i know i am half way into an emotional affair, but i want to know from someone who can tell me when it MAY be better, because the marriage may be best to just let go of.
I am in therapy. It's not making it any better yet.
This marriage is a second marriage, 3 yrs, no kids except from previous marriage, and it seems to have gone cold. or I have gone in another direction and so has he.
my emotional affair feels like it is my only lifeline, because of how stuck i feel in another failed marriage.
I did not see it coming and I sure wasn't looking for it. I had just decided to do the best I could with my job and family and tolerate the distance my husband and I now have.
what i realize-prob with help of the counselor who keeps asking me, 'what do I want?' is that i do not have any good, enriching, uplifting,supportive CONNECTION with my spouse, other than he is here. usually in the next room.
and I am not pursuing my EA, but we work in the same field and when we are together we talk and it just feels way more supportive than what i am getting at home.
what the EA did for me though, was put my husband on notice that something is not right in our relationship and we had better fix it, or i am about to hit the door.
what i also realize is that it does not mean my EA will work out where we end up happily ever after either. I suspect, which could be why I am stuck, is that it will probably end when my marriage ends and I will be on my own completely without any emotional support at all.
i am not sure either if this will make me feel wonderful or horrid.
one way or the other, i think i am ready to let the pieces fall where they may.
i am going to take all the emotional energy away from my ea and focus on my husband, As I understand my ea is a drug to me, I will have no contact with him to get over him. I will give my husband the benefit of the doubt that he really wants the marriage to work and I will work with him, with counseling.
Good for you IDK. Your doing the right thing. I feel bad that the majority here is beating you up. Your husband distanced himself from you when he got so wrapped up in his video games. What does he play WOW, Guild Wars, Everquest??
I think you should just break up and divorce your husband and take a break from the dating game and just reflect on your life and take care of your kids. It takes two to fvck up a marriage and your husband is majority shareholder to blame in this situation.
But I will say that having a EA is 100% wrong. You should of just given your husband the divorce paper in his face while he was jerking off to his video games.
Video games is a big problems in marriages. Trust me I know, I play video games, but I play in moderation and never ignore my wife or my family. I spend more time with them then any video games.
You guys really need to cut this girl some slack and look at it from her point of view. Yes we all know cheating is 100% wrong no matter the circumstance, but the bottom line for her is to leave her husband because he is no good either. He is a scumbag for ignoring his wife and what else did he expect? Of course she would confide in another man, because she can't in her husband because he won't let her.
You need to leave IDK, just have him served and when he comes home one day all your things are gone. Based on this thread you have tried numerous times to explain to him how you feel and he seems ignorant to it.
You are the victim in this, not your husband. One thing I don't agree with you though is male friends are never a good combination in a marriage.
as i said from the beginning, i do not believe whatever i decide to do will end up going on with the ea. the ea is not asking me for anything, it's how I feel. besides, that does seem rather tacky, ok i'm divorced now, it's your turn.....if i divorce i will take a good long time of getting some breathing space from everybody, coz this is not a casual breakup, it would be a life adjusting move for everyone involved.
on another note, i did talk to my spouse about my ea last night. He now understands that we are in crisis mode. i told him i don't know what it is going to take for me to get back my feelings for him, and i don't.
Its good you told your spouse.
My WW told me the same,I kicked her out.She saw that her "soul mate" was projecting a very false image of himself,she thought there was someone better out there than me.
When she was on her way to the mental hospital I brought her back home,she knows she was in fantasy land now and it grateful I took her back and she is doing all the right things to repair our marriage.I also had changes to make and I did and stuck with them.
Maybe in your case its best to not hurt your H anymore and move on,save everybody a lot of pain.
You said you dont love your H but you do "love" the OM.
I dont think you know what youre asking for but it seems best if you do the D and let your H rebuild his life.
You said you dont love him anyway. Posted via Mobile Device
Samus, there was a woman not too long ago who talked about her husband pretty badly to family and friends during her affair. She never told them she was having an affair, but she did tell them how her husband never did anything around the house and ignored her needs...the whole 9 yards.
Anyway, when the truth came out in the end about her affair, the woman admitted to basically creating those stories about how horrible her husband was all that time.
I know. Because I am the husband in that case. Regret has apologized to her family and friends about how she used that as a way to deflect what was really going on. She re-wrote the marriage history and even the reality. I was a very loving husband. Did I do housework all the time? No. That might be because of my job as a pilot being away from home.
I'm not saying that is the case in IDK's situation. However, I would be very careful taking a cheater's opinion of their spouse with a grain of salt. Especially, when they're still in the affair.
My wife did a lot of blame shufting,re-writing pretty much put it all on me,told me she had no faults,la la land once again.Seven months out she she's how she contributed to the demise of the marriage. Posted via Mobile Device
dude, i can see from your side and experience that is what you got. from my side i am on a website talking to people i do not even know trying to find some answers to my situation, revealing things I would really not rather even share with my dead mother. why would i need to lie about any of this? i am more than willing to own what i have done. i can't keep living like this because it is driving me crazy and distracted. i am glad to know though that i am a typical case, kind of makes me feel less traumatized. cause if it is a pattern done by others then there is a certain "pathology" that may be pinpointed and then excoriated from my very being. and perhaps then i will be free
Wow...ya know, people are trying to help here and you seem to shrug off almost every attempt. You claim you want help and there are good people here trying. It's almost like you're having your cake and eating it too right here at TAM!
