Trigger Warning: suicide. When is it time to leave?
To preface this, my husband and I have been together for 5 years, married for almost one of them abd have a young daughter.Two weeks after my husband and I got married he went away for work and he paid for sexual acts in a brothel, I caught him out the week after that. In my head, we were in a really good place, all over each other and just enjoying the fact that we were married and all that stress was over so it came as a huge shock to me. He had a huge meltdown as I felt like we couldn't come back from that as it had tainted our whole wedding for me, and he tried to hang himself. I ended up agreeing to stay and help him; he was seeing a psychologist as it turns out he has a sex and porn addiction. ( He has lost a lot of weight and food used to be his crutch, so now he has replaced one addiction for another.) Anyway, he installed an app on his phone that would stop him from accessing those sites. Mind you, I never had an issue with him watching porn until I realised how much it was taking over his life, and it led him to lying and cheating on me. We were doing really well, or so I thought, and I have caught him lying to me a few times about things since then. All I've asked from him is to talk to me. I've been supportive and non-judgemental because, hey, I ain't perfect either. But after the last time, we've had multiple discussions where I've broken down crying, asking him to talk to me because we would go a couple of weeks with him, not even checking in with me to let me know how it's going and if he's coping/struggling. I told him that I just want honesty, no matter how bad it gets, or I can't stay because I can't keep tolerating the lying, and he was well aware of what that meant. Jumping to now, I had a bad dream the other night, and I just woke up knowing he was hiding stuff again, so I went through his phone to find stuff he has been hiding and lying about for two months. Again, I repeat, it's not what he's doing on his phone that I have the problem with; it's the lying. I feel like I can't take any more, but if I leave, I'll be breaking my daughters heart too.
8 Replies
If you stay you will be hurting not only yourself, but your daughter.
My ex husband has a sex addiction, it led him to rape me on mutltiple occasions. Despite it being tough and he threatened suicide if i left, i left with our son. Our child deserves a better life than his mother crying constantly and hurting. He deserves better than a father who was prioritising sex over family time.
Leave and save your daughter heartache later when she doesn’t come first to her dad
Him threatening suicide is a control tactic. And it worked for him.
When I would of left is about a year ago.
When you choose to leave is when you choose to. Don't let him control you anymore. Tell his family what he's doing. Send the police to do welfare checks. Whether he tries to kill himself or not is not your fault and not your responsibility. If you're done you're done. All you're teaching your daughter is to sacrifice your life to a toxic relationship. You know you can do better than that.
I think he is hiding a drug addiction too. You need to go. For your sake and your daughters get out. You aren’t breaking your daughters heart , you are showing her what an amazing strong woman you are and showing her not to live like this. She will understand as she gets older.
If he threatens suicide it’s to control you and keep you where you are. You ring 000 and walk out. Do not let him control you with this.
You are teaching your daughter what to accept and what you are accepting is not right. If she came to you as an adult and told you what you have written what would you tell her.
Its time to put you and your daughter first. Children are resilient, she is still surrounded by love just in a different home setup.
Threatening self harm is a common method of control in an abusive relationship. I used to stay for my children and felt guilty. In the end I left for my children. You do not want her growing up thinking this is normal or choosing a man like him. By leaving you are actually showing her that she has a choice if she ever finds herself in a similar situation. I left and then made sure I contacted his friends to get them to check on him. Turned out he was fine and already had another woman ((Hugs))
I think you have given this a good hard go and tried to be very supportive of him seems he is not wanting to change.
You have a right to be happy to feel valued and loved, while your daughter may be uspet initially in the long run she will understand. If you stay your teaching your daughter that it’s ok to let a man continually hurt you and be walked all over, do you want your daughter to think that’s how her relationships should be.
You deserve better
The question is how long will he keep doing it for and how long do you keep wasting your life and feeling like shit about it before you've had enough? Staying for your daughter isn't the answer you need, because in the long run if all these issues keep coming up she'll end up more hurt being around it constantly.