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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

Don't you trust me?

45 replies

Millington · 20/07/2011 20:44

What can you say to this question when you desperately want to trust the person but have some suspisions sneaking in?

I think I have found some message to DP from another woman. That is a whole other story. But when I spoke to him about it he had an explaination and asked;

"Don't you trust me?"

Now of course I want to trust him, anything like this would be completely out of character and totally out of the blue, but what if it's true?

How can I say; "yes, I trust you but trust doesn't mean blindly accepting anything that happens, and I want to find out a bit more about this?"

Does "Don't you trust me?" always = guilty?

OP posts:
Millington · 21/07/2011 17:17

He is maintaining that she randomly added him on facebook, got chatting, it got dirty, asked him to go on webcam, it was just the once.

:( :( :( :( :(

He lied last night to 'protect' our relationship.

He has been lying around on the sofa all day feeling sorry for himself.

OP posts:
Fairenuff · 21/07/2011 17:22

Didn't fastweb just predict this I also know there is a good chance he will try and convince you that he didn't seek this out

fastweb · 21/07/2011 17:23

He is maintaining that she randomly added him on facebook, got chatting, it got dirty, asked him to go on webcam, it was just the once.

Then why was she concerned he would not remember her ? You'd expect to be remembered for webcam sex when it happened in a non webcam sex context.

If you want to protect your relationship or your partner then you do that with honesty, walking away from temptation and putting their need not to be betrayed before your willy's desire for cheapo fun.

He is not lying to protect anything other than his own have cake, eat it and then make trifle out of it status.

fastweb · 21/07/2011 17:31

He has been lying around on the sofa all day feeling sorry for himself.

Oh poor him. It must be hard to be him, suffering so. (eyes rolling so far back in my head I am in danger of them falling into my brain)

Didn't occur to him to run around and get everything in the house done (dinner etc) so you didn't come home after a terrible day at work, exhausted and shell shocked, only to be faced with more stuff to do before you could fall over and cry ?

Love can you call you mum, sister, cousin, really good friend ? Doesn't' matter if he hears, make it as private as you can for your sake, but don't stress if you can't be totally unheard. You could do with a friendly voice and telling somebody close helps take away the surreal edge from it all. Not to mention at least one person making you the priority, cos even today of all days he doesn't seem able to manage that.

Millington · 21/07/2011 17:39

I know, fastweb, I did say to him something about showing me how serious he was about our relationship and wanting to move on and he said 'what shall I do?' !! I felt like saying 'well the housework would've been nice... and a shower wouldn't have gone amiss!'

I am going to get a bath now. I am meant to be going out on a works night out- meal and a few drinks (prearranged). Can't decide whether to still go.

The OW's (feel awful giving her some sort of title) mobile number was on one of the messages. He says she gave it to him but he never gave her his and never used hers :( but the question is- what if anything should I do with it? Try to get in touch to find out more, or just delete?

OP posts:
fastweb · 21/07/2011 17:39

In fact if he is going to lie there being a lump of self absorbedness, is there someplace you can go for a pair of arms that will hold you and be very genuine in their regret this has happened to you ?

Family ? Friend ? please say there is somebody near you who will hold you tight and let you have a little time of feeling supported ?

Fairenuff · 21/07/2011 17:40

Tell him to go and lie on someone's sofa until he's ready to man-up and be truthful about his affair.

fastweb · 21/07/2011 19:31

Can't decide whether to still go.

Go out love. Don't stay in the house if he is just going to lie there and expect you to make all the running in clearing up his mess.

ry to get in touch to find out more, or just delete?

Write it on a bit of paper for checking purposes. It is going to be a very long time until you don't feel the need to check his phone and internet activity. If that number pops up again ...well that is something you'll be interested in. The Sherlock Holmes stage is very long and very wearing, a little titbit of info like that can help you feel like you have something in your bag of tricks cos you have some idea of what kind of clues you are looking for.

But don't call her, she isn't going to tell you the truth love, she'll just be looking for the fastest way to get out of an uncomfortable phone call. She might lash out in annoyance or self defense and you have had enough of a kicking for the moment.

WouldLikeToUnderstand · 21/07/2011 19:33

Make sure you write down the number and then check his phone bill - at least that will show you whether he's lying about that too.

