what affair signs did you see?

[Harpersjazz]

I’m in the aftermath of finding out about my husbands 5 month affair (emotional and physical) and I find it fascinating some of the times my intuition took over!

I started to feel like something just wasn’t right and then In the last month my intuition went crazy! We were having a fun afternoon doing our big Christmas food shop and he was at the end of the freezer aisle texting. I wouldn’t have given that a second thought 6 months previous but I went all cold and my stomach flipped and i just knew there and then he was texting someone else romantically.

He also got a lovely jumper for Christmas which he told me was from his mum. She buys him clothes and aftershave etc so it shouldn’t have been weird but again it was like this little alarm bell went off. Turns out OW bought it for him.

There were a few more too. I’ll always trust my instincts more in future. Have you ever been cheated on and got a weird feeling from non obvious cliche stuff?

@Ohamlreally

I had already accepted the pp comment as fair and stepped back. I don’t want to derail the thread, so I’ll just say I’ll agree to disagree.

Fwiw, I may not have first hand experience of an affair. But I watched how 8 years of my sister’s life was spoiled by a complete part of a man, who treated her appallingly. It broke my heart to see the pain she was in as he made babies with other women. And there was nothing I could do. I cannot imagine the hurt she herself (or any person who is cheated on) felt. It must have been such an awful time for her and I hope our love and support somewhat helped.

She’s with a great guy now, so I have to believe and hope that he is indeed a great guy. I have to believe my husband is a great guy...otherwise there’s another decade of grief just waiting to happen all of the time.

The signs she saw were much the same as posted here. The secretive nature over the phone. Going out more often than not. Taking strange phone calls at odd times. Withholding affection. Sending her home to the parents ‘for a break’, whilst pregnant. Being seen out about with girls and denying or minimising - she was just a friend - I didn’t kiss her, but I whispered in her ear at one point which is what they must have seen...etc Nastiness was the worst thing. The things he’d say to her; call her; do to her.

I really don’t want to think they all end up like this.

DBML I'm v sorry for your sister, and it's not a club anyone would want to join 😔 so it's only good you're not a paid-up member.

I actually think that on a thread about betrayal, it's not necessarily a bad thing to be reminded that not every husband will do this.

When I went through what felt like something so devastating and personal that it could only have happened to me, and then gradually discovered that the feelings and the pattern were horribly standard, I thought about all the men I knew. In my life, in my family, that I'd ever heard of. And I realised that actually a lot of them had done this in one way or another. Like, 95%?! Men who I respected and loved, men who everyone thought well of ... but somehow, in some way, they'd all looked outside of the good thing they had.

In some cases they were searching for an ideal and they ended up moving on. (and often never finding it)

In probably more cases they had an affair or affairs in a way that was either totally hidden from
their family (I would label these the alpha cheaters - at least nobody gets hurt, and they often give the wife/family a great life), or was sort of known but never disturbed.

I decided in the end that competent loyalty is the most important thing. You'll think that sounds odd. But I mean that if it is just a biological fact that most men have a roving eye, or are on a quest of some sort, then the best option is one who still loves you utterly and wouldn't allow that aspect of himself to hurt you.

Obviously, of course, the really best thing is the guy who says hmm, this feels tempting, but it's not really. And doesn't go there.

And there are definitely guys like that.

But for the rest, yes there's a very obvious pattern. It's depressingly hilarious. And it's like the dog having moussaka all over its face and an upturned dish on the floor and pretending it hasn't had its paws up on the worktop and just polished off the family supper. They somehow think you won't notice.

How would you not notice when they've spent 1.5 hours in the bathroom, shaved themselves to a polished marble finish, coiffed their (regularly cut) hair to within an inch of its life, splashed a gallon of aftershave on like they just got a big bottle for Christmas, used so much mouthwash they make your eyes water from 20 paces, trimmed their fingernails (........ don't ask why .....), whistled purposefully as they dress themselves carefully, with a slight air of teenage vulnerability, in their (obligatory) new jeans and (unaccustomedly expensive and branded) zip front hoodie (just a bit tight over their (reducing from all the sexercise) fat tum) and ... they then check the kitchen clock anxiously and say they have to leave on the dot of 9.10 and you ask why and they say ... nonchalantly ... eyebrows slightly raised (in disbelief themselves) ... 'oh, just going for a drive'.

On a Sunday morning.

And they ask you to make them a bacon sandwich quickly for them before they go.

😀 Ring a bell?!

