Lessons Learned | Facebook Cheating

Where to start? My hubby and I are both 39. He is still in the military and I use to be. We have been married for 20 years. I found out 7 months ago that my husband has been cheating on me since 2004. I had an injury while in the military that required surgery and my discharge from the military. It was after the surgery and during my recovery when he began to cheat on me. He told all of the women that he dated that we were divorced. During the last 7 years of our marriage, he has had 3 serious relationships, and 6 other casual affairs, some over lapping and some not. At the beginning of his affairs, we were separated, on and off, for 3 years because of military orders, not because we chose to. We were having some difficulties in our marriage at that time, because of his orders, my injury and time apart, but nothing that I thought couldn?t be fixed. Then in 2006, he said he wanted a divorce, over email, while deployed. We talked it out whi le he was away, (or so I thought) and made plans for our next duty station over-seas. If I would have known he had been cheating on me that whole time apart, I wouldn?t have gone over-seas with him. We spent 4 years abroad, and during this time, if he had a TDY/TAD back to the states, he would take leave while there to ?visit family or friends?. This was his time to visit the two women he was currently in a ?long-distance? relationship with. I went back to the states myself, almost a year ago, to help out with my ailing father, and while I was gone, he took a trip to Hawaii with both women. He met one there for a few days, then after she left, the other came for a few days. They didn?t know about each other either?yet. I couldn?t figure out why he was distant and distracted whenever I talked to him on the phone for the four months I was at my father?s place, guess I do now. When I got back home, it was about time for us to start thin king about where we wanted to be stationed next. My husband had been looking at some emails while on my computer, and then accidentally left the account open. I went to close it out and saw an email title saying I love you and address to someone I didn?t know. I clicked on it, and it was an email from his girlfriend that he had been cheating on me with since 2004! After the initial shock, I went back through as many emails as I could find. One of the girlfriends was an old high school friend of ours from 22 years ago. I confronted him when he got home and asked for him to explain the emails. He then told me everything, all of the different women, the two current girlfriends, everything, and that he was so glad that the truth had finally come out. He was tired of living the lie. I told him that I saved all of the emails I found, and that I was going to email the two women he was seeing and tell them what was going on. He emailed them both, too, telling them that he had b een lying to them this whole time.

Now this is where the story gets interesting, if it wasn?t already. I emailed a letter to the two girlfriends, and to two old girlfriends that he had recently started talking to again. The letter was very neutral. I didn?t judge or blame them. He was the one who lied to them, telling them that he was divorced, as far as I was concerned, they didn?t know. All of them wrote back, all of them were shocked. And one of the girlfriends claimed to be pregnant with his child! I told her I would help, if I could, but then she became very strange. She was the one that went to high school with us, and she lived in the same hometown where our college aged daughter lived. She began telling my husband and I that she felt our daughter deserved to know that she was going to have a little half-sister and that if she saw her in public, that she would feel compelled to tell her. My husband and I were still living over-seas and couldn?t do anything but listen to her say over and over again how she ?loved our kids like they were her own? and how she just wanted to make sure that my husband lived up to his fatherly duties. That is when hubby told me the whole story about girlfriend #2. They broke up after their trip to Hawaii in May. She told him in June that she was ?pregnant?. In July she needed money because the baby was ?having complications? and tested positive for Downs, then told him in July/August that she had ?lost the baby? and was in a huge depression over it. Hubby thought that their relationship was finally coming to an end, when he went to the states to see our daughter and get her set up for her first year of college. While he was there he saw girlfriend #2 to ?bring things to a close?. (Everything since their trip in May had been done over email or Skype.) She wanted him to stay with her, he told her he was here for his daughter, they had another fight, and then he left. After he ha d left the state, she had someone call his cell phone over and over, but he didn?t answer it because it was an unknown number. She did this because he stopped taking calls from her. She then called an old friend of his and told the friend that ?hubby? needed to answer her calls because she was pregnant with his child and was going to sue him for all of the medical bills. Hubby was floored. Didn?t she just go through a miscarriage and depression in July/August? She said that she lied about the miscarriage because she wanted to protect his military career. (She had found out in Dec. 2011 that he was still married to me, but continued with the relationship anyway. She also knew that he could get in trouble if I found out she was pregnant and decided to report him to the military. She didn?t want to lose ?military benefits? for her ?baby?.) Hubby told her to send her insurance claims, medical bills, etc. to his lawyer and that after a paternity suit declared him to be the father of her child, that he would take care of his obligations to the child. This went back and forth for 3 months, of her refusing to send proof, trying to ?sick? the military on him, threatening to sue him, and even tried to extort money from him. Hubby then hired a P.I. and asked for them to find out if she really was pregnant. They took photos, video and received statements, over a two-month period (her 7-9 month of pregnancy), that showed her not being pregnant and never had been. We then had our lawyer provide the proof to her lawyer and told them to never contact us, or our daughter, again. To this day, months later, girlfriend #2 still stalks me on my Facebook page and other social media sites. My husband and I are separating and I am moving back to my hometown to be closer to my kids, just in case girlfriend #2 decides to contact or confront them. Girlfriend #2?s ex-husband (who we also went to school with) rece ntly contacted me and told me that GF#2 had done the same things to him that she did to us. Let that be a lesson to the cheaters out there. Do the right thing. Don?t destroy your marriage, family, career and finances because you are unhappy in your marriage or want extra sex. If that is how you feel, then do you and your spouse a favor, get out of the marriage. Don?t get a girlfriend that goes psycho on you, tries to threaten you and your family and destroys your life. Lessons learned!

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