Infidelity Support Group
Any relationship in which one partner engages willfully in sexual relations with another outside of the partnership is considered to have experienced infidelity. This breach of trust is often traumatizing for the faithful partner as well as the relationship, and support is often needed to heal emotionally and to decide whether or not the relationship should continue after...
I hate this. When does the paranoia leave? When do I stop checking phone records? When do I stop jumping every time he gets a text message? When do I stop sneaking onto his phone and computer to check histories and see what he's been up to?
H kept getting middle of the night texts from a number that wasn't in his address book ... *anymore* - I happen to have an old address book log and knew it was a woman with whom he loosely works. It's hard to explain the association without going into details about what my husband does, and I'd rather stay anonymous for now, but let's just say that it's *sort of* like their companies do business together, so that's how they know each other.
The thing is, when I checked his phone, the messages were deleted. Funny, since the affair, H has always deleted all text conversations. So, of course I freaked out that he's texting this woman AND deleting the conversations. We have a "full disclosure" policy in place where he is supposed to tell me of ANY flirtations, even if he thinks they are relatively innocent. Since they work together, it's possible it was work related, but it still scared me/pissed me off. I decided to sit on it for awhile and see if it continued.
The next time it happened I was able to check his phone records early in the morning when he first got home. The conversation between them was fairly innocent, but there was a definite flirting tone from her side. Yes, I admit, I am paranoid and I do read more into things than I probably should, but it still had that, "putting out feelers to see what will happen" vibe.
The next time she sent texts to him I decided to text the chick from my Google Voice phone number that no one knows about. I simply said, "You really should leave him alone. He's married, you know?" She responded, "Wrong #, try again."
However: SHE HAS NOT TEXT HIM SINCE. It has been a full month since that exchange. Prior to that, she was sending him messages once or twice a week.
Coincidence? Maybe.
OK but now there's another number - also not in his address book. This exchange also took place when he was working (not late at night though, earlier at a "decent" hour) and it was not a number that had come up ever ever before in his phone records. I have ruined the last two days we were supposed to spend together because I can't stop thinking about this texting exchange and what it all means.
The solution, I guess, will be to ask him about it today. He knows I'm upset, but not why. The problem is, can I trust his response? Can I even bring this up in a non confrontational way? Is bringing it up going to just remind him how paranoid and needy I am that I have been checking the phone records once more?
I %$(*&(%* hate that I am so freaked out about this. I #($*&*(@$ hate him for destroying the trust we had so I even have to think about or worry about this crap. I %$(*&@ hate that the times I was THIS paranoid before something WAS up.
My inclination is to ask, "Whose number is XXX-XXXX?" and if he obviously lies (he's a terribly liar) or if he says he doesn't know, I just want to ask him to grab his stuff and leave. I'm undoubtedly overreacting, but I'm so tired of living like this.
Things were going so well. We had begun to see real progress. I felt like there was hope. Is this me just running scared and sabotaging that? Will I ever be able to trust him again? Am I ever going to be able to quit this detective job?
H kept getting middle of the night texts from a number that wasn't in his address book ... *anymore* - I happen to have an old address book log and knew it was a woman with whom he loosely works. It's hard to explain the association without going into details about what my husband does, and I'd rather stay anonymous for now, but let's just say that it's *sort of* like their companies do business together, so that's how they know each other.
The thing is, when I checked his phone, the messages were deleted. Funny, since the affair, H has always deleted all text conversations. So, of course I freaked out that he's texting this woman AND deleting the conversations. We have a "full disclosure" policy in place where he is supposed to tell me of ANY flirtations, even if he thinks they are relatively innocent. Since they work together, it's possible it was work related, but it still scared me/pissed me off. I decided to sit on it for awhile and see if it continued.
The next time it happened I was able to check his phone records early in the morning when he first got home. The conversation between them was fairly innocent, but there was a definite flirting tone from her side. Yes, I admit, I am paranoid and I do read more into things than I probably should, but it still had that, "putting out feelers to see what will happen" vibe.
The next time she sent texts to him I decided to text the chick from my Google Voice phone number that no one knows about. I simply said, "You really should leave him alone. He's married, you know?" She responded, "Wrong #, try again."
However: SHE HAS NOT TEXT HIM SINCE. It has been a full month since that exchange. Prior to that, she was sending him messages once or twice a week.
Coincidence? Maybe.
OK but now there's another number - also not in his address book. This exchange also took place when he was working (not late at night though, earlier at a "decent" hour) and it was not a number that had come up ever ever before in his phone records. I have ruined the last two days we were supposed to spend together because I can't stop thinking about this texting exchange and what it all means.
The solution, I guess, will be to ask him about it today. He knows I'm upset, but not why. The problem is, can I trust his response? Can I even bring this up in a non confrontational way? Is bringing it up going to just remind him how paranoid and needy I am that I have been checking the phone records once more?
