How to pick myself back up after emotional affair

[champagnecats92]

One of husband’s friends, who has been in our lives for a long time, suddenly meant more to me lately.

Since I had Little One, he was very supportive and kind, sending me messages to buoy me up and just generally be a nice person. He’s always messaged me a bit but I never really took much notice tbh.

I think what happened is that his messages saying nice things came at a time when I felt so wobbly postpartum. I love my Little One so much but I do often feel like that’s it, I’m washed up now and my best-before date has passed. My husband is absolutely lovely but bringing up a little one is tough, and I don’t always feel that respected, valued, or fancied by him. I've brought this up with him and he just says it's tough these days because of bringing up the baby. So I guess the friend started to fill the gap there ☹

Said friend has engineered a hobby project to work on with my husband, which means he’s started coming over here more often. I wondered if it was to see me more but that feels a bit… vain to think that. I’m stuck in this weird soup of not being sure whether he does like me or not. I catch him looking at me a lot, and there’s a bit of holding my gaze. He’s quite playful and teasing in his tone but then I think he might just be like that anyway, I dunno.

I have to admit, I really liked the flattery. I feel like a plonker admitting it. To think that someone actually noticed me and perhaps liked me – wow, it gave me a bit of confidence. I was hoping to then channel that back into my relationship but it hasn’t worked. I just ended up getting hung up on the friend. I don’t want anything to happen, I just liked the attention I guess.

However, all of a sudden the friend has clammed up and stopped talking to me. He’s coming over here this weekend and I’m dreading it. I’m now feeling really low and thinking I probably imagined the whole thing, although my gut instincts are usually pretty good. What do I do on Sunday, ignore him and be distant? Act like nothing’s happened? I don't want to lose the guy's friendship or have it impact his friendship with my husband, but I don't feel very nice about it all either :(

You can probably tell I’m quite confused about all of this. I’d really appreciate some of your views on what to do and how to feel a bit more myself again – I don’t need this, I have enough going on in my life. I know I was silly to enjoy the attention but we’re all human, we like to feel noticed and not like a bag lady. I’d like to move on and tread a path back to a bit of self-confidence and happiness. This hurts, even though I guess it’s my own fault – I feel a fool, taken in a bit by the friend and now dropped. I mean, there’s letting someone down gently and then there’s dropping them off the Shard. I'm still a bit hurt so go gentle - I'm well aware of my own failings in all of this.

You're going to have to get over it and move on. Focus on getting your self confidence back and work on your relationship.

I would take the baby out or avoid him when he comes over.

Maybe try and play the scenario forward, what would happen if you both admitted you had feelings for each other. Where would you live, what would co parenting with your ex look like. What would your financial situation be, would you get married to him, would he still pursue his hobby with your ex and would he have anything to do with your child or would you be mostly stuck at home alone while he had his freedom.

This isn’t meant as a nasty post OP, but when I’ve been flattered in the past by others attention or even started fancying someone myself I’ve tried to picture the fact that they are human and we would probably end up sitting watching tv, maybe not saying much because this person is human and may not be much different from anyone else, in fact won’t be.

Try and think of the positives of your relationship and focus on those, I hope you find the joy in your life again, I’m not a parent but I believe it’s one of the hardest things a human will ever have to do so I guess it must really be life changing. I’m sure there will be others along who can give you the moral support when it comes to that from their own experience.

Don’t be in when he comes over. And try to do that every time. Don’t message him anymore. Focus on building your own self esteem and put the energy into your marriage instead of focusing your attention elsewhere.

It is hard when you ah e a new baby. Sexual intimacy often takes a temporary dip when you’re both tired, touched out and sleep deprived. That’s not unusual.

Speak to your husband about how you feel. Communication is key. Tell him your self confidence has taken a bit of a nosedive and seek out some counselling if you can to work on this. Tell him that you don’t feel valued. Don’t accuse him, just tell him how you feel and ask him for what you need to feel valued. That might be more help with the baby/housework, more physical touch like hugs/kisses that’s non-sexual, more sex, more time to yourself for self care like going to the gym/massage/time with the girls, etc. Whatever that is for you, ask for it. Often when our self esteem has been damaged we lose our ability to assert ourselves because we don’t feel we deserve to ask for things or we are worried about getting a negative reaction when we’re already fragile. You might want to work on this in therapy. I’ve linked some useful resources below.

