Scared - Can't get straight answers - 05/10/09 05:25 PM
Hi,
I'm not sure I'm posting in the right place here but I'm not 100% sure that my wife has cheated or not so "just found out" may be a bit pre-mature at this point.
My wife and have been together for 20 years. When we met, she was 14 and I was 16. True childhood sweethearts. We were in love since day 1. Now I'm 36, balding, a little overweight and probably look more like 45. She's 34, petite, fit, blond, beautiful and looks more like 24-25. I'm very physically attracted to her and she says she is attracted to me but she has also admitted over the years that she likes younger, athletic, hairless chest types of guys. I always figured it was just a harmless fantasy / fetish or whatever and the fact that she could admit that to me meant alot. To be honest, it never really bothered me until now.
A while back, she said that two girls her age that she works with were going on a trip to the caribbean to stay at a resort for a week. It was just going to be a relaxing girls getaway. She wanted to go. I was not comfortable with it and told her so. I was even lss comfortable with it when I did some research on the resort and found out that it is a party resort where lots of young people go for spring break, partying, etc. We've never been apart like that before. I didn't want to stand in her way though and said she could go. Two things nagged at me though. First, she is not an alcoholic but she does like to drink, especially when she's out with the girls and she tends to get tipsy and not concious of her surroundings. Second, because of her looks, she gets alot of attention from other guys, young ones included. I asked for 3 things. I asked her not to hang out with guys, to call home every night so I'd know she was ok, and to be completely open and honest with me about the trip during and after. She agreed. When I dropped her off at the airport, I noticed that 75% of the people getting on the chartered flight were in the 18- 25 year old range. I bit my tongue and went home. She called me that first night to say that they arrived and were unpacking and heading to bed. I was fine.
Things changed on night 2. She didn't call at all. I had to work the next day but still sat up all night waiting for the phone to ring but it never did. My imagination was in overdrive and I was really scared. She finally called on night 3 and couldn't wait to get off the phone, I was angry that she didn't call and told her so. She just got very cold, told me I was ruining her vacation and she had to go because "they" were waiting for her. She hung up. I wanted to know what was going on and knew she'd be checking her email the next day so I sent her an email asking for answers such as was she hanging out with guys, why didn't she call, etc. I got a reply the next day but she answered none of my questions. Al she said was we'd talk about it when she got home. The rest of the trip was the same, each phone call and email just got more vague than the last and that she'd be honest when she returned. I spent a week of hell not knowing what my wife was doing and who she was with.
The night she came home, I needed answers. We sat down and talked but it turned into a fight. She had nothing to say, I had to asked alot of questions and she volunteered nothing. We stopped fighting though and ended the conversation smoothly. I was under the understanding that she didn't drink too much, just hung out with the girls and had no contact with any guys except for an occasional "hi" here and there. The reason why she couldn't talk to me or answer my emails while she was there was because the girls were around and she had no privacy. I believed her because it was what I wanted to believe. The next day though, I started thinking about the timeline of her trip and found that alot of her explanations about her whereabouts just didn';t add up. So, her second night we talked again. This time she was really defensive and agry that I was questioning her honesty. Well, this time, I got her to admit that there were a group of young guys between 18 -21 that her and the girls hung out with and drank with a couple of times. She said that she was not interested in them and they were not interested in her and that her and her friends were like mothers to these guys. What the? She also said they were cute. They even went to the disco together as a group one night and yes, she was with them on the night that she did not call home. She even admitted that at the disco, she had dirty danced with some guy who was behind her grinding his croth against her butt. She said they dance like that for only a minute or two and then she walked away. This conversation blew up into a huge fight. I had been lied to and felt very betrayed. We eventually talked it out and she maintained that she did nothing wrong. Again I believed her.
The next day, I took our digital camera and decided to upload her vacation pictures to our computer. The pictures were tame enough, there were a few of her drinking and dressed provocatively but thought nothing of it. Then I noticed something. Our camera names each picture with a long number and they are in sequence of the order taken. There were a total of 17 pictures missing which had been deleted. There would be a picture of her drinking and then the next 3 or 4 pictures were missing. There were pictures missing from each night that she was there. I went into panic mode. I knew if I asked her about them, she'd just say that they didn't turn out or something like that even though there were quite a few pictures still on the camera which were black and didn't turn out at all. I took a chance and decided to bluff her and it worked. I told her that there was a recycle bin on our camera (there isn't) and that I saw the missing 17 pictures. I told her I wanted to explain what I saw in the pictures and pretended like I already seen them. She really got defensive this time and just kept saying it was a "joke" and the guys were taking their shirts off because it was hot there. Yet nobody else in her pictures was shirtless. She wouldn't explain anything more than that. She also admitted that the young group of guys basically hung out with her and her friends all week and they drank together alot. She maintains that she did nothing wrong. Why would 3 married 30+ women hang out with these young guys so much? Why would these young guys spend their whole trip with a bunch of married older women when there were ample girls there their own age?
We can't talk about this anymore. She says she feels like she is on trial because I keep asking questions. Her answers are always dodgy and sketchy. She lied to me twice and tried to hide pictures from me. I don't feel like I can't beleieve anything she says because each time I get a different story and more details that were left out in the previous conversation. I'm really hurting. This is the first time I've ever doubted her but my gut tells me something is not right and I can't get the truth and fear I never will. It is eating away at me. I don't look at her the same now. When I look at her, I see deceit and secrets. I love her but the trust is gone. My heart is aching and I get get it to stop.
Sorry so long, I just needed to get it all out.
Please help. Any advise, encouragement, criticism, would be really appreciated. I have nowhere else to turn.
