Cheating is Cheating

Hello...I am new here. I have never posted my feelings so bare with me. I know I am married to a Narciss. I got married in 2009 at 5 months pregnant with my daughter. During this pregnancy my husband would not have sex with me. He said "he didn't want to hurt the baby". RED FLAG because we went from having sex daily to NONE in nine months. He works in the medical field and damn, he was so convincing. We also didn't live together during my pregnancy as I was still living in another city but when we did see each other, he was not intimate with me. I now can say honestly that "I knew something wasn't right then" but I was so in love I didn't want to face it. I was a single mom with two children from a previous marriage and here comes this night and shinning armor to my rescue. I gave birth to my daughter. At three months I started finding text messages. I confronted him and he admitted the messages were inappropriate. He sent me flowers, wrote me love notes and made endless promises. That only lasted for a few months. Before I knew it he was back to being himself...the Narcissist. He controlled me and kept me busy so that I wouldn't focus too much on him. The intimacy was still an issue and I constantly confronted him on it. I was actually denied sex most times. He would tell me all I wanted was sex (I'm thinking this is crazy). He ignored me most times as well. I have to admit my husband is a graceful Narcissist. Like in the book, my husband "would rather be admired by many than loved by one". He kept himself extremely busy, always involved in projects so I wouldn't piece together the timeline in his day. He kept his phone on silent and changed the passcode often. I gave birth to my son in December 2011. I remember thinking as I laid in the hospital how cold and distant he was with me. He didn't even bring me home with his son. He said he had to work and asked my best friend to do it. He was just different or it was my gut feeling telling me something...again. Three weeks I wake up one morning, he's in the shower and my 3 yr old daughter brings me his cell phone because it beeped. I look and see text messages from a female that I knew. I knew her well. She worked with him at the hospital and she even gave me gifts for my babies. I confront him and he becomes very angry saying I had no right to go through his phone and that clearly I misread the messages. He was gaslighting me and had been doing so for a long time. I sat there and prayed. I knew I wasn't crazy so I started investigating. I started scrolling his cell phone account which I finally got the passcode to by creating my own log in under my cell phone number. I could see he had been texting her for some time now....like 18 months. If he wasn't having sex with me he was having it with someone else. So I called all the hotels around his work....and yes I found the hotel they would meet up with. I called the hotel and pretended I needed receipts for tax purposes. The hotel gladly sent them over to me. I now had the dates and times he had been with her. The worst part was I discovered he was with her the day he was to bring me and his son home from the hospital. I confronted him with a simple question "who were you with at the La Quinta in room 208 on the day your son and I came home from the hospital?" Yeah...he was livid and all hell broke loose. He was so mad and furious. He packed a few of his things and left. We separated for a year and possibly this is where he shined best as a Narcissist. He blamed me, he punished me, he threaten me, he lied to me and still kept cheating! We separated for a year 2012. It was the worst year for me. I cried and I was a victim of his gaslighting. He had me thinking I was crazy and I didn't read what I read and I didn't see what I saw. Oh it just got worse. I caught him cheating with three other ladies that year and stupid me...I actually put on my anger and hurt towards the women instead of him. I mean I confronted these ladies, I texted, I argued, I emailed their partners. It was ugly. I told myself I would never do that again. We get back together in 2013 cause I got sick and needed someone to help with kids. From that moment, he never left. He promised he would change but really we never discussed him coming back. Before I knew it he was there like nothing ever happened. Since then, my husband has cheated on me with 9 other different ladies. All of whom I know personally. My husband is the kind of man who lures the cheater into our lives. The family knows her, kids know her. Its so we don't get suspicious. They would attend birthday parties and events. Sit next to me, all long he was cheating on me with them. Last week I discovered he had been texting a young 23 yr girl who works as a bartender at the restaurant I go to every week to wait while our kids attend math and swim class. I know this girl, we have talked and she always ask about my kids. Well, they were flirting back and forth on text messages and met up for drinks several times while I was out of town. When I confronted him, he used gaslighting on me. He said he wasn't cheating, that he didn't have sex with her. Never does he talk about the personal text messages. He goes into attack mode from there but I know better. I starting reading on Narcissism when he cheated the first time. I packed up his clothes in a suitcase, drove to his work and left the suitcase in the front seat with a note that I was leaving him. That night, I went online and found the e-book "The Path Forward Surviving a Narcissist" and started reading. Dang that book totally defines my husband to the finest point. I don't want to go back with him. The kids and I moved out and we got an apartment. He still tells me that text flirting and meeting up for drinks is NOT cheating. I almost believed him too and when I started to believe him, that when I went online looking for something to tell me I'm not crazy!

I am so ashamed that I believed this man for so long. Its true what Lisa says in the book. You have to write down the bad stuff they do or the Narcissist will make you forget. My husband is good at making me forget. He is a bee charmer, one of the best. Anyone he comes in contact with falls in love with my husband. He is constantly told by the ladies how awesome he is and how wonderful and kind he is. Yes I know. Right now I am trying to deal with my emotions, fears and anger. I have limit the contact to almost nothing. When he picks up the kids, I don't make eye contact. I can't. He has destroyed me on so many levels. In all of this, I have learned that cheating is cheating. Flirting, texting, sexting, calling, emailing and sex = cheating!

Thank you for letting me share my story. God bless!