I am not sure whether to trust him? Please help. Long Post

[pleasehelpshaking]

Hi. NC for this. I am too ashamed to speak to RL friends about this.

DH and I are have been separated for the past 8 months. No one cheated during the marriage but he wanted the separation because he said I had changed and withdrawn from him in the previous year and wasn't the woman he fell in love with, which was true. That said, I was very shocked that he walked our rather than trying to work on it or talk to me about it. It felt at the time like he threw our (very good) marriage away without a second thought. We have 3 young DCs that love their Dad so much which made it even worse.

He was very stubborn and refused to talk to me or work on it, even insisted on NC when he collected the kids. I was devastated. I spent months crying, lost a lot of weight and did not know what to do. He said he wanted a divorce and was adamant on this.

I was in a mess, and in my effort to cheer myself up I joined match.com and went on three dates in a week and had drunken sex with one of them. Not proud of it, but I felt really low and rejected. I then had sex with an old boyfriend a few months later during a very low time. All through it though, I was missing DH and feeling devastated and would have done anything for him to come home. My behavior was just to try and make myself feel better and never once in my marriage did I ever even think about cheating or flirting. My DH was my world. He really was.

At Christmas, I phoned DH and begged him to please meet up and talk about it and he finally agreed. When we saw each other he crumbled and said right away that he still loved me and wanted to be with me but that my behavior in the past year had made him feel it was hopeless for us to get back what we had. We talked about it properly and I agreed to make the changes he wanted.

Since then he's called or seen me every day, we've spent lots of time together away from DCs and we are dating and feel "in love" again like we did at first. Things have been going very good with us. Lots of honest talks, great progress in counselling, and he has been treating me really well and apologising for leaving and saying he was "a fool" Yesterday he sent presents and a card to me out of nowhere to thank me for trying again after his foolish behavior.

I came clean with him about the match.com dates and told him I slept with someone else. I didn't tell him about the old boyfriend because I thought he would be too upset. This is the first time I have ever been less than truthful with my DH. He told me he had also joined dating sites but that he had given up on it because the women were all fake.

The thing is, I was at his house last night and he was in the shower and I was using his computer and please don't ask me why but I decided to check his internet history.

I found out that in the first months of our separation he was very VERY active on adults style dating websites. Not match.com - the sick, sex kind. He was exchanging emails with women all over the country and was even googling how to get to their address and looking at flights to go and see them and was even looking up local escorts. He was also Googling how to meet women, buying sprays to attracts women and reading articles on how to get women into bed.

This is all a lot worse than he had made it out to be and it seemed like this was all he was doing all night every night for months. It went on all night every night!

We share bank accounts so I am pretty sure he never met up with any of these women but am not 100% sure, and also not sure he did not see an escort. He was viewing their profiles.

I confronted him last night and he begged me to forgive him. He told me he had done it because he was very lonely, sad, missing me and it meant nothing. He said that after we met up at Christmas that he disconnected all the accounts and had not visited any sex sites since then (I checked the history and this seemed to be true).

The thing is thought that because the suspicion was in my mind, I kept on digging today. I think I found his profile on a very dirty website and recognise him from location and the photos (which is just of his penis but he has a distinctive one) and it said he had been active TODAY so if it IS HIM then he is on this account at work because I am still at his house. I also found his profile on another sex site and the content of it made me almost vomit "I am looking for a dirty little slut to f**k" etc.

DH and I were always very sexual, so this aspect doesn't surprise me but the fact that he left me and was actively looking for sex / dates and women instead of trying to work on our marriage for so long makes me feel sick.

I know I had sex with an old BF, but that sort of happened when we were out one night and it wasn't me who instigated. Also, on my match.com dates all I did was cry to the poor bloke about how much I loved and missed DH and I was only on it for two weeks or something.

Is this a case of "we both did wrong and put the past behind you" or is it a case of my DH perhaps being a lying, cheating bastard? I am not sure if this might just be how men react to heartbreak or whether he is just a complete bastard.

Should I send him fake messages to his profiles to check on him?

Should I confront him and make him open his personal email and let me read it, or is this going too far?

