I've been married a long time - 30 years. I've always had this nagging feeling that my husband is overly interested in other women. He's never cheated on me that I know of but yet I don't trust him at all. It's been this way since almost day one. We've had numerous awful fights about it. He tells me it's all in my imagination, but it seems whenver we're out and about he spends entirely too much time oggling other women. One of my most frustrating experiences came when we were enjoying a weekend at our cabin. We had incredibly wonderful and exciting sex one night and the next day he's speeding down the lake trying to get a spot to park our boat next to the boat he hears (from his other male boating friends)that has scantily clad women on board who were engaged in X-rated water fun the night before. I felt insulted and degraded. Our sex life has always been great (until lately - I can't take this anymore). If fact, sex is probably the one and only part of our marriage that has been problem free. I am fairly attractive and take good care of myself. So many of the articles I read in MB are about affairs and EN's not being met. I am almost positive my husband would never have an affair but I'm certainly not positive that he wouldn't love a "One (or more) Night Stand". What does one do about that? How are one night stands and affairs all that different? What's missing if your husband loves you immensely but seems sexually interested in other women? I tell myself maybe I'm being irrational but this nagging feeling just won't go away. I know guys love to look at other women but when is it too much? I would appreciate any feedback - this is my first message on MB forum - thanks so much.

Infidelity of any kind is an affair. Perhaps you need to do the EN's questionaire to find out exactly what his top 5 needs are...you might find out that what you hink his EN's are are different than what you thought. How about asking him next time he ogles what he is attracted to that you might fulfil for him?<P>Welcome to the forum.

BeNice,<P>I was married to a man who did the very same thing. I had the same nagging feeling that you have. I also noticed that whenever he went to the grocery store for us, he always came back exactly $10 short. I commented on this several times and he never gave me any explanation. (I always knew how much money he'd taken to the store because he'd get one or more $20 bills out of his stash of cash and bring me back the change.) <P>So I began to watch for little things. I worked and he was retired. The morning after out wedding, I woke up with the flu and couldn't go to work. He got a phone call about 10 am and wouldn't tell me who it was. I was very sick for a couple of weeks, and he was furious with me for staying home, and every day or so he got this unexplained phone call about 10 am. I felt sure it must be a girl friend. <P>When I went back to work, he called me every morning about 9:30 am to say hi and yell me that he loved me. Being newlyweds at that time, I enjoyed having him call, but I did begin to wonder what he was doing at 10 am each day, and did figured out later that he might be seeing a woman who'd called him when I was unexpectedly at home sick. <P>He had been seeing someone before we married, but he had told me that was over as soon as we became engaged, and he'd even given me her phone number that he carried in his wallet. I began to find other phone numbers with no name or address to identify them around the house and hidden in the garage. <P>I took the phone numbers to the public library and used the Criss Cross directory to find the name and address that went with each phone number. I drove by and looked at some of the houses. They were not far from our house and looked very impoverished and junky. I figured out that my H must be paying women $10 for sexual services. <P>I also still had the "former" girlfriend's phone number, so I got her name and address as well, and went to her house one day and knocked on the door. When she opened it, I asked her if she was seeing (my husband's name) and she said yes. I asked her how long she had been seeing him and she said 8 years. I asked if she was still seeing him, and she said yes. Then I said in a pleasant but businesslike voice, "Well, I am his wife", and turned and left. I had no quarrel with her. She apparently didn't know he had married. I had moved into his house after our wedding, and found out later that she had been coming to his house to have sex with him there, as had several impoverished young women whom he paid $10 for their sexual services. <P>I was amazed, I must tell you. He and I married late in life. He was in his 70's, very active and energetic, and I was about 50, still very attractive and with a nice figure. We had great sex almost daily, and I do believe that he loved me and these other ladies meant nothing to him. He was respected in his synagogue and in the Jewish community, and socially he would never want to be seen with disreputable ladies. He had such a thick Yiddish accent that most people couldn't understand much of what he said, so I knew he couln't even carry on much of a conversation with these ladies. <P>He was also a Holocaust survivor and had suffered greatly and lost his entire family in one day in the gas chamber at Birkenau. I didn't want to accuse him falsely and thus cause him more grief, and embarassment in the Jeiwsh community and before his grown children, since he would be losing his new loving wife, home cooking, companionship, etc. So I figured out a way to prove he was indeed being unfaithful while I was at work. I did, and he confessed, and said, "I dunnit a BIG mistake!" He said he thought I would never catch him.