Weird Hubby Behavior

[OK Jeff]

I agreed with Zoolander above concerning the previous inappropriate content viewing. But the later revealed specific content rings alarm bells. A inappropriate content addict will go further and deeper each time. He will discover new fetishes, and become totally emerged in his searches. This comes from hours upon hours of total emersion. Still this doesn’t necessarily spell infidelity in and of itself, but it’s of concern just the same. But then add this to the Tiffany situation and it’s looking worse. I’ll disagree with Zoolander on this topic. It’s never appropriate, even if she isn’t lesbian. But I suspect that excuse came from some of his taste in inappropriate content.

 

[anna ~ grace]

Been married almost 20 years. I operate a home business with good income. My husband recently went back to the corporate world. I feel he had been acting depressed/bipolar for the past 6 months or so. He seemed unmotivated to do anything around our house to help me out and spent half his days watching tv instead of working in our home business. About 3 years ago, we hit a bump in our marriage after I found out he was doing inappropriate content online every day and possibly in chat rooms (he denies this). Also during this time, he received a supposed "wrong number" text from a weird number very early in the morning. I googled the number and it belonged to a prostitute. He denied knowing her and said it was "wrong number". This is highly possible, but given the amount of inappropriate content he was doing, I still had my doubts/suspicions. It took a while for me to get over all of this. I have finally been at the point where I was trusting him fully again.

So, like I mentioned above, he has just went back to work in the city starting about a month ago. He landed a great job with a wonderful company at a salary he wanted. The team he works on is a new team and will eventually consist of about 10 people. Right now, there are 2 managers and my husband and his female colleague. She is married as well. I have been happy he got a job that makes him happy. For the past month, I have been taking on pretty much all of the housework, running my own business, and also purchasing his entire work wardrobe for him because he hates to shop. I have also spent extra hours making sure he has clean clothes every day and stay up late often to wash, dry, hang up his clothing, etc. I feel I have tried to be a good supportive wife and help him out.

The first week, he came home and told us about his two managers in great detail. Also- he mentioned his female colleague briefly one day but it wasn't a very detailed conversation (so I don't really know much about her except HE says she's a married lesbian). Last week after my husband went to bed, I was still up catching up on some chores. Our oldest child (age 18) who still lives at home was with me. He told me that his Dad told him that he went out to lunch with his colleague Tiffany today. I said "really". Then I thought- that's a bit weird that he didn't mention this to me. My son told me that it was a lunch with just my husband and Tiffany only- nobody else at work went. Also- he told me that he walked with Tiffany around the city for about an hour showing her some of the sights as she wasn't from this area and wasn't familiar with it.

The entire night, I was pretty frustrated that he failed to mention this to me (that he took another woman to lunch by himself). That morning as he left for work, I texted him to "have fun at lunch today". He immediately started calling me, but I didn't answer the phone as I was tired and wanted to catch a bit more sleep. He tried to call me about 7 times. That evening when he got home, I asked him about this private lunch with Tiffany. He said it was no big deal and that I needed to get some trust. He made fun of me and my "trust issues". He made me feel soooo bad! (Remember- those trust issues I had were caused by things that he did several years ago).

I told him that I didn't feel it was a good idea to start this practice of taking another woman to lunch because he's new at the company and it looks bad in the eyes of your boss and other coworkers. Also- I don't know the woman and I'll admit it does make me jealous to think of him and another female going alone given all that he and I have been through several years ago (we almost split up back then). I expressed these concerns to my husband and he hit the roof. He called me all kinds of names and told me I was basically a jealous a#hole. I kept trying to explain the situation and even sent him examples of articles online about how it's not a good idea. I asked him to please consider my feelings and not do it again in the future. He was so mad. He opened the door to go out to run an errand. On his way out, he told me he wasn't putting up with my stress and maybe we should just get separated. He stayed out for about an hour at the mall. He came back and we continued arguing about it. He still felt it was perfectly fine to take Tiffany out by himself at lunch. We didn't really speak for days. I mostly ignored him and told him I was moving on with work, etc. Then one day around lunchtime, he texted me from his office to tell me "just to let you know, I picked my lunch up and am eating at my desk. I will be doing this "until further notice". This text infuriated me. [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] does he mean by "until further notice"???? So we fought again.

