So, if you saw an e-mail that your DH had sent to an old (female) schoolfriend...

[AccessDenied]

which said things like -and I quote-:

'you look incredible (you always look incredible)'

and

'You said you were no good at keeping in touch via email - don't worry about it, I am persistent (as well as being impetuous).'

and

'te echo de menos' -Spanish for I miss you!

with a final request for her address, saying he'll let her know when he's visiting the UK for work (we live outside the UK.)

I've been alternating from certainty that he's attempting to shag her to thinking its more ambiguous than that (wishful thinking?).

btw I had no intention to snoop! I thougt I had logged into my e-mail (he musn't have logged out of his) and found myself reading this...

I will speak to him today but can't seem to get my feelings straight. What do you think MN jury?

Rhub's is very wise.

If only I could sort out my problems!

It is always easy to sort other people out.

Start and thread if you would like some support, Rhub's.

Thanks FAB but unfortunately I know only all too well what I need to do, it's just accepting it that's the difficult bit.

No affairs thankfully, just finances.

Just wondering what happened to the OP?

sorry, meant to update thread this a.m!

Annoyingly I let him know what I'd seen before I saw Rhubarb's fab advice.

I had copied the e-mail in word, couldn't wait until the end of the day & e-mailed it to him at work with the bits that bothered me most underlined, making it clear that I was hurt and felt I didn't know him very well.

He was very sheepish when he came home, which turned into a strange mixture or sheepish and defiant, cringed when I repeated things in the e-mail.

He said he had not had an affair and never would, but that he had met her for coffee during a recent work trip and that he should have told me that -hadn't seen her for 15yrs previously - and she had been very complimentary about his work success and him in general, an ego-boost for him.

I pointed out that it looked like a serious come-on e-mail. He seemed quite speechless at that then recovered to say that that's how he talks to female friends (!?)-news to me- and that it was nice to have some attention as he doesn't always feel wanted or appreciated at home. I don't always either but have so far managed not to come on to any exes

I really thought that if this happened to me I would be baying for blood and out for revenge but instead I just feel a bit weary and deflated and can sort of understand the effect of that attention on him

She is married with a dc and I feel a bit better having seen a pic where she is definitely more average-looking than 'incredible'. Petty I know, but I felt better temporarily...

Still in limbo emotionally even though we talked for most of last night, don't really know how I feel. All the talking & crying has left me a bit numb tbh.

Well done you for talking about it.

I disagree with everyone who says married couples should share passwords etc. You don't own them. I would not want DP to have access to all my things, and I wouldn't be bothered about looking at his.

His tone was definitely way OTT and reminds me of the kind of emails one boss sent me (at work). He was married and had designs (and a daughter only 2 years younger than me - I was 20), but I knocked it on the head. I don't know if he would ever really have cheated or whether it was just an ego-boost thing.

AccessDenied. Give yourself some time to get over it. At least he didn't try to deny it but I doubt very much if he does talk to female colleagues that way. Of course he's going to try and lessen the damage, that's natural.

You'll never know if he would have gone through with it or not, I guess it's bad enough that the intention was there - and make no mistake about it, his intention seems pretty obvious to me.

Take some time to be by yourself, taking care of you. Can you go away for a couple of nights? When I had a huge row with dh I booked myself and the kids into the Premier Inn in Edinburgh, we had a great time and it punished dh enough to have to come home from work every night to an empty house, not knowing what my plans were going to be. Not that I really wanted to punish him, I just needed time to be by myself and get things into perspective. It worked for me.

There are obviously issues here for both of you. He feels taken for granted and bored - he was after a bit of excitement and what man doesn't like having his ego stroked? You now feel betrayed and angry. He was obviously looking for something he felt was lacking in your marriage. You could both do with talking but that will be hard with so much hurt around.

I strongly advise you to consider marriage guidance. It's a way of getting things off your chest and delving into the bigger issues without resorting to throwing plates at each other. It's very hard to try and resolve something like this just between the two of you. But remember, you should not be the one to make all the effort now. The fact that he was looking elsewhere is not your fault. He needs to put some effort in now, redirect those energies he was going to put into this other woman, into his marriage.

He's very lucky to have you as his wife and he ought to show you some respect.

Best of luck.

It's a shame you lost the element of surprise and shock with your confrontation, but I do understand why you couldn't sit on this information any longer. The problem is, he had a few hours to cook up a reasonably plausible account and I'm not in the least bit surprised that he is claiming he "would never have had an affair". Even he might be truly believing of that, but it is usually the biggest delusion of all.

I think the only reason this didn't progess to an affair was the response of the woman herself. She may have flirted with him a bit when she saw him, but it doesn't sound as though she was fuelling this much at all. Other women (because unless resolved, this will happen again) might not be like her and in your shoes, I wouldn't want to rely on other people controlling the fidelity in the relationship.

I think you need far more honesty than he is giving. It would be tempting to you both to feel this was a wake-up call and the problem is solved because this dalliance has been stopped in its tracks, but until he recognises the seriousness of this, the problem is far from solved.

The usual advice in these situations is always for the betrayed partner to "plug the gap" in terms of what was missing, but this on its own does not solve what is actually a character fault in the betrayer - and it diverts responsibility away from where it should be. You could shower him with attention, adoration and ego boosts all day long - but what happens when that is not possible for some reason i.e. your incapacity or more urgent care requirements, such as a sick child or relative?

