I have been married for 15yrs. We have been unhappy for most of the last 8 or more years until resently. The past
3 months I have realized just how wonderful my wife is.
We have been getting along very good.
I stumbled over some of her emails when I was moving
stuff from one computer to the new one. She has been having
a long distant afair with an old high school boyfriend.
She went to visit him about 8 yrs ago(said she was seeing a girl friend).I saw in one of her emails that was 6 months old, she would visit soon and have sex with him. She talks about how she loves him.
In the last couple monthes she has'nt been talking sex or to see him, that I know.
What bothers me is she still emails him a couple times a week.
I know I should'nt be in her email but I can't help my self. If I confront her I feel it will make things worse.
I feel I can't trust her. I have been treating her like my girlfriend and we seem to be doing great. Why does she feel the need to keep in touch with her old boyfriend?
I really love her and am tring do show it.
Am I off base here?
Any advice would be great.

s28

This is hard. Technically, you are not supposed to read her e-mail. But, you did. And, look what you found. I have to say that there is no room for secrecy in a marriage. If there was nothing inappropriate in the e-mail why would it matter if you looked?

Those of us who are BS/FBSs have read plenty of incriminating e-mails.

If/whenyou confront her, she will "make it" all about you snooping, not about her cheating. Do not let this happen. Perhaps you should not have snooped. But, by comparison, what was worse, the snooping, or the cheating?

Take your lumps, and then get working on your marriage. Start by insisting on NC letter - that you get to read.

HealingT4J,
Thanks for your response. I really value other peoples opinions. Sometimes its hard to see my own mistakes.
Can you tell me what BS, FBS, and NC stand for? I am new at this.

It seems to me that during the last 3 months you have been doing a good job of filling up your W's love bank and that may be the reason why she has not been mentioning sex or visits to the OM. Now what you need to do is create an emotional environment where she will feel safe in opening up to you and express her deepest thoughts and feelings [intimacy]. How can you do this? Convey to her in a quiet, calm, loving and respectful way that you wish that there'd be no secrets between you and that she can feel safe in telling you ANYTHING in her life, even the bad stuff, and that you will not lash out against her, breakdown in front of her or abandon her. After you tell her this, leave her alone to ponder your words and don't bring up the subject again. Now she no longer has any excuse or wild speculations on how you will react if she chooses to come clean about her affair. If she does confess her affair to you, express to her that while you cannot and will not force her to end all contact with her OM, her continued contact is taking its toll on your love for her, her 'friendship with benefits' with her OM is at your emotional expense and that one day when she finally does end all contact, it may be too little too late for you. Explain to her that if the roles were reversed, she would probably agree that this is true. The ball would then be on her side of the court.

TMCM

BS - Betrayed Spouse
FBS - Former Betrayed Spouse
NC - No Contact. No contact with OP (other person) ever again. One of the tenents of this site.

Keep posting. There are many "old vets" on this forum that have been where you are. They can offer great insight and help you work through this.

BTW: One of vets have already contacted you TMCM. He will have very good advice for you.

Stay Strong.

Update: but fist let me come clean. This all came about (I believe) because I abandoned her. My wife felt like she was just a roommate. I feel this pushed her to this other guy.
Last night I told her I was madly in love with her(and I really am)then I said I would do anything to save our marriage. After that I told her I saw her emails to this other guy. She did not deny it, she said nothing to me about snooping in her email. She said she was very sorry. She also said he was just a friend and would like to keep in touch with him. He lives out of state. I told her I feel like it was my fault this all happened. If I would have shown her the love I have for her none of this would have happen.
Our talk was very good. It will take time to repair.
I guess I am a little uneasy about her keeping in touch with the other guy though.
I just can't explain why I was such an A-hole for all thoughes yrs. It was never a physical hurting just emotional. I guess as I get older I get wiser?
More later,

s28,

What you did, at most, was create an affair friendly marital environment but it was she who made the choice to have the affair. She had other choices like counseling and if that didn't resolve the marital issues then she could have opted to divorced you. She is not a child, she is an adult who should know right from wrong and be able to choose wisely.

