# Can't trust my husband



## unhappy10 (Jul 18, 2010)

I've been married for 22 years and for the last 10 + years I haven't been able to trust my husband. It all started when I found an email from a female he contacted through some sort of forum. She happened to live in the same town and was married too. He actually had a picture of her. When I confronted him about it, he said that he was just looking for someone to talk to and nothing more. I somewhat believed him since we were having some communication problems. 
Another time he lied to me about being at his mom's house when he was actually supposedly shopping with one of his female co-workers. The way I found out about this was when I tried to get in touch with him at his mom's and he wasn't there. I asked him why he lied and he said that he thought I would be upset if I found out he went "shopping" with a female.
This is when I started snooping around to see what else he has been doing behind my back. Well, when he came back from deployment I found an email to one of the people he deployed with and the subject line read: Hello my love! The letter itself was pretty generic with not much detail, but it was signed "kisses and his name." It drove me nuts for a while and I even thought about confronting him about it, but then just dropped it because the letter didn't say anything about them ever being together.
These are just a few examples I have run across in the past. I try not to snoop too much. It makes me feel really bad. For a while I wasn't doing it at all until he started coming home from work late with a smile on his face. We had just moved to another country and things were difficult and we actually talked about divorce. Anyway, I started snooping around again and I found that he was visiting a lot of porn sites to include wife swap and such. I wasn't really surprised about them because he has always been open about porn and how much he liked it. He always tries to get me to watch it too. Well, one night when we got really drunk, he told me that he would like to see me have sex with another guy. I agreed in my drunken state and he called one of his friends. He was extremely happy the next day and talked about swapping and open marriage. He was ecstatic when I agreed to give it a try. He of course jumped right in and contacted a person that he knew from work. He tried to hook up with her, but I don't think she felt very comfortable with him being married. After a few weeks I told him that I changed my mind and that I didn't think that our marriage was stable enough to do those sort of things. He reluctantly agreed and we haven't talked about it since.
So now my husband is away again and I decided to check on him. Well, I found out that he is trying to hook up with women there. Not sure if he is successful as all I can see are the emails sent. I don't think he realizes that they are in his sent box, because I'm sure he would have deleted them by now. I don't see any in his inbox though some of the emails that he sent had replies from the person he contacted. He must delete them right away from his inbox. I also checked his facebook messages and it showed where he sent an email to a girl that was stationed with him at the time he was coming home late all the time. It said "sure wish you were in my arms right now." 
Sorry, I know this post is long, but I really needed to get this stuff out that I have been bottling up inside of me. I know it's wrong to snoop and there really is no excuse for doing so. I've asked him casually before if he ever cheated on me and of course he denies it. 
Now, I'm not sure what to do. Should I confront him about what I found or should I continue snooping to see if I run across anything else? My husband is the kind of person that says that it's ok to lie and have made comments of how some men just don't know how to cover their tracks when they are out there fooling around. I thought about leaving him many times, but we also have two young children, which is really the reason why I haven't. 
Let me also say that we haven't had the happiest marriage and are supposed to seek marriage counseling when he gets back. However, I don't think that this gives him a right to do what he is trying to do.
Thanks in advance for reading and for any advice you can give me.


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## 827Aug (Apr 27, 2008)

I'm so sorry you are going through this. Unfortunately, when you lose trust in a spouse there really isn't much left. Like many of us on this forum, you have strong "gut feelings" something is wrong. And most times those vibes are correct.

Don't apologize for snooping. Your spouse has given you plenty of reasons to snoop. IT IS JUSTIFIED at this point. You need to do more detective work before you confront him though. Many times a liar/cheater will deny everything even when caught in the act. Have plenty of evidence before confronting him. And before you go having doubts, remember that all cheaters are liars. They all get lost in their lies and get caught....eventually.

I stumbled onto my estranged husband's "swinging" fantasies too. My therapist basically told me to forget about even trying to save our marriage. She said it would take some major counseling to even get him back into our marriage. This mess isn't for me at all, so the counselor said we were at two different ends of the spectrum. I guess this is what middle-aged men do now when they are bored with the wife and kids at home.

Hope you get some peace. The trust issue can be sheer torture.


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## unhappy10 (Jul 18, 2010)

Thank you, 827 Aug, for your reply. I will most definitely try to do some more detective work. I've been saving all emails he has written in a private file and password protected. What gets me the most is that we talk on a daily basis and he is always so nice to me, which is usually the case when he is away. 
I keep thinking that somehow I'm the one to blame for him wanting to look for sex else were. He often says that I'm too uptight. I know he looks at a lot of porn and I'm sure he is getting a lot of crazy ideas from the sites.
I'm just wondering if he will ever be able to change his ways. It seems that I continue to stumble across things. When I confront him about coming home late he always gets really upset and says that he is sick and tired of hearing about it. He gets really defensive, which makes me believe that he is hiding something.
The hardest thing for me is the kids. If they weren't in the picture, I would have been long gone.


