SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

A thread for those seeking support for affairs that were strictly emotional.

I feel like such an idiot...I didn't suspect a thing. My h was having an ea with a coworker a former co worker and a woman we both know as an aquaintance. I have found 18 months of cell phone conversations. I initially found out about a woman he works with by accidently seeing his email. I got out of his email before reading all of the emails or even fully comprehending the ones I did see...I thought I was going to pass out..I did see that he was asking her what he could get her for Christmas! After discovering her I searched cell records to see how much they talked and slowly but surely discovered other numbers that he called alot...sometimes 12-15 times a day! They were just friends of course. I didn't even know about them..they were secret..the cell records were so hurtful...I had it right in front of my face that he would call me for 1-2 minutes then hang up and immediately try to get hold of whichever girl he was most into that day or week and talk to them for 30-50 minutes!!! We didn't have conversations that long at home! He says he hasn't told the woman he works with that I know..he feels his job would be threatened...they don't talk about anything but work...that he was the one pursuing the emails and phone calls and she doesn't even mention that they stopped..that's not possible is it? I saw the cell records months before I discovered the email and she was calling him too..he said that the other x-coworker was just a friend..he would call her up to20 times in a cell bill cycle...he would sometimes call her over and over on cell and her home..she is single..to find her ..he did do all the calling with her..the other woman he called alot in a 6 months span...she was single also..her work..her cell..calls weren't as long as to the other women but for a time more frequent...7-8 times in a day! I feel so helpless..I don't feel like I know everything yet either..he doesn't want to talk about it, doesn't understand why I want to talk about it. I don't think a PA could have hurt anymore! He doesn't say what they talked about, I am not stupid..I want the one he works with now to know that I know. I did call the other 2..he was mad about that! My husband works with an office full of men in an engineering office and there are only 2 women that work there..he is out in the field alot and she does alot of his paper work. I think she does this kind of thing with one or more of the guys that work there..she likes the attention. I want to know more and yet I am afraid to push the issue ...and would he tell me everything anyway. Can he continue to work with her? Do you believe the havent discussed my discovery..I feel that he is protecting her..I did threaten to call her husband and my H was not happy...says he was worried about losing his job..I worried that the other guy would kick his ass. Why would I care! These women knew I didn't know about these relationships and maybe they even discussed me!!These questions are yelling in my head almost all of the time...I am taking it day by day and we are working on our marriage..it's hard to know what to work on when you don't know why they were so vunerable to begin with..How have you dealt with EA's and how is your recovery going?

I am so sorry! I hope that your WH will come to realize that an EA "is" cheating. Read the book "Not Just Friends." It will help a lot - especially if he is willing to read it (or parts) too.

((HUGS))

My H had an EA too, so I thought for only 6 months. Recovery for me was difficult, I found a love note/text on June 2 and immediately got us into our minister, and then therapist. He swore for 6 months that it was an EA. Probably would have taken it to his grave had I not found out it was a PA. Slept with her twice.

Now that I know the whole truth, recovery is going well. He was bound and determined not to lose me, so bound and determined that the best thing was for him to carry the burden. He's grateful it's all out and so am I.

Bottom line, R did not go well because my gut told me he was not being truthful. I feel he is now, so we're doing as well as can be expected.

Hugs to you...

My husband had an EA it is all of the emotion and time that was invested that hurts they would call each other 20 or 30 times a day. I found out on mothers day yea me. So this year for mothers day I am telling her husband I know this is cruel and I will be as gentle with him as can be, but they were planning to meet. I had multiple ddays with it after I found the phone and email records he bought and hid a pre paid phone. He hid it at work a friend of ours told me he had it and since my nephew and son work with him I had them break into his locker at work and bring it home wasn't he suprised. If he had put one tenth of the effort into our marriage as he had put into his little fling we would have had a great marriage. He said hurtful things about me I was a fat domineering bitch. He forgot to tell her that I had gained all of the weight after his first affair ten years before. He didn't tell her he was 50 pds over weight or that he had quit having sex with me years ago and could only get it up if he watched porn. Yes I am still bitter he is doing all the right things but the funny thing about words you can never take them back. I would rather he had struck me than to speak so disrespecfully about me to a total stranger. Of course she was no stranger to him they were old high school sweethearts who hadn't laid eyes on each other for 30 years. They found each other on classmates. It must be love at least that's what he told her she was the one he had always wanted and everyone else was just a poor substitute. Made me feel real special and like I said once spoken you can never take them back. It doesn't matter how much he tells he loves me it will never mean much because I will always wonder if I am just second best.

My H had an EA for about 7 months, and then it turned into phone calls every day. I knew about the phone calls, just did not know about how many and how long, and all the texting all day long, while I was at work! He went to visit relatives, and she lives near them, how convenient! He slept with her twice. I found out by accident 2 weeks later. It is over, but never, ever, think that they are "just friends". I just found the IM's a few days ago, and man, they were NEVER just friends.

I'm a member of the EA group too.

Thank you for starting this!

Count me in, too. The EA with co-worker my WH had for years was a killer...it devastated my life, and affects me to this day.

I'll post and/or reply in here when I can.

