Hi...I found this website today through an unconventional route of seeing a photo entitled "crazy dog lady" (me), but was posted by this site at some point in the past.
SO....that was destiny!!!!!!!
I found out in May of this year that my husband of almost 20 years had been communicating via email with a work associate that lives in another part of the country. Nonetheless, I found a few very emotionally telling emails. I guess that is what they call a cyber-affair. Stupidly, before reading all of the emails, I confronted my husband. He was emotional and regretful and scared. Yes, scared that I read all that was there. It was a crazy night whereby he swore up and down there was no physical relationship between them. He travels a lot for work, and she is in the same work circles. They have been at conferences together. He swore that nothing physical happened. He did admit to wrongdoing and apologized for the emotional attachment that had begun between them. SADLY, he proceeded to DELETE about 100 emails the next day that they had exchanged. They can never be recovered and to this day I die thinking about what was written. He "said" he confided in her, discussed his frustrations with me, discussed the fact that I'm overweight, etc, etc, etc.
I then sent her a note telling her that I found these messages and to never write to my married husband of three kids again, unless for business. He agreed to also send her a note telling her I had found out and to stop communications between them.
Stupidly......we did not pursue the counselling route in May. I felt that it was time to work on our marriage which had gone stale years ago. I do take some part of the blame in the history leading up to this. Believe it or not, a few days later, I get a note from him saying that he'd like to work with me on the marriage, but the physical part of our relationship is hard because he finds my weight disgusting. Since May I have seen zero guilt on his part and zero interest in changing anything in our marriage.
Last week Wednesday, the actual date of our 20th anniversary, I found more email exchanges between them. Business related. However...............I know what begins one way easily turns back into old habits. Rather than express feeling badly about this, he is angered at me because I became very angry that they are communicating again. He sees nothing wrong with it because, after all, I said they could still communicate for business purposes.
My husband is a charismatic, charming individual who ALWAYS has an answer or an excuse at the ready. He is NEVER to blame. Period.
I have now contacted a therapist and the first appointment is next Monday. We have not exchanged one word since last week., and we have three kids in the house. He hasn't come to the dinner table to eat with us.
In my heart I do feel that from day one he has always taken anyone and everyone else's side over mine. His family, his friends.....anyone!!!!!!!
The problem with food being a "drug of choice" to manage stress is that the more he insults my weight or the more emotional stress I feel, the more I eat.
He is a child of divorce and always said he never wanted that for his children. I personally feel trapped at this point, wanting the marriage to work but not knowing what to do with all of my anger. The trust has been broken. He still does not allow me to see his email account, I sneak onto it when he forgets to log out of it.
I thank you guys out there in the virtual world for listening to me. I have just signed on today, so plan on reading lots of other posts and perhaps find some direction to follow. I feel sick and I feel lost.
