SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

First time poster here looking for some support/advice.
Bascially, found out husband had been messaging and calling another woman a lot and this had been kept from me. He never ecen mentioned her name. Upon discovering this (it had been going on for quit some time) i confronted him and obviously got the 'were just friends'. He was very nice and calm in his response, nothing to make me think he was lying (didnt get angry at me for questioning, tried to expliain etc, tried to reassure me). She is someone who he has never met as she doesnt live anywhere near us, but work calls turned to private calls and messaging. I was told they speak during work time a lot and that they just talk about common interests and life etc. I asked him so you dont talk about private things like our relationship? and he said no.
Something didnt feel right so yes i snooped. And i found all the messages etc. It wasnt only in work time, there were messages at night (when i was probably in bed next to him), and weekends. And one message stuck out where it clearly became apparent they had been talking about more personal things to do with our relationship, so he had lied to me. I confronted again, and he got upset, never got angry at the fact id snooped, told me i could speak to her etc.
Ill say that nothing else about the messages seamed innapropriate, but it was apparrent they were quite close.
Fast forward and i just cant seam to shake it. Why lie? Why never tell me about her if they were just friends? I am not a jelous person, ive never had an issue with him and the opposite sex, so ive never given him a reason to need to hide anything.
I feel like im stuck in limbo. I have no 'evidence' that anything innapropriate has occured. But i just cant seam to shake the feeling. Hes adamant they were just friends, but for me, it just seams more then that, even if it wasnt sexual.
Nothing about his behaviour changed, there are no 'signs' that hed checked out, hes been massively trying to reassure me and gave me his phone willingly to read all the messages properly as when i snooped i just had a quick scan.
But i just cant seam to get over it. They havent spoke since after he told the woman that i had found out and wasnt impressed. But isnt this a bit odd? If they were really just friends and there was nothing else involved, why stop speaking? I have no problem with friends when theyre not hidden from me. Why stop speaking if they generally just like to chat and get on?
Am i reading too much into this? I hate feeling like this? I dont know what to think, as whenever i see other stories about similar on places like this (emotional affairs), there always seems to be more to it (i.e messages that show partners decalring feelings for the other person, sexual content in the messages). But i dont have any of this. So how do i get past this? My trust in him is totally gone. I feel like hes not the person i thought he was (lies, hiding things etc). Im not even sure if talking to him about it will help, as theres nothing else to discuss. We dont agree on the basis of this 'friendship'. I see it as crossing line and must have been more to it, he says there just friends. Am i being a doormat?, or am i overreacting? Any advice or support would be great. In a way i feel like it would be easier if id have found something concrete as at least id know where id stand. Can anyone relate? Thanks.

There is a book out there called "Not Just Friends" and in that book the author has a short quiz that you can take which will give you a bit of an indication of whether or not a friendship is more than just a friendship. For myself, personally, when I read this book during recovery, I realized that clearly that I had an EA in the past that we didn't call an EA at the time. I would recommend that your husband and you both pick up this book and read through it. There isn't enough in what you posted to defintively say that your husband is having an EA or a PA. I will say that bonding over common interests is how EAs in the workplace tend to start. So whether he is deep in an EA or dipping his toe in the water at the moment, you are completely within your rights to be upset by this arrangement.

One thing that does catch my attention is that you mention he and her were in near constant communication and it stopped. Many times when a spouse is caught cheating, they will just switch to messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Signal or SnapChat which seems to have been constructed by and for cheaters. We call that "going underground" around here and it is possible that your husband took things underground to get the heat off.

Maybe the most difficult thing about Emotional Affairs (and this does sound like a "classic" EA) is that those involved don’t recognize them as affairs. Heck… even the mental-health segment only started acknowledging EA’s as infidelity in the late 1980’s.
If you have your private part in someone’s other than your spouse private part then it takes a high level of denial to not be aware you are cheating. Having a "friend"… well… since its only talking and no touching… not so clear.

The person considered most responsible for the acknowledgement of EA’s was the late Dr. Shirley Glass. She published a groundbreaking self-help book that is still being regularly published called "Not Just Friends".
I can’t strongly enough suggest you order a copy.

I then suggest the following:
Tell your husband that you are concerned about this relationship and want him to hold back on it while you two reach an agreement that you are both happy and feel safe with.
Ask him to read NJF and to the tasks listed in the book with you. Tell him that if the conclusion of that work is that YOU feel safe with the relationship then it’s OK. If he sees the same threat as you do then you two can discuss the next steps.

If he refuses… well… then you have your answer.

You've received some good advice.

The fact that he hid the friendship from you is a huge red flag. If there is nothing to hide, why hide it? I would also be concerned about the amount of time he spent texting her. I also agree that he probably switched to a different method of communication. They are also most likely getting their stories lined up in case you contact her.

I'm sorry you're going through this.

