Fairy Tales are for kids

My SA addict hubby and I met 13 years ago in school. I was young, and nieve and believed in fairy tales, prince charmings, and happy endings.

I fell crazy, madly in love him. We had a very passionate beginning, and also very intimate. We did have sex rather quickly but it was also very intimate. Many nights of staying up all night talking and connecting. He did tell me of a very sorrid sexual history, including sex with his step mom and an older baby sitter as a teenager, but I thought nothing of it. I thought the step mom was wrong and he was sexually abused, but it was not a warning sign. I liked how open we were with one another. He was so sweet and romantic and so complimentary. He had a baby daughter I adored and who adored me quickly. We were very competitive in school, and we both interviewed for the same position. I got it, he did not and it was an hour and a half away. I moved there and he came up often. We couldn’t bear to go long without seeing one another. I lobbied to get him a position there in the same city and a year after we started, we moved in together. Our relationship remained very passionate and romantic. There were many nights of candles, dancing to soft music, massages. crazy sex in the apartment jacuzzi and pool. Often and everywhere. We were already talking marriage and children. We married three years into our relationship, two after living together. We eloped and got married in Grenada and honeymooned there. It was idealic and perfect. We even had a double rainbow in the background of our beach wedding photos. We consummated our vows before our reception . We also started our first round of IVF on our honeymoon. We had already had three pregnancy losses together, and he was very loving and caring through every one. Our first round failed and during it we started having nasty fights. He would throw things and break them and the hormones made me behave crazily as well. I chalked it up to stress and hormones and figured we were so passionate everywhere, it was no surprise we were passionate in fights as well. We did a second IVF shortly after the first failed. I lost my job. He was fired for sexual harrassment. I believed his claims of innocence. I was so crazy in love and we seemed so perfect in most ways that I just believed him. I got pregnant naturally sometime in there and miscarried again. We fought more regularly, but made up very sweetly and passionately.We moved back to his home town and started our third cycle. I had a suspicion one night when he didn’t show for an injection, that needed to be timed and he was un reachable. He showed up to my tears and worries it ruined the cycle, and his story was fishy, but I dismissed it thinking my hormones were making me crazy. We were married a year at that point, together four. The cycle worked and I got pregnant. First with triplets, but two quickly didn’t make it. We were on cloud nine. A few months into our pregnancy we started house hunting and bought our first house together. Did up our nursery and I was so unbelievably happy. I had gotten a job as a supervisor in a local hospital making a lot of money and he was in an office where he was happy. Regular hours. He was home by 4 every day. He was helpful around the house. We shared responsibilities and were so excited to be getting ready to welcome our son. We felt like truly partners in every sense. He was beyond happy to have a son on the way. He supported me when after the baby was born, I couldn’t return to work. I couldn’t bear to leave my long awaited baby. We took a major financial hit, but he supported me in my decision. Life was so happy. We were great parents together. He helped out with the baby. I felt as if I had won the lottery. I loved being at home with my baby. Cooking dinner every night and having it in the table for him when he got home. The sex was still great and although less than before the baby, frequent and fulfilling. When the baby was 18 months old he was again fired, this time for anger management issues. But, he was trying to support my decision to stay home and got angry at his boss for going back on some agreements so I felt it was justified. I went back to work nights when he asked me if he could start a business and not work for anyone again. With no income we couldn’t do it so i went back. We were home together many days and I worked at night while he cared for the baby. The business took off after a few months and I again stayed home. We Were making more than ever and started looking at an upgrade in homes. We found our dream home and started renovating it by ourselves. I was less help than he wanted because I had a toddler at that point and it caused some friction. I also wanted another baby. He did not want to go through the IVF again and he had two kids already. There started to be some stress in our relationship and he approached me and asked if he could go on a fishing trip to mexico with the guys. I was fine with it but as time approached, I found out he was going to cancun and staying in a five star hotel. We fought. He chose to go anyways and then was unreachable the entire trip. I had mad suspicions and went through his computer when he got back while he slept. I found pictures of him with another woman( all G-rated but in several different outfits and times of day) and checked his phone records and tracked down her number. She was vacationing in cancun from texas. I spoke with her and she assured me he was just a really sweet guy that helped her after she was mugged there. There was nothing to be concerned about. His story was the same, but I was bothered by it for months. Then he did a huge romantic gesture. Got a hotel room and had lets have another baby written all over it and rented Knocked up. It was a very romantic weekend and I got sucked away from my suspicions and focused on planning another IVF cycle. Things seemed good between us again. We cycled. I got pregnant. We were ecstatic and then all hell broke lose. When I was three months pregnant he picked a fight, stormed out and disappeared over night. I became suspicious and checked his email records. He was