Crossing the line emotionally is not a good idea. Think about how you would feel if you found your husband did that to you. Think about the devastation an affair would cause to your family life, to your child’s future. Don’t cross that line. This is a you issue. You have contemplated this because you feel bad about yourself. The way to deal with this is to work on your insecurities and self worth and focus on deepening your relationship and intimacy both emotionally and sexually with the man you made vows with and brought a child into the world with.

https://emmaashford.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Learning-to-be-assertive-workbook.pdf

https://ia600704.us.archive.org/31/items/TheSixPillarsOfSelfEsteem_201811/The-Six-Pillars-of-Self-Esteem.pdf

Try to focus on your relationship with your hubby. It's lovely to getting a bit of flattery but I'd leave it where it is now that it's fizzled out. Another aspect of this is that this guy is a friend of your husband; what type of person would secretly flirt with their friend's wife?

In my experience, binging up kids is hard. Any relationship can get into the doldrums and I'm sure it's easy to have your head turned by someone's attention. I remember how tired I was when my daughter was tiny. We never had much time for one another. Weekends would just be a mass of baby, laundry and shopping. Money was always a factor too.

Sometimes though, we would get out. We'd occasionally go to the cinema, if some would babysit for us. It was something not baby-focused and it was a little date night for us.

Think of the time after giving birth like a rough patch in adolescence. Your hormones are all over the place, your body has changed and add to that that you now have a fuck ton of responsibilities, it's understandable that you've been a bit vulnerable to flirtation, so treat yourself kindly and give yourself the kick up the arse that adolescents need.
Just go out when this guy comes round and start thinking about what sort of stuff makes you feel better. Nice haircut? Spa day? Hiking? Pottery class? Regular meet up with your mates. Get something set up for yourself, ignore the bloke and then try doing some fun stuff with your DH, get an NCT or baby group friend to do babysitting swaps and have a little date night.
That's my advice anyway. He probably was flirting with you, but you didn't have an affair so forget about it and move on.

This wasn't an emotional affair though? Nothing happened? This guy sent some nice messages, you read more into them than was probably intended, then he was charming in person. Unless I've misread there was no flirtation nor anything to even suggest mutual attraction?

Really grateful for the comments and straight-talking, thank you.

@gannett I didn't go into more detail in my original post cos it was already quite long..! But safe to say that yes, I would describe it as an emotional affair as until this sudden recent silence from him, all the signs were there in terms of flirtation, telling me secrets and confidences, emotional connection, emotional support, long hugs, lots of compliments blah blah etc. I guess I wobble about whether he did actually like me or not because he never said "I like you" plus the recent silence.

You may not feel that that is an emotional affair in which case I guess we can agree to disagree. Even so, point still stands that I just need to get over it and move on (as many posters above have pointed out - thank you!)

Quickest way to get over it might be to fess up and tell your husband that his mate, who he trusts, has been flirting with you, who he also trusted. I doubt he’ll keep inviting him over.

What would you want from him if he was the one mooning over another woman?

It's easy for a man to send messages that a woman feeling vulnerable would lap up/ doesn't require any actual action. I imagine he loves the attention and has charm/a silver tongue/knows the right thing to say. This is all fantasy.

Much harder to show up day in, day out amongst life's drudgery and boring hard bits. It isn't really him you're into, it's just the attention and fantasy.

He's also not a very nice bloke messaging his mate's wife.

This man’s a fucking snake, flirting with his friends wife. He’s not your friend and he certainly isn’t your husbands friend. He hasn’t engineered the hobby to see you. He’s done it so he can get off on the fact he’s in your home with your unsuspecting husband who hasn’t got a clue.

Sorry op, but I think this was more about getting one over on your dh than anything about you.

The other man is clearly an arsehole but he’s not the one who’s married. OP is.

Ah, welcome to mumsnet where the man is to blame but you're not you poor little pet.

Grow up.

Your friend knows her husbands behaviour has been inappropriate and you have been receptive to it. Of course she would be annoyed and upset ..: and she’s right to as you are entertaining this fantasy at the cost of your husband and your friend.

Sounds like either the friend has realised that this was dangerous gound, or things have been noticed by his partner or your husband.

Think of it as a narrow escape from a disastrous situation, and put it behind you. You and your husband need to make a bit more effort to be a couple again.

Just to say thanks so much for the kicks up the arse you all provided me with. It did me a world of good and I had a bit of a wobble but feeling a lot stronger now in terms of pushing this daft infatuation out of my mind. Yeah, I guess my defences were a bit lowered due to all the stuff happening but still, like someone said, lucky escape!! I appreciate all your firm words and sensible advice, thank you.

Oh this is an easy one and one many male friends use as their technique for drawing your attention away from bad bahviour.

You husband has set this interest up with his friend to flirt with you as a safe decoy whilst he is out affairing with ow.

Didn't you know this is a thing.
He wouldn't really go the full way, he's you husband's friend and is loyal to him.