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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

Tell me there's an innocent explanation for this...

999 replies

backscratcher · 11/05/2017 23:00

Talk me down please.

Been with dp almost 3 years. Lovely guy, good relationship, no doubts whatsoever about him. Both in our late 30s, live together, I have one child from previous relationship. We're happy.

Tomorrow is my sister's birthday. Small party/family meal has been planned - details confirmed about 2 weeks ago. I discussed with dp who said he couldn't make it as he had to work overtime tomorrow and wouldn't be finished until late. Was unsure at what time exactly, but would be late. Overtime isn't uncommon in his workplace, but he doesn't tend to pick it up. We don't need the overtime money. Not well off, but not struggling - managing ok. I thought nothing of it.

Tonight he's gone upstairs for a bath and left his phone on charge in the kitchen. Phone buzzed with a message. It's an iphone where part of the message shows up on the homescreen but it's password protected and I don't know the password. Message said "6:30 suits me. XXXXXX does great french martinis!! ;-) Are you coming straight..." It was from David. I don't know a David. I don't know that he is friends with a David.
I googled the XXXXX place and it's a pub/restaurant place about a 40 minute drive away.

This was about an hour and a half ago.
He's in bed now and I'm sitting here shaking.

Please talk me down. This is innocent, right?

:-(

OP posts:
ohfourfoxache · 12/05/2017 15:42

He's gaslighting massively

I really, really think you need to be at that bar tonight

TheMaddHugger · 12/05/2017 15:45

Sadly OP now you have a seed of doubt in your mind.
Whether [sp?] or not you 'catch him out' Your mind will still see that possibility. And it will damage your otherwise good marriage.

On the other - He is behaving badly and being quite a Dickhead. eg gaslighting you on feeling ill.

TempusEedjit · 12/05/2017 15:45

I don't understand why on earth he would feel the need to cancel his overtime when OP told him from the start she was well enough to go to the meal itself, which is surely the main part of the celebration as opposed to the staying over bit? He would simply do his overtime shift till 10:30 ish and arrive home at around the same time as OP. Or cancel the overtime and go along to the meal. Makes no sense at all unless something fishy is going on.

Might be too late to go to the pub/premier inn now though. If OP goes along and he's not there it could be because it's innocent, but equally it couldsimply be because he cancelled the original booking this morning when he thought his overnight plans were scuppered, and has now rebooked elsewhere at the last minute now that OP is adamant she's staying out.

Allabitmuchisntit · 12/05/2017 15:47

As gut wrenching as it is, going to the pub literally is the only way to know, without doubt, what is happening here.

That said, I'm really, really hoping that there will be an innocent explanation and that you'll end your day completely relieved x

charliemaine1bee · 12/05/2017 15:51

So sorry op -really hope there is an innocent explanation but getting angry at you being poorly is def gaslighting and his plans being thwarted.x

Mix56 · 12/05/2017 15:55

Can you get a look at his bank statement? the hotel payment will be on it.

PyongyangKipperbang · 12/05/2017 15:57

Oh listen to you all! Telling her she 'needs' to go there.

OP ignore them. They just want drama.

So what do you suggest then? If the OP wants to know for sure what he is up to then yes, she needs to go there as it is the only way she will find out for sure. Anything else still leaves "reasonable doubt" which he could use to talk his way out of it.

But of course, I am happy to be told that there is better way for her to find out what is going on.

I assume that you have been a victim of a cheater who lies, manipulates and gaslights as so many of us have in order to have this knowledge?

libbyliz83 · 12/05/2017 15:57

Sorry everyone but what on earth is gaslighting?

user1491572121 · 12/05/2017 15:59

Kipper this is going like so many of these threads do. Some poor woman comes on, devestated...she gives some info about her suspicions and immediately the thread fills up with people advising her to go out and catch him in the act....always adding that she should come back here for "support"

Along with the many . placed for place markers are the empty comments such as

"Feel for you" and 'Hope it's all ok in the end"

People just want a live action reporting thread where OP finds her DH with someone else.

C4Envelope · 12/05/2017 16:00

Go to the hotel! Before he is due to arrive. Catch him out. Move on from fuck face. Face it - you will never know unless you catch him. Hes had plenty of time to make up excuses etc.

PyongyangKipperbang · 12/05/2017 16:00

It comes from a film in the 1940's where a woman was driven to insanity by her husband turning their gas lamps down by tiny bits every day and then denying that there was anything different.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

Its a well used manipulation technique especially amongst abusers.

You know how you can be arguing with someone and they will claim that they never did or said something when you are sure they did? Thats gaslighting.

