Text from another man on my Wife's phone telling her our relationship is a joke.

[Ishtak2000]

I've been tearing my hair out for awhile suspecting my partner of having an affair as she's always sneaking off with her phone and is so protective of it.

I managed to look at her phone when it was unlocked and there was a message to another man calling him 'Baby'. A lot of calls backwards and forwards with this man....who is a work colleague.

I confronted her about having an affair with him and she said he was a gay friend from work.

I was relieved and had told her that even though our relationship has been difficult for the past two years (with no physical contact - although I do want to be intimate with her) I want us to make things work.

(We've been together for 23 years).

Anyway, today while getting the house ready for guests she left her phone in the room after texting a friend. I saw it was unlocked and to my better judgement something compelled me to look at her messages....as I looked a message from 'unknown' came up. It was the number of the colleague I had suspected her of having an affair with....it was clearly part of a conversation with the rest of the thread deleted...

and it said ''That's ridiculous that u're doing that and that you bought that bloody house, when is this farce going to end??? Xxx''

We moved house about 6 months ago with the intention of it being a fresh start for us and our children (10 and 14).

Clearly something is going on with this colleague who is either her confidante....or is not gay and she's having an affair with him.....or he's a complete bastard and trying to sabotage our relationship..

I can only imagine that he means that our relationship is a farce as why else mention that we'd bought a house and he's in disbelief about something....she might have told him that she's thinking of making it work or being intimate with me....God knows....

What would anyone else think if they saw the following text on their partners phone?

'That's ridiculous that u're doing that and that you bought that bloody house, when is this farce going to end??? Xxx''

No intimacy (with you) for 2 years and that text ?

100% Affair (Emotional, Physical or Both)

Call her out on it - you can't live your life like this - time for a real honest discussion.

Thanks everyone for your comments and support.
I really don't know what to make of this situation at all, things had been difficult for us over the past couple of years due to the stress of our autistic sons violent tantrums.
There had been no intimacy due to our son not being able to sleep in his own bed due to anxiety and so I ended up sleeping in his room while he slept in our bed.
I've been trying to get this rectified for a long time but my wife was happy to keep the peace and stay with that situation - which has gone on for over 2 years.

I would say the last sexual intimacy between myself and my wife was over 2 1/2 years ago. I have talked to her about it very recently and that I want to get a normal relationship back and be intimate with her.

Her response was that things weren't great sexually between us even before the kids were born and that lots of people don't have that much intimacy in their relationships.

I've made it very clear that I want to rekindle this spark and felt like we were moving forward yet this 'friend' is clearly egging on some kind of toxicity.

Or as many of you suggest he's not gay and she's having an affair with him.

When I had asked who this guy was she just played it down as a gay guy she works with, no mention of him being a friend or someone she's even in touch with.

(I made no mention of the texts I'd seen, the many phone calls, the voice mail left saying 'babes, where are you, I'm just waiting for your call' the fact that she had disguised his number or never ever mentioned his existence).

As some of you have mentioned, he may be a friend, it may be about something to do with the house (we have a lot of work to do on it) it may be innocent.

But why keep his number disguised and delete messages, sneak off to text, keep a lock on her phone and guard it?

Yeah... I don’t think many would see anything “innocent” in any of that behaviour. Pretty sure she’s cheating on you or it’s leading that way

I think you have to admit to snooping and have it out one way or another or you will explode!! And it will come out when you have had a drink etc

If you know his name can you snoop on social media to see if there is any proof of him being gay?

Oh come on. Reverse the sexes (on all parties) and would ANY of you buy the line that the “colleague” is a lesbian?

There’s about as much a of chance that this particular OM / colleague / whatever is gay as that Accrington Stanley will win the Premiership.

Her response was that things weren't great sexually between us even before the kids were born and that lots of people don't have that much intimacy in their relationships.

So completely dismissive of your thoughts and feelings as well as everything else?

She sounds awful. What do you actually get out of this marriage? I would be building my exit strategy.

Just read your update. A disabled child makes things really hard - but, sorry to say, she has checked out of the marriage.

TBH, I think your chances of regaining any intimacy are pretty slim.

You need to confront her with what you know - no point pussy-footing around it. Plan the discussion first.

The reality is she is emotionally invested in this other guy, and instead of trying to work through problems with you, she is talking someone outside the marriage, without you knowing and lying about it. That is fact.

In the (remote) chance this is not an affair of some sorts, this she cannot deny.

I'm sorry. The only hope is a cold, hard dose of reality - you need to have the discussion. Admirable that you want to work on this, but it takes 2 for that to happen...

Thanks, it doesn't feel great that this situation is going on. The past few days have been the best for a long long time in terms of feeling closer to each other, not arguing, actually engaging with each other.

I know she had detached from the relationship and I guess I must have to an extent but had a wake up call when I realised that she might be seeing someone else and the extent of the rift.

She hasn't seen that text as I didn't know how to mark it as unread in her phone so I just deleted it entirely so it never came through. I imagine there's been more contact since then - or he's wound up by a lack of response.....or she's confused by the non appearance of a text he's maybe mentioned.

