1 broken phone ........... and everything down the drain.

ok so my h was so sweet after the incident on saturdday where i caught him lying over something so dumb. he brought flowers was sweet sunday. Usually when i catch him doing something he is sweet when he knows he was caught.

then i made a mistake on monday. there were some suspiuos things with the phones i was just sick of.
1. last week when i was talking to him we went to hang up and i stayed on for a minute because my hands were full and i couldnt hang up the phone and he like clicked over and back over like he had someone waiting on the other line or was trying to make a phone call. he claimed the phone wouldnt hang upright.

2. Yesterday i got on my break earlier then usual and i called his cell (b/c usually when i get on break hes out picking up d. ) so i was used to calling it. he usually keeps it off all times except when in the car. it was on. i aksed why he said he doesnt know maybe the baby did it. and he was very agitatied and it made me suspious.

i've been suspious they have something wierd going on like she calls the cell he doesnt anser but calls her back on the house phone or something.

so when i got home i tried calmy talking to him about it (which i know now i shouldnt have done..) well he got mad. he broke his cell phone because hes sick of being accused of cell phone things even though he admitted he is at fault for why i am suspous. so now he has a broken cell..

Then he was on and off nice then grumpy last night. now this morning i call him. hes miserable and i try to find out why. heres his reason.
1. he feels i dont help clean the house enough. I try and hell say no i'll do it later then gets mad when later comes around!! i work 5 days aweek and i'm real sick this week i ahd a fever all day yesterday. he works 3 1/2 days a week so has all day off sun/mon /tues. when i came home the house was not cleaned. and he acts like its my fault. i've suggested and suggested that he and i make a lit of who's responsiable for what so then there is no blame. he thinks thats immature.

next thing is wrong with him 2. is that i feel asleep at ten last night. (we've had this problem since i started working . he likes to stay awake till midnight or later. most of the time i can but about 2 nights aweek i fall asleep earlier. and he gets mad. I"m sick of it. I am an adult and can go to bed when i please. hes a jerk about it. so last night i was shivering and being sick i feel asleep. so this morning he said you dont know antyhign about last night because you fell asleep at 9:30 (it was ten) and i said look i'm tired of this i'm an adult and i can go to sleep when i want.. he hung up on me.

ANY SUGGESTIONS?

SHOULD I TAKE IT THAT WHEN MY H IS MAD WHEN I CONFRONT HIM HE'S INNOCENT? i can not tell a pattern. because when i know for a fact i've caught him hes sweet as can be but othertimes when i confront him hes angry. he says he s angry b/c he doenst like being accused

since he hung up on me i have not called back i do not plan on it unitl my planning whihc is around 3 pm. shoudl i even callt hen?

Hanging up on someone is rude.

I don't think you should call back. I think that he should, when he has calmed down and is ready to apologize.

I don't really know your story, so I don't understand the bed-time thing, but it seems to me a bad thing to consistently go to sleep later than your body needs to.

dewt

Put a tape recorder on the home phone. You can plug it into a jack that is not being used. They are around $40. at Radio Shack.

Your gut feeling is telling you something is suspicious - trust it.

In England, we have a service that you can dial a number and it will tell you the last number received on the home phone (regardless of whether the call was answered). Is there anything like that in the States? TT

*69 <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

thanks guys. I can do star 69 I also have caller ID. But what i can not see is what he dials out. so like if she called his cell and he wouldnt answer it he could call her on the house phone.

maybe i'm just crazy

If you call your phone company you should be able to get a print out of ALL outgoing calls. That might help.
Danielle

just called my phone company cant do that with local calls and we only have one phone jack so he'd definatly notice if i put a tracking device on it!

I'll give you my take on this - any of the more seasoned members around here can feel free to correct if they think I'm wrong!

First - you say you shouldn't have talked calmly to him about your suspicions. That's not true. That's EXACTLY what the two of you need to be able to do. It's called communication.

Generally, a truly repenetant WS will be good about answering these kinds of questions, not get mad about it, and will be very understanding, knowing that trust can't be just given again, that they have to prove their trustworthiness. If you had been in recovery for several years and were asking this kind of question, I could understand some anger on his part. Not to the extent you described, however - that's over the top.... emotional abuse with some physical involved (breaking the phone - it can escalate to physical violence towards you quickly.)

Then there's the fact that you just caught him in a lie, even if it was over something dumb. That's even more reason to NOT trust him, so asking him to justify things you find suspicious is not out of line at all.

