Sadness In Marriage

stevendailey

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Hi all,

Just wanted to reach out regarding issues I'm having in my marriage. My husband and I met back in 2017 and married pretty quick in 2018. Back in 2019, I caught him cheating on me multiple times throughout the period that we were dating, engaged and through the first year of the marriage.

Needless to say, finding that out devastated me. I have always been open with topics related to sex, and I made it known that he could look at porn online or pictures, however I made it clear that he would stay monogamous and not seek out other men to have sex with. Unfortunately, it's led me down a really dark depression and now it's been around 2 years since that bombshell occurred.

I've been going to individual counseling on and off to discuss my feelings. Ultimately, my biggest sadness is the overall loss of trust that I have in him. I've been told to either be 100% trustful again or call off the marriage, but I'm not at that point yet (I'm more like 95%). But time definitely has improved it, but he's still exhibiting worrisome behavior.

a. Every time we are in public, if he notices an attractive guy he sometimes diverts his attention towards that person, making it very obvious that he's staring. In addition, he sometimes goes out of his way to cross paths with this person and maintaining eye contact.

b. He constantly checks his phone and on Facebook, will mainly like any photos of the attractive guys he's friends with. I'm at the point where I will not check his phone because I'm giving him that level of trust to grow the relationship, but I already told him to not engage in any sexually predatory behavior to the men he knows in real life. A fantasy is a fantasy and he can look at porn or people that he does not know in real life, but he's actively putting himself in the spotlight for whatever reason.

c. He has a "secret" account where he follows HUNDREDS of other men online, constantly retweeting their thirst posts. Again, porn is fine but hundreds of thousands of likes in a few years is an obsession. I have told him to stop but he will continue to use twitter when I'm not around, just amassing so much porn and media on his page.

He tells me he's really trying and regrets the decisions that he made to cheat on me and does everything he can to make me happy, but it's his outright sexual addiction that is placing a dark cloud over our relationship.

From reading this post, it's pretty obvious he needs help or we need to call off this marriage, but the truth is my entire self respect has diminished. Maybe it's my fault for being too sensitive. I don't have it in me to call it quits because I don't feel like I deserve to feel any love again. I'm just an ugly SOB, riddled with mental issues. I try to make things work and trudge along but I'm constantly brought back down.

I don't even know what I'm looking for, but maybe someone else to hear me. Some sort of bravery to post this somewhat publicly? I don't know.
 

cantaloupe

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He has to quit all those behaviours entirely or he'll never change. Absolutely no approaching of other guys. He has eyes, okay, but he has a brain to control his behaviour. Make him an ultimatum. Try couple's therapy or maybe he can start therapy on his own or both. Rekindle your relationship. Ask him if he can commit to change and just the two of you.

I have no issues with porn but I'd never accept a partner seeking out and flirting with other guys.

Also you sound 100 % monogamous but your partner doesn't. You need to find out if he can be monogamous. If you find out that he can't be, you're gonna have to leave him. You'll fall apart but pick yourself up again.
 

cedarizzo

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Your husband and you are 2 totally different people with different partnership ideas. You have a very strict goal of monogamy and he obviously has a completely different goal. You expecting him to be completely monogamous is unrealistic.

Honestly, I doubt your marriage is salvageable.
 
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It's time you laid down the law with him. If he has any interest in saving your marriage, he must get rid of his secret account, he must stop liking all those photos, and he must go to counseling with you. If he's not willing to do all three of those immediately, then at minimum it's time to separate.
 

stustu

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I would encourage you to find counseling and therapy with or without him. You need to
re-build your value and self-esteem. Cheating is so destructive and painful, then add another
layer with sexuality issues. Please don't accept that there is something wrong with you.
You need to move toward a healthy life. He might not be there with you. No matter what happens
you can be OK, maybe even great. Good luck.
 

Sagittarius84

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I could give you advice, but honestly it sounds like a moot point by now. He showed his hand, both before and after you got married. You speak of your own personal turmoil, but nothing of the consequences he has had to face as a result of his behavior...as such if secret follows and prolonged stares are the extent of your new problems, maybe count yourself lucky he's no longer physically acting out upon his obviously strong sexual urges.
You have the right at any point to decide it no longer works for you, what's a little muddied is your expectation that somehow now he is going to fundamentally change when nothing about how you've gone about this relationship so far demands said change for it to continue
 

yhtang

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After all that you and your husband had gone through, the latitude and the boundaries that you have given your husband, it appears from what you wrote that your husband had not been able to honour them.

I believe you feel both lost and frustrated that your husband does not seem to respect you and your wishes, and you feel you have lost the trust between a married couple.

