Random message saying DH affair

[basilbush]

Hoping for some advice here

Background-been with my DH 19 years, married 13 with two young children (nursery and reception).

I would say we have a happy marriage and solid family life. We rarely argue, spend time together and mostly manage to be respectful and have fun. We are intimate fairly regularly with no issues there (that I’m aware of).

So now to the weirdness. Yesterday afternoon I got a message on WhatsApp. It’s from a number I don’t recognise and the contact card photo is a flower so not identifying. The message said my DH (used his name) was cheating on me, had been going on for 6 months and I was naive to think my marriage was happy.

i haven’t replied. I’m not sure what to say and it’s knocked me for 6. I know you read posts from women all the time where they can’t see what’s right in front of them but I honestly don’t believe it. I don’t believe he’s capable of it-nor has he really had the opportunity.

He has recently started going to the gym and got fitter but we’ve both had health scares and it ties in with that.

Im not really sure what to do. I was going to just ask him outright (he’s away with work and back later today) and say I’ve got this weird message but it seemed so ridiculous to even ask him.

And being away with work isn’t a red flag-he’s sent photos of the conference, we faced timed last night and he rang me when got back to the room. First time he’s stayed away for a work thing in a year.

sorry, this was long and rambling!

I can she why she got grief, tone deaf and gloating.

Appears she’s wrong though, hopefully.

I'd probably agree with this. I worked with a girl who was, supposedly, my friend. She offered herself up to another work friend of mine, who was (still is) happily married and he turned her down.

She then asked me what I knew about his wife and whether I thought she could do anything about her. I said she was a nice woman and he loves her very much so I doubt it. She got angry.

As an aside, she then decided he'd turned her offer down cos we were having an affair and stopped speaking to me. We weren't. We just got on well.

The later messages make me think it’s not spam. It’s someone that knows you, which is quite intriguing. Perhaps someone that’s got a ‘thing’ about you (I have had this with a woman I barely registered but she became a bit obsessed with me), or someone that fancies your husband.

Either way, there’s a bunny boiler in your midst. I’d really enjoy trying to find out who she is

So working on the basis that it's a hoax/false claim - who else could be sending these messages to you. It's very specific about the baby shower and naming the mum to be. Who would know this much detail about your lives? Someone else who went to the baby shower possibly?

There may well be 8 million on file from across the years, there's not 8 million who post.
If you really want to see what a lot of women here think of men, read the Macron thread. I just hope those women never sit on a jury.

What makes your think it’s for no reason ? Could be for any number of them. And a woman scorned and all that. If she’s propositioned him and he’s refused who knows what she would say. Sounds like she’d like to boil his bunny !!

@PorgyandBess yes that’s my first thought - a weird bunny boiler who has a thing for one of them or a malicious shit stirrer with clearly a MH issue - whoever it is has a fair amount of detail unless OP hasn’t locked down her social media.

I know of a woman who's (ex) husband did this too. But in many jobs it would be difficult for them to leave the office for that length of time.

Take my DH for example. He needs to be on site. He can nip to the Tesco near by, for lunch, but couldn't drive the 30 mins to the nearest hotel, have a shag and drive the 30 mins back, regularly, without being pulled up on his absence from site. He'd be putting his job at risk as well as his marriage, so it'd be a VERY stupid move. And mostly, men aren't stupid enough to risk their family AND their money. Mostly.

have you tried doing a reverse search on the photo your tormentor is using?

No one can ever tell if anything is 100% true or not when it is conducted through private phones, in spare time, when absent from the spouse or with someone who has the level of self esteem where they will accept crumbs from a sexual encounter and/or relationship that are way below the norm for something emotionally fulfilling and long term.

Nobody suspecting the DH here is setting out to be cynical or pushing an agenda or saying he does not love the OP, but most women I am aware of, who have worked with men in the corporate world past the age of 40 have seen the way men behave with women who are 20+. Most men separate their behaviour from their lives to such an extreme extent that they convince even themselves they are not actually doing anything wrong when they flirt, sleep, pay for or groom other women. Their level of self denial permeates into their lives where they also convince their families, children, parents, wives.

no one who is suspicious is saying the DH here is having an affair or not, but I am just saying keep an open mind as to what could be possible and don’t dismiss others outside your marriage as envious or trying to destroy it. And don’t think that the extent of your experience of your husband is complete knowledge of his behaviour and words when he is not with you.

I think ‘vanishingly’ is slightly over the top.

It's a discussion forum that's mostly populated by women. It's not the Old Bailey, obliged to be perfectly just and fair in all regards. It's (mostly) going to centre women and it's not always going to add a million caveats to make men feel better. If you want to know what one sex thinks of the other, you'll find far more places where men talk far worse stuff about women, much of it illegal.

@basilbush I reckon they've got that information from social media. Either you or one of the other attendees will have posted something tagging you.
Or it's some one that knows you who is a bitch.

Either way, I would not reply.

Very strange, its someone who knows you though as they know about the baby shower.

This is an extremely common scam email though, there's only ever one email and it makes it clear they're trying to extort money. They don't know your name, your husbands name or that you went to a baby shower recently. They just want your money - but what does the OP's contact want? How have they got the information? Why are they being so nasty? They're definitely a sad sicko but what are they getting out of this and why?

I thought a tag in SM as well, I’ve an unusual name and use have a work phone that shows under my work profile, all very easy to trace.

Also the photo of OPs DH could it an old SM post or work profile, LinkedIn etc?

Personally I would reply with “don’t care” ..then block the number

He could have a second phone. I hear that’s quite common with cheaters.

Is the photo of your DH on your Facebook account? This scammer could have picked up everything from your account to create all this stuff. I assume the next step will be the requesting money to release more ‘evidence’.

I had a message saying that I’d been filmed masturbating while watching porn on my laptop. The scammer wanted money to stop me sending the film to ‘everyone’. As I don’t have a laptop I knew it was all fake but some poor bastard out there could get caught up with all this shite.

Wow someone has really got it in for you - or your DH at least. I really hope your instincts are right and it's not true.

All the info including DHs pic could easily have been picked up off OPs Facebook account.

I wouldn't underestimate the language we can all pick up from social media (IG, OF, etc). If OH is that way inclined.

Unfortunately I’ve been here long enough to know that these messages invariably end up being true sadly. If not an affair then he has shagged a work colleague and someone wants you to know or the work colleague want more.

I wouldn't block but definitely stop responding. They'll be angry at your lack of engagement and are likely to keep messaging which may tell their identity.

I had something similar about 10 years ago! friend kept telling my now husband things that weren't true about me (example she's going around telling everyone you guys are going to get engaged and shes baby Mad!!) Totally untrue - then she kept telling me things - like he was all over these girls last night (he was a dj so was out a lot working in bars and stuff)

then she started messaging him if i'd been on a night out - that i was a mess and must have a drinking problem and she was worried about me etc etc

All of it was to create drama it seemed as it was all nonsense!

We eventually cut her off.

i got random messages from unknown numbers saying they needed to talk to me about partner etc etc - turned out it was from her work phone number!

she had been friends with us both separately before we were a couple so i think it was pure jelousy