Hi! I recently found this site and just joined today. I am in need of major support and hope you folks can help me. I'll tell you my story as briefly as I can. I met my husband in 1977, and we married in 1985. Through the course of our relationship we have had an unusual amount of difficult outside life circumstances. Two years into our relationship his mom died and 9 months later my mom died. In 1989-90 My dad had a heart attack, bi-pass surgery in which he was hospitalized for 2 1/2 months near death, H's sister, who was married to my cousin, left him for another man, my husband was diagnosed with Hep C, and then went on interfuron for 6 months. And there have been more years like this. We managed to make it through, but not always eaily. Only 18 months ago our marriage was in a very good place. We had had counseling after another very traumatic year and many wounds were healed. However, medications he had been on for several years were impacting him sexually. That was becoming a problem for me and he wasn't dealing with it. Then in August 2002 my 15 yr old nephew died, my uncle died, his dad ended up in and out of the hospital from Nov. until he died in March 2003. Meanwhile my dad's health was seriously declining and he was denying any help. I was the major caretaker and the stress was unbelievable. In June 2003 I could see my H emotionally turn away from me. I kept trying to connect without any success and our sex life now was nonexistant. Meanwhile over that year, every 2 or 3 months I felt boundaries were being crossed with the office manager of his small business. Like her calling him at home just to talk. He actually was annoyed and would talk in front of me. But then the boundary crossing seemed more dangerous because she was having trouble in her marriage, and eventually divorced. Every time I had the gut reaction I talked to him about it. He either didn't or wouldn't get it. In August 2003 my dad died. Now the disconnection between us was getting unbearable for me. We weren't fighting, just no connection. The last straw is when he went out socially after work with her and had too much to drink. He was only with her for a few hrs., but I demanded we go back to therapy. He went reluctantly and dropped out the week before thanksgiving. I e-mailed him 2 letters stating we needed to talk and if he didn't want to be married he has to tell me. I couldn't stand the lonliness any more and was seriously thinking about leaving him. Finally on 1/8 we talked. I asked him once again if he was having an affair. He told me no but then said he has feelings for someone. He has had feelings for the office manager for a year and says the feelings are love. He claims he has not told her his feelings or slept with her. I think I believe him, but I know people having affairs are good liers. We at least are talking now, but over these past months, and even now, he is not saying or acting like he is committed to our marriage. I found something he wrote which indicated he wanted out. Could have been written before we talked. He did see the marriage therapist who told him he needed therapy for himself. He's had one session. He now is on vacation in Arizona, of course alone, visiting his sister. He left Wed. and just called me today, Sat., which hurt me deeply given what we are going through. I'm glad I finally know the truth, but the truth hurts. He can't fire her because she technically didn't do anything wrong. Plus his business partner is leaving in Feb. and his business would be in real trouble if she wasn't there. So much for Plan A. How can he turn towards me if he is working with her every day?The pain I have felt these past 2 wks. is worse than the deaths. I keep saying to myself I can't believe this man I trusted could be treating me this badly. I kept all our problems to myself until 3 wks. ago, and finally told a good fiend and am in therapy. I'm just wondering if I should let him go. If it weren't for my 2 teenage sons I think I would have by now. If he's gone I can tell my family and start getting the support I need. It's obvious to me that he isn't feeling half the pain. He sounded great on the phone and is having a fun vacation. Meanwhile I have insomnia, lost 5 lbs. in 2 wks, have to make myself eat, and can't concentrate. I did get on an antidepressant last week and can't wait till it kicks in. Sorry this is so long. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!!

Welcome. Sorry you're here.

It would help if you separated your post into paragraphs. Be easier to read.

Workplace emotional affairs are horrible. My H got emotionally involved with a woman he worked with, and there isn't room or time for me to go into the details of the mess it made of our marriage.

He's in the fog. But you know that, right?

You need a plan. Are you willing to counsel by phone with the Harleys? (I always recommend them, though I haven't used their services.)

I know how you're hurting. I also remember not being able to eat, plus other horrible symptoms.

One good thing right now, you have confided in a friend and are in counseling. My priest told me to confide in a friend, because I was so incredibly alone in my pain.

Be well.

Thanks Belle. Sorry about the lack of paragraphs. Some sites don't allow paragraphs so I just ran on.

I read a book in which the 1st chapter was "how to avoid emotional infedelity." The author said the people involved don't even have to be talking about feelings, or sleeping together. If it takes the spouse's energy away from the marriage it is an EA. Now my trust is so eroded after months of living with the distance. I don't know if I'm being told the whole truth, except my H was home most of the time. No weird schedule changes or anything. Just the increasing lack of connection.

Are you still married? Either way, how are you doing? I'd like to know. Thanks!

Have you tried Plan A? It should be done for several months if possible. In the meantime, get busy changing yourself - develop some projects and interests, you will get back some of your self-esteem, and quit waiting for him to call.

