Am I overreacting ? Why does my husband (41m) lie and hide everything from me, then blame me? (36F)
I genuinely feel like I’m the problem because I’m the one on my second marriage. I’m the one who has been cheated on emotionally before but even trying to make clear boundaries I still feel like it’s unreasonable.
I’m not saying I’m an angel, far from it but I also feel like I’ve put up with it a lot in my previous marriage and k really felt I communicated the best I could of how that impacted me (secrecy, hidden meetings/messages/calls. Locked devices. Lies. Sitting in the loo for hours on the phone) but then on our honeymoon to literally caught him red handing giggling and chatting to an ex (who year prior to us) I said very straight how he knew about my ex, he knew how I felt and that I had a clear expectation and it wasn’t even not to do it (whimp!) but to not hide it!
Fast forward and the phone lock changes (blames his kids using his phone) I believe it.
Then he shares that he sent flirty messages to his friend at work and regrets it.
He won’t do it again
We move on and I trust him but deep down I’m just scared to even look or ask. His phone is always on ‘personal’ always locked and honestly - I wouldn’t even know if it’s his old lock code cus I’m scared to know or to see what it wasif it was the old one
Last week I was made aware of another muted conversation with another woman.
I didn’t even fight it.
I didn’t ask a lot
I waited for him to turn it on my ‘mistrust’ and left it
I’m trying to enjoy the good bits
I’m trying to see the positives
I’m trying to recognise that so much of this is his low self esteem and control issues
And most days I take the good and I believe everything I tell myself
The rest of the time I just know the fact he’s done nothing physical means he can repeatedly say ‘I’ve done nothing wrong’
Yet, to me, physical would draw a line. The emotional toll is killing me. Cus I still believe in him and us. But I just think I deserve more, I’m just scared to lose our good bits - but then I keep thinking he doesn’t care.
I want to raise it. That it was a clear boundary 3 years ago when I caught him and Kate messaging. But I’m too scared he’ll blame me. Or not talk to me for months. Or say he hid it cus of how I’d behave.
But I didn’t even look. A glitch on his tech made it glaringly obvious and now I just have to wait to be replaced. Just like I was in my last marriage.
Fucking great. Am I over reacting ?? Or am I just too scared of asking for the truth.
I just need advice on whether this just his control / insecurities or something to do with me or our marriage !?
tl;dr - husband was once head her heels & now I’ve caught him twice talking to other women (once literally say him, once saw a muted convo) and he also got caught at work messaging inappropriately and told me about it. Why does he do that?