As far as her continuing her 'friendship' with the OM is concerned, you might want to respectfully convey to her that those racy e-mails and words of love towards the OM are far from being platonic in nature.

You might also want to consider doing the following:

1. Ask her if the roles were reversed, would she approve of you continuing the 'friendship' with the OW? [empathy towards you].

2. Would she approve of any married man, like yourself, leading another woman on emotionally/sexually even if he had no intention of ever getting involved with her? [empathy towards the OM].

The point is that you should respectfully convey to her the wrongness of her actions so that it weighs heavily on her mind the next time she feels like e-mailing the OM.

TMCM

s28,

Have you read the Emotional Needs section of the MB site? There are questionnaires there that you can print out, and you and your wife could both fill them out.

There is also the matter of spending time together every day, quality time, not time watching the tube. You guys can repair and rebuild, with the help of MB and its veterans, and even counseling with the Harleys. (They are the ones who designed Marriage Builders and its concepts.)

About keeping in touch with the OM, - uh, no. Not even as a friendship. It will destroy your marriage. One way or another your marriage will die. Read How Affairs Should End here on MB.

Ask your wife if she will come to MB and post. It is a safe, anonymous place. Those of us who have recovered our marriages after affairs can help her if she wants to post. Those of us whose marriages failed after affairs can be helpful too.

Good luck.

another update: I printed out two copies of emotional needs questionnaire. We will be taking it soon.
I mentioned to her I wasn't very comfortable about her keeping in touch with the other guy. She assured me he was happy for her. I did not want to push too much right now. We seem to be getting along great. We are talking about going on a couples retreat in a month or so. I think that will be good.
Thanks,
more later

update: Had a very late night last night. I think it went well. She has a lot of walls up and will take time to tear down. She cried a lot. She has had a lot of hurt. She's afraid of getting hurt again. We just laid in bed for hours talking, I mean really talking, while I held her. I think we made progress. Late in the night she said she ws feeling much better(love).
This norming things seemed great. When I got home walls were comming back. I know this will take some time. Is there anything I can do to help this process becides loving, holding and really talking to her?
She was in the mall a year or so ago and saw an old couple and cried because thought we were never going to be like that.
This is an extremely hard process, emotionally.
We thought we would hold off a little while on the questionaire. I think we both are in a very fragle state. It may be too much to soon.

Man, I am emotionally drained!

update: well yesterday I told her I couldn't take her having any kind of relationship with the other man. She was very sad. She knew how I felt though. She is still insisting they are only friends. I wonder if I should let her stay in touch. He doesn't even live in this state.
I feel he is undermining the new relationship I have with my wife. I don't know what he tells her. That's what makes me uncomfortable.
My wife and I are doing well (I think), we have been talking and spending a lot of time together. Things are good. Although this is still am emotional rollercoaster.

Thanks for reading and the support

THIS SOUNDS JUST LIKE MY SITUATION! My wife has been having an EA for over 6 years w/guy 100 miles away. States they are only friends but found letters from him expressing his love for her. She states she only seen him a few times for a few minutes when she was in his city for other appointments. I made her send NC and I personaly paid the S.O.B a visit and made him a PROMISE not a THREAT that if he ever was intouch with my wife he would be sorry. As far as I can prove and verify no contact has been made (I do snoop very well)but nothing is 100%. I don't trust her or Him but we are working on that. Wife don't thinks she has done anything wrong but has no comment when I ask her if roles were reversed how would you feel!

s28

hope you & your ww had a good Christmas & New Years - we've had ours last night in OZ.

Look I am a XWW and I do want to encourage you to have NO CONTACT as one of your important aims here. Should you allow contact without making it clear that it is actually hurting the M then I can tel you .... you WILL hurt the M, maybe kill it.
Emotional Affairs - EA's - are just as terrible as affairs including sexual contact - Physical Affairs - PA's - and you've had that too by the sound of it.

