u/Beginning_Figure185

10 year relationship, 2.5 year marriage. I wanted things to work but was driven to leave. I wanted her to put effort into the marriage the way I felt I had. I’d posted previously on this matter but it’s just digging at me tonight. I was accused of having a p*rn addiction and a repetitive cheater. I was neither. I got frustrated and left. She had turned cold on me. Since then, we’ve gone full on no contact. I’ve talked to zero women, I’ve not been watching adult videos, I’ve simply yearned for her to reach out to me and say “hey, I think I reacted too quickly, I got my parents involved too fast, I want us to work” but I know that won’t happen. I just know it. It’s constantly popped in my head that she’s been projecting towards me and she’s been the one that has been talking to others behind my back. It hurts. I grew up for our marriage, helped her with her disability, proviided, listened to her biggest fears, her flaws, her frustrations with living with so much pain. I’m the worst I’ve ever been emotionally. I’m seeing a therapist. I’m riding my highs and lows. I’m working out, I’m physically improving. I can’t shake the thought of my partner in crime, the one I’ve MAYBE argued with 6-7 times our whole time together just giving up on us? It doesn’t make sense. She’s staying in our apartment until the lease runs out in July. The apartment we were staying in until we received a family home from a will. I was told that if we got back together we would have to move out of the apartment due to the trauma, but yet she’s staying there until July without her husband? Where we’ve made so many incredible memories. I’m not claiming to be perfect but before all of this I claimed to be worth it. I believed everything she told me, I was thankful for everything she did for us and I thought we were on the same page. I thought we had our goals aligned and I thought we were going to do great things. Despite being told I could now pursue anyone I wanted, I literally only wanted her. I’ve proven all of her accusations false to myself. I hate the way this all feels. Friends tell me I will be better off once this passes and to not be hard on myself but if I wasn’t worth it for her, then who the hell am I worth it for? I invested so much time and effort towards her as she did me but all of the sudden, I’m not it anymore. I hope whoever gets her next treats her like gold because that’s all she has ever deserved is unconditional love. I hate the thought of her with someone else but I feel like it’s what I have to accept now. From the time she changed her relationship status to “Separated” to uploading a fb profile pic wearing a shirt that she felt too insecure to wear until I hyped her up to wear it and made sure to make her feel wanted. It’s just so much to take in. I type this out because I refuse to attempt to contact her. I’m just now starting to get some form of confidence back and I can’t handle being told how awful I am again. I just wanted us to thrive. I’ll be the villain of your story but a light to many others I hope. I’m struggling tonight a little extra but I will update once I’m over all this.

Hello, it feels odd even doing this but here it is.

The summer of 2016 I had met my soon to be ex wife, I was head over heels for her. To sum things up in a short manner we were never apart, we laughed, we ate good food, we were each others home.

Roughly 5 months into it (still 2016) I had worked one morning but had not heard from her. She usually woke up before me and shot me a good morning text every day. Well, she had a dentist appointment the next day. She left her phone with me and I recall going through it as if it was yesterday. She had slept in the day before because she had stayed up talking on the phone for 3 hours to a guy that had a girlfriend at the time of which I knew.

We discussed it, I was tore up about it, she was tore up at the fact that I was upset and we worked things out. Things were going to be okay.

Fast forward roughly 4-5 years later; I had worked one day, had not heard from her all morning and once I had got off, I called her. She said she was at the gym (which she rarely went without me due to endometriosis etc) and had asked me to come outside of my parents house of which I was staying at during the time. She was crying and saying “I don’t want to do this, I have to break up with you”

Now, was I hurt? Absolutely. I didn’t know how to respond. So a little backstory on me; I had an older brother get killed in 2007 and I won’t go into many details on that but I primarily focused on that instance. I was attached, I was abandoned. I compared her leaving me to that abandonment. That exact same day, I discovered my papaw had stage 4 lung cancer that had spread to his brain. He was diagnosed in July, died that October.

