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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

Did my husband cheat on me?

117 replies

TinyAK · 13/01/2011 02:11

I've just returned home from a 2 week holiday without my husband. When logging into my facebook account yesterday evening on my husband's laptop another person's email address popped up in the login box. I'd never heard this person's name before so I asked my husband who he/she was (the name could be a female or male). He said he didn't know this person. I asked him if anybody had been in our house when I was away and he said no. He said that it must be some kind of spam so I dropped the issue.

The thing is when I first came home I had this weird sense that somebody had been there, also there was a pile of my clothes for ironing that had been very neatly folded in the spare room. In nearly six years of marriage my husband has never ever folded my clothes like that.

Would really appreciate some advice especially on the facebook part.

Thanks!

OP posts:
AllmyExsLiveinTexas · 13/01/2011 10:03

Personally, I would be quite concerned about the folded clothes (although the Facebook issues sound a bit dodgy too, IMHO).

When my H confessed to an affair in September last year, I instantly remembered back to an occasion about two months earlier, where he came in very late one Friday night/Saturday morning and put his shirt straight in to the washing basket. In over 20 years of marriage, he has NEVER done this. Normally, his clothes are left in a pile on the floor, whether clean or dirty, waiting for the laundry fairy to pick them up.

Oh how I wish I'd dug that shirt out before I washed it and checked for 'evidence', but I didn't.... I foolishly just forgot all about it. I then endured another two months of unpleasant and odd behaviour from my H before his guilty conscience got the better of him.

OP, I truly hope that your suspicions are unfounded and you don't end up where I am now.

KangarooCaught · 13/01/2011 10:17

There is no way a OW comes into your house and neatly folds your clothes.

Is it possible you folded them two weeks ago whilst sorting clothes to go on holiday?
That dh did?
Does your DM or MIL live near by & popped in to help?

What hb has been doing on the computer though, dunno.

CabbagefromaBaby · 13/01/2011 10:20

they might. Really an OW might do this sort of thing, it has been known.

madonnawhore · 13/01/2011 10:23

If your H has been cheating, he is the worst cheater ever. It's so careless and obvious, I'm almost inclined to believe no man who cheated on his wife while she was on holiday could possibly be so clumsy about covering his tracks.

Unless on some level he wants to get caught?

Does searching either of the email addresses in google bring up any results? They might have a linkedin profile or something that would come up in a search.

usernamechanged345 · 13/01/2011 10:27

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

sorryimlate · 13/01/2011 10:29

Sorry to buck the trend a little but I don't think I'd be so worried about this. He's probably been looking at a lot of porn while you were away, being a total slob and then had a panicked mega tidy, overcompensated by either folding the clothes himself or by paying Johnson's cleaners or someone to do it, then delete internet history quick quick quick before you came home. (I do this when I have been looking at naughty stuff Grin.

I think you seem more concerned by the fact that your relationship is not so great... In which case if you do think he'd be tempted to do something you need to decide if you are prepared to work on it or not.

I dunno about the facebook thing - people do log in on other people's accounts all the time, and people open separate accounts so they can, like snares said, have cybersex (which I know isn't very nice but it's probably better than someone being in the house isn't it?), spy on someone (my friend has an entire account for this purpose, and I think she's generally a nice person despite this!!) etc etc. I very much doubt the clothes and the facebook thing are at all related.

CabbagefromaBaby · 13/01/2011 10:30

the clothes thing, well, as far as reasoning goes it is a sort of power thing.

In the same way that the OW wants to feel she provides for the MM emotionally or sexually, she might take this further and get a kick out of providing for him in a practical sense also - so doing random housework while they are in the house, perhaps talking or whatever, makes her feel important and relevant.

It's not malicious, just sort of seems like part of the relationship in the way that she might make him a cup of tea or wash his socks when he forgets them.

Sorry. I know that's a horrible thought.

coppertop · 13/01/2011 10:35

It sounds as though he might have been trying to get into someone else's FB account. When their 'name e-mail' didn't work he tried adding their year of birth. He's too embarrassed to admit to it.

No idea about the clothes though.

LoopyLoopsIsNoLongerFestive · 13/01/2011 10:36

Yes, that's what I thought coppertop.

cumbria81 · 13/01/2011 10:39

I think that your husband has a secret FB account.

I doubt very much that someone else came to your house and folded your clothes; why on earth would they do that, especially if they were your husband's bit on the side?

I guess if he does have a secret account, you have to wonder why?

GandalfyCarawak · 13/01/2011 10:44

I wonder if your husband is trying to hack into someone else's facebook account, and maybe is unsure of their address? It would explain why there are two very similar addresses there.

