I have been dating (with plans to eventually marry) a man with addiction issues for 3 1/2 years. About 7 months ago, I found out that he had been secretly texting one of his employees. When I questioned him as to the content he LIED and said it was work related but I obtained proof it was NOT and many of the messages were sexual in content......
Further, he admitted he finds this woman sexually attractive....she is married with one child and another on the way.
I was devastated that he would behave this way(after all we have been through) and that he would, when confronted, LIE to me.He did tell her to ONLY text him for work related issues....but that doesn't help me much.
I have told him that the texting to his personal cell phone needs to TOTALLY STOP....he is balking and stating that they need to text regarding work issues..........
Out of 30 empployees she is THE ONLY ONE that texts him ...
I believe he should tell her to leave any work related messages on his work phone/voice mail....or alternatively he could get an answering service that would page him if someone has a work related issue.........
Am I being unreasonable here? This is pretty much a deal breaker for me as again, I am uncomfortable with any further personal contact with this toxic employee given the historical deceipt.
I want boundary lines that make me feel safe...and this texting behavior, to me, is way beyond my comfort zone.
Please give me your thoughts on this....
Thanks!!!

You are being very reasonable.

He is in involved emotionally with this OW (Other Woman). He is disrespecting you, and she is disrespecting her M and her H.

Your intuition that the texting must stop and that this is a dealbreaker is in total agreement with Dr. Harley (the owner of this site). The EA (Emotional Affair) must stop and the only way to do that is that there be NC (No Contact), even if it means changing jobs.

If your BF is unwilling to do that, count your blessings that you found out before you got married. It may be hard to leave him after you've been together for so long, but it would be even harder if you were legally married and had to go through a divorce, and if you had kids.

He doesn't sound like good marriage material anyway if he is still struggling with addiction issues after 3 1/2 years.

You might want to spend some time alone, rather than jumping into another relationship for awhile, to work on yourself and figure out why you have stayed with him so long (even 7 months after finding the texting).

lasd,
I agree with jayne. it will be painful now but should you marry him and have kids with him and his behaviour repeats itself then you will be in deep emotional and financial turmoil. end it now, no matter how painful , he is the type who will do it again after marriage, guaranteed.

I assume you are posting here for opinions from people who have, unfortunately, had experience with maritial infidelity.

As such, none of us can "tell you" what to do, but for what it's worth, if you were my daughter I would tell you exactly what Jayne and Genoveffa have said.

He is NOT "marriage material."

Proceed at your own risk.

HE does NOT respect marriage. THAT much is crystal clear.

He's given you a big red flag. You can either ignore it or pay attention to what your gut feeling is telling you. Question everything and the answer will come to you. How much do you value yourself? How much do you value committment? What do you want in a potential spouse and father of your children?
Good luck

G

THANK YOU so much!!!!
I really appreciate your thoughts....it's tough because I really don't have anyone to talk to about this.
Actually his addiction issues appeared to be under control.......for the past 2 1/2 years everything has been fine.......but this texting incident has really shocked and hurt me.
I really don't understand why he would do something like this...to me, to his employer and to the insitution of marriage.
Granted, I believe his employee started it, but he should have never taken the bait.
I am too old for more children so that is not a concern......but I do care about TOTAL COMMITTMEMT.
He has signed the Policy of Joint Agreement and the one for Radical Honesty about a month ago.....,and he says that he will abide by them.....but if he does not, at a minimum, stop ALL TEXTING with this woman when she gets back from maternity leave then we are done.
thank you for being so honest...and giving me your thoughts. It gives me confidence to stand up for what I know to be right.....
He and his counselor have passed this whole incident off as being no big deal...even though he texted this woman 20 - 30 times a month for over 8 months and ONLY WHEN CAUGHT did he stop.
Not only that but she was telling him how she wanted out of her marriage...another red flag....he is either totally stupid or a complete liar.
Clearly his values and mine are different........
He thinks nothing of sexual jokes with woman.......I find it totally disrespectful and offensive and told him I will not tolerate it.
but....it is getting to the point that I am tired of policing his behavior.........
He is very kind to me in many ways but without TOTAL FIDELITY ....to me....IT MEANS NOTHING. That is the most important thing to me.
Even after 7 months I am still ashamed and embarrassed at his behavior.
I have never done one questionable thing.....not one.
I will explain ONE LAST TIME my boundaries for this relationship......and if he refuses, then we are simply DONE...because as I understand it, the Policy of Joint Agreement requires us to come to agreement on ALL BEHAVIOR including his dealing with his employees...especially one which he has been CAUGHT behaving inappropriately with.
Please feel free to share any other thoughts with me.......
I can't express ENOUGH my appreciation to all of you that have taken the time to comment.

