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Dear Breakup Girl,

I've been with my husband for 5 years, and married for the last 6 months. I recently discovered that he's been chatting on AOL and keeping it a secret from me. It started innocently enough, when I looked up his profile and was rather surprised to find his marital status listed as single, and it was also clear he is looking for at least an on-line relationship.

He has done something similar to this before. A few years ago, he was secretly corresponding with several women (if they were in fact female) who posted nude pictures of (ostensibly) themselves on the Internet. I confronted him about it, we had a big blow-up, almost broke up, he swore he'd never do it again, yada yada yada. He regained my trust enough that we were finally married after a long engagement. (The delay was for financial reasons, in fact he was the one who was more in a hurry to get married.)

Now he has broken my trust again. I asked him about the profile that I found, and he swore up and down that that account was from before we were together, he's forgotten the password, it's too much of a hassle to get the password reset, blah blah blah. I don't believe him, but as I've discovered over the years he will keep on lying and not fess up until I have 100% incontrovertible proof. But, seeing as he's my husband, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Well, this morning I was at work, where I have a constant connection to the Internet. I had my AOL Instant Messenger open as we use it in our workgroup to communicate. Lo and behold, who do I see sign on but his supposedly inaccesible AOL account. I IM him to say hello, he asks if he knows me. I ask "You are (Hubby's name), right?" He says no. The account signs off and about a minute later I get a call from my husband, who is home with a cold.

He says he just wanted to tell me he's been on the phone with his boss for the last 15 minutes, telling him he's going to be late to work because he's going to the doctor. Now is that suspicious or what?

Right now, I am not even that angry or sad, I'm just mostly numb and really sick and tired of being lied to. Do you think there is any way he is ever going to stop sneaking around behind my back? I'm suspecting not. I've tried to get him to go to couples counseling before, but he always claims it is too expensive and not much help. Is there any point to staying in the marriage?

--Tired of Being Lied To

Dear Tired,

"Suspicious?" He's about as busted as you get. Never mind the IM-gate, how about that "single" designation? I mean, a lot of folks at least have the, um, class to say they're "married but looking" or whatever. Eeuuw. And what can I say about this "he was in more of a hurry to get married" thing? Either (a) he truly loves you and has this Hyde side, or (b) cheating on a marriage is even more of a turn-on than playing the field. Eeuuw 4.0.

Will he ever stop? Tired, I can't make any guaranteed predictions. But I know what you deserve, and you -- I hope -- know what you should tolerate. My sense is that once this last IM reaches your brain, it won't be long before you're identifying yourself as single. And telling the truth.

Love,
Breakup Girl

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