My husband loves someone else as well as me

[Sazdun]

Bit of a long winded one but all my close friends are also friends of his or wives of his friends so have no one to turn to.
My husband and I have been married for 8 years and together for 15. We have two girls (5 years and 10 months) and life is pretty much perfect. Yet despite all this I have found out he is in love with someone else. I know he loves me too but having seen how he behaved last weekend I am now all over the place and feel shattered.
Back in 2013 a new girl joined his work and from the get go it was clear there was a mutal attraction there (I don't think anything aside from some slight flirting has ever occured) but she also moved very near to us and as a result my husband (fiance at the time) and her would share lifts, walk to work together etc and grew close. Since they both met she has also been with her partner too. This is why I don't believe anything has ever occurred between them.
Over the years my husband and her have been on work trips together, hung out together and we as a couple have socialised with her.
To be honest, current issue aside, I see what my husband likes about her, she is pretty and very kind. Over the years she has made a real effort to include me, give gifts to our kids, help us out but if I am honest deep down it has always left a bit of a nagging feeling that this is all just an attempt to seem great to my husband. I know this makes me sound paranoid but otherwise she would just be too bloody perfect.
In return my husband seems to make an effort in his friendship with her even though he is not an overtly sociable guy. They message each other fairly regularly despite working together and while the message are all above board (I've checked), he doesn't behave like this with any other women.
After a night out when people mistook her for his wife and his friends were teasing me about 'the other woman', we had an argument about her and candidly spoke to him about her. He said he doesn't know what it is about her but he likes her and cares for her and is someone he would like in his life. While that made me slightly uncomfortable and I don't really know what to make of that, at the same time I want my husband to have friends who he cares about who are a range of different people. It has meant Over the past three years I have stepped up to be a friend to her too, I thought that might guarantee there is less chance she might overstep the mark and do anything. As I have got to know her I can see she cares deeply for my husband but that she also values the friendship I have with her too. I also think she is quite lonely and insecure. Personally I think she can do better than the guy she is with and I can see why someone like my husband is the type of person in an ideal world she would be with however in this world he is my husband.
Anyway last weekend we were at her wedding and my husband's reaction to her freaked me out and brought everything that has been under the surface for the past 8 years to a head. As she walked down the aisle he couldn't take his eyes of her. He even said to me she looked stunning (he isn't the type of guy to normally talk about people like that) and at a point in the ceremony he looked about ready to cry (he didn't even look at me like that at our own wedding). Later at the reception when my husband and her danced together they looked perfect together and so happy to be dancing together. I honestly felt like I had been punched in the gut. We left not long after as I said I didn't feel well. When we got home the next day I spoke to him about how I felt and asked him if he loved her. He said that he ofcourse loved me but there was a part of him that did love her but he didn't know in what way and he has felt like that for years but would never do anything to hurt me and our girls. When I asked him if he wanted to be with her, he said there was no point discussing that, however now I can't get it out my head. He has known her since before we got married, he could have broken it off with me and got with her if he wanted and I feel she would have been happy to go with him but now I feel like she will always be the perfect one who got away to him and I will never be able to view their relationship as an innocent friendship.
I don't know what to do. She has invited us round for dinner next weekend but I can't even face seeing her and I now feel like my husband doesn't truly love me or that our life is the one he truly wants and I feel heartbroken.
Any advice on what to do would be great.

Riverlee
Exactly what you said, great advice too.
I know it's probably not the done thing to say this on MN but there are some decent people around who don't chase anyone with a pulse. It is possible to have a deep emotional connection without an accompanying sexual spark. Just because it's rare doesn't mean that's not what is going on with OPS husband

I wouldn't be able to deal with this, it would hurt too much and I would have to end the relationship.

As soon as his soft spot for her starting growing he should have cooled the friendship because it was the right thing to do.

This.

He's fooling himself - and is trying to tell you - that he's done nothing wrong. He's massively overstepped and let himself get into this emotional affair.

