I have been married for over 20 years and have grown kids. About a year ago I started getting these funny feelings and intuition that something was up with my husband, in all the years I have been married I have never felt this way. I ignored these feeling and thought I was imagining stuff and thought that I was making a big deal about nothing. I should have listened to my gut feeling as it is usually right, the signs were there.
Anyway a few months ago I found out by looking at my husbands phone bill that he was talking to another woman (someone I know and thought was a friend) anywhere from 4 to 10 times a go, althought the calls were not long. He also admitted after I confronted him that he went out for drinks with her and also visited her at her apartment.
He claimed that nothing happened sexually and he did not sleep with her. After I kept at it he admitted that when he was drunk and he went over there he thought about having sex with her, which I already knew cause why else would be be hanging out with her in the middle of the night.
I don't know how to act, since he claims he never had sex with her he thinks he did nothing wrong. As a woman I don't want my husband talking or hanging out with this woman as it could lead to no good.
He has broken all contact with her and told me he wants to work on our marriage, which I believe. We were having some issues with our marriage but nothing that was so bad that he had to go out and seek contact with another woman. The usual typical stuff of when you have been married for a long time, drifting apart and intimacy problems with him wanting sex and me being resentful of him not paying me any attention so not wanting sex.
My dilemma is how to move forward from this point. He is also acting angry and does not like it when I ask him anything about this.
Thanks for listening, it feels good to talk about it as we have not told any of our family or friends because I still care so much about him I don't want our family and friends judging him and thinking badly about him.
I am hurt, confused, bewildered and have trouble focusing on things, I think my husband thinks I am making a big deal about this because nothing happened and he thinks I should forgive and forget.
Any advice or experiences you have had with this would be appreciated if you could share.
That is definitely an Emotional Affair and I suspect he is lieing about the physical part.
No Contact with the other woman is the only way to go. She must be totally removed from your lives.
One thing about sex - it is vital for a successful marriage. Do hold hold back on sex because you are resentful. This can destroy your marriage - he's your husband, he does not have to 'earn' the right to have sex with you.
If you suspect that any more is going on, my suggestion is to confront him and lay the law down - if he does it again, the marriage is over. Do not let him string you along with this - cheating spouses tend to do that.
Hang in there! You're on a forum with a lot of other people with similar experiences and are willing to help.
I agree with this being an affair of the heart whether the sex happened or not....He must give up the OW totally and you should have free access to all his communications with anyone to set your mind at ease.
I think the anger is part of it, not sure why but my husband was very angry as well while he was in the middle of his affair.
If you believe he wants to truly work it out, tell him it will take some time and effort on his part to re-build the trust issues you now have and he should be able to understand that...
If he is not willing to do that maybe that would be some kind of red flag.....maybe suggest some counselling for he 2 of you to work out the feelings. If you don't deal with it together and understand how you both felt and why this has taken place then you won't be able to get it behind you and move on..
Good Luck and I think 20 years is worth a bit of effort I'm sure he will think that way as well
Location: Temporary Resident of Earth Lord Only Knows Where Next
Posts: 5,597
Re: Emotional Affair - how to deal with it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by citygrl
My dilemma is how to move forward from this point. He is also acting angry and does not like it when I ask him anything about this.
Of course he is angry he has had to give this woman up because of you. For the continuance of his marriage he has sacrificed and he won't likely blame himself for it. Not for some time anyway. It will take some time for him to get past his resentment. Give him a bit of space on it. EA cheaters rarely think they did anything wrong if there wasn't sex involved. Once he begins to emerge from the fog and see things for what they really are he will more fully understand his faults in getting involved in this. If there was sexual contact he may confess that also. In the meantime work on the the things you both need to do to be happier with each other. When someone turns to an EA there is usually something they perceive is missing from the marriage. Likely both of you need to change some things for the betterment of the marriage. I will disagree with Sven on a couple of issues.
1.) If you are not ready for sexual intimacy because of his mistake then he must earn your trust and respect. Sex is not owed to him just because he is your husband. He F'd up! If respect and trust are not in place for you then sex with him may breed resentment on your part. But do not use sex as a weapon of punishment. This will likely breed resentment on his.
