OpenEyes - SO

[OESO]

I have tried posting this to SO's journal forum but keep receiving a message saying: "Your submission could not be processed because a security token was invalid.

If this occurred unexpectedly, please inform the administrator and describe the action you performed before you received this error."

Will a moderator please move this thread?

This is my first post in TTF and I apologize for the length.

OpenEyes introduced himself a few days ago, and I've been hesitating to make my first post as I wasn't very impressed with his initial post, I couldn't find too much sincerity in it.

Last night proved that sincerity was lacking, or rather, that he hadn't owned up to it all. I made yet another discovery on his computer, this time completely coincidental as I had turned it on to install a web protection software as we had agreed to.

This new discovery was only three days after the first, and after we have had three days of hour long conversations on how to repair our marriage, how to get him the best qualified help available, and numerous tears being shed on both sides. Immediately AFTER that, after the initial shock, and at a point of deciding to forgive the unforgiveable and not file for divorce... I discover that there is yet more that he hasn’t told me about.

He never threw out all the P as he had told me and had promised that he had before we got married – which he had even confirmed on occasion after getting married, and even stated in his initial post on here. Instead he had moved into my home, now our home, and brought at small part of his collection with him.

I didn’t take the find lightly at all. My engagement and wedding rings went off and I stepped on them till a stone fell out and they were so bent out of shape and beyond repair that they can never be worn again. A marriage built on lies, and we’re not even seven months into the marriage. A marriage where the lies began even before the wedding. It does take two to build and keep a marriage working but really only takes one person to damage it beyond repair.

I was desperately trying to understand how he could sit in front of me and come clean, though that did require not only that I confronted him but also showed him hard evidence because he was completely denying everything and first and attacking me for snooping around his stuff. During the following days’ conversations he seemed sincere, the tears seemed genuine, the apologies seemed genuine, the willingness to seek therapy and posting on here seemed genuine – but even behind that was another lie and a long-lived one. He may not have actually used the P till just six weeks ago, but it had been here all along.

Till six weeks ago we were quite happy, still referred to ourselves as newly wed, talked about going on another honeymoon. Best friends, partners, lovers, confidants. He is an absolutely wonderful and loving man, and as honest as they come, or so I firmly believed till a few days ago. Our mutual friends and families have been happy that we married and have commented on how happy both of us had become and how happy we were with each other. He is the love of my life, and the first man whose proposal I have accepted even though I have never really wanted to be married. I was the happiest and luckiest person alive and wished the same luck and happiness for all around me.

Six weeks ago everything changed when I was recovering from surgery. The first few days he spoiled me and took care of me and everything around the house. I still needed him to take care of me and everything else as I was going through a lot of pain and fatigue, and I tried to address the change but with no response from him, or that is, he suddenly started complaining about some of my flaws and really didn’t seem to care all that much about recovering from surgery. Frankly, he was behaving like a jerk. I was surprised, confused, puzzled, hurt, and his behavior didn’t really make much sense to me.

It is strange how fast our relationship changed, he simply wasn’t available anymore but withdrew, was moody, irritated, and had various complaints about me when I tried to address the radical change in our marriage. I guess that normally such change take place over a very long time, in our case it didn’t, but I was surprised to hear myself say to him that I didn’t think we’d make it in the long run. I got next to no response from him even though to me that is a statement that should pose more than just a handful of questions and initiate a rather serious conversation about the state of mind and marriage. I meant it as a wakeup call but also seriously believed that we were headed down a dangerous path of rapidly growing indifference. I thought that maybe he was realizing that marriage wasn’t what he wanted anyway, or that he was done being in love with me and just couldn’t figure out to tell me because it wouldn’t look too good that shortly after the wedding.

The day before finding P on the computer, I asked him straight out if he was having an affair which he denied.

When I discovered the P on the computer, I hadn’t expected to find it. I wasn’t really worried about finding it as I had believed him on his word, and because he has reassured me from time to other that P pertained strictly to the days when he was single. At first glance my brains seemed to refuse to understand. As it sank in, everything seemed to take place in slow motion though it was only a minute or two. I became nauseous and ran out of the room, away from the computer, while it felt like I was about to throw up everything inside of me. It took maybe half an hour before I had gathered myself enough to return to the computer and find out what amount of P had been stored on it.

