Found out today that my husband is still in touch with Ow via email. (It has been 6 months since he came home and vowed never to get in touch with her again.) I sent her an email telling her I forgave them both and that my H and are doing very well. She was very nice and then informed me that she does not appreciate him sending her emails. He is out of town and when I confronted him on the phone he was apologetic and very taken aback that he had been caught once again with his hand in the cookie jar. What do I do now? I was beginning to trust him again and I had a renewed love for him. I feel betrayed again. When I asked him if he loved her he said no. Then I asked him why he did it and he said he was crazy and that he needed someone to talk to. This is a man with many friends and relatives .... all in his email address book. Another sleeping pill tonight. What next? Help me please.
First of all, he can simply care about her well-being. Are you trying to evoke hatred in him? Hope, not -- why increase the amount of eveil in the world? People can understand that their relationship was not right or was right but only for a moment, and still retain good feelings, after the passion dies. And it's always better to have good feelings and kindness to those who you shared good moments with.
YEs, accept it -- they had good moments, and it's much better that he has good memories than hatred in his heart. Do youwant to be with someone who can carry evil inside? Probably not.
And people lie not because they are bad or cowards -- very often we lie to save someone we love from unnecessary harm, when we don't want them to be hurt by something they can't understand about us.
I know very well how impossible it is to remain calm in such a situation. That's why I am saying it: it is very likely that it means nothing for you. What matters -- his trust, respect and feeling for you, that's all.
Sure wish your pain had not been compounded with this. Think it's important for your H to understand that lying is a major set back. You are working on the very foundation of any good relationship. Let him know that this is square one. If there is anything that you can think of that would help you feel better that he could do tell him. Glad you've joined this section.
I spoke to my H about e-mailing the OW whom he left at the end of August. He explained to me that he was concerned for her welfare (she had tried to commit suicide in September). At first I was upset and very hurt... I had asked him over and over if he was keeping in touch with her and he denied it. He had a separate hotmail address that the two of them used for correspondence. I realize he is truly sorry he kept these secrets and has promised never to talk to her again unless I know about it. He has promised to cancel the private account and I have agreed to let him speak to her if they use our home address. We both sent her an e-mail. My H declared his love for me and told her to e-mail him only at our address. I explained to her that I would allow them to communicate with the understanding I was privy to their conversations. She e-mailed us back and I was happy to know that she wants us to be happy and will not write to us unless we write first. As I told her ... one of the reasons I love my H so much is that he is a caring person. I feel like there is closure now.
Dana, It sounds like you handled this perfectly and that your husband truly does want to make your marriage the best it can be. Trust takes a long time to rebuild after infidelity, especially if there's on-going contact. It seems as if your h understands this now. Keep up the great work. Michele
OK folks lets see if we can identify the key elements that Michele agrees with here. Maybe she will even come back and comment .
Here is what I see and like:
Dana found a way to feel comfortable with what her H wanted to do (support OW through a tough time).
By communicating together to the OW Dana and her H have a fair degree of resolution with her.
I know I need to do better with the first point. I've been letting my fear and the feeling of threat control me too much and at times ask my H to cater to me too much. Yesterday I had a long talk with my sister (who, because I'm such a hard head, is one of the very few people that can tell me when I'm way off base). How I hope I can hang onto understanding this.
Early on it was important to me for my H to be kind but firm with the OW. Both of the therapists we've seen have encouraged absolutely no contact with the OW. My H describes pretty negative feelings for her and for himself during that period. He says that because their feelings were base totally in fantasy he discounts them. My feelings have run the gammut.
It is possible that I or both of us will run into her at some point (even though we've moved far away, I'm a frequent visitor there and my H occasionally goes with me) and I'd like to have some resolution with her before that would happen. I spent the better part of a day writing her once but even after all that effort it wasn't a good letter. Still have a ways to go to be in a healthy frame of mind.
I'm very happy that you Dana and your H have had this experience. Hope all of us find the grace and poise you did and courageously implement it. Hope your H and the OW feel things are now resolved, you all continue to wish each other well (from afar seems best to me), and find ways to make life happy.
ALTL
[This message has been edited by alottolearn (edited 04-12-2001).]
Thanks ALTL! I have read your postings and admire your courage and strength. My H was involved with OW for only a few months. I don't think I could have fought for him much longer.
After seeing our consellor yesterday my H now realizes that it was wrong to keep in touch with OW via e-mail. He says I am the most imortant person in the world to him and that he has no desire to contact her again. He is very attentive these days. It feels so good to finally have closure. I was so worried that I had "opened a can of worms" and that we'd regress. But as the counsellor put it .... if there hadn't been a "can of worms" in the first place none of this would have happened.
Something else that was right with what Dana and her H did:
Dana had her need for security fully addressed and met by her H.
Her H had an opportunity to demonstrae in action his love. Since he wants to improve the marriage and show his commitment, this must have met some of his needs also.
This is a very happy outcome when it occurs. In our case we have successfully negotiated many situations like this. However, we still have a few very important ones that we are still hammering out and that is continuing to be an extremely painful process at times. Hope we will come up with ways to manage our conflicts (or at least be convinced of each others' respect, thoughtfulness, and trustworthiness for taking our points of view into consideration).
We are about to go for a long walk and hopefully will make some progress in this direction.
.