SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This is my story. I don't know where to go from here. I'm just biding my time, I guess.

On Christmas day, after my husband had been out of town on a business trip, I logged onto our laptop. I started getting bounced messages he had sent. One to me, to tell me he made it there alright. One to a craigslist ad, asking to 'hook up'. The room spun, my heart jumped out of my chest. I was horrified! I threw up. I left the house and everyone in it on Christmas night. I couldn't get away fast enough.

On my way out the door, my husband stopped me. He asked what was wrong. All I could sputter out was, "Really? Craigslist? How original!" He denied it. It was him and his work buddy, just bored and joking around. Didn't I remember that he talked to me every night he was out of town? No, actually he didn't but he wanted to convince me he did.

Between Christmas and New Years, I found more evidence of his straying. There were emails to other craigslist ads on our home computer, with his phone number attached. What a schmuck! Stupid fool didn't realize these were all bots designed to get people to sign up for those sleazy paid to view websites. It doesn't matter though, the intention to have an affair was there.

This is all that I know. He won't tell me more. Recently I found he paid for a 3 month subscription on Classmates and was emailing an old high school friend who happens to be a girl. Nothing was said. She did give him her phone number though. Since he uses a work phone, I cannot see the phone bill and every time I've had access to it there isn't anything obvious on it.

During the time he was going onto classmates, he started a facebook page which he has since deleted because I found him being suggestive to women. When he was out of town for work, he was online after he told me he went to bed. I messaged him and he didn't answer. So I called him on the phone. He LIED. He said he was asleep, he must have left his facebook page up when he fell asleep. He claimed to have been asleep for at least 45 minutes to an hour. A little facebook research tells me it wouldn't have shown him as ONLINE, it would have shown him as IDLE after 10 minutes. I don't know why he'd lie about it. So I checked his email and found someone responding to a 'poke' from him. "Thanks for the poke". After he lied to me, he spent another 1/2 hour on there (chatting with the woman he 'poked', I believe) before deleting his account. He claims he deleted his account because he was jealous of me and he thought I had blocked him from viewing my wall and was having some sort of illicit affair. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

Since then I have not been able to find anything about him online. I'm considering a keylogger (recommendations appreciated) on the home computer but I'm not sure with his weekly out of town business trips that I'd get away with one on the laptop. I do have access to his email, which never contains anything. Especially not now that I think he has covered his tracks.

Also of note: he has had an account at AFF. It is inactive now, I check if his address is used as a sign on. Account closed, it says.

So what I've got in the last year are 3 emails to craigslist ads, one closed account to AFF and some inappropriate behavior he has taken every attempt to hide on classmates and facebook.

Where do I go from here?

Hi, welcome to SI though I am sorry you have a reason to be here.

There are a couple of things you can do.

Keep investigating, install a jeylogger as you mention and see if anything else turns up, although now he knows that you have discovered some these things, he could "go underground" be more furtive.

You could tell him that you want complete transparency from him, which includes acess to all passwords and phones, phone bills and credit cards statements.

I discovered my H's cheating after it ended so I am afraid I am not the best person to give advice at this stage, but someone else will be around before very long. I just wanted you to know that someone had read your post.

Doesn't it suck to have to become a PI? But here are my suggestions of somethings you can do...

Key logger for computers

Find out from your cell phone carrier if you can manage your cell phone accounts on line and then you can watch cell phone records and possibly text messages if they provide text management.

You can bug the house phone (go to radio shack, they can tell you how to do it) if you think he is talking on the home phone.

Plant a VAR (voice activated recorder) You can put it in the house if there is a certain place that he carries on his phone conversations.

Depending on how far things have gone or not gone.... you can get a gps for his vehicle if need be.

google cell phone spying... depending on what kind of cell he has you can get sim card readers and print off usually about 500-1000 text messages... even after they have been deleted.

I am sorry you find yourself here. Stay strong. Do not let him blame you for any of this and convince you that what you are reading or seeing is not real! If he is doing things he shouldn't be doing he will try to cover his tracks.

If you get confirmation of anything that you are not wanting to know... try to stay calm. You may not want to confront him right away. It is better to get as much evidence as you can, because once they are aware of the things you know or figure out how you are getting your information it makes things a lot harder to get information.

Good luck.

Thank you both for your replies. My husband drives a company vehicle. So there isn't much chance I'll have of sticking a voice activated recorder in it. If I somehow had the opportunity, he is gone so in it so often, the thing would surely get noticed somehow. He also has a company cell phone. Again not much chance I'm ever going to see the bill.

