Last summer I discovered my H was having an emotional affair with a younger woman. I've no doubt he would've taken it to the physical had she not rebuffed those advances. My problem is that he is maintaining contact with this girl (mostly through e-mail; she attends college out of town but is home from time to time), and I can tell it causes him great emotional turmoil -- I believe he still has those physical desires for her, but he refuses to break off contact because he doesn't want to lose the other benefits he gains from the relationship (he says he's a friend, mentor & father-figure). It's not so much that he's being dishonest with me about it, but I do feel he's hiding things, and while we can talk about these other aspects of the girl, any hint of the possibility that he's still craving her is met with intense anger and defensiveness. For my part, I try not to concern myself with it and to concentrate instead on working to meet his emotional needs ... But there are times that I can tell there's something wrong that he's not revealing, and as a result my suspicions start going crazy and it makes me miserable, and I can see he is making himself miserable. Since, technically I suppose, there's been no infidelity, how do I handle this? My feeling is that the continued contact makes it more difficult for both of them to resist that possibility of giving in to physical temptation, but I wasn't able to get him to see this ... he claims he has the power to keep things in perspective, and maybe sometimes he does. It's the times he doesn't that have me worried. Any thoughts anyone? Thank you.

I think yours H, EA to a younger woman takes away from your relationship, he would have an affair, if she would not refuse his advances. I have the same situation with my W. She thought she can control her feelings and know she is madly in love with her married co-worker. It is time to find yours H emotional needs and try to fullfill them. There is big chance you will succeed. I never had a chance, when she told me it was to late. <P>Sadpete

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Sadpete:<BR><B>I think yours H, EA to a younger woman takes away from your relationship, he would have an affair, if she would not refuse his advances. I have the same situation with my W. She thought she can control her feelings and now she is madly in love with her married co-worker. It is time to find yours H emotional needs and try to fullfill them. There is big chance you will succeed. I never had a chance, when she told me it was to late. <P>Sadpete </B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>

I have noticed something strange about human behaviour (this is just a generalisation here... I know many people differ from this but this seems to be a common trait).<P>It relates to people who get into relationships.<P>It seems that when a woman enters into a relationship with a man, ALL other men suddenly become unattractive, while men entering relationships can still find other women attractive.<P>This apparent difference causes a lot of problems... because we as human being always tend to come into things using our "OWN" set of beliefs in order to gauge things by.<P>So when a man shows his attraction to another woman their partner thinks "*I* dont find other people attractive therefor HIM finding someone else attractive is insulting to me, its wrong, its bad". Men understand perfectly that women feel this way and they know that they can *NEVER* fully explain to their partners that they simply find something appealing to look at... or the thought of having communication with someone they perceive as desirable (may even be a highschool fantasy) as something they enjoy. They are almost "trained" to think even looking at another woman is like committing the worst sin on earth.<P>So your husbands deception and his hiding of things *might* be nothing more than a general reluctance to admit something that people have made others to feel bad because of. When we are single we look at people, why getting in a relationship suddenly changes this is beyond me (though I am sure the ladies who read this will quite enthusiastically dispute this [Proves my point even further does it not?])<P>As for him having gone further if not being rejected that might be so... but do not confuse the heart of a person with the fact it is contained in a male body... they are 2 different things and each of them exhibit certain characteristics.<P>

Welcome <B>MzPen</B>...<P>There is something that is mentioned in the book that is the 'bible' for this forum... <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>If you ever find yourself infatuated with someone other than your spouse, don't walk away, RUN! (page 171 of <A HREF="http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi6070_sa.html" TARGET=_blank>"Surviving An Affair"(SAA)</A>)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Your husband is in this situation! Conatct must be broken.<P><B>Now</B>... I have a post of general welcome post I wish to share with you... <P>It has a lot of quick links to many of the <B>most</B> important MB sites...<BR>Click here ==> <A HREF="http://www.marriagebuilders.com/forum/Forum29/HTML/000002.html" TARGET=_blank>General Welcome for All New Builders(Newbies)</A><P>For some clarity... a short time ago the "main" forum was divided into 4 separate "sub" forums...<BR>Staying in the <A HREF="http://www.marriagebuilders.com/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/marriage/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=General+Questions&number=28&DaysPrune=10&LastLogin=" TARGET=_blank>General Questions</A> forum will give you the most responses! <P>Jim

