Is about time you move on

In touch with my feminine side: I am so sorry to hear that you are having problems. I remember how painful and lonely it was when I was having relationship problems and my woman did not love me. Come back anytime you want to off load again.

In touch with my masculine side: I do not know what goes on behind your closed doors. I am always wary when I hear only one side of events. Suggest you both have an open and honest discussion about what you both want and work out some solution together. It takes two to keep an intimate relationship thriving. I hope you both find happiness and contentment.

St the end of the day, although it might be hard, o with what feels best for YOU! Be loyal to YOU!

you don't have to have done anything, my love. I think you saying you stayed every time you should have left speaks a lot. I think he has you where he wants you with no respect. the next time you should leave, leave for your own good. it's just my opinion.

The unfortunate fact is we treat our dogs better than we treat our lovers. When we take on the role of lover we become product. Our inbuilt genetic radar selects our sex partner, and we are left to deal with each others idiosyncratic behavioral patterns. Puppets for our true masters our genes. occasionally people get lucky and find someone who they can actually tolerate even Love, but thats anomaly rather than the norm. Monogamy is also the most unnatural thing that mankind has subjecting its self to. Men impulse is to plant the seed and women are in a constant state of hypergamy.

Start your new life wiel your still with him.He will get the message.It's a Win,Win.And when it comes to and end,don't take him back.

Reading through this and others of your comments, @rebel_lion, I'm moved to great sympathy for you. I can glean that you're in a deeply unsatisfactory but long-term relationship with hints that there is toxicity in it. I see that you are in the medical profession. And I can see from your profile picture that you're a good-looking woman.

So guess what? You have all kinds of options. What you need is sufficient self-esteem to see those options as opportunities, and to go for them.

My own story involves a spouse who was unfaithful to me after many years of what seemed like a very happy relationship. After she confessed what she did and I learned more about the effects of the sorts of abuse she'd been through before she met me, I understood why she did what she'd done, and why she felt like she had to leave -- but that didn't mean that the relationship should continue. It was painful and lonely and hugely damaging to my own self-esteem. It's been a long journey back to the place where I feel like I have something to offer a woman, and so that makes me wonder if perhaps you're staying in a toxic relationship because you fear that you don't have anything to offer a different man.

Your story isn't going to be quite like mine, of course but at the core of it I see something that is similar: somehow, at some point in the future, you should come to realize your own worth, your own value, your own desirability, your own capabilities. And these are certain to be VAST. If you were to want it, you could have a relationship with another man. If you were to want it, you could have a career that enables you to support yourself independently. If you were to want it, you could find a new community free from the reminders of a toxic past.

As skeptics, most of us in this community don't believe in the supernatural or in any kind of second chance at life. But we should believe in ourselves, and that realization should motivate us all to make the most of the life that we do have. Believe in yourself, @rebel_lion! It looks to me like you are a great big ball of human potential. Go make that potential real. I'm rooting for you.

Nothing changes...if nothing changes. If the party with the issues is stagnated and refuses to discover or change those issues, it will be Groundhog Day ad nauseum complete with pain and uncertainty until they show a desire to reach out for help. I'm pretty sure you aren't going to simply wake up one day and these problems will -poof- vanish, if that's what you're secretly wishing for. This pattern has been going on way too long for that.

This is gonna take a boat-load of work and it will be fruitless if you are the only participant. The best predictor of future behavior...is past behavior. If that realization of his behavior puts a knot in your gut, you have the answer he refuses to verbalize to you. Where is his impetus to change if he feels no pressure to change? If he rejects an opportunity for change, you have a choice to make every day: continue to experience this roller coaster of agony or perhaps start making a plan to escape it.

Continuing to tolerate his puzzling behavior as you described is keeping you stuck in this conundrum. There isn't a better time for honesty: Do you have issues that are adding to the dysfunction? Seeking therapy for -yourself- may help discover any co-dependency this back and forth relationship orbits around. Just like an eclipse, the issues in your relationship come around every so often to darken your world. That's not fair and you deserve better.

Please...draw a line in the sand and fight for a quality existence either by setting a deadline for him to seek help, or a date for you to start packing if he won't. You've been at this for awhile with him, so you have to admit that the methods you've used so far are failing, right? Your mind is numb to this situation by now I'll wager, so I suggest putting your guts to work: How do they react when he walks into the room? When you have to interact with him?

Nothing changes...if nothing changes! Sending you peace and strength!

You can’t make someone happy if they don’t want to be. You are what is most important.

Easier said than done

I could have written this 2 years ago right before I left. Fix the broken part first, that's on you. To the first part, this wisdom from Madea seems appropriate. (Still great, despite the religious slant).

And FYI, The last 2 years of my life have been the most frustrating, mind blowing, amazing, and introspective of the 35 I've been on the planet. We only regret the things we didn't do.

Wow, props to you for being so open and forthright!

If "it's happening all over again" and you keep taking "it", then you are enabling him.

I'm really sorry for you pain, but you must be strong. The right path is often not the easy one.

Is not very much what you say, but if you feel bad in this situation you should find the way to leave.
You will feel better soon if you do, because, like that, is clear you're struggling and suffering!

