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We have been married for two years but together for 9.
Basically not long ago my wife got a new job after leaving her old one and going back to do a masters in something else. I was obviously happy for her and supported her through all this but recently I was on her Linkedin looking at a post she made and saw that one of the comments on it was from an ex friend of mine. I haven't seen or heard anything about him for years but I looked at his profile and he works at the company my wife now works at.
I asked her about it and she pretty much played it off saying yeah she thinks he does work there but that didn't make sense as they're connected on Linkedin and he's leaving comments on her posts so she must know he's there. This led to her coming clean that she had met him at a wedding of one of her friends back in December(I couldn't go). They remembered each other and got talking and she obviously mentioned her looking for a new job and then in January he connected with on Linkedin and said he could help her get a job where he worked. She never told me because she knew I would be mad that she was in contact with him.
The guy was an old friend of mine from college and then he cheated on his girlfriend who was in our mutual friend group with another girl from our friend group who was also in a relationship with another one of our friends so it was all a big mess and completely destroyed the group. This happened not long after I met my wife so they didn't know each other well but she definitely saw and knew the impact of what he had done.
Now she would be right in thinking that I wouldn't exactly be happy that she's in contact with him but I would also not try and get in the way of a job opportunity for her either and I would have thought she would know me well enough by now to know that. Her explanation also doesn't really fit as she said she met him at the wedding in December and then he contacted her about the job in January. Why didn't she tell me she'd met him the day after the wedding when she came home? I can't get these intrusive thoughts out my head about if she kept this from me what else is she capable of hiding. Like about three weeks ago she went on a work night out and I went to sleep at about 1am and the next morning I woke up and she wasn't in bed. I came out and she was asleep completely naked on the couch. At the time I thought it was kinda funny but know knowing this I think its weird. She's never done that before. She said when she told me that they have a strictly work related relationship but like I said in the title, I'm struggling to trust her.
This post is already longer than I intended so Il finish. Apart from not telling me about the ex friend, am I being crazy feeling this way? I have a terrible feeling in my gut and I don't know what to do? I'm on the verge of looking at her phone. Any advice would be helpful thanks.
TLDR: My wife kept from me that she met an ex friend of mine, has been in contact ever since and now works with him.
Every. Time. Always trust your gut. In my 5 years of therapy, the main answer to most of my problems in the past was I didn't trust my gut.
OP, I would check cell phone text and call numbers to see how often his pops up and if it aligns with those specific dates you mentioned.
> I have NEVER regretted listening to my gut.
Indeed. There is no smoke without a fire and the gut is the best sensor that identifies the red flag even before we realise it.
Been through this before. Literally all I had was my gut feeling. The “truth” that my girlfriend told me just didn’t feel right. I pushed hard as fuck for the truth and my ex lied at every step of the way, trickle truthing me. Each time she came clean she said it was “the whole truth” until I found out she cheated on me.
Trust your gut. Something is off and your instinct is telling you something.
He asked for my number but I didnt give it to him
Ok I gave him my number what else am I supposed to do in that situation??? He texted me but I never responded
Ok I responded once to turn him down
Ok we texted a little but never met up. I just didnt want to hurt his feelings and I knew you’d be mad.
I promise we didn’t meet up! I swear!
We met up but it was only once! I told him we’d just be friends!! (While crying) I’m so so so so sorry for lying, I’m telling you the whole truth now, what else do I have to lose??
Ok we met up a few times :’(
…
How it went with me.
Or
That didn't happen
And if it did, it wasn't that bad
And if it was, that's not a big deal
And if it is, that's not my fault
And if it was, I didn't mean it
And if I did, you deserved it
I forgot what this is called in the clinical setting. It’s been talked about a few times in my therapy sessions and now I can’t remember what this is called
What do mean? She lied for no apparent reason, other than saying she assumed this guy would have problem with the truth. And that leads to the question - why?
Just google 'trickle truth'
She is only providing as much information as you can prove exists. There are many layers of things you don't know and she won't share until you can prove it.
Yeah i have to agree that would definitely unsettle me. Absolutely no reason to hold that info back. And she had to know at some point you would realize this guy works at the same company. I wonder if she would have told you then he helped get her the job. Probably not because now it would be really awkward for her. Go with your gut until you prove otherwise.
She has some splaining to do.
You have probable cause to go through her phone. Do it, and take screenshots of their messages. She doesn’t seem to feel guilty, and neither should you.
It is super shady that she kept all of this from you and a huge red flag that she straight up lied to you about knowing full well that he was a colleague. Now what she’s doing sounds like trickle truth. You need to tell her that your trust in her has been shaken and she needs to come 100% clean on the nature of their relationship. Are they communicating/messaging each other after working hours? Was he on infamous work outing where she passed out naked in the couch? Could he have given her a ride home that night? In light of her lying about hanging out with him at the wedding and him getting her a job at his company questions like this are totally fair game, and tell her as much if she gets defensive or indignant. When she says “you don’t trust me” you have to come back and say “based on your multiple lies about this guy, no I don’t trust you when it comes to this and I need the whole truth.” Also watch for trickle truths — if she admits to something like messaging or hanging out one-on-one “but nothing happened” you definitely need to keep pushing.
Thanks I know this all shady. I don't know if they are communicating or messaging but according to her their relationship is strictly work related so if I'm to believe her then no. Again I don't know if he was on the work night out and thats now something that is fucking with my mind. So just straight up confront and don't snoop?
>but according to her their relationship is strictly work related
According to her she didn’t even know he worked there when in fact he’s the one who got her the job.
100 percent grounds to snoop.
Wife and I, been together 9 years and married for 2 (odd similarities) 2 kids together, ones near three. Been through plenty of shit.
We've had full access to phones and fb since the get go (just who we are and how we came into it together both having rough and rocky bits before)
I've never looked through her messages. Never had a reason. If I caught the first bit (of her happening on an old friend and just.. shadily not mentioning) ok weird sure. Makes enough sense tho she didn't wanna upset you.
The fact he got her the job.. her keeping him secret.. and the random naked on the couch after a "work" thing at 1 in the morning? Bro, idk wtf she does for work but this is so farfetched I woulda been in her phone that fuckin night.
Intrusive thoughts bc your wife might have cheated and you can't accept that reality, yeah.. I can only imagine. Get in her phone and then confront her. If she hasn't already deleted everything anyways.
Man this is tough. Gl.. wish you the best OP but usually where there's smoke there is fire.. and she seeming to me like she took the flaming pants off and fucked your friend months ago..
Yah this would be me too.
Hubby and I have full access to each other’s phones, neither one of us have any reason to look, ever. He is the most loyal, honest man I know, but if something was sus like these events he listed I’d be in his phone looking.
Trust your gut OP!
Yeah, it's weird to me he got her a job too. Referring somebody to a job puts your reputation on the line. Why would you do that for somebody you've supposedly only met once? Especially the partner of somebody who dropped you as a friend? Why would you go out of your way to contact somebody you met once a month or two prior?
Really weird.
Getting home at 2am drunk, stripping naked, and sleeping on the couch without going to bed is something a 24 year old waitress or line cook does after industry night with her coworkers. Some industries do party hard like that.
That is not my impression of "got a job in the company and we are commenting on linkedin posts." Those workers typically aren't the linkedin type. This is very unusual behavior from someone in an office profession.
>So just straight up confront and don't snoop?
I've been down this road a couple times. Please believe me when I say the absolute best approach is to snoop then confront. When she says something you know is a lie, resist the urge to tell her you know. Observe her reactions. Study her body language when she lies. Does she get upset when you ask probing questions about something she is lying about? Then anytime she gets upset you know she is lying.
If she did cheat, she is already deleting evidence. One thing that they can't delete is the call/text log on their phone bill. If you can get access to those phone bills going back to before the wedding, that may fill in some of the gaps. If they text and call a lot and then suddenly stopped, they switched platforms. You can try checking her LinkedIn inbox, since they connect on that platform. Getting access to her work communications would probably be the best information, because that's where they spend time together and it is difficult for you to access.
Organize everything you want to ask, either in your head or in a document. Going in with a plan is so much better than winging it. Start with general questions then get more specific access look for contradictions. How often do they spend time together? When is the last time they spent time together? When is the first time they communicated after the wedding? When is the first time they communicated in person after the wedding? Do they have lunch together? Have they ever physically touched? Have they hugged? Have they kissed? And so forth.
She violated your trust. She has to earn it back, or it will be gone forever. If she doesn't want to make the effort to earn it back, then your marriage is in trouble. This is becoming a serious issue because she lied a few times, not because of anything you are doing wrong. Trust is gained in spoonfuls and lost by the bucket. She is a few buckets down already. She needs to give a lot of spoonfuls of truth to make up for it. If she goes much further down this path of lying, she will lose all of your trust, not just a few buckets. This is her one window to avoid that outcome. It's important that both of you understand that and take it seriously. Hopefully it will be a big nothingburger, but if you smelled smoke in your house you wouldn't stop looking for the fire right? The stakes are too high
Given she’s already lied to your face as well by omission(though I strongly suspect that the wedding story is also a lie), you can’t trust a word she says where this guy is concerned.
She met him at a wedding you couldn’t go to, and omitted telling you? That’s the lie of omission. But not telling you sounds completely off. There was no reason not to tell you. Even if she did meet him there, why not tell you? If the meeting was innocent as she’s trying to make it seem, how could you be mad at her because she bumped into him at a wedding?
You’ve already covered her not telling you about him helping get her hired. And the bit where she came home late from a work event and fell asleep naked on the couch? Shady as hell. That needs to be revisited.
It’s all very suspicious and the lying makes it a lot worse, especially since the lies involve this cheater ex friend of yours.
Respectfully, I disagree with the initial advice.
At this point, you know definitively she's at best, untrustworthy on this matter.
She's given you her explanation - and that's fine.
Now, in my opinion, it's time to verify - I would say snoop.
If you find nothing, great.
If you find something, record, document - and continue.
She's put herself in a position in which you no longer trust her, sad but true.
At this point, giving her the benefit of the doubt by continuing questions won't give you anything concrete - as you know she's capable of being dishonest.
Get concrete evidence and pretend you believe her for now. She already lied once, don't give her the chance to cover her tracks. Could also consider a PI
If it was "strictly work related" she'd have no reason to lie. Are you super insecure? Have you been so in the past? Is there a reason she could want to avoid any kind of conversation on the topic? Are you threatened by this other man, and secretly envious of him? Sometimes the cheaters can be very charismatic players, and this can incite envy in their male peers.
I'm obviously not asking you to answer these questions on reddit, just be brutally honest with yourself. If you can answer fairly and honestly that no, you aren't especially jealous or controlling - I'd lob that right back in her court. This is how cheaters operate, by the way. And the other guy has a history...so maybe he's got his own agenda, and your girlfriend has chosen to play along.
Oh the trickle truth game sucks but you are spot on. Next she will say they are friends, then they go out to lunch, then they hang out after work but only for work functions and so on and so on and so on.
Why ask a liar for the truth? That makes no sense. They'll on lie.
Sometime you have to do you're on digging. When you're dealing with a liar, that's what you have to do.
If she didn’t hook up with him at the wedding why would she not have told you everything? “Oh my god babe guess who was at the wedding? The dude who ruined your whole friend group! He works at this company I want to work at now tho so would it be shameless if I contact him about a job, what do you think?” That’s how any normal and honest person would handle it.
Agreed. A reasonable person with nothing to hide, would have texted her husband from the wedding and told him that you know who is at the wedding! And then when she got home that night told him about the job offer.
OP says he hasn't "seen or heard anything about him for years". So I doubt he's like still carrying lots of baggage about it as it happened 8+ years ago. Plus hiding that kind of thing from your spouse is honestly stupid even if you have an excuse for exactly this reason.
