To asked how you discovered OW

[Onicron]

I have my suspicions about DH at the minute, can anybody tell me how they discovered an affair and in hindsight you could see the signs?

@creamwitheverything if you would never have done it and life has moved on, destroy the sim and tell her you have.

You must have been so hurt, and people do stupid and mean things when they're hurting, but the fact that you kept the sim for future blackmail is awful. So glad revenge porn is a crime now.

@GhostFromTheOtherSide
How many of these men are still with the Ow?

My ex still is, many years down the line.

He was with her for 6 years (living apart) before she got pregnant and they got married. During that time she spilt up with her BF twice and he asked to come back to me once - (well, that wasn't going to happen !)

Apparently they now have 2 teenage kids.

His phone was synced to other Apple devices that didn’t pick up the deletion on his phone , so it was all there to see.

Yes it really was.

6 months later, she took him back. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Ex left phone unblocked on the side of the bath, lit up with messages so I read them… suddenly became clear where he had spent the following night
wish I had been on mumsnet at the time as all the signs were there in the lead up, e.g. mentionitis, sudden need to go the gym and get fit, going to the shop to get something and taking too long, missing last train home etc etc
i just couldn’t believe someone half his age would be interested in him!!
he dropped her like a hot potato as soon as I found out… and his family thought she was responsible for the affair..
luckily gave me the kick up the bum to get out of that dreadful marriage.

Men aren't very bright, are they?
#rolls eyes

I agree. How off to threaten her like that.

So they're happy together?

She phoned me at work and said she needed to speak to me, met her after work and she told me she was pregnant and she wanted me to pay for the abortion. I never figured out why I was the one who should pay.

Years ago with an ex, I had that gut feeling, plus he kept disappearing and saying he'd just gone out for a walk. He'd refused to have a mobile phone but then I found one which suddenly disappeared. I found underwear that didn't belong to me in the bathroom. And one of our mutual friends with OW (she was my neighbour) asked me what I would do if I found my partner was cheating on me. Between the three of them (him, friend and OW) they made me believe I was losing my mind, and because I had just had a baby, they made me think I was at risk of social services taking her away from me because I was "unstable"

Less than a year after this, we moved away to a bigger house and he acted like he was a toddler being ripped away from his playtime. He was angry, tearful, and miserable. I thought I knew, but I was so scared they'd make social services take my daughter away that I never mentioned it again, until another friend, who fell out with OW asked me over coffee how I had managed to forgive my partner for the two year long affair they had. I confronted him with some facts and he crumbled after being indignant for a whole weekend that I didn't believe him and he told me (via drip feed for the next two months)

If I had stood my ground and refused to be gaslighted, I would have saved myself a lot of pain I think. If you know, you know! If it can't add up to anything else, you've got the calculation correct

It's so draining just standing firm in a gaslit swamp. You need to be so strong and independent financially emotionally and practically. Being gaslit after you'd had a baby, how could you have held your own. Glad you got a way in the end.

Her DH found out and rung me!

This thread is so interesting and tragic

I had a couple of hair combs.

Found one between the sofa cushions & when I went to put it away I discovered my two!

A friend found out when she went into a room to say something to her dh and he was on the phone to someone. She heard enough to know it was an ow.

We had a joint email account. I opened an email from an airline - I had a booking to take the kids to see my sick mother. It was an entirely different booking for a holiday in Thailand whilst I was away. The OWs name was on the ticket.

A friend was accidentally sent a text that was intended for the OW. It referred to them being in bed the night before when he was supposed to be away with work..

Became less affectionate, became more impatient with me, yet “happier”, less compassionate, carried his phone everywhere, wouldn’t let me use his laptop, he was different during sex,

@bringbackneighbours So they're happy together?

I don't know - that's irrelevant to me.

Longevity of a relationship isn't directly proportional to happiness.

Even if he's morphed into Mr Wonderful, it doesn't negate the sh!££y way he treated me.

I was told by evil bastard ex husband. I think the knowledge was supposed to make me behave. In the end it made me realise how much danger I was in.

This wasn't a husband but my first proper boyfriend when I was 17-18. To start with he did seem a bit of a player type (musician, good looking, girls would come up to him and openly flirt with him in front of me and he seemed to enjoy that) but I'd tried to squash down my suspicions so I didn't seem jealous.

He got a job that involved working long hours a few towns away for a couple of weeks so we barely saw each other for a couple of weeks. Finally he had a day off and I went round. He made me a cup of tea and when I took a sip it had sugar in it. (I don't take sugar which he knew and had made me lots of cups without sugar before this. ) I exclaimed about this and he genuinely looked surprised, his face suggested he was about to say "but you always have two sugars" but thought better of it. It took a few moments but I realised he must have got used to making tea for someone else!

