Hello everyone. Leading on from an earlier post that I started about two weeks ago. I have a serious trust issue and I do not know if it is actually my problem or my W's. I could use some insight.

My W and I now live in a different state than where she grew up. When I first met her she had more guy friends than girl friends. I understand how some women tend to get along better with guys than girls. I really did not have a problem with this early on because she showed me that she would rather spend time with me than other guys in her own way.

Warping forward to almost five years later, I have found myself in a situation that I do not know if it is misplaced jealousy on my part or if my W's being decietful or innocently trying to avoid my blowing things out of proportion.

Basically, she has stayed in touch with several of her old guy friends. This was all innocently enough until I came across some of her emails and found she signed "Love" at the end. This hit me strange because she is not very affectionate because she grew up in a household that was not very affectionate.

I brought it to her attention that I looked at these emails and it hurt me how she signed off. She exploded and felt that I invaded her privacy (which I am guilty of and feel extremely bad about). She went on for three years signing off the same way to a number of her friends.

At our wedding she was compelled to invite an old boyfriend whom she claimed she had only dated for one month and was more friends with him than anything else. I was offended by this X being invited to OUR wedding. She was unhappy with me because she felt I was controlling and jealous and it was all unfounded. Incidently, this "friend" is one of the guys she has stayed in contact with via email.

I know that I should not look at her emails and it is wrong of me and for this I feel extremely bad. However, I have felt that if I could finally prove to myself that all of this was innocent than I would be able to not look at her emails again.

Recently, she is going back to her home state and is going to be there for a week. I ran across an email between her and this "X" that is discussing getting together. She has stopped signing "Love" because of a recent discussion we have had and she agreed to stop if it bothered me so much. From what I can tell she is true to this, which makes me feel good and adds credibility to my trusting her.

However, she is making this upcomming trip for family issues that I felt would be nice of me to show her my support. I cannot leave with her on the Sunday because I am working Sunday through Tuesday. Therefore, I have changed my entire schedule around to be able to leave on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning to meet up with her and be there to stand by my wife.

When I mentioned this to my W she seemed in different about my taking the time off of work (which is a big commitment on my part). She wanted to know exactly when I would be meeting her because she says she is a planner and would like to be able to plan when she is doing things with her girl friends/sister. I said I knew she had a lot of guy friends and that if she wanted to get together with them I would also understand. I said I would actually like to get together with her guy friends and get to know them better. She said she probably would not have time this trip to do this.

Back to the emails. I know her and this particular guy friend have bantered back and forth about getting together. she has not said anyhting in her emails to lead me to believe that anything out of the ordinary is going on, but my mind is hard to keep focus. Very recently, I noticed that she deleted her last couple of responses to this guy (although it takes 24 hours to truly delete them). Therefore, I have seen them and they were not incrimminating, other than she told him that she would call him early next week when she was in town.

Am I completely mad? Do I have reason for concern? How do I handle this? If I bring it up that I have read her emails, she will be very upset and defensive, which will drive her away. If this is probably nothing and she is keeping it from me because she just does not want me to over react, I am hurt because she is keeping something. What can I do? It is driving me crazy.

Hi EL,

I would focus on your and her relationship first, as TOP priority. Read through this site and figure out your and her needs... fill out the agreement, etc... Tell her about this site and say how you want to make your relationship the best it can be, etc... Tell her she's your best friend and lover and you want to be hers. Begin working on her needs immediately without worrying about her meeting yours at first (as this will come with time)...

I'm no expert and may be wrong on this (which is strictly my opinion!)... But, my advice would be to stop reading her messages, if you haven't done so already. The reasons for this are the following, but not limited to <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> : 1) If there is something to worry about, I don't see this as a resolution; 2) It will drive you crazy in the meantime...

I would tell her that you fear loosing her. Ask her if she's happy with your relationship, and be open and objective with her response. Ask her if she's committed to making the best marriage with you she can. If she is, tell her you'll start trusting her and learning to fill her needs today. If she's not, ask her thoughts on how to fix things...

