The Ongoing Saga of L.

[Undine]

This is long I am sorry. I wanted to be thorough.

 

My husband and I have been married only 2 years, together 4; we have a crawling baby. My husband married later than many, he is now 40, this is both our first marriage. My husband is a challenging man in many respects, a good man, but sometimes difficult. His family upbringing was unconventional and he did not learn much in the way of people skills and manners growing up; while I have usually found him to be honest and kind, he is very hard-headed as well and often lacking in what I consider to be common courtesy.

 

Nearly 20 years ago he had a serious girlfriend L. whom he was with for 4/5 years. They stayed in touch as friends, and nearly 10 years ago he got her a job where he was working at that time; they worked together for 7/8 years before he left for his current job. When I met him they were working together and friends and at first this didn't bother me; later I found out he kept mementos of their time together, including a piece of jewelry he still wore sometimes (she has a matching piece and also still wears it) even though he HATES jewelry. He doesn't wear it now but it is in his nightstand to this day.

 

When I first moved in with him and we were hot and heavy (pre-baby ), he would sometimes come home for a 'matinee' at lunch because his office was very near our home. Twice he said he was going to come home, and then just dropped away. I would find him in IM an hour or so later and ask him WTF happened, and twice he said he had stopped by L.'s desk and ended up chatting with her and time got away from him. This upset me because he was basically choosing chatting with his exgf over sex with me, and also didn't even have the courtesy to call or txt to say he wasn't coming home after all. I told him I didn't like it, and it was like he just didn't get how rude it was or how it might me insecure, but he did apologize. By that time I had a really bad taste in my mouth about this girl, but I didn't want to be a jealous girlfriend and I knew he was a little weird about some social skills so I tried to let it go. Then he had a conference and was gone 3 days. L. was not there, but one night my H. was with his boss and they got drunk and started talking about L. because the boss I guess found her really attractive. My H. called me that night and was very weird and obviously drunk on the phone, talking about how he'd been talking to his boss about how hot L. is and how their sex life was almost too much, how she liked some weird things in bed, all stuff I was really not comfortable hearing. He was obviously way drunk and I didn't understand everything he was saying, and then he started talking sexy to me while still talking about L. and I was totally turned off and upset. When he came home he didn't remember it at all and was deeply apologetic when I told him, and embarrassed. At this time I had a BIG problem with this girl and his working with her and told him I was NOT cool with the way things were happening and he agreed he was behaving badly. A couple of months later he left that job for a better one, and he and I were co-hosting his farewell party at a restaurant. I found out the day of the party that he had invited L. and never thought to mention to me that he had invited her and she would be there. We got into a big fight about this, he said I should have known she would be there because they worked together.

 

Fortunately after he left she became a non-issue. I knew they were friends on Facebook and IMed occasionally but they never saw each other and I never worried about it. Then one day after he'd been at his new job for 2 years I got an IM from him that L. was in his office interviewing with his colleagues for a job.I asked him if he put her up for it and he said no, but that he had introduced her to people some months ago getting some kind of recommendation. He said when he found out she was interviewing he thought I might like to know, and damn was he right. I was not happy and I felt he was being disingenuous when he said it didn't occur to him that introducing her around would be putting her on a short list of potential hires. We had a long talk and some of his answers did not line up so I actually looked at his email a few days later. I have never done any kind of snooping before and I felt horrible but I knew something was not right and I couldn't relax. Sure enough there were emails back and forth between them, they were all professional not romantic at all but he had recommended her, gotten her the interview, gotten her the job, over the course of weeks, and lied to me about it.

 

Big big fight ensued. He said he lied because he realized belatedly how badly I would take it and was panicking. He said he compartmentalized his work life from his private life and somehow didn't realize until she got there that I would be upset that he brought her into his new job. He told me she only had a verbal offer and if I said one word it would be rescinded. I hated being put in that position, and didn't want to be vindictive and lose a woman her job, but also didn't want to be suspicious and unhappy the next few years about my husband's work (he works very very long hours). At first I said we could work it out, but later we fought about it again and he decided to rescind her offer as long as she had not given notice yet because it would put too much strain on our marriage. He embarrassed himself a bit professionally in the process, something neither of us was happy about.

