When I met my husband he was still regularly talking to his ex girlfriend who had recently gotten married. They dated for five years and agreed to remain friends after breaking up. She got married to someone else about six months after she and my husband broke up.

At first, I tried to be cool with it but after a while I started feeling like their interactions were kind of weird. He gave me access to his emails and in some of the email exchanges that occurred right before he and I met, they signed off "love ya" and things like that. Also, when he and I went on our first vacation, she called him repeatedly leaving him desperate messages wondering why he wasn't responding.

At some point, I basically put my foot down and said he needed to stop communicating with her or we were done. He agreed and sent her an email ending all contact.

My husband and I have been married for 1.5 years and they ended contact about a year or so before we got married.

Yesterday, she sent him an email saying she knows she isn't supposed to contact him but she wanted to say Happy Holidays. He responded and said that he would talk to me about lifting the communication ban and he wished her Happy Holidays. After he responded, he told me about the exchange so I could read it over email. He expected me to say it was fine, they could email now.

But, I don't want them to, I want them to never communicate again. I got pretty upset about it and I think that surprised him. He can't understand the harm in a few email exchanges here and there. He thinks I am drastically overreacting. Can you give me some ideas about how to talk to him about this? I might have him read your responses.

Please go over to the Surviving an Affair forum and count the thousands of affairs there. Many started this way. Affairs almost always begin with opposite sex friendships. "Friendships" with old lovers are especially dangerous because it is not hard for old feelings to be triggered. And it usually happens to people who say it would "never happen to me!" They are the most vulnerable because they are always oblivious to the dangers. Just as your husband and this old GF are.

Dr. Harley is a clinical psychologist and founder of Marriage Builders who has specialized in infidelity for 40 years and here is what he has to say about this:

here

and here: Are "Friends" a Threat to Your Marriage?

The most disturbing thing of all is that even though you have told your husband how unhappy this "friendship" makes you, he persists in trying to inject her into your lives. That shows that he cares more about this woman than he does for you.. Here is some advice he gave to a WOMAN who wanted to continue to see her male "friend"

here

Thank you. The thing is, if I start the conversation out by saying, "this is how affairs start" then he will just get upset because he will think I am insinuating that he can't be trusted.

I do like the point that if he cares about me and this upsets me, he shouldn't contact her or else he is saying she is more important than me.

The fact that he would pursue this friendship despite the fact that he knows it upsets you reflects a much deeper problem. He does not care very much about your feelings and I am sure this is demonstrated in other ways. Another red flag is that he clearly places more importance on this woman than he does you. That should make you even more weary of her.

But he can't be trusted if has opposite sex friendships with old lovers. Asking you to trust him is like a drunk driver asking to be trusted to go drunk driving. Of course he can't be trusted. Any person with pisspoor boundaries should not be trusted. Any person who maintains opposite sex friendships can't be trusted.

So if he insinuates you don't trust him say: YOU BETCHA!!

Just agree with him right off the bat.

Glove Oil, yes, he believes that when you shared a relationships with someone then it makes sense to keep in touch and let each other know how you are doing. He thinks it is the polite thing to do. I keep saying that he can wish her well but still not contact her, he doesn't have to be in touch with her to hope she has a happy life.

He so strongly believes that he would never succumb to an affair that I don't feel like I can use that as a reason that this is inappropriate. He truly believes it isn't possible.

Good point that it is a read flag that she knew it would bother me and did it anyway and that he knew it would bother me and responded anyway. I feel so disrespected right now. I don't know how to have a calm conversation about this with him because we will just go in circles about him thinking it's totally fine and I am being controlling and me saying I won't tolerate it. But, I don't want to give him the silent treatment either, I don't know how to fix this.

Also, while they were dating he caught her having inappropriate relationships online. So, she has a history of crossing boundaries.

I know how he feels. I was also an excellent drunk driver. The ones who have affairs are the ones who say they would never do it. Just like the bold drunk driver says he will never crash.

Your husband has a history of crossing boundaries too since he is communicating with this woman.

When we talked earlier he also made it sound like I left the door open for them to communicate again in the future. It feels like he is re-writing history. I know for a fact that I said they can never talk again or we will be done and he said okay. He is denying knowing that. I feel like I should have had him sign a legal document or something.