I would begin working on your relationship with her first. I would also try to take your mind off of what she's doing and focus on what you're doing. I know this is a marriage builders site, but part of building a marriage is building yourself in the process. Are you good with conversation; are you self-motivated and positive; are you confident? If the answer is no to any of these, do some soul searching and see how you can build up your self confidence in the process. Get some books and motivational tapes; put your mind on positive solutions and off of the question on whether or not to trust...

In the end, truly, it's not up to us anyway. We can just give freely and request what we need in return... We cannot force someone to be faithful and honest... Just do the best you can; let her know what you need, too! Be sure to tell her your needs as mentioned before, and be honest about what you need out of the relationship.

sorry to ramble, and I hope this makes sense...

Good luck and God bless.

<small>[ May 07, 2004, 07:56 PM: Message edited by: Jaimi ]</small>

It is sad she needs male attention so darn much. Aren't you enough for her?

I would be pissed if my husband did that with other females. If he was e-mailing them and signing off with LOVE, well, I do not know what I would do but I would not trust him.

Maybe she is doing other untrustworthy things, I hope not but you should find out.

When you asked her to quit saying LOVE in her notes, did she act like you were crazy or did she immediately quit doing it to please you? I reread your post and noticed she did have a bad attitude toward you finding out.

What if you did this. Wrote a fake post to a fake woman signing it LOVE. Leave a copy out for her to see. No, I take that back, a woman as difficult as her will not learn from this.

Her attitude makes a huge difference here. Do you feel she really loves ONLY you or that she likes all kinds of male attention all the time.

<small>[ May 07, 2004, 08:06 PM: Message edited by: baba2 ]</small>

Well I came clean yesterday by asking her when the last time this person emailed her. She had told me a couple of weeks ago. As I knew he had just emailed her yesterday and she responded yesterday. I confronted her and said I knew that this was not true and asked why she was lying to me and to come out with what is going on. She told me that she picked up on where I was going with my questions and wanted me to admit that I read her emails. Now this is interesting because I do not know if this is the truth or if she just covered it up.

Giving her the benefit of the doubt, we had a long discussion regarding my mistrust issues. In the beginning of our relationship, I did not let the fact that she had all of these male friends really bother me because, like I said, she showed me that she cared deeply for me. I suppose because I have been seriously hurt before that in the beginning I did not fully give my entire heart to her so my risk appeared minimal which made it easier to be at ease with all her friends.

After she became pregnant (from our first weekend together) the situation changed and all of a sudden I found myself back in the "everything to loose" situation. When she was about 5 months pregnant, both of us moved to a new state and I started a new job. This was the first time we lived together. Since then she has told me that I have changed and she saw jealousy and mistrust from me and she did not like it. I never realized the damage I most probably was doing until I read the books from this site.

After our son was born, our sex life dwindled away. We had spent a large amount of effort trying to figure out what was wrong with her. I always drew the correlation that the sex dropped off with the birth of my son. After our conversation yesterday, I am now starting to think this started happening with our moving in together and is perhaps caused by my over compensating for now having "everything to loose."

We have been to a couple of counselors for our marriage, but I have never went to a counselor for my mistrust or jealous feelings. I believe I need to see someone about this. I belive these actions of showing her signs that I mistrust her have pushed her away, made her less attracted to me and caused her to withdraw emotionally from me.

Realizing this is great and all, but I do not know if she will trust me enough to allow us to start over or if this will always hang over our heads. Not to mention that my own insecurities are causing me difficulties with the possibility that she still could have been clever and lying about not having sent and email yesterday. But now I do not know if this is true or not. I do not know what to believe.

I guess I need to accept that all I can do is try to work on myself. I cannot nor should not try to control her or her situations she gets into. If something is going to happen when I am not around then there is nothing I can do about it other than try to improve myself when we are together.

Thanks for the support. I am just a mess right now and by my actions I have pushed her further away once again. She has finally told me that her biggest emotional needs are financial security and trust. I have a great job and make plenty of money to cover her needs and she admits this EN is met. I guess if MB is correct, I would make large strides if I can meet her trust EN.

I just do not know if her conversations with this person (which are never in depth) and her two line letter saying she will call him when she gets into town are a problem. I believe they could be innocent enough. I also believe her attempt to try and hide it could be her concern for how I would have abnormally reacted.

