I recently found out that my husband, of 10 years, has been chatting with a women online for the last 2 years. I had begun to suspect something was going on, but he promised me nothing was happening. I purchased a log program that tracked everything he did without him knowing. Of course I caught him, and at first he claimed that it was just a friendship. Then he told me that it started out as "cybersex", and that he had tried to call her. What really bothers me is the fact that our relationship had begun to improve before I caught him. We had a long talk, the entire time he denied speaking with any one person, and we made some changes to improve our marriage. Then 3 months later I find an instant messanger conversation between the two of them, and find out that he has talked to her on the phone. In the three month period he lied ALOT! He works with computers all day at his job, and he has internet access, and I know that he called her while at work, and he would e-mail her at work. I am not sure that I can trust him ever again. I have a hard time believing that they were just friends, and I have a hard time believing that after two years he will just end it. HELP!!!!!!!!

SEPeterson,<P>I can so relate to what you are going through. My H has been involved with a few on-line relationships. Last fall he disappeared for 2 days and it took me until last month to finally get the truth. He told me he was on a drug relapse and binged, but he was too rested and tan looking. Well, apparently he flew from NY to FL to meet a woman he met on-line and had been exchanging sexual emails for 2 months. He says she never showed, but I think there's more to it.<P>We've been married for 17 months and I've found that he's lied this whole time (and before) about his on-line activities. With each new discovery and each new woman he's vowed to change and recover our marriage. And I've also found these were fake recoveries.<P>The end of April I found he had met a woman on the phone with whom he was conducting business. They exchanged a few emails and then they planned n meeting. This discovery was the worst by far because she is local. They never met (to my knowledge), but she will contact him via email once in a while to see how things are going. He sent the no contact letter last month and he tells me when he's contacted and that he doesn't respond.<P>We are in counseling once a week and it's helping a bit. We also have been reading the book <B>Every Man's Battle</B> by Stephen Arterburn. It's an excellant christian based book that deals with sexual sin. It spells out sexual sin quite clearly (my H is borderline SA according to the book). It's very interesting. It also gets into developing a battle plan.<P>My H had his systems administrator put a block on his interent access like a net nanny. He can no longer access chats or pornographic sites (a biggy for him). I blocked the porno channels on the cable access at home.<P>Not sure if I've helped! I just wanted you to know that I, too, am dealing with this. It appears my H is doing all that he can to rebuild my trust.<P>I wish you success in your recovery!<P> <P>------------------<BR><B><I>RECOVER * REFOCUS * REGENERATE ~ BREATHE * RELAX</I></B><P>By Eleanor Roosevelt ~~<BR><UL TYPE=SQUARE><BR><LI>"People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built." <P><LI>"No one takes advantage of you without your permission."<BR></UL>

Free2BMe, <P>Thank you for your response. To my knowledge, which seems pretty limited at this point, my husband did not meet her face to face. He did see her via her web cam over the internet. He claims she was chubby and not very cute, yeah, right! <P>We have 4 children together, ages 9, 7, 5, and 2. He claims that this started when I was pregnant with our last child. He says that he knew that I was tired and he didn't want to "burden" me. I did get large with our last child, but if ever I offered, he never rejected me. He even claims that I was even more attractive when I was pregnant. Because we have four kids I stay home and babysit 4 children other then my own. At times this can be quite exhausting, and I wasn't always as attentive as I could have been. This was something we discussed in February when I first asked him if something was going on (he denied everything at this point). Things started getting alot better, affectionwise. I still thought something was going on, but everytime I brought it up he would make me feel terrible for not trusting him, and even thinking he could do something like that! Then, I put the logging program on, and he found it! He really made me feel horrible! I left it on and I never saw anything, because he was doing it all at work! On May 12th he put a new hard drive in our computer, and there went the program, or so he thought. I put it back on, but I hid it much better, and on the 19th of May I went to check it, and to my suprise was the Instant Messanger conversation they had, his hotmail name and password, and a bunch of links to pornographic newsgroups! I had asked him if he had a hotmail account, and he told me that he use to, but it probably didn't exist anymore because he hadn't been to it, and he couldn't remember the password. Needless to say, I haven't been the same since May 19th!<P>I love my husband very much, but this has made me doubt his love for me. He claims that everyone he chatted with, including this girl, knew that he was "happily" married with 4 kids. But when I checked his profiles at some of the websites he never gave a marital status or mentioned his kids. I recently found a website for "adults looking for adults" that he'd been to. I saw his profile, and he wasn't looking for anything more then "stuff" over the internet, but he was looking for someone within 20 miles of where we live! <P>He managed to keep the secret for 2 years, and this girl is keeping it a secret from her boyfriend. My husband even told her that he was worried about getting caught. It sounds like more then a friendship to me, and my husband can't explain why he went back after our relationship began to improve! <P>Thanks again<BR>

