[jc830]

My husband and I have been married for 7.5 years. Over the past year we had problems with him drinking a lot and failing to provide the emotional support I needed. I had began to question whether or not he loved me and was ready to call it quits. I was extremely lonely and turned to someone I worked with. I didn’t love this guy I was just starved for attention. My husband found out about 6 months ago and we decided to work it out. We both accepted our roles and forgave each other. Things have been better than ever since.

After this happened I had to still work with the man I had an affair with. I still talked to him every day. I made the decision on my own to find another job. I wasn’t worried about the affair flaring up again. I meant it when I made the commitment to my husband and the problems in our marriage had been repaired. I just needed to get out of the environment that I had been in when the affair started. I’ll admit it was difficult because I had been friends with this guy for over 3 years. It was stupid of me but I felt some sort of loss. This loss that I felt did not take away from my love for my husband. When I left this job I promised my husband I would not talk to this guy again.

A week or so after I started my new job this guy contacted me. Instead of doing what I had promised to do and telling my husband about the contact I talked to this guy via e-mail a few times. I was in no way trying to rekindle the affair even though I see now that it’s exactly what he was trying to do. I can’t explain why I had a hard time ignoring him. I am so upset about this. I am fully committed to my husband and my family and I’m actually happy. I wasn’t looking for anything with this guy or trying to find something I was lacking. I’m definitely not in love with him and I refused to even meet him for lunch when he was in town. So why would I still talk to him? The conversation was friendly in nature…nothing sexual…he said he missed me…I told him I was happy and needed to stop talking to him. Long story short…my husband found out about this contact. I am completely ashamed and regret ever responding to his contact. My husband wants an explanation as to why I would still talk to an ex-lover. I am having a hard time explaining it to him and to myself. Why the heck would I do this? I know he thinks I’m insincere and he questions my love for him. I swear that I love him more than anything and I don’t want to lose him. What should I do? What would make me take a chance to ruin everything that I have and everything we have worked for? He is what I want and I don’t even have thoughts about going astray again. So why would I do something so stupid?

Any insight or advice on what I should do is appreciated. Thanks!

[April Masini, your AskApril]

The way you regain his trust is to put your marriage first. That means ahead of your own feelings. As for your questions about why you talked to your ex-lover, the simple answer is “because you wanted to”, and you didn’t really think of your husband or the promise you made to him when you did.

This is pretty simple, but it requires a lot of discipline on your part — not just to stay away from your ex-lover, but to focus on making your marriage better and and your husband more of a priority. 😉

Hope that helps!

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[jc830]

Thanks…that does help. One more question…how do we move on from here? We love each other but we don’t know how to go forward.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

You have to change the behaviors that led you to this place you’re at now — for instance, you wrote that he had drinking issues and wasn’t giving you emotional attention, so those are two places he can make changes, and you can work on not betraying him and not lying to him — which are the two problems that you contributed to — as well as creating an atmosphere in the relationship where he’ll [i]want[/i] to give you more emotional support and attention.

In addition, you have to try and build intimacy and good experiences together, so institute date night, if you don’t have it already, and try doing nice things for him, like sending gifts, letters, and making calls to tell him how much you care, etc. In other words, you have to rebuild what you had and make it even better so that it doesn’t get to the point of cheating again.

I hope that helps!

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