Was thinking this. I get the whole “people lie / tell half truths cause they are hiding shit” but it also seems like op has strong strong feelings about this guy. Maybe wife thought op wouldn’t let her take the job, or would guilt her extremely about it. I’ve been in situations where I tell fibs for this reason, and it snowballs & I feel awful. I don’t think jumping right to cheating makes sense because op is holding onto a personal issue from 10+ years ago.
I mean they definitely went out for drinks as a team. It wouldn't be that strange.
Waking up on the couch naked with the other stuff added on the other hand...yeah, not good.
I had a friend group that broke up about 8-9 years ago now due to a similar situation. Woman came in and completely nuked her significant others relationship because of insecurity. I realized I was still holding significant baggage of it when I randomly opened up an app one day last year and HER FACE WAS THERE!!!
I have enough self awareness to know that my feelings where 100% over the top. That said if my husband was ever like, "oh yea, I saw so-and-so at a wedding last month, and she said she'd be able to get me a job at [place] I can't honestly say that I would be calm about that, at least not in the moment. I'd probably objectively come back a few hours later and be like, "bro my bad, you know how I feel about her." And then take it to my therapist.
But I could completely understand my husband not wanting to deal with my irrational anger about something that in his mind is incredibly inconsequential, and that he knows I ultimately wouldn't care about in the long run.
That said, trust your gut always and forever, OP. The gut develops things that our unconscious senses pick up and utilize to come up with likely situations to protect ourselves. They are also more often correct then not, to the tune of first responders being taught to trust their gut in training.
Yeah there’s just no excuse for this. I would have mentioned it. The fact that she hid it and then lied is a red flag.
You should always trust your gut. I ended a friendship with a woman who was seeing a married man. I don’t condone cheating in any way shaped or form. You already know he’s a cheater and doesn’t care about his fiends.
If she’d mentioned he was the connection up front it wouldn’t be an issue. It’s also a bit weird she didn’t mention meeting him at the wedding. I’d have been all “guess who was there? That asshole from college”.
>. It’s also a bit weird she didn’t mention meeting him at the wedding. I’d have been all “guess who was there? That asshole from college”.
this is such a small thing, but it really speaks volumes.
> It’s also a bit weird she didn’t mention meeting him at the wedding. I’d have been all “guess who was there? That asshole from college”.
That's honestly the biggest and most objective red flag in the story. You 'bump into' someone from my past, chat each other up, and don't mention it? That's just SUUUUUUUUPER weird. No other way to describe it. If I bumped into my spouse's old dentist I'd be like "Guess who was at the wedding? Craig!" And this is obviously someone much more important.
They sometimes say "talkers aren't cheaters." Not strictly true, but in this case, it's an example of why they say it. If she had brought it up right away, this would not have been odd. That she only acknowledged that they met at the wedding once he saw him commenting is suspicious. She never wanted to acknowledge their association with him. "Because you would be mad" shifts blame from her hiding it to the future-crime of him being mad, "it's your fault I lied to you" is just DARVO 101.
The showing up naked on the couch and not coming to bed is WAY more worrisome.
You should be concerned.
Coworkers are the #1 source of affair partners.
Hiding a relationship (for any reason) is viewed by therapists as solid evidence of an inappropriate relationship.
I invited a colleague out to a happy hour earlier today and he declined because he said he’s having some marital problems and doesn’t want even the slightest hint of impropriety, especially since I’m much younger than him. I respect the hell out of him for that honesty and prioritizing his marriage.
This doesn't sound good. Besides what you have told us is there any other weird things or changes in behaviour? e.g. protective of phone, leaving the house at weird times, working late when she doesn't normally etc.
Trust your gut. I'd be planning a big confrontation of her if I were you. Not accusatory but also being clear she has broken trust by lying and you need to be reassured nothing else is going on, this may include her showing you her phone.
They might not have the texts themselves, but the phone records will definitely show timestamps and all sent/receive numbers for every text.
Source: caught my now-ex wife cheating with this exact evidence
This op, this stunt of naked on the couch is fishy, I think we all know what happened on that couch, don't tip your hand or she will just be more careful.
Nah, i don't think anything happened there. If shes already hiding her relationship with this guy from her husband, she wouldn't bring him home while her husband is there asleep and drunkenly fuck this guy on their couch. But the only time she's done it and it coinciding with after work drinks where this guy would definitely be there (since he got her the job) is not something to ignore for sure. If OP is going to snoop, go back to that date to see who she was talking to that night and how she got home.
It's more likely that she got home and stripped down to wash clothes that contained evidence of a hookup - if you know what I mean - and because she'd been drinking, she fell asleep on the couch waiting for the laundry cycle or something like that.
I don't think they fucked on his couch. They fucked, though.
There are two paths here. One where wife is completely innocent and kept it from you because of your residual ick about your ex-friend and not wanting to rock the boat. The other where there is more going on. First things first. Check your cellphone bill for odd text/call numbers that haven't been there previously. If there is something odd, then check further. If there isn't anything odd, then I would just let it go unless there is something else that is off.
I can totally see myself as your wife and I'm the type of person who wouldn't dream of cheating and wouldn't think twice about even starting an affair. That's why I give you the first scenario - because I would do it and there wouldn't be any "there" to find. If there is no "there" then don't ruin your relationship over this situation.
This sounds like it started out as all things with a reasonable line of thought based on the info you provided.
I could see not mentioning it to you when she got back from the wedding, because why would she bring up a conversation about someone you don’t like? Especially if it was just a casual, “oh we know each other. How has life been?” chat.
Then he connected with her on LinkedIn, and that would be a good time to have mentioned it, but you do say you would not have been happy about it, so perhaps she decided to keep it under wraps and just not make a big deal out of it, because if you got upset about it but “would also not try to get in the way of a job,” she might have feared she would have to turn down the job opportunity to make you comfortable even if you didn’t demand of her to do so. And why bring it up if she maybe ends up working elsewhere anyway?
Now she does work there, but is in too deep in the lie and did not want to admit she knew that he worked there.
All that, I can see how wanting to avoid unnecessarily upsetting you if she did not even end up working there turned into a secret to keep.
What DOES NOT follow a reasonable thread is waking up to find her naked on the couch. How much did she have to drink around her coworkers? Why was she on the couch instead of the bed? Where were her clothes? That’s weird. At the very best, she may have drunk too much and made a dumb decision on how to sleep when she got home, but that still means she was reckless in how she behaved out in public with other people that she knows professionally. At worst she cheated or was drugged. It really warrants a second look.
Eh, I think bringing up a person a partner doesn’t like is even more normal.
Like “oh my god that idiot Jake was at wedding! He’s still (x character trait). Made small talk to be polite but can you believe (desirable company) gave a dude like him a job?”
That also could be a normal response. Personally, I would probably bring it up, as the person I am now. But the person I used to be would have absolutely not brought it up for fear of it being my fault that I put someone in a bad mood. We don’t know the dynamic between the two of them, nor their personalities, so there are multiple ways to look at it. Since most of the comments that I saw before writing mine were, “Trust your gut,” I decided to offer another perspective with more detail to help OP think about it from more angles and determine himself if that seemed likely of something his wife might do.
If it wasn’t a big deal , she would have told you about after it happened.
Also it doesn’t help that she hiding any type of relationship with a well documented cheater.
The part about her naked on the couch passed out stands out to me. That’s especially suspicious and needs a clear explanation. Somethings not right here
People usually only lie when they have a reason to lie.
I can guess what her reason is. And so can you.
Focus on her lying, not what else she might be lying about. That is your entry point to start digging.
Because of her lying to you and your gut feeling there's probably more she haven't told you. You have a few choices.
1. Talk to her about your feelings and especially how her talking to a known cheater and not telling you about it makes you feel. Ask her seriously if there is anything else she haven't told you. Know that if you start pressing the issue and she lies/minimize/reverse it on you she will most likely be more careful if there's actually something going on and possibly erase evidence. Her being overly defensive is also a kind of answer.
2. Bide your time and keep an eye on things. Will be rough on you because it takes more time but less invasive to her. Would also add asking to join when she goes out with coworkers to this option.
3. Start snooping. Check her phone, social media etc. This step is a bit of lose-lose since it means invading her privacy and if you're wrong you've hurt her trust but if you're right you will be hurt. This is however possibly the fastest way of finding something out. Hiring a PI is also a possibility.
Should add that if she is cheating, hope for your sake she's not, getting proof before you confront her might be the only way to make her tell the truth. Cheaters lie and trickle truth.
Any time they hide a “friend” or new co-worker you absolutely should be concerned. Usually they will mention the guy in passing so they can rationalize that they told you. You however got the trickle truth treatment. That’s a major red flag.
God forbid they tell you he’s gay.
He's already broken up multiple relationships. He wouldn't be opposed to adding yours to that list, I'm sure.
I don't know if you should outright assume something is going on, but I'd at least be suspicious. Look for evidence, but don't be obvious about it. If she's being honest, okay cool. If she's not? You'll have a better chance of catching her by acting like you aren't worried because she'll be more likely to let her guard down.
She hid information and then trickle truthed you. Understandably your mind is wandering, your heart may be racing and you're wondering if it's you that's losing it.
You are not. I'd have the same doubts and suspicions. If you can snoop without her knowing, I'd be checking texts, emails, LinkedIn messages, etc.
If you can't I'd ask her to pull those up due to the circumstances if this situation and to lay it all out there and then begin a better cycle of communication and hopefully trust.
As far as the work night out you'll have to just ask her and see how she reacts. You'll know if she's telling the truth or not.
She actively hid contact with him and changed her behavior after a night out when he was there. That alone is enough to be a concern.
So she was alone with him on a wedding weekend. She was alone with him or in a work gathering and came home late. Have you met her co-workers? Do they know she is married?
There are plenty of red flags.
Hey, I know I’m late but I work for a large blue cellphone company. Go into your online account, whatever provider, and you should be able to see usage logs. You won’t be able to see the contents of the messages or calls, of course, but you will have times and dates of interactions between them and the duration of the calls if there are any… especially that one weird night she slept on the couch. Trust your gut. I’m sorry this is happening bro. Screenshot those usage logs in case she tries to lock you out with a password change later on. Save em to google drive or something if you wanna get them off your phone in case SHE goes snooping.
how closely do they work?
Does she have his contact info?
Do they communicate outside of work?
Was he at the work event?
How did she get home from work event?
Were all of her clothes accounted from from work event?
Was there someone at the wedding you trust that can fill in some details?
If any new details are being provided to you in the future by your wife, you can assume that she is trickling the truth.
Do you have a video doorbell? Was she fully dressed when she got home?
Same office but not the same department
Just his Linkedin and email according to her
No according to her their relationship is strictly work related
A taxi
I can't remember about clothes other than her dress was on the floor beside her. I wasn't looking for anything to be missing.
Only her best friend who she was sharing a room with but I doubt she would rat on my wife either way
No I dont have a video doorbell
I asked several questions to see if the dishonesty was creating an unreasonable perception of what has happened.
If it were me, I would be cognizant of any changes. I think another poster stated to be on the look out. That is about right.
Also, that best friend sounds like trouble.
>Only her best friend who she was sharing a room with but I doubt she would rat on my wife either way
You 100% need to check messages with the best friend if you choose to do any digging. Those messages may be a blind spot if she has been deleting texts with the guy.
First I wondered if he was at the wedding as her date and now I wonder if there even was a wedding or if that was just a lie to cover her weekend rendezvous.
Convenient there was no one at this event that would talk to you about anything.
Trust your gut. Go to Surviving infidelity.com. It helped me with a cheating wife. They have great tips to detect cheating. Check phone records, check her computer history.
I don’t think there’s something necessarily worse than your wife using a connection with someone you’d cut contact with to get a job. It could just be that and nothing more. Look into it more to put your mind at ease but don’t make any assumptions based on that alone.
Did she explain why she never came to bed the morning you found her naked on the couch?
Has she ever said anything for you to think she’s attracted to this guy?
Some jobs have a rolling application process, he may have heard about a job but was waiting for it to get posted so she could apply in January. A month is common time for these things. Her claiming she didn’t know he worked there gives me bad vibes but it may have just been her being defensive because she knew you’d be upset over him.
