Is it OK for my significant other/spouse to chat online in IMs without revealing she is in a relationship with someone? I think she is a sociable person who enjoys conversation and humor and enjoys all the attention from guys who are being extra sweet and friendly because they hope she is single.

I am a very easygoing person and I have always said it is OK for her to chat online with guys, whether or not I am present. Chatting online has always been an occasional hobby with her and one of several ways she might relax and unwind after dinner while I get our son ready for bath and bedtime stories. We have been living together happily for 5 years and originally we met online.

However, last spring I found a message archive where she cyberred with a guy using a new screenname while trying to get him to let her see him on cam. She used very explicit sexual language for imagining certain acts between them, but he didn't know who she was. Using a different screenname, she had met him in the chatroom 2 weeks earlier, and things escalated fast - he talked her into calling him on the phone several times, and there was an attempted rendevous during the workday "just for curiousity" which she backed out of at the last minute out of respect for our relationship. She never did tell him she wasn't single, but did cut off all contact with him after that. That is all water under the bridge now and I am very happy with her. She understands that in the future crossing the line is when you become romantically attached to a person online, when you discuss sexual feelings or sexual acts with them, when you call them behind your spouse's back, or when you meet them in person. She has no problems with these boundaries and understands fully that she had hurt me with that one incident and promises never to do it again.

However, since that incident, while her internet use dropped off substantially, I still monitor her internet use by looking at conversation logs the next day before work, and ocassionally checking the cellphone bill. She does not know I am monitoring.

HERE IS THE MAIN PROBLEM I AM ASKING FOR ADVICE FOR:

After reading her late night IMs, I find that consistently she fails to reveal she is not single when she chats online with guys. She does uphold the "no sex talk" boundary, but it would make me feel better if she were more honest about her current relationship. I have noticed that she IMs strangers and they IM her as well, but on the few occasions where she has stated she is in a relationship, upon hearing this the other party will stop chatting abruptly, so I can sort of see why she doesn't tell them.

Given our history, there is good reason for me to check up on her time to time. As long as she doesn't let the conversation turn to romance and sex or lead to phone contact or meetings behind my back I don't mind.

I know this attention meets a social need for her, and while we converse with each other frequently, at other times of the day, there is still a period every night when I am helping our little boy through his bath and bedtime stories while she does dishes and relaxes, and sometimes I fall asleep after reading to him in his bed, after which she has to come wake me up for bed and meanwhile she was alone for a while. I have been increasing my meeting her emotional needs in several other ways and we both feel that we are the love of each other's life, so overall things are very good in terms of our Love Languages connecting where they should.

Any thoughts on if I should ask for more boundaries with her IMs, for example revealing she is in a relationship in her profile and early in a conversation would prevent some of the leading on going on, which is part of the fun I am sure. Again, I am very mature and don't resent her behavior if it doesn't cross the line.

Dude, you're playing with fire, and so is she.

Saying she's married will NOT prevent others from contacting her... she'll just attract a more predatory crowd. My wife's profile had her listed as married, and didn't indicate anything sexual, but she moved from innocent to full-blown affair, and thought, up till she got there, that she new the limits and wouldn't cross 'em.

If you want to safeguard your marriage, you NEED to figure out how to be her primary conversation partner. DO NOT be lazy and let her get that EN met by others...

All along, I thought it was a safe outlet for her and it took pressure off of me. It did, but that was a burden I NEEDED to shoulder. If you expect her EN for conversation to be met by others, don't be surprised when she starts meeting some other person's EN for S-x.

Learn from our mistakes and shore up your marriage before it goes any farther.

Best of luck,

I think you are being toooooo trusting. I do not think what she does online is ok at all. My H started out chatting with women online, next thing ya know they are exchanging photos, and a few years later he is cheating. I think it could escalate eventually. If she wants to chat with females and make friends, ok, but not opposite sex. You two need to talk and see what need what she is doing is filling and find another healthy way between the 2 of you to have it filled. I think this business of "I am married now but I still want to feel attractive to other men/women" is garbage. You be married, look and be the best you can for your spouse. Sure, other men may find you attractive but you shouldn't have to have that be the route of your selfesteem. Does that make sense??? Otherwise, your marriage sounds good. I just wouldn't let this part go on. It can lead to other things. mlhb

It might be "just" a phantasy, a game, but there are real players on either side and real feelings might develop. That is why I really don't think anyone who loves his partner and wants a healthy M should do this.

