Is this an emotional affair?

[QuietBeforeTheStorm]

Man and woman had on off relationship for 2 years 7 years ago.

Man moved away, married and had children. Woman married, had children and then divorced and is single. They have kept in contact but no as frequent when she was married.

They speak at least one a week through email and at length. Messages are quite personal. Quite open that they miss each other. He sends songs that remind him of her, most indicating that at the least he has feeling for her but more along the lines that he loves her, she's the one that got away etc. Her response is usually a bit jokey such as "another one added to the playlist".

He had openly told her Mum (publicly and will say jokingly) that she is his future MIL.

What would you think?

[QuietBeforeTheStorm]

I asked what you would think as in would you consider it to be an emotional affair. As I've stated many times it wasn't on my part but people have insisted on trying to paint me as someone who has deliberately tried to steal a married man

[FelicityFoxton]

Just leave him alone then !

It's no biggie is it?

You won't though I shouldn't think.

At least try and think about how his wife is feeling and then imagine if your husband was twatting about like this with a female ' friend ' .
Just leave it all alone

[FelicityFoxton]

Oh right . If you're asking me if I think it's an emotional affair then yeah , course it is. It's not appropriate is it

[QuietBeforeTheStorm]

I am though I've said that. I will see him in future though. There is no way around that. He's at any big family occasion. I can't not ever see him again.

[SaucyJack]

I saw an ex of mine at a mutual friend's wedding last year. Wasn't awkward or loaded tho because I don't spend my evenings sitting up into the small hours texting him how much I miss him while his new bird is in bed. Not least because I don't miss him......

Do the decent thing and leave other women's husbands alone.

[QuietBeforeTheStorm]

Oh FFS I've explained the miss you comments or did you fail to read them?

[QuietBeforeTheStorm]

You know what fuck this.

[falafelburger]

Having read this thread from the top, can I just say QuietBeforeTheStorm that I think it was entirely fair for you to regard your friend's friendship as purely that until it became obvious that he saw it as more.

It's unfair to blame anyone but him for the direction in which it went. Men and women should be able to be friends, whether or not they're married or in a relationship with someone else. You should be able to trust friendships without constantly policing or questioning them.

I'm sad for you that your long-standing friendship has been lost or irrevocably changed through no fault of yours. I'm sad for his wife that he has been 'unfaithful' in this way. And I'm sad for him too.

[badbaldingballerina123]

His sister is involved in this shit ? She goes back and forth between you and the wife telling you what the wife has said ? What a two faced bitch. And what the fuck does your mum say to this married man who openly states she's going to be his new mil ? This sounds like the sort of fucked up shit you see on Jeremy Kyle. The only person with any decency in this is the wife.

Frankly I'm sick to fuck of reading these sort of threads. Is this an emotional affair ? He sends me stupid songs ect . I'm so naive I don't get it when someone is flirting with me how cute ect ect. Your probably the only fucking chump he knows who would buy this shit and who is willing to waste hours waffling shit in secret messages. Anyone with a scrap of self respect would've told him to fuck off. How embarrassing for you that he saw you as someone who was open to this daft shit.

No one wants an ex hanging around like this . You don't get to adulthood and actually think this is ok.

[kaykayblue]

OP - Just ignore some of the more spiteful comments in the thread. There will always be some of them. You've already responded to some of the thoughts further up thread, there's no need to repeat yourself - just tell them to RTFT.

I can understand why people are going along those lines - and although you might truly believe that they don't apply to you (and I'm not saying that they do), surely you can understand the viewpoint overall?

Maybe you guys have been doing this for so long that it just feels normal to the two of you, but from an outsider's perspective it is extremely weird to have a married man chatting to his ex at 2am when his wife is in bed. Even if there is nothing sordid being said, it still just comes across as inappropriate. It's too intimate.

I believe you when you say that none of this has been an ego boost for you - but for a lot of people it will have been. Knowing that someone would rather talk to you than go to bed with his wife. Knowing that he has been thinking of you all day...blah blah blah. People on the thread are just being very rude about it by insisting that was the case with you.

Even if you completely don't see this - and I believe you when you say that you don't - from what you have said on here it really does comes across like you are the third person in this marriage. Not as a mistress, obviously, but put it like this - if I was his wife, I would hate your guts. I find it quite funny how you can't seem to understand why she hates you so much!!

To be honest, with all this sustained contact, skyping, conversations at twilight...I'm actually not surprised at all that he got feelings for you. I mean, this is pretty much how teenagers started dating when I was younger. You are friends, you end up chatting online on a regular basis, you might call each other (or skype these days), you share history or stories together...then bam. Relationship. Or unrequited feelings.

