I don't even know why I'm posting in this forum, I think it's cause it hurts so much and I don't know what to do about the pain... first of all, sorry for my English, it's not my native language.
And I apologize for this becoming so endlessly long. hope you'll read it anyway and share your thoughts with me - thanks!
Here come's my story:
When I met him, it was love at first sight. I saw him and knew: this is it! This is him! And he felt the same. We moved in together a only 3 months later, after one year he proposed and I said yes - but we never got married. Troubles started a few months after as we started a new company, moved to another village, into a very old house that needed renovation big time and he took another female partner into the firm without me asking first. This new partner had a personal interest in him too and soon after I gave up my old job to work full time for our company she started mobbing me. And instead of being on my side, my fiance began seeing me as the "enemy of the company" cause I didn't agree with all their decision and sometimes asked him to take some time to help me renovate the house which should be our home some day. There was no kitchen in it, no bathroom, nothing. And we didn't have the money to have a company do it, we all had to do it ourselves which also was the way we planned it. In the end, after about a year he said he wanted to separate me because I wanted to destroy his dream. When I was gone about a week he come to me and apologized, telling me, now he can see that I was right with everything I said, that I was everything for him and that he wanted me back. I accepted his apology and gave him another chance.
We moved away rented a small house, way too small for us and the 5 large dogs we owned then, but we couldn't find anything else to live. I was working as an IT-trainer, he was unemployed. After about a year we bought a house which I paid, again it was old and in need of lots of renovation, but he promised that he would renovate this house for us within the next 10 months and this was the condition under which I agreed to buy it. It's big advantage was the 4.000 sqm garden for our then 6 dogs. It was situated in a place close to his then 14-yr old daughter from his first marriage, that's what he wanted, while my family and friends lives 50 min from here. But I understood that his daughgter needed him more than my family needed me (my father needs 100% nursing care after he had an accident about 13 yrs ago). I bought all the stuff we needed for the renovation and months flew by. I was frustrated because the house still looked like a big mess, nothing was done. Then I had a burn-out at work and had to go to hospital for some time. When I came back a few weeks later nothing had changed with the house. He was great with me, visited me on weekends, we phoned and texted every day. He was really there for me told me daily how much he loved me. When I got back I found that he had overdrawn both my accounts which he had access to as he had no own bank account. I was shocked but he said he'd care about that, he took a job at a bar (where you can place bets and gamble) to earn some money... but we never got the accounts straight again.
Some time during these years he stopped having contact with his daughter because she did not congratulate him on his birthday. I was mad at him because he never really was a reliant father to her, most of the time I had to remind him of his daughter's birthday etc. it was me who encouraged him to have regular contact with her because I thought a daughter needs her father. But he did not want to have any contact any more with her because he was so hurt for her not congratulating him. he then didn't even congratulate her on her 18th birthday last year. And I had given up on trying to conciliate.
Then in 2009 he got the chance to do some education as auxiliary nurse something he had wanted to do for a long time and I supported him through this. He had to commute 50 min a day so I had no car for over a year. Which was frustrating because I had no chance to get around and always had to wait till he got home. But still, I wanted to support him. Besides his education he also started working for a security firm so during the week he was away on education and on the weekend he did 2 or 3 nights of night work. So we had no time together any more. He always said he did this because we needed the money but fact ist, the more he earned the more he spent and my accounts stayed overdrawn or even got worse. I also told him that I'd prefer him to stop working because he needed all his energy for his education, it doesn't have a positive impact on our finances anyway and well, it would have been nice if he'd had some time for me and the dogs and our house, which still wasn't renovated, too. But he refused blaming me for not understanding how he did all this just for us. But why, if he did all this just for us, was I so unhappy? At home he was only tired and cranky no matter how much I tried to make him feel comfy and relaxed.
Then his phone bill was 4 times as high as it was the months before. I first thought of a mistake so I checked his phone record (oh, btw phone bill was on me too) and found this one number he was talking too all the time, any time of day and night. So I confronted him, he said, this is only a good female friend from his security job who he can talk to about me because I'm so complicated and he can't talk to me. I was shocked. I had always tried to find out if something was wrong, he had always answered, no, I'm just tired. And why, if she was just a goog friend, didn't he tell me about it? I would have had nothing against someone he could talk too. So I said, no problem, just let me get to know her... but he refused and stopped having contact with her.
But my trust was gone. And him having no time for me but all the time in the world for his female colleagues didn't help there either. Neither did him working till 6 am and showing up at 10 am with the excuse he had to work longer but never got paid the extra hours. And still he said I didn't appreciate him working so hard enough. So I even got up et 5 in the morning to make him breakfast when he got home from work. It got a bit better then... but I learned that usually he went out for breakfast with his security pals after work - there the money went (also drinks/coffee before work and daily coffee on days before his school started).
Last summer he quit his security job (he said he did it only for me but once he admitted it was too much for him - which I had always told him) and in Fall he had to choose from 4 jobs three of which where in our town one in my hometown 50 min away where he had done his education. He chose the one job away from us telling me it was his dream job, that commuting was no problem that he'd come home every night. Well who am I to tell him not to take his dream job? Beside his job he continued some further training, also in my hometown. He also got a room at the hospital he worked for. And he did not get the job that was his dream job but ended in another department which then became his dream job.
Over the weeks he started staying away over night more often and often without having talked to me about it. He was just tired so he stayed away. I was all alone in this construction site where nothig had changed with our then 4 dogs in a place where I knew nobody... suffering from severe depression and not having revovered from my burnout. I told him how I felt but nothing changed - he said he did all this just for us, I finally needed to understand that.
