I think my husband is cheating

[TexRose]

First of all, I don’t think he should be going out as if he were a single man. He got married and that’s where the going out like that should have ended. Don’t give him freedom like that. And don’t let him try to put the blame on you by asking why you’re following him. My prayers go out to you.

 

[Robaynne]

First of all stop putting yourself down. You are pregnant and beautiful no matter how big your stomach is or how big your nose gets or how swollen your feet gets you are beautiful. I know the hormones are going crazy right now. He choose you to be his wife and to spend the rest of his life with you.

Do you and your husband not have mutual friends. The statement you made about it been his friends. When you get married and start a family the good times come to an end meaning going out alone with the guys all the time. It is okay once in a while but not all the time.

You need to sit down you husband and speak to him and tell him that he needs to decide where his priorities are. That his behaviour is not exceptable. You are very hurt by is actions to date. Instead of him going out drinking with his friends can you guys not do things together e.g. watching a movie together. That you guys are newly weds and need to spend quality time together. And why does he not include you when he goes other with friends. You can also go to the pubs together not that you are pregnant means that you must stay indoors. To be perfectly honest he should not be going out alone.

Your husband may not be cheating but he sure seems to be leaving the door open to it possibly happening. His friends are aware that he is married now why are they calling him all hours of the night asking him to go to happy hour. He should include you even if you say no then he should just stay at home. The fact that he is coming home later and later means that he is leaving room for doubt.

Put a stop to all this now rather than later. Tell your husband how you feel that you do not like the fact that his friends phone and he just jumps not considering you first. That fact that you let him go out whenever he feels like show him that you trust him but he is leaving room for doubt in your mind by the fact that he does not answer his phone, comes home later than before. What if the shoe was on the other foot would he agree to you going out with friends on short notice, would he be happy if you say you will be home by 10:30 and pitch up 2am and do not answer your phone. Try it out one time and see how he reacts he will not be happy.

Your husband needs to grow up and start acting responsible. His friends should respect you and your marriage. Why should be having to phone him and check up on him he is not a child. Been pregnant should be the happiest time of your life. Your husband should make you feel like you are loved even if you have acne or do not feel like wearing makeup or dressing up. He should be spending all his time nurturing you, spoiling you and spending as much time with you as possible. It is up to you now to make the move.

 

[mapleoak]

If you get proof, you still might not want to accuse, you may want to bide your time. You may want to see if he tells you the truth about things also. Then you will know how and when he lies, and what kinds of lies. It might be useful to know.

I can see the point you are making. In general it is not good to allow things to fester or to withhold knowledge from each other. Spouses should always be totally open and honest with each other. If there is knowledge or proof of questionable activity it should be brought to attention as soon as possible and resolved. It is not wise to hold on to proof and use it later as a weapon.

In Christ - J.M.J.
Mapleoak

 

[jman507]

I’ll go on in a bit of a different direction. While there is a lot of talk about what should be happening, regardless of cheating or not, a lot of that isn’t happening. You’ll also have to keep in mind, how can you best help the situation. That is the hardest of all things, you don’t really have a good way of doing it until he is ready, and you might not be the one who can impress that message. So above all the only clear advise I can say is to pray, pray for him to change, pray for you to change, pray that your relationship can grow closer.

Does he have any friends that would be concerned for his marriage? Does he have anyone who he might consider as a mentor for being married? He might very well be very scared about the prospects of being a father, and conscientiously or unconscienciously setting up situations where he might sabotage the whole thing, especially if he doesn’t know much of good marriages.

Is it unfair for you to have to deal with that burden, especially when your pregnant? Yes, but what actual good does that do to worry about that? You might win points when your complaining to your friends, but does very little to help the situation. Though I will say, talking about it does help. LOL I think there was some talk about if he is bad talking you, to a point I think you are doing that right now. The hook is I think it’s justified and a good thing. I here my buddy talking about thing too, you just have to keep perspective, the spouse really isn’t that bad, human as anyone with weak points. But you really might need to talk about it to process the situation. Living that close together means stepping on the other’s toes often, but it’s still worth it.

Pray, and keep in mind all your options. Try to recruit those he knows that might know how to try to navigate in a marriage, to help him and you. If you react wrong, that’s ok. Being right really isn’t the point, being able to grow together to work for you vision is a bit more the point. If you can you might want to check out Retrouville.

