Advice needed, lies and other women, can’t take any more

[Silverfoxbunny]

Hiya, this is a long post so I’m sorry and please bear with me!
I’m desperately stressed all the time from the situation I find myself in, to the point where I feel sick all the time and haven’t been eating much etc, I’m just looking for some opinions and advice and need to have a long hard think about what I should do.

I’ve been with my partner nearly 7 years and been married for nearly 2 years of that. I love him and honestly would be heartbroken to lose him, we generally get on so well and have so much in common, we have two children together as well aged 3 and 4.5 years. Generally we have had a good relationship but there have been a fair few times where we have had big rows/nearly splitting up, the root cause of these being his lying to me. I used to trust him without question at the beginning but things started happening that broke that trust.
Unfortunately I do get really worried from time to time and end up snooping on his phone and he hates it and says he can’t deal with it and would rather be on his own, I do get that and I know it’s not healthy, but I’m not just a psycho paranoid person, I am the way I am because I have had my trust broken again and again, I’ve been promised that it won’t happen again so many times and been let down.

He comes across as an outgoing flirtatious person who is friends with everyone and he has openly admitted to me how he used to cheat on his ex wife and used to be a bit of a ladies man in the past.

At the start of the relationship there were little lies here and there but as far as I know nothing too earth shattering, as time went on I discovered he had made a fake Facebook account with the sole purpose being to message other women, another time I saw messages between him and a girl he went to school with (his own Facebook messenger this time not a fake account) with him trying it on big time saying he remembers her having a nice body and her being naughty and things along those lines, there’s also been women he has been very pally and over friendly with over the years, then skip forward to more recent times, he then got into a really inappropriate relationship with a woman he works with, not physical as far as I know just messages, I caught him out and he was sorry and he said he knew he had messed up etc and he was going to block her etc, and he really seemed to have changed for a long time, but eventually he was back in touch with her on Snapchat and also at it again with inappropriate messaging with another girl he went to school with. And texting the woman from work again that he promised he didn’t talk to any more, eventually I saw messages between them with him saying he really needed that hug from her the other day, saying hes about to arrive at his destination (he’s a driver) and wishes he had a kiss and hug waiting for him! And talking about pubs with accommodation and innuendos about not wanting to eat too much because of not wanting to do much afterwards otherwise 🤦‍♀️when I confronted him about that one he told me he was trying to catch her out and see if she would bite because she had been messing around with some bloke at work! There is always an excuse!
This is the condensed version and his behaviour is why I have really bad trust issues! I’ve got to the point where I have a 6th sense about this stuff, I notice when his behaviour is off, and it makes me want to check his stuff when I feel like somethings up, recently I find that he’s been txting and deleting the messages with a girl who drives but at the other end of the country with a different company, and he’s met a few times at the depot, I didn’t see anything inappropriate and it seemed like just banter and was hopefully innocent but because he hid it from me of course it’s going to raise red flags again! He said he deleted the messages because of what I’m like but there are other women he speaks to innocently and I have never given him grief about it or even mentioned it or looked at the messages between them so why was he worried about this particular person?

When I asked how she ended up with his number when they barely know each other and he said she walked in on a conversation between my husband and another guy about it being his birthday soon and she said give me your number so she can text him happy birthday, I just thought that sounded fishy but who knows!

That I could get over but the final straw is that I’ve noticed him being really secretive with his phone again, it’s always on silent now and glued to him, he takes it with him every time he gets up, whereas for such a long time he used to just leave it lying around (sets alarm bells ringing again) and I found out in the last few days, after we’ve being going through a rough patch that he’s now added his ex wife on Snapchat, she is one of his best friends on it and he has been talking to her in secret! And that’s clearly why he’s not letting his phone out of his sight! He would go ballistic if it was the other way round so I don’t know why he does it to me! I’ve been 100% loyal to him through our whole relationship.

I am over a barrel because I told him I would stop checking up on him if he stops the hiding things from me, the last row we had he said he is at the point of leaving because he can’t deal with feeling spied on all the time and me questioning him and checking up! So if I confront him he will know I have checked his phone again and he will most likely walk out and say he’s done, if I keep quiet then I have to live my life knowing he can lie to me as much as he wants because I can’t confront him, and that he talks to his ex wife in secret! I’m honestly so shocked he has been Snapchatting her and also that she even accepted him and has been speaking to him, their relationship ended badly and she hated his guts and they’ve had no contact for years!
I hate Snapchat because it’s so easy to be sneaky with it because the conversations self delete after being read!

He has previously said I shouldn’t hold the past against him and in some situations that is true but when history just repeats itself all the time what am I supposed to do! I love him and our little family to bits and maybe I don’t always show him enough, sometimes I think that’s just how it is when you have young kids but running to other women isnt the way to sort our issues out and it’s breaking me! In other ways things are ok, we have plans for the future and have a big holiday booked for next year, all the lying aside I don’t think either of us are completely happy, he can be miserable with me sometimes and says and does things that hurts my feelings which make me think he has checked out of the relationship, also I know I’m not perfect, I know he wants more love and affection than I show him, and I know I should show it more, it’s a bit of a deep rooted problem of mine from childhood, that I need to work on, not being good at being affectionate, and I’m probably a pain in the backside too. I love him so much though and I don’t know how I would cope if he left, I know our relationship is not at all heathy though but I just don’t know what to do! I hope I’ve made sense.

[Duemarch2021]

Sorry im late to this! I dont have much to say other than, you are living a miserable life and he will NEVER change... his is obvious by how many times hes been unfaithful. Leave. Its a simple as that. I get that you have children together but that doesn't meen you have to live your life miserable until they move out x

[HowDeepIsYourLove]

This will be the rest of your life - unless you get rid.

[user1481840227]

So if I confront him he will know I have checked his phone again and he will most likely walk out and say he’s done, if I keep quiet then I have to live my life knowing he can lie to me as much as he wants because I can’t confront him, and that he talks to his ex wife in secret!

What difference does it make if you confront him anyway?? He will still keeping doing it. It's not like confronting him has made any difference before.


Earlier one of the kids said ‘when is daddy coming home?’ And I said when he’s finished work, and he said ‘but I love daddy’ and it made me think how can I take their dad away from them

You're not taking their dad away from them. Their dad has behaved in a way that has made the relationship impossible to continue. It is not in your childrens best interests to grow up in a household like this where their dad has no respect for their mother, is always cheating or attempting to cheat and their mother is living in a constant state of paranoia and wondering who exactly he's going to message now.

Everyone think their kids will be heartbroken if they leave but kids adapt and past it and will eventually live in a happier home because of it!