Your Time on the Marriage Police Force
If you didn’t leave right after D-Day, you’ve probably spent some time in the Marriage Police Force Academy. You know, those dark days of “trust but verify” spent trying to hack into email accounts, cell phone SIM cards, velcro-ing voice activated recorders under carseats… Just how far did you go? (Anyone have a shoe phone?)
This column came to me in a weird dream I had once. I dreamt my friend needed some help driving to a vacation destination. So I get in the car, and there is a corpse in the back. I turn to my friend and say matter-of-factly, “You might want to consider going on vacation without the dead person in the back seat.”
Kind of a metaphor for a bad marriage really. The ride is so much nicer without a corpse.
When trust dies, the marriage is DEAD, but of course, chumps that we are, we drive on. Some people assemble evidence for help in court proceedings, or hire private investigators, and I do understand the necessity of that. But most of us go through the marriage police force stage to convince ourselves, not the court of law.
OMG, he was lying. OMG, she created a fake Facebook page. OMG, the lengths they went to for cake.
It’s just not enough to trust our senses, or trust our absence of trust — we need the unholy relics of the affairs. We need tangible proof we can touch and see, that won’t dissolve into a cloud of mindfuckery. “No! I can explain that!” says the cheater. But they can’t. It’s right there.
So my chumpy Colombos — were you a marriage detective? What did you find? And was it enough to make you hand in your badge?
I was on high alert for years! Not for cheating per day, but lies in general. Something just wasn’t adding up about a lot of things.
Before we were married I actually found proof that he wasn’t handling a situation the way he said he was. His brother lived with him and I wanted to know the plan for his future living situation. Oh they were trying to figure it out I was told. But I saw a message to his brother where he was apologizing to him for the wedding prep mess in the house. Nothing about moving out. He was apologizing for me.
Ever since that day I never fully trusted anything he told me. I played marriage police our entire marriage. And it just progressed to more and more things—looking at his messages, tracking his phone…during our separation I put a tracking device on the car (mostly so I would know if he was at the bar before picking up our daughter).
I never want to play that game again. If I do not trust someone about even the smallest thing in the future, it’s done. If I had been smart the first time, I would have never married my ex, but some of us have to learn the hard way.
Me too…I never thought he would cheat but he was always going out and not taking my calls returning early morning. I was a marriage police for our entire marriage because of his poor decisions and being blamed for them. There were early warning signs…..SMH BUT I was in LOOOOOOVE.
I love your quote “When trust dies, the marriage is DEAD”. My trust died a long time ago. I just needed his cheating, moving out, and no contact to clear my head and distance myself from his manipulation…to see who he really is!
OMG same. He manipulated me into staying for sooo long. Feel like a right chump now. Glad I finally broke free.
I never thought mine would cheat either or anyone would cheat with him! But it never should have come to that.
I realize now I had perpetual anxiety in my relationship. Always waiting for the next bad decision, having to clean up the mess and then being blamed for any negative reactions on my part. All during my pregnancy I was concerned that I would go into labor and not be able to get a hold of him because sometimes he wouldn’t answer his phone or respond to texts for hours. I should have called him out on that behavior more but everyone else in his life just brushed it off as who he was. I thought I didn’t have a right to complain because I was trying to change him. Now I understand it as conditioning.
Instead of calling him out on his behavior I began trying to get in front of everything. I had to learn about all his work events and plan for them because he wouldn’t tell me in advance. I did ALL of the mental load and man it was exhausting. I lost all of who I was and then he complained I changed.
I still have parts of me that think maybe I could have done this or reacted this way…but it’s getting better.
The anxiety of a bad marriage is hard to take. It’s usually not understood until after the fact. You live with this feeling in the pit of your stomach until you get so used to it that you don’t realize it’s there.
It comes out in other ways: physical health, short tempered, sometimes disgust in your partner. Then, because you know you thought these thoughts about him, you know that you sometimes bitched him out, or even outright criticized him at times, you feel guilty and buy in to his narrative that you were just too hard to live with.
They complain about their own anxiety being married to you. OMG, is it true? Were you that horrible? That insufferable?
But at the end of the day, I don’t think a single one of us chumped wouldn’t agree that we were all willing to make it work. We were open, and even desperate, to do what was hard and stay committed. Wow! I sometimes wonder what amazing things could have come out having spent that energy on a person who cared enough to stay and love me. Perhaps, one day I’ll be granted that gift.
Omg! That was it! That was my life – and with my kids watching and bearing the brunt of my frustrations. I didn’t realize I was such a bad Mom for my oldest (and I will spend the rest of my life trying to fix that ) but I am so much better for my youngest.
Thank you thank you thank you. That was my life. I was almost willing to have an open marriage and let him sleep with transexuals and participate in a gang bang just not to lose my marriage. Thank god I snapped out of it and drove him to leaving me for her. His mommy buys the whole thing. Somehow we both made “big mistakes” —not sure what mine was. Loving her son? I definitely didn’t desert him for pornography, travel 70% of the time while he cared for the kids and then talk him into moving away from his career all while sleeping with a married mother of a 2 year old in another country…It feels SOOO good to hear someone else went through the same thing, down to putting up with him then beating yourself up over the times you did lash out. And that someone else has to live with the narrative that they’re insufferable.
Haha yeh I get the we are both as bad each other thing from his mum too. No. No we’re not. Everything I told her he just rebutted to her with lies about me. She wouldn’t tell me what they were. Didn’t want to believe her sons a pathological liar I guess.
+ 1 for the stupid open marriage and swinging requests…ugh!
Perhaps that is what makes other marriages work? Two people who both work hard to build a strong union?
I don’t know that I can even imagine what that must feel like…to have someone committed to and love you as much as you love them?
At this late age, I will probably never know but you really have me something to think about.
Exactly what I’ve been trying to say since he walked out, but could never find the right words. Thank you, OptionNoMore!
Well Done ONM! It’s a horrible cycle. The worst form of gaslighting and you somehow know that this can’t be right. I used to say it was like beating my own head bloody against a wall. I felt like we were speaking two different languages. I guess we really were!
So well said. I too, wondered what our life would have been like if only HE had put in half the effort that I was continually putting forth. So very sad to learn where the effort went.
I spent 3 long years on the Marriage Police Force and should probably pull a nice pension from them. NOT WORTH IT! Get out early!
I did find out what the Tiger Text app was. It automatically deletes messages after they have been read.
I also learned that people don’t erase their sent folder. They delete messages and empty their trash, but leave their sent folder full of juicy reading. That helped me confirm that he was never going to change.
BAM was actually quite scrupulous about cleaning out every trace of his communications, including the sent folder. And that in itself was very telling. It meant it took more years to catch him but finding nothing … and I mean cleaned out, dead empty nothing … was never reassuring. No one goes to that much trouble on a constant basis for no reason.
Yup, they forget the send folder. That’s how I found out about the hummers in the closet at work and the romantic sex in a dirty stairwell. Hawt!
Another good place is the “Recently Deleted photos” album on an Iphone. Cheaters are never as smart as they think they are…NEVER!
Haha! The recently deleted folder! That is where I found naked photos of him, taken outdoors in broad daylight. It was clearly NOT a selfie and he was clearly “excited” in the photos. The date stamp just happened to be the day, several weeks earlier, that I couldn’t reach him for six hours. When he finally came home that night, he was in full on drunk rage mode. Why so angry at me when he was clearly the one who was having fun, while I sat home alone and scared? That was his go-to when I dared to question him about anything at all. This was his standard operating procedure throughout our 40+ year marriage. Disappear for hours, come home drunk after sex with his randos or affair partners and dump on me and the kids. If his cheating made him feel like we were the cause of all his unhappiness, why didn’t he just leave permanently or ask for a divorce? Cake? I did serve some pretty delicious cake; cake I should have been providing to someone who deserved it.
Whatsapp automatically saves photos unless you set it otherwise. He thought he was SO clever deleting messages didn’t realise about the photos with dates and times of when they were sent and received. Not so clever after all…
Same with mine. He didn’t realise how he’d synced his Google account; he thought he was clever erasing the WhatsApp messages & photos but they were all backed-up in his Google photos, hahaha! Saw all the selfies the bitch kept sending him constantly!
The sent folder is where I found Douchebag McGee’s.email to homeslice about the Clone-A- Willie Vibrator Kit. That email was useful during mediation.
Good for a laugh if nothing else. Seriously, who does that?
Ha ha sent folder!! Yes I had one of those moments in the old Nokia days. Beautiful poetic goodnight messages and love you’s sent TWICE!!! And sometimes the other person got an extra one.
It’s all in the past, a different relationship, I think it’s kind of funny now.
