Is my husband being unreasonable?

[123pippy]

Been married to my hubby for 17 years, have 2 children girl of 15 and boy of 13. Our marriage is again in tatters and falling apart.

Some history before I get to the point. I love my good honest hubby which is why I married him but have never felt passionate about him. 2 years into the marriage and due to a PC problem he found out that I had been in secret contact with a previous ex boyfriend who had broken me to bits. Hubby was surprised, disappointed and felt I was being deceptive and not happy about this secret so I agreed to drop it. 6 years later I ended up purely by accident having a 4 month emotional affair with another ex that this time I felt very passionate about. Two of my friends supported me and in a girly way told me that what I was doing was not wrong as no sex was involved and that I should enjoy life whilst I can. My hubby protested and insisted that this was infidelity even though no physical contact was made and we almost got to the point of divorce.

8 years later and now I have found a fantastic female friend who I feel extremely close to. I have known her for 2 years but since June with our mutual sharing of problems and girl to girl discussions our friendship has become so intense that we just adore being in other's company. We text, phone and more so, email each other and just can't wait to spend time together when it is feasible (an evening after work, a day off work or half a sunday) and fits in with our families' needs. There is no sexual contact between us, however, the mutual intensity has lead us to be extremely tactile in a non sexual way. ie. we have skin contact, strong huggings etc and we have agreed boundaries.

My husband tells me that he noticed my habits and behaviour changing dramatically and is surprised that I have to be checking my emails at every opportunity, although, the frequency has been falling for the last couple of weeks. Initially, he suspected that I was onto another emotional affair with a man which is not the case.

After, explaining the depth of my new very close friendship with this female he still cannot accept it and claims that its intensity together with the past issues, has wrecked the marriage.

What I want to know from other mums is this: Do I not have a right to have an intimate female friend that I love and adore and, do not want to share its privacy with my hubby? Is he being unreasonable? After a number of attempts to get him to understand that there are parts of my inner core that are not his business, he is has shut down.

H E L P..

Would love any views and advice.

Loving your work Imperial

a*

Second thread of this type

Oh and while we are at it, you do know that not only 'mums' post in here don't you ...

If you don't feel passionate about your 'good honest' dh, encourage him to divorce you so that he can get passionate with a woman who's worthy of him.

As there's no shortage of good honest women who've had the dirty done on them by male equivalents of yourself, he'll be snapped up in no time and you'll be free to fall in and out of love with men, women, and beasts.

Poor bloody husband.

Your poor husband!

I truly came on here for help and although I thought some wouldn't agree with my stance, I felt a large proportion of women would agree that we women have a right to some privacy providing it doesn't involve sexual infidelity. A number of my friends definitely see no problem with my logic and rationale and point out that hubby's reactions are simply a form of control. And, controlling he is at times. Surely, there must be women out there that share my friends' and my view that the contents of my inner core are not my husbands business. Aren't the vast majority of people secretive to some extent?

Oh yes, I'm still hoping that some women (or men that frequent this board) will give me a more enriching answer and help rather that abuse. My post did ask for H E L P..... Please.

No, I don't think most people are secretive to some extent, but that's irrelevant because this isn't a personality trait, and it's not some harmless secretiveness.

It does not matter whom the other person is, or their gender. You have had two emotional affairs. One with a man, and now this one with a woman. You are aware that it's an emotional affair and you are rubbing your husband's face in it, as well as telling him that you don't want to share "that part" of yourself with your husband.

He doesn't need access to everything you do, I like to draw and run on my own, my partners have never had any part of that. But you cannot have another relationship on the side.

I think the crux of this is in that you have convinced yourself that you love your husband and he is good and honest so you should stay, but you never really did love him. You have no passionate feelings towards him. So when a potential partner comes along that you do have passion for, you discard your husband and run off with the new person.

All the things you like to do with her - seeing her, constant contact, physical touch, being excited to see each other - that's all stuff you should have with your husband. It may lessen over time and require work, but it should be there. It hasn't ever been, for you.

Leave your husband and free yourself to have the affairs that you want. Your friends are telling you what you want to hear because they are your friends and they want you to be happy.

Leave your husband and free yourself to have the affairs that you want. Your friends are telling you what you want to hear because they are your friends and they want you to be happy.

^ this

Emotional affairs are as bad as sexual affairs. Your friends are wrong. You were cheating on your DH and from what you have said, you are again.

If I was your DH I wouldn't trust you either.

AnchorDownDeepBreath. Thank you for not being insulting. I know I love hubby and he loves me. Leaving him or him leaving me is out of the question as neither of us wants to leave the children, despite the fact that my children now do not trust me as due to rows, our history is out in the open. Hence my request for help. Everything, is in tatters and the stability of the children is important to both of us (so hubby tells me). Besides, although hubby is self sufficient financially and does not need to work and as I only work 2 days a week for my (spending money) we can't afford to run 2 homes. In reality - The extra money needed is not there!

