After a roller coaster of a year, I am left at a complete loss. I can't tell if I'm depressed, angry, hateful, jealous, free, or still in love - among 100 other emotions.
Here's my situation..
With my H for about 10 years. Married 5. We each have a child from a previous relationship, and they are very close.
About a year ago, fall of 2015, my H began acting out of character. I will add now that he is bipolar, so initially I suspected a manic episode approaching, although in the entire time we've been together his manic streaks were never off the charts. The spending, talking about himself in the grandeur sense, talking endlessly on fixated subjects, up late at night online browsing and making "wish lists"... but then other behaviors like not coming home after work, disappearing for hours on end, bringing his phone with him while he showers, turning it off at night. My suspicions grew but he denied. Then he came home one day in November saying he wasn't sure that we were in love anymore and that he was considering a separation. He needed to go away, camping with his buddy for the weekend, to clear his mind and think... well when he came home it was the ILYBINILWY, we should separate, and that he would begin staying a few nights a week out of the house. I asked him if this was about some one else, and he said no it was about us.
Feeling blindsided, you might guess that I did everything wrong. Cried, pleaded, promised, cried cried cried... his explanation was so generic, and none of it true, as if he was trying to rewrite our history to justify what we both knew he was doing. He said we were having problems for years and had grown apart... not the truth. I asked him if counseling would be off the table, and he said that we could go after the new year, as long as it was with his personal long time therapist (that he sees for his bipolar). So I agreed. He also didn't want to tell any of our family. He said we would need our privacy and telling everybody would affect any possible outcome for us.
So I tried to get through the holidays for the kids, keeping everything in, even though it was really hard. He would say that he was staying at a male coworkers house on the nights that he wasn't home. A coworker that I had never met and had no way to contact. After I found out that this coworker wife recently had a baby I became suspicious that my H was probably not really staying there. So I started to snoop and I ended up finding a slew of the letters that a female coworker had written to him. All of the letters were dated and extremely descriptive. One letter in particular was dated the weekend that he had gone "camping". I was so crushed. Actually I can't even come up with the words to describe what I felt in that moment. Like my insides were ripped right out of me. So I confronted him and he reluctantly admitted, although maintained that nothing happened until after the weekend that he stated we would be separated. It was just really great timing for him to meet somebody almost immediately. I wanted so badly to believe him, I must have convinced myself that this could possibly be true. Even though deep down I knew there was no way.
I wanted answers. I went through the same cycle of crying begging pleading etc... he said that he would stop everything with her so that we could try therapy but that he would maintain staying out of the house a few nights a week and every other weekend. Once the new year came in therapy started it was a very long and strenuous road. Our session consisted of him talking and talking and talking, going back and forth on his confusion, getting nowhere, and basically The therapist trying to get him to say whether we were going to be working on things or not. My H kept saying he loved me so much and that he would always love me, and that he felt like he didn't deserve me. I brought up the OW, and the therapist suggested individual sessions in addition to our sessions together.
I kept going through that cycle of crying and asking him what he wanted. He knew I had nowhere to go so he played it to his advantage and dragged this thing out the entire year. Turns out, that what is quite obvious to everyone but me, was happening - he never stopped seeing the OW. The entire time. Even after found out, and confronted him, and he said he didn't want to try with us anymore, that he was moving out... he still stays at the house a couple nights a week... still sleeps in the bed with me.. we have had intimacy a few times, but the cuddling and affection has mostly faded off. Just us sleeping next to each other. He stopped contributing to the mortgage, which is forcing us to sell or go into foreclosure since I can nowhere near afford it on my own. His spending has been so beyond our means that I started snooping again... i found out he's been taking drugs with her, mostly ecstasy and a new street drug called pink that I never heard of. He has also brought this girl around his family and friends, and is already talking marriage with her.
All that time I felt so isolated and alone, and he was carrying, spending holidays with her and everything. At this point I have told my family, and everyone is devastated. My dad said that he feels evetythjfn was done deliberately by him as to facilitate living a double life for as long as he could... family life and kids with me, partying and single life with her. He wanted to have his cake and eat it too...
But why? I know the OW is about 10 years younger than me, and apparently "model hot" from how he described her to his friend.... as horrible as it feels for my marriage to go through this, it hurts so much more to feel like I wasn't enough.
I keep asking him if he is really moving out and if so when, but he keeps saying he doesn't know. When he texts me he still calls me "babe" and "sweetheart" and says I love you ... I feel like it could be just him manipulating me, but for what at this point? Part of me wants to just move away and start over... but why is there still a small part of me that doesn't want to give up on us?
