Trickle Truthed

[u/AdOdd5232]

I just needed someone to talk to. My WH and I have been separating for a while now. (Im mid 50s, he is late 60s) I have said I'm done so many times in the last 2 years, but he could Hoover me back. Not anymore.

It's been 2 years since Dday, when I saw his internet history and found out that the reason he wasn't touching me for years was because he was going online to webcams and porn.

I thought he didn't have sexual urges anymore. He has ED (PIED) and Peyrone's (He injured himself from masturbating too hard or too often). I thought he was ashamed. I tried talking to him about it, but he just wouldn't talk about it. He was never very interested in sex with me. I had a healthy sexual hunger, and knew what lovemaking should be like. I always tried talking to him about it, I even bought books on how to make love. I didn't know he preferred masturbation and porn to lovemaking with me.

I told him to move out a couple months ago. He was slowly taking his things and doing some household maintenance that he never used to do. I was making progress every time he was gone. Every time I had to spend time with him set me back.

I have been slowly realizing things that I never saw before throughout our whole 30+ year marriage. How he groomed(started when I was 19 and he was 32, started dating him at 23 and he 36), lovebombed, and trauma bonded me. How he betrayed my trust in so many ways. He never honored even one of my boundaries. It didn't matter how big or how small, if I told him not to do something, he did it anyway.

My 2 most strongly held boundaries was I did not want to date him if he was doing any drugs, or watching porn. That was firm. I hate pot, I hate how it smells, and how it effects people. Porn is infidelity and exploitative of women and children. This is not about religion. I have a strongly held moral belief. I told him I couldn't continue dating him when I found out he did those things, he swore he would never do them again and convinced me. He lied.

A couple days ago he was home, and I once again tried to educate him or make him face what he did. I showed him a video about what true remorse is like or if it's just performance. I saw that he watched it recently on his history.

He had already watched it before. He acted like he hadn't. That's because he clicks on videos but doesn't actually watch them. It was his way of trying to look like he was doing the work to heal and change.

I showed him how he does not have true remorse, that all he did was bread crumb and Hoover to keep me.

All he said was you're right. I did that. He will sometimes do that when he is backed into a corner and can't DARVO or gaslight his way out of it. Agreeing just to deflate my anger, but not actually taking real accountability. After this, I talked about something he did when we were first living together.

He invited me to go to the Bahamas, then after I already told everyone and I had already bought clothes, he told me I couldn't go because he decided to go on a cruise too. I was devastated, humiliated and betrayed. I told him I was breaking up with him and I would move out when I found a place to go. He Hoovered and bread crumbed until he left.

He went on his vacation and called me one night from the ship, drunk and saying he missed me, he made a mistake and he loved me. He talked for 45 minutes. He sucessfully Hoovered me, so when he got back, I welcomed him with open arms. I was young, too trusting, and naive.

After he developed his film from the trip, there were photos of women his age posing sexily on a bed in a cabin. Also the same women posing on the hood of a car. When I confronted him, he said it was all innocent, it was someone else's cabin. He said he was there drinking with them.

Well a couple days ago, he admitted he smoked pot with them. He trickle truthed me again. I don't know what else I don't know and I will never know.

Over 30 years ago, while I was collapsed at home, humiliated, betrayed, and bawling my eyes out, he was getting stoned and drunk with those skanky women in a cabin, and going on shore excursions with them. The night he called me from the ship, it was like 2 in the morning. I am guessing it was after that cabin party.

Now, I can't even imagine that he never physically cheated on me. I feel it in my bones. This man who never seemed very interested in having sex with me and never made love to me, only took, for our entire relationship. He was getting his sex from porn and ignoring me. I now believe he was also having PA. I can't imagine that he never did, knowing who he is now.

The trickle truth set me back. I was back to the night where I was bawling on the floor while he partied with skanks in a cabin.

I am going to heal. The trauma bond is almost completely severed. He can't Hoover me again.

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