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It doesn't seem right to me to ask for those details all over again eight years later.

It's what's happening NOW that is my concern, not from 2015-2016.

If she lied to you eight years ago, you’re still living a lie NOW.

My H cheated on me three times, several years apart. (One Dday) My gut knew something was amiss and I asked him more than once if he had cheated. He looked me in the eye every time and said he could never do that to me. The lie was still there, lurking in the shadows. The vibe was still there. It carries over. It’s like termites. It’s damaging to the stability of the foundation of your marriage whether you know it’s there or not.

You can decide if not knowing is okay with you, of course, but you’ll likely keep having experiences like this where you feel that something is just not quite right.

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 11:14 PM, Sunday, August 11th]

I don't know how to quote posts, so I have to keep copy/pasting and putting it in quotation marks.

Copy and paste your intended quote into the message box, tap it to select all then hit the quote button above.

I've been looking over our cell phone usage on Verizon and a few things are jumping out at me. I don't know if they mean anything weird going on, but these things did stand out. That website/my account doesn't give me a complete or comprehensive look at everything, which kind of stinks, but I'm doing the best I can with it.

1. She had a text come in at 11:40pm last night. I asked her when she came to bed and she said about 11.

2. As previously mentioned, she stays up late and gets up late. I'm out of bed by 5-5:30am and she generally doesn't get up until 8am or after. When she's in bed, her phone is on her night stand and is on airplane mode, without fail. Well, on numerous mornings her phone shows data spikes between 6:00 and 7:30am. I'm usually out the door between 6:30 and 6:45am and don't generally go back into the bedroom after I get up, so I don't know if her phone is doing this on its own or what. The few times I've gone back into the bedroom before leaving for work, I've never seen her on her phone.

I really would like a better look at my account, like actual cell numbers of who she's texting who is texting her, but those don't show up.

I really would like a better look at my account, like actual cell numbers of who she's texting who is texting her, but those don't show up.

Verizon app (if you are the owner of the account). Goto to your bill, select Usage, select history then select message log. You will find a complete text and call log for each month (you'll need to select the month).

Check the "screen time" and battery usage by apps.

'
This honestly is one of the most underrated ways to see if things are being deleted and/or what is being used the most. The battery usage by app screen will add up to 100% (or likely 99%-101% because of the fractions of percentages are rounded sometimes).

For example, after d-day 2 my WH would download and then delete - every day - Whatsapp from his phone. And while he had it downloaded he would be on it nonstop with AP. So looking at the battery usage by app, if you added up the % of use for everything that showed there, on the days he went to work, there would be like 40-50% missing. On the days he didn't there may only have been 5% unaccounted for if anything. So it was clear to me that something was being used a LOT and not showing up in the battery stats.

"Verizon app (if you are the owner of the account). Goto to your bill, select Usage, select history then select message log. You will find a complete text and call log for each month (you'll need to select the month)."

I'm not seeing that. It would be very helpful, but no matter what I click on in the app, it won't show me a text log with the cell numbers either to or from.

Also, I don't see "my bill" anywhere, just "account." I am the owner of the account (I pay for both phones).

[This message edited by WillItEverBbetr at 4:46 PM, Tuesday, August 13th]

I see a lot of red flags.

I also think your wife knows how she was caught last time, and has learned how to not get caught again.

You're wasting your time looking through her phone,and at the phone bill. Start looking for a burner phone.

You can also look at her Google account, and see what devices are connected with her account. If she has used her Google account on a burner phone, somewhat recently, it should show that. That's how I caught my husband, years after dday. He was exhibiting old behavior, just like your wife. And my gut told me to start digging.

If you find no odd device connected to her Google account, that doesn't mean there's no burner phone. It just means she didn't sync her burner to the account.

[This message edited by HellFire at 6:30 PM, Tuesday, August 13th]

For Verizon if you click on Account a menu will appear with "Usage" as an option. Click on that and then "Usage overview."

