Hurting on the inside

My husband has hurt me emotionally several times in our nineteen year marriage with being caught with looking at porn, naked women on our family computer and then forming emotional relationships with several women he worked with over the years. Yesterday, he left a paper on our dresser with a list of women he works with and what he likes about them in regards to their body and characteristics. What should I do? I'm so fed up with being hurt by him, but I do love him and we have two teenage sons.

I had the same thing in reverse. That is, my wife, from the days we were dating, told me she was having sex with a man she just met, and went into the details of how she got him. She got him to dance with her, then started French kissing him and rubbing herself up against him within a minute into the 1st dance, and he asked her for her phone number. She gave it to him, and they had sex on the first day, within 5 minutes once they got to the park place, a drive-in movie. The next date was a 30-minute quickie. The next date was all night, 4 times, with her boyfriend's buddy in the next bed, 3 feet away, listening to those 4 times. Our marriage was the same thing, times 100, probably over 2,000 times in 16 years with probably 15 or more guys, and I think some lesbians which 1 boyfriend got from a strip club, which he told me he frequented, and a lot of strippers are bi-sexual, and she longed for that for 7 years before they met. She was sexually abused, and was a borderline personality syndrome person, meaning divided ego with the trauma, so she was perfect wife, perfect mistress, a divided self. So, I was hurt also. I got where I was hooked on her being hooked on sex. I couldn't perform unless I was talking about one of her sex dates that she had before we were married. I couldn't get excited unless she was excited, and that was the only thing that excited her. She was sadistic, and I was masochistic. I had some emotional problems, financial problems, was "lightly" sexually abused as a child, and probably needed that kind of sex without emotion, for that's the way I learned sex, with my mother showing me her breasts and pubic hair. She was also sexually abused, I've figured out. Are you masochistic? Does part of you enjoy his pain, his exploits, but deny it on another level? When my wife's affair, one of them, was about to be exposed, she tried to break it to me by saying all these things about how wonderful this guy was, while we were having sex. I finally said, "Is there anything wrong with 2 people having sex?" And she would say, no. I then said, "You can go ahead and have sex with him if you want." I said, while having sex with her, "Do you want to date him?" And she said, "I don't want to date him, I want to take him to a motel and **** him!" So, yeah, I've been through that. It is very painful. Then it turned out it was very obvious she was having affaris, but I went into denial, and only acknowledged it to myself after her long-term illness funeral, when there would be no penality for realizing that. I don't know what you should do. We had a child also, age 3 when it started. With 2 teenagers, you could move out in a few years, after they've left. What do you want to do?

"Yesterday, he left a paper on our dresser with a list of women he works with and what he likes about them in regards to their body and characteristics." What is he - thirteen years old?! Not only is that deliberate mental cruelty but it is HIGHLY immature, HIGHLY un-befitting an attitude and behaviour of a supposedly grown man and father to two young men-to-be. So I beg to differ: you have *three* teenage sons. Now look at how he's been steadily upping the provocations and/or cowing-attempts ante: Looking at virtual women (repeat, repeat, repeat) in a way you can't fail to notice..... Circling around the periphery of an affair with a real woman (repeat, repeat, repeat) in a way you can't fail to notice.... and now tantamountedly putting up a threatening advertisement poster concerning real women in a way you DEFINITELY cannot fail to notice! What's next? You waking up in the morning, stumbling to the bathroom and seeing in your reflection that he's written something even more threatening on your forehead using permanent marker? What's he trying to say? Answer: who gives a sh*t if he's so inept he can't even form one complete, honest sentence to his own wife! Have you never insisted on marriage counselling? Now to you: Most people say 'I love him BUT I can't take any more'. With you, notice your order of priority: basically, 'I can't take any more BUT I love him (but really it's my sons I love)'. So what are you waiting for - the day (clearly not that far off) when he kicks what little love remains for him out of you? What are you - a helpless victim gagged and tied to a chair, forced to sit watching all of this? And would you say the way he treats you is how you always imagined a man who loves and respects a woman treats her? Or would you say his behaviour to-date heavily suggests the man is emotionally stunted and really quite childishly cruel and spiteful? You're back in that church on your wedding day, sons not born yet. The vicar says, 'Do you...?'. Do you say 'I do' or 'I do not'?

I share your feeling as I am in a similar situation. My husband of 10 years keeps checking out other women or strangers all the time. If it is on holiday, he will keep look for that woman, give her the signal that he fancies her. His eyes follow her everywhere despite she may be with her husband or partner. If she is not around, he will look for her. Once found her, he would just think about the person by keep checking on her or staring at her or doing something to catch her attention and letting her know he is around in a subtle way. It does hurt and make you feel your are rubbish. It is very cruel for him to compete with these strangers and you are a loser straightaway. I even did receive other woman's victory message to me. After I decided to walk out, we had a talk. We both agree to give it a try. But you know you have lost the trust on him unless he really tries very hard to prove to you over time. On the other hand, my way of dealing is to make sure I look good all the time. I also have a boundary in my mind which once he crosses, it will be over completely. I make sure he knows about that as well. I have also found out lately he has (or had ) been chatting online with 2 same women but not sure when, how he met or ever met or even involve in emotional relationships. I questioned him and he denied. I have to wait and see whether there is anything on-going without jumping at him that quick. We shall see. Will you confront him?

