Suspicions about DH - am I being paranoid?

[winterrabbit]

DH and I have been together for 12 years, married for 7 and have 1 child together and 2 older kids each from previous marriages. We've had ups and downs but overall we have a fairly passionate relationship (sex a few times a week) and I think love each other. DH has a very flexible teaching (at university) job, however, nearly every Friday morning he claims he has a meeting and disappears from around 9.30 to 2pm when he resurfaces. It could be completely innocent but he never checks his phone during that time (I can see from whatsapp) and goes every week even out of term time when there are no lectures. He's always quite vague when I ask him where he is doing and says it's a meeting to do with his research group (which I know exists) but I am still suspicious as it's always Friday mornings and he is always completely offline. By way of background, DH's had a long affair with another woman during his last marriage who was a student (a mature student) at his uni which is raising my suspicions. I did try to pin him down about the meetings once but he got angry that I was suspicious and said I had no reason to be. What do I do? Let is go?

@DiegosMomHasGotItGoingOn

It won’t be just one project, they will have multiple, and be supervising students who will be part of the research group too. I can’t express how normal what he is doing is.

They need to meet to coordinate work. They’ll have had a grant for this and collaboration and management is key to make best use of it.

I’d start asking more questions about it, on the basis of why he has to go in during school holidays. It sounds like he’s somewhere during those 5hrs, but who knows where. It does seem a bit suspicious unless he’s often not on his phone during the day when at work.

Air tag is the way forward if he doesn’t have an iPhone! They’re tiny, would be so easy to sew into the inside of his bag lining.

I think I'd go more for in plain sight.

If you sew into his bag lining, his phone will alert him that he's being followed, pretty quickly.

However, if you air tag something belonging to you (eg your keys) and literally drop that into his bag - then when he finds the air tagged keys then you can say oh shit I have been looking everywhere for my keys.

A long meeting when he doesn’t check his phone? It is paranoia to say this must be cheating. That is a deranged conclusion to reach.

I think the apparent no social media is very strange and possibly dodgy

Is there anyone who regularly comments or reacts on LinkedIn who might be a possible for an affair?

Can't you get hold of his phone?

It seems perfectly reasonable to have scheduled meetings to discuss research. Often rooms have to be booked etc and people then are available at the same time, especially if it's independent research. I don't see a problem

Could he be going to see the university counsellor or something like an AA/GA meeting?

My friend’s dad was too ashamed to admit to having weekly psychologist appointments and it almost ruined his marriage. Apparently he preferred his wife to think he was having an affair than having mental health problems. It wasn’t until I was allocated the appointment right before him every week that my friend drove me to, that it became clear what was going on.

Does he have an Oyster card?
If so you could log in to it online and see the journey history.

My thought exactly;sounds as though he has a weekly appointment with a sex worker and goes to meet her at a private residence or brothel.

In a brothel they usually insist that clients shower before their appointment in a shower in or attached to the room and some encourage it afterwards too;Most people like to changed their clothes post shower if going out so I suppose that could account for the OP's husband coming home in different clothes on Fridays.

To clarify I know what I do about hygiene practices in brothels from the accounts in literature from women who have worked in them.

I am unlikely to find out either way so have to be comfortable having doubts about him.

I think this is very sane.

Let's imagine, for instance, that he visits a prostitute on his way in (very common amongst regular punters), then joins his research group after showering and changing his shirt. And this has been happening every week for ages.

There are no signs of it in your relationship. You aren't struggling financially. It isn't taking his emotional or sexual attention away from you; it isn't becoming more frequent; nothing's escalating.

These days, I have much stronger and clearer views on the sex trade and the men who use it - but I have, in the past, lived with the knowledge that a partner was doing so. The question for me at the time was "What does this take away from me?" I was angry if he lied to me, but each of us has our own personal boundaries.

If you knew your DH was cheating for an hour every week, how much would you care?

Since you don't know either way, how much does that bother you?

I mean on its own the long meeting (maybe including lunch after) doesn't sound that suspicious. The fact that you are suspicious suggests to me that your subconscious has picked up tiny clues and is warning you or you're being completely paranoid. If you haven't had any suspicions before then I don't think it's paranoia.

To be fair my husband got a new research partner - an academic sort of area but not a university. He mentioned her a bit and I had this vision of a leggy late twenties bombshell who shared similar interests. I confessed my suspicions and he was shocked but did reassure me. I eventually met her with other colleagues over dinner and although a lovely person turned out to be middle-aged woman battling a very serious health condition. My husband didn't get defensive - his main concern was to reassure me. I have full access to his email and he to mine (except for my work stuff) and despite separate finances I could look at all his bank and credit card details

I'm not sure about the pinging of airtags. The neighbour's cat wears one and I never even noticed until the neighbour mentioned it but maybe he pings when he legs it over the fence. I just thought it was part of his collar. (He hangs out in our garden a lot.)

Is he really not on LinkedIn? I am with little more than my name because of some security issues with my particular job. I thought university lecturers were on a publish or perish basis. Who are his joint authors? Whose help does he acknowkege?

