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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

Original poster

condom in pocket. We're here again.

331 replies

worriedbee · 16/01/2011 17:40

I found a condom in DP's pocket while doing the washing the yesterday. Done some snooping and came up with a text message in his phone "Yeah I had a great time x"

The rest of the texts are deleted.
Not great is it.

Possible mitigating factors:

  • the condom is one of ours. We have just been away - perhaps he picked it to take away.
  • there were some lying about (our room in a tip with stuff after returning after holiday!) perhaps he picked it up because it was lying about.
  • he has lots of friends, male and female, the text could be innocent I guess
  • he always deletes his texts every so often (phone old and crap so not much memory)
  • he's not hiding his phone from me or acting suspicious in any other way

Still, really not great is it.

We've been getting on really well. I know that's no indication of fidelity.

We've been here before. Bugger. Sad

Last time I suspected cheating, after much soul searching I challenged him, and ended up feeling completely reassured. I don't feel I can challenge him this time. If I'm going to challenge him again I would need solid proof I think.

OP posts:
WhenwillIfeelnormal · 22/01/2011 16:28

I think math is right. When I first queried on your thread what motivated your P to let you find a condom in his trouser pocket, only 6 months after you'd had a major showdown about trust and fidelity, your answer was that he was stupid, not cruel or contemptuous.

It seems you are ignoring what everyone is telling you, based not just on their experience of infidelity, but their experience of how someone behaves when s/he genuinely loves another person and cares about their wellbeing and happiness.

When there is genuine love, there is horror and concern that one's actions have caused mistrust and pain. That's where your P should have been in July, when you last confronted him and he managed to convince you that your fears were groundless. Instead, 6 months later you are still not sure of his feelings for you and he is "absent-mindedly" carrying condoms around and leaving them for you to find.

I don't think that's stupidity and neither do I summise that he must be especially unhappy in his relationship with you, to do this. I don't imagine he respects you very much, because he knows by now that you have ignored yet more damning evidence that he left for you to find.

It's just so sad worriedbee to see an intelligent, resourceful woman reduced to being a gaslit mass of insecurities and mistrust, when you have so many other options in life. That you have such low expectations of love and how that translates into actions.

After all the posts on this thread, I think the biggest realisation you have yet to make is that this man doesn't love you. Love isn't leaving trails of suspicion, when he knew you had trust issues, caused at the very start of the relationship when he went out in the hope of finding an alternative sex partner. Love isn't seeing his partner in a tearful mess last summer and doing nothing about it since, except to leave more doubt and suspicion.

This is the realisation I want you to make more than any other.

cabbageroses · 22/01/2011 17:13

I think the previous 2 posts from WWIFN and CS are unbelievably cruel.

To make the assumption that someone's partner does not love them on 3rd party online evidence is unacceptable.

None of us knows what this man feels.

None of us knows whether the condom was "planted" as WWIFN suggests.

It could be an oversight- it could have been picked up and stuffed there after they got back from hols and they were lying around. (Though I do think it's not too likely.)

I just don't think it is right to project your feelings onto the OP and tell her categorically that her DP does not love or respect her.

You may extrapolate that from your own life experience if your partner behaved the same way- but you are not her, or her DP.

I can see why you are saying he mustn't love her- as you are frustrated at her indecisiveness- but it won't actually help her.

The truth is- none of here know the truth!
Armchair detectives all of us.

I think all the OP can do is to ask him- and not be afraid of his reaction- or bide her time until something happens which it will if he is being unfaithful.

If she does the latter I cannot believe he will not sense her withdrawal from the relationship, or sense something is wrong, so the outcome- i.e.talking- will come anyway.

My personal approach would have been not to wash the trousers- and show him what I had found. But, too late for that now.

What are you feeling now OP?

WhenwillIfeelnormal · 22/01/2011 18:04

cabbagerroses I attach no value to your opinions, but I would review your own posting history to look for evidence of unnecessary spite and cruelty, under both your current name and your former guise.

And it is precisely because of my own story that I can see that a person who has lost the trust and faith of his partner, would do anything to ensure that trust is restored - if that is, he loves his partner deeply and cares for her wellbeing. It is therefore the opposite of projecting - and more about noticing the stark contrasts in behaviour.

perfumedlife · 22/01/2011 18:04

She isn't prepared to ask him CR

FortunateHamster · 22/01/2011 18:12

OP I hope you are doing ok.

I think that generally people here want you to be fine and for the situation to turn out well - it's just hard to see how with the condom carrying.

Of course no one here can know what your partner is thinking or have a clear picture of him from a few words on a screen, but they can offer advice from experience and another perspective. They might be wrong - but that doesn't mean they're having a go at you!

If I spent some time looking for evidence and couldn't get anywhere, I think I'd have to straight out ask after a while. Your partner may not be trying to hurt you, but if they were thinking of you more, they wouldn't be carrying condoms around at all (whether innocently or not).

cabbageroses · 22/01/2011 18:19

WWIFN- if you are so aware of everyone's posting history and "guises"- as you seem to think you are- then I can only suggest you spnd more time with your own nearest and dearest and less time on MN! You are going to an awful lot of effort.

