Ok. This is really awkward. I really hoped my first post after a long hiatus from the site would be something like, thanks for all the help, life is great now! But we can do re-introductions later�

I�m in a sticky situation w/my coworker and you all are the best people to ask. But please don�t read if emotional affairs are a trigger for you.

My coworker�s husband is deployed. Since he�s been gone, I noticed she�s spending a lot of time with a guy who works nearby. I think she�s having an emotional affair. I�m pretty sure it�s emotional (they talk all the time/google chat all day, he goes to her kid�s games, he comes by the office every other day if not daily, they do lunch couple times a week (and he brings her stuff on the days they don�t go). The other day, he came in and gave her an extra long hug that lasted until I rustled my papers to remind them that I�m still in my cubby (even though they couldn�t see me). I didn�t hear any �kissing,� just a lot of back rubbing, so I know it�s not �technically� an affair. But it really bothers me. Her husband and I are both military, and I have a lot of respect for him. I wouldn�t dare tell him about this while he�s deployed, because they�re still under fire over there and I don�t want him distracted. But I don�t know how I can look him in the eye when he gets back.

My ex had an emotional affair and sent me a dear-john letter when I was in the middle of MY 6 month military trip, so even though I know it�s none of my business I am just having a hard time letting it go.

Does this kind of thing bother you? How can I let it go? What would you do?

I would tell my coworker that her "friend" has all the smellings of an affair and you would appreciate it if she would keep her nastiness out of your work space. Lol. No, really, I would probably say something like, "Whoring it up while the old man is away, eh?" and smile and rib her and then punch her in the mouth.

Okay, seriously...does she know about your history? Are you two friends? Is this a military job? Can you go to command?

More seriously, can you ask about her husband when this dude comes in? And you know you need to tell her husband.

Track down the husband and let him know. He is out defending her freedom and does not deserve this.

Also, if the guy she is involved with is married, let his wife know. And his kids if he has any. Or his girlfriend.

Finally, tell your boss how much this is bothering you. It is creating a hostile work environment that you should not have to deal with. That may lead to changes for your personal comfort as well as new policies that will cause trouble in the affair and possibly help them break it off. They may already be violating company policies.

Being as this one deals with an affair, I'd definitely suggest the mods move it over, even though, thank God, it's not an affair involving your family. You'll get more responses.

As an employer I would want this situation reported to me. I would get legal counsel and talk with this employee. I would approach this as to how it is affecting the work environment and seriously take into account how its affecting co-workers witnessing the misconduct. I assume you are very offended and distracted from fully doing your job and this woman involved in the affair is obviously distracted and behaving offensively in front of her co-workers. This needs to be documented.

I can�t (won�t) do all that. This place is affair-rampant. I am already on bad terms with the office for telling another coworker not to go out with someone when she is only separated and hasn�t filed for divorce yet. I wouldn�t have butt in, because people don�t appreciate that, but I thought she and I shared the same faith and plus it could impact her financial standing if her STBX used it as evidence of an affair (even though he, himself, was having an affair). Everyone reacted so strongly, and my shunning still impacts my ability to do my job.

The only person in the work environment it is affecting is me. Others are quite happy for her.

What I�m looking for is help dealing with the moral aspect of it. How do I set this aside? Or, if I should contact him, how can I possibly do this without hurting myself in the long run? I hate to be so selfish, but I�m only now finally getting back on my feet after the divorce and I just can�t afford to have my world crashing down again because I can�t work with people (which is why I �lost� my last job).

Ok, now it gets weirder. Maybe she realizes I was upset after the hug. Because she just told me how this guy asked her out to dinner and made her feel uncomfortable. She says now she�s gonna have to stop hanging out with him.

