Husband is not the person I thought he was as far as I am concerned

[devastatedbeyondbelief]

I hope someone is up to help me at this time of night, I really don't know which way to turn.

Firsty I am a regular but have name changed because as well as being devastated I also feel completely humiliated. I usually post a lot in the miscarriage and conception threads so if anyone does recognise me please please don't out me to eveyone on mumsnet. I wouln't be able to face you all again.

It started off when I found some naked pics of women saved in documents on computer. i wouldn't have cared so much if he had just been looking at porn but these had been saved from social networking sites where could have made contact with these women IYSWIM although he swears blind he hasn't.

To make matters worse I found pics that he had taken of me that I did not know about- sleeping naked, sunbathing on my front and even one of my backside in the shower, he'd obviously put the camera around the shower curtain when my back was turned. I asked him why he had done this and he said he just did and promised that no one else has seen them

I then checked the internet history for the last few weeks and found that he had actually posted them on a social forum for people to comment on and there are endless comments from immature teenagers calling me a fat as, gross and making comment such as ''ewwww''. I am about three stone overweight and have very low self esteem.

I thought my dh was my rock, he has supported me through so much and is always telling me how wonderful I am and that he loves me. He has put up with my anxiety and depression over the years. My family think he is a diamond and so did I. How can you do that to the mother of your child and the person that you supposedly love. i don't get it. I have been up shouting at him all night while he just sits there saying bugger all apart from ''I don;t know why I did it, i know I did wrong and I 'm sorry but I know you'll never forgive me'' etc etc while he deletes all that shit off his computer. god am I even making any sense?

Crying buckets I don't know waht to do. Someone please come and talk to me

I"m here. I'm so sorry that you've had this to deal with. What a dickhead. Why do men do these things. You are worth so much more. Good for you for shouting at him. He's seriously got to get down on bended knee and earn your love and trust back. I think he should go to counselling to handle these things. I want to throttle him for you.

Hello, I don't want your post to go unanswered. I can understand your terrible shock and disappointment at discovering your husband has done this.

Is he really stressed out? Is he normally a really good coper? YES he has done wrong - I'm not making excuses for his behaviour. All the same if you want to understand what he's done and make things better you need to look at what's driven him to this. Most likely he was looking for some kind of escape/fantasy from his everyday life and it all got out of hand.

Sounds like he really means it when he says he is sorry. But you need to be able to feel that he really understand how hurt and angry you are - and the underlying stresses that have made him seek some kind of fantasy life need to be understood. Then you can find some other way for him to chill out without activities that are not acceptable in a marriage.

I've told him to leave tomorrow and give me a wide bearth. i can't understand it. i've been sick, theres no way I'm gonna get any sleep tonight will hae to try and act all normal for dd in the morning. Gonna get flamed for this I know but I actually slapped him across the face at one point. I am not dealing with this very well

God, I am crying on your behalf. You poor poor thing. I don't know what you should do either. You are not alone though.

I won't flame you, I punched my Ex H on the body after he admitted he'd never stopped his affair. We don't deal with these kind of emotional bombshells well and why should we. A break may be a good idea for a short period, however I do feel you should get him to work through the issues he obviously has. Take the time apart to get your self-confidence back and hopefully he will start earning your trust and love back.

I still feel that I could bet my life on the fact that he would never actually cheat on me but this feels just as bad, i feel totally disrespected and humiliated and that out of all the times i have been hurt in my life he has hurt me the more than anyone. After several miscarriages in recent years i thought we were strong having come through them together but right now i hate him, i don't know him at all

oh honey I'm so sorry your husband is such a total arse. Well done for telling him to leave, you need some time apart. What a wickedly cruel thing for him to do.
Why the hell would YOU get flamed for slapping him acros the face. I can't imagine you getting anything but a standing ovation
So what if you are overweight? Does that give him the right to be cruel? No. Is he perfect? NO! Don't let this pig destroy your self esteem, you are better than him.
Be strong for your DD, she is the one good thing that you have from him.
I know its the very early hours of the morning but you should try to get a bit of rest and at a more sensible time phone a friend or family member as you need support in RL. Sending you loads of hugs xxx

You need time to come to terms with the fact that he is human, and not the ideal person you thought he was. He is still the man you love, but he is flawed, like all of us. What he has done is unacceptable and you need to know he understands that and is dealing with whatever drove him to such behaviour. But he is still the person who was your rock. He is still the person who has put up with your depression and anxiety for years. All of that is still the truth. Now you need to put up with his flaws for a bit, while he tries to rectify what he's done. Don't make him leave. He's your love, and he sounds as confused as you are. Marriages that last are not necessarily easy work - challenges appear from time to time, and you have to have loyalty and confidence in the bond between you. I would make him sweat over this behaviour, I would make him understand how disappointed, hurt and angry I was, but I would not ask him to leave. I would want to find resolution and a better way forward that is going to meet both your needs. And that will take time and work.

Thanks for posting ladies. His defense is that he didn't think that the pics would attract those sort of comments. he wasn't doing it to be cruel - but he shouldn't have done it at all. Have stopped blubbing now just sniffling and now my head hurts so I don't care if his cheek is smarting - it's nothing in comparison. i really don't know if i can tell anyone in rl I am honestly mortified. If you knew him you would think thet he was the last person on earth capable of this

oh god look at typos- I can spell honestly - just not tonight

anorak you make sense - this is out of character for him.

