I'm an oldtimer on HH. I am redoing my story here for those who haven't read it when I posted it years ago. Sorry for being so wordy.

My W & I met when we were both teenagers. We started a serious relationship a couple of years later, and eventually moved in together, bought a heavenly piece of land & relocated from the city to the bucolic rural countryside, nearly 700 miles away. We thought it would be a dream come true, but for me, it turned into a nightmare thanks to her serial betrayals.

After years of living together in the country, we would go back to the city to visit our folks--she'd stay at her parent's house & I at mine. She wound up repeatedly sexually cheating with her sister's boyfriend (2 years in a row before I found out). I WAS DEVASTATED. It was by far the deepest trauma I have ever experienced in my whole life. I had just asked her to marry me.

I took her back to our country home & desperately begged her not to leave-but she moved into her own apartment nearby. I actually helped her set up her apartment, find a good car--I was a real love-sick puppy!! (I still have to drive by her cheating sites every day).

I was kept on a string by her (guess where the string was tied!), while she fu@ked and sucked her way through 3 more guys, one of them a good "friend" to me. She flaunted them in my face, introduced me to them, even brought one of them up to my house for a "visit". WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?!?!? The jealousy & heart-pain was unbearable, but I was ADDICTED to her! I should have run for my life. But I didn't. Love is thus. Addiction is thus.

I sneaked a look at her diary, and all her sexual encounters were recorded with gut-wrenching detail. I wanted to die. I pretended to myself that I could just put it all out of my mind--big mistake.

It seems like just yesterday---I stopped by her place on the 4th of July years ago to find her and my former good "friend" (OP #4) making her bed together, after a night of sweaty passion, which I read all about later in her diary, and some of which she told me herself. If she would have videotaped her sexcapades, I think she would have tried to show them to me...her graphic verbal and written descriptions of the intimate details were the next best thing....

I think this was the last time she slept around, far as I can tell, as she dumped him very shortly afterwards... he was a premature ejaculator, she told me, showing me the pack of Trojans she bought to help him slow down....Ah, the priceless memories! Now every time I'm at a drug store, the red box of Trojans near the checkout is an instant trigger.....She also told me she had to educate him about her clitoris, as he was very inept in the sack. He was so smitten with her, the poor 'lil bugger, as he told me he would always love her. She is a comely lass indeed, beautiful, but with a...shall we say...cruel streak? No one would believe she would be capable of this kind of thing...she's viewed as a bloody SAINT in our small town.

I think my grief was compounded not only by the sheer number of guys she screwed, but by her penchant for rubbing my face in each and every OP episode. She made damn sure I got to meet them all except OM #1, whom I declined to meet but instead spoke to him on the phone. His rationale was, "What did you expect me to do? She was chasing after me!"...Well, I guess he got me there....

I got her pregnant during this time, she wistfully said goodbye to her "buddies with benefits", we married. The day before our wedding, she called OM #1 & had a "goodbye visit" with him! To this very day, I suspect they had sex that time, but she denies it. I nearly called the marriage off at the last minute when I found out. On our wedding day, I had to forcibly take a photo of one of the OM away from her (I grabbed it out of her hand) & threw it into the fireplace at her parents' home. Think of all the great memories I have surrounding our wedding!

From D-day #1 to wedding day was only 6 months. Yes, her cheating happened before we were married, she got me on a technicality, alright. But it doesn't hurt any less, as we had been living together for so long! Since then, there was early minor remorse on her part, which quickly evolved into her defending everything she did, to this day. She has rewritten the history so as to rationalize & justify her actions, blaming them all on me. Endless "no-win" arguments later, I finally figured out that I just better keep my feelings to myself, forever.

We now have an unspoken "truce"--I just never speak to her of those things, and all is well. Sort of.

Several years ago, I stumbled upon some letters & a cassette tape she had written/recorded to her sister, with more details of the lying, collusion & subterfuge. This was a MAJOR trigger for me, another D-Day all over again. When I told her about this, she became very angry that I was snooping on her & she hid the letters from me, after she begrudgingly tore out the most hurtful parts and burned them at my insistence.

You, my HH "family", have been a great inspiration to me over the years. Your stories of courage, strength and determination in the face of terrible, sometimes unspeakable, tragedy have helped me more than any therapist could. Please don't ask me why I stayed--I really don't know the answer....
BB

Blue,

I had no idea about your betrayal history, but while reading your story, my heart just sank.

Your pain came through clearly, and it appears you still have communication issues.

Sorry, Blue. I have no advice, just empathy.

Look into your heart for your answers,

JJ

Blue,

I have no words to describe how sorry I am. Your story is extremely hard to read.....I am so sorry for your pain. Alot of us dont know why we stay....hopefully someday, we will get the all the answers needed.((((HUGS)))