I got all happy and start talking about how I�m happy to hear this because it�s such a tough line to walk and more people should stay away from �that line.�

It�s only after I leave the office to work out and start thinking about it that I realize she said a lot of things that didn�t add up to reality. And it hits me that she probably only said that to keep me from thinking there was something inappropriate going on. I don�t want to commit a DJ here, but there�s defiantly something inappropriate about the whole thing. His visits and hugs have been longer and longer. What man goes to watch her elementary school kids ball games if he�s not �interested� when he has a wife and kids back home in another state?

Now I�m mad at the situation and even MORE mad that she got me talking with her about boundaries as if I thought she was good about boundaries. I feel stupid, and I even more so want to send some kind of anonymous card to both her husband and this guys family saying, you might wanna check into this.

Someone help me to stop feeling so spiteful when I don�t even have any proof. Sigh.

Anonymous is not the way to go. Can you covertly snap some photos, record some convos? I would ask the spouses to not mention you when/if they confront their rutting pigs, and tell them a little about your own experience and how you would have liked to have been told, and your own job concerns, but you are going to need proof. Camera shot of a hug should do it. It would work for me.

Don't expose out of spite. Do it because it is right.

Meanwhile, try to find better employment.

Thanks CWMI. How are you doing? I was trying to find "your thread" but there were so many posts to swim through I'm not sure which is it. I'm guessing you've changed the title..?

Agree her BH needs to know and OM's SO.

What does she say if you ask her "so is your BH ok with your very friendly friendship with OM"?

All my threads are dead, and we are doing great! My last one was "Duped", but all those issues are worked out now, too. no complaints! How weird is THAT? Lol.

I'm glad to see you are doing okay, even if moral dillemas are still plaguing you. You know the right thing to do.

They are hugging each other and being intimate with each other in the office. That's proof!

I'm not going to brand you selfish or anything else; you'll have to make your own decision about what to do with this. But we often try to help wayward husbands and wives here understand that they need to think less about their own feelings and more about the feelings of their victims. In this case of course you haven't victimized anybody and don't have any blame here at all, but there is a victim, possibly two, and I think it would be good for you (to me Marriage Builders is very much about building character!) to try to replace thoughts of your own feelings with thoughts of the feelings of those people. Maybe with that in place at least you can feel different. And I'll confess I hope it spurs you to action as well, but at the very least it may be the path to what you are asking for: how to change your own feelings.

If you think you feel bad witnessing this, just think how that faithful military man is going to feel when he finds out.

Isn't it amazing how people absolutely don't want to listen to suggestions that really can help them? Most of us just simply run away from anything that makes us uncomfortable, or punish the messenger!

One of the most helpful things I've heard Dr. Harley suggest is that he doesn't offer people unsolicited advice. When they come asking for it, he gives it, but he doesn't go out and offer it as people usually don't want to hear it. (In my experience they usually don't want it when they come asking for it! My dad used to end discussions with me by saying "Look, if you didn't really want to hear my advice, why did you ask?" I guess I'm human like everybody else.)

I have no idea if confronting a dating married divorcing person is unsolicited advice or not. On this forum I feel that anyone posting is soliciting advice and feedback. In person I don't know ... I might tend to just go off and let their spouse and children know.

When you click on someone's name on one of their posts and access the "View posts" link, there is a link on their posts page to "topics created." (It's kind of in the upper left-hand corner.) It's usually helpful in finding someone's "official" thread, although thread moves and merges, and people starting dozens of threads, can make it difficult.

Now, that is good advice!


And that, too. Make it not about your feelings, but the feelings of the victims! Be a compassionate person!

[quote=markosWhen you click on someone's name on one of their posts and access the "View posts" link, there is a link on their posts page to "topics created." (It's kind of in the upper left-hand corner.) It's usually helpful in finding someone's "official" thread, although thread moves and merges, and people starting dozens of threads, can make it difficult. [/quote]

Yes. It is. And if you click on CWMI's name, you get pages of pages of posts without any of them appearing to be her thread (like I mentioned above). I remembered it as "duped" and, as she said above, it was closed out awhile ago.

So what have you decided to do about your wayward coworker?