I don't think it is possible, over time, for relationships NOT to develop (at first friendship... yeah, we know unfortunately where that can lead... I am the fws and the friendship developed via im and email). I'd be VERY careful here. Especially if she even CONSIDERED meeting someone earlier this year. I'd say something isn't getting met for her in the marriage and you need to find out NOW.

I am well read in the love languages and have experience in empathy training workshops. So when this happened last April, after I drilled into details and got all the facts, I had her clear her head and imagine I was speaking the words online that she had spoken and I had done the things she had. She acknowledged that she would have been very angered and hurt had things been the other way around and she probably wouldn't have been as understanding or forgiving.

Then I researched cyber infidelity online and came across lots of articles and also found and read the articles from this website.

It turns out her needs were unmet because I was not home early enough after work and working out to spend quality time with her at the start of the evening, so her need for daily companionship, laughter, quality time, and mutual admiration, although still receiving favorable doses of positive communication, was only partially fulfilled because of the twice or thrice weekly late evenings when I returned home around 8 to 8:30 pm. The nights I didn't go running after work I still came home around 7 pm so I wasn't there for her when she got home from work. (If she didn't work out after work she got home around 5 pm and if she did work out it was around 6:45 pm).

Turns out I had lost some of my discipline at getting up early and I took this opportunity to set my daily schedule back on track for her. The main problem was me going back to sleep and nap for an hour before work after I finished helping our little boy get up, get dressed, and eat breakfast before they left for work/daycare each morning. My work schedule is more flexible than hers, so I could go into work a bit later and compensate by working an hour later in the evening, delaying my return home.

I am a long distance runner and running 2 or 2 1/2 hours 3 times a week makes me sleep like a baby and also need a bit more than 7 hours sleep. She works out too, but not to this extreme so she gets by on 6 or 6 1/2 hours sleep a night. Turns out my motivation level was also depleted merely by excessively tiring cardio workouts. I have since returned to weight lifting, which gives me that "get up and go" pumped up feeling the second I awaken in the morning, preventing any tendency to want to fall back asleep.

So the schedule mismatch was rectified and I have restored the "balance" in my personal life. However, the lesson I learned was not to allow my priorities and time management to fall out of place. I should have known because my first marriage of 18 years ended partly because I had become a workaholic and sportsaholic for about 7 years leading up to the end of the marriage. I vowed after that experience to always make my home life come first, work life second. Then later when I met the love of my life and we had a child together I put my marathon running and racing on permanent hold because I didn't want that aspect to get in the way of our family life, either.

So the period of 6 to 8 months where I was coming home late was just a temporary bump in the road and I am acutely aware of my weaknesses to these particular temptations. Life is too short to live for my job or focus only on going all out training for the next race, rather than living by pacing myself to make the love of God and dedication to my family as my first priority.

Now, the question in my heart is why this temptation develops so easily with her. Ever since I met my SO, almost 5 years ago, she has liked to chat online. In fact, the first 6 months of our relationship she had all kinds of guy friends on her buddy list and potential suitors she had known for several months before me still trying to make one last stand for her. She wanted to be with me forever and stated I was the love of her life, and although as far as meeting these guys, she stopped seeing other guys and told them that we were a couple, it took a while till they all dropped off of her buddy list and stopped communicating. Temporarily I was OK with that because we weren't living together yet. Although we we immediately felt that we were in love, my intuition is her rational mind wanted to prevent her from falling in love too quickly based on hormones rather than by the slower process of recognition of a deeper compatibility and a development of a committment to a deep and mature form of love for each other.

So early on, after moving in together and having a child together, she stopped the online flirting almost entirely, and I made her aware that her having buddy lists of guys did make me uneasy that she could develop deeper emotional connections or feelings to men who start out as friends but might treat her as a single woman. So all was well for about 4 years after that until the incident last april, which appears to be an isolated incident because she only started a pattern of going online to chat alone late at night for the month of March and early April.
She would begin chatting online when I was putting our child to bed and last until 12:30 am to 1:30 am.

