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I did NOT think I had an EA, I still, to this day don't really think I did.

You had an EA. I think that you need to own it for the sake of your healing and the healing of your M.

Ditto MIGander about minimizing it. And ditto everything BreakingBad said.

You had an EA. I think that you need to own it for the sake of your healing and the healing of your M.

Ditto MIGander about minimizing it. And ditto everything BreakingBad said.

I will add to this, something I forgot in my original post. Yes, You had an EA and also as others eloquently put out there, EAs are certainly a spectrum and they don't all look the same. It is a great thing for you to look back on now, pick apart and understand your boundaries, which you should take pride in, you did have boundaries not to pursue a further relationship, but like it or not, your actions did hurt your WH and he was absolutely a BH in that epoch of your marriage.

Being a madhatter is tough, one moment you are wearing the BS hat and seeing everything from that perspective, but the next you also need to understand the WS perspective and see things from there too. If the two of you are working through a prospective R, you can use your shared experiences as both BS and WS to lean into empathy to really look at your actions, your boundaries, your self talk and all those sorts of things to do better going forward. You've both hurt each other tremendously and it will take time to address those wounds, and it certainly seems that your WH is quite avoidant, my wife was the same, which is why her EA became a PA all under my nose without a single sense of it happening. R as a MH is about owning your own shit, but also understanding quite clearly that whether you or your spouse went first, you both went and had affairs, which is the wrong response to the situation entirely. Obviously, the better approach is a commitment to honesty and creating the relationship safe space where you can feel heard by your partner and not dismissed. I will say that knowing full well that during my EA with a co-worker, that I didn't see as an EA a the time (didn't even know the term EA until coming here in 2019), that my wife did voice her displeasure, but I also didn't fully listen, so she began to develop resentments and it really spiraled from there. Would've been much different outcome if I had taken my wife's concerns seriously and listened to her the first time she raised it as a concern. What it has done for us is we have now created a different relationship with each other and it has allowed us to snuff out shit like this from the start.

Bare with me for one moment, but as a wayward, we would counsel you to go full NC and provide a timeline to your BS as bare minimum requirements. You also mentioned that your WH has all access to your devices and you still have all the chats from your EA AP. It's best that you sit down with your WH and let him have what he wants and then ask him to delete them, block the guy or whatever as he sees fit. I obviously think you should go NC with this guy completely, but also, preserve what evidence you have and leave the timing and finality up to your husband. You cannot keep those texts because they are mementos from the relationship that you two shared and they will hurt your husband, but you also should leave it up to him what to do with the messages, because he may want them to refer back to or comb through and by deleting them all yourself, it looks like you are hiding something.

No yours was not an EA, another person here who thinks your WS is trying to blame shift and manipulate. You held your boundaries and crushes certainly happen, but you did not discuss your feelings with this coworker and held your boundaries firm. The fact that you had conversations with coworker in front of your WS and never hid anything (except your inside feelings) tells me you kept your boundaries and yes the feeling of a crush eventually passes.

I believe it came very close to an EA and can see why many here consider it an EA especially the thoughts about leaving your WS, but you never voiced any of this or acted out on it.

[This message edited by crazyblindsided at 6:34 PM, Monday, November 6th]

No yours was not an EA, another person here who thinks your WS is trying to blame shift and manipulate. You held your boundaries and crushes certainly happen, but you did not discuss your feelings with this coworker and held your boundaries firm. The fact that you had conversations with coworker in from of your WS and never his anything (except your inside feelings) tells me you kept your boundaries and yes the feeling of a crush eventually passes.

I agree. I feel like your WS is using this to throw you off topic and spin your wheels anywhere but on his actions.

I agree with those saying that her H is using this as a diversionary tactic.

HOWEVER

Considering leaving your spouse for another man? Getting touchy-feely and being obvious enough in your preference for each other that even the other coworkers could see it??

That's an EA.

There was the occasional friendly hug or pat on the back, some touchy feely stuff perhaps (non sexual) but always in other people's proximity, never any suggestive sexual touching of any sort.

bickering in some ways but definitely with a sexual undertone

we were working closely spend hours chatting and on the phone during evenings and weekends.

We did get extremely close and discussed life deeper issues always. Supported each other in life. Was I interested? yes. Did I contemplate leaving my H for him, yes,

he did become my first go-to in many things in life, even before or completely parallell to my H.

we traveled for work together, even though nothing ever happened between us, it almost felt like going on a trip as a couple.

