Just writing my story in pieces as I have time.  It may not be chronological.  But I think I have to say all the things and it will take time.  I’ll separate out my additions with these little dashes…
————-
We were raised as southern evangelicals and were committed to our faith.
I fell in love with him as a college freshman, but we remained friends and then started dating right after graduation.  First date was in July and he told me he wanted us to get married in December.  I was stoked. 

I don’t remember any actual dates while we were dating after the first one..  he and a friend had a ministry to children he had met in an after school tutoring program.  The kids came over to his house every afternoon, and so I spent almost every day w helping him fix dinner for and tutor them and leading them in Bible studies.

We already had a ring picked out by the end of August when he confessed to me that he had previously been addicted to porn.  And that he struggled against same sex attraction but he thought he was doing better and definitely thought marriage would help.  I felt pity for him, but was confused… I thought he was attracted to me.  We’d kissed, held hands, etc.  I stuck my head in the sand, and made out with him later that night so I knew everything would be just fine.  I accepted his proposal a couple of weeks later, and we were married that December.  I didn’t tell a soul about his “problem”…. Somehow taking on his shame as my own.  It became my shameful secret and would work its tendrils deep into all aspects of our relationship and especially into how I saw myself.

I remember wedding day, on the drive to the honeymoon, he said, “There sure were a lot of disappointed girls there today.” 
It felt weird/braggy to me.  Felt like he wanted me to feel special that he chose me..? 
I remember saying something like “well, maybe there are some guys out there somewhere that are disappointed I’m taken too.”
He laughed/scoffed and said “Yeah.   ____ and _____!!!”  (He was laughing at me over the two guys who had asked me out within a few months before I started dating him.)
This hurt.  He wanted me to believe that no one else would marry me and he did me a favor.  I started believing him.

During the honeymoon, “You sure do look a lot different without any eye makeup on.” (Not a compliment.)

He got mono the day we returned from the honeymoon.  Sick - literally in bed - for at least a week.  I learned then that he’s the kind of patient who doesn’t want company.  I just wanted to be with my new husband, sit with him, touch him.  When I tried to do this he told me I could ask him if he needed anything but otherwise please leave him alone.

Yet about 3-4 days in he invited a guy friend over and sat up on the sofa laughing with him but returned to bed and isolation as soon as he left.  I cried and cried.  Called my college mentor asking what have I done? She said “now your life is about 1. Jesus 2. Your husband 3. Yourself.  Time to put yourself last.”

We had “a lot” of sex that first year (and many years after), so surely he wasn’t really gay.  I did feel emotionally/relationally and definitely spiritually like something was off.  This wasn’t what I thought it would be.  I thought we would have a Christian marriage - talk about our struggles, pray together, read scripture together.  When we were dating/engaged he said he didn’t want to get too spiritual with me bc it would probably lead to sexual sin.  After we were married and nothing changed, I asked how he thought we could relate to each other spiritually, he said “what do you want?  I don’t have time to write Bible studies for you..” and “you are too spiritual.  You intimidate me.”   Well that shut me up for the most part.  I guess I did pressure him enough into praying with me at night.  It always seemed shallow to me though..   maybe I *was* too spiritual for him.  I remember a year or two later asking again for spiritual conversation/connection and he said “Well, I’m here if you need me.”

He wanted to host church people for meals ALL the time.  I cleaned and cook many, many meals for guests.  I would say minimally 1-2 times a week for 15 years.  Somehow we rarely ever had the money for dates with just the two of us.  (Money was was always an issue.)

I was also very physically affectionate and thrived on touch - my love language.  I remember early on him saying “just because I don’t want to touch you all the time doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”  The part of me that craved an unsolicited hand-hold or snuggle or kiss died a slow death over the years (along with my dreams of romance). He didn’t usually refuse my touch, just didn’t initiate it very much.  I also remember early on him telling me one morning that he wasn’t a morning person and could I please just not talk to him in the mornings while he was getting ready for work. (Interesting how he scheduled coffee/breakfast with men from church at least once a week and has always woken up early to exercise.)

