Submitted by ThrowRA20081290 t3_10f24s8 in relationship_advice
I'm at a complete loss at the moment. My husband "Josh" (32m) and I (31f) have been together for nearly 15 years, married for almost 8. We have 2 very small children together. We've had a fairly healthy relationship moat of this time, communicate well, rarely argue. These past couple of years have been a bit rough with him working so much and my health issues progressively getting worse. We aren't as intimate as much as we used to be due to my pain. He has always been respectful, kind, caring and understanding. I wouldn't say he's overly pushy for sex, but he does ask often and is typically understanding when I can't. He's always made me believe that he only has eyes for me, hell, I check out more women than he does! I've never had a doubt he would do anything behind my back because he has truly made me believe that is not the kind of man he is. Now to my dilemma.
Josh is out of town for work right now (doing training to open a new store with his current boss and his wife). Someone messaged me over Facebook messenger (with an obviously fake profile) of stills from a video of my husband "showing" himself off. They said he sent a video of him playing with himself to a child. I asked who he sent it to, how did they get it, when did they get it, etc. They refused to answer me (I thought it was some girl trying to do the right thing by letting me know) I demanded to see the video. They refused to send it but did a video call with me instead, playing the video (I attempted to block my camera as best as I could). It was very clearly my husband. Then they demanded money, whatever I had or else they would send it to everyone on my Facebook friends list and I would suffer the shame (they typed out people on my friends list to me). They said they would ruin his reputation. Now he's not an important figure in our community but he is very well known. So I called Josh. Obviously he denied it. I told him to take a picture of himself and send it to me while I stalled this scammer. I screen recorded some of the video before they ended the call but I missed the part of him exposing himself. Josh sent me his selfie and it was only his face, clearly avoiding his clothing so I told him to send one of what he was wearing. Same clothes as the video. Josh told me it was clearly a scam to which I agreed and that I needed to block this person immediately. I did not. I strung this person along for as long as I could. Josh kept denying that he took any sort of video of himself, which I would've believed if it weren't for the video. We both quickly deactivated our Facebook accounts so hopefully they wouldn't send out anything. Josh was adamant that I block this person, his reputation be damned. He didn't care if this video got out to everyone. I ended up blocking them once they threatened myself and my kids. I honestly don't know if they sent the video out or not. I sent Josh the video I managed to get and he is completely confused on how anyone could've gotten a video like that because he would never take random pictures or videos of himself to give to anyone but me. I just don't understand how the video could be fake. We ended the call to give ourselves some time to collect our thoughts and he would call me back later. So I gathered my thoughts and the more I thought about it, the more it didn't make sense to me and I was sure the video was real. He called me back about a half an hour later and he still denied ever taking videos. I'm already starting to second guess myself but at the same time I KNOW the video is real. This really just doesn't seem like him. I have offered free hall passes to him in the past, threesomes... but he has never liked the idea, even seeming revolted by it and disappointed I would offer something like that. He has always been very open with me, always dead honest even if he thinks I'll be mad at him or potentially leave him. Depending on the circumstances, I would've even been okay with him having something on the side, I wouldn't have considered this to be cheating. I can see the subtle red flags from tonight and I really do feel like he is lying to me but this really isn't like the man I've come to know and grow with over these last 14 years.
I'm lost. I don't know what to do or even how to feel about this. Could this possibly be fake? They absolutely refused to send me the video, I don't know why they wouldn't but could only show me through a video call. Should I believe my husband who has never given me a reason to not trust him? Every instinct in me is telling me the video is real but he would've broken down crying admitting to everything. But he kept on denying it.
What do I do?
ETA - I've read every single message so far, sorry I can't reply to you all. I do want to quickly clarify more on the video. I was hoping to leave out some details that could paint him in an even worse light but it's easier to explain now at this point. I truly don't think the video is fake, he wasn't hacked and I dont believe it was a cam girl session. I'm starting to realize he has a very particular kink when it comes to photos and videos because I do get an obsessive amount of them from him myself. He was outside, having a smoke while he took the video. He really is away doing work, i called him while he was sitting down at a meal with all these people when i told him to go somewhere private. I could hear his boss. It was just something quick to send off to whoever. It obviously came from his phone camera. He was not masterbating, he was showing it off or "flexing". I dont know wtf to call it. It was out, flexed and shown off for maybe 20-30 seconds then it was over. It looked like the video was stitched together from maybe 2 or 3 videos. First face shots then to crotch view, then back to face again. Yes, his face, clothes, ring were still visible in the crotch view but the bottom half was too blurry to tell if it was his junk or not. I may get the answer to that when he's back in town. The phone calls have been weird today. Mostly just "checking in" and silence. He wants to go to the police when he's back in town. He offered to fly back home early but I told him not to. And is he is going straight to work once he lands. I honestly don't care about him sending or sharing nudes, this could've been a great solution to something that is causing me pain, stress and guilt. It's the potential lying, hiding, uncertainty of it all that is troubling me and the fact he was dumb enough to have put himself AND me in this situation.
I'll update/make a new post when he's back in town and we hash things out.
Thank you everyone for all your perspectives, stories and advice. This has been truly helpful to me.