# Texting coworker behind my back and other things



## 13help (Apr 19, 2012)

For the last month or so my husband has been a completely different person. He no longer shows any affection to me, no longer wants to hold my hand, leaves without saying I love you, I try to kiss him and he turns his head then laughs in my face and says it is a joke but walks away leaving me standing there feeling like an idiot. And here has not been there for me emotionally lately either, I can't talk to him because all he has is snide remarks and when I ask why he is being so mean all he does is shrug his shoulders and say oh well what are you going to do about it. I have always trusted my husband but for the past month he has also been very secretative with his phone and is on it constantly. He turns his phone when he sits next to me so that I can't see it and when I asked who he is always texting he says no one and asks me why I am jealous of his phone. Well last Friday he was very mean and hurtful so I was of course upset and went to the bedroom and basically cried myself to sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night with a headache and his phone was on the table so I looked at the screen and see a text from a girl I don't know sent at midnight. I have never looked at his phone before as he has never given me reason to but I typed the password in on his phone to see what they were texting about and he recently changed his password. His password has always been the same because he told me he did it for security reasons and I've used his phone in the past plenty of times to look on the internet or other things. I questioned him about this girl and he says she is just a coworker who he turned to because he hasn't been feeling like himself and needed someone to talk to. I had no idea he was unhappy and when I requested to see the text messages he told me no and I asked again and he said no. I got up to let the dogs outside came back in and asked again and find out he deleted all of the text messages so I couldn't see them. I feel like these are actions of a guilty person. Before I found out he was texting someone I had asked to see his phone one weekend because I wanted to check a baseball score and he freaked out when I picked it up and refused to let me look at it. He works with this girl and they IM eachother at work, talk at work, and after pulling the phone records I found out they talk in the morning before work, they text while they are on their breaks at work, they text at night after work. I found out he texted her on my birthday right before calling his dad who wanted to wish me a happy birthday and I can't help but think he texted her so she wouldn't text him while I was on his phone with his dad. He is making me feel like a crazy person but he felt the need to change his password and delete the text messages. I requested they no longer talk and he told me ok and I found out he texted her that same day to warn her I found out and then he texted her the next day to tell her what was going on between us. He went to work Monday and she IMed him to ask what happened between us and he told her everything. I was obviously extremely upset and asked him why he won't stop talking to her and he said she is his friend and he's not going to stop and when I freaked he said ok I'll stop. He goes to work Tuesday and tells her they need to chill out and he goes to work today and she is talking to him again. Am I wrong to feel that if she has work related questions she should be going to someone else and not him? He works with a ton of other people who can all answer any questions. He makes me feel like it is my fault and tells me he did nothing wrong but why won't he stop talking to her if he knows it is upsetting me so much? Why would he change his password and delete all the texts and do all of this behind my back while treating me like crap for months. He also told me that he wasn't sure if he loved me anymore and if he wanted to be with me so I said I was leaving as I'm not staying married to someone who doesn't love me and then he says oh no I do love you I changed my mind. Two days later he says it again then later that night he says he changed his mind again. I feel like I am on an emotional rollercoaster. He has betrayed my trust repeatedly with this girl and has changed his mind multiple times about whether or not he wants to be with me. 

Would an innocent person have to hide their text messages? Change their password? Hide their phone? And does someone in love really tell that person they don't think they love them anymore, they don't want to be with them, they don't love them like they used to and then say they changed their mind? Also, he is refusing to stop talking to her, he says he has to be nice and civil because he doesn't have it in him to be a jerk. But he has been a jerk to me and he is hurting me by talking to her.


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## Shaggy (Jul 17, 2011)

What he is doing is called gas lighting : making you feel your crazy she n it's obvious what is going on.

Have you tried putting a var in his car to hear what he is saying on the phone while driving?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## iheartlife (Apr 4, 2012)

He is in an emotional affair with her. There is 0% chance his behavior is innocent in any way.

Find the book Not Just Friends by Shirley Glass. This goes into great detail about emotional affairs and how they function.

You need to learn as much as you can about this woman.

Avoid, at all cost, letting your husband know how you are finding out your information, i.e, that he is still in contact and who she is, etc., because it will drive the affair further underground.

As people around here may be tired of hearing me say, I was fooled by my husband for years as he merrily texted and talked to a woman he originally met through work and kept in touch with as she went to grad school in our town.

If only I had known about this forum then--I would have seen that my husband's distancing behaviors, i.e., constantly picking fights and misintrepreting me and making me feel like the bad guy / poor communicator--were symptoms that he was still involved with that woman AFTER I thought it had ended.

I know you're hurting right now, just know that others like me totally understand the situation you're in and sympathize. Learn from my mistakes and the mistakes of others.


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## lordmayhem (Feb 7, 2011)

Oh, he's deep in the EA alright. There's all the classic signs, the denial (She's just a friend), the emotional and physical withdrawal from you, the gaslighting, etc. If this hasn't gone PA yet, it soon will be.

You are right to file for divorce, because that's the main way to kick them out of the fog. The other method is to expose this affair. If the OW has a husband or boyfriend, expose the affair to him. If that doesn't work, then you must expose the affair to his work or his boss or the human resources department where he works. 

If you do eventually want to R, in a workplace affair like this, one of the affair partners (APs) must leave or quit the job. The only way to end an affair is to go NC forever. And NC can never be maintained if they continue to work together.


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## sunshinetoday (Mar 7, 2012)

There is no reason a husband in a healthy normal marriage would hide his texts or keep his passwod from his wife, unless he has something to hide. Do you know this girl? Does she has a bf or husband? You need to tell them. Time to 180 your husband. A marriage can never survive secrets and hiding texts. PA or EA it's wrong and hurtful to you. Good luck I hope you can pull him outta his FOG. 

