My wife suggested we post here looking for advice or feedback. First off we have been married for 12 years. We have 3 boys; the oldest is 10 with special needs, the middles is 6 and the youngest is 5 months. Like all marriages we have had our rocky times and managed to work through them. Yes some of those times the topic of divorce came up but as you can see we are still together. About 3 years ago things changed for the better. We seemed to be getting along a lot better and just enjoying each other and life. Well after our youngest boy things have gotten tougher. We knew they would but he has been more than a hand full compared to his brothers. We both recognize that we need to get out alone once in a while but honestly we have not been good about that our whole marriage. We were doing better with it before we had the little guy but now that is at a complete stop again. We have never really had friends to go hang out with much, so that doesnt help either.
So that gives you a little idea of some of the stress in our lives so here is the problem or should I say where I messed up. I became pretty good friends with someone at work, there is no attraction we just get along really well. She is someone that I joke with but wouldnt touch with a 10 foot pole if that makes since. Anyway several weeks ago my wife asked me if I was having lunch alone with this person. While my answer was no not really, it was truly that. We are scheduled to go to lunch at certain times with a couple people so we can keep the work going round the clock. For the most part there was someone else there. I could tell this was bothering my wife and decided to just stop talking about this person when I was around her. I figured I wouldnt have to lose a friend if I just didnt explain her in my daily conversation. This only made my wife more suspicious, and in retrospect I dont disagree with her on that.
My wife recently confronted me again about seeing this person for lunches now that she has moved to another job. I tried to blow if off and say not really, we have met a couple times but ehh no big deal. The fact was I had met here that day for lunch and I had also made a stupid joke given the context of our texts of where to meet. The joke was sexual but I meant it as more of an rude joke to this other lady. She had said she was waiting on the corner of... I replied with wearing a tube top and mini skirt or something to that affect. Well my wife read these texts and I believe took it the wrong way. I can totally see how by the way the texts looked. That and I had just lied to her about not meeting up with this person. I know my actions were wrong. I just didn't want to lose this friend. That didn't matter, due to my actions my wife asked me to stop all contact with here (of which I have). So after a couple days of arguing over this we have both began taking the work sheets on the marriage builders and both put some things out in the open that we haven't really talked about in a long long time. We are working through her being able to trust me again since I lied to her. Let me be very clear I did not have sexual relations with this women and I never would. I did however lose a good friend. We have both put some steps in motion that I believe if we can just follow will build our marriage to new peaks. I wanted to post this for a few reasons. One,don't make my mistake. Two, I welcome any feedback, and three, if this is something else that will help our marriage continue to grow and not fall apart I'm in.

I've heard those words before, and it turned ut that the truth in that case was very dirty.

I don't think you are being honest about that relationship, and you won't be able to recover your marriage until you stop trying to excuse an inexcusably close relationship with another woman. It does not matter at the end of the day whether we buy your story, but it DOES matter that your wife fully knows that it is deceitful.

Welcome to MB.

Do you remember when Clinton said that on national tv?

ha thats great. Well Im not Clinton if thats what your getting at. The idea of a sexual affair with this lady is not possible at least not for me and it never was. Im new to this EA though. I dont think i fully understand it but I guess that is the road we were heading down. Where do you separate a great friend of the opposite sex versus an EA? With the idea of EA are you saying its not possible to have great friends of the opposite sex? The people that have been the best of friends in my life have mostly been of the opposite sex. I literally have 3 maybe 4 guy friends in my life. Of those 3 or 4 people I maybe hear from one of them once a year. I have always just gotten along better with women.

McNal. Your BW expressed her unhappiness about this third person in your marriage... so you decided to sneak around behind your BW's back. Your post has many justification for why you thought it was ok to become a sneak. The justifications are all about you.

That is cruel. You express your own hurt for losing OW but you don't seem to have any remorse or empathy for your BW's hurt. The OW was more important than your BW's feelings. That is where you need to start.

Have you written a NC letter and committed to NC with OW for life?


