# Did anyone see the signs coming?



## bigtone128 (May 1, 2012)

I was just sitting here thinking about my STBXW and whether there were any signs of her hooking up with a coworker and her leaving and I realize now in hindsight there were PLENTY of signs but I did not pay attention to them...here are some of them....

1) She stopped having breakfast with both of us and was always in a hurry to get to work.
2) She paid particular attention to her appearance before going to work.
3) She used to wear her work clothes to work and change at home but started to dress to work and change at work.
4) She saved text messages that incriminated me but deleted messages that incriminated her - for example, if I ever got upset with her she would save that message but delete her messages to the AP and her girlfriends about going out.
5) She stopped looking for reasons to be with me and started looking for reasons to be "out" and "at work".

Hindsight is 20/20 but all the signs were there I just didnt pay attention and I regret not confronting her about them - but when I did finally confront her - she was out the door. So I do not think it would help.......


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## snap (Oct 3, 2011)

Sudden desire for privacy after 10 years of marriage.

This set my alarms off from the beginning, but first few months I was in denial.


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## jinba (Apr 26, 2012)

YES - and I was blind too. My H hooked up with my best friend. He in sales at the time, and some of the things I SHOULD have noticed include:
1. Clothes became more important to him.
2. There were days I'd call him at work and nobody knew where he was.
3. He developed a taste for wine (her beverage of choice).
4. He paid a lot of attention to her when we were out with a group of friends.
5. He'd bough a new bathing suit and came home from work with a sunburn (duh).
6. He bought new underwear (which I'd always had to do for him prior to).

Other friends saw it coming and tried to warn me - but she was my friend, so I didn't believe them. How stupid was that? Looking back, I don't think I wanted to believe it was happening - so I rug swept.

I think sometimes when we're faced with something so difficult that denial rules until we can get our heads and hearts around the fact that we're being betrayed. It's like our mind is protecting us until we can ease into dealing with it head on.


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## Count of Monte Cristo (Mar 21, 2012)

Hindsight is crystal clear:

1. More girls night out
2. Not answering her cellphone when I called
3. Traveling for work more
4. Not drinking wine with me during Sunday dinners 
5. Hugging her side of the king-size bed (literally near the edge)
6. Distant (as in the space between galaxies)
7. Having to mention that she hadn't put recent family pictures in the curio
8. No Sex -- but plenty of sexy lingerie [slaps head really hard]
9. Pecks instead of kisses
10. Zumba 4 times a week


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## azul (Apr 29, 2012)

Oh yeah!
1. It took months for me to meet his friends. Of which his AP is a part of.

2. The AP going off on me about everything she did for him.

3. The air when we were all together.

4. Them not speaking to each other on the phone when I was present.

5. Them talking/texting all times of the day and night.

6. His defense of her when I brought up how uncomfortable I was with their contact.

7. How he talked to her more than he talked to any of his family/friends.

Looking back, I was dumb as ****.


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## sunshinetoday (Mar 7, 2012)

Oh yes I do now...
Super protective and private of his phone.
-suddenly lots of overtime and work on Saturdays.
New (toxic) friend single guy from work.
Bought himself new drawers & socks.
Began to keep his car very very clean.
Picked a fight with me about the littlest thing, I was walking on eggshells trying to not make him mad! HA.

_-- Sent from my Palm Pixi using Forums_


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## Sara8 (May 2, 2012)

bigtone128 said:


> I was just sitting here thinking about my STBXW and whether there were any signs of her hooking up with a coworker and her leaving and I realize now in hindsight there were PLENTY of signs but I did not pay attention to them...here are some of them....
> 
> 1) She stopped having breakfast with both of us and was always in a hurry to get to work.
> 2) She paid particular attention to her appearance before going to work.
> ...


Yes. all the signs were there for me, too. These signs and more. 

Now I would recognize them, but back then I was clueless. 

I think we were clueless because we did not have a cheater's mentality. 

