Is My Husband Cheating on Me?

Short answer - yes, you have something to worry about.

If you're having problems, as he claims, they are not going to be resolved by getting a third person involved. If he's unhappy, etc., then he needs to address it with you, not someone else. And especially NOT another woman!!!! Sounds to me more than just talking to her for advice - early morning calls? night time calls? Doesn't add up to being just a "friend"!

Sorry!

Good luck!!

Putting someone under the microscope can lead to resentment. Be careful what you go searching for, and be prepared to find it... good or bad.
No one here can answer your question.

So sorry you are going through this. Yes, I would take this very seriously. Insist on couples therapy and also insist that he no longer has casual contact with this woman. I would ask to speak to her to let her her know she is not to devlelop a friendship with your husband because they started behind your back. As a result, they can not be trusted. Once again, so sorry you are going through this. Get some professional help for you even if he won't go.

Yes he's cheating. IMO, whether he slept with her or not doesn't matter, he is emotionally attached to her, not you, and yes, in my book, that is cheating.

Now, what to do about it? He likely has just gotten another phone to call her or is texting or calling from work. You may not know that. But HE said you guys are having problems so that shouldn't be a surprise to you. Now YOU need to start working on fixing it..ASAP.

What matters now is saving you marriage. I divorced my ex husband for this same thing...but I did everything I could to make it better, and he wouldn't do anything. I don't know if you have kids, but divorce is VERY hard on them so please do everything in your power to make it thru this. Good luck!

Who knows?
Probably he & she only know for sure.

I do know this: his approach to "ending" it was cowardly. Instead of handling it like a man, he acted like a petulant child "my wife caught me & says I'm not allowed"!?

Great. Now, since you know her, you can be humiliated every time you see or talk to her, right? Geeeez.

So...who knows? I hope not. Good luck!

If you have to ask these types of questions then I would put my money on there being a problem in your marriage. Go with your gut it never lies. I agree with the above... you better be ready for whats underneath that rock your about to flip over. Good Luck

S.:

Why don't you trust him?
What made you look at the records?
What bothers me about this? the accuser is the one who is doing what they are accusing of.

I know personally that when I am having troubles with my husband, I can call several men to get a "man's perspective" - my dad, my brother and two male friends I have. My husband has female friends too.

You need to get to the root of the problem with your marriage. Does it require counseling? Maybe. It is obvious you two need to learn how to communicate WITH each other.

What I can tell you from past, personal experience? That if you keep up the lack of trust - it will show and destroy your marriage. To the point where if he hasn't PHYSICALLY cheated ? he will. Why get accused of doing something I'm not doing? that is the mentality that happens in situations like this.

You have NOTHING other than phone calls.
They WORK together. He didn't LIE to you and tell you that he was talking to her about work.

Your marriage needs work. No one here can tell you IF you can trust him, we can tell you our experience. We can tell you what WE would do. None of us know your husband. You state he is the love of your life. Want to keep it that way?

I would strongly suggest counseling. So you can learn to communicate with EACH OTHER and understand that it is okay for a man to have a friendship with a W. and vice versa. (note - I did not state it was okay to call first thing in the AM or last thing at night - yes, it would bother me that he couldn't talk to ME - but at least he was talking to SOMEONE and not out drinking or sleeping with someone - it was ON THE PHONE).

Remember, you are his PARTNER not his mother.

"...[H]e stated that they were just friends, and we were having trouble, so he needed someone to talk to."

THIS, to me, is what you need to focus on. Is it the truth, or is it an excuse for his cheating?

If you are having trouble in your relationship, you don't go talking to someone else about it. You talk to your spouse.

The fact that he's HIDING it from you speaks volumes. He calls her in the morning and he gives her a "good night call"? He goes outside to talk?

If she's a co-worker and he has only a professional relationship, why is he talking about his marriage? Doesn't he have friends of long standing with whom he can talk?

He's avoiding you. SO you both need to get counseling. If he won't go, you have a giant problem.

I agree that your need to spy on him is a problem but his need to hide things is even bigger. So even if he stops calling her, you don't have anyone actually working on the marriage - not you, not him. That's the biggest red flag of all.

He doesnt sound really sorry, more sorry he got caught more than anything.
I'd say something like "Babe, I want to get this incident behind us never to be brought up again", and then let him know what it is he needs to say or do to help you trust him again..... you should know what that is. Let him know that you are going to take awhile to get over it. If he truly understands how much this has affected the marriage he will do what you need him to do. If he acts immature and resistant to your plea, I'd say he's guilty.