We shared many interests and values my H and I do not and I loved having someone to share. these things with. I felt seen, valued and like someone was attracted to me. There were lot's of compliments and jokes about how I was too good looking for my H.

Dude, that's an EA. That part I bolded is a solid indicator that it was DEFINITELY an EA.

To those saying that it's not an EA, would you feel comfortable with your spouse behaving that way with a colleague? I doubt it.

The fact that you had conversations with coworker in from of your WS and never his anything (except your inside feelings) tells me you kept your boundaries and yes the feeling of a crush eventually passes.

My EA happened in front of my H and with his knowledge. He knew I had feelings for the AP. He even encouraged me to progress to PA. Just because he knew about it and pushed me to do more doesn't make what I did okay. I'm the one who closed the door to a PA, but I'm also the one who opened the door to an EA. Without my willingness to engage, there would be no A. It was important to me to own my shit.

I wonder what the story would be today if OP's coworker had been open to an A and had been more forward about his interest in her?

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 7:28 PM, Monday, November 6th]

I just feel this is a fine line. I definitely do not feel like this was a full blown EA not like some that I read here. No it's not ok to use your coworker to fill in spots that should have been saved for the M. It definitely was going down the slippery slope. I do feel like her WS using this as some sort of we are equals is totally off base here. There is no comparison between the two.

So, if we use the simile ‘slippery slope’ and force it a little, where was that slope headed?

Declarations of love? Shared histories? Imagined futures? Leaving your husband?

Why did you let yourself be on a slope?

Whether or not it was an EA, was it an okay thing to do?

It seems that for a time you lived in and maintained the tension between nurturing that thrill and ‘doing the right thing’. You let the second good thing provide cover for and maintain the bad first thing. It’s a misuse of principles to say, I’m a good person so I can let myself be a little more shady for a little longer and take it a little further than the next guy. You may have even felt a small thrill in being virtuous and imagining the other guy saw you that way and wanted you more because of it.

I’m being harsh. It’s because this is precisely where I have to watch myself. I’ve had a couple of EA close calls. I think I went less far than you. I had boundaries. I didn’t want a relationship with them. I did want a friendship. I have told myself that it is simply an example of boundaries working in real life. But I could have done better in how I interacted from the start.

Maintaing good boundaries is very much like what Shirley Glass describes as ‘windows and walls’. You put the wall up so you do not care much what that other person thinks of you. You don’t put the wall up to add to the mystery and press your ear to the wall to catch snippets of conversation.

You open that window to your spouse.

I do feel like her WS using this as some sort of we are equals is totally off base here. There is no comparison between the two.

I agree with you there. I'm technically a MH, but consider myself primarily a BS because I think the way my H betrayed me is 1000x worse than what I did to him. Cheating is cheating, yes, but there are degrees, like others have mentioned.

OP's H is responsible for his behavior, independent of OP's behavior. He has to own his and she has to own hers.

he did become my first go-to in many things in life, even before or completely parallel to my H.

I maintain that doing this with someone on whom you are crushing, and who also acts like they are crushing on you, is clearly an EA. I am prepared to die on this hill.

Maintaing good boundaries is very much like what Shirley Glass describes as ‘windows and walls’. You put the wall up so you do not care much what that other person thinks of you. You don’t put the wall up to add to the mystery and press your ear to the wall to catch snippets of conversation.

You open that window to your spouse.

Good analogy.

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 8:43 PM, Monday, November 6th]

We may not all agree on whether this was an EA or not, but I think we can all agree on one thing that her relation with C was inappropriate and dangerous. She has to work on her boundaries...

Another thing to point out that there are many people out there who believe sexting is not physical affair. There are many who believe blowjob or handjob are not boundary-crosser because penetration is not involved. Many people doesn't even know that emotional affair is a thing. Not just people there are many countries that doesn't legally recognize EA as a thing. Traditionally, only physical affair and sharing 'I love yous' were considered as an affair. Since, OP was one of them during the time of her friendship with C, its no wonder she firmly and naively believed that there's nothing inappropriate and she wasn't doing anything wrong with C as long as it doesn't go physical and no 'I love yous' shared. She practically did almost everything that people in EA do except for sharing 'I love yous' and 'hiding things from her husband'.

[This message edited by Lurkingsoul12 at 5:26 PM, Monday, November 20th]

You had an EA. I think that you need to own it for the sake of your healing and the healing of your M.