I actually found out about my stbx affair with skankella by accident. My husband could not remember his Gmail password. I helped him reset it. I saw facebook messages(only her reply) on his social email. She said things like I want to be with you. It is raining up my way bring a tarp. Sent him emojis smily faces with hearts with eyes. I asked him why she was sending him these messages. He shrugged it off and said she sends those kind of messages to everyone. Yea ok. I went back on all our cell phone bills and they talked or texted dozens times a day. Even after we decided we should work on our marriage. I would read his email and found his facebook password. He did as promised stoped all contact with Skankella. However, he was secretly texting his ex from high school. And the same shit came out of his mouth. At that time I knew he would never be trustworthy. And I needed to stop torchering myself and I asked him to leave. Once trust is broken there is no marriage.
I opened the phone bill online. He had changed the password- how ODD. But the account was in my name. 5000 texts in one month between him and the Sluterus.
I asked him about it. He lied. He had texted someone else from every public toilet in Disney World. He had spent our house upgrade downpayment on a downgrade with neck tattoos.
I told him to GTFO of my house, which wasn’t marital property. 17 days later he left penniless except for a 3K loan from his elderly father. I made him pay for the dissolution and he was put on No Contact Blast. I’ve seen him twice since that day, and once was our final
Hearing.
Guess I wasn’t made to be Marriage Police.
I didn’t find out until almost 2 years later that he had impregnated the Sluterus. I attempted to clarify the timeline as I was dealing with HPV positive status in the last year of marriage and stage I cervical cancer that only he could have given me He lied again and the Sluterus began stalking my social media. Blocked her too.
If you want a Shortcut to meh, don’t Police, don’t Pick Me Dance. This shit comes mighty handy for dating too. They are miserable together. I’m happy whether attached or not.
Phone records here, too. Unlike you though, I was still fighting to keep the marriage to the end. So, I applaud your resolute stance against that crap. Chumpy me didn’t even want to believe what was obvious from those records and the missing birth control of her preference (from our home). She admitted about three months after I discovered the OM.
It’s crazy how they lie, and when confronted just tell different lies. I was told that despite all the texts they had “never touched each other out of respect for” ME. That’s respect? Scheming to break up my family and remove my stepdaughter from our life?
I begged for reconciliation and wrote him a letter. He refused to go to counseling. He threw the letter away. I was not going to humiliate myself more than that.He only wanted more time in the home to draw out the enjoyment of my pain and to repad his accounts. No way that was happening. He didn’t account on my being so strong.
When I found out much later about the full term (bragged as overdue on social media! That was smart!) pregnancy and resultant child, I asked about the math with my OBGYN. “Her Uterus is not an Instant Pot.” Oh, there was touching. I can pinpoint the day. I took the girls to a family baby shower. He took the Sluterus to bed.
They lie about everything. Even stuff they don’t need to. I figured out very quickly if THAT was who I married, that was what she was getting. A liar.
I called the women I knew (there were several) because I needed to hear confirmation. Then I called their husbands as well. I hacked his Google account…Google was my friend. I was OBSESSED with tracking him to see how deep the lies went. They went deep. I was also able to see his web activity and any time he used voice to text I could see it so I got a first hand account of his “game” as he was texting other women. I’m not sure how I managed all that but I absolutely needed every bit of it to convince me he was really that crazy because I wouldn’t have believed his level of fucked-upedness was possible, by anyone, let alone the man I trusted most.
I went all in with cheater policing. I did everything that the reconciliationists said to do. A phone tracking GPS app, passwords to social media, regular check ins, and random device inspections.
But why bother? There’s no actual trust if you have to verify.
And it ended up backfiring on me anyway.
Those phone GPS tracking apps? They aren’t always accurate. I worked myself up to a vomiting panic when the app tracked him to a hotel near his office. But when I flew across town to bust him in the act, he and his phone were a block away, exactly where they were supposed to be.
And what’s the point of passwords and device checks when they can just make secret accounts and use devices you don’t know about or have access to?
But the worst was having this reconciliationist sanctioned policing thrown back at me. He used it to boost his claims that I was crazy, unstable, controlling, and abusive. Well, I was literally stalking and controlling him. The general public doesn’t care that the reconciliationists told me to do it. So it played right into his victim game.
There’s no good in policing another person like that. And if it comes to that point, the relationship is over.
Thank you for your comments and I am so sorry for everything you went through ChumpSaidBuhBye. I thought if I got everything you got plus non-existence remorse then our marriage would heal and be stronger from the serial cheating.
When we were dating he had given me a phone to use because mine had died on me. He deleted everything except the deleted messages folder. I chose to believe him because there was nothing sexual, just him asking a lady when she is getting her lunch break from work where she worked at the mall so that they can eat. I chose to believe his explanation, just friends and isn’t he allowed to have female friends.
One month into our marriage, I found a document detailing every woman he slept with while we were dating including the one I had seen the text message being invited to eat. I halfheartedly marriage policed because I was too afraid to find out the truth but I also wanted to get it from him or for him to stop (SMH with FP). I could not bury my head in the sand deep enough, I had to know plus I stumbled upon emails to a woman he dated in high school whom he said was crazy. All his electronics had passwords from laptop, to desktop where he created a guest login which I used and he had his own login as the administrator.
His iphone had a fingerprint password and one evening while we were in bed, I could not sleep due to stress while he was sleeping soundly. I intentionally turned and bumped on him while holding his finger onto his phone trying to swipe it (I still can’t believe I did this). He woke up asking what the problem was and I said I was going to the rest room. He turned to look for his phone on the night stand but I pointed it on the bed where I had dropped it saying he slept with it in his hands. He gave me a suspicious look and I just walked to the restroom. Needless to say, two days later I noticed the phone now had a word and fingerprint password. A few months later when we argued about inconsistencies on his comments and whereabouts and he said, for the fifteenth time that he wanted a divorce because I do not trust him, I told him he can have it and I am done with the threats. I am so much better without him. It has been rough but the pain is almost completely gone. The anger is disappearing too and my friend told me yesterday that she can see the old me. Joking and laughing. My soon-to-be ex still wants me to go back overseas where he is but it is not happening. I know I will find myself where I am again if I go back to him. I am not the same clueless chump anymore. I deserve more and better. We are still communicating because of the divorce. Once it is finalized, it is full on no contact.
chumpsaidbuhbye—YES. I love your post. So true especially the bit about reconcilliationist telling you to Trust and Verify and then the verifying making you feel and look crazy and having it thrown back at you by Sir Cheats-A-lot just saying you’re the crazy one.
I was accused of being crazy and obsessed by my STBX. Just to find out that I was right and he was lying all through summer. And two years prior to that.
I paid a detective $300 to tell me what I already knew. Must’ve been the easiest money that guy ever made. I’m glad that I did, however, as the validation helped me get off the path of hopium and onto the path of divorce.
I didn’t have to marriage police. I always knew where he was at the end. In the OK Corrall bar – you know, the one where they all come flying through the windows at closing time. It had to be that bar because they had physically (and I do mean “physically”) picked him up and thrown him out of the only other bar in town and told him never to come back. He initially told me he was “helping a female friend to move house”. Which I believe, but then when he didn’t come home for six weeks I remember thinking “damn those wardrobes must be heavy”. Have at him Schmoopie!
I know this was all incredibly painful as it happened (as all our stories were); but, you know you are a super chump (like me) when your first thought was “An openly assholish guy must be so much better to deal with…” Sad I know. The thought made me laugh because it becomes clear how deep in the sickness we can all be that we start thinking one form of torture might be preferable to another form of torture. Can you imagine the luncheon conversation? “Hey Sally do you prefer when your husband parades his mistress through town, or meets her on the DL at his hunting cabin?” Oh neither Mary, I much prefer not knowing about the craigslist hookers at all, and having to tap his phone!” It takes a LOOONG time before we can all see how absurd this all really is. I admire the chumps who didn’t do any of this shit for five minutes. My first time I did it all. The second time I was like “HELL NO!” I do have to admit though that my second cheater was so good at secret second life that if the universe hadn’t just revealed the worst to me completely accidentally–I probably never would have known.
Well I knew he was in the bar with Schmoopie because I actually rocked up there one night after a night at the theatre when I was all dolled up. He had left me and I was driving past the OK Corrall skank hole and thought “sod it, I’m going in”. Schmoopie saw me and raced out the door. The Twat didn’t see me at first but nearly choked on his beer. Damn it was funny. You know that “Good, the Bad and the Ugly” moment of silence! It took me 10 minutes with a blow torch to get the slap off my face when I got home though. Still, it was worth it to watch them both pee their pants simultaneously!
Slap on your face? He slapped you? For catching him?
