Need input here please-desperate.

[L0ST]

This is going to be a long first post, please bear with me. I'm hoping to get a female perspective on this but men can feel free to chip in.
Background first. I'm male, we are in our 40's, married since '96. 11yo & 10yo kids. Great relationship till kids came along/work & life stresses ramped up. Mismatch of sex drives......the usual stuff. I am not the easiest to live with as I'm slightly Aspergers, have a terrible memory and probably have self esteem issues due to a very controlled upbringing (mother)that my wife has to put up with as well (though that problem is mostly better now). There is a lot of water under the bridge in our relationship (my stubbornness and inability to listen/remember issues etc.)which causes my wife deep resentment. We live in the UK.
I love my wife deeply and am very loyal.

The problem du jour:
A year ago my wife asked me if I minded her contacting an old boyfriend and another male friend on facebook (you can see whats coming).
I agreed, nice of her to ask.

A couple of months later she left her laptop open on a facebook conversation she was having with the male friend (married, doctor, USA)
She had written that she had seen a hunky cyclist that day and that had made her think of him. Oh dear, I thought. Best keep an eye on this......which I did from time to time till a few months later she changed her password.

I agonised over this and eventually installed a keylogger on her lappy. The password change coincided with her telling him that she would really like to "cuddle up to with him next top an open fire, mmmmm, what a lovely dream that would be". My heart sank.
Over the next months there were various other comments of a less worrying nature, her telling him how great her bottom looks (it does).....him telling her what great foot massages he gives......her telling him how all the nurses must fancy him.

They were messaging each other pretty much every day. After a few other flirty comments I finally decided to confront her in early December 2010.
She denied that her comments were any more than harmless banter and that she has no feelings for him and he "doesn't do anything for her" (sexually)
I pointed out that her statement didn't make sense given what she had written and how often they were in communication.
Eventually she admitted that she felt that she had "overstepped the mark" and that she enjoyed the attention from him.
She said that I had been right to spy on her and that she would have done the same.
I explained that in light of what they had been saying I was unhappy with her continuing to communicate with him but that I also felt guilty for wanting her to stop the communication.
She volunteered to communicate less frequently, stop flirting and eventually peter out the conversation.

I removed the keylogger but continued to monitor facebook (she said she was happy for me to do so and that I could bring up the subject whenever I wanted to as I was very upset about it and would need to talk)

A month later she deleted the conversation as well as all the facebook emails sent to her email addy (permanently from the 'deleted items' folder in outlook).

The new thread in facebook started mid conversation...
I asked her why she had deleted it ( I hadn't looked at it for a week) and she said that it had been accidental and that she had deleted the emails from him so that I wouldn't get upset if I noticed that they were there. Hmmmm.....
I pointed out that I had no way of knowing what they had discussed in the last week and that it made me suspicious of what had been said during that time.
She said that nothing untoward had been said and to put my mind at ease in the future, promised to never delete his emails from outlook or the facebook conversations again.

I quietly reinstalled the keylogger.

Yesterday I noticed that a new conversation had been started and that the first few posts had been deleted!! She had also deleted his emails!
I confronted her with this.
At first she denied deleting anything, then she "remembered" that she had written to him to tell him that I was aware of her being a little too "friendly" with him.
The keylogger also showed that she had expressed her dismay that she could no longer carry on the conversations like she used to with him. (she denies that's about the flirting, merely that she now feels awkward when she writes to him)
In addition she finally admitted that she had also deleted his reply to her (I had to drag all this out of her).

She is now upset with me for being suspicious of her and feels that since (she claims) nothing untoward was said in what was deleted I should draw a line under this. I pointed out that if nothing untoward was said that there was no need to delete anythin....
In addition I am now "being controlling", it's my problem and I have got to "deal with it" myself.
I replied that I want her to stop the correspondence immediately. She refused, saying that its her life and talking to him makes her happy. I pointed out that it makes me very unhappy. Her response was that its my problem since she is now doing nothing wrong in her conversations with him and that I should trust her(again).
Am I overreacting? Should I trust her? I don't know what to do. I love her deeply but I feel she has deceived me three times now.
She is steaming angry with me now btw....I think our marriage is on the rocks.

