My husband's emotional affair

[justpeachy]

A few background details: DH and I have been married for 2 years. Dating for 13. He just turned 30, I'm 29. We've never broken up. He never had any real relationships before me (although I told him many times, before we married, that if he needed that I'd respect that, but he needed to do it honestly). I had a few meaningless, 2-3 week relationships before him. DH and I were best friends before we began dating seriously.

One month ago, I discovered DH was having an OEA with a woman who lived 500 miles away. I caught him the day before his 30th birthday when I came downstairs in the middle of the night for water. I overheard him talking to someone and walked into the office to find him on a web-cam with a woman who had her top off (although the cam was positioned so you only saw her cleavage). I didn't say a word, and just glared at him. He had the most panic-stricken look on his face. I walked away and back up to our bedroom, and he appeared in the doorway a few seconds later, crying (this is the first time I had ever seen my very emotionally "controlled" husband cry). He immediately fessed up to what was going on, began crying out my name and pleading me not to leave him, telling me he knew he screwed up big time, saying it was all his fault and not mine -- before I had even said a word to him.

We spent the next few days talking, crying, trying to figure out what to do. I asked him lots of questions about the affair. She's 22, in a 4-year relationship herself (claims she's unhappy and her BF neglects her), she knows about me (and that we're married). DH states they have never met in person, that the topless thing was the first time that had happened, but that they had told each other "I love you". They met last year via an online video game community (which I knew about, and I had seen him playing with her but never really questioned it). This led to casual chatting, which led to an exchange of phone numbers, and eventually they began texting and chatting online frequently. About a month before I caught him, they began talking on web-cam as well.

I should add in that this is not his first EA. 10 years ago (exactly), when we had been dating only 3 years, he had an EA with a woman he worked/had classes with. They started off as "just friends", but soon I began to suspect something was wrong -- he refused to introduce me to her, and he claimed it was because she refused to meet me. He'd call her and hang out with her a lot. I even caught him lying to me about his contact with her. After a few months of that, I made the decision to leave. I felt that I loved him deeply enough that if he needed to explore his options and/or he wasn't happy with me, that the most loving thing I could do for both of us was to let him go. So I began pulling away and trying to move on internally. He was away at a conference so I planned to actually break it off when he returned. In retrospect, I think I started doing the 180 (without even knowing what it was). It took him almost no time at all to pick up on it, and he did a 180 of his own. Suddenly he was clinging to me after months of pushing me away. Suddenly he was confessing to what had been going on with OW #1 (after months of denying my suspicions). I decided to be cautiously optimistic and stuck it through. Unfortunately, neither of us handled the aftermath as we should have. I gave in to jealousy, suspicion, resentment and was unable to let the first EA go. Even up until earlier this year, I'd still sometimes bring it up (but always in relation to some behavior/circumstance that reminded me of the first EA). This really hurt and alienated DH, and caused a lot of fights. I believe I was never able to fully let it go because DH initially refused to cut OW #1 off. At first he insisted on being friends with her, because they worked in the same career (and still do), and he didn't want to burn bridges that could later hurt his career. I tried to be somewhat accommodating about that. But I was not very good at setting really firm boundaries with him. He eventually turned this in to just avoiding her, but he never actually told her the friendship was over. I feel confident the actual EA had stopped, but I was not okay with her calling him up out of the blue like they were just old friends catching up. 5 years later, I had had enough. I put my foot down and issued an ultimatum (which I was solidly behind). I told him he either cut it off with her completely, or I was gone. He immediately agreed, and I asked him to write her an email (didn't know it at the time, but it was a "No Contact" email which almost perfectly followed the guidelines!) He showed it to me for my approval, and then sent it in my presence. When she replied (with a very manipulative, selfish response) he immediately showed it to me. He told me he did not respond.

continued in the next post...