LG on the money again.

You need to dance for him and him for you. If you have the ability to dance then you should be able to do any style.

Spouses go to see movies the other spouse likes,
spouses go to see restuarants the other spouse likes,
then they can dance the dances their spouse likes.

Or spouses can let an OP come between them.

He is spending 15 hours of recreational companionship a week with her.

He says he feels sorry for her.

He says he does not want you to join his club because it would hinder him from dancing with other women

He actually usually dances with her most dances.

He is making repairs on her house for her.

He has a coffee with her before they go out together.

You say you think he is having an emotional affair with her but not an "actual affair".

An emotional affair IS an actual affaiar.

Spouses in an affair frequently "affair down", they frequently start out by "feeling sorry" for the affair partner.

An EA either stops or frequently leads to a PA.

You need to get serious and join his dancing club if you want your marriage to continue.

I do not understand how you can read this site and not realize this.

Thank you for the advice that I go to his club. However....

He doesn't want me there. That I'm certain of.
He'd drive her there and I'd have to drive myself.
They'd go in together and I'd go in alone.
They'd know everyone and I'd know no-one.
The only people who would know me would be him and his passenger.
There's a good chance that he'd be so angry at seeing me there that he'd totally ignore me, and to please him, so would she so I'd be totally on my own.

I suspect he would hate me going to his club so much that it would drive him even closer to his passenger.

The message I've got is that he wants his freedom. He wants to be able to go out with his passenger and dance with whomever he pleases.

I'm a real mess tonight. I've accepted that he's having an emotional affair and that hasn't lead to a physical affair but may well in the near future.

Today, I worked a full day. I got home. I'd been home less than an hour when he said he'd taken my webcam to use because he'd given Her his webcam and brought hers back here to see if he could get it going. He didn't bother to put my webcam back because he said he's going to be using it tomorrow.

I'd barely sat down when he asked me to help install a driver for her webcam. I was about to do so when I realised what I was doing as in "Just a minute, I've just walked in and you're asking me to do something for her? What about what I had planned for myself?"

Words were spoken. The scene wasn't nice. If I'd had somewhere to go to, I would have left tonight, that's how fed up I am with everything, particularly as I'm the black lady who's seen as complaining whereas she gets sweet, dulcet tones on the phone because she's grateful to him because thanks to him, she gets repairs done, she gets taken out, she has a dance partner and she has company.

I've read and read and read on this website. I just don't understand what exactly I do now. He's made it clear that he won't be giving up his passenger. So what do I do?

Hi Robyn


I am quite new here, but thought I'd offer my story because it might just help.

I started to reply before your latest post, so I will continue but some now seems irrelevant. I am so pleased that you have now admitted to yourself that it is an A.

I sort of see your point. To help my recovery I wanted to go to Volleyball with my H (I'm FWW).

I have played before, but he said he'd rather I didn't go because he feels that he would need to coach me which would neglect his own game. I do take MBs very seriously but I think maybe it is worth a discussion - different thread on whether spouses can enjoy activities without each other. Volleyball clearly helps with Hs depression and we do have other joint hobbies that we are trying to make more of. I'm sure I read that you do already do other stuff together.


Would your H read the sections on dealing/avoiding infidelity if you printed it out for him? He may not really know himself what is going on. I'm sure I've said before - both me and my H didn't properly confront the A for a long time although we both really knew deep down. H defended me and my hobby when other friends showed concern. It wasn't until I read MB that I realised that I was actually doing the whole A thing.

What worked for us was that H just kept being consistent - he kept being there for me and loving me and insisted he was sticking around. ( This was before it was properly out in the open). Then when I found MB and realised I also realised that my lovebank had been being steadily filled by H and once I allowed to think of him instead of myself, I was horrified that I'd spent so much time with my "hobby" and OM. I'm only 50 days dday but can see how clearly how wrong it was. I'm not sure I would have done had I not stumled across MBs.

It sounds that there is a lot of good in your M and I'm sure that he will come to his senses. If you want to keep your M going then I wish you lots of light and courage and patience.

ST

Take ACTION! Put a keylogger on his computer. Voice recorder in his car. Heck, they even make a small video recorder you can put in his car...

Something smells rotten here...and deep down inside you know what it is!

Find out more info about this affair. Then EXPOSE to everyone who has contact. His parents, your parents, siblings, etc.

Plan A him. Read up more on this site about it.

[I'm stalling and waiting for Melody to chime in on this thread...Mel, you out there! Robyn needs your help!!]

Bump...

Robyn needs us. Pick up the flag and CHARGE!

Baloney he won't take you. You get in the car and force the issue. Tell him if he goes there without you he won't want the scene that will follow there.

You do not have to have more evidence. You have enough to expose WH to his parents and siblings. Expose today.

You are fooling yourself.

Men are motivated by vagina, and your husband seems awfully motivated to me.

He ain't that nice on his own.

For the love of God...Has no one read her other threads? Gaslighting galore and BS fog everywhere.

Robyn wrote:

1- "He insists that he just feels sorry for her and that's why he's been to her house during the day when I'm at work to do repairs for her."

2- "We went out. I suggested I join him in his favourite activity. "NO !!!!!" was his reply. Then, and at other times, he's made it abundantly clear that he doesn't want me to share this activity."

3- "His club meets weekly. It started with him "just giving her a lift". She lives not far away and it's quite a distance to their club, she says she can't drive at night so he used to pick her up, run her there and run her back again to and from the weekly events.

