Or is this unforgivable?

I am so sorry for the situation you have been put in.
You will obviously need to work out if you'll ever be able to trust him again.
I would say that using the expression MO for your husband's behaviour doesn't bode well for the future of your relationship and to trust your gut feelings.

I’m sorry you’re going through this @AbominablePloughMan
I think of it were me, I would focus on the more recent months of the marriage. Has he done anything to make you have doubts about his faithfulness? If he had changed his ways I could forgive him. But only you can decide what you are willing to forgive, not your friends, family or people on this forum.

Who on earth could "forgive'" this?!! I don't agree that "many men behave like this" either. Only scumbags mess women around like that!

@AbominablePloughMan You know what you need to do, don't you? This man is a cunt, and not to be trusted. Get yourself out, rely on friends if family aren't supportive. So sorry you are going through this x

this is a horrible situation
he has basically already cheated on you from what I’m understanding at the beginning of your relationship.
does marriage make it differnt for him Ie it’s more of a commitment and so he wouldn’t cheat on his wife? Or do you think that will end up happening too?
i am worried that he will never change and if you do decide to continue with this marriage, he will end up cheating on you too (as it seems to be a habit for him), but this time you’ll have kids and joint assets in tow to worry about too 😩😩😩.

Just a passing comment OP - (i’ll message properly later i’m out right now) but you say he’s a ‘people pleaser! .. how so?

as he sounds like a PEOPLE ‘TAKER’ , a piss taker! NOTHING whatsoever sounds like a ‘people pleasing ‘ ‘man’

This guy sounds very much like a narcissist. Please leave him before becoming any more interconnected and before having children.

He must be very charming, but very deceitful, and he has no conscience. He is using women as he pleases for his own needs.

I am so sorry you have to go through the pain of finding this out. But in the long run, this is a godsend.

I speak as someone whose sister has been destroyed by a similar man. Unfortunately she has children with him and despite now finally being divorced, he is still using and manipulating their son to extract every possible piece of misery on her.

They are simply horrible people to be involved with. It's better to be alone.

Another thing to bear in mind is that he could actually divorce you even if you didn't want to, so you'd be in he same situation with your family
Do it asap and spare yourself a hellish marriage

Probably a lot going on round this but I cannot overlook you saying "he cancelled her visa and she was forced to move back to her home country".

Unm, after years of stringing along... what a terrible thing to do to someone who thinks you love them, or maybe one day will again. Wretched.

Why anyone would choose to say with such an absolute cunt and consider having kids with him is beyond me - he might still be cheating on you now.

He is not ' kind ' he is a liar and deceitful !

PLEASE PLEASE leave now whilst you’re not too entangled.

the most worrying thing is not the cheating - though that is awful - it’s the gaslighting, denial and lying when you find anything new out - this tells you everything you need to know. Deep down you know it’s time to leave.

Huge hugs and best of luck - you have 1 life to enjoy

He's fake, it's all fake. He's a liar, an untrustworthy, devious fake. And unfaithful.

You will never ever be able to trust him or believe anything he says.

There is only one 'next step ' for you no matter what pressure your family choose to put you under.

No kids, no joint assets, nothing to stop you making a clean break.

Good luck.

Oh heck! Family lectures won't last forever but the complete destruction of your mental wellbeing will if you stay with him.

If he truly cared he would have laid all his grubby little secrets on the table at the first instance and then committed to therapy to work on absolving himself and regaining your trust and respect.

Be gentle with yourself. He is playing games with your head and your heart.

I do wonder if you spoke to the various exes would you be told similar tales that they had gone through. This isn't a one off, it's serial behaviour and cruel beyond words.

Trust your gut lovely. Make the decision for you, not for everyone else.

I agree with all of this, including that there’s something sinister about it

I'm sorry, your husband is a dud. If you stay married you will have a lifetime of misery and unhappiness.

Leave now, lick your wounds. Your family will get over it. Find someone more compatible I.e not a lying, cheating, arsehole.

The bottom line is, can you trust him? If the answer is no, then you seriously need to be considering whether you can remain in a relationship with no trust.

I said you are being unreasonable because you should have left this twat long ago!

I’m sorry to have to say this and you may love him very much. But he is a manipulative liar with no respect for you. He may couch it as he wanted to protect you or you would judge him. But he took away all your agency and any choice. That’s appalling. He may change in another relationship. Unlikely but possible. He has treated you incredibly badly. For your own sanity he needs to go. It will feel bad now but in a further few years. Just think then. He will probably do the same to you. Meet someone else and keep you hanging on whilst telling the other woman you’re unstable. Really really nasty. Sorry to be harsh. Believe me I know how it feels. I turned a blind eye, lost my marbles and was eventually told to go.

