How often is the gut instinct wrong?

[EndoftheRope]

I have posted here about my husband having e-mail accounts and friendships with women that he hides from me.

 

As I am considering what to do about this, and how I can live with this marriage when I know he lies to me, I am once again wondering what happened when we were separated some years ago. I don't think he had a physical affair, although I've never ruled that out and wouldn't be surprised to find he had. But he still e-mails with three of the women from that time, all three of whom were good friends but rarely or never mentioned to me. One of them pretty much filled the in-box of the original hidden e-mail account and sent him birthday and Christmas cards for ten years!

 

My gut has told me for many years that he has not been completely forthright about what happened during that time. I keep reading that that gut feeling is usually right.

 

I'm just curious...I'm not really even asking for input on my situation, and whatever happened then isn't going to change the outcome of our marriage now... but percentage-wise, how often would you say that gut feeling is right, and how often do the suspicions turn out to be wrong?

 

What happened then is far less important to me at this point than knowing how honest he's been with me.

[whichwayisup]

Install a keylogger so you can find out his passwords and read his IM's.

 

I'd say if your gut is screaming something, it's usually right. His sneaky behaviour, hiding accounts and emails from you is a huge red flag. If he isn't hiding anything he'd let you read all, right? My bet is something inappropriate is going on.

 

You make him decide. YOU, going to marriage counselling and working together to make things good between the both of you - Or he leaves. Tell him to come clean or he's out the door. Shake it up abit, but make sure you're ready to do this. Talk to your closest friends about it, or a sister if you have one. Not knowing what is really happening is worse. Atleast with knowing, you can face it, deal with it and decide what to do.

 

Hang in there, and keep posting.

[katty]

I can share my experience with my gut feeling, I once dated a guy that I had been with for 6 years and he had to work at night and one night he was supposedly working and for some reason I got this nagging feeling he was lying to me. I went with my gutt feeling and for some reason I even guessed right and happened to go a bar that I had my feeling about and sure enough there was his vehicle. The bar/club was about 45 minutes away from where we live and it amazes me today that I guessed it right. I went in the bar looking for him but couldn't find him so I just pulled my car up beside his vehicle and waited, I didn't have to wait long bc obviously he had seen me come in and was trying to sneak out with his date. You should have seen his face when he saw my car, like a sneaking little snake he turned and started walking his date in the other direction, I called out to him and told him that I saw him and to stop trying to slither off, he came up with his date and I said calmly "so who is your little friend" He replied with " I thought you were at a play tonight? I told him it didn't last all night. The girl looked embarrassed and said that he had told her we were broken up and that she was sorry. I told her she hadn't nothing to be sorry about this was all on him, I told them to both have a nice life and I left.

Later on he kept trying to get me back and she even started trying to date him and cause me to hate him by calling me and telling me stuff, even after I started dating someone new.

So Yes you should always follow your gutt.

Best of luck to you.

[EndoftheRope]

I already have a keylogger, which is how I found out he was e-mailing the 24 year old telling her she's cute. He also shouted his password at me in early June so he's known since then that I have access, and has allowed it. The keylogger shows no signs of him starting up another account this time, although he could be accessing anything from work. And I have no idea what happens between them at work. Maybe nothing (as he of course tells me) and maybe a lot. Her e-mails right now are pretty harmless, but his constant pretending this good friend doesn't exist is of course fueling the fires of suspicion.

 

I doubt there's any way of finding out the truth of what happened when we were separated. It was a long time ago, and he's not writing anything on the computer about it. In part, I just feel a need to know if I'm crazy and overly-suspicious, or if I can trust my gut instinct that has told me for years there was more to it.

 

We've been to Retrouvaille and I thought it was very good, with the exception that he got angry and wouldn't answer when I brought up this girl. He didn't re-direct her to a joint e-mail although he said he could. At the last Retrouvaille follow-up session we went to (two short of the seven we were supposed to do), he walked out on me because he didn't like my answer to the question we were given to answer. He has not said a word about it since (typical.) I think counseling would be more of the same-- just him getting angry and lying to me and not necessarily following up on the things we need to change anyway.

 

He is a master of what I consider manipulation at this point: he is forever bringing me Reese's peanut butter cups and lattes, and being so thoughtful and considerate. He's started complimenting me again; he's coming home nearly on time after work and letting me know when and why, if he'll be late. He's making a point of spending some time chatting with me about his night at work. He's addressing many of the things that we talked about in Retrouvaille.

