Last week, I walked in on my husband with another woman. I suspected emotional infidelity, such as talking to other women via dating apps, which is also wrong, and goes against our shared Christian beliefs. He is sorry he was caught, and also admitted this was not the first time it has happened since we have been married. He's got a background in military intelligence and working undercover, and I think he only admitted to other affairs out of a moment of shock and weakness that I literally caught him in the act of having sex with another women.
He stated that my "liberal" and "Satanic" ideas and argumentative nature are partially the cause of his affairs. My ideas such as equal pay for equal work and the right for women to vote even if we don't serve in the military, are problematic, for example. Our lack of sex contributed, too, he said, though this is complicated by some physiological limitations when I started treatment for stage IV breast cancer 14 months ago. (I have a good prognosis after 38 rounds of chemo, and am likely to live another 10-30 years, though will require treatment indefinitely. I can begin procedures to address my physical issues in a few weeks, until then, p-in-v intercourse is not possible.)
That I am often tired after working a full-time job outside the home, and have trouble maintaining our large house and doing all of the cooking and cleaning, is a problem as well. I am the primary earner, and bring home 90% of our household income and it's my job that provides our medical benefits. I am a professional historian, and was for many years before we met, too. It's not easy to get a part time job with good benefits with my niche specialty, but we also could not live on his VA disability pension and keep our current home, either. My husband believes I should cheerfully take care of all the cooking, domestic chores, and cleaning. He feels that since the most arduous part of cancer treatment is over, that I should be able to go back to what I used to do prior to getting diagnosed. I want to do these things, but many nights I am physically tired, and he acts put off when I ask for any help. He refuses to let me hire someone to help clean our house or help with our yard (it's 2,400 sq ft on 2.5 acres).
In addition to my professional life as a historian, I'm also working on my doctorate. He resents this, as he says it takes time away from helping him grow his business. I began grad school part time before we met, and have been working on it part time. He thinks my idea of working in academia as a professor is also Satanic, because universities are liberal and filled with SJW nonsense. Upon completing my PhD, my goal was to adjunct one class a semester every so often, but mostly write and do research and publish. I've never super wanted to be a professor as a full time gig. He knows this, but still thinks the whole system is crap, filled with liberal "demonic" ideas and people.
As I have not agreed to either a polyamorous marriage or to be a lifestyle submissive (in a D/s and/or BDSM way) are things he says undermine his masculinity, also contributing to the affairs. He likely also has an addiction to pornography. His assessment of things is that he is how he is, and is not geared towards monogamy, even if I was his sexual submissive, and did everything he wanted. He seems to be focused on the verses in the Bible that discuss ancient Israelites having multiple wives as his justification, and the big problem is that I won't agree to let him marry another woman, too.
Before anyone says, "OMG, Lady, you are too insane for words for staying in this relationship," please know that many of this information only came out this weekend, and these more extreme viewpoints and behaviors only over the past few months (since late April 2020-ish). Our years leading up to this did not feel like an episode of the Jerry Springer show. He used to be kind, devoted, and so nice to me. We used to have dynamic intellectual conversations and fun together. I'm not a masochist and would not have married someone who was so bonkers and adulterous had I known any of this stuff. He used to be convicted in Christianity, and discussed wanting to take coursework in Hebrew and advanced theology; moreso for edification than to be a preacher as a vocation.
I am not sure the best way to go forward as a RPW. It's possible he's gaslighting me and I married a sociopath. He insists nothing is wrong with him, and that he subverted his desires to make me happy but it made him depressed, so now I need to change: I need to be more politically conservative, be a better homemaker, and yet open to him dating other women. It's possible I'm too far into the mix of things to see the situation objectively. Is there any advice I can get from this community?
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