did you know ir suspect your spouse of chetaing?

[frozensprouts]

it has sometimes been pointed out in different threads on this site that a betrayed spouse should somehow be aware that their spouse is cheating, and that by not doing anything, they are somehow to blame for it .

 

I don't agree with this. Perhaps in cases where the cheating is so "in your face" that it can't be ignored or explained away I could see that, but most of the time, the marriage is going along, as it always has, then one spouse strays and their behavior changes. Their spouse, wanting to think the best and trust them, chalks this up to every other reason than cheating, and don't suspect it.

 

I know I was that way...when I look back, I think i was a real idiot for not seeing what was right in front of me, but I trusted my husband, and when he told me she was "just a friend" I believed him ( maybe, on some level, he believed it too). I think I also trusted her...why would a single girl who could have her pick of single guys be interested in a married guy? Why get involved in such a tangled up situation? I think I may have also been projection my own beliefs/values on to her, as I believe cheating is wrong, and I assumed she would too.

 

if you are a betrayed spouse, did you suspect your spouse was cheating, or did you trust them? Did you maybe have a fleeting thought that they were cheating but you wanted to trust them so you pushed that suspicion way down and ignored it?

[reboot]

Trusted.

 

Became suspicious, but still trusted.

 

Ignored the obvious, and still trusted.

 

Realized I was a moron.

[Owl]

Trusted.

 

Became suspicious, but still trusted.

 

Ignored the obvious, and still trusted.

 

Realized I was a moron.

 

Pretty much sums it up for me too. Let myself get 'talked down' one too many times...finally when I SAW her trying to hide things from me, I KNEW that the line was crossed...then I installed a keylogger to get the proof I knew I'd need in order to confront.

 

Couldn't get access to her computer for another four days...but then had all the proof I needed.

[96nole]

The first time I found out, I had no idea. She was always involved with something other than her normal job. She would sell Mary Kay, or work at Weight Watchers, or off getting hair or nails done. Her pattern was rarely just got to work and then come home. And there were many evenings over the years she would come home late from work. Being a branch manager at a bank would force her to have long hours.

 

Thus I had no idea she was cheating because it was already normal for her to not be home at the same time every day. I has absolute trust and faith in her. So I easily missed any signs.

 

The second time I found out, I was having strange feelings that something may be going on. A few days before I found out, we were out and every time I looked her in the eye, I would get a loud booming voice in my head saying "you're just a cheating bitch". She also was taking night classes to become a elementary school teacher. She started coming home later at night after the classes. Then I found her email to the dirtbag and found out she was with him again. And out the door she went.

 

it has sometimes been pointed out in different threads on this site that a betrayed spouse should somehow be aware that their spouse is cheating, and that by not doing anything, they are somehow to blame for it .

 

I don't agree with this. Perhaps in cases where the cheating is so "in your face" that it can't be ignored or explained away I could see that, but most of the time, the marriage is going along, as it always has, then one spouse strays and their behavior changes. Their spouse, wanting to think the best and trust them, chalks this up to every other reason than cheating, and don't suspect it.

 

Anyone who believe the bolded part above needs to have their head examined. If someone actually believes this has either never been a BS or has never been a trusting spouse to begin with.

[beenburned]

I was very young and naive when I married, and had no knowledge about infidelity at all. I had been raised in a very sheltered conservative family.

 

I trusted my H completely, and had no reason to doubt his word about anything.

 

However after meeting several of his co-workers and their wives, I began to worry about how wild they were, and how much of an influence they were having on H. His whole attitude began to change.

 

Soon after this he took up their serial cheating/bragging habits.

It took me a long time to catch him, as he did it during normal working hours or lunch hours. Lucky for me, a co-workers wife called to tell me what she had heard.

 

All of the other wives divorced their H's. We were the only ones that had children, so both sets of our parents urged us to try and save the marriage for the children's sake.

[MollyBrown]

There were times I suspected something was going on, but brushed my fears aside because my husband was against cheating, or so he led me to believe. He even exposed a friend's affair with another friend's wife because "it's just wrong". We had a lot of heart to heart talks before marriage about it and I just never thought he would do that to me.

 

The hypocrisy still bothers me today. It's like he felt it was wrong for everyone but him. When I found out, he said since he was married, that meant that any woman who had sex with him was a *****. I reminded him that he was the married man who cheated with them and asked "what does that make you?" He just looked at the floor and said, " an idiot."

