When is a red flag not a red flag?

[namechange102]

My OH over the years has done a number of things which are possible red flags, but he always seems to have a plausible excuse. I'm hitting mid-life crisis age right now, and feel totally taken for granted, as I've enabled his lovely career while killing off mine to look after the children. All the usual stuff, but I'm now wondering whether I've been taken for a mug all these years. Is OH just really thoughtless and stupid, or is he playing me for a fool and just doing what he wants while I sort out the mundane family life? Has anyone had these red flags in their lives, and they turned out to mean nothing?? Or are they actually relationships killers? What do you think??

5 years into the relationship, he goes off with the intention to shag some randomer at a work do, as 'men are supposed to have more partners than women'. Never sure if he did or not.

Writes to a woman he fancies while working away. Thinks about breaking up to hook up with this woman. She's not interested. Stays with me. Only found this out years later.

Caught looking up porn. Says he'll not look at it again. Ten years down the line, turns out he did! And lied about it when asked!

Looks up Tinder on GooglePlay. Because a friend met his wife on there.

Has looked at some woman's dating profile. Because he was curious.

Computer reckons he has logged out of an email account. Which he apparently has never used. Said email account has many permanently deleted emails, deleted just before he gets back after working away. None since.

'Forgets' to wear his wedding ring while socialising on work do's away from home.

Email spam from numerous dating/fuckbuddy etc sites.

Female colleague starts messaging him gossipy shit in the evenings. Tells her I am unhappy with it, despite agreeing with me at home that it feels inappropriate. Bad wife.

How many 'red flags' can you forgive before they're just taking the piss? Are these all believable individually?

Am thinking we need a serious talk about boundaries because I've just about reached the end of my tether. Any advice gratefully received!

It's time you got some dignity and control back. Go find that job, go see a solicitor, and get rid of that philandering git of a husband. You deserve better and you have one life. X

do everything you need to to get actual proof that he is being or has been unfaithful

For some people, like the OP, there is no actual proof that would ever be enough.

You need to stop the victim mentality.

You need to stop talking about discussing boundaries with him.

You need to stop looking for proof he might have been telling the truth.

You need to start being proactive and taking control of your own life.

And if you have to get really pissed off with me, or anyone else on here, to give you the fire in your belly to make you do it, then so be it.

I'm no different to you, I'm no better than you. I'd had an emotionally and physically abusive upbringing that led to me accepting more shit than I should and condition that means I'm more vulnerable to abusive shits.

But I did it. And if I could do it, you can too.

There's no innocent or plausible explanation for any of these things.
Not one.

I think you know the answer (which is that these are all big screaming, possibly neon with alarm bells flags) but you don't want to accept it and no-one on here is going to say 'yes, of course - there are loads of red flags that have perfectly innocent explanations and you are worrying about nothing'...

Whether you leave him or continue to bury your head in the sand is of course entirely your call. I think some of the harsher posts are really just 'give your head a wobble' but with a bit of added frustration (or projection, because, we've all been there, your instincts are telling you the truth and I think in a slightly cack handed way everyone is saying the same thing).

You have no intention of leaving him.

Which is your biggest problem.

You are being taken for a fool, the denial you've shown on this thread is just..... Mind boggling. You so desperately want to believe your not married to a cheating cunt.....but you are!!

You may never have absolute proof, but do you need it? I could never let someone disrespect me so much.

What kind of relationship is this modelling for you children? Do you have DD's? Would you feel comfortable with them being in a "marraige" like your own?

Would you feel comfortable with your sons treating their wives like this??

Grow a backbone. And throw the fucker out.

(which is a supportive but resounding 'no we have not experienced nor is it likely that these are red flags with innocent explanations' But on the whole the replies are supportive & not judging you in any way - he sounds self-centred and manipulative. It is not your fault)

I think the problem is, you've had 20 years of conditioning and tiptoeing around this behaviour. Brushing it off to keep the peace, and I don't think you are ready to upset things just yet.
I do think it would be very wise for you to start insuring yourself, a job would help so you have your own income and a sense of feeling that you are capable of being more than a wife and mother.
I just worry that you are okay with this set up but you don't know if one day one of these flings might become 'the one' and then you'll be left with nothing.
Please start putting your emotional welfare first for a change

Please don't accept this. I don't believe there are any innocent explanations for any of these.

