DH cheating? am I being paranoid?

[RoRoMummy]

My DH has a normal day job but plays music in pubs / village halls for a hobby. Since March he's been 'playing music' with (amongst others) a woman who lives in the next village. All seemed OK at first and I met her a few times, she knows a few of my friends too. But when we were on hols in Aug he was in the shower and a text came in, so I picked his phone up (being helpful!) and saw quite a worrying text from this woman. Not out and out sexy or anything... but more about being soul mates and thanking him for his 'late night conversations' (he always gets home quite late when he's 'rehearsing'). I stewed for the day, not wanting to upset kiddies (7 and 3) and tackled him that evening. He said they were close friends and that she was not happy with her husband. He did not say a lot but said that nothing is going on and not to worry. So I believed him.
I have since discovered that the texts have continued back and forth, but he is really quick to delete them (WHY????).
Have spoken to two friends about this and one thinks I should nip it in the bud and ask him not to be 'friends' with her. The other thinks I am being a paranoid maniac and that maybe she is just a genuine 'friend'. But the 'soulmate' thing haunts me. I am getting really upset and don't know what to do. Advice please?

Well you need to speak to him and ask him to define his relationship with her. All the time it is just conjecture you cannot go in all guns blazing making demands. They may be close...could you handle your dh having a female friend?

Yes: I have asked this already. His response was 'very close friends'. I have to say that I really don't like the idea of him having a 'soulmate': I thought that was supposed to be ME? I am annoyed that he goes out in the evenings and I stay at home with the kids, knackered from a busy day. And he goes off to have deep and meaningful conversations with somebody else. I told him this back in Aug... but he appears to have just ignored me. I do not feel I am getting a straight answer. He has just told me (yesterday) that they are now planning a gig at the pub in her village in Dec... which translates as: he'll be out 'rehearsing' a lot between now and then. I have (so far) chosen to say nothing, but I do plan to keep an eye on his phone.

I think you need to talk to him and express your concerns in a non accusatory manner. He undoubtedly would feel very uncomfortable if you were to receive such a text from another man.

He needs to stop all the texting back and forth and to limit contact purely to music evenings only. You should also attend such evenings. The texts are probably being deleted due to their content.

If this woman is having problems in her marriage then your H needs to really be telling her to talk to someone else about this. He should be telling her this; its all too easy for a man to become someone's confidante and to get too emotionally involved in something that is really not his concern. He may well feel flattered by her attention and she may be wanting more from him. She is not solely to blame here; your H is at fault too.

What do you and H do together; do you get much time together as a couple?. Do you feel that things have changed between you, do you still talk as much or have other things got in the way?.

It does not sound good I am sorry to say, it sounds like he is investing a lot of his own emotional energies on her with less for you as a result. Emotional affairs can be extremely damaging when they happen.

I think the soulmate thing is a bit of a distraction to be honest, she called him her soulmate, he didn't say she was his, which is very different.

I still think that if this lady friend of Roro's H is having marriage troubles Roro's H should be pointing her in the direction of Relate.

For him to say that nothing is going on and not to worry rings alarm bells.

He is on a slippery slope here and probably thinks its okay and he can handle this lady without affecting his own marriage (denial is often employed in emotional affairs). It is all too easy to become emotionally involved and doubtless Roro's H feel flattered by all the attention he's been receiving. Many people do not enter emotional affairs deliberately but theirs is a friendhsip where the lines are becoming increasingly blurred. The lines of their friendhsip need to be redrawn and Roromummy needs to attend their musical evenings.

Thank you for this. Truth is we hardly ever go out as we live far from family for babysitting help. My youngest does not sleep well so I'm reluctant to use an unfamiliar babysitter. Although his Mum does come down sometimes for his gigs and SHE goes out to them (leaving me at home!!!). I have a very busy week: I look after 3 boys, in addition to my 2 children, because a friend of mine died a few months back (I became a reg childminder), so I am knackered in the evenings. Which probably doesn't help matters. It's weird though: he is carrying on 'business as usual', which I'm finding upsetting.