SEP,<P>Oh boy sounds a lot my situtation except my H met several of he women. Admits to a PA with one of the. Do not play down the cybersex and phonesex part of this or the emotional attachment one can get to a person in chat and through email. These stories are becoming more and more prevalent. <P>If you are interested, search all forums for my handle "zorweb", then read, starting with my first post in May. That way you'll get the story. My husband posts here too.. his handle is SeenTheLight. <P>My husband, like yours works on the internet. We have taken some extra ordinary measures to protect our marriage from further damage from internet affairs.<P>It's working and we into the third month of a very happy recovery.<P>Good Luck<P>Z<P>------------------<BR>He loves not who does not show love.<BR>----William Shakespeare

i too can relate with your feelings. my WS started going to a chat room for people with marriage problems, (not this one) and met OW who had been abused by OWH. it started out innocently enough, or so he says, and turned out them having sex in my bedroom on my bed. i saw the picture to prove it.<BR>i am very weary about letting him on the internet. he says i have to trust him but dday was just about a month ago, and i am not to that stage yet. we are however working things out and sometimes life is really wonderful right now.<BR>i am the happiest and unhappiest i have ever been. i'm sure you understand these feelings. dr. harley suggests NO<BR>privacy in a marriage and i agree. i have always let my H know everything. email passwords, access to my wallet, anything, tell him all of my friends and where i will be at all times. i think this just goes with the marriage territory. i have never had anything to hide, so why would i care if he knew my email password or had access to my wallet? but he did. he had private email accounts and i knew nothing of his friends online. no access to wallet, nothing. not that i would snoop anyways, but if he loved me and didn't have anything to hide, why would he care if i looked through or got money out of his wallet?<P>i am trying to get past this now. i know i sound angry and at times, i am very very very very p$#@$d off at him, but i love him and i believe we are going to make it.<P>you need to sit him down and talk it out, if he won't then try counseling. read all of the material on this website.<BR>it sounds pretty fishy to me too. supposedly my H friends were just that, and it turned out to be more.<P>you need to worry about yourself and marriage so get him to talk and open up. if he did have an A, brace yourself for the blow, because even if you think he had one but don't really know, if he tells you it is true, hold on. your breath will be taken away.<BR>write back and let me know how things are going. for you, i hope nothing has happened.<P>good luck and let us know....<BR>much hope and love, bluegirl

Hi SEPeterson,<P>How to trust after many on-line affairs? That is hard to do. It is soo easy to start EA which can quickly turn to PAs out there. It is a primed market that searches for our families right in our homes. It should be illegal but they hide behind the cloak of their amendment right to free speech yet it is ok to break up a family. I think it is harder than keeping our kids from drugs. Yet the impact can be just as devasting if not worse. <P>My H met many women on line with PA with the last an ea/pa that has now resulted in a potential preg. with a 45 year old Chinese person. This woman has no morals, thinks she owes my H and has said that he needs to be there for her and that his family will be alright without him. Very selfish person. <P>These on-line relathionships start out with a lot of writing which impresses the brain even more than talking. It primes them for the first phone call, them 1st physical meeting which leads very quickly to the PA. Hooked all the way, can't break it so they say. Now my H is comparing the 10 month A to the 10 year marriage and still doesn't know which he wants more. He knows what he should do but his heart has already been stolen. So he is a very confused man. Even my son knows better than my H. Hm......<P>So based on the above, how to trust? I can not be the judge of that. I am not the one who betrayed my family. So I leave the rebuilding of trust back to my H. He is home now and has the responsibility to restore the his trust to us. He has the job to prove to us that he is trustworthy. We have discussed what that actually entails. Coming clean with all conncections. Honesty in all areas. Immediate notification of contact either way (he has been slow on this but does tell when I ask - he has been tasked with providing info before I ask), meet the needs of his family without us asking, etc. The onis is on him at this time. The family continues to be there for him as long as he is working with us. You see, our love is no longer unconditional. It can not be. But it can be restored if he earns our trust back. <P>So it is a work in progress item. It will take time. <P>Take Care,<BR>L.<BR>

Bluegirl,<P>I don't know when he would have had time to have a PA, but he is even denying an EA. He claims that there was absolutely nothing there for him. But, it wouldn't have lasted 2 years unless he was getting something out of it. When I say he wouldn't have time what I mean is: He leaves for work, he comes home. If I'm not with him then he has our kids. He would wait until we were all in bed before he would start chatting. I also worked 2 nights a week for a short time, my last night at work was the night he had the instant messanger conversation with her. My husband would not bring another woman into our home with our kids. I positively know this because, our 5 year old always gets into bed with us in the middle of the night, he'd be terrified of the kids catching him.<P>By the way, I should have let everyone know from the beginning, we are in counseling. We went together once, he's been alone once, and I go alone for the second time tomorrow. She doesn't think that what happened was an "affair". She understands why I do. My husband knew the minute he started chatting that I would consider it cheating, we had discussed the subject at length. He even agreed with me that any intamacy with someone other then your spouse, whether it is physical or not, is cheating!!!!!! At least he knew what my reaction would be when I found out. He tells me everyday that he thanks God that I didn't take the kids and leave, and he should!<P>Thanks again<P>PS Zorweb, what measures have you taken to ensure he doesn't get on the websites at work?