That�s really easy to say online.

The REASON I got moved into this new job is BECAUSE I told the other coworker to stop fooling around while she was still married and the whole unit ganged up on me, gave me a poor performance report and basically �fired me� by moving me to another unit on base. I�m in the military. It�s not like I can just pick up and move to a new company.

Now I�m in the same situation AGAIN. With someone who is friends with the other girl and KNOWS all of that history. I was hoping you guys could tell me how to do the right thing without bringing this kind of retribution on myself AGAIN.

It appears that the answer is �There�s no way to do that.� Which is unfortunate.

How did you tell the coworker to stop fooling around?

How about email the Harleys on the radio show?

You don't want to put your job in jeopardy, but that BH needs to be told.

You could do it anonymous, but that's usually advised against.

Can you go to a chaplain or someone in command who would support you?

Yes. It is. And if you click on CWMI's name, you get pages of pages of posts without any of them appearing to be her thread (like I mentioned above). I remembered it as "duped" and, as she said above, it was closed out awhile ago. [/quote]

Did you click "topics created"? I get only 27 topics created from her. For me that's all one page, but I changed my settings two years ago to show more topics per page, so I'm not sure what the defaults are like.

I've been known to dig way deep into histories looking for things sometimes, so if that 27 topics is 3 pages it might seem like a "lot" to you but wouldn't to me.

Here it is.
Duped

I believe Markos was trying to say that the messenger with the bad news that no one wants to listen to is the person, in this case you, trying to tell someone something they don't want to hear, the people you are attempting to help by advising them to steer clear of their possibly too-close relationship. Those are the people who don't want any help and get mad at the messenger.

There are people in charge in the military that do care about such morale-killers as infidelity. Granted, probably not very many of them, but they do exist.

Would you consider going to your chaplain about the problem and ask the chaplain to speak to the person in charge of your office? On a small base, the chaplain often has insight to the mind of the people in charge. Even on larger bases, there are commands who care about adultery in their ranks because of the terrible drain on morale it can become.

Dr. Harley actually has some contacts in the military who do care about eliminating the infidelity problem. It might be worth sending him and Joyce an email and asking if they can recommend anyone to talk to.

I think it is reprehensible that the U.S. military would give you trouble for reporting infidelity, when they supposedly stand against it!

I told her that I�d just come from another office where a group of ladies were gossiping about her seeing another guy even though she was still married. I told her I understand it�s a year waiting process for divorce in this state, but she hadn�t even filed yet and if word got back to her husband (who left her for another woman) he could turn on her and she could easily lose all the military wife benefits she�d earned.

I tried not to come at it from the moral aspect, because I know what it�s like for your husband to fancy other women and I understand how enticing that ego boost is (now a nice man actually wants YOU).

We�d been off-duty friends for awhile so I was really surprised she reacted as angrily as she did. I lost several friends because of this, and since she was my bosses �right hand man,� her badmouthing cost me my job and high standing in the unit.


I hadn�t thought of the Harleys or talking to a chaplain. Thanks for the suggestions.

Having traveled quite a bit in my military career, I can tell you the # of guys I�ve travelled with who DON�T cheat is far less than the # of guys who DO. That may not be true of all career fields, though.

In this case, I feel like something is wrong with me for having a problem with their relationship, when I know �everybody does it� and I�m the only �goody two shoes� who cares. If I could just sear that part of my personality, and stop caring what others do, life would be so much easier.

Nothing is wrong with you just society. Why would you want to lower yourself? We need more MB warriors.

You know the devastation infidelity has on everyone first hand. So why not stay and fight the good fight?

Doing the right thing isn't always the popular thing to do, my friend.

Not only do I believe you, but we also see here all the time how it is predictable across different careers. And if it isn't the husband away who's cheating, it's the wife at home who is.

Common enough to occur across different nations and cultures...


Now, I'll say something that won't be popular; the problem isn't the cheating, the problem is believing that marriages will both survive and/or be safe from infidelity with constant separation.

