jforthegirl Posted December 7, 2013 Share Posted December 7, 2013 To quickly sum up my impending divorce: -we were together 20+ years - he emotionally checked out of the relationship 5 years ago, yet after that he bought a house with me, we married, and had a baby - he blames everything about the demise of our relationship on me - I recently discovered that he had been having online sex for months before he left - he is still living here, but hopefully moving out within the week I'm not sure if I have a question here or if this is just I am looking for support or if this is a warning to anyone who is seeing this behavior in their spouse. My husband has an alternate online life. It has taken this divorce for me to realize how extensive it has become. He has been having an unknown number of EAs and he has a whole community of troll friends. I guess it started a couple of years ago, with just some humorous trolling on news sites. Then it became a serious hobby, he started spending hours online throughout the day. The he started getting banned from sites and cresting new accounts to continue his trolling. Then he was invited to join a troll chat site. I think he was proud that he had been invited to an exclusive club. While all of this was happening, I joked with him that it was a little weird, but it seemed harmless. Then we had our daughter and I was distracted by caring for her, and stopped paying attention to the status of his online behavior. When my daughter was 4 months old, I returned to work part tine and when she was 6 months old, I returned full time. Because my husband owns his own business, the plan was always for him to watch our daughter during the day and then work at night. When I returned to work, whenever I would return home or observe him taking care of her, he was often online on the laptop or on his phone. So often, in fact, I started making comments to him about ir just flat out asking him what he was doing and could he try and engage with his real life. He would always kind of scowl at me, like I was bring a nag. This continued for months and then a few months ago, he started coming home from work and getting online right away and staying online until the early hours of the morning. I have to get up at 430am, so I would always put my daughter to bed and go to bed early. I would sometimes wake up and go out to the living room to find him online and ask him what he was doing. He always said that he couldn't sleep. Little did I know that he was having online sex with women. So, this continued up until the day that he told me he was leaving. He said he was leaving because I have ruined his life and my controlling behavior has left him isolated. It has taken me while to put it all together, but the discovery of his online sexual encounters helped me with this puzzle. I think that he is having a major mid life crisis that was brought on by the birth of our daughter, the move to being a stay at home dad, and this alternate online existence where he has sought validation and affection outside of our real life marriage. I'm devastated to be losing my family as I thought it would be. has anyone had an experience like this? Where you've lost your spouse to the online experience? Link to post Share on other sites
The dad Posted December 7, 2013 Share Posted December 7, 2013 My stbxstbx let me and our daughter to be with one of my best friends. This was eight months ago and every time I think I'm doing better something happens to set me back. I have custody and this is the second weekend she has not taken her for her visitation. This is not the women I loved for 27 years, or the mother I knew her to be. I realized early on ( not early enough) that all the blame she was putting on me and the hurt she is putting on our daughter is her way of avoiding the responsibility she has in it. I think we all have a little blame for our marriages going bad, but some of us were willing to work on them, while the cowards are willing to look elsewhere and not do what it takes to keep their families together. It's not your fault he went online to find what he wasn't willing to work for at home. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
keepontruckin Posted December 8, 2013 Share Posted December 8, 2013 OP, there's no such thing as online sex... Link to post Share on other sites
Author jforthegirl Posted December 8, 2013 Author Share Posted December 8, 2013 Well, basically they send each other pictures of each other and then chat each other through masturbating. and it turns out that he has been doing this with one particular woman fir several months. She is much younger, married, with a child and apparently they are deeply in love. They are emailing, texting and talking on the phone frequently. so, yeah, another crushing blow and back to square one I go. Link to post Share on other sites
