Why would anyone do this?

[Puppyduppydoo]

Name changed for this thread.

I’ve just had FB message from a complete stranger who maintains she has been having an affair with my husband. She hasn’t, the message was full of totally incorrect details including dates and times when I know he was with me.

They had connected on linked-in but have never met. Why would somebody do this, particularly on NYE?

OP, I'm sorry you have had to deal with this ridiculousness., especially the refusal to believe you know your own husband, and your own mind.

But she doesn't know her dh as he has been discussing his dog with random women on the internet...

And my DH has spoken to random people (male and female) on the internet too. As have I ..... I'm doing it now!

Well this all took a turn for the batshit weird!

OP, I expect you've gone now but deleting your account won't delete this thread unless you contact MNHQ to ask them to remove it.

I'm sorry you've had such a hard time on this thread, and from the strange woman - patriciabateman has explained one way how such things can arise, and other posters have given other ways (revenge acts, for e.g.)

Personally I don't see it as much different from a stupid game a friend of mine used to play - phoning random phone numbers and asking for so-and-so, except of course she didn't have any details and never pretended she was having an affair with them. But it's next step pranking.

Either way, good job to involve the police before it gets any further down the line - hopefully the strange woman will discontinue her very strange behaviour.

For all those who just can't believe a stranger would do something like this and that therefore the OP's husband is hiding something, have a read of the thread in AIBU titled 'What to do about the woman claiming to be my mother'. Would you tell the OP of that thread that surely there must be something in it because why would anyone do that/make it up unless there was an element of truth in it?

RedDogsBeg “well there must be some truth in it. Even if she got the birthdate 4 years out it doesn’t mean she’s not her real Mum etc”

Oh yes Middle absolutely.

I had something similar but the reverse about 12 years ago. At the time I was newly married and worked for the police in the call centre. I spoke to members of the public as well as police officers who called in and dictated crime reports for us to input. We never met the officers and they (& we) didn't have time to chat really.

My husband answered our landline one evening to an irate woman shouting that I had been having an affair with her policeman husband. She gave his name - I can't remember it now - and it was nobody I'd ever heard of but then like I said we didn't really know the coppers. I didn't speak to her myself and I had no way of proving nothing had happened to my husband. Eventually it was forgotten about. Or I thought it was but he brought it up 5 years later when our marriage was breaking down. Turns out he'd always believed her. But I didn't know her or her husband from Adam and I still have no clue how she got our number or my name - I doubt any of the coppers I spoke to on the phone knew it.

So there are bonkers people out there.
You know your husband, you trust him. Try and ignore the paranoia of some on this thread. Sometimes there IS smoke without fire.

My mother had something weird happen to her many years ago when we kids were little. A woman called my mom's sister and threatened my mom, several times. One day my aunt called us and said the woman had called again and was "coming over with a gun." A woman pulled up in a car in front of our house. My mother called our next door neighbor who brought his gun and kept the woman in her car until the police came. She was also drunk. She was one of our neighbors!! Someone mom said had always been so nice to her. Turns out she thought my mother was having an affair with her husband. He would park his car on the street near my aunt's house and I guess she had seen his car and then my mom's car parked at my aunt's on her visits. He actually just parked there and walked over to his mistress's house whenever he went to see her so his car wouldn't actually be in her driveway. The next day the man and his grown daughter came and apologized to my mom and explained. He divorced her and married the mistress later.

Puppy I had a man do this to me. He contacted friends claiming we were in a relationship and did some really creepy stuff in trying to find me online. I’d never met him and people accused me of leading him on or giving him hope (by existing). I really hope you get this sorted. Sometimes people really are a bit unhinged. I hope it all works out ok and I’m glad police are involved.

Hmm Lashalicious yet you couldn't believe that the OP's situation was exactly as she described and that her husband, like your mother, was innocent of anything untoward?