Thanks,
Lost
I'm not sure I'm posting in the right place here but I'm not 100% sure that my wife has cheated or not so "just found out" may be a bit pre-mature at this point.
My wife and have been together for 20 years. When we met, she was 14 and I was 16. True childhood sweethearts. We were in love since day 1. Now I'm 36, balding, a little overweight and probably look more like 45. She's 34, petite, fit, blond, beautiful and looks more like 24-25. I'm very physically attracted to her and she says she is attracted to me but she has also admitted over the years that she likes younger, athletic, hairless chest types of guys. I always figured it was just a harmless fantasy / fetish or whatever and the fact that she could admit that to me meant alot. To be honest, it never really bothered me until now.
A while back, she said that two girls her age that she works with were going on a trip to the caribbean to stay at a resort for a week. It was just going to be a relaxing girls getaway. She wanted to go. I was not comfortable with it and told her so. I was even lss comfortable with it when I did some research on the resort and found out that it is a party resort where lots of young people go for spring break, partying, etc. We've never been apart like that before. I didn't want to stand in her way though and said she could go. Two things nagged at me though. First, she is not an alcoholic but she does like to drink, especially when she's out with the girls and she tends to get tipsy and not concious of her surroundings. Second, because of her looks, she gets alot of attention from other guys, young ones included. I asked for 3 things. I asked her not to hang out with guys, to call home every night so I'd know she was ok, and to be completely open and honest with me about the trip during and after. She agreed. When I dropped her off at the airport, I noticed that 75% of the people getting on the chartered flight were in the 18- 25 year old range. I bit my tongue and went home. She called me that first night to say that they arrived and were unpacking and heading to bed. I was fine.
Things changed on night 2. She didn't call at all. I had to work the next day but still sat up all night waiting for the phone to ring but it never did. My imagination was in overdrive and I was really scared. She finally called on night 3 and couldn't wait to get off the phone, I was angry that she didn't call and told her so. She just got very cold, told me I was ruining her vacation and she had to go because "they" were waiting for her. She hung up. I wanted to know what was going on and knew she'd be checking her email the next day so I sent her an email asking for answers such as was she hanging out with guys, why didn't she call, etc. I got a reply the next day but she answered none of my questions. Al she said was we'd talk about it when she got home. The rest of the trip was the same, each phone call and email just got more vague than the last and that she'd be honest when she returned. I spent a week of hell not knowing what my wife was doing and who she was with.
The night she came home, I needed answers. We sat down and talked but it turned into a fight. She had nothing to say, I had to asked alot of questions and she volunteered nothing. We stopped fighting though and ended the conversation smoothly. I was under the understanding that she didn't drink too much, just hung out with the girls and had no contact with any guys except for an occasional "hi" here and there. The reason why she couldn't talk to me or answer my emails while she was there was because the girls were around and she had no privacy. I believed her because it was what I wanted to believe. The next day though, I started thinking about the timeline of her trip and found that alot of her explanations about her whereabouts just didn';t add up. So, her second night we talked again. This time she was really defensive and agry that I was questioning her honesty. Well, this time, I got her to admit that there were a group of young guys between 18 -21 that her and the girls hung out with and drank with a couple of times. She said that she was not interested in them and they were not interested in her and that her and her friends were like mothers to these guys. What the? She also said they were cute. They even went to the disco together as a group one night and yes, she was with them on the night that she did not call home. She even admitted that at the disco, she had dirty danced with some guy who was behind her grinding his croth against her butt. She said they dance like that for only a minute or two and then she walked away. This conversation blew up into a huge fight. I had been lied to and felt very betrayed. We eventually talked it out and she maintained that she did nothing wrong. Again I believed her.
The next day, I took our digital camera and decided to upload her vacation pictures to our computer. The pictures were tame enough, there were a few of her drinking and dressed provocatively but thought nothing of it. Then I noticed something. Our camera names each picture with a long number and they are in sequence of the order taken. There were a total of 17 pictures missing which had been deleted. There would be a picture of her drinking and then the next 3 or 4 pictures were missing. There were pictures missing from each night that she was there. I went into panic mode. I knew if I asked her about them, she'd just say that they didn't turn out or something like that even though there were quite a few pictures still on the camera which were black and didn't turn out at all. I took a chance and decided to bluff her and it worked. I told her that there was a recycle bin on our camera (there isn't) and that I saw the missing 17 pictures. I told her I wanted to explain what I saw in the pictures and pretended like I already seen them. She really got defensive this time and just kept saying it was a "joke" and the guys were taking their shirts off because it was hot there. Yet nobody else in her pictures was shirtless. She wouldn't explain anything more than that. She also admitted that the young group of guys basically hung out with her and her friends all week and they drank together alot. She maintains that she did nothing wrong. Why would 3 married 30+ women hang out with these young guys so much? Why would these young guys spend their whole trip with a bunch of married older women when there were ample girls there their own age?
We can't talk about this anymore. She says she feels like she is on trial because I keep asking questions. Her answers are always dodgy and sketchy. She lied to me twice and tried to hide pictures from me. I don't feel like I can't beleieve anything she says because each time I get a different story and more details that were left out in the previous conversation. I'm really hurting. This is the first time I've ever doubted her but my gut tells me something is not right and I can't get the truth and fear I never will. It is eating away at me. I don't look at her the same now. When I look at her, I see deceit and secrets. I love her but the trust is gone. My heart is aching and I get get it to stop.
Sorry so long, I just needed to get it all out.
Please help. Any advise, encouragement, criticism, would be really appreciated. I have nowhere else to turn.
Thanks,
Lost