# Thinking of asking H to do a polygraph



## gemjo (Aug 24, 2012)

I'm seriously thinking of asking my H to do a polygraph. Have found one in my locality and mailed them for info and cost.

Not sure if this is the right way to move forward, but after a year I am still hung up with 'what if he cheated other than this one time I know about' 

I truly don't believe he would be brave enough to admit to anything more as it would only make things worse for him. 

He insists once I found out he cheated that he was honest and if there had been anything else to tell me he would have. I really struggle to believe that, so I can't see any other way.

I have mentioned it to him, and I carefully watched his reaction. The threat of a polygraph should surely make him sh!t himself if he's got more to hide. But he's so hard to read and i don't think he believes I'm being serious. 

His reaction was 'i will do it, but I don't want to. I'd be really embarrassed.' I said I would be embarrassed also at having to check on my H in such an extreme way. But at no point did he say 'right it'll be worth it, I've got nothing to hide, book it' 

I have told him I fear more from the lies than the truth and I need to know I have the truth and that he isn't continuing to lie. 

Have any of you gone down this path and how did WS react?


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## gemjo (Aug 24, 2012)

have any here on TAM made the suggestion to WS, even if you doubt you'd actually go through with it?

Thanks in advance


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## Rowan (Apr 3, 2012)

Wish to hell I had asked him to take a poly. I just found out, two years into what I thought was a rocky but slowly progressing R, that there were actually 2 more OW that I never knew about. The last two years have basically been one long soul-destroying joke - where my husband, and 3-4 of his friends, already knew the punchline.


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## gemjo (Aug 24, 2012)

Rowan said:


> Wish to hell I had asked him to take a poly. I just found out, two years into what I thought was a rocky but slowly progressing R, that there were actually 2 more OW that I never knew about. The last two years have basically been one long soul-destroying joke - where my husband, and 3-4 of his friends, already knew the punchline.


I'm sorry to hear about your new discoveries. How did you find out 2 years on, and how has your H responded?


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## CleanJerkSnatch (Jul 18, 2012)

First decide what you want. He may reject you and say no, then what? Divorce? Or he may say yes and you ask simple yoes or no questions and find out he is still having an affair or maybe not then what? Divorce? If you are willing to fight and cope for what could be years of your spouse struggling with this addiction then by all means use it to see if he is still having an affair. If you do not want R then dont bother, just serve your WS
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## gemjo (Aug 24, 2012)

gemjo said:


> I'm sorry to hear about your new discoveries. How did you find out 2 years on, and how has your H responded?


Hi Rowan, I went back and found your other thread. I'm so sorry, but at least he told you more in the end, and he didn't have to. A bit too late granted, but if my H told me more truth I would at least believe he is really trying to make a clean slate. You could still polygraph him or at least threaten to, to be sure you have it all now?


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## gemjo (Aug 24, 2012)

CleanJerkSnatch said:


> First decide what you want. He may reject you and say no, then what? Divorce? Or he may say yes and you ask simple yoes or no questions and find out he is still having an affair or maybe not then what? Divorce? If you are willing to fight and cope for what could be years of your spouse struggling with this addiction then by all means use it to see if he is still having an affair. If you do not want R then dont bother, just serve your WS
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


I already mentioned it to him, he didn't reject, just doesn't look too happy about it being a possibility.

He isn't addicted to cheating as far as I know, he made one mistake, but that's the bit that is hard to know for sure. Its a long story, but on here somewhere. 

I just want a magic wand that will tell me what i need to know that is as accurate as possible.  If i have the truth I will move on with my marriage, or not as the case maybe. If I find out he's got other skeletons and hasn't told me by his own admission before polygraph does then we're over, for sure.


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## MattMatt (May 19, 2012)

Rowan said:


> Wish to hell I had asked him to take a poly. I just found out, two years into what I thought was a rocky but slowly progressing R, that there were actually 2 more OW that I never knew about. The last two years have basically been one long soul-destroying joke - where my husband, and 3-4 of his friends, already knew the punchline.


Rowan, his friends were probably thinking: "Oh, no! Poor Rowan! How could her husband do this to her?"

(Maybe I am projecting. That's what I would be thinking...)


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## wiigirl (Jun 14, 2012)

MattMatt said:


> Rowan, his friends were probably thinking: "Oh, no! Poor Rowan! How could her husband do this to her?"
> 
> (Maybe I am projecting. That's what I would be thinking...)


:iagree:








_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## PBear (Nov 16, 2010)

All I can suggest is a) Don't make threats that you're not willing to back up with action, and b) Don't ask questions that you can't handle the answers to.

C


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## Rowan (Apr 3, 2012)

MattMatt said:


> Rowan, his friends were probably thinking: "Oh, no! Poor Rowan! How could her husband do this to her?"
> 
> (Maybe I am projecting. That's what I would be thinking...)


Nah. Turns out they're all cheaters, too.