My personal feeling is that your husband will not change. If he is not/no longer the person you respect and can to live with, then you will have to consider your options to persevere and accept him as he is, or make alternate plans regarding this relationship.

I wish you peace and happiness with whatever decision you make.
 

Youngoutlaw

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As harsh as this sounds you need to be realistic with yourself here. From what you’ve said you are the one making all the effort to accept what he has done yet he still has the same behaviour.

In real terms he has clear issues between fantasy and reality. He can’t keep both separate and likes to makes fantasies a reality then is sorry for his actions. I don’t doubt he will be sorry but he’s a grown up and has to accept he is in charge of his own behaviour. He definitely needs to attend counselling for his addiction to porn and if he wants to save your marriage both of you go to couple’s therapy.

Realistically if he doesn’t want to change he won’t and, from my own personal experience, if a guy cheats once then he’ll do it again to you. You sound like a really nice person but need to be honest with yourself. If your marriage isn’t working and there is no way to resolve your issues then you both need to end it and move on as staying will only breed resentment and make you both unhappy.

You need to make the decision on what will make you happy and I wish you well in whatever your decision is.
 

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As someone who experienced this type relationship in his twenties, I have strong clarity on the major issues you describe. So forgive me if my "tough love" statements seem harsh; I have your best interest at heart in all of them.

1. Having admittedly rushed into marriage less than a year after meeting, don't let the romantic notions of the institution of marriage and beloved titles (husband) cloak a relationship which you stated has never been faithful, nor was truly entered into by two equal credible partners. Adults negotiate the terms and boundaries of a relationship, especially when formalizing it with marriage.

2. Talk (He tells me he's really trying and regrets the decisions) is cheap. You judge a person based on their actions: "a "secret" account where he follows HUNDREDS of other men online".

3. Rather than "individual counseling off and on", you need to find a good psychotherapist and stay with it! As you somehow seem to sense, your biggest problem is you--not the relationship. But you already know that and prefer to stay in denial. Don't. Face your truth.

4. This role of "playing policeman" with this guy is not just a losing battle: "I made it clear that he would stay monogamous and not seek out other men to have sex." He does the acting out and you have to be the Bad Mommy who wrecks all his pleasure. Screw being put in that terrible pain by the one guy you've selected as your lifetime partner in life! This will decimate any sense of self worth you still have. Perhaps get in touch with your inner rage to seek out a therapist and recover from this sad misadventure (you can!).

5. You need to let this Denial trip you are on GO!: "I 'm more like 95% (trustful). But time definitely has improved it, but he's still exhibiting worrisome behavior."

6. As everybody has indicated, this relationship is essentially already over. Even more, it wasn't a good relationship turned sour; He has never met the basic requirements of the relationship or marriage. So letting it go should actually be easier once you realize this. Sure, most of us become attached to someone we live with and give our affections. Control the damage and rip the band-aid off. There's nothing healthy here to save or to mourn. We all have to learn painful lessons. He was one of yours.

7. "It's pretty obvious he needs help or we need to call off this marriage." NO (or maybe...). YOU need help and YOU need to call off this marriage. Want to waste two more, five more, ten more years trying to negotiate the "terms" of his sexual acting out? How did that work for you already?

I suggest your most immediate need is finding a good therapist for YOU. Get THAT relationship established BEFORE you let your husband sense you've turned a corner regarding the marriage. You don't want things to get ugly before you have a good therapist and contingency plan (money, housing, etc.) in place. Try to avoid "blurting out" your intention to leave the marriage as a last-ditch effort to control him. It will fail and you will regret it.

I believe time will show you are much better served by this direct, actionable advice than various relationship platitudes that you (in this state) can get lost in. Stand up for yourself! You're a nice fit guy (saw your pic) who LOTS of people would like to have. Find yourself an emotionally healthy guy and grow a relationship together. When that happens, I suggest you periodically touch base with your therapist since your instincts for what's healthy might need some tweaking. And if the (future) couple needs a therapist, find another one so you can keep YOUR therapist dedicated to you. I wish you all the best!
 

MrTMT

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@stevendailey Reading your post, it reminds me of another couple I knew locally awhile back, one is a co-dependent on another who had sex with others outside of their marriage.

Eventually, they both agreed to have an "open" marriage, the one who is a co-dependent still was not happy, but didn't want to leave the guy, which he had co-depend upon. This drag on over 15 years or so.

What I see in your post is that you've jumped into married so quickly with someone you've met within a year. I'm not sure what your circumstances were or what you've seen in this guy that made you wanted to quickly married him.
 

