Just found out that my husband has crossed the line in my book for flirting at work. He has been "helping" an employee with her marital problems and the only way I found out was through an email he sent her. Once confronted he said he was sorry and that nothing had happened. I believe that but can't help wondering what would have or still could - happen. Our situation is unique in that he works away from home 3 to 4 days a week. I stay home with our 4 kids and homeschool one of them. He is part owner and sole operator of his business and has to be in the buildings that they own and these are 3 hrs away from where we live. Can't move right now because my two oldest are in high school and one will be a sr. next year. He sees this person everyday at work and now I am wondering constantly what is going on?! I met him at work too and know how things can go. He is the sort of guy that likes to "rescue" people and while this can be a good quality usually it is to boost his ego from women who think he is just the greatest man ever. He is but he is mine. I just don't know what to do. I feel it was infidelity because it was done secretly and when he got home - drove the 3hrs after being confronted- some how his cell phone log had been erased. Didn't get a straight answer from this. I know we need to work on just us! He gets to live like he is single in a work place loaded with women - medical field. He has agreed to start working on this and I have agreed to move next year after graduation for my son.
I just cant stop thinking about it though - whats going on? Are they talking during the day, does he see her all the time? He came home on Wed night and had to go back on Thurs night but he took our 8 year old son with him to work. I think he did this for security and to show me he is committed? What do you think? Any one with advice for me? Please help!! I am alone where I live - no family and isolated now that I no longer work to teach my son with ADHD!! Need some friends~! Thanks

Me - 41
H-41
M-9 yrs
S- 17&8; ds-15&4

Welcome to MB - feel free to vent here. Is your husband
familiar with the MB philosophies ? Are you ?
There are quite a few posters with some pretty good insights
that roam these boards. I'm sure one of them will be with you shortly - IMHO Read over lovebusters and start clearing them out. Also look at EN (emotional needs) and determine if you are supplying your H with his EN. Also snoop.

Thanks I need some support and this looks like the place. Just ordered His Needs Her Needs and the romantic love workbook. Snooping is how I found out something was going on. He had been acting very differently or indifferently towards me over the past 2 months and that made me very suspicious. Then I found the email referring to the OW as cutie and saying he would call her later to see if she got the info she needed to help with her problem. He did admit he was wrong and won't let it happen again but I still feel uneasy and the need to watch everything. I think he will agree to do this workbook with me. He is scared. Thanks all the help I can get is appreciated!

I just went through a similar situation myself..it sounds like you caught on to this early enough that you stand a good chance of nipping it in the bud. His Needs Her Needs is a great start...I know reading it and talking about/completing the questionaires helped both my H and I to see how we got to the point of him falling so easily into an EA. From there, things went slowly but get better all the time.

My H worked with his OW too, and for me it was essential that he find a way to get out of that situation. Does she work for him? Has he told her that he needs to have no contact with her because the relationship was inappropriate and he is committed to working on his relationship with you? If your H will write a no contact letter with you and give it to her, that would be best. My H refused to write a letter and wanted to do it 'his' way...probably a sweet, long 'goodbye' phone call.. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> Problem with that was, OW didn't take it as a goodbye, I think she had just decided to 'wait it out' and counted on us not being able to work things out...once we did start to make progress and H withdrew from her, she confronted him at work..which led to him contacting her 'to make sure she knew it was over'..whatever, and that led to me freaking out all over again and so on and so on...three months later, he has changed jobs and I think total NC is finally in place..it's been hard though and I wish I would have been more firm about the no contact letter from the beginning...

Read up on plan A and try very hard to follow..I know it's very hard sometimes, but it seems like your H will respond well...good luck to you...

Thanks for your kind words. I am trying to make some sense of it and hopefully once the books arrive we can make some headway together. I would love it if he could change jobs but he is the owner of a large business and the OW is a contract employee works for another company to provide services for the patients. The only good thing is that he has hired someone to manage this building and they will start in 30 days. He will still make site visits but will travel more frequently to his othre buildings. This helps but I will still worry and wonder if they are communicating. I guess that comes with the territory hopefully we will be able to repair this and get back to us but better. Thanks again!

I suggest you move closer to his work. I know it is hard uprooting your kids. But people who spend a lot of time away from their spouse and family have affairs. It appears you caught this one early, but what about the next one?

4happikids, your living arrangments are a recipe for disaster. Living apart like that makes any marriage vulnerable to an affair. The books can give you some background information on the dynamics of an affair and on recovery, but you are going to have to take some action here to split these two up.

This looks very much like an emotional affair, perhaps a PA and unless you find out for sure, you aren't going forward. Can you access his cell phone bill to see how often he is talking to her?

Another thing you might want to do is put a voice recorder in his car to find out what he saying when he is away.

