I am going to say something now and I want you to know that my intention is not to upset you.
I understand, more than you can possibly know, all the feelings you are experiencing. I say nothing with the intention of hurting you.
I also hope it's not as waffly as I fear it is going to be. (just finished typing and I am sorry but it is. Just skip it if you can't be arsed. )
OK.
People say leave. It's always leave leave leave. People are so strong and decisive and take no shit when it's not their life and not their emotions. From outside the situation, leave is the right thing to do. But often when you are in it, you don't want to. Maybe you feel you're not strong enough. Maybe you're scared - of being alone, of not coping. Maybe of being in a bad financial situation. Maybe you'd rather be with someone - anyone - than be alone. Maybe it's a self confidence thing - you're so desperate to be loved that you'll pretend someone who can shit on you can also love you. Maybe being with someone is saying to the world LOOK! Someone wants me. And it's more frightening to lose that than to accept that the person you are with is a bastard. Maybe you feel you can't cope with children by yourself. Maybe you want to make it all ok in order to somehow prove that it wasn't all a lie, that he did love you-that he does love you, in spite of what he's done. There's a million maybes.
It's hard. It's painful.
But leaving is only one option.
You can choose to stay. But understand the choice you are making. You are choosing what in all likelihood will be a life of unhappiness and insecurity. Every time he is out, you'll wonder if he's off shagging some woman. Every time he gets a text message, you'll wonder if it's an arrangement. You'll have a hole in your stomach that burns you. It'll feel like a bottomless pit. Will you check his computer history? Install a secret key logger? Will you look at his phone when he goes to the loo? Will you get up early so you can search his jacket pocket? Will you believe him when he says he's going to the gym, to the shop, doing some overtime? Will your heart sink if he's late home?
You'll have to work so hard to trust him and will you ever stop wondering if he's going to do it again? And you will never forget that this man could tell you that he loved you, hug and hold you, look you in the eye and then go off and shag someone else. And come back to you so casual and happy that you didn't even realise what he'd done.
Maybe you'll be lucky and in the end you'll switch off and stop giving a shit if he's home or not, or what he might be doing. That's better than torturing yourself with visions of him slapping his sack against some woman.
Hopefully at least you will accept that it was never you, it was something fundamentally wrong with him. But you'll likely torture yourself for years before you finally accept that.
Sure, some people come through shit like this and are stronger, happier, blah blah blah - but I promise you they are in the minority. Most are never ever the same. For most, it's like a little part of them is taken away and replaced with a painful kind of nothingness. And they learn to live with it until it just becomes part of them and they can't remember what it felt like to not have that little piece of nothingness.
You will make a choice. Perhaps you'll choose to leave, perhaps you'll choose to stay. But take responsibility for your choice. Own it. Don't fool yourself that you don't have a choice. Whatever you decide from now on is all on you. You can't change who he is, what he is capable of doing to you, you can only decide what you will accept in life.
Choices are not always good. It's not like we agonise over Choice A - great and wonderful thing v Choice B - shitty crap painful thing.
Mostly - it's a case of pick your pain. Choose your steaming pile of crap.
I wish you the best of luck in whatever your decision is. At the end of the day, it's your life and you'll be the one living it.
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