SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Before D-day, and before you had serious suspicions, what was the dumbest thing you overlooked that should have been a major red flag?

Mine probably isn't as glaring as some other people's misses. I was traveling for work. I often sent song lyrics to my wife in a text. Sometimes they were funny, sometimes romantic, sometimes just for the heck of it. Wife loves REO Speedwagon. Their song "Take It On the Run" came on the radio. So I sent some lyrics to her.

Heard it from a friend who

Heard it from a friend who

Heard it from another you been messin' around

She freaked out. She responded with a "What! That would never happen. Who's telling you this?" Or something like that, anyway. I don't remember her exact words.

It was completely an out of the norm response for her, especially since she knows REO's songs well. Me, being stupid, replied that it's just song lryics and to calm down. I assumed she thought I was wrongly accusing her of cheating and I actually felt bad for making her think that. Afterwards I never thought about it again.

Until D-day. Then I kicked myself. Hard.

[This message edited by Cycle1 at 9:36 AM, October 19th (Wednesday)]

That she helped out in marketing events after work, even though she is a Database Manager. I thought she was just helping out the CEO who she was friends with... Coincidentally, all those marketing events stopped after Dday. Mmmhmmm...

[This message edited by Randy1133 at 9:40 AM, October 19th (Wednesday)]

I was a typical menopausal 50 year old woman, not very interested in sex. He was always VERY interested but eventually settled into my "once every 3 weeks" frame of mind. I actually thought we were in sync for the first time in our marriage!!

EVERYTHING !!! WH had an office outside the home when the affair started and I believed the "burning the midnight oil" story because it was a new business. This was the beginning of the affair.

Then he started working from home and it seemed he had a meeting every other day! I used to ask why that business couldn't be conducted over the phone or Skype. He would also stay up late on the computer "working"

Coming home at 2 or 3AM from band practice. I trusted him! Thought he deserved guy time. Yes he went to band and then a few drinks with the guys but didn't come straight home

Then he would go "help" his elderly mother and she complained to me that he was always rushed.

Boy do I feel stupid. I missed all the red flags

"I need to go into work early now...and stay a little later. It's just because I can get so much more done THERE than at home." (Home where we have no kids or any other distraction.) Gawd I'm stupid.

The first red flag I missed - my husband was charging his phone and a text came in...I looked over at it and said "Joe wants to know if you have hockey tonight..."

My husband was quiet for a while then asked me "don't you think it's a bit intrusive to read my texts?"

It was never an issue before - in fact I used his phone for years before I got my own...so I looked at him with a puzzled look and replied - "No lol!" And went on my merry way...sigh...

[This message edited by sassylee at 10:02 AM, October 19th (Wednesday)]

I went back over it a million times in my head and the scariest thing of all is there were virtually no clues. The only thing was she set up a business meeting with her and AP, but left rather quickly. Even that wasn't a big clue as she wasn't that interested in the finances. A little less sex too as she tried not to double dip too much. Ugh

That was a huge topic when we discussed the A. How could she be so good to me, all the while screwing him. She describes it as like a manic episode. Not buying it

I was going through an apprenticeship at the time. I was in my every-other-week day class. I forgot some info at home. So I called her at lunch so she could give me the info over the phone.

Me: Hey babe, are you at the house?

Her: Yes.

Me: Cool can you grab the paper on the table and read to me the stuff on it?

Her: Oh, I mean I'm heading home shortly.

Me: Oh, where are you?

Her: I'm at [OM's] house having lunch.

Me: Ok, text me the info when you get home.

Yes, she actually told me she was at his house. But I was ok with it. They're just friends. She'd never cheat. It actually never crossed my mind. And I didn't think about how she said she was going home soon, but I didn't get the text info from her until hours later.

The selfies and the beard!! We are middle aged and would joke about the "younger generation" and their addiction to their own faces. Then all of a sudden he is taking selfies everywhere and posting them on FB. He was so into pictures of himself, and this long beard he decided to grow. He got unusually attached to the beard. He'd often comment that he knew I wasn't fond of it. I'd just tell him like I always did that whatever he chose to do with his hair/facial hair was fine with me, as long as he liked it. He often went through phases with goatee, mustache etc... I even tolerated it when it made intimacy uncomfortable.

I figured out after Dday that he SHE liked the beard. He kissed me and was intimate with me with THAT beard that he grew for HER!! He shaved it the day I figured it out. It's taken well over a year for me to look at a man with a beard like that without cringing.

I got off work at 5pm, she got off at 4pm. During the summer of 2009, I would get home before her 2 or 3 times a week. She would tell me she went to the mall an would seem agitated whenever I asked her where she had been. I loved an believed her. I was such a dumb schmuck.

OW, my 'friend' turned up on my doorstep late one night (very unusual) having 'been for a run' and wanting a drink of water. I let her in, stood chatting in the kitchen and then she said she wanted WH to walk her home because it was getting dark.

I DROVE HER HOME. What an idiot. She even made me drop her off a bit away from her house so that her husband wouldn't know she'd 'cheated' on doing her run.

I'm one of the ones who was blind until I saw the messages linked to his computer.

Looking back, the only thing I can say is that the women were friends of ours so they would come up in conversation. He used to tell me OW1 bossed her husband around a lot and we'd discuss how lucky he was that I didn't do that. After she became AP, her name was never brought up by him again.

I also would recommend to everyone to occasionally check out the cell bill. It was the only bill he ever took care of and now I know why. Had I looked before, I would have caught on before 2 years went by.

Other than that, he acted pretty much the same. Scary.

There was never a time when my WH wasn't cheating on me, but there was a time before I became suspicious of it.

