# Question for the guys



## Naivenomore

First of all, thank you so much for having this forum. I'm shaking as I type this. My story is long, much like so many I've read here. Words cannot describe how helpful it's been just to know that I'm not alone.

It is important to know that I have a history of attracting narcissists. I am also terrible with negative confrontation.

Nearly a year ago I found out by accident that my significant other has maintained emotional affairs with multiple married women since long before I even knew him. Several of them are ex-girlfriends. He's never been married, no kids. We are both in our early fifties. I was incredibly hurt, but more confused because he works out of my home and I know where he is pretty much every moment of the day. I don't have a jealous bone in my body and am very naive and gullible. He is overly romantic... constantly talking about forever, extremely affectionate, sometimes over-the-top with his adoration of me. The sex is very good. Therefore, I just can't figure out why he has the need to be desired by other women still.
I forgave him. He is uncomfortable talking about it so we just looked toward the future and moved on. Fast forward six months. You guessed it. He didn't even attempt to stop these communications. Again I found out by accident. We have the same exact phone and I picked his up by mistake. His sexting is extremely graphic, but frankly it's the emotional texts that bother me more. How much he misses and wants to be with these other women. They all know about me, but his texts seem to imply that our love life is lackluster. I think he pretends to be a martyr and they sympathize with him so apparently that makes an emotional affair okay. He assures me that nothing physical has ever happened, nor would it ever. I said I'm not strong enough to handle this and he needs to move out of my house. He says our love will solve anything. Blah blah blah. He has nowhere to go. He desperately wants to fix this situation and has promised me that he has quit cold turkey. Is that even possible? 

I'm wondering from the men, if a guy who is financially supported by his girlfriend, professes to be madly in love, and talks incessantly about the future... is it possible for him to just stop these other relationships even if they are not physical? I'm just afraid that down the road if things actually did become difficult in our relationship he would resort to old habits.
My biggest problem is learning to trust him again. I am resentful that I have become a person I've never wanted to be. I'm not the type to check texts and emails and now I feel that I should, yet I feel guilty for wanting to. When I pull up the names of these women in his contacts, he has deleted all text conversations. Why would he delete conversation if he has nothing to hide? He doesn't delete any other texts. 
Some days are better than others, but there are always triggers. I don't know how to erase my memory so that I no longer feel the pain. I know how to forgive, but I don't know how to forget. Every once in awhile I actually even feel angry, because he was gaslighting me and pretending that I was taking the texts out of context and reading into what were platonic relationships with his ex-girlfriends. That was before I admitted to him that I had dug deeper and actually read the content of the texts. I was too ashamed to tell him from the beginning how much I knew. Most texts had been erased.
So if Men Are from Mars and Women are from Venus, is it truly possible for a man to be fully in love and only desire one woman while sexting and pretending to pursue another, or seven others in my case? (That I know of.)
Thank you so much. It actually feels better just to be able to divulge this, even if it is anonymously.
Edited to add: His reason for the sexting/emotional affairs is that he doesn't feel worthy of me and must sub-consciously want to feel better about himself.


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## uhtred

There are billions of men, only some of them behave the way you describe. If I were in your situation I would not trust him not to behave that way again.


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## arbitrator

*We all know that track records are extremely hard to cover up!

So exactly what assurances do you have that there'll indeed be "a change?" All without you growing eyes in the back of your head?*


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## Tilted 1

No, most of these type of men never change, if he said he would, he'd already done so. Now he's sorry he got caught and your his ATM Machine. He'll lie through his teeth to keep his warm ass safe. He has a character flaw and it isn't going to change for you he's addicted to his getting off on this. Sorry if you think I'm insensitive l am not l watched more men stay this way from those in my family cousins, uncle's, and others.


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## Tilted 1

Naivenomore said:


> .
> Edited to add: His reason for the sexting/emotional affairs is that he doesn't feel worthy of me and must sub-consciously want to feel better about himself.


BS, he right about one thing he isn't worthy of you.


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## manwithnoname

He won't change. He may pretend to change to stay supported by you...but he will always be that way.

You can do better, you deserve better.


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## OnTheFly

Naivenomore said:


> I'm wondering from the men, if a guy who is financially supported by his girlfriend........


*sound of tires being locked up*

You're a sugar-momma and you're being played.

A good indicator of future behaviour is past behaviour. 

You picked a good username, live up to it now.


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## Spicy

> is it truly possible for a man to be fully in love and only desire one woman while sexting and pretending to pursue another, or seven others in my case?


No. He’s a cheating sponge.


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## Casual Observer

I don't think he's done anything whatsoever to earn your trust. I don't think he deserves to be trusted. He's living two lives; one in which everything is happy with you at the center, the other in which he it telling his stable of emotional affair partners (giving him the benefit of the doubt that the physical part stopped) that he wishes he was still with them because things aren't great with you.

I cannot imagine that, if you'd had discussions about boundaries and privacy, he hasn't wildly violated both. I'm guessing you never did. Going forward, I'd suggest that's something you handle early in future relationships. Explicitly.

The good news is that you can leave this relationship with a lot of self-confidence, because at this point, you remain Plan A, with the rest of them presumably Plan B. Seize the day and leave while you're on top.


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## EleGirl

I've been through this. The fact that he did not stop after you initially found out means that he has no intent of ever stopping.

This has nothing to do with Men are from Mars. All men are not alike. Thank goodness most men are not like your partner. There are some men, and also some women, who feel entitled to cheat and they do it every chance they get.

You support him financially. He is going to try to get you to doubt yourself so that you continue to support him. He's using you. I'm sorry, but he is.

You say that he has a business out of your home. Does he not earn enough to support himself?

It does not matter if he has no where to go. He's a big boy and can figure it out for himself. Shoot, he could take this opportunity to move in with one of those 7 or more women.

What I did when I found out this sort of thing was going on in my life was to call every one of the women. Every one of them thought that they were the only woman in his life besides me (who he lied about). They each thought that they were special. I told all of the woman about all the other women. I was able to down load a LOT of chats he had with these women. I emailed all the files of chats to all of the women so that they could all see that he was telling all of them the exact same thing. There was a lot of cyber sex going on in those chats. So they all got to see that he was doing this with all of the other women. Each of those women were ok when she thought that he loved them and pined for her. They were ok with being a partner in cheating because it made them feel special. Those chat files showed them exactly how "special" they were to him. Oh and I also gave them all the names, phone number, email addresses and physical addresses for all the women. I sort of enjoyed doing this.

At first he was pissed at me and told me that he would never trust me again. My reply to him was that he could always trust me. He could trust me to do what I had to do to protect myself and my child.

I also told him that those women all deserved to know what a lying low life he is and that he was playing them too. Every one of those women ended all contact with him when they received those chat files.

You need to take a hard stand with this guy. He's using you to support him while he plays around. He's a very broken human.

My suggestion is that you tell him that he has to be out of your place immediately. Maybe one of his affair partners will take him in.....


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## Diana7

Did you never wonder why he has never married or had children? He is a serial cheat and no he wont stop. What he has done for many many years is appalling. Give him a week to find somewhere to go and then change the locks. He is using you and right now you are enabling his behaviour.


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## Tron

He has shown you who he is.

Believe him.


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