Should I be concerned?

[Sammy1974]

I apologize if this will seem long. My husband and I have been together for a total of 10 years, married for a little over 2 years. We have had our ups and downs before, early in the relationship, but for the last 5 years, and especially after marriage, things became solid. We just signed a lease on a new place as we have been living with his parents for a few months since selling our townhome and he really really wants children. We have started trying. He works in a school as an educational assistant. There is a teacher in his building who was basically abusing special needs students and he was involved in the investigation. Another female assistant whom he works with was the one who brought the evidence against that other teacher forward. My husband gave her some advice and guidance of how to handle it. The abusive teacher has now been fired. Just some background. He talks about a lot of people at work, and works with mostly women being in education. My husband has absolutely no friends because we spend all of our time together and almost always tries to include himself when I go out with my girlfriends. He says it makes him feel like a normal person to be able to socialize once in a while. He also says that this female co-worker is very unattractive and lives with her boyfriend of 6 years.

Here is my concern: My husband and I have a shared phone plan. I can see all the phone calls and texts he makes. Last Friday (today is Wed), I noticed about 8 texts that were shared between him and this coworker. All during the work day while they are both at school. That same day, after school, they went out to a nearby bar for a drink for one hour. He told me he was going, with whom he was going, and he was there for one hour. He told me who the texts belonged to and showed them to me. He said that with all the drama surrounding that abusive teacher, it was hard to talk about it in school, especially when he and the female coworker never see each other throughout the school day. The context of the texts was strictly work related. So, that passed. Then Saturday afternoon he and I were watching TV and she texted him about work again. He showed me the text and responded to hers (showed me his response) and that was that. Then Monday (2 days ago) he showed me texts again, all about work.

He becomes defensive because he says that after all these years I don't trust him and that hurts him and our marriage. That he would never do anything to hurt me or the marriage and that without trust we have nothing. While I agree on that, I am still concerned. I have been reading about "signs of cheating spouses" etc, and my husband does none of those things. So I don't know if I should be legitimately worried or take it for what it is? But then, what if this escalates into something else? He tells me I should trust that he knows the difference between right and wrong and that he will always make the right decisions. Please share your thoughts.

[Satu]

The question is redundant because you are concerned.

 

I think you need to talk more about it, but in a carefully non-accusative way.

 

A boundary needs to be agreed on, that is acceptable to both of you. It is a joint responsibility.

 

I would trust him, but that doesn't mean I'd be comfortable with what he's doing.

 

It seems to me to be a little bit too much contact for comfort.

 

You need to talk, but talk in an open-minded and loving way.

 

My feeling is that he needs some friends, preferable male friends, even if he doesn't feel the need of them.

 

I don't think trust is the issue, because it seems that you do trust him.

 

The issue is that what he is doing is making you uncomfortable.

 

You could maybe put it to him in those terms.

 

I don't know if any of that helps, it's just my opinion.

[d0nnivain]

He gets to communicate to work colleagues about work related subjects.

 

You had concerns. You raised them. Although hurt that you didn't trust him, he showed you the texts. There was nothing to them.

 

What else do you want? You can't lock him in a glass case in your house & let him out only when it's convenient for you.

 

If you can't trust that he knows the difference between right & wrong why did you marry him? Why are you trying to have kids with him?

[understand50]

Sammy1974

 

Looks like he is doing everything that he is supposed to. Do not shut down him communicating with you. Working with Women does give him more opertunities for cheating, but that can be said for lots of men in some jobs. Just say, how much you love him and let him know you are a little jealous. Jealousy is not necessarily a bad thing, it lets your husband know that he is worth a lot to you. When it gets destructive, is when it become bad.

 

I would talk to him and let him know you trust him, and you appreciate him showing you everything.

294

[minimariah]

But then, what if this escalates into something else?

 

THEN you'll worry. until then, keep growing and nurturing your relationship with your husband, make sure that both of you are in a happy and fulfilled relationship and communicate with him. make sure he's happy, make sure you're happy. that's all you can do, really.

