Just saw husband's phone - please help

[shockedwife8]

For context husband and I are currently having marriage counselling. We've both said we want things to improve and to stay together and make it work. We have 1 DC3. No history of infidelity or anything but resentment built up after birth of child and we've been arguing hence seeking the counselling. Also husband lost some of our savings on crypto without telling me at first so trust was an issue though he's been remorseful and taken steps forward on that. I've gone off sex completely which he has really struggled with. So that's the context. We both know it needs to improve and we are committed to trying - or so I thought.

Last night we opened a bottle of wine. I had 2 glasses before going to bed around 10.30. Husband said he wanted to stay up and watch a film. He's then sat and polished off a whole other bottle of wine and didn't come to bed until about 2am.

This morning my DC3 was playing with Daddy's phone. We were in our bed and husband had gone to shower. DC switched onto the browser and up popped some messages with emojis and photos. It's an OnlyFans chat with a woman. He's been chatting all last night, stuff about what he wanted to do etc and her sending photos etc. Wank fodder basically.

Even at this point I'm thinking - it's gross but he was drunk and I guess it's similar to watching porn... however - I then scroll down and see he's been chatting up her THIS MORNING, at 8.00 am whilst in our bed!! Whilst I was reading books with our DC3. He's told her he's going to shower and she's said some grim stuff about what she wants to do in the shower and he's saying "ok babe" and similar.

I am feeling really shaken and horrible whilst trying to get my DC ready cheerily. Feel sick! Am trying to just breathe and think calmly but am in shock.

Got Dc downstairs and set them up with cereal and an iPad so they will be distracted, then I took husband into kitchen and quietly told him what I saw. I said I want him to take DC out to the playground this morning. We have a preschooler cinema booking later and we're meant to be having a babysitter tonight so we could go out for a nice dinner and spend some time as a couple. Table is booked at nice restaurant. He said he thinks he's still drunk.

Ffs I brought him a coffee in bed and found him some paracetamol for his headache and all the time he was messaging this person.

I'm locked in the bathroom having my shower time now. What the fuck do I do???

Please help, I have no-one else to talk to.

This would be unforgivable for me. What a sleaze. I’d be asking him to leave.

From my own experience, this support can sometimes come from the most unexpected quarters. When something similar happened to me, I had to cancel a work meeting with someone I was relatively friendly with but in a work context at another company. I cancelled citing a family emergency- she whatsapped me and said she didn’t want to pry but if I ever needed anyone to talk she was there.

Ultimately she, and a mutual colleague from a third company who had also experienced something similar, ended up being my go-to people and we’ve built a deep and long lasting friendship off the back of it. You don’t need to tell the world but if you instinctively trust someone, it may be worth taking that leap of faith. x

I’m sorry this has happened to you. I will say if it happened to me I don’t know if I would find it easy to leave but I’d still want to.

I think your husband’s behaviour shows a fundamental lack of respect to you, your child and women in general. Why are some people like this, putting sexual needs above emotional ones as if the two are not related? Is he really a man you want to bring a family up with? I know that is a tough question since you already have a child. I suggest you search long and hard about the answer because you deserve more, you are not a bloody servant to his sexual needs, you are supposed to be his partner in life, the mother of his child.

TBH I think an attitude like his would put me off sex too. Where is his understanding of your needs? Why is his need for sexual excitement greater than your need for love and understanding? Texting someone whilst your child is there, that’s a huge red flag and just gross TBH, how can he really care about you or you child if he can
do that? Good god where is his self control? Does he have to pay for these chats? What a fucking idiot! I’d be angry and disgusted and not sure I could trust him again.

If it were me I’d have to seriously consider if the relationship should continue.

Thanks @Katrinawaves I can't think of anyone but would value that kind of friendship. I know I need better friends. It's just hard as I live in a city and many of my friends have moved to the countryside with their kids during Covid. Everyone has busy lives so catch ups are a handful of times a year.

I know it's not good if I go to a hotel all by myself and don't tell anyone what's happened. I do have therapy on Tuesday though. I know husband won't be telling anyone either. We've kept our marriage problems private. And let's be honest, he doesn't come off well in this incident.

