SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I’m looking for an objective assessment from people who have dealt with emotional infidelity. I’m intentionally leaving feelings and conclusions out and sticking to what I can document.

My husband and I have been together 27 years and live in Arizona. We have a 20 year old son. The other person is a woman he knew in high school who lives in Illinois. To my knowledge, they have not seen each other in person since they were young.

She reconnected with him through LinkedIn in January while our son was in active cancer treatment.

There are really two distinct phases to the communication.

From January until September, their communication was entirely through LinkedIn as far as I can determine. It was intermittent. They might exchange quite a few messages on a particular day and then have little or no communication for a while. I have read those conversations. Most appear platonic and involve their children, travel, hobbies and catching up on their lives.

What I subsequently learned is that she had already been divorced when she first contacted him in January.

She did not tell him that.

For more than six months, she communicated with him as an old high school friend without disclosing that she was divorced. Nothing I have seen indicates that my husband knew she was single.

Then around September 11, she told him she needed to talk to him because she had something she needed to tell him.

That became their first phone conversation.

What she needed to tell him was that she was divorced after a 23 year marriage.

She subsequently wrote that she and her former husband had not "grown together" and that despite being divorced, they were still living in the same home while their son finished high school.

That phone call appears to be the dividing line.

From approximately September 11 through October 4, the communication changed dramatically.

In roughly three weeks there were approximately 30 phone calls, dozens of text messages and continued communication online. The majority of the calls were initiated by her.

Some calls lasted 30 minutes, an hour or longer. There were days with multiple calls. On one afternoon, three calls totaled roughly three hours.

I knew about ONE of these phone calls.

I happened to be outside when my husband pulled into our driveway while talking to her. He casually told me that his old friend had gotten back in touch and that she and her brother were coming to Arizona.

My immediate response was that they could stay with us.

He apparently relayed my offer to her. She asked, "Are you sure your wife won’t mind?" She said she could stay in a hotel because she didn’t want to cause trouble and said she just wanted to "borrow an old friend for a day or 2."

After reviewing all of their written communication, I cannot find anywhere that she says her brother was coming to Arizona with her. It is entirely possible that was discussed verbally, so I cannot say otherwise.

During this same three week period, she repeatedly asked to call him, researched flights to Arizona, told him she wished she could have seen him on a particular weekend and discussed hiking together. My husband invited her to stay in our home.

They exchanged pictures.

She also went through my husband’s brother’s Facebook page, found an old picture of my husband and sent it to him. She then texted, "you look," followed by a separate text containing the starry eyed emoji.

I’m deliberately not assigning a meaning to that. I’m including exactly what occurred.

Then came the first late night call.

My husband and I had been fighting badly throughout that day. He had been drinking and was drunk.

That night he talked to her for 97 minutes.

When I walked into the garage, he ended the call.

The conversation occurred within range of our Ring camera. I later reviewed the footage and heard my husband tell her that his favorite picture she had sent him was the one where she looked "sexy confident."

The following morning he texted her that he "woke up smiling."

He then called her while driving to go fishing and talked to her for approximately another 30 minutes.

Until I discovered all of this, I believed there had essentially been ONE phone conversation between them.

After this came to light, I reviewed his phone, laptop, LinkedIn, texts, emails and the available call history with him present and without giving him an opportunity to delete anything first.

I have not found sexting.

I have not found declarations of love or explicit romantic feelings.

I have not found plans for sex or evidence of a physical relationship.

I have not found another communication platform.

She lives in Illinois and we live in Arizona, and I currently have no evidence that they met in person.

I think those facts are important too.

My husband continues to say that he genuinely believed he was doing nothing wrong. He says he viewed this as reconnecting and catching up with an old friend and was not consciously pursuing a romantic relationship. He acknowledges the amount of communication and the "sexy confident" comment.

After I confronted the woman, she went back to my husband. She said I had the wrong perception of her, asked "Can’t you have female friends?", asked him whether he wanted her to call me and expressed concern about what he was going through.

She also suggested that if I was recording my husband, I had a bigger problem. I was not recording him. I unexpectedly encountered him talking to another woman late at night and subsequently reviewed footage from my own home security camera.

My husband blocked her phone number.

She then contacted him privately through LinkedIn and asked, "Are you ok?"

I currently have no evidence of a physical affair, so I’m not asking anyone to assume one occurred.

What I’m trying to understand is how people who have experienced this would categorize what DID happen.

The part I’m particularly interested in is the progression.

