My husband invited another woman over to spend the night while I’m away

[Music] i 24 female leave on a flight in three hours for a five-day business trip my husband 28 male is currently sleeping and i'm finishing packing i text message popped up on his phone saying yeah i'd love to spend the night that'll make things so much easier it was from a friend 18 female of his who we've had disagreements over before mostly because he doesn't feel the need to tell me anything about her when they hang out etc which he does on his own for all of his male friends he has a number of female friends and i really don't mind they are good people and there seem to be boundaries in place not with this girl though texts from her frequently pop up throughout the day and as late as one and two in the morning i'll admit it curiosity got the better of me and i read their previous few messages he invited her over to go on a day trip with him to his favorite place to smoke it's her first time he then invited her to stay the night before so they could get an early start the next day thing is as we were going to bed last night i asked him what his plans were while i was gone he usually makes an effort to do something fun for himself and to get one big honeydew item taken care of when we were talking about my trip last night he was very detailed in his plans down to what he'll be doing each day which was unusual but he made no mention of this girl and made it sound as though he was making the drive alone when i suggested he hang out with one of his friends he said i don't know i think i could use a quiet weekend in i'm freaking out a bit we have been having some trouble and i saw in their messages that he's been talking to her about it a lot i get needing to have a friend to talk to but he's always telling me he doesn't want his friends to think poorly of me yet from their messages she obviously does read it what do i do how do i handle this edit i should mention that he's had a history of hiding behavior with women from me thing is i'm really easy going and whenever he tells me so and so is coming over i'm the one who brings home snacks for them yet he's also lied about talking with a female cow walker about us very late at night and sharing a bed with someone he used to hook up with to name a few i feel so stupid edit too any advice for bringing this up part of me wants to confront him before i go we had a really great i thought conversation last night where we decided to take this time apart to figure out what our marriage needs and what each of us needs individually so we can make things work apparently he needs her the other half of me wants to wait until i know she's there and then ask him what's up i'm not really sure what to do i've never been in this position before there is a lot of backstory that's necessary to truly understand the state of our union so rather than post multiple updates i've broken it up into sections feel free to skip over what you're not interested in and skim what you are confrontation thank you to those who responded in the early hours it was 1.30 and when i posted and i'd gotten a whopping three hours of sleep needless to say i was not in the best headspace someone gave the advice to tell him i'm hurt and disappointed i'm leaving you need to fix this someone else said to tell him that it doesn't matter how i found out what matters is that it happened thank you for that too both those comments really stuck with me and i lay in bed waiting for him to wake up typing out how i would respond to whatever direction our conversation took quick side note we've been together for four years and other women have been a constant problem in our relationship he and many people close to him and me will say he's not the guy to cheat he's flirty but he'd never cheat he's a long-term relationship guy and loyal to the core that being said he's had a history of withholding information from me because he thinks it'll make me mad and he doesn't want me to be upset with him i'm a pretty chill person and honestly wouldn't have cared if he'd asked this girl over and told me about it in the past i haven't handled him lying to me very well hence wanting to have a plan while i was waiting for him to wake up i did something i'm not very proud of where i know he'd lied to me and i wanted to have proof of the things he told me about her moving forward especially where i'd be gone and she was supposed to be spending the night i set up his imessages to come to my ipad i know all his passwords so i deleted the ml alerts and just added his phone number i'm not proud of it but i didn't have cameras at home and needed to know whether he was telling me the truth while i was gone he woke up and i decided to give him one last chance as i was gathering my things i asked him what he had planned while i was gone he gave a very detailed report of his daily plans casually leaving out anything about this girl staying the night or going to colorado with him i was soul of it because just the night before we'd gotten into a pretty big fight where he said and you don't trust me i've done nothing nothing to deserve it but you still treat me like i'm sneaking around that hurt because we've been going to therapy and i thought i'd been doing really well at giving him the benefit of the doubt i used to check his phone because of the earlier problems we'd had but haven't done that in months it made me feel crazy and ashamed at the time and now here i was standing in our bedroom watching my husband lie to me through his teeth i said i know you're lying to me i know you're not going to colorado alone and i know you invited a ducking 18 year old to spend the night in my bed and then i just waited the sun is heavy he took a deep breath and said he had two questions one how did i know it doesn't matter i know too did i know during our conversation last night quick side note we've been having a lot of problems lately we both have mental illnesses which are sometimes exacerbated by the others he has adhd depression and ptsd and i'm starting to wonder maybe bipolar of some sort and i have ptsd anxiety and a number of health issues and he's not very good at controlling his anger nothing more physical than throwing things or punching walls but it is absolutely verbal and emotionally i wasn't sure if it was before but after a recent fight we had in which i asked him to stop screaming at me so i could finish packing he said you can multitask yeah i realize he sounds like a sh person and when he's in that headspace he is it's very much a dr jekyll mr hyde situation and when he's kind and calm he's the sweetest most loving person i've met and that's who i fell in love with i care for him even at the same time as i know that i don't deserve him so the night before we had a very heartfelt emotional talk in which i told him i wanted him to be happy i could tell that he wasn't and i thought he should go home several thousand miles away