It came down to me sneaking around at 3am to search his phone for the texts and the emails and everything else he was hiding from me. He tried putting a password on it to stop me, but he wasn’t quite bright enough to figure out that he probably shouldn’t use the same password as to our joint checking account. Dumbass.
The good thing about sneaking around at 3am is that it’s a good time to send copies of incriminating evidence to yourself so you can print them out for a court date.
CSW, mine also changed his phone password but into his previously used ones. Laziness. But I won’t forget my trembling fingers and sweaty hands trying to hold onto his phone and not make noise in the middle of the night. Trying to find proof that it was not cheating, he was not the lying bastard but it was some sort of misunderstanding that would fix itself. Ah, not anymore.
Yep, they are not too bright with passwords. I wasn’t on the Verizon account but was able to access it because it was the same PIN as his debit card.
After the divorce, he was holding my cell number “hostage” while trying to force transfer of my cell phone and the three kids cell phones/device payments to a separate Verizon account as a group. I got irritated so I walked over to another carrier gave them the account information (all of which was provided during disclosures) took a stab at the PIN on the account and walked out with my number successfully being transferred.
The attraction is very obvious to me; it is so gratifying to find the hard proof of deceit after being mindfucked. The look on their face! The triumph OF BEING RIGHT! AHA! Caught you,
Mofo!
Followed up by the pain of reality. I was RIGHT?! Not the way I wanted to be right. Not to mention the other 49,000 cockroaches behind the walls I am now envisioning.
The detective work then became a quest to be WRONG. I wanted to be wrong because then it meant he was telling me the truth. Pain relief from being RIGHT!
Then the realization that my life was forever changed. Trust was a teacup smashed into powered porcelain that could never be repaired. Ever. I would have to develop amnesia to remain with this person, or be in some state of anesthesia,
all the time, while ignoring the mental police scanner with the ON switch stuck.
I have my moments of having to look. I had a big one wallop me the other day. I thought about it a long time and decided to act on it as it’s relevant to mediation. Turned out it’s very possible he’s telling the truth. But as I was on my detective mission, it was so clear that my whole life would be like that if we stayed
together. No. Not what I want.
My peace of mind comes from TRUST…not detective work verifying what he tells me. And my new peace of mind comes from not looking.
You should write a book. I like your descriptions…esp of the cock roaches! lol
That was totally me, Velvet Hammer. I looked because I wanted to be wrong…and I was, as far as I know, for a long time. Until I wasn’t.
Ooooh Velvet Hammer that was soo me! I wanted so bad for proof that I was WRONG, that he was Good, a Keeper, totally Changed! Nope, he just got better at hiding, deleting and deceiving. I was on 7 years of high alert and each year it got WORSE. I got into his phone early on but he explained that away those texts and pics were nothing to worry about – he never met them! A few years later I got a key-stroke logger and discovered a vacation with another girl. He was sending her sappy messages and even a pic of the engagement ring style he knew I wanted from him. I wish I could say that was the end. It should have been. We broke up for a few months, but because ours was”true love” and we could not live apart (i.e., at the time I was the best supply he ever had, the biggest Chump for the cake eater, I subsidized his lifestyle and provided him a nice home) I took him back. The worst mistake I made in my entire life. Then his acting and deceiving skills became worthy of an Academy Award. I wanted so badly to believe the fantasy he promised me and that he was not a glorified f*ckboy gigolo man child who lives off women.
Now I am No Contact. I too think of him often when something good happens, something funny etc. I still fight the urge to make up an excuse to contact him. But I know and remind myself what the result will be. He will want to come back.
Lucky for me and my detox and recovery, he is off to his new Chump. She has proven herself worthy to him and she has far more lucrative un-depleted financial resources for him. She puts up with his lack of support of any kind, his awful ungrateful behavior, allows being called names like “c*nt” and “crazy”, supports his habitual unemployment and cheers on his ‘get rich’ schemes, she is ok with his ignoring her to text other women when they are dining out or watching a show together, she allows herself to be excluded from any and all his social media and to be lied to. These are all reasons why we constantly fought leading up to the end. I simply could not, would not, did not, tolerate or stand to let go of any of his bs or lies. So I was labeled as “negative” and as not being able to “let the past go”. Now I label myself and “free” and “happy”. (despite how this rant sounds 🙂 ) Thank you CN.
Leaving evidence in plain sight was his MO. In truth I carried the corpse around for years. To others the stench was obvious however, I spackled the shit out of the decomposition.
My badge wasn’t one of honor and it was turned in, in the month of September 2014 when my therapist relieved me of my quest for justice. Eighteen hundred dollars for an attorney and a year to the day of his announcement, my freedom was earned as the settlement copy was in hand.
What a fucking relief it is now in knowing it wasn’t my job to suffer the consequences of his actions. As we imagine their new blissfull wonderment of a life with the OW we need to remind ourselves how they inherited the badge and corpse.
Doingme, OMG that’s perfect!
Wow- I love this. “…we need to remind ourselves how they inherited the badge and corpse.” I glamorized him and the OW… feeling like I had “lost everything”. Thankfully I found CL & CN, and realize that I am a WINNER! I am winning at (a new) LIFE! I wouldn’t want what he and the OW have! A relationship based on lies, distrust, deceit and betrayal. No, thank you.
May we all continue forward to the land of MEH!
Yes, guilty of glamorizing the ho too. May they have many years believing each other’s lies.
I never played the Marriage Police game. I believed every lie ~ hook, line and sinker. Until I didn’t.
When he quit drinking and joined AA, I was told he needed a quiet place to get his head together and there was ‘this woman’ in AA who had a cottage he could rent. He gave me her name and said it was someone he had worked for that we both knew. It was only later that I found out it was someone completely different who owned the cottage. His ugly circus clown. Yep, he had met her in AA. That was the only thing that was true.
Later, he told me the Circus Clown and the woman he told me originally who owned the cottage were cousins and the Circus Clown had bought the cottage from her. Nope. According to Google the Circus Clown has owned that cottage since the 70’s.
Guess he didn’t realize you could see that information on the public tax records. What an idiot.
Aaaaand he’s not supposed to disclose the names of AA members to people outside the group …
Most 12 step groups are supposed to maintain anonymity-it’s called Such-and-Such Anonymous for a reason. No last names shared, no disclosing of job titles and places of employment or where one resides. A lot of people don’t respect those boundaries.
I didn’t need to know exactly how far he’d really gone, but I did need to understand which limits he had crossed, because all of the activity uncovered at that point (recurrently through the years) pointed to “shady” but it kept staying in a grey area. There was no smoking gun. He kept appearing this poor, lost, confused guy who’d beat himself up for misjudging / mismanaging situations.
I needed something that would either reassure me or push me over the edge. I needed the proof he had actually betrayed a substantial boundary. It was agony. But that moment came. And I shudder to think what would have become of me if that unknowing woman refused to talk to me, like others before her did. She freed me. I will always remember thinking “THIS is what is he capable of”. Today, I don’t care if there was even more, I’m out now.
I turned in my badge nearly 6 months after d-day when I found that he spent $10 THOUSAND DOLLARS on jewlery for his big bag ass hoe. Why didn’t I turn it in when he spent our anniversary weekend in Cabo with her? ????????♀️. Oh I know ????????♀️….. ???? and Hopium. Mediation is next month. I find myself spinning still a year later. I can’t hold a job, think straight and feel emotionally healthy. I’m forced into co-parenting therapy with the fuck wit once a week. Which really just means we sit in a room where he makes promises only to do the exact opposite of what is asked of him. I am currently in deep therapy trying to figure out why I can’t seem to make a single decision about my future on my own, why I need persmission from ANYONE to move out of this dungeon and into a simple home or apartment… also there’s that not Holland down a job thing.
I don’t hold that marriage police badge anymore….. but I am struggling to hold onto my sanity.
This is why gaslighting and infidelity are spousal abuse. You are an abuse victim.
It’s NOT YOU – you are not crazy – you are having a normal reaction to horrible abuse. I am so glad about the therapy, but I hope your counselor realizes this and treats you with the respect you deserve.
Not2DaySatan, I am not an expert at anything so I might be wrong but your symptoms sound like mine, sort of PTSD from the trauma I’m going through. And the place you are is a terrible place to be, I know. I’m absolutely mesmerized and fascinated by what my brain is doing – I sort of feel like I’m in a cloud watching my life unfold and it’s really, really weird. I was always a totally logical and efficient person who never deviated from my standards and now I can’t figure out how to make hard-boiled eggs without looking it up but by the time I get to the cookbook, I’ve forgotten what I wanted to look up but then I sit there with the cookbook because I know I got it out for a reason and then I get into a real spin because I should plan something for dinner but I don’t know what day it is or who’ll be home tonight and so I go take a nap. It’s extremely frustrating to not be able to function with the simple tasks of life.
