Married guy with secret relationship with female friend

[CarrieT]

I've thought about her every day for almost a year. I feel that part of the transition to either friends or nothing will require me to have some days where I don't think about her at all. To move her down my list of priorities, if you will. Any advice?

 

Easy - come clean with your wife.

 

As soon as the entire situation is out in the open for what it is, your desires will immediately be diffused.

[MightyPen]

Easy - come clean with your wife.

 

As soon as the entire situation is out in the open for what it is, your desires will immediately be diffused.

 

I truly think our lives would be made miserable by revealing that. My wife would hold it over my head forever, and I'd grow tired of that very quickly.

 

Also, she'd likely want all the info on the OW and I am NOT willing to blow up her life, especially since I pursued her. It's not worth destroying everyone's life just because we had a few "sexy" talks intermingled with hundreds of non-sexy ones.

 

I am considering ending it now (I'm probably 50/50 on the fence between trying the "let's be friends" thing versus just ending it on a nice, friendly note). I realized in the car driving to work today that I haven't spoken with her in almost two weeks and the Earth is still rotating on its axis.

 

But regardless of whether it continues for a year or ends right here today, I don't ever anticipate telling my wife about this.

[MightyPen]

Mighty Pen,

 

I've read your threads. Your story intrigues me, because it reminded me of my life as a BH. My former wife carried on long term online emotional adultery. (I also hate the word affair it sounds so fun and light hearted, we had an affair to remember,) Let's call it what it really is, It's adultery. Her's progressed to on again/off again emotional and physical affair. After reading your 4 threads here's my take on most of it.

 

I also had kids and tried to stay together for the kids. To answer your questions in this thread I don't think you can transition your Emotional Adultery partner to a friend. Not if you want to maintain your marriage with your wife. How would she like it you continued to be friends with the person you had emotional adultery with?

 

For me, trying to stay together the first time I discovered the adultery was done really poorly. We talked to our pastor, but didn't really get to the root of the problem. Neither one of us did counselling, either for ourselves or for our marriage. Things seemed better for a while, but old patterns resurfaced and four years later she had fallen into another full blown adultery, this time someone local. For her, addictions ran deep, and seeking out inappropriate relationships gave her a similar feeling of high that she got when she was abusing narcotic pain pills. Replacing one addiction with another. The point of the story is we never got to the root of the problem for either one of us, or for our marriage.

 

My number one advice is to seek counselling.

 

I'm a firm believer in honesty in your marriage. I think you need to tell your wife you've been having a secret emotional adultery, and what steps you plan to give her to ensure it doesn't happen again. (i.e. complete NC for life with AP, let her read the NC letter, and allow your wife complete and total transparency.)

 

Good Luck

 

I really appreciate you sharing your own experience, especially considering you were in my wife's position. It's sad of course, but you seem to be in a pretty decent place now (sorry if I'm assuming too much).

 

This is my first "straying" during my marriage. It's not like I'm out there searching for hookups. My wife and I have a good sex life. I guess I'm trying to say that the chances of me having a physical affair, or even another emotional affair, are very very low. I know that's a self-serving assessment, but I honestly mean what I'm saying.

 

I hate asking this, and feel free to decline answering if it's too personal, but would your wife's adulterous relationships have been deal breakers if they had been "only" emotional? Perhaps a better question is, if you were in my wife's position, and I "told all," as you suggest, how would you respond?

 

(yes I realize this is a odd question to ask another guy)

[MadJackBird]

I bet a lot of people would say they were not looking for hookups that ended up in full blown adultery situations. Your story is not unique. Almost always PA starts out as EA.

 

To answer your specific questions, my wife's adultery was not a deal breaker even though they were physical in nature. I wanted to stay married for some of the same reasons you did for the kids and I believed in marriage. In the end it didn't matter though.

 

I can understand your reluctance to tell your wife. However, Part of being married is honesty and trust. If you don't have that then the foundation of your marriage is on shaky grounds. You already have built this foundation on sand by straying. Are you going to rebuild that on solid rock and rebuild her trust or are you going to sweep it under the rug.

 

What happens 5-10 years from now when things are not much different in your marriage situation? Will you stray again like my former wife did multiple times over? Will you seek the intimacy and emotional bonds you are missing in your marriage with someone else?