<P>He told me his whole sexual history. I realized he probably would never change, and he agreed that he would not. We didn't have the Interent and MB site back in 1986, and my emotions were so raw and I was almost too distraught to work, and so I left him, saying that I still loved him, was very hurt but not angry with him, and that I had told him beforehand that I would not live in such a situation. We remained friends until he died six years later, meeting for dinner at a restaurant from time to time. He came with his grown daughter when I was sick and when my mother died. His grown daughters and I took loving care of him when he was dying of cancer, fixing his favorite foods his mother had prepared so long ago in Poland, keeping him company and seeing to his medical needs. <BR>As horribly as his parents and family had died, we did not want him to die without being surrounded with love.<P>His grown children did tell me that after I left, they occasionally saw ladies coming and going from his house and sometimes their boyfriends came back later to steal from him, usually the TV set and whatever they could sell. <P>I used to call his behavior with other ladies his "hobby", just to interject a little humor into a bad situation, but actually I think it may have been a sexual addiction he'd had from his youth. <P>Please don't conclude from this, BeNice, that your situation is anything like this at all. I went into detail just to make the point that sometimes you need to follow up on nagging suspicion, and that in my case every little irregularity did turn out to be fire where there was smoke, and that you at least might want to be sensibly observant and check up on things that don't quite add up. I didn't really talk to him about this until I was sure of what was going on, so we never had any big fights or arguments. However, the emotions of suspecting him were almost more than I could bear and I had to leave quickly once I found out. <P>If you haven't see any irregularities other that your H oogling the ladies, that may be all he does, and I certainly hope this is the case. I apologize for the length of this story, but hoped the details might provide some tips of other ladies needing to check up on irregularities they see in their H's behavior. I caught him dead to rights by placing smooth sheets of aluminum foil between our top and bottom mattress one morning, since he took his daily nap on the sofa and never even sat on the bed once he had gotten up each morning. I checked it when I got home from work and found the foil still in place but all crumpled up, and a long blond hair was near my pillow, and I have short brown hair. <p>[This message has been edited by computergal (edited January 26, 2001).]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by SueB:<BR><B>Infidelity of any kind is an affair. Perhaps you need to do the EN's questionaire to find out exactly what his top 5 needs are...you might find out that what you hink his EN's are are different than what you thought. How about asking him next time he ogles what he is attracted to that you might fulfil for him?<P>Welcome to the forum.</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by SueB:<BR><B>Infidelity of any kind is an affair. Perhaps you need to do the EN's questionaire to find out exactly what his top 5 needs are...you might find out that what you hink his EN's are are different than what you thought. How about asking him next time he ogles what he is attracted to that you might fulfil for him?<P>Thanks for your help. I think part of his problem is that he did not sow "wild oats" before we were married - He was 21, I was 19. He's not a "stud" in his own words, so I think women intimidate him and perhaps this is his fascination with them. He's still longing for those "wild oats" he never had. What do you think? <P>Welcome to the forum.</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by computergal:<BR><B>BeNice,<P>I was married to a man who did the very same thing. I had the same nagging feeling that you have. I also noticed that whenever he went to the grocery store for us, he always came back exactly $10 short. I commented on this several times and he never gave me any explanation. (I always knew how much money he'd taken to the store because he'd get one or more $20 bills out of his stash of cash and bring me back the change.) <P>So I began to watch for little things. I worked and he was retired. The morning after out wedding, I woke up with the flu and couldn't go to work. He got a phone call about 10 am and wouldn't tell me who it was. I was very sick for a couple of weeks, and he was furious with me for staying home, and every day or so he got this unexplained phone call about 10 am. I felt sure it must be a girl friend. <P>When I went back to work, he called me every morning about 9:30 am to say hi and yell me that he loved me. Being newlyweds at that time, I enjoyed