Husband cheating on me?

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Last night, I helped my husband write an email following up on a job application. I just checked his email to see if there was any response, and there was none. So I clicked into the “sent” file to make sure we had sent it and ended up seeing an email that he sent in response to a “personal ad” on Craigslist, women seeking men. The ad was from a girl in her early 20s saying “no strings attached” in our same town. He responded saying he was in the same town. I work night shift at a hospital about 40 miles away from home and I was working this night that he sent the email.

I don’t know what to think of this, maybe I’m in shock right now. Even if they didn’t meet up- he showed intent to. How do I know he hasn’t done this multiple times and just missed deleting this particular email? If you look at my posts historically- he has had issues with porn and I feel a general lack of intimacy in our marriage even to this day. Recently I’ve finally come to a point where, in order to define how I feel, I’ve decided that he is emotionally distant and does not know how to relate to me. But now, I don’t know… it could be a MUCH bigger problem than that.

What do I do? My first instinct was to pick up the phone and tell him to come home right now because we need to talk. But is that overreacting?
 
You are not overreacting, but if you can talk to your pastor or someone with a pastoral office before you talk to your husband, I’d highly recommend that. You want to approach this in a way that is not going to give your husband any more room than necessary to hide in a defensive stance or that is going to tempt him to lie to you. You do not want to say all the things that are on the tip of your tongue right now, either, because some of them may be things you ought to have never said but which you will never be able to take back. You are very vulnerable to that kind of mistake right now.

You need to give him the best possible atmosphere in which to come clean with you and the best possible disposition in yourself to digest and assess what you know and what may yet be ahead. If you take your understandable sense of shock and outrage and dump those between you, things might go very much worse than what might have been possible with the approach you might have taken, had you been given time and guidance to assess the situation, your options, and possible pitfalls in approaching him about this before you talked to him about it.

IOW, yes, this could be a house fire, but no, screaming and running around are not the best way to fight it. Take a deep breath, call 9-11, and get the help you need to look into the problem intelligently. If there is only an odd smell and no fire, the cautious approach will do no harm; if there is a fire, the cautious approach will still get the fire fighting underway in the safest and most efficient manner.
 
First off it is good that you found that sent mail, it will be the first step to recovery. IF your husband has had or does have a porn problem it doesn’t go away. It is an addiction for a lot of men and it is as addictive as cocaine. From the brief comments you made about it and the ad you found I would surmise that he is addicted and has progressed to riskier activities. There is hope, with groups like SA which is a 12 step God based group found in most communities.

As for confronting him, you have to do it for the safety of your family. If he is seeing another person for sex there could be health issues involved and you don’t want those health issued transferred to you and your family.

Whether he did meet up with this person or was “testing” the waters for the thrill and thought of doing it I would guess he needs to be honest with himself and seek help. It won’t be easy.
 
I’m so sorry to hear that you have to be going through such emotions. I sincerely hope for the best. You will certainly be included in my prayers.

Joshua C.
 
Really, you have two options, to stay in this relationship and iron things out or to part company.

If you want to try to stay together, then you would probably benefit from marriage counseling. I understand Catholic Social Services also has counselors from a Catholic perspective. Even if he doesn’t want to go at this point, you might benefit from going alone.
 
I have also heard of a program, Retrouvaille that helps married couples when they are having problems.
 
Do you and your husband ever pray together? Would you consider trying it?

Hail Mary, Full of Grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blest is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. :gopray:
 
In my opinion it is time for an ultimatum; Marriage counseling together or he leaves and pursues his craig list interests alone.
Mary.
 
Kittery,

I second Easter Joy’s recommend to talking to your priest or get some really good advice first…
 
Thank you Easter Joy… Good advice, I put a call in to a place that does christian based marriage counseling in our area. We’ve been to counseling before, about 4 years ago or so. I felt like he put a “good show on” for the therapist and the therapist didn’t see through it. The therapist actually thought that one of our problems was that we were “too nice to each other” and needed to speak up about our needs rather than always tiptoeing around the issues. In reality, when I make CERTAIN requests from my husband he goes into immediate defense mode and just turns it around on me.

Maybe it just wasn’t the right counselor for us. The depth of my hurt has never been known by anyone else, not even my husband because there is some kind of disconnect there. I’ve even wondered if he has low spectrum Asperger’s. I’ve thought that maybe it’s something from his family of origin. He is 1 of 14 kids and one of the brothers served 7 years for molesting his baby sister. I wonder if anything like that ever happened to him. But, he says that the only thing he feels may have been less than ideal in his childhood was the amount of attention he got and that even though his dad had a temper and yelled a lot, my husband feels he deserved it every time…
 
kittery said:
Thank you Easter Joy… Good advice, I put a call in to a place that does christian based marriage counseling in our area. We’ve been to counseling before, about 4 years ago or so. I felt like he put a “good show on” for the therapist and the therapist didn’t see through it. The therapist actually thought that one of our problems was that we were “too nice to each other” and needed to speak up about our needs rather than always tiptoeing around the issues. In reality, when I make CERTAIN requests from my husband he goes into immediate defense mode and just turns it around on me.

