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statistic posted 5/14/2013 03:29 AM

Hello everyone. I am glad to have a place to share this painful experience. I uncovered my husband of 8 years having an emotional affair Nov 11, 2012. We reconciled as he appeared remorseful, agreed to cut off contact, and seemed to only learn after the fact the emotional affairs are cheating as well. He stated that he kept it going because he knew he would never "cross a line," meaning a physical relationship. Despite his promises, I found emails between him and the other woman May 4th, 2013 suggesting that they never stopped communicating, but instead were both actively hiding from me. From messages that were not deleted, it appears that the most that was said to indicate a connecting is "thinking about you" and " miss you." I've not found anything sexually suggestive in nature or any evidence that they met outside of work. It's mostly the frequency of communication that concerns me. I moved out today because I cannot handle knowing he lied to me & only came clean after being caught. Now I'm hardly functioning, overwhelmed emotionally, and constantly questioning myself. I keep going back to the idea that if he can do this during my pregnancy, then nothing can really stop him. He vaccilates from endorsing his wrongful behavior to continuing to argue that he did not cross any boundary with the other female. I'm lost and need help putting one foot in front of the other. Thank you for listening.

Reality posted 5/14/2013 09:11 AM

Statistic, I'm so sorry. He's wrong. What he's doing is WRONG. There's no gray area. He's having an affair; it doesn't really matter in the end what kind of affair, whether emotional or physical or both (most progress to BOTH). He's choosing to put that other person into your marriage. It's that simple and that wrong.

You gave yourself a great tool in coming here. There is a lot of information to help you. I'm in a similar situation and it's helped me enormously.

You'll see everyone recommend going to the The Healing Library. The link is found in the yellow box at the top left of your screen. There are some really good articles to get you started.

Basically, you need to know this first: it's not you. You didn't do anything to deserve any portion of this pain. I know that sounds simple, that it's OVER simplifying the situation, but at a very important level, to move forward, you need to place the weight and responsibility for it on those who CHOSE this.

You were clear with him when you discovered it. Stop right there and read that again. He didn't realize how wrong his behavior was and come to you remorseful - you outed him. And once you outed him, he still isn't remorseful. He was remorseful he got caught, not that he was upset he had chosen to engage in that type of behavior. You can tell this because he's still choosing the behavior.

He's continuing to chose it. He's continuing to foster and put attentions towards cultivating and maintaining an emotional connection he knows is painful for you. He's choosing it OVER you. There's no confusion - no miscommunication. He's telling you what he wants. Believe him.

It's so hard to accept that someone we love can choose to be cruel, can choose to be the person their behavior indicates they are. Yes, this may be an incredibly different person than you thought you were married to, but he's chosen to be someone else.

Kudos for finding some safety in a space of your own. Kudos for doing research and trying to be proactive about the situation. That reflects on who YOU are, too.

Get yourself a team together to help you, who you can trust to take care of you, especially being pregnant. You can't trust him with it. I know you'll want to, that it seems the natural thing for him to be the one to do this with you. It will give you perspective to remember that just as much as he's picking this other woman over you, he's also choosing her over the baby. I know for me, I can tolerate a certain amount of neglect/abuse directed at me, but heaven help the person that does any of that with my babies. Be strong for you; be strong for your baby.

Love and well wishes.

[This message edited by Reality at 9:14 AM, May 14th (Tuesday)]

stilltrying2025 posted 5/14/2013 09:19 AM

Statistic: I hear you loud and clear. My WH is having an emotional affair with OW and he can't see that it's wrong. He can't see how much it hurts me and, most of all, he doesn't care as he won't stop this "friendship". I too have read some text messages, nothing provocative or indicative of sexual contact but, like you, the frequency of the contact is what kills me. I am in the process of moving out now and it's one of the most painful things I have had to do. For some reason people who are involved in emotional affairs don't feel they are doing anything wrong because they aren't having sex with the other person. Little do they know that having sex isn't the only way of cheating.

Please take care of you and your baby! You, like me, have to realize that our well being is important too and we can't always worry about our WH. Hopefully he will eventually pull his head out of his butt and figure out what is more important.

Sending you big hugs.....you really need them right now!

luv_lost posted 5/14/2013 09:45 AM

(((statistic)))

not sure what to say, other than your H is an ass. Distance yourself as much as possible from him and this crap. He is being selfish and uncaring. Please take care of yourself and your baby.

Reality posted 5/14/2013 09:48 AM

What stilltrying said: it's one of the bizarre things - the frequency of how often they contact each other. It's so painful. The sheer quantity of how much my husband communicated with the women he was involved with, how much time and energy he put into it is like trying to wrap your mind around barb wire.

Especially when you measure it against the neglect for the family that always comes with it. I've been trying to remember any time that my husband put the time and energy into us that he demonstrably did into those relationships/pursuits. I keep coming up short.

When I bring up this discrepancy, even now a month after NC was established, he acts like I'm speaking a different language, that of course I shouldn't expect the amount of time and contact to be the same between us. His stance is that was all fake and unhealthy and our marriage is real and honest, so you can't establish equivalencies.

But all I can see is that he threw himself into connecting there, but not here. That he chose that over me in time, effort, attention, energy. Yes, the attention paid to the other person was wrong, but why does that mean paying attention to us - to their wives - anywhere close to that is impossible?

We tell you our stories so you know you're not alone, that your husband isn't some victim of an exotic situation that can't be defined.

We're with you, statistic.

[This message edited by Reality at 10:28 AM, May 14th (Tuesday)]

1Faith posted 5/14/2013 10:02 AM

For your Husband

Did you have an affair?

