Trust is broken, and he didn't even cheat.

[Miranda]

This will be probably long, sorry, just need to spil it all out.

 

My boyfriend hasn't cheated, but he has hurt me. I feel, after much reflection, that to even call it an "emotional affair" is a bit much and really probably overstates what happened; regardless, it was a lapse of judgment on his part, and, I feel, a very hurtful indiscretion.

 

This occurred 4-4.5 months ago, and I sat on it for about a month or so after I found out about it and stewed on how to proceed, how to address it, if I should address it, or wait for him to. I moved about a year ago to be with him, we'd been carrying on an LDR for about a year prior to that, and my learning about his indiscretion threw me for a loop and made me seriously do some soul-searching about what I should do if my relationship ended - stay on in my adopted city and state, head back home, go elsewhere. I was also in a career crisis at the time and evaluating even staying with my employer (I ended up getting a new job and quitting), so it all tied into kind of a D-Day of decisionmaking at once, all things that would dominoe into one another.

 

What happened is that one of my BF's coworkers, we'll call her Anna, developed a crush on him...it seemd harmless enough at the time, and I'm not a jealous person by nature unless there is glaring evidence that I have reason to be, and was very - at that time - secure in my relationship. He would come home with stories on how he felt kind of sorry for Anna, she seemed to always be mopey and would sit at lunch with their team (all guys, mostly mid to late twenties) and complain about how hard it was to find good men who weren't gay or taken, blah blah. He said that she'd been loitering by his desk and wanting to talk about how some guy she'd been involved with at work broke her heart, and now she has to see him all the time, etc. I didn't much like the sound of her pouring her heart out to my boyfriend, but there was no real way to voice that without coming off as jealous or insecure. My boyfriend is legitimately fairly clueless and oblivious to most flirtation...He's a cute guy who truly doesn't realize/believe in his cuteness, and I always tease him when waitress or cashier flirts with him, because he never seems to have noticed it occurring. It took him a while to realize I was interested in him, he's just that way. I figured her flirting was hitting his all-too-real brick wall of obliviousness.

 

As it turned out, it apparently was, which induced Anna to step up her game. She started grilling my BF about his relationship, asking him why, if he was so attached to me, weren't we engaged, and offering up her advice that he should face up to the reality that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't sold on being with me if he wasn't "sealing the deal." All this I found out after the fact, didn't know it when it was going on. She took to sending my boyfriend e-mails all the time, most of which were joke forwards and chain forwards and stupid quizzes, but some of which were things like, "Were you too busy to talk to me today? Sniff," or accounts of her plans for the weekend, etc. I didn't snoop, we have a shared e-mail account and complete access to one another's stuff, neither of us is particularly private. I definitely saw messages coming in that let me know her crush was still going strong. He'd say things like, "She's nice enough, but she can be pretty annoying...all of us on the team think so." He mentioned several times that she'd try to line up happy hours after work, which he rarely went to because he picks me up from my work, and guilt him out if he couldn't come. He noted that twice, he stopped in, thinking he'd hang out with the whole work team, and each time, it was just her there, and she'd try to talk him into staying out later and going barhopping with her, which he declined.

 

Around this same time, my BF was suffering a flareup of an OCD-like disorder that he has, and really having a hard time. Because of his disorder, thre was strain on our relationship and lots of touchiness and hurt feelings. I knew of his condition before we dated, and knew how bad it could get, but from March-May of this year was the first time I experienced it alongside him while living with him, and saw how bad it could be...as a couple, it was a rough patch, as anybody dealing with any type of emotional or psych disorder knows. He was seeing a therapist, but things were moderately rocky...nothing in danger of crumbling, but lots of eggshell-walking due to what he was going through. He knew how his disorder affected him, but this was the first time he ever got to experience how it would affect a relationship, and I was also experiencing it for the first time. Although I love him and believe we are committed for the long run, that episode was definitely a big hurdle to overcome together, the first flareup. Things were definitely tense, even without my coming to terms with my job stuff thrown into the mix; with it all being kind of shaky and alarming it once, it was rough.

 

On the morning that I was interviewing for what has become the job I accepted, my boyfriend left a message from Anna open on the computer, farily common, he leaves stuff open all the time. From this message, there were several things she said that indicated that he'd been talking to her about the rough time he and I had been having...he didn't tell her about his therapy or his disorder (very few people do know about it), but he did tell her that he was worried that I wasn't happy living with him, and that I seemed really upset all the time. In her message, she was clearly advocating breaking things off. I was crushed that of all the people he could have confided in, it had to be this girl who has obviously been nursing an inappropriate crush, and that there was such manipulation going on. Although I panicked inside, I swallowed it all and put it on the back burner until I got through my job transition and had some time to think and reflect and determine how to address/confront the situation.

