I just found out a month ago that my husband of 25 years was having an affair with a co-worker. He has known her for over a year and would mention her from time to time as part of a large group of friends at work. I trusted that it was true and NEVER questioned it. Late last year, they started having lunch together outside of the larger group. She invited him to her house for lunch. This lead to breakfast meetings. They were calling each other and talking alot. Always during the day. Apparently, at one of the lunches at her house, she kissed him. This lead to further kissing and intimacy but not sex. He started to feel guilty and decided to come home and confess before it went any further. We have been under a lot of pressure in our house (one of our sons has been diagnosed with a chronic illness). This other woman became an ear and a shoulder for him. When she offered more, he let that door swing open. I am completely stunned. We have been together for 28 years. Our families are large and extremely close. This would be the last thing that anyone would suspect. I feel very betrayed. We were married for many years before we had the children. I left my career and dedicated myself to this family. Now, at this difficult time in our lives, he chose to find comfort with someone else rather than coming to me. I resent the fact that they were together and sharing their feelings while I was home dealing with our family responsibilities. Some people say that because there was no actual sex that it's not that bad. I'm feeling like the emotional and the limited physical connection is still quite a betrayal. I can't seem to get it out of my mind. He, of course, wants to forget about the whole thing. He completely broke it off and seems sincerely sorry and blown away by his own bad behavior. I'm having a lot of heartache and am obsessing about it all of the time.

Is there anyone with a similar story with some advice??

My story is similar. We had been married 20 years, she was a co-worker, and though they weren't physical, we both believe that it would have moved to that level if I had not discovered it when I did. We also have a son with disabilities.

I understand why you are feeling so heartbroken and betrayed. It is a perfectly natural response, and it doesn't matter what others say about "degrees of betrayal". Your pain is valid and is something that you will need time to process. We are almost 10 months out from discovery, and I still have bad days... not as many as I did early on... but they still happen.

The best advice I can give you at this point is to read the "Q&A Columns" link at the top of this page. Dr. Harley covers how affairs start, how they should end, and how to rebuild the marriage after an affair.

I am really sorry that you find yourself here. My heart goes out to you as well as my prayers.

I second the excellent advice that Exodus just gave you, but why not consider some counseling with the Harley's or one of the MB weekends. It really helped H and I to move past the extreme betrayal.

Can I ask some questions:

*How did you find out?
*Why do think this didn't go further than kissing?
*Are they still working together?
*What is willing to do/change to rebuild the marriage?
*Is this woman married and does her H know if she is?

Of course he wants to sweep this away and never talk about again. You need to be honest with him....that's just not going to happen. First, if they're still working together...the affair has not ended. Any contact is a continued risk to your marriage.

Have you gotten a copy of "Surviving an Affair" yet?....If not, it would be very helpful for both of you to understand what needs to happen.

hugs! Keep posting. Sorry for you pain.

Hello,
I have a story that is a little similar. My H had a 3 week EA with an old HS girlfriend. They corresponded by e-mail and phone pretty obsessively for three weeks before she came to our State to see him. He lied to me to obtain the time he needed to go meet her. He did not really care about her, he just wanted to see if he could get someone to "like" him--if he still had that ability. But it was a slippery slope and he finally realized at their private meeting that he did not like what he was doing. Since all his time interacting with her had been only verbally supporting her and complimenting her, he tried to view it as a "just friends" thing and brought her back to our house to make things "normal". He wrote a No Contact letter about a week later as he really did not want to continue any relationship with her--especially when it dawned on him how deceitful he had been to me.

Like you, we have a child with a disability. I felt like I was working pretty hard with a variety of family obligations and school and work related activities during the time he was obsessing over his ability to attract an OW. It was the deceit and private behavior the really got to me. Like you, no one would have ever thought that we would have problems like this.

Like BHHFS Guy told you on your other thread, your H and the OW need to establish full no contact. If they still work at the same place together, one of them needs to leave the work place. You will continue to have triggers and have a difficult time recovering if your H still has any potential contact with OW. Take some time with your H to help to renew your relationship--15 hours a week of time just for the two of you is best. He needs to figure out how he came to let down boundaries like he did and the two of you need to meet each other's emotional needs. This site can help you with that.

