Oct 19, 2021 in Coaching

Intrusive In-Laws and Cheating Spouse

What is a woman to do when in-laws approve of the son's cheating and lies to protect him? The wife is left on her own

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INTRUSIVE IN-LAWS AND THE CHEATING HUSBAND 

In 2003, I found what I thought was the person who was going to complete that other part of my life. Fill in any holes, gaps, spaces that were needing to be made whole. I thought all was perfect. The kind of guy that a girl could bring home to mom and dad. The guy I met was an actor in Florida. We met on a little people’s actor website. I had posted my resume on the site hoping to find work in film, commercial, print, etc. and he responded by telling me how I needed to fix my resume. I initially thought he was a jerk to start telling me what to do and hadn’t put anything positive about it. It seemed all negative about what I did wrong. Oddly enough, we began talking more online. He was doing some work as an actor and the more we spoke by phone, by computer, I started to like him. Someone that I could see being a good friend. The downfall was, the more we talked and I wanted to see what he looked like since he got to see me a couple of times by webcam, he said he didn’t have a webcam and would get one but he never did. He described himself to me and I thought he sounded… well… “Hot”. Later I realized he had lied to me about what he looked like when he and I first started talking. He even sent me a picture of himself buff and muscular. Looking fit like I was. I didn’t hide who I was because, as I said, he got to see what I looked like by webcam. A little bit later, he sent me a second picture of himself, but he was twice the weight than on the first picture. When I saw that picture I wasn’t happy about being deceived. I avoided talking to him for a day because I was trying to figure out if I wanted to talk to him anymore since there was deception going on. I decided to give him a chance to explain himself and I did speak to him a day or two later. He said he didn’t look that way anymore and he was only 20 lbs. heavier than his first original picture. That second picture of him wasn’t what he really looked like and not to worry. He had lost weight and looked more or less like the first picture he sent me. Which was a flat stomach, muscles, fit. After speaking with him for a couple of months on the phone and by internet, plans were made to pick him up from the train station. When it came time to pick him at the train station, my sister’s husband stood on a bench to overlook the passengers getting off the train and to find him in the crowd. He looked over at me and said as he stepped down from the bench, “Ummmm, he’s here, but he doesn’t look as he described. Good luck!” I looked at him confused, “Good luck? Good luck with wha…?” It was then that I looked over and saw this man that I had been talking to on the website for about 2 months and I did a double-take. His description of himself was totally wrong. He looked nothing like what I had seen in the first picture. He was more like the last picture that I had looked at. He puffed up his chest as he saw them we walked to my sister’s van to head back to her apartment where I was living at the time. I kept replaying in my head the moment we got in my sister’s van how he was wanting to give me a kiss and hold me close to him and I wasn’t having it. I was just off-ish with him. I was running through my head what I wanted to do. Did I want my sister to drop him back off at the train station and let him go back home? Did I want to scream at him for his deceptions? Did I want to just have a quick fling with him for the weekend and then decide where I wanted it to go? Did I want to try and make something else evolve with him? He stayed the weekend and as he was dropped back off at the train station I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to return or not. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to talk to him again. While he was there for the weekend he explained to me that I couldn’t speak to his family about how we met. I then paused, “What am I supposed to say?” He just said that I should explain that we met through a little people’s actor convention or something, but just not say that we met online. I was thinking to myself was he now going to tell me that I can’t tell them what race I really am? I told my family about him. Where I met him. What had happened since we met. I had no reason to hide that from them. Besides, the way this was going, I wasn’t sure if it was going to last anyway. So, no harm no foul. Christmas of that same year he proposed to me. We opened presents we got from each other and as I was handing him the last present I saw a ring placed around a horse ornament on the tree. I instantly got sick to my stomach. I saw it there on the tree and I pretended I didn’t see it. To me, it was too soon to get engaged and from the stories, I was hearing about his family I was a bit scared to even think of getting married. I got to see a little bit of how his mom was and watch how she was and I just felt I couldn’t deal with the nonsense. I saw how she fake cried to get her way. I watched how every five minutes when anything happened he was calling his mother. He would tattle to her about something or be begging for something else. I didn’t call my family for money or anything really. My mom made it clear that once we playhouse that we are out there and we have to take care of our business. His family believed that family does whatever you need. When he got down on one knee and proposed, that part of me saw that look in his eyes of wanting to be married to me or maybe it was just not wanting to be alone and he was almost desperate to be with someone that looked at him more than the “big brother” figure in their life. I wasn’t sure which one it really was. He had explained to his mom that he would be proposing to me on Christmas day. So after a few hours, the calls started coming in, congratulating the happy couple on their engagement. In my heart, I wasn’t really excited at all. I pretended to be thrilled but I knew I wasn’t ready. Too many problems came from marriage from what I saw around me and I wanted no part in that, but me being the quiet one. Not liking any sort of confrontation, I let his family get it out of their system. All the congratulations there was to say. His mother wasn’t going to hear any different about not deciding to marry her son. I did try twice to tell her I wasn’t ready but she was stuck more on the fact that we were living in sin because we weren’t married and we had an apartment together. Therefore we were GOING TO get married. I WAS GOING TO marry her son. About a month after the engagement, his mother became more controlling of what I was going to do. She was telling me all the things a wife would have to do and the little that he had to do because he was the husband and he was working. Keep in mind at this time I was working as well, but that didn’t matter to her. I had to do for him because he was male and he worked. She explained to me that being Puerto Rican there were certain things that her family did. Little did she know, I frankly didn’t care because I wasn’t his family’s race. I witnessed when his mother came down from out of state to visit that she was very manipulative. She’d act one way with me and another with him. With him, it was more about the fake crying. The “feel sorry for me because remember it was me who raised you as a child and remember when your father left you and I was left to raise three children alone” routine…. I would try to gracefully explain to my fiancé about what I saw and he of course wouldn’t see. It’s not that he couldn’t see it. I believe he just refused to see it or knew she was doing it and chose to ignore it. Almost like, if she wasn’t doing this to him and portraying this behavior to someone else it was okay because he didn’t have to deal with it. About two months into the engagement I had taken that ring off several times. I seemed to be used as some sort of prized possession for him. He was engaged but didn’t really think he had to do much with the relationship after getting engaged. Also in the interim, his mother started calling me A LOT to tell me I needed to plan out a day in the summer that we were going to get married. I was taken back. What did she mean, in the summer I needed to plan a date that we would be getting married? We just got engaged! I thought she was joking and I made the comment “Well, I’ll decide for sure when that will actually happen.” And she flat out didn’t like that answer “No you won’t! Now school gets out in June over her so pick a day in June or July to have the wedding and we need to get the wedding invitations out as soon as possible so people have time to plan and find a place to stay.” I was thinking that I was getting punked. Like someone was playing a joke on me and I didn’t find it funny. It was no joke. She was dead set on me marrying her son that summer. I had explained to my fiancé about what was going on and he was all for getting married in June. There was no backing me up and again because I don’t like confrontation I thought I would just deal with everything for a while then cancel the wedding at the last minute. I made the wedding invitations. My sister and her family got the first wedding invitation and the rest we sent out. Two weeks before our date to be married in June, I went to his mother and stepfather’s house to help clean up the backyard and the make-shift platform where we would be standing for our vows. I remember telling his mom over and over that I didn’t want to get married and she finally sat me in the kitchen after I brought up frequently I didn’t want to go through with this. She was “matter of fact” about how she felt and what I was to do. I had a small list she relayed to me: 