Do you have access to his computer?

I would be doing A LOT of checking on him myself...cell phone records usually show you just how much they communicated, be prepared though, I about threw up when I saw the amount of calls he was making to her.

And even though your H is probably sincere in wanting to end the A and work on the marriage, don't underestimate the OW....she might (probably will) step it up and try to continue the contact once she finds out you know. They can be very sneaky, but usually not very smart...keep your guard up..

I have no access to the phone records. He owns his business with a physician and they have a multitude of cell phones for their various depts. Our phones are run through the business. I am on alert and hopefully this will help deter him. I don't want to be so paranoid that I drive him away. He is spending more time with us at the present - I wish it would last but know otherwise. I did let the OW know that I knew by emailing her and telling her to refrain from coming to my husband with any more of her personal problems and that she should keep things on a professional level. I used to work for the company she works for in a different location and in a much higher position. I still know a few of the higher ups and if things continue she will be looking for work elsewhere. I have also decided to pull a few suprise visits over the next few weeks. With me homeschooling the younger kids I can take off now and then as needed.
We have a vacation coming up next week and in April to Mexico, maybe this will help us to reconnect!!

A tip to Mexico will be nice. I love Mexico.

You can start reconnecting now. Check out the emotional needs questionnaire here. Most men have sex and admiration towards the top of their list. Find some things to admire about him, and let him know how much you appreciate him.

I don't think you should be "paranoid," but rather that you should be SMART. Being smart is investigating when all the signs of an affair are present in order to protect your marriage. That is being SMART. Because IF there is an affair, or a potential affair, the sooner you find out, the better.

And all signs are that your husband is having an affair and you need to find out what is going on here. Emailing the OW is not going to get you anywhere except the affairees will just be more secretive. This is why I suggested putting a voice recorder in his car.

If this an affair, or the start of one, you can stop it from going any further if you find out the facts. But until you find out the facts, you won't be able to know how to proceed. And your intelligence may prove him innocent, but frankly,I don't think you are going to find that with all these signs.

I understand what you are saying about the recorder but I am not ready to take that step yet. I would like to watch and wait a while longer. We are going away next week Thurs through Mon. without kids and I would like to see what comes out of this. He is working hard to get someone else hired to sit in that building and was even making a job offer today. Hopefully that will be settled soon and he will be out of there and home more!! That would be something to help our whole family. Wish me luck. I am not turning a blind eye but rather putting faith in the man I married as far as his committment to changing things. He also went and looked at three properties in the area his businesses are. Thanks again for the help! I appreciate all the support.

It's great that you are going away together at this time. I know in SAA, Harley recommends doing this if possible. It's also a good idea for you to make yourself more visible at your H's work.

I can understand why you aren't ready to go as far as the voice recorder yet, but I'd be super-vigilant about checking the email. Although now that they know you are onto that avenue of communication, doubtful you'll find anything there.

I'd bet there is a way for you to access the cell phone bills if you try hard enough...if your H owns this business, you could probably find a way to do this...you'll really want to keep an eye on that if you can. Cell phones reveal things you would never expect...

Keep posting and good luck to you..

Thanks for your input! I wish there was a way for me access phone bills but his company owns 5 healthcare facilities and all of the bills go through each facility's accountants and business office managers - it is an impossibility for me but I will be making more appearances at his work. Luckily it is near the beach and with the warm weather coming we will be down there even more. I am going to do the suprise visits too. He has a birthday next month and I am going to show up there to give him a nice party!! Wish me luck. Thanks!! Also I used to work in healthcare and am in the process of renewing my licensure and if we make the move down there I could very well end up the boss of the OW and some changes would be made. This had always been our original goal. To run the businesses together. Me in the actual providing of healthcare and he the business management part. We lost sight of this due to normal everyday life but I now realize it was a vital part of who we are and need to bring some of that back into our lives. I think we can with much work and hope!!

Hi "4hk",

I think you have recieved some pretty good and strong advice here. Continue to keep your eyes and ears open, be ever watchful. But you don't have to go into paranoid spy mode, yet, hopefully ever.
You are very fortunate to have caught the red flags and such as early as you did. Plus you have the added bonus of having worked for the same company as the OW and having higher up connections you can go to if needed.
You said you sent her an email telling her not to contact your H anymore? How was that recieved? Does your H know of it and has he said anything? Did she reply back?
From what you have said, it sounds like he is trying very hard to make things right and straighten out the mess. And at the risk of sounding nieve, I think he was not yet in to a full fledged A , EA, PA, or otherwise. However things could have gone off the deep end very soon if you had not seen the red flags.
You are fortunate to be going on vacation with out the kids and have this excellent op to be alone and get some spark back.
All I can offer is do the plan A thing. Examine HN/HN. These are positive tools that can help any relationship whether in an A or not. It never hurts to be more in tune to these things, thus enabling us to Affair proof our marriages.
I wish you and your H all the best. I hope I have been of some help as I am still working through things myself. But making progress in some form everyday!
Just another thought I had which is totally OT to your sitch. But you mentioned that you stay home to home school a child with ADHD. How is this working? How old, and when did you start doing this?
I also have 4 kids and my youngest has big time issues with school. I believe at this point the school system is doing more harm than good for my son, who is exceptionally smart but has little impulse control, can't sit still, hates waiting , following directions etc....
I was wondering if you wouldn't mind sharing your experience w/home schooling with me? I think this may be my only choice with my son at this point!

