SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I think 1st Wife has great advice here, practical and solid and I think I would follow it. It sounds like a big step I know but believe me, men DO hurt their wives and kids. And I'm sure the reverse happens too but not as often. It really IS better to be safe than sorry so please consider seriously what 1st Wife has said, it's what I'd do.

If you are going to stay married then you need to be honest with yourself about who you are staying married to and protect yourself accordingly.

This means:

1. Use condoms every time you have sex. You may also want to get a prescription for PrEP because you are not in a monogamous relationship and he’s having sex with strangers. It will be less enjoyable for him and he will be pissed off, but the alternative is playing Russian roulette with your health each time you have sex.

2. Get a job, even if it’s part-time or a small side gig. Do not put yourself in a position where your skills are out of date and you have an ever-growing gap in your resume if you need to return to the workforce.

3. If you’re truly done with having kids, regardless of whether or not you stay married, then getting your tubes tied might be prudent. But if you have any doubt, don’t rob yourself of a choice your future self might regret.

4. Never ever fool yourself into believing that just because you’re willing to stay married to him that he will stay married to you. A man like the one you’re describing will have no scruples about abandoning you if he feels he has a better deal elsewhere.

5. And last but not least, get a post nuptial agreement. If he says he loves you and wants to stay married to you, he’ll have no problem putting his money where his mouth is.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 2:03 AM, Monday, March 23rd]

There are some people who should not be married. They don’t have the loyalty gene. It sounds like you are married to one.
Huge question…do you want to live your one precious life miserable? To me that is what every bs should ask themselves. The ws who do the work by accepting responsibility and growing up are to be appreciated. When you have a ws whose morals got flushed away, never to return, they are not good partners.
Do not do mc. You need your own therapy and a trip to a lawyer to see the forest and the trees. You need to deal with reality.

C2H, if putting a gun to her head and pulling the trigger isn't enough of wake-up call to get her out of this marriage, then nothing is.

If there's anything she needs to go to therapy for, it's to figure out why she's more upset about the infidelity than she is about the high likelihood of murder-suicide.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 2:57 PM, Monday, March 23rd]

One thing I noticed. You state that he has ruined MARRIAGE for you.
Be very clear that he has only ruined THIS marriage.

Of course we need to learn from our experiences.
Irrespective of if this marriage with this man ends in reconciliation or divorce you need to learn something moving forward.
If it’s with this man, it needs to be in a way where he shows you and proves he’s dependable.
If it’s with someone else further down the line… well… that’s a different person and maybe your learning will be react differently right away if they treat you like your ex did/does.
A common mistake we make on this site (me included) is taking our ex behaviors into our next relationship.

On a strong note:

Placing a gun at your head is abuse, and at the VERY LEAST extreme disregard for gun-safety. Loaded or not loaded.
Not knowing if the gun is loaded or not loaded… ANOTHER disregard of gun-safety.

This is extremely dangerous. Even if done in some "innocent" or "caring" environment it would tell me that this person has no reason to have a gun.
Seeing as how it’s done in an abusive environment it tells me you need to get out.

Yes, I have major self esteem issues. How can one not, when someone is always justifying his actions? He has threatened suicide and divorce many times (even when I was pregnant), and he has even jokingly put a (loaded) gun to my head and pulled the trigger (he wasn’t aware it was loaded).

Good lord, there's nothing "jokey" about that at all! As far as I'm concerned, ALL guns are loaded and hot! I won't even carelessly sweep a muzzle in the general direction of one of my buddies when out hunting. What he did was stupid, reckless, uncaring, and even abusive.

You need to get away from this toxic person immediately.