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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Is this suspicious? Affair maybe?

91 replies

MaybeCrazy2 · 26/05/2021 14:50

I don’t know if I’m loosing my mind!

Been with partner for 16 years, we have two kids together.

He has always deleted his watts app messages (every night) for years. He is in a lot of groups with friends and it’s never bothered me (even though I’ve never seen the messages but always just looked like mates chatting rubbish, family group, work group). He says he deletes them for storage and to delete photos as the send each other a lot of stupid photos. This has been the case for years.

He has also been on furlough for over 12 months and at home everyday! I mean every day too, so he is not physically seeing anyone.

Yesterday was his first day back at work. This morning I grabbed his phone to check the weather and didn’t know where the app was so went onto Google and discovered he had it in private mode? I asked why and he said he had no idea. I asked what he was searching for and he said nothing and that he didn’t even know it was on.
(I don’t have a problem with porn but he has always maintained for the full 16 years he’s just not into that and doesn’t bother with it) I genuinely don’t think he was searching for porn.

So couple that with his first day back at work and he deletes watts app chats, that I’m know curios about, what do you think?

I asked him why his being so secretive and the response I was met with was not reassuring at all!! Threw phone, got angry, said I was the problem for making this a thing! (But his the secretive one so how is this my fault!?)

He has literally been home everyday for months though so what do people think or am I making something out of nothing?

And with regards to the relationship, yes, he has pulled away slowly over the last few years. ( I put that down to us just being together so long though)

AIBU to think something is going on here even if I don’t know what?

OP posts:

SirVixofVixHall · 26/05/2021 17:43

I think the throwing of his phone at a wall, as though to smash it, is really weird for a normally calm man, after a couple of questions. If I asked my DH something like this he would just tell me, in a matter of fact way. He wouldn’t blow up and try to smash the phone!
It is a fairly classic reaction to deflect something hidden.
This plus the fact you have been together so long and yet you suddenly don’t trust him says to me that something is up.

Namechangedlady · 26/05/2021 18:09

I don't think it's suspicious, whenever I open a link from my email it goes into incognito Web browser then the next time I open chrome, it is still in that mode.

Namechangedlady · 26/05/2021 18:10

I would get irritated if questioned on it though

Sometimesfraught82 · 26/05/2021 18:12

Sorry if missed

You say he’s been like this for years

So why so worried now?

Deleting messages is what my sister does. She does it for the storagec

Laiste · 26/05/2021 18:13

@SirVixofVixHall i nearly always completely agree with all your posts.

In this instance i'd add this: under these circs. if this were my DH i'd genuinely be more worried about him than suspicious of him. I'd actually apologise later, and ask him if he was ok.

You'll find out more this way than accusations.

Budapestdreams · 26/05/2021 18:23

I don't know what, but something's going on

FreezeMotherHubbard · 26/05/2021 18:28

Tough one. A gut feeling is a gut feeling and can be hard to ignore but on the flip side it sounds like that's all you've got to go on and its awful to be accused of something you haven't done as it's hard to prove a negative.

Sadly there could be no middle ground on this. He's up to something or you've fucked up.

Ohhyeahright · 26/05/2021 18:38

Hope it’s nothing op. Seems like a massive overreaction from him.

toocold54 · 26/05/2021 18:51

If someone accused me of cheating when I’d been in the house 24/7 for months then I’d get angry too.
I don’t delete my messages but I often browse in private mode without realising so that wouldn’t have raised any red flags for me.
I think it’s good to trust your gut but you can’t accuse someone if you have no evidence. You need to try and work out what exactly it is you don’t trust about him.

TurquoiseDragon · 26/05/2021 19:04

@NoCauseRebel

You’re only arsed about your partner using your phone if there’s something suspicious on there. bollocks. My eXH used to grab my phone so he could check all my messages and accuse me of having affairs. I wasn’t.

I started to be more secretive if you could call it that because he knew my passwords for social media/email and logged into them all from his own phone so he could spy on me even though there was nothing to see. So when I figured it out I changed all my passwords in one hit and bingo, everything I did was kept from him because I deserved my privacy.

Suspicion breeds secrecy.

I had nothing to hide from my eXH but his constant snooping and accusations led to me hiding everything from him. Purely because I felt that I was trapped.

This resonates with me. My ex would have used anything he found to have a go at me. It was all innocent, but I made sure my notifications didn't pop up, and just didn't mention a lot of stuff. Towaards the end, it was about making sure he had no access to my messages, wwhich would have show I was leaving, or my MN account, where I received a lot of support to leave. He was abusive, I feel I had good reason to hide stuff.

wildeverose · 26/05/2021 19:20

If I'd been accused after my first night back in a year when knackered, and after explaining my innocence and then provoked further - I'd have lost my shit.

freedomontheway · 26/05/2021 19:48

I'd be annoyed if anyone even asked me what I was searching for.
Honestly what business is it of yours?
Oh and my iPhone was suddenly on private mode which I didn't even know how to get. I had to goggle how to get out of it

DulseSeaweed · 26/05/2021 21:29

You'll get a range of answers as we are all different but I'm surprised so many are jumping down your throat for questioning his behaviour with his phone. I don't understand this need for privacy from my partner. We often share/swap phones (e.g. if he has more battery and I need to leave house), have the same passcode etc. In an equal and happy partnership with no abuse I don't know what the issue is. He often passes me his WhatsApp and says 'read the last few messages' if his work mates have had a funny conversation. We go into each others phones to find emails (e.g. he has electricity bills come to him, Amazon account it in my name so he checks orders). I thought that was normal behaviour when you were boring old marrieds. But that's just me.

That aside, I'd be really upset if he threw something because I said it was suspicious rather than just reassuring me or having an adult conversation. That's definitely not normal.

SirVixofVixHall · 26/05/2021 21:36

[quote Laiste]**@SirVixofVixHall i nearly always completely agree with all your posts.

In this instance i'd add this: under these circs. if this were my DH i'd genuinely be more worried about him than suspicious of him. I'd actually apologise later, and ask him if he was ok.

You'll find out more this way than accusations.[/quote]
That is true, thinking about it, as it is such a big personality shift. Might he be feeling low or very stressed ?

Twatterati · 26/05/2021 21:44

Going incognito suggests online gambling and/or porn sites to me but that's based on bitter experience and a similar defence (denial, anger and chucking a phone).

I have an iPhone and you have to actively select incognito/private browsing and then it'll stay on that until you deselect it. So he could have gone on it ages ago to do something perfectly innocent like choose a present and just not switched it back.

It's the denial of wrong doing followed by anger and throwing the phone that was a red flag for me. Pretty sure he's not having an affair if he never goes out!

Twatterati · 26/05/2021 21:52

And I should have added that I'd had a gut feeling for years... you trusted your DH right up until this morning. Don't let that just disappear over something like this.

I reckon he was probably just tired after a night shift and keen to get to bed, especially as it was the first day back. At the very worst maybe he'd had a cheeky look at some porn on a break and just felt a bit 'told off'. I'm sure you've nothing to actually worry about.

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