Expert: Don - 10/24/2007

Question
I found out 5 months into our marriage my husband was having an emotional affair with a woman he worked with. He was taking her to lunch, riding her around in my car, and having cell phone conversations in excess of 100 minutes after I went to sleep. He said he was only talking to her for two weeks but I later found out they had been having intense conversations 5 months, not two weeks as he told me. I threatened to leave and he basically begged me back. Ok so over the next three months, I caught him four separate times answering personal ads and giving out his cell number. We decided again to work it out. Now I find he is talking to another girl at work. I have never caught him physically cheating on me but the emotional affairs and answering personal ads really hurts. He tells me it's just entertainment, nothing more. What is going on with this?

Answer
Like you said technically he hasn't cheated physically but emotional cheating is just as bad and often leads to physical cheating.

It's totally disrespectful to you as a person and your marriage for your husband to be answering personal ads and engaging in inappropriate communication with other women. And if you continue to let it happen, it's only going get worse.

You need to put your foot down and inform him that you don't think it's right for him to talk to these other women, ask him how he would feel if you did the same thing with men, if you answered personal ads, or talked to men while he was asleep.

You need to make him choose either you or these other women, if they are just for entertainment, he should be able to give them up easily especially if he knows it hurts the woman he loves which is you his wife. And the next time he is caught doing this you have to give him some kind of punishment, because if you just keep forgiving him, he'll think that all you'll do is talk and it's okay for him to continue to do what he has been doing.

You have to let him know that you won't put up with it, and it's either you or those women but he can't have both.