SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Have to add this, at the time I was unaware what was going on but later I found out the exact date she first did him. Two days after that first time while we were doing it, I heard her say "Fuck me Robert" I asked her what did she say and she responded nothing. Even now even after I found out and remind her of what she said, she says she doesn't remember ever saying that. And another reason I quit caring or worrying about things.

I'm with outtanowhere

I didn't miss any clues. I simply denied that they were indeed clues.

I trusted my WH and the OW (a "friend")

Sometimes what ISNT there tells you as much as what is there.

WW is very good at computer stuff. Better than me. She works in a office environment and has allot of skills so its easy for her to hide things.

What tipped me off was a simple photograph. Looked innocent on the surface. Her sitting together with a man at a work meeting. But something in their posture in relation to one another triggered a suspicion. They were sitting very close and leaning in toward each other. smiling.

She had left that picture out where it could be easily found. But I couldn't get that picture of of my mind.

So the following weekend WW was out of town *visiting friends* I went on complete detective mode and went through everything in her office at home. I found a file on a zip drive hidden away in her closet with the extension PGP. I had no idea what a PGP file was so I asked a friend. PGP is a encrypted file.

Why would she have a encrypted file? Why would any person encrypt anything they keep at home?

Obviously I couldnt see what was on the file. But I wasnt stuck for what to do.

In my journal I started to write about my suspicions. Any strange action or anything that seemed odd I made note of. Then I journaled a argument toward explaining the actions as innocent. Seeing everything lumped together that way and really examining what the explanations could be. made it obvious that she was having a affair and I knew who the OM was.

So without direct evidence its still possible to figure it all out.

My husband is an independent contractor and has his office phone number listed on his work truck. His business line is in our room but I never answer it just let it go to the answering machine. One day someone called saying that he just saw him pick up a hooker on such and such street and shame on you. I immediately called my husband asked where he was and he gave the same location. I told him about the call on his work line answering machine and without even missing a beat he burst into laughter saying "oh that Eric (a friend of his) he must be fucking with me cause I just passed him." He says that Eric would pull shit like that all the time and I'm gonna get him the next time I see him. I trusted my husband so much I never even thought twice about it. This was at least 8 years ago, I'm such a damn idiot.

My biggest clue that I should have picked up on was her obcession with showering everyday when she got home from work, and all of a sudden being conscious of her breath. I chalked the showering up to her supposedly going to the gym on the way home from work. I seldom got home before 6:30 so this was completely plausible. The breath part was because she smoked and she constantly gargled with mouthwash or ate handfuls of Altoids. Up until that period she never went to the gym on the way home nor did she concern herself with her breath.

The vast majority of her encounters with OM were on the way home. The gym bag contained her sexy little outfits and toys. She was always very quick getting those items cleaned and back into the trunk of her car. The OM didn't like kissing a smoker, hence the overkill with mouthwash and mints. She almost always greeted me coming home fresh from the shower in a bathrobe and her hair wrapped in a towel.

I ended up finding out from the OM's BS a couple of months after she busted them and then took it underground. It made me physically ill when I looked back and realized how all of that related to what was going on.

He was spending more time than usual on his phone and computer. He had Facebook on his phone and suddenly had his phone locked. He was drinking a lot and on week nights. He was withdrawn from the family. He started talking some nonsense to me- saying really really bizarre things. Like really bizarre.

-Suddenly staying up late or all night

-Obsessively on his phone (playing games)

-Excusing himself out of family obligations

-Either Sick or tired when we had date night

-Bringing phone into bathroom

-Being mean or indignant when speaking to me

-No sex drive with me

-New moves or methods when we did have sex

-Suddenly interested in new things he formerly thought nothing of.

-running errands on his day off that did not have meaning

-strange websites popping up in history

-cheeky postings on twitter that only 1 woman would favorite ALL THE TIME

-suddenly manscaping

-laughing while reading his phone and not letting me in on the joke

-disappearing for hours on end

-disconnecting from friends, family and me

This thread has caused me to really think...

In addition to him being distant and aloof:

First Clue: On a rare Saturday morning when he was home, but outside with the kids, his cell phone rang, I answered it and a woman asked for him by name, did not identify herself, when I asked to take a message she abruptly hung up.

Second Clue: Christmas card from a co-worker, written inside: "I still hear about what's going on at work from a friend. How's your girlfriend...wife?"

and years later

Third Clue: A receipt for jewelry inside a gift bag, hidden in a rear cubby in his large SUV. I wasn't snooping, I was helping to load the car for our family vacation, he'd recently had a flat tire and the jack was rolling around in the back, I was just returning the jack to its' place, when the gift bag containing the receipt fell into my hands.

