SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I'm new to this site and its sad to say, but I'm glad to know I'm not alone. I sigh in relief when I see that EA are not a figment of my imagination. Me and my H have been married for almost 7yrs and I never thought I would be going through any thing like this! For as long as I have know my H he has been a liar and it has always been hard to trust him! He would like about simple things as well as small!That was how he operated,but I learned quick when he was telling the truth and when he was not! 4 months ago I discovered that he had been having a EA with OP since July of last year! There were phone calls, text mess, as well as crotch shots from her to him and him to her. phone records show that he would talk with her numerous times day or night about how unhappy he was with his marriage. Communication was never one of his good points, but for him to have met this OP and completely open up to her about the intimate details of our marriage was a complete slap in the face! I couldn't understand how that happen because we were in therapy and he had no complaints when ask if there were any, so our therapist was convince(as well as I) that our marriage could be mended! The killing part to this EA situation was the OP was married as well! So I forgave, we enrolled in Marriage Building classes at church, and things seem to be back on track (fast forward to 2 days ago!) Early Sunday morning I found out that my H is having not one by two EA!! One A in his hometown the other mere hrs from us, but he says they are "just friends" Friends I didn't even know existed! He talks to the OP from his hometown everyday, sometimes numerous times a day between text,phone calls, and emails. I found out there had been times I would have just left the house on and errand and he would call her! while our son is in the same room! Of course! now that I know about this double EA he wants to make everything better and will do anything that I want do! I asked him "Why" this happen again and he told me that I didn't pay him enough attention, that I didn't trust him and I made him feel like a prisoner in his own home!! Can You Believe that? I'm still trying to process that one! So that's why I'm here! I'm stuck! Don't know which way to turn! Can't eat or sleep, just think! I don't know how not to blame myself! I'm so devastated! embarrassed! confused! shocked! but mostly I'm in grief! I feel like something or someone has died! I don't know if I want to work this out with him, so right now I'm stuck!! I can't think about any thing execept that I've been betrayed once again!!! So can anyone help me answer that question? "What do I do Now?" I've done the therapy, the marriage building classes, the forgiveness for the hundredth time, spicing up the bedroom,and it still wasn't enough! I really need...? At this point I don't know what I need! Any Suggestion? Thanks again for the Thread!!

Hi all, I am joining this thread as well---d-day of WH's internet & phone EA/maybe PA on business trip was about 6 months ago. Still very early on this trail of tears. Thanks for the support, and sorry we have to meet here.

Just wanted to say I am sick of being called the psychotic one when they were the ones messing up

Does it go away? While WS and I are still in R, I still have my "issues."

For the ones who have been through this. Do the thoughts of all the details of the EA ever go away?

It makes me sick to think about the special events that happened during the EA knowing those calls and texts were from OW.

I'm afraid it does not go away. It's less painful, but never gone. I chose to forgive, but will not forget. What I had to learn was to have better self esteem - in other words if he screws up again I will be gone - and I will be fine.

EAs SUCK.

Hugs,

Lala

please somehelp me on the issue of forgiveness .been 2 yeas and i still dont know how to.. want to but cant... this is all so sad.. mine was twice also....that i know of

(((((liarswife)))))

2 years since D-day? 2 years since NC?

There's no timeline on healing - I forgave but never will forget. I had to get strong within myself so I was not dependent on him. I love him, but now I am not dependent on him because I know that it could happen again. I'd hope and pray it never does, but...this is not a perfect world.

Hugs,

Lala

I'm having a bad day today. I'm sad that my 22 year marriage might be coming to a close.

I can't get past my husband's long term EA with a coworker who I know. Its bad enough he talked to her secretly for years, but he refuses to apologize for it and is not remorseful in the least. He actually think I'm making too much of it.

What really pisses me off is that he saw how upset I was on D-Day #1 and if he didnt know it before, he knew then that I felt what he did was wrong. He saw how upset I was about this. But he didnt stop talking to her after promising NC. He went and bought a secret prepaid phone and talked to her with that. I found it and monitored it for a few months. By January I couldnt take it anymore and confronted him about it. He has since put the phone away and he stays home and not "run the streets" evenings and weekends like he used to.

