# Husband caught emailing for over a year to work colleague on email. Is this cheating?



## bME (May 22, 2014)

Hi.
Thanks for taking the time to read my post.
My wishes to gain some public opinion on my situation.
I will try to explain as clearly and easily as I can but as i am hurt and still in shock I might go off track a bit.

My beautiful husband who I have 3 young kids with and who I have put on a pedestal and loved my heart too for 11 years, has been caught by me, emailing, flirting with a work colleague who he has never met for over a year and a half. Yes, we have had issues, and we work on them.. Im not going to hide that.

One night last week, I went thru his phone, he was asleep. I did this as I hadn't seen him much as he went off to work very early and comes home late, and I wanted to see who he was during the day and what his life was like. i had noticed changes in him too, he had brought all new clothes and had a new haircut. He wanted to leave earlier to work, and said he would come home earlier but never did. He still came home late. While I thought nothing of it, just thought he was busy. I worked extra hard with the kids at home. 

Anyway first what happened was I found 2 erotic pictures of a real girl in sexy lingerie and underneath those 2 pics was a picture of my dog and he texted to his friend " these *****es are more ****ing trustworthy than ours". (meaning me and his friends girlfriend) ..
This really hurt, and this was texted the night before our 11 year wedding anniversary, and we were happy at this time!!!

in the same unit of text messages his friend asks him if he has seen the holiday pictures of this girl at his work, my husband replies with "yeah mate Im zooming in on her now" . 

This filled my curiosity of who and what these pictures were about, and so i jumped into his emails to see if I could could see what this pictures of this girl at work... when I did I discovered over one years worth of daily flirtatious emails between my husband and her as well. They were flirting, he had sent her wine as well.. she had tried to ask him to come and delivere it personally, he said it was "more fun this way" (emailing). 

He has never met her, but emails daily, calls and she had sent him pictures of her self.

I confronted him in the morning about the pictures, the erotic pictures and the degrading text message about me, he admitted to it all, said she was nothing, and he was v sorry. He told me he loves me and Im the one he wants etc..

So, there was all this, but also we had separated for 3 months just 1 months ago and during this one month, we had been really doing really well, we were doing an anothiny robbins marriage course. We fell back in love and I gave him my all..


I got up and left in the middle of the night with my child that day I found out and I haven't been home.

My head is spinning as I had no idea.
I feel like i have been played a fool by the man I love the most in the world.

I don't know how to handle this, or what to do.

It ruined my trust and faith in him. \ 

sad..


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## Caribbean Man (Jun 3, 2012)

bME said:


> My beautiful husband who I have 3 young kids with and who I have put on a pedestal ...


Hi sorry about your situation , sounds like it came as a complete shock to you. You put him on a pedestal and he treated you like this.

Yes he is cheating. He had a prolonged emotional affair with this woman , but I think the kick in the gut was the nasty things he said about you to her just around the time of your anniversary.

Also , he chose to continue emailing her while pretending to be working on your marriage issues.

How old is he? 
Do you think he really wants to be with you?
He needs to send her a letter of no contact.
I would also suggest that you contact her , before to get her side of the story.
Are you sure he's never been physically involved with this or any other woman during your marriage?
Has he been offering you any more details? He needs to come clean on everything that transpired , timelines etc.
Is she married ?

What you do next depends on if you feel the marriage is worth saving.

But you should consider your options first.


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## frusdil (Sep 5, 2013)

I don't blame you for being upset and terribly hurt, I would be too 

I'm sorry I can't see in your post, but how long ago did this happen? Is this a dealbreaker for you? Do you think you could forgive him and learn to trust him again?

Hugs to you x


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## AliceA (Jul 29, 2010)

The insult alone would've torn me apart, but add to that the emotional affair and I can't even begin to imagine the pain you'd be in. I think that you're right to give yourself some space to consider what to do, but you probably should've kicked him out rather than relocate yourself and your child. He's the one cheating and being nasty; he's the one who should suffer the inconvenience of leaving.

I think to start with you need to get your head around the fact that he's not the person you thought he was. This doesn't mean you can't reconcile at some point, but it means you have to come to terms with who he really is and then figure out if you can still spend your life with that person. He's not loyal, that's the first thing you'll have to come to terms with.

It's a horrible thing to find out about someone you love. I'm sorry you have to go through that.


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## clipclop2 (Aug 16, 2013)

I'm sorry you are here.