Last November he had to do a project week with his colleagues from school and instead of staying in his room for the nights (20 min drive) he stayed at one of his female colleagues and her parents... I told him I didn't want this, but he explained he did this only to save money for us. I was pissed but still I believed him that there was nothing between the two of them (she has a boyfriend too)... then in December he did not come home for my 40th birthday (yes, I'm old^^)... I was shocked and hurt... he was too tired he said, when he called me, we would see each other the next day anyway. I couldn't believe he would really not show up and waited, but he didn't come... I was a wreck... still I gave our relationship a chance. I had invested so much I didn't want to give up... and I loved him so much despite everything... thought it was just the stress...
I often had the feeling something was wrong with the things he said, but I never had proof, so I tried to trust his words... Then one day, I had baked the birthday cake he wished for and prepared his favorite food (as a belated birthday celebration, on his birthday I went to his place to see him and invite him out for dinner), I found out about him lying to me about some meeting he had to go to which never existed, so he could come home... but in reality he just didn't want to come home... as he said, he got so much work to do for school and at our place it was to messy so he couldn't concentrate and he couldn't tell me because I wouldn't understand... well, yes, his desk was a mess, the house is a construction site, but he was responsible for it as well! His salary was executed to minimum because of his debts, all my money was already in the house (half of the material I bought had moulded on our parking lot coz he never used it, so I had to dispose of it) so there was no money to have professionals renovate the house, I did what I could do, but I'm no electrician, no carpenter as he was... and sry, I'm no man also, so I have my troubles working with heavy stuff on my own... he had promised to do all this before we moved in here but he never did. And his desk was his own mess, not mine. I gave up on collecting all his cups and half-empty bottles and other trash that he left standing around at his desk (or the whole house)... but still I had to LIVE in this house while he simply did not come home any more! Then again I understood and told him "no more lies" and even offered him to help him even more with his work load for school. Am I stupid or what?
And then in May I found out that one women he was phoning and texting with alle the time regularly night and day was not who he told me she was. He had told me she was a colleague at school that's why he also phoned her at 1 am. She was not even in his school. I confronted him and he explained he got to know her about a year ago when he did an apprenticeship at the hospital he works at now (she was the daughter of a patient) and they developed a "lovely friendship" but I left him no other choice than lying to me because I was so jealous (yes I was, he never had time for me but plenty of time for his new friends) and distrustful (guilty again, his lies made me distrust him) and complicated (probably true too)... I drove back home then and did not call him, the next day I got a text "working hard blabla" as if nothing had happened... but I couldn't go on like this! He had lied to me over a year and probably even betrayed me (although he said no)... so I sent him a text (I couldn't phone because I'd have cried all the time) saying that I only 2 possibilities for us: either "I get to know all his friends pronto, you come home more often and no more lies" or "it's over"... I never heard from him again for more than 3 weeks... after his final exam was over he didn't call me either... so I called him (we had a lot of organisational stuff to talk about), he did not answer the phone... I wrote him a very direct text which he then answered to... we met... he said, he feels so empty, the only thing keeping him alive is his job... but I know he was out all night drinking and celebrating his exam... taking part in a soccer tournament at the hospital (he hates soccer...)... so is he lying again? A part of me is worried, because if it is true what he says it sounds like depression and I have told him to seek professional help, but he says he's got no time for that... he also said he stopped coming home because I did not appreciate what he did for us... working so hard... only for us... that hurts... I did everything for him, cooked, checked his homework, we laughed, we had sex (that was for me too *ggg*)... of course I told him that I missed him and that I can't stand him being away all the time leaving me alone in this mess... but I really was unhappy with the way things went, so I had to tell him, I think that being honest with your partner und talking about things is the way that has a couple grow together... but no matter how often I told him he only said, he is doing this for us, I just don' t understand, and that he obviously can't do anything right and then that he is so hurt about what I said that he cannot talk any more about it...
In this last conversation after we separated (I cleared that - he did not say a word about the status of our relationship) also promised to pay his part of our debts and for half of the dog food... but I'm not feeling safe... I never even told me how angry I am and what I really think of him (and I admit that's not very nice - egoistic, characterless, coward, inconsiderate, lyer, a***... or am I doing him wrong? Is he just overstressed?) because I fear that if I tell him he would not pay me anything... and then I have real problems because sustaining the house and the dogs costs more than I have at the moment...I'm really screwed... stranded here with all the mess and he's just gone and lives a better life without me after all those years where I have supported him emotionally, mentally, school-wise and financially. Yes, I'm so screwed!
And still it hurts so much... I still love him although I know there is no chance for us even if he wanted to (which he doesn't) because I wouldn't be able to trust him any more... how could I not have seen what kind of man he really is? How could I live with him so many years and not see? Why did I always trust him even when I had doubts? How can he from one day to the other just cut contact as if we together as a couple, as if I and the dogs (one of which he brought into our relationship) had never existed? I hate myself for being so stupid! I hate him for being so cruel!
At the moment I try surviving only the next 5 minutes... I have to be strong for my dogs, they need me... they've got no one else... he does not care any more not even about them... but I can't stand the pain... it hurts so much! Why didn't he love me? How can he forget all about me so quickly? HE told me I'm the love of his life, I mean everything to him, he doesn't want be be without me for a second, he wants to grow old with me, sit on our porch watch our grandchildren... he told me these things over and over again and I believed him... Am I not lovable? What's so wrong about me? Will this ever get better? Please tell me it will!