Though I never actually caught my ex-wife cheating I was pretty sure she was.
These are the things that clued me in:
She said that she was going out with one guy from work to a bar once a week. Now I didn’t mind giving the space and didn’t think anything of it but about a year later I went to the same bar with a friend. She was suposed to be there and she wasn’t. Ended invitng her later on with same friend and she knew nothing about the place, no specials, what was good etc.
She started playing pool, so she said, twice a week on a team. Now I played pool for awhile and it NEVER took me til 1 am and she was always playing that late. So now she’s gone three nights during the week til late.
She brought home and STD. Gee what a kicker that was and the lies she told about that one. She told me, and dumb ass me believed her, that she was told she got it from a toilet seat. She showed me the papers saying it was possible. That was before I found the SDMB and saw an article that said no STD had ever been recorded that way. Needless to say she blaimed me.
If you’re really worried about it I’d start watching for clues, dumb little lies etc. For some reason I was always good at spotting such stuff.
I appreciate all of the wishes of good luck, but the relationship that spawned the idea for the OP has been over for months allegedly for other reasons and of course it was my fault. It turned out that when I met this woman she was in a relationship with someone else and continued to be in that relationship the entire time we were together. Towards the last weeks of the relationship, the person made themselves scarce, which threw up a huge red flag, but before that she did a good job of covering her tracks because she was involved in deception from the very start. What made the deception work is that the other person involved was unavailable to them to a degree, more than likely because that person was seeing someone else. Like I said in the OP, my intuition picked up a notion of something, but without access to a smoking gun, it would have been, I feel, impossible to figure out exactly what was going wrong. It was validating though, to learn that my intuition was spot on, but I don’t really feel comfortable acting upon it in the absence of other information.
The way I found out the guy I was living with was having an affair was, I let him know I was suspicious and just got on with my life. Eventually the guilt overcame him and he had to confess.
Of course, this only works if the cheater has something resembling a conscience.
Besides spousal or child abuse (obviously), cheating is the worst kind of betrayal. It’s hard to fully trust again once you’ve been so thoroughly conned like that. What a blow to the ego, too!
It is hard to fully trust again when something like this happens but you do have to remain optimistic otherwise you bring a lot of bad baggage to your next relationship which could serve to sabotage it.
I suspected it once. But she had some pretty reasonable explanations. However, when I asked her again 15 years later, she forgot what she said before & of course, it didn’t agree with what she said then. So I caught her 15 years later tsk.
That’s how I know someone lied-they can’t remember what they said.
The primary prerequisite for cheating is that the people involved have made a promise not to have sex with anyone except each other. If you avoid making or accepting such a promise, you won’t have to worry about “cheating”.
::shakes his head once again:: Sorry, I promised to be less close-minded about and insulting towards monogamous people, didn’t I?
Actually…all right, OK. So you folks wanna be “monogamous” because to you it means something really deep and important. Fine, be monogamous. So how about you trust each other and assume, permanently and irrevocably, that of course your partner is being true to his or her fidelity and exclusivity promises? Why waste your time scurring around giving yourselves ulcers and sleepless nights and whatnot when it was your idea in the first place to impose this silly-ass pro…
sorry ::shakes head once again::
…when it was your idea in the first place to commit yourselves to this way of being together because it was of importance and had deep and special meaning to you?
Just quit worrying about it. I mean, if (after doing the ulcers and insomnia and bad-tempers thing) you finally do manage to discover this “smoking gun”, well, what then? You happy now? Does this mean it’s OK? Is there something you can do now to fix it so you two can go back to being a proper monogamous couple? Or do you now have to yell and scream and threaten to break up with each other and bring it up in all future angry moments as a permanent injury? I’m not saying you should be polyamorous or nonexclusive in your love and sex relationships. Each to their own and different strokes (or the same strokes each time for you folks, whatever) and all that, and viva la diversity (including the diversity of not wanting much diversity up close, I guess). So be monogamous and be happy with it. But I think you’d find it easiest to be happy with it if you’d erase from your mind the possibility that your partner isn’t playing by the rules that the two of you consider to be so critically special and important.
