Hi, I hope this helps, because it is too late for me, way too late!
Married 36 years. He’s been cheating about 20. I stayed for my daughter to have a better life and family–even though he stopped making love with me TOTALLY when he started in with his cheating. He NEVER took us to Ecuador to visit his parents/family, NEVER took us on ANY vacation–but he went away every year for at least 3 weeks, sometimes for months. I cooked, cleaned, washed, kept an immaculate house, home-schooled my kid for high school, she graduated from a private university age 20 with a pre-med degree. I saved his mom’s life, she got off a plane here in severe congestive heart failure. I told him that, and his answer? “You’re not a dr., you don’t know anything!” Uh, dumbo, my Pop died from heart disease, yeah, I DID know what I was looking at! His father was going blind from cataracts. I saw something in the newspaper about a dr. who was doing free surgeries for cataract patients who had no insurance. Long story short, I got his dad up here, operated (thank God) and cared for him for 2 months after that. If someone would have helped my folks like that, they’d have been my friend for life. Not this abuser/cheater/rat! Why on earth would you want to stay with a miserable excuse of a man like that?! I am now a PARAPLEGIC! I had a bad back for years. Six years ago, about 10 weeks before I was paralyzed from the waist down, husband got yet another call that “his father’s dying” again. He was 93 at the time. I BEGGED him for the love of Heaven DON’T leave me! I’m dying! Help me! I’m all by myself, your father has 50 people in that house, I need help! Well, he walked out for his 3 weeks of wonderful lust in the dust with his tramp! When he came home, I was still bedridden. Took me 30 minutes to get to the bathroom. I was on morphine, hydrocodone and soma (no thanks ever again, Pain Mgt. Dr.!) “You were smart, you should have called for help yourself!” Really? Now he says he didn’t know what the drugs do to people. Oh please! He was 60 then! Even when I was paralyzed, which happened in a split second, he NEVER CALLED 911! Thank God you can WALK away from that cheating rat, because I’m stuck! I just finished yelling at him again how much I want him to leave. Now he says he cares for me, he’s not perfect, he made a mistake–I don’t care! I want him gone, out of my life! My only child lives on the other side of the planet, married to a soldier.
Here’s the kicker. If you had looked up “Mama’s Boy” in the dictionary his face would have been there. In 2004 our daughter got married and left. In 2005, 6 months later, he got a phone call telling him that there would be a “Mothers’ Day Family Reunion to celebrate ALL of the mothers in the Family!” I clapped my hands and said, “Great! Let’s go!” How could he leave me home then? The kid was married. He turned from nice guy into super-demon: “NO! TU TE QUEDAS AQUI!” “NO! YOU HAVE TO STAY RIGHT HERE!” Six months after that his mom passed away, God rest her soul. After 30 years of leaving me alone to go sleeping with whoever he felt like, he turned to me and said, “Will you come with me to the funeral?” “NO! I wanted to see her while she was ALIVE!” So he went the next day to Ecuador. Carried his Mom’s body to the grave, crying his eyes out in front of everyone–and FOUR DAYS LATER SLEPT WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND! That was ONE day before coming home to me! Am I sorry I didn’t go with him? Nope. I didn’t deserve to be so disrespected and mistreated for 30 years! Besides, he needed those two antibiotics he had to get after she gave him a little parting gift! Yes, he went to his dr. from his job, the same time he was getting bereavement pay they had to see him “denies act with wife!” on the medical form.
My friend, YOU DESERVE BETTER! God cannot want us to be treated so horribly! I have a power wheelchair, manual wheelchair, and a walker for shuffling short distances, such as to the bathroom. It’s not just the legs that go with paralysis. I am totally incontinent, please forgive me for being totally honest. That’s the worst part of being paralyzed! Life is a misery. I’ve decided no matter what I will NOT be buried next to a man who didn’t want me in life. He’s “sooo sorry” all the time now, but I cannot look at him. If there were a stranger in the street telling me he/she was dying, I’d at least call 911! Come to think of it, I saved an epileptic’s life years ago, and the life of her 2 yr. old daughter, who was wandering around a parking lot.
I got visas for everyone in his family who asked. Did all the paperwork myself. None of them cared enough to even call when I was paralyzed, or when I got home after a month in the hospital and rehab. I truly don’t believe there was anything I did to warrant such ill-treatment. I don’t think you would ever want to feel your life was so horribly wasted, as I do right now. If I could work, I’d be gone. I want him to sign the house over to me, and I’d move into a studio or 1 BR condo. He’s got his house in Ecuador. I’ve never even been in it! I was over there once, in 1982. His parents adored me. Why wasn’t I ever back there? Because his girlfriend/s, ah, they were everything to him. He’d buy phone cards and call them from his job, where all of the calls are recorded.
Please don’t do this to yourself! My daughter has zero respect for him and tells me all the time she wishes she could help me get away. Don’t let that cheater do to you, God forbid, what this cheater he did to me!
St. Mother Teresa said it best, “The worst poverty is being unloved and unwanted.”
Boy, was she right!
Be well, and don’t let him manipulate you and use you while he commits adultery all over town!