In our conversation yesterday she did list multiple situations in the past where I have acted abnormal around her friends because of my trust issues I carry with me from previous relationships. I know it is not fair to her that I am how I have been. I do not know how to improve on this and this is why I think I need a proffesional.

Any advice is welcomed. Thanks.

What about YOUR trust needs? I know you cannot make her do anything. Only work on yourself. But still, you provide everything for her(money, support) and what does she provide? Very little.

Sounds unfair to me. If my husband snooped on my e-mails I would not care since I am not doing anything wrong and he could totally trust me.

I think she is using "you' for money and support and using the other guys for attention, emotional support, and flirting with them.

Well baba, I hope she is not doing that, but it is one of my fears. I do not know if it is my problem from the past and causes her an unfair situation at times. She does do several things for me. She is a stay at home mom who is wonderful with our son. She takes care of the home (laundry, dishesl landscaping and yard etc..). I do not wish to give the wrong impression. Also, each time I have raised the question of my insecurities in the past (although she does get mad at me for it) there has never been anything going on. Do you think that I actually have more of the problem and my paranoya is causing the issues? I am starting to think this.

Thanks for your input baba.

I know you WISH it were your problem since it would be the easier alternative.

But the fact she needs emotional support from other men is HER PROBLEM.

She is actually having emotional affairs. Does she open up to you about everything? Share emotionally? Or does she do her sharing with these other men....

SHE SHOULD NOT NEED TO SHARE EMOTIONALLY WITH OTHER MEN AT ALL! THAT IS THE BOTTOM LINE.

WHY IS SHE DOING IT? WHY?

How would your wife feel if you had several Emotional Affairs going on with various women?

I am not sure she really is sharing emotionally with other men. The emails I have seen have been passive and not what I would call emotional at all. They would be similar to what you may send to your girlfriends like "I have my flowers planted already. How is your new job? Whats going on with you? etc.." My W tells me she she completely trusts me and does not understand why I cannot completely trust her. I have had emotional issues in the past.

For instance, when I was 9 years old, I picked up the phone at home to here my mother in a romantic conversation with another man. This definitely impacted me and my future relationships with other women. My first marriage ended over an affair that my EX was having. I dated a girl in college who became pregnant and convinced me that it was my child and forced me into helping her get an abortion (which if it was my child I would have wanted to keep it). After the abortion I found out that it was never my child. This relationship ended in my girlfriend cheating on me. You can see the pattern here and why I am now open to actually believing that I may have taken this all out on my poor W over the last 4 years through being paranoid. Therefore, I would like to get off my own roller coaster of emotions and have a wonderful life with my W.

I could be potentially building a mountain out of a mole hill hear. However, I am leary that this could be the other way because of my past issues. I know it is not fair to my W to hold her accountable for the problems caused in my life by other issues. I do not know how to undo any damage I may have caused her.

Lets say she is genuine and completely honest here. This would then all make sense. My reactions and smothering could have caused her concern early on. After we were already committed to eachother with a child, my W's good nature along with one of her major ENs being met (financial security), would have caused her to stay to make things work. Eventually my issues rose to the top of things and caused her to withdraw because she did not want to cause me any further issues. Now this is unfair to her because she saw a completely different person in the beginning and now I have changed. I think this could also be responsible for the affection and sexual loss towards me.

I think somehow if I could get a grip and get control of my issues, overtime things would get back on track. I am not talking about being stupid and being a doormat, and I know you will not let me do this anyway. I am trying to apply MB principles here. I thank you for your help and thoughtfullness. Thanks baba.

EL,

I agree with you that there is a possiblility you may be overreacting. Considering your past experiences, you may be blowing things out of proportion. I would say that you certainly cannot "diagnose" the problem as an emotional affair based on the little information you have. Your W may indeed be depending on male (and female) friends for emotional support more than she should be, but many people here have done this, and that's why we learn and begin using the MB concepts. We begin building our marital relationships, and the need for support through other friendships gets less and less as our relationships grow...

In all relationships, there is that potential that we will be hurt, and we will be hurt badly... There certainly could be something going on, evan at a time when we least expect it... But worrying about problems before they happen, or before we even have facts to back up our concerns can be sooooooo debilitating... If /when we're hurt, it sucks!!! But we cannot live each day wondering if and when we're going to be hurt... If we're going to be hurt again in a way we've been hurt from others before...