having affairs with four women. One of which he had taken on a dive trip I bought a few weeks before as a christmas present. I was humiliated and devestated. I arranged for his friends to go on that trip. I called them and worked it out and he took another woman on a trip i bought him and around his friends. And was sleeping with three others. I left him. I was in tears. Devestated. My world was shattered and I regretted getting pregnant when I had suspicions months before. I cried non stop. Even more so because I had no choice but to go back. I was a high risk pregnancy and could not work. I had no money and no way to support myself or my older son. We entered marriage counseling and continues to go over the course of a year, but I had already developed PTSD. I spent hours searching phone records, checking his texts. Put a GPS unit on a car. Couldn’t focus on being a mom to my new baby at all. I did okay, but not like the first time. I was in a fog and terrified at any moment he would hurt me again. And he did. He cheated again and I found a video he had that he sent to another woman. I left again. This time he managed to convince me that I was crazy. It was true he cheated before, but he wasn’t then. He swore up and down he was good and I was crazy. I believed him and cried constantly thinking I screwed up my kids lives for nothing. I had to return to work when I left. Had to stop nursing my baby, and to make matters worse, barely saw my kids. He got them every other weekend and half that summer. I hated what I did to our lives. I am surprised I didn’t get fired from my job from crying so much at work. He claimed the first round of affairs were because I pushed to have another baby and the stress from the business and the renovations and that they weren’t present the second time I left. The only thing wrong was me and my inability to let it go. I chased him. It was sick. He forever blamed me and I chased and begged and pleaded. He openly had sex with other women and dated some. Told stories about threesomes and I still chased. Eventually he promised to give me another chance( puke.) We started working on our marriage. Things turned around for us rather quickly and we moved back into together yet again. Everything seemed perfect. I forgave him from his first round, accepted I was a crazy bitch the second and we were happy. Life was perfect again. He was the doting husband and I the doting wife. We were back to having sex like when we first met. The intimacy was mildly lacking, but I thought that would return in time. We were happy. Our kids were happy. Our business looked good. Then six months later our boat was repossessed and I came to find out it was because he had an affair with our office manager and out of spite when he quit sleeping with her, she quit paying the bills. The same night our boat was repossessed, and before my knowledge of the reason it was lost. I heard some texts come through in the middle of the night and decided for some reason to look. It was a woman asking when he was coming back into town to stay the night again. I wrote back as him saying he was back with his wife and very happy. I wasn’t coming back. She responded ” you weren’t saying that when you were pulling down my panties and begging me for more” I then told her it was me. She clammed up and she was one of the girls from the original time so I was unsure whether she was referring to the present or the past. After that, I put spyware on his phone and the truth came out. He was having sex with two of our employees, and someone else. A girl we went out with one night because he knew through work her and thought her and I could be good friends. We had kids the same age, liked the same books and movies, and were both in the healthcare field. I went ( this was all around the same night as the boat) and I looked over one and saw his hand up her skirt with me there. I immediately called him out on it and he denied it. Later when I read the texts, they joked around about it later. About how exhilarating it was to be doing that with his wife right there. They met for a quickie that week. I knew because of spyware and kept my mouth shut. Acted like nothing was wrong while I made my plans to leave. He came home and kissed me like nothing was wrong. Kissed my boys after screwing her not minutes before. Cuddled with me that night like nothing was wrong. I did at one point voice suspicions regarding her and he assured me there was no way. I am the most important thing in the world to him and the months we had spent apart were the darkest in his life. He would never ever jeopardize our marriage for a piece of a$$. I let it go. Planning my escape. Reading explicit texts about his escapades with four other women. Then the baby call came. I was already planning to leave when a girl he had sex with during our separation called and said she had a six week old daughter that is his, too. They did a rush paternity test and it is. All week he spent begging me not to leave him over her. He can’t live without me. I am his rock. his life. his world. He was so sorry and knew that it was hurtful in many different aspect because of my infidelity and that I didn’t get my daughter. But he gave someone else one. He knew all of that and begged and pleaded. I said many times over that I would only leave him if he was still having affairs. He claimed he was not but I saw he was. Often. Even the day he went to meet the baby, he had sex with the mom amist begging me to not leave him. He disappeared the weekend before I left in a drunken slobbery mess. He stumbled in the next morning reeking of smoke, booze, and women. I asked him then if he had a sex addiction, a drug addiction, drinking problem. What the hell was going on with him and he denied it all. I left that week. I moved out ( rather than make him leave)because of issues each other time with keeping him out in his drunken stupors and fits of rage. That week he stayed drunk, slept with more women than he can remember and tried to commit suicide. He was in a mental hospital but still managed to pick up a patient there and had sex with her the week he got out.

