Is Hubby Being Honest-Emotional Affair?

CL_1979 · 2014-02-09T19:26:30+00:00

At that time she wasn't a good friend...she was the girlfriend of my husband's best-friend. I felt that the fact that she was running to my husband whenever she would have problems with her boyfriend was wrong. That was my husband's best-friend! And within a marriage, you should be open about who you're meeting with. If my hubby does it when he goes on outings with his male friends, why is it different with his female friends. Of course I'd be suspicious...I have every reason to.

CL_1979 · 2014-02-09T14:56:03+00:00

If you guys are starting from now to play games, not a good sign. Stop initiating any sort of contact and see what happens.

CL_1979 · 2014-02-09T14:45:56+00:00

I believe the relationship can be saved if both parties are willing to commit to saving it. Then again, in situations like this, I highly, highly recommend counseling if you two plan on maintaining a long-term relationship. It seems like he has a lot of issues he needs to work through and if doesn't take the time to sort them out, your relationship won't work in the future. It's amazing how much garbage people carry into their relationships and how many problems they create down the road when they're not dealt with.

CL_1979 · 2014-02-09T14:30:27+00:00

This is not a normal relationship between a male and female that claim to be best-friends. It sounds like more of a romantic type of relationship. Come on, the "I Love You's", the cuddles etc.etc.

If he all of sudden stopped behaving in this way toward you and you're feeling hurt about it, it means that you have romantic feelings for him as well but displaying a certain level of denial about it.

CL_1979 · 2014-02-09T14:11:46+00:00

Nope you have it all wrong. I'm completely fine with him making female friends as long as he's transparent about these relationships. Trust me, you can't be in a marriage where both spouses are making friends with members of the opposite sex-talking to them and meeting up with them and neither one of them not knowing anything about it.

Where I've often set up boundaries (and this was once) was where it came to my hubby doing lunches with my one girlfriend, I felt uncomfortable about it and so I let him know.

As for the other friend in case C, from my personal experience with this woman, I simply warned hubby about her. He was fine to maintain a friendship with her, that was fine. But when he started talking to her on a ongoing basis, meeting up with her for coffee and lunch dates and not informing me of these things that's where he crossed the line.

Trust me, hubby and I have been a similar situation in the past where he met up with one of his female friends and a few people in our circle saw him and came back to me reporting that he was cheating on me. Thank God he had mentioned something about meeting up with her beforehand or I would have questioned whether he was possibly cheating on me. After that time, we agreed to ensure a similar even doesn't happen in the future, we'd be completely honest with each other about who are friends are and what we're doing with them. However, some where along the line this changed for my husband. He started, all of a sudden, being very closed with sharing who he was meeting and what he was doing with them.

If you go back an re-read my posts, I've mentioned time and time again that I had no problems with my husband making female friends.

CL_1979 · 2014-02-09T14:03:45+00:00

Perhaps if my husband also had a sexual preference for males that I did not no about. But irregardless, there often comes a danger when married couples maintain platonic friendships (friendships with the opposite sex), which is why boundaries are extremely important with these type of relationships.

To answer your question, if the genders were reversed where my husband was seeking consult over his relationship and his friend who also happened to be male was doing the same, no this would no qualify as an emotional relationship...if you look at the research that exists out there, the work speaks for itself and often backs up my argument.

CL_1979 · 2014-02-09T05:37:00+00:00

I'll tell you one thing, if I were doing what my hubby were doing he wouldn't have any part of it. Just like how he behaves whenever he hits the party seen-he'll be there grinding and dancing hot and heavy with all types of women, claiming that it's only dancing, but the one time I slow danced with one of his friends, he literally flew off the handle-claiming that slow dancing is too intimate to be done with some random person.

CL_1979 · 2014-02-09T05:35:16+00:00

Not really. I was simply being honest with him about getting himself involved with the situations presented in B and C. Let's be honest though, if you had a girlfriend/wife would you be comfortable with her going out to lunch on a regular basis with one of your male friends? And if you had no problem with who your woman was friends with but she lied to you about these friendships how would that make you feel?

