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my sig tells our story. to get to the point, tonight i was switching over things from his wallet to the new wallet i had bought him. in it, i found a letter from a girl, talking about how much she loves him, how she was so happy he finally had sex with her and how great it was, and worse, that she would be a great stepmom to our daughter.

DH was asleep. i calmly went into our bedroom and woke him up and asked him "what is this" he said, i don't know, let me see it. i showed it to him and then started telling him what it said. he said, i have no idea how it got there, i have never seen it before. he was extrememly calm. i told him i was switching stuff to the new wallet and he said he didn't know what it was. he said, why would i leave it there where you could find it?

he looked me in the eyes and swore on our daughter and his mother (he never does this, i can always tell if he is trying to play a practical joke, like "honey, i got another speeding ticket", me "no way, you swear on DD?" him, "no." ) he said he is going to find out who did it. that someone is trying to cause problems for him.

i don't know what to do. we talked for awhile and he swears that there is no one. that if there was he would tell me and leave.

in my heart, i can't believe that he would do it and bold faced lie to me. he would tell me. but, there is a little voice that is driving me crazy inside. i am terrified. i want to believe him.

he woke up a little later after falling asleep and i laid down to talk to him. i told him that he could tell me the truth, i would not do anything dumb like run off with our DD, etc. he again swore on his daugther, who he said "is the most sacred thing i have". this is true. he loves her so much and is a perfect father.

any advice? he does have friends/family that don't like him and might try to cause trouble, as well as people who know the ex OW. my other SIL is friends with her in a way and with her friends and i don't trust her at all. he constantly leaves his wallet in his truck at work and it would be easy for someone to put in in there. it was right behind a picture of our DD, i would think he would hide it better.

please help me. i am sick to my stomach and don't know what to do.

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WEll, please take a step back and really really look at this. Remove all rationalizations and hopes and fears from this. ANYONE who would look at this evidence objectively, and considering your WH has a history (And an OC To boot), would come to the conclusion you fear. I wish that I could give you hope here, but this situation is screaming with a LARGE RED FLAG. I don't portend to know what the next step is for you, BUT clearly there is a BIG Problemm. It is possible one of the other posters with more wisdom than I could find a way for you to rationalize that this was all a mistake, and the note really was meant for a friend of your wayward husband and he was just "holding" IT for him. MAybe this was all a misunderstanding.??? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" />

MY Own personal opinion (disclaimer) is that men who cheat on their wifes (repeatedly--->like yours), father a child that they never see or take an active role in fathering, ARE RARELY THE perfect "fathers" spouses make them out to be. WAyyyy to many character issues. I think you have a big pile of $hit here, and hopefully you can get some advice here of how to proceed next in cleaning it up. The posters here will give you great support in helping you to recover this marriage and win your husband back if this is indeed the case. YOU are in the right place for that.

P.S. IT is possible this is all a cruel joke played on your husband by a coworker...if you belive that...I got a bridge I wOuld like to talk to you about buying.

GOOdluck <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" />

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</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by happy_girl:
<strong>he does have friends/family that don't like him and might try to cause trouble, as well as people who know the ex OW. my other SIL is friends with her in a way and with her friends and i don't trust her at all. he constantly leaves his wallet in his truck at work and it would be easy for someone to put in in there. it was right behind a picture of our DD, i would think he would hide it better.
</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Sorry you are here, hon. Having experienced a husband who has cheated twice, I'd say he's lying through his teeth. I work with drivers and I am here to tell you it would NOT be easy to go in their truck and tuck something away in his wallet. First of all, I don't even know which drivers do this and I could care less. Secondly, the above is your way of protecting your own heart and it is understandable. But it will get you nowhere in finding out the truth.

My best advice would be to sit down and think. Has he shown other signs of being unfaithful -- working "late," leaving on the weekends for hours or "trips with friends".... Has he become distant of late?

My gut tells me the note is on the level and he put it in his wallet because he never thought you would be going through his wallet!

It seems like your gut is telling you the same thing. Don't ignore it. I have found that the gut meter is usually dead on.

So, what to do? There are a couple of approaches. You can talk to him again and tell him that you just don't buy his story because of his past unfaithfulness unless HE CAN PROVE to you that somebody else planted the "evidence." You can do this in a loving way and tell him that though you love him you really can't live with the idea of him lying to you.

OK, problem with this approach is no matter how skillfully you present your feelings, he is likely to keep denying the evidence and try to make you feel crazy.

So, the second thought is to sweetly say, gee, I wonder who would have done that to you (like you buy the story). Then put yourself on high alert for anything suspicious and do some detective work. Does he have a cell phone? Check out the past bills and see if a certain number pops up. Does he go places without you? Ask to join him and gauge his reaction.

