# 4 weeks of trying to get her to just talk to me.



## lostpilot

I have never thought I would be in this situation. However, it's entirely my fault.

I've been married for over 20 years. Sometimes it's rough but otherwise, I have no regrets. I consider myself to be a rather outgoing person but my wife is rather an introvert. However, we have many of the same likes (books, traveling, food, learning). But we also have our differences (she hates concerts and crowds for the most part and I like to go out occasionally). It's been 20 years of that and for good or bad we're climbing into our late 40s. We talk about retirement and winding down the jobs. We talk about investing and, while I'm not the most astute when it comes to the market, I'm completely on board with her plan (as she is in the financial industry).

However, recently she discovered that I email someone she detests during the work week and she never knew about it. To be honest, I have emailed this person for about the last 5 years and I hid that from my wife knowing that she would go ballistic. Even then, I can honestly say that the emails were not sexual, flirtatious, or really even contained pictures unless they were of our kids. My wife found an email pop up on my phone and read thru a few of them. I can say that the topics usually focused around my hate for my job and traffic and hers were around how her boyfriends treated her. I was used to the boyfriend talk only because this woman dates a lot. That's something I"m not really familiar with given my 20 year marriage and 4 years of dating but she was never reaching out to me for a date. In fact, we haven't really seen each other in years but we would have the same old gripes each day, ask about kids, plans for the weekend, or politics at a high level.

What I thought was innocent my wife has taken to see as a betrayal given that I hid this from her. Frankly, I'm in agreement with that statement. As a married man, I should have realized that this is a toxic relationship and really I should have bowed out. But for some reason I didn't and in order to not 'rock the boat' - thought it was something I could manage. So earlier this month, my wife confronted me about my 'pen pal' and I really didn't have words. Likewise, most of the previous emails from this woman were deleted and that's because I keep my inbox pretty clean - google deletes them after 30 days and I don't like clutter. Tough to do searches on things when it's me griping about traffic or careers and her about her boyfriends.

So now 4 weeks later, I'm still getting the cold shoulder. As my wife has told me, I am unable to make adult decisions by hanging around with this person and that, since I wasn't getting anything out of my pen pal relationship, I must have been in love with her.

I had chalked up the fighting to jealousy. I dropped the emails, told the penpal that I was utterly crushed at hurting my wife and that I wasn't going to talk to her anymore, and I have spent a month having my teeth kicked in for having a relationship with a homewrecker. My wife won't talk to me, barely smiles anymore and has told me repeatedly that I'm a lying cheating a**hole.

WIth that, and in trying any effort to save my marriage, I have told our closest friends that my wife and I are in a rough patch and that I am to blame. I tell them that I have hurt her by emailing someone she hates and that I hid it. I have laid out that I am willing to do what I can with their help to get her to see that I'm not this person she now admittedly hates. As my wife has put it - i 'disgust' her and that I am incapable of love.

the last 4 weeks have had me go from thinking about how to tell my wife that I wasn't have an affair (which I wasn't and we both went into to have STD tests to try to resolve that). I have tried to show her that I am not financially supporting anyone else - we walk thru the finances and everything is there. But that what I did was hide something and then try to lie about it when she confronted me. Instead of telling her that I write nearly every weekday and sometimes more than a few times during the week - I tried to 'soften the blow' by lying about the frequency and she called me out on it. So I'm a lying, but not cheating, a**hole and I do deserve that.

What I would like to know is if the punishment is worth the crime. I have shook the foundation of my wife's future by showing that I hide things. And I want nothing more than to be with her, support her, and continue loving her into old age but she is stating that we're thru. "There's nothing left" is what she tells me.

I can't believe that so I come home every day and we stay up for hours arguing about my choices and then we're up early in the morning arguing about how I have destroyed her life. While I did lie - I would do anything I could to get things fixed. The problem is that she's not opening up. I've talked with several people and they don't get the brick wall or her talking to lawyers. I've tried to be as objective as possible to understand that while I did do a really horrible thing, is it something to divorce over? None of our friends that I've spoken to think that's the case but she's just so made after nearly a month.

Is there any objective advice out there for a guy that's not strayed to another woman but was maybe too chatty and should have known better? I lied, i did a horrible thing hiding it, but this woman and my daughter is the galactic center of my life and I'm hating this. I'm doing everything and she's staying just as mad each day.


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## Blondilocks

Why did you have a 5 year on-line relationship with a woman who you knew your wife hated?


