@ImRunningUpThatHill it was a gut feeling for me. I can’t explain why, no evidence whatsoever at face value, all fine and scarily normal. I never thought he would cheat in a million years, but he was organising a night away with mates he had genuinely gone away with on rare occasions for boozy nights out, and there was something about the way he asked me what dates were ok for him to do it and where he said they were going, that was just different. I queried it from an ‘oddly expensive place to choose for a night with mates’ and he said they had all agreed on the venue and one of his mates knew someone who worked for a posh hotel chain and was getting a big discount for the group.
I accepted it and thought nothing more of it, I actually felt guilty for being suspicious of any of it. 🙄The morning of the ‘trip’ he was very well dressed and seemed odd, a bit on edge. He suddenly got up from the sofa and said “I’m going to go now” and it was pretty early for the train he was getting. I think he’d underestimated how shit leaving the house on a Saturday to see OW (always saw her at work/ early evening, never weekends) would make him feel. He’d compartmentalised all of it and leaving home and going to work to cheat meant he didn’t have to face the reality of the choices he was making, it happened there at the end of a long commute, not near home. But leaving me and the kids specifically to see her on a day he always shared with us, forced him to face what he was really doing and feel pretty bad. He couldn’t stand looking at me any longer that morning, it was making him feel like the shit he was being, he had to get out. I felt uneasy and texted him during the day, got plausible answers back but vague. Didn’t know what or why my gut was telling me something was wrong, but suddenly that night I just thought, literally out of the blue, “This is bollocks. He’s with someone else.” No idea why I thought it, it seemed absolutely impossible, last guy in the world you’d think would cheat, but I couldn’t shake the feeling.
Couldn’t go to the hotel for proof, it was too late and would worry the kids (teens, able to be left but they would find it odd and worry if I made up any emergency) so I sent him a loving text to guilt the hell out of him and then spent the night in agony.
Pretended all was fine next day, I wanted proof and knew he would lie if he thought I hadn’t got any. Easier to get if he didn’t know I was on to him. He fell asleep on the sofa in the afternoon, he’d unpacked his bag himself as soon as he got home (really odd, usually left it to me to do to sort out washing) so I couldn’t look in there, so I went through his coat pockets and there was a receipt for a meal clearly for two with wine. When he was allegedly on a pub crawl. Didn’t confront immediately. Let him go to work next day, turned house over when kids at school without him knowing I knew, found more proof and waited. Needed the kids out of the way in bed. I had said to him that I needed to talk to him later, he just said “Sure” and once we were in bed he said straight away “I’m sorry if I’ve seemed a bit distant lately, work has been pretty stressful. I love you and I’ll make it up to you.” I said it wasn’t what I wanted to talk about and said actually he’d barely told me anything about his weekend. Uneasy silence. I asked loads of questions about what they did/ ate/ where they went etc and listened to him lie and lie and lie. It was truly shocking, he was so bloody good at it. After he’d invented a story about going to a burger chain near the hotel, I’d heard enough bullshit to fertilise several fields so I just said “Oh. So you didn’t go to Restaurant X and have y and z for two and a bottle of white wine?” Silence.
“You took a woman to that hotel didn’t you?”
“Yes”.
If my gut hadn’t started niggling me that morning, I honestly wouldn’t have had a bloody clue. Not one.