Husband Looking for Ex on Facebook

There is clearly an underlying issue here. Why else would you even think to ask this, why would he lie, why would you investigate his recent searches to prove he's lying, and why would any of this be a big deal in the first place.

I suggest you get marriage counseling for the underlying issues, because this whole situation is just a symptom of something bigger.

I looked up all my exboyfriends to see how they are doing. One saw my name on his history of visitors and reached out, but I ignored it because we are married to others It taught me there is no such thing as anonymous looking and I haven't snooped since.
The lying would make me mad. I can't stand that.

I have frequently looked up old friends, boyfriends, old work acquaintances...I'd be embarrassed if anyone saw that and may deny it too...
It's just basic curiosity...you always wonder "what happened to.....?"

Let it go, I doubt he had any grand plans to rekindle old flames.

If I were him the thing that would anger me is you checking my history. Sometimes FB pops up under the people you might know, exes. Sometimes I have clicked on them just curious what they are up to. Not exactly looking to connect, heck sometimes just to confirm they are still a loser. If my husband fliped his nut about this I would have a serious discussion with him about trust.

He shouldn't have lied but I will admit I have looked for several ex boyfriends online and am facebook friends with a couple. lol I would NEVER cheat on my husband. IT's just curiousity and maybe a little reminiscing about my younger wilder days. I don't talk to any of them though. If My hubby asked me I would tell the truth but I certainly don't volunteer the info.

i've noodled around in an idle hour to see what exes were up to. had nothing to do with wanting to see them or talk to them again.
no way.
just human curiosity.
i'd be supah-pissed about being lied to. i have a real bee in my bonnet about that. but my dh knows that, and it's mutual. consequently we're very smart about what questions we ask each other<G>.
so, yours might be lying because he's covering something up. on the other hand, if you have a habit of unfounded suspiciousness and you regularly monitor his texts and emails and FB searches, he may just have been trying to deflect another baseless accusation.
only you know which is correct.
khairete
S.

Do you have other marital problems or reasons to distrust your husband?

Looking for exes on FB is common and harmless, imo. Most of us are curious by nature. Some of my exes are now my FB "friends," and it's not a big deal.

Maybe he lied because he knew you would be upset about it?

If your marriage is good, I don't think it should bother you.

Why were you snooping on him?
IMO jealousy is unattractive. Concentrate on your marriage and your relationship not on petty things. I agree, if you have a sound marriage it is likely human curiosity. It's natural...

He probably lied since he knew how you'd react.

It's totally NORMAL to look up an ex online. We are all curious how our ex's are looking, who they married, if they had children, if they got hopefully fat and bald and their wife is headed in that direction, too.

Just because you look someone up doesn't mean you want to get back together. It just means that something reminded you of them and because of the internet, you have the ability to do a search and check out what they are up to. Don't make it more than it is.

I looked up some of my ex's...I was just curious how they turned out. Goodness time has not been kind to them. My husband was the best choice of the bunch!! BY FAR!!

Next time you should elbow him in the ribs and in a coy voice say, "So, looking up Amy on Facebook, I see? Hmm, am I still hotter than her?"

He'd probably get a teensy bit embarrassed and pay you a really nice compliment.

I recently looked up one of my exes just for fun. When I saw his picture I noticed how much weight he had gained and how much hair he had lost. Superficial, I know, but it made me feel a little less embarrassed about my own weight gain and other signs of aging.

Seriously, it's just something we occasionally do when we're thinking about the past and wondering or reminiscing. Just like a friend of a friend telling you something your ex is up to. It's human nature to be curious.

Do not read too much into this.

I did that too. I wanted to find out if they'd lost their teeth and hair or gained weight, you know, to see what they looked like now. It's human curiosity to see what happened to old friends, lovers, and more. I'd say he was embarrassed by it but lying is wrong. He did that because he didn't want to go into it with you.

You're not his mom you're his wife. Unless he's a cheating sob he deserves to have his privacy and not have you coming in a checking his search history. I'd lie too if my privacy was infringed on.

My hubby has his laptop in one room and mine is in the living room because that's where I am 99% of the time. He knows my password but he has his own admin account on it so he can work on it if needed and he's told me his a few times but I always have to ask if I'm using his computer for anything because I don't want to remember.

I'd say let this go and that you've learned your lesson. He knows how you feel and he is still an adult and has curiosity. Sometimes visiting with an ex is also a way to resolve past hurts and issues where a person can move on. I have an excellent relationship with my ex. He grew up to be a pretty amazing man. Hubby and I often go visit him and his wife when we go to OKC and I've even spent the night there when I had a very early morning appt. and didn't want to drive at 4am. They let me spend the night so I could get up at 5:30 and drive a few miles.

Having a relationship with an ex is not a bad thing. It can be a good friendship.

Just make sure that you are angry about the right thing here. No reason to be angry about an internet search, that's like a 1984 Thought Crime. But the lying would have me concerned. You have a right to be upset about that.

