Earlier this year I discovered my wife of 8 years having an emotional affair with a friend and coworker. They’d been flirting, texting in secret late at night, sending sexy photos, saying “I love you,” sharing physical affection at work, and on one occasion they kissed at a bar while I thought she was with girlfriends.
When I finally confronted my wife, her response was to apologize and swear to cut the inappropriate behavior out of their friendship. But she seems to expect to keep the friendship. As I’ve said, it’s been months. We’ve had many arguments about this. I know she is continuing to talk to him against my wishes, even though she swears it is now all innocent. I am, I think understandably, uncomfortable with welcoming this person–who I’ve never met–to keep spending time around my wife.
My concern is not about what led to this situation, whether we should stay together or get divorced, or whether or not what happened qualifies as “real cheating.” We’ve hashed those things out.
So, under what circumstances or conditions would you tolerate this relationship? If I don’t want this person to associate with her, and assuming my wife and I both want to save the marriage, is there a compromise that can be struck, or should I stick to my guns?
32 comments
She’s prioritising her relationship with him over your relationship. She doesn’t seem very invested in saving your marriage at all. I wouldn’t tolerate this and would be phoning the divorce lawyer. She’s still cheating.
i don’t think ur wife should stay in contact with that person and it’s completely reasonable to compromise on her terminating that “affair turned friendship.” i think u need to make this clear.
So my suggestion is that both her boss as well as the other man’s boss BOTH are made aware of the inappropriate affair, yes it was an affair, and that, if possible, the two not be put in any situation where they would be required to interact or work together.
Affairs like this can be a source for growth and strength of your marriage but your wife must work hard to regain your trust and understand what she did was wrong.
Definitely stick to your guns. If they were saying ‘I love you’ and kissing there is no way for that to magically become a normal friendship. She just wants to keep the relationship going and will probably just be sneakier with the flirting.
I don’t know if I could stay with someone who was sending sexy pictures to a coworking and then lied about hanging out with them, even if nothing happened. But to make it work, I do think they need to cut out any non professional interactions, to help rebuild your trust.
Divorce, she has the gawl to stay friends with the person she cheated with. Divorce to snap her out of her affair fog, find a lawyer and listen to their advice
Why do you feel that someone who cheated on you, lied to you and completely broke your trust, with seemingly no remorse, is worthy of your time and attention??!!!
She will never change because she doesn’t have to, she’s got you where she wants you and knows you won’t leave her.
So… she has been emotionally cheating on you and still expects you to let her talk to him after being caught? I guarantee they’ve already slept together. With the way that she’s acting, it’s clear that she doesn’t respect you and it’s not going to get any better. Sorry bro, but she’s for the streets.
Serve her divorce papers. That will snap her out of the affair. Make sure she is served at work.
“Sharing physical affection” and kissing shifts it from an emotional affair to an affair affair which isn’t innocent, and ESPECIALLY not when you’ve made your stance known and she doesn’t care/ continues to do it. She cares about her affair partner more than you, and that’s precisely when I’d stop tolerating it.
You are being a doormat. She doesn’t respect you and you are letting her walk all over you. This is not going to improve
Your priority is to maintain as much dignity and self respect as you can while exiting this dead relationship. Do not beg. Do not acquiesce. The revenge you need is moving on with your life, being happy and not looking back.
First, this is real cheating. It was a highly deceptive physical affair. They’re not only deceiving you but their place of work too. They’re claiming to be just friends but in reality, they’re hiding their true agenda. They don’t want to get outed at work and they won’t want to be in trouble with their actual relationships. If a cheater claims it was just a kiss, pretty sure they did the full-on sex. They have lots of opportunities to do it. Don’t believe in anything she says regarding their relationship.
Don’t be a doormat.
I would be gone.
She fucking cheated on you. If the relationship is going to recover from that, it has to be on your terms. She doesn’t get to “compromise” on what kind of relationship she gets to have with her affair partner afterwords. Honestly, the fact that she didn’t immediately cut that person out of her life, without having to be asked, makes me seriously question how committed she can actually be to your marriage. IMO, this should never have even been a conversation if she’s committed to you. The least she can do after she realizes she made a mistake and that things went to far is actually reflect on what she did to allow things to get that out of hand, and that should’ve fucking led to cutting this inappropriate relationship out of her life.
