Hello 👋. I needed to write this to get things off my chest... Today I found out that "my" man is cheating on me. Worst part is that I shouldn't even be surprised, or hurt, or feel this rage that I'm feeling right now. He's a prick, he showed me his true colors a long time ago, but I never had the courage or strengh to cut him out of my life... I always let him back in, and I m taking full responsibility of my own weakness, failure, and stupidity. At this point I´m just ashamed to feel all that, I must have no self esteem left.
I met this man 6 years ago. I didn't wanted to have sex until marriage, so one day, a year after we met, he raped me and gave me an STD. He raped me multiple times after that. Looking back at it now and thinking about why I stayed, and after a couple of sessions in therapy, I can recognize that it was my weakness and insecurities. I wanted to keep him, and understood that the only way to maintain this relationship was having sex. So we started to have "consensual" sex. During this time, for 3 years, I tried to shut everything in me that told me this whole mess is wrong and ignore the guilt or pain I'm feeling. I foccused to find peace, love and happiness, to see the good in him. He was living in another city so that helped reduce tensions and confrontations I guess, when he was far it was pure love and attention. When he came, everything was perfect : dolled up, clean house, delicious meals, fun time.
So 3 years went by like this, he always had a word to say about my friends, my clothes, my family... I completely isolated from the rest of the world, my whole life was dedicated to him. We helped each other find a job. He never maintained one for more that few months, as soon as we start making plans and talking about getting married, buying a house, he gets fired. And everytime I had to live the frustration, the disappointment all over again. Until he decided to start his own business. I saved and helped as much as I could. I remember working on it every night until 1 or 2 am. And he made his best efforts to make it work once created, he ´s brilliant with people so he succeeded over time.
I lived some extremely painful moments because of him, but the moments of joy were really intense too and there were days when I felt completely loved, cherished and accepted. Like I ve never been loved before, by anyone, I felt like nobody could ever make me this happy. He knows how to make me feel like the most special woman in the world when he wants to. So after those 3 years we got engaged, finally ! I was so happy to start this new chapter of my life with him and and let go of the negative. I could have seen huge red flags going over his family once I met them if only I weren't too busy being stupid.
After the engagement, I found a job in his city and rent a flat next to him until wedding, he was living with his parents. He promised my parents to take care of me, so he came to visit everyday, to "make sure I'm okay" and have sex. Then he slowly moved in with me. It started with staying one night, then another, then "I don't have my stuff here so I need to bring some" until he completely and fully moved in. I found myself paying rent and bills, buying groceries, cooking for him and cleaning after him every day and living with a man who keeps postponing the wedding date. I started to feel like this whole situation was turning to a mess again... he had the chance to keep seeing his fam everyday, his friends, while I was far from everything and everyone I knew just to find myself in this place. This period was really difficult too because it was no longer just weekends, it was every single day living with someone who has to validate my outfit before I leave the house, and who keeps me apart from having any kind of relationship or friendship. Fights were getting a bit tougher too, more violent, more physical. Also, I started noticing things with his mom, she always made me feel unwelcomed and unwanted.
Anyway, I confronted him and told him that I can't keep living like that for 10 other months and that I would leave if he can't get his sh*t together. So we started looking for a house and preparing for the wedding. We found the house we wanted, I'm gonna skip all the financial details because at this point, they're just useless.
Anyway, we got married, moved in to our new home, traveled. It was a beautiful and quiet month until I found out I was pregnant, and I had this strong feeling in my guts telling me it's a terrible thing. He was very happy about the pregnancy, while I hated everything about it at first, I think I got into a depression and all I could think about is how to get out. I felt that he completely changed the second he knew, I don't know how to explain this but the moments of joy and care fade out, everytime I wanted to talk about I feel about the baby, or the education of our child, or how are we going to manage our finances, he never listened. I felt trapped. Then I started talking about not feeeling ready to be a mom and that I wish to put an end to the pregnancy, he kept telling me that I could fuck off after giving birth if I don't want the child and leave the baby with him and his mom.