Early on (and often since) I found some random evidence of “mild” porn (always naked men) here and there, which hurt.   I figured maybe marriage (Christian sex?? Me??)  wasn’t helping so much?
I tiptoed into a conversation with him about it..  “how’s your problem?”   He didn’t like me asking.

He raged at me every time I brought it up.  He liked my head to stay in the sand, too.  All is perfectly fine with our marriage as long as I remain a good wife who plays hostess, doesn’t complain too much, and never brings up the elephant in the room.

Within the first year of marriage he told me at least a couple of times that he spoke with young single men at church who wanted to get married but couldn’t find wives, and told them that physical attraction was not why he married me and we had a great marriage.  After the second time he told me this (almost in a braggy way, like it makes him more righteous to have married someone he’s not very attracted to??) I told him that his words hurt me.  And that maybe it had something to do with his attraction to men??  He was upset I said that. When i brought this up 15 years later as being a possible reason I thought he wasn’t attracted to me and for my low self-esteem, he responded angrily  “are you really going to hold me responsible for something I said when I was 23?!?” and “I’m not responsible for your self-consciousness!!”  No, actually you are.

—————

I know the things I’m writing make him sound emotionally abusive.  He’s a really nice guy on the surface.  Everyone says so and I would say so most of the time.  Most of our relationship was fine.  Cordial.  Friendly. Even though I did walk on eggshells around his anger and spent 15 years emotionally chasing him, which he admitted in marriage counseling pushed him away further bc it reminded him of his “overbearing” mother.

He started law school 9 months into our marriage.  Worked a full time job during the day and went to law school at night for 4 years.  I saw him for 25 minutes between work and school 4 nights a week when I had dinner hot and ready for him.   He studied all day on Saturday and most Sunday afternoons.  Definitely not time for dates, but always time for church activities and hosting people.  And sex.  We had sex.  And had the first two babies during the law school years.

I remember fantasizing about how life would be after he graduated law school.  Surely then he would have time to “date” me… know me…   I sunk into depression in the six months after he graduated.  Nothing changed.  And he didn’t even have a stressful job yet.

I found tiny little speedos in his underwear drawer one day when I was putting away his laundry.  I knew he swam at the Y for exercise.  I was uncomfortable with him wearing those, and he was obviously hiding them from me.

I was always a little bothered that he was so committed to exercise… really just that he used the men’s locker rooms at the gym.  Knowing he was a “Christian” and telling me he’s fighting against same sex attraction…. Isn’t that just setting yourself up for “lust”?  I noticed at the beach, pool, gym, cyclist on the side of the road, he looked at the men.  Second, third, fourth glances… long hard stares. Oh how I wished he looked at the women.   Because then I would possibly be in the category of what would make him turn his head.

At some point he started shaving his body.  Instinctually, that bothered me.  I asked him about it, he said it just felt good.  I said I like hair on a man.  It’s masculine. 

I don’t remember what year this was but at one point I noticed that he was taking one of our daughters pink beach towels to dry off with at the gym.  I tested him for months by putting it at the bottom of the beach towel stack, and he kept taking it as quickly as I washed it.  I eventually asked him about it, but I stupidly gave him an out by asking “is it because it’s thin? Dries faster?” He grasped onto that excuse.

———-

Within a few years of marriage, he was asked to teach Sunday school and taught beautiful lessons.   Still didn’t talk to me about a personal Jesus.

We moved and he was asked to be a pastor at our very young church.  Again, I wondered why do you want to “pastor” all these people yet not relate to me spiritually/emotionally?

In 2018, after 12 years of marriage and i asked him not to use the men’s locker room at the gym.  Maybe that was a completely unreasonable request, but after years of seeing his head turn as he gazed at fit men, and hearing from the completely oblivious husband of a friend that closeted gay men hook up in gym locker rooms and after iron man races…. I asked and he agreed he wouldn’t use them, and he came home between the gym and work to shower and get ready.  A few weeks after our agreement, during sex, I smelled soap on him that wasn’t our soap.  I pushed through the sex, thinking maybe  I’m crazy.  After the second time of smelling it on him during sex, I let him finish then asked him if he was using the showers at the gym.  He said yes, but just to rinse off between weights and swimming.  I said but you agreed you wouldn’t, and you were doing that then coming home to shower.. whats the difference?!

