Getting past his past...

[CatRouge]

I met my husband 3 years ago. From the beginning he wanted to know everything about my past, and because I kept one thing I was very ashamed of from him and he found out about it, he threatened to leave me. We got past that.

 

He told me about his past marriages (3 of them) and a couple of past girlfriends, and made it sound as if he was very moral, not into just screwing around. Ended the first marriage because they married young and just grew apart. Ended the second because the woman was controlling (this is the mother of his one child and I can confirm that she is indeed controlling and very nosey - I've had some words with her myself about minding her own business). Ended the third because the woman was a drunk and she cheated on him. There were a couple of girlfriends between wife #3 and me, one lasted 2 years, the other lasted about 6 months. I believed him.

 

We got married, and I started seeing a little inconsistency with some of his stories, timelines didn't add up correctly (he claimed it was because he isn't good at remembering that type of stuff), but then I was browsing through old photos of his on facebook and noticed these two women who had remarked on a couple pictures, and I knew these women to be, let's say a little "loose", as they had both been with this one guy I had known and he told me about them way back when. They weren't friends with my husband on FB, but obviously had been at some point to have remarked on the photos and he deleted them as friends. I asked him about them and he said they were both just women he had met and gone out on a date or two with (one had remarked about how big his son had gotten, so my suspicions got bigger - why would someone he only dated once or twice know his son?) For some reason he insisted on having my passwords to email and FB and gave me his saying "you can look anytime, I have nothing to hide" I didn't look right away, maybe a month or so later I did and I came across an old email hidden in an obscure folder (needless to say, gmail doesn't necessarily delete your emails when you trash them), it was from some woman about the time me and him got together and she was remarking about how she heard he was with ANOTHER woman and boy he sure does move fast, but no worries, give her a call some time. I asked and he admitted she was some chick he hooked up with occasionally on a FWB kind of thing when he was between relationships.

 

At this point I didn't really trust anything he told me, there were just too many inconsistencies with his stories that I knew there was more then he was telling me.

 

Finally he broke down and told me - there had been LOTS of women. LOTS of one night stands, lots of drunken escapades with women he met in bars, lots of excursions on his friend's boat with these women. But the worst part, the absolute worst part of it all was that he and the last ex wife, the drunk, were swingers. He apparently cheated on her 8 months into the marriage and her way of fixing it was to suggest they swing and he went for it. 4 years of it. Sex clubs, parties at people's houses... he even went to a resort in Jamaica that was right next door to the one we went to for our honeymoon (I was actually physically sick when I realized that).

 

At first I thought "ok, that's his past, before me, I have to deal with it and move on" but my mind started wandering and my low self esteem took over and I started interrogating him about his past. HOW could he do all of that stuff?! and HOW could he keep it from me for so long when even his best friend at his wedding knew about it - I felt dooped, like a huge fool.

 

He swore I had changed him - and to be fair I HAVE seen changes in him from when we first met, he doesn't drink as much, he has no desire to go hang out at the bars where his friends are... and I never once said a thing about those things to him, he just gradually changed that on his own... he even drifted away from the old friends. He swore that I was the ONE woman in the world that he was searching all that time for, that I filled that void in him, I filled his heart.

 

We got over the worst part of it with help from couple's counseling, and we do seem stronger for it. But there are times that my mind still wanders and I derail myself. I obsess about the third ex wife, whom I loath even though I have never met the woman. I wonder if I'm enough for him sexually after all the women he's been with. And these thoughts make me depressed.

 

I'm not sure WHAT I can do to get past all of that, HOW do I build my own self esteem to get past his past?

 

Thanks for reading and any advice.

[Mr. Lucky]

He told me about his past marriages (3 of them) and a couple of past girlfriends, and made it sound as if he was very moral, not into just screwing around.

There's a reason the grand ol' game of baseball gives you three strikes and then you're out. 3 failed marriages and a number of other unsuccessful relationships? What about his history could have possibly made you think he was good spousal material even before the swinging discovery ???

 

Mr. Lucky

[TigerCub]

Hey Cat,

 

Sorry you have to deal with all this and its affecting your self esteem.

 

The thing that bugs me the most - well ok, we all have our pasts and we usually grow up, so its not really that he slept around, but its the fact that he threatened to leave you for omitting a piece of info about YOUR past, and now he expects you to believe him and put up with his past even though he omitted a crap load of things.

 

That whole double standard bull**** is what should be a HUGE flag for you.

 

Also, this 3rd wife - how could she have "cheated" on him if they were swingers and obviously had an understanding that they were screwing other people?

 

I think he's a liar and he's someone with an entitlement complex (he's allowed to do things that you will be punished for).

 

Watch out....

[CatRouge]

Yes TigerCub, it was a HUGE flag for me - but we were already married by this time, and I'm not someone to just say "I want a divorce now" But I think what hurt me the most was that he didn't respect me enough to tell me BEFORE we got married, but waited til after and then when I questioned that he said it was because he trusted me (guess he didn't fully trust me before marrying me). Claims he never has opened up to any woman like he has to me, and that was the downfall of his marriages - was that he was closed off and wouldn't communicate. We did alot of couple's counseling (still going) and delved into alot of things he didn't realize as to why he did the things he did.

 

He does know how much he hurt me, and that my trust was shattered by this. He DOES have a sense of entitlement and the whole "well it's my past, I didn't know you then" just doesn't work for me when he's so sensitive about my past.

 

As for the swinging wife - he claims that he caught her one time with some guy when he wasn't suppose to be home and their whole "deal" was that they would only screw other people in the presence of each other. I just looked at him and said "are you for real?!" I don't get the whole swinger mentality and I don't want to. He claims they stopped the swinging about 6 months before he left her and he never wanted to go back to that kind of lifestyle again. I did alot of snooping around after his "confession" and I found his old bank statements and a trail of what he did with her during the marriage (places, etc), and it all did stop before he left her, and there was nothing like that in the 5 years between her and me.

 

I DO think that he has changed. He is remorseful for how he hid it from me, and he has been working on himself in therapy. And in truth, I can do nothing to change someone else. It's ME that I need to learn how to control - my emotions, my wandering mind. How do I stop myself from doing that to myself?