Hi,

I have never written in a forum like this, but I think I need to talk a bit about how I am feeling and hopefully get some advice, especially from the male perspective, or women who have gone through similar situations. but hey, I am pretty open for anything.

I have been married for 3 years and in a relationship for 6. My husband is 5 years younger than me, so he was pretty young when he decided to commit into our relationship. We had grown to be very very good friends (we met when he was 20 and i was 25), in fact we were inseparable, and are til this day.. even after our recent separation. We decided to fool around and to be honest, due to our age difference I NEVER though we would be coming this far. But we did! We met in Australia, where I lived for a few years, and when we decided to part ways, he proposed that I move with him and start a life project together. At first I was very hesitant and we decided to take some time off, but after a few weeks we couldn´t keep away from each other, and since then we became a lot more serious with each other. Fast forward, we have built a house together, opened a business together and now I am pregnant with our second child and have a 2year old.

We decided to move to the Caribbean, where I am from and have been living here for the last 2 years. It has been intense, getting our life in order and making sure we can build up our business. We have had our ups and downs, but for the most part nothing out of the normal. He has withdrawn a bit and has been less romantic and sexual than before. Even though I met him as a massive party animal, since we have been together he has taken up the role of husband, and stopped going out.. something that I found strange, and even encouraged him to do. I am not much of a party animal myself, but from time to time, I do enjoy an occasional dance/drink… but the few times I have gone out, I would have to go out on my own as he completely avoided going out, saying he hated bars and the nightlife scene. I always attributed it to his young party animal start (he has always looked and acted older than he is and started getting into bars at a much younger age). As partner, he has always been there for me and has never flopped or given me any reason to doubt our relationship, until now.

A bit of our history: Strangely, I met him as a very sexual promiscuous being, something that according to him, started in his teenage years. Since we were just friends when we first met, I got to experience first hand his single life, meeting plenty of the girls he fooled around with and never took seriously. In fact, strangely, thats what drew me to him, because I was coming out of a very serious relationship and decided to have a sabbatical year from men and nightlife. I had decided to come back into tune with my spirituality and myself.

He would always come over during this time (as friends) and try to get me to go out and things like that, but i was very strong willed and told him I needed time for myself. After the sabbatical year ended, I was horny (haha) and wanted to have sex, without implications. So i thought of him, as someone I could have fun with, without getting serious…. and I went to make a move on him…. and he rejected me! I was in complete shock, as I don´t consider myself unattractive and I had seem him sleep around. I left that night completely embarrassed, I had never tried anything like it before and the first time I get rejected! He ran after me and told me that I was not that kind of girl and that he respected me way too much. After we talked about it, he invited me to dinner. It was so strange. So that night, I went into my apartment and left him at the door to grab something for him…. I didn´t know he was walking behind me, and the rest is history!

Up until now, everything was perfect! In fact, it was his decision to have a second child. I am now 7 months pregnant. About a month ago, We came across a scholarship opportunity for sustainable development and we decided to both apply. We were surprised to find out that only one of us had gotten it, and decided it was best if he went, because its something that he is extremely passionate about and what our business is based on. I am too, but I have 2 college degrees and I knew it would make him super happy to get his diploma, since he was never much about studying. So off he went for two weeks.

During these two weeks, he barely communicated with me. He was in a very rural setting, so I thought it had something to do with connectivity issues. I ran our business as per usual. One of our jobs, once a week is 2 1/2 hours away and its teaching kids, so I would drive and look after 70 kids for the day, on my own. Plus look after our toddler when I wasnt working. I did this all committed to us and to our relationship and without ever thinking that something was wrong.

Lo and behold, the night he is getting back I start getting some pop up messages on my screen (we had our computer set up this way, but he had obviously forgotten) and its him talking to someone about a girl. I glanced at the first messages and didn´t even think twice, but then they started getting more intense.. so I finally open the messages. I find out he had an affair during these 2 weeks. I confronted him about it, and he didn´t deny it at all. That night he confessed that he loved me, but wasn´t in love with me anymore….. I was shocked!!!! Mind you, the week before he left he had been strangely romantic and was even begging me to travel to visit his family with him (he was going mainly to run some important errands) and even offered to buy me a ticket (which I refused because we couldn’t abandon our business responsibilities.)

He has since told me that he wants to see other people and that he will stick by my side, because I am the mother of his children and he loves me. He was sleeping in the other room since he came back, and distanced himself from showing any kind of physical affection. He placed a password on his new phone (he never owned a phone because he said it was not necessary) and was constantly on it. For the first few weeks, things were a bit chaotic, as I guess I was in complete shock. He told his parents, but no one else and I told a couple of my friends, and recently my mom and my sister. I wrote him a letter and told him that I love him and I am willing to work on our marriage, but I am letting him go. He has since gone away for 20 days to run his errands in his homeland and I decided to take this time to compose myself and start accepting that I might be a single mother. We also talked about him moving out when he gets back, but he insists he needs to stick around until the baby is born and until I am stable enough. Which pisses me off, because I don´t need him to be stable.

The idiot keeps forgetting that we get the pop-ups on the screen (we tried several things to make this feature go away, but haven´t figured it out) and I saw more messages to other girls, but one struck me the most! He was telling the girl that things were not ok with us and that we were in trata-miento (tratamiento in spanish is treatment) but he went to further decompose the message and say (trata = she tries, yo miento= i lie.) That made me so angry I confronted him about it! I said he can go screw whoever he wants, but that I deserve nothing but respect from him and that he doesn´t need to harm my integrity and dignity to get laid, especially if I was willing to let him go.. He apologized profusely and told me he had been a jerk, and that it wasn´t really how he felt, but that he was horny and drunk and said anything to this girl. Since then, I told him things changed for me, because up until now I have taking the highroad, trying to understand what he might be going through, but that really really hurt me……so I have stopped making contact…..have stopped asking him how he is and now I only make contact if he does first. And of course, now he does things to try to get my attention, including asking me if I miss him.

I am frustrated because I went from being a very sexual person, and from being a very girly girl, to being more relaxed about my appearance and sexuality, because he apparently didn´t like earrings or make up, me acting sexy or being sexually forward, or anything like that ( because according to him, i am not that kind of girl.) The girls he is now hitting on are the opposite of what he apparently likes.. I asked him to change his password on facebook, so I am happy to no longer receive the pop-up messages. I really want to let him go, but I am trying to understand… can I save my marriage? is he going through some kind of quarter life crisis? why is he sending me mixed signals? will I be able to forgive him if he does come back? or should I resign completely and just embrace that we are broken?

I feel like i understand what he must be going through (having had all the responsability at a young age.) I also know that he has drawn the attention of lots of women lately, 1)its the caribbean and we are horny beings 2) with our business model, people are very intrigued and we have become somewhat popular 3) girls think : “you are such a great dad and husband”

But it was his decision to have a second child with me and he never told me he felt anything else other than love, so why do this to me now, whilst I am pregnant?? and Why act like I am chasing him around, to get laid? I am so frustrated, but I feel that I have handled the situation as well as I can, with my head up high and being supportive of his decisions, so that I don´t lose him… because I truly think we are soulmates…. He has hurt me, and i vow to keep showing him a hardface and not making it so easy for him.. But i want to know, it this all worth it?

Please please please, share your honest opinions, and thank you for reading and taking your time to write back.