Later that summer he ran a race at a state park.  I had just realized sometime around then that his location was shared with me and I could track him.   He didn’t come home in the typical time after the race, and I looked at his tracking.  I saw him leave the park and go to a YMCA and stay there a while. 
When he finally arrived home, he was showered and changed (not typical after a race).  I asked if the park had showers or something, he said yes.  I asked what took so long coming home and he said he bumped into some church friends and they chatted.   I was shaking with anxiety and fury thinking my worst fears were coming true, but trying to play it cool.  He knew something was wrong with me and I finally admitted that I tracked him to the Y.  He was furious with me for not trusting him.  He said he just wanted to go swim some laps after the race (after running an 8k I believe up a mountain in 90 degree weather) but once he started swimming decided he was too tired so he showered and came home.  He said he knew he promised me he wouldn’t use the locker rooms, but “Can you just let me be a normal person?!?”
Somehow I ended up apologizing.

But that was a theme in our marriage.   
There’s a Sarah Groves song about a couple arguing and going to bed with their backs turned away from each other. And all it takes is one person to roll to the middle to set things aright.  I was the one who rolled to the middle.  Every time.

I started having panic attacks in the middle of the night that summer.  Because my husband is lying to me.  I called a friend, the wife of a former pastor and told her everything (first time I’d told a soul about his sexuality).  She said if I didn’t have hard evidence of a 10 commandment violation, then I shouldn’t confront him about things.  She encouraged me to honor and respect him, and believe the best about him.

I remember I even told her about him saying early on that physical attraction wasn’t why he married me and how deeply that hurt.  She said something about how marriage shouldn’t be based on physical attraction.   Beauty is vain.  Fleeting.   I should be glad he didn’t marry me based on that. I should work on making my soul beautiful.   Maybe not her intention, but that confirmed the self-talk he planted in my head that I’m just *not* attractive.

———

I discovered weight lifting after that summer .  My body changed.  I felt comfortable in my own skin for the first time.  I just found a journal entry saying I wish he would notice and compliment me.  (Also same day I wrote that he was working out sometimes twice a day at two different YMCA’s in town???).  But he was incredibly busy with work and church.  Came home for dinner maybe 7:30 or 8:00, helped put kids to bed (we had four by then), had sex w me sometimes.  I was the main initiator for sex almost our whole marriage (a fact i mentioned in marriage counseling last year to which he responded angrily “But I never said no!”)

Speaking of dinner, when we had guests joining us, he would text early in the afternoon and say “what can I do to help?  Can I pick up anything?  Come home early to help clean up the house or prepare?” 
But when we didn’t have guests, if he got home and dinner wasn’t ready, I can’t count how many times I heard him complain, “well I wish you would’ve told me it wasn’t ready.  I could’ve kept working.”

————-

I continued weightlifting.  It became my escape, my me-time.  Because…. Endorphins.  At the end of 2020, we got custody of a newborn family member, child number 5.  I experienced some kind of post-??not partum??- depression…. I was (secretly) so ready to be an empty nester and have a bit of freedom from life at home, and saying yes to the baby meant resetting the countdown another 18 years.  (I do love this child as my own and can’t imagine life without him.)

I joined a gym down the street so I continue my “me-time” while caring for (have I mentioned I homeschooled?) 4 kids + a new baby round the clock.  After 5 months of minding my own business at the gym (earbuds in, no eye contact, I’m here for me), one day as I was leaving, a very attractive man broke my earbud barrier and said he “noticed” I had a lot more definition in my shoulders since I started coming in.  I was looking good… keep it up.  Gahhhhh….  I was starving to death for that.  He *noticed* *me*!!!?!?

