I feel so stupid - I think I've been hating the wrong person for 7 years

[Sativa]

I'll try to keep this brief but I can go into more detail if needed. I just don't know where to start really.

I've been with my DP for about 7 years and we each have 2 DC but none together. We also live in our respective houses but spend a lot of time together.

His DC live 50 miles away, so every fortnight he collects them for the weekend and drops them off again. This would sometimes involve him spending time at his ex's house, sometimes overnight, if say, he needed to go to an assembly the next morning. Also when he dropped them off on Sunday night, he would put them to bed and fall asleep for a few hours, wake up and come down to my house any time between 11pm and 4am. This did bother me and I did question where he slept and why he was unable to answer his mobile etc. However, at other times she wouldn't even let him in the house.

God, I feel so stupid writing this.

Anyway, incidents have included :

his son asking him why "he slept with Mummy?"

finding photos of them all on Christmas morning, her in her pjs and him in his boxers and a t-shirt, which I thought was inappropriate

the ex ringing and texting me 4 years ago to tell me that they were sleeping together

her staying at his house without the children as she had a meeting nearby

He dismissed all these with various stories and always told me he hated her, she was 'a psycho', and all he cared about was his children. I knew she was very bitter about us and also wanted him back so I tried to believe him and obviously I wanted more than anything to believe him.

Things have been very fraught lately, with lots of arguing; going over and over old ground. He is highly suspicious of me and accuses me of all sorts. I suppose I just needed to know whether he was worth fighting for so this weekend I rang his ex.

Well, she was really nice and open and told me that they had never stopped sleeping together, sometimes on a fortnightly basis! The only time they hadn't was when she had been seeing someone. She sounded totally convincing, giving loads of little details. She was also really good with dates and timespan which he is useless at. She said the last time they slept together was May 2010, just before she got with her current partner who is now moving in. To top it all she asked if he'd mentioned the chlamydia to me, which she thinks he gave her. He obviously hadn't but I'm going to the clinic tomorrow to see if I've got it. If she's lying she deserves an Oscar. But she isn't is she?

I haven't confronted him yet; I want to wait for the test results but I just feel so stupid. There's no way I can stay with him; he's wasted 7 years of my life, taken away any chance of me having any more children, deceived his children and mine and has probably been getting off on the fact that he had 2 women on the go. I can't describe how much I hate him. How am I going to explain to my beautiful sensitive little DS that the person he worships has turned out to be a complete idiot?

I don't know what I want anyone to say; maybe just comment or give me some words of comfort. I am in a really surreal place at the moment trying to comprehend the fact that everything I suspected was in fact true.
When I read back over this I sound really weak but I'm not. I was just so much in love and so wanted it to work.

Thanks for reading and I'll be grateful for any comments at all.

Just read the thread. so sorry for what this jerk has done to you.

Its just shocking how deceitful some people are. keep strong and calm

He's used to me crying, begging and being the one to make the first move to patch things up in the past. God, it's humiliating thinking back. Since I became more detached it has really thrown him and I think that's why things have gone downhill.

But I now feel emotionally dead so icy calm and strong it is then.

good girl

I have said on another thread this evening, I do a good line in cringing myself

and if I were to meet my younger self, I would give her a fucking slap

it's not too late to reclaim your self-respect, love

never too late, no matter what has gone before

you can do it

Be strong whatever.

It could be she is lying in which case you clearly don't trust him anyway and that's not a good place to be in a relationship.

If she was telling the truth then your hunch was correct.

Seems no way back regardless.
Good luck

So regardless, it seems you have made your choices already

Just here to say I'm thinking of you and hope you find the strength to end it.

Yes relationships can recover from an affair but what he has done is so much worse than that. He has never even given you and your relationship a chance.

Be strong - a year from now you'll be wondering what you were fretting about.

Is there a possibility that his ex will have told him that you contacted her and now know everything?

To be honest I would speak to him just to say you know everything and not to show his face at your door again!

the fkn neck of him!

deb

'How am I going to explain to my beautiful sensitive little DS that the person he worships has turned out to be a complete idiot?' Something that needs really careful consideration and possibly some professional advice/counselling in itself?

I think you'll suprise yourself, its been in the back of your mind all this time you weren't crazy

OP do you think the ex will call him and let him know you know. he is a tosser, complete tosser. Chlymadia is the least of his worries if he has been sleeping around.

Would his friends/family have been aware of this double life he is leading?

what a wanker
unbelievable!!

You do realise that he will deny it all?
are you ready to stand your ground?
sounds like he thinks he can get away with anything.
I'm so mad on your behalf

Be strong, good luck

Exactly as DaddysGirl said - you weren't crazy.

How malicious, to deliberately try and make you feel you were!

Thank you for all your replies, I was really boosted when I read them. Unfortunately I've just spent the last 40 minutes writing an epic reply but clicked on a tab and closed it down. I'll try again tomorrow.

Just quickly though, all I feel at the moment is relief that I know the truth and I wasn't being paranoid. I haven't even really cried, maybe I know I've wasted enough tears and energy on this fool already.

Thanks again

Op I honestly can't remember how many times I've read on here he's telling me I'm crazy but I know, I know what I saw/heard. For me now any man who tries to convince a woman she is crazy/mad is hiding something.

Something inside made you call her, you were ready to hear it and deal with it.

How are you feeling today?
Have you heard from him yet Sativa? I'm interested as to which of AF's lines he will try!

Yes Sativa - any word from him?

God I would love to see his face when you confront him.

Sorry I haven't been on all weekend.

