SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I haven't been here in a while. I keep thinking I'm moving on. That nothing else he does will surprise me or hurt me anymore. But, man. It still hurts so much. Here I am 2 years after his walking out on me and 1 year out from finding out about his affairs, and it still hurts. It hurts like screaming in the middle of the night and feeling like your heart has been ripped from your chest and the only thing that could make anything better is dying.

Right now, I am sitting with my special needs son in the hospital, while he rests on a vent from Covid pneumonia. And my STBXH still has time to tell me again that he's done everything in the world to try to make things right. That I'm not the angel I pretend to be. That he's tired of 2 years of trying to fix a one sided relationship. That I'm so angry that I wrongly believe that just because he cheated on me doesn't mean that he doesn't love me. That he loves me but he doesn't like me and he can't stand living with me and he's finally accepted that he'll be much happier moving on without me. That he's repented and made things right and that I'm the one with the forgiveness issues.

And I know that he's crazy. I know he's a narcissist. I know that he's done nothing at all to help us heal. He hasn't fully confessed. He hasn't stopped doing drugs. He hasn't stopped going to strip clubs. He hasn't stopped sleeping around. He hasn't stopped being ugly and cruel and harsh. He's trying to take the kids from me in the divorce. He's hiding funds and lying about his income. He's telling the kids that they are going to lose their home because their mom won't forgive him. He has never once asked me to forgive him. He has never once stopped blaming me for "my part" of the relationship. I was controlling, so that excuses him sleeping around. And I STILL LOVE HIM. What is so wrong with me? Why does it hurt so much? Why do I keep hoping that somewhere, down deep, the man I spent the last 20 years of my life with love me? Surely no one can be this cruel. How could he possibly have 8 kids with me and go through everything we've gone through and then be happy to see me homeless and lose my kids? No one is that awful, are they?

I'm in counseling. I have a strong support group. I have a very loving and supportive family. And yet...I can't seem to get past this. I can't believe who is he. He says one half way decent thing and I'm hoping that he really cares and then he turns around and kicks me in the teeth again and laughs. It's like I keep finding out who he really is, again and again. And it hurts the same every time.

We've had to communicate more this last week because our son is sick and we've been switching on and off in the hospital. He's been sending me jokes and chit chatting and being nice. And I fell for it again. And then he unloads a ton of blame on me. I was the one who filed for divorce. Sure, because he refused to stop any of the behavior which led to his sleeping around. I stopped going to counseling with him. Yup, because they would sit there and have me be vulnerable and open and he would tell me how it was all really my fault and I would leave sobbing and he would text me about how much he loved the session, how much he enjoyed it. I stopped meeting together with him and our pastors. Yes, because the last time we met he sat there and cried and said how much he loved me and how he was ready to go to rehab, and then waited for me outside to yell at me and tell me that I was just as much to blame and he wasn't going to spend the rest of his life making amends.

But I am so conditioned to believe everything he says. He writes to tell me that I'm going to lose the house and he's taking the kids 50/50, including the medically fragile one that he hasn't had overnight in 2 years, and I panic. If I believe him so much, surely a judge will too. He looks so smart and friendly and has it all together. He's this kind loving father who just wants to have his kids while his lazy stay at home wife needs to go out and get a job and stop mooching off of him.

It's just one mind game after another. He writes that I'm breaking the law by not giving him right of first refusal, but when I offer to let him have the kids when I have to go out of town he laughs and says no. He still has so much power over me. I know I'm letting him live in my brain and I don't know how to evict him.

All I want is for him to stop hurting us, and for me to stop feeling so scared. He leads this charmed life where he gets away with everything. Once again, I'm left paying for his choices. And I hate myself. Because I still have the dream that the nice, loving, kind version of himself, that he can pull out when he wants to look good, that that version could be the real him and that one day he'll wake up and love me again and miss me and want to come home. I am pathetic.

My heart just aches for you. Eight kids? Wow. I had one when I went through this and thought I'd never survive it.

You say he's leading this charmed life where he gets away with everything and you're left paying the price. Think about what you just recognized. He doesn't have a charmed life at all. He has you as the garbage truck that follows him around and cleans up. You are his charm. Stop being his charm. You are already doing it all. What's the worst that can happen? You do it all? You've been there, done that and have the T-Shirt. So stop worrying about it.

I know that sounds simplistic, but I learned that it's not. Take control. When you do he'll run out of games to play. I remember when I had to do that. Of all people I called my mother-in-law and asked her what I should do. I loved her. She was a magnificent woman. She said to me that while she loved her son, he was an asshole and I should do what I thought best for our daughter, and if he didn't like it, too damn bad. She reminded me that he didn't have any more power than I did.

