I'm Edith and my husband has been cheating for 14 years - UPDATE

[edith]

Bailey, I will take that answer as sarcasm. You can’t possibly be serious.

[RecentChange]

Edith it's hard to answer these questions that have answers as clear as day.

 

OF COURSE it's easy for him to cheat on you, it's a walk in the park! I mean why not, you do everything in your power to keep it as easy as possible for him.

 

It's like some one asking "is the sky blue?" And the answer is of course it's blue - but then the asker is not convinced. "how do you know it's blue? Maybe it's not blue. I am hoping it's not blue"

 

Of course it's blue, and you know it's blue. There really isn't another way to spell it out.

[Londy]

he’s just so thrilled that she “swallowed” and wanted “every drop of him”.

 

I will never lower myself to her level.

 

 

Here's the problem. He enjoys the excitement of the sex with these women, you're plain vanilla and think of swallowing and anal as "lowering yourself". It's really not. You're just unwilling to loosen up and try something different.

 

 

That is of course your right, but here you are using sex as some sort of manipulative tool to "win him back" but you're doing it wrong. Don't even both, you cannot compete with a woman who takes it on the chin.

Edited October 26, 2019 by Londy

[edith]

Yes, that’s what I’ve been saying all along! HE’S IN IT FOR THE SEX. Then everyone tells me he obviously has feelings for the 11 yr ow, I start looking at his behavior, remember everything I’ve read here, then I start to believe he really does have feelings for her. But the real question doesn’t get answered- what in his behavior has shown he has feelings, instead of only wanting sex?

 

I can handle just sex. I cannot handle an emotional involvement on his part.

 

Do men go six years not having sex with a woman and still want her, after having been with several others? Is that alone proof of feelings? Then why do I have this pain in my gut as if someone has just kicked me every time I see he has gone to her profile? Why do I tell myself it’s plain to see he has feelings for this one, but then convince myself she means nothing because he goes weeks not talking to her?

 

All of this seems to be so cut and dried for you guys. I feel like I’m in complete darkness and these posts - sometimes - shine a little light I can follow.

 

Does my husband love someone else?

[mark clemson]

It's very hard to say. I suspect your husband may not love anyone really (and this may not be entirely his fault, but certainly his actions are his choices and this doesn't mean you should be tolerating what he does).

 

Many men bond emotionally over sex. Some don't. Even ones that don't tend to appreciate it a lot. Is appreciation love? Maybe it's as close as some people can get, I don't know.

 

 

Please don’t refrain from giving me what you think is the truth. I am taking all of this in and am seeing an attorney (again) in two weeks

 

I think the truth is that you're clinging to this "he probably doesn't love them really" stuff because it's a tiny shield against the full awfulness of your situation. I hope can you find a strategy to get out of it that also lets you be ok (e.g. financially) in the end.

[Londy]

Yes, that’s what I’ve been saying all along! HE’S IN IT FOR THE SEX.

 

Edith you say he's in it for the sex. You say you are trying to win him back with the sex, but then you say you aren't willing to do much more than you've always done and the wilder stuff that he craves in the bedroom (that he's getting from the other women) is somehow lowering yourself.

 

You're wallowing because you're not swallowing.

[BaileyB]

Edith it's hard to answer these questions that have answers as clear as day.

 

OF COURSE it's easy for him to cheat on you, it's a walk in the park!

 

If you don’t believe Recent Change, just ask any of the other woman with whom he is cheating...

 

The simple fact that he has carried on multiple affairs proves the point. It is absurd to think that it’s not “easy” for him to cheat, considering that he has done in multiple times and is, as you have said, so careless as to leave his phone around the home such that he could easily be caught.

Edited October 26, 2019 by BaileyB

[elaine567]

A relationship with a narcissist is imbalanced. They lack empathy, cannot be loving, caring or sharing.

