Healing Myself

It's been more than a month since last post but I've had a very hectic time, especially at work. I survived layoffs by a hair, I'm sure. My bosses called me out on my unusual behavior and they were very understanding.

I came upon another big realization that had really hindered my healing. I am not owning my shit. His affairs are his own to blame, but some of our marital problems were my own through no fault of anyone else but me. While I thought I was owning my shit, I really wasn't. I was making excuses. Everything that I did that was counterproductive to a healthy marriage I was blaming it on him or work or other family members, but in reality I am the owner of all my arrogance, all my laziness, all my controlling behavior. Not to say there isn't shit for him to own in our marital problems, but those are his problems to deal with. I have to deal with mine.

I promise myself from now on to stop blaming external forces for my own internal weaknesses. I always thought I was disciplined, but I never qualified that statement to say that I am only disciplined with academic stuff. I am lazy everywhere else. I thought that I was not arrogant because when I'm wrong I admit it, but even then that is arrogant and not humble.

So now I am working on myself. I want to make a list of the things that I want to sincerely change about myself and then find ways to start the change.

But the first order of business is to stop being lazy; that means cleaning my work area. I have way too much stuff just piled everywhere.

Out to Lunch

I will be away from the internet for a long time. Everytime I go online, I feel like I do something to continuously self-destruct and I dwell on this crap too much that it has affected work. I've already been called on my poor performance by my boss. As it is with the economy, I cannot afford to lose my job as well. I will see if I write during the weekends, but in all honesty, I'm trying to remain occupied so I don't think about it 24/7.

So far I've lost faith in all men. Every man I talk to reveal to me that they have cheated before. Is it true or I'm a surrounded by losers? I know I am not going to be able to trust anyone again. It just won't happen.

I look forward to the single life, with or without male companionship.

So for now, I'm out to lunch.

Argggghhh!!!

I have the biggest urge to have a reverge affair! I won't compromise my morals but I HATE HIM for making me feel this way!!!

That's it. I just needed to get that out of my chest.

He is a Basketcase

I am completely convinced he suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Abandonment, Co-Dependency, Sexual Addiction, and he is a Predator.

He confessed that he slept with an old friend before we were married. Slept twice with her and the only reason he didn't sleep more times was because she had come to the city to visit family and her vacation time was up. He confessed he seeks out women to stroke his ego; he looks for cybersex from friends and strangers; has no respect for women but sees them as objects. Well, he didn't exactly say all that but those are the conclusions I derived at. And he has been doing this since the beginning of our relationship. I don't know the man I married.

I told him I wanted things settled by July 1, by settled I guess I mean I want him out of the house, the marital assets disbursed and basically waiting for divorce papers to be served. I think I have a chance at annulment through the Church because of his indiscretion before marriage. I can argue I took the Holy Sacrament of Matrimony under false pretenses, and I feel more at ease about it.

He says he wants to change, and I really want him to. I want him to be the man that I thought he was, marry a nice girl, be faithful to her, and have a family. I truly want this for him. I told him I would be here to help him out in whatever he needs to mature and gain some kind of moral compass. I know his family does not offer the support and comfort he needs. His mother is a stoic, distant, egotistical person, his brothers are self-absorbed, and his sister is a loof. I will be his support if he needs it but I can't go on like this. In all honesty, I think I don't love him at all anymore, and I am so glad about it. I still care very much for him; I sympathize with him. I don't think that will change.

I got in contact with a lawyer; I asked him about our house since it has negative equity. I wasn't sure how that would be resolved. I'm hoping for a very painless divorce and annulment procedures. I already downloaded the annulment requirements and I will take a closer look today at the requirements.

I am actually looking forward to being single. I want to start portuguese classes and yoga; things that I never really pursued because it would have interfered with our quality time. I am also starting to research the possibility of adoption. This is something I always wanted and I think by the time I have saved enough for it, I will be financially and emotionally prepared to be a single parent. If not, then I have ample time to change my mind since I don't expect to be anywhere near adopting in the next five years. But it's something to look forward to.

I thank God that I am incredibly calm through all this. I have asked for nothing but strength and guidance. I ask the same for my stbxh.

