A suspicious email found!

[pippy2013]

I'm trying to find a way forward in my marriage and am seeking advice here - I'm in my mid forties been with my partner for the last 11 years and married the last 4 years, we have two children.

A couple of weeks ago I found a very suspicious email on my husbands old laptop (dating back 4 years ago) from an old female college friend (20 years ago) of his (they were never in a relationship but I think he would have liked to have been had they both been single at the time of their friendship). The email said something along the lines of " my head is in a mess, I'm contacting you out of the blue in an attempt to retrace my steps to simpler times.....you were one of the very few closest friends I had and no one has ever replaced you...how strange you should find yourself in similar circumstances. Email is not secure at home, texting is better. You go first...."
All other emails were deleted from the sent box but this one must have been missed, there was one further email sent from DH to her 1.5 years later which was a link to a music playlist and that was all.

As you can imagine at the time I thought the worst had happened and that he had an affair with this friend or at least some kind of online relationship. I confronted my husband about it and he remained pretty calm and said she had contacted him because she was going through a difficult patch and was seeking his support - she had apparently embarked on an affair at her work place and her husband had found out and was making life very difficult for her. My DH was able to be fairly specific about the details of the affair and said he had not told me about it because in the past (6 years earlier) I had aired my grievances to him about an email from the same woman(!!) who's father had just died and she was saying how much she was missing my husband's friendship and needed to talk to him about it. I found it pretty strange she was seeking comfort from him when she had her own husband, so I asked him not to reply to her - I don't think I was being unreasonable as it wasn't a friend of both of ours and I had never met her. He said he was annoyed about this at the time and decided to respond to this second request but knew I would be upset if he did so.

After I heard his explanation I felt somewhat relieved as I feared the worst and I am inclined to believe him at the moment. However I don't have any definite proof only his side if the story and I'm wondering about emailing the woman and asking her to explain why she contacted him and to see if she corroborates my husbands story, also do I ask her not to contact him again - according to my husband it's an innocent friendship from college days.
I was also concerned by what he had apparently said to her about our own marriage, he has just tried to brush it aside and said we had had an argument and he was feeling pi**ed off with me and was complaining to her.
My husband has apologised for not telling me and causing me distress and seems to be trying to be nicer and more caring towards me since this happened, but in order for me to feel reassured I want to know if this is the truth. He seems keen to put it all aside and not discuss it with me even though I'm still upset about it. He has said he won't be in contact with her again.

Should I email her? What if she doesn't respond....what else can I do?

Hugely inappropriate and dodgy as, he either stops contact now or you leave, simple as that, you should come first, not some woman who has form for cheating who he knew 20 odd years ago!

It is inappropriate whether he is having an online affair with her or not. I would absolutely not be able to tolerate my DW moaning about our relationship (not that she needs to!!) to an old flame or someone she wishes had been one. The tone of the email that you paraphrased suggests to me "We weren't single then but now we're both sort of on the lookout".

I say this as someone who is in touch with several exes but purely as friends and if we ever do meet up my DW is included in that. Cosy little emails and sharing confidences like that is not on imho.

I was once contacted by someone I was at school with. He wrote along the lines of "I really fancied you at school but never asked you out, how about I take you out now" He was in a relationship and he knew full well that I have been a lesbian for 20 years and am in a comitted relationship! I replied a quick "no thanks" and never contacted him again.

So the email you have just found is four years old - but it was before that he promised not to contact her again?

No, I wouldn't contact her. Apart from anything else, if you do and contact really has stopped now you could just restart it. And as she already has form for cheating on her own husband is she going to tell you the truth?

Concentrate on his behaviour... he needs to discuss this with you and build trust again. He is very out of order.

That email is not appropriate.

Don't waste your time being Mrs Investigator in this and policing both of them and asking them questions to see if their stories will match. You will drive yourself mad with keeping them both in check. Concentrate on him and what he is doing wrong.

He cannot brush the fact that he looked for an opportunity with her under the carpet. If you want him to be more honest with you, tell him that he cannot brush it under the carpet, but also that you understand that sometimes in marriage their are crises of faith and if he had one, you just want to know and see how you can fix it together. After his response to that you decide for yourself whether he is lying or not.

Sorry, I didn't answer your question op. No, I wouldn't contact her. Agree with Hedgehead's approach.

