the 'he's having an affair' script

[chocoraisin]

Hi all,

Just occurred to me that I read threads on here (my own included) all the time where the wife/partner doesn't think their partner/DH is having an affair, and people come along and say 'be careful, he's following the script'.

Even now, when my STBXH has been kicked to the kerb and moved in with his OW I'm not sure I know what 'the script' is. So I wondered (for the good of woman kind) if those of us who sadly, have heard it all before, could share what their XP/XH (or possibly even DP/DP if you've reconciled) said to you?

I'll give my version of the lead up script for starters:

• I'm not sure I'm cut out for marriage
• Your expectations of me/marriage are unreasonable (faithfulness and being interested in spending time with me/our DS are what he is referring to here)
• I love you, but I'm not in love with you
• I need some space to work out my feelings
• You are not attractive to me any more
• I don't like spending time with you/you're not fun/our life is boring
• You put on too much baby weight/don't make an effort (followed swiftly by the classic 'Stop going on about sex, can't you see it's a red herring?' when challenged about his sudden dip in sex drive)
• I can't be expected to behave like 'normal' people, I'm unconventional...
• You don't understand/appreciate/reward me enough
• Don't you know how good you've got it with me?
• Our marriage is only about having children, what about me? (Why aren't I centre of attention any more?)
• I want my relationship with our DS to be separate from my relationship with you
• You need to give me time to rediscover my feelings (while I 'stay with my dad')
• Be patient, I believe our marriage could still work. (The final one, said the night before I found out about OW)

I love you as the mother of my children
I swear on our children's lives that there is no one else, I just need some space and no I don't want to go to Relate/counselling (even more )

I am sure I will think of some more. Oh and don't forget picking arguments out of nothing and me thinking WTF was that about.....

We have nothing in common anymore
We rushed into marriage/babies, I wasn't ready

why didn't you say so at the time then?!

"You checked my phone? You were snooping?"
Followed by a long "divert attention away from the real issue" rant.

oh yeah, I had both of those too tequila!

which is priceless now, given that he 'rushed into marrying me' but now he's lived with OW for 4months (post being thrown out by me) everyone needs to recognise he's in a 'serious and committed' relationship.

"I love you, but it's not enough"

"I never said I was perfect"

I don't feel the same any more, I don't want to be here any more, my hearts not in it anymore. Followed by a long list of my faults and reasons as to why he didn't want to be here any more . All out of the blue by the way, we never even argued..... He said it was over and walked out , refused to go to Relate..

YOU are cheating. Or nearly cheating, or thinking about it.
Your suspicions/insecurity/jealous will drive me away!
You make me feel insecure
You should trust me, without trust there is no love
You don't know how to be intimate!
We don't have fun together.

Can't you do something about your hair/clothes/teeth/nails/voice/car/education/ambition (whatever feature of OW he's currently in love with)?

Both mine stopped smoking when fully besotted (I smoke) and took up "running". Same with a sudden need to take long drives alone or any other activity "to get things out of their system" that excludes you.

And let's not forget mentionitis!

Choc, how you doing these days?

"You are only accusing ME of having an affair to cover up the fact that YOU are having an affair."
That's what I got! I was working full time, with a 6 month old baby and a 2yr old and a 3 yr old. Not only was I having an affair, but apparently I was shagging a whole football team. The proof? Once a week I was cross country running in the wood where our local team trained!
And guess what I found out later, months after our split? My XH WAS having an affair!

Things have changed ...
You're not the same as you used to be ....
It doesn't feel like we connect anymore ....
I'm just not sure I want to be married anymore ....
It's just no fun anymore ....
I don't think you find me attractive ....
Of course I still love you, I just need some space ....

I am not saying this script doesn't follow for an affair, it sure as heck does as all the experiences on here have proved. However, I don't personally believe every single time a man says 'I'm not sure I'm still in love with you' or 'I can't do married life any more' he is having an affair. Perhaps he's having a life crisis? (as I indeed have had in my time).

