Hello. Long time lurker on relationships. Reading the threads and wisdom on here has taught me so very much, and helped me come through a bad time with DH. Or so I thought.....
The current issue is that DH has just lied about employing a guy he used to work with years ago. This guy caused trouble for DH previously, and is now very troubled. I think it's an error of judgment to give him a job now in a company that is struggling anyway. DH and his partner employed this guy over three weeks ago and DH deliberately omitted to tell me.
I know that doesn't seem a big deal, but it is, because of huge issues of trust in our history. Bear with me......
The whole story is very, very long but I'll try and summarise key points.DH and I are in our late 40's. We have been married for 7 years and are very lucky at our age, to have a lovely, five year old together. We also both have equally wonderful older children from our previous relationships. Everything would be perfect, were it not for DH's past and dishonesty haunting us.
To cut a long story short eighteen months before I met him, DH had left his first wife and three children. When I met him he was genuinely single. He was living in a man flat and seemed a bit of a lost soul. When we met, his divorce was well and truly over.
Initially he told me no one else had been involved in his first marriage breakdown (and naively I believed him). Then about a year into our relationship, when a bit drunk, he disclosed that, contrary to what he had told me initially, he had grown very close to a work contact before he left his first wife.
My analysis now- having learnt from MN is that he had a classic emotional affair towards the end of his first marriage. Instead of working at that marriage, he followed the script, distanced himself from his first wife by finding fault with her. He then invested all his emotional energy in the married work woman, as they both bemoaned their marriages over clandestine drinks etc . This is my take on what happened with marriage number one. DH denies this. He says his first marriage was just over, and the married woman was just some- one to confide in. As he has said in our counselling.... I can't really comment on his first marriage as I hadn't met DH then and couldn't know.In effect -what's it to do with me really?
So after he left his wife and children he then had an affair with the married woman which then petered out after 3 months. This woman clearly preferred her husband and accepted a job offer in Australia with her husband and children. All this business was therefore over long before I met DH and was concealed from me.
I still can't believe I got involved in this tbh.
Anyway, by the time I discovered his history we had been dating a year. He explained he hadn't told me at the outset because he felt ashamed, and knew I wouldn't approve of infidelity etc. He acknowledged what he'd done was wrong as the woman was married. He kept saying he had now told me now, and couldn't bear to lose me. I had massive doubts about his integrity but I forgave him as it was all before we met; and I believed his penitence. I loved him too. He begged me not to think less of him. I was in love, and accepted the fact he was now being honest, and it was all in the past. Perhaps part of a sad mid life crisis.
We got engaged, moved in together, married, had a baby.
He has always maintained he is no longer in touch with the married woman in Australia. I wouldn’t have minded him keeping occasionally in touch with her anyway. She is still with her H and happier. (Anyway, she lives on the other side of the world, and it was history for goodness sake.)
DH always maintains he'd lost touch with her, but he goes for regular business trips to Sydney. Last year he went twice shortly after my Mum had died as well. On both occasions I asked if he'd seen her. He looked me in the eye and said he didn't see this woman as he was too busy. Then in autumn 2012 I found an innocuous work email sent to her -showing they had been in contact. When challenged, he completely denied he had been in touch with her at all. So after a big row about the importance of honesty in marriage, and following standard MN relationships advice, I threw him out. This lasted for three months. At Christmas we reunited at his initiative and are still together, having weekly counselling, talking about rebuilding trust in some sessions.
So last night I realised he'd been deceitful about this guy he has employed. He has been working with him now, for over three weeks, day in day out in a small office of 5 people. DH has been coming home everyday without mentioning he had given him a job. On the one hand DH’s work decisions are his own. If he has made an error of judgment, that will be for him to deal with. However why lie to me when we have trust issues anyway? Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?
The problem with lies is that you wonder how many other times they will lie. He won't change. He doesn't share my views on trust and intimacy and openness in a marriage. So what do I do? Accept that I have a DH who will lie sometimes and doesn't respect me enough to be open? Accept he has many other qualities and just re prioritise the importance of honesty in a marriage? Stick with the bloody counselling for another year, in the hope he may change and stop lying? LTB now as it's only a matter of time before larger and worse untruths happen? Mountains, molehills, leopards, spots.... I don’t bloody know any more.
I slept for about three hours last night tossing and turning trying to figure out why he lies. Then I cried on the ‘phone to my friend today. I thought we were turning a corner until yesterday and now DH has lied again.
Thanks for reading and for any advice. I know there are far worse DH's described on here.
Sigh.