...with multiple threads asking for advice about the same situation.
I'm trying to decide whether to end my marriage. I'm not looking for different advice from previous threads, but two of my other threads had to be deleted because DH found them, and the other is now quite long and things have moved on a bit - so I thought it might be better to start a new thread.
In summary, DH and I have been together for 10 years, married for 4 years and have 3 DCs.
There have been three issues in our marriage.
1. Right from the early days of our relationship, DH has been low-level EA. The kind of 'death by a thousand cuts' EA that sounds petty on paper but grinds your love to dust. This is the issue that brought us to counselling in the first place. DH is adamant that he wasn't deliberately abusive, just thoughtless and entitled and self-centred.
Since we started counselling, two more issues have emerged, each much more damaging (in my opinion) than the first.
2. Financial abuse. (I'm the poster whose DH spent £16k on counselling and lied to me about it.) I just didn't see it - in fact, DH had me convinced that I was crap with money. I'm still kicking myself that I was so blind.
3. DH's lies. He has lied about small things, and (at least) two enormous things (that I know of). I think lying is his default setting whenever it's more convenient than telling the truth.
Of these, 2 is largely resolved going forward. I have separated my finances from his, and although I still don't have access to our historic savings DH has offered to add me to all of his accounts.
1 is tricky. DH has been treating me well for 3 months now. I'd be interested to hear whether people think this is a new, improved DH - or just the old one on best behaviour, in which case he's likely to revert to type when he starts to relax.
But 3 is the big one for me. I don't know that I can get passed it.
There is one event which I'm particularly struggling with. It happened in 2007, and DH has lied and lied and lied to me about it. He was even still lying about it after counselling started. He has now given me 4 different versions of what happened, each one painting him in steadily worse light. The last version, which only came out last week because our counsellor forced the position, involved him covering up behaviour at work which was gross misconduct at best, and possibly criminal.
DH says that it all happened more than 8 years ago, and that living through the consequences of his 2007 behaviour has fundamentally changed him as a person.
But from my perspective, it's not 8 years old, it's all new to me. And it's not just the event from 8 years ago, it's the lies he's been telling me ever since. And I'm not at all convinced that he has changed as a person - given the ongoing lies, big and small.
I don't trust him. I still don't know if I've got to the truth about what happened in 2007. I don't know if there are other things still to discover.
If I'd known the truth 8 years ago, I would have left him. I'm very clear about that. But we didn't have DCs 8 years ago, and now we do (DC1 was conceived in the immediate aftermath).
I'm also very clear that I would not be with him now were it not for the DCs.
Am I being unreasonable to end my marriage over something that happened 8 years ago? Will my DCs hate me for splitting up their home?
I just want to do what's for the best, primarily for the DCs but also for myself.