Absolutely disrespectful, but… you basically gave him the green light to look at porn, probably to take pressure of you with your kreluctance to have sex. And on the back of that, he’s progressed and crossed the line into actively chatting to people. I think for men sex is really important to a happy marriage, as they say, men need sex to feel loved,and women need to lfeel loved to have sex. This absolutely doesn’t excuse his behaviour, but I think the intimacy aspect needs to be focused on in the counselling, and also the lack of respect he has shown you needs to be addressed. This isn’t a LTB incident yet, but a warning that you’ve got a long way to go to get this marriage on track.

I'm so sorry OP.
But when you clarified that bit about the gambling, the crypto, the OnlyFans being part of a pattern....
It just doesn't sound viable.
It's ok to be upset and confused and to dread splitting up. But eventually, you have to think long-term.
Yes it is heartbreaking, no, it doesn't mean he's the evilest man alive.
Do you want the DC to say, "The family were always lurching from one crisis to another because of Dad, and Mum would always be trying to make it better but she never could and it broke her" or "Mum said Dad meant well a lot of the time, but he had a problem with gambling and similar and she was right, he always spaffed his money away, but luckily she left him and she provided a nice secure home to grow up in" ?

It’s been one thing after another from him. How much more is he going to throw at you? What’s next? I think it’s time to stop thinking about what is best for your marriage and start thinking about what’s best for you and your child. That is not necessarily to stay in your marriage.

Cancel your friends visit tomorrow. Tell them you’ve got Norovirus and they’ll be only too happy to stay away. You don’t need that extra pressure and you won’t be able to hide the atmosphere between you.

Make a hotel booking now so you know you’ve got a room, even if you don’t check in until late. You don’t want to be sat in a carpark somewhere because everywhere is booked. Personally I’d be inclined to tell him to stay in it. Your DC is used to him staying away. Why should you be inconvenienced? Introduce him to the idea that there may no longer be a place for him in the family home. Let him be the one to sit alone in an impersonal room, reflecting on his life choices.

If he wants there to be any chance of you continuing with the counselling, tell him to give you the logon details for his bank account so you can put your mind at peace at what else he’s been spending money on while he’s away.

I am sorry to say, you will never be able to trust this man to do anything other than let you down.

It's a soul destroying way to live, lurching from crisis to crisis, so think very carefully.

Sorry that you are going through this x

I think that he wants out but wants to be the dumpee/victim.

Personally, I'd say your marriage is undefuckable and you need to plan your out so it suits you. Defo get those screenshots and bring them to individual conselling as you want your head in the best place.

Remember sex is not an entitlement, despite what men say, and there is a good reason he's off rations.

Be selfish for a while and make sure that you put yourself first.

Bring your DC to the hotel if he won't stay somewhere else. You can snuggle up together in a double bed.

And make sure your husband knows you're disgusted with him - he was sexting a woman - who he was paying for the service - while he was in bed with you and your child.

You can do SO much better than this creepy loser OP. I know it won't be easy but you really need to get rid of him. He will just make you VERY much more miserable and low with time. You can do it. Good luck.

He's back from the park and came upstairs and knocked on the door. Asked if I am ok. Says we need to talk, perhaps tonight. I said I'm planning on staying in a hotel. I could see he was shocked and said there was no need to do that, that I should let him talk to me.

I said I don't want to as I need space right now. We are going to go to the cinema soon with DC.

He looks really hungover.

@Inyournightgarden well I don't think interactive porn whilst in bed with me and our child is acceptable.

Don’t go to a hotel. Ask him to go to a hotel so that you can have space to think. You and DC stay in your own home.

Take DC to the cinema and focus on them wholly.

Postpone your friend’s visit tomorrow if you feel you can’t deal with it.

Don’t rush into making decisions now when you’re so stressed. You need to think over a period of days or weeks. Weigh up your options and think what would be best for you and DC.

Op… we are programmed since we are little girls to always be generous to put everything and everyone first and keep going until we make ourselves miserable.

Instead of accepting how you feel and demand some respect from this wanker (excuse the pun) you are putting the park, the cinema, the dinner tomorrow and even your husband pretending he is still drunk first, even after he paid another woman for a long sexy conversation last night. Here you are finding the way to keep the pretence while you find words in the counseling session on Tuesday to help you save your wretched married yet another time from a final colapse.