SEPeterson<P>i used to believe that if my ever cheated on me, it would be someone slender and beautiful.(My H and I have put on quite a few lbs since our 7 yrs together.) i thought it would be for looks, not necessarily personality.<BR>i was very wrong. the OW my H had the A with was about my size, maybe a little smaller, (but not much,) i don't think there was anything very special looking about her and you could see all the havoc that pregnancy reaks on a woman's body. (stretch marks, a jelly belly, etc.) actually, this might sound very very crazy, but i thought the picture was me for a split second there. because i didn't believe my H would ever do something like that, i really thought it was me. i mean, she was big and laying on my bed, so why wouldn't it be me? well, as you know, it wasn't and so the tragedy started. my whole theory of cheating for a better and more beautiful person went out the window. i don't really know what he was looking for. i know he says he was looking for someone to love him and make him feel special.(my H said the A happened because i didn't trust him and never have fully, which is true) i knew we had marriage probs, but i didn't think they were that bad. i know now that they were.<P>i don't know if i would believe the whole chubby thing. some men prefer thin, some heavy, and some prefer any. just as long as they "fulfill" something that they believe is missing in their life. My H says it happened only one time, but it only takes one time and the EA is just as devastating to me as the PA was. the EA happened for about 1 year on the inet. he also called her because she lived in the next town. <P>about the chatting but their just friends and they know i am a happily married man with four kids......<BR>oh boy....that sounds exactly like what my H told me....i am getting very suspicious here......only because now i know. i chose to believe that line too....my H would say they are all just friends and they know i am happily married with a wonderful wife and two wonderful boys....<BR>yes.....that is the same thing my H told me.....<BR>the truth needs to come soon....very soon.....<P>i read someone's post yesterday about getting all of the proof and then go to the spouse when they can't deny the A.<BR>i think that is very good advice. because for you and your children, you need to know. for your own peace of mind...<BR>if you feel funny in your gut, it might be true. i had that feeling for a long time and did nothing. if it wasn't for the picture i found, i probably would have never known. <P>anyways, sorry this is so long, i could go on forever.<P>good luck...bluegirl

My husband works out of our home so all of the computers he uses are here, not in an office. He travels about half he time for his work. When he is on the road he uses his laptop.<P>My husband has been gracious enough to do several things to help me feel safer and to help rebuild my trust in him. Note that these are things that I asked him to do and he as agreed to. They are all based on the principles of radical honesty and the belief that there is no need for privacy in a marriage. Since there is no finger pointing or blame in our relationship I am also doing the things. It is my way of showing him that we are both accountable to the other and we are in this together. These measures are my husbands way of showing me that he is committed to our marital recovery.<P>He no longer chats or have email exchanges with any women except for his mother, his sisters, his daughters, his ex wife (mother of his children) and me when he travels. He does of course exchange emails with the women he works with but because we now have agreed to no privacy and radical honesty I can look at this email when I want to.<P>He provided me with all of his passwords for: email account, chat screen names, computers, etc. <P>We have installed keystroke-monitoring software (www.iopus.com) on all of our computers. My husband knows it’s there. It acts as a deterrent since he knows I’ll be able to see what he’s done one the computer all day.<P> These measures have worked wonderfully. I have so much peace of mind. I do not think I could have stayed with my husband if he had not agreed to these measures. <P>Z<P>------------------<BR>He loves not who does not show love.<BR>----William Shakespeare

I see so many similarities in all of your stories. My husband's cybercheating had been going on I suspect for several years, before that it was phone sex on two separate occasions, before that it was pornographic mags.<P>I discovered he planned to meet with one of his online cybergals just a few days after I had discovered his online activites.<P>I installed spector on our home PC. Since that time I have created a site dedicated to helping people suffering from online affairs. This is where I am venting my frustrations and anger by helping other people who are hurting just like me. If you would like to share your stories with me, anonymously of course, feel free to do so. E-mail me at webmaster@bustedyouonline.com. <P>Trusting after an online relationship. I think what has helped me the most is knowing it is over. I know what he is doing and he knows I am watching him. Radical honesty, no privacy having all of his passwords, is what has worked for us in establishing trust again. I just have to trust the healing process and in time I will trust him again.<P>Anyway, check it out..hope you find it helpful...http://www.bustedyouonline.com

Everybody:<P>I could do an entire spiel on the dangers/pitfalls of online activity. But, to keep it brief:<P>Warning, Will Robinson! Danger! Warning! Warning! Warning!<P>Godspeed to all,<BR>STL