1. You are going to marry my son! 

2. I want to see him get married before I die, so you are going to marry him. 

3. You HAVE TO marry him because he’s small and your small and I know that he isn’t going to find someone that is little like him and so you just need to be happy with what you got. 

4. He’s getting up there in age and no one is going to want someone like you or him so again, you ARE GOING TO marry my son 

5. If you haven’t had someone tall want to be with you now then you aren’t going to find anyone and this is who you found 

6. I hope you don’t plan on having any kids, because you both are disabled you know, and don’t need any. It would hurt me if you both decided to have kids. 

7. Do you really think I am going to let you live with my son in sin because you aren’t married? You are going to get married to him! 

8. Your job is to take care of my son. He works. He comes home and should be able to relax and maybe take out the garbage and that’s it. Your job is to take care of the house, make sure a hot meal is on the table when he comes home, do laundry, have the bills paid, and make sure he’s comfortable. I’d say take care of the children, but I’m sure you won’t be having any kids with him. I wasn’t even sure where to go with that one because I was so angry and yet I tried to be nice about it. A long time ago before being in any relationship I started to keep my feelings and emotions to myself. I pretty much shut down. So me even thinking of throwing a fit was out of the question. They hadn’t listened to me about not wanting to get married.

Even he wasn’t listening that I was having problems with the things his mom was saying and he kept excusing it: 

1. Oh, it’s just my mom…. 

2. You misinterpreted what my mom said (you ARE GOING TO marry my son isn’t a misinterpretation of anything). 

3. It’s your nerves that are messing with you since you know we’re going to be married. That’s normal. You’re feeling overwhelmed. 

4. Why are you making such a big deal about everything? 

5. You have to excuse my mom’s behavior, she’s just old. 

6. Just ignore it, she means well…. 

I had a wedding dress that had a slight trail on it. I bought it and was so proud of this dress. It was a first communion dress that would fit me the way I wanted and it didn’t have to be tailored and cost a lot of money. I brought it to his mom’s house and I tried it on. Little did I know she bought a dress for me to wear instead of the one I had brought. It was a slim dress that went to my ankles. Flowery patterns and a slip to wear underneath. She talked about her dress more than the one I brought up there. She did the whole guilt trip thing on me. How she would be devastated if I didn’t wear the dress that she picked out for me because she wanted to be able to be there for her sons’ wedding. She wasn’t sure she would be alive to see it and she was praying long and hard that I would wear that dress instead. She asked me if anyone from my family would be there at the wedding and I said not a person on my side of the family responded to say they were coming but my Aunt has already planned to pay for our reception soon after getting married. So after wearing the dress his mom bought that I didn’t know till I got there, and after he and his family had their way from the beginning I was hoping things would settle down. On the day of the wedding, I had no control of the wedding. His mother had begged and begged from the get-go to have her daughters sing at the wedding. At this point, I just was about saying “Yeah, sure” to everything because they weren’t listening. About 10 minutes before the wedding, I prayed that my dad and brother would show up since they were deceased. I wanted them there to comfort me. I was hoping I’d be able to see my dad and he would talk to me and possibly sneak me out of his mother’s house (where the wedding was happening in the backyard) and I could just go home. His mom came in to see me one last time before going outside to get ready. I told her several times I didn’t want to get married and she said with a smile on her face that I was going to marry her son and that’s that. When his step-dad came in to get me from the bedroom I told him several times I didn’t want to get married. He took my hand and smiled and said it was just jitters. I remember walking out the back door with his stepdad and down the little path to the homemade archway, I began to panic more. My insides were screaming. To me, it wasn’t a wedding if I couldn’t have at least my mom involved with the wedding. I remember feeling as if my nails were scratching me from the inside out. I remember thinking that I could at least get an annulment. His family would get to see their son, brother, nephew, cousin, friend gets married and I would have it annulled when we got home. Now as far as having that wedding reception with my family that my Aunt planned never happened. On three separate occasions I made arrangements to have this reception and each time my husband found every reason to NOT go and it was canceled. My Aunt and the rest of my family were devastated. It was too late at this point to have an annulment done because I thought he would follow through and do something for me and my family since we got married and I was mostly the unwilling participant for his family at his mother’s house. But I was so wrong. After getting married and back in Florida, his mom came down to visit us and we went over to my Aunt’s house. My Aunt was cooking us dinner and I helped her out in the kitchen while my husband went into the living room to watch some sporting event on TV. His mother walked into the kitchen and asked how my Aunt was doing and said what a lovely place my Aunt had then, out of the blue she places her hand on my Aunt’s countertop and says very snarky, “You know, no one is to hurt my son or they’ll have hell to pay!” My mouth dropped open and my aunt said as his mom turned to walk away “That works both ways!” My Aunt continued cutting up some potatoes and called me over beside her, “What the hell was that about?!” I shrugged and looked to see if his mom came back into the kitchen “I have no idea. I am so sorry that happened….” My Aunt was furious. How convenient it was for his mom to make sure her son wasn’t around when she would say stuff and then when I would tell him what happened he would think I was crazy, making stuff up, picking on his mom, or giving an excuse for her behavior. My Aunt said that his mother wasn’t allowed at her house again. She said she would never go to his mother’s house and say anything stupid like that and that the woman overstepped her bounds and was very disrespectful. I agreed. Of course, again, I’m left trying to make amends for his mother’s behavior. Three months after being married, I found out I was pregnant. I was so happy that I was going to have a child. I was thinking to myself that I would raise this child to be different from him and his family. I would raise this child to be unselfish and care about another person’s feelings besides their own. I believe it was he who shared with his mom that I was pregnant and she of course cried. When she had a chance to talk to me on the phone she reminded me of what she had said to me in that two week time frame I was at her house cleaning up the backyard and she told me I wasn’t to have any kids because he and I were disabled and that having a child would bring more problems in the marriage. She told me how I hurt her. I remarked that my mom was ecstatic even if she wasn’t. My mom couldn’t wait to see her new grandbaby. She went into if my mom realized how difficult it would be for me to have a child. I was thinking to myself how no one except God would know how difficult it would be for me but I wasn’t scared of carrying a child. I believed I would be okay. Even if no one else did. When we moved into our new place, his mother and step-father came down to help us and were only supposed to be with us for about 2 weeks before our child was due. Of course, his mother never asked if she could stay. She told us the day before they were to leave that she was staying with us till the baby was born. I was so angry. 