If I ever heard or saw a group of men discussing how to track their wives’/partners’ movements with hidden air tags, car trackers, or by recruiting other men they found on an internet forum, I’d want to tell the women to get the hell away from those men. This isn’t ok to do.

OP, your DH has told you where he’s going and why, and there isn’t actually anything suspicious about the explanation. He didn’t change the pattern when you asked about it, he’s not disappearing at other times, and you’ve said otherwise the relationship is good.

But you don’t trust him. If you honestly reflect, is there anything he can do to change that?

Some of these responses places head in hands

If this was a bloke writing about following their partner, rifling through their phone, putting a tracker on them etc, they’d get roasted and called a stalker/controlling etc.

OPs partner is an academic in a University setting. It is entirely normal for an academic to have a weekly research meeting sometimes stretching to several hours - Friday is likely the best day to have this if they don’t have any classes across the research group. Answering your phone during it will be a massive no-no. Research happens all year round so yes the meeting will even happen during times when lectures aren’t on.
Its also not unusual for an academic to not have social media - reduces the chance of their students finding them on there.
I don’t find the shirt change that surprising either - the tube is sweaty and grim at certain times of year so it makes sense he might change when he gets to work.

The not knowing would be killing me. I would definitely hire a PI to find out what the hell he does on Friday mornings.

Agree with this. I wouldn’t go near a cheater with a ten foot pole.

So you have sex on a Friday morning, then he goes out WITHOUT showering???

I agree with you. I cannot imagine a man, leaving on a morning to meet his mistress/GF/OW unshowered. One would think he would do the opposite and want to look nice and smell nice, as that is one of the clues of a man having an affair (losing weight, dressing nicer, new cologne, concerned about appearance). Honestly, he sounds like he isn't doing that at all.

Kicak, you are an evil genius. But, for the record, I do think all of this stalker stuff is wrong.

This might be one of the most insane things I've read on MN

I think that PI idea is much safer. They are unknown to your DH and won't be noticed when they follow him/check up on him.

Given it's a set time they can easily find out where he's going and also have a good chance of finding out who he is meeting.

You clearly have no idea how universities are set up. There are no 'receptionists'.

There will be a departmental administrator but OP won't know who that is, probably, and even if she did, that person won't manage OP's DH's calendar & would have no useful information to provide that would confirm his location or not.

The number of posters suggesting various forms of stalking & investigating him is insane.

If you've reached a point in your relationship where you have to track your spouse to allay or prove suspicions, then the relationship is in crisis.

I also work in a university. His explanation is plausible.

However, the key issue is you don't feel comfortable honestly opening up to him avoid your doubts, and he's unable to hear your concerns & give you the reassurance you need.

You need to have a very clear, honest conversation with him. Be upfront about your own worries. If he cannot understand your point, or is not willing to discuss it, you've got a really significant problem, regardless.

All of the posters with their feverish speculations about sex workers & so on - what's wrong with you? You've no clue & how does it help OP?

I’m an academic. There’s no point in phoning because there’s no reception and nobody would be likely to know where he is. Universities are often huge places and nobody keeps tabs on anyone else. Carving out research time is not unusual, and often necessary in a job with lots of conflicting demands, and is certainly completely normal during work hours. Unless there’s other evidence (lipstick on his collar, used condom wrappers in his back pocket, etc.) I’d be inclined to take him at his word unless there’s other evidence.

While electronic surveillance may seem a step too far, I actually love @Bookworm20's idea of a covert sisterhood of mumsnetters, unshakeable, strong, willing to follow anyone through the UK's cities and towns. The question is how to fund this group. Would the sale of lemon drizzle cakes (for example) be enough to cover weaponry surveillance-related expenses (afternoon tea, rubber-soled shoes, sunglasses, trench coats, false moustaches)? Were the money sufficient I would suggest hiring a helicopter and dangling a mumsnetter on a harness outside the window of the research meeting room. It's the only way to be sure.

Farwell · Today 13:53

Never take the word of anyone here who says 'lecturer here' or 'GP here' or '<insert any job> here'. Anyone can claim to be anything here and their description of their job, even if true does not directly mean it applies in any other situation.

Hmm, but multiple posters who claim to be academics have been on saying that research meetings are typically face to face, weekly, regular and dull.

Thus, we have to posit that
a) they are really academics and are describing conditions at their workplaces accurately if not thrillingly, and incidentally that immediate steps must be taken to make research meetings more enthralling and unpredictable; or
b) several people are pretending to be academics and giving possibly true (though then how would they know) or possibly spurious information about research meetings, in the latter case maybe because they are friends and relations of the putative other woman / sex worker; or
c) these "academics" are all the sock puppets of a febrile, twitchy mouth-breathing troglodyte, likely named Norberta / Norbert, who is determined for intricate private reasons to pretend to be a lecturer. Possibly spends much of her/his spare time sewing leather patches on the elbows of her/his ancient greenish cardigans. 😁