@DBML The pp whose comment you accepted was fair was the comment by @Ohamlreally

I can’t imagine for a second that he’d run off with another woman for the sex, when I already wear him out at home

Totally missing the point about why many affairs start ...

I think this is such an important (and in a lot of cases hilarious) thread.
It is important to recognise the signs early on, reacting to them is your choice.
The longer the affair goes on the harder it is to suspect and detect there is anything happening. Phone secrecy becomes the norm, working away becomes part of daily life, and the obsessive grooming dies down as the players get used to each other (as in real life).

My advice to anyone who has any kind of inkling, don’t accuse or react to your gut. Just watch and keep a diary of your SOs behaviour. After a month or so revisit.
Reacting to their behaviour and accusing often puts cheats into stealth mode. It doesn’t stop them cheating it makes them more secretive. The phone will be kept in another room, it’ll be turned off more, they will assume you’re always watching.

They become expert at making you think there’s nothing going on, or it’s just they’re working more, or you’re paranoid.

Keep searching for clues, keep a diary of their behaviours and routines, the lies will catch them out eventually

@katy78

Quite right. My apologies.

Ell03 yes absolutely - as soon as they think you're on to them, they will indeed go into stealth mode.

It's up to you in the end, often. Do you forgive and let them stay. Or has it ruined everything too much.

But I think the finding out is the worst part. And hardest as you have to try to keep a lid on your emotions, especially in front of children.

As the OP I am now entering a new stage of hell I am being called names down the phone by other woman - there’s no one else who has any beef with me. I assume she’s angry that he ended things and that she handed her notice in when I found out as I gave him an ultimatum that one of them would have to leave. He said she volunteered as she was thinking of leaving due to bullying anyway. (I have no idea if that’s true obviously) I got repeated phone calls from a blocked number on Friday night from a woman who asked for me by name and then said you’re a fat bitch and it’s all your fault. How delightful. should I just take the high road and ignore? I’ve had nothing since but it’s made me very uncomfortable!! And very angry at him even though he looked so shocked when I put the phone on speaker I suspect he’s shitting himself at this side of her personality emerging (serves him bloody right but not me) when I asked her if it was her by text message afterwards she said she would never do that to anyone and would never stoop so low and can I please refrain from messaging her. But who the bloody hell else could it be?! My brain is fried from this last 2 months.

Being super critical of me and getting trim.

Same as everyone else!

Really snappy over a drink I apparently forgot to order him when he went to the loo for a nano second.

Cried when I bought him a nose hair clipper!!!

Shaved his pubes into a triangle !

Booked our 20th wedding anniversary at the same super flash London hotel we had our wedding night at (totally over the top for him) and then told me he couldn't go as he was actually having an affair and the OW might get upset! I went anyway and used the opportunity to shag my divorce lawyer. ;) !!

usernumbers I LOVE your take on it!! : D

I really really really hate that line that the OW might get upset. OMFG.

In my situation, still attached, that line is used as a kind of reliable, reflex emotional flicking or pinching mechanism. And even though I see it for what it is, it still hurts.

(flicking always bloody hurts)

Harpersjazz: the OW is by definition a cow. So she will show her true colours. Just be happy you're not her. Really. Moral superiority and just being nicer does actually work here.

Thank you, I needed to hear that

@harpersjazz
I warned a friend about men posting pics on dating apps from their bathrooms
A sure sign he is married!

@Happygirl79

Not always, sometimes it is the only mirror in the house, and they have no friends to take a picture for them.

Both of these things should be equal warnings though.

I was terribly naive and over trusting with my exH, he had his affair almost in plain sight. He started going to the gym then went running every morning. No idea if he actually did that of course, could have been an excuse for running around to see her. Then he withdrew emotionally, started patting me on my head instead of kissing me. Stopped making any effort with my family at all, to the point of rudeness. Finally he became critical of me after having been the most supportive partner beforehand. All this happened whilst I was worried about him as he wasn't sleeping and I thought he was heading for a breakdown.

@Happygirl79

I warned a friend about men posting pics on dating apps from their bathrooms
A sure sign he is married!

Haha funnily enough, I caught my husband on fabswingers. Guess which room his profile photo had been taken in ugh.

Another one in the club here. One of the first signs for me was when he started to change his social media habits. We had been together for 9 years. He had FB and barely used it, we didn't interact with each other much on it, but I'd sometimes tag him in on photographs. He worked in a predominantly female workplace and had a few friends there he'd made over the years. It never even crossed my mind he would have an affair, let alone with someone at work.

