lit,

1) Read about the EN's, you can print off the questionaire from this website, have you and your H fill it out. His may not be what you think they are, and they are definitely not what yours are.

2) Read about all the LB's and avoid them. If your H uses any, identify which one he is doing, calmly tell him what he is doing, that it hurts you, then walk into another room.

3) Continue the best Plan A ever.

4) Keep snooping like everyone has said. Keep records of what you have found. Look at old phone records, credit card bills, search your home top to bottom.

5) Can you do counseling with Dr. Harley by phone? Read about it on this site. I know it sounds expensive, you may only need a few with Dr. Harley. Using your MC, may take many more sessions, ending with it being more costly.

6) Do you have any children ? Is your H home at the moment or is he gone for another extended period of time ?

I hope this can get you started. Someone else can maybe chime in to give you a more detailed plan. Dr. Harley would definitely have one for you.

Take care

Thanks for the replies.

I don't have much time to write since I am at work, but wanted to answer some of your questions.

We do not have any children. This has been one of the big issues in our marriage as I have gone from first wanting them, to not, and now again wanting to. My husband has along wanted kids and it was a real issue for him all the years I was saying it wasn't going to happen. I have on my own decide I do want to start a family (most of my reason to not where due to insecurities and not managed OCD) and we have discussed it a lot this past year and right now agreed to wait until the middle of this year to start trying mostly due to financial reasons and his school schedule.

My husband is now home and has no more deployments schedule for the rest of this enlistment which ends in August. He is talking about re-enlisting in a new unit and can't know for sure then what the future might hold as far as that goes, but for at least this year he will be home.

I have been snooping ever since last year when he told me he might move out. Is how I found out about female friends online and a former co-worker on the cell bill. Right now the cell numbers are all accounted for and the only thing I go do to further snoop is the keylogger. I am just not sure if I want to go that route yet as he has shown great strides in our marriage and how he treats me. I know that there are still issues I am not comfortable with, but not sure monitoring this every move with really help us with them.


I was thinking about the entire myspace situation early today and about cat's comment about just being able to ask him about it. I was hesitant on that because I worried it might tick him off and put us back in a full fighting mode like we use to be and thus set us back. But just keeping it in and getting no answers or response from him will drive me nuts. I am thinking a good solution would be to email him about it, am hoping I can come across less attacking them my conversation style and maybe he will be less defensive (this has always been our style in the past, me question which he see as attacking and saying he is an idiot for whatever it is he did I don't like and he just gets defensive and yells and we get no where) and maybe more open to why it bothers me and I am asking about it. I don't think I will have time today while at work to construct this letter, but when I do get it done, will post it here if others want to give input on it.

I know that if he is really hiding stuff and having some negative agenda with the "single" status on myspace he might not be honest with me about it, but I think the overall response and attitude I would get back from him will tell me a lot and I can figure out from that if this is a real threat to my marriage.

lit,

Every one of the issues you speak about are concerning and a threat to a marriage.
They prevent you from being in love to the fullest with your H, and your H with you.

The 2 books sold on this site which I know would be of great help to you both, Surviving an Affair, and His Needs/Her Needs. They both talk about how to get through the concerns you have.

There is an MB seminar coming up in March. This would be something that both of you would benefit from. The seminar is an excellent way for both of you to absorb the info. It's also a great way to spend time together. It's worth every penny and cheaper than divorce. ( I get no kickback from supporting this seminar, just so ya know )

Keep your eyes open, just because your H seems loving now doesn't mean that he has stopped his dishonest behavior. If he has stopped, he may start again at anytime.

You can talk to him about your concerns, use the info that you have been given here. Reread your thread occasionally, that might help to remind you how. He needs to know how everything he does affects you and in what way.

Keep posting.

Take care.

Thanks for the continued support and replies. I decide to write my husband about the myspace stuff and see how he responds. I am listed the draft of the email below and would like any feed back. My attempt is to not attack him over the issue and just be outright with it. In the past I have confronted him about this hiding type stuff before and would ask questions hoping to get him to tell me about it (he felt I was trying to trap him since I already knew the answers, when I was really hoping he would just then tell me on his own with the proding, if that makes sense). So this time a different approach. What do you think?? Anyone..