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## *Deidre*

Blondilocks said:


> Why did you have a 5 year on-line relationship with a woman who you knew your wife hated?


This.

And why does she ''hate'' her?


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## Cynthia

You should not be arguing with your wife. You hurt her by having a relationship with someone you knew she would not want you to be in communication with. You hid it from her then lied about it. That's pretty serious. You have betrayed her trust. If you are arguing, you are probably trying to defend yourself, when you should instead be trying to soothe and comfort you wife.

My recommendation is that you take a polygraph to prove that you haven't met with the women. This would help ease your wife's mind.

When she is upset with you and telling you about it, do not defend yourself. Listen to her. Let her vent. Ask her what she wants you to do to help her feel better and go from there.


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## NoChoice

OP,
You and your wife are not the same in your thinking and reasoning. What you see as "innocent" she sees as damning. This is common in many relationships. What you must now come to understand is that to her, you cheated. I have used this comparison before and I feel it to be accurate when I say that lying is verbally cheating and cheating is physically lying. Except for how they are expressed they are the same.

Your wife is no doubt struggling with delineation. Where is the line drawn? Is looking okay? Is talking okay? Is touching without intercourse okay. Is oral without PIV okay? Your W has a line that you have crossed over. Since you have not crossed your line you cannot understand why she feels upset and betrayed. However, if she had crossed your line, whatever that may be, with another man then you would better understand her angst.

At this point the best you can do is to try and understand her position, diligently strive to never cross that line again and sincerely show her that you do understand and are remorseful. She may be able to see you as trustworthy again but she also may not. Your behavior will have some influence over this so it would behoove you to put forth significant effort both in understanding her point of view and proving your resolve. I wish you good fortune.


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## MarriedDude

I gotta tell you. I have no dog in this hunt...but its clear you knew how your wife would react, or you wouldn't have hidden the relationship...yes its a relationship...noone has pen pals at our age. Mimizing like this will only keep your wife upset. 

Sooo all this means..what is the rest of the story?

The folks here can help in a significant way...but they gotta have the real deal...otherwise, whats the point?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Blondilocks

Right now your wife is probably viewing you as someone who got chummy with her enemy. It's not just the 5 years of your griping to another woman behind your wife's back, it's not just the lying about it. It's the fact that you knew your wife hated the woman and you took up with her anyway. She sees betrayal big time.

So, again, why did you do this? What resentments do you have against your wife? What are you getting even with her for?


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## MrsAldi

Try to put yourself in her shoes, if she was contacting a male, who you detested over a period of 5 years, how would that make you feel? 
She protests that it was innocent but how could you possibly know, when she has erased all the messages. 
The other male is a notorious & handsome charmer.
Naturally you would have other suspicions. 




Sent from my B1-730HD using Tapatalk


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## lostpilot

*Deidre* said:


> This.
> 
> And why does she ''hate'' her?


Polar opposites - my wife is rather introverted. The other woman - 'penpal' is the name my wife gave her recently - likes to hit the bars and clubs. They have met but my wife finds her to be a trainwreck really.

Otherwise, I am still trying to figure out the reason for chatting with someone off and on for 5 years during the workday. She would vent about her boyfriends and I would vent about work - the conversations never really changed. She would ask for relationship advice and I was horrible at giving it. To say that I was 'bored' diminishes what I did to my wife but I can't think of anything else as there was no desire to jump in bed with her.


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## lostpilot

MarriedDude said:


> I gotta tell you. I have no dog in this hunt...but its clear you knew how your wife would react, or you wouldn't have hidden the relationship...yes its a relationship...noone has pen pals at our age. Mimizing like this will only keep your wife upset.
> 
> Sooo all this means..what is the rest of the story?
> 
> The folks here can help in a significant way...but they gotta have the real deal...otherwise, whats the point?
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


Sorry - penpals was my wife's word. I just picked it up. I would agree that the minimizing it is horrible; however, that is the story. I'm not pushing anything to her financially and I have no desire to start a relationship other than really email. 

Judge if you want but really I just wrote stupid emails for longer than I should have.


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## lostpilot

CynthiaDe said:


> You should not be arguing with your wife. You hurt her by having a relationship with someone you knew she would not want you to be in communication with. You hid it from her then lied about it. That's pretty serious. You have betrayed her trust. If you are arguing, you are probably trying to defend yourself, when you should instead be trying to soothe and comfort you wife.
> 
> My recommendation is that you take a polygraph to prove that you haven't met with the women. This would help ease your wife's mind.
> 
> When she is upset with you and telling you about it, do not defend yourself. Listen to her. Let her vent. Ask her what she wants you to do to help her feel better and go from there.


