I am so hurt and confused

[slightlymanic]

My husband has been exchanging sex texts and phone calls with someone he met a few months ago and I found him out yesterday. We spent the whole day shouting and talking and he says it was a mistake, he is sorry, it meant nothing blah blah blah. He says he never intended it to be anything other than what it was but I keep wondering if I hadn't found out where would it have gone? She lives 250 miles away so I think I beleive that he hasn't had a physical relationship. But I keep replaying the texts over and over in my head and questioning everythign he has done or said in recent months.

I suspected something a while ago and he made me feel so awful for not trusting him.

In many ways this is just a symptom of how crappy our marriage has been for a long time. Netiher of us have made any real effort to make it better; but now this. He says he loves me and wants to try to get through it. I don't know what I feel other than hurt and total confusion. He has agreed to go to Relate counselling which I think perhaps we should have done years ago really.

How do I forgive him? How do I move on? How do I switch off these thooughts?

I'm not sure you can forgive him until he is really sorry. And at the moment he doesn't seem to be.

Not intending it to go any further is one thing - but is that because he didn't want too, or because she was too far away? And why does he think that sex texting and phone calls are okay, but taking it further wouldn't be? Would he allow you to exchange sexy texts and pictures with other men?

He needs to realise that what he has done is wrong, and has really hurt you. And he needs to be genuinely sorry that he's hurt you in this way, and not just sorry that he was caught. Then you can try to rebuild everything, and fix the problems in your marriage.

Relate could be a good idea, as long as he is really sorry.

I think I'd tell him that - that you aren't convinced that he is really sorry, that you aren't 100% sure that it wouldn't have gone further had she lived next door rather than so far away, and that you are very hurt that when you suspected something was wrong and could have tried to fix this earlier, he attacked you and blamed you rather than coming clean or even just stopping the texts.

His response will say everything. He'll either try and win you back, convince you that he made a mistake but he loves you and he's worth fighting for, or he'll decide it's too much like hard work. Either way, at least you'll know where you stand.

As for the thoughts - they'll ease once your mind has processed things, and they start to get put right. If they don't ease, something isn't right yet. Think of them as a defence and survival mechanism.

Good luck - this isn't a nice place to be.

He was having an emotional affair. They can be as bad as the physical ones.

I guess you will never know if something happened between them when they met?

I think one of the most offending and patronizing parts is that he could throw your marriage away and hurt you, over something that really meant nothing...

He invested his emotions in somebody else, rather than investing them in you and your marriage.

It's an awful place to be. I feel like I am losing my grip on things a bit to be honest.

I think he is sorry, I think he denied it because he wanted to avoid dealing with it (he's not good at facing problems) and I think it stopped a while ago. There were no messages in the last few weeks. I do need more answers about what would have happened if not caught, if she lived closer etc etc. All of this is compounded by his depression which already makes things very difficult at times.

I always thought if an affair meant nothing then it would feel worse but I am stragnely relieved that he says it means nothing. I can empathise on a very tiny level as when he was very depressed in past I almost got involved with someone lese. Almost. But I didn't.

You say your marriage has been 'crappy' for a long time and there's been a CBA lazy attitude to the relationship all round. What you've discovered has therefore had the effect of bringing the problems well and truly to the fore and forcing people to choose, make decisions, etc. So far so good.

But be conscious that you may be experiencing the temporary high of a kind of victory... he's chosen you over this other person... and that, once you've had time to think about it all, that might fizzle out and the hurt and confusion will turn into anger and resentment. For his part, being caught with his #pants down has obviously motivated him out of his torpor, but that isn't going to last long either.

I'm not normally a fan of counselling but, in your case, there may be some merit in taking advantage of this step-change in your relationship. Whether it means you finally have the courage to release each other from your crappy marriage or whether the marriage emerges less crappy, only you can decide.

I don't feel any high, not one bit. I feel betrayed. I already feel angry and resentful. Only a tiny bit of me has any empathy for him; the rst of me could stab him in the heart!!

He hasn't 'chosen' me, I don't think there was a choice. It wasn't , from what I can see, heading towards him choosing her.

Our marriage has been crappy mostly becuase of his depression and how it effects us, his job etc etc. Too much to go into.