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 genuinely wonder what goes through the minds of men who behave like this (I say men because I’ve heard of multiple men doing the same thing but no women). It’s all come crashing down around him now and he deserves it. You are not entirely blameless but you’ve had more than enough punishment for your own actions.

Work on yourself now OP. Get to the bottom of what made you swallow these lies for 12 years and move onwards and upwards. You’re going through a shit time but don’t let it ruin the rest of your life.

This kind of thing is more common than you'd think, even in the public eye. In this case the women banded together to expose him. Take a look at this: https://www.nme.com/news/music/the-bluetones-mark-morriss-accused-of-abuse-by-ex-wife-3097467

@honeyandbutterontoast

They knew he bought the house with me,

I thought you said that ye (you and him) didn’t go ahead and buy the house

Some people are just really horrible egotisticalshits, often with a charming front to them- sadly you have met one- I had a friend who did similar for 15 years , although slightly different as he never left his wife and my friend was 42 by then - it's a really horrible life lesson for you - just send him a really horrible message telling him his fortune, block him on every way to get to you and don't be tempted to 'just check' what he says- he's no prize and I wouldn't even want him as a 'friend' - it's up to his girlfriend if she's stupid enough to carry on -

That's no worse than a woman calling another woman (that she disagrees with) 'sister.' Equally as patronising... (And utterly cringeworthy.)

If he's that famous and high profile, people in his circle and those who his circle know, already know what he's doing (famous people can be quite gossipy and tell people on the sly who they think won't say anything, including behind the scenes people), and a lot of media peeps will know too, the lengths they go to privately to find dirt is comical. They just have no incentive or inclination to expose him. Or it didn't actually happen. There's so many holes in this story.

Calling another woman that you disagree with "sweetheart" is just embarrassing.

I would prefer 'darling'.😂

(Oh and I'm not your sweetheart but thanks for the idea.)

It's interesting how the anti-OP posters continue to keep on digging that hole for themselves.

All in the name of their high moral code.

@honeyandbutterontoast

I wonder if there is a way of going public but staying anonymous or else if you could sue him for emotional abuse (something else) I would certinally want revenge over this, it went on for years

Agreed!

You are in "utter utter shock" that a man you knew for a fact was a liar....has lied to you? Did you seriously believe he would only lie to his wife and not to you? I don't understand that, at all.
I do not believe this is "karma" because I do not think that exists. This man is obviously an extremely cunning and duplicitous shit bag, make no mistake, and most of us have been caught out by a liar in our time, but you put up with this nonsense for 12 years? You deserve far, far better. I think you need therapy to unravel this. He has obviously done a number on your self esteem, which I would assume wasn't all that great anyway if your first husband was a knob as well? Therapy can help you unravel what the hell happened here, how to stop it happening again and move forward with your life in a positive way, leaving this fucked up moron firmly in your past.
And as for his "karma" like I said, I don't think it exists. I would bet my house that this man isn't happy though; people who treat others like shit never are.

I doubt that going public would make you feel any better. BUT if you want to, there are options.

You could possibly get a sympathetic journalist to write this feature for you and leave you anon. It could be written as if you were speaking but would be ghost written.

Think long and hard though because once something is in the media and online it's there forever and your children, family and friends would be able to see it.

The man in this ghastly scenario I think we can all agree is completely awful but he wouldn't be awful if he wasn't aided and abetted by women like the op
Ŵhat? Of course he would. He'd just keep all the women secret from each other like he's done to the live in girlfriend. Stop trying to blame women for him being awful.

I wonder if the gf has told the others?

You need to really look after yourself. You will get over this. But at the moment you're in such shock. It's good you have support.

Try some meditation to still your mind. Keep at it if you can't relax straight away. Stress is so bad for you. He's not worth you getting ill. He's a piece of shit.

IF he is so important, I would make him pay up. He ruined your life, you lost out a lot financially, moving on and meeting someone else to have more kids with etc. He was greedy and a liar. I would say he must repay the money that was lost from the house that you bought together.....or you will go to the media with the story.

I don't mean to be harsh OP and I have never been either a cheater or cheatee so I have no skin in the game so to speak, but this sounds very much like a "fuck about find out" type situation.

He was never committed to you, he was already cheating when you met him. There were so many many red flags.

I hope you can heal, I wouldn't spend too much time thinking about his other victims (including his poor bloody ex wife) and move forward with your life.

Well, the OP knew he was married, living at home with his children, and has explicitly said on multiple occasions that he wouldn't leave his wife or his kids.

Was it really the shock of the century to find that he hadn't left, and would it (it being his unwillingness to leave his partner) not be the first thing that crossed your mind the moment any excuses came up regarding his current living situation?

I doubt he willingly ever left his wife; she probably found out about his multiple infidelities and kicked him out. Hopefully she is the one who makes him pay out big time.

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

Delete them OP. Delete every trace of him from
your life. Sadly, you will never sort the truth from the lies. It’s going to be really, really hard.

He is clearly a serial cheat and serial manipulator. Textbook narcissist. He will do exactly the same to his younger girlfriend. He will never, ever be satisfied with you, her or anyone else.

Take some time to grieve. Feel the emotions. Then when you’re ready block him, delete all trace of him and his contact details and go and live your life.

A reminder to all of us: if they won’t commit to you after a few months. They never will.

It sounds like he has a fair bit of money and he’s financially and emotionally ruined you. You could choose to try to recoup some of the money when you feel stronger.

To this avail, keep every single message, email etc. Save and back up in one place and forget about it.

When you are feeling stronger, you could then use the material to write a book under a pseudonym or ideally in your real name… or drip feed it in the press etc. Time is a great healer and in a few years time, you’ll feel angry and sad for the you of now rather than embarrassed. By the sound of it this would be a best seller.

For now, be kind to yourself. The person you need to look after right now is you. It is really sad if the young woman goes back to him. However, that will be her life story, not yours.

After 12 years of being messed around, you will have to accept some responsibility for being in this situation. There must be some reason for why you continued to delude yourself that this was real for so long. That is what you need to focus on and work on.

Nevermind him, he's a lost cause, and nevermind those other women who also needed to believe they were special to him. You go focus on you and why this was able to happen.

Once a cheater always a cheater OP.

You had a bad start with men in your early life and the bar was set low then. So this was probably subconsciously all you think you deserved, being a bit of the side, never being allowed to fully experience unconditional love.

Im so so sorry you were abused. I think that’s where a lot of this comes from and he’s preyed on your vulnerability to be needy but not need too much.

Breaking up with him shows you do have boundaries now. You did get stronger. You didn’t want to stay in that uncomfortable place. You wanted more and knew deep down you deserved more.

I suggest The Big Leap by G Hendricks it’s looks at reasons why we self sabotage subconsciously because we think we’re not worthy of love.

You seem to have good boundaries with women/friends.

You need to install the same bullshit detector for men.

There are some good podcasts and books ok Amazon about self love and learning to really appreciate who you are. Please do spend some time building yourself up. Quite a bit is free. Even some online email courses. Anything to help you realise you are worth so much more than this.

Trouble is he sounds psychopathic. Who knows what he could do to OP?

Same here and then they blame you for driving them to behave like that!

Another one confused about the house, what happened there?