pear123

Well, that is what he does. I've seen it with my own eyes. I actually watched him on the phone with his sponsor and then go into the garage and get a hidden beer (in his golf bag) and hide it in his shorts and go upstairs. Come down about 10 minutes later and get another beer hidden in the garage and go back upstairs while talking to the sponsor.

He says his sponsor knows he is drinking and is trying to figure out how to get him to stop drinking.

Personally, this shouldn't concern me, but what my sponsor thought was that he picked this sponsor because he could get away with it. The guy is young and this is his first sponsee. He has had several other sponsors and while he said he dropped them, my sponsor said they probably dropped him.

Doesn't matter, but it does because they say you have to change everything to stop drinking and when he is going to meetings and drinking afterwards, that is no hope for AA.

Freedom1990

I didn't realize he was talking to his sponsor on the phone. For some reason I was thinking he was talking face-to-face with him, thus my response.

Your sponsor is probably right.

A good strong sponsor doesn't spend his/her time trying to figure out how to get someone to stop. Ugh.

coffeedrinker

Pear,

I'm sorry you are in pain. I think this is the worst kind of betrayal, and that's why it is so difficult to accept or understand.

I get what you're saying about the other kinds of lies - I mean, even though those are also wrong. For me, when I thought about the lies I was told, and the rip-off that happened to me, it was to support the out-of-control addiction. I could make sense of it.

I think the bottom line is that this is a deal-breaker; you said it yourself.

gerryP

Who picks up underware found on the freeway ?

who brings home underware found on the freeway ?

who keeps underware found on the freeway?

That was the story he came up with?

I'm sorry you are going through all of this Pear. I can't wait until you are free of him.

theuncertainty

These were a few thoughts also going through my mind when reading your post, Pear. Eeeewww. And he thought that was a better story-more believable than the fact he cheated on you.... It's amazing how far alcohol can take a person from reality.

I am sorry, Pear. I also didn't want to believe my AH had moved in with another woman and her kids. I didn't want to believe he actually thought/thinks he was doing something good for his son by doing that.

To quote my little niece's favorite put-down: He's a poo-poo head.

catlovermi

Addicts escape reality; this is what they do. Sometimes it takes the form of running FROM (get bombed from reality on substances) and sometimes it takes the form of running TO (run to a more compliant enabler).

CLMI

naive

well, from the evidence you've provided, it certainly appears he has been cheating.

i think alcohol can make cheating easier, as it lowers inhibitions. also, i find that alcoholics are impulsive, have a sense of entitlement and throw caution to the wind. they want their fix, they are thinking selfishly of their needs at that moment and oftentimes, there is a breakdown at home in their relationships and sexual relationships are often strained.

now, since they are in denial as to the effects of their drinking on the family, they might feel entitled to cheat, because they are not getting much at home.

this, of course, they blame on us.

mine cheated too. my best friend had committed suicide and i wasn't feeling like having sex during my grieving period. it really was the last thing on my mind. my xABF said i drove him to cheating because i was temporarily unavailable for his natural needs.

now, when i look back on this, of course, it was unacceptable. i would prefer a partner who was emotionally available for me during a difficult time. with him, it was all about his needs and he couldn't really see past that to my suffering to comfort me. instead, he kicked me when i was down. not nice.

your husband's excuses about how he found the underwear and kept them are very very difficult to believe from where i'm sitting. it reminds me of the time i found 2 pair of women's underwear on top of the kitchen cupboard, a favorite hiding spot of my tall xABF. he said someone had planted them there to cause trouble between us. also a bit of a long stretch of the imagination to believe.

i know it hurts, pear. i'll be glad too when you're clear of this bloke.

naive

Jadmack25

Personally, I would love to meet this ^&*^%$#@(*&& on the freeway, him on foot and me in my Ford. Trust me, after our encounter.... NO-ONE would want to pick his jock's up off the freeway and take them home.

He is a lowdown scumbag and deserves nothing from you, least of all having your brain engaged in thinking about him....get on to a worthy subject, eg you, and how lovely your life will be when scummy is totally out of it.

God bless

MissFixit

My ex cheated on me too. He lied for 5 months about it and has never faced me to this day. He simply dropped off the radar screen yet contacts my family...crazy. selfish. ass.

I agree with those who wrote that addicts tend to be selfish. They have a sense of entitlement and want to have immediate needs met without much thought to anyone else or consequences. That seems to be the nature of addiction.

I am sorry that you are going through this. From my experience I wish I got out before the cheating started. It is very hard to psychologically deal with and caused me a lot of stress. We have been broken up for over 1 1/2 years and he is now married to her. And he contacts my family regularly. Sick.

I think you know he is cheating. The lies we tell ourselves to not deal with reality can sometimes be worse than just dealing with it and moving forward.

