I was married for 20 years, and in a very unhappy and emotionally abusive marriage.

[Spartan]

I was married for 20 years, and in a very unhappy and emotionally abusive marriage. I wanted to get out, but at the time I realized how bad the marriage was, I was a stay at home parent with four children and a 15 year gap in my resume with barely any work history, as I'd started having children quite young.

I'd done all I knew to do to fix the marriage. Counseling. Books. Seminars. Things never changed. I went to our pastor and told him I thought I was being abused. Nothing changed. I became increasingly more depressed and hopeless. I tried to leave a few times, but chickened out because I was too afraid of the effect on the kids and my ability to support them financially.

I stayed. But, I decided I would stay physically for the family, and start an affair to distract myself enough to “make me stay.” This seems illogical, but I knew if I stayed without having an affair, I wouldn't be able to endure the pain of the marriage. And I wanted above all else for my kids to have an intact family, which was my “ideal” at the time. Looking back, I can see that shouldn't have been my goal. I should have not been a coward and left at that time.

I actually ended up having SEVERAL affairs over a span of five years. Very long term monogamous affairs with kind and compassionate men I'd met on Ashley Madison. They were all single men, oddly enough. I didn't want to carry the burden of interfering with someone's marriage. I was already carrying the burden of stepping out of my own.

Three years ago, I had met a married man on AM. He was also married for 20 years and had four children. He was a successful family man, and a very devoted husband and father, but the breakdown in the marriage had him in the exact same spot I had gotten to. He was depressed and hopeless. In a good year, he'd have sex with his wife four times. She was a hypochondriac and only discussed health issues with him, and incessantly. He was so unhappy, but like me, didn't want to leave because of the children. And he too knew having an affair was the only way he could stay.

I actually told him I only dated single men. But, I made an exception and met him to talk. That day changed the course of both our lives forever.

We made an agreement that we would be in an affair until my youngest child was grown, which was six years from that time. And, at the end of six years, we would go our separate ways and I would leave my husband. My affair partner didn't want me to be in an imbalanced relationship, where I was single and he was married. So, we agreed on that, and it was actually my idea to put those parameters in place.

We structured our relationship in such a way that time with our children and spouses were not affected. We communicated via email or messaging app and met during the workday for lunch, coffee, and times at a hotel once a week. Things at home could appear to be “normal” and we both still played the parts of spouse and invested at home as needed to maintain the facade.

Within three weeks together, we fell madly in love with each other. It was the most amazing and terrible thing in the world simultaneously. Our relationship was the most phenomenal I'd ever known, in every possible way. He was the most kind, brilliant, attentive, emotionally intelligent man I'd ever met. He treated me with such respect, and invested in our relationship constantly. He mandated daily calls to and from work, do we would spend two hours on the phone together daily, and we messaged each other constantly.

Several months passed by, we were so in love, and both cried when we were apart. It started to get to the point where we were in such pain being apart, we didn't know if we could endure having a relationship any more. We discussed breaking up. But we didn't want that

We both knew we couldn't endure the pain of being apart (heartache is a real thing, we found out) forever and it was at that time he proposed that we should leave our spouses to be together. I thought he was crazy.

We agreed to a plan. He would leave his spouse first, as he didn't want it to be a risk for me to leave first and end up with him getting cold feet and leaving me in the lurch. I had shared with him that I'd had at least four false starts and wasn't able to get the courage to leave my spouse, and that I understood that may also happen to him. I gave him several opportunities to back out with no repurcussions. I told him if he thought he could fix his marriage, he should. He insisted this was the plan and what he wanted.

Before the time came for him to implement his plan, my husband at the time was very abusive to one of our children and threatened the child with a dangerous object. I knew at that moment I couldn't stay anymore. So, I told my husband to leave and he moved out.

Now, this is the part of the story that actually gets insane.

My affair partner had a misfire when it was time to tell his kids about the divorce. His wife literally grabbed his leg while they were headed out to tell the kids, and one of the kids came into the room.

He felt so guilty that he stopped talking about the divorce after having two months of discussions with his wife and beginning the process.

But, he didn't want to lose me, so he started lying to me about the story.

He told me about the incident, but then proceeded to tell me about their future discussions with the kids, that they'd told family members, he'd gotten a townhome, etc. All the while, I had no idea this was all not true.

He moved out a few months later to a townhouse which I helped him decorate and build furniture in,etc. We shared a custody calendar with each other so we could plan our time together on days we didn't have custody.