January through early September: more than six months of intermittent, largely platonic LinkedIn communication while she was already divorced but had not disclosed that to him.

Around September 11: she says she needs to talk to him because she has something to tell him. Their first phone conversation occurs and she tells him she is divorced.

September 11 through October 4: approximately 30 phone calls in roughly three weeks, dozens of texts, exchanged pictures, discussion of her traveling from Illinois to Arizona, increasingly personal communication and most of the phone contact initiated by her.

Then the first late night call: 97 minutes after my husband and I had been fighting all day, his "sexy confident" comment about her picture, him ending the call when I entered the garage, followed the next morning by "woke up smiling" and another 30 minute phone call.

Does that constitute an emotional affair even without explicit romantic declarations or physical contact?

Does it look more like a friendship that rapidly crossed boundaries and was progressing toward an emotional affair?

And is it credible that my husband could have participated in this level of communication while genuinely believing he was simply reconnecting with an old friend and doing nothing wrong?

I’m genuinely interested in opinions in either direction. I want people responding to what actually happened, not assuming either that it must have become physical or that it was harmless because it didn’t.

I would say he was travelling a bad path for sure. Crossing lines....yes. Would he have taken it further....that is what he really needs to ask himself and answer honestly.

I think you can overcome this and reconcile. I am very glad you found it at this stage. It is God's hand of protection in my mind. I think he needs to focus his affection on you. You have every right to be hurt. All those hurts should be explored...felt...expressed...and he needs to make amends to gain trust.

Highly recommend getting book "Not Just Friends" by Shirley Glass and reading together.

Don't get caught up on whether what he did meets some definition of affair or not. Stick with the actions, injuries and how to heal them at a heart level. And these discussions will invariably get to the level of "intention" eventually. Those need to be explored. You should even explore her intentions for context. What was she really doing?

I am so sorry you are going through this. But I am also thankful it has been intercepted at this stage.

And is it credible that my husband could have participated in this level of communication while genuinely believing he was simply reconnecting with an old friend and doing nothing wrong?

Yes. It is possible.

EA’s can be strange things… In some ways it’s like when you place a frog in warm water and then gently cool it down until the frog freezes in it without seemingly noticing. Yes – there tends to be a certain point in time when the spouse realizes there is a line crossed, but that might be a lot further down the line than we would normally expect or think.

I venture that 2 out of 3 posts you get here will recommend the book Not Just Friends by Dr. Shirley Glass. It gives a good explanation on how these EA’s develop, as well as has some exercises for the two of you to go through.
I strongly recommend you two read this book together and that both of you do the exercises, follow the discussion points and do so with the goal of healing more than the goal of winning some argument.

Slippery slope for sure.

Regardless of the intent, he was giving time to her that he could/should have been giving to you and to your son in cancer treatment. I'm sure you two would have appreciated that level of support during a crisis.

The intent on her end seems pretty clear, imo. Distraction and flattery will get you everywhere when there are no boundaries in place, and he apparently is unclear on that.

Yeah I’d say the beginning of an emotional affair for sure. Way too many txts and phone call frequency and time spent just to shoot the shit.

I sent her this:

I've now seen all of your communication with my husband including LinkedIn, texts and the call history. I have a very clear picture of what happened.

You reconnected with my husband in January while our son was in active cancer treatment and our family was going through one of the most vulnerable periods of our lives. For more than six months, your communication largely looked like two married old friends catching up. You never told him you were divorced.

Then in September, after more than six months of "catching up with an old friend," you needed to connect with him privately by phone to tell him you were divorced, despite already being divorced when you first reconnected with him in January.

What happened after that is difficult to ignore.

Within weeks there were approximately 20 phone calls (only 4 outbound from his phone) and dozens of texts, with the overwhelming majority of the contact initiated by you. Calls became longer and more frequent, sometimes multiple times a day. You sent pictures, repeatedly asked to call, wanted to come to Arizona, told him you wished you could see him and asked whether I would mind you staying in our home so you could "borrow" my husband for a day or two.

My husband and I have been together for 27 years. We have raised a son, survived things together I wouldn't wish on anyone and have been each other's rocks through all of it. I love him deeply. He is completely responsible for every call he answered, every conversation he continued and every boundary he failed to recognize and protect. I will never blame another woman for my husband's choices.

But I won't erase yours either.