Your husband has been engaging in an emotional affair that based on his physical changes was going to become physical if he were able to fulfill his wishes.

You are very right to be hurt and offended. Many people in emotional affairs argue that anything short of being physical is not cheating. Not so. All affection and sexual attention is exclusive to the married couple. Giving intimacy to someone other than your spouse violates the basis of marriage.

What really hurts is how much you revered him. You were not rewarded.

Before I ask you what you would do if this or that, please tell us about his general character and if your elevation of him was justified. Did you overlook things? Did he cheat on you before you were married? Did you cheat on him in any way?

What were the issues that lead to separation? Can any of them be attributed to this affair? If you believe he had not had affairs before, are you absolutely certain? 

How did he "meet" this woman? Is she single? What is their business relationship? What are the consequences of an inappropriate relationship at their company? Did they communicate inappropriately using work email? Were those photos sent that way? Are you 100% certain they never met?

Is she married or in a relationship? Do you know how to contact her or her partner or family?

I'm glad you left. Consequences are everything. Respect is everything. He showed no respect for you doing this but you let him know loud and clear that you aren't too be trifled with. Excellent work there.

Can you access information now to know what contact he has had with her since you confronted him? Often relationships go underground once damage control has been initiated. So whatever he says, don't believe it. EAs are powerful. They are prolonged infatuation. They can lead to bonding that a marriage cannot compete with. They can also lead to real love despite what people say.

The biggest problem is that she is now even more a source of pleasure and comfort than she was before. Your marriage is work. If he is a passive-aggressive pleaser the urge to run away from his shame will outweigh any love our commitment to you. Eh. Based on that assessment alone I would tell you to abandon all hope. Passive-aggressive pleasers are a lost cause. I hope he isn't one of you want to give him a chance.

If you want to try to recover your marriage there are certain steps you can try. But the majority or "heavy lifting" has to be done by him. His words are meaningless. You can and should only judge him by his actions. Delay, denial, defensiveness, deflection, are all signs that he is not sincere. Yeah. You are all he wants is crap. His actions are not supportive of this. He wants both you and the fantasy of her. The reality that hit him makes him say you are the only one for him. Funny how that works. Now that you know he is faced with the choice of what he wants to give up. It has nothing to do with what he risked losing. The concrete is the only thing he sees and only because he was caught. The entire time he was risking you and he knows it. So the entire time he was saying your marriage wasn't worth protecting.

That's a harsh reality. I doubt he wants to admit to that truth.

He will also deny that the separation was a means for him to explore this EA while keeping you waiting in the wings. He probably reasoned that out wasn't even cheating at that point, despite the ring on his finger.

Right now you are dealing with the difference between what you believed and the truth. It is going to take a long time to process this. Do not rush it. Do not allow him to force action on your part in any way. You don't know this man. He is a liar.

Vent here. Tell your parents about this. Rely on your trusted friends. Do not let this isolate you out of embarrassment. That would be a horrible mistake that protects him and harms you.

Whatever the problems in your marriage, what he did is unacceptable. The cheater is 100% responsible for their actions. 100%.

Again, I am sorry for your pain. 

Whatever you do now, take time to get your emotions calmed and to begin thinking strategically. Learn as much as you can about the facts of the situation. Look at phone records, email, online chat logs, and credit card receipts. He will likely deny and destroy evidence so acting now is important. 

So number one is that he must provide you access to every account, even those he never told you about, and total control of his computers. Who knows what is there beyond email with her.

The work email will be more difficult because of business policy. But I know most spouces will allow access at home of there isn't a clearance issue and they have no reason to suspect access will compromise the company in any way. Meaning, of you were to learn of a trade secret, a planned acquisition, a company problem that if made public would affect stock prices, harm people, etc. etc. you must not mention it when casually to anyone. Is it right that access be granted? No. But how wrong it is is determined by how responsible you are.

Yes, he can delete info on his work computer. But his IT can likely retrieve everything. If he used company resources for anything it is probably a firing offense. So you have leverage.

Get educated. Eat even if you don't want to. Try to get rest. Exercise. Lean on friends and family. Love that beautiful child of yours. And know that no matter what happens that the sun is going to rise tomorrow and every day after that and you will be just fine. That you left tells me that you are smart and strong even when you have been assaulted in the what way.

You are way cool. Your husband is a loser jerk.


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