Hello,

Thank god for this site. I don't know who I can talk to in my real life about this and after reading through this forum it seems like there are really knowledgable people here that may (hopefully) be able to give me some perspective.

My wife and I have been married for 4 years. We have always been faithful. She is very open and honest in general, and has admitted struggling with being attracted to other men on occasion. She has gotten too close to the OP / gone too far on two occasions. One was about a year and a half ago. She was friends with a man from work and hung out with him and others frequently. Sometimes they would go to dance clubs and dance "too close", she told me later. On one occasion he told her he wished he could kiss her. She says she laughed it off and nothing happened. She tells me that she was not attracted to him, but loved the attention. We then moved away from the city and bought a house in a smaller town (about a year ago).

Recently, she confessed she was struggling with attraction to a man she was starring in a community theatre play here. He is much older, married (ironically the play they were in featured them playing two wayward spouses cheating together...)
She was open about this from the beginning and sought counsel from her friends and admitted it to me. However, she continued frequent (multiple times a day) email contact with this man for about a week, some of them just veering slightly towards flirtatious, most friendly in tone. When I found out after a week that she was continuing to email this man whom she was struggling with attraction to, I got upset and jealous. My gut feeling is that this man is attracted to her and she knew - she liked the emotional high of getting attention.

She says that she is really happy in our marriage and happy with me. She thinks she has a big problem with needing male attention due to her own insecurities. That leads me to believe that I am not meeting her ENs, but she INSISTS that is not the case.

She is working hard to overcome her struggle, and began seeing a LMFT yesterday (with weekly sessions) to help her understand and overcome her struggle and problem.

She says she is 100% committed to the marriage and in love with me, and sees this problem as a minor deal.

However, I am struggling with some major worries about this incident as I am concerned that these are BIG warning signs of potential trouble to come. I want to go through the concepts of His Needs, Her Needs with her, because I think that (even though she may not realize it) that I must not be meeting some of her emotional needs. I have also realized that I am feeling that she is not meeting some of my needs, which I have suppressed and tried to deny for a while. I have been feeling anxious, depressed, gloomy, and trapped for the past few days. It's kind of eating me alive - I can't focus on work, etc.

But... she doesn't really want to work through marriage books, as from her perspective she is working through the problem on her own and sharing honestly everything with me.

Am I overreacting? Blowing it out of proportion? Do I need to chill out?

Or are these the warning signs of trouble that I'm feeling they are and do I need to insist that we spend some deep quality time seeing what each of us need and may be missing from our spouse?

Any advice, perspectives, or counsel would mean the world to me. I love my wife but feel right now like I am getting the short end of the stick. Maybe I'm just having too much self-pity.

Thanks,
Peter

My humble advice (as I am a recently BS in recovery) is that she needs to come to terms with where her heart lies. Yes, it is fun to have the attention of another person, but if she is truly committed to her marriage, then she needs to show that commitment with all of her actions. Affairs happen too easily.

I would suggest MC together so that you can express your concerns/fears/needs with her in a safe (non-defensive) environment.

Should you worry that it might go further? I think so. With the past experiences that you have had with her and OM, she seems prone to minor flirtations. She may not think that she would go further (and consciously, she may not even choose that), but there is a much greater chance of her having an EA or a PA when there is already an inappropriate relationship budding. Opening the door to an affair by building a relationship outside of your marriage is a risk. It's a risk that I wouldn't take, and it's one that I expect my FWH not to take either.

Good luck.

Keep posting here...maybe your W would find help here too.

Thanks Hicktownmommy! I'm looking forward to hearing even more good perspectives!

I agree with hicktownmommy. Her behavior, at the very least, is dangerous. I am sure you have already relayed your concerns to her but make sure she knows how her spending time in this manner makes you feel. If she insists on continuing the behavior despite hurting you, her priorities need alignment and MC is definitlely in order.

Best of luck.
- Sh0cked

Thank you Sh0cked.... every response I get is like water to a dehydrated man, as I have had NO ONE to talk to about this out of respect for my wife (we have all mutual friends, and the reality is that she has not done anything physical, really).

Just a comment on marriage books from someone who used to think like your WW.