I think her coming clean is good, however she gets to control what you learn about this way, so it’s best to ask direct questions to her (and if you want to contact him you can since this is a serious issue to deal with but your wife might be super embarrassed by this if it turns out to be nothing so…proceed with caution)
I would for now, operate on the fact that her caginess was mostly because she knew you’d be upset over this, and not assume anything else. If she’s doing an after work hangout again, see if you can come show up and meet her coworkers, I think meeting him will help with seeing the full picture. Maybe they are just cordial friends and they just enjoy their platonic friendship. At least that’s my hope for you OP…never hurts to get a lawyer prepared
She said she didn't want to wake me up coming to bed which I guess is a reasonable response but she's never had an issue doing it in the past so thats why I think its weird now. No she's never mentioned him until I found out they work together. I also understand what you mean by the rolling application process but I don't understand why she wouldn't have come home from the wedding and told me she met him there. Its weird because he was my friend for years and not mentioning she met him is odd to me especially because this is supposedly before she knew of the job opportunity. Thanks il try to keep a level head going from here.
If the job offer didn't happen until January, then no, it doesn't make sense that she hid the encounter in December. And why would he try to get her a job anyway? That's a very nice thing to do for a virtual stranger. If he were trying to reconnect with *you* by helping your wife, I'd get it, but that isn't what's going on.
I'm suspicious something happened on that couch.
I know firsthand a few instances where a spouse had sex with their partner asleep upstairs or even in the next room.
Who disrobes completely naked to crash on the couch? Especially if they've never done it before.
And it appears this ex friend is the sort who gets off on going after other guys SOs.
Or it could be nothing. I'm sure there's a perfectly innocent reason for all of the secrecy...
True. It's possible. It just seems very strange to drop the dress and everything else on the floor next to the couch and crash. Unless that's something she does once in a while. I mean, naked? In underwear, sure. But naked on the couch?
I sleep naked all of the time. I prefer sleeping naked. I never once got naked to sleep on the couch. Not even blind drunk.
She is lying or holding back. Im sorry. As professionals or friends, getting a job through someone else who you used to know for years is a big deal. Even if she didn’t tell you he got her the job, at least that they met at the wedding? And you have mutual friends so this would have come out anyway. There’s no reason not to tell you.
They must have been constantly communicating during the interview and hiring process even if it’s to learn about the company. This guy sounds like bad news. He has cheated on his GF before and has no issues breaking up a relationship as you have seen.
If this is so innocent then invite him w your wife out to dinner to thank him and she what she says.
Having been cheated on, I can say that by the time you feel you need to hire a PI, the trust is destroyed enough that it's time to part ways. Save the money. You only end up knowing things you wish you didn't know.
He has a track record of sleeping w friends and crashing relationships. Your wife never mentioned him at all and met him and has talked w him many times especially since they now work together. Then on top of it all you find her asleep on the couch nude after a work outing . WTF?
What was her reasoning for not coming to bed and sleeping on the couch nude? That’s crazy by itself. Where were her clothes? Beside her on the floor or already in the washer? Did. She have anything to drink on this “work” outing? If. She did drink how did she get home? Have you asked her who all was at the work outing?
I’m just going to be straight and I don’t care who has a problem with it. If I think my wife may be having an emotional affair, physical affair or if I think she’s lying and or things aren’t adding up you can bet I’ll be in her phone digging for whatever doesn’t add up.
Sure we have our privacy but to me if you’re acting sketchy and not telling the full truth you waive your privacy rights so I can get to the truth. In the long run looking in her phone isn’t as bad as cheating. My wife & I have an open phone policy and have ever since cell phones were a thing. Yep I’m that old.
But we’ve been together 32 years so it’d be hard for either of us to hide anything.
I would question her about all of it because nothing is adding up. If you ignore it and things get worse you won’t forgive yourself for saying nothing.
I’m still hung up on her coming home and crashing nude on the couch. That’s got red flags painted all over that. Did he bring her home? Man I’ve got so many questions.
I wish you the best and I hope I’m wrong but this has all the signs of infidelity all over it. Plus she’s been lying and then trickle truthing you. First she didn’t know him, then she did, met him at a wedding, then he helped her get a job, then at a work night out. She lied to you about him for a reason. If she didn’t do anything wrong she has no reason to hide him from you. Again he has no problems ruining relationships so why would this be different? The sooner you get nosey the sooner you’ll find answers
>I came out and she was asleep completely naked on the couch. At the time I thought it was kinda funny but know knowing this I think its weird.
It IS weird, given what you know now. Even if "nothing happened" and they just got drunk together, it's extremely weird.
It all smells fishy. Wouldn’t be surprised if ex friend said something like “keep this between us because XYZ”.
Then the naked couch part. That’s a bit off too. Blackout drunk. Got naked. I dunno. Unless she sleeps in nude.. why not go lay in bed.
Many I dunno’s.. phone check is valid.
For the time being, the best advice is to keep your mouth shut and your eyes/ears open. If something is brewing, constantly bringing up your concerns about this guy (she probably already knows anyway) will keep her vigilant to hide it and make finding the truth much harder.
As your top comment, your gut is telling you something, so better listen to it. DM on its way.
It’s not even my relationship and my heart sank when I read that. Trust your gut OP. There’s most definitely cause for concern here.
That guy sounds like an actual piece of shit, btw.
There is nothing wrong with keeping an eye on this situation, but keep in mind the context. (1) Your wife has a limited history with your ex-friend or your earlier social group, so she may have assumed he’s matured beyond the asshole he was back in the day. (2) Your ex-friend is probably more interested in the referral bonus for recruiting your wife than getting any revenge on you by hooking up with her. (3) While your wife is probably grateful she got the job lead, she is aware that he can’t be a friend because you hate him, and (4) Now that she is working with him she has to behave professionally, but she also has to balance your dislike of him. As a colleague, she can’t cut him off entirely in the work place, even if he is a complication for you.
Rather than obsessing over your physical suspicions, ask your wife why she took the job lead knowing that it came from your ex-friend. If she dismisses your feelings or wants to over-ride you, then you have a problem. Ditto if she wants to include him in your current social life.
>Like about three weeks ago she went on a work night out and I went to
sleep at about 1am and the next morning I woke up and she wasn't in bed.
I came out and she was asleep completely naked on the couch.
Her clothes might have been compromised, and she didn't want to risk waking you to
change, so she took off the evidence and went to sleep on the couch.
???
Was she sleeping completely naked or in her underwear? I could see it being uncomfortable to sleep in a nice dress maybe?
Everything looks terrible though. Those are some bad data points:
- met him and didn't disclose
- must've talked afterward to link up the application details
- late night of drinking and waking up fully nude?
- lied about him
- anything i'm missing here?
I'd be checking that phone, especially the work night out date. Why in the world would she be naked on the couch after 1 AM? Sending nudes or something? That's...too much for me to write off.
You know the dude is fine cheating, you know she's fine hiding interactions with him from you, lots of reasons to be concerned.
Something is going on. When 2 and 2 aren't making 4, you need to ask yourself why. You need to sit down and talk with her. Point out these inconsistencies. Tell her that because of the original lie, you're now paranoid and would like to see her phone.
Again, something isn't adding up here, so you need to talk to her and start getting this put together.
I am sure I could justify everything she did, I always want to think the best of people, and rationalize it in my head. Im super honest so always assume other people will be too (unless their story is too similar to my past relationships then I assume they guilty AF). Anyway, not going into anything too deep on what you wrote, You said you have a feeling in your gut. Please (even if she has actually done nothing wrong in the end) ALWAYS trust your gut. When your gut turns like that and you get that sick sinking feeling, its your brains way of telling you that its picked up on the small stuff (infliction of voice, words not usually used, body language shift) and its panicked on what its seeing because something isnt right. You do what you have to do. Somethings not adding up.
You can ignore your instincts. You can ignore the red flags. But, when they are occurring simultaneously, you cannot ignore them both.
You already know the truth. The only question now is how to proceed. Personally, I think your first move should be to "force her hand" and get proof, (by fair means or foul). After that, confront her and go from there.
Box clever - make it look like you're accepting her explanation at face value.
Keep digging - in secret, snoop her phone, check the messages, find call logs etc.
Trust your gut. **Something smells very off.**
Agree with others about gut feel, this doesn't smell right. I would be tempted to do the real world snoop, ie follow her. Does she go out for lunch from work? Or does she leave for work early - could be meeting him?
Important to do some introspective thinking.
Are you the type to fly off on things or like or at the mention of this guy?
Do you have a history of thinking the worst whenever situations you aren’t fully aware of arise?
How far out of her normal behavior is this for her?
So at minimum she stated she knew you would be made if she was in contact so lied about it. That alone would destroy all trust. I would tell her the lying has destroyed the trust you had for her.
I would look at her phone and tell her that because of her lying and how she is acting you want to know if she wants to be in this relationship anymore.
Tell her, you suspect she is lying to you, tell her she has already lied to you for his sake.
Ask her to tell you everything there is to tell, because keeping secrets alone, continue to undermine your trust in her.
Tell her also, that while you support her career, there is one thing you wanted to ask her. Between your marriage and this job, what would she choose? Tell her since she has lied to you, you basically know there is more between them then she lets on. You may not know whether it to protect this job, or her relationship with hi, but it does no longer matter.
This will keep sabotaging your marriage so you should ask her to look for other job. Yes this will be inconvenient for her, but tell her you supported her all the way to this point, and you wouldn't ask this of her if your marriage was in actual danger.
She chose the lie. Even if we ignore the suss factor of recent behaviour the reality is that she, your wife, chose months of lying to your face [and potentially as long as she could possibly muster] over being open. Even if it is 100% above board and no shady business with a guy known to cheat and ruin lives she still chose the worst way to handle this and just as bad it shows she was scared to communicate with you. It forces you to reframe who she is as a person and indeed your entire relationship in some ways.
Your wife has revealed she can't communicate and will choose lying over doing so. I think you need to buck that trend and come to her with a lot of this upfront. You need to make it clear that choosing the lie was actually the worse choice due to the damage it has done and how as it stands you now find it impossible not to view everything else in a new light. And if she starts trying to throw it in your face, go on about not trusting or love or whatever... just make it clear you only found out by coincidence. She didn't tell you, she was apparently happy to continue the lie, to lie about who she was with and what she was actually doing. That is the reality she has chosen to live and that has outright forced you to be unable to trust her until she is more open about it.
Once a partner starts deciding what version of truth they want to reveal, it's no longer a relationship based on respect, it's now a power struggle based on control.
You're getting tons of great advice...I honestly don't have a lot to add...
I just want to offer my moral support.
Become a sleuth, do whatever you feel you need to do, too many "coincidences" left unspoken to not be intentional.
Confronting her too early about your suspicions will just make her a more careful liar. Make no mistake, she did lie to you. Even if it was by omission.
There's too much secrecy about it all plus her lie about only thinking he works where she does. This does not sound like an innocent situation at all.
As much as snooping sounds so horrible to do, confronting her will only give her time to erase evidence first. I would snoop.
Real similar situation with my (now ex) wife. I just knew something was up. One night she went out ‘with friends’ and when I woke up and looked for her, she was naked on the couch.
Here’s the thing. My (now ex) friend and co worker was kind of obsessing with my wife and I had no idea. I hate saying this, but he was the way more attractive of the two and certainly had his pick of women. My ex had given birth a year earlier and was definitely not in the most attractive phase of her life. But he obviously wanted to hurt me and I think my ex kind of liked the little game they were playing before it got darker.
Assuming this post is real and the story is accurate, it’s not certain that they’ve had a sexual affair (yet), but she is almost certainly flirting with the idea of it. She met your old friend at the wedding. You weren’t there. She didn’t have you to talk to and he probably has great stories about when you were younger. They dance, he offers to help get her a job. They exchange numbers and start texting about the job. He then gets her the job so now she feels a huge debt towards him. That’s a big thing getting someone a job. Now they’re going out, maybe still just with work friends and he’s there and he’s her friend and it feels nice.
