I feel like he has cheated

[Loveontherocks100]

Please bear with me because this is quite long, and probably seems very stupid, but I really really can’t get over my husband lying to me/convince myself he didn’t have at best an emotional or worst a physical affair. Let me preface this by saying he works VERY long hours 8-10pm average so always at work. We have 1 baby and 1 on the way.

3 years ago he told me a (young, pretty) colleague at work (we are now 30 for context), had baked him a cake especially for him as he was moving Desk. He was teasing me that she fancied him. I thought this was quite inappropriate of her/an overreaction to a colleague (he’s her direct boss) so asked him to just shut it down. He said he did.

A year later I found an exchange of emails BY ACCIDENT (which I posted about at the time) where she asked if he was coming for drinks and he effectively said he was very sad he couldn’t because I was pregnant. Poor him. She replied “no risk no fun” and there was a great deal of winky emojis and all fairly inappropriate. Given the cake incident I was displeased and said I wanted him to stop indulging in flirting with a colleague he had said fancied him. A few months later he said she left the team for another one.

9 months later I basically find out (not from him) that she has been working for him all along. They sit near each other. He has repeatedly lied to me about it. He has been going for drinks with her and (supposedly) other colleagues. Going to nightclubs with her (and other colleagues) and lying about it whilst I’m at home with our baby.

It’s been months since I find this out and I just can’t get over it. It probably seems so small and stupid but I had to DRAG the information out of him with irrefutable proof. He just denied denied denied then said “oh I didn’t remember” blah blah blah and now I am just convinced in my mind they must have slept together at least once or kissed or flirted.

I don’t understand why else the flirting emails, the cake, the lies!?!

Am I insane?

"The issue with it was the lies/I was having a bad time at the time as our son had had an operation and I needed him around."

So he put going out at night before his son??? WTAF. That would be more than enough for me. Throw in the lies, I would not want to continue a life with this person at all.

Love I will tell you that my "what if I was wrong" twinge has been massively squished by his behaviour since we were no longer a couple, if that helps? He was a lying twat who thought with his dick to the detriment of our relationship when we were together, and a lying twat who thought with his dick to the detriment of his kids when we weren't.

I have basically just offered him that if he tells me I PROMISE, whatever it is I won’t react, I won’t get angry, I will try to work through it and I will let him live here/come to the scan/anything.

I JUST WANT TO KNOW.
Tbh I would rather know now via text so I don’t need to reply and I can just calmly think about it. If he told me something in person it would be a whole scene.

If he doesn’t tell me now then I suppose I should believe him? Or accept he never will and leave?

How to be sure.

I’ve said he can have a few hours to think.

He has read it and not replied which tbh I feel is a bit of a fucking sign isn’t it.

He is just saying there is nothing

I think he needs to tell you face to face

I think you should leave and hold your head up high. Your husband should be fighting for you and being clear with you. He has no one to blame apart from himself bout the end of his marriage. He has consistently lied about not just the nature of his relationship with his colleague but also his own actions within that. That is enough for most people to lose trust and is 100% not the actions of someone trustworthy who has basic respect for their partner. His subsequent behaviour would be enough to drive most crazy with doubt, anxiety and what ifs and spiral someone into a depression. If he loved you and wanted the marriage to work he would be trying - that means being honest, upfront, reassuring and doing what he says he’s doing. Not indulging in flirting and lies with a colleague.

I think your stance should be enough is enough and regardless the trust is gone. He made his own bed, leave him to lie in it with her and create a better life for yourself. You deserve it. You do not own his shame or the blame in this. Remember that.

He put going out with colleagues... i.e. HER, before your son. Your son who had just had surgery.

What kind of man does that?

@gemma

Yes. He said he had work calls and couldn’t come home (he works with the US plausible at night). Eventually found out he was at drinks. He wouldn’t fully admit the lie “I’m sure I did still do a few calls” which is just nonsense

What a fucker... I would boot him out on that basis alone, never mind the rest!

And it more than likely was one on one drinks followed by God knows what God knows where...

I think he is a scummy liar who will never tell you the truth because he knows you will be horrified. He clearly has form for lying and avoiding family responsibilities. If I had children and they had been seriously ill I would have been working from home OR leaving early/taking leave... not shagging some colleague or other and boozing it up!

He does not deserve you or his children.

...for something I can’t prove.

You already know that he is a blatant liar who has been taking you for a fool. He has prioritized this woman.

Is lying a dealbreaker for you?

@gemma

The thing is he just comes across as someone who would NEVER do this! But don’t they all? And he DID lie. The things in my OP and since are things I KNOW to be true. Maybe I will never know what was said or done. But I KNOW I has lied about her repeatedly to my face.

