WH admitted serial cheating

I'm here for support and advice on next steps.

My WH and I have been married 40+ years. He told me after we'd been married several months about a one night stand while we were dating. Then I discovered text evidence of a long-term affair 10 years ago, but back then he refused to give details. I also know that he's looked at porn for many years. Anyway, over the last couple years he has slipped little bits of clues about more affairs in between those two. He also has had a "friendship" for many years continuing right up to DD that I have always suspected was an affair. Any time I mentioned it he reacted with gaslighting, accusations of unfounded jealousy, etc. Turns out that EA was once sexual, too. Sept. 17 was the big DD--the revelation of many more infidelities: some were ONSs, others lasted for years, others were EAs that he says were not physical or were only briefly physical. He even groped his own young teen sister in our home when she spent the night with us.(She told me many years after the fact and he admitted it. I like to think I would have gotten the law involved if I had known back when it happened, but by my history of passivity, I probably would not have.) So...by his own admission he's cheated about every way there is to do it, over nearly the entire time of our relationship, and while maintaining a whole secret second life. I am better off knowing the facts and details, instead of bits and clues and suspicions. However, it is a tsunami of information. And I am really not even sure that the one "friendship"/EA with a former sex partner is going to remain over. Or that I know everything he remembers from the past.

How do you discern true remorse? I don't feel he's there yet. I believe he feels guilt and shame, but I don't believe he really gets the crippling pain and sense of betrayal I'm going through, or how he has devastated our life together. He seems to just want to forget about it and get along, but without doing any work to heal. He reacts angrily when I request clarification or try to express how I feel. But at the same time he gives me no room to openly express anger myself. On the other hand, finally giving me very embarrassing details of many affairs I would never have otherwise known about, and getting an internet filter on his phone seem to be real progress on his part. I feel a little bit encouraged that he does want to save at least our living together rather than breaking up.

Just barely surviving in a marriage is not enough for me, though. Can anyone else here spell A-M-B-I-V-A-L-E-N-C-E?

There is no part of me that trusts him to tell the truth or behave with integrity anymore. At this point I am grieving his incredible deceitfulness and manipulation as much as the actual sex with others. I don't know if it is even possible for him to truly change enough to make a decent husband. And yet, since DD there is no evidence he has contacted another woman or looked at porn.

It is obvious I have not been good at setting boundaries in my marriage, or I would have made him come clean before now, or left him, or something. I realize I've been ennabling his horrific betrayals, so there is misery over my mistakes, too.

I feel shocked, overwhelmed, and traumatized at the enormity of all I need to face. And despite all this, I still want to try to salvage this marriage. I have invested since I was a young teen in this relationship--and my husband and marriage are important enough to me that I would like to recover together if it's at all possible. I am willing to struggle and put in the recovery work. Those are just values important to my faith. However, I cannot keep live with him if I discover he is incorrigibly continuing in his past behavior. I guess what I want is to make it as hard as possible for him to continue down his normal, destructive rut; but not to be clueless and passive anymore if he does indeed choose to continue.

So these are what steps have been taken:
*The last female "friend"/former sex partner's contact number has been blocked and deleted. (She is local, though, so he could still meet her. He could also contact her through her son, who lives with her and is a friend of WH.)
*He now has an internet filter on his phone and no computer access at all at home.
*I secretly put spyware on his phone so I can verify his whereabouts and activity on the phone.
*I regularly go through the phone itself for any clues that have escaped the spyware.
*I have disclosed general information about the cheating and lying to our (all adult) children, some members of his family and to some of my friends.
*I've been STD tested.
*I am seeing a therapist by myself for my betrayal trauma.
*I've started a journal so that I have a way to express my tremendous anger and sadness.
*I'm trying to continue my normal interests and take care of myself.
*I already see a psychiatric nurse practitioner and take meds for stabilizing my mood.
*Now I am here because I need the support of others who have walked where I find myself.

He once threatened to get a secret phone so he could continue his porn addiction, and for all I know, use it contact women. This threat, made a few years ago when I asked him (unsuccessfully) to get a filter on his phone, is the main reason I have kept the spyware a secret. If he doesn't know I'm seeing things before he has a chance to delete them, then maybe he won't be tempted to go to the extreme of another phone. But I have no idea what could be done about the possibility of that. There are probably dozens more ways for him to escape detection if he decides to keep up his deceptions. What else should I, the formerly clueless BS, watch for?

Then there's the issue of counseling. He has always refused to go to marriage counseling, and I haven't even asked again lately. Part of me would like at this point to insist on professional help, or else we are over, but I have not told him that. I just don't feel up to precipitating another big crisis right now.

What else can/should I do?

12 comments posted: Wednesday, November 9th, 2022