 

[chevalier]

I’m sorry for your situtation, but I have to say it’s little wonder if your husband is having an affair.

I have to say even the civil law treats people as innocent until proven guilty, so how much more so should we respect people’s good name and preserve the faith in their good intentions, so far as possible? No matter how many times we were to repeat the suggestion of the affair, it will not become more true that way, although we might start feeling like that. Which is why we shouldn’t repeat unproven allegations.

You allow him to behave like a single man.

Marriage is not about allowing. It’s about, “the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring,” and it’s a covenant, an alliance, a pact of some sort. It is service, but it’s not mutual slavery.

He’s a married man, that means going out with the guys is pretty much a thing of the past.

Correct because now he has different duties and obligations, so he can’t expect to have the same amount of time for friends as before. But why would going out with the guys be wrong on principle? Neglecting the wife is wrong. Having a couple of shots and a hand of cards is not. If it doesn’t lead to anything bad, there’s no problem with it. And if it does lead to something bad, then the bad things are the real problem… unless maybe the desire to play card is so strong that it trumps anything else.

Do you honestly think he would let you go out with your girlfriends to bars and clubs? Of course not,

Why?

the only reason you’d go to places like that alone is to meet members of the opposite sex for dating.

Nope. Sometimes you like the place. Sometimes you like the drink. And if you actually have friends with you, then you aren’t alone but enjoying their company. You only do something do meet members of the opposite sex in one case: when you actually do it to meet members of the opposite sex.

I’m not saying a married person can never watch movies with the girls, or play poker with the guys, or whatever. However, it’s the exception and certainly not the rule.

Well, that casts some light on what you said earlier, but why do we need the rules and exceptions? Marriage is not about making rules for each other and we don’t need to multiply unnecessary rules in our lives.

The trips to the bars without you need to end, and whatever these “bacholar parties” you speak of are, also need to be on the end of a sreeching halt.

Hey, bachelor parties involve strippers and often actual sex. Playing cards is far from that. Lots of playing cards and drinking and hanging in mixed company doesn’t really ring like the best example of married life, but…

 

[chevalier]

I think a good rule is a once a month allowance of social occassions when one spouse isn’t invited.

I think it’s bad to make allowances. For one, we don’t have the authority to come up with prohibitions and regulate our spouses’ lives. They have their obligations, including obligations towards us, and we have some rights. But we don’t have the right to enforce the rights that we have, nor are we each other’s boss.

Before you think I’m somewhat lax, I’ll tell you that on the other hand, I don’t like the kind of allowance that tolerates something wrong within limited boundaries. That’s wrong already. If it’s wrong, it just is. I hate all sorts of fixtures such as “me day” or “friends day” or “N nights away per week”. I think it alienates people and estranges them from each other. Besides, it rings of some “inalienable rights”, and it might even feel like the reality of marriage or a relationship is a bad one with some bright lights of a separate night out every now and then to redeem it.

I think the answer is not to make up rules but to reconcile the wants and the duties of each person, and the needs of each person with the needs of the other, and of the marriage. With rules, we move further away from each other, we lock ourselves in our castles and we stick to our guns (or rights). There’s no reason why one spouse should keep the other in the house if even he isn’t feeling a particular need for the other’s company at that exact time. That would be imprisoning him. On the other hand, one shouldn’t “exercise” the “right” to go out if the other spouse obviously needs company or just for the sake of not wasting the once per month allowance. It’s below the dignity of each person to ask allowance like that, besides.

These behaviors end when you get married, that’s what having a wife and responsiblies at home is all about, being at home.

No. It’s about the good of the wife and the husband and the bringing up of children. Being home is a consequence of it.

It’s really time to sit down and let your husband know it was time to stop acting like a single person when you got married and his social schedule well be adjusted to reflect that.

Agreed, though. In this concrete case, the wife seems to be left behind, the social life rings of disorder, it all seems to be going in the wrong direction.

It’s not being controling or confrontational, it’s being married. Simple as that.

Hmm… I still think you make it look like even if both the wife and the husband wanted to go out separately with each one’s friends, then they would still do better staying home or going together. While they need to take care of the family and the house and cherish the bond between them, it’s not like marriage is some magical state in which it’s taboo to be elsewhere than work or house without the spouse’s company. Going out is not wrong on its own. It’s only wrong if it takes away the time the marriage and family needs more, or if it leads to inappropriate relationships.