Polygraphs aren't really the right thing here I believe. But your intentions are correct. I showed her that in the last 2 years I've been no where but home. We went thru the finances and there's no huge or regular bar tabs. I let her vent - I've let her vent for 4 weeks but I don't think that's enough.

I've asked what I can do and she has no answer. I have admitted to my friends that I messed up horribly but they know I've been with my wife for years. And I have admitted that I was trying to diminish the relationship by lying about it or saying "its no big deal". That's the worst thing I did.


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## Cynthia

Why are you arguing? Arguing is a back and forth of disagreement.
I don't think that four weeks of venting is much considering that your relationship went on for five years. It's going to take many months for your wife to start to cool down. 
Don't try to get your wife to do anything. Show your love to her the best you can by being a good, steady husband. Be patient. This will take time. There's nothing like finding out your spouse has been hiding someone behind your back and lying about it. She's got to process this and it really does take quite a bit of time.


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## lostpilot

CynthiaDe said:


> Why are you arguing? Arguing is a back and forth of disagreement.
> I don't think that four weeks of venting is much considering that your relationship went on for five years. It's going to take many months for your wife to start to cool down.
> Don't try to get your wife to do anything. Show your love to her the best you can by being a good, steady husband. Be patient. This will take time. There's nothing like finding out your spouse has been hiding someone behind your back and lying about it. She's got to process this and it really does take quite a bit of time.


Thank you Cynthia. I agree that 4 weeks is nothing regardless as to the time I spent emailing. You're completely right here. Thanks again.


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## Cynthia

lostpilot said:


> Thank you Cynthia. I agree that 4 weeks is nothing regardless as to the time I spent emailing. You're completely right here. Thanks again.


Thank you. This is such a nice response. I think if this is how you are with your wife at this time, it will go a long way in helping her recover. Accepting what she has to say and being patient with her is what is needed in your situation.

I think you need someone to vent to. Do you have any male friend that you go out with occasionally or couple that you two spend time with? Are you frustrated about work? Maybe therapy would help. An hour every week or two where you can vent about work would probably be helpful. Or how about keeping a journal? I keep a journal and it's therapeutic.


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## Spicy

You broke her trust, you were a liar and a sneak for 5 years.

She may or may not forgive you. She will heal on her own schedule, and even if 4 weeks seems to slow to you, this is her healing, not yours, and you caused the damage.

I hope she can forgive you also. Continue to work with her on this, being extremely open, and willing to listen to her concerns, answer her questions, and try to calm her fears. 

She probably wants to be able to trust you again, but a huge part of her is afraid to let go and try again. Time and your own patience and transparency will hopefully help. I wish you all the best.


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## Openminded

Your lies have led to broken trust. Your wife's heart literally hurts -- like she's been stabbed because it feels that way. She can't imagine that you would do this to her. Literally can't imagine it. Right now you are someone she doesn't even know. She's sad because she wishes she had her old marriage back but it's gone. She's in shock and she's hurt and she's not sure that awful feeling will ever go away. That's where she is right now. 

Betrayal is a very hard thing to recover from and it will take a lot of time and effort on your part to get your marriage back. I hope you can regain your wife's trust and don't try to rug-sweep this because you're tired of the arguments. She has to heal in her own time -- assuming she can (people divorce for less than this) -- and you have to let her set the pace of her healing. And it can take years. Be prepared.


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## 225985

Dude, you spent years chatting with a single, bar hopping woman whom your wife hates. You lied and deleted the emails. (I dont buy the "i like a clean inbox" excuse.) You are married. Married men don't do that. At least not the ones that want to stay married. 

You got an emotional kick out if this even if you did not talk sex. 

The problem here is that you do not or do not want to see what you did is wrong and a betrayal. You appear to lack empathy.


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## lifeistooshort

I don't think you're being entirely honest here.

Your wife didn't hate her simply because she's extroverted.....your wife likely got a bad vibe from her and clearly rightly so based on her emailing with a married man for years. Your wife probably senses that she was trash. You refuse to either see or admit what's going on. 

You knew your wife would be upset and you did it anyway and lied about it, so clearly you decided it was worth more than not upsetting your wife.

Maybe you never intended to blow up your marriage but as blue said you did get an emotional kick out of it, which you refuse to admit.

