When She Denies the Affair and Calls You “Insecure”

Okay, if you're a frequent listener of the Dad Starting Over podcast and you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that sounds like me," well, you don't need another podcast episode. What you need is support. The Help for Men Brotherhood is where men go when they're done pretending that they got it all handled. You know, your dead bedrooms, your divorce, your loneliness, your rebuilding life. We have private forums, frequent live Zoom meetings, one-on-one coaching, courses, all my books at no additional charge. And yes, we get together in person. Real men and real conversations. So stop doing this alone and join the Help for Men Brotherhood today at help4men.com/join. I look forward to seeing you in the next member meeting. What do you do when you know that your wife is cheating on you, but she denies it? She flips the script and she makes you feel like the crazy one. That's the email I got from a listener this week, and you can submit your own story to deardso.com. He caught his wife sneaking around with, quote, just a longtime friend, and even when confronted, she turns it back on him with anger and accusations. So let's break down exactly why cheaters do this and what you should do about it. So this message comes from— we'll call him John because I believe he gives his real name here. He says, I've just recently found out that my wife has been seeing another man. Quote, he's just a longtime friend guy. Parentheses, go figure. She doesn't know that I know. I've called her out on going over to his house to one night, quote, see him and his kids, and the fact that she didn't tell me that she was going to do this. Another parentheses: this is just before I found out. She lost it on me when I brought it up and said that I was just being insecure. Every time I question her about her whereabouts or about him, she gets angry, says that I'm accusing her of something that she is not doing, and she turns it all on me. I know for a fact it's happening, so when I beat around the bush about them or events about them, Why does she not own up to it? You know, when I get these messages, I always kind of have to chuckle, but I realize that not everybody has my perspective as a guy who has talked to hundreds and hundreds of men that have been through this. So a lot of the questions I get are kind of like, leave me, you know, scrunching my face saying, huh? Like, why won't she just own up to it? And my initial reaction is, well, dude, like basically none of them do. Why not? Well, let's look at this pragmatically, shall we? Um, what's the current relationship status for you and the wife? I assume you have a relatively comfortable lifestyle where everything's taken care of, bills are paid, there's a roof over your head, the kids are healthy, everything's going fine. In addition to all this, your wife also has a secret lover on the side. So put yourself in her shoes. She kind of has a good thing going on here, doesn't she? She's got the safety and security that everyone longs for. It could be argued even more so the ladies in our lives, they really hunger for that safety and security above all else. Plus she has that little secret extra sexy something on the side, the fun. And so she wants to really keep these two worlds going concurrently. And then here comes you saying, hey, I kind of have a feeling that something bad's going on here. And then she reacts kind of angrily, almost, some people say almost violently. And you're like, whoa, maybe I was way off base here. Maybe there isn't anything going on. You begin to question your own sanity. So what a lot of guys do is they continue to dig and dig and they dig up more and more evidence. And eventually they find the thing that makes them say, well, there's absolutely 100% no doubt that she's having an affair now. Like pictures, text messages, whatever it may be. It sounds like you probably found that thing. Here's the thing though, and I'm, I don't mean to pick on a guy who's going through a lot right now, and you're about to go through even more hell, I'm sorry to say. Um, but you do seem somewhat passive, and I find myself saying that to a lot of men. If you know what she's doing, then here's what you do. You go to an attorney, you say, this is what's happening with me. Where do I stand legally, financially when I divorce this woman? I just wanna be prepared. I wanna make sure I, I know what my rights are and all that good stuff, and I wanna put together a divorce agreement. And I want to present it to her. And then you say, thank you, Mr. Attorney. And then you go to wife and go, look, we both know what's going on here. Just stop. Here's the divorce agreement. Have your own attorney look it over, whatever. I wish you all the best. That's it. That's quite literally what you do. You don't go to her going, well, what about this? What about that? You know what's going on. You can stop with that and you can stop with the little things you even put in your message here. I know for a fact it's happening. So