He is just saying anything at the moment to cover his embarrassment and shame at being discovered. He's trying to minimize the damage. You both need time to work through this.

You can throw him out in a week, or a month if you're still of a mind to. Don't do it now. You both need time.

anorak speaks a lot of sense here. I know how hard it is for you right now but what you absolutely must do is tell yourself to look at the whole picture. You can find a way of doing this and it will take time. If you feel right now that you need him to step away and give you some space then of course you must do that. It is so tempting with your throbbing and sore head (I think physically you feel as shattered as you do emotionally right now, yes, you are in shock?) to start believing that everything is a lie. He has done a shitty, despicable thing but there must be a reason why a man so supportive and wonderful otherwise has chosen to behave in such a disrespectful and cruel way.

Take some time and make some decisions when your head hurts a little less.

I'm sorry, I can imagine you must feel very low right now. Nobody is going to make you tell anybody in rl but I promise you this, nobody but nobody would think any the less of you for his behaviour.

you lot have helped me to calm down a bit - thanks but exhaustion has hit me now , think I could sleep for a bit just because I've totally wiped myself out. Have to face the school run in a few hours god help me. Maybe i'll be able to think more clearly if I do get a few hours rest. I'm going to get into dd's double bed for a bit and tell her in the morning that daddy was snoring too much for me to sleep.

yes nim - i think i am in shock I literally couldn't stop shaking when i saw the pics of me on that site

Have a drink of something, take some paracetamol and go to bed. It would be good if you could eat a little something too but understand you probably don't want to.

Come back tomorrow (I refuse to say later today, I'm hoping dd's going to go back to sleep!) and let us know how you are.

anorak does speak a lot of sense (my post was angry for you but am in more sensible mood now)
however, I do think you need a little bit of space so you can get your head round this properly.
Hope you get a little bit of rest and I'm sure your DD will understand about daddy snoring and hopefully not pick up on this.

Oh my God. I can't imagine the pain and humiliation you must have been feeling. I won't go into too much detail, but my mum went through something very similar with my dad. It is an overwhelmingly shocking betrayal of your trust.

As they worked through the problems, more and more things emerged and they were both honest with each other. There were many reasons why dad had acted the way he did and mum now accepts a small amount of the blame for the problems in the marriage that led to this point.

My mum and dad worked it out and, nearly two years later, they are stronger than ever. I don't think she'll ever trust him as implicitly as she did, though she has built up a new kind of trust for him. She says she now thinks that she has had two marriages, one before March 2007 and a marriage after. They are both much more honest with each other, and dad knows that he has to be absolutely open with mum and that she'll be checking his texts and emails in the future.

I'm not suggesting that you stay, or encourage him to stay at all. You are in shock and you won't be acting 'rationally' at the moment. Just give yourself some space to vent and fury. You'll have lots of questions for him when you've calmed down (some painful answers to listen to).

I wish you all the love and luck with the next few months. Keep talking on here, there are some brilliantly wise people on here. xx

I haven't been to sleep yet exhausted though I am. He has just got up and set off for work. He went up to the loft room before he went to get a case to back so I got out of bed and asked him what he was doing. He said getting a case to pack so i told him that despite what I said earlier he was not getting away with it that easily and that he was coming home after work to face the music.

I have also had another look on the internet history and found some sites that are quite expicit about men watching their wives having sex with other men and instructions on how to try and get your wife interested in that sort of thing. He doesn't know yet that I have found this.I am now crying again and feel like I'm going to be sick. I can't believe this is happening to me I don't want it to be real.

my parents divorced when i was young and i grew up with an abusive alcoholic stepfather. I vowed that my dd wouldn't have to go through any of the heartache that i did as a child and now he has put our family on the line I feel like my marriage is a sham. God I feel wretched

Oh you poor, poor thing.
It must feel as though your whole world has fallen apart. Losing trust for someone you believed was there right with you must be one of the most shocking things you can go through.
Yes, your body will react, that's normal - I have felt sick every time I've discovered a boyfriend wasn't who I thought he was, and those were shortish relationships iyswim. It's truly horrible but then once you have the knowledge it can't hit you twice. After that you get to deal with it instead of just reacting.

He sounds very mixed up and disturbed at the moment. It's very good if he only means to show you off, and didn't do it to humiliate - that's a whole different light on it, although still massively awful for you to find out. At least he didn't mean for people to laugh at you. So there is hope there.

You need to focus on what YOU need him to do now, and if that means him sticking around until you feel a bit less wobbly, so be it. There's only so much upset a person can deal with at one time.

Follow your own cues and try and get him to talk. Thinking of you dear xx

Thats exactly it HB i feel like everything is crashing down around me! We have been together 12 years this year. At one point in the night i said to him ''I don't know who you are at all'' and he just replied ''no. you don't''. What the hell's that supposed to mean? I don't understand any of this. I can't pull myself togethr, dd will be awake in a while and I am just a snivelling wreck

How old is your DD? Is there any way you can have a few hours to yourself today - just to sleep?

she is 9, yes i will try and get my head down for a bit when she is at school, just got to face the school run

It'll do you good to sleep. The other thing my mum did to get herself through those first few weeks was go to the GP. He was amazing, gave her some sleeping tablets so that she was able to sleep and heal (not advocating drugs BTW - just might help in the short term).