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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

it's all such a mess now and I don't know what to do

132 replies

AnAngelWithin · 31/07/2010 09:15

Don't even know why I am posting really. I know there is nothing anyone can do, but I need a rant I suppose.

Anyway, 12 years of marriage, dc5 born 9 weeks ago. Past year has been tough since I was assaulted and put in hospital and with the pregnancy too. DH gradually become more and more distant. Ended up feeling as though he was repulsed by my shape being pregnant. Just got on with it. The past few weeks have been even worse. Then all of a sudden, a few days ago, DH is all over me. Really weird. He had been texting so much the past few months and using up all the credit on his phone that I checked his phone records, and there was one number on there that was text over and over and over. I confronted him and he said it was a mate from work. Gave him the benefit of the doubt. Then when he started trying to be all over me he almost made himself look more suspicious to me.

Anyway yesterday, he left his phone at home. He had a lock on it. So I took the sim out and put it in mine. Wrong I know, and to be honest I wish I hadn't. Messages on the sim showed up on my phone, saying things like 'we couldn't get round that corner quick enough......' and 'how can you still want me after what happened on thursday....' and 'what if we had got caught...' I felt sick and my legs collapsed from under me reading them. So I rang his work and said 'i know whats going on, you've been rumbled'...silence...'don't bother coming home'.... he asked what i meant and I told him what I had found and he said that he would come home and explain. Told him not to bother. 2 hours later (he works 4 miles away) He came back and at first he was just really cross that I had looked at his phone. I told him I only did it cos I had good reason and that I was right. He said did the usual 'it's not what you think' routine. Then he tried to turn it on me saying he's been miserable since I was assaulted cos the woman who did it went to him and said i was having an affair with her husband (which i swear on my kids lives, fathers grave and anything else i cherish that I haven't and wouldn't. He is a slimey b&%$d and I wouldn't even look at him let alone anything else) So in a way I think he was trying to justify his actions. He left after half an hour and went back to work. Came back after work. In the end he said that it was just someone he had met through work and they got chatting and started texting. Then he said it started getting 'silly' (he wouldn't explain what he meant by 'silly') so he stopped it. He ended it last week apparently before it got 'too serious' Yet I have just looked at his phone records again and he was still texting her all day on wednesday when he was off work and supposed to be with me and the kids and while I was in hospital with our baby having her hips scanned.

I asked him what she meant by the things she said in her texts, and he just kept saying 'i don't know I can't remember, my heads messed up and I've got so much going on right now' I said 'how would i know...you don't talk to me, you talk to HER' He said it was just someone to talk to. I asked him so many time to talk to me over the past year and he wouldn't. Obviously didn't need to if he had someone else to talk to. Shes some posh business woman who is a bit older than him. Everything I am not. I don't know what to believe. He asked if he could come back after work today and talk things through which I agreed to cos at the end of the day we have got 5 kids to consider, and even now I still stand by what I have always said in that I would never stop him seeing the kids if anything happened between us (unless it was something totally unforgivable, violence etc) and he knows that.

To me, the things I read aren't the sort of things you just text, it sounds like more happened. He said he hardly sees her cos she lives ages away and she only goes to his work now and again. But he did admit that he felt they were getting closer but he realised he loved me and ended it cos he didn't want it to 'get too far'

I said that he must have been attracted to her in the first place to exchange numbers. He said he wasn't and they were just friends and it looked like it was developing into something else so he stopped it. Apparently he's been texting her for over a year, so basically while we were trying to concieve dd3

I just don't know what to do to be honest. I do love him, and part of me can't imagine a life without him, but there is no way on this planet I will ever trust him again, and I think that once the trust has gone, theres no real base for a relationship. Before we got married he 'kissed' a friend of mine at a party after sending me home in a taxi cos i was a little tipsy. It was 'just a kiss' but the trust started to crumble then really I suppose. Hindsight eh!?

OP posts:
wouldliketoknow · 12/08/2010 16:00

glad to see you're coping. big hugs to you.

AnAngelWithin · 12/08/2010 16:34

If I am honest...deep down...I'm not coping....I'm just putting on a brave face, especially with the kids around Sad

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DancingThroughLife · 12/08/2010 17:30

Trust your instincts. You knew that something wasn't quite right, and worked it out. Now you need to keep listening to them. You will find it so hard to start. And there won't be a single thing he can do to make it just go away. But over time, you'll 'forget' for longer and longer each time, then you won't feel quite as bad when you remember again.

