Introduction

[TJT]

NO cake-eating. NO sleeping with him, or letting him hang out or long talks on the phone, or chummy chats.

Yeah, none of this has been happening for like a month now. He's not even trying to come to the house so that's not an issue, and definitely trying to figure out the insurance thing.

I don't really know what you hoped to gain by continuing the convo after that, I guess you were hoping for a heartfelt apology but you've got to understand, you are NOT going to get it.

I think either way I would have needed to confront him, otherwise I really didn't have any proof/validation of what happened. That's what I wanted to gain, and I only got that from him admitting it based on the clues I had and the way I positioned it as me "knowing", police style I guess, to get his confession even though I really didn't know. Sure there were other clues and the credit card but that still didn't validate what happened in my home, and we all know if I had acted before any of that based on a "hunch" it would have gotten turned around on me even worse, with the added disadvantage that I didn't have anything to back myself up. At least this way when he initially tried to backtrack from his guilt and turn some of it on me, I knew with more confidence that it truly wasn't my issue at that point, even if he hadn't told me everything in full. I think I would have questioned myself a lot more and had a harder time setting boundaries if I hadn't gotten that confirmation, or some other hard evidence some other way. Now he knows I know the truth rather than the made-up story he's been telling me (and himself), and I think it was important for him to see the pain that caused instead of continuing to protect himself from the impact his actions had on me.

I had asked him why he did all this and continued to lie and turn things on me before if I was really right, and in typical contradictory fashion he just said he didn't want to hurt me, which I know just means he was guilty and didn't want to own up to it for the sake of his own ego.

All this being said, my prior comments about him being avoidant, etc. continue to come back here, and I do realize that no matter how much is "proven" to him or how much he is put face to face with his own demons, he may never come around to change anything. Despite all the hope I try to keep alive, I don't think I'd be completely surprised at this point if he didn't.

It baffles me how people can go from a stable life to making such terrible choices and it does bring more insecurity than I'd like to admit because I start to think, wow, am I horrible to be around? Am I actually a bad wife? Of all the things he could be dealing with, was there really nothing he cared about losing in our relationship? The logical thoughts and these feelings living in parallel to each other are a nightmare.

Also, the fact that it seems this happens more frequently than I ever thought has me super scared and pessimistic about long-term relationships and whether they are even possible in reality. I know that's a whooole other thread but given what's happened to me, I'm doing that thing where it's like, well, if this doesn't match my understanding of the world, maybe my understanding of how the world should be is wrong (loving, long-term monogamous relationships where men do have a deep emotional attachment and commitment to their wives). I say that because what I've been hearing more and more about PAs with men is that they apparently really don't have capacity (not my words and something I'd like not to believe) to understand the importance of doing such a thing and the devastation it causes. "Sex is sex" and they don't really see a difference who they do it with. I really hope that's hogwash, but just laying it out there and what I've been trying to work through in my mind with all of this. Fun times.

OK well we would have advised you against 90% of what you did, but it's water under the bridge at this point. No more of this though, you're just adding insult to your own injury. You know he's a lying cheater, there's nothing more to learn or explore about that, right?

Point noted. I'm sorry guys... I will do my best to be better even though I guess what's being said here is maybe some things would have been different already had I not done some things. Would be much easier if there were little DB angels on my shoulder at all times!

It doesn't necessarily mean D, but you do need to make sure you are financially protected

I don't know what other option there would be besides filing in order to be financially protected. TX doesn't recognize formal separation. Are there other ways? As a side note, we agreed not to get lawyers involved in terms of drafting a decree - we already decided how we would split stuff and would like not to spend thousands of dollars for someone else to decide if we can. I know that doesn't mean I can't go get legal advice regardless; I did talk to a lawyer before to confirm based on TX being community state, and they said as long as we agree on the split of debts and assets, a judge will approve unless it seems crazily off-balance which is rare. And I think it's highly unlikely he would change his mind and decide to hire a lawyer and fight me on things because I don't know where he'd get that money or to be honest, what else he would even want from me. Knowing him and his behavior, it WOULD surprise me if suddenly he lit a fire under that ,and I just don't think the ROI would be there. So yeah, it's mainly just any shared debt issues in terms of him not paying or defaulting to where a collector could come after me that I want to avoid.

Without filing for D and being prepared for the end to actually occur, I feel stuck between hell and somewhere even hotter, hah.