So I think it was her response to my not coming home early from work, which was occuring mostly in the winter months and early spring this year.

However, the other side of the story is I believe she has a deep-seated psychological need for social and emotional acceptance stemming from her early childhood. I have never told her this because it is not the role of a spouse to judge the other and appear condescending in the process of analyzing their life.

I have read from psychologists articles that one of the reasons women tend to fall into a repeated pattern of attempting to connect to new men online or cyber online, may be caused by a serious problem in their childhood of being emotionally or physically abandoned by one of their parents. My spouse came from a third world country when she was 12 to the USA, and around age 7 her parents divorced. For a year or two afterwards, she and one sister lived with her dad, while her brothers lived with her mom. The problem was that her dad would go directly from work out to socialize or drink with friends, leaving her and her sister waiting alone on the porch, locked out of the house several nights a week until after dark when her dad came home. Then later her dad was disabled in a motorcycle accident and afterwards she lived with cousins in a large extended family because her mom had since met a US serviceman and was trying to arrange to move to the USA. It wasn't until 3 years had elapsed before her mom had arranged visas for the children and saved up money to pay for her kids to fly out to the USA and be permanently reunited with their mom and live with her. During that timeperiod, the kids never once saw their mom and constantly wondered when they would see her again. After coming to the US when she was 12, my spouse lived with mom and stepdad and then graduated from a US high school.

So my spouse may be acting out an unfulfilled childhood need for maternal and paternal emotional love and companionship as a response to childhood parental abandonment. But all in all my spouse is a very loving, warm, caring person to me and our family, a wonderful mother to our boy, and even to my son from my previous marriage, and to her daughter from her previous marriage. We both constantly tell each other we are the love of each other's lives. We spend every moment of every weekend together, work at chores together, play together, entertain together, make plans for the future together, and are quite happy overall.

bottem line

she is there looking for something that she needs or wants

if she finds it...shegoes back for more

when she gets more...she will want more

if she tells them she is married-they may not give her what she wants/needs or she would tell them

so......what she is looking for CANNOT be good for your marriage

if it were me-i'd get rid of the online access-period

I don't want to appear too controlling. She has learned over the years not to tolerate a controlling man. After she divorced, for a period of 7 years she was with a "Psycho" who would try to control every single moment of her day, wouldn't let her see her family, wouldn't let her go places with her daughter, tried to restrain her physically at times, followed her car around, bumped her car on purpose on the rear end tailing her on the freeway, kidnapped her daughter once, started fights in public if any man even spoke with her, trashed her family heirlooms in fights, smashed her diamond ring, etc... A real dangerous man who she finally got rid of about a year before meeting me.

The other practical reason is that we have two teenagers in at home who depend on the internet for daily communication with friends and schoolwork. Plus everyone in the family does shopping online, email online, weather online, banking online, etc. We are unfortunately wired for life...LOL.

I have decided to try to be there for her late night. We have a problem with our boy not going to sleep without one of us falling asleep with him. My first family was raised to sleep in their own beds, but my spouse because she was divorced while her girl was young, got used to sleeping with kids. She did not want to let our boy cry himself to sleep when he was a baby so she or I would lie down with him and let him sleep with us, which became a chronic problem. I talked this over at the time, but respected her wishes as he is her child as much as mine. So we have told our boy that upon his 4th birthday at the end of the month he has to sleep by himself. I read him several bedtime stories every night, then fall asleep with him in his room and after he is asleep tiptoe into our room. He usually wanders into our room and crawls into bed with us 2 to 4 hours later each night, but at least we have some time to ourselves.

So starting next month I will not be laying down with the boy anymore to help him get to sleep. At that time if my spouse wants to lay down with him, that is her problem, and at least she won't be online without me...LOL.

For the time being, if I see she was up late the night before, I remind her the next day, "honey, if I fell asleep after reading to our son and you are alone, please come in and wake me up and I will be happy to spend the time chatting with you. I want to be there with you. If you want we can chat together or go online together and take turns typing (thereby becoming a joint activity not a behind-the-back secret, which we do have fun doing ocassionally together).

Do NOT take this lightly...take a look at my story over on the recovery board...I think Bronze is right on the money with how dangerous this is to your marriage.

