A
female
age
36-40,
*rncess
writes:Hi,I need some opinions on how you feel about your husband texting/talking on the phone with other women. We have been married for about a year and I trusted him that he is a good husband and will never cheat on me, but now im not so sure. He started to text and talk to a girl all the time. At first, I didnt think of it much, but when he started being sneaky about it, I got suspicious. He ignored her calls around me, but would talk to her in the bathroom and at work. The conversation seemed casual and when I asked him about it, he said it was nothing and they are just friends. They would also constantly text each other. When i asked him again he said that she is having some problems in her life and he talks to her to help her feel better. Also, he told me that he discusses OUR marriage problems with her as well!! This really frustrated me and I told him that he shouldnt be talking about our issues with anyone besides me and especially not with another woman. After he realized that it upset me, he promised that he wont talk to her again and stopped. She was still calling and texting him from time to time, but he ignored her as far as I know.Then about a month later, once again we started having complications in our marriage and one night he started receiving texts at 2:30am. He fell asleep, but his phone vibrated with texts. I had a bad gut feeling and got tempted to check his phone. I saw 4 texts from a different girl!! I did not open the texts and went back to sleep and asked him who was texting him last night. To my shock he lied that one of his guy friends was texting him. I tried to convince him to tell the truth, but he swore on his mom that he was wasnt lying and that Im making a huge deal out of nothing. He said he couldnt even prove it, because he deletes all his texts, which concerns me even more! Finally after I told him that I knew he was lying and that ill be leaving him, he admitted that he was texting another one his friends that was a girl, but was afraid to tell me because he knew it wud upset me. And once again he said he was only talking to her to get some advice on our marriage. He said he felt the need to vent because I dont talk to him enough. I told him hes having an emotional affair by doing so, but he denys that he isnt doing anything wrong. I feel like I cant trust my husband anymore and get paranoid thinking what else he is hiding behind my back. I dont know what to do...p.s. he is also a hypocrite because throughout our relationship he emphasized that i shouldnt be talking to my other guy friends, but yet he thinks its ok that he can talk to other girls?!!
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male
reader, Wild Thaing  +, writes (22 October 2010):
 "As a matter of fact, everytime i bring up leaving him, he breaks down into tears, asks for forgiveness, begs for me to stay and promises it wont happen again... I guess only time can tell whats in our future."
That's the reaction of someone who is sorry he got caught. I was restrained before but in light of this new information I can now let fly. He is playing you and it is a matter of time before his behaviour escalates into infidelity. This is not baseless speculation - just read around on this site under "cheating" and you'll get all the supporting evidence you'll need.
It is highly probable that your husband is a pathological liar, meaning your marriage is in serious trouble as I speak. Every time you catch him in a lie you damage your self-respect a little, but like mercury poisoning this kind of damage accumulates over time. You are already making excuses for his lies - "I guess time can only tell what's in our future". Honey, any of the wise agony aunts on this site already know what the future holds for you and this marriage.
Your husband will not "fix" himself - why should he when you can be appeased with a few crocodile tears and some empty promises? He has been a pathological liar his whole life, well before he met you. Only when he hits rock bottom will he consider true change in his life. I don't know when or how he will hit rock bottom but I guarantee it won't happen as a result of your appeasement.
Make no mistake - You and your marriage are being put to the test right now. I hope you accept the counsel of that inner voice of yours because it will be your true friend and guide during this trial. Good luck and take care.
A
female
reader, Prncess +, writes (21 October 2010):
Prncess is verified as being by the original poster of the questionWow thats so crazy he kept lying to you like that!! I feel so neglected, worthless, and dumb when they do that. Some men think that women are stupid and think they can get away with anything. I usually pick up when my husband is being dishonest with me, but it leaves me wondering about things that he might have gotten away with.
Within the one year I have been with him, I came across numerous lies... For example, I have found out that he still smoked after marrying me even though he promised he had stopped (found some matches in his pants while ironing his clothes), I found that he still watched porn which i was against (he forgot to delete his browsing history) and during our long distance relationship he lied that he was on a really busy business trip when he came to visit me (i found out that he was actually on vacation and sightseeing after finding pictures on his laptop).
About facebook, my husband too has alot of female friends, mostly from high school and college. And whenever he logs on, hes constantly chatting with someone, usually a girl. And i have fewer friends on facebook and once in a while if a guy comments me, he immediately starts questioning about who they are, and how i know them, etc.. He has a computer at work and alot of free time and i know he probably emails, messages, chats, texts his female friends. However, i know hes not physically cheating on me because he comes home on time and is usually home with me after work, at night and tells me where hes going, etc. But im still uncomfortable with him giving and getting relationship advice from other women or interacting with them on a regular basis.
