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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

Is my husband cheating

102 replies

LosingTheplotMumOf3 · 27/09/2018 17:30

I just need advice really.

For the last 2 years I've been accusing my husband of cheating. I've not found any solid evidence but it's just a gut feeling I've had. Well when I first started accusing him I didn't. Anyways I've done all the regular stuff, gone through bank accounts, checked his phone, his phone bills and nothing came up. Apart from this one number which I didn't recognise. He fobbed it off at the time and said it was a guy who he works with, still I didn't fully accept that, so I saved the number in my phone. Things settled down and I suppose we were happy, but I still had this little nagging voice in the back of my head. I just didn't trust him. I then find out out he's been watching a lot of porn which completely devastated me as I thought we had a good sex life. To cut a long story short, the number I saved in my phone, turns out it belongs to a girl, he swears blind he doesn't know her and has never spoken to her. By this point I was already 7 months pregnant. I've found her on Instagram and her page is open, I literally go on her page on a daily basis now. She clearly lives in the same town as us. She's also got a baby, that you can see belongs to my husband. I'm too frightened to contact her and ask whether she knows my husband or not, but I'm driving myself insane with it. We argue nearly all the time over her and this baby. I've just recently had my child and I don't know what to do. I'm terrified that this girl is going to knock on my door one day and say the child is his. What further complicates the matter is that this is my second marriage. I've got 2 kids by my current husband and one kid by my ex husband. We come from a culture where this would bring great shame on our family if this were to come out. Especially if I left him as this would be my second failed marriage and it would be unlikely anyone from our culture would date me let alone marry me again. I feel so trapped and I don't know what to do. No one in my family or friends knows about this and I just feel like I'm waiting for a knock on the door and to be humiliated. Everyone thinks we're a happy family and it couldn't be further from thr truth, I cry myself to sleep most nights. Do I just take my husband's word for it and drop the issue or should I actually contact the girl and just for my own piece of mind ask her outright.

OP posts:
MaryBoBary · 28/09/2018 16:52

@Butterfly44 if you read my post it clearly says that I think this opinion removes culpability from the cheater. Therefore I’m not blaming the OP.

MaryBoBary · 28/09/2018 16:53

And no, I didn’t read the whole thread but if we husband has been cheating for 4 years then I think she’s answered her own question in the thread title

SymphonyofShadows · 28/09/2018 17:01

Sounds like blame to me too. He'd already been in the affair for two years.

MaryBoBary · 28/09/2018 17:05

I was referring to this comment in the OP:

I've not found any solid evidence but it's just a gut feeling I've had. Well when I first started accusing him I didn't.

10twinkle · 28/09/2018 18:58

@grannyscobwebs I assume she means the two initials together are uncommon. For example you don't get many people with the initals ZZ or XY do you?? Whereas JS will be common initials...

KittyLane1 · 28/09/2018 19:23

He doesn't sound very Muslim to me tbh. Lying, cheating, whoring around when his loving wife and children are at home waiting for him.

He clearly doesn't take his religion as seriously as he is trying to force you to do.

I understand that you don't want to be a twice divorced single mother, but do you want to be a door mat ?

ExceptionFatale · 29/09/2018 03:01

Honestly I haven't read all the replies but one fact is clear, you don't trust your husband. If he's cheated it's warranted, the relationship is over. If he hasn't, you still don't trust him, relationship is over. You can bring yourself to the brink of mental illness in order to maintain the status quo, or you can divorce the man you have zero trust in and teach your children that marriages are supposed to be sacred commitments if trust between both partners.

If your child was telling you the same story would you honestly advise them to stay because your culture would look down on them?

If your culture shames you for leaving a bad marriage, the culture needs to change, not you. Period. This is 2018, not the dark ages.

confusedmomm · 29/09/2018 12:50

Have you spoken to him about it, since the OW confirmed it?

MRSSF1 · 29/09/2018 13:26

He doesn't sound very Muslim to me tbh. Lying, cheating, whoring around when his loving wife and children are at home waiting for him.

He clearly doesn't take his religion as seriously as he is trying to force you to do.

I understand that you don't want to be a twice divorced single mother, but do you want to be a door mat ?

^ completely agree with this! So sorry to hear that your suspicions were right OP. It's a horrible situation to be in.

puzzledlady · 29/09/2018 13:34

please OP - leave this useless waste of fucking space. He is no man, he is a lying, emotional bully. Please, you and your children deserve so much more. KICK HIM OUT.

Whisky2014 · 29/09/2018 13:44

But wouldnt it be his shame? He cheated. Yoid be fine no?

