I have posted here before about my husband and at least two of his emotional affairs with co-workers over 10 years of working at his job.

Last month, one OW suddenly resigned. Before then, I was near the breaking point. I caught my H having a secretive, backyard conversation with her over our vacation. I couldn't hear exactly what they were saying but no doubt they were discussing a risque skit they were planning to put on at their company Christmas party. I found the jokes in his backpack. One had to do with cheating. He'd verbally shared another sexualy offensive joke with me before I'd found that paper, but not that joke. I'd asked him not to disrespect me that way when he'd shared it with me, but he blew me off.

Well, last month he announced that she gave two weeks notice, but she hadn't told him personally. This was surprising to me, since he'd said they were such good "friends." He said her boss told him that her husband wanted her home. I asked him a few times later if he'd spoken to her, but each time he said he had not. Supposedly, they had a going-away party for her, and that was that. It concerned me that possibly her husband forced her to quit due to her relationship with my husband, otherwise, I didn't understand how there was no discussion between her and my H about her quitting. Or, he thought I was the one who blew the whistle with the OW's H, so he pretended to have not spoken to her since her resignation. Perhaps she'd been told not to be in contact with him or else.

As mentioned, there's another woman. Several months ago, I'd been trying to follow the principles I learned here about meeting my H's emotional needs. I'd seen a definite change in him. Then one day he reluctantly divulged that she was ill, losing weight and that he thought she might have cancer. I have never seen such concern about someone in my husband's eyes--not even when his parents have had health issues. He was almost trembling. I've posted about this before...but anyways, somehow, she's not cancerous after all. When I posted about the whole thing here before, someone said she was probably faking to get his attention. And, I think that's probably true, given her character. At any rate, the distance between us began again.

Then I found out that he's working side-by-side with her in his department again. This was the case when they'd started up their off and on emotional (?) affair 10 years ago. I'd found inappropriate, emotionally intense emails where he was counseling her about her childhood, advising her when she complained about her marriage, sending her song lyrics and exclaiming that they were in some battle against fear together. *We* ended up in counseling. Eventually, for career-related reasons, they switched departments, but still have offices next to each other. He never renounced their "friendship" and told me that everything I thought about them was just figments of my imagination. Which is why chose the screenname I did. All in my head, but I found an email later where he'd said no one understands her like him and on and on emotional declarations.

He kept this information about their renewed working relationship from me. I had to dig in his email to find out. At any rate, I noticed that my husband was getting home at 5:30 or later every night, as opposed to his usual 4:15-4:30. He used to come home and play with our daughter in the backyard, or take her for walks around the neighborhood--where he'd end up talking to women in their houses without their husbands home and giving them advice, but that's a whole 'nother story. Anyways, I told my husband that our daughter misses their playtime together. And plus, since I'm a stay-at-home working mom, his coming home later was starting to wear on me.

His response was that he "always comes home at this time" and otherwise blew me off coldly. I checked his phone and during the time when he was normally home, I frequently saw calls to or from her. I suspected that other times he was at the office with her, alone. Their building closes at 5. As managers, they both have keys.

One morning, I called and asked whether he wanted to go to dinner that night at this restaurant we'd been talking about going to for a while. He jumped at the opportunity, and didn't seem bothered when I told him we'd have to get their early to avoid a crowd. But when he arrived home, around 4, he was angry like I haven't seen in a long time. He snapped at both me and our daughter throughout dinner. She went into an emotional tailspin, as he is always good to her. I asked him what was wrong, and he just kept saying that he had a lot of work to do and didn't have time to be going to dinner with us. I told him that he could have declined my dinner invitation. He had no answer, just more sulleness. I told him that we were not the reason for his mood and stop taking it out on us. This resulted in a slow, eventual return to normal, at least towards us. We stopped by the store and he got into an arguement with the sales clerk.

So, it's her fault that you got into a fight with the OW because you dared come home to your family. You are frustrated either because you were unable to stand up to her or because she convinced you that you would have been happier in the office with her or because you had your first real fight. Here is a woman who even admitted to me that 1) she stole her husband from another girl in high school and 2) she creates crises so my husband will come running. Of course it hacked her off that he'd dare choose us over him.

It could be all this, or he was hacked off over something else entirely. But based on the emotional depth and secretiveness of his anger, I can't help but think it was all about her feeling abandoned.

One morning he asked me to join him for dinner after work. His voice was funny when I said I was on my way. When I got there with our daughter, the OW was on her computer and he was sitting behind her; they were working on a report. He was trying to rush her along, and seemed uncomfortable. I have no doubt now, especially based on the way she looked at me with such self-satisfaction, that she purposely stayed there so I would see her with my H, alone in that building.

