online cheating? Help!!!
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online cheating? Help!!!
| Mon, 10-04-2004 - 11:44am |
My husband has been sending emails to a woman he met on a website that has a message board. They have been sending them every day several times a day . He has a separate email account and continues to lie about it. He makes up stories to her and tells her he is a single father. We have been married 4 yrs and have 3 kids. She gave him her cell number but I dont think they've talked yet. They have eachothers name and address because of the nature of the website-people trade things on it. They're now talking about sending pictures back and forth. He hasn't given her a picture of him and he posted one of his friend instead so he's pretending to be him.
She is a single mother and apparently is acting this way with alot of the other men on the site. I feel totally betrayed being lied to and he knows how I feel about this stuff. To me it is emotional cheating but he acts like he's not doing anything wrong because he's just sitting at the computer and doing nothing. She lives in another state so it's not like they'll meet. I don't know how to stop this. He tells me to quit spying on him and if I say anymore about his computer activity he will break the computer. He tells me he loves me and bought me a beautiful gift last week. How long can this go on? Are they going to be emailing eachother for weeks,months,years? Develop a real relationship or is he just goofing around because he's bored. He has alot of free time at work and just sits there so I can see why he's bored. Has anyone else ever dealt with this problem? Are my hands tied? Every day I feel hurt and sick to my stomach thinking that he's sharing his day with her.
She is a single mother and apparently is acting this way with alot of the other men on the site. I feel totally betrayed being lied to and he knows how I feel about this stuff. To me it is emotional cheating but he acts like he's not doing anything wrong because he's just sitting at the computer and doing nothing. She lives in another state so it's not like they'll meet. I don't know how to stop this. He tells me to quit spying on him and if I say anymore about his computer activity he will break the computer. He tells me he loves me and bought me a beautiful gift last week. How long can this go on? Are they going to be emailing eachother for weeks,months,years? Develop a real relationship or is he just goofing around because he's bored. He has alot of free time at work and just sits there so I can see why he's bored. Has anyone else ever dealt with this problem? Are my hands tied? Every day I feel hurt and sick to my stomach thinking that he's sharing his day with her.

You should feel totally betrayed. Because he is betraying you and your marriage. He misrepresentated himself to this woman, LIED to her and he's lying to you. Of course he doesn't see it because he will say or do anything:
::but he acts like he's not doing anything wrong because he's just sitting at the computer and doing nothing.
to justify his actions so he can continue his behavior at all costs because he likes it, loves the attention, the flirtation, walking on the edge, playing with fire, getting his ego stroked.
::To me it is emotional cheating
It is and more....his intentions speak loudly how much he values you and his marriage.
Is it ‘just friends’ – or emotional infidelity?
Even though there’s no sex, you still could be unfaithful, marriage counselors warn.
By Kim Campbell
In the minds of many, the definition of marital infidelity is pretty straightforward: If you have a sexual relationship with someone other than your spouse, you’ve cheated.
But marriage counselors are adding more gray to that definition by identifying non-physical ways of being unfaithful – such as forming attachments that rob a spouse of emotional intimacy.
These aren’t the bonds forged on a “girls’ night out,” but rather those formed between two co-workers who, for examples, share everything – their aspirations, their marriage woes – and keep the extent of their friendship a secret from their spouses.
“If you are skimming off the aspects of your inner life…and reserving them for your ‘friend,’ you are cheating your spouse of intimacy,” says William Doherty, a professor of family social science at the University of Minnesota.
Some experts have gone as far as to call this a new crisis of infidelity – one that is changing the way gender relationships are viewed. T hat’s the position taken by the late Shirley Glass, a researcher and family therapist whose last book was published earlier this year, before her death.
Glass found it wasn’t just thrill seekers or those unhappy in marriage who are prone to emotional cheating. “The new infidelity is between people who unwittingly form deep, passionate connections before realizing that they’ve crossed the line from platonic friendship into romantic love,” she wrote in “NOT ‘Just Friends’: Protect Your Relationship from Infidelity and Heal the Trauma of Betrayal.”
Today, there are greater opportunities for intimate relationships to form between men and women and for the boundaries between platonic and romantic feelings to blur, she and others argue. Changes in the work force have brought more women into offices at all levels, and the Internet has made it far easier to quickly form bonds with strangers.
In both cases, it can be easy to meet someone and suspend reality. On the Internet, a contact can become a romanticized ideal without faults. And, in the office, an intriguing co-worker can seem more exciting than a spouse with whom you have to pay bills and fix plumbing.