 

I explained to my husband how I felt and of course, it came to him yet again agreeing with her saying: 

1. It’s my mom it’s okay 

2. Well someone needs to be here with you (if I want someone to stay with me) 

3. She can help you around the house 

4. She’ll be here after the baby is born so we can sleep 

5. We’ll have her as a temporary babysitter 

 

On mother’s day, four days before our child was born, my husband was going to give me a gift. He said he had something for me but his mother sat and sulked about how much she wished she was home with her other grandkids, girls, and husband. How sad and lonely she was. By the time my husband walked me outside to give me a necklace it meant nothing because the mood was on his mother was so sad and acting miserable. The attention was on her by him and I stormed into the bedroom. I couldn’t have five minutes with him when it came to getting a small gift. A small token. Right after having our child four days after Mother’s Day, I was put into a room after being placed in recovery. His mother comes into the room and stands in the doorway and tells me that that is her grandchild and I am GOING TO let her see her grandchild whenever she wants and I am GOING TO let her do whatever she wants to with HER grandchild. Again, I thought someone was pulling a prank on me because at this moment I still hadn’t seen my child and I just got situated in the room and she walks in and stands against the door frame and tells me this. I think she saw I was upset and she left quickly after saying that. What person comes into a room after a mom delivers without asking how the new mom is feeling? If there was anything the new mom needed? There was none of that. I even shared with my husband what had happened and of course, there were 10,000 excuses for his mom and then denial that she said that when he wasn’t even in the room when she said that to me. My Aunt came to visit me and told me that the whole time I was back having the baby that she was out there crying and it just became about his mother out in the waiting area of the delivery room. He said nurses and other staff came over to his mother because she was making such a scene out there and that my husband was out of it, pacing back and forth waiting for our daughter to come through those double doors in the incubator. I was disgusted. Yet again, another moment for us was stolen by her. Finally, after going home with our new baby, his mother took over. I couldn’t do anything right with our child. I was holding her wrong, I was feeding her wrong, I was changing her wrong. Then on to her stories of how she suffered when I was pregnant and I better not have another child. She even had the nerve to tell me "As a mother, you’ll never understand your child’s pain” I was thinking to myself I’ll understand my child’s pain because I am a little person, my husband is short due to his brittle bone condition and our child had both conditions. I’ll understand my child’s pain when it comes to surgeries she may need when she gets older and so on. Something his mother never went through like he and I did when we were younger. It seemed that was his mother’s mantra for everything “As a mother, you’ll never understand your child’s pain…” Things just began to escalate from there little by little with his mother, and my husband denying continuously that his mom would ever do those things I told him and it didn’t help that his mother would never do any of the things she did to me around him. She showed him a completely different side than she would show him. About two years after having our child, I still had a baby weight that I couldn’t take off. 

My husband began to make comments about different things: 