At least he stopped it and came to you with the truth. That is rare. Usually they are so addicted to the excitement or whatever of the relationship that they can't pull themselves out of it. What he did to your relationship stinks, but he was able to pull himself out of it and that is something special. Someone else on this site told me to look at the EA as a dark gift that could spur my H and me on to build a better relationship--better than it had been before the EA. We are still working on that. What is your H doing to help you get through this time?

Thanks so much for the response!

I'm grateful for the advice, yet saddened by the fact that there are so many who are experiencing this heartache.

The other woman is a single mom of a 2 year old. She apparently had a very bad marriage that ended in divorce, then got back with her ex, had a baby and broke up again. She is currently renting a house for her and her son. It doesn't sound like the dad is in the picture. This doesn't sound like a healthy atmosphere. Maybe she's lonely.

With that being said, I think that my spouse brought an appeal to her and she went for it. I think that as their "friendship" grew, she saw some stability in a man who has been married for 25 years and has a large devoted family and group of friends. He was feeling the pressures at home and my attention was mainly on the kids and our new family situation. My husband claims that the advancements were always made by her. Of course, he did not stop them. I think that she had little to lose and he somehow lost his mind (smile).

In answer to the question of why it didn't go any further....I think that the guilt was killing him. For about 3 weeks I thought that he was ill. He looked terrible and was acting strange. He came home and out of the blue confessed. I was stunned! I thought he was just stressed from our busy family life, not extra curricular activities!!

They still work for the same company but not in the same area. I think in order for them to see each other it has to be planned. Again, this is what makes me sick when I think about it. The fact that what started as a "group" of friends turned into a twosome (at their choice and planning).

I think about her all of the time and have an overwhelming urge to see her. NOT meet her, but SEE her. Is that strange??? I also have these waves of nausea throughout the day. I'm having trouble sleeping. I'm sort of a mess right now.

I believe that it is over and he is sincere. It's just the fact that it HAPPENED that's making me crazy. He keeps telling me that he "woke up" and realized what a huge mistake he was making and that is why he fessed up. He tells me that HE is sick when he thinks about what could have happened and that he knows what he could have lost. He keeps telling me that I am not to blame and that HE is the one who is ashamed and can't believe what he's putting me through.

All of this said..........my head is spinning.......

With so many people having the similarity of a child with disabilities, I want to ask: did any of you have any specific conversations with your spouses concerning the fact that you have a child who may not live up to the expectations, wishes, and dreams we all have for our kids? I'm not saying that to be hurtful, it's just that since there is a pattern, and I'm a student of psychology, it makes me wonder whether the 'loss' of not getting the 'perfect' child does some elemental damage to our psyches, if we don't address it.

Does that make sense? It seems to me that we have a tendency, as human beings, to wish for better for our children, and also to live vicariously through their successes (think of the stage mothers). And there's also always that subtle, unspoken desire to have the kid that everyone else admires and, indirectly, admires you, too, for having the kid with all the medals, or the straight As or the valedictorian. Knowing that your child may not achieve these stages - which has nothing to do with how much you love your child, of course - I think delivers the possibility of us reaching a certain...sadness for what was lost.

Just today, I was with my D17's best friend's mother. She was telling me that her daughter, who is one of the best vocal stars in the country (#1 in our entire state), already has several offers for full-ride scholarships, in her junior year, so they won't even have to concern themselves about money for her. It wrenched my gut as she said this, not because I wish her ill, or because my daughter is not wonderful in my eyes, or because I will have to come up with $30,000/year (well, maybe just a little, LOL), but because I would have hoped for the same special status for my daughter, and she's great and smart and wise...but she will never have such a God-given talent, and will never care so very much for some one thing that she will apply herself to that level and become a state- or country-level superstar.

Anyway, to get back to the point, do you think that a husband, who does not IMO have that natural unconditional love that a mother has (kids are always trying to prove themselves to their father, while they know their mother will lavish them with praise no matter what), may start to feel a certain...tarnish on his life because of the child's difficulties? And that this tarnish might have some weight on their tendency to be satisfied with the life they were dealt? Please know I'm in no way hinting that I think they love their child any less, just that the child's circumstances might add to a husband's dissatisfaction with his lot in life, and thus be one of the 'points' that add up to him wondering if he doesn't need something else.

