Cheating husband

[Seasunsand4]

Just need a bit of advice.
Found out my husband had physically cheated 6 months before we got married and had a relationship with person for 3 months (ended 6 months before marriage) obviously i had no idea. He had also been messaging numerous other women claiming that he loved them and wished he was married to them. Kicked him out end of aug after finding messages then found out about the physical cheating. He claimed hes been depressed his whole life and tried to push it away and did it all as he was feeling down and craving attention. He has had counselling and has been on AD since we split. Since the day he went hes been broken and will do anything to sort our marriage out. We have 2 kids together youngest is 5 months. Its now been 4 months and i am just so stuck what to do. I cant trust him and cant get it all out my head. As far as i know there's been no contact from him to other women since. But i can't make a decision whether to try or cut my losses and divorce him.

25! Oh god op run and keep running.

He is not who you want him to be and never will be.

You are worth so much more!

My heads telling me to run and it has done since i found out about it all. The biggest head fuck is the fact we had a brilliant family life and a good relationship before. I never suspected anything after the first texts over 2 years ago. I trusted him again 100% after that occasion. I escaped an abusive relationship before i met him so always thought i had a really good judge of character and could smell a cheat a mile of after my ex. This is all so out of the blue. He was always a good partner and an excellent father minus the typical male habits being messy and not doing as much as me housework wise.

Please have a look into the freedom programme. If you were in an abusive relationship before him then it’s possible that you chose someone with similar traits without even realising it.

The chances are he is a sex addict. It is not a good description as it means so much more than the words and covers a range of issues regarding self esteem - he might not think he’s worthy of love and so subconsciously sabotages the good stuff in his life because he can’t handle it. People can change with the right help. Once the light went on with my other half - thanks to excellent help with people who truly understand the complexity of the problem - he was like a different man. He still works on who he is and we have a great family life now. Dont make any decisions until you know exactly what you want. And he does too.

A lot of what you said there, he has traits of. I do think hes got an addiction. I found out after all the cheating stuff as well he was using porn online pretty regularly, googling random women (celebrities mainly) trying to find naked pictures of them and porn stars too. We have spoke about it all and hes admitted hes got a problem with porn and feels he has to look at it.

That is all very typical behaviour of a sex addict and, yes, it is a real ‘thing’ not an excuse to cheat. Counsellors need to be trained in it because it’s specific, also people can be very judgemental when in fact I bet your OH is going through his own pain. The worst big is the pain they cause others. He probably wants to stop but doesn’t know how. It took my OH a couple of tries to get the right help but it did work in the end once he realised what was going on. They tend to lie for no reason (I was dead at one point apparently?!) as if something takes them over. Addiction is not an excuse for bad behaviour though...it must be treated and dealt with or you’ll become co-dependent and you must protect yourself from any damage. None of it is your fault and you can’t do anything to make him change. You can support if if you believe he wants to and see where it goes. I gave myself and OH a year 8 years ago and we’ve gone strength to strength. What he did still hurts (us both - and others) but I’m as sure as I can be he’s a different and better man to the one I married. Only you will know if he means it when he says he’ll get help. If he’s a good dad and you have an otherwise good life then it’s not always worth throwing the baby out with the bath water. Good luck and lots of strength. Whatever happens don’t take any of this personally. Despite what it seems I doubt he meant to hurt you - or even thought about any consequences when ‘acting out’. There are some good books in SA and a few good counsellors too, so they’re worth finding.