Early Days of Hell…

He accused me early on for not fighting for him. This whole exchange is constantly turning over in my mind. I didn’t fight for him. He, who had a girlfriend. He, who stepped out on our marriage and our family. He, who destroyed my entire world with one text message.

I didn’t fight for him? Why should I have been the one fighting?

I was completely committed to the marriage. I loved him and only him. I only had eyes for him. I didn’t look at another man or woman while I was with him. He was one and only. He was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Why did I need to do any more fighting?

But I did fight for him. I stayed. I allowed him to gaslight me. I allowed him to abuse me. I stayed while he destroyed everything about me. I waited for him to choose me.

He said he needed time to decide if he wanted to stay with me. He needed time to determine if he needed multiple women to be happy.

Why did I stay in this mess, you may ask?

I had a shitty counselor. Well, that’s not the only reason, but she really (REALLY) didn’t help anything.

When I caught him, I told him I wanted a divorce. He said okay. I left.

When I saw her the next day, she convinced me I needed to take more time to decide. Between the two of them, I was constantly battered about my desire to end the relationship. I believed we were just fundamentally different and needed to part ways. I kept saying it, but no one listened to me. He refused to leave the flat. He refused to accept anything I said. Every time I said something, it was immediately met with, “who have you been talking to?” Both he and the counselor said I needed to give him time to decide if he wanted to remain in the relationship.

My choices within 2 months of catching him was I consent to an open relationship, or he would just do it anyway.

What?

A few days after that journal entry, I told him I wanted to separate. I told him he needed to be out of the house by the end of the month.

Again, I went to that counselor. She told me I couldn’t make him leave. He needed time.

Time.

Why did he get time and I didn’t? I asked over and over for space and time to process the whole thing. No, I didn’t get it. I had him there every night. No time to think. No time to decide.

What I wanted was dictated by the needs of him and our kids. She told me if I kicked him out, I would do irreparable damage to my son. If I held him accountable to his actions, I would be dooming my son to follow in his father’s footsteps as his father did with his father.

Why was that all on me?

I agreed to let him stay until the kids left on 1st July to the US. I gave in.

Add to that, no one at home knew what was going on. For me, I had only told two of my co-workers/friends what had happened. I felt alone.

But it wasn’t me breaking the marriage, it was B. Not me. B was going to destroy Bub. Not me. I received a lot of the blame from both of them. I was told I had to take responsibility for the issues that drove him to cheat. It wasn’t until months later when I found, “Leave a Cheater, Gain a Life” that I truly understood his choice to repeatedly screw another woman was not my fault. That was all on him.

We saw another counselor. She was much better. She did try to push some of it off on me, but I think the more she learned about what was going on, the less she was willing to do that.

The first was when she told me he could cheat and still love me.

I told her if that was his definition of love, then I wasn’t interested. She nodded her head slowly, and said, “you are absolutely right.”

At another point, B had told me his ideal woman he would leave me for. It was a dark skinned, ballerina gamer who loves a certain movie. He argued that it was unattainable. My argument was not one of those things were me or anything close to me. Again, she nodded and conceded my point.

Now…

It took one year, two months, and seven days to get more truth out of him.

1 year

2 months

7 days

And I still don’t have it all.

He wants to be forgiven, but how can I forgive him if I don’t know what I’m forgiving? And if he wants to be forgiven, why can’t he tell me the fucking truth?

They were … smallish things. He told me he did have plans to see her after I caught him. He played semantics with me though.

I had asked him multiple times if he had plans to see her after he was caught. He told me multiple times that wasn’t how they made plans. They made plans that day if both of them were free. He would talk to her that day when he went out for his weekly computer market day.

Turns out, no. He made plans in advance (at least a week) and he booked the hotels and paid for them. No wonder he was so hot to separate our finances…

These are the PG rated lies I unearthed.

Honestly, I don’t know why I’m still in this situation. There are times I think I can’t really complain because I am still entertaining this whole farce. There are other times I wish he would just, for once, do what is best for me instead of what is best for him.

I asked him if he wanted an open relationship.

I have spent so much time worrying about him. I worry about how he will handle all of this mentally. I worry if he’s happy. I worry if this is what he really wants. I worry about him.

I know I need to start considering my own happiness and what I want. The problem is I don’t know what I want. I mean I know I want someone who loves me. I want trust, mutual respect, honesty, love, affection. I want someone who treats me like a person. I want someone who sees me.

I don’t think he does see me. I don’t think he has seen me for a very long time.

If I had to guess, he is hanging on because he never intended to give up his marriage. He thought I would always be there. He wants the comforts of the family and home and doting wife who worshipped the ground he walked on while having his little Asian girlfriend who would suck his dick behind a tree.

I think he truly believed I would just forgive him like I did the first time.

I am afraid though. I am terrified what cutting it off completely is going to do to the kids. I know what is happening right now is just confusing them.

I want out of this situation. I want out of this life. This is not what was supposed to happen. It’s so incredibly unfair because when I do pull that trigger, it will be on me to pick up the pieces. It will be on me to explain why.

I didn’t do this. I didn’t make those choices. It’s not right.