when I beat around the bush about them or events, about them, why does she not own up to it? So you admit to kind of beating around the bush. So how's David doing? Or did you enjoy your time over at Dave's? Just stop it. What you do is just say, you and I both know what's going on, so here's the divorce agreement. That is quite literally your only choice in this matter, sir. It's over. I've seen this a million times. She has fallen in love with somebody else, and she's so far gone that she's even taking her kids over there and visiting with his kids and everything else. Man, there's a whole separate life here going on that you just don't probably don't know everything about, and you don't want to know everything about. You know enough. It is over. Then quit trying to question or understand why exactly she behaves the way she does. Why wouldn't she come forth with saying, hey, yeah, you're right, you got me, sorry about that, let's get divorced? Why wouldn't she do that? The more you try to question why, why, why and try to understand it, you will quite literally go nuts. Their behavior is so all over the place, it's so erratic. You begin to question your own version of reality, your own perspective on things. And if you go to her and say, "Help me explain this, this discrepancies between what I'm seeing here this day and that day," she will make you go nuts even further. "Oh no, no, no, you're seeing things weird. It's, it's, your eyes are mistaking you. You must have misheard, you must have misread, you must, oh man, something's really wrong with you." I've had some men that, get so far into this that they literally go to the therapist and say, I, I think I'm going nuts here, and I want to be tested for like some kind of mental illness or something. Well, why is that? Well, because I'm seeing and hearing things that aren't there. Well, tell me more. And the therapist eventually goes, oh, this is what we call gaslighting. It's a form of emotional abuse where you make the other person who comes to you with very real concerns, you turn it around on them and say, oh no, no, no, that's you and your erroneous perception, or even your lack of sanity, your insanity, your, your mental illness is causing you to see things that aren't there, when in all reality you know that they're absolutely right, that there is something bad going on there. But you turn it and flip it to them, all with the purpose of kind of delaying things and hoping that they forget about it. Or you can kind of kick the can down the road, you know, a few years and worry about it later. Because again, she has a really good thing going here— the safety and security of your relationship and family, and then the little side piece. And before we go down that road, it's not a woman thing. There are plenty of men that do the exact same thing. They got their little girlfriend on the side and their perimenopausal wife who doesn't really want much to do with them on the other, and they find a way to balance those two worlds. I don't condone that. I don't think it's a good thing. I think it's something that eventually results in a lot of broken hearts and a lot of chaos. But there's a lot of men that live that world. And your wife's got her own little version of that, doesn't she? It's time to turn the page on this chapter of your life, my friend. I find myself saying that to a lot of guys these days, but you know what to do. It's just really hard to do it. And you are delaying things by going down this road of why, why, why? I don't understand. I must understand why. No, you don't need to understand why. You just need to get the hell out of Dodge and work on yourself, my friend, and work on your insecurity. There's that word. She accused you of being insecure, and guess what? You are, but just not in the way that she's thinking. You're insecure because you are hanging on to a woman who quite literally wants nothing to do with you and is carrying on in another relationship with another man. You got to figure out what's going on with you that allows you to stick around with a woman like that, that makes you hang on like a little chihuahua hanging on to her leg while she continues to try and shake you off. Just let go, dude. Let her go. Worry about yourself. Let's work on you, your sense of security, your sense of self-love, sense of self-worth, and figure out why you're really lacking in that department. All right, brother. And you've heard me say it 100 times, but I created a support community for guys just like you. Learn more at help4men.com or jump right to the join page at help4men.com/join and check out the brotherhood. Our private support community for men only. You are going to join that group and you're going to say, oh wow, I thought I was alone in all this. No, dude, there's hundreds of men that have been in your shoes and hundreds that are currently going through it. So join us. Let's talk. All right, brother, thank you for reaching out. I do appreciate it. And guys, thank you for listening. We will catch you on the next one.