DP emailing another woman

[DSM]

I need some advice.

Dp has been 'secretly' emailing another woman. Short background - she is a girl that he had a short fling with a few years ago (before we met) and apparently they remained friends after. She emailed him about 5 months ago, and they exchanged a few emails back and forth. One evening he confessed this to me as he was feeling guilty and wanted no secrets.

He's never mentioned it since, but I recently found out there have been 3 more emails, 2 from her and a reply from him. The last one was from her a few days ago. He also looked through her photos on facebook and did a google search of her name.

He told me the evening he confessed that he'd told her all about us and our new house, but I've since read the emails and he has never mentioned me.

I don't know what to do.. He is terribly loving and affectionate, and keeps asking if I am okay as I am obviously being a little quiet whilst I ponder this.

Should I confront him, or leave it and 'follow the progress' of the emails? Or am I overreacting and should allow him his privacy?

Any advice would be great.

If it helps, the emails are innocently natured, and wouldn't think twice about the content, it's the fact he's hidden it that bothers me.

Hmm you were perfectly right to be very concerned. You might want to have a read of the 'Bible' - Shirley Glass's Not Just Friends, as it will allow you to understand a lot of what is going on here so that you can explain it to him (or better yet, get him to read it so he can see what he is doing).

When you caught him out, your dp was going through the 'permission' stage, namely he was allowing himself small lies and small secrets while telling himself this was still safe behaviour as he convinced himself he would never allow anything to happen. But these are all part of a long process of allowing himself to get to the point where he may 'allow' himself to have an affair.

There may be nothing wrong with your relationship and he may be thinking that by being extra kind and loving to you he is safeguarding your relationship. So in his mind he is 'doing nothing wrong' by pursuing his special friendship with this girl and by admitting the initial contact he is being open with you, so what's the harm? But he is wrong, and admitting the initial contact was just an attempt to cover his guilt, therefore allowing him to justify continuing as he could lie to himself and convince himself the relationship was all out in the open. The truth is that he is being seduced by the attention and he has purposely not told her about you because he wants the good feelings their contact gives him to go on.

In his head it was just a small omission but really, he knew it was not, and faced with justifying it to you now he has been totally caught on the back foot as he can't so is covering it with anger and is trying to divert you by making you focus on a possible problem in your relationship when in fact it is his relationship with HER that is the problem - and that's his fault.

Now that you have discovered him, he is in denial about the seriousness of it. Don't expect any truth at this stage - but you need to be firm with him and explain that this is making you reconsider your relationship with him. Make no mistake, this was the start of the slope to an affair and he has seriously broken your trust. If you are to repair it he needs to be open with you - sending her an email written with your input stating he is attached for a start.

Oh goodness - those seem awful extreme actions? We're fine right now, well at least we've sorted things. I don't see how I can ask him now to show me the emails. If I bring it up again it will culminate in another fight. I know he's using anger to cover the lies, but I can't tell him that I know he's lying?

Abedelia is right DSM

There are 4 red flags here.

1. He is lying.

1. Recent communications have been secretive. If she passed her number on 9 days ago, I'd bet he's contacted her on it.

1. He is talking about your relationship in a negative way. This is a major line crossed. What this signals is that there are problems in your relationship and she therefore has permission to harm it further.

1. He is reacting defensively about it.

Friendly relationships with exes are absolutely fine and can be life-enhancing, as with any male-female friendship, but the only safe ones are those that are openly conducted and with people who wish the primary relationship well. This one fits neither criterion, by the sounds of it.

Brief thread hijack for a moment, Abedelia I have been worrying about you - a recent thread from a new poster sent shivers down my spine and I thought of you. Hopefully you will know which one I mean and I was fretting about you reading it. Are you okay?

Why can't you? For years I tried to extract information from my ex which I knew he would never tell me off his own back. I'd pretend I came across things, so and so mentioned something etc, and he never admitted to anything he didn't think that I could prove. I could prove everything by the way - was just too scared to say so because I knew he always turned the "You were snooping, you don't trust me!" card on me.

Yes, you may have snooped. But ultimately, his actions are worse. He is in contact with an ex and lying about what they are talking about. Don't bloody worry about having snooped, fess up and nip this in the arse now. It'll eat you up until this is sorted.

As for what I would do now - he is lying and I think further confrontation will drive this underground. Start looking at other forms of communication - presumably you noted her number so you will know what to look for in phone records and the phone. Very often, female numbers are stored under inoccuous names such as "Dave - work" or "Plumbers merchants".

Look for another E mail account too. He's already mentioned a sponsorship request which doesn't accord with what you've seen. Either this is another lie, or this has been communicated from a secret account or via a phone or messenger account.

Shirley Glass in Not Just Friends writes that a barrier has been traversed when a third party knows more about your relationship than you know about theirs with your spouse. Seems you didn't know he was "apprehensive"...?

I think there is some confusion- he hasn't actually been talking to her about 'problems' in our relationship. In fact, he has never mentioned me to her.

