No, he actually was cheating on me. For a year.
To further the discussion on it, once he was found out via the tramp's husband when he called our house (he'd found e-mails between them in a personal account she'd created for the sole purpose of maintaining the relationship). STILL, I was told, "He's lying to you." THEN, my husband was presented with copies of e-mails and still, "No, he's created these." THEN, we got the both of them together in the same room and only THEN did he 'fess up and it still took a lot of gas lighting on his part.
However, he still maintains to this day he'd have NEVER cheated on me four times had I just been a better wife. I have an appointment with an attorney next week to end this fiasco of a marriage. The straw that broke the camel's back, for me, was his refusal to keep the kids out of it all, using them as "sounding boards" and attempting to gain their solidarity (Everyone has to love Dad and hate Mom) usually with his "half-truths" and outright lies. He's incredibly manipulative. If you were to ever meet him, you'd think he was the greatest guy in the world. For his family, though, it's living life walking on a tightrope with his keeping us all off balance, all the time. The result of all this is, our youngest son told us yesterday he couldn't take being in the middle of the fights. Seems every time we had a fight, my husband would call or text our youngest to vent to him about how awful I am. He's been using our youngest the most as his pseudo-counselor for about three or four years and our son can't take any more of it. He's changed his cell phone number and is refusing any and all contact with us until he feels he's got enough counseling under his belt to manage it. That was another major reason I'm divorcing. I'm also incredibly angry I let it go this far, that I didn't do more to protect my kids from him.
Our marriage counselor feels what he's doing is emotionally abusive and I tend to agree now that I've begun to get my wits about me, after 21 years of marriage. I think this is the hardest decision I've ever had to make. However, yesterday, I went into the counselor's office with him and asked for a separation while he did his individual counseling because I couldn't take any more of it and keep my sanity. Since the kids all moved out, he's gotten SO much worse and it's all directed at me, not having any buffers to temper it on one person or the other. The counselor thought it was a good idea but my husband told us he didn't feel he needed counseling since I was the one having the problems, not him. He told me he's comfortable with his AS diagnosis and didn't need "help" with it. He believes I'm the one who needs to do all the adjusting and learning to live with it all, thus, I should go to counseling w/o him. His temper tantrums are happening more often, the threats of physical abuse are becoming more frightening and I feel it's just a matter of time before there's a headline about me being killed.
I did tell the counselor I wanted to get into individual counseling but it was to be in conjunction with seeing an attorney to file for divorce. I have an appt with the attorney next week, I have an appt with the counselor two days later. I've been so focused for so long on "saving" him and "fixing" him and "getting him the help he needs" I lost myself somewhere along the way and I find I'm nothing like the joyful, laughing, dancing through the house singing person I once was. I'd like to be that person again and forget who I am now. Being angry all the time, living with this man for as long as I did, my health is precarious and I deserve better than what I've gotten.