 

if he wants to cheat - you can't stop him. so it's pointless to worry about it - instead, make sure that you do what's in your power to make him happy and to have an intimate & loving, honest relationship.

[LivingWaterPlease]

Sammy1974, from what you've posted it doesn't sound to me as if anything untoward is going on with your H and the female coworker at this point.

 

That said, for me, a personal boundary I would have with someone I'm dating seriously or a husband (I'm single) would be no meetings in social settings with a person of the opposite sex for either of us.

 

With someone of integrity, whom I trust, I would maintain this boundary. That includes breakfasts, lunches, after hours meetings at bars.

 

It seemed to me my exH was a person of high integrity who owned a business, a professional practice. He never hid the fact that he had breakfasts and lunches with his partners and also with the office manager (a female).

 

He ended up having an A with the office manager. I know it could have happened without the breakfasts they shared out of the office which I knew were happening but trusted to be about work-related issues since he also did this with male colleagues.

 

Although I'm single and a professional person who has been invited to lunch by married men for professional reasons, I draw a boundary for myself not to lunch alone with a married man or to meet a married man for drinks to discuss business.

 

I'm sure to many people this probably seems stringent and inflexible but it's a safeguard for me, has worked well and I don't believe it's affected my business prospects. I would expect this same boundary if I should ever remarry and would settle this before marriage at this point in my life. As a young woman the thought never occurred to me as I trusted my husband completely.

[minime13]

Are you being accusatory when you ask him to show you the messages?

 

Has he ever cheated on you previously, or are these 100% unfounded suspicions?

[Sammy1974]

He has never cheated on me, but in the past he looked online on match.com. We broke up once, about 7 years ago. He looked on match.com for a couple of weeks, never actually went out with anyone, and after we got back together, he told me all about it.

[Mrin]

The OP's story in food:

 

I just found this quaint seafood restaurant. The special of the day is braised wild sockeye salmon. I ordered that but asked the waitress to make sure it was wild caught sockeye salmon as I don't want to eat the farm raised stuff. The manager came out and assured me it was wild caught sockeye salmon. I asked to speak to the chef. The chef came out and promised me that it was wild caught sockeye salmon. I wanted to believe him but asked to see the fish. He took me back to the kitchen and showed it to me. I mean, it looked like wild caught as it didn't have all that added color they put in the farm raised stuff. But how do I know it is sockeye and not some other type of salmon? He showed me the shipping invoice and sure enough, it said wild caught sockeye salmon. But how do i know the distributor didn't just label it that. So he called the distributor and put them on the phone and they promised that it is wild caught sockeye salmon and faxed the Alaskan state certification of inspection and that said wild caught sockeye salmon. But how do I know that the fisherman didn't just tell the distributor that it was wild caught sockeye salmon. The distributor gave me the cell phone number for the fisherman and he promised me it was wild caught sockeye salmon from the Kenai peninsula in Alaska and texted me a photo of him in front of his boat in Homer, Alaska. But how do I know that is actually his boat???

 

I'm thinking of ordering the chicken.

[Sammy1974]

Thank you for your response. It makes sense. I guess worrying in advance is not healthy.

[SJS]

He sounds very transparent. If he were hiding texts or deleting them, then maybe you'd have something to worry about. At this point I wouldn't.

[d0nnivain]

He has never cheated on me, but in the past he looked online on match.com. We broke up once, about 7 years ago. He looked on match.com for a couple of weeks, never actually went out with anyone, and after we got back together, he told me all about it.

 

Your husband seems like one of the most transparent people ever.

 

If you keep up the paranoia you are going to drive him away. The fact that you give a crap about him looking on line 7 years ago before you were married when you were broken up tells me you have major trust issues. Get over it. He married you.

 

Celebrate what a great guy he is. Stop looking for trouble because all you are going to do is cause trouble.