I second the book recommendation of the first 2 poster. That book can be clarifying IF your husband will answer honestly. People who are in emotional (and even physical) affairs have spent time building up reasons in their minds why what they are doing "doesn't count" as cheating. That way, they get the feel-good brain chemicals from the new relationship while continuing to feel like a good person, because they're "not a cheater" and it's "not an affair." And they truly believe their own hype.

My husband was appalled when I casually referred to his affair partners as his girlfriends. "They were not girlfriends!" he said indignantly. This response after online flirting, sexting, and even giving $ to one so that she could purchase something that she couldn't afford. So, ya, girlfriends. He gets it now, but he definitely hadn't allowed his mind to admit this to himself prior to this conversation.

You already know what a red flag it is that he kept this frequent and ongoing communication from you.

I second what Zebra said about the fact that may still be in contact but using a different method, so be cautious about believing that he's stopped.

I'm so sorry you are having to deal with this.

My H had a 4 year EA. At first it was "friends" and she pretended to be my friend, but I knew she was very interested in my H.

All of the contact was in person or on a phone (before cell phones and texts).

It was all done in secret. Yet every other person in the friend group knew what was going on. Knew about their "secret relationship" and chats behind my back.

I can tell you that if your H does not see the disrespect, secrecy, lying by omission etc. then you have a much larger problem in your hands. BTDT as the saying goes.

I hope this is not your experience but my H had another affair 15 years later (typical midlife crisis affair) which then led us to almost divorcing. Luckily he turned it all around and now recognizes (and apologized for) the lying, disrespectful behavior for all those years).

Don’t be me. Don’t allow your H to get away with this behavior.

He has put someone else ahead of you. That person is his priority in attention, communication etc. it’s so wrong on so many levels. He needs to understand that.

NJF will probably give you some insight into the process by which an EA develops. The author is probably por-R, but she also gives a lot of support to those who D. IOW, I think it's a useful read for any BS.

Thankyou all so much for your advice. I will definately look into reading the njf book.
I'm not sure about the moving to a different platform thing, as the contact and messaging was already on multiple platforms. But I will keep and eye on it.
We have previously discussed the situation at great length, and though he was very sorry for upsetting me, I never felt like he understood why I was so upset about it as he was just under the assumption they were just friends and there was nothing more to it, nothing sexual etc.
So due to your advice I realised I need to get him to see what the problem was and accept what he has done wrong. So we had another talk where I explained it wasn't just the not telling me (which was a major red flag) it was the time spent talking and texting, it was the discussing personal things with her, it was the investing energy into that friendship that was taking away from our relationship. And this has massively helped, as he seemed to have a lightbulb moment and admitted he now could see where I was coming from and he could see that although there was no physical or sexual element to it, it was inappropriate and he finally understood why I was so upset. He now knows what he did wrong and took full responsibility for it.
So although it's still upsetting, and it will still take time I think this has helped us move forward.
He knows I want to know if they ever have any contact again (for my own sanity).
So thankyou all. You have really helped.

Definitely read Not Just Friends with him. It’s very clarifying about boundaries and emotional affairs.

My first Dday was exactly like yours—I discovered evidence of thousands of messages and hundreds of hours of phone calls with his coworker. I confronted him and he reacted like your husband—calm, reassuring, saying they were just friends, and that he hadn’t told me because he was afraid I’d be uncomfortable with him being such close friends with a woman. (Which set me up to feel like I was a terrible, jealous person).

It turned out their "friendship" was a full blown sexual and emotional affair. They had carefully deleted any messages with romantic and sexual content, and left all the others for me to see. (They also had a secret google doc where they would write those things to keep more findable messages free of incriminating evidence).

This may not be what your husband is doing, especially if they’re at a distance from one another, but don’t underestimate the ability of people to lie. I did, to my own detriment.

Trust your instincts. Hiding this from you is a huge red flag.

"It wasnt only in work time, there were messages at night (when i was probably in bed next to him), and weekends."

This really jumped out at me. She is important enough to text on weekends and at night while he is in bed but not important enough to tell you about? He is texting her while he is with you and taking his attention away from you.

My H's A started this way. I noticed lots of texting and phone calls. He calmly told me it was a friend that he met through his job. Like the above poster's H he also deleted incriminating texts. It was not normal behavior for him to spend that amount of time on the phone and with further digging I discovered his A.

I'm not saying this is necessarily the case with your H but I just want you to think about it and protect yourself. I sincerely hope it is not the case for you!!

I would also like to add that when I was confronting my H during his 4 year EA he KNEW it was wrong but did the typical gaslighting, stonewall "you are a crazy jealous person" routine.

Years later he admitted he knew it was wrong at the time but "I was not going to tell him who to be friends with".

So I don’t buy the "theres no sex and it’s nothing" position the cheater takes.

I would suggest another very frank conversation about WHY he never shared any information or anything with you.

The answer is obvious. Because he knew it was wrong and he knew you would not like it.

That is what he needs to admit.