Can't get past this, am I crazy or would other women feel the same as I do?

[justagirl51]

Long story short, I reconnected with an elementary school classmate through Facebook in 2009. At the time I had recently gotten a divorce five years after my lying husband left me and our 2 kids for a 20-year-old girl. I was 41 at the time. My reconnected friend was at the time living with a woman. We chatted occasionally on Facebook, totally platonic. He told me after a month or so that he had recently become single but didn't give me any details. Fast forward a couple weeks later, we randomly ran into each other of all places in line at a railroad crossing. My car was behind his and he saw me in his rear view mirror, got out and came back and we were so surprised to see each other. He later got my number when we were chatting on Facebook, called me, and we began a friendly relationship, having pizza, talking on the phone, etc. I didn't want to get too close when I found out that his ex girlfriend was still living in his home. He said they were broken up and that she had no place to go. Her car had broken down and she was driving one of his at the time. So this went on for over a month, our relationship remaining platonic but getting pretty close.

 

He told me that she was giving him drama about moving out, taking things that didn't belong to her, trashing the place, etc. When she finally moved out (in with her ex husband) is when we finally kissed for the first time. I knew he and her had contact by phone because she owed him a lot of money, and they were friends on Facebook. I had and he knew I had massive trust issues, thinking all men lied and cheated, but he repeatedly assured me he was different. I secretly felt he had too much contact with her for my taste and security, but said nothing feeling I had no right since we had only just begun our relationship. We were boyfriend and girlfriend exclusively at this point.

 

He still had pictures of her on his Facebook profile, and I had to ask twice before he removed them. Fast forward again, we married one year to the date of the day we ran into each other. I still harbored thoughts about his relationship with his ex, and I looked at her Facebook page over that year, finding many of his likes and sometimes comments on her page, and once finding that she put a picture of them together as her profile picture, 6 months after he and I began dating.

 

Things were a bit suspicious and I was uncomfortable, but again I chalked it up to me having trust issues. A month after we were married one day (he had given me permission to) I looked on his laptop to check to see if he had ever taken her pictures out of his computer. Accidentally I hit his history and saw that just that day he had searched her and her whole family out on Facebook. I also found tons of her pictures on his computer. I talked to him about it, telling him how uncomfortable it made me feel, and he said oh, I was just curious.

 

The next day since this was eating at me I looked at his Facebook messages. He told me I could go into his computer if I wanted to. I know, it makes him sound innocent, but wait for the next part. I went into his inbox and found many, many, many threads of messages between he and his ex girlfriend, beginning about a month after he and I began dating, spreading out to until only a few months before we got married. These messages indicated they were still with each other, and indicated a sexual relationship. In one of the messages she said she missed what they had together and he said he did too. He had told me he was so ready to break up with her because she spent so much of his money that he had to sell half his sound business to pay off the bank. These messages told me that all the time he was with me, telling me he loved me, he was also calling her, seeing her, and having a relationship with her.

 

I was livid when I found them, and called him at work. He of course denied knowledge of these messages. They were written the way he writes, and they included specific details that she would have no way of knowing. It was awful. He was very upset and said he did not write them. He told his 2 daughters, one of whom lived with him and this woman. They told me she is crazy, and they said they didn't believe their father would do this. I messaged the woman myself on Facebook, and she responded, telling me that yes, he wrote the messages, and that they were seeing each other that summer, but she ended it because she felt guilty. She went on to describe how they were still sleeping together while he was talking to me on Facebook and that's why she left.

 

A few weeks later I get a Facebook message from her mother blasting me, saying basically that my husband is a bad guy, etc. I messaged her back and she told me that my husband had been texting this woman asking her to lie to me for him. She said this woman has over 30 phone messages from my husband during that time and I said prove it. So she did. We met at a local McDonald's, my husband came along because he said there's no way they have anything against him. Well I looked at the phone and there were tons of calls from him to her during that period of time. She must have kept them all. Her mother let me hear a message from my husband to this woman, indicating that he was on his way home, probably from work or my house, and that he would be there in a minute. I was furious. He didn't hear the message but he said it couldn't have said that. I said yes it did, I heard it.

 

At the time my heart wanted to believe he didn't write the messages and that the woman did, trying to get back at him. I've stayed married to him, and sometimes this all disappears from my mind. Then something will trigger it and it's right back to feeling horrible again. I am a Christian and know I must forgive, but the forgetting part is very hard.

 

That was 3 years ago. He still denies writing those messages, although I don't believe there is any way that he didn't. Why would she fill his inbox with fake messages? She had no way of knowing we'd be getting married in a year and that I would get into his Facebook inbox to see them. This eats at me like acid. I bring it up way too often, and he is sick of hearing about it. When I ask him specific questions about that time he says he doesn't remember. I remember details from back then like the night I saw her at the bar he did sound engineering at. She had come to watch the band because her son was in it. He lied to me and told me the next day that he didn't see her. But when pressed he admitted he talked to her after I left, and that he had called her beforehand to tell her he wasn't going to be there alone. So many things make him look like he's lying.

 

Both of his daughters remained friends with her, both on Facebook and I believe they have other contact with her. It really hurts my feelings that if they really believe their father didn't write those messages that they can be friends with her, because if he didn't write them she would've had to have written them. She did probably have his password because it was his daughter's name. He wasn't smart about privacy.

 

He keeps saying it's ancient history, and I know it's awhile ago but it still bothers me because I've never had closure and I still don't know the truth. I recently read a message one of his daughters had written this woman just a couple of weeks after I found all those messages in his inbox. The message said she knew her dad hurt this woman so bad that it killed her inside to think about it, and that she doesn't like me and wishes he was still with the ex girlfriend. To me that sounds like what I was told about their breakup wasn't the truth. Breaking up with someone and letting her linger and letting her drive your car sounds kind, not hurtful.

