When would you/did you confront SO about cheating? The aftermath if you’re wrong?

[Anonymous]

My gut has on and off raised suspicions of SO cheating for a few months. Never anything tangible. Then today had this weird text exchange with SO. It really seemed like I got sent a text by accident, and when SO said was sent for friend and SO had sent me something else it just still didn’t add up (even giving SO big benefit of the doubt).

Am currently trying to decide if I’m the kind of person who wants to know if SO having an affair. I am fairly certain if I find out it will cripple our marriage. But am also fairly certain that if keep having these nagging feelings and don’t ever find out it will also cripple our marriage.

I detest the idea of going “looking” for evidence. Generally SO and I both have rational b/w point of view and in conversations. We’ve had tough talks before(not on infidelity). Should I just ask? And if SO says no & I accept that, what is the aftermath of asking? And if I am wrong, what the F is wrong with me/our marriage that I think SO is cheating? (Btw I am aware that I need to be honest about whether I’d believe SO before asking.)

[Anonymous]

You really need something concrete. He will lie. I know you won't believe me because I was in your shoes and didn't think he'd lie either.... and he did.

[Anonymous]

What makes you think he's cheating?

[Anonymous]

Always great to see how people assume the cheating spouse is male. OP made no mention of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Always great to see how people assume the cheating spouse is male. OP made no mention of that.

People are assuming that based on the writing style. It absolutely (almost unquestionably) reads like it was written by a womab

[Anonymous]

You do not confront until you have 100% solid evidence. If it's just a suspicion the cheater will always lie and spin things.

And even when you do have the evidence, don't tell your partner that. Present enough information to see if they come clean because they most likely will not and the way they spin their story will tell you a lot about them.

Confronting a cheater before you are sure it's true only gives them a chance to get better at covering things up. They won't be shamed into stopping, they will just be prompted to try harder at the deception.

And you don't need to become a super sleuth to find things, you need patience. Evidence will always reveal itself. But I get it, patience is super hard too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You really need something concrete. He will lie. I know you won't believe me because I was in your shoes and didn't think he'd lie either.... and he did.

Yes! Please trust us who have been there. The cheater will always continue to lie.

My partner has cheated multiple times and been caught multiple times. And even after being caught he refuses to ever give the complete story and gives me the "I didn't want to hurt you more" line. He will act super remorseful and sad and devastated and go on to do the exact same deceptive behavior within 24 hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You do not confront until you have 100% solid evidence. If it's just a suspicion the cheater will always lie and spin things.

And even when you do have the evidence, don't tell your partner that. Present enough information to see if they come clean because they most likely will not and the way they spin their story will tell you a lot about them.

Confronting a cheater before you are sure it's true only gives them a chance to get better at covering things up. They won't be shamed into stopping, they will just be prompted to try harder at the deception.

And you don't need to become a super sleuth to find things, you need patience. Evidence will always reveal itself. But I get it, patience is super hard too.

Read every word of this. It is so true. I lived this and made the mistake of being impatient.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do not confront until you have 100% solid evidence. If it's just a suspicion the cheater will always lie and spin things.

And even when you do have the evidence, don't tell your partner that. Present enough information to see if they come clean because they most likely will not and the way they spin their story will tell you a lot about them.

Confronting a cheater before you are sure it's true only gives them a chance to get better at covering things up. They won't be shamed into stopping, they will just be prompted to try harder at the deception.

And you don't need to become a super sleuth to find things, you need patience. Evidence will always reveal itself. But I get it, patience is super hard too.

Read every word of this. It is so true. I lived this and made the mistake of being impatient.

I agree with being patient and gathering clear and complete evidence before confronting. If you have incomplete evidence, or even 99% complete, there’s a good chance SO will try to lie and spin way out of it. That will leave you even more hurt and confused.

But where I disagree is that I think that when you have all the evidence, you should put it all on the table at once and say “I know you did it, now let’s talk.” If you dribble out the info you have, your SO will lie and spin and try to dodge. People are weak and they don’t like to admit they’ve done bad things, so they almost always lie. Yes, you’ll get the moral satisfaction of watching your SO twist and look like a fool, but your trust in SO will be even more destroyed, because SO will repeatedly lie to your face. I dribbled out the info I had (still haven’t released all I have, in fact) and having SO lie to my face for 7-10 days was horrible. I don’t know if I’ll ever really trust again. The destruction of trust is probably more painful than the affair itself. It has made our efforts at reconciliation very hard.

