Has anyone forgiven an emotional affair?

[mumofpickles]

How do you move on? Is it possible to? I Would really appreciate hearing how other people got through this, stay or leave. We have young children to consider too.

Some good friends of mine are still together after he had an emotional affair a few years ago. It was the right decision for them. They are in a happy and supportive marriage and bringing up their three DCs together. After it happened, he got a new job in a different office and they moved house. All fine now.

People on these boards will be quick to say LTB but often the relationship is salvageable. If you need a reality check, head to the Step Parents board to see what your DCs can expect from you splitting and either or both of you find new partners.

Thank you I really do want to hear as many outcomes as I can. Long marriage which I thought was happy. He is saying all the right things and prepared to do anything I ask to be offered the chance to repair this. It gave him an ego boost having someone telling him how amazing is is - but emotive words are powerful and cause great hurt. I could forgive a drunken one night stand easier.

How long did this go on for ? How did you find out ? Have you seen all the conversations?

Viva they met in Dec on night out limited contact via face book likes on page etc bumped into each other in Jan when out and started messaging. Messaged through lock down and onwards. Starter meeting up Sept for coffee. I have seen all messages.

I caught my husband out about 8 years ago. I managed to get over it I guess and move on quite quickly, I didn’t spend nights worrying it was still going on etc. Never brought it up in arguments but I always thought it!

We are now divorcing, not as a direct result if the cheating but it has contributed to it (8 years later I know!!). More so that I forgave him for cheating quicker than he forgave me for scraping my car on a fence! His standards for me were too high to ever meet while his own standards are in the gutter!

Looking back I should’ve left then but I’m in a much better position now financially and emotionally. My kids are older (14 & 10).

My advice would be to absolutely take the time to think about you, how you feel and if you can live with this long term x

How did you find out; did you discover this yourself because you sensed something was off or did he tell you?.

Re your comment:-
"He is saying all the right things and prepared to do anything I ask to be offered the chance to repair this".

Your children and your own self should be number 1 priority now.
But what is he doing off his own initiative?. Has he himself suggested and even booked counselling for his own self?. Forget him for the minute, what do you want going forward?. His conduct re this other woman is no reflection whatsoever on you as a person, this is all entirely on him. Do not further do the pick me dance.

You sound exactly like me OP. I'm struggling with how he could do what he has done to me. He was supposed to be my person, love and protect me, not be the one who broke my heart.

It's that I can't move past.

He's saying the right things, is embarrassed, mortified, disgusted in himself, it's everything he abhors but he did it 🤷🏻‍♀️

We are going to go to counselling but unless there's a magic pill they can give me I'm not sure we'll get past this.

Was it a long term thing for your DH? Did he change? Become distant, treat you unkindly?

While I was trying to come to terms with the emotional affair, he felt pushed away and that I was snappy and unkind to him, so he started shagging her because I was mean. We divorced.
The shagging was not the last straw, there was so much more I put up with (until MN pulled off my rose tinted glasses...) but the emotional affair was the bit that hurt most deeply and a decade on still does.

I did, for 3 years, it will very difficult, everything imo was ruined, xmas, birthdays, anniversaries most things were triggers for me. I found out 3 years later it had also been physical and he'd been lying to me for a further 3 years about this. I couldn't then carry on so we divorced. I wish I'd left when I first found out. In hind sight it was too much for me to live with and I couldn't ever forgive or get back to any sort of normality

I will come back later to talk through my experience, as we are approaching 12 months since I found out this week.

In the meantime, I would recommend checking out Affair Recovery - I found their articles and you tube videos very helpful in the early days.

We're a year and a half down the line. It's OK, but for me it's very much about coparenting now and I don't love him like I did because he hurt me so much. Outwardly it's fine. We go on holiday, we do stuff with the kids, we do all the stuff we did before. But i was reading a thread yesterday where the OPs husband had upped and left her and I was jealous. That's not a great place to be.

He has off his own back gone to see the doctor and has booked a counsellor for a phone appt this morning. There was not a sexual relationship months of texts and a few snatched coffees in Costa car park with kissing goodbye. He is not at home and won't be until I have decided how I want to move forward. I thankfully am independent and don't need him financially. I have found the word limerance and this seems to describe it exactly.

He had been a bit distant and withdrawn and when asked said it was due to lockdown which he did struggle with alot. I noticed in Sept that he was seceretative and twitchy with his phone and this month he has been constantly texting. I used facial recognition in the night to check his messagesnamd read them. I did post under another user name about this. First time in 24 years I have ever felt the need to do this.