 

How The Narcissistic Male Views Marriage

1. Uses marriage as a tool of credibility

2. Shames others not married - bragging

3. Wife is property; later, children

4. Relationship imbalance increases after marriage: doesn't have to work for it any more

5. Easy for narcissist to cheat on wife because...

- Didn't marry out of love or admiration

- Married because she fit skill set needed for social role

- Unable to see spouse as a person

- Believes he’s done enough; therefore, gives himself to affair partners

Mermeade, thank you for the narcissist summary.

That is my husband to a tee.

 

Ok so now that is established, is that really acceptable to you?

You have gone off at a tangent and are now obsessed with this one woman, whilst your husband is disrespecting you, your marriage and your children daily...

Whatever he feels for this woman or any of the others is immaterial, as each one takes from your marriage.

Instead of getting on with your life, you are desperately monitoring his phone for any sign that he may be "getting involved".

"Phew! This one is just for sex, Thank God for that"

"OMG, it's HER again..." Panic panic panic...

What kind of a life is that?

[jspice]

 

Does my husband love someone else?

 

He doesn’t love you.

[Prudence V]

Yes, that’s what I’ve been saying all along! HE’S IN IT FOR THE SEX.

 

Edith, you’ve been clinging to this while every one else has told you that’s not the case. You can keep clinging to that, or you can listen to the input you keep asking for.

 

But if you keep asking for input and ignoring it, eventually people will stop giving you input. It’s a choice you need to make.

 

 

I can handle just sex. I cannot handle an emotional involvement on his part.

 

Have you considered that the answer might be, both? Several people have suggested this, but you seem to think that if he mentions sex, then that’s all he’s interested in. Despite any other evidence...

 

 

Do men go six years not having sex with a woman and still want her, after having been with several others? Is that alone proof of feelings?

 

Can men do this? Of course. There are many such cases of that happening, including many on these boards. Is that the case in your H’s situation? Probably - there is evidence to suggest this.

 

You mentioned that your H is, or was, some kind of sportsperson. That suggests that winning matters to him. I suspect his identity is tightly bound up in this - he wants to win her, not just her body but her, and that does mean feelings.

 

 

Does my husband love someone else?

 

Inasmuch as he loves anyone (other than himself - and that’s also moot) yes. He might love your kids as extensions of himself, but he doesn’t love you as he ought, and that won’t change while you carry on letting him walk all over you.

[edith]

I absolutely take all the advice on here to heart. You guys don’t know how often I’ve contemplated divorce since I’ve started reading your posts - it was unthinkable to me before. I so deeply appreciate everyone’s input. I wish there were a more overt way of stressing how important it is for me to talk about this on here, but I guess I’m just not a gifted enough writer.

 

Last night I got a hold of his phone again. I went back to their messages and figured out why he hasn’t reached out to her - I think. Her last message to him was two days after he had replied to her. She wrote “Thinking of you tonight... I can’t talk but just wanted you to know”. She said she can’t talk - they had been discussing her ambivalence and guilt over just talking to him, and she said he should text her “some other time”. Then in her subsequent message she says she “can’t talk”. So he probably thinks she doesn’t want to talk at all and hasn’t reached out to her. But he’s obviously still thinking about her because his behavior has changed so much this week after her “man who can be trusted” posts.

 

So it’s not what I wanted it to be. I wanted him to not be reaching out to her because he doesn’t want her. I wanted it to be because she doesn’t mean anything. But I’m pretty convinced it’s because of her last message and thinking she can’t talk or doesn’t want to.

 

We have lots of sports with the kids today - I’m already running late - so for a few hours, I’ll have my husband all to myself. I miss him so much. Emotionally- I miss him. I don’t know what to do about the desire I ha e to be the only one he wants.

[S2B]

I wish you respected yourself enough to tell him to take a hike!

 

You deserve better. Surely you know that.

[Amethyst68]

How can he be in it for the sex when they haven't had sex for years!