1. How come I didn’t lose the weight that he saw other women do (mind you, these “women” are two feet or taller than I) 

2. Our daughter wasn’t his 

3. He only married me to please his mother 

4. He only married me so he didn’t have to be alone 

5. He only got married to please his mother 

6. And other hurtful things ….

I did end up sharing these things with his mother while he was at work one day. She was upset I said nothing to her at all. She condemned me for telling her any of that. Then she said that if he didn’t tell her those things then he didn’t say any of it. She accused me of picking on him and IF he DID say any of it that maybe I deserved it because I stressed him. She asked if I had mentioned any of this to my mother yet and I said that I hadn’t mentioned this new stuff he said. She told me to not tell my mother because it was none of her business and to keep in mind that since I married her son that I have to deal with it. It was nobody’s business what was going on. Again repeating to me that I better not say anything to my mom about her son. During this short time after our daughter was born, my daughter had allergies that arose. One minute my husband was on the same page since birth, then he slowly changed his story. Saying she wasn’t allergic to things. His family would give her things she was allergic to on purpose because they believed what my husband was telling them. It was then that I began to see more of the bigger picture. Every one of his family members that I had met knew how to cover up each other’s dispositions. They played stupid. Everyone got selective memory all of a sudden. No one knew what I was talking about. No one remembered what they had said to me. If they hurt you in any way that you were to get over it and forget about it. Not bring it up again. The past is the past and that’s where they’ll leave it until they want to throw it in your face, but if YOU did something that they didn’t like they would bring it up over and over and throw it in your face about how many miles they had flown each way and how often they flew to do this and that. I mentioned to them what they said before and everyone was in shock. Like, I all of a sudden made stuff up about what they said. Then got scolded and for bringing up what they said. How could I make up lies about them? Yet oddly, after denial, they would later repeat what they had previously denied saying. What I also realized with his mom and sister is that if they helped my husband (their son and brother), they seem to erase the fact that he asked for help or something and made it seem like it was me who asked for them to come and it was me that asked for help. Not him. In early 2008 my husband started getting weird phone calls. And not from debt collectors. There were several times where a female would call and ask for him by his first name only and when I would ask who it was, I would get the girl’s first name then she’d hang up. Not, this is BLAH BLAH BLAH from Tim Buck Two. It was just a female’s first name. When I asked him who this was he would laugh and say it must have been some debt collector. One time I answered using a softer voice and said I was his sister. I asked who she was and it was a different female than before. She said they had met before and please have my brother call her. I of course seemed so pleasant and said of course. I still didn’t get answered where she was from. I again asked about it and he was upset and said I was blowing things out of proportion and that I was making up these phone calls. When I showed him the number that I had made sure to write down he said he had no idea who it could be. Then, one day all phone calls ceased and he decided to use another tactic. He claimed he was going to the gym wearing jeans, a dress shirt, and cologne while carrying a book bag on his back. He said he had his gym clothes in his bag and would change there before working out. He stayed out for about 2 hours and when he came home he would be dressed in the same get-up he left in and beeline it to the bathroom before I could walk up to him. It was also the moment he began claiming I was cheating on him. It’s common for a cheater to claim that his/her spouse is cheating when they weren’t. I barely left the house as it was and when I did I’d go to McDonald’s and get a cup of coffee (something he suggested I do to get out), walk around a small store, go sit in a parking lot somewhere and just cry out of frustration, drive close to the airport and think if I should just take our daughter soon and fly back home which was out of state. When I came home he would automatically accuse me of cheating on him. One time I came in with coffee from McDonald’s and had the receipt in hand. I had been gone maybe 20 minutes and he swore I was gone for over an hour or so and was cheating on him. Eventually, I just let him think I was cheating if that made him feel better. If I had a 20-minute quickie or an hour quickie, I feel I was jiffed. In 2008, I took a trip to see my mom. I had to leave our daughter at home with her father because she had broken her leg. His mother came down to help take care of our daughter. My husband called me and said that everyone was with our friend. They had gone to the mother-in-law’s house that my friend was watching till her mother-in-law got home. He said that his mom and our friend were in the kitchen while he, our daughter, and the friend’s son were in the living room watching TV. I said ok. In the back of my mind, I knew something was up. A couple of hours later, our friend called me and asked if I was alone and if I was sitting. I asked if I needed to sit and she said it would be a good idea if I did. So I sat. She let me know that my husband and his mother came over to her mother-in-law’s house while she house sat for a couple of days. She said that while my husband, daughter, and her child were in the living room his mother approached her and began helping cut up food for dinner for them all then went into how I was a horrible person, how I made false accusations to her about her son (my husband) and how everything was all my fault. Our friend said that it’s unfair to put all the blame on me and some of the blame goes to her son because she’s witnessed a lot of what her son was doing. His mom disagreed and refused to hear anything other than it was my fault. They ended up agreeing to disagree on the matter. I was furious and told my mom about what happened. Even my mom thought it was suspicious of him calling to say his mom was in the kitchen with our friend talking. My mom recalled what happened when his mom met my Aunt. She figured this would be some sort of repeat of that and it was. I remember coming home and telling my husband what our friend had said happened and he denied it even happened. I asked him why he believed it never happened. He said because his mom never mentioned to him anything like that happened in the kitchen. From what he saw they were talking and smiling and it seemed fine to him. I told him that it was too odd that he and his mom went over to our friend’s house. His mom came time and time before and his mom would refuse to go over to see our friend but now since I’m gone his mom was quick to want to go over to see her. He blew that off and then went into how I was wrong for accusing his mom of talking about me when she never told him personally she spoke to our friend about me. Was he serious? Did he really believe his mom was going to tell him that he spoke to our friend about what a bad person I was? April 2010 I was seeing a counselor about everything that was going on. Explaining how he was so deep into porn it was pathetic and how I had moved out of our bedroom we shared and into the guest room for over 10 months (the remaining months till our lease was up). My counselor had suggested that since time had passed over a different incident that had happened to write his sister and explain to her what had happened and how you know what you know. I did just that. I wrote to ONLY his sister. Mind you, in a couple of days she would be coming from out of state to visit with her family. 

