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AIBU?

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Original poster

To hire a private investigator to follow my ex?

87 replies

Duckydoop · 11/05/2024 09:05

I was married for 20 years and had a relatively good marriage with minimal conflict. My husband would tell me that he loved me regularly and we spent lots of time together. Everyone on the outside said we had an envious marriage and that my husband looked so inlove with me. I felt secure and happy to spend the rest of my life with him.

This all changed when he told me one day that he had mental health issues and needed sometime away from me and our children (we have 4 children together). He proposed spending a couple months living away from the family home to sort himself out.

I was devastated and told him that if he left and didn’t work on our marriage (I suggested, timeout and space but still living in the family home and counselling) then to forget it. I felt like I didn’t want to wait around for a whole 2 months looking after the kids, working and suffering while he was out doing god knows what.

2 weeks after telling me he was unwell mentally, he left the family home. I don’t have much of a support network, no family in this country and very few friends I can ask for help. So I really struggled to take care of my children and work full time, whilst feeling very alone and confused.
However, people around me at the time said that he must of left for another woman and surely I must have women’s intuition. I really did not see all of this coming and the only reg flags were when he started a new job he started losing weight and dressing differently. He was also secretive with his phone but really wasn’t spending any time outside of the family home, he spend weekends with me and would come home on time from work everyday.

Since he left 18 months ago he has sworn on his life that there was no other woman involved. In this time I filled for divorce which he begged me not to do. He said he still loves me and one day we’ll be together but refused to move back into the family home and work through things. He has continually breadcrumbed me and I feel so depressed and alone. I have constant anxiety and just want to know why he left and have some closure. I feel I deserve this after 20 years and 4 children. People keep telling me that I need to move on because it’s obvious he has someone else. But i just really want to know to help me from constantly trying to figure out what happened. In our time apart he managed to complete a master’s degree, which people say should prove he wasn’t suffering from mental issues.

The thing that makes me confused is that we talk on the phone multiple nights a week for hours at a time. He also sometimes stays at my home on the weekend (no sex). How would he be able to do all this with a partner?

I feel so desperate to end the breadcrumbing cycle and accept that our marriage is over. But, I really want the truth AIBU to hire a private investigator to follow him, so I can finally get answers and the closure I need?

OP posts:
vivainsomnia · 11/05/2024 09:23

Another thread where posters will tell you to just turn the page. Easy peasy.

Now back in the real world, where 20 happy years of marriage have long become your normality and seeing this shattered in pieces without being able to even start to understand the reason, of course it's perfectly reasonable to hang on to finding the reason to be able to decide what to do.

It is highly likely that there is indeed another woman and most likely a married one herself who is also not sure whether to take the plunge. He is likely waiting to see what she does and so trying to keep you keen in case she decides to save her marriage. It is standard.

There is however a very small chance that he is genuinely suffering from mental health issues and just needing a break to deal with it away from all the pressures of home.

It's totally understandable that you would want to know. You go ahead and do what's right for YOU.

WalkingThroughTreacle · 11/05/2024 09:22

I think you'd be far better spending the money on a therapist. You're friends are right, you need to move on. Whatever a private investigator might find out, I doubt it will enable you to move on. It will just give you new things about him to obsess over. You need closure but it is not information that will give you that, it is in realising that you need to make the choice to close this chapter in your life so you can open the next one.

SwingTheMonkey · 11/05/2024 09:19

Just to add, op, I absolutely get why you want to know - it must have felt like the bottom fell out of your world when he left out of the blue. I hope you can rebuild a better life without him.

Ereyraa · 11/05/2024 09:19

‘Closure’ is made up. If you find he has someone else, you won’t remove the anxiety, it will just be replaced with anger and other worries.

Move on, head up.

And no one should be getting PI’s to follow anyone.

generella · 11/05/2024 09:19

Is it another man maybe?

SwingTheMonkey · 11/05/2024 09:18

Agree with others, you don’t need to do this in order to move on. He's treated you appallingly and quite rightly, you’ve not put up with it. Stop the calls, stop the overnights and sort official contact with the kids. Yes you’d like to satisfy your urge to know why it ended but that’ll have to come from him. And not knowing doesn’t stop you from making a clean break from him.

Original poster
Duckydoop · 11/05/2024 09:18

Thank you for your responses so far, you’ve made some very valid points. I really want to move on but, I’m just confused and I guess part of me wants to have my marriage back. I just think it’s been very hard not having closure and I’m not sure why this is so important to me but it was such a shock when he left that I like I’m emotionally crumbling and just want to know why.

OP posts:
Orangemangogrape · 11/05/2024 09:17

I don't see why not.

Theunamedcat · 11/05/2024 09:15

You need to cut him off no more long talks on the phone strictly about the children

Youcannotbeseriousreally · 11/05/2024 09:15

You are unreasonable to spend another second worrying about or concerning yourself with someone that has treated you like this. Hold you head up high and move on with your life.

GrumpyOldCrone · 11/05/2024 09:14

Maybe knowing he has another woman will help you to set some boundaries. But you could do that without knowing anything more than you already do.

He left you, saying it was temporary, and you decided (entirely legitimately) that you didn’t want to be strung along. So why are you on the phone with him for hours at a time? Why is he staying over?

Instead of wasting money on a private detective, block his number, block him on social media, and communicate with him only by email and only about the children.

At this point it doesn’t matter why he left.

ConfusedCaterpillar · 11/05/2024 09:13

Your choice was to end the marriage rather than live separately. Perfectly reasonable.

but when you divorced him you lost any right to know about his life.

stop talking to him. Stop having him stay over. That’s gore you end things.

organise child support and shared custody. If he doesn’t want to care for his children, then go after proper maintenance. This all should be formally agreed to - you can do this amicably or not, if he’ll cooperate then amicable is best for all.

having him followed is basically paying someone to stalk him. It’s wrong