• Want to know if something is cheating? If you wouldn't do it with your spouse standing there, it's cheating.
EA of PA...BOTH ARE CHEATING and are extremely hurtful and disrespectful. He did cross the line when he failed to stop communicating with her. He did cross the line when he was emotionally available to her and not to you. He's crossed many lines.

• Own the problems that you created by having an affair. You cannot change what you don't acknowledge.

• It is unfair to compare a new, exciting, taboo fantasy relationship to one you've been in for years where there are kids (or a baby on the way), bills to pay, a house to run and noses to wipe. That is a ridiculous comparison.

• In order to resolve your relationship, contact with "the other person" must be cut off 100 percent. You can't work on dealing with the consequences of the affair while you're still having it.

• Don't rely on your heart to tell you what to do; rely on your intellect. Do what logic tells you is the right thing to do.

• Make the hard decisions. Either leave the marriage to free your partner, or commit to stay. Remember, checking out of one relationship before you finish it appropriately doesn't work and isn’t fair.

• Ask yourself: What are you doing to help your partner get past the affair?

• Be mature enough to recognize that life is not always all about you and what feels good for you in the moment. If you are married and have children (or will soon), you have an obligation and a commitment that far transcends what feels good.

• Help the partner who did not have the affair find emotional closure. You must do whatever it takes until your partner finds it. If it requires you to check in with your spouse multiple times a day, then do it. It'll require you being where you're supposed to be, when you're supposed to be, 24 hours-a-day, seven days-a-week, so your spouse can trust you again. You do it for however long it takes.

• Do you know what a healthy relationship is? Figure out what you want and behave your way to success.

For you statistic...my heart breaks. Being pregnant should be the most magical time of your life and your husband is being extremely selfish in putting you through this.

Move forward. Look up the 180 in the healing library and rely on people you know you can count on like your family.

Sending hugs and prayers.

Focus on your beautiful baby.

confused615 posted 5/14/2013 10:05 AM

Very gently,cheaters lie and minimize. Just because he denies there was any sexual contact,doesn't mean there wasn't. Also,just because there isn't anything sexual in these particular emails,doesn't mean there wasn't. It just means you may not have found *those* emails because they were deleted or whatever.

They are adults. They are not kids. Adults have sex when they think they are in lurrrrve. Just because you haven't found evidence of them meeting outside of work,is also not an indicator that they didn't. Also,affairs can be had at work,don't make the mistake of thinking there is just no time,possible way,etc.

My WH cheated on me..everything he did took place at work. He was never late coming home from work. His paycheck never indicated he was taking any unexplained time off. Everything was done either in the bathroom at work(gross),or in the parking lot during break. I actually found an email that said something about daytime meetings being difficult to arrange because it's 'hard to get away from the wife," and that he could only spare 5-10 minutes after work,or the 30 minutes off his dinner break.

The reason I am telling you all of this isn't to cause you further pain and stress. It's because you are pregnant. If he has had sex with her,then you are your baby could very well have been exposed to STD's. STD's can be passed on to the child. STD testing is a must. You will have to request a full panel of tests(and insist the your WH do the same,and no sex with him until YOU see the results). If you do have an STD,and it goes untreated,the consequences for the baby can be dangerous..it can be deadly.

Please get tested right away. Do not take the work of a man who has shown you great disrespect and has betrayed you at a core level. You can not trust him.

What your WH has done is cruel..it's downright abusive. He saw the pain in your eyes,heard how devastated you were by his actions..and took this affair underground.

((((statistic))))

BaldwinBeauty59 posted 5/14/2013 10:52 AM

My FWH had an A with a howorker too. They found time during the work day for sex Mostly at their lunch break. They would leave early some afternoons to have sex or he would claim to be working late but was really having sex with howorker. He lied to me in the beginning that it was only an EA but I found out it was a PA. I never found any indication in their emails that talked about having sex. Of course those could have been deleted.

Unfortunately, I really believe that your WH is lying to you about not having sex with her. They are physically with each other so what is to stop them? They are having an A and he is attracted to the OW. You better believe his willy gets hard around her and he will want to satisfy his sexual urges. Again, what's to stop them from getting their rocks off with each other?

Please get STD testing and make him do it too. Do NOT have unprotected sex with him until you know it is safe and that he is no longer cheating. He took the A underground even knowing how deeply hurt you were. He continued the A so why wouldn't he have sex with her too? They work together so he may not be able to detach from her and he will learn how to hide the A even better. He needs to start looking for another job ASAP. No good can come from them seeing each other every day even if he says the A is over. Does she have a BH or BBF? If so, out the A to him. He deserves to know just like you deserved to know. He needs to know that his health is at risk and get STD tested.

Theunwilling posted 5/14/2013 15:33 PM

I too was pregnant when my H was having an affair w a friend of ours. One thing I wish I had done was 180 his a#*. Don't let him lie to u. U deserve the truth. Take care of yourself. I agree w the posters above. Seems like there is more to them . I'm sorry ur here .

PurpleBirch posted 5/14/2013 21:06 PM

My WH started with a crazy amount of texts from this one girl. Nothing too serious, like you said. Just a lot of communication. After a while I figured it was an EA because it really was taking away from me. Then it progressed to naked texts from another girl. The it progressed to him having sex with yet a different girl (all work colleagues, btw).

I don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but that's how it starts :(

hopefulmother posted 5/15/2013 13:56 PM

So sorry....my fWH had an EA too. He also believed during and a month or so after D-day that it is not an A unless it is physical. It took several months for him to realize how hurtful an EA is.

Turn the tables on him. Ask him how he would feel if you did (be as specific as possible and use an actual person you know as an example)the same things and actions.