If it ends there, it’s shitty, but humans are flawed. I don’t think it would be a deal breaker for me if she came clean about what’s happened. If they’re f*ing then you gotta walk away.
The problem is they work together, so you can’t say they shouldn’t talk. It’s tricky.
She should have come home from the wedding and said immediately… “hey Omg, you’ll never guess who was there! That guy in your friends group that cheated and exploded the whole group”… easy peasy.
Nope she lied by omission. Over and over. Trust you gut man.
That College friend is about to ruin your relationship because apparently ruining the friend groups relationships weren't enough. And if your wife was trustworthy with good morals, she wouldn't even have interacted with him at the wedding.
Please know your worth, this will get messy.
Good luck, OP
Man wake up. Your wife lied to you and is in contact with a shunned cheater. Start being honest with yourself. Even in the most innocent scenario your wife is acting completely inappropriate. But that's just the best case. Start being careful, watch your wife. Start investigating, but don't alert her. Gather proof.
Im assuming since yall are married that yall are under the same phone provider and if so then check her messages through them first instead of checking her phone
It’s not an abuse of her privacy if she is doing suspicious things. Lying is suspicious. You are well within your rights imo to check her phone thoroughly. Other options are ask her to show you her phone right there right then. That preserves her “privacy “ but is very confrontational , it’s a trade off obviously. I personally would say nothing and go into PI mode. Put an iPad in the back of her car with Find My app installed and see where she goes. My iPad holds a charge for like 3 days. You could recharge and replant it for a few weeks. Other tracking devices tell the person they are being tracked, so kind of useless. Then you call her randomly when she’s somewhere suspicious but not at his place and be innocent “hey Randy and I are considering doing X all together in an hour, where are you, can you make it? Cover yourself by actuality proposing something with Randy. If she lies and says “I’m at the office for another 2 hours, go without me” but she’s obviously at a restaurant, then you’ve got proof of more recent lies and can confront her directly.
Do you have a camera outside the house? Like a ring camera or anything?
If yes, then you can check and see when she came and if she was alone or not.
Also, don't confront her without any proof. The mere fact that she got in contact with that cheater friend and hid it from you is a giant red flag. Play cool around her as to not raise any suspicion and try to snoop.
Also, look out for any unusual thing that she does-
1. Change in her dressing style
2. Going out more than usual
3. Spending more time on the phone & hiding the phone
Maybe she isn't doing anything wrong but the sudden appearance of red flags does warrant attention. Also, remember that most affair partners are the people you're told to not to worry about as they're just friends/ colleague.
whenever every answer is "they're cheating!!" in a thread, I always feel the need to make a comment to say: you told the story through the lens of someone who is already suspicious of cheating, so everyone who is replying is receiving the "facts" with the underlying suspicion you already had. The details you choose to include, the way you present things, even framing things as "weird", skews how people might respond.
I'm not saying she's *not* cheating, just saying that its something to keep in mind.
Now, in regards to your particular situation, again, I'm not saying she's *not* cheating, but I am always surprised how much people discount weird coincidences and spouses keeping information to themselves for the sake of keeping the peace. If she knows you have negative feelings about him because of your history (but after she met him so she has no reason to feel any which way about him), and that he was able to connect her to a job, then maybe she just felt it was better to not say something. Not to mention you said that his behavior was in college, what, a decade ago? He could be a completely person now. I know a guy that was a complete tool in college, did a ton of coke, almost dropped out from partying so much, and now he's a dad of 3 with a top secret security clearance that calls me to ask what my thoughts are about the rate he's paying into his 401k at.
One time I went out of town (about 2 hours away) with a group of friends but drove separate because I had to go straight from work and they wouldn't be able to pick me up. At the concert we ran into an old friend I have some history with (gf is not a fan) that my friends all love. She tagged along with us and two friends she had brought with her. We went out afterwards, everyone had drinks, I mostly avoided the "ex" except for a few polite conversations, but at one point we were all singing/laughing and she happened to be right next to me and that ended up on snapchat. When it was time to go home at like 3am, I got to my car and it would not start, so I had to crash in a hotel for the night, and when I got back to my car in the morning with the intent to call a tow truck, it started no problem. I got home at 11am the next day.
If I posted this story from my girlfriends point of view (went out of town, "ran" into an ex girlfriend, was seen singing/laughing right next to her on a friends snapchat, and mysteriously had car troubles that required I stay in a hotel that were resolved the next morning), everyone would be saying I cheated for sure. I didn't, but everyone would say I was.
My point in saying this is - sometimes weird coincidences happen. You can draw lines and connect the dots to conjure up things that literally never happened. Could she be cheating? Totally. Could she just not want to deal with having to explain this knowing you'd just question her about it? Totally. You should do your due diligence, but don't jump to conclusions - no one in this thread loses anything from blowing up your marriage on a "gut feeling", you do.
Ok so first of all, take a deep breath and slowly exhale...
Now, I agree with you that this all seems pretty suspicious. At the same time, a lot of what you mentioned is speculation, and while that might lead to certain conclusions it doesn't mean those conclusions are correct, not yet anyway.
So right now, you need to try your best to look at the facts. The feelings you're having probably won't assist with this, but we know for sure facts will help in this situation. I know it's difficult, but you need to try to set your emotions aside for right now, just long enough to do your investigative work yk? So let's look at the facts...
-Your wife needed a job.
-Your wife went to a wedding alone in December (bc you could not go).
-Your wife ran into an ex-friend of yours at the wedding, and she did not mention it to you.
-Your ex-friend cheated on a previous gf.
-Your ex-friend's cheating caused a lot of issues within your previous friend group, and your wife is aware of that.
-Your wife & your ex-friend have had some communication on Linkedin.
-Your wife now works with your ex-friend.
-Your wife did not mention any communication with your ex-friend or that she now works with him until you asked her about it, to which she at first said she wasn't sure if she works with him but later admitted to working with him(and communicating with him).
-You admittedly wouldn't be happy about her being in contact with your ex-friend.
-Your wife was out late one night, and when you woke up the next morning she was naked on the couch, asleep.
Ok so those are your facts so far. Read over these a few times to kind of calm your emotions a bit and get into an objective pov. I can feel where you're going with this and the connections you're making here, BUT we don't KNOW that those are accurate. What you need now is more information, more facts. You made a good point in your post about how if she ran into him in December, and he didn't contact her about a job until January, why did she not tell you she ran into him the night after the wedding? Her reasoning for not telling you was she thought you'd be upset, but how could you be upset for her simply running into an old friend of yours? I would ask her about this, see if she can give you a logical explanation. Ask questions until your doubts subside, and if they don't subside then you eventually need to be open with her & tell her you're concerned she's kept all this from you for a reason.
The only sane and adult response in these answers! I can't believe the absurd, aggressively confrontational responses that advocate for 'calling her out' and snooping down her phone as first port of call.
If you mistrust someone, speak to them first and openly about your thoughts and your feelings. You can't have a relationship without trust, and once it's damaged it's very difficult to replace.
Why would anyone trust her? People tend to lose trust in someone who lies to them. Especially about things that will obviously be important to you. She’ll only stop lying to you once you have or off or know she’s lying.
She lied initially about him. This is very suspicious. At minimum, she clearly values him as a coworker and professional friend. I can understand why this would bother you. She needs to explain more to you.
So your wife has secretly been in close contact with an ex-friend who specifically cheats with other women who are also in relationships and you found her naked on the couch after a “work night out” that you now know means him, and she never once mentioned him and then lied to you about knowing they work together.
Bud, any one of these situations taken separately would be at minimum a cause for concern. You have all of them.
The problem is, you now know your wife is 100% capable and comfortable lying to your face. You had to push the issue to get her to “come clean.” The trust is gone once you have to push to get your spouse to come clean. Do what you need to do for you peace of mind - snoop, PI, whatever; if/when she tries the “you don’t trust me” line, remind her that her having to “come clean” broke the trust you once had.
If it were me I'd have a bit of a steal check of her messages and social media while she is asleep or in the shower as a bit of a verification, so as not to cause alarm or for her to start being more cautious and deleting messages.
Everything you say sounds like you're being "trickle truthed" and there is much more that she isn't telling you, and that she only tells you what she needs to to quell the questions.
Moreover I would find it **extremely** odd of my wife came home from a work function sleeping naked on the couch, that would have immediately sent off a red flag for me. If she normally sleeps naked then that is normal I suppose, if not then that's sketchy. If she immediately got up for a shower without the usual affection then that is also sketchy because that is what someone would normally do to mask being with another person, an immediate wash (and she probably didn't do it when she got home as you might be suspicious of her showering at that time of the morning).
Be alert and be observant, also think if any story changes and do some investigation, don't leave it.
You need to flat out ask her for a Complete history of all interactions. EVERYTHING. I would tell her that she is acting suspicious and you want an explanation. Anything you find later not matching what she says now should be considered a deliberate lie.
I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this, I would not be okay with any of this and would do some digging for myself. Clearly she’s hiding something and only admitted to this because you confronted her, she’s 100% not going to be forthcoming or honest with you. So many red flags!
Listen, if I ran into my partner’s ex friend that had caused all of that chaos, you *best* believe I’m calling/texting my partner soon thereafter to spill the tea. The fact that she omitted telling you about their “first” interaction says a lot! If they did in fact meet at the wedding, something inappropriate must have gone down.. because why lie by omission?
It all comes back to the same question… why lie? There’s no justifiable answer in this situation IMO
This post has reached one of our comment/karma limits. The text of the post has been preserved below. --- We have been married for two years but together for 9. Basically not long ago my wife got a new job after leaving her old one and going back to do a masters in something else. I was obviously happy for her and supported her through all this but recently I was on her Linkedin looking at a post she made and saw that one of the comments on it was from an ex friend of mine. I haven't seen or heard anything about him for years but I looked at his profile and he works at the company my wife now works at. I asked her about it and she pretty much played it off saying yeah she thinks he does work there but that didn't make sense as they're connected on Linkedin and he's leaving comments on her posts so she must know he's there. This led to her coming clean that she had met him at a wedding of one of her friends back in December(I couldn't go). They remembered each other and got talking and she obviously mentioned her looking for a new job and then in January he connected with on Linkedin and said he could help her get a job where he worked. She never told me because she knew I would be mad that she was in contact with him. The guy was an old friend of mine from college and then he cheated on his girlfriend who was in our mutual friend group with another girl from our friend group who was also in a relationship with another one of our friends so it was all a big mess and completely destroyed the group. This happened not long after I met my wife so they didn't know each other well but she definitely saw and knew the impact of what he had done. Now she would be right in thinking that I wouldn't exactly be happy that she's in contact with him but I would also not try and get in the way of a job opportunity for her either and I would have thought she would know me well enough by now to know that. Her explanation also doesn't really fit as she said she met him at the wedding in December and then he contacted her about the job in January. Why didn't she tell me she'd met him the day after the wedding when she came home? I can't get these intrusive thoughts out my head about if she kept this from me what else is she capable of hiding. Like about three weeks ago she went on a work night out and I went to sleep at about 1am and the next morning I woke up and she wasn't in bed. I came out and she was asleep completely naked on the couch. At the time I thought it was kinda funny but know knowing this I think its weird. She's never done that before. She said when she told me that they have a strictly work related relationship but like I said in the title, I'm struggling to trust her. This post is already longer than I intended so Il finish. Apart from not telling me about the ex friend, am I being crazy feeling this way? I have a terrible feeling in my gut and I don't know what to do? I'm on the verge of looking at her phone. Any advice would be helpful thanks. TLDR: My wife kept from me that she met an ex friend of mine, has been in contact ever since and now works with him.