@MsDogLady

Lying should be a dealbreaker, it should. It’s amazing how I feel complacent about it. I am very unhappy with the situation at hand and it is playing on my mind but I feel warm in my family bubble and it’s difficult to leave it without more of a push

I have basically just offered him that if he tells me I PROMISE, whatever it is I won’t react, I won’t get angry, I will try to work through it and I will let him live here/come to the scan/anything

Careful, OP - you really don't want to compromise your position by "bargaining" with him, and you're quite right that he almost certainly won't tell you anyway. If he's cheating, then for him there'll be no point ... if he tells the truth you might leave him, and if you were going to leave anyway there'd be no advantage for him in opening up

Having been there I totally understand the need to know, but sadly there's so much that you just never will. In the end it comes down to "no trust - no relationship" and that decision has to be yours, but I'll say again that the self-destruction brought about by years of doubt isn't something I'd wish on my worst enemy

He lied. To avoid coming home to help his family. Shitty I would say.

So he is a good liar.. and even when caught, still tries to twist the truth.

How can you trust him ever again?

I have been there and men like this NEVER mention another woman in this way unless there is something going on. He lied to avoid coming home to his family so he could have a drink and a shag.

I bet he thinks you would never leave him. My ex was so arrogant until caught and even then, denied hard evidence and tried to blame his friends!

Give him the wonderful Christmas gift of his bag. Packed.

@puzzledandpissedoff

Thank you puzzled. It’s good to know about the long term effects of feeling this way.
You are right / I just felt desperate. But he didn’t tell me anyway so now I am only doubting myself.

@Gemma1971

I’m so sorry for what you have been through. Liars are liars 😔

Look, you can't get blood out of a stone and you're on a hiding to nothing here. He has told you all he's willing to tell you and that's that.

So you need to probably stop with the pressing and pushing - it's not going to throw up what you want

What do YOU want? Putting aside the obvious answer (which you aren't getting), what exactly do you want now? Are you prepared to leave him over this?

Incidentally, I have a good looking and lovely husband who has his admirers. He wouldn't say to me ' oh such and such fancies me at work!' because there would be simply no need. I trust him to draw a line and have boundaries. Which he does. So it's irrelevant that some woman at your partners work fancies him - it becomes relevant when he takes it to far ... so , flirty messaging outside of work, meeting up and not telling you, deleting correspondence

So it boils down to what steps you want to take with the evidence you have - and assuming you're not getting any more. Do you trust him? Clearly not.

I think I'd be saying no more about it for now, bar a ' I need some time to think about whether I can still trust you going forward so I need you to spend some time elsewhere' ... And mean it! That'll concentrate his mind far more than pushing him constantly

He’s literally now trying to say he doesn’t know if he fancies her. Despite having been ADAMANT at the time and clearly finding it very funny and telling me so.

lucy

I need to think, you are right. I have essentially told him I need time and space to think. Beyond that I don’t know. I really will have to consider my options here.

Do you really think it’s fair to make him stay elsewhere though? I tried it at the time this kicked off and he begged me not to and I relented. So now I don’t see what else I can do than make him sleep on the sofa.

he didn’t tell me anyway so now I am only doubting myself

And sadly, that's exactly the intention. Cheaters thrive on keeping you just a little bit off balance - not enough so it's clearly visible, but just sufficient to keep you in place and their own activities intact

I also agree that they're so often "the very last person who'd do that", but then it wasn't until much later that I learned my own pillar-of-the-commnity had never stopped seeing prostitutes in over 30 years of marriage

What about what YOU want OP? Do you think he was thinking of you and his family when he was out living it up with her etc.? No, he was thinking of HIMSELF.

Which is what he is doing now.

This is no longer about what he wants. He lied, 99% cheated and put her before his family.

The teasing he did with you about her fancying him is CLASSIC. Nasty bastard. Give him the gift of spending Christmas alone.

Get a backbone and insist he finds a hotel or Air BnB for now.

@Loveontherocks100, my ‘D’H did something very similar to me when I was pregnant with DC3. It got worse after she was born. We’re two years on now...he cut the OW out eventually (still denies that anything happened with her but why lie about her if there’s nothing to hide) and is making an effort to make things right. But I see him so differently now. I don’t feel the same. He ruined everything. I’m still scarred. I’m still hurt. I still cry sometimes. I haven’t moved on but I haven’t left either. The thing that still makes me feel sick to the stomach is the thought of him enjoying a flirty little ‘friendship’ with this other woman while I was at home trying to juggle a newborn, emotional 5yo who was having a hard time adjusting to new baby and 9yo who felt like he had to be the man of the house because Daddy had gone awol. He lied to me repeatedly about her. I don’t think I’ll ever trust him again like I used to. I’m so sorry you’re going through it.

I will get flamed the shit out of for this, but if you're struggling to find evidence and hes "working late" all the time, have you ever considered hiring a private detective? To see if he genuinely is working late or up to something else, and to see what exactly goes on during these work nights out?