Yep! Secret conversations that do not include sm are typical and also the secret chuckles as they look at you. When my ex was on the phone with ss who is 48 years you would think it was a long lost love he was talking to in a hushed down voice. Mind you my ex did not even talk to me that way. Their conversations at times sounded romantic.

I used to be jealous of sd and DH's little private cutesy conversations but after a while, I just stopped giving a damn. I read his texts once and found out that sd got in trouble with the law and dh was going to court with her ( he told me he was being sent by his job to a meeting). I just really learned to not give a f**k if he was that stupid. After that, I actually felt much better. Funny thing is once I stopped caring, he started telling me about the phone calls and he hands me his phone to respond to texts. Go figure.

I'd just as soon not know the details of my DH's conversations with drunkboy UNLESS my DH thinks that he is going to take some action that negatively affects me. So far that hasn't happened.

SS30 or his surrogate if he's in jail have called and begged over and over again for DH to bail him out - but my DH is not stupid. He'd rather leave drunkboy to deal with the consequences of his actions (beating up an elderly man) than piss me off.

serious daddy issues. even when married sds can be mini wifes.

Been there, done that. It does seem counter-intuitive to ignore it and it will go away - but that is what I also did and yes, it is going away. In our situation it was also the mini-wife who was texting or calling all hours of the day to see how or what 'Daddy' was doing. At first it annoyed the heck outta me but after I ignored it he now has to deal with her keeping tabs and asking all kids of questions. He is basically answering to a 16 year old - not his wife and now that he is getting tired of it he is starting to ignore his phone blowing up too. Takes a little time.

I don't know if it's "normal" but it sure is "common." I have learned to ignore also. I did point out to DH that his tone of voice and language sounds romantic and gross. SD and DH can talk/text all they want. I am not going to stop any of that, but if it interferes with my time with DH, then I do say something, but I make that about my relationship with DH and not his relationship with SD.

It's annoying, but if you can let it go it just becomes noise.

I have been married 36 years and been thru all of this; I know how much pain this "going behind your back" causes. I suspected and had been working on disengagement for 6 years from my SD56, then I found out for sure (2 yrs. ago via email); I'm still working on disengagement and always will. Every situation is different, but rest assured, I do not consider this normal, reading here, it is an existing problem for SM's, and very real.

My Father is 100 years young, I had two SM's; I never one time had this type of relationship (lover, mini wife) with my Father. My SM's were very jealous of myself and my brother; but we stayed away from them and let my Father live his life. My Father contacted me, when he wanted; I did not go around my SM's, because it was easier for my Dad. Now, I assumed that was common sense and showed respect for my Father. My SD56 is a major "mini wife", and she lives less than a block from us, thus she loves drama; she has spread her drama to SGD31; they are now a team.

Without going over my entire story; it is the same as yours and many others here, I will share my bottom line. I also was hurt, we almost divorced, and our marriage is totally different now. I pretended that I didn't care and cringed every time DH's phone buzzed with texts.

After years (15 yrs.) of drama from DH and SD, at my expense, I completed my disengagement.

(1) I don't pretend now, I REALLY don't care; out of sight, out of mind. (2) I set my own boundaries! SD56 and SGD31 (mother/daughter) are not allowed to come to our home, when I am home. DH is allowed to visit and spend as much time, whenever he wishes, wherever he wishes, any time he wishes, with all of his kids and grandkids; he is NOT allowed to expect me to participate, if I don't wish to do so. (3) Our plans are to be discussed, in advance (includes my plans also). (4) I NEVER look at, or care, what is on his cell phone.

As time passes, I find I hardly ever think about these toxic women. Things are not the same, but they are healing; therefore, I know I am not pretending, I don't care!

Some day I'm going to post here, for discussion only, line by line (one post at a time) the hate email my SD56 sent me (because she couldn't face me). It had it all, she threw DH under the bus too; I was to leave, divorce her Dad, on and on..... I never replied, I did show it to DH; he had no reply.

