struggling25 Member Profile

...See more I’m really, really struggling right now. My fiancée - engaged for nearly 2 years but have been together for nearly 7 years - has been having an affair. This all started 2 years ago just after we got engaged. He changed overnight from a sweet, goofy, loving partner, to being cold, distant and nasty. I tried for a long time to help, I did everything for him during that time as any partner would do when the other is struggling. But not once did I feel appreciated for anything I was doing. I tried to get him to go to therapy, to speak to my family or his family (we live with my parents), to speak to his friends, to try different hobbies, to spend time with me, to talk to me - I tried absolutely everything. Back in September last year, I reached a breaking point about myself, I’d always been incredibly self conscious and felt this strong urge to do something for me. I applied to be a part of a body positivity documentary. During this time I was speaking to the lovely women organising it, along with her male colleague who was collecting information and body positivity self images for the documentary, he was also doing the music and editing of the documentary. We spoke for a while and became friends, I was asking him for advice from a male perspective on what I should do with my partner, he was doing the same with me with his girlfriend. We confided in each other about different things. During this time, my partner was leaving for work at 5am and not coming home until 11pm (he works 8:30am - 5:30pm), he would tell me to shut up and be quiet the minute he came into the room with me, he wouldn’t eat anything made by anyone else but me so I’d have to stay up late until he got back, make him dinner and then wash the dishes. He would say to me that he just wanted to be on his own, he didn’t want to be around anyone and that all he wanted was peace and quiet. My fiancée found out about the messages between me and this colleague in October, he labelled it cheating because I was confiding in another man. I see where he’s coming from. So I blocked him, dropped out of the documentary and did everything I possibly could to make things right. I went through so much emotional and mental warfare over the past two years, but nothing compared to those months after October. Things had started to get better between us about a month ago and I felt more comfortable going out with my work friends without the worry of making him feel insecure. I went out about two weeks ago, I came home at around 11:30pm and had a shower, when I went into our room to go to bed, I noticed he was asleep and his phone was on my pillow. I went to move his phone and glanced at the screen and saw it was open on his messages. At the top he had me saved as my name, but then directly under it he had someone else saved as “Wifey💗♾️”. I never thought I’d be the type to go through someone’s phone. But I had to see who it was. I found messages going back to May the previous year, he’d told this story woman that he was no longer with me, that he was in love with her, that he couldn’t wait to plan a future with her, that she was everything he ever wanted, and that he would love her daughter like she was his own. I also saw, many, many inappropriate images and videos between them both, along with images of gifts he’d been sending her - which I’d funded as I was sending him money because he told me he was broke. I confronted him about the messages, he said it wasn’t real and it was all make believe, like a fantasy he wasn’t going to fulfil. I then realised as I was scrolling through these messages, that he’d fallen asleep on the phone to someone which turned out to be her. This took me back to every time he’d ever told me to shut up or be quiet when we were in our room together, he always had AirPods in and would freak out if I ever made a noise. He would fall asleep with his AirPods in and would panic if he woke up to them not in his ears, it’s then I realised that he’s been falling asleep on the phone to her almost every night, with me right next to him. That was two weeks ago, since then he’s not been in the house, he’s been sleeping in hotels, on friends sofas and in his car. I’m so torn on what to do. I agreed to marry this man and he was giving another woman everything I had ever asked of him. He’s told me he’s blocked her on everything and all he wants to do it fix us, that he was stuck in his own head and can see how much damage he’s done, that he’s so sorry for everything, that he loves me with all of his heart and wants to be with me. I don’t know if I can throw 7 years away, I don’t know if I can leave someone who I considered to be my future husband. We have a life together, a dog together, we had a plan and I’ll be honest, I’m so scared to make a mistake if I leave or if I stay. Please someone tell me what I should do.

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