I think there are deeper issues here. My husband has female friends and for YEARS I would pitch a fit if I found out he was talking to them. He cheated on me prior to our marriage and it has taken me a long time to get to a point where certain things don't make me feel like he is again. Our counseling over the summer opened some lines of communication for us that were closed before.

You need to talk to him. Tell him WHY it bothers you that he is talking to her, and if he can't respect your feelings, there is a problem. He doesn't have to agree with you, but still. If he isn't making you feel like you're the only woman he loves and wants, then that's the problem.

I caught my husband cheating back in 2009 via phone records. I was not snooping but he went went way over on minutes and our phone bill was over $400 (normally 120) so then I did start looking into it. We had several conversations and he admitted he was cheating. He agreed not to call her for the period of one month so we could work on our relationship and all he did was get a trac phone so that I wouldn't see it on his main cell or the company records. I found the trac phone the morning of our 15th anniversary and we had a huge blowup.

We are still together and I trust him for the most part-I don't snoop at the phone records but there is always that doubt now.

It is hard to know how far it's gone, you surely have better instincts about this than any of us. If it were me I would be bothered that instead of him saying "you know what, you're right- inappropriate to turn to her about our marriage, I'm stopping this", he basically said "got caught, can't talk to her anymore". He didn't recognize the issue and step up to the plate about it, he accepted your consequence.

I think when trust is broken, privacy is no longer a privilege. I would snoop until I felt comfortable with his behavior or I confirmed my worst suspicion.

Do find a way to get to the bottom or your marital issues, which now includes appropriate decision making and good judgment. As you go through that process, you'll likely ferret out the information you need to rest assured one way or the other. Good luck to you, and sorry you are going through this.

My general opinion is that, if you suspect your husband of cheating, your marriage is in trouble. Whether or not he's cheating, he's being inappropriate, and that you don't trust him is a huge problem.

I think you have something to worry about, here.

I can understand the need to talk to a trusted friend about marital troubles. That's not what he's doing. Think about it -- would you be calling early morning and before bed and when you were out of town to have marital counseling with a friend? Or would you be strengthening THAT friendship instead? Marital problems may be the impetus of the calls, but I don't think you or your marriage was the topic of conversation.

If you badger him about his trustworthiness, you will create an even larger rift. I have no solid advice other than to say his behavior sounds fishy and it may be time to focus extra energies on your marriage -- be that a vacation away together, marital counseling, or other things to strengthen the bonds between you. I believe he is being true to his word, but it doesn't remove the cause of his behaviors.

What I recommend that you do is tell him that either he goes to counseling with you, or you will march up to his boss at work and complain about this woman he works with. He won't like that, and either he will go to counseling with you, or he will show his true colors and go to her. If he goes to her, then he really IS having an affair.

I would also call the woman and tell her that you expect for the phone calls to stop and the friendship to cool down while you two work on your marriage.

If you are working with a counselor, then you should be better able to gage whether or not he is trustworthy. But S., it isn't just about HIM working on the marriage. You must work on it too. It's about both of you, not just him.

Dawn

no, i don't think he's trustworthy. i think he's given you no choice but to assume he had an affair. and i don't think that is an unreasonable assumption at this point. (men like to throw around the words "crazy" and "paranoid" when confronted with something like this - don't let that change your mind. you're not)

i think counseling would be best as well. he's not invested if he is willing to hurt you like this. you two need to reconnect.

my now husband cheated on me years ago. it has taken A LOT of time and work and dedication and we are now back on track...but it is an uphill battle and he HAS to be on board. this is on HIM, not you, really. he broke the trust, he will have to WORK to earn it back. assuming he's willing to. it can be done.

I agree with TF. They're partners. You search your son's belongings, not your husbands.

That said, as long as you snoop, you won't have a trusting marriage, because you don't trust. As one of the two people in the marriage, if you don't, then he won't.

But you snooped, and found a bigger secret. Maybe that's justified, maybe it's not. But here we are.

Should you trust him - only if you want your marriage to work. And I'm not making any judgments, if talking to another woman is enough to break the trust in your marriage, then your decision is about divorce, not trusting him about texting.

i dont know if he's cheating but it does sound like you have a problem b/c i dont see call friends that much and all times of the day and night. but i hope he aint. but i would get proof bc you dont want to mess things up if nothings going on.. good luck. sorry

Well part of the mystery is knowing he has the potential to cheat. Secondly, only you know your husband and what is going on in the home to cause him to confide in someone else. Trust has been broken and it takes time to rebuild, but as for you take his word for it now. Dont pester him, but don't be naive. Keep a watchful eye on it, plan ahead how to handle it and realize the reality that if he does decide to continue, there is nothing you can do to stop it. You can only protect yourself from more emotional damage. But give him the benefit of a doubt and love him back to YOU. Make this serve as a wake up call and eye opener.

