I've been with my husband for 16 years and we have two kids. I call him my husband but we aren't legally married. I recently found out that he has been lying to me for the last 2 years and involved in an emotional affair for the last 6 months or so. It started with him locking his phone, going online to connect with women, pornsites, to staying overnight so he wouldnt have to commute. To recently going out to places with the co-worker that turned into more. I know it sounds like why didn't I see the signs but I did and every time I confronted him, asked him, he would spin it and create a story or feed me lies that I actually believed. Most of the time he would get angry and shut down so I was left with the unknown for a very long time. All our fights we're about him living a secret life away from me and our kids and her never saw it that way. He saw me as a nag who wouldnt leave him alone and me wanting to know what was going on in his life or who he was talking to he said was invading his privacy because it's his life. He's very stubborn and no one can tell him what to do so it was hard to try to communicate with him. I didn't walk away at the first mistakes he made because I never knew for certain and I didnt want to throw away all the years we had been together because I truly believed we could work on our troubles and fix them. finally I had to hack into everything just to find the proof of the affair and caught him in all his lies. He finally admitted it and has said sorrys, tried to justify it all but he now realizes how bad and far he went to please himself and how selfish he has been. He sees he has major self issues he needs to fix before he can even consider working on our relationship but that leaves me in limbo. My world is destroyed and I can't grasp or accept the knowledge that he would do this to the one person that has been the only one by his side, loved him and supported him through everything. I know we had problems but I never imagined this. My question to anyone is how do you cope with the pain, sadness and heartache of it all? How do you turn off the obsessive thoughts of what they did, talked about or all of it? I've been dealing with so many emotions and can't stop crying. I have days where I am ok but then something reminds me of his betrayal and I lose it all over again. I start to have negative thoughts towards myself, feeling like I'm not good enough, maybe I did something wrong or didn't love him enough. How does a person manage every day with such heartache? I am even willing to consider couples counseling to try to get passed this but now he isn't sure that he can forgive himself for hurting me. He's all messed up in his head and not happy with himself. He wants time to figure out his own head but where does that leave me? I get that he needs to fix his own issues to a point but what am I supposed to do til then? Wait for maybe him to consider us or just let him go completely? I am so confused, lost and alone. I try to put on a brave face for our children but they know what their Dad did and it's hard to be normal. I've gone to therapy alone but my therapist is a man hater so that didn't work. I'm in the process of looking for a new one but in the meantime I get so crazy in my head. I can't sleep, don't eat and can't focus at work. I have to be okay long enough to take care of my kids and once they are alseep my nightmare destroys me. I hate myself right now. I'm weak and afraid and feel like a failure in life. All I ever wanted was to be someone's love and live happy. Now I feel like my love is crap and worthless. Sorry for the long rant but this doesn't even cover all of it. . Scary!