As far as transparency goes, he won't even admit he has done anything (it was his friends and it was a joke, etc. All the same old lines). Having transparency is just me acting crazy and stupid. I also believe it would drive him further underground.

bumping for more replies

He claims he deleted his account because he was jealous of me and he thought I had blocked him from viewing my wall and was having some sort of illicit affair. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

So sorry you are here. So sorry he is lying to you and making you feel like the one who is "wrong."

For me your comment above is more of a red flag than anything else he has done. This is common WS crap. And frankly, it is a really lame lie. When they start lying about the strangest things, it's pretty much a giveaway.

Please take care of yourself, eat, sleep, drink water, exercise. Do whatever you can to make yourself feel whole and secure.

There is more. While life is happening, you overlook certain things. Like late nights at work or general crabbiness, or even deleted history on the computer (porn obviously). But nothing that seemed big enough to raise a fuss over. Unless you look at them from a cheating point of view.

Then we see late nights at his work a few hours from here, then out to the bar with friends. Then after that he was a little too drunk to drive so he went and stayed at a hotel. Three nights a week of this. Often spending more nights out with his work mates than coming home. Always with the same lame excuse, he works hard and he works far away. True. Not in dispute, but now that feels like gaslighting to me.

The general way he treated me for a long time was pretty negative. I was fat, boring and wasn't doing enough (no matter what I did). We haven't been a date alone in eons. He stopped listening to me a long time ago.

When I 'caught' his email on Christmas day, he seemed remorseful for awhile. Until the classmates/facebook crap. Now I've just used a cache viewer and found tons of porn on the house computer. Oh he deletes the history, but forgets the cache.

Dear BBB,

I am so sorry you are going through this. It is absolutely the worst thing.

Have you suggested marital counseling? If he won't go, I would at least start with an individual counselor.

Also, please know that anything he does in the cheating realm really has nothing at all to do with you. It is not your fault. It is the mantra around here, and it is very true.

Sending you hugs, and good luck with getting the truth.

Install keyloggers on every computer you own (you cannot legally install on a computer you do not own, so if his laptop belongs to his employer, you can't install on it) I recommend any product made by SpectorSoft. Undetectable and really, really good.

Based on what you've written I suspect you're dealing with a spouse with a sex addiction.

Read my profile for my story.

List of resources for Spouses/Partners of SA

This is the advice and list of resources I give to all members newly dealing with a possible or confirmed SA partner. This is all good advice even if you don't stay together. If you don't educate yourself about SA and codependency you're very likely to end up with another addict partner.

~~

Educate yourself about sexual addiction.

First and foremost you should read these books:

"Mending a Shattered Heart: A Guide for Partners of Sex Addicts" by Stefanie Carnes.

"Deceived: Facing Sexual Betrayal, Lies and Secrets" by Claudia Black PhD

and

"Your Sexually Addicted Spouse: How Partners Can Cope and Heal" by Barbara Steffens and Marsha Means

~~~~

His best hope for recovery is for him to seek treatment with a CSAT (Certified Sex Addiction Therapist) Here is a resource to find CSATs by zip code:

http://www.iitap.com/find_csat.cfm (This site does have listings for CSATs in the UK.)

You might also want to start on that website to find a good therapist for yourself. He has to work his recovery on his own and even if he doesn't get help you'll need counseling to recover from the trauma of being married to a sex addict. And believe me, it IS a trauma. You need to find counselors who are experts on SA otherwise you're in for a world of confusion and pain. (This is my opinion based on experience)

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Online resources:

http://www.sexhelp.com

This is Dr Patrick Carnes' website. He is *the* expert on SA.

http://www.sa.org

Sexaholics Anonymous

If your husband faces his sex addiction and seeks treatment he'll most likely be directed to a 12-Step group. This is the one I recommend. If you look at their site you'll also find information for yourself that may be helpful. (I personally recommend SA not SAA because SAA is too lax in their definition of healthy sexual behavior. This is my opinion.) (I don't know if there are chapters in the UK or not, I'm sure there must be resources available since there are CSATS, I'm sure a CSAT can recommend groups)

http://www.recoverynation.com is an excellent online community with online recovery workshops for both the SA and the spouse. (This should not replace seeing a CSAT and going to SA meetings for the sex addict but is a great addition to those things.)

http://www.candeocan.com This is an excellent source of information. They focus on what they call "porn addiction" however, there is no such thing, it is ALL sex addiction. The info on their site is so good that I still recommend it with the explanation that "porn" addiction is in fact "sex" addiction.

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To fully understand SA you both need to do some reading. If he doesn't face his addiction you should still do the reading to help yourself and decide what you want. I don't advise women to stay with SAs who are not in recovery and who are not sober.

I recommend for the partner (in addition to the 3 above):

"Don't Call It Love: Recovery From Sexual Addiction" by Patrick Carnes (I recommend you read this after you've read "Mending a Shattered Heart" and the others, but not before.)

For the SA:

"Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction" by Patrick Carnes

(I don't recommend you read this book, but it would be an excellent read for your husband to start if he's willing to face his addiction, while you read "Mending a Shattered Heart")

For SAs who also have a serious porn habit, this book "Porn Nation" by Michael Leahy, would be a good book for the SA. Mr. Leahy is a recovering sex addict who had a serious porn addiction that cost him pretty much everything before he finally hit bottom. (I don't recommend that wives read this book at first. It's too triggery for "just found outs")