Much like PPs, it will be a year in Jan since I found out about husbands emotional affair. And like you OP he sang the right songs and danced the dance so I decided to stay and try for the sake of our daughter and our relationship. However, to me our marriage will never be the same despite how much I love him. I think about it nearly everyday. The trust is gone and my mental health has suffered. We are still working through it and I am under no illusion that our marriage may not survive in the long run but for me right now I need to try. I hope you are ok OP.

Better to be from a so called broken home than to remain in one. Also in the scenario that you had cheated, would your H have been this forgiving?. Your mental health has taken a pounding and your DD picks up on all the vibes here.

If there is no trust now LittleMoonPig, there is really no relationship. Staying for really your DDs sake too is a decision that could backfire on you as well. Its a terribly heavy burden to place upon a child she wont say "thanks mum" for staying in such circumstances and could well wonder of you why you put him before her.

If your DD was the adult here in this situation what would your counsel be?.

We're three years in. It was tough, really tough, but we're getting there. I should add that on the back of the emotional affair he shagged her. He says once, but I imagine a couple of times - after all, I'm not stupid and the story started with the lie that they hadn't slept together, so make of it what you will.

She lives in North America and most of their affair was carried out online, apart from the two-day 'business trip' when he went to visit her. (She was one of our sub-contractors....).

For me, the emotional affair part was much harder to come to terms with than the sex. Although I know I would have been hurt if he'd had a ONS it was the emotional involvement that was the killer. The discussing of our marriage, talking about our children. Oh, and the complete character assassination that she carried out on me - that he started to believe. She had never even spoken to me, let alone met me. My contact with her was through half a dozen emails to set her contract up. He was such a gullible idiot.

He's not the same person that I married. I still love him, but it's very different now and I don't trust him in the same way - he shattered that. I've grown from it though and have learned a lot about myself.

We've been together almost 30 years and married for 27. If it had been at the beginning or even 10 years in I'd have walked without looking back. As it is, there's a huge emotional investment, children, and we run a business together. He's not actually that bad really. Just this once he was led by god knows what - his dick probably.

I wish you luck OP. You have to do what you want. Make choices based on how you want this to pan out.

One thing I would say is that many people on here will suggest you LTB. Only you can make that decision - it's not wrong to stay if you want to.

OP, is he truly remorseful?
Does he listen when you ask about the EA and not get annoyed when you ask?
Did he let you read all the messages and what was the most hurtful things you read in them?

"If you need a reality check, head to the Step Parents board to see what your DCs can expect from you splitting and either or both of you find new partners."

@PersonaNonGarter just checking, is this a way of suggesting to OP that she will damage her DC if she decides to end the relationship?

No, it’s not. If I wanted to say the OP would damage her DC by divorcing then I would have said exactly that. How can I know what will or won’t damage her DC? Do you think being a step child is always damaging? It’s pretty circumstance specific IMO.

The point about the Step Parents is the reality for the OP. Her DC being split between homes and not there with her, another woman having them or when the OP meets someone else, the reality of maybe having step children in her own home.

I am not saying don’t LTB. Just that when the EA seems the biggest and most all-consuming issue, resolving it by splitting up may have just as long lasting pain. My friends who stayed together are better and stronger and their DCs are lucky for that.

I would struggle to see this as 'just' emotional affair if it progressed to kissing at real life meetings as that suggests to me that the physical contact would absolutely have escalated if you hadn't caught him out.

"The point about the Step Parents is the reality for the OP. Her DC being split between homes and not there with her, another woman having them or when the OP meets someone else, the reality of maybe having step children in her own home."

On balance, OP also needs to consider the reality of staying with a man that is liable to cheat on her, and the damage it could cause DC if they end up 'abandoned' by their father later down the line because he decides he can't commit to keeping it in his pants.

I did and I never would again, sorry. It turns out my leopard didn’t change its spots, and after the third I called time.

Forgiving one felt like the right thing to do, and she said all the right things but it never really went away, I never totally trusted her again I don’t think, and her doing it again made me feel like I’d been taken for a mug.

It impacts your self esteem, and forgiving can mad you feel they “got away with it”

*make

I agree with @newnameforthis123

I think this was more than an emotional affair. You say that they met on a night out, added one another on Facebook, bumped into one another on another night out ( ) began texting. That means that there was an attraction and they sought one another out.
It wasn't an existing friendship or crossing of boundaries with a colleague.
They met for coffees and kissed goodbye. I'm sorry OP, but in my book, that's a full blown affair.

Maybe it makes no difference to you, but you describing it as an emotional affair is very much undermining it,IMO.

Could I forgive it? No

I wish I could as it would make life so much easier. But @ Twinkie01 said exactly how I feel. Also a long term marriage , 31 years ! , so a lot at stake. But I dont love him , forgive him , respect him or trust him. And I don't think I will ever change.