Confused and don't know what to do.

[requiscantinpace]

Here's the story....sorry it's so long.

 

My ex and I were married for 14 years before divorcing due to growing apart, lack of consideration for each other, yadda yadda yadda.....Our divorce was final for two years this past January. We have three children, ages 4, 6, and 15.

 

During that two years, he dated and had several relationships, including practically moving in with one woman. I really didn't even have any relationships with anyone because I wasn't over him yet and just couldn't bring myself to do it.

 

Emotionally, I went through a very difficult two years. The kids lived with him for a year of that time because I was a wreck.

 

I finally managed to pull myself together and in the spring of this year, I bought my own home and was doing rather well emotionally and physically. The kids came back to live with me and everyone was happy.

 

He was not paying me child support at that time because I didn't pay him child support while the kids lived with him. However, there *is* a court order for him to pay $100/week. I finally had to ask him to resume paying that and he basically threw a fit. While I can understand his feelings (after all, I wasn't paying him when they were with him), I can see two different sides to this. When the kids were with him, he lived with his mother, paid very little for their care, paid no rent and contributed very little to household expenses, had a live-in sitter, rarely bought them clothing and such (I still did so), and had much less expenses related to their care than I have when they are with me. I don't have the option of moving in with my parents again. I insisted that he would have to resume paying me and informed him that I would be seeing an attorney to take care of that if he refused.

 

He came to me a couple of days later and presented me with the offer to move in and resume our former relationship. We had been intimate many times during the period that we were split up and to be honest, I still love him very much. Foolishly, I let him move in almost immediately, even though everyone was warning me not to do it. Even though he had hurt me many times while we were split up, I still loved him.

 

*deep breath*

 

Now, on to today....For a little while he was different, very different than when we were married. But, things started to go back to the way they were before. He's helping me very little around the house, etc. One of the major problems between us then was that he would spend almost every second that I was at work online in chat rooms and private chats. He would spend a lot of time on online dating services and looking at webcams and porn. He had many online *friends*, mostly women. I spent two years begging him not to do this anymore, before we finally divorced. He always said that I was just being silly and overreacting.

 

I found proof a couple of days ago that he's been doing this again. You can imagine how I feel. I told him that he has to be out of my house by the weekend and that I would not even spend one day on this topic anymore, let alone another two years of my life. He swore that he wouldn't do again and has begged me to give him another chance. My dilemma is that I really don't believe him. I don't trust him anymore. I would be checking up on him all the time and I don't like being made to feel like I have to be that kind of person.

 

But....I do still love him very much. I don't really want him to leave again. I don't want my kids to go through all that again. I don't want to have to *get over him* again. I know that I can't live like this though.

 

Any thoughts??

 

My brain is telling me to make him leave and then if he really has decided to change, then let him prove it. My heart, of course, is screaming something entirely different. I just don't see how you can claim to love someone so much and want to be with them, but at the same time, be checking out all these other women online. Is it really as harmless as he's making it out to be? For me, what it comes down to is that he knew my feelings on it, he knew how much harm it did to our marriage, and I don't understand why he would go right back to it again.

 

Confusion...majorly...

[Velveteel]

I'm so sorry you're dealing with this. What a roller coaster. As I see it, though, you're involved with a man who can't control himself sexually. He may not be cheating by the usual definitions, but he needs the attention and excitement and self-esteem he gets from drawing all these women (probably some of them are really men, but he deserves what he gets) around him. It's a kind of sex addiction.

 

He probably can't stop without help, any more than he could stop taking drugs without help. If he's serious about it "never happening again," etc., he needs to find some kind of addiction recovery program and start therapy. Maybe you could both go to some kind of couples therapy, as well.

 

If he's a good father and you're otherwise happy with him, maybe you'll consider this part of your commitment to stand by him "in sickness and health," and so forth. You can give him another chance, and try to help him recover. But you don't have to. No one will fault you (except maybe him) if you say that you can't deal with that sense of betrayal right now, after all the two of you have been through.