Forgiving an emotional affair

[broken99]

Has anyone done this?

The brief version is, the relationship isn't really romantic, but my BF became very attached to a woman who was infatuated with him and spent a lot of time with her behind my back without telling me.

He was isolating away from me as a key worker (as was she) and over many months she sort of met his needs when I wasn't around :( He says nothing was wrong with our relationship, I meet all his needs but apparently I wasn't there and he was lonely!!!

No sex happened
No kissing or anything
No romantic exchanges

I know all this is the truth as I have properly checked into it and also spoken to the woman and got both sides of the story. It's not helpful if people comment that I am getting an edited version of the truth, as I am 100% sure I have the full truth as I made bloody sure I did.

I realise this sounds like possibly just a friendship but it wasn't (at least from her side). They spent a lot of time spent together, doing inappropriate things like having dinner alone together at her house and it included deep, emotional attachment. She says she had fallen in love with him.

His version is he thought they were friends and didn't realise how inappropriate it was or that she was interested in him romantically. Her version is that she made it clear she was interested in him romantically and although she admits he rebuffed her advances and told her he loved me and wasn't interested in a relationship with her, he continued to cook her lunch and ask her over for coffee or to watch a film and so on.

I can't fathom how he thought it was okay to do that, but obviously he knew it wasn't okay as he never mentioned her to me and I found out when I noticed this woman tagging him on Facebook.

The worst part, is that he got very close to her and got very sad when he had to stop seeing her. That is the part which has broken me, because maybe I could wrap my head around isolation causing a friendship to get close in circumstances it otherwise would not have, but he seems to be having withdrawal from her :(

He says he loves me completely and has no romantic feelings for her but she was giving him "emotional fulfillment" (eg: he enjoyed being loved by her). He says he wants to work things out with me and he is willing to do anything (he has done everything I have asked) but I can't get over how bad I feel inside that he formed an emotional connection to another woman.

Has anyone ever gotten through this before? I feel like the relationship is soiled, ruined and I am no longer special and unique in his eyes and he says this is not reality and that he was never in love with her but was just enjoying what she was giving and had never really had close female friends before.

I spoke to the woman, and she is actually very nice, I can see why he liked her. She's clever and funny and a good conversationalist and she even made ME feel like she was emotionally supporting me :( She assured me that it's me he loves and she was just filling a gap. I just can't understand why he is missing her if he loves me. I feel sad, depressed, angry, confused and have no idea what to do.

I really doubt she has made a cover story, she was pretty horrible about him to me. I agree though, it sounds like he caught some kind of feelings. That devastates me. It's not what he did I can't get over, it's how he feels.

[quote broken99]@wanadu2022 Hmm. He says that it was different with her because he has no feelings for her, so he could just sort of bask in the light of her adoration. He said it didn't feel like it does in a romance where you have to be on your best behavior or think about anything, he says it was just like hanging out with a very best friend (he has never had a best friend before).

I just googled "codependent friendship" and this sounds very much like what this was :( She always needed rescuing, he says it made him feel needed (she's a mess emotionally) and they are both a bit dysfunctional whereas I am generally really together and calm.

This other woman really hates him now. After she got over her infatuation she says she thinks he is a complete dick for hanging out with her, knowing she was in love with him, if he didn't have feelings for her.

Incidentally, until this happened, he didn't miss her. For the months she was pining after him he was fine and said he didn't think of her at all but as soon as she hated him and stopped chasing he went through this weird grief thing.[/quote]
She was right, he is a dick, he used her. He knew how he felt but still used her. Another reason not to trust him in my opinion

Beware of battling on with him to avoid feeling the pain of what you think you have lost.

It's ok to acknowledge that you are hurt and that you need time to decide what the best decision for you is.

Remember we like to think there is 'the one' when in fact there are many who can be 'the one'.

A high percentage of men who lose their partners/wives will be in a new relationship with someone else within 2 years.

Finally it sounds like your self esteem is too tied up with how much you believe he does or doesn't love you.

Love yourself first - give yourself the love you would normally give to him. Stop thinking about what he might be thinking and start thinking about what you want for you.

The cuddling up together is too physical for my liking, I don't cuddle up with any of my friends, male or female. It's all a bit too intimate.

