[Mae]

Just a quick update before we get onto our ship today 

We packed up and flew out of our home country yesterday and arrived 3.5 hours later to another country where we will board our ship this morning. We are having a great time already. The cyclone is due to be cleared out from the area we are heading into although the seas may be still a bit rough....but I have bought plenty of sea sickness pills to take care of that.

Before I left I dropped my phone and it cracked although still usable. H offered me his phone as he has switched to using his work phone as his main phone. So he cleared his phone and handed it over. Yesterday at the airport while waiting for our plane I spent a bit of time noseying through his phone, obviously his text messages are gone with his sim but I opened the internet browsing history and also his facebook messaging ap. Internet browing history was interesting........but the real kicker was his facebook messenger.

Just after BD I saw a message on H's phone where he planned to go out and get totally smashed with BF....he then text BF and said 'want to end up in Prettygirl's bed'. Some time ago I noticed he had added a new friend to his facebook account, I thought nothing of it...I don't know her. Yesterday while at the hotel and still snooping I saw a bunch of facebook messenges back and forth between them while he has been away. To be fair they were mostly just over a few days in mid-April and nothing since then. It dawned on me .....and I swear I am particularly dense that this girl who he added on his facebook and whose conversation I was reading was 'Prettygirl' (they have the same name......see I am dense).....WTF.....my heart starts thumping madly....I read on....for an EA .....it's pretty weak....BUT I see the beginnings of a relationship forming. Mostly they are swapping stories about food and exercise stories what they like, what they do and so on. She likes yoga...H likes the gym and running. Back and forth and so on.....sometimes they talk about food.....pretty inocuous. She has some self-esteem issues because she is saying how she doesn't think she is that attractive etc.......H is saying that YES she is very attractive and hot....she is saying the same thing back to him. I see that they have planned a yoga session together. I also see a text where they confirm they are attracted to one another......Prettygirl says so we agree that we are attracted to one another but we aren't going to do anything about it......H confirms that the case....then he ends the conversation because he says it was getting 'heavy'. The last message they had was April 16....ages ago. Shortly after H ends his job and moves into another one. While I am reading all this and feeling my gut getting all twisted up into knots H rings me to see how we are doing.......I immediately launch into a tirade about him and Prettygirl....he begins backpedaling very quickly....I run out of credit in the middle of it.

A lot of stuff goes down between us I won't do a blow by blow account cause I'm on holiday  . Anyway what I saw between H and PG was basically it according to H. He said he did one hot yoga session with her and hated it and is never doing yoga again. Nothing happened between them and nothing is going to happen because he is committed to me and his family. There was a lot of tears....a lot of hurt, a lot of reassurance. Today  he is going to 'unfriend her' from facebook and tell her directly (even though they have very little contact anymore) that he is no longer friends with her, that he loves me, has always loved me and is committed to me and to our family.

As much as can be dealt with NOW is happening.....so I feel pretty secure and can concentrate on having a great holiday. I will be back in in about 12 days times.

BTW.....where is our friend Stayed? I miss her and hope she and her family are good. Maybe she is having a well-deserved holiday too.

[Never say never]

Mae, you sound so good and I am so proud of you.  I know only too well those gut-wrenching moments when we find something on a phone or fb or somewhere else that just gets you out of control.

This holiday is for you now.  It is time to shut down reality, relax and enjoy.  Really, everything will still be here when you get back.  It sounds like your husband is trying very hard to make things work and that is a huge plus.

With you being gone now for a few weeks, the reality of it all is going to hit him because he is not on a holiday.  He is stuck in reality. 

I hope you can get your mind off of all of this and focus on just having fun.  You so deserve it and I am hoping for a great update from you when you get back.

Enjoy. (((((HUGS)))))

[LearningIamOk]

Hi Mae, sorry you snooped and found out what your H has been doing. You seem to be taking it rather well. I won't go into anything now, I just want you to have a great holiday. As for Stayed, she is on holiday as well.

[Savoir Faire]

Snooping is a killer Mae, I did it too, we all have a need to know and then are unhappy when we find out.

My H's text messages to his first OW were also very tame but there was also the potential for more - she was married so it never eventuated beyond a few stolen moments and probably went physical - I don't know.

