I've had a life that has been full of trauma. A sexual assault before I met my husband when I was just 18. A family business failing that led to total alienation from my family. Breast cancer and subsequent menopause at 40 and total hysterectomy 2 years later. Then there were difficulties retaining jobs and of course his crazy abusive behavior that made me feel like I was insane. I always believed our problems were my problems.
When I met him he was very flirty with women - almost inappropriately so. I questioned him on that and it stopped. Well I guess it taught him to hide it better. We had a whirlwind romance - or so I told everyone. Sex with him was odd. He even admitted it early on putting it down to people getting to know each other, but of course now I know the truth it's obvious he just wasn't that into me. We had a baby, he was a very needy difficult baby that took all my attention. Then there was a second baby but things were already difficult between us and I just put it down to his job stress and our older child. Then he said a woman he worked with wanted to visit our new home - she was interested in buying something similar. When she turned up with her mother she was very unhappy, irate and shaky and shocked to see our children. I asked him after she left if he was having an affair, he said no - he said she was obsessed with him and he needed to prove he was a taken man. A few years later our relationship was still hot and cold he had started verbally abusing me and giving me what I called "death stares". He frequently said if I didn't like something, I could F off. Our sex life was suffering again and again I put it down to stress. He was acting odd, he confessed there was another woman, she had asked him out on a date, he said no because he was married. What I've found out since is that it was an affair. Then a couple of years later he went missing at my work event and I found him in a dark alley with a young intern. He said he went out for a smoke with her. I was devastated and humiliated. Deep down I knew it was a physical encounter. My cancer journey started, he got sick of that very quickly. I think he thought I was going to die and he would finally be free. When I recovered our sex life took another dive. I was menopausal. I took supplements, went to my doctor, I tried lingerie, sex toys, weed, alcohol everything to make our sex life more satisfying for him. It became apparent to me that he was just not interested in me sexually. He said it was because I had no drive, he said "no man is an island"  I truly thought it was all my fault. I suspected he was watching a lot of porn. He had the camera on my laptop covered - he said people could see you. I said what people? He couldn't tell me. He had been making excuses to get away from me - work events - meetings he had to attend away, none of it made any sense. He always came home looking very happy. Women would say to me "I thought your husband was single" I was horrified. He was on his phone constantly, messaging people but couldn't tell me who. I started getting up at night to look at his phone - nothing on it. Totally clean. He started being very friendly with our recently divorced male neighbor. He started going over there for drinks (his drinking was at alcoholic levels by this stage) At a neighborhood BBQ I noticed his bare feet move under the table to almost touch our neighbors feet. We got invited over for drinks together - the neighbor says "you don't know what me and your husband get up to when he visits" WTF. I was gobsmacked and horrified. They both laughed it off as a joke. Then I saw it one night. His Google searches for shemale porn and "gay cocks to suck". BOOM it just all made sense. He's a deeply closeted gay man. He married me for the benefits of being hidden and producing children for him. After that I was an inconvenience. That's why he acted like he despised me. I confronted him - he said he stumbled on the shemale porn accidentally, he still can't explain the gay cocks but insists it was because he must of been really drunk. He did say he was never going to tell me, he also said he wanted to live his life more honest to himself. For 3 days I told him I would support him. He told me to F off. The night I left I checked his phone, yes there it was the highly sexual suggestions between him and the neighbor. He told me I was insane and mentally unwell and disgusting for thinking that, that I totally overreacted. I took screenshots and packed my car and left him. I couldn't take it anymore. The threats had become physical, he hated me, he hated our marriage. It sent him into a spiral, he tried an overdose but miscalculated the dosage. He now gets specialist psych care whilst I'm still struggling to get into counselling. He is denying he is gay or even bisexual. He has been begging me to give him another chance. How could I? I am going to have to reinvent myself and learn to trust again. A journey I never thought I'd have to take. 30 years married this year and it was all a big lie. I truly believe he is a narcissist, a closeted homosexual who had multiple affairs with women to satisfy his need to be adored and prove to himself he wasn't gay. He is an attention whore. He never really loved me. He will never tell me the truth and I will never know. But I do know what happened between us and can only surmise he has been in affairs physically and emotionally with both men and women all his life.