I was nauseous, tired and bleeding this whole first trimester, i had to take lot of pills. I've never felt so lonely and stuck.. I started to have suicidal thoughts. In this loneliness, I felt that I can only talk to my baby, and we started developing a bond. I did my best to be a happier mom after I found out that my negative emotions can have an impact on her. I accepted this pregnancy eventually, started to buy her little clothes and daydream about things we are going to do together, once she ´s here. My husband was acting almost like I was not pregnant at all, screaming, shouting, fighting, smoking next to me. I know I wasn't fun to be around but expected a little bit of love, empathy or just mercy. He never even took the time to take a glance at the tiny socks and cute sleepers I bought her when I was so excited about it. He explained later that as a man, those kind of things don't interest him and that he was thinking about bringing money to offer her things... well, maybe.
Anyway, by the end of the second trimester we found out that I what really sick and doctors explained how critical the situation was. Things went so , so fast ... my life shuttered in just few days, I found myself in a hospital having c section. I heard my baby girl screaming and never got the chance to hold her, or even see her that day. I just saw her twice before she was gone... never touched her, smelled her, fed her. Some wounds never heal I guess, i think about her every single day in my life and can't stop thinking how shitty mom I was for making her feel, even for one second, that I didn't want her in my life. She was my little gift and I couldn't even appreciate it when I had the chance to.
After that, our life was just grief. My husband apologized for everything and we decided to open another chapter in our life, we got really close to each other and mourned in each another's arms. I thought bad things are left behind, but the horror came back: his mom. This woman never liked me and I never knew why, I made all the efforts in the world to change her mind (kindness, visits, gifts, care), nothing worked. After the death of our daughter her mean acts and words, her rudeness, transformed into pure bullying and harassment. And my husband never did anything to protect me from it. He always expected me to act like the perfect wife and daughter in law just because she ´s his mom. That led to endless fights between us, violence, abuse. She knew everything about all the intimate details about our life, every single detail of our life he told her. She called me "wh*ore" infront of him, hell, she even called him that himself, and his reaction was : I gotta negociate this with her, I ´m gonna talk to her. Things escalated and she started threatening my life, she came to my home, she insulted my parents. For the first time I answered and said that she ´s mentally ill and that she can take her son if she thinks I ´m keeping him with me against his will. That led to other fights with my husband who didn't felt "respected" when I said that he can leave if he wants, he took his clothes and traveled with her for a week. Lol.
At this point I decided I wanted to get a divorce and keep myself out of this insanity, he came back crying and begging and he contacted my whole family to apologize and convince me to not get a divorce. I mean, he told me that he ´ll kill me if I leave him and he BEGGED, with gifts, with tears, with everything, like a child. I gave him one more chance, it lasted 2 months. We went on vacation and seen that his mom is still terrorizing him over the phone, that she will make him pay ect. I started understanding the psychotic dynamic going into this family, so I packed his things and filed for divorce once I came back. He cried and asked for a chance and for forgiveness until the last second. He said he can't leave without me and that he will change and do everything that I want him to. Our marriage was over in August.
Anyway, after divorce I started a therapy to help me understand what the hell I lived for the last 6 years and why on earth did I put myself into that in the first place, and overcome the anger and hurt.. I work with my therapist on boundaries and self esteem. My ex husband kept harrassing this whole time, sometimes with insults on my car, visits to my house, threats. My therapist suggested to file a complaint or backfire in some way to help me feel that I can protect myself as an adult, which I did. He explained that he acted like that because he was hurt and he didn't want to lose me and it's his wounds and inner child and traumas and stuff like that. After I showed some hostility too, my ex started coming every night, drunk, to park his car in front of my house and play music, he started to write
love letters and apoligies, asked for forgiveness.. until a day I picked up the phone when he called, we talked about how he misses me and about what happened and how he regrets and how this divorce helped him to change and grow up and how he sat boundaries with his family and this bu**shit I needed to hear.
And he called the next day and the other until he came to my place and we had sex.