I attributed all the issues to work stress.

The changing cloths at work was a big one. I can't believe i missed that. 

Another is taking a shower immediately after walking through the door. 

I now know that means they are trying to wash away the smell of the OW.

I also smelled her perfume on the passenger car seat, found her blonde hair, and noticed the seat was always moved back to accommodate her taller frame. 
'
Just a few other clues for you to look for in the future.


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

I saw all the signs and questioned them but was gaslighted and lied to and accused of cheating myself that put me on the defensive...my guy was a pro at keeping me from 'knowing' the truth, i.e. having proof, but I did 'know' regardless, and finally it affected my health, because of the disaparity between what I subconsciously knew and was consciously wanting to believe.

He later asked me how I managed to always know (and ask) about stuff that he was doing, he thought maybe I was paying a PI or had some physical, logical, concrete way of knowing. I said no it was all how I felt, I could just 'see' what you were doing, when you were doing it.

Marriage ended when he showed up with scratches on his back in a place where a hand goes during intimacy and could not explain them, the scab was about 5 days old and 5 days prior to that his moustache had smelled funny (like meow meow) and he had met me at the movie theater where I volunteer for a movie in the evening and was saying how he was a few minutes late because he had gone home to shower because he had been working. Stuff like that, when someone brags about doing something normal like taking a shower after work and offers up an excuse for being late even though none was asked for...I did even mention to him when I kissed him hello that his moustache smelled funny, he said like what, I said '*****' and he hesitated and said I had a great imagination and was paranoid, but he looked a little worried and his counter-accusation coming so quickly was kind of a giveaway.

I think he also showed a great interest in taking my car to his work so he could wash it. When he did he said he did not bother with the inside of it. LOL. Yes he did. I think he took the car to his work to have sex in it, he was so adamant at taking it and talked to me about the day he would take it, etc. Funny thing is one of the first things I did after filing for divorce was to trade in the car for something more affordable. 

I 'knew' what he had done in the car. It was a typical maneuver for him, doing something in my car that he could lord over knowing each and every time I drove it that it had been the site of him cheating on me. He is the sort of person who needed that control over someone.

He also did it in our bed and then made some kind of comment that he thought the babysitter had been in there petting the cat because it smelled like perfume...the same perfume his uniform smelled like one night when he told me not to wait up for him because he was going to be late...and then smelled like perfume because they had to wrestle for training at his military unit. Then about a month later some girl had hugged him and got her perfume all over his uniform. Funny the babysitter, the wrestling girl and the girl who had hugged him all wore the same perfume.

Also when he lied and was cheating he smelled different. His body emitted some kind of different odor, and also he fidgeted his hands a lot and averted his eyes or looked at me different when he was trying to gauge my level of belief in the BS he was feeding me.

He also gave 'half stories', stories that were close to the truth, such as his friend's sister had called to ask if he wanted car race tickets when in fact there was no cell reception where he was that day, so of course she had stopped by. 

I would accept these stories because I had no hard truth. But I knew subconsciously that he was lying. 

Finally his best defense was that I didn't trust him. By then he had been completely exposed and I said, no, I didn't no surprise. He then accused me of not WANTING to trust him and I said you have got to be kidding me, you've been living in my apartment for several months and I didn't file for divorce and am waiting for you to go to counseling like you promised and you say I don't want to trust you?

He then moved to another room and looked at me the way he looks/looked at me when he is trying to gauge my reaction to determine if what he is doing is working or not to scare me into laying off, and said maybe we are not meant for each other and we should get a divorce. I thought to myself, wow, if I move back to his house with my kids this is how it's going to be, any time I ask him about something or question his behavior as to truth, he is going to suggest divorce. Unacceptable in terms of working together as a couple to address trust issues in a marriage, and he had tried it before. So I said, that's a good idea, I agree. Then he lashed out at me with a lot of verbal and emotional abuse. I said I am taking my dog for a walk when I come back I want you to be gone. I did and he was.