What do you guys think?

Catperson,

In my case, I think our son's disabilities have played a role in our marital issues, but not in the manner you suspect. Our child has been handicapped since birth, and we have both accepted him unconditionally and grieved the loss of our original expectations. He hasn't always been the best husband, but I could not imagine any man being a better father.

The way my son's condition has primarily impacted our relationship is through alone time. I have always been the primary caregiver, and my husband had a demanding job in the military for 20 years. We didn't always have family close and finding child care was an enormous challenge. I think at some point my husband just gave up on me being his recreational companion (one of the places he spent time with the OW was at the gym). He wasn't happy that we no longer shared outside social time, but he is even more protective about who cares for our son than I am. I kind of got painted into the box of caregiver rather than companion. He never fully enjoyed time with me when we had it, because he would worry about our son the entire time we were away from the house. When I was the one at home, he knew our son was being cared for but resented that I couldn't go do things with him. It really was a no-win situation for both of us.

So, I would say it has been the time demand rather than unrealized parental expectations that have most deeply affected our marriage.

Hope that makes sense.

Yeah, it does. Very much. Maybe that is the true added issue. Interesting concept. The kind of thing that, if I were a counselor, I'd want to research further and maybe hope to incorporate it into how doctors approach families who are in their first stages of learning about the disability. You know, like in sitting down the parents and saying, 'I know things are going to be difficult, but you will have to keep this in the front of your minds - that time will be short, resources as well, and you'll both feel pulled in 20 directions. But you HAVE to find a way to remember each other - for your child's sake.' Something like that? I wonder if it would make a difference. Who else would these people be listening to? Maybe a pastor of some sort. I think it would be good knowledge all around...to know that the extra stressors may make subtle pulls on you, if you're not looking for them.

Hi there,

I agree that the stressors of dealing with illness contribute to divided energy and can put pressure on the relationship. My child has time consuming condition and has only been diagnosed a year. I thought that we were doing great as a family to pull together!

While I understand my husbands need for an ear and a shoulder, I don't understand why he chose someone else to lean on. I have the same needs, fears and lonliness that he was having but I put those aside and put my family first. I didn't look outside the marriage.

I didn't know that seeking outside support (from an opposite sex "friend") was an option, at least it wouldn't be for me. I'm bitter about that. He has ALWAYS and CLEARLY known my stance on affairs. I think that he put himself in a bad situation and should have known better. When he opened that door to possiblity, the other woman jumped at that chance.

How can I start to look past this? He wants to forget it, but my pain is too fresh. I can't get her out of my mind.

Please help!

Dear mew63,

I think you and your husband have to come to grips with several things:

1. The pain you are feeling is very real. Your husband cannot just ask you to "forget about it". This has severely impacted the honesty and trust in your relationship, something that is very important to you. Your husband has a lot of work to do to rebuild that. He needs to genuinely ask for your forgiveness, which you will eventually have to give him to move forward, but that's very different than forgetting about it. He needs to go overboard in gaining back that trust, including things like allowing you to monitor his whereabouts. If he's not willing, you have another problem.

2. This likely happened because you were ignoring your husband's needs, causing him to look outside the marriage to have those needs filled. Your marriage is just as important as your children, and you can't "sweep it under the rug" just because you have a child that needs extra attention, or for any other reason. Not even temporarily. You are going to have to change too! Your husband needs you, and if you aren't going to be there for him, he will easily be tempted again. Of course, the process works in reverse - your husband can't just sweep you under the rug either.

3. The recovery process is not simple, it is not easy, and it is going to take both of you and a whole lot of work. Both of you have to accept your responsibility, and your part of the healing. The sooner you both agree on a plan, the faster the recovery process will be.

Dear Rick2008,

Thanks for the solid advice.