His reactions to all this point towards one of two possibilities. IF NC was recent, I would say the anger might be because of withdrawal. However, you say NC began again over 6 months ago. If there has truly been NC during that time, withdrawal should be finished. That makes me highly suspect that either contact has started again, or never really stopped.

And breaking the cell phone is no big deal on that. See, now he's made you think that he doesn't have a cell phone anymore. So, he goes and gets a new one - maybe a pre-paid, or maybe just has the bills sent to his work address or her address, or maybe he just gets a P.O. box. Also, a lot of the companies will quit sending statements and send only on-line statements. And getting an account you don't know about(hotmail and yahoo are favorites for this sort of thing) is free and easy.

I don't mean to make you paranoid about this, but they all seem to use the same playbook on how to conduct these things. One rule of conducting an A and keeping it secret is to turn around the guilt. Claim innocence, and point the finger back, saying that they feel they will never be free of this, that you can't let it go. Trying to make you feel guilty. They may even go as far as saying that they might as well be cheating, because it's obvious you're going to think they are cheating no matter what they do.

It's smokescreen. A WS who has gotten out of the fog, is truly in NC, and is ready to work on fixing the marriage can see the damage that has been done, and is willing to put up with not being trusted, because he realizes he's given you good reason not to trust him.

Now, how to find out the truth? Well, since you ruled out a recording device on your telephone, that could be difficult. One thing you could try is anytime you're getting that "feeling," try call redial. The best way to do this is if you have a phone which gives the ability to show the number without actually dialing it. My cordless does this. If I don't turn it on by pressing talk, and I hit the redial button, the last number I called shows up on the display screen, but doesn't dial. At that point, if you don't recognize the number, you can use blocking to call it, or go to a payphone or something. If you hit redial and the number automatically dials, you'll probably only be able to use this method once. The first time you call her number using the redial, they will change the way they do things. He might start calling some other number after he calls her (assuming that is going on) so you won't catch her number on redial.

If your phone doesn't have the feature I mentioned, consider buying a new phone. He'll probably question it, so be prepared with an excuse. If you really want to be safe, just before you go buy one (and when he isn't around, obviously!), open the phone and pull a wire, or in some way break something on it. Then you just tell him it wasn't working, and you thought this new phone looked neat.

Bottom line is, I do think you are up against him being in contact with her. Don't feel guilty about questioning him, you have every reason to in this case.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by penguin:
 It's smokescreen. A WS who has gotten out of the fog, is truly in NC, and is ready to work on fixing the marriage can see the damage that has been done, and is willing to put up with not being trusted, because he realizes he's given you good reason not to trust him.<hr /></blockquote>As a FWH, I would second this absolutely. My A was over 5 yrs ago and to this day, I expect to be held accountable for my time. Please understand, my W does not assault me with questions concerning my whereabouts, but I told her then that I planned on spending the rest of my life proving my trustworthiness. I still feel that way.

dewt

Having one phone jack-- is it in a place that can be readily seen or behind a piece of furniture? Because they sell adaptors that allow you to make one jack into two - think its calle d a dual adapter. We used one in our home in Guam because only one jack in the house worked so we had to lay out a lot of phone wire to our bedroom. =)

So there ya go!

<blockquote>quote:<hr /> so when i got home i tried calmy talking to him about it (which i know now i shouldnt have done..) well he got mad. he broke his cell phone because hes sick of being accused of cell phone things even though he admitted he is at fault for why i am suspous. so now he has a broken cell.. <hr /></blockquote>I say he is Guilty! I went through this already. My WH made his phone into pieces. He did not wanted me to ask for the phone to view his messages because he had had not time to delete any numbers or messages so he made it in pieces. Later I prove I was right about my doubts and he was in contact with OW.

Thanks everyone for your respsonse. I still agree hes most likely in contact with her but a couple things i do KNOw. 1. i know he has no other cell phone or phone. his work is not a place to allow him to do that. we carry no cash and use our bank cards at all time i keept rack of spending he does no shopping without me only to get gas (which is always the right amount). also he has no place to hide it i've seen his car etc. so i've pretty much ruled that out.

as for him contacitng her ont he cell phone I know he has not done that either as i see the bill everymonth no contact on theier since like june. The last contact i know he had with her was in september when he sent a text message online to her phone and ifound out! so i dont think that was why he broke it. he knows i'd see if he sent any text messages or anythign and i wanst even concerned about the cell. he does have anger issues and is 80 percent better then he used to be. never physical toward me but an angry person.

