It’s been a bit over a month since D-Day and I’m still a wreck. I decided I wanted to reconcile and I never knew how hard it would truly be on me. I should say that my WP and I have never been married. I hope that’s okay.
I’ve been cheated on before in the past and he knew about it, and yet he still cheated.
I woke up one day, three days before our anniversary, after a nightmare that he cheated, and instead of waking him up to comfort me I went through his phone instead. That’s when I found out his AP was blackmailing him for money. They had sexted over Instagram and she had his nudes, and was threatening to leak them if he didn’t pay. She gave his nudes to multiple people, before deleting her account.
The nudes he took were in my bathroom. He took them and sent them when I was home. We had been cuddling while they were talking, and he got up, went and did it, and then came back to kiss and hug me and tell me he loved me. He never once showed he was sorry until he was caught, and his best friends forced him to. It wasn’t just cheating either, his Instagram dms were basically just another tinder profile. He was flirting with certain girl buddies of his. Writing this now, I don’t even know why I’m still with him.
For years he chose other girls over me. Lead me on then left me high and dry to peruse someone else for awhile until he decided he wanted me again. He finally said he was ready for a committed relationship. I’m an idiot.
He cried to his best friend about how he wants to marry me, how he truly loves me, that it was a mistake. He told her how he hates himself for it, how he’s become his cheating father. How he’s become the man that ruined his childhood. How he wanted to self-harm again and brand either "don’t do it again" or my name into his skin (this scared me). She showed me the messages. Obviously he didn’t harm himself.
He’s been "better" since then. He’s spoiling me, he apologizes whenever I bring it up, he’s more affectionate than ever. He’s talking about marrying me, us having kids. A life. But I’m not happy and I feel so trapped.
I want the wedding, the kids, the life together. I love him but I know if I talk about it with my best friends or family that they would never like him again. I want this to work but sometimes I look at him and just see the videos. The pictures. Knowing that he only knew her for two days before he did it. I feel like I’m rotting inside whenever it feels like that. I’m so scared that I’m just a stand in for him to find someone better, and I know that he’s never chosen me as his first choice until now. I don’t understand why he wants to keep me. Part of me feels like it’s because we live together and it’s easiest to him.
My self esteem has been decimated.
I’m not his type, and I’ve always known that. I’m not the pale, thin, curly haired girl he so often coveted. That’s not to say that I’m not pretty or I don’t think that I’m pretty, but I’m not what he wants. I like feeling pretty for my partner, and dolling myself up, but when I think about how I look to him I feel like I look repulsive.
I don’t trust him. I go through his phone every so often to check if he’s started up again. He hasn’t, but I’m terrified. Every text I see from another girl, every girl in his contacts, it all scares me. Him talking to old flames is even worse, because if he can sext a girl who he knew for two days, what about the ones he had feelings for long ago?
He’s starting therapy soon. He’s never answered my question as to "why" he did it, he just says he genuinely doesn’t know what was going through his head because he’s perfectly happy and content with me. But if he was, he wouldn’t have cheated.
He has a history of sexual trauma and abuse from an ex, so he avoids sex with me at times. He feels like he needs to serve me, and he’s not comfortable flirting with or initiating with me like he was before we started dating. No matter how much I tried to work on it with him, nothing helped. Then he cheated. He never once sexted me, but he was perfectly comfortable sexting her. I feel like it’s just an excuse of his, but I’ve seen his PTSD episodes when he gets triggered. It hurts me that it’s only in a relationship he’s like this.
Recently he’s reached out to old girl friends. It scares me. He’s still liking other girls photos. I don't know what to do to feel better about any of this. I feel like I’m going crazy. I feel like I’ll never be enough even though I realistically know I am. I feel like he’s lying when he says he loves me.
I don’t understand how he could hide it so we’ll, and how he showed no outward signs of regret or fear. It hurts me more that he didn’t show any signs of regret. It scares me that he’s friends with mostly women. It scares me that he’s more experienced sexually than me. It scares me that he’s slept with pretty much every single one of our mutual female friends. I can’t afford therapy and I don’t know what to do.
Most of the time he makes me so happy, but other times I wish I left.