6 months after I got married, I found some emails to my husband from a dating website. He told me that a friend had signed him up for a joke but he hadn't read any of them. I can't believe I was so naive at the time to believe him but I did. Fast forward 7 years and I found out he had a serious porn addiction. It destroyed us and my self esteem. There were also other little red flags which I chose to ignore leading up to this point.

Don't do this to yourself any more. I think you know deep down the right thing to do but maybe fear is getting in your way which isn't surprising after the way you've been treated. I think your self esteem has been badly knocked.

Even if, let's say, there are innocent explanations for what he's done (which I really don't believe there are) he is being incredibly disrespectful towards you. You deserve so much more.

Op what did you want from this thread? You've asked a question and sought opinions as to whether your dh's behaviour signals red flags and everyone has said yes definitely red flags. You sound annoyed that people are not just passing this behaviour off as nothing, like you yourself have done. You can't then get annoyed because people aren't agreeing with you.

You're clearly not happy or you wouldn't come here looking for advice. If you are unhappy with your dh you can leave him anytime for any reason, you don't need people to agree with you that his behaviour is bad. If it's bad enough for you then you should walk away.

Angle it's not that I'm annoyed pp are saying that these are massive red flags. If anything, that validates my more recent feelings - I only discovered most of this over the last six months. We were young and (he was obv immature) when we got together. Ppl are obviously going to make more bad decisions in early twenties, which is why I think I thought I could get past the early shitty behaviour. From threads on mn other ppl can forgive worse and move forward. Most of the issues could actually have explanations which do not point to the worst case. I was hoping that the odd person would pop up to say they had one or two of the same things happen, but it was innocent. I haven't defended any of these actions, just laid out the facts to get an unbiased view. I'm definitely not happy with the situation, as I say, I have come across most of this relatively recently, didn't know if I was overreacting to things because I found out all at once. I need to consider my next steps, now there's kids/house involved and I have no job.
Thanks Alabaster, your post was very insightful. I am now worried things might progress one day, and as before, I would be in the dark until it had all happened. Secrecy and lies are crap.

And also to see if others agree that taken cumulatively, this all looks dodgy.

I have been given the impression from him (and plenty of others on different threads) that I am being unreasonable if I say I don't want him looking at dating sites/porn etc, as I am being controlling....

No one in a marriage should be looking at dating sites. That's not controlling, that's respect.

Please look at the chumplady website, it may help you get clarity about cheating and cheaters.

Married people on dating sites. What would be a harmless explanation. There isn't one

name hange102 hugs, you have been treated very harshly on here, as well as by your philandering dh.
Posters on here are hardened so seem to see things very black and white. You know your husband, we don't.

From what you have written, it does seem reasonable to assume that he has lied and probably cheated repeatedly throughout the course of the entire marriage.

Do you have anyone you could confide in in RL?
How old are your children?

Tbh I was amazed you got passed red flag number one, that would have been game over.
Darling I feel so sad for you, I don't think you have been a mug, its easy when you are not in each particular situation to be left going am I being neurotic or ????
But yes all of those are great big red flags.
Firstly, I think you need to decide what you want, do you want to forgive it all, if he decides to come clean and beg you not to leave etc etc.
Or do you want to leave and maybe find someone who you deserve, who will treat you well. Also what do you want your children to learn about it all, if they were I. Your position.
Ultimately that's why I left, I wanted my girls to value themselves and I needed to set that example.
I'm so sorry you have such a hard decision to make. But at least now you know and are not stuck in that cycle.

Thanks Lucie. Kids are both still at primary, so obv need me around more than secondary aged kids atm.
I don't really have anyone I'm close enough to where I am right now (we moved a while back). I did confide in my sister when the recent stuff started coming out. That was the first time I had mentioned any of it at all. I honestly wish I had confided about the first incident when it happened, I may have reacted differently, but I wasn't living anywhere near family, so couldn't have gone to stay with them to get my head together or anything.

