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My husband and I have been married just under 5 years. About 5 months ago I found out he was having what i would call an emotional affair with a younger girl he goes to school with. Although I had my reservations I had given their friendship the benefit of the doubt. Until he started hiding it from me .... He was deleting text messages and had also told me he wasn't speaking to her. I found out for about a months period of time they were talking and texting almost excessively and as I dug deeper found deleted text messages between them that were sexual. I also know he lied to me and met her alone. Long story short he swears it was only attention seeking and it never became physical nor did he want it to. They immediately stopped talking. I know my situation could be much worse but I'm having a lot of trouble letting go of the fact that the person I've known for so long, my best friend could so easily lie to me and deceive me. I also struggle with asking myself what could have progressed had I not intervened and stopped it. He wants to move on and grow from this, I don't know how to let my guard down and I'm afraid to be hurt again. I never thought he was capable of anything remotely close to this , he was raised in a good family and has good morals. I want to be with him but my pride and fear are holding me back. Doesn't anyone have advice or have you gone through a similar situation ?

I think he needs to send a 'no contact' letter to the girl, and remove himself from contact with her if at all possible (drop that class?).

You need to get to a marriage counselor as soon as possible.

Do some reading in the Healing Library to the left here, and learn about what's going on with your H.

Your feelings are very normal. You have been betrayed, and that's one of the worst things to manage and live with in a relationship.

Be good to yourself right now, sleep, eat, do things that you like to do as much as possible.

Hugs to you.

This is a betrayal and needs to be treated as such. You can recover and your marriage can survive but he has to be willing to do the work and face himself and you with complete honesty. Has NC been established? Has he provided full transparency?

(Hugs)

I posted below that I struggle with what if I hadn't discovered the pics/texts, where would things have gone? It's really hard, we are both in IC currently and it has helped us both I def recommend it if not already seeing a counselor. He also needs to never see her again, drop class, block #, whatever he needs to do

Welcome JSAM! I'm so sorry for the reason that you are here, but know that you have found a wonderful and supportive community at SI.

My story is similar to yours. You can read about it in detail in my profile if you are interested (click the smiley face in the upper right side of this post).

The one thing I would urge you to do is to not sweep this under the rug....thinking it was a near miss rather than a direct hit. The fact is that whether it was physical or not, it was an A.

I say this from personal experience. A year or two prior to my WH's EA he had a "questionable" relationship with another COW. My WH did not think there was anything wrong with it bc he was absolutely not attracted to her at all and supposedly she was a lesbian (or so she told him but then later said she was dating men again). I know that he really didn't see her as anything more than a friend, but I saw the texts between them and she was definitely flirty with my H. Long story short, that should have been a MAJOR wake up call to both of us - he had poor boundaries and liked validation from coworkers. Instead, my WH thought he did nothing wrong, and low and behold when the exact same patterns came into play with the next COW, he had a 5 month EA. He said he justified it as "just friends" but after they kissed he knew that he could no longer minimize that he was having an affair.

My one piece of advice is that you and your H read "Not Just Friends" by Shirley Glass together and discuss the book. It is excellent, based on scientific research, and an easy read.

Best of luck to you. Sending you strength and (((hugs))).

[This message edited by TennisTC at 12:45 PM, February 21st (Friday)]