So a separation is not what either of us want. I want to repair the marriage yet 'now' he tells me that there is no marriage and probably never has been which is ridiculous overreaction on his part. He appears to be a silent angry man.

Views other than from my friends are worth listening to.

Maybe I'm looking for a magic pill to my problems.

No your DH is not being unreasonable. You should just go and live life on your terms and release DH from this soul destroying marriage. Sounds awful.

Poor kids....

I posted on another of your theeads.

Basically you need to leave him. You are giving him half a marriage and displaying appalling behaviour. He deserves better.

What you are doing is not ok and one day when the kids are older he will leave you if you carry on.

Your friends are arses if they think this is ok.

What's skin contact, is it a hand shake of cuddling with no clothes on?

You need to find a way to support yourself. It's not long until your kids will be adults and I can see him divorcing you then. You seem so sure he won't leave you, but eventually everybody has enough.

Sorry posted to soon.

My advice is either leave him or stop having emotional affairs. There atate the only two reasonable things to do.

You don't have an emotional affair 'purely by accident' especially not 3. If this was dh he would have been gone a long time ago.

Okay so I'm not a mum but I'm not surprised your husband is upset. You have a history of having very intense relationships with other people throughout your marriage. It doesn't matter that this friend is female - it sounds very similar to the emotional affair you had previously. There's nothing wrong with having a close friend but it does sound like more than friendship to be honest - e.g. having lots of skin contact. I wouldn't have skin contact with a friend unless I fancied them or was in a sexual relationship with them.

To me, it looks like you pursue these friendships because you lack those feelings for your husband. I'm sure he's well aware of that, hence why he's suspicious about your current behaviour. You haven't shown any concern for how your behaviour might be affecting your husband, and are very keen to justify everything eg. it's not an affair because she's a woman, the emotional affair wasn't really an affair as we didn't have sex (and how do you have an emotional affair by accident?) and my friends said it was okay. Actually, whether they were affairs or not isn't really the point. What matters is that they're upsetting your husband and focusing your energies and feelings on other people instead of your marriage.

I do understand what it must be like to be married to someone you don't feel passion for but if you want to stay in your marriage then you're going to have to see things from your husband's point of view. I think you're going to find it very difficult to have both your marriage and this friendship as it currently stands. If you've never felt passion for him and never will, then I think you're going to get stuck on this cycle of finding other people you do feel passion for, even if it's just a passionate friendship, with your husband getting upset about it. Your marriage clearly doesn't give you what you want so why do you stay? I'm sure the answer is because of your children, mortgage, he's a good man etc. It can't be much fun for your husband either, being married to a woman who doesn't feel about him the way he wants her to. IMO, you're going to either have to cut back on this friendship a bit or end your marriage, although I appreciate life isn't always that easy. I think you're going to have to think about whether this is really the man you want to spend retirement with, grow old with? Because once your children have left home, he's probably going to want to spend a lot more time with you and then what will you do? I don't think it's fair on either of you to carry things on the way they are.

Copied from your other thread: Well after your "accidental" emotional affair, your being in touch with an ex, I would have left you a long time ago. Why are you married? For stability and having children? It seems all your emotional efforts go to everyone except to the person you should focus on; your husband. He is not unreasonable at all.

I can't really believe the selfishness in your posts. You just want to be with your husband because it's convenient, but it needs to be on your terms and he is just going to have to accept your emotional affairs. He is overreacting? Are you serious? You have been cheating on him! He has every right to very very angry with you. Don't you see how selfish you are?

I'm genuinely astonished at your lack of self-awareness. Your selfishness and callous disregard for your husband's feelings is stunning.

You don't want to repair your marriage. Everything has to be on your terms. I'm not surprised he's a silent angry man when you contemptuously disregard his feelings as 'ridiculous'.

I feel so desperately sorry for your husband :(

Leave the poor bloke, PLEASE. You think it is massive overreaction on his part? You must be delirious. There is nothing right with what you are doing - why should your husband want to be with someone who is only there because it is convenient, rather than in any emotional capacity whatsoever. You say you love him but you do not appear to be in love with him in the slightest, and don't seem to have any grasp on his feelings. You are only thinking of yourself.

Tough shit if neither of you want to leave for the sake of the children. You're a serial cheat and you are cheating now whether you like it or not. You're not being fair on him or your children and don't kid yourself you're staying to be fair, you just want to have your cake. I hope he throws you out.

Your poor husband. Although I can't help judge him a bit for staying with you this long, his self esteem must be very low.

No, you are, and I feel sorry for your husband and children.