I just found out this weekend that my partner has been thinking of having an affair. She not only has been depressed for months and months, not moving from the computer, ignoring her own needs as well as anything I ask of her, but she has been exploring the painful memories of her childhood, and all her "issues" etc. etc. Bit by bit over the past weeks she has been letting me into her painful internal world, and the last week her dialogue has all been about sex and her desire to obtain the love she has never really gotten (from her mother?). When I offered to provide (or at least attempt to provide) this to her she explained that she does not feel passion toward me. But I still thought it was related to what she was going through, and not focused on a specific person, but as the weekend went on, and we tried to talk (with anger and crying as well as revelations) I found out that she actually HAS (or had) a specific person in mind and was actually considering pursuing finding out if the other person might be interested. I found this out from her saying something about "imagining another person who could make me feel like prince charming" and then reading her post to a list. Of course there was no Valentine's Day acknowledgement from her although I made us a lovely dinner. Monday I spoke to a friend for several hours and then wrote the following email:

___, I want to tell you some important things. I thought it would be easier to say them via email, but I will be glad to talk with you on the phone if you want to call me here at work after you read this.

1. I do love you, I have never stopped loving you, and that love includes a passionate side.
2. I am very hurt about your desire to find sexual (and emotional) companionship outside of our marriage, and I do consider it a marriage.
3. I have emotional needs that you are not meeting, and I know that you have needs I am not meeting. What are they and can you imagine being happy again? Because I can. I do not think it is fair to condemn my wanting love from you (in many expressions) as something that is not possible.
3. I will support you in any way that does not hurt me to gain a happier life. I have tried to help you realize your dreams, and I am still willing to try to do so.
4. I believe that we need to go to therapy, and I think we should agree to share the cost of it. I have hope that we can build a better relationship and can rekindle the passion that I at least still feel, with the right help. I think I know what I need to do.
5. I do understand that you need other people in your life to help you. A friend, therapist, whatever is o.k. with me. Obviously I cannot be everything to you.
6. I cannot and will not accept your replacing me emotionally and sexually with someone else, regardless of your reasons or any part I have played in making you unhappy. I am sorry that I have contributed to your unhappiness, and would like the opportunity to get some happiness myself -- within the relationship.
7. If you are not willing to work on making our lives together better, AND you are not willing to recommit to me as an adult, sexual, woman, then we will have to discuss the implications of that in a reasonable way.
8. If -- and I hope with all my heart that it doesn't go this way -- we cannot build a new, mutually caring and loving relationship, we will have to find a way to minimize the hurt and harm to one another if we choose to separate. I am not at this point now, I do still want to try to work things out.
9. Your having an affair, regardless of the reasons, would be devastating to me, and would not be something I could live with.


We have been together for eleven years.
We have been to counselling, each individually in the past, and as a couple in the early years of our relationship. She is on anti-depressents. She is very self-involved and very intense in examining her own feelings. She often replies to my requests for her to meet my needs by saying "When do you do that for me?" or "I don't even do that for myself." Then I become resentful and angry and I do end up being a nag and a shrew. I have been carrying most of the work of the relationship on my back for the past two years, without knowing how to get help from her.

Now, her responses to the email were positive, that she does love me, that she did not mean to hurt me, that she will go to counselling with me, that she will share the cost, and that she understands that I will not accept her having an affair.

From what I have learned from this site (and from looking at the dynamics of our communications in the past months, which have been angry, rude, disrespectful,unkind, or non-existent, I can see how she might prefer the fantasy to the reality of our current relationship, and I am determined not to persist in strategies that could push her away as well as not working to get any of my emotional needs met. I believe that she may be capable of changing (I may be capable of changing), but right now I still feel assaulted.

I spoke to another friend today, and she was very disturbed by what I told her. (I am trying hard to keep a lid on my emotions, not crying, etc.) and she said, "She must have known that what she was saying to you was going to hurt you. In fact, it is hard for me to believe that she didn't say it just so that she could hurt you." This friend does not know her very well, but I just wonder what you think?

Should I feel happy that she was honest with me? And should I trust her that she is now making apparent steps toward communicating and acting more as if she cares (running errands today -- which she always leaves for me) and we have agreed to set up therapy? Or should I protect myself by assuming that she could still, and perhaps will, initiate an affair?

Do you think I can just ask her?

JustJ, Starfish told me to ask you. I posted on another discussion area yesterday.

hoping2 grow

My question to you is... why haven't the two of you married prior to now? I am just thinking if I were a woman in a relationship that long with someone and we hadn't married, I would be feeling very insecure, unless of course, that were my decision not to marry. Is it hers? Perhaps, that is the underlying problem with her, she may feel you don't love her enough to get married, and she's trying to cope with the fact you may not be willing to marry her, and be considering moving on. Since I don't know the circumstances fully, I can only speculate. I liked your letter to her, it was very clear and speaking as someone who knows how an affair can feel... you are right... it's devastating.

Actually, both of us feel that we are married. However, there are inequities in the relationship and she is in a "one down" position financially compared to me. She believes that I will never be satisfied with her and that it is all about money for me, I am too critical, etc. I have no desire to have an affair, and I have no desire to leave her. We live together and in the past two years we moved to a country setting with me changing jobs etc. in order to allow her to fulfill her dream of changing careers. She only works (at her new proposed profession)one day a week currently, and the finances of the new house, our cars, insurance,food, whatever, are all on me. I make a decent wage but the house has eaten up all my savings. She wants to open her own business, but does not have enough money to do so on her own. (See, now I am talking all about money, and that is not what it is all about for me.) I know she feels infantilized and dependent and hates it. I hate it, too.