—————

I started chatting w him at the gym every time I saw him.  We became friends.  I tried to keep him “safe” by talking by about my husband and asking about his wife, etc.  I even told my husband I’d made a gym buddy.  I got his number one day to try to get our families together.  I invited them over for dinner a couple of times but there were excuses why they couldn’t.  He was really nice.   He offered compliments that seemed like he was just trying to build my self esteem. I could not believe that a man as attractive as him would actually be attracted to me.  We texted some at first, but then a lot more, a fact I hid from my husband.   This continued for about 4 months and got progressively more flirty.  The texts turned sexual for a few days and I finally I decided I wanted to have sex with him and told him so.  The next morning I woke up in a panic and called everything off, blocked him, etc. 

I convinced myself I had to confess the whole thing to my husband….. because spirituality and relationally it was the right thing to do.  Looking back now I see that I wanted my husband to know how desperate I was for his attention and desire.  I wanted to rip the facade of “we’re fine” off the face of our marriage.  Something — everything — had to change in our marriage or I was going to lose it. I felt like I’d already lost it.  I could not continue as before.

———-

I confessed to him a month later after consulting with a therapist and finally creating a small support network for myself.
HE lost it.  He said I may as well have actually had sex with the guy because it would be the same.  He referred this to other people as my “affair” - not bothering to explain that nothing physical took place.
He told MANY people about this “affair.”  Most of our church.  I wore a scarlet letter every Sunday for over a year as I continued going to that church with him.

Confession  night he ripped my phone out of my hand so hard it pulled me off the bed.  He kept my phone all that night and got it again for several hours the next afternoon.  I felt incredibly vulnerable, so much that I asked my neighbor to check in on me and if she couldn’t reach or find me to call my mom.  I ended up going to my mom’s for several days.  I was VERY apologetic, knowing this was a huge betrayal for him.

He repeatedly asked,  “What did he have to offer you that I didn’t?!”
I hesitated in my answers, because they all pointed back to his inadequacies as a husband.   
Well, the guy noticed me physically.  Wasn’t ashamed to be seen talking w me at the gym (the few times I ever went to the gym w my husband he completely avoided me), he said nice things to me, he responded to my texts (my husband would often go all day without responding), he joked and laughed with me….  But really, there was no doubt the man was attracted to me.  He wanted me.   And THAT is incredibly attractive.  (I remember thinking “If a man like that, who can probably have any woman he wants, wants ME, then I must not be so bad.”)

And, as I explained it then, the question posed to me (by my inner self? or “the devil”) was “Will sex be different/better with a straight man?”

I told my husband that I was 100% responsible for all of my poor decisions BUT things like this don’t happen in a vacuum. Even one of our pastors explained it like this:  “His (my husband’s) sins against me tempted me to this sin.”

He kept demanding answers but was angry with my answers.
“You need to get curious about the why.”
Yet..
“I will not abide being the why.”

I felt like this bound me…did he want me to makeup some kind of childhood trauma?  (He didn’t realize that HE was my trauma.). I stopped talking to him about it except to apologize.  And boy did I apologize over and over.

He couldn’t sleep… “I’m sorry I know that’s my fault.”
He couldn’t focus at work.. “I’m so sorry.. my fault”
He started having suicidal ideation - but expressed it to me in anger .. my fault.

One night just a few weeks out from my confession, he said:

“You know, I could divorce you, but it would be a lot of trouble for me.”  (This felt like validation that our marriage was one of convenience for him…. Not what I signed up for.)

“If I were to divorce you, I would tell people you told a man you wanted to have sex with him whereas I’ve just looked at some porn and they would be a lot more sympathetic with me.” (Let’s see what they say if you mention it’s men you’re looking at?)

“If I were to divorce you, I’m CERTAIN I could find a woman not affected by my sexuality they way that you are.”  (Ummmm.  Really?!)

20 min later..
“I think I want a romp-him.  You know, like a romper but for men?”  Laugh laugh….   I just stared at him thinking “are you fucking with my head?!?”

