So let me see if I get your H's history straight......
In both his marriage and his R after marriage he was an innocent victim. XW was a narcissist and horrible. R after D was a cheater that talked him into an open relationship. Then somehow through all of that he ends up cheating on you.
I find it hard to believe that he was innocent in the breakup of his marriage and in landing himself in the open R afterward. You make LOTS of excuses for him, do you realize that you do that? Look at how you rationalize his MLC: The aging, the body not handling things, the stresses of work and home life, the crazy XW, the fixer upper home, etc. He's running from it all. Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. He's not the first one to go through all of that, and in fact others have gone through worse. And yet didn't cheat on their wife Stop making excuses for him. You need HIM to own his stuff just like YOU own your stuff. I know you added that he created a lot of the above, and that's a good start. Remember, life is not what someone goes through, it is how they react to it. Do not make excuses for him, it isn't healthy.
I've told the story of our friends, Larry and Melissa (names changed to protect the innocent and the guilty). Larry had been cheated on in his first marriage. Melissa had been cheated on and abused by her first husband. They got married, seemed happy, were our dear friends. They had two kids whom we adored.
About 10 years in, Melissa cheated on Larry. Didn't tell him that was going on, but just said she wanted a D. There were some extenuating circumstances in their sitch that are not relevant for this discussion, but Larry eventually, at our behest (since Melissa was acting so weird) hired a PI and found out she was, and had been for months, having a PA with a coworker. And that they now were planning on leaving their spouses and marrying (last I heard she still was married to the AP). Larry found out, 12 years after believing everything Melissa said about her first marriage, that SHE had abused her first husband and had cheated on him, not the other way around. He found this out from Melissa's mother whom she claimed she was estranged from so that Larry had never met her or Melissa's father. Likely to hide the truth. (They lived several states away.)
Even if he is telling the truth, it may not be the whole truth. Remember, there are 3 sides to every story: Yours, Mine and The Truth.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