As an aside, why were they spending so much time together outside of work during the lockdown periods? Did he actively choose her as a support bubble person? If so, that too is pretty shitty.

@youvegottenminuteslynn

Do you want to be with someone so pathetic and so cruel that he needs ego stroking and attention to the point he betrays his partner and leads on someone he knows is besotted with him? And then blames both of them to varying extents (you for being absent through no fault of your own and her for still wanting to see him when he said he didn't feel the same) instead of being genuinely remorseful. He sounds like a right prick!

OP can you see what I'm saying here re him being bad to two women and then also blaming those two women for their own hurt / each other's? He's totally unaccountable and a complete user. Gives me the absolute ick.

[quote broken99]@wanadu2022 I agree with what you're saying, and it's crossed my mind, but I also can't imagine any other circumstances where he would be locked away from me for five months without us being able to see each other. That was how it worked between dealing with family things and his job in the background of the pandemic. I only really saw him for about three weeks in a 9 month period so it was pretty significant. That said, I have been sitting here pondering if I am ever not available for some reason, like if I am seriously ill or something - and he's my husband later on - is he going to try and get his needs met elsewhere??? It just seems so weird to me that he thought it was okay. He says with hindsight he would do a million things differently but at the time he thought it was harmless :(

One of the first things we did together after all this came to light was to read affair books, and one said that it was essential to have no contact with the affair partner, even if you felt it was over, because it put your spouse under permanent threat due to risk of relapse. It was that the temptation was that in the aftermath of an affair, things would become very hard with your spouse and you'd instinctively want your affair partner for comfort.

Although this wasn't a sexual affair, I completely agree with what the books said. In an ideal world, after all this happened he would have had no contact with her, he and I would have been alone together, and we could have worked it through without her in our face. As the circumstances were, he and I got a couple of months together (during which things were really good) and then there was another lockdown during which she was back in his face and I could not see him. So basically she was seeing him every day and I could not. The mental torture for me was beyond words.

I think he has shown such a weak streak in his character, because when that was happening and I was crying and sick from stress, he was basically thinking "oh things are awful with Broken99 and I am stuck locked up by myself, I wish I could go back to how nice it was when I was hanging out with other woman and everything was happy and fun".

What are your thoughts on this? Because for me, selfish doesn't really do it. It almost shows an unbelievable level of self absorption and a complete lack of empathy for me. He didn't go near her, but he wanted to :( Imagine how I felt???

I don 't think he is manipulative- he hasn't really got the ability for that sort of thing. It's more like he has no filter and takes everything literally. We read affair books and did some counselling about intimacy and I think he took the "complete transparency" advice way too literally and feels he needs to tell me everything. Also, strangely, in the early days of this mess he was also insensitive enough to be using her as a marriage counsellor and telling her how much he loved me and had screwed it up!!!

I agree that he could have just made friends with colleagues, and I am not sure why he felt the need to have that level of one-on-one intimacy. I don't think he's ever really been single, just gone from one relationship to the next. I am not sure what the psychology of that is. He admits, from this, he has realised he needs someone around.

I am not really "friends" with that woman. We were just friendly. We have closed communication now and she seems happy with her new fellow. She actually says she's in love with him too now after two months. She just falls in love easily I think. She was going through a divorce and feeling low and was a bit vulnerable. I think she saw my BF as the perfect package as he has a really good job, money, respect and so on. Plus he's a very kind and gentle person.[/quote]
But you don't have to be locked away. What's to stop him doing all this again without lockdowns, you know, the same way people cheated before the days of lockdown

@londonbrick thanks so much of that was insightful. I don't think my self-esteem is tied up in how much he does or doesn't love me. My decision is tied up in it.

IE:

If I believe he truly loves me and only me and this was just about a friendship, then I can get over it.

If I believe he loves me, but not enough to not feel stuff for other women, then I don't want that

It's about loving myself that drives me to want someone who loves me as much as I love them. I wouldn't want to grow old with less.

@lucie8881 they work together and got locked down together, so he was automatically in a bubble with her I suppose but he definitely didn't need to be spending evenings watching films with her, that crossed a line over to his own choice.