SomedayDig - I understand, and then perhaps you might be entierly biased in this situation?
Sometimes you have to give people the benefit of the doubt. This person came on here seeking help, unfortunately due to certain factors in her relationship she seeked love and emotion somewhere else and now we should help her in this situation as well.
If its true and her husband was ignoring her then more power to her and the EA is just makes it an easy exit for her and too bad for her husband. If it is in fact a lie (which we will never know either way from both parties) then we still only have what one spouse is mentioning here on this thread. Neglect is a big problem is alot of marriages and some spouses seek to fill that gap somewhere else, but they should first divorce there neglectful spouse.
This woman sounds like she is being honest, because Video games is a big factor in neglectful spouses. For her to come on here and open up her private life for discussion on a board shows me that she is really concerned for her marriage but instead we all give her a hard time about don't cheat.
She is having an emotional affair (EA) because unfortunately she is feeling neglected. Preferably she should divorce first, but that hasn't happened and she hasn't cheated based on the evidence that have been given to us. Let us help her with what she is telling us then rather assume that she just met someone and wants to runaway from her perfect husband.
I know cheaters lie about there spouses so they can justify there actions to the OM/OW. But in this case we only know what the person in an EA is telling us.
Reality is why would someone come on TAM and the CWI forum and post that they are having and EA and lie to us on why there having the EA? What benefits are they going to get out of all of us strangers? We are not her family or her husband or close friends that she should sugarcoat anything..
IDK - What exactly do you want to do? Any ideas? Perhaps you can discuss with your husband again the situation and your feelings.
If you don't think your husband cares, then leave. If he cares, then quit your job and discontinue contact with the OM and try to salvage your marriage.
So when I was playing WoW and Battlefield2 while Regret and I were having communication issues, that means that you're giving her the all clear to have her affair for 5 years?
Just to clarify and I am not picking on you Dig, I like you and you are a friend of mine
and Calvin but what you posted did sound a bit confusing, so I could see someone who doesn't know you misunderstand. Posted via Mobile Device
No I am not given your wife all clear to have an affair on you. I don't support an affair period my friend. Your wife is wrong for doing that and she should of divorced you instead. I am not saying that to IDK. I am telling her that if her husband is not going to communicate with her even though she is voicing her concern then kick him to the curb, the same your wife should of done with you instead of cheating.
Communication issues and neglect goes hand in hand and if you and regret were having those problems and you R then great for you.
Look, I play videos games, I played WOW for 7 years, I recognized quickly how Video Games can take up your time. I have been neglectful, snippy, rude and down right abandoned my family.
My wife didn't mind and didn't ever want to cheat, but she would talk to me about it and I would make changes and have.
I support a healthy marriage and if she is stating her husband is being neglectful and doesn't want to communicate then your situation and hers may be different. I have not read your situation and I will take sometime to read about it.
The bottomline is some people are lost in the Video Game Fog for too long that they lose there spouses love because of it and this might be the case. Some spouses are strong enough to forgive and move forward with R like you and your wife, but some spouses are not and when you throw in a EA in the mix like IDK's situation there is a possibility she might take the easy road out, when you and your wife didn't.
So you think it is fair for you to ignore your wife and call it a lack of communication as the excuse for your addictive and neglectful behavior and expect her to throw herself at you and be the loving wife she always has been?
Again, no where in my posts do I support cheating, there is no justifiable reason to cheat be it emotional or physical. But there are numerous reason to divorce and this is one of them, especially when one spouse shows a lack of commitment to the marriage by being neglectful.
I support a healthy marriage and if she is stating her husband is being neglectful and doesn't want to communicate then your situation and hers may be different. I have not read your situation and I will take sometime to read about it.
A good idea. That way you would know the full story of when the communication issues began...and I didn't play WoW til about 2 years into her affair.
So you think it is fair for you to ignore your wife and call it a lack of communication as the excuse for your addictive and neglectful behavior and expect her to throw herself at you and be the loving wife she always has been?
It would definitely be a good idea to read our story as I never ignored Regret. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't play the game until she went to bed. As well...I never neglected her.
I must say tho, Calvin had faults. I will not go into them but once I really thought about it..I finally realised he was the way he was because of the way I treated him..see he never played games but if say a husband is ignoring his wife and playing games it might be because of something you have been doing..you need to dig deep inside yourself..look at your faults instead of pointing fingers at your spouse or it will never get better. Posted via Mobile Device
In my book, an EA can be even more detrimental, as it's greatly nothing more than a rather large vehicle in which for the PA to eventually foster itself!
Yes it is and it tears the betrayed to pieces,its torture every waking second and it feels like it takes forever just to be able to function half-assed Posted via Mobile Device
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