I'm sorry, I've tried to cut this down so I don't drip feed but this is as brief as I can do it! In short, have found messages to a mutual friend of ours where DH was really bad-mouthing me, then being sexually explicit.
We've had a tough year. I had a very hard pregnancy, in hospital a lot, poorly baby, DD1 starting school, and medical problems for me that limit a lot of movement. I have a large bowel hernia that is in urgent need of repair and am waiting for an operation date. I will need an op that will put me flat on my back for a month, unable to even lift my baby or I will end up back in hosptial for longer for a worse op according to my consultant. Our house is a tip which I hate but some days I can't even push the hoover round. I'm miserable as I dislike living in a dump. DH is really messy, drops clothes where he takes them off, leaves dirty things in the kitchen and expects me to clean up after him, moans when I ask him to take rubbish out (and then doesn't do it, leaving black bags to fester in the kitchen for days - which means I either live with a smell, or do it myself and end up in pain for a few days). I don't feel like having sex a lot, although I still go down on him and it's never returned. We don't have much physical intimacy beyond that. I know he works, and he works damn hard for which I am always telling him how grateful I am. I have never stopped him going out with mates or whatever he wants to do.
I used the computer, and found up on the screen messages going back months up until recently complaining about me. Not one positive thing was said. He said I'm always angry and aggressive, he can't talk to me, he's expected to look after the kids all the time, I can't cope with 2 kids etc. That I need help but I'm being controlling and refused to give him my HV number so he could chase them up (I don't recall being asked for it ever and even if I refused surely he could have got it another way if he was that worried?). He doesn't know how he's going to cope after my op it's just yet more being piled on him. He complained to her he had to use a condom when we had sex. He told her the orgasm he had thinking about her was the best one he'd had for months, and detailed what he wanted to do to her. Calling her a nickname really close to the one he uses for me. I found porn of women being anally abused. I wasn't even snooping around our PC, they were on favorites and bookmarked! He wants to take her out to dinner, just the 2 of them and complained about having to take me out because I wanted to go and he was tired.
He does his share of nightshift when he sleeps on the sofa and DD2 sleeps in the cot downstairs, but in his message he's told her he's not allowed back in our bed and stays on the sofa every night. I can cope with 2 kids just fine, I CAN'T cope with 2 kids, him being a 3rd child, cleaning house AND being in pain all the time. I have no social life because of this. I never get out. I shouldn't even be carrying washing upstairs (doctors orders) but I do anyway because who else will? I don't expect him to look after the kids, I try to insist he doesn't because I know when he gets home he just wants to relax. He ALWAYS argues that he wants to, that he's missed them.
If you're with me so far, thank you.
I spoke to her, she said she had felt really uncomfortable in the conversation and tried to steer it away, laugh it off - which I could see from the messages - but he hadn't taken the hint. She is a very meek person and would not have been able to tell him to pack it in. She said she felt awful but didn't know how to tell me. I believe her.
He denied it up until I named her, and some details. He said sorry, didn't admit to it because it was ages ago, didn't think it was relevent, told me he's been a twat that he loves me and was just blowing off steam. I told him to go read those messages and imagine it was me saying them to another man. He did come back looking teary and told me he was an idiot and could see how it could be read but he didn't mean it that way. I spoke to him about the porn (quoted some stuff I'd read on the feminist section on here about girls in porn) and he says he feels sick at that and won't use it again.
NOW SO AS NOT TO DRIP FEED - yes there's more. Sorry!
This is the 2nd time I've caught a conversation of this type, the first time was with a girl in the states he met online just before DD1 was born. Trying to get her to send him pics which she wouldn't. I told him if he behaved this way again he should just leave. He said he was sorry, that he was being a twat. Before I had DD2, and was very ill, he would make comments about beautiful actresses on television, google them with me in the room and show me these girls. I confronted his nasty behaviour, he said he was sorry, that he was being a twat.
I don't know where to go from here. I told him to apologise to my friend and she says he has and seemed sincere, but he sincerely apologised to me 4 years ago too. We've been together nearly 20 years, he's an amazing dad and used to be so loving. These messages he's sent are so 2 faced though, contradicting everything he's told me. I understand this year has been hard on him too, he's had a lot going on at work as well as at home. He's always insisted that he adores me, that I'm beautiful and attractive even when I feel fat and my hernia is blown up. How could he suddenly decide all the things he does are demanded of him? Even when I try to get him to go out with friends he says no. He says he feels like he should stay in and help out, but when I try so hard to keep him happy and he point blank refuses to take time for himself, I don't see how his resulting annoyance at not getting me time is my fault!