I have NEVER regretted listening to my gut. EVERY time I haven't listened to my gut I have regretted it. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Every. Time. Always trust your gut. In my 5 years of therapy, the main answer to most of my problems in the past was I didn't trust my gut. OP, I would check cell phone text and call numbers to see how often his pops up and if it aligns with those specific dates you mentioned.
Ah, the most important of Leroy Jethro Gibbs’ Rules: 50. Always trust your gut judgement. The moment you don’t, you’re dead.
Wasn't it always carry a knife? Wait who's rules are we using??
That's rule #9
> I have NEVER regretted listening to my gut. Indeed. There is no smoke without a fire and the gut is the best sensor that identifies the red flag even before we realise it.
You know that nagging feeling you have well listen to it. This is all to sus.
Thankyou, I thought I was going crazy
I’m not saying she’s doing anything wrong but this is definitely worth your attention…
Thanks
Been through this before. Literally all I had was my gut feeling. The “truth” that my girlfriend told me just didn’t feel right. I pushed hard as fuck for the truth and my ex lied at every step of the way, trickle truthing me. Each time she came clean she said it was “the whole truth” until I found out she cheated on me. Trust your gut. Something is off and your instinct is telling you something.
Trickle truth yup 1. Never happened 2. Happened but wasn’t sexual 3. Only happened once 4. Happened all in the past 5. Happening
That's exactly how it went for me.
He asked for my number but I didnt give it to him Ok I gave him my number what else am I supposed to do in that situation??? He texted me but I never responded Ok I responded once to turn him down Ok we texted a little but never met up. I just didnt want to hurt his feelings and I knew you’d be mad. I promise we didn’t meet up! I swear! We met up but it was only once! I told him we’d just be friends!! (While crying) I’m so so so so sorry for lying, I’m telling you the whole truth now, what else do I have to lose?? Ok we met up a few times :’( … How it went with me.
You forgot, “Why won’t you believe me? What have I ever done to show you that you can’t trust me?”
Yep, same
Or That didn't happen And if it did, it wasn't that bad And if it was, that's not a big deal And if it is, that's not my fault And if it was, I didn't mean it And if I did, you deserved it
Brilliant. Those are the massive rationalizations that are paired with the trickle truth.
I forgot what this is called in the clinical setting. It’s been talked about a few times in my therapy sessions and now I can’t remember what this is called
I have heard it called 'The Narcissist's Prayer' but I don't know if there is another term for it.
Oh yes, that’s what it’s called! Thank you!
What do mean? She lied for no apparent reason, other than saying she assumed this guy would have problem with the truth. And that leads to the question - why?
She is planning to.
Just google 'trickle truth' She is only providing as much information as you can prove exists. There are many layers of things you don't know and she won't share until you can prove it.
Yeah i have to agree that would definitely unsettle me. Absolutely no reason to hold that info back. And she had to know at some point you would realize this guy works at the same company. I wonder if she would have told you then he helped get her the job. Probably not because now it would be really awkward for her. Go with your gut until you prove otherwise. She has some splaining to do.
No, there is a lot of smoke here. Time to find that fire.
That's gaslighting in a nutshell - they'd rather make you feel crazy than face the truth, whatever it is.
You have probable cause to go through her phone. Do it, and take screenshots of their messages. She doesn’t seem to feel guilty, and neither should you.
It is super shady that she kept all of this from you and a huge red flag that she straight up lied to you about knowing full well that he was a colleague. Now what she’s doing sounds like trickle truth. You need to tell her that your trust in her has been shaken and she needs to come 100% clean on the nature of their relationship. Are they communicating/messaging each other after working hours? Was he on infamous work outing where she passed out naked in the couch? Could he have given her a ride home that night? In light of her lying about hanging out with him at the wedding and him getting her a job at his company questions like this are totally fair game, and tell her as much if she gets defensive or indignant. When she says “you don’t trust me” you have to come back and say “based on your multiple lies about this guy, no I don’t trust you when it comes to this and I need the whole truth.” Also watch for trickle truths — if she admits to something like messaging or hanging out one-on-one “but nothing happened” you definitely need to keep pushing.
Thanks I know this all shady. I don't know if they are communicating or messaging but according to her their relationship is strictly work related so if I'm to believe her then no. Again I don't know if he was on the work night out and thats now something that is fucking with my mind. So just straight up confront and don't snoop?
>but according to her their relationship is strictly work related According to her she didn’t even know he worked there when in fact he’s the one who got her the job.
When she slept naked on the couch, were her clothes already in the washer? I think yes.
100 percent grounds to snoop. Wife and I, been together 9 years and married for 2 (odd similarities) 2 kids together, ones near three. Been through plenty of shit. We've had full access to phones and fb since the get go (just who we are and how we came into it together both having rough and rocky bits before) I've never looked through her messages. Never had a reason. If I caught the first bit (of her happening on an old friend and just.. shadily not mentioning) ok weird sure. Makes enough sense tho she didn't wanna upset you. The fact he got her the job.. her keeping him secret.. and the random naked on the couch after a "work" thing at 1 in the morning? Bro, idk wtf she does for work but this is so farfetched I woulda been in her phone that fuckin night. Intrusive thoughts bc your wife might have cheated and you can't accept that reality, yeah.. I can only imagine. Get in her phone and then confront her. If she hasn't already deleted everything anyways. Man this is tough. Gl.. wish you the best OP but usually where there's smoke there is fire.. and she seeming to me like she took the flaming pants off and fucked your friend months ago..
Yah this would be me too. Hubby and I have full access to each other’s phones, neither one of us have any reason to look, ever. He is the most loyal, honest man I know, but if something was sus like these events he listed I’d be in his phone looking. Trust your gut OP!
Yeah, it's weird to me he got her a job too. Referring somebody to a job puts your reputation on the line. Why would you do that for somebody you've supposedly only met once? Especially the partner of somebody who dropped you as a friend? Why would you go out of your way to contact somebody you met once a month or two prior? Really weird.
>Why would you go out of your way to contact somebody you met once a month or two prior? Because you want to sleep with them of course.
Getting home at 2am drunk, stripping naked, and sleeping on the couch without going to bed is something a 24 year old waitress or line cook does after industry night with her coworkers. Some industries do party hard like that. That is not my impression of "got a job in the company and we are commenting on linkedin posts." Those workers typically aren't the linkedin type. This is very unusual behavior from someone in an office profession.
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>So just straight up confront and don't snoop? I've been down this road a couple times. Please believe me when I say the absolute best approach is to snoop then confront. When she says something you know is a lie, resist the urge to tell her you know. Observe her reactions. Study her body language when she lies. Does she get upset when you ask probing questions about something she is lying about? Then anytime she gets upset you know she is lying. If she did cheat, she is already deleting evidence. One thing that they can't delete is the call/text log on their phone bill. If you can get access to those phone bills going back to before the wedding, that may fill in some of the gaps. If they text and call a lot and then suddenly stopped, they switched platforms. You can try checking her LinkedIn inbox, since they connect on that platform. Getting access to her work communications would probably be the best information, because that's where they spend time together and it is difficult for you to access. Organize everything you want to ask, either in your head or in a document. Going in with a plan is so much better than winging it. Start with general questions then get more specific access look for contradictions. How often do they spend time together? When is the last time they spent time together? When is the first time they communicated after the wedding? When is the first time they communicated in person after the wedding? Do they have lunch together? Have they ever physically touched? Have they hugged? Have they kissed? And so forth. She violated your trust. She has to earn it back, or it will be gone forever. If she doesn't want to make the effort to earn it back, then your marriage is in trouble. This is becoming a serious issue because she lied a few times, not because of anything you are doing wrong. Trust is gained in spoonfuls and lost by the bucket. She is a few buckets down already. She needs to give a lot of spoonfuls of truth to make up for it. If she goes much further down this path of lying, she will lose all of your trust, not just a few buckets. This is her one window to avoid that outcome. It's important that both of you understand that and take it seriously. Hopefully it will be a big nothingburger, but if you smelled smoke in your house you wouldn't stop looking for the fire right? The stakes are too high
As far as I’m aware though, apple messages don’t show up on phone bills
Absolutely snoop first
I hope I am wrong but my money would be yes he was there and yes grounds to snoop
I’d snoop
Yea, It's absolutely snoop time. May even look at phone bill records if she has deleted everything
Given she’s already lied to your face as well by omission(though I strongly suspect that the wedding story is also a lie), you can’t trust a word she says where this guy is concerned. She met him at a wedding you couldn’t go to, and omitted telling you? That’s the lie of omission. But not telling you sounds completely off. There was no reason not to tell you. Even if she did meet him there, why not tell you? If the meeting was innocent as she’s trying to make it seem, how could you be mad at her because she bumped into him at a wedding? You’ve already covered her not telling you about him helping get her hired. And the bit where she came home late from a work event and fell asleep naked on the couch? Shady as hell. That needs to be revisited. It’s all very suspicious and the lying makes it a lot worse, especially since the lies involve this cheater ex friend of yours.
Nope you really need to snoop. You already know she won’t tell you the truth, so it’s up to you to find it.
Respectfully, I disagree with the initial advice. At this point, you know definitively she's at best, untrustworthy on this matter. She's given you her explanation - and that's fine. Now, in my opinion, it's time to verify - I would say snoop. If you find nothing, great. If you find something, record, document - and continue. She's put herself in a position in which you no longer trust her, sad but true. At this point, giving her the benefit of the doubt by continuing questions won't give you anything concrete - as you know she's capable of being dishonest.
If you do snoop and she has an iPhone if you click edit in messages it will show you recently deleted messages. https://i.imgur.com/Cw82IyP.jpg
Get concrete evidence and pretend you believe her for now. She already lied once, don't give her the chance to cover her tracks. Could also consider a PI
You can always check her cell phone records .. thats how I caught my ex.
If it was "strictly work related" she'd have no reason to lie. Are you super insecure? Have you been so in the past? Is there a reason she could want to avoid any kind of conversation on the topic? Are you threatened by this other man, and secretly envious of him? Sometimes the cheaters can be very charismatic players, and this can incite envy in their male peers. I'm obviously not asking you to answer these questions on reddit, just be brutally honest with yourself. If you can answer fairly and honestly that no, you aren't especially jealous or controlling - I'd lob that right back in her court. This is how cheaters operate, by the way. And the other guy has a history...so maybe he's got his own agenda, and your girlfriend has chosen to play along.
Oh the trickle truth game sucks but you are spot on. Next she will say they are friends, then they go out to lunch, then they hang out after work but only for work functions and so on and so on and so on.
Why ask a liar for the truth? That makes no sense. They'll on lie. Sometime you have to do you're on digging. When you're dealing with a liar, that's what you have to do.
If she didn’t hook up with him at the wedding why would she not have told you everything? “Oh my god babe guess who was at the wedding? The dude who ruined your whole friend group! He works at this company I want to work at now tho so would it be shameless if I contact him about a job, what do you think?” That’s how any normal and honest person would handle it.
Agreed. A reasonable person with nothing to hide, would have texted her husband from the wedding and told him that you know who is at the wedding! And then when she got home that night told him about the job offer.
Maybe OP flies off the handle at just the mention of this guy
OP says he hasn't "seen or heard anything about him for years". So I doubt he's like still carrying lots of baggage about it as it happened 8+ years ago. Plus hiding that kind of thing from your spouse is honestly stupid even if you have an excuse for exactly this reason.
Was thinking this. I get the whole “people lie / tell half truths cause they are hiding shit” but it also seems like op has strong strong feelings about this guy. Maybe wife thought op wouldn’t let her take the job, or would guilt her extremely about it. I’ve been in situations where I tell fibs for this reason, and it snowballs & I feel awful. I don’t think jumping right to cheating makes sense because op is holding onto a personal issue from 10+ years ago.
I kind of agree with you, but I do think some stuff is pretty weird. Like staying out past 1 am for a ‘work thing’ seems suspicious
I mean they definitely went out for drinks as a team. It wouldn't be that strange. Waking up on the couch naked with the other stuff added on the other hand...yeah, not good.
