Hi all. Interesting week!
I'll try to keep this short:
Married about 7 years with a couple of little ones in those 7 years. Just found out that wife is emailing and at least one 1.5 hour phone call with a guy she has met. She is, well let's say she is a musician (not wanting to give out identifying details ha) and so is this guy. Let's say I am not a musician but do appreciate "music" just typically not the same style music of my wife. This guy makes the same kind of music she does but like on steroids. He came to my attention when she wanted to expose me to some of his music he had made and wanted to know what I thought of it. Long story short I think he needs to be on some meds! Very underground, very "odd" very moody and in my personal opinion, the work of depression. my wife has always been drawn to these underground scenes and while I can appreciate that stuff it's really not my cup of tea at all.
Anyway, so I find out this guy wrote a song (figuratively speaking) for my wife and emailed her recently about it. My wife's subsequent emails really have rocked my world. I guess I'd describe it as infatuation or something...she talks about how special the song is and how much it means to her and it made her cry a bunch for joy and how special she felt. They emailed about how to meet up so she can hear it in person (he lives out of town). She said she could travel to make that happen (travel in a car and with gas that I &$^%^#& paid for!!!) He told her in one email that he gets crushes easily and feels a fool and she even wrote back that she often feels the fool too. They have not yet met up again since they first met (at a music event) this summer but are emailing throughout the day while I am at work (driving me crazy this week!!!!).
So the question is to let her know I know and confront her or wait and see? I am at this point just waiting and seeing what transpires but i really don't know if that is the right thing to do or not. The emails are becoming a few day now. I can't express how much stress this has put upon me this week. We are already in counseling (at her request), going both as a couple and as one on one with the counselor. Wife basically says everything is my fault. Counselor completely shocked me by basically telling me last time at my private session with her that she thinks the issues have nothing to do with the marriage- that she thinks my wife is very unhappy within herself for issues she does not know yet but issues completely independent and predating our marriage. Completely shocked me. I try and be a loving husband and caring father and certainly am not perfect and have room for improvement but was honestly willing to accept that i was causing miscommunication with my wife and was willnig to do whatever it took to make it right, yet the counselor tells me to just be as loving and supportive as possible and be patient.
I just don't know what to do. I love her and i believe she loves me. We have made great strides the last few weeks and I have made sure she knows she is the center of my world and she has been basking that, yet I see that the emails continue. Also, I found the emails completely by accident- was on the home computer when inbox popped up with the first message I saw which led me to go through the inbox/sent, etc. Sex has gone from a few times a week to once every week or 2-3 weeks at her choosing and not mine.
I never thought this would happen and it's taken all of my energy out of me.
Last edited by JustFoundOut; 10-07-2008 at 03:20 PM.
So the question is to let her know I know and confront her or wait and see? I am at this point just waiting and seeing what transpires but i really don't know if that is the right thing to do or not.
No. Give her more rope. I generally don't believe in spying on people, but it's a different matter if you catch them accidentally. Once you tell her, your information will be cut off. Keep watching, you will get an interesting insight into her.
I agree Mark. From what I read, it sounds as though it is an emotional affair now, with plans to make it a physical one. My thoughts are either nip it now or gather evidence to show her and confront the situation. Given the circumstances I think the snooping is ok. There is probable cause for search. I don't think that living with the stress of wondering is the best course of action. Waiting in pain will make the confrontation much worse. I think the best thing to do now is to gather evidence quickly and confront her once you have enough proof that she can no deny the affair.
If a woman wants to cheat there is nothing that you can do about it. If you think that it will help you move on with your life you can try and catch her in the act, it won't be hard since she is cocky and not doing too much in the way of discretion.
If you wish to keep her then don't even bother, sometimes ignorance is bliss. Trust me, forgiving is easy but forgetting is impossible. I wish my Wife was a better liar or I was stupid or something because it's kind of hard to live with someone that you don't trust or respect.
Thanks all. I appreciate the feedback. I am about 99% sure this is the first time anything like this has happened. We spend a lot of time together and without going into details it would be almost impossible for this to have gone on before.
One concern I have now is that i saw one email come in the other day and when I checked later on it was "gone." it wasn't in the inbox, not in the delete box, nothing in any of the other folders, nothing in the sent folder...just gone. I am not sure what that means except for it was deleted and not just sent to the delete box but actually intentionally deleted.
One thing about my wife is that I strongly feel she is absolutely not the type to physically cheat on me. I think she would sooner jump off a bridge as she considers it the worst sin possible which I agree with!
I think I may go see our counselor one on one this week to see what she says- show her the emails, etc. I have been having raging headaches all week now (like 24/7 and won't go away) and I am quite sure it is due to the stress of all of this. I don't want to let the cat out of the bag prematurely but I also don't want to stay under this cloud beyond next week- would drive me crazy.
The other good thing is this guy lives significantly away from us and it would be no easy task for them to physically meet up. The weird thing is as I have been looking around online about this guy. His "music" gives him a small internet presence via google, etc. I swear I think the guy is insane and lives in a gutter. It is amazingly odd to me how my wife could be drawn to him. It would have to be in a completely self destructive way b/c this guy must be living close to the edge of sanity at least in my book.
this headache is killing me. And to answer your question Dancing Nancie....if she physically slept with this person I don't see how I could possibly live with that. For all I have done for our family and how much I have sacrified to make our life where it is today....if such an event transpired I don't see how I could live with that. I most definitely would not want to give enough rope to allow such an event to occur but on the other hand if such an event is inclined to occur do I want to devote another 15 years of my life to have it happen then?