 

So he fixed the situation and obviously showed me that our marriage is important to him which is good, but I am still not quite happy. I trust him less than I used to, and I don't know how to fix that. I feel like I also can't trust him to take my feelings and our marriage into consideration when he should, I mean how could he NOT have realized hiring her would be a problem? It has been a few weeks now and we are mostly normal but still, in the back of my mind, I have this nagging doubt. Also I have noticed he always keeps his computer turned off now which he never did before. Obviously my reading his email bothers him more than he will admit (I asked him to be honest with me about that because I did feel bad about doing it), or maybe he has other things he is hiding? He says he isn't hiding anything, and wasn't purposely hiding that just didn't think to let me in on it, but now I have doubt. How do you recover from doubt? Also I feel like I want to check up on his communication with her now, find out exactly how he explained to her that the position was unsuitable after all, but I really don't want to sink to snooping again and I'm not sure I should just ask.

[TaraMaiden]

It;s not a question of recovering from doubt, it's a question of recovering Trust.

And you - don't trust him.

 

Frankly?

I don't blame you.

 

He has never detached completely from this woman, and his ego is extremely boosted, by two things:

one, that he essentially has two women who are vying for his attention, and two: that it's causing hot-headedness in you, because some male types secretly love a good 'bunny-fight'. It boosts their ego even further.

 

you need - and have a right to demand - complete openness, devotion and single-minded, fixedly focussed attention from him.

 

When he married you, he made certain promises.

Here, he's demonstrating all the pattern signals of having an emotional affair.

I think - given their history - you have a right to put your foot down.

 

He's your husband.

He is your life-partner.

"For better, for worse" shouldn't include having to fight an invisible but very present and real threat to your close relationship.

He has a child with you, and as such, should therefore be even more committed to creating the best family unit he can.

His behaviour is frankly, treacherous.

 

He has to cut this woman completely, 100% out of his life, for ever, from now on.

 

It might help if you wrote him a good long letter about how this has made you feel, how you feel it has affected your marriage, and what you expect from him.

Whilst you're bound to be working from a base of emotion, don't make the letter emotionAL.

be frank, candid, honest, and tell it like it is.

Tell him this is NOT OK.

Having to face the consequences of his actions - in writing - might be the cold bucket of water he needs.

 

Oh, and one last thing:

Don't ever make excuses for somebody's behaviour, by citing his upbringing as a possible reason.

People act the way they do, because they want to. His past may certainly be a factor in his current attitude and manners, but it's all a choice. not everybody with a broken past, manifests it in a broken present.

[Undine]

Thanks for your reply, TaraMaiden. Xena kicks ass and I see you do too!

 

I want to clarify a few things. It feels artificial to have my husband painted here only in his bad moments. While I definitely agree with you that behavior learned in childhood can only be excused so far, I should have been clearer: some of his social oddity, maybe most, is just the way his brain works and I did know that when I married him. I'm not sure what is what, exactly, because make no mistake his mother is one odd duck and raised all her children with some issues, but sometimes to be honest I have wondered if he has a touch of Asperger's syndrome. He can be very sweet and caring and he has always seemed very loyal but he also occasionally makes breathtaking gaffes and genuinely does not get what the problem is, I have wracked my brain trying to explain things three or four different ways before he finally understands, and then he always tries to do the right thing to make amends. He's very smart with numbers and computers and mechanical things, but sometimes lacks some dimension of understanding with people to a degree I've never encountered before. He has always conducted himself with great integrity until now, though, maintained it when it was not the politic thing, when it was awkward for him to do, and his integrity was something I always admired, so to be lied to by him was a terrible blow.

 

He says that lying to me was wrong and he regrets it and was only moved to do so by panic, and I have some sympathy for that because I have lied in a panic before when I was younger and cornered, I think most people have...but then he also shifted some of the blame to me, that he would not have lied if he had not thought I would react so badly. And I think, well, hell, am I really overreacting? Can he possibly STILL not understand how he has stepped over reasonable boundaries with this woman, repeatedly? Or is he just trying to deflect blame? I feel like he's not really the man I thought he was.