I would definitely go with the MB concepts. It's good that you are currently filling your W's top ENs. It looks like you've expressed your ENs to your W as well. It's great that you want to stick with the MB concepts. Work to meet her ENS, but definately express your ENs, and set your expectations and boundaries.

We all have trust issues at times, and given your past experiences it's probably very difficult for you to build that trust in your relationships. Don't beat yourself up for this, and the fact that you may have smothered her a bit... Start here and now to take small steps to stop with smothering, and start working on the MB concepts to build yourself and your marriage. The counseling is a great idea and should help tremendously.

Let us know how you are doing, and go easy on yourself...

Jami (Jaimi)

<small>[ May 08, 2004, 10:59 PM: Message edited by: Jami ]</small>

Thanks Jami for the encouragement, I really appreciate it, especially today. I am at work and my W and son are leaving on their trip today while I am working. I have made an apointment with a counselor for this Tuesday. I mentioned this to my W yesterday and she said "oh." I kind of was not happy to get some kind of encouraging words, but whatever.

Finding this website, I have made some real progress. Over the last four years my W kept saying to me that I have changed quite a lot. I was unable to understand how. Now after reading the books from here, I can definitely see how I changed. I think she realizes she has changed as well. I do not know if she still feels like she has energy for working on us. She is definitely one to not show emotion and let her guard down about her true feelings. She says she is not one to break down emotionally and cry about things and is not a "girly girl."

However, I think this may all be some type of protection for herself from her past. I should not try to analyze this right now because I need my energy to work on me to help us.

I am only meeting one of my wife's two emotional needs right now - financial. I need to work on the trust issue. She does completely trust me, which sometimes frustrates me because in my warped mind, I believe it is normal for someone who cares deeply about their partner to actually show a small amount of jealousy once in a while because this shows the other person you value them. I am not talking about an over abundance of jealousy, this would be a put off.

I wonder if anyone out there can offer me an inside understanding of what it was like for them to have a spouse that did not show that they completely trusted them and how this effected them in their relationship. Getting to here the other side would help me.

Hi EL,

I can relate to you, my wife, Heidi can relate to your wife. This is a tough spot to be in. On one hand you can become obsessed with controlling your wife, as I did. And effectively drive her to an A, as I did. On the other hand, it seems to me she is already having an EA. I don’t want to freak you out, but I would be concerned.

You wrote:
I believe these actions of showing her signs that I mistrust her have pushed her away, made her less attracted to me and caused her to withdraw emotionally from me.

I agree, this is exactly what happened to us. But here’s the rub, honesty and openness are one of my ENs. When I feel she is not being open and honest, I feel she has something to hide, thus I misrust her. Is my need a bit exaggerated? Probably. But you should not feel guilty for having this need, I don't. It may be a bit out of balance and it seems you are working on that, but it is a legitimate need.

This is from… http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3325_hon.html
Most of us want an honest relationship with our spouse. But some people have a need for honesty and openness -- it gives them a sense of security and helps them become emotionally bonded to the one who meets that need.
Those with a need for honesty and openness want accurate information about their spouses' thoughts, feelings, habits, likes, dislikes, personal history, daily activities and plans for the future. If their spouse.

does not provide honest and open communication, trust is undermined and the feelings of security can eventually be destroyed. They cannot trust the signals that are being sent and feel they have no foundation on which to build a solid relationship. Instead of adjusting, they feel off balance; instead of growing together, they feel as if they are growing apart.

Remember this is coming from a recovering, insecure, control freak. That being said, I only wish I had checked Heidi’s email before her EA became a PA. Heidi had other forms of communication with her OM. They met in chat, would IM each other, ect. So even if I did find E-mails that seemed innocent, I should have still been concerned.

Heidi now knows this a an important EN for me,and she is very open and honest with me, but we have caused a lot of damage to one another. I hope this is helpful and not just talk about things you already know.

One more thing I would consider. Would she mind going to see this male friend of hers with you? I don't think it's unreasonable for her to stop all communication with him myself, ( and other male freinds) but if she won't, I would want to get to know him. Let him know who you are.

I will see if Heidi will respond to you, to give you the prospective from the other side.

