Should I get a divorce?

[lisacohen3]

So my husband had an emotional affair and I don't know what to do or even know how to move on (if I even can).

 

A little background: When my husband and I first started dating, he had occasionally gone into random chat rooms and flirted with random girls. I was extremely hurt by this and he would tell me that he was sorry and that he never would do it again...but later I would find out he had done it again. This has happened 2 or 3 times that I know of. But I'm not completely innocent either. I'm not trying to make excuses but I guess after dealing with him going into these chat rooms I retaliated and I ended up being intimate with a male friend of mine, and later told my husband (at that time he was my boyfriend). Then time had passed and we both had healed and learned (so I thought) from the mistakes that both of us had made in the relationship. We then got engaged and later married.

 

Present time: We have been married for almost 2 years and I thought everything was going great. He would tell me all the time how he was so happy with me and how he loved me so much. So then he bought an XBOX and I guess that's when the trouble started. He had been playing with this small group of people and there was one girl in the group. Which was fine. This girls husband played in this group as well. I didn't have a problem with it until my husband added this girl as a friend on Facebook.

 

For some reason something just didn't seem right. My husband and I both know each others passwords to everything, so I logged on to his Facebook and deleted her. Then I saw that he had added her again, which made me more suspicious, so I deleted her again and then told him that I was very uncomfortable with them being Facebook friends. I didn't have a very good reason as to why, but I felt I was very clear that I didn't want them to be friends and I thought he understood. He added her a 3rd time, and that caused a huge argument. He told me I was being unreasonable and that I didn't trust him and that I was being insecure with myself. Maybe I was. My gut just told me that something wasn't right. I could tell he was really upset (and I didn't understand why), but he didn't add her anymore so I thought everything with that was over with.

 

My husband and I had been trying to have a baby for a while. I have PCOS (which causes me not to ovulate) so getting pregnant was difficult. After failed attempts with fertility drugs we made the choice that we were going to save up money to do IVF.

 

Fast forward 2 months from when we had the argument about him adding the girl from XBOX on Facebook for the 3rd time. He told me that he still wanted to try really hard naturally while we saved money for the IVF and who knows, maybe I would get pregnant. I agreed and I was excited to get back on the wagon. I then went to amazon.com because I wanted to buy some fertility items. Amazon has this thing where for the 1st month can get free shipping on a lot of items. Both mine and my husbands email had already been registered over Christmas, so i decided to use an old email address of my husbands. (audiophoenix1). As I started typing "audio", the auto filler came up with "audiophoenix1985", This alarmed me so I tried to log in with one of the passwords my husband frequently uses, and I could't log in. Then I tried the security question. The security question was "what is (blanks) name?" Blank= the XBOX screen name of the girl that he was adding on Facebook. I knew her name, and I successfully logged in.

 

Then I saw the emails. The emails entailed how they have so much in common and how I'm not interested in anything my husband is in. And he even said "whenever I start to talk about science to Lisa (me), her eyes glaze over and I can see her brain leaking from her ears". In all honesty, I had never been one for Science, but he knew this way before we were even engaged. I then made the decision to email the girl. The girl then told me all these things (none of which my husband denied and he agreed were true) that he has invited her over to our house while I was at work (I work 11pm-7am) and how they said they wanted to run away together. He even told her about how I couldn't have children and she told him that she could give him all of the babies he wanted and that that even discussed what their children would look like. Out of everything that was said, this hurt me the most. I want nothing more then to have children and give my husband children and its painful that it's not happening naturally. And then he goes to some random girl and tells her these things. She even told me he took in interest in her kids and that he wanted her to email her pictures of them. Then even went as far as discussing each others sexual fantasies and said how great sex would be with each other.

 

Apparently this relationship lasted for 2 or 3 months. When I asked my husband about it he told me that he didn't mean any of the things that it was all a game to him. That he was just telling her the things she wanted to hear. But when I asked him why he would even be involved with her in the first place, he didn't really have a good reason. He said "I liked the attention". He broke down in tears and told me that he wanted to tell me but her didn't know how. And he said "I know you don't believe me but I will never do anything like this to you again".