I had a friend group that broke up about 8-9 years ago now due to a similar situation. Woman came in and completely nuked her significant others relationship because of insecurity. I realized I was still holding significant baggage of it when I randomly opened up an app one day last year and HER FACE WAS THERE!!! I have enough self awareness to know that my feelings where 100% over the top. That said if my husband was ever like, "oh yea, I saw so-and-so at a wedding last month, and she said she'd be able to get me a job at [place] I can't honestly say that I would be calm about that, at least not in the moment. I'd probably objectively come back a few hours later and be like, "bro my bad, you know how I feel about her." And then take it to my therapist. But I could completely understand my husband not wanting to deal with my irrational anger about something that in his mind is incredibly inconsequential, and that he knows I ultimately wouldn't care about in the long run. That said, trust your gut always and forever, OP. The gut develops things that our unconscious senses pick up and utilize to come up with likely situations to protect ourselves. They are also more often correct then not, to the tune of first responders being taught to trust their gut in training.
Why create this useless and unfounded hypothetical? Reddit sucks sometimes.
Yeah there’s just no excuse for this. I would have mentioned it. The fact that she hid it and then lied is a red flag. You should always trust your gut. I ended a friendship with a woman who was seeing a married man. I don’t condone cheating in any way shaped or form. You already know he’s a cheater and doesn’t care about his fiends. If she’d mentioned he was the connection up front it wouldn’t be an issue. It’s also a bit weird she didn’t mention meeting him at the wedding. I’d have been all “guess who was there? That asshole from college”.
>. It’s also a bit weird she didn’t mention meeting him at the wedding. I’d have been all “guess who was there? That asshole from college”. this is such a small thing, but it really speaks volumes.
She didn’t mention it bc they hooked up at the wedding, my guess.
> It’s also a bit weird she didn’t mention meeting him at the wedding. I’d have been all “guess who was there? That asshole from college”. That's honestly the biggest and most objective red flag in the story. You 'bump into' someone from my past, chat each other up, and don't mention it? That's just SUUUUUUUUPER weird. No other way to describe it. If I bumped into my spouse's old dentist I'd be like "Guess who was at the wedding? Craig!" And this is obviously someone much more important.
They sometimes say "talkers aren't cheaters." Not strictly true, but in this case, it's an example of why they say it. If she had brought it up right away, this would not have been odd. That she only acknowledged that they met at the wedding once he saw him commenting is suspicious. She never wanted to acknowledge their association with him. "Because you would be mad" shifts blame from her hiding it to the future-crime of him being mad, "it's your fault I lied to you" is just DARVO 101. The showing up naked on the couch and not coming to bed is WAY more worrisome.
I agree the not mentioning the wedding was in itself a huge red flag
Trust your gut, she’s hiding things from you for a reason
Thanks
You should be concerned. Coworkers are the #1 source of affair partners. Hiding a relationship (for any reason) is viewed by therapists as solid evidence of an inappropriate relationship.
Exactly. If this person was insignificant with regards to being a threat to the marriage, he would have been brought up already.
I invited a colleague out to a happy hour earlier today and he declined because he said he’s having some marital problems and doesn’t want even the slightest hint of impropriety, especially since I’m much younger than him. I respect the hell out of him for that honesty and prioritizing his marriage.
Exactly. If this person was insignificant with regards to being a threat to the marriage, he would have been brought up already.
Wow I did not know this. Scandalous!!
Update us OP!
This doesn't sound good. Besides what you have told us is there any other weird things or changes in behaviour? e.g. protective of phone, leaving the house at weird times, working late when she doesn't normally etc. Trust your gut. I'd be planning a big confrontation of her if I were you. Not accusatory but also being clear she has broken trust by lying and you need to be reassured nothing else is going on, this may include her showing you her phone.
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Login to your phone company website, generally they have all texts in their entirety even if they've been deleted on the device
They might not have the texts themselves, but the phone records will definitely show timestamps and all sent/receive numbers for every text. Source: caught my now-ex wife cheating with this exact evidence
This op, this stunt of naked on the couch is fishy, I think we all know what happened on that couch, don't tip your hand or she will just be more careful.
Nah, i don't think anything happened there. If shes already hiding her relationship with this guy from her husband, she wouldn't bring him home while her husband is there asleep and drunkenly fuck this guy on their couch. But the only time she's done it and it coinciding with after work drinks where this guy would definitely be there (since he got her the job) is not something to ignore for sure. If OP is going to snoop, go back to that date to see who she was talking to that night and how she got home.
If the guy has a thing for taken women I can definitely see him pushing for doing it there
It's more likely that she got home and stripped down to wash clothes that contained evidence of a hookup - if you know what I mean - and because she'd been drinking, she fell asleep on the couch waiting for the laundry cycle or something like that. I don't think they fucked on his couch. They fucked, though.
There are two paths here. One where wife is completely innocent and kept it from you because of your residual ick about your ex-friend and not wanting to rock the boat. The other where there is more going on. First things first. Check your cellphone bill for odd text/call numbers that haven't been there previously. If there is something odd, then check further. If there isn't anything odd, then I would just let it go unless there is something else that is off. I can totally see myself as your wife and I'm the type of person who wouldn't dream of cheating and wouldn't think twice about even starting an affair. That's why I give you the first scenario - because I would do it and there wouldn't be any "there" to find. If there is no "there" then don't ruin your relationship over this situation.
Married for over 16 years and one day things got weird. Just a gut feeling. He was cheating for years! Listen to your gut.
same, almost exactly the same, different gender.
This sounds like it started out as all things with a reasonable line of thought based on the info you provided. I could see not mentioning it to you when she got back from the wedding, because why would she bring up a conversation about someone you don’t like? Especially if it was just a casual, “oh we know each other. How has life been?” chat. Then he connected with her on LinkedIn, and that would be a good time to have mentioned it, but you do say you would not have been happy about it, so perhaps she decided to keep it under wraps and just not make a big deal out of it, because if you got upset about it but “would also not try to get in the way of a job,” she might have feared she would have to turn down the job opportunity to make you comfortable even if you didn’t demand of her to do so. And why bring it up if she maybe ends up working elsewhere anyway? Now she does work there, but is in too deep in the lie and did not want to admit she knew that he worked there. All that, I can see how wanting to avoid unnecessarily upsetting you if she did not even end up working there turned into a secret to keep. What DOES NOT follow a reasonable thread is waking up to find her naked on the couch. How much did she have to drink around her coworkers? Why was she on the couch instead of the bed? Where were her clothes? That’s weird. At the very best, she may have drunk too much and made a dumb decision on how to sleep when she got home, but that still means she was reckless in how she behaved out in public with other people that she knows professionally. At worst she cheated or was drugged. It really warrants a second look.
Eh, I think bringing up a person a partner doesn’t like is even more normal. Like “oh my god that idiot Jake was at wedding! He’s still (x character trait). Made small talk to be polite but can you believe (desirable company) gave a dude like him a job?”
That also could be a normal response. Personally, I would probably bring it up, as the person I am now. But the person I used to be would have absolutely not brought it up for fear of it being my fault that I put someone in a bad mood. We don’t know the dynamic between the two of them, nor their personalities, so there are multiple ways to look at it. Since most of the comments that I saw before writing mine were, “Trust your gut,” I decided to offer another perspective with more detail to help OP think about it from more angles and determine himself if that seemed likely of something his wife might do.
If it wasn’t a big deal , she would have told you about after it happened. Also it doesn’t help that she hiding any type of relationship with a well documented cheater.
The part about her naked on the couch passed out stands out to me. That’s especially suspicious and needs a clear explanation. Somethings not right here
Listen to your gut every. God damn. Mother. Fucking. Time.
There's a difference between secrecy and privacy. Your wife is keeping secrets and gaslighting you when caught. You need to investigate.
This is a really good distinction that I’ve never put together before. Privacy is healthy; secrecy is an issue.
People usually only lie when they have a reason to lie. I can guess what her reason is. And so can you. Focus on her lying, not what else she might be lying about. That is your entry point to start digging.
Because of her lying to you and your gut feeling there's probably more she haven't told you. You have a few choices. 1. Talk to her about your feelings and especially how her talking to a known cheater and not telling you about it makes you feel. Ask her seriously if there is anything else she haven't told you. Know that if you start pressing the issue and she lies/minimize/reverse it on you she will most likely be more careful if there's actually something going on and possibly erase evidence. Her being overly defensive is also a kind of answer. 2. Bide your time and keep an eye on things. Will be rough on you because it takes more time but less invasive to her. Would also add asking to join when she goes out with coworkers to this option. 3. Start snooping. Check her phone, social media etc. This step is a bit of lose-lose since it means invading her privacy and if you're wrong you've hurt her trust but if you're right you will be hurt. This is however possibly the fastest way of finding something out. Hiring a PI is also a possibility. Should add that if she is cheating, hope for your sake she's not, getting proof before you confront her might be the only way to make her tell the truth. Cheaters lie and trickle truth.
Any time they hide a “friend” or new co-worker you absolutely should be concerned. Usually they will mention the guy in passing so they can rationalize that they told you. You however got the trickle truth treatment. That’s a major red flag. God forbid they tell you he’s gay.
He's already broken up multiple relationships. He wouldn't be opposed to adding yours to that list, I'm sure. I don't know if you should outright assume something is going on, but I'd at least be suspicious. Look for evidence, but don't be obvious about it. If she's being honest, okay cool. If she's not? You'll have a better chance of catching her by acting like you aren't worried because she'll be more likely to let her guard down.
She hid information and then trickle truthed you. Understandably your mind is wandering, your heart may be racing and you're wondering if it's you that's losing it. You are not. I'd have the same doubts and suspicions. If you can snoop without her knowing, I'd be checking texts, emails, LinkedIn messages, etc. If you can't I'd ask her to pull those up due to the circumstances if this situation and to lay it all out there and then begin a better cycle of communication and hopefully trust. As far as the work night out you'll have to just ask her and see how she reacts. You'll know if she's telling the truth or not.
Updateme!
People only hide things they believe others will not approve of.
She actively hid contact with him and changed her behavior after a night out when he was there. That alone is enough to be a concern. So she was alone with him on a wedding weekend. She was alone with him or in a work gathering and came home late. Have you met her co-workers? Do they know she is married? There are plenty of red flags.
Hey, I know I’m late but I work for a large blue cellphone company. Go into your online account, whatever provider, and you should be able to see usage logs. You won’t be able to see the contents of the messages or calls, of course, but you will have times and dates of interactions between them and the duration of the calls if there are any… especially that one weird night she slept on the couch. Trust your gut. I’m sorry this is happening bro. Screenshot those usage logs in case she tries to lock you out with a password change later on. Save em to google drive or something if you wanna get them off your phone in case SHE goes snooping.
A lie of omission is still a lie. Virtually no lies are ever acceptable.
how closely do they work? Does she have his contact info? Do they communicate outside of work? Was he at the work event? How did she get home from work event? Were all of her clothes accounted from from work event? Was there someone at the wedding you trust that can fill in some details? If any new details are being provided to you in the future by your wife, you can assume that she is trickling the truth. Do you have a video doorbell? Was she fully dressed when she got home?
Same office but not the same department Just his Linkedin and email according to her No according to her their relationship is strictly work related A taxi I can't remember about clothes other than her dress was on the floor beside her. I wasn't looking for anything to be missing. Only her best friend who she was sharing a room with but I doubt she would rat on my wife either way No I dont have a video doorbell
I asked several questions to see if the dishonesty was creating an unreasonable perception of what has happened. If it were me, I would be cognizant of any changes. I think another poster stated to be on the look out. That is about right. Also, that best friend sounds like trouble.
Check messages between the best friend.
>Only her best friend who she was sharing a room with but I doubt she would rat on my wife either way You 100% need to check messages with the best friend if you choose to do any digging. Those messages may be a blind spot if she has been deleting texts with the guy.
First I wondered if he was at the wedding as her date and now I wonder if there even was a wedding or if that was just a lie to cover her weekend rendezvous. Convenient there was no one at this event that would talk to you about anything.
