I’m a long-time poster on the Piecing forum – you all know me as E – doublehockeysticks – ie, but please don’t use my name here on this thread – just call me “E”. I’m posting here “incognito” because I don’t want H to stumble on this by searching for my name. I’m posting this story here partly to vent, partly to record for myself for the future, and partly so you all will whack me with 2 x 4s. For any newcomers who may be reading, take this as a cautionary tale about snooping.
ANYWAY…….as some of you know, my H’s affair started while I was on a 10-day trip to London with my mom. It was a special trip, her first to Europe, but unbeknownst to me, the OW used it as an opportunity to creep into H’s life.
We are reconciled, that was 5 years ago. This year, my sister proposed a trip for my mom’s 75th birthday. Sis, mom and I would go to Paris.
I loved the idea of the trip – but truthfully, dreaded it a bit too, as it brought back those bad memories. I kept that to myself, until about a month before the trip. Then I gently voiced to H that the trip brought back some old anxieties, and he reassured me that I had nothing to worry about.
That should be it, right? But H was in the middle of a blue funk (a job change that didn’t work out, and having to return to a prior place of employment that he didn’t love). He just seemed off, and I started to worry. The week before my trip, I did ask him once for a reassurance – “No KFC” – that he wouldn’t go out to eat with any strange women while I was gone. (That’s how I first got suspicious of the OW – H took her and the kids to KFC – a place my h HATES and would NEVER go to on his own).
Now for the snooping part. Let me preface this by saying h has cheated on me twice in our long marriage, and I am at a point where I have NO intention of ever being broadsided again. I don’t obsess, and I don’t usually snoop, but I am at a point in my life where I prefer to know the truth about things. (Newbies – this is dangerous, don’t follow my footsteps!).
Anyway, the day before I left on my trip, I snooped in H’s email. And there was an email exchange between him and a female surfer acquaintance.
He’d mentioned this woman to me a month or two prior; he’d had lunch or coffee with her, she had some sob story about being dumped by her BF. At the time, I’d warned him that it sounded like a “near occasion of sin” situation – our code for him not putting himself in situations where women can reel him in. (H is a very friendly extrovert type, and pretty naïve about how women operate). He poo-pooed it at the time, but agreed to cool it. (I’d have No problem, btw, with female friends that he includes ME in the friendship, just with friendships that exclude me. I’ve never met this woman, unless she was introduced briefly to me at a party and I don’t remember.)
I never thought about it again – it was a brief exchange, and H seemed to “get it”.
So – the email exchange that I found: innocent enough on the surface. Starts with an email from H to W, telling her he was sorry he couldn’t talk when she called him the other day, something about he was driving and her “intensity – in a good way” being distracting. (H’s tone reeks to me of flirtation). Then the exchange between them – apparently she’d contacted him for info on finding health insurance (she’s pregnant by the ex BF). Now – bear in mind, in our state there’s a public insurance program for pregnant women that anybody could find out about with a single call to their gynecologist or one minute on Google. Why does she need to call MY husband to ask about this???
THEN there’s an email from my H saying he waited for her (WHERE???) but she didn’t show.
Anyway – despite this, I must admit her tone is otherwise unremarkable. She writes back again to H to tell him she’s figured the insurance out, and some excuse why she couldn’t meet him that day. But H writes back to her, offering to take her to lunch or dinner next week – THE WEEK I’M GONE TO PARIS!!!! And he starts the email “Sweetie” and ends it “warm hugs”.
Now, at this point, I don’t think he’s having an affair, her emails seem pretty innocuous, but H is inviting this woman out to eat after he promised me he wouldn’t do that while I’m gone!!! (I’m sure, in his mind, he justified it somehow as she was “safe”, a “friend”, didn’t count – kinda like the last OW!!!). So here I go on this great trip to Paris with my mom and my sis, and carrying this weight. UGH! Every morning I check his emails to see if anything more has happened. I DB long-distance, sending friendly fun emails. He sends me daily replies – no “love”, no “sweetie”, no endearments. Finally I complain about that, and he signs all the rest of his emails just “love”. (Normally, he would be much warmer – the “sweetie” and “warm hugs” he gave HER is much more his norm.) I slip once and gently remind H about “no KFC” and tell him he just seems so vulnerable right now. But I don’t tell him anything about what I’ve read. (I DO start to think about what furniture I would want to take with me if I moved out into an apartment!!!).
I return home and Act As If; H is actually warmer than he has been in a while. I snoop in his computer and see that all traces of the email exchange have been removed. (Unlike H, who tends to keep sent emails and trash for quite a while in case he needs some info or a contact). The rest of his trash is still there, so this would have required deleting the emails and then purposefully removing them from his trash.
I don’t think he suspects I snooped; I actually think my DBing had the desired effect, that he caught himself toying with the idea of a flirtation and deleted the emails to keep himself from being tempted.
I haven’t said anything to him about it, for two reasons. Reason number one: I don’t want to risk a conversation that could possibly turn into a separation. My kids have 8 months until they graduate high school, I decided I didn’t want them to have to deal with a split until then. And even though it seems unlikely that such a conversation could lead down such a road, I know that when you open up a box of worms, sometimes you don’t know where they’ll crawl. Both kids would be likely not to get their high school diplomas if such a thing happened right now, they’re struggling to tolerate high school as it is.
