First time poster, long time lurker. Would really appreciate any advice as I don't know what to think and have no-one I can talk to. Sorry that this may be a bit long.
Been married to my H for 3 years, together for 7. No kids. We've been going through a rocky patch lately. He's been away a lot trying to start a new business; although I am trying to be as supportive as possible (giving advice, sourcing stock, helping him renovate the premises etc), it does feel as if I have slipped down his list of priorities. I know that's inevitable to an extent, but it got to the point where I felt I didn't matter to him at all (case in point: he asked me to come and meet his new business partner (who is now one of his closest friends - let's call him Ed) in the pub for drinks one weekend evening; I'm not the most sociable of people - very, very shy - but I got dressed up, made the effort and thought it was going well until H took me to one side after an hour and asked me to go home so they could carry on talking about the business).
Anyway, about a month ago things came to a head (H stayed out all night taking coke, something he'd never done since being with me) and we had a huge row. I said some things I'm not proud of and dredged up a lot of stuff from the past that I thought we'd put behind us. I am ashamed of this, but I also made a dig about me being the main breadwinner (he has been fired from four jobs in the last three years), which is something I knew he was particularly sensitive about. Since then, on the surface we've been ok but there has been a lot of sadness between us.
Anyway, on Thursday afternoon he told me he had to go to another town for a business meeting. I spoke to him by phone a few hours later and he said it was going well. After the call, I texted him with times for the last train home and went to bed. I tried to ring him after the last train should have departed to check he made it (in case I needed to go out and pick him up) and he didn't answer. Then at about 1.30am I got a text from him saying he was back in our home town and in a club with Ed (somewhere they go regularly) because Ed wanted to know how the business meeting had gone.
I then didn't hear anything more from him until 9.30am the next morning, when I rang him to find out where he was. He told me he got drunk and stayed at Ed's house (Ed lives about 10 minutes' walk away) and that he'd be home soon. He was due to spend this weekend with his family who live about 300miles away, so I only saw him briefly before he had to leave again (and to be honest I was so upset with him that I barely spoke to him).
For various reasons I ended up spending a bit of time with Ed this afternoon. Ed is a nice guy, I don't know him that well but he strikes me as v honest and with a lot of integrity. Anyway, in an unguarded chatty moment, Ed mentioned in passing that he spent Thursday night in another city miles away from here with some of his other friends - so there's no way my H could have been with him. He also didn't seem to know anything about this business meeting that my H had apparently been at. While I was digesting this information, Ed got a phone call from my H (who knew I was with him). After that, when I tried to casually ask Ed for more details about what they'd been up to and how the business meeting went, he seemed to change his story and started talking about the club and the state both he and my H had been in on Friday morning.
It's POSSIBLE Ed got his dates mixed up and meant to say he was in this other city on Wednesday night and the story is exactly as my H said. But Ed seemed so uncomfortable with my casual questioning (you know when you can tell someone is lying to you) that I'm suspicious. I don't know what to do. Do I ask Ed to level with me and tell me what actually happened? I don't want to put him on the spot but equally I feel I need to know. Or do I wait for H to return and ask him directly, risking a potentially marriage-ending row?
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
Relationships
Possibly caught DH in a lie... what next?
Sweetlittleevilme · 04/06/2016 20:52
I'm okay. All the responses have made for difficult reading but they are also giving me the resolve I need to face up to the situation (something I have been too scared to do until now). So thank you for all your support - I don't think the next few days and weeks are going to be easy, and there's definitely some difficult conversations ahead, but anything has to be better than the current mess. 
Don’t want to miss threads like this?
Weekly
Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!
Log in to update your newsletter preferences.
You've subscribed!
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.