Hi Rlt,
ace, yeah, he did hide the stuff all the time. But not real well, and I would find it. I'm certain that to this day, there is old songs and poetry buried in boxes, slipped between books, still lying around. I'm not supposed to look, though. He's supposed to go through and clean it all up, according to counselor. I've asked on several occasions if there was more, because, yeah, at this point, I would just like to know everything, thank you. But he always says no, says I "know" everything.
Did your H say you're not supposed to look or did your counselor say (MC or IC?...not that it makes any difference) Or does it? If you and your H are going to MC together, it seems you might be able to 'seek and destroy evidence of his obsession' together.
My H and I deleted his "special" email account (with the ones he saved for me to see) together.....which really blew me away. He was totally agreeable to hiring a tech or paying to have the ones he deleted for sexual content extracted from the server. I decided against it due to cost and my deciding I had enough triggers to deal with now that he was so willing to reveal all. I hope your H is telling the truth, but it seems like your gut might be telling you otherwise. (Or he truly may have forgotten because it --or 'she'--- is not that important.)
I, like ST, have a couple of male friends. And one, it turns out, was the cause (or at least an excuse for the cause) of my H to decide it was okay to have an A. Strange, huh?
EA? I don't think so. I never professed love to him. I never had phone sex with him. Did I talk about my relationship with him? Yeah, but nothing I didn't repeatedly say to my own H.
So your H perceived that you had a friendship so it was OK for him to have an A, huh? ST or Saturn mentioned the 'spouse comfort measuring stick' to determine the appropriateness of an opposite-sex friendship. If you were continuously telling your H about your 'friendly exchanges' and he used that 'against you', I guess we'd need to include 'adequate communication skills' into the equation.
My H could have said the same thing about me, but he encouraged me to have deep, introspective heart-to-heart conversations with the guys I knew from work (consultant). That way, H did not have to talk with me (at least, that was my perception). I'd tell him about the talks and he would not even be interested....so 'whatever' became the norm for the relationship.....for 32 years! It is truly amazing that I did NOT progress deeper into an EA with any one of a number of guys. The two (actually 3) reasons I didn't will be in my new MR. Romance chapter 6.
Ace
Edited to add quote from RLT's most recent post.
