Ready to throw in the towel...

Ok folks get ready for a long story. Grab some popcorn if needed. Lol😅 Here we go!

I've been with my guy for a total of 7 and a half years and we just recently got married in sept 2014, so we've been married about a year and a half. He's 27 and I just turned 28 last month.

When we first began dating (back in 2008) i have to admit things got off to a rocky start. We were acquaintances from elementary school and reconnected through social media;we were both going to college in different areas, so essentially long distance. We had talked as friends over a span of a few months, and developed an attraction for each other. It was then that he admitted to me that he had a girlfriend this entire time ( a span of about 6 months). I have to admit i was a bit annoyed by that bcos i felt like he'd been deceiving both me and his girlfriend, by not being honest up front. I however liked the guy so much that i didnt let that detour me, and we began dating a few months after they split up.

A few months into our relationship ( mind you, its long distance) I find out that he'd hung out with his ex "watching movies" until 3am. Of course, i get super angry, threaten to break up with him, and he tells me it wont happen again, and that he's sorry. He says he " didnt know" it was disrespectful to me and our relationship. Being naïve i believed him and stayed. Almost a year later he has a similar incident with another ex, this time stating they were in the car talking (at 3am again). He comes up with the same lame excuse saying that again he didn't know it was wrong, and he was sorry. I again believe him, and continue to stay. Some months after that, I find out that he'd been out with the same girl to the movies, and had been keeping it from me. I found this out through facebook. I confronted him with the information, and he justified his doing by saying that he thought of her as a friend, and didn't see anything wrong with what he had done. At this point I seriously contemplated leaving him and even gave him an ultimatum : either he stops talking to, and hanging out with his ex-girlfriends , or I breakup with him. He agrees to do so, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and, I stayed.

Some years later ( about 3-4) i end up with his Facebook password ( i dont remember how) and decide to do some snooping ( bad idea on my part). I find a long string of messages btwn him and a female friend that at first glance looked innocent, but as i kept reading seemed to be getting more personal. I couldn't help but be reminded of the way he and I got together. Rather than mentioning it to him, I kept it to myself because I felt guilty for snooping around in the first place.

At this point, i make up in my mind that im going to leave him, but then, miraculously his behavior starts to change! I'm talking full on 360, change! He suddenly seems like the guy I always wanted, but never thought he could be. Rather than questioning it, I take it as a positive change and again give him the benefit of the doubt! I literally remember thinking to myself " he's really stepped his game up. He must have learned from his mistakes. I can put that stuff he did in the past, and we can move on! " He even decides to delete his facebook, so I figure i don't need to worry about him talking to this "friend" call me stupid, but i really thought he'd changed. Lmao!!😂😂 Even my friends noticed!

This " best boyfriend ever" behavior continues on for about a year and half, maybe 2 years, and finally he asks me to marry him. Honestly, I was so caught off guard that my instinctual answer was no, but rather than verbalizing that, I reluctantly said "yes" thinking " he'd be a good husband, and a good father."( SN:One of the things i've always admired about him is that he trys" he's always been willing to do whatever it takes to make it out work between us.) Never the less I thought this would make him husband material, so i decided to push forward with wedding plans. Meanwhile, my gut keeps nagging me about the stuff that he'd done in our past, but i force myself to let it go, convince myself he's a good guy, and marry him.

Fast forward to Sept. 2015 , last year around our anniversary, I was on twitter, and being bored, decided to check out his page. While checking out his page i see many conversations (flirting) with many women all of the same types: porn stars and strippers. Although I'm annoyed, i figure its not enough for me to get upset about. I blow it off and keep going.

About a week after celebrating our anniversary, my gut is still nagging me to look deeper. So, i check his phone and low and behold i find a private msg btwn him and a porn star on his twitter account reading " you're one sexy women" with a bunch of emojis btwn the two of them. As soon as i found this I couldn't help, but feel enraged, hurt, betrayed, stupid, and a bunch of other emotions. While he didnt flat out sleep with another women. I still find it disrespectful and borderline cheating, if not emotional cheating! ( am i overreacting, given his history? ) If he were any other person I most likely wouldn't consider it such a big deal. In addition to the twitter msg, I also found texts msg btwn him and his female friend that i mentioned earlier from facebook. I wasn't as pissed off by this, but it was still concerning. Right away ( with out my asking him to) he deleted his twitter account and cut off contact with his female friend.

We are now in marriage counseling, and i have since found out that he has a compulsive lying issue. He has since admitted that his lies are both big and small and can virtually be about anything under the sun. The therapist has told me that i have to let the past go and give him the benefit of the doubt ( yet again) in order to trust him again. Of course I'm hesitant to do this, and wonder if it's even possible to trust him in the future. I second guess him to the point that i feel like I'm going crazy at times. I wonder if I'm just blowing the whole issue out of proportion, or if it's actually a big deal. Should i even attempt to trust him again??! Or maybe he is totally trust worthy, and I'm just losing it?!

I feel like he is making an effort by going to counseling, but sometimes i feel like his "trying" is just for show, and he's just trying to get things back to the way they were btwn us. On the one hand i feel like I've been deceived by him repeatedly in the past and I should leave now, and would be stupid to stay and get taken advantage of by him again. On the other hand, I wonder what I've always wondered, and that is, maybe I'm just being crazy, he is sincere, and I'm the one with the issue.

I'm ready to throw in the towel with him like i should've done long ago, but I'm wondering if that's really called for here? Perhaps I just need to accept that I'm married to this man now, and work it out. I just cant shake the feeling that if i let him back in, I'll be sorry.

Your thoughts and comments are greatly appreciated thanks.