Emotional Infidelity - 12/13/22 07:35 PM
This is my story. My wife and I have been married for almost 29 years. I have had issues (addiction) with pornography since I was probably 10 years old. My wife caught me with magazines in the beginning before the prevalence of porn on the Internet. Once the Internet was available, it became worse. I tried seeking counseling once, but the counselor then was more of an enabler and said it was normal.
About 5 years into the marriage, I had a short-lived emotional affair that my wife discovered after the fact. About 11 years into the marriage, my wife found a photo of her sister I had saved to the computer. Her sister was a stripper. That was almost the end of the marriage. At this time, we had 3 children. We talked about it and went over all the hurt and deceit. She admitted to me then that she had had a one-night stand about three years into the marriage because I had not been giving her attention. We moved past this, but did not work through it. We did not do any counseling.
We had another child at year 14 of the marriage. Throughout this time, I was still having issues with porn use and wandering eyes. From this point, my wife was always suspicious and never really trusted me again. I had betrayed her, and she lost a lot of love for me. It got the point where she admitted about 5 years ago that she didn’t think about me when we were having sex. She refused to kiss me anymore and said it was a turnoff. She started counseling over a year ago to deal with other issues from her childhood and to deal with the hurt I caused as well.
I finally got the porn under control for the past 5 years. I have been going forward hoping that things would get better on their own. In my opinion, I have been the ideal husband. So earlier this year, about February or March, I tell my wife that I need more from her. I want us to be passionate again. She says she lost that and doesn’t know if she can get it back. I suggest counseling, but she says she is not ready.
In mid-July, we are having sex but during she says she is not going to “finish.” In an effort to get it over with, I rush through to completion. A couple of days later, she says she felt I was being aggressive and it made her feel used. In fact, she says she has felt used the past few years. She decides she needs time and doesn’t want any physical contact for a while. She says she needs time and space. This all sucks and hurts, but I do my best to comply.
So since July 15, 2022, we have had no physical contact or intimacy. She says everything else in the marriage is good, but she doesn’t think about or need the physical part. We started counseling, but she wasn’t ready for it and we stopped. I have pretty much been in limbo for 5 months. I have left out some details and other things, but I wanted to set up the background and get into what I found so that I could get advice and input.
I had a gut feeling that there was more to what I was being told was going on. I had even asked her if she was cheating at the beginning of August, which she denied. I had acknowledged my role in how my wife was and had been feeling. But I still had this gut feeling that there was something else at play as well. On Halloween, my feelings were confirmed.
That night, my wife was asleep and had left her phone unlocked; she had changed the password shortly after cutting off physical contact. I found texts and facebook messages between her and her best friend talking about one of my wife’s coworkers. From the texts, you could tell there was definitely an attraction there. When she woke up, I asked her about it. Her first response was to get mad at me for going through her phone, even though she has done this to me constantly since the beginning of our marriage. She then played it off as her and her friend acting like teenage girls and there was nothing to it. I asked her who the guy was (I already knew), but she refused to tell me and said it wouldn’t make a difference. This did not sit well with me, and I have had this unease ever since.
Things have slowly been improving between us for the past two months, but still no physical contact. I had still been feeling like I was missing something. After perusing this forum, I saw a post suggesting to look at google history. I did this a few days ago and found what I knew my gut was telling me. So this is the real timeline.
Wife starts new job in May. A couple of weeks to a month, she starts searching this other man’s name. At the end of June, she’s looking up topics about sexual tension at work and work crushes. In the beginning of July, she is looking up topics about older women dating younger men and should I get a divorce. Mid-July is the last physical contact and her telling me she needs time and space to decompress. Shortly after this, she is searching topics about how to tell if somebody is into you, how to tell make someone know you are interested in them, and the crusher…how to measure penis size.
At the end of July is where there are some messages with her best friend about getting mixed signals from her coworker. There are more searches about penis size and now she is starting to look at porn. Now she’s looking at astrology sign compatibility. This is the first week of August and I ask her if she is cheating which she denies. For the rest of August, she is searching for pictures of this younger coworker, looking up sexual attraction, looking up older women dating younger men; at the same time she is telling her friend she is done with me.
In September, it looks like she is finally realizing she is in over her head with this infatuation. Half way through the month, she starts looking up how to stop fantasizing about someone and why do I miss my ex. There aren’t many searches like the previous two months, but she is looking at more porn and occasionally looks up this person’s name. It is basically the same for the October, November, and the present.
A couple of nights ago, I tried to tell her I wanted to get past this attraction she had, but I needed to ask her some questions. She was more upset that I had found her history. This upset me and made me do more digging which is when I found all the stuff from the early months. In an event where I was trying to move forward, her defensiveness upset me and I chose to dig deeper. Now I feel worse off then before, but I still want to work past this as it doesn’t appear anything physical happened. It was definitely, in my mind, emotional infidelity. I feel like when she tried to tell me she needed time and space to deal with the things I did in the past, she was using that to justify what she was currently feeling for this new person.