<small>[ May 09, 2004, 10:07 AM: Message edited by: Buster_C ]</small>

Hi EL,

I am the FWW in a situation somewhat like yours. The only differance is that the OM was a total stranger when I met him on the Internet. We exchanged emails for over two years and also chatted on AIM, and in the chat room of another website.

I can understand that you've had some issues with jelousy and control due to past situations. And I think it is commendable that you are trying to change, really taking a good look at yourself and how you've behaved in the past.

Like your wife, I have in the past been better friends with males than females. Part of this stemmed from low self esteem. Men don't make snide comments to women regarding clothing or hair style, etc. I've known many women in my life who feel like it's their God given right to criticize anyone and everyone they meet.

I digress. My point was, I had reasons for having more male friends than female. After counseling, I've noticed the tide has changed, probably because I don't give a rat's a** what anyone thinks about the way I look. Now my closest friends are females because I have allowed some pretty phenomenal women to get close to me.

Okay, back to your situation.

In my experience, and keep in mind this is only my experience, if your wife is hiding her emails and lying about them, it is for a reason. If the emails are just platonic, then she wouldn't need to hide them, delete them or lie about them.

I think you have every right to be suspicious. I can also understand why you would be upset with her contact with an old boyfriend.

Sheesh, she invited him to your wedding????!!!!! What was she thinking?

~stepping down off my soapbox~

I also find it strange that she was signing her emails "love". Cripes I don't even do that with my female friends. It would hurt me terribly if my H, Buster, signed his emails to another woman (other than family) "love".

I think your instincts are right on the money. It sounds like exactly what I was doing during my EA.

I agree with the last two posts. If your wife was writing to these guys only about "planting flowers" and other such stuff then there is no need to hide the e-mails nor get mad at you for looking for them.

She seems really good at trying to convince you it is YOUR suspicious nature at fault here. And you are buying it too!

On the subject of opposite sex friends, say and do things as if your spouse is standing right there. Particular activities with them must be POJA'd (note the phrase "enthusiastic agreement" in the POJA) and if they can't be, they do not occur. Obviously the art of negotiation would be very important.

It is urgently important that the spouse always feels welcome at such activities and conversations with opposite sex friends. I do not think your feelings of jealousy are a bad thing. They are warnings that you do not feel comfortable and if they stay unattended by your W, your marriage will falter.

I'm with baba. I do not believe in secretive ANYthing, including emails.

I think your relationship with your W is going in the wrong direction, with you feeling like you must allow more and more so your W feels trusted. She must EARN your trust. Your feelings are getting pushed aside and that's not healthy. And the planning thing, your W wanting to know exactly when you will be arriving during her trip...uhm, no. Show up unannounced and see what's going on. You ARE her H and your feelings should be of greater importance than the feelings of her buds or the plans she's creating with them. Whenever you show up should be just fine...gee, you might even get to meet some of these people. You might also have to wait for her to reappear if she's out doing something, but so what. You wouldn't mind that, would you?

EL, I'm sorry for the misread on currently meeting only one of her two ENs. What are her other needs, or have you discussed her others and yours? As you know, for the MB concepts to work, this is about setting up a relationship where you both express your needs, and you both work to realize and begin filling each others' needs... Of course, there will not be immediate progress, but over time things will improve if you're both willing to try. It won't work, even over time, if both parties aren't willing to realize what needs to be done, and give and take in the process...

It's tough for me to give advice on this board (with my own personal issues <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> and not knowing the person and all facts). So, most of the time I just lurk around and try to get answers to my marital questions. So, take what you will with a grain of salt, and leave the rest <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> ...

I just wanted to chime in on the emotional affair concept, in that too much dependence on friendships to fill our needs can certainly evolve into an EA, but is not necessarily an EA in the beginning. That's where the MB concepts come into play... Whatever point where we realize we need to depend on our spouse and allow them to depend on us, we begin learning and applying the concepts and put less and less dependence on outside relationships.

But, after reading the other posts, I agree that hiding of her e-mails does constitute something to worry about...

The kicker is.... While I've placed too much dependence on outside relationships in the past that have not been EAs in the least, I admit that one of these did evolve into an EA... I am guilty of having had an EA, which is what brought me to this site. It was extremely painful and hurtful... God first, and then this site changed me, my H, my marriage and our lives and still doing so over a very long, hard and painful time...

