Any Helpful advise please!

[goinggreyfast]

I have been with my DH 19 years and we have 2 teenage children. He was married before and she cheated on him and he has always been a little paranoid that i'd do the same. Often making comments about me getting chatted up at work! I'd like to add that I never have cheated or even flirted because i know it would've destroyed him! We're helping arrange an event at the moment and I was just checking his Facebook messages to see if we had any replies to invites and I found that he had a lot of conversations with girls, all around 20 to 30 years his junior. most were just hi, but when he got into conversation with one he starting asking if she was single, where she goes on a night out and if he could come. He stopped me in me tracks when he asked her "does this mean I'd be able to get anything i wanted out of you?" when she said she was off to get drunk! I phoned him to ask what the hell he thought he was doing and he said he was only messing around,if he'd had anything to hide he'd have deleted it! he ending up putting the phone down on me and rejected any other call. It got me thinking about what he'd said about deleting things if he had anything to hide. what he doesn't realise about messages on Facebook is they don't delete they go to archive. sure enough i found a couple more, one a very short conversation, but the other is to someone i know of! She has somewhat of a reputation! Again it's just about where she goes out and that he may go there too, saying he would've treated her better than her ex, asking for her phone no, and asking her to send pics of her dressed in a saucy nurses outfit to his phone! I told him I'd found his deleted message and not to come home because i couldn't bare him near me at the mo and he said that this must be what i wanted all along because I'd been nosey! I don't think he's gone any further than just messaging. I KNOW he hasn't been out with any of these girls because he doesn't go out! All of the message I've read the girls seem to have got uncomfortable and ended the conversation, leaving him saying " I was only joking, we're still friends aren't we!"
I feel like he's cheated on me. If he had found any conversation between me and a man even half as bad as what he has written he would've walked out on me for good! I'm soooo angry I can't think straight. I'm frightened I'm going to jump head first into a wrong decision. Any one had anything like this happen to them? Please help!

He is a hypocritite isn't he ?

And rather pitiful, trying to have "sexy" conversations with young women. He is likely to be the subject of hilarity and/or a fair amount of discomfort on the part of those girls. How pathetic of him.

You have no need to try and bury or squash your anger and contempt...you are perfectly entitled to feel that way

Personally, I would be considering whether I wanted to continue to share my life with such an idiot, but that's for you to decide

Stupid man

The only reason he hasn't been physically unfaithful is because not one of these women responded to his creepy overtures.

You've only seen one set of conversations though, on one site, so that doesn't mean he hasn't got lucky another time.

All you know is that he is trying to be unfaithful and that he has no respect for you. These women probably pity you and have hoped that you will find out one day what he's like. Some of them too will conclude that you know what he's like and choose to stay with him.

He will insist that he 'was only flirting' and that if any of them had taken the bait he would have 'run a mile' but those would be lies that I assume you'd be too intelligent to believe.

Oh dear. He's that slimy middle-aged lech to these young women, and I think he's trying to be unfaithful, just not getting anywhere with them - yet.

You poor thing, he sounds like a manipulative creep, trying to dig his way out of his sordid little situation. Do not let him fool you into thinking that this kind of behaviour is OK. If I found those kind of messages on my DP's page I would be fuming and would consider it cheating, even though he was unsuccessful (and just looks really pathetic). He sounds like a massive loser, I think you would be better off without him :( I think if someone actually did respond to his advances he would cheat on you....

Ugh! He's spent years controlling you and he turns out to be a hypocritical, manipulative old lecher.

Not surprised you don't want him near you any more.

Start taking copies of all your financial documents and plan your escape!

And I like how he's turned it around on you-

this must be what I wanted all along because I'd been nosey

What a charmer.

I'd be angry too, what a creep.

Nineteen years of him being paranoid about what you might be up to at work and he's been trying to get his leg over with girls young enough to be his daughter?

My anger would be incandescent... how bloody dare he!

I know what I'd do, but it's entirely your decision as to whether you want to stay married to a pathetic sleazebag.

Yes, classic twist and blame I'm afraid. Sorry to hear it.

So sorry - must be devestating. Sounds like it may be time for professional help if you want to go down that road...

Ugh, hitting on girls up to 30 years younger than him. That's really creepy. I doubt it's gone any further than FB messages, but not for lack of trying on his part.

I'd binbag him for his sheer fucking hypocrisy alone! Slimy bastard.

I'm soooo angry I can't think straight. I'm frightened I'm going to jump head first into a wrong decision.

Of course you're furious but your instincts are sound - you've done exactly the right thing by asking him to stay away until you've had a chance to cool down and consider your options.

It is to be hoped that he will at least show some respect by absenting himself from the marital home until hell freezes over such time as you are willing to see him again.

Discovering that you're married to a dirty old man that's on the make has to be as bigger turn off as finding out you're hitched to a serial adulterer - in his case, it's not for the want of trying that he isn't although, of course, you can't be sure that he hasn't got lucky on some or numerous occasions.

Given his current intransigence, I don't see how you'll get over this easily as it's such a gross betrayal of the values you hold dear and which he doesn't appear to possess.

I do hope you'll keep posting here.

