Am in utter shock

[honeyandbutterontoast]

Will start by saying this is an OW thread. So I’m not asking for sympathy, I’m just in utter utter shock.

Twelve years ago I met someone. We were both married. We fell in love (I thought). My DH was a bad man, I’m not excusing myself but he was. I divorced him, took the bare minimum and waited for OM to do the same.

He didn’t. For years it went on, his excuses, so I wouldn’t see him, he begged me to be patient. I was his soulmate, his best friend, etc etc etc. And I loved him so much.

We bought a house together, he decided on completion day that he couldn’t leave her. I was in a financial mess for years over that.

In Oct 22 I gave him an ultimatum (this date is important), he had to leave her or we couldn’t speak anymore (up till this point we emailed and texted multiple times a day). He said he couldn’t leave her, couldn’t be without his kids. He went away on holiday with them.

Stupidly we stayed in touch “as friends”. Daily he would ask to see me. He would tell me he wanted to be with me, no matter what would make it happen.

(Sorry this is an essay)

Last spring we saw each other for lunch a couple of times. Something was off but I couldn’t work out what, he seemed depressed. I started dating again and told him we could only be friends.

In the summer he sent me a photo and I noticed he didn’t have a wedding ring on! He told me he had “recently” left his wife but didn’t know how to tell me. That he wasn’t sure if we should move in together straight away (!!) or just get to know each other as single people.

We met for lunch a couple of times, he had endless excuses why I couldn’t see his new flat. It all seemed odd but somehow plausible. We last saw each other in October but carried on messaging multiple times a day, chatting about everything. Or so I thought.

He told me he was very depressed and unhappy. Needed time to get used to life alone. I truly believed he was unhappy, possibly even suicidal at times.

This evening I received a message. From his girlfriend. Who he lives with. Who he had told he was separated when he met her 18 months ago. Yep when I gave him the ultimatum, he was with her. They have a whole life together.

She is 20 years younger than he is.

We spoke on the phone and while speaking she was looking through his phone. There are multiple women. All that age. It’s been going on for years with them.

How he has time to run a company I do not know.

So here I am, 12 years on. In utter shock. And that poor girl. I didn’t know what to say to her, I could only assure her there has been nothing intimate between us since before she met him. Unfortunately he has been with others.

i honestly would have told you he was my best friend. His behaviour had been odd yes, but I never thought for a moment it was like this.

His last messages to me were how he had an okay day today, hadn’t done much. They are on holiday!!!

I get that in some ways I deserve this. But she doesn’t. He obviously was putting his wedding ring on to meet me! How messed up is that. Or maybe he wasn’t married then anymore?!

And I’m guessing when we were actually in an intimate relationship he was shagging these other women. I really had no idea. He would beg me not to leave him as he was so unhappy but had no idea how to leave without losing his children/business.

Desperately need to sleep but had to get all that out. It’s like an episode of eastenders.

I’m so, so, sorry.

I thought he was my best friend. He’s told me for months how unhappy he is. To just bear with him.

And meanwhile telling her he’s the happiest he’s ever been.

I know men can lie. But omfg.

Crikey lucky escape!...eventually..
He must be exhausted living that life and lying so much. Must be why he has depression.
Very insecure and needy too ..(him).

Men are the best liars as they have little compassion and think only through their d*cks. Sorry, but that's my personal experience. Been there and got the t-shirt.

Fuuuuck OP. What absolute dirtbag. People like this scare me.

According to her he isn’t depressed. They had the perfect life. Very very happy.

I feel like such a fool. A couple of weeks ago I stayed up all night talking to him when he was stuck in an airport waiting for a flight. I was the only person who understood him apparently. His only friend.

clearly I never understood him.

I just want to curl up and die

Sorry, I am so sorry.

Lots of men are indeed bloody fucking awful. (And some women too, of course).

He obviously just has the most monumental ability to compartmentalise. I am not defending him in the least, but he probably does think of you as his good friend. Just in his twisted world that doesn't preclude lying his arse off to you whenever he feels like it....

His poor former Wife. He abused her for more than a decade.

Sorry OP,

I hope the current GF tells all the other women the truth about this scum bag and he gets dumped left, right and centre by everyone.

I'm so sorry, you will get over this.

No consolation at all, but similar happened to me with my ex girlfriend (lesbian relationship) over a slightly shorter time period (5 years).

I have no idea who he is.

If someone had asked me yesterday I would have said he was my best friend, the absolute love of my life.

I knew his behaviour had been weird for a while. But I just thought he was exhausted. I was so worried.

He was exhausted. Shagging multiple women 20 years younger will do that.

He told her I was a liar. And was blackmailing him. I protected him for years.

I’m so worried she will take him back. He is clearly such a good liar and she is so young :(

You've not been a fool. You've been a person who genuinely thought they'd found love, and who had the strength to extricate yourself when the situation dragged on.
But no wonder you are in shock. That's a long time to be emotionally tied to someone and then find out that it's all been a lie. Well, more fool him. He's obviously an arse and you are well out of it. Having been in a similar situation years ago I can tell you that things will get better, but it takes time. Experts say two years and that was spot on for me. Now, I look back and think I had a lucky escape. At the time I thought my world had ended. Just be grateful you've discovered the truth now and not in another twelve years. You are strong enough to move on.