100%. Of course you had an EA with your co-worker. You crossed a million lines in your relationship with this person. Would you be okay with your husband having this type of a relationship with one of his coworkers? Of course not. You considered leaving your spouse for this person, it was far more than a little crush. Agree with others that this is not an excuse for his cheating but it absolutely is something that needs to be discussed/addressed, and it is disingenuous for you to minimize it now.

The fact that he didn't raise an issue with the relationship that was apparently obvious to him AT THE TIME, is also something to discuss. I'm not saying that just because he didn't raise an issue with it then means that he can't complain about it now, but it may say something about his ability to address issues/conflict. My guess is that you have not told him all the details of your relationship wiht this person - the touchiness, the unsaid stuff, the planning for the future, etc.

Thank you to everyone for sharing your thoughts and comments on this. This is precisely why I posted this question, because my mind is throwing the exact same arguments you all are and vacillating between the two ways of looking at it. On one hand I feel like I kept my boundaries firmly and never passed them so I never felt it was an A at the time, on the other hand once I started reading up on As in general I realised EAs sounded a lot like the relationship I had a few years back with my C and started realising I might have had one. I appreciate all your angles that have given me even more food for thought.

Would you be okay with your husband having this type of a relationship with one of his coworkers?

The answer to this is, obviously, no. However, I do firmly still believe that had this case been the other way around I would have felt threatened, jealous and hurt, and that it was inappropriate. I would not have considered it him having an A though if this had been my H.
We have discussed this at length with my H already, he does know all the details, I had no trouble giving them to him as they were way less damaging than what he thought had happened. I have told him that I am ready to acknowledge that this relationship hurt him and us, whatever we want to call it, and that we can discuss it as he sees he needs to.

I guess that's where I've landed on this at the moment. That whether or not this relationship technically would classify as a full EA or not, isn't even relevant I guess? That's not what's important to focus on, where exactly the line for EA is or isn't. What IS relevant, is that it was completely inappropriate and hurt my H as well as our M that was already in a lot of trouble at the time. I am NC with this person since many months, not by request of my H but of my own choice once I started to see that it resembled an EA in many ways.

Having had this experience myself a few years back I find is a two edged sword. On one hand, I can find some empathy for my WH and understand how he might have landed himself in an A without intending to, and I also have an understanding of how it is possible to have feelings for someone else while being still in love with your spouse, as I was. However, having had feelings for another person and being completely firm with my boundaries that I had set up for myself, and stood by them for years, I have an even more difficult time understanding how he could jump into a PA with someone really quickly, without thinking first, and with someone he was according to his own words way less emotionally involved with than I was with my C. It makes me and our M feel even less valued by him in a way if that makes sense? That I stood by my boundaries even when faced with feelings that had gone far enough that I contemplated leaving my M before anything physical had ever transpired, while he on the other hand, just jumped into something physical immediately with someone there was zero emotional connection to from the get go (that came over time but never to any level where he ever contemplated leaving etc which he was clear to her with, and he dumped her in the blink of an eye on DD and never looked back). I can not fathom how he was willing to risk our M for something that meant so little to him, when I wasn't willing to go that route even for something that did mean something to me I guess. I don't know if I'm making any sense.

Hi MLC,

It looks like you're having the lovely struggle us MH's find ourselves in- comparing affairs and being bewildered at the choices our spouse made.

I'm going to walk you through some of your comments here. As part of my work as a fWS, a lot of it revolved around breaking down my internal "story telling" and truly see my lies and justifications for what they were. Maybe you didn't lie to your H and cover up your EA, but you definitely have been lying to yourself.

That I stood by my boundaries even when faced with feelings that had gone far enough that I contemplated leaving my M before anything physical had ever transpired ... I can not fathom how he was willing to risk our M for something that meant so little to him, when I wasn't willing to go that route even for something that did mean something to me I guess.

I've bolded the parts that stick out as "cognitive dissonance" (AKA: LYING TO YOURSELF). These statements contradict what you said here:

I also ... have [had] feelings for someone else while being still in love with your [my]spouse

How can you love your spouse while contemplating leaving him?

This is where your reasoning and story telling break down. On the one hand, you're devastated at your spouse's betrayal. On the other, you're protecting yourself from the truth about your past relationship with your COW. Your relationship with him was a deep betrayal of your H and your M vows. If you did the typical ones most of us do- forsaking all others- then, in this case, you were clearly ready to FORSAKE YOUR H (abandon him) for this OTHER man.

