# Husband kept secret woman friend for 6 months



## stillalive (Sep 9, 2010)

I found out that my husband had a secret relationship with a woman for 6 months. When I found out I told him never to speak to her again, and he has not spoken to her for 3 months now. He swears nothing sexual happened and they mostly just talked on the phone and texted each other and I believe him, and even my 2 best friends believe him. But I am still angry and hurt over this. We have decided to work on our marriage and things seem to be going great, only I can't forget about this woman. How can I forget about the past and move forward to work on our relationship, I feel as though I am stuck and depressed. I want to work on being happy again. How can I get over this woman and be happy?


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## swedish (Mar 6, 2008)

Were there issues in your marriage when this took place? I ask because he was probably getting a need met (attention from another woman) that he may have been lacking at home. If you can talk about the state of your marriage at that time, and work on improving it, it will help you to look more toward the future than the past.


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## greenpearl (Sep 3, 2010)

I don't think it will be easy. Unless you learn to forgive and he is truly repentant. I like to fool myself. If I were you, and I still want to be with this man, or I have no better choice. I will think like this: ha ha ha, silly woman, you lost. My husband wants me more than he wants you. To him, you are only a toy. I am his wife. I have his children. I love him. He loves me. He still chooses me instead of you. 
Marriages become dull sometimes, so men or women make some silly mistakes. They are just bored, and they think having some fun would be interesting. Fortunately you found out very soon. You have put out the fire. Please talk to your husband and let him know that you feel very hurt. Make sure he doesn't do it again. Tell him it would be his loss to make you unhappy. If you are unhappy, I don't think he will be happy. 
I don't know if you read the Bible. And there are good books about forgiving. Please just remember, if you don't let it go, you are only hurting yourself.


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## swedish (Mar 6, 2008)

Definitely good points about repentance and forgiveness, greenpearl.

If he is showing true remorse, it will be easier to forgive him and move forward. But also understand his mindset may be different than yours...he may be thinking 'good thing that ended before anything happened' while you think 'something major did happen...you gave another woman attention that should only be reserved for me, your wife!'


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## greeneyeddolphin (May 31, 2010)

The thing about getting past infidelity or potential infidelity is that you have to be able to completely let go of it. It can't be something you hold over his head, for later arguments, or something that you remind yourself of every time he's 5 minutes late or does something totally unrelated that hurts your feelings or upsets you. You have to be able to totally acknowledge and accept that he messed up in a major way, but he's stopped doing it, he's said he won't do it again, and if you believe him, trust that he truly means what he says. You have to essentially move on as though it didn't happen, almost. It's hard, but you have to do it. 

If you continually allow yourself to think about what happened, you keep it fresh in your mind, which keeps those feelings of hurt, betrayal, and mistrust at the forefront. And if those feelings are at the forefront, then the feelings of trust, love and commitment that you need to feel in order to move on are shoved to the back. And then you never get past it, never move on. 

If you're really struggling, you might consider counseling, whether marriage or just for you alone to deal with it. It might help.


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## MrK (Sep 2, 2010)

swedish said:


> Were there issues in your marriage when this took place? I ask because he was probably getting a need met (attention from another woman) that he may have been lacking at home.QUOTE]
> 
> People have affairs because they are looking for something they are not getting at home. All of them are. Every one. Be it a PA or EZ. Either affection, sex, love, the thrill of secrecy, or just some strange. This is nothing unique in ANY case of infidelity. And, quite frankly, is a little to close to placing blame on the aggrieved party. "Your SO cheated on you because you weren't giving him/her enough (insert type of cheating) at home.


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## swedish (Mar 6, 2008)

I certainly did not mean to blame the aggrieved party...they likely have needs being unmet as well but did not step out of the marriage to address them. My comment was not to excuse his behavior, but to offer possible avenues to explore that would strengthen their marriage. I have been in her shoes and it helped us both a lot in moving forward to dig deeper into the state of our marriage at the time.


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