Longtime lurker here. I need sound advice, I know not to make any harsh choices over strong emotions, so here I am. Sorry for formar, I’m on my phone.
Please be open minded, I know I’ll get majority of “leave him.” So I think my husband is cheating on me. He came home tonight at 2am after ignoring all my calls/texts. It’s NOT LIKE HIM AT ALL to not return any calls/text after work. & he calls me right after work to let me know he’s coming home. So I was freaking out and thought he was laying in a ditch somewhere. I frantically called local hospitals wondering if he had been in an accident or something.
On to the story. I met one of his coworkers at a family event months ago. My gut told me I didn’t like her for some reason. Everyone was very welcoming and sweet to me, yet when he introduced us, she just stared at me. This is the coworker he was with tonight.
During my frantic panicking of his whereabouts, I tried to find some clues of his location/ who he last spoke to on our att account. When alas, I saw her number multiple times & a call from her to him tonight. My heart sank. I immediately call him frantically and send him some not very nice texts calling him a cheater/ liar and how I’ve been worried sick and having panic attacks. No response.
So I call her. I ask her to speak with my husband, she lies & lies & lies. Finally my husband calls me an hour later to let me know he’s in his way home. I confront him, he lies. I told him I saw the call/ text log online. & he just tries to gaslight me and tell me he was at his friends house. He finally says he was out with coworkers and she “happened” to be there. But that nothing happened.
An argument ensues and I lose my shit, I am bawling, screaming, and fall to the ground as I feel my life crumbling beneath me. He shuts down and I told him I was going to call her and ask why she lied. She acts fucking stupid and denies everything when I ask her why she lied to me as my husband had already confirmed “coworkers were at a bar hanging out.” He yells at her to hang up. I lose my shit & slap him calling him names & asking him how he could do this to us.
We’ve been married 7 years & together for 11. We’ve had a bumpy marriage like anyone else, marriage is not easy. But we are both currently in therapy and our marriage has literally been perfect. Sex is great, communication was great, we spent a lot of quality time together on our off days. The other day he came up-to me with tears in his eyes telling me how he was he luckiest guy in the world & how blessed & grateful he was to have such an amazing marriage to his best friend. He is literally my best friend and I am just so torn and not know how to move forward.
I know the general consensus will be to leave, but this man has been my partner and best friend for over 10 years, he is so loving and caring with me. So I just feel so betrayed, hurt, and numb. This doesn’t feel like real life
4 comments
I’m sorry. You really don’t deserve this treatment. Firstly, there us no reason to be out with colleagues at 2am, especially unexpectedly and without letting your partner know. Is this kind if behaviour usual for him?
It sounds like you’ve had an understandably very difficult emotional reaction to everything going on, so this will all take you a while to process.
He lied to you about his whereabouts. He deliberately went out of contact late at night without telling you where he was or who he was with. You saw for yourself that he’s been calling this coworker a lot, and yet he denied it. Even after being confronted with evidence, he continues to deny and lie. This is not the conduct of a man who can fix issues in his relationship.
Not only that, but when you called his affair partner, he demanded that she hang up and not answer questions- clearly he thought she would say something incriminating. But he diesnt realise that this behaviour of his is already incriminating.
The only way to salvage the relationship would be if he admitted cheating, grovellingly apologised for ruining your trust, cut the affair partner out if his life, and worked hard to rebuild the relationship. Look carefully, he doesn’t want to do that. He simply wants to oretend he can do what he likes and that you have to accept that no matter how much it hurts you. He thinks that if he denies it enough, he can keep fucking her. Because he doesn’t want to stop doing it. He cares more about continuing cheating than he does about salvaging your trust or making it up to you.
This man is no longer your partner – he stopped being your teammate when he lied and refused to take responsibility. The “perfect” relationship after therapy was unfortunately a facade. Things were not as great as you thought they were.
Something stood out to me that you said “we have a bumpy marriage like everyone else”. That’s what people in bad marriages tell themselves: others have it bad too. That’s simply isn’t the case.
Your husband lies, goes out with female colleague late at night and doesn’t call you and ignores your calls. I am not sure how he’s your friend? My friends don’t do it to me. Like this just isn’t acceptable.
I don’t understand spouses being out and about at 2am and their spouses don’t even know what they are up to. Not normal. I am not saying you have to leave but this isn’t “he is my best friend, our marriage is great, amazing husband, he is so loving” situation. It just is not. This isn’t how loving “best friends” husbands behave at all
Do you have kids?
My saying “we’ve had a bumpy marriage” was because we were both 22 when we got married. & marriage was difficult for us to adjust to. I was in school full time & working full time, he was helping his brothers business grow. So we bumped heads a lot about our time management & struggled with communication.
We went to marriage counseling after a year & our therapist noted that we had different ways of expressing ourselves & weren’t really great at communicating. So we moved forward & that was that.
As far as his staying out late & with female colleagues. That’s where my rage and betrayal comes in. When I say he was my best friend, I truly mean it. He’s never done anything like that before, that’s why I feel so stupid and betrayed, I wouldn’t have expected it
No kids, but we were actively trying as of last month. So that’s another dagger of betrayal
This isn’t healthy. I’m going to assume you wrote this to vent because I don’t see you leaving him. I’ll suggest the normal individual and couples therapy, but definitely stop trying for a baby. I’m sure like everyone else that read your post it does seem like your husband is cheating.
If that is something you feel like you can work through great. Work through it and move on, but your behavior said otherwise.
The whole” the other day he came with tears in his eyes saying he’s a lucky man” he probably said that because he feels horrible that he cheated on you. Your husband crossed boundaries. The coworker crossed boundaries and you crossed boundaries by hitting him.
I would suggest talking to him when you are calm.