From there you can choose a line (your number or hers) and it will show you total usage. Just below that are two links "minute details" and "message details."

One will show you all incoming or outcoming calls with telephone numbers. The other will show all incoming and outgoing texts with the numbers.

After failing to see what you are telling is there, I chatted with a Verizon rep and found out that pre-paid accounts like mine (I pay a month ahead for a fixed amount of data) will not show cell numbers associated with any messages, incoming or outgoing.

Figures.

Sorry, didn't know it was prepaid or it makes a difference.

Learn something new each day.

Oh my, your story is my story. buckle up, because yes, your wife is cheating on you. Yes, she learned from the last time around how not to get caught. Your wife lied about the OM 8 years ago, and probably about other things.

After I started suspecting things, she repeatedly said nothing was going on, so she was lying on the regular to me for up to a year. Let me put it this way, it wouldn't surprise me if she did get physical with the AP, but she steadfastly has denied it and I've never found proof of it (but admittedly that would be almost impossible).
Now, here's a disclaimer that I hope isn't missed by anyone reading this: during the A, her demeanor changed for the worse. She'd snap at me and she'd complain. For years now and even currently, she exhibits none of that. She seems happy. That's what's making me wonder if I'm over analyzing things right now. She really seems happy. I don't know what to think.

During my WH's "first" affair (the one I found irrefutable evidence of and he sorta admitted to with lots of lies tied in) he was psychotically asshole-ish, I mean to the point of his friends noticing and asking me wtf was wrong with him. After DDay we decided to work on things HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! And he pretended to behave. Long story short, after 8 years of lies and false reconciliation, he flew halfway across the country for a booty call with someone he'd been messaging daily for 9 months. I didn't have a fucking clue, even though I knew he was a cheater, he wasn't exhibiting any of the previous behaviors, we had gone on many adventures and he seemed genuinely happy in our relationship (still a shitty uninvolved dad, but the kids are old enough now that he really doesn't even factor into their daily thoughts.)

I kicked him out and started filing for divorce. Since then, he finally admitted to me things I KNEW he lied about - other women that he insisted were just flirtations were in fact physical. He lied to my face every day for 12 YEARS.

"And no, it’s not at all too late to do this."
It's been eight years now. Honestly, I am not concerned with what she did eight years ago. We already lived that and went through that hell. I have moved on and sincerely hope she has as well.
It doesn't seem right to me to ask for those details all over again eight years later.
It's what's happening NOW that is my concern, not from 2015-2016.
If she lied to you eight years ago, you’re still living a lie NOW.

My H cheated on me three times, several years apart. (One Dday) My gut knew something was amiss and I asked him more than once if he had cheated. He looked me in the eye every time and said he could never do that to me. The lie was still there, lurking in the shadows. The vibe was still there. It carries over. It’s like termites. It’s damaging to the stability of the foundation of your marriage whether you know it’s there or not.

YES!! There is ZERO percent chance she only talked to wandering-dick OM. If she doesn't come clean about that now, even 8 years later, she is LYING to you still and is not trustworthy. Like I said, my WH lied to me everyday for 12 years about his true first PA. The fact that he finally came clean is the only reason we're still speaking and considering a reboot.

Your WW learned what not to do the first (second? third?) time around, just like my cheater did. I felt almost safe with him again for the first time in years, and he did it again. I will never feel safe around him again. I'm literally waiting for him to die so I don't have to split my assets with him.

The only way to wake up a cheater is to proceed with a divorce. For the first time in 12 years, I have some truth about what has happened in my own life and marriage.

I'm a bit of a rarity on this site - I absolutely believe once a cheater, always a cheater. You have to decide what you are willing to put up with. Please keep posting here with updates - I'm sure many of us will point to x, y, z behavior and be able to recognize it as wayward. Same shit, different day.

I hope everyone can hold their respective horses here - OP - I'm sorry, but as you well know there is no one on this site who can know with an certainty what your spouse is up to, if anything. It is still hard to hear people talk with such assurance, but do to try to listen to some of the advice, even though the "I'm sure" and the "I know" or "I can guarantee" are not actually possible.

