PTSD, Infidelity and confusion.

[Boxoftissues]

Its a long story but let me make it short:

We've been friends for six years now, dating for two and a half, long distance for 2 of that. He was in the military, we started dating after he came back from his first deployment which was combat heavy. It was long distance with us seeing each other ever 2-3 months. Half way through our relationship he deployed again, and just recently came back and got out of the military. Both were very stressful situations for him.

So he gets out of the military, asks me to marry him, we move in together. I randomly come accross a facebook message (our computers are next to each other) where he is flirting with some chick. I confront him about it, and he told me that he agreed it was inappropriate but it was just the kind of friendship they had and he'll never do it again. Swears up and down that that is the extent of it.

 

So I'm still a bit suspicious at this point, and he had kept telling me to go ahead and look through his ****, he has nothing to hide.

So...while he's out one night my curiosity gets the best of me. I snoop through his facebook messages, and there are countless erotic messages between him and around 10 different girls. So I blow up and break it off with him, which causes a massive PTSD reaction leading to a suicide attempt. Fast forward a few days, I'm trying to support him through this crap at this point,he claims that all of that **** was just a meaningless hobby and that he didn't "think" about it. He didn't realize it would hurt me, or that it was significant in any way. It all happened while we were long distance and that it was just like reading an 'erotic book' with people he had never met before. Which leads me to find out that he had an updated dating profile on okcupid which he apparently also wants to tell me that it was just a hobby, something to do like hot or not (despite that on hot or not you don't have conversations with people...). He swears up and down that he's never cheated physically and would never even dream of doing such a thing. To him, what he was doing was just something to get his mind off of things, to mindlessly pass time and to make him feel like a human being again.

 

Now he wants me to believe that it all meant nothing. That he did something ****ed up, one ****ed up thing as he calls it - and has been begging me to forgive him because its worth it. Because he's a good man that's had some serious issues that he's trying to take care of through therapy.

 

What do I do? I'm so lost and hurt and confused. And just typing this out makes everything seem unforgivable to me.

[becomingkate]

Was the relationship ever on and off?

 

I was in a LDR for a year and to be honest, I don't want to know who my husband was talking to online during that time.

 

Personally, I didn't pursue anyone online until after he tried breaking up with me via email (twice) and then ignored me for over two weeks. At that point, I considered what he'd done as abandonment! Even so, I didn't want to pursue anyone in the vicinity because I just wanted someone to chat with in the evenings after work, I never wanted to hook up because I always thought he'd come around.

 

During the time that he ws trying to break it off I also updated my dating site profiles and accepted one date, which he discovered by reading my long distance blog. After that, he made a huge effort to work on being together. We really don't discuss the past because we were both going through a hard time and since we've been physically together, he's never given me a reason to be worried.

 

I don't know how much this helps, but some people don't see how online activity can be a betrayal - so many people think that as long as you never actually meet anyone face to face, it's not a big deal. I think the trick is going to be getting him to understand that it's emotional cheating - sharing a part of yourself online is just as harmful as doing it in person. Because your fiance has been through so much, perhaps his counsellor can help him. Also, many churches offer pre-marital counselling, and that might help as well.