I don’t know what to do with this pain.

There are so many things he could have done – brought us into financial ruin, lost our house, our car, ruined our credit, I don’t know...

But this deep fundamental level of betrayal is so hard for me to get past. It’s one thing to learn to trust someone who makes bad choices, to forgive that. But how to trust someone who makes bad choices that hurt me so deeply? I feel an instability, a lack of groundedness that I just can’t take. He lied to me for so many years. I know he didn’t think of it as lying – that he tricked himself into believing that it wasn’t hurting me. But I just can’t get over that so much of what I thought I had, the life, the relationship, the monogamy, the special ness, was all a lie, an illusion. I was so happy, and it was all based on shit because he was lying and being angry and resentful and arrogant and judgmental and keeping things to himself and having secrets and spending our money on fucking prostitutes. I made bad decisions about money too, but I never lied. I never lied. I didn’t listen, didn’t hear him when I should have. But I never lied. Never took that kind of power. Never crushed something that was so hard for him to grow. This hurts so much I just can’t stand it. I can’t stand that living with this deep, profound, fundamental betrayal is now part of my life forever, part of my partnership forever if I stay together with him. I can’t stand it.

I can’t come to terms with, can’t reconcile how he could love me and hurt me so much. All these other women seem to have it so much worse. Husbands still doing the “acting out” behaviors, partners not wanting to admit their problems or seek help, husbands not seriously pursuing healing. So why am I so sad? I have a husband who loves me, who will do anything to make me happy, who wants to do whatever it takes to be able to spend the rest of his life with me? But how can he? How can he ever do enough? Or will be he be able to last long enough – will his love outlast my pain? I’m afraid it won’t. But I don’t know how to heal from this. I don’t know how to feel better. I can’t give over to a higher power. Saying my higher power has a plan doesn’t relieve me. I don’t what this plan. I want the plan where I knew my husband to be someone who I could trust about the most fundamental things in life. Someone who wouldn’t look into my eyes and lie to me, and take advantage of how much I loved and trusted him. Someone I could put all my trust in without fear. Is that the lesson? To learn to trust in the face of fear. Is that what real trust is? I feel so lost and confused. And I’m in such pain right now. I wish this were over. I wish I could go back – take back Los Angeles, take back film school, take back my production company, take back the movie I did such a horrible job producing for him, take back our apartment right around the corner from the massage parlor, take back how focused I was on my jobs, take back whatever I did that hurt him so much that it made it easier for him to lie to me for so many years. I lived a life that never really happened for so long. Am I supposed to learn to love someone who isn’t perfect? But I already did. He wasn’t perfect, and he was perfect for me. He was human and I loved and accepted that. But I didn’t make him feel loved and accepted. He felt nagged at, like he was constantly not meeting expectations. I didn’t listen, didn’t hear. Maybe if I listen and hear now, I’ll hear someone I can trust again. Someone who feels safe enough with me that he doesn’t have to have the power of a secret life. But what about my broken heart right now. It hurts. I want that pain to stop. And I don’t know how to have that happen.

I feel like I'm going to have this deep sadness for the rest of my life.