Am I being paranoid? (It's long, sorry)

[needadvicepls]

I promise I'm not a troll but I've namechanged as this is really embarrassing.

DH and I have been together for 13 years and had our first baby late last year

I'm worried that DH is having an affair and worst of all it's his half sister that I suspect. My DH was adopted as a baby so they haven't grown up together and only met up again last year so they don't really have the brother/sister relationship yet. On Christmas Eve, I saw messages on his phone that he sent to her. These are examples of what set me off (and his explanations for them):

'I can give you that massage when we see each other' - So what? I've goven other friends of ours shoulder rubs and it never bothered you

'I just want her all the time and I know people would think that it's wrong but if they don't know then they can't judge' - I was talking about you. I want you all the time but because we've just ahd a baby people might think I'm pressuring you

'Ok but no parking up under the stars lol' - We needed to talk about the past and didn't want to at her house because of the kids

We had a big row about it and because my hormones were all over the place, I decided to just carry on. He promised to think about what he was saying. Then about two weeks ago I saw this on

'Just about to get in the shower, wish you were here to give me a hand lol' - he said this was a joke that went too far.

I flipped out at this point and said that if there is something going on, he should just tell me and we can sort it out but if he lies to me I will leave and he'll be lucky if he sees the baby anymore and I'll also tell her DP. SIL was chatting to me via text and I said that I thought he was cheating and what I'd told him so she asked me if I thought the OW was her (she knew about the arguement at Christmas). We spoke on the phone and she explained that her DP (who has cheated before) sent her the message about the shower but it was meant for another woman so DH was just winding her up. She sounded sincere so I decided that I was being paranoid and things have been really good since.

Then on Saturday, DH took the car for it's MOT then texted me saying he was going to do some work for a few hours. I texted back saying that I hadn't realised he had to work and he came straight home saying he had cancelled the job.

DH was supposed to be taking the baby to her house on Saturday afternoon as I was going out somewhere with my mum and he was giving us a lift. I saw that he had sent a message saying he could make up for this morning and also that he hadn't texted or called the bloke that he had supposedly cancelled on that morning.

On Sunday, I sent a text asking if he had been going up on Saturday morning and she said she had asked if he'd got time for a cuppa as she was really down. I asked her not to tell DH but I saw that she sent him a message saying that I had asked and what she had told me.

This morning DH is off for most of the day but has gone to a job for a few hours this morning. I've just looked and one of our condoms is missing (I'd been keeping track since I thought one went before). I made the mistake of calling and asking if he is planning on surprising me later and told him why. He said he was. I realise now that I shouldn't have said anything until he's back and then asked him to see if he could produce it.

I just don't know what to do anymore. I don't know if I'm being paranoid or what. Also, how on earth do we continue a relationship where the trust is so damaged?

Has anyone got any advice or suggestions?

I've been reading this thread and wonder how your dp refers to his sister? Does he refer to her as his sister or only use her first name? How does he react if you refer to her as his sister? Because if there is a sexual attraction there then I would think that he would want to try to forget that she is related to him iyswim.

LDDD he usually calls her by her first name but he does also refer to her as his sister

In his texts he calls her babe or sweet

NAP, I've just re-read your initial post and it baffles me how many suspect incidents there have been that your dh has just brushed aside and yet he still thinks you are being paranoid!
I don't want to pry or to be too personal but how is your relationship with dh at the moment? Is the condom thing something that he would usually do or is that out of character and odd? You also said that you'd been counting them as you thought before that one had gone walkies - did you ever get to the bottom of that?
The most telling part of all this to me, is that he deletes texts. What has he got to hide? Does he text her in front of you? I wonder what his reaction would be if you calmly picked up his phone one day and made a joke about seeing what's on there?
You've got to get this sorted NAP, one way or another.

My brothers wouldn't dream of calling me Babe or Sweet and I really wouldn't want them to

Even if its not sexual i'd be majorly pissed off at DH laughing about annoying me to a male friend.

I'd also be pissed off that seemingly every conversation you have with him is reported straight back to her.

Afraid i would be having a frank discussion with him telling him the 'relationship' with his sister is just not acceptable and either he stops seeing/speaking to her or he can get lost.

I would not be made a fool of by them i'm afraid.

Good luck!

eeeek. Trying to imagine my brother calling me 'sweet' or 'babe'. He's accidentally called me 'honey', forgetting he's speaking to me and not his fiancee, and he gets so embarassed! I know they weren't raised together, but really, he's over the line there (just fuel to the fire).

What a nightmare you've been put into. Do any of their family members (adoptive or biological) have any inkling of what's going on? I guess I'm wondering if your H and his sister would back off each other if there was a chance of being exposed to their family? Would the threat of their family knowing cause them to realise just how inappropriate they've been?