Reason number two: Having the conversation would necessitate admitting I snooped. And I don’t want to give up the ability to snoop again if I feel I need to.
So what bothers me about all this? After all, my H had a pretty innocuous friendly exchange with a pregnant woman. BUT – he NEVER mentioned it to me (“hey, honey, guess who I talked to today?”), he was willing to give HER “sweetie” and “warm hugs” while I had to DRAG a simple “love” at the end of his email out of him, WHILE HE KNEW I WAS ANXIOUS. He was trying to get her to go out to lunch or dinner with him while I was gone. And he knew something was wrong about it, or he wouldn’t have deleted her emails so carefully.
On the plus side – he has been much better with me since I’m back, he seems to have reined himself in on his own. Lessons learned – - Don’t snoop before leaving on vacation! - DBing still works - I’m really not ready to tolerate any more BS; I was sincerely mentally decorating my new apartment, something I’ve NEVER contemplated in all these years. If he cheats again, I am DONE. - I need to be more proactive in addressing H’s current depression (he’s already on meds, but needs other interventions).
Okay – ready for the 2 x 4s. Just call me “E” so I can’t be traced, okay? E
My wife knows that I will look. I have told her that I will. I have told her that I will do my best not to look, but once every now and then I do. It gets further and further apart.
Good for you E.
Your Lessons are good ones. The no snooping before vacation is more for your state of mind.
Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. My God, do you learn. - C.S. Lewis
Life is usually all about how you handle Plan B. - Jack3Beans
Listen without defending; Speak without offending - FaithinAK
You are the one who wrote an absolutely brilliant post a long time ago telling me about triggers and land mines.
It helped SO much!!!
I do think that after all of the hell of going through MLC and then piecing there will always be that tiny doubt in our heads as to whether we are totally safe from ever having to deal with BS again.
Rebuilding trust is HUGE!!!
No 2X4's from me.
There can be no testimony without a test. I am praying to go through this test and come out the other end with a new and better marriage then before.
Wake up and smell the coffee. H is not naive as you might like to believe.
H WAS ACTIVELY PURSUING CHICKI. CHICKI KEPT SHOOTING HIM DOWN. Chicki seems to be doing the right thing, H keeps initiating with her. Why did Chicki ask H about health insurance? Probably because he pressured her into letting him be her expert.
If you have any doubts, H's actions simply ARE flirtatious, pursuing, etc. Personally, I'd be VERY surprised if something didn't already happen that H was trying to keep going and Chicki was backing off from.
H is LYING to you about his involvement with Chicki. If he were back where he needed to be, he'd tell you he had been flirting with trouble and it scared him.
Anyway, sounds like you have a good plan. Don't disrupt the kids. Ask yourself what you've been getting out of the M (not much, it seems) and what you want. Then try to make the M something that you want, because it doesn't seem to me that you like H or your M very much right now.
It is a shame you don't usually snoop. If you snoop out of the blue and find something, odds are that your timing was not incredibly lucky, but that there is usually something to find.
OT - Well, I don't actually think I'm being naive - after 25 years, I actually know H pretty darn well. His modus operandi is as follows: - He really feeds on being seen as the "good guy", likes to be helpful - He's an extrovert who needs lots of people contact and loves meeting new people - I think he goes quite innocently into some situations, then that dopamine "drug" of flirtation starts drawing him in. (He's NOT, btw, a flirtatious guy normally ie doesn't flirt or behave badly around other women. It's only when he's depressed and someone attractive stirs up that dopamine craving.) - I think initially his first coffee with her was quite innocent, he ran into her surfing and she started to tell her tale of woe to him. He likes to be seen as a good shoulder to cry on and a source of sage relationship advice! - I think he truly took my words to heart at first and cut off contact with her - from the emails it seems her calling him was out-of-the blue and unexpected. I think it just came at a time when he was feeling particularly down, and the "lift" that it gave him started working on his reptilian brain. - She seemed not so much to be shooting him down as oblivious and not taking the bait - this I actually find reassuring. (Still think it's a dangerous situation in which feelings could develop, but at least she doesn't seem to be on the prowl in any serious way.) - I'm sure H was telling himself that lunch with her didn't "count"; she was just a friend, and pregnant for pete's sake, and therefore "safe". I DON'T actually think he was consciously pursuing her; I think that SUBconsciously the lure of that good feeling was pulling him along and causing him to lie to himself. - I don't think H would fess up now because he wouldn't want to face the consequences of how I'd feel about it. And in his mind, it probably seems quite minor - kind of like looking at a piece of cake, starting to reach for it, thinking "no, what am I doing,I'm on a diet" and pulling your hand back. - I have snooped in the past when I didn't have any funny feelings, and never found anything. I think my instincts are pretty honed now - I think I found something precisely BECAUSE my instincts were telling me something was off.
H is actually much improved since I got home - possibly because of waking up from this, possibly because of stopping a medication I didn't think was good for him.
For any newcomers who may be reading, take this as a cautionary tale about snooping.