It was 2 months after our divorce. I explained that I ´m not thinking about getting back to him, after that he invited me to talk and he was so polite and charming. We spent hours talking about communication, trust, respect, faults that each one did, our childhood traumas, what we learned, how we changed ect. He became this pecfect prince charming that I fell in love with 6 years ago. So we seen each other few times, he was very respectful to my body, didn't force anything, he listened when I talked. Everything was great, we fell for each other all over again and it was honeymoon again. I paid more attention to setting boundaries even if he kept pressuring me to get married once again, I explained that this will take time to rebuilt the trust and he kept pressuring and pressuring.
He moved in with me again. This whole situation lasted about 3 months until today. Although I wanted to believe this whole fairytale and how lucky we were to find each other all over again and how we would never let each other go this time, and although everybody, I mean everyone that I know told me that it was a very, very, very stupid idea, I really just appreciated the efforts he made, his presence, how thoughtful he is, how special he makes me feel, the feeling of love that he gives me, the attention. I felt comfort in his arms after a long period of distress and pain. Everything was going great between us, I've seen changes, for example even though his mom keeps blackmailing him for money and stuff, I noticed he keeps his distance, I noticed that he respected me more, cherished me more, helps me with lot of stuff too.
Anyway, last week we had a trip, we talked about the future, about getting married this summer and having kids, places we will visit. After we came back, I visited my parents and something in my guts was telling that something was not right. Like it was too perfect to be true. It was my birthday, he came to visit my hometown for this occasion, brought me gifts, invited me. Again, everything was just so sweet and thoughtful so I said to my parents that maybe, juste maybe, I may think of getting remarried to him this year, they thought I was crazy.
2 days ago I came back to our home, first thing I smelled was a feminine perfume and smell of cigarettes smoke. Okay. Calm down. It's just in your head, nothing looks unusual in the house. When he fell asleep I took his phone, saw the picture of his weekend. He lied to me about whom he traveled with, but it was just his parents so maybe that's okay. Saw the pictures of his new year's eve, when it was my birthday and "his battery died" : him dancing at a club, phonecalls to girls at 2 am named in his contacts : Bitch 2 and Bitch 3 (when I was calling). Okay.
I wake him up and asked him WTH? he swears for his dear life that it was not him it was his friend who made the calls cause he wanted girls and cries his heart out until morning and swears it was just a small lie and he won't do it again. I told him to get out, it was 6 years of relationship we were still talking about not lying again. He took a knife and started hurting his arm told me that and said he couldn't live without me or let me go, then insults, then hugs me, then physical fight between us, then sorry and crawls at my feet. It was 5 am so I said okay, let's get some sleep and talk about that later. The morning he wakes up, sweet and loving like nothing happened, I said I can't handle the lies anymore so he told me okay, he ´ll give me time and will show me that he changed. We pack his things, he goes, and come back and invites out once again, talks to me about marriage and having a child and how we love each other. We spent the day together, took our cat to the veterinarian like we were supposed to do and get back home. He fell asleep and I took his phone again. And here I find texts he sent to a his brother : "I has a fight with this 'bitch' again." Then texts he sent to q girl, while I was preparing diner, about seeing her again in the "same place", and her talking about the sexy outfit she would wear to him with very suggestive emojis. Ugh. My heart froze. Really. I contacted her, told her I'm his wife and I just want to know how long have they been talking to each other, or have they seen each other, or did he even mention that I was in his life ? She she saw him a couple of times, they have been talking to each for about 2 or 3 months and she knows he ´s married but he said that it wouldn't be a problem.
I never felt so disgusted in my life. I felt nauseous... enraged. Worst part is, I kinda deserved this, like what was I expecting ? I woke him up with a slap and he immediately knew why, because he said her name. The birthday presents he gave me were still unopened and I must admit, I liked the look of his face when I threw them by the window and see how they get into pieces, knowing how expensive they were. And I slapped him every time he tried to open him his mouth to tell me another lie or to touch me or hurt me.
What a waste of life, what I waste of love. I wish it didn't hurt this bad after all this time, I wish i could just forget that I ever fell for him again, after all he put through. I wish I didn't pictured little babies that we can have after this pregnancy. I just can't seem to understand why people enjoy hurting the ones who love them ? Who forgave them ? Why lying and cheating and wasting everyone ´s time and energy ? I wish I could just take the pain away...