I do cuddle many of my male friends, and I admit, some of them fancy me and I know that BUT I'd never (a) hang out with them without telling my BF about it (b) hang out with them at night alone on a regular basis (c) miss them if they were not there!!!

He fucked her. Of course

@youvegottenminuteslynn yes, I completely see this and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I read a lot about cheating over these last few months, and the summary of why people cheat (sex or otherwise) is that they are basically selfish enough to want to get a need of some sort met, at the expense of the wellbeing of someone they are supposed to love.

Whatever his rationalisations are, I know that he was lonely and missing having a companion so he took that from someone in a way he probably knew was really wrong and would make me angry and then he ended up badly hurting her, badly hurting me and basically developing some sort of feelings of attachment towards this person which has ruined our relationship. It was such bad judgement and so selfish and stupid.

I didn't see him as a person who would be cruel and lead someone on the way he did her. I know he told her he wasn't into her, but I still think he was cruel to her. I didn't see him as a person who would ever hurt me or not protect me and that's one of the worst bits of it.

The strange thing is that he doesn't really blame anyone else, he is crying a lot, hates himself, says he has ruined himself and so on and he feels terrible, which is plain to see. If anything, he blames himself too much and doesn't seem to see she played any part in the whole thing (she was pretty full on trying to lure him).

What he seems to lack is the real accountability, because he doesn't seem to have this sense of cause and affect. I can't explain what I mean by that, but it's almost like he can't fully reason these things out and see specifically what he did wrong.

I've always thought he was on the spectrum to be honest as he's always stuggled with understanding complex emotional situations and he is quite childlike with situations and often doesn't see motivations behind things and takes stuff very literally.

I was picturing them cuddled up together on a sofa or something along those lines, more than a hug or just being tactile, but I may have read that wrong ....... I'm not an overly 'huggy' person anyway, so that's probably influencing my take on it and why it jumped out at me as crossing boundaries.

When separated from my partner for a prolonged period I would want/expect them to miss me, as I would them. Not fill that gap with the most suitable substitute available. That is the bit that wouldn't sit right ........ am I really that interchangeable??

(I'm sure you're not interchangeable, that's just what would be playing in my head)

@HalzTangz I'm not really worried about him cheating again, probably because even being locked up with the person for months he still didn't cross the line. It's more about me getting over him developing feelings towards this person. I am not sure how to get over that. I can't understand it because I can't imagine getting close enough to another man that there would be an attachment.

@lucie8881 That's exactly how I feel :( Interchangeable.

I don't want to be too much of a dick, but I always thought real love means that one person was so special they were completely irreplaceable. Is that fantasy?

I can't imagine replacing him temporarily with anyone else, nor wanting to, but if I did, I wonder would I form an attachment?

I am so confused :( I definitely feel interchangeable. He says that's not at all the case and his heart always belonged only to me but it feels that way and I can't get past it.

I keep wondering what he can do to make me feel better. Last week he panic-proposed. Sort of like Chandler and Monica and it was so ridiculous like he was proposing just to show me he loved me, which made me feel even worse.

I am just so lost. Thanks everyone for replying.

I don't want to be too much of a dick, but I always thought real love means that one person was so special they were completely irreplaceable. Is that fantasy?

Love is respecting someone enough that you don't do something that will make them feel like shit and if you do, for some reason, do that - not blaming not getting enough attention / the right attention / needing an ego boost / enjoying someone else wanting you etc in a bid to minimise what you've done and / or line up an excuse ready for doing it again.

As I said, I point blank wouldn't want to be with someone capable of letting someone they knew had fallen for them spend enough time with them, with just enough intimacy (hugging, dinners, private time, keeping them a secret) that they weren't crazy to think the feeling was mutual.

Then saying 'well I told you I didn't feel that way.'

He's a manipulator and at best a shitty person and a users who sees people around him as an extension of his wants and needs.

You wouldn't lead people on.

You wouldn't keep someone secret from your partner.

You wouldn't use them as a substitute partner with everything but the sex.

He would. He did. That's who he is.

The real question is - why do you think you deserve to be with someone who is like that?

I keep wondering what he can do to make me feel better. Last week he panic-proposed. Sort of like Chandler and Monica and it was so ridiculous like he was proposing just to show me he loved me, which made me feel even worse.

