I have a little issue and need outside advice for it. My husband works on a college campus and because of his position of leadership it is very hard for him to make friends. Many of the male acquaintances he has primarily want to talk about his job (coaching). Besides me he doesn't have a lot of close friends, I have a couple but I rarely see them because they both live out of state. The issue I am having is that this past week he seems to have developed a friendship with a student on campus. She is a volleyball player who does have a boyfriend. The way I found out about it was because he told me he had to go meet her (he walked because he was supposed to meet her on the field behind our house) and that he might bring her back to the house to talk. However, after 30-45 min he hadn't returned so I texted him and asked if he was alone, he said no and I asked how many people were there and he said one. I told him it wasn't appropriate to meet with that girl alone at night and he should bring her home of they needed to continue their conversation. He was giving her advice because she had an issue with one of her coaches and needed direction. He came home alone and I told him that I wasn't comfortable with them meeting like that and he said he didn't think it would take that long and he was sorry. That is when I found out that they had become friends and had been texting and emailing each other. He said he finally felt that he was making a friend because they "clicked" and she seemed to "really get him." I was fine with them having a friendship but then a day or two later I realized he was texting her a lot, even at home. He took the phone everywhere, even to the bathroom. He said she was going to come down to our house because he wanted us to meet. I looked at his phone and he had deleted all the messages so I got extremely upset and wanted to leave to clear my head. He said although there was nothing bad on the texts he panicked. His 1st wife was an extremely jealous woman and I am not, however he still bears the scars of that relationship. He said he would end their friendship if it caused me pain and I said it wasn't necessary if he would be honest with me and not manipulate things. He said he screwed up and that their conversations had been extremely plutonic. The next day I looked at his email and read the only three I could find. They had been emailing for days and 90% of it was fine idle chit chat but my husband did say some things that really hurt me. He said that when they didn't text he missed it, he re-reads their texts all the time, he wanted to move their messages to a flash drive because he wanted to keep them, he says that one of the conversations they had had was the joy of his day, and she made a comment about something silly and he said "God, I have never been this soft" he was speaking about being soft emotionally not sexually. Then I noticed that most of their texts are initiated by him and if she doesn't get back to him within a certain amount of time he will text her again. I told him not to do that because it looks like he is trying too hard and it makes me uncomfortable. I am not a jealous or bitter woman but this is really eating at me. I do not believe he has a romantic interest in this girl, but those are he type of things he should reserve for me. I don't like him saying that kind of thing to another female. I also don't like that it seems so eager to talk to her and literally holds onto his phone (until yesterday) waiting on her texts. He swears that it is not and because of his job I do know he gets tons of texts and emsils a day so I might be a little too sensitive on that. They also started following each other on Instagram yesterday, after I told him I was having a hard time with this. I also started checking his email (which in 9 years of marriage) is something I never do. I noticed that within 15 min of his game being over he had started an email to her but he cancelled it and he told me he did that because it might bother me and he wasn't thinking because they had just lost pretty badly. He has assured me that he will end their friendship if I just say the word, but I don't want to be the reason for him to lose a friendship. He said he was sorry for what he wrote on the email and he didn't mean it in an inappropriate way. He said that he talks about me a lot to her and that it is all positive. Their relationship is less than 2 wks old but this is causing me to lose sleep at night. He has told me over and over again that he will end their friendship because I am more important but I don't want to be the reason for a friendship to end. He said I am his best friend and no one can take my place but that it is good to have another person to talk to and who will also have his back. So last night we had her come down to our house so that I could explain how I felt about all this and clear the air. I asked my husband to leave the room so I could ask her two questions. My first question was "Do you think he texts you too much." Without hesitation she said yes. I asked if anything he said or wrote ever made her uncomfortable and she said absolutely not. So my husband came back and we talked a long time about how we felt and he was shocked and embarrassed about her saying he texted too much because he says she always responds and texts him a lot. The only thing that reLly bothered me that she said was when I was trying to lay ground rules and said that I didn't feel that they had to text and check up on each other every day. When asked about being able to do that she says that she did want to be able to text him every day. Then later said she didn't want to text so much. This is so frustrsting because I don't know why they can't just have s normal friendship. My husband further angered me when she got up to leave and he asked me, in front of her, if he could walk her to her car (which is literally 20 ft from out front door). I laughed it off and said. No that I thought she could find get way but that he could join me at the door to see her off. I just feel like I am ping crazy and this is eating me alive. My husband is s good man and I don't think he is being unfaithful. He just really wants a friend. He said that this whole thing is his fault because of hoe he handles the emails and texts. He said he will probably just give the whole relationship up. I honestly wouldn't mind it unless it is going to hurt him, but then again their friendship is less that 2 weeks old. Please help.