You're clearly both WS/BS. Separating out your betrayal from his betrayal, your lies to yourself from his lies to you and the tangled mess of your interior lives is going to be critical going forward.

Read "Not Just Friends" TOGETHER. Do the questions in the book, separately, but read the content together and discuss it together. This is going to be a long road, and a hard one. It looks like you've got something already to work with if your H did indeed dump his AP

in the blink of an eye on DD and never looked back.

You said the following:

‘ I can not fathom how he was willing to risk our M for something that meant so little to him"

It seems like you are confusing the fact that your husband’s AP meant little to him with the fact the PA meant little to him. He could have cared barely a stitch for this other person and yet the external validation of someone wanting him could have meant a great deal to him. He did risk your marriage and yet it seems obvious that the marriage is deeply important to him, probably was still deeply important to him, because he is putting in all this work to try to mend things. Also it sounds like you have been together for a long time so it sort of stands to reason that it is important. So given all that this "cheating" he did meant something to him. You probably have contemplated all the potential things it may have meant, and obviously that is really for him to figure out. Maybe he had done the right thing for so long he desperately wanted to be selfish for himself, or some part of him wanted women to like him, or his dopaminergic pathways went into overdrive and he has poor self control. In any case, whatever the reason, it was very cruel and selfish to you. He had insufficient empathy at that time so you probably need to be sure that was a temporary affliction before you can trust him again.

How can you love your spouse while contemplating leaving him?

It wasn't contemplating leaving in the sense that I felt equal feelings for both and decided between the two. I always loved my husband but was severely unhappy in my M for years prior. It was more that our M hade been in a lot of trouble for years and I hade been voicing my unhappiness for a long time, but my H was not hearing me at all. When my C came into the picture, a lot of the things I had been missing in my M for years, decades in fact, started getting filled in the friendship that grew. Just basic things like sharing music we loved or some one actually being happy to see you when you turn up. Someone who noticed me and said good morning it was that small of a deal at first I was so starved for positive attention of any sort. So I contemplated whether or not I could become happier if I divorced and chose to leave my H and pursue a relationship with someone else, such as my C, and see if it could turn into something. It was more a realisation that there could be other people out there that might be a better match perhaps. I never contemplated having an affair with my C, ever, I always contemplated whether I should leave my H first and THEN see if it would turn into something. My H had been telling me for years no man would ever want me (like I said, our M was rotten) and so when someone showed interest in me it was more contemplating, could I be happier elsewhere? I was never willing to have an PA, I always knew I would leave first before I allowed anything physical to ever happen. And since I didn't leave, I never went there.
I still somehow decided against divorce every time the thought crossed my mind. When push came to shove, I was still in love with my H and I wanted to try and save may marriage instead, so I started distancing myself from my C, and tried to blow life back inte my M, a couple of years later I arranged for us to start MC which we did and I thought we were on our way to doing better, so my H also said multiple times, when he started a PA with his COW and the A-bomb hit us. And here we are almost a year later, trying to R. We both wanted to try R immediately and yes he wrote an email saying so much to his AP that I got to read first, within 12 hours of me finding out. They have been NC since as far as I know and I have found nothing to give me the idea this is not true.

I'm nodding at MIGander's post. She's right.

I would not have considered it him having an A though if this had been my H.

Gently, I don't think this is true. I think you're being defensive.

If someone brand new came to SI and described your behavior with your coworker and asked, "Is this an A?" everyone here would have jumped on board and said, "Yes, that's an EA." But because your H is the worse offender, you're getting some slack, and you're giving yourself some slack. I totally get that. I've been in your shoes. What I did absolutely pales in comparison to what my H did, just like you and your H, but I still did something wrong and I need to address it.

Imagine the As like they're injuries to your marriage. Your H's actions caused severe trauma that needs immediate attention. Internal bleeding, broken ribs, etc. Your actions caused something akin to a broken forearm or a cut that needs stitches. Not life threatening, but it still needs to be addressed at some point after the major bleeding has stopped.

Let yourself off the hook at your own peril.

My friend, you just described a textbook EA:

When my C came into the picture, a lot of the things I had been missing in my M for years, decades in fact, started getting filled in the friendship that grew. Just basic things like sharing music we loved or some one actually being happy to see you when you turn up. Someone who noticed me and said good morning it was that small of a deal at first I was so starved for positive attention of any sort. So I contemplated whether or not I could become happier if I divorced and chose to leave my H and pursue a relationship with someone else, such as my C, and see if it could turn into something.

