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My husband has developed a very close friendship with a woman 10 years his junior in the office which he works. The friendship is not a problem, however I feel it has crossed boundaries as it was in secret from me. My husband said he didn’t tell me because he knew I’d be jealous as they get on really well. I got an uneasy feeling about her and he became a bit distant and I asked him to show me his phone. He said no at first but eventually showed me and although the messages were platonic there were so many of them, pretty much daily, evenings, during work hours whilst they were sitting next to each other (bitching about others in the office). He also told me they shared secrets with each other- really personal stuff that I didn’t even know about him, and he said he’s talked to her about our past marital problems and she did the same with her ex. My husband thought it was OK because this girl is a lesbian.

I asked him to stop texting and he told her I’d seen the messages and got upset and she said she would stop texting him too, however I continued to have an u easy feeling and it turned out that they continued to message but instead of text it was on the works computer. He told her he’d been thinking of her while she was off with an ear infection but didn’t text due to the circumstances and he hoped she understood. She replied of course but he’s still her favourite at work. He had been asking her if she was going to the pub (they go as a work group) and she had been asking him if he was going several times. He was telling me at that point that he had backed off and ‘barely spoke to her’. He was sending memes of inside jokes etc. stuff he didn’t need to do but he thought I’d never see.

In the end I messaged her and told her how all this had made me feel. I also told her that I had asked him not to message her anymore unless work related so I hoped he was respecting that. I didn’t tell her I’d seen their computer messages. I got a reply and it said they were just friends and there was nothing to worry about. I haven’t told him I contacted her.

Since then initially I felt better because I knew that she knew my feelings and hoped that if she was this amazing person with zero flaws as my husband portrayed her to be before I found out about their friendship she would hopefully back off.

I should also mention that 3 years ago I read his phone after he was similarly distant and moody and he was flirting with another younger girl at work. This was blatant flirting but she left and then I kind of forgot about it and moved on. Since this it’s brought back lots of questions and feelings around that time too.

Even though I feel better since messaging the girl, I still feel really disconnected to him and less attracted to him. Before this I felt so secure and in love and quietly confident we were a strong couple, and although he’s not officially cheated it feels like he has by his lies.

I also feel so insecure about myself as he still works with this girl who has had no kids, is into the same things as him etc. I feel like if she wasn’t a lesbian she’d be perfect for him… and it makes me feel inadequate.

Every time he goes to work I’m wondering if he’s laughing and chatting with her or if he’s comparing her to me.

Since all of this he has pretty much begged for me to forgive him and promised he isn’t chatting inappropriately anymore but even though I do believe that I still can’t feel ok about it. He refuses to look for a new job.

He’s also not made me feel very special or wanted. He’s not really made any effort to spend time with me or show me I’m important to him. He used to say I was beautiful etc regularly but he doesn’t anymore and we barely touch each other. When I’m talking he seems bored. We barely have sex. I just feel so insecure and shit and it makes me feel we’re only together now for the kids.

Sorry for the long message (first post here) it’s nice to offload my thoughts.

I understand why you are upset. Both diminished attention and continuing lies are very very upsetting. I actually think lying is just the worst. Secrets, lies and then not complying with expressed wishes, are extremely hurtful, and destroy trust.

There is a wealth of good advice here, and we are all in your corner.

I'm sorry this is going on. You've definitely got some red flags to deal with.

First, I recommend getting your hands on a copy of NOT "Just Friends" by Shirley Glass. You can find new, used, and even library copies. Read it.

Second, this is the 2nd younger woman with whom your H has violated your boundaries. That looks like at least the beginning of a pattern. He may be regretting what he's doing, but it would be much better to hear that he's committed to changing himself. He wants to be forgiven? What is he doing to earn your forgiveness?

I understand the blow to your self-esteem. I understand not feeling good enough. Feelings are good guides to living in the here and now, but they are not perfect. Your H is trying to connect with these women because of some issue inside him, not because of any issue with you or your M.

He needs to realize that at this time and age any inappropriate messaging or flirting or whatever in the work environment can have serious consequences on his financial future.

Seeing as he has a longer work-record at the site (and even assuming he has no official superiority over them) then all it takes is a meeting with HR to show how he’s "harassing" her/them and or being inappropriate. Might not lead to an immediate dismissal or even a warning, but next time there are cuts he would be high on the list of those to go...
Take this from a manager who has been in the shoes of dealing with this type of issue...