I think the second OW dumped him and their text messages were of him trying to impress her and her trying to get away from him.  She was obviously not broken enough and he was just happy with anyone at the time.

Enjoy your holiday and try to forget your H for the remainder and stop looking for 'evidence' on his phone - it will drive you crazy.

[UrsaMajor]

Attaching -

The deadly Phone snoop... That is how I found out about my Mid-Lifers PA as well... UGH

And her explanation was so lame that it was laughable... One doesn't worry about having to hide a pregnancy if one only has a fantasy relationship.... I may have been born at night, but it was NOT last night...

[stayed]

Hello, I'm back!   Had a lovely time in hot, hot, did I say hot, Jamaica?  Some rain in the afternoons as well, which actually, was kind of nice, hehehe.  Beautiful down there.

Well Mae, I am only going to say, WE NEED TO KNOW!  Not knowing is just about the worse thing ever, because our over fertile little brains go absolutely berserk!  Everything becomes grossly embellished (not that the real facts are not disturbing enough)! 

I agree with my learned friend learningImOk, for now, if you can, sit back and enjoy your vacation.  Try to put him and your situation as "out of your mind" as you possibly can.  While you are doing that, also try to grasp that your h is trying to have this thing, BOTH WAYS!  He knows YOU very, very well Mae.  He KNOWS, all he has to do is sound sad, shaky and contrite, instantly you become concerned and worried about him.  Which instantly reassures him, that you are STILL THERE FOR HIM... which gives him more time to carry on doing whatever he is doing. 

We forget that these spouses of ours are not the people we married.  Something has truly happened and they are very busy trying to trying to play both sides of the fence.  What I mean by that, he is trying to KEEP you in a holding pattern, which for the record he is doing very well. While at the same time, he IS actively pursuing other RELATIONSHIPS.  Adding and deleting women after women, eventually, he is going to find somebody that he is going to "take the plunge" with.  All the signs are there Mae.

Your daughter is ANGRY at her dad because she either KNOWS something that you do not know and she doesn't want to be the one to tell you. Or she suspects something.  She is not as "emotionally" involved as you, so is more willing to believe the "unbelievable" then you are.  Plus, sweetie, this is the third time he has done this.  Quite frankly,  would say that your h has been in crisis for quite a long time.  I very much have my doubts that he is as "emotionally depressed", at least in the way that you are thinking he is, as he is leading you to believe.  In fact, many of his actions are becoming pretty premeditated to me, in the fact that he is now seeing a counselor, is now "supposedly" taking medication, which sends you the impression that he is "really trying" to work on himself and your marriage.  Sorry, but I am not seeing that. 

This situation is sounding more and more like my personal situation every day.  When my h actually became involved with the OW, he then found himself a counselor.  Never once did he agree to do counseling with ME

[Mae]

Back early this morning....still very tired but had a great time with my girls.

I couldn't entirely forget about discovering some sort of weak EA that my H had going......I thought about it a lot on my holiday, but I was also able to put it aside and enjoy the time I had with D14 and GDs 5 & 7. We had pretty good weather, only one rainy day and gloriously sunny days on our shore days....we had a fabulous time sunbathing, snorkelling, swimming and eating....OMG the food.....so many options it was obscene. The girls kept D14 and I pretty busy and by our last day we were itching to come home. I have never appreciated my comfortable bed more than falling into it last night.The peace and quiet of home is wonderful.

I was able to message back and forth with my H whilst on the cruise, I didn't talk about the EA too much......that I will save until the weekend when I see him next.

What I didn't realise is that D14 snooped on my phone even before we had left for the cruise so she saw everything. She kept it to herself and I discovered her snoop during the cruise. She hates her father, she thinks he is a liar.....fair enough.....all the things she thinks about him I also think, the difference is she has no empathy for his situation....again fair enough. She sees a huge contradiction between his words and his actions. He said he wanted to be alone to figure himself out.....what she has seen him do is go away to stay with some other family, go out and party with his friends, enjoy himself, get drunk and start messaging another woman....the very opposite to what he said he wanted to do. Now that he is actually alone in his rental apartment all he wants to do is come home. We both are saying that he is depressed however to her none of his actions indicate that. I tell her that it's just a mask and that he is unhappy....she is skeptical and unconvinced. He really was clueless as to how she felt even after her huge blowout with him the weekend before....surely that gave him a hint?

