Fool me once, twice, three times

[citrineandflowers]

My partner (30M) and I (27F) have been together for 5 years. We have a two children (5 and 2), and got together, as you can tell by the math, after we had a child together.

About 1 year into our relationship, I found out that he had been responding to personal ads on Craigslist for casual encounters, made plans to meet and so on and so forth. I was horrified, and very disgusted. Our relationship had been great, aside from our terrible sex life. Sex was very infrequent, and when it did happen, it was ... lacking, quick, or there were technical difficulties on his end. I broke up with him, but after him crying and pleading and telling me how he was just doing it for fun and never had plans to meet anyone... I let my desire to not fail win. I should have known better, because it happened again, and again, and again. By this point I was just humiliated, embarassed and feeling like it was my fault. I should never have stayed, but I was pregnant with our second child, and feeling very trapped. I stayed. Every time he got caught, it was the same story. He would get defensive and angry, trying to turn it on me snooping and invading his privacy.

 

Eventually he decided to tell me this story about how before we met, he was dating someone online. Turns out it was a teenage boy who was pranking him, and he decided to turn this into some sort of weird vengeance and "prank" other people via Craigslist. I definitely didn't believe this crock of a story before, and I don't now. When he told me this, we were living in a small town away from all family and friends, I was a few months post partum and dealing with pretty bad postpartum anxiety. I was hopeless and didn't really even believe I was worthy of more, so I let him believe that I was fine, life would carry on, etc. Every time he got caught, I just let him off the hook so quickly, I carried so little respect for myself. It got to the point where I wanted him to propose to me so badly, because then it would mean that he actually WANTED me, in some twisted capacity. In hindsight I see how flawed that is, but I was really hurting.

 

By this point, our sex life was non-existent. We haven't slept in the same bed for over 2.5 years. We have had sex less than 8-10 times in the past 2+ years. All when we had too much wine, all very disappointing. I have always had a high libido and understand that not everyone lines up, but this has been ridiculous. His idea of fixing it was to tell me when I wanted him to **** me. Great... thats what I want for a sex life.

 

He has never been a very truthful person, there is always an element of sneakiness to the things he does. After I caught him the first one or two times, he created new emails. He snuck a beer every day after work before he walked in the house, leaving me to make supper and handle the children while he is just hanging out drinking a beer and unwinding. Even when confronted with the past indiscretions, he only tells me what he thinks that I know, he has never come clean or been totally honest with me.

 

Fast forward to this January, when I snapped. For the past year I had been hating him, every single day I told myself I needed to get rid of him. I finally did it, I told him I don't love him and that I would not continue to be in a relationship with him. I felt so free, and weightless. We continued to live together, as we have young children and there are so many things to sort out and work through. I have been having the hardest time making concrete steps towards really ending this though. He is my best friend, regardless of how ****ty of a partner he has been, he has been with me through so much and we have fun together. As time has gone by, he has started to show little changes, acknowledging his faults on his own and admitting that he has been a crap partner. We had a good talk about how all of this garbage has destroyed us, what it had done to me and how I felt about and acted towards him. For the first time, he has acknowledged that his actions have been wrong and that they have effectively destroyed our relationship.

I have told him that before I would ever even consider having a relationship with him again, there is so much hurt and pain that would have to be worked through. He swears that he doesn't want what our relationship was, and that he loves me and wants a new relationship with me and the chance to show me how good it can really be. I am feeling so torn and guilty about not giving this the last chance to see if we could create something new, but then at the same time I really don't know if I can ever trust him again. I feel like this will plague us forever, and that he can't miraculously change and create a sex drive that was never there.

 

I'm sorry if that rambled, I know deep down that there is a very good chance that if I decide to try to work on this relationship, we will end up back in the same space again. But having children, I feel a big guilt about being the one to walk away from this relationship.

 

I really would appreciate any advice or insight, even if its harsh and straightforward.

[whichwayisup]

Talk to a lawyer and file divorce papers.

 

Seems you two just aren't good as husband and wife, but still could be great co parents to your children in two separate households and be on good terms because there is a friendship there.

 

Prolonging this isn't going to help, plus it's not a good dynamic for your kids to see and pick up on the negative energy.

[overseas2004]

I have to say I agree with which way is up. Your relationship is not going anywhere and its not good for the kids. All that is going to happen if you stay is that you are going to lose the time you need to meet the right person. Time you will never get back.