Thank you. He does seem to realise and says he wishes he could go back in time. The thing I can’t shake is that even if he does change going forward, it’s only because I’ve found out both times by getting the uneasy ‘feeling’. Had I not found out he’d still be secretly talking to her, sharing stuff with her, messaging her. God knows what would have happened with the other girl.. he was actively flirting with her. Somehow this friend though bothers me so much more as he seems to really really get on well with her. And he can’t tell me any negatives about her. He seems to put her on a pedestal. Well he’s stopped doing that now because I’ve highlighted that he does that. I just wanted him to tell me something annoying or bad about her but he couldn’t. It’s so hard to move on when he sits next to her in the office and I feel out of control and completely crazy. I’ve even thought about going to spy on him to see if he’s telling the truth about not going to the pub with her.. or putting a tracker in his wallet. I feel like I’m turning into a crazy woman and I just don’t know if I want to live my life like this any longer.

Welcome to SI and sorry that you're now part of our group. There are some pinned posts at the top of the forum and some that have bull's eye icons that we encourage new members to read. The Healing Library is at the top of the page and has a lot of great resources.

Infidelity is trauma, and it can feel like you're going crazy. If you can, IC (individual counseling) with a betrayal trauma specialist can be helpful.

We have a member here whose XWH (wayward ex-husband) said his friend was a lesbian. Well, XWH and lesbian AP (affair partner) now have a baby.

Besides the Not Just Friends book, another good one is How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair by Linda MacDonald.

Again, sorry you're here.

He is cheating. Hiding and lying are cheating. Emotional cheating is just a devastating as physical cheating. He is sharing things in his life with other women.

You are not the problem, he is. He is either completely in the marriage or not. His lack of interest in you is because he looovvves all the attention he gets from younger women.

He sounds very immature. Do read Not Just Friends.

Unfortunately god is not the only one that knows…

God knows what would have happened with the other girl.. he was actively flirting with her.

Many of our stories started out just like this. Full PA cheating is the end of this road.
That is why without serious work on his part, you are feeling that uneasy question of if I had not caught it would he take it further. The answer right now is yes. He has to show you why in the future it would be no. And words don’t cut it…. You have already heard the lies he uses with his words.

I’m sorry you are facing the sane situation yet again.

One of the 🚩is YOU had to find out - and he didn’t "stop" in his own. Also the "lesbian" comment is often a lie. It’s meant as in "you don’t have anything to worry about" blah blah blah.

The OW my H had a 4 year EA with "has a boyfriend". All believable until she called me to ask if my H could go to a wedding w/ her as a "friend". Suddenly she does not have a boyfriend. Shocking!!!!

Your H unfortunately needs an ego boost from other women. Until he gets that under control he just may continue to be a serial emotional affair type cheater.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 6:19 AM, Saturday, August 24th]

I can relate to this. My husband has to be "everybody’s friend". He feels that he needs to get along with everyone, to be part of the in group, to be in on the jokes and pranks in order to succeed in his job. Things have gotten 1000% better bc we are both in therapy working on ourselves. But his past behavior made me super resentful and honestly, I didn’t like him much at all. His phone would be blowing up because he’s texting this person and that person. I decided that I was not going to be in competition with anyone anymore. Because of his past infidelity, I’m not comfortable with female friendships. That’s how his affair started, so no. My boundary is until I feel that he’s a safe partner, I’m not comfortable with him having female friendships and I’m definitely not cool with him texting female co workers. They can be work colleagues, but sharing personal information, texting about things that have nothing to do with work, jokes, gossip, etc are all things I’m not okay with. If he wants to stay married, then these are non-negotiable terms. This may sound harsh, but when I let my guard down before, he started up a friendship that involved lots of texting, every day, all hours. He gaslight me, telling me that I was a crazy jealous wife who wouldn’t let him have friends. And then his friendship took on a whole new level, they were sharing personal information - about her marriage, about ours. Pretty soon they were "in love" and their emotional affair progressed to a physical affair. If he blows through my boundary, then the consequence is that I will move to separate and then D if I have to. I will NEVER put up with that level of disrespect ever again. I am his wife, and I should never have to explain why I’m uncomfortable. Just the fact that I’m uncomfortable should be enough justification needed. You are the wife. Your husband is disrespecting your marriage by doing this. If you are not comfortable then he needs to create a boundary with his female friend and maintain a coworker relationship and nothing more. They talk about work related things ONLY. No jokes, no idle chit chat, none of that. Period. If he’s a man of his word, if he wants to be trusted then he’ll have no problem creating that boundary. I’m personally not okay with some random unknown person to me knowing ANYTHING about my personal life, family, and especially my marriage. That’s a level of disrespect that I will never tolerate. My husband tried that whole "she’s a lesbian" thing with me too - AS IF that made it okay. I don’t care if the person is blue, green, purple - I will never be okay with that. I hate that you reached out to the woman. In my experience, the other woman owes you no loyalty, owes you no explanation. You may think she’s an ally - she’s not. She has every reason to lie to you so she can keep the friendship going. This is between you and your husband. If they were just friends, YOU’D know about it; instead this was a secret friendship. And the fact he didn’t tell you because he thought you’d be upset is very telling. Yes of course you’d be upset. No wife wants her husband confiding in another woman! He knew it was wrong and he did it anyway. Read Not Just Friends - and have HIM read it.

