# Just Friends? Long story....



## just friends? (Feb 25, 2011)

Just Friends?

I’m getting ready to walk away from a twenty year marriage and, naturally, have lots of mixed emotions. I’ve never talked to anyone about our situation for fear it would only complicate matters all the more. But I’m ready to vent if anyone’s willing to listen. I’d appreciate some honest opinions.

As I mentioned, we’ve been married for over 20 years. The first few years were a little rough. We were young. I was married right out of high school. Having children seemed to settle things down and our bond grew through the years, not that we didn’t have our good days and bad days, just like most marriages. But, through the years, they got better and better. At year 18, I felt like I couldn’t possibly have loved my husband any more than I did and we were the best of friends. We communicated about everything, had a very open, honest, secure relationship. But, then things have really gone downhill.

Our boys were finally at the age where they could be left home alone. Our oldest, 15, would take care of the youngest, 11 and Mom and Dad could have a little freedom. We started going out a little more and started hanging out with another couple. We all got along really well. It started to become an every weekend thing, especially during football season, having kids on the same football team. The Mrs. (R) would email us both often. That’s her major source of communication and she spends a lot of time on the computer. My husband has a whole lot more time than I to sit at the computer as well (which I’ll admit has been a sore spot for me too). They started to become closer and closer. They began chatting often, sometimes ‘til the wee hours of the morning. Before too long, they had become the best of friends. My husband will say that I pushed myself out of that “best friend” position because I was constantly giving him crap about her. I would not say that I constantly gave him crap. But I will admit that occasionally I’d throw a jab out there. After hearing the email ding of his computer, he would head right upstairs. After the 20th time in a night, it would get very irritating to me. He couldn’t even sit and watch a football game anymore without going back and forth to chat with her. There was a time when he wouldn’t miss a play in a game. Lots of little patterns changed when it came to her. Emailing her suddenly became the highlight of his every day. He emails her every single morning before he heads to work, most of the time just telling her to “have a great day” or responding to the last email from the night before. There isn’t a single day that he doesn’t head to his computer to chat with her. There have been times when I’ve been out of town that he has sat for hours on end doing nothing but talking to her and usually that’s what he spends his time doing any time I’m not home, if she’s available (which she usually is). It’s become a daily ritual and he constantly looks for things to chat with her about.

There have been some other specific situations that have also caused some hard feelings. Like his best friend (who I hadn’t talked to at all about the situation) out of the blue telling me to “Open your fricken eyes. Are you blind?” There are others like four days straight of phone calls for nearly an hour a day that I stumbled across. Ironically, she would tell me in her emails every day about all the calls that she had during the day but never told me my husband was calling her. He admits that he told her she shouldn’t tell me because I might be upset. He may have had a legitimate concern and reason for calling her but also admits that “he just likes to talk to her. She’s a great friend and he gets along well with her”. But, it’s the first time in a VERY long time that I felt and WAS deceived by him. There are more but I won’t get into all of them because some, though they’ve given me more bitter taste, really don’t matter all that much in the big picture. He does admit, (and even without the admission, it’s something I know) that if me and her husband weren’t in the picture, he could see the two of them being together. They are that compatible.

But, despite all this, in a nutshell, BOTH of them feel like I am the problem. I am just a jealous person who can’t handle him having a woman as a friend. In their eyes, they see each other as equals and that the fact that they are the opposite sex makes no difference. Her husband has had some issues with their “friendship” in the past as well. There have been some arguments between my husband and him. My husband is VERY eager to defend his “friendship” with R. However, he’s not so eager to defend our marriage. He sees all the problems in our marriage as MY problem. That I can’t handle the fact that he is friends with another woman. And feels that he’s doing nothing wrong and that I just need to “deal with it or move on”. He doesn’t (to my knowledge) hide his emails. I rarely look at them any more because I’m so sick of the whole situation and my level of care is going downhill fast. It’s really not about the content of the emails anymore as much as it is the contact that they seem to need to have with one another, no matter where he is, what he’s doing. I was out of town for five days and, a couple hours after I returned, we went to dinner and he emailed her in the middle of dinner, knowing full well how I’d feel. But, again, he thinks he’s doing nothing wrong and it’s just me and my “issues”. Is it?

