Things have been different with my husband lately. We've been married 4 1/2 years and have 2 children together.

We visited my home town about a month ago. Him and one of my dearest friends seemed to become a bit too close. I've always had that "feeling" about those two.

Last week, after asking him a million times what was going on- he admitted he wasn't in love with me anymore. I was broken. Still am.

Speed up until today. I went through his email (yes, I know) and saw that they are constantly emailing each other song lyrics or "hearts". There's something going on.

I asked him and he admitted they've been talking a lot lately and they have "a LOT in common". He claims it has nothing to do with how he's been feeling about me lately. Bull.

She DOES live in another state- but that's never stopped anyone before.

I wrote her and cut off her friendship. I told him I was willing to work things out IF he stopped talking to her. "She's my friend. You're controlling. You can't tell me what to do." is his typical response.

Please tell me what to do. I'm so devastated by this entire situation and way too numb to think clearly.

Thank you in advance.

Hi Racho-

It sounds like your DH is in an emotional affair (EA) at the last. The "I love you but I'm not in love with you" (ILYBINILWY) phrase is a standard statement that all waywards say when they are involved in an A-emotional or otherwise.

Please email one of the moderators and have this post moved to "Surviving an Affair". There is a lot more traffic there, and many of the vets can advise you on what to do at this point.

Week-ends can be a bit slow, so don't worry if you don't get a lot of responses-especially since this is a 3-day week-end in the US.

Also, read everything on the links on the side. Get familiar with Dr. Harley's basic concepts.

Hang in there!

Hi Racho! Nice to see you over here in SAA.

Racho, I would plan on separating very soon if he won't end his affair. I would go to him first and demand that he end all contact with her or this will lead to divorce.

In the meantime, you will need to very calmly and strategically expose this affair everywhere. With no forewarning at all. But first,..........get the evidence!

Can you get solid evidence of the affair first? Do you have evidence? Can you download and install a keylogger and get the good? A good one is eblaster but it costs about a $100. Can you afford that?

www.desktopshark.com is a great logger and really inexpensive. You don't even have to be on that computer to check it and it will email photo shots to an email address or texts to your cell. It hides really well in a stealth mode. I love it!!!

Racho, did you print out those emails? If not, can you get back into his email and print them out as proof?

Racho,
You have no reason to feel "yes, I know" about going through his e-mail. You are totally justified. Your husband is in an emotional affair, no doubt, 100% certain, bet-my-life-on-it. You are thinking more clearly than you give yourself credit for.

I KNOW. I got into an emotional affair with someone, and it turned into a physical affair. Yes, we e-mailed song lyrics, and later on, hearts. (In fact, the woman I got into the affair with, she'd also been in a long-distance emotional affair -- e-mails, etc. -- with an ex of hers who wasn't her husband, and that also turned into a physical affair when business travel gave them an opportunity to get together. So you're correct & thinking clearly: physical distance is no impediment & provides no safety for your marriage in the face of an active affair.) An emotional affair is no less dangerous than a physical affair. It's how almost all physical affairs start.

You need to strangle this affair in its crib. Your husband is having emotional needs met by this other woman, and since it's a pick-&-choose relationship -- they can share all of the feel-good communication, with none of the real-life responsibilities -- you are hard-pressed to compete, in his affair-addled mind. So yes, it's absolutely affecting how he feels about you. Again, you are thinking clearly.

So your first step has to be to kill the affair. The best way to do this is to expose it to everyone who can help discourage this affair: Most importantly (if she is also married) her husband; her parents & friends; your & his parents; anyone else whose respect/approval he values. Don't tell him in advance that you're about to do this. You need the shock-value. And you need to get to the other people before he can muddy the waters with some sort of story about how you're crazy, etc. Get & save copies of those e-mails if you can. Check phone records. Keep this evidence in a safe hiding place.

It's possible to restore love in a marriage. You're not out of hope. But it can't work while there's an active affair in progress.

Lots of betrayed spouses shrink from the step of exposure. They fear that it will just make their wayward spouse angry & drive him off. That would be wrong thinking. The wayward spouse is already lost & an alien, mentally-speaking, and will be until the affair is killed & until he is through his feelings of withdrawal from the infatuation of the fantasy-relationship. But exposure is the best way to end an affair. Exposure is what forced me make a choice to end my affair & save my marriage.

Get the book "Surviving An Affair" asap. It is a book that likely helped save my marriage. Ask your husband to read it with you, but read it yourself, even if he does not.

