I want to point out here that you were upset about the affectionate pictures of these two, your H quickly deleted the picture but failed to mention the emailing between the two of them. That is really another big red flag. That would have been the time to bring it up.

Did you ever see these emails with your own eyes?

No

The answer is not to go when you would rather stay home. The answer is to find an alternative activity that you both will greatly enjoy. DO NOT SACRIFICE.

Have you read His Needs, Her Needs? Have you read about the POJA?

Here is yet more evidence that you know very little about Marriage Builders.

No, it is not important for you to be there despite your reticence. If you are reticent, you should not go, and neither should your husband go without you.

Do you know why I say that?

Caroleena, one thing that really stands out here is that you are not familiar with the MB program. Do you have any of the books? One critical element of undivided attention time is to make sure it is spent doing things you BOTH like. If you don't enjoy get togethers, the solution is not to make a sacrifice and go, but to find something to do you BOTH like. IF you start doing things you don't like, you will soon not want to do anything with him. MAke sure you are planning dates that you will both enjoy.

You have been here a long time so I just assumed you had read the books. Which books do you have?

Yes, you should be snooping on your husband.

There are many things about your story that show the first steps of an EA....his lying by omission by not telling you about the emails (until you asked), deleting their communications without being transparent about them, talking about needing friends (this is the start to gaslighting you into believing that it is totally rational for him to have this person as a 'friend')...

Affairs are addictions. This may just be at the attraction stage, but that addictive nature is already present. It is very possible that he is drawn to further communication, even though he knows it would bother you. And of course next time, he would likely hide it more than he did the first time. The only way to know for certain if he has or not is to snoop on him.

Privacy does not really exist in good marriages, by the way. I welcome my spouse to look at my phone, email, or anything he wants to at any time. I welcome the opportunity to show that I am trustworthy, and calm him if he were to have any suspicions. If your husband does not feel the same this is another red flag.

No - I guess I'll need to start reading.

yes, I do based on the other's replies. I just don't think that it is fair for me to subject DH to (what I perceive as) my disability when it comes to normal socializing.

I am introverted, too, and find it a little offensive for you to call that a "disability." It's not. And to continue to sacrifice for your husband by doing things that you do not enjoy will destroy your marriage.

Your marriage is more important than continuing to go to family events that you do not enjoy.

Let's leave fair out of it ...

The Marriage Builders program will fix your marital problems if you follow it.

But what you're telling us is you're not going to follow this part.

Understand your point, but my introversion is such that it has prevented me many times throughout the last 40 years to enjoy normal social interactions. Instead I am filled with dread and foreboding. So I really don't think that you understand the degree to which I am afflicted; because if you did, my calling it a disability would make more sense to you. I have wanted to overcome this propensity my whole life.

Regardless, I agree that my marriage is most important here. I will muddle through somehow!

Did he delete those emails? If so I missed that.

It makes absolutely no sense to me that you would not check the emails. I remember my sister being suspicious and telling me to snoop and I felt uneasy about it because I remember thinking to myself, oh no, he would NEVER do anything like that...but as soon as I knew there were, in fact, communications with another woman I had no problem checking. I wanted to know exactly what was going on.

I don't get the reluctance - you are posting in SAA so you seem to acknowledge that your H was crossing some lines.

Would you prefer not to know how far this got?
Don't you think it's important to verify that the contact as, in fact, stopped?

The definition of an emotional "need" - in this context - is something that your SPOUSE meets in order to make lovebank deposits. What your H is doing here is getting his needs met OUTSIDE of marriage. That defeats the purpose. He needs to find a recreation that you BOTH enjoy. Since oyu don't enjoy socializing, you should not do this.


Do you imagine that you could keep a JOB if you only went there one day each week? I seriously doubt that. One day a week is not near enough to sustain a marriage. Also, it is better to go on 4 - 4 hour dates instead of lumping all this time together. Being together ALL DAY LONG is exhausting for even couples who are in love.

You should his FAVORITE source of recreation.

My H is an introvert who can barely tolerate social situations. I love to socialize. But I get my greatest satisfaction from socializing WITH HIM. Do you think for one minute I feel deprived because we RARELY socialize with other people? HELL NO. I would much rather spend my free time out on dates with him than squander it socializing with other people. We do socialize on occasions but only if we are both enthusiastic. And even then we much prefer being alone together.

It sounds like he would rather socialize with others outside of your marriage than you. That is a very bad sign.

Ok but you have the website and all the articles even without the books. I am completely perplexed that someone would be here for so long but not have read the articles. I read the articles about 2-3 times before posting here.

Honestly, you should do that ASAP while you are waiting for your books to arrive. There is a lot of back and forth over simple issues like snooping and transparency etc that Dr Harley explains very clearly - it kinda gets frustrating to try to spoon feed these concepts to someone who may have zero interest in following this program.

Are you filled with dread and foreboding when you socialize WITH HIM? My H is an introvert and he feels great with me. WE socialize with each other. WE rarely have time for others.

Hello Caroleena-As a fellow introvert, I wanted to chime in here...

I am EXTREMELY introverted myself. Until a few years ago, I didn't really know what that meant...I also viewed parties and get-togethers with a feeling of dread and thought perhaps I had a social anxiety disorder. Luckily, I stumbled across an article that explained that being introverted wasn't about being socially awkward or "shy"...it's about how your recharge your batteries....a social event for introverts like us is like a battery quickly draining its charge. While for an extrovert, these events charge them up and make them shine like a Christmas tree. Until I understood that, I thought something was wrong with me too, so I get why you used the word "disability"...but I hope that sometime you can come to see yourself as not "broken"...there's nothing wrong with being introverted.

Like you, my husband is much more extroverted than me. He loves interacting with people. I used to feel very much like you have expressed...like I was holding him back from enjoying something he loved - friends and family. So I felt like I either had to tolerate him having a social life outside of our marriage or suck it up and attend social events even if I didn't want to. I did a bit of both...staying behind while he had a seaprate social life and tagging along to events I hated. I even hosted several parties in our home because I thought that's what he wanted. All of it was a sacrifice. So what ended up happening was a vicious cycle... I was not getting the downtime that I needed, so the time we were spending together was full of love busters...I was demanding, judgemental and had a super short fuse, so lots of angry outbursts in there as well. As you can imagine, that didn't exactly entice him to spend more time alone with me, so he spent more and more time outside of our marriage. It didn't happen overnight, but over the years our marriage degraded further and further until the horrible day when I discovered he was having an emotional affair, which I still believe would have turned physical in very short order.

We don't sacrifice anymore. Because my needs are being met, I'm much more pleasant to spend UA time with! We have a great time now....we don't do things unless we both want to. Along the way, I became his favorite person to spend time with....he never wants to do things without me anymore. And he's doing such a good job meeting my needs that time with him recharges my batteries even more than time spent by myself. He still chats with male friends on the phone sometimes and goes to an occassional golf outing. And since we don't socialize outside of our marriage very often at all anymore, there are some social events that I actually do want to go, so we attend those together.

As others have stated, you can make a marriage between an extrovert and an introvert work beautifully, but having one or both of your needs met outside of the marriage will put you right into the situation I was in three years ago when I discovered my husband's EA.

Take care.