I agree that I put the children first and in hindsight that was a mistake. I also have to say that he wanted it that way. He felt secure in my staying home and managing the family and enjoyed the family life that I had made for all of us. He didn't do much to keep our relationship separate. He is a wonderful father and we make a wonderful family.........somehow we lost the "us" in all of it. I think as the mom, I was focused on the "family" part and thought that maybe he would pick up on the "us" part. Wrong, I know. When you spend all of your time caring for others (husband, children, parents, etc.) you just sometimes want someone to take care of you. When that didn't happen I just assumed what I had was good enough and that I should be grateful. Wrong, again. I used to try to put things together for us, but after awhile you get tired of being the one to put forth all of the effort. Somehow, I felt a little neglected as well and at times told him so. I feel very hurt that instead of putting his efforts into getting us back on track he put his efforts into the advancements made by this other woman.

It sounds like you know a little about this. If you are willing to share, may I ask about your story??

Dear mew63,
Please understand that the above statement is not part of the marriage builders philosophy. You did not cause your H to have an affair by ignoring your husband's needs. You are both responsible for the state of your marriage. He is fully responsible for his actions with OW.

What is he doing to help you through this difficult time? Are the two of you able to spend time together without children? What do you do together during this time?

I agree with Rick AND Lake. You do have to take responsibility for your role in the state of the marriage, but your husband has to take full responsibility for his role as well as his choice to turn outside the marriage to get his needs met.

Ask you husband if he has forgotten her. If he hasn't, then it is unrealistic of him to expect you to. The fact is that neither one of you will ever forget her, but since she has been made a part of your lives, you have to figure out a way to fit her into the context of your lives.

I don't know if this will help and don't remember when I was able to do it, but at some point I stopped asking myself why my husband did this to ME. I realized that he wasn't thinking of me. It wasn't about me. It was all about him. He now wishes that he could go back and change what happened, but he can't. And neither one of us can go back and change where our marriage was at that point in time. All we can do is work toward making the marriage better and deal with issues appropriately in the future.

This is all still very new for you, and I know how hurtful the betrayal is. You will need time to work through this hurt, and he will need to help you by answering the questions you have. You both need to understand the affair AND your marriage. Understanding both will help you avoid a repeat of the situation and rebuild.

Once I had understanding and could see by his actions that he was doing everything in his power to work on the marriage, I was also able to see him as a human that made a serious mistake. I've made my share, and I certainly don't want to be defined by my bad choices. He now understands how flawed his choices were and how deeply they impacted me. I guess the point is that we both had to be willing to empathize with the other and own our individual roles in the marriage.

None of this is going to get easier over night. It is a process... and one that can feel agonizingly slow at times.

It sounds like everyone's had more than their share of heartache.

Thanks for sharing. It gives me hope.

I go two copies of the book "Not Just Friends" from the library. My husband and I both read it over the last couple of nights. I think it helped (at least a little).

The problem is, my head is on board with all of this great "healing" and "getting past it' advice, but my heart is still broken. There's also a little bit of just being plan ol' angry about it.

I think is stinks that someone else can "choose" to turn your life upside down and just walk away. Again, it's not that I don't hold my husband responsible. HE made this choice for BOTH of us......of course, at the time he didn't see it that way. But the other woman.....this stranger to me.....who is unmarried and had little to lose just walks in, takes her best shot, and when he comes to his senses she just moves on (which of course is GREAT!) But she does leave behind quite a bit of devastation!

I'm trying so hard not to be bitter.........but, at times, bitter I am!!!!!!!!

Hope all's well with you!

I understand that your head and heart aren't in the same place right now. And I really get how ticked off it makes you that other people were making choices that deeply impacted you without consulting you on the matter. Trust me, I have been where you are.

Let's see... when I felt like crying I cried. When I felt angry I would take a walk and sometimes muttered the whole way. I'm sure many of my neighbors thought I had lost my mind! I wasn't about to give the OW the satisfaction of knowing she had hurt me, so I would write her letters telling her everything I really wanted to say, then hit delete when I was done. I prayed a lot. I talked to friends. I talked to the marriage counselor. I talked to my husband. The point being there is nothing you can do to make the heartache go away other than process it.

(((mew63))))

LOL, boy do I feel old. When I was reading your 'I wrote letters...' I finished it in my head "and tore it up" - and then saw 'and hit delete,' LOL.

