Can't believe it

[etatdechoc]

NC although I don't often post on MN (customary lurker). I have been married to my DH for a long time ... Things have been somewhat difficult between us since the arrival of our last DC (we have 3). No DTD for several years now due to prolonged night breastfeeding, DH's frequent business trips away, my work from home involving some late nights ... Anyway, I just went online to check our email account and saw a message coming in which immediately went to the Spam folder. Clicked on it and saw an XFlirt account with his photo, his work situation ... He has selected about 15 women as his favourite contacts, and asked for the private photo album of one of them. From the date, it was when he was away on his last business trip recently. I am completely numb and don't know what to do or say to him. I guess it is partly my fault as no intimacy for a long time now, I am just too tired and seem to have lost my desire in that area. Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

I cross-posted with you, Say.

OP, I'm afraid I have to back up LyingWitch here - I spent most of the last year working from mobile and BB, and my works firewall was enabled no matter what wifi I was logged onto - including Sky in a hotel bar. His lies are just that I'm afraid.

As for passwords - well for the last 10 years or so all my work passwords have had to be a selection of letters, numbers and special characters, including at least one upper, one lowercase, no doubles, no passwords used more than once and for no longer than 90 days at a time. Using my childs name would not have been possible - and this is through a security system and firewall that allows me to log on to MN! If even half what your husband says is true then their "IT Guys" need sacking on Monday, not allowing them to bodge his laptop any further.

Love, he's not being honest with you, I'm sorry.

Saywhaaa: ScreamingLordSutch got it 4 x week, and he still cheated. George Bernard Shaw had a quote: "Marriage. All of the opportunity, none of the temptation."

You do have a point about no sex in marriage being unfair, but calm down, don't get aggressive, and say it reasonably. Somebody else said that point too, enforced celibacy in marriage is not fair, you don't have to say it nastily.

Choc, after having my life blown up by this, and 7 years down the line, I would say to you this: keep calm, and keep your head. You know that you have not been sexually there for him, and he has brought this up. So Whaa does have a point here. Do you know why this is?

However, he HAS just lied to you about sites (sorry, he is lying). Now: he could be looking because he feels lonely and loved aka not getting any, and he is probably lying because he feels caught out and ashamed. Not because he is an evil etc etc.

So WIWD is to calmly look at him and draw a huge boundary. Tell him that he has just told you his very last lie and that the next one will [give consequence].

Also, as a matter of extreme urgency, book counselling sessions and GO. If he has to take time of work, so be it.

There is a fine line between sweeping stuff under the carpet, providing leadership and overreacting. You need to be the leader right now. This could be the opportunity to take your marriage into a better place with more communication.

Now, it could be that you gave up on sex because of deeper issues between you, but it is well worth striking now and seeing if you can sort it.

Phishing is when emails are sent with links to fake sites enticing people to give personal information for financial gain. Did your husband click on a link and give those details away? Maybe he did, but so what? That wouldn't have given anyone access to his laptop.

Or maybe he downloaded some kind of malware that steals information when run. What happens there is that the malware connects to a botnet server and transmits data that it's programmed to find back. This kind of hacking happens on an incredibly large scale and is all automated, and they don't get or need the laptop login details. No "hacker" is sitting on the other side of the world going through anyone's computer looking through photographs and selecting them to create profiles on dating sites or anything like that - and only a human would have done that. These are large operations by organised criminals for financial gain.

He was connected to WiFi - ok, so he wouldn't have transmitted his laptop login details over that internet connection, unless he was logging onto a VPN. So you'd probably need a hacker to packet sniff the WiFi network, located physically nearby, and then try to decrypt the VPN. That is INCREDIBLY hard and technically unfeasible. Or someone could do a "Man-in-the-middle" attack. Why would anyone with this kind of technical capability, it had nothing to do with phishing, target your husband and why would anyone put this kind of effort and resource and commit a crime to set up a dating profile.

I've just been to xFlirt to check and sign-up requires the user to authenticate their email address. It needed human intervention for the account to be created.