 

It would be SO easy to slip back into the pleasant life he's offering. (And this is one of the things he admitted at Retrouvaille, is that he manipulates me by being so pleasant that I feel like a total schmuck for finding fault, so I let things slide.)

 

But I CAN'T STAND THE LIES AND DECEPTION! I confronted him, for instance, about checking out e-harmony.com, and thirtyplussingles.com (both on the same day, and while we were supposedly working on our marriage through the follow-up sessions) and he had the gall to tell me he clicked on the links in spam mail, not knowing what they were! I've seen the spam sent by dating sites, and there's NO WAY you can mistake what they are. And I'm sure e-harmony doesn't send out spam at all. I even e-mailed them, and even now having my e-mail address, they have never once sent me anything. But I'm supposed to believe he got fooled twice in the same day by two dating services. This is the kind of thing I'm living with. I'm supposed to believe that it's normal and OK for a 24 year old with a reputation for sleeping with married men to think that visiting her at her desk is his FAVORITE thing in the world, and continue sending him forwards telling him what a great and special friend he is, and I'm supposed to believe it's normal to have such a great and special friend and never mention her to your spouse. Sorry... now I'm just venting again.

 

I told him a few months ago I see no hope for this marriage, but honestly, we've got 9 kids, and I think he knows darn well I can't face the financial devastation that divorce would bring on us. I work part time and make good money, but it would be almost impossible for me, and bad for our children for me to be gone even more than I already am. I feel very stuck between a rock and a hard place, but I guess I'm hardly the first to feel like that.

[lilian]

I won't comment on your personal situation as I feel like it is quite difficult to judge for an outsider.

 

I can comment on your general question of "gut feeling".

 

When I was with my ex-boyfriend for 6 years (big big love) we lived in different countries for the first two years. I NEVER had any negative gut feeling when he didn't answer his phone, or whatever. I just knew he "adored" me and was a good guy.

 

Turns out he made out with a colleague of mine and three other women. and believe me I never "felt" anything despite of all the red flags! I broke up with him when he told me and couldn't believe what I heard.

 

I have been with my fiancé for three years and NEVER EVER has he given me reason to doubt him. He always calls when he says he would, I have never seen him flirt with a woman, he's there for me 100% and we're getting married next year.

 

Yet, whenever he's away or on the phone or whatever I ask myself: "is he cheating?". Not because I really think he is but because I have been burnt so badly before. My former relationship has destroyed all my trust and it sucks!! I sneak through his mobile phone, watch him at parties etc. In a nutshell "i can never relax". Everyone tells me he's a great guy. And he is and I'm very lucky. But yet, my trust in men has been destroyed.

 

So, I feel that "generally" I'm a very very intuitive person. Most of the time when I assume something crazy about a person and tell my fiancé about it he goes: "no way"! and then these things come true.

 

But I also think that there is a thing called paranoia that is often confused with gut feeling.

 

So, it's incredibly hard to tell which is which.

[NiceGuyMojo]

You're initial Gut Feeling is usually never wrong. Built-in human natural instincts warning us of danger. However when your emotions come into play has a tendency to distort your gut feeling.

 

Separation means free playtime and then you have known lies on top of that when you are back together?

[EndoftheRope]

NiceGuy, was that a rhetorical question or an actual question?

 

He did have plenty of playtime while we were separated.

 

I know the one woman in particular (Nancy) was a good friend he worked with at the time, although one he NEVER mentioned to me at all. It was at least two years after the separation that I came across him reading the first secret e-mail account, which had quite a large number of e-mails from her in his in-box. He got agitated when I saw it and asked questions. He let me look at it only after having some time alone, presumably to delete things.

 

It was probably 10 years after the separation that I was packing for a move and found ten years worth of Christmas and birthday cards from her, one of them with sexually explicit humor. I might have seen some of the Christmas cards, but I DEFINITELY never saw the sexually explicit one.

 

There was the deception, if not outright lie, of telling me he shut down the account when in reality he just opened another one. Nancy still e-mails him, but very rarely now. She got married a couple of years ago and had a baby a couple of months ago.

 

So, yes, to both parts of the question-- he had plenty of play time and there have been subsequent deceptions, some regarding her. The only thing he has told me is that she 'kept him from doing something really stupid' when we were separated. That could mean quite a wide variety of things.

