4 months into trying to reconcile
Hi… it’s me again….. the BW who longed for her WH to get out the hospital to try to reconcile our marriage. I guess this would be a 4 month after update.
After a good chunk of seeing positive progress, things started to feel the same again….. and yesterday, I discovered he has been on and off Facebook since returning home from the hospital 4 months ago after him saying he would take a year break from social media. I can’t lie, I saw it coming.
Things started feeling strange again between us.
It started with TikTok because he was getting bored of YouTube reels. I said it would be okay, because I chose to trust him.
Then a coworker asked him to get discord again. He gave me the username and password.
Then him making comments about instagram even though he didn’t have one anymore.
I got curious and looked at his email and saw Facebook was logged onto again. I got onto it and checked the activity and all it was was just searching me…. And a lot girls who weren’t me, including one he didn’t realize I knew. I couldn’t see messenger so I don’t know if anything was ever said to anyone.
Then I found out about the second instagram… the one I never knew about until I found out he was cheating….. and a girl he had searched was following him.
Knowing the answer and having my evidence already I foolishly asked “you have Facebook back?”.
He told me he was just curious what’s new and was deactivating it then. All I said was “promise?” And of course, he promised…..he asked if I was okay and I told him “it’s weird being curious what’s ‘new’ on Facebook and that last time I heard that from someone they used it to just search girls.” He offered me his phone and to which I declined stating no because of last time I went through it. I would find something.
I tried to get into another email, but it sent a code to his phone; frustrated he sent the password. I asked why not just send the Facebook password, and he did.
I already knew the answers but he still ranted about not trusting him and how I would never trust him. Then it came down to me flat out telling him I was right, and asked who specific girls were. He said an old friend and one who he searched multiple times was an old fling.
Turned into me repeatedly telling him I’m fine, that my world wasn’t crumbling, that I’ll be okay and in the end I can’t be mad or upset because I chose to stay in this marriage. He kept telling me he was hurt but I made sure that he knew we wouldn’t be focusing on HIS hurt, and that it didn’t negate the fact that what I found was true. He apologized for continually breaking my trust and consistently hurting me.
I’ve heard that before.
The same day,he picked up his kids for Fourth of July asking me for a happy family day. He was sad the whole time. I just stayed to myself sitting next to him, feeling him stare at me with the saddest eyes. I continually told him no sense in being sad, I’m fine and I wasn’t sad over it. I had a great time with the kids. I love them so much….
The night wrapped up. I went to bed, he slept on the couch.
This morning, he slept on the couch with kids, the other two were sleeping also, I kept quiet in our bedroom.
I get a text asking if we’re ever going to go back to normal and honestly the feeling I had was what is normal anymore.
I told him this
“I honestly don’t know. I don’t want to lie to you and say yes, but I also don’t want to tell you no. I’m not angry. I just don’t know what ‘normal’ looks like for us anymore.”
His response: “The normal was us laughing with one another, spending time together, watching movies in bed together, brain rotting together, and being goofy with each other. But yeah I figured. Then do you want a divorce then? Because I don't want you to live a life where you obviously don't know what to feel and you're just numb. I put my effort in, and I did what I had to do. I tried to show you my accomplishments and journey, and growth. But ultimately I knew it didn't mean for shit.”
I asked if he wanted to come to the room and talk, his response was no because he knows how I feel now.
I asked him how do I feel? He said don’t worry about it.
Me: If it’s that I don’t love you, it’s wrong.
I love you more than anything in this world. I’m hurting. Plain and simple.
Him: “If you can't even feel like we can go back to being our happy selves where we both were excited for your promotion, we potentially add a new member to the family. Our kitten, but now you are telling me that you don't know what normal is. All day You were telling me you're fine Now you're telling me you're hurting. It's fine, I get it. I'll drop it, and I'll get the kids ready to leave soon. And unfollowed me from TikTok, cool. You really don't like me much. Thanks.”
Me: Being fine and hurting aren’t opposites. I wasn’t lying to you. I wasn’t angry, and I wasn’t falling apart. I’m still not . But I’m still hurting from everything that’s happened. Those things can exist at the same time. I can still be happy and hurt.
When I said I don’t know what ‘normal’ is anymore, I wasn’t saying I don’t love you or that none of the good memories matter. I was saying I don’t know what our relationship looks like after my trust has been broken so many times through lies of omission. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.
I know you’ve made changes, and I’ve acknowledged them because they matter. But trust isn’t rebuilt by just effort…. also takes consistency over time. That’s the part I’m still waiting on.
I unfollowed your tiktok because I had a message request from the same girl trying to message me from instagram. I deleted tiktok in general.
I got a thumbs up emoji.
Next thing he comes to the room to get a charger and says he’s just going to get out of my life completely.
The last thing said to him was this:
Please don’t jump from me saying I’m hurting to saying you’ll leave my life. I don’t want to have to choose between pretending I’m okay and losing my husband. I need you to hear my pain without assuming I’m asking you to leave. I don’t want you to get out of my life. If I wanted that, I wouldn’t still be here trying to explain how I feel. I need you to understand that me being hurt isn’t the same thing as me not loving you. But I also can’t pretend the hurt is gone just so you feel better.
And it’s been silence. I don’t know where my marriage is. Are we separating? Are we going to be okay? Are we going to ever be ‘normal’ again? I don’t know.
What I do know is I’m tired. I’m tired of feeling lonely in the same room as him, not looking at my self in the mirror, not taking pictures of my self because I feel disgusting, not feeling heard, not feeling like the priority. I know I can’t control his impulsivity. I know I can’t tolerate this kind of disrespect again. When I chose to stay, so many people told me that the fear of it happening again would progressively eat me alive, and I’ve noticed it chipping away at me. Finding things like this again just makes it feel like the pieces missing of me are gone for nothing.
I don’t know what I expect or expected. Did I think he would really change because he loved me? Did I think that making myself smaller would keep the peace? Did I think he would be loyal just because he told me he would? Did I really believe him when he told me he “only had eyes for me?”
Probably all of the above.
So now, just like 4 months ago, I’m in my room alone while married, waiting.
Waiting to see if he comes home from taking the kids back to their grandmother’s.
Waiting to see if he wants to talk about things.
Waiting to have my feeling acknowledged.
Waiting to hear if we’ll be filing for a separation.
And waiting to feel like I’m emotionally safe with him.