 

My issues that I can't get over is 1) He said he would never do anything like this before and he did. 2) He said everything he said to her he didn't mean and that he was just saying what she wanted to hear. I can't understand how you could have a relationship with someone for so long and not mean anything you said to that person. 3) He bad mouthed me. I could never EVER say any horrible thing about my husband. I would never say to someone that he's controlling or an ******* or that we are even having problems. Any problem that I have with my husband I talk to him about. The emails he was sending this girl made me look like I was a complete bitch. And I asked him if that was how he felt, because if it was I would definitely work on it. And he assured me that he didn't think any of those things, and again, was just telling this girl what he thought she wanted to hear. 4) If you love someone how could you with a clean conscious have a emotional affair with someone else and then at the end of the day wrap me in your arms and tell me how much I mean to him???? All he could say for himself was "there must be something wrong with me"..yeah, obviously.

 

I don't know what to do, think, say or feel. I've been pretending things are okay (for the circumstances) but they're not. I've tried talking to him and he keeps telling me that he's going to prove to me that he will never do this again and that he's going to me the husband that I deserve. But like I told him, we are AT LEAST going to be married for another 50 or so years. And he's already betrayed me and hurt me so bad only 2 years after we married. There's a long time from now until one of us dies for him to screw up and go back to his old ways. And that's what I'm most scared of. My mom has had 2 failed marriages and both were very abusive. I use to take pride in the fact that my marriage was nothing like my moms, but now I can't say that. I feel cheated and used.

 

My mind is telling me to flee and just get a divorce, but my heart is telling me to stay and fight and work on our marriage. If we could afford marriage counseling I would have made an appointment, but we cant, so I didn't.But I have no idea how to even begin to move forward, when all I can think about is that he's not being completely honest with me and how I fear he's just going to do it again.

 

What if it just starts out as him having an emotional affair. Kinda like how they say people who abuse animals go on to be serial killers. What if it starts with emotional affairs and then he ends up having a physical affair. And what I'm also worried about is what if the IVF doesn't work and we can never have children. A big part of his relationship with this women was about how they were going to run off and start a family-because I couldn't give that to him. What if I can't have kids, and he ends up leaving me??

 

I've tried talking to him about what he thinks his needs and problems are and he just says that he thinks our marriage is great (until I found out about the affair) and he doesn't know why he had the emotional affair, other then he just liked the attention.

 

The worst part is I feel completely alone in this situation. I have a few close friends, but I'm way to ashamed to even say anything to them and get their advise about the situation. I'm told by my friends all the time how someday that want a marriage like mine and my husbands and that we have a very rare and special relationship. I thought this was true, but now I'm not so sure.

 

I'm just totally confused and I would like anyone's input on my situation. Thanks!

[BlindRage]

So my husband had an emotional affair and I don't know what to do or even know how to move on (if I even can).

 

A little background: When my husband and I first started dating, he had occasionally gone into random chat rooms and flirted with random girls. I was extremely hurt by this and he would tell me that he was sorry and that he never would do it again...but later I would find out he had done it again. This has happened 2 or 3 times that I know of. But I'm not completely innocent either. I'm not trying to make excuses but I guess after dealing with him going into these chat rooms I retaliated and I ended up being intimate with a male friend of mine, and later told my husband (at that time he was my boyfriend). Then time had passed and we both had healed and learned (so I thought) from the mistakes that both of us had made in the relationship. We then got engaged and later married.

 

Present time: We have been married for almost 2 years and I thought everything was going great. He would tell me all the time how he was so happy with me and how he loved me so much. So then he bought an XBOX and I guess that's when the trouble started. He had been playing with this small group of people and there was one girl in the group. Which was fine. This girls husband played in this group as well. I didn't have a problem with it until my husband added this girl as a friend on Facebook.

 

For some reason something just didn't seem right. My husband and I both know each others passwords to everything, so I logged on to his Facebook and deleted her. Then I saw that he had added her again, which made me more suspicious, so I deleted her again and then told him that I was very uncomfortable with them being Facebook friends. I didn't have a very good reason as to why, but I felt I was very clear that I didn't want them to be friends and I thought he understood. He added her a 3rd time, and that caused a huge argument. He told me I was being unreasonable and that I didn't trust him and that I was being insecure with myself. Maybe I was. My gut just told me that something wasn't right. I could tell he was really upset (and I didn't understand why), but he didn't add her anymore so I thought everything with that was over with.

 

My husband and I had been trying to have a baby for a while. I have PCOS (which causes me not to ovulate) so getting pregnant was difficult. After failed attempts with fertility drugs we made the choice that we were going to save up money to do IVF.