Hang in there. Others will pop up with advice. And look at my sig... you can survive two affairs, even though after the first you might have said, "Never Again."

~ Snow

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If he was willing to swear on your daughter...I'd suggest that he take a lie detector test. With his history...if he has nothing to hide he should willingly agree to take one.

Trust your gut...not a word from his mouth. Also, Snowbelle's suggestions were great...no need to repeat.

Decide what you are still willing to live with and what you will need to feel safe.

I also have an H that has had 3 A's (that I know of) in our 28 yr marriage.

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I just don't know what to do. I am so sick and confused right now. There are things that don't make sense for me either way.

-it being in his wallet. It was behind a picture of our daughter. He knows I periodically change that picture. I had bought the new wallet a week ago and he knew about it. He never changes over his wallets, I always do. He wouldn't be so dumb to leave it there when he can leave it in the truck and I would never go in there.

-he never hides anything from me, never gets upset if i search his things. he has told me before that he has nothing to hide, I can look through his things whenever I want to. Same with the phone bill. He usually has a temper. Yet, he never gets mad if I have looked through his things, etc.

-His truck is constantly left in his truck. He works in construction and is the foreman so is always mapping out plans, etc. It is completely possible that someone could put it in there. He has definite enemies that do way worse than this, some of his cousins and friends.

I just don't know what to do. There is no way for him to prove this for me either way. I am damned if I do and damned if I don't. No one is going to fess up to this. He has a temper and no one would mess with it and get caught.

As I see it I have 2 choices.

1. Believe him and go on with life, try to forget that it happened.

2. Leave him. Or pretend things are fine and plan on leaving him in time.

If I do 1., and it later turns out that he was cheating, I will be more upset. I will have been completely stupid.

If I do 2., and he is innocent, I have lost my husband of almost 9 years that treats me good, supported me through nursing school emotionally and never gave up on me, IS a wonderful father to DD. I become a single mom with no where to go and my DD ends up like me, with one parent.

This sucks no matter how you look at it. I can't talk to anyone IRL about it because I just don't want to deal with it. I guess I will just stick my head in the sand and do number 1. If it turns out to be true, well then I do number 2.

I just don't see why he would lie. He knows that I don't want to be with him if he doesn't love me. He also knows that I could make it without him and he could see his daughter, etc. I just don't know.

I also do not believe he would swear on his daughter. He also swore on his mom and for a Hispanic, that is a big thing. I have never seen him swear on anything that wasn't true or use it himself. He never voluntarily says "I swear on XXX".

This sucks. I wish I never bought him a new wallet.

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</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by happy_girl:
<strong> I just don't want to deal with it. I guess I will just stick my head in the sand and do number 1. If it turns out to be true, well then I do number 2.

I just don't see why he would lie. He knows that I don't want to be with him if he doesn't love me. He also knows that I could make it without him and he could see his daughter, etc. I just don't know.

I also do not believe he would swear on his daughter. He also swore on his mom and for a Hispanic, that is a big thing. I have never seen him swear on anything that wasn't true or use it himself. He never voluntarily says "I swear on XXX".

This sucks. I wish I never bought him a new wallet. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">WEll, this is one way to handle it. You should probably prepare for the worst with this method however. I think you are in a very serious denial (that is ok, who wouldn't be? <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" /> ). I feel for you because to any objective viewer this is all VERY VERY Suspicious...at the very best. If you want to stay in denial and not confrom him, that is ok, you just have to be ready to accept the inevitable consequences down the road. YOUr situation is NOT unique around here, sadly <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" /> WE can smell a WS situation from a mile away, and sadly your WS is making alarm meters everywhere go off. I would take snowbelle's advice on confronting him. DEnying this situation is not the way to go here. Goodluck in what you decide.

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Sorry you are going through this. I don't buy his story for a minute. Assume he is having an A, but drop the quetioning. Then watch him real closely. When they are having an A, they do all kinds of stupid things.

My husband lied so sincerely that EVERYONE believed he wasn't having an A, even our lawyer. They all thought I was crazy. And before the A, he was always an honest man.

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There is another choice....and I think it's a good one. Use this as a data point to put up your radar and investigate more. You don't have to decide today if this is enough evidence to end your marriage....but frankly you be foolish if you ignored it either. So take this information, as well as his explanation....and do whatever is necessary to find out the truth. When you have the truth (proof that he is faithful or faithless) THEN you will have a clearer picture of your next step. Step back for a second and regroup.

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</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by happy_girl:
<strong>I also do not believe he would swear on his daughter. He also swore on his mom and for a Hispanic, that is a big thing. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I'm going to put a flag out for FaithInMe to come respond to this as she has a latino husband and the same thing is often said about latinos... they would cut off their arm before swearing something untrue on their child, or God forbid, their mom!

