i had a feeling that mentioning the cost of those calls would bring alot of comment. its alot of money but in comparison to what he normally gets a month its quite small. but i could feed such and such starving children or build such and such many wells or pay the debts of someone for that, which is why he took the decision himself to send money to where he sent it.
Its true AF there are certain things I havent mentioned in the course of this post. it was those calls to premium rate numbers worth 600pounds that had us talking about sex addiction and had him seeking help. trying to give charity was for him a way of trying to atone for spending so much money on something so flagrantly morally reprehensible. it was sincere as far as I knew it and its never happened since. how do i know? well im not 100% sure, but as im in charge of the finances in our family i see his payslip every month and im the one who moves money around accounts so i would have seen anything unusual.
Im the big spender always, i regularly spend 6/700 a month on myself or friends and family and he is the one who just goes to work and comes home and doesnt have any hobbies or things he likes to do outside the house. my phone bills are quite high but his are always just the line rental, so that time i spotted that anomaly really quickly that month and can spot easily that something is up because he hardly uses cash at all.
but what does that do for me? one day, he might just go off and do something that doesnt cost money or leave a trail eg an affair.
its all very well you guys saying that about the phone calls and i should have gone on mumsnet at that time and posted then, but i didnt and so i just dealt with it the way i did.
here are some other things i left unsaid.
when we married we had a compact that i wouldnt work but stay home and look after hte children and in return he would take care of all my financial needs. its my stupidity that i have nothing saved from that time in a secret nest egg for myself - the wasted time - but we have alot of savings as well as a nice house and blah blah. it was from that time that i was put in charge of family money and savings, but i became hypervigilant after that one enormous phone bill. i set one of my brothers up by giving him the money to start his business, paid off several debts for my parents, helped my sister through uni, paid for numerous cousins expenses and also helped out RL friends through their financial problems. my husband has never minded because he wants his wife - me - to be at home and not work. but im so dependent on him now and that salary, and i realise that as his career has progressed i have nothing except my degree.
we had an agreement that i wasnt to travel abroad or anywhere overnight alone but that he would always take me with him if he travelled if i accepted that. and hes kept to that too, from day one we always combine his business trips into holidays as he automatically assumes his family will travel with him and plans accordingly. even if he goes just to another city for a trip il have the kids with my inlaws and well take that time to be away together. iv sent family away on holiday lots of times but have never gone with them because he only wants me to travel with him.
we live quite a conservative lifestyle and that was for his sake because i grew up with a family that was more relaxed. on the outside people look at us as a couple and think hes the religious one and im the irreverent one. if i went for counselling i would have to do it on my own because its hard at this stage to think of blowing that cover and showing our deep issues to an outsider.
gilded cage you might be saying. i know that, i know that, i hate myself.
hes been trying alot but its that little voice in my head that makes me cynical. i used to set great store by his humbleness and contriteness over his problem, i used to think hes never said i have to just put up and shut up and he's never ever tried to turn it around on me or tell me its because of me or something im not giving him.
but one day he might just be like that. and then what the hell would i do because i have always used the dreaded divorce word, not him. my mother tells me to keep my dignity and stop probing. because if i found out those things and i hadnt left, then subconsciously, on both our parts, it means that i tolerated it and overlooked it. i should have left with the porn because we were living too religious a lifestyle for it to be anything except a huge aberration in a person. from one extreme to another, and we're supposed to walk a middle path. but i didnt.
i havent read any of his exercises for the past two weeks. theyre not about his fantasies as such but about the way he reacts and behaves. its enough for me that he's been looking at himself and how his upbringing affects his mindset now.
one of my friends stated she trusted her husband so much that if she walked in on him in bed with another woman she wouldnt get angry and would wait for an explanation. i have so little trust that if my husband tries to encourage me to go out and hel take care of the kids i wonder if he is going to go online or use the phone. even though, to all intents and purposes, i havent seen anything for a year. i want that to change.