I think the question should be, what is missing in your marriage that he feels he needs to talk to someone else? Don't worry about this other person. Sit down with your husband have an open forum discussion. Let him talk and explain everything. Don't interupt and then have him do the same for you. If you need to seek counseling then do it. Marriage is hard period. It takes work, sometimes you have to put in more than you receive and vice versa. You will fall in and out of love over the years, but you have to fight for it. Let go of him talking to this other person. Make him want to talk to you. Good luck.

I don't know if he's cheating, but the fact that he didn't try too hard to deny it is disturbing. Like, he could've just said, oh, we were just talking about work, etc. but instead he ADMITTED talking to her in a personal/intimate way.
Don't look at his phone records, that makes you seem pathetic and desparate (sorry) spend some TIME with him, TALK, find out what's going on.
Like any other home repair it sounds like this marriage needs some work!

Shift your focus. It is time for you to get some support for you. I spent 17 years with a man that cheated and it wasn't until I started to heal my own childhood woundings that life started to improve.

You have no control over his behaviors and the more you focus on trying to control it you will move deeper and deeper into the abyss of repeating patterns. It is time to see what is in you that matches this painful picture.

I had believed all my life that other women were better than me. So, it is no mistake that I brought a man in that basically thought the same thing. It does not mean I "caused" him to cheat because the cause was in him before we ever met. It does mean that we matched and until I healed my own core beliefs nothing could change for me.

When we have painful, false core beliefs we will bring in whatever matches those beliefs. As we start to bring those beliefs to awareness and question them they begin to dissolve and our patterns will then release us.

Get support whether it is counseling, coaching, a group, books, seminars, etc. Gather lots of information on boundaries, self-care, co-dependency, questioning belief systems, etc. It is time for you to focus on you.

The more you distract yourself by focusing on him the more suffering you will feel. It is not possible to change him no matter how much you plead, nag, blame, cry, persuade, preach, or punish.

The advantage to focusing on you is it also leaves him to deal completely with his own choices. Right now, in some ways, you are actually taking on some of the energy of his choices and rescuing him from his consequences. This means he doesn't have all the energy in his space that he has to feel, see, and deal with every day.

Some resources I highly recommend are:
The Art of Extreme Self-Care by Cheryl Richardson
Boundaries: Where You End and I Begin by Anne Katherine
The Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford
Concious Loving by Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks
www.hendricks.com
www.thework.com

Do not complain to his boss at work. This is your family's problem and although she works with him it's not a work related problem. I suggest his boss will laugh. It feels like a child complaining to a parent.

It's good that he's stopped the phone calls. That is a good sign. Instead of focusing on other ways he can talk with her focus on ways to make it less attractive for him to talk with her. You said the two of you are having difficulties. Plan for times to be together in fun ways as well as times to talk about what is troubling both of you.

The next step is to get into counseling so that you both of someone to talk with who can also help you find ways to be there for each other.

I also suggest that you read Non-violent Communication and learn those skills so that you can both hear and understand the other person. There is a book and a web site. Here is a site that describes the theory and give examples of how to practice it.

http://www.wikihow.com/Practice-Nonviolent-Communication

Yes, you have something to worry about. My ex-husband was involved in an affair with someone he worked with for 3 years before I found out. I was not snooping and trusted him. I found out because the person he was sleeping with had one of her friends call me at work and inform me that he was not at work that day but with his girlfriend. Afterwards I wish I had snooped because it would have saved me and my children a lot of pain. His affair began as a friendship which led to becoming emotionally involved and then to being sexually involved. He left 3 years ago and we just got divorced this month. If I can help one woman not go through the pain I have gone through I want to. You need to confront him and demand complete openness and honesty. You should be able to read all his e-mails, text messages, etc. as well as him being allowed to read yours. You need to demand he agree to marriage counseling. If he disagrees to any of this you need to have him leave your home until he is ready to comply with your wishes. I know all this sounds harsh and demanding but he's given you a reason not to trust him; and if you are willing to be completely honest and open with all of your communication then he shouldn't have a problem with it. You do need to prepare yourself though, because an affair becomes like an addiction and when you're involved with someone that you work with and see on a regular basis it is very hard to separate youself from it (especially if she does not want it to end). It can be done though. It just depends how bad he wants to save his marriage.

I would be really pissed he went to a co-worker to talk about us. I would also make it really clear to HER that she is not to call your husband. I would also grab his phone some time when he least expects it to check the texting. It was in very poor taste as you said. If he has a problem with your relationship fixing it starts at home, not talking to someone else. Period. I am a very jealous person and would be acting like one if that happen to me.