Hi SW, welcome to MB!


I am glad you're here, you're not crazy. No one would lie their spouse doing this. Under the circumstances it makes sense to follow through on giving the relationship up, and put some precautions in place to prevent this going forward.

How much time do you spend together a week? Are you familiar with the concept of UA time? It helps you tow to be one another's best friends.

Your husband is probably having an affair, or will very soon with this woman.

You should secretly install keylogging software on his phone, computer and a GPS unit in his vehicle.

Ask that he stop seeing her.
If they work together he should find another job.

No married person should have a close friend of the opposite sex, regardless of how platonic they think/say it is. This is exactly how most affairs start. It sounds like they are already having an emotional affair, but if you act quickly, you can kill it before it gets more serious.

Your H should agree to never see or talk to this woman again. He needs to eliminate all the conditions that led to this friendship/affair. He needs to be completely transparent with you, holding nothing back.

Your H doesn't need a friend of the opposite sex. He has YOU and you should have each others backs. Take him up on his offer to end the "friendship" immediately. He needs to change all his contact information so she cannot contact him again.

Have you read up on the Policy of Joint Agreement? Even IF this little friendship was completely harmless, if YOU are not enthusiastic about it, the friendship must end. The POJA states: Never do anything without the enthusiastic agreement of your spouse.

Have you read up on Extraordinary Precautions? If every married couple followed them, no marriage would suffer the tragedy and pain of affairs. The EPs start with NO personal friendships with the opposite sex.

SW: Welcome to Marriage Builders.

You are NOT crazy; this relationship is EXACTLY how affairs start. Your husband is already becoming very attached to being in touch with her. I would tell him that yes, their relationship bothers you, and you would like for him to follow through on his offer to break it off entirely.

Also, you will have to start checking his email. Get spyware on his phone and computer, that he doesn't know you have, so that you can see what he is doing while he thinks you are not looking. "Snooping" is not a bad thing. Dr. Harley recommends it. (See his article on the subject in the "ARTICLES" section of this website.) As the saying goes, "trust, but verify."

Your husband has already been "sneaky" with you. Your instincts are correct.

Here are some good articles.

The Risks of Opposite-sex Friendships in Marriage


Snooping: Is it wrong? Or, is it the right thing to do in marriage?

There are situations under which everybody can be trusted, and there are situations under which nobody can be trusted. This is a situation in which nobody can be trusted. That is why they can't be just friends.

There is another way to look at this. You are an affair enabler. You want your husband to have his emotional need for companionship met by another woman. By promoting the friendship, you are showing lack of care for your marriage and a willingness to tolerate non-exclusivity. If I were your husband, I might well think that *you* were up to something!

So, none of that is true? Then stop behaving like this and defend your marriage. Put an end to this friendship, and don't tolerate close opposite-sex friendships ever again.

Hi SW.
You will find that the posters here on MB do know the OS friendship should not and CANNOT be for married people.

Once you are married the only OS friend you should need is your spouse, they should be your best friend.

And no matter what they think or say or pretend it is just a �friendship�, this other person is filling emotional needs that only your spouse should be filling.

Normally people are extremely jealous because they have REASON to be that way. Your husband has terrible boundaries and is putting your marriage and his job at risk.

Welcome to MB.

You are not crazy, you have every reason to feel threatened by this situation.

Please read the article on OS friendships. Dr Harley's stance is that married people should NOT have OS friendships, because allowing someone of the opposite sex to fill your needs is what leads to affairs. Many of us have come here (myself included) buying into societies views that we should simply 'trust' our spouse to not cross the line. But Dr Harley does not believe in blind trust, but rather, building a marriage that is great where you are each others best friends, and building a marriage that is affair proof by following precautions and integrating your lives in a way that make it next to impossible to have an affair.

I also used to think that I was the 'cool' wife, the secure non jealous wife who didn't have a problem with my husband going to strip clubs or having OS friendships. We are made to feel like jealousy is a bad thing, and means that we are insecure! This is simply not true. Jealousy is a natural reaction to a threat. Your spouse ogling over other women, is a threat to his relationship with you. Your spouse having OS 'friends' who fill his love bank and pull his attention away from you, is a threat to your marriage. Of course your natural instinct is to be jealous and/or protective! That is not a bad thing, and it does not mean you are in any way insecure.