 

You are right, I am having trouble recovering trust. I feel like my equilibrium is a little bit lost and I have been feeling a little depressed. I was very relieved when L. was out of our lives and he knew that, it's hard to imagine how he thought it would be okay to reach back and bring her into yet another close working relationship without it affecting me. Somehow I don't really think he is having an emotional affair, but it DOES have all the tags of an emotional affair, I do see that. That is why I read his email, because that is what I was afraid of, and to be honest I searched her specifically on both his work and private emails and saw all their communication going back over a year. Really, there wasn't much, and it was all pretty boring, a few lines about people they both knew from work, about setting up the recent interviews, etc. I saw the notifications of their Facebook communication, he wished her a happy birthday, she made a friend suggestion. There wasn't much communication and it was all pretty bare bones. I also know that she doesn't call him on the phone as I use his phone all the time. They could be communicating in IM inappropriately but I am inclined to believe that their relationship is not particularly close these days, that he just genuinely had a good working relationship with her and his weird lapses with her are more a function of his social ineptitude than them carrying on a current emotional relationship. Which is why it seems even weirder that he would be so rude and inappropriate about her in the past that I feel so insecure about her now. The thought of them working together again made me feel physically sick and threatened. If he were anyone else I would think I was being hopelessly naive. Maybe I am being hopelessly naive and he is even less the man I think he is, I dont'know. I think that if I moved the jewelry piece of hers out of his nightstand and put it somewhere else he wouldn't even notice for months, but maybe I am wrong and he would notice right away and be angry. Part of me is tempted to test this and the rest of me thinks it is petty game-playing and wants to rise above the impulse.

 

I hate even wondering about these things. I hate even having to question whether he is having an emotional affair, especially so early in our marriage. I hate that I have been obsessed with this for the last month. I think I will take your advice and write him a letter. I am considering even printing out this thread if I get any further responses, so we can both see how people interpret his behavior, because I think he still does not really get that he has really behaved badly around this woman except for the recent lie. That makes me worry, that the best possible interpretation is that he is lacking in normal boundaries and is SO compartmentalized that he does not consider me or our marriage when making decisions that I think a normal person would realize would affect me and our marriage,and the worst interpretation is that he is having an affair.

 

I do want him to never see or talk to L. again but I haven't wanted to ask. I think I want him to reassure me and talk to me about this somehow without me having to ask, I want him to offer to let me see the rest of the emails between them about her losing her job offer, and I want him to say he won't be friends with her anymore because he sees now that he has weird boundaries around her and acts like an ass, but I want him to WANT to do these things to make me feel better, I don't want to have to demand them. I guess I don't want much, huh? He is still friends with almost ALL of his exgfs and now I am wondering what his boundaries with all of them are like, too. This is turning me into more of a jealous person than I want to be. When we were first dating I thought it was a positive quality that he was friends with his exes, I felt it spoke highly of his maturity. Now I just want them all to fall off the face of the earth.

[Undine]

Sigh. I really am capable of the occasional short and pithy reply I promise.

[Stung]

Has your husband ever been diagnosed with Aspberger's or something similar?

How is he behaving now that his lie has been uncovered, any differently?

What did he tell this L. about why her job offer was rescinded, or his coworkers for that matter?

Do you have any exes you are still friends with? If so, how does your husband feel about them?

[TaraMaiden]

Undine, the fact that your husband has good qualities, goes without saying.

These are the shining features that led you to fall in love with him and marry him in the first place.

So you recognise his good qualities, and they were never in any doubt.

unfortunately right now, they're also immaterial, because no matter how much you might wish to focus on them, the all-encompassing worry in your mind is about his verbal responses and actions, and the fact that much of his behaviour, is inappropriate.

I think this is compounding the problem.

 

you are facing an unseen enemy.

And it's not necessarily the "Other Woman".

 

I think the problem is also that actually, you don't know how his mind works, or even if it works on the usual interactive social levels that are normal for most people. So not only is his behaviour screwing with your mind (with regard to his ex-) but also his own responses and attitude.