But you see, happy, when a man or woman is in an adulterous affair, and they know if they are caught it will be the end of their marriage, they often do things totally out of character. They will swear on their dead parent's grave. They will offer to cut off a finger if ever proved wrong. Men sometimes start their affair when their wives are pregnant, carry them on when an in-law or step child is dying. They will do whatever they have to in order to keep the affair alive, and secret. Including swearing on their mom's life.

I agree with the others. Keep your antennae up and go on with life as usual. And keep a copy of that letter and see whatever you can find out on your own about the supposed letter-writer. Like, did they sign it with a name?

Hang in there.

~ Snow

<small>[ December 04, 2004, 12:57 PM: Message edited by: Snowbelle ]</small>

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Here's a point,

speaking from experience, my H is hispanic/latino...whichever you prefer.

The whole swearing on his mom thing....well that would depend on what he's swearing on.

To HIM...it's HIS truth that he's standing behind.

And his perception of what is "wrong" and what isn't "wrong" might surprise you.

So in short, what I'm saying is he's swearing on a truth, but what TRUTH is that ?

It's a catch 22. I think the fact that he played the...if I had something to hide, I wouldn't have left in the open like that, you are to assume he's "smarter" than that. When a WS is in the FOG...they come up with pretty ingenius ways to deny everything BUT the truth.

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</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by betrayedinjersey:
<strong>The whole swearing on his mom thing....well that would depend on what he's swearing on.
To HIM...it's HIS truth that he's standing behind. And his perception of what is "wrong" and what isn't "wrong" might surprise you.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Excellent point, BIJ.

BTW... are the terms Latino and Hispanic interchangeable? Just wondering... always thoughts Latinos were those from central and south america and hispanics from further north (like Mexico). Now that I think of it, that sounds really stupid. Never mind! Carry on!

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You don't like the lie detector test then?

He may have a secret A phone...many have pulled that one...mine included. He had it hidden behind his truck's seat inside a compartment where the jack was stored. Another time he kept it buried in bucket with his tools.

With his prior A was he a really good liar?

It sounds like he is behaving normally. The last time mine was in an A I had missed the important clues of distance, getting annoyed or angry at me for nothing and generally more diagreeable. Is yours doing anything that isn't part of his normal behavior?

Always check that cell phone bill to look for calls and calling patterns.

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Snow,

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> are the terms Latino and Hispanic interchangeable </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">it's the era of diversity Snow..... I'll check with hubby, but from what I know, Hispanic, is a defination of RACE, while Latino, is a cultural attachment.

Census bureaus, driver's license apps, employment apps....use Hispanic.

My H is from central america, and identifies himself as latino. People from Mexican decent usually prefer chicano, or chicana, puerto ricans prefer boriqua.... it's a WHOLE nother culture.

Me...I'm plain old Causasian. But consider myself American..... see where I'm going ? Caucasion, race, American, cultural identity ?

Although if anyone asks him where he is from, which is common in the spanish community...he says New Jersey.

He's just him....gotta love him.

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happy_girl,

I am so sorry you find yourself here <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" /> I would STRONGLY caution you to step back and look at the situation as an outsider. What if your best friend or sister came to you with exactly your situation? What would you tell her?

From MY OWN experience, I can tell you that I also have a hispanic husband (Guatemalan) who comes from a very solid, grounded and religious family.

One day, (and this happened AFTER he already knew I knew about the affair) I found a note from OW in his wallet. It said that she couldn't wait to be his wife and was SO in love with him...blah blah blah.

Well, I confronted him about it and he VERY calmly told me that:

he had totally forgotten about the letter and hadn't even read it that closely...

it obviously didn't mean much to him as he forgot about it and left it in his wallet which he KNEW I would look through...

had NO IDEA what she was talking about with getting married because he had NO INTENTION of marrying for years, if ever...

he swore on his daughters, his newborn son, his mom and the memory of his deceased father <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" /> that he didn't know what she was talking about, wasn't planning on getting married and that the relationship wasn't as serious as I was making it out to be.

He repeatedly swore on his children and parents that things weren't what they were.

I'm sure you can guess that everything was a lie. When a WS is in danger of being caught at something they so desperately try to hide, they will say and do anything.

They become someone you could not have imagined them being. They do things that make your head spin. DO NOT draw a conclusion that he couldn't be lying because he told the truth when confronted about a practical joke...or has told the truth in the past when asked to swear on it. There has probably been nothing in his life with so much at stake.

I only tell you this to encourage you to look at everything...the good and the bad. Don't go on past experience. You have to go with what you see, feel and know right now. Today. What he has done before, if he is having an affair, has nothing to do with what he can do under an addiction of an affair.

Take the advice here and look further into this. I did and will never regret having done so.

