Think I've destroyed my marriage and family because of a lie I told 14 years ago! HELP!!

[ithinkiveruinedmymarriage]

This is a long one so apologies in advance!! My DH and I have been together for 14 happy years, the last 7 of those married. He’s the most incredible and amazing person I’ve ever met and we have had the best fun and loving relationship I could have wished for plus now our amazing little family on top of all that. But, I think something I did 14 years ago may have just completely destroyed it all…..

3 months into our relationship (almost 14 years ago) I received an email from my ex containing friendly chat and asking me to design him a tattoo. I replied with equally friendly chat and said I’d design the tattoo. My memory is failing me with some of the details surrounding the event as it’s so long ago but my DH (bf at the time) was massively unimpressed when he found out I’d emailed him back – I said I’d replied with friendly chat and told my DH that moving forward I wouldn’t design the tattoo and wouldn’t reply to my ex again, and I stuck to my word. However, and this is the hazy area but a key point, I did tell my DH that I’d mentioned him to my ex in the email and said how amazing he was. DH seemed okay. Case dropped. We moved on continuing to be loved up and happy.

Fast forward 14 years…..still loved up and happy but….DH and I have a heated conversation, jealousy kicking in over my past and previous relationships (this has happened on and off over the past 14 years but not been a real issue, just normal jealousy needing some reassurance). Said email mentioned above comes into the conversation and he’s saying how can I believe you, how do I know you didn’t reply again blah blah blah. I said I’ll see if I can find the email and show it to you because I wanted to prove to him and make him feel better. Well what a can of worms that has opened up…….we found the email trail containing the friendly chat and showing no further follow-up, but no mention of me telling my ex about my DH, in fact no mention of him at all. My DH has absolutely flipped saying that I’ve lied to him and betrayed him and been completely dishonest which I think he’s within his rights to say and that I chose my ex over him as should never have emailed in the first place. But he’s also saying that I must have still had feelings for my ex, must have wanted to re-kindle something with him, the content was far too personal and friendly. He simply will not believe that this wasn’t the case however much I try to reassure him. And let me tell you, that absolutely was not the case – my ex was controlling to the extreme and made life hellish the majority of the time however the breakup, when I finally plucked up courage to leave him, was amicable and we did exchange sporadic messages as friends on and off in the following months. My DH is interpreting it completely wrong and the daft thing is that I feel like I only replied to my ex in the first place because of my own insecurities/jealousy over my DH’s past. It just all feels like such a mess over something that isn’t significant at all in my mind (although obviously the consequences are) but is HUGE in my DH’s mind and nothing I seem to say or do is fixing it. I have honestly believed for the last 14 years (as has he) that I said that in the email but it’s clearly not there in writing – I either bare face lied or it’s in some other correspondence that I have zero trace of…?! And the thing is, I don’t know which is true and will never know now!!!

Now is also probably a good point to mentioned the other issue I’ve caused, and there is a link – that I lied to my DH when we first got together – I was intimidated by his past and felt threatened by it which led to feeling insecure and jealous. So for some ridiculous reason I bigged up my past sex life up to something fairly extreme, stupid I know, but that’s all come back to bite recently too. I have now been completely honest with him about that and explained why I felt the need to glorify things but again, and again unsurprisingly, he doesn’t believe me and can’t take my word as the truth. Understandably he’s saying I’ve lied to him over the last 14 years and what else is a lie, how can he trust me etc. etc. The problem with telling him the “honest” bit here is that the past basically boils down to sex with the ex in the email above so DH is thinking I had some amazing sex life with my ex that I was trying to rekindle in the email. Aaaarghhh!!!!

I feel so ashamed and embarrassed that I’ve done this, I can’t sleep and it’s making me feel ill. How can I ever put this right if my DH won’t believe me when I explain my feelings for him and how amazing he is and how happy and in love I am with him. I don’t want this to destroy my marriage and my family who are all perfect in every way!! What have I done!!!

He's only ever been physically abusive to the walls.

This is still physically abusive, threatening behaviour.
On top of some heavy duty emotional abuse.

Abusive to the walls? Darling he’s unlikely to stop there. Let this be a wake up call to you. The man is a wrong un and an abuser. You need to consider your next steps and a new life away from him.

This isn’t about you lying it is about control. He thinks he has got you and he is expecting you to plead for him, to promise him anything he wants and he can control you

Given you say he has raised this jealousy issue a few times over the years this isn’t a new thing

Take back control and tell him what you did before your relationship with him is of no concern of his and during your relationship who you speak to isn’t going to be controlled by him and as the trust has obviously gone from the relationship and your so called cheating is all in his mind. He needs now and you need to divorce.

You need to Run

You haven’t destroyed anything your husband has with wanting to control you by acting like he is jealous

If he has abandonment issues because his father left him and his gf cheated then he needs to work on those before going into any other relationship as the same thing will happen again.

Are you sure he isn’t cheating or hasn’t in the past when he has brought up these jealousy issues and used them as a deflection to obscure what he is actually doing

He doesn’t seem like a nice person. Why do you want to hold onto someone who makes you feel awful and just wants to control you

Yep, I thought that too.

Another idiot punching walls. Only in private though. The fact they never break their hands shows what a performance it is.

Exactly, it’s abusive to you, as your limbic system is still reacting to this as a threat to you, it’s still sending adrenal and cortisol running through you and your children’s veins.

