Hello,

I hope someone can give me some advise. I just found out two months ago that my wife of three years and lover for seven years was attracted to a man she used to work with. She swears that nothing physical has ever happened between them but I have my doubts. My wife indicates that she became attracted to him because they have a lot in common. she has agreed not to be around this guy anymore and that she wants our marriage to work.

I am having a hard time getting past this. I really want my marriage to work but this has hurt me so bad. What should I do? Should I trust her that nothing happened?

Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

James

James,
For now lets give your W the benefit of the doubt. Some may disagree but we are, or have been in a place that makes red flags go up easily. If what she says is true, she is not 100% in the right but she created a boundary and did not cross it that is a plus.

She came to you with her concern over the attraction that is a great plus. Many here would have loved to have been given that opportunity.

Advice, buy Harley’s book His Needs / Her needs and the accompanying work book 5 steps to romantic love. Read the book together and work through the workbook. It is designed to Affair Proof your marriage.

At the very least read the concepts on this site, understand Love Banks, Love Busters, Emotional Needs ect.

Now is not the time to be judgmental it is the time to be honest and look inward at yourself and to be honest in scrutinizing your marriage and it’s pitfalls for both partners.

If in fact there was no affair, this is an early warning use it to make a great marriage.

Oz

Oswald,

Thanks for your input. My wife and I have agreed that it was an emotional affair and we are trying to isolate what was missing that lead to this EA.

Thanks again,

James

Print out the emotional needs questionnaire here. It is about 12 pages long. Then ask her to fill it out, and you fill it out.

The next thing to do is both of you try to meet each other's needs.

James, I agree with Oz. Don't be too judgemental even though it is very, very hard not to. I am going through a similar thing and am trying to practice what I am saying to you. I think that when a wife's emotional needs are not met, any little spark of interest from a friend or co-worker of the opposite sex may trigger infidelity thoughts. Show her that you care, read the "emotional needs" sections of this site, hang in there, and please keep posting telling us of your progress.

Jmash

My wife and I took the emotional quiz to see just where we are. I have to say it has opened some eyes to some things.

The biggest problem that I face right now is trust. I am having a very difficult time trusting her. When she goes out with her girl friends I wonder what she is doing. I know this is no way to be but I am having a very hard time.

James

Turn for the Worse

While cleaning out our email at home just moments ago I discovered and email my wife sent her friend talking about a lunch date she had with the mystery man last September 03 (old email). In the email she closed with "What a Fine mess I've gotten my self into."

Of course I confronted her about it and she says that she was talking about being attracted to this guy and nothing more. I strongly suspect that an affair has occured. However, she continues to say that nothing happened. What makes me think this is that she recently started taking her birth control pills again and around the same time of the email had an abnormal pap smear. I think I have been lied to and continue to be lied to about the extent of this event.

Any thoughts? I hope I am just jumping to conclusions.

James

The path to recovery is the same for an emotional or physical affair. Click on the link in my signature line.

ok James

now I would be little more suspicious, but still not totally convinced it went beyond the EA, I agree it sounds like it BUT, you should at least prepare for the worse and he happy to accept a lessor problem. Though lessor is all how you see it and what happens after. EA 's can be just as bad as PA's.

ok there are some things you can do.
How long ago was the last contact with OM?
Is Om married/partner?
What is work place policy on affairs?

Then you need to confirm what you have been told via the emails or whatever, cell phone bills, etcetc, what kind of contact is possible at work.

Once you have some of this information, and you may already have some of it, then you need to decide what you are going to do.

You should read up on all the scenarios and methods here on this site by the Harleys so you know some of the options available to you.
You have received some good advice already so no matter what the outcome of your investigations, you will have some idea of what next.

It is also an option to confront the OM once you have found out a bit about him, married etc etc, and ask him outright. Now you might get the truth if you ask the right way, eg how long were you sleeping with my w, etcetc, dont leave the questions open ended. This can be empowering however I would not advise it if you have any doubts of being able to hold your temper...also you might get the truth, you might get lies, you may get the worst news you dread to get and put in a very insulting way..thats the risk & down side I guess.
Think about how you feel and what you want to know. I think a confirmation of the ea or pa is about the best you will do.

Now alternatively, you can calmly and firmly continue to ask your wife what happen and explain to her that you have a very high level of distrust of her, that you do not believe she has told you everything and that you want to know even the worst of it.
You should clearly tell her what you have posted here and why that now leads you to your belief that there was a physical affair as well.

You can use key logger system to watch the pc, cell phone etc as I said before to ascertain the contact from home, but its likely the affair is/was mainly work based.

Is your wife prepared to move jobs? thats to stay away from OM & is very important, absolutely NO CONTACT must be maintained. (this may also give you some idea how much she is in a 'fog'with om)

I dont think you should jump to far ahead right now but find out as much as you can first and then look at a plan that you feel you can do.

There will be plenty of help here to get you through it so post away