 

Accusing the BS of knowing and placing blame on them is just another cop out. They don't know what went on between the BS and the WS, or the lengths they went to in order to hide their infidelity.

[Steen719]

The first time XH cheated, I had no idea whatsoever. Not only did I not have an idea, but when he said he wanted to leave one month after we moved into our new home, I never thought that he was cheating, despite people asking me did I think it was going on. I asked him; he said no and I believed him. The attorney I saw was the one who convinced me he was and sure enough, he was. I was shocked, trusted him. This is what believing the other person will act as they said they would and also believing your partner has the same ideas about what constitutes an honest relationship will get you.

 

I know I was that way...when I look back, I think i was a real idiot for not seeing what was right in front of me, but I trusted my husband, and when he told me she was "just a friend" I believed him ( maybe, on some level, he believed it too). I think I also trusted her...why would a single girl who could have her pick of single guys be interested in a married guy? Why get involved in such a tangled up situation? I think I may have also been projection my own beliefs/values on to her, as I believe cheating is wrong, and I assumed she would too.

 

This is what I thought about my XH, too. I was wrong, wrong, wrong. I felt like an idiot.

 

The second time, I immediately thought he was in one way or another; PA or EA. That is why I checked the phone records. I had been on the receiving end of the ILYBINILWY speech before and I knew what that meant by the time I got that.

 

I never brushed away the facts when I found them. I will not accept the blame for his lack of integrity. That is on him.

[SoMovinOn]

I knew my STBXW was going to cheat ... knew she was "on the prowl". I knew the first time she did. I knew when she was doing things. I looked for evidence on many occasions, but, because of how it was working out for her, didn't find anything when I looked. I kept looking, eventually, she was nice enough to have a discussion about everything with a friend, via email. It was that email that finally gave me proof. I didn't have everything at that point, but I had enough to confront her.

 

I've never been more disappointed in being right.

[BetrayedH]

My WW talked about the OM (her boss) so much that I once said, "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were having an affair with this guy." She said, "Have you ever seen him? Balding, glasses - not my type." Otherwise, I was blindsided until she told me out of the blue that she had been unhappy for about two years, thought we might need to separate, that she needed time to think about it, but that it might be too late. I was blindsided. We never even argued but about twice a year and were over it by the next day. Decent house, two good jobs, two great kids, two good cars, lots of happy memories. I scrambled trying to fix whatever I could (exercise, weight loss, quit smoking, helped more about the house, tried to communicate - that she DIDN'T want). After three weeks of blaming myself, I couldn't make it add up and thought maybe there was someone else. I looked at her internet history and found she had been to hotwifeblog.com (a website for women to tell erotic stories about he extramarital affairs). She said she just liked reading the stories, just like I liked occassional porn. Then I found where the OM had sent an email to her personal email acct from his personal acct which was a Victoria's Secret ad. She said he was trying to pick out something for his wife and needed advice. This was all enough toget me to buy a GPS for her car. First download from the device showed her at a hotel from 10pm to midnight when she was "working."

 

Short story, I had NO idea until I discovered her affair and her gaslighting just delayed that for a while.

[Betrayed&Stayed]

Trusted.

 

Became suspicious, but still trusted.

 

Ignored the obvious, and still trusted.

 

Realized I was a moron.

 

That is why it hurts so deeply. You trust because that is what a loving spouse does, and then that trust is used against you.

 

It took me about a month to become suspicious. The first month or so I recognized a shift, but I wasn't sure what it was.

[Furious]

Now if my husband started wearing white shoes and wore his shirt unbuttoned to make room for gold chains around his neck..I might have become suspicious.

 

Unfortunately the signs were very subtle, and he used the greatest gift I gave him which was my trust.

 

In hindsight you see it, and it really pisses me off.

[Steen719]

Now if my husband started wearing white shoes and wore his shirt unbuttoned to make room for gold chains around his neck..I might have become suspicious.

 

Unfortunately the signs were very subtle, and he used the greatest gift I gave him which was my trust.

 

In hindsight you see it, and it really pisses me off.

 

Yes, my quote in the signature is how I really feel:

 

The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.

[SomedayDig]

I never really suspected anything except one time a few years ago. I've tried to recall why, but I asked her who _____ was. I don't know how or where I got the name, I just asked who it was. She played it off extremely well and said she had no idea. I only had a first name and have tried and tried to figure out how I got it. Anyway, because I was a pilot and away from home all the time, I didn't have any good signs. I would only be home a few days at a time and she was adept at her lying. She went so far as to tell me there would never be anyone but me.