@LetHimHaveIt

Fuck me. And now we've got people commending his honesty. Don't worry, OP! He's chosen you, after all 🙄

It probably is possible to love two people at the same time - it's certainly possibly to have feelings for two. Here's the thing - a decent person would make his choice and keep it to him fucking self. By telling the OP, he's making sure she's in a perpetual headfuck of confusion, anxiety, trepidation, and gratitude. What a prince 🙄

💯

I think it’s admirable he has been honest with you knowing how many people would take his words.
Many would have gas lit you and said you were imagining it rather than risk your reaction to the truth.

Many people are capable of loving more than one person. People do it with children without questioning it.

If he has committed to you and chosen you over whatever feeling he has for her when you’re clear she would have got with him if he had left you then what is actually the problem here?

Thats he’s not an unfeeling stone and cares about another human?

That you feel insecure?

@LetHimHaveIt

Fuck me. And now we've got people commending his honesty. Don't worry, OP! He's chosen you, after all 🙄

It probably is possible to love two people at the same time - it's certainly possibly to have feelings for two. Here's the thing - a decent person would make his choice and keep it to him fucking self. By telling the OP, he's making sure she's in a perpetual headfuck of confusion, anxiety, trepidation, and gratitude. What a prince 🙄

Yeah definitely. Tbh though, even the best liar probably couldn't hide these feelings for years on end without something showing in him.

He should have kept his mouth shut though. What a prick.

I really hope this woman is disgusted by this, tells him to fuck off and continues to offer friendship to the op.

@SomePosters

I think it’s admirable he has been honest with you knowing how many people would take his words. Many would have gas lit you and said you were imagining it rather than risk your reaction to the truth.

Many people are capable of loving more than one person. People do it with children without questioning it.

If he has committed to you and chosen you over whatever feeling he has for her when you’re clear she would have got with him if he had left you then what is actually the problem here?

Thats he’s not an unfeeling stone and cares about another human?

That you feel insecure?

Are you serious? You're talking about gaslighting and yet you yourself are gaslighting someone in a monogamous relationship into thinking there is something wrong with her and she must be insecure for thinking her husband should not have romantic feelings for somebody else. How ironic, and awful to boot.

This is nothing like loving more than one child. People in monogamous relationships are supposedly committing to this kind of affection for one person only.

I haven’t read all the responses but a few people think you should leave him. I don’t agree.

I think you have 2 options. decide if you can cope with his friendship with her or not. Be completely honest with yourself.

If you can accept it, you need to get him to back off a little, and you need to bring her down a peg or two in your head.

If you can’t, you need to talk to him. Tell him you don’t want him to see her socially any more and stop texting. Ask him to cut all contact, for you.

Either way you need him to know how hurt you are and make him understand how you feel, if he loves you he will back off to save your relationship. Chances are her partner doesn’t like the friendship too much either.

Would you consider relationship counselling, OP? I think that you need to work through this issue before making any hasty decisions. You have two children together so it is worth trying to move through to a better place with your marriage.

"what is actually the problem here?

Thats he’s not an unfeeling stone and cares about another human?

That you feel insecure?"

oh come on.

Your relationship sounds more like you are the mother helping her teenage son negotiate relationships than a partner who is furious her DH is making sheep's eyes at another woman.

There's something where your DH is allowed or even encouraged to put his needs at the front and you put your needs away.

At least half of your post is telling us how wonderful this woman is.
Instead of telling us you are furious.

It's all about your DH. His feelings, what he wants, his friendships are encouraged, this woman is wooed by both of you.
You ponder and sit and think about his stuff, ask him about his stuff, his feelings, how things are for him. Him, him, him, him.

What about you?
Where is your anger, girl?? Because you better start connecting with your bitch self pretty soon.
You are the one he's with. You are the one he's married to.

You need to tell your DH how you feel and what your demands are for a relationship. Even to the point of telling him to leave for a while until he decides who he is in love with.
Otherwise, he will continue to see you as a kindly friend helping him with his idealistic, romantic dreams.