I've managed to look through this guys facebook account as my wife left her facebook open on a device....and I found it through the history.

There is nothing to suggest that he's gay or straight in his images....so it's very ambiguous. I found out through his facebook that he's not in my wife's work team, he works in a similar workplace in a town next to the one she's working from - but that all her work colleague friends are also friends with this guy on facebook.

My wife had been working part time and regular hours until September when she moved to a new team and went full time working later shifts. Her work involved her sometimes being on call which means getting home at 10pm or 11pm instead of 8pm.

There are opportunities for her to meet this guy in the evenings when she says she's working late....I had initially found out about their communications by looking through her unlocked work phone. Now she's moved her work phone from where she always kept it after I mentioned his name last week and she pretended he was just a gay friend from work.

If he's just a gay friend from work - why list him in her workphone with a job title he doesn't have.

Why pretend she doesn't know who's calling when his number flashes up on her normal phone?

Why keep him unlisted in her normal phone so he comes up as 'unknown'?

If there's nothing going on with this guy and he's gay why would she be so secretive about their friendship.

If you are looking for explanations - there is something called Occam's razor.

Occam's razor (or Ockham's razor) is a principle from philosophy. Suppose there exist two explanations for an occurrence. In this case the one that requires the least speculation is usually better. Another way of saying it is that the more assumptions you have to make, the more unlikely an explanation. Occam's razor applies especially in the philosophy of science, but also more generally.

Apply it to your situation.

There is one thing that would explain everything - quite simply. I'm sorry.

I called her out on this today - and she claimed it was her friend using a different phone....and then finally when I revealed that I had read the texts, voicemails and knew what was going on she admitted it.

Sorry to hear that. Is she at all remorseful?

She admitted having an affair with him?

Yes, she's admitted that she's having an affair....that he's a work colleague from an old team, that they were friends and that it developed into an emotional then sexual relationship. She claims they only had sex a few times because of time.

We bought the house 6 months ago and she was already seeing him for awhile before then.

She is having an affair ? If so I am so sorry. I have a close friend with an autistic child and although thankfully their marriage is solid, it has been incredibly stressful, and many marriages suffer or break when things are so hard.

At this moment in time I've just very stressed, I'm not angry with her as my behaviour had helped to drive her away, taking her for granted and being more work focused.

I've told her that she has to decide if she wants to break our family up and if so that means she won't be living in the family home as I won't move out and I won't tolerate her staying here if she continues with this guy.

I want stability for our children and wanted so much for our relationship to work, I woke up too late to fix the damage....and in the meantime she found emotional intimacy then sexual intimacy elsewhere. She won't be able to understand what she wants unless she stops communicating with him....

I also need to figure out if I want to try and make our relationship work.....

I really don't know as I'm so fucking hurt, I'm devastated.

If this had happened a year ago I would have been suicidal as I was suffering from depression but now I'm stronger and would never harm myself....I have to put my children first.

I have his number and could easily ring him.

I just don't know how to respond as I'm just in shock - and had buried my head in the sand for a long time until I saw the signs emerge and tried to repair the damage before it was too late - I was too late.

I feel angry at myself for allowing our relationship to detach this far - and now it's all out in the open I just don't know what to do.

I still love her and want our children to have stability and family as I can't throw away 23 years together just like that, it just feels unreal, like a fucking awful dream. It just hasn't sunk in....

Good that you had the conversation and pushed it - well done. Don't be too hard on yourself - I'm sure you weren't the perfect husband - but she sure as hell has not been the perfect wife.

Take your time - don't rush (or allow your wife to rush you ) into making a decision.

If it's any consolation, in cold light of day, the other man will bugger off pretty quickly, a single/separated mother with an autistic child is not nearly as exciting target as a married women with her children hidden away....

Her behaviour is vile. She bought a house with you whilst sleeping with another man. I admire you for wanting to try to save the marriage but when you've had more time to think it through you might want to suggst she goes elsewhere.

Please stop blaming yourself op....Her desire to fuck someone else is the only thing that drove her away.

Personally I think she's an arsehole and you'd be well rid, as even when you've caught her she has the audacity to insult your Intelligence and continue to try and lie her way out of it.

Whatever you decide you must stop blaming yourself, you are not responsible for other people's shitty choices.

Look after yourself.

You are blaming yourself. Nope. You need to read this:

www.chumplady.com/2012/04/the-humiliating-dance-of-pick-me/

The affair has been going on and off for 4 years....with it previously being a few months at a time when things were bad in our relationship and then her breaking it off when she said things were better.

This time apparently it's been going on for longer and she's become more involved emotionally as she's become detached from me....clearly when she went full time at work with later shift patterns she had more time to connect, see him and be in contact.

Do I ring this guy and have it out with him letting him know the damage he's causing or do I just ignore him?

Calling him will get you nowhere

You set all of this like you’re just happy to still carry on this marriage

How do you feel about being with her?

And FYI
It’s her who has caused the damage. You might like to transfer it all onto him, but I imagine he’s been spun a line too.