[seren]

Very often men do things in the bedroom with other women that they wouldn’t want their wives to do. Hypocritical? Yes, but often how it is. No one should feel they have to compete sexually with another. If it doesn’t feel right for you, don’t do it, if you feel you have to do things you aren’t comfortable with, you need to ask yourself why you’re even feeling you have to compete.

 

I imagine the OW is asking herself if your husband still loves you as he’s still married to you. If he loved her that much he would have left years ago, children or not. So many marriages survive a divorce, children adapt and adjust too. No one has to stay in a marriage they don’t want to be in. Maybe you need to think more about that.

 

Personally, I’d call his bluff, I’d tell him I knew and that if he still wanted to see the OW then fine, but you were going to agree to an open relationship if it’s only with the OW, but you will explore seeing other men too. Most married people who cheat would never agree to that, hypocrisy again. If he does agree I’d make sure he thought I was seeing someone else if only to get him to feel what it’s like to think their partner is getting their needs met by someone else.

 

It’s risky, it’s sneaky and it shouldn’t be necessary, but I’d be damned if I sat back and gave him carte blanche to screw around. When my H told me he’d been having an A I told him to leave if he would be happier with the OW. I said I was glad he told me so I could find someone who appreciated me and believed in monogamy. I also told him about the man in work who would jump through hoops for me so he needn’t worry I would be on my own. My H had already dropped the OW like a stone when she began making plans to tell me. If he’d chosen to be with her, then I would have wished him well, but, I would never sit back and passively accept a third party in our marriage. I don’t do second best, never have.

 

Know your own self worth, it’s not easy divorcing, but it’s easier than tearing yourself in bits while he sees someone else. Get your ducks in a row, get your finances in order, then drop the bomb. I know how much being deceived hurts, it’s bad enough when you are part of it unwittingly, worse when you know. If keeping my H meant as little as a BJ or anal, I’d pack his bags tomorrow. Marriage and love are more than sex, vanilla or otherwise. Value who you are and what you value. You deserve better.

[Libby1]

You guys hit the nail on the head.

 

All the sexual things you mentioned are things he talked to the 11 yr ow about - except for anal sex and threesomes. And she acted as if she was so into them. I can’t tell you how many messages I’ve read where he’s just so thrilled that she “swallowed” and wanted “every drop of him”.

 

I will never lower myself to her level.

 

I wouldn't say that a woman is lowering herself if she actually enjoys the act in question. But I do think that if you were to attempt to mimic this woman (in her participation and her enthusiasm) when you're really not feeling it - and in an effort to score points with a man who has betrayed you pretty abysmally, then that would definitely constitute lowering yourself.

 

It seems as though you had a deal (unspoken, maybe, but understood) with your husband whereby because he's good looking and you feel lucky to get married to a guy like that, he had a pass to cheat sexually on you so long as he didn't get too attached to any of the women. It's hard to imagine how anybody could feel happy and secure in a marriage which has that sort of unwritten understanding.

 

I suppose that perhaps you feel it's a realistic outlook to have. A lot of men do cheat, and the more opportunity they get to cheat obviously the higher the likelihood of them doing so gets. Nevertheless, by having this implicit understanding with him, you set a very low standard for your marriage. And you've discovered that for the past 10 years at least, he has happily flouted that very low standard you set. No wonder you feel like crap. Investing so much time and energy into tracking the behaviour and trying to analyse the thoughts of a husband who has demonstrated that level of indifference to the marriage can only send you spiralling ever lower down.

 

I really sympathise, because a friend of mine is in a somewhat similar place. She's a very smart, lovely woman...but this situation has altered her in all sorts of ways. I and her other friends can only watch in dismay as the situation grows ever worse. She searches and latches on to the tiniest indicators that her husband cares for her and has any sort of commitment to the marriage, when it's blatantly obvious to everybody who cares about her that what she should actually be doing is consulting a lawyer and putting her energy into trying to get as quick and clean a divorce as possible for this man so that she can get on with the rest of her life.

