The endless lies (very long)
Find a Conversation
| Sun, 01-11-2004 - 3:05pm |
every time i piece together yet another way that XMM had lied to me it just feels like another piece of myself has been painfully lost...and what's even more painful is that it's not that i was too blind to see these things during the affair...i did see each and every one of them, but then after getting over the shock and the pain each time, i chose to believe his lame reasons....i think that believing him was less painful than having to admit that i been lied to and made a fool of...believing him was just a way of prolonging the inevitable bursting of the bubble...the coming to terms with an unbelievably painful, harsh reality....the ending of the fantasy that everything he told me about his feelings for me, about his wife and their relationship was true, and i was the only one he loved and wanted to be with.......well, the bubble has burst..
he told me that his wife wasn't interested in sex any more and that they didn't get along at all any more.....he could not stand her, as far as i knew, and that supposedly didn't change throughout the course of the 4 1/2 year A (i believe much of this was true when we first met, as i know through another source of their horrible fighting).....
for me, our relationship was based on the fact that we both were not involved with our spouses any more in any significant way...that's is truly the way it was in the beginning...as time went on, i had asked him many times to agree to telling me if the nature of his relationship with his W changed in any way, physically or emotionally.. i had faith that he'd actually tell me the truth because i believed he loved me as much as he said he did, and respected my right to choose whether or not i wanted to be with someone who was with someone else...not much different than i'd expect if we were single...we talked about this a few times, and i pleaded with him to tell me if anything changed, because i wanted to make that choice for myself...he (of course) promised that he would tell me and respect my feelings regarding this...i'm still in shock at how much trust i put in someone so untrustworthy......
The Major Lies (there were sooo many other ones about soo many other things):
THE VOICE MAIL INCIDENT: Jan. 2003, 3 1/2 years into the A...he's away in vegas with the guys and i call his cell phone leave a message, and then later decide check to see if he listened to it (i had his password)...i go into his messages to erase mine, but there is one before mine from his wife...it goes something like...."sorry i missed your call...(lots of stuff about what she did today)....I MISS YOU, TOO...(did you get the TOO?)..well, i always miss you....miss our friday nights...yada yada yada....LOVE U LOTS...."
my body went into complete shut down...if she misses him TOO, then he must have said he missed her...HOW could he have told her he MISSED HER?...he CANNOT STAND her!!....how could he utter those words...why is she telling him she loves him?..why would you tell someone who can't stand you, who you have no relationship with, emotionally or physically, that you love them?..what the hell is their relationship, really?????
MM's EXPLANATION (after i virtually lost my mind): we (he and all of the middle aged immature men he was with)...were all sitting around drinking and complaining about our wives, and we thought it would be funny if we called their wives and told them how much we missed them and said nice things just because that's what they would probably want to hear...
let's not even get into what i thought about THAT idea, if that's what really even happened....and so, according to his story, they all sat there calling their wives and doing that...he attributed it to too much to drink and having to "be one of the guys" in that situation...(at age 50, that's soo pathetic)....i thought i would throw up at the thought of all of these men treating their wives that way.......
THE WEB SITE INCIDENT: a few months after the vegas incident...one of my kids was saying that he had searched for the names of people he knew on the computer just to see if there was anything there about them...i was lonely one night, sitting in front of the computer, probably waiting for MM to sign on, and i searched for info on some people i know, and actually found some things...then i searched the web for XMM's name, honestly assuming there would be nothing (or i would know about it, right?) and the first thing that pops up is his own web site (about a hobby of his)....i was floored....why didn't he tell me he had a web site.....ahh, now i see why.....he had written his history of this hobby, complete with stories about his W that didn't make it sound like he couldn't stand her, and a photo of him with his son (from previous marriage) and his W that made it all look so wonderful...it had been written the year before i was reading it...two years into the A.....i felt kicked in the stomach, slapped in the face...what was really going on between them?
MM'S EXPLANATION: he decided to create the web site during a time that we were somewhat broken up (for about 3 weeks) and then he got all nostalgic thinking about what he had in the M before, and decided to write all of that stuff about his wife....he said no, nothing has changed in their relationship, he's not sleeping with her...it was just this moment of nostalgia and thinking about the way things were....(after we were back together, since i was so upset about it, he removed all comments about her and the picture from the site......)