And I especially won't accept your suggestion to me that I have a "bigger problem" because I was supposedly recording him. I wasn't recording my husband. I unexpectedly found him outside our home talking privately with another woman at nearly midnight her time. That understandably got my attention. I went back and listened to footage from my own Ring camera and heard my husband tell that woman that his favorite picture of her was the one where she looked "sexy confident." That's what happened. Trying to make the Ring camera the problem rather than acknowledging what I actually heard is an extraordinary deflection.

You also had my phone number. If you genuinely believed I had completely misunderstood an innocent friendship, you could have called me woman to woman. Instead, you went straight back to my husband. You asked if he wanted you to call me. You asked, "Can't you have female friends?" You focused on convincing him that my perception of you was wrong and expressed concern about what he was going through.

And then today, knowing exactly what this had done, you found another private avenue to contact him through LinkedIn to ask if he was okay.

That pattern speaks for itself.

The saddest part is that this could have been so very different. Had you come back into my husband's life genuinely wanting to reconnect with an old friend and the family he loves, I would have welcomed you. I honestly think you and I might have had a lot in common. Instead, nearly all of your interest and energy went toward private access to my husband.

I don't hate you. At this point I actually feel sorry for you. Coming out of a 23 year marriage is an enormous life change. I sincerely hope you take an honest look at why you sought this much attention and connection from someone else's husband and get whatever help you need to work through that. Your son deserves that from you.

This was never about whether my husband can have female friends. It was about this particular relationship and the boundaries both of you allowed to disappear.

I don't need an explanation, an apology or your agreement. I've seen it for myself.

Do not contact my husband again in any form or look for another avenue around that boundary.

This ends here.

[This message edited by dumbfounded104 at 6:34 PM, Wednesday, October 7th]

My reco is: do not communicate with her. She is not your problem. What she did is not your problem. If you have a relationship problem, it's with your H.

IMO, your H probably feels and likes the ego-boost of being liked, and maybe chased, by someone. I don't know where your H is on the slippery slope, but his blocking her says to me that he hasn't fallen into an A yet, but you know better than I can.

IMO, your best bet is to figure out what you want your H's relationship with this woman to be, and ask for that. If your H complies, great - no A. If he whines about her being just a friend, it's too close to an A for my taste.

For the record, I've had a number of women friends and colleagues since our wedding. I was a road warrior, and I've had a number of dinners and lunches one-on-one with women colleagues, I've been accused of being a sly old dog, playing while away from my W. Never happened - I've always had strong boundaries.

*****

I connected with a HS GF about a year before my d-day and kept communicating afterwards. Folks here warned me. I didn't believe. I didn't share my status with old GF, but she seemed to start complaining about her H. Folks were right - something was going on. Alas, I ghosted her instead of dealing directly with my problem with XGF, but ... I don't see how we could have continued as we were going. My boundaries WERE strong, but it would not have been healthy for me to deal with the old GF while I was also dealing with my W and myself.

I sent her this:

I've now seen all of your communication with my husband including LinkedIn, texts and the call history. I have a very clear picture of what happened. <snip>

I'm normally against contacting an AP, but I'm actually impressed with this message. Good on you.

That said, I'd leave it at that. Don't look for a reply, and if she does send one I don't think I would even read it.

Now is the time to focus on your husband. You've already been recommended that you and your husband could read the book "Not 'Just Friends'" by Shirley Glass, and it's a very good read. My wife and I listened to the audio version together and it was a real eye opener. If you can, that's how I would suggest doing it.

[This message edited by Pogre at 7:41 PM, Wednesday, October 7th]

Your letter is great, but probably a complete waste of time. It's already been established, really, that she doesn't give a crap about your or your feelings or your marriage. If she did, she wouldn't have been trying to steal your husband. It's all about her, not you.

If it made you feel better, ok .... but don't expect it to be a big influence on her pathetic life. A no contact letter like that should have come from your husband to her. And I agree, if she sends you anything, give it the heave-ho it deserves right into a fire and don't even read it.

I fully support you in sending this. It shows that you value yourself and are not to be messed with. It gives you agency and also shows your husband such a disrespect will not go unanswered.

And...you were actually kind, but firm. You are a good woman. I hope your husband gets his head out of his a$$.

Your husband needs to take responsibility for his actions, nothing good will come of this until he realizes he did wrong. Would he have had those conversations in front of you? Did he tell you how much he was talking to her? He has to own it and be remorseful before any next steps can happen.