We didn't speak thru the next weekend. Several days later, he finally told me he wouldn't do lunch alone with her again and that he's sorry I got so upset (not sorry that he said all those mean things to me). He actually got mad at me and said I started the whole thing by texting him to "have fun at lunch" that day. I just have a bad feeling about the whole thing. Why did he get so defensive if she's just a lesbian colleague. I looked at our phone bill and saw where he called a divorce attorney one morning before work and also during his lunch. So apparently, this issue means so much to him that he's willing to start calling attorneys about getting separated. [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]. Who does this?

Also- something you need to know is: several years ago, he and I had discussed not lunching/dining with the opposite sex alone. I went to a training class and a male colleague offered to take me to lunch. I wasn't comfortable with it and said no. I told my husband about it. He said "I hope you didn't do it". I told him I did not. So, we had the discussion about whether we should go lunch/dinner with the opposite sex alone. My husband said this practice is NOT a good idea. This was HIS idea to not do it. But flash forward, and now he has break his own rules. I am now left 1) hurt that he put me thru pure hell for a week insisting that it's ok to continue eating alone with Tiffany for lunch at work 2) not trusting him now because he kept this from me to start with (my son is one who told me) 3) blindsided and in shock that he would go to great length to call divorce attorneys.

I have looked up a photo of Tiffany online and she is not that attractive- she's not ugly but she's certainly not someone that would cause me to dump my wife for. So, I think this whole thing is just weird. I'm tired of him playing these games with me and playing with my heart. Right now, my heart is padlocked and he won't be getting in any time soon! What do you think?

So..... Without exposing a great deal, I can say that I can empathize as a wife with much of what you're describing. Infidelity is frustrating, hurtful, and complicated.

But what I also see is a very strong desire on your part to control, directly, what your husband thinks, feels, and does, and as understandable as that impulse as a wife can be, it's not going to help your husband love, understand, sympathize with, or consider you. It's going to make him bitter, irritable, and more likely to look for understanding, affection, and intimacy elsewhere.

Frankly, if my suspicious, anxious husband submitted me to a lie detector test to prove to himself that I'd been faithful, a lot of women would look at that and see "controlling, authoritarian, bully of a man", and encourage me to leave. If my husband grabbed my phone, computer, or other devices to search them in private for evidence of infidelity, it might make me a tad irritable and reactionary, too.

I'm not saying that his behavior isn't concerning or suspicious. It is. But trying to force your husband to get in line might make things worse. Have you tried letting a third party, such as a priest or marriage counselor, hear you both out and help him and you sort through this, and through the "whys"?

 

[DZoolander]

I agreed with Zoolander above concerning the previous inappropriate content viewing. But the later revealed specific content rings alarm bells. A inappropriate content addict will go further and deeper each time. He will discover new fetishes, and become totally emerged in his searches. This comes from hours upon hours of total emersion. Still this doesn’t necessarily spell infidelity in and of itself, but it’s of concern just the same. But then add this to the Tiffany situation and it’s looking worse. I’ll disagree with Zoolander on this topic. It’s never appropriate, even if she isn’t lesbian. But I suspect that excuse came from some of his taste in inappropriate content.

Yeah, the search queries are pretty...questionable. lol

 

[Heather Maka]

One of the things he visited frequently was Penthouse Letters. Some weird stories he read were: "He likes to dress like a woman and have sex like one too". One internet history search was for gay inappropriate content. The urination video was a redhead peeing while naked. Kind of weird stuff. He definitely had some pent up fetishes. Our sex life was never vanilla either. It slowed down once I found this stuff.

 

[Heather Maka]

He swears up & down that he was on the site but didn't search for those things- they just popped up while he was looking for other stuff. LiveJasmin was the video chat site that he says popped up when he browsed inappropriate content. The only thing not making sense with the hooker text is this: the hooker said she misdialed a number & accidentally called my husband. Example: hubby hypothetical number is 310-111-3457. She said she meant to call 310-111-3754. So I called the latter number....