“An emotional affair to me can be as damaging as a sexual affair, because an emotional connection is what people really want,” says Rona Subotnik, a marriage and family therapist in Palm Desert and author of books on infidelity, including Internet relationships. The workplace is a particularly fertile ground for cheating, experts say. By some accounts, the office is replacing the local pub as the place where men and women meet – and cheat.
About 8 mission to 10 million new relationship are formed annually in offices, according to Dennis Powers, a professor of business law at Southern Oregon University in Ashland and author of the 1998 book “The Office Romance.”
That figure is for singles entering relationship, but the same environment might easily influence those who are married. Working closely together on a project, for example, can be enticing, as can simply being around someone every day who shares similar goals and aspirations. An “emotional affair” tends to involve sexual attraction – even if not acted on – and secrecy on the part of a married participant, therapists note. It can be difficult in the workplace to realize an emotional affair is developing, says Doherty, because there’s usually not a big event, like a sexual encounter, to signal that you’ve turned a corner. Even so, not everyone believes that interaction between men and women in the workplace spells disaster. “The mere fact that a person has friendships from work by itself can’t be considered unethical. The question is where it crosses the line,” Powers says.
Some observers note that the issue of emotional affairs is prompting new rules for gender relationships, but not everyone thinks more rules are the best idea. Laura Kipnis, author of the recent book “Against Love: A Polemic,” questions whether it is right for one partner to control another’s autonomy or intimacies too much. “To what extent is it ethical…that their movements or associates should be restricted to appease my own anxiety or insecurity?” she asks.
For her part, Glass offers a framework for separating home and work relationships, noting that fidelity is about maintaining appropriate boundaries. Among her suggestions: discuss relationship issues at home, don’t lunch or take private coffee breaks with the same person, discuss your online friendships with your partner, and surround yourself with friends who are happily married and who are committed to the idea of fidelity.
From “NOT ‘Just Friends’ ” by Shirley Glass
WHEN FRIENDSHIP CROSSES THE LINE
Has your friendship become an emotional affair?
1. Do you confide more to your friend than to your partner about how your day went?
2. Do you discuss negative feelings or intimate details about your marriage with your friend but not with your partner?
3. Are you open with your partner about the extent of your involvement with your friend?
4. Would you feel comfortable if your partner heard your conversation with your friend?
5. Would you feel comfortable if your partner saw a videotape of your meetings?
6. Are you aware of sexual tensions in this friendship?
7. Do you and your friend touch differently when you’re alone than in front of others?
8. Are you in love with your friend?
Carrie
So the counselor thinks it's an addiction? I'm not sure it is, nor am I sure that it will pass.
Internet flings - anyone can be who they want to be, lie, make-up stuff, the intimacy shared isn't real, but she thinks it is. She believes everything he says.
I understand you don't want to disrupt your kids lives, you don't want to risk his anger and reaction, you don't want to live where you lived before, etc. but when does your feelings count more than his? His behavior is not going to just go away or stop if you ignore it. Are you working on your self-esteem in counseling?
My best to you.
Carrie
I have learned a hard lesson from this and want to save anyone the heartache I caused and him because it takes two.
If you have any more questions feel free to ask. SOUL
I don't mind at all telling you more about my story. I can honestly tell you that if my husband would have known about it I think I would have let it cool on the back burner but would not have stopped completly talking to him. I also would have did what ever I had to even lie just to go see him. He lived very far from me but that didn't matter to me at all. I would tell my husband I was going on a business trip and that was good enough for him he never once doubted that. My marriage suvived only cause my husband never found out and if he did NO WAY it would have been over. As for your husband, I think that it could revolve into a relationship if it keeps going mine did. We started out just talking and joking as friends then we started confiding in each other about things that went on in our marriages. In time you start to develope feelings for a person if your around them or talk to them long enough. In time it developed into deep intimate talks of how he could be someone my husband wasn't and how I could be how his wife wasn't while he was married. I then of course became curious enough about him that I wanted to meet him as he wanted to meet me. I managed to get away on a BUSINESS TRIP and met with him for a weekend. I have to admit he was not what he said he was but emotionally I already had fallen for him. Looks meant nothing at the time because my heart felt somthing different. In time I started to feel guilty but that still was over taken by the feelings I held for him. You can either do two things, 1) Is you can e-mail her acting like your husband and see how far she will go. 2) You can tell your husband you know and tell him it needs to stop or you are gone. Also remember this if he has access to a computer at work they can e-mail through out the day too. I did it all day long at work but never at home. I hope this helps if not e-mail me at lifeiskind@yahoo.com