How did you find out that they cheated on you?

[Gabitule]

(This thread is not intended to cause any distress so if you’ve been cheated on and this is a very painful memory, you should perhaps avoid this thread)

For everyone else who are perhaps a bit more detached from the pain of the betrayal, I’m curious to know how you found out that you were being cheated on, if you suspected it, how long it had been going on, etc.
I’ll start:

1. I found out my first boyfriend cheated because he told me about it once we broke up (for different reasons). He told me how, whilst I was working night shifts, he used to sleep with my best friend whom I had invited to live with us when she split up with her own bf. Cheers bestie! 😀
2. In my next serious relationship, I was unpacking my bf’s travel bag who had just returned from a trip abroad. Inside the bag I initially found a drawing of a man sitting on an armchair naked, with his penis erect. The name on top of the drawing (with an arrow leading to the naked man) was my bf’s name. When I confronted him my bf said that he had made the drawing. So he drew himself naked, hard, and made sure to name the drawing. Hmmm. I wasn’t convinced. I then found a hotel room reservation on his name and the name of a woman…I guess she was the real artist 😀.
3. the next one wasn’t very clever 😀. I came home from 10 days abroad visiting my family to find condoms in his wash bag. As we were not using condoms, and I knew for a fact that he didn’t have any in his wash bag before I went away, I obviously asked him about them. He kept responding ‘’I took the condoms out of my wash bag when we stopped using them’’. And I kept saying ‘’yes, I understand that, but why did you put them back in while I was away?’’. And he kept giving me the same answer about why he had taken then out of his wash bag 😂😂. He wasn’t even smart enough to come up with some silly excuse like ‘’oh, I was tidying up my ‘’man drawer’’ and didn’t know where to put them’’.
4. the next one hurt the most. It ripped my heart out. We were on a romantic weekend away and I noticed he was extremely preoccupied with his phone. I genuinely didn’t suspect anything but at night his phone was charging next to my side. I couldn’t sleep and a little voice kept asking me to check his phone (I knew his password, this was before Face ID). I looked at his messages for only a few seconds and saw some nasty recent messages from his ex, shaming him, calling him names. I immediately closed the phone without reading anything else. I couldn’t figure out why his ex, whom he had split up 1.5 years previously, was so angry with him. Perhaps she was crazy, just like he said 🤣🤣. To cut the long story short, over the next few days tiny little hints (like things he had previously said or bought which felt unusual) fell in place and I realised something was going on with his ex. I found her on LinkedIn and I contacted her….Turns out that they were having an affair, he took her with him during a weekend abroad for work the weekend before our romantic weekend away. I was too curious so I asked her to tell me more details of their affair. Perhaps I shouldn’t have done that as what I found out killed me. She showed me messages that he’d sent to her - for example I’d wake up early to iron his shirt and make his coffee and the moment he left my house he’d text her to invite her for breakfast to a posh place, a place he never took me to. Or he would buy me a book for Xmas but offer to buy her a designer bag. Once, he gave me a more substantial present, only for me to find out from his ex that he had actually brought the present for her but she rejected it. Lots of similar things. The extremely weird thing is that he didn’t want to be with her either, he just wanted her to want him. She was also very hurt. Sick man but I can’t ever forgive him, I hope he rots in hell.

Oh, how am I going to find out if my bfs are cheating from now on as everyone is using face id to lock up their phones 🤣.

I can’t think of others now but I’m sure there are more that I didn’t catch out. Unfortunately my relationships have a tendency of being cut short by external factors 😉. And, not that it matters in the slightest, but I am genuinely attractive, playful, tall, still a size 8… It amuses me that men would want to cheat on me

He started an argument about nothing and his behaviour was so out of character that I suspected he was cheating.

One day I came home and there was a woman in my bedroom but he told me she was a work colleague. That was where the computer was and they were sitting by the computer.

I asked him and he denied it. I kept asking and he continued to deny it. Eventually he had genital warts. He tried to tell me he caught it from a towel but I wasn't born yesterday.

He eventually confessed to a years long prostitute habit. I got checked out and he'd given me a load of STDs, I also had to have repeated HIV tests.

Cunt 1: I found multiple sites he was using to meet people for sex, texts and emails to women etc and someone came up to me at a party to laugh at me and tell me she'd shagged him while I was on a trip.

Cunt 2: Told me he'd go shag someone else and then he did.

Cunt 3: multiple texts between him and his ex.

He came home with his fur smelling of perfume. I don't wear perfume.

I put his collar back on him for a few days to make sure that his "second home" got the message that he is not a stray.

I was coerced into an "open relationship" about twenty years ago. He wasn't so keen when I wanted it to be open on my side too.

He actually thought it would be a good idea for me and OW to meet. Reader, I am now very happily single.