 

[Heather Maka]

a guy answers and I asked him if he knows a lady named Betsy (hooker name). He is really sarcastic and hung up on me twice. On the third call, he said he knew her and was a client.

 

[Heather Maka]

Not only was there inappropriate content on his computer at home and his phone- there was inappropriate content on our 3 office computers. I asked hey what's up with this at our office???? He said one day when we got in an argument about me not having sex with him (I was getting over bad yeast infection) he went to work and watched inappropriate content at the office to spite me. Currently he does have a work policy at his new job of not going on internet for any reason other than work and IT monitors it. I had a keylogger on his personal pic for months but it didn't yield anything.

 

[Heather Maka]

Supposedly he has sworn off inappropriate content and a right with Christ. He leaves little notes all over the house about putting God first. He says he now sees inappropriate content as unhealthy to him. Supposedly he was just trying to be a nice guy and show his colleague around town and a quick lunch. Either he's really innocent but very unlucky he gets into weird situations OR he is a professional liar!

 

[DZoolander]

lol - I've got no more to add with respect to the husband - but I have to say you're an interesting character. Calling and haranguing hookers until they provide you phone numbers, calling and recalling strangers and haranguing them until they account for themselves to you (if some stranger called me up three times badgering me to account for myself I'd tell her to take a flying leap), installing keyloggers, inspecting browser histories with a fine tooth comb, making their husband take lie detector tests, etc...

hahahaha

Good lord.

 

[OK Jeff]

The guy finally said he was a client!!! Your husband took, and passed a test!!!! Key loggers uncovered nothing!!!! Sounding like a witch hunt.
I’m still not convinced his relationship with Tiffany is totally innocent. But maybe it’s too stressful to be with you.

 

[snoochface]

If you distrust your husband THIS much - I mean, a lie detector test?? - what is the point of even being with him anymore? Is there really any behavior he could take up, any words he could say, that would ever make him trustworthy to you? If he became a total angel, no browser history to worry about, no weird phone calls or lunches, 100% your devoted lovebug, would you trust him then? Or would you think he'd just gotten better at hiding and double down your searches?

I think you both could use a good marriage counselor.

 

[DZoolander]

Yeah, lol, going back to the original post where you were talking about how he seems like he's bipolar...how he's depressed...etc. Ever think that MAYBE it might be because living with you and the kinds of stuff you do is pretty stressful?

I'd be the last person to tell people to just throw caution to the wind and ignore things. I think a healthy level of awareness in situations is always appropriate. But you're like WAYYYYY past that.

Let's say I viewed inappropriate content. Then let's say I got a random text message. If my wife used the fact that I viewed some online inappropriate content as the reason to reverse google the phone number, then called the number multiple times harassing that person until they gave them ANOTHER number, then called that number multiple times to harass THAT stranger until they accounted for themselves (exonerating me coincidentally), then ignored that and had me take a polygraph test, then ignored the polygraph test and continued to harbor suspicion leading her to install key loggers on my devices, and on and on...I wouldn't be able to deal with that.

And it's gone on for years. And you use that information to launch other suspicion laden avenues of thought.

I wouldn't deal with that. Not for years. I would divorce you. I couldn't tolerate the rest of my life being spent under that kind of suspicion and scrutiny. It's not healthy. If everything in my life was viewed in the context of half baked suspicions that I was up to no good - it's time to go.

 

[DZoolander]

You're like the father in law in the Meet The Fokkers movies. lol

 

[Gwen-is-new!]

Heather - I am so sorry for this, and that you are putting yourself through hell (from what I can tell).

Please stop analyzing and replaying and reliving it all. God has so much more for you than this! One of the reasons, He sent His son to die on the cross is so you can live in peace and comfort under His mighty wings.

I am assuming you are a born-again Christian - so use this trial to grow your faith! Please get your mind off your husband's sins, and get on your knees calling out to the Lord to deliver your husband from his bondage to inappropriate content, or whatever sins are controlling him. Ask the Lord to guide your words and actions, and then be led by His Spirit. This is a good site (also search her site for inappropriate content, etc..) :

Confronting Our Husbands about Their Sin – VIDEO – The Peaceful Wife

Praying for you Heather!