You should remember too that what you post are only your opinions - you are no more right than anyone, simply because of your own experiences.

What I said was that your statement that he doesn't love her is misguided, simply because you do not know the man at all, or what he feels . His behaviour may not appear loving, but that's your take on it, and you know nothing of what he is feeling.

CockneySparra · 22/01/2011 18:32

My intention is not to be cruel to the OP or to presume I know whether the OP's husband loves her not, based on a few posts on a website. I apologise if it comes across in that way.

But the OP's own words scream at me that her husband may well have dishonourable intentions, and the fact that she is somehow putting this on herself, blaming herself, tip-toeing around him in case he gets upset wit her 'accusations' - it is upsetting. She deserves more. Anybody would.

mummery · 22/01/2011 19:35

Love can be proved or disproved. You're as well saying "I love my partner but I'm screwing around" as you are saying "I love my dog but I kick it every now and then".

LisamumtoJake · 22/01/2011 19:52

I haven't commented until now on this, but have been reading the posts, and i'm sorry to hear this bee, but i have to agree that this man, isn't being the kindest to you. I would have to ask myself if i could keep handling this happening, this isn't the first time for you, and whether he is or isn't is irrelevant now, he had intent the first time, and isn't doing enough to quash any fears you have/had!?

I wouldn't like to be you, but i would be seriously considering why i am now still with him, i just couldn't handle having these suspicions and finding condoms or what not all the time.

I don't know how you can do it, all my sympathies are with you though, cause i know it's not easy to do!!

mathanxiety · 22/01/2011 22:29

Mummery, great posts.

Wannabe, if you had done something that hurt your H considerably, and he had told you how hurt he was, how horrible he felt when you did that thing, would you do it again two more times, each time just as he was beginning to feel confident and secure that you were not going to hurt him again?

What are you afraid of?

Original poster
worriedbee · 23/01/2011 01:06

cabbageroses thanks, someone is talking sense!

There is a lot of projection going on here IMO. e.g.

"she is somehow putting this on herself, blaming herself," I am not blaming myself for anything!

OP posts:
Original poster
worriedbee · 23/01/2011 01:09

"What are you feeling now OP?" Not much tbh. Tired, a little tipsy and ready for bed.

OP posts:
Original poster
worriedbee · 23/01/2011 01:12

"You'll just keep quite in case he thinks you are being unreasonable."

No, I am not keeping quiet in case he thinks I am being unreasonable. You're projecting again.

I am keeping quiet because I want to see what I can find out.

OP posts:
Karia · 23/01/2011 02:43

WB - (sorry have read the last 5 pages quickly!) - are you on any other contraception besides condoms? If not, could you start some? I'm thinking along the lines of you telling DH "hooray, we don't need condoms any more!" and you chucking the ones you have out? So you know if you find them again that they are definitely NOT yours?

Have you managed to look in his work bag to see if the condom is still there?

Hope you're ok.

Karia · 23/01/2011 02:44

Wow, 5 lines and 5 questions. I need to sleep! Grin

mathanxiety · 23/01/2011 03:12

It's going to take you walking in on him with some floozy apparently.

Then what?

CockneySparra · 23/01/2011 08:41

Projection? Hmm

Worriedbee - I am happily married and have never had any reason to suspect my DH of cheating on me. However, if I found a condom in his pocket, I would ask him straight out what it was there for. Why wouldn't I? We are married and I have a right to know.

If my husband told me he had gone to a work do with the intention of shagging a colleague, but (good bloke that he is) had decided at the last minute not to (or perhaps he got knocked back? hmmm), he wouldn't be my husband any more. That isn't a marriage, imo.

It seems you don't really want to face up to this situation and have just come on to MN for some hand holding, which I'm afraid I cannot provide you with. But I'm sure others will.

CockneySparra · 23/01/2011 08:42

p.s. do you understand what 'projecting' means? Because from your frequent usage of it on this thread, I think you might have misunderstood its meaning.

sungirltan · 23/01/2011 18:33

wwifn is right though.

hymie · 01/03/2011 06:04

Was this ever resolved ?

Boobz · 01/03/2011 08:32

I want to know too! I was in the minority camp, and really hope I'm right.

Speckledeggy · 01/03/2011 19:10

I haven't read the whole of this thread but there is so much great advice from WWIFN, AF, Mummery, etc.

WB, you need to listen to these ladies. They speak a lot of sense. I only wish I had access to MN when I was going through the same thing as you with my XP. I hope you don't end up in the sorry state I did - probably the worst time of my life.

PeterAndreForPM · 01/03/2011 20:12

it is an old thread, speckledeggy

PeterAndreForPM · 01/03/2011 20:14

alhough if you would like to give the benefit of your wisdom on this current one, please do

Speckledeggy · 01/03/2011 22:20

It's an old thread with no resolution by the look of it so still current in my book... Hmm

I saw that thread too but will leave the advice to other far wiser souls than me!