SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I have been married for 11 1/2 years. Long story, short... I have always figured my H has sent texts to other women I knew, something like a "you are looking sexy" or something similar. I have an open mind and realize he is a man and as long as the other female is not a threat to my marriage and knows my H's personality, I could deal with it. But, never in a million years did I think I would deal with anything more. One weekend my H was being suspicious with his phone. He was trying to hide when he was texting, that kind of thing. So, me being curious, I pulled the text records since I am the primary owner of our cell phone account. I was absolutely blown away at what I found. I found that not only was he texting with a few..but as many as 6-10 different women, possibly more. Some of them are single, some are married... some of them I knew... some of them I didnt. I didnt have access to the actual texts.. so I gained access to his cell phone and confirmed my fears. My H was sexting, including exchanging pictures, with all of these women. I was completely stunned. I confronted him about it, with a text log in hand. He tried lying to me about it, saying it was just "flirting." Even when I showed him the screenshots I captured of the conversations, he still tried to deny it. I did threaten D at that time, but he agreed to do better, and go to counseling. He said he should not have been doing that, but didnt feel like he was receiving the attention at home, so he got it elsewhere. That all happened about a month and a half ago. Oh, he also requested that I stop looking at the phone logs. I told him at the time that I would. But since then, I cant help but be suspicious every time I hear his phone chime. I have been monitoring activity on the phone account and just this week, started seeing texts to a random woman he met on FB. He has deleted their text conversations. I can see from the log that they have exchanged photos a couple of times. Has anyone else had any experience with this?

I am going throught this. PM me if you would like for specifics and for support.

If you feel betrayed he needs to take that as such. It IS still cheating! He should be transparent, and you should have access to emails, fb and phone. Anything that is a means of "flirting" with other women. Ask him how he would feel if you were sexting and sending pictures to other men or just "flirting". Probably pretty crappy. I saw on fb once a pic that said " if we are in a relationship, I don't care how many people flirt with YOU; it's what YOU say back that really matters". I find this true to be completely true and I sent it on to my WH and he said that is true and what he should have done. I wish you the best. Please message me if you need to talk. Sometimes I feel like because my husband didn't physically do anything nor did he fall in love with anyone that I shouldn't be as devastated. I know that isn't true, any betrayal of trust is devastating but I guess that's a form of rug sweeping for me.

Let me preface this with I didn't read any other responses but this shit makes me nuts.

Unless you two agreed to an open marriage this as to stop and NOW. He is cheating and if he deems otherwise he is a disillusioned idiot.

Welcome to SI. The club we never planned to join but are dang happy we did.

I tend to tell it like it is and that may seen harsh as you are quite raw and confused. There is no time for soft speak. Your H is cheating g and unless you two have agreed to an open marriage his behavior is unacceptable. Even 8 you agreed to an open marriage lies and secrecy are not acceptable.

Do not allow him to dictate the terms. Telling you to not check cell records and making you feel guilty for not trusting. He is sending pics of his bits to women that ain't ok.

You need to take control. Now it's up to you how you go about it. I would recommend that you do a few things prior to drawing your line in the sand.

I tell all newbies the following and had I done all of this I would have saved some heartache.

1. Get tested for any and all STD'S. He can't be trusted. You don't know where his personal line is. Until you do prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

2. See a lawyer. Find out your rights and his responsibilities. This gives you some knowledge and power. Don't assume he is going to get his head out his pants and do what's right. It often. Takes real consequences for a cheater to wake up.

3. Figure out your absolutes. What you want and what you need to move forward. If this is it and you want to D then do it. If you want to R then figure out boundaries and make them as simple and clear as possible.

You have done nothing wrong. You did not cause this. Your spouse is quite broken and until he is willing to do the work to fix that there is little you can do. Nothing you did or didn't do caused this. He is broken he has to fix this and any blame he places on anyone other than himself is bullshit.

Take some time to read the healing library over there to the left side of the screen. You are strong smart and capable. Do not allow him to make you feel less than that.

I confronted him about it, with a text log in hand. He tried lying to me about it, saying it was just "flirting." Even when I showed him the screenshots I captured of the conversations, he still tried to deny it.

In other words, he is completely OK with lying to you about his infidelity. And sexting anyone other than his wife IS infidelity. He is giving space in his head, and intimate parts of himself to someone other than you.

He was trying to hide when he was texting, that kind of thing.

and he knew it was wrong since he tried to hide it from you. If it wasn't wrong, why try to hide it?

He said he should not have been doing that, but didnt feel like he was receiving the attention at home, so he got it elsewhere.

Anytime someone states something and then adds a "but" to the statement, it negatates everything that went on before the but, and everything after the but is what he really meant to say. So, reading his comment as he meant to say it, "I got caught and I knew it was wrong, so my mental justification about betraying you is that you didn't give me enough attention. Instead of saying something to you about what I felt, I decided to go get me some from some skank(s) that would pay attention to me and tell me what a stud-muffin I was!"

Oh, he also requested that I stop looking at the phone logs.

And why would that be? Well, because he wanted to make YOU feel guilty for HIS infidelity, and then try to cover up any future infidelity by extracting a promise from you that should never have been made. He betrayed your trust. He doesn't get to set "boundaries" over the very implement that he used to betray you.

Married people do not have secrets from each other. Married people do not hide things from each other. Married people do not send sexual photos or comments to other people. Period.

Next he's going to trot out that old, tired comment that he "values his privacy." I swear, cheaters use the exact same damned script. All of them.