 

[Endeavourer]

a guy answers and I asked him if he knows a lady named Betsy (hooker name). He is really sarcastic and hung up on me twice. On the third call, he said he knew her and was a client.

With this additional information, I actually would believe he was not her client. The coincidences are just too weird. This incident would have my fears on high alert.

Not only was there inappropriate content on his computer at home and his phone- there was inappropriate content on our 3 office computers. I asked hey what's up with this at our office???? He said one day when we got in an argument about me not having sex with him (I was getting over bad yeast infection) he went to work and watched inappropriate content at the office to spite me. Currently he does have a work policy at his new job of not going on internet for any reason other than work and IT monitors it. I had a keylogger on his personal pic for months but it didn't yield anything.

I wouldn't care if my husband put one on my computer if that's what he needed to feel safe in the relationship. After my layperson work with marriages recovering from infidelity, it is easy to see why such steps are needed. It is MUCH better for the marriage if a spouse's doubts are put to rest as quickly as possible than for them to linger on, damaging the marriage.

Heather, the mockers here are not getting their ox gored.

The best thing for you to do for your marriage is to continue to do what you need to lay to rest any fears and doubts you have. If my husband had doubts about me, I would WELCOME the opportunity to do anything possible to put his fears to rest. I would not be the least bit offended if my husband took the steps that you took. Since I have nothing to hide, and because I love him enormously, I would ask what else I could offer, including lie detector tests or anything else, to give him peace about his fears.

The preponderance of your husband's behaviors has some very concerning "tells", and ANY reasonable person would have doubts.

 

[DZoolander]

With this additional information, I actually would believe he was not her client. The coincidences are just too weird. This incident would have my fears on high alert.

So you believe that someone being called by a random stranger is going to be amiable to just sit down and have a friendly little chat about intimate details of their life in order to allay the concerns of hers?

 

[snoochface]

Personally, I am not mocking. I'm trying to shine a light of sanity onto a situation where a woman is calling strangers who accidentally texted her husband, interrogating them, subjecting her husband to a lie detector, which he passes, installing key loggers on his computer, searching his browser history, and refusing to trust a word that comes out of his mouth ... all because he watched inappropriate content, got a text from a wrong number, and took a co-worker to lunch.

You know, I was kind of on the OP's side until more details of her behavior kept emerging. He probably did lie about the co-worker. He probably knew the hell that would be brought down upon him if he told the truth. That's not saying that his lying about it was right. But when you get punished with a sledgehammer for every behavior, you start to push back against that a little, trying to regain some control over your own life and choices, and do whatever you can to avoid the sledgehammer.

This couple needs marriage counseling. We are only seeing one side of the story, and I suspect if the husband were the one posting here, it would be a very different recounting.

 

[DZoolander]

Well, you know those lie detectors can be beaten...and it sure does sound like the OP's husband is the kind of sociopath that could do it! Maybe it's time for another polygraph by a more capable agent, preferably someone with some black ops training, and perhaps a little waterboarding. That'll get the truth out of him!

 

[DZoolander]

That was a joke, btw, just in case it put any real ideas into your mind. I don't want any liability.

 

[Endeavourer]

So you believe that someone being called by a random stranger is going to be amiable to just sit down and have a friendly little chat about intimate details of their life in order to allay the concerns of hers?

No, my first guess based on how that played out - (AND the other things going on simultaneously, such as the husband being in virtual inappropriate content chat rooms, calling into inappropriate content chat lines and taking nude selfies that were not intended for his wife) - would be the random stranger didn't know Betsy at all and finally said so to get the OP to stop calling.

Based on the entire story and the other behaviors the OP described, the OP has good reason to suspect there is something about her life that is unknown to her.

I'm a lay volunteer in an organization that helps with marital problems, most of which are infidelity, and after seeing through about 100+ patterns of ingenuity that wayward spouses follow to hide their secret second lives, you realize how similar these behaviors/patterns are. They seem to all follow the same textbook. Sometimes we only need about 1/3 of the story to identify yep, there's a cheater there, and sadly, 98% of the time we're proven right once we coach the suspicious spouse how to find out for sure.