I had been in a relationship for eight years. We lived five minutes apart and for practical reasons we were never able to live together. Ways to phone each other four five times every day. One Monday morning I rang him at 8am to ask him a simple practical question about a monitor I was thinking of buying. He gave me a quick but friendly and helpful answer and then said he couldn't stop to chat as he had a visitor. In my innocent naivety I inquired breezily, "oh is that your brother?" And he said "no, this is a visitor who's been here since yesterday".

The fact that he had turned it into a guessing game and sounded very cheery and playful in his tone of voice led me further to believe that there was nothing untoward going on. I started thinking it must be his next door neighbour come to borrow something.

Anyway I said "oh I give in tell me who it is I cannot guess" and he said "well she's sitting here right in front of me looking very fetching indeed in a black lace bra, stockings suspenders and stiletto shoes.

I still thought he was joking and that maybe it was his sister or someone quite innocent. Then suddenly a bolt of shock ran through my whole body when I realised he wasn't joking. The callousness with which he made me go through this light-hearted guessing game to find out that he had in fact had her stay every Sunday night for the last four months is beyond belief.

We were a perfectly happy couple and yet he seemed to delight in hurting me by revealing in this dramatic fashion that he was having a long term affair right under my nose.

The OW bombarded my middle daughter with Facebook messages. My dd was 13.

Then on the same day she messaged me and told me to check out OHs satnav.
Then she messaged me to let me know she had won 🤷🏻‍♀️

I woke up in the morning and I had a family and stability. By tea time it was all gone.

We were married for 20 years and just had a stillbirth. He started acting erratically and I suspected. By that time a lot had piled up and I had started coming to the realisation I wasn’t happy with him. Actually this realisation had started 3-4 years ago.
Anyway, I suspected, did my own thing and got my ducks in a row. Then when he was back from a “business trip” I found a receipt which was showing he had purchased 30 condoms. I left him one month later after I had found a flat.
I had many many other reasons to leave him before cheating though. He just gave me the perfect excuse. However, I should have left him at least 5-10 years earlier (sexless marriage, narc rage, he didn’t offer me anything).

👏also everyone deals with grief (not the right word but you know what I mean) differently. If your way of dealing with things is to be lighthearted then that’s great and I don’t know why your getting such a hard time on here! X

He changed after our first child. So I hacked his everything as a lay person. Through all the heartbreak and pain of finding out, finishing with him and spending over 120k on the divorce as he committed fraud etc. I actually really enjoyed hacking so did a cyber forensics and security masters after and it changed my whole career and life course - white hat wise! I wanted to do it legally.

Oh I’m so glad something great for you came out of that horrendous situation. Brava!

I was as well, maybe it was hearing me on the phone. He was really pissed and said he would pull them up on GDPR. I think overall he had bigger fish to fry.

I was contacted by a woman pretending initially to be the owner of the apartment my husband was living in overseas - he was home at the time and the work contract had not long ended. She was asking me if he was coming back or if she should re- let the property.. seemed legit so I screen shot it and sent him the messages asking why she'd gone via me 🤷🏼‍♀️ of course he fobbed me off and said he'd contacted her and sorted it all out and a friend was moving into the apartment (I remember thinking at the time he'd returned with no belongings other than his clothes).. about three months later I found a messages pending via Facebook it was her again.. only this time she was spilling the tea somewhat! She was still living in the luxury apartment they'd shared together for the past 18 months only now she was blackmailing him because he'd refused to pay for it anymore .. I still remember that day, we were on holiday with the kids and it was Easter time. She was honest and open which I was thankful for. My family fell apart that day and my trust was shattered!! We limped along for a while but I never recovered, then one day I packed a bag full of clothes for me and the kids and we left for good. It all unfolded on Mumsnet and I'll never forget the person who said 'don't do anything until you are ready' when I was ready I left his sorry ass, best thing I ever did.

That sent a chill up my spine

My God…what a stupid man. Blowing it all up for nothing.
She is no better, staying with a married man with kids knowingly, while he pays for the apartment. How is this different to a prostitute?

May I ask If he ever apologised? How did he react when you finally left him?

I rang the pub he had started drinking in and asked to speak to the barmaid that he was suddenly mentioning a lot.

They didn't last long, but my goodness, it really hurt me.

She went to visit an 'old friend' and his family in town Y. She said they didn't like dogs so asked if I'd stay at home to look after ours (we had 3 between us). Sure no problem.
She took my car - it had a tracker on it - back in the day when all sports cars had to have one to get insured.
You had to disable the tracker every time you used the car. She forgot !
I got a call from the tracking company - 'your car is in town K - is that OK?" Then it dawned on me.
When she came back she told me about the wonderful time she had in town Y - and how the 'kids' loved my car.
Thats good I said but - how could that be as my car was in town K all weekend - and showed her the report from the tracking company.
Never before or since have I seen the colour drain from someone's face so quickly.

He told me - and then click! All the pieces of the jigsaw suddenly fell into place; like me finding a hairband in his car (I had short hair) and he told me that he’d given a client a lift and she must’ve dropped it; the time we went to a work event and he disappeared for half an hour; comments made by some of his colleagues; all the extra hours he’d been putting in ‘at the gym’. Obvious once I knew, but you only see what you are able to see.