I feel like I have put all my cards on the line, all my present and future hopes, and am still committed to trying to make it work. She says she wants to, but there are so many barriers between us now that we need professional help before we can even get to the issues between us. We are trying to get that help.

An example of our not being able to agree even on an approach to our issues, is that when I showed her the emotional needs list and asked her if she would be interested in exploring them she dismissed it as superficial and said that "by the time that people need therapy in their relationship they are so far past this kind of stuff it is laughable." So I don't know that she is motivated to transfer her energy off herself (she is exploring her unmet needs, but not considering that I could meet them) and onto this kind of program, or even if she has realized that the relationship could end under this kind of pressure. (We both feel pressured and inadequate and hurt and angry.) She has a lot of opinions about me, some of which I disagree with, and she feels I do about her as well. Lots of work to do, and I guess I am trying to figure out how to not do additional harm to her or myself while we try to get some help. I still love her deeply, and she says she loves me, too.

H2g-

I went through the EXACT same thing. My story led to an A that destroyed the 12+ year R with my XBF.

my thoughts are that she has already had an a and is now struggling with the rejection of it.

Is she willing to listen to someone that's been there? if so, my email addy is at the sig line.

she does need to explore the childhood stuff. This is exactly where I started on my path to healing. Is she eseeing an IC? Is she on meds.?

My suggestion is to set up MC for you both NOW. She is crying for help and doesn't know what's wrong. She is majorly confused and looking for her self.

She is on meds, but she has begun to stop taking them for periods of several days because they depress her sexual feelings, and she feels she has been living without "passion" for years, and now wants to get it back.

I find it hard to believe that she could have already had an affair. I could be wrong, but she is not an easily dishonest person, and she seems to be trying it out in her head and in her dreams rather than acting on it, from what I can see.

We are right now trying to connect with a MC. She was in therapy for years and we went to therapy as a couple for the first couple years of our relationship. I liked her therapist, but she retired. My partner has said she will go visit her. Right now, we are looking for a counsellor that we can both trust, and we agreed that we would need at least one apiece individual session with that person. She (my partner) said that there were things she wanted to say that she would not feel comfortable sharing with me, which could add credence to your theory, but then she has been exploring these things on her own for some time so perhaps she just has theories or feelings she doesn't want me to criticize or react to.

what you might want to do is ask her bluntly. You willknow by her reaction what the truth is. I only say this because that need to explore her past (I wrote a 40 page book in 24 hours) comes from a deep sense of loss that usually happens after something devastating.

Has she had periods recently where she's been overly distracted and extremely euphoric? Is she suddenly interseted in her looks and wardrobe?
Has she been superly threatened by any attention you give her? Is she angered by your mere presence?

these are hard questions but will lead you to the truth.

She was weepy and depressed and silent and angry and all of that toward me for the past month or two. Yes, she started withdrawing more and more and as she did I got angrier and angrier and asked her to do things that would get her out of the house, and she "forgot" to do them or when I pressed, got mad. Yes, she has rejected my attention, and even this morning picked a fight (which I did not give in to.)

The funny thing is that she seems to be feeling better now, mobilizing herself and even doing one or two things to help out. But the part of what you asked that really scares me is that yes, she is now interested in buying clothes, today all day she was making arrangements to buy new glasses, and she is window shopping on the internet for a motorcycle. She even connected with a group of women who have cycles today and was considering going to meet them to play pool. When she told me that she might go do this I didn't react at first. After five minutes I called her up and said, "I don't really want you to go meet people you don't know in a bar to play pool. I know you are trying to express your individuality, but I don't want you to make decisions without asking me if I have any feelings about them." She seemed surprised and then said she really didn't want to go anyway. I said, "Suppose I just told you that I was going out to a club or a bar, just to dance, would you have any feelings about that?" She said, "I might..."

Sound to me that she is looking, and looking for a group of new friends where she could be the new person in. (Without the burden of the relationship.)

If I can do it without anger, I will ask her. She is most likely to make it a fight, though.

hoping2grow

h2G-

you wrote that your w- that is what I will referr to her as, is an honest person. So was I.

What is you gut telling you right now?

My gut is telling me that she is head over heels in the throes of at least an Emotional Affair, and if it hasn't gotten physical, yet, it will soon.

You can call her my w - its fine. But I am not the H!! I am too good-looking for that one, especially since I started dieting. (LOL!) (I have to have a laugh now and then or the suspense would kill me.)

I will stay close to the Board. Thanks for your perspective. There is a whole lot of crying going on at my house, her on the outside, me on the inside. I am so sad, our home is an emotional landfill.

hoping2grow

my heart goes out to you both.

I'm reliving my darkest times through your posts. It's very strange to read your own story through someone else's writings.

Will you ask her if she would be interested in reading my story? I believe that she may be suprised to know that there is someone out there that knows exactly what it is she is feeling. Right now, she trusts absolutely no one and believes that no one REALLY cares about here at all. She has crawled so far into that black hole that she is looking for someone else to make the emptiness inside go away...meds and relationships aren't the answer.