My SD56 has hated me from day 1. She has never stopped, nor will she ever stop. I came home, just last week, from visiting my Father (100) in a neighboring State. I spent a couple of days at his home, helping him out and visiting friends. When I arrived home, on the kitchen counter was a plate of fresh baked cookies from SD56. I calmly informed DH that "next time SD56 brings you cookies, when she visits, the least you can do is put them in the cookie jar, so they don't dry out". Then I moved forward and dropped it.

I know they were back at their passive aggressive drama, by leaving the cookies out for me to see. But I really don't care any more, so I put them in the cookie jar, added to the cookies I had baked before leaving. Did I eat one? NO!

With all of this said; it takes a great deal of patience and a long time to get thru "not caring". I stay busy and don't even discuss any of it with DH. If he mentions his kids, I don't engage in the conversation.

I'm sorry you have to put up with the drama. It is very destructive to your marriage and your relationship with the man you thought you could trust.

Stay here with us; it helped me understand my frustrations, by reading here.

It is rather difficult to ignore. My ss48 called first thing in the morning, sometimes starting at 6:00 am and if ex did not answer would call every 30 minutes until he did. After he got a hold of him he then called several more times ending at 9:00 pm. Ex, after my complaining, finally told ss when he was around 46 years old, not to call until 9:00am and not to call after 9:00 pm. They also have a call, in case of emergency, where ss is to call once, hang up and immediately call again.

When ss could not get a hold of ex he would use the emergency call then tell ex that it was a butt call which is impossible now a days. Ss has a $500 smart phone where you have to swipe and then point to call, it takes quite a few steps to call someone on his phone. He still calls him several times a day.

What others are telling you about not showing that the texting and phone calls bother you is correct. I could not do it as the sound of the phone constantly ringing bothered me to no end, especially when we were on vacation. Ex took as I did not like his ds and sided with him. Ex did not see that it was the behavior that bothered me, he automatically took it as I did not like his ds. Actually, over anything that bothered me about ds he took it as I did not like him, when it was that I did not like the behavior. Such as ss used to call during right in the middle of having dinner and ex would leave his meal and me and jump up from the table to talk. When I kindly asked him to ask his ds to call about 30 minutes later, my ex exploded at me and started shouting that I was trying to drive a wedge between him and his ds.

Now that we are divorced, I can see that he sided with his ds because I showed that it bothered me. Personally, I think that my ex really does not like his ds, and thinks that no one else likes him. It is kind of like a cheating spouse who suspects the other one of cheating because they cheat.

Try, as much as you can, to not let it bother you as it will cause conflict in your marriage, and in my case, my dh divorced me over his ds. Try to envision your sd a a crab in the bucket, and your dh as the crab who is trying to climb out of the bucket towards you and his marriage, and she is trying to keep in him in the bucket and is constantly clawing at him, through the phone calls, to make sure he remains in the bucket with her. If necessary start buying pictures of crabs or little figurines to remind you of what she is until you master the art of not caring. She is really a parasite.

I love the crab analogy!

Your situation is way worse than mine, enuf. For the most part I can ignore. But there have been times when SS or SD called in the middle of a meal, and DH left the table to take the call. If we're at home, that's easy. Dinner is over. I leave the table too--walk the dog, take a bath, work on a project. If we're out, he gets the ice stare from me and I pull out my phone too. Once I joined a table of friends. I learned not to pout, but to take action to show that I don't need his attention to have fun.

I made it clear that I am not trying to interfere with his relationship with his kids, but he needs to be present in his relationship with me--not cast me aside every time his phone rang. Fortunately, my DH has reigned in his behavior and we rarely have an issue.

