Not Counting Chickens Yet...

[hope2011]

They were buried behind everything in his drawer. I never go in his drawers, ever. He knows this. I know that sounds weird since you all know that I have hacked his e-mail and phone but no, I haven't dug through his dressers. I've never put his laundry away until today, ever. I truly don't know why I did today. I wish I hadn't. If I hadn't seen that little flash of red satin when I opened the drawer and pulled on it, then the panties wouldn't have come out too. They were snagged on the tags on the boxers. I can't help but wonder if the universe is working hard at telling me "he's a cheater!!!!".

I honestly could care less about the boxers. I could have bought them and forgotten to be truthful. I shop at that store, have bought him Christmas presents there and yes, I would definitely buy something that cheesy as they wouldn't be the first pair of silly boxers I've found.

The panties, the dating site, a weird rash he got our first year of marriage and having my own doctor tell me to get tested for STD's after I described the rash to her (we have different doctors). He swore he got it from a hotel. I must be the dumbest wife on earth. I try so hard to put aside all my suspicions, to give him the benefit of the doubt, to make excuses for him, to believe the crap he tells me.

On the phone, he also said "I don't know what's in there, I never look. I haven't cleaned it out in years. There's probably an old silly banana hammock in there too. Throw it all away. You've got lingerie from old relationships too, it's the same thing".

No, it's not the same thing. Because I don't have a lover's boxers in my underwear drawer. Lingerie... yes, panties, bras, etc. We've been together only 4 years, I have underwear 10 years old. He handed me my mail a few weeks ago, with a Victoria Secret catalog (addresses to his XW because we still get some of her junkmail) and said "here's a Victoria Secret" catalog. I thought that was odd then. Like I have spare cash to buy new $30 undies right now? It's not like I wear unsexy or ugly underwear. But now I look at these panties found in his drawer... lace and satin with crystals hanging off of them and bows everywhere with a VS tag on them, made in Morocco. I just want to cry. Yes, the XW shopped at VS obviously from the catalog and they could be her size but why would he keep them? Why? Don't men keep panties as souvenirs of nights or lovers they want to remember? He ended that M, he never has a nice thing to say about her (she's an alcoholic).... it makes no sense that he'd keep her underwear. It's an obvious lie.

Now, I think back to what he said about the "banana hammock" and I vaguely remember those. I think he pulled them out once laughing about them when we first got serious, or cleaning that drawer. If he had those panties then, he would've remembered then and tossed them, right? I wish I could remember! I looked for that thing in his drawer - not there. He did throw that out. But not the panties?

So yes, there have been inkling he's been cheating. A lot of them. In the past month since we started to work things out? I don't know. No, I guess. But I didn't think so in December either.

My XH cheated on me, 3 times with 3 different women over the course of our marriage. I never had a clue. I thought he was a God-fearing, good, honest, loyal husband. It took me a whole year after he left to find out about the OW.

My last boyfriend (2 year R) started texting another woman cross-country a few months before we broke up. I worked hard to have enough money to rent a gorgeous cabin in the mountains for him and his family and me for his 40th birthday, worked hard to make it special and the whole time he was texting her. The whole time. In front of me too. And I was too stupid to see it and when I did start suspecting, I kept making excuses "they are just friends".

I am a doormat. I don't trust my own instincts anymore at all. I am obviously horrible at choosing good men. I am naive and want so badly to believe in the good in people I love that even when God hits me upside the head with proof they aren't good I still doubt.

I don't trust him and I don't trust me. I don't know if I can go on with this M at this point. I want a lie detector test. I want to know what's real and what isn't. If he has cheated, what he has lied about. I need that to move forward, with or without him. I can't spend the rest of my life with him like this. But he'll never do that.

I don't know what I want the outcome of this to be. I want the truth, I want to know the truth. I want to just be able to trust the person I'm with and to be able to breathe again.