Going over the P and looking at dates of when the files were saved and last being used, this started at a point where I was recovering from surgery and also intimately unavailable. It started with not so much but escalated and so did the time he spent on it, it seems. On our six month’s anniversary, his celebration was a good 3 hours of P and then writing me a sweet anniversary email where one of the lines read: "You are the change in my perspective and my heart." And when I came home from work there was a huge bouquet of flowers waiting for me. Since that day I’ve felt bad for not having written him an email and gotten something for him, however those guilty feelings vanished with the discovery of the more than 3 hours of P that he went through before writing the email and getting the flowers. I’ve asked him it was merely a gesture from a bad conscience, because it looks like such to me. He says the two P and our anniversary have nothing to do with each other, there’s no connection, but in my heart I can’t understand how he can go from huge numbers of P women to sending me a loving anniversary note. How do you go from a harem to your wife in a few minutes and not feel awful and burdened with remorse? How is it even possible to keep a straight face, look me in the eyes and say that he loves me? Intellectually I understand that P is something completely different from me and has nothing to do with me. But emotionally? He might as well have torn my heart out and forced me to watch him run it repeatedly through the garbage disposal while it was still beating. I have known hurt before, but no amount of pain I have experienced compares to this. It comes and goes in waves. Flashes of imagery from his computer enters my mind with no warning. Everything and anything can trigger it at any given time. I rarely cry but it seems that I haven’t done much else these last few days, as well as these lines are written through tears. He can give me a hug and it feels good, and a moment later I am filled with disgust for letting him touch me. He can hold my hand, and I know that I love him, but a split second later I am so furious that I start shaking for holding it back rather than say things only aimed to make him experience the same kind of hurt. I have lashed out only to regret what I said, and it felt no better, no worse than before lashing out. I want to be supportive because I do love him, and I understand some of the possible reasons that he developed an addictive personality, but I am frightened beyond reason for this repeating itself. We came way too close to parting permanently – twice – over the past few days, but I am so scared to find out in 6 months or years, that it was a mistake to stay together.

[OESO]

I don’t know how long it will take for me to heal and trust him again, or if I will ever be capable of it. He had trust till just five days ago – then he shattered it, not once but twice, and the second time so much worse than the first, discovering that the promise he made to me before getting married was never genuine, and that he decided already back then not to keep it while he told me, and repeated, with utmost sincerity, that he had kept as he knew that I equal P with infidelity and he could never cheat on me.

I want to trust him again, because if everything else he is telling is true, it really is unfair to question everything he says. On the other hand it was his choice to break the trust and with the way in which it was broken, the fear of repetition will always be there, though sometimes more present than others, and the only thing to do is learn to cope with a portion of permanent distrust for the rest of the marriage. I hope this is not the way it will turn out to be, I hope he will not put me, and himself, through this or any other kind of betrayal ever again.

I would wish I felt the same guarantee that I thought and believed with all my heart that I had when marrying him.

[Life-lies-trust]

I feel for you. It is really hard to handle all the lies that the addiction pukes out to cover everything.

Hugs to you because you need one.

[OESO]

Thank you, I definitly needed one. And I think it's time to start a journal in the section I somehow couldn't post in earlier.

[Charly22]

Please do start a journal, I can hear such familiar things from you, I know what I have went through emotionally, and the most suprising part, what that manifested into physically. Please don't bottle this up, I thank the lord that you have found this website and have an outlet to just let it out, please don't let it fester inside, please purge your feelings, even if to just feel a little lighter, like you are not alone, you might not find the perfect answer...but if you do not express your feelings, and keep it inside, it will turn into one huge ball of axiety that will spread across your entire life.

While most want to defend p and say it is not cheating, well, not physically, but it sure makes them behave in the same manner don't it? Whats the difference? None in my opionion. It makes them lie, hide, isolate themselves, the list goes on and on and on.

Your husband sounds like he is at a crucial point, he has made himself very vulnerable to you.....you deserve to know everything. And I am glad that he has made the efforts that he has.

There is a long long road ahead of you.

Equip yourself with knowledge. Learn. Try to see this from a clinical view point.......there are gonna be days you won't be able to do that.....but the days that you do.....you will learn alot of things that don't come naturally to your mind right now.

But most importantly. Please don't let yourself get lost in his addiction. Please be sure to find time to enjoy something that is just for YOU. You and YOU alone. You will need this. It won't make it all better and make it all go away. But it is the only spoon for of sugar you can depend on right now.

[OESO]

Thank you, Charly22.

The journal has already been started here: OESO's journal

Also thanks for some very good points you are making. I do need to hold onto myself and not let PA be all consuming.