Good luck to you!

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hg,

See chere, here's the situation. You are not feeling certain that he is still involved with the OW so divorce seems premature. Plus...you WANT so much to believe him. If you DO believe him in the face of this evidence...you feel like a fool. SOOOO, just step back, keep your eyes open and act when you don't feel so uncertain. The truth has a way of rising to the top for those who are vigilant. Remain vigilant...don't relax, but don't act impulsively either. Let patience, intelligence, and diligence help you find the truth....THEN act...rather than REACT.

hugs!

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Hi, happy_girl.

I am sorry that you have to be here.

I want to pass on a couple of thoughts about what you have posted.

First off. If someone had been in my wallet without permission (not talking about you, that's okay), my first reaction would be anything other than calm. I would be very angry. In my opinion, his first reaction was from a very poor liar.

I have the seen results of some very rough practical jokes. If 'the guys' or someone that hated him had tried to cause him problems, you would have more likely found a condom, or a rather explicit note.

Lastly, the placement of the note speaks volumes. Your husband speaks fondly of his daughter to the other woman. She thinks that it is romantic (high school level romance no doubt) to put a note behind the picture of his daughter. After all, he is the loving, doting father that will surely take out the picture and lovingly gaze at it. How romantic for him to find a note from the other woman and be reminded fondly of her when he does..... retch, vomit.

I think a good snooping is in order.

All the best,
Gimble

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I also found a letter from the OW to my husband. I found his in his gym bag, rather than his wallet. He did not deny that it was a love letter meant for him, but he said that she had written it with no encouragement from him and that she was obviously deluded and likely mentally ill.

He, too, swore on our children's lives and mine that he did not have any kind of intimate relationship with her.

That was in the early stages of their affair, and my failure to confront it early and strongly allowed it to continue for six years. My husband is thoroughly ashamed of swearing on our lives now. But at the time he said that nothing was as important to him as continuing that affair and he would have said whatever he needed to to anyone to keep that affair going.

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HG - so sorry you are here, so sorry for what I am about to say...

A loving, truthful H would have immediately raged at the jerks who would pull such a 'prank' and hurt his wonderful wife. Like Gimble said, his calm reaction is that of a liar.

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hey all. sorry i haven't responded. worked this weekend and haven't had a chance.

i know how suspicious this sounds and i also know that i probably will seem hugely in denial, but i believe my husband.

with the first affair, he was very guilty. he tried to tell me many times, but would chicken out. he told me numerous times we needed to talk, and then he would say, oh we can talk about it later. he wasn't himself. he told me about it. i would have really had no idea. we had problems at the time and i assumed that the distance, etc, was because of that.

i also know his family/friends. it hadn't dawned on me until the next day that my BIL went through this a couple of months ago. not with a letter, but his cousins started a rumor about his wife that they had caught her with another guy at his house. it eventually got to him through other cousins, etc and they almost didn't make it through it. she swears to me has never been with him and doesn't even know where this guy supposedly lives. i believed her. they were the victims of a cruel lie, started to hurt him.

(DH and BIL have a construction company, are doing really well and all their cousins are jealous. it has been an ongoing problem for years. as well as that all of them are friends with exOW who is fully capable. i always say our family is a soap opera and news travels faster than the speed of light. i hate it and that is why we plan on moving someday.)

my husband has never been a good liar. had we not been so disconnected during his affair i would have known. he never had to lie because i didn't ask. i never even imagined he would do that even though we weren't having sex, fought all the time, etc. i was pretty naive. he was truly distraught when he confessed. he has cried 4 times in our 10 years together, when he talked to his mom once and she was really missing him, when he told me about the affair, when he saw his mom for first time in 7 years and when our daughter was born. he won't admit he cried, but he did. he more than proved to me he was sorry for what had happened and i am sure he couldn't keep up a lie like this now.

thanks for the help and suggestions. i am not going to be completely blind, but i will not be watching his every move either. he never acts like a suspicious person. he doesn't mind when i go through his things, question him about the phone bill, etc. i know that even i get defensive when i am questioned to much and i have nothing to hide.

i also feel like there is no way to prove anything and i am not going to let this ruin us. if it turns out later that it is true, then i will deal with it then.

he made a comment when i was getting ready for work yesterday night. he was watching me and DD as we played before i leave. i saw him watching but didn't say anything. he just was watching us and then i looked up and said "what?" he says "and you think i am going to leave you or would jeopardize this. look at what we have, our perfect daughter."

anyway, thanks. let's hope i am right.

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I used to say my husband was a lousy liar, too. If he tried to look me in the eye, I could tell if he was lying.

I thought.

Turns out he had been unfaithful to me over a period of years.

I hope you're right, but I doubt it. I think you do, too.
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