Emotional affair?

[Kit7]

My wife (together 22 years) has started Facebook messaging a friend / colleague from her work quite a lot a few months ago. They talk most days in the evening and she become cagey round her phone. She can chat for hours and becomes more distant from me.

A few months ago I said I think it’s getting out of hand and she should review it. I said that there’s some redlines like going to his house or going out on their own. Since then she’s been to his house twice once I knew in advance and it was to help her prep for an interview. I wasn’t comfortable with this but didn’t have a choice.

last week she went to the cinema with him just those two I told her I wasn’t comfortable and it was crossing the boundary I’d already said I wasn’t happy with but she’s disregarded it and insists they are just friends. she initially said it was a group, which I thought was ok. Then it was a case of she’s not sure who is going, then it was just him and her and she’d offered to go so he wasn’t alone.

i have previously seen some of her messages (yes I snooped and not good) and some were too personal in my opinion for a chat with a casual friend, some were flirty and some she’s discussed sex toys(!). Now she just deletes messages and keeps her phone glued to her.

I know she’s lonely, she doesn’t have many friends. Neither do I but it all just seems too much for me.

I really don’t think this is fair but I feel powerless to do anything. She would just say I’m controlling if I asked her to stop.
i appreciate any advice you can offer.

Thanks and I’m sorry you are going through a similar situation. I know it’s hard.

on one had I would like to confront him so he understands how I feel but on the other I don’t want to make things worse and I assume he’s not empathic to my situation. I don’t like confrontation and avoid such things generally. I I knew for sure that something was happening I’d be more inclined though. The whole situation has left me double guessing myself and wondering if I’m just being paranoid much of the time.

LTB

I agree with what you and other posters have said in this thread about there needing to be boundaries set, and your wife's disregard of your feeling towards something that many people would feel the same as you about, is wrong and selfish. She has done nothing to assure you except shrug your feelings off. If the situation was the other way around, I am pretty certain she wouldn't be as flippant.

However, something did go through my head too... do you know for a fact that this friend isn't gay? Reason I ask, is I remember an old workmate had a situation similar to yours and was concerned that his girlfriend spent large amounts of time with a male friend. It turned out her friend was gay.

The whole situation has left me double guessing myself and wondering if I’m just being paranoid much of the time

It doesn't matter if you are. If you were paranoid in a healthy relationship, your wife would reassure you, and if that became too much for her, she'd tell you so, calmly, and either try to find a way through with you, or leave you.

She's not just crossing your boundaries, she's totally disregarding them. Take charge of yourself, and what you'll put up with. Tell her what your boundaries are, Tell her you can only be with someone if they can respect your boundaries. If she continues to cross them, leave her.

You have no argument with the guy. He's a stranger. Confronting him won't make your wife respect you.

I I knew for sure that something was happening I’d be more inclined though.

Something is happening though, it's damaging you and your relationship. That's good enough surely?

There is no way that he will give a toss about you and what you think, but sometimes confrontation is required.

If you aren't one for confrontation, find your anger and channel it.

do you know for a fact that this friend isn't gay

She's still trampling over OP's boundaries. He's stated that he's not comfortable, she's disregarded that. It doesn't even matter what it's about; that's basic disrespect, and a lack of care for how he feels.

If I knew for sure that something was happening I’d be more inclined though

of course something is happening… what has this whole thread been about if not ?

This is a fair point and I have wondered and asked this myself. With him being single for a long time I wondered if he wasn’t ‘out’ etc and a general tendency to seek out female friends (one of my wife’s reasons to justify that nothing is happening) albeit these other women are single and seem uninterested in him in any romantic way.

However asking about sex toys and some of the flirting I saw would say otherwise. It’s difficult to say. I’ve never met him so it’s hard to gauge based on what she’s said and what I’ve read and otherwise found out. I don’t think he’s a massively ‘manly man’ anyway but then again neither am I so I don’t find much comfort there anyway.

Even so if he is gay I still think it’s an emotional affair potentially ( if that’s possible) as this friendship is taking up a lot of time and causing my stress and anxiety.

Having had five months of stress and anxiety (and I still do), my advice to you is to confront this head on, immediately.