I know no-one will agree, but I really think sometimes you have to drill down a bit deeper than shouting 'affair', some men are too depressed to have an affair, or uninterested in going down that route, or themselves uninterested in sex.

I actually think most of the above are probably not when he's having an affair necessarily,(except the phone ones) but he does want a way out of the relationship.

It's the methinks-he-doth-protest-too-much ones. The poor diddums whose madster (and pretty, and young) colleague sends him messages on FB (but he doesn't want her to, oh no! Not at all at all......) The one who "only did it once". They never only do it once.....The one who had an "emotional affair" because he was feeling lonesome.....but it never turned into sex.....(and the moon is made of cream cheese)

And of course the ones who delete alltheir FB/email/text messages as soon as they've read them......

My H deleted all fb email and texts and guarded his phone with his life. He was texting his best friends wife 100 times a day for support, there was nothing going on, of course there isn't.!!

In my experience men rarely disengage with their wives and want to leave a marriage unless he's met someone else. It happens to often, in fact I don't know a single man that has left his wife to be alone....not one.

too

bugger

hey garlic I'm doing ok thanks, 4 weeks til baby is due... getting on with being me :) DS off with daddy for the afternoon. It's not fun, but I'm coping with the new 'this is my life'.

mumsy you're quite right, sometimes it's not an affair. However, I thought it would be good to see what things come up in common when it is an affair, so that it might help some new posters who aren't sure... ie, collectively speaking, which statements mean maybe he's just not happy, and what you should be seeing as the whole bloody bell tower ringing, rather than one or two alarms going off.

yep you can add 'you've changed' to my list, as well as 'your lack of trust makes it hard for me to be with you because it's truly getting in the way of me stringing you along as well as her '

Mumsyblouse, if your partner has started resenting you because they're changing within themselves, there's nothing you can do about it ... but they are still wrong and cruel to blame you for their own shit.

If they act like someone who's changing within themselves, but really only feel like they're changing because they're falling in love with someone else, there's a chance of stopping it. So it's probably worth trusting your antennae and examining the logic.

Personally, I wouldn't bother. I've been through it too many times. If a relationship makes me feel bad more than it makes me feel good, I'm outta there. But obviously you'd need to have Talks before deciding, so imo it's worth having guidelines as to whether your Talk is based on bullshit or not.

Thanks for the update, choc :) "Getting on with being me" sounds perfect!
I'm sure there are plenty of downs with the ups - sounds like you're making the most of the ups; good for you! All the very best to you, DS & nearly-here. xx

ONE

"What? XXX [insert name of female 'friend' here] met you/bumped into you/shared a lift with you and totally ignored you? What, did she not even say hello? How odd? She's normally so friendly! And she didn't even meet your eye? Well that IS odd"

Me < plaintively > "Do you think she doesn't like me? Have I done something?"

"Nooo. Of course not. It could be . . . I dunno . . . one day she sort of came on to me. Put her arms round me, tried to kiss me. I told her that it wasn't on, that I was taken, that nothing was ever going to happen. Maybe it's got something to do with that. . ." < shrugs shoulders in a manly way, helpless at own attractiveness >

This happened THREE times!

TWO

"I don't love you any more. I don't think I ever loved you."

I had the love letters to prove it! Which I almost enjoyed flinging back at him.

THREE

"The reason I am sitting outside in my car for 15 minutes after arriving home every night is because I am listening to the end of a song I really love."

(and I thought it was because he didn't want to come in and talk to me this was in the early days of carphones )

I feel so sad for the woman I was, that should have chucked his sorry lying arse out of the door before we even got engaged, let alone married.

Don't women do EXACTLY the same things, though? I don't think this is exclusive to men. It's very... human.

