"I screwed up. This is my third time around - I should have just taken the kids and left. But I decided to confront and engage... and now I am being sucked back in by anger and guilt and pressure... 

Not sure I will ever be able to be happy again - so just praying that I can make it through one more hour... one more day... " Deceivedandsad

Oh, D&S, I feel like I could have written your words for myself a couple of months ago.  He just told me this week that on the third night of our honeymoon he knew he did gaslight me,  and faked falling asleep, even though he heard me crying in the bathroom.  Argh!  Said some garbage about news reports of people putting cameras in hotel rooms and filming people having sex.  "We wouldn't want that to happen to us now, would we?" I sort of figured he was making it up to avoid sex; but I thought is was because my performance, being a virgin, wasn't desirable, certainly not because he didn't want me because of SSA.  I was the one with the problem.  And he left it that way...for 22 years.  He faked falling asleep to avoid sex with me.  How's that for emotional abuse???  Gaslighting! Oh, and some blame-shifting, too. 

D&S, mine didn't like the term emotional abuse either; "I would never hurt you."  Then I laid out his lying, gaslighting and minimization and told him to look up narcissism.  He lied to me to protect me from getting hurt.  Then I asked from whom was he trying to protect me from when he was hiding all of his TGT activities?  He didn't want me to get hurt by whom? Who was going to be devastated by his TGT secrets?  What I didn't realize was his chat rooms and gay porn were coupled with numerous visits (8 cities) to gay cinemas, adult bookstores, etc.  I only knew a fraction of the truth.

This is my 2nd time around as he was "forthcoming, honest and had therapy lined up"  in 2003.  Ha!!! Not forthcoming out of obligation; he DID get caught.  He was the victim of a crime and lied to the police about where he had been (adult bookstore) and then corrected the lie with them; but never did with me.  I found it on the police report by "verifying the truth" on a suspicion.  He was forthcoming because he was afraid lying to the police might come up later if the offenders were caught and it went to trial.  The therapy, that he now admits this week, was just for me; "his heart wasn't in it." Apparently I was the only one trying to, "Pray the gay away." ARGH!  And honesty?  He only laid out a small portion of what I should have know about.  I don't get as angry at anything as much as I get at myself for not leaving back then; however I would not have my amazing, wonderful daughters.  It's all a part of God's plan for my life. 

"Isn't who he is."  D&S

I heard the line, "This is such a small part of who I am with you."  My response was, "But this is such a huge part of who you are with me."  What was I getting out of this relationship...loneliness.  This is minimization.  Do you see a pattern here?  Lying, gaslighting, minimization?  Narcissism.  

I say the following in love D&S, to be helpful.  ❤  This is how I have gotten to where I am now...brighter days.  So how are you going to feel after the fourth time?  I am mad as HELL.  But that anger has been my fuel to move forward.  I suggest you stop looking in his lying mirror and start looking into your own.  What do you want in life?  How do you want to be treated by others? Who do you want to see in your mirror?  If you feel weak, start working those muscles.  You will feel stronger as you see yourself moving forward.  My STBX claims he will tell our girls what I went through later once he has figured himself out; because he doesn't want our girls to fall for the same things he did to me.  They deserve better.  Who do you want your children to see???

One day at a time, indeed!