 

I guess, with the upbringing and history he's experienced, it might well be possible he does have a mental issue.

Maybe you need to book an appointment with a counsellor, social worker or even a doctor to discuss your concerns. (This might be a problem if he fails, or refuses to consider the possibility himself).

But if - and I do stress the "IF" - these 'experts' agree that it might sound as if he well might have a disorder - then you are not equipped to deal with this, as a professional might be.

 

perhaops you could do more research and talk to someone. try to be dispassionate, but explain that this is a very real worry for you, and that you simply feel helpless or powerless to know how to handle matters......

 

That's all I can say right now.

But never feel reluctant to touch base with us. We'll help all we can.

Furthermore, you may well find (if indeed, he does have a mild disorder) that there is a support group for you to lean on.

I wish you well.

Take care.

[Undine]

Has your husband ever been diagnosed with Aspberger's or something similar?

How is he behaving now that his lie has been uncovered, any differently?

What did he tell this L. about why her job offer was rescinded, or his coworkers for that matter?

Do you have any exes you are still friends with? If so, how does your husband feel about them?

 

He is very contrite. He understands that he has damaged my trust in him and he feels badly about that, but I still don't think he really understands why L. has become such a problem for us in the first place, I think he thinks I am overreacting. He took me on a trip for Valentines Day a 'holiday' he is usually pretty contemptuous of, and he bought me flowers one morning after he saw me re-reading an archive of the exchange where he lied to me about L., but he is not much of a talker and doesn't seem to want to talk about it much, although I have tried to bring it up a couple of times to explain why I have been feeling depressed lately. Like I said, he is also guarding his privacy more closely than he used to. I don't really blame him for that but it does make me feel bad for having violated his privacy in the first place, and also makes me wonder if he is still hiding something.

 

He told L. the truth about why her job was rescinded, I think. He told me he couldn't come up with a lie that wouldn't hurt the company and anyway he didn't like being dishonest and wanted to come clean. I have not seen the letters that went back and forth between them though so I am just taking his word on this. Makes me wonder why his integrity with his job and his ex is more important than his integrity with me, a bit. Even if he lied again to cover up his personal life with his job, which to me would be understandable, he was kind of professionally embarrassed by this whole thing.

 

I do have a few exes I am sporadically in touch with and catch up with once in a while, but only a couple I ever talk to regularly. One was just a guy I dated a few times but never slept with, who carried a torch for me for a little while but ultimately became just friends with, I actually turned him down in favor of my husband. One is a man I was somewhat serious about and had an on-again off-again thing with for a few years, but who I wouldn't take seriously as a life-partner and who now lives 3000 miles away so I never ever see him, and now has a serious girlfriend I am really happy about. My husband knows the truth about all of these situations, he knows why I discontinued seeing the men, he knows how often I communicate with them and the gist of my conversations with them, because I am a pretty open-book type of person and like to keep all my friendships aboveboard. I feel like my boundaries with them all are very clear-cut and my husband is not worried about them at all, although he does have a jealous streak, because I make it very clear to him that he is more important than they are. I don't really know much about my husband's exes at all, even the ones I have met, except that now I know more than I want to about what L. was like in bed . I had put that conversation behind me I thought but now I can't get it out of my head .

[Undine]

Oh, re: Aspberger's syndrome...

 

I remember once I found a psych eval for this online and we both took it out of curiosity (my husband is the first to admit that he sometimes deals with emotional upheaval in a very Aspberger's-y way). If I recall correctly it said something like a score of 25 or higher should be professionally evaluated as they might be diagnosable with Aspberger's syndrome, I was about an 8 and he was 20 or 21. Just an online test I know but it encapsulates my guess about the reality of the situation, which is that he does not clinically suffer from Aspbergers but he falls closer to it on the spectrum than most people would. That is just my guess though.

[SuburbanOblivion]

Regardless of any 'condition', what he is doing is crossing the line into emotional affair, and he needs to completely cut contact with her like *yesterday* since he is apparently 'genuinely' unable to see why there is a problem and therefor cannot be trusted to even maintain a normal friendship with her.