I had an affair a number of years ago and the feelings your husband has for this girl sound very like what my affair partner had for me. When everything blew up he told his wife he had loved me but didn't anymore, that he wanted to stay in the marriage (though largely for family stability reasons) but those feelings for me didn't go away and three years later, he ended the marriage anyway. While his wife was and is a very difficult person, he treated her very badly in stringing her along, in large part because he didn't have the balls to end his marriage initially and be the bad guy. Your husband sounds a very similar type of person, he thinks - or maybe did until recently - that there's some magical world where no one gets hurt and he can love both of you without that causing any damage. But clearly that illusion is cracking and the wedding was where he realised finally the depth of his feelings and/or the reality that the status quo was not going to be able to continue. I am certain he is not some pantomine villain serial shagger type and as you say yourself, the OW (if we can call her that) is a person of worth also. This doesn't make your situation or your decision making any easier, it makes it harder. My honest feeling is that once the genie is out of the bottle feelings wise for someone else - and these sound like very genuine feelings which have developed over many years - then there is no stuffing them back. I think you would always wonder what was going on, was he staying out of duty....but life and people are complicated. I know a few people in good functioning marriages where they know the heart of their spouse belonged first and best to another. And they make it work. It wouldn't be for me but then lots of ways of living wouldn't be.

Thank you everyone for your feedback. I do not want to split with him. I love him so much. All your advice has validated what I am feeling and after a workout and looking smoking in ny workout gear (don't ask he finds it sexy) I told him we needed to talk. Like typical parents of under 5s we did it amidst toast and not at the best time.
He was better this time and reassured me nothing has ever happened. He looked upset that he had hurt me. I didn't feel an ultimatum was best at this stage. However he went off with the dog and for a coffee and I have just received this by text and I don't know...is this me back at square one? I'm still on mat leave and my oldest girl isn't in school, should I go to scare him? I don't want to split, I don't even want to leave and I also don't even particularly want him to lose his friend that he cares about but it just feels so painful right now.

This is what he wrote in the text:
I know I hurt you with the words I said last weekend and I am so sorry for that. I love you so much baby. I love our love, our history all of it. Last weekend was just so strange, the feelings I had were like ones I have never had before and I expressed myself poorly when I was still trying to figure it out myself. We are always honest with each other even when we have to say things we don't want to hear so here I go.
Do I love her? Yes but I cannot explain the type of love it is. She is my friend, I want the best for her, sometimes her choices frustrate me but I am not her husband, her brother so I have to step back and it annoys me at times because I know I could make it better but boundaries and I don't
want to step on her man's toes. You know me, I like to fix things if I can. You and I have even talked about this and how we wish we could sort those bits of her life because she is such a great person.
Am I attracted to her. I suppose there have been times I have been, it has come and gone. I have never acted on that but on reflection I probably have flirted with her more than I should have at the beginning, nowadays it is the same sort of banter you have with your guy friends or that is how I think of it, how we both think of it. We have in jokes and nicknames but I have that with all the lads. There's also no kisses at the end of messages because she is first and foremost my mate.
Would I have been with her if I could? Had we both been single when we met then yes we probably would have got together and who knows it could have been a disaster and we split after two months. I know it pissed you off when people thought she was my wife but you see a man and woman together and people make that assumption. She only once pretended she was when we were away when some crazy woman was hiting on me and kept asking if I had a wife and I told you about that. We have never kissed or been intimate. Yes there have been some hugs but that was after the accident, her surgery and when she has been in blown depression meltdown. Sometimes she has worn really fucking stupid shoes when we have been out and I have had to give her my arm but everytime I have told you especially since the wife incident of 15. Full disclosure when we first met I probably I was curious about what it would like with her. However it was never actually something i planned to do. Yes I thought about it and I think she felt the same way but it was never acted on, maybe we both liked the new attention after both being in long relationships but as I got to know her I just wanted her in my life and that didn't have to be in a romantic way. I liked talking to her, hanging out with her. We like the same things, we vent to each other about work, she was and is my friend. However sometines we can go weeks not talking or messaging each other, like you and your girlfriends and my other friends so that is why I have never conbsidered it anything more. But as the years have gone on we have developed a friendship I value. It is why I wanted you also to be friends because I think you and I are quite similar and i thought that if you got to know her you would enjoy her company too. You have as I thought also been her friend and she values your friendship too. I also didn't want you to think there was more to it. Her husband has a female friend who was an ex of his and she feels threatened by it at times, she has said she would never want you to view our friendship in the same way and I think that is why she has went out of her way to spoil us at times and give you and the girls gifts over me, to show that she sees us as a family, as a couple. When you and I have had arguments or rough patches, she has always been on your side and told me to stop being an idiot. If there was any attraction between us in the past, I think I can say our desire to be friends over rules that, so she doesn't pander to me or sell you out. I think we both just appreciate having a male/female perspective from people other than our partners.
This is why I am so conflicted. I love you with all my heart, you mean so much to me, I wouldn't be who I am today without you, I love our life and I wouldn't want to do anything or would do anything to ruin that. However I have a friend I care a great deal about and seeing her get married made me feel things I didn't expect to feel and I still don't understand why I felt that way or what it means, I am sorry I can't give you anymore answers than that.