She honestly thinks things are fine.. or she deluded herself into thinking that way. Insist on it. My WW tried to several years ago and I resisted, she gave up.. I don't think I would be in the mess that I am now, if I had read HNHN when she wanted to read it. (It was actually given to us by my pastor when we got married and sat unopened for 6 years in our Library before my WW's A)

Imagine how stupid I felt when I finally read it this last month. /facepalm

Now, if she came to me with a book to read... I would give it some serious thought. Be a little more persistent about reading it.. read it first yourself to show her it's not something you expect only her to do.

NRO

Thanks NotReallyOk, and my best wishes to you on your journey as well!

CH,

You are not wrong to be concerned. From what you have said, it sounds like your wife enjoys the "high" she gets from male attention. Like any drug, she will need more to get her fix. It's all too easy to become addicted to the attention despite her claims of dedication to the marriage.

The longer she plays with fire, the more likely both of you are to get burned. It's great that she's in counseling but she really needs to have no contact whatsoever with this OP.

Hi Confuzed Hubby-

Sorry you have to be here, but this is the best place to be in your circumstances. I hope you have read everything on this site, especially the Basic concepts and Most important emotional needs.

Your wife is "cake eating" as it is put here on MB. She is getting some of her EN's met by you and others by the OM that she is attracted to. If she is really serious about your M, then she would be willing to have no contact with him and work on your M.

Get a copy of "Not just friends" by Shirley Glass. It might enlighten both of you about the danger of EA's.

If I were you, I would also get a copy of His Needs, Her Needs for more about Emotional Needs and perhaps Surviving An Affair and learn everything you can about Plan A.

Hopefully some of the vets who have been in your shoes and survived will chime in here.

Hang in there-

Thank you all. W and I had a good talk tonight (by the way I should have clarified that she has cut off contact with the OM) and I shared with her many of the insights from this site... She is being very honest and is committed to working on making sure our marriage is good, but is feeling overwhelmed by what she has to do. It's late but I will update more tomorrow. This site is truly life-changing...

You have a great chance of making this a great marriage. Be VERY thrilled she's been so honest with you! And THANK her for that!

But if she's feeling overwhelmed, you can help her by setting up a plan for both of you. Get out a calendar, and pencil in some things you can do together. Print out the Love Busters questionnaires and pencil that in for tomorrow; do it, then talk about what you can do to eliminate the LBs. Pencil in a 30 minute talk for next Saturday to talk about whether things have improved, what you should change to your process, stuff like that.

Pencil in for a few weeks later to fill out the Emotional Needs questionnaire, rinse and repeat.

Also pencil in going to the library together and getting a book about FOO (family of origin) that will talk about her need to get ego strokes from other men, and pencil in reading chapters to each other.

Maybe pencil in a meeting with your pastor.

Also pencil in ways to get your marriage out of the rut you're probably in. For instance, she should not be going out to clubs, etc. with other people where there are single men, and you're not around. It's just dangerous. Find other ways for both of you to fill your time. I have a lot of great ideas on how to do that, if you're interested. But you have to work on the marriage to keep it as fun as when you were dating, so it still seems like the best choice.

If you do this together, openly and honestly without judgment, you have a great shot.

Thanks for the great ideas and positivity, Catperson!

Going out with friends to dance clubs without me (because I didn't want to go, not because I was excluded from the invite BTW) is something that ended already and was more a product of our environment (we lived in San Francisco at the time). We have since moved to a smaller, more conservative town. Neither one of us was particularly happy with that former scene/lifestyle, and are both really happy in our new area (her even more than me!)

You hit the nail on the head about FUN.

Our marriage has been really good, but we have been in a rut recently of forgetting to have fun with each other. That's the biggest thing we loved about dating one another and ironically, the biggest thing missing right now! So having fun with each other, joking, talking, laughing, etc. is the biggest thing I am working on recapturing. It's not that I didn't want to, but it kind of fell to the side over time.

We did the EN questionnaire last night - it was good to go over and clarify exactly what we needed from the other person.

