Advice needed ....

Gaia

New Member
This is my first post, so i will explain what has brought me here looking for advice. Once again (4 days ago) i came across the social media accounts, chat logs, the ads on gay mens chatrooms looking for 'porn buddies', the intimate pictures he sharef and the history of porn sites on his mobile phone. It?s not the first time.
I confronted him .... again, and again he tried to lie his way out of it. Eventually he admitted a fraction of what i had found ... its always the same process. The tears, the excuses, the promises. And then i find more. What hurts is the lies and the betrayal. Lies screaming in my ears.

The comments that he made to other men and women and the intimate images he sent to them are etched into my brain, i see them every time i try to sleep.

Im trying to focus on work, but that involves supporting vulnerable and abused women - including women who have been forced / trafficked into porn and prostitution. I have spoke to him so many times about the abuse these women experience, what that industry does to them, what men like him do to them, and still he does it.

We have been married almost 5 years and it feels like it has all been a lie. I have tried to support him, but then he repeats the behaviour. I dont know what to do, i dont know what i should be feeling. I am numb. He has reconnected to SA and is reaching out for help. I cant help him.

I am full of anger, hurt and despair. He wants my support but i dont know if i can go through this again, supporting him, forgiving him, brushing aside my own heartbreak. Building myself back up when i feel used, dirty, never quite good enough.

We have no option but to live in the same house, but we are separated since this latest incident and i have said we need to stay separate for at least 6 months to give me time to sort out myself and my job, i cant afford to move out. He needs to focus on his recovery - without me.

So i have to protect myself, everytime i see his phone in his hand, every day i am at work and he is home alone, every night when i go to sleep worrying that he is watching porn or chatting in forums.

He wants me to trust him, but I don?t know how. I am scared.


 
I'm so sorry you are going through this. I'm new here and am not quite sure about advice... but I would say it is not your fault and that you deserve peace and happiness. Also, how wonderful you have such a meaningful profession!! Good for you! Your partner is fortunate to have you. Sound like a quality person.
 
So hard to deal with these situations, with the deception.  I was married over 20 years to a stranger.  He has never changed.  The promises to change were constant and his cover up was daily.  I don't know how often he really went to work.  He had hidden phones, hidden accounts on all kinds of social media under alias names.  He had multiple credit cards I didn't know about.  All for his constant indulgence.  Your situation may never change.  It may seem like it has off and on but they just get better and craftier on hiding their double life.  If this is the fear & deception you want to live with the rest of your life? You need to be firm in your decisions and commit to yourself first of all.  I have such regret for staying so long. 
 
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