You are not giving too many details as to your situation. I am speculating that he has cheated on you from the way that you phrased your first sentence, " I have been loyal to a fault to my man.." I am also speculating that it has happened before from your third sentence, " And now its happening all over again." I do not know if I am guessing right, but if that is the case, it will always continue to happen. He is not showing you any respect. You deserve better. Once a liar and a cheater always a liar and a cheater. Trust, love and respect are needed in a relationship. If he has cheated on you more than once, the respect is gone, there is no trust and the love will fade away soon if it hasn't already.

Please remember that this is not because of 'anything you did'. Maybe he does love you, but sucks at showing it. Or, maybe he found that, while there is nothing wrong with you, he just doesn't feel in love with you. Ultimately, if he is unhappy, there should have been discussions long before now. You can only be responsible for your own words and actions, just as he is for his.

It sounds like you've been through it trying to keep your marriage together, and wile I applaud you for that, I learned the hard way that a person can (and should) only put up with so much. My wife left and came back sixteen times in six and a half years. Turns out that she was just using me for security, so she finally left us (me and the kids) and I refused to take her back a seventeenth time.

I suppose one of the things I noticed in your post is that you say you 'should have left' many times before. So you feel that trust has been broken multiple times - but you go on to say that you don't know what you did. That tells me that he's the one that has broken your trust before. If you'd done so, you would certainly know what you did. But you are not responsible for his making mistakes.

I guess what I am worried about for you is your own well being. Seems like you are holding yourself responsible for his choice(s). Please be safe. This situation is something you two made together, the good and the bad.

I hope I haven't come across as mean-spirited; that is not my intention.

I know how you feel. My wife of 10 years kicked me out of the house while I was in the hospital. I don't really want to get married again, but I would like to fall in love again.

these kinds of posts scare me.like there is something so bad it can't be written. I hope you connect with someone beyond this page for help

It is heart renching to read your bio. If you are having doubts about your relationship, then tell him how you feel, and be strong in your decisions about where you see your relationship going. As for me, and this is only my opinion, I would have left him after the first time he had an in discretion. He is breaking your trust in him, and no relationship will last without trust.

In my opinion, you have to communicate. The biggest problem in any relationship is that people get bored. In any relationship, throughout life you have to understand you will have many boring nights. Life is not all excitement like movies want you to believe. Understand things will get boring, so be willing to put in the effort to set aside some time for a little fun. Expand your horizons; open your mind to new things and figure out what you would like to do. Together you guys should be able to figure something out. Even if it means being a child for a day and going gocarting. Go paintballs or pick up some games or try some new kinky thing you be always wanted to do. You have one life and having a partner you're comfortable with to accompany you on adventures makes everything better than doing it alone

Despite not having much information, the first part of your post describes the cycle of abuse, and the last part of your post describes symptoms of being under the influence of a covert narcissist. The particular way in which you avoided certain details suggests to me that you may feel as though you feel as if you should not say anything that would specifically point blame at him. If you are intimidated into barely calling out for help, then that would mean that you are being manipulated, which is a form of abuse.

Read everything you can on covert narcissists, abuse, and manipulative people, watch related educational videos on youtube, whatever you can do to get more informed. Even if he never hit you - and I don't know if there was any level of physical wrongdoing or not - psychological abuse itself can be even more damaging than just getting a few solid hits every now and then... and there is never a real guarantee that eventually psychological abuse won't turn physical - even after 13 years.

You mentioned loyalty - that may be a hot-button issue for you. If viewing yourself as loyal is important to you, a manipulative person is likely to pick up on that and use it as a tool to get you to stay, prove your loyalty by doing various things for him, or not doing certain things because he said so... but there are better ways to look at loyalty and love - even if he does not love you - that could help. Love, as opposed to lust, is truly wanting the best for this person. Loyalty is support for and allegiance to someone or something, and subjugating yourself to them. Not being loyal to someone who does not deserve your loyalty does not make you disloyal, it makes you judicious (which is very different from and far superior to judgmental). Love, even if not romantic love or reciprocated love which makes you feel better in a stronger way, means treating someone in such a way as to help them be better people. The kind of love I'm talking about does not enable bad behaviors, which are ultimately as bad for him as for you. Loving everyone well is superior to misplaced loyalty.

You would still be a loyal person even if you withdraw your loyalty to someone who does not deserve it, because them not deserving it is a reflection on them, not you. Don't let anyone trick you by twisting the honor out of a characteristic just to make you serve their selfish level of wants and whims.

In a country like America, this could be rough....I hope you find answers.

Really not enough information but the loyal thing is a given in a marriage. It's right there in the vows. "and forsaking all others" but if you are implying he's not loyal to you and keeps cheating on you and you can accept his philandering ways then stay for the kids sake or whatever if not then sadly it's over. You can and will heal from this.

Spent 13 with my ex-wife and now 5 single. Walking away from a 13 year "investment" seemed daunting until I realized I had already lost the years. Take care of you, but be sure. Don't let how someone sees you make you feel broken.