Heartbroken and confused over husbands infidelity

[Freckles1984]

I find myself in a very depressing confused state.
It was supposed to be a happy time achieving milestones in our life as a couple... things had been rocky during the last 3 years of our marriage but I always excused my H bad behaviour, his laziness and lack of support. In turn I started to become less interested in sex and in being affectionate as a defensive reflex?

We married when I was 23, he was 35 and sex was great, everything was new to me and I felt deeply loved and cared for. We moved to Australia to start building our life together. We’ve been here for 13 years now and have a beautiful 4yo son. My H was the Center of my world and we had a good partnership, I always supported his dreams and endeavours. At the same time I have been trying to build a financially stable future, working hard and slowly achieving our goals.

The relationship shifted when our son arrived, I started to demand more from my H, I asked him to start looking after his health and to be more involved with our son. I know he loves him deeply but at times it felt like he was annoyed when asked to mind him or play with him. His phone or computer where more important.

My H behaviour only worsened with time, he would be more irritable, disconnected. I am working full time, shift work, 24/7 shifts and coming home to look after our son, I wanted to have some appreciation by sharing some of the load at home but he would barely give me anything and he would complain about the lack of intimacy.
He has been my only sexual partner and although I felt like exploring with him because I truly love him and only want to be with him, my needs we’re not met therefore I would not feel enticed to have sex at all.

Going to mid 2019 and I was at a breaking point, I had decided if things did not improve I wanted to divorce. We were overseas visiting family and they all saw the situation, we love each other but this could not continue. We came back and went to 3 sessions of couples therapy. It was useful in the sense I opened up about many things one of them my sexual frustrations and we started working towards repairing. 

a series of health issues came, he had a surgery sep 2019 then things started to decline again. Covid arrived, I got an unexpected surgery in may and fast forward to November I discovered my husbands indiscretions, I confronted him and he has been paying for sex since 2018. All started to make sense and now I am destroyed! HELP

[ecomama]

Hi Freckles

A belated welcome to the forums and I'm really sorry for the reasons that brought you here. Hugs.

I'm not sure of the status of your marriage atm, so a quick update might help others support you better here.

I've not heard of any support groups for betrayed spouses but in NSW there are LOTS of free Courses offered through Women's Health Centres. I would suggest finding out about the "Breaking Free" Course for victims of domestic violence.

DV sounds harsh and you may even flinch, IDK, but the lying, cheating, spending exorbitant money on sex workers and going into debt with such show strong patterns of CONTROL.
Having extra marital sex comes under sexual abuse.

I understand your pain. I truly do.

From my experience with unfaithful spouses, you'll probably never get the clarity you need from them. There's a WHOLE lot more to things than what the unfaithful spouse can articulate or is willing to share. They lie so there's not much point waiting for them to help bring you closure.

I Googled the exact thing a number of years ago which led me to an International Forum which was able to explain the Text Book behaviours of cheating spouses and understand the "mental" make up of the various kinds of cheaters. This forum was my life saver at the time.

It gave me links to many psych websites that I read vociferously and one glorious website that I found helped me laugh again, was Chumplady.com - especially the UBT on there.

Another 2 GREAT things I found were "The 180" and "Gray Rock Strategy"... maybe you'll find those useful.

THE MOST important thing to do is look after YOU, then your son.

H is a grown up. He's not your responsibility, most esp after he betrayed you.

Take care
EM

[Bibbetyboo]

I am so sorry to read this situation.
I just wanted to support this reply.