Up late as have tons of laundry in the dryer right now and on call for work. Yuck. But am trying to make good use of time and do something productive while waiting for it to dry! (be here and help ) I can never zzzz when on call.

You're describing my H, Nanas. And he still had an affair. It was easy for him in the beginning: he was able to become a very different person when he wasn't around me. Then, on his way back home from work (or from the bar, on the nights he was having a 'business meeting' )he would put his POSH act back in the box and pretend to be my charming, faithful husband. The POSH persona would go back on the next morning, when he was back at work and flirting with his skankho co-worker.

Yikes, this is VERY dangerous thinking! Dr Harley makes it clear that we are ALL wired for an affair, it doesn't make a difference the person's values, background, faith, etc.

Part of the reason I was so shocked when my H had his A is that he was always very anti-affair right from the beginning because someone in his family had an A and he was disgusted by it. We had a family friend whose H had an A on her and we saw how painful it was for her and he was very angry at the WH in that case.

The problem with having this mindset is that if you think your H isn't the type to have an A, it means you are more likely not to take all the precautions necessary to prevent one.

Nanas, would you have believed that he would send inappropriate e-mails to another woman if you had not seen it with your own eyes? Are you saying that he did THIS but would never do THAT?

The problem with WS is that they concoct reasons in their own mind to make it OK. When I asked my FWH how he could sleep at night he told me that he thought of the whole thing as "therapy". That made it OK in his mind because "therapy" is a good thing ... right? She was there for him.

What I am trying to say is that people will find reasons to make it fit into their values ... especially upstanding people of moral integrity.

The OW here sounds pretty aggressive and I would worry about that. How did she get his e-mail to begin with?

And the fact that this friendship ended up becoming physical was an "accident". So therefore, he was able to sleep with himself at night.

It was therapy and an accident. His values were still intact.
(and he truly believed this).

My now Xwh was not so much MORAL as he was greedy. I never believed he would risk giving half of 'his' assets to me. I never believe he would risk STD. I also knew he saw how much pain a close friend of ours went through when her WH cheated on her....he saw how much everyone despised the WH....thought he was such a loser.....

I thought by the time we had been married for 25 years and weathered so much together and had so much to lose that he wouldn't risk it.

I was wrong.

You see Nanas, in order to carry on and DO something like have an affair or as some affairees might put it "an inappropriate friendship", you have to be able to twist and contort the truth around to make things ok somehow.

And yes, your good Husband did this to make it ok for him to look at the risque pictures and have the sexy banter back and forth with the possible ow. I say she is MORE an ow than you could think. The intent WAS certainly there, that is not to be ignored. Somehow he had allowed that to be ok.

And I would still snoop and snoop wisely to make sure there's not more there than meets the eye. Where there's smoke, usually a fire is also.

I will keep looking. And we will be talking about his boundaries in depth when he gets back tomorrow.

He is now not deleting any messages, leaving them all there for me probably. He read one out of 15, right in the middle of them all and they're all still in his inbox. I guess i have to do the deleting now

Nanas,
I would never suggest your husband is like my ex...thank God there's only one of him!

BUT, I think you're downplaying this, you're wanting to bury your head in the sand because to do otherwise makes it real. I know so well how that feels...we all do.

Please take this seriously, your husband isn't just making little boundary mistakes...and don't depend on his character values too much...the best of them can be tempted from their values...that's why Steve Harley says we shouldn't trust, instead we should affair proof our marriage, and we do that not by having blinders on, but our eyes wide open.

Okay, listen to the expert, MelodyLane, and follow what she says...without defending your husband or making excuses for him. Believe me, this is the only way to save your marriage.

Also, in another thread I told how my XH's OW called (2 1/2 years after she took him from me) me the other day and SHE is now jealous of ME! Why? Because he says he loves me, he had it all, I had been/given him everything, blah, blah, blah. My point? I was the best wife in the world and met his needs...lost him anyway. It happens.

ITA.

Did you ever tell us if this OW is physically in the same building as your H? Do they ever see each other?