THE VACATION INCIDENT...he and his W always take a vacation in May, and this has always been to the caribbean...in earlier years, when things were better between them, they planned wonderful vacations, often at nudist resorts (he's into that, i'm not)...but after he felt his marriage was over, and after we met, he said he fought her on going away together, but she insisted (she's majorly controlling, and he lets himself be controlled in almost every possible way)...and so he planned a different kind of vacation, not in a fancy resort, just rented a portion of a house where he would have access to a computer and she would have a tv to keep her busy at times...and each year we were together after that, he told me they went on that same vacation...nothing spectacular, just something to keep her quiet.....
finding his web site wasn't bad enough..on that same day of finding the site, i looked at the guest book page and someone had signed in who said he got the name of the site from a post MM had made on a caribbean travel message board...ok, so now i'm wondering what the hell he posted on a travel site....i found the site he posted on...is there no end to the lies?
he had posted on a Caribbean message board about how he and his W were looking to go to a nudist resort in Florida over the winter holidays, and did anyone have any suggestions?..also in the post was a reference to the nudist resort they went to last year in the caribbean (NOT AT ALL where he had told me they actually went), and that they would be returning there this year to the same place, and a note to any of the friends they had made there saying they'd be back in may...of course, that wasn't bad enough...it was written in a very cutsie way, using all of these silly smiley faces throughout the post, and king and queen smiley faces under where he signed their names....the post made it sound like they were so couple-y and together...
i think i could have died...this hurt on so many levels i couldn't even believe it...first of all, he lied to me about the past vacation and about the one coming up next spring...they had planned these elaborate vacations while he told me they hardly talked about it, that he just re-rented the same place as the year before just to keep up the appearance of going on their yearly trip, and that was it...the lying was bad enough...but what about this unbelievable post, with him making them sound soo like a couple planning and looking forward to their vacation...this was november, and his vacation was in may, and they're sitting there planning all of this together !!.......
This was the explanation i hoped and prayed for: his W held a gun to his head while forcing him to write this post, add all of the smiley faces, and make it sound like they were such a happy couple...but i checked the time and it was posted at 4 pm on a tuesday, which meant he was at work without her, and so that blew that theory right out of the water..
MM'S EXPLANATION: he didn't really have one....
FOLLOWUP: after all of this happened, we had a conversation in which i asked him to explain everything above...he was a little drunk, hysterical crying because of how much he lied to me and hurt me and how horrible he felt...i asked him to be honest FOR ONCE and tell me what the hell was the real story with him and his W....he gave me the explanations above, AND MORE...he told me he had been lying to his W about how he felt about her for about 2 years now....i said WHAT?....he said he couldn't take the constant nastiness and all of the fighting, etc., and so he decided to say and do things that would make his home life more tolerable for him...i said, well, you must have slept with her then....and he admitted that he had been sleeping with her once every couple of months for the last two years or so....i said but i thought she wasn't interested in sex...he said that after a while she started wanting to know why HE wasn't interested in sex any more, and so she persisted in approaching him about it until he just did it....i heard the usual "it wasn't anything, quick and over," insisted he never made love to her, yada, yada, yada...he said she doesn't really enjoy sex...ok...go figure...she doesn't enjoy it but keeps approaching him about it...i tell him that makes no sense....he said she feels like this is a favor a wife does for her husband....i said but if you're not asking for it, then how is it a favor...
this goes nowhere, mostly because even intelligent guys aren't smart enough to come up with lies that make sense.......
THE LAWYER INCIDENT: a year into the A, we were on and off at the time, having an argument regarding what, if any, future we had together...in the middle of this, he tells me that he has thought SO SERIOUSLY about getting a divorce and being with me that he went to see a lawyer and spent $300 on a consultation to find out if he could get a divorce without it devastating his family business financially....he told me that the lawyer confirmed his fears, and therefore his decision has to be to remain married...he seemed so unbelievably sincere at the time...i can even remember the look on his face at that moment...it was a look that said, i love you SO MUCH and have considered a future with you SO SERIOUSLY that i went to see a lawyer...now do you believe how much i want to be with you????
well, i actually did believe him, and honestly his going to a lawyer meant more to me than almost anything he's ever done...just knowing that he TRULY wanted to be with me permanently SO MUCH that he took that step...i thought back to that moment many times over the next few years, especially when i was doubting his love for me or his desire to share life with me, and i thought but he really does want to but is caught up in all of these circumstances...remember, he went to see the lawyer???.......