For eight months, we had an amazing time in our new life on the other side. He met my friends, we went on trips, he stayed with me, I spent time at his townhome, he had told his children about dating me, and I would meet them soon. Things were amazing.

And then, a chocolate bar changed the course of everything.

One day, I had bought a gift for his child's birthday and was planning on giving it to my affair partner when we saw each other later that day. The gift included a chocolate bar, and it was a very hot day. I had been running around to stores and was getting tired of having to worry about the chocolate melting. So, since I had a key to his townhome, I decided to drop off the gift.

When I got there, my key didn't work and there was someone else's furniture in his townhome when I looked through the sliding glass door.

It was at that moment, my world fell apart. I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. He didn't live in his townhome anymore.

I realized that for about two months, he had been coming to my house and said he liked the way my house felt, and his felt very temporary. It was more convenient for me to not have to travel to his house, so I was fine with that. I thought nothing of it, as I'd been to his place 30 times at least.

I called him and confronted him about not living at his townhome. He told me he'd run into financial issues and had moved in with his dad, but was ashamed to tell me. I found it odd that he would be having custody time with four kids in a one bedroom apartment with his dad!

Over the course of the next three days, I made him open all his accounts to me and share his Google location with me. I began to investigate. Everything.

I confronted him about everything I found. A message from his ex mother in law saying they'd spent fourth of July together. Why would you spend a holiday with your ex's family when you were divorcing?

I found emails from therapists saying his wife was worried about him.

I found marriage counseling appointments on his calendar.

I found his dad's address and drove there, finding no one in the apartment and drove by my affair partner's old house and saw his car there.

And, finally, the last blow…I accessed his Google map timeline and was able to track EVERYWHERE he'd been for basically eternity, and saw that he had never actually moved out of his house. He was only at the townhome when I was.

I promptly told him to go f*ck himself and broke up with him.

We'd been together for 2.5 years at that point. And it was all over. I went over the past 8 months of my life and realized most of it had been a lie. He had started to get very flaky towards the end, and it all made sense now. He had been living a complete full set of two separate lives.

We had little contact over the next few months. He was remorseful. Told me he was a coward and he could not pull the trigger. He knew he'd lose me if I knew. He figured eventually he'd get the courage to follow through, so he'd gotten the townhome to push him forward. But, he got stuck in the middle of keeping all these plates spinning and ended up not having the resources to make any sound decision. He had gone almost mad.

I gave him space and started to date to distract myself. He went into therapy and worked on himself. I lost 15 pounds in three weeks. I missed him so much and cried sometimes for entire days at a time. He was equally devastated and cried constantly.

Two months later, he sent me an email to announce he'd made the decision to leave and that his marriage was not salvageable. He had no desire to work on it. He loved me, but knew we may never be together again. He was leaving for himself. He moved out a week later.

It's been five months now, and we've decided to make it work. It's been very difficult. He is going through a divorce. He's at rock bottom in his life, as he lived almost a complete year of insanity.

We go to couples counseling weekly, he continues his therapy, and we've joined a 12 step group for codependency together. Through our work we've realized people pleasing kept us both locked in prison for way too long, and it's what caused him to misfire. He has an issue putting his own needs first.

As a stipulation for our relationship, he must have complete transparency with me. This involves location sharing, he's gone to email only communication with his ex and I am able to observe it, I have access to all social media, email accounts etc. We are working towards building trust.

I love this man with all my heart and soul. I'm choosing to stick by him as he recovers his life. He is the most amazing man I've ever known and I have never felt so cherished by a man. We will marry one day. Relationships aren't always pretty or perfect, but I believe ours is worth it. It's a once in a lifetime chance to have found the connection we have and to have the privilege to spend your life with the one who completes you in every possible way. We've found that. And don't intend to let go.

 

[Myth1]

Chocolate bar milk or dark or white ?  

[tacobell fan]

Just now, Myth1 said:

Chocolate bar milk or dark or white ?  

Milk

[Myth1]

4 minutes ago, tacobell fan said:

Milk

 

[Spartan]

e story evaraina chadivara...

[Bahu]

42 minutes ago, Myth1 said:

Chocolate bar milk or dark or white ?  

ho chocolate bar fussy meda esi lick cheyyala ...oh my gawd 

[stag]

matter in single line plz. or atleast highlight masala lines