# he cheated online again thinking of leaving



## confusedtexan (Jul 9, 2011)

My first husband who I married at 19 was physically and emotionally abusive. I met my current husband of 8 years shortly after my divorce and he was a 180 of my ex-husband. He would never hit a woman, has never been emotionally abusive, adopted my son from my 1st marriage and even though he has his flaws has been overall very good to me and tries very hard to make me happy. Before the cheating he was the man of my dreams, walked on water, I could not ask for more. 

We have a second son together we got pregnant right away and really got married only after knowing each other a few months. Shortly after our son was born I noticed a charge on our bank account for something strange called the number to dispute the charge and found out it was something called adult friend finder. I disputed the charge as a fraud and they told me it was my husbands card that was used. I did worry for a brief second and decided to call him to ask him about it he denied he made the charge and actually got stressed and said "you believe me right"? I told him I did and that it was probably his brother Joe who just visited with his wife taking the card number and using it because his wife was just there crying about how Joe was cheating on her again. Jon told me he would call and get it taken care of because it was definetly not a charge he made. I never in a million years could see my husband cheating so I never gave it another thought. 

About a year later we had bought our first home it was great beautiful pool in the backyard great house I thought we were happy. I walked into the living room one day and he minimized a webpage right in front of me and acted strange. I didn't say anything but a few days later found where he left an email open and I didn't recognize the email I looked in the inbox and he had an adult friend finder account and he had emailed someone in a town about 30 miles from us and asked her if she would like to meet him it was the only message he had sent. I looked at her profile and she was very unattractive and very overweight. I was confused and called him upset to confont him. He denied it at first and then admitted it and said he was sorry and it would never happen again and yes he did it the year before that he just didn't feel like I love him and that he could make me happy. He said he was never going to meet her he just felt bad about himself and wanted to see if someone would like him enough to meet him. He's always had a low self esteem. I believed him felt bad and tried my best to show him how much I love him and give him extra attention. He promised he would never do it again. 

About a year later he started acting very strange just completely strange major mood swings he was working as the It manager for a company and managing 3 different sites in 3 different states. I could just feel something was wrong. He acted crazy and just was distant all the sudden. I checked into his work email and found where he had another adult friend finder account and also he had emailed some woman on craigslist while he was on a business trip in Nebraska asking her to come to his hotel room so he could show her what he could do with his tounge. I called him while he was out of state and told him not to come home. He begged pleaded denied everything at first. I let him come home told him he needed help. He was diagnosed as bipolar. He said he does not know why he sent that email on craigslist that nothing happened and if she had showed up he wouldn't have opened the door. The thing that really got me is my husband is so conservative about sex. Missionary and nothing else litterally not very often like 3 to 4 times per year before this happened. I was always unhappy with our lack of sex life but I loved him so I just accepted it. 

After that he went to therapy and got on meds and our realationship even though it took time to trust him again I eventually did and things were great. We stopped having any sex at all though. He started gaining weight shortly after we married and it continued. He was up to about 400 pounds at 6 ft. I was still happy with him as he treated me well and I was in love with him. Last Christmas on Christmas Eve he collapsed in the bathroom and had to have major heart surgery. 

Shortly after he was able to go back to work in March he accepted a new job in MN and I stayed behind for 3 weeks to pack when I got there he was acting strange and I found out he was off all his meds including his bipolar meds. He kept staying late at teh office and minimized another website in front of me and acted like I was doing something wrong by accusing him of doing this again. I put a key logger on our computer and found out he had 3 email addresses all sexual broke into those he had 3 match.com accounts and this thing called plenty of fish some said he was divorced looking for a serious relationship some said he was looking for friends with benefits. I read some of the emails they would make a porn producer blush. I was ready to leave called my mom to come get me and the kids. 

He begged me not to leave would do anything. I told him fine tell me the truth and the whole truth and I will stay. He told me that he knew I was upset about the move felt like he could not make me happy. Oh I forgot he used fake photos on his profile of a man that was thin younger and attractive. He said he just wanted to forget his problems and escape. He said that he nearly met a woman from Wisconsin but could not go through with it. He told me he was so vanilla with me with sex because he loved me and it was different he could not see me as a sex object. He said he's never physically cheated and did not think of what he was doing as cheating but realized now it was. He is back in therapy and taking his meds. He also confessed to me that before we met he went to sex clubs and parties and if you can imagine it he did it according to what he told me that apparently started in college until he met me. 