Litmus text: if you don’t do the behavior openly and honestly in front of your spouse, then you know it’s wrong.

That’s why you hide it.

just friends

There is a reason the book is titled "just friends", so many of us who are on this forum, heard the exact same thing.

That is exactly, verbatim, what my wife said to me about the guy she was having sex with in our house, while our kids were down the short hallway watching television.

It really doesn't matter whether it is physical, emotional, financial, or what not. Secret relationships are betrayals in marriage. They all hurt the primary partner. It is the sneaking around, secrecy, gaslighting, and all the other bullshit wrapped into the betrayal that causes all the harm. The problem is driven by underlying issues in the person doing this to their partner, which is where the real problem lies, not in the other person that they are communicating with. I carry two cell phones because of my work, both have exactly the same password, my personal one as well as my professional one, and I really don't care what my employer thinks. I've never had relationships at work that supersede my personal relationship with my spouse, and I've never had secret communications with anybody at work or otherwise in my marriage.

Unfortunately, with issues like you are facing what you see and find out initially is the tip of the iceberg. This is true whether or not there has been any physical involvement or not.

You will get a lot of good advice on here, take what you can use and leave the rest, but make your red lines clear.

My wife did not break off her physical affair, that she had successfully hid from me, until I told her to get out, and leave the family home. Her "friend" was clearly interested in a lot more than just being friends. Little did I know that it was far past that point well before I knew that they were "just friends". From what I have read here on the last few years, and my experience, it seems like anybody who uses that phrase "just friends" means that they are already deep into betrayal.

I am not going to say he is definitely still lying and limmerent, but most likely he is.

Your story has many parallels to my own and it hurts to see.

It started like this, everything clearly platonic. Me asking her to just ratchet it back to reasonable amounts. To her trying to take it physical but being rejected at that moment (not that it would have lasted much longer). In fact one of their texts near the end was about passing the torch on who is resisting vs. who is pursuing.

He is having a full blown EA. It is ongoing. He needs a new job. This feels like an overreaction, but it's not. You are the one on the spot though. So that makes acting decisively on the topic very hard, maybe even impossible. You want him to want to end it. Not force him too. It's going to suck recovering from this. Most likely for years.

I highly recommend "Not Just Friends" as others have pointed out.

"She's a lesbian"/"He's gay" is a lie we see here an awful lot.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 8:46 PM, Saturday, August 24th]

An emotional affair is every bit as painful and damaging as a physical affair. The lying, the secrets, the sharing of personal and marital information is shockingly devastating. You are not over reacting. You have been severely emotionally and mentally abused by his selfish choices. There is nothing that you’ve done or haven’t done that caused his lack of honesty and commitment to you and your family. By hurting you he has hurt your children as well. Please get tested for STDs and insist that he does so as well. He may not have been physically unfaithful but he has proven himself to be a liar who doesn’t value his wife’s wellbeing. You can’t assume that he’s been sexually faithful. Snapchat, burner phones…so many ways for the unfaithful to take it underground. I’m so very sorry that the man who promised to love, honor, cherish, and remain faithful to you has instead chosen to stab you in the back. Please try to contact a trauma-informed therapist. You need support for yourself. Now is not the time for marriage counseling. Your husband needs therapy to figure out why he lacks integrity and hopefully learn to develop it. There is nothing you can do to "fix" him.
So many of us have thought we could "fix" our wayward spouse and marriage if we just worked at it hard enough. You can’t. You can get help for yourself and take care of yourself and your children. Try hard not to isolate.

