so, many of you know me as pink pony 66 from the old forum. Almost nine years ago during a separation, my husband came clean about his affair and the fact that he had a six-year-old child from that affair. He begged and pleaded for a second chance. He basically did all of the things I needed from him to prove that he changed, to prove that he wanted to be the husband I deserved.

We spent the next couple of years in therapy rebuilding, him moving back into the house, and slowly incorporating his child into our family. Through that time we had ups and we had Downs. Unfortunately every time we had a Down we never seem to bounce back to our original rebuild.

Back in September he made a stupid decision to go out on a party boat with a bunch of friends and instead of telling me the truth about it, he chose to lie. It made no sense. The only sense it makes is that he hates any form of Confrontation any form of conflict. He sees lying is the easiest way out. Now it may be stupid or naive, but there was no evidence at that time of any form of cheating. He got caught because someone tagged him in a Facebook post. I then cast an extremely Wide net to research the people that were on this boat, checking  their profiles and their photographs. As far as I can see there is no cheating, but the lying brings me back to a terrible time in our marriage.

I spent the next four months waiting for him to fulfill his promise of going to therapy to work through his issues with lying. I put minimal effort into the relationship but was respectful and kind and he did the same. Our anniversary is Christmas Eve and everything bubbled to the surface, where he admitted he never went to any form of counseling and will not go to any counseling. That he can fix his problems with lying on its own. But that we should go to marriage counseling cuz he's got a lot of issues with me. I have plenty with him. 

I realized that I didn't care about what his issues were with me or my other issues with him. I just knew lying has been a deal-breaker and I've just been hanging onto threads here. We've agreed that separating is the best option for both of us.

I have to admit that while I'm sad about the fact that we did not successfully and long-term rebuild our marriage, I feel this incredible  sense of relief and have high hopes for myself going forward without him

I wish the best of luck for all of you who continue to fight the fight and work on rebuilding your marriage through through some of the shittiest circumstances a marriage can never face.