So here I am....I've joined a support group. I'm told groups like this can help me, if only to keep my accountable to more people for my words and actions. I really hope this helps. I've reached a point where I completely dislike myself. I have lied out of habit for as long as I can remember. About anything and everything. I've told people I went skydiving in college. Lie. I've told people that I have a bachelors degree. Lie. I've told people all kinds of lies. Big and small. Friends, Family, coworkers. It didn't matter who they were or what the lie was about.

More recently, I cheated on my wife a few years ago, pretty much for the entire extent of our engagement and marriage. She found out two years ago and I told her only what I thought would appease her and allow us to move on. We went to counseling together and I also sought individual counseling on and off for being a Sex/Love Addict because that's what I told her I thought I was...even though I told her that I had never had any physical contact with the "other woman". She laid down only two rules for me....be 100% honest and never talk to the "other woman" again. We read books, we wrote in our journals, we tried to focus on "us", I tried to forget the whole thing ever happened, but understandably, my wife couldn't. She always had a nagging feeling that I was still lying to her about the extent of my cheating. And she was right. In the months that followed, she ransacked my phone, my email accounts, my computer hard drives, my chat histories...and discovered that I was not just talking (sexting) with one woman, but five. She confronted me time and time again asking, begging, pleading for the truth and I wouldn't...I couldn't admit to anything that she did not have hard proof of. I'd make up lies to smooth the edges...get us through another fight...cover up past lies with more lies. A year after the initial fall out, I came clean about having sex with the other woman....back to square one. No counseling this time. Just a lot of uncomfortable silence at home....She wasn't quite as angry with me this time because I think in her heart, she knew there had been physical contact. Oh and did I mention my wife was pregnant with our beautiful 2 year old daughter at the time of my cheating?

So I still just had the two rules....100% honesty and don't talk to her ever again. Well for reasons I told myself were good intentioned, I started talking to her again. Never about sex this time, but just about stupid things. Mostly to find out her schedule so I could try and keep my wife and her from running into each other. But these conversations morphed into a "friendship"....talking about things that friends talk about. But still, nothing sexual. And I reasoned with myself, that since we weren't talking about sex, that I wasn't REALLY cheating again. Even though I knew that my wife had wanted me to NEVER talk to her again.

So a couple days ago, my wife had some suspicions and asked to have access to my work computer...which I happily gave her because I thought I was smart enough to cover my tracks and leave no proof of our conversations. Wrong. Turns out I'm not nearly as smart as I thought I was. And I can vouch for this first hand...the FBI has nothing on investigating techniques like a woman who has been cheated on and lied to for years. So my wife found all the logs of conversations, not the body of text, but she knew we had been messaging and emailing each other...pretty much ever since she initially found out. I basically never gave it up.

So last night was rough...she still loves me, but she hates me. She thinks I'm a great father but a shitty husband. Agreed. I told her all of the lies. I told her everything. I was basically exhausted keeping up with it all and I just opened my mouth and didn't stop until there was nothing left to tell. She's numb to me now....but she's giving me one more, undeserved, chance to change. And I want to. I REALLY want to. I'm tired of lying and keeping up with them. I'm tired of being a shitty husband to my wife who has never done anything to deserve any of this. All she has done is love me and give me chance after chance. I desperately want to be the husband that she deserves. So I'm seeking face-to-face counseling again...this time for my real problems, compulsive lying and impulse control in general. I'm going to be assessed for Adult ADHD. And I've no joined a support group. I'm planning on getting rid of my smart phone and down-sizing to phone that will only make phone calls. No texting. No web browsing. No Facebook...which is the devil, by the way. And I've already gotten a new computer in my office that is a lap top that will enable me to take it home with me every night in case my wife wants to go through it.

So that's me. Sorry for it being so long and I'm sure I missed a few words here and there because I tend to type faster than I think. Thanks for letting me join the group. I really hope this helps in some way.

David