 

My advice is to tell your wife the truth. She deserves to know it. Perhaps she will leave you over this, perhaps she will not. This is coming from a fBH that never got the entire truth.

 

But perhaps you should seek IC first and ask advice from a professional.

[MightyPen]

Annnnnd of course I check my secret email (not sure why I did) and she messaged me yesterday.

 

There's a lot of stuff there that I won't include but this is the central message...

 

"I would very much (VERY VERY much) like to extend this longer than the standard shelf-life. Hell, we already have. I'm gonna just go ahead and say that I don't EVER have this sort of friendship/connection with someone, so I'm not willing to let it lapse/fail."

 

Our "break" isn't over yet, but I still feel like I need to make a decision pretty soon and share it with her.

[CarrieT]

Annnnnd of course I check my secret email (not sure why I did) and she messaged me yesterday.

 

There's a lot of stuff there that I won't include but this is the central message...

 

"I would very much (VERY VERY much) like to extend this longer than the standard shelf-life. Hell, we already have. I'm gonna just go ahead and say that I don't EVER have this sort of friendship/connection with someone, so I'm not willing to let it lapse/fail."

 

Our "break" isn't over yet, but I still feel like I need to make a decision pretty soon and share it with her.

 

You hadn't talked to her in two weeks = Two Steps Forward

 

You read a message that give you hope to continue with her = Three Steps Back

 

If you continue with the "friendship," I honestly believe you should divorce your wife but it will be obvious that you are not All In with your marriage.

[MightyPen]

You're probably right about the three steps back, but it might trigger me to go ahead and respond sooner than I'd planned, which may not be a bad thing. I had posted elsewhere that waiting another two weeks for our break to end worried me.

 

Regardless of what happens, I was always going to give her a proper response and not leave her high and dry, so it was going to happen sooner or later. I have even penned a "We must change the relationship" letter and posted it to a thread but the thread derailed and it was deleted. (I did not send it to her)

Edited October 7, 2015 by MightyPen

[MadJackBird]

Do you want to be married to your wife?

[BlueIris]

I wish I could introduce her as an "ex" and try to bring the whole thing aboveground and stop the hiding, but that would involve more lying, and probably quite a bit of it, considering the OW's background is different than mine. And then every time my wife might ask me something about her, more lies would be needed. I'm trying to lessen my guilt, not add to it.

 

It’s ok and normal to feel guilt and/or shame. They are the reaction to our doing something wrong or something that we believe is inconsistent with who we think we are or want others to think we are. The only way to remedy the discomfort of guilt and/or shame is to stop doing the thing that causes the dissonance. Nothing requires you to lie and lying will only increase your guilt and internal discomfort. To relieve your internal discomfort, I recommend just telling your wife the truth. I just don’t see how it can go away unless and until you do that. It will be very uncomfortable for a while because she will also know what you do and her opinion of you will change. But it’s really the only way out. Good luck.

[MightyPen]

All of the pounding you guys are doing to do is finally having its effect. I reeeeeeally don't want to feel guilty anymore. I don't want to stay awake at night staring at the ceiling like I've been doing off and on for the past year. I don't want to worry anymore about how I'd explain a divorce to my kids.

 

I will give her up. She will be totally crushed, as evidenced by her message and I f*cking hate that. She is a wonderful person, and I know some people here are thinking "she can't be that wonderful if she engaged in inappropriate conversations with a married guy" but you know what, none of us are perfect. We all make unwise decisions in our lives. I will tell myself that I'm doing this for my marriage, and also for her relationship. She's not a monster - she tells me how guilty she feels "about the way we talk." I'll be the bad guy. I'll be the one to end it.

 

Give me a day or two to collect my thoughts and pen a goodbye letter. It's not going to be heartless or brief as some have suggested. That would be needlessly cruel to someone I care a great deal about. It will probably be too "flowery" or "lovey dovey" for many people here, but that's what I'm going to do and there's no changing my mind on that. She deserves a genuine goodbye. She deserves to hear me lay my cards on the table and tell her how I feel about her and why this will never work.

 

If I haven't posted something by Friday, please someone try to hold me accountable and ask me if I've done it. I might need some support in actually clicking the "send" button.

[BlueIris]

Just send a message that you can’t and won’t interact with her again and you wish her well, then hit send and block all routes to you. All of the stuff about “we all” and goodness and deserving and stuff are tripe. Just be done with it.

