Relationship Question - Altamonte Springs,FL

From someone who has been there...take this info as a gift and get out, before you've been through the expense and public display of a wedding, before you buy a house and have more kids.

He is not worthy of your time or your love. This behavior is NOT OKAY. There is nothing more disgusting and skanky than craigslist hook ups. That he would even venture down that road reveals everything you need to know about his morality and character, which is that he has NONE. Don't waste any more of your time with him, please. There are good men out there. He isn't one of them.

I'm sure you are heartbroken. Poor thing! Sorry. :(
Think about it this way, do you think MOST women who find out their boyfriends & husbands are liars and cheats didn't feel the exact same way?
Many never see it coming.
He got caught. He's going to lie, of course.
You've been played.

BUT You're still lucky.
You found out his true colors before you married him & (God forbid) created a child together.
To the curb he goes.
Is this the character you want your daughter to grow up around?
You deserve better.
Please reconsider living with a BF since you have a child and she doesn't need to experience the emotional roller coaster with you.
Dating life.
Family life.
Keep them separate from here on out.
Focus on taking care of yourself and your child --Financially, emotionally, physically and psychologically and you'll never do the wrong thing.
Good luck!

You're not married. He's not your daughter's father.

Dump him.

He does not deserve your loyalty. He only "admitted" to doing anything wrong because he was caught. I promise you, he IS lying to you still. And he's probably cheating on you.

If your daughter was in this situation with her live-in boyfriend, what would you tell her to do?

Hi there - Harsh answer...be prepared.
I have loved a few men. One of them raped me at gunpoint. I was hearbroken and in love. One of them cheated on me while I was pregnant. I was heartbroken and in love. One of them had a different girl CALLING me while I was pregnant. He NEVER EVER did anything with them, yeah right. I was scared, pregnant, and in love.
You are not married to this man. You have no commintment to this man. He does NOT love you. "He's just not that into you." You are a warm body for him to lay next to, and good lay, and a woman that he is NOT ready to commit to.
Leave his sorry cheatin' butt behind. He can tell you 1,000 times that he didn't do anything with these women but #1- He did and #2 - WHY in the world would you advertise something like that if you loved and respected your partner.
Girl, get out while you can. And while you're at it, cancel your counselor's aptmnt and go get an STD test.
L. (FINALLY figured out I was worth it and married to a great man with 3 lovely children. REAL love.)
Just had to add after reading 2boys4me - The couple that you quoted was MARRIED. This woman is not. She should leave. When I break my bowl that I make cookies in I don't try and glue it all back together and still use it...I toss it and get a new one. When I crash my car into smitherings I don't try and fix it, I get a new one. Her boyfriend is cheating...she deserves a NEW, better boyfriend.

I DISAGREE with 2boysforme and this is why;

YES you try and fix broken relationships...BUT that is when there is a good solid foundation of trust and love before the issues. There is a diference between being married for 60 year and at the 10 year mark having issues and the relationship failing on both sides and one person cheating VS ONLY DATING and already having these issues in the begining.
If you're only 2 years in it shopuld still be new. He shouldnt need to go elsewhere for his ego. It;s great he;s getting counseling and will improve himself for the NEXT person But honestly do you want to vest your time and your daughters time in a relationship that is starting on rocky ground?

Pick someone like the man you want your daughter to grow up to marry eventually, not someone who has so many flaws so early in.

.

There is a child involved. It's not playtime. Do you want your child to become more attached to a man you cant even trust?? If this was 5 years in my opinion would be completely diferent but lets be real its NOT. Your child isnt tha attached yet, so there is no need ot put you andher through hell to try and fix it.

I was with my ex from 14-26 he cheated for the entire duration. I attempted to mend it because we had a daughter together (you do not have a child together) but realized there was no solid foundation of trust to go back to...that takes years of being loyal not months!

