SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Secrecy.

"Relationship A: male and female business partners, both are married; discussions are held about female partner's husband's business and his upcoming birthday; discussion also includes what male business partner and his family have planned for the weekend.

what if these conversations are digitally based? Like over work email. ok?

I would say relationship A is not an EA and could be appropriate IF THERE HAS BEEN NO INFIDELITY IN THE PAST. But once the beast of an affair has reared its ugly head and we’ve read and analyzed “Not Just Friends” then we can see how the footing just became a tad bit slippery. Might the work conversation (digitally or not) remain as innocent as it is now? Sure! Might it begin the fantasy (she emails a lot - does she like me? I’m special because she talks to me about this stuff - I must be important to her...how can I sound even more impressive? Etc etc ) and get even more slippery? It definitely could.

I once got pissed because post affair, my husband told a female coworker he’d read the same book and was a fan of the author - in passing. Because my brain could see how the next step could easily come - I can clearly see point A to affair in 60 seconds flat. If after all the life altering damage his affair caused - if communicating about a fucking book is so damned important that he’s willing to tap dance around workplace boundaries???? My husband struggled with this - about a different female coworker.. “I told her we had a romantic weekend planned!!!! It was obvious I was looking forward to it. How can talking about how much I love you be bad?” My reply? If it’s not conversation about workplace essentials then it doesn’t need to be said. Windows and walls.....

PA’s are easy to define. It either happened, or it didn’t. Any sexual physical contact is a PA. In my view, a kiss constitutes physical cheating.

EA’s are much tougher to pin down. There’s a pretty broad spectrum. My wife has consistently said that there was no romantic talk whatsoever. She claims nothing was ever said that she wouldn’t have wanted me to hear. She even passed a poly confirming this, though I’m still unconvinced.

Let’s take that at face value though. Say she really is telling the truth, and that no inappropriate conversation ever took place. She still hid the relationship, deleted call logs and texts, and was constantly in contact with another man for years. Omission for the majority of the time, and direct lies once I became aware. She clearly did not want me to know about her friendship with him, and would have continued indefinitely if I hadn’t caught her.

This constitutes an affair to me. I don’t know what it feels like to have absolute proof that my wife cheated on me, but I’d imagine this is what it’s like. I feel like I was cheated on. I was definitely betrayed.

In her view, it’s not an EA, since there were no feelings of attraction or inappropriate conversation. (Like I said, I’m not convinced of that.)

So what is it? It’s certainly something. I just feel that dividing our experiences into two categories is too limiting.

I think the main qualifications are deception, and time. One or two conversations you don’t tell your spouse about are wrong, but not an affair. When you keep doing something and lying about it or hiding it, that’s when it gets there.

I don’t think a man going to strip clubs all the time and hiding it is an affair, but it’s definitely a pattern of betrayal and broken trust.

The definition of infidelity is basically “not true”, “disloyal”. It doesn’t always have to apply to marriage or cheating.

WW says she felt no emotion for OM.

[This message edited by Lawyerman at 10:02 AM, April 23rd (Monday)]

Relationship A: male and female business partners, both are married; discussions are held about female partner's husband's business and his upcoming birthday; discussion also includes what male business partner and his family have planned for the weekend.

Relationship B: male and female, male is a hired contractor doing work at married female's house; female is talking to male about her new pajamas & how husband did not comment on how she looked in them; male says that he believes they would look good on the floor next to his bed; female agrees.

Now I ask you, which of these two ACTUAL conversations would you classify as being an EA?

Neither. While B is inappropriate flirting I do NOT AGREE that all inappropriate talk/flirting is an emotional A!

It often may be the slippery slope that leads to either an EA or PA (in fact more likely a PA than EA but they usually go together and I think it is rare that either is pure EA or PA).

I know all the Dr. Phil quotes and such that say if you would not say it in front of your spouse, it is cheating or an EA. Then I have had EAs with all my female friends, family members, even my kids. To answer your question, there is definitely a gray area and it is up to individuals to determine whether it has progressed to an A of any kind.

While I definitely agree those who want to protect their marriage should NEVER discuss marriage problems with person of the opposite sex as their confidant, except maybe a paid counselor, I don't agree the act of the inappropriate discussion is, in itself an EA.

Relationship A: male and female business partners, both are married; discussions are held about female partner's husband's business and his upcoming birthday; discussion also includes what male business partner and his family have planned for the weekend.

what if these conversations are digitally based? Like over work email. ok?

