My husband's emotional affair

[justpeachy]

Yet another update...

The night I caught DH chatting with his OEA partner, he also confessed that he had been having a "non-serious" flirtation (via text message or web chatting) with this other girl. It's such a mind-boggling thing for me because this girl is ugly and crawling with STDs. He also says she's very mentally unstable and immature. Yet he's been texting and chatting with her for 15+ years (before we met), and at some point it began turning flirtatious. DH claims he would "never" act upon it because he's disgusted by her, but that he previously justified it as "harmless" because it was "just text messages, and he'd never follow through". He confessed that some of it was sexual (i.e. this girl sleeps around a lot, and has done some things with guys I won't do with DH... at one point she began talking about one of those acts and DH became somewhat intrigued by the discussion. She told him "if you ever want to try it, you can try it with me". DH claims he has no interest in actually doing it -- especially with her -- but that it was more like a "fantasy world" to him [same thing he said about his relationship with the OEA OW]). DH clearly has issues with living in a fantasy world with other women...

Anyway, DH told me that he's been trying to cut this girl off for years by ignoring her. But then she keeps trying to reach out to him and eventually he responds. I told him on D-day that he needed to cut her off for good. He said he would. But then he did what he always does, which is to try to avoid her (or whatever problem he has) and hope it just "goes away" (he learned that trick from how his parents handle conflict). Unfortunately, she did what has always worked for her and started commenting on his Facebook posts a lot and trying to "connect" with him. DH kept trying to ignore her and would delete her posts. But he kept resisting on deleting her off Facebook entirely (even though I asked him to more than once) because he was afraid of what she was going to do (she has a history of doing some extreme things when someone disses her).

So, last night as I was coming home I saw he posted a status update on Facebook, and 3 minutes later she had replied (very common for her to reply minutes after his posts). I got pissed and the following text convo with DH went down:

M: JFC. Will you delete K already! I'm sick of seeing her comment on your posts like she's stalking you.
H: I know. She's pissing me off royally
M: You really should have deleted her two months ago. The fact you didn't is hurting me. Every time I see her comments it makes me hurt.
H: I know. I'm sorry. I'm deleting her right now.
M: ...like you can't even give HER up
H: I can. I'm sorry.
M: I should never have had to ask more than once. But thank you for taking care of it
H: Well I still need to let her know she's cut off. Just not entirely sure how to handle it. She's a very unstable person. But I know it needs to happen.
M: With the truth. And then you block her and do NOT respond if she harasses you. You threaten her with a restraining order if she won't stop. She probably needs a No Contact letter.
H: I blocked her. God she is annoying.
M: I know you think it's uncomfortable and sucky... but what it is doing to me and us is way worse.
H: I agree. I've stopped talking to her before but she worms her way around. A no contact letter will not go over well but it's necessary.

The text convo ended after that, because I came home. But we talked about it some more and I told him that we could never repair our marriage if he was still hanging on to people like this -- regardless of the reason. I told it was completely his choice on whether he chose the discomfort of cutting her off or the repercussions of me cutting him off, because there is NEVER room for more than two people in a marriage. He has also deleted her contact info, and we're looking into whether we can block her phone number. I already have access to his text logs and stuff, so I'll know if he's continuing that with her anyway.

I also told him my fear is that his tendency to try to just avoid dealing with the OW and hoping they just magically "go away" is flawed, dangerous and further destroying our marriage. Plus, if he can't cut off someone who he claims annoys and disgusts him and that he says has never been all that important or close to him, then how can I trust that he'll protect our marriage in the future from other threats -- particularly from female friends he is closer to and would be tougher to cut off (like coworkers)? He kept telling me he agreed, and knew I was right and apologizing. This morning he came to me crying, thanking me for "pushing him" to do the right thing, saying I didn't deserve any of this and how much he wants to change and do right by me and fix our marriage. I didn't really say anything other than "I hope we can".

Anyway... mostly venting. But if I didn't handle this right, I'm open to advice on what I should do differently going forward.