Well, events came to a head on Friday when he turned up at my workplace as we hadn't been talking. We drove back to my house and I confronted him by saying that I knew what he'd been doing. I asked him about the clamydia, gave a few pertinent details and he denied, denied, denied. He said she was a really good liar and was still trying to ruin his life.

This was really messing with my head as it made me doubt who was telling the truth. We carried on talking and he said he'd done things that he wasn't proud of in order to maintain contact with the children. These included going out for meals as a family and buying her flowers for her birthday from the children; I said these were fairly understandable things that many people might do in the same situation. Then we carried on talking and suddenly he just said that he had done it, he had slept with her. I just felt relief almost, that like LoveBeingADaddysGirl and Grace said, I WASN'T CRAZY ! All the things I'd suspected, worried about, agonised over, confronted him about, were all true.

He cried and said it was only to keep her sweet, so that she would communicate with him over the children. He kept saying he never meant to hurt me and that he was sorry. We have spoken again over the weekend and he has admitted to treating me badly (i.e. not ringing me) in the hope that it would be really obvious and I would dump him. And sometimes he would start arguments for the same reason. What a coward. Am I right in thinking this is pretty textbook behaviour ??

He said he was eaten up with guilt, but obviously didn't feel bad enough to stop. He also disagreed with the timespan and frequency of the sex but why should I believe him ? He's already proved that he can lie through his teeth.

He also said he was never sure of how I felt about him and he didn't know what I was 'up to', but when I wasn't having any of that nonsense he admitted that it was his own paranoia and assumptions and he couldn't justify his behaviour in that way.

He looked terrible, has lost a lot of weight, hasn't been eating or sleeping. I said that that's how I have felt, on and off for 7 years. I've had a continual knot of anxiety in my stomach which is now no longer there.

So, I think the moral of this story is :

if you have doubts they probably are true

if there are lots of unexplained incidents, there is something amiss

if you feel constantly anxious in a relationship, it isn't good and you need to get out

you're not crazy, trust your instincts

I wish I had had the courage to speak to the ex years ago, maybe this would have come to a head then. But maybe DaddysGirl is right again and that it is only now that I'm ready to deal with this.

I wish I'd been stronger and put my foot down more instead of being so understanding and accommodating. There really shouldn't have been any reason why the ex and I weren't allowed to meet, should there ??

I wish that all the times I'd had the phone in my hand in the early hours of the morning, I'd actually had the courage to ring her house to check if he'd left yet; after all I was his partner and I had every right to. Maybe I was scared of what I knew I'd find out......

But "If Wishes were horses, beggars could ride,
My prayers would be answered my tears would be dried,
The love that I treasured would not be denied,
If wishes were horses, beggars could ride....."

I just hope that this might help someone who is going through a similar situation.

Thanks for all the words of encouragement and advice. Much love, I really must go to bed now x

sativa I'm so glad he's come clean so you have no doubts. you are NOT crazy. He's behaved appallingly.

I hope you feel you have enough information to end the relationship, I wasn't sure from your post where the relationship now stood.

I think you're right that you weren't ready to know. You could have called but you decided not to. Sometimes our own resistance needs to be honoured. Now it seems you are ready to know.

Hope you're still feeling full of courage this morning...

Thanks nje3006. I feel calmer than I have in years.

He does seem to despise himself. For me it is all over. I look at him and feel nothing particularly. Will that ever change? I don't know. How can he regain my trust? How can I stop making snide remarks? How can I stop imagining what has gone on? The whole of our 'relationship' has been a sham.

I wish I'd discovered MN years ago; maybe it would've given me strength.

If it's all over for you, what have you told him? What will happen on a practical level?

I wouldn't worry about feeling nothing and whether that will change. You don't know. It doesn't really matter.

You talk about him regaining your trust. Why does he need to do that if the relationship is over? Why do you need to imagine what went on if it's over?

Hold on to that feeling of strength...

So, I think the moral of this story is :

if you have doubts they probably are true

if there are lots of unexplained incidents, there is something amiss

if you feel constantly anxious in a relationship, it isn't good and you need to get out

you're not crazy, trust your instincts

Sativa you put that so well, thank you. It's such an important thing to know. Please please don't feel bad about anything you should or shouldn't have done, it's just the way it is when you desperately want to trust and believe the one you love. I remember walking down the road in tears in January last year because I was convinced my H was seeing someone else. When did it all come out? November :(

But, we won't ever let anything like that happen again, and at least now we know the truth and can start getting on with our lives.

I am glad he finally came clean, sativa

You have some closure now...some people never get that

I was right about some of the justification she would make, wasn't I ? You are right in that he is following a script...he just doesn't realise it, but you do

So, what now ?

Thanks robberbutton.

nje3006 I suppose I was just thinking out loud, wondering how people manage to give it a second chance when I would find it impossible I think.

AF I can hardly believe he actually admitted it; it was like in a Soap when they finally confess after keeping an affair secret for ages, something just cracked. Yeah, I think it's the closure that's making me feel better. There's nothing worse than the uncertainty.

It was almost laughable, he said he thought that him sleeping with her would encourage her to share stuff about the children with him but it didn't work and she never did. I said "Oh, but you kept going back time and time again just to make sure!", like people who are disgusted by something but watch it 6 times just to be certain

What now ? Well, I've lost any respect I ever had for him. I'm just going to have fun and do all the things that I put on hold to spare his feelings. I might have some counselling to talk things through. But mainly I'm going to deal with each day as it comes and build a different life without him.