SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I (60F) am currently destroyed after discovering my husband’s secret life. I found a burner phone he forgot in the car and discovered he’s been looking at excessive porn and contacting escort services.

When I confronted him, he admitted to a text conversation but claimed he got "sucked into a gift card scam" and didn't actually go through with anything because he "knew how he’d feel afterward." I’m not buying it. He’s a cheap bastard, and it looks more like he was just hunting for a "budget" escort under $100 and got caught up in a scammer’s trap instead.

What’s killing me is the gaslighting and the double standard.

When I try to talk to him about how I feel—how he could hurt me like this after complaining about a "disconnect" in our sex life—he shuts down. He says he "doesn't feel well," he’s "too stressed,". tells me it’s "not a good time" and calls me crazy and jealous for tracking his phone when I see him sitting at a Dunkin' Donuts for 40 minutes for no reason.

I could really use some input and advice.

Typical behavior. It's quite common for the WS's to do everything they can to deflect, to get you to think you're crazy, to minimize what you have discovered, all in hopes that you will second guess yourself and just let it go and sweep it under the rug.

The best thing you can do is what is known as the 180. Stop trying to pull conversation out of him. Start treating him as if he does not exist. Limit your conversations to what you have to such as the house or the kids but anything beyond that just walk away

Reconciliation will not work unless the WS is willing to do ANYTHING to repair the relationship. Until such behavior starts happening R will not work

Start auditing your financials to see what he has been spending money on

If he has a problem with you knowing where he is that speaks volumes, and not in a good way

I am so sorry this is happening to you.

People say with regard to advice is to take what you like and can use and leave the rest. I can share my experience years out and I can say that I wanted answers. I had a hard time believing my exwh was capable of what he did. I wanted to heal the marriage. But in retrospect I personally regret I wasted a minute of my precious life time trying to figure out exactly where my exwh was and what (or who) he was doing. Instead I wish I had taken all of the energy and appropriate amounts of marital resources and focused on MY healing, MY well being, My physical, spiritual, emotional and financial health.

This can be a blindside. It was for me. And I needed to start thinking strategically immediately which is hard when I had been the equivalent of being figuratively stabbed in the back by the person closest to me. I personally needed to see clearly my EXWH’s personal traits, character and behavior and act accordingly.

There are former waywards on these boards that I respect very much. I have every reason to believe that they fixed their reasons for cheating and took full responsibility and became safe partners. But the thing I now believe is that someone who is going to do that is going to be willing to move mountains to get back to a strong relationship that is safe and supportive.