Thats J. my 2 cents. you dont have to hate him but he obviously has issues he needs to work out in counseling and thats going to take years not months of work

My ex has been in counseling for 3 years now to work on it and J. last summer finally felt stable and healthy enough for a relationship. I am hoping he is fixed for my daughter sake and that he learns from past mistakes and IO hope he's a good husband for this girl...NOT M.

you have to ask yourslef if you think its almost positive that this will be a positive relationship for your daughter to see and worth working on and honestly you cant. if you stay she will see a lot of fighting, mistrust...things that shouldnt be in a relactionship this early on

You are not married. There is NO REASON for you to stay. Your love for him, is not enough to make a relationship work. I really don't understand why women are so desperate for scraps of love. Do you really think you don't deserve more then this. You are teaching your daughter, this is how women are viewed and treated. You don't know what passwords he didn't give you. Which sites you didn't find. What other profiles he might have. You have NO IDEA how much of the truth he offered. He could have only offered the parts he got caught in.

LOVE is not always a good thing. It's not a good enough reason to keep your daughter around a guy like this. In fact, it's an entirely selfish reason.

He's broken your trust, repeatedly. I know you are still in love, but it's with the guy you want him to be, not who he has shown himself to be. DO NOT put up with this behavior. My mom did and found out he was lying about so much and he basically ruined her fiances (from which she has never fully recovered) and divorcing him was a lengthy mess. You are worth more than this. Going on a site even once is betrayal.

If you want to do counseling, then that's up to you, but I suggest you also do it for YOURSELF so that you don't repeat history, more than saving this relationship.

Think of it this way, you have a DD, right? What would you want her to do? What example do you want her to have?

ETA: I'm going to disagree with the person that suggested you work this out for your DD. He's not her father and you aren't married. Don't stick in a bad relationship to give her a false sense of family. Staying "for the kids" is often a bad idea, even when both adults are the parents.

i'm so sorry.
no way could i ever again trust someone who had lied to this extent. it's a pity, there's a (tiny, tiny) chance he could be telling the truth. but if he was willing to lie to and deceive you for that long, what will stop him from doing it again?
it's not like he came clean to you. you CAUGHT him. otherwise he'd still be lying.
could you ever leave him alone and really feel secure that he wasn't back on the sex sites?
couples counseling is a good idea. but i don't see much hope for this relationship. i hope you don't waste too many more years on it.
love will happen again, i promise.
khairete
S.

H. -- GET OUT.

Your boyfriend is a liar, and you don't want to catch a disease. Get out of this situation NOW.

Also, your daughter will ultimately get hurt by this, because this relationship will not last. No normal guy does what he did, even if it was a few months ago. He's still looking, and he's a liar.

You can't get the trust back if he keeps doing things that make you not trust him. A lot of women try to get past emotional cheating but because they are married to the man.

You already didn't trust him but you moved in with him. Sorry but that shows it isn't a matter of you love him but you need his monetary support. I am sorry because I know being that blunt hurts but it is the truth and you really need to see the truth.

Right now you are not rationalizing how to stay with a man you love, you are trying to rationalize staying with a man you don't trust because you fear the lifestyle you will lead if you leave him.

You never should have moved in with him knowing the man he was. You never should have drug your child into that. Still do not continue to live like this because you are showing your daughter that it is acceptable to stay in a disrespectful, cheating relationship for money. I really don't think that is the lesson you want her to learn.

Sorry to sound harsh but:

This man is scum --- kick him to the curb.

Can you really be "in love" with someone who goes on the prowl as soon as you're not looking? Isn't that more one-sided than being "in love"? If he loved you 100%, wholly and completely, he wouldn't be prowling around for other women. Looking at X-rated sites is one thing, but looking at craigslist ads and emailing people is WAY past the realm of normal guy behavior.

I'm sure you love him, but you need to realize that whatever you choose, this is going to hang over your relationship for the rest of your life. This, in my opinion, is worse than a one night cheat from opportunity. This isn't him being somewhere and being presented with an option and making a bad choice, this is him SEEKING other women and to me, that's a huge red flag.
You've only been together 2 years, if he's already looking around what happens when you've been together 10 years and things get dull? 20 years and you're in a rut? Is he going to go prowling around every time your relationship needs a little boost?

As far as working it out for your daughter - he's only been around 2 years, you said she only just got used to him a year ago. Changes are always hard for a kid, but honestly, it'll be harder if you have a kid by him and 10 years down the line you find out he met someone else and is ready to be with them, or worse, just puts himself out there as available and ends up bringing you home some nasty STD (because seriously, WHO posts on craigslist looking for sex?)