Dear Husband,
Not really sure how to begin this letter, but I have something that I need to discuss with you and am hoping we can do so without it becoming a big fight. I thought that maybe if we talk about it through email versue face to face discussion it might be easier to keep our normal discussion style (me all attacking and you all defensive and then the yelling and blow up that gets us nowhere) lessened.

As usual I was bored at work last week and messing around on the the internet. I came across your myspace page. I see that you list your status as single and have female contacts who are unknown to me, along with your ex girlfriend. Everything listed in that last sentence I am not comfortable with. I understand that we are two different people and have different ideas about things and what is okay within a marriage and I am not actually asking you to agree with me. What I am asking of you, is how do you think we should deal with these differences and proceed in our marriage so that we are both okay with this issue?

I know that you are very busy with school and work right now and really appreciate your taking the time to listen to my concerns and respond. I love you very much. Wife

Well said...a healthy marriage is totally transparent - no secrets. You should not only be able to talk with him, but he definitely should not have a Myspace you don't know about, or contact with women - ESPECIALLY his ex.

Anyone have any thoughts, insights to my draft letter for my husband. I really want to open up this discussion with him as best as humanly possible and see if we can work on resolving it and not fighting about it.

I think I would skip it all and say something like:

When I found your myspace page the other day, I saw that you listed yourself as single.

It has me confused, because I like to brag to everyone I meet that I'm married to you, so I'm trying to figure out how YOU feel. Does this mean you would rather be single? Does it mean you still love me but think you need to be spending time with other women, too?

I'm confused because there are several women on your page who I don't know. And not to mention your ex! I am pretty sure that if I had added some strange men to my site, you'd be up in arms about it (at least I would hope you would, lol).

So I'm really trying to understand what I'm supposed to be thinking about this. I can't figure it out until I understand what YOU are thinking.

Will you tell me, please?

catperson - Thanks for the suggestion. I am actually more confused now with how to proceed as your letter is so much more what I want to say to him. I was just trying to be less like my usual self as that never got us anywhere and felt I needed to show my husband that, if I had any chance at all of him being willing to discuss it with me with his defenses down.

I just wish I knew how to approach him as he is the type that misunderstands just about anything and makes it really personal and then can't actually rationally think about an issue because he is too busy trying to justify his actions and prove that he isn't a horrible person. He know that he is very overly sensitive and I have been calling him out on it more, but he still seems to have no control over it starting by generally a little innocent comment that wasn't even directed at him. So with this topic that I can't ask him about without acknowledging that I have a problem with it and he is the root of the problem I know I have to be careful if I hope to not have him just blow me off or blow up about it.

If you feel like the discussion might get out of hand, and if you feel more comfortable sending him an email, then why not use what cat has suggested.

Her words don't sound threatening to me and they are to the point.

Below is the email I sent to my husband and his reply.


Dear Husband,
I have something that I need to discuss with you and I thought that maybe if we talk about it through email versus face to face discussion it might be easier to keep our normal discussion style (me all judgmental and attacking and you all defensive and then the yelling and blow up that gets us nowhere) lessened.
As usual I was bored at work last week and messing around on the the internet. I came across your myspace page. I see that you list your status as single and have female contacts whom are unknown to me, along with your ex girlfriend. Everything listed in that last sentence I am not comfortable with. I understand that we are two different people and have different ideas about things and what is okay/boundaries' within a marriage. I really need to understand what you are thinking and the reasons behind all this. Also, how do you think we should deal with these differences in expectations of a spouse so that we can both be okay with this issue?
I know that you are very busy with school and work right now and really appreciate your taking the time to listen to my concerns and respond. I love you very much. Wife

Wife-Not that I have the time to deal with this right now as I should bne in bed but whatever. I set that up because the kids that are in myu Honors class chose that way to keep in touch if we needed to. I havent even been on it to set it up yet so I am not sure who has added me or what my status is.I will adjust all of that when I get a minute. Husband

Hard to really tell if his attitude is pissy because of being asked about it or just because he is late to bed (already knew that he had to stay late at school due to the above mentioned honor program and is only going to get 4-5 hours of sleep this afternoon before work, he is going to school full time in the mornings and working nights full time). I sent the email a couple of days ago and wish this wasn't the day he finally checked it, but can't do anything about that now.