 

Imagine how f'ng horrible I felt to find out the guy's name that she had the affair with.

[Ninja'sHusband]

Trusted.

 

Became suspicious, but still trusted.

 

Ignored the obvious, and still trusted.

 

Realized I was a moron.

I think this sums it up for a lot of people including me. There were tons of signs I should have heeded, many of them I was fully aware of. I just pushed it away thinking my beautiful wife of 14 years + 4 years dating would never do something like that. She drove with him to a conference and back and even soothed me with the thought that he 10 years older, was married with 2 kids and nothing could happen because of that. yeahh....... Funny how later she gave me similar lines about someone else and then got offended when I didn't trust her. Uhh...remember how you lied to me before???

 

I remember how pissed she got when I asked her for the phone number of one of her friends when I couldn't reach her on her cell phone after midnight. She went ape**** saying I was insanely jealous...no I just want a way to reach you to see if you are safe?!?!

 

She started talking about how *all* couples are screwed up, talking about how we aren't naturally monogamous. She lied about when she came home trying to make me think I was crazy. I'd frequently be in the computer room working on music or playing a game when she got back so she tried to use the excuse that I just didn't hear when she came back and that she'd been home for ages. Granted that might have actually happened a few times, but there were nights when I'd go looking for her. I'd look all over the house, in the garage, no car. 10 minutes later I'd come back out and there she'd be saying "I've been home for ages!" uhhh...no you haven't...

 

My father even told me she might cheat..3 times in one visit...and she was already in the affair. I think her mother was suspicious too, but she was against girls doing martial arts I think, and I wanted to be the supportive husband. Oops. Now tables are turned. I'm divorcing her because she won't quit her martial art and all of a sudden her mother supports it.

 

On and on and so forth...

[Janesays]

Yeah, I knew. Did nothing. Paid the price.

[frozensprouts]

looking back, maybe there were more signs that what I really was able to see, but at the time, my mind was so preoccupied with my children that maybe they were all I could see...

 

like the night I was with my daughter in the hospital...I called home to talk, as my daughter had finally fallen asleep, and I wanted to be able to "worry"...he didn't seem to want to talk, said he was tired and had to go...I believed him, as I thought he cared so much for our kids that what else could the reason be besides being tired? ( we knew by that point that her condition wasn't life threatening, but required hospitalization for treatment)

 

turns out, he was online chatting with her...

[Ninja'sHusband]

You know, I was thinking about the initial statement in this thread, that it could be the BS's fault for not taking action and being so blind.

 

I think a WS who says that is probably very hypocritical. Aren't these the same people who get so outraged that you dared to invade their privacy and actually figure out what's going on? And yet if you don't provide super solid proof, they'll just lie, gaslight, and deny anything and everything they can "minimizing" their own exposure. No I don't buy that idea at all.

 

Frankly jealousy does drive people away. Who wants to be with someone that's suspicious of them all the time? I always thought trust like that was a beautiful thing...now I feel corrupted like I'll never be able to have a healthy relationship again. I'll always be second guessing new partners, driving them away with my jealousy which didn't used to be such an issue with me.

[firemanq]

She was my first love, but I was not hers. She was a cute little thing, we dated, we had sex. Then she told me she was pregnant and we needed to get married. I was very naive and believed her. I was warned, my grandfather even warned me she had a bad reputation. We got married, happily I thought. Then I started counting on my fingers. Her/our daughter was born, early. Still naive, I believed her when she told me the child looked just like may grandfather. I kept counting on my fingers and figured I was played for a fool. She reffered to the girl as her child, never our child. Then her boyfriend got back in the picture, if he ever left. We had some bad times, I could never trust her. There was something I could not put my finger on. We had 3 more children, or maybe not. Once you get lied to, you never forget. One day we were arguing about some minor thing. I blurted out, "Why didn't you tell me?" We were not discussing the child. She knew what I meant. Her response, "I loved you so much I could not tell you." I told her that lying was a funny way to express love.

 

After the oldest was on her own, she told me to leave, that she was unhappy. She also told me it was my responsibility to tell the kids. As I put some clothes in my backpack, she got the kids together and told them I had something to tell them. I told them their mother was unhappy and it was my fault and I was leaving. I did, no place to go, I walked out the front door and left. Looking back, I should never have done to the kids what I did, but I was shocked and very upset.