 

I had a paranoid BF. No matter what I did he constantly accused me of cheating. After a few months I broke up with him because it was ridiculous. I wasn't doing anything wrong. A few weeks after we broke up, he was dumbfounded that I hadn't started dating or sleeping with the guy he most often accused me of wanting to cheat on him with. I was like Of course I'm not dating him you block head. I don't like him in that way. the then EX-BF acted like I passed some kind of loyalty test & begged me to come back. I passed.

[Sammy1974]

Thank you for the response. That's actually similar to what he has told me in the past. That I will drive him away if I don't trust him and that will come from his resentment of me constantly asking him for proof of his loyalty. I guess I need to take him at his word, as he has asked me to do many times, and move forward.

[Mrin]

Thank you for your response. It makes sense. I guess worrying in advance is not healthy.

 

No worries. Sometimes a little subject matter separation puts stuff in perspective. A couple of additional unsolicited thoughts to try on:

 

1. It sounds like your husband is very willing to give you transparency into his work and personal life. That's a really big thing and to be honest, if my soulmate started expecting the same out of me I'd probably take umbrage. So his willingness to be transparent like this is pretty unique IMHO. As a way of encouraging this and further transparency, you might want to tell him something like this: "honey, I can't tell you what a gift it is to me that you are willing to be so open and transparent with me. It makes me feel very loved and like we are truly in this life together. I likewise vow to be as transparent as you." Then have some great sex. The reason I suggest doing this is it takes the act of transparency out of the realm of "my wife doesn't trust me" to "this is how I make my wife feel loved and happy". One is a positive act. The other is an act of compliance.

 

2. From a brain and body health perspective, worrying is amazingly bad for you. Basically it works like this. Your worrying will create a neural network inside your brain of "my husband is cheating on me". That's coupled with an elevated emotion - in this case anxiety and betrayal. When you worry your body reacts as if the betrayal actually occurred. This will trigger your fight or flight limbic brain (where our survival instincts are) and will cause all sorts of unpleasant things to occur in your body. Elevated heart rate, adrenaline, intestinal issues. Because to your body, the betrayal has actually happened. So by worrying all you're doing is subjecting your body and your brain to that feeling of betrayal over and over. Your own personal Hell. The impact of living this way is horrible for your brain and body's health. You can't thrive in a perpetual fight or flight state.

 

Now, we can't go through life without worrying about things from time to time. But what we can do is choose those things that are "worry worthy". Based on what you have described here, I don't think this is worry worthy.

 

So how do you break that pattern of worry? There are lots of techniques and options. Counseling is one. Seeking advice from others (yay LoveShack) is another. One I am particularly fond of is recognizing that we humans are compelled to make stories about everything. It is how we bring meaning to the world. You can't change what happened. But you can change the story you make up about it. In this case what happened is that your husband has contact outside of work with a coworker and has told you about it. Your story is that he might be cheating on you. I think a better story might be that your husband has contact outside of work with a female coworker and is being completely transparent about it because he loves you, doesn't want to have any secrets and doesn't want you to worry. Honestly, I like the second one better.

 

Best of luck and I hope this helps!

Edited May 20, 2015 by Mrin

[Sammy1974]

Thank you so much! What you said makes complete sense to me. It is amazing how easy it is to become bogged down with my own thoughts and emotions. It helps to hear logic from an objective source. Thanks again.

[Mrin]

Thank you so much! What you said makes complete sense to me. It is amazing how easy it is to become bogged down with my own thoughts and emotions. It helps to hear logic from an objective source. Thanks again.

 

My pleasure. Don't beat yourself up about it either. The thing is, your body and your brain are reacting as IF the betrayal has actually occurred. A really great example of this are spiders. I freaking HATE spiders. If I just imagine a spider crawling on the back of my neck I freak out. My pulse races. I get sweaty. Jumpy. As if the spider was actually there.

 

It is a vicious cycle actually. You probably worry a LOT more at night or when you're alone. That's because there is no outside stimuli to distract your brain. So your brain fires that "my husband is having an affair" neural network over and over and your body feels it over and over. Super tough to break because your in your limbic brain at this point and can't interrupt the cycle very easily.

 

Good luck!

 

Mrin