I feel like our situations are similar, in some ways, with it being a friendship that led up to a short term crossing the line affair. My husbands was not full emotional he didn’t confide in her and tell her he loved her, it was very short, but it was an affair, period, 100% betrayal and I think you need to realize that what your husband was doing was the same thing. If he was hiding it from you then it wasn’t okay. Can you recover from this? yes, if you are both willing and he is remorseful and willing to love you through what is going to come with it. We have been working through it for 2.5 years and it is rough some days but it is worth it. I don’t now what is allowed but I am always willing to talk if you want to message me, I have found it hard to find situations on here that are even close to mine.

AP doesn’t care about your finding her out (shame from you she can avoid easily, nobody knows), she doesn’t care about your husband either. All she cares is an ego validation’s trip and she probably chases men that are accessible to her to soothe this void.

She probably remembers your husband as a man sharing her similar character flaws, so a potential partner for 2 pigs rolling in the mud.

She just checked who is available and willing and happen to find your husband raising the hands and signaling that he is interested.

She doesn’t care, he doesn’t matter to her. She just got him to be the first to reply to her "ad" there might be others in the pipeline, anyone who can fills her emptiness and worthlessness is welcome.

Or she wouldn’t be chasing married guys, she is not looking for a man, she is hunting for an affair, free of consequences (for her) free validation with minimal investment and no bothering, as you will pay the price and keep the package once he fulfilled her needs.

Cruel but that’s the kind of flaw cheaters (unfaithful partners and their affair partners) are all about.

Fantasy, escapism, worthless ego validation with a dopamine hit that as a junkie they will burn everything in their life to get the 5 minutes high for.

When the emotional energy leaks outside the couple is betrayal.

You caught it at an early stage so it didn’t escalate further, but is still as bad as it would.

He didn’t stop it, you interrupted it.

His call now to seriously question himself, own his flaws and trying to remediate to the wounds he inflicted upon you.

I know that about sordid and disgusting affairs can get lower than the stage where you (allegedly, apparently) caught it. But in the end for your attachment wound this is irrelevant, if you caught it here or you would have caught it on a degenerate orgy stage.

The pain is the same.

You shouldn’t allow any minimization of it. You need to heal, and you are at least aware that you managed to see the lie early and thus you didn’t leave with the instinctual "knowledge" of being betrayed for very long, you spotted the red flag, responded it, took action.

Good on you, the deception was short term lived.
But is still as bad as any, so don’t allow him to excuse the "it was only…." Minimization because it isn’t.

It was just betrayal. And that’s the worst thing of it all.

He needs to get his act together if he wants you to even see him as more than a worthless cheater.

And you need to uphold your boundaries and put yourself first sister.

You have been heard.

I just wanted to say that your story really strikes me because I am also in Arizona and was married for 27 years when my wife had an affair. That's where the similarity ends, but those 2 things were enough to really grab my attention.

I do think you caught this early enough that recovery is entirely possible. What your husband was doing was the very beginning of sliding down that slippery slope and into the fire. How far it might have gone is anyone's guess, but he was definitely flirting with danger and I think the aforementioned book would be a very good read for him. If he doesn't already understand what it is he was playing at, he will after reading that book.

I don't blame you for being angry right now, and I hope he's ready to weather the storm of your wrath. Your letter is a demonstration to me that you're not to be trifled with. That said, I think you have a very good chance of recovering from this one.

I wish you well.

Thank you all. I should clarify a few things that I might have jumbled up yesterday. This past Saturday night is when I caught him in the garage on the phone late night. I didn't think anything of it. He's a talker and has a lot of friends in IL he talks to at night while enjoying too many beers (totally separate issue). I woke up Sunday and he was gone, my gut told me to listen to the ring. The irony is, of the 97 min call, that 1 min of him telling her that her photo was "sexy confident", is ALL that could be heard.

I tried to call him, texted him asking who was sending him "sexy confident" pictures. No answer. He was fishing and on the phone with her.

So I logged into our phone provider, found the number and googled it. Saw her name and became enraged. 27 years ago when we met and were young 21/22 respectively, I had "feelings" about her. Maybe it's my insecurities, maybe it's because I feel slightly empathic, but I just always had a "she wants my man vibe". But that was literally the first year we dated. Never to be seen from or heard from again. So for my instinct 27 years later to be to offer her my home, it shows me how much I had negated past feelings. It was fine.

Anyhow, I didn't wait, I dialed that number and was sent to voicemail. Became more enraged. Dialed again. She answered. I told her who I was, and asked "what sexy confident pictures are you sending my husband". She seemed confused. I asked a few more times. Not really giving her a chance to answer. This entire call was under 5 min. I asked her if she was married. She said "no". Then I asked again what "sexy confident" pictures are you sending my husband. She denied. That's when I said I have this all on recording so don't f*ing lie to me. That's when she said "If you're recording your husband you have a bigger problem." So I said all the things you would expect me to say- home wrecker and some choice words and ended with - you can have him and hung up.