What's changed about society, is we try to force the belief that it should be "OK" for a married couple to be separated like that.


It's not.


It doesn't work.


The successes under circumstances of travel careers are the exception and not the rule.

This actually shines through in the way you post to others, believe it or not!

You are right about that!! I feel so bad for the troops who marry these clingy women and then have issues when they deploy.

The guys get on me about my "waiting for sex to committment" attitude, but my stance is: I'm in a job where I will be gone 6 months at a time on occasion. I need confidence that my man can contain himself while I'm gone.

You should consider "playing blissfully dumb."

"Coworker, I was so happy yesterday when you said that you were realizing that things with <Dude> had gone to far. You see, my ex had an emotional affair and sent me a dear-john letter when I was in the middle of MY 6 month military trip, so I know first hand how devastating the effects of one can be. I am so proud of you for realizing that no man shows up to a t-ball game of someone he has no further interest in...and that you are strong enough to shut him off so you can protect your family and those adorable kids of yours. "

An interesting turn... I found out I will be deploying to the same loc as her husband. I made a comment about how glad I was that she cut the other guy off because you know I can�t keep a straight face about stuff that isn�t right and her hubby would know right away if I saw something I shouldn�t have. I told her if any future guys try to put her in such an awkward position, and she needs an excuse to keep them away, she can blame her lame coworker who has no ability to prevent blurting something that even looked inappropriate out to her hubby when she sees him.

So, I�m expecting I will see no more displays of affection or possible emotional affairs. I�m sure they�ll happen, just not in my sight.

Ooooh, Daisy! That's gooood.

What did she say?

She said nothing.

I meant to say: She said nothing. She just smiled, looked down and got back to work on her computer.

Well I think you handled it wisely.

Months after I posted to you, she got involved in another affair, this one way more visible than the first. She actually had a couple of �emotional affairs� between then but I think the guys wanted more and quickly moved on when they realized she wasn�t quite divorced yet. It got to the point where MANY people on staff noticed the intimacy of their relationship and someone complained at a high level which caused an investigation.

See, everyone knows that affairs are rampant in the military, but you're supposed to keep them quiet and she didn�t keep it quiet. Her affair partner was warned to stay away from her or, at the very least, keep the affair quiet, but he did not head the advice of his mentors.

So, end of Oct he was �fired� (in the military, that means moved to another, lesser quality, job) and an investigation ensured. In the Dec the investigation concluded that she had displayed weakness of character (though the person who told me this did not say �affair�) and the highest part of her security clearance was revoked.

Fast forward to last week� I am deployed, and her husband just arrived home from his deployment. My friends say this man came home to an empty house and a cleaned out bank account along with empty promises that she �wants to work on the marriage� even though she won�t see him.

My friends asked me to talk to him and explain to him how she had several affairs and is just stringing him along. At first I was hesitant to do this, but they said he�s moping about being so in love with her and continuing to allow her access to his account even though she keeps siphoning money out. This made my blood burn (considering my past history) so I called him up

I explaining how my ex sent me 9.5 page dear john letter during one of my military trips and how I came home to the house sold and most of my stuff thrown out. I explained how I�m stuck in year 5 (of projected 8) scrimping and saving trying to pay off 6 figure divorce debt that I should never have taken on (because it was his, not mine) to be peaceable to this man I loved so much.

And then I explained EVERYTHING I had seen his wife do. I felt like such a heel, but at the same time I felt like he needed to pull his head out of this �I love her� land and realize how she had been playing him for the past year until she could get enough money together and a new man to take his place.

He was shocked. He couldn�t believe what I was saying. So I had a friend email him proof.

And that hit home.

He has since taken action to protect himself, and hopefully will stop her from doing any further damage to his life. I told him he deserves better, and that I hope in a few years he will look up and see a woman who will value him for the great guy he is.