Exodus1414,

Thanks so much for talking to me.

I too have been praying and one thing that I was praying for is that I would find someone in a similar situation. There are so many scenarios and it's sometimes hard to sift through the information and figure it all out.

Do you mind sharing your story with me?

P.S. I've been doing a lot of walking also........fresh air helps to keep me breathing (smile). The crying?? Without a doubt I've cried more in the last few weeks than I ever thought was physically possible. Just when I think that I'm done........the next wave comes pouring out.

Heh... don't feel old. I have torn some up too in my past. At least I didn't have to waste any paper on her!

Mew, I don't mind sharing. A lot of what your husband experienced with the other woman is right in line with my husband's experience. And a lot of what you experienced is the same as me... like only hearing her name sporadically and lumped in with other co-workers.

My husband had his head turned by a co-worker who was 18 years his junior. Talking at work led to lunches, working out at the gym, helping her with things non-work related, flirting, and time on the telephone with her. I didn't see it when it was developing. I attributed his behavioral changes to something else that was going on in our lives during that time, because I had complete trust in him. Looking back, I see the signs clearly, but I was blind in the middle of it. Anyway, discovery started on a Wednesday and it all came together pretty quickly. That evening he made a joke about divorce... but something in his delivery didn't come off as funny to me. Thursday morning I was sitting at the computer and it struck me that I should search for the signs of a cheating spouse. I knew then, without ever going to Google, that something was seriously wrong that I wasn't dealing with on a conscious level. When he got home that night, we talked about my concerns, and he assured me that he wasn't having an affair but did share some things in our relationship that were bothering him. While waiting for him to get home Friday, the light bulb finally fired up. When we were discussing the day, out of the blue, I told him that I wanted him to give up *******. I wasn't sure I was right about who the OW was when I said it, but the expression that came across his face told me I was. We spent the rest of the night talking about what I was calling an affair and he was calling a friendship. He was so fogged out it was pitiful. I went online and looked at his cell phone records and printed them off for him. He was genuinely surprised by how much their phone usage had increased. I was even more surprised, because it was the first time I had ever looked at his cell bill. I didn't know it at the time, but they had plans to meet at the gym that day, so he snuck off on Saturday morning and called her from a pay phone to tell her about what was going on at our house, that he wouldn't be able to meet her, and not to call him over the weekend. Saturday night, I printed off some articles about emotional affairs, and some of the articles from here, and left them on his chair. When I woke up Sunday morning, he had read them and said that he was justifying it as okay and only a friendship, because he always thought of affairs as involving physical contact. But he also admitted that he saw a lot of himself in the articles about EAs.

He quit his job and never returned after that weekend. She tried to get information by having other people call his phone, but that stopped once she got the no-contact letter a week and half later. He has participated in marriage and individual counseling, is following MB with me, and has been open to answering my questions. My point is that he has been doing the right thing post-affair, and it has still been a very difficult and painful recovery for me.

Believe me when I say that I would give you the magic words to take away the hurt and anger if I had them. The only thing I can really say is that I understand.

Exodus1414,

This is truly amazing. Your story, the timing, the reactions (both yours and husbands)....it's amazingly similar.

Your posts have been so helpful. I want you to know that I appreciate you taking the time to share.

My husband is working hard.........I'm working hard..........We are committed to making it work.

My husband had a face to face meeting with the OW and told her things had to stop. She has not contacted him since. He has only seen her once since then and that was when she was walking through the company lunchroom. I know that because he came home and told me. He seems to be very up front about wanting me to know EVERYTHING.

I'm very happy that the OW has (apparently) taken his message seriously and has stepped back. I have to admit that sometimes that worries me......it's like waiting for something to happen. My husband believes she got the message and moved on. I think maybe in my fragile state of mind, I'm just on high alert.

It is so nice though to have another woman to talk to about it. I have not shared this with ANYONE and was feeling terribly lonely. My husband keeps encouraging me to talk to him and telling me that he is here for me (which is GREAT), but I really felt like I needed a friend looking at it from my perspective.

Thank you...Thank you...Thank you....

How long have you been married? Do you have children?

P.S. The OW is 10 years younger than us.