So I checked the account since receiving this and he has changed it to private, which worries me. But I was hoping to get some help on how myspace works and see if he is telling the truth about the contacts.

So my question is.....If you have a myspace account and someone finds you and requests friend contact will that person show up on your page right away before you are back on it and accept the contact? That is basically how he is saying the ex got on there. I went to her page and he isn't listed there, I am pretty sure he was on it the other day as a contact so does that mean he took her off this page?

I am going to post this also under a new thread to see if I can get more help on the myspace questions, but wanted to put it here too so that it continues with my thread, I hope that is okay.

That all depends on how he sets it up. The default set-up is anybody can join your page without your acceptance, but you can set it up very strict so not only do you have to accept the people, but they have to know either your last name or email in order to request to be a friend in the first place. I don't have my real name set up on mine, so only the people I want on there are the ones that can get on. FWH's is set up the same. We don't have our first names on there either.

Unless you have his username and password, it's pretty much impossible to see what his settings are.

Did you notice when checking before when his last login was? It is posted somewhere on the page usually, so if he'd logged on recently then he would know who his friends were. The home page would tell him that he had new friends, comments, messages, etc. That is something else too - you can send private messages through myspace. If I were you, I would demand his username and password. That's all part of being Open & Honest.

I think that if he isn't showing up on ex-gf's page, then she must be off his too, but I can't be positive of that. There might be a way around that.

btw...not too crazy about his attitude. It doesn't matter why he was upset. He should be helping you get through this and a partnership shouldn't have that attitude. You need to work together.

Thanks for the reply.

Based on his reponse I would think he is claiming he hadn't done any special setup and thus would be the default. He claimed he hadn't been on the page since initial setup and didn't know what the status was (is that possible?, wouldn't you put in your status in the initial setup???)

I checked the last week of January and couldn't find him on myspace under any name or nickname he has. His old account that he had last year (I hadn't checked that since Feb 08 was set up under a nickname and also his regular name brought it up). I first saw this new account on Feb 3rd and it stated his last login was the 3rd which only changed today after he emailed me.

Also would the default set up make it public as his old account was set to private and did think it was odd that this new one would be public.

Wow. He is pulling your chains. Hire a PI. If you can't afford one, ask your friends and brothers/cousins/etc. to help you have him followed. You need to get proof of what he is doing, because I guarantee it ain't good. At least not for you.

Um...question. What age students is he teaching?

Here's what I see in his response:
Wife-Not that I have the time to deal with this right now
His passive-aggressive (if not abusive) way to slap your wrist for 'bothering' him
as I should bne in bed
More PA that you are selfish and keeping him from taking care of himself
but whatever.
OMG! The abuser/controller/passive aggressive person's number 1 mantra - whatever! used to keep the last word, show disdain for you, make you feel guilty and shut up
I set that up because the kids that are in myu Honors class chose that way to keep in touch if we needed to.
He has already shifted the blame for the site to others - children, yet! - which (1) says you can't pick on him for it and (2) explains why he can't get rid of it. (how could you do that to these kids? waawaa
I havent even been on it
lie
to set it up yet
lie
so I am not sure who has added me
lie - doesn't he have to 'accept' them or they wouldn't be on there?
or what my status is.
lie. IIRC, he has to set up his OWN status and no one can do it for him.
I will adjust all of that when I get a minute. Husband

Husband is a student not a teacher. We are in our 30's, but the other students are college age.

Heard from another poster that some of what he claims could be true as far as contacts listed that aren't asked or accepted - told this is the default method.

Will wait to hear what other say about myspace and how it works.

lit,

IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW MY SPACE WORKS. The fact that it was a secret, twice, is evidence enough that he is being dishonest.

Take the advice of having him followed. Get a keylogger on your computer. This will allow you to see what he has been up to.

There is a thread on spying 101, but I don't know how to link anything. It is in GQII.
We can help you with any of that, let us know.

His reply back was rude and thoughtless. If he treats you like this much of the time, I can understand why you are so scared to believe that he is being dishonest.