Buyer beware. What you see is what you get.
If you are clearly shown a negative character trait going into a relationship it is unreasonable for you to expect to be living with someone without that character trait later on.

He is showing you his character.
This is an "as is" situation.
Accept him with dents and all - or walk away now, wasting no time trying to get him to change.

In the words of Jill Conner-Brown "Be particular!"

Pep

clearly a mistaken hope that you can change who he is by explaining yourself better

So you guys think I should just end the relationship without giving him an oppportunity to work this out with me under the Policy of Joint Agreement wherey my comfort level must be considered and my enthusiastic agreement must be obtained?

I would like to think that we can learn from this. Specifically NOT to let people compromise your committment by disguising their behavior as harmless.. and to set proper and mututal boundaries before situations arise so that they are easily dealt with.

Has everyone here walked away from their marriage or committed relationship rather than try to resolve their issues and recover? Or do you think my siuation is just too bad for recovery?

I wanted to make certain that my feelings were valid....and you all have confirmed that indeed they are.......I had hoped to express that to my partner in such a way that he understood my needs and concerns were valid.
But maybe I need to rethink this entire matter and just walk now......that seems to be the unanimous recommendation.
Am I missing something?
Thanks!!!!

I think the advice you got is right on. IMO,he will only get worse AFTER marriage. He's not willing to stop his actions NOW. He won't be willing to AFTER you are married if he won't NOW. Oh,he may try to appease you but only counseling MAY help,IMO. Even that's not a given.
As far as your situation being too bad for recovery,addiction problems are VERY hard to break. He might quit then start over after the "I do's" He's not willing to break contact NOW. Why should he AFTER the vows are said?
You deserve better.

Thank you...I agree with what you are saying......he is certainly not going to CHANGE after marriage. My idea was to have him CHANGE before marriage......in essence I have no intention of marrying him if he will NOT break off contact of a personal nature......I thought that was a fair request and you guys have confirmed that.
I am not really sure which path he will choose.....me or the coworker but it's a choice which he must make.
He believes I am trying to 'boss' him as he feels he has put in proper boundaries......I am NOT comfortable with his boundaries and want a boundary that is mutually agreed upon.
THANK YOU AGAIN...I really appreciate the input.

You should take what we write and then decide for yourself how much effort you want to put into this and whether or not you will give him a chance to work things out. If this was an abusive situation I'd try to talk you into just trusting us and doing what we say, but in this case the decision should be yours. Take what we say and use it in your decision process.


The mere fact that it bothers you should be enough for him. Forget whether it was truly inappropriate or not (although I agree that it was); whose feelings is he concerned about more, yours or hers?

If he's really agreed to POJA, then him having a relationship with her is *not* POJA.


Again, if he agrees to POJA and if he cares about protecting your feelings and your relationship, he will stop this.


Sounds to me like a good plan.

If you are *very* committed to this relationship and want to treat it as if you are already married, and try to salvage it, you could perhaps approach it as a sort of Plan A. That would involve you stating your boundaries as described above, with the addition of you trying to eliminate all your LBs and to meet his ENs.

If you came here with the same problem only you were already married, that's what we would suggest. We would also be telling you to snoop to find out just how far this relationship has gone, and if there have been others. I might ask you to think about what ENs she may be meeting and if you can meet those. We would also be adamant about NC.

Thank you SO MUCH.
That is exactly what I had intended to do...treat this as a Plan A. I can not get NC though........this woman works for him....and although she is NOW on maternity leave, she will return in a month or so.
I know that there was NO further contact than the texting.....because of his addiction issues from the past, he agreed to take a lie detector test every 6 months(it's part of his recovery) ....so that confirmed there was no sexual contact.
As for her meeting any of his needs....honestly I meet them all.....this could only be about him needing additional ego stroking or not knowing how to say NO.....I want him to work on that...i.e. getting to the bottom of this incident.
Again...I really really REALLY appreciate you taking the time to answer me......
He is NOT abusive........he is, in fact, very kind but very wounded from his past.
I will take all of this advice into account ...I do want to give him the opportunity to show me that he cares enough about us to put my discomfort first......he is going to have to make a choice...I can not live with continued texting regardless of it being work related.
THANKS AGAIN

Given what you written here-I'd challenge that he's in real recovery. While not knowing everything, if you are dealing with the type of addiction I think you are, this could be escalation.
I also understand the situation in which lie detector tests are manditory. I have to say, I just don't get a good feeling about this. If this is, what I think it is, and the counselor blows it off, I'd be looking for a new one.