So sorry for you. It would be a deal breaker for me but you have to think through what you want. I would ask him to leave for a few days, get your best RL friend round, talk it through with her (and have some wine if you're that way inclined).

fastweb · 21/07/2011 20:10

You also might want to enlist the help of a few sympathetic friends to call any numbers you find on his phone that you don't recognize.

I say few rather than one, because it is too much to expect one person to keep doing all the time. They can start to feel greeby and uncomfortable, they'll take that initially for your sake, but it can start to feel like too much for them and if you don't have back ups they might start to withdraw from you.

If you are interested there are spy programmes that will monitor his internet usage, literally recording every keystroke. That works until he notices it and then gets all possessive about his computer. When that happens you can always get your friends to set him a "honey trap", in say not less than 6 weeks time, once he has lowered his guard a bit, if your gut is still not happy with what you have been told.

The above might seem surreal to you at the minute, but the reality is that the number of cheated on people who have been given the whole truth, nothing but the truth, every scrap of truth, without any reworking and omissions to minimize what happened and show the cheater in the least awful light...are vanishingly rare.

So you are likely to find that you are drip fed info for a while, usually when you make some additional discovery, somebody blabs, or he screws up his story when your gut persuades you to ask him some questions again.

It is the post discovery later revelations that really sets off the Detective phase into hyper drive, and if you can get your support crew ready at this point, you are going to be in a better place to cope with it than if you are left scrabbling around on your own feeling like the world has gone mad.

The initial discovery has high shock value, but the drip feeding can be more traumatic, cos it is hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel and some days you feel like your sanity is being stripped away, one nerve ending at a time. So please, reach out to you most sympathetic friends and family from the start, because you are going to need people ready to prop you up.

big fat hug love

Millington · 21/07/2011 21:02

Am out with work trying not to think about it all. In truth am devastated :( Thank you all for your comments.

OP posts:
fastweb · 21/07/2011 21:11

I'm so glad you went out love. Just being out of the house and away from his prone form is a good thing.

Millington you are my hero, it takes guts and massive amounts of determination to go to work and go out when your whole world just fell apart. Take comfort in that, because your evident strength is going to stand you in very good stead.

Millington · 21/07/2011 23:55

Thank you so much fastweb for all your comments.

I am home again now and he has absolutely broken down in tears, like I have never seen him before. He says the guilt is driving him crazy and he is so sorry etc. I have come up to bed, leaving him sobbing downstairs.

What a mess :(

It tears me up to see him like this, but it's how he has made me feel too.

OP posts:
fastweb · 22/07/2011 07:06

He is sorry. the question is, for what ? Did he cry before you knew ? Or only since he got caught ? I have no doubt he feels like a louse for hurting you, but his greater portion of pity appears to be for himself.

Tears are so easy. So very manipulative and self serving. when done in front of an audience who is then potentially provoked into placing the cryer's feelings on a high plane than their own.

A good cry releases his tension, but adds to yours.

It attempts to perform the role of a wordless confession, you are allowed to see the extent of the guilt, but not know the details so you can make your own judgement as to whether your lines in the sand have been crossed.

It tries to stand as action of contrition but costs almost nothing compared to being utterly upfront and honest about what happened, without being asked.

It puts you on eggshells, will further questions or evident hurt on your part cause HIM pain ? Which makes any further questioning, or evidence of your hurt, seem indelicate or insensitive on your part.

It is the refuge of a child, a good cry, tell mummy I am sorry and all my bad feelings just miraculously go away, never mind about mummy whose instincts force her to priorities the infantile one- her feelings are not the point.

A man who never cries is not unaware of the impact his most volatile tears will have. So it needs to be asked, to what extent are they being uses as a tool to dig oneself out of a hole ?

You are doing so much better than most. You walked upstairs and left him to it. You are able to remember that this is not not your doing and your feelings are not the secondary concern here.

Which means you are going to be fine, because you will protect yourself from banal manipulations of emotions.

I'm not going anywhere love, and I promise I will never tell you what to do. I'll happily play devil's advocate and shine a light on the more typical tricks and slights of hand (tongue) you so often see performed in this kind of context. But at no point will I ever ask you to take my word for anything. It is food for thought, your say, your interpretation is the only one that counts. As long as you need to talk and see what is happening in a more objective light, I'll be on the thread.

