I need to confront him about this....

[wtfisgoingon]

Married 6 years, 2 dds 4 and 2
well, I knew something wasn't right following his return from a work trip in december. Very cold towards me throughout the whole month including christmas.
He had been taking his phone to the toilet and on one occasion left it in there. I had a look. Nothing in tests or calls untowards, but work emails are forwarded to it. Nothing in in-box, clicked on deleted items and saw n email from a woman, got the name but it was updating and disappeared.
Asked him a couple of days later if he was having an affair. He got very angry and said no, and that he had decided to put no effort into the relationship as he didn't think I was, then got verbally aggressive about state of house (bloody untrue as had loads of visitors throughout the month and had run myself ragged).
He came back early from work the following week and logged in to work remotely on our pc. When he went to make a coffee I had a look at his in-box and searched using the woman's name.
Lots of emails came up starting the day after his work trip:
Him: Hi did you get home ok?
Her: Yes, thankyou for the taxi fare
Him: Don't worry, was the least I could do....

Other emails over the course of the following weeks, flirty but not in a big way. She asked what he was doing at christmas, he made no mention of wife and children.

I had a huge go at him the next night (my birthday) saying his behaviour towards me was awful but did not mention the OW (if she is) or the emails.
He has been great since then.
I have been checking and there have been no further emails. She doesn't work with him and lives a long way away.
The thing is, this knowledge is eating me up. I thought I would bide my time and see if I could gather further eveidence, but I feel anxious all the time and swing between anger and sadness.

I need to confront him. I need advice please.
I am sorry, am rushing this post but he's due back from work soon.

Yes, been keen to buy it but was worried about it coming up on my amazon profile. Going to get it. Shirley must be raking it in!

Might I suggest OP that if you treasure your marriage you'll move on from this thread as some of them will be putting things into your mind that weren't there. As you see, some posters had him hung drawn and quartered because of a few quite vague e-mails.

I agree with you, it might have been a brief very light flirtation going on for a period because things had got into a bit of a rut at home.

Go and fix your marriage with your husband.

OP, if everything is sorted now, then why would you worry about your H seeing "Not Just Friends" on your Amazon wishlist ?

You say he understands your concerns

Actually, he should read this book too

Giftwrap it for him, instead of making his bloody sandwiches

Give over, rational OP has already said she got some much-valued guidance from this thread

let her make the choice to listen/nit listen to individual posts...it is patronising to suggest she doesn't have the wit to take what she needs from her own thread

Well if all the man bashers are allowed to post then so am I. I've seen it all before, things twisted to suit and the man always gets a rally raw deal. I've seen one case where a woman who had physically abused her husband being told to flee immediately from the controlling bastard!

Anyway, looks like they have it sorted, leave them to it now.

precisely

Which is what I said in my original post

So you did

ie. you had your say, let others have their say on a public thread

Op wouldn't have posted here if she wanted every post to be exactly the same

I did have my say, you took objection to it. I didn't single anyone out that I objected to.

My opinions are as valid as anyone else's although I'll never understand anyone posting on here looking for real relationship advice. In order to gain real advice surely it requires both sides of the story? Meh, just makes me uncomfortable not a biggy, not my marriage.

I didn't put it in my basket before as didn't want to give the game away ie. show I was suspiscious.
If I'm totally honest, having reflected on it this morning, I can't say that I am 100% sure that nothing happened. I'd give it 95% and keep a close eye on things. There was a minor detail that I am fairly sure he lied about when questioned a couple of weeks ago. I was asking who sponsored the various golf days/events he attends, he named a few companies, i then asked who sponsored x evnt and he paused and named company y.
I asked about this last night, and said why did you say it was company y and not company x. He said he wouldn't have mentioned company y as he doesn't deal with them, i said you did, he said I might have meant a different event. Meanwhile our youngest woke up with a coughing fit on and off and I didn't finish that line of questioning.
To conclude that would mean he was either confused/meant something else originally or that he was gaslighting me last night (eg I didn't say that)
So not entirely happy but there is nothing conclusive and I couldn't hang on any longer.
Think I will have to watch and wait.

Rational - personally I posted here as I needed a sounding board from a selection of people that would post advice that I could take or leave as I felt like I was going to have a bit of breakdown. A little odd that you can't understand why a person would ask for relationship advice on a relationship board. Thanks anyway.
Cheers AF

rational I "took objection" to you lumping a particular group (in your eyes) of posters together ie. the "men bashers" (whatever they are...) and telling the OP to ignore their advice

that is a shitty thing to do

not a problem, wtf

there ya go, rational, take it from the "horse's mouth"

Ok, one last thing.

Op, you're probably not going to get a definitive resolution to your suspicions and continuously quizzing him and snooping through his private email, work email and phone is what will potentially drive a wedge right through your relationship. I had a partner who dis that to me and I binned him for it, snooping's just nasty.

Anyway, you're obviously an old hand at this, the terminology you're using e.g. Gaslighting, is a fave around here. If you think your husband is that much of a cunt leave him, you don't need anyone to tell you that surely?