I'm sorry, OP.

Time to see your solicitor.

TalesOfTheCity, thank you so much for taking all that trouble to explain how these things work. We have just deleted his xFlirt account together. I am still unsure what to do next as I can't see that he is hiding anything. He was quite upset when we were on the website in the process of deleting his profile, but he hates anything sleazy so to me his reactions were very much in keeping with how he usually is. (Sorry if that doesn't make sense.)

I also appreciate everyone else's advice and experience, and will keep you posted on any developments.

Good god he really does know how to play on your emotions doesn't he?! Ah well your choice.

I'm really sorry.
Pretty much every similar situation on here I've read, the woman has been shocked, it isn't in keeping, etc.
I guess if it wasn't a shock, people don't need to post as they're just angry not confused!

To this day, I look at my XH picking my daughter up and think "really? You sleep with prostitutes?"
I'm still gobsmacked. He does though.

He's cheating on his new girlfriend with them too.

If I didn't have evidence and (finally) admission I'd never believe it.

You just can't base anything on them being upset. If it was innocent, they'd be upset. If it wasn't, they're upset to be caught, on the spot.

Look, the fact is - he set that account up. Not because I'm tarring him with same brush as my ex, but because IT experts have told you: this doesn't happen. He had to validate that email address. By the way - I signed up yesterday to test his "log on and password " lie.
I used a fake email address and it instantly told me it hadn't worked - because it couldn't send the confirmation email.

Scammers do not gain anything from signing men up to hook up sites.

It's not technically possible, and it isn't logical anyway.

I'm sorry I'm being so mean rubbing your nose in it.

But you sound like you still want him. If if if you two have a chance, and he "only flirted" because he really HAD tried to raise the no sex issue with you and got nowhere, then you ONLY have a chance if he stops lying to you.

Please understand, what broke my marriage (well, prevented any fix) wasn't the cheating itself, it was the lies.

I HATED the woman I became, checking his phone if I could, wondering when he was late home if he was with someone else. He was. But even if your H isnt the lack of trust will grind you down.

And you have to not trust him, because HE IS LYING TO YOU.

You're not going to tell him what give read about work firewalls, and hackers not working this way, and validated email addresses.

You're not going to push it when he doesn't tell the police "oh what could they even do? It's deleted now anyway".

You're not going to insist on seeing an email exchange with work reporting it.

Because you know really, that he is lying.

Please - as you're clearly going to stay, just take care of yourself. You currently have no idea just how much of a battering your self esteem and emotions are going to take

I also work in IT and can verify Tales's post.

I cannot conceive of a way this could be anything other than manual account set up.

Sorry- I think he is simply a very good liar

All will become clear to the OP over time, many of us have been there and eventually there becomes a moment when the mist clears.

It must be hurtful to you but unless your husband has signed up for a celibate relationship I don't think it's really very surprising that he is trying to form other relationships. I don't think I'd believe for a minute this was all a case of computer hacking and it's all sorted out now.

Of course he was quite upset . He'd clearly spent a lot of time cultivating his relationships on there. Now he's going to have to set it up all over again, and work a bit harder at keeping it all secret from you.

I'm sorry that this has happened, but I'm even sorrier that you believe his excuses and sorrier still about what lies ahead of you. Please at least get an STI check.

Men will always seek sex if not getting at home.

Not all of us. Not all of us.

What Tales and Cabrinha said. I'm an ex-IT professional with a lying, cheating ex. You have a lying, cheating (or at least flirting) DH. You can choose to work through it with him, but I really wouldn't advise a future with him unless he's willing to be honest about his past.

I have been where Cabrinha is, and where you are OP.

Of course his using sleazy sites is 'not in keeping' with your idea of him, because you didn't imagine that he'd use these sites!

I know that no amount of telling you that he's lying is going to make you see that if you're determined to believe him, and I totally understand why you're prepared to believe him.

