First off, this is long so I apologize. I need counseling, but until that happens I'm going to vent here. I hope to get support and advice in this group, and to hopefully return the favor.
I don't believe my husband will cheat again. Since I found out about the affairs, he has allowed me to have his passwords to his emails, social networking sites, and has allowed me to keep a key-logger on his computer. He gave up his friends who were ex's, gave up his best guy friend whom he thought was a bad influence on him, and has changed his phone number. He only goes out when I go with him, and has gave up drinking which was another culprit. He has shown great remorse, and has made amazing changes. It is obvious he doesn't want to lose me, loves me dearly, and will do whatever it takes to save our marriage.
Yet the pain and the anger remains in my heart. It has messed up my head. I feel crazy sometimes; crazy with being over-controlling, jealous, insecure, and with the unknown answers to questions that keep nagging at me. Why did he do this to me? What was wrong with me? Why couldn't he just love me? Who else did he cheat on me with? How far did he go with his cheating?
We have been together for three years, and have been married for almost 9 months. I found out 3 months ago that he has been cheating on me throughout the entire relationship. I have been worried throughout the entire relationship, because although he showed me so much love; he was always super protective of his privacy. Protective over what he did on the internet mainly. He would tell me how he didn't want me on any of his accounts when I would try to give him passwords to my accounts. He figured if I allowed him to have mine, then I would want his.
I'm talking things like Netflix so that he could watch an instant view movie, and he would make me put in my password instead of me telling him, which I thought was ridiculous. We have been living with and dating one another for 3 years, and married for several months, what's the big deal? So I told him he could have all my passwords, that I didn't care and had nothing to hide, and he refused. That was my first clue that something was seriously wrong.
I hacked into his computer when he went out with his best friend one night. I assumed I would find nothing, and that he was just a privacy freak. By the next morning I had all of his passwords. I started to investigate things off Facebook first, on a different computer away from my husbands in another room. Right away I caught him messaging a chick in real-time. I found out that the night previously when he went out with his best guy friend, that he actually met up with his ex girlfriend for drinks. In the messages he was making our marriage out to be a sham. They were also talking about old times when they use to sleep together. Anyway to make a long story short, he was trying to meet with her again, and she was telling him yes but only as friends since he was married. All he said to that was "I understand, besides I don't want to make you cry anymore". This was 7 months after we got married.
I go into his email next, and find naked pictures of his ex's that they have been sending to his cell phone during our entire relationship. They all had dates on them, and they all showed that they were sent to his email from his cell phone. We are talking like four different girls at least. The last pic was sent 3 months before we got married.
Then I find a saved messenger conversation that he had with yet another ex of his, that was asking her to sleep with him again. He told her sex with her in the past was awesome, and that he couldn't stand me or my kids, and that he didn't want to be stuck with me. He told her he was saving up money to move out on me. She told him no because he was in a relationship and that it wasn't right under the circumstances. He told her "well if you change your mind and want some of me in you let me know". This was 8 months before our marriage.
Anyway I jumped the gun, because if I had just waited it out a few more days, I'm sure the key-logger would have picked up on proof that he was sleeping with or had slept with someone else. I was so angry and hurt though, that I left the house and cried to him about it over the phone, because I couldn't face him; couldn't face this stranger that I thought I knew. That gave him enough time to get rid of further evidence I'm sure.
So I found out that he was trying to sleep with an ex, met up with another ex behind my back for drinks, and that he was getting naked pics from multiple ex's for the past three years. Nowhere did I find that he actually slept with another woman. So I wonder if he did, and feel in my heart that he must have, because he was obviously trying to, but that it just didn't get saved into his FB, messenger, or email messages. He has only admitted to things that I have found out, and that I have provided him with the proof of that knowledge. The only other thing he has admitted to me was that he watches porn every chance he gets. When I leave the house, take a bath, or just exit our room for awhile, he is watching porn.
Regardless, all of what I did find out was still cheating. It's so much harder, because I know he loved me. He swept me off my feet from the start. He has always been so romantic, charming, and sweet. Always saying he loved me countless times a day, singing to me, writing things to me, telling me how beautiful I was, how lucky he was to have me, and so on. Now he does all those things still, but now allows me to keep him on a tight leash as well, and he's happy to do so, because he doesn't want to lose me. So it's so hard to deal with this, to figure out why he did this to me. At least with most affairs it can be explained... there wasn't enough sex from the wife, he didn't love his wife, they didn't get along, they didn't see one another enough, and so on. We didn't have any of those problems.
His answers for why he cheated was "I don't know why." "It was just stupid." "I don't know what was going through my mind." "I never actually did anything; I just wanted to see if they actually would send pics, would say yes to sex, would meet up with me; it was a power trip nothing more." "It had nothing to do with you; you didn't do anything to cause this". I know that there has to be a more legit reason to why he did this that he won't say. think one thing is evident, that he was a sex addict.
Anyway, I try not to bring it up too much because he'll sometimes ask with annoyance "Are we going to still talk about this years down the road?" I am trying to work it out because I love him dearly, can't imagine life without him, and believe in him that he will never do this again. Again though, I don't know how to forgive him for the past, as I can't seem to move on, and I imagine the hurt will only get worse. I'm guessing that we will need marriage counseling eventually.
So how do I get past the hurt? How do people move past something like this? I almost always feel like crying, and I'll have meltdowns when I do burst out into hysterical sobbing. My broken heart can be compared to the pain of losing a loved one, which happened in a sense.