I'm new - Hi.

I'm a Stay at home Mom and my husband's in the military and we have several children.

I just found out a few days ago that my husband has been trying to meet up with women through a variety of dating websites.
And, apparently, this isn't the only time in his life that he's tried to cheat or actually has cheated.
But I haven't told him that I know.
For a few reasons - mainly because I'm afraid to confront him (I don't like heated conflict.)
And I just don't know what's the best way to go about telling him that I've found out.

I've read through quite a few articles but I didn't find anything that dealt with the very beginning of things.
Any advice? Or an article if it's out there and I just didn't find it. Thank you.

Julie,

I'm sorry you found yourself in this situation. How long have you been married, how old are you and H, do you have any children?

You might want to check phone logs to see if he's been making any regular contact w/ same number. Please read up on plan A/B. Do you think your H is a sex addict?

Hang in there, the boards are notoriously slow on weekends.

Thank you - I'm glad I found this website because for the last few days I've been lost and I don't know what to do. This place has been very helpful.

I'm 27 and he's 38. We've been married for almost 5 years and we have 2 children: 2 from my previous marriage and 2 together.
The only thing I know for certain is that he signed up with an online dating service - tried to make contact with several of the women and none of them were interested.

I know that before we met he had an affair during his previous marriage, though that's not what ended their marriage.
And it's rumored that when he and I met he was dating someone else - but that's just a rumor and I've never found evidence to back it up.
But in light of this recent dating-website discovery I'm now paranoid and wondering about things that never were issues, before.
I've never felt it necessary to spy, read emails and other things. I just don't have trust issues. Well, I didn't until the other day.

I really want our marriage to work. I've read through Plans A and B and a lot of other articles and very helpful advice. I know what I want to do (work things out and move on, put this behind us and get his depression under control, get marriage counseling and work through all of our problems) and I've even scheduled an appointment a few weeks out with a therapist.

I just don't know the best way to bring this up and talk about it with him...or if I should, at all - should I wait until our appointment? Have someone watch the kids and talk about this over dinner? I have no clue.
The only thing I know for certain is that getting angry with him and losing my temper (which is what I WANT to do) would be the worst thing for me to do.

Our sex life is wonderful - so that's not an issue. I really don't think he's a sex addict - but I've been fooled before.

In these few days I've spent a lot of time going over phone records and text-messages, etc, actually found nothing out of the ordinary...just work and a few of his (male) friends that I know.
If he's actually seeing someone It's happening during his work hours - he works for 12 hours, 2 hours overall commute - leaving him a lot of break-time to leave post, etc...But how to confirm any of that? There's no one higher in command than him that I can verify anything with so I'm kind of alone on that.

Last night I actually entertained the idea of buying a GPS device and tracking where he goes - if nothing ever happens, sell the GPS unit off...if something happens then I can follow and confront. (I've been watching 'Cheaters' too much, lately)

I just feel lost and all the reading in the world isn't helping my mind focus any.
Thanks or reading and responding.

I think buying a GPS is a GREAT idea. It will give you peace of mind. Then you will know exactly how far this has gone. I wouldn't confront him just yet, because their usual excuse is that they wer just curious about dating sites.

Interesting that he cheated in his first marriage but that wasn't the cause of the divorce. Have you heard that from his ex wife?

I feel kind of bad or "needing" to find these things out - I wish I could just trust him. But that's just not the case, anymore.

Well, I've been reading more articles and I'm wondering if our problems isn't so much related to cheating - but other things. We haven't had the most respectful relationship and a lot of the things written in the articleson Abusive relationships really peg him down to a T.
Which is a very disturbing realization for me. I always considered things like this (verbal attacks and so on) to just be "a bad day" and so on.

And now that I think about it I wonder just how much his prior affair affected his marriage.
it *was* my understanding that she had a drug problem that was unrelated - but now I'm wondering if that drug problem was possibly her way of dealing with him.

I can see that, now...Which is rather sad.

Tolerating verbal abuse is never acceptable. The folks on the Emotional Needs board can help you change your response to his abuse where he will have to change.

For the cheating, the experts are on General Questions II. Weekends are slow, so hang in there.

It is a shame you need to check on him, but you do. If he were being honorable, there would be no reason. But he is NOT, so you must protect yourself and your marriage.

Thank you, I'll read posts in that section and see what can be done.
Well - I ended up not really confronting him. He sensed that something was really wrong and figured out that I knew about his online dating efforts and fessed up and we talked a long time abotu this last night.
So that's a load off of my shoulders and I feel pretty good about it. It's out in the open so now we can follow through with marriage counseling and so on.

However - now he's sad and upset (embarassed?) I don't get why he's feeling this way, actually. Why am I not more bothered by this and why is he heartbroken? This doesn't make sense.
I should be sad and upset and he should feel good for having it off his chest, yeah?

I feel better because I feel like I'm standing up to him and not taking whatever he wants to dish out. I took control of our conversation last night. I didn't let him try to change the subject and turn it against me.
Is he feeling bad because I've bumped him from his horse?

he's feeling bad because he got caught.
he is playing the "feel bad for me card, see how broken up about this i am?"

i personally think he is trying to be manipulating.

mine was an expert at it.
whenever he would get caught he would feel all bad, etc..
that would not last long though. just long enough for me to feel sorry for him. which is what he wanted. it gave him the control.

i'd not look too deeply into it.

you have other issues you need to be focusing on like the verbal abuse and the affair in his first marriage.

mlhb

Good point.

Fortunately, I don't feel bad for him.
There have been a lot of things in our marriage and I've *always* fallen into the "poor you" spot - and put my feelings away in order to save him.

But this time I feel very different. I've read a lot and I've learned a lot and I see just what he's doing, now. And because I know that he's trying to guilt me it's not working. Like I'm suddenly immune to his usual routine and he, obviously, doesn't know what to do.

I just got off the phone with him and he was crying.
You know how often he cries? How many times in the past has he ever cried over anything? He never cried when he deployed, even.
And all I can feel is "good - that's what you get, feel miserable for yourself because I'm not going to."

I feel good today, for once in a long time, because I don't feel like he's controlling me anymore. I feel like I'm back to my old self - something I haven't been in years.