# H claims depression as excuse for inappropriate chats, but?



## omega (Aug 2, 2011)

Yesterday I walked into our office and he was on one of those internet messengers, chatting with random people, pretending to be woman (WTF???) and was totally horrified that I caught him. He was literally shaking like a leaf. He was majorly embarrassed, which I get, but then he said he was doing it because he felt depressed about work. He claims that he hates his job, and needs to "decompress" and "escape" somehow.

First, he knew that I wouldn't like it. I don't know that I consider it infidelity per se, but it's pretty shady, weird, and gross. And he was hiding it. He claims he's been doing it for a couple of weeks. I have no way to verify this. I did NOT ask him to show me the conversations, and he deleted them as soon as he had a chance.

Second, he went off on this long tirade about how he is miserable at work, and it's not what he wants to do, and he wants to do something else [in the current economic climate, for him to leave the job he has now is insanity, and he knows this]. Also he says he feels a lot of financial pressure (which is understandable, his salary was cut almost in half along with everyone else's, but I handle the finances and I have told him over and over that everything is okay. Tight but OKAY.)

At first I was really understanding, and said that if you feel embarrassed you need to talk to me about it, but then I started getting more and more upset when it started to gel in my mind. I ended up going for a long walk (during which he called me and asked me to come home, and I did), then I drank 1.5 glasses of wine (I never, ever, EVER drink alcohol) and got extremely sick and spent the night feeling terrible clutching a bag and trying not to throw up). I "slept" on the couch, and he slept on the other couch (both in the living room). I was too sick to move, he I guess wanted to appear supportive or something.

Then left this morning for work, kissed me thinking I was asleep, and came home around 11:30 when he had a break. He started crying and such. I asked him if he was going to apologize and he did, it seemed very sincere. He literally was on his knees on our kitchen floor. 

It was and is very difficult, confusing, and weird. I have given him absolutely NO reason to close himself off from me emotionally. I am the most loving, available, encouraging, ego-boosting wife you could imagine. So I don't understand:

a) what the **** he was doing on the internet?!?! I mean, what IS that??? Pretending to be a woman?? He's never, ever given any indication of being even barely bisexual, much less wanting to talk to men as a woman about sex.
b) why, if he truly is/feels depressed, I'm just hearing about this now.

So he says he wants me to help him, in various ways that he said. I told him that I don't really want him putting demands on me right now, so he backpedaled on that.

Anyone want to help me figure out WTF is going on?? I am thinking about putting a keylogger on his computer. The messenger program he was using doesn't store old conversations. It can, but he has it disabled. So I can't read these conversations. He claims they were random people, not particular people, or at least, he sort of seemed to say that. I didn't ask for more details. I asked if there was sexual content to the conversations and he said yes. 

He claimed to talk to both men and women, posing as a woman. I am totally confused, distraught, and blown away that this happened. Seriously if you had asked me 24 hours ago about my marriage, I would have told you it was PERFECT. I've posted many times on this forum about my PERFECT marriage. So clearly I had NO idea that there was some kind of problem. 

I'm thinking that if he wants to pin this on depression, he'd better get into therapy or on drugs for it, because otherwise it's just a handy excuse.

Incidentally his father has chronic depression and has cheated on his mother dozens and dozens of times. 

He insists that it was nothing emotional or physical, just "a game and it was funny". He claimed many times that he did it "to laugh." I don't like it. Sexual content = sexy, not funny. 

Opinions?


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## Hope1964 (Sep 26, 2011)

Yeah, chatting with other people sexually is NOT ok, no matter what the reason. My hubby did it and it led to him paying to meet up with 'models'.

I would say he needs counseling at the very least. He should also take steps to stop the behaviour, whatever those steps might be, that are agreeable to both you and he.


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## Heartbroken19 (Feb 1, 2012)

My husband did the SAME thing!!! except he used pictures of me!!! I don't understand why he did it either?!!!! My heart goes out to you though!! i btw consider tlking to anyone else for sexual reasons as cheating.


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## omega (Aug 2, 2011)

Heartbroken19, hang in there. I am so sorry you're going through this too. All I can tell you is what ended up happening with the two of us.

We were both devastated by it - I am pretty much all he has right now and vice versa, so we need to be okay together. I told him that I had thought about leaving and would if I believed that he was being unfaithful. Basically I didn't really put it in those terms, all I said was "I got out my passport and put it in my purse." (We live in his country, not mine.) That scared him a lot. He promised the world: no more secrecy, no more chatting period, etc.

He started using his computer only in rooms that I was also in; so if I were in the living room, that's where he would be on the computer. And he did stop using those programs. Now he mostly reads sports websites to decompress. However in the past few days I've noticed he has migrated back to the office (where he is alone) to be on the computer. (That's where he was when I caught him.) It's hard to forbid him from using his computer in there since the purpose of the room is for us to do work (including on our computers). 

His salary was cut really badly again since I posted that. He now makes ONE THIRD of what his projected wage should have been right now, based on what his contract when hired 2 years ago said. He works for the government so he can't do anything about it, it is what it is, we live in a very very economically distressed area. He has been more open with me about how it is affecting him and I've noticed he has been more open with others, he's been talking to his friends more on the phone (I encouraged this). I've also been making sure to have friends over to the house several times/week so that we have something fun to do that gets our mind off the stressful stuff going on.

We are completely okay again as a couple but I think he is more careful to think before he does stupid things. I have forgiven him and put it down to temporary stupidity/insanity. I personally spend a lot of time on the internet on various forums, including this one but not only, I have a blog, I use FB, Skype, etc. So I get my escape. I do understand it. I think it was totally stupid of him but since he doesn't have any interactive online stuff except FB, I can see why he would fall into something like that. 

So all I can say is ... I hope you can work through it together. He will have to stop doing it, of course, and create the conditions for you to feel safe and unthreatened in your relationship.


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