Heres my situation. I've been HAPPILY (very happily) married for almost 16 years. recently my husband tells me that an ex contacted him on facebook and he has strong feelings for her. He loves me and is in love with me however he does not want to end this "friendship" with this other women. There has been no sex with her and he insists he will not be with her even if we seperate but I can't handle having this other women hanging around waiting for him. She has told her husband about him and he has since thrown her out. She calls my husband and texts him almost daily and is filling his head full of nonsense. Please help me. Do I allow this "friendship" to play itself out? Or do I end my very happy marriage. I love my husband with everything I have and I don't want to loose him. What should I do?

Expose his adultery to his family, your family, friends, your pastor, the garbageman and the paperboy!!

Have you read any of the articles here?

Read up on exposure and get your phone ready!

How do you know this? If your WH told you, waywards lie all the time.

Start reading everything here. Get in gear to do a massive exposure. FB is a GREAT tool for exposure.

Oh, and welcome to MB!

Sue --

Your husband has likely only revealed the very smallest tip of the iceberg. He will never admit to what you can't prove. If you can only prove phone calls, then he will only admit to phone calls.

Its really unlikely that the other womans husband actually threw her out over a few phone calls. You really need to compare notes with him. He might have more information than you do.

You also need to snoop. Have you put a keylogger on your computer so that you know EXACTLY the content of their communications? How about a voice activated recorder in his car?
Where does he talk to her the most?

You need to prepare for battle -- so find out all you can about your enemy!

What makes you think it's a happy M? You? Does a happy Spouse cheat? You need to look at that word, maybe you are/were happy and he has been unhappy and the OW is meeting EN that were not being met.

Get all the proof you can get your hands on, print outs, texts, phone conver. call times, then expose him to everyone. Find out what his EN, the vets are here to help you with this.

Your husband is having a full fledged affair with this woman and she is probably trying to get him to leave you. He is lying about a "friendship." If you don't stop it, this is going to get worse. But, you will need to be strategic about this and control your emotions if you hope to put a stop to this. Can you control your emotions enough to let us walk you through this?

Does she live close by? Have they seen each other?

He told me about his feelings for her before "it crossed the line". He's been honest with me about everything since the moment of truth. This I know. He has seen her twice but she lives 4 hrs. away and he cant be with her no matter what. We have 2 children he won't leave. I know we've had a happy marriage because we're best friends and he's told me so. I don't know if I can control my emotions to be honest. I'm on an emotional rollercoaster that I can't get off. he's confused and so am I. He doesn't understand how he can love me and have feelings for her and neither do I. He's not a horrible man. He's a good man and all of this is totally totally out of character for him, hence my hesitation to just end our marriage.

As much as you would like to believe your WH is telling the truth you can't believe anything he's telling you. He's in an active A. You need to find out the truth and proof yourself. You will not regret this decision. You don't have to end your M over this but you can try to follow a proven plan to save your M. Read the articles here and do what Mel tells you to do.

Gg

Sue, my WW was my "best friend" right up until the day she told me she wanted to leave the marriage. I think you should pay careful attention to what people like MelodyLane are telling you -- these are the veterans who have seen this battle over and over.

Right now, your emotional rollercoaster is clouding your own mind. You can't think straight. Do yourself a favor and let the pros here do the thinking for you. It's not too late -- you've arrived here with time to get the program working and save your marriage. But you can't delay, be indecisive or question what they tell you.

I am dead serious about this. There is so much information on this site that is absolutely free! There are also some terrific books you can buy, either here or at your local book store. But start reading RIGHT NOW. Start with the "Most Popular Links" to the right on your screen... -->

Get going!

Sue, your H is not being honest with you about this relationship. It is an affair. If it wasn't an affair, he would end it now and not look back. Can you imagine your H causing this much pain to his wife over some coworker named Fred? Of course he wouldn't hesitate to dump Fred.

Do you want some help saving your marriage? We can help you, but it is important you are able to put aside your emotions and follow a strategic plan. Many of us here have saved our marriages.

The solution to the problem is to kill your H's affair. Are you up for this? Can you follow this plan?

Sue - my wife was heavy into an emotional affair (EA) via Facebook. She behaved like another person. She lied and did lots of other things that no one ever thought she was capable of. Your husband will do the same. Your first step in stopping the EA is to get rid of Facebook.

Follow the advice of the previous posters. Read everything you can on this site, and get and read the book Surviving and Affair.

I found the people on this board, especially the 'vets' like MelodyLane to be wonderful, caring, and very bright people who will be brutally honest when they need to be. Listen to them - they will help.

You're not alone. Thousand of spouses face theses issues every day. Come here for support and help. God bless.

Mel is right. Your husband is in an affair as evidenced by the fact that he gave something that was precious to you to another woman: his love. He should only love one person.

