You never think it will happen to you. You never believe that you will be the victim of infidelity… until you are. And when it happens, the earth drops from underneath your feet. There is really no other way to describe the feeling the initial feeling at least. This is the story of the painful discovery of my husband’s affair.
It rocks your world to the core, for a long, long time. They say the only thing that comes close to being this painful is the death of a child. I never thought I would utter these words, yet here I am preparing to tell you about the discovery of my husband’s affair.
I remember D-Day, Discovery Day, the day I found out about my husband’s affair, vividly. My D-Day was 2 1/2 months ago.
How do cheaters act when confronted?
Most often, cheaters act defensively when they are confronted. Sometimes their voices get really high pitched. Cheaters get very angry when they are accused of cheating. Sometimes cheaters get a certain hateful look in their eyes. Oh, and cheaters lie and deny when confronted. In my case, the anger was to get me to back down from the questioning.
I had my suspicions for a few months prior to confronting him, and I had even approached him about this several times. Of course there was denial. A whole lot of denial. And a whole lot of gaslighting (I’ll explain this lovely term in another post).
We have been married for 18 years and together for 24 years. We have always had a loving and caring relationship, and I often remarked how he loved me like a parent does, with my best interest at heart always. He has always been so good to me, respectful, and I believed he adored me (even my mom used to say how he looks at me with such love in his eyes). We never fought, instead we compromised. It was a true, deep love that only the luckiest of spouses experience. He was my very best friend.
What are the signs you are being cheated on?
Over the past couple of years, however, he became kind of distant. I asked him often to please hug me more often, touch me, and show his love for me. He always agreed, but nothing really changed. He was still very thoughtful in most every other way, and that part seemed “normal”.
I remember about a year ago or so, I got to thinking about a few things that raised my suspicions. He had bought new underwear. He has always been a boxer guy, but suddenly he bought and wore more form-fitting briefs. This really struck me as odd, because he was pretty set in his ways. He also started wearing body spray. He seemed secretive with his phone, always turning it with the screen facing down and he kept it on silent. There were no message banners or names displayed when he received a text message. There was something else that he started doing which didn’t raise red flags at the time, but looking back now, it all makes sense. He started doing all of the grocery shopping {he knew I hated to do the shopping}. He also started driving our daughter to her extracurricular activities twice a week and on weekends. He started going to all of the back-to-school nights, open houses, etc. I thought it was strange, but he said he was trying to give me a break. At the time, it all seemed so sweet and thoughtful. Now I know that it was so that he could get away to talk to her {or perhaps meet up with her while he was out doing the grocery shopping}. Or maybe he was feeling a little guilty and being extra helpful to throw me off track and make me think that everything was fine. The biggest clue however, was that he was just “different”.
One day I couldn’t stand it anymore. I called him at work and straight up asked him who she was. “Who is who?”, he asked. I told him that he knew, and I knew, so to just tell me. He asked what made me think that he was seeing someone. I told him about the underwear {he said he just tried them on one day and they were really comfortable}. He asked what else, I told him the body spray. Why is he all of a sudden wearing body spray? He smokes, and said that he just didn’t want to smell like smoke at work. After a few more questions and the accompanying answers lies, I realized this was pointless. His voice was getting higher as the conversation went on. He sounded panicked but assured me that there was nobody. I even recall saying, “You KNOW who I’m talking about”, thinking perhaps that he might assume I really know about his affair. Still nothing.
About 4 months ago, I was just having a really bad feeling again, and asked if I could use his phone, as my battery was almost dead. I told him I wanted to text our daughter. He has a passcode lock, but I didn’t know what it was. He unlocked it and handed me his phone. I texted our daughter and he seemed really nervous while waiting for her reply. Finally he grabbed the phone from me and said sternly, “let’s just call, this is ridiculous”. So he called her and I kind of wandered around with his phone, asking her to hold on, while I multitasked and looked for any clues. He was too close for comfort and I didn’t get to look as long as I wanted. Later that evening, I asked him to come outside with me and to bring his phone. He looked really annoyed. I asked if I could see what apps he has and he got extremely mad and said, “Just cut to the chase, what’s going on?”.
I don’t believe I have ever seen my husband that angry before, and quite frankly, it scared me. I asked if he was seeing anyone and he got very indignant and insisted that no, he was not. Then he went on yelling at me that I always accuse him of this, and when will it stop. We had the biggest fight of our lives, and he actually was trying to put on his jeans, saying he needed to leave for awhile. I wouldn’t let him go. We made up, with me actually apologizing for suggesting that he might be having an affair. The rest of the night was actually romantic.
But I knew. I just knew.
Fast forward…I actually kind of stumbled upon the proof I needed, two months later, the night before Father’s Day. I was looking on his iPad, for nothing in particular (but hoping something – anything – would come up), when something did show up that showed me all I needed to know. I had been looking through the settings and it was just kind of a fluke how I found the information. I won’t say on here exactly how, but if you’d like to know, feel free to email me. The reason I don’t want to tell the world right here is that it makes it too easy for cheaters to cover their asses.
But back to that miserable morning. I didn’t want to ruin Father’s Day for everyone, so our morning went along happily. Later, while I was sitting in the backyard alone, he asked me what was wrong. He was sincere, and he had no idea what was coming. I did, and my heart sunk, as I knew our marriage would never be the same, and lives would be forever changed.
How to confront a cheater
He sat down next to me at the table under the gazebo, and without wasting any time, I asked him to tell me about “her” (using her name). The color left his face as he started rambling about how she does some charity work and enlists the help of his place of employment (where her communication is with him solely). He looked very strange (for lack of a better word), while he was telling his story. He knew the gig was up. I finally blurted out, “Are you sleeping with her?”. He answered, “no”. You could cut the tension with a knife. My heart was racing. I had to ask in another way. “Have you slept with her in the past two years?” I asked shakily, “yes”…he said yes. HE.SAID.YES.
MY husband of 18 years, the father of my child, the man that my parents trusted to take care of me after they passed…that man cheated on me. He had sex with another woman – again and again. Something so sacred…something that is shared only between a husband and wife, something so intimate – he shared all of that with someone else. Our marriage died in that very instant.
I cannot adequately describe the initial feelings. Shock, of course. Anger. Disbelief. I felt like the ground was crumbling beneath me and I could barely stand upright. Since our teenage daughter was inside, he said we should take a drive. We drove to a little park that is about 3 minutes away, but the drive seemed to take an hour. My mind was racing (as I’m sure his was), and the questions were building up in my mind. We parked and he started to open his door. Bad idea! I knew this conversation would be extremely emotionally charged, and it was probably best to keep the doors closed and windows rolled up, as I fired off the questions faster than he could answer them.
I don’t remember how long we were there, and I don’t even remember most of our conversation. I was completely numb. I know the questions I asked included how long it had been going on and how many times he was with her and where. I was having a complete emotional breakdown, and he just looked incredibly stunned. I knew from that moment that my life would never be the same…
Read Affair Discovery Part 2, to learn about what happened over the next few weeks.