Maybe he lied because he knew you would get mad.

I have looked up old boyfriends and even told my husband about it. He might puff up, but when I tell him, I am just curious, he does not care. They all look like disasters. I am sure they are very nice, but gosh.. I got off with the prize.

I have looked up some of his old girlfriends, we are even friends with one on FB.. I have never cared for her and she is totally not a person he says he would have been interested in as an adult.

If you allow him to tell you the truth, he will.

If you tend to get bent out of shape about this type of thing, he will lie hoping not to have to listen to gripes.

He is an adult. If the two of you have good communication, you will not need to be upset about these things and he will not have to hide it.

I understand. It may be natural curiosity to want to peek at your ex-spouse, ex-friend, or ex-anything else on Facebook. But why cover it up? If he hadn't, maybe you could both have joked about how he got such a better deal when he got you!

Can you ask him why he lied to you? Of course, right now you don't know if you'll believe any answer he gives. But some people lie because they know their actions - or their motives - are definitely not beyond question. Other people lie because they're simply afraid of the anger of the person questioning them.

If you could say to him, "Next time you look up your ex, tell me what you discover. But please, please tell me the truth about things. I want to trust you always," maybe it might help the situation.

yup, the lying would bother me too. But I don't think it would bother me "too" much if he was looking. Can't say for sure though.
I have looked for an ex or two. Not because I wanted to hook up with them, meet them, see them. I just wanted to know what had happened with their lives. Did they get married? Did they have kids? Have they gone bald?
L.

Yeah, thats annoying that he felt the need to lie. But who on here has not looked up an an ex or googled them? It doesn't mean he wanted to "friend" her, or start a conversation. Sometimes you just wonder, did they have kids, did they get fat, or bald? I think its a reasonable curiosity. I'd cut him some slack and if it comes up only focus on the lying.

I've looked up ex's on Facebook, so has my husband. We're even friends with two of them.
You say you are angry mostly because of the lying, which means you are also angry about him looking up an ex.
Maybe that's why he lied.
Look, it's a knee jerk reaction to lie about something when we know someone's going to get mad at us. So TALK to him about it. Unless he has cheated or you have a valid reason to think he's looking to cheat on you then what's wrong with being on friendly terms with an ex? I just don't get it.
Oh wait, what is your question???

I'd be upset that he lied too but maybe he was embarrassed to admit it? Either way I'd cut him some slack! I'm also guilty of 'checking up' on ex-boyfriends online and facebook simply out of curiousity - they are ex's for a reason!

Something that I learned in therapy years ago is that I shouldn't set someone up to lie to me. (It was mainly about kids.) I'm not blaming you for his lying, but I think that it's a step that could have been avoided if you had just said that it looked like he'd been looking for her and then addressed your concerns about that. If it's the first time you've dealt with something like this, then he may have had reason to believe that it was just easier to keep it to himself, especially if he never found her. If you guys haven't had this issue before, then his first response was not to come clean about something that he chose to process privately.

We often think that getting married gives us rights to every thought that our spouses have. It would certainly make us feel more secure. We're still individuals, though, and all we can ask of our spouses is that our agreements be honored in certain behaviors. We cannot control what or how they think. If we care to garner their confidence and trust, then we have to be mindful of how we approach them and what we demand of them.

Your focus in on the wrong thing. Talk to him about what he hopes to accomplish by locating her. Treat it as a getting-to-know-you session, not an inquisition. Let him share with you, and hear him. This is what will teach him that he can trust your responses to this type of information, and lying won't be his first choice. The lying does not automatically mean that he had ill intent. It likely does mean that this was a thought that he wanted to keep to himself for now. Either he didn't want to share it at all or he wasn't sure of how to share it without getting a mouthful from you, and it wasn't a big enough issue to him to get you all upset. Once you talk about it, he'll know.

Oh, and I look up people all the time and don't tell my husband. If he were to question me about it--accusatorily--then it might bring feelings of shame that I would want to cover up. Maybe I had a moment of curiosity and felt a little creepy about it.

Try to stay on task when "confronting" him. I think that the way you did it was tricky. This is why men don't like to talk to women; there are just too many angles and corners involved. Address the issue that you want to address, and leave no room for miscommunication.

What's your question?

He's gonna do what he wants to do, whether you like it or not. He doesn't want to hear your opinion about it, so he lies like a fool (I say a fool because you can read the history on the computer, for crying out loud).

Now he knows to clear his web history.

There's no good answer here. He's either going to do something or he's not. Sorry...

Was he angry with you for checking his history on the computer as soon as you got home from a trip? I would be angry with my husband if he went behind my back snooping for something on me.

Do you have FB? If so, you do realize that random names of acquaintances etc do pop up on the screen. I also hate lit if someone lies but I doubt he was looking to hook up with an ex. It's quite possible he was just browsing old friends and acquaintances on the internet.

It sounds like there's an underlying issue of mistrust in the relationship.

