a serial cheater finally comes clean

[janedoe67]

I know this is sad but I am afraid to talk about any forum I might have been on regardless of what it was called because I have learned that there are people on some forums who don't have enough to do so they like to spend time ferreting out people's identities and wrecking their lives. That probably sounds bad but it happens.

 

But every time I start reading a lot of forums my biggest thought is that I have/had a pretty rare treasure in my own husband when it comes to someone who is capable of actual forgiveness and the ability for introspection. Because even though he doesn't seem to be able to really change the things about himself that hurt at least is acknowledges that they are there and can be honest about the fact that they did contribute to me being vulnerable.

[SoleMate]

Jane, I'm really concerned that you are in a state of clinical depression. That would explain the lack of emotion and also the self-medicating via poorly chosen sex partners. I recommend you see a mental health expert and focus on getting yourself healthy first. Your marriage may then look better to you and you can also learn techniques to avoid doing destructive things like having affairs that just make you feel worse.

[janedoe67]

Jane, I'm really concerned that you are in a state of clinical depression. That would explain the lack of emotion and also the self-medicating via poorly chosen sex partners. I recommend you see a mental health expert and focus on getting yourself healthy first. Your marriage may then look better to you and you can also learn techniques to avoid doing destructive things like having affairs that just make you feel worse.

 

Thank you for your concern and for not telling me that I deserve it for being a slut.

 

I am taking AD's and I have an appointment with a psychologist tomorrow and a 3 page thingy to read to him about everything so I won't forget or lose my train of thought. Today I feel kind of like just laying down and saying "yeah you are right I am bad and have always been bad and was just faking it the 30 some odd years out of 46 that I seemed to be good. And the sad part is none of that is based on anything my husband is doing.

[turnera]

I often urge posters to print out their thread and hand it to the psychologist to read later, to get a better handle on you. We often say a lot more in threads than we can get across IRL.

[janedoe67]

I often urge posters to print out their thread and hand it to the psychologist to read later, to get a better handle on you. We often say a lot more in threads than we can get across IRL.

 

That isn't a bad idea and I might do that.

 

I feel a bit guilty today because I am relieved that all of this finally came out between my husband and me because I was always waiting for that other shoes to drop and now it feels like some outside thing that had power over me doesn't anymore.

[aliveagain]

Jane,

 

It takes a very, very strong man who is also very in love with his wife to bear the pain of staying married to a serial cheater. Do not even for a moment think your husband is weak, a weaker man like myself would have kicked your cheating ass to the curb years ago. You need to look at your husband in a different light just as you have to look at your commitment to your marriage, are you really committed, if you are start acting like it or release him.

[janedoe67]

You are so right aliveagain. I am realizing that more and more. I know a lot of people on here are not religious but I can see more and more that my husband really is the kind of man who understands what it means to love his wife like Christ loved the church.

[aliveagain]

Jane, keep those thoughts, now your getting it.

[janedoe67]

I both dread and look forward to tomorrow. My emotions are all over the place and that makes me feel terrible because I need to be consistent and be working on making amends not crying all over the place. This time around I am going to let me husband lead and trust what HE says and what HE does instead of imposing all this outside stuff on him. And I'm going to try to keep the "world that matters small" as in what does H think of me, what do I think of me, what do my kids think of me, and what does God think of me. I trusted things and people besides my husband last time when all of the amazingness he was giving me and all of the bitterness he was choosing NOT to give me was right there.

 

Not this time. This time it is OUR marriage and not someone else's project.

[janedoe67]

Btw, thank you to everyone for honesty without machine guns. I wish I had stumbled on here a few years ago....I could have been open about my vulnerabilities before I chose to let them direct my crappy choices.

[Steadfast]

It takes a very, very strong man who is also very in love with his wife to bear the pain of staying married to a serial cheater. Do not even for a moment think your husband is weak, a weaker man like myself would have kicked your cheating ass to the curb years ago.

 

Ouch. Labeling someone -anyone- as weak for refusing to live with a cheater is at best, poor judgement. Even in the context of your back-handed compliment aliveagain. Did the crying and begging help?

 

Jane, you're casting your husband as the hero in this situation but the miracle here isn't his undying love, it's your evolving self-awareness. Rarely do we read of someone courageous enough to dig that deep. Regardless of what happens in your marriage, this humbling and sincere wish to be a better person will enrichen your life and those around you.

