My Husband has a Secret Relationship w/Someone

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Bloody Hell

I sincerely hope OP listens to both fnord n yippy's stories/experiences but I'm not sure whether she's ready yet.


Hopefully she will tho. Some smart strategies for self preservation outlined above.

Why use the middle/maiden name? Plausible deniability, of course!

"Oh, that must be my second cousin on my mother's side ..."

If you get marriage counseling it should be someone who is not biased in your husband's favor.

I recommend that you get therapy or counseling for yourself alone if he won't do marriage counseling, so that you truly have someone on your side to talk to about this.

It needs to be someone who will talk back, in other words, have a back and forth conversation with you, not someone who just says "I'm neutral" and nothing else.

It needs to be someone who helps you with the very real problems you are facing (rather than someone who says nothing) so you get real support.

With that in place you should be able to figure out what you want to do next and get the support you need.

You deserve someone who will talk to you - without begging.
You deserve someone who will be honest with you.

You do not deserve to feel guilty about who you are.


The choice to talk to him about this or not is yours... but, in my experience, things like this do not just vanish on their own. In my experience, the choice has been less about "Do I want to talk about this?" than "Can I live with this if we don't talk about it?"

You seem to feel that you're at a deficit in the relationship you must make up for, because you aren't as emotive as your husband. Your list of everything you do to take care of him to make up for it made me really sad to read...

You're clearly a devoted partner.
You deserve as much devotion as you're giving him.

Whatever you do - because only you can decide this, I hope that you are taking at least as good of care of yourself. I hope that you always have new socks and underwear, and that at least sometimes you hire a maid or a neighborhood teenager to do the chores so you can go do something you love like he goes mountain biking. I hope that you run yourself bubble baths and blow off the laundry at least two days a week. I hope that when he's doing outdoor activities, you are giving yourself permission to do whatever other indoor activities you derive pleasure from. I hope that when you buy groceries, you buy a few goodies that you love and you know he won't eat.

The rest of the stuff - the practical stuff like support/income - there are legal venues for that. If you've been taking care of him for years, in a divorce he would have to pay maintenance/upkeep/alimony to you to give you time to build skills. You don't have to be as trapped as you feel.

And you should feel good that you're talking about this, and talk more, and don't stop talking until somebody listens - and really listens - so that things can be better for you. Because they can be better.

^^ I agree with the poster above about all of this.

Also, this is just my opinion, but I do believe you deserve special treatment as an autistic person. That's part of what you are and you've no doubt suffered because of it just like everyone on WP. So in my opinion, you deserve extra consideration and special treatment. I'm really glad you're considering therapy for yourself. It made all the difference during my divorce. I'm not saying you are for sure heading for a divorce, but it sure can be helpful if you're going through a personal crisis, let's put it that way.

Thank you all for your support. If the mods don't believe this is the place for me to be venting my daily frustrations, please let me know and I will stop.

I made an appointment with a marriage counselor for Monday alone. Hopefully my husband will agree to see her. He has gone into full avoidance mode, burying himself in work and working on Frank's house. Not sleeping, probably not eating much. Hopefully not drinking. Strange, he nuked my world but I can't stop worrying.

I realize the ball is in his court as to what to do about his special friend. He continues to use her for emotional and mental support. It's not healthy but he has to be the one to see that. Or maybe I'll get lucky and one of his friends will smack him in the head. Probably won't being as the only other person he talks to for hours is his friend who's separated from his wife. She accused him of cheating. Great support for my husband.

For those who are saying my MIL is only supporting me as her son's wife, there is probably a lot of truth to that. I'm still grateful for her presence.

So he revealed in my therapy session that he was not moving back in. News to me. I told him today we needed to talk about this separation and set up some ground rules. He came by and said the separation should be for a month minimum. He will be staying at his cousins across town. As for money he wanted all his credit cards (he won't use them he swears) and access to those accounts.

He's been pissed for some time that as much money as he makes, we are always broke. He's never had a good financial sense. In his mind, paycheck in the bank, that's the magic number he has to spend on whatever. It got him into serious debt before we pooled our finances and I took charge. I tell him we maxed out the credit cards during the recession and are slowly working to pay them down. That means paying at lot more than the minimum due. And I reminded him that things do happen, like our cats getting sick, or one of us gets injured. The most expensive things are when something breaks on one of our older vehicles. We had to have the engine replaced in his truck last year.

Tires, clothes, medicine, gas, food, occasionally going out for dinner or the movies. It all adds up. But because he doesn't mind the checkbook he just assumes money is there to spend. He wanted us to go do more things, visit places, but I explain to deaf ears, s**t costs money. So we go places, do things, and then he b*****s about there not being money.

We live in an apartment. Lovely, big apartment. Our utilities are practically nothing. He hates it! Wants a house. I told him we can't get a mortgage, we still have the foreclosure hanging over us. So he says rent. I tell him the utilities will be way higher than we pay now. He doesn't get it.


He hates us driving older vehicles. His truck is 13 years old, my car is 12. I tell him we have no car payments and our insurance is cheaper. Doesn't matter. That sound you hear is my head banging against a wall.

So you see, it's still my fault. I don't let him get newer vehicles or rent a nice house because I'm a meanie. He makes good money, we should be able to afford it.

The Washington Journal or the Atlantic, I can't remember) did a story on how 50% of middle class households could not get together $400 cash for an emergency. I could point this out to hubby, but he doesn't think that way. He makes money, why can't we spend it on what he wants.

Anyway one of the conditions of the separation was that if one was cheating, they forego contact with both relationship partners. Get some clarity. He said he wouldn't see her but he'd still talk to her. See it's sort of cheating by text. I said it was the same thing. So he said then I won't talk to you either. I asked if he'd go to a marriage counselor, he agreed. I asked would he do the no contact with either of us until we speak to a counselor together? He said no. I told him his birthday card to me sucked.

He just keeps repeating that he wants me to be happy. I told him that he makes me happy. He got upset going on about being needy and what not. I told him I will fight for this marriage. I want reconciliation. But that can't happen until he feels remorse for what he has done. And ends it with this woman. I read to him a few paragraphs from Not Just Friends how a separation can be helpful but will further trust issues with the betrayed spouse. The only course of action is No Contact with the other woman during the separation period. He wouldn't agree, and asked me to stop reading from online sites or books.

I asked if he had gone to message boards or self-help books for advice. He said he is too busy. I asked him to try.

My husband is very impulsive and is quick to anger. He is one of those people who gets tired of a project, say building a model plane, so after he realizes it's collecting dust, he will sell it. Then blame me for making him feel guilty about taking time away from me. He says I use Aspergers as a crutch, he uses our marriage and his responsibilities as an adult as a crutch. He wants things that upset him gone, out of sight. This is going to be a difficult few weeks, thank the gods my logical part of my brain is finally catching up. Maybe it's a defense mechanism.

He's done with the marriage, giving up without a fight, without taking responsibility for any of his issues. He's being a coward and an a**hole. The books say these things take time, one professional suggested a minimum 5 sessions with a marriage counselor. I know him, he's stressed out, tired, and being irrational. If he doesn't step back and clear his head he will be making a huge mistake that will destroy both our lives. God I just want to slap him. And I want his mom to slap him, and his cousin to slap him.

I get that his friend nearly dying made him rethink his life and where he wants to be. It's called a mid-life crisis, it happens to everyone. If he wants to go to college, learn to fly, whatever, stop sulking and say so! Goddamned #*$&^.

Apologies, I have been drinking and now I'm mad.