Privacy is when you go to the bathroom, turn on the fan, and shut the door. Yeah, we all know that you're in there taking a dump, but out of courtesy, we pretend that we don't hear (or smell) you. Secrecy is when you hide something from your spouse. There is a vast difference and more to the point, when someone shows you that they cannot be trusted, then you Do Not Trust them. Until they earn that trust back through consist ant effort over a great deal of time.

workingmama, you cannot nice your WH back. You need to set firm boundaries and tell him that it's your way or the highway. Unless you are OK with living in an open marriage.

Please look at the upper left corner in the yellow box and click on The Healing Library. Read it. Go to the Just Found Out forum and read any post in the first 3 pages that have red "targets" next to them. These are all postings from people who have BTDT and will give you a great deal of knowledge about what you WH (wayward husband) is likely to try to say and do. Because they are stupidly predictable. He's not as unique as he thinks he is. And you probably have not heard the complete, unvarnished truth.

I also suggest that you post in the Just Found Out forum. There are a lot of experienced people there that make it a regular place to hang out to help newcomers. (((hugs)))

You've already received some great advice, so I'll just respond to this one piece:

Oh, he also requested that I stop looking at the phone logs. I told him at the time that I would.

That's horseshit. I got a similar line from The Princess. "If you ever install a keylogger on the computer again, that's how I'll know you don't love me."

Fuck that! That's how you'll know that I can't trust you.

Of course you can't trust him: He's proven he's a cheating prick!

Let's think about that one. If I had been caught in a lie, and wanted to prove to my spouse that I could be trusted, I would say, "You can check the phone logs any time, and you'll see that I'm not misbehaving."

Isn't that what you'd do?

He's trying to make you feel like you did something wrong by checking the logs.

I don't care if you told him you wouldn't check the logs again, you have a right to know if your husband is screwing around. You should go ahead and check those logs, and not feel a bit of guilt about it!

Sexting ended my marriage. Do not dismiss it. It is an extremely addictive behavior, and like all addictions it will escalate. They need more and more to feel the thrill. My ex was sexting with some 50 different women by the time I caught him. He was up to his eyeballs in porn and the world of anonymous sex. He had lost all control and lost his marriage, his children, and over half of his assets....because of sexting. Don't downplay it. Don't let him downplay it. Any implication that it isn't serious or isn't cheating is bullshit.

Gently... If he's not already physically cheating, he will be soon.

This is classic sex addict behavior.

Be prepared to find out more info that you may not want to hear.

Good luck!

Yes!! Texting turned to sexting, then pic exchange, then full blown A. My ws lied to until I told him I had printed out 30 pages in one month of texts to ow #. He said it was over but he went undergrround. Our M is over, just haven't started the paperwork. This is serious shit. Nothing good can come from it and a lot of the EA and Pa on this site, started with sexting.

At the least your WH is slipping down a mountainous slippery slope faster than a bobsledder. I do not know if he has dipped his wick yet, but the first secret communication with one of these OW made him a cheater committing infidelity.

What to do? If you want to have R, you will need total transparency, including call logs, access to his phone, and his passwords. Sadly, there are many ways to communicate other than texting, including FB, Dropbox, email draft files, etc. He will find a way until he realizes he is in fact, cheating.

One way to stop this, if the OW are married, send your evidence to the BS and see if they consider this all innocent.

Evidently your H has no care for your feelings or emotional health right now. You have had a DDay and what you do about it will color the rest of your M. I did not bring holy hell down on my H at my first DDay and I had to live through a very excruciating second DDay. Protect yourself and push for complete transparency now. Then verify everything he tells you.

I think you need to raise your expectations of men.

I don't think normal M or committed men sext with anyone but their W or SO. Ever.

You deserve to treat yourself and be treated by others with more love and respect.

(((workingmama)))

My husband was sexting too. His affair was an emotional affair- they met initially in person, but most of the actual affair happened with facebook messaging. It is absolutely not ok. Sexting is being unfaithful. It is having an affair.

Thank you all SO SO SO much from the bottom of my heart for your feedback and advice. I think you are all absolutely right. I'm so confused on what I should do, mainly because I have 5 year old son with this man, a son that I completely love and adore. He is my world. I dont want to take him away from my WH, but at the same time, I feel like I simply cannot be in a M with him any longer. We have a LONG history, and have even technically divorced previously. It breaks my heart into a million to think of how a D would affect my precious son. My WH has been verbally abusive for a number of years, but has recently stopped since he started medication (lexapro). So, at this point, I feel almost completely numb to him and I'm SO tired of TRYING and always being the one to put him in his place about how he treats me. I dont think a marriage should be like this. My heart shatters for my son. At this point, I am going to continue to monitor the text log, as I've been doing and as soon as I'm financially able, and when I have the proof, I will confront him, but only after I have secured a new place to live and D papers.

Skan has it right:

Married people do not have secrets from each other. Married people do not hide things from each other. Married people do not send sexual photos or comments to other people. Period.

Next he's going to trot out that old, tired comment that he "values his privacy." I swear, cheaters use the exact same damned script. All of them.

Privacy is when you go to the bathroom, turn on the fan, and shut the door. Yeah, we all know that you're in there taking a dump, but out of courtesy, we pretend that we don't hear (or smell) you. Secrecy is when you hide something from your spouse. There is a vast difference and more to the point, when someone shows you that they cannot be trusted, then you Do Not Trust them. Until they earn that trust back through consist ant effort over a great deal of time.

I got the "privacy" speach. Yea, after the A ended he was still sneaking behind my back to talk/text to other women. Privacy = cheating.

I've always had a problem with silly little iPhone games and stuff.

For instance, I'd sometimes download a brain-teaser or a word game onto my and H's phones, to play between us. He, however, would inevitably find a way to start chatting to other women on those games. He found absolutely nothing wrong with it!

Now that he's gone - sans explanation - I wonder if he hooked up with one of the floosies out there on that game and ran off with her

I'll probably never know.