Not long after we got married, WH and I went out dancing in the state that we living in. Neither of us knew anyone there. I fumbled a step during the dance routine. WH totally lost it in front of God and everyone else at the dance club. He stopped dancing entirely in the middle of the dance floor and went off on me, chewing me out up one side and down the next.

I apologized and told him that he had given me a blind lead on the step so I didn't know that he was going to do that. He had wanted me to do a very complicated triple spin which stepped directly into a behind the back tunnel move and ended with a side by side step. Something I had never done or even practiced before. After cussing me out and calling me every name in the book, he walked off very angrily and left me standing on the dance floor.

Red flag. He immediately walked up to a very attractive blond chick and asked her to dance. She was horrible and didn't know any of the steps at all. Didn't know how to dance at all. But he was oh so kind and patient with her, showing her basic steps.

I got upset with him for how he treated me and for dancing with this woman who couldn't even dance at all. He looked straight at me, laughed, and told me that I deserved it for being a dumb ass who couldn't keep up with him on dancing. He had my keys and refused to give them to me and spent the rest of the evening dancing with the non-dancer.

Should have divorced him then and there. Instead, I let him suck me back in with apologies afterward. It only got worse from there.

There were very few clues. Here are the few I had over 2 years:

He was going to the funeral home in the evenings more often, for families I didn't know. So, silly me, I buy him new clothes so he will look nicer.

The smell of Dial Soap on his body one evening. We hadn't had Dial soap in our house in years. He didn't like that kind of soap. (Hotel soap no doubt)

His adult children would call for him, but I couldn't find him in the basement or outside. One night he came in the driveway on his motorcycle, angry at me because he ran out of gas. I didn't even know he was gone. He had apparently been leaving, while suppose to be in the basement, waiting until he was out of the driveway to start the motorcycle.

His cell phone rings, I answer as I always do when he is in the basement or outside. A woman I don't know asked for him, but doesn't want me to bother him. She sounds very old, with a shaky voice. She tells me "We are just friends".

One evening, I notice a long gray hair on the lapel of his jacket and remarked "What old woman has been hugged up to you today"? and laughed. Much later I find out he had been having an affair with a 73 year old woman(old enough to be my mother) for 2 whole years.

It's so sickening to think about it. We he told me about the affair, he had just found out he had terminal cancer. So we stayed together for 4 more years battling cancer. He is better now and we are separated. He is back with the old whore.

Omigosh... Furious, I just teared up reading that. How awful!! My ex used to disrespect and embarrass me like that in public. I used to take it. One day just before the end of that M I'd just had ENOUGH.. we were out with friends celebrating his birthday. He was drunk and blatantly flirting with a friend/coworker who'd plunked herself down between us. I went to say something to him and he tried to wave me off/shut me up with his hand and clumsily knocked her drink into my lap and then proceeded to scream and yell at ME for it, telling me to go get her another drink. I very calmly stood up, dumped his beer over his head and (still calmly) walked off to the ladies room to get cleaned up. Everyone else at the table thought it was hilarious. I was so hurt and humiliated. It was just awful. I can still feel the hurt and humiliation when I think of it. Later that night he was so drunk he got sick on the way home. He got NO sympathy from me.

fWW's co-worker actually gave her a "mix tape," on CD.

That really should have been a clue.

My husband suddenly started shaving his balls, and I found Viagra. He said it was for masturbation, since he hadn't been using it on me, that's for sure. He kept the bottle in a secret pocket in his jacket. He actually sticks to that story to this day, the ass.

The earliest indication he was not a man I should be with was when I was badly injured in a car accident from which he emerged unscathed. Among my less-life-threatening, but most inconvenient injuries were a bunch of pelvic fractures. Never mind that close to 40 years later I experience pain every moment of my life because of these injuries. (Pain, btw, that is alleviated by sex, because a healthy pelvic floor helps tremendously---it's not like sex was ever on our agenda post-marriage)-----the boy was inconvenienced by my convalescence.

As soon as it was clear I was out of the woods, he ghosted. I guess the fact that I wasn't willing to at least give him a blowjob in my parents' den (that snapped-in-half clavicle and jaw injury made that a tad uncomfy) made me not worth his while. At the time, he made it clear that one of the girls int he house he shared with a passel of college kids was interested in him. I am sure that was his first infidelity---and I broke up with him. But I guess ol' Amy wearied of him.

took him back. Worst mistake of my life--but the first of many, many, many.

[This message edited by solus sto at 11:20 AM, October 19th (Wednesday)]

The narcissistic interest in her picture being taken to post on FB.

Working late at night from home (she works from home during the day but was never there)

No sex. A lot of sex. The dichotomy was literally a tale of two persons, and symptom of the A's.

The secrecy and lack of transparency in passwords and accounts, and the married living single lifestyle we were living

Waxing

Having a tattoo removed in which I have a matching one. We got them together.

Removing several wart-like bumps she was born with on her inner thigh right next to her vajayjay.

[This message edited by Cougins at 11:23 AM, October 19th (Wednesday)]

Here's another of mine. I traveled for work M-F at the time. There was a nurse that stayed at our house every day to take care of a disabled family member. This was supposed to give my wife a break to take care of the house, errands, etc.

The nurse became like a family member. She actually became suspicious well before I did. She didn't want to get involved, but she started giving hints during our day to day conversations.

One thing my wife did all week while I was gone was "go to the store to get something for dinner." The nurse wasn't buying it, but here I was, the stupid one, actually defending my wife's actions, saying she just wasn't organized enough to plan meals ahead of time. Funny how my wife never needed to go to the store when I was home on the weekends.