NOW, back to her dumping me. I had laid in the floor face down crying by myself thinking about my papaw, and how she wasn’t there for me when times got hard. I needed someone, so I reached out to a “friend” that I was working with during that time frame not knowing she had a thing for me. (Nothing interesting ever happened, she told me how she felt about me, I stopped talking to her) a week later, my girlfriend wanted to earn my love back but I was still so numb.

During that week away, I had put so much blame into her abandoning me that the way I looked at her had changed forever. I didn’t trust that she could be there for me so therefore I had started to talk to other girls, flirt, stay up and talk to them, etc. Not out of spite, but more so like a “I have a backup plan just in case” and I know that’s horrible.

I did that all that for the next 3 years. I had talked to multiple women but I had met up with 2 girls One time for each of them. In my young and dumb head, my thoughts were “If she’s done it to me, I can do it to her” I held resentment.

I had zero interest in these 2 girls that I had received oral from, but it was one of those ego trips of “I’ll show you”

Well, in 2021 I had gotten a better job, and I loved her family so I asked her dad if I could marry his daughter, despite the skeletons in my closet. We got married in October of 23. My most recent time of cheating? August 2023, I had cold feet. Would she do it to me again? Why am I doing this? I’m going to cancel the wedding on the day of I thought to myself, my dad had talked me off that ledge.

We get married, go on our honeymoon and all I can think to myself is “Did I make the right choice?” “Can I do this the rest of my life?” And the guilt of cheating. I’m not doing this anymore I had said. And I didn’t.

Well, December 2nd 2023. My wife received a message from one of the 2 girls who said “Hey, did you know your husband just cheated on you 2 months ago?” I had been caught, I had deserved it. I laid in my bed of shame that I had made.

I begged her to forgive me, I fought to stay with her because I really do love her. She said she needed time, we took a week or 2 away from one another. Discussed what we needed to do to get back on track. So we started marriage counseling as soon as we moved back in together. To be completely honest, this helped me A LOT with getting in tune with my emotions.

Things were going great, I’ve been allowed back to family events. I had everything I wanted. She went out of town, I drank with a couple of buddies, I messaged someone on tik tok and told them I was married but wanted this, that, and the third. Once I sobered up the next morning I panicked. Deleted everything (she was checking my phone non stop, rightfully so in my opinion) she had told me; no porn, no talking to other women or we are over. So I said yes ma’am 🫡

Well, I stopped talking to girls (even now a month after the split) and when I stopped talking to girls I started to feel this burning, loving connection with my wife. I wanted to be the one to help her feel more secure, I wanted her to know I was loyal and I could in fact, change my way. Which I proudly did for the most part.

When she would distance herself from me while married, I would let it slide the first year because of all the horrible I had done. Our sex life was inconsistent obviously while working things out so occasionally I would stray to porn and by occasionally I mean maybe 4 times within our marriage because after the first year we would usually do it 3-4 times a day.

This past December, I was hating my job, working 6 days a week, trying to be a provider. I gave her shopping money because she had quit her job 2 months into our marriage and I wanted her to pick out what to get for her family members. While she was gone I watched porn on December 12th. Post nut clarity hit and I instantly thought to myself, well this marriage is over. She kept tabs on my phone constantly so I did it with my laptop.

Welllll, about a month back, she texts me and asked to use my laptop for some Cricut machine craft she was working on. I knew I was cooked. I came home, she didn’t bring it up but I could tell she knew. I started to get irritated because she had gone cold and quiet, and then she finally brought it up…

It had been 6 months since I had watched pornography but it didn’t matter. I did it. I didn’t tell her about it. I blew up when she asked about it, I had blacked out, was mentally spiraling, and where she had gone cold. My person wasn’t there to comfort me for all of the messed up crap that I had done. I knew I made a mistake.

I was so upset that I gathered work clothes, broke a few of my own things privately, and then came to my parents house….

If anyone is enjoying this, I will keep going in a part 2 but I can’t keep my eyes open rn..