Allow your wife to build a mature & emotional affair and you WILL loose her. Isn't that what YOU want with your wife?

Use this site, read all you can and I do recommend you get a good M counsellor - like the Harleys here - they do it by phone - which can save you a lot of heartache.

aussieswife,
I did tell her I wanted her to have no contact and she agreed. Its not that I don't trust her(or maybe I don't), but I am not comfortable with the fact I can no longer check up on her. I was looking at her emails and now she may be using her web based email I can't break in to. On the other hand I may be worring about something that is no longer real. I just don't know.
We seem to be doing really go though. If I could just monitor her emails I would feel so much better and start being able build trust.

s28

glad you & W had a ok NYE & Xmas.

Ok lets me be honest here... you would be stupid to suddenly just'trust' your ww just after an affair.

WW will lie, trick, mislead, pretend, act, you name it, to get their OM fix. It really is that simple.

NOW if the A is truly over its likely your ww would go into withdrawal - thats missing the OM - usually not able to show much attention to you, moody, quiet etc etc. If you are not getting that then MAYBE there has been & is contact.

Now that is not 100% certain - it may depend the type of affair - very EA or just physical only though I think that rare for women myself but thats JMHO.

So my advice is get Steve Harley on the phone or one of the Harley team and set up some MC. work with the MC to set up a PLAN to recover your M. Do it now.

Delay and thoughts of 'she will pull out of it' are only setting you up for pain and probable failure. Get the professionals in to help you both work on the breach in your M .... you need to be able to let her know she must be open and accountable and if nothing is going on & a MC is a good way to do this...

For example why does it matter if you read her email? ok she may be moaning & groaning about you right now - not exactly loving w, but thats expected. Perhaps your own boundary should be to ensure its not OM related mail and not read the detail ...my H did that and I returned it ...oh I was tempted so very tempted but I did not. Even if I had I could not blame him for calling me A NAME OR TWO then.

So pls consider this. So much of what the Harleys advise can seem so counter to your gut feelings.. but they work more times than not!!!!


God bless you & your W

oh one more thing...at the top few posts in 'just found out' there are explainations of of MB and how the plans work...READ READ READ if you have not done so.

Now for more support, I suggest you also move your post to GENERAL QUESTIONS 11 - lot more very very experienced people to advise you as well.

AW <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

How are things going S28?

My FWH remained friends over the years with a former college classmate. For the first decade or so, she lived in France, we in the US East Coast. When she and her H moved back the US West Coast, my FWH "helped" her out by hiring her to do some free lance writing. Over several years, they stayed in touch both professionally and personally.

At some point, one or both of them crossed a line and began to confide private information about their marriage. This highly inappropriate and dangerous step led to an EA which by the way, almost always leads to a PA.

The distance, while it limited their PA somewhat, didn't stop them from spending from 4-5 days a month together for an 8 month period.

You must insure that there is true NC! Once they discussed and had tentative plans to have sex, their friendship ended and became an affair.

If I had payed attention to my FWH's needs and questioned his suspicious behavior, I could have possibily saved us the pain of having to recover from his A.

Who

Things still seem to be going good. I have ordered two books, "Your Love and Marriage" and
"His Needs, Her Needs" we will be reading them together.
As far as insisting on reading her email, I have a hard time understanding how this will improve our marriage. If she wanted to, she could have contact with OM. I couldn't monitor all her email accounts. I have to trust her to some extent. To be honest here she has always been truthful (as far as I know)to me, never tried to deny her A. When I wanted her to have NC with OM she agreed, but said to give her a "little time". I will give her that. Now if I catch her talking to OM my trust in her will be non-existent.
I think I have noticed her having some with-draws. I think all this is going to take some time to get over.
Next month we are planning on going to a marriage couples retreat. I think that will be beneficial for the both of us.

thank for your insight

WhoMe, The OM is around 600mi away I would know if she went to see him. She has only once gone out of town in our 17yrs of marriage. That was around 5 or 6 yrs ago. And yes she did meet him then.
I just don't know how to guarantee NC

S28