Summerpeach

Excellent explanation. Entitlement is a huge one with addicts. Their esteem and spirits are so broken, truthfully, they have no "guide" to right and or wrong.
They just do.

pear123

Thanks everyone. I wonder what is fundamentally wrong with me for believing that lie? LIke you all are saying, his explanation sounds crazy. But I believed it. Many months ago, I found in his car an extra pair of shorts hidden behind the seats. In one pocket was $ and the other was underwear. That is when he came up with this story about finding them on the freeway and he likes to wear them sometimes.

Now fastforward to now, finding more underwear and texts, ect. and still wanting to go back there to believe that. When my mind is saying, "but how come there is more" "how come the texts" "the neclace."

I have really been thinking about this because I fear something is wrong with me....I think it is like an argument with my mind. On one hand my mind is being sensible and saying he cheated. The other part of me wants to believe the freeway.

And I need to figure this out because what if this happens again with the next person God forbid?

JenT1968

the ex before AstbxH (who had an ?intermittant cocaine habit, couldn't tell the truth if his life depended on it and whose private parts literally fell into any gullible young coked-up woman who wandered past him) cheated repeatedly because

a) he wanted to

I used to try and wrap my head around the repeated decisions he had to make in order to cheat even once and either a) forgot about me or b) decided I didn't matter.

I cheated on him twice, both during times he disappeared for extended periods both times I finished the relationship as soon as I could get hold of him.

I was drunk at the time, that was not why I did it, I wanted to feel wanted and sexy, I probably wanted to hurt him and I literally thought F*** you, being drunk may have lowered my inhibitions, but I made the decision both times. I'm not sorry to this day that I was unfaithful to him, he, having pushed to make the relationship exclusive, had sex with lots of other women whilst we were together and lied about it, twisting my perception of reality driving wedges between mutual "friends" and me who knew about it (and pretty much everyone knew about it) and feeding into my anxiety problems. two wrongs don't make a right, but I just don't feel any guilt about it, hey ho.

I am more bothered about the friend that I slept with who had a very soft spot for me at the time and who I selfishly used to alleviate my pain. Him I would like to apologise to, wise man has "lost" touch with me though.

it isn't about you, or alcohol, don't waste your precious brain-cells trying to figure out the "why"s.

JenT1968

one step at a time: you don't have to figure this out right now . Once you have some distance from it, you'll start to develop some more perspective, and in all lieklihood people will start to tell you stuff corroborating your fears (which is what happened to me).

I would look at my friends unburdening themselves over the knowledge of his continual philandering and think "you couldn't have told me this whilst I was living with him? going insane wondering if I was a terrible person for being so suspicious?"

but that's life LOL

Summerpeach

We believe lies when we are fearful.
I'm someone who is straight as an arrow and NO ONE can pull the wool over my eyes, but my ex from years back, well he won the award for sickest liar in the universe and I would actually believe him.
Then when I had some distance, I realized how my fear of being alone blinded me and made me believe monkeys could fly.

MissFixit

I just read back through and wanted to add to what Jenn wrote. People wil likely fill you in on things that happened that you did not know about.

I too thought I was going crazy right before and then after I found out about the cheating. I kept trying to make sense of his behavior, but none of it added up. When I asked him where he was, who he was with, why he did this or that, he would lie to me. I chose to believe the lies beacuse they were easier to digest at the time rather than he was cheating and moving on with another woman. He was using me as some sort of back up in case things fell through and didn't love me the way I thought he did and proclaimed to.

He doesn't lie and cheat because of you. He lies and cheats because of him. There is nothing you can do to change him or make him stop this behavior. He has to want to stop this behavior and then take the steps needed to change. That takes effort and dealing with hard cold reality, which is not fun.

JenT1968

for me, it wasn't just that I wanted to believe that he was faithful. I also very much needed to be fair. so I felt terrible when I was suspicious and when faced with on the one-hand my suspicions/gut feelings peppered with circumstantial evidence that he had explanations for weighed against someone I cared for looking me straight in the eye and swearing there was nothing going on, hurt that I was accusing them unfairly of lying and cheating, blah, blah:well, I never felt that my suspicions were justification enough, I couldn't bear to be unfair to anyone.

I don't currently know how to progress that, but as I'm not in nor wanting to be in a relationship for the foreseeable future, I guess I've got time to work on it.

transformyself

I don't know if other folks have touched on this already, I apologize if they have, but denial is quite helpful when it comes to unpleasant things like infidelity, alcoholism, all sorts of icky stuff. You may want to examine your own level of denial.

for me, I've been in situations before that are really unpleasant, like being sexually harrased by a boss, and walked away and thought to myself, "that didn't happen."

That was before tons of therapy. Now I DO NOT ignore red flags.

You can face this stuff pear. If I can, you can.

Summerpeach

Isn't it amazing how they can look you right in the eye and swear on their mother's that there is nothing going on?!

It's actually funny and sad in a pathetic sort of way

fourmaggie

*snickers*....ooh gosh that is a good one...!!

fourmaggie

I so agree with this...whether...they are sober OR NOT....