My husband is dealing with what I think are the same addiction issues. Since he's been sober and in recovery (18 months) he's made like 2 off color jokes. There has been no lying. He has been an open book. He's working very hard to restore the trust I once had for him.

Real recovery means a change of heart. His actions don't show that he has had a mind-shift change in any way. Yes he may be sober, which is what the lie detector tests prove. But they don't show that he's really recovering. It's when people describe an acoholic as a dry drunk. Sure the person is sober, but there's been no change.

In my VERY humble opinion, unless he really, truly has changed, his "past" addiction issues will be his present and future addiction issues.

If I were in your shoes, I personally would not tolerated this behavior at all. If he is sober and not recovered, there's no guarentee that he won't get in trouble again. I personally could not handle that level of uncertainty.

Also, please understand that if your SO is not recovered from his addiction, the marriage builder stuff won't work. You can plan A to death, for yourself to say you were the best partner you could be, but not in the hopes of preventing an affair or stopping addictive behavior.

Thank you....I understand what you are saying about a 'dry drunk' and to be honest that is what I fear the most. His issues were drug addiction and sexual addiction(the latter he would not admit to until I came along...he always tied it to the drug addiction).
Again.....he AGREED to submit to lie detector tests and he has been pleased with the Recovery.

I had the issues of off color jokes, and emails between office workers that were toally inappropriate as well.......he now sees those as having been inappropriate and a liability to his employer.

However...we have a real difference of opinion as to this texting incident.....I see it as part of his sexual addiction.......he doesn't. It went on for almost a year on and off.....and the fact that he willfully did something that he knew was WRONG, offensive and would hurt me is what bothers me the most.... and worse.....he deleted all the messages from his phone and....lied about the entire situation until he knew I had proof.
After this much time in a relationship, I am just really struggling to move past this...even though it has been 7 months.

His counselor initially made light of this until he answered the lie detector question about finding her sexually attractive.

So....again....maybe it is just time to move on........
granted it wasn't physical but he was certainly on a slippery slope and I think it would have become sexual....again.....he says NO WAY.

I am glad to know that it would bother others here as well.
Sometimes I feel like maybe I am just too straight....I can not even imagine behaving like that ...especially married and with children.

The other thing that really bothers me is that I refer to this coworker(actually she is his employee) as the 'Lab Tramp'..that makes him angry which to me is a bit strange. If she doesn't mean anything to him, then why would he care what I call her? She CLEARLY is a Tramp...although my SO is certainly no better by his participation.

So...again.....at the minimum, I will advise him that this is a deal breaker to me unless he cuts off all personal contact.
I dont' think that is asking too much...and you all have confirmed that.......
I have already asked for this about a month ago and he initially refused stating she needed to be able to contact him for work purposes but again...he has an office voicemail and he could also get a paging service for emergencies if need be.

If he won't find a viable alternative that I can live with, there is no way I can move past this...I haven't thus far.

Thanks again for your comments. I really appreciate you sharing your situation with me....it helps so very much.

I agree with everything you say, with one small exception or suggestion...

You might want to stop calling her names, especially in front of him. They could be right on the money, but... what's the effect? I think it may tend to push him to defend her, especially if he may feel a similar guilt. You do *not* want to encourage him to think about defending her or justifying her actions.

It would be wonderful if he would agree with you when you said something negative about her, but I don't see that happening; I think you are getting the opposite effect.

Jayne...I know you are right.....but ........WOW...that is a tough one. I have been dealing with discomfort with respect to this woman for over 3 years.........she has been FROM THE START
so so TOXIC......(1)manipulative in her attempts to influence our relationship (2)cunning in pulling my SO into personal and intimate conversations about her relationship as well as his (3) stealth in making dangerous behavior looks absolutely harmless in his eyes......
I have looked like the BAD GUY....with my concern and demands that the behaviors STOP.
So.....given what I discovered, it is just really TOUGH for me.
I will try.......best I think I can do is call her 'that person'........to actually have to call her by her name would turn my stomach I am so very sick over this entire matter.

My SO has said that removing himself from the situation(he asked to be moved to a different area where contact was minimal) he is seeing what a destructive and toxic person she is......but I still struggle with him just NOW GETTING IT and secondly, will that remain the case once she returns....i.e. is he STRONG enough and are his boundaries tight enough to keep her from again breaching them and destroying our relationship for good.
I am just not sure.....

