Anonymous wrote:I've used notepads from other people's offices. I've picked up notepads from the office supply cabinent that aren't my company sponsored - just other people's notepads - and now my scrap paper. My parents sometimes leave the weirdest things at our house, and they are only at our house once or twice a year.

So, I'd give yourself a gut check - do you feel something is off?

Exactly. Sometimes I’m in someone else’s office and forgot a notebook and use their pad of paper.

Anonymous wrote:Oh honey, if he were cheating on you, he wouldn't be stupid enough to take a notepad from the hotel.

He might if he did some work at the hotel before or after the dalliance and grabbed his notes that were on the pad.

Fairmonts aren't always super expensive, especially before the pandemic. It's possible he stayed in one for work.

What's weird to me if that the pad was gone when you went back in.

Maybe you should do some searching around for other clues before you ask him about it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only strange thing is that the notepad disappeared after the first time you saw it.

Agreed. He saw OP looking at it and panicked. I would ask him OP.

This is the issue, yes.

My experience is that is you are not a suspicious person, and then suddenly after many years of marriage you start to wonder if he’s having an affair, he’s having an affair.

Anonymous wrote:He might not have stayed there but went for a meeting in a conf room where everyone got a pen and notepad at their seat. I have those from hotels where I went to a lunch or panel or something.

This. I've got pens and notepads from plenty of hotels that I've never stayed at

Oh honey, if he were cheating on you, he wouldn't be stupid enough to take a notepad from the hotel.

Anonymous wrote:File it in your mental file. You don’t have enough info to get the truth (if he is in fact cheating). Don’t forget, but don’t confront right now.

+1

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only strange thing is that the notepad disappeared after the first time you saw it.

Agreed. He saw OP looking at it and panicked. I would ask him OP.

Good lord, this is really really stretching it.

People pick up notepads all sorts of places and not just from where the notepad says. I have notepads from all sorts of places the come and go from my desk. Coworkers take my notepads, and so I ask someone if they have an extra one and they give me one. There are several notepads around the office that have probably been on several people's desks over the least year or two.

As for the "disappearance" from his desk, most likely he wrote something on the notepad and just picked up the pad instead of taking the top sheet. If I may need to make additional notes and add on to what I've already written, I might do that, especially with small pads. They're not glued to the desk. They are intended to be portable and they are. I may pick up a pad from my desk at work, take it hom, add to it and take it to work again.

No one is taking notepads from hotels where they're having an affair. Period. You don't take anything identifying from a hotel like that.

I would just think he used someone else's notepad. There are multiple notepads in my house from locations I've never gone to, all collected by either my husband or myself at various offices over the years. Also pens!

Anonymous wrote:He might not have stayed there but went for a meeting in a conf room where everyone got a pen and notepad at their seat. I have those from hotels where I went to a lunch or panel or something.

This.

Anonymous wrote:The only strange thing is that the notepad disappeared after the first time you saw it.

Agreed. He saw OP looking at it and panicked. I would ask him OP.

Anonymous wrote:The shorter fuse would make me nervous, because people having affairs frequently are more quick to anger (dealing with cognitive dissonance and manufacturing situation to justify their cheating behavior). I would first look at credit card bills and telephone records to see if there are unexplained charges or a pattern of telephone number(s) you do not recognize.

People also can have a shorter fuse if they are any of the following:

Under stress at work (which they may or may not tell their spouse about so it's a mystery to the spouse sometimes)
Worried about aging parents/caregiving in the future
Worried about finances
Stressed about a kid
Depressed -- particularly in men, depression may not show up as seeming "blue" but may show up as anger
Suffering from any of a raft of undiagnosed physical issues where mood is a symptom -- thyroid problems, for instance, can be associated with irritability
And....who knows what else.

Jumping to short fuse = could be an affair! without any other indicators is really ignoring what could be other more realistic problems. I wonder sometimes how many spouses of DCUM OPs wondering here, "Could it be an affair?" over something minuscule are actually people who have other, utterly non-affair, reasons for irritability.

OP, forget the notepad and focus on why you haven't yet sat down with your own husband, whom you care about -- right? -- and told him you're worried about him because you feel he's unhappy or upset lately. Then look together at the list above.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is zero chance he grabbed a notepad from the hotel he has hot sex with his mistress. They would be way too busy and tired.

Exactly. This would be a weird souvenir to bring home to the house he shares with his wife.

People take notepads when they need to write something down (eg work call) not as a souvenir.

Anonymous wrote:There is zero chance he grabbed a notepad from the hotel he has hot sex with his mistress. They would be way too busy and tired.

Exactly. This would be a weird souvenir to bring home to the house he shares with his wife.