Scatter-brained Update

I have been emotionally unavailable to write anything down partly because my family now knows and I've been leaning on my mom. These are some of the scattered-brained events and thoughts that have occurred since then:

Wednesday - May 6:
-he went to play soccer
-I looked at keylogger and discovered:
- he emailed her on May 1 telling her that I had asked for his email password and to not email until after 10pm
-the UFP is actually the other woman
-he had a special email folder for other woman which he deleted. parts of some of their correspondence begin with her calling him "my love"
-he emailed to her everything that was going on between us, every fight, every argument, etc.
-he had pictures of her on our desktop which he deleted
-he has been talking to another girl (an ex from high school). she calls him "my love, handsome" and he doesn't object to it
-he has remained in contact with this girl forever, so this makes me question everything in our relationship. I'm thinking our marriage is a fraud and I married under false pretenses.
-on May 4 or 5 he googled "how to hide phone number"
- found out he took a picture of himself sometime after January in our room (we just painted it). the last time he took a picture of himself, he opened an account on American Singles.
-I kicked him out on Wednesday night after he came home
-I called my cousin before that so that he was present. I didn't think the p.o.s. was going to hurt me or anything but I thought he would not leave if my cousin was not there.

Thursday - May 7:
- I packed all his shit out of my room
- I called all the credit cards that were under my name and deleted him as an authorized user
- he came by after work and asked for one more chance
- I gave it to him on several conditions to be mentioned below
- he told me there was nothing physical but they did exchange "I love you" a few times
- that he was attracted to her personality
- I had him write a "no contact" letter to the other woman and had him give me his password
- he didn't want to tell me the truth because he thought it would hurt me more. I don't think the p.o.s. quite understands that it's the constant lying that hurts me the most. I really feel it's an insult to my intelligence.
- said he googled the "hide phone number" crap because he just didn't want people to have his number (bullshit)
- said he stopped having any contact after Friday

Friday - May 8:
- kinda shady, I can't really remember anything but I know I didn't go to work

Saturday - May 9:
- we talked about how to fix our marriage problems some, but I don't think he is clear on what he wants in terms of the marriage, i.e.: he said he wanted me to attend his games but then when I offer to go, he doesn't want me to go.

Sunday - May 10:
- we acted nice and almost happy while we visited our mothers
- i broke down and told him I didn't know what I was doing but felt I was doing everything wrong

Monday - May 11:
- we carpooled to work
- found an email from someone else saying she saw his picture and he was cute and wanted to hook up. For all I know it could be spam, but even if it looks like spam, smells like spam, it might be true considering his disceptive ways
- said he stopped having contact with her on Thursday not Friday (freaking liar!)
- I broke down in the car when I heard a Ricardo Arjona (from now on RA) song. I changed the stations but he put it back on and said not to change it. He doesn't understand that I'm not over it and I trigger. He was an extremely insensitive prick. I cried the entire car ride home.
- he took me to eat ice cream (my favorite).

Tuesday - May 12:
- we carpooled again
- he told me he knew I was snooping around but to not let him know about it. If I have a question about a number to call that number and find out for myself
- found a way to obtain old text messages from his phone but I'm waiting on ebay seller to ship the stuff. I have to find a way to get to his sim card.
- he went to individual counseling first and then we had marriage counseling. Therapist basically said we had poor communication skills and we were not clear on what we wanted. She didn't touch the affair issue, which I have problems with because I'm not over it.
- therapist thinks this marriage could be saved
- therapist wants us to make a list of all the good and bad things in our marriage. so far the bad list outweighs the good.
- he told me the therapist told him having ex-gf's call on him like that is disrespectful to me

Wednesday - May 13:
- el que busca, encuentra (those who search, discover):
- I am convinced the other woman created the email just for him
- on his personal email, he changed his location to Redmond, WA which is surprisingly the same location listed when I look up the other woman's email on emailfinder.com
- went to gyno for routine annual exam and I couldn't bare to tell them to check for STDs. I felt so ashamed. I think I'm going to figure out what the symptoms are and keep a close eye on things.

As of now I'm in stealth mode. I will install a VAR (voice activated recorder) soon in his car and in the computer room. I just haven't had the opportunity to try it out. He goes to play soccer tonight so I can test it out. My plan is to recover the text messages and go from there. If there is nothing in there that I haven't already been told, then I will let go of the past and concentrate on making sure there is no contact with the other woman. If not, I will give him one last chance to tell me everything or it is over. I have to be determined this time, but I know I have to give him an ultimatum before I do or I will never go through leaving him.

I question this marriage every day.

OMG

With the keylogger I discovered he was living a double life. There is so much more disgusting stuff going on. I don't think I can write much longer before he comes home, but divorce is eminent.