a few months after the vacation incident, we were talking and for some reason i mentioned the fact that he had gone to see the lawyer (this was the first time it had been mentioned since he originally told me)......
and he said WHAT LAWYER?..and i said, you know, remember when you told me you went to see lawyer, and you even told me what it cost, and you said he confirmed your fears about what would happen to the business?...he said, i don't know what you're talking about...I HAVE NEVER GONE TO SEE A LAWYER...i'm sitting there, knowing his memory isn't the greatest, and trying to remind him of it all, and for a while he's actually trying to CONVINCE ME that he has never gone to a lawyer, and that i must be the forgetful one....it took me a while to convince him that there's no way i made that up, i remember the entire conversation word for word, and that he's the one with the memory problem....he FORGOT that he told me that incredible lie....he then said "i'll have to go back and check my old calendar and checkbook to see if i can find it"...well, guess what?...he never found it...he was almost as shocked as i was that he told that lie.....can you believe it?....he lied so many times that even he couldn't keep track of them all, and i think this time he surprised himself, because this was a big one not to remember....
i think that lie hurt more than any other lie he told me, because now i realized that he NEVER came to the point that he wanted to be with me so much he went to see a lawyer...and when this all came out i said, so why don't you REALLY go to a lawyer now?...but of course he never did...the truth is he wanted to be with me just enough to SAY he went to a lawyer, but not enough to actually go to one...that was probably the single most painful thing i dealt with........
i tried to believe all of his lies and go on with the relationship for a few months after that...but honestly, those lies were what ended it all for me...from that moment on, i couldn't get the thought of him and his W "being together" out of my head..even though he had told me that last march was the last time they slept together, who could believe anything he said?....i have always wanted to be the only woman in his life in that way, and couldn't tolerate the thought of it not being so....and i was constantly spinning in circles trying to decide whether or not i loved him deeply enough to understand his behaviors and where they came from (narcissistic parents, need for approval, lying so much to seek the approval of others that he just did't know who he was any more, etc...) or loved him but realized he was a self-centered, manipulative liar.....and honestly, i still swing back and forth....how sad is that?..
and now what do i believe: i believe he never stopped sleeping with his wife....i believe he never truly considered a life with me, even though he said he did.....i believed he left his wife the message while in vegas just because he wanted to, not because anyone else pressured him to....and i believe their relationship was always so much more than i ever thought it was, and that everything he told me about it was a lie.....
and i believe i was a total fool...........
if you've gotten this far, thanks, and have a good sunday.......ada
Edited 1/11/2004 3:10:52 PM ET by ada_j

what a heartbreaking post.My X was quite the liar too, but then again, what did i expect? He was lying with his spouse to be with me. I saw an interesting quote the other day-
"when a man marries his mistress, he creates a job opening"
That hit me hard. We think that our relationships with these men are so special and noone has a bond like we do--and in the end--almost every story is completely interchangeable.
The bottom line is,lying and cheating to any degree leads to the same.
google the quote "cakeman"
and (((hugs)))
hang in there
Jazzdiva
Take care
My heart aches for you after reading your post. I think you have written before that you are in a loveless marriage (me too). My thinking is that, for women in our situations, we see these A's as a way out....an escape from a bad marriage....a possibility of true love in our future, someone to grow old with. When everything starts to fall apart, we have to let go of the dream. It is so hard, I know.
When XMM and I were talking daily, I too would ask him when was the last time he and his W were intimate. My heart would be pounding as I waited for his answer. He told me the same type thing....that he and his W slept on opposite sides of their king-size bed, never touched, etc. He and I live in different states, so who knows if he was telling the truth?!? Even now that we are officially "over," when I talked to him on Friday, he said he is interviewing for a job out West. While he is there, he's going to be looking at and pricing houses out there, etc. Even now, that bothered me. I'm thinking, WOW, that is a pretty major move to consider making with your wife you are supposedly not even in love with anymore....
I really don't have any answers for you. I am becoming more and more convinced that these A's usually (always?) end in heartache for us women. I am trying to focus on my two healthy children, my comfortable home, and all the other good things in my life. I guess we need to keep reminding ourselves that we deserve better than being in an A....