Your NC letter should say the following:

OW,

The relationship I had with you was thoughtless and cruel. It hurt many people, particularly my spouse, who did not deserve to be treated that way. I am committed to my marriage and determined to make up for all the hurt I've caused my family. I am going to work hard to be the best husband that she deserves.


Because of the terrible offense to my spouse and the damage I have done to our marriage, I am permanently ending all contact with you. Please respect my wish to regain my integrity, and to heal my family. Please also respect my wish that you not attempt to contact me in any way at any time.

My spouse has all the details of our relationship and he will also be told of any attempts at contact.

Sincerely,

McNal. Handwrite this letter and give it to your BW to approve and mail.

Is OW married? Do you still work with each other?

Honestly McNal...your post sounds like you are a single guy. Do you want to be married?

No, that's not what I am getting at! Do you seriously think I believed you were Clinton?

What I'm getting at is that he used these words to describe behaviour that a married man should not have been practising, and he knew that when he spoke them. Your words are an attempt to define similarly unacceptable behaviour for a married man, and you know that, too.

Are "Friends" a Threat to Your Marriage? <<<<-------click on this link

Welcome, McNal.
First, let me say I'm not here to rag on ya. I'm actually glad to see you.
You're the kind of guy I almost never see here, but love to see here.

The reason for that is, you're poised to head down a road I headed down, but maybe you have a chance to catch yourself before you head down it.

I'm not gonna bore you with my whole story. To keep it short, I'll just tell you that I never had a lot of guy friends (and no women friends) either. I was always a boy-scout, my whole life -- never considered myself the type who'd get into an affair. Never even thought that would ever be part of my life's equation. Like you, I couldn't even conceive, or admit, that it was even "possible" for me (to use the word you used).

Dude, take it from me: It's more possible than you might think.

Trouble was, over time, I got lazy about my marriage. My wife & I got lazy about communicating, and we got lazy about making time for each other, amid lots of other priorities.

At one point, one of the people on the church music team that I sang on started getting friendly -- nothing that seemed inappropriate, mind you (at first), but just stuff like her asking me about parenting tips (we each had kids), and we'd be talking about the music we were practicing, and then e-mailing about it, and soon we started meeting to practice extra music, and at first I didn't even realize that I started enjoying her attention & the interest that she displayed in me, in my opinion, in getting to know me "as a friend..."

And, boom, there I was, in what you need to learn was an emotional affair. Before then, I'd never really even thought about the concept of an "emotional affair" either. But it's every bit as dangerous to a marriage as a physical affair. To use an analogy, it's like a baby rattlesnake that just hasn't grown up yet. Maybe ya think it's little & cute, but if you don't kill it or get the hell away from it, it'll bite you just the same, and possibly cost you your family, your integrity, and a whole lot more.

I realize all that now. But back then, I made excuses to myself as to why it was 'ok' for me to maintain this friendship. And by the time she started dropping hints that things weren't all rosy between her & her husband, I was already hooked on her attention, and on the idea of being someone she confided in.

If you read up on this site about affairs, you'll learn that they're basically akin to addictions. And mind you, I'm not one of those touchy-feely guys who believe every character defect is the result of some kind of addiction. I'm big on personal responsibility. But yeah, I got addicted to the attention. And that made it hard for me to do what I should've done -- what I even tried feebly to do, once I saw where it was all headed -- which was, I should've broken off the friendship completely.

But as you can probably guess, I didn't. Instead, I ended up in a full-blown affair. And it almost cost me my marriage. And even though it's 3 & a half years later, even though my marriage has been restored & bettered, I still spend at least a slice of every day pissed at myself on one level or another, for the crappy choices I made back then that led to my affair.

You have been gifted now with a chance to get wise to this dynamic, before you really screw things up & do stuff that you'll one day wish you hadn't done.

Leave the woman at work alone. Stay the heck away from her. Live transparently, in order to put your wife at ease. That'll help improve your marriage. Pussyfooting around with this lady at lunch and lying about it doesn't improve your marriage. Keep interlopers out of the picture, and then you & your wife are free to focus on identifying & communicating & meeting one another's needs in ways that you each maybe haven't been doing enough of in recent years.