 

I think that unhappy home was part of why 2 of the kids are so screwed up. That is the real tradgedy of cheating, the children suffer. I now have no relationship with 2 of the children, nor a relationship with their children. My oldest daughter and I get along great, I love her lots, also her husband and daughter. For being the odd child, she has recovered very well. The 3rd daughter and I get along great and I also love her lots, and her two daughters. Her husband not so much, he has no idea how lucky he is.

[SoMovinOn]

You know' date=' I was thinking about the initial statement in this thread, that it could be the BS's fault for not taking action and being so blind.[/quote']

 

I don't think it's ever the BS's fault for the WS cheating. Only the WS gets to be involved in making that choice. I think the sentiment is more realistically stated that both parties in any M are responsible for the state of the M. A's often happen when there are issues in the M (not always, but, often). A BS who chooses to ignore those issues, or refuses to address them certainly should not be terribly surprised to find their WS chose to look elsewhere.

[whichwayisup]

. A's often happen when there are issues in the M (not always, but, often). A BS who chooses to ignore those issues, or refuses to address them certainly should not be terribly surprised to find their WS chose to look elsewhere.

 

Why is it the BS who 'chooses' to ignore? what if they aren't aware of such issues because the WS doesn't communicate? So really it's the WS who chooses to ignore and doesn't want to address them (hoping issues will go away on their own by ignoring them, not dealing with it) so therefore WS handles it by going outside of the marriage. Not saying this is the case for all situations but it certainly isn't fair to put all of this on the BS when they are clueless about how their spouse feels and assumes all is okay.

[frozensprouts]

I have read more than just a few posts where both wayward spouses and other men/women seem to feel that the betrayed spouse must know their wayward spouse is cheating, yet they do nothing about it. Somehow this gets turned into the betrayed spouse not caring about their wayward spouse or that the cheating is going on...that, on some level, they are okay with it.

[YellowShark]

I trusted her. Isn't that what I was supposed to do? And ya, fell for the gaslighting because I had no idea what gaslighting was. And I never ever thought my very good married friend with a pregnant wife would stab me in the back like that.

 

Two people who I trusted 100% drove a bus over me. Lesson learned. Won't happen again. I realize now there are just some really sick toxic people out there... and I now have the tools and wisdom to see through their lies. But daym! What a horrible and painful way to learn this lesson.

[96nole]

I have read more than just a few posts where both wayward spouses and other men/women seem to feel that the betrayed spouse must know their wayward spouse is cheating, yet they do nothing about it. Somehow this gets turned into the betrayed spouse not caring about their wayward spouse or that the cheating is going on...that, on some level, they are okay with it.

 

So we have the WS and OP who are already lying, cheating, disrespectful (fill in your own expletive). To justify their actions in their small, pathetic, atrophied brains, they will assume the BS knows about the affair. And as such, will assume that the BS just doesn't care and is OK with the affair. Of course the WS isn't telling the BS about the affair and is doing everything possible to conceal it.

 

Yep, I'm calling Bullsh*t on that. Any WS or OP that actually thinks this way needs to have a red hot poker shoved up their ass.

[96nole]

Now if my husband started wearing white shoes and wore his shirt unbuttoned to make room for gold chains around his neck..I might have become suspicious.

 

Unfortunately the signs were very subtle, and he used the greatest gift I gave him which was my trust.

 

In hindsight you see it, and it really pisses me off.

 

So Furious, what you're saying is if your husband came home looking like this, you might have suspected something

 

Google Image Result for http://images.halloweencostumes.com/pimp-costume-zoom.jpg

[SoMovinOn]

Why is it the BS who 'chooses' to ignore?

 

In this instance, because I was referring to BS's who choose to ignore...

 

 

what if they aren't aware of such issues because the WS doesn't communicate?

 

Then they are not a BS who chose to ignore issues.

 

 

So really it's the WS who chooses to ignore and doesn't want to address them (hoping issues will go away on their own by ignoring them, not dealing with it) so therefore WS handles it by going outside of the marriage.

 

In which case, that would be a different situation than one in which the problems are communicated and the BS chooses to ignore them.

 

Not saying this is the case for all situations but it certainly isn't fair to put all of this on the BS when they are clueless about how their spouse feels and assumes all is okay.

 

Nothing applies to all people in any group. I was referring to a particular situation in which the BS clearly holds blame, at least some portion of the blame, for the state of their M.