Regarding being 'insecure.' I knew a guy once who had OS friendships, who said that his wife was fine with it because she was very 'secure.' He went on to have an affair with one of these companions. Being secure does not affair proof a marriage, or somehow make you immune to the pain of infidelity. Likewise, insisting that YOU are the only woman in your spouses life, does not make you insecure.

Your H is having an emotional affair. He is ALREADY addicted to this other woman, which is evident in his behavior. If you do not act fast to stop this train wreck, this will become a full blown PA. Please realize this is no little issue.

Whether she has a boyfriend is irrelevant. This will not stop her from pursuing or having an affair with your husband, and obviously HASN'T stopped her. Please do not see her as less of a threat because of this.

This is called gas lighting. Why would he panic if there was nothing upsetting on the text? If he said 'can a borrow a cup of sugar' why would he panic. Because there was something to panic ABOUT, something he did not want you to read.

This is the reason you need to install spyware. He has already hidden stuff from you, and that is before you took his drug away! If you tell him you are no longer going to support this behavior, he will have even more reason to hide his affair from you.

As another poster stated, he has very poor boundaries around women. His first wife probably had a reason to be jealous and feel threatened in the marriage, if he behaved in that marriage as he is in this one. Again, you are referencing jealousy as a BAD trait that makes someone insecure or weak, and it is not. Society has trained us to think it is, but it really is just an instinctual reaction to threat!

Was he divorced from his first wife when you met?

Again, he is gas lighting you. He is already covering up his conversations with her and NOT being honest about his relationship with her. That is evidenced by the fact that after days of emailing, you only found 3, meaning he had deleted the other ones so you would not read them. And the 3 you read were definitely NOT plutonic. Dr Harley says the line into an emotional affair is crossed when one of the parties suggest that they have feelings for the other party (or they both do). That is what he is doing here.

The rest of your post is all about how you are enabling him to carry on this emotional affair. He has another woman in his life who he is clearly attracted to and having an emotional affair with, and he is justifying it as being OK by letting you in on it. And you are going along with it! I hope after reading some of the responses to your post that you are starting to realize that this is not OK. I know you are trying to be a good and loving wife, allowing him to have 'friends'. But I hope you can see how this is going to wreak havoc on your marriage, and on both of you individually. This is the opposite of being a good and loving wife, because caring for your marriage would mean you would protect your marriage against a threat, right?

Please install spyware, specifically a key logger since he is prone to text and email his AP. And then tell him that you are seeing clearly now and it is absolutely inappropriate for him to have a relationship like this, and he must end it now. Understand that he is already addicted to her and having her meet his needs, so it is likely that he will tell you he is ending it, but just take their contact underground. This is why you need to install the spyware FIRST. He has already proven to you that he is willing to hide things from you, he will only hide MORE from you now.

He will also need to end ALL CONTACT with her. I am confused at how they know each other, is it through school or work?

Takes his phone to the bathroom? Meets her on a field? Come on. This is an affair and you know it.

If he doesn't make many friends, then how can his first wife have been jealous? Nothing he says adds up. You've been gaslighted into thinking it is normal and 'non jealous' to allow this breathtakingly bad behaviour.

Wanting women to 'get you' and make you 'emotionally soft' is a man looking for an affair.

He wants a woman to have a powerful emotional effect on him. Is that what you want?

Risking his job?

Since he is already hiding stuff I would suggest you get a PI. This isn't a potential affair it is already there. You aren't hooked on receiving texts from a mere friend.

Sorry you are here but welcome.

Everybody is right, this is an affair.
The good news is this is very fixable but certain steps must be taken.

Step one: I would hit "Notify" and ask that this be moved to the SAA forum.

Dr Harley says that jealousy is a normal reaction to a threat in your relationship.

I saw some nonsense about your H being "scarred" by his ex-wife's jealousy issue. My guess is that he has behaved in this way before (having female friendships) that made her concerned and he wouldn't give up these friendships and it led to fights between them.

He probably didn't take her feelings into account when making decisions and he's doing that to you now.

He erased the messages because he did not want you to see what was said.

People don't erase messages that would exonerate them and he already knows that you are suspicious.

Think about it.