It turns out he DOES a friend; a female, goodlooking one at that

[Hehasasecretfriend]

DP and I are together 7 dramatic years. I say dramatic as they universe threw a lot at us; bereavements (both), critical illness (me), repeated job loss and mental breakdown (him), familial turbulence (him), loss of identity post illness (me).

We really weren't established properly before all the drama started and really it's never been problem free. We were living together with a baby on the way very prematurely.

Despite that we are I thought both very committed. We have been in therapy and working hard. Our counselor always commends is on the work we do. She also always stresses to me that while she understands he has many struggles how much he absolutely loves me.

One major issue is he has no other functioning relationships; his family are all estranged and he never forms or maintains friendships. Of course that's all fine, we are all different except it feels like enormous pressure on us that he has nobody else to talk to or get another perspective.

Sex has never been great and has always been a source of angst as I had an adventurous and high drive when we met. He's selfish and despite all my efforts to mix things up, it never really improved. Then I got sick, my libido died, sex was very painful and became a source of huge stress. Our therapist suggested we take intercourse off the table entirely and instead try to develop genuine intimacy which she said was missing.

While he doesn't have a friend he could message for a drink or a chat, he always has lots of hobby people to meet up with which I actively encourage. He messages into group chat a bit but prefers to listen to podcasts. He never phones anyone for a chat or messages 1 on 1. I have opposite sex friendships which I make no secret of. I did notice recently he was getting quite irate if he wasn't getting to one of his hobbies enough. It set alarm bells off but quite mildly. As we are being very open in therapy I asked him if anyone was holding his interest. He said absolutely not.

It really felt like we are actually starting to get somewhere real in therapy.

Earlier today he went out but our child was playing with his phone. The app stopped working so I took it. WhatsApp was open. A female name I didn't know was at the top. I clicked and discovered messages over and back all year. He clearly meets up with her regularly. Their messages contain nothing explicit but definitely flirty. They remind me exactly of how he messaged me in our early dating days. There are messages at midnight and first thing in the morning. One morning they were meeting and I specifically remember how he pushed me away the night before after saying he had to get up early in the morning.

He came back from his walk and I said your WhatsApp was open. He immediately began saying he was sorry, it's just flirty talk, he knows he crossed a line but nothing physical happened.

This could be true but two of the messages look like innuendos that suggest something has. I don't know her though and if that's just how she talks.

He messaged her in front of me saying I saw the messages and was upset. She responded why straightaway then said sorry, English is not her first language and she has been in trouble before for upsetting people and will talk to me if necessary.

He keeps saying sorry, it was flirty banter and he loves me.

I keep thinking if nothing happens it seems stupid to make it more (it doesn't seem to have meant anything to her) but on the other hand we were already falling apart and what's the point of going to therapy and omitting information.

Thoughts?

I have no idea what she would have done. She could be crazy about him or disgusted by the suggestion that this is anything more than messages / sports. I've never met her.
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But I know he likes her, cares about her opinion, wants to impress her and appear funny, charismatic, clever. I know he wants to spend time with her. That's all I care about.

Yes I'd be so gutted to see that also . At least he didn't try it on after a whole year of messaging and seeing her . But no I'd be the same , unable to get past this . I'm sorry your going through this xx

It seems like he was at least fishing for an affair, physical or emotional. She may have just thought it was fun, friendly banter but he probably wanted more and may well have taken it if offered.
Given you guys have been struggling for a while and in therapy with his attention and focus on her for the last few months it's a total kick in the face for you. I'm sorry but he should have been investing that time and energy in your relationship. Also sorry to say he may well have scarpered as soon as she gave the go ahead.

You have so much energy into keeping this thing going, maybe it's time to accept that it's not worth the effort. Focus on yourself and your child going forward.

Apart from anything else I would stop this therapy, it sounds weird to me - your therapist surely shouldn't be telling you how much your partner absolutely loves you, how could she possibly know that for sure? He could be sitting there putting on a complete show, he could be secretly abusing you behind closed doors, he could be a liar, he could be a narcissist. The therapist should be helping you to come to your own conclusions based on facts and helping you understand why you might feel the way you feel IMO.

Imagine if you were secretly being abused behind closed doors and you hadn't worked your way up to telling the counsellor that yet, but he wanted her to think he was lovely and amazing. Then she starts stressing to you how much he absolutely loves you......what kind of head fuck would that be? Very dangerous IMO.

Stating that he absolutely loves you despite him being selfish in bed and genuine intimacy being completely missing from your relationship also sounds very strange to me. I'm not sure how she is even coming to the conclusion that he loves you so much if genuine intimacy is missing? Surely without genuine intimacy you're just useful and convenient to have around and the basis for the relationship is pretty shallow - is that really love?