for a few months to figure himself out i told him i would be his biggest cheerleader and that if we ended up staying together or divorcing i would always love him and he would always be my family we've been through some both together and separately and we were both sobbing by the end of it but here's the kicker i told him that if he needed another woman to make him happy i would let him go and support him as a friend end of side note as a result i was probably pretty harsh in my response and said no i didn't know during our conversation last night and now i feel like an idiot like my husband has been ducking a teenager and i just gave him my blessing he tried to get defensive and said that it's not like that i got really quiet and said you're a very smart man but if you can't see that girl wants to get in your pants you're a ducking idiot she texts you about her taking bubble baths and you ducking tell her about all our problems her when you won't even talk about me with most of your friends you're telling an 18 year old about all of our problems he said he would cancel his plans with her and i said i'm not making that decision you are i honestly don't know how you can fix this i don't i don't care if you go with her at this point but i'm leaving and i'm hurt and disappointed and you need to figure out where your priorities are because right now your priority isn't your wife it's your 18 year old crush he kept saying he should've told me but that he didn't want me to make him feel guilty for wanting to hang out with his friend and that i should known that nothing would happen i asked him if he loved her and his gut response was no of course not that's not at all what i'm looking for and said that most of the time he doesn't even like talking to her every day because she's so immature i told him he was an idiot if he thought she didn't have feelings for him he tried to push back but i told him i was 18 once and i liked someone who was 28. we went on a date but when he found out i was 18 he told me he couldn't see me anymore i said it was fine and that we could just be friends but i still tried my hardest to get him to fall for me he was silent after that for a long time that was it he drove me to the airport he cried a lot and apologized a lot i felt a lot of nothing heartbreak maybe but there's been so much turmoil in our relationship that i just didn't care anymore the fallout we left things the way we'd planned to leave them during the heartfelt conversation the night before we both planned to take the five days i was gone to do some soul searching and figure out what and where we needed to be happy then when i got home we'd talk it over and make a plan well when my plane landed at my destination and i got a text from my husband saying that he would be moved out of our house by the time i got back and that he's going home to the east coast he said he was sorry to leave me to manage our upcoming move on my own and that he knew i would be better off this way he said he was taking the car so he could drive back but that he'd leave me all of the money in our bank accounts except what he needed for gas he said he was sorry for keeping the information about his friend from me but that our conversation last night had meant so much to him and had been such a high point of our relationship that to wake up and be accused of cheating was a low point that he could not turn back from he said he didn't know how to make me believe that his intentions were nothing other than company on the drive with his friend but that it didn't matter and he would leave me alone i've never felt that angry hurt or desperate before i was coordinating the travel of more than a dozen other people who were on the flight with me and it felt like all the wind had been knocked out of me i wanted to stop and scream but i couldn't because i was surrounded by people i was supposed to be responsible for i tried my hardest to gain composure but a few tears slipped out and i just focused on my breathing if i'm being honest i'm not proud of my response i basically begged him to stay i'd left feeling like if he needed to leave and we didn't stay together it would be okay but knowing that i'd be returning home to an empty house not getting to say goodbye and that he was ending things over text after four years together was just too much for me i sounded like a child i said i needed him that he was making a stupid mistake that i deserved more than ending our marriage over text all the cliches it was bad but he was determined to leave and i had to get over a dozen people to our final destination so i couldn't keep messaging him about an hour later i got a text that he would at least be staying until i got back because of our dogs nobody could watch them so he'd stay until i was home and then he'd go we planned on having a phone call that night to talk over the specifics but it never happened i was too busy and physically slash emotionally exhausted i know from his texts coming to my ipad but also from him telling me that he cancelled with the girl i know that he also invited her over which was partly my doing the texts i was getting i didn't want him to be alone regardless of if he ducked her then there would be no question i know that he called his best friend and talked to him about everything for an hour and a half which was very good he is a phenomenal human being and has a great marriage advice husband seemed more calm and level-headed after that call he said he would take the rest of the week to think things through like we planned we didn't talk much he texted me every day and i sometimes responded the week went by quickly and i realized i didn't want to go home i'm not sure if that's because of all the drama and chaos that was waiting there or if it's because i no longer want to be married to my husband i don't know a lot of things anymore and i'm trying to take each day one at a time i had a small panic attack as he was about to pick me up i've had worse but i sat outside at passenger pickup trying to breathe oxygen that wasn't there and wiped tears from my eyes maybe it was the anticipation of not knowing what would happen or where we'd stand i don't know but when he hugged me he got all emotional that i was home and i just felt so far away you know how when you hug someone intimately it feels like your souls are hugging it felt nothing like that which was new it felt like hugging a stranger so yeah now i'm home my flight was delayed so we both just crashed into bed as soon as we got back i was asleep when he left for work so we haven't talked about anything but i'm expecting we will tonight and i'll post an update then i know you may be looking for more resolution and i wish i had it i don't even know what i want to do yet part of me is ready to leave to be done to move on with my life i'd want to take a good chunk of time and work on myself but then i'd want to find someone who is transparent with me and