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I started posting back in August about my suspicions that my H was having an A with his secretary. After several posts, I have stopped. Reading others situations made me feel mine was insignificant as I had no real evidence. But my gut is screaming at me and I need some commentary whether I am making more of something than it is.

Since my original discoveries, I have found very little. I have placed a VAR both in his car and office. (Only occasionally) Here is a list of the only things I have found:

1. Heard him calling her from his car at the office saying "I was just thinking about you, was in your neighborhood." Then he asked about her sister, who is single with 2 small children, and he said "who is she f__king anyway?" Hardly a conversation that is being kept strictly professional, like I had requested. Also, he sounded so happy when he told her he was thinking about her.

2. After placing a VAR in the office, I heard her telling the other employees when he was not there that they have a new mascot for the office. A cute little Siamese kitten, and that my H said it was ok if she brought it in sometimes at work. This made me suspicious BC we have 2 Siamese cats, and my H talks about them all the time. Why would she all of a sudden get one? And did he help her find it? He never said anything to me about her bringing a really cute little Siamese kitten to the office. Even when my H saw the library book my daughter checked out at school "all about Siamese kittens" (she loves them) he did not mention that his secretary just happened to get one.

3. Had confronted him on a phone call he had made to her one Friday night at 9:30 pm from his cell as he was driving home from our golf club. He had been drinking and I saw the call to her on his phone. It was only 25sec long, so she must not have answered. I woke him from his passed out state on the couch "why are you calling her in a Friday night drunk? Could not have been work related." He denied calling, then said he must have butt dialed, then just that he was just returning her call from earlier. Said her fiancé crashed her car and she just wanted his advice. So what is that 4 stories? BS. He just forgot to cover that track since he was boozed up.

Our sex life has been hot and cold. Sometimes he is all over me, others, acts like I am his roommate and avoids closeness. Frequently has aches and pains, shoulder hurts, feeling sick, ate too much, etc etc.

We had a blow out argument a few days ago when I told him that I don't believe anything that he tells me anymore. He was furious and got so defensive that I retreated, made nice, apologized for being too distrusting, and was super sweet. Promised myself not to bring my insecurities up again, since it only fuels his anger. He always tells me "why can't you just be nice? Why do you always ask so many questions?" So I am trying to do just that.

There has been nothing, I mean nothing, (besides the drunk call that one night) on his phone. Either I am crazy or he has taken it WAY underground.

His business has been incredibly busy as of late, he has secured a very large account which will be very demanding but lucrative. He needs her in the office to keep all the balls in the air. So maybe it is just all the pressure. But I maintain that if he hadn't lied to me earlier in the summer, we would not find ourselves in this crappy state of marriage now. This makes him the most mad, says that he "doesn't have time for this shit" and "when will you ever let it go? She means nothing to me!"

So. Here I sit, still wondering. I find myself envious of the spouses on "JFO" forum BC I want to find out but I can't... Just the truth. That is all. If there ever was a PA between them or still is. I am afraid if it is over, I might never know. Not knowing is the worst.

If it matters, I am a thin blue eyed blonde who is smart, kind and honest. I spend my time managing three very busy kids 16, 14 and 7. I take care of the house and our cats. I try to be a team player so that he can grow his business. And I am an RN who works 24hours a week, every other wknd to contribute. I feel like I am holding up my end of the bargain.

Thank you all for reading. MODS, if you have insight, I am all ears. You guys have seen and heard it all. Just want to know if I should let this go.

Uummm, short answer, no, don't let it go.

You have a gut feeling. You need to trust your gut. I would imagine that they don't need to do a lot of communication by phone because they can do it in person.

I would be more diligent with the VAR's. Can you afford a PI?

Please don't feel that your situation is insignificant. You need support just as much as anyone else. We have helped many go through ways to find out (and, unfortunately, it was always proven to be an affair), gathering evidence and confrontation.

Everything you have posted all adds up to boundaries being crossed. How far it has gone is the question. But, definitely boundaries crossed.

Do not let him bully or nice you into not listening to your instincts. If you have to, you go underground also. Tell us here on SI what you find, but keep your findings from him. It sounds as if he will always have some way to turn it back on you. That is classic. I am not saying he is having an A, but until you are satisfied, keep looking.

Also, no employee is indispensable. After I found out about my H's EA, I told him no more contact, get rid of her. At the time she was a volunteer at a nonprofit that we supported and my H was spending a lot of time there. He was the chair person and could have sent her away, but he said she was indispensable. Within a month they took it to PA. Looking back, they would have been able to just fine without her. My H realizes that now, too late.

