Need Perspective

[Anonymous]

You should've done more investigating before confronting him. Now he will just cover his tracks better.

[Anonymous]

If he had nothing to hide, he wouldn't have reacted that way and told you a valid reason. He attempted to reverse the blame to throw you off track while you were emotional. He is an asshole, I would start getting all your ducks in a row and remain logical about how you handle any weird behavior. Write it all down, just as a quick reference so you can catch him in lies. I would also attempt an open honest conversation about how he views your marriage and relationship in general. A lot of times people won't express their unhappiness and just seek out alternatives

[Anonymous]

OP, what exactly is your gut telling you right now? Yep, it is telling you that something does not feel right about this whole woman/festival, etc. situation, right?

Always, always trust your gut. It is rarely wrong. It is there to talk to you when your heart is being stubborn and uncooperative.

Since your husband got defensive and then tried to put the blame on you, that was classic classic guilt right there.

Something is most definitely going on w/him and he just got sloppy covering his tracks.

Whether or not he cares is not important now.

What is important, is the state of your marriage and if it can be saved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You should've done more investigating before confronting him. Now he will just cover his tracks better.

By all means lets let OP know she somehow fucked up here. PLEASE.

OP- definitely any out of character response is a red flag. He may not have engaged in an affair, he may have considered it, he may have just been flirting. Either way, you have all the info you are going to get for now.

So sorry you are in this position. I would have an extremely hard time keeping my cool. I am very open and accepting as you state, but I pity the fool who tries to pull a fast one at me. My instincts about the bad stuff have unfortunatley always been correct. The fact that you are grounding yourself to consider the alternatives shows the kind of person you are: not one to jump to a conclusion.

So many things to consider here, but one is this: would he be inclined to have an affair? Clearly you suspect the answer is yes. But By the rather cool and calm approach you are taking I suspect you are looking at a "so I knew things were off, but I didnt totally believe they could be THIS off" type of scenario.

As a person who has been lied to plenty by my spouse, but not about this type of thing (to my knowledge) and as someone who has smelled the lies from the start only to be proven right, sadly, I could be biased, but I am guessing you also have good instincts here. Something is amiss.

His defensive response about how hard you are to satisfy does not match your assertion that you are ok with him having female friends. If you are telling the truth, and I suspect you are, then his response is completely incongruous with the culture of the relationship on this front.

One possible approach is to just ask him if he feels you are generally ok with him having female friends, and name the examples. Ask him if he feels good about that trust. Does he need more somehow? Move the conversation towards the Why the defensive response to your questions? If he were in your shoes, could he see himself going "WTF"?

OP, I may be the wrong person to advise here, because I would not fucking care about proving anything or gathering evidence. If it was that obvious , I would place the burden of proof on my spouse. Innocent until proven guilty? Whatever. So maybe he doesnt mind if you give this woman a call and say Hey Im so sorry we did not get a chance to all meet- we had friends coming in to town and you could have joined us no problem!

Im really not into game playing. If it were me, and again, I am not necessarily the best to advise becuase I have a no bullshit policy after being lied to about drugs and other things, I would just say "Hey, this looks an awful lot like you were up to no good. If I am wrong, I should be easy to disprove. Please proceed."