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Extraordinarily long spilling of guts
First off, I'm sorry that I've been kind of negative lately. I've been having a rough time these last few weeks, and I'm not entirely sure why. It almost seems like it might be mild depression, but I'm not sure.
I know that I've alluded to some problems that Matt and I had during our engagement period, but I never really explained any of that here. I'm pretty sure you guys won't attack me or tell me that I'm an idiot for staying, though, so here's the Cliffs Notes version:
At the end of October, about three months into our engagement and six months before the wedding (this was before I found ya'll), I stumbled into Matt's email account one evening. We were both using Yahoo Mail at the time, and he was still signed in when I went to check mine. I'd always been a little insecure about a friendship that he had with a girl he'd known in college, and I couldn't resist the temptation to poke around and see if everything was really as above-board as he'd always insisted. I was worried that maybe the friendship was a little deeper that I would be comfortable with.
Well, there was nothing from her, but there was a folder called "Pics." That contained a lot of partially-nude pictures of some other girl who was not me but who was calling him "baby" and saying stuff like "hey you just went to bed but heres a pic of me falling out for u to wake up to" and the like. They spanned the last 6 months and the last one had been forwarded to his email from his phone 72 hours earlier.
Long story short, it turned out that she wasn't the only one he'd been doing this kind of thing with-- she was just the one that things had gotten most intense with. He was completely shattered when I confronted him about it; I've seen parents holding up better at their own child's funeral. He kept saying that he couldn't stand the person that he'd become and the hypocrisy of it all and that he was going to change, whether or not I stayed with him. He insisted that there'd never been any emotional attachment to these girls and that he hadn't seen any of them face-to-face in years (college friends). They'd been friendships that had turned flirty and had gradually gotten out of hand. Ironically, the friendship that I'd been so worried about was completely innocent. Suffice it to say that all of this was EXTREMELY out-of-keeping with everything else about him.
We went to counseling with our pastor and decided to take the engagement day-by-day for a while. The pastor and the other counselors that we talked to all agreed that this seemed like more of a type of sexual addiction (ironic) rather than something that was deeply rooted in his character. Matt called the two girls who were actively "in play," told them that he could never talk to them again, and then that night we went to Verizon, changed his number, and put him on my phone plan with a minimal texting package. He had me change all of the passwords on his AIM accounts while he was out of the room so he couldn't get into them, he deleted his Yahoo account, and he set up a new email with a little service that has no chat or social network tie-in. I have the password. He deactivated his Facebook, too.
Obviously, a secret Hotmail account is only ever 5 minutes away, so I still need to take a lot on trust, but his actions showed me that he was serious about changing, and he's given me no reason since then to not trust him. I no longer check his texting usage 20 times a day (can't remember the last time I looked, actually). I don't obsessively comb through his email anymore. I think at this point I can honestly say that I completely believe that he's doing everything right.
Sometimes things will be really good for a while and I hardly think about any of it. Sometimes (like lately) I think about it a lot for no apparent reason. I always thought that I had a pretty healthy self-image and attitude about sex, but that took a big hit throughout all of this, and we're struggling with that lately. I feel crummy about it, because I certainly didn't want to feel this way, especially as a newlywed. I don't always, but I do often enough that we're going to try to find a therapist and see if they have any suggestions. I think some of the problem might just be that I'm always tired, too, but it's hard to say.
Anyway, I don't know if there's a direct connection between all of this and the fact that I've just been down lately or not. We did go to a play last night with a couple of friends of ours (who are like our parents' age; they invited us), and the play turned out to be much different from what any of us had anticipated. The first half featured a lot of a half-clothed girl who was EXACTLY Matt's type writhing in seductive positions 10 feet away from us. We could have both done without that.
So... sorry to spill my guts all over the board, here, but I figured that I share so much of my life with you girls that I could explain a little more fully. Our relationship is actually a lot better and a lot healthier than it was before, and I don't think that going through with the wedding was a mistake at all. God has been very faithful and has gotten us this far, which I think is some kind of miracle in and of itself. We have a lot of fun together and I love being married to him. He's endlessly patient and sweet and kind. I just hope that I can keep on healing and get to a point where it's not as much of a struggle to feel okay on a consistent basis.
Thanks for listening. 
I would say that I'd rather you guys not share this with anybody, but, um, I just posted it on the internet, so I guess that's a moot point.
Re: Extraordinarily long spilling of guts
Holy crap.... I had wanted to ask you what was going on for a while now, but I figured that if you wanted to share, you would. Wow, that's a lot to deal with!!! I'm so sorry!!! Are you still doing the counseling?
