Husband sent private emails to a friend about our relationship

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If he had told his friend what you said rather than forwarding the emails, would you be less upset? I’m having a hard time figuring out if the thing that’s upsetting you is that he forwarded your emails, or if you’re more generally upset that he confided in a friend without first telling you he was going to do so, and the emails are just an example of that.

Yes, I would be less upset. I even expected it. It's the details and him using my emails without my permission and then not disclosing any of this that is upsetting me. Also the lack of responding to the emails to me either in person, by email, or with the therapist but instead just having some sidebar conversation with his friend like a form of gossip.

If we were friends sitting together chatting about this, I would have a lot more questions before offering up a theory. This medium isn’t as conducive to that kind of back and forth, so I’m going to throw out my gut reaction, which may or may not be right. It seems like what’s really going on here is that you don’t feel like he’s putting it real work in therapy to fix your marriage, that for all of the effort you’re putting in to opening up to him and trying to discuss things, he’s largely shutting down and not responding to you. Instead, he’s confiding in this friend in a way that fosters a kind of emotional (although not necessarily sexual) intimacy that’s lacking in your marriage, while making little to no effort to foster that kind of intimacy in your own marriage. Compounding this is that your husband has cheated on you with a man before, so you can’t dismiss this idea that his emotional intimacy with this friend isn’t part of (or won’t lead to) a sexual intimacy that further threatens your marriage.

Bingo. Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If he had told his friend what you said rather than forwarding the emails, would you be less upset? I’m having a hard time figuring out if the thing that’s upsetting you is that he forwarded your emails, or if you’re more generally upset that he confided in a friend without first telling you he was going to do so, and the emails are just an example of that.

Yes, I would be less upset. I even expected it. It's the details and him using my emails without my permission and then not disclosing any of this that is upsetting me. Also the lack of responding to the emails to me either in person, by email, or with the therapist but instead just having some sidebar conversation with his friend like a form of gossip.

If we were friends sitting together chatting about this, I would have a lot more questions before offering up a theory. This medium isn’t as conducive to that kind of back and forth, so I’m going to throw out my gut reaction, which may or may not be right. It seems like what’s really going on here is that you don’t feel like he’s putting it real work in therapy to fix your marriage, that for all of the effort you’re putting in to opening up to him and trying to discuss things, he’s largely shutting down and not responding to you. Instead, he’s confiding in this friend in a way that fosters a kind of emotional (although not necessarily sexual) intimacy that’s lacking in your marriage, while making little to no effort to foster that kind of intimacy in your own marriage. Compounding this is that your husband has cheated on you with a man before, so you can’t dismiss this idea that his emotional intimacy with this friend isn’t part of (or won’t lead to) a sexual intimacy that further threatens your marriage.

Bingo. Exactly.

And one other insecurity is that I'm afraid he won't be able to open up ever to me the way I would like him to. The fact that he's using my words to make his point seem to point to the fact that he doesn't even have words to speak to his friend about but that he's willing to risk doing whatever it takes to have this emotional conversation with him but not me. I've been asking myself why he needed to do this in such a secret and personal way when we had open lines of communication.

[Anonymous]

Now he's sending me emails apologizing for his behavior and saying it was wrong and he wants to work harder on the marriage. Marriage is not for the faint hearted for sure. Thanks for the feedback. I will take it down a notch on how I deal with the email forwarding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If he had told his friend what you said rather than forwarding the emails, would you be less upset? I’m having a hard time figuring out if the thing that’s upsetting you is that he forwarded your emails, or if you’re more generally upset that he confided in a friend without first telling you he was going to do so, and the emails are just an example of that.

Yes, I would be less upset. I even expected it. It's the details and him using my emails without my permission and then not disclosing any of this that is upsetting me. Also the lack of responding to the emails to me either in person, by email, or with the therapist but instead just having some sidebar conversation with his friend like a form of gossip.

If we were friends sitting together chatting about this, I would have a lot more questions before offering up a theory. This medium isn’t as conducive to that kind of back and forth, so I’m going to throw out my gut reaction, which may or may not be right. It seems like what’s really going on here is that you don’t feel like he’s putting it real work in therapy to fix your marriage, that for all of the effort you’re putting in to opening up to him and trying to discuss things, he’s largely shutting down and not responding to you. Instead, he’s confiding in this friend in a way that fosters a kind of emotional (although not necessarily sexual) intimacy that’s lacking in your marriage, while making little to no effort to foster that kind of intimacy in your own marriage. Compounding this is that your husband has cheated on you with a man before, so you can’t dismiss this idea that his emotional intimacy with this friend isn’t part of (or won’t lead to) a sexual intimacy that further threatens your marriage.