Again...though...I will try.....to at least NOT use a name that he sees as offensive. I am usually one to call a spade a spade though....child molesters are child molesters...there is no pretty word for it.....and SLUTS......well......it fits.

Thanks for the advice.......
WE are moving in to the area of Dishonesty in our workbooks...my SO is dragging his feet but I have spent several weeks in Angry Outbursts and feel that I have a good handle on controlling those. As Dr. Harley said..there are 'reasons' but no 'excuses'.

Do you think I would be better off starting with resolving the texting issue FOR GOOD under the Policy of Joint AGreement or first moving into the Dishonesty Love Buster?] I am really not sure which is best. WE have some time on the text messaging before it really has to be addressed but since it is a Deal Breaker for me, (so is the Dishonesty though) I am just wondering which route is best.

[b]Any thoughts from any of you would be greatly appreciated.[/b]

I so appreciate you guys hanging with me through all of this. I hope that I will learn enough to help others on this board moving forward.
THANKS AGAIN!!!

I'd say, after reading your last posts, that the texting is still part of his addiction.

Is your SO seeing a sex addiction therapist? Main stream therapists aren't the way to go with this.

FWIW, one of the things my husband discovered at 18 months of recovery is that he only wanted to be with me-completely-body mind, heart. He doesn't lust after/desire/want to be with other women anymore. He turns the tv channel off if I'm triggered or uncomfortable. I've read on some sites where sex addicts won't watch anything other than PG rated movies, so they don't get triggered. IE, they avoid questionable sexual behavior, they don't engage in it.

Again, you can't POJA an addiction issue. Addiction recovery is all or nothing. You don't tell a heroin addict that shooting up on the weekends is OK, since they've cut down from daily use.

What boundaries are you setting to keep yourself safe? Like: I will not marry you until you have proven yourself trustworthy for x amount of time.

How do you know that he won't seek a real person when texting doesn't do it for him anymore? How educated are you about sex addiction? Have you gone to a COSA meeting to see what your future may look like if this isn't dealt with?

Why aren't you focusing on healing yourself? You are worried over his problems. His addictions are his alone to deal with. Your job is to decide where the line is that he is not to cross and to figure out what you will do when he does not follow boundaries. Your job is to figure out how much risk you are willing to take with this relationship.

Do you have kids together? I'd challenge why you'd want to invite the risk associated with addiction issues into your life, particularly since he may not be far along in the recovery process.

Could you do some reading at recoverynation.com or no-porn.net. Especially at no-porn.net, there are journals of women whose husbands/partners are active addicts. You need to know what you are getting yourself into right now.

Thank you...I TOTALLY AGREE...I think the texting was part of his sexual addiction....he refuses to see it that way.

He is indeed seeing a therapist that handles sexual addictions......and he has been in Recovery for almost 2 years now......except.......for this texting issue.

We have no children together...I have a grown son. As for protecting myself.....that's exactly what the lie detector test does...protect me. He voluntarily takes it every 6 months to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he is NOT sexually acting out and/or viewing pornography.

My boundary was that I would not even consider marriage until he had 3 years of addiction sobriety under his belt.......I am really trying to figure out whether this texting sets us back to '0'.

I am not trying to heal his addictions, but I did decide to take the risk of building a relationship with a man in Recovery which is, as you well know, a process. Dishonesty goes hand in hand with addicts and it has been a long road to building his relationship skills....but he has been trying and doing a pretty good job of it for the most part.

I think my SO's ability to work the Policy of Joint AGreement over this texting issue will determine whether his addiction is 'in check' or not. If it is not....in essence, if he won't agree to an alternative method of communication with this employee that makes me feel SAFE, then we are simply DONE.

That is why I am thinking it would be best to FIRST renegotiate what method he is going to use to communicate with this employee when she returns from pregnancy leave. There seems to be no reason to discuss the Love Busters(Dishonesty and Independent Behavior being the top two) until we come to some sort of agreement about this texting issue.
Would you agree???

Thanks again for your comments.
I am going to revisit those sites you mention..it's been awhile since I have looked at them.

OP -

Reading your thread brought back some of the same feelings I had when my ex BF was excessivly texting several different women. No matter how hard I tried to talk to him and explain how it made me feel, he did not stop. He said he did but kept up the texting and continually lied about it. I finally had to walk away even though other aspects of our relationship were good. I just could not take the EA's with these women or him telling me I was "creating drama" and "making a big deal out of it." The excuses were endless.

My only suggestion to you is to set clear boundries and if necessary, walk away. You can't live your life wondering "why" all the time. Trust is an important piece of a relationship. I could not trust my exBF, so I left in order to save myself.

Good luck to you.