Sorry you are here, but stick around, there'll be people along who can help you through this.

The previous posts are very, very good advice. I am the victim of an EA - they are extremely destructive. Destroy the relationship ASAP. Get proof and expose. I will add more when I'm at a PC and not on my BB. Stay on this site. People here can help you.

Linus

Racho, pay particular attention to this from Glove Oil. It is scary to expose the affair. He will be angry. Furious, even.

However, I've yet to hear of a wayward who didn't get over this temporary anger. Many later THANK their BS's for exposing (their stories are here).

See, the thing is, he is lost to you already. The longer his affair goes on, unimpeded, the deeper into it he will get. You have nothing to lose that you haven't lost already.

Your marriage can survive his anger. It cannot survive an ongoing affair. Doesn't this just make sense?

Important to add that you are NOT exposing the affair to PUNISH him. It is NOT a vindictive act (unless you make it that). You are exposing it to people who care about you, him and your marriage and family...to PROTECT that marriage and family. You're not "ratting him out." Rather, you are appealing to family/friends to HELP YOU SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE. You calmly and rationally tell them: "I love my H. He is having an affair, and it's killing me and our marriage. Do you have any advice to help me save us?"

You want to appeal to their sense of rightness, and to their caring for the well-being of your marriage.

Thank you all so much for your replies. It's so amazing knowing that there is so much support out there.

As for my husband and I; we've been getting along well lately. He still denies anything ever happening emotionally with her.

... then this morning I went back into his email to see what he was up to and saw that he wrote her AGAIN. It was a song, and he said "listen". She hasn't replied.

I DID write her mother and brother over Facebook a few days ago. No reply from either of them. I'm thinking about calling my mother-in-law in a few days.

I'm just so sick and tired of it all.

You need to expose this affair. It is a MUST. He will NOT admit it - because he's cheating, and cheaters LIE. Don't listen to his words, look at his actions.

You gotta be strategic about this. Don't expose in little bits. Do it ALL AT ONCE. Get a list together of EVERYONE. Friends, family, OWs friends and family. Get your proof together. PLAN this out. Your best bet it to do it all at once and go NUCLEAR!

Go read Humbled's thread he did an almost picture perfect exposure.

So for right now - ignore your husband, and prepare your exposure. Work on your Plan A - which is about you demonstrating you can be a good wife.

Racho, maybe see if you can get & make copies of these "songs & hearts" e-mails, and strategically include some of the juiciest ones with your exposure bulletin. Let others judge for themselves what's going on & whether it crosses lines.

*Update*

I bought him a card last night and wrote in it that I wanted today to be the new start to our marriage. No more infidelity, no more harsh words or actions, etc. I gave it to him before work (he works graveyard) and told him to text me once he had a chance to read it. He told me he agreed.

He came home this morning and said he talked to her on the phone and they both agreed not to talk for a while. I highly doubt that's what was said, but whatever.

I told him (again) that he needed to delete her from his Facebook. He wouldn't do it. I told him it was hurting us. He disagreed. FINALLY after 20 minutes, he (of course defensively) said "Fine! Since I know you'll do it anyway." So, I went onto both of our Facebooks and deleted her.

I still do NOT trust him or anything he's saying. He's still "stuck".

I wrote his mother this morning to start exposing everything. Here's what it said:

"Hey mama2,

SO... an update from the marriage of your son and his wife.

We've been going through problems lately. He said he isn't "in love" anymore. Up until last week (when he said it), hadn't been fighting at all and pretty much had the perfect marriage... or so I thought.

I know it was wrong, but I went through his email and discovered he has been talking to my friend of 7 years, (friend). They would send music and lyrics to each other, "hearts", and "I miss you"'s. If nothing were going on, they wouldn't have had a problem doing it publicly.

I confronted him, and he denied even talking to her. I brought up the emails to his face and he tried to play it off like it was nothing.

I contacted her last week and ended our friendship.


After days of trying to get him to stick with me throughout all of this, he agreed not to talk to her anymore. He would NOT budge on deleting her on Facebook. I told him it was hurting our marriage, and every form of contact needed to stop. He finally agreed. Then went on to tell me that they talked on the phone this morning and (according to him) they agreed it was getting too far and they needed to stop talking "for a while at least". Why he can't just stop talking to her forever is beyond me.