I suspect your wife picks up on this and that's part of the reason for her reaction.....you're not being honest and are stonewalling her. You're admitting to what she can prove.

Convenient that most of the emails are gone. 

Try being honest about what you got out of this that was so important that you hid it and lied about it. Maybe then she may be receptive.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## MarriedDude

In my business, we have a term "the rule of 5". 

What this means...
A failure of a system...will cost 5 times its original value to replace.

A breach of trust with a customer, dropping the ball, not following through..will take 5 positive interactions (at least)..to get back to where you were before the failure. 

Its true in many things....its true here
..it could take 5 times the amount of time of the failure to build back the trust. 

Are you willing to do what muat be done?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Girl Gone

You shouldn't have to hide a friendship. It sucks but I'm the same boat.

Most of my friends are male. It been that way since I was a child 

The hubs hates it but I'm not going to be friendless because of his insecurities and I'm no going to tolerate a whiney jealous man either so he's on a need to know basis.


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## Yeswecan

Lost trust is very hard to recover. It may not recover completely. Other than hat in hand apology, transparency and working on rebuilding the trust through your actions there is not much else you can do.


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## Rowan

Whatever you were getting out of talking to this other woman, you clearly knew that your wife would not like it. Otherwise, you wouldn't have hidden the relationship for 5 years. But whatever that draw was, it was also more important to you than your wife's feelings. Otherwise, you wouldn't have kept it up knowing, as you clearly did, that it would hurt your wife. 

So, at this point all your wife really knows for sure is that you lied to her for 5 years while carrying on a secret relationship. And that you are verifiably willing to do things you know will hurt her - on such a whim that you can't even give her a rational explanation as to why. 

That can be a lot for anyone to process. I guarantee that it's not helping if you're arguing with her about how you didn't really do anything wrong. Stop arguing. Stop trying to rationalize it or defend yourself. If she becomes distraught, comfort her. Answer any questions she has, even if she's already asked that same question five times. It might not hurt to talk with an IC to figure out why you did this and how you can keep from doing it again. Share your insights and progress on that front with your wife. Basically, don't just try to rugsweep this and carry on. Address it, get into MC, actively do work to help restore the trust in your marriage. I also recommend the books _His Needs, Her Needs _and _Lovebusters_, both by Willard Harley, as well as _Not 'Just Friends'_ by Shirley Glass. 

Oh, and I would strongly suggest that you be very careful about going to your friends for backup in this situation. In fact, hashing this out with friends may feel very disrespectful to your wife. She may see this as gossiping about her with your friends, giving them your side of the story when she isn't there to give hers, and using their reactions to your one-sided tale to bolster your own position - all things she probably assumes you've been doing with your "friend" for the last 5 years. If you need someone to talk to about this situation and won't go to a therapist, at least choose a male friend who is also a solid friend of your marriage. And *do not* use anything your friends say as ammunition to help convince your wife that she's making a big deal out of nothing.


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## Blondilocks

When they go for backup, you know something is amiss.


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## aine

lostpilot said:


> I have never thought I would be in this situation. However, it's entirely my fault.
> 
> I've been married for over 20 years. Sometimes it's rough but otherwise, I have no regrets. I consider myself to be a rather outgoing person but my wife is rather an introvert. However, we have many of the same likes (books, traveling, food, learning). But we also have our differences (she hates concerts and crowds for the most part and I like to go out occasionally). It's been 20 years of that and for good or bad we're climbing into our late 40s. We talk about retirement and winding down the jobs. We talk about investing and, while I'm not the most astute when it comes to the market, I'm completely on board with her plan (as she is in the financial industry).
> 
> However, recently she discovered that I email someone she detests during the work week and she never knew about it. To be honest, I have emailed this person for about the last 5 years and I hid that from my wife knowing that she would go ballistic. Even then, I can honestly say that the emails were not sexual, flirtatious, or really even contained pictures unless they were of our kids. My wife found an email pop up on my phone and read thru a few of them. I can say that the topics usually focused around my hate for my job and traffic and hers were around how her boyfriends treated her. I was used to the boyfriend talk only because this woman dates a lot. That's something I"m not really familiar with given my 20 year marriage and 4 years of dating but she was never reaching out to me for a date. In fact, we haven't really seen each other in years but we would have the same old gripes each day, ask about kids, plans for the weekend, or politics at a high level.
> 
> What I thought was innocent my wife has taken to see as a betrayal given that I hid this from her. Frankly, I'm in agreement with that statement. As a married man, I should have realized that this is a toxic relationship and really I should have bowed out. But for some reason I didn't and in order to not 'rock the boat' - thought it was something I could manage. So earlier this month, my wife confronted me about my 'pen pal' and I really didn't have words. Likewise, most of the previous emails from this woman were deleted and that's because I keep my inbox pretty clean - google deletes them after 30 days and I don't like clutter. Tough to do searches on things when it's me griping about traffic or careers and her about her boyfriends.
> 
> So now 4 weeks later, I'm still getting the cold shoulder. As my wife has told me, I am unable to make adult decisions by hanging around with this person and that, since I wasn't getting anything out of my pen pal relationship, I must have been in love with her.
> 
> I had chalked up the fighting to jealousy. I dropped the emails, told the penpal that I was utterly crushed at hurting my wife and that I wasn't going to talk to her anymore, and I have spent a month having my teeth kicked in for having a relationship with a homewrecker. My wife won't talk to me, barely smiles anymore and has told me repeatedly that I'm a lying cheating a**hole.
> 
> WIth that, and in trying any effort to save my marriage, I have told our closest friends that my wife and I are in a rough patch and that I am to blame. I tell them that I have hurt her by emailing someone she hates and that I hid it. I have laid out that I am willing to do what I can with their help to get her to see that I'm not this person she now admittedly hates. As my wife has put it - i 'disgust' her and that I am incapable of love.
> 
> the last 4 weeks have had me go from thinking about how to tell my wife that I wasn't have an affair (which I wasn't and we both went into to have STD tests to try to resolve that). I have tried to show her that I am not financially supporting anyone else - we walk thru the finances and everything is there. But that what I did was hide something and then try to lie about it when she confronted me. Instead of telling her that I write nearly every weekday and sometimes more than a few times during the week - I tried to 'soften the blow' by lying about the frequency and she called me out on it. So I'm a lying, but not cheating, a**hole and I do deserve that.
> 
> What I would like to know is if the punishment is worth the crime. I have shook the foundation of my wife's future by showing that I hide things. And I want nothing more than to be with her, support her, and continue loving her into old age but she is stating that we're thru. "There's nothing left" is what she tells me.
> 
> I can't believe that so I come home every day and we stay up for hours arguing about my choices and then we're up early in the morning arguing about how I have destroyed her life. While I did lie - I would do anything I could to get things fixed. The problem is that she's not opening up. I've talked with several people and they don't get the brick wall or her talking to lawyers. I've tried to be as objective as possible to understand that while I did do a really horrible thing, is it something to divorce over? None of our friends that I've spoken to think that's the case but she's just so made after nearly a month.
> 
> Is there any objective advice out there for a guy that's not strayed to another woman but was maybe too chatty and should have known better? I lied, i did a horrible thing hiding it, but this woman and my daughter is the galactic center of my life and I'm hating this. I'm doing everything and she's staying just as mad each day.



You need to get off your high horse and stop minimising what you have done.
You were having an emotional affair with this OW. You know it but are still denying it, it is worse for a wife to know this about her H. You have gaslighted your wife, minimised the extent of your emailing, cleaned up the audit trail, etc so in short you have to stop kidding yourself about the severity of what you have done. Just because you did not stick your **** into this OW does not lessen the pain of betrayal for your BW.

Nothing will get better until you yourself stop the minimising, face up to the cold hard reality of your EA and face the music, you have done more damage because of the length of time of your hiding this from your wife, much worse than a ONS.

Good luck, but if you are that devious, I think your wife is better off leaving you. Trust is the very foundation of a marriage, if she cannot trust you, what is there left?


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## aine

Girl Gone said:


> You shouldn't have to hide a friendship. It sucks but I'm the same boat.
> 
> Most of my friends are male. It been that way since I was a child
> 
> The hubs hates it but I'm not going to be friendless because of his insecurities and I'm no going to tolerate a whiney jealous man either so he's on a need to know basis.


Perhaps your poor unsuspecting H shouldn't tolerate a wife who lies to him either.


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## Girl Gone

aine said:


> Perhaps your poor unsuspecting H shouldn't tolerate a wife who lies to him either.


Poor unsuspecting? Lies? Not really. These people are friends and co-workers. I have relationships apart from my immediate family. I live and function in this world too. 

His actions led to my reaction. I've never been unfaithful or given him any reason to believe I was. He on the other hand cannot say the same. 

Jealousy is not an attractive trait in a man, especially when its unfounded. 

Then again, maybe he's just projecting....


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