Nah, I would have an issue with this. Business/work email should relate to business interactions. Why email someone personal information? What prompted someone to sit at their desk and initiate contact with a co-worker, via email regarding their spouses upcoming birthday?? or their plans for the weekend? That is the beginning of poor boundaries, especially AFTER an A or for someone who has already exhibited poor boundaries.

If I'm sitting in the lunchroom at a table of co-workers and someone says "So Peace, what do you have going on this weekend?" I may mention a birthday party or whatever our plans are, but I usually keep it vague to discourage further comment/conversation. I won't let male co-workers into my personal life.

I'm certainly NEVER going to email a male co-worker something personal.

I don’t think the example by OP (the business email) is an EA. It’s certainly dancing on the line of boundaries. It depends on what else you know about this relationship. My H had an EA only that was born of a friendship first. That email exchange would signal to me I would need to have a discussion with my H again regarding boundaries. I would also grill him about this person and let my instincts do their thing. But this email alone, I don’t thing is wrong or crossing a boundary. In a vacuum it’s innocent and not inappropriate IMO. But seeing other convos can change the perspective on this.

On the other two examples, I don’t think relationship B is an EA. An EA is not a singular inappropriate exchange. That convo was wrong, disrespectful, out of boundary, but not cheating IMO. It would need to be addressed. If this is one of many examples like that, then I would call it an EA bc clearly there is attraction and communication of that attraction. That’s a hard Nope.

If it makes you uncomfortable, say something.

Most of my husband’s friends are women. He has worked with them for a lot of years. After his affair when he was being a COMPLETE AND TOTAL ASS he said all kinds of inappropriate things about all of them, as jokes, thinking it was a good idea to “lighten the mood” surrounding my complete and utter devastation by pointing out how “silly” it would be for him to have affairs with his coworkers (EXCEPT HE ALREADY DID.)

It was awful. These are his coworkers and they are real people, human beings who like and respect him. To hear him disrespect them that way made me physically sick. I finally lost it and I told him he was not good enough for me or any of them, he was a pile of shit and he should learn some humility. I honestly don’t know if any more polite language would have gotten through to him. He finally noticed what he was doing and stopped.

I may never forget that he thought it was okay to talk to me like that about them, but thank god he finally stopped. If I hadn’t said anything, who knows how long it would have gone on.

He has talked to all of them about these superficial things like weekend plans and how our family is doing, always. And I have male friends that I would talk to about those things. But what I really want is just to know. His AP, he hid everything from me, because he knew he was crossing the line before he admitted it to himself. By the time I even knew they were friends, he was already discussing sexual fantasies with her. He knew he was doing something wrong. If I found personal emails between him and a woman I would want to have a conversation about that, and if he hadn’t told me they were emailing I would be uncomfortable: in the wake of the affair. Before that, I can’t say. It probably wouldn’t have registered with me as a potential issue, but it’s definitely something to have talks about.

I think it helps if we use words the same way, and I think Shirley Glass provides good standards, so I agree with ZoeS.

But a relationship can be sick without being an EA. A probable sign of sickness is not wanting one's partner to see/hear something that one does with the 'friend', except when choosing gifts .

But what of confidences between real friends? We can talk intimately with our same-sex friends without feeling sexual attraction/tension. If a friend shares something sensitive with me, either I don't tell my W or ask him if I can tell my W. (Of course, with less intimate friends, I just tell them not to say anything I can't tell my W.)

Taking too much time away from family is also probably sick, which means we are probably in sick relationships with our jobs and employers....

Relationship A: male and female business partners....

And if the partners are 2 males of 2 females? Or if both are gay and committed to someone else? Or if only one is gay?

VENTING:

I used to run a small tech services IT department, with men and women reporting to me. I assigned projects, and when a sensitive one went live, I was usually in attendance. Often at 2 AM. Usually alone with one staff member.

The only way for me to not be alone with a women subordinate would have been for me to always assign the women low risk, low impact projects. That would have been wrong on umpteen levels - including screwing myself by not using the best available talent. Hell, I owed challenging projects to all every staff member.

Boundaries boundaries boundaries. It really pisses me off that so many people cross them!

[This message edited by sisoon at 2:37 PM, April 18th (Wednesday)]

If a man and woman are voluntarily and regularly conversing alone it is an affair imo. It can be at work or any other place.

If it’s a secret, it’s not safe. If its non work discussion outside of work (calls or texts) if the other person needs help with their awful spouse it’s not safe. if it’s about work, can wait until work but has to be discussed after work.

If you don’t feel safe, it’s not safe.