SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

My first sign was when I was in Vegas with friends and I told her about this girl that was hitting on me.

She told me that I could have a "hall pass" but she didn't want to here about the details. At that time she was having an Emotional affair and probably felt guilty that I told her that I walked away from the situation.

I grew up on a farm in the midwest and I was very naive about the signs that she was probably a prostitute. OK yes she was a prostitue. But I did waste about 15 minutes of her time trying to pick me up.

During her EA, my WW took pictures of our son's birthday. She didn't want to upload them and share them to my profile on F.B. (I think the O.M. would have been...jealous She was convincing him, we were finished) So she insisted that she email them to me. It was bizarre of her. It took more effort to email them rather than share them. I never, in 14 years, ever knew her to email pics.

I shrugged it off... I since discovered she emailed pics of herself to her partner. I had other vague concerns that have never panned out but that was the red flag that actually led to something of proof something was going on.

I had been feeling like something was not right, one morning the feeling was so strong that I looked at his phone while he was in shower. Found nothing unusual, put it down, then for some reason picked it up again and looked at the pics. Last pic on there was a woman's breasts and another up close of her on hands and knees on the bed

Many signs.......

Many late nights out 'with the girls'

Early workouts at the gym

New clothes, new makeup

New underwear

New interest in perfume and fashion

Newfound interest in the local football and baseball teams

Clutching her phone like it was gold

Late nights whispering behind closed doors to someone on the phone

Picking fights with me for no particular reason

The list goes on and on

So many signs

The cell phone. He constantly had the cell phone on him. And he put a lock on it. I would question why he had a lock on it. I told him if you have nothing to hide why lock your phone? He said his friends would send him inappropriate pics and he didn't want our kids to see them.

I would check his phone and don't remember seeing anything out of the ordinary. Never thought about checking our cell phone bill. That's the one thing that runs through my mind all the time. Why didn't I check our phone bill????

He started to workout. Lifting weights. He had a diet he was on. And guess who cooked his meals so he could look good for the whore? My mom & I did.

Work. He always had to work. Everyday. Work. So busy. No time for anything but work.

His indifference towards me. He didn't care about me. He felt so cold towards me.

And thoughtout all of this, my instinct was that something was off. Things were not good. At one point I thought he was addicted to drugs because of his secrecy. Well he was addicted... He was addicted to the whore.

The phone....as said, he would NEVER put it down alone in front of me. If he was around, he'd put it face down. Ringer on silent. Then one day I was asked to pull an over night shift for work. He'd always said he didnt want me working over nights but that day...he said "you should do it." I thought something was up, so I cleaned the house REALLY good. Every spec was clean all the laundry done, the bed made. I'd pushed the bed against the wall and tucked the sheets and covers in real tight between the bed and wall. I'd done this before, and if he took a nap in it, he would just use his side (the open side). Well called to say he was going to bed unusually early that night. He didnt answer me all night! When i came home, his nice clothes were laid across the floor (when i left he was wearing sweat pants and a tshirt) and the covers were all twisted up...pulled out from the bed ... I knew then exactly what had happened. Of course he came up with great reasons for everything and after just having his second child...I (wanted to) believed them.

The cell phone. He constantly had the cell phone on him. And he put a lock on it. I would question why he had a lock on it. I told him if you have nothing to hide why lock your phone? He said his friends would send him inappropriate pics and he didn't want our kids to see them.

Woah- exactly the same response i got when i asked...he said his hockey teammates would send him inappropriate pics and he knew i would get the wrong idea if i saw them...amazing how often the excuses are the same amongst cheaters...

my signs were the indifference, the continual pub nights with friends, the infrequent sex (although he always said it was due to his exhaustion from work...)

Her name came up in conversations about the office....too much.

He started exercising a lot.

He became distant and weird with both me and DS.

Don't remember the order but found VDay Hallmark receipt for three cards....I got one and DS ..the third?

DS says dad wouldn't let me buy the candies you like at Godiva for VDay---he just bought you this prepackaged one. See Godiva visa purchase as being three times to high for what I received. Told I am imagining everything.

On vacation I am in shower---son comes up to me upset and says dad just angrily told him not to come out onto the lanai---he is on phone. We argue, I try to get phone, he deletes something tells me he was talking to my brother. That I am crazy.

Find purchases on vacation of women's tank tops "Island girl" says they are for nieces but he has hidden them and secretly bought them. (and they were too big for them)

I cut them up anyway. Tells me I am imagining things.

At this point I do think I might be mentally unstable.

Receive a new mortgage statement in the mail for a house in a nearby suburb--in his name. He says it is some bank mistake with a person with his same name --he will take care of. I drive by house and it is empty.

Six months later he has dropped a receipt on the floor. I pick it up - it has the address of this house and BINGO the OW name. It is for patio furniture.