————

Probably a few days after the romp-him convo, he went on an overnight trip from work.  I realized about 9pm I hadn’t heard from him if he’d made it.  I texted..  no response for an hour.  Called.. straight to vm.  I started to get panicky bc he’d talked about how he’d had suicidical thoughts after my confession.  I remembered that he’d shared his location with me on “Find my” app (after I shared mine with him in an effort to prove I’m fighting for our marriage), so I check that and it says no location found.  I was really worried and kicking myself for not even asking where he was staying.

After a couple of hours of panic, he texts me that he’s fine.  I call him.  He’s driving back to his hotel after getting a “relaxation massage” because of ALL his insomnia after my confession (said with a guilt-trip).  He just wants to sleep.  He’s not being shady.  Trust him.  Oh, that night he said “Tom [a former pastor I respected, who knew about his sexual attraction struggles] says you need to trust me for my years of faithfulness.”

Some back story is we found out several years before that the husband of a good friend of ours was a massage therapist who had sex with clients, i.e., prostitute.  He was also molesting their daughter.   Now I know this doesn’t mean anything I regards to what my husband was doing, and may explain why he didn’t tell me before he got a massage, knowing I might not like it….  But I didn’t sleep a wink that night.   He admitted on the phone that during the massage he turned his phone on airplane mode “to keep it from blowing up while he was trying to relax during his massage” (at 9:30 at night??).   

The next day when he got home he admitted he’d been getting massages all summer bc of a hip injury (I guess he thought I may look for a record of it?).  Several in that same city on work trips bc “the guy there is really good.” Some in our town.

I asked questions: so this is because of your hip injury?  Are they massaging your buttocks?  Upper thighs, like hip flexors?

“Yes.”

Do you take off your underwear?

“Yes or else it’d get in the way.  But they’re really careful to drape me so my genitals aren’t exposed.”

I remember him saying something about them having him turn over at some point and work on the front.

I asked, “Do you ask for men?”   He said yes.   “They have stronger hands.  Women have a much lighter touch and might be weirded out if I have an accidental erection.”

I expressed that I didn’t like it.  He made things WAY, WAY worse by hiding these massages from me.  And I don’t like a man’s hands on his naked body.

And then I thought to myself yet again how incredible messed up it is that I wish my husband would request women to massage him so that it wouldn’t be a sexual temptation for him.
__________

Out of order here but a few days after my confession, I guess in an effort to be vulnerable like I had been in my confession, he admitted that several months prior there was an older man who seemed to be paying him a bit of attention, like inviting him to run with him a time or two and grabbing coffee.  He said “I’ve always been a little disgusted by the thought of two men going at it, but that changed in my mind because of this man.”  I knew exactly who he was talking about.  The man was visiting our church with his wife.  I could tell then that my husband seemed more “excited” about the guy than was typical of people he’d just met. I said I think I know who, and he confirmed I was right.

I asked, “Did he convey in any way to you that he is attracted to men?”

He said “I know he loves his wife.”
——-

Also, within days of my confession.. during sex (we had some of the most passionate sex we’ve EVER had after he asked me to come back home after my confession)…. He told me that my vagina had grown on him. He said it like a compliment.
I appreciated the comment in the moment but it grew sour pretty quickly.

He also told me at some point, referring to performing oral on me, “Good luck ever finding another man who will do that!!”

I remember in the very early years of marriage I asked him repeatedly to just hold me after sex because he’d just get up and wash off.  I remember showing him how I’d like to be cuddled after… like…. Just love me.  Show me that you enjoy me, my body.

———-

A few days after the massage convo, I texted him in the am and the message turned green not blue (SMS instead of iMessage).  I called him, straight to vm.  I check his tracking and “not available.”  Later he responded to my text and i asked him if he turned his phone on airplane mode.  He said it was prob something weird with his “do not disturb” night time  settings not turning off.   But he was angry.  I said it just triggered me bc of the massage night, and he said “You have NO reason to be triggered!!”

He called me again later that day to talk about how wrong it was for me not to be trusting him after what I did.   I’ll never forget how he said, “Something is WRONG with YOU.” 