I have read this thread, and especially your responses to it, and a few things stand out to me:

1. You have engaged in some rug sweeping in the past. And you are aware of that.

2. You are not willing (or do not want to for whatever reason) to revisit/dig into that past now with your spouse now.

3. You really hope you are wrong about your spouse's behavior.

4. You feel like something is off, and while you are not sure what it is, it seems possible that a new A (or continuation of an old one) is potentially the cause for your concern.

The reason why people are suggesting a back-dig into the past is that you rugswept. I'm guessing because it was more comfortable for you both. And the one thing rugsweeping does is leave a massive pile of unresolved crap under the marital rug. It's still there, lurking, meaning that whatever caused it is still there too. My WH and I did a rather deep dive into his A (which started in 2017 so not that much further back than you) relatively recently (sometime earlier this year). I can tell you in all honestly that his willingness to be so open and talk about those things is really why we still speak at all now.

And maybe, just maybe, some of your spouse's behaviors are innocent, and their connection to that past is really what triggered how you feel now - the suspicion, and that shitty tightrope in your stomach feeling - maybe it all comes down to a trigger from the past. If that is all it is, and that nothing untoward is happening now, then even more reason for you to revisit those things - so you can move forward in relative peace.

Being able to talk about those things really is the key to having any chance at successful R IMO. Had my WS not decided to commit to IC and to figure what was (in his words) "completely wrong" with him that he could behave the way he did, my only options were continue to live the cycle described above, or leave. Why? Because my WH, prior to his intensive and lengthy IC, which was well after I filed to terminate our relationship, also had rules for our relationship going forward that included some level of secrecy. While there were no locked phone folders my WH felt completely entitled to get mad if I had the nerve to infringe on whatever level of privacy he believed he should have by asking where he went after work or who he had been talking to on the phone - things I would have done before the A all of a sudden were massive affronts to his independence. That did not help me - and it did not help US. Your spouse isn't helping you either, even if she is totally innocent right now.

So I think you should trust your gut and do what you need to re finding out what, if anything, is going on. But, if you get to the point you are satisfied that nothing is, I still think that past needs to be addressed. Living with that queasy feeling, even if it's not very often, is no way to live.

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 8:58 PM, Tuesday, August 13th]

I believe you can also look at the internet search history of anyone who connects to your wireless. If she is using that at home, there maybe some things to gleen.

Most people who have affairs don’t use regular text messages to communicate. Look for installed apps- Snapchat, ICQ, WhatsApp, and there are others. I wouldn’t have thought of that, but AP told me to use them. I think often there is one person in the affair more privy to the ways of it.

She may or may not have a burner phone but her knowing you are suspicious and then you getting access to her phone, she may get one.

My ap deleted the app when he was with his wife and then reinstalled it at other times. Is there a way in your type of phone you can look at that history.

I agree with this is lonely, I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion she is cheating. But based on your first message here you have suspected this for at least almost a year. Why do you think you have been passive about that until more recently? Digging into our motivations for things can help with self awareness and help us move past behaviors that do not serve us well. It seems like you have done a fair share of self abandonment throughout your marriage. I don’t think that’s uncommon or crazy but if your haven’t tried therapy, it can help us with boundaries, coping, understanding ourselves more. I think you would be pleasantly surprised where such a journey might take you.

If your wife IS cheating it’s because she hasn’t worked on herself and thinks that you will tolerate it. Boundaries. Honesty. Trust. These are pillars of a relationship that no matter how you stand in their place, the relationship can’t make it long term without these things. Stop tiptoeing.

Ok, what do you folks mean when you say I have been "rugsweeping?" Exactly what are you saying? I'm asking because I don't understand.

Also, what do you mean by "self abandonment?"

I'm trying to learn here and understand the language you all are using.

