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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/Direct-Caterpillar77 on 2024-08-13 04:01:02+00:00.

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/ThrowRAlidaligal

I think my (38F) husband (40M) cheated on me yesterday and could have been going on for longer. How do I find the truth?

Originally posted to r/relationship_advice

Original Post  Aug 4, 2024

My (38F) husband (40M) and I have been together for 17 years, married for almost 15, and we have five kids, ranging from a teenager to a toddler. Everything in our relationship is great. He’s an amazing husband and father. He provides everything we have, makes sure my emotional and physical needs are met, he makes sure we’re always having fun and things are exciting, he showers me with affection, brings me flowers often, he’s everything I could possibly want. I try to be the most loving and affectionate wife I can be for him and always tell him that I love and appreciate him. 

Yesterday morning, I saw two texts on my husband’s phone from a woman’s name I didn’t recognize that said “Come and get it” and “You’ll be surprised” with red hearts at the end of both messages. I was too shocked and mentally distraught to say anything and pretended that everything was okay. I couldn’t check his phone since he left for work almost immediately after the notifications came. He came home close to an hour later last night and just said that there was traffic but I was tracking his location and he went out of his way and stopped in some random neighborhood for about 30 minutes. 

I thought we were in a great place so I really don’t want to believe he’s cheating but all the evidence points towards it. We watched a movie together last night and took the kids to the beach with some family friends today but I’m still spiraling over this and don’t know what to do. He has a wife and five beautiful kids who love him, I just can’t understand why he would throw all that away.

How do I find out the truth?

RELEVANT COMMENTS

Oldswirlo

You just have to have the conversation. There might be a plausible explanation

OOP

I’m terrified of the truth being what I think it is.

Oldswirlo

I honestly think the “reverse psychology” thing is terrible advice. If your husband is innocent and you hit him with “I know what you did!!” you’re just going to implode your marriage and it will be your fault.

At this point two text messages are not really much to go on. What if he’s arranging something with a coworker or acquaintance that’s meant to be a gift or surprise for you? Then you gaslight him with reverse psychology because you think it’s cheating?

Healthy, open communication is the glue that holds a marriage. If you can’t sit him down and say “listen, I wasn’t snooping, but I happened to see these messages pop on your phone. It’s enough to make anyone suspicious, so what’s the deal?” then your marriage isn’t as strong as you think.

Update  Aug 5, 2024

Well, this was all a massive waste of time. To To clarify, there were no telltale signs of him cheating. He’s very emotionally present and we have an active sex life and he’s as loving and affectionate as usual and he doesn’t hide his phone or mysteriously disappear for hours. The thing is after our youngest was born, I developed an eating disorder and I gained close to 35 pounds in the following two years and my confidence and self-esteem and our sex life was terrible during that time. For about the last year, I joined my husband in his early-morning workouts and started watching my diet and cooking healthier for the family, and am down 15 pounds since. My husband was always very reassuring and affectionate and my confidence has began to return a little and our sex life is infinitely better than those two years but I still feel somewhat insecure, especially since my husband has only gotten fitter and become even more muscular throughout our marriage.

To the point. I suck at lying an hiding things from my husband so I couldn’t go with the reverse psychology approach like some people suggested. Last night, after the kids went to bed, I directly told my husband that I saw the messages on his phone and tracked his location to some random neighborhood and demanded to know what was going on. He laughed and thought I was joking and I quite literally started crying and said that I was serious and I needed the truth. He told me that we had to go outside and he wanted to show me something. He opened the trunk of his car and there was a plastic bag and he told me to open it.

It was a photo album consisting of chronological pictures of us and the kids for all 15 years of our marriage and it was meant to be an anniversary gift for our 15th later this week. The texts were from a female coworker, who’s husband runs a business making photo albums for special occasions and my husband had been talking to her about getting a customized photo album made. On Friday night, he went to their place to pick up the album and as for the red hearts in her messages, my husband showed me his conversation with her and she ends every single message with a red heart. The specific texts I saw were there so I knew he hadn’t deleted anything. He made jokes about how I ruined his anniversary gift and we ended up staying up and going through the entire album and talking about old memories and all I can say is I’m very thankful for my husband in every way. That’s the end of that

TOP COMMENTS

BaronVonSadist92

Moral of the story don’t always listen to us A**holes on here. It worked out fine.

paper_wavements

Those of us who spend a lot of time in this sub have seen too much, haha.

~

Few_Faithlessness665

YOU SHOULD LEAVE HIM!!!

Oh wait, I’m sorry…just a habit.

Scottismyname

Agreed, she should consult a lawyer and leave IMMEDIATELY.  Way too many red flags.  It’s obvious he’s gaslighting her.  Consult a lawyer, take the kids somewhere safe and GET OUT.

(Did I miss anything? /s)

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