I left it alone for a couple of days. Eventually, when I found some poem about secret lovers rebelling against those who try to keep them apart, under my husband's keyboard, the day before the other OW was to have her going-away party, I brought it up to him. He had all kinds of excuses for that poem, which I won't repeat because they're just lies that I wanted to believe at that moment. I brought up finding him in that building alone with that OW. He said that never happens, can't remember the last time, didn't realize it would upset me, blah, blah, blah. To make matters exceptionally worse, there were some out-of-town visitors and somebody--my H, his boss, the guests or the OW--thought it would be a good idea to have one of their meetings at our house. My H kept asking whether I'd be around, never mentioning that the OW was amongst those people who would be coming to the meeting. He's always been "proud" of me and our daughter, so I was wondering if maybe I was getting unattractive to him and he was ashamed. I had indeed planned to run some errands. When I arrived OW's big SUV was parked out in front of my house. It was awkward. This woman in my house, trying to act warm toward me in front of their boss. Later, my H claimed to have no idea that she would be at our house, that his boss decided to pick her up, while at the same time trying to convince me that it would be odd for her not to attend.

He'd admitted, for the first time in years, that knowing how I feel about their "friendship"--he told her--that she may have intentionally stayed at the office. Now he was trying to tell me that it wasn't vinegar that lead to her coming into my home despite how I felt about her, but just business. But if he thought she even *might* come, why not have the respect to inform me, rather than have to go through that shock? Such disrespect.

So, I went in his work email and found out that she was going to be out of the office for two weeks, starting last week. Every day last week--except for one, when I was so angry at him for lying that I purposely stayed out with my daughter until dinnertime--he came home a little after 4. So much for trying to make me think his coming home later and later was all in my head.

So now, I don't know what to do next. These are the things that run through my head...

1. I have been going out of my way to be nice to him, to let him see how good it is without her, how great our lives can be, just as a family, without OW. This makes me feel pitiful, especially since I normally try to avoid LB's, to be pouring it on. I feel humiliated. He's kinder to me, and more attentive. I don't know whether to feel insulted--because he doesn't have her right now--or as though my extra attempts are working.

2. I feel as though I may not be able to keep pretending that I know that he's only coming home because she's not there. I suspect that I am going to blow up if he comes home at 4 again and tell him that I know.

3. But perhaps I should wait until next Monday evening, show up outside his office, and watch to see if he comes out with her alone. Then I could bust him on the spot.

So, I don't know what to do next, and I would really appreciate help with a plan.

You are talking about minutia....when the reality staring at you is that your husband is a serial infidel...

who keeps gaslighting you and turning things around on to you so that you seem irrational...

The question is are you willing to break up this marriage (plan B) if you it comes to that..

sorry but 10 years of emotional affair...is a way of life to him....with appeasing and conjoling the wife on the side.....

are you willing to plan B.....if not then I think you should call Dr, Harley asap...

ARK

imagination,

I'm in complete agreement with ark.

We teach people how to treat us.

What have you taught your husband?

You've taught him that for 10 years, you've been willing to tolerate his womanizing, carousing, and gaslighting. Why would he change???? Whether the OW is in town, out of town....who cares!!

That's a non-issue.

Your husband has no boundaries and doesn't protect you or your marriage. And if you allow him to keep this up....you don't have any boundaries either.

If you want to live this way forever....looking for clues, ear to the ground, eye on the clock.....the brunt of his manipulation and abuse....then you might perhaps benefit from some IC to find out why you tolerate this kind of life.

Thank you for pointing out that all of this is minutia. I just feel that I have something solid to contradict and I didn't know what to do. I am in individual counseling. My therapist wants me to bring my H into the office before we can move much further, as he feels I can't address my other issues before I resolve my marriage issues. But my husband will not come.

I have had some abuse issues from my childhood, and they have allowed me to be somewhat in denial about my H's unfaithfulness. It hasn't been that I've just allowed him with my eyes wide open. I've believed his excuses for years, and ignored the gnawing contradictions. Kind of like how I watched my mom enable my dad.

I don't know where I am...in Plan A. Plan B. Plan F. Generally, I feel lost. I was hoping for some specific help as to what I can do next, concretely. My H explains away everything, so forcefully that it scares me. I haven't felt smart or strong enough to contradict him--he's highly intelligent--but I have been feeling stronger since starting counseling. This has been my first real, concrete instance where I've been able to see a complete lie and potentially catch him in it since I've started coming out of my fog through counseling.

And it's hard to believe that I am in this spot. Because the person I have always thought he was--aside from all this hazy stuff with these co-workers--he's not. And it's hard to accept that he might not love me after all, despite his declarations, if he can do all this. I've explained away his emotional distancing by blaming it on his unemotional family. He's just like his dad, who has always, from all appearances, been faithful to his mom. Just not an emotional guy. It's hard to accept that maybe he just doesn't love me, and I'm nothing more than a role: wife.

Hard to accept that maybe I don't know what being loved really feels like, and he was my first love. Wait. Maybe when we were dating it was love, and maybe during the first couple of years of our marriage. But now.... He always expresses such deep hurt if I tell him I don't think he loves me anymore, and I think he's sincere in that response. Maybe he doesn't know how to love...how to really love.

So, this woman is out of town, and the other one is gone. I was wondering if this is my opening to infuse some reality into our marriage. As I said, I don't know what to do. I'm worried that it's too late, and our marriage is dead.