I filed for divorce as soon as the courts were open after the New Year's holiday. On our anniversary on 1/2 he called me to wish me a happy anniversary and to tell me that he loved me. I hung up the phone. Not interested in ever having divorce used as a threat to me when I am asking questions in order to ascertain that my intimacy is secure. The bottom line is that he knew he was busted by those scratches on his back shoulder and his moustache smelling like *****.

He even went so far as to say that he was having memory issues and pointed out some stuff he was having trouble with, and then after he had done that for a couple days, including mentioning road rage on Christmas day after visiting with his family...and saying he was going to suicide by car....said that he was feeling abused in the relationship. Apparently he had read up on symptoms of abuse and was making sure he checked all the boxes and then was accusing me of being abusive to him. 

I said to him, if you are feeling abused by me then you have an entire house you can go home to, you don't need to stay here. If you are feeling abused in a relationship, you should do what I did and leave the relationship, I am not making you stay here in my apartment and if you feel like committing suicide and having short term memory issues and road rage issues then you should definitely leave and also go get counseling and therapy, especially since you just came back from deployment (desk job in Kuwait) and you had a close friend try to commit suicide while you were there, etc. He didn't like that line of thinking at all. He then accused me of wanting him to commit suicide by car so that I could get insurance, I was like, gee, if I wanted your insurance why did I move out with the intent of filing for divorce, that doesn't make sense because I will not get your insuarance if we are divorced. 

LOL. I think if there is an addiction to power and control and manipulation in a relationship, it can get so out of hand once the balance of power is tipping in the abusee's favor (I'd moved out, did not need him to support me, wasn't interested in money or all the material stuff he was trying to ply me with...in effect had taken away his perceived power base...) that it becomes desperate and transparent and ceases to make sense or hold together logically. 

My ex reminds me of that guy who was behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz. Pretending to be solid and wise and in charge of our lives, all the while it was just an act designed to achieve power and control because deep inside he is a Wuss and doesn't believe anyone could love him. In his case, it became a self-fulfilling prophesy. Some people don't want love, because they can't handle it, their self-esteem is so damaged by their lives that they don't believe anyone could love them, so they turn to manipulation and outside seeking of affirmation...then they are the kind of people who don't really deserve love in a marriage or committed relationship because they are cheaters and abusers...and so they make up stories to themselves about why their partner is with them (for money, or sex...) and then get it in their head that is the truth, and so then feel justified in abusing them because they 'don't really love' the cheater, and if they do, they shouldn't, and so should be despised. 

What a way to live!


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## lordmayhem (Feb 7, 2011)

I think I've said this in a similar thread. This is my second time around being burned as my ex-wife cheated on my during my first marriage. But that happened so long ago, that I forgot all the signs and didn't recognize them for what they were this time.


