Well,hello all, I posted a response to 3isacrowds' topic, but wanted to re-introduce myself and briefly set up my story. I will be as brief as possible....

Discovered affair with husband of 20 years, three years ago before Christmas. Did everything possible to work through it, but decided to divorce. Divorce has been final for a year. We are good friends and survived it and are happy as things are now.

Met a man - who I thought was 'the man of my dreams'. We were so much alike and we did and shared everything. We started planning a life together - buy a house, I was planning on moving in a year to where he is stationed (Career Navy). We had talked at length about having kids, (I had none from my first marriage - he has two) and in fact, due to my infertility problems, I started working on all of the things my doctor wanted me to take care before I got pregnant. We started with hormones first. It worked first try - I conceived twins, but lost both in an early miscarriage - another story for another day...

Anyway, on my last trip to visit him, I discovered he has been involved in an emotional affair with a woman that I have known and known about for two years. Now, not that I'm defending him, but, when he found out he was about to be transferred, things got really tense between us - he didn't want to go and because of my obligations where we were living, I couldn't move with him, atleast not easily or right away. We were more concerned about getting his kids adjusted to the new situation and I guess - our focus went off of us. To make a long story short, the last week he had before moving, he was acting wierd, we fought and I said fine, I guess this is it then.... He believed I ment it and turned to this other woman who has been looming for two years....she said the right things to make him feel better and they started a letter/phone relationship, which I guess has gotten pretty hot and heavy.

In the meantime, I calmed down, started to see how we might be able to work things out and started moving in that direction. He got excited and started to see how we could work this out too, but what to do about this other woman now....... after all - they 'have fallen in love'......or she had - whatever... it goes as the other stories go - that EA is so strong, now he doesn't know what to do. We had signed a contract on the house, already qualified for the financing and we were supposed to move in in May. His kids were supposed to move to be with him in the Summer and we were making plans like crazy, and like I said, we had already started on the trying to have a family stuff.

Now, after learning about all of this, I am really gun shy about everything. I know it was just an emotional affair - I do know that and, I can even understand how and why it started, but sometimes they are harder then PA's to break up. They won't ever see each other - she doesn't have the money to travel to him and he doesn't have the money to travel to her. As I told his sister, 'three years is a long time for phone sex to carry?' But, he broke the trust and that was everything to me with him. I asked him if she knew about anything we were doing, like the house and the kids and our future plans and he said no - I said - don't you think you should tell her????? Actually, I think she does know now, or, will soon because she is a friend of his sister-in-laws... someone will tell her the truth, it's a small community. I actully feel sorry for her, she didn't know anything that we were planning - can you imagine the shock?

I'm going to guess it will fizzle quickly, especially now that the cat is out of the bag - secrecy is part of the things that fuel these affairs, or any affair for that matter. But my world, or what I thought was my world and my future just crashed down around me. I don't know what to do to get back to where we were, or even if we can.

I just don't know where to go from here. Any suggestions and advice will be greatly appreciated......

Have you thought about counseling with the Harley's?

As I mentioned, this isn't my first trip to this board - I was active here for over a year the last time.

I had a year and a half of counseling and have read all of the Harley's information, way more then once. Counseling is certainly in order if we try to make this work. I was looking for input from recent sufferers and recoverers mostly.

I was thinking of one of their workshops, but they never seem to be in an area where we could both go.

I will continue to follow the posts - I'm sure there will be sound advice or dicussion come up.

An EA is so much more then a PA, the PA can't hold them to together as with a an EA they feel connected emotionally, secreacy isn't that big a part of an EA, they are "just friends" and there is nothing wrong with that right? Wrong!!!!

You really need to look at why he had her on the side looming all of this time, have they been having an EA this whole time? If so then he was not able to give you his all and he was sharing things with her that weren't meant to be shared with her but with you so he already has not been there for you!!!

You will probably hear at sometime that he never cheated on you, bull not physically, but emotionally which is so much worse.

I would take a very long time in deciding on how to proceed with this man, you aren't married to him yet, do you want to start a marriage out this way? Why was is it so easy for him to pick up with her, after the two of you had an arguement? Will there always be someone there that will pick up the pieces that he has dropped with you?

I would take a very long hard look as to if this is a man that is worth anymore of my time!!! Perhaps all of this happened for a reason, think of what that reason might be!!!

I am sorry that my strong feelings spilled over on this subject, my xH had an ongoing EA with an old HS friend for at least 3 years that I know of. He has since married her, and now talks with me!!! Go figure! I said that I don't mess with married men!

Dawn <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

Thanks,

I know EA's are harder to break - I had one once (toward the end of my marriage, just before I filed for the divorce) and remember all too well the difficulty I had in letting it go....I almost wish they had had a PA instead (well not really), but I could deal with that.

This 'relationship', if you can call it that, only picked up after he move away. It has been three months now - yes, it moved fast. But, he was alone and thought we were over, so why not. He didn't expect that we could possibly work this out.

He told me last night, 'I really f***ed things up, didn't I?'....I said, 'well, yes you did.'

I don't know how you get trust back once it's been broken. That has always been the hardest thing for me. It wasn't my ex-husband's affair that ended our marriage, it was the break in trust and the lack of acceptence for what he had done.

As I said, they will never see each other, but as I told him, if you go home to visit your family, it would drive me insane because I would suspect every move you make. I would think that the two of you were trying to sneak around to be together - I would never know and THAT would drive me crazy.

I just don't know how to get past this....and I'm tired from my last marriage and divorce. I don't know if I have the resolve needed to 'work on it'

Anyone have any ideas how to regain trust? Or can you?