Emotional Affairs at Work

[Tyrone123]

Hi there just posting this message looking some help and advice on my current situation. We have been together 25 years and it's been mostly a good relationship. A few years ago I discovered wife had been having an emotional affair with a man she worked with texting him all the time even going to bed early every night to chat. I had a gut feeling about this for a wile as all she did was talk about him but put my fears aside as they worked closely together. She told me nothing physical had happened and told me she would stop all contact but lied to me countless times about this as she continued to message him. I guess I was a fool as I had known him for years and during this he stopped speaking to me. Thankfully he left the job soon after and we agreed to work on our marriage. I now have the exact same feelings as before as her and a female colleague do nothing but text out of work and she talks about her all the time. She has showed me messages where her work friend talks about sex and having sex outdoors and I have explained that this is inappropriate and she gets defensive. I have suggested we go to marriage counselling but she has flat out refused saying I can go myself. Is it time to walk away for my own mental health as I can't live like this anymore. Has anyone ever been in this position before and how did it work out?

I’ve been in this situation and we are no longer together so I’ll share my experience and the core parts I’ve learned from it.

• The main thing is if you share that their communication with someone is making you uncomfortable and they dismiss, rage and carry on that is the BIGGEST issue. If they are acting inappropriately with no boundaries and can see and hear you are distressed and carry on, sadly they don’t care as much as you do. This also shows any attempt to change won’t be backed up with genuine desire on their part to do so.

• If they have had an emotional affair you found out and they didn’t come to you. They refuse to go to therapy\counselling together or separately. They will do it again. They don’t care.

In regards to the female friendship maybe it is innocent as women do over share but the important thing is you have shared the sexual conversation makes you uncomfortable and to be honest I think this is fair if they all work together would you want them talking about your sex life. Most the women commenting here probably wouldn’t want their husbands talking to work colleagues about what they get up to or their bodies. So I think it’s fair you wouldn’t want them sharing personal stuff like that which may involve you. Given how she has been in the past with boundaries with work colleagues I think this is fair.

Worst case scenario she is bisexual or needs to fill the void the affair left and that’s why she has this with this other work colleague even if she is not bisexual herself.

It's not unhealthy for your wife to have close friends of the same sex outside of your marriage. Even the sex talk. We do that, us women.

What about your friendship circle, OP? Do you have friends outside of your marriage? I only ask as a friend of mine struggled with her husband as he had no friends outside of the marriage and relied entirely on her for everything and hated that she had friendships beyond the marriage. It wasn't like he was excluded at all. He had no interest in being friends with these people. He just found it really hard to deal with.

It wouldn't bother me if he was talking to a male friend about sex.

Yes! You do have a right to be happy! I stayed too long in a marriage trying to get it to work when it was all on the other persons terms, I think I was afraid of failure again (married before) and had 3 kids so just kept trying… I’ve been out of that relationship for good many years now and feel that ending it was the best thing for me, and for the kids actually, going to counselling is a great move and I think would help you to see that you feeling happy is just as important as her feeling happy but you’re the only one in control of making that happen for yourself … book a session today!

I can’t comment on the first relationship your wife had with the male from work, especially as you haven’t said exactly what the messages said, but the conversations about sex with a female friend definitely doesn’t have to be suspicious. Me and my bestfriend talk most days and we definitely discuss our sex lives, what we’d like to try with our long term partners, what we don’t like etc, how to find time for sex luves when we both have kids etc, it’s not inappropriate, it’s just comfortable as I wouldn’t speak to someone else about these things and it’s normal to have conversations like this, as if most men don’t with their friends?