I'm calling up the insurance people tomorrow to get a marriage counselor. I WANT this marriage. He is everything to me. I started to study more and look into college classes online to get things together just in case he decides he doesn't want this anymore.

I understand he's probably going through a "quarter life" crisis, but infidelity is never okay. Work and family life IS stressful, and he's been doing an incredible job supporting our family. I tell him this every day. I've always been there to support him with what ever he's going through. I always will be.

You might be wondering why I'm telling you all of this, haha. I've been getting a lot of support from online marriage programs- and I guess letting everyone in the family know is KEY to the process. They talk about emotional affairs as an "addiction". Basically, he can't put the bottle down- and I need to go through the house and empty them all out down the drain. (By the way- he is still doing really well with the drinking thing. Yay!) It tells us to "expose" the affair to everyone we know.

Not trying to stress you out at all, just trying to give you an update. Hopefully months from now it won't consist of anything bad.

I love you and I hope you're doing okay. Keep me updated on school! I'd love to hear. Tell your boyfriend and everyone else that we say hi and we love them. The pictures from your vacation were so beautiful. 100% jealous.

The kids are still thriving and amazing. (Son) looks more and more like you and (husband) every day. <3"

*Bump*

Help.

Racho - the EA is still going on. There is no doubt. Have you read about Plan A? You need to follow this.

You also need to expose. What kind of reaction did you get from his Mom?

My wife had an EA and we are still recovering almost a year later. The critical piece is for you to put a stop to it. This means NO CONTACT of any kind. Establish your boundaries. Let WH know that it won't be tolerated. Demand some respect!

EAs are EXTREMELY ADDICTING! Your WH will lie to you. He and the sleazeball ex-friend of yours will do anything to stay in contact and keep the fantasy alive. It's your job to kill it ASAP.

Good luck and keep posting - you will be helped.

Racho, is OW married? Have you exposed to her side of the affair yet? Remember exposure works BEST if you do it all at one sitting if possible. You're not doing it for vengence, but to kill the affair, which is necessary to even think about beginning to recover your marriage. Your WH will be very angry when you do this. That's okay and it's the way they ALL react. Just remember, your marriage can survive his anger, it CANNOT survive an on-going affair.

What materials have you read? Have you ordered "Surviving an Affair"? That book is a must-have and is like the Bible around here for how to do things right.

Oh, and you checking his email? There is NOTHING wrong with that. There should BE no secrets between husband and wife.

No, she is not married. She's single, and has every quality a lot of men want. Typical.

I have written to her mother and brother. No response yet. I've also contacted a few of our mutual friends. As far as my husband, I've written to his mother, aunt, and some of our mutual friends.

After I deleted and blocked her from our Facebooks, my husband took it upon himself to delete his own Facebook. I asked him why, and he said it was unnecessary to have one.

... okay?

She tried to text me last night. Random words. I continued to tell her to stop contacting me. She tried saying "Until you're ready to tell me why you're upset..." ... Then she asked me to leave her family out of it; that they were good people. I responded with "Yes, and you're nothing like them. They aren't home wreckers." So I basically said "You know what you did. Do NOT contact my husband or I anymore." I haven't heard anything since. My husband says she hasn't tried to contact him, but I highly doubt that.

He still finds a problem with me going into his email. Unfortunately, he's getting better at hiding things. (Deleting, etc...)

He has a lock on his phone and it's with him at all times.

I still do NOT trust him.

I'm going tomorrow to set up our appointment for counseling.

If he has a lock on his phone and he has it with him all the time the contact with OW has moved to text messaging. Now they have a common enemy, you, and for a while that is going to make the EA stronger.
Hopefully the exposure will end it as it is still at an emotional level, but that is not a guarantee.
I know this sound hard to do at this time for you, but you need to ask you WH to give you access to his cell phone, his refusal to do so indicated the A is still active. At that point since you already expose to all you need to go into a plan B, in my opinion, as you cannot leave with someone who is in an active A no matter how much he "tries" to be nice to you and you know that he cheating and lying behind your back every minute of the day.
blessing

Forget the counseling for now. It will do nothing, but maybe set you guys back if your counselor tells you to give your H "space" which they have been knows to do before.

If he is locking the phone, that is actually helpful. Work your Plan A as best you can while you QUIETLY get a VAR in the car. My guess is you'll get the evidence of the A you need in a very short time. Then you need to expose this everywhere.

BTW, can you please respond to the advice you are getting so we know whether you want help staying on MB track or not?

Hang in there!

You still with us, Racho?