But, as Elliptic5 has said, this is the sort of thing that sinks in over time. You can't let your love for him come crashing down in an instant - that would be too painful - but you might find that the rot has set in and that in time your feelings for him will change. This happened to me, and it took nearly a year before I started questioning my feelings for him, and then another 18 months to break up with him. If you really do want to believe him, just be open to the possibility that this might happen, and make plans accordingly (e.g. don't get into any binding financial arrangements with him that you can't get out of later).

We all deserve better than men who behave like this.

And as for people always going elsewhere...

I knew what my shit of an XH was up to. Because I'd need fed similar pathetic obvious lies. But I had a small baby, and I couldn't quite believe he'd gone through with it. I bought the "only looked" crap for quite some time.
But I knew it, really.
So I couldn't have sex with him. How could I fancy someone who was cheating on me? And frankly, I was scared I'd catch something.
After FOUR YEARS with no sex I was climbing the flipping walls!
He was fine of course, as he was getting it elsewhere!
But then I exchanged some very sexual texts with an ex, who lives abroad.
About what we would do if he made it home for a holiday that summer. (he didn't)
But you know, before I knew he want coming home, I ended my marriage.
Because despite the fact you'd be hard pressed to find someone who would vilify ME for cheating after years of no sex and him fucking prostitutes for our entire 10 year relationship, before and after marriage, right from the start when frankly I was offering more sex than he wanted... despite ALL that, I am not a cheat.

I don't even think I should have had text sex with my ex, though I'm not beating myself up over it!

But you see, you can be in a sexless situation and choose not to cheat. I did. It wasn't why I ended my marriage, but bloody hell did it influence the timing!!

No, I can't believe it either! Not in response to your OP but the fact that he has come up with the most ridiculous excuse ever and you are believing that. Do you really believe him OP, or is it just what you want to believe?

Ah well she believes him and they'll live happily ever after.....

Ahem
Here is a link to our guidelines
Worth also mentioning that if there's one thing we can all do with, it's some moral support.
Peace and love

Not 'doing the deed for years' and H HAS broached the subject of zero intimacy?
So did anything change after he told you it was an issue?

Sorry OP but you can hardly be surprised if H gets his needs met elsewhere after years of no sex, he's raised the issue as a problem with you, tried to discuss it.........

The current situation should hardly be a surprise.

RIGHTLY OR WRONGLY, husbands who are no longer getting from wives who no longer want intimacy have a high possibility of searching for it elsewhere

If the travel with work they have opportunity galore too.

There's a thriving sex industry out there, there's a 'brothel' or massage parlour or independant working in every town. Who do you think are the customers? the odd grubby old man in a dishevelled mac? think again, it's husbands, brothers, colleagues, Fathers, cousens i.e people you know.
All these hook up sites and adult 'friend finder' sites serve the same purpose.

And if they don't go down these routes the there always a lonely single girl at work as a possibility.....

Don't attack the people who point out that if intimacy is stone dead in a marriage the odds are high it will be sought outside the marriage, it's pretty obvious to anyone with their head screwed on.
I'm quessing that when that's stated it's the fear of that happening in their own marriages that gets some so riled up......

OP he is working you. He's good but he's working you. Wake up please. (Meant kindly) I absolutely understand why you would want to believe him but please let him know you know he is lying and move on from this afterwards. Him thinking he has you fooled is just a green light for him to carry on in his sleazy behaviour but just taking a sight more care in not getting caught.

Result! You can both go back to pretending that all is well.

I think you know your marriage has some serious problems but for whatever reason you don't have the will to do anything about it.

Untreated wounds fester, they don't heal on their own.

OP this has changed things in your relationship now. You will never think of him quite the same as before, even if you try very, very hard to ignore this or forget about it.

It will always be there. It's quite likely that you will want more support at a later date, that you will want to talk it through when he is no longer interested in listening to your concerns.

That's all perfectly normal and mn will be here for you.

You are mad to trust him. You are being naive. Every poster on here can see it apart from you. Sorry that everyone is having to be so blunt.

He is getting away lightly as you have bought his story.