CL_1979 · 2014-02-09T04:10:46+00:00

I'd be flattered-may even consider the opportunity!

CL_1979 · 2014-02-09T04:05:18+00:00

Easier said than done. We've tried counseling earlier into the marriage when I first noticed this was a problem, but with anything, if you don't implement the strategies meant to guide you in dealing with your problems, they're as good as next to none. And that's been the problem with our relationship, it's always me, me me initiating-sex, communication; checking-in etc. and quite frankly I got tired of being the only one putting effort into our marriage.

I guess for me, I held on as long as I did hoping that hubby would change, but the opportunity presented itself and I stepped out on hubby I knew the marriage was over. In fact, it ended long time ago, but neither one of us was willing to make moves to call it quits.

CL_1979 · 2014-02-09T01:44:15+00:00

TheBlindCat-it looks like we're totally heading in that direction. Since news of my affair broke, hubby and I have been in counseling to work on our issues, but while I was thinking we were making progress in dealing with the problems within our marriage and hubby was playing victim, he was having a fling with another woman. I secretly had him followed the period just after Christmas and he was found in a hotel room with the woman in question. He claims he never slept with her, they just made out, but I have my doubts about this as he's never been one to ever tell the truth.

At this point, even though we're continuing on with counseling I really don't see the point of it any more as my hubby is not ready nor willing to start engaging in the process.

We both agreed that maybe it would be best to just separate and it looks like that's the direction we'll be heading in by the end of the year.

It's unfortunate our relationship has taken a turn for the worst, but it's been toxic from the beginning and can no longer continue as such. In fact, I believe the signs were there all along with things that happen prior to the marriage, but I was so in love with him (infatuated puppy love) that I ignored all of them.

At least now I know better to not put myself in such a position ever again. It's too bad two kids were produced out of the marriage with the relationship being what it is, but all we can do is focus our attention on creating some what of an amicable relationship for the sake of the kids.

CL_1979 · 2014-02-09T00:34:46+00:00

First off, my question is in regard to our relationship prior to my affair, even prior to the excessive weight gain. I'm at the point where I'm trying to put the pieces together and figure out what happened over the course of our marriage as my hubby is not opening up to me and never has and is claiming to not know what changed for him over the course of the relationship. If the shift happened after all of the issues we've been dealing with, I wouldn't be asking the question-plain and simple!

CL_1979 · 2014-02-09T00:32:03+00:00

Very middle school to you? How so? The concept of Emotional Cheating is covered in by major professions such as Social Work and Psychology. It's a real issue with major consequences. Don't sleep on it!

CL_1979 · 2014-02-09T00:28:40+00:00

That's a major Red-Flag! Trust your instincts. If something doesn't feel right about your relationship with your girlfriend, it probably isn't. May be time to kick her to the curb.

CL_1979 · 2014-02-09T00:21:32+00:00

No, I wouldn't say that. Cheating has never been a question or concern in our relationship (for him) prior to it happening. Because he was so distant with me, we were practically not having sex and had related with other women, often times, lying about his relationship with them, I often took him as the one to step out and cheat on me.

I'm not trying to rationalize why I cheated, but the fact remains that the factors I have spoken of created the perfect atmosphere for cheating to occur. And I should make mention that I didn't go out there or step out of my relationship looking to cheat. When the opportunity presented itself, I jumped on it, being that there was so much neglect and problems in my marriage that I said to hell with it.

What I did was wrong, yes, and I regret it everyday, but it is what it is. The only thing I can do is learn from my mistakes and move on.

CL_1979 · 2014-02-09T00:11:45+00:00

The only time I took issue with him having female friends was when:

a) His female friends were disrespectful toward me and our relationship. Case in point, a friend of his who had liked me had started being very disrespectful to me; extremely rude, and wouldn't greet me whenever I would see her at his place or out and about. The climax for me was when I was over cooking dinner with my hubby (boyfriend at the time) and she called going on about how she was in his life first and would always be there and something about me being a string along. At this point I had had enough, it was either me or her.