When my C came into the picture, a lot of the things I had been missing in my M for years, decades in fact, started getting filled in the friendship that grew. Just basic things like sharing music we loved or some one actually being happy to see you when you turn up. Someone who noticed me and said good morning it was that small of a deal at first I was so starved for positive attention of any sort. So I contemplated whether or not I could become happier if I divorced and chose to leave my H and pursue a relationship with someone else, such as my C, and see if it could turn into something.

This is very common in workplaces because we are exposed to other people and then throw in a marriage that has issues it makes it prime for an A to begin. I do commend you for having been able to shut it down before it went further. You entertained it in your head but never voiced it to the C. Then you distanced yourself. Many people who begin to embark on an A will start confiding those feeling to their C and then the A begins some leading to a PA. It is how my RA began. After discovering my xWS's A I let my windows and walls down and entertained an A with my C. That was all it took and I was off to become a madhatter.

Having had this experience myself a few years back I find is a two edged sword. On one hand, I can find some empathy for my WH and understand how he might have landed himself in an A without intending to, and I also have an understanding of how it is possible to have feelings for someone else while being still in love with your spouse, as I was. However, having had feelings for another person and being completely firm with my boundaries that I had set up for myself, and stood by them for years, I have an even more difficult time understanding how he could jump into a PA with someone really quickly, without thinking first, and with someone he was according to his own words way less emotionally involved with than I was with my C. It makes me and our M feel even less valued by him in a way if that makes sense? That I stood by my boundaries even when faced with feelings that had gone far enough that I contemplated leaving my M before anything physical had ever transpired, while he on the other hand, just jumped into something physical immediately with someone there was zero emotional connection to from the get go (that came over time but never to any level where he ever contemplated leaving etc which he was clear to her with, and he dumped her in the blink of an eye on DD and never looked back). I can not fathom how he was willing to risk our M for something that meant so little to him, when I wasn't willing to go that route even for something that did mean something to me I guess. I don't know if I'm making any sense.

There are some great posters on here who have really done the work and detailed a lot about being a WS. DaddyDom is one of them and there are others that I'm blanking on at the moment. One thing that I see you struggling with here is the duality of being a madhatter, Sister, its sucks a lot of shit!

Most of us here can think back to our wedding days and I'm near certain that all of us didn't stand up at the altar with the intention to ever cheat. With very limited and extreme examples, affairs just don't happen either. Meaning, you don't wake up on a Tuesday morning and decide you are going to have an affair. Rather, affairs are more like the frog in a pot of slowly boiling water. Affairs are a series of line stepping, boundary pushing and line crossing choices that happen gradually. They start off innocent enough, but think about your own EA over time, a comment here about how nice your hair looked or how that blouse is such a good color to match your eyes or any friendly and not threatening comment. We are all human and we all enjoy compliments. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but a small boundary here and a small boundary there, pretty soon you and your AP are having a full blown EA.

You alluded to having empathy and understanding for how one gets to the point you got, because it happened to you, and your WH did something similar on his way to a PA. What I will say is that PAs are often EAs that just had the convenience of proximity.
While I understand that you had a personal boundary of physical acts being across the line, through a credit of you recognizing the situation, you were able to avoid this getting any further, but are you so sure that if you hadn't allowed a line crossing here and there that you would've held firm? Again, I don't mean this to attack you, but rather to give you a little perspective that your WH went through a similar arc as you did before he landed at a PA.

You also did in another post hit the nail on the head, whatever you and your WH consider your EA, and whatever label you apply to it, does not matter as much as the impact. Fidelity to your marriage is not something that anyone here on SI can define for you and your WH. Your boundaries and his boundaries are the only two that matter. The rest of us here can give you examples and scenarios about where each of our respective boundaries and expectations are, but at the end of the day, it is totally meaningless as it pertains to your marriage. Boundaries tend to expressed on here as a spectrum, with some spouses saying that looking at photos in Instagram or pornography is being unfaithful and everything in between up to and including some defining cheating as the having penetrative sexual intercourse. I think maybe what you are struggling with, and this I feel is a valid concern, is that upon the discovery of his infidelity, your WH brings up your past EA. Only you can judge if this is a genuine concern or a deflection of the attention away from his actions, but dismissing his hurt and his feelings is not a good idea (not saying you are doing that by the way). In order to effectively R, as a madhatter, you must both work on fixing your wayward behaviors and make sure you more explicity define boundaries going forward.

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[This message edited by Littlepuppet at 5:49 PM, Tuesday, November 7th]