_-- Sent from my Palm Pixi using Forums_


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## iheartlife (Apr 4, 2012)

The other main thing I need to say is that THREATS of divorce and THREATS of exposure rarely work.

Think about this: for someone to cross the boundaries of the marriage vows, they have to break down certain psychological barriers (if they are mentally healthy, 'normal' people). They have bonded with the AP in a chemical / hormonal way that is strong enough for them to lie as much as necessary in order to maintain the relationship.

If you threaten divorce, but have zero follow-through, it teaches them that actually you have NO INTENTION of divorcing them despite their transgression. I mean, even happy people sometimes throw the D-word out there in heated arguments, but of course they don't really mean it! So the cheating spouse goes merrily on their way. 

That's because cheaters, in general, want it ALL: the spouse / kid care-taker / money-maker AND the AP. I mean, divorce is such a downer, and heck, it's expensive! And it has a way of pricking the fantasy bubble and showing them the true colors of the AP, who in all likelihood IS NOT marriage / step-mom material. (After all, she chose a MARRIED MAN as her partner...not a good first move.)

If you give advance warning of exposure (telling his parents / people who he respects, plus the AP's partner / parents) by threatening exposure first, you give him and the AP a chance to line up their stories so you are the crazy paranoid spouse. This can be particularly damaging if you have little evidence to back up your side of the story.

As is often said here, many divorces never go through. They can be delayed, stalled, etc. if the WS is truly repentant and comes back to the marriage while maintaining verified NC with the AP. (Sorry about the acronyms--there's a thread around here with all of them.  Just a little affair humor, you have to laugh through your tears.)


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## Thorburn (Nov 23, 2011)

As many are saying most cheaters follow a typical pattern and your H is following the script. 

Who's name is the phone in? Yours and his? His alone? If the account is in both names then you may be able to look at the account online and find out information about texting, calls etc. This is how I busted my wife's EA in 2010. And how I was able to track where she was (her phone gave her location as to where she was when she received or made calls) in 2011. She got smarter in 2011 and got a untrackable phone, but she also used her regular phone to talk to me, my sons and others. You may be able to check the chip on his phone.

Put a VAR in his car, cheaters love to chat in a safe place and often that is their car. 

I would go dark and try the best you can to maintain yoru normal routine. 

He is treating you badly because you are the bad person. You are interrupting his fantasy. You are standing between him and his "love". Why cheaters don't just say I found someone else and move on is beyond me. They don't move on in many cases because the OM/OW does not want that commitment. In my case the OM was younger (sure he did not want to spend his life with a woman who is starting to have serious health issues), married with kids, did not want to leave his kids, and just wanted to get into a woman's pants. It was all fantasy. You are ruining his fantasy world.


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## CandieGirl (Apr 27, 2011)

When I read stuff like this, I get the strong urge to put the phone in a vice grip, and smash the living hell out of it. Ya. I'm crazy like that sometimes.


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## iheartlife (Apr 4, 2012)

Thorburn said:


> Who's name is the phone in? Yours and his? His alone? If the account is in both names then you may be able to look at the account online and find out information about texting, calls etc.


Me too. I didn't bust the affair (he did that by accidentally texting me) and I didn't know about TAM advice, or I would have done this long ago.

After DD#2, my husband had not yet opened an online account for his own cell phone # so it was easy as pie for me to do it from our home computer and his work email address (the one that sends emails to the phone). Then I had access to one year's worth of cell phone bills and the texting record for the previous month. I could also analyze the bills in various ways online (top 10 most expensive calls, top 10 most called numbers) and in this way discovered her home phone # which she only occasionally used to call him vs. her main # which was her cell phone.

The downside is, our carrier doesn't keep the bills past 12 months, and in my case I wish I could see bills going back quite a bit longer...but I immediately printed out hard copies so I have plenty of proof of their affair, including the months that are not stored online by the carrier any more.


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## daisygirl 41 (Aug 5, 2011)

He's having at least an EA with her. Sorry honey but you've got a tough road ahead of you. 
Read all the stickies on the CWI forum. There is a lot of good advice on there.
I've just come out of the nightmare after a year of hell and have managed to save my marriage but it was touch and go at one point. 
Listen to what people are telling you on here.
The most important thing to do is expose the affair. I didn't do it. The OWH did it 10 months after the EA started and within 3 weeks it was over.
I wish you well
X
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## daisygirl 41 (Aug 5, 2011)

CandieGirl said:


> When I read stuff like this, I get the strong urge to put the phone in a vice grip, and smash the living hell out of it. Ya. I'm crazy like that sometimes.


I smashed my Hs phone up with a hammer!!!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Bottled Up (Nov 12, 2011)

I'm so sorry 13help, but this is a textbook case of your husband having an affair. And it sounds like from the way he's treating you so horribly that he's so deep into the affair that he's now considering this woman a better match for himself than you are. I'm betting this affair has gone past EA at this point and most likely he's had a PA with this woman now. Once sex is involved for a man he can become emotionally bonded to a woman much more quickly, and his actions are screaming that he's extremely bonded to this woman. He's shutting you out of his life in every way... he might be planning (and already acting out) ways to drive you away as an exit strategy to your relationship.

You are losing this man to this other woman as we speak. You need to start gathering evidence on him as best you can so you can expose his affair. Hire a P.I. if you have to or get a friend to trail him and take pictures. Learn about all the tracking devices you can put in his car like GPS and VAR (voice recorder). And start preparing yourself for "D-Day" when you expose the affair with your evidence and then must decide whether or not you want to take him back and reconcile... but only if he comes crawling to you on his knees begging for forgiveness and showing true remorse.

I'm so sorry.


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