No one's pounding you. This is really simple obvious stuff that somehow your head has created a big swirl around. End it decisively and firmly now and five minutes later you’ll already be feeling some relief.

[MightyPen]

That's just too cold. Trust me, I can be cold and a downright jerk when the situation calls for it, but she doesn't deserve to be treated like that.

 

I thought about what if the roles were reversed. If she sent me a terse one-sentence message "dumping" me and then immediately blocked my access to her, I'd be very upset and feel robbed of any closure. Friends don't do that to one another.

 

Plus, it would cast a shadow over the entire relationship and ruin it, so instead of fondly remembering our time together, I'd probably be bitter and focus on the ending. I want her to understand that "in another life" things could be very different for us, but this is the real world and we both have SOs and it's healthier for us both to end this on good terms, say our goodbyes, and wish the very best for one another.

 

(Plus, this seems much less likely to trigger an angry response from her, which could get tricky considering she has all my info. The chances of her doing that, even if I "dumped" her in a blunt one-sentence message, are less than 1% - she's very sane - but why take the chance?)

Edited October 7, 2015 by MightyPen

[BlueIris]

That's just too cold. Trust me, I can be cold and a downright jerk when the situation calls for it, but she doesn't deserve to be treated like that.

 

I thought about what if the roles were reversed. If she sent me a terse one-sentence message "dumping" me and then immediately blocked my access to her, I'd be very upset and feel robbed of any closure. Friends don't do that to one another.

 

Plus, it would cast a shadow over the entire relationship and ruin it, so instead of fondly remembering our time together, I'd probably be bitter and focus on the ending.

 

No, really it isn't. I think protracted emotionality is much worse. You seem to see or think the worst of things that aren't bad. I think you're being intentionally overly dramatic. But that's just me.

[Mrs. John Adams]

And let's be very honest...you are more concerned about the emotions of the woman you are "secretly" involved with than the feelings of your wife.

 

You want to be guilt free? Start with being honest with yourself about what you have done....then be honest with your wife.

 

You don't want to hurt the other woman...because you don't want to let her go.

 

I am not saying be mean to her....but it has to be non emotional...this is it...no contact...and you have to make sure to rid yourself of all avenues of contact.

 

The next step is total and complete transparency with your wife. Provide her with all accounts and passwords. You must hold yourself accountable to assure that you will not do this again.

 

I do believe you are a very torn man...you want to do what is right. I believe you love your wife...but you are so emotionally invested in your "secret" girl that you have been lying to yourself about it...you WANT it to be "just friends" but it has gone beyond...and now you find yourself struggling.

 

You can do this...and it wont be easy....but i think deep inside you know this is the right thing.

[Timshel]

I have been following your thread MightyPen and have some thoughts. I don't believe that you have an intention, at this point, to put a stop to this shenanigans. On the contrary, the kind and very good advice of LS members combined with the 'break' from the OW (let's call a spade a spade, shall we) is only serving to fortify your feelings for her and alleviate your guilt.

You have tried, Lordy, you've tried.

 

This relationship has become an escape from your mundane life and predictable (read boring) marital relationship (btw, your wife is bored too.) You and OW are using each other for taking trips to fantasy island. Soooo as I see it you will do one of two things.

 

A. Announce to your respective spouses that you have become disenchanted, are no longer 'in love' and want a divorce post haste.

The two of you at long last are free to fulfill your desires to live the rest of your lives with true and enduring love. When true love is inspired such as yours..... the bills, laundry, work, alimony, child support and common drudgery of every day life will fade into the abyss to which it belongs.

Passion and fulfillment will meet you both easily and at every bend or turn.

The mundane banished for eternal.

 

B. A part of you realizes that fantasies have their place and it's place will be kept. The secret adultry resumes and fantasy island remains intact with neither betrayed spouse the wiser. Except that you and OW are only able the give your 'real' lives 50% of yourselves at best; fantasy is very distracting. Your spouses, children, friends, work and family only have a part of you because some of you is always with the other; so far but so heart-wrenchingly near, sigh......

 

So, which will it be MightyPen?

Edited October 7, 2015 by Timshel

[chapter44]

My philosophy is that you shouldn't engage in any behavior that you wouldn't feel comfortable doing in front of your significant other. Seems simple to me!