I was so upset we ended up in therapy. The therapist said he does love me and has a maddona ***** complex where a man cannot have good sex with a woman he loves but only those he deems to be *****s. It is men who have cold distant mothers the woman they fall in love with is seen as an innocent good woman and basically provides the man with the love he never got from his mother thus sex becomes like incest and the only women he can have real sex with are those he considers *****s. He told me the women he did the things he did with before me were ones that would do it the first night and did not matter. He promises it will never happen again, we have 2 kids together, he wants to have another baby now which I am afraid is to just keep me here since he didnt seem to want to before. I wanted more kids am 33 so am running short on time but even though I love him I can't trust him and am not sure I want to be in this marriage anymore. It has been 3 months since I found all this out the 1st month I cried 24/7. I am doing better. We are having sex again it is a-little better because he is trying not to be so vanilla and it is happening more often. He treats me well, just bought me my dream home that we are about to move into but I am so broken hearted I don't feel like I know him. I feel like he will do it again and that he will never get over feeling like he is doing something wrong by trying to have a good sex life. I try everything I can to please him in that way but he is still struggling with being so conservative about it. He says I am everything to him and wants another baby. I am just so confused and so afraid of getting close and giving him my heart completely again to spend years with him and have him do this again. Sorry for the long post I just have no one to talk to and am really hurting.


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

He sounds a LOT like my former foster father.
Right down to the IT work, the weight gain, and the conscientious treatment on the home front, as well as the sexual sidetrips.
He did get treatment but it was inpatient and he has moved on after divorce and hitting rock bottom, is married from what I heard he is doing well. It seems like a difficult illness, maybe my perspective will help a bit.
I moved into their house in a voluntary foster arrangement (they were my church sponsors I had known them since I was 12 and my father suicided when I was 17, my mother had taken off very unreliable person and somewhat dangerous not always physically but just in disturbing unsettling ways...). Anyway, I noticed that he would sit on the sofa next to me in the morning or evening, I accepted this because of the verbal statement that we were family - and indeed we were but even going back to age 12 I was walking home from school one day and he picked me up to give me a ride, you know what, yes, even then I could pick up on the sexual vibe. He was definitely not my type which is in hindsight a very good thing for me in terms of opportunity + desire. Equation was lacking a component  So these two things triggered something in my head. I think you are also a very astute person. You 'get' what is going on with your H in this way. You investigated that first computer issues you noticed. Very good. Trust the rest of your instincts as well. Don't jump the gun but don't be foolish, as in, don't get pregnant unless you are willing to be a single parent. Possibly also if he does get treatment and crashes there would be financial difficulties, so put a stop to this buying stuff and make sure you have investments and solid money and a lifestyle that would be manageable on very much reduced income (or your own, after child care or however you will take care of the kids...like a relative coming to live with you, etc.) In other words, make a plan where you could survive on your income and savings and alternate sources of income/funds for a couple of years. It might happen. And it probably will happen, if you leave the relationship or if you stay and he does go through with all of the treatment. 

Ok, my foster father was very supportive of me. He took me to the military processing station when I decided to enlist, he sent me frequent flier miles when I wanted to visit a friend once before leaving the country, he was always there to pick me up when I came home on leave, he was tolerant when I moved back into the home with my 11 month old when I left a marriage with an alcoholic and came home during a horrible recession. He was working from home and sat through many many many playings of Raffie on VCR that my son loved. He and his friends helped me move - twice! The first place did not work out. He advised me on my new job, etc. Before I left the first time to join the military, I knew that he was going into my underwear drawer. I said nothing. (I thought it could have been my little foster sister as she had a fetish for rubbing silky things....foster mom used to wear silky stuff when nursing, LOL...I had once bought her a silky doll, when she started preschool, so that she would have something comforting there...) So anyway, I had my little concerns about foster dad but as you say about your H, very caring and loving and nothing towards me blatant. For all I knew he and my foster mom were tight. There were always lots of friends around - small town, people were marrige encounter folks and all belonged to the same church, extended friends through cousins and so forth. Even the phones had been party lines (no privacy, so if you were dating the next door neighbor and talking on the phone, the aunties would be listening...) So surface stuff was very open, community, loving, etc. Kind of hippie-ish but yuppie-ish too without the economic turmoil.

One time I came back on leave and he picked me up and it was late and on the way back we went to visit some other people in a town on the way that I'd also known since I was 12. He was showing me how to use cruise control and letting me drive since he was exhausted. I'd flown in and taken the bus to the city where his company was. Then gone back to work with him. No big deal. Typical father-daughter stuff and that was the point. 

On the way home after visisting friends, he dropped the bomb. Told me all about his sex life outside the home. He traveled a lot for work and the one night stands were incredible numbers, also women from work. I didn't ask about women in our community but I suppose there were. I mean, people got divorced in later years. He might have seduced some of the marriage encounter church going wives...I also think he had a child with the former babysitter (the one they used before I came along to live with them who had been pregnant by her boyfriend? and they were considering letting her live with them but it was causing issues with extended family...I think my foster mom's mom knew what was up. Explains why she never liked me, I inherited the reputation of the last teenager to be in the family as extended add-ons...) He told me that he was tempted to do the same wtih me but he knew that what I really needed was a father and that it was very difficult for him to deal with. I guess that's why he told me. He wanted me to know. So I agreed, yes, I did need a father and if he made a pass at me I would be left without a functional one. This is a guy who had made a religious commitment to me in my youth and kept it. I can only imagine how difficult that must have been for him. When he was in the psych hospital and I was nearby on military duty for a few months, I used a family car to get around for a bit and when it came time to return it I had to drop if off at the hospital where he was at so I visited, even though it felt awkward he said it would be nice if I did. He said he felt he had failed everyone and I said, nope, you have been a decent father to me since taking on the responsibility, I knew you had issues before you told me and so far as I'm concerned aside from the underwear and thoughts, your behavior was useful to me in the way of parenting and mentoring. I pointed out all the positive things he had done for me in spite of his issues, which he had managed to control in my instance for my sake. 

