Hi folks! I'm hoping someone can help before I lose my mind.
I'll try keep this short. I'm with my husband almost 11 years, married for over 7 of those years.
9 weeks after we married my husband went out with his best friend for a few drinks. He didn't get home till 5 in the morning, which isn't like him, usually home relatively early. So I asked where he was, he said he was at his friend's house. But my gut told me otherwise, so I checked his phone when he was sleeping to find 2 missed calls and 2 messages from his friend all at approx 1.30am. These messages were begging him to go home and to remind him he's married. I felt sick when I read the messages from his friend I rang his friend the next morning, who told me my husband didn't go back to his house, he in fact went back to his ex girlfriend (home from the states on holiday) sisters house. Admitted he was all over her all night and he begged him to not get in the taxi with her, but my husband didn't listen. So armed with this I went up to my husband, woke him gently and asked him how his night was. He said oh great, and again lied saying he was at his friend's house. When I told him I know the truth, his face fell. He said nothing happened, that they were just catching up. I kicked him out for a week, I needed space. He came back crying, apologising for going to the house with her and continued to deny anything had happened. Said they just talked. But eventually admitted he found her attractive and wanted something to happen. Also admitted to flirting all night, dancing seductively and behaving like a single man. I let him back as I wanted to make our new marriage work.
It took me quite a long time to be able to build my trust in him again, but was getting it back slowly.
Then he took over as acting manager in work. Developed a strangely close relationship with another manager in a neighbouring city. Firstly, he used to say she was a pain in the behind, then suddenly she was amazing, so helpful, funny etc. She would visit his store too frequently, and each time he would talk about her a lot. Then he stopped talking about her abruptly. I noticed around this time that he was active on his work phone WhatsApp at crazy times in the morning, 7 for example, he doesn't start work rill 8.30. Asked him why he was active outside of work hours, he said he was checking messages from the day before. Seems odd to me as its something he had never done. So then I decided to keep an eye on his personal phone, and low and behold there were a lot of personal messages from this colleague. Then one selfie of her asking him to join her for a drink as she was in town for the night. He replied back saying sorry I can't with loads of crying emojis. Then not long after he went to Cork for a work training day, stayed overnight and was asked to go for dinner and drinks with this female colleague on their own, despite dozens of colleagues being at the event also. I called him not knowing he was out having drinks with her, he sounded funny so I asked can you not talk, to which he replied oh its only me and her having a drink, I asked who was going for dinner to which he nervously said just the 2 of us. I was furious. He had many colleagues there who he'd known for many years, yet he chose to spend time alone with this woman. It didn't sit well with me. So when he got home I sat him down and asked did he think it was appropriate, and to look at it from my angle. He said he went to bed early and she went to meet with other colleagues. So I asked him to show me her messages inviting him out (all on his coded work phone). He reluctantly opened their chat, lots of conversations between them, barely any work related, and many flirtatious. Then, the last whatsapp was at 10.30 from her saying 'welllllllll???????'. I questioned this, he said she needed his room number for the bill for dinner. I asked why he didn't reply, he said he called her to give it to her. Again I found this very strange. I told him it made me incredibly uncomfortable having such a relationship with a female colleague and I wasn't comfortable with it. He flew off the handle and we argued a lot about it. He simmered and then apologised stating that it was inappropriate and he did over step our boundaries.
This dented my already battered trust in him. He had lied to me before so I felt he could easily do it again.
And now. He was away on a football weekend with his brothers in England for the weekend. I was about to whatspp him early, about 6,to say safe flight, when I noticed he was on line. His brothers weren't, and he was off and on what'sapp. So, let's go back approx 2 months. Our 3 year old daughter was going through pics on his phone, then says daddy who's that? It was a selfie of his assistant manager (FYI, mid twenties, stunning looking). Immediately I asked why has he a selfie of her on his phone? He panicked and said oh look she was working late and sent it messing to me, so he opened up their WhatsApp conversations and showed me. On closer inspection, she has been messaging him about stuff outside of work, the soccer team he supports etc. Calls him 'bossman', repeatedly tells him what a wonderful boss he is, and silly stuff. Anyway, I told him it's inappropriate to send selfies to a manager, he agreed, and I laughed it off. However, I took her number from his phone, don't know why to be honest, but I did. So anyway, when I realised he was off and on WhatsApp to someone, I decided to check her status. Low and behold she was off and on at the same times. Looked to me like they were messaging each other. I berated myself and put it to the back of my mind. He has in the past few months been speaking more highly of her, yet when he first hired her he said she was annoying, sloppy at her work and immature. Now she's the bees knees.
So he's home after 4 days, our daughter was thrilled and asked to see pics of the game, he gave her the phone and she was happy looking through the match day pics. She was tapping away, and then went into his deleted pics, and again those dreaded words of mammy who's the girl? It was the selfie she had sent about 2 months ago. So I quickly checked his WhatsApp, but he had deleted his conversation with her.
I asked him why on match day did he delete this one pic, he said he deleted loads, but that's a blatant lie as only one was logged on the phone that say. Plus he would have had to scroll for ages to get the pic up as he receives a lot of WhatsApp pics. So I asked again, he choked, didn't have an answer. So I asked him to pull his conversation with her, he got tongue tied at this stage, and said ya we can check. He acted all surprised when the conversation wasn't there, it was infuriating to watch as he's a terrible actor. So I asked why while he was on a boys wkend did he feel the need to delete his conversation with her. He said he didn't, he must have done it before. I pointed out that on his WhatsApp, when you go to delete a conversation, its automatically set to delete media also. He started getting verbally abusive, os I left with my daughter for the evening.
When I put her to bed, I calmly asked him did he want to talk about it so we could clear it up air. He immediately went on the defensive, started saying I'm accusing him of having an affair. I never once said I anyway like that, simply I wanted an explanation. Then he said ya I deleted the conversation last wk as I was sick of seeing her every time I opened WhatsApp. Bullshit i reckon. Why I asked was there a sudden issue seeing her on it, he said he didn't want her on his personal phone. Yet they had exchanged many messages over a long period of time. So why suddenly is he not OK with it and deleting everything? So I asked again about the picture, he said he deleted it as he knew I didn't like it being on his phone. I queried why he left it 2 months to delete it, and why did it even enter his mind while away with the lads. Again he got verbally abusive and I could not talk to him as he was being nasty and insulting me. He even told me if I wanted to leave him then I could fxxk off and go. I have a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that he's hiding something. Maybe they were messaging and something inappropriate was said and he panicked and deleted everything. But if that's the case why can't he just tell me, my heads all over the place.
Have i something to be worried about, and how do I approach it with him without it blowing up in my face