....can an emotional affair exist between a heterosexual man and a lesbian? I think it can, but my spouse doesn't think there's an emotional attachment. He says he thinks of her as a little sister.....

Oh yes, it happens all the time. Opposite sex friendships are dangerous to marriages. It is very possible for his "friend" to develop a sexual attraction to him and vice versa. The bottom line is that if it makes you uncomfortable, then he should be thoughtful enough to end it. If not, then you know that he places more value on his friendship than his marriage.

Are "Friends" a Threat to Your Marriage?
By Willard F. Harley, Jr., Ph.D.

Understand, too, that you may think she's a lesbian because he told you she was. That may very well NOT be the case. She is more than likely very straight.

I have seen pictures of her with her previous and current girlfriends on their facebook pages. She has a sticker on the back window of her vehicle that is the silouhette (?) of a woman with rainbow stripes running through it which I have been told is a lesbian symbol. I have never talked with her and asked her straight up if she is a lesbian....I have seen posts on her twitter page that point to her being one, so I assume she is.
What makes this worse, is they are coworkers, so there is no way to completely cut off contact between them.

Many women with SSA are bisexual, which means they can just as easy be attracted to men when it suits them. I would be very cautious.

Also, and someone may need to redirect this....when there is an emotional attachment like that, I am not sure gender/orientation is even the issue. I am most definitely straight, but if I had a BFF who interfered with or took away from my M....that would still be a problem. It wouldn't be called an "affair".....but no relationship should in any way replace or trump the M relationship.

I believe that straight people should just make a practice of avoiding opposite sex buddies.

How do I get it through to him that this "friendship" with her is hurting me? I don't want a full blown shouting match where I throw out example after example of things, but I don't know how else to get his attention on this...

I have read the link to the article in the first response I got and have looked up emotional affairs elsewhere, and have seen where this "friendship" has several of the characteristics but not all of them..

I agree with Tawandabelle,
She might very well be open to both sexes......I think that if this doens't sit right with you there is probably a reason for that instinct to be warning you...
I would sit him down and tell him it makes you uncomfortable and that it is hurting the way you feel in the marriage........
Then you go about scheduling time with your husband so he doesn't have the free time to spend with her.........work on affair proofing your relationship........ask him to tone things down with her, ask him if it's worth the marriage or you feeling bad about the contact between them........ask him to use his time in the marriage.......don't be okay with it, that is what we all did and a lot of our spouses had affairs............

SweetPandas,

How long have you been married? Any children?

Tell him. Tell him it makes you unhappy, and why. Ask him to end his friendship. You can show him the article by Dr Harley.

Whether she is attracted to him or not she could still be meeting needs for him that stop him from being as committed to you as he could be.

I believe if ANY friendship/relationship (including family but excepting children) is making your spouse miserable then you must be open to the possibility that it may have to end. Not hurting your spouse should always be the priority.

Sorry, I haven't been on in a few days.


princessmeggy: married 17 years this April, one son age 10.

MelodyLane: They work together, but there are things that just don't sit well with me. I don't know that he's shared personal problems with her, but I know she has dumped her personal issues on him several times. I asked him if he told her about problems we were having last year, and he said no. They text back and forth, although not as much as they used to, but they still do. He says it's work related, but the past couple of times I looked at his phone, all of the texts between them were deleted almost immediately. Probably because I confronted him about looking at his phone once before and questioned him about a text I saw.

At Christmas, he bought all of his assistant managers gift cards ($25 each) and I made baskets with cookies and candy in them, but he bought her an extra gift card (also $25) to another place in addition to what everyone else got.

With him knowing that I don't like their "friendship", I have seen him go in the bathroom to text her, or wait until I leave the room. There have been times when he was off from work and was out having some time to himself, but I could see on the phone bill that they had a two hour text conversation while he was out. I know they go to lunch on occasion when they work the same schedule.

Last year when I discovered their "friendship", and I confronted him about a couple of things, he gave me answers, but the way he answered made me thing he wasn't entirely truthful, on one occasion, he got very defensive and on the other occasion, he could hardly look me in the eye, and immediately walked away after answering me.

How do you get it to end when they work together? Neither one of them can afford to leave their job in this economy. I just spent a year being unemployed after a layoff last year and just started a new job last week, so I know how difficult it would be for them if either of them left their job.

Anyways, there's some of it in a nutshell.....

So, do some of the things I said send up any flags to those of you who have been on here a while?

Here are some other things that don't make me feel any better about them and their relationship.

There's the birthday ecard he sent her that I saw in his email that he signed "Yours Always", and his name (maybe I'm over-reacting, and that may have been the only signature choice that he could find to use, but honestly, "Yours Always"??

There are the times when he is barely up and out of our bed after some morning snuggle time and he is either texting her or responding to one she sent him.

Or, the days when he is off and after we are all home from being out, he takes his cell upstairs to the Man's Room and watches TV, but is also texting her.

It's like he can't not keep in touch with her.

He's coming home tonight after a two week trip to visit his Dad (I didn't go because our son is in school right now and there wasn't anyone to watch him, plus I wasn't too keen on a 12 hour plane flight, but next time, I'm going...)

Just trying to figure out how to get all of this across to him without a big fight, because I'm too tired to fight....

Please tell me if I'm just being paranoid and unreasonable, because sometimes I wonder if I am?

Thanks...

SweetPandas, your whole post is full of !

An Emotional Affair is just that: it's about getting one's emotional needs met. It really doesn't matter at this point what one's sexual orientation is. In fact, your husband may be emboldened in this case by believing that the woman's sexual preference is a barrier to having an affair.

The truth is that it reads to me like your husband is already deep in an emotional affair, whether he realizes it or not.

The incessant texting is (to me, and to many others who have been down this road) a real tip-off.

Do yourself a favor and click the Notify button on the lower right, and ask the moderators to move this thread to the Surviving An Affair forum. You'll get a lot more advice there on how to deal with this than you will here.

One more thing, SweetPandas. Your husband's behavior is causing you emotional distress, which is harmful to your marriage. Are you familiar with the concept of Love Busters? His behavior is reducing your "Love Bank" balance for him, as well as reducing his for you. If he continues down the path he's on, in a short while he will decide he is no longer in love with you, and you'll be hearing (as we refer to it here) ILYBINILWY.

The time to act and put your marriage on a recovery path is NOW.