Two weeks ago I confronted him with 4 months of emails. Many of the emails discussed their conversations. This is a girl that broke his heart in high school and apparently he still thinks he's 19 and hasn't gotten over it. There has been on PA because we live in different states but the OW (who is very unhappily married) asked 3 times recently when he was coming to town next. He did, in fact, mention that he was going to go to his hometown soon. It's hard for me to not think that they would not have hooked up.

At the time I exposed what I knew I had not found this site. I sure wish I had. In any event, I sent her a hateful email and let her know that I knew, how much I knew and that intended to tell her husband about it. I then sent an email to WS. he was pretty shook up, our confrontation was on the phone. First he just said it was an old girlfriend from 1979. Then he said it was a couple of emails...that's a laugh. There were over 60 that I was able to find. Then he said it was only a couple of calls. Wrong again. They talked about how they wished they'd stayed together. How they never stopped thinking about each other. They sex they had in the day(that was mostly on the phone) . How they made each other's night when they called, etc.

He is very sorry that he hurt me. He says it was "inappropriate" and "wrong" BUT he says that I am being ridiculous to call this an affair. That I just need to get over it. The more he says this the angrier I get. I could move toward working things out IF we would just acknowledge this for what it is, but he won't and we are stuck. I have shown him much rage and pain in my letters to him and he just gets madder and madder AT ME! He "doesn't like how I am reacting to this". He says they were just words and that he didn't care about her.

i have shown the print out to 2 friends, his brother's wife and our MC. They all see that this is clearly an EA and very sexual. He just says that they don't know what's in his heart so they can't judge. Makes me even more angry. I can't get through. I called her husband and left a message but he never called back so I don't know if he got the message. I still can't decide if I should sent it. I guess I am afraid it will make things worse.

We are only speaking at a minimal level, only necessary conversations about the kids. I left the bedroom the day I found out. Everything is crumbling around me, I don't eat, don't sleep and don't have any idea what to do.

Can anyone offer me any kind of insight here? I am barely getting through the day.

Thank you

I know it's infuriating, but if it makes you feel any better they ALL say this.

We didn't have sex, so it wasn't an affair.
All we did was have sex, so it wasn't an affair.

We didn't love each other, so it wasn't an affair.
We loved each other, so it wasn't an affair.

Get a copy of Shirley Glass's *Not Just Friends* and ask him to look at it and tell you what he thinks.

In the end, it doesn't matter if they were humping like bunnies at the No-Tell Motel or whether they were piously going to bible study together. The fact remains that he was stealing time and energy that should have gone to his wife and family and feeding it to an OW instead. No matter what the activity, that loss of emotional energy will sooner or later starve the marriage to death.

Why do you think they call it "cheating?"
Mulan

So how are we supposed to get on with any recovery when he thinks that he did nothing wrong and I am just "off the deep end?" He just thinks I need to get over it. Says there is no such thing as an EA.

When I showed him the printout of all the emails he just says it looks bad, but it "didnt mean anything". I just can't get over this. How intimate this was and how it went on. The emails have stopped, he says he has had no contact with her at all(I highly doubt that she didn't even call to find out how they caught or if I was really going to tell her husband). His cell is owned by his employer and all the calls were done with that cell phone. So if she called or they are emailing through his work I have no way to track it.

Even a Websters definition of an affair says, "a romantic or passionate attachment typically of limited duration." Ask him where the word sex is in that definition. He had an emotional attachment that could be considered either romantic or passionate and it was limited because he got caught. I think he will have a hard time arguing with that.

My WH did a very similar thing. He got caught with his hand in several cookie jars at work. I finally confronted him about it five years ago. He hid at all at work and still does, and to this day he has vehemently fought down the idea that he EVER did ANYTHING wrong.

I have a thread here called *Mulan's Buyers, Renters and Freeloaders Thread.*

Pepperband has a long one titled *Willard Harley is a Smart Man.*

You might want to join in on those and see if anything sounds familiar.

