Is he cheating?

Hello,

   I'm assuming your husband is bipolar, if so here is my own experience with my husband who was just diagnosed 3 months ago!

   When they are having their Manic Episodes, or are in crisis (in terms of their illness) everything seems Secretive. It doesn't necessarily means they are hiding something, their illness makes them feel they need to hide even the most ridiculous things. My husband has been doing the same with his cell phone.

   And my 12 years of relationship with my husband has always been the most open, honest and wonderful relationship I could ask for (we both trusted each other to the Core). But here is the truth, since he became Manic and started making 'secrets' about everything, now 3 months into this Hell, I can't trust the man I see in front of me, because he is NOT my husband!

    I do want you to be aware of the fact , that in many instances, when they are Manic (or even when they are not) they do tend to have a promiscuous life...But it's very hard to tell because they are so different already when they are Manic, that anything they do is out of the ordinary.

    REALLY difficult situation to be in. I'm only 3 months into this and it's almost as is all those wonderful 12 years are being 'erased' before my eyes.

   I don't know if I will have my Real husband back!

   Sorry, if I'm not giving you any hope, but being realistic is important (at least for me it is since I have a 2 year old to take care of--and of course my self/my Health and Sanity!).

     Best of luck to you.

Woah.  I could have written all of that myself!  Not that the guy involved was my husband, in fact we'd only been together for a year & a half, but everything else is almost exactly the same.

In my case, I don't know whether he ever cheated on me.  But the night he came home with other girls' phone numbers (yes, plural), was the night I made my decision to leave.  Of course, it came after a multitude of other instances of losing my trust in him.

Now, that is not to say that your husband is cheating.  As I said, I never had any proof that my partner was, but I made the decision not to stick around to find out - even though I loved him with all of my heart, I wasn't prepared to become just another one of the girls that he'd done that to (he didn't have the best track record).

Anyway, that's all very depressing and not what I had intended to say!  What I did want to tell you is this:  try not to worry yourself to the point of becoming a crazy person.  Women have a tendancy to make assumptions and think the worst, which can add unnecessary drama to an otherwise innocent situation.  I am really not proud of the person I became towards the end, as a result of jealousy / mistrust (whether or not it may have been justified).  It wasn't pretty at all!

You need to decide if you're willing to take the chance on your husband.  If you are, you unfortunately might need to wait things out a bit because he won't be worth trying to talk to when he's really unwell - doing that will inevitably make things worse.  So, you need to decide whether you're prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt (in the end, I wasn't), and then really do that.  Then once he's in a better place you can try to have a conversation with him about things.

Hi, Confused Cris. You already have two excellent answers here, so just one point: Is this recent behavior or has this type of secretiveness gone on since you've known him? When someone close acts strange, it's helpful to have a "baseline" for comparison. Then you are in a better position to make choices. Hope this helps -