But, I have a big house that we worked to build together that I will have to leave behind. I have the convenience of working at home and have a nice office set up here. Most importantly, I have two kids that are going to be devastated if I leave, even though I will do everything in my power to make sure that life does not skip a beat for them. They know that it hasn’t been the happiest of homes. They’ve seen Mom crying a few times, even though I always try to put on my happy face in front of my kids. And, it’s going to hurt me to walk away from all of this. I cry just thinking about it.

But, it’s just so hard to just up and walk away. Though we’ve had our issues, he hasn’t been a rotten husband. To my knowledge, he hasn’t actually cheated on me. He’s a good father. He’s a good provider (though I give MORE than my fair share in both the money and physical contributions to our home and our life). But, I feel like I am second to another woman. He told me one time one time this summer that he loves me but isn’t “in love” with me because of the woman I’ve become and how I’ve changed. “You’re not the same woman you were.” Of course I’ve changed some. I’ve never felt second to another woman. I’ve never questioned my husband’s love for me, no matter how nasty a fight or how nasty the words were that came out of his mouth (he gets mean with his mouth when he’s mad). Am I wrong for being angry and sad every now and then? He says that’s all he wants is for things to go back to the way they used to be. Not the way they were with US (BEFORE the other couple came along into our lives) but the way things were when we all first started hanging out together when we all had fun. He expects that I should feel the same way about her as I did when we originally all became friends AND that I should still WANT to hang out with them every weekend. He doesn’t make plans for him and I. He makes plans with them and wants me to be a part of it (or so he says). Things got a little sticky for a while because I started backing away. I’m tired of getting the two of them together weekend after weekend. They drink and feed off each other and sometimes even get each other riled up. Both of them feel slighted by their “insecure” spouses who can’t handle their friendship. Then the night usually goes sour. But, now they have all started hanging out. I’ve disconnected (some intentionally, some not-so-intentionally) with them. Now, I’m the outsider, which is really OK with me. Cause I’m tired of being on the inside of that circle. 

As I type this and read it over his seems like it should be a no-brainer. However, I still feel pulled. Is it really that bad??? I’ve tried to “just deal with it” as I’m expected to. But, I find that I’m just angry all the time, every single time I see him checking his cell phone for emails, reaching for it after it buzzes, heads upstairs to the computer. All of this happens MANY times throughout the course of the day and I’m finding that it gets harder to handle each day. I try to put a smile on, try to act like I just don’t care, do my own thing and yet I’m torn inside. I’ve loved this man with all my heart since I was 16 years old and I’m nearly 40. Should I give it up? Is there really anything left to hold on to? We barely talk. For a long time, I felt that the only time he cared to talk to me is when she wasn’t available. I still feel that at times. Because of that, it makes me not want to even talk either. I don’t want to be second in his life on any level.

I have male friends. I have gone to lunch with male friends and co-workers. But, I have never had anyone in my life that I’m in touch with on a consistent basis, day in, day out that I feel I need to report my every move to, where I’m (or we’re at), what I’m (we’re) up to, what’s going on, etc.

OK, it feels good to vent and get things off my chest to someone other than him (who only thinks I’m nuts). Looking for honest opinions of the situation.


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## 827Aug (Apr 27, 2008)

Hello and welcome to the forum. Sorry you are going through this rough spot in life though.

Your husband is definitely having an emotional affair. It is way more than "just friends". I have had a very good friend (opposite sex) for 30 years. We can't even be that connected! Your husband and this woman have clearly crossed the line.

You need to treat this as an affair. You may want to talk to her husband. Here's a website which you may find helpful too. AffairCare Home 

Good luck.


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## just friends? (Feb 25, 2011)

Thank you very much. Appreciate the info. I will check out that link.


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## calif_hope (Feb 25, 2011)

Your husband is in an Emotional Affair no doubt about. His actions are seriously disrespecting you and your marriage. Seriously emailing her during your dinner date, really! 