Thanks everyone for your advice and feedback. It was actually 10 years ago that this friend initially emailed my husband saying she missed his friendship and wanted to talk to him about her father (before I met my husband he stayed in touch with her via letter, the days before email!! even though they were both in relationships) but had stopped when he met me. He didn't like the way I 'demanded' that he not reply to this friend when her father was dying, he said he felt guilty about it because they were friends. So he did indeed go against my back when she contacted him again once her marriage had broken down. I had a 6 month old baby at the time who had terrible colic and reflux so he probably felt neglected and he has admitted feeling rather flattered by her attention at the time.
My concern now is maybe he really did hope he could start things up with her knowing she was now finally single (she had been married for 20 years). But I guess, as this all happened 4 years ago either she wasn't interested in my husband in that way or she has got together with the guy she had the affair with.
What really annoys me is he has always been mistrustful of me in our relationship and yet I have always been loyal - and it turns out he is the one who has betrayed my trust. When I initially confronted him about it he did offer to put me in touch with her but I turned this down.

If I contact her (without telling my husband) and she does confirm the same story that she had an affair with someone else then at least I know my husband is telling the truth about that. Surely, if she has nothing to hide concerning my husband then she would come clean? I also want her to know that I don't think it's appropriate for her to contact my husband in this way. At the moment she may think it's ok to keep contact with my husband whenever she needs him unless she is told so? According to my husband when she had the affair she went and told her husbands sister about it which is how it all came out, what kind of woman would do that??!

I do see where you are coming from op but really the issue is whether you can trust your husband ie it's between you two.

I can actually understand why your husband was upset in the very first instance with her father dying. He must have felt horrible not responding to her. However, he has subsequently shown you that he has hidden contacts from her since then and that he was flattered that she wrote to him. So he has broken your trust.

I definitely wouldn't contact her.

She may or may not respond, she may or may not be truthful, how will you know that she is telling the truth?

Well, realistically, what is she going to say?

If they are having a full-blown affair, or an emotional affair, or even are just too close friends for your comfort, she is going to tell you exactly what he has told you. That they are just good mates.

Do not contact her.

Your problem is with your husband.

I think for now I will talk to him about it again - we only had one discussion about it because it was a busy time recently with buying a new car and we also went away so I didn't want to spoil things for the children. We now live abroad and hopefully we can put all this behind us - I will make it clear to him that should there be further contact that will be the end for us. I probably do need to work on building a better relationship with him, I think this was a bit of a wake up call for us both to finally tackle and sort out our relationship for the future.

Why do you need to "work" on your relationship?

Why would you putting effort in to build a better relationship be necessary or even contemplated if this relationship your husband has with this woman is innocent?

You don't believe it, do you? That it's just her crying on his shoulder when things go tits up for her?

I think you would be wise not to.

I don't think you truly believe him that it is all innocent. If I was you I would with and wait, I think talking to him again would push him to hide things better.

If you really don't believe him though, don't torture yourself, you are worth far more than to spend the last ten years wondering if your husband is faithful.

From what you have written I would guess that nothing happened between them 4 years ago but that she felt she had an emotional connection with him from long ago . He possibly felt flattered at the time ( perhaps you had recently had a row / disagreement ) and replying to her gave his ego a lift briefly .
I definitely would not contact her !!! This would give her a real boost as she will feel that your husband is yearning for her and that this has caused trouble between you . She sounds the sort of person to take pleasure in this. Don't give her the satisfaction or your husband the chance to feel " accused and wronged " .You need to be cleverer than this .

Try to forget all about this " blip ". Easy to say but more difficult to do I know , but to resurrect the past could affect your future together . I genuinely don't think he has done anything that could be construed as an affair . However ...I am of the opinion that very few people can be trusted 100% and you have learned a painful lesson from all of this . Don't let it affect your happiness with your husband but maintain a healthy dose of cynicism for the future. Saying nothing and keeping your thoughts to yourself can give you the upper hand and real strength in emotional matters. In years to come I think you will look back and be glad you said and did nothing in haste .Good luck .

pippy2013 I can see why you would be suspicious of your dp but if she is/was a good friend of his why would you not want him emailing her?

Thanks again everyone for your help - it's hard to remain calm and rational with matters of the heart. I guess I feel we need to work on the relationship more as we have drifted apart over the last few years - I've been a stay at home mum for nearly 8 years now and lost a lot of self confidence, i think he has tried more than me to make our relationship work and perhaps he got fed up with trying....which is why i perhaps think he may have looked elsewhere for attention. The thought of perhaps nearly losing him has made me realise that I need to out more effort into getting myself happier again and paying more attention to my husband.
I will refrain from contacting her - as you all say it just gives her more power and she's unlikely to admit to having an affair with my husband or this other guy. The woman lives quite far away and I really don't think my husband is the type to have an affair, it would be too stressful for him to deal with it all and he has no history of affairs in the past. But I will be on my guard more as he clearly has broken my trust.