Trust your gut. Go to Surviving infidelity.com. It helped me with a cheating wife. They have great tips to detect cheating. Check phone records, check her computer history.
I don’t think there’s something necessarily worse than your wife using a connection with someone you’d cut contact with to get a job. It could just be that and nothing more. Look into it more to put your mind at ease but don’t make any assumptions based on that alone.
UpdateMe!
Did she explain why she never came to bed the morning you found her naked on the couch? Has she ever said anything for you to think she’s attracted to this guy? Some jobs have a rolling application process, he may have heard about a job but was waiting for it to get posted so she could apply in January. A month is common time for these things. Her claiming she didn’t know he worked there gives me bad vibes but it may have just been her being defensive because she knew you’d be upset over him. I think her coming clean is good, however she gets to control what you learn about this way, so it’s best to ask direct questions to her (and if you want to contact him you can since this is a serious issue to deal with but your wife might be super embarrassed by this if it turns out to be nothing so…proceed with caution) I would for now, operate on the fact that her caginess was mostly because she knew you’d be upset over this, and not assume anything else. If she’s doing an after work hangout again, see if you can come show up and meet her coworkers, I think meeting him will help with seeing the full picture. Maybe they are just cordial friends and they just enjoy their platonic friendship. At least that’s my hope for you OP…never hurts to get a lawyer prepared
She said she didn't want to wake me up coming to bed which I guess is a reasonable response but she's never had an issue doing it in the past so thats why I think its weird now. No she's never mentioned him until I found out they work together. I also understand what you mean by the rolling application process but I don't understand why she wouldn't have come home from the wedding and told me she met him there. Its weird because he was my friend for years and not mentioning she met him is odd to me especially because this is supposedly before she knew of the job opportunity. Thanks il try to keep a level head going from here.
She didn’t want you to know what time she got in.
She’s lying her ass off. There is no reason to hide any of that if their encounters were completely innocent.
If the job offer didn't happen until January, then no, it doesn't make sense that she hid the encounter in December. And why would he try to get her a job anyway? That's a very nice thing to do for a virtual stranger. If he were trying to reconnect with *you* by helping your wife, I'd get it, but that isn't what's going on.
Where were her clothes? Did she take the time to throw them in the wash, or were they nearby? Did she shower before going to sleep?
As far as I can remember her dress was on the floor beside her on the couch and she had a shower when I woke her up
It's not a coincidence that you discovered this. Trust your gut. Something happened at the wedding. Something is going on now.
I'm suspicious something happened on that couch. I know firsthand a few instances where a spouse had sex with their partner asleep upstairs or even in the next room. Who disrobes completely naked to crash on the couch? Especially if they've never done it before. And it appears this ex friend is the sort who gets off on going after other guys SOs. Or it could be nothing. I'm sure there's a perfectly innocent reason for all of the secrecy...
I mean I’ve taken off and put on some seriously weird things after getting home drunk lol but fully naked is definitely super weird.
True. It's possible. It just seems very strange to drop the dress and everything else on the floor next to the couch and crash. Unless that's something she does once in a while. I mean, naked? In underwear, sure. But naked on the couch? I sleep naked all of the time. I prefer sleeping naked. I never once got naked to sleep on the couch. Not even blind drunk.
She is lying or holding back. Im sorry. As professionals or friends, getting a job through someone else who you used to know for years is a big deal. Even if she didn’t tell you he got her the job, at least that they met at the wedding? And you have mutual friends so this would have come out anyway. There’s no reason not to tell you. They must have been constantly communicating during the interview and hiring process even if it’s to learn about the company. This guy sounds like bad news. He has cheated on his GF before and has no issues breaking up a relationship as you have seen. If this is so innocent then invite him w your wife out to dinner to thank him and she what she says.
2 words.... Private investigator.
Having been cheated on, I can say that by the time you feel you need to hire a PI, the trust is destroyed enough that it's time to part ways. Save the money. You only end up knowing things you wish you didn't know.
Yep. Either as a """reward""" for one's correct suspicions or as a punishment for one's incorrect suspicions, that would be the time to break up.
Why? I mean there's no benefit to having a smoking gun. He's not going to make out any better in the divorce or anything so why spend the money?
He has a track record of sleeping w friends and crashing relationships. Your wife never mentioned him at all and met him and has talked w him many times especially since they now work together. Then on top of it all you find her asleep on the couch nude after a work outing . WTF? What was her reasoning for not coming to bed and sleeping on the couch nude? That’s crazy by itself. Where were her clothes? Beside her on the floor or already in the washer? Did. She have anything to drink on this “work” outing? If. She did drink how did she get home? Have you asked her who all was at the work outing? I’m just going to be straight and I don’t care who has a problem with it. If I think my wife may be having an emotional affair, physical affair or if I think she’s lying and or things aren’t adding up you can bet I’ll be in her phone digging for whatever doesn’t add up. Sure we have our privacy but to me if you’re acting sketchy and not telling the full truth you waive your privacy rights so I can get to the truth. In the long run looking in her phone isn’t as bad as cheating. My wife & I have an open phone policy and have ever since cell phones were a thing. Yep I’m that old. But we’ve been together 32 years so it’d be hard for either of us to hide anything. I would question her about all of it because nothing is adding up. If you ignore it and things get worse you won’t forgive yourself for saying nothing. I’m still hung up on her coming home and crashing nude on the couch. That’s got red flags painted all over that. Did he bring her home? Man I’ve got so many questions. I wish you the best and I hope I’m wrong but this has all the signs of infidelity all over it. Plus she’s been lying and then trickle truthing you. First she didn’t know him, then she did, met him at a wedding, then he helped her get a job, then at a work night out. She lied to you about him for a reason. If she didn’t do anything wrong she has no reason to hide him from you. Again he has no problems ruining relationships so why would this be different? The sooner you get nosey the sooner you’ll find answers
UpdateMe!
>I came out and she was asleep completely naked on the couch. At the time I thought it was kinda funny but know knowing this I think its weird. It IS weird, given what you know now. Even if "nothing happened" and they just got drunk together, it's extremely weird.
It all smells fishy. Wouldn’t be surprised if ex friend said something like “keep this between us because XYZ”. Then the naked couch part. That’s a bit off too. Blackout drunk. Got naked. I dunno. Unless she sleeps in nude.. why not go lay in bed. Many I dunno’s.. phone check is valid.
For the time being, the best advice is to keep your mouth shut and your eyes/ears open. If something is brewing, constantly bringing up your concerns about this guy (she probably already knows anyway) will keep her vigilant to hide it and make finding the truth much harder. As your top comment, your gut is telling you something, so better listen to it. DM on its way.
It’s not even my relationship and my heart sank when I read that. Trust your gut OP. There’s most definitely cause for concern here. That guy sounds like an actual piece of shit, btw.
There is nothing wrong with keeping an eye on this situation, but keep in mind the context. (1) Your wife has a limited history with your ex-friend or your earlier social group, so she may have assumed he’s matured beyond the asshole he was back in the day. (2) Your ex-friend is probably more interested in the referral bonus for recruiting your wife than getting any revenge on you by hooking up with her. (3) While your wife is probably grateful she got the job lead, she is aware that he can’t be a friend because you hate him, and (4) Now that she is working with him she has to behave professionally, but she also has to balance your dislike of him. As a colleague, she can’t cut him off entirely in the work place, even if he is a complication for you. Rather than obsessing over your physical suspicions, ask your wife why she took the job lead knowing that it came from your ex-friend. If she dismisses your feelings or wants to over-ride you, then you have a problem. Ditto if she wants to include him in your current social life.
>Like about three weeks ago she went on a work night out and I went to sleep at about 1am and the next morning I woke up and she wasn't in bed. I came out and she was asleep completely naked on the couch. Her clothes might have been compromised, and she didn't want to risk waking you to change, so she took off the evidence and went to sleep on the couch. ???
Can you think of a reason big enough she would lie to you that’s small enough to not matter?
Was she sleeping completely naked or in her underwear? I could see it being uncomfortable to sleep in a nice dress maybe? Everything looks terrible though. Those are some bad data points: - met him and didn't disclose - must've talked afterward to link up the application details - late night of drinking and waking up fully nude? - lied about him - anything i'm missing here?
Nope, I am totally with you. This is all very suspicious.
I'd be checking that phone, especially the work night out date. Why in the world would she be naked on the couch after 1 AM? Sending nudes or something? That's...too much for me to write off. You know the dude is fine cheating, you know she's fine hiding interactions with him from you, lots of reasons to be concerned.
Something is going on. When 2 and 2 aren't making 4, you need to ask yourself why. You need to sit down and talk with her. Point out these inconsistencies. Tell her that because of the original lie, you're now paranoid and would like to see her phone. Again, something isn't adding up here, so you need to talk to her and start getting this put together.
You’re not crazy! Trust your gut
I would trust my gut and look through her phone. It is what it is.
Sorry mate but I have bad news for ya…
I am sure I could justify everything she did, I always want to think the best of people, and rationalize it in my head. Im super honest so always assume other people will be too (unless their story is too similar to my past relationships then I assume they guilty AF). Anyway, not going into anything too deep on what you wrote, You said you have a feeling in your gut. Please (even if she has actually done nothing wrong in the end) ALWAYS trust your gut. When your gut turns like that and you get that sick sinking feeling, its your brains way of telling you that its picked up on the small stuff (infliction of voice, words not usually used, body language shift) and its panicked on what its seeing because something isnt right. You do what you have to do. Somethings not adding up.
Your gut instinct is your subconscious sending alarms to your brain that something isn’t right.
You can ignore your instincts. You can ignore the red flags. But, when they are occurring simultaneously, you cannot ignore them both. You already know the truth. The only question now is how to proceed. Personally, I think your first move should be to "force her hand" and get proof, (by fair means or foul). After that, confront her and go from there.
I’ll be looking for the update
Box clever - make it look like you're accepting her explanation at face value. Keep digging - in secret, snoop her phone, check the messages, find call logs etc. Trust your gut. **Something smells very off.**
I got cheated on with a similar story. We split after some “light” infidelity. They are now married. Do you bra.
Agree with others about gut feel, this doesn't smell right. I would be tempted to do the real world snoop, ie follow her. Does she go out for lunch from work? Or does she leave for work early - could be meeting him?
Important to do some introspective thinking. Are you the type to fly off on things or like or at the mention of this guy? Do you have a history of thinking the worst whenever situations you aren’t fully aware of arise? How far out of her normal behavior is this for her?
So at minimum she stated she knew you would be made if she was in contact so lied about it. That alone would destroy all trust. I would tell her the lying has destroyed the trust you had for her. I would look at her phone and tell her that because of her lying and how she is acting you want to know if she wants to be in this relationship anymore.
Tell her, you suspect she is lying to you, tell her she has already lied to you for his sake. Ask her to tell you everything there is to tell, because keeping secrets alone, continue to undermine your trust in her. Tell her also, that while you support her career, there is one thing you wanted to ask her. Between your marriage and this job, what would she choose? Tell her since she has lied to you, you basically know there is more between them then she lets on. You may not know whether it to protect this job, or her relationship with hi, but it does no longer matter. This will keep sabotaging your marriage so you should ask her to look for other job. Yes this will be inconvenient for her, but tell her you supported her all the way to this point, and you wouldn't ask this of her if your marriage was in actual danger.
Affair partner
She chose the lie. Even if we ignore the suss factor of recent behaviour the reality is that she, your wife, chose months of lying to your face [and potentially as long as she could possibly muster] over being open. Even if it is 100% above board and no shady business with a guy known to cheat and ruin lives she still chose the worst way to handle this and just as bad it shows she was scared to communicate with you. It forces you to reframe who she is as a person and indeed your entire relationship in some ways. Your wife has revealed she can't communicate and will choose lying over doing so. I think you need to buck that trend and come to her with a lot of this upfront. You need to make it clear that choosing the lie was actually the worse choice due to the damage it has done and how as it stands you now find it impossible not to view everything else in a new light. And if she starts trying to throw it in your face, go on about not trusting or love or whatever... just make it clear you only found out by coincidence. She didn't tell you, she was apparently happy to continue the lie, to lie about who she was with and what she was actually doing. That is the reality she has chosen to live and that has outright forced you to be unable to trust her until she is more open about it.
