Suspected Affair

[Caught]

NC for this as DH sometimes reads MN threads and I don't want this tied to other posts.

I've suspected DH of an affair of some sort, I don't think it's anyone in real life if I'm honest but suspect someone he'd have talked to online. He's been going to bed later than me for some months now and will come to bed at around 2am, sometimes as late as 4/5am at weekends. He's not going out anywhere in that time as I'd be able to tell, think gravel driveway and security flood lights would come on to alert me (I'm a light sleeper).

I've had it out with him in the past that when we spend time together when our children are sleeping, he gets tired and alludes to needing sleep after about an hour. I then head up to bed expecting him to join (as he's so tired) and he stays downstairs for several hours. His excuse is that he was tidying this or that, or logged on to his work laptop and it's woken him up so he's stayed up reading/watching TV/doing a crossword. I can't prove anything, I've tried sneaking downstairs but our staircase is so creaky he knows when someone is coming.

So I've tried to put it to the back of my head, until today. I noticed him typing a message on his phone, he then did a swiping action as if to get rid of whatever application he was using or potentially get rid of a message. I felt this was strange in itself considering he is notoriously bad at responding to all and any messages and will always leave all applications on his phone open to the point it's quite sluggish. That wasn't what did it for me though, it was that I watched him and as he put his phone down, he caught my eye and I smiled at him. What followed was him with a look of worry with a fearful frown for the next 5 minutes after as if he'd been caught.

There's a few other things that involve ILS seeming a bit more secretive around me lately and DH not telling me what's going on with family much anymore but I don't know whether I'm just being paranoid. I feel that his going to bed so late with those excuses are red flags alone but the look on his face today has made me feel more justified.

I'm not sure where to go with this but feel like I need to know for sure. What am I looking out for now?

Can you get hold of his phone? I know it's considered a massive no-no on here, but I'd be having a look if I could.

Is there any way to see on his phone/laptop with him not around or is it always locked with a password you don't know?

Can you live like this for the foreseeable?

if You suspect him then you will need to get hold of evidence otherwise if you just ask him without evidence, he will deny it and then he will become more sneaky and cover his tracks even more.

Yep you need to check his phone..

honestly yes it sounds very much like something is going on. An ex years ago went like this - very protective over phone, spent a lot of time in other rooms, would come up to bed late or make excuses to sleep downstairs etc. Turned out it was an affair yes.

Although that said, this doesn’t sound great behaviour either way. Being paranoid is when you start to overanalyse and worry about normal behaviour - this doesn’t sound normal, so I wouldn’t have said you’re paranoid. I’d have said you’ve noticed a change and need to understand what is going on, an affair is one possible reason

Maybe this person is in another time zone, hence your dh coming to bed late. Very sus.
He’s going to slip up soon.

Yes I expect you are right. Trust your instincts I'd say. Hope you are ok.

Gambling?

Is he a gamer? Could be someone he met via online gaming, discord servers, dating apps, mutual interest forums.
You say in-laws are being secretive too, how are things otherwise? Could he be planning on leaving?

Does he play any online games or anything? My dh became very distant, same as yours, terrible at replying to my messages but suddenly very active on his phone. He would stay up late or would ‘wake’ during the night and say he couldn’t sleep so would sit downstairs for a few hours. I often woke up to him not being there and when he heard me get up he would jump into the bathroom. I called him out on it and he denied everything. When he came to bed one night, j waited for him to fall asleep and then checked his phone. There was an app I didn’t recognise and I found he was having an emotional affair with a woman from another country.
Id suggest asking him about it and seeing his reaction or checking his phone. Usually your suspicions are correct!

Discord is how I found out mine was doing the same. He could hide alerts so I wouldn’t see any messages popping up and when j asked about the app originally, he opened it to show me all these gaming things.

You are justified in wondering what is going on. The key element which stands out to me is that he's not telling you family things, yet I presume he has always mentioned family things in the past? This could be a sign he is mentally compartmentalising and putting you at distance from his family so he feels less guilt about whatever it is he is doing.
In situations like this, it is always the change in behaviour which is the sign something is not right.

Yeah an ex of mine did this.

Get hold of his phone.

Thanks for your advice so far.

He's usually very open with his phone and know his password so I've not wanted to think the worst. There was one occasion recently where my phone was being used by one of the DC and DH was out of the room, I went to look something up on his phone and when he came past me, he grabbed the phone out of my hand. I asked why he'd done that and he said he needed to use it.

Yes, he's always talked about family news and what's going on with me in the past. I was told something by his cousin recently and he was confused as to why I didn't know, he asked me why DH hadn't said anything to me about something so big. I was confused too. I did wonder if he's thinking of leaving too.

He's not a massive gamer anymore other than a few games occasionally but worth looking into discord anyway.

I don't actually know where else to be looking other than unusual apps, discord as mentioned or Whatsapp. I wondered if it could be via a website as I've seen a list of open tabs on his phone browser as if he's closed a private tab and left the list open, if that makes sense? Are there any websites other than dating websites that might be commonly used? I doubt he'd use a specific dating website as a few of my friends are single and on a range of them. I'd think it's something anonymous if I know him well enough.

You just need to go through this phone, Op. All your answers will be there and you won’t like them.

He suspects you seen him messaging today so I doubt there's any evidence on his phone now and he'll be extra careful to cover his tracks for a while

Discord and Line are typical gaming chat apps

Look for kik, Telegram, Signal apps. They are also used alongside discord. Also Reddit - its easy to meet people online there (I have some US penpals from Reddit)

There isn't always a sinister use for Telegram or Signal. I use both. My bf and I generally use Signal because he has ethical issues with WhatsApp, it's a similar messaging service.

I thought my H was maybe having an affair. To be fair now I wish it was an affair. Found out when the police paid us a visit that he was using chat rooms and chatting inappropriately with underage girls.

Bloody hell, that's awful

Got a glance of DH deleting an email in his mailbox yesterday evening and trying to flick back to something he was looking for before I saw. Not quite sure what it was though as he turned his phone slightly. That mailbox is usually for 'formal' stuff and he has another personal one which has log in notifications on it and no way without me checking without him finding out. I might try and see if I can glance at his deleted items in the formal mailbox.

DH didn't come to bed last night, apparently he fell asleep on the sofa. I just feel like it's ruining our relationship, whatever the reason, I need to know the cause and try to address it with him. We've talked about it, he says he doesn't mean to and it got better for an extremely short amount of time.

I had a chance for a quick look at his phone this morning and nothing out of the ordinary apart from texts with a colleague I didn't know he contacted outside of work. It didn't seem suspicious though, all of the texts seem to be there and all in context. I'm not really concerned about that as he has quite a few male and female colleagues he messages outside of work.

No Whatsapp exchanges out of the ordinary, no new apps so I'm stumped for the time being.

@Whathappened123 I'm sorry you were married to such a disgusting man, I hope you're now free of him.

@Caught how are things? Did you ever find out what was going on?