I guess you need to decide if you want to try to reconcile after you gather all the evidence. If so, I’d recommend putting it all out at once and leave no room for lies. If not, then dribble it out to see how truly duplicitous the person is. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You really need something concrete. He will lie. I know you won't believe me because I was in your shoes and didn't think he'd lie either.... and he did.

Yes! Please trust us who have been there. The cheater will always continue to lie.

My partner has cheated multiple times and been caught multiple times. And even after being caught he refuses to ever give the complete story and gives me the "I didn't want to hurt you more" line. He will act super remorseful and sad and devastated and go on to do the exact same deceptive behavior within 24 hours.

Why on earth are you with him? Has he given you an STD yet?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do not confront until you have 100% solid evidence. If it's just a suspicion the cheater will always lie and spin things.

And even when you do have the evidence, don't tell your partner that. Present enough information to see if they come clean because they most likely will not and the way they spin their story will tell you a lot about them.

Confronting a cheater before you are sure it's true only gives them a chance to get better at covering things up. They won't be shamed into stopping, they will just be prompted to try harder at the deception.

And you don't need to become a super sleuth to find things, you need patience. Evidence will always reveal itself. But I get it, patience is super hard too.

Read every word of this. It is so true. I lived this and made the mistake of being impatient.

I agree with being patient and gathering clear and complete evidence before confronting. If you have incomplete evidence, or even 99% complete, there’s a good chance SO will try to lie and spin way out of it. That will leave you even more hurt and confused.

But where I disagree is that I think that when you have all the evidence, you should put it all on the table at once and say “I know you did it, now let’s talk.” If you dribble out the info you have, your SO will lie and spin and try to dodge. People are weak and they don’t like to admit they’ve done bad things, so they almost always lie. Yes, you’ll get the moral satisfaction of watching your SO twist and look like a fool, but your trust in SO will be even more destroyed, because SO will repeatedly lie to your face. I dribbled out the info I had (still haven’t released all I have, in fact) and having SO lie to my face for 7-10 days was horrible. I don’t know if I’ll ever really trust again. The destruction of trust is probably more painful than the affair itself. It has made our efforts at reconciliation very hard.

I guess you need to decide if you want to try to reconcile after you gather all the evidence. If so, I’d recommend putting it all out at once and leave no room for lies. If not, then dribble it out to see how truly duplicitous the person is. Good luck.

This. A thousand times this.

[Anonymous]

OP. Someone asked why I was suspicious. A growing lack of interest in the family and in me, seeming startled when I come in to a room quietly and SO is on phone texting. None of that in and of itself really means anything, I get that. Perhaps our marriage is just falling apart of its own without cheating. But then I received a text that made no sense coming to me about being a little late and how SO would rather have extra time with “you”. I sent a “?” Response and the explanation I got didn’t make sense either. That’s when I got really worried/suspicious.

I suppose I’m hoping that our relationship is “just” in a dead spot and we can sort through it. I’ve been trying to figure out all my emotions and how I want to discuss that, and would like to have a conversation about it. But if part of our problems is SO is cheating, well then it’s a different conversation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP. Someone asked why I was suspicious. A growing lack of interest in the family and in me, seeming startled when I come in to a room quietly and SO is on phone texting. None of that in and of itself really means anything, I get that. Perhaps our marriage is just falling apart of its own without cheating. But then I received a text that made no sense coming to me about being a little late and how SO would rather have extra time with “you”. I sent a “?” Response and the explanation I got didn’t make sense either. That’s when I got really worried/suspicious.

I suppose I’m hoping that our relationship is “just” in a dead spot and we can sort through it. I’ve been trying to figure out all my emotions and how I want to discuss that, and would like to have a conversation about it. But if part of our problems is SO is cheating, well then it’s a different conversation.

He's cheating. I know this as a married person with a married AP. We both realized our phone use and secretiveness about it were becoming red flags and got more careful about texting and emailing with spouses present. Both spouses confronted us about being distant and we both apologized and doubled down on family time.