But you're doing so well to get things going in the right direction. Keep on talking to each other and going on days out. As time goes on, see if you can get someone to watch the kids so you can go to the cinema or something together.

Eventually the trust will come back. It did for me. Whatever it was that made me think there was something not quite right now makes me think he's not doing it anymore. Actually, I have been feeling funny again since DD was born but I think that's because DH "said" he's quit smoking and I suspect he still has a crafty one now and then, but that's another story Smile

But don't worry. It will get better. Just keep talking xx

wouldliketoknow · 12/08/2010 18:34

i think ocasionally smoking in secret, you can forgetSmile, wish him well, quitting is hard

angel, i think you are coping as well as can be expected, don't be hard on yourself

DancingThroughLife · 12/08/2010 20:00

Totally agree. It was easy for me - I went totally off it before I even found out I was pregnant, but he's been a smoker for a long time. I don't give him a hard time for it.

And yes, don't be hard on yourself Angel. Take it a little bit at a time.

AnAngelWithin · 15/08/2010 08:56

lack of sleep last night leaving me more teary than usual Sad Looked at dd3 as she was waking up this morning in my arms and she gave me the most lovely smile. I just burst out crying. Why can't life just be easy!?

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AnAngelWithin · 22/10/2010 14:36

so today..while i went into the shed to look for some more screws to fix a cabinet with...i find a phone sock thing...in it is the end off a mobile phone box with the imei number on it...an empty sim packet and a top up swipe card (scratched so has been used) The phone is a different make to the one I know he has got.... he has been keeping in touch with her through another phone hasn't he?! Sad Sad Sad

OP posts:
AllOverIt · 22/10/2010 14:56

Is the number on the swipe card Angel?

AnAngelWithin · 22/10/2010 20:00

no its not

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AllOverIt · 22/10/2010 20:16

I was going to suggest ringing it with a withheld number, but obviously you can't.

I guess just confront him with it and see what he says.

How have the two of you be getting on recently?

AnAngelWithin · 23/10/2010 08:28

Not too well, but I have been trying so hard to put everything behind us. For a few weeks he seemed ok, almost the man I originally fell in love with, but the trust was gone. Now, he is just the same as he was before....when he was texting her before

He came home and he knew I was upset. I couldn't hide it, I was shaking so much. I just put what I had found down on the counter and asked him if he could explain that to me... his face dropped and he looked cross. He asked what it was...I told him he knew what it was... he said it must have been from an old phone. I said it wasn't becauce I checked what the model looked like online and it wasn't any of the phones he had ever had and it was only a cheap £20 handset. (seeing as I have control of the money now our debts are cleared which he ran up, he would have had to scrimp around for it) 2 hours later he came up with the lamest excuse....that he might have found it at work... so WHY did he bring it home then instead of handing it in?! Then I got the silent treatment. He started just going about doing his usual stuff, his obsessive exersizing etc. I asked him if he was even going to try and save our marriage. He said 'fuck everything...it's all gone pear shaped..I'm not going to chase you' Shock WTF?!?! It's not about chasing me!!! It's about actually looking like you give a dam!!

So then I told him that I wanted him to leave, that I need time and space and that when I got up in the morning I didn't want him to be here. I got up at 4am with the baby and he wasn't here. But his car was still on the drive. I think he was sleeping in it. So I text him (stupid I know) telling him that I was really upset. That in my heart, I now know our marriage is over. That when it first happened it was my head telling me to let go but my heart kept pulling me back to him. When I came down this morning and saw he wasn't here, for the first time ever (like when we have just rowed before) my heart didn't sink wondering where he was. Then when I got up again at 7 the car was gone.

He text back to say he wanted to talk about things (which regardless of the outcome we need to do seeing as there are kids involved)

OP posts:
Tootlesmummy · 23/10/2010 08:52

Angel I'm so sorry.

AnAngelWithin · 23/10/2010 08:58

i just wish he was sorry. Sad

what the hell have I done that is so wrong to make him do this to me.

I have just looked and the stuff I found has disappeared...I guess he has taken it with him. I have made a note of all the numbers anyway. Not that I can do anything with them I daresay.