*Unusual/Increased computer usage *- I had set up our laptop in our bedroom, but she didn't like using it there because the signal was weak. I had just introduced her to facebook at the time and she started using the laptop in the bedroom, closing the door. When I would walk in, it seemed like she was closing windows and would give me a surprised, guilty look. Now all of a sudden, the wi-fi signal was fine. I didn't think anything at the time, just happy for her that she was able to communicate with her family and old female friends better. She DID NOT tell me that she got in contact with an old boyfriend.
*Sudden interest in having her picture taken all the time and posting it on facebook *- She would have me upload her pictures all the time. I checked her messages and never saw anything going on so I thought she was just being a ham. Later I would learn that she was deleting every incoming and outgoing message from OM, and that she was posing for pictures for him. I would also later learn that she had established a secret facebook account under a fake name using her work email account. This secret account only had 1 friend (OM). I wish I had installed computer monitoring software back then.
*Sudden interest in getting a new phone *- whereas before, she constantly refused to upgrade her phone because she loved her old trusty Motorola Razr and didn't want the expense of getting a data plan. Then all of a sudden she wanted a blackberry. Little did I know she was already deeply in the EA with this old HS boyfriend that I didn't know about yet. From what I know now, she had already told him that she loved him by that time.
*Cell phone practically glued to her hand *- I merely attributed this to having a new cell phone. In one instance, she had forgotten her cell phone on the dresser and it was vibrating. She was in the kitchen cooking and she literally ran from the kitchen out of breath and grabbed the phone. I thought it was funny at the time. It's not so funny now.
*Physical/Sexual withdrawal *- Sex became literally non existent. Her reasoning was because she was so tired from work all the time now. Which led to the next red flag.
*Complete change in sleeping habits *- she would normally sleep late so she could watch her television shows that I recorded for her. Now, she began sleeping early, around 8 or 9 pm, which was extremely early for her. She would come home looking completely exhausted. She claimed it was the stress of her job. I would later learn that OM would get off of work around 4 am and she was getting up around that time so she could call him while I was asleep. She would call him that early, and then throughout the day, every day. Maxing out at 3,515 minutes in a single month at the height of the affair.
*Emotional Withdrawal *- Picking fights and literally yelling at me the moment she would walking in the door from work. I called her out on this and she claimed it was the stress from work because her bank acquired Wachovia, and there was a huge increase in workload and work goals. It got to the point where I was considering asking her to change jobs and work for another bank. I increased what I was doing at home, now doing all the cooking, cleaning, and laundry. No matter what I did, it was never enough and she found fault in everything. She would pick fights for no reason. Of course, I would later learn that she was trying to justify her cheating to herself by demonizing me.
*Stopped going to church *- We used to go to church every Sunday. She instead would just sleep in until noon. Of course she would say she's just so tired from work that she was catching up on her sleep. At this point, I would wake up in the morning and see her asleep on the living room couch. She said she moved there during the night because I was snoring. WTF? Later I would learn it was because OM was off on weekends and they would literally spend the whole night talking on the phone after I went to bed. Ironically, even though we stopped going to Church, I found out through her messages to OM, that she was praying to God that they would be reunited again and she could be his wife. She even sent him a polo shirt and rosary beads.
*Distancing herself from our circle of friends *- From parties to kids parties, she would tell me to go ahead because she was cooking. She would then show up a couple of hours later. Call logs would later reveal she was using this time to call OM.


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## keko (Mar 21, 2012)

Not many she only stopped calling me during lunch hour, acted normal for the rest. It ended up being she was screwing a few coworker's and friends of a "friend" during her lunch break. All within 3 weeks. Crazy a$$ b!tch.


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## Count of Monte Cristo (Mar 21, 2012)

Homemaker_Numero_Uno said:


> Marriage ended when he showed up with scratches on his back in a place where a hand goes during intimacy and could not explain them, the scab was about 5 days old and 5 days prior to that *his moustache had smelled funny (like meow meow)*


Could've been worse... could've smelled like azz.

:rofl:


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## RWB (Feb 6, 2010)

When I read this thread, it's like seeing my wife's affairs in reverse. What's really amazing is how "Now" we all would see the flags and signs flapping at 100 mph. What a hard lesson to learn... ):


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## Maricha75 (May 8, 2012)

Well, I recognized the signs because they were the same things *I* did!
1. Phone ALWAYS on my person... at all times. Hid it when I went to bed (tho he didn't do that), took into the bathroom with me/him ALL the time.
2. Smiles while texting, but tried to hide the smile.
3. The dynamic of "I love you" vs "I love you, too"... he noticed when I stopped saying "I love you" first....so I started saying it again (and that's when my fog started lifting and my EA ended). I noticed he kept up saying "I love you, too". 

Still wasn't certain, but out of curiosity, I looked at his texts... and that's when I knew he was having an EA. Ugh! And then, he told her I saw some texts, but I just said no sexual innuendo, etc. (That was true, because there was nothing that was concrete and I was in denial)... She actually told him that's why she deletes all her texts every night! If I knew whether she was still with her BF, I'd have sent him a letter. I probably should have. 