 

When I did, we had an epic heart to heart. My boyfriend admitted that he ended up spilling more to Anna than he should have, and knew in his gut that doing so was a bad idea and only encouraging the crush that was by this point obvious to him, as well. He said that he'd made a big mistake thinking that she was somebody he could talk to, and that he was ashamed and horribly remorseful about airing things about our relationship with her. He confirmed to me that she was coming on very strong and really pushing him to get out of his relationship, and that he hadn't welcomed this, and, by the time he saw clearly what was going on, he started avoiding her and not responding to e-mails or lunch or happy hour invites, period. He said he felt stupid that he'd thought she was just a friend for so long, and said he really regretted that he'd been so indiscreet as to do any relationship venting to her.

 

At this point, I started accompanying him to his therapy, and we've been working hard on building our life together as a couple. He appears to have gotten no further contact other than what's required at work with Anna, and said that she got huffy when he started stonewalling her, and has avoided him, as well, since before I confronted things. He is in line for a promotion that will take him entirely out of her department, and says he will be glad to be shed of the whole situation.

 

The problem is that I can't get past this, even though I am going through all the right motions - confronting the situation, talking it out, being honest about how it made me feel, shared my concerns and worries, taking proactive steps like becoming more involved in his therapy, etc, agreeing to work on things as a couple. And he has worked really hard, himself, to bring things back on track.

 

But I don't trust him anymore. I can't help it - I wish I did. But now, no matter what, I have insecurity in our relationship that I didn't have before. The seed is planted that, when the going gets tough, he seeks solace - even if it's just shoulder to lean on type solace - elsewhere, rather than actually talk it out with me. I don't trust that he won't air our personal business and details of our relationship to some Anna-like female friend, and I don't trust that just because he was naive about her interest, he will be if it happens again, with her or with somebody else. I feel betrayed, and no matter how much he apologizes and shows remorse and promises to work on things with me and actually follows through, it's still like a cracked dish that is glued back together, but not ever the same. I feel like I can't heal. Every time I think enough time has passed that it's out of my mind, it keeps coming back. I resent that the shoulder he chose to lean on was a person hell-bent on driving a wedge between us. I don't trust him because of that.

 

I was crushed and devastated by this, and I don't know what it will take to really move past it, or if I can. And at the same time, I feel horrible about that, because this is a person I love, a person I pleged to stand side by side with, and one that I trusted implicitly. I feel like all that's broken, now.

 

I've always said that I could not live with myself if I stayed with a cheater, and my knee-jerk reaction to a lesser-scale betrayal of my trust lets me know that it's true, and not just high-minded philosophizing.

[Miranda]

Another thing that plays into my mind is that my boyfriend is the product of a broken home, broken by marital infidelity...he has a complicated relationship with his father (which plays into his emotional disorder, IMO), torn between resenting the person he is, but also feeling the pull of a lifelong pressure to emulate him (dad's a wealthy, powerful, aggressive A-type, my boyfriend is more mild mannered and gentle). His father was, and continues to be a skirtchaser - he left my boyfriend's mom for his much younger secretary when my BF was a teen, now that that much younger secretary is his wife and has had a baby and is now just a mom and wife and no longer the hot young babe, he's turned his attention to younger women once again and is on the verge of another divorce. During a recent visit, he was bragging to his three adult sons about how many offers he gets from women, etc. He's a real douchebag, and the fact that my boyfriend always seems to feel pressured to live up to this guy and his effed up priorities scares me.

 

I don't want to be the person who superimposes "the sins of the father" on the son, necessarily, but I also know fully well how huge a product we are of our environment and upbringing. Though my boyfriend has NEVER indicated to me that cheating is no big deal, I know that his chief male role model is a guy who not only thinks cheating is no big deal, he behaves as if it's his sovereign right to use people and toss them aside once they're no longer stroking his ego or serving any purpose for him. How does being raised with that mentality shoved on you not screw with a kid's head?

[soda]

My boyfriend hasn't cheated, but he has hurt me. I feel, after much reflection, that to even call it an "emotional affair" is a bit much and really probably overstates what happened; regardless, it was a lapse of judgment on his part, and, I feel, a very hurtful indiscretion.

.

 

You feel betrayed because he confided in another woman, overstepped the boundaries of the relationship, and stayed friends with a opposite gender friend who 1) clearly had other intentions with him, and 2) had advocated for you and him to break up.

 

At the very least, his communications with her were inappropriate in nature. Would he have communicated with her this way with you present? Heck, no.

 

I don't know if he was to the stage of an EA yet, but he was certainly on his way down that path. He should have never confided in her about your relationship issues...that would only serve to fuel her advances. I would guess that he enjoyed the attention and probably did so purposefully.