[MadJackBird]

Why does you adultery partner deserve a heart felt closure letter but you want to continue to lie and sweep things under the rug to your wife.

 

I'll ask again. Do you want to be married to your wife? If you do you've been given advice by many what to do.

[purplesorrow]

All of the pounding you guys are doing to do is finally having its effect. I reeeeeeally don't want to feel guilty anymore. I don't want to stay awake at night staring at the ceiling like I've been doing off and on for the past year. I don't want to worry anymore about how I'd explain a divorce to my kids.

 

I will give her up. She will be totally crushed, as evidenced by her message and I f*cking hate that. She is a wonderful person, and I know some people here are thinking "she can't be that wonderful if she engaged in inappropriate conversations with a married guy" but you know what, none of us are perfect. We all make unwise decisions in our lives. I will tell myself that I'm doing this for my marriage, and also for her relationship. She's not a monster - she tells me how guilty she feels "about the way we talk." I'll be the bad guy. I'll be the one to end it.

 

Give me a day or two to collect my thoughts and pen a goodbye letter. It's not going to be heartless or brief as some have suggested. That would be needlessly cruel to someone I care a great deal about. It will probably be too "flowery" or "lovey dovey" for many people here, but that's what I'm going to do and there's no changing my mind on that. She deserves a genuine goodbye. She deserves to hear me lay my cards on the table and tell her how I feel about her and why this will never work.

 

If I haven't posted something by Friday, please someone try to hold me accountable and ask me if I've done it. I might need some support in actually clicking the "send" button.

 

What does your wife deserve? If I were she and knew you were having such a dilemma over another woman, I would be gone.

[MightyPen]

BlueIris, I promise I am not being intentionally overly dramatic. I'm just venting and sharing my thoughts. I don't see any point in being cruel or terse or acting like there was no value to our talks. It might make it easier for ME to just "tear off the band aid," but I must consider her as well.

 

Mrs. John Adams, yeah I'm torn. You know it. It's probably pretty obvious to everyone by now. I want to do the right thing for everyone, but at the same time I admit some of my desires are motivated by selfishness (an evolutionary trait that has helped humans advance, so it's not entirely a bad thing. In fact, it's natural). Of course I'd love to "have my cake and eat it too," as long as my words never collided. Deep down, I suspect many people would secretly want the same thing, but "real world" expectations and consequences prevent it.

 

Timshel, it sure won't be A, so just remove it from the equation entirely. B is the status quo. B has worked somewhat well (for me) up to this point, but feelings of guilt are getting to be overwhelming, so it's not sustainable. I can't pick either as a long-term option. Sure, I could pick B for a little while longer, but I think the guilt we both feel would gradually increase and eventually cause a falling out. So I'm very serious about picking a C (make it platonic) or D (just end it on good terms now) option. By the way, I like your writing style. I was very over-the-top and dramatic, but it grabbed my interest.

 

Chapter44, I agree that's a pretty straightforward rule, but when we get down to brass tacks, who among us can honestly say that they've NEVER done or said anything that they wouldn't want their SO to see? I'm sure a few folks will raise their hands but I suspect it wouldn't be many (if we're being honest).

 

 

MadJackBird, yes I want to stay married but we both have a lot of work to do in the marriage. Our issues are not entirely my fault, I can assure you. I know my friend and she would appreciate a sincere and real goodbye instead of being brushed off like yesterday's garbage, so yes she does deserve a heartfelt closure letter. You obviously don't think she does, so we just fundamentally disagree on that.

Edited October 8, 2015 by MightyPen

[Mrs. John Adams]

Pen...

 

I have been where you are...different circumstances...but the same kind of thing. I was very happily married....but i had this little devil called selfishness sitting on my shoulder whispering in my ear...

 

but you also have your conscience on the other shoulder telling you it is not ok...you know better...don't do this.

 

Please PEN....do better than I did....you have already crossed lines that will crush your wife....but don't add to it...please walk away. By walking away you have nothing to lose and your FAMILY to win......

 

I had so many chances given to me to walk away and do the right thing....and i made the wrong decision.

 

Don't be me.....

[MightyPen]

purplesorrow, admittedly she deserves my attentions with no distractions from my friend (who is quite distracting), so I am giving her that. In turn, I deserve things I'm not getting from my wife, so she has plenty of work to do on her end as well. It's a two-way street.