This was nothing new - him telling me I’m overly anxious about him.  (I did often feel crazy.  He presents to the world as such a godly man, and I don’t have hard evidence of anything but some porn and some other weird things.)  But he’d never expressed it quite like that - something “WRONG” with me.  I started thinking through the situation and decided ANY woman in my shoes would be suspicious, and then I got very angry.
I told myself I was not going to apologize for asking him if he set his phone to airplane mode.  I did nothing wrong.

I had recently realized that in an argument he would use silence as a means to manipulate me.  He would just get really quiet in his anger, and I couldn’t be quiet but end up saying something emotional and later feel the need to apologize for it.

BUT “not today” I thought.  We sat in silence on the phone for over 20 minutes.  I timed it.  This was the first time in our entire marriage that we argued and I didn’t find something to apologize for.  I silently fumed. 

That was 12/3/21 and a very significant day for me. 
When I was sitting in silence with him on the phone, I promised myself that I would NEVER entrust myself  to him emotionally ever again, because he will only hurt me over and over.  I think it was the day the scales fell off my eyes.  He is and has been gaslighting me.

He had invited a couple from our church over that night.  The husband has had an affair a while back and recently confessed it to his wife.  My husband wanted us to “minister” to them.

(One of the things he said to me in the days after my confession is that he wanted us to “be more gracious and hospitable with our home…in a mutually investing way.” )

After the silent phone call, I told him I didn’t want to host that night.  He said it was important to use our situation for other people’s good.  I was so mad… this showed me he obviously cared WAY, WAY more about everyone else than me or our marriage.
The couple came that night.  I wasn’t strong enough at that point to say no to him.   But I barely looked him in the eye or spoke to him all night.

The next am he started apologizing.  Crying.  I didn’t believe him and didn’t say “I forgive you” like a good Christian wife should have said.   He was very emotional all day but, for the first time, I told myself that just because he is upset/hurt doesn’t mean YOU have done anything wrong.

At some point that day I asked why it was right for me to confess my hidden texting relationship to him but he never felt the need to confess any of his male pornography to me (which to him is sin).

He answered that my sin was AGAINST him but his sexual sins weren’t against me.

After this I carried on with him surface level as normal but my internal posture toward him was definitely shifting.

———-

After my confession, he said he struggled with thoughts that I was imagining sex with the other guy when I was with him.  I said “I sympathize.”

I told him the other guy wasn’t what I wanted, don’t think about him.  I’m very present during our sex.

He told me he didn’t think about men during his climax.

———-
On 12/10 he texted me that he was really down and wanted to book a massage but didn’t want conflict with me.  I said “I can’t stop you” but had made it clear I wasn’t comfortable with his massages bc of the lying/hiding them.   He said “the only other therapeutic things I can think of are to come home and curl up. With or without you.”  I said “please come curl up with me.”  He said “I will eventually.  I have work deadlines today.”
I had a weird feeling that afternoon and checked his location.  He was at a massage place.
He came home that night acting weird & checking my face..  trying to see if I knew.  I didn’t let on.  I went to a church ladies Xmas party and was angry so stayed late and helped clean up after.   He admitted the next day that when I left for the party, he jumped in the car and followed me for a bit to make sure I went to the party.  (Projection.)

He continued to get these massages on a regular basis.  I “caught” him on the tracking at least once a month for the 10 months. He jumped around different places in town.  One day he got a massage 25 minutes away from his work, in the middle of a work day, at a massage parlor in a strip mall beside a vape store.

I think most of the massages, he didn’t have to outright lie about bc they were in the middle of his work day or I didn’t happen ask him a scheduling question.   Knowing he used “work” time to do something he knew I didn’t like made me question 15 years of him “working” so much.  He’s always worked really long hours, and if I ever complained or even said I missed him he told me he was doing it for me, so that I could stay home.