When Adam and I first started dating, we were both casually dating other people. We would talk about it though... Like we would be on the phone and I would say "Yeah, I just got back from this date with some lame guy and it sucked, blah blah blah." We were up front about things though. When we started getting serious, he kept getting texts from some girl that he kept saying was a "friend". Well, turns out that she was one of the girls that he saw before we got serious. I found out about it through a girl who was friends with the other chick. He wasn't doing anything with her at the time, but I got chick's number, called her, told her to be a effing woman about it and back the eff off, because obviously he wasn't interested in her if he's with me ALL the time. She said some ugly things so I threatened to light her car on fire. Needless to say, she left him alone after that.
Oh, my gosh, I know. Can you imagine? I think they'd haul me off to a mental institution!
I think the single best thing that came out of the whole fiasco is that he understands now why we need to have very serious boundaries in our relationships with people of the opposite sex. Before, I would say that I was uncomfortable with his friendship with "Beth" (not her real name, but his pet name for her, which should give you a clue right there as to why I felt threatened). I would say that I didn't think that there was anything necessarily wrong going on, but that it seemed like they were setting themselves up for a future emotional affair. He would always blow off my concerns and tell me that I was making a big deal out of nothing.
Now he's even more cautious about cross-gender friendships than I am. He actually called "Beth" that day before the number change and told her that he was going to have to put their friendship on an indefinite hiatus. I don't think that he even has her contact info anymore, and she doesn't have his new number or email. I wouldn't have asked him to do that, but it was huge to me.
I was in counseling until recently. It helped a ton. I think that I got about as much as I was going to from talking to that particular counselor, though.
I'm like Hayley, I would have a really hard time trusting again. I always have the fear Adam's going to cheat on me, just because I've had it happen to me before. I know he wouldn't, he's never cheated on anyone, but I just have this fear. I'm paranoid about everything anyway.
I'm glad you guys are working through it. I hope it continues to go well!
You've heard what I've done, not what I've been through.
If you were in my shoes, you'd fall the first step."
I did have some very un-Christian fantasies (after the pictures had all been deleted, thankfully) about sending a message with some of that crap to all of the girl's Facebook friends.
As it was, I never contacted any of the girls or anyone who knew them. After all, I was just a name to them, so Matt was really more to blame than they were, anyway. I wrote so many emails in my head, but it never went beyond that.
I did spend a lot of time mentally muttering Romans 12:19, though: "Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, 'I will take revenge; I will pay them back,' says the Lord." Not sure wishing the wrath of God on somebody is much of an improvement, but it was the best I could do at the time! LOL I also kept thinking about all of the stuff I'd ever read that had been written by Other Women and how they usually despised the wife/fiancee/girlfriend. I wasn't going to give anyone the satisfaction.
Nahhh.
Seriously. Some girls need to hear that! And you made me laugh out loud when I read it. 
Sexual Addiction it a very powerful thing. It can ruin relationships fast than money issues. It is hard to just let that go it is good that he confessed his addiction to you. That he came clean and sought counseling. Atleast it never went further than online. Because of my past relationships when Bernie and I got serious. I had to have a talk with him about how I felt about online stuff and things of that sort flirting with people and how my boundries wouldn't bend on this. My ex went much further than pictures and the like. It was pretty much a nightmare that left myself and my kiddos devestated. It was horrible. Its good that you have gone the route you have.
As a girlfriend and now a wife you feel that you were lacking in someway. That you didn't satisfy him in some way so he had to seek something someone else. Its not that at all!!! I will tell you he didn't think about you at all when he was doing this only afterward when he was done looking did he think about you then the guilt would set in. I am sure he feels so horrible about putting you in the middle of all of this.
You are enough you are a wonderful woman strong, insightful and sweet. You have a big heart and a kind soul and you are all he needs.
Wow, I think we must be twins. DH and I went through something similar before we got engaged involving him texting a female friend with very flirty messages. I don't know why but one day I picked up his phone and looked at his texts, I had never done this before. I found an exchange between him and a girl that was very upsetting. It ended with her asking him to come to her house and then he freaked out and said he had only been joking around. What he saw as innocent joking she saw as an invitation. It was hard for us to work through but we did. We did similar things as you, deleting social networking sites, he gave me access to all his passwords and e-mail accounts. It took a long time but I no longer check his texts and e-mails. These things can be worked through but it is not easy. If you ever need to talk, just PM me. I have been there and survived as well.
Pam and the other girls have said it all! I'm really glad you guys are working through everything and that its been getting better! I've never been through anything like that but I'm here if you need to talk