I've name changed for this. Been around a while, had a lot of support in a difficult pregnancy and a couple of people from that board know me in real life. This is a long post. It's helpful just to write it all out sometimes.
My husband and I have been together for 4 years and have two children. At the very beginning of our relationship, he lied about contact with an ex-girlfriend. I rang him one evening and he said he was on the tube, but his voice didn’t sound right and at that time phone reception underground was awful, there was no wifi at stations, so I thought he was being dishonest. I then found out through Facebook, that he, together with several other people, had dinner with his ex girlfriend who was only in the country briefly. She had called him on a previous visit when he was at my home, asking to meet him and he said no. He admitted he had been out with her and a group of people but said he lied to avoid upsetting me. He then subsequently omitted to tell me about other female friends and would arrange to meet for lunch without telling me. I told him early on that I expected to be introduced to his friends and that it was the secrecy and lying (eg simply not mentioning it or saying he is somewhere else) that I find hurtful. The ex-girlfriend and I later met and she is very likeable.
We hit a rough patch in our marriage when I was pregnant with our second child and it has only recently started to improve. Two big stressors were his unemployment and my postnatal depression. I felt unable to have a proper break from work (I am self-employed) after our child was born and ended up doing work that was very stressful and often distressing which I am sure made things worse in terms of recovering. I resented him for putting us in this situation, even though it is not all his fault. I also felt very upset over the state of our sex life, which was really difficult to have a conversation about. In essence, he lost interest in me when I was pregnant and after months of trying to rekindle something, I just gave up as well.
About six weeks ago I had a sense he was keeping something from me and asked several times. He denied anything. I then found out that he was secretly watching porn on his computer. I know a lot of men do this but I had previously discovered porn, told him how I felt about it and he promised not to do it again. I also discovered that he is having lots of conversations with another female friend. He was at university with her and they have a lot of common interests. I have never been completely convinced that he isn't romantically interested in her. When we were first together, I accidentally found a present he bought for her birthday and a card which he hid from me, instead of just leaving where we'd leave things to take to the post office and his furtiveness made me suspicious. She is young and attractive and has been depressed recently. I found out that on several occassions he has sent us the same photgraph, of a lovely view, of something lovely he has seen on a walk, but with different messages. My perception was that messages to her are usually warmer than the ones to me. He also sent her a message on Valentine’s Day, sending ‘love and light’. He signs all his texts to her ‘with love and light’. The tone is friendly but they often seem romantic (not sexual) to me. I have some male friends, a couple are close confidantes and I wouldn't send them messages of love on Valentine's Day or send them texts about how beautiful the moon is.
Right at the beginning of our relationship, we had a conversation about the type of messages I would and wouldn't find acceptable. He had lied about seeing another female friend and told me he was meeting 'people' he used to work with. After meeting the friend, singular, female, he sent her a message saying how stunning she looked, what a head turner etc and I said, look, if you are going out with me, that isn't really on.
After my recent discovery, I confronted him about the porn and about the messages. He said the female friend was ‘vulnerable’ and had been unwell and he was supporting her. I found out too that he speaks to her on Skype regularly with our youngest child. We are often both at home at the same time and have computers in a shared study. He has never called her on Skype or mentioned calling her, even in passing, when I am at home.
To complicate it (in my mind) this friend is a godmother to our youngest child. She didn’t attend the christening because of her mental health issues, but wrote saying she was pleased to be involved in our tradition, even though she has no religious beliefs. I was totally blown away by this. We are church goers and faith is an important part of our lives. I have some very good friends who I consider important role models in my children’s lives but who I would not have asked to be godparents because of their different faiths or none. I felt very upset when I found this out and thought it was more about their friendship that about our child and I felt weirdly excluded.
I have had some problems with my physical health and am having some investigations to see if I might be having a premature menopause. It’s been quite tough and last week there was a day when I felt really unwell. On that particular day, my husband took the dog for a walk and then said he wasn’t able to come out with me because he had some work to do. Today I discovered that he was phoning his female friend from the dog walk and Skyping her, ‘to support her’ while I was feeling like shit and running errands. He completely omitted to tell me that he had been in touch with her.
To put it in context, we were both married before. His marriage split up because his affair (the same ex-girlfriend he met for dinner secretly at the beginning of our relationship), was discovered. My ex-husband and I speak perhaps a couple of times each year. Last week, the husband of a mutual friend died unexpectedly and I contacted him to tell him. I mentioned it to my husband and also told him I had emailed my ex-husband some contact details. I feel I make efforts to be transparent and give him no reason to distrust me.
This morning I told him I was cross he lied to me last week. I feel annoyed because we have been paying for additional childcare, so that he can fill in job applications without having to look after the children. It pisses me off that he then uses this time to watch porn or send romantic sounding messages ‘I send you the stars’ to female friends. He told me that he and this friend have 'always' sent each other messages like that and told me I could read them all. I don't want to read them. I want to be able to trust him and I don't want my husband to send romantic sounding messages to other women and have secret conversations with them.
I have what therapists would probably call 'trust issues'. My father was (is) a compulsive liar and when I was growing up often lied to me, to others in front of me and often told me I was lying when I wasn't. I was also lied to in quite an extreme way in a significant relationship as an adult, when my partner seriously misrepresented himself and almost everything he had told me about himself turned out to be a fabrication.
Am I over reacting? I feel betrayed and hurt, again and I just want to sound a few people out.