RedDog you are distorting on purpose what I said. What did I say in any of my (I think 3) posts that is unreasonable at all? Nothing. Please tell me what was unreasonable or unkind in anything I said. I didn’t say her husband wasn’t innocent, I said to consider all the possibilities of which an affair was one. That is very different to the way you are characterizing my comments. As the thread wore on the op began cursing several people out. I mean, if you get a message like that, you have to at least consider the possibility that there may be something to it as well as other possibilities. Common sense. The answer to her question, “why would anyone do this?” Is either 1) affair 2) someone she knows is trying to hurt her or prank 3) random nutcase. I already said I tend to think it’s 2 and at the same time if it were me, I would consider all possibilities and look into it further. To me, that is the honest and wise approach. Posters getting cursed out by the op and other commenters going off the deep end cursing at reasonable posters really says that there are many people who like to put their head in the sand. I have another story, I told a friend her boyfriend was cheating on her and she never forgave me for it. He was a total scum but she was likewise totally blind to it. We all worked together and he was cheating right under her nose with another colleague. They broke up and he began dating the other woman in the open. I thought a good friend would tell the truth, and that the friend would want to know the truth. We were very close, and I would have considered it a big deception on my part if I had not told her what was happening. So be it. It was like she could pretend all was well and then it was my fault her bubble was burst and she hated me for it instead of the unfaithful boyfriend. Oh well. Apparently there are plenty of women like her. In this situation, we don’t know and it is wise to consider all possibilities one by one, in my opinion. I am not against the op at all. I think you all jumping on the rest of us shows a bit about your own insecurities perhaps. The way op cursed at several of us and cryptic posts at the end...we totally get that there are inconsistencies in what the message said. All we are saying is that don’t totally exclude the possibility of an affair until you look into it a bit futher just to make sure. This is common sense I would think.

Sounds odd to me-think there could be some truth in it though.

Regarding what happened to my mother RedDog, we all know the truth of that incident so no need to wonder about the possibilities. If I were an adult at the time and looking at the situation, I would consider all possibilities. There has to be a part inside of us that can be objective when looking at ourselves and our close relationships. Otherwise, we don’t have a hold on basic honesty and integrity.

Because, for the millionth time, the OP HAD looked into it and the story didn't stand up to scrutiny yet she was being continuously harangued by people to dig deeper, there must be some truth in it, your husband must be hiding something because no-one would just make something like that up. When the OP confirmed that her husband had been asleep in the bed next to her on all the nights he was supposed to be at the other woman's house over night there were even suggestions that he might have 'popped out in the evening', and incredulity and disbelief from some posters that the OP and her husband hadn't spent any nights apart.

Posters just would not listen to the OP saying that there was no merit to the story just kept banging the drum that there had to be, no wonder she became snippy and no wonder she didn't update. This isn't a soap opera no-one posting on MN owes anyone else continual updates or chapter and verse of how the situation concluded.

The OP didn't have her head in the sand but a number of posters certainly had blinkers and ear defenders on.

You say you know the truth of the situation with your mother but if it happened now you would question the validity of your mother's version? Really?

As I said earlier would all the dig deeper, must be some truth in the story, no-one would make that up, etc., say the same to the poster of the thread I mentioned earlier?

There you go again, this time twisting what I said about my mother. If I were an adult at the time, and the situation had not been resolved yet and the truth not yet known then yes, I would consider the possibility, however unlikely or however much I trusted my mother, that there might be something, whatever that means, to it. I knew after I posted and read it back I should have spelled out that italicized part for posters like you who will look for something they can twist to attack someone who doesn’t agree with them. Do you know what the word possibility means? It is not a condemnation of the person in question or calling the person a liar. It is deciding how to deal with two things that don’t reconcile. The person you believe you know and an event or something that seems to contradict that view you hold dear. It is a sad reality that many people have trusted someone implicitly only to find they have been completely deceived. If my dh had received such a message about me, I would expect at least a little natural curiosity on his part, good grief. Not an offended “I don’t police my spouse’s conversations on the internet or on his phone” kind of head in the sand person who acts like they’re noble for being totally incurious about such a message. And of course we shouldn’t police our spouses’ conversations but in light of the message, that changes things a bit and surely will call for the tiniest bit of curiosity such as asking a few further questions, looking at his phone, if all is well, he would be happy and eager to show her, I would if it happened to me. I would immediately show my phone and everything to show beyond a shadow of a doubt and would discuss this crazy thing with my spouse to find out for myself who this person is! I would be very curious whether I was in op’s shoes or her husband’s.

