If someone has told you “it will never happen again I promise”, has it happened again?

[Poppyqueen]

Struggling a lot at the moment, my husband works away and my mind runs wild when I’m on my own.

A few years ago I found out about a cam girl addiction he had. He spent a lot of money on it and done it ALOT. I still haven’t fully forgave him but I have tried my best to move on from it, and I never bring it up to him. He apologised constantly at the time and swore he would never do it again.

Fast forward 1 year, he called a “thai massage parlour”, it was a mobile number on Gumtree so doubt an actual parlour! He had withdrawn £100 and when I quizzed him about the money it was nowhere to be found but he swore he never went. It was also in a different city and he was alone while I worked so have no idea if he went or not, although I’m 99% sure he did. Basically he apologised for even calling and said although the never went he’s so sorry for even thinking about it and it will never happen again.

I’m just waiting for the next thing to happen, I can’t get past this feeling of something else happening.

If anyone else has been told by their partner/husband “it will never happen again”, has it?

please be kind with any replies, I know the above makes me sound like an idiot but I’m a mum of 2 young kids on my own in lockdown while he is away working, im finding things tough at the moment.

Thank you

I just let it slide which I kick myself for and should have never let him get away with it

Don't blame yourself, OP; we all make what seems the best decision at the time, and it's only as time moves on and we try to live with it that we realise it perhaps wasn't the best choice

Mine used prostitutes too, only he used them since his teens and all through 30 plus years of marriage. Sadly I had no way of knowing this before the last couple of years with him, but yes - IME once this behaviour is ingrained they don't change, and staying with him would just be carte blanche to continue

You deserve much better than this and I warmly hope you find it, but in the meantime please don't cover up for him over what he's done (and of course get yourself an STI test pronto)

Yep. My ex claiming that he’d stop drinking heavily. Heard it time and time again. Wish I’d left him the first time he said it.

You know he’ll do it again. He’s a sleazy asshole who had lied to you in the past. He’s got form and knows that he got away with it last time.

Please spend some time planning your next move. Either stay with the lying, cheating asshole or break free. Either way he’s not going to stop his disgusting behaviour.

I caught my partner out last summer for calling prostittues and massage parlours up whilst high on cocaine , it was horrible as I discovered 2 addictions when my baby was 2 weeks old , I can’t tell you if it’ll happen again , I’m in the same situation just hoping that it doesn’t ive made clear I’ll leave him if he does, swears he never went through with it but I honestly don’t know , I made him get rid of his phone

Thanks for all of the replies

It’s experiences like these that I need to hear, I need to stop thinking he will probably be different because he more likely will not be.

I sit on my phone for hours trying to guess my way onto cam websites using his email address, trying to work out if he has a secret email address (which I have recently found 1 in the past couple of months) this is taking time away from things I need to do, time with my children, sleep.

I had arranged to see a counsellor which has unfortunately been cancelled, I was looking for advice on if and how I can move past this feeling but I don’t think there’s going to be a way. The only way is to leave.

When I caught my ex he suggested we go for counselling together like I could counsel my way out of being mad at him. He was good at shifting the blame onto me.

You'll drive yourself mad!

If you were away from him long enough to get clarity you'd see that the issue is that you have gone off him but you aren't feeling brave enough to leave. Work on becoming braver at facing change. X

Many times and he was far more clever about it.

They only ever confess to the bare minimum and hope you don't find out the rest.
They do it again and again.
Each time there's a massive blow up they hunker down for a while and "behave"and promise you the world with tears in their eyes.
Then start up again as soon as they think the coast is clear.
They make you feel insane.
You feel punched in the gut and panic stricken each time you catch them out yet again.
In my case I was diagnosed with PTSD recently.
Don't be me.
My OH finally saw the light.
I had 20 years of hell beforehand. I didn't leave because of severely ill DC and then DC's death.
If I could only turn back the clock and realise me leaving wouldn't have been the undoing of DC actually.
Please don't be me.

My husband watched porn to a Degree that he developed MH problems , I’ve had a hideous couple of years with it all. Reckons now that it was OCD that caused it and he has it under control.Since them I found sex spam as a result of accessing sites plus him filming my own tv watching porn. I’ve told him not to touch or come near me but he’s tryImg to worm his way back in saying it was OCD ( which he had counselling earlier this year that my works healthcare paid for ) that made him do it.

I don’t think I can ever feel the same about him again , I would leave but we’ve been married 23 years and he makes me feel so guilty. Plus now we’ve got lockdown.

The OCD also caused his explosive temper outbursts over the years apparently .

And I feel so embarrassed and ashamed over it all and he knows that, so I would never tell anyone.

I don’t doubt something else will happen in the future. It’s ridiculous because I am an assertive professional woman and completely financially independent and our DS is grown up though still living at home.

OP Don’t put up with shit for years like I have and continue to do. If it were what you described even I would have been long gone.

How depressing that I read stories similar to my own @Eekay is so right in what she says above.

Yes it happened again after he said it would never happen again (alcohol addiction). We are still together, but it's a bumpy ride.

Hugs OP

I remember his friend told me when I first got together with him, “don’t do it, you can do so much better” and I wish I listened

Also each time he gets caught, he will write me a massive paragraph about how he is depressed. He never mentions depression any other time, only when I am threatening to leave him.