In return, not only did she email me back, but she added the emails of everyone in her entire family in our business (keep in mind, she’s stating stuff that my husband had told her and his mom had made up). She lets EVERYONE know that: 

1. I need a counselor and that a counselor will enlighten me about who I am and I may not like what a counselor has to say 

2. I have Munchausen by Proxy (a person who claims their child is hurt or sick when they really aren’t so the parent can therefore get sympathy from the doctors and nurses and those around them) 

3. Her brother does everything for our family to keep us afloat and I do nothing 

4. Her brother makes all the appointments for our child and I do nothing 

5. Her brother takes time out of his work schedule to take our child to her appointments, whatever they may be and I do nothing to find a way to ease the burden off of him and take her myself 

6. She threw in jabs about how bad my family is in her eyes and shared stuff to his ENTIRE family 

So after almost a two-page email to not only me and his entire family, she tells me that she wants my mom’s phone number and she wants to tattle to my mom about what type of person I am and how wrong I’ve done her brother. I respond back to only her and give her my mom’s number. She writes back and tells me how wrong I am forgiving her my mom’s phone number and how in denial I am since I just gave her the number without arguing about it. What was there to argue about? His family is delusional. You can’t argue with stupid people. Plain and simple. You’ll never win anyway. She ended her letter by telling me that if I said the sky was blue she would have to go check for herself because in her opinion she can’t believe what would come from my mouth and finally how she would rather watch paint dry and chip away on a wall then to deal with me. I then call my mom and explain what has happened so she’ll have a heads up in case his sister calls her. I read the letter to my mom and let her know who his sister emailed. My mom was furious, but this whole time she pretty much stayed out of everything. At this point, my mom couldn’t wait to hear from anyone in his family since I had been sending her copies of emails, texts, and pictures from his family, porn he got into, plus the documentation of Peta’s allergies from doctors so my mom could have something to look on when and if they called trying to explain what a horrible person I was. Afterward, I called my husband over to see what his sister mass- emailed to the entire family. He excused her behavior and said that she must have just been upset about what I wrote her earlier and she was protecting him. So I got to understand how she must be feeling. A week later she came down with her family to see him and our daughter. I stayed home. They went to a theme park and hung out. It was nearly evening by the time they returned home and he let me know after our daughter went to bed that I shouldn’t be upset anymore about the letter because their father got after her for emailing the entire family what she did and she shouldn’t do it again. He also said his sister looked at him while they were at a restaurant outside and she asked him if they were cool and he said they were cool. I looked at him all stumped about why he was so nonchalant about it. He of course changed his tune and said what he meant to say was their father was irate because of what his daughter had done and yelled at her. That he scolded her for her actions and told her never to do that again. And as far as his sister asking him if they were cool, what he meant to say was he yelled at his sister for what she had done and was disappointed that she would mass-email the entire family like she did and he did tell her they were cool because they were siblings and he loved her and he wasn’t going to stop loving her. That’s all that he meant. With all the issues going on with his impulsive family and his behavior, it all finally came to a devastating blow for me. Another instance that would change my life forever and show me how it doesn’t matter how much you try to make things work out and try to love them, you’ll never be loved in return the same way. There will forever be an excuse, reason, lie, deceit, manipulation, even reason for selective memory as to why that person can never love you in return the same way. Even though they will pretend to “try” and change, their will to change is gone and you’ll never be fully satisfied with the desires you so desperately crave. You so desperately deserve. You so desperately have always wanted for as long as you can remember. It’s just that every single moment of your life there seems to be some sort of obstacle that gets in your way and changes how you should be treated. I would have no clue that love can really hurt you more than you can realize. It can almost become the death of you. If happy ever after did exist… I don’t know where it went. Those fairy tales are all lies. The love I gave I thought meant something, but he in return gave it away.

In September 2011 my husband reached out and got in contact with an old female friend he knew when he lived in Miami. They both did a couple of low-budget films together. Now I’m not the jealous type. I don’t mind that he speaks to another female. I figured he had female friends before he met me so I wasn’t expecting him to drop them after getting married. But this situation from a friendship turned into an online and phone affair. He talked to her frequently in the beginning and she initiated sending him partially enticing pictures. He never stopped her right there to say not to do it. In fact, she had asked if she could send more pictures like that and he told her she could and kept referencing back to the picture she sent him and how he couldn’t take his eyes away and how good she looked. What I didn’t realize at this time was that she lived in another country. He put international calling on his phone to be able to speak with her. It quickly turned into him getting home an extra hour later than normal. He would pull over on the side of the road to talk to her on the phone before coming home. Claire sent him pictures of herself in sexy lingerie. It was a couple of weeks after his strange behavior began to just be visible when I was around him that I began to snoop and take notice that she was in another country. I think in another brief conversation he did mention to her that he was married and had a child but it was overshadowed by her sending him sexy lingerie pictures, making him feel important and exciting him about future plans to be together in some sort of fashion. I started to feel something was up when he would almost nightly get home an hour after the time he was originally supposed to be home. A couple of times he came home close to two hours after the time he would get home. His paychecks weren’t adding up to him being at work as he claimed. He said he was working overtime and had to help out. Something was always going on at work that he needed to be out later than normal and he claimed he had no idea why his paycheck didn’t account for those extra hours he spent working. He was going to check in to it. I started to find out more of the truth near the end of October. It was becoming more of a real online and phone affair. Even though it wasn’t physical. It might as well of been. He wasn’t into me anymore. He ignored me. When I confronted him about being on the phone all the time and ignoring me he smirked and said yes he does all those things and doesn’t care. He was his own giveaway to his fling. He would become so enraged with me telling him to stop talking to her. He said he could talk to anyone he wanted to talk to and she was his friend. I would confront him about her half nude photos on the phone and he never denied it was her in the pictures. He was just upset that I even looked at his phone. His mantra became “When you are married, one deserves privacy…. There has to be privacy in marriage” He then began to accuse me of cheating on him. He told me several times that if I didn’t like what he was doing then I could get the “F” out of the apartment. He would also tell me that he had spies watching the apartment while he was at work. These “spies” had reported to him that I had several guys coming and going while he was away. I made light of it and said “From the sounds of it, I’ll start charging these men that keep coming and going while you’re at work so I can make some money.” He found no humor in my comments and wasn’t happy that I was no longer in the defensive mode about him accusing me of cheating on him. I knew what was going on. The jig was up and he still was in denial. December 2011 He bought me a card and he wrote “For my one and only baby girl, I really am so sorry. I love you and want us all to be happy” I grabbed it and wrote, “If only you meant it….” Before shredding the rest of the card and tossing it on the bed. He wanted us all to be happy. He still included her in this. Claire was a disease I couldn’t get rid of from our lives. After four days of him giving me this card and me tearing it up, he went back to talking to her again on the phone, text, and online. At the end of January or beginning of February, she sent him a picture of her behind and he responded that she had him at full attention. I had enough of this craziness. I sent an email to Claire about all the conversations and pictures she sent to my husband and it needed to end. I let her know that I know about her having a sex conversation online and her calling him her Papi Chulo and she’d love him forever and he responded with how much he loved her and she would always be his Mami. A few hours later, she text my husband: …. “Your wife wrote me. She thinks we’re having an affair or something. I wrote back. Tell me what’s up!”…. She also attached part of my message to her about what was going on: … “Claire, this is his wife. I just wanted to thank you for being the only woman to keep him at full attention as you have. I’m surprised that you would even send a pic of your nalgas (behind) to him to begin with, but whatever works for you I guess. I’ve been faithful to him and unsure why I have….” He came home upset. He went on the computer immediately after walking in and started going through his passwords and deleting things and joining new sites and telling me how wrong I was for contacting Claire because she was doing nothing wrong and neither was he and he was over me badgering her and him for no reason at all. I mentioned to him about the half nude pics in lingerie she sent and he said it was no big deal because it wasn’t like he was actually banging her and he’s tired of my crap. March 2012 Claire had my husband sign up at this website that she was on already. Hoping that I wouldn’t find out. After picking his name for the website she gave him to join he finds her finally: Husband: “Hey Chula, How are you doing baby? This is my new name MoonMan. Can you figure out what gave me the idea for it?…” Claire: “You like threesomes and butts…..” Husband: “You’re my super friend. Do you know that? You have the power to make me happy one moment and want you the next. You can make me laugh, think, share and even get off. All from halfway around the world. You’re amazing and I love you….” Claire: “… Kisses Papi…. I miss you, Daddy….I LOVE UUU” Husband: “… I love you too. Sooooooo much!....” Another instance in March 2012 Here is another snippet of a conversation I had with Claire. I wrote her and she finally responded. She believed I was just some girl that befriended her on a website she and my husband made an account to have this secret online affair. I had joined the website they were on and became friends with Claire. I pretended I didn’t know how to use the website that she and my husband were sharing and was seeking a friend and someone to help me navigate through it. She responded to me finally: “..…No, u don't need to ask permission, u just have to go to the person’s profile and "add to circle" and then the person either does or doesn't. I will add u now. I hope u have fun on this site and join groups and write stories. 