I really, really love my husband and want our marriage to work but we have never been through a trust issue before and I don't know what to do.

Before you ask, he did not leave me because of an OW so no one else was involved.

I did realise this stuff is really not as relevant to me as the speed with which he left and gave up on me.

Ahh, you see it came across very clearly yesterday that you were more concerned with the way he walked out without a second glance than anything else.

I think given the speed of his leaving and his immediate moves to find sex online that it's difficult to separate the two things.

I mean, how scared can he really have been of being alone when you were begging him to come back?

I think you need to switch the focus of whatever conversation you are having with him from one in which you accept responsibility for him leaving you.

What he did to you (regardless of his shagging around and being a creepy perv online) was cruel and heartless and awful.

It isn't excused by you not talking enough. He can't blame you for poor communication when his opening salvo in this little drama was to walk out on you and 3 children, refuse to talk to you or see you, and immediately look for a divorce.

NOTHING you did was comparable to that. You were still there. You were still trying.

However imperfect you are, you did not throw a bomb into your family and just walk away and refuse to deal.

Nobody who does that gets to whine about someone else's poor communication. Nobody.

Do you really want to live your life with a man who is so weak, and immature and pathetic that he is afraid of being alone and walks out on his family to punish his wife for not giving him enough attention?

You really sound a lot better than that.

Goodness me, love. He doesn't need to put any hard work into exploring why he felt entitled to simply abandon you.

You are doing a great job of that all by yourself. Rationalising and excusing is your middle name, yes ?

Do you realise most of your post is simply reiterating everything he said is wrong with you ?

Are you expected to put all that shit right ? The fact that he wasn't the centre of your attention for a while ?

What happens next time he concludes you have taken your eye off the prize that is him ?

Do you realise most of your post is simply reiterating everything he said is wrong with you?

Good point, AF.

OP, it's concerning that because your energies went into a new job and project as well as looking after 3 children (which is a massive amount of effort and time) that he felt this meant you didn't love him, I'd feel pretty shit about that esp when all I was doing was trying to hold the family together and improve it.

That, and the sex sprays and sex sites kinda makes it look like he's pretty immature and can't really deal with issues very well. Sorry, but I think he was trying desperately to attract women, rightly or wrongly his intention was clearly there. I'd also feel massively resentful towards him regarding leaving me to cope with the 3 children. If it was NC, how did he find out about how his kids were doing?

Don't want to keep running him down but do be careful and be 100% sure if you do take him back.

I am looking for a dirty little slut to fk

How you can even bear to breathe the same air as someone who can type that sentence is beyond me.

But I've come to the conclusion during my time on MN that some people just can't be helped.

That kind of stuff is already a part of their sexual relationship. OP thinks it's A-ok for him to do that, what with him being a bit "shy" with women

Like you said, Jean. Too many problems here for MN to deal with

and Op will take him back, that is clear to me

To me, he just comes across as a bit insecure and needy.
Everybody's relationship is different and it seems like the op and her partner are trying to get past this and move on. Clearly, other people have views on his behaviour that they find unacceptable. Fair enough. She's asked for opinions and got them. I don't think it's right that others should try and impose their views and their boundaries on somebody else. It's HER life. If she's happy with the conclusion or progress to a conclusion, then let her be happy.

Some tough love there. I agree 100% there is no excuse and no satisfactory explanation for his behavior and believe me he knows and sees that too. He did the wrong thing and he does regret it and wants to make it right however necessary.

I swing both ways on it. One minute I am furious and the next minute just want to sort it out and he is subjected to lot of tears and anger on a week by week basis.

He didn't go NC with the DCs, just with me. He was very good with them but he insisted on collecting / dropping off via school or family so he didn't have to see me for those first few months. He was really helpful on that front and I can't fault him as a father.

Although when I read what you all write I think "yes, what a bastard", I do also love my DH very much and we have a family to think about as well. We didn't have any problems of the level where divorce is the only solution and so although it's a little late I would like to explore what can be done before heading down the divorce road.