Do not try to rationalise and be reasonable. As hard and as painful as it will be, I would deliver an ultimatum immediately and stick to it. Any arguing from your wife and you follow through.

this friendship is taking up a lot of time and causing my stress and anxiety

You are causing your stress and anxiety. Take responsibility for yourself. The way to minimise stress and anxiety in your life is to avoid situations that make you stressed and anxious. There will always be people who try to treat us all badly. Our responsibility to ourselves is not to change them or correct them or to make them understand how very wrong they are. It's to stay away from the cause of our ills.

You feel controlling because you think the way to solve this is to control her. or get her to control herself. She doesn't want to. You've tried that option. Now you have to distance yourself, because if she doesn't care that she's making you feel bad, you're going to have to.

Well he's already lost his wife to this man, nothing he can say to her to stop it - he's already tried and she's just given him the brush off. She is infatuated with other man and doesn't care if it's destroying her marriage.

So it can do no harm to contact the other bloke directly and explain that their relationship is damaging your marriage.

His wife has lost all respect for him - she's actively choosing to spend her free time with someone else over her husband, she's totally focussed on this other bloke. Having independence within a relationship is healthy, as long as it's not to the detriment of the relationship itself.

OP, you should have offered to take your wife to the cinema. What do you actually do together? She'll be telling the other bloke how boring you are and how your relationship is dead.

Oh, and he might have been publicly single for 15 years, but that's probably because he's been playing the field discreetly, with a string of married women. OP's wife probably thinks other man will keep her after the marriage breaks down. But he won't - he's not interested in that. The main reason people have affairs with married people is because they prefer the fact it won't go any further because the other person is in a committed relationship.

So telling the other bloke to back off or risk keeping her is the best way the OP can put the kybosh on the affair. Whether his wife chooses to stay is another matter. People don't typically have affairs if they are happy at home (apart from the serial cheaters, but they never let things progress beyond a ONS or emotionless shag).

So it can do no harm to contact the other bloke directly and explain that their relationship is damaging your marriage

Yes, it can do harm. A lot of harm. If you can't see that, no point in arguing with you. It's just so 'Eastenders'.

All I can tell you is my experience.

I have made new friends in work places, some of those friends have been men.

I can think of one in particular, who has been single the whole time I’ve known him (10 years) - we do sometimes exchange messages in the evening. We have been to football together, out for coffee, for a drink - and I’ve been to his house.

We are friends - that is it. I have zero interest in any other relationship. It has never even been broached as a topic.

My husband would never tell me who I can be friends with / talk to / spend time with.. or what I can do with my time. He trusts me.

if he went all “alpha male” I would not be at all impressed

I don't think that it matters if he's gay or not. You've told her your boundaries and she's trampling all over them. This is about respect and lack there of.

Are you still nice to her?
A friend of mine surprised me recently by enlightening me on why I struggle in my marriage. She said ‘why would you give them your time when they’re not nice to you any more’. My husbands expectations of what I should ‘provide’ as a wife we’re way off, and I hadn’t even realised this had crept in.
We’re all free people (or are meant to be) so should be staying in our relationships because they are a comfortably place to be, not because our other half has ‘ordered us’ to do as they require or any other reason.
your wife needs to know you’re on her side in life.
Are you sure she knows that?
Maybe ask her if she’s happy?
Ask her if he’s good to her? And if so, what does he do that’s so good? (I’m assuming we’re talking emotionally here and on a friendship basis)
Let her know you’re there for her, not by telling her that, but by listening, agreeing, taking her side. Even if that’s against some behaviors of yours. This is what my husband eventually managed to start doing in a not totally dissimilar situation and I’d say it saved our marriage at that point.

If they are really friends you would have met him by now.
It's not controlling to tell her you aren't comfortable with this friendship. It would be controlling to ban her seeing him.
You can't change the way she is acting but you can tell her how you it will affect you. Tell her that if this friendship carries on at this level it will end your relationship as you can't deal with it.
If she carries on the friendship then that's your answer isn't it.
My DH found an an ex gf on FB a few years ago, they chatted for a while and she suggested meeting up. I didn't lay the law down it but said if he went I would consider that to be crossing the line for me and he would have to deal with that. He agreed and the friendship fizzled out naturally.
If she can't put your relationship first, there is no point.