Have you talked to your doctor or counselor about it? They might be able to help. And if they shoo-shoo you or pat you on the arm, go to a different doctor or counselor. I went through that for years, sort of hung in there just like I did in a bad marriage because I didn’t have faith that I knew anything or that I mattered and deserved better. I finally have someone who is helping me and while I’m not there yet when it comes to making decisions about anything, I am starting to believe in my heart of hearts that I will again be able to. Plus I remember how to make hard-boiled eggs so I know I’m getting better. Now, if only I could decide how many to boil. 🙂
Lost and Not2
It is a PTSD. I was diagnosed with it during therapy and then threw into the whole
“ reconciliation based on the C’s books”
I remember being so confused and she’ll shocked.. our first homework was to “ set up a mood and have a lovely discussion about us and our plans for the future”
I’m looking back and scratching my head… WTF???
I dropped that therapist and now ( thanks to few sites and heaven sent CL) I understand why it was so difficult for me to “ work on the marriage” ….
It took Two years after that fiasco, to wake up from the cloud of mindfuckery and seeing my marriage for what it was.
Now, my mind? It looks like a mashy oatmeal on a bad day. Yes, I have good moments ( I make plans, I squeeze as much work and activities as I can) but then the crush comes and I am in a panic mode.
PTA meetings, doc’s Appointments , my work – I’m so scared of making any decision or commit to anything. I was on my own since the age of 20- and I mean, moving across the globe, learning two new languages, getting my degree …. and marrying my h.
It’s not a brainer…. my fear of commitment is strictly related to the fact that my biggest commitment resulted in depression, PTSD, shut down of my sexual needs, and complete betrayal by my h.
Keep your heads up, ladies – we will make it.
I played marriage police for six long horrible years. I was an excellent detective, I became an expert at breaking into emails, using the web to research phone numbers on his cell bill that I didn’t recognize, tailing him, etc etc. It was the most draining, stressful period of my life and the most unhealthy. Every discovery was followed by his apologies and promises and I so wanted to believe that I just kept going until I couldn’t anymore.
The irony is this: for all I thought I knew, once he died and I truly got access to EVERYTHING it was shocking how all my police work only gave me the tip of the iceberg. It was so much worse, so much more pervasive, so much more sick and deranged than I could have imagined. So my advice for anyone who hasn’t embarked on this pointless journey of policing someone who you took vows with is just don’t. Whatever you find still won’t be the full truth and frankly the first indiscretion I found should have been enough to send me running. I wasted a lot of years on a person that was never goi g to be trustworthy.
You are so right. I also spend 6 or more years being the marriage police. I thought I was good at it also. I had a GPS in his vehicles. I spent so much time looking at the map of his day to day activities.. .. .. which actually did not show me anything except that he lied to me about where he was daily. Those little lines and stoos were nothing but addresses I did not know. Houses of people I had no clue who they were. And I never did get any answers from him.
Wasband did not die but he finally left with the neighborhood party girl meth head. After he was gone I started hearing stories of things he did.. .. .. so even thou I don’t even full disclosure, I realized that all my many many hours of snooping was not even the tip of the iceberg of shady, hateful deception he was capable of.. ..
I wasted so much time trying to find proof. He was very very good at hiding, lying and sneaking around. Grey area. But something always felt off with his stories and explanations. I did not know about gaslighting, stone walling, projections and blaming… all I did was give him more time to tear me down and mess my head up more. By the time he ran off I was emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually and financially drained. My soul was tired. I couldn’t breathe and my breaking heart physically hurt my chest and body..
It took a little over 3 years to heal. Now 5 years out in January and I have my peace.
I had a few moments where I thought I was a Marriage Police Success because I broke into his computer and found the letter he wrote Susan of Seattle for her birthday. Trouble is, I learned just enough to think I knew it all when in reality I was looking at the tip of the iceberg. He claimed it was an emotional affair and I didnt find proof otherwise until after he was dead.
In wreckonciliation, I didnt do much policing…there is a possibility he stopped cheating for that era of his life but really, I dont know anything…there are deep rabbit holes of deceit that I dont even know the entrance location of.
Know however, that Im not all that anxiety ridden in my subsequent marriage…I dont fear a repeat for a number of reasons and if (God forbid) it happened again, I would know better how to respond.
Or, you could own a loudmouthed, tattle tale parrot.
P.S. Getting new thermostat with ALEXA voice command. This system if going to be four feet from her cage. Who wants to take bets on how many days it takes her to have conversations with Alexa?
Tango: “ALEXA! SPonGepants! Meow! {herekittykitty}!”
Alexa; “I’m sorry, I do not understand spongepantsmeowherekittykitty.”
Tango; “AlExA! doyouwantatreat?”
and on and on.
Magento! ???? I’ll never forget that one ???? GREAT job Tango the Tattler….ROTFLMAO
I love the potential corollary to the parrot story!
Please record this and post the video so we can see it!!!
I discovered a secret email account by chance when I forgot the password to an email account we had shared in the early years of our marriage. This was DD3 and I spent the next four months as the “Chief of the local marriage police”
During that time I discovered:
-He was a compulsive liar who used different names regularly with other women to cover his tracks
-At least six profiles on various dating sites
-Membership in a local “tall singles club” under a different name of course
-A past apartment downtown
-He’s a lazy, dumb-ass compulsive hoarder whose solution to everything was to dump it into containers and store it in the basement. Score for me when I discovered credit card statements that went back decades!!
I also discovered some other non-ho related bombshells that directly related to his character thanks to his lazy ass hoarding of paperwork that went back decades. My two favorites:
-The only college degree he had was one he created on a copy machine with rudimentary copy and paste skills (I always knew there was something was amiss since the Alumni association seemed to be able to find me through multiple moves yet he never received anything)
-He WAS fired from a company (whose arrogant CEO was sentenced to prison) along with the rest of the sales management team for the way they were booking revenue.
Probably the biggest victory of all was finding out he spent $1000 with a company called “Reputation Defender” to scrub his online presence. Too bad I had already been gathering information before they were able to get everything removed. The look on his face when I casually mentioned a few of my discoveries was priceless!
There were many more revelations which caused me to fling my “badge” Ninja style at his throat all while I quietly met with my lawyers and gave them the treasure trove they needed to nail his ass in the settlement.
Thanks to Chump Lady’s advice I was able to stay one step ahead of him throughout the entire divorce process and got information I may never have if I had tried to reason with the idiot.
I love the visual – flinging your marriage police badge at his throat ninja style!
“finding out he spent $1000 with a company called “Reputation Defender” to scrub his online presence”
Yep, my STBX asshat has that service as well. He also has a note from his phone (that synced to our family email account, which is for coparenting our kids) with the name of a companies to remove his information from the Ashley Madison hack.
#asshat
Oh, sadly I was like @CC I’d been on high alert for years (20+). Too many untrustworthy moments in our early days meant I doubted most things, of course my spackle was that it was ME, I was not good at trusting due to FOO stuff etc etc..
Nah he was just a lying cheating arsehole from the start. After DDay we lasted a couple of weeks of marriage policing before I’d had enough.
Wear your detective badge with honor. Just don’t make a career out of it.
Had I not done what I did, I would have never known the truth. He would have walked all over me, hoping for something that just was not what I thought it was.
It helped me recover later on. As well as attaching GPS locator, rolling under truck to retrieve, having feather accomplice in the love shack give me the apartment numbers and a quick lift of the trash on the street gave me all the info I needed. For free.
I’m not regretting a moment.
I got enough of the truth to start understanding what I was up against.
On the same note, I do not regret my 6 week pick me dance ala A.K.A. “setyourselfforafacepunch-builders”.
The biggest one is driving to the beach with my girlfriend to look for his car. He said he was going to the beach, alone, to think for the weekend about how he could be a better husband (read: I’m taking homeslice to the beach to bang her for her birthday weekend).
We drove through every beach front hotel, called the hotels to find the reservation (it was in her name). Didn’t find them…a good thing. But social media can be helpful….my friend had a mutual friend with homeslice and she took a screenshot of homeslice talking about her weekend with her man. That was enough.
I also drove out to her neighborhood and waited…. I needed to see his car. During the hour drive back I thought this is crazy making. I vowed to never do that again.
His sent emails (his email account was synced to our tablet) provided a lot of nuggets. The best was their correspondence about trying a Clone-A-Willie Vibrator Kit. I forwarded all of them to my account, printed them and saved them in a locked drawer at work. It was helpful during mediation…he surely didn’t want that being brought up in court.
I’m so glad I’m out of that phase. It was exhausting and consuming. I didn’t want to believe what I knew to be facts: we all eat lies when our hearts are hungry.
My husband cloned his willy too!! In bright pink. OMG. Is this a thing? And when she dumped him she sent it to me.. it went straight in the trash.
