He's there, I'm here, now what?
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| Sat, 09-01-2007 - 12:26am |
Hi all,
I'm new to the board, so I'll try and make this short.
My DH and I met almost 6 years ago at work. I was 9 mos. out from a D, he was 2 mos. out from his D. Friends at first, then romantically involved. Moved in together pretty quickly. About 6 mos. after moving in, he changed. Became very short tempered with me, made excuses to be 'out' a lot. Got lots of voicemails from women, he said 'just friends'. Of course, my red flags were waving. Thought about leaving, but couldn't bring myself to do it, just too in love. Well, this lasted almost a year, then stopped suddenly. He morphed back into the man I fell in love with! No more phone calls, voicemails, dissapearing for hours at a time. Now, while those things were going on, it felt like 'all the time' but, in reality happened for a few days each time during three different time periods. Well, shortly after he 'snapped out of it' we got engaged. We have been extremely happy together for 4 1/2 years. He left for Iraq in June (civilian contractor). This is his first deployment and our first time away from eachother for more than a few nights. We have been very close, loving and each other's best friend since we were engaged. But through all that, I still wondered about that period in time at the beginning of our relationship and it prevented me from trusting him and from really giving 100% of my heart to him. I felt I needed to hold something back to prevent myself from being hurt. Foolish, I know, but this is what I was feeling. I would ask him about this time, I had specific questions about the women on the voicemails. He repeatedly denied anything went on and would get so angry with me for asking. Anyway, back to the Iraq thing. Have you ever heard the saying "there are no athiests in foxholes"? Within his first two weeks there, he was in the middle of a fire fight. Being a civilian, all he could do was dive on the ground and let the Marines protecting their convoy do their thing. He took two ricoched bullets in the kevlar vest he was wearing. They never made it through the vest, but it made something snap in him. He called me the next day and brought up the past and asked if I still had questions and doubts. I immediately said that yes, I did. He said he would answer any questions I had for him truthfully, no matter what the consequences. So I wrote him an email asking all the questions I had already asked so many times and more. He answered.... well, I got my answers, and as painful as they were to hear, I was somehow relieved and grateful that he had finally admitted to what he'd done and shown me enough respect to tell me the truth. He was unfaithful, although basically one-night stands, it doesn't make it any better. So, here I am now, faced with the knowledge that this man treated me and my love horribly over the period of a year. Then I have to acknowledge the fact that, for some reason, 4 1/2 years ago, he decided that he wanted to be with me, and only me and devoted himself to making a wonderful, enviable life with me. So, he's in Iraq, I'm in the States, we want to stay married. The plain truth is that we love eachother, intensely. It would be so easy for me to file for D right now. He can't even contest it from over there. I have Power of Attorney for ALL of his legal and financial dealings, and men over there get served D papers like we get junk mail. But, I just don't want to get a D. Not from him. Am I a fool for not leaving? Should I leave now because of something he did so many years ago when it was so obviously over so many years ago? If I stay, how do we work on our marriage while he's half way around the world?

Welcome to the board sunlover2007,
Rebuilding trust and healing a betrayal isn't easy to do even when you are both living in the same country and usually can't be done without counseling.
Maybe buy two copies of one of these books, send him one, you both read it and email about what you read?
Straight Talk About Betrayal: A Self-Help Guide for Couples by Donna R. Bellafiore
Infidelity: A Survival Guide by Don-David