I want to start out with saying that my husband has a very out going personality and I am more reserved, shy and tend to keep to myself. He likes to go out with people from work where as I prefer to stay home.
I don't let me not wanting to go out stop him from going a having a good time. Also, he has always had more female friends then male ones. He gets along with females better. I have known this since I met him and it has never been an issue.
Well in November he met a women while out, she is married and has a daughter, so I saw no problem with them being friends.
However, over the last few weeks, my husband has been keeping to himself a lot, coming home from work and keeping his cell phone right next to him. He text messages this woman while pretty much ignoring what’s going on in the house.
When I ask him what they are talking about, he gets annoyed with me! And when he does answer he always says nothing important, just stupid stuff.
Starting this week, I decided that I was going to get out of the house and go on a walk each night. So every night I've been leaving the house and an hour later coming home.
Well after getting online to pay our cell phone bill I noticed that every time I leave the house he’s calling her. And when I get home and get in the shower he is calling her again. So I tell him "you know I have no problem with you talking to her, you don't have to wait until I leave to talk to her on the phone."
He said that it wasn't done on purpose it just happened that I was gone when they talked. Ok, whatever I blew it off.
He has also started to get online and talk with her on his Yahoo Messenger. The other night he was chatting with her online when he suddenly says that he got a text message from one of his friends and he was going to run over to her house real quick.
When he left, I get on his yahoo messenger and checked the archived and there they were. All the conversations that they have had online.
My heart sank into my stomach when I read what they said!!
My husband at one point asks the woman what she thinks when he tells her that he wants to see where "this" can go. She response with she wants to see where it’s going too but she doesn’t want to mess things up with him and me and her and her husband.
He then says "Lets not worry about that, its not like were are at that point just yet, lets not worry about what we have (meaning their spouses) and worry about what WE have" (meaning him and her).
They made plans to go out together on Friday night. Then it turns out when he suddenly had to go to his friend’s house, they BOTH planned on meeting there. Since they are both married they have to go to a mutual friend’s house and that is what they did. He tells her "I'm leaving now, I'll see you there."
When he got home that night I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to do. The next morning, when we get up and he’s getting ready to go to work I ask him a question about what he did at his friend’s house. He gives the same answer as always "oh nothing really" then added \"we played cards for a little bit."
Maybe it was my imagination, I'm not sure but he then started to get real short with me. I would ask him something and he would say yes or no and that was it.
Well I ended up getting upset with him. What I knew was eating away at me and I could help but let him know that I wasn't stupid, that I knew things he doesn't know that I know.
I didn't want to tell him everything that I had found out but once he started acting like he had no idea what I was talking about, I went and got the laptop and showed him exactly what I was talking about.
He tells me "those are just words."
Of course I don't believe him.
He says she didn't go over to their friend’s house the night before. He says "fine I won't talk to her anymore, will that make you happy?" I say "yeah!"
At this point he is already late for work and has to leave. Later on in the day I send him a text message saying that when he gets home I would really like it if we could sit down and talk about things, open and honestly without distractions and without yelling. Just talk and actually hear what the other has to say.
No sooner then I send that to him he calls and tells me I thought we had this resolved? I'm not talking to her anymore and there is nothing more to talk about.
When I tell him that I just want to talk to him and find out why he feels like he has to go elsewhere for companionship, to find out what he’s not happy with. To just talk about what is going on in our relationship that either of us may or may not be happy with.
How are we going to grow and stay happy if we can't talk? He blows it off and says that there’s nothing to talk about. I'm not talking to her anymore.
He completely ignored what I wanted, I didn't want to have a conversation JUST about her or what was going on with her, I wanted to have a conversation about US, me and him and he wanted nothing to do with.
When he got home that night, we didn't have a talk. He got on his video game and I went on my walk. It seemed as if he is mad at me for this. He’s moping around the house (when he’s not on his game) like he has lost his best friend. He’s acting like a kid, whose mom has told him that he can't play with his friend anymore, and it makes the kid mad cause the kid still wants to play with his friend.
I don't know what to do!!
Up until 4 days ago I thought that I had a great relationship with my husband! We have been married for 9 years and have 4 kids! Why doesn't he want to talk about our relationship? Why does it seem like he is blaming me for all this?
Response:
In a long term relationship, companionship becomes critical. While people may marry a spouse for a variety of reasons, what ultimately matters in the long run is companionship (see, romantic attachments). That is, do people enjoy each other’s company and doing things together? Without companionship, it is difficult to make a romantic relationship work.
When companionship is missing in a relationship, people look for it elsewhere. In such a situation, people often find themselves attached to a spouse, but in love with someone else (see, typology of cheating – romantic cheating).
So, your feelings about the situation are completely legitimate. Your husband has been cheating on you emotionally. He’s been seeking companionship with another woman and hiding the details of it from you. Essentially, you’ve become an outsider in your own relationship. You’re husband is not sharing his feelings with you, but with someone else (see, what counts as cheating).
And unfortunately, your question reveals a lot about how infidelity works. The signs of cheating are always easier to see in hindsight (see, signs of cheating). This happens all the time because it is too emotionally painful for people to see things are they truly are (see, catching lovers lying). Unfortunately, many people fail to see what is going on in their own relationship, until it’s too late.
And even when people gather evidence that a spouse has been behaving inappropriately, spouses tend to deny the truth. Your husband’s response that to his sharing feelings with another woman and planning to secretly met her – “those are just words” is a classic example of the cheater’s paradox (see, cheater’s paradox). Unfortunately, such denials only make it more difficult for spouses to work through their problems.
So, what’s going on now? It seems that your husband has been caught; he’s dealing with his loss. Or maybe he’s thinking about what he wants to do. But, it doesn’t sound like he wants to work things out.
How do you cope with such a situation?
After making such a discovery, it is important for spouses to talk about what happened (see, infidelity recovery).
But, it seems like your husband isn’t ready to do so. And in all honesty, you can’t force a partner to talk about it. Unless both people have a sincere desire to talk about what happened, trying to do so is often counterproductive. Trying to force a partner to talk only creates more tension and frustration.
So, our best advice is to give your husband a little time. He may be deciding how he wants to deal with this situation. If he decides that he wants to work things out, then it will be important for you to have all your questions answered.
In the meantime, however, our best advice is talk to a counselor on your own. In such a time of crisis, it helps to have someone with professional experience to guide your through these issues (see, counseling resources).
We wish you the best of luck.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