 

It occured to me today that I could e-mail her (I have her e-mail address) and let her know I'd just like the truth, whatever it is. I probably don't have the guts to do it anyway, but if I did, would that be a really bad idea? I think maybe it would be, and probably wouldn't help anyway.

[alphamale]

Originally posted by EndoftheRope

... but percentage-wise, how often would you say that gut feeling is right, and how often do the suspicions turn out to be wrong?

as one ages and gets more experience and gets burned more often and gets wiser, I would think the percentage of the gut instinct being correct gets higher...

 

at age 25 gut instinct is 50% right

at age 50 gut instinct is 75% right

at age 75 gut instinct is 90% right

at age 100 gut instinct is 95% right but it is moot cause you're already dead

[brashgal]

It occured to me today that I could e-mail her (I have her e-mail address) and let her know I'd just like the truth, whatever it is. I probably don't have the guts to do it anyway, but if I did, would that be a really bad idea? I think maybe it would be, and probably wouldn't help anyway.

 

I think you answered your own question here. What makes you think she'd tell you the truth? Plus, she'd almost certainly tell him that you were asking. What would he do then?

 

Gut instinct? Wish I had started paying attention to mine a lot sooner than I did because it was almost always right.

[lobsterbabe]

Originally posted by EndoftheRope

I already have a keylogger, which is how I found out he was e-mailing the 24 year old telling her she's cute.

 

this may be off topic but, how does a keylogger work? do you have to install it onto the same computer that he uses? or can you install it in your own computer? just curious...

 

anyways, to answer your question, i've learned to go with my instincts. they have yet to prove me wrong.

[loony]

I find it a bit difficult sometimes to distinguish between gut instinct and paranoia...

[EndoftheRope]

lobsterbabe, there are different types of keyloggers. Some are a keyboard you put on in place of the regular keyboard. I went to http://www.iambigbrother.com gave them my credit card number, downloaded, and installed. When I pull it up, I see the keystrokes made that day. It also tells me all web sites visited. Yes, it has to be installed on the computer he uses, which is why I don't know what he does at work.

 

loony-- I guess that sums up my question. I smiled at alphamale's post-- and then wondered is my gut instinct screaming because of my accumulating experience, or, as another post said, am I being paranoid because of past experience?

[New_Wife]

I read in Cosmo a few months back (go ahead and laugh - it's my guilty pleasure) that gut instinct is really just your regular 5 senses picking up on something before you do. Perhaps a scent so subtle you don't consciously notice it clings to him, or a difference in his touch or movement that is below your regular radar - even sounds or words he says in his sleep that your sleeping mind files away. Of course, the magazine had lots of nifty scientists talking, and it made a lot more sense the way they wrote it (than what I'm butchering here), but I do believe that.

 

For example, my dogs just know when there's a storm coming. And one of them is deaf. I don't think they consult a doggie crystal ball or anything, I'm guessing they can feel a difference in the air, smell something maybe?

 

I think what we call "gut instinct" is really something like that. We've just overcomplicated it to the point that we refuse to accept it. Either that or we like to believe we're such superior animals that we're above mere instincts. Greater minds than mine have probably pondered that one.

[loony]

I agree with New_Wife. I think that my gut instincts concerning a person consists of having a good knowledge of said person and a heighened awareness to the subtle signs that stem from an unusual deviating behavior. When I'm interested in someone I automatically increase my sensitivity and I observe more. If I find too incongruities I'll dig till I find a satisfying answer.

 

The problem is that you often don't really believe in yourself and discard your worries as irrealistic or that they lack basis, because reality sometimes is more fantastic than we may believe. I've become more and more convinced that it's important to listen to this inner voice when it tells me that this sounds weird or strange. At the same time it's essential not to jump to any conclusions, but to try to find what the source of this deviance is. Sometimes it's enough to observe someone a little bit more, sometimes you will want an honest talk, it depends at what kind of level you are with this person.

 

EndoftheRope I suggest that you observe him a bit more, secretly, when he is among other people. How he behaves when you're not around, what he says about them. Even a really smooth and sleak guy will eventually betray himself with small little things. Dig a little bit deeper when you find the holes in his facade. Nobody is perfect and someone who always has a good answer or explanation to offer is not presenting you his true self.