who understands and accepts the many parts of me that may be inconvenient but are still me part of me wants to give him one more chance one more opportunity to get his anger under control communicate well and make things work to you reading this it may seem black and white but to me living it it's anything but i've spent nearly every day with this man for four years we've lived together for two and a half we have two dogs a house a life it's hard to just throw that all away even if it's what ends up being best for both of us but that's not a decision i'm willing to make lightly or on a whim since i left he's been much better about following a routine and he hasn't texted the girl at all he did say that she and him at work and that they talked there for a bit i appreciated the honesty but not knowing what they talked about has me nervous if we do stay together there's a lot of work that will need to be done i told him he can kiss me on the cheek but for right now i can't be vulnerable or open with him or trust him at all because of the anger stuff and things he said to me during that fight it'll take a lot of time and patience and i don't know if he's willing to give it if you want me to read and consider your comment please don't throw him under the bus he is absolutely in the wrong in this situation but he's also been through a lot and i understand his behavior even if i don't excuse it he is not a piece of [ __ ] even if he may be acting like one edit forgot to add that while i was gone i saw messages from them on my ipad in which she admitted that yesterday when you asked me about your hair i got nervous because i'd rather avoid the confrontation of this conversation but i just have thought about certain things that completely crossed the line of being friends and i didn't want to put myself in a situation that i might not get out of if that makes sense i don't know if that does i just didn't want to get myself in a tempting situation so i needed to put up a wall i'm going to go do some climbing he responded that makes complete sense i really understand i knew i shouldn't ask that had always just been a very comforting action for me and i was giving in to my sadness but i admire you for doing what was best for you i really hope you have a fun time today when i got back and asked what he did while i was gone i said i really appreciate how you've been so open about things with her even when they've been uncomfortable it makes me feel like maybe i can start to trust you again and then he told me all of that on his own basically he loves getting his head scratched when he stressed or upset and asked her to do that and this conversation ensued he didn't know that i knew about it so it was nice that he showed some [ __ ] transparency for once update okay i've heard everyone loud and clear i just spent six hours in bed reading responses and bawling my eyes out you're right every single one of you he doesn't want a strong independent woman and that's what i need to be i just got off the phone with my mom who is an incredibly religious person and i assumed would be unsupportive of a divorce but she said almost verbatim some of the same things you guys said we made an exit plan both for worst case and best case scenario and i'll be talking to him tonight when he gets home in the meantime i'm going to go get coffee with my friend and try to calm down a bit i've been putting myself second for so long that i deserve a bit of self-care before you freak out i never unpacked last night if i need to leave tonight i have nine people who have volunteered to be on call to help me move or be emotional support or whatever i need and all of my valuables are already packed it hurt to come to the realization that we can't move forward from this he's betrayed my trust so many times that i'd need him to verify pretty much anything for a while and that's no way for either of us to live the fact of the matter is that we are both pretty broken and have no business being in a relationship with each other or anyone else right now i truly don't believe he's a terrible person but he has been a terrible partner like many of you said he can be a good person and not be good for me last night i chickened out i was so scared of losing him forever that i said we should just take a break have him fly home and work on ourselves for a bit there were a lot of tears but when the conversation was over i didn't feel better just stuck this morning i realized what i'd done i did this the last time i tried to get out of in a relationship and put up safeguards so i could feel comfortable leaving my husband doesn't deserve to be led on and i don't deserve to be unable to move on i read through more of your messages and i can't thank you all enough for your words of comfort encouragement and strength the thing is for you it's black and white for me my thoughts are so thoroughly clouded by emotions and history and i have to let that all go the best thing i can do for both of us is to give up so this morning i did i told him that while we could take a break and try again it would never work i can never truly trust him again and he wants me to change things about myself that are things i love and have no desire to change we've been trying so hard for so long to make things work that we are just too far gone there were lots of tears but he took it well he's agreed to a no contest divorce and we'll spend the next few days packing up our house before the lease is up at the end of the month some of you may come at me with pitchforks for not screwing him over or breaking up last night or leaving him to deal with the house alone but that's okay i'll be staying at my friend's house until my new apartment is ready and really focusing on just working on myself i won't help him pack unless i have someone with me much of the stuff is mine anyway and i'd rather not leave it behind you guys are right that my self-confidence has taken a nosedive lately i have a lot of healing to do before i'm ready to consider love again and i have two appointments scheduled with my therapist this week this man is not a monster in my book he's a little boy that needs to grow up we both made our fair share of mistakes in this relationship but rather than feeling sorry for myself i'm choosing to take those lessons and move on i'm the kind of person who is very good at bouncing back it's just the getting out that's hard thank you all for your help and that i wish him all the best and simply have no desire to harbor hate in my heart [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: Ask Girl

Views: 56,448

Rating: 4.8691278 out of 5

Keywords: reddit girl, reddit marriage, reddit relationship, reddit, r/askreddit, r/ girl, r/ marriage, r/ relationship, r/, askreddt girl, askreddit marriage, askreddit relationship, askreddit, relationship advice

Id: Yjf7qCdKp9c

Length: 22min 24sec (1344 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 04 2020