Sorting through the lies for a second time
Long story short: Husband of 16yrs ( 42yo) ended up having an emotional affair with 19yo coworker in 2019-2020. I was blindsided. I am still not sure it was just an emotional affair, but I do know she had a boyfriend who played college baseball. I mean, my husband who is essentially mute, was having 30 min phone calls with this girl after work, after being at work with her all day. Worst part is that his work was only a 6 minute drive, so he would call her, drive home, and then sit in driveway talking to her for another 20 minutes while I struggled putting my 2yo and 4yo to bed. I only found out because she called him at 2am, I picked up and then she hung up. So I asked him who it was and he said just a friend from work. Next day, I combed through phone bills and found lengthy phone calls going back over a year. He would even take out the trash and call her. I never had any inclination something was going on. It took a month of nightly interrogations to get a closer semblance of the full story. I sent girl’s boyfriend a message on Instagram but I never heard back. We tried therapy. He wasn't open to process, only lasted for 3 sessions before it became just me and therapist for another 5 months. We have two small kids and it was COVID with nowhere to go, so somehow we pushed through. I did tell my mom and brother, and although they were both equally upset for me, my mom really pushed for me to stay with him. He claims nothing physical ever happened, and to be fair, he was always around, but the emotional bit feels worse, that it was happening right under my nose. He says it will never happen again!
Fast forward to May 2022. He's getting late night texts from woman(25yo), a new (pretty and blonde) server who works at restaurant where he is manager. She is complaining to him about owners using expletives. Innocent enough, but immediately I felt she was far too comfortable in convo to somebody who is supposed to be her "boss," complainining about his bosses/the owners of restaurant. I questioned why he needed her number in his phone since he doesn't do scheduling. He said he asked for her phone number when everyone was exchanging numbers because he wanted to know where everyone would be later ( in February when she first started working there). I was conveniently out of town with kids. He normally doesn't go out. I said he didn't need to ask for her number when three of his buddies were also there. He could have just texted them to catch up at the bars.
Due to my rage with the previous incident, I immediately was upset and made him go stay at a friend's house. We somehow mended things, with me saying he needs to put up boundaries with his coworkers. He doesn't need to be hanging out with 22 yo college kids at his big old age, especially girls, and especially girls that he works with and technically has a power differential with ( HR anyone?).
Cut to June 2023, I’m at Disney with kids and my nephews. He usually texts me at night, even though I’m a few hours ahead. We FaceTime in morning, I casually joked, "too busy to text me back last night?" He said he was tired, I think nothing of it.
Later in day, I tried to use CC and had a fraud warning, so I logged into transactions and saw he went to a bar walking distance from our house. When asked about it, he said he went alone for two drinks and came home. I asked why he didn’t tell me about it in earlier phone call. He said he didn’t want me to get upset in front of kids. He doesn’t go to bars often, but he’ll let me know if he does and he’s usually meeting friends from work I know. I should note it wasn’t a dive bar, or a pub, or a sports bar ( he doesn’t like sports), but a bar that attracts a young college crowd and has "hot" bartenders.
I think it’s very strange behavior to go to this type of bar alone as a married man, especially when I’m out of town and he omitted the fact when he was indirectly questioned about the fact. We don’t drink at home, but I feel like if he really wanted a drink he could have just picked up a six pack. He’ll occasionally go to sports bars with his friends, but he’s still home by 11, when he says he’s going to be home.
So Sep 7th 2023, my mom is visiting and messes up CarPlay, so we have to go through and reconnect my phone, when I see WOMAN’s name phone linked to my car. I question my husband, "I don't know, she is nothing, she's dating another guy from work."
Then a day later he comes up with, "maybe everybody was hanging out in parking lot after work and she connected her phone for music." I tell him I don't buy his story. He's telling me I'm wasting my time because nothing happened and I'm only hurting myself by focusing on this.
I ice him out as much as I can without letting our kids know. I've been badgering him for two weeks after kids go to sleep. Now at 1am, he tells me that they all went to a college bar that she used to work at ( he drove separately). Then the whole group went back to her house where they were drinking. They ran out of booze and since his car ( which is actually mine, his was in the shop) was last in driveway, he let her take my car, inebriated to go pick up more booze. Then he drove home drunk.
That's the story now, which is obviously more plausible than we were all sitting in parking lot after work. It could however be another piece of fiction that he had two weeks to come up with. I feel better now, because it feels like more of a truth, but I'm frustrated he was sitting on this story for two weeks. I'm also really upset that he let someone drive my car, especially drunk. He said that he didn't want to tell me, because he was embarrassed about his behavior. All I ask is for the truth, and honestly his reluctance to give it to me turns me into some kind of obsessive psycho detective, instead of focusing on my kids.
Then at 1pm next day, he tells me that she initially was flirty with him. They were all sitting at table having shift meal, and his coworkers were talking about going out and having casual sex. He then says that he made a little proclamation to everyone, listen I'm married, I have kids, I'll hang out with everybody here, but I don't get involved with anybody. After getting up from table, he said she came over to him and said that she was in the middle of texting her sister to say she was working with a really handsome guy, but now she had to text her sister that he was married. Sounds like she was putting out feelers to see if he was interested. ( and as I found out later, then he ended up drinking at her house later that night).
Naturally, I feel like there are still some truths left be uncovered. One question is: She sent a text to him,…"are you at work". He responds, "no, I'm enjoying my wife's birthday." He could just say no, but when it says " I'm enjoying my wife's birthday," this feels like a bat signal to leave him alone because he's with me. I felt it was such strange answer. She never responds back. Obviously it all feels sketchy, what do you anonymous people think because I'm not yet ready to bring up to family/friends, but I need some advice.
Additionally, I know he’s not open to therapy, hard no. So I was telling him that I want him to watch Youtube videos with me about infidelity and he basically scoffs at it. I’m trying to explain to him that I feel betrayed and it feels like he’s just expecting me to get over it. The first one was the bigger offense, but this latest one that I'm finding out about feels bad too. He seems to think that because it was nothing physical, that it wasn't cheating. Honestly, driving drunk is worse to me than cheating. I also told him that I'm now stuck with the uneasy feeling that there's always a possibility he will cheat. For example, whenever I bring up first girl, he says, "I’ve already forgotten about that." And I never will. When we lived in Puerto Rico and there were beautiful women everywhere, and I was fat and pregnant most of our years spent there, I still never felt like he would cheat on me.
Sorry this is all so long if you've read this far. I appreciate any advice. I just want to tell my mom, and my friends, but they were privy to every detail of the first incident and if I tell them about this now, there's no going back. Their opinion of him will be forever changed.
8 comments posted: Tuesday, September 26th, 2023