[Undine]

, the all-encompassing worry in your mind is about his verbal responses and actions, and the fact that much of his behaviour, is inappropriate.

I think this is compounding the problem.

 

you are facing an unseen enemy.

And it's not necessarily the "Other Woman".

 

I think the problem is also that actually, you don't know how his mind works, or even if it works on the usual interactive social levels that are normal for most people. So not only is his behaviour screwing with your mind (with regard to his ex-) but also his own responses and attitude.

 

.

 

TaraMaiden I was not able to focus in on your post as I felt it deserved due to responsibilities with my baby. I appreciate your thoughtful response.

 

At this point I think I agree that my enemy is not so much the Other Woman as it is my husband's behavior. I was afraid L. was an emotional affair for my H. and I am still not comfortable with his relationship with her but I am more concerned right now with his emotional blindspots and the extreme way he compartmentalizes things. I have been thinking about why I can't let this go, after I saw his email and saw that he does not seem to be romantic with L., and after he made the big gesture at his work to show me that our marriage is his priority, even embarrassing himself with his colleagues. I think it is partly the lie from a man whose integrity I so respected, but there is still more to it. I think it is that I am afraid of what it means for us that he just doesn't get some of these things. I know there is often a mental and emotional disconnect between men and women but sometimes the gap with him seems extreme. I think that most men would not need a map drawn for them as to why a woman would be upset that he would stand her up without the courtesy of a call in order to spend time with someone else, ESPECIALLY if that time was spent reminiscing with an ex. I think that most men would make the association when first recommending a woman for a job, that they had fought with their wife about this woman before and their wife might have a problem with them working long close hours again, but if I am to believe that he somehow was so compartmentalized between work and home that it didn't occur to him until very late in the process, what does that really mean? How many things does he do that affect me, without ever thinking of me? I am worried about this, and this makes him sad and he tells me I don't have to be worried about it, but how can I just trust his judgment again?

 

Right now he is reading some marriage help books with me, on communication, on learning each other's languages. We are reading the 5 Love Languages and another book on how to fight without being toxic or mean to each other. I need to research and find if there are books more suited to our particular challenges. It is slow going because we only have time at night after the baby is in bed, and then we are both tired. I would like to consider marriage counseling but it would be extremely difficult to make the time for it in the next six months for personal and professional reasons, but if there is still unease/mistrust I will insist on it then.

 

Thank you for your support and your kindness.

[Undine]

Regardless of any 'condition', what he is doing is crossing the line into emotional affair, and he needs to completely cut contact with her like *yesterday* since he is apparently 'genuinely' unable to see why there is a problem and therefor cannot be trusted to even maintain a normal friendship with her.

 

I am torn on this. I did think he was crossing into an emotional affair which is why I violated my own principles and read his email, what I found there was totally bland, innocuous. It is hard to explain his behavior otherwise, but I think maybe yes, my husband is just that dense. I admit I do not feel very comfortable with this woman anymore and I would be happier if she disappeared from his life, but I didn't find anything I consider romantic or sexual or inappropriate in their emails to each other (other than his getting her the job and lying to me about it which was obviously very very inappropriate). They ARE higher-ups in limited fields that work closely together. So I don't know...if I found evidence of an emotional affair I would feel I was in the right to insist that he cut off all communication with her, but since I didn't I am not sure I want to make that move, it feels very controlling to me. I already crossed a line with myself just by reading his email, although I still think that was justifiable.

 

I think the answer here is to help him see how his friendships need boundaries, rather than cut his friendships away. But like I said I am torn. I am not feeling very comfortable with ANY of his female friends anymore because he acted like an asshat. I would be happiest if he decided not to be friends with her anymore on his own, but I accept that as unlikely, they have known each other over 20 years and she has not actually done anything wrong that I know of. But I think maybe I should insist on seeing the letters that went back and forth between him and L. when he was trying to let L. down easy about not getting the job. I wonder how he portrays me in these letters, if he tries to make himself look better in this situation by making me look worse. I wonder if she tries to manipulate him. I wonder a lot of things and it's hard to stop thinking about it.

Edited February 23, 2010 by Undine