"Back in 2013...it was clear there was a mutual attraction". That's the interesting bit, you clocked it then, and despite your suspicions did nothing about it. Or maybe you did, perhaps the getting married and having children was all part of securing him. It didn't make him chose though, because you maintained a "cool partner stance". Yes it's made him more secure in a physical sense, so he is blocking out the idea of being with her because of the upheaval it would now cause. But mentally,and emotionally, he's giving her lots of his headspace.
If could go back, knowing what you now know, you would probably have made him chose before the wedding and before the DC's. I get it, it's hard to let go and you'd already been together years when she came on the scene, and without physical proof, it's hard to challenge. Based on what he's told you recently though, you have that proof, at least he's been honest albeit years down the line.
The status quo has been hanging in the air for years, he's had the best of both worlds and not been challenged. It's time to make him take a good hard look. You do that by insisting on time apart so that he has some stark realism on what it means to lose his family. Then he has to chose between either continuing the " situationship" or you and family life, but insist he can't have both. If it's you he choses, he has to cut her out of his life for good. If he's unwilling to agree to that, you have your answer.
Be prepared to end up not liking him how he is after she has gone from the picture, he may end up just sulking and moping rather than focusing back where he should, in which case, back yourself and end it then.

That's a lot of words about a woman who isn't you

He seems completely wet to me.

Full disclosure - I've been the woman friend to a married man like this (not for 9 years tho!) and he absolutely wanted to leave his wife for me. He was such a flakey ditherer I was having none of it. He would have flimflammed and gone back to her for their comfortable life, I have no doubt.

Bottom line, your husband is wet and he doesn't deserve you.

@SomePosters

I think it’s admirable he has been honest with you knowing how many people would take his words. Many would have gas lit you and said you were imagining it rather than risk your reaction to the truth.

Many people are capable of loving more than one person. People do it with children without questioning it.

If he has committed to you and chosen you over whatever feeling he has for her when you’re clear she would have got with him if he had left you then what is actually the problem here?

Thats he’s not an unfeeling stone and cares about another human?

That you feel insecure?

im sorry , but some people seem to have their standards set at a low level and you seem to be one of them .

yes we are capable of loving more than one or mulitple people , but generally we are not in sexual relationships with our children , parents and friends , i love my friends , my daugther , my mother , im not bloody married to them and having sex with them though !!

all of us male or female should be expecting that someone who we are married to or in a commited relationship with is with us wholeheartly , not just putting up with the scraps off the bone

lets be clear , hes married to her with kids ,yet in a close emotional relationship with this other woman who he professes to love , needs her in this life , isnt backward about saying how stunning he finds her ,nearly in tears seeing her getting hooked up to another bloke , and wont commit to a truthful answer about if hed be with her if he had the chance to , and this is supposed to be admirable in some way ?

