Getting over an emotional affair

[ChicRoseMoose]

Hi,

I am looking for some advice regarding the pretty horrible situation I’m in. I’m mainly looking for advice for people who have been through it, please don’t reply just telling me to leave as I’m trying to find a way to fix this.

To cut a long story short, around 18 months ago my other half met someone at work (his job isn’t office based but he was sometimes there for a day or 2 a month). From that n meeting they began messaging constantly (after a few months I asked him to stop, he said he did but he continued to message). It all came to a head in December 2024 when something happened (nothing physical, just a massive lie where I nearly left him but he promised from here onwards his focus is me).

I then got pregnant with our twins in January and things have been fine ever since, however he went to the office last October and saw her again. After seeing her again, he began calling her 2-3 times a month and this has been going on since he stopped last month. He’s admitted to me he has feelings for her but he doesn’t care about her and has no desire to leave me for her, it’s just a connection (it sounds a bit like limerance to me). He has now stopped going into the office and has cut all contact with her (he’s not spoken to her in over a month) and he said his only focus is me and repairing our relationship.

I guess I’m asking, how do I move forward? I still love him, I know in my heart of hearts he hasn’t done anything physical and he’s just allowed a crush to progress to something. I know he loves me and wants me, I just feel very broken.

thank you for any advice x

op I’m currently recovering from a position very similar to this and I’ve chosen to stay. I don’t come on this board very often but have done recently to see if anyone is going through something similar to me.
Dh developed a close friendship with someone at work, that slipped across the boundary and they kissed in October last year. Distraught, he came to me and told me he’d developed feelings for her and we’ve been on a long recovery path with an awful lot of lows ever since. We’ve been married for 30 years, three adult children.
I won’t lie, he blew up our world. He ended it with her almost immediately and moved out into a rented house to give us all some breathing space.
In those early days weeks and months I have been guided entirely by my gut, he has taken full ownership, shown complete remorse and has been so understanding of my meltdowns, tears and insecurities, and I’ve found myself simply being unable to be apart.
He is in counselling right now, to try and understand how he got drawn into it. To understand his own feelings. To accept that he can’t move back to being in a friendship with her now that the line has been crossed. That has been hard for him to come to terms with.
We are five months in and closer and stronger than we have been probably for years.

Everyone told me to leave. Everything you read tells you ‘once a cheater’… etc. I always said I’d never cope with an affair and I’d go. But you simply never know what you’d do or how you’d react until it happens to you, my advice is be kind to yourself, follow what your deepest thoughts are telling you.

We’re not quite there yet. But every day I think about it less and think of the future more
If you can find a copy of ‘Not just friends’ that helped me enormously.
And as a previous poster has said, the Infidelity Forum is really supportive.

Mumsnet is a LTB echo chamber so the advise you'll receive on threads like this is very skewed.

Would he go to individual therapy? People often jump to marriage counselling, but the individual who caused the relationship upset typically has things to work out on their own first, before they can commit to that in a meaningful way.

If I were you, I would want him to understand the why behind his behaviour. Otherwise he'll likely minimise to himself and lapse in to old patterns. The why might be obvious to you and me (escapism, lack of responsibility, attention, adrenaline rush combination) but for men they might echo what you say back & not truly grasp it until they reach that revelation themselves.

I see that as an essential step in repair, though haven't been in your exact shoes - mine are similar but in a different vein. Personally I've found it hard waiting for him to become self-aware through therapy. It takes longer than I wanted it too, but it absolutely is helping long term I feel.

Dear OP, I do hope you can work it out somehow.
I haven't read the whole thread, so please forgive me just shouldering in with a p.o.v. which may be unwanted and off beam.
You've been in your own patch with your twins-expectant-pregnancy and now your actual 7-month-old twins. That's enough for any one to deal with (with knobs on). It's when we needed the "Sheltering Man" to do that archetypal bit. And I think that DH probably thought (and you may have done, too) that, at the time, he was stumping up and doing that full bit.
But, in another part of the wood, there's this actual man (your DH) who was feeling a bit left out of the limelight, with nobody noticing how hard he was finding it to deal with this extraordinary scenario: the "story", which is all about the incoming twins, their needs and their mother's experience, and her need of care.
And DH wasn't quite strong enough to deal with it all by himself. He, also, needed someone to see him, hold his hand, honour his experience. And, so, things may have gone a little "wrong" for a bit. I imagine that this is a very common experience.
You now have twins together. He, DH, has maybe dropped the ball a bit. Perhaps you can find some space to find your way back into the space which is your family: twins; mum; dad.