The way i thought he was contacting her is by having her call his cell. he doesnt pick it up and he sees she has called, and he calls her back on the house line and i'll never know. i have hit redial but he usually makes another call before i get home to me or something and ic ant see the whole histroy.

i'm trying to find a phone compnay wehre you can get a local log of calls, so far no luck we were supposedt o switch to voice over ip but doesnt work with our directv. so now i'm at squeare one. the one jack is by our desk where he is all day.

thanks guys. hes still kinda angry at me.

i also dont know about his anger. like i said he is an angry person and alwyas has been. but when i know i have caugth him (which i have several times) he is usually remorseful sorry (except when he was in a full blown A-- which i know he is not as of now b/c he is accounted for) but then other times when i am speaking to him about my suspiouns and i dont know to myself if i' m just paranoide or i really have something he gets angry. is there a colaltion ? is he palying games? i know the extent of there conversations can only be on teh phone when i'm out of the house. and coming up i have almost 4 months off so thatll stop most of that if it is going on. ughhh

mylife,

It may be very possible that he doesn't have another cell phone or won't get one, but don't have faith in the money thing stopping him. I've just seen too many times when the OP buys one for them. Or a pager if she's cheap.

Dobie

Yep Dobie is right. My WH had a cell phone that I never saw. OW bought it for him and the bill was sent to his brother's house.

Get the recorder/adapter thing and set your mind at ease. (Hopefully)

And I think you'd be surprised at just how good they can be at hiding something like a cell phone or pager when they want to be. He could even have some place outside he hides it, maybe not even at your house. Or he could be stashing it at a friend's house. When he leaves, all he has to do is drive there to retrieve it. He can leave it in the car when he's at work, and stash it again before he comes home. Wouldn't take very long at all - you wouldn't notice any time missing. And there are plenty of places in a car to hide something that you probably wouldn't find it.

Bottom line is, if he is in contact and hiding it, there are too many ways to get around any way you have to check. Most of the time, hiding things this way gets too exhausting, and they end up slipping up. But really, trying to find hard evidence is hit or miss.

The important thing here is - behavior. He is ACTING like a cheater. Reformed cheaters try very hard to not do anything that looks suspicious. Continuing cheaters try very hard to make you feel guilty for doubting them. Behavior is really all you need here to know.

The one thing that concerns me most in your situation is the thing no one has said much about - the breaking of the phone. Everything you've said indicates that he is very angry, and at verbally and emotionally abusive. Breaking a cell phone is a fairly violent act. Combined with the anger he has and the verbal and emotional abuse, I am really concerned for you. In fact, I'll ask falt out - has he ever hit you? Have you ever thought he would, even if he didn't? What you've described here has signs of escalation towards physical violence. Not to mention the fact that the verbal and emotional abuse shouldn't be happening either.

Please, step back and take a look at the situation and try to see if you think you are in danger. Better yet, if you have a friend you think can be objective and honest, talk to her and get her opinion (and yes, it should be a female friend. Asking for help in this area from a male friend is risky - puts you in danger of A yourself!)

I know this is marriage builders, and I do believe in saving marriages. But first, you have to be safe.

My wife had a calling card she used... so there was no tracking calls... she goes out alot by herself... plenty of time for her to stop by a pay phone and call him... or one of those prepaid cell phones... no bills or tracking capabilities...

You cannot stop it... you can try to find out about it and make you own decissions...

I cought my wife last week by the redial thing... she hadn't thought of that ... it had her calling card number her calling card pin and the number she was calling all in the number string on the screen... now I know she was hiding the calls that way...

So now if she IS going to call him... she will do it from outside the home... I guess :-)

Good luck!

thanks guys No there has never been physical violence. he is angry. he has been since he was a child. But things have been great for the past 8 years or so. with the exception of a few incidences. i know the breaking of the phone was bad and anger related. i guess it doesnt bother me as much b/c i know his limitations and how his anger is. he did it he felt bad about actually breaking it and siad it was wrong. right away. so i'm hoping it was just a slip back. i know all the ways he could have a cell phone hidden etc. and i could be niave. i justt hope we can get this voice over ip or something that keeps a log of all phone calls dialed then i will know. i will try to see if i can find a way to get the tracer on the phone. how big is it? thanks guys!

Hmmmm.... Angry when you ask a simple question huh? Well, from my own experience, when my fwh got caught doing something wrong, he got angry. extremely angry. It was a mixture of guilt and fearing that i was just looking for an excuse to leave him. I say your on to something here.

so what do you think the difference would be when i catch him doing something and he is sorry and sad and scared and actually acts taht way not angry?

I think the difference would be is that you have proof that he cannot deny, when he acts sorry and scared. Angry when your onto somethng and he's hoping to scare you off before you dig too deep.

