I really need some more outside opinions on this. I have been involved in a very confusing and complicated situation with a man I have dated for 5 years and recently married at the end of last year.

After I married my long-term boyfriend at the end of last year, I instantly began questioning my decision, although I tried hard to push those thoughts away. I wasn't sure why I felt that way - he takes care of me, is responsible, and has treated me well for the most part. But it was as if something was subconsciously telling me that something was wrong with the relationship, something I couldn't put my finger on.

During our honeymoon, I kind of freaked out and got really drunk one night, cried and felt depressed. He seemed confused, but we both tried to ignore the incident the rest of our time there. About a month later, my feelings of confusion heightened after I learned that a close friend of mine (for 10 years) had feelings for me and I felt like I might have some feelings for him too. We talked about it, but nothing more came of it besides us spending more time with each other talking since we were both going through confusing situations with our spouses. But nothing happened between us, and we were both very respectful of the other person's relationship. I ended up telling my guy about it because I thought that our relationship was at an open and trusting enough point that we could be honest with each other about everything. His reaction was not adverse, and he told me it was fine.

My feelings of confusion were still growing, so I decided I needed a little time to get away by myself and reflect on my feelings and thoughts about everything. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but I told my husband that I had been feeling confused and conflicted about having made the decision to get married. I told him I wasn't sure why I was feeling that way, and that it scared me and that I needed to clear my head. At first he seemed very supportive, telling me we could take me rings off and pretend we weren't married, and that I should do whatever made me feel happy and comfortable. I was so relieved that he wasn't upset at my confession, I almost didn't notice that after this he started telling me that if I want to, I could sleep with other people, and that we should consider people who I can sleep with.

Since my guy has told me in the past that he has a fantasy of this, it didn't shock me that much at first. He has always asked me to sleep with other people and allow him to watch, or if we can sleep with other people in the same room, etc. I have always told him that I am not interested, although he still brought it up every once in a while despite this fact.

He continued to bring it up more and more in the coming weeks, to which I either laughed it off or told him I wasn't interested. It began to confuse me even more and make me feel unloved, honestly.

About a month later, we were in the car and my guy starts yelling at me when I am upset talking to him about how I have been feeling (something he did sometimes in our relationship and I didn't understand why he would do this. He would often tell me it was because he didn' think he was making me happy enough, but that didn't make much sense to me.) Then when I yell back at him for yelling at me while I am upset, he begins to cry and says to me, "You think you're bad for wanting some space and feeling confused? I have been manipulating you to try to get you to sleep with other people because I saw that you were emotionally vulnerable."

I was in shock at hearing him say this, and I immediately searched for a way to justify and explain what he had just said. There's no way the person I have been in love with and shared my life with for 5 years could have just told me this. And besides that, he was crying rather a lot and I HATE to see him cry. I told him, "It was probably just a coping mechanism that you said that.. you are just upset about everything and it's my fault you feel that way."

Looking back on it now... I feel like he was looking for justification to continue what he was doing because he knew it would confuse me. In the coming weeks, he continued to covertly pressure me to have sexual relations with other people. He came home one day and said, "I asked some of my friends at work if they would have sex with you. They said they would. So..." I asked him for clarification - "You asked them seriously and they SERIOUSLY told you yes. You're not joking..." He confirmed this. I was mortified because those people are also my friends. But later when I confronted him about it, he went from saying, "I said I HYPOTHETICALLY asked them" to saying "I don't remember saying that at all". He does that a lot - conveniently doesn't remember saying things that upset me.

In the coming weeks, I kept asking him for space. I asked him to find another place to stay for a little while (we were living in my parent's basement apartment) and he refused, saying that he had nowhere to go (which wasn't true). He also refused when I asked him for a little emotional space, if he wasn't going to find another place to stay for a short time. He also refused, saying it wasn't possible. Then, my close friend started going through a very bad time with his wife, in a saga that included another man and the child that he had been raising not being his. He politely asked both me and my husband if he could stay on our couch for a little while since he didn't have that many friends in the area and needed to distract himself from the issue and clear his head. We agreed.

During the week he spent at our house, I began to notice some very strange things going on and so did my friend. My mother was acting very strange, showing off and praising my husband for little things and making very obvious attempts to make me see him a certain way. My friend cut down a tree in our yard for us, and my mother was upset because she wanted brandon to do it (he is somewhat physically disabled and has issues performing tasks like these). Then, my mother leaves work to come downstairs and tells me my friend has to leave. This was very strange because she had no real reason or explanation for asking him to leave.

