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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

Original poster

How did you find out they were cheating?

164 replies

Frecklesandspecs · 23/09/2015 17:33

How, why and when?!

Me and H have had problems for quite a while and are on the verge of separating. (I want to, he doesn't)
Anyway he's always been a bit of a workaholic, often strolls in 10pm, never before 7. I'd just kind of got used to it until I ealised a few months ago he was going out at 5.30am. 6.30 am I can kind of Imagine e would be sensible but 5.30am just seems way too early and coming back at the time he does.
He walks to the station (20 mins roughly) and gets train into London (approx. 45 mins at most I think)
This happens every day pretty much. I know his job can have long hours and this has been hard to deal with but this just seems a bit nutty?!
I really am starting to wonder here.

OP posts:
Justaboy · 26/09/2015 22:19

Frecklesandspecs Yes society as we knew it is surely changing after all
M Thatcher said it didn't exist did she not;?.

Original poster
Frecklesandspecs · 26/09/2015 22:41

Justaboy, 'there's no such thing as entitlement unless someone has first met an obligation'

OP posts:
Justaboy · 26/09/2015 23:54

Yes you've got me there fair 'n square;!

ladybird69 · 27/09/2015 00:24

if you get the cheating vibe he's probably cheating. I know only a handful yes 5/6 of real men that I would ever trust with my heart the rest are tools just looking for the opportunity to cheat.

Baconyum · 27/09/2015 01:07

It's a conversation I often have in real life but with carefully selected people. Out of all the men I know, relatives, friends, work colleagues I've had, and that's a lot, I personally know less than 10 decent husbands/dps and fathers. The rest have cheated, gambled (business and leisure), blown family money on addiction and put their families through hell, abandoned their kids, refused to pay maintenance or made it bloody difficult to get sorted etc

And I know people from all kinds of backgrounds so its certainly not a class thing, not even a regional thing. But it does seem to be an age thing, it seems to be 35-45 year olds. That's just my experience. The older ones seem to fear their parents being ashamed of them and the younger ones were from lone parent families themselves saw what their mums went through and have vowed never to put their kids through that. I'm curious as to why it's that age group?

Tram10 · 27/09/2015 05:58

NC

We started 'having problems', I couldn't understand it, seemed like he suddenly detested me and seemed quite stressed and out drinking a lot.

He ran his own business and I thought there may be financial problems, which he denied. I asked him if there was someone else, specifically a friend of mine, he accused me of being nuts, being a horrible friend to her etc. She also turned against me. Over a period of 5 months I became more and more sure something was going on, but I was always rationalising my suspicions as I had no proof that anything was going on, despite doing a huge amount of snooping. There were times I really did believe I had become a crazy person and it was all my fault.

I woke up one Sunday morning really early and he was not in bed beside me, I immediately guessed. Got into the car, drove to her apartment and his car was parked outside, I rang her doorbell and she answered the intercom with a cheery 'hi' and then shut it off when I said "It's me, I was right all along'.

I still hate him for the mind fuck he put me through, but also glad as my life now is a million miles from where it would be if I was still with him.

HeisInfuriating · 27/09/2015 08:14

My stbxh became even more scatter brained. Forgot to do anything for me around the house, forgot to feed kids, or fed them shite like fish fingers which were still frozen in the middle.

He was glued to his phone so hardly concentrating on life around him.

He picked arguments. He never came to bed with me, was working working working (self employed on laptop at home)

We went on holiday and I still didn't suspect. We rowed and he was horrible.

Came home still not made up and he text me two days later to end our 18 year relationship but denied there was anyone else.

I did icy calm. I am hoping our divorce will go through soon and I have got everything I wanted financially.

Anger and icy calm is the way forward.

Original poster
Frecklesandspecs · 27/09/2015 08:26

Bacon, that's insightful! I'm intrigued by the age thing. Mid life crisis?
My h is 42.
Tram, I get those looks of disgust ect. Very critical too, but this is not really a new thing.
Whether he is cheating or not I am staying icy calm heis.
Also, he has accused me of seeing someone in the co op I sometimes run up to in the evening to get nappies or something!

OP posts:
HeisInfuriating · 27/09/2015 11:48

Oh def mid life for Heisinfuriating (clue in the username)
He was 38 when he fell off the cliff so to speak. His dad had died a couple of years earlier.

This mirrored my own father when his dad died but he was about 47 by then.

Original poster
Frecklesandspecs · 27/09/2015 12:17

Maybe they use it as a way of coping Heis?
Also, for you, what were they like when you met them?
Had they dated a lot? Been single? And had they always been the flirty type?
My h had been single for quite a while and his excuse for why the last relationship broke up was 'she was a difficult person'.