having him call, but I did begin to wonder what he was doing at 10 am each day, and did figured out later that he might be seeing a woman who'd called him when I was unexpectedly at home sick. <P>He had been seeing someone before we married, but he had told me that was over as soon as we became engaged, and he'd even given me her phone number that he carried in his wallet. I began to find other phone numbers with no name or address to identify them around the house and hidden in the garage. <P>I took the phone numbers to the public library and used the Criss Cross directory to find the name and address that went with each phone number. I drove by and looked at some of the houses. They were not far from our house and looked very impoverished and junky. I figured out that my H must be paying women $10 for sexual services. <P>I also still had the "former" girlfriend's phone number, so I got her name and address as well, and went to her house one day and knocked on the door. When she opened it, I asked her if she was seeing (my husband's name) and she said yes. I asked her how long she had been seeing him and she said 8 years. I asked if she was still seeing him, and she said yes. Then I said in a pleasant but businesslike voice, "Well, I am his wife", and turned and left. I had no quarrel with her. She apparently didn't know he had married. I had moved into his house after our wedding, and found out later that she had been coming to his house to have sex with him there, as had several impoverished young women whom he paid $10 for their sexual services. <P>I was amazed, I must tell you. He and I married late in life. He was in his 70's, very active and energetic, and I was about 50, still very attractive and with a nice figure. We had great sex almost daily, and I do believe that he loved me and these other ladies meant nothing to him. He was respected in his synagogue and in the Jewish community, and socially he would never want to be seen with disreputable ladies. He had such a thick Yiddish accent that most people couldn't understand much of what he said, so I knew he couln't even carry on much of a conversation with these ladies. <P>He was also a Holocaust survivor and had suffered greatly and lost his entire family in one day in the gas chamber at Birkenau. I didn't want to accuse him falsely and thus cause him more grief, and embarassment in the Jeiwsh community and before his grown children, since he would be losing his new loving wife, home cooking, companionship, etc. So I figured out a way to prove he was indeed being unfaithful while I was at work. I did, and he confessed, and said, "I dunnit a BIG mistake!" He said he thought I would never catch him.<P>He told me his whole sexual history. I realized he probably would never change, and he agreed that he would not. We didn't have the Interent and MB site back in 1986, and my emotions were so raw and I was almost too distraught to work, and so I left him, saying that I still loved him, was very hurt but not angry with him, and that I had told him beforehand that I would not live in such a situation. We remained friends until he died six years later, meeting for dinner at a restaurant from time to time. He came with his grown daughter when I was sick and when my mother died. His grown daughters and I took loving care of him when he was dying of cancer, fixing his favorite foods his mother had prepared so long ago in Poland, keeping him company and seeing to his medical needs. <BR>As horribly as his parents and family had died, we did not want him to die without being surrounded with love.<P>His grown children did tell me that after I left, they occasionally saw ladies coming and going from his house and sometimes their boyfriends came back later to steal from him, usually the TV set and whatever they could sell. <P>I used to call his behavior with other ladies his "hobby", just to interject a little humor into a bad situation, but actually I think it may have been a sexual addiction he'd had from his youth. <P>Please don't conclude from this, BeNice, that your situation is anything like this at all. I went into detail just to make the point that sometimes you need to follow up on nagging suspicion, and that in my case every little irregularity did turn out to be fire where there was smoke, and that you at least might want to be sensibly observant and check up on things that don't quite add up. I didn't really talk to him about this until I was sure of what was going on, so we never had any big fights or arguments. However, the emotions of suspecting him were almost more than I could bear and I had to leave quickly once I found out. <P>If you haven't see any irregularities other that your H oogling the ladies, that may be all he does, and I certainly hope this is the case. I apologize for the length of this story, but hoped the details might provide some tips of other ladies needing to check up on irregularities they see in their H's behavior. I caught him dead to rights by placing smooth sheets of aluminum foil between our top and bottom mattress one morning, since he took his daily nap on the sofa and never even sat on the bed once he had gotten up each morning. I checked it when I got home from work and found the foil still in place but all crumpled up, and a long blond hair was near my pillow, and I have short brown hair. <P>Gail<P>[This message has been edited by computergal (edited December 16, 2000).]</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Thanks for your honesty and your help Gail. It sounds like you went through a lot of pain and yet you were still friends with your husband. I respect that and find it extremely compassionate.<P>