 

I wish she would do it, and I wish you would do it also. It's always terrible when somebody drives themselves into a state of feeling worthless and anxiety ridden as a result of persevering in a relationship that will only ever bring them unhappiness.

[edith]

I’m right in between meetings - yes, on a Friday - but I’d like to redirect this thread toward my husband’s possible emotional involvement. So many wonderful insights, but none concerning whether he has feelings for this specific woman.

 

In other news, I meet with an attorney next week!

[lana-banana]

Is that a joke? Yes, he's emotionally attached to her. Without a doubt.

 

Good luck with your meeting.

[stillafool]

I’m right in between meetings - yes, on a Friday - but I’d like to redirect this thread toward my husband’s possible emotional involvement. So many wonderful insights, but none concerning whether he has feelings for this specific woman.

 

In other news, I meet with an attorney next week!

 

I think you should print out this thread and show it to your therapist. She should be able to give you insight whether he is having emotional involvement with his OW.

 

Why are you meeting with an attorney?

[Betrayed&Stayed]

I’d like to redirect this thread toward my husband’s possible emotional involvement. So many wonderful insights, but none concerning whether he has feelings for this specific woman.

 

Yes, he has feelings for this woman!

[edith]

I’ve met with an attorney even though there hasn’t been any further communication between my husband and the ow. It is as I suspected - the business structure would have to change substantially in order for the divorce to be even close to going smoothly; I would have to convince my husband to change the ownership structure without arousing suspicion, which would be close to impossible, and entering divorce procedures with the way things are now would result in a very long process before a judge and both of us would exit the marriage in a much worse financial condition than we have now.

 

I continue to track him. He is seeing one other woman, and contact even with that one has been sporadic at best. I’ve been able to see the 11 yr ow’s Facebook through his, and last week she posted something like “Complete silence is the best solution “, and he went to her profile 3 times that day according to his activity log. Then yesterday, she posted that she would like to be one of those people who do whatever they feel like doing, because she always needs to do the right thing or her “conscience” won’t let her have any peace... My husband went to her profile 5 times yesterday. I wish I could see how much time he spends looking at it, but FB doesn’t give you that capability.

 

My gut tells me he’s staying away from her to prove that cheating on me is hard for him - then she will see him as “a good man”. Even though they’re not together, he’s still thinking about her. And from her posts, she’s doing the same. She is also moving away to a neighboring state 3 hours away next year! So this could be the chance that they will no longer be together and all of this will be over. There’s no way that he will want her if she moves away. My feelings right now are all about relief - he’s staying away from her, she’s staying away from him. I still check but try to set aside the feeling that his absence is calculated. He’s trying to achieve something even worse by not going after her - does this sound plausible?

[stillafool]

Edith, no one said divorce is easy. You don't know what your husband will do and say about a divorce until you sit down, tell him what you know and ask him for the divorce. He may surprise you. How is therapy going?

[BaileyB]

entering divorce procedures with the way things are now would result in a very long process before a judge and both of us would exit the marriage in a much worse financial condition than we have now.

 

My best friend’s mother divorced her husband when he cheated on her, while she was recovering from a stroke. They owned a business together - he bought her out of the business, and he pays spousal support. It was a long drawn out and very stressful court process, but it can be done. And, she is in a much happier and healthier place now.

 

It can be done - when it’s harder to stay than it is to leave, and you are clearly not there yet.

[S2B]

He’s staying away because she doesn’t allow it right now.

 

Don’t fool yourself - if she said jump he would say how high.

 

Get the D filed. The details of the business can be worked out after it’s filed.

[edith]

How does she not allow it? She texted him “Thinking of you... I can’t talk but just wanted you to know” and he never replied. He’s the one staying away.

[edith]

I haven’t gone to a new counselor yet. I really didn’t get along with the one I had last time.