This is going to be so long, I’m sorry.

I met my (now husband) when I was 18 and he was 20, he was already in the military at that point. It was so easy with him and we fell so hard for each other, right after I graduated high school we moved in together and got married within 10 months.

Full disclosure, I’ve always struggled with mental illness. I had a very abusive home life with my parents which resulted in severe depression/anxiety which turned into self harm, and an eating disorder my mother encouraged.

I’ve always been upfront about all of that with him and he’s helped me in more ways I can honestly think of, he probably saved my life.

With him being in the military he gets deployed a lot but I always kept busy with my job and our dogs so it was never a deal breaker, until recently...

He came home from a 7 month deployment in 2018 and that following month we found out I was pregnant, and he completely switched on me. He got really aggressively angry towards me accusing me of trying to “trap him” in our marriage because I was insecure so I obviously planned this out so he wouldn’t leave me... like? We’ve been married, I was 22 and he was 24. We both are grown enough to understand that protection and birth control fails, AND a few months before that we had a very long conversation about how we both feel like now is the perfect time to start trying.

Argument happens, but we eventually work it out and things go back to normal. My pregnancy continues and I get diagnosed with HG and have to quit my job at a daycare from my boss leaving me in rooms alone with me throwing up constantly, after telling me one day that she’ll fire me if I leave work early because I was heavily bleeding thinking I was having a miscarriage so my husband picked me up with me bawling and stayed with me at the ER (Baby was healthy btw, just an cyst on my ovaries bursting)

Fast forward to January, we find out we’re having a boy and he leaves for another deployment... this is where things get hard.

One night he messages me that he thinks I should move out into my own place or move back to my home state with my parents which I never answer since I was sleeping. The next morning he’s calling me almost crying apologizing for saying it because he was drunk which I believed so I forgave him, and he comes home a couple weeks later.

He becomes increasingly distant, never touching me or wants to be near me but I chalked it up to new dad jitters.

Come March I reluctantly visit my family so they can throw me a baby shower, that entire week I was gone I only heard from him once. Weird.

April rolls around, I get diagnosed with Preeclampsia and he he brings up he volunteered for a week tdy which he needs to leave immediately and he’ll drive himself to the airport since I’m on bedrest.

Two days after he leaves I go to my 33 week appointment and find out my son is under severe stress and I’m getting induced that night, I’m completely alone with him gone and family in another state. I call him crying my eyes out and he tells me he cannot come home but his mom will try to come to be with me.

I go through an agonizing Preterm labor completely alone but with amazing nurses who took care of me, my son is born not breathing and I have a seizure immediately. He’s taken to the NICU and I’m taken into the ICU, I didn’t see him for 3 days and couldn’t hold him for 2 weeks. I get discharged a few days later and stay at the hospital with my son, and eventually my husband gets back home and meets our son for the first time.

This was in April, Baby boy got released in June and is doing AMAZING, and now it’s November and my life is falling apart.

On Halloween my husband got trashed and started calling me a different name, telling me how many times and different ways he’s had sex with said person. I got paranoid so I went through his phone and found it all...

He’s been having an affair since January with another woman who’s also married AND pregnant herself with her husband who’s in the Navy.

In March when I was gone he had her visit our home, slept in our bed, and did things I cannot even explain.

April when I was going through a traumatic experience alone? He went on vacation with her and refused to come with me since he was having fun, and came home super loving and sad after he did all that. And he’s STILL talking to her, they planned a big life together where they’ll get divorced but marry each other and take both kids so they can raise them together as a “big happy family.”

He wanted to get out of the military and move to a specific place which I found out is where she lives so they can continue their affair in person again.

I’m completely wrecked. I don’t have family I can lean on, I’m suffering through PPD and taking care of our Preemie son. I hate it but I depend on my husband a lot.

The next morning I let him know that I know everything and I’ll be finding a job/place for the baby and I as soon as possible, and he is begging for me to stay. I don’t want my son to be taken from his father but I need to be selfish for once and take care of myself, right?

I have no idea what to do anymore.

I can’t even bring myself to be mad at the other woman because I think she was feeling alone during her pregnancy as well, how messed is that? I pride myself in being a understanding and beyond nice person but there comes a point where I need to be an asshole for once to protect myself and not put my son through the shit I did growing up.

I’m numb at this point, I don’t want to be with him I know that for sure and I want to move on with my life with my son but he keeps reminding me that if I do that then his life will be like mine which is devastating for me..

What do I honestly do? Stay for my family and try to work it out, or run for the hills screaming.

Messages to her...

Now to me, him trying to convince me to stay...