Your wife is high to even suggest being friends. Stick to your guns. It’s either all or nothing, end of story.
One sentence of advice. Grow a pair. If she wants to have her cake and eat it too let her and do you. Simple as that
Ummm…….i have double the time with my wife and i would of told her to go live with him. No way around it.
Once they get to “I love you” and kissing, it’s a bit more than an emotional affair and you’re naive to believe anything less.
If you believe they can “be friends”, I have some oceanfront property in arkansas I’d love to talk to you about.
I wish you the best of luck, honestly, but if you stay, you’re setting yourself up for failure and have noone to blame but yourself for the heartache you will endure.
If she kissed him in public she fucked him. And if she won’t cut him off she’s still fucking him. It’s over man.
I just went through this with someone I have known since childhood, although we were never “friends” per se until recently. The conversations began very innocent, catching up on what happened to our mutual friends over the past 30 or so years, etc., and it quickly escalated beyond what is acceptable for anyone in a committed relationship, much less anyone in a marriage. Both of us acknowledged this inappropriate level. However, because we wanted to remain friends, we vowed to keep each other in check, and it didn’t work, despite me swearing to myself that we could keep it at the friend level. Now, I am not in your wife’s shoes, but it was either all or nothing in my case. It ended up teetering on the edge of an emotional affair if it hadn’t already gone into that zone when we went no contact. That said, our conversations remained on an online platform, and as of today, I haven’t seen him face to face since we were children. My husband and I have had very open discussions about what happened between myself and this person, so I have since accepted my role as a douchecanoe, and I am making amends. Speaking from experience, stick to your guns, as I don’t think there is any wiggle room outside of that.
> under what circumstances or conditions would you tolerate this relationship?
Absolutely none.
Bruh, dude is balls deep in your wife on the regular
Nope. I would go even further and insist she find another job. The inappropriate relationship ends completely or the marriage does. Anything less is disrespectful. That’s it.
They don’t just stop loving each other because you say. No way would I stay in the relationship. She’s disrespectful.
Honestly, I wouldn’t stay with a partner who didn’t switch jobs or at least departments IF I forgave them at all. I’m not spending my day knowing that they might be behaving in public but they can now they know they already said their, “I love you”s. It’d end up like some Romeo and Juliette crap – can’t be together but *just know* they love each other so it’s hard but whatever. The minute you two argue, she’s going to be venting to him and wishing she’d chosen him and so on. Just tell her he needs to be cut off or you need to split up. The fact you’ve forgiven her at all makes me worried for you, she’s broken that trust and should be the one working her arse off to get it back.
Absolutely not appropriate to remain friends with this guy. Abd to me a kiss is a physical act, therefore physical affair.
Didn’t their friendship already lead to an emotional affair?
Never stay in contact with the affair partner
If SHE wants to keep being married to you, she can’t be friends with this guy.
It’s a HUGE NO.
She’s still cheating on you, mate, she’s just getting better at hiding it.
Bruv, if you think they stopped at kissing you are in for a wild ride in life
She’s putting her relationship with the co worker before your feelings and relationship! Why stay when you are second best and she’s not thinking about you? Don’t waste anymore years on her and find someone who is not a cheating back stabbing manipulator!
I experienced this. I did what you did, respectfully asking my wife to cut out the person she’d had an emotional affair with. She resisted and fought against my wishes.
Let me share what happened next…
She began to cheat in secret with him. Then with others. All the while pretending to be happily married, while we had kids. I found out when they were toddlers.
What do I wish I had known?
Emotional affairs are affairs. Someone who cheats once will cheat again. It is a character issue, not this situation. They will simply get better at lying.
Your marriage has ended. She killed it by cheating and refusing to mend it to your terms.
Marriage counseling will only prolong the suffering. She believes she deserves to hang out with the man she had an affair with and ignore your basic requests for safety. She is not a good person.
If you need more on this topic, I would recommend you read “Lose a Cheater, Gain a Life” by Chump Lady. It is a funny, quick read on a terrible topic.
Don’t be me. Get out while you can. She will not quit. It will get worse. And when kids are in the mix it is a layer of Hell for all involved.