The good news is that YOU can recover, and that the path toward personal recovery is also the path toward marital recovery, at least in the beginning. It's a narrow path, but many here have walked it, and you can, too. If your husband is willing to join you, your marriage can recover, too. I suggest you start down the path, and try to coax your husband to come along with you. </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> You can recover. Many people have. It isn't easy, and not everyone succeeds, but as long as you are both working on it, your chances are close to 100%. If your spouse is NOT willing to work on your marriage, is denying involvement in an affair despite the evidence, and/or is continuing an affair, read What Are Plan A and Plan B? after reading the "Basic Concepts" links below. In that case, you need to start Plan A with the help of a marriage counselor (see item #2, below). There are a couple terrific posts about Plan A that are worth reading at: Plan A, Doormats and Love Busters by Zorweb and Cerri on Plan A, which will help you avoid some of the common pitfalls. Your situation is harder, but your chances of saving your marriage and actually making it better than before are still good. But, whether your spouse is "on board" or not, you should do three things:

1.) Learn. The most important and helpful single source of information for my wife and I was “Surviving an Affair” by Willard Harley (hereinafter referred to as “SAA”) available at the Bookstore, Amazon.com, and bookstores all over. SAA is THE best book on the market for helping one get to the root of “the message of the affair” (BUT YOU HAVE TO DO THE QUESTIONAIRES!). It (along with the Basic Concepts section of this site) is also helpful for giving you a vision of what a great marriage should look like. The approach of SAA to this problem is that the best defense against affairs is to have a great marriage. My wife said we had a good marriage, but she still had an affair. She was kidding herself, but it was not until we read SAA and saw what a great marriage should look like that we could clearly identify the problem areas and had the tools necessary to fix them. So that you can get started right away, while waiting for SAA to arrive in the mail, read everything in the Basic Concepts section of this site. Next, read all the Q&A's on infidelity on this site. They are found at How to Survive Infidelity

The phrase “the message of the affair” is from the book “Torn Asunder”, by Carder (hereinafter referred to as “TA”). I personally think this is the best book on affair recovery we have read. In particular it deals with the two different paths the recovery of the betrayed spouse (BS) and the wayward spouse (WS) need to take, and deals w/ remorse in a way that I prefer to SAA. Read it together, if your spouse is willing. If not, go through it yourself. If you or your spouse has issues with control, you might also want to read “The State of Affairs”, (SOA) by Todd Mulliken, which also treats the remorse issue similarly to TA. SOA also deals with "the vision thing" for marriage, which is neglected in SAA.

2.) See a marriage counselor. This is hard. You need help. These boards are populated by amateurs. MC’s are professionals. There is a difference. They can help deal with issues the books don’t cover, and customize things to your individual situation. That said, there are lots of bad MC’s in the world. Read, and take to heart, How To Find A Good Marriage Counselor. You do not want an MC that is going to teach you how to live with an awful spouse, or how to adjust to divorce. Too many of them do, as is documented here: Hazardous Counseling. Reading that link may scare you off counseling, but it should give you some good ideas to ask a potential MC before you start w/ them, so you can avoid those that give you the wrong answers. You need one that is committed to helping couples have great marriages, and knows how to do that.

You are on an emotional rollercoaster right now, and there will be times that you will think it would be best to just divorce your spouse and go on with your life. Though there are no guarantees, recovery IS possible, but it takes time and effort. You will hate yourself if you don't do everything you can to make that happen. Give yourself the time you need.

3.) I understand that you may not be a person of faith, but for me, getting my spiritual life in order was crucial. As I said, this is hard. I knew I would need all the help I could get. Repenting of the habitual sins in my life let me stop pushing God away so I could hold on for dear life. I had to humble myself and ask Him what I had done wrong, and what I could do to be the husband He wanted me to be for his child, my wife. This was not about blaming myself. It was about doing what I could to do my part in having a great marriage. My wife could participate or not, but I had to know I had done everything I could do. It also helped me to let go of thinking about what SHE needed to do, since I couldn't control her, anyway.

You might also want to read through: WAT's Quick Start Guidelines for Betrayed Spouses, but keep in mind that these are the writings of amateurs. Get the books, read the articles, and see a GOOD counselor - you need the best help you can get.

Of course, that is just my opinions and what worked for me, who experienced it once, first hand. Harley, who has helped HUNDREDS of couples through this process, lays out his program in the following link: How to Survive Infidelity You will find that I mostly followed his plan. It works. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">

Thanks! I appreciated your very thoughtful response. I guess I am at the point of being so tired of the pain I'm feeling. For months now I have watched my H dismantle our marriage. I didn't ignore any of it. I kept trying to reach out to him. His pattern is to turn away when he is going through a difficult time. However, now I know why this time it felt more extreme because of the EA. He said his way of dealing with his feelings was to deny them, hoping they'd go away. Unfortunately he cut me out at the same time.