He's trying to kiss and hug me and hold my hand, and seems very put out that I won't just accept an apology. I do in front of the girls but I just don't want him kissing me again yet. And his message to her about being made to sleep on the sofa is now true. Am I wrong? Should I just go with it and see what happens again?
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Relationships
Am I over-reacting to explicit messages. DH seems to think I am. (really long)
Stropzilla · 06/10/2012 10:20
Well from now on, you are going to start valuing yourself a bit more 
OP I've been through a pretty shitty 20 years. The list of things I thought would break me is far too long to recount. I found myself in my car at 4 o'clock in the morning beside the bridge thinking I should just do it, drive on into the water and hope I died quickly. I thought about NCing before posting that but you know what? It happened, I thought it, I felt alone, I felt weak, scared, tired, defeated, lost, hopeless and I won't deny it to myself or anyone else because it is a very real part of my journey that I cannot forget, it's important to me to remember the worst times. Thankfully the thoughts of leaving my dd alone stopped me.
I spent years crying myself to sleep while dd's father lived it up, not a care in the world, dd adoring him and hating me because I was the disciplinarian (sp?), hearing back all the horrible lies he told about me while I struggled to justify my existance in dd's life. What good was I to her? She idolised him and his new partner. They could do no wrong. The house was a mess. I didn't get dressed some days and fed her take away because I couldn't bring myself to cook a dinner. I was in pain emotionally and physically. I got fatter and fatter, I chain-smoked, was on AD's, I spent all my money on dd, lavishing her with expensive gifts to make up for the failure I was. I slept with men just to have the company of another adult, feel wanted in some way and not so alone. The only light in my life was dd.
I thought about going back to her father just to have help, company, intimacy, conversation. He asked lots, something always stopped me...the way he had treated me in the past. He had no regard for me, slagged me off to all his friends, stayed out late getting pissed and chatting up other woman, didn't help in the house, with dd, with money. He was and always will be a useless bastard but many times when I was at my lowest with not an ounce of self-worth or self-esteem left I was prepared to put up with it. Thankfully I din't entertain the thought for long.
The next few years where pretty much the same. Crying, AD's, lonely. Slowly I began to realise the only person who could help me was me. I needed to believe in myself before life would change. I needed to protect myself and start feeling worthy of good things again. I had to let go of the 'settling for' attitude I had developed over my lifetime and realise if I wanted people to treat me differently I had to start saying 'NO'. I had to show them I believed in me, I was strong and I knew my own worth. You know why? Because I realised my dd would learn how to be a woman based on what I showed her, not what I told her. I couldn't continue to be a person who had no interest in herself. let other people walk all over her and struggle miserablely through life if I wanted my dd to grow up knowing she was an amazing, capable woman who could do anything and had self-respect and inner strength to get her through life's tough times. We don't lie down and give up. We get up, say 'NO' to the hurters and move on with determination.
I've said it before on here, we are not just mothers once we give birth, wives once we marry. We are still individuals in our own right, we are worthy of all good things and deserve only the best. Many of us have to fight to attain the best things for us but it is that fight that makes us the warriors that we are, the powerful woman and good examples that we are.
I say to you. You are worthy of great things. You are powerful, more powerful than you believe right now, trust me. You deserve the best and you owe it to your children to show them how we allow other people to treat us - with respect for a start. I think you're afraid to be alone, don't be. Aloneness can be a life-saver if you take advantage of it. Use the time as a marker - this is the beginning of the new me. Maybe not immediately a healthier you because I know you have an operation coming up but for the moment, a mentally stonger you. Remind youself of all the brave things you have done and been through. Picture yourself as a child and remember she is still within you. You can change how she feels about herself. If you were her parent what would you say to her to keep her strong and steer her in the direction of good people, good thoughts, good things?
I don't entertain dd's father anymore. He is not worthy of my words or my thoughts. He hurt me, he betrayed me. After many long years of loneliness and thinking I would be alone forever and my dd would never have a happy mum I'm happy to say I went to college, am now in a profession I love, am happily married to someone who deserves me and is my best friend and dd is almost a teenager. Things can still be hairy sometimes, that's life but I get through them knowing I can do anything I put my mind, heart and soul into, so can you.
Stand up for yourself today. Start by saying 'NO'.
All the very best to you
Oh and I agree with the credit card. Buy some nice clothes and a new haircut too 
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