Bingo. Exactly.

And one other insecurity is that I'm afraid he won't be able to open up ever to me the way I would like him to. The fact that he's using my words to make his point seem to point to the fact that he doesn't even have words to speak to his friend about but that he's willing to risk doing whatever it takes to have this emotional conversation with him but not me. I've been asking myself why he needed to do this in such a secret and personal way when we had open lines of communication.

I think that’s understandable. It would be one thing if he was using his friend as a sounding board to talk through his feelings about the email before responding to you to get a better understanding of those feeling before responding, as long as he was eventually responding to you. But if he’s not responding to you and instead is only using your emails to get validation for his own feelings from third parties, that’s not constructive at all. It also probably has the effect of shutting down the flow of communication from you to him, if you know that he’s not going to engage with you sincerely on those issues but instead is using your communications as a weapon.

Obviously I don’t know what’s in those emails and who is “right” or “wrong” on the bigger issues in your marriage, but this doesn’t sound like a situation where he’s ready to engage in marriage counseling productively. That may be something to bring up in marriage counseling and, if the response isn’t encouraging, take a break from marriage counseling and both of you focus more on individual counseling for a while. Marriage counseling can help an ailing marriage, but it’s not the best forum for working on individual emotional issues.

[Anonymous]

OP, FWIW, my teen DS does this and his girlfriend too - forwarding and sharing with each other texts and emails and even secretly recorded conversations with family members with whom they have arguments and then sharing those with each other at which time they jointly brainstorm and create counter-arguments.

I think it’s normal in relationships to share problems, and when a person verbally re-summarizes an incident or dispute, there is a kind of processing that is going on that is useful. But, in the situation I describe, where there is direct verbatim secretive sharing, I find it very violative. It’s ruined my communication with my DS, because every time I talk with him I have to wonder if he is secretly recording me. I also wonder whether his objections are really his or are his girlfriend’s.

He’s young, and this relationship has a wide variety of other emotionally abusive aspects to it, of which this is only one, but I guess he is just going to have to figure that out for himself over time (or not).

Meanwhile, my therapist has validated that it’s OK for me to stop engaging by text or email if I know that he has a history of forwarding these to others. I still talk to him orally, but even that is fraught.

I would expect an adult to understand these kinds of boundaries for respectful and honest communication.

So I feel very violated, as you also describe, even without the romantic/sexual relationship aspects. In my life, I have also been cheated on, which adds an extra level of betrayal and deception. I know you want this to work out with your DH, but I have to tell you, the signs are very poor for a positive outcome.

If I were in your shoes, I would simply say that the sexual betrayal has wrecked the ability to trust to such a degree that the relationship is not salvageable. Wish him well and move on.

Cheaters have real problems communicating honestly to resolve conflict and they want to be able to control the relationship. That’s why they cheat instead of simply Re-negotiating the bounds of the marital relationship. Sharing the email Outside the relationship is just a manifestation of the same problems that Caused the cheating to begin with.

[Anonymous]

12:52. I know. You are totally correct, but like your son, it's not easy to disengage from a relationship especially with children. You may feel responsible for your parenting and I feel responsible for my choice to marry him and have kids with him. As long as he's willing to work, I'm willing to work on it too too, but I'm glad I had this conversation to sort out why it was so violating and it seemed to work since he apologized and is making amends. The other issue I didn't disclose is that with his friend, he never mentioned his own issues and what havoc he brought to the relationship like the cheating. That's a sure sign to me that a person isn't having a productive conversation if all they can do is share someone else's experience and emotion and not their own. I wish you luck with your DS. All the sharing online has pressed boundaries more than where we were a decade or so ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:12:52. I know. You are totally correct, but like your son, it's not easy to disengage from a relationship especially with children. You may feel responsible for your parenting and I feel responsible for my choice to marry him and have kids with him. As long as he's willing to work, I'm willing to work on it too too, but I'm glad I had this conversation to sort out why it was so violating and it seemed to work since he apologized and is making amends. The other issue I didn't disclose is that with his friend, he never mentioned his own issues and what havoc he brought to the relationship like the cheating. That's a sure sign to me that a person isn't having a productive conversation if all they can do is share someone else's experience and emotion and not their own. I wish you luck with your DS. All the sharing online has pressed boundaries more than where we were a decade or so ago.