I still feel bad about being so very honest with him. I probably could have been more tactful. I think I was just mad at her because I had LISTENED to her say they were getting a divorce when he never said that. And plus she was part of the fire-storm that cost me my previous job. And finally, she spread nasty rumors about what �services� I would provide to our leadership in order to get promoted so I was probably feeling a little vindictive.

Even so, I feel like it was better to have been tactless and angry than to say nothing at all.

Thanks gang for your advice.

I just got a message from the husband in the situation. He wants to talk more. I'm actually hesitant now. I don't feel like I have any more of value to say to him, and I don't want to become his new "confidant" because that, itself, could cloud his judgement (and, frankly, I don't want to be involved with these people). At the same time, I do care, so I don't want to tell him no unnecessarily.

He tried to friend me on facebook, and I gently told him that was not wise until this whole thing was settled.

PS: thanks to the mods for moving this

Wow, that is just awesome that you did that. And I most certainly would speak to him again. When you expose an affair to a BS, they are in shock. So when they get off the phone, they think of a million questions. They also forget much of what you said and need extensive clarification. There is no reason you shouldn't do that for him.

It is real important when you expose to give the betrayed spouse a follow up phone # and/or email address so they can ask questions. That is the "wise" thing to do.

I agree.

He is probably still in shock and needs some more direction.

Did you direct him here?

One more question for you guys... I was digging through my old phone trying to find the name of the guy who inspired my original post. I found some text messages that discuss him being high and inviting her for a threesome (apparently he was also spending time with another deployed guys wife). Do you think I should tell him the name of this guy?? Or (since there's a new guy) should I just let it go?

If it were MY cheating spouse, I think knowing the name of the first guy would just distract me from doing what I need to do to take care of myself. I would obsess about the other person and be too wrapped up to come up with a solid legal plan.

But what would you want someone to do if YOU were the guy?

--------------

To answer your questions:


I did speak to him again. I know there's two sides to every story, but no one deserves to go through this.

I'm just trying hard not to let my anger at how she did me wrong (unrelated issues I didn't post about) color what I say to him and make things seem more negative than they were.

I mean, they were already negative enough but when we talk I feel ***MY*** anger over my ex and history I have with the lady involved in this case (like I said above, I DON'T want to be involved with this woman again).



And I did invite him to this site... he'd already seen it and said he was nodding his head at a lot of the SAA posts. I hope he will come here and post, if for nothing else to vent to people who've been through what he has.

You will want to tell him everything you know. Keep in mind this is vital information about his life that he needs to know. If you refuse to tell him, he will deeply resent it and will be OBSESSED with the truth.

This man is a victim who has had the truth about his own life stolen. That is cruel and manipulative. So tell him as much as you possibly can. I would also send him all of the text messages and anything else you have.

I agree. Also he's in the military, and so won't all of his WW's cheating APs help his case?

Does anyone know how to pull text convos off an old phone? This is my old blackberry (no active service). I suppose I could re-type them for him.

Hm, I don't know. He says he was told in his state proving an affair doesn't help- everything still gets split 50-50.

I thought they'd been together long enough for her to claim part of his retirement (10 years) unless he can prove infidelity, but someone suggested that since they lived together for 5 of those years she is not entitled. He will have to check with the lawyer once he selects one.

In case anyone is following this...he exposed her in a huge way. Because she insisted noting is going on, he made a website with texts, chats, photos she took with her camera and photos he got from a PI. He was really hoping this would shake her into working on their marriage. Even still, she insists there's no affair and he's making it up. Unfortunately, many people are siding with HER and so she is too caught up in the fog to wanna work on it. Last we spoke he is ready to move on.

My heart hurts for him, but since she has cheated several times now and she shows no signs of even acknowledging (let alone WORKING on) this problem, I think he will be better off in the long run.

I commend him for doing such a fantastic exposure.

Some waywards have their heads to far up their own @as that they may never get it removed.

Does he have a good lawyer? Has he ever been to MB? Did you tell him how to expose?