You both need to sit down and discuss boundaries...and accountability to each other. I can understand she doesn't want to be married to a control freak...but at the same time, marriage IS about accountability to each other...you to her and her to you.

If you don't do something to put an end to this behavior, I can almost garauntee that it will lead to the end of your marriage. Look at my story. Take a look at the old posts by Bassassist and Win-Bin...they're headed into divorce now.

I'd seriously recommend marriage counseling with a GOOD counselor...one who is PRO-marriage.

I am not taking this lightly, I am just calmly looking at the best plan here and meanwhile trying to be rational and understanding.

We HAVE discussed boundaries - the first time was about 3 months after we met but before living together. The next time we discussed how the rules changed after we moved in together and had a child together (no private buddy lists, etc.). After that discussion 3 1/2 years ago there was no excessive time online by her and no evidence of problems until late March and early April. At the time I discovered the chat archives in April, we discussed at great length boundaries and accountability, given the backdrop that she admitted she had crossed the line. Right now she is respecting boundaries that we have discussed, except for the question I posed in CAPS at the top of the post.

I am looking at the Instant Messaging (IM) problem in two ways: (1) what needs of hers were unmet that I could do a better job of providing for and (2) what underlying psychological predispositions caused and may continue to push her towards this behavior regardless of my behavior. Both issues were discussed above.

To give you an idea of how much she wants to be committed and act honorably for the sake of our relationship, here is an example: Last weekend we went shopping and I helped her buy a bunch of new clothes after she started working in a new position (she applied for and was promoted to a better job within the same company located at a new office a couple miles away). She and I picked out several new outfits for her to wear to work that looked really stunning on her when she tried them on in the store, and none of these were particularly revealing or inappropriate. However, when she wore the clothes to work various days this week, she noticed that the days she wore some of the outfits that I had told her looked really cute on her (blouses with nice trim and nicely tailored fitted pants), on those days she noticed she attracted a lot of attention from men at the office coming up to her in the elevator, around the hallways, and at her desk. She told me herself afterwards this made her feel uncomfortable and she did not like it. So her heart is in the right place. I told her that I would take back any outfit that she thought was "too flashy" and I didn't want her to feel "hit on" because of that. I told her that it is OK to wear stuff for me but not for work to prevent that. I also offered her advice since she is the new person at the office -- if she feels a guy is too friendly then she can abruptly change the topic of conversation to a family-oriented subject, such as, "so, how is your family doing - wife or kids? My hubby and kids enjoyed our vacation together." Bringing up family life is a quick and polite reminder to a coworker to give them a hint that you are in a committed and happy relationship, without being rude.

P.S. - at your recommendation I looked for your story, Owl, and although your D-day was in Spring 2004, there were no posts started by you until January 2005 and you don't reveal a whole lot about yourself. On the other hand, the posts by Win-Bin and Bassassist demonstrate a truly dysfunctional couple for whom the internet chat was but the tip of the iceberg and a coping mechansim for lack of providing the right amounts and forms of love by bassassist for years during the marriage, which was detected far too late apparently.

In my case there has been very good meeting of ENs by each of us, and there are no private buddy lists anymore, and there have never been long term EAs and has never been spilling of personal problems in chatting online as a way of getting emotional support online. LOL...well I guess what I am doing here does qualify, but I'm not doing it for support or validation, just looking for ideas on what else to do to continue growing a healthy relationship and prevent future problems.

I appreciate your advice very much and am not trying to slam you, because I value all opinions and in particular you have the benefit of first hand experience and I respect that, too.

No offense taken friend. And I don't have a lot about me posted on this site...I wasn't aware of MB until several months after we were into recovery. By the time I came here, we'd already started working through a lot of our issues already, so there hasn't been a huge need for me to say much.

One other thread I should have recommended to you FIRST...the thread by CARDSONLY, which is all about online emotional affairs. And that's where the majority of my posts can be found too.

My recommendation for you would be to read the information here about POJA...Policy of Joint Agreement. What your wife is doing bothers you...period. And it really IS harmful and disrespectful and dangerous to your marriage. Based on that, you both should work together to help her to do the things that HELP your marriage, not hinder it.

Regardless, good luck to you.

rru2s,

FWIW, the BS OFTEN thinks the marriage is *mostly* OK.