With the folded laundry, could it be that he was actually making an effort to tidy up because you'd been away iykwim? I know my DH does very little houseowrk when I'm here, but if I go away he maks a hell of a mess and has to have a mammoth clean before I come home, doing things eg folding clothes he wouldn't usually do.

kuckingfunt · 13/01/2011 10:47

It can only one of 3 things:

  1. Somebody has been in your house and logged in their FB account and that is their username.
  1. Your husband has created a fake email address and then a FB account using that name.
  1. He has been trying to get into someone else's FB account and was guessing at the password.

I am not sure about the clothes - maybe, if it was no. 1 then he was trying to hide them out of the way. Or if it was no.2 he feels guilty and has tried to help with something (although this somehow doesn't seem right.

LoopyLoopsIsNoLongerFestive · 13/01/2011 10:55

There have been many times when I've tried to log in to my Fb account and have forgotten the underscore, so two attempts have shown.

Not sure how that helps though.

The clothes could be any number of things.

MooMooFarm · 13/01/2011 10:58

OP I can understand you jumping to conclusions if you're worried about the relationship, but I don't necessarily think what you've found points to an affair.

Firstly, as it's a laptop, even if someone else has used it, it could have been done anywhere, ie at work, in the pub, library...
However, if it was just somebody else innocently using his laptop, surely he would have told you. So maybe as others are saying, he has a 'fake' facebook id, so he can snoop around at other people (a bit sneaky but not as bad as having an affair IMO). Have you tried signing in with the email address you saw? If DH has a password he always uses it might be worth a go just to check...

Re the folded clothes, could it be his mother or something? I cannot think of one reason why another woman would neatly fold up the clothes of the man's wife? So I would say it was either his mum trying to help out a bit, or maybe he spilt something all over them or let the cat pee on them or something, then felt bad and washed/ironed/folded them in a panic. And even if he never does washing, it's not rocked science, anybody could do this if they really wanted to!

Surely the best thing to do is ask outright, on both counts, and take it from there? It sounds like what you need is to talk talk talk to each other anyway.

TinyAK · 13/01/2011 11:01

My goodness. This is turning into a real mystery! Husband's mother lives miles away and there's no way she was here during the holiday period. My husband is Asian so it's really unlikely he would choose a "Western" name as an alter ego, but perhaps. The house is covered in dust so the folded clothes are still weird.

OP posts:
SheWillBeLoved · 13/01/2011 11:04

I think he was trying to hack into someone else's account, wasn't sure of the email, so tried two different ones.

Ask him who this person is, watch his reaction.

MooMooFarm · 13/01/2011 11:05

Well maybe he would choose a western name as an alter-ego to kind of double-bluff it?

And if the rest of the house is covered in dust, maybe it points to him spilling something on your pile of clothes then trying to sort it out?

IIWY, I would try having a fiddle around on the pc with the email address you saw.

MommyMayhem · 13/01/2011 11:06

She did ask him, he said it was "spam".

domeafavour · 13/01/2011 11:06

ok- i vote for either
a cleaner, who folded the clothes and used the computer

or
he has tried to get into someone else's facebook account, guessing their log on details

However I would not rule out the OW folding up the washing.
When I knew an ex was seeing someone as well as me, I purposely did household chores in the hope that she would find out about me. And I left my earrings under the bed.

MommyMayhem · 13/01/2011 11:07

Did you try Dolly's instructions to check what he'd been doing on the PC whilst you were away?

TequilaMockinBird · 13/01/2011 11:08

Can you get into your husbands Facebook account and then do the email search? If this person has blocked you then you won't be able to search for them. It could be that they are on his friends list but you can't see this from your profile, because you've been blocked IYSWIM

domeafavour · 13/01/2011 11:08

I came back from holiday once and my H had changed the bedding.
He has never done it since or before.
He was cheating, wasn't he?

SheWillBeLoved · 13/01/2011 11:15

I just really don't think someone else has been in the house. I think he was just trying to get into someone else's account, and either couldn't remember the correct email, or guess the correct password, and so gave up.

I don't think most women would 'think' to block the wife of somebody they're shagging on FB. Why would they need to block them completely before they've even had contact? A private profile would hide anything you didn't want them to see without blocking.

Also, if somebody had tried to log in, assuming they use that login quite often, why would they forget to add the number part of their address and so have to try again? Unless they're quite dim/were pissed.

I don't think he's shagged someone else. But there's no doubt that he is lying to you about this email address, the question is why.

You need to tell him that you aren't a computer illiterate twat, you know he is lying to you, and demand some answers before you assume the worst of him.

coppertop · 13/01/2011 11:17

In dh's previous job he saw a lot of offices where people were still writing their passwords on post-it notes and sticking them to their monitor so that they didn't forget them. This was back before the days of FB but I imagine it would be tempting to see if the same password was being used for personal stuff as well as office-related things.

Could this be a possibility?

Fenugreek · 13/01/2011 11:28

The clothes are a red herring. They got knocked off and whoever did it folded them back. You probably did it yourself. Or he did.

The email thing is because he has been spending time in chat rooms or dating sites for cheap online thrills while you were away.

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