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About a month ago I posted here. To re-cap, I have suspected my husband is having an affair for months. He has vehemently denied this and has pretty much made me feel crazy for even thinking it at every turn. I don't have any concrete proof; the best thing I have is the fact that I heard a cell phone vibrating in his closet- which I searched- then had a light bulb moment that it was in the attic space, but when I went back to look in the attic, no phone, but boxes and coats in obviously different locations than I recalled (seems that he got to it first). I have since purchased a VAR. Trouble is, WH works from home some days and in office some days, and we trade off cars based on needs (we have one SUV and one small car). I have recorded 4 times, and haven't revealed anything EXCEPT, one day that I planted the VAR in his office, he was watching porn ALL day. That was a little shocking, to say the least. I mean, ALL DAY???

My counselor suggested that I confront WH about the cell phone I have heard in the attic. Of course he vehemently denied this too. Offered no explanation at all about why boxes and coats would have been moved. I can't stand the feelings of yes I know, but he makes me feel crazy and that I don't know what I am talking about. It makes me question myself and question whether I am actually going crazy.

This week, WH is on a business trip. Our counselor has encouraged us to compliment or encourage our spouse by telling each other what we like or appreciate about each other each day. I sent WH a text in the evening, and when he didn't respond, I used the awesome 'find your iphone' app to see where he was. Low and behold, he was at a strip club in Austin Texas called Expose. The next morning, I notice two ATM withdrawals, which were at the same address as the strip club totaling $250. He said he was there because a colleague is getting married soon, so it was a bachelor thing, and the $250 was for lap dances for the group of 3-4 he was with (that seems like a lot to me for lap dances??) I spoke to WH the same day I noticed the ATM withdrawal at the strip club and he didn't say a word. He talked about the evening and where they had dinner and going to a brewery after but nothing about the strip club (lying by omission, I think). Had he been honest with me, and had we not BEEN WORKING ON OUR MARRIAGE WITH A THERAPIST BECAUSE I AM ALREADY SUSPICIOUS OF INFIDELITY, I might not have been too concerned, however, given where we are, this screams to me that he is not committed to rebuilding trust or saving our marriage. when I told WH I knew where he had been and how much cash he spent, he confessed and admitted to having a lap dance.

Yesterday I changed the locks on the doors (don't really care if I am allowed to do this in the eyes of the law right now). Today, I called WH to let him know when he flies home tomorrow, he is not welcome here and that I need space and separation to figure things out. I told him the only way I could even think about continuing to reconcile is if he comes clean about the cell phone I KNOW I heard in the attic space. He vehemently denies the cell phone, even now that I have told him that we are headed for divorce and losing everything we have spent 18 years building. Is there any chance he could be Innocent? How will I ever know. I don't have the phone; I am pretty sure he beat me to it. He says it was something else I heard. I am losing a lot myself here, so I have to ask, could he be innocent? Thoughts??

How does he react when you bring up the phone? Does he flip his lid or is he calm cool and collected? What is your gut saying? If I remember correctly you thought you had heard a vibrating noise previously?

It's really hard to say, most of the WS are really good liars!

Good luck, I hope your able toget some truth!

My God I hate to say it but he sounds like my husband. I found out he's been seeing escorts for years. They all use "hobby" phones to set up "dates" with prostitutes. He admitted that it started with heavy porn watching, strip clubs, massage parlors and moved on from there. I pray this is not your reality but don't keep your head in the sand like I did. Your gut rarely lies.

Yes, he could very well be innocent. But unfortunately, I don't think he is and more importantly neither do you. You know your relationship better then anyone and if you feel this positive then it is happening.

I am wondering how he watches porn all day at the office? Spend $250 ++ on Lap dances?? This screams of SA. Not to add insult to injury but that $250 seems it could be to pay someone to have sex with him. I just can't see that being for lap dances.

You have the "find me" on on his iphone does he know you can find him? This could be key in finding out what's going on.

I'm sorry you're going through this. I think you're doing the right thing by telling him you need time and space.