I would ask him for a break in contact to clear your head at least. If he loves you he will respect that and not go running to someone else or say you're being unreasonable. Let him lick his wounds somewhere you don't have to watch.

@youvegottenminuteslynn everything you said there was really true. I just feel so sad because I thought I had a great relationship with a great man I thought the world of. I see he has done things which show lack of character and that's a sad thing for me.

I agree I probably need some space.

He stupidly thought they could just be really good friends and misses the friendship he naively hoped it could be when he's feeling down

I don't think he is that naive. I've been in an emotional affair. We had previously dated, parted ways but maintained communication for many many years afterwards. During the latter part of that time, he was in a relationship and had even had a child with someone.

When I read some of the OP's posts and posts in reply to the OP, and I imagined my EA spouting similar stuff and am shaking my head. My EA knew how I felt about him and he continued with it knowing that. That didn't make him naive. It makes him manipulative.

He also said enough to make me think he genuinely believed he genuinely had feelings for me. I never believed he really did love me and knew long before I finally stopped it, that I was an ego boost.

Towards the end, he must have felt me slipping away and threw everything at me - how he never loved his partner and all sorts really.

In the middle of this EA, his partner found out and threatened to leave with their child. She read all his messages and mine too. He stopped all contact for almost a year before resuming it from a private email account. To this day, I get emails from him, infrequent but I get them on special days. He knows what he is doing, I imagine the ego and flattery I once gave him, keeps me living on in his memory. I loved him very much and his name always makes my heart jump when I see it but I never reply. He still emails from a private email account.

@pinkmagnolias that's so sad :(

I am wondering about the fact that my BF seemed to have no feelings or interest at all in this woman until she was happy with someone else and no longer chasing him. Is the psychology of that ego?

Christ OP, I would have thought you were describing my ex who had the emotional affair. Also on the spectrum most likely though never diagnosed formally. Also couldn't understand cause and effect, also secretive to avoid hurting peoples feeling. And couldn't understand motivations. Also very transparent with no filter, very literal, and told me things about her I definitely didn't need to know.

The truth is though, I always thought he might be on the spectrum but by the end I wasn't really sure if he played up to it to avoid taking responsibility or really didn't see the world that way. All I knew was I didn't trust his mind worked in a way that would preclude this from happening again: he always cried and showed remorse but was never really accountable. Also said he turned to her every time things were difficult with us.

All that however was his problem. And he selfishly involved me and dumped the burden of it on me. That's what I couldn't forgive. No one should ever make you feely this anxious and upset and insecure, it's likely how HE feels in life (insecure) and in a perverse way wanted to break down your calm, secure persona to match it. Not intentional but that is what insecure people do. They tear down others. And it seems to be what he's done to you

@wanadu2022 thank you, this sounds spot on but makes me really sad. I have a lot of thinking to do

Is the psychology of that ego?

My EA told me he had never been successful with women. They had never chased him ie stroked his ego. I can safely say he felt 'superior' to me - professionally and financially - which is probably why he felt he could say those things. There were many instances, early on in our relationship, where he hinted at there being other women. He called them 'friends'. I remember one who was visiting him from another country. She stayed with him for a few days and he told me she was so surprised that he didn't sleep with her. I think he told me that as a way of showing me I meant something to him back then. He had initially described her as a 'friend' and why did he tell me that, someone they were interested in being in a relationship with? Again it was about his ego, not about me.

A few years ago he bought a house, a very big house in a very desirable part of the city. I know because he emailed me to tell me, and told me he would send me photographs of it. What sort of cruel person would that to somebody who had envisioned their future being together? Obviously I replied to him at the time asking him not to and to stop contacting me. He literally could not contain his ego yet described himself as painfully shy.

OP, let him go. He's 'involved' with her, whether it involves physical contact or not.

Sorry OP, you don't get to tell people what to say. You don't know anything he tells you is true. You don't know he didn't shag her, kiss her or whatever.

he got very close to her and got very sad when he had to stop seeing her

That alone says it all to me.

@pinkmagnolias :( This is sounding very familiar. My BF is also the same and has never had a woman chase him before. He feels superior to this woman too, in almost every way (money, looks, age, finances). The reserve is true with us where he seems me as more together than him, better looking, more sociable and so on :(