He says she asked him to call them as they were not delivering her furniture. I say well that's inappropriate but

the house is the one with your name on it!!!

He says I can't question him about that --- there is client privilege---it was financial dealings when she was his client and going through her divorce and he counseled her to conceal assets or some such BS that I was mind-raped about. He got very angry and insisted that he had a business reputation and license that he had to protect and he would not jeopardize that by revealing his client's information about the house--that would be morally and ethically wrong and he had to protect that information!!! And I am crazy!!!

All this time, if I would question anything he would get angry and say how hurtful it was to him that I did not trust him---and I would feel guilty and sometimes apologize and many times not question or just blindly trust to try and show him that I did have faith in him.

And I went crazy. For reals.

And then everything else happened.

He was extremely irritable, he would explode over the slightest thing. Very out of character for him. He became obsessed with diet and working out, looked very tired and haggard all the time--people kept asking him what was wrong and asking me what was wrong with him. Started acting very selfishly, wanted time for himself, talked about needing to get away and go on trips without me (which I never let happen thank god). Would hardly even look me in the eye. I found myself constantly asking him what was wrong, why was he so angry and depressed.

My gut feeling was my first indication, and the gut feeling was based on her attitude towards me which changed. She kind of became uppity around me, like disagreeing with everything I said and just an uppity attitude.

Then it was not being at work during lunch if I were to call.

Then it was coming home late when all she did was go shopping.

Then it was coming home late after work smelling like alcohol.

To actually catch many WS's, you practically have to walk in on them it seems. Otherwise, you are the crazy one with wrong gut feelings and always accusing for no reason.

Coming home late from tennis practice and matches where the OM was present. I am talking 10:30 when the drill ended at 8:30.

Talking a lot about him at first and then nothing.

Going in another room to text. Holding onto the phone like it was her newborn baby.

Texts mostly not about tennis with hundreds a week. Evidence that texts were deleted just for the OM's number.

Her tennis friends suddenly dissing her for months. (They found out about them.) and excluding OM from normal events, ie end of year parties.

Some tennis friends confused about my role in her life when I showed up at some matches. They thought OM/WW were married. I got some hellacious stares and then some very weird looks among the couples later.

Rudeness and coldness from WW. Felt like a roommate some days. Other days were great.

Bouts of deep sadness. Preoccupation with something else.

Lack of interest in sex. She always came first with me and that began not to happen. End of blowjobs and did not want cunnilingus.

Comments about topics she was not usually interested in, ie art, high brow movies, etc. ( I love this stuff but she was bored by it over the years and never went with me..)

Comments out of the blue which frame things in their shared reality, not ours. Like 'X Likes that, but I do not.'

Dressing to the nines to go somewhere, ie picking out cute tennis outfits, doing makeup, perfume, etc.

Changes in comments about what she likes in a man. I have very little body hair and all the hair on my head. She hated hairy chests and baldness and would often comment about it, but her tune changed.

-WH was never home

-always angry at me

-guarded his cellphone with his life, even took it into the bathroom with him

-asked one of our teenagers to teach him how to text, & got a texting plan for himself

-went on a diet & lost a lot of weight (of course I shopped for the special ingredients,& cooked him special food, in addition to also cooking special food for one of our "picky eater" kids)

I have recently remembered a conversation that I overheard him having with his best friend---they were in the other room watching a game while I was cooking in the kitchen for them----this was a few weeks before Dday:

friend: "Oh, buddy, I finally saw that girl you were telling me about!"

WH: "SHHHHHHHHH!"

I was so trusting.

[This message edited by mchercheur at 2:11 PM, February 22nd (Saturday)]

Oh so many that I didn't see for what they were because, well, I trusted her:

lock screen on her phone. She'd never done that before

The look of alarm on her face when I tried to hand her her ringing phone one day.

Extreme weight loss (pills, skipping meals) and a sudden interest in exercise.

Sex life was all over the place. One day she's crying about lack of intimacy. The next day she doesn't respond to my advances. The next day we're going at it like animals.

The "look," like she was looking through me at times. I can't define it, but maybe some here know what I mean. Like she was there, but not there.

Always tired

Lots of late nights at work

late nights out with friends I never got to meet, and often drinking to blackout states.

Coming home several hours after she said she would

New clothes and underwear

Pushing our mutual friends away

An all day shopping trip where she came home with nothing. Why I didn't question that more, I'll never know. She always finds something, but that day, she couldn't find anything to buy?

She stopped wearing the necklace with our departed son's name and birthstone on it. She ALWAYS wore it.

Coming home missing jewelry she left the house wearing.

Stopped talking about moving. There were several months where all she focused on was looking at house listings.

Stopped talking about adoption.