 

Fast forward 2 months from when we had the argument about him adding the girl from XBOX on Facebook for the 3rd time. He told me that he still wanted to try really hard naturally while we saved money for the IVF and who knows, maybe I would get pregnant. I agreed and I was excited to get back on the wagon. I then went to amazon.com because I wanted to buy some fertility items. Amazon has this thing where for the 1st month can get free shipping on a lot of items. Both mine and my husbands email had already been registered over Christmas, so i decided to use an old email address of my husbands. (audiophoenix1). As I started typing "audio", the auto filler came up with "audiophoenix1985", This alarmed me so I tried to log in with one of the passwords my husband frequently uses, and I could't log in. Then I tried the security question. The security question was "what is (blanks) name?" Blank= the XBOX screen name of the girl that he was adding on Facebook. I knew her name, and I successfully logged in.

 

Then I saw the emails. The emails entailed how they have so much in common and how I'm not interested in anything my husband is in. And he even said "whenever I start to talk about science to Lisa (me), her eyes glaze over and I can see her brain leaking from her ears". In all honesty, I had never been one for Science, but he knew this way before we were even engaged. I then made the decision to email the girl. The girl then told me all these things (none of which my husband denied and he agreed were true) that he has invited her over to our house while I was at work (I work 11pm-7am) and how they said they wanted to run away together. He even told her about how I couldn't have children and she told him that she could give him all of the babies he wanted and that that even discussed what their children would look like. Out of everything that was said, this hurt me the most. I want nothing more then to have children and give my husband children and its painful that it's not happening naturally. And then he goes to some random girl and tells her these things. She even told me he took in interest in her kids and that he wanted her to email her pictures of them. Then even went as far as discussing each others sexual fantasies and said how great sex would be with each other.

 

Apparently this relationship lasted for 2 or 3 months. When I asked my husband about it he told me that he didn't mean any of the things that it was all a game to him. That he was just telling her the things she wanted to hear. But when I asked him why he would even be involved with her in the first place, he didn't really have a good reason. He said "I liked the attention". He broke down in tears and told me that he wanted to tell me but her didn't know how. And he said "I know you don't believe me but I will never do anything like this to you again".

 

My issues that I can't get over is 1) He said he would never do anything like this before and he did. 2) He said everything he said to her he didn't mean and that he was just saying what she wanted to hear. I can't understand how you could have a relationship with someone for so long and not mean anything you said to that person. 3) He bad mouthed me. I could never EVER say any horrible thing about my husband. I would never say to someone that he's controlling or an ******* or that we are even having problems. Any problem that I have with my husband I talk to him about. The emails he was sending this girl made me look like I was a complete bitch. And I asked him if that was how he felt, because if it was I would definitely work on it. And he assured me that he didn't think any of those things, and again, was just telling this girl what he thought she wanted to hear. 4) If you love someone how could you with a clean conscious have a emotional affair with someone else and then at the end of the day wrap me in your arms and tell me how much I mean to him???? All he could say for himself was "there must be something wrong with me"..yeah, obviously.

 

I don't know what to do, think, say or feel. I've been pretending things are okay (for the circumstances) but they're not. I've tried talking to him and he keeps telling me that he's going to prove to me that he will never do this again and that he's going to me the husband that I deserve. But like I told him, we are AT LEAST going to be married for another 50 or so years. And he's already betrayed me and hurt me so bad only 2 years after we married. There's a long time from now until one of us dies for him to screw up and go back to his old ways. And that's what I'm most scared of. My mom has had 2 failed marriages and both were very abusive. I use to take pride in the fact that my marriage was nothing like my moms, but now I can't say that. I feel cheated and used.

 

My mind is telling me to flee and just get a divorce, but my heart is telling me to stay and fight and work on our marriage. If we could afford marriage counseling I would have made an appointment, but we cant, so I didn't.But I have no idea how to even begin to move forward, when all I can think about is that he's not being completely honest with me and how I fear he's just going to do it again.

 

What if it just starts out as him having an emotional affair. Kinda like how they say people who abuse animals go on to be serial killers. What if it starts with emotional affairs and then he ends up having a physical affair. And what I'm also worried about is what if the IVF doesn't work and we can never have children. A big part of his relationship with this women was about how they were going to run off and start a family-because I couldn't give that to him. What if I can't have kids, and he ends up leaving me??

 

I've tried talking to him about what he thinks his needs and problems are and he just says that he thinks our marriage is great (until I found out about the affair) and he doesn't know why he had the emotional affair, other then he just liked the attention.