The truth is not all marriages deserve to be saved and it is also true that once the trust and attraction go they hardly ever return. Your marriage is gone, he wasted the family savings in gambling and now in porn, you are doing everything with your son so he can have his cake and eat it, you no longer feel attracted to him but someway are trying to convince yourself that you are at fault for not being ready for sex with him even if his behaviour is making you run in the other direction, you are determined to flog this dead horse back into life, you are there pretending to be a happy family for your son who can feel all the toxicity and who will learn to be a shit partner from his dad and will expect woman to be perfect at keeping everyone happy with no effort from anyone else, if you insist to keep the appearances.

It is ok to put yourself first in a blue moon, actually, it is ok and healthy for the whole family to put yourself first regularly. I would say this is one of the times when you need to say fuck it and do as you please for once, your child is not going to be forever damaged if dad takes him to the cinema or the cinema is cancelled, cancel tomorrow lunch as well, you are more important than keeping up when you are feeling so rotten. This will in turn help your husband notice that perhaps you are not the doormat he is constantly reassured you are and that his actions have consequences.

Remember most women that get divorced have a just single regret: Not leaving sooner.

I think this marriage, which was already very wobbly, has finally reached it's last legs.

I would tell him it's over and you will be filing for divorce. I can't see any way back from this to be honest, not after everything else you have had to put up with.

He’s a cunt. A selfish, self centred cunt. And his only thought will be how to minimise the damage to his own life. He could give a shit about you and your feelings except how they will negatively affect him and his life. It’s how he can convince you he’s committed to working on your marriage with counselling etc. because it distracts you enough for him to do what he wants.

Tell him to leave.
He’ll not sit fretting over how you’re feeling. At best he’ll be trying to figure out how to construct a narrative which gets him off the hook. More likely he’ll seek comfort in another woman whether that’s onlyfans messages or someone he picks up in the hotel bar.
You will manage to keep it together for your dc. Because you have to.

I’m sorry this is happening to you. It has happened to lots of us.
Men have a script. The specifics change but it’s amazing how predictable they are. Somewhere in the mn archives there are 4 or 5 threads which ran for a few years 😢of what happened in my situation. I’ve never namechanged so you can search and see how the messages you’re getting are identical to the advice I got but you can look at any of the thousands of threads on relationships and you’ll see how similar men who cheat are. And they are all selfish, self centred cunts.

@Inyournightgarden there's always one isn't there. Sure a man sexting a woman whilst in bed with his wife and child is completely normal. If you really are a grown adult woman give your head a wobble

Only fans isn't porn. It's cheating. There's a live human on the other end. It's aligned to escorts or prostitution in my book. So sorry that this has happened op.

You don't have to make any major decisions while you're in shock. Cancel the booking and babysitter and the friends coming tomorrow. Go to the cinema with him and your DC this afternoon (he doesn't get to sleep off his hangover). See how you feel later and then go to a hotel if you feel that's what you want.

The situation sounds pretty toxic. He clearly has an OF account and knows how to use it, so I doubt it is the first time. I'd be careful about where the money is coming from for this, as I suspect you are aware from his previous addictive behaviours.

If I were in your shoes I'd calmly call it a day. If you need to hold it in until the next time you see your therapist do so, and get your ducks in a row. He can figure himself out on his own time and without your help/you carrying him from here. I sometimes wonder if men grow up at all when I see how they torpedo their lives so recklessly, usually whilst shouting that they "don't need therapy" and blaming the woman for everything. Get shot and fix yourself for your DC. If he wants to be a DC himself he can do that away from your growth and happy future.

Remember sex is not an entitlement, despite what men say, and there is a good reason he's off rations.

how do you know?
It's not an entitlement that's true but it is a very important part of marriage for many people. I can't remember reading if OP has given an explanation for her cutting off supplies so as to speak, but it's pretty obvious that could eventually lead to the partner seeking supplies elsewhere.

Was this is case of 'I don't want it so you're just going to have to live with that forever more and be nice to me' or is there a valid treason ? I don't see why one partner has to live with a situation like this forever more to be honest whatever the reason.

True, she may see him as a client but if he is even excusing himself to take a shower, he sees her as an actual woman he is bonding with as a “couple” otherwise he would have stayed with the porn rather than going for a more personalised sexual experience.

Are you absolutely sure he isn't addicted to this and that is where the money is going?

I wouldn't stay with him after this, assuming you are in your 20's or 30's you have at least another 50 years of this to put up with, get out today.

And, doing this next to your child really does make him the lowest of the low and would certainly raise the eyebrows of a social worker.