I'm not really sure what came over me, but last Friday, I went to the house and told H that I thought he was cheating on me the whole time we were married. I had little to base this accusation on, so I was very surprised to hear him say, "Not the entire time."
The only details I got were that it was a hookup (sounds like he found her on Craigslist??) she was a lot bigger than me, and he hates himself for doing it. I don't know the exact timeline, but it happened sometime either during or after his old NCO came to visit in 2016. After the guy visited, the entire dynamic of our marriage changed. H has basically been depressed since then, and I always thought it was brought on by his PTSD, but knowing that he also cheated around that time adds a new perspective to things.
I asked H if he wanted to get divorced prior to him cheating, and doesn't have a clear answer. I told him I forgave him for the cheating, and he seemed angry about that. He said he doesn't deserve forgiveness and doesn't think any other person would even consider forgiving him. At some point, H started crying, gave me a hug, and said he really cared about me and that he didn't want to hurt me anymore. Later, H was back to talking about how he doesn't love me and is so much happier that I'm not a part of his life anymore.
The following day I went to pick up the kids, and things were still very tense. Somehow, we got talking about the relationship, and I mentioned again that I really didn't care about the cheating. I told him I was more upset about how indirectly he communicated the issues to me--nothing was really out in the open until after he asked for a divorce. I also told him that there are many couples that recover from full blown affairs and go on to have happy marriages.
Then, he says, "I almost want to say let's get legally separated, but not divorced...we'll keep separate houses..."
He didn't really get to finish his thought, because I interrupted him to ask what would happen if I got a boyfriend. He said we could get divorced then and that he doesn't really care what we do, as long as he can get his ring tattoo off.
To top things off...I had a pretty intense plumbing issue at my new house over the weekend, and H volunteered himself to fix it so I didn't have to take a day off of work. It took him six hours and he had to call a plumber. He says it was no big deal...
So now I'm really confused. I still don't believe him when he says he doesn't love me, and the timing of him bringing up legal separation (right after I said it was possible to have a happy marriage after infidelity) was either a bad coincidence, or he's actually entertaining the idea of reconciling in the future.
At this point, I'm not really sure what I want or what's going on... I'd like to discuss legal separation with him again and try and figure out where he was going with it. This is actually the second time he made me feel like he had some doubts, but I could just be reading too much into it.