I know for a fact that I said they can never talk again or we will be done and he said okay. He is denying knowing that. I feel like I should have had him sign a legal document or something.

You are getting very MB-intelligent very quickly, friend.

Easy answer: Explain to hubby that this is your position now, as a method of protecting your marriage, in front of family and friends, just like he vowed to perform in front of those same folks all those years ago when you married.

You're having done to you what we refer to as "gaslighting". Don't let him get away with it. The best time to fight for his allegiance is before he gets some fantasies fulfilled in the sack with her.

Thanks, NeverGuessed. Are you suggesting that he publicly state that he will not contact her? One problem is that some of the men in his family (including his dad) are of the opinion that it is fine for him to stay in contact with her because we shouldn't cut people who were important to us out of our lives. She emails his dad occasionally and his dad responds. I asked my H to ask his dad not to email with her, and my H said his dad is his own man and can do what he wants and that his dad's behavior should not be a concern of mine. The women (mom, sister, etc) do not agree that being in touch with her is a good idea, though. His mom and sister burned some of her photos after they broke up.

This GF is working overtime to keep herself in his life. They are BOTH disrespecting you. And so is his father.

CatLady, I'm one of those who made this mistake when I first got married. My H was also still "friends" with his ex-girlfriend when we started dating. She'd left him a few years before and married someone else and had a child by the time my H and I got married. My H and his ex remained in contact for the first 10 years of our marriage, and we were supposedly all "friends." This had disastrous consequences on my marriage. Eventually, the "friendship" turned into something much more. I finally realized my H had been involved in a long-term EA (eventually became a partial PA as well). After 10 years of marriage, and more lies than I could ever count, the damage to my marriage was enormous. My H eventually did come clean and ended all contact with the ex-girlfriend. But, as you can see in my signature line, our marriage didn't recover. We drifted along in a very dysfunctional relationship for 3 years, growing further and further apart, and eventually I had an affair as well and ended up getting pregnant by the OM.

I realize mine may be a very extreme example of what can go wrong when married people maintain contact with exes, but I like to serve as a cautionary tale. I wouldn't wish what I've gone through on anyone. I can't help but wonder how different things could have been if I had simply put my foot down when we first got married and refused to accept my husband's relationship with his ex-girlfriend. But I knew nothing about Marriage Builder's back then and I thought if I asked my H to break off contact with this person, he would choose her over me and I would lose my family. If only I'd known then what I know now.

My H has been completely NC with his ex-girlfriend for 4 years now (he started contacting her again when I had my A). I have had complete NC with my OM for 3 years as well. Our marriage is slowly recovering, but a lot of damage has been done and I'm not sure we will ever get to where I would like us to be.

You will save yourself a lot of heartache and a lot of future problems if you nip this in the bud right now. You need to insist on complete and absolute NC with this ex-girlfriend for life. It doesn't matter what his extended family think. My H's family was perfectly fine with him being "friends" with his ex-girlfriend (who was also a family friend) as well. It almost destroyed my marriage nonetheless.

Don't let his dad's peculiar relationship with his son's ex-GF cloud the issue. The issue is your husband's relationship with her.

Why is it important to him that this ex-GF be in his life? Why is she one of the people who is "important to" him? Therein lies the problem: She certainly should not be so important to him that his desire to communicate with her overrides your wish that he not. If this is really a "hill to die on" for your husband, it tells me that this emotional affair is quite entrenched.

He wants clarity? So give him clarity: Tell him he's not to communicate with her ever again, or he can get out. That should be very clarifying for him. If he can't abide by that, then trust me, you don't want him around anyhow.

We talked about it again and he agreed that we could jointly write her an email saying never mind, although I wish you a happy life we are not going to correspond.
He doesn't seem to understand why it upset me but he is willing to sever contact again.

I told him that I was really disappointed that he responded to her without even talking to me and that he suggested lines of communication could be open when he knows that I get upset about her. I said in the future when there is a hot button issue, we need to talk before you act and he agreed.

So, that's it for now. I still feel disappointed and like I trust him less, though. We spent a lot of energy fighting over her and I thought it would never be an issue again.

Put spyware an his phone and a keylogger on the computer.

Keylogger