Hi Whyme
My heart goes out to you as you face such an incredibly tormenting time in your life, with so many mixed emotions. With everything you're sensing, such as betrayal, anger, disappointment, sadness and more, I can imagine it's hard to make greater sense of things beyond the emotions.
I'm wondering whether, when confronting your partner regarding the reasons for his behaviour, the general response is along the lines of 'I don't know'. If that does happen to be the case, my response to that would be 'You need to know and you need to tell me otherwise this relationship is done and dusted, based on you serving yourself once again through choosing what's easiest for you and that involves not digging as deep as you need to go'. Whyme, this is now about your needs, your need to make decisions about the best way forward, your need to make greater sense of this, your need to have your feelings addressed and your need to establish so much more. With such vagueness at the moment, perhaps this is why things aren't clear enough.
With you having been incredibly supportive over the years (since the beginning), when it comes to your partner's issues with sex, rejection and emotions, him failing to address such things has led you to this incredible level of torment and sufferance. I suppose the question becomes 'Do I want to still be with him in search of reasons or is there absolutely no reason or revelation that would lead us to stay together?'. If he refuses to find reasons (not excuses) for what he's done, you have your answer. If he refuses to serve many of your other needs, such as with those relating to emotional support, you also have your answer. Some people's reasons for their behaviour can be related to complex trauma, such as with child sexual abuse, or other incredibly serious challenges. Other people have no good reason other than finding what makes them happy or them finding what's easiest.
With my husband of 23 years being a 'I don't know' kinda guy (rarely understanding or offering any valid reason for why he thinks or acts in the ways that he does), he would have to give me one hell of a good reason for staying after discovering such an ongoing long term form of infidelity and betrayal. It would have to involve something truly shocking and mind altering in order for me to change my mind out of leaving him. Anything short of truly shocking or mind altering would make no difference.