My ex told me Schmoopie’s husband (now ex) had walked two miles through the rain from their house to their rental in order to see ex’s car in his driveway. He remarked on how paranoid her then husband was to do such a thing. My response was “He wasn’t paranoid, he was right. I was the idiot who trusted you and got screwed.”
Always kept his phone locked and basically attached to him. Post Dday, I sorted the phone records online to see who he was talking to the most— I called the number and SHE answered. Imagine talking to her for 39 minutes on Christmas morning while your wife is upstairs. The second most frequent phone call was to his mother!
Next, acquired the bank records (that somehow were never mailed home). Discovered his spending $24,000 on taking HER to dinner every Wednesday (management meetings) and compulsive gambling. He also never even mentioned having eaten at that particular restaurant.
Next, the casino records. Well although I knew that he went every Saturday, learned that he also went Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. When he said he was meeting me “after work”, it was really from the casino.
Found the Cialis prescription when he never told me that he had changed from Viagra.
I found poetry on our computer that he had written her after one of our trips to Aruba.
I could go on and on and on. All of this was so disturbing and after a 36 year marriage, I will have a very difficult time in ever trusting anyone again. A few weeks ago, a coworker commented on how happy I always seemed. I responded “I guess I didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to be.”
Totally marriage police’d for a while, and you know what, life’s too short. It really, really is. Trust me on this one.
The thing is, most of the stuff you suspect them of: yep, they’re doing those things. And they’ll continue to lie and manipulate. It’s up to you to decide how much of this proof you need. I wish I had settled for less proof and not wasted the few weeks I did waste during false reconciliation hoping he would prove me wrong. That being said, when I got to big D-Day #2, I was like “Oh, okay, THAT’S how it is” and never looked back, not even once. So sometimes I’m grateful for the extra proof, as I never ever wonder “what if” anymore.
I was marriage police for the majority of my 16 year marriage. It started when I stumbled upon my STBX emailing some 19 year old girl all the sexual things he wanted to do to her, and a mountain of porn sites in the website history. That was back when computer monitors were the size of a standard moving box and the processor was a giant tower the size of a garbage can. My marriage was young back then, and so was I. I guess I spent the next 16 years having “who he really was” smack me in the face repeatedly, but for some reason I clung to who he told me he was! “A good, normal, healthy guy, who occasionally looked at porn (with an “insecure wife who needed to work on her self-esteem”)”. Only the definition of occasionally appeared to be subjective. Three to four hours a day morphed into, on demand, any time with the evolution of smart phones. Just for the record, 3+ hours of porn a day is not normal.
I am not proud of my service in the marriage police force, it taught me how many perverted and depraved websites (and people) there are. Those are things I never wanted to know… taking up valuable space in my head.
Every time I would confront him about those hook-up sites I found, there was always a plausibly deniable answer. It was spam, a disgruntled employee signed him up for porn sites, he accidentally clicked a link, blah, blah, blah! “Why was I spying on him anyway!” Of course this all ended with an affair with a stripper (d-day 1), and at least 4 hookers (d-day 2, my walking away day) that I know of – I’m sure there are probably many more.
I’m happy now NOT TO KNOW what the f*ck he’s doing! I saved my sanity and retired from the marriage police force!
I swear, GaB, I would think my ex was bigamously married to both of us if it weren’t for the fact that there weren’t enough hours in the day for ex to watch that many hours of porn at home and at your house and visit all his stripper buddies and maintain his ginormous spreadsheet of porn star statistics AND keep his job!! Hahahahahahaha
Beth,
It seems like they work from the same playbook. My ex asshat was gone so often I could see him being married to someone else, but that would be way too much commitment for him. Anything involving structure and stability was “boring” so I can’t image 2 people having expectations for him would be appealing. Though I think the deceit would thrill him!
A spreadsheet of porn star statistics?
Oh yes. Well over a thousand lines long – he liked to swap names in and out of the top 50 list. He had names, what sites he found them on, their measurements, birthday (maybe he sent them cards?), what country they were from, and whether they “did” men, women, anal or all of the above. So gross… I have no idea (and don’t want to know) where he found all of those stats. Being free of all that is bliss. 😀
Sounds like my STBX. When he left me for his married affair partner, one of the things he said was it was time to stop thinking of everyone else and do things for himself. (I’m not sure where the 4 year affair while I was sacrificing my career to pick up the slack raising the kids fits into this). These necessary indulgences included participating in a gang bang and having sex with a transsexual. He said “I’ve been watching porn for years and now I neee to participate”.
Oh dear God, that’s even worse than the porn “spreadsheet”. Ugh.
SADDLE UP, BITCHES. I GOT A STORY FOR YOU.
My husband had an affair and moved in with his affair partner.
Unfortunately for Dumb Ass, he forgot that we live in a small town where there is literally no such thing as a secret. Small enough that my personal attorney found about the affair before I did. Small enough to the part-time house cleaner from the other side of town knew about the affair before I did. Small enough that I was getting sympathy phone calls and office visits before I realized what was going on.
When I called him out on it, he insists that he never ever had an affair.
But.
But…
BUT!!!
He is living with his girlfriend right now.
How do I know this?
Pull up your chairs, fellow chumps, because this is the stupidest fucking thing you’ll ever hear.
His affair partner lives at my apartment complex.
As if I couldn’t figure out that his car moved a couple feet away.
As if their window doesn’t face mine.
As if I didn’t have to walk past her place to take out the trash.
As if my process server didn’t serve him the paperwork at her house.
I’m not sure if he is just that stupid, or if he thinks that I’m that stupid.
BONUS: My attorney also lives in the same apartment complex as me and gets to witness this ridiculousness first-hand.
That made me throw my head back with a huge laugh! Saddle up! ha ha ha ha
Omg. It’s most likely both. He’s a f*ing idiot AND he assumed you were too. What a pathetic stupid was pos!
The way you told your story cracks me up. You had me hooked at, “SADDLE UP BITCHES. I GOT A STORY FOR YOU.” Luv it!!!
I thought my fool was the stupidest cheater of all time, but yours gets the crown. Incredible! Is he brain damaged or something?
Mine is so dumb that he went right up to my brother when he saw him at a concert he and the ho were attending and pointed out his mistress in the crowd, telling my bro he was with a “friend from work”. Bro hadn’t even spotted him yet and they could have just walked away and not been caught. That is some powerful stupid.
OMG, what a clusterf*ck!
For 2 years I knew he changed towards me. Spending time with “friends “. He wouldn’t give me his cell number,dying his hair, taking walks around the neighborhood on his cell, etc. Then the OWHORE called our home asking for him. I picked up the phone
& she proceeded to tell me my than husband told her I date other men! He sat there on the computer playing chess while the OWHORE & I had it out. Saw him at a club with her.. he quickly left with her. Too many things to after that. I finally caught them together at her house where they cruelly verbally attacked me.
After that I served him divorce papers at her house (he was spending the weekend with her).
I had to stop being the marriage police because I was losing weight, my mind & was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Two years divorced now but I’ll never forget the humiliation & pain I felt at that time ???? So glad to be free of the evil sociopath who tried to kill me a little more everyday. BTW the owhore died last year & he quickly moved into another woman’s house. He told my son he doesn’t want to be alone.
Monsters do walk among us .. ????
Yes, they do, Kathleen. Thank goodness, we got out.
Miss Bailey
That’s very true. Terrible to find out that the person who we thought loved us, never did. ????
Stay strong my friend. ❤️
I did the marriage police thing, going whole hog. It was a condition of wreck-onciliation. She had to give me access to her phone, e-mail, the whole 9 yards, and never ever speak to that DB ever again. I didn’t tell her, but I also put a tracker on her PC, and something on her phone (which didn’t really work). I stayed up late at night going through all her e-mail and watching screen captures of all her activity on her computer. I read each and every stupid text message. I got suspicious when the e-mail password was changed without her telling me (I saw her do it on the PC tracker). I saw messages that they simply switched to other apps (Instagram, of all things) and ways to message each other. I talked to a lawyer, who told me I needed proof of what was going on to avoid paying alimony (in North Carolina, cheaters don’t ever get alimony). I put a tracker in her car, and hired a PI.
A few days after that, it didn’t matter, she left me for Prince Cheating anyway. The PI was able to prove that she kept seeing him, so at least I didn’t have to pay alimony (thank the Lord for that silver lining). I made myself watch most of one of the videos, where they fooled around in the back of a car in broad daylight in an alley behind a restaurant (wow, how classy! I bet that smelled great). I nearly threw up watching it.
Let me warn anyone who wants to join the marriage police: it’s exhausting, and it’s a waste of time.