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## CleanJerkSnatch (Jul 18, 2012)

Ok, I believe I'm not getting through yet. People who get busted for cheating, are not honest people. They only feel sorry AFTER the fact they got caught. They lie, and they try to minimize or give you as little info as possible because they or others may justify it as trying to protect you but we know that is false, they do not want to confess all the gorey details of what they REALLY did. They avoid telling you because they want to save face, and make it easier to hurry up and move on.


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## gemjo (Aug 24, 2012)

CleanJerkSnatch said:


> Ok, I believe I'm not getting through yet. People who get busted for cheating, are not honest people. They only feel sorry AFTER the fact they got caught. They lie, and they try to minimize or give you as little info as possible because they or others may justify it as trying to protect you but we know that is false, they do not want to confess all the gorey details of what they REALLY did. They avoid telling you because they want to save face, and make it easier to hurry up and move on.


So, let me get this straight....you totally believe that if a spouse cheats once they must have cheated many times? Would you never consider there may be a % who cheat and realise it isn't actually all it's cracked up to be? 

I know there are many cheats who take every opportunity, but not all.....that is why we say 'anyone can make a mistake, or bad choice' but we have to hope some learn from a one off bad choice.

What I'm trying to find out is was it the one off mistake or was it more.....


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## StagesOfGrief (Aug 19, 2012)

I threatened my most likely to be STBXW with a poly when she was holding firm that it was a one night stand. I wasn't actually going to do it. She said she'd do it but that it was embarrassing to tell a stranger her business - red flag for me. I sent her a link to a local poly place. Told her in the next week I'd pick her up and take her with no pre-warning. I was just trying to get a parking lot confession out of it - and that's what I got - it was still trickle truth, but it suddenly jumped from a ONS to a an affair over a couple of months.


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## Hope1964 (Sep 26, 2011)

I have been wondering lately if a polygraph isn't something I need to move forward. I haven't really thought more than that about it though. Like Rowan we are two years out and struggling. Not with more revelations but with my recovery. Based on his reactions to me expressing my needs lately, though, he'd probably blow a gasket if I suggested it.

He is a sex addict and has never seen a CSAT, and a poly is a standard part of their therapy.


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## Sara8 (May 2, 2012)

PBear said:


> All I can suggest is a) Don't make threats that you're not willing to back up with action, and b) Don't ask questions that you can't handle the answers to.
> 
> C


I agree about making threats that won't be backed up with action. Good point. 

I am waffling about not asking question that Rowan can't handle. 

Why?

Because none of the answers to any of the questions a BSs asks will be palatable and/or easily digested or coped with. 

All the information will hurt.

Still the studies show the more details the BS has the more easily they can go forward with an R.

NOthing to hide means the cheater hides nothing.


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## Sara8 (May 2, 2012)

Hope1964 said:


> He is a sex addict and has never seen a CSAT, and a poly is a standard part of their therapy.


Some psychiatrists believe that all cheaters are sex addicts. Some just hide it better than others. 

Cheating is an addiction and a compulsion in many many cases, if not all.


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## hurtingbadly (Sep 14, 2011)

My WS just took one on Monday. I was also a year out and hung up on doubts. He has trickle truthed me to no end, even as recently as this week. He went, paid for it and failed. I'd say don't bother. He still won't admit to anything even after the poly and now I even have more doubts than I did before based on my questions. It did nothing but bring me more heartache. I'm at a point I think I just need to give up on seeking the truth. He's never gonna admit to anything else and even if he did at this point would I even believe I finally had everything? It's just a never ending cycle. I'm thinking I have to just live with that with him or not. It sucks, but is the sad reality of it all. Good luck.

ETA - He bluffed on the poly a year ago, told me he'd take it, then gave me just enough info to get himself out of it. He obviously bluffed again this time, but I followed thru with it.


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## gemjo (Aug 24, 2012)

Well the threat made him trickle some truth. it would seem my H who has been almost demented in having me believe him over this past year has confessed this morning to a drunken snog with a female colleague at a work conference just last year.

So because I got suspicious about him after this works conference I snooped and found he'd cheated 3 years earlier. Now I know he wasn't happy about poly as he knew he'd get found out.

If he thinks this is going to somehow stop me going ahead with it he's mistaken. If he lies on it I'm seeking a divorce.

95% of me believed he had told me everything, what kind of a mug am I?


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## Drover (Jun 11, 2012)

Polygraphs are ridiculously inaccurate. You won't prove anything to anyone either way by having him do one.


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## Granny7 (Feb 2, 2013)

CleanJerkSnatch said:


> Ok, I believe I'm not getting through yet. People who get busted for cheating, are not honest people. They only feel sorry AFTER the fact they got caught. They lie, and they try to minimize or give you as little info as possible because they or others may justify it as trying to protect you but we know that is false, they do not want to confess all the gorey details of what they REALLY did. They avoid telling you because they want to save face, and make it easier to hurry up and move on.


CleanJerkSnatch,
Man, truer words couldn't have been spoken. You hit the nail on the head. This is just what I think my H is trying to do and pretty much said it himself.
Granny7


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