 

The worst part is I feel completely alone in this situation. I have a few close friends, but I'm way to ashamed to even say anything to them and get their advise about the situation. I'm told by my friends all the time how someday that want a marriage like mine and my husbands and that we have a very rare and special relationship. I thought this was true, but now I'm not so sure.

 

I'm just totally confused and I would like anyone's input on my situation. Thanks!

 

 

THis is truly sickening I've been where you are. I've read all those e-mails too (well they were meant for my ex but I caught a peak ) If he did it once he'll do it again. Thats how it works (with very few exceptions) What do you feel you must do? I know how it feels like an I sympathizes you.

[PegNosePete]

Well of course it's up to you if you can carry on in your marriage after this. Some people can, some can't. It's a very personal thing. A multiple month EA is not an easy thing to get over, you've only been married a short time and have no kids, so nobody would blame you for deciding that moving on is better.

 

But I have to say, he is saying and doing all the right things. He is taking responsibility for his actions. He is admitting that it's all his fault, not trying to blame you or gaslight. These are all good signs that he is truly remorseful, not just sorry for getting caught.

 

If you decide to try to work it out then you need to insist on some ground rules:

1) No contact ever again with the other woman. I guess he's already cut contact? If not then he will phone her right now with you present and tell her that they will never again communicate.

2) He will be 100% honest with you, answer any questions to the best of his ability without hesitation, deviation or omission.

3) He has no privacy any more. You have access to his phone, emails, everything. When the trust is rebuilt this can be relaxed but for now he needs to prove himself.

4) MC.

 

If he doesn't agree to the rules, kick him out. If he breaks any, kick him out. And, most important, stop trying for kids until your marriage is fixed! That would add a new dimension to the whole thing.

[What_Next]

I agree with PegNosePete. Especially the advice to not bring children into the mix at this point.

 

I will say that it appears your husband has boundary issues, and that is where a lot of this sort of behavior begins.

 

Good luck, I am sure reading those emails was one of the most painful things you could have ever imagined.

[nikografi]

My heart bleeds for you. I'm not married but I know a lot of couples who are unhappy with their married life. When worst comes to worst, there are great divorce advice that will surely help you.

[Fleur de Lis]

You say he invited her to come over to your house. Does that mean she was actually at your residence while you were working the graveyard shift? Did she take him up on the offer or was it only an offer?

 

If so, then this is most likely more than an EA and is a full blown PA.

 

It appears as If he has little respect for your intellectual capabilities. This lack of respect will most likely not get better with time and will become more and more of a resentment point for him. You need to consider if he has a significant superiority complex and does not view you as an equal.

 

Another indication where he might not view you as an equal is in the wording surrounding the email you found that states:

that she could give him all of the babies he wanted

This is another possible indication of trouble. Implied in that statement is the idea that children are to be "given" to a man by a woman.

 

I doubt that notion was plucked out of thin air and that somehow your husband talks about his wife and partner "giving him babies". The levels that this thinking is wrong on is astounding. It looks like in his mind they would be "his" children and your role is to get pregnant, gestate babies, hand over the babies at birth, and they are his to control and possess (like his women and his Xbox).

 

The bottom line is that he thinks he is intellectually superior to you and can manipulate and deceive you as a result of that perceived superiority to the extent that he felt secure in inviting another woman to come over and make love to him in your marital bed.

 

My suggestion is that you take a deep inventory of your life and think long and hard about what kind of life and family you want. Does your husband have the capacity and maturity to provide you that kind of life?

[Yasuandio]

IMO, you showed your badge too soon. I would have sat on this awhile, watched, waited, observed.

 

Also, IMO, by showing your badge too soon, you disclosed all the evidence you had gathered. I bet you didn't find out all you could have learned. So now, he will be more careful now that he got caught.

 

It's OK. Not too late, for this reason:

 

HUMANS OFTEN REPEAT BEHAVIOR.

 

In this case, you can count on it. Just a matter of time. But don't show your badge!!!

 

Ballerfamily was discussing some inexpensive surveilience equipment. This type of tracking device you can watch where he goes in the car on the computer. I did this. But my eye was untrained. It's years later that the data is making sense. For instance, when I corralate phone records with unusal locations, and patterns thereof.

 

You are early in the marriage. Find out now before you end up making a liifelong connection to him that you may regret (not the baby, but the connection to him).

[marky1]

Of all the tragedies that could accompany a divorce, a child's loss of innocence, security and long-term parental care are among the worst.