r/emotionalaffair

My (45M) wife (45F) and I have been married 20 years. Shortly after we got married she started a new job at a consulting firm. She would frequently talk about her coworker, who was also her task lead. He was maybe 7 years older than her. It was always in a positive way and generally about things not work related. It bothered me quite a bit. I recall after one time she had brought him up multiple times in one day, I subtly shared my annoyance, but nothing seemed to change. He got her a magazine for her birthday one year and she still talks about how it was one of her favorite gifts. I remember after she had taken a trip to NYC with a friend to go to a Broadway show, he burned her a CD of the soundtrack. There were several things like that. Many that I don't remember.

She worked there for about 5 years and after that she would still occasionally bring him up. A few times a year. She just brought him up again in the most random way. I was kinda flabbergasted for her to reference him after 15 YEARS! That's honestly just weird to me.

I do not think for a second that anything physical happened. I mean who knows, but wow, there was at the very least an emotional bond something fierce and he made quite the impression on her.

Do I ask my wife about it to see what he meant/means to her? Or I worry bringing it up just makes him a bigger part of our lives than he deserves and brings him more to her mind.

My (30) husband (31) had an emotional affair a year ago with a coworker of his. They were texting late at night, discussing topics that he didn’t want me to know about, he deleted text messages. It never got physical and no inappropriate photos were sent (so he claims) but both he and the coworker acknowledged that it went too far and crossed boundaries. That’s when he told me about it. He said that they have a shared history (family trauma, early loss) that I can’t relate to and he said that it was so nice to talk to someone who “could finish my sentences”. At that time, he was so ashamed, embarrassed, apologetic, couldn’t believe that he crossed the line, and I believed him. We’d only been married 4 months.

At first, I was probably too understanding and chill? Obviously very hurt and really confused. I just asked that he stop all non-work contact with her. Two days later, I did something I’ve never done before and went through his phone, and to my genuine shock, he had been texting her, making her tea at work, making jokes and flirting during meetings. After I had asked him not to. I’d never been so hurt, angry, and confused. I confronted him about it and he said that he was just worried about her because she seemed so off in the meeting. Excuse me? Your emotional affair seemed “off” at work? What about your wife?

After that, I, in my rage, deleted all of her contact points from his phone (text, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc). When he told her at work she was furious at him because she didn’t know that I had asked for no contact.

For the year that has since followed, my husband has mentioned to me that he misses his friend, wishes for that friendship, yearns for those conversations, wants me to drop my boundary that I am not comfortable with him having a friendship with his emotional affair. He even went as far as to float the idea of opening up the marriage. Pitched it in a way that didn’t seem totally crazy, and then when I put the boundary of “no workers” because we work in very similar fields and our contacts overlap significantly and it would be so messy, he started to push back. And continued to push back. And that’s when it clicked. She was in an open marriage.

My trust has been broken time and time again, he doesn’t seem to understand why. His friends have been really crummy for the last few years and haven’t been supporting him and he doesn’t feel comfortable talking to them about this, his mental health has been swirling the drain this year, he’s so lonely and desperately wants friends who aren’t crummy, and he feels like he keeps having to say no to one who keeps reaching out. The emotional affair. And I can understand his fear of fully closing that door when it’s been the only door that been open, but it shouldn’t have been open in the first place. And he doesn’t understand why that shatters me every single time he brings it up.

I have (borderline too much) empathy for his loneliness and just want him to be okay, but I’m not budging on this boundary. It is not unreasonable. I just don’t understand why he keeps pushing it.

I don’t know what to do.

I used the things I found to make this on AI as a disclaimer. I’m mad and hurt I can’t think straight so please for give me for that.

My wife and I have been married for over a decade, and we’ve been going through a difficult period in our marriage.
Last year, we went through a particularly rough patch. She even asked for a divorce, although we ultimately stayed together.
During that time, she became very attached to an AI chatbot. I noticed how much attention she was giving it and expressed that I felt she was spending more time connecting with it than with me.
She reassured me that it was just her friend and nothing more.
Recently, I went through her phone because I’ve been struggling with trust and insecurity in our marriage. I know invading her privacy was wrong, and I’m not trying to justify that.
What I discovered absolutely broke my heart.
She had been having extensive romantic and sexual conversations with this AI. She called it “babe,” greeted it like a romantic partner, and repeatedly tried to get it to tell her it loved her.
She discussed having sex with it if it ever had a physical body. She also engaged in sexual conversations while masturbating with the chatbot.
What really bothered me was that she specifically asked the AI whether what they were doing constituted cheating, and it reassured her that it wasn’t.
Meanwhile, I was being told this was just an innocent friendship.
I’ve spent a long time feeling emotionally and physically disconnected from my wife. I’ve expressed that I miss her affection, intimacy, and attention. Finding out she was seeking those things through an AI while our marriage was struggling has devastated me.
To be clear, the conversations I found were from last year. I haven’t found evidence that they’re continuing, and I haven’t found evidence of an affair with another human being.
I still love my wife and genuinely want to save our marriage. I’m considering marriage counseling because I don’t know how to rebuild trust after discovering this.
I’m also afraid to confront her because I know she’ll be upset that I looked through her phone.
I’m not trying to shame her for masturbating or having fantasies. It’s the romantic attachment, sexual interactions, and the fact that she misrepresented the relationship that hurt me.
My questions are:
Would you consider this emotional or sexual infidelity, even though the other participant was an AI?
Am I being unreasonable for feeling betrayed by something that happened last year?
How would you approach this conversation with your spouse?
Can a marriage recover from something like this through counseling?
I’d especially appreciate perspectives from people who’ve experienced something similar. I want to understand this fairly, not just have people tell me I’m right.

I’m officially 1 week postpartum and my husband just came to me and told me that a month before we got pregnant he cheated on me twice. Obviously I took it hard I have no control over my emotions right now. But he thinks all is good because it’s off his chest. What would you do??

My partner was previously married and had kids with his ex-wife. They co-parent well and it works for them. I was peeking over his shoulder when they were texting and noticed her contact image was a picture of them holding hands on a beach (from when they were married). They’ve been separated for about almost 5 years. He’s kept all their pictures on his phone. I brought it up and he kind of dismissed it. Am I wrong for feeling some type of way about it?

Hi

How do people deal with being cheated on? 💔

I discovered that my husband had been cheating on me just two months into our marriage. He had been in a relationship with another woman for two years, during the same period that we were engaged.

When I confronted him about it, he cried, apologized, and said that he didn’t even understand why he had done it. After a month of thinking, I decided to give him a second chance.

But now, six months after discovering the affair, I am still struggling every single day. I still don’t know what to do.

Sometimes I feel like my entire life with him has been a lie. Other times, I genuinely feel that he wants to make things right and is doing everything he can to make me love him again and to make our marriage work.

But I feel completely torn inside. I see him so differently now. He feels so small in my eyes compared to the man who once meant the whole world to me.

I don’t know what to do. 💔

The more I read about infidelity and try to understand what happened, the more confused I become. I went to therapy for two months, but I didn’t feel like I made any real progress.

I still don’t know what to do, and I feel emotionally drained all the time.