what you are suggesting is that the op or someone in her position is supposed to overlook all this and just be grateful hes chosen her and isnt actually leaving her and kids for the friend , hes chosen her after all. what a lucky woman she is !
no wonder so many people . mainly women settle for this rubbish when other women no less peddle it out

He might be being honest, but he is being incredibly selfish and cruel. I think you need to talk to him again. If he says there’s no point discussing it tell him you need to know so you can decide whether you stay with him or not. Tell him he has to stop this now, step away, because it’s destroying his marriage and family. Tell him you’re really hurting and have been for a while. Tell him you don’t want your children growing up thinking this is a normal relationship, with one person idolising someone else. Tell him you’ve tried being friends with her too etc, but it’s just hurting you. Tell him if he loves and cares for you he has to step away, because this is breaking point.

I couldn't handle that sort of message. It's completely unsettling and destructive to the marriage.

OP, I'm so sorry and I would feel the same way as you, though would probably feel less understanding about his friend.

However, I'd be very fed up with a man who blethered on to that extent about it all. It's all very me, me, me. He needs to stop navel-gazing and get his act together and make some tough decisions about who the most important people are. I do sympathise with you not wanting to leave him, though, as divorce is no fun.

If you were single I’d 100% say leave him.

As you’re not, I would get into a position of greater strength before I made my move.

Collect copies of all bank, building society, mortgage, credit card, pension statements, See a solicitor secretly to check what you’re entitled to if you divorce.

Once you know the worst case position you can make any conditions you like for continuing your relationship.

In the meantime, don’t take on any new joint financial commitments, don’t give up your job if you have one and don’t get a job if you’re a SAHM.

For me he would have to willingly give up all contact with the OW. If he won’t it would be the end of the relationship.

'It wouldn't be for me but then lots of ways of living wouldn't be.'

Including a way whereby you don't fuck someone else's husband, evidently.

That was quite the humblebrag disguised as a helpful message to the OP 🙄

"That's a lot of words about a woman who isn't you
"

Exactly what I thought. He's utterly self indulgent and it's like they are the relationship and you have to do the work to be ok with it. Accepting what they say you should be grateful for.Totally disrespectful.

She is not a person I would want around. I'm single. I'm very clear and respectful to married men. There is just no way this friendship bollocks should ever have become whatever this nonsense is. You're supposed to be grateful. Fuck that.

Find your anger. Set your boundaries. They're taking the piss.

It is really, really selfish of him to put any of that onto you if he is expecting the relationship to continue.

I am firmly of the opinion that if you cheat or love someone else you should tell your spouse as they have a right to choose whether to leave. But there is a unique selfishness to just wanting to put this sort of thing out there but with the expectation that the relationship will continue and you will just live with that hanging over you.

Personally, I would be furious with him. No he hasn't cheated, but he has fancied a woman, flirted with her, and then gone out of his way to make her a massive part of his life. He has told you outright that he is "conflicted" because his friendship with a woman whose wedding caused him profound, unexpected "feelings" is as important to him as his marriage to you. It doesn't matter if he never intended to act on it, it is disrespectful and humiliating towards you.

For me the relationship would be sullied and there would be no going back from that without him atoning for his acute selfishness in both his actions, and burdening you with the information now, by taking an enormous step back from this friendship.

I think you are being far too forgiving.

That's a lot of words about a woman who isn't you

Indeed. If she called him tomorrow and said she’d left her new husband, would he go to her? I wonder what her DH thinks of it all.

Damage has been done and he will need to work hard to repair it. Couples’ counselling. New job. No more social contact with this woman.

That's a lot of words about a woman who isn't you

My thoughts exactly

He's written the world's longest text and it's pretty much all about her - and him.

Not only is that lacking massive self awareness, it also shows what's on his mind and what he sees as important.

What about YOUR feelings?