ItsNachoCheese · 12/05/2017 16:04

He sounds like an absolute bellend of a man

PyongyangKipperbang · 12/05/2017 16:05

User there may be people who are like that, but that doesnt change the fact that if the OP wants to know what is happening then the only way she can do that and leave him no room to wiggle out of it, is to go there and catch him at it.

I, like a PP, showed my hand too soon and all I got for my trouble was more lies and gaslighting. If I had held back I could have caught him in the act and all would have been clear. As it was I suffered for months due to the "I know but I dont know" situation.

user1491572121 · 12/05/2017 16:10

But not everyone has the balls to do that Kipper. Some people are far too anxious or insecure or afraid.

Either way, OP hasn't been back so everyone posting the same thing over and over again is just ridiculous. She will be overwhelmed by it all.

Hidingtonothing · 12/05/2017 16:11

user there may be posters like that on the thread but there's also a lot of genuine people who have been through similar and learned valuable lessons about the possible outcomes and effects. I'm sure OP is capable of taking what advice is useful to her from the thread and ignoring the rest.

user1491572121 · 12/05/2017 16:12

I doubt OP is anywhere near this thread. It's a shitshow now.

Somedaymama · 12/05/2017 16:17

OP, if you don't want to go, when he gets home tell him that David called and told him everything. See how he steers that conversation..

kara1987 · 12/05/2017 16:23

kipper Let's just assume for a second that actually there isn't anything going on, what is all this running after and trying to catch him out going to do to the relationship.

If the show was on the other foot, and my DP suspected me of cheating and I found out how he was behaving (turning up at hotels assuming I'd be there), I'd be seriously considering whether I'd want to remain in this relationship.

I get that there's a concern that if something is going on and the OP asks about it, it may cause him to cover up him tracks further, but if he is innocent all the OP has done is prove that she isn't trustworthy or open in this relationship and it's probably doomed anyway.

OP, please be a better person that this and just talk to him. Communication is so important in a successful relationship. If he's lying, it will all come out eventually. However there is a very good chance that absolutely nothing is going on.

In this situation, if I was scared to ask I would have simply asked what he's going to do with his evening tonight after his shift and gauged the answer (bearing in mind we still don't even know if message was about tonight or another day entirely).

Though I'm still not convinced that he's done anything other than make a plan to meet someone called David. There doesn't seem to be any evidence of anything otherwise. Only the OP can determine that (if he's been staying out late, disappears for long periods of time with his phone, etc.) The OP has not mentioned any of that, so I can't understand how everyone is putting 2 and 2 together and ending up with 5.

Chops2016 · 12/05/2017 16:24

Not sure why so many posters are saying going to the pub is the only "surefire way" of finding out... if he isn't there it doesn't prove anything.

OP said she could have got the pub wrong.
They could have changed their plans (not unlikely seeing as OPs DP seemed to have picked up on a change of attitude.
They may be planning on meeting somewhere else before going to that bar.
It could have been a suggestion they decided against in the end.

Ladycocobrazil · 12/05/2017 16:25

They are putting 2 and 2 together and ending up with 5 because they have learnt from experience that this is the behaviour of someone having an affair.

kara1987 · 12/05/2017 16:25

Shoe*

NSEA · 12/05/2017 16:26

You should ask him who his friend David is and why he is meeting him for French Martinis. You can imply that you've seen more of the message and potentially others. Call his bluff. If it is innocent then I would expect you to be able to tell by his reaction.

Lillygolightly · 12/05/2017 16:27

This is the OP first time she is suspecting this man of anything after 3 years together. That alone is a huge shock for anyone.

I had quiet a few opportunities to look at the phone or dig around the internet history before I actually did. It's quiet hard to go from just suspecting to actually taking up the opportunity to find out. I myself only did after around 9 months of feeling like I was going insane. I can only describe it as standing on the edge of the cliff but not wanting to jump because you know it's going to hurt. In the end you finally jump out of sheer desperation, you just have to know once and for all. It is no surprise that the OP is not there yet after less than 24hours of suspecting anything at all.

The only reason I'd advocate the OP going and seeing for herself is that it would save months on anguish and wondering. Hopefully she'd find out good or bad and move on.

Lastly the way he has responded with gas lighting and guilting her into going is enough to put the nail in the coffin for me. OP has to decide for herself what it all means and what she wants to do about it.

Flowers backscratcher ☹️

kara1987 · 12/05/2017 16:27

lady because others have had experience of it doesn't mean for sure that's what's happening in this scenario. As I said, the OP will know best if there is anything to suspect. She now needs to sit down and think if there's anything else suspicious.

However, we literally have zero evidence here that he's even meeting some tonight (instead of another day), let alone another woman instead of someone called David..

Ladycocobrazil · 12/05/2017 16:29

I didn't say it meant for sure that's what's happening, I said that is the reason they are putting 2 and 2 together and assuming that it is happening.