WHs like yours and mine are Freeloaders.

Their philosophy on marriage is 180 degrees different from that of a Buyer, which is what I am and quite possibly what you are, too.

Unless he decides to stop being a Freeloader and become a Buyer instead, you will be pounding your head against that wall for eons to come.

Check out the threads and see if they help you any.
Mulan

Here is a thread from this forum discussing a magazine article about emotional affairs. Maybe you could show him ths.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/sho...;page=0#2852725

Will he come here to read at the site?

I'm sorry you are going through this.
p

He says it was not romantic or sexual. He says it was just like two guys BSing each other ?!?! He says that he knows that it LOOKS like two people who care about each other but I just have to trust (ha) him when he says he only cares about me. When I read HIS words to her from the emails he responds with "Those are just words". I never cared about her.

No matter what I read to him, he just says they were just words and they didn't mean anything.

I just can't see how we can move forward on this and I am at a total loss as to what to do. When I push him with his own words he repeatedly says "you want me to admit to something I didn't do (an EA) and I'm not going to do it. It meant nothing to me" My response to him is this means A LOT to me, but we just get stuck again.

Any thoughts on what to do?

I wouldn't worry so much at this point at what he calls it. You know what it is and don't need his admission to know what it is. He can call it a baloney sandwich if he wants, you know that it is an affair. So, I wouldn't even ASK him what he thinks it is, just tell him what it is.

What I would be more worried about is busting up the affair and making sure it STAYS that way. That is your best bet in bringing him to his senses because when he gets through withdrawal, sanity should return. But as long as he is still enthralled with the OW and holds out hope for resumption, he will stay in la-la land. That is why you must notify the OW's H. That will burst his little balloon and greatly increase the odds that the affair is truly over and can't resume.

Thank you for the responses

Melody, I believe, but no way to know for sure, that he is not contacting her, at least for now. She was such a pursuer and this was so passionate I have my doubt that it won't flare up again sometime in the future.

I have spent a good part of today reading lots of posts and what I gathered about telling other people and the husband is that it's to stop an ongoing affair. So, if it is stopped do I just make it worse, 2 weeks later, to contact him? Part of me thinks that it would just give her a reason to contact him. Since they are exposes, it won't be on email because they now know I have access. Anything on work cells though, I don't have access to. I don't want to give her a reason to call him and I don't want to give him another reason to blame any results from me telling her husband on me. Does that make any sense?

Also, if they just deny and deny (and he could possibly actually believe this lie himself right now) how do you work on it? I mean, if he thinks it was nothing what are we working ON? (from his point of view)

sick, the spouse of the OP should always be notified no matter what the status of the affair. That is pretty much standard advice on this forum. If someone has said otherwise, they are imparting bad advice.

The reason is two fold.

First off, it ensures that the affair does not resume and secondly, the OP's spouse needs to be warned so he/she can protect themselves.

There is no way that it is to your advantage to NOT warn the OP's spouse. It is to your disadvantage, in every way, to forgo this step because failure to do so strongly increases the chances the affair will resume. The benefits far outweigh any short term set backs such as anger.

sick, let me ask you this: if you don't warn the OP's spouse, how will he protect himself and his children from his sleazy wife and your H? How will he find out?

OK, I will call him. I am just terrified to do it. I attempted the first few days I found out and since then I keep thinking that he will be so angry he will do something crazy. I don't know these people. I did some research and they aren't the greatest people. They live in another state, DH hometown, but it's only a 5 hour drive. I am also very fearful of the rage my DH will have and how aweful that will be. I also don't want to appear vengeful. I'm really not. I just want to find the best way to handle this and move on to a healthy marriage, if that is possible, for the benefit of my beautiful sons. If if goes badly, I will blame myself for telling him. Do I sound rational at all?

