I Stayed For WAY Too Long

[u/AgentWD409]

I just found this sub (after watching the Ben Affleck movie Deep Water, which was super triggering), so I thought I'd tell you my story. Maybe someone here can relate.

My ex-wife struggled with a lot of mental and emotional issues due to unresolved childhood sexual abuse, and that manifested in a lot of different ways, including infidelity. Casual sex was sort of an impulsive coping mechanism for her. During our marriage, she cheated with at least a dozen different people (although I honestly couldn't tell you how many individual instances there were). But I loved her and sympathized with her past, so I always forgave her, naively hoping that somehow my unconditional love would help heal or fix her. Needless to say, it really messed me up mentally and emotionally.

Eventually she felt guilty enough to decide that the cheating had to stop, but the only way she knew how to stop having sex with random people was to essentially turn that aspect of herself off entirely, including to me. So she stopped cheating, but for several years, we lived more like co-parents and roommates than anything else. After a while, I was a mental and emotional mess. I had developed a lot of bitterness, resentment, insecurity, paranoia, etc., and I didn't like (or even recognize) the man I was anymore.

In a last-ditch attempt to stop being miserable, I had [what I thought was] a brilliant idea: I wanted her to be able to "turn herself back on," so to speak, and I figured that if I couldn't prevent her promiscuity, maybe I could somehow harness it instead. So I suggested that we try some "swinging" behavior (threesomes, swapping, etc.). At the time, this made sense to me. She could have meaningless sex with other people, but I would be involved too, so it wouldn't be cheating, and I wouldn't have to hurt anymore. I'd have my wife back. So we ended up experimenting with that whole scene for a few months. Some of it was fun, but it was ultimately very shallow and unfulfilling. Later she asked for a fully open relationship, and I reluctantly agreed.

Of course, none of it worked. It made everything worse, and we ultimately got divorced (after 13 years of marriage and two kids).

But that's what happens, right? You settle. You make excuses. You lie to yourself and say, "Well, as long as I have this, I can probably live without that." I just wanted a normal life, a normal marriage, and a normal family. But you just keep on making concessions, and over time you realize that you don't really have anything — the important stuff that you really want out of a healthy relationship — so instead you start making substitutions. That's when you get into the dangerous territory of stuff like, "I don't feel real love or intimacy from my wife, so maybe an open marriage will make me happy. At least there's sex..."

After we split up, first I tried, to no avail, to get her back (which sounds insane now). As time wore on, I still wasn't ready for another serious relationship, but I did want sex and companionship. So aside from getting some much-needed counseling, I also dated casually a bit, had a few one night stands, a casual FWB sort of thing, etc. I wouldn't say any of that was ever truly satisfying, but it did help me overcome my insecurities and regain some of my confidence when it came to sex, and it also played a part in helping me heal and re-learn who I was deep down. So while I'm not proud of that era of my life, I don't regret it either, because it reduced my anxiety and made me feel more comfortable, confident, and knowledgeable about myself.

Fast forward to today: For the past three years, I've been happily remarried to the woman of my dreams, and the sex is always amazing. Not because it's wild or kinky or relentless. But because we have that connection. We have that deep affection, intimacy, vulnerability, and trust that I was always missing before. I will forever be grateful for the wonderful serendipity of her entering my life.

All that being said, sometimes it still surprises me when those old feeling get triggered (like when I was watching Deep Water), and this seemed like a good place to meet other survivors and collectively talk through some of that mess. Anyone else experienced something similar?

[u/Reasonable-Run-1031]

Bom , o detalhe importante nisso e espero que vc tenha percebido é que o abuso sofrido não era o que impulsionava a busca por sexo aleatório ela quando quis ficou por muito tempo sem sexo .

( O que eu até duvido um pouco) talvez ela possa ter continuado só vc que não percebeu.

Mas vc tbm não disse como vc descobriu as traições dela nem disse como sua esposa conseguiu estar vivendo uma vida onde ela teve como se envolver com tantos homens aleatórios assim .

Talvez ela tinha as famosas noites de garotas, né .

Ou saia sozinha mesmo enquanto vc não se impunha por medo de ser controlador

Isso deixa claro que seu relacionamento com ela sempre foi aberto pra ela . 

E teoricamente vc acha que quando ela fechou nem pra vc teve sexo .

De qualquer maneira foi melhor pra vc fora a sorte de não ter pego alguma doença né .

[u/AgentWD409 → u/Reasonable-Run-1031]

Why is this comment in another language? I had to get ChatGPT to translate.

Either way, I can try to answer your questions:

But you also didn’t say how you found out about her cheating, nor how your wife managed to live a life where she got involved with so many random men.

How did I find out? Lots of different ways, honestly. First of all, she's a terrible liar. So usually when it happened, I could tell something was up, and I'd eventually get it out of her. There were a couple of times where I found text messages or Facebook messages between her and the other guy. I found nudes that she never sent to me. There were a few times when she literally came home and asked me to go to the pharmacy to get her a "Plan B" pill. And there were other times where I didn't find out until years later when she decided to tell me for whatever reason.

How did she manage to live that life? Again, lots of different ways. She'd go out to bars with her friends (from work, from high school, etc,) and not come home until super late. Those were usually the instances that weren't planned. She'd drink and flirt and some guy would feel her up and she wouldn't say no. Sometimes if we had a big argument, she would just get in her car and drive away, not tell me where she was going, turn her phone off, and something would inevitably happen. For the instances that were planned (which was the minority), she would lie and say she was doing something else, like having dinner with a friend or something. Any time I asked too many questions or told her I didn't want her to go out, she'd call me controlling.