Patrick's wife texts and calls a coworker daily, meets him monthly in person, while their marriage has had no sex for two years. Ralph Brewer says emotional affairs become physical and advises Patrick to end the marriage, framing the breakup as painful but necessary for growth.
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For those that don't know, I have a section on my website called Dear DSO. You can get to it by going to dadstartingover.com/dear-dso. And there you can fill out a form and ask me a question or give me a topic that you want me to expand upon in video format. And today we have a question from Patrick. Patrick titles this Emotional Work Affair. Oh, he says, my wife and I have been married for 10 years. 8 of those years have been in and out of marriage counseling. Right away, this not good. I recently found out that my wife is having an emotional affair with a coworker. She's been texting this person all day, every day, as well as a phone call about every day since about mid-August. Uh, now it is near the end of October. October. So it's been a, what, September, a couple of months now. She only sees this person once a month for a few days when traveling for work. Uh-oh. My gut tells me that it is more than an emotional affair. Regardless, since we haven't been on good terms for almost 2 years, a dead bedroom, I think I am done but would like your advice. Dude, writing's on the wall, and it sounds like it's been on the wall for a while. You've been in marital counseling for who knows what myriad of issues for 8 of 10 years. That's signal number 1 that you too got a problem. She's been in an emotional affair with a coworker, been texting him almost every day, phone calls almost every day, um, actually texting all day every day and almost a phone call almost every day. And then they see each other for once a month for a period of a few days. Let me just get this out of the way. Yes, it's a physical affair. How do I know? Am I some kind of psychic or whatever? No. The fact is, dude, emotional affairs don't stay emotional for very long. By human nature being what it is, the nature of affairs, it can't stay at that level. You know, it's like a bomb waiting to go off. It has to go off in some form. And the fact that you say, and they get together physically You know, once a month for a few days, boom, that's the bomb blowing up. Yes, of course they're having a physical affair. It's over, dude. Your gut is telling you. It's not so much a gut, it's your brain seeing all of this evidence in front of you. The counseling, the emotional affair, the physical affair, which may not be so obvious to you, but for a guy like me who's spoken to hundreds and hundreds of dudes that have been in your situation, It's a physical affair. And then on top of that, you two haven't been physical with each other for a couple of years. It's over, my man. Let her go. If you're like a lot of guys that I talk to, you're just hanging on like that little, you know, that little dog, little puppy dog just hanging on to your leg, and she's just trying to shake you off, man. Just let go of her and let her go do her thing. If I don't know beyond what I just read here, that's all the information I have to go on. But I bet you a bazillion dollars that this woman has a lot of problems, doesn't she? She probably comes from a world of chaos, if I'm guessing. Um, a lot of red flags over the years, a lot of things that led you two to go to counseling for 8 of 10 years, a lot of things that led her to seeking out attention from others in the form of an affair. Probably not her first rodeo either, if I'm guessing. Um, yeah, it's over, my man, and it sucks. You, my friend, are gonna go through hell. No two ways about it. Uh, I would love to say that it's just gonna be rainbow and sunshine from here on out. No, you're gonna go through hell, and, uh, it's gonna be probably the worst emotional pain that you've ever felt. But guess what? You gotta go through it. That is your lot in life right now. This is what life— this is what life has handed you. Here you go, an adulterous wife and a marriage that probably should have ended years ago. But you can see where making a lot of wrong decisions along the way has led you. But lesson learned. This could be a lot worse, dude. And you're going to take all these lessons and you're going to start over in a new chapter in your life. And that is where the magic can happen. That is where you say, man, why didn't I do this years ago? Because this is awesome. Unfortunately, you have to go through hell to get there. Such is life. If it's any comfort to you, you're joining a club, because every single solitary great man that I have ever known— and I know great is a subjective term— men that have accomplished a lot in life, men that I personally look up to,— they could, you know, be business people, whatever it may be— that I say, "Tell me your story. I want to learn from you. I want you to mentor me." When I hear these stories, more often than not, I leave with my eyes wide going, "Oh, Jesus Christ! That was really bad!" People go through hell and you can either be a guy falling asleep every night with a bottle of Jack Daniel's in your hand, 100 pounds overweight. And I don't know if there's kids involved here. Let's pretend there are. And your kids look at you and say, "God, I don't ever want to be like that." Or you could take the other— instead of taking the right, you could take the left. And you could say, "I'm not going to let this destroy me. I'm going to learn from this, and I'm going to be a better person as a result of this. And I'm going to show the world what I'm made of." and I'm going to help others is one avenue. That was the avenue I went down in creating this Dad Starting Over World. Dude, I've been there, done that. I've been in the situation that you're in. And in the end, I said, uh, I'm gonna make myself a better person. Um, I'm sure you're not an angel in this. You probably have done some not-so-good things, and you look back and say, could I handle that differently? Could have done this differently. Could have been a better husband here, better father there, whatever. None of us are perfect. But you have a really big opportunity here to learn from this and, um, really make something of yourself. So this is in essence a gift, so make something of it. Best of luck to you, brother. Check out our group, the DSO fraternity, dsofraternity.com or dadstartingover.com/join. And we have a lot of guys going through or have already gone through what you're going through. Been there and done that. So you have a lot of guys that you can learn from, from around the world. So hope we see you in there. Best luck to you, buddy.