My problem is that while I can see I was definitely neglecting our marriage, what he did catapulted us into a new league of problems which are not so easily fixed. The trust and respect from my side is now gone and I really don't know how you get it back (I feel a bit like he had an affair).

I did not think I was the kind of person who could ever take someone back after something like this until I found myself in this position and I love my DH, largely had a great marriage from my perspective and the kids and I miss our family.

Maybe I give it another chance and we get through his insecurity and communication problems and we find a richer marriage from it - or maybe I take him back and I never get over the loss of trust or the gross stuff I read and I end up constantly bringing it up.

A lot of it has been really hard to swallow but I don't want to make a mistake I will regret either away.

Well that's what you need to decide pleasehelpshaking. If you feel that all respect and trust has gone, then it's pointless trying to repair things. It'll also be damaging for your DC's to see you resenting each other and bringing it up in every argument.

I agree 100% there is no excuse and no satisfactory explanation for his behavior and believe me he knows and sees that too.

I don't believe either of you think that, or you couldn't have written this:

We talked about it properly and I agreed to make the changes he wanted.

Unless you have taken back that ridiculous agreement to reward him for walking out on his family, then I don't think either of you see what he did as the monstrous betrayal it was.

I don't mean it like that JYP but I want a marriage where both of us are happy or there's no point in trying again. It doesn't mean I condone the way he dealt with his unhappiness because I think it was disgusting, cowardly, childish and pathetic.

It worries me that if he's so insecure that he didn't seem to have a problem with your match.com shag. My concern is that it might work to his advantage and further justify his own behaviour. He may have been relieved when you told him this. It enables him to maintain a position of power to not disclose that he has been fucking around, and you become the cheater.

Any chance when you met up with him (after begging and pleading him), that you looked smokin hot? Just seemed like a quick about face from him not wanting anything more to do with you. Be careful OP. You'll need to be able to get passed all your doubts to be back together because as much as you love him, if you don't resolve them to your satisfaction, the doubts will win.

It certainly was all of those things.

But you were so devastated that you basically begged him to come back, and the basis on which he agreed to come back was that you agreed to his terms, which gives the message that he had a perfect right to walk out and refuse to talk for months and then come waltzing back and dictate his terms.

Have you, at any point, withdrawn that offer?

Have you made it clear to him that you're no longer quite so desperate to have him back and that you don't accept that your supposed communication issues were or are the problem?

Aren't some people sensitive? I get a tag team throwing insults at me, yet the moment I respond, it gets reported and removed. Not much balance on here is there?
It wasn't even an insult. No profanities either.

Any chance when you met up with him (after begging and pleading him), that you looked smokin hot?

I'd put money on this being the case.

Take it slow OP. You have no reason to rush this. Take a step back. Go to counselling, put the things which have been discussed on this thread to him. Date him, and see how you feel. No need to be rushing into living back together. If it doesn't work out i guarantee he won't leave as easily next time, if he's back living with you. Now he knows that the lady sprays don't work

You speak for yourself, Gettingmeback.
I've tried it and got lots of attention and it made me more attractive.(mainly to bluebottles and mosquitos)

neil it was me that reported your post for being offensive towards me

feel free to reciprocate

We talked about it properly and I agreed to make the changes he wanted.

You begged him to come back. He tells you all the things you did wrong that made him abandon his family and start trawling the web for dirty little sluts. You agree to make the changes he requires.

There isn't much in the way of equal effort going on here

As you are already in counselling, I suggest you come clean about all these doubts you have about what he was up to when you separated, your problems trying to discover the truth, and concerns about future trust, in the counselling sessions.
You may feel that you were not easy to live with, set off some triggers in him (and then some! given his post-split behaviour) but sometimes it sounds like you are going down the self-blame path, which can be very dangerous and debilitating.
Clearly he did not communicate the crisis he was going through which led to his sudden departure - he gave you no chance to talk about things.
I think he´s going to have to step up in the communication department if you are to have a future - and the counselling sessions sound like a perfect opportunity to find out whether things can improve.
Good luck.

I don't understand it all really. Was the man I was married to a complete bastard the whole time and I never noticed?

Yes, you've got it in one.