Rational you are speaking a lot of sense , and balancing out what is often a one sided response here. That can only be a good thing.
WTF, small lies are so poisonous, and I can see why you are not completely convinced .
I hope this works out happily for you and your family.

And so do I.

Well, either he is a generally lovely person who will help out anyone in need, or you nipped a possible affair in the bud. And if he's guilt-tripping the hell out of you then he doesn't sound that generally lovely!

I was never trying to man bash, I was just trying to point out two things: One that sitting on something and not expressing it or discussing it will eat away at you (as I know from personal experience) so, as the title of the thread suggests, the OP should feel supported in her need to find out what it was all about.

And two, I just wanted to express the truism (from counsellors, books on the subject and my own experience on both sides) that NO ONE, not man or woman, admits to an infidelity directly when questioned. That does not mean I am saying that any suspicion means someone is guilty. But that suspicions rarely come from absolutely nowhere unless the OP has a history of jealous an irrational behaviour. That doesn't mean there has actually been infidelity or that it's a huge, marriage threatening issue, but instincts normally have some basis, even if it's just a mild flirtation or attraction, both of which are bound to occur in any long term relationship. If the confronted becomes angry, ill, leaves the room as if to 'buy time' or shuts down the conversation with what seems indecent haste, that is more suspicious. If they are happy to talk it through, bewildered but amused or flattered or open and keen to reassure, that is less suspicious (imagine your own response if wrongly accused). And of course there's much in between.

If things still don't quite add up, as the OP seems to be suggesting, then it's just worth remaining vigilant and keeping an eye on detachment or over the top phone use. I'm not saying 'affair'; people lie and dissemble for all sorts of reasons, maybe even because he knows it looked dodgy even if it wasn't. But it's very very hard to confront and I just wanted to support the OP through doing that and not letting it corrode and destroy her, rather than ignoring what could turn out to worry her and eat away at her trust and relationship.

Thanks VE, a few things ring true there.
By posting here with people that may have relevant experience i wanted to see if I was doing the right thing and if anyone had suggestions as to how to go about a confrontation. And I got what I needed.
Rational - I obviously haven't been here that long as I didn't know I wasn't allowed to quote terminology used quite freely on this board. You are right though, snooping isn't healthy, it's not something I have bothered with before, and it's not the sort of person that I am. However, once something is there in black and white it's a difficult image to shift. And if there is a reason to keep digging then it would be a blinkered denialist who wouldn't.
I have been snooping, other red flags seemed to be ringing. Wouldn't describe myself as nasty, though.
And no, he's not a c*nt.
As far as I'm aware.

Now I wouldn't take the emails to mean anything much at all, really. If something was going on and she'd written "Thanks for the taxi fare" (less likely she'd write that if they were in a relationship) then surely he'd just say something affectionate, like, "That's okay, sweetheart", don't you think?

"denialist"

I am going to add that to my list of "MN terminology that pisses some people off"

Exactly IB, but emails before then had been sparse and professional, then it's taxi fare, least I can do, what are you doing for Christmas? (he replied with I not we) Just been to the gym to work off mince pies (he doesn't belong to a gym). It's not that I thought something was going on before, just worried about one-night stand or him establishing a connection. He said there was no longevity behind the emails. There's definitely nothing going on now, I love him but I will be paying him a lot more attention in all senses, which is something that I wasn't doing in the months running up to this (not an accusation from him btw)

No problem, wtf. Of course snooping is always a heartbreaking, disloyal and difficult way to go about things, and it's important to set a limit on it rather than go on indefinitely, no one should be in a relationship long term and be spied on.

But the other thing I would say from my own personal experience, which may not be relevant to you at all, is that if you genuinely find his accusations about you in the relationship nonsensical, bear in mind that anger and blaming the spouse for not giving enough to the relationship is sometimes a self-protecting strategy for long after the infidelity has happened or once an affair has ended. Someone decent in the midst of an affair is often too guilty towards a partner to be able to lay the blame at their feet when confronted. But if they close the door on what they did and decide to recommit to their relationship, and then later they get grief/suspicion from the spouse, there is a nasty little voice that says 'Oh for god's sake, I chose you! I gave up this other thing for you! And now I'm getting hassle from you and you're not doing everything to prove yourself worth it!'

If you have no solid evidence, find no solid evidence and he makes a real effort in the relationship, I would trust and try and put it from your mind and move forward. But if he constantly in the future seems to detach and blame you for things that are wrong when you honestly believe that's unfair, he may be trying to justify less honourable behaviour in the past or present.

AF - well as I'd been flamed for using popular terminology, thought I'd best play safe and invent my own from now on
Oh no! I said 'flamed'

Didn't see that last post, wtf. It does sound more and more innocent to me, with a touch of fancying her (I work out! I'm young and virile! I'm independent!) Those sorts of things are, in their own way, little indicators of interest and don't paint him in the best light in the world but doubt there's any more than that.