 

Mrs. John Adams, I'm moving in the right direction. I know everyone wants to see me just "do it" but I'm getting there. Believe it or not, I am a realist/pragmatist generally speaking, and my brain "gets it" that this relationship is not sustainable for many reasons.

[MadJackBird]

Okay, You want to stay married. Good. Seek IC and MC. I still stand by my advice to tell your wife the truth. If you want to stay married continuing to lie and sweep things under the rug is not a good foundation.

 

 

I'm soooo glad you think your ADULTERY PARTNER deserves such a heartfelt closure letter. What do you think your wife, who you just said you want to stay married to would, think about this? As a fBH I can tell you how I would feel about it. :sick::sick:

 

In adultery situations the only way to really heal is no contact for life. It's usually a good idea to let your BW read the no contact letter and agree that is what should be communicated. Also complete transparency and access to your emails, phone, etc is key. Otherwise old habits can happen again. I know you think you are immune to this, but believe me it happens.... ALL THE TIME.

 

Of course you are not even to the point of wanting to be open and honest with your wife at this point, which is why I suggest you come clean and seek IC and MC.

[Bittersweetie]

Chapter44, I agree that's a pretty straightforward rule, but when we get down to brass tacks, who among us can honestly say that they've NEVER done or said anything that they wouldn't want their SO to see? I'm sure a few folks will raise their hands but I suspect it wouldn't be many (if we're being honest).

 

Yes, I agree. I did a lot of things that I didn't want my H to see. Including:

• Joining a adult website
  
• Messaging with men
  
• Meeting some
  
• Creating a "special friendship" with one
  
• Etc.
  

 

Now? I'm with Mrs JA. I share everything with my H. I do it not as an "anti-affair" thing but because he's my best friend. And when he's not around I act with respect for him and for myself. Like I mentioned, it's what you do when no one is looking that counts.

 

And, I agree with BlueIris. Your note to the OW is too much and over-dramatic. As they say in school: Keep It Simple Stupid. One sentence and send. Trust me, that would be better than ghosting out.

[MightyPen]

Yes, I agree. I did a lot of things that I didn't want my H to see. Including:

• Joining a adult website
  
• Messaging with men
  
• Meeting some
  
• Creating a "special friendship" with one
  
• Etc.
  

Now? I'm with Mrs JA. I share everything with my H. I do it not as an "anti-affair" thing but because he's my best friend. And when he's not around I act with respect for him and for myself. Like I mentioned, it's what you do when no one is looking that counts.

 

And, I agree with BlueIris. Your note to the OW is too much and over-dramatic. As they say in school: Keep It Simple Stupid. One sentence and send. Trust me, that would be better than ghosting out.

 

 

I appreciate your honesty. I'll give some back in return.

 

Things I've done that were unfair to my wife this past year:

 

1) Visited adult chat sites

2) Chatted about various women about sex

3) Formed closer bonds with two women and moved talks to email

4) Dumped one of them but kept my "special friend"

 

I haven't visited any of these sites in over 6 weeks. I've washed my hands of them. I haven't emailed anyone from the sites in the past 6 weeks other than my special friend. So I've quit cold turkey on the first three. The last one is the hardest because with the rest of it, it was easy to just view them as means to an end (getting off) with no emotional attachment.

 

And it's weird because my wife and I do communicate pretty openly about most topics. We both know our finances down to the penny (and I mean the penny!) We agree on charities to support and we're both equally involved in our children's schooling. We have similar sex drivers (2 to 3 times per week on average). I may not be passionately in love with her, and I think that created the gap that the OW filled, but I care about her very much and don't want to leave her.

Edited October 8, 2015 by MightyPen

[autumnnight]

I may not be passionately in love with her, and I think that created the gap that the OW filled

 

The truth that is statistically highly more likely is that the OW and your choices CREATED the gap you now feel with your wife.

 

You haven't been bereft and starving for "intriguing" conversation your whole marriage. With the way you post here, if you had felt that way your whole marriage, you wouldn't still be married.

 

You found several intriguing, secret, sexual points of comparison and THEN wondered what was wrong with your wife.

 

I've said it before. Honesty is the beginning of true intellect. Using that measure, it is YOU who needs to catch up to your wife.