Found my CHEATING husband on illicit encounters

[EmeliaLily]

I posted a month ago about my suspicions that my husband is acting strange during covid, and constantly looking at his phone. I put it down to lockdown and all of us acting a bit differently at home without being able to socialise like before..

I feel so STUPID and distraught, at one point I even asked him outright and he just told me I was being silly. And all this time he's been on a married dating site - are you kidding me? I didn't even know these kind of places existed.

We've been together for 12 years, and I always thought our relationship is good, we're a family and have kids, I just don't know what to do at the moment.

He told me he's only been doing it because he's felt lonely being out of work, I mean what? Are you serious! He's tried to play it down and said he hasn't actually met anybody it was all just chatting to pass the time, I mean how would this make you feel?

Do I forgive him because it was all online and make him delete everything or should I be outraged? I mean if he's talking to women surely he'd want to meet some of them and maybe hasn't had any luck with corona. I just don't know right now, at the moment I've told him to stay with his brother while I sort my head out.

*cheat in person

Who have I married, who is this man

Pretty much like a lot of men. So much so it's worth building a website to capitalize on this all-to-familiar behavior. There are so many of them like it out there, and they all behave the same way as @Azerothi has seen

I'm glad you've found your rage, OP.

[quote EmeliaLily]@bettybr2020

I only found out because he left the page open on his iphone safari, and I just had this urge, after spending months ignoring warnings.

He snatched the phone off me when i tried to confront him and won't let me check anything. Wondering if I should make that a condition of us speaking.. I think I want to know[/quote]
I would definitely as to see messages or from reading further down - bank statements or maybe you share accounts?

He snatched the phone off me when i tried to confront him and won't let me check anything. Wondering if I should make that a condition of us speaking.. I think I want to know

I think it'll all have been deleted by now unfortunately.

There's no point in asking to see the messages as he'll have deleted them by now.

He was clearly chasing other women. There are so many more men than women and the women get pounced on these type of websites.

Women can sit back and he will actively had been pursuing the few women there.

I could no longer trust him...so the marriage would be over in my mind, even if I didn't immediately end it.

The messages are probably stored on his profile page on the account & he should be able to retrieve them, even if he says he's deleted his subscription, by reinstating it.

What you do with that is up to you OP but it might settle your mind.

@SandyY2K and @SoulofanAggron are right, he's definitly deleted them by now @EmeliaLily...

So much so it's worth building a website to capitalize on this all-to-familiar behavior.

@PopPopPopPopPop- am I naive to have been shocked to find something like this even exists?!

@JazzyJelly sorry to hear this happened to you..

@SortingItOut

Why would you even think this is acceptable and you can get past it?

I don't think it is. I'm just in shock still really

Whst is your relationship like generally?

It's been good, it's been mostly good yes. He is a great father, a bit manic and obsessive at times but he's always been like that, definitely has some ocd or something.

As far us us i mean things have been less romantic since having kids, but we get on, we have dates nights, we have sex. Recently he's been moody and off, and like i said earlier always on the phone. I mean the signs were there to be honest, I was very suspicious

When did he join?

He says a few weeks into lockdown, but can I believe a word he says?

OP

You are worth so much more than this. Don't let him try to creep back into the house. Take all the time you need to get your head around it

The messages are probably stored on his profile page on the account & he should be able to retrieve them, even if he says he's deleted his subscription, by reinstating it.

If he's deleted the messages themselves, reinstating his account won't restore them. That's how it works on all sites really.

Especially on sites like this, they'll want to make sure deletion is permanent for these exact circumstances, where messages might get people in trouble.

It costs about 160£ a month for a man to be a member of illicit encounters - no man is on there to ‘chat’ op

OP no, not naive. I'm sure you, like so many of us, me included, went into our relationships believing that our partners would treat us as we treat them. And why wouldn't we think that. Unfortunately that's why it comes as such a massive shock when we suddenly realise that this isn't the case and they are capable of being such utter selfish scumbags. We aren't aware until we get bitten. And it hurts so much the first time.

am I naive to have been shocked to find something like this even exists

It's like Ashley Madison. Not so much naive, but just unaware...there's a website online for pretty much anything these days.

About 6 years ago, I never knew this stuff either, but have now pretty much seen it all.

The Internet makes so much possible and allows global connections in a way that you couldn't do before.

A former friend on mine was on IE.

She would meet men in car parks, hotels, laybys, you name it - all for sex. It was no strings, no conversation - just sex. I was genuinely horrified by the stories she told. You would talk to someone that day, meet that evening. There was no courtship, no flirting, nada.

I'd be getting an STD test pronto, and kicking his sorry arse out of the door.

And as a PP said, men pay a lot of money to be a member. They don't do that to tip their toes in the water.

No, not seen the messages, he said he didn't want to show then. He seemed more embarrassed and annoyed at getting caught then sorry.

He's paid money to have an emotional affair. That would be worse than a ONS with some random in my books. So sorry, OP

@PenelopePitstop49
I am a female and have been on IE for a while in a certain phase near the end of my marriage. So as a result I have met/spoken to a lot of people on there.
Your friend is very unusual on IE. Most people there do talk for a while actually before anyone meets anyone.
As people are married - they are quite careful who they end up meeting.
What your fiend is describing sounds a lot more like some other websites that are focused on NSA hookups.
Most married people aren’t looking for that - they tend to want some regular FWB situation. Or, some want ‘affairs’ like what they imagine affairs.

OP - I don’t know anything about your marriage and why your H went on IE. It is possible that if he only joined during lockdown - that he actually never met anyone. And in general - there are a lot more men there than women - so hit rate isn’t high.
What i surmised from the men I met on IE - many are there because their marriages had gone stale or were unhappy and they were missing human interaction. Some (few) have good marriages and just want to play around.

If you decide that you don’t want to break up - some honest conversations about the state of your marriage need to happen.

aww poor menz being lonely ffs

The trust has gone but that doesn't mean you can't get it back. But it's a hard slog. First you need to know the very worst of it, you need to see the messages he sent and received. You need to go through his phone with a fine tooth comb and find everything. That's rock bottom. He needs to admit it and the very worst of it, so you know how bad it was. Then you need to both talk frankly about why it happened, how he is feeling as well as you. This like step one might not be pretty but you need to understand why in order to fix it. I would suggest then see a counsellor. In the mean time I would have access to his phone and check every day, once a week, month until you feel confident he's not cheating and gain that trust back.

My partner hid the true extent of his relationship with his ex before he met me and in the initial few months, I found out a year into our relationship and I was devistated. Both of them lied to me, And she was still very much in our lives. The only reason I let him stay was because he was open about it, he told me the worst, we analysed why, he let me access everything, told me how he felt and I pretty much monitored his every movement.

We are further along now, I am building back trust, I don't have such a tight hold on him and he has clear boundaries with his ex (they have kids together) we couldn't have remained together if we didn't go through these steps but we couldn't have remained tightly controlled either as that was so unhealthy for both of us. We are now in a much stronger place, grown closer, seen the worst and the best in each other and the trust is back. It can repair but it's a hard road and you both equally have to want it. Good luck

The website is hysterical. The home page features 5* reviews from users who claim it has saved their marriages.

I'm sure their spouses will be overjoyed to read that

I'd ask to see his bank statements so you know when the first payment came out, or if he's been signed up for much longer than he says. If it was before lockdown you'll know not to believe his boredom excuse.