Based on your last post…

I wonder if your sensitivity (and I mean that positively!) is so high due to his previous flirting. Basically... maybe the real issue is that a) he has a past and b) your are hyper-sensitive due to his past. Maybe the issue is not the other woman (coworker). Maybe she is a lesbian, maybe she has no interest whatsoever in your husband. Maybe...
However – basing a marriage on maybe’s isn’t healthy.

I encourage the both of you to get and read Not Just Friends. There are some exercises there that the both of you can do together. That book would hopefully do two things: 1) make him understand how an emotional connection outside the marriage can be defined as inappropriate and 2) help you two define borders you are both willing to adhere to.

I don’t see any benefit in deriding the coworker. I really don’t see any issue in them being friendly. It’s more an issue of him being able to define what a "work-friendship" should be, as compared to a friendship.
I also think the problem is not the coworker. She can leave, your husband can get another job or whatever, but if he continues his behavior then his next female coworker become the next issue.
I do think people can have amicable and friendly relationships at work irrespective of gender as long as the correct walls are in place.

Like... I have great friends at work. Both male and female. We feel that a friendly atmosphere allows us to enjoy work more, be more productive and all that. I know names of spouses, kids, interests... If I run into Tracy who is a business process specialist at a restaurant with her husband, I will introduce my wife, do some small-talk and then move on. We are friendly and care for each other, but there is a borderBasically that "friendship" is just as deep as my friendship with Jack and James and Helen in programming. I will send any of them flowers if they lose a family member, chip in with the others for anniversary and birthday gifts and so on.
What I won’t do (and none of them does) is disturb each other outside of work, there won’t be any office-gossip, any inuendo, any dubious jokes, inappropriate compliments or anything like that.

It’s the same with my wife. She has a great and friendly relationship with the doctor at the nursing-home, the janitor, the cook and the staff (probably 1/3 male). The doctor and she talk about red wines and argue politics, but that’s as far as it goes. I have met him and his wife when walking the dog and have no concerns whatsoever. Probably because my wife and I have talked about boundaries and the division of work- and private life.

In my opinion you are correct in being suspicious. The fact he hid his so-called relationship is a huge red flag

"Litmus text: if you don’t do the behavior openly and honestly in front of your spouse, then you know it’s wrong.

That’s why you hide it"

This. When I discovered my wife was sexting with a 40-year-old married coworker she initially tried to dismiss it as harmless flirting. I said if it's harmless then why did you hide it? Her response was because I knew it would upset you but I have not crossed any lines

The next day when she walked into the house from work I said there's a suitcase upstairs and I need you to leave. That's when she realized it was not harmless flirting

Come to find out during subsequent conversations that this guy would make his rounds of the offices in the morning saying good morning talking to people and he would hug every woman. Something else my wife chose to keep from me and when I questioned her on it she said I didn't think it was a big deal because he hugs all of the women. So you thought hugging this man every morning was harmless even though you were exchanging text messages of a sexual nature with him?

She said yes and I said you are lying to yourself and me

I said you know damn well had you told me about it I would have put a stop to it but you liked it hence the reason you hid it from me. You knew damn well I would have had a problem with it so you kept it from me.

99% of the time if you are doing something that you have to keep from your spouse it's not harmless. Supposedly after my face-to-face conversation with this guy at her work he no longer makes his rounds of the offices. Now that is coming from my wife and it may or may not be true and I have no way of verifying

Your husband's behavior in my opinion is well beyond boundaries of a respectful marriage. I am the type of guy who will never be comfortable with my wife having male friends that she chats with. Some people call it insecurity, I call it keeping my relationship safer.

And your husband saying his coworker is a lesbian, I would take that with a grain of salt

[This message edited by WB1340 at 1:04 PM, Monday, August 26th]