He came home one day and I noticed he was on FB that evening, on his PC. He said he was adding a few friends from work on there, a couple of new people had started and he got on with them quite well. I had no reason to question it at all, why would I? I didn't even ask, it didn't cross my mind. What he was actually doing was adding a lot of his work friends as a bit of smoke screen to adding the (eventual) OW. He'd said in the past that he wouldn't add work colleagues to his social media connections, but I thought it was just him ceasing being a bit of a luddite.

One afternoon I was scrolling through my FB feed and saw he had been tagged into a post by a particular (very) young woman and a bit of interaction between them. I don't know why, but I just had a weird feeling from it. He came into the room and I asked him in a round about way 'who is so and so?' he suddenly went quiet and said 'Oh she's one of the new members of staff at work' and tried to change the subject.

As I said, that was one of the first things which spiked my spidey sense, but I brushed it off thinking I was being silly.

It took me a year to find out the truth, but very early on we had a massive row about her as I'd noticed she was whatsapping him as soon as he arrived home (barely 30 mins after they had finished work). He said she was just a friend and she messaged everybody after work. Basically what culminated was a load of gaslighting and then trying to turn it onto me, as per The Script. Over that year when I look back he did an awful lot of the following:

spending a lot of time on his phone (whatsapp)
adding a passcode to his phone
losing weight
buying slimmer fitting t-shirts that only a much younger man would wear - he wasn't a planet on sticks (that is still making me laugh) but it was definitely an attempt to look younger.
suddenly becoming more social with work things whereas in the past he always turned them down
suddenly becoming interested in things he'd previously slagged off before such as certain books and music - all what she was into, of course.
Wanting more sex (probably fantasizing I was the OW)
Becoming nastier and short tempered

Then he had a 'nervous breakdown' and tried to say it was my fault as I was on his case all the time about this particular woman. The timing of this was right after a leaving do at his workplace. In hindsight, I think that is when something physical first happened between them (first kiss, probably). Either way, things limped on another few months after his apparent breakdown until I got my concrete proof by looking at his phone while he was in the shower. I'd noticed his swipe code one day and memorised it. It just confirmed everything that I had been right all along.

You want to keep him OP?

Mine did really obvious affair stuff but always had a plausible excuse, or at least I couldn't prove anything. Until I could prove it all.

Looking back I realised there were more subtle signs that I had picked up on too, but without knowing what they meant at the time. For example, when we visited a restaurant near his work (he took the family) and he kept going on about how he had gone there recently with work colleagues. I thought it was odd he was so excited. Of course it was one work colleague. He invited one to a party at our house, too, and was very distracted, hogging the conversation, telling everyone the party was for his birthday, two months before (it was actually for my big date). Again this only made sense later, after his other affair.

Funny how you do notice these things even if you don't know what to make of it.

I thought I did. I found out on January 2nd. Every day it’s still the thing that most consumes my thoughts.

It’s tearing me up inside though not knowing if they are still communicating at work. He says not but how can I believe him?

I am at a point now where I do want to move on and try again, I just don’t see how I can if I’m still so hurt and angry and unsure

It consumed my thoughts every day for years, and I didn't even stay with him! A couple of months is nothing.

Best not to ask if they are communicating, probably. He's not going to tell you if they are.

Thing is, you never know if your partner is cheating on you. Even if you are very sure like the lady above, you don't know. We always have to (or at least should) assume the best, be prepared for the worst. It's like with Coronavirus: we might get it, and should wash our hands and not take a cruise ship to Venice, but we can't sit around worrying all day.

If he's secretly cheating and you don't realise, it doesn't make you a mug, it makes you a decent person who expects others to be decent.

@Harpersjazz Just like @ravenmum it consumed me too and that carried on for a months after I left him. For me the predominant emotion was anger at them both. There is no way I could have stayed with someone who betrayed me after telling me I was imagining things etc.

I do applaud you for trying OP, but not many can get through the other side and reconcile after an affair.

@Mulberry974 what have written is almost the same as my ex!!

@Simonfromharlow I think it's like a script and most follow it. If I was ever in another relationship I would see it a mile away

@Mulberry974 yep me too!!

Same @Mulberry974.

The distancing from your family thing is interesting - what did you read that as?
Just didn’t care enough to make the effort anymore? Guilt?

I suppose in-laws are only really a thing in our lives in terms of something we care about if we still care about the person that connects them to us.
Once we stop caring about our OH (which is what happens in an affair), the in-laws suffer the same fate.