I know what you are thinking. He is a good man and this is not like him. You are bewildered that this could ever happen to you because you were not an unhappy couple. The reason I know this is because I was in your shoes almost exactly one year ago. My husband and I had a happy marriage, great kids, good friends. Unfortunately, because our marriage had always been good we didn't work at it. His unmet emotional need for admiration and the opportunity to do something good by helping a damsel in distress led him into an emotional affair that developed into an physical affair.

I won't speculate on whether or not your husband had a physical affair, but he definitely is still in an emotional affair, and all emotional affairs if left unchecked develop into physical affairs. STOP IT NOW!

The only way to stop an affair once started is exposure: you determine key people to tell that will make your husband accountable and it will stop. My husband stopped because his OW's H hired a PI and she got exposed which exposed my husband to a choice: tell me or have someone else tell me. He then contacted other men who could help him stay accountable, we went to counseling with someone who follows MB principles, he sent a no contact letter (very important!) to the OW, and he became tranparent with his internet, cell phone, etc. This is what your husband must do to allow your marriage to survive.

There is hope. My DH and I are stronger and more in love now than before the affair started. I look forward to seeing your story unfold.

Lastly, read Surviving An Affair, together or separately.

I'll be praying for you and your husband.

Please tell me what purpose this post serves this newly betrayed wife? So it's her fault her husband cheated?

Stay with us Sue - give us an update

Sue,
Answer is, No, no, and heck no, you don't just allow this to 'play itself out.' Because if you do, you won't like how it ends. You need to treat it as an affair, because that's exactly what it is. You need to take strong action, and you need to act NOW. Your husband needs to cut off all contact permanently & implement Extraordinary Precautions" (look 'em up on this site.) There is absolutely no justification for him to continue to accept her texts/calls/e-mails, anything. As long as he's indulging this, then he's still in the affair. He needs to change his numbers, give you his passwords -- in a word, he needs to become transparent.

Take it from me: For 16+ years of marriage, I was also a "good man." Until I wasn't. I got myself into an emotional affair and, messed-up as I was, I also felt bewildered at having feelings for another woman in addition to feeling sure that I still loved my wife. Although my wife had had some minor suspicions or unease, there was nothing that was a dead giveaway (because in the space of a few weeks, I'd gone from being that good man to being a smooth liar & deceiver). And so when she voiced these apprehensions one evening (mind you, this was when my affair was still only emotional), I reassured my wife that nothing untoward was going on, and she believed me -- because, after all, I'd always been a 'good man' to her! And within a few more weeks, out-of-character as it was for me, I found myself paying cash for a hotel room for the first time in my life -- that's what my wife got in exchange for trusting my character! I took our marriage to the brink of destruction. Looking back, although I know & accept that my affair was entirely my own fault, both she & I wish that she'd put her foot down harder back when she first sensed that there was a risk to our marriage.

You've got more than suspicions, you've got his own admission. So my advice to you is to put your foot down firmly, and NOW. If he then agrees to end it & do a no-contact (read about "No Contact" on this site), then that'll be progress; but if he continues to resist this crucial step, then my friend, you'll still have an active affair on your hands, and you'll need to use serious exposure tactics to up your chances of ending it.

Get the book Surviving an Affair asap. You should read it. Your husband should read it. Don't count on your H's character or history of being a "good man" to make this problem fade away. And don't count on distance to suffocate this affair (What, she's 4 hours away? With a heavy foot on the gas pedal, that's only 90 minutes to a hotel halfway between him & her.) It sounds like your husband has some signs of remorse, and so it sounds like you might have a decent chance to save your marriage; but you've got to act resolutely. He may not accept the idea that he's in an affair. And if he's addicted to the rush of feeling wanted/needed by her, then he may not appreciate the importance of ending all contact, and he will suffer serious withdrawal symptoms. You can fight those by working together on assessing & meeting one another's emotional needs (again, read about "Emotional Needs" on this site) -- you can make your marriage better than before, so it won't be as vulnerable to this kind of thing -- but first you just absolutely HAVE to make sure to pound a stake through the heart of the affair in order for this to work. And if your husband isn't willing to help hold the hammer with you, figuratively speaking, then you've got to get fierce and swing the hammer yourself, as if your marriage depends on it. (Which it may.)

GloveOil is absolutely correct - it's an addiction. Once I saw my wife's EA that way, it became easier for me to understand what was happening and how to handle it. Addicts will do anythingto get their fix. My wife, who was always a 'good woman', started lying and deceiving me and our kids so that she could somehow be in contact with OM. She was as sneaky as a 13 year old. But, because I knew it was an addiction, I was able to treat her more harshly and do what had to be done to stop the EA. I didn't care if she got mad and hated me because it wasn't really her!

The key is stopping the affair. Nothing can happen until then. Do whatever you need to do, but please start with exposure. I'm convinced that if I hadn't exposed my WW (especially to my family), she would never have stopped.

Stay with us - there are some wonderful people here to help you with advice and support.