I'm not saying that your W is cheating, or ever has, or has been involved in more than the one attempt to meet up that you know of... There is no way I could know.

HOWEVER, keep in mind a couple of things: 1. You met her based on ON LINE contact. 2. You know she has made an attempt to meet someone online. 3. Her agreement to comply with your wishes appears to be based on a desire not to upset you (that's ok), but it's not something she really gave up on her own and it does not sound as if you made significant changes in your relationship to get the compromise from her, therefore, she may be complying out of force of will, rather than a desire to do what's best for you.

The point here is that she is open to having others meet her need for meaningful communication. If she really *gets* how significant this issue is, she would give up her online escapades entirely.

Here's something else... you said she hasn't unloaded her feelings and marital troubles online... How do you know? Archives can easily be manipulated.

Wives (especially) can hide their true feelings about the relationship fairly well. I thought my wife's passions towards me had cooled somewhat, but that our relationship was basically solid. I've recently learned, however, that although my wife went on for years acting out of loyalty in my interest as a friend, she had let her opinion of my drop to the point where she was repulsed by me.

Don't let it get that way for you and yours. You've got a MAJOR potential problem, if not an active problem. Don't trust in your *understanding* so much as in the simple truths of how couples relate. There were solid marriages long before pop-psychology, and if *knowing* what to do were the key, this modern age would not see any divorce... There's so much information available that one can only be ignorant of the basics of relationships by willful ignorance, nevertheless, marriages fall apart every day because spouses don't actually do the things they need to do to cultivate love.

Feel free to read all the things that I and my wife (PHgirl) have posted. We've done some REALLY screwed-up things, but my thoughts about the solidity of the relationship were like yours until the bottom fell out, and my wife didn't let on to the magnitude of the deficit of her affection for me.

Good luck,

Is it OK for my significant other/spouse
Which is it? Spouse or significant other?
There is a big difference in that a spouse has taken vows not to do this.
A significant other should be the same way but they are not "committed" to doing it.

I vowed after that experience to always make my home life come first, work life second.
You are not married though, are you?

I am very sure of my monitoring and that she isn't doing anything beyond this online or on the phone. She leaves the cellphone bill out in the open every month and doesn't hide it. On the computer, she knows how to turn on or turn off IM archiving features but what she doesn't know is I have the registry set to automatically turn on a complete chat history (chatroom plus IMs) which cannot be turned off through the IM program, and this history is timestamped for every message. She doesn't even know that log exists, although I do see her deleting the other program-accessible IM archives to hide them, I can still view the comprehensive (but much uglier to read) archive. I have proof she doesn't add friends to buddy lists, refuses chatroom or IM talk of sex or romance, and doesn't try to find the same guys for repeated chats. With her it's all about where are you from, where do you work, what do you do for a living, and any family members they care to talk about. But she doesn't admit she is single to them until forced into a corner by direct questions in the IM conversation. So she wants to be faithful but loves the attention online. She also never dumps personal problems in her online chats to get attention or support. She and I support each other well and empathize well.

The problem with staying up late on the computer resumed 2 weeks ago after my spouse started a new and more difficult job and has to get up earlier (5:50 am) to drop our boy in daycare before driving farther to work, then has to work to 4:30 instead of 4, pick him up just before 5, then take him to her gym so she can work out starting at 5:20, leave at 6:20, and return home around 7:20 pm. She wants to get ahead at work and the 15 minute farther drive and half hour longer workday causes her to be much more wound up at the end of the day. As I have done for all our years together, I usually cook dinner for her, then after we eat together I give our boy a bath and read him bedtime stories.

But she is getting burned out after two weeks at the new job and is going online to unwind without me after she finishes the dishes around 10:15 pm and I am reading bedtime stories. She talks with me openly, accepts my empathy, and discusses the good and bad about her day at work between when she gets home (7:30) to when I give my son a bath (9:30). But that is not a lot of quality time however. Also, there is a possibility she is stressing a bit because right now I am injured (I blew out my ACL and may never run again without surgery, having run religiously for 28 years and almost 32,000 miles). I noticed in the past her indiscretion in beginning an online friendship began coincidentally as an escape mechanism while I was sick in April (first with a cold and later with blood in my urine) or after her daughter had surgery. Meanwhile, she still acts supportive to the family. She promises to be by my side if I have to have an ACL replacement graft through the 6 month painful rehabilitation program.
However, this issue plus the new job may be making her internalize stress more than normal. Outwardly she is still loving and pleasant and very intimate with me. I am a dedicated athlete and will do whatever it takes if the doctor recommends it. I don't give up. I want to be there longer hours for her, but cannot eliminate taking care of my son. Like I said before, I will start making him fall asleep by himself beginning at the end of the month on his fourth birthday to break the cycle of him sleeping with us so we have more time together in the evening.