alonefornow Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 - he emotionally checked out of the relationship 5 years ago, yet after that he bought a house with me, we married, and had a baby - he blames everything about the demise of our relationship on me The online affair is the recent development, but to me this is the most astonishing part of your story. Those three things: buying a house, marrying, and having a child are arguably the three most life-altering decisions a person can make. To do so after emotionally checking out of the relationship and not telling you is incredibly cowardly and unfair. It means he's been leading you on, aka lying to you for 5 years! Then he has the gall to blame everything on you? You say you're back to square one over the online shenanigans coming to light. I can see that, but I think you're focusing on the wrong thing. You married someone who didn't have the respect for you, nor themselves, to be honest when asked to say their vows. That level of disregard would only get worse over time. It's probably a good thing this online stuff happened. How much more of your life do you think he would have siphoned away if it hadn't? Link to post Share on other sites
Yarrow Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 To answer your original question, I didn't lose my love to an online experience, but the online experience should have been a clue that things were going to go badly. In my case, early into the marriage, he got heavily involved in online gaming. He was gaming easily 14+ hours a day and kept making excuses for why he wouldn't get a job. He stayed up playing until 4 am, long after I had given up trying to get his attention and gone to bed, then had the gall to complain that I wasn't giving him enough sex and we didn't do anything fun and exciting anymore. If it had been a drug or gambling addiction, I would have left him right then, but I didn't really know what to do with a gaming addiction and whether it would be a legitimate reason to leave. I mean, it's not like I haven't indulged in computer games in the past, but never to the point where I neglected school, work, or family. Well, with enough cajoling from friends and family, he was able to get a job and cut back to maybe 5-6 hrs a day, so I just let it be. Fast forward a few years, he up and left me because he felt like he never got a chance to enjoy the single life, which to hear him talk about it, he envisioned as some kind of endless party full of admiring young women, wild nights out, and unfettered travel. Classic mid-life crisis, complete with shiny new sports car. Online gaming didn't wreck my marriage. My husband being a selfish jerk wrecked my marriage. I should have recognized how poorly he was treating me when the issue of the gaming showed up, but I tried to be patient. I was patient all the way until he took off. I have a feeling that his single life looks more like a computer in his parents' basement than an MTV reality show, but that's not my problem anymore. Your husband sounds unworthy of you. Let him be someone else's problem. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Author jforthegirl Posted December 10, 2013 Author Share Posted December 10, 2013 An update.... When I first posted this thread I thought that what he had been doing was having online sex with several anonymous women, this is what he told me. Come to find out that he was lying again and what he was doing was having an online affair with one woman for several months. She is much younger, married, and the mother of a young child. Oh, and they are in love. I keep thinking that this cannot possibly get any worse and then another deception is revealed and I am crushed to the ground all over again. The lies seem to be endless. alonefornow you are absolutely right, he is a coward. From the beginning this mess I have been trying to figure out how he could stay with me through all of this life events, knowing that he didn't love me. He was just being a coward. I have decided that I can no longer try to figure out any of his actions, I always end up finding more pain. I need to just let it all go, limit my communication with him to only matters that children raising our daughter. His life cannot be my concern. I need to regain my footing (again) and focus on the future and what is best for my daughter and I. No more drama. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
alonefornow Posted December 11, 2013 Share Posted December 11, 2013 An update.... When I first posted this thread I thought that what he had been doing was having online sex with several anonymous women, this is what he told me. Come to find out that he was lying again and what he was doing was having an online affair with one woman for several months. She is much younger, married, and the mother of a young child. Oh, and they are in love. I keep thinking that this cannot possibly get any worse and then another deception is revealed and I am crushed to the ground all over again. The lies seem to be endless. alonefornow you are absolutely right, he is a coward. From the beginning this mess I have been trying to figure out how he could stay with me through all of this life events, knowing that he didn't love me. He was just being a coward. I have decided that I can no longer try to figure out any of his actions, I always end up finding more pain. I need to just let it all go, limit my communication with him to only matters that children raising our daughter. His life cannot be my concern. I need to regain my footing (again) and focus on the future and what is best for my daughter and I. No more drama. This is such an encouraging post. Go get it! You deserve so much better than what you've been getting. Link to post Share on other sites
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