Are online emotional affairs as damaging as physical affairs ?
My WH talked to multiple women online for months. The last one specifically was an emotional affair. It completely broke me , my health , my life and my heart. He was deep into affair fog already by 1.5 months. He was confused about his feelings for her and had felt disconnected from me for years he says. I on the flip side was more in love with him than I had been in many years. I thought we were finally reaching the calm point of our marriage. I was immensely blindsided by his admission. He then false reconciled with me for another 1.5 months. He told me it had ended. That we were working it out. We’re making love OFTEN. And then he abruptly ended it with her behind my back. I found out two months later that it was false reconciliation at first when I discovered alll of the game chat logs on my own. Every detail. So full disclosure has only been since may 26th. I have never been so messed up in the head in my whole life and that is an impressive achievement for my life unfortunately. I’ve authentically tried to understand him, myself, the validation seeking and ego addiction. The secret porn addiction I also didn’t know about. I’ve been genuine in my healing for myself without his constant reassurance. He was previously doing mostly everything they recommended the WS do to regain trust. Until yesterday when we had a massive eruption of a fight. We both broke boundaries, pushed too hard and withdrew too hard. He ended up saying things to me out of overwhelm and pain that I can’t reconcile today. Such as "other women would laugh at you if you told them your story, other women’s husbands actually have sex with other women ecs." Or he doesn’t worry AS much about me cheating on him as he used to, and that is how’s he felt since before he cheated. I don’t think I can reconcile if he his experience is that it wasn’t as bad as an in person physical affair. I’ve already explicitly explained to him in the past that it would have been easier to forgive a one night stand where he didn’t even remember her or have intimate feelings towards. So I’ve made it clear that this is more damaging TO ME than a singular physical interaction would have been. He has always said rotten things when extremely overwhelmed , it’s a defense mechanism to get people to leave him alone. But this is beyond that. He genuinely has compartmentalized it in his own head. He barely remembers feeling that way or the things he typed out to her. But I do, I probably always will. How can we reconcile from different perspectives? I’m a very fragile person please please be kind in your responses. I’ve already been through it and my health is slipping also 
0 comment posted: Wednesday, August 12th, 2026