This has only been going on 2 weeks and I am not sure how long she can push herself like this....Really she needs to find a better place to work out, but her blood sugar crashes too soon after work so she wants to work out near her workplace rather than wait till she gets home. Her company pays for a first class workout club 20 minutes from daycare and 35 minutes from work. The old work location was directly across the street from daycare so it was more bearable before when she could get home from working out by 6:45 pm most days. Her workplace and the daycare are 38 miles west of home, while my workplace is 22 miles east, and our boy only has one more year in this excellent learning/daycare program until he starts kindergarten.

We are in a committed relationship but because her income is near poverty level and my income is 4 times larger, her daughter would lose about $6,000 every year in free government grants for college if we were married. We will be married as soon as daughter's college is over.

I know, I know, that's not God's plan...it's just the way we are doing what we feel is best for our family given the situation. However, we have been dedicated to only each other for the last 4 1/2 years, never faltering in our plans for the future. We have each other's names on credit, loans, life insurance, etc.

Thanks, Owl...Turns out I did read the entire series of articles, including POJA, after the brief problem last April, and we came to a joint agreement on standards of behavior online. She didn't want to even go online for a very long time after that...Two weeks ago when she started going online again, she was not acting badly, in general. Currently she is not violating that POJA. My original post included a question as to if I should revisit that POJA and try to expand that agreement so that she would agree to divulge to others that she is not single directly through her online profile or in opening remarks in IM conversations, and secondly, whether I can find a more effective way to increase communication time with her after work, given our busy lives. I am sure we will work through this OK but I want suggestions.

It turns out my hunch was right about her being overworked with too many hours in the car and at work every day. She was getting burned out after two weeks at the new job and was going online to unwind without me after she finished the dishes around 10:15 pm and I was reading bedtime stories.

This weekend I really pushed her to open up and talk about her needs and I talked her into joining the YMCA 5 minutes from our house and she is dropping the health club that is 1 hour from the house. It is a little beyond my cash flow budget right now, but better to have a little extra debt than a failed relationship. This new job is higher pressure, more deadlines, and creates a much longer commute when the health club was factored in (almost 1 hour in the car in the morning and 1 hour 40 minutes after work. With the health club local, it is more maneagable after work (only 55 minutes to 1 hour).

I also talked with her about us putting our boy into bed and making him stay there so one of us doesn't have to lay down to fall asleep with him, which effectively ends our conversation for the night. We are working harder on that and are having a final implementation date of end of August, so after that he has to go to sleep on his own.

I also found out that she was unhappy with the amount of exercise I am doing including rehabbing my knee every day...she would come home at 7:45pm and want immediate conversation and for me to have dinner ready, and I was just finishing my exercises at that point, which left her feeling even more cheated out of quality time for the day...So now I am going to work earlier so I get out earlier and have things taken care of before she gets home. With the new health club near our home she will be home by 7 pm.

As far as the original issue, going online, the behavior was a symptom of other unmet needs...Now hopefully if I stick to the POJA for daily schedule her needs will be met...I know its a challenge because I tend to procrastinate, but I just have to remind myself of the potential consquences to her needs and our relationship if we don't mesh...

she was unhappy with the amount of exercise I am doing including rehabbing my knee every day...she would come home at 7:45pm and want immediate conversation and for me to have dinner ready, and I was just finishing my exercises at that point, which left her feeling even more cheated out of quality time for the day...
You can't rehab you knee?
Why isn't she home at a decent time to have quality time?

Now hopefully if I stick to the POJA for daily schedule her needs will be met...
You need to POJA her getting home earlier.

