New to the board, so not sure if i'm posting in the right place. If not, I apologize. Please feel free to move.
My husband (ex military) and I have been married for 5yrs. I'm Scottish, he's American. I emigrated to the USA to marry him in 2001 after a long-distance romance that lasted 2 yrs (ironically, we met online!) On the whole, our marriage has had it's ups and downs but we pulled together and managed to get over the hurdles we faced (no EA's, either side). October 2005, he left the country to work overseas for a year. Before he left, our relationship was in a slump - he wasn't meeting my EM and, in return, I 'punished' him by refusing to meet his. The decision to work overseas was based on his belief it would be beneficial for our financial future - money having been one of two main problems in our marriage. (the other was communication).
He's been gone for 10 months and, during that time he has maintained minimum contact with me, despite having internet access 24/7 and the use of a phone 24/7 for free phone calls. During these 10 months, on two separate occasions, i addressed the issue of non-communication. I was very careful not to sound judgemental or argumentative because i knew he would be likely to become defensive and nothing would be resolved. Regardless, he did react defensively and, naturally, my resentment and anger increased. I kept these feelings to myself, and in May we met up overseas for a month's vacation. Because of my bitterness and resentment, i didn't make the best of our time together and i was conscious of just how emotionally detached we'd become from each other. At the end of our vacation, I asked him (politely) to try and keep in touch with me more often. Unfortunately, nothing changed, so one month later i emailed him and openly and honestly told him exactly how his disregard for me made me feel. His reply was defensive, however i didn't take the bait and argue back. I simply said that i refused to beg for his attention any more, so i was making a choice to let the issue go and move forward. His email contact immediately increased for the next month...and then I discovered what i'd feared! I discovered he was 'chatting' online for several hours a day with other women, posing as a divorced man. I immediately confronted him - at first he denied it (of course), then he admitted it. He called me and we spoke on the phone. He was contrite (because he'd been found out) and declared he loved me and wanted to 'make things right'. Said he 'guessed he'd done it because things weren't right between us before he left'. At the end of our telephone conversation he said he would remove all 'chat' programmes from his laptop and would stop 'chatting' online to other women. I later checked his Yahoo messenger and discovered he'd changed the password. That led me to believe he had no intention to stop chatting, he just didn't want me to have access to his messenger. My logic was that if he was going to stop chatting, then all he had to do was uninstall his 'chat' programmes - he didn't have to change the password (unless he feared i'd be able to access the messenger and chat with these other women, who would believe i was him. My suspicion was highly aroused, so i managed to access his email account (i didn't know his password, but found a way to access it anyway). I discovered he'd formed an emotional attachment to one woman in particular and i read emails from him to her, wherein he proclaimed his undying love. He said he'd fallen in love with her, couldn't stop thinking about her, couldn't stop thinking of being with her. From the tone and context of their emails, i realized their online 'affair' had been going on for quite some time.
Before i had a chance to confront my H (huge time-difference between his location and mine), he emailed me and said he would try and call me the following morning. I was online when i received his email (couldn't sleep), so i immediately told him what i'd found out and asked him not to call me because i had nothing to say to him right then. I told him to go ahead with whatever plans he had made for his future with this OW. He immediately responded by saying all contact with her had stopped months ago and he wanted to stay married to me and make our marriage work. Although he told me he had become emotionally 'attached' to this woman and that all contact between them had stopped some months ago, it may 'feel' like months to him, but the last email i read from my H to OW was dated June 8th and there was nothing therein to suggest their emotional tie had been severed. In fact, it appeared she had 'tried' on several occassions to sever contact with my H (they've been chatting online and using webcameras). She's married, and she said she felt guilty for cheating on her H, however my H continued to pursue her until she backed down and re-commited to him.
Although the last email i read from H to OW was dated 6/8/06, he may have deleted more recent emails so i have no way of knowing whether he's telling me the truth that his EA with OW is over. That's very frustrating, to say the least. My H may still be in contact with this OW, or indeed with any other woman, and i would never know for sure. I guess i can't keep beating myself up about that. I can only control what i do, not what he does.
Last email i received from my H (8/9/06)asked me to please let him know when he could phone. I've been in emotional turmoil since this discovery and i haven't been in contact with him since. Neither has he contacted me. Right now, i don't know if i want to stay with him, although i'm on this message board, so i guess somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of my mind i must want to try to work things out. I just don't consciously feel i've reached that place yet. I don't know how to proceed. Do i wait for him to contact me, or do i initiate contact? Does he really love me, or is he using this time to continue his A? A thousand questions running round my mind, and i'll never know the answer to them. Although i asked him not to call me, i did not say not to email. I feel it's his responsibility to explain himself and to not just tell me he loves me, but show he loves me by being willing to spend more time with my using the only resources we have at the moment, which are email and phone.
I *have* exposed his activities to everyone and anyone. I have *not* contacted the OW - i don't know where she lives, i only have her email address, therefore i can't inform her H (i may get the wrong person and that would be disasterous for the person on the receiving end!). I have no wish to contact this OW, she is of no consequence to me. She's an 'illusion' of however my H perceives her to be. The only thing of concern to me is my H's actions and the choice he made. I accept responsibility for my contribution to the breakdown of our relationship, however i do not accept responsibility for my H's actions. He made the choice to look outside our marriage for the things he felt he wasn't getting from me. I understand why he felt he had to do that, but i do not hold myself responsible for him actually making that choice.
I guess the advice i'm looking for from here is how best to proceed. Do i initiate contact and, if so, how do i word what i say? Or, do i wait for him to contact me via email and take it from there? I don't know. Any advice greatly appreciated, and i hope my post doesn't sound too dis-jointed - my emotions are in a whirl right now and it's hard to think straight. I know most of you, if not all of you, have been in a similar situation. Have read Dr. H's good advice - just unsure how best to proceed.
(Me) 51
H - 42
Married 5yrs