I think your right i was thinking that on the way home. I just dont know what to do? should i be in plan a? how can you bei n plan a or b if you have no proof of an a or contact?

I dont know. I can tell you that I had to have absolute, undeniable proof before I could do anything! So instead of working on myself like I should have done, I had what my mom calls my nervous breakdown. I couldnt sleep, couldnt eat, couldnt work, when there all I did was call my fwh, cry , argue, and scream. I got sent home many a time and almost fired. I tracked his every movement, drove around the city at all hours looking for him, cracked his voicemail more than once. It made things worse. He finally had packed his stuff, said there was no one else, that I was crazy and he couldnt deal with me anymore. @ days later, after checking his V.M. I finally caught him. Undeniable proof of an A ongoing for at least 6 months, I confronted my fwh and gave him all my proof and waited for his reaction. Ha! you [censored], NOW tell me im crazy and imagining things! Do you know what i got for all my hard and I do mean HARD work of espionage? he said and i will never forget this "thats what you get for being nosy!" I tell you this so maybe you will decide its better to just plan A for now, sit back and wait to see what happens. You know your H right? you know somethings wrong. I caused myself so much unnecessary pain by my actions i just want to stop somebody else before they make things harder on themselves. Assume he IS having an A and go from there.

Hugs
michelle.

michelle, thanks so much, you are right. I was thinking i should just assume he is talking with her, i doubt its a pa or anything that extreme b/che is accounted for at all times so the most it is is an EA . which is bad if not worse BUT i will assume it is goin gon and try another plan a which i was never good at. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" /> but i will try hard this time. and its hard when i dont even wawnt to talk to him b/c i'm so fustrated but i will try i need to go buy a journal and just journal or outlet on here. ughh. here we go again. thanks Mylife

Keep at it girl. Unfortunately im right in the middle of moving, I keep coming back here cause im the queen of procrastination LOL. I wont have phone service when i get to my new place, guess i should get around to calling the phone company, but as soon as i do, ill check back to see how its going with you. Ill be here until I unplug my computer if you feel like talking. take care.

Thanks so much. Maybe we can exchange emails when you get your new phone hooked up good luck moving. H calls me tonight after i didnt call all day and is all jolly even said" can you call to see if i can get a new cell faster... because i miss talking to you on your break" it was sweet until i think of all the drama. i want him to have the cell back too because i know he doesnt call her on it. an di miss talking to him too <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" /> ugghhh love.

Could be, but it does not have to be he's in contact with OW.

He's 25, was with you 10... not so much time to have different women... the reason he was with OW at first place I guess... He's not mature, not committed... he's not pleased with himself, nor with his life... feels young and - trapped, with a W, 2 kids, so young, and so many temptations around...
I can say the same about you, but you seem ready to settle down...

You can forgive him, and you want to work on your M, right? (Final answer?? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> )
If so, do plan A and forget about accusing him.
If you have to spy, try he never discovers. Never.
Not before you have a firm proof in your hands and confront him with... or maybe once when you are fed up too...

Your should focus not if he's with OW, but - on his behavior at your home!
He has to deal and work on his anger. (You said he had it before A, right?!)
Without this, no matter OW or not, you'll have a hell of a life with him... and don't forget, above everything - your children!

PS: Do you know who was OW?

BElonging wow you hit it on the head you sound like my counsler <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> first yes we have been together since we were 15.. along time. He has had a few episodes that we've split up when our first d was born almost 6 years ago b/c he was unsure of himself/ourlife etc. but then things were so good. i got pregnet (planned). boom he finds ow . she worked/works with him. I found out within a few weeks he is not a good lier i catch on to almost everything. it was EA for a long time. i had my d. we tried tow ork it out and he still had contact with her finnaly i asked him toleave. he did. he missed us badly. came home no contact set up. that was last jan. so throughout the year i've found solid proof of contact here and there with the last one being in sept. nothing like ewkhen the a was going on (liek the hours of phone calls) dont really know if they were pa ornot. probably will never know. she was a co worker. he says she no longer works there as of sepetember i have no way of proving it. he has been angry since he was a child we did a lot of work and he is a lot better . i am in no fear and if i ever was in fear i'd be gone in a heartbeat.

my counser say s i shouldnt worry about weather or not he is ow or what is going on when i'm at work (unless hes having her around the kids or over which is definatly not happening) that i should focus on making our marriage wonderful and eventually she'll have no room in his life.

so i guess i will plan a i am trying real hard. any pointers? i never did well with this concept! for one i always seem to do the wrong thing or go back to accusing. i'm going to post here and journal an dbe strong <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> hOpefully .