Also the fact that she said it was 'sexy' you installed the keylogger is very telling - it sounds to me like she wants some drama/to provoke an emotional reaction from you/to force you to fight for her. Despite the fact that you are hurting, it may be that you are not letting her see how hurtful this is. Mild Aspergers may or may not be instrumental in this - there are plenty of non-Aspies that would react in a similar (hurt but not out of control emotions/remaining in control even if upset and not screaming or shouting).

Lost, fairtradefloozy has it just right.

OK to have a bit of a flirt with an old flame, but this is just causing too much trouble in your marriage.

Definitely enough already - draw that line in the sand!

Is the issue that she is "flirting" with an old chum or would you feel the same if she was in a real life game "flirting" as and with an avatar?

The former. I have pretty much no problem with her flirting say at a party (to a point, obviously).....my problem is the intimacy of facebook with an old friend....

......and the subsequent denial and deceit and lying.....

I think its time to draw a line. She stops chatting to him and you stop spying on her online. Neither bit of behvaiour is that attractive, TBH. Line in the sand and move on.
I agree.....this will be the third line in the sand though.

lost - it's not mentally healthy to be insecure in a relationship, the feelings can grow and grown and turn you into something yo don't like. i have twice experienced, it would later transpire i was justified, being so insecure in awful relationships that i started going through pockets etc, it felt like an illness that became all consuming. your relationship doesn't sound anything like my previous (awful) ones so i would try and sit down with your partner and talk to her. stop the snooping as it will make you feel ill and it isn't nice to snoope even if you feel justified, it will play on your mind. try and talk things through. even the best relationships can go through phases of not beeing good so she could be using the 'dr abroard' daydream/fantasising about something that would never really ever by, like watching a good romantic film perhaps. best of luck, i think to talk is really good, have a go

Lost, problem is your response makes it personal.

So if she stopped with him and then randomly found someone else on FB that would be okay? What if she had much more hardcore discussions with the new chap?

And where is that theoretical line in the sand at a party she is not allowed to cross?
And does she know what that line is?

Good points Feeb.
How do I make my response non-personal?

Guessing you don't know the guy?

He may well just be having some fun with an old friend, in what he considers a safe environment. He may be v happily married.

Have you asked much about him?

Yeah, his marriage may not be all that happy. I'm pretty sure he had/has a thing for my wife as well....

To be fair though, he has behaved pretty well. Not said much of concern at all....

But you are grasping at straws a bit, you don't actually know this. He may be happily married and just see this as a bit of online fun. I am not taking sides here just stating the obvious.

Looking back at your initial problem you use the word "confront" and refer to asking her to "stop". You say yourself that you are being a bit controlling.

Why not take a step back and decide what the real issue is here before you go any further. Think about the likely outcomes of your possible actions. What would you like the outcome to be and knowing her well how can you best achieve that? How can you have a conversation without being angry or confrontational? Problem is all your exchanges on this so far sound like they have been filled with too much emotion.

Good points, thank you. :)

No problem.

Now you've found your :) try and keep it.

So basically she tested the trust in your relationship first by letting you see she was having an emotional affair, you then completely destroyed that trust by keylogging her (and it doesn't matter that both of you think this is ok, it's not.) She's continued not to give you any reason to trust her, and you've continued not to trust her. Despite words you have both said saying you would try to fix this lack of trust.

End of the story is, if you have no trust you have no relationship. Any relationship you think you have will be built on suspicion and resentment, i.e., very shaky, from here on in. Your kids are at the age where they will start to notice something is up, if they haven't already.

Your options are:

• get counselling (this is probably required as it seems you're at a stalemate and can't come to an undestanding or solution with just the two of you)
• trust her and hope she keeps her word (unlikely?)
• leave her or ask her to leave
• continue your destructive cycle of non-trust by keylogging and monitoring her, keeping her in check and making her feel it's ok to keep doing what she's doing because she knows you're keeping an eye out on her so it doesn't go too far.

This latter reason is why, I believe, she said it was ok that you keylogged her -- I think she's actually relieved that you are keeping this in check so she can just convince herself it's all in fun and flirting with the FB guy and not a real affair. Not cool, but not cool for your insecurities to be enabling her to do this to you either.

So pick which one you want.

I would recommend a or c, both of which involve standing up for yourself and making it known you will not put up with this. B or d are for if you're more afraid of losing her than of sharing her, or if you just decide after a point that you don't want to know anymore what she does with other men.

No, you aren't being unreasonable. But you are a bit complicit in this, from the moment you went from wondering about her to spying on her.