I’m so embarrassed thinking People who want to cheat will always find a way. You will never trust that person ever again. If you need to do it for legal reasons (as I did), fine, but otherwise, just leave and go.
In your state playing marriage police with the help of the p.i. wasn’t a total waste of time and resources. Lucky you doesn’t have to pay any alimony !
Sorry, that should have said “I’m embarrassed thinking of how much time and energy I wasted trying to watch someone else’s every move. She had agency, she could’ve chosen to behave better. There is no way to have a marital relationship with someone you can’t trust.”
I did my fair share of marriage policing throughout our marriage. The most memorable was at the very end… really, pre DDay. He’d left without warning, “just not happy” after 23 years. I didn’t want a divorce, but wasn’t going to live in limbo so I got an attorney and filed.
We met to sign the paperwork and then went to the bank to remove my name from an account he set up years before. The bank employee rattled off an address I didn’t recognize. SBX tried to ignore, redirect, gaslight, lie, deny. I spent the weekend “policing.”
I hadn’t heard the house number exactly, but got the street. Turns out it was only a couple blocks long. Monday morning I staked it out. Turned out to be my DDay when ge walked her out to her car and kissed her. I was spotted. Wasn’t really hiding. She got in her car and drove off. He hightailed it back inside. I called. He ignored. I waited. He had to go to work. I confronted. He tried to shame me and that was the last time I willingly spoke to him.
The last 2 months of my marriage were a blur as was the first couple of after Dickhead told me he wanted a divorce.
Back in November 2017, I had asked the Dick if he wanted to go with me on a birding trip in February to Duluth. It was a long weekend and I thought I would be a way to have a good time without the pressures of home and work. Three days before we left, we had a tiff at dinner that started when he flippantly asked me if he had to go birding with me. We are only talking about 2 days of birding, mostly from the car with an occasional foray off the road. I got upset because I knew, deep in my gut, that he would sabotage the trip. He got peeved because I took offense at his tone, which he claims I misunderstood. I didn’t. He wasn’t laugh or joking when he said it. Actually, he said it with a tinge of snide and sneer.
The next 2 months, things just went downhill. He stopped texting and calling me, he very rarely asked anything about me. At one point in late March, he told me he was going to the doctor. I asked him why and he gave some bullshit response. I found later, after he said the divorce word, that he got a diagnosis of low testosterone and, later, a script for Viagra. He never told me any of this. Hell, I’m not even sure why he told he was going to the doctor. I felt like a roommate sharing space with an angry man.
Two weeks after he filed, and after I threw myself at him at an attempt for intimacy (he declined), did I go looking for anything that would give me some clue as to what the hell had just happened. Through the cell phone records, I found that he had been visiting hookers the last two months of the marriage, and I found evidence of the exit affair that started in April 7th (he filed April 24th) and they are still together today. I’m sure I would have found more in Facebook but I knew all that I needed to know.
The whole thing seems like a blur from a bad movie. Looking at that the fateful conservation in February still leaves me shaking my head with immense sadness. I had planned something good and he turned it into shit. He had changed then and I just didn’t understand what was going. The gaslighting and lies were all there. And, I was doing the pick me dance but I didn’t know what it was at the time. I will never forgive him for treating me with such disrespect and disdain. I had done nothing to deserve that coldness, the deceit, or blatant disregard for me as a person and as his wife.
Miss Bailey, you are welcome to go birding with me. We may not have Snowy Owls, but we do have Scissortail Flycatchers in the Spring/Summer!
After Dday1 I became an expert at data triangulation — diary, cell phone records, receipts.
I wanted that one Anchor of Truth — proof that she was with whom she said, where and when she said. I needed just that one truth to be able to slowly trust again. Instead I found more lies.
My final dday was at 2am, when I woke up to search for a hotel name where she had gone with a ‘girl friend’ for the weekend. I was deleted from my phone. Gaslighting much? But I had kept a backup. And she finally admitted to the affair. And that was the end.
My ex used to take his mobile phone, to the bathroom, incase wonder woman, ow, called him at 2 am, “come and meet me”, 6am, before pay day, “yes I will meet you”, as I was putting the kids to bed, fortnightly, even 28 times on Xmas day, the plans they must have made. Personally I think an exorcist would have been more helpful than the marriage police.
If toting along a dead body in your vacation vehicle is like continuing on policing your marriage, then I guess that no contact is making sure the lid is secure on that 55 gallon drum. (this body in the back seat is a great visual on the dead marriage CL)! The stench gets hard to take.
I was guilty of marriage policing seeing if I could somehow save my huge investment of decades of life.
I however was in a couple years past D-Day when I found CL. I tried many things mentioned here already.
You folks who found CL right away are so, so lucky! There was no information I could find that wasn’t eating the shit sandwich in some form, and when your mind is being screwed with you are off kilter and need solid common sense to bring you to your senses. Even very strong people can get caught in this vortex to hell. Thanks Chump Lady!
Truth. I found CL about a year after Dday and it helped stop the madness, gave me the words for my thoughts and feelings. I still made many wrong decisions, but began the ongoing journey toward self empowerment. Those who find CL straightaway are being given a gift.
I found CL only a few days after D-day. I don’t know how I would gotten through those early dark days with her sage advice. The chumps, their stories, their guidance have been a god-send. And thank the stars for No Contact – best advice ever.
I went on so many fact-finding missions that I couldn’t even begin to imagine the time spent on them. When you’re married to a liar and you want the actual truth, it’s pretty much the only way you’ll ever find the truth. So if you want the truth, that’s what you have to do to get it.
Every time I found a new piece of proof/evidence of yet another woman, another affair or another lie, I felt one of the worst feelings in the world. It’s a panicked tingling that starts in your chest and hurts like hell. Then it goes down your legs and out of your feet. Your head gets tight and everything but the computer/phone/picture or whatever it is you’re looking at gets blurry and you nearly go deaf. Ears start ringing and fingers start shaking. Maybe it’s the adrenaline? I don’t know. Then you try to read the words of the email or enlarge the picture, check the timestamp, compare and contrast it to what you can remember going on in your own life at that time by going through your own old texts to try to remember the day that you now know your husband was with another woman. Then that just gets you going even more, wanting to know what else you can find out about their affair and that other woman. When it seems like you’ve found out everything you can about that affair, you move on to the next and it easily becomes one of those games with no end. You go back and forth between this affair and that affair, finding new ones all along the way, questioning practically every woman he’s ever met other than relatives and wonder just how much there is that you’ll probably never find out.
It’s torture. Plain and simple.
Yes! Excellent description @Lastinline! Oh the mental AND physical torture. Comparing dates & times of what was going on in your life & what you were doing at the time. For me, pulling out & going over old calendars to try & figure it out. Attempting to make sense of the senseless. We just end up mindfucking our selves even more. Ugh!
Agree!
Pure hell….
The worst? Realization that him setting up accounts on dating sites was week (?!?)prior to our engagement…. scheduling the hooker- when I was abroad taking care (!!!) of his mother… dating other women when I was pregnant with our 2nd child, while taking care of our toddler , and getting my degree( full time)…. or maybe coming across the web history and pics of other women, while taking a break from feeding our baby at 2am at night?
Hell.
I did enough detective work to figure out that his version of the affair was a crock of shit, as I had suspected. Dumbass didn’t know google maps kept track of everywhere he went with his hideous sow and his google activity kept track of his searches about getting a divorce and the issues around age difference when marrying somebody younger. The Asshole had told me the affair wasn’t that serious, but had actually been planning to divorce me for years. When confronted, the fool even tried to tell me the divorce searches were for my mom. Somehow he forgot that my dad was already dead at the time. Lol. Among many other things, google maps timeline also showed he was at a pub with his mistress the day my dad passed, when he said he was “too busy at work” to come and comfort me after I had just watched my father die and was all alone. Love you, google maps! Hate you, cheating cretin!
He actually tried repeatedly to make me believe that google was wrong and I should believe him, not google. I roared with laughter at that one.
When you think and feel, “it’s not supposed to be this way,” you are absolutely right AND you are telling yourself the truth. When you police you are either trying to catch a cheater or you are trying to reassure yourself that you are “safe”. Either way, the hypervigilance keeps your body in a perpetual state of stress which is hurting you. This means you are not safe in this relationship. You aren’t going to be. You may desire to be beyond all reason, you may bargain, you may plead, you may wish, you may believe pretty lies, you may deny – but the bottom line is you aren’t safe with that person and you never will be. And that sucks. It’s no way to live.
On the other side of this nightmare there is amazing goodness to be found. Thousands of us are out here who can tell you with certainty that you need to do what Tracy says because she is telling the truth. It’s so much better on the side of truth. I am so thankful for this website and the voices who reassured me and helped me move through my pain until I reached the other side.