 

I knew that my own marriage was tattered when my wife began to confide in her male "friend" what was being discussed in our marriage counseling sessions. She knew he was interested in her, and I think she did it to keep him interested and in pursuit.

 

I think you need to have a serious discussion with him -- set boundaries. Tell him what you and won't accept and that if he ever crosses those boundaries again...you'll be through with him.

 

And then, stick to your word.

 

I think

[Chinook]

Actually, I'm going to go against the grain here. I think what soda has presented is a valid viewpoint. BUT...

 

I think what you seriously need to consider at this point is how much you're over-analysing things. Firstly, at the point your boyfriend confided in Anna, both he and YOU were having a tough time. He probably didn't want to make things worse by being down further on what was happening with the relationship. Second, when you talk about his legendary stone-walling obliviousness, in not knowing what she was about, I think I'm inclined to agree with soda, he probably did know - but the fact is, he didn't DO anything about it. He spoke to someone in confidence about his issues because he felt doing so with you would make things worse. The fact that it WAS Anna, was probably irrelevant to him. I think given his subsequent agreement that it WAS inappropriate given her manipulation and reaction, and his subsequent actions - you need to consider what it is that you're going to achieve by having another EPIC heart-to-heart over it. He already feels irresponsible and probably guilty for what happened... does he need to be continued to be beaten for it..?

 

I think in this scenario it might be more helpful for you both to see a relationship counsellor - so that you air your thoughts and you guys don't end up pointing fingers and laying blame. You've both been through a tough time and coming out the other side - the way I would explain it to him that you need this is that you 'need him' to help you. Very often for some reason in this day and age, we as human beings find it very difficult to ASK for our needs to be met. Ask him to help you get past it.

[soda]

Chinook -- well stated. We don't agree in this case, but you made some great points.

 

OP -- she's right. You will have to learn to be comfortable asking for your needs to be met. Don't assume that your SO knows what they are. He sounds like he's trying hard to make amends.

 

Figure out what it will take for your SO to earn trust back. And then...tell him. Don't assume that he'll be angry. Right now, he's probably just as confused as you are.

[Chinook]

Thanks Soda. I think part of the issue is we need to be able to ASK but also we need to figure out what it is that we're ASKING.

 

OP -- if you find yourself saying 'I would be able to trust him again if....' and then coming up with a whole raft of things you want from him, those are the things he needs to know. He's not a mind reader and he will make mistakes unless he has it laid out clearly for him what it is he has to do in order to earn your trust again. We often make the mistake of thinking our SO is some all-seeing, all-knowing being... and we often ask that they 'just know' what it is we need. When in fact the reality is, they don't know and because we can't or won't ask for what we need, they fail us. It's a two-way thing and you need to do your bit

[angie2443]

I don't know if he was to the stage of an EA yet, but he was certainly on his way down that path. He should have never confided in her about your relationship issues...that would only serve to fuel her advances. I would guess that he enjoyed the attention and probably did so purposefully.

 

 

I think you need to have a serious discussion with him -- set boundaries. Tell him what you and won't accept and that if he ever crosses those boundaries again...you'll be through with him.

 

And then, stick to your word.

 

I think

 

Listen to soda. I've been through something very simular. Your husband knew what he was doing was wrong and most likely enjoyed the little relationship he developed with this woman. Set the bounderies, explain why they are so important, and leave him if he ever crosses them again. If you don't, you risk becomming a doormat.

[Miranda]

Thanks to all who responded, seriously.

 

Actually, I'm going to go against the grain here. I think what soda has presented is a valid viewpoint. BUT...

 

I think what you seriously need to consider at this point is how much you're over-analysing things.

 

Oh, I'm definitely aware that I am and generally do overanalyze...unfortunately, that awareness doesn't seem to stop the thoughts/feelings/lack of trust...I wish it did. I'd give anything to feel just as solidly as I did before that I could 100% count on my boyfriend.

 

 

Second, when you talk about his legendary stone-walling obliviousness, in not knowing what she was about, I think I'm inclined to agree with soda, he probably did know - but the fact is, he didn't DO anything about it. He spoke to someone in confidence about his issues because he felt doing so with you would make things worse. The fact that it WAS Anna, was probably irrelevant to him.

