Ex is begging me back and it's crushing me.
My husband of 20 years left me a year and a half ago after falsely accusing me of lying and of infidelity. I've never lied to him or been unfaithful in any way. I also have never engaged in cheating adjacent behaviors. It came out of nowhere and has left me grieving deeply. He turned into a mad man right before my eyes, screaming in my face, cussing me, throwing and breaking things, waking me up at night to fight, telling me I was lucky he didn't hit me and wishing death on me. While all of this was going on he was also contacting multiple women friends of his and shit talking me relentlessly with them which made me feel incredibly betrayed by him and by them as I also considered them to be friends. He refused to go to couples or individual therapy the entire time, saying he shouldn't have to go to therapy when I'm the problem. He moved to another state and we divorced.
He cheated on me about 6 years into our marriage during the hardest time of my life. My mom died unexpectedly and 13 months later my grandma died. I discovered explicit nude photos of him not 20 minutes before my grandma passed which left me devastated. I was deeply mourning my mom when my grandma fell ill and the idea of him having cyber sex with an ex girlfriend during one of the most vulnerable times of my life still makes me cry. I would have left him then but didn't possess the emotional strength to do so. He wouldn't go to marriage therapy then and I ended up just swallowing my pain and moving forward. So for him to falsely accuse me of lying/cheating and walk out on our marriage when I was able to move forward when he actually cheated only poured salt in a gaping wound.
He has recently been in touch as he's now unemployed (as he frequently voluntarily was during our marriage) and coming up on the end of his lease. Besides his parents house he has no plan B. He is begging me to have him back so we can work on things. I've told him that I don't trust him not to do this to me again, that he devastated me and told him that without therapy, there's no where to start in even thinking about repairing or rebuilding in any capacity. He's sworn he'll never mention the accusations again if I let him come home which doesn't fix anything. In the same breath he told me he still thinks I'm a liar and was unfaithful but that he can forgive and forget. He went as far as to say that he doesn't think I ever really loved him because if I did, I would welcome him back with open arms.
I'm still so hurt by him but unfortunately I still care about him. I'm steadfast in not taking him back or moving him back in but my emotional health is suffering. I am in therapy and have a great therapist but I don't know that there's enough therapy in the world to prepare for this kind of thing. Im sure some of you have gone through something similar and hearing from you would be helpful.