I feel like he has made a complete fool out of me. I've wasted 22 years of my life being with a man who wanted to also be with someone else. The audacity of him to disrespect me like he has and I'm expected to "get over it".

Now that I've been 180 with him, he's being the loving husband that he should have been years ago but since he hasnt and will not apologize, I can't forgive and let it go.

My feelings for him are dimming more and more each day and I know one day I will wake up and look at him and say "I don't love you anymore, I want a divorce".

I feel it coming. He refuses IC or MC. He feels he doesnt need it cause there's not a problem.

This has caused me write so many posts since July because I was beginning to think I was making too much out of it but reading other people's stories and the advice I've been getting from people on SI, I'm not crazy, he is doing me wrong and I'm letting him do it and get away with it.

That's why I'm so sad.

Add me to the club. My WH had an EA with a coworker for 2 years. He says there was nothing physical, but honestly I can't be sure, and either way the betrayal is still there. It makes me sick that the OW knows details about me and my children, it makes me feel very violated.

That's how I feel. Violated. The thought of him having private moments with another woman really pisses me off.

He has the nerve to feel I should get over it but I'm not sure he's not still talking to her. He doesnt have much time to do that if he is, he's only talking to her on the workphone because he doesnt leave our home in the evenings and weekends like he used to and he put his secret cell phone away after D-Day #2 so if he's talking to her, its very little. But I told him if he talks to her again, I will divorce him. So we will see if he believes that I'm serious.

I am interested in people's reaction to the ideas I want to bring to IC. My second session is tomorrow.

My story is in my profile so I won't repeat it here. I am early in MC, about 6 or 7 weeks post d-day. Here are the issues that bother me the most, at this point:

1. I don't think my WH understands boundaries.

2. I don't think my WH understands clearly saying, "no".

Here are the back stories. I appreciate any thoughts, reactions to the issues, have I identified the core problem, are these important issues in an EA.

No.1: WH's EA started when a woman he knew in college contacted him on a professional networking site.

In less than one week, it goes from "hi" to full blown cybersex. I have asked many times, how did you make this transition? (hard to keep a straight face!! ) My WH has known the OW for over 30 years, but claims she was "never a GF". However, the OW claims they had sex 30 years ago, and still remembers her underwear from then (!!! can we say bunny boiler???) I made my WH read, "Not just friends", but every time I ask him how he got into this, he says he thought it was "OK, because she was a friend".

Next I learn that my WH and this woman have had occasional sexual conversations on the phone for over 25 years. I told him she's more like a phone sex mistress, and one I would not have agreed to share him with, had he had the decency to tell me she was in his back pocket when I married him.

Supposedly this was the first time they had talked since we married. The emails seem to verify that.

Story no. 2: in the last email, OW asks if they can "do it again" . oh, and BTW, WH does not understand why I think there was a PA!!!

WH say, "yes". Nonetheless, he keeps claiming he "ended it on his own".

Umm....err....I DON'T THINK SO!!! I made him send a NC email and copy me. He claims he would not have responded to any more contact, even w/o the NC email. Somehow, I am a person of little faith on that one....

Thoughts?

GeminiGirl! I completely understand! I don't feel that my WH understands boundaries as well and he can't say no either!He thinks just because he hasn't talk to OW in a week that things are over even though he hasn't spoken to her to end it!So why should I believe this won't happen again since this is his second EA in the last 4 months! I let him back in the bed room last night and he took it as a invitation to sex!! He doesn't understand that I'm still trying to process the first EA and now have to deal with a second one! Why he feels that boundaries don't need to be set when it comes to OW I'm still trying to figure out! So you are not alone GeminiGirl! if you come across that answer please share that information with me!

I hope people are still checking this thread. I really need some answers.

First, I could have written much of lalagirl's post:

I can't get past my husband's long term EA with a coworker who I know. Its bad enough he talked to her secretly for years, but he refuses to apologize for it and is not remorseful in the least. He actually think I'm making too much of it.

What really pisses me off is that he saw how upset I was on D-Day #1 and if he didnt know it before, he knew then that I felt what he did was wrong. He saw how upset I was about this. But he didnt stop talking to her after promising NC.