My DH read your initial posts about the texts and missing condoms, and FWIW he doesn't believe the explanations for a minute (nor do I). We don't think you're paranoid at all.

Lovie, what are you going to do?

The signs are there that he is having a completely inapproapriate relationship with his sister and you have some choices.

Say and do nothing else and see what happens.
Decide to trust and believe him and don't mention it again.
Tell him you absolutely don't believe him and he has to leave.

MuffinBaker - I have no idea what I'm going to do. DD has been screaming for the past 20 minutes and now that I've got her calmed and settled I'm just sitting here in tears I know I've got some tough decisions to make

Helsbels - I never really did much about the other condom as I really wasn't 100% sure how many there were. That is why I started keeping a note. I really wish I hadn't mentioned the other one as I might have some certain answers by now. It would be unusual for him to put one on to surprise me - if he's thinking of surprising me, he would just be on our bed which is near where they are kept anyway

Our relationship has been 'better' since we had the big argument a few weeks ago as I think I was deluding myself that everything is fine now. At the moment, I'm still trying to pretend it's good but it's not.

I think if I did that with his phone he would probably take it off me. Occassionally he will read a text to me but obviously that's only going to be the innocent ones.

The last text that I saw from her this morning was saying that they need to have this chat they keep talking about as they keep saving it for another day. I am guessing that this is the 'chat' that they need to have about their mother - the one that they want to have alone. I'm interested to see if he mentions it to me or if he lies about where he is going

I've looked everywhere I can think of and I can't find anything. He sorted through the receipts in the car last week so I didn't get chance to look through them, all there is now is petrol receipts. I couldn't find anything suspect in the car or house. I think most of this is on his phone and obviously he deletes most of it and doesn't often leave his phone lying around so that makes it really difficult

Is he deleting his messages or does he just have his phone set so that it dosen't save sent messages, if so next time he leaves his phone free make sure you change the setting he'll not notice unless he sends that many it will use up his memory

Since January he has had the iPhone which saves all messages to and from a person in one long conversation. It's not possible to delete just one message so he often deletes the whole conversation

I was going to suggest some ideas I'd seen on here to catch out people through their phones,

e.g. changing the number he has stored against her name to your number, so he is actually tecting you instead of her

or swapping your SIM card with his so that you get the texts from her that she is sending to him

However with 700 texts a month flying between them they'd notice these actions in about 20 minutes so I don't think you'd find out much and you'd end up revealing that you are still keeping tabs on them

It's all just so sneaky! I'm trying to envisage if this was me and my dh in your situation.
If nothing was going on and needed to be hidden then why all the deleted texts?
My dh talks to his sister on the phone and texts her BUT he'll sit in the same room as me while he talks and if I ask to look at his phone, he would hand it over without a doubt (as would I).
I can understand that they need to catch up and bring their pasts together but why aren't you included in all of this?
Your dh AND his sister are being extremely unreasonable and all the chatting about me behind my back, would drive me crazy!!!
I think you need to seriously sit down with your dh and tell him everything that bothers you about the relationship. If there is nothing in it and he loves you as he says he does then surely his response will be to do everything he can to make things right.
If he is defensive and casts your feelings aside then I think you will know from there in your heart that things are not as they should be and you will need to decide yours and your dd's future from there.
I'm so sorry you are going through all of this but you need and deserve answers

I just want to say thank you again to everyone for your support. It makes me feel a lot better knowing that people don't think I'm paranoid. The last time we argued about it I ended up feeling so bad that I thought DD would be better off if I just left, rather than growing up with an unstable mother. DH and I have been together since we were 14,he's all I've ever known and I just can't believe it's all crumbling around me at a time when things should be better than ever

Oh you poor thing! You really don't deserve this. I really hope that it will all get sorted out soon because you just can't go on with this doubt and worry hanging over you x

The fact you have been together for so long will make it harder to imagine leaving and to see that there is life after this man,

If he was truly innocent he would be doing all he could to make you feel secure and trust him, if he was a decent bloke imo.

I'm going to stick my neck out here. I don't want to upset you but the likelihood that there is an innocent explanation for this seems very, very small. In your position, I'd feel certain that he was cheating. To contrast with how he has reacted, I once discovered an empty condom wrapper in our bathroom at a time we weren't using them. I confronted DH and his response was not to make me out to be crazy. He said that he understood why I was worried and that, in my position he'd feel equally suspicious. But, he said, all he could do was reassure me that he wasn't cheating. He was so worried about it all and so understanding of my fears that I felt immediately reassured that he wasn't cheating. I just knew he was telling the truth. (As it turned out a female friend of mine admitted that she and her OH were the guilty culprits when they had stayed the previous weekend). But I think what I am saying is that how someone reacts speaks volumes. Defensive and accusatory is not a good sign....