 

[Eliza10]

I can see the point you are making. In general it is not good to allow things to fester or to withhold knowledge from each other. …

I agree this is not best. Allowing things to fester is not good. But withholding while one assesses and seeks wisdom is sometimes neccesary.

I am speaking from my experience and I see that also is most everyone else. So PregnantWife is getting the whole spectrum here. Hopefully she will be able to glean what she needs from it.

…Spouses should always be totally open and honest with each other. If there is knowledge or proof of questionable activity it should be brought to attention as soon as possible and resolved…

That is the ideal. But if both are not open and honest with each other, if one conceals his motives, and is motivated by selfishness, and uses the openness of the other to manipulate, then the one being manipulated needs to see that and act prudently.

And if thats the case, it may not be really considered a marriage. It would be good to see a priest about that.

… It is not wise to hold on to proof and use it later as a weapon…

Absolutely never. I did not say any such thing. I said wait and assess and seek wisdom. As a weapon would never be okay. Getting back at the other gets you nowhere. Except out of God’s graces.

I am also responding to clues in Pregnant Wife’s post. If he is this thoughtless and selfish now, whats going to happen when she is completely tied up with the new baby?

She is going to be real tied up real soon and she is going to need help of some kind with that baby. At least a place to live, food to eat, occasional transportation if nothing else. She needs to be sure she can get this. If she can have a real marriage too, that’s ideal. But she will need to see if thats a possibility. At least, it seems to me that is in question.

 

[LovedForever]

Well, first of all the old saying about a “woman’s intuition” is not something to ignore. I think the title of your thread says it all.

I’m going to be blunt here because I think the situation calls for bluntness, so here goes:

Your husband’s behavior is inexusable. A husband (with a pregnant wife no less!) - has no business being out until 3am on a work night to boot! The fact that he appears to prefer “good times” to you is a red flag. He seems to be developing some very bad habits that need to be nipped in the bud NOW - before your precious child arrives. That child deserves and needs a mommy and a daddy who are first devoted to each other and from that devotion will naturally come the devotion together for the child.

I highly recommend that you get 2 books are read them promptly.
The first is a book by Dr. Laura called “The Proper Care & Feeding of Husbands.” I’m not accusing you of ignoring your husband or driving him away, but oftentimes we women are really pretty clueless in making our man TRULY happy. We “think” we are being a “good wife” - but in reality there are things we do or fail to do that leave our man feeling unfulfilled at home or unappreciated (in the right ways). Your comment about not feeling up to making yourself presentable for your husband (because you are pregant and not always feeling well) was a potential little red flag for me… It’s so true that if we have a “good” man to begin with (this book does not apply to creeps and losers) - that they are pretty “simple creatures” as Dr. Laura says and need just a few basic things to make them feel like a King. In turn - they will treat YOU as a queen! That is what christian marriage is all about - serving the other out of pure love. When we do that, and when the love is NOT self-serving - then we experience the true joy and happiness that marriage is meant to produce.

The other book is a book by Catholic author Christopher West called, “Good News About Sex & Marriage.” It is wonderful and a MUST read for every Catholic couple.
These two books will give you much insight into your marriage and truly help you know and understand how to proceed.

God Bless the THREE of you! Keep us posted on your situation. We are all praying for you.

 

[Jay2]

Re-read post 19…

I didn’t get fitted for a nose-ring to be led around by… or to have that band of metal extended into shackles around my wrists & ankles. I was fitted for a ring that meant:
Communication
Consideration
Compassion
Compromise

We decided to share the rest of our lives together. Part of the agreement was to accept and raise children if they happened within our life together… but having kids wasn’t the SOLE purpose of our bond.

That said, as long as I don’t abuse the “leash” given to me by my family obligations or my wife everything is good.
Getting married or pregnant does not include an instant restructure of lifestyle… the initial shock of marriage is enough. It requires a gradual change…with solid communication and compromise between spouses… that may take years…

(BTW we’re going on 19 together this Sept.)

 

[mapleoak]

(BTW we’re going on 19 together this Sept.)

Congratulations, and many more to you!

God Bless.

Mapleoak