He came home.

Blocked her on his phone but was very very angry with me. Telling me I chase away all of his friends. Fighting ensued. At that point I only had call logs and text. While we were laying in bed that night I asked how this all started. He said Linked in when he wished her a happy birthday in December (said linked in gave him a reminder it was her b'day). So when he went to sleep I of course went and looked at everything on Linked in.

That note I wrote her came the next afternoon.

I do want to say that there was nothing about this situation that impacted our support for our son and I don't want to ever confuse that. We had just gotten his all clear from his surgical team and oncologist on Christmas day after the longest 3 months of our lives. Despite how I feel right now, I do not want judgement into that area of our lives. He was my rock. My parter and our son was fully supported by my husband.

I don't know what I need right now. How can you not once say you were on the phone all that time when you don't talk to ANYONE like that? I just can't get out of this rabbit hole of wanting to dig and know more. I keep looking at her pictures she sent him and now I look in the mirror and all I see is my age, the last year of my life in my eyes, and I know I am not the best partner that I can be and have so many things I need to improve about myself and our relationship but I just don't know how I'm going to be able to continue on. I haven't been to work all week. I haven't gone to pilates which I love more than anything. My heart feels like it's going to explode. I can't cook. I can't eat. I feel so betrayed.

I don't think your husband was having an emotional affair but he was on the road to one. The OW was pretty clearly offering one. I would suggest that you not beat the crap out of him for this. I think he blundered into a situation and didn't clearly defend boundaries. That's the discussion I'd be having with him. Establish boundaries for both of you so you both know the rules.

After joining this site and reading what I have, I will not be alone with a female other than family, not even for business, I'll have a chaperone. I don't talk with women on the phone or text with them other than business, quick and to the point. All of our devices are open to each of us, we know each other's pattern unlocks and PINs, always sort of has been that way. If it changes, that will be the red flag so we don't need to check. We always update each other on where we're going to be and when we'll be back, etc. It's not that we've had a problem that needs fixing, we just understand a little better how problems develop and don't want one. We talk about those issues, how things start and how people fall into problems. We'll talk about your post that way.

As part of my work, I delivered a check to a family that needed relief ( I'm a church treasurer.) I called the given phone number to verify spelling, it was the wife. She got my cell number from that and texted me three times the next week. "hey" "I need a ride to (town in another state.)" "happy Friday." Now I think this was an attempt at a shakedown, rather than any romantic offer but it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. These were not good people. People come in from time to time asking for help. 60% of them are regular people who need a little help, 40% are grifters. These were the latter. Naturally, my wife knew about all of those texts as they came in. I reported it to the people that needed to know. 5 years ago, I might have responded or even given her a ride thinking that I was just being a good guy and been shocked when my wife didn't like it. It's my job to not give my wife things to not like and vice versa.

My experience is similar to yours. My wife reconnected with the guy she went with before me. As far as I can tell, the relationship was not physical. But probably not because she was not willing to betray me. It was because he loved and respected his wife.

You handled dDay a lot better than I did. I immediately confronted her, thus ensuring that any evidence that could be destroyed would be. Another similarity to your case, when I confronted she angrily asked, "Can’t I have a friend?" Then she got angry because I had violated her privacy by looking in her files. It’s been 30 years since discovery and I still remember the shock, confusion, and pain. It was like being hit by a truck. I can tell you that it does get better with time, but the marriage is not the same and never will be. I know how you feel and I am truly sorry that you are in this maelstrom of emotions.

Before dDay I had never heard of an emotional affair. After dDay I read everything I could about them. As others have said, Shirley Glass’s book, Not Just Friends is probably the definitive work on a concept where there is no universally accepted definition. Frankly, I don’t think it is necessary for you to decide if he’s in an emotional affair, or not. What you know is that he has been hiding the full nature of the relationship from you. I think it was Shirley Glass who said that friends come in the door, not the window. You also know that there was a past sexual relationship and he has been glowing in the validation his old flame is providing. Old flame relationships are very volatile. They can re-ignite old feelings very quickly. Google Zygmunt Bauman and read what he has said on the topic. I think you’ll find it illuminating, as would your husband. Esther Perel, who is persona non grata on this site, has none the less written some interesting things about old flame affairs too.

Wishing you the very best.