Lash do you know Frog? Where is Frog btw? I'm worried about her

limited posters like you accuse us of making things up yet it is you all who are doing it. No, I am not frog. Ask Mumsnet HQ. I don’t mind investigations in the least. You are lying, accusing me of being someone else. Ok, let MN HQ answer you if you like, ask them.

I'm not twisting anything.

The Op's was curious she spoke to her husband and asked who the woman was and husband immediately showed her the conversations he had had with this woman on LinkedIn. There were glaring inaccuracies in the story the woman spun. That is not evidence of the OP having her head in the sand, quite the opposite.

lash I didn't say you were frog. I just wondered if you knew her and expressed my concerns about her whereabouts

Lash, who is accusing anyone of being frog?

I for one would be proud to be mistaken for frog with her trenchant views. At least with someone like frog you know where you stand.

PS I've said frog three times and I'm in front of a mirror so I hope to summon her

Reddog, yes you did twist what I said, twice, and your posts prove it.

The op yes spoke to her husband and then dropped it. Fine. What I am saying in my posts is that I would advise investigating a little further to make sure, that’s it. Nothing earth shattering, nothing deserving of being cursed over it. I asked op how long they had been linkedin, and she didn’t answer. I am as trusting of my close relationships but perhaps I am a more curious person than her. I would want to “solve” the mystery. The short answer to her question is pretty simple. Who would want to do this? Someone who wants to hurt her. Ok, who would that be? Someone having an affair w her husband, someone who hates her for another reason, a prankster on NYE which sounds plausible except whoever it is had to think of the prank ahead of time to establish a linkedin with op’s husband under a false name to do the set up, and a nutcase. Personally, I would not automatically rule it’s the nutcase even with the inaccuracies without investigating it a bit further. And as an aside, several posters have personal stories of people they know who had spouses who left in the middle of the night to meet with someone, so the truth is...it does happen! You act like that is beyond the realm but the truth refutes you, it has indeed happened however unlikely just as the nutcase scenario. There is usually a link of some kind even with a nutcase, just like in what happened to my mother. It doesn’t mean op’s husband has done anything wrong, I would just want to investigate it because that is how I am, I am not one to say Oh, it’s a nutcase! I will forget all about it! Lalalalala!!! Haha. Truly, Red, what we are disagreeing on is the degree of looking into this. You and op think it was enough, I and others think we’d investigate just a bit further. It’s not worth attacking each other over. Presumably we are all on op’s side and want her to know the truth. Even if it is a nutcase, I would want to find out who it is, not least so that he/she couldn’t target me again! I think some people have an inner detective in them and some don’t. We’re not saying op is a liar, we’re saying we would investigate a bit further than she has to find out who it is and that is the reason to consider all possibilities. That’s all. Also, I found the op’s seeming disinterest in the possibility it might be someone who she knows and wants to hurt her with lies surprising given her question starting the thread in the first place, it seems she does not want to know and just wants an easy “oh it’s a nutcase, forget all about it”. Well, ok.

limited, anyone who read your post knows you were implying that I am frog. I called you on it and told you to ask MN HQ.

That is just not true Lash. I don't think you are frog and I don't see how anyone would take it that way. There's nothing wrong with frog btw. She's a person with forthright views.

limited I think anyone reading your post would take it that way.
Why would you ask me if I knew frog? Why in the world would you think I might know someone in real life on a worldwide Internet forum where we all use anonymous screen names? Only because you were implying that I am her/him.

I called you on it and you simply want to get away with it, that’s all. Well, you didn’t.