It's just my opinion, and I know love complicates things, but honestly, I'd leave. He can't be totally head over heels in love with you if after one year he is looking for sex elsewhere, and honestly, the first couple years of a relationship are supposed to be the best - if he can't make it through the good times without looking outside of the relationship for sex, how's he going to make it through the bad times?

You caught him, and he has a lot of excuses about why what appears to have have happened didn't actually happen and isn't actually cheating. I don't see much hope for this, particularly with working different schedules and with him now knowing he needs to do a better job of covering his tracks. You may love him, but his actions were not representative of the actions of a man who is in love. A bigger question in my mind is what kind of an example is he presenting (even unconciously) for your daughter and how men behave towards women in general and women they love? You may have stumbled upon his open account, but you must have had some kind of reason to read emails that went back for a full year. There was also some reason that account was up, and he can always set up new accounts and knows to be more discreet next time. For me, this would be a deal breaker.

This is what I got from your post: he said, he said, he said. Then there were descriptions of what he did, he did, he did. And they don't line up.

Sorry, I don't see any reason for you to "build back the trust". The trust you had in him was misplaced to begin with. You may be still in love, but this guy is not a keeper.

I agree. You are being used.

Do you pay the rent/bills? Do you buy most of the food? Does he make excuses to not be around unless he's in the mood?

He has you emotionally wrapped so that he can have a place to stay. Sorry. Of course he is going to say that he hasn't met anyone. He doesn't want to lose the sweet setup he has.

H., is love supposed to be painful? That's all you're going to get out of this relationship, is pain. You love the man you thought he was. He isn't who you fell in love with. He's an imposter. A poser. A user.

He is getting the benefit of a family, a roommate, sex when he can have it easily, and he's living a double life on the side, looking for sex elsewhere. It doesn't matter WHAT excuse he gives you. He is deceitful and cruel. He doesn't want to be "single" because you are far to convenient. Do you understand that?

If you love your daughter and yourself, you need to move on. You cannot trust someone like this. I don't believe counseling will help one wit. If he only wanted to look at nude pictures, there is an abundance of that on the net without him talking to real people. He wants something else, and that something else isn't YOU.

Don't put you and your child through this.

Dawn

Run away.

If he's not lying about already sleeping with someone - he intended to.

I know everyone says to get rid of him, but, I would have a hard time if I were you. The fact that he went through everything, gave you all the passwords, closed his profiles, and has agreed to counseling says that he is serious (or a good actor) about the relationship. I don't find too hard to belive that he wanted to see if anyone called, I think it was probably a bored horny moment when you were gone and it looked like fun. Just because someone does something like look at ads on craigslist doesn't mean they did anything with them. I do understand he did more than just look at pictures, but he says that is really all that happened.

I know it would be a lot easier to believe if he had told you about it earlier, or if you could look at ads like this together. It might be that he just likes or needs the fantasy, but not really the reality of what it involves. I think men are more mental sexually than they are given credit for.

I am sorry this is happening to your family. I know he isn't your daughter's father, but he has been living with you for a year, so she is used to him. Go to counseling and work on it. I think it will benefit both of you and your relationship. I read a statistic recently, sorry I can't remember where, maybe Dear Abby, that said that most people who survive affairs in a committed relationship will actualy say it is stronger after they move beyond it than they were before the affair happened. I hope that your family can be one of those. Blessings!

Do you really want a man who went on these websites?

He did cheat on you. Doesn't mater that it wasn't physical.

Now, while your relationship is good, he swears he won't do it. What about the times when you are going through a rough patch or it's boring.

I think he needs one on one counseling with a psychiatrist along with couples counseling.

I am going to answer this the way that no one did when I had a similar experiance. Ok a few did but besides the point.

I know what it is like to go through this. It is going to take time and work. I never caught Trav doing anything but I suspected. The worst thing I did was blow up about it. I actually almost lost my relationship because of it.

Because your daughter is accustome to this man try to work it out for her sake. It will take work to trust again. I cannot say that I completely trust Travis yet and this was a few months ago. Pray if you believe in God. If you do not, please weigh the good and the bad about this man. Write it down if you have to. Take time to think about what to do. Please do not just jump to a conclusion and that is it.