I asked him many times if he had someone else. Sometimes he was really rude to me for asking, said I should trust him.

She had read those messages, could see I asked him.

I gave him a lot of opportunities to say he had met someone, he could have just let me walk away.

When I last met him for dinner (Sept), he was close to tears saying how much he missed the family dog, how he couldn’t have it stay because he lived in a flat. I felt so sorry for him.

He was living in a house. And they had a dog!!!

He could have got an Oscar for that performance.

@honeyandbutterontoast I'm sorry he has wasted so much of your time and love. However he must be very disordered to be capable of this level of deception.

I found out, after separation, that my ex H was highly deceptive to a pathological level. It was such a shock so I can relate to how you are feeling. It will take a while to fully comprehend what has happened. For quite a while afterwards I had "flashbacks" as my brain tried to work out reality, like pieces of a jigsaw being dropped into place, to form the real picture (not the lies I had been told).

He is clearly very manipulative so don't risk any contact with him again

I’m just laying here reading messages trying to sort the truth from the lies.

It’s the first night in more than 12 years he hasn’t messaged me goodnight. And a part of me is so sad about that. How ridiculous.

My exDH was a really bad person and this man was the only person in my life I trusted because of that. He would vow to look after me and make my life happy. And while I was perfectly happy most of the time bumbling along in my life, somehow thinking we were this great love story and that I needed to be a bit more patient.

Twelve years of my life have been a lie.

It's completely normal that you feel dreadful about this - it WILL get better in time. I know this might sound mad, but is there anything you can do to distract yourself? You need to turn your mind off from the anguish for a while.

I am upset tonight myself (not as bad as your situation) and I know I can't sleep so I have been reading a crime novel - focusing on the characters' awful lives has made me feel slightly better about my own situation if that makes sense?

You have to stop thinking about it or you'll go mad. And you'll never figure it out. He probably doesn't understand what he has done or why he did it either, so how can you?

It's awful. Hope his poor girlfriend is ok too. All his poor girlfriends actually! It's terrible.

She’s only a couple of years older than my DD.

Which makes me feel sick, I had no idea he was interested in women that young.

Thank goodness I never let him meet my DC.

I can’t switch off from this.

I’ve got so many messages saying how sad he was spending another evening alone after an m and s ready meal. I was so worried about him. Why was he sending me 5-10 messages an evening sitting right next to her.

I’m mortified by the occasional drunk flirty message I sent that he would politely knock back saying we needed to build our friendship back first and other such bollocks, she’s read all those.

I think you’re going to have to remind yourself that not only was HE a very bad man too, but you have form for chosing to believe a man’s words over his actions - as well as your own intuition. You said that asked him again and again if there was someone else and chose to believe him when he denied it. You knew that there was and yet you shut down your inner voice because it suited you to still think of him as your soulmate and best friend. Why did you continue to believe him when he had repeatedly let you down? You created a fantasy world where this man was good and kind so that YOU could maintain the illusion. You did this to yourself by continuing to dialogue with him. What stuns me is that you didn’t consider that he was cheating on you with his poor wife - it only hit you that he was a lying, cheating shit of a man when it was someone you felt you couldn’t compete with.

No I knew he was cheating with me. I have said that. I have also said we went years at one point not actually meeting. I also did believe from the fact he spent hours every evening and weekend messaging and phoning me for the first 8 years or so, that they did lead separate lives. As I’ve said I was in a very abusive marriage and so I believed his was unhappy too. That isn’t an excuse, it is what I believed.

And yes I asked if he was seeing someone else after he left his wife, his behaviour was strange. I also tried to end things many times but I was worried that he was depressed.

I’ve now found photos that show earlier last year he wasn’t wearing his wedding ring, but did when he met me for coffee/lunch.

He’s fooled this other woman too, and her family and friends. And many other women along the way. Yes his wife too. I have no idea what she knows.

@honeyandbutterontoast Me too!
I get on fine with my ex husband now, but years ago had a partner after my ex husband who was a terrible liar and a complete head f&cker.

You are best off without this awful man. He will never change.

I stopped all contact - it took me a couple of years to get over it completely, mine too like much younger women {I was 37 at the time!}

I had no idea he was interested in women that young.
^^

You'd better believe it.

Men even ones in their forties and fifties like them really young. It's a status thing.. and also younger women are easier to fool with their {the men's} tissue of lies.

Never EVER shut down your inner voice.
It is there for a reason.

I shut down mine, and regretted it deeply.

@honeyandbutterontoast Listen to it always.

In a way I did listen to it. I refused to see him. I guess I knew something wasn’t right.

He endlessly asked me about what I was doing, etc but only was vague in reply.

I think because my DC have mental health issues I somehow convinced myself that must be the cause of his behaviour. Although he knew they did and he knew how that made them act, so I can see he could have used that knowledge.