SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Dday Nov 2024 I moved into a separate bedroom; I discovered that my WH had used 8 dating apps during our marriage, found evidence of dates he went on with Tinder matches, and discovered a long term EA partner Whatsapp message thread that goes back years.

His response has been to be enraged, saying I violated his privacy (I didn't) that my harsh reaction to "one thing" he did is way out of line. I told him I want him to tell me the truth of our marriage, act like he's sorry, and tell me what changed that I can be sure he isn't that guy anymore. He flatly refused, said he wouldn't respond to an ultimatum, that I need to get perspective, that he can't even remember their names, that it was because of me he used the dating apps to find female friends, b/c I act so jealous and weird when he talks to women. He says he follows Stoicism and that he doesn't believe in remorse nor guilt as they are unproductive emotions. He says I shouldn't throw away all the value of our marriage just over one thing he did. He also won't say what the one thing is. He denies having sex with other women, he admits only to what I have evidence for, going out with other women he met on Tinder.

Any time I try to talk to him about it he gets vague and dismissive, saying he can't remember anything about them because they were so unimportant, that he just met for coffee or something, he can't even remember where, he told each of them he's happily married, he guesses he just missed female companionship and sometimes just needed to be with someone, anyone besides me. I don't even know if he saw any of them more than once.

He doesn't think I'll divorce him because we moved to Europe and that would be complicated and scary. Of course I never would have moved here if I'd known what he'd been doing all those years... now that we're there, he doubts I'd do something so drastic and inconvenient, we have this huge renovation project etc.

But I am doing it. Trust is gone, I have no interest in spending my golden years with an unrepentant cheating liar. I went to a lawyer and I'm moving forward.

Here's my biggest problem: I need to stop wanting him to be sorry. It's making me crazy that he just won't express any remorse. I should be glad he is showing his true colors. But I ask him to show that he cares even a little that he cheated all those years, and lied to me all those years, and wrecked our future and he just says " you're the one wrecking everything" and even says "No, I'm not sorry. You should be sorry." I can hardly believe that I even know this man, that we ever were intimate - I can't get over how callous he is. I am so angry with myself, too - why am I wanting this? He isn't sorry. I should be glad that i can just move on. Why do I feel such pain? Why can't I just see him for what he is (his dad was a secret bigamist btw), take him at his word that he's not sorry, and move on? I have to stop asking him for what he won't give - he will never express remorse, he handed me a letter that said he 'doesn't believe in remorse'. This man does not care about my feelings. It's all so shocking, our marriage falling apart essentially because he doesn't like that I found out about his serial cheating from 2012-2019.

I sure would appreciate any advice.

[This message edited by marriedaliar at 12:21 AM, Sunday, September 28th]

As a stranger reading this, his behavior sounds so outrageous that you need to seriously think of divorce. First of all he is a bully. Second, he is not a husband. He probably has a personality disorder, or several. Why would you even try to make sense of this? It is the ravings of a man devoid of morals.

My only suggestion is to leave.

[This message edited by Cooley2here at 1:35 AM, Sunday, September 28th]

I second that. This might be some of the worst behavior I've read about. You said you have a lawyer and you're leaving? Good. Don't look back. Don't expect a sudden show of remorse or sorrow. Don't ask for it. Read up on the 180, employ it, and get out of there ASAP.

I’m very sorry to read of your situation. Most importantly move forward with D promptly! You’ve suffered a real trauma and if you can, see an IC with training in betrayal trauma. Take care of you. Don’t try to make sense of his infidelity, you will never be able to understand it. There is no excuse for his behavior. He has no interest in changing his behavior. You can’t force him to do anything or control him. You only control yourself. It’s time to value yourself.

Implement a firm 180. Do not engage or argue with him. He will only try to hurt you. Become a gray rock and give him nothing to argue about. Get support and protect your financial status. Good luck moving forward with D.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 1:32 AM, Sunday, September 28th]

So very hard to get your expectations from someone who is not capable of meeting them. I would recommend going to individual counseling for YOU to help with your emotions through all of this. He is not sorry, he will not show regret or remorse. He has told you this. Believe him. His actions have already demonstrated them. IC is for YOU. I found it helpful to move forward in a way I would not have been able to on my own. It was worth the time, money and effort.

Take care of yourself at this time. Think of him as a house mate at this point and start emotionally separating from him. He caused all of this, do not let him make you think any of it was you.