Very shallow/superficial conversations. She was never a shallow or superficial person before.

It's amazing how much love and trust can blind you...

Maybe this should be posted in the "what are the signs that you missed but see clearly now?".

D-day was August 12, 2013. I discovered the texts. All of this was prior to that. After that, there was more, but I'll stick to pre-DD #1.

1. Changed her FB profile picture in March to just her after a trip with a large group that the OM was a part of. First time in +/-9 years that it wasn't both of us. I know that sounds so "high school" but it did strike me as "off" at the time.

2. The cell phone. All of a sudden using her personal phone again and having to add texts every month because she went over. Eventually went to unlimited texts. THIS SHOULD HAVE MADE ME LOOK AT THE BILL BUT IT DIDN'T, AND I'LL NEVER UNDERSTAND WHY I DIDN'T.

3. The "I'm not happy speech" out of no where. Sure, we had our issues like everyone else, but around a month before this started I would have said we were doing good.

4. Stopped showing interest in the dream house we were renovating and had been working on for 2+ years at that point.

5. Starting to go "commando" but only when he was going around. She was always so reserved, and this was completely out of character.

6. Working late. After midnight two and three times a week. I know what she does at her job, and it does not require this.

7. Not wanting to go to bed (just to sleep) and staying up late. Falling asleep on the couch until late. I now know she was texting him.

8. Lots of trips to the mall, but she never bought anything.

9. Our "bye kiss" in the morning became distant when it used to end up with us screwing and being late for work.

10. Our sex life was all of a sudden "boring" when it never had been before.

11. ILYBNILWY speech.

12. Asked to temporarily separate to see if that helped. I didn't know what the problem was.

13. How easily annoyed she was with me. She would get so mad for no reason.

14. Her anxiousness to go hang out on his houseboat all the time. She would take me with her, but I would catch them off by themselves a lot.

15. A pool party where they would end up at the far end of the pool from everyone else. Plus, they were flirting BIG TIME that day and he "had a hard on" when he got out of the pool.

16. New bikini and no record of buying it on our bank statement. It was also WAY outside of the amount of "coverage area" that she normally wore. It was almost a thong, and I refused to let her wear it out of the house. I now know she took it the next day to model it for him. I was originally bought for him.

17. Related to 16, she all of a sudden was paying for things with cash. She NEVER did this before.

18. The sheer distance between us. It was obvious she was pulling away.

19. MY GUT FEELING THAT THERE WAS ANOTHER MAN.

#2 and #19 are the biggest signs.

Txdadbh reminded me of something and it is a very important observation that I had forgotten about.

When the WS starts disliking things she always liked before and starts liking things she never liked before.

All of a sudden she hates the smell of old spice after liking it forever. All of a sudden her tastes in music changes overnight.

The biggest memory of this I have is...we have always listened to R&R type music, 60s, 70s and 80s. And all of a sudden she is listening to C&W.

Every time I got into her car, the radio was on the C&W station.

[This message edited by craig2001 at 1:36 PM, February 22nd (Saturday)]

Ah yes, the gut feeling. I had it too, but just refused to believe it.

Also, the "I feel like we're just roommates" and "It's like I'm living with my best friend" speeches seemingly out of the blue.

One morning I just asked "are we ok?" Her answer - "let's get away this weekend." There were other times where she dodged those type of questions.

I'm not helping my case by adding more signs I should have recognized for what they were, am I?

The first affair he had been overseas for 8 months and was home on 30 days leave. He had stopped complimenting me (he told me I was beautiful or something like that every day of our marriage except during the first affair), wouldn't say "I Love You", started nitpicking little things, and started staying up after I went to bed to go on the computer (he NEVER does that). He also didn't want to be intimate which has NEVER happened. I actually asked him what was going on because his behavior was so odd. He told me he was having a hard time adjusting to being back home and it would be fine once he got it together. Within a week or so, he was back to normal and the last two weeks of his leave were wonderful. He called me a couple days after he got back overseas to tell me he had been having an affair and didn't know if he wanted to be married anymore.

The second affair there were absolutely NO signs at all. I'd never have known if her husband hadn't called me at work.

@SoulHurts -

Buddy, I could write a novel of "signs" that I missed. We trusted our wives, and there's no shame in that.

@ RealityStinks -

There are days I think I could have caught them in the act and rationalized it away.

Me: "So you slipped, fell, and landed on his dick?"

Her: "yes."

Me: "Oh, well, let's go home."

@SoulHurts -

I know that's not funny, but I have thought the EXACT same thing before, and I actually laughed out loud when I read what you posted.

I've had the "you slipped and feel on his dick" thought many, many times.

I'll toot my own horn and say that I'm a pretty smart guy. But, some of the lame excuses that I've made to myself for her make me question my intelligence.