It's tough, but listen to your gut. If your gut says something is there, something is.

I would not be happy if I learned that my husband went to a strip club or spent $250 there even if it was for his buddies. If he was going to a bachelor party why didn't he let you know. He knows that you are feeling insecure and he isn't being transparent. He is lying to you and spending family time (watching porn all day while "working" at home) and family money on sexual stuff outside of your marriage. At the very least he isn't showing respect for your feelings and spending time and money as though he were single with no one but himself to think about.

You are not crazy, I'm sorry to say... What happened to me just recently makes me understand what you are saying... I was standing in front of my husband showing him a facebook account with his surname on his work laptop that I hardly ever touch ... (the facebook account was linked to an anonymous internet add of a married man looking for sex in out area....) and he looked into my eyes telling me it must have been one of his colleagues who borrowed the laptop a day before... I asked him to call that colleage and ask him if he accessed fb from his laptop...of course the guy said no... then he said that someone wants to frame him... I mean...his surname, his work laptop that locks itself if u dont touch it for 1 minute... I told him I don't care if he denies it to his grave... I KNOW it's him and that he put that add and if he doesn't come clean I will tell everyone, I will send emails even to his boss and I will make him the laughing stock of everyone as we've been married for just 10 months and I came from another continent for his sake even though he has 3 kids with 2 other women.... So, not even then... he said I must do what I must do ... The only thing that made him confess was that I told him that if the conversation ends and he doesn't admit to it ..... I will never talk to him again about it... only about money for me to go back home and how fast we can file for divorce... I told him in the morning it will be too late... only then he confessed... So, my opinion is.... even if you would have found the phone that day ... he would have said it's not his... maybe a friend's ... maybe the cable guy who was there last month... so, please, trust yourself, noone else. You have my deep sympathy.

They call it gaslighting for a reason. The baldfaced lies seriously make you doubt your sanity.

Have you considered hiring a PI or having your H do a lie detector?

I have been there. My H maintained some lies for decades. And although I couldn't prove them, they stayed between us, made me feel unsafe and kept him from getting the help he needed.

My H wasn't evil. He was just majorly conflict avoidant and at all costs did not want to face his actions, and himself.

Your H is lying, at least by omission. You are not crazy. Stay strong. Not knowing is absolute hell.

If is quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck...

Also, many WS claim that "lying by admission isn't lying", they want to "protect us" from the truth.

If you have the money, I'd have him followed if you feel like you need more concrete proof.

Hang in there.

Also, "lawyer up" as we like to say here. Find out what your rights are in your state. It doesn't mean you are going to file, you just want to know your rights so you can plan for the future.

Stuck, your therapist was wrong when they told you to confront your husband about the phone. You didn't have enough evidence to go with, so he was able to deny, deny, deny and make you think you were crazy.

NO MORE CONFRONTING until you have TANGIBLE evidence.

Look, cheaters are the greatest liars on the planet - they have the ability (borne out of necessity to keep their hides out of trouble) to make you think you're CRAZY.

The term for that is "gaslighting." Hey - are you going to believe your husband or your lying eyes??? They'll get you to believe THEM and think your eyes are lying to you. It's crazy-making.

I highly doubt your husband blew hundreds of dollars just to get his buddies lap dances. HIGHLY doubt it. He probably paid for one and during their little dance 'interlude,' she probably 'sold him up' to something a little more physical and a little more private in the back room - which necessitated ANOTHER withdrawal to pay for those services. I have a few friends who have told me various strip joints they know of have back rooms where 'private services' are administered right here where I live, so why should it be any different in a big city like Austin? It's actually MORE probable, to be honest.

As the other poster said, it's also highly likely that he's got a 'hobby' phone that he uses to contact women from strip clubs or hookers or Craigslist women. More than likely, that's the phone you heard vibrating.