Use his lack of remorse as the fuel to your resolve to divorce him. He’s a narcissist. And his lack of remorse makes him a probable sociopath. He’s not willing to do the work and he’s putting you at risk. If there are no children involved then cut your losses and gtfo.

I understand why you are asking him to be sorry. You want to feel valued and know that you mattered as much to him as he mattered to you.

Unfortunately he’s not that guy. Either you did matter but he’s too stupid to admit it, or you just didn’t matter enough for him to be monogamous.

And I doubt he has stopped his lying cheating behavior. It sounds like it continued to this day.

He has some very odd ideas of how a marriage should function. I’m certain there is one set of times for him but a different set of times for you. It sounds as though if you cheated, he would have ended the marriage immediately. Him cheating? In his mind that’s ok.

I agree about seeing your own counselor to help you process this trauma. And I would be prepared for a messy D as it sounds like your lying cheating spouse wont be too pleasant when he’s no longer in control of situations. And you instigating a D means he’s lost control of you.

Thank you for your responses. I feel less alone and less confused. I am an intelligent and capable person,I have held very successful roles in big companies and was an entrepreneur who sold a company. But I feel like I have been reduced to the horse in Animal Farm, the one who works all the time and makes excuses for the increasingly fascist pigs in charge, until he dies literally in the traces. I've become so small and fearful. It is isolating here. I have been in IC since February. I started joining groups to meet people. I met with a lawyer August 29 and got my own bank account set up last week. I am scared he's going to get nasty but I'm going ahead with the divorce. He has unilaterally changed the terms of the marriage and I want to be free of him. He has behaved badly in other ways beyond the dating apps. Financial abuse is complicated to extricate from by I am doing it. Unfortunately I will have to live in the same house for a little while longer - we live in one unit while others are being renovated, it will be another couple of weeks before I can move into one. Then I will not have to interact with him on the daily, I will live up the road from him and can be grey rock.

My goal in therapy is to be less reactive. He's like a vampire that feeds on my tears. But if you met him, you'd be shocked. He seems like aa friendly, smart, handsome low key guy with a lot of interesting skills. You'd never guess how he treats me. And in fact, he'd object and say he treats me well.He "forgets" the unbelievably cruel things he says like when I said you were on Tinder, it's not a dating app its a hookup app. He said, Tinder is a tool. I said, yeah, for single people. He said, well I never really wanted to be married, that's why I said no the first time. I only said yes to make your parents happy. This is an especially heinous lie. He literally asked me, when we were dating, to be the one to propose. Said he expected it. And I planned out a great proposal, it was super creative. I was so proud. He told the story for years and years. My parents did not want me to marry him, they didn't like him but hid this information from me. But they were suspicious of him from the start, and he has only spent maybe 5 days in their presence in the 20 years we were together so no, he wasn't doing anything "because" of them, he ignored them and didn't mind me being cut off from them. He says things like "I never wanted to be married in the first place" all the time. tHen when I burst into tears, protesting he's never said that before he says "There you go again, taking it the wrong way, you always get it so wrong, I love being married to you and I love our life but that doesn't mean that I've changed my mind about marriage." My whole life is one long list of conversations like this where he says something so mean and stunning I cry, then he tells me I'm taking it wrong. But never apologizes or walks it back. I feel like this marriage has deteriorated my brain.

Saying sorry shows you care. I'm guessing your want him to show remorse so you can believe he still cares, even just a little bit. He doesn't.

You are still there. Still married. You made demands,he refused, yet you are still there. He knows he controls the relationship.

Until you do something to take back your power nothing will change. He has zero motivation to change.

Until you can bring yourself to make the tough decision to file for divorce AND keep the process moving forward he will continue to control the power in the relationship. But I'm willing to bet that if you do file he will acquiesce a little bit and you will falsely believe he is willing to change. And then if you stop the divorce process the relationship will instantly revert back to what it is now

This is not a relationship, it's a master/slave arrangement.