I really dont like to invade his privacy either, however, if he chooses to be dishonest, then i have the right to find out the answers on my own. I really love him alot and hope he changes and he says he loves and cares for me just as much. As a matter of fact, everytime i bring up leaving him, he breaks down into tears, asks for forgiveness, begs for me to stay and promises it wont happen again... I guess only time can tell whats in our future.
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A
male
reader, suitcase  +, writes (21 October 2010):
 hay good luck,,inform the progress,,,:)
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (21 October 2010): I am going through the EXACT same thing with my husband at the moment. Your story is precisely like mine, almost word-for-word. Here's a little bit of what's going on in my part of the world...
My husband and I have been together for 6 years, married for 1.5 years, with an almost 3 year old little girl. We both have facebook accounts. He's always been super-paranoid about any guys I talk to, even guy friends that I've NEVER even considered dating and have known for years. If it's ever made him too uncomfortable with me talking to any of them, I've deleted them without argument. My husband comes WAY before any ex (or otherwise) does in my life, so I have no problem not talking to any of them. On the other hand, my husband's friends list on facebook consists of alot of girls he knew in high school, none of which have ever really bothered me. About 2 weeks ago, a close female friend of his from high school added him. No big deal, right? Wrong. Last weekend when he was off work and at home with me and our daughter, he stayed on the computer all evening (6 hours total) chatting with this girl on facebook. To make matters worse, when I walked into the room, he very quickly minimized the page so I wouldn't see what was being said. At first, I laughed it off and pretty much asked him why he would hide a conversation. He'd never done that before, so it just seemed odd to me. Hour 6 of his convo with her, I was getting a little irritated as to why anyone needs to talk that long. Hell, I don't think he's ever talked to ME that long. He explained to me that she needed relationship advice, that her ex used to abuse her, etc. Here's the really messed up part.... he also admitted to telling her about bad parts of OUR marriage. BIG no-no with me. Our business is our business, not someone's else's that you haven't talked to in 10 years. That doesn't fly with me. After that, I thought it'd be the end of him giving her "relationship advice" or whatever. Haha... nope. For the next couple of days, he spent literally ALL DAY on facebook chatting with her, then downscreening when I was in the room. Alot of warning signals were going off at this point, and I was getting that terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. Against my better judegement (and trust me, I felt HORRIBLE for doing this), I looked through his emails. I don't normally think it's ever okay to spy on your significant other in any way. But if you KNOW something is wrong, and they're acting insanely suspicious, you have to do what you have to do to protect yourself. Well, turns out he had been messaging her off an on during work hours on weekdays and deleting the messages on facebook, forgetting that they also get sent to your email. The conversations never were really incriminating, from what I read. The thing that concerned me was that she had given him her phone number and they'd chat from the time he got to work in the morning until they each went to bed at night, literally leaving me with NO alone time with my husband, which is rare to get in the first place. I talked with him, telling him that we need more time togther, and that I understood that she was an old friend of his, but I don't think it's right to spend every waking hour talking to a girl other than your wife. I let him know I was getting a little upset about it. He said he wouldn't talk to her anymore. Lie number 1. The next day, to give myself some sort of peace of mind, I re-checked the emails. They were still talking and it was starting to get a little flirtatious at this point. If there's anything I hate, it's being lied to and treated like I'm an idiot, so I confronted him about lying. At this point, I let him know I had seen the emails, so from then on he basically could just tell the truth. Oh, and the truth was awesome, let me tell ya. He admitted that this girl, FULLY knowing he's a married man with a young child (she also has 2 young ones of her own, both by different fathers) asked him to come to her place this coming weekend for him to get laid. I was pretty damned upset. I told him that he needs to remove her asap, and do not talk to her if he expected this marriage to be a happy, harmonious one. He started to actually DEFEND her, saying that she's his friend, he won't stop talking to her, I won't do anything with her, I'd never hurt you, blah blah blah. I told him that if he respected me in ANY way, he would make a very obvious decision. So, he promised to remove her. That one right there?... that's lie number 2. He kept talking to her and kept her on his facebook. Yesterday, I was a wreck when I realized that he's choosing to involve himself in an inappropriate way with this girl, no matter how much he says he loves me. I confronted him about it, and he removed her. He said he did it and explained to her why they couldn't talk anymore. That's lie number 3. Yes, he deleted her from facebook... but added her on MSN Messenger instead. Ahhh, it just gets better and better. After crying all day today and talking to him about how much his dishonesty is really hurting the marriage, he said he'd also delete her from MSN Messenger. Lie number 4. About an hour ago, I checked. She's still there. He's been deleting his messages to her, but he got some offline messages from her (which looked liked very obvious responses to previous things he said) long after he told me she was gone from the messenger. This was after him and I had made up tonight.