Fortunately, my husband has no desire to speak with her. Not since the NC text was sent and she flipped out on him.


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## warlock07 (Oct 28, 2011)

lordmayhem said:


> I think I've said this in a similar thread. This is my second time around being burned as my ex-wife cheated on my during my first marriage. But that happened so long ago, that I forgot all the signs and didn't recognize them for what they were this time.
> 
> 
> *Unusual/Increased computer usage *- I had set up our laptop in our bedroom, but she didn't like using it there because the signal was weak. I had just introduced her to facebook at the time and she started using the laptop in the bedroom, closing the door. When I would walk in, it seemed like she was closing windows and would give me a surprised, guilty look. Now all of a sudden, the wi-fi signal was fine. I didn't think anything at the time, just happy for her that she was able to communicate with her family and old female friends better. She DID NOT tell me that she got in contact with an old boyfriend.
> ...


How did it end? I read bits of your story here and there but never knew the extent of her affair. How do you recover from that?


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## lordmayhem (Feb 7, 2011)

warlock07 said:


> How did it end? I read bits of your story here and there but never knew the extent of her affair. How do you recover from that?


My friend and I were talking about how our wives would email each other from work. So I thought to myself, she wouldn't have a secret facebook account using her work email would she? So I entered it, without a password and a strange account under a different name appeared. Normally, if there is no facebook account, the error message would say "there is no facebook account associated with this email". But there it was, an account associated with her email. I was devastated. My buddy said to confront her, and not knowing any better, not knowing her password yet, I confronted her and got the denial at first. The "He's just a friend" excuse. Confronted way too early. Did ALL THE WRONG THINGS for the next two weeks, like begging, crying, pleading, being needy and pathetic, etc, etc, etc.


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## iheartlife (Apr 4, 2012)

Before DD#1:
--he talked a little too excitedly about his co-worker
--he constantly shared texts that they had exchanged
--he texted her (and he said, a male co-worker too) constantly--I still recall him coming out of the bathroom to read a text they exchanged

After DD#1:

Despite "R" and MC, he was very distant. He always seemed 1,000 miles away.
He would pick fights, was irritable about small things

He would wilfully misunderstand almost anything I said--many times I expressed despair to him over this (after a couple of years, I decided I must be the one with the serious communication problem--never mind that I had known him for more than 15 years at that point!)

He started and finished P90X

His cell phone became surgically attached to his hand, slept with it under his pillow, and "checked the time" two or more times a night
His cell phone was passworded
He always needed to "check email" before I could use his phone to call (like a restaurant while in the car)

Gifts and cards were obviously hastily bought at the last possible minute with minimal thought (compared to the past)

Sex basically became non-existent, and the few times we tried he could not perform

He became a regular user of porn--the women were consistently of the same race as his AP

I always feel like a blinking idiot when I think about how fooled I was.


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## Count of Monte Cristo (Mar 21, 2012)

I think we miss the clues and cues because we're in a fog ourselves. I'm a firm believer that we create our own reality in this world, and the one that we created was that our spouse would be faithful to us. Now that the fog has lifted, it all seems so crystal clear.


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## AngryandUsed (Jun 23, 2011)

BS feels that something is not right....Then BS starts to look. But prior to that "feeling something is not right", how can a BS look for signs? And expect those from the most trusted person? OMG.


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## MattMatt (May 19, 2012)

My wife actually told me in advance what she was going to do, that she was going to have an affair. And who with.

Go on, tell me that's not as unique as I thought!


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## Lone Star (Feb 2, 2012)

Yes, the signs were there for me too. In the beginning they were small and I believed I could trust him. As I began to question the small things then the big problems started. He was cake eating and when I figured it out everything went to hell very quickly. I still believe there is something big being hidden from me, my gut feeling tells me it is a baby. I pray I am wrong, two of my sons has nothing to do with him at this point and the third is on shaky ground. Finding out about a 1/2 sibling would not be good.