~~~~

Sadly, a really helpful post regarding boundaries and consequences has long since been lost. Here is a link to a website with good info on it:

http://joy2meu.com/Personal_Boundaries.htm

This is going to be vital for you going forward. You cannot force him to seek treatment and you cannot control him but you do have a right to set boundaries to keep yourself safe.

PM me any time. Please join us in the "Spouses/Partners of SA 5" thread in the "I Can Relate" forum.

7

Thank you, 7yrs. Thank you very much.

Where do I go from here?

He reactivated facebook and defriended you according to your other post. Often they do things like this, let you see the activation message because they really want to get caught.

Look you have enough evidence of one thing for certain, this dude is not committed to marriage.

There were emails to other craigslist ads on our home computer, with his phone number attached. What a schmuck! Stupid fool didn't realize these were all bots designed to get people to sign up for those sleazy paid to view websites. It doesn't matter though, the intention to have an affair was there.

Recently I found he paid for a 3 month subscription on Classmates and was emailing an old high school friend who happens to be a girl.

After he lied to me, he spent another 1/2 hour on there (chatting with the woman he 'poked', I believe) before deleting his account.

The general way he treated me for a long time was pretty negative. I was fat, boring and wasn't doing enough (no matter what I did). We haven't been a date alone in eons. He stopped listening to me a long time ago.

Then we see late nights at his work a few hours from here, then out to the bar with friends. Then after that he was a little too drunk to drive so he went and stayed at a hotel. Three nights a week of this. Often spending more nights out with his work mates than coming home.

If he is not cheating on you I'd be really surprised.

If you get confirmation of anything that you are not wanting to know... try to stay calm. You may not want to confront him right away. It is better to get as much evidence as you can, because once they are aware of the things you know or figure out how you are getting your information it makes things a lot harder to get information

.

Very good advice here. You have to be careful of not getting caught up in the game of "cat and mouse" where he is behaving aberrantly and you are spying on him, telling him what you found out and what he will or will not do and he just goes underground. You *should* monitor him and see what he is doing, but don't make my mistake and give all your information away.

You wrote you were just bidding your time...

You have to ask yourself one really important question.

Do you want to stay in a marriage like this?

My guess would be "hell no".

The things you describe are not normal behaviors for a man committed to marriage.

Get yourself into IC immediately, whether he is involved in an affair or not, he is going to be spewing all kinds of hatred and nonsense at you and it is going to be devastatingly painful and damaging.

Right now, you KNOW something is up, but he keeps lying to you, that behavior is not going to change if you find more evidence.

I'm going to tell you to SHIFT YOUR FOCUS from him and his behavior to yourself. It has to be about you and what you expect and deserve in a marriage.

IMO you should not try psychoanalyzing him or trying to determine if he is a sex addict. If he is, then that is a discovery he will need to make for himself.

Right now your life is focussed on him, you need to focus your healing and strength on yourself.

No one should have to go through the crazies of being a PI. All the spying and checking up on, will make you SICK!

You want him to get a grip, leave him for a while and let him have some time to think about it.

People like your H need a HARD dose of reality

My ex was on line being a whore also and even meeting with women so I left,

He ran to steps groups, more AA meetings, is miserable and is now trying to work on himself and understand why he's a whore.

We may or may not end up back together, but I can tell you this, the pain of leaving TOTALLY outweighs the pain of spying

He needs to want to get real

So sorry that you are here, bbb. You've found the perfect place for support.

Take care of yourself.

the pain of leaving TOTALLY outweighs the pain of spying

OMG - this is SOOOOO true!

Thank you, Trying2getby. The spying thing is really hard. Its like living in two worlds, investigate your husband, take everything he says and run it through the truth-o-meter, and always look over his shoulder.

I'm tired. I've been doing this for 9 months and I've come up with maybe's. All the things I've found to point to the possibility of affairs, but circumstantially. There is no concrete evidence. Is that what I need? I don't know.

Boundaries going up. Ruling what I will and will not stand for.

You all are so helpful. I appreciate your understanding.