This is a way better path to take than trying to use opposite-sex relationships outside the marriage as a safety valve or as a source of emotional support. Opposite-sex relationships outside the marriage only work well in the movies & on TV. Our culture steeps us in the false idea that these relationshps are healthy for married people. In real life, they're about the worst idea you can imagine.

If you've got questions, ask me. I've walked a bit in your shoes. Don't be so foolish as to walk in mine.

Hi all. Since I asked him to post and he did I suppose it's only fair to post as well. When I first found out about his lying to me I was incredibly upset and angry. I pointed out that whether or not he was having an affair with her he was putting his friendship with her before me. To his credit he was extremely apologetic, agreed to stop all contact with her immediately and gave me all access to every email and account he has. I have also checked the phone records and confirmed that he wasn't texting/calling her excessively(I'd say once a week or less). He also agreed to meet with our Bishop of our church, who we just came back from seeing and will be seeing once a week for awhile. The Bishop gave him pretty much the same responses as he's gotten here btw, to stop all contact with her immediately and give me full access to everything.

I'm not really sure what to do from here. I love him and I believe him when he says he didn't intend for all of this. I know he's always felt that I was irrational about him having close friendships with other woman, I guess I just worry that we're going to slip into complacency and have a repeat of this in the future.

GloveOil I want to say thank you for your words. Yours are the first here that I dont feel bashed from. I appreciate that very much. Also my wife and I have talked at length. I have opened all my email (including work), phone and everything to her prior to my first post here to leave that transparency. Not just for now but for whenever she needs them. I asked her to read through them all and waited until she had so there are no closed doors. That will remain an open policy. I don't work with this women anymore and I have broken contact. I will have to see her once or twice a month but that will be at our conference with about 20 to 30 other people in the room. This EA is hard for me to wrap my head around as I have only thought of an affair on the physical level. At any rate thank you again.

And you are absolutely right unless you affair-proof your marriage. Marriage Builders offers you the BEST tools to do that. As an added bonus you can have an even BETTER marriage if you both are willing to follow Dr. Harley's plans. The man is a genius!

Welcome!

Welcome Mikti to Marriage Builders.

We usually ask spouses not to post on each others threads. So if you would start your own thread that would be much appreciated.

McNal. I am sorry that you feel everyone is bashing you.

If you look back at your first post, you will see that you tried to rationalize your deception. We will call you on that. I hope that you will not try to play the victim and avoid coming back because we are "mean."

There are many many posters here whose families were ripped apart from a "friendship." You need to see the danger.


Have you thought how your DW (dear wife) is going to feel when you leave for the conference knowing that you will see OW there? It is twisting the knife.

NC for LIFE.

I hope you stick around.

Are you willing to take a poly? That would be a great way to prove your innocence and to start EARNING back your BW trust.

Write a no contact letter to this OW and have your wife read, approve it and send it to her.
No contact letter samples

Pokerface I would gladly take a poly. As far as the conferences go its a 1 hour conference that I don't have a choice other than quitting my job. They are held at work after we complete our morning tasks. As far as the bashing goes yes I did feel that way until GloveOil posted. This site from my understanding is to help marriages. How is it helping when you receive comments saying it sounds like your already single. I mean really are those people trying to push it in that direction? GloveOil did call me out and still didnt make it a bashing trip. If people are going to post here I would appreciate it if it is in an effort to help. I have not denied that I screwed up but I was trying to give an insight for the choices I made. They were wrong choices, I did wrong. I simply posted them because that is what was going through my mind during those events. Again I see that I was wrong. It took my wife pointing out the idea of EA before I recognized that. Now carrying on from that I do appreciate the suggestions but if anyone is here to call me out, know that has already been done. Please keep this thread going in a positive way not a point the finger and rehash what has been done.

Also the NC letter was sent after my wife read and agreed with what was said.