I guess I am just venting and looking for advice on how to proceed and talk about this with the wife. She gets so defensive when confronted and the discussions escalate into arguments. Arguments which she promptly chooses to end and never finish.
About 5 years into the marriage, I had a short-lived emotional affair that my wife discovered after the fact. About 11 years into the marriage, my wife found a photo of her sister I had saved to the computer. Her sister was a stripper. That was almost the end of the marriage. At this time, we had 3 children. We talked about it and went over all the hurt and deceit. She admitted to me then that she had had a one-night stand about three years into the marriage because I had not been giving her attention. We moved past this, but did not work through it. We did not do any counseling.
We had another child at year 14 of the marriage. Throughout this time, I was still having issues with porn use and wandering eyes. From this point, my wife was always suspicious and never really trusted me again. I had betrayed her, and she lost a lot of love for me. It got the point where she admitted about 5 years ago that she didn’t think about me when we were having sex. She refused to kiss me anymore and said it was a turnoff. She started counseling over a year ago to deal with other issues from her childhood and to deal with the hurt I caused as well.
I finally got the porn under control for the past 5 years. I have been going forward hoping that things would get better on their own. In my opinion, I have been the ideal husband. So earlier this year, about February or March, I tell my wife that I need more from her. I want us to be passionate again. She says she lost that and doesn’t know if she can get it back. I suggest counseling, but she says she is not ready.
In mid-July, we are having sex but during she says she is not going to “finish.” In an effort to get it over with, I rush through to completion. A couple of days later, she says she felt I was being aggressive and it made her feel used. In fact, she says she has felt used the past few years. She decides she needs time and doesn’t want any physical contact for a while. She says she needs time and space. This all sucks and hurts, but I do my best to comply.
So since July 15, 2022, we have had no physical contact or intimacy. She says everything else in the marriage is good, but she doesn’t think about or need the physical part. We started counseling, but she wasn’t ready for it and we stopped. I have pretty much been in limbo for 5 months. I have left out some details and other things, but I wanted to set up the background and get into what I found so that I could get advice and input.
I had a gut feeling that there was more to what I was being told was going on. I had even asked her if she was cheating at the beginning of August, which she denied. I had acknowledged my role in how my wife was and had been feeling. But I still had this gut feeling that there was something else at play as well. On Halloween, my feelings were confirmed.
That night, my wife was asleep and had left her phone unlocked; she had changed the password shortly after cutting off physical contact. I found texts and facebook messages between her and her best friend talking about one of my wife’s coworkers. From the texts, you could tell there was definitely an attraction there. When she woke up, I asked her about it. Her first response was to get mad at me for going through her phone, even though she has done this to me constantly since the beginning of our marriage. She then played it off as her and her friend acting like teenage girls and there was nothing to it. I asked her who the guy was (I already knew), but she refused to tell me and said it wouldn’t make a difference. This did not sit well with me, and I have had this unease ever since.
Things have slowly been improving between us for the past two months, but still no physical contact. I had still been feeling like I was missing something. After perusing this forum, I saw a post suggesting to look at google history. I did this a few days ago and found what I knew my gut was telling me. So this is the real timeline.
Wife starts new job in May. A couple of weeks to a month, she starts searching this other man’s name. At the end of June, she’s looking up topics about sexual tension at work and work crushes. In the beginning of July, she is looking up topics about older women dating younger men and should I get a divorce. Mid-July is the last physical contact and her telling me she needs time and space to decompress. Shortly after this, she is searching topics about how to tell if somebody is into you, how to tell make someone know you are interested in them, and the crusher…how to measure penis size.
At the end of July is where there are some messages with her best friend about getting mixed signals from her coworker. There are more searches about penis size and now she is starting to look at porn. Now she’s looking at astrology sign compatibility. This is the first week of August and I ask her if she is cheating which she denies. For the rest of August, she is searching for pictures of this younger coworker, looking up sexual attraction, looking up older women dating younger men; at the same time she is telling her friend she is done with me.
In September, it looks like she is finally realizing she is in over her head with this infatuation. Half way through the month, she starts looking up how to stop fantasizing about someone and why do I miss my ex. There aren’t many searches like the previous two months, but she is looking at more porn and occasionally looks up this person’s name. It is basically the same for the October, November, and the present.
A couple of nights ago, I tried to tell her I wanted to get past this attraction she had, but I needed to ask her some questions. She was more upset that I had found her history. This upset me and made me do more digging which is when I found all the stuff from the early months. In an event where I was trying to move forward, her defensiveness upset me and I chose to dig deeper. Now I feel worse off then before, but I still want to work past this as it doesn’t appear anything physical happened. It was definitely, in my mind, emotional infidelity. I feel like when she tried to tell me she needed time and space to deal with the things I did in the past, she was using that to justify what she was currently feeling for this new person.
I guess I am just venting and looking for advice on how to proceed and talk about this with the wife. She gets so defensive when confronted and the discussions escalate into arguments. Arguments which she promptly chooses to end and never finish.