All I can say is thank god I woke up from my torpor and started actively working and caring about our marriage - I am scared I will forget again or "fall asleep" at the wheel again, but will just take it one day at a time and keep my focus as much as I can.

And catperson, if you have any ideas for fun activities to do as a couple, please share! My W likes doing almost anything!

If you spend the recommended 15 hours per week one on one with your wife that Harley talks about, you are off to a good start.

What your wife doesn't recognize is that her investing so much energy into the other men and feeding her need for attention was paid for at the expense of your relationship. Read up on the Love Bank section.

For our marriage (now over) the emotional affair sucked all the life out of our relationship. My ex was on the phone for 2 hours average daily with the OW, and wrote her long accounts of the weekend to amuse and entertain her when Monday rolled around, as well as taking her on platonic dates, without me.

The "friendship" grew into a monster.

You know the dangers of neglecting your marriage. Thank heavens you caught it in time.

Don't neglect the Love Buster questionnaire. It doesn't do any good to fill Emotional Needs if you're doing something to drain the bucket.

Here's a list of things. Feel free to adapt to fit your situation:

Establish a game night – like Saturday nights – you can watch Saturday Night Live while you play Clue or something. Christopher Walken is on this week! Spice it up a little with Twister. My parents used to play solitaire all night long, keeping score and trying to be the first one to reach 500. Do it while you watch a movie. Invite friends or family or neighbors over and have a game night.

Rent a movie, and get a popcorn bucket and big candy boxes, and pretend you’re at the theater.

Rent a projector, put a sheet up on an outside wall, pull up the lawn chairs, and watch a ‘drive-in’ movie outside. If you have friends or neighbors you like, invite them over.

Establish a monthly barbecue in your neighborhood. Send out a flyer to all your neighbors and invite them to come and bring a dish.

Establish an occasional block party, meet out on the street; some places, you can block the street off so no car traffic. We used to set up activities for all the kids who come, so they’ll be busy playing hopscotch or 4-square or tag or red rover, etc., while the grownups hang around in their lawn chairs and talk.

Join a bowling league or a tennis league or...

Sign up for classes at a community college together – learn a craft, a language, a sport...

Find a group in your area that plays cards once a week or once a month and join it.

Go online and see if there are some websites for things to do in your area.

Contact your Chamber of Commerce and ask them if they have a list of activities, and ask them to mail it to you. Also get a list of the parks in your area, and make a point of visiting one new park each month. Pack a picnic basket when you go, and maybe a Frisbee or softball.

Try out one new restaurant each month; critique it. Offer the critiques to the local small newspaper.

Look up outdoor adventure activities in your area, like national parks (hiking, biking, camping, canoeing) or beaches or nature trails. There are thousands of places like that, but few are visited that much – we just don’t know about them!

Go to AAA’s website or some other, and research what to do in your area.

Take turns taking care of each other; set up a spa night. Give the other person a pedicure, manicure, scalp massage…maybe some other massages…

Set up surprise date nights that you plan and your partner doesn’t know what it will entail.

Set up a jigsaw puzzle table, and gravitate toward it each night for about 30 minutes; you can talk about the day’s events while you’re working on it.

Plan some projects on your house that you’ve always wanted to do.

Pick a volunteer activity that you can do together. That list is endless! Contact United Way and tell them what you both like to do, and they’ll help you find the right organization who’s looking for volunteers.

Sign up for activities at your church. Ours has a dinner night, where the group goes to a different family’s house for dinner each month.

Sign up for Big Brother/Big Sister and help some kids.

Start bicycling or jogging together. If you get good enough, sign up for one of the MS-150 bike rides or a marathon. You could make a trip out of it, if you pick marathons in other cities.

Find out what the local high schools and/or colleges have in the way of sports teams, and start going to games. They are SO much more fun than professional teams.

In reading all the cool suggestions, I was reminded of a couples retreat that my DH and I did several years ago (before A). It was based on a book called "The Playful Relationship" and it attempted to remind us that friends PLAY with each other all the time. It gave great suggestions for ways to add play into your marriage and good advice on adding it without it becoming a burden.

The home website is www.playfulrelationships.com but I think you can get the book through amazon too.

I think I should re-read it too.