Earlier today, I had sent her a message, asking her to kindly back off of my husband. Childish, probably so. But I was extremely upset and angry. She responded, saying that I should read the messages before I judge her and also said that she was only contacting old high school friends. This made me think.... there were ALOT of messages I never saw because he had made sure to delete them. There's honestly no telling if she had even offered anything to him. For all I know, this was a one-sided thing, with my husband trying only to persue her, and her being completely stupid to the fact that he was supposedly happily married to me. I don't know who to believe, and I absolutely feel like some huge lines have been crossed in the marriage at this point. He has not told a single truth in a week now, and I don't expect him to start. As absolute, downright horrible this may sound... I've messaged the girl asking to talk in private. If she responds, I'll be asking for the messages so I can have a chance to read anything he may have deleted. I doubt she will respond, though. The last offline message on MSN that he received from her was right before he left work today, telling him "I don't want to talk to you. I'm upset with you." Who knows how this situation is going to turn out. I can TRY to build some sort of trust with him again, if only he can learn that I'm far too smart for him to continue lying to me. I will always find out. But if he can quit lying, quit with the flirting, and learn that talking to ex's on facebook is not always a good thing.. then I might be able to forgive him with time. I married this man for a reason. He is my heart, my soul, my best friend. I refuse to give up on him at the drop of a dime, but only if he is willing to work with me on our marriage. Otherwise, I'm gone. And not a single tear will be shed again over this stupid crap. Any woman going through this deserves the sheer DIGNITY of being told the truth, no matter how you get it.
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A
female
reader, Prncess +, writes (21 October 2010):
Prncess is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThanks for all the advice! I talked to him about it and he has promised it wont happen again, but im not going to let my guard down. I like asian tealeaf's advice on keeping up with the "research" lol. Hopefully he will start to respect my feelings more and keep communicating openly and honestly with me.
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A
male
reader, Wild Thaing +, writes (21 October 2010):
It's the lying that is troublesome for any marriage. Why does he feel the need to deceive you about his texting?
I think the inner voice is always worth listening to but there seems to be something amiss here - respect for the marriage. Respect requires constant maintenance by both. You feel as if he is not holding up his end of the "contract"; worse yet he is giving you reasons to distrust him. He doesn't want you to speak to your guy friends but he isn't willing to reciprocate - how is this respectful?
While it is time for your husband to show this marriage the respect it deserves he needs to come to this conclusion himself. Using words to persuade him about the value of respect would be a start but don't sell out your self-respect if you believe he cannot keep his promises. Good luck and take care.
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A
female
reader, soconfusedhelp +, writes (21 October 2010):
 well if you feel this is serious enough, and you dont mind doin a little snoopin, you could call the phone company and explain to them that its urgent that you get a printout of all texts. you could probably even go to the store to pick them up. you really dont need to read every single one, but just glance them over. if you see something suspicious/sexual deffintitly confront him, but you dont have to tell him that you got a print out of the texts, because, you know men, theyll get mad at you.
i hope this helped!
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A
male
reader, slimfish  +, writes (21 October 2010):
 well i too have a woman friend that i talk to, but my wife knows i do it. i have known her for years and there is nothing sexual in it. we share all sorts of things, but i always tell my wife if its anything she should know.
i work with a group of women therapists in my job and they are always txing me for advice. not always about work.
one of them told some of the others she could get me into bed, but i found out about it. i treat it as a joke and she lost her bet. i told my wife about it from the start and she played alone with the joke.
sit down and calmly tell him how you feel, and ask him not to have any more secrets.
give him the benefit if the doubt for now.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (21 October 2010): If he deletes ALL his texts, not just texts from women, and he's always done this, that part doesn't sound too fishy. However, only fielding calls in the bathroom or when you're not around and trying to "hide" things and lie about who he's talking to needs to stop.
An open, honest relationship is necessary for success. Talk to him about how you're feeling before you make any rash decisions.