It doesn't look good at all and even if it is all innocent this is how affairs can start. If she is a friend, could you talk to her and ask her what is going on? Make out your H has said something? Crazy idea quite probably.

Roro

You and H are not spending any real time together which is problematic for you both. And why is his Mother going to his gigs - you should be going along to them!. You need to assert yourself here and both of you need to talk and keep talking.

Use an unfamiliar sitter (I use sitters who are a registered company of babysitters because I got no real help from family either). You both need to spend time together, you're both in danger of becoming emotionally isolated from each other.
Its a process that is already happening.
He has perhaps become more distance emotionally from you.

Many men do not enter emotional affairs deliberately but he is treading danerous ground here. You and he are going to have to talk more openly to each other before he expends even more emotional energy on this other lady friend of his.

OK I do agree with you and I have tried to get to the bottom of things on more than one occasion. I am still not convinced by the response and feel that he avoids taking about her/it.

I will go along with the Dec gig plan: but make it clear I will be attending. The rehearsals, though, happen at HER house always. About once or twice a week (not sure where her H is then... did not get a straight answer about that either) Shall I ask that they rehearse at our house?

But I suspect that it ALREADY have gone too far. I suspect he is keeping me in the dark and I feel I have to find a way of confirming what he's up to without him knowing. Hopefully there really isn't much going on and I'll feel stupid but reassured, but there is a very real possibility that if I might see evidence that they are guilty. Today I have ordered some SIM card software: you can retrieve and read deleted texts. If I am to go through with this plan I need to be acting 'normal' this week.

I do not know her as a friend: but I do know several people who know her via school/nursery: do you think I should confront her? or talk to someone who knows both of us?

So many thoughts and worries... so confused and upset. He's out with the kiddies this afternoon... busy texting her no doubt. My DD told me he was 'always playing with his phone' on the beach on holiday...

RoRo my DH had an affair 6 months ago, it started as texting, flirting etc and then a line was crossed. My DH didn't think that the text thing was crossing a line but, as I pointed out to him, anything that he wouldn't do in front of me was cheating eg texting her, flirting, anything financial I didn't know about etc. And also, someone with nothing to hide, hides nothing.

Please redefine the boundaries in your marriage, get a babysitter and join him on his "rehearsals", get involved in his life. If he has nothing to hide he shouldn't have any objections.

Good luck.

Do you trust him? Do you believe him when he says he hasn't done anything?

I think insisting that at least half of the rehearsals are at your home is an excellent idea and surely only fair?
How could he not agree to this?

RoRo. The first thing to acknowledge in this is that he IS having an affair. It might be emotional and not sexual at the moment, but it absolutely is an affair. You have GOT to nip this in the bud.

Please order and read a book called Not Just Friends by Dr. Shirley Glass (on Amazon and E Bay). I guarantee you will sit there open-mouthed when you read what is actually happening in your life.

A huge and resounding cheer for buying the SIM software. You need absolutely hard evidence when it's at the suspicion stage and when in the grip of something like this, most people will only ever admit to what can be proved.

You will realise from the book that the conditions of your life are the perfect breeding ground for an affair. The child-centred marriage, the complete trust, the husband whose weak spot is the damsel in distress. Your situation ticks all those boxes.

Men very often delude themselves that they haven't crossed the line when they start texting, confiding and keeping secret these relationships. This is because they believe infidelity is about sex. Until that happens, they can carry on without much guilt.

With luck, you have tumbled this before sexual infidelity has taken place. Given the speed at which these things take hold though (texting accelerates affairs because the parties very often write stuff they'd never have the courage to verbalise) I worry that some time has been lost.