Since he works from the computer at home sometimes, get a GOOD software program that is NOT detectable and impossible to find if someone is looking for it. Maybe Eblaster or something along those lines. What you need is a program that takes SCREEN SHOTS of the computer screen every 30 seconds and also records all keystrokes typed on the keyboard so you can see and read EXACTLY what he's doing at 'work' all day. A VAR will only let you hear the cheesy porn music and fake groans of the women, but it won't let you SEE what he's up to like a high quality spying program will.

Bottom line - accusing him without evidence will just cause him to go MUCH deeper underground to hide his activities while he STILL lies right through his teeth to you. Having screen shots and text files of what he's really been doing on the computer - shoved right under his lying nose - is a WHOLE different ballgame.

Yes!! I learned too late both times not to confront until you have everything you need.

Your MC is doing more harm than good......

So on the phone this morning, I asked WH how often he goes to strip clubs. He said he could come clean that he would visit them with a particular work colleague, but that it was 'rarely', and he never 'put his thing' in anyone else. He still denies the hidden phone. Last night I decided to put my phone up there and call it. Sounded the same to me as what I heard before.

WH also admitted to watching porn often. I asked him when the last time was that he watched porn (knowing full well it was last Wednesday, because I actually have VAR proof of that- which I WILL NOT be disclosing to him. Anyways, he said it was about two weeks ago when we were having a rough patch after counseling, because that is how he gets release when we are fighting and not having sex. How nice of him to LIE and also BLAME ME for his porn use? Unbelievable.

I have been suspecting an affair for months, never had concrete proof, but even thought his behavior was suspicious with a particular woman who works for him. Now I wonder if I have been wrong all along and it is a sex addiction that started with porn and then strip clubs and of course now I am wondering if the phone is for calling prostitutes??

1devastated mom- how did you find out about your husband? Did you find his 'hobby' phone? Did he finally confess?

Thanks for all of the replies. The validation is helpful and gives me strength to continue with separation. Believe me, there is still part of me that wants to think this is a nightmare and pretend like we are happily on the road to reconciliation. The thought of having sex with him now is repulsive. I don't think the $250 was just for lap dances. He said he bought 5-6 for himself and the rest for his 3 friends. Why didn't they pay for their own?

gonnabe2016- yes, I am starting to see that MC is not that helpful. She is fairly new in the profession. How can you tell if they are a good one before spending 6 sessions with them??

My husband is an SA, so maybe they lie more? Regardless, your husband sounds to me like he's lying. From sad experience, I know that run-of-the-mill prostitutes/escorts cost $200-300 (California and Texas). So the price your husband paid for lap dances seems to be the going price for sex. :(

Also, after my husband confessed his affair last January, he got a cheapo phone to separate his personal calls from his work calls. WE--his family--used the throw-away type. He--and his not-so-NC OW--used the work phone. When I confronted him last weekend with proof of his texts to her (he lied and lied and lied until I showed him photos I took of their convos), I asked if he got the second phone so he wouldn't accidentally send a text to the wrong person. He said no--that the non-work phone was for calling prostitutes. And his family???? We got the prostitute phone and OW got the classified work phone??? SO very much wrong there. But the point is that that's how my manipulative spouse explained away the second phone. To keep his personal calls separate from his business calls. As you might imagine, that other phone is now kaput, the work phone includes family, and the OW has received a NC letter that I approved (there was no resumption of the PA, "just" the EA, with innocuous but friendly texts all day).

So, yes, proof, proof, proof whenever you're confronting. And believe nothing you can't verify--especially when your gut is speaking. Even though the magnitude of my husband's acting out stuns me, I wasn't clueless that something was going on. I just thought it was a bit of twitterpation. Something was off. I think we KNOW these things.

Good luck! I'm so sorry you're going through this. Hugs.

I am not very far into this myself, so hesitate to give advice. But the one thing I've learned is to trust your gut. For years I suspected, something felt off, but he always had a reasonable explanation or I was willfully blind. I thought I was nuts, convinced myself I was going to ruin our marriage by being insane. That being said, he didn't admit until there was proof... And then the floodgates opened. I also relied on my gut a bit (risky maybe) to suggest I had proof of more than I did.

Hang in there.