Be Well,

Hey Harmonie,
Thanks for your words of wisdom and support! I think I am very lucky at this point. I did not receive a reply to my email and I told my husband that I did it. He said she had not said a word to him about it and he had our 8 yr. old at work at the end of the week. Good strategy to show his committment to me I think.
I am glad to hear you are making progress in your situation too and send you my best wishes too. As for the ADHD not being a part of our situation - it has had great impact on us. I have been left to deal with all of it on my own due to my H's career situation. I too got fed up with the schools handling of my son. He is a bright, sensative boy who is curious, has trouble sitting still and talks nonstop! We chose not to try medication at this time because he doesn't like the way it makes him feel. Also in a classroom setting he tells me his mind scribbles and he doesn't remember what the teacher has said. He does have some short term memory problems with this. I am going to a parent class once a week and he is seeing a counselor for his self-esteem and to help with his social skills. Homeschooling was and is hard at times. I gave up my career and the freedom I had been looking forward to - all the kids in school!! I think in the long run it will be worth it. I use a program set up by a day school. They send the whole year in a box and then I have a teacher assigned to help us, grade his test etc. They keep up with his records so that the dept. of ed. is satisfied. There are so many ways to homeschool but if you do it on your own a lot of states require submission of a plan and to look at your work periodically. I don't have to do this and can still add things to our day that he likes. Plus there is only about 3 hrs. total of instruction required per day to meet the lessons. We take lots of breaks! Feel free to email me at [email]etsu1987@yahoo[/email] to talk more!! Let me know if I can help because this puts a strain on marriage too!

OT - I had a dear friend whose son had ADD/ADHD who I watched in the morning before school. He was bright, but a real handful. He would start doing something annoying - like hitting the TV with his belt, and when I spoke to him, he stopped, but then started up on something else.

One day on the way to taking him to school, he threw the car keys on the roof! He just wanted to see if he could toss them up there I guess.

Anyway, after a thousand teacher conferences, his parents decided to home school him. He did very well. He is now 24, and somehow grew out of it. He is happily married, has a good job, and is doing just fine.

Thanks for all the support. I had a rough night. My H is going down to his work - 2hrs from home today and will be back Wed. The is where he can see the OW. I am trying not to panic and not get too crazy with all the wondering. He has offered me his cell phone any time I ask for it so that I can check it. Of course I don't know her # and with the volume of calls he gets not sure I could figure it out. I am thinking it would be multiple calls to the same #. He is going to an oral surgery appt. with me for our 8 yr. old this am - something he never takes time to do. I appreciate the gesture but want this nervousness to stop! We are leaving in two days for a small getaway so I am trying to focus on that and making sure everything is ready for my sister, who has bravely volunteered to take care of the 4 kids. She is the only family memeber I have told. We are a very close family and even an EA would upset my parents alot. They are a couple married 46yrs and my Dad had one PA and they recovered happily 13yrs ago. I guess this is where some of my anxiety comes from too. I saw what it did to my Mom. I don't know am I crazy?! Someone please talk to me!!!

Hi 4hk..

Don't worry, you're definately NOT crazy, although this crap sure can make you feel like you are. And I know EXACTLY what that nervousness feels like, knowing he is going to be where she is..it's a bad feeling, but justified I'm sure. I know we want to trust our H's and believe that they 'get it', but A's don't make sense, and I'm afraid that the mindset of a WS doesn't make much sense either. My H had to go to the place that OW worked about once a week or so before he changed jobs and he was only there for an hour or two, but when I knew he would be going there, I still spent the entire day feeling like I wanted to jump out of my skin.
Make sure he leaves with good feelings about your R and with the memory of you loving him fresh in his mind...that's what Plan A is all about. I would make sure my H knew I was putting my trust in him to do the right thing and not lie to me about his contact with OW before he left, I figured that if he had to see her at least he may have a little voice on conscious in his head to remind him of his promises to me..I also had him call me a lot while he was there, that helped me..

Have to run my daughter to school now, try to stay busy today and hang in there...