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Sufferer Hello...thought maybe I'd tell my story

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SunMoonStarlitSky

Some of you may have read the post made a while ago by my husband "degged". And may have noticed I wasn't terribly happy about it.

Here's my story: I had one alcoholic parent and one abusive, narcissistic, pedophile parent. My childhood sucked. I never felt safe. As a young adult, I was raped twice, once at 18 and again at 20, different attackers and circumstances. At 23, I fell in love with a man that I eventually discovered to be a very closeted homosexual, who hated himself and took his anger and frustration out on me, although I tried as best I could to help him come out. Towards the end of our relationship, I had some very mysterious "accidents" around the house that I was told by my therapist at the time appeared to be murder attempts. I will never know for sure. I experienced sexual assault and battery at work and when I went to management to report it, I was told I had better keep my mouth shut or things could get a lot worse for me, and a few weeks later I was fired. Other co-workers told me they knew the truth about what had happened to me but they were afraid to speak up for fear of losing their jobs. My reputation was damaged and I found it very difficult to work in that field so I eventually gave it up. My above mentioned "boyfriend" continued to work there, even accepting a position on the board of directors, because "there's no reason why I should have to miss out just because of what happened to you."

I eventually met a man that was a bit loud and abrasive at first, but very persistent and attentive, and seemed to find me irresistible. I began to see him as a kind, sensitive soul, who came from a ridiculously functional family, a 50s sitcom. We seemed to share the same values. He told me he was a non-smoker, did not drink, did not like porn, and was adamant about his respect for fidelity in a relationship. I felt safe with him and when he heard of my past, he promised to keep anything like that from ever happening to me again. We married and although I often felt neglected as his career progressed, and felt somewhat widowed by his obsession with online gaming, I truly loved him and thought he was a good man, enough to overlook his divided attention. About 3 years later, I found cigarettes in his car and he confessed that he had been smoking all along. I was furious that he'd lied to me and appeared to have no intention of quitting. I considered leaving the marriage but my mother and best friend talked me out of it, asking me if I was "better off with him or without him". Shortly after 9/11, my mother was diagnosed with cancer (caused by smoking) and went through a gruesome course of treatment. I was her sole caregiver. She made it through. Then my husband had a heart attack (still didn't quit smoking and lied to his cardiologist about it).I couldn't believe he would keep smoking after what it had done to my mother and after he'd had a heart attack! But hje didn;t seem to care. Then my beloved father-in-law died. Then husband had another heart attack. And then we lost everything in Hurricane Katrina; house, jobs, cars and all possessions. Then my mother was diagnosed with a second cancer, also caused by smoking. I again was her sole caregiver. Husband was forced to quit smoking only because, after losing his job and benefits, he couldn't get health insurance until he was smoke-free for a year. Then my mother was diagnosed with a third cancer that killed her. And afterwards, my family abandoned me, for various reasons, none reasonable. Most of my friends "weren't good with grief" and made themselves scarce. Life went on and I devoted myself to my husband, and his family became my only family. The city where we ended up after Katrina was not especially welcoming to storm refugees, and I have never really made any friends here. But still, life went on, albeit with complicated grief, PTSD, and so on...and then came October 2017 and #MeToo triggers galore. I tried to get support from my husband but he just wasn't really "there". Distant and detached.

On December 3, 2018, I heard a moan from the bedroom shortly after my husband had gone to bed. My first thought was he was having another heart attack, as he is overweight and out of shape. But as I rushed down the hallway, I heard whispered filthy words, and I realized he was on the phone with someone. I went into the bedroom and asked him who he was on the phone with. He pretended he'd been sleeping, so I asked again. He admitted he was having phone sex. I walked out of the room, and about 10-15 minutes later, he came out and proceeded to tell me how it was my fault that he had to do that, because he was so sick of hearing about my "traumas" and he needed sex. He told me that he'd gone on the darknet, into a sex chat room and gave his phone number to the first person who private-messaged him, and that in the last year, they'd had phone sex five times. They used fake names and the Signal app so it would be anonymous. He told me it was no more intimate than watching porn, really. Later, he confessed that he'd also been watching a lot of porn for the last five years. I kicked him out and spent Christmas alone. It was about a month before he seemed at all remorseful. I agreed to see a marriage counselor, but once there, he started blaming me again and I just Iost it. After he left, the therapist told me that she was concerned about me because "wow, that's a lot of trauma".

(Somewhere around here, he made his stupid post.)

I had to allow him to return to the house because our beautiful, special 21 year old cat had been diagnosed with cancer and he was quite bonded with my husband and had already been pining. We went to see another counselor. My husband again gave vague, inconsistent information and the sessions always ended with me frantic and yelling. The counselor told me that he thought the relationship was too toxic for someone with my history and that we should have no contact. And I tried, but the poor cat declined again, so I let him back. Much as I tried to keep things calm and civil, and genuinely believed there was a chance for reconciliation, I couldn't quite feel right about his story, which was never the same twice. Our sweet boy died at the end of February, and then there was no more reason to accept his obvious crap story. It became increasingly tense, with me hounding him for the real truth and him swearing up and down that there was no more to tell, that the porn and the few phone sex sessions with the anonymous woman were all there ever was, and that if this was going to work, I was just going to have to trust him again. (HAHAHAHAHAHA)

About a week ago, I found evidence that he had actually been lying to me, and there was a lot more. Over the course of the last three days, I found out (not voluntarily, it had to be dragged out of him) that the whole darknet story was a lie, that he had been having online relationships with two women, one in Texas that had ended a year ago, and that the one I caught him with was a married Serbian woman that worked as a translator in Munich whom he met while trolling poetry blogs for woman who seemed lonely and potentially open to sex. They had been having phone and video sex in my house at least once a week for all of 2018. While I was there. Awake. Just a few yards away. He went to bed much earlier than I did and I never suspected a thing because I trusted him implicitly. Don't I just feel like a horse's ass?


Today I found out that not only did he not cut off contact when I caught him, he continued to stay in touch with her through February.
AND that he has been having sex with prostitutes since 2016 to the tune of several thousand dollars.

I cannot believe how much this man has lied. And lied. And then lied some more. I can't believe everything he has done to betray me. I can't believe how he pretended to be sincere about reconciliation and was lying the whole time, to me, to his family, to the therapists. I am absolutely at my wit's end. I have had enough gaslighting to illuminate the entire Western Hemisphere. I want to crawl out of my skin knowing I've been living in the same house as this...whatever he is. I feel SOOOOOOO stupid for trusting him so much. Now I don't feel safe, ever, at all. I don't know who he is, I barely know who I am. I don't know what to do. I feel paralyzed and trapped.

So to all you other "supporters" who accused me of abusing him and lavished him with sympathy, that's the real truth. That's what he did knowingly to a sexual trauma survivor and C-PTSD sufferer.
 
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