My husband started to act strange a few months ago. He started being on his phone a lot more than usual. Going to the bathroom for a long time with his phone. He stopped telling me he loved me. Even stopped wanting to cuddle me or saying anything remotely kind to me.
He started secretly drinking.
One night I had enough and went out to the toilet he uses and looked through his back pack. In there were two extra phones.
I guessed the passcode and had a look through and found message after message between him and a woman I had never heard of.
She was upset and speaking to him about her husband who she is divorcing because he had an affair. In the texts he wakes in the morning and the first thing he does is ask if she is ok and builds her up. Offers her support and someone to offload to. Even offering her kids guitar lessons.
I kept it to myself and one day saw him text her in our living room. I asked who he was texting. He said it was someone else.
A few nights in later his watch buzzed. I raised his wrist to look he pulled away. I said who is texting. I went to look again. He then said it was this woman Helen.
He says he is just friends with her and he is helping her through a bad time.
I messaged her the next day and invited her around for dinner. When she came she seemed completely absorbed in her woes. Nothing indicated anything wrong was taking place.
My husband carried on texting her all the time our of work. When he was supposed to be with the kids doing things.
I said to him it is starting to make me feel really uncomfortable. So I sent her a message explaining why it was making me feel uncomfortable and it makes me feel bad if on date night he is sat there texting her or when I get out of bed or even when he goes to the toilet for half an hour or first thing in the morning. She said she understood. Yet it is still continuing.
Last weekend I told my husband I felt lonely. He ignored me. When I left the room and came back in he was texting her to see how she was doing.
The day before he had annoyed me by sharing with her a secret that was mine and I didn’t give him permission to share.
This friday she was feeling down (so was I because my husband has ignored me the night before when I asked him to go bed with me for some sexy time) so he left her a packet of biscuits on her car to cheer her up.
I wouldn’t mind but my husband has had emotional affairs in the past and this relationship he kept secret from me and it is now crossing so many boundaries and making me feel so uncomfortable.
I wanted some advice about how other people would deal with this.