In order to properly move on, I would say he needs some self-honesty more than anything. Rarely in situations like this, when both partners are willing, does it not progress to an affair. This is especially true of men, who historically have associated infidelity with sex - and can delude themselves for an extraordinarily long time that since no sex has actually happened, they will not be unfaithful. What they don't acknowledge is that they are getting addicted to the secrecy and the adoration and barriers to fidelity are being broken down all the time. Women therefore very often pull out of emotional affairs before they become sexual, because they normally associate infidelity with emotions and the warning bells go off much earlier.

My strong advice is to confront what really might have happened, get him to own the problem and look inwards at his own behaviour. The best way of controlling future fidelity is for the infidel to work on themselves first - and then by all means tend to the relationship. But tending to the relationship and not the people within it is just papering over the cracks.

Excellent post whenwillifeelnormal

Access sorry you are going through this My h started flirting for all the reasons your h identified and unfortunately did actually sleep with another woman. If I saw an email like that I would assume my h wanted to be unfaithful. After my gruesome discovery I looked at h's email and browsing history. Quite an eye opener! Don't know if this is something you would like to do? I needed to know everything before I could deal with the situation iyswim.

Access, I meant to add, it sounds like you're going to have a bit of an uphill struggle getting him to take responsibility for this, because he is already deflecting blame away from him, on to the relationship and de facto, you.

Keep asserting that the adult way of asking for more love and appreciation is to have a conversation about it. You say you equally feel under-valued, but tellingly, haven't chosen infidelity as a means of expressing that.

The responsible way of expressing how he was feeling was to let you know he and the old flame had been in contact before his last trip (that coffee didn't just "happen" did it?). As soon as he started to look forward to the contact and felt his ego being stroked, he should have come to you and said: "I've been enjoying the feelings this friendship has been giving me, can we talk about it?"

Get him to take responsibility for never once telling you what was happening - in his head, on his computer and at this meeting. This was secret - and you cannot control someone's secrets. Refuse to own his behaviour - you can only control your own.

Woah

Very dodgy, very inappropriate. I would be having words too. OK, he may be pissed off that you read his emails but IMO that is a far lesser "crime" than sending flirty messages to another woman, possibly with the intention of acting on it!

Keep posting OP and let us know what happens.

thanks all for the wise words , still re-reading and thinking about what you all have said.

I'd love to take off to a hotel Rhubarb, only thing stopping me is lack of available funds...

agree wwifn, he got defensive very quickly and I felt the blame was deflected onto the relationship and de facto onto me. I've never seen him like that & considering he had half a day to prepare it was quite a display of embarrasment, bafflement & anger.

I find myself looking at him thinking, I really don't know who you are anymore, is that normal?

he is very uncommunicative in general, has always been. I think the way he deals with anything difficlut or complex is to go inwards, I don't know how easy it will be to change this.

May have to look in to relate or similar - but again we are a bit skint atm.

Some marriage guidance is free - I know the catholic ones are, I don't know how bothered you are about them being catholic but they are trained all the same. May be even better for you considering their views on infidelity!

Some Premier Inn or Travelodges are only around £30 for a night. But if that's too expensive, could you call a friend and arrange to have a girly night and a stopover?

If you live near me you can come over here, share a bottle of wine and stop over in one of the kids bedrooms...?

Access, it is entirely normal for you to look at him this way. You have discovered a side to him you never knew existed [secrecy, lies and deceit) and a side of him that may have been long buried [romantic, complimentary, flirtatious). It's no wonder you're finding this hard to reconcile with the beliefs you once had, only a few short days ago. You might also be in some shock.

Uncommunicative, emotionally retarded men are amongst the most vulnerable - and dangerous infidels. They are an accident waiting to happen. They expect all their "love needs" to be met by their spouses, whereas healthier adults get those needs met by a range of people; family, friends and their spouses. Would you say he had low emotional intelligence? Again, people like this can be very easily "swept away" by a flirtation, because they lack the nouse to realise what is happening and respond at a very shallow level i.e. this feels good, so I'll keep doing it.

Keep insisting the responsibility is his for his behaviour. He chose to respond in the way he did - you had no control over it. Like everything, there might be reasons galore for why we behave badly, but those reasons never negate the fact that we have behaved badly - we have other choices.

Relate might not work just yet - indeed, couples counselling might be the wrong approach entirely. Counselling on his own might be better, since it is his behaviour that needs to be unravelled - and not necessarily your relationship. Like I said earlier, he must work on himself first before you look at the relationship. This is not your fault and don't ever think it is. You cannot control his choices.

Aw thanks Rhubarb, so kind of you to offer

I am outside of the UK though, quite a way outside - don't want to go into to details for fear of identifying myself!

I may consider staying at a friends though, will look at guidance options too, thanks for info.

Ah yes, you said in your OP.

Hope you manage to sort things out. Give it time, you won't feel this way forever, your feelings will probably change on a day-to-day basis. You are grieving in a way for the loss of trust in your dh.

Don't talk or do anything with him for a while, just give yourself time just to 'be'.

thanks Rhubard and WWIFN & the rest of you clever ladies, lots to think about now.