The problem is that he is in denial and in Emotional Affair Fog, he is not thinking straight. He is like a heroin addict, most know putting that needle into their arm is not a healthy choice but they do it anyway.

I am sure your husband; somewhere in that thick stubborn skull of his knows this. 

You have to establish your parameters, your line in the sand and decide on a plan.

Tell your husband you need to have a serious talk, that he needs to listen to you and hear you with the respect and honor you deserve as his wife and the mother of his children. 

Explain to him your hurt, frustration and your pain, share with him his actions, your observations, how he actions and behaviors look and feel to you. 

He will try to deflect, give the EA line “just friend” – look in straight in the eye with the most honest voice you can – are you really willing to continue to hurt me for this friend, your friendship is more important to you than your marriage, your friend more important than your wife. 

If he doesn’t take it seriously tell him to leave the house and spend the night somewhere else, if he doesn’t you go, take your kids with you.

The volume of communication with this woman is beyond normal and not healthy, if you can do an analysis of the cell phone bills (in a months’ time: duration of calls, number of texts, frequency and compare with same totals to your number – evidence). 

Tell him that you cannot continue to live in situation were your husband has a total lack of respect for your feelings. 

You need to pull back, cut him off, put some walls up, sleep in a different bedroom. Force change in him. He needs a baseball bat upside the head.

You also should communicate with her husband, coordinate efforts.

If he doesn’t respond, get help. If they are still alive, contact his parents, ask, if any, his brothers / sisters for help. You will need to provide the cell phone info you compile to support your concerns and to undercut his foggy explanation when they contact him.


EXPOSE THIS BEHAVIOR 

FIGHT BACK

Important, take care of yourself, seeing a counselor would be a good idea, you need help in developing skills to cope and deal with this. The stress of this can be really unhealthy for you, do it for your kids.


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## cdbaker (Nov 5, 2010)

I agree with the other responders here, he is having an emotional affair and at least some part of him is fully aware of it.

I can relate on some levels. I had a strong friendship with a woman at my last job. In my case, I can truly and honestly say that I had no physical or emotional interest in her, it really was just a genuinely strong friendship. We never crossed any lines with the exception of one big one.

Basically, I started treating my friendship with her as more being more valuable to me than the relationship with my wife. Now truth be told, I didn't actually feel that way, but I acted that way. I would talk to her frequently outside of work via talk or text, I would go to lunch with her many times a week, often times with friends but frequently alone as well. We would discuss virtually any topic under the sun. Faith, love, sex, politics, etc. She and I even discussed our sex lives, our partners, our kinks and everything else that should stay between you and your spouse alone.

So the line I crossed is that, while I technically wasn't violating any official "rules" in that I was not having an affair, emotional or otherwise, I was however hurting my wife. My super close friendship with the other woman hurt her, made her feel insecure, made her question my love for her, made her worry endlessly and for a long time even feel great guilt for not trusting me and wondering why she wasn't trusting me even though she had no real evidence to suggest that I was engaging in an affair. The fact is, my wife's fears, pain, jealousy, etc. were not unfounded, they were perfectly natural, she had very good reason to feel those things and she was going through all of that because of my insistance on maintaining this friendship.

Rather than honoring and respecting my wife first, before everything else, I allowed myself to focus on technicalities and a weird set of rules that don't apply in a marriage. For instance, to this day I know that I didn't have an affair, emotional or physical, so at the time it was very easy for me to simply point to that and feel that I was doing nothing wrong at all. Friendships are good, we should all have friends outside our spouse, so I reasoned that her being jealous or concerned or angry or hurt by it was really her problem, not mine. I allowed her to feel guilty for having a problem with my friendship, for not trusting me when I knew with certainty that she had no cause to not trust me. I latched on to these technicalities and truly believed that all the pain and emotional anguish she put herself through was her own fault, not mine. It was sort of like I had this excuse.