In response to Lost Soul -- believe it or not, I agree with you. I have never had a problem with H finding other women attractive and letting me know he finds them attractive -- in fact, we talk about finding others attractive all the time. In this case it is way more than finding her attractive, it is the fact that he allowed himself to become emotionally involved, and much, much too deeply. It wasn't until after he allowed this to happen that he let me know, in many heated words, how I had not been meeting his emotional needs. Nor had he been meeting mine. And it didn't help matters that I was in a pretty severe depression (which believe it or not this incident pulled me out of). I am trying to meet his needs, and he has done better in trying to meet mine ... One difficult aspect of it is his skepticism of the value of counseling/therapy and refusal to participate in it (he went with me one time, agreed that the counselor had some valuable insights but insisted any more was a waste of his time). The problem now is that I SUSPECT his romantic feelings continue, at least from time to time, because he has a difficult time masking his emotions and I have observed the same sort of behavior that precipitated last summer's discovery. And maybe I'm too chicken to probe him about it because of the violent reactions and horrible arguments we experienced then.<P>At any rate, I just wanted to point out that not all women go stark raving mad when their man looks at another woman. I truly have no problem with that. Just when he decides to give his heart to another.

MzPen:<P>The old "inappropriate friendship" trick, eh?<P>Been there, done that, bought the cheap ceramic ashtray in the shape of a foot that says "I walked my feet off in Hell".<P>Read my profile.<P>Yup, the only thing you can do is patch up your side of things. Your H will not admit to a problem. Ain't gonna happen. He thinks he's in control and you're overreacting because he hasn't dipped his wick.<P>Sorry. <P>He's giving you clues. He says he's a friend, mentor, and father-figure. OK, so we know he wants to be needed. I'll bet you're a pretty independent gal, right? Strong, capable, the whole nine yards. Maybe you're afraid to need him too much, so you distance.<P>I'm only talking from my own experience.<P>I had the same deal -- in my case the woman wasn't younger, and was actually more like me. But she was THERE and she was ATTENTIVE when I wasn't.<P>My H is a high-maintenance guy. I know that now. I made the decision to put him before everything else...and let him know. I give him backrubs; I spend time with him every night, I rarely go out anymore, I tell him how wonderful he is.<P>I like to do it, because I'M GETTING REWARDS BACK NOW.<P>H is still in contact with "Dragon Lady" through work, but it's nowhere NEAR the closeness it used to be.<P>And he doesn't even know what hit him. <P>I'd be happy to help you if I can.<P>

"Friend, mentor, father figure" Sorry this sounds to me like BS. This is an emotional affair, and your husband is at least trying to fool you and maybe also himself. <P>I went through something like this and issued an ultimatum. It worked for me, possibly because my husband was already looking for a way to get out gracefully. My advice, do not accept the nonsense, insist on truth. This may be counter to the Plan A system, but I lived with lies for months. It was not until, with the help of snooping advice from people here, that I found out the truth. It was a bombshell and a break-through. We are happier than we have been in years, both of us.<P>Sorry, once again I got wordy.<BR>Take care, always

Hanora, believe me you make sense to me ... I have tried the ultimatum thing once, though,and it was met with high, high, high defensiveness and vicious anger. If things continue, though, perhaps it will come down to that and I'll have to call his bluff. And take the risk that he's not bluffing.<P>Dazed -- sounds like I've got loads in common with you! H is also very high maintenance, and believe me I've been trying very hard ... it's quite difficult when you've got a 3 year old who, we all know, believes she is the center of the universe.<P>Everyone has been very helpful to me. I just wish I didn't feel like I was walking on eggshells a lot of the time. Guess I'll just keep up the care-giving and hope for my rewards to increase and for his reliance on his fantasy world to decrease. Maybe I'm kidding myself, but I feel as if he would just get another job (long story!) things would start getting a lot easier, at least in some ways ... but that's a whole 'nother thread!

Well I believe emotional attachment is infidelity also, my husband started talking to another W and I intercepted a message on his pager from her he explained to me that nothing physical had happened but it was emotional so I did the best thing I could I kicked him out he then moved in with her and I took care of our children and cried myself to sleep every night than after 3 months the man came begging to come home he learned a hard lesson and noe we are much more attentive to each other and were doing good, it was a hard lesson learned he didn't believe he had done anything wrong because it had not gotten physical until after he moved out, now he'll admit it was wrong and definitely betrayal but it took me being out of his life to realize what marriage was all about and we were married 7 years when this took place., Go with your HEART. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Sadpete:<BR><B>I think yours H, EA to a younger woman takes away from your relationship, he would have an affair, if she would not refuse his advances. I have the same situation with my W. She thought she can control her feelings and know she is madly in love with her married co-worker. It is time to find yours H emotional needs and try to fullfill them. There is big chance you will succeed. I never had a chance, when she told me it was to late. <P>Sadpete </B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>