You had an affair with the guy, didn't you? You WERE spending one on one time with him and you WERE going out to drinks with him. And it was so serious that you spoke to your pastor privately "about the situation."

Why all the BS?? Why leave out pertinent information that is an obvious deal changer?

I KNOW WHY. AND SO DO YOU!

She is lying to us.

Let me clear a few things up. Markos, I haven't answered your question about my friendship with this one man being the reason why I am not in love with my husband, because I'm not sure how to feel about it. Yes, I have heard this advice before. But I like to think that an intelligent person can look at the situation, understand what's going on, and make good choices. I see working on my marriage by identifying the love busters and our emotional needs as good choices that will bring about a positive change for our lives.

I am not having a secret torrid affair, but rather, I recognized some inappropriate aspects of my friendship with this one person that lead me to talk to our pastor. At that time, I was also seeking advice on another forum about divorce. I had never heard of emotional affairs before reading there. Some of the problems about that relationship was our time spent together without our spouses, mainly because our schedules allowed it. Often, our spouses would join us later.

Yes, alcohol was usually involved, which became a problem for me as it enabled me to push the boundaries of my marriage and act in ways that I never would have dreamed of doing before. I also frequently talked about the issues I had with my husband to this friend, which was wrong. And we were comfortable enough to talk about sex which was definitely a red flag. Nothing physical has ever happened between us besides a few friendly drunk kisses.

After realizing the red flags, I confessed to my husband about the situation, and I wrote to our friend and explained the new boundaries in our friendship.

I also told my husband about my getting too friendly with another male friend of ours while we were all drunk. With that friend, it is purely a physical thing. Suffice it to say, I am no longer trusted to go out drinking with friends.

The reason for my husband being out of the house was due to him being hospitalized last fall after the domestic incident. I told law enforcement that he didn't threaten me because he never said anything - he just took out his gun and started loading it after a huge fight. Otherwise he would have went to jail. As it was, he had to be tasered before he was taken into custody. It turned out that he had marijuana, amphetamines, and alcohol in his system that night. When the gun was found, it had two bullets in it. I had left the house while he was loading it and while hiding on our property, I called 911.

I was strongly urged to seek a protection order, but my husband was extremely remorseful about the whole event, and honestly it was partly my fault because we were arguing after a night out with friends and I told him that I wanted a divorce. He spent four days in the hospital and could not come home until the counseling was lined up. He is our only source of income so I had that fact to consider as well as our kids. Only our daughter was home at the time and she was in her room with friends listening to music until the cops showed up. So our kids are not fully aware of the events that happened that night.

I hope that clears up some of the confusion in my story.

thislife, do you realize that you aren't sticking to your own story about what you've done with this 'friend'??? First it was some heavy petting, now it's been some drunk kissing. Now you mention another guy and being 'purely physical' when drunk.

Please do not think I am ignoring the obvious serious problems with your husband. I would personally urge immediate separation due to the substancce abuse in this marriage (just IMO). But your actions will doom future relationships too, so it's time to start getting more honest with us.

I would love to offer more but I believe you are still lying so I'm not sure the point.

But - having another man as your best friend is a bad choice. I don't get it.

I see myself as an "intelligent person," but Dr. Harley has been counseling marriages for four decades. I take his advice to heart, and he says that having someone else as your best friend like you are doing will prevent his His Needs, Her Needs program from working for your marriage.

Regarding the domestic VIOLENCE incident you keep alluding to, Dr. Harley's advice is that if your husband ever lays a hand on you or threatens you with a weapon, you should indeed call the police. It sounds like drugs and alcohol are a serious problem for both of you in your marriage, and he would probably recommend you both cut both of those out entirely.

My wife and I can really relate to your situation - Dr. Harley recommended I take anger management training because of my angry outbursts, and my wife had an emotional affair with one of my friends from Facebook. We have gotten rid of BOTH of those problems and would love to help you get the spark back in your marriage like we have. But it can't happen if you keep the male best friend. No matter what you do, no matter how hard you work, according to Dr. Harley you simply can't get the love back if you keep the opposite sex friends around.

If you feel you're more intelligent than Dr. Harley, I'm sure he'd admit you might be right. But then Dr. Harley's forum probably can't help you, and you'll have to figure it out for yourself.

I don't understand why you say that as a Christian divorce is not available to you, but having a male best friend is. Isn't that just as wrong? Why is divorce a worse sin than giving away the companionship and closeness that should belong only to your husband?

http://biblehub.com/james/2-10.htm

"Yes, alcohol was usually involved, which became a problem for me as it enabled me to push the boundaries of my marriage and act in ways that I never would have dreamed of doing before. I also frequently talked about the issues I had with my husband to this friend, which was wrong. And we were comfortable enough to talk about sex which was definitely a red flag. Nothing physical has ever happened between us besides a few friendly drunk kisses.