Thought of another, talked about her all the time endlessly and from her point of view rather than his best mate like he used to. Started criticising his friend too.

garlicfucker, I only half agree with you. Of course it's not your fault if your partner starts changing and doubting what they want in life. What I'm trying to point out is that these doubts can ebb and flow in a relationship. It is cruel to taunt the person you are with, or use these doubts to manipulate, but just having doubts about your relationship, or having doubts about whether you are cut out for marriage can be a normal part of a long marriage, and tend to appear at times of real stress as well as when there's another option in the form of an OW/OM.

I wouldn't share my doubts on a weekly basis as that wouldn't be very nice, but if cornered, I have done.

I personally prefer that level of honesty, even if it is gut-wrenching to hear your spouse isn't happy and is wondering 'is this it' than some type of marriage fantasy in which you are all skipping about happily until reality, often in the form of another person, breaks through. Equally, if I am struggling, I hope my husband can hear that so we can change things or just understand this is a phase. I know plenty of people who have privately admitted to going off their partner, and going back onto them a while later.

This doens't apply if they are doing things like having an emotional or physical affair or texting 100's of times a day. I'm talking about the ups and downs of a relationship, and I don't think it's always cruel to speak honestly about where you are in life.

Mumsy nothing about 'the script' which I realise it a bit of a cloudy thing (hence the attempt to define it!!) is about gut wrenching honesty though. It's about pulling the wool over your partners eyes so that honesty is no longer possible. I don't doubt some partners can have conversations about their unhappiness constructively - but it's the conversations that happen when one person has already checked out that I was really hoping to get a better sense of. So that unsuspecting partners (men and women!) who are suddenly being told they are at fault, when actually they are being treated like shit, might get a better 'heads up'.

It's not going to be a one size fits all, but clearly threads on here all the time start with a plaintive 'he's definitely not having an affair... but' and end with, yeah, so he's having an affair . So what are the red flags that make it so easy for an objective person to shout 'leave the fucker' but are so hard to see when you're in the thick of a relationship breakdown? I mean, I was in D.E.N.I.A.L about the affair happening. I wanted it to be normal ups and downs. But by the time the truth was out, we were way past the point of repairing anything at all.

Hits 40 and suddenly starts taking an interest in health and fitness, gets a personal trainer, face creams, and new clothes.
Works late, constantly, and regularly has to stay away at short notice. Never says what hotel he is in.
Dead eyes. You know that look, like a reptile. No emotion in there.
Hugs. Not hugs like you give someone you love, hugs like you give someone you are saying goodbye to. I learnt to dread those.
Suddenly after years of not bothering remembers birthday cards and valentines cards. Writes something gut wrenchingly uncaring like 'I remembered!' in them.
Flowers. Never trust them, they mean guilt.
When away on business, calls early evening to say 'I'm having an early night so speak to you tomorrow'. That means don't call later, I'll be with her.
Stops holding hands, or touching, turns away when you want sex claiming to be tired.
I could go on, but I am depressing myself

Starts mentioning colleagues that he has never mentioned before and starts socialising with 'them' a lot. And no you can't meet them.

I can only answer for myself, but will love to read others' replies: what are the red flags that make it so easy for an objective person to shout 'leave the fucker' ? Two things:-

1] That element of resentment; blaming; attacking their partner for, basically, being who they are.

A person who is honestly confused and sad, or even has an honest gripe about their partner, will tend to share it as gently as they can. Of course the partner will feel upset, anxious, and will wonder whether they should change. But this will happen in an atmosphere of mutual concern. There will be a shared feeling of "can we do anything about it?"

If the belittled partner feels - well, belittled and got-at - the other is, like it or not, being abusive toward them.

2] Dismission & 'absence'. With plain old abuse, the bully is engaged with their target. They'll harangue them, pick their words apart, follow them round the house, block their path, use passionate language, etc.

Unfaithful bullies do this too, of course, but even so their partner will notice an increased distance. Maybe the verbal attack or thump will be followed by silence or the bully walking away. Maybe they'll take to leaving the house after an insult instead of staying for the argument. When you live with someone you notice subtle alterations in their attitude.

And there is always mentionitis in the early stages!