Froggys Journal - SO

[froggy]

A little background-
I am a 20 year old SO.... I just found out my (ex) fiance has a problem three days ago... One week before our first anniversary. I was so devastated. I had known SOMETHING was wrong but I didn't know what. I was afraid to ask. He says he has been struggling with this since he was a younger teen; he is now 24.

Our engagement is now off because of this discovery, but we are still together and both of us want to work through this. He says he had been "clean" from before we met until about three months ago. I asked what his trigger had been, and he says he honestly isn't sure. His room mate had subscriptions to several magazines and frequently left them lying around the common areas of their house. My PA had seen an advertisement in a "Mens" magazine for a website that promoted infidelity. He joined it and the next day had found a woman to trade pornographic images with. =(( At the time I had no idea.

We had begun constantly bickering almost immediately after that... he began to act as if he was hiding something by getting extremely annoyed if I even touched his phone.

On Friday this past week, when we were supposed to be celebrating our anniversary a week early, he suggested we take a nap, however I was on edge and felt sure there was something going on that I didn't know about. After he was asleep I looked on his phone (which he had previously given me the password for).

I looked through his texts and found nothing suspicious except a random text from 4 am from a number that wasn't saved in his phone. The actual text was innocuous, though. I then looked through his emails and found 6 messages he sent to himself... they were copies of picture messages that had been deleted off of his list of texts... and all from the same number that had texted him at 4 am. I tried to view the attached photos but for whatever reason they were unable to display. I instantly felt sick to my stomach and knew in my heart they were not innocent images.

When he woke up from his nap I still could not formulate what to say, but he realized something was up. He asked me several times what was going on and finally (after about an hour or so) I told him what I had seen. I asked them what those emails were. He knew he was caught but he had one last ditch effort to hide it... he claimed they were pictures I had sent him. I told him I knew they weren't from my phone number and he finally confessed they were from a girl who had contacted him through a website.

I burst into tears.... I sobbed. I wailed "Why?!?"... I thought things had finally gotten back on track with us, and these pictures were from only one week ago. I asked him to delete the emails in front of me.

I laid on his couch sobbing, and he went and got a pen and paper and wrote down the screen name and password to his email address and social networking site he uses, without my asking for it. He then told me to keep them and look on them any time I wanted to. He said he wanted me to trust him and he wanted me to be able to quell my doubts at any time. I thought that was the end of it.... Until I went home and logged onto his email to double check that the emails were in fact completely deleted- from his inbox, sent mail, and deleted mail. When I logged on, It was completely gone... and then I saw a second "deleted" folder. I clicked on it and the first email in the list was an email he had sent to a woman with pornographic images of himself attached. My heart sank. There *was* more. I looked through the rest of that folder. There were a total of 4 women he had been exchanging photos with and talking erotically to, starting with the woman from the affair website, to others found elsewhere.

I called him, and had probably the angriest phone call of my life. I was so angry I was shaking pretty violently. He begged to come over and I said he could but I would only talk to him outside. By the time he arrived it was 1 am....

I sat on the end of my driveway shaking and sobbing for two hours with him. During that time he looked at me and said "I have a problem....Please help me.... please". At that point, I was too upset. I told him no.... How was I supposed to help him when I was already giving him everything I had and that already had not been enough. ~X( I told him it wasn't fair... I told him I still loved him but I couldn't do it. I couldn't face him. I told him that I wanted to throw up... he said he did too. He told me he would wait for me and try to gain my trust even if I left him then and there.

I told him I would just come get my things while he was at work sunday and leave my key. I promised I wouldn't hurt anything at his place. He said ok, but asked me to keep the key... he told me he would still drop off my lunch at work for me the next day since he had already agreed to do it and it was now 3 am and I had to be at work by 9 am.

That day at work I was a wreck, since I got about 3 hours of fitful sleep. We emailed some and he asked if it was ok if he stayed for my lunch hour... I said yes and he did... We talked some. That was when I began to realize I really really wanted to work it out....

More later... I just needed to get this part out. I don't want to tell anyone I know because I don't want them to hate him or tell me to leave. I will leave if he doesn't continue recovery.... but If he is honestly trying and being honest and open with me, I can't leave him... He is so wonderful when P isn't in the picture. The past two days have been so great now that we are really talking about it and making a plan.