'Strength in numbers'. You three need to team up. (Actually, you three are already teaming up and I'm just observing it! PRAY CONTINUE.)

Yes,I confronted him and he felt quite stupid for leaving his list of women lying in plain view and apologized and said I didn't mean to hurt you as he always says. We are in the same house, but I have not spoken a word to him in two days. He tries to talk to me, but I walk away. I try not to be combative in front of our children, so I have remained quiet. I finally texted him today and told him what a piece of sh** he is and that he does not deserve me. I have been thinking these last several days on how to make it financially without him seeing that we both have great jobs and the children being accustomed to their lifestyle whether I could allow him to stay until our youngest child got to be at least 15 which would be four years from now. As a mother,I want my children to have everything they need and know they are loved. No relationship can survive without trust and I despise him at this point.

What did he say after receiving your text? Is he going to make an effort to stop doing that to you and why he did that from time to time? We are trying to be on good terms and sometimes it could be short-lived. Any suspicious behaviour will bring me back all the bad and hurtful feelings. It is very difficult to trust him again. But 4 years waiting time is a torture! Hope he changes for you if he does love you.

He felt quite stupid? Oh, so he'd have you believe he's an unthinking, unblinking retard, would he, rather than come clean about what his childish little agenda is? Could YOU be so stupid as to whoops!-leave a list of all the male colleagues you fancied (as if you'd even make one in the first place!), where you know he'd inevitably see it? Course you couldn't. There's your answer. Didn't mean to hurt you is as Didn't mean to hurt you *does*. He did the opposite (as per). And I could, if you and I were face-to-face, keep punching you hard in the stomach whilst saying, 'I LOVE you, I really do', couldn't I. So blah, blah, blah! (He's got Off-the-table-itis, clearly.) Does he feel too safe? Does he think he can behave as badly as he likes and you'll never do anything to stop him? It would seem so, wouldn't it. Well, anyway, I expect he doesn't feel quite as over-safe now. Well done you for sticking up for yourself and not taking it, Part One. After you've 'punished' him for a bit, let him talk only if he's going to get real and make sense. If not, walk away again and keep planning your exit. Part Two: Children don't give a stuff about lifestyle if they haven't got a mum who's on the whole anywhere between contented and happy from feeling loved and cherished. "Men love women, women love children, children love hamsters". And children are sponges. Even if they can't identify or articulate what's going on 'behind the bedroom door', they're little vibe-sucker-uppers. The marriage either has to be fixed toute suite or the kids removed from that all-round insidious atmosphere. Otherwise, what they'll automatically learn is that a marriage in X state rather than Z is worth tolerating and meanwhile allowing to bit-by-bit chip away at their confidence until they couldn't walk away from it if they tried. "I am NOT HAVING IT, and kids, neither should future-YOU" should be one of the lessons they imbibe, or the whole cycle just perpetuates down their own lines. Putting up and shutting up for the sake of the kids is a BAD MOVE. But one parents, mothers particularly, don't tend to appreciate until it's too late. And that's because their maternal instinct fights their self-preservation instinct. It's a design fault of the nurturing drive (as is trying to feel sorry for the poor, wee idiot and staying). Don't let it. A lot more confidence can be lost in 4 years. But it's a drive that a lot of misbehaving men rely on. As for your material status: You'll have one less BIG mouth to feed, to clean up after using cleaning products, to buy washing powder for, lower bills to pay, etc., etc., etc. More importantly, there are you and the kids versus him, one individual. Divorce courts aren't stupid. The total marital wealth and assets get divided fairly according to needs and entitlements (with punishments dealt through all the little loopholes, no matter how seemingly tiny). "The lifestyle to which she is accustomed" is a formal consideration, along with PROJECTED needs for when the kids and their needs grow and your own needs change or expand. If you earn less than him and have more expenses than him, that balance will be redressed. Find out all of these details via a free consultation with a solicitor. And then, with that new-found sense of power and future safety, either tell him if he doesn't behave then you're oh-yoo-tee OUT (which means him leaving the marital home) *or* insist that any decision of yours to let him stay will depend wholly on the result of formal marital counselling. If he were capable or willing to change without serious ultimatum and/or condition, he WOULD HAVE already. So there's your answer again about whether he'll just POOF!, magically change his ways over the next four years. Never mind thriving. A marriage JUST ISN'T if there's zero or not enough trust. Otherwise, what you're tantamountedly claiming is, you can ride a horse without daring to approach it then mounting it. "Er...?" See what I'm saying?