Hi,
This is my first post so please be gentle. I've been a long time lurker and have seen some great advice given to others. Have been with my DH for 20 years married for 13. We have 2 gorgeous primary school aged children. My DH has suffered from recurrent bouts of severe anxiety and had a severe bout in November which left him suffering depression but still managing to go to work etc. He is at the top of his field and excellent at what he does(works with children). Most of his junior colleagues are female. He is a lovely person always friendly and never arrogant at work so he is v. popular. (Unusual in his field) He likes attractive people (who doesn't) and mentioned a woman at work who he found pretty and we laughed about it. We've always been open about who we find attractive. Anyway dec 2013 we both went to his work Xmas do. The morning after she had sent him a pm on Facebook asking how his hangover was, and he replied. (We have open access to each other's accounts). I said I did not want him to pm her anymore as I knew he found her attractive and that private messaging could lead to problems (he had an emotional affair in 2009 which was again on Facebook and started when she confided in him about the end of her relationship and he confided in her that we were having problems which were mainly because we were both stressed moving countries - he developed feelings told me and went total NC and things became much better.) Anyway he agreed to not having any out of work contact with is current colleague for the past year, however I did not go to this years Xmas party. Apparently at this one she started crying about her last boyfriend hurting her and various friends leaving and he confided about his depression and how he felt it was due to not being a good Dad and the marriage having gone a bit stale. There was a bit of Pm after this which I saw and asked him to stop. This time he was all defensive and said he needed a friend who wasn't me. ( we have lived here 4 years but he feels he has no really good Friends here). Anyway a few days ago he confessed that he did have deeper feelings for her than is appropriate and she had even advised him to download snapchat so I could not see messages! She basically has been giving him relationship advice. We had a huge chat and spoke for hours and decided we needed to make more time for each other without the kids and he is to have no more out of work contact with her. He is deactivating Facebook and going to reactivate it with only family and close friends (no work colleagues). He had met her last week for a drink before she went on nights which he confessed to and I'm glad he did. I think that's when he realised it was wrong and had to tell me. I honestly think she just sees him as a good friend but who knows!
Anyway if you've lasted this long well done -given he has had two fairly mild emotional affairs which still have been v hurtful to me how on earth can we stop it happening again. I absolutely still love him and know you can easily develop feelings for other people - I personally ignore anyone I fancy!!
Hope this makes sense.