Being distant in and of itself just happens. Being connected to the phone instead means there's someone on the other end of those texts.

We've never had a text ooos. I avoid this by having AP on Signal and spouse on regular text.

You spitted cheating behavior but you need more before confronting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do not confront until you have 100% solid evidence. If it's just a suspicion the cheater will always lie and spin things.

And even when you do have the evidence, don't tell your partner that. Present enough information to see if they come clean because they most likely will not and the way they spin their story will tell you a lot about them.

Confronting a cheater before you are sure it's true only gives them a chance to get better at covering things up. They won't be shamed into stopping, they will just be prompted to try harder at the deception.

And you don't need to become a super sleuth to find things, you need patience. Evidence will always reveal itself. But I get it, patience is super hard too.

Read every word of this. It is so true. I lived this and made the mistake of being impatient.

I agree with being patient and gathering clear and complete evidence before confronting. If you have incomplete evidence, or even 99% complete, there’s a good chance SO will try to lie and spin way out of it. That will leave you even more hurt and confused.

But where I disagree is that I think that when you have all the evidence, you should put it all on the table at once and say “I know you did it, now let’s talk.” If you dribble out the info you have, your SO will lie and spin and try to dodge. People are weak and they don’t like to admit they’ve done bad things, so they almost always lie. Yes, you’ll get the moral satisfaction of watching your SO twist and look like a fool, but your trust in SO will be even more destroyed, because SO will repeatedly lie to your face. I dribbled out the info I had (still haven’t released all I have, in fact) and having SO lie to my face for 7-10 days was horrible. I don’t know if I’ll ever really trust again. The destruction of trust is probably more painful than the affair itself. It has made our efforts at reconciliation very hard.

I guess you need to decide if you want to try to reconcile after you gather all the evidence. If so, I’d recommend putting it all out at once and leave no room for lies. If not, then dribble it out to see how truly duplicitous the person is. Good luck.

I actually think that the point of dribbling it out is as you describe -- if their reaction to hearing the part of the story you know is to lie and contradict the part of the story you know but they don't know you know, well, then, you have an answer early and upfront about whether reconciliation is possible. It won't be.

If their reaction to your dribble of what you know is to take the opportunity to come clean remorsefully and start to make amends and build trust through honesty, then there is hope of reconciliation.

Unfortunately, the chances of the latter happening are almost infinitesimal. But, the benefit of the dribble, is you will have a clear answer about reconciliation early enough to make good decisions about leaving and rebuilding your life instead of wasting years of trying to rebuild trust and engaging in a cycle of dishonesty, being caught and being remorseful. That is an abusive cycle and if you stay and participate in it, you are doing great harm to yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP. Someone asked why I was suspicious. A growing lack of interest in the family and in me, seeming startled when I come in to a room quietly and SO is on phone texting. None of that in and of itself really means anything, I get that. Perhaps our marriage is just falling apart of its own without cheating. But then I received a text that made no sense coming to me about being a little late and how SO would rather have extra time with “you”. I sent a “?” Response and the explanation I got didn’t make sense either. That’s when I got really worried/suspicious.

I suppose I’m hoping that our relationship is “just” in a dead spot and we can sort through it. I’ve been trying to figure out all my emotions and how I want to discuss that, and would like to have a conversation about it. But if part of our problems is SO is cheating, well then it’s a different conversation.

Really, sorry, but he is definitely cheating. Start by getting a copy of the cellphone bill and carefully go through all text phone numbers and see who he was actually texting right before after he sent you that text. Also see what kind of pattern there is in communicating by text overall.

Other things to keep track of -- credit card statements, ATM withdrawals, car mileage, computer history, etc.

I caught my husband initially completely by accident. But, once I started looking at these things a full and undeniable picture of what he was doing came out. It was a huge benefit to me to find out the truth. Incredibly sad but empowering at the same time. Had I left myself at his mercy by putting myself in a position of asking him and relying on him to tell me the truth, he would have strung me along for years longer.

The problem is that people who cheat lie by nature. It is exceedingly rare that they can change that habit.

While you are looking for evidence, get a good attorney as well and get advice about divorce/custody/child support and start documenting all financial accounts and assets, both yours and his and joint.