2.) If he errs again with this woman the marriage is not necisarraly over. You will have to set your boundaries in what you will accept in his actions. I discovered my wife's EA well over two years ago. The marriage was in terrible shape and it almost ended. A lot of ground work needed to be done before we could even attempt a recovery. She stubbed her toe after no contact was established and began communicating again. I found out and was forced to put down an ultimatum. No yelling or shouting, I simply stated that I loved her but would not continue in a marriage where she wouldn't respect my wishes and I had no intention in hanging around waiting for the other shoe to drop from her. "Love you or not, I will leave and divorce you" That finally got her to commit and understand I was done with it if need be. While she resented me doing that she did come out of the fog eventually. She's not slipped since it has been over a year since she has had any contact. You will have to set your boundaries but don't be surprised or crushed if he slips up. Just be ready and determined in what your response will be.
Finally, find things for the two of you to do together and have good quality and fun times together. Explore a new hobby or activity together. Date, have fun and redevelop your friendship and communication. I like you am in a long term marriage. 25+ years together. The recover has been slow (over two years) and we still have issues but the marriage is stronger and happier than it has been in years. Good luck.
I found out about my husband's emotional affair in May of this year. After I found out about it, I took some days to myself to figure things out in my own head. I knew I needed to be able to grieve before I could think clearly about what avenue to take (we have 3 young kids). It was not with a woman who I was friends with; I had told him she made me uneasy. After I found out about their 'secret friendship', I laid the law down with him. I told him he would never talk to her again...and I was (am still) prepared to walk away if he reverts back to that behavior. I can say that the road of recovery has been slow for me, but we are focusing on eachother and our family and things are getting much better with us. We have been together for 16 years, married for 9 and I think we just started taking advantage of eachother; we stopped being best friends. Since then we have been working on rekindling our marriage because I honestly believe, if we don't put eachother first, then it doesn't matter how high of a priority we put our kids...we will end up ruining our marriage. There's some days I don't even think about his EA; and somedays I still think about it quite a bit. My thoughts are with you on your healing process, wherever it may lead you.
Call me naive but I believe most days that he did not sleep with her, he has offered to do whatever it takes to prove that did not happen. I tell him that regardless of whether or not he slept with her he still phoned her, went for drinks with her and went to her apartment a few times, what was the purpose of that. I told him that hurt just as much as if I had found out he had a one night stand. The betrayal factor is doubled due to me also knowing the OW.
When I ask him what they talked about he said just normal stuff, he claims they never talked about me or anything intimate or sexual, it was just someone he was hanging out with.
There is no question that he has broken off all ties with her and I believe him that he has not talked to her or will talk to her again.
He is more than willing to go to a counsellor which we have done and has said he will do whatever it takes to make our marriage work, he is sorry and apologized to me and said he made a big mistake. I should mention that he did drink a lot during this time and blamed some of it on the alcohol.
As for the sex I have told him that I am not ready yet and that it is too soon for me to even think about it. It feels really awkward and weird being around him and almost like he is another person.
I told him he has hurt me badly and need to prove to me and reassure me and build up the trust.
Our marriage was not perfect but it wasn't awful either, I think we both were not there for each other and drifted apart, there is alot of work ahead of us.
Your story sounds a lot like mine; I maybe am naive too, but I do believe my husband when he said he never had a physical relationship. I also asked him what they talked about and he said 'just stuff'...never about me, never about any arguments we had, etc. He thought of her as just another friend he was hanging out with.... I'm so glad to know I am not the only one who knows what it feels like though, and the emotional affair can be just as emotional-scarring as a one-night stand. I hope the future brings healing for you and your family...
Thanks Tachmom, I'm glad there's someone out there that has had a similar experience.
THis is my personal take on the situation that I think it started out innocently with him hanging out with her and another male friend more of a group thing but then it progressed to them spending time together alone meeting after work to have a few drinks and then to the next level which was him seeing her at her apartment alone a few times. I think that it was heading in the wrong direction and that if I had not confronted him it may have ended up with them sleeping together.
He still insists that they were friends and that he would never do that to me (sleeping with another woman) but I am still crushed over the fact he was spending time with her.