Is this counsellor definitely properly qualified? Currently anyone can call themselves a therapist or counsellor without any kind of qualifications or experience. Please make sure they are registered with BCAP to make sure they are at least properly accredited. Even then I think you need to be careful, I had a counsellor who suggested that I should help my OH with his self esteem - it's not my job to try to fix the mental health of someone who later turned out to tick all the boxes for covert narcissism! I had to tell her that I couldn't be made to feel responsible for someone else's mental health and stopped seeing her.

I think you have to be very careful with counsellors as they can do more harm that good, especially if you are vulnerable and completely trust everything they say. If this person is with BCAP then I would put in a complaint. She's been stressing how absolutely he loves you, while he's been doing god knows what behind your back. She should be aware that that is a possibility and not have been telling you things that are not concrete and she couldn't be in any way sure of. It all sounds very unprofessional.

Even though he might not of been physically disloyal to you he has definitely been emotionally disloyal.

In all honesty the relationship sounds so taxing. Has it ever been happy and light? I fully appreciate it sounds like you’ve had some shit thrown at you along the way but I’d say that’s no excuse for him to start looking for affection else where - you should be building each other up but it’s all one sided coming from you.

This is a very wise and thoughtful post.

I do think you need to move on from him too. Like you've said, you've been putting effort into getting your relationship back on track and he has been putting his effort into secretly maintaining a relationship with her. And effort into deceiving you. You said you'd asked him directly and he lied. With all the painful things you've been through together for him to cause you more must be very upsetting, sorry.

Agree with @Superdupes
I cringed when I read that your councillor tells you 'your husband loves you very much'. How TF would they know? How weird.

Regarding your husband, I'd be gutted too. He doesn't sound like a great catch, why would you put up with selfish sex esp if you've a high sex drive and are adventurous?
What do you love about him?

@Hehasasecretfriend further down the line you may find the most difficult thing to process is that she knew about you but you did not even know of her existence. You mention it in your post - that she knew all about you.

When people embark on these secret friendships I wish they would stop and think how damaging this can be to the betrayed partner once they find out.

She could know all sort of things about you but you won't know exactly what she knows. The long-lasting effect of this is similar to having been stalked. You may well - in time - ruminate about what he might have said to her, about you, about your habits, your life. You might wonder if they had discussed his relationship with you, for instance.

Being put in such a situation, you have no form of redress. This is a very serious situation he has created. I think it would benefit both of you to have therapy, whether you remain together or not. He must come to realise that this is not the way he should be treating any partner.

It doesn’t sound like the relationship is worth saving OP, and I think you know it deep down because of the way you write about it.
The fact you’re pregnant really complicates this obviously. I’m not sure what to advise - do you have family support? Do you rent or own the house together?

This poster makes a very good point.

Sometimes relationships just don't work out no matter how much work you put in and it sounds like yours is one of these. This messaging just is a neon sign illuminating this.

The responses are unanimous and they echo how I feel. I just need a little time to process it. Thanks.

Just adding another voice to the general consensus that seems to be that you've tried your best and fair play to you but therapy is broadly supposed to help get relationships back on track and/ or support them when both parties want to make a go of it but have lost sight of what's important or why they're together. This isn't happening here. The therapy sessions are the relationship and your husband has his eyes all over the place.

Try not to analyse the motives of the woman in question or base any decision on that. She could have genuinely meant nothing by it or could be covering her arse as she is married too. Neither is more likely so don't worry about that.

You do know that he has crossed several lines and that's what matters. He lied to you for months about meeting another woman in person whom he was flirting with and was visibly upset to you, his wife, when he could not see her. That is plenty of disrespect and dissociation from the marriage for you to make a judgement.

Are you in a solid position to end the marriage and move on? I obviously understand it is not easy but people on here will be able to provide good practical advice if needed.

I won't be so glib as to say 'see the positives' but I think at least you know you took your partnership seriously, were open and honest and tried your best to make this work. If you let him know that his behaviour is not acceptable and move on, i think you will look back impressed at your own integrity and dignity.

Well said @Superdupes and @Ecclesfreckles 👌
Lots of other wise contributions too.
Really sorry this is happening in your life op. I hope things change for the better once you come through the other side.

I would be worried about how enmeshed he is with her emotionally which would sting me a lot more than a one night stand/physical affair.
The emotional side is always really hard to deal with. If he has no friends and this woman is his one friend then I would be really worried about how deeply he does actually feel for her.
Do you believe him when he says she means nothing?

@AdviceNeeded22222 I don't think OP has mentiined that he has said that she means nothing. It seems like she rightly believes that this woman does mean something to him, which is one of the things that's painful.

"There's the door chummy, close it on the way out." No way would I put up with this 'flirty banter' nonsense. It's an ego boost for him, well she'd be welcome to him and You'd be free from drama and the I'm only sorry because I got caught out bollocks.

I'm so sorry op. He has been using therapy to cover his tracks.