OP posts:
Justaboy · 27/09/2015 13:14

Baconyum that "bad boy" thing again;(

They are very attractive in the first instance i know of some who have married them, took a few years before the girl realised what they really were.

RaspberryOverload · 27/09/2015 14:59

Also, he has accused me of seeing someone in the co op I sometimes run up to in the evening to get nappies or something!

He's projecting. Accusing you of something he's actually doing (or thinking of doing) himself.

Original poster
Frecklesandspecs · 27/09/2015 15:30

Raspberry, when I first mentioned leaving a few weeks ago he indicated it MUST be because I was seeing someone, he couldn't think why I wanted out otherwise. (my real reasons are that we never see him and I'm exhausted from his criticism and put downs all the time.
I've got 3 kids under 6 and the only times I really ever go out are school runs and shopping!

OP posts:
Original poster
Frecklesandspecs · 27/09/2015 15:31

Ps and before he said this I'd not mentioned him cheating possibly at all.

OP posts:
mulranna · 27/09/2015 16:53

Get his car key when he is asleep and go and have a snoop - or just unlock car and snoop when he has left for work. V odd taking car key to work.

MagentaHaze · 27/09/2015 18:14

He left his email logged in on my laptop. We were supposed to be getting married, so when I saw I folder entitled "ties" I had a look, because I thought it would contain photos of the tie he'd chosen for our wedding. Instead I found umpteen naked pictures of men he'd been talking to on Gaydar for over a year. I confronted him and he blamed me, saying it was because I hadn't been very nice to him??! That was New Years day. By 2nd Jan I'd hauled his sorry arse out the door with all his possessions.

MagentaHaze · 27/09/2015 18:15

I then later found out he'd been having phone sex with men on Gaydar before we even met. Quite why he neglected to tell me he was bisexual during our 5 year relationship I have no idea.

Original poster
Frecklesandspecs · 27/09/2015 19:09

Omg Magenta, these get worse!
You must have been devastated just before getting married.

OP posts:
Justaboy · 27/09/2015 21:11

MagentaHaze God what an insult!. I had a girlfriend many years ago and her husband had left her for another man, she never really got over that.

She often said I could cope with him going off with another woman but a man it really got to her badly?.

MagentaHaze · 27/09/2015 21:33

It was a horrendous time, but I'm bloody glad I got shot of him as I'm now married to an amazing 100% honest and straight man. As for the ex, he has been on his own and has been since our split.

Baconyum · 28/09/2015 00:59

Midlife crisis - mine was turning 30 that year, perennial peter pan type and he was freaking out about his birthday. So possibly a factor yes.

But it also as I said seems to be a particular generation who not only cheat but treat their kids as disposable inconveniences too. What did the parents of that generation do to create them?

Bad boy - yea, mine had never had a serious relationship before me, plenty of ons though. But we were young when we met so not that weird.

However he seemed to still think he had wild oats to so considering he had 3 of us on the go at once and bleated 'it was only ever meant to be a bit of fun' when wife 2 first fell pregnant.

Still don't think he's responsible now.

When we were first split and they moved in together (he and ow2) they gave the impression he was different with her than he had been with me. Dd was too little to disenfranchise me of that then, as she got older and I heard through mutual friends how things ACTUALLY were, he's still a lazy selfish irresponsible shit! So she's welcome to him!

Baconyum · 28/09/2015 01:00

*sow

Magenta and others Flowers

JaceLancs · 28/09/2015 01:28

OW husband rang me v early one morning - he'd caught her on phone to my EXH
We were best friends and the four of us hung out together as couples
Two DC each
The betrayal still hurts 18 years on
Funny thing is out of the 4 adults involved I've ended up with the happiest most fulfilling life if not the best financial situation
I'm single, independent, with a rewarding job, lots of friends and a fab relationship with my kids

Callyourselfapilot · 28/09/2015 07:54

My brother and sister in law told me. A friend of theirs had been staying with him for a few days and wondered who this woman was living in the house and asked the if ex dp,and I had split up. Er no. Exdp had told her this friend of ours (who has known me for twenty years) was in witness protection (he is built like the side of a house) and that's why ex dp had to sleep downstairs with a gun in case the 'bad people" came to get him and she wasn't to speak to the friend in case it affected the 'security operation' I could have laughed if it hadn't been so tragic.

HortonWho · 28/09/2015 20:00

A bit off topic, but I was keen to try OpenDNS on our router to monitor the kids' activities and have found out it doesn't work on Virgin SuperHub routers. Confirmed in a tweet by Virgin. Reading some more, BT also has some bt-branded routers which have been stripped of ability to configure the DNS. Only way to do it with Virgin is to switch the router to "modem mode" and then buy another modem to plug into the Virgin one.