Since then we have been on and off. I can’t kiss him. Haven’t since a month before I left. I can’t look at him most days. He has hurt me several times since I left with promises of change and recovery and backslides. A month ago I told him I was filing for divorce because he was still going out to bars, partying with friends. Disappearing with sorry excuses and I wasn’t seeing enough improvement to continue on.

He walked into his therapists office the next day claiming he is ready to change. Ready to recover and wanted to do whatever it took. He has been going to 12 step meetings. WEnt to a retreat and an intensive. Is being apologetic, humble, sweet, loving, kind. He is buying flowers and making dinner, cleaning up and leaving. Coming over to fold laundry and then leaving. He is paying for me to go to a trauma intensive in a few weeks, because my ptsd is out of control. I can’t sleep because of the nightmares and during the day flashbacks are common. At one point during the last few months, we did a full disclosure with my therapist and he has never been faithful. Not even when I thought my life was perfect. Not even before we got married when we were having sex multiple times a day. Not when we were trying to have our first baby. He has never been faithful. It was certainly not as frequent. Once or so a year, but it was still present. I am trying to stay open to the idea that if he is able to fully recover, working on the marriage because I was so happy for 9, almost 10 years with him. Even that is tough because it seems like such an illusion now. I wonder how many of our romantic trips he was planning his next conquest. How many times I layed in his arms content from a love making session was he planning a tryst with someone else? I begged him after the first one to never do this again because I hurt so bad I couldn’t take anymore, and here I am three years later with more women in my head than I ever dreamed possible. My loving, romantic, passionate, funny husband was not what he seemed back then and the past three years I have seen a raging monster. An evil person who has humiliated me and my children. Who has broken down doors when confronted about women and who has called me evil names. It seems like the romantic, sweet, and caring man is back. But, he was never as he seemed. Many days I wonder how I could have lived so many years without suspicion. How could I have not known? How will I know in the future, whether it is with him or without him? My trust is shattered. Not just for him, but I don’t know about trusting anyone again. I was so in love with this man. I thought we were best friends. We had so much fun together. Our families loved each other. His sister was my best friend and I adored his mom. And my family loved him so much when I originally called my mom when I found out she told me my pregnancy hormones were making me crazy. When I assess our first 9 years together, I had two times of suspicion. One very fleeting. The second only a few months before my actual discovery. Other than that, I never knew. So, I guess, I really only had one minor fleeting suspicion over a nine year span. Even looking back, I still can’t really see clues. No lapses in time or money. No sexual lapses. No feeling of loss of intimacy before the cancun trip. No real tell tale signs. I now see his sexual history should have been a warning sign and his sexual abuse as a kid. But, not everyone who has been sexually abused turns into a sex addict. I was molested and raped as well. I didn’t. To me, we just seemed to have THAT trauma in common.

I have been in the middle of what feels to be a hurricane the past three years. He seems sincere right now, but even if he makes a 100% recovery and becomes the perfect man for me that I thought I married, I do not know if I will ever be able to forgive him and trust him to be my spouse again. Time will tell. I am cautious right now, to put it mildly. I am hoping time will give me answers , but right now I can’t even see a love story. I cant watch a kids fairy tale. I think it is all such a ridiculous notion. I was so silly for believing I had mine for 9 years.