 

People continue to see divorce as some sort of wall that can never be breached; like death. It isn't, but it can be...depending on who's involved. I know a couple who were divorced for ten-years, now together for over thirty since remarrying. The wife's filing and leaving caused the man to realize in time just what he'd given up by stepping out, and his respect for her was boosted to new levels when she refused to accept it. Years passed before she trusted him enough to commit again. Is that weak, or is that wise? Please don't label the betrayed as weak for leaving. As an emotional blanket statement it's radically inaccurate and profoundly misleading.

[stillafool]

 

I'm sorry.

[janedoe67]

I did read your post, stillafool, but you probably have nothing to apologize for because I have dealt my marriage and my husband several horrible blows.

 

This morning I woke up and saw my husband's status on facebook where he thanked me for opening my heart to him recently and how glad he was to be let in (our anniversary is this weekend and I honestly wasn't sure how to deal with it). I cried (again).

 

There is no one rule that fits everyone when it comes to reconciling or not or staying or not I know. And maybe he isn't a hero but I am very very glad that somehow he found the patience to hang in there this long. It isn't just grief over the affairs that is hitting me these past few weeks, it's this understanding that I set up many many of the very things I then turned around and resented. I helped make the marriage I complained about in way more ways than I ever realized before.

[Steadfast]

You can be the person you want to be. It would seem you have some very good support in place to accomplish that. Good to see this happening.

 

All the best in your journey.

[aliveagain]

Jane,

 

You both made that marriage, what do you want to do with your new knowledge in regards to your marriage, in regards to yourself? What will you do to stop your behavior the next time you hit a rough patch?

[Turtles]

OK so there is a lot of Mea Culpa going around in this thread, and a lot of admiration going around for the stoic husband, standing by his poor sinner wife despite all the horrible things that she has done, and it's all well and good to have some humility and introspection and be committed to work on yourself, but...

 

I don't understand how someone can unilaterally decide in a marriage that sex wouldn't happen anymore. I think it's sad that you feel unworthy because you yearn for sexual intimacy. Have you or has he at least considered that the problem may be in part with him and not all on you? Or are you really going to try to repress those urges until you are no longer sexually active?

 

Finally, I am not so sure the husband is that much of a hero for forgiving you, after all, he is not sexually active and has no plan to ever make any effort to be, so really what is it to him if you are getting it somewhere else? This is like thanking a 10 year old for gracefully giving up his brussels sprouts.

[janedoe67]

Thank you for the words of encouragement, and turtles you ask some very good questions. We talked last night and I talked to him about what I felt that night he told me sex was over. He had no idea that I took it the way I took it and I am not sure how detailed to get on a message board. I am putting it in one of those boxes if I can figure out how.

 

Okay, nevermind, that wasn't a spoiler box. Basically he can't have intercourse (I can't believe I wrote that on a forum)

 

He meant just what is not comfortable for him, not everything sexual altogether. He just honestly doesn't think about it, and he needs me to tell him when I am so he can do something about it. One of my hangups was that I wanted to be "voluntarily wanted" but that isn't really fair. If he doesn't think about it but is willing to try when I think about it then surely I can get over my fear of initiating, even though a lot of that fear came from being told no. If I want us to have a new marriage and I want him to learn how to trust me even with my track record then I have to stop judging him by the past and be willing to learn to trust that he can have a new track record too.

 

As far as what to do when another rough patch hits, that is something we have to really dig into because there WILL be rough patches and there will be times that I struggle with needing touch and sex, and if I can't decide myself to keep strong boundaries and also not just cave in to not having my needs met I will make more bad choices. This is an Achilles heel at least until some good counseling is done. I have to learn how to be honest even if the honesty doesn't turn out the way I hoped.

 

It's going to be hard. Already even in the thick of this I have felt the need to soothe in that way, and I have resisted the urge to cope using release because I think I need a "dry period". He hasn't approached me to be intimate and in a way I think that is good because the first time when he was all the sudden Mr. Sex Machine it set me up to think that those were permanent changes. I want to learn to be content in the marriage I am going to have long term not just some short burst of change, if that makes sense.

[janedoe67]

The psychologist appointment went well I think. I have seen this one twice before but didn't go back because he seemed a little too perceptive for my comfort? That is kind of funny now that I think about it. I told him I wrote some things down and he seemed kind of amused when I held up three typed pages but he told me to take my time while he made notes on his copy (yes I made him a copy, I'm weird that way). After I read it all he just paused for a bit then then said "doesn't that feel a lot better?" We talked some about patterns and what I wanted to work on and what he saw that might be helpful to work on but he mainly wanted me to think about how I define myself as a person and why. He did ask me some questions about time frames concerning certain marital and family things and then kind of showed me how long something had been patterns and how long I had struggled with some things and kind of reminded me that a lifelong pattern or years of coping in unhealthy ways was not going to disappear in a month or something. He said anyone who has dealt with and lived with years of serious dysfunction who suddenly finds a list of rules to follow and seems fine in a few weeks is either deceived or deceitful in his opinion and I had to laugh. I am a box checking rule follower and I also have that if/then thinking that is probably part of the reason I found the sexual side of our marriage so frustrating.