Yup, rip his hair out. Just kidding. If I can be annoyingly helpful at least he lied because he knows it is wrong (I hate liars myself). And it will probably stop him from doing it again. Most people don't like being in the dog house. If it continues back to his hair...surely he just thought that was something he could sneakily get away with. Duh, why are some men so dumb...well to be fair it isn't just men is it?

Do you want to know the #1 reason my husband lies about stupid little shitty things that I wouldn't have been mad about in the first place if he hadn't lied making me think there was something "going on?"

"I knew you would be mad and wanted to avoid an argument." He's often shocked when I say, "That wouldn't have bothered me a single bit. The lie is what pisses me off so now I have to wonder if the lie is covering up something else."

He lies about visiting his MOTHER when he goes to the bank that's half a mile from her house. I know he's going to visit her when he goes to that bank, but when I ask him ahead of time so that I have an idea if I should make him lunch on that Saturday, he says, "No." Like he thinks I'll be upset if his mother cooks lunch for him and he does some yard work for her. I tell him all the time that he needs to call her more and spend more time with her when he can even if the girls and I don't always make it down with him.

But no. He'd rather say, "No, I'm not stopping at Ma's. I'll be home within an hour." Then he's gone for four hours. I call his mother's house because his cell phone is off and ask to talk to him, and she puts him on the phone. He says, "Why did you call here?" LOL "I needed to tell you that I'm taking the girls out, and since your phone isn't on I didn't want you to worry that we weren't here when you got home."

I've looked up exes too. Not a big deal because it's a curiosity thing. Dodged some bullets, I'll say. :-) I know that my husband would probably lie if I asked him if he looked up an ex. I wouldn't care about the looking up. Just the lie.

Are you cornering your husband because there is good reason (like he truly could be cheating) or is this part of the way that you communicate? In EITHER case, I think it could be very helpful for you to talk with a counselor. Someone for you and someone for you AND your hubby to see together.

I think we all seek to know what an ex is doing. But, I still would be pissed. I would tell him to go ahead and look her up but that you will, in turn, look up an ex, as well.

Yes, that sounds petty, but I'm still in the human race, not a saint yet.

I recently looked up an ex trolling around on Facebook. I'm married 10 years. And this ex was my other long-term relationship (5 years). I'm curious and nosey. I'm sure its normal and everyone does it. It means nothing (in my case). And I have no interest in making contact. Unless you have cause to doubt your husband, give him the benefit of the doubt. And let him know you just want him to be upfront. He may just feel awkward about it......

I think the question is why was he looking? Sometimes when people break up, they can still be friends or lose touch, connect with someone else and yet, just want to see how the other person is doing-it doesn't mean there are still feelings -it's probably just curiosity. The lying is the issue-because now the trust that you once had has been breached. It's going to take a while to put that back together; I will note that the grass is most emphatically not greener on the other side. Good luck-work this out-it will be best for all of you as a family.

The lying would be the problem for me, too. I have looked up ex's on facebook, and my husband has as well. We pretty much then end up telling each other about what we found. We're not looking to hook back up, just curious how their lives went. (his ex wife recently had triplets, we found this amusing as she had previously said she never wanted kids because she liked having nice purses.) I'm friends with a couple of exes on facebook and I know he's friends with one of his. The key is being honest. We never even log out of our fbs on our computers or ipad (Probably this will change in the near future as our daughter gets older and wants to play on the computer/ipad as well.) so I've accidentally checked his thinking it was mine and I don't care if he checks mine. The lying would be the big problem for me, as well.

I don't think it's weird he looked up his ex. We all get curious. I am FB friends with both my ex BF's. I'm even FB friends with my husbands ex, who have only met once. My hubs doesn't use his FB so I requested her myself, thinking she's probably interested in seeing what goes on with him through me and my pictures now and then. Of course she is, she accepted.

Like you, I'd be more annoyed about the denial part.

BUT why did he lie, that's the part you need to really evaluate. Is it because he was embarrassed? Because he truly has something to hide? Because you are a major ball-buster and he just didn't want to deal with your reaction to it?

I'm guessing the 3rd. No offense, that's just the way husbands/wives are, I have the same dynamic with mine- if he thought it would be an easier road to do a little white lie on me about something embarrassing and get away with it, he totally would too. Just to avoid the brutal shame of me calling him out. Even on something lame and harmless like scoping out exes on Facebook.

One guy I dated briefly in highschool found me recently. He said he had a dream about me and then he sought me out and friended me. We exchanged one friendly email. I told him I was married and had kids. I saw his profile and he has a wife and kids too. He lives in another state so I don't think him thinking about me and looking me up was a romantic thing- just a curious thing.
We haven't spoke since but we are facebook friends.

It could be innocent like that. My only concern is that your man lied about it.

The looking up the ex is fine - I do it in a non harmful way. It's just curious what's going on in his life...hoping he's happy. That sort of thing. I would be irate over the lying. If he's lying about little stuff like that, who knows what else he could be lying about. Personally, I would address it with him and only emphasize the lying.