If this woman is a threat to your M and it sounds as if there has already been boundaries crossed, either he goes or she does. Also, get him the book "Not Just Friends ". I wish I had known about it before the A went to PA.

He is definitely having an affair with her. Where there is smoke, there is fire, 100% of the time.

I do find the siamese cat thing creepy. My XWH did something similar. We had 2 german shepherd dogs. He moved in with the OW, and guess what they went and got? A german shepherd puppy. I found it extremely creepy.

Your instincts are screaming at you, you're not crazy, you're not imagining things, you're not overreacting.

Sweetie, your issues are not insignificant, no matter how crazy he tries to make you feel.

Welcome, and know that if your gut is screaming there is a reason. I too struggled to find my proof for months. I knew something was up, and knew it was happening out of town, where he traveled for work weekly. But I couldn't get proof.

I would say since it sounds like he owns this business, I would be a bit more aggressive in my spying. Can you conviently drop by for lunch, and slip a VAR in his office? Can you hire a PI and have him followed for a bit? (Financially this isn't an option for a lot of folks) Can you borrow a friends car, or rent one and spy/follow him when you think he may be up to no good?

The phone call after work hours that you do have proof of is really enough to know that something is up. No man that isn't in an A, calls his secretary and says I was thinking of you. He was trying to find out if he could drop by her place I gaurantee it.

Go silent on doubts, up your spying, you will get your proof. But you also need to prepare yourself for what you are going to do when you get it....maybe it's time to see an attorney while you are figuring this all out. Of course this is something that you don't want to share with him.

Trust your gut, it's screaming at you for sure.

Search for another phone, and "pop" into the office unannounced, often.

See if you can get a copy or get his cell phone bill on line too. That was my "Oh Shit" moment.

Keep the VAR in his car.

"I was just thinking about you, was in your neighborhood."

That right there would be good enough for me. "I was just thinking about you" is one of those really common A phrases.

Keep digging. Keep listening to your gut as you gather information. It will lead you to the truth.

"why can't you just be nice? Why do you always ask so many questions?"

These kinds of statements/questions coupled with the defensive anger, are really big red flags.

Your situation is just as significant and deserving of support as any other. At any rate, his defensive behavior and boundary crossing conversation with this secretary is disrespectful of you and your M at a MINIMUM.

[This message edited by refuz2bavictim at 9:29 AM, September 27th (Friday)]

At the very least it sounds as though he is still having an EA with her. Perhaps, he bought her the kitty to cheer up because he can't be there or he bought her the cat because he wants to share something in common with her. Either way, he has crossed boundaries. So sorry for that.

"I was just thinking about you, was in your neighborhood."

That is enough. If more isn't going on, it will be soon. What married person says that to someone of the opposite sex who isn't courting trouble?

Just to clarify: the call he made to her was from his car during work hours. It was when he told her he was thinking of her and discussed her sisters sex life. I heard only his side of the convo from a VAR I placed. The call he made drunk in a Friday night I only saw on his call log on his cell. It was 30 something seconds long.

He does own the business. And my plan right now is to play really nice. See where that gets me. As far as the PI goes, I have thought about it but wonder if they could find anything if it has ended?

I am afraid to drop into his office. I haven't been there in a long time, not during a work day, at least. If I dropped in he would be angry and say I am checking up on him.

Thanks everyone. Incredibly reassuring.

It hasn't ended. He is still continuing contact with her.

If it were ended, he wouldn't call her and say he has been thinking of her.

I think you are being gaslighted, and it's making you question whether you can trust your gut.

I think one thing we all learn from this mess is that we should always trust our gut. When it tells us there is something wrong in our relationship, there is.

You know something is going on. I'm so sorry you have to deal with this, but I'm afraid you are right and now you just need to prove it. I would leave that VAR in his car at all times. And yes, the kitten thing is weird and suspicious. It's these little things that tell us something is wrong, and add up to the big picture.

I'm sorry. Good luck.

Regardless if he made the call during a work day and work hours or not "he was thinking about her," which means they still have something going on. It may be underground. I'm sorry, I just don't want to see you snow balled.

I would hire a PI and ,depending on the laws where you live, have them place a Camera or nanny cam in his office, so you can see what is going on between them at work.

If I dropped in he would be angry and say I am checking up on him.