BeNice<P>your quote:<BR>"Thanks for your honesty and your help Gail. It sounds like you went through a lot of pain and yet you were still friends with your husband. I respect that and find it extremely compassionate."<P>Thank you so much, BeNice. I almost deleted my post because I thought it might be too depressing for you to read right now. I respect and appreciate you for picking up on my pain and on the positive aspects of my story, thus benefitting from them. You have a heart for others despite your own concerns, and that is so refreshing to find.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by computergal:<BR><B>BeNice<P>your quote:<BR>"Thanks for your honesty and your help Gail. It sounds like you went through a lot of pain and yet you were still friends with your husband. I respect that and find it extremely compassionate."<P>Thank you so much, BeNice. I almost deleted my post because I thought it might be too depressing for you to read right now. I respect and appreciate you for picking up on my pain and on the positive aspects of my story, thus benefitting from them. You have a heart for others despite your own concerns, and that is so refreshing to find.</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I hope that you have found your peace and happiness you deserve. I am working hard at my happiness with my husband - we had a good talk - largely from the strength I drew from your posting. We had the best talk that we've ever had in 30 years. I thank you and pray that you get the peace you deserve. <P>

BeNice<P>Thanks so much for your kind words! I'm so glad you had a good talk with your H. To put your mind at ease, I remember that there was pain while discovering that my H was cheating on me but, like the pain of childbirth, I don't feel that pain any more. <P>As I recall, it left soon after I left that situation, and I do have great peace about having known, loved and married my XH. I remember the precious times when he and I and his grown children did things together and grew in our love for one another. Because of this, I don't regret the short marriage at all. In some ways it was a high point in my life and his, because of the precious times. <P>I had thought earlier of sharing some of those times with you. Some of his pain at having been treated so horribly in the Holocaust was healed, I believe, as he was able to pour out the story of his suffering, and that of his family, as we sat in the back yard in the evening and talked. <P>I learned much from him about his parents, his wonderful boyhood in Poland, about being more disciplined in my life, and how to cook his mother's favorite recipes, all of which I enjoyed very much. I have put all of this in writing and will e-mail it to anyone who is interested in him and his life before and during the Holocaust.<P>When my mother died in 1988, my XH and his daughters said they would be there at her funeral. I didn't know my XH's adopted son very well. He and his family had moved to another city, but he and his wife told me they would be there, too. I kind of warned then, saying, "You know, it will be a full blown Southern Baptist funeral." My XH's son said quietly and firmly, "We will be there". <P>My XH's son is a Cohen, a member of the priestly class of Israel, and as part of maintaining purity is not allowed to be near anyone who has died. His sisters told me that he had been especially sad that he could not attend his mother's funeral nor ever visit her graveside. She was a survivor of Dachau, and his birth father, also Jewish, had been shot and killed by some Germans in Belgium shortly after WWII had ended. <P>After my mother's funeral, as we stood around waiting for the graveside ceremony to begin, one of my XH's daughters touched me quietly and, pointing just beyond the crowd, exclaimed in a whisper, "Oh, look!!" I turned and saw my XH's son and his wife walking up. They quietly stopped right beside my mother's casket and turned to face the crowd. It was an awesome moment to those who understodd what this meant. I went over quietly and hugged both of them. He said quietly, "We appreciate the way you treated my father". <P>Precious loving moments like this are so rich and far exceed any pain I suffered because of marrying my XH, a sweet and forgiving man. I an not his judge, love him still and hope that he is at peace and enjoying great happiness with his loved ones that he lost in the Holocaust. <P>I wish the same for you and your marriage -- peace, love that grows and becomes even richer and more precious, forgivenenss whenever either of you needs that, and much, much happiness. <P>I have not remarried. My XH died two days after Christmas 1992. Who knows, perhaps I will find someone whom I can love and with whom I will be very happy. <P>Again, thanks so much for your good wishes, and keep up the good work on your marriage!<p>[This message has been edited by computergal (edited January 26, 2001).]