Also, from her emails he is home all day. I googled him ad he used to have a home based business but it has failed. Her emails give me their home number, her cell and her work number. I wish I could find a cell phone that he may have so I could leave a private message. I think she may have received the message I left the first week and erased it because when I called 2 days later no machine came on. I just don't know though. I hate to just leave a message because they have a high schooler at home and I wouldn't want him to get the message and be hurt. Also, maybe he actually got the first message and didn't care. I find that HIGHLY unlikely though. My message was YYY, my name is XXX and I am ZZZ's wife (he knows who my DH is because she slept with both of them in high school and left my DH for YYY and married him, they divorced and then remarried). We need to talk about what's been going on between your wife and my husband, ZZZ. Please call me at XXX.

I love this advice....It should be in BOLD letters accross the forum. In my honest opinion, not telling the OP--spouse is akin to seeing a crime being committed and walking right by the scene and not calling for help.

A BS denying another BS this "knowledge" is a BS who's character I would question. Some may disagree...but this is my opinion, and I stand by that.

Lem <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

He will most likely be relieved and grateful that you warned him. Don't scare yourself with imaginary hypotheticals, sick.

If your H is furious, that is a sign that he wasn't really done with the affair at all and is not remorseful. His anger will stem from your interference with his affair. If he is truly done with it, he would have no reason to be angry.

I would suggest disguising your # when you call and don't leave a message. Just ask for him and keep calling until you get him.

Warning the OP's spouse is your best insurance in ensuring the end of the affair and preventing a resumption. It will also enable the OP's spouse to protect himself from his W. He should be given the same chance to save his marriage that you recieved.

I agree 100%. There is no difference between adultery and embezzlement. If my neigbbor's bookkeeper was embezzling money from him, I wouldn't hesitate to warn him. It is my moral imperative to warn him, regardless of the consequences. Why folks treat a much worse act, adultery, any differently is just amazing to me.

Lemonman, I am just scared of what could happen. I KNOW I should, I just keep imaging all these wild things that this guy (that I don't know) could do. In the emails she painted him out to be quite the jerk. When I googled him he has many failed businesses and many negative reports to their State's Better Business Bureau. He could be a creep for all I know. That's what I am most afraid of. WS will be furious but I am so fed up over what he did and how he denies that it means anything that I am not so fearful of his verbal attack that I am sure to get. Does that make sense?

sick, the OW always lie about how horrible their spouse is. They do this in an attempt to a) rationalize the affair and b) pander sympathy.

But let's apply some logic to this. If he was really that bad, would she be having an affair? Ask yourself why you should be concerned if she is not? See, she is willing to take that risk, and knows her situation better than you.

What would your H be furious about if he hasn't done anything wrong?

sick, I am sure it won't be easy and I understand your fear, but you can't let your fear stop you from doing the right thing.

I work during the day and so does she, maybe he does too. In an email to WS about 6 weeks ago she was giving all the times and ways my husband could contact her by phone more without getting caught. She mentions that he is at the house all day. Since then, the business has been shut down so I don't know his work status now. I cannot block a call from my business phone system. The call won't go through. I tried from a payphone, same thing. When I try to block from my cell, it also won't go through. I work an hour from my home so I can't run home on a lunch hour to do it.If I call at night, she will be home. Any ideas? I went all over the internet to see if I could find a cell number in his name. No luck there.

Why can't you call from a payphone using a calling card?

Melody, the reason he will be furious is because it is a VERY small town, they know and bump into his family frequently and he would not want them to know. Not long ago there was something that happened and I mentioned it to SIL and he lost his mind with me over it. His entire family strongly feels that no one should ever be in someone else's business.

Example, his brother beat SIL several times. She finally told the family. They all said, well, it is wrong, but it is up to you guys to work it out. They all got together and b&*^CUI about how wrong she was to bring out their personal problems. A little disfunction going on there. That is why I know that if I exposed to his family I would get no where. It would be counter productive