So, that's my perspective. Certainly not the wife's. But if you're trying to figure out how someone could be like that, I can't say how they got like that (well, his parents were both blind and he went hungry a lot as a kid and there were 12 of them, they picked weeds to cook out of vacant lots...), but I can say, it exists. I don't think you had anything to do with it other than being a sweet person and I agree with this madonna complex explanation. The weight gain I think is both self-destructive and also attention-getting in terms of the health issues it creates and also probably an attempt to make himself so unattractive to other women that he cannot continue with the actual cheating. Yah, he needs help. Probably inpatient if it can be managed and I am sorry that you will have to deal with that. Probably it could be coordinated with his employee assistance program at work. My foster father was incredibly talented at work. I guess you have to be if you have time for all that side stuff and still hold down a job. If he is stable perhaps the two of you could come up with a plan for financial security before he digs deeper into his issues.

So, you have been to therapy for yourself and in support of your parenting efforts as well? 

Sorry this was long. I wanted to share my story and perspective on this. I don't keep in touch with this guy. I have other older adult males I talk to for advice when I need it. And yikes, sometimes they offer it when I am not ready for it. My workmate has been saying something about me being in a new relationship, I've only tinkered with the idea in my thoughts. I guess I am transparent or he is so intuitive he sees things in me before I do. Good friend to have. (He is in a stable relationship, also had a breakdown a few years ago...good guy.) I have mutual acquaintances and from time to time we talk about the past, also another guy friend from that time I have known since I was 12, I got to him for car advice but also he is supportive of me getting away from bad relationships. Before he left his own, he was very harsh on my lack of marriage, now he has become much more tolerant of my bad choices in men, gives me a pat on the back and doesn't blame me for it. He got had, and a lot worse than I did. 

Anyway. You have a good handle on your situation. Your perceptions are accurate. Your married life is not what you want it to be and there is only so much you can do with regards to your husband's situation. Being knowledgeable and supportive and thanking him for the things he does and the effort he makes to overcome his issues is great. Having a financial plan is great. Being pregnant might not be the best thing right now. But I would say children are a personal choice and you know your situation best.


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## sara_metricfan (Jul 5, 2011)

In my opinion it's time to go. I remember someone telling me that "as fast as the relationship starts, is as fast as it's going to crash and burn".

I'm going through a separation myself. He did the online thing 3 years ago, claims nothing ever happened he was just "curious". Whatever. Either way I know what it's like to find those kinds of things and it really hurts and it's hard to get over sometimes. 

In my opinion it's time to be alone. You've been married since you were 19 and in relationships for way too long. I've been in a relationship since I was 15 and I'm 21 now. Time for us to learn how it's like to be alone. Learn about us. Sure the guys did their part to "ruin" the marriage-- but I also think because we didn't have a chance to discover ourselves and find out who we are it also played a part of the dissolution of our marriages.

-- but that's just my two cents.

Good luck- I hope you do what you think is right.


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## onepotatotwo (May 17, 2011)

I would normally never tell someone what to do with their life, but I really really strongly encourage you to just leave. However you have to do it, or have him put out...but get away from this man asap!

My first husband was/is *exactly* like you've described. The only difference I can see is that mine was attracted to a, for lack of a better term, lower quality of woman than what you're describing... I don't mean to sound disrespectful to anyone but the 'women' my husband was involved with online were really bottom of the barrel. He had no taste what so ever...he didn't care if it hopped, skipped or flew, he'd try to scr*w it... 

In hindsight, I can see the NPD which he was later diagnosed with. While in the marriage, I couldn't see the "forest for the trees"... I was so busy trying to keep my marriage together and finding out about each affair that I didn't see the whole picture...He is disordered and will never be right or fixed or "ok"... It took me several years to accept that fact and part of me still doesn't fully get it. My ego took a *huge* beating because of his choice of affair partners....they were truly the most awful lot you could imagine--but he was sucking narcissistic supply from them so he could care less what they looked like or what they did with their lives (i.e. hookers and drug addicts). 

I think you should google narcissistic personality disorder and see how it might apply to your husband. There is no cure. The only thing you can do is get away from him so he can't suck the life out of you. 

I'm very sorry you're going through this and hope you'll find the strength to get yourself into a safer, happier place.


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