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## LeighRichwood (Mar 31, 2012)

There are always signs, we just don't always see or heed them. I saw the signs, but totally went about figuring it out the wrong way. I started asking questions and challenging the answers. All this did was alert him to get better at hiding the signs.


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## iheartlife (Apr 4, 2012)

LeighRichwood said:


> There are always signs, we just don't always see or heed them. I saw the signs, but totally went about figuring it out the wrong way. I started asking questions and challenging the answers. All this did was alert him to get better at hiding the signs.


It is so painful watching newly betrayed spouses making these same mistakes. I think if we could preserve a few people from learning the hard way it could make up for our own pain a little. But sometimes I feel we're to be denied that, too.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## warlock07 (Oct 28, 2011)

lordmayhem said:


> My friend and I were talking about how our wives would email each other from work. So I thought to myself, she wouldn't have a secret facebook account using her work email would she? So I entered it, without a password and a strange account under a different name appeared. Normally, if there is no facebook account, the error message would say "there is no facebook account associated with this email". But there it was, an account associated with her email. I was devastated. My buddy said to confront her, and not knowing any better, not knowing her password yet, I confronted her and got the denial at first. The "He's just a friend" excuse. Confronted way too early. Did ALL THE WRONG THINGS for the next two weeks, like begging, crying, pleading, being needy and pathetic, etc, etc, etc.


Ouch Ouch Ouch....


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## snap (Oct 3, 2011)

If you love your spouse, you tend to interpret even the worst signs there for their benefit.

It's not about seeing but believing.


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## the guy (Aug 3, 2010)

I really didn't give a damb about my fWW. As long as I got first dibbs, she could f^ck off. I was insuck a bad place back in the day.

I can remember the 1st A and did a rug sweeping confrontation, then after a few years I just blew her off. I figured as long as I didin;t have to deal with fWW I was fine. In fact it was better then listening to her complain and b*tch.

This kind of think was a result of 13 yrs the snow balled into a very dangerous life style my fWW. It was then we save eack other.

In the end....over 2 yrs ago I finaly confronted her. Once I started to give a sh*t it wasn't hard to see what was going on, in fact it was quite easy to catch her. Even better it was easier to stop her.


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## Sara8 (May 2, 2012)

MattMatt said:


> My wife actually told me in advance what she was going to do, that she was going to have an affair. And who with.
> 
> Go on, tell me that's not as unique as I thought!



Matt Matt:

It isn't as unique as you thought. 

I have read more than 40 books on infidelity and they mention that often the man or woman will tell the spouse either directly or indirectly that they want to cheat or will cheat. 

Sometimes they simply talk about another person of the opposite sex too much. When they stop talking about that person, that's when the affair began. 

Another way they may tell you is by telling you a tad too often and out of the blue or out of context to anything having to do with infidelity, that they would NEVER EVER cheat on you. 

My cheater husband did this all the time. He constantly told me he would never cheat on me. Sadly I believed him. 

Cheating was never on my radar, but I never felt the need to announce that to my spouse. To me it was understood as part of my marriage vows.


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## jinba (Apr 26, 2012)

Ah yes, the marriage vows - "for better or worse" "I do" and ... I did. For those of us who value those vows, it's difficult to believe our W's and H's would ever betray them. But they do, and because we feel so strongly about those vows, we often don't see the writing on the wall.


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## RWB (Feb 6, 2010)

I never picked up on the smoke-screen of using your children to hide behind your own disloyal affairs.

My wife wedged my 18 year old daughter between me and her affairs. I still have a hard time with this. I was painted as the "controlling" non understanding mean father. She kept secrets from me about what was going on in my daughter life. I was always the bad parent. She was the understanding one. What a shame.

Think about it... How could she be honest with me about my daughter when she is sleeping with other men herself.


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