I really, really don’t want to be here in 5 years time writing the same shit I’m writing tonight

My xh suggested I go back on anti depressants.

No. Stop fucking lying you bellend.

I don’t know because I wouldn’t give him a second chance, no matter how much he tried to persuade me I should. Honesty and respect is the bare minimum for me to be in a relationship with a partner.

Don’t waste your money on counselling. Spend it on consulting a divorce lawyer instead.

Also each time he gets caught, he will write me a massive paragraph about how he is depressed. He never mentions depression any other time, only when I am threatening to leave him.

Oh lord, not another one with mysteriously appearing and disappearing depression. This gives me the rage.
I had an ex who suddenly had depression every time I (or anyone else, like his boss for example) asked him to do something he didn't want to. He'd either be falling into a deep, black hole or the black dog would be sitting on his chest.
And the ex I talked about above who used prostitutes used depression and "mental health issues" as an excuse for all kinds of awful behaviour - not just the prostitute incidents.

Decent men don’t tend to use Thai massage parlours at all let alone twice. If they’ve done it once (and it’s never just the once, it’s just the one time they’ve been caught) then they will do it again.

My ex did with cheating on me. When he said he’d never do it again what he meant was he would travel further and make sure it was someone with no mutual friends so it was less likely that I’d find out again. At the end of the relationship I found out he’d slept with four other women, one of which was only just 16, in the course of a year during which I was pregnant.

Oh yes and he also blamed it on depression that wasn’t mentioned at any other time

@Poppyqueen yes. It happened many times again, to my shame.

They are only ever sorry they got caught.

As someone else has said, for men like this, you forgiving them is a green light to do it again.

Your husband almost certainly went to that massage parlour and telling you otherwise is gaslighting you to keep you on an uneven footing.

Your MH and confidence will be ruined by always waiting for the next time. There will always be a next time.

Sorry OP. It’s shit.

It took me a long time to get to the point where I could end things. And as hard as it was, my MH is better than it has been for years without the constant worry and being told I am the one at fault for not trusting him - even when he knew he was cheating. By the end he was telling me outright he was cheating as a way to hurt me for questioning him about cheating. It was toxic beyond belief.

Men like that don’t change - they just get better at hiding it or weaponising it.

I had abit of a meltdown around a month ago, I told him when he was away for work I was tearing my hair out wondering what he could be doing, wondering who he was with or speaking to. He apologised again but what I’ve realised looking back at the conversation is that I ended up apologising to him. He told me whenever I send him stuff telling him how upset I am etc brining up the past it’s the “worst feeling in the world” and I apologised to him. What on earth is wrong with me

I don’t even know how to approach him to tell him how I’m feeling face to face, what if I end up apologising to him again. He works away a lot and I hate confrontation so it’s usually done on email.

I don’t even know how to approach him to tell him how I’m feeling face to face, what if I end up apologising to him again. He works away a lot and I hate confrontation so it’s usually done on email.

What is your motive for telling him how you feel? Is it that you want him to agree that he has treated you badly and that he is oh so sorry and that now he realises just how awful it is for you, he will stop?

This is NEVER going to happen. You are stuck in this cycle of needing him to validate your feelings.

All you need to tell him is that the marriage isn't working for you and that you are going to divorce him. Forget about getting him to agree.

Take back control of your life.

What on earth is wrong with me

You dismiss your own feelings instead of respecting them. It's fairly common, and comes from not being listened to as a child. It's fixable. What you have to realise is that there is nothing wrong with you. Your feelings are normal, valid, and important. They need to be expressed. You need to learn how to express them healthily and without drama.

Can you do an impression of somebody you know/somebody famous, who is confident and strident? Just in your head? To give yourself an example of how it looks.

My exH used cams extensively, first time I caught him came out with loads of "ithough it was like porn, didn't think you would mind, your too busy for sex yardage yadda".
He did it again. Spent thousands. I felt shit and anxious for 5 years.
Basically that kind of man is a liar, who does what they want because they feel entitled to, and has no guilt about lying to get out of it.

I'd suggest some counselling. There's no rush to do anything drastic right now but equally it sounds like you can't carry on like this indefinitely. So you need a plan for how to move forward. A counsellor will help.
Also when I was in your position I read the book "too good to leave, too bad to stay" which was extremely helpful in providing clarity.
Good luck op . Its a horrible situation to be in. FWIW I'm 3 years out and life is so much better without that constant anxiety hanging over me.

My exH cheated on me countless times. Each time I stayed and hated myself a little bit more. He became so arrogant about it eventually he would openly say to me "yes I'm cheating, what are you gonna do about it?" I felt hopeless and ground down, trapped because of the kids.

When I made the decision to split he was shocked and told me he never thought I would leave him. Because I had kept on accepting it he thought he could do what he liked.

Don't torture yourself OP, that feeling of lying awake at night, wondering where he is, calling his phone and no reply. Then finding messages from OW and him denying it, we all deserve better treatment than that

I want to tell him how I feel because I feel like I want things to end. I want to tell him how much I’m unable to move past things, and that I want to see a counsellor to sort out my head, but that I don’t think the counsellor is going to wave a magic wand and make this feeling go away.

@QuentinWinters was it the cam thing that made you separate eventually? I will definitely look into that book, thank you.