Good luck to you. This must be so tough. I hope you find happiness.

OMG I thought you were going to say he was reassuring you but was actually lying. SO relieved all was well.

Blameitonthebogey - I'm glad it all worked out for you

I know I'm going to have to talk to him soon but I just can't face it at the moment

They've been texting again today (surprise surprise!) but not as much as normal as he's been busy helping his brother. It's all 'I bloomin love you' etc.

He knows something is bothering me as he keeps asking what's wrong but I guess I want to get everything straight in my head and make some advice before we have the same old fight again

I'm seriously considering getting some legal advice after the Bank holiday

i am an adopteee too and i met up with my siblings when i was an adult. i see one of my brothers and his family regularly and NONE of what you have said is " normal" for someone in this situation

i hardly ever txt him, its normally his DW, my SIL

i dont normally meet him alone, its always as two couples or whole families ( we both have 4 kids).

we only talk about normal stuff, like families or work etc. we NEVER make jokes about sex or anything like that, that would be totally weird. honestly, no one jokes with their BROTHER about giving them a hand in the shower [yuck]

i would say we are close but pretty much like other siblings who get on well

i have to agree with all the other posters who say that this is genetic sexual attraction, whether or not they are actually having sex with her he is WAY too involved with her.

my dh and i txtx a lot but nothing like hundreds a month

my DH is obsessed by his phone and uses it all the time for work but even HE doesn't take it in the shower. IMO thats a sign of soemthing to hide

I'm not sure if the police would actually charge them but there woudl be a pretty big scandal in your community when people find out

this situation wont go away i think. what are you going to do?

KristinaM - thank you for your post. You've confirmed what I know deep down, that even if it's not sexual their relationship is not 'normal'. I really don't know what I'm going to do in the immediate future but I know this can't carry on. He has said in a past argument that DD and I are the most important thing so the time may come shortly that we'll see if that's true because it certainly doesn't feel that way at the moment

god.

i don't think the decision itself is tough. it's more the fallout from the decision.

it's obvious what's going on and what you need to do. doesn't mean it's not awful though...

i'd get it over and done with myself... can't see the benefit in a long drawn out situation. you'll only drive yourself mad.

personally, the 'wish you were here to give me a hand in the shower' text would be enough for me.

not on.

You need to lay down your cards. You can't keep coming on here and telling people the latest load of crap they have fed you - it's heartbreaking.

The longer you let this carry on, the more chance it has to escalate into something which is completely irreversible. Whether something dodgy is going on or not, he needs to know exactly how much strain his behaviour is putting on your marriage. Once he's armed with that information, sit back and see what he does with it. He'll either sort it, or sort more doors for her.

700 texts per month, topping up her phone just so that they can keep that up... deleting the texts when an iPhone has more than enough memory to store them all... it's only a matter of time before it all comes crashing down and you're left alone to pick up the pieces. Don't sit back and watch your husband and your child's father destroy your relationship, in favour of one with a half sister that in comparison, he doesn't know.

i am an adopteee too and i met up with my siblings when i was an adult. i see one of my brothers and his family regularly and NONE of what you have said is " normal" for someone in this situation

i hardly ever txt him, its normally his DW, my SIL

i dont normally meet him alone, its always as two couples or whole families ( we both have 4 kids).

we only talk about normal stuff, like families or work etc. we NEVER make jokes about sex or anything like that, that would be totally weird. honestly, no one jokes with their BROTHER about giving them a hand in the shower [yuck]

i would say we are close but pretty much like other siblings who get on well

i have to agree with all the other posters who say that this is genetic sexual attraction, whether or not they are actually having sex with her he is WAY too involved with her.

my dh and i txtx a lot but nothing like hundreds a month

my DH is obsessed by his phone and uses it all the time for work but even HE doesn't take it in the shower. IMO thats a sign of soemthing to hide

I'm not sure if the police would actually charge them but there woudl be a pretty big scandal in your community when people find out

this situation wont go away i think. what are you going to do?

oops sorry

Today I've started to write DH a letter explaining why I'm unhappy, that I'm hoping will help us to start talking and work towards fixing our relationship (or not depending on how he handles it). The reason I've put it on paper is so that I can say everything I need to with no interruptions and without getting upset. In it, I've said a few things that I think might help us which are:

1. stop deleting her texts

2. I'll stop checking his phone if he shows it to me when I ask

3. don't meet her on his own, at least for a while

4. stop calling her 'babe' and 'sweet'

Do you think these are unreasonable things to ask, given the situation?

I've explained that our marriage is in danger and he needs to normalise their relationship and work to reassure me or I'm leaving.