Should I ignore my spidey senses??

[pandoraphile]

DP works away. A lot. Out in very a remote area. He is always contactable and we speak at least 2-3 times during the day and we message frequently. His job means that he HAS to be contactable on the landline so he always answers within 2-4 rings. ALWAYS.

He had the day off today and said that he was working from the house all day doing some stuff to do with his hobby. He says he never left it. I tried to call him at 12ish on his mobile. No answer. His mobile has never rung out there before because there really is 0% signal. Whatever, maybe there was a sudden patch of reception. But he would ALWAYS, ALWAYS call me back. This time he didn't. Which struck me as odd.

No contact at all until I tried again to call him on the landline at 4ish which, again, rang out. By this point I was actually worried because it is so out of character for him. I then had to run around dropping DD2 to a sleepover party, got caught by the mum, had to stay for a chat, etc., etc. Got home and was cooking DD1 dinner. I get a text : "I'm really horny." Er- what?! No contact all day and that's the first thing he says?? Bizarre. That's only ever happened once before and he was lying about something then too. I'm also 98% confident that the text was meant for me. Anyway, he then rings.

We then had a sort of argument which I'll precis: I said I tried to call, he denied the phone ringing either time. We went round and round in circles. He immediately became very defensive, "So you're accusing me are you?" - No, I'm stating fact, you didn't answer your phone. The only reason I tried to speak to him twice is because it's his birthday today!! I got variously:

"So you're accusing me of lying to you?"
"I don't know why you're accusing me." (I wasn't, I was very calm and explained that I had called him twice and both times it rang out. I really do not have an axe to grind!!) He got very defensive which is totally unlike him.

Then we had the long pauses. Which is one of his cues when he's lying. Then we had the overly stroppy "Oh, best birthday EVER!" I cannot explain how much this is out of character. I've actually made a huge amount of effort for his birthday, which he won't know until he's home (tomorrow.....).

He kept denying that the phone had rung. I kept calmly saying that it had. I'm not going insane. I heard those separate phones ring for a few seconds each time. I only rang twice at 12 and at 4.

He then starts on the whole dramatic "Call me now then, I need to know if the phone is working properly. It's a huge work issue if it's not." I do as he asks and lo and behold the phone is answered. He then blathers on about contacting BT to check the line because there must be a massive issue and it can't affect work (he's finished work and the on-call person also has a work mobile). He actually went so far as to say:

"I didn't get any callouts last week and I'm wondering if the phone is the reason." Right - so - when people need you urgently, they're only going to try one line? Despite there being a dedicated work mobile? And the fact that you're at work all day and they can see you there? You are really worried that some calls might have been missed? To clarify: if he's called out of hours then it's an emergency. So if there had been a cock-up he would DEFINITELY know. So I strongly suspect that the whole 'I need to contact BT about this' is smoke and mirrors.

It would be insanely out of character for him to be cheating/hiding something. But he himself said "There's no mobile signal for ten miles south of here." I said "Well, you must have been ten miles south then!" He denies it.

I really, really, think he's lying. WTAF do I do??

OP I think you need to apologise to your dh. You have no evidence at all that something dodgy happened. It was his birthday too, I think you need to put this behind you.

Nadia, stop being disingenuous.

Op, I really think that some of the posters on here who’s dhs have had affairs have whipped you up.

FWIW I agree with the PP who says it’s very extreme to end your marriage at this point over your dh not answering the phone. Please take a deep breath and try to stop panicking.

My dh accused me of having an affair once. I was not. It was extremely difficult to "prove" I wasn't. I struggled with it more because he had clearly become suspicious and been through all my messages. It was a breach of trust on his part. I was in part quite disgusted with him, not "desperate".
He might be telling you the truth.

But all your spider senses are telling you I’d that his reactions were ‘off’ when you asked him about missed calls and he replied defensively.

Strikes me there’s an awful lot of room for communication getting further and further out of sync until the relationship just combusts.

Just stop, and think for a second.

why are you doing this?

why are you so sure he’s lying?

And what happens if you’re wrong?!

This whole argument style sounds unhealthy, where you go on and on and on at him when you have a suspicion, until he cracks under the pressure.

You’re recreating that dynamic now, and that’s a zero sum game...

If a partner accused me of something I hadn't done and then refused to believe me when I was telling the truth, I would feel incredibly hurt and betrayed. Plus if they'd 'ruined' my birthday picking a fight over it. I might not be going all out to reassure them when I felt that they owed me reassurance too.

Lots of women on Mumsnet have been cheated on and can pile in to support a suspicious woman as it's an opportunity to work through their own anger and resentment at their situations. Don't let that influence you. As a PP said, take some deep breaths and try to get some perspective here.

Mumsnet is rather an echo chamber to those betrayed by men or those with children with SEN. Please remember that and filter the responses accordingly.

What do children with SEN have to do with this thread?

'Lots of women on Mumsnet have been cheated on and can pile in to support a suspicious woman as it's an opportunity to work through their own anger and resentment at their situations. '

Unfortunately I do think that the above is true

The trouble is that things like this tap into our worst fears and MN is full of people who have been cheated on and wish to open the eyes of others because they wish they’d known sooner.

So it’s time step back, what makes you think he’s been unfaithful rather than AWOL for another reason? How have things been otherwise?

I know at times the evidence points to me having an affair as I turn off my find friends, I’ve just googled Viagra after reading another thread, I take out cash, disappear for periods of time and don’t answer my phone. I’d be devastated if my DH thought I’d ever cheat on him as nobody can compare to him and I love him to bits.

We are so used to the results on MN being an unfaithfulness that the fear and hurt can kick in before we have even the slightest proof.

Lots of women on Mumsnet have been cheated on and can pile in to support a suspicious woman as it's an opportunity to work through their own anger and resentment at their situations.

Yeah, I agree with this. Not all men are cheaters and I have to say if my partner accused me of lying because I didn't answer my phone I would not be happy, nor would I be rushing to reassure them.

But then we just had ten days or so of no landline connection, however if you rang our number, it rang and sounded like it was working even though on our end it was silent and we had no idea anyone was trying to ring us. I also live somewhere with appalling mobile signal and often I'll ring DP or vice versa and it won't show on our phones (for several hours or at all) because the signal is so intermittent.

Anyway this whole thread seems to just be a mass of hysteria. Someone didn't answer their phone and all of a sudden they're cheating and lying and goodness knows what. Maybe he is a cheat but I don't know how you can come to that conclusion based on what's essentially two unanswered phone calls!

Sometimes on threads like this it's almost like the other posters want the DH to be a cheater - either because they like the drama or because they don't want to be the only ones it happens to.
Also if he was cheating i am sure he could come up with a better excuse like he was at work and couldn't answer the phone, rather than say I was sat next to it and it didn't ring.

There have been more than a few times when my mum tells me she called me but there were no missed calls on my phone.

The op originally said she was nearly 100% sure that the 'I'm horny' message was for her and then loads of people were telling her it wasn't.

Surely if someone had accused you of something that you were innocent of, you would be going all out to explain everything???

Not necessarily it would often be considered that would be pandering to their insecurities and shows that the trust within the relationship was alreadys rocky.

FWIW all you've got to base this on is the failure of 2 phone calls. You've decided that because it was both his land line and mobile that it wasn't a fault with the phones. I trust that means you didn't phone both from the same provider/network or at least managed to connect successfully with someone else between as if there was a fault it was just as likely to be with the outgoing calls as at the receiving end.

Whatever happened you clearly don't trust him so whether he is cheating or not there doesn't seem much of a future as this will continue to weigh on your mind, eating away at you.