April 3, 2012, Another conversation with Claire where she shared with me about my husband who she either called her Papi Chulo, Papi, Daddy, Crush, or by his name. “……My crush started talking to me when I sent him some sexy pics. He claims to be too busy. Oh well. Maybe he can come down for my birthday this July, who knows, I can fantasize riiiight :) ?? …” My Other problem was that he got his family deeper and deeper involved in everything. He wasn’t being truthful to them about what was going on. They believed I was just picking on him for no reason. When I had tried to explain to his mom what her son was doing she accused me of just picking on him, stressing him out and that’s why he was acting out. His sister claimed that her brother had no time for an affair and that I did nothing at all. He was the one doing everything around the house. He was the one setting up our daughter’s doctor’s appointments for her to go. He was the one that took our daughter to her appointments and on outings because I wasn’t doing anything. He was the one that being a slave while I watched. How untrue that all was. How delusional his family had become. They took his word for granted and blew whatever I said out of the water. It never mattered. 

April 8, 2012, My husband’s mother sent him a card. Underlining every other word in the card and then she wrote at the very bottom: “… I love you so much and I am so proud of the man you have become…..” I was so angry. How could his mother dare to send him a card about what a great man he was? He wasn’t a great man at all. She would send him other cards reminding him of what a great man he was and what a terrific father he is and don’t let anyone tell him different. How dare she! How dare she, keep pushing him into believing his lies of how great he is. What great man has an affair with his wife? What great man pretends to have something to do with his daughter in public, but when we are at home has nothing to do with her at all? His family had no clue as to what was going on. They only believed what they couldn’t see. I kept saying to him “From your lips to their ears, they believe what they cannot see…. This will all backfire on you and everyone will know….” Around the middle of April, after promises of him not speaking with Claire again. He called her while he was at work. He came up with some story about how she felt threatened by me and she didn’t know why I was attacking her. They even had a discussion about what our plans were for our daughter’s birthday and then he sent her pics of our daughter and she was so hoping she could be there. She let him know she loved kids. 