I suppose I am suspicious of this woman since the first email she sent him was pretty over friendly, saying how she missed him and NEEDED to talk to him, she hasn't acknowledged me or his children at all and her communications have been always in private to him. I have a few male friends and always refer to their families or partners in communications, and my husband is also in touch with female colleagues from work places and I've not had a problem with that.

It seems like it all happened such a long time ago, is there any use dragging up the past? Do you love your partner right now, are you happy?

After some thought on what you have all written I don't want to push my husband away by dragging this up for months to come. We do have some marital issues between us that we need to deal with and face, we probably don't talk openly enough with each other so I will let the dust settle a bit and maybe seek some marriage counselling if my husband agrees to it.

I still have some unanswered questions about the whole saga which I want to talk to him about, but I recognise he probably did have suffer a crisis in our relationship and used the situation to feel a bit better about himself. He's only been in one other long term relationship before me and he's a very ethical and moral person (he's a lifelong Vegan and hates injustice) on the whole which is a quality that I've always admired about him.

My father was a serial adulterer so I've always found it hard to get close to people and trust them, my husband is the first longer term relationship I have been in and I always believed he would be the sort of person to stick by me no matter what, he believes in marriage for life. I want to make this work as I think we can be good together and for the sake of my children I don't want to put them through anything like I did. Thanks again everyone I've really appreciated the help - I don't normally post anything like this online or even share with friends my private life, but it's been really helpful to get some feedback.

OP said " I had aired my grievances to him about an email from the same woman(!!) who's father had just died and she was saying how much she was missing my husband's friendship and needed to talk to him about it. I found it pretty strange she was seeking comfort from him when she had her own husband, so I asked him not to reply to her - I don't think I was being unreasonable as it wasn't a friend of both of ours and I had never met her. "

So, let me get this straight. Six years ago, an old friend of your husband's got back in touch with him after the death of her father and you asked him not to reply to her.

Sorry, I think that is unreasonable and probably started the rot. You wouldn't have done this if his friend has been another man, would you?

You were basically telling him who he could and couldn't have contact with and had the right to veto his friends. If a man did this, people would say that was controlling behaviour. It also meant that if he wanted to continue any sort of contact with his old friend, he was going to have to do so clandestinely because you'd kick off. Which is precisely what has happened! You clearly wouldn't have done this had the friend been male.

Now, there are clearly other issues in your marriage which you have admitted and while I am not getting into the more recent issue, your most recent posting stating that your father was a serial adulterer explains much - but you are basically tarring your DH with the same brush and that's not fair.

I wouldn't bother contacting her. One phrase that struck me in your first post is:

"she had apparently embarked on an affair at her work place and her husband had found out and was making life very difficult for her."

Anyone who can complain that their spouse is 'making life difficult' for them while they are having an affair is fairly morally askew IMO. She won't help you at all.

I would be fairly uncomfortable - not that they have had an affair but that it might at some point go that way. And sharing his marital whinges with someone he has an emotional connection with is a good first step.

BTW if you think you need to work on your marriage all well and good but make sure that your H works just as hard. marriage don't fail because of one partner.

Yes, I have had problems with jealousy in the past likely due to my own upbringing and my DH did resent the fact that I basically demanded he didn't reply to her - I was uncomfortable with the way she worded the email. When all this came up he said he felt very guilty from before for not helping her and he knew I would be very mad at him if he replied to her. However this does not give him the right to communicate with her secretly for the next 1.5 years, I understand if he wanted to help her out with a few supporting emails but that should have been it. She knew my husband 20 years ago, surely she would have her own friends by now that she could turn to??

I should also add that my husband also was very jealous of my past when we first met - I had many more partners than he did and if I ever brought up anything about previous relationships he had a real problem with that and would be quite judgemental about choices I made. He frequently checked my laptop and phone when I wasn't there throughout our relationship as he didn't trust me to be faithful. We got off on a difficult footing when we first met both suffering with jealousy (he had just split from a 10 yr relationship and I with my many partners that was so alien to him! ) . I became pregnant within 2 years of meeting him so we never really had much time together before all the stress of raising children started. I think trust and openness is something that has always been missing and that we need to deal with. I haven't been controlling in that way for many years it was really just at the start when we were getting to know each other.

I agree, I don't think she will be willing to help me especially as she probably thinks I stopped him from continuing their friendship in the first place. She was with her husband for 20 years and supposedly had an affair with another teacher at her school who was also married with a child. She made her bed and will not be coming to my husband for sympathy....