Found OH's graphic dirty emails about cheating with men, need advice

[Hanna250809]

Hi I am a female (23) and I've been with my partner (26) for 3 years now. About a year into our relationship, while helping him to find a missing email in his inbox I stumbled upon a email from a gay dating/ hook up website. I thought it was spam and jokingly asked him if there was something he wasn't telling me. He suddenly went really weird and shifty and started acting strange. As far as I knew he was straight, I'd asked him a month or two before this if he'd ever had feelings for men or had sexual relations with a man and he had said no. So I shrugged it off and put it to the back of my mind. But later that evening it started to bug me as he was usually so laid back and his behaviour when I saw that Email had been so out of character. So I went on his email again and searched terms such as "sex" and "gay". What I found shocked me. It turns out he was a member of at least 15 gay dating sites. Not only that but during our relationship he'd been planning to meet up with older (50-75) men to have sex. I read messages between him and a guy he'd hooked up with before me and him got together with details of their sexual relationship. I also found emails between him and this man from during our relationship planning to hook up again. He sent messages saying he was getting on the train "see you in two hours". Naturally, I was very upset. I confronted him about this and at first he denied everything and shouted at me for prying in his email. After me explaining that I'd read every message in great detail he admitted to the messages and the sites but claimed he did not meet up with anyone while me and him where together. He then proceeded to get really angry and upset and smash his laptop and try and comitt suicide. 2 years on we have never been able to properly talk about this or sort it out. All in all our relationship is good but sometimes I get really down and upset and worry if this is still going on or if he is telling me the truth. He wouldn't let me tell any of my friends so I have no one to confide in.

There are somethings that still bother me about the situation and I'm looking for advice of how to deal with it:

1. Every time I attempt to talk about it he gets angry and me and gets suicidal
2. He always searches on Facebook for a guy he used to fancy at uni
3. I found a cancelled order for an anal dildo on his emails from a time when we were together
4. He told the guy he hooked up with he loved him on one of the emails he sent 6 months into our relationship
5. He lied to me about his previous sexual experiences (he said he had a gf for 4 years before me which was a lie I am the only woman he's ever slept with)
6. I worry that he's lying about not hooking up with the people he emailed and that he's still on those sites
7. I worry that I'm not good enough and this is why this happened :(

He tells me I'm hot and attractive and we have a great sex life but I really worry that I'm not good enough for him and that this unresolved problem will hang over me for the rest of my life. I love him and he loves me and I really want to make it work but this makes it difficult because I've such low self esteem.

Thanks for reading any advice would be appreciated x

It's not an issue if he's gay or bi. He probably doesn't know himself and is possibly trying to convince himself he's attracted to women (even if he's not). What is an issue is the possibility of him sleeping with other people and sleeping with you - the same would go for if he was sleeping with woman. The chance you could catch a deadly sti is high.
He's being emotionally abusive. Don't even think about bringing kids into this form of toxic relationship. What's he going to do if he doesn't get his own way when the kids are born?
Start making plans to leave - find a room to rent and start saving a little bit of money. Explain to him that you need some space and time to think things through. Call his mum/sister/close friend and explain your concerned for him and you think he may do harm. Don't ever stay with someone because they are threatening to kill themselves.
Good luck OP

Sorry that you feel you have nowhere to go. It makes me wonder whether his manipulation is more far-reaching, as it's not normal to feel so disempowered and reliant on one relationship at your age and stage in life. You are young, you have a job, in what way have you nowhere to go? You can move out, rent a room in a shared house, rent a whole flat, build a new life several times over, in the place where you currently live or wherever else you choose. Do you think your relationship with DP has meant you haven't formed other strong friendships? Again, at 23 most people would have friends they could confide in and call on when they're in trouble. I do wonder if your relationship with DP has made you feel less capable than you are. You might be surprised how supportive people would be if you needed them, even those who you only think of as work colleagues. Maybe I'm wrong, but his emotionally abusive behaviour around the suicide threats does sound like it has crept out into a more general sense of him calling the shots and you not feeling like you can do anything but love him. I know it's scary to let go of that, but it's so important to realise your own importance and agency and start to see other possible futures where you can be happier without him. Much happier in fact because you won't be living a lie and won't have this dread feeling of reliance like there's nowhere for you to go. That's the biggest lie of all. The truth is, you're way too good for this.

I would not have been with him after what you discovered.

After one year you found this out, two years later you sound absolutely ground down with it all.