HappyWoman · 22/07/2011 07:48

You did so well to go out and you really dont know your own strength.
You will be fine - it just does not feel like that right now.

He is crying because he was found out - the guilt he is feeling would surely have been there yesterday or the day before - but only now he cannot control it.
I say control because he is used to being in control of it and now he is not he does not like it one bit.

Is he controlling in any other ways?

My h had an affair and during conselling we both came to the conclusion that he was in fact a very controlling person.
Whilst for a lot of our marriage i allowed that to happen and thought i was happy i also discovered i needed to take control of more of my life.

You cant make this better for him only he can do that. And really if he asks you how he can make it better for you he is showing that he is only 'changing' because you want him to not because he wants to.

My h is like a different man now and life is so much better but it took me emotionally detaching myself from him and taking control of my life for us both to change.

He really does need to seek advice from elsewhere and not you - and then when you can see how/if he changes then you can make some decisions. He is trying to control you by asking you for help and crying to you.

Do go and seek some legal advice - very scary but worth every penny I spent. It took the fear out of a lot of things for me.

Give yourself some little treats now too - a nice bath or some beauty treats are good.

Dont let him bully you to do anything until you feel ready

Wishing you lots of strength.

fastweb · 22/07/2011 07:54

Do go and seek some legal advice - very scary but worth every penny I spent. It took the fear out of a lot of things for me.

Seconded. With knobs on.

It really is not an act of dropping the guillotine on your relationship, it is merely making sure you are forewarned and forearmed. Think of it as a vaccination,not an amputation, it is nothing more than a preventative measure against being caught on the hop.

Well worth thinking about as something to be put in priority position on your to do list.

The thing is love, how this turns out does not depend on just you, he could turn around and call it quits without you ever seeing that coming.

So regardless of what right now you want from the future of the realtionship, you would be so much better of if you knew what your legal postition was when it came to joint property at least.

Familyguyfan · 22/07/2011 11:24

Millington, I'm so sorry you're going through this. I can't (thankfully) speak from experience so feel free to ignore me, but I don't think I'd care where they met online. He showed his dick to another woman on a webcam. I think that is enough! Honestly, it is entirely up to you what you do but I agree with several other posters that he should move out for a little while and give you space to get your head around this. I would use this time to snoop a bit (it would eat me alive otherwise) and think about whether I wanted to stay with him. It is really down to you. He has done something awful and the decisions on the future lay first and foremost with you. You didn't do anything to deserve this. Just remember that.

NunTheWiser · 22/07/2011 11:35

Whatever information he's giving you now will be the absolute minimum he thinks he can get away with now that you have made your discovery. Remember how this girl was just some random woman who kept trying to be his friend on facebook, that was, until you found his messages.....
I can bet you any money you like that there is way, way more that he is not 'fessing up to because he hasn't been forced to yet.

The tears aren't him being really sorry for what he's done, they're him being really sorry he was caught. Don't you be sorry for him and don't buy the tears. He's worried his relatives and friends will find out he is an internet perv.

Fairenuff · 22/07/2011 11:37

If he is still maintaining it was a 'one off' he's still lying to you.

If he's lying to you then he isn't sorry in the least.

If he's not genuinely sorry, he will do it again, only next time he will cover his tracks a bit better.

Even if you wanted to try again with him, could you live with not knowing what he's done and whether he's still doing it.

By HIS actions, he is destroying your relationship.

This would be a deal breaker for me. Not my choice. His.

fastweb · 22/07/2011 11:46

He's worried his relatives and friends will find out he is an internet perv.

That is actually a very salient point. His image as non perv have been shattered in your eyes (from his perspective), he risks that info hitting a wider audience and being seen as a bit sad and a bit grubby, which must feel utterly horrendous and leave him feeling very exposed.

Not to mention that he probably constructed some kind of internal "self image protecting" camouflage for his behavior in his own eyes, which got ripped off when he was forced to see the act reflected in your eyes.

And it could well be worth examining his motivation to stay with you post discovery.

Is it solely for the sake of being with you ?

Or to a significant degree because he can motivate you to keep quiet about what you discovered, by making it your humiliating, mortifying secret, as much as it is his ?

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