Hugs ~ mpjcmom
i completely understand your thoughts about your MM considering relocating with his W.....you'd think that if there was nothing between two people they wouldn't make a move like that...but then i think about how awful my marriage was, even before i gave up on it completely, and during that time i bought houses, had more children..why?..sometimes we just keep going with the inertia of our lives and don't know how to stop it..for myself, i just kept thinking that it wasn't supposed to be better than that, that i wasn't supposed to be "happily married"....somewhere along the line, i bought into what my mother (and so many other women in her generation) thought, which was that you couldn't expect to be "happy", or (god forbid) in love with your husband, at least not after a while.....expecting that would be believing in a fairy tale.....it took me a long time to realize that although marriage is not a fairy tale, it's not supposed to be a nightmare either......
yes, it is so hard to let go of the dream of growing old with someone you love.....i just keep telling myself i'm not giving up yet.....
you sound like you're doing ok, talking about focusing on your children and the good things in your life.....that's a good thing.......i would imagine that it may be more of a relief than not that your H is away right now while everyone's feelings have a chance to cool down......hang in there, and keep posting.....hugs back to you.......ada
<>
ada, i hope you print that paragraph and read it every day until you don't miss the lying scumbag anymore.
Iknowitstime
(and so do you)
It was sad reading your post today. I had no idea how many lies you'd been told.
At least my MM doesn't say he's not sleeping with his W.
You are right to move on and I'm trying to do the same. I don't seem to have any
luck with it. Everytime I email my MM that I want NC because he is never there for me, he says we have to talk in person, blah, blah, blah.
I know, I need to say forget it. And I think I am ready now to do that. Tomorrow it will be 5 years since A began. I can hardly believe I've been in this crummy roller coaster for this long!!
I wish you strength and courage. I know you will be better off this way and I know all of us have experienced the same lying and deceit, in different degrees. I'm hoping I'll become stronger over the next few weeks and finally put an end to this madness!
Have a peaceful day. :-)
Dusty
with regard to you and the rollercoaster you're on, with MM always reeling you in for another day, another phone call, anything that will keep the end from coming.....all i know is that sometimes it would be me who ended NC, and sometimes it would be him, but as long as we allowed NC to be broken, then the rollercoaster just continued.....we always used to talk about how we went around the same circles over and over and over again....so many times we couldn't even begin to keep track.....breaking up, no contact, someone weakens, contact begins, back in the A, miserable again, break up again.....it was actually becoming insane.....now how i wish i had ended it years ago......
i can tell you this, though......3 weeks ago, i was engulfed in pain every waking minute.....we broke up about 2 months ago, although it is really day 29 of NC, and i'm NOT engulfed in pain all the time any more....i actually have been feeling ok.....it really has improved, and honestly i truly felt i'd be in that emotional state for at least 4 or 5 months.....but it DOES GET BETTER.....this board and all of the people on it have helped so much.....
y'know how so many of us keep saying we don't know how or why we put up with so much, and still kept loving them?.....well it took about 3 weeks of NC before i began to feel the haze lifting.....i honestly felt like i had been in some strange drug induced haze, and now i was beginning to finally see all of those things clearly.......but i do believe that no contact is the only way to get there......
i know how hard it is to end your affair....but i also know that you have to be ready to end it, or it won't work......i had tried unsuccessfully to end it so many times that i gave up trying until i truly thought that i would stick to it......i think it's hard to end because we're afraid....i think we're all so afraid to be alone, afraid that we'll never find anyone else like him, afraid that no one will ever love us like that again (as if THAT was what true love really is), afraid that the sex won't be as good with anyone else, afraid that we're losing the one love of our lives and may never find it again.....in that haze of addiction, we never really can see these men or the situation clearly.....
but i think it was a different fear that caused me to finally end it..... i was afraid that i'd be stuck in that affair forever and miss out on meeting someone who might truly love me and want to be with me the way i still hope for......
you sound like you want to go through with ending the relationship, and you sound ready to do it.....when you do, though, make sure it's with totally no contact......i really think it's the only way to do it.....i don't believe i'd be feeling better right now if there had been even one email during this time......and, believe it or not, i am better than i was a month ago.......
just remember, you're not going to be alone when you go through it.....i'll definitely be here for you.......hugs......ada
To dusty: 5 years is a really long time. My MM does love me I think, on some level. Just not the way I need or deserve. We are very emotionally entangled and that is why it's so difficult to end it. I hope you have better success with your A than I have.
Love to you all, imaria