Stupidly I didn't say anything. I was hurt and confused and I really loved him. I also would have felt really stupid accusing him over two spoonfuls of sugar! Not long after this I went on holiday with my family. When I got back he kept making excuses about meeting up. Then I spotted him in our local with his arm round another girl. Bastard.

Such a cliche… had a gut feeling after a few weeks of phone weirdness, anger, running lots, losing interest in the kids so knew that something was up and opened his post.

Saw a transaction for a florist in another part of town, and phoned the florist and pretended to be a flustered secretary who had lost the original receipt and needed to process my boss’s expenses and please could she help me because I would be in so much trouble if I didn’t do it today

she read out the name, address and message (“you’re so special, we are so lucky we found each other”)
Immediately puked up, then opened Google

Within a few mins, I realised she was a colleague, found her social media accounts where she had posted gushing shite about ‘special dinners with a special someone’ on nights when he had been at ‘work events’, and weirdest of all, she had retweeted an article from the Times defending affairs.

She knew he was married and had kids because she signed the cards that the office sent when our DCs were born, and ExH had photos of the kids all over his office

A long time ago now, with ex-H before we had smart phones with apps so phone was just text and calls so taking it to loo/shower and basically carrying with him at all times was a massive red flag.

Mentionitis about a certain colleague. He all of a sudden started caring about appearance and bought a load of new clothes, particularly work suits and shirts. Started opting to work from an office that wasn’t his local office, adding another hour onto his 45min commute. He left his Facebook logged in on the home PC and he’d been checking out this colleague’s profile, looking at her location I could see her local office was the one he was travelling further to go to 🙄

Decided he wanted to take up fishing. I thought it was odd at the time, especially as he rebuffed his Dad’s (who was a keen fisherman) repeated offers to help him and go together. He’d leave in the morning and come back really late at night. It was also suss as he was a faddy person, never keeping up with a new hobby for long, but he was oddly devoted to his new thing every weekend. Then he really overplayed it by saying he was going to go after work (it was March so dark early and cold) so I put a sandwich in his kitbag, right on the top. When he got home I made an excuse to go to garage and sure as shit, the sandwich was right there on top and nothing in the bag had moved. I asked him if he’d eaten anything and he said he’d called in at McDonalds as he forgot to take any food. Idiot 😂

He also started being a total and complete arse. He’d checked out I think and was resentful of me for existing. It suited him to paint me in a bad way as it justified his cheating. Plus if he invented a row it meant he could storm out and “go fishing” 😂

We broke up and as shit as it was to go through, I’ve been with a lovely man the last 12 years and been way happier than ex-H would ever have made me. I’d urge everyone never to stay with a cheater. There’ll be reasons to try and make it work of course, but it’s all the lies and you’ll live in mistrust when you could LTB and brighten your future. Just my thoughts x

It’s so embarrassing reading all of these posts as mine did most of these things. He was a financial advisor so he could plausibly cover it all with ‘My work is of a sensitive financial nature’. His mobile/computer were password protected ‘because he was dealing with peoples finances so was a matter of data protection’. He had to see clients in the evening when they were home from work. Some of his clients were a couple of hours away so perfectly plausible that he finished a visit at 11 in the evening then had to drive home (I actually met some and went for meals at their houses so know this was true). He just had many more fictitious clients like this! His phone was turned off most of the time when he was out because he was clients houses and needed to give them his 100% attention and not be distracted by phone calls. He walked away to take calls out of earshot because of ‘data protection’. I had my suspicions at times but his responses were was always plausible. I couldn’t disprove any of it. I was stuck at home with children with no car and no mobile, so couldn’t do anything to ‘catch him out’. Mobiles and social media were in their infancy back then. It turned out he had many many OW’s throughout our 26 year relationship. Many of my ‘friends’ knew but didn’t say anything. It’s been 15 years but I still feel nauseous when I think back on how duped I was and for so long.

all I can say OP is take note of all that PP’s are saying and gather evidence if you have even the slightest suspicions. When I look back, I can matchup every time I was suspicious with eventual evidence of his infidelity. The gut knows. I echo all those saying listen to your gut. Casually ask questions and note the answer and the details. Ask him again another time to see if his stories match. They often forget which lies they told or the deep details. When children are involved I don’t believe it’s enough to break up a child’s world over suspicions alone. Nowadays it’s easier to catch them out in the digital age if you are shrewd enough. Be smart and diligent. Get absolute undeniable evidence then kick the b*stard to f%ck!

ExP had more nights out with work colleagues, wanted to get fit, bought new clothes, was more distant with me. Something didn't feel right to me, but wasn't sure ExP was having an affair. I looked through his credit card bill - more in the expectation there wouldn't be any evidence and found a charge for odeon cinema in central london - I looked up the ticket price and the charge was equal to the cost of two tickets. I confronted him and the blood drained out of his face. He denied it 🙄