I think I earned my badge! I had rearranged my life, given up my career, relocated and bought our third house-which required a giant loan–a mere 2 years before I discovered everything. That was 15 years into our marriage and 19 years into our relationship. The woman was married with a kid also. So of course I did a quick google search and found her Linked In-her name was too common to find her Facebook page but I knew her job title so I found the Linked In. But then I discovered more, worse shit going through his email-like he had flown her out to stay in our house while I went on a trip with the kids that he couldn’t join us for –because of “work”. And he had airline tickets and hotel reservations in Madrid for the next month. I didn’t have her husband’s name. He lived in London. All I knew was his name was Mike and he was in some sort of music business. So I found a Mike in her LinkedIn contacts and he owned a music business in London so I clicked on his name and there was a Facebook link and then I found her facebook page in his list of friends. So I direct messaged him and told him who I was married to and that his wife had been staying in my house 2 weeks prior. He immediately contacted me back and I learned that he had found out about the affair 4 YEARS PRIOR!!! But had been tricked into thinking it was over until I contacted him. SO he filed for divorce. And then she contacted me calling me a crazy person and that she couldn’t believe I’d contacted her husband. I pointed out that she had had sex with my husband, while I had merely sent hers a facebook message, and that I believed her contact with my husband was a bit crazier than my contact with hers. I also went through phone records and traced the beginning of their relationship to long before I moved and gave up my job for him. After a few months, I got it in my head that maybe she and her husband wanted to get their hands on my (now soon to be ex) husband’s money. So using the theory that men will accept a friend request from any woman, I created a fake Facebook account and just put a picture of a gorgeous woman (by typing “gorgeous woman” into google images) and then sent friend requests to some of her male friends. Three of them accepted and she, being tech-unsavvy seemed to have her Facebook setting so that anything she posted could be seen by friends of friends. I was then able to bust him taking my kids to the Maldives with her and her son, while lying to me about it. Because the bitch posted pictures of MY KIDS on her facebook page. When she learned that somehow I had found out she was there (and I told her husband), she once again accused me of being crazy. I again pointed out that she had posted pictures of my children on her facebook page. I had not done anything with her kid. I instructed her on facebook privacy settings. The pictures went away. Now that’s not a good source of info but I’m finally done. I turned my badge in.
Bwahaha, they clearly screwed with the wrong woman!
Love how after these cheaters totally upend YOUR life, they are concerned about what injustices they have to endure, however slight.
Poor them! Victims I tell you!
I love your story. It’s a lot like what I did with connecting the dots online. So many of these women have such an insatiable need to make sure others know that they look good that they basically tell their whole lives on social media, making it easier for us amateur detectives to catch them.
Another pattern that I’ve noticed amongst cheating husbands is that they like to use the crazy/psycho thing as a threat to scare their wives into staying quiet so that they can do anything they want with no consequence or accountability and the women who participate in these affairs have picked up on that trick and started using it themselves in hopes of keeping the wife a silent little lamb. The problem is that some of us aren’t scared by that anymore. I’m crazy? I’m psycho? Yup, sure am. Now, getting back to the proof I’ve found…. Because that little trick to keep me quiet doesn’t work anymore.
Yes I got accused of being psycho. And in fact for the first few months when I was still speaking to the STBX, he would constantly imply that I was going to go blast out any information I got about someone, because of the fact I contacted his whore’s husband. He seemed incapable of distinguishing between a random person’s spouse and the woman who destroyed my life by sleeping with my husband’s spouse. I now know this is all gaslighting. Making it seem that all my actions are crazy and trying to create the impression that I was just a totally unpredictable psycho. The last time he said something along those lines I said, “Does this story have anything to do with someone you fucked? If it doesn’t, I am not going to tell their boss/spouse.” Oh and I forgot about this doozy. The stupid OW added my number to her contacts. One day I got a flurry of group text messages and the last one was the first one I saw. It just said, “Is this… (insert name of morally bereft husband fucker) ?” I saw her number as the initiator of the group text –easy to recognize since she lives in England so it is +447. I responded to only the last text message with , “No this is not stupidfuckbunny –but rather a woman who is not particularly happy about her existence.” So apparently the man I sent the to was the director of the American branch of the company she works for –the one she would travel to to fuck my husband. She was absolutely mortified that I “contacted her boss” and my STBX reprimanded me saying I could have gotten her in trouble and why was I acting like a crazy person texting her boss. (I had no idea who the numbers on the group text belonged to). I explained to my STBX that I was included on a group text and had not sought out this person. His explanation? She has another Katie in her contacts she meant to include and when she typed “Katie” my number got added. I paused, “Why did she add me to her contacts, exactly? Because I can find her number with my mad detective skills, but she is not in my contacts.” He had no answer. Just repeated that I’m psycho.
Yes. How often are we being told that it is us, who is at fault. That we are the crazy ones for snooping and going through their stuff. For pointing out their lies.
What helped me was breaking everything down into small pieces, and focusing only on what the very next thing I needed to do was. So for example, on a bad day where I couldn’t get it together to leave the house, I gave myself steps. “I need to shower.”- I would walk to the bathroom. “All I have to do is get in the shower.” – get undressed and stand in the shower. “I need to turn on the water. I need to soap up, then I can just stand under the water and let it wash over me.” -turned on the water, picked up the soap, and to get through using energy to soap up, I gave myself the reward of just standing under the water. This may be extreme for some people, but it was what I had to do. Otherwise, I was overwhelmed. Using this technique, I worked full time, got a bachelors and masters degrees in accounting, and raised three toddlers by myself. It works.
Susannah…. so simple…. so clever….
I did this, too. Everything was in 5-minute increments at first, then 20 minutes, then 1/2 hour, an hour, etc. I look back at that and really understand and take to heart that I was abused. In plain sight.
Cheaters and their apologists are monsters.
Oops. This was supposed to be a reply to Not2DaySatan.
I spent a few months on the marriage police force. I bought a couple clever gadgets and did some epic detective work that I’d prefer not to mention on a public forum. But the simplest, most clever thing was that early into wreckonciliation I learned my ex’s iphone password. Then I went into her iPhone settings and added my fingerprint to her phone’s Touch-ID list before finding text and email evidence of her infidelities.
I confronted her and she lied and gaslighted and explained it all away. Then she changed her password. Now that she felt assured her phone was protected, she carried on as usual. Occasionally she would suspect I was snooping and she would often change her password. But the fuckwit had no idea I was regularly accessing her phone over the next few months simply by pressing iTouch and I was able to get a clear understanding of her depravity and severe disorder. I also compiled enough evidence to be fully prepared for divorce.
It was the most painful time of my life. But that clever iTouch trick was the advantage I needed to get unstuck. Divorce was inevitable. But I was able to get there much sooner because I had a window to reality.
GDD! Your iTouch finger was brilliant!! Glad you got the real story and get out!!
I used a tablet our kid had which was synced up to both our phones to look into her Facebook. I did so becsuse in her contacts in this tablet was the number of the guy she cheated on me with. after she assured me she had blocked and stopped talking to him……twice. ….and only after I saw messages in her Instagram from him……
to be fair her Facebook was open on this tablet so no crazy need to find a password.
not only did I find out shexwas still in contact with that asshole but apparently was already sleeping around with multiple otgers and bragging to her friends how awesome it was and how humiliating it was I posted a vague post on FB on how my trust and loyalty was not returned etc.
while she was out she was out and not looking to come back, even after i asked her to talk and i wanted to forgive her i found all this out a short month after finding out she cheated and left and had been happening pretty much as soon as she left and the day after i tried to make peace for our kids and me and she gave a ‘heartfelt apology’ which looking back was just more about her woes of what she lost(on purpose)what she fucked up (on purpose) but didn’t seem to want to do anything about other than ‘live with it forever” poor victim???? she might have checked out long before but I didn’t neither did our kids. an astounding lack of remorse or careto even try to eat cake. I dont think I ever felt as worthless tgen as i read those messages.
anyhow i got whst i asked for by looking and policing and not trusting. sadly all justified and that was the day I turned in my badge. it was a lot and brutal all at once but looking back in glad I got there very early on and she knew the jig was up. my friend is going through years of a kibble cake eater now and it looks horrible
I was watching the Nikita series at that time and I felt like I was her during my tracking stage. It was disturbingly/sickly invigorating as I lost enough weight in the process to actually weigh the same as Nikita! My Sis warned me that I need to make sure I am absolutely sure he is cheating BEFORE I confront him. She warned me that she even had PI photo’s of her ex with his OW and he STILL DENIED being with her WHILE SHE WAS SHOWING HIM THE PHOTO’S!?! I am so glad she warned me because I was 100% positive before I ever said a word to him. It was in Wreckonciliation though that I downgraded a bit from Nikita to simply top notch Private Eye. I nailed him pretty quickly after that.
