Hello..and thanks for talking the time to read this to give me any ideas or advice anyone might have. Me and my wife have been together for about 20 years, I love her to bits and I always felt that she was my soul mate, my best friend in life, sure we’d had our ups and downs but the foundations of our relationship I never doubted. I always felt we were each other’s rock in the craziness of life. Anyway after 3 kids we moved to a nice semi in suburbia about 3 years ago.
We had a very friendly neighbour who unfortunately split up from his wife a few months after we moved in. My wife was starting a new course and would study a lot at home. My neighbour was in a position where he didn’t have to work and was very friendly and outgoing and he and my wife got on very well and I guess they’d see each other most days for a chat in the drive as he was often working in his garage out the front. My wife would go round for a coffee from time to time and they’d text each other regularly. A bit over a year ago I started to get a little suspicious that they seemed to be texting each other a lot and getting on “very” well and he was always there fiddling about in his garage so was always there for a “chat” with my wife when around. I’d talk to him as well and got on fine with him as a neighbour. He is very religious, a "new earth creationist" who found god a few years before and would often speak to my wife about “spiritual matters” and lend her material. I was always a little cynical :)
My uneasiness continued and my gut feeling was there was more to this then “just being friends” with the guy neighbour. I’d ask her from time to time if she had any other feelings for him then just him being a friend, which she flatly denied, stating he was just a friend and accusing me of having a problem with her having a male friend and that I was being a bit paranoid about it. My middle son told me last Summer that he was a little worried as mum was always outside talking to the neighbour to the point where he had checked her phone but it was just friendly conversations and I reassured him.
I carried on feeling uneasy about it, but if I brought it up I was just met with increasing hostility and that I was being stupid. My wife had a crappy phone which had a tendency to pocket dial and one day she’d called me at work as she was leaving his for a coffee. Anyway they had a 15 second hug and at the end of it he said to her “I really love hugging you”, she didn’t reply but I phoned back and hit the roof. She had told him that I had a “problem” with him and that I'd overheard the tale end of their "goodbye"! He put his house on the market a few days later with the intention of moving in with his girlfriend just down the road. My wife felt sick because she thought she’d caused it. He was always going to do this, but did it a bit sooner than he seemed to have intended.
Things settled down but my gut instinct still made me bring up her feelings towards from time to time him but this was always denied as nothing more than friendship. She was keen about attending his church which I said I don’t mind about you becoming a Christian or exploring your faith but go to a Church he’s not involved in and also I don’t want you to go round his for a coffee as it makes me uncomfortable, talk to him in the drive. I was accused of not wanting her to have male friendships and forcing her to give up the friendship and that I basically had an unwarranted issue.
About a week later I went on the computer and in the history found stuff from about a year earlier when my wife had looked up love compatibility between her star sign and mine and his, dealing with unrequited love, loving someone you can’t have, this was over a number of months. I wept for days and felt heartbroken, I spoke to my wife on a number of occasions about it and initially she denied it but eventually said there was a time when she had to question her feelings but this was just a fleeting thing, but as I pointed out it was over a few months and why would you type in Loving someone you can’t have or dealing with unrequited love into a search engine unless that was what you were thinking or feeling at the time. I’ve never really got a clear answer to this, but I now really struggle with being lied to when I asked her about her feelings in the past and being made to feel stupid and paranoid and the fact that I feel so betrayed.
I can’t help but feel she still harbours some feelings towards him and something has changed between us since she met him. It’s such a struggle when my best friend in life lied repeatedly to me especially when she saw that was in such distress and it and that I just wanted reassurance. She tells me to move on and to drop it, and that she hasn’t done anything wrong, implying that it has to be “physical” but for me I don’t know if it’s that easy, I can’t help but see it as an emotional affair, they still text a bit and I see him as well and get on okay with him. As much as I love my wife I just don’t know if I can forgive her, don’t get me wrong I quite often find women attractive and maybe have the odd fleeting fantasy! It’s only human. But to not recognise that you are developing loving feelings towards someone else and then out of respect for your spouse and your marriage vows to not do something about it or curb it and then to lie to them when you can see they are distressed by it, just feels so wrong. I know we all make mistakes and I’ve told s fair few white lies in my time but this for me has crossed a line. I love her dearly but now question if I can move on, or at times that maybe it’s best to let her go. I really don't want to go to counselling, but I'm not sure how to sort out my feelings..why cant life be simple :)
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Relationships
Is it an emotional affair? what to do?
eswort · 06/03/2016 14:29
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