L
I have been with my husband for 11 years, married for 8 and we have 3 amazing children. Trouble started as early as 6 months in to our relationship when I found nude pictures of women on my husband' s computer, as well as sexual webcam and instant messenger chats. I caught him engaging in this behavior more times than I can count over the first 5 years of our marriage, as well him emailing and calling women he had dated. Each time I would make a discovery, he would accuse me of snooping and tell me that the only problem was my insecurity.
In addition to these behaviors he was also very verbally abusive and refused to be physically intimate with me more than a few times a year. He also had no interest in going on dates, vacations, or accompanying me when I had to undergo surgery. He basically abandoned our marriage from the very beginning. I begged and pleaded with him to get help and to go to counseling with me and he always refused, saying that if I had a problem I should just leave.
In fall of 2011 I made the biggest mistake of my life and carried on a month- long affair. After discovering my affair, my husband and I decided that we wanted to save our marriage and in December of 2011 we began seeing a Christian counselor recommended by our church. She was a Godsend for us and for the first time I felt we truly had a marriage. We put God and our marriage first. I repented my affair and my husband apologized for all he had done to hurt me, admitting that he had never really wanted to be married, but now he did. It wasn't all perfect, there were nights we would cry and cry about the pain we had caused each other. But we were healing and loving with one another. Our communication improved tenfold and the verbal abuse stopped.
Things were great from early 2012 until early this year, when the verbal abuse began to pick up again, but this time was also aimed at our oldest son, as well as me. We had not gone to counseling in over a year and a half, so this past July, my husband agreed to begin counseling again.
All was going pretty well, until the first week of September when my husband left h is email open and I found emails fromwoman, including naked photos. The emails that I saw began in early 2012 and the most recent was received in August of this year. At first, he denied knowing who she was, then admitted that he had started talking to her in 2012 about my affair. But he said any emails received in the last year or so from her were probably spam. I was unable to follow up on this, though, becuase he immediately went through his email and began deleting things while shielding it from my view.
I felt betrayed. I felt like all of the apologizing he did on therapy and all of the reconnecting we did with each other and God was all a sham. He had continued carrying on the exact same behavior that he had admitted was wrong and apologized for, without ever really stopping. When I told him how upset I was, he said that I have to understand that he did it because of my affair, and I need to believe that he isn't currently doing anything wrong and get over it. Then he threatened that if I didn't immediately drop it, he would divorce me because he was tired of it. He also refused to go back to counseling and the verbal abuse continues.
I did see our therapist alone and she told me that my husband is a classic abuser and he never has given me a reason to trust him. My problem is that I want to be right with God. I don't want to leave if it' s not what God wants. I have prayed and prayed for guidance and clarification with this and have yet to receive and answer. Things are ok right now, as long as I just agree with or ignore my husband' s verbal hand and I don' t bring up the fact that I feel betrayed or untrusting. But I also don't feel like I can trust my husband or feel loved or as if my feelings matter to him. I do love him though. I feel he has many problems and wish he would get help and actually truly submit to being helped, rather than pretend as if he is healing when he is secretly continuing the behavior. I just don't know what to do.
In addition to these behaviors he was also very verbally abusive and refused to be physically intimate with me more than a few times a year. He also had no interest in going on dates, vacations, or accompanying me when I had to undergo surgery. He basically abandoned our marriage from the very beginning. I begged and pleaded with him to get help and to go to counseling with me and he always refused, saying that if I had a problem I should just leave.
In fall of 2011 I made the biggest mistake of my life and carried on a month- long affair. After discovering my affair, my husband and I decided that we wanted to save our marriage and in December of 2011 we began seeing a Christian counselor recommended by our church. She was a Godsend for us and for the first time I felt we truly had a marriage. We put God and our marriage first. I repented my affair and my husband apologized for all he had done to hurt me, admitting that he had never really wanted to be married, but now he did. It wasn't all perfect, there were nights we would cry and cry about the pain we had caused each other. But we were healing and loving with one another. Our communication improved tenfold and the verbal abuse stopped.
Things were great from early 2012 until early this year, when the verbal abuse began to pick up again, but this time was also aimed at our oldest son, as well as me. We had not gone to counseling in over a year and a half, so this past July, my husband agreed to begin counseling again.
All was going pretty well, until the first week of September when my husband left h is email open and I found emails fromwoman, including naked photos. The emails that I saw began in early 2012 and the most recent was received in August of this year. At first, he denied knowing who she was, then admitted that he had started talking to her in 2012 about my affair. But he said any emails received in the last year or so from her were probably spam. I was unable to follow up on this, though, becuase he immediately went through his email and began deleting things while shielding it from my view.
I felt betrayed. I felt like all of the apologizing he did on therapy and all of the reconnecting we did with each other and God was all a sham. He had continued carrying on the exact same behavior that he had admitted was wrong and apologized for, without ever really stopping. When I told him how upset I was, he said that I have to understand that he did it because of my affair, and I need to believe that he isn't currently doing anything wrong and get over it. Then he threatened that if I didn't immediately drop it, he would divorce me because he was tired of it. He also refused to go back to counseling and the verbal abuse continues.
I did see our therapist alone and she told me that my husband is a classic abuser and he never has given me a reason to trust him. My problem is that I want to be right with God. I don't want to leave if it' s not what God wants. I have prayed and prayed for guidance and clarification with this and have yet to receive and answer. Things are ok right now, as long as I just agree with or ignore my husband' s verbal hand and I don' t bring up the fact that I feel betrayed or untrusting. But I also don't feel like I can trust my husband or feel loved or as if my feelings matter to him. I do love him though. I feel he has many problems and wish he would get help and actually truly submit to being helped, rather than pretend as if he is healing when he is secretly continuing the behavior. I just don't know what to do.
). As long as he's not acting on it, I'd try to work on the marriage. I know that's not the advise your looking for, but its just my opinion. If there's verbal abuse, try to communicate and encourage him to stop that behavior, while simultaneously trying to eliminate what ever is upsetting him to the point of getting so angry. No blame, but it sounds like you've both had trouble devoting yourselves to each other, your past actions suggest wandering eyes. jmo