At the end of April, I put an end to him talking to Claire. He got on the computer around 11 pm thinking I was asleep. He got on the computer and started talking to her. I waited for about an hour and came out of the bedroom into the living room and he closed down the screen he was talking to her on and opened up a game that apparently he kept available in case I came out of the room. I walked outside and then about 10 minutes later I passed behind him and headed back into the bedroom and went back to bed. Around 1:30 am he came back into the bedroom and laid down. It was about 6:15 am when I got up and was drinking my coffee before getting our daughter up for school and I went online and found the conversations he had had with Claire. She sent him pictures of her half-naked and the conversation got into sexual things. She and he poked fun of the fact that I had been sending her messages about staying away from my husband and I was over the whole thing and that I would make sure that if this kept going I would post it on the social website what was going on so his friends and family and her family could see. She poked fun that I had confronted him about what was going on. He and she discussed what kinds of pictures she would send him next and how much they loved each other and no matter how upset I was at them that he would always be her Daddy and would love him and he would love her no matter what as well. So I stormed into the bedroom and woke him up to confront him about what was going on. He first denied it and I wasn’t hearing it. I was very specific about their conversation and walked out of the room. He got up and he never said a word to me as I got our daughter ready for school. Finally, after she was off to school he then acknowledged what had happened. He never truly admitted it was his fault. It was her fault. She was the one that pressured him into doing sexual things. She was the one that convinced him to pull off on the side of the road to talk to her. It was her fault for making him text her during work and in the middle of the night. It was all her fault. He said he was going to end this relationship with her. He contacted his phone company and took off international calling so she couldn’t reach out to him. In the interim, she text him before he spoke to his phone company and I then used my phone and sent her a text that it was over. He was turning off international calling. He ended up going to work about an hour later and I was at home still fuming over what I read and saw. Early afternoon I get a phone call. It was from Claire. She had my number since I commented to her earlier via text and she let me know of all the conversations she and my husband had had. What they had done. Their plans together. Not only was she sharing this with me but she was also sharing this same information, but with more detail on the website she had him join to try and keep the relationship a secret. She let me know she sent him an item of hers and that he had sent her some money. She made it a point to post on the other social website that her Papi Chulo (along with his name) didn’t love her anymore and how he had sent her money and planned on visiting her. Several times she made references to my husband and yet, not once did his family mention anything about what was going on. She commented under pictures of him that his family had commented on. They would be able to see her comments. But nothing. No one said anything. I was made out to be this horrible person though. I was left to hang out and dry and be on the back burner while all this was going on. I was the one that missed out on a relationship and have children and be happy. He got to play and be happy. His family got their thrills in my poking jabs at me and making comments. No one cared! No one took the time to see I was hurting. It was all about my husband and how much he was hurting. He never told them what was going on and he was sticking to what his sister had said about him never having time to cheat on me and do anything else but work and take care of our child. What he fails to let them know is that he is getting caught up in his lies and deceit of cheating on me with Claire and I have had enough and he can’t the fact that I’m catching him in lie after lie after lie. No one seemed to care that I was left on the back burner in a relationship that was going nowhere. No one knew that he was hurting me over and over. No one realized or even cared that I was becoming more and more scarred by what he was doing. Just as long as my husband was happy that’s all that seemed to matter to them and even him. I only remained friends with Claire for about 3 months as this fictitious person after he stopped talking to her in fear that he would start up again with her. In the interim of us talking she sent me a picture of him, me, and our daughter at a theme park. She commented on how ugly his friend’s wife is, what a dog she is and how she couldn’t understand how he would rather be with a dog than with someone as beautiful as her. She believed she was this reincarnated six-armed Hindu goddess. She claimed to me she could do all these spells and that he would never be happy again after the wife caused him to stop talking to her for no apparent reason. As I read all the things she was saying about me I was upset but I never said anything. I let her believe that I had empathy for her and how dare this man give up a good woman like herself because, as she stated to the fictitious person I was, she had never had this “affair” that the wife had claimed was going on. She would never break up a marriage because she was better than that. 

November of 2012 My husband was again talking about how much he had begun to miss Claire. He was hoping I’d allow them two to talk again and he would control himself this time since he knew better and what they had done before was quite childish. I let him know that he was to never speak to her again. I asked him what was it about her that made him want to talk to her again after she not only ratted him out to me but on both social websites about every plan they made, their discussions, and money she said he sent to her. He had no answer for that. He then seemed to zone off and he told me in detail about him and her having sex when he lived in Miami before he ever met me. The free lap dances he would get from her. The times when she needed an assistant to work for her at her place and he offered, she would walk around naked while he worked at the desk. He then discussed how they had gone to the beach together and she touched him in the car and that was all that happened. It was then as if he blew off everything he just said and said “Well all that’s in the past now. I guess I won’t be talking to her anymore. I don’t care what she says about me or where she posts stuff about me because I guess I won’t be talking to her anymore…” Then almost as quickly as he mentions that he goes back into how he could recall how she wanted to learn to be a stripper and would give him “practice” lap dances at her place or his sometimes before going to work as a stripper at a club. He let me know that when he said they had a sexual encounter before, that it really wasn’t sexual because they never took their clothes off to have sex. It was just a lot of touchy-feely. 

March 2013 because of the horror stories that my husband was still sharing with his family about how I was treating him, forgetting to mention to them what he was doing his sister shared on a social website for all to see to back him up because he was “so depressed” and just couldn’t take it anymore. She makes some sort of comment about “if only some people understood this…” then writes “It takes more effort to maintain a lie then simply speak the truth….” Was that supposed to be a jab at me? Was she seriously doing that? If only her brother was more enlightened to speak the truth, we wouldn’t be where we were at. Of course, no one asked me anything. It was still all about him. 