He did outright lie on the tail end of our beach vacay the next year.  He told me he had a hearing about an hour away on our last day (departure day) but decided that morning that he needed to go on and leave early to prepare for it.  So he left me to pack up the entire trips’ worth of crap (quite a lot of stuff with five kids).  He left, went to a coffee shop for just a bit, got a 90 min massage with the guy “who’s really good,”, then dropped by the courthouse.  And yes I watched his tracking and fumed.  I guess he didn’t think I’d look.

Who knows what happens during these massages, but I knew that 1. He didn’t consider my feelings about them at all 2. No way he would be okay with me spending so much money on myself like that 3. He hid them/lied about them 4. He was getting off on them in some way… even if it was just fuel for his fantasies

———

I definitely pulled away emotionally after he told me something was wrong with me.  Self-preservation.  I don’t trust him.  He hurts me.

He felt my emotional distance and kept trying to have conversations with me.  He would demand conversations and I didn’t have the stength to say no.  But I would stay pretty quiet, respond minimally.

——-

We started marriage counseling in early December at my insistence.   There wasn’t one session where I came away feeling heard. Interestingly, I bet he would say the same. What I gained from marriage counseling was 1. A lot of validation of what I’d felt but he’d previously denied 2. A growing hopelessness that any thing would ever change.

He admitted things like:

“I kept myself busy with work and school and church to avoid relationship with you.”  (This was validation yet really painful because he previously made me feel guilty by saying his long hours of work were FOR me so that I could stay home w the kids)

“I would have the same issues with whomever I married.  I don’t feel comfortable receiving emotional intimacy because of the negative association with my mother.”  (Validation of the emotional distance id felt between us, but also deeply hurt because from the beginning, when I expressed it, he said my expectations were too high.)

“I’ve always felt a gravitation toward women I could sense wanted to be needed and desired but couldn’t be.”  (How am I supposed to receive this?  He believes he did me a favor by marrying me?  He thinks no one else would want me so what he could give me - a home, children, the facade of a happy marriage - would be better than his prediction of me remaining single if he didn’t marry me..?)

——-

I remember one night late in early February, he came home and just sat on the sofa and wept.. in front of the kids.  They asked me what was wrong with him.  I said I wasn’t sure but I’d talk to him.  He was like that all night. 
The next night he came home from work with a pep in his step and conducted a Bible study with the kids (which he’d never done quite like that).  It was bizarre.

A couple nights later, I think it was a Wednesday, he demanded to see my phone.  I said “give me yours, we’ll trade.”

There was nothing to be found on mine, but I saw his Facebook search history a TON of searches for young men’s swim and dive teams (young guys in speedos) and all these Eastern European young men’s sumo wrestling teams???  I took screenshots of those and sent them to my phone which was in his hands.  He was mortified to say the least and started quietly crying.

I tried to be sympathetic with him that night.  But at some point I asked him about the sudden change from depressed and crying on the sofa to energetic Bible study with the kids the next night.  I asked, what happened?  He said “I got a massage.”
I stopped being sympathetic.  I don’t think regular ol’ massages cure depression like that.

That Sunday am, I got an email from our internet filtering service that highlighted suicide searches.   “How to commit suicide in a garage.” And something about suicide with pills, like how long it takes. 
It struck me as odd because our garage is slam full of crap and it would take hours to be able to pull a car in. Also.. we didn’t keep any prescription drugs in the house at that time.   And.. pretty sure he bemoaned the fact that we have the internet filtering service several times during counseling..  did he know this would get flagged and I would see it?  It just felt off, but I did the right thing anyways. I believed him.  Called our therapist and asked what to do.  Asked him if he felt suicidal, he said “not now but I did yesterday.” I didnt leave him alone that day.  Sent word to his therapist.

The next day was Valentine’s Day and we had a two hour session with the marriage therapist.  I was emotionally and physically exhausted going in.  Sleep was hard to come by after months of anxiety.  Finding the suicide searches made it next to impossible.   I can’t remember what we talked about with the therapist that day, but the kids were with my mom and he insisted we talk more at the house even though I said I was too tired. The conversation at home lasted 5 more hours. 

