Emotional affair gives couple pause
Q: We’ve been happily married for 10 years, our children are ages seven and five. We’re both successful working full-time, plus work travel for me, occasional weekend and night shifts for my wife. I commute two hours daily. My wife, whose work is closer, gets the kids ready, drives to/from school, participates in their afterschool ballet, gymnastics, soccer, baseball, homework, etc. I’m home for dinner and homework.
My wife started a boot camp workout class last year, rising at 5 a.m. four times weekly. She looks/ feels great. The past six months, work situations have become very stressful for us both. There was little connection, but we still remained intimate regularly.
Recently, I saw a text message preview on her phone, from a man saying, “can’t wait to see you.” Curious, I then saw a text log of 4,000 texts over recent months, to her personal trainer in which they both say, “I love you.” I broke down, was assured nothing physical had ever happened, it started as friendship. She shared personal information about our lives, her stress with work/ life balance, and how little I was helping lately.
He started acting like her life coach. She enjoyed getting to know someone with a vastly different background and view on life. Their connection grew into more and she never stopped it.
She says she never stopped loving me. She wants to do everything possible to rebuild our relationship better than before. The last few weeks have been the worst of my life, with lots of difficult conversations. I’ve realized and admitted that I’d become closed off with her, slacked on some household chores and took for granted all that she did (chores, laundry, groceries, kids’ clothesshopping, birthday presents, updating family calendar, etc.)
I’ve committed to changes — helping share more of the family tasks, making more time to keep our connection, and bringing fun back to our marriage.
Meanwhile, she’s committed to her boot camp crew of 20 women and insists she must maintain that routine schedule for her stress balance.
It kills me that she’ll then frequently be in the same location with the man of her emotional affair.
But she says her connection with the trainer is 100 per cent dead and working out is completely separate from him.
I agreed she could return for a few weeks … she’s happy, we’re continuing to rebuild our marriage and grow our love. But I’m dying inside whenever she goes to boot camp.
What Should I Do?
Why not try hiring weekly household help for cleaning and prepping meals, instead of having Supermom do it all?
A: You’ve done a lot in recognizing what was needed on your part.
She’s done less in light of her emotional affair, but there’s still hope for your marriage if you can both lift your heads above what appears to me as “lifestyle mania.”
No matter how ambitious you are for your children, your much longer letter listed many after-school activities (involving parental participation in schedules, organizing events, etc.) plus a lot of homework.
It’s a frenetic schedule from the minute your wife finishes her workplace job.
With both of you working “successfully,” why not hire weekly household help for cleaning, laundry and prepping meals, instead of having Supermom doing it all?
You’ve both left no room for downtime or anything but the picture-perfect, high-striving family. No wonder she’s chosen to drive herself just as hard at the gym and was so easily attracted to “a different view on life.”
Counselling could help you reframe just what your couple/ family connection is all about. Meanwhile, your wife needs to find another fitness trainer. Ellie’s tip of the day When “lifestyle mania” rules, relationships easily suffer.