You're 23. Young enough to move anywhere you like. He wants to have sex with men OP, if he couldn't stop this in the first year of your relationship he isn't going to stop it once you're married or have kids.

It's not your job to fix him and forgive him. It's his job to be honest with you so that you can make an informed decision. That decision should be, move out into a shared place or anywhere, make some friends (are you not even friends with anyone at work?) and start having a life.

Reading between the lines it seems like you've been completely needy in this relationship, probably because deep down you know you can't trust him so spending all your time with him means at least he's not with someone else.

Take care of yourself OP.

If he attempts suicide again - it is nit your fault, he is living a lie and using you to 'cover' for him.

I am so sorry you are going through this OP. It must be very painful. This guy clearly has Issues with a capital I. He may be gay, he may be bi, he may be poly. It's kind of irrelevant. What matters is that he is a mess right now and isn't treating you with respect or honesty. Nor is he mentally healthy - the suicide threats are just awful It's not up to you to fix this, nor could you if you tried. You are 23 - run, run like the wind!

dont talk you've tried that.
just make a plan
get your support in place
find a room pay the deposit
pack your things
tell him you leaving on the day and leave.

if he rants/threatens suicide call his friends or call police to do a welfare check on him

he has chosen to cheat on you and to email people, he is the problem; you have no reason to stay (the bad far outweighs the good) and you are not responsible for his mental health before or after. he is.
you are responsible for yourself.

He has dictated this relationship, op you will find better relationships in the future, you just dont know or cant imagine what that looks like because you are buried in this situation. He behaviour is a deal breaker.

ButteryMuffin has it in a nutshell:
""OK, he's bisexual. Not necessarily a problem. He's a cheater who lies and makes you doubt yourself. Definitely a problem."
That's the issue. You poor thing. My DD eventually left a bf for different reasons but said she had to realise she couldn't save him from himself and he was going to damage her too. This resonated for me with your situation.

When I was 23, I was 90% happy with a man that had done nothing as bad as what yours has, but who I thought was my one and only. My soulmate. I was sure we'd spend forever together, I forgave him for things that I wouldn't tolerate now. I loved him and that cancelled out everything.

I've just turned 27. I'm with a better man. I didn't think that was possible, but I am. He is more of a perfect match for me and he pulls no crap.

I wouldn't have believed it at 23, but please don't be me. Don't waste more years on him like I did.

I'm banging my head off my keyboard reading this Lady...

get your Dignity and your Self Respect packed and get out of there ....

you deserve the love and comfort of someone who loves YOU

I seen something similar to this happen twice

The first was when I was at school and my best friend's dad finally decided he couldn't keep up the charade of having a wife and 3 kids for any longer, left them and came out.
If that wasn't hard enough for her to deal with, he then went up making up for lost time by being completely promiscuous and embracing every gay stereotype. In a small town, I'm sure you can imagine how well this went down

Her dad is now married to a man and lives abroad but the damage to her mum, her and her sisters is irreversible

The second was a friend of mine who we all suspected was gay or bi but who always denied it and pointed to the girlfriend he lived with. It didn't take too long before a friend stumbled across him on a gay dating site and it became an open secret with everyone except the girlfriend knowing.
Eventually he met a man, saw him on the side and eventually plucked up the courage to realise he couldn't live a lie any more.
The girlfriend was unceremoniously dumped and their flat put straight on the market
Him and the bloke are getting married soon
He is Asian and his family's attitude was the key reason he kept it a secret for so long.

Please don't become either of those partners and for the love of god, don't let your children become my poor school friend

Oh lovely, he's gay. Or bisexual. But either are a relationship killer because (bear with me) if he's bisexual then he's just plain old cheating on you - being bisexual does not give you the right to shag someone of the same sex behind your partners back (or vice versa). If he's gay then you're beard and he's in denial. Neither of those look good do they?

I agree with pp, this isn't about sexuality. He sounds like a really troubled man. Imagine having kids with someone who is that volatile and unable to be honest about who they really are. It would be a toxic environment for any child to be brought into. Being good with nieces and nephews isn't the same as being a parent.

Reading your posts it feels like you believe you can save him and keep him on track. From the outside it seems like you're just waiting for the next bomb to drop. That's no way to live, you deserve so much more.

You are not this man's saviour. You cannot make him into something he is not. It's not good for you and it's not good for him.

Let go of the sham and find someone who you can trust and have an honest relationship with.

You can get a new job. Move back home and rebuild your life with your friends and family.

No wonder your self-esteem is low. Please take care of yourself and get away from him.

How are you Hanna? Has anything managed to happen yet?