It didn't start out that way. It became that way in increments, speeding up in 2021 and getting progressively worse. Learning my options in a foreign country adds to the difficulties. It is tricky getting my share of the cash assets because he has made it tricky, but I'm forging ahead, I need control of my $ before I present him with the agreements the lawyer needs his signature on, so he can file our request for divorce with the civil registry. Calling it a master-slave relationship makes me feel really judged, by the way. Maybe you meant to maybe you didn't but I didn't ask for any of this. He started treating me like garbage as soon as I found out about his secret double life. It's hard to adjust to the fact you aren't important to your spouse. I'm absorbing a lot right now. I've been slowly, inexorably cut off from my support system. It's like he hypnotized me. Now I'm awake. I'm pissed. I'm grieving my wasted investment in time and feelings and resources. Reading this message board helps deal with the shame of being conned by a master who perhaps never loved me at all, as he was doing these behaviors - dating apps, texting women etc - for the entire duration of our marriage. We have businesses together so it's really incredible to me how he carried out this secret life, my dumb naive trust must have made it so fricking easy. Anyway maybe I deserve to be judged, I just want to be done with this pain. It's super hard to let go of the dream, we've been working on this place for 2.5 years, it's been really difficult beyond anything you can imagine (I lived in a ruin with holes in the roof and no electricity or flush toilets for 17 months). All that work and we're not going to live here together. It's sickening.

Please don’t feel judged. You are supported. We have all been there with the same thoughts and emotions and pain. You are a faithful and committed partner. Take pride in your efforts and you are not a fool. You trusted your WH as any partner would. His cheating and deception is all on him. All of your remodeling work is not a waste. You will get value from the experience. It is hard to come to grips with the reality of infidelity in a long term relationship. We all proceed at our own pace. Posts that seem harsh often are intended to motivate and encourage you to move forward out of the painful situation you are in. You should not feel judged. We are here to help you survive and thrive after infidelity. I hope you have a shark lawyer to help protect your interests. Good luck.

It’s so interesting to look back at a relationship that seemed to be perfect and becomes anything but. A friend and I were discussing another friend today and it became apparent to both of us that we had been slowly pulled in by a helpless, sweet natured woman, who became everybody’s child. It took me looking up things on the Internet to settle on the fact that she was not just one person. She was passive aggressive. She had covert narcissism. And she most definitely had a dependent personality disorder. None of that was evident when I first met her, and by the time I realized that I was as deep in this friendship, I was so busy taking care of her that it took my children, telling me what she was up to before I finally let go.

Your husband sounds like a charming man who is very good at hiding his true self. I don’t know if he’s a sociopath, but I’m going to tell you one thing that they are very good at if he is one. They learn very young in life what your facial expressions are. They learn when you get upset and how you behave. All of this is going into his brain, not as a way to be an empathetic and sympathetic person, but as to be as manipulative and selfish as possible and get away with it. The reason you’re having so much trouble dealing with him is because you keep remembering what he acted like when you were first married. That was not the true him. The true him is this horrible human being and the faster you get away from him the better off you are. You were pulled in by his charm which he could teach classes in.

You are a victim. He could let you lie on the floor dying and be frustrated it is taking so long. The sooner you get away from him the faster you will heal.

[This message edited by Cooley2here at 7:31 PM, Sunday, September 28th]

Thank you everyone. I appreciate every comment. I was sort of shocked how consistent they were, it makes me realize how much of my sense of self/trust in myself I have lost, that so much is so apparent to everyone but me. It's so much pain. And he whistles as he walks around the house. It's hard to be grey rock as this place is so small we are never more than 15 feet away from one another. My nervous system calms when we are pleasant and goes into overdrive when he refuses to look at me or answer me. It's just another rejection - that's how it feels. It shouldn't matter, I am leaving him. But it hurts and I don't know how to hide that. I cry. My voice trembles.And he's 15 feet away every night just letting me cry it out. Of course I should leave. Of course I should. I'm taking the next major steps this week. I expect next time I check in I will be living separate from him and the divorce underway. My first husband died and it was a terrible sadness, but this is even worse. I don't want to be cynical about love. I don't want to hate him. I just want to be safely underway in my post-divorce life, with some feeling of stability. I know lots of women (and men) have done this before me and I know I can do it but I'm really sad about it. I'm mad too. But sad.

If you can keep this book away from him, or download it, read The Gift Of Fear. It is extremely good at explaining why we override our ability to suspect something. I have not read Why Does He Do That so don’t know if it is appropriate. Also read The Body Keeps The Score. What you are doing right now is letting him "stab" you over, and over, and over. He does not need a knife. Every time he demeans you, makes you feels small or stupid, you are getting the emotional equivalent of a physical stabbing. It is truly harming your body. Please get out as soon as possible.