OP posts:
Tootlesmummy · 23/10/2010 09:03

He is an idiot and he doesn't deserve you or your children.

I wouldn't take his apology anyway, I would ask him outright he is still seeing the OW and trust your instincts. If you think he is lying then he probably is so get rid.

You have 5 children together but you're worth more than what he is giving you and you can be happy without him. It will just take a bit of time.

Stay strong. Sending hugs.

AllOverIt · 23/10/2010 11:19

God - so sorry Angel. What an arse. He doesn't deserve you.

I know you don't want to think that far ahead, but there are lovely blokes out there who don't behave like this.

Eve34 · 23/10/2010 11:55

Angel I can't read and not offer my support. My DP was shagging some tart for about 18 months - like you different things would come to light, not add up etc. When questioned he was a shit - blaming me, lies etc. Made me think I was going mad.

Finally this year I had enough and he left and went to her. And I was strong, encouraged him to work on the new relationship as it was clearly important to him.

The grass wasn't greener - he soon realised that. It has taken time to get things back on track - I should of just left things but my family is important to me, I wanted us to work together.

It is not easy. I don't trust him for 1 min. I let go I had to and it showed him I was stronger than he thought.

That is a lot of waffle - you deserve better. Be strong and see where things are in a month or 2 time.

WhenwillIfeelnormal · 23/10/2010 12:07

Angel the problem with this is that he was having a full-blown affair when all this came to light in the summer. The lies he told then were so ludicrous and he has behaved much the same as he did before, with this new discovery, blurting out even more absurd lies and then running away rather than facing the music. Remember he took 2 hours the first time to come home and face you? 2 hours to concoct an incredible tale of a woman he had never met beyond the initial meeting a year previously, despite recent texts proving beyond doubt that they had been in physical contact only that week?

Now after the horrible year you had on the run-up to this and of course the major life-change of giving birth, I can understand why you desperately wanted to believe the unbelievable, but it never works. Even if you hadn't found the spare phone paraphernalia, when you came out of the fug of childbirth, you would have always had that nagging doubt and inner voice telling you that you were fed a pack of lies.

I always think that the discovery that helps someone to finally confront, should actually be celebrated. You might have gone on wondering and bargaining away the truth. Not now, surely?

You probably won't ever get the whole truth from him, because lying is second-nature to him. Stand firm this time and start speaking to people in RL who will echo what we were all saying in the summer. I have the feeling that if someone says this to you face-to-face, it will have more impact.

ScaryFucker · 23/10/2010 12:25

Angel, I am very sorry but your relationship with him, as your romantic partner is over in it's current form.

clam · 23/10/2010 13:43

He's a shite liar.

perfumedlife · 23/10/2010 13:49

Everything wwifn says is spot on.

I think you now need to get angry op. I can understand why you maybe kept a lid on things months ago, what with a new baby and four other kids. But that's precisely why you do need to get angry now. He has a wife and five kids, one of whom was not even born when he started this affair.

Clearly he has absolutely no sense of honour or responsibility. That is a large family, a large commitment and he is riding rough shod over it and you. He is not even trying to lie or be apologetic. I cannot believe his attitude is " Fuck you, not chasing you"

That says it all really. You would be better off alone, if that's all he is prepared to give you. It won't be easy but it will be a damn sight better for your soul, and your kids, if you toss out this malevolent speciman.

ScaryFucker · 23/10/2010 13:58

clam, and a shite partner

would it better if he was a more accomplished liar ?

AnAngelWithin · 23/10/2010 17:16

i text him saying to come here tonight and talk and sort things once and for all. Though to be honest, as far as I am concerned I don't see any other choice other than to call it a day...

OP posts:
WhenwillIfeelnormal · 23/10/2010 17:38

I sincerely hope you mean that, Angel, but do update what ever the outcome.

AllOverIt · 24/10/2010 15:40

How did it go Angel?

AnAngelWithin · 24/10/2010 15:57

we talked. ended up shouting. probably saying things we shouldn't have. In the end I told him that I really need space. I told him that I can't see a way through all this. I will never trust him ever again. Counselling was mentioned but I'm not sure if it is too late... he rang earlier to say he is going to go stay with a family member for the next week til he can find somewhere else.

So I suppose that's that really. Apart from having to tell the kids later when he comes to get his stuff.....

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