BTW, the POSOM was in the coast guard and he apparently cheated on his wife many times. When I initially tried to contact his wife, I ended up calling her parents and when I explained who I was and why I was calling, he more or less said "nothing you've said is surprising." I don't know if the AP and his wife are still together. They had two or three kids.

Also, what do you mean by "self abandonment?"

when you sacrifice your needs for the sake of something- in this case presumably you are putting your wife/family as the something. Which that is part of marriage only to the point it is healthy.

So in this case- you have had a gnawing feeling she is cheating for a second time yet you wait a year to confront it. So you held it in and took the hit emotionally, mentally. That is abandoning yourself by depriving yourself of the fundamental need to know what is happening in your life.

Rug-sweeping you have seemingly not have gone through processes that lead to feeling closure- the bs needs to feel
Comfortable they have the full truth so they know what has happened as accurately as it can be known. The ws needs to make amends by discovering how and why they reached this point of betrayal. The answers have to be about their own internal things, and they work on those discoveries to mold themselves into a safe and loyal partner. They make this evident to their bs by being honest, heli g them process the affair, demonstrating investment and effort into the marriage, and together over time they intentionally build their marriage back.

Rugsweeping is more- okay it’s over let’s try and move past this. Maybe there are some eruptions but overall the approach is let time pass and it will get better.

Thanks for that post. You made it easy to understand.

Yes - ty HikingOut. And my apologies. Some of us have been on this board for so long and/or been through a lot of individual therapy that we forget that some of these terms were foreign to us initially even though they have become very commonplace after the fact. And my use of the term rug sweeping was not a criticism of you personally so please don't take it that way. Honestly it is something most of us have done at one point or another in our lives in the infidelity context and outside of it.

By example, if there was such a thing my Mom would win the gold medal for rug sweeping - about everything. You can have an argument with her (she can be very hot headed although less so as she has gotten older) - total full blown screaming, yelling, slamming-down-the-phone blowout about anything - and the next time you talk to her it will be like nothing happened. Nothing gets resolved - so the issue that caused the blowup is still there. Sometimes it's not worth it to address (e.g. a political argument) but other times it is something much more personal, but she refuses to deal with it and gets mad when you bring it up and stonewalls you or makes comments like you are attacking her personally to manipulate you to stop the conversation. It's maddening and I don't deal with her much, especially when things like that happen. Oh yeah, and my mom was a AP - had an A with a married man and they had a child, he divorced and he and my mom married and are still married. I doubt either of them have had more than a minute's conversation about the aftermath of that nightmare and likely blame the OBS and my father for most of the misery that ensued and she will NOT talk about it, even today, some 40 years later.

Rug sweeping isn't always just one person. Sometimes both parties do not feel comfortable addressing the issue so they white knuckle through the initial uncomfortable aftermath and then it gets easier to push it aside. I have seen that on this site a lot - and admittedly I did it, albeit not a really willing participant. My WH did not want to talk about the A after he dumped all the info about it on me (I was luckily in that regard in that he did not attempt to lie about what had happened once I discovered it - he did a fairly complete info dump on me from the get go - and then just created new lies when the A started up again - lather, rinse, repeat). So, once he took the 8 hours or so to just lay it all out there, he was done. In his mind I had all the necessary info and didn't need to rehash it. He told me he would stop and I should believe him and we should move on. In other words, he wanted it all to be done, so we could go back to "regular" life, and for a time, I did just that, feeling sick to my stomach, alternating between feeling okay about him and not trusting him at all, but I kept it to myself for the most part in order to avoid angering/upsetting/whatever-ing my WH. That was my rug sweeping.

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 4:14 PM, Wednesday, August 14th]

Some red flags here.

Go stealth, keep low and investigate.

It’s the last thing you would want to repeat but given our experience once bitten, twice shy. It’s no way to live and it causes mistrust and stress.

I've switched us over to post paid. Now I should be able to see a little more information.

I was just about to suggest that. Glad to see you did it.

As far as voice calls maybe get a Voice Activated Recorder VAR for the bedroom.