He told me he had discussed apprehensions he was having so that he wouldn't have to show me the emails. He does not know that I know this is a lie.

He definitely has not got her number in his phone.

Well, he told me that she sent him her brothers bank details and he went into the branch and deposited a small sum.

I just don't believe there was any sponsorship at all!

Well, that's a little ridiculous. Of course he should be free to be friends with whomever he chooses. I just want to know about it.

Hmm.. I do trust him, which is why this is all the worse as I feel maybe I am wrong to do so.

And I'm not suspicious, I found the emails, I have nothing to 'suspect' I read it all in black and White.

It all sounds very odd to me, and his responses to your questioning sound like he was flailing around a bit. Why on earth would you say that you had discussed worries about your relationship with an ex if you hadn't?

And who goes into a branch of a bank to do a small transaction like that when you can do it online? Her brother's bank details? Why not her own??

They are the answers of a man panicing, I think you have to accept the possibility that he might be having contact with her in some other way. Another e-mail address or another phone maybe?

I'm also a bit baffled by your stance on this - and I think you're in hefty denial.

It seems an extraordinary and frankly implausible lie of his that he has been telling her he has "apprehensions" about your relationship, if he has done nothing of the sort. Yet because you haven't seen an exchange like that, you think it hasn't happened at all.

He's got absolutely nothing to gain from claiming he said this. In fact, I'm astonished that since this is in the open domain and has been admitted, you aren't making more of it with him. As stated before by more than one poster, it's a classic stage on the run-up to an affair, claiming that all is not well at home....

The much more likely scenario is that he has been communicating this message (and others) via a medium that you just haven't rumbled yet - it's the only explanation.

I'm struggling to see how on earth things can be "all fine" with you both today when he has admitted he's been telling another woman he's got doubts about his relationship with you.

I also don't see how you can revert to trusting him now that you know this - and also know that he has been lying to you about more recent communication.

If however you do try to be "cool" about this and stick your head in the sand, it is likely that far worse will happen.

A trust issue conversation is going to sound a bit hypocritical coming from the person who hacked his email.

The real issue is the problems he's having with the relationship, everything else is just a symptom, if you try to force him to stop having secret chat with her before fixing the problems I worry all that will be achieved is adding a feeling of trapped on top of whatever other negative feelings he's already having, which will probobly just make things a whole lot worse.

I think the chat you need to have with him is not one about emails to ex's etc, but rather about what problems he has with your relationship (which he said he expressed) and how to fix things, and move on, and be happy together.

Hopefully, if you can put your relationship back on an even keel, you won't need to wory about her because even if she is wanting him back, he'll choose you anyway, and you can still keep one eye open on the emails etc, as soon as you let him know you've been watching his online activity you lose the luxury of keeping an eye out for whats going on.

Hi whenwillI (waves), which thread was that? I've been off the forums for a bit as I can get a bit obsessive about it and this makes me feel bad, especially if I see some poor woman back at discovery. But baby is sleeping better now so I feel more able to look up tips on the ongoing; tiredness makes me feel mentally feeble

OP - sorry for hijack, keep an eye on that mobile and look for a second, as well as checking your landline bill for well-dialled numbers. Often men are a bit crap at hiding stuff. Make no mistake, he has crossed a big line. Next thing, if your relationship is good at the moment, he will start picking little fights so he can tell himself all isn't well at home (even though it's his doing!) and so he then has the gap in his life where he can let someone else in.... watch for that behaviour as it will come. And don't feel bad about snooping - he is the one who has caused this.

As for the bad feelings about the relationship - I'd bet the farm on these only having reared their head around the time she popped up again. What a coincidence....

He's been discussing your relationship with her and in a negative way. It doesn't matter that you haven't seen evidence of it. You don't just pick that as an excuse out of thin air. They are communicating in other ways I suspect and he doesn't want you contacting her.

And regardless, he's just told you he's got misgivings about your relationship. Have you asked him about that?

Hmm. He has been telling her he has misgivings about your relationship... well if he has, then that awful as it is just a rehash of the oldest bollocks in the world - "my wife doesn't understand me" (subtext: but I bet you would). Again, I think telling you that is just a red herring because he is panicking. He wants you to be diverted to thinking asbout your relationship rather than focusing on what is really wrong - HIS BEHAVIOUR!

Believe me, this is how my H started. Yes he admitted fancying his assistant at work (we used to joke about such things because it's only part of being human). Then he told me about them going to a pub together to get away from the awfulness of his leaving party and that she'd texted him and emailed him in the days after. Of course, what he omitted is to tell me what they's said at the pub and the content of the mails etc - that she'd said she thought he was 'really special', how much she was missing him, etc, and also his responses in kind.

Before long he was telling her to only ring when I was sure to be out with the kids, emailing and texting her constantly - and admitting to the odd call, email and text but just the amount you would with a friend, not the many, many more that were actually taking place. Believe me, this is how it starts. You are so lucky to have discovered it as hopefully you can put an end to it. Don not let it go as something harmless - he may pretend to be honest from now on but I would bet there is more than this to it.