Still hard to believe that for years I didn't connect the dots.

Clues I noticed that resulted in discovering each layer of BS.

1. Flirting texting that started being hidden/deleted

2. New sexual 'experiences' despite the fact that I was always the creative 'edgy' one (can't I just want to try something new?)

3. Going to the gym during family time (I just want to get in shape.....apparently fucking my friend at the hotel next to the gym qualified as a workout)

4. Shaving the only gray hair on his chest

5. Drinking Like a fish and minimizing drinking while driving with our kids

6. Went from nice/laid back when drinking to condescending/combative

7. Addiction to Porn

8. Shitty/late gifts that required no thought/prep or effort.

9. Never initiating affection-- only 'I want you, let me push your buttons for a few minutes so I can get laid' attention

10. Asking me to stop telling people how great he is and how lucky I am.

11. Treating me like a porn star all the time during sex (aka no effort on his part unless it was aggressive)

12. Using Chrome Incognito (you know, so the kids wouldn't accidentally pull up porn when using his phone for games)

13. When discovering anything, always telling me 'now I know everything' there isn't anything else to tell (aka never sharing ANY additional details unless I had proof)

BIG THINGS I MISSED:

1. Agreeing with me on EVERYTHING for over 15 years. Nobody is that laid back. Never had his own opinions, never shared information about anything unless I asked/pressed. Completely Hidden and Passive Aggressive.

2. Oh, and what about 5 years before proven/known affair?? ....got a prescription filled without saying anything to me. I asked my Dr, said it who said it is used for treating variety of STDs/infections. When questioned, told me it 'burned when he went took a piss'. Dr asked him 'How much do you trust your wife?'. Since he did trust me, he simply got the prescription filled and was clearing it up but didn't want to say anything to me because he didn't want me to think he was accusing ME of something he knew I wouldn't do. HA HA HA

From a guy who practically has to be on his death bed before seeing a Dr. Who the F has some sort of irritation/burning and doesn't even mention it to their spouse? Then makes a Drs appt and gets the prescription and everything without ever mentioning it?!? Looking back....very very stupid of me. He still denies/stands behind that Bullshit story.

I've since discovered he has lied about many large and small things over the years (basically will agree, tell anyone anything he thinks they want to hear, or simply hide/withhold information to have a peaceful moment...the truth means nothing to him at all)

There were things like increased anger/frustration/impatience at home, but I don't count those as clues because I had no idea that could be a red flag for an affair--I only realize it now because it's such a common thread.

The one I most kick myself for: three days after he fucked her for the first time, he told me he needed the car to take her to a doctor's appointment because her foot was hurting. I was BEWILDERED. Why on earth was he taking his subordinate to the doctor??? Her car was in the shop. We live in a big city--lots of people don't have cars--why couldn't she take transit? "We're FRIENDS." WTF? A) I don't take my friends to the doctor, and B) you need BOUNDARIES--you're not supposed to be friends with your subordinates. He was spending so much time socializing with much younger people--male and female--that it didn't occur to me this was an affair, just misplaced boundaries about friendship with much younger people he supervised.

(Part of what is also so galling about this in retrospect is that he's always been pretty callous about any ailments or physical suffering I've endured--including, for instance, hyperemesis gravidarum [severe nausea and vomiting in pregnancy] and two miscarriages. But her sore foot garnered a level of care that nothing I've been through ever had.)

Also, ten days after they started fucking, she left the country for three weeks. The night she came back, she missed her final flight because of an airline screwup. He was SO agitated--he kept talking about it, so angry about how she'd been treated by the airline, etc. It made no sense. Yes, I feel bad when my friends have travel snafus. But I don't get ANGRY. Also, what's the big deal? We have young children. A missed flight can be a really big deal with small overtired children. For a single woman in her twenties to be bumped a few hours? Annoying, but his outrage on her behalf made no sense. He'd been planning to "run some errands" to see her very quickly when she got home. He didn't have an excuse to head out at midnight, so the flight bump meant he couldn't see her until first thing the next morning, poor baby.

It was 48 hours after the flight thing that I figured it out. I don't even know what the final trigger was--maybe it was a dawning realization about the flight, or maybe there were shifts in his behaviour upon her return that I was registering on a subconscious level? He was out that night, and I thought, it CAN'T be, but I need to check his computer. I felt really really scuzzy about it, but I needed to do it.

His email account had nothing of interest. Some emails to/from her but all perfectly legit work-related. But I couldn't get into his Facebook account--it needed a password. We have both always had our Facebook and email set up to open automatically. Even that didn't QUITE confirm it for me, though: I told myself there must be a reason. (I had recently changed all my passwords because of the Heartbleed thing, forgot all the new ones, and got myself locked out several websites, so I thought maybe it was something like that.)