But that is all it was, an excuse. I knew it hurt her deeply, so THEREFORE it was wrong. Not because it was an affair, which it wasn't, or because I actually valued the friendship more than my wife, which I didn't, but it was wrong because the friendship was hurting my wife. She FELT like I cared less for her than the friend, which automatically meant that I needed to either end the friendship or scale it back. I love my wife, I have made commitments to her, I am to honor her at all times, and this should have been part of that.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that if your spouse doesn't like your friend that you should auto-ditch your friend. I've seen men and women with severe jealousy problems who have a problem with anyone their spouse interacts with, and that is NOT healthy. But that wasn't the case here. I have lots of friends, male and female, but this friendship was different and I was stubbornly, sometimes subconsciously, lying to myself about that. No question about it.

So your husband feels like he is right. Like he hasn't actually crossed any lines, so technically there isn't any problem and you should just be mature enough to trust him and handle it. Of course in his case, he is actually having an emotional affair. I never ever felt like my friend and I were "compatible", I never ever would have told my wife that if she weren't around, that I would want my friend, I never ever hid conversations from her or put my conversations with my friend ahead of time with my wife. Your husband needs to realize that a friendship with a woman can STILL BE WRONG even if he has not engaged in an affair. You feel like you are a second-class relationship to him now, you just cause for feeling that way, and as long as you haven't got a reputation for being jealous of all of his friends, then he OWES it to you to end the friendship or at least scale it back to a level that you are comfortable with. You are his wife, you should rank above all others and your happiness should be one of his concerns. He should understand that he can stick to what he believes is the "moral high ground" as far as him not feeling like he has technically done anything wrong, but if he wants to win the battle and lose the war, then that is exactly what will happen.


I would talk to the woman's husband for starters to get his views on the situation and maybe brainstorm some ideas. Your next step however should be to get you both into marriage counseling. You don't have to call it that if it will put him off, but you both need to get some new perspectives. Any MC worth a lick would be able to tell him that what he is doing is wrong. Even if he could convince the MC that he isn't having an emotional affair, it would still be plain to a third party that the friendship is unhealthy for the marriage and needs to end, just as anyone else would have viewed my own situation.

Don't give up. Your husband is being a fool, as we men tend to do from time to time, and will hopefully see the error of his ways soon enough but you really should act fast before their fantasy friendship gets even more out of hand. I wish you the best of luck and will say a prayer for you tonight.


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## just friends? (Feb 25, 2011)

Thank you so much for your replies and all your time. I know my story is long and drawn out and, believe me, I could go on. This has been going on for too long. I've tried to just put some feelings aside, tried to look at things more from his perspective but I can't shake the gut feeling that his feelings for her go much deeper than friendship and level of love that's normal for a friend. And, through time, his apparent lack of care for my feelings has made me very bitter. The anger isn't helping the situation any. This venting has helped. And, it also helps to know that, despite the things he says, it is not just me and "my issues", that it's completely normal for me to feel the way I do. Thanks again, so very much.


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## oldbill43 (Feb 11, 2011)

Hello Just Friends, can I ask if you all go out as a foursome still?? Do you see this womans husband at all now, if so does he stand on the outside like you when both your husband and this woman get really friendly? Usually as most women will agree, we can tell if a man thinks more of a woman than he should.. its a gutt reaction, and even more visible when you see this.

I agree with the fellow posters above me, I think he needs a shock, a shake and then maybe he'll wake up from this "Fix" he's getting, believe me, it will shock him too when he realises how he has pushed you out of what i see as "His" friendship with this woman, silly man.
Good luck! x


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## greeneyeddolphin (May 31, 2010)

Yeah, they are not "just" friends. I have a male friend that I've know for....oh, jeez, about 13-14 years now. He was my best friend when I went through my divorce. He and I don't talk that much. The only person I can talk to that much is my boyfriend. There's just not enough in a friendship (that is only a friendship) to talk about that much. In a relationship, there is that much to talk about, because you talk about your most intimate feelings, your fears/hopes/dreams, your future together, all that kind of stuff. 