He is adamant about their conversations and that they never discussed me or the fact that we were drifting apart. He did mention that he talked about our kids and she talked about her own problems with her family. He even told me that she would sometimes ask about me because as I mentioned previously this is someone I know and thought was my friend.
However, she did not ask me to go for drinks or tell me her problems so thats were the confusion and suspicsions start to take over.
I too am traumatized by this just as much as if I found out about a physical affair. We are currently going to counselling and he is 100 percent on board with whatever its going to take to make our marriage better.
Is it normal to keep asking your husband over and over again what happened and what he did and what did he talk about, I'm driving myself crazy but I need to know!
Location: Temporary Resident of Earth Lord Only Knows Where Next
Posts: 5,597
Re: Emotional Affair - how to deal with it.
It is normal to want to know the specifics but you should ask yourself, do you really want to know. Will it help you bring closure or just more pain? Once the EA was over for my wife that was all the closure I felt I needed and turned my attentions to recovering the marriage.
Can you live with that because you care enough about him - and believe in his sincerity to move forward?
If yes, you are only hurting yourself. I'm right with you, trust me. My total trust in my H is not there now and I don't ever expect it to be. MAYBE someday I will - and it will just happen. MAYBE it never will and I'll have "THIS" in my life.
It sucks. But the reality is that by stressing we are only physically & emotionally hurting ourselves. Stress is a killer!
The last couple of months have been crazy emotional roller coaster since I found about the EA,but I am starting to feel better, the physical symptoms, nausea, stomach cramps and frequent trips to the bathroom have almost subsided. I was really hit hard by the physical side to this crisis.
The emotional side is still up and down but I can honestly say things are getting better. I really think that counselling has worked for us as it gives me an opportunity to really get those feelings out and then I feel better. Also talks with H have helped and I have not held anything back.
I can honestly say there is nothing that I want to say to him that I haven't already said. He on the other hand is not as open with his feelings and is having trouble expressing them. I have asked him lots of difficult questions and he has answered all of them sometimes not as in depth as I would like but he is trying.
I am almost at the stage where I want to forgive him and move on as I find forgiveness is going to help me more than him as I don't think I want to live with the toxic thoughts that will only hurt myself. That's not to say I will forget.
My situation is that H had an emotional affair with a friend of the family, there was no physical side to the affair and I actually believe him. I think that I caught onto things before they got any worse or maybe my H wanted me to catch him.
Have any of you experienced alot of attraction to your spouse after something like this, I don't know what is coming over me but I feel more attracted to him now than years ago. I know he loves me and he is really trying anything he can to make me feel better.
It sounds like things are going good for you. The new attraction is the love you have for him. Try to move on and use this stepping stone of marrage to make things better. Give him LOTS of attention and enjoy the love you both have... I wish you both well...
What do you say when your spouse says to you.It would be ok by me if you saw someone else.I would understand becaause of autistic son..The day I got floored and never recovered.She went out several times but I stayed in.She was getting home so late,I worked nites and kids where here alone lil girl was 15 at time.son was autistic and a slight flight risk?
Sorry you're here, citygrl. I just had a thought of two ways you could check if they slept together because you deserve to have that question answered:
1. get him to take a polygraph.
2. get him to ring her, on speakerphone with you in the room. He does NOT tell her you are there. You have to get him to do this as soon as you ask, cause if he does it a few days later her may have time to contact her and let her know the plan.
When he calls her, he says something like '****...my wife suspects we had sex...what do I do??!'
Her response will either be something like
'but we DIDN'T have sex...'
or
'How did she find out??!!'
If it's the first one you know he was being truthful, if not then you know they did have sex. You could change 'have sex' to 'fooled around' etc...the idea is your husband keeps the girl talking in a way that gets her to say what happened. Like if she says 'but we didn't have sex', he has to say something like 'But what about what we DID do?' then she might reply 'we were just talking' (so you know no physical contact happened' or she might say 'what, she suspects we kissed?' or 'how does she know I gave you a BJ?' etc.
This is a sneaky plan...but if your husband declines to do it there and then, you gotta wonder why...
Again sorry you're here and hopefully one of my ideas can answer that question for you!!
Emotional Affair - how to deal with it. 
