Found something in Husband's office bag

[BettyMs2024]

Hi ladies, I was shocked to find condoms in my husband's office bag.

For context, we have been having a strained relationship for the past 1.5 years with minimal to no physical contact.

I am unable to process this situation and feel completely lost. Please advise me on what steps I should take. I don't want to ignore this!
I work so hard professionally and on kids front and this is making me feel 😪 I actually don't know what to feel about this!

So what's going on now, plot twist he's gone gay

OP, do you still love this man? Do you want to raise your family with him and want him as part of your day to day life? That’s the first question. What do you want?

If not, if the damage is too deep and too great then indeed start making an exit plan, and keep your cards close to your chest until you get a full view of the financial picture.

If however you do want to try and repair this then you are probably best sitting down and telling him exactly that. Tell him, you want a healthy working marriage with him and to work on building a physical relationship again. Then you need to ask whether he wants the same thing and is ready to do the counselling/repair/reconnection work with you.

He may say yes, but you should be prepared for the fact he may say no. Either way you are better being honest about what you want, that way you won’t have any regrets down the line from your side of communications etc.

If you do want to discuss repair and reconnection probably best to get the children out of the house for a few hours so you can discuss things frankly and honestly.

I feel for you. This is a horrible state of affairs. But either way you need to figure out what you want and direct the future conversations based of that. No one here can decide a course of action for you x

Amazing (and awful) how you would use the 'famous consent-tea analogy' as part of an argument about peoples entitlement to sex.

And most people don't share your view that it's not cheating. Even many people in a sexless relationships would view it as cheating and never do it.

You're very cool about this. May I suggest that you take the week to get your ducks in a row. For the following reasons

1. He could walk out
2. He could empty bank accounts
3. He could go to solicitors
4. He could stop paying bills

Be prepared for this and more. He's already half out of the door

could be an affair or a mix

While knowing the reason why he is cheating won't make the cheating acceptable, it can help you in deciding what to do next.

If you're the one who cut yourself off from him, then maybe you could explore what made you do that, and whether you would like to try to fix things.

If he is the one who distanced himself from you, and then (or because he) cheated then the questions become that much harder.

That's not a 'theory'.

The reason why he cheated is already known. He was unable to validate himself in a healthy way, and took an opportunity that presented itself.

The OP has made it clear it's the HUSBAND who has stepped away from sex, not her.

This, plus him persistently finding fault - and her finding condoms - together would suggest there is someone else.

Horrible situation, and needs to be out in the open.

Prepare to hear excuses, they are old, they gave them away at the station, I put them in my bag and forgot they were there etc etc

The elephant in the room is that he doesn't want sex with his wife, hasn't done for eighteen months. If he has ED they need to talk. If he's met someone they need to talk. But not until @BettyMs2024 has her ducks in a row.

Even better because it’s the dh who is imposing celibacy on himself.
It’s HIM who doesn’t want sex!

But obviously this wasn’t on your list of possibilities…..🙄🙄🙄

So in your world, the OP is totally entitled to cheat.

Fine.

How does it explain the condoms in her dh bag? You know condoms for a guy who refuses to have sex with his dwife for 1.5 years.
Because clearly, he doesn’t have an excuse right?

I totally agree. I actually think it's a form of abuse to withhold sex in a marriage without speaking to the other person and telling them why. I'm not saying the op deserves this but defo shouldn't be surprised if it was her that stopped the sex and he wasn't onboard. Would feel the same if the sexes were swapped. When sex goes the relationship is dead.

RTFT

The OP has specified it’s her dh that doesn’t want to have sex….

As for ‘withholding sex’…. Seriously, no one is entitled to sex. Neither men or women.

It’s not withholding - which assumes one is entitled to something, even if the other person doesn’t want to.
If someone has an issue with it, then they leave. That’s called a boundary and they are entitled to hold it. Just as someone is entitled to not have sex if they dont want to/cant/feel unwell/whatever other reason.

As soon as someone goes into

I actually think it's a form of abuse to withhold sex in a marriage

then it’s rape territory. Because it’s assuming that that women should have sex even if they don’t want to otherwise they are abusive.
Back to marital rape.

Nice.