Oh yes, I was a Columbo. Even had a similar raincoat.
This was end of 1996, we just got on the internet end of December. January 6 he woke me up to tell me about a gal he was talking to on an AOL sex chat group. He said “she lives in CT but still has her profile saying she lives on Long Island.” We lived in NJ. That was so damn suspicious to me, I knew he was lying, and so I kept my ears and eyes open. One day in January he told me that he made a “new profile” because we shared one profile but he wanted his own; he tried so many combinations of passwords that he forgot the password that he entered. So, I would see the new profile but it couldn’t be used. Knew he was lying. Huge red flag. As he had cheated on me once before, and he knew if he did it again that I was through, I decided to give him his rope.
Well, he is an OB/GYN and one Friday night he was downstairs in the family room on the phone. This was a phone we never used; we got it with our fax machine and it was plugged into the fax line. He said he was talking to the labor room as a patient was in labor. But they always called our home line and the hone never rang. Suspicious. In the morning I found a tall drinking glass half filled with water in the spotless family room. He had left for office hours. I asked myself why would he need such a big glass of water if he was only talking to the labor room, that would only take a few minutes, no need to be there for so long. So I picked up that extra phone and hit the “recall” button, and it wasn’t the labor room nurse that answered, but some sleepy woman. I went right out to Radio Shack and bought a voice activated recorder and a gizmo that plugs into it on one and and into a phone jack on the other. Hid it in the guest room so he wouldn’t see it, and caught him the next morning, a Superbowl Sunday, talking to the OW. He had another doctor cover for him on the Friday before and he drove to LI, met her in a motel there, and that was what they were talking about.
That week I figured out, on 2 tries, the password to the account that he “didn’t know the password to” and copied all the emails he sent her. Made copies of all financials, too. Confronted him on that Thursday, played my tape for him. Couldn’t lie his way out of it. Saw the attorney early February, moved out the middle on March and kept to no contact. Got more than half. A friend told me he has married 3 more times since then. Karma is a bitch.
Valerie, I did the same thing 20+ years ago. Even went to Radio Shack, as you did. After I confronted him with the taped conversation, he swore he would cut her off immediately. He came to me weeks later to tell me that the MOW said that it was illegal to tape conversations between them. Yeah, I knew that. I did break the law, but apparently he also broke no-contact with her. That day he moved out to live with her. He later moved back with me and our children. Don’t know why, but through all the subsequent abuse (including more STDS), I never tried to catch him again. A part of me knew he hadn’t changed his ways, a bigger part of me didn’t want to know. Over the years, I would tell or ask him about various things that I saw or overheard that were suspicious, but gaslighting was one of his specialties. Still trying to forgive MYSELF for that. He will be waiting forever for that same forgiveness.
That was epic ! “Hi my name is karma and I’m a bitch !”
I had access to all my now ex-husband’s online passwords after Dday. I basically stayed logged in to his FB all day long and would refresh the page like it was my job… I did frequent “phone checks” and for months I could never, ever find anything. I KNEW he was still doing it and going further “underground” as we say here… I just didn’t know how. I thought I was going crazy because I just could NOT find the evidence to back up my intuition. Long story short, I FINALLY figured out that he would reinstall his Messenger App (that I made him get rid of after dday) and add/talk to multiple women (You can add people on Messenger App without being “Friends” with them on FB). He’d UNinstall Messenger before he came home, thus, “passing” my phone checks. BTW, I figured it out on the very day I left him for the second time. He accused ME of having an affair with his friend.
I did so much of this. We were together for so long it was easy. I had all his information. For months I hunted down his secrets and misdeeds. I once impersonated him to get accesss to one of his travel site accounts. I installed key tracker software on his laptop to find passwords. I was obsessed with finding the truth.
I’m not proud of any of this. I’ve forgiven myself and understand why I did it. But like many others…never again.
The man I’m currently dating is an open book. He leaves his cell lying around after giving me his password (though I’ve not looked). He doesn’t do secrets. It’s so much better this way. Such freedom to not be the marriage police anymore. It was exhausting.
I knew she started cheating again, about 3 months after she “came clean” after the D Day that preceded that D Day by 9 months. I was checking mileage, money, etc and knew.
What I didn’t know is she’d dump that cheater and start with another. While i was searching for “proof”. If I found it, I was just going to live living in an open marriage I figured. I didn’t want to lose everything I fought for. Kids, home etc.
I did find proof, but proof she was now banging a junkie. She was stealing my children’s money and giving it to him. I realized then, it wasn’t about cheating. It was about getting over. She knew I forgave the affair. What fun is that? So her behavior became more egregious. It was then I knew, if I forgave this, next would be worse. So I filed. She swore to destroy me and take everything. She almost has. That was the one thing she didn’t lie about.
I hate her on your behalf. The greedy female cheaters are so disgusting. No shame.
I did everything!! I had a gps, a spy pen, and went through the phone and computer when he was sleeping. I would listen to him ask to see her private’s on my spy recorder and listen to them say horrible things about me. The energy it must have taken to lead the double life is mind blowing. It was the most diabolical stuff I have ever heard. It took me a long time to come to terms with it and some days I’m not sure that I have still. Being a chump changes you. Listening to your husband tell someone they want to f*%# is a entirely different level. I talked to many of the women on the phone. He would tell people we knew that we were divorced if he was with the AP. There was the AP and then women he cheated on both of us with. I’m so lucky I did not get a STD.
I could not accept it for the longest time. I’m happy to say that I have filed for divorce, sole custody and graduate from nursing school in May. I don’t know if I will ever trust again but waking up alone with my kids and dogs is so much better than the hell of all of that.
So. Much. Better.
My “WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING?” moment came when I took the bag of garbage he brought home from his weekend “mowing his parents’ lawn at their house on Cape Cod.” I brought it to a local park and picked the bag apart, tossing items into a dumpster after inspecting it. There was evidence of a cookout, receipts for a LOT of alcohol, and dirty feminine products.
I’ve never been so disgusted or felt so low… with myself. From that moment on, I turned in my Marriage Police badge and trusted he sucked.
Later on, I recovered from my self-shame and had a good giggle that he didn’t “get any” that weekend. He was always grossed out by anything related to the menstrual cycle.
I purchased a recording device for his car. I wanted true proof he was still fucking that whore. Hopeium was strong at that point! Cheater asked for a divorce by this time and I found chumplady. Take another hit. Wtf was I thinking? When the recording device came in I was like…why am I spending 78 dollars on this cheater to know what I already know? I know in my mind he is a manipulative turd who screwed over his wife, marriage and nuclear family. I returned that recorder and used the money to take our son out for father’s day while he went to a festival with his whore.
I wasted so much time being the marriage police and launching my investigation. Energy that I could have spend on myself and healing. However, had I not invested the time and energy, I would not know that he continued lying to me and continued the affair. For what it is worth, this cold water bucket of being married to someone that does not care about me at all is all I needed to move on.
I am glad that I did not let things go and continued searching, because he nearly had me convinced after the first DDay in April that it was again just me being crazy, not letting go, being angry, and at fault. Finding that he continued cheating, lied even after confronted three times, and then blaming me again for not giving him a choice was eye opening. I now feel nothing but contempt for him.
I am just testing to see if the problem is my computer or the post I am trying to post. I tried three times and it didn’t go through but I also didn’t get an in mediation message or anything. Weird.
Even replying to myself didn’t work. There must be something in my post that is triggering the firewall because it just refuses to post. I can’t imagine what that might be. Anybody else having problems today?
I’ve been in moderation since 9 this am. Don’t know why.
Great stories here.
My career in The Marriage Police Force was short yet painfully exhausting. Thank goodness I did it because it was the kick in the pants to change my life.
I had been so expertly gas-lighted that seeing the evidence I got from doing some pretty clever hacking (key loggers!) and simply looking at cell phone records was proof that I was not a “negative” paranoid terrible husband and my gut was correct. I have no idea how much longer (years?) I would have been trapped in that purgatory if I had not worn a badge for a few months before submitting my resignation.
It’s so hard to believe they don’t think about the phone trail they leave:
After a message from Verizon that we were “almost out of minutes” – this made no sense to me! – I checked the records and saw THOUSANDS of texts and HOURS of calls to and from a particular number. Fucktard had left the house early that day, so with landline in left hand and cell phone in the right, I called him on cell, and as he answered, called the suspect number on the landline. He answered with “Hi, Sweetie!” just as her phone rang in the background.
I said, “I know you’re at her place, that’s me calling her phone from the landline. And I know what’s going on.” “Oh… um… yeah, I guess I’m busted.”
Fucking idiot.
Wow, such a clever move.