Cards on Tables, Balls on Courts, and Other Games and Sports

Before today I had one last card in my hand and I laid it on the table this afternoon. It probably wasn't the smartest move but at least it placed the ball in his court. I'll explain below.

Stage Three: Sadness

Early in the morning, I became extremely saddened (without real anger anymore, I think) to realize that I had no one to lean on. Over the past 7 years and 9 months, he has been my rock and my shoulder to cry on. I couldn't think of anyone better to share the pain and nausea that I was going through other than him. But he was exactly the one person I couldn't lean on.

I lost it crying, and I was so desperate I went to the guest room where he was sleeping and asked if I could come in. He let me in and I hugged him and cried on his shoulder (or rather his chest). We just held each other and both cried for a long time. It felt great. It was such a relief. I told him everything I was going through (sleeplessness, feelings of disgust and nausea, hurt, lack of concentration). He was feeling much of the same things, too.

I was kind of confused with all the names that I got from different sources (the people search website, the phone call, and the email), so without him knowing my sources I had him tell me where the different names are coming from and how they all fit together. The name I gathered from the people search website was her last two names (not uncommon in Hispanic cultures), but one of the names was misspelled which was why I could never find anything on google. The name she gave on the phone was her first name. The name I found in the email is an unrelated fourth party that has nothing to do with the affair, but she is important to the plot. The other woman will be aptly identified as OW, and the unrelated fourth party will be identified as UFP. I didn't tell him where all these names are coming from so at this point he knows nothing about me knowing about the email he sent.

I ask him questions which I really can't remember most of them. It's kinda pointless to remember know anyways since his answers were probably lies. The one question I asked him which is important to the story is if he told anyone else about what was going on, to which he answered no. After all the questioning, I just couldn't spend the rest of the day in this cat and mouse game so I remained quiet. He started to discuss things that were going on with his family and whatnot, things with work and I listened attentively. I talked to him about work stuff as well. It felt great, like old times. He sort of started talking about the near future (vacations we should take) but I gave him really ambivalent answers. I don't really want to discuss a future at this moment.

Later on he ordered pizza and we ate while watching a very important soccer game (I am a fan of one team and he is the fan of the rival team). My team won by a landslide and they were the away team. We watched in peace and quiet amidst shouts of "gooooooooooooooool". It felt good for me and right now I'm doing what feels good.

After the game, though, I asked him if everything he told me in the morning was correct. He swore it was. I continued and asked him if he was truthful when he said he hadn't shared what we were going through with anyone. Again, he said he was being honest. I asked him if he had shared anything with UFP. He said no. I asked him if he had sent an email to UFP about our fight. He still insisted on no. I asked him if he had emailed her on Thursday about me not wanting to talk to him. He said no and asked me how I knew about his emails, if I was checking his emails. I told him no (which is true, I only saw a printscreen from the keylogger) and that I know I've been snooping around in ways that are questionable but we can discuss this after we discuss the email being sent. He broke down and told me yes, he did send the email to her. He asked why was that important; did I think he was cheating on me with UFP. I told him no but it proves that I can't trust him to tell me the truth. What confidence do I have that everything else he said was the truth? He didn't know.

I told him I wanted some kind of proof of his honesty other than his word because I know I can't trust it. I told him I read somewhere online that the cell phone provider can create a report that shows the contents of the text messages. If he is being honest and everything is innocent, then there shouldn't be anything incriminating in them. He asked if I had already called the cell phone provider to ask. I told him yes but they wouldn't provide anything to me because I wasn't on the bill. I asked him if he thought it was a good idea and if he was going to call. He was hesitant. I asked again, and he asked if he had to do it now. I told him yes and I could give him my work fax which goes directly to my email if they asked for a fax number.

Hesitantly, he called the cell phone provider in front of me but they were not able to create the report since they do not store this information. I asked him about maybe reading emails sent to/from the OW and he said he deletes them (which I'm sure he did after I ratted him out). So I told him that I really want to make this work but in order to do that he has to give me some kind of proof that he has been honest to me or finally tell me the whole truth. I left the ball in his court.

I don't know how long this will take. I didn't give him an ultimatum but frankly I want to get more of my shit together (possibly talk to a lawyer) before I tell him he has a certain amount of time to prove his innocence. We'll see how long this continues.

For the moment, I am incredibly sad. I feel like I've lost someone and I'm grieving. I don't feel anger anymore, just sadness. If you are religious, please pray for me. I need strength right now.