I despise that term 'withholding sex'.

It's so stupid and such a misleading term.
Implying that there's loads of sex to be had, the person just refuses to give it.

If one person doesn't want to have sex with the other then if they decided to 'give' the other person sex it's likely to be awful for both people. And there's generally only so long that people can keep it up making themselves have sex they don't want.

And to try to make out that it's abuse if someone who is unwilling to force themselves to have sex that they don't want is all kinds of wrong.

I will concede that the effects of a sexless relationship can be similar to the effects of abuse, but that's an entirely different thing than it actually being abuse.

And also equally important to note that the effects of going through with sex that you don't want can also be similar to the effects of being sexually abused.

Yes I do feel the same about ‘withholding’ affection.
If I dint feel like cuddling with you because you’ve been a twat, then I wont. You’re not entitled to affection (or sex) just because we are married. No one is.

If what you are talking about is not having sex as a way to punish someone, then yes it’s a different matter.
It’s along the same lines as stonewalling someone.
But it’s rarely what people talk about when they talk about withholding sex. What they are talking about is the fa to they wish to have sex should first and foremost before the wish of the other person. It’s putting pressure on people to do something they dint want to. THAT is actually controlling.

You're entitled to a divorce though which I think @BettyMs2024 should consider

Update

Affection absolutely.

If someone was treating me badly I'm not going to feel affection towards them so I wouldn't be forcing myself to show it. And likewise if I was being horrible I wouldn't expect someone to show me affection.

The lack of affection shows that something is wrong, not necessarily with the relationship, it could be an issue with one of the people such as depression..

But for some reason some people think a lack of affection is a behavioural problem or something that a person is doing wrong, instead of understanding that it's to do with their feelings most of the time.

Sulking/silent treatment etc, well I think sometimes that is normal after a row but there is a line and some people do it deliberately in order to control their partner so that's a separate issue. Some people have very poor communication skills and are very fond of stonewalling. I personally think those people shouldn't be in relationships until they sort their issues out because it can feel like torture to their partners.

But not feeling affection or having sexual desire for their partner is something that can happen even among those who are highly sexual and very affectionate people.

I find it odd that you can't recognise any expectations of sex within a marriage, when at its core that's what marriage/cohabitation is: an exclusive sexual relationship.

I see it as expectation in a marriage, but you seem to use the word in a different way and you seem to mean entitlement.

For me I would see expectation as the dictionary definition -
a strong belief that something will happen or be the case.

So there can be loads of expectations in a marriage, people can have a 'strong belief that something will happen or be the case' such as sex, affection, love, being on the same team, kindness, loving words, support etc....doesn't mean that they actually get it though does it?

In a marriage I assume that sex will be part of it. So then if it isn't then that means that there is either something wrong with the relationship, or something wrong physically or mentally with my partner. The lack of sex is a symptom of something else, rather than a behavioural issue or something that the partner is doing wrong.

If something is wrong with the relationship or something is wrong physically or mentally with my partner then I understand that sex might not happen. I'm then not going to expect it and I'm certainly not going to feel entitled to it.

You seem to believe that no matter what state the marriage is or what issues there are that there's an entitlement to sex.

I would never ever in a million years want a partner to have sex with me if they didn't want to. I couldn't think of anything worse or anything less sexy. If I couldn't deal with the lack of sex and whatever issues that were causing it and if they didn't seem fixable then I would end the relationship rather than try to make them have sex with me when they didn't want to. That's just gross to me....and it should be gross to everyone but apparently not.

It does seem common though that people that 'expect' sex from their partner when they don't want it, are rarely happy with the sex that their partner does reluctantly have with them because it is of course lacking enthusiasm seeing as they don't actually want it. So this attitude that people should have sex if they don't want it because their spouse expects it doesn't tend to fix the issue anyway.

I see the the usual culprit on here victim blaming.
Marriage/cohabitation, the core of that is promising to be faithful, in sickness and health (funny how that bit gets forgotten) etc. It is not about forcing celibacy on your partner and being deceitful and dishonest (which happened to me, 10 years of celibacy before I left), it's about honesty and being there for one another and building a life together. If my ex had been honest with me, I would never have married him. Hope you're doing alright op.