When You Catch Him Cheating
What would I do? Apologise profusely! How insulting I was even to ask!
After a 30-year relationship (27-year marriage), he was always in some way showing me he was cheating, but when I would confront him, he would look at me in shock and dismay and lie, lie, lie! What would I do? Apologise profusely! How insulting I was even to ask!
Some of the glaring signs included-
I never heard his phone ring in the last eight years of our marriage. He was a Sales Manager who whimpered constantly about how he could never get off the phone. When I would ask him if his phone was on silent, he would flick the switch to the side to show me it wasn’t
Last three years, he would leave for work at 6 am and not return until 7 pm, yet he constantly complained that he could never get any job done.
He would leave on a Sunday afternoon to travel interstate because he didn’t like to get up early on Monday morning to drive to the airport to catch a flight. We lived an hour and a half from the airport.
I started a new job three years before we separated, and I never met anyone, was never invited to any functions, or stepped foot into his place of work.
It took hours to groom himself.
He Did not speak with me or his daughter.
He Did not initiate any activities with us.
He would be away for a week with work. When I would ask about his trip, he would say, ‘It was good.’
He isolated me from everyone we knew. He would say nasty things about them to me so that I was less likely to talk to them. All the while, he was smearing me to everyone.
When an ad came on the TV for dating sites, he would rub his feet together.
I took great interest when contacts from the Ashley Maddison dating site were made public.
He flirted outrageously with anyone and everyone when we were out. When I confronted him, he would say he couldn’t remember because he was drunk.
I started drinking white wine. Had only ever drank red wine in the past. His new supply liked this as well. I remember when we first got together, he started to appreciate all the music and movies that I liked.
He would go out and water the lawn late at night so that he could talk on the phone. He was very lazy, so there had to be a reason he was out there.
While I was away with my daughter, he had a woman in my bed. The sheets were washed the following day and he had never used a washing machine in 30 years.
After the separation, he moved back into the home 18 months later under the guise of assisting with the mortgage and helping to prepare the house for sale.
When I took my daughter to uni interstate, he had a woman in my daughter’s bed (hers was a queen size, and he was sleeping in a single bed). Her sheets were on the line when I got home.
We never discussed anything as he was not very smart and could not keep up with his lies, which I was catching him in and calling him on.
One Friday night, he was due home from a trip interstate. I could not reach him to see if he wanted me to cook him dinner, so I checked on his airline member site.
There was no scheduled flight for him, nor were there any details of his departure from the previous Monday.
When he arrived home and I questioned him about it, he said that when he had boarded the flight, the details could not be viewed on the website! Seriously!
He was lazy as anything but would suddenly jump up and take the dog for a walk on his own.
When we had to go to a city where his new supply lived (I did not know this then), he would never walk beside me but always fall back and walk with his daughter or on his own – not wanting to be seen as a family unit. I am sure he told everyone that we had broken up long ago!
He stopped ringing when he was away (at first, he would ring ten times a day. I could never get anything done as I was always on the phone with him) except to ring always at 8 pm to wish us good night. If, on the off chance, I would ring him later to talk about something, he would never answer. In the morning, he would ring and apologize, saying he had fallen asleep. Each time I rang!!
He would text me rather than ring if he needed something. He used words and phrases he had never used before.
In the past, he would ring me constantly to ask for my help with writing a letter, spreadsheets, etc, but that stopped altogether. I presume his new supply was now his little helper.
He would go to bed early, and then when I would go to bed later, he would immediately roll over and face the other way. This would happen at any time of the night.
I came home from a business trip, and after I had unpacked his bag and started the washing, I found his underpants covered in semen and questioned him about it. He said, ‘That’s what happens when you get old’. He was 55 at the time. As he never wore anything to bed, this would have happened in the day when he was fully aware.
He started taking lots of vitamins (to keep up with his younger girlfriend)
I would not make any plans for the future. I was not interested in holidays, retirement plans, savings, etc.
In the last couple of years, there was no ‘we’, just I. He would never apologize for anything. He hit my knee one day with a hammer (I assume by accident, but who knows), with no apology.
He acted like he was above living with us. We were his slaves, and he could do as he pleased. His world was his world, and we did not belong in it.
I could go on and on! At first, I felt so stupid for not acting on this, but I did. I confronted him and expected him to tell me the truth.
As my daughter says when I tell her how stupid I felt for trusting him, ‘That’s what you are supposed to do in a true relationship – trust, tell the truth, discuss problems. It was your role to be a decent wife and for him to be a decent husband and father’. Those are wise words from someone so young!
