Ask Andrew – Should I let my husband email and chat on-line with his affair partner
I have read I love you but I’m not in love with you, and also some of the posts on your website, and found them really insightful. Therefore I would greatly appreciate your input on a couple of issues I am facing at the moment regarding my marriage.
My husband and I have been together for 9 years and married for a year and a half. Four months ago, I discovered that my husband was having an affair at his work with a married woman and mother of two. It had started six weeks before. Because it was difficult for them to find time when they could be alone, they mostly interacted via daily emails or texts but they also met several times secretly at and outside of work, during which they had close physical contact but no sex. However, I can’t help feel that because of the way things were escalating between them, they would have probably taken things further if I hadn’t discovered the affair so soon. While it didn’t eventuate, I was also really hurt by the fact that my husband suggested a couple of times to his lover to meet at our place while I was away.
My husband claimed he loves me, that he never wanted to leave me and that this woman also never wanted to leave her husband; that they just fell in love but knew the affair was something unsustainable; and that he was already starting to see elements lacking in their relationship that in his eyes would have been required for it to last like ours.
His lover had been with her husband for 16 years and this was supposedly the first time she was having an affair. However she had a tacit agreement with her husband that if they fell for others at some point during their marriage, they would just turn a blind eye to it, because they expected that it would be difficult to stay faithful to one another during a long monogamous relationship. A kind of open relationship in which they didn’t want to be in the know about third parties.
I questioned my husband as to whether this was something he would have liked to try, whether he found that monogamy was too much hard work. His answer was that he couldn’t see this as a scenario for us; that from what his lover was telling him, it wasn’t such an easy path for her to follow either; that even if it can be hard to stick to monogamy, he didn’t think there was any other viable alternatives; that he had not felt like straying during the 9 years we had been together even when opportunities to have affairs had presented themselves, but that this was different.
We decided to read a couple of books about infidelity and polyamory, and we went for three counseling sessions. This permitted us to spot a few important factors that might have contributed to the affair (low self-esteem issues and stress at work for each of us, my husband’s need for self affirmation, and communication problems between us). We are now trying to address these as best as we can. However, after all this, I couldn’t help worrying that: I was trying to find reasons why the affair occurred to reassure myself that it wasn’t just because my husband had fallen for someone else; and that my husband kindly went along with it all because he was worried of losing me. My first questions to you are: Do you think affairs always stem out of problems within the primary couple? Could it just be from real limerence? What is your take on polyamory? Is it possible to fall in love with someone else, without necessarily falling out for your partner?
A few days after I found out about the affair, my husband told me that he had agreed with his lover to revert their interactions to friendship. Which meant that they still had occasional lunch together at work and maintained sporadic contact by email and text. I was tolerating their behaviour because I could imagine how hard, if not impossible, it would have been for them to stop communicating abruptly right after the discovery. I wanted them to have time to accept the idea that it was over and come to their sense and, using your expression, let the bubble burst.
Six weeks after the discovery they were still in touch. I came home one day to the smell of burnt dinner. My husband is usually quite absent-minded but during the affair, his distractedness escalated. He was completely absorbed by it, he was on his computer pretending to do something else, forgetting everything around him, not being able to concentrate on what I was telling him and getting mood swings. The burnt dinner suggested to me he might have been emailing her again and I was getting a painful déjà vu. I asked him if he had been in touch with his lover on that afternoon, which he confirmed, but he said just as friends. I believed that this was his intent but couldn’t help thinking he was trying to fool himself in thinking he could switch off his feelings for her and that none of it would transpire through his writing. Wouldn’t this constant communication a proof to her that he couldn’t get her out off his mind?
On the same evening I told him I was ok for them to be in touch, but asked if he could be honest with me and let me know when and why it occurred (but without having to go further in details about it). This was based on some of the advice from one of the self-help book I had read about how to restore trust with your partner, an advice that I thought made sense.
My husband did not react well to the idea taking this as a proof of my mistrust and me wanting to control him. I got a little desperate at this stage because I thought I had been extremely understanding up till then by letting them be in touch after the discovery. We were completely at odds with how we were seeing things. I understood then that he had not realised that even if I had not voiced it, I was expecting him to severe communications with her eventually. However, he thought there was nothing wrong with them staying in touch, that it would be like being in contact with an ex. I disagreed, saying that neither of them had decided to stop the affair, that if it wasn’t for my discovery they would probably be still having it, and that he needed time away from her to really sort out his emotions if like he said he was in love with both of us.
Eventually two days later, he told me that he had asked his lover to stop emailing, texting and calling him, that he had found it very hard to do this to her, but he could see that it would mean a lot to me. But that he might want to reestablish contact later when things would settle down between us.
My husband quit his job a month and a half ago and as far as I am aware, has not been in touch with his lover at all since then. I have asked him how he was coping about it and he said it was hard. I can see he is doing this for me. I don’t know what to think. So my second set of questions for you is: should I show him my trust by letting them be in touch again? Give him more time to realise on his own he does not love her/ no longer loves her? And let him develop a friendship with her, although he wasn’t able to keep their interaction to just that in the first place? And if I let them be in touch again, is it too demanding to ask what it is about? I am so worried that he will let himself be consumed again into their internet interactions.
Andrew writes:
I’m glad you’ve found ILYB helpful but you should really be reading ‘How can I ever trust you again?’ which will explain how affairs happen. It follows this equation:
problem + poor communication + temptation = affair.
In your husband’s case, low self-esteem, problems communicating and temptation was leading straight to an affair. So if you want to stop it happening again, I would be concentrating on learning to talk to each other better, listen and not push problems under the carpet. (‘Resolve your differences’ and ‘Help your partner say yes’ will help with this goal).
Of course monogamy is difficult sometimes and of course we see lots of beautiful people walking down the street – but as you can see from the equation above: temptation is not enough. And certainly if you learn how to communciate – especially over sex – you can keep your love life passionate and plentiful (see my new book ‘Make Love Like a Prairie Vole’ which is out earkly 2012). As for polyamory, practioners say it is all about being open and honest about your other lovers – not ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ which is what your husband’s ‘friend’ was describing (which in my books sounds like the worst possible solution).
As for your husband still communicating with this other woman, how can you get over someone if you are speaking almost everyday! Time and again, I find people mistaking the natural mourning process when something is over – ie: thinking about someone – for ‘if I’m thinking about them, I must have feelings for them and I must contact them’. Guess what, they’re back at start again. If your husband truly wants to move on, there are some exercises in HCIETYA.
As for saying you trust him, what’s the point? Because to be honest you don’t! That doesn’t mean that you can’t but it will take time. The full journey is explained in the book.
Summing up, congratulations for going on your hunch (and discovering the affair before it could take off) but don’t let your guard down too soon. However, your husband sounds a sensible man and if you can learn the lessons of infidelity (and make the necessary changes to your relationship) you will finally begin to put this horrible incident behind you.