I had to put him straight about her feelings and that she discovered the text messages....I had to be very blunt with him and those truths hit him hard....I hope so.

Stayed.....you have always tried to get me to open my eyes to my H....I have always resisted. I am still resisting....I cannot believe my H would deliberately lie, like he could be just like all the other MLCers here on this site. I still think my H is different.....ok so he was 'flirting' with an EA......nothing came of that as far as I know. He has unfriended her and told her to her face that he couldn't be friends with her...blah blah blah. Has there been others.....not that my snoop has revealed......his EA was short lived and finished half way through April as far as I know and from what he has told me if he is being truthful. Is he being truthful though? In the past I would have sworn on our children's lives that he always told me the truth....now I would not do that. I have doubts now, I scrolled through his browser history......and what I saw has put severe doubts in my mind....I am going to confront him about exactly which sites he was visiting and why....I will update over the outcome.

Despite this I do not believe that my H is 'playing both sides of the fence', that he is keeping me in a holding pattern. I believe that he has stopped activity that will jeopardize our marriage, is taking his medication and continues counselling so he can get better and come home. Am I being naive? Possibly.

Stayed you WERE right when you say that my daughter is ANGRY and that she knew something about her Dad and didn't want to be the one to tell me. You could be right about all the other things you have said and are saying about him 100%. I very much need you to continue to point out what is obvious to everyone except me. You say that you are doubtful he is 'emotionally depressed'.....can you explain that a bit more? I do think he is taking his meds because he is complaining about them making him tired and sleepy.

H would agree to couples counselling if I wanted it.....I don't at this stage but he has set up counselling with D14 and she has agreed (after a heavy bribe during the cruise).....he has a lot of repair work to do. One of the provisos is that she gets to determine when he can come home. I have a confession to make, he asked to come home at the end of June......I didn't say no.....but this way he is no longer on either his or my timeline.....he is on our Daughters.

Stayed I'm glad you enjoyed your hot sunny holiday and are back with us.

I'm off to get caught up with everyone else. I WAS pretty distraught at the time discovering what I did....but I've processed it mostly.....NOW what I really want to do is to fill in the missing bits....I'm sure there are plenty of those, some of which he has told me, some he has conveniently 'forgotten'....you know what i'm talking about, being so drunk that you're not sure what you have done the previous night.....I'm confronting him this weekend, I'm asking for his phone and I'm checking it, along with his snapchat if he hasn't deleted his account and going through his laptop too and questioning the things I have found on his phone's browser history (I wince when I think that D14 saw that!! He would be hugely embarrassed too by it.)

[LearningIamOk]

Mae, I am so sorry that you have a typical, run-of-the-mill MLCer. They all lie. They all have a woman somewhere, in some capacity.

This weekend is going to be Truth Bazooka time for you. Call him on all of it. Don't let him gaslight you for an instant.

Your D14 knows way more than she should, but that is irrelevant now. He is going to have to do a lot of damage control if he wants to come back. Let him work for it and don't lift a finger to help him.

[No expectations]

Mae,

Sounds like the cruise was wonderful!  I'm just sorry you didn't get more of a mental breakdown from all of this.

We all came to this site, wanting to believe our h was different,  that he would get through this quickly and easily.   But MLC takes no prisoners.   We are truly following the script.   Trust the process,  Mae.  Let him be, focus on Mae.  You can confront him if you want,  but please don't believe him. 

Hugs, Mae!

[Savoir Faire]

Glad your cruise was wonderful Mae.

Your main problem with your H is you expect him to act like a 'normal' person and he is not that person right now.  We all want to think our MLCers are better or different and some get to be VERY different

We need them to be different so we can tell everyone "I told you so"  But where is the unity with others in that?  I think sometimes we feel more at home here when the MLCer IS like all the others - we can stop being so smug.  Being pushed off your pedestal is rather leveling.

I'm not judging you on this, I've been where you are thinking mine was different and actually like myself more now that I smacked myself down from my entitled thinking.