 

It's really kind of irrelevant to the whole situation, I think, but the reason I'm so sure of his obliviousness to the interest of said female is because my boyfriend has suffered from body dysmorphic disorder for many years, and despite ongoing and marginally helpful cognitive behavioral therapy efforts, has an almost impossible time entertaining the notion that he is considered physically attractive by anybody, even if all evidence points to the contrary. It's a sucky disorder, to say the least, but it is why I am absolutely certain he didn't catch on to this chick's advances...he NEVER sees interest, even when it's staring him in the face, glaringly obvious. I do concede that he was probably welcome to the listening ear she was doubtless prepared to be. I would even concede that he enjoyed the attention and kept it coming, but I don't truly think that he realized the depth of her interest. In any case, his obliviousness isn't simply wishful thinking or denial of a naive girlfriend, it's something that is unfortunately a symptom of the disorder he suffers from and that we do spend a lot of time and energy treating.

 

I think given his subsequent agreement that it WAS inappropriate given her manipulation and reaction, and his subsequent actions - you need to consider what it is that you're going to achieve by having another EPIC heart-to-heart over it. He already feels irresponsible and probably guilty for what happened... does he need to be continued to be beaten for it..?

 

I totally do agree...I don't feel that his remorse is in any way placating or insincere, and I do believe that he takes seriously the fact that I was seriously considering putting on the brakes in the entire relationship when I found out the mess that was unfolding. He does feel terrible, sincerely so...and because of this, I don't bring it up, and I don't want to have multiple summits on the incidents/aftermath. But it's still inside me, even though I'm not saying anything, and it's just festering. I believe he's sorry. But I can't feel the same trust and security I had before - and I'm not sure why, since I do believe him and don't feel that he's playing me.

 

I think in this scenario it might be more helpful for you both to see a relationship counsellor - so that you air your thoughts and you guys don't end up pointing fingers and laying blame. You've both been through a tough time and coming out the other side - the way I would explain it to him that you need this is that you 'need him' to help you. Very often for some reason in this day and age, we as human beings find it very difficult to ASK for our needs to be met. Ask him to help you get past it.

 

We have talked a bit about this, and he says, "I will do whatever I can do to restore your faith in me and our relationship again." He says he's so sorry it's been damaged. But the problem is that I literally don't know what will do that. I wish I had a magical eraser to just wipe it all out, but it's always hanging there. I've never really had trust seriously betrayed, so I didn't know that it would be so hard to get it back.

 

If I DID know what it would take to get my trust back again, I certainly WOULD tell him, and I know he would try his hardest to do it, whatever it would be. I just don't know what to tell him, because I don't know what it would take. I'm afraid that nothing will do it.

 

I would be open to counseling; however, he's already going to regular therapy for the BDD, and that was a huge enough step for him to take. Overloading him on "doctoring" right now could backfire. I don't know if feeling like he's spending all his waking hours "on the couch" at this point would be a good thing. I do go to his therapy with him as a support, and at times, his therapist does talk with us about our relationship, since maintaining a romantic relationship with somebody with BDD comes with a unique set of challenges. But obviously, this whole mess hasn't come up.

 

Also, as far as boundary-setting, he knows, because I was very clear in telling him, that if anything resembling this in any way occurs again within our relationship, I am out. I came very close, in my soul-searching, to leaving, not only the relationship, but the city and the state, and he knows this.

[Miranda]

Also, there will at some point, probably sooner rather than later, where I'll end up in a social situation with "Anna," whom I have never personally met, some corporate night at a baseball game or picnic at supervisor's house or something, and I alternately cringe at the thought of being confronted with her, and secretly delight in the subtle, icy way I will convey with a look and cool dismissal of her that I know exactly what she's worth.

[Miranda]

In the end, too, I guess...overanalysis or not, I can't help but be upset about whatever compelled him to air personal relationship information...even if it hadn't been to Little Miss Wannabe Homewrecker, which made it a million times worse, it still would have cut me to the core that he was compelled to discuss our relationship with some coworker. I don't do that. I wouldn't consider it. I respect him more, and our relationship more, than that. Vent to a therapist, sure. A journal, an anonymous blog even, I don't care.

[merlin2]

Miranda,

 

Hope you dont mind me commenting here.I think your bf was the victim of a scheming little so and so, who gave a willing ear, fooled him at first into thinking she was 'acting in his best interests and giving good advice', and he went along with it.But nowhere from your posts did I see him try to cover his tracks or be deceitful to you.I know he has OCD, but that's nothing to do with what's happened.OCD is just part of him, and I think you're amazing to accept that, I'm sure he does too.Cheating , infidelity, loss of trust can happen in any relationship.The core of it is, his OCD , your relationship issues, -it was the fact he confided in this scheming little girl that poses problems.I dont think you have to worry about him cheating.We dont have a crystal ball unfortunately, we can only hope we realise there are problems and try and slove them.If its any consolation I dont think you'll EVER be anybody's fool.You will always command as much from a relationship as you put in.I hope it works out for you and your bf realises just how lucky he is to have you.