 

I feel as if I am going crazy with this. It just eats at me. Would other women be able to put this aside and just move on? My husband is a nice enough guy, and yes, nice guys are hard to find. But I had just gotten out of a deceitful marriage and poof, found myself right in another one. It bothers me, am I being crazy? I would just love to know how other women would feel about this. Thank you for reading this.

[pteromom]

That was long. So is this the summary?

 

He broke up with her. He was still sleeping with her when he started talking to you. Since then, it seems he has kept in contact with her through text and Facebook, but didn't sleep with her.

 

?

 

It sounds like you may be overreacting, if I am reading correctly.

 

If he actually was sleeping with her while he was committed to you, you do have a problem. And if your husband is a liar, you certainly can never expect him to tell you the truth.

[thinkingofhim]

pteromom, I think he broke up with his Ex because she caught him chatting with the OP on facebook, and then he resumed sleeping with the Ex AFTER he started exclusively dating the OP.

 

OP, you already have the truth. You heard and read the messages. Your husband is a liar.

[underwater2010]

Your husband has lied and is lying. And you bought it all hook, line and sinker. She gave you all the proof you needed and you made the choice to continue in this relationship.

 

 

Now what are you going to do about it? Either keep the relationship and let it go or call him on his crap and kick him to the curb.

[stillafool]

You know the truth, your husband was obviously lying. It has been 3 years and you are still upset. You cannot change the past so I ask you what are you going to do about this?

[justagirl51]

I know he's lying, but he absolutely insists he didn't do anything wrong and he didn't cheat, and he didn't write the messages I found. He basically thinks it's ancient history and if I can't get over it then it's my fault, not his. I don't really want to get another divorce, that would be terrible, and I don't think he's cheating now, but the knowledge that I"m married to yet another liar is really hard for me to take.

 

Also the fact that his daughters are still in contact with his ex-girlfriend bothers me a lot. I know they can do whatever they want but I can't help that I think it's a betrayal, especially if they believe their father as they say they do.

 

This relationship has been loaded with baggage, not just from his ex-girlfriend but also his ex-wife. She was quite a cling on, a verbally abusive one at that, leading her daughters to do the same, until I finally put a stop to it. He was obviously too weak to do it, just taking their verbal abuse anytime they felt like laying it on him, fixing his ex-wife's car out of guilt, etc.

 

I do love him (that's what everyone says, I know) but I am so filled with resentment I can barely stand it. I don't know what I"m going to do. It seems as if it would be an easy choice, let it go or get rid of him, but it's not so easy for me.

 

I appreciate the feedback. I wanted to see if I was the only one this would bother.

[stillafool]

It really is not fair to be angry with his daughters because they had a close relationship with his ex gf. If she was nice to the daughters and treated them well they may have wanted her for a step mom. They cannot automatically stop liking her because their dad didn't want her. Just like my brothers ex wife, I loved her but he is divorced from her and married to another woman now, who I love also. I couldn't turn off my feelings for my ex SIL just because my brother has.

 

I think you and your husband should get counseling because otherwise you are going to live your life in resentment.

[justagirl51]

See that's the thing. These girls keep telling me how crazy she is/was, how she did such disrespectful things to their father, such as ordered (this is crazy) tons of ducklings and goslings off the internet, which came with live chicks, so my husband complained but let them all stay until her dog killed and ate them all, and all my stepdaughter did was complain about it. My husband said his ex and his daughter couldn't stand each other while he and his ex were together, and his daughters and she weren't even Facebook friends until a couple months after she moved out. After that they all of a sudden loved her and felt so sorry for her. So it wasn't like they had developed a love for her, it all happened after the breakup which to me seems odd. I know they're able to do whatever they want but to me it's a betrayal of not only me but their father. This woman ruined his business and caused him to lose the house they lived in, which he loved, and now they're taking her side over his and mine. Thanks for the response.

[michelangelo]

of cours he is lying!

 

Caught red handed, but sticking to his story.

 

It's crazy-making, but don't buyt it. You KNOW now what he did.

 

All that is left is your reaction to this cheating liar.

 

What are you going to do?

[justagirl51]

I honestly don't know what I'm going to do. The purpose of this thread was to find out if I was just being petty and crazy for this to still be bothering me after 3 years. I struggle so much with this because the specialness of that first year we had together, the year in which I made the decision to marry him, is all blown, probably never existed the way I thought it did.

 

He is absolutely adamant that he did not write the messages, did not have any kind of affair with her during that year. He says he called her a lot trying to get her to give him the money she kept promising she would give him for the debts that she incurred. They had a joint checking account together because no bank would give her one. He really wasn't very smart about people, way too trusting. She overdrew their account by thousands of dollars and he was left to pay it off. Plus the rent she was responsible for paying it turns out wasn't being paid so he was left in thousands of dollars in arrears and his landlord, who was a friend, blamed him and made him leave.

 

I guess the reason why I kind of believed she could have gotten into his Facebook account (she did have access) and wrote those messages is because I have come to learn that she is super vain, a master manipulator (hence all of a sudden why his daughters are so compassionate towards her, she's been playing on their sympathy since she left), and had contact with his daughters who could have and probably did tell her things about their dad. She also had contact with many mutual friends who talked to her about him. It's quite a stretch, I know, but he will absolutely not admit to seeing her behind my back. He knew that I would've dumped him flat for any kind of indiscretion, and he seems to adore me. I do believe that he does and did then.

 

So basically I feel like I'm screwed, and will never have the beautiful peace of mind I had that first year before I found this stuff that poisoned me. It was the first relationship I've ever had where I totally felt it was right and that he really was all mine. So much for that. Thanks for reading.