Thanks Oops, posted just before reading yours. I wish he would come clean, but has told me if he told me anything else he would just be making it up. Funnily, I read on a different thread recently that someones H used the exact same words mine had, turned out he was lying, and had been cheating....Put the wind up me a bit. You go into a relationship trusting the other completely, now I'm not sure of anything.

Namechange please ignore the venom fro Shefeeds , I wonder sometimes why people feel the need to be unkind and have no understanding that their life is not the same as others.
I understand completely why you accepted each one at a time, it was because it was easier than the alternative. Do not beat yourself up over that, loads of women do it and as for it being so easy to just get a job, some people are less bothered about other aspects of their lives and let things slide in more important areas in order to 'get a job' so they can be smug. Its not easy, especially when you haven't worked for a long time and have small children. It usually means at least an updating of qualifications to get through an interview these days. Not to mention it being financially worthwhile once childcare is factored in. Then add to that the assumption that byou ought to have had the foresight to see this occurring. She feeds is expecting too much in RL it doesn't work that way.
Focus on now and not what's done!

I don't know, I thought the expression "red flag" was used to mean a clue that the partner could be abusive or unfaithful.

Like if he sees a domestic violence scene on TV and says, "well, she was asking for that" and then pretends it was just a joke, that would be a red flag.

But the things you've listed are in themselves awful, they are in themselves reason for leaving.

You probably missed the red flags when they happened - the whispered phone calls, the secret emails, the entitled behaviour at home, the taking you for granted...

But everything you have listed above is in itself a reason to end a relationship. Not a red flag. Sorry.

Have a think about it and maybe come back under a name change as some of the responses here have been a bit blamey. It's not your fault you married someone who disrespected and lied to you.

It doesn't just look dodgy op it is dodgy! You've missed the red flags entirely and moved on to great big flushing neon signs which you still aren't seeing.
Your husband is actively seeking to have an affair, if he hasn't already, and your just accepting all his shitty excuses.
And they are pretty lame excuses! My friend met his wife on tinder so I had a look at tinder..What the fuck for? He has a wife?

Please don't accept this.

Simon
My friend met his wife on tinder so I had a look at tinder..What the fuck for? He has a wife?

FFS, you are right. The best bit was that he 'couldn't remember' why he had looked at it, and after a week of arguments in which I said I didn't think I could move on from it unless it was explained, he said he would ask the friend he was with at the party that night. Between the pair of them they came up with that explanation. He was drunk, couldn't remember when/why he'd looked. Sounded like a flimsy excuse at the time, but possibly true. Just don't know what to think about anything.

Oops It's hardly venom The OP has since said that she has been led to believe that the behaviour was normal or that she is controlling from the things she has posted on other threads. Her initial posts were excusing him, even if she were just processing what was being said and trying to work out how it fitted her situation.

NameChange When I first posted on here with my, "I've just discovered XXX about my husband" thread, the posters that helped me the most were the ones who just said it how it was. It was confusing and I felt that they were all talking nonsense. How could they think they knew my husband better than I? Yes, he'd done this thing that looked wrong, but this was the man who

The thing is, the internet is a funny old place and I think we've all probably looked at something we wouldn't want our partner to know about. If only because we felt a bit of a tit.

I can imagine why someone would look at Tinder, just to see what it was, or on the back of something someone had said about it. I've never been on it, but I've certainly read about it after something a friend said. But the warning is that he told you he couldn't remember. Of course he knew and remembered!

You can't remember where you put something absent mindedly because you weren't attending to it fully. Or you can't remember the exact words someone used to tell you something, although you can remember the gist of it. You can always remember your motivation for doing something because it's a conscious decision. Telling someone you can't remember just means you don't want to tell them.

No, not in 30 years of marriage have I had even one of those

If you can get annoyed at people on this thread so easily, where's your anger towards him?