YANBU - I had a very similar situation with my ex texting someone he worked with. He claimed nothing physical ever happened and it was just fun flirting but repeatedly promised me it had stopped when it hadn't. It was that lying that did for us - once the trust has gone there really is nothing left.
I wish we had had some counselling - to this day I carry a huge amount of resentment that I don't think he ever understood what he did to me. To him it might have just been a bit of escapism but to me, 7 months pregnant and a long way from family my whole world came crashing down. I could never forgive him for all those tears he made me cry.
I hope you manage to get it sorted Lost - I really believe communication is the key and that has to be facilitated by someone else or you just go round in circles. Good luck

So basically she tested the trust in your relationship first by letting you see she was having an emotional affair
I really don't think that was her plan. She didn't mean for me to see the conversation. I am sure of that...

"I don't believe this message is for real. You are not using language in the way an Aspergers person would at all. "

Where do you get your information from? Not all Aspergers-affected people sit in dark rooms reciting the Fibonacci sequence in a grim monotone, rocking backwards and forwards, except on shite telly dramas.

My partner has mild-to-moderate Aspergers and, while it is visibly noticeable in real life conversation, he is perfectly capable of expressing himself eloquently and is above-average in terms of literacy.

As far as the main problem goes: in my relationship, finding other people attractive, and even flirting is fine, but keeping secrets is NOT. It's a committed relationship, so everything has to be "out from under the table" as it were. As a species, we're designed to be attracted to multiple people, but we're still perfectly capable of being honest.

Your DP is not respecting the fact that you're uncomfortable with her behaviour. Either she needs to stop the behaviour that upsets you, or you need to change how you think about her flirting with other men. I think the first option is more suitable for your relationship.

Either she needs to stop the behaviour that upsets you, or you need to change how you think about her flirting with other men. I think the first option is more suitable for your relationship.
She says she wouldn't flirt anymore (and I believe her)but with her deception two or three times over in this case I'm still very unhappy with her continuing the relationship with him.
I have laid the former option out for her to ruminate on. I feel we cannot move on without that happening. I await her response.
Interestingly, she is affectionate today.

LOST - you are not over reacting on this one, I think you have moved on from the original problem and are now having a trust issue which is actually far harder to deal with.
I sympathise with the keylogging and spying etc, but you do need to stop that because eventually living on an edge like that will make you a nervous wreck, and will also destroy your relationship with your wife.
You need to decide whether you can trust her, if you cant, you both need some counselling, if you think you can learn to trust her again, then stop the keylogging, stop the spying and move on.

You are spot on :)

Update.
After more discussion (non-fraught this time)DW agreed to cease contact with him. We analysed the situation and decided that she had been looking for a little bit of excitement in a otherwise routine life (we are both very busy with work/kids/routine)and that she had always felt like he was unfinished business (she met him just before she met me and 'chose' me over him before she got to know him better)
I have relented and said that even though I'm not all that happy about it she can carry on the conversations with him (obviously no flirting) as I'd feel terrible forcing her to stop contact .....even after all thats happened. I'm also going to remove the keylogger and stop looking at her facebook.
I want to thank everyone who took the time to post their thoughts and opinions and support. :)

Unfinished business? WTF! Unfinished as in - chose the wrong husband?

Seriously L0ST - theres a time for niceness, understanding and empathy, and a time to put your foot down for the sake of your relationship.

You have overanalysed this whole thing and have ended up worrying that you are in the wrong somehow. This is 100% NOT TRUE.

You havent fixed the problem. The guy is still on the scene and now your flirty wife has permission to stay in touch with him.

You are lining yourself up for a fall.

You need to introduce her to Mumsnet. It will leave her no time for flirting.

Good luck - hope you can realign things between you.

If she is looking for a little less routine in her relationship with you, may I suggest you show her THE DOOR?

FFS, stand up for yourself L0ST! TELL this woman that she has abused her marriage, her H and her family.

SHE KNOWS she has breached serious lines of acceptable behaviour and that for you to have a future with her she needs to demonstrate unequivocally that she is 100% devoted to YOU, to YOUR MARRIAGE and YOUR FAMILY.

Unless she is willing to show that commitment, L0ST, you seriously need to tell her she has to go.

AND MEAN IT.

That'd make her life a little more exciting now wouldn't it.

She genuinely doesn't deserve you, she is behaving abysmally.