Out of curiosity, are all your friendships like you friendship with this man? Do you chat as regularly to your other friends? See them? That sort of thing?

No-one is saying that you basically can't be friends anymore. What you do need to do is to cut contact for a couple of months to give him some space, and then just establish a friendship with "normal" boundaries. That's meeting up for a coffee every few weeks. Having a chat on facebook during normal hours with no mention of poems or songs or anything you wouldn't be happy with his wife seeing.

[Twinklestein]

I've seen threads on here where posters have been genuinely spiteful, unhelpful, trying to kick the OP. That does happen. But I don't think there has been any of that in this thread. Generally the posts have been measured. I just think you asked for advice and didn't like what you got. That's not the same as posters setting out to antagonise you.

[QuietBeforeTheStorm]

Thanks falafel

ballerina If you are sick of reading them it may be an idea to y'know, stop. Just a suggestion. HTH.

Kaykay I see alot of sense in some of what you are saying.

I am not speaking to him at 2am. I think you are referring to the message above that I corrected in a later post which was meant to read it's 8-9-10-11 o clock not 2-3am.

Most of my long distance friendships are like this although some more and some less frequent. One particular friend, we skype about twice a week and email/message most days. Not really extensive conversations in the messages just a few messages backwards and forwards, photographs etc.

I have friendships at home, some people I see once a year, some once a month/week and one that I see most days but then we literally live next door.

I physically see him about 2-3 times a year that's all. He lives in a different country and also as I said I wouldn't have an issue with his wife seeing anything I have ever sent to him.

I feel like I need to clarify the music being sent. When I was younger (and in the first stages of friendship with him) I was a DJ. I have thousands upon thousands of records and many nights were sat in mine (just us two or with company) raking through them, chatting and drinking into the wee small hours. When he sent a song it was usually an obscure one that we had come across at some point during these nights. It was always accompanied with "Do you remember this? It reminds me of that night we...", or "Just heard this reminds me of home". It was only over the weekend that he said something weird along the lines of everything I've sent you is how I see you so I looked back and that was when everything fell into place. They were all different genres of songs varying from rock to the blues but once checking out a few of the songs lyrics it became obvious. It wasn't like he was sending a bunch of Adele songs that made it obvious. I have a lot of musical friends and I often get a song pinged into my inbox or posted to my FB by a friend.

[QuietBeforeTheStorm]

And sorry the point of that ramble about the music was it wasn't immediately obvious and wasn't something that would raise a flag with me. As soon as I realised that something was amiss I cut the conversation short and then a couple of days later posted here for a bit of advice and approached it with him and shut it down at the first possible opportunity.

If that makes me some kind of homewrecker or husband stealer in peoples eyes then fair enough but quite honestly it's how all my friendships are and it wasn't something unusual and it certainly wasn't something that I wanted.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

OP.... I told you that you'd end up a scapegoat :) Sadly, once people have decided that you're the 'OW' (and that applies IRL as well as MN) - no matter what the truth of the matter - you are instantly the Jezebel. If it's any consolation, I posted a similar thread to yours a while back and got exactly the same response. Try not to take it too personally.

[kaykayblue]

Hi Quiet - you are right, I missed the post where you corrected the timings of the conversations - my bad. It's not quite as strange in that case, although I would still find it odd why someone would stay up chatting to a friend (notably an ex) - on a regular basis - rather than going to bed with his wife. But that's just my personal view.

On the songs...I get what you mean. And again, I'm not saying "you should have noticed sooner", because sometimes if you're not expecting someone to have feelings for you, it can be easy to miss signals which might be obvious to others.

I don't find it strange that people would send you music - hell, I send entire cd's to a couple of male friends who have similar tastes to me (although I do take out any tracks that have romantic undertones, or specifically say on the sleeve that it's a song for them and their partners to drink champagne and dance together with).

What I do find odd is how he seems to be living in the past - I don't really know what I'm trying to say, but I would find it normal for someone to send me a song saying "hey, just found this - ah youth!" or whatever, but I would find it weird for someone to send me the same song saying "do you remember this? It reminds me of that night that we...etc...". To me that's sort of creepy.

Again, that's just me though.

Overall I have to say that your friend sounds like a complete douchebag! It sounds like he is having some sort of crisis where he wants to revert back to a teenager again. If you are barely seeing him during the year, then it may be that he has put you up on some sort of pedestal. So not only is he treating his wife like shit, but he also seems to be objectifying you as some sort of panacea that would cure his life of all it's problems.

Either way, he certainly needs to get a grip!!!