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## schmitt1014 (Jul 20, 2010)

You are not the one to blame trust me I am going through the same thing with my husband. He is deployed and he has cheated on me and admitted it. Our counseler told him my snooping was justified. Just like 827 AUG said. He has given you the reason to do and don't stop until you feel you should. My husband has been doing good so far for about 2 weeks but I will not stop snooping until I feel like he has changed. Trust me snooping is the only way to put your "gut" feelings at ease. Whether you get to talk to him about it right away or not cause at least when you do or don't find something you will have an answer as to what your gut was trying to tell you. Women's intuition....it is uncanny.... if you need anything or just someone to vent to you can email me.


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## unhappy10 (Jul 18, 2010)

So I'm still checking his email on a regular basis. Last night there were several more from where he is trying to hook up with women. I don't think he is getting many responses, but just knowing that he is trying is eating me up inside. I'm still copying the emails and saving them, but I can't help but feel bad doing so. 

The other day he went shopping for clothes, something he doesn't really do a lot, but he said that he wanted to change his wardrobe. I asked jokingly who he was trying to impress and all he said was, "here we go again with your assumptions that I'm out there doing something." I want to really just come out and say that I know for a fact you are trying, but know that's not a good idea right now.

One of the things that worries me the most is that he'll catch a STD and then pass it on to me. He is not one that likes wearing condoms and he doesn't really have to worry about getting anyone pregnant since he had a vasectomy. 

He is going to be gone for another 8 weeks. At this point I'm not sure how to approach him when he gets back. Any suggestions?


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## 827Aug (Apr 27, 2008)

The wardrobe change is a big red flag. The fact that he got so defensive over your comment says a lot too. The wardrobe change indicates he is going into dating mode. And the wardrobe change probably reflects a more youthful style. 

You may want to see a therapist for individual counseling at this point. I've greatly benefited from it. A lying, cheating spouse can really destroy your own self-confidence. 

Until you can be sure he isn't having sex with others, why risk getting STDs. That's going to be a fine line to balance. Don't have sex with him and push him farther away, or have sex and risk catching a disease. It's a gamble. I really think you are approaching ultimatum time. He needs to focus on his marriage and quit hunting for someone on the side. Otherwise, the two of you need to think about splitting.


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## unhappy10 (Jul 18, 2010)

827Aug, I agree with the counseling. This is something I have done in the past, more so for trying to help me deal with my husband's short fuse and frequent arguments we were having. I asked my husband if he would consider counseling too and at that time he didn't want to. However, he has since agreed to marriage counseling once he got back from his trip. We certainly need it now more than ever. I don't think this is something we can work through on our own. 

He knows that I won't leave without giving it my all. The kids are the main reason for this. If I left him, they would hardly get to see him because of his job moving him every 3 years.


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## This Is Not Me (Feb 8, 2012)

Hello,
I haven't read fully read all the replies to your post; however, from what I have read, I can tell the main suggestion is to keep your snooping. I have been married for 10 years and stopped trusting my husband about 4 years ago. At the beginning of our marriage, he was a very jealous person, but I know realize the reason he was probably so untrusting was because he wasn't trust worthy himself (I was 22 at the time and to naive to realize it). My point is, I can almost relate point by point with everything you've said, from finding random emails to him justifying everything to me accepting it because I didn't have hard proof. His last slip up was after I started snooping that I decided to pretend to be someone else and see how far he would go, he went pretty far and further than he would ever have admitted (short of meeting up). To this day, he has no idea that was me. We have 1 child who adores his father and he is a great one at that. But as a husband, he sucks! What I am trying to say is, I know how you feel so much so that I feel like asking if we are married to the same guy? lol. HOWEVER, I hate myself for stooping so low as to pretend I was another person and I hate who I've become. I was never a jealous; to the point that I once argued with my now husband for not going to his ex-girfriends house who asked if he could help her with math. My main rule was, if you ever, ever feel like cheating or find yourself out of love with me, tell me! That's all I ask, be straight forward and you will find if you are an adult with me and the situation, I will handle it with understanding and not go off into some jealous rage. However, it seems like that was too hard a rule to follow  I lost trust and I resent him for it, but no amount of snooping will bring back the me I want to be. I will probably never trust him & again, feel that when he gets angry over my distrust, I resent him even more. This is a cycle that can only be broken by accepting change (as hard as that may be), and trying to find the caring trusting person you were before all this happened. I am now trying to find the courage to not let him talk me out of leaving him. Maybe not divorce yet, but at least taking a break for me to figure out if I can live with whatever he does (because they will not stop, I can almost guarantee that!), because only when I accept that that is who he is and it's my choice to live it, will we be able to function as a couple. OR, I realize that I cannot trust him and that I like being alone and in peace with myself and my surroundings. Either step will be hard, and you will go back and forth, but you owe it to yourself to be someone who doesn't need to "snoop" on her husband in order to sleep well at night...that was not part of any vow! Please consider this, I hate seeing women turn into snoopy nagging wives, the kind that we all joked about and promised never to become when were were dating. Good luck and may you find your peace


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## Hope1964 (Sep 26, 2011)

We need a smiley that posts the RED ALERT sound from Star Trek.

WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP

Isn't there some way of locking threads that are a certain age or something?


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

Not this necro sh!t again...
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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