WS Mental Health

Hi everyone, I had a question and a bit of a vent. Little backstory, So my WS was on dating sites and had EA's in 2020 and was slow with trickle truth and I've had to find proof of everything to get him to admit things. He has been in therapy for years now and has improved a lot. However I just found out he also has a porn addiction. He knows with how much I've struggled yet was wiping his computer with coding and programs to hide the addiction. I was able to use programs to recover enough to verify it was porn not dating sites. He says it was the last thing he's hid from me since it's been something he has deep shame over especially since he's into hentai and didn't want to admit it. He signed up for PA support groups and added more therapy and wants us to start counseling. He did this on his own accord.

However, the past week he has been struggling mentally really bad to the point of thoughts to end his life. He hasn't been nice at all to me and keeps telling me he has to wait to see his therapist who's on vacation. I feel he's in full blown crisis mode. But a part of me wonders if he is just saying this to manipulate me and keep the focus off his issues and not work on our relationship or join the PA meetings. How do you help a WS struggling mentally when you are struggling yourself and are heartbroken?

9 comments posted: Thursday, December 28th, 2023

Hurting tonight, needing to write some thoughts

I found out everything my partner was doing behind my back in 2020. He had multiple EA's, was on dating sites telling women he wanted nudes and to hookup, joined adultery forums and was asking how to have successful affairs. None of it was physical beyond purchasing nudes because none of the women wanted to do more than that.

He did trickle truth until November 2021. I had to find out everything,he never willingly told me anything.

After I found out April 2020, we both set boundaries in order to keep being together, and one of them was no apps, social media, or anything where he could secretly message women unless he was transparent and showed me everything including giving access to his accounts. But He continued to make secret accounts and would add and delete the apps which I would keep finding out about on and off from April 2020 to November 1st 2021. He says he didn't message anyone again but I don't know if I can believe him.

November 1st 2021, I was going through a scare for my health, possible cancer and had to have a procedure to have precancerous cells removed. I was freaking out, we have young kids. I needed to use his phone, I found yet another app he was using where I had specifically asked him not to make an account since only by having an account could you talk to other people. He lied and said he didn't make an account and that morning of my procedure I found out he had THREE different accounts for that app and had been talking to other people.
We had a huge argument that morning of November 1st 2021 and I was done. I told him after my procedure I couldn't do it anymore.

He begged me not to end the relationship, started therapy, put an accountability app on his phone to show me that he wasn't going to do anything else. He also went and got evaluated for mental illness and started medication. All while doing this I told him I may still end the relationship because at that point I no longer had any hope.

Fast forward to now. Since November 1st 2021 with proof/transparency from an app showing everything he does, he hasn't done anything else. Therapy and medication have helped. He focused on the issues inside himself that were making him choose to cross boundaries and worked on them. He's a way better person and partner. However, he's terrible at talking about feelings and emotions that come up about the hurt I was put through and communicating about the past, and helping build my self esteem and my feeling of stability in our relationship which after everything we went through I feel is absolutely necessary for my healing.

For example, last night I again asked him why he chose me as a partner in the beginning of our relationship. He had to choose between me and someone else back then. She was a lot younger than us. Back then I didn't even know how much he had debated about us both on who to date since he made it seem like after he had met me he had already gave up on being with her. His reply was the same one he always gives, "She was too young and you were the better choice for my kids since you were already a mom." Over the years of our relationship everytime I ask why he chose me over her, this is the answer I get. Which makes me feel I wasn't chosen as someone he wanted to be with but for someone who met his needs, a safe option until he found who he really wanted to be with. And since she was one of the women he had a long EA with during our relationship I feel used for what I could give him as a partner and feel he kept cheating on me with people he actually had more feelings for.

Tonight we got to talk again after last night's argument over this. He finally was able to say more things about why he chose me and what he loves about me. But it hurts it took him a whole day to come up with things especially since this has been something brought up often. He says he thought of reasons why he wanted me as a partner right away but cannot seem to tell me them. That due to how he was raised and beat as a kid for having emotions he cannot seem to tell me how he feels, that there seems to be a mental block. He has been working on this in therapy, he has a lot of trauma.

However, even though I'm aware of his trauma and empathize, I'm so sick of trying to communicate about things and trying to repair the damaged parts of our relationship with him. He shuts down, or unintentionally says something that hurts me, or doesn't say anything when I need to hear it. He gets frustrated and angry, defensive over not being able to communicate about emotions.

I'm conflicted, do I keep reaching out to try to repair the damage done in our relationship and trying to ask him for the things I need to hear so I can heal, when I know he has trauma making it incredibly hard for him to say how he feels? Or do I just try to accept the past and how he is now and give up on communicating about the past and hearing the things I need to hear?

It's hard when I want to hear how he feels about me aka the things he loves about me, why we are in a relationship, why he chose me as a partner, what made him fall in love with me, I want to talk about what happened in the past and how we can prevent it, I need to communicate in order to feel things won't happen again. When things trigger a hurt I need to be able to tell him it hurts and for him to be compassionate, empathize, and reassure instead of getting defensive. I'm tempted to just stop reaching out. A huge part of me wants to just let it hurt inside and figure it out on my own, and concentrate on how he is now, and not expect anything. I wonder if this is what some people have had to do to stay in a relationship after multiple infidelities or if the only hope at having a lasting relationship is repairing it.

Idk sorry for the long ramble, I just hurt tonight. Helps to vent.

4 comments posted: Saturday, July 8th, 2023