Thread: My Husbands Emotional Affair

As I stated in my intro thread, my husband is currently in the dog house. I had recently caught him in an emotional affair with his ex-girlfriend. His ex that he was in a relationship with before he met me. I'm not really looking for any advice as I already know what I want and what I'll be doing in my situation. I just wanted to share my story in case there is anyone else out there who may be going through something similar.

My husband and his ex had added each other to their FaceBook awhile ago. I wasn't too worried about it at the time because they didn't correspond. Then, near the end of November, I noticed a lot of correspondence between the two on each other's FB page. Some conversations had sexual innuendos attached to them and they clearly were reminiscing about their past sexual relationship. I brought this to his attention and expressed my concerns about it. He agreed that it was inappropriate and removed her from his FB. About a week later, I noticed she was liking some of his statuses. Apparently he re-added her as a friend but must have hid that because when you friend someone, it announced that so and so added so and so as a friend. He must have deleted that page status right away. So again, I expressed my concerns about it and he dismissed it telling me that I'm just paranoid.

Right away the red flags went up. A classic blame diversion when someone is doing something they shouldn't be doing. So I started to observe his behavior. All of a sudden he had his phone with him at ALL times. Never leaving it laying out to charge and would even fall asleep with it in his pocket. I also noticed that he kept it on silent. One night, he was on his computer and had his phone on his lap face down. I saw it light up which meant he had an incoming text. He wouldn't read it with me in the room. So I left the room and snuck around the corner where he couldn't see me watching him. He then read the text. I walked in the room and he hurriedly placed the phone back in his lap face down. He then went to the bathroom even though he was just in it 5 minutes prior. I put my ear to the door and I could hear him texting.

At this point, my instincts told me he was texting his ex so I check his cell phone records. Sure enough! 660 text messages and about 7 actual phone calls to a specific number. She lives in a different state where my husband and I both are originally from so the records listed the state. Of course I wanted to be 100% sure it was her before confronting my husband. One night my husband and I went out to dinner. We came home and I had to drop some overnight clothes off to my daughter who was spending the night at a friends. When I got home he was sleeping and he left his phone laying out. I checked the call log and a few phone calls were made back and forth in the time I went to drop clothes off to my daughter. So I dialed the number and got her voicemail. So this confirmed everything. I was going to do the smart thing and set up to retrieve the actual text messages but having knowledge on this behavior got the better of me. Hurt & anger together is a VERY toxic combination for me.

One day while he was at work and I was finishing up some Christmas wrapping, I just couldn't take anymore. I hadn't eaten or slept in a week because I was so distraught over it all. My husband had always made me feel safe and I always looked up to him as my protector and now, I was needing a protector from my protector. So I called him at work and said to him, "So, I'm paranoid am I?". Of course he acted dumb even after I told him that he knew what I was talking about. Then I just laid into him. He tried to give me excuses but I didn't let him. I wasn't interested in hearing at the cliché lines given by cheats and liars. The whole reverse psychology junk doesn't work with me.

So at this point, I was so mad I just hung up on him. He tried calling me but I wouldn't answer. He left a message saying he left work and was coming home. Other text messages followed and I left the house. I had to pick up my daughter and take her to a Dr.'s appointment. He then called my daughter and told her what was going on. I wish he didn't do that and of course my daughter was really mad at him. I stayed away all day just dropping my daughter home without talking to my husband. I knew at some point we would have to talk but I was too upset to talk just then. I was worried that I would inflict physical harm on him that's how mad I was. It was best for me to calm down.

So I finally came home later that evening. I told him that if he want to go... to go. But if he wanted to work it out, he is to take FULL responsibility for everything and he did. His reasons for talking to her was because he felt I wasn't paying enough attention to him and he felt he couldn't talk to me. My reply to him was that was his own doing and that I can't fix what I don't know is broken. And that he never made an attempt to talk to me about how he was feeling. We agreed that we both have become complacent in the marriage and have gotten caught up with everyday stuff and agreed to be more diligent in taking time out for each other. As for the ex-girlfriend, though it wasn't a physical affair because of the distance... I did give ultimatums that he was to have absolutely NO contact with her now or ever or it was over. He agreed and defriended her. He told me he wasn't cheating on me with her. I told him... physically no... but mentally yes. And it didn't matter if they were sexting or just talking about unicorns that what he did was sneaky and betrayal. The ex is married with 3 kids. I called her but she didn't answer. I told her never to call, text, or have any further contact with my husband. And if she did, that I would notify her husband of her behavior. She never called back. I'm sure she was pooping bricks.

So now we are in the mending stage. We are communicating better and even though I feel like I caught this early on... they carried on for about a month... and the distance between them, I feel like we can work this out. My husband has a lot of pride and he even called his Dad and told him what he did. His father ripped him a new one. His parents like me a lot and family and the sanctity of marriage is a big deal to them. Even though this wasn't a physical affair, it still has scarred me and now he has planted the seed of doubt. I'm not sure how long I will monitor his movements or how long it will take for him to gain my trust back but it wont happen overnight. If I find out that there is contact between him and the ex again... it's OVER! He will be a dead man walking and I will rat her out to her husband. Because this will give me all the answers that I need that will let me know that he cares more about his ex than me, this marriage and our family. I deserve better than that.

Thanx for listening.

I just found out that my husband has been having an emotional affair, with defiantly one women and i'm beginning to see the starts of more. This is our first year of marriage and it has defiantly been rocky like some might expect. But there has been the added pressure from a one night stand mistake I made shortly before marrying my spouse. It was unintentional and we both had a little to drink at a get together. I don't really remember how it happened :[ but nevertheless, my husband holds it close and it's really had its toll on our trust. Even issues with having it thrown back in my face once or twice.

He hasn't come home yet and I have no idea how to confront him. I am not a very outspoken person to begin with and right now all I feel like doing is crying, punching him or leaving for my friends house so I can avoid talking to him. He has this site he goes on everyday as much as he can get on and I've been tolerating it so far with minor complaints about time management. I've noticed before that he has himself listed as single on this site and the majority of his friends are females. I've commented on it before with little success to change. I stayed home today to work at the house and he had left it logged in on my computer. I started snooping around a little bit and to my devastation found 45 pages of sent communication to this woman with the words "i love you", "i adore you" "i miss you", hearts, kiss signs, sexual innuendo's, compliments, and requests for pictures. All dating back to shortly after we got married. I don't know if there has been even more communication before that but i don't know what to do.

We also just got back from a couples communication retreat just yesterday. I don't want to blow up over this if it is something that has recently been realized is wrong. Desperately praying for that but the likely-hood is slim :'[.

He knows something is wrong but I will not say anything till he gets home tonight. I've been shaking all day ever since I saw the messages. And while the majority is to one woman, there have been other messages to another woman commenting about her personal body tattoos, and I mean really personal. I've also seen texts on his phone with a woman telling each other "I love you" and using kissing smileys.

Then to top it all off, as I was talking to him today while fretting over this whole thing. He responds with "sexy babe" and when I asked what he was commenting on it took a while to get a text saying the picture I sent him. Which I haven't sent him any pictures since Saturday. I looked on our phone bill online and there were all these texts to him from a yahoo instant message. :'[

I have a feeling that when I confront him about all of this he's going to shut down or tell me that i'm over reacting and that it's nothing or bring up my mistake again and throw that at me, blaming me for all these women he's having an emotional relationship with behind my back. Somebody help me out with how to confront him without blowing up and walking out. I want to work through this but I don't know how to, this cuts so so deep. :'[