[thornyhousewife]

OP you are trying really hard to absolve yourself from any responsibility in this situation, but know this - the reality is most people wouldn't let themselves be in this situation. most people would realise very early on that there were inappropriate elements to this friendship and amend it accordingly. You've done that now, but perhaps should have seen this coming much earlier.

I'm sorry that the friendship didn't work out and I hope he sorts himself out for the sake of his marriage.

I hope also that you can come to terms with your own relationship issues. You seem unduly hostile towards friends' partners who take issue with certain elements of friendship. It's really none of your business and I wonder if this experience might make you a bit more sensitive to the nuances of the people's marriages.

[QuietBeforeTheStorm]

Thank you but I have no relationship issues. You are right that it is none of my business hence why I didn't make it my business. I didn't do anything based on how she felt because it was between them.

Thanks Cogitio and Kaykay.

You are right that he has put me on some sort of pedestal. He said as much last night (although he doesn't realise that's what he is doing). He has created an illusion in his mind 100% and it's way off base.

I think you are also right about him living in the past. I'm not sure how to explain it but it's like when he moved away in his head everything at home stayed the same because he wasn't here to see it all change. I know he has struggled in the past with how different things are when he visits. I also know that he is really homesick, always has been. With fresh eyes I wonder if his friendship with me and the route that it has taken is his way of having a bit of his old life still.

I'm not sure I explained that very well. I hope they manage to work through everything as they really are a lovely couple together.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Sometimes you simply can't stay friends with someone or, at the very least, they have to become a Christmas Card and hello-if-I-happen-to-bump-into-you level friend. It's sad that he's turned something innocent into something sleazy.

[Bambamboom]

The song thing reminds me of when my dp went behind my back messaging his ex and he sent her a link to "her" song.
I remember how much that hurt, that he still listens to that song and think of her and feels she should know this?!
If say it's an emotional affair, definitely but that's because I've been the woman checking emails, texts and Facebook messages and that kind of stuff hurt, it's would hurt if it meant nothing.

[QuietBeforeTheStorm]

God I can only begin to think how shitty it would be. I honestly didn't realise the purpose of them being sent. It may have been naive but my mind just doesn't work that way.

I have never cheated or been the OW. The whole idea of it is quite disgusting.

[SaucyJack]

I did read the whole thread Quiet

Look, I can see you've done a pretty good job of convincing yourself that your convo's with your ex were all perfectly harmless and legit, and that half the world is probably up all night reminiscing over the past with their exes whilst their spouses are in bed.

But really, they're not. It was inappropriate and naive of you. And that's at best.

Maybe some of the responses you've got here will help you see where you've gone wrong, and how bitchily unfair you've been in trying to paint his wife as being some sort of bunny boiler.

Personally I think she has the patience of a saint and the self esteem of a slug

Onwards and upwards tho. Tomorrow is a new day.

[IrianofWay]

The only thing you have done wrong IMO OP is to judge his wife harshly for her unhappiness about your relationship. Some sympathy might have been nice but if you haven't been where she is I guess it's hard to understand.

He, on the other hand, needs to grow up a bit and stop acting like a love-lorn teenager. But that is NOT your problem.

Hope you manage to stick to NC with him, or at least only when it's unavoidable and other people are present.

[Bambamboom]

P.s just read through the thread and from what I've read (what you've told us, which is all anyone can and should go off) I don't think you've purposely set out for an ego boost etc or were even aware of his feelings. Don't think from what I've read you've done much wrong other than be a bit naive.
So long as now you know what his feelings are you act accordingly you really couldn't have done anything else :)

[QuietBeforeTheStorm]

I admit I judged her harshly for her unhappiness towards our friendship (not relationship). At that time I knew (I know now I was wrong) that it was purely platonic, so yes I thought she was being completely paranoid and quite honestly controlling. I realise I was wrong. she obviously had valid reasons. Now just because I felt that does not mean I disliked her or would ever have wanted to hurt her feelings.

[Mariposa10]

I think people are being critical because it's quite hard to understand how you couldn't think this was inappropriate. There has to be a recognition that despite the fact you want to stay friends, and you see something of value in the relationship with him, you are exes, and at one time there was strong feeling there. This is why she is has a problem with you. You and this man have a history, but sometimes the history really needs to be left in the past to make it easier for everyone involved.

From what you've posted here it's clear to objective outsiders that at least one of you still harbours those feelings that you claim are in the past. We can't all go through life doggedly holding onto things just because it makes us happy - surely we have to consider the feelings of others and do what's best for the people around us? I realise that's sometimes easier said than done but it appears from what you've said that you've been going along with this with your eyes closed.