OP Be the grown up here- you dont have time for this sort of shit. Tell him to get over himself and grow up, or fuck off. Honestly this petty nonsense from some people just baffles me

Pack his bags, wave him bye byes!

Ridiculous behaviour after 14 years! He needs to grow up!

OP you say something along the lines of " normal jealousy in relationship "....nope its not normal at all unless you've had a full blown affair.... then I'd understand he's jealousy.

all this shit over an innocent email 14 years ago 🙄

`8I fear causing him to have a reaction that upsets him and provokes an uncomfortable conversation or argument. If I say something to trigger him he disappears down a dark hole and feels like crap and unworthy until I can eventually make him see sense. He says he doesn't think he's worthy of me or that he's not good enough.*

Ooh, so you say or do something innocent. He has a meltdown and then, just to rub salt into the wound, instead of you saying, " you are being ridiculous" you instead do everything possible to "reassure" him. Most likely, making your world smaller as you do. Experience tells me that everyone he has one of these meltdowns, you add something to your list of things you don't do or say to avoid "triggering" him.

As for "only ever been physically abusive to the walls". Your bar is way too low.

You have DC right? Young DC? When he's punching walls, how do they feel?

Another question: do you do the bulk of the childcare and child rearing? Does he make you feel guilty if you want a night away or tell you he can't manage the children as well as you?

Your last updates are some of the saddest I’ve read.

You truly have no idea about how abused and conditioned you are.

You say as long as you don’t bring up your past and associations to your ex or he’s not thinking about your ‘lies’ he’s fun and amazing and the best husband you could wish for.

If someone handed you a piece of cake and said as long as you eat round the shit and the glass it will be the best cake you ever had - would you eat it? Would you think it reasonable that someone expected you to?

You won’t see anyone agreeing from his perspective because it’s abuse - and even abusers know that and would keep schtum. Because he does know.

No one sees it from his perspective because his perspective is batshit crazy and irrational and delusional.

He’ll manipulate your children just like he manipulates you. That ok with you?

I’ll never understand these posts, not in a million years.

He is immature and devious. And those are his good points.

Most everyone has been cheated on, abandoned, abused, neglected etc etc.

That does not give the excuse to do the same to an innocent person.

You have to ‘make him see sense’. 🙄 he has really conned you and trained you well.

Neither one of you has any sense. That is an absolute reality.

OP, honesty is extremely important to me but no sane person is 100% honest 100% of the time. And as for his father fucking off, do did mine, so do a lot of fathers, that absolutely no excuse

He says he doesn't think he's worthy of me or that he's not good enough

Listen to what he is saying.
He speaks the truth

Can I ask you to think if the amount of time you have wasted not going somewhere you want to go, not being able to speak freely
How much time have you spent walking on eggshells around him and how much time have you spent pacifying him and building him up again because you can’t speak freely and and have mentioned something innocuous without him descending into a black hole.

In total over the past 14 years how many hours/days/weeks/months/years has he controlled your time
This is time you are never going to get back and it is time all your energy and focus was on him.
It is only going to get worse the older he gets and the more you keep letting him have control over your time.

I want to fix the relationship.

You can't.
Only he can.
And he won't, they never do.

Get yourself this book.

Mumsnet is known for saying LTB or whatever. But, Op, I disagree with the other women on mumsnet all the time. But the fact every single one of us agrees TOTALLY on this should tell you something.

You are not going to get this. His perspective is not that of a normal, rational person.

I rarely say this but LTB. 14 years ago!! jesus christ I can't even remember what I did or didn't do last month emailing or conversations I had let alone 14 yrs!

This

He's hiding something. You've been together 14 years happily he should know you by now and trust you when you say these were stupid insecure lies.

Maybe he's got someone else and tried to project his guilt onto you and make himself feel better by shaking some old rubbish.

He's abusive to the walls?

That is just so that you will think "at least it isn't me getting hit, at least it isn't the children getting hit".................................but one day, it will be you/the children.

I imagine he gets angry and shouts a lot, too, unless you manage somehow to calm him down.

It is not your job to calm him down, though.

He should not be behaving in a way that causes you to worry about his possible violent reaction. Hitting walls is violence. It frightens you, yes?

He has got you where he wants you. He knows that his shouting and hitting the walls frightens you, but he does not stop. That is abuse, OP.

For your own sake and that of your children, you need to make plans to separate and divorce. The children deserve better than this, and so do you.

This.

OP, this is what abusers do! My husband is doing the same to me and I'm trying desperately to leave. They lure you into a false state of security - love bombing you so you think that you are soul mates and living a fairytale...then something happens that 'triggers' him and it's another uncomfortable conversation, more jealousy, punching the walls or whatever. Then things go back to what you think is 'normal' and you're having the best time ever with him...

However, are you really having the best time with him if you're always worried about the next time something triggers him? Nobody should have to live with that weight on their shoulders. There's no relationship to fix and that's his fault, not yours!

I've not all the previous posters responses so someone might have suggested this already, please read "Why Does He Do That?" by Lundy Bancroft. It will really open your eyes!

Wow! So you’ve been together 14 years, have a family together and he’s behaving like this?! He doesn’t sound amazing. He sounds difficult.

He says he doesn't think he's worthy of me or that he's not good enough.

They say this to make us try harder to keep them happy.