Actually, after writing the analogy of the crab. I went on amazon and bought a crab bracelet to remind myself that ss won and ex is now in the crab bucket with him. It was really difficult to deal with the fact that ss won and dh divorced me. However, I was so tired of having to fight for my marriage and my dh to get out of the bucket. I just let go when dh said he was going to divorce me. I did not challenge or plead with Dh to keep our marriage going. I let go and he fell right back in the bucket. Instead of seeing it as dh rejecting me, I need to remember that I let go. The crab bracelet will serve as a reminder.

Stepaside, I never knew that about the air plant. What a wonderful analogy of strength and wisdom. I really need to hear about the plant today as I am taking stock of my actions and I am experiencing sadness and shame and trying to let go of those emotions. Thank you I will be purchasing a plant as a constant reminder. Your statement was a blessing for me.

I ignored my SD34 increasingly frequent calls and facetimes, although I was journaling about it. All that happened was that it continued to increase, with DH becoming increasingly enmeshed with her. Somewhere along the way she began telling him how she didn't trust me (I thought we had a close relationship), and became increasingly disruptive until she was telling him that he needed to leave me.

During that time, her choices included cutting me off from her child, who had been like a grandson since he was born, throwing her husband out and moving an ex-felon and his disordered daughter in with her and her 4-year old son, then throwing him out and entrapping another man with a pregnancy.

Meanwhile, SS33 and his GF were guilt-bombing DH, using pictures of SS's 2 kids as bait, pleading with DH to leave. I ignored that too and it got increasingly blatant.

Notably, they did the same thing to their own mother. She left because of the way they treated her and she wanted to try to reconcile after leaving but did not because "there was no room for her between" DH and the kids.

I finally left. That was when DH agreed to go to some counseling.

So I'm not sure ignoring it is the best thing to do. Of course, in my case, DH would not address it until I left, and still does not acknowledge that there is anything dysfunctional about any of his kids' choices or his relationship with them.

Good luck. If you love your DH and believe he loves you, hang in there. But don't ignore...make attempts to communicate about the issue.

I'm happy to say that my DH doesn't really enjoy long phone conversations. I think most men aren't the chatty type that hang out on the phone like women, but they are forced into it by their daughters. I'm happy to say that when we moved, DH no longer has a land-line in the den and since retiring he no longer has an office phone-line and company cell phone.
SD used to call those for her long-winded latest drama, now she can't and I'm so relieved. Gone are the beeps from the message machine that were always waiting for us first thing upon returning home.

Since SDs divorce, my DH had become her go-to person for phone conversations and he just plain does not have time for that. She was stealing DH's work time from his company and stealing DH's couple time from us at night by intruding into the places where she does not belong. People that talk too much are the gossipers, the tale-bearers. The less said the better and the sooner the DH's realize this is unhealthy behavior, the better.

Nowadays SD is relegated to e-mailing DH, since he chose not to get his own cell-phone after he retired. If he wanted to stay connected, he would have gotten himself one, but I believe he enjoys the peace from the invasive phone calls. He put his own boundary into place.

I'm not suggesting going back to the time before cell phones. The only long conversation I have on mine is with my sister several states away but I only chat with her when DH is not around. I feel it is rude to have a long phone conversation with someone excluding the person you are with. The other times I use it is to make appointments or briefly to setup in person meetings with other family and friends. Mostly it is used as a GPS and internet.

Children raised with a sense of entitlement is what many of us SMs have to struggle with.

"This innocent parental mistake holds consequences if not addressed. Kids who don’t learn respect for other people’s time, conversations, or physical space are essentially being taught “the world revolves around you.”
(from Crosswalk.com)

It seems your H has a pseudo girlfriend. So why is he in a relationship with you? Could it be for the money, maid service, and sex you provide?

Maybe you should look into acquiring a pseudo boyfriend. You know, someone you can phone chat with endlessly, laugh with over private jokes, enjoy outings with, etc.

Maybe your H needs a good dose of his own exclusionary medicine. He sounds overly enmeshed with his daughter, which does not bode well for your marriage.

This loser and his toxic crotch dropping are a collective write off.

Dump his secretive ass and move on.

He is a write off.