I would love to do Plan A, but as I said the OW is vital to his small business, and you can't just fire someone. This might be a fantasy totally in his head. I understand how this happened. We lost the sex in our marriage, marriage crisis, and I couldn't totally be there for him when his dad died because mine was dying. Meanwhile she is meeting all his needs at work. My gut tells me she has feelings for him too. I think because of the boundary crossing I saw.

When he finally fessed up he said he wanted to see by himself our marriage therapist. The therapist recommended ind. therapy so he can figure out what's going on with him. I just received my counseling degree and know professionally and personally what you're talking about regarding good and bad therapists. A part of me feels he needs ind. therapy now. But I worry if the therapist doesn't care about retaining the marriage H might just get enlightened and do his own thing. The marriage Therapist we saw really helped us in 1998. But when we saw him in the fall he suggested the idea of seperation in 2 sessions which threw me. It might have been to shock my husband who hadn't been honest yet and was very noncommital. It was obvious I was the one trying.

Is it wrong when he returns from his trip Wed. to pin him down on whether he will try or not? Before he left he said he decided he wants to try, but not very enthusiastically. Then he doesn't even call me while away. I'm confused. I have been in such isolation for months now that I'm tired of it. I am avoiding my family because they love him and I don't want to add there anger in the equation. But if he isn't committed to making this work I need the support. I need to start telling people. This limbo state is killing me. I can't imagine the people here who have experienced full blown affairs, because this EA is bad enough.

As far as my spirituality, I think that is the one gift I have received from this. It has gotten me in much closer touch with that part of myself. My faith is pretty weak that I will be OK, but I keep on praying. Again, thanks to you all. And any other feedback is very appreciated.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I would love to do Plan A, but as I said the OW is vital to his small business, and you can't just fire someone. This </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I don't exactly understand this statement. If you want your marriage to recover, he will need to end all contact with her, forever. That means he leaves or she leaves...or you leave. Eventually. Plan A is for the interim. So I don't understand how them having contact prevents you from doing Plan A.

When you have a close and important business relationship, finding a way to end contact between them can be really, really, hard, but that is simply reality. THEY brought the necessity to end all contact with each other upon themselves by crossing boundaries. It's unfortunate, but there is really no way around it.

Maybe you're right. Although IF he's telling me the truth, he hasn't revealed anything to her. He claims he's been dealing with these feelings by trying to deny them, hoping they'd go away. That actually is a pattern of his. I don't want to be an idiot and believe everything he's telling me. From reading the posts on this site I see how the WS lies. Plus, 2 of his siblings have left their marriages over affairs. My H did not approve, but the rest of the family very quickly accepted the situation, provided comfort to the cheater, and welcomed the OP with open arms. So my H knows he'll get the same treatment. Out with the old, in with the new. I feel like my H has all these forces around him that don't support staying with a marriage. There's his family. Then our "good" friend of 20 yrs., his business partner, told him our marriage has had a lot of trouble and maybe it's time to move on. His brother told him recently how glad he is he left his marriage. He is still with the OW and is extremely happy. Then there's the uncle who has been married 3 times. He got divorced 2 yrs. ago because his W caught him cheating. He just told H how great his teenage sons are doing and they don't need counseling anymore. I feel like there isn't anyone out there who would tell him to work at our marriage except me. Sorry for going on. I guess I have all this stuff to get out. What a mess. Thanks! At least I don't feel so all alone now.

Hi CV,
Yes, we're still married. But I nearly divorced him a year ago last September. The rejection, isolation, cruelty, incidents piled up and started ticking off the notches like inside a wind up clock.

Instead of saying very much every time one of the incidents happened, I assessed them and counted them. I realized I couldn't keep enduring these insults, and quietly began organizing my life and reading up on divorce and attorneys. And I kept spying in the ways that I could (not very high tech at all.)

ALl this angst and finally when the papers were filed, and my attorney had them in hand, I wrote him a letter to ask how he wanted the papers served, so as not to embarrass him at the office. and left it in his glove box. He read it and phoned me to talk. He came home, I believed to discuss the arrangements to divorce, the service, the living arrangements, etc.

Instead he urged me to do nothing right away, to consider the effects of a divorce on our son, even urged me to talk to his mother about things. I knew he was desperate if he were willing to let his mother know I was thinking of divorcing him. (We have spared his parents knowledge of our problems becase they are elderly and frail.) They have had enough pain and loss in their lives.

I agreed to a 30 day cooling off period. Part of the condition to this was that while I was doing my research about effects of D on kids, he would do his own independent looking into the Emotional Affair issue.

He immediately began behaving more courteous and thoughtful. He is still not behaving like a loving husband, there is zero romance between us, but there has been some improvement.

I know there's still contact with the OW. Mostly phone and email.

My H is the expert on emotional repression and lying to himself. I didn't know how this would affect me when we married. I thought I had the cure.

The fantasy could go on for years, unless the OW is shut out of his life. His not being able to fire her is an excuse to keep feeding the addiction.

If you want to save your marriage, the Plan A board is a good place to start reading.

believer and John 39 have valid points. You're lucky you found this site.