He got home late and slept in the basement to "avoid disturbing" me.

The next morning, I asked him to come up and help one of the children get dressed, ran down to his computer, found FB open. A very quick scroll through the last day's messages with her took me to a "Sex with you is AWESOME" from her and a "ditto" from him. And the rest is predictable SI history!

It was only 2 weeks and he was not living here. But I rmemeber looking out into the backyard where he was "playing with the kids" and he was laying in the trampoline texting. At that moment I "knew". A week later when her BH showed up to tell me, it was all too obvious.

When I noticed how often WH wanted to be a KISA to his "friend", who seemed to always have something going on that she needed help with. Hearing a little too often what a great person she was and how she was really going through a rough time. Then there was the refusal to answer her calls when I was with him. Knowing that he wanted to keep his relationship with her on a private level, the red flags went up, and that's when I started digging.

Uhm, the hickey on his neck should have clued me in, but it took another 6 to 8 months for me to even begin to think he was having an affair.

But did you know you can get a hickey from the machines at the gym?

I have a whole laundry list here...

Suddenly her iPhone has a password locked screen.

Her iPhone became a part of her. If it wasnt in her hand then it was in her back pocket. At night it was on the table next to the bed.

Bringing phone into bathroom

Started wearing 2 new gold necklaces and kept them on for the length of her A. I call them her 'A necklaces'.

She would make excuses as to why I could not plug her phone into my computer to download updates.

It took her forever to put on her makeup in the morning before going to work.

She started wearing panties after 11 years of not wearing them. Her AP liked women that wore panties so thats what she did. Her excuse was that her jeans were loose and the panties helped hold them up. I guess a belt was out of the question!

Before her A she would wear her long red hair either up or braided while at work. Now just about everyday it was down. In hindsight on the days she did braid her hair were the days her AP was off.

She was always chewing minty-flavored gum when at work but not at home.

She had her nails done all the time.

She started sexting me more often. We had always done that to a degree but now she was much more into it. By that I mean she started saying things she had never said before.

Our sex life increased and remained that way pretty much the length of her A.

She was more adventurous in bed and did things that were new to me, or new to us.

Suddenly started trimming down there in a big way.

Started staying up late at night.

WW would chug NyQuil to help her go to sleep. (I was later told this was because of the guilt; she could not shut her mind off).

Always turned on her side facing away from me in bed.

In the latter part of her A she suddenly had a lot of reasons to go into town (because they were not working together anymore).

Discovered they were both 'liking' each others pics on Instagram. Especially WW, she would 'like' almost every pic he posted.

He started taking care of himself better physically, going to the gym, eating better. I was so proud of him for making those positive changes. It never occoured to me that he had bought a gym membership just as an excuse to get out of the house.

My STBXWW had gotten a quite lazy with her grooming rituals. It looked like she had a poodle in her lap when she was naked.

I am sorry, perhaps to bring some levity to this thread... I could not stop laughing.

I am amazed at how many people DO NOT LOCK or password protect their electronic devices.. it explains a lot of the digital vulnerabilities that exist and by sheer ignorance, apathy?..

For me, passwords are compulsory on all electronics, my wife's kids everyone.

He started taking care of himself better physically, going to the gym, eating better. I was so proud of him for making those positive changes

.

@khaleesi so your husband was actually able to get fitter but also use the same time he used at the gym to carry out his affair?

I too went to the gym and changed my lifestyle although i should say that my wife met me as a fit person and then i got fat for 5 years and decided to go back and get fit again... albeit i got my wife to follow a year later.

I guess i hate the fact that it is considered a red flag when one decides to improve themselves sadly.

I thought of a few more.

She called him on his cell phone. The name that came up wasn't her but I could hear her voice on the phone. WH hurried and got off the phone and told me it was one of his friends. I told him I knew it was her voice. Then he told me her BH wouldn't like them talking so she didn't want me to know either. They were just friends after all. I just let it go. This was before the physical part of the A started (I think) If only I hadn't been so stupid and believed his lies. I didn't even question him about it.

I posted before, but I have just thought of something else.

Both my WH and I worked for the same university. He was in administration with responsibilities on several campuses; I taught a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule at one campus. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I would stay home to work on grading and lesson plans. I am now remembering the phone calls I would get on those days asking for my WH. I always answered, "He's at work," whereupon the caller (usually a professor) would say no, he's not in his office. I would say something like, he's probably at one of the other campuses or in a meeting--here's his cell phone number.

That should have been a giant red flag right there. But it never occurred to me that he was seeing OW. Never once!

I just hope that his cell phone kept ringing and ringing annoyingly and relentlessly when he and OW were in the throes of passion!