I %$(*&(%* hate that I am so freaked out about this. I #($*&*(@$ hate him for destroying the trust we had so I even have to think about or worry about this crap. I %$(*&@ hate that the times I was THIS paranoid before something WAS up.
My inclination is to ask, "Whose number is XXX-XXXX?" and if he obviously lies (he's a terribly liar) or if he says he doesn't know, I just want to ask him to grab his stuff and leave. I'm undoubtedly overreacting, but I'm so tired of living like this.
Things were going so well. We had begun to see real progress. I felt like there was hope. Is this me just running scared and sabotaging that? Will I ever be able to trust him again? Am I ever going to be able to quit this detective job?
First, full disclosure means full disclosure. Yes, ask him about the number, and then call it with him after he tells you. If he gets mad, then you will learn something.
Keep in mind he may have another cell phone that you don't even know about.
There is a Chinese Proverb I remember that goes something like this: Associating with evil persons is like sleeping in a bed filled with knives and swords. Though you may not actually be cut, you are constantly afraid"
Sending you support **hugs**
I'm waiting for Sprint to start charging me extra for all the times I log on to count the number of text messages my W has racked up. I am also constantly looking at her cell phone records. And I am amazed that she keeps that cell phone hidden, takes it into the bathroom, takes it to work out in the basement, takes it into the shower area in the am before work.
Plus she has a blackberry for work which is an encrypted and locked federal govt phone, so I can't even open it much less see if she is calling/texting the OM.
Like anything that goes away by iteself, my suspicion seems to come back by itself too.
Drives me freaking nuts and it is one of the really heavy weights on my "reconciliation or divorce" scale.
Unfortunately, I found out that my concerns were valid.
After the "emotional affair" was exposed, I told her that there could be no trust if she deleted messages from or to him. If everything was on the up and up, there was no need to delete their messages. She was the soccer manager and he was one of the coaches, so some contact was understandable.
She wouldn't do it. At least I got my answer. By the way, the soccer coach went back to his wife, leaving mine high and dry.
Read the book, "Not Just Friends." Very helpful. There is a large section on your dilemna.
Good luck to you.
I have scanned through the phone bill, and I regularly check her email since I have it linked up to my computer and can see them all as they come in. But I really don't expect to find anything there. If she were to start up again, she would know enough to avoid using her phone or texting them (especially email addresses) and would use other means to keep in contact, whether that be a private phone I didn't know about, or just meeting him locally and not using the phone except on rare occasion.
So I don't do a lot of worrying about it anymore. I figure if she is going to do it, she will do it, and there isn't much I can do to stop her. She has to make the commitment and desire not to do it, and if she does, it will come out soon enough. If and when that happens, I don't hold out much hope. Because every sign, and I mean practically every sign, says she's not going behind my back and she is being totally honest and open with me. If I found out later that it wasn't the case, I would realize she's the best damn liar in the world, and there was nothing she could do or say what would make me trust her again.
So I left the paranoia behind me once I felt half-way secure that she was on the right road to healing. I just can't live that way, and I know it wouldn't prevent it from happening again if she is inclined to throw away what little progress we've made.
But it is a driving fear to live with. Some have trouble getting past it, especially if their CS continues to give them reason to suspect and worry about it by not being open. He shouldn't be deleting any text off his phone, and letting you read them as much as you want. That he is deleting them is a bad sign to me. Openness means letting you see everything. Deleting means he is hiding something.
Not good. So certainly understandable why you feel the way you do. I would too.
First and foremost, he is the one that cheated? Then it is on him to be honest and make amends for that. You shouldn't be the one stressing this, he is. If he is deleting messages so that you can't see them, then he is once again violating your trust. Full disclosure means exactly that EVERYTHING. Until he proves he can be trustworthy again, he should be doing everything in his power to regain that trust.
Secondly, this is your life and you have the right to choose how you live it. My gut told me when not to trust my STBX. I found one incident and that was it. I was done looking. She proved that she couldn't be trusted. I choose not to live with the anger and stress of her lies. I feel that a spouse is the one person in the world you should be able to trust implicitly. If you can't then the relationship is over. It is better to move on than to live with the uncertainty. That or the certainty that you need to watch your back every moment.
Good luck to you
Satcom: You're right - full disclosure = full disclosure, not half-assing it when it's convenient. That also means that I should have offered full disclosure and rather than sitting on my discord over the phone records for days, I should have spoken to him before I had reached full boiling point - at which point he wouldn't have already deleted phone records.
Cole: I know what you're saying is entirely on target. I know that even if I check every phone record and every email forever and ever it can never entirely stop him from cheating unless he never were to leave my sight, at which point he would just up and leave forever anyway. Even though it's logical, I have not had all the answers I felt I needed for my own healing.
Everyone: thank you for the responses. I read each carefully and weighed them carefully and found value in each.
Update:
I'll try to keep it brief, but it should be mentioned that this was a tough ongoing conversation that picked up and let off all day yesterday.