It may be that he needs a little more flurtation from you. It could have been an ego thing. (needing to know that he is still good enough to get a girl) try making it fresh again. We will never know the real reason he did it unless he truly comes out and says it, but what you can do is try to make it to were doing this internet play is not as fun as coming home to you. If you know what I mean. Yes it is hard with a little one in the house. But you can use that to your advantage. (I did!) It makes it more "forbidden" knowing that your child is asleep and you have to be quiet.

Good luck and if you wanna talk to someone I am always available on PM!

Again- I am not sure why everyones first response is to leave? As most of you stated with my post. Just because something is broken does not mean it is junk and needs to be thown away! Relationships take work, yes bad things happen but they can always be fixed.

I seen a post on FB the other day and it fits perfectly. A couple that had been married for 60 years was aksed how they made it work. The couple replied that they come from a time that you mended the broken. The woman stated "Yes, my husband cheated. When looking at the relationship with what I know now I can see why. I failed on things too!"

H. any relationship will have its trials and tribulations. No relationship is perfect! Is what is good about him going to help you love him later?

He has an interesting definition of cheating, I think. The relationship he has with you is great as long as he can have some sexual interests on the side (yes, wanting and seeing pictures is a sexual interest). You may be still "in love," but he doesn't love you enough to be entirely faithful. Are you satisfied with that? If not, be courageous. Take your love, and yourself, away from him - and save that love for a MAN (not a boy) who thinks you are worth more than diamonds or online pictures. Yes, there is someone just like that - it's not too high a standard to have. Hold on to your love until that man comes, and then select him - don't let him pick you. I know this is an unhappy answer for you in many ways, but it's better in the long run.

I think counseling is a good idea, but remember that your daughter will learn about men from what she sees in your home. She deserves a quality dad who respects and honors women.

I think the reason a lot of women have responded to you to leave is that in this day and age you do not have to put up with a liar or a cheat.

Perhaps you two moving in together was not a good idea. He gets to have the cow and not pay for the milk. So he goes about trying to get a thrill from finding new women to boost is ego. Beides you have had a child so he knows that you "need" someone to fill in the void of having sex and such.

It may be time for you to step away from this relationship and do some deep down soul searching for what you really need. The only person who can make you happy is you. Love yourself, respect yourself and then seek out a mate with the qualities you really want. Do not expose your child to the drama of men coming in and out of your life as what you do is what they will do when they adults.

As for the 60 year old woman and marriage. That was from an era when divorce was not done and if so it was a taboo. If she could have she probably would have left him.

You are single and you have all the opportunities in the world to improve yourself and what you want. So set your standards higher and reach for the big brass ring. Good luck to you.

The other S.

PS Life is too short to live with someone that does not have the same goals as you. You will never get to the end point together if you dont' work together.

As "OneandDone" shared, I also think you are very lucky to see where you are at this moment. Your daughter is your daughter. He is not the father of your daughter. I want to pray for you to have God in your life. But it is up to you to believe in HIM or not. God will show you the way to see this is unconditional love or just LUST LUST LUST and L...U..S..T.
Do not want you to go through heartache once after another.
Love you!

I'm sorry for your pain. I will tell you right now that he has an addiction. He is a sex and love addict and needs therapy. He hasn't admitted such but admits he's busted.
I know you feel vulnerable and in pain. He will continue this pattern. You will continue to bust him and it will eat your guts.
Not to mention that you have a child to think about. You are your child's protector. That should be your number one concern. You love your child more than this man, don't you? You must protect your child first.

Send him out the door with a list of addition therapy. You are near Orlando. There is a group there called SLAA (sex and love addicts anonymous). They can help him but he should not be in a relationship while working through it. Not to mention he hasn't even admitted he has a problem. You are here obviously hoping for a fix, you probably even think you can change him. You can't and you won't. If you stay, 3 years down the road, you will be having this same conversation again, with someone else.

Protect yourself, protect your child and RUN. If he loves you and wants to make things right, he will work on himself and come back to you, if you're still available. I also strongly suggest you go to a group for partners of sex addicts. You can get some books from the library to read up at home. Please remember this is NOT your fault either. You are a beautiful person, he has issues that nothing can help by being sexier, more available or whatever.
Love yourself and your child, then you can find someone worthy of you

Good you are both going to counseling. Best Wishes!