The second time (after he’d sworn he would stop seeing her) his business partner rang up to say there had been a break-in at the office, would I tell him. ‘Oh, has the meeting finished already then?’ I asked innocently. Some hasty and unconvincing words from partner - there clearly hadn’t been a meeting, but he didn’t want to drop my ex in it.

One of the few really enjoyable moments, when he returned and I asked ‘how was the meeting?’ knowing that he was lying and couldn’t deny it.

I thought ‘fur’ was a euphemism and then ‘collar’ yeesh!

My first boyfriend worked with the woman he cheated on me with. My sister saw them travelling together in a car. She mentioned it and I said that was normal, it's their job to go on site visits. But she said there was something about the way he was laughing and animated with her.

She was right of course.

@Christl78 funny enough that's what he called her - a prostitute!

I became quite obsessed with digging deeper and she wasn't the first on that particular overseas tour. He likes to love bomb and pretend to be someone he's not.. i found emails confirming business class flights from where he was working in the ME are to Rome of all places, a penthouse rental for 5 days costing over 5k! Told me he was on a business factory visit.. this was the week after we'd all spent the week in centre parcs as a family! It's the stuff books are made of and completely blew my mind. Sadly the stay at home wife raising two boys both diagnosed with autism was completely oblivious! When I think back I realise how naive I was, no access to bank accounts/having to ask for money to food shop.. racking up debt because I'didn't like to ask'.. all the while that man was spending a fortune on whores. I think he sorted of apologised but was just trying to brush it all under the carpet. I never forgave him! It ate away at my mental state and I drank wine to block it out! He wouldn't leave the family home so I quietly got my ducks in a row (great MN term) started working again in the field I was in before kids - very fortunate to be re-employed by the same company. Planned my exit and walked away. He never expected me to rise up and leave let alone find a house 3 months later and completely renovate it. The empowerment is what makes me smile daily, I'm thankful for my resilience and I've taught my boys a very valuable lesson in how not to treat women!

He's now a very unhealthy mess of a man, living in squalid conditions in our old house with no retirement plan in place and a failing business. Still not divorced-I'm waiting for his mother to die and then I'll swoop in, he deserves nothing less and my day will come.

And no.. I have never thought about having another man in my life and never will. I love to flirt, but I love the peace I have in my own bed at night knowing no one will ever treat me like that again much more.

What a horrible man. Literally living a double
life. Feeling the same like you though. When you allow a perosn in your life you make yourself vulnerable to their actions. I am a good person, financially solvent, resilient, leading a healthy life, have friends, i am no short of offers from men. After him I rebuilt a great life and I don’t think I am keen to allow anyone else to ruin it.

How did you ex justify his actions?

A colleague of my best friend came running up to her one Monday morning to say she’d met the man of her dreams over the weekend after sleeping together outside a local museum during a night of clubbing - lol. The colleague spun around her phone to show a message he had sent her … and it was my long term partner! Of course she told me straight away and the poor unassuming woman called me to tell me the details and apologise. She had no idea. Partner continued to deny it / never admitted it despite all the concrete evidence.

I had been in hospital that weekend getting surgery. He was unemployed and living rent free at my house. I threw him out straight away and never spoke to him again.

So hard to go over this but it's probably good for me. I had suspicions but trusted my now ex completely. Best friends, 4 DC, very close and trusting. But actually - obviously - not!
Things had been difficult and after 20+ years of marriage we were in marriage counselling. We were on holiday and he broke his phone so he was using the family iPad. I found messages and then when we were back home I found emails and photos. They had exchanged biblical quotes too.
Totally weird.
She was his work colleague. Had been for years. He denied everything.
Some weeks later I had gone a bit Miss Marple on her and found out all I could. Including a bit about her ex husband. They had divorced a few years back.
When I visited her ex-husband's FB page I found a message from him to me sent many years before. This was a while ago and I'd never used FB Messenger. His message told me he was worried they were having an affair!
I contacted him, we met for coffee and shared all our anger about how they had behaved. It helped me immensely.
We're still FB friends. Our lives have improved.

It's happened twice.
The first time an acquaintance mentioned it, I didn't think much of it. The second time, they started to be secretive on the phone and distanced themselves, claiming to be with "friends." Then, the name of the person they were having an affair with appeared on their mobile. At that point, I realized what was happening, and they confessed after I pushed for the truth. Of course, they blamed me for it all.

Admitted to having a fumble with his best mates then GF when he went to her house to pay for some concert tickets but said it was before he met me .

He told me the name of the band and where the concert was . I googled the bands concert history and the concert had taken place two months after meeting me and us being in a relationship.

He then admitted what had happened and that it wasn't the first time .

I was more shocked at his friend's GF as she came across as a Miss innocent Goody two shoes . She went on to marry the best mate !