First, I opened with, "Does the number X ring a bell?" which apparently is the wrong way to go about things. He felt accused of wrong doing from the start and rather than trying to comfort my fears he was automatically "walls up". I think I should have said, "I started getting worried and checked phone records and saw X number in your texting records. I'd feel better knowing who you were texting."
Funny, he gets so angry when I nit pick him for wording, but wording really DOES make a difference.
As it turns out, the number was the husband of a mutual family friend. A dude. He did not recognize the number initially, which lead to more suspicion on my part. Walls up on my part so that after that I couldn't hear reason even when he had reasonable explanations.
Worst: He *HAD* told me that they had texted and that at the time he had thought, "Who the heck is this?" because the guy had never texted him before. Neither of us realized that we'd already discussed the number (which is why he had deleted it) until long into the day and it dawned on him that was the reason he had deleted that conversation. Oops.
I felt like such an ass and apologized, but things still would not/could not settle.
Toward the end of the day things did heat up and our "intense discussions" turned into a full on shouting match. It was a very brief exchange during which he screamed, "I don't know why you're doing this, I DIDN'T DO S***!" I lost it. I screamed back that I was so glad he was God-like perfect and that I hoped he enjoyed his perfection alone. Yay for maturely working things out, right? *sigh*
I stormed out of the house with the intent of - I don't know - driving off into the rain, I guess, to find my fortunes elsewhere. But then I realized I was entirely too upset to be behind the wheel, so I sat down in the rain and cried. A few minutes later, H came out with my jacket and draped it over me. He is never "nurturing" like that. It was so sweet and so unexpected. Then he went for a walk in the dark by himself. (But also did not drive away - which is very important, because he usually "just leaves" which triggers me to have massive anxiety attacks.)
When he came back, there was a major revelation.
It should be explained that for almost a year I suffered with a slipped disc. The day before DDay I was in such significant pain I had considered going to the ER but I had volunteer responsibilities I felt I could not shirk. DDay was Dec. 5 and from then until through April (I had surgery in March) I was either in a horrific state of physical pain or in such a wonked out drugged state from the pain meds/muscle relaxants, that I could barely function. (Nevermind the pain of finding out about the affair... this is purely physical stuff I'm speaking of.)
As a result, my own mental/emotional healing was put on hold.
Back to my story...
H. came up to me as I was sitting there crying after he'd taken his walk and said, "I get it now. I'm sorry. We're on totally different pages." He explained that he was eager to move on - to, as he put it, take my hand and run off into the sunset with me. Me, on the other hand, I'm still at the point where I'm sitting in my emotional sandbox with a fine sifter trying to dig up anything I can to make sense of it all. At the best of times, I'm a slower healer than he is, but I'm literally four to five months "behind" because of all the slipped disc junk.
He explained that he did not mean he didn't do *anything* when he said he didn't do S*** - just that he hadn't done anything *right now* and he reiterated (which he had done all day) that he was very angry, but not at me, but at himself for deleting his text conversations. "I wasn't thinking. We talked about it, I deleted it, we moved on - or so I thought."
I feel like such an ass. I'm glad we had the conversations we had, though. A lot of good ended up coming from it.
He agreed not to delete texts himself but asked that we could go through things together so that he could have them deleted once a week. He really is very OCD about the build up of messages. I don't think I really need to be the one to swipe my finger over the conversation, but I did ask that he wait 48 hours to delete anything in case I did have questions.
In an effort to offer my *own* "full disclosure" I told him about the chick I had texted with "You really should leave him alone..." That conversation was very revealing to him. "I had wondered why she had stopped with the mindless chatter crap she had been sending, but I didn't think much about it since I was mostly just relieved." He insisted that she probably didn't have any serious intents but that she probably had been "sending signals" to see what would happen.
The ultimate thing that he said, though, has to do with him cheating again. For ages, he's said, "I LOVE you - I would NEVER do this again because I LOVE you!" YET he said over and over he never stopped loving me - that he never loved the OW. "I love you," is not reassuring proof that it won't happen again under those circumstances. Last night, instead of saying, "I LOVE YOU! I would NEVER do this again!" he said:
"I will never stop being vigilant of the signs. I never, EVER want to put you - or me - through this hell again."
THAT is what I needed to hear. "I am aware."
It doesn't solve everything, certainly not my own sense of paranoia and fear, but it sure does go a long way.
1) He is capable of cheating
2) He does what ever he wants whether you keep cheking or not
3) There are always ways to hide things
4) You cannot stop anyone doing anything what they choose to do
Tryto protect yourself from the additional harm. It is his job to prove you that he is worth of trust. Not your job to chase after him. If this wont turn around soon, you may start losing your feelings towards him...
It is very difficult for me to ride the line between protecting myself and learning to trust again. Complete "protection" will shut him out entirely and at this point I do not want to do that. Complete trust is obviously out of the question - even if i wanted to give it, I am not capable at this point.