Two Wrongs Posted February 6, 2006 Posted February 6, 2006 I have been lurking for some time now and decided to post. My H and I have been M 9 years. We have two children. We just recently got a computer and started getting the internet. One night while H was out with his friends (which happens several times a week) a man that was engaged IM'ed me. He was from a different country. We never flirted, just talked about what it was like to live here in the US and what it was like for him living there, talked about my H, his GF, and my kids. We exchanged pictures of ourselves, I was not attracted to him, but enjoyed our visits online. I was lonely. It didn't last long as H was starting to get a little upset about it so we stopped contacting eachother. I don't know how much longer it was but I noticed H was up until 1 to 2 am every night on the internet. He was playing online games. I dind't think nothing of it until I seen a woman's name on his IM buddy list. I asked him who she was. He told me she was some gal he met online in one of the game rooms and they played together. He showed me that she sent several pictures of herself. One night I was on the computer and she IM'ed him saying hello, thinking it was him. I told her it was his W, not him and she apologized. She said she didn't know he was M as he never told her! He told her that he had children and sent her pictures but never told her about me! I was so upset! She told me that she just wanted to have a friendship with him and nothing more.She said she had a BF and was having problems and she wanted his advice. I told her that I no longer wanted her contacting him and she was kind of upset and basically told me she wasn't doing anything wrong and was still going to contact him, but she hasn't contacted him since. I was so hurt he never told this woman he was M and he was up every night until 1 or 2 am and letting me go to bed alone every night. About a year or two later my ex lover from HS emailed me, wanted to find out how I was doing, and we caught up on our past. He was remarried to another woman and he shared pictures of his new family and his children from a previous M. I did the same. He started telling me that we should meet up in our home town and get a motel room, but then he laughed and said we couldn't do that b/c we were both M, I agreed. He even called me one day but I told him I couldn't talk. He would talk about how good I was in bed and things like that. I told him that I felt very uncomfortable with him talking that way and he apologized. After that he didn't say anything personal. Shortly after that we stopped contacting eachother. After reading all these post of EA online it scares me to think H and I were BOTH having EA going on! Does this sound like EA's to you?
Two Wrongs Posted February 10, 2006 Posted February 10, 2006 Kind of disappointed that no one has answered my thread. I thought the people here had great advice. I guess no one does or no one cares to give me any. My H and I have been having a debate over this. He doesn't think he had an emotional A with woman he met on the game site but he thinks I had one with my ex-lover. I wish someone would help me out here.
Presario Posted February 11, 2006 Posted February 11, 2006 (...) he was up every night until 1 or 2 am and letting me go to bed alone every night. I would often go to bed alone, because my wife was busy with the internet or was chatting with her guy friends. We argued about that, talked, tried to go to bed together, but I would keep going to bed alone. Luckily things changed and now for some reason we go to sleep together!
incognito Posted February 11, 2006 Posted February 11, 2006 well...it doesn't sound like you had any emotional attachment to either of the guys you were talking to. Just talking to someone of the opposite sex on the internet doesn't mean you're having an EA. Can't tell whether your H was involved or not but I will say that it is pretty damn shady not to tell her that he was married!!!
tweldy Posted February 11, 2006 Posted February 11, 2006 Sometimes people can be really slow about getting to a thread. It sounds like you needed support and feel let down and I apologize for that. What is an emotional affair? I think the boundaries are different for different people. You could sit an argue over whether one person or the other had an emotional affair, but I think you have good evidence that there is a problem here and debating whether each person's actions qualified as an emotional affair may be missing the point. I think neither you nor your husband was seriously involved with other people and it sounds like you were not emotionally replacing each other with other people to a serious degree, but at some level each of you were fantasying about being unattached. With you husband not telling the other woman about you **and** telling her about his kids: This doesn't sound right to me. If he didn't tell her anything about his personal life, I would be less concerned. But telling her about kids and NOT you indicates to me that he wanted her to believe he wasn't attached. NOT necessarily because he wanted to have sex with her, but perhaps because he's fantasying about needing in a different dilatation. I think with your opposite gender communications/flirtations, you're feeling the excitement of being recognized as an attractive, desirable person. I think most people understand how much of an ego boost it is to have someone recognize that you are desirable. This happened to me post marriage with a co-worker who expressed that she thought I was attractive. I was polite and expressed appreciation at her recognition, but said I was happily married. However, the feeling of exhilaration and ego boost was as euphoric as drinking a glass of champagne on an empty stomach, but without the inevitable headache. Some possible solutions: 1) Talk about online relationships and agree to boundaries and rules and promise each other to live by them. Also, promise to reveal all aspects of any online relationship upon request. If your using an online service like this then the other partner must promise to not hold you accountable to for expressing your feelings and seeking help. 2) If you have time and are too tired with life's demands, maybe set up a couple nights a week with no computer for either of you and spend time together. Perhaps having some time to talk and work things out will eliminate this problem entirely. 3) If you feel like you would be okay with it and your husband would be able to be honest, maybe talk about what excites the both of you in your interactions. Maybe there is something you could do together in your intimate life that would fulfill some of same needs each of you are fulfilling through these interactions. I hope this is helpful.
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