If you were married for 20 years, had two teenage kids and thought you were both happily married, would you not think something was strange if you saw your husband/wife in the mall holding hands with a complete stranger. Lest me not bring the pulp-fictionized foot rub into this conversation. We are talking about two supposedly monogamous people in a relationship, and one partner deciding to be intimate with someone else, foot-rub, holding hands, or hardcore sex, it’s still being intimate with someone else.
EasyPhil I can sort of see why you chose your handle on this board. You seem to be way too easy or giving when it comes to the lover you are with. It boils down to respect, we’re not getting primal here Phil, but seriously man, when you get the slightest hint your mate is being unfaithful, ask her about it. You will know by her reaction whether or not she is being truthful.
Please! If my wife of 26 years did this to me I’d would wonder. I have a wondrous relationship with my wife we do everything together. She knows everything about me and vise the verse. Our intuition has told us before that something is wrong, and do you know what we do? We talk it out and then leave it. I harbor no resentment for her, and she does the same for me. Over the 30 year sI have known my wife, I have certainly disrepected her. She’s called me on it, and I’ve admitted my shortcomings, or mistakes. Thats natural for things to go a little awry from time to time.
True, but the operative phrase here is “with friends you wouldn’t know” … right?
It’s a respect thing Phil, make sure you hold yours when you are in a relationship, it’s empowering, and from what I hear quite attractive to be with someone who respects themselves.
Oh how I wish things were that simple. And what about her reaction will indicate whether or not she’s being truthful? I personally need a little more than a slight hint, different strokes for different folks.
Just know it does not have to be cheating. If relations in a relationship seem a little off, or something is out of cue slightly. Talk to your love about it. Don’t let it fester. That can breed resentment, and resentment can eat away at a relationship like water over sandstone. Do you know what it means to be true to yourself? How can you expect someone to respect you, if they feel you do not respect the one person who keeps the blood flowing through your heart…YOU.
What if it’s you that are slightly off, out of cue slightly? What if it’s your ego, fear or insecurity twisting your reality a bit?
I don’t know about you, but my intuitive feeling hasn’t always been correct and therefore I need more information to go on before I make assumptions about what is and what isn’t. The scenario that I’m describing is where the person is being deceptive from the begining so there is no sudden shift in behavior, there is not sudden shut down. I’m aware of all of those signals, but haven’t encountered deceit on this level. I feel no shame that I wasn’t able to detect that the person was dishonest from the start. A person that cheats is a person that cheats and they don’t do it because the other party doesn’t respect themselves, they do it because they don’t respect the other person and often times they do it because they don’t respect themselves. Coda if you feel fine just acting on your intuition alone, good for you. You use what works for you, and I’ll use what works for me. I’ve been with people that are so insecure, obviously acting on their “intuition” alone, that wind up needing so much reassurance about how you feel about them, that eventually, you realize that there’s nothing that you can do to enable them feel right about the relationship.
Just because someone thinks someone else is cheating does not mean it’s happening. It could just mean that the person who suspects something is a jealous, insecure person who really is not mature enough to be in a realationship.
You are exactly right about the resentment factor. And about respecting who you are.
Phil, first of all once you meet enough women who show you what deceit is or conversly show you what unconditional love is, you will learn to recognize traits of women you prefer to be with. One thing I have learned in my 33 years on this planet is, women will sometimes vex you and other times amaze you. Take the good with the bad, and learn from your or you’re mates mistakes.
Coda is right, blunt as he may be, you need to find someone who is not going to use the sensitivities you have against you, and as I understand it, thats what the previous woman in your life did. You seem to be a giving man, well, it’s time for Phil to take a little and realize that women, AS WELL AS MEN!, need to be validated. Check yourself, and make sure there are no holes from the last relationship and move on. Meet the one you will fall in love with at the grocery store, or in the library…