I leave the house to go to my friend's family's house to have some drinks. I had a few too many, so I decided to stay the night, which I informed my husband of. That morning, I received a barrage of texts from my mother telling me that I am having an affair, that I am a dissapointment, among other nasty things. Brandon had talked to her and told her this. I believe he may have wanted to use this as a scapegoat of sorts to deflect attention from my issues with the marriage, etc. So since I am already out of the house, I decide to stay with a female friend and finally have a chance to clear my head (so I thought).

During my time out of the house, I am constantly harassed by my mother and brandon, with accusations of cheating, etc. even after I had told my mother all about the percieved manipulation, sexual and emotional, and that I had been recalling a lot of other things in our relationship that had happened that could have been covert manipulation. She did not care. They successfully get me kicked out of my female friends house by harassing her and accusing her of harboring adulterers. So I go to the only other place I have to go - my friend of 10 years' family house. During this time, the fact that I am taking refuge at his familys house is used by my husband as evidence against me when he tells all my friends that I ran off with him. He then contacts his wife and convinces her of the same thing, destroying what little relationship there was there between my friend and his wife and making an already complicated and sensitive situation much worse. He tells my brother and other members of my family of what he is doing, and everyone somehow successfully ignores the fact that I felt like I had been being taken advantage of...

Esch time I confront him with what he said to me, he tells me and other peole that "he thought it was what I wanted. he thought I wanted to sleep with other people." even though I always expressed disapproval of this. Other excuses include "I don't remember saying that" and "I was trying to belittle myself to make you feel better"...

I come back home to try to work on things with my husband, but he still gives me no space. He assumes his position in our bed even after I had multiple conversations with him about needing him to sleep on the couch, and even offering to sleep on the couch so he could have the bed. He acts bewildered when I ask him to leave the bed and sleep on the couch like we talked about... after some time feeling uncomfortable with the situation and knowing that he and my mother and all of my friends are still in contact with him even while they have begun ignoring me, I tell my mom I am going to ask him to leave. She freaks out on me, and kicks me out of her house. She berates me and tells me I am a disgrace, and even takes my car away (which she couldnt legally do, but I was too mentally exhausted to fight her). They then proceed to berate me for leaving the house even though I was kicked out, and of course I end up at my close friend's home. My husband is still living at my familys house. Months go by and they refuse to make him leave, he refuses to go.

They constantly try to get me to go to couples therapy with him, but I know from reading on the subject that it is not a good idea to go to this with a manipulator. I tried going to one on seperate visits with him, but I ended up being told that my feelings were not legitimate and that I was an adulterer by the therapist, who didnt really seem to care at all about what my husband had said or done.

My husband plays hold/cold with me a lot, berating me and telling me that I deserved to get kicked out, that I was ungrateful; and then taking the "Im so sorry, I love you, you are my everything" approach. He and my mother seem to alternate between these approaches. The most recent development - months later and he is still living in my parents house, and I am still out. He went to a new therapist, one who specialized in sexual deviancy, and cried his eyes out to me in a voicemail saying the therapist told him he had been manipulative and that he had a problem (cuckolding fetish). He still hasn't admitted that he was intentionally manipulating me like he said he was, but he gives me vague apologies for manipulation in general when I implore him to apologize and acknowledge what he did. Then yesterday, he goes right back to saying that he was "just trying to take the attention off of me so I would feel better", null and voiding all of the crying and any admitting he had half-way done.

For the most part, my guy had been a very attentive, responsible, funny person who everyone knows is a bit strange but nobody really thinks much of it. Over the course of the relationship he had told me several things about himself that sounded very bad, but would later brush it off and give me an explanation for it, or deny that he said it. Among these things include sleeping with people (men) who he thought were vulnerable emotionally, then taking that bck when i express disgust. I am an extremely tolerant and forgiving person, and I feel like I overlooked a lot of these things because besides this he seemed to have a good, caring and genuine personality. This is only the beginning though, I am starting to remember a lot of covert ways I think he was manipulating me, including telling me I am a very negative person all the time and that he can't stand it (I have bad days, but dont consider myself a pessimist).

Please tell me, do you guys see emotional or sexual manipulation here because it has been a nightmare for me mentally to think about. I am a very forgiving person sand tent to give the benefit of the doubt a lot where i shouldnt, and on top of that my guy has always seemed like a good person to me. I rack my brain eevery day trying to figure out what i hsave done wrong, or if he could relly be as clueless to his actions as he is trying to say he is. Please advise, thanks!