I think he's cheating
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I think he's cheating
| Mon, 12-12-2005 - 2:36pm |
Hello, I'm new here. I really need some advice. I was surfing the internet yesterday and I wanted to go to a website I had went to last week so I pulled up the History on the computer. I got quite a shock. Apparently, my live-in boyfriend has been looking for someone to cheat on me with. I knew he looked at pornography on the internet...I can handle that...but he had gone to several "hook-up" sites. Maybe I'm too sensitive, maybe it's nothing but he searched for "women looking for men" in our area code. Any ideas about how I should handle this?

Does he actually have a profile posted, or was he "just" doing a search?
I do think there's a distinction to be made between someone who has a profile posted and someone who does an idle search just to see if anyone they know comes up or whatever. I would ask him about it...explain how you happened to see it and ask him what he was doing, NOT in an accusatory way but in an "I need information so I can figure out if this behavior is ok" way. Hopefully you trust him to tell you the truth...if not, then that's another issue altogether.
Sheri
Until I hear more from you I won't be able to say whether I think you do or don't have anything to worry about, but I do agree with Sheri. I've lurked in singles and dating sites to see if anyone I knew or recognized was looking for dates online (when I lived in a small town) as well as just out of curiosity of who/how many in my area were on the site. I will say though, that in my searches since I'm not looking to hook up with anyone I'm looking at both the "men seeking" and the "women seeking". Is it possible he just looked out of idle curiosity? Did he post a profile or get an account at the site? Those are the questions I'd need answered before I could have a better feeling for what the situation is.
I'll be checking back for your answers.
~ cl-2nd_life"You can't control the length of your life,
but you can control the width and depth."
~ Author unknown
"Ignoring the facts
does not change the facts"
I've looked at both 'women seeking' and 'men seeking' before too. It's just an interesting time killer to see what type of people are out there.
When searching, sometimes I look on dating websites - but I have looked at sex websites too. I tend to do it out of morbid curiosity. Trying to get my head around the fact that someone would post a picture of their genitals instead of a more attractive view LOL
Obviously, the kind of looking your husband is doing does not fall into the "okay", "innocent browsing" or "morbid curiosity" categories. You're right to be concerned, hurt, alarmed, angry, violated and outraged.
I hope you get some outside help with this. It may not be as hopeless as it might seem, but you'll need the help of a professional therapist to hope to work this out and have a happy, healthy relationship. I recently read a book written by the very well respected and renown psychologist Harriet Lerner, who said sometimes affairs (online and emotional affairs apply) serve to stabilize relationships and help keep the real issues safely underground; it stabilizes the marriage so that neither partner pushes for change. In that way, the affair allows the partner who's in the affair to distance emotionally and keeps them satisfied with their relationship as it is by allowing them to avoid being fully invested and thereby making it easy to be satisfied with things remaining as they are. It seems very possible that this is the case in your situation. But, you need a qualified, licensed therapist to work with you to know if that's the case or not.
~ cl-2nd_life"You can't control the length of your life,
but you can control the width and depth."
~ Author unknown
"Ignoring the facts
does not change the facts"