Maybe it just wasn’t the right counselor for us. The depth of my hurt has never been known by anyone else, not even my husband because there is some kind of disconnect there. I’ve even wondered if he has low spectrum Asperger’s. I’ve thought that maybe it’s something from his family of origin. He is 1 of 14 kids and one of the brothers served 7 years for molesting his baby sister. I wonder if anything like that ever happened to him. But, he says that the only thing he feels may have been less than ideal in his childhood was the amount of attention he got and that even though his dad had a temper and yelled a lot, my husband feels he deserved it every time…
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Still, the real suffering brought on by a childhood full of bad parenting does not make it permissible to fish for trysts outside of marriage while your wife is at work. It may leave him more vulnerable to the temptation, but it does not make hurting you in that way OK. That he may need boundaries made to fit different personal realities than other people does not mean that he gets moral mulligans…meaning, reconciliation extended in the absence of contrition or a true purpose of amendment.
 
Maybe you could do some surveillance for a while so that you could find out if this is an ongoing thing or not. You could install some keylogging software on the computer. A record of every keystroke made is sent to a log that only the installer would be able to access. He wouldn’t even know it was there. If you’re not familiar with it you can google “keylogger software”. Or contact a local computer company and have them purchase it & install it for you. You would have a log to either show your counselor or a lawyer (if God forbid you ever need one). Maybe it would give you peace of mind not to have to take his word for what is or isn’t going on when you’re not there.
 
Yes, talk to a pastor for advice - but do not delay letting your husband know he’s been caught. If this is the first time, you need to get in front of it, and who knows what kind of trouble (criminals set traps on craigslist this way), or health issues are possible with this kind of interlude.
 
oh that sucks!!! what a devastating blow! I agree with EJ to stay calm and approach it in a rational manner.

I feel really bad for you! You can only do so much. If he keeps disappointing you, you will eventually fall out of love with him. Love needs trust to remain alive.

You’re getting some really good advice here. I feel really bad for your situation. He seems broken emotionally b/c he’s too immature to commit to a good marriage. He needs to find the root cause of his immaturity.
 
MaryT777 said:
In my opinion it is time for an ultimatum; Marriage counseling together or he leaves and pursues his craig list interests alone.
Mary.
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Agreed.

The chances that you “caught” him the very first time he ever tried this are about “0”. It would be like me claiming the only time I ever broke the speed limit I got a ticket. I had broken the speed limit 100s of times before I got my first ticket and 1000s of time after. Apply the same math.

Most posts like that by “young women looking for hookup” are code for prostitutes that can no longer advertise openly on Craigs List. If I know that your husband does too.

Check your bank accounts for cash withdrawals.
 
kittery said:
Last night, I helped my husband write an email following up on a job application. I just checked his email to see if there was any response, and there was none. So I clicked into the “sent” file to make sure we had sent it and ended up seeing an email that he sent in response to a “personal ad” on Craigslist, women seeking men. The ad was from a girl in her early 20s saying “no strings attached” in our same town. He responded saying he was in the same town. I work night shift at a hospital about 40 miles away from home and I was working this night that he sent the email.

I don’t know what to think of this, maybe I’m in shock right now. Even if they didn’t meet up- he showed intent to. How do I know he hasn’t done this multiple times and just missed deleting this particular email? If you look at my posts historically- he has had issues with porn and I feel a general lack of intimacy in our marriage even to this day. Recently I’ve finally come to a point where, in order to define how I feel, I’ve decided that he is emotionally distant and does not know how to relate to me. But now, I don’t know… it could be a MUCH bigger problem than that.

What do I do? My first instinct was to pick up the phone and tell him to come home right now because we need to talk. ** But is that overreacting?**
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Uh, no. If it was my spouse I would throw a FIT and kick him out of the house for a week before wanting to see his face again so we could go to marriage counseling or something.
 
JustPink said:
Uh, no. If it was my spouse I would throw a FIT and kick him out of the house for a week before wanting to see his face again so we could go to marriage counseling or something.
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I may be inclined to have a trial separation as well. This is a huge breach of trust.
 
OP, It sounds to me like you husband may be a sex addict based on your mention of past porn use and his cruising craigslist ads. He has exhibited very dangerous behavior by replying to an ad. He even used his main email account which really compounds the risk. You could catch him, his work could catch him, the police can track him, this prostitute can blackmail him. This demonstrates that his thought processes are compromised…this is the type of risk an alcoholic or drug addict would take and is big indicator of a serious addiction. This is different than having an affair with somebody at work, there may not be another woman that he fell in love with, but rather he has been overtaken by his addiction. Marriage counseling is a great idea, but he needs individual help on his addiction. After he gets control of that, other issue will be easier to resolve.

btw this type of problem becoming more and more common.
 
I have lived through this pain.
There is hope and help.
Please call S-Anon Nashville. You will find the support and answers you need by talking to others and working the program You will find help. Addictions are just something you cannot solve.
 
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