After realizing the red flags, I confessed to my husband about the situation, and I wrote to our friend and explained the new boundaries in our friendship.

I also told my husband about my getting too friendly with another male friend of ours while we were all drunk. With that friend, it is purely a physical thing. Suffice it to say, I am no longer trusted to go out drinking with friends."

I just knew you were lying. You had a PHYSICAL AFFAIR with the "friend" and another "purely physical affair" with another male friend.

You can't have a "friendship" with someone with whom you have had an affair.

Did you sleep with OM #2?

And does the wife of OM #1 know what you did?

We now understand why you REFUSE to let go of OM #1.

She is having an affair and calling it a "friendship," in order to keep her affair partner hanging around. Not a damn thing we can do for you unless the affair is exposed and ALL contact is ended.

This thread needs to be moved to Surviving an Affair because the problem is your UNADDRESSED AFFAIRS. That is problem # 1, in addition to being a deceitful person.

Look at how deceptively her affairs were glossed over in the first post:

"However, I've never felt close to him on an emotional level and unfortunately this left me vulnerable to attachments to other people."

In Texas, we call that some good bullshyttin!

Further clarification...the physical stuff only ever happened with the second friend, besides the few drunk kisses I mentioned with the person who seems to be the center of all of this. The reason I refer to him as a "best" friend is because he knows me the best. As I mentioned, we are alike in many ways. That's all. I don't have to be in contact with him. It's just next to impossible to think that we won't ever see him. My husband is already irritated that I've "stolen" his friends so I've been backing off quite a bit and spending more time with the ladies in our group of friends.

The incident happened last fall and my husband has not taken anything except his prescriptions drugs since that time. He drinks occasionally, even then not much, as it interferes with his medications.

A separation was considered, in fact I was all for it, but both our pastor and my husband's counselor highly recommended that we not separate because we would grow further apart. So we stuck it out and now we are to this point... a few counseling sessions and some reading under our belts, but unsure of our future. However, the situation is MUCH calmer now.

I am being completely truthful with you, otherwise I would have never mentioned the friends. I just want to put that time behind us and work on our marriage issues. Moving is out of the question. I thought that I handled the issue with our friend by clarifying the boundaries? I don't pretend to believe that I know more than Dr. Harley, but if we focus our sincere efforts on this plan, isn't it worth it? Especially since some of the falling out of love happened in our marriage after treating each other badly over the years.

Putting it behind you would mean ending the friendship, right? Working on your marriage would require you to end the friendship that makes the feeling of love impossible, wouldn't it?

Did you read my post about how Dr. Harley's program doesn't work if you cut corners on his recommendations? There's no point to your counselor giving you His Needs Her Needs if you are going to skip the recommendations of the author, Dr. Willard Harley. You might as well toss the book.

Seriously??

I'm not trying to be deceitful about anything. I think that I've been very honest about the reason why I am here. Are you saying a kiss is defined as a physical affair? Because I'm not sure if I see it that way. I've never disagreed that the relationship was inappropriate. It's just complicated, that's all. And for sure, the whole mess was made worse by alcohol. Most of that group of friends (we are all former neighbors) have cut way back as it was completely out of control. The alcohol abuse is something that I have been working on personally in counseling as well as a few other issues. My husband believes that I had a MLC. I'm open to that interpretation too. I just know that none of my actions in the past few years have made me any happier. I don't want to go back down that road. I want to be healthier and to be able to inspire my kids and most of all to follow God's will.

Another unanswered question. I get the feeling you're not reading most of what we post to you.

We are telling you how to be happier and healthier, if you will listen.

I can't see why you don't see "my best friend is a man besides my husband" as being out of God's will. ???

Seriously??

I'd kick my husband to the curb if he kissed another woman.

I can vouch for that.

And I will further add that that kind of zero tolerance attitude is one of the reasons we have a good marriage, with the kind of emotional connection and feelings you were posting about in your first post.

We can show you how to do that, but you've got to have zero tolerance, too.

Oh! No...I definitely see that. I just don't know what to DO about it. I'm being realistic. This couple has been in our lives for several years. And my husband was originally content to let me talk this guy's ear off. Not so much anymore of course. There is NOTHING inappropriate going on now. All of our friends know we are working on our marriage. They are also all aware of the "incident". They want the best for our family. The reality is that my husband and I haven't been doing any of those most important emotional needs that were mentioned earlier in this thread. The conversational need really stands out. I've always sought out other people to fill that need. I am LEARNING. Please be patient with me.

I have done a study on James so I'm familiar with the verse you shared. I just finished reading a book on spiritual bondage which is a little far out there for most Christians, but it was very helpful to me. I believe that I'm still on shaky ground, spiritually, but I am determined to stay on the path. This is why I need a structured program.

The relationship IN OF ITSELF is inappropriate.