I think you are on the right course with taking the emails to your counselor! I hope you can get in sooner rather than later!
I know your head is driving you crazy, and I will think positive thoughts for you! Please keep us updated on what your counselor says, and how you are doing.
Thanks for the kind words Dancing Nancie.
I talked to the counselor last night. Tried to get over to see her and talk but schedule didn't work and she is not available until next week (monday hopefully!!!). Anyway, I am going to have to talk to my wife about this I guess. This week has been MAGICAL at home. I thought if I showed my wife how much I loved her it would get her to stop if I'd fulfill that emotional need. Well, based on email I saw today from her to him I guess I was wrong about that. Nothing sexual but really, based on stuff that he has said to her in earlier emails about being attached and having a crush- any communication I think is completely inappropriate. Alas....I have no wind in my sails this week.
I would hold off on talking to your wife until you talk to your conselor. I know that it sucks to be stuck in what feels like purgetory, but if you don't have your thoughts straight it may not be a productive conversation. She will feel threatened, and will not respond the way you think, or hope she will (unfortunately I know from experience). If you need to work out your thoughts a little more, please do so before talking to her about this.
I'm going to just suck it up and deal with it through the weekend (if nothing else this has given me a renewed appreciation for LONG a single day really is!!!). I do want to talk with our counselor before I talk with her. This is made more complicated though by the fact that I discovered today that she's been talking off and on the last month or so also with an old boyfriend that lives locally. I have never met the guy but what she has told me about him I can't stand him. In fact, right after he found out we were getting married he propositioned her for sex because "wouldn't that be fun to have sex without him knowing." Great. I mean just great. Again, I know for a fact she is not seeing him physically (due to our life right now I just know that isn't happening) but WTF is she doing talking to that idiot. I've told her I don't care who she talks to or hangs out with- just not that one guy due to what he said to her. This guy is also a type, based on what she has told, more or less has his life in the gutter. Why the bloody heck does she seem to be drawn to such junk? Major self-esteem issues. We live an extremely good and comfortable life and a life most of our friends have told us they wish they had and she just wants to throw all of that into the gutter???
Anway. Thanks for letting me vent O Anonymous Internet Forum. It at least feels good to be able to get this out in writing and look at it. This is just devistating.
It does feel good to let some of this stuff out to people you don't know.
It very well may be that she is just a little lost right now. I found out last night that my wife is incredibly bored with life, and your wife may be just that as well. Please keep us in the loop, and let me know if I can help.
You may want to just talk to her, not directly about the situation or what you found out, but work in just enough "hypathetical" detail to hopefully get her to fess up.
Well. What an intense/interesting weekend! I actually ended up talking to her about all of this this past Friday afternoon. I really could not take it anymore and I had to talk to her about it. The straw that broke the camel's back was my wife having our babysitter teach her how to text message Friday afternoon- she sent me a message saying she just learned how to text and I about had a heart attack, figuring it was all so she could text with him.
Anyway- long story short- we had a LONG talk friday and have talked all through the weekend. I think this can very well be a positive event in our marriage depending on how we act/react. I think through our discussions she realized that she was at the start of an emotional affair. She also realized she has continued to have this unhealthy longing for people on the edge that are ultimately unhealthy and will do nothing but harm her. I realized I have not been showing my love for my wife enough/in a way that she hears and that I have changed radically over the last week (basically making it my goal to show her how much I genuinely love her each and every day which really I should have already been doing, as we all should do!). I met with our conselor today for a while and I think we are hopefully at a good turning point that will result in my wife finding answers to problems/issues that have plagued her so that she can learn to be happy with the many, many blessings that are in our life instead of seeking bizarre people that suffer the same pain she did in the past.
I know this is going to be a long process and not an instant cure and not going to happen over night, but I am grateful that love can cover a multitude of sins and that we both still really love each other and that based on my discussions with my wife this weekend, that we both are deeply committed to working through our problems and finding the joy in our lives and marriage. I am still on the freaked out side of things but feel immensely better after this terrible load has been taken off of me and my wife and I are having a LOT of honest dialogue which is really good. This past week is by far been the best week of our marriage besides our honeymoon, as well as equally having been the worst week due to the info that came to light. It's been the best b/c we've had the most honest communication and feeling of devotion and love to each other. I know my wife loves me with all of her heart and is committed and this event I have come to see is due in part to my wife not feeling me conveying my love for her as well as in part due to my wife having issues of abuse as a child to work through and that is the reason for the attraction to "damaged" people over the years. The good news is that my wife does not want to continue down that road and wants a healthy, happy, loving, committed marriage. So- stay tuned...hopefully over the coming months or however long it takes, we will work through everything and find again that joy we first found when we got married. God's in control and I trust He is in control and that, combined with us doing what we can to the best of our abilities to love each other and communicate and be honest, we will work through this in a manner that will only make our marriage stronger and better.
Just found out
Nothing sexual but really, based on stuff that he has said to her in earlier emails about being attached and having a crush- any communication I think is completely inappropriate. Alas....I have no wind in my sails this week.
Again, I know for a fact she is not seeing him physically (due to our life right now I just know that isn't happening) but WTF is she doing talking to that idiot. I've told her I don't care who she talks to or hangs out with- just not that one guy due to what he said to her. This guy is also a type, based on what she has told, more or less has his life in the gutter. Why the bloody heck does she seem to be drawn to such junk? Major self-esteem issues. We live an extremely good and comfortable life and a life most of our friends have told us they wish they had and she just wants to throw all of that into the gutter???