Dads are SO IMPORTANT. He needs to understand that. I hope you both can rescue this situation. Good luck.

I couldn’t get over this. The relationship would be over.

Really unpopular perspective coming, and I'm bracing for the slating it's going to get! (Previous posts about Male/female friendships were not well received on mumsnet.).

Literally all of my closest friends are male, I just do not gel with women. The words you post above sound like just about every message i have with my mates. Nonsense chat, the same stuff I'd moan about with female friends if I could be bothered with cattiness and backstabbing alongside the friendship. (that sentence probably explains why previous experience has granted me a dislike of female friendship). From what you describe, it doesn't sound like an emotional affair from the content of the messages; it sounds platonic. It's ok for men to have close female friends; not everyone is out to steal your guy.

You wrote that "He’s admitted to me he has feelings for her but he doesn’t care about her and has no desire to leave me for her, it’s just a connection." Do you not have feelings for your friends? I read that and thought, "what a green flag that is from him!", but then I read it as he cares for his friend, he loves his wife - there are very different kinds of "love" in our hearts. I love my (male) bestie deeply, but in a very different way to the love I feel for hubby.

The thing here for me is that you are bothered by this, not that he has a female friend. If any of my mates reported that their partner was uncomfortable with our friendship, I'd happily hand them back to their woman. I am not getting in between a marriage! (That's not to say the loss wouldn't hurt me btw). The fact that you expressed discomfort and he went back to her gives me the ick. The fact that she knew you'd expressed discomfort (how else did he explain to her why he distanced himself for a bit) and still maintained that friendship with him means that she doesn't respect him or you. That feels ickier to me; she's willing to come into your marrage.

The posters before me seem so keen to lay all the blame at your husband's feet. Mumsnet sometimes forgets that women can be toxic, manipulative and dangerous too.

Assuming it's platonic for him...it doesn't feel like it is for her. That might be really confusing for your man. What you might be witnessing in him is "I don't want to hurt friend or wife, so I don't know what to do." Men tend to go insular when their head is a mess.They forget to use their words, even with their mates, particularly with their partner. He needs to be strong now to cut her out fully and that'll be hard if he cares for her...Could you cut a close friend off without it hurting, even if it is to save your marriage?

In this case though, cutting this woman out is the best thing to do. I'm interested to see if she tries to squirm back in.

How you move forward is up to you.
Do you love him?
Do you trust him?
Do you forgive him?
Do you see a future with him?

Don't stay with him for the kids, that's a recipe for a messed up childhood for them! Stay with him because it's what you want.

If the trust you had in your marriage has gone it is unlikely to return. He needs to change job and have counselling. It has been life changing for you as well, so you should have counselling as well.

I have been in a similar position, not quite the same. Your marriage and both of you are forever changed sadly.

i have had a similar experience to you op. I don't know how you can get past this I'm afraid. I told my H that I had forgiven him but I hadn't I saw a counselor and explored this and realised I do not have to forgive him no matter what all the recommendations are or what religion says. I can though, accept that it's happened and stop wishing it hadn't. It happened and it has changed the way I see him forever. I do not trust him even though he has done everything to show me I should. Lots of things came out from this , things that I did not know but I always had the feeling I was "being left out of the game" as it were, that other people knew something I didn't. Now, I don't care about what he did, I only care about what I want and need and I have built a life separate from his and I don't want him in it. We live as housemates and not as a couple. It works well for us but I know that he wants to "have back the feelings we used to have and the life we had together ". But I don't. It's gone. Sorry op, but that's my experience. We could split up but I don't want to and he doesn't either. I don't want anymore relationships so as far as I'm concerned, it's fine as it is. We are friends and we look after each other and for me it ends there. He does sometimes say he loves me but I ignore it. It's pretty meaningless. To the person above who says that a happily married person wouldn't have an emotional affair or an affair, I do not believe that's the case. Humans are imperfect and open to temptation. If someone offers themselves on a plate there's no certainty they will decline, especially if nothing physical happens because they can still plead innocence or if they are certain they will not get found out. No human being is immune to temptation.

I have no advice but I am sorry you are going through this, it’s so hard.

You will never forget. You basically start your relationship again and this time its 50/50 & you dont take any shit. Does he give you joy? What does he bring to the relationship?
If the answers to the questions are not positive its not worth dragging out the pain.