Do you find that a lot of things make more sense now that you know that was underlying everything?
Yes, it does make a lot more sense. In some ways, it makes it easier. As in, I recognize that the reason he refused to give us another chance is because he was involved with someone else already. I do wish he'd been honest from the beginning, though. I had really gotten to a point of peace with everything that had happened and was really, truly happy with how my life was. In fact, 30 minutes before I found out about his infidelity, I had sent a text message to a friend who had just found out about the D saying that I felt we had gotten married to young, I was happy and at peace, and was really looking forward to the future. I feel like I've started the cycle over at square one now.
H now knows that I know about his A. He called me two days in a row to talk/vent about some drama that's going on in his family because I'm the "only one" who understands them. He apologized for dumping all of that on me and I said, "Oh, it's ok. I'm just reading some funny quotes on the internet. It doesn't bother me at all." He asked me what kind of quotes, so I read to him a quote from the OW's Pinterest board. It was a quote that he "liked." It said something along the lines of, "I'm not mad that you lied to me. I'm mad that you insulted my intelligence." We also had a coparenting conversation where I dropped lots of hints about what I knew, the wedding planning in particular. So, he called me Friday morning and said, "I need to tell you something, but you have to promise me you won't get mad." I responded, "You know I'm not nearly stupid enough to promise I won't get mad when you start a conversation with that." He told me that he had started seeing someone, but that nothing had happened yet. I said, "Oh, yeah, I know. You started seeing her almost a year ago. I even know that you f^&*ed her in our camper 47 weeks ago." He told me that he knew I knew, but wasn't sure how. If I Google their names together, it is the very first search result.
He claims a few things. First of all, he says that he didn't know her 47 weeks ago, so that can't be accurate. He also claims that they just started sleeping together a couple of months ago, after the last time we were together. He says that they aren't planning to get married or move in together, that it's just a joke between the two of them. He says that they didn't kiss for the first time until after he already told me he wanted a S. Of course, I believe absolutely none of this. Because I asked, he also confirmed that the OW does NOT know that he and I were still sleeping together. I'm sure that information would put a little wrinkle in their relationship, especially since he told me she specifically asked and he lied to her.
So, my feelings are all over the place. I'm hurt and angry. I'm so angry with myself for not seeing what was in front of me. I feel so stupid. He manipulated me repeatedly. When I would become suspicious about an OW, he would say something like, "As much as I've already hurt you, don't you think I'd just tell you if there was?" I feel like my sense of self has been knocked off-kilter and that's really hard for me to cope with. I don't think it is something that has ever happened to me before.
I'm also really insulted. I'm attractive, smart, highly educated, kind, a wonderful mother, classy, compassionate and all sorts of other things. He's given that up and chosen someone who actually has a social media account where she used the word "hussy" in her username. That's what he thinks is better than me??? He did say to me that I'm better than she is in many, many ways, but that she's just "different."
I asked him to have her take down her board dedicated to my D7, which she did. He took down all of his Pinterest boards without me even asking. I also asked him to ask her to take down her board that was dedicated to him (because it had things like close up pictures of a couple's tongues engaged in a passionate kiss) with descriptive comments from her to him. I told him that I felt that it was disrespectful and if she had any class at all, she would take it down as he was still a married man. She did not take it down, but she did at least remove his name from it. I think the fact that they were both willing to publicly humiliate me is one of the worst parts. He claims that neither one of them knew that the information was so readily searchable or they wouldn't have done it because they weren't trying to hurt me. He says that she is a "good person" and she feels really terrible about it. Yup, because good people regularly sleep with other women's husbands.