Could he be innocent? yes. Could he be a great liar? yes. The facts are that you know what your heard and have evidence about his love of porn and know that he visited a strip club. You know your relationship better than anyone. We can only give advice based on what you're giving. Like what has been said many, many times here, always have evidence before confronting.

I don't want to add confusion or stir up a ruckus, but being a man, most of us avoid telling out wives that we visited a strip club unless we have to. Yes, in a perfect world, there wouldn't be any secrets. My marriage wasn't great, which I own 50% of, and yes, I didn't mention it until it came to our R and I didn't want any secrets, so I confessed to that. Even in healthy, or what appears to be healthy marriages, men don't talk about it with their wife unless they have to. I know I'll get backlash on that, but it's the truth. I honestly don't remember the last time I've been, it's been years, probably around 10 yrs, lap dance was $20 w/o tip, and never did I see anything beyond bumping and grinding, not that it may not have been there. I just never saw it or asked for it, unlike my WW. As far as buying for friends, yes, it does happen, more of a "joke" among boys. It's sad, but it's true.

I'm sorry for what you're going through. Regardless of an PA, you're going through hell and I'm sorry for that and certainly don't mean to add to any doubt. Ultimately, you do have to trust your instinct....

No I didn't find his other phone, the idiot was stupid enough to use his personal cell phone, but he told me that he looked into a burner phone because that's what all the other "hobbyists" on TER told him to do to keep your wife from finding out, but was too cheap to buy one (he also was cheap when it came to his prostitutes, never paid more than $100 so you can imagine the skanky whores he slept with). I was so trusting that I never once thought to check up on him until I found an email from him to an escort back in January. He gaslighted me and told me he was curious and never followed through with it. From then on I was looking for proof. One morning I was snooping through his phone while he slept and found texts between him and a prostitute (he got sloppy and forgot to delete them from the day before). The texts didn't say anything about sex but it was obvious that something fishy was going on with him and this person. I confronted him and he lied straight to my face. Told me that it was a customer (he's an electrician). I almost believed him and then decided to google the phone number when I got to work and it came up as an escort. I freaked out at work and had a complete meltdown. Called him and told him that I knew his dirty secret. He still tried to lie and tell me it was just one blow job, blah blah blah but I pulled up his phone records and found HUNDREDS of calls and texts over the last 18 months by googling every single number (which was as far back as I could go). That's when he broke down and told me it started 15 years ago with porn, strip clubs, massage parlors and then prostitutes once he found out you could "order" them online because he wanted to act out what he saw in porn. I searched the house and found a huge stack of porn hiding in the attic. I threw everything away and told him if he wanted to stay together than his porn watching days were over.

I felt so stupid that I didn't know what was going on for all those years. I never once thought he would do anything like this EVER. If I told anyone they would be completely shocked. Now I look at men and wonder if they've paid for sex also because if he could do it anyone can (sorry men).

The good news is that once it was out in the open he completely spilled his guts and has become a completely different person, he says he's glad that I know because it was horrible trying to remember the lies and all the sneaking around. Our marriage hasn't been this good ever. I just hate this had to happen for him to open his eyes.

[This message edited by 1devastedmom at 7:14 PM, October 18th (Friday)]

My WH had serious issues with strip clubs, watching porn, objectifying women. Yes I knew this before I married him, but we had a kid and I had to make this work. He sold himself as one that NEVER cheats, never has cheated, wasn't it nice that he chose me to do that with. The ONLY person he's been with that hasn't cheated on him?

It sounds like you got yourself a big problem. Sorry to say :-( There are GPS trackers you can put on his cell phone without him knowing. It will not only tell you where he is, but where he's been for the day, it's called life 360. My WH put it on his phone AFTER the affair so I can trust him.

I hope you get to the bottom of it, but let me tell you from experience, when they don't want to get caught, they are VERY GOOD liars. Mine had me convinced several times. Now he has broken vows that probably will never heal. Oh and IF he is anywhere near a strip club, IMMEDIATE grounds for divorce. PERIOD.