DP. This is a pretty big detail to leave out. Another gut reaction for you to take or leave: Your husband doesn’t really want to fix your marriage, he wants to do just enough to keep you from leaving with having to truly own up to what he did wrong or make significant changes to prevent it from happening again. And deep down, perhaps subconsciously, you know this and that’s why you keep sharing the story in drips and drabs, so you can get the response you want from us rather than a real one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now he's sending me emails apologizing for his behavior and saying it was wrong and he wants to work harder on the marriage. Marriage is not for the faint hearted for sure. Thanks for the feedback. I will take it down a notch on how I deal with the email forwarding.

Don’t you live in the same house?

[Anonymous]

OP I think your relationship is over. He is confiding in a friend rather than you - and that is what cuts you to the quick. And rightly so. Relationship is dead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did your therapist suggest sending emails like this? I can't imagine how I would react to dh just sending me a list of problems he had with our marriage. It doesn't sound very constructive.

No, but in therapy which is once a week, we get through maybe one or two discussions about the past week. In any given week, we have at least 10 issues and then there are all the issues of the past to still resolve. Therapy isn't a magic cure and there is no way therapy alone for 45 minutes a week is going to solve all of our issues. I just didn't really want a friend seeing my private emails. I didn't mind him talking to a friend and even encouraged it. I just thought the forwarded was overstepping and also showing me that he didn't really have the capacity for discussion and that he was better at confiding in him than with me or with the therapist. The forwarded emails didn't even have his own commentary. It was like he was using my wording to speak for himself.

I get it. It's not a big deal for a guy to do. I'll get over it.

Wow you are projecting a lot here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:12:52. I know. You are totally correct, but like your son, it's not easy to disengage from a relationship especially with children. You may feel responsible for your parenting and I feel responsible for my choice to marry him and have kids with him. As long as he's willing to work, I'm willing to work on it too too, but I'm glad I had this conversation to sort out why it was so violating and it seemed to work since he apologized and is making amends. The other issue I didn't disclose is that with his friend, he never mentioned his own issues and what havoc he brought to the relationship like the cheating. That's a sure sign to me that a person isn't having a productive conversation if all they can do is share someone else's experience and emotion and not their own. I wish you luck with your DS. All the sharing online has pressed boundaries more than where we were a decade or so ago.

DP. This is a pretty big detail to leave out. Another gut reaction for you to take or leave: Your husband doesn’t really want to fix your marriage, he wants to do just enough to keep you from leaving with having to truly own up to what he did wrong or make significant changes to prevent it from happening again. And deep down, perhaps subconsciously, you know this and that’s why you keep sharing the story in drips and drabs, so you can get the response you want from us rather than a real one.

OP, are you careful to share all your mistakes and transgressions with your friends?

This seems like an odd thing to get upset over.

[Anonymous]

I think emailing your DH a list of problems you have with him is juvenile.
Him forwarding it is also juvenile.
How old are you?

[Anonymous]

If he shared your email that referenced issues with your sex life, and the issue with your sex life is that he cheated with a man, I'm pretty sure the friend understands his transgressions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now he's sending me emails apologizing for his behavior and saying it was wrong and he wants to work harder on the marriage. Marriage is not for the faint hearted for sure. Thanks for the feedback. I will take it down a notch on how I deal with the email forwarding.

Don’t you live in the same house?

This: are you currently separated?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:a female friend?

No a male friend. But our issue is actually that he has had homosexual tendencies, so the male friend doesn't provide the same comfort that it would in another situation.

Um...you cannot fix this. As a queer person, it is done. If he has "homosexual tendencies", this likely means he is gay or further on the spectrum toward the same-sex leaning side than he is at this moment willing to admit (maybe to himself as well). If he is bi and is comfortable with never relizing the homosexual potential in this relationship, for live, then that is one thing. But, if he is struggling with whether or not to live a life "truer" to who he really is, take this disclosure to the close male friend as what it is - a level of intimacy with a male friend that makes you nervous. Listen to that gut.