texts and facebook - is this cheating?

[Lois_Griffin]

What I would like to do is tell him I know he is still doing it, that it's not like, and that I am going to leave. But: 1. I am scared, 2. I feel like I might be overreacting and should try to get him to go to counseling to see if we can work on things.

 

However... in the past, I have confronted him and told him that we need to get counseling. The first few times he made excuses about being too busy for it. The last time I confronted him (about a year ago), he said he would go to counseling - but when I tried to make an appointment, he always had an excuse. He'd just start acting normal, and eventually I'd let it go. I don't want to let him get away with this anymore, but I feel like maybe this is not enough to actually leave our home and stay somewhere else. I'm not what else to do a this point. If he agreed to go to counseling, fine, but he's made so many excuses and false promises before, it's hard to want to even give him a chance.

On what planet is it acceptable when your husband is telling some woman what he wants to do to her in bed and giving her money?

 

He sounds like an oversexed alley cat trying to hit on any woman who'll have his sorry lying ass. What is this latest one - number 5? Number 8? You'd be extremely naïve to believe a word out of his lying mouth. It's quite clear he's been chasing tail for years and he's NOT going to turn down any opportunity if it comes his way.

[Mr. Lucky]

why i feel the need to defend myself to people on an internet forum, i don't know. i was feeling alone and confused and in a moment of desperation, thought maybe i'll post what i'm going through and see what people out there think. i guess i shouldn't be surprised that people out there might feel the need to question me. but thank you everyone for the advice and feedback.

 

One point many have made (poorly at times ) is in putting up with this for 7 years or more, you're enabling his behavior and effectively giving him permission to continue. If his only consequence has been your hurt and anger, he seems to view that as a reasonable trade off. Your pain and in his eyes his gain, he gets to keep you and his playmates too.

 

Do you work? is your reluctance to deal with this based on financial concerns? Kids involved?

 

Hopefully you feel you deserve better than this, whether within or without your marriage...

 

Mr. Lucky

[BlueBlood]

i'm not sure why my story "doesn't pass the smell test". i'm sure i'm not the first woman who was ever scared to leave their husband. i think i made it clear in my posts that i am scared and feel like i'm going crazy. i would think that anyone posting in/reading an infidelity thread on a relationship message board would be used to people who are confused.

 

to those who don't understand why i keep saying i'm not sure anything happened, okay, i'll be more clear: i am not sure anything PHYSICAL happened. i do think there is a difference, but it doesn't mean i think what he is doing is okay. sometimes when you question yourself, it's good to bounce it off of others, which is what brought me here, but...

 

why i feel the need to defend myself to people on an internet forum, i don't know. i was feeling alone and confused and in a moment of desperation, thought maybe i'll post what i'm going through and see what people out there think. i guess i shouldn't be surprised that people out there might feel the need to question me. but thank you everyone for the advice and feedback.

 

You don't need to defend yourself. You seem like a person that's in a whirlwind, and in shell shock. No one here wants to hurt you (from what I've read you've been given some strong straight talking truths and in your current place, it may just all be very overwhelming.)...another facet of it is that some people here have been right in your shoes. I'm not one of them, I haven't been cheated on to my knowledge, ever, but those that have and have walked that path speak with clarity and strength now. Sometimes there is still scarring and pain in their hearts, but if anything I see their words as trying to spare you the pain lingering in a downward spiraling cheating lie filled relationship can bring.

 

I have left a marriage. I said I hadn't to my knowledge been cheated on. My challenge was an abusive first marriage. It's different but at the same time it boils down to the person you live with leaving you shaken and your world rattled. I can tell you from the bare bones contact I have with my ex that he has never changed and if anything I see his past actions as even more damning than I did when I was running for cover. Time has brought clarity and peace and happiness have allowed me safe mental room to turn and twist the Rubik's cube of his crap around in my mind, I still don't understand him but I do now know I was absolutely right to leave and his actions are not my fault.

 

It still infringes on my life. I every so often have a nightmare of never having left, or of some official telling me oops the divorce never went through, you're still married to him. I wake feeling sick and cold and terrified. That's actually hard for me to admit to you, that he still can lurk a few times a year in a nightmare, despite leaving him, despite counseling, despite time and love being mine to lay claim to.

 

I felt when I left I had to defend myself, I felt opinions as sharp chest wounds and disagreements as physical pain. I was raw, bare, and hurting and scared. This is hard to even type. Not because I'm not ok now but because it was such a visceral and deep thing, that abuse and fleeing it changed me. I am a good person, and I am a loved and loving person. But for a while I was in a place where trusting men was impossible. It made me have panic attacks, practically.