Not all men behave like this.
You deserve way better op.
Get out asap.
Find someone who deserves you.
Your family will get over it. Promise.

My parents will insist I give him another chance, but I think I already did that. Things would have been different even if he had come fully clean then. They will zero in on the fact that he chose me - but I’m convinced that means nothing.

Your life is not one to be run by committee. It’s your life. And you don’t have to justify a decision to divorce to anyone. Even without your H’s emotionally abusive behaviour you would have the right to just change your mind, fall out of love and move on. However the fact is that your marriage is abusive, is making you unhappy, and worse destroying your MH and the very self-confidence that you need in order to rescue yourself. And your family’s interference will also chip holes in the lifeboat. If you allow it.

I am very glad you have the support of your brother and close friends.

He’s turned it all around on me, saying that he’s checked out because I’ve been constantly angry and on the edge of my tether with him.

But you weren't angry and at the end of youx tether for the extended time period that he was cheating on you ...... You've only been angry & at the end of your tether since you discovered his cheating and double life-ing. So he still destroyed the relationship.
Cause and effect. He can't be that stupid, can he? (He's not, he's just not big on responsibility (or ethics)).

Your reaction to finding out about his cheating is entirely normal, natural etc. That's not what destroyed the relationship. It's just a reaction to what destroyed the relationship.

He doesn't want to see that because he can't take responsibility for his behaviour and has no empathy; so he thinks someone not accepting him cheating on them & deceiving them (and essentially living a double life) is somehow unreasonable. It's therefore their fault if the relationship breaks down.

As I said, it seems like he sees others as having inferior rights & privileges to him. They're pretty much objects to him. (See also the visa thing).
They don't have the right to fidelity, and they don't have the right to anger, mistrust and lack of investment after discovering infidelity.

I'm interested in whether he would stay and how quickly he'd be back to happy and invested if he was on the receiving end of it. Do you think he'd be there if you'd kept seeing two men behind his back during the earlier years of your relationship and he found out after marrying you?

The fact that he also refers to this being common behaviour among men is significant. That puts a big flag over his core values.

If it's common. - and therefore somehow not that bad - that men cheat and deceive during the early stages of relationships, then perhaps, to him, it's also common - and not that bad - if they cheat when on business trips/lads holidays, or cheat when their wife is pregnant/dealing with the demands of v young kids, or cheat when the sex isn't quite so regular or exciting after a decade, or use 'escorts" etc. etc.
After all, male infidelity is common and "nothing" if they don't actually choose the other women as their life partner.

His mentality just does not seem compatible with a decent exclusive relationship (and I have no doubt he expects his partner to be exclusive).

I’ve spent a lot of time convinced that I’m a sociopath, psychopath or narcissist.

Somebody in your household strikes me as fitting that description.

Not you though.

This man is essentially a double life-r.

Some who is inclined to, and ok with leading a double life. And can compartmentalise to a v high degree.

Staying in a serious relationship with them, let alone having kids with them, is a poor bet indeed.

I don’t know if ‘many men’ doing it makes it ok

Lots of women cheat too.
I know quite a few of them.
I know a couple who've passed off kids as fathered by one man when there was the distinct possibility they were another's.

Does that make it ok if you had done that to him? Just cause quite a lot of women cheat. And some deceive men about the paternity of their kids.

The "lots of people do it" and "there are men doing much worse than me, like rapiing kids"....(Yes, really I heard that from a cheater)....are the default fall-back of shitty, low integrity, narcissistic wastes of space.

You're too good for him. You're not like him.

My husband has dismissed the whole thing saying they meant nothing, it was a mistake, he chose me not them etc.

He'd accept that if the roles were reversed, would he?

That would win him over if he found out you'd been seeing & shagging two other men (and still living with one) during your relationship with him.- which you let him believe was exclusive & even covered up your involvement with the other men. And then married him without mentioning it either. Hmm.

I find in cases like those, men have lots of "colourful" vocabulary for describing women, and they rarely rarely stay in exclusive relationships with them.

What people like him are essentially saying is "you are lesser than me, you have less rights than me, I will act how I like and you should be grateful if I choose you as my main partner, I don't have to follow the rules you have to follow, I have more rights and privileges in the relationship than you" etc.

He would never accept a fraction of this from you, I'm guessing.

Now the facade has been lifted, you will never feel good about this man, op. He may even behave even worse as you’ll have condoned his past behaviour- you ‘knew what you were letting yourself in for by staying with him’. This will only make you feel worse.

Get out now, life is about so much more than a small handful of people who don’t have your best interests at heart- family or not.

there is no point beating yourself up for ‘getting in this mess’ that doesn’t matter now. All that matters is getting out of it and moving on. Good luck.