You can never truly know a person can you

[Maybellissimo]

So upset right now. My sister and her two kids are staying with me right now as she has left her dh. We all loved him deeply, they have been together for 18 years, he dotes on her (or so we all thought) been really dedicated to the kids, is funny, jovial, amazing company and a really caring empathetic man. Until she discovered he has been sexting other women he has met through his job (plumber) and sending them disgusting pictures of himself masturbating and they have sent him similar ones. She found a video on his phone of him having sex with a woman. To say we are all in shock is an understatement. It’s like we are all bereaved and can’t stop crying. We are a close knit family and I know she will get through this but she is in shock that the whole she has been married to a massive sex pervert masquerading as a devoted family man. So sad right now.

You seemed to enjoy telling us all that, didn't you, @waxedlyrical very sad. You really have no remorse and no shame, do you?

I'm just agreeing that there is literally no way to trust another person. If anything I have zero faith in men now.

Agree, you never ever know. I thought I could 100% trust my fiancé and he left me for OW five months before the wedding. In the meantime, he let me book the honeymoon, buy the dress and let me think I was going crazy as his behaviour was so weird.

I’m trying to move forward but but confused as to how with all these stories you hear and also my own experience!!

wax piss off this thread

But why behave in such a way yourself? How do you look at yourself in the mirror knowing that you are part of that?

Fuck off wax what a nasty thing to say on a thread like this , you seemed to enjoy saying that .

Waxed was boasting about her affair on the other thread. She's quite the cool girl. The man's wife has just had a baby.

waxed that’s just nasty. I want my sister to read this thread and she can’t understand why I’ve told her she shouldn’t because of your mindless comments.

There has just been a whole political/sports/media drama where we live and Dh and I were just say that b-I-l is the person we would have liked to have a discussion and a laugh about it. So angry with him and will never speak to him in firiendship again but at another level we miss him.
wax you have nothing to be proud of.

Fuck off Waxed.

How pathetic that you would settle for being someone’s bit on the side. I bet you kid yourself that this is what you want and that you’ve got the best part of the deal too? Be smug now, but you’ll come off worse in all of this when it comes out. He’ll drop you, everyone will blame you and you’ll be gossiped about for months. How appealing.

You just know what they want you to know. I really don't know if the ability to change overnight is something both sexes do or just men?

Scribble: i read your post with interest because I have been thinking recently about how men refuse to support women on many issues, particularly if it relates to women issues, such as rape, abuse, trans etc. Your oh reaction is typical , disbelief yet you show him evidence. What would be his reaction now? I am struggling with a lot of male friends who have been beyond unsupportive as I have come out of an abusive relationship.

I truly believe that you don't know what's going on in someone's head. The stories here are devastating.

You will think I'm bonkers but in the cases of marriages/relationships we should always be independent to a certain degree so that if the worst happens we can still function.

I am not a cynic but I don't trust the happily ever after story. I'm in a good relationship but I believe it can end. It might be his decision or it might be mine.

I think society should start to accept that as a part of life. The shock of the happy family being blown apart could be mitigated if we were truthful.

I was single for years rearing my kids who are now in their late teens/early 20's. I was very self reliant although I had a life aka relationships that my kids were not involved in.

If my partner left me I would be very upset but I know I would survive.

For the record I got my heart smashed to pieces when a great relationship ended. I was still determined to move on when the pain lessened.

I hope I dont sound blasé about anyone's pain. It truly awful but we have immense powers to recover. Your sister can recover.

Such a sad thread, although useful to read given I believe(d) 'I have one of the good ones'.

Waxed I felt really quite sick reading your post. You do know you're shagging pond life though, right? Any man who can do that to a woman who has just given birth is bordering on psychopath territory, imo, so you go ahead and enjoy that.

OP, your sister is lucky that she has your support and I wish your family well. I agree with the others on here who say that there's always a tiny bit of them on 'alert', waiting for signs in their DP. I too am like that because I too was lied and cheated on. It sounds terrible but unfortunately it is the most primal form of self-preservation I think to go into a relationship holding something very slightly back. I also agree, you really can't know someone 100%.

I've been there too. I told my exMIL about a woman I was suspicious about on Christmas Day and got told "he would never do that to you, he adores you". New Year's Eve, caught them together in my bed...

Waxed - totally unhelpful comment, you have nothing to be proud of. People told me that the OW didn't owe me anything and it was my H that cheated. No, she didn't cheat, but she owed me to be a decent human being. Something that she (and you) are clearly lacking.

waxed you're one of those people I was talking about. The sort who doesn't want to see what their behaviour makes them. We are what we do. Wake up and look in the mirror. Have a long hard look at the person staring back at you.

I agree we can't ever truly know another person. Maybe in a way, this knowledge helps us to make the effort to keep trying to know our partners better and to put in the work to keep them interested in us. Most importantly, it means that we keep some part of ourselves (emotionally and financially) protected in case the worst happens.

I do think it's true that men are more likely to utterly crush their partners than women are, but in my own case I found out that a dear friend had been having a long-term affair with my boyfriend when a text from her suddenly popped up on his phone. The betrayal I felt was beyond words, and it was her role in it that hurt me the most by far.

If single women (and men too) could keep their knickers on and take a good look at their moral compass there would be a far smaller pool of fish for these pond life ‘partnered up’ men and women to be fishing in ,

A snapshot of some of the cheating men I know of, hospital consultant, pregnant wife , on every hook up site going and doesn't use protection
Business owner, on hook up sites, again doesn't use protection and lies constantly
Financial guy, swinger, dogging, threesomes etc, again doesn't use protection, still sleeps with wife
Farmer, pays women for sex, no protection again
I could go on and on...

wax
I would rather be his wife than you. At least she has his love and her self respect

Waxed is deluded she's the special one he has chose to cheat with. Silly girl. She's just the only cretin in the vicinity that would stoop that low.

How awful. I wish Internet and mobile phones didn't exist sometimes. However Sadly, I think men probably would find some way or another to still do these things because they can be selfish individuals. You never truly know someone you are right about that.

I do not have enough hands to count on the number of young women who were the OW only to find the man they snatched did a repeat trick some years later leaving them with offspring to rear.