He told me about some things that contributed to his sexuality:

He said he had been sexually assaulted by a friend in high school.  They were sleeping over, watching a movie, in their boxers, late at night and the guy slid his hand down into his boxers and touched him.  He said he froze but eventually rolled over onto his side and pretended to be asleep.   He conveniently left out the fact that the friend was openly gay.  I recognized his name and remembered he was the openly gay friend in their show choir group.  Because he left out that part, I asked him “This guy was openly gay, right?”  He immediately blew up, “Are you  blaming the victim?!?!?”  I said, “No, I just had to ask the question.”

He also told me that day (2/14/22) that for him, “Arousal is intertwined with exposure.”  He said this was due to a dermatology appointment where he was told to take off clothing and cover up w a paper sheet.  When the doc came into the room he had three students with him, and he just pulled the sheet off of him, leaving him exposed.  He said he was never more relieved that when the doc told him to turn over onto his stomach.
I don’t really know what kind of an exposure fetish he has, but this made sense of some mature tv show history I’d seen of a doctor sodomizing a patient.  I think he also told me he’s aroused by accidental or cruel exposure, like someone pulling down someone else’s pants.  Maybe a month before this I found some running shorts in the laundry that were almost skin colored.  I remember pulling them out and thinking, he’s going to look like a streaker if he runs around our neighbor in these, and I threw them in the trash can.  Maybe this is tied to the exposure fetish?

At some point the same day he said “I don’t like to watch or even think about two men going at it.”  I remembered that was the exact phrase he used when he told me a few months before about how the older man visiting church made him change his mind about “two men going at it.”

I asked him about the hidden speedos I had found early in marriage.  I said what was that about?  He talked in circles and didn’t give a clear answer.   I brought up the pink towel he used at the gym and he got angry “Will you stop bringing up the pink towel?!?”   I said, “No, I will NEVER forget the pink towel!!!!”  I think that was the only time I put my foot down that day.

Same day - Valentine’s from hell - he also said “You know the other day when I was suicidal, I understood why people commit suicide with their children.”

He also said “If I were to continue in my sin, I could be like ___ [insert the name of the guy we know who was molesting his child].

————

I lost it.  I did not know what to do.  I received his words as a threat to my children’s safety. I deeply regret that I didn’t tell anyone. But I remember thinking there are two possibilities: 1. He is a psychopath child murderer/abuser 2. He just said those things to manipulate me into staying in the marriage, to be afraid to leave him, and to keep my mouth closed.  I landed on #2.

My anxiety was SO incredibly high, for days i could feel my eyes uncontrollably darting back & forth, scanning.  All night every night, I so desperately wanted sleep but my body would keep jerking awake.  It was a living nightmare.  I finally called my doc and got on some anxiety and sleep meds, and after they kicked in, I started planning my exit.

————-

Valentines Day, before our two hour marriage counseling session was also the first day I got some PT on an old back injury.  My next appt a couple days later I realized that a career in PT seemed like it might be perfect for me - I love health and wellness, exercise, human anatomy, people.  I asked my therapist about careers and she mentioned physical therapist assistants and that it might be good for me as a mom bc you can work PRN.  I looked up PTA programs that night and found one at a community college.  Just a year long program.  Seemed perfect.  I didn’t tell the PT anything about my marriage, but my time in her clinic was very therapeutic.  She made me feel better physically, but I was really inspired by her care of her patients and by the stories her patients told me.  I remember one widow shared with me that she cared for her dying husband for so long and she never cared for herself.  She said PT was how she was beginning to take care of herself for once. She told me not to wait, but to take care of myself now while I’m still young. She said it’d be good for my kids to see me doing this.

I really gained hope.  I can do this.  I can go to school, have a fulfilling career, be able to support myself and my children, get out of my marriage.   I didn’t know anything about alimony or how much I would get in child support.  I thought I needed to be financially secure before I filed for divorce.  I started the process, completing 24 hours of prerequisite course work in the next year.  I applied for the program, and got in.  My prereq 4.0 GPA earned me a full scholarship.

To be continued…

Last edited by Tara (September 4, 2023 9:38 pm)