Power isn't about income in this case. It's about responsibility. He has to take care of those 8 kids just like you. The courts say so. By playing with your emotions he keeps you doing what you did throughout the marriage, which was take care of him and all those kids while he decided to play, because you're the wife, the help mate, the everything in the family. He wants to play like he's not married and still stick you with all the responsibility of all of that. He has grown accustomed to no push back. So he keeps pushing your buttons keep you in line. Your post gave me freakin flashbacks from 30 years ago. When I decided to fight back in court, I won. It was hard, but I survived. And today I have a far better life than he does, even though I never remarried.

You will too. For starters you are clearly invested in taking care of your kids no matter what you are facing. You would have done that anyway. And I'm guessing he checked out long ago, so you've got lots of practice. It sucks, but use what you have clearly been accomplished at as a springboard to tell him you don't have to appease him anymore. If anything, he fathered 8 kids so he doesn't get to check out. Get a good lawyer.

I kept on finding out for a long time too.(12 different APs over like 6 ddays)

4 blasted, wasted, screwed up terrible years that felt like 40.

It only got better when i ended, mentally, my connection to that person.

It was not easy. I have a child with that person. i was friends with that person.

Note how I will only refer to them as the "person".

That is a trick i used to overcome my terrible co-dependency. I had to dehumanize them.

I would have never escaped the mental addiction to them otherwise. I don't say that my way is right for everyone. But it was a lifeline for me.

Find your "trick". Try to remember life before them, and grab onto something positive about it, and roll with that.

I have a long ways to go before I am fully healed. But I never spend one second missing that person these days.

P.S. right of first refusal has to be stipulated by the court, it means literally nothing unless it is in a court order.

If I believe him so much, surely a judge will too.

Nope. You believe him because he installed those buttons in you and know how to push them. Judges deal with people like him all the time and can see through it. Don't let this fear hold you back.

Do you have documentation of his drug use? Even texts of the two of you talking about it count. Your lawyer needs to see those.

Thanks for the support, everyone. Sometimes I really just need someone to validate my emotions.

@Charity411, you're right. I have been doing everything for the past 17 years. He moved out 2 years ago and is living at his parents' house. He has the money to get his own place but has never done that for the kids. He hasn't taken our special needs son in over a year and a half, and at this point I wouldn't let him. During the Covid quarantine last year he refused to take the kids at all for months. We homeschool, and even though I have a day nurse for our son, he still needs me throughout the day. I just hope that a judge will see through the fact that now we're actually going into mediation and talking about money, all of a sudden my husband desperately wants 50/50 with his kids. I have no problem doing everything. I just want him to go away and leave us alone. I have been his garbage truck and I'm trying to stop. I just have that knee jerk reaction to obey whenever he says boo. And he's vindictive and petty, so I'm always afraid of making things worse. On his last weekend he decided to keep the kids an extra night, even though it was a school night. Until we get a legal parenting plan, there's nothing I can do about stuff like that and it's scary.

@99problems -

I would have never escaped the mental addiction to them otherwise.

That's so true. It's like I'm addicted to him. Mentally, I know what a horrible person he is. I know that my life with him has been 2 decades of hell. I know I'm happier and my kids are happier without him. I know our home is more peaceful and we enjoy life so much more now. But my heart is addicted to making him happy and trying to earn his love. I like your dehumanizing trick. I just need to work on separating the imaginary person in my heart from the real person I'm actually married to.

@nekonamida - it seems like if you talk to a man about his divorce, the courts are always in favor of the woman, and if you talk to a woman, the courts always favor the men. Nobody ever seems like they think they got what was right. I live in a no fault divorce state, so his affairs don't matter. I have tons of evidence that he is an alcoholic who has been through rehab once, lost a job because of his later relapse, has gone through the 12 steps at least twice, had an AA sponsor, and now claims to no longer be an alcoholic and is able to responsibly drink. The drug usage is hard. He got his medical marijuana card so he can get as high as he wants and it's all legal. He's careful what he puts in writing so he's never written down about the cocaine and the mushrooms. He has no criminal record. He has driven black out drunk before, thankfully pulled over to buy a bottle of water, passed out in the parking lot for 3 hours before I found him, and he's never once been pulled over for a DUI. And now I'm kicking myself because of all the times I should have called the cops on him, or 911 and now I have no proof of his craziness.