This is EXACTLY where we are. He's still insisting it wasn't that big a deal. Based on what I've been able to verify for myself, it seems there actually was no sex, and in fact no 'cybersex,' no 'phone sex,' not even anything like romance. Just years and years of working together to continue their friendship behind my back, talking about anything and everything including me and our marriage, lying to me when I realized she existed at all, lying more when I found stories strange, misleading me two or three times into believing there was no more contact.

As I read here, it seems many EA's do include those things... they just don't cross the physical line.

Is anyone else dealing with an EA that had no elements of sexual innuendo or romance? Is such a thing even possible? Are there actually men who will lie that much, for years on end, to maintain an inappropriate, but still strictly platonic relationship??

capri,

I suspect there are. are they rare? I think so. I think the more common thing to have happen is at some point the line between EA and PA gets crossed due to emotional intimacy.

That being said...I suspect that my WW didn't cross the line from EA to PA until she suspected me of sniffing around, looking for clues, asking for whereabouts at 1AM...that sort of thing. I don't know for sure, my WW has decided lying is A-OK (pardon the pun).

Thanks, JJ. Puns.... ahh, it's good to keep a sense of humor! Yes, he seems to think lying is a viable option, too, explaining that it's for my own good (ie, "I didn't want to hurt you." -- so why did you keep doing something you knew would hurt me? --"Because I figured what you didn't know wouldn't hurt you." I'm touched by his concern.)

This is what he only barely concedes. He keeps going on the offensive, accusing me of misunderstanding the situation (what's to misunderstand? with or without sexual factors, he LIED for YEARS in order to continue some sort of relationship with ANOTHER WOMAN), saying the real reason I'm upset is because I suspect a full blown affair.

I give him the same response over and over: given 1,000 lies, how am I supposed to know this story is the truth?

Recently, he grudgingly conceded that I had no way of knowing. But it wasn't a concession in his heart, if you know what I mean.

capri

I can relate with you and struggle with the same questions.I think there will always be the question "was there more".It doesn't add up that they would lie so much for just a friendship.If that was all it was why lie and hide it.I personally have never met a man that only wanted to talk.They always wanted more.I really hate when they down play the relationship and make us feel crazy for even thing that they might be more.I don't know if we will ever know the truth.After all the lies I don't think I would believe him amyway if he finally told the truth...I don't know which is harder ,living with all of the questions or the truth.Either way we have to find a way to heal and move on.Because being trap in this hell is no way to live.

[This message edited by hurtandbroken at 8:08 PM, April 25th (Saturday)]

I too belong to this club. I know a PA is worse, but EA hurts too.

tunatuna,

I don't think PA's are worse. At least the WS knows they crossed the line, with an EA, there's always the argument that they didn't do anything wrong so why can't you get over it. Half the battle of an EA is getting the WS to realize their mistake.

Hang in there you'll make it through this challenge

Exactly! My husband said I was jealous and controlling, too. I have the log of his EA with a coworker and in that he complained about my jealousy! Well duh....

Another controlling wife here! Amazing how all the controlling wives found the same site!!!!

I always thought that was very strange, considering I said NOTHING about his spending, his coming home late, or anything else. I recently found out that ow called me both controlling and another word he liked to apply to me. (But the fact that he is repeating her very words to me, and to others about me, is no proof that she had any effect on his view of me or our marriage....)

I guess when you interfere in the relationship between your husband and his girlfriend, in their minds that is "controlling."

tunatuna, I have to say that my marriage would be far better if he'd just slept with her a few times years ago and left it at that. That said, I really think there are so many factors, that some pa's are worse and some ea's are worse.

For me, I think part of the reason the ea is 'worse' is because he is able to convince himself that because he didn't sleep with her, the real problem is me blowing it out of proportion. He refuses to admit that he did anything seriously wrong, and in fact in some ways, is still putting it all back on my shoulders, that once again, I'm the problem.

I was horrible for not wanting to let him help this poor, struggling woman, he was just..wait for it...'being a friend' to her.

Beautiful, isn't it? I got the same thing about one of them. "I felt bad for her. Her husband left her." Uh.... are you saying that with a straight face when you only come home to eat and sleep and take off again to work and have a social life with all your secret friends?