Of course. This is where it all takes place.

How much more evidence do you need? Really?

Unless you live in a *fault* state, then you know everything that you need to know. From what you already have, you KNOW that your H is involved in an inappropriate (on *some* level) relationship with OW. From reading your account of things, it seems that he is almost *openly* dating her -- and then gaslighting the FUCK out of you when you *call* him on it....the baseball game, the golf outing, all the lunch dates, etc.

And EVEN IF you can tell yourself that he's just getting some kind of ego-boost, but he's not *cheating*......he is still emotionally abusive.

You should not have to live in fear of your own husband.

He should not get *mad* at you for popping in to his office.

He should not be dismissing and ignoring your concerns.

He should not be spending so much time with a female that you have already had *discussions* about (he's totally thumbing his nose at you by doing this)

He should not be asking about his employee's sister's sex life. I mean, seriously. Why the hell does he care about that? Isn't he a *busy* guy? Shouldn't he be doing his *let's-make-a-deal-business* thing instead of asking about some random person's sex life?

And he DEFINITELY should NOT be having conversations like this one: (which I pulled from your first thread)

telling her, on their way to lunch of course and office max, that he was going to build a bedroom for himself in our basement with a lock to get away from ME

My impression is that it's going to take some serious shock-and-awe from you in order to get this guy to knock his shit off. You've already tried *nice* -- and it has gotten you NOWHERE.

Sit back and take stock of your life as it is currently. And then decide how you *want* it to look. <-- *this* is tricky. I *wanted* my life to look the way that I had always *thought* that it was -- that I had a faithful husband who was totally *in* on the marriage/family. Problem was that wasn't something that *I* could control and it wasn't something that I *had*, kwim? So I had to "get real" with myself -- I had to force myself to deal in reality and not "what ifs". I had to acknowledge that I was married to an abusive, cheating, lying person and I had to take that *wanting my old life back* off the table as one of my options. So then I had to flip to -- ok, so if I can't have my first choice, then what is my second choice -- what do I want my life to look like without the lying cheater in the picture? (just fyi, it took me a really, really long time to be able to do this and implement it, but I wish that I had done it a LOT sooner......)

I think what you're doing is rationalizing his behavior. I did that too -

He tells her during the work day that "he was thinking about her" Really? I'm an executive secretary - never once has my boss called me during the day with something work related and mentioned "he was just thinking about me" -

when I had my suspicions about my H and his secretary - I saw an email, in his personal sent items to her which said "...we just hung up the phone and we were talking about hotels and look what I just got in my email"

Sooo..my H does NOT travel for business..and the email was sent at 8:30pm - and why was it from his personal email?

But..I told myself - there had to be a piece I was missing...somehow that had to be work related. But in my gut, I knew there something more to it - and it turned out that I was right.

Months later I found out they were discussing which hotel to go to - and it wasn't for business.

So...start looking at things from a different angle - you said he sounded "really happy" when he told her he was just thinking about her - why? Thats a red flag right there -and talking about the sex life of her sister? Really - who does that with their secretary or any employee?

His getting angry at you over things at home - another red flag - he's picking fights with you - to justify what he's doing - and to get you off his tail - but turning the tables on you.

Bottom line - he's having an affair.

He should not get *mad* at you for popping in to his office.

Why would a husband get mad at his wife for popping in to say "Hi, and I love you"?

My FWH would be thrilled and excited for me to do that. Any spouse should be.

If I dropped in he would be angry and say I am checking up on him.

You will have to get really tricky and sex him up good for awhile then start showing up randomly at the job.

Your his wife, you love him and wanted to see him. What's wrong with that. If he chastises you pout your best pout and tell him you love him anyway.

If you want to get to the bottom of this you will need to put on your game face and tell him that you missed him and wanted to bring him his favorite ________ (food, pen, cat, something...)

Plant that VAR!!! Put the other one in is car and by all means (if you have the funds) hire that PI.

Your marriage depends on it. Your gut is screaming.

Please protect your heart my dear TS68.

eta:you are clever and cute enough to do this...work it out sister!

[This message edited by Getting to Happy at 11:09 AM, September 27th (Friday)]

I am only being nice BC I am putting my game face on, exactly. I just question my gut BC he is so convincing. And he gets so angry when I bring her up, I don't like the tension in the house with the kids.

Just texted him that I will not be home for the afternoon. Drove my car to a nearby school and walked home. I have suspected they have come here before... Trying to bait...