I sometimes wonder if I won't find out that one of these ea's wasn't a PA...All the conversations I do know about...it is hard to imagine what they talked about...I guess we know that they probably mentioned us in some unkind way, when I look at the cell records it is like someone is sucking the air out of the room...I think he was very close to just walking out...when I confronted him ..he wasn't upset..he just looked at me crumbled on the floor and said" So, what do you want to do?" I wanted to yell and scream..but, I could tell by his face he was ready to just walk...I am so mad that for over 18 months he was developing and putting energy into these women on the phone probably in emails and wasn't trying to work on whatever he felt was wrong with us. He had lost alot of weight right around the time I think these started ...I think he had a lot more confidence in himself and wanted attention from some other women. It has been a little more that 3 months since my dday, still have lots of questions and emotions are all over the place..lots of anxiety ...loss of concentration..Please someone who has survived this...is there anybody out there who has survived and believe that their spouse will never stray again? If I didn't have this forum I would go crazy..I have only told 2 people about this and I have not mentioned it to them in weeks..I think they were thinking I was losing it and didn't really understand the magnitude of pain. I will be available to any of you if you will hang with me. Love and hugs to all of you..

EA's are such a fine line and it seems like it's like a stepping stone admittance on the WS's part. The more I read the more I realize that they usually are also PA the WS is just too afraid at the time to admit it. So far my H insists it's never turned physical but we'll see....

I've just braced myself for the "larger" truth, just in case.

Sometimes you do need to "brace yourself" for the other shoe to drop (PA). But make no mistake, an EA is a *very* difficult thing to get over (just as is a PA).

reallylost...read Lucky's stuff..she survived this and they are thriving. Its possible to survive *all* types of infidelity if both parties choose to. EA's are especially difficult sometimes because of that "fine line" of the WS being able to say "well, I didn't have SEX with the OP!"...

yeah, blek...you gave the OP so much more of yourself than just your weiner. You gave the OP your mind, your heart, your attention, your emotional spirit, and shared your secrets, hopes and dreams..

Its a very difficult thing, and I have much empathy for all of you here.

I told my WTFH many, many times that I wished he had just 'banged her' and gotten it over with. Investing almost two YEARS in a secret "relationship" was so much more unfair to me.

There has always been that nagging doubt in the back of my mind that there relationship was also sexual. I know, without a doubt, that he was pursuing her for this for the last six months (or so) of their "relationship." He's lied about basically *everything* else, so I would assume that there is no truth anywhere in his brain.

*We* will not survive this, but not because of the emotional infidelity. There is a much bigger can of worms that is just unreconciliable (for any human being).

YOU can do this if both spouse are willing to commit to the work. Its grueling, nasty and sweaty. I wouldn't wish it on anyone!

Where there's remorse (on the part of the WS), there's hope.

((hugs)) to all EA finder-outers...

Hi,

count me in as an EA survivor. I am so glad they added this topic. As always, im sorry we are here, but I do look forward to getting to know you and share our stories. I will be hanging out here quite a bit.

[This message edited by 2yrsinthedark at 12:35 AM, April 6th (Sunday)]

I'm going to count myself in the EA club but somewhere there's just this intermittent nagging in my brain that says my FWH wasn't interested in "talking" as in sneaking on his cell phone with her as he would like me to think. He NEVER was a phone person. All of a sudden he was. There HAD to have been something more....

Then there are the other times that says he is just a jerk who got his jollies by having this "secret" idiotic relationship but in the end I still hate him for it.

Most days....

Could we get a poll to see how many think their WS EAs were really PAs??

last_time, what do you consider a PA?

About eight months ago I found emails that my Husband wrote to a woman in Norway. It started as friends and then turned into an EA. He told her that he loved her and wished his life with me away. We have been married for 30 years. I have to say it was the most devastating thing that has ever happened to me. The betrayal is huge! He put so much time and effort into that relationship that it left nothing for me. He gave her ALL his love so I got none.

Now that we are working on R and have started to try and fix the things that weren't working in our relationship life has gotten better. but there still isn't a day that I don't think about what I read in his love letters to her.

People don't understand how hurtful an EA can be to the BS. They seem to think if he didn't have sex with her than it should be no big deal but it is. They don't see that the amount of time that he spent maintaining that EA took time away from our marriage. The loving things that he was saying to her should have been loving words to me.

I knew something was wrong before I found out and even asked a couple of times if he had a lover. The last time I asked was the day I found out. He left to go out of town and I hacked my way into his email and myspace accounts. I felt like someone kicked me in the gut and then stood there laughing at me. WHAT A FOOL I was for not checking up on him sooner.

Anyway, things are getting better. I have just gotten to the point that I want to start doing things again. I've let all of me hobbies and interests just stop. I didn't ask for any of this but I got it anyway and now it's up to me not to let it destroy my life and who I am. I'm back!!!!!!111

Muff2do, welcome!!

Yes, my stbxh had an EA with a co-worker back in 2003. He would never admit anything except the usual "just friends" and I was the over jealous wife. Anyway, that blew over and I thought we were R'ing. Fast forward to 2007 and I caught him with another "female friend". That was the last straw for me. He also is alcoholic so that's a whole other issue. Anyway, as I was preparing to D him I got news that his EA was really a PA. Anyway, my stbxh showed ZERO remorse, acted like he did nothing wrong--they were "just friends" (finally admitted it was one time with co-worker-don't believe that for a minute), etc. It hurt to find out all those years later Yeah, if both BS & WS are willing to work at it then there is a chance. I was the only one who really wanted the marriage to work and that never works out

[This message edited by Why?? at 5:44 PM, May 8th (Thursday)]

Why?? I'm so sorry.