GroundedGayGuy

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@stevendaily - Thank you for sharing your situation with us. I think there is a clear theme in the answers above - take care of yourself first and don't blame yourself for this happening. You can't control his behavior, only monitor it - which is exhausting at best and futile at worst.

I'm going through something less heavy, but similar in that I've been with the same partner for 15+ years and we got married in 2016, and have had a great, loving marriage. We met at a bathhouse in 2002, quickly fell in love and by 2005 were steady as boyfriends. We were both very active cruisers for many years. Parks, bathhouses, bathrooms, the gym sauna - the standard cruisy areas in the gay world. While I had hooked up with hundreds, I was shocked to find out the number of men he was with. Well over thousands. He's older than I am, but had about 30 years of hooking up with all kinds of men, all the time. Do the math: 4-6 new guys a month, in addition to regulars, so even a conservative estimate of 4 new guys a month for 30 years - 4x12x30 - 1400 men. I've seen some of his past hookups and some were good but most were just sad old desperate men who were lucky enough to have my cute husband when he was young and even cuter. He has terrible standards and even let a old friend of his suck him off - and the friend was in his late 70's, terribly unattractive, and my husband was in his 30's. There are a lot of tales like that. He was not a whore - whore's charge. Just a slut. A former slut now.

He was groomed by a pedophile from his early teens until college (yes, the pedo was so good at what he did he got my future husband to continue to see him for 6+ years, all throughout his teens - and the pedo was in his 40s or older). The pedo ruined my husband and took his already healthy sexual appetite and made it a tool of self-worth. Sex became my husband's oxygen and he sought self- worth through it, even to this day (although things have calmed down considerably in the past ten+ years). I'm horny, like all guys, but I have high standards of who I hook up with. My husband? He was open to everyone and broke my heart in those early years - terribly, but I'm strong and tough and we talked about it and he, to his credit, changed much of his behavior and we grew into a good, solid couple post 2006.

We committed to monogamy around 2006 and it's been a solid relationship (and nice to not have to worry about STDs). During the COVID pandemic I found myself going through ancient emails from 2004-2006 and found that he had still been playing around with a few of his regulars until about 2005 and they both had made an agreement to not tell me, but it ended - we talked about it and it felt very much over. I don't forgive - I don't believe in that concept, but I do understand, and so we moved forward. During his birthday weekend several months ago had mistakenly admitted to me that he went on the Sniffies site - to, and I quote "Just look at the pictures". Major red flag. Suddenly after years of trust he accidentally admits he on a cruising site, saying he just wanted to see pictures....yeah, on an interactive cruise site. BS. I start to do some digging around his digital footprint (which I'm exceptionally good at) and found he had two Tumblr accounts he never told me about, two different email accounts that he never mentioned and that he looks at porn non-stop. This was devastating to the trust we had formed and I let him know. Many times I let him know. We started to get into huge, dark fights but in the past four months since the discovery I've come across zero emails/mentions of hookups - none, but I don't trust his ability to say no if sex would be offered. I think that because we are monogamous he doesn't want to break that up, and we both still have an amazing (really amazing) sex life. I am still fighting my paranoia and still haven't built up the same trust - and I don't know if I ever can, but we are extremely open with each other and have talked through this issue ad ad nauseum. We will see where it ends but daily I'm cautious and protect myself above anything else. Having this come up later in a marriage/relationship was not expected, but I'll be damned if someone is going to cheat on me and get away with it. We will see what happens.

I'll go deeper into detail on this story above at a later time, and would like to get feedback on it (not now, please, wait until I tell the whole story in another post) but relating to stevendaily's post I will say this: the leopard cannot change his spots. Your husband has shown all the signs of having a double life and all the signs of keeping it from you. Don't be a sucker and don't let love and a feeling of obligation keep you in a dark relationship. Honor yourself first, because he clearly isn't honoring you first.

Good luck, and don't be afraid to take a leap, make a change. Come up with a good plan but leave room for adaptability. There's a great Ray Bradbury quote that might help: "Sometimes you have to jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down.”
 

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Have you shared your findings with your counsellor? If not, do so at your next session. Then ask your counsellor what the likelihood would be of your husband changing his behaviour such that it is acceptable to you.

Were I your counsellor, I would tell you to wake up and smell the coffee, because I don't think that he will change. In his mind, he feels that you will continue to tolerate this.

Before you do anthing, speak to a lawyer about property rights and divorce in your state. Know your financial rights first. Also, you might want to know if he has been siphoning money away from you, if he is suspicious of you leaving, and, filing for divorce.
 
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