I have very personal experience with what your wife is doing and I can say she should be careful. I chatted online and actually flirted and had phone sex with guys, ALL WITH MY HUBS PERMISSION, because after we would go have sex and he was happy about that. Needless to say, I fell in love with one of these OM's that I chatted with for a year. We had many problems and I wish my H had cared enough about conversation with me that I wouldn't have wanted to seek it out elsewhere. And I should have stopped it when I realized I was in too deep. She may not be able to stop.

Why don't you have her put on her profile that she is married and that she doesn't partake in sexual chat? Or just have her chat in the rooms and not take IM's? I, like your wife, have a great need for conversation and interaction with people. I realize that now. It's a slippery slope. There are normal people out there who just want chat, but you have to stick to those rooms to find them.

Take care

-win

She DOES support me rehabbing my knee, but after switching jobs at the end of July, it extended her daily schedule so much that she was too burned out to be emotionally happy inside. For her, getting up at 5:50 am, spending 55 minutes in the morning in the car, and 1:35 min. after work in the car, arriving home at 7:45 to 8:00 pm was pushing her limits for stress, and she felt like she was always in a hurry. She has been trying out the YMCA 5 minutes from the house and that is going to work out much better.

If she uses the YMCA, she still has a long day, but workable: she comes home at about 6:50 pm because of the long commute (15 min to daycare and 45 min home) and working out (60 min) rafter work. I have a shorter commute (30 min) and work out for even longer (1:40 to 2:00 hr.). (History: Back when we got together in 2001 she moved about an hour to live with me and raise our baby. I had kids from a former marriage and own a house, didn't have money to sell the house and move somewhere located in between.) Our son always has had daycare at a first class, high quality learning center next to her work and only has one more year to go until kindergarten.

So far she is really happy with the YMCA and less stressed. As for me, I have always been a long distance runner (I run at the park 5 minutes from the house 3 times a week, about 1:40 to 2:00 hours) and also lift weights at home after work 3 times a week, 2 sets for 1 to 1 1/2 hrs.). Even with my shorter commute, if I don't get home before 5:30 pm, then by the time I get changed, run, and return home, it is 7:45 pm and that is too late as far as routine daily schedule to allow everyone (spouse and children) quality family time. So I make every effort NOT to work any overtime and be home by 5 pm, and I cook dinners on the nights I don't run so there are always good leftovers.

She is really working hard to lose weight and has been fighting up and down weight loss (lose 15 lbs in spring and summer and gain 15 lbs in fall and winter) ever since our boy was born in fall 2001. I give her an A+ for trying hard in working out. (Off-topic: She does have food compulsion problems in the winter months, which has to do with healthy choices. Since she eats both asian and american cusine, sometimes it's hard for her to not eat all the fatty high carbo ethnic foods that she has eaten all her life with her family. She has her ups and downs, but I help her self esteem by never nagging about food but instead by providing the household with healthy choices, fruits and veggies, making salads and low-fat meats and fish alot. I frequently tell her she is the sexiest woman alive (woo hoo ~!~!~!), buy her flowers every week or two, buy nice clothes for her, and tell her how nice she looks in her clothes. The admiration is mutual; she constantly tells me I look good because of working out, etc. So we fill each other's emotional cups daily, but have busy lives.

So in reality, we both come home as early as we can. Right now I am doing a third set of exercises every week, purely for rehabilitation of my knee. (I read that strengthening quads can compensate for unstable or loose joints caused by torn or sprained knee tendons because the quads wrap around the knee and hold it in place. So my rehab exercise is sitting in front of the computer 4 days a week for 50 or 60 minutes and doing imaginary bicycle motions vigorously. 3 days a week I also continue to lift weights at home - upper body. For cardio workouts until my knee gets better, 3 days a week I have replaced my running with the elliptical trainer at home. Sounds excessive for most people, but the leg lifts are temporary, and as soon as I am better I will shorten my total working out to merely weight lifting sessions 3 days a week and running 3 days a week. With the new YMCA we might work out together some days, until I can run again.

Funny about POJA for her getting home earlier -- that was MY OWN problem in my previous marriage, as I remarked in my above post...type A personality, used to work lots of overtime and afterwards go for long runs...not good for the family. Life is too short so I have learned to make sure family emotional needs are met, and spot a problem early and fix it before there are consequences.