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A
female
reader, tennisstar88 +, writes (21 October 2010):
 I HATE when other women text my husband. I always ask who is it, is she married turning into a big green jealousy monster..Mostly their women he works with. And it's often work related, and I've found out he does talk about some of our marriage problems at work. Over time I've learned to chill out and remember he married me...not just any other woman, or any of the women that are texting him. I'll point out the first year of marriage is rough, I'm going through it too, sister. I also did my fair share of snooping due to my insecurities...but I've downplayed those and learned to trust my husband then you won't have as many marriage problems.
My advice to you and what I have learned thus far...give him the benefit of the doubt. You didn't open the texts, so you have no idea what they really said. He deletes his texts because he doesn't want you finding them and turning into an unneeded argument. It's perfectly ok to have the opposite friend as a friend..often we need insight about men/women whom better to ask than the other gender? Or Dear Cupid. We all get jealous, including your husband. Even though we're married, we still feel threatened about the woman texting our husband. What we don't know about her is that she is newly married, and needs advice on men herself. Lastly, if you have a problem with your husband it's best laid all out on the kitchen table and discussed till solved. My husband and I write out our problems and solutions...Communication!!! Even when you're married and see that person daily sometimes we struggle with communicating with each other. So don't jump the gun and threaten to leave him. Of course it's much easier to walk away from him and not stay and work it out. You know marriage is hard and requires work.. You love him, right?
So stay with him, tell him you're not comfortable with women texting him...women that you don't know. Maybe you would feel a little more comfortable with it, if he introduced these friends to you..then pass judgement on them whether they're home wreckers or not. Point out that he's being hypocritical by telling you, you can't text your guy friends. And tell him that he can't go to these lady friends for advice on your marriage problems..it's not their business, it's between you two.
Another resource my husband and I are tapping into is marriage counseling. We agree to disagree, and a handful of other problems...But hey what marriage doesn't have problems? My 79 year old grandma still screams at my step grandpa for dragging mud and dirt from fishing on her clean floors..that's been going on for thirty some odd years now.
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A
male
reader, suitcase +, writes (21 October 2010):
oh those things happen,,,i'm not married but,,but i have a girl friend,,,and i plead her not to talk with other guys,,she's been a famous t.v. star she has to talk with lots of guys,,but i was a playful guy before the affair,,but i only talk with her,,she too doesn't talk with others,,just tell him how you feel about this,,,go out with him for a while,,you know a trip or something,,,change the atmosphere,,doing the same thingjob might have put lot of pressure on him or something,,so don't push this question,,just talk to him gently,,,be the GOOD WIFE,,,he'll understand then,,tell him in your original expression how you feel,,,expressing your ideas clearly is the secret of perfect marriages i think,,so pls try that,,good luck
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A
female
reader, asian tealeaf +, writes (21 October 2010):
 usually as they say, ur first gut feeling is usually the right one!! and it sounds as if he is indeed lying. if he had nothing to hide, hed be outright forth honest. i have found that out personally, one time my ex started chatting with me on fb, and my bf peeked on my shoulder and said, whos that...i could of lied, but i was just honest and said,m its the ex, hes just saying hello... and although the bf was a little uncomfortable.. i said to him, hey, i could of lied, but i was honest and i showed u all the chat history without u asking me, so he left it at that because i was right!! it would not of gone so easily if i had lied about it. being honest and letting the other person make up his mind about it is the best thing u can do, as lying about it wont earn u brownie points, and one has only so many chances before the other says, get the fuck out! bso i would continue to do my ``research``, and as u go along and ask him about things and u catch him on his lies, dont say anything until u have enough to say to him, im leaving you because u have been very dishonest and heres the evidence... and i would lay it thick. without the icing. he will go stone milk pale in front of u, analyze and examine his facial and bodily reactions and u will see ur right. but, confronting him without ur battlefront set up will only bring disputes and no hard evidence, and only excuses from him, and the urge to want to belive him, but unsure of whether to or not. play mute for now, wear a smile, act like alls good in the homefront, and whenever he sleeps and u hear his phone, check,keep tabs, write info down and hide it so u can keep this for later, do this for a while and when u tell him u heard his phone and u ask him if it was another girl and he says no, dont argue, go to him give him a kiss and say, honey im just so relieved ur being honest with me, (even though hes not)play ur role as he is his, and then when u have gathered anough u can unload on him when u find the perfect moment to. and boy, he will be shocked. so there u have it in a nutshell!! good luck.
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