She used to wait for him at her letterbox. Now he drives up her drive, knocks on her door and before they set out, he says he has a coffee with her.

6 months since this started, he now picks her up and spends most of his time at the weekly club meetings with her. He also runs her to the monthly event and last month, she went with him to an annual event held in another province.

They're together for 5 hours a week at their club meeting, 13 hours a week when the monthly event is on and when the annual event was held, they were together for 17 hours that week."


4- "She knows about me. I've been to her house. When they were both there, he had his arms crossed over his chest and she didn't reply to what I said without glancing at him first to see if it was alright to reply. I couldn't pick up from her body language whether they were on intimate terms or not. His body language said that he looked down on her and pitied her.
What to make of this I don't know."

5- "I've heard that the people at his club see him and his companion as a potential couple. Her sister even suggested they get married. I was told it was a joke. (Many a true word is spoken in jest). He said they all know about me but when one of them called up, he was surprised that I answered the phone. I suspect the people at his club don't know that I exist or if they do, they don't know I'm still here."



This is not about dancing.

Robyn, if your H isn't already in a full-blown A, then it is only a matter of (very short) time before it is.

This is how affairs begin...a common interest, and spending time together. This is how my H's affair began.

IBs are not only a lovebuster to the BS, but they are also a good way to kill romantic love and build up walls in a M. I know because this is how our M got to a place where an A was POSSIBLE...my boundaries were weak and I allowed WAY TOO MANY IBs. And I sure payed for it.

You are going to have to learn about boundaries and start using them if you want to see any changes. Either that or straight to Plan B.

But Plan B still requires an understanding and implementation of boundaries.

HUGE. RED. FLAG.

Another HUGE. RED. FLAG.

OW are absolutely PROs at playing the "damsel in distress" card, and many WH's just eat up the "I-can-be-her-"Knight-in-Shining-Armour" card.

All he had to do was show her a little bit of concern for how "hard" her life is and WHAM...he's just filled her lovebank. And then she started filling his...she is probably heaping on the admiration (most of it fake) because she is an admiration whore and you have...A DISASTEROUS AFFAIR.

Take it from me, I know because I have lived through this nightmare. It's all straight from the A Script, this is so textbook it's not even funny.

You should assume that you're dealing with a full-blown affair, which means that you should go to Plan A immediately. If you can get proof of physical activity (private investigator?), that will help you EXPOSE the affair to the world. Then you weather that storm and set about meeting his emotional needs as best you can.

Plan A.

I'm very sorry, Robyn. The people here can help you, though. It's a lot to take in, but try to listen to them.

This is very good advice. Start snooping and hire a PI if you need to.

I have a feeling you aren't going to believe us until you have indisputable facts that this is a full-blown A.

The reality of the whole situation has hit, big time.
I'm in a state of total shock.

She IS the damsel in distress. Her life, he says, IS ever so hard. She NEEDS his help, he said. And if, at some stage in the future, her car needs work, he'll do that too, he said yesterday. I'll be dropping mine in at the garage on Monday.

Meanwhile, she has his webcam, he took mine without asking and he's trying to get hers to work here.

For what it's worth:
Friday = r'n'r visitor staying
Saturday = he and visitor went out
Sunday = he dropped visitor off elsewhere then played with HER webcam
Monday evening = still playing with her webcam
Tuesday evening = chided me for turning off my computer in case she was trying to use his webcam at her place and got "flustered" or "upset"
Wednesday night = out with her to the weekly dance
Thursday evening = blasted me because I wouldn't help him get her webcam going. Took my webcam without asking.
Friday day = down to her place to alter webcam set up. How long was her there? Don't know. I was at work.
Friday evening (now) = entertaining visitor who will depart for the UK on Sunday

His A has made me realise just how I've been treated for much longer than he's known his - she's no longer a passenger or companion or dance partner, she's his OW. There's been precious little respect in this "relationship" and I'm just beginning to see how weak my boundaries have been, not only about him and the other woman but in many other respects as well.

He doesn't respect me. No wonder he's convinced himself that everything he's done is perfectly fine. I'm not taking the blame for his A but I have realised I've been a pathetic pushover who never really stood up to him and set definite boundaries which is why he's walked all over me and now here I am.

Thank you to everyone who's commented on my threads. I really appreciate your thoughts and words.

Look, you can go about this one of two ways:

~Expose this EA; it IS an A, but the only "proof" that you have is that it's an EA, and he probably won't even admit to that. You can expose anyways, but it's harder when there isn't solid "proof". It also may be harder to get him to admit that it has gotten physical.

~you can hire a PI or do some serious snooping until you have solid proof of this A and that it has gotten physical. This is the route I suggest because it's going to be easier to get support when you have solid PROOF.

Let's start here, after you decide which way you wanna go with this.

You need to move quickly though, I bet your H is starting to get nervous and they may just take it further underground, making it harder for you to "prove" this.

I'm very sorry this is happening to you...we've all been there and you will get a lot of support and direction from this site.

So far, snooping has revealed nothing. There has been communication but only matter-of-fact, the kind you'd have with someone at work.

Does a voice activated tape recorder work above the sound of a car engine?

Yes, shouldn't be a problem. Look for the "spying 101" thread here on these forums. Head down to Radio Shack. Google search. They are out there.