 

I don't really know what nay of that means except that he wants me to think in terms of an inside out hard work kind of thing and not a do's and don'ts band aid that will just fester if nothing in my life really changes. And he said that we could work and I could learn and really get myself straight and that is still no guarantee that x, y and z in my life will magically be the way I want and that I would need to learn how to handle that too.

 

He seems like a good balance between wanting me to rebirth and play a drum for my inner child and just giving me a set of rules with some sacklocth and ashes. I'm hopeful.

[drifter777]

You do realize that you are living your life all up in your head and stifling those emotions you think are "not appropriate" - right? It's going to take a while for any counselor(s) to help guide you onto a path that should give you a richer, healthier life. A first step might be to not bring a list of things you want to "cover" with him and simply talk to him about how you feel. It's a difficult adjustment to make but a pretty good start.

 

I still feel absolutely horrible for your husband. As a BH I empathize with the pain he is going through now as well as the hell he is going to go through when his feelings finally come to the surface. Right now he is the one choosing to live with a serial cheater because he is terrified of losing his marriage. That gives you incredible leverage over him and I ask you to be aware of that and not abuse him because of it. Urge him to get counseling before the stress of swallowing his feelings about your betrayals causes him both physical and emotional damage.

[janedoe67]

Right now he is the one choosing to live with a serial cheater because he is terrified of losing his marriage. That gives you incredible leverage over him and I ask you to be aware of that and not abuse him because of it. Urge him to get counseling before the stress of swallowing his feelings about your betrayals causes him both physical and emotional damage.

 

You are right about this, and I don't want that at all.

 

It is hard for me not to be "goal oriented" about anything even counseling...the idea that I need to be "doing" something so I have proof I am getting better or something. Talking about all these feelings makes me nauseous which would probably surprise most people who know me. But I want to try.

[drifter777]

You are right about this, and I don't want that at all.

 

It is hard for me not to be "goal oriented" about anything even counseling...the idea that I need to be "doing" something so I have proof I am getting better or something. Talking about all these feelings makes me nauseous which would probably surprise most people who know me. But I want to try.

You have to try and you have to learn how to "feel" or you cannot escape the life you are in right now.

[janedoe67]

You have to try and you have to learn how to "feel" or you cannot escape the life you are in right now.

 

The weird thing is I feel a lot. 99.9% of people who have known me for a length of time would say that I am feely and emotional and a lot of them might say too much so. Growing up I can't remember how many times my mom especially called me "the sensitive child." But out of control feelings scare the bejeezus out of me. And I don;t like for them to last very long because if those kinds of feelings last very long you usually end up alone.

[janedoe67]

The self-deception comes in if a person believes that simple box-checking solves the underlying issues. That's equivalent to telling a person who has had a lifetime obesity problem "Stop eating so much and exercise more!" Two boxes that are easy to "check" yet so many people have so many body issues and food issues that it's not so easy at all.

 

This analogy is really perfect. I know a lot of my box checking to be good enough too came from the church I grew up in because let's just say it was very very strict.

 

To Mr. Atheist (I can't remember your exact screen name) thank you for the web site recommendation. I never would have believed it but it has really struck a chord.

[janedoe67]

It has been a very peaceful and happy kind of weekend, not because anything in particular happened but just because there seems to be some connection going on. I ordered a book called The Surrendered Wife by Laura Doyle (I think that is her name) and it is kind of blowing my mind a bit because it is basically about the woman who says she has wanted her husband to lead but has not trusted him enough of let go of control enough to actually LET him. I can see a whole lot of myself in it honestly.

[aliveagain]

When you really break down the essence of a relationship, trust is one of the key factors that make up it's core. Besides your parents, who else can you really trust to cover your back, yes, the one you chose as your spouse. Who else would give up their life to protect you, I mean really willing to and not just saying they would? Friends come and go, just consider those that have been in your life, where are they now, who is still there? How can you survive life without someone you trust to help you carry the load? What a horrible and lonely place that would be, to do it alone, after all, even your children move on at some point. The thing that I have come to realize is no matter how successful you become in life, it doesn't mean anything if you can't share it with people you love, that's what makes it worthwhile.