Expert: Don - 11/7/2007

Question
QUESTION: i have been in a relationship of almost 2 years.. last winter, we decided to get
married but shortly after found out i was already pregnant so we put off the
formalities since we were married in everything but name - all his friends and
family knew me as his wife, shared finances, we'd moved in together after 6
months, etc..
i never had solid proof of him concretely cheating on me til last week, and i
now have a 3 month old baby and he won't let me leave..
there used to be suspicious txt msgs, but when i tried to find out more and
contacted the women - one claimed she knew about me already and they
were just friends, the other claimed she knew nothing but nothing had
happened and refused to talk to me.. when we started living together, there
was a bad patch for him financially and he stayed at home alot, i found pretty
lurid chats he was having with random strangers but again, i had no proof he
ever met them and i think it was unlikely at that point.. once we were at a
club and i decided to go home early, he was very drunk and refused to leave
with me, i then went back into the club and found him leading another girl by
the hand to the dance floor but he claims she had just grabbed his hand
coincidentally as i came back.. on those occasions we rowed terribly to the
point where i made him get down on his knees and slap himself before i
would forgive him.. im not some crazy shrew most of the time but i thought if
i shamed him enough he will learn his lesson that i considered all of these
cheating (he didn't - excusing the chatting as just fun cos he was bored) even
if he never did anything physically..
now there is a woman claiming she's been dating him for the last 5 months
who has just found out about me. he claims she's known about me for awhile,
but its because he broke things off with her, she's contacting me. she says its
because he refused to confirm to her if he was with me or only because of the
baby. she has told me how he would take her out and spend money on her,
buy her gifts, discuss marriage with her, etc. he denies all of this.  
again, hes asking me for another chance for the sake of our child, and our
respective families, etc. he claims they mean nothing to him and he will not
give me any reason why he does this - he is completely happy with our
relationship and he was just stupid.. he will not even admit to being attracted
to the women!!
i want my daughter to have a father, and he is a good one, but fool me once,
shame on you, surely fool me twice, shame on me?
will he really change? he's promised me he would before when i found txts
but at the same time, he must have been with this woman already! he knew
how absolutely devastating it was then and how close he came to losing me -
he swore then and now that even if i leave him, he would never stop loving
me  
we are both still very young, im 24 and he is 27 and our baby obviously
wasn't planned. i can't believe he is ready to be tied down despite everything
he says and given his hurtful behaviour, i've asked him repeatedly if all this is
because he is trying to escape the sense of responsibility, if he feels trapped,
etc and he wont go for this theory either, but keeps telling me how me and
our baby is all he has and he cannot bear to lose us
his father knows now and actually beat him up and refuses to now let him
into his house or speak to him.. we are so far keeping it from his mother
because of her poor health, and his father is also pressuring me to give my
husband another chance and that he will change him.. how can i believe that
he will change? i dont think i will ever be happy with him because im very
absolute about this - if i love somebody, i could never hurt them


ANSWER: Chances are he's not going to change. This wasn't a one time thing and he got caught and promised to change, you have caught him in several different situations that show he is cheating on you. So this is a pattern and something he more than likely isn't going to change.

What's more likely to happen, is that you'll take him back and he'll continue to do these things because he knows all he has to do is apologize a few times and you'll forgive him again and let him back into your life. It'll just be a never ending cycle of him cheating on you, then apologizing and you forgiving him and him going right back to cheating.

The only way for you to get him to stop is for you to put your foot down and actually end the relationship based on his actions, instead of making excuses for him and giving him chance after chance after chance to mess up again.

You need to remember that you have to date him and be happy with him, you can't stay with him just to make his or your family happy, it has to be something you want and that will make you happy. If you stay with him for any other reason, you'll only end up miserable and regretting your choice.

Also remember that the two of you don't have to be in a relationship for him to be a good father to your child. He can be a big part of his child's life without being a part of your life or even dating you.

So if you want to be with him and think he'll make you happy, then be with him but don't continue to let him cheat on you and make you look like a fool, also don't just say with him because his family or your family is telling you it's the right thing to do, say with him because you want to.

And like you said, if you love somebody you could never hurt them, don't let him hurt you and act like it's love.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: thanks very much, so you agree that if he cheats on me, it means he isn't in
love with me and probably never was.. i certainly can't get him to be honest
about any of it. but then why?
and why does he still want to stay together since im clearly not someone he
can commit to - shouldn't he be now relieved (he claims he felt incredibly
guilty all of the time and never wanted to be in such a situation) that he's
"free"?
i don't want to be with him and i dont think he'll make me happy since im not
good at denial - the only reason why i was not just zero-tolerence before was
because naively, i believe in second chances and he was needless to say the
paradigm of a perfect and devoted husband BUT i dont want to hurt more
people because of what he's done to me and our families will be devastated. i
have no intention of him shaming me any further but if i was prepared to not
put my personal happiness first, short of castrating him, how could i get him
to stop?

Answer
To answer your first question as to why he still wants to be with you, it's because people are greedy and like to have their cake and eat it too. He wants to stay with you because you represent a stable life and relationship for him, but at the same time he still wants to have sex with other women. He's just greedy and selfish that's why he wants to stay with you and have sex with other people.

To answer your second question, you can't make him stop, he has to stop on his own. There is no way you can watch him every second of the day to insure he isn't doing anything and you can't force him not to cheat. If he wants to cheat, he's going find a way to cheat, so he'll only stop cheating when he wants to stop, you can't force him to do it.