Maybell XXVI

[Maybell]

Labug, I feel unclear about what you're getting at.

I feel like on the one hand I'm starting to see that I was treated unjustly for a long time. I feel like that's true and the message I'm getting from people who've known me a long time (mostly my brothers) is that they could see that my H was kind of just along for the ride, that he wasn't invested in being a good dad and that he was satisfied to let me do all the work while he stood around and told me what I was doing wrong.

(I never had the nerve to ask if he was cheating when he did something unexpected, but I did ask "where that came from" and he gave a very unspecific answer. Considering I knew about the porn and that he was around a lot of entitled single guys in the job before this one, I suspected someone might have "taught" him that stuff but didn't want to pursue it for fear of learning the truth.)

I know for certain that he cheated and lied for a very long time. Two years that I know about.

I know for certain that he went to a LOT of happy hours and dinners and parties and traveled a lot and that he frequently called me from late at night outside bars in the middle of the week. Also that this happened at least once a week and sometimes several times a week. Also that this happened over a period of years, but that it escalated in the last five years.

I know for certain that he promised me he didn't want a relationship and wasn't going to date the very same month he set up the Tinder account.

I know for certain that he intentionally didn't ask my opinion about moving to the west coast because he didn't want to take my opinion into account. He has told me this is so.

What part of all this is self-fulfilling prophecy? Why should I think there is any possibility at all of reconciliation when he was perfectly satisfied to treat me this way for years, and probably would have carried on for years more if OW's baby daddy hadn't outed him?