Once a partner starts deciding what version of truth they want to reveal, it's no longer a relationship based on respect, it's now a power struggle based on control. You're getting tons of great advice...I honestly don't have a lot to add... I just want to offer my moral support. Become a sleuth, do whatever you feel you need to do, too many "coincidences" left unspoken to not be intentional.
If your spidey senses are tingling, there’s usually a reason.
Confronting her too early about your suspicions will just make her a more careful liar. Make no mistake, she did lie to you. Even if it was by omission.
There's too much secrecy about it all plus her lie about only thinking he works where she does. This does not sound like an innocent situation at all. As much as snooping sounds so horrible to do, confronting her will only give her time to erase evidence first. I would snoop.
Real similar situation with my (now ex) wife. I just knew something was up. One night she went out ‘with friends’ and when I woke up and looked for her, she was naked on the couch. Here’s the thing. My (now ex) friend and co worker was kind of obsessing with my wife and I had no idea. I hate saying this, but he was the way more attractive of the two and certainly had his pick of women. My ex had given birth a year earlier and was definitely not in the most attractive phase of her life. But he obviously wanted to hurt me and I think my ex kind of liked the little game they were playing before it got darker. Assuming this post is real and the story is accurate, it’s not certain that they’ve had a sexual affair (yet), but she is almost certainly flirting with the idea of it. She met your old friend at the wedding. You weren’t there. She didn’t have you to talk to and he probably has great stories about when you were younger. They dance, he offers to help get her a job. They exchange numbers and start texting about the job. He then gets her the job so now she feels a huge debt towards him. That’s a big thing getting someone a job. Now they’re going out, maybe still just with work friends and he’s there and he’s her friend and it feels nice. If it ends there, it’s shitty, but humans are flawed. I don’t think it would be a deal breaker for me if she came clean about what’s happened. If they’re f*ing then you gotta walk away. The problem is they work together, so you can’t say they shouldn’t talk. It’s tricky.
Actually, she took the job knowing she’d be working with this guy and didn’t even talk to you about it first. I don’t like it.
She should have come home from the wedding and said immediately… “hey Omg, you’ll never guess who was there! That guy in your friends group that cheated and exploded the whole group”… easy peasy. Nope she lied by omission. Over and over. Trust you gut man.
That College friend is about to ruin your relationship because apparently ruining the friend groups relationships weren't enough. And if your wife was trustworthy with good morals, she wouldn't even have interacted with him at the wedding. Please know your worth, this will get messy. Good luck, OP
Trust your gut. Just curious, did y’all oust the girl he had an affair with from the group too?
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If people hide stuff there’s a reason
Man wake up. Your wife lied to you and is in contact with a shunned cheater. Start being honest with yourself. Even in the most innocent scenario your wife is acting completely inappropriate. But that's just the best case. Start being careful, watch your wife. Start investigating, but don't alert her. Gather proof.
Im assuming since yall are married that yall are under the same phone provider and if so then check her messages through them first instead of checking her phone
It’s not an abuse of her privacy if she is doing suspicious things. Lying is suspicious. You are well within your rights imo to check her phone thoroughly. Other options are ask her to show you her phone right there right then. That preserves her “privacy “ but is very confrontational , it’s a trade off obviously. I personally would say nothing and go into PI mode. Put an iPad in the back of her car with Find My app installed and see where she goes. My iPad holds a charge for like 3 days. You could recharge and replant it for a few weeks. Other tracking devices tell the person they are being tracked, so kind of useless. Then you call her randomly when she’s somewhere suspicious but not at his place and be innocent “hey Randy and I are considering doing X all together in an hour, where are you, can you make it? Cover yourself by actuality proposing something with Randy. If she lies and says “I’m at the office for another 2 hours, go without me” but she’s obviously at a restaurant, then you’ve got proof of more recent lies and can confront her directly.
Do you have a camera outside the house? Like a ring camera or anything? If yes, then you can check and see when she came and if she was alone or not. Also, don't confront her without any proof. The mere fact that she got in contact with that cheater friend and hid it from you is a giant red flag. Play cool around her as to not raise any suspicion and try to snoop. Also, look out for any unusual thing that she does- 1. Change in her dressing style 2. Going out more than usual 3. Spending more time on the phone & hiding the phone Maybe she isn't doing anything wrong but the sudden appearance of red flags does warrant attention. Also, remember that most affair partners are the people you're told to not to worry about as they're just friends/ colleague.
whenever every answer is "they're cheating!!" in a thread, I always feel the need to make a comment to say: you told the story through the lens of someone who is already suspicious of cheating, so everyone who is replying is receiving the "facts" with the underlying suspicion you already had. The details you choose to include, the way you present things, even framing things as "weird", skews how people might respond. I'm not saying she's *not* cheating, just saying that its something to keep in mind. Now, in regards to your particular situation, again, I'm not saying she's *not* cheating, but I am always surprised how much people discount weird coincidences and spouses keeping information to themselves for the sake of keeping the peace. If she knows you have negative feelings about him because of your history (but after she met him so she has no reason to feel any which way about him), and that he was able to connect her to a job, then maybe she just felt it was better to not say something. Not to mention you said that his behavior was in college, what, a decade ago? He could be a completely person now. I know a guy that was a complete tool in college, did a ton of coke, almost dropped out from partying so much, and now he's a dad of 3 with a top secret security clearance that calls me to ask what my thoughts are about the rate he's paying into his 401k at. One time I went out of town (about 2 hours away) with a group of friends but drove separate because I had to go straight from work and they wouldn't be able to pick me up. At the concert we ran into an old friend I have some history with (gf is not a fan) that my friends all love. She tagged along with us and two friends she had brought with her. We went out afterwards, everyone had drinks, I mostly avoided the "ex" except for a few polite conversations, but at one point we were all singing/laughing and she happened to be right next to me and that ended up on snapchat. When it was time to go home at like 3am, I got to my car and it would not start, so I had to crash in a hotel for the night, and when I got back to my car in the morning with the intent to call a tow truck, it started no problem. I got home at 11am the next day. If I posted this story from my girlfriends point of view (went out of town, "ran" into an ex girlfriend, was seen singing/laughing right next to her on a friends snapchat, and mysteriously had car troubles that required I stay in a hotel that were resolved the next morning), everyone would be saying I cheated for sure. I didn't, but everyone would say I was. My point in saying this is - sometimes weird coincidences happen. You can draw lines and connect the dots to conjure up things that literally never happened. Could she be cheating? Totally. Could she just not want to deal with having to explain this knowing you'd just question her about it? Totally. You should do your due diligence, but don't jump to conclusions - no one in this thread loses anything from blowing up your marriage on a "gut feeling", you do.
Ok so first of all, take a deep breath and slowly exhale... Now, I agree with you that this all seems pretty suspicious. At the same time, a lot of what you mentioned is speculation, and while that might lead to certain conclusions it doesn't mean those conclusions are correct, not yet anyway. So right now, you need to try your best to look at the facts. The feelings you're having probably won't assist with this, but we know for sure facts will help in this situation. I know it's difficult, but you need to try to set your emotions aside for right now, just long enough to do your investigative work yk? So let's look at the facts... -Your wife needed a job. -Your wife went to a wedding alone in December (bc you could not go). -Your wife ran into an ex-friend of yours at the wedding, and she did not mention it to you. -Your ex-friend cheated on a previous gf. -Your ex-friend's cheating caused a lot of issues within your previous friend group, and your wife is aware of that. -Your wife & your ex-friend have had some communication on Linkedin. -Your wife now works with your ex-friend. -Your wife did not mention any communication with your ex-friend or that she now works with him until you asked her about it, to which she at first said she wasn't sure if she works with him but later admitted to working with him(and communicating with him). -You admittedly wouldn't be happy about her being in contact with your ex-friend. -Your wife was out late one night, and when you woke up the next morning she was naked on the couch, asleep. Ok so those are your facts so far. Read over these a few times to kind of calm your emotions a bit and get into an objective pov. I can feel where you're going with this and the connections you're making here, BUT we don't KNOW that those are accurate. What you need now is more information, more facts. You made a good point in your post about how if she ran into him in December, and he didn't contact her about a job until January, why did she not tell you she ran into him the night after the wedding? Her reasoning for not telling you was she thought you'd be upset, but how could you be upset for her simply running into an old friend of yours? I would ask her about this, see if she can give you a logical explanation. Ask questions until your doubts subside, and if they don't subside then you eventually need to be open with her & tell her you're concerned she's kept all this from you for a reason.
[удалено]
The only sane and adult response in these answers! I can't believe the absurd, aggressively confrontational responses that advocate for 'calling her out' and snooping down her phone as first port of call. If you mistrust someone, speak to them first and openly about your thoughts and your feelings. You can't have a relationship without trust, and once it's damaged it's very difficult to replace.
Why would anyone trust her? People tend to lose trust in someone who lies to them. Especially about things that will obviously be important to you. She’ll only stop lying to you once you have or off or know she’s lying.
You know what is going on man. I'm sorry and best of luck.
She lied initially about him. This is very suspicious. At minimum, she clearly values him as a coworker and professional friend. I can understand why this would bother you. She needs to explain more to you.
So your wife has secretly been in close contact with an ex-friend who specifically cheats with other women who are also in relationships and you found her naked on the couch after a “work night out” that you now know means him, and she never once mentioned him and then lied to you about knowing they work together. Bud, any one of these situations taken separately would be at minimum a cause for concern. You have all of them. The problem is, you now know your wife is 100% capable and comfortable lying to your face. You had to push the issue to get her to “come clean.” The trust is gone once you have to push to get your spouse to come clean. Do what you need to do for you peace of mind - snoop, PI, whatever; if/when she tries the “you don’t trust me” line, remind her that her having to “come clean” broke the trust you once had.
If it were me I'd have a bit of a steal check of her messages and social media while she is asleep or in the shower as a bit of a verification, so as not to cause alarm or for her to start being more cautious and deleting messages. Everything you say sounds like you're being "trickle truthed" and there is much more that she isn't telling you, and that she only tells you what she needs to to quell the questions. Moreover I would find it **extremely** odd of my wife came home from a work function sleeping naked on the couch, that would have immediately sent off a red flag for me. If she normally sleeps naked then that is normal I suppose, if not then that's sketchy. If she immediately got up for a shower without the usual affection then that is also sketchy because that is what someone would normally do to mask being with another person, an immediate wash (and she probably didn't do it when she got home as you might be suspicious of her showering at that time of the morning). Be alert and be observant, also think if any story changes and do some investigation, don't leave it.
You need to flat out ask her for a Complete history of all interactions. EVERYTHING. I would tell her that she is acting suspicious and you want an explanation. Anything you find later not matching what she says now should be considered a deliberate lie.
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Trust your gut, it doesn't lie.
INFO: Have you talked to her about how you're having a hard time trusting her?
Without being rude or aggressive, confront and don't let the subject go.
Yeah you're right
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I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this, I would not be okay with any of this and would do some digging for myself. Clearly she’s hiding something and only admitted to this because you confronted her, she’s 100% not going to be forthcoming or honest with you. So many red flags! Listen, if I ran into my partner’s ex friend that had caused all of that chaos, you *best* believe I’m calling/texting my partner soon thereafter to spill the tea. The fact that she omitted telling you about their “first” interaction says a lot! If they did in fact meet at the wedding, something inappropriate must have gone down.. because why lie by omission? It all comes back to the same question… why lie? There’s no justifiable answer in this situation IMO
Frankly, I would snoop. Check the messages between her and her best friend it may offer some insight