He gets a buzz from his affair and can be his best self in therapy with you, which makes you think he is listening to you at last.

What a detestable man he is. You have given your all. Now it is time to leave him to manage his own sorry existence and concentrate on yourself and your dc.

@Frogmila (and everyone else) thank you. That looking back feeling impressed with my own dignity and integrity is what I keep reminding myself of.

I flip flop in my head. We were away on a family break when I discovered the messages; that is the reason why actually as our child would not usually have his phone but the TV didn't work. I picked it up and saw this female's name I didn't recognise.

It's such a massive kick in the guts. No matter how bad things got he never led me to believe he didn't love me or that he had an wandering eye. I feel so hurt and betrayed.

Our problems were of a different nature entirely. We had so much to unpick in therapy, lots of it very painful and from his childhood. I genuinely thought the last few months (since we started) we were becoming close in a way we had never been. In actual fact his messaging with her has run along the exact same timeline.

A little voice goes off in my head "it's no big deal" then a louder voice yells "this was a period the two of you were working hard together on your relationship. This is the two of you doing your utmost to make things better, to build a solid future" and I look at the messages, the late night, early morning timings, the innuendos, the blatant admiration, the suggestive subtext and I know that for me, it's over that I'm not going to try anymore.

She did actually phone me to 'put my mind at ease'. She said they just play sport, the club is very sociable, they never meet except for there, this is the way she speaks to men, yes she messages many men at midnight, she is happily married, leaving next month, it's all good fun and she's very sorry I'm hurt but there is nothing to worry about.

I said I have never heard of you or met you and this may be acceptable in your marriage but not mine and my DH is aware of that. It's not her standards he should be meeting but mine. I also said it's not her place to tell me I've nothing to worry about and what I'm ok with, that I understand it's nice to be the fun flirty friend and get male attention but this situation has caused real hurt. She started on about how she came here to learn English and people often misunderstand her due to language and cultural clashes to which I responded that if she is continuously upsetting people but not changing then it obviously doesn't bother her. Then I said goodbye and to please not contact either of us again, I've had a hard couple of years and I've no interest in making life harder for myself.

So that's it. Things are pretty calm now. I've told him we are parents and we need to put our child first. Us being together doesn't work, we need to prioritise getting a living separately arrangement in place. He is begging me to reconsider but I have lost all respect for him, I think he is pathetic.

Doesn't know not to message multiple married men at midnight because of a language barrier, my arse. And she's been called out on it before, yet pretends she didn't know this. Dirty tart. Like hell is she happily married, she's looking for a new home in the UK and got as many potential irons in the fire as she can. Your idiot DH for one.

And you are so right. He is pathetic. Desperate for his attention from someone like that. How embarrassing for him. My god, how you deserve better. You have remained dignified and have kept your self respect. He's lost all of that. You remained decent. He did not. Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life xx

Hi,

I'm updating as I'm feeling quite low. I confided in a friend IRL and she was really great and supportive. Her own marriage ended with an affair (hers). She agreed the betrayal is already there and these messages go on and on and your self delusion about how harmless it is continues until the whole thing builds up then pop and it's all "it just happened".

But my desire to be dignified really didn't work out. I totally lost my temper and said he was to leave and he could tell her why and that she can explain to her husband or I will.

I mean honestly I would feel absolutely ridiculous telling her husband that our spouses have been messaging when he could say "I know, what's the problem? Please go away, you're embarrassing yourself"

Anyway she offered to meet and clear it all up, assure me there's no affair happening. I think she genuinely believed she was helping and was saying to me very earnestly that it hasn't gone beyond messaging. I said the messages themselves were a problem for me and she kind of laughed at me and said she has many friends and likes to message late at night, it's not her fault if my DH is lying awake and willing to answer. I lost the rag then and said she needs to get real, she's not in a happy marriage if she's that desperate for attention, she started on about her husband trusting her and I exploded and called her an attention seeking POS and to stop deluding herself it was a language barrier that caused problems but a decency problem.

She then sent a furious message to my DH saying she is stunned that she is the target when she is trying to help and has done nothing wrong. He responded that it's his fault but he does understand my anger as the messages themselves were over the line, he would not be happy the other way around and he wasn't in the minority there.

I really wish I had avoided her forever and kept the higher ground as I am clearly going to be painted as a lunatic when she was only being friendly or whatever.

The hell with the pair of them.

Where is he living/sleeping now ?

I think you need to stop fixating on her and her motives. You most definitely need to stop communicating with her.

So her husband is asleep beside her in bed presumably, and she is messaging a bunch of men in a flirtatious way and her husband would be okay with that? Absolute bollocks.

Don’t feel bad about going nuts at the OW. She’s the one who has been trying to get in contact with you and gaslight you. Probably to pretend that she is a good, misunderstood person with innocent intentions whilst you are a paranoid, crazy harridan. She deserved being told she was a piece of shit because she is.