You are definitely not wrong to think that there's more than just friendship here. And their constant denial and claiming you're just jealous is just more proof of that, in my opinion. If my boyfriend came to me and said he felt uncomfortable with my friendship with another man, I wouldn't just dismiss him and say he's jealous and insecure, I'd actually give some thought to what he said and try to see it from his perspective.


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## Freak On a Leash (Feb 19, 2010)

Damn, your husband is seriously out of line. I can't add much to what has been said above. I tend to be closest in my thinking to Calif_Hope. It's one thing to have a friend of the opposite sex but your husband is addicted to his relationship to her and it needs to stop. Plus, if YOU, his wife are being emotionally affected and it makes you angry/sad, then he should realize this and respect your feelings. The fact that he is blowing you off is WRONG. 

I just want to put my .02 in and reassure you that you aren't out of line. You've done nothing wrong. I'm wondering how this other woman's husband feels. Have you talked to him about the situation? 

I'd get counseling and I'd take some steps to show your husband that what he's doing is unacceptable. 

What I would NOT do is leave. HE should be the one leaving as he is initiating and exacerbating the problem with his actions. Sleep on the couch if you have to send a message, seek counseling, whatever you need to do maintain your sanity and if you feel the need to separate it then wait until he leaves and put his computer on the porch and change the locks. You STAY in that house with your kids! You shouldn't be the one to be displaced!

What a jerk he is being..


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## just friends? (Feb 25, 2011)

Thanks again for the opinions/advice. I can't make him leave because the house payment is bigger than I can handle alone. It will be tough for him too but I will even help out just to make sure our kids have their home. I think we can work it out to benefit the kids, all in all. In my heart, I don't think he really wants me to leave but I am tired of just making it convenient. I can't live with these constant feelings that he's in love with another woman and I'm just sitting and watching it. Although, he's said he's not going to beg me to stay and hasn't even said the words, or anything even remotely close to the words "I don't want you to go. I want to work things out between us." He truly sees it as my issues. I simply have a problem with him having a REALLY close friend that's a woman, that he "adores" and likes to talk to. He's completely open and honest with his feelings about her. The problem is that I don't think he's honest with himself. He thinks that his and her relationship is perfectly normal. In fact, BOTH of them do. But, I don't. And, my gut says it's WAY wrong. There have been lots of other incident's that I haven't even talked about besides the daily ongoing communication that have added to all my bad feelings. But, the fact that he's taken the stand of "This is the way it's going to be. I'm going to be friends with her whether you like it or not so if you can't handle it, do what you have to do" pretty much sums it all up. He values that "friendship" more than he does his marriage. Guess it wasn't much to begin with in the first place.

He won't consider counseling. Thinks counseling is ridiculous. I think 5,000 people could tell him he's in the wrong but he would still be right. So, I don't know that I have a lot of other choices at this time but either "deal with it" as he puts it or move on. Either way is going to be tough for me. I could go on just living my life here, pretend that everything's cool. I don't need to find someone new. I'm perfectly happy just focusing on me for a long time. So, it really wouldn't hurt but just stay here and cope. But, I feel like I'm enabling him every time I make dinner, do laundry, clean house, etc. I feel like I'm just getting more and more resentful each day and that's not going to help anything, especially where the kids are concerned. So, I've gotta take some time, start looking at the options that are out there and take it day by day. But, I know one thing, his behavior is not going to change. I can talk to the other husband but that will only create more anger on his part, which won't make things better around the house and the kids. Eventually, that day will come though, especially if I leave. That will probably be one of the first conversations I have after I'm gone, when it no longer matters how mad he is at me. I have no doubt in my mind that if she and her husband were to split up, she and mine would be together and THAT would really p me off. In fact, one night at a bar several months ago, she toted that she was upset with her husband and that she might leave him and that she'd have someone to take care of her. She meant that my H would physically protect her if needed. But, regardless, she puts my H as her backup plan. Oh, so very frustrating......
OK, if you got this far, you must be really bored today. Glad I could fill your few minutes with some drama. LOL. Seriously, thanks for listening! Feels good to let it out, even if noone ever reads it.


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