Hi, I’ve recently come across the Tiny Buddha forum and I’m really hoping some of you can give me some perspective here. I’ve been in a relationship with this guy for the last 6 years. I’m 45, he’s 38. I make a fair amount of money in the financial sector, he makes less but still a decent living as he runs a web solutions firm employing half a dozen staff. Throughout our relationship, I’ve always footed most of the bills: he never asks how much I’m paying in rent, utilities etc but seems to just accept the fact that I’m paying. Once in a while he will pay for groceries, restaurant meals and my car servicing – but nothing big. Recently we bought a house together – or more precisely, I paid the down payment, paid for most of the renovations and am now servicing the monthly mortgage. He paid for some of the furniture and a small part of the renovations, but he refers to the house as “our house” and tells everyone we bought it together. He apologised to me for not being able to pay more because he said he needed to help his father pay off enormous debts (& I do know that his dad is a bad businessman who’s had several failed businesses). What has really caused me to feel lost, confused and angry are the following things. Around the same time we moved into our new house, he fell sick. He was quite sick for a while and I was the caregiver throughout that period. I got very stressed out, but worst of all was that during that time, I discovered – through messages I happened to see on his cellphone – that he’d been cheating on me with another, younger woman for more than half a year – essentially during the time we wee planning to buy the house, when we were renovating it, when I was paying for it! When I confronted him, he kept denying that he’d cheated on me and kept insisting that they’re just friends, even though the messages were about how they missed each other, couldn’t wait to see each other and jump into each other’s arms etc. Eventually he made some half-admissions (“I was never unfaithful to you in my heart”) and we decided to stay in our relationship. But it’s like the discovery of the affair has opened my eyes to his true nature, and now I look at the things he does and question myself if he is a selfish manipulative person. Example 1: he wanted to hold his motorcycle club meeting in our house and asked me if I could either stay in our bedroom or “go out to do something”. I said I would go out to the gym but asked if the club meeting could end by a certain time. He got into a huff and said he would just go rent a meeting room instead – which he did, and then he sulked about it for a few days afterwards, pulling a sad face and telling me he felt “sad”. When I asked him to tell me why he felt “sad”, he refused and said he was too busy to talk, he would tell me “in a few days’ time” etc. Example 2: I recently found out that he got his dad to sign as a guarantor for a business loan he took. I was shocked becos he’d always said his dad is in huge debt, but he brushed my objections aside saying it’s done already and anyway he has no intention of defaulting on the loan or making his dad pay. Now I look at him and wonder whether he’s just a master manipulator. The thing is, in everyday life he’s a supremely charming and affectionate guy who’ll often cook me elaborate meals and display a lot of affection. But now I wonder how much of that is conscious manipulation. It seems to me now that whenever things don’t do exactly as he wants (like the club meeting incident), he’ll do something to make himself look like the victim/martyr and tell me how sad he feels – & then keep me in suspense by refusing to explain why he feels “sad”. Also, he likes to accuse me of giving too much time and attention to my job – which makes me furious becos he doesn’t acknowledge that it’s my job that pays for the nice house we live in! I don’t know what to do now. Confronting him doesn’t seem an option becos he always turns himself into the wronged party and does something dramatic like walking out of the house which puts an end to any discussion. At the same time I feel like I’ve invested so much of myself in this relationship for 6 years – & at 45, I don’t want to start all over again. I feel very lost.