 

So where am I going with this? First, I feel like you are the only person I've ever written this level of gritty self truth to online. Congrats or apologies, whichever you deem appropriate. Why am I laying my heart out there and showing its suture lines? Because I cannot bear the idea of you taking on more pain and loneliness. I don't understand it myself, just, hell now I'm crying, typing is hard when you can't see! Lol oy... I just want you to know you aren't alone. As tough and opinionated as some of us sound, we've felt the flip side. I've felt the darkness close in, and I just hope you know that it gets better. Not today. But in time, in time it begins to make sense, then to numb a bit at the smoldering core, it eases at its icy edges, it fades and smoothes out in imperceptible steps. It doesn't vanish but it does blur and it adds for me, empathy and resolve to who and what I am.

 

Gods blessings and best to you,

~B

[qubist]

LP: i think that your fear is holding you back from reacting the right way. Like Mr Lucky said, your pain and hurt is a reasonable price in his eyes to continue his online flirting. In another word, he hasn't seen enough reaction from you that would make him reconsider his behavior. He doesn't even have to work hard to hide it. Let me warn you of 2 things

1 you sitting there doing nothing about it will only hurt you more till you reach a point of blowing up, you don't want that way

2 his online flirting will ( if hasn't already) escalate to physical affair.

Do not stuck your head in the sand of fear. You have to confront him once for good

[Realist3]

is this cheating?

 

 

i have been married for 7 years. throughout our marriage, my husband has constantly had inappropriate contact with other women.

 

Yes, this is cheating.

 

The problem is that by your inaction to this behavior for 7 years you have in a sense condoned it. Given that fact it is highly unlikely his behavior will change just because you now see it as cheating. That ship sailed long ago.

 

The only question you have left to answer is are you going to leave or continue to allow him to do what he does and just deal with it?

[Ladyjane14]

i have been married for 7 years. throughout our marriage, my husband has constantly had inappropriate contact with other women. i have looked at his phone, hacked into his email, checked his facebook, etc to confirm this. i know that it was wrong of me to do these things, and to do them again and again. i have admitted to him that i have done this and have confronted him about what i found several times over the years. every time i do he insists nothing ever happened and then and turns the conversation around on me and how i have to stop looking at his private messages, how i am jumping to conclusions, how nothing ever actually happened, it was just talking, etc. (his excuses and the way he has turned things around on me is actually laughable the more i think about it) the conversations we have usually end up with him promising to stop. i have suggested counseling, which he has agreed to, but then will always find an excuse not to go.

 

right now this is what is going on:

 

for a couple of months, he has been messaging with a woman he is "friends" with, engaging is very explicit conversation about what they want to do to each other. i know they have seen each other several times, though i don't know what actually happened. she constantly makes comments about how she is "ready for him" and "can't wait so finally have him". i do know that he has given her money and has also offered to buy things for her apartment. she sends him naked pictures of herself, which he encourages her to do.

 

i know that if i confront him, he will say nothing ever happened, and she is pursuing him, that's she's crazy, and/or he's just trying to help her/be nice.

 

this has been going on with several different women for years. the first time i confronted him we hadn't even be married for a year, and i found the incriminating evidence by accident (he let me use his laptop and had naked pictures of other women on it). I am at a point where i don't even want to try anymore, i'm just over it. i feel like i have let him get away with this too many times, and it will never stop unless i actually do something about it - something being, leave him. but it is overreacting to leave him over facebook messages and texts, when i don't know that anything every actually happened?

 

i feel like i am going crazy.

 

has anyone gone through something similar? thoughts?

 

You've answered your own question, littlepieces. It doesn't stop until you do something about it. It only escalates. Believe me, I know.

 

You don't necessarily have to end your marriage... but you DO have to stand your ground, insist that this behavior stop, and be willing to end the marriage if it doesn't. It's not a problem that's going to respond to marriage counseling. It's typically more like a love/sex addiction. So, the brain is being rewarded for the behavior in the same way other addictions work. He will likely need Individual Counseling to straighten out the internal damage before marriage counseling will do you much good.

 

Read through a copy of "Not Just Friends" by Shirley Glass and learn where the appropriate boundaries should be. Then bone up on love/sex addiction and see if you find it hitting home. Pay attention as you study to low self-esteem issues and covert male depression, as these can be issues which cause men to seek extra validation.

 

It can be really scary to stand up for yourself, but what is even scarier is regret for the life you might have had, whether with your current husband as a whole and viable partner or without him. Because here's the dirty little secret... going along to get along only gets you left behind, and usually decades later when your youth and vigor have gone.

 

And here's another thought for you... if you still love him, that's no way for him to live either, never experiencing real intimacy and connection. Guys like that seek and seek, but they never FIND because they just don't know what they're looking for or how to get it. By insisting that he LEARN as a condition of keeping you, BOTH of you can be saved.

 

It sounds to me like he's got a hole inside that can't be filled, and his compulsions will become stronger until he ruins himself (and you), unless he's forced to stop and get some help.

 

Look at it this way, win or lose, you didn't go down without a fight. So, educate yourself, pull on your gloves, and get in the ring. You lose by default if you don't.