You have my sympathies. I found a conversation this week between my DH and a girl he used to go to school with, like your DH he was flirting with her and I got the feeling that the conversation would have been worse if she had responded differently. What has hurt me most though was not the occasional reference to "sex" type things but him ending one of their conversations with the words "sweet dreams flutterer" (a reference to her apparently fluttering her eyelashes at him when they were at school together, and were each other's first kiss). And signing on to the next conversation with "Miss me?" It's the fact that he was obviously chasing an emotional connection that bothers me most, and during the one year of our marriage that I would say had been the happiest. And after having been told in no uncertain terms, only a few months before, that I didn't like him chatting on facebook with people he used to fancy. He has been sleeping on the sofa the last couple of nights while I try to decide what to do, but is acting now as if we can just spring back to normal. Why are men such twats?

Beats me, easylife. Judging from this board, there certainly seems to be more than a fair few of them around and their twattishness knows no limits.

the questions isn't "why are men such twats?"

I would ask "why are women (in general) so much more emotionally mature?"

easylife it appears you are intellectually, emotionally and morally the superior of your husband

that's quite a bit to get your head around

and as you process it, don't be surprised to find yourself thinking "why the fuck should I bother" ?

Pot, Kettle, Black - classic transferance going on here IMO

The word for what he's doing when he claims to be insecure is projection. Projection of his own feelings/behaviours onto you. He is a dirty slimy lech so he thinks you must be one as well. Because he knows what he'd be after if he was one of those men at your work.

And hypocrisy and all the other things he's been called so far as well!

I guess I should bother (as the OP probably feels as well) becauase we have children together who love him dearly, we are tied financially together, we had/have just booked a holiday in the summer with my parents, sister & BIL, we are about to get a dog (kids will be devastated if that falls through), his mum is due to come and stay for a week in 6 weeks time....all of those "little" things that tie your lives together. It's not easy to just say sod him then, I'm off.

No, of course it's not easy. It won't be easy living with it all now the trust has gone either.

It's up to you which hard road you will take - but can you really see yourself respecting him again after he has tried to control your behaviour for years then made a complete arse of himself trying to chat up young girls online, and is now blaming you for what he has done? Do you think he would be so "resigned" to the situation if he'd found out you were chatting up young blokes online?

A dog you don't have yet, a visit that hasn't happened yet, a holiday with one place left to fill...you need to look at all these things with a little perspective.

easylife those things wouldn't be important when faced with having the piss taken out of me

and before you get pissed off with me I am in support of you being treated with the respect you deserve

am not sure your husband feels that way though

holidays

dogs

inlaws

and ?

There's no reason why any of the forthcoming events you've outlined can't happen without him, easylife - and, in fact, they'll most probably be far more enjoyable in his absence.

As for being 'financially tied together', granted it may take a tad longer to untie those particular ropes than obtaining a divorce but, nevetheless, that shouldn't be a bar to you saying to him 'sod you - you're off'

If it's a choice between a twat and a dog, I'd always opt for walkies with a faithful and loyal mutt.

olgaga, I think I am being mixed up with the OP a bit! My Dh wasn't chatting up young girls online, but chatting with an old school friend of the same age. He has said he felt it wasn't real, and was safe flirting because she lives in Australia, so there was never any chance of it getting physical.

AnyFucker - wasn't getting pissed off with you! In other respects he is a great husband - he works shifts, so does at least half of the childcare, housework etc and pretty much all of the cooking. We are/were happy - he was/is my best friend. We have been together for 15 years.

A dog, inlaws, the holiday - I know they seem trivial, but they are all things that are important to my two boys, who will always be my priority...I guess that is the perspective I'm looking at it from.

Hey sorry goinggrey and easylife I got a bit muddled and have conflated your circumstances in my last post.

That'll teach me to concentrate a little more!

izzyizin - not that simple re the dog, as we are supposed to be having it from an outside agency, and DH is the one who is here most during the day due to his shift pattern. They wouldn't let me have it on my own due to my working hours. Anyway, not making a decision based on the dog alone - it was more a demonstration that our lives are inter-twined and there are more things to consider than just my personal happiness.

but what is spoiling your "personal happiness" easylife ?

your husband's personal entitlement to look outside of your marriage for fun/excitement/stroking of his stupid ego?

well, does your ego have no value here ?

I can see you have rationalised this, and it isn't your OP so you don't have to answer at all, but I do feel a bit sorry that so many women let so many idiotic men off the hook

I did it myself once, but never again

What he has done has spoiled my personal happiness, yes, but I'm not sure that necessarily gives me the right to collude in destroying my children's happiness too. Yes, I understand it is not me that has caused this situation, it is him...but I do have some responsibility to what happens next in the lives of my children. They are only 11 & 9. In every other aspect of our lives he respects me and we are equals...I am not under his power at all, he does not bully me, in fact if you asked most of the people we know they would probably say I wear the trousers in the relationship. And maybe that's part of the problem, I don't know, but all of these things may well be enough to convince me that it is worth giving it another go, assuming he is willing to look into why he has behaved this way. And for what it's worth, up until this week I have always insisted I would never stay together for the sake of the children, so I am surprised by my own stance now.