Original poster
LosingTheplotMumOf3 · 29/09/2018 13:46

Sorry I've just been dealing with the kids and stuff. I haven't said anything to him. I messaged the OW late yesterday afternoon to ask whether she's told him and she said she hasn't, I've asked her not to say anything to him, I want to meet her first and get the full picture. I am trying to be as normal as possible and give our kids a nice normal weekend, all they're used to recently is screaming and shouting. I haven't told anyone, it doesn't feel real to be honest, after so long of being told I'm being crazy and irrational, I started to believe it. I just need to see this woman and this baby and talk to her and hear all the details even though I know it'll devastate me.

OP posts:
Easynow · 29/09/2018 13:53

Theres nothing to hear OP.

You will be fine without him.

Original poster
LosingTheplotMumOf3 · 29/09/2018 13:54

It should be his shame, but I know what our community is like. It's seen as a big deal for me to have 3 kids with 2 men let alone be divorced twice and be a single mum.

OP posts:
Whisky2014 · 29/09/2018 14:08

But there are reasons its happened like thid and none are your fault. Also, its no good to cover up things like this in the name of "shame". Maybe other woman go through it and are too scared to be open about it when actually we all know this stuff happens all the time.

HauntingNatural7 · 29/09/2018 14:13

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

usertenmillion · 29/09/2018 14:22

Fuck cultural norms.

I left feeling sad that id never be a good match, that anybody who met me would be "overlooking" my kids.

Fuck that. Im happier than i was being direspected.

olivesarelife · 29/09/2018 15:56

Leave him please. Its high time you put your sanity and happinnes above the shitty thoughts and shaming of a community. Tell them what he did and under no circumstances you want to stay married to someone like that. So what if the community talks believe me theyll move onto the next gossip. Years down the line you will be happier for urself. Change is always hard but you need to do this for the sake of ur self first and foremost and ur children. Do not bring them up showing this is ok. Whats the difference youll be a part of this culture if you always put the communitys thoughts and ways above ur happiness. Break it, it will be hard dont let him get away with been innocent let the world know of his unfaithfulness as a 'muslim'
Why should you alone suffer. No you are better than this.
For now forget the thought of will another marry me after ive cone from two marriages etc. Just concentrate on urself and ur kids for now. How stable are you financially? Are you working? I hope everything works out for you.
Ps im a fellow muslim and completely know what you mean by the community. Rise above it. Its time we dont give into the crap of (some) of their backward ways.

Original poster
LosingTheplotMumOf3 · 05/10/2018 13:16

I'm staying. I haven't told anyone. Haven't even brought it up to him. He knows I know as I'm in regular contact with the OW now. She's told him. I'm literally sat here watching him get on with it, haven't even argued with him because what's left to argue over. He sees her 5 days out the week. They're in constant contact apart from when he's home. It's like I've accepted my fate. Maybe I'll get stronger the older the baby gets, but right now I'm on maternity leave and financially dependent on him. We don't even own our own house. Part of me thinks stay, wait till we get a house together, then kick him out. We're married Islamically but not legally, technically I'm fucked as he'd just have to pay for the kids. But if we get a house with both of our names down, then I'd get something. I'm just plotting and scheming and thinking what a joke my life has become.

OP posts:
combatbarbie · 05/10/2018 16:24

He knows you know and he's said nothing.....he really is the cat that got the cream!!!

Because you haven't confronted him, he thinks it's acceptable....Christ it's not even being kept from you. I'm really trying to be sympathetic to the religous/cultural aspect but dogs get treated with more respect than you do and that is so sad to think you have just accepted this is the way it is.

Ss770640 · 05/12/2018 20:01

Fit a tracking device to his car. Or use an old iPhone with find my phone.

Your gut is usually correct. Esp regarding the long phone calls

kaitlinktm · 05/12/2018 20:58

@Ss770640

RTFR Hmm

kaitlinktm · 05/12/2018 20:59

Doh - RTFT

Missh07 · 05/12/2018 21:20

How have any pps got the patience to analyse this bullshit!

sparklesaremyfavourite · 06/12/2018 10:08

Dear OP, you deserve so much better. At least quietly tell your parents. It is HIS shame! Not yours!

I really don't like the implications that both he and her seem to have made, that it's somehow your fault for not letting him watch porn or for having a lower sex drive etc.

It's not fair! He is gaslighting and lying to you.

This is emotional abuse and I would think you have every reason to call Women's Aid and ask for support and advice. They know about cultural issues and they have people that work for them in that specific issue, so even if they specifically can't help you, they will know who can.

OP you are not to blame for this disgusting behaviour by thus man and this woman.