Anonymous wrote:Thanks from OP. It is helpful to read through these messages. I am too ashamed and it is too new for me to talk to anyone in my life right now. I contacted my EAP program to set up an individual counseling session and couples therapy. DH has said he will go to individual counseling as well. My goal is to hang on to the boards and my thoughts for a few days until I can get an appointment.
I keep looking at this from two angles -- #1. He was wrong and indiscreet and did it as a last hurrah before getting married. Now that we are physically in the same city, sharing a home, and now married, and it is all "real," he has left that side behind and is focused on us and our future. Or angle #2. All of #1 plus he is a pathological liar who cannot be trusted.
I honestly feel like I do not know who I married. When we talked last night, I felt like I was talking to a stranger or that I was watching an awful Lifetime movie. I can't believe I put everything on the line for him and gave him my absolute trust, and he has destroyed everything. If I leave, he understands that I am a 100% clean break type of person. He knows if I leave him I will wipe all traces of him from my life and never speak to him again. But I have been here before, coming out of bad breakups with two serious BFs where I cut all ties immediately, and while it was a good high road to take, it took me years to personally recover and open my heart.
Right now I feel like I wasted four years of my life. As wonderful as our best times have been, today I wish I had never met him. It sounds dramatic, but I feel like he has ruined so much. He has ruined what I had thought was a happy past. He has clearly ruined the present, what is supposed to be our honeymoon phase and new life. And he has most likely ruined our future. Moreover, whether this works out with him or not, I feel like his behaviors have impacted my future, individually. Either I stay and always feel worried he is being unfaithful, or I leave and always wonder if it was a mistake to do so. And I worry that his actions might wind up ruining my chances of being a mother. Clearly, we will put baby making on hold. But I'm looking towards the south side of my 30s -- if we put it off and stay together it may never happen for us as we get older. Will I always resent him for that? If I leave and start over, I may never find someone to partner with and parent with. And the resentment and anger would only grow. Either way I just lose.
24 hours ago my world was fantastic and now it is a heap of absolute shit.
See the bolded. Flash forward 5-10 years. Once you have kids it will be impossible to cut ties and never talk to him again.
I am the same type of person. But- what sucks you can't so that when kids and custody are involved.
You are newly married with no kids. This is not the best start to a marriage. This is the time it's the easiest.
That said--the bar for me to stay at your stage would be much higher and my advice much different than I'd give somebody with kids and many years of marriage.