia the old fashioned way. Which of course reminds me of all the times following up on suspicions in M1 (early 80’s so no tech). I remember watching very carefully every little detail in our house, the location of every coaster, the ashes in each tray, every bit of clothing worn, every pattern of her day, and every spoken word, etc. All of that and more so that I could have some confidence in her fidelity. Lord I was broken, I should have ended it immediately.

I am on the path of healing so yes, I will overcome paranoia by rationale rather than verification soon enough.


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## Luckylucky

So 3 of your wives were all cheaters, but the only decent women (W2) bought rage out of you. 

The thing you speak least of, may be the thing you need to discuss most?

So you have a pattern of bending over backwards for wayward women (W1 and 3&4 all cheated on husbands, but you’ve made strides to be a better husband for them. Church, counselling, being open/transparent). I’m also not quite seeing the nice guy?? Can you explain this? 

Now why was W2 the punching bag? A complete contrast in behaviour. You didn’t like her?

Maybe, just maybe, you seek out women who are just like you. You know that’s ok?? Meaning, you might not even be messed up, and it’s just who you are and the life you should be living. Not everyone is cut out for church and redemption and monogamy. 

You also mention your father more than your mother. What was she like? (I’m scared to think)


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## Talker67

BeyondRepair007 said:


> I am on the path of healing so yes, I will overcome paranoia by rationale rather than verification soon enough.


The way to conquer any paranoia is to freely discuss everything with your wife. No secrets from her, her having no secrets from you. If one of you is pissed off, discuss it openly. If one of you is feeling hurt, or ignored, or whatever--discuss it. 

If you both develop good communications, all those other fears will melt away eventually.


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## BeyondRepair007

Luckylucky said:


> You also mention your father more than your mother. What was she like? (I’m scared to think)


In the hope that you're not disrespecting my mom I'll answer this question.
Mom(rip) was a typical rural SAHM. Once she and adoptodad married, we had a stable household thorughout our childhood. The only questionable issue that I see is her part in not modeling a healthy marriage better. When momma wasn't happy, dad took it every time. In some ways I get it, women are to be treasured and treated well. But the lack of his leadership or discussions about it left a void for me.



Luckylucky said:


> So you have a pattern of bending over backwards for wayward women (W1 and 3&4 all cheated on husbands, but you’ve made strides to be a better husband for them. Church, counselling, being open/transparent). I’m also not quite seeing the nice guy?? Can you explain this?
> 
> Now why was W2 the punching bag? A complete contrast in behaviour. You didn’t like her?
> 
> Maybe, just maybe, you seek out women who are just like you. You know that’s ok?? Meaning, you might not even be messed up, and it’s just who you are and the life you should be living. Not everyone is cut out for church and redemption and monogamy.


You bring up viewpoints that I hadn't considered, and I appreciate that. Now that I've considered it, I reject them.
The evidence on its face would certainly lend credibility to your thoughts but the thinking and heart behind each phase of my life does not align very well with your suggestions. What does align almost perfectly is my driving need for external validation after M1. That is very clear to me in M2,3,4. The fact of married or not had little to do with my thinking at the time. I didn't seek out married women. The other point here is M4 is 20yo now. According to your logic I should be unsatisfied right now and seeking out SBW5 or staying with W4 as long as she's cheating on me (drama junky maybe?). I assure you none of that is happening. 

M2 is difficult for me to describe properly and breaks the pattern of the others. But I should have never married her, I did not love her in that way and it was too soon after M1. Early in the marriage I started to disconnect and emotionally distance from her. I would go out to bars, spend time with friends, not come home randomly, and basically act single and childish. I know these things hurt her so when I say I didn't treat her right, that is what I mean. When I was around her, I would get 'angry' which I internalized and resulted in the mentioned bad behavior. I never lashed out physically or verbally at her, there was no "rage" or "punching bag" (at least not physically). I was far more likely to shut down and run away to party with friends. I was quite stupid, W2 didn't deserve any of that. 

When you say I "Bending over backwards" for waywards, it is more honest to say that I bend over backwards for my wife (W1,3,4). Wayward has nothing to do with it. With W1 I didn't know what else to do, W3 I was changing my character to be a better man after coming to faith, and W4 is a continuation of that change and continues today.

Last thing, about the "nice guy" comments. I used that language to align with NMMNG and the Nice Guy Syndrome. This has been a problem later in life, mostly after coming to faith in Christ. Christianity embraces peace, love, harmony, etc but also can enable those nice guy qualities if not managed. In M3 & M4 I often pursued a "go along to get along" & "make everybody happy at any cost" philosophy in spite of downsides. I'm not that guy anymore, or I should say I'm constantly evolving out of that guy. Because you know what? I am "cut out for church and redemption and monogamy".

I really can't defend my actions with any credibility up until now because I admittedly did everything wrong for most of my life (on the relationship front anyway). The "why" of it might help me repair myself, but I can't justify any of that stupidity. I can, however, move forward with the help of counseling and folks like TAM to make M4 the best thing ever for W4.


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## BeyondRepair007

Talker67 said:


> The way to conquer any paranoia is to freely discuss everything with your wife. No secrets from her, her having no secrets from you. If one of you is pissed off, discuss it openly. If one of you is feeling hurt, or ignored, or whatever--discuss it.
> 
> If you both develop good communications, all those other fears will melt away eventually.


Thank you, Talker. This is indeed an area of concern for us. I mentioned in OP that W4 has her own issues and communication is a big one. We're making strides there, but it's been slow so far.

In spite of that, I can overcome my paranoia. I've seen that the paranoia directly correlates to my rollercoaster emotions with M1. For the bulk of M4 I didn't have these paranoia problems, but sure enough as soon as my 2020 crap happened I started being randomly suspicious again. ('Again' relates to the beginning of our relationship and the lack of trust at that point.)

I appreciate your thoughts.


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## Talker67

BeyondRepair007 said:


> In spite of that, I can overcome my paranoia.


Of course you can, when i was a teenager, i was somewhat afraid of heights.
To cure myself of that, i went mountain hiking, took on a job that required painting some 3 story buildings, and eventually got a pilot's license. Now, no longer afraid! I can work 2 stories up on a ladder all day long


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## gr8ful1

You‘re 58 and W4 is 20?


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## BeyondRepair007

gr8ful1 said:


> You‘re 58 and W4 is 20?


oh no, sorry for the confusion. 20yr marriage, W4 is 57.


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