Emotional affair or the start of something more?

[Rubeywednesday]

This week I discovered my husband of 20 years had had a drunken kiss in the back of a cab with a family friend. The physical relationship went no further but they seem to have then gone on to conduct a short 'emotional' affair and have met up several times in secrecy to talk - she is going through relationship troubles and for some reason he seems to think he could support her through this, where as I would argue he's probably the cause.

He swears on our kids lives it went no further physically, and apparently they both discussed how disastrous it would be for all involved if they were to take it further. How noble of them.

I cant help thinking it would eventually become a real affair if I hadnt discovered it. They seemed very happy to continue to "chat". We have talked about what could be missing in our relationship that made him do this, he has apologised profusely, blocked her number and promised never to see her again.

I am still raging and considering leaving him, but a more rational part of me thinks this is an overreaction for a drunken kiss and a few texts. We have three young kids, a great sex life, and (up until a week ago) what I would consider a rock-solid marriage. We still genuinely have fun together. I'm guessing this is why it hurts so much.

Never had to deal with anything like this before. Does anyone have any similar experience they can help me with?

Yes, me. 26 years of a "good" marriage. Shared the same sense of humour, had fun together, rarely ever disagreed or had a row in all those years. Caught him talking to a woman online. Won't go into details but my world fell apart. Never saw it coming at all. I screamed, cried, begged, tried to behave like an adult. You name it. He promised me it was nothing and it would end. I caught him again (same woman) but this time he blamed me. He threw every possible inadequacy under the sun in my face and called me a bitch. Told me I was no angel myself - never found out what that particularly gem meant. I had never even thought about being unfaithful, I loved him and trusted him with all my heart.

Anyway, no advice OP. We tried to struggle on but really the whole thing was broken from then on. I couldn't see him as the man I thought I married any more.

Sorry you're going through this. Just don't accept the blame for this or let him gaslight you.

How did you find out?
Did he tell you himself?

I would ask him to move out to give you time to think.

I had a sense there was something going on. Then I snooped on his phone messages. He didnt offer anything up on his own

“They secretly met up to talk, they actually discussed that taking it further would be disastrous “

This was more than a drunken kiss in a taxi OP. The desire was there to go further. Whether they did or not, they clearly wanted to.

if you decide to try and repair the damage, please don’t let him brush this under the carpet. He will try to minimise and probably blame you for not getting over it quickly.

Make him understand the enormity of this, how devastated you are and what an absolute shit he is for doing this to you. Vent your fury at him he needs to know this is totally unacceptable and you will not stand for this level of deceit.

Yes to asking him to leave for a period of time to give you a chance to think this through. Also, he needs to know how it feels to miss you, to realise that this behaviour can or yet might cost him his family.

The so called family friend is no friend of yours.

Sorry OP, this will take a long time to get over, vent on here when you need to, lots of understanding ladies on here who have walked this road already.

I think you should phone her partner up and explain how they've kissed and between them have decided it would be disasterous to take their relatonship further.

Your husband has been doing a sterling job of supporting this family 'friend', maybe you need the support of a solicitor.

Pair of arseholes.

Family friend, who?

No friend of yours for sure.

He cuts contact otherwise he's out. It's a breach of trust and the fact he hid it from you is an issue. As well as the meeting up afterwards being a huge problem.

They may as well have slept with each other. After 20 years together and he's hiding things and kissing mutual "friends" .... nope

What he should have done is not kissed her, or at the very least tell you straight away after it happened. Then cut contact and focus on your needs and the marriage.

He's not done any of that.

There's probably more to come out about this, if you are having to drag it out of him he's probably letting you fill in the details a bit.

Read "leave a cheater, gain a life" or their chump lady website.

Insist on counselling to try and work on this, if you want to. I wanted counselling but ex refused as "I would just blame him for everything", except I did accept my part in our relationship going downhill... But he actually just wanted to carry on cheating.

He should be offering full access to his phone at all times, reporting in his whereabouts without complaint and being able to answer your questions with sympathy and humility.

I would suggest getting him to move out for a few days to give him an idea of what is going to feel like, think if I'd done that to the ex when I first found out he actually would have thought more about the reality of being outside the family unit.

Firstly, I was told and it’s sadly true that adults don’t just kiss. They were meeting in private. He will admit to the bare minimum if he thinks he can get away with it.

I’m not sure you have full transparency here and you can not repair what you don’t know you’re repairing so you need a full timeline and access to all their communications. He then needs to block her and neither of you have any contact again. Tbh I’d tell her husband/ partner as well. He doesn’t deserve to be left in the dark.

You say that you have discussed what might have been missing in your relationship, once the dust starts to settle you may resent those talks. Cheating is 100% on the cheater. You were both in the same marriage you chose not to cheat. He doesn’t get to argue away his wrong doing with a ‘poor me not getting my needs met’ nonsense.

Going forward I’d get yourself on surviving infidelity and read around stories. You’ll see patterns and the behaviours are generally the same. I’d also get a copy of leave a cheater gain a life as even if you stay you need to reframe this affair away from blaming your marriage.

What a pair of nasties. You deserve so much better than this and he shapes up or ships out and even if he does do the work you still have the right to consider this a deal breaker!

I agree. You should tell him he needs to move out whilst you consider if you still want to be married to him. Just blocking her number because he got caught and then forgiven so easily will not help him to see the enormity of his actions or to really believe he could lose you because of it.

Give him a taste of what separation really would look like. It’s all “grass is greener” in the depths of an affair, but not getting to come home to you everyday, your 20 years of friendship ending there, as well as the financial hit of having to house himself might be enough to make him see it’s not worth it.

And do not think of this as a punishment for him. Take the time to genuinely think about what you want by going no contact (or low contact if there are family things to discuss, like kids etc.) You don’t have to put up with this level of disrespect, does he/can he respect you again if you decide to stay together? You deserve to be able to trust your husband- can you trust him again? Do you genuinely believe nothing more physical happened? Is an emotional connection to someone else any better? Really think if you can handle this as part of your shared history/relationship for ever more. What he has done cannot be undone.

Take the time too for both of you to have individual and couples counselling. You need to figure out if you can truly forgive him, and he needs to figure out what drove him to infidelity in the first place to prevent it from happening again. This is the least he can do to show his commitment to reconciliation.

A drunken kiss with a stranger would be bad enough but this went far further than this. And with someone who is a family (mutual?) friend.

Their meetings to talk will have been an emotionally fraught exploration of their feelings and options at the very least. At that point, you will have felt like an obstacle to him/them. The children will have probably been a consideration but people usually find a way to justify leaving the children to themselves.

The big one is that they don't to be thought of as the bad guys by everyone else. They'd anticipate never being forgiven and ostracised especially as they are family friends. The fear and shame of this are great. (That's the how disastrous it would be for all involved part).

It is possible that it went no further than a kiss, but either way, he's made a complete mockery of your marriage.

You lot are great. Thank you

This is no longer an emotional affair. In my experience you can't end someone else's relationship. I would tell him that you are going to get a divorce and see how he acts then.

That woman is not a friend of yours. It sounds as though she's picking up your husband in order to exit her own relationship. I would definitely be speaking to her husband about this.