At the end of August 2013 and again at the beginning of September 2013 I told my husband he was to get out of the apartment by September 13th. He moved out the day before. I was over his constant lies. We had been through seven counselors during these last few years and each time he lied to them. Each time they believed him. The last counselor we saw, she saw through his lies. He stopped going to see her. I had enough of more drama with his family. Shortly after he left I started getting unknown calls for a while from a female pretending to be an older person. The person always said to me “Liz…. You are a pig! You are such a pig!” Then the person would hang up. I had to call the police and the officer that came out even said to me that she agreed it sounded like a female trying to change her voice to an elderly person. I recorded the person repeatedly calling me for the police so they could continue to investigate this. When I had spoken to my husband and asked him who was doing this, he said he had no clue who was doing this. Or even why someone would do this. Then he changed his tune and said that it was my mom that was doing this to me. A short time later he said it was a friend of mine that was doing this. It couldn’t be Claire nor any of his family. He said I was trying to find any reason to blame Claire because I wouldn’t let it go that he cheated on me and it couldn’t be his family because I was just trying to find a reason to hate them when I shouldn’t have a reason to hate his family at all. Look at all the things his family had done for me. Two months prior to him moving out, his mother sent him another card with a couple of Bible verses in them. The straw that broke the camel’s back where I decided I was going to start packing up his belongings and he would leave was when she sent him: Proverbs 21:9 “… Better to dwell in a corner of a housetop, than in a house with a contentious woman. (Contentious – a person who likes to argue for the sake of arguing) Near the end of August, My husband went to his church and started writing to them asking if someone would contact him because he needed a place to live and if they could please pray for him. Shortly after that he wrote to the pastor of his church and said that I kicked him out of the house for no reason and he needed a place to go and he was really worried about his daughter as well. The pastor didn’t even reach out to me to find out what was going on. He took my husband’s word and said he was going to try and help him find a place and told my husband to see if he could return home. He was also offering to help with legal matters if need be. This went back and forth between my husband and his pastor for about two days till I finally wrote the pastor and explained to him the “REAL” reasons why my husband was kicked out of our place. A couple of hours had passed and finally, the pastor responded back and understood what was going on now that he had the whole story. He even called me to set up a time to meet with my husband and him and said he would call my husband himself and let him know of the appointment time. We went to the appointment about a week later. Before going, my husband kept saying how the Pastor better be happy to be in his presence because he wasn’t going to come at all, and if the Pastor brings up anything about his past he’s going to walk out of the room and leave. I gave the Pastor a head’s up about how my husband was acting and what he was saying. The Pastor was shocked. He was shocked that my husband would even start talking about how the Pastor better be happy to be in his presence. My husband wasn’t Jesus so what was he thinking? It was a blessing to me that my husband left. He needed to get away from us. He was always boasting about being a bachelor now and how happy he was so happy that he had no obligations since he was on his own. He believed that after a couple of days I would call and tell him to come home. That never happened. After a week he thought I would call. That never happened. I never called him to tell him I couldn’t handle it on my own and he needed to return. The bachelor lifestyle that he thought he was going to have never happened. He ended up being miserable. He stopped coming over as much. Excuses as to him being so tired, or he forgot. It was always something. He may have forgotten, but our child didn’t. Again it was me left trying to come up with an excuse as to why her daddy had to leave for a while. Why he didn’t have time for her like he did the first two weeks he was gone. Why he couldn’t call her on the phone. It was me who had to deal with everything. Not him. I lied and tried to make up excuses as to he worked and he needed to be closer to his job and that she was loved. I even made up excuses to her that he came here after she was already in bed and asleep and he would kiss her and talk to her a bit before leaving again. 2015 Since then, we are back in the same household. He hasn’t cheated on me. He had a wide awakening while away. He hopefully has seen that his family who says they’ll be there for you really aren’t there for you. When push came to shove, no one was around for him. No one really wants to get caught up in the mess by bringing up what they’ve said. They don’t want to be questioned. He came to see that I had dealt with so much from him and gotten so little in return, but things were never the same again when he returned and haven’t been ever since. As for me, as I’ve had to sit and relive everything over again, I’ve realized that, as I try to focus on something else and move forward with my life that I’ll always feel emptiness. Even though I continue with acting classes and becoming an actor like I’ve been doing for years I feel deeper into sadness and despair. I see that at every turn I can remember, I have been screwed by him and his family and I am reminded that our daughter is now 10 years old and without siblings. Something we had talked about before marriage. I wanted three kids and he agreed. Instead, she is alone. My perception of love, honesty, family, marriage, and in-laws is so messed up. Everything I imagined and thought and read is all a lie. Vows don’t really mean anything to anyone and if you like someone else you can cheat on your partner and place your spouse on the back burner for as long as you want then use them when convenient. My views on people are so skewed now. I don’t believe what most people say. I think someone is always wanting something from you when they are nice. That no matter how much you love someone they don’t have to love you back. You are expected to settle with whomever you are with after you get married. That the in-laws can take offer your relationship once wed so the other spouse doesn’t have to do any work in it. If you have children, the in-laws can tell you how to raise your children since you apparently are so dumb you don’t know what you are doing. Promises can be broken at any moment by ANYONE. I am bitter, I have resentment, I am lost, I am missing that piece of my heart that will never be filled, I have a void that will never be filled, I ache, I cry, I am ashamed of this marriage. I am ashamed of everything that has made me become a completely different person. I was denied so much in my marriage. Time can never be returned to me. Memories of love and joy never having been made. The only memories made were those of hatred, bitterness, anger, loss of trust, denial of a family that I’ve longed for. That opportunity was stripped away from me for another woman and for his family. 

How is it, that all I’ve been put through and then our daughter that I’m to: 

1. Get over it 

2. Stop talking about it 

3. Not to bring it up to the person who said it 

4. Pretend it never happened If I bring it up, it’s denied and everyone seems to have selective memory and never recall what they’ve done.

 It always seems to be a mystery where I get this information from. It’s made to seem as if I just came up with random things. Boundaries are and were crossed when my child was brought into things and then my child was told that I am lying about my child’s allergies and that I have made things up about my child. Funny thing is, it is me who has fought tooth and nail to get our daughter taken care of with therapy, her health, and other things and no one seems to want to hear that point of everything. I have fought tooth and nail and no one wants to see that. 

The only thing that wants to be shared in my child’s presence is: 

1. Your mother lies about your allergies 

2. Your mother says these things to you just because 

3. Your mother does that … just because 

4. Your mother is just mean 

5. Don’t believe what your mother says to you because she doesn’t know what she is talking about 

6. Just pray and you’ll no longer be allergic to foods any more 

7. I don’t believe you are allergic to anything 

8. Look at all your father does for you …. ALL THE TIME 

9. Look at all the places your father takes you to…. ALL THE TIME Yet no one remembers speaking those things, everyone has selective memory, and yet I am to just “Get over it” because no one wants to hear how I feel about these things. 

Things in which were said to make me feel bad. Things in which messed with my emotions. I am supposed to smile and pretend all is well because everyone that has hurt me seems to want it to be unknown. When is it my turn to be happy? When is it my time to have enjoyment? When is it my turn to have the things that I deserve in life? My hands are left open and empty…. That’s the only thing that has happened.

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