What ever the outcome, this needs analysis. If you manage to stop this in its tracks, you haven't solved the real problem. The book I recommend should be read by both of you (once you know what you're dealing with) as it points out how to affair-proof your marriage. The two things I want you to say as your mantra at the moment though are: affairs happen in good marriages. Secondly, the only good friend permissible in a marriage is the friend of the marriage. This woman is no friend of your marriage.

Finally, please update us! Think you might be the first of us to use this software and you could save a lot of people untold agonies if you were able to tell Mnetters that it works.

Good luck and well done. I applaud you.

Also wanted to say. If ever there was a "How to" guide written on how to tempt a good man into having an affair, the top tip would be to play the victim, tell him you're being abused by a cold and distant husband and generally paint yourself as someone who needed rescuing.

Don't confront her. Not now. If I was you, I would tell him to invite her round. After all, if she's just a friend, then there's no problem with that. I'm sure you have friends round all the time (and vice versa).

Let her see you together and the children. Get the measure of her on your own territory.

It's easy for a man to get sucked into something like this, not realising they could be doing any harm.

Lay the cards on the table and explain it is not acceptable.. mention all of the above.

If I were him I would be telling her I'm flattered, but my wife was my soulmate and she should probably look elsewhere for suport.

Can I add, to all who have good reason to do so, that if you are on o2 you don't need sim software, just register for Bluebook and it records all the texts, incoming and outgoing.

How are you doing today RoRo?

All of this could be fine, but if it's not okay with you then it's not okay. You're in a partnership which means you both need to be happy. IMO I would ask him to reduce time spent with the 'friend' to gigs and rehearsals at your house.

Perhaps the beginnings of an affair are around the corner but if you save him from himself it may be just what he needs, a little near miss.

If it were my DH I would insist he only sees this woman in my company.

hiya

sorry to hear what you are going through. it really doesn't sound good to me, sorry!!

i am a singer and i have been singing in local rock bands for years just as a hobby, and i know exactly how intense things can be if you are in a band with people.

i have had the same thing, i ended up being very close friends with the drummer out of one of my old bands, who was with someone already....we didn't get together romantically until after he left his wife but he became one of my best friends and he was confiding in all of us about how very unhappy the situation was at home, the band was an escape for him etc coz he had finally got to meet some people with similar interests...

well, we fell head over heels in love once he was free and now 3 years after first meeting we are engaged to be married with a baby daughter!!! (and we still both play in bands BTW!!)

so while I am NOT saying things can't be saved, i would look very very carefully at how your situation really is at home. because if he was truly happy he would not need this extra flirtation, and as others have said he would have just told her he wasn't interested. sometimes relationships can plod on even after things have gone stale, do you still love him, are you still showing him as much love and affection and you used to?? is he you??? i would be asking myself these questions.

and FWIW don't snoop on his texts, if someone did that to me i think its almost as bad as cheating. sorry.

let us know what happens.

mummee-v xxx

Sorry guys, but if a woman dared to text my DH with any 'soulmates' guff, she'd be in deep shit.

Go round there, punch her in the face and make it clear in no uncertain terms that she's not to be fucking with your family.

drunken daisy - why blame the woman ???!!!! she isn't fucking with his family, he is doing that himself, you don't know what he is saying to her and what is going on between them, takes to to tango etc, why blame her 100% !!!!!

thats well out of order, sorry.
x

Can I just say that I agree WHOLEHEARTEDLY with WhenwillIfeelnormal. My DH had an emotional affair last winter that he didn't believe crossed any lines because they didn't have sex and he wasn't intending to. BUT there was sexual tension and she tried it on with him (a fact he only admitted much later). He maintained that she was his friend, but she had absolutely no interest in being MY friend and was no friend to our marriage.

I really hope you can nip this in the bud. All best luck to you. Keep posting.

Also, I understand (all too well) the pain and hurt that an emotional affair can have, and how it undermines your sense of self-worth and self-confidence. Don't let this situation go on. Be kind to yourself. x

Here s a link to the web site about the book it is really good and gives you an idea of what it is about along with some fab advice from the author.