I've been on both sides of relationships as far as the trust issue... I would like to hear other's input, too, on the experiences they've had... I can tell you that during my EA, I felt (in MY warped mind <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> ) that my H wasn't jealous. On the contrary, I felt that he didn't give a sh** at the time... Maybe if he'd read my e-mails and sent some concern my way, my misplaced dependency would not have turned to an EA...

Take care and keep us posted.

<small>[ May 09, 2004, 11:20 AM: Message edited by: Jami ]</small>

Thanks for the information. I should explain that I do believe my wife has had very little contact with this person over our entire relationship. I think it is one of those, if I say it is a problem then it pushes her towards that and away from what I really want/need. I do not think she is having an EA yet. Do I think it could evolve - yes.. I am leary of pushing her over the edge right now. I need some advice. Now that she knows that I know of the email saying that she would call this guy "early next week" do I ask her on Tuesday or when I get up there if in fact she has called this guy? If I do she most probably may say no she did not anyway. I think I am in a lose - lose here people. I feel like if I do nothing and give her space she may feel I was mad and did not call her, which could also turn out bad. I do not know what to do in the short term.

Thanks again for the insight.

Buster and I talked about this while we were driving around this afternoon.

I told him that there is only one area I do not share with him and that is my journals. When I am journaling, I can write anything I want to write, about anything I want to write without wondering if another individual (my husband included) would think I was wierd. My journal is for me. I would feel totally violated if he read my journals.

Buster agreed. He said he would never read my journals. But he pointed out that the emails are communication your wife is sharing with another person--- not a personal diary. If she is sharing something with another man, she should not be afraid to share it with her husband.

I don't have an answer for you for the short term. I guess I would get there as early as possible, earlier than you stated you would get there, and see what's up. If your wife IS going to meet this guy, definately insist that you go along. I know this sounds neanderthal, but mark your territory.

Next thing is that you and your wife need to have a real heart to heart about how you feel. Sit down with her at a time when there will be no interuptions... call a baby sitter and go take a long walk.

She needs to understand how you feel about her, and how you feel when she emails other men. Be completely open and honest with her just like you have here. Tell her you thought alot about whether or not it's your jelouse/controlling nature coming out. Tell her you don't think it is.

One other thing you can do is try writing a letter. Buster and I have written a ton of letters since D-day. The nice thing about letters is you can say everything you need to say, get all your feelings out. This gives her time to think about what you said and respond.

It's also something for her to hold onto to read again.

<small>[ May 09, 2004, 01:50 PM: Message edited by: Heidi C ]</small>

I have tried to tell her how I feel and she says this is my own insecurities. She says she has married me and is totally commited to me. I have taken a hard look back at my actions over the last recent 4 years. Yes, baba, I have been trying to balance between the potential of being used and lied to against the very real potential that my examples of not trusting my wife have caused where our relationship is today.

Having taken this hard look at myself leaves me with one conclusion. If I do not fix myself and start showing my wife that I trust her, then I will eventually create a self fullfilling prophacy. Therefore, I accept the fact that for my own mental well being I need to get control of my insecurities.

I was looking for some insite into anyone out there that actually had a spouse have mistrust issues from their past that caused the other spouse to with draw because they felt they were not being trusted.

Heidie and Buster, I do thank you for your perspective. My wife claimed that she was not hiding the emails because she knew I could still get to it even though she deleted it. I do not know if this diserves the benefit of the doubt or not.

Thanks.

Ok, let my put myself in your place. To help me trust my spouse, he would have to show me all the e-mails and graciously be open with me about all his friends, male and female. He would TRY and ease my mind, not get mad that I asked for more honesty!

If I put myself in your wife's place, even if you are overy untrusting toward her or insecure, that would not make me edgy about the issue or MAKE ME want to withold or hide e-mails! In fact, your "want to know all" attitude would not make me want to hide anything. Because I would be so glad to ease your mind if there was nothing to hide.

I think any way you cut this thing, she has something she is hiding. You will find out what it is eventually. She cannot hide forever! Even as good as she is....at acting!