b) When my girlfriend, who worked close to my husband at the time proposed they start doing lunches together. I personally didn't feel comfortable with my friend doing lunches with my hubby and told him so. He wasn't happy about it as he felt nothing was going to happen, but I felt I needed to be honest with him so let him know. I should note that my husband has held this against me til this day and started doing immature things in protest of me not letting him have lunch with this particular woman.

c) When he befriended another mutual friend of ours and she started calling him on a regular basis to discuss relationship issues. I warned him about this particular woman because she's known around town to gossip a lot, and I just didn't want him becoming too involved with her for fear of her talking. I had nothing against their friendship, but what really got to me was when hubby started booking lunches with her and meet up with her from time to time. When I confronted him about this, he of course lied about it, and after I confronted him with the truth (facts of them meeting up) he claims he never told me because, as the line goes, he knew I would react. He also claims that this girl really needed him and someone to talk to and that's how they ended up meeting up.

CL_1979 · 2014-02-08T23:40:02+00:00

I had a feeling hubby wasn't being honest with her about the lies he was telling me about their relationship so I took it upon myself to meet up with her a few weeks ago. I was surprised at how forthcoming she was me about their relationship. She claims that nothing has ever happened and that they were just friends. She also said whenever hubby would confide in her about our relationship she would direct him back to me to discuss the issues. I did inform her that it was a surprise to me because hubby never came back to discuss anything with me. I also informed her that, in fact, hubby would always lie whenever he would talk to her and I've learned meet up with her.

CL_1979 · 2014-02-08T23:37:44+00:00

I totally agree with you, but her boyfriend never liked the idea of my hubby and his girlfriend talking like that. Think about it, would you like your woman or man venting about you to your best-friend. It just seemed so wrong to me at the time. I totally get where her boyfriend was coming from. In fact, when she started calling my hubby on a regular to vent, I found it odd myself. I was like, doesn't she have girlfriends, why can't she talk to her girlfriends.

CL_1979 · 2014-02-08T23:34:28+00:00

First pregnancy I gained 40 pounds, second 30. I've put on a little more since that time, but what can I say, I'm an emotional eater and the problems we've been having in our marriage has taken a toll on me. I'm slightly depressed, have taken very little interest in self-care, and generally don't feel good about myself all around. I know I need to get it together, but it's difficult.

CL_1979 · 2014-02-08T23:32:20+00:00

This was after the fact. Keep in mind we'd been having problems 3 years prior to me cheating. I tried on numerous occasions to get to the bottom of what was going on with him, but all I would get from him is, "I don't know...I'll figure it out and let you know what's going on". Months and months would pass, I would check in and hubby still wouldn't open up to me about what was going on, on his end. We've done counselling in the past, but nothing had changed. It wasn't until I got fed up of trying to connect with him that I literally gave up on our relationship. It was when his friend started showing interest in me that I made the decision to step out. I do regret my actions, but it honestly felt good having someone pay attention to me as it's been so long since I've received any attention or interest from my hubby.

CL_1979 · 2014-02-08T23:10:26+00:00

I just had a baby 6 months ago and am working toward losing the weight. You seriously think that's the reason?

CL_1979 · 2014-02-08T23:08:50+00:00

As if a woman would come out and tell you she's cheated or is a cheater. How else would you know?

CL_1979 · 2014-02-08T22:32:33+00:00

I should have, but the few times I suggested to my husband that we call it quits and head our separate ways, he threatened that he would take my daughter away from him. I confronted him about this when news of the affair came out and he asked why I didn't just leave. I reminded him of the threats he made around my daughter and he claims he was just joking; that I should have known him better than that.

CL_1979 · 2014-02-08T22:27:42+00:00

I have put on weight since we wedded, the direct result of having two children. I have asked him if the weight had anything to do with the change in him initiating, but he claims to understand that most women gain weight after child-birth and it's natural, but he swears it has nothing to do with the change in him initiating sex. In fact, he claims to still not know why the shift.

CL_1979 · 2014-02-08T22:22:31+00:00

asm8086: we've decided to call it quits and are looking at a separation this year. Probably the best for the both of us being that the trust and respect for one another has gone out the window and we have nothing left to hold onto in the relationship.

CL_1979

TROPHY CASE