My best friend at work recently confessed that he was attracted to me and wanted to be with me physically. He is in a LTR and I am married. He told me he had been feeling that way for over a year and that he liked me a lot. He said he knew the feeling was mutual and the sexual tension between us was off the charts. I agreed that I was always attracted to him but I felt safe flirting with him because I'm married and he's 9 years younger than me. He was always honest with me about cheating on all his girlfriends. He said this is the longest relationship he's been in that he hasn't cheated yet. He hates commitment. He always said he doesn't want to get married because he can't imagine being with one person for the rest of his life. I told him this was crazy and it could ruin our lives and our friendship. He kept trying to convince me it would just be two friends having fun and it doesn't have to mean anything. I said I should be honest and say that at home everything is good. I really do love my husband and family and we don't really have an major issues. Two days after this conversation this guy kissed me. Not just a quick innocent kiss. He came up to me, held my face and looked in my eyes and kissed me very passionately. It was extremely intense. I stopped him and told him I needed a minute and he just held me tight and said "I've wanted to do that for so long" then we kissed some more. After that things got hot and heavy. Lots of sexting and some more make out sessions. Then we had sex. It was an amazing night. Without going into details we clearly both enjoyed it. He begged me to stay the night and I did. We had sex in the morning again. The next few weeks we talked a bit about it and if it was going to happen again but he started to get distant. I confronted him and he finally told me he felt guilty about cheating and that has never happened to him before. He said he wasn't over this whole thing he just needed time. So I tried to give him space. Then a few times just to see where his head was at I asked him if he wanted to hook up and he just said maybe but nothing happened. So I confronted him one more time and asked him flat out if all of it was just a game to sleep with me. He said absolutely not, he said he just felt guilty and he was still trying to process it. But then he tells me not to worry cause it's definitely happening again. Well after a few weeks I hadn't been sleeping right and tired of wondering what was going on I decided I needed it to be over. I told him I thought we should both agree that we lost our minds for a few weeks and we should just be friends. I said I need him more as my friend than I need to have sex with him. He agreed and that's where I left it. Things have been ok at work but now I find my self wondering what the whole point of this was. If he was ever really my friend why would he want me to risk everything just for sex? He's a good looking guy and I'm not really the type of girl people are making moves on. I'm cute at best but I'm not hot. Part of me thinks he had feelings for me and being with me scared him and part of me thinks he really just needed something to chase to get out of a rut with his girlfriend. I just hate not having answers. Does anyone have insight into this kind of thing?

So my boyfriend of almost 2 years told me the other day that while I was away staying at my mother's house he had someone over to our apartment and received oral sex from them. We do not have a very good sex life because of the medications I am on and I just don't have much interest. But we do have sex on occasion. He is VERY sexual and needs to have sex every day to "de-stress." He justifies his action because I "don't give him any" and he has "urges." He takes me not being sexual very personally. It is like a drug to him and he is very addicted to it. He thinks that I understand why he did what he did and that we are moving on but I have been thinking to myself over and over if this is going to work or how to move on from this. I'm not sure what I should do next to address the situation?

My wife called me by the wrong name during lovemaking. Not sure what to do now. Your thoughts? I'm a forgiving person. I thought, maybe she was having a one-time fantasy. Hurtful, but after so many years of marriage, kids, trials and tribulations, and our history together, it's a forgivable moment. I got over it in a matter of days. Pretty quick, considering. Nothing has meaning until we give it meaning. Right? I chose not to over-think it. Let it go.   A week later, when she called me the wrong name during sex again, I was flabbergasted. Years later, in personal counseling, I told my therapist, "Well, it's not a pattern until it happens three times."  He responded, "In psychology, two is a pattern." That wouldn't matter anyway. After the second time, I was in utter shock. Yes, one might think I should have immediately confronted her, lashed out, demanded answers. Truth be told, I was dumbstruck.   As I processed the first event, I thought empathetically, she must be highly embarrassed and ashamed anyway. Why rake her over the coals? Assuming that, I felt a sense of justice that she too, must be feeling very badly. As for me, I was even more stunned than the first time. The first time, I reasoned, must have been some utterance, driven, uncontrolled, from the primitive part of her brain. What the hell?!  How could this occur a second time? Wasn't she so ashamed and embarrassed that she would avoid doing this again? I didn't know what to make of it.   This time, still stupidly naive, I thought, there's no way she would do this again, but if she did, I will confront her on the spot. I will confront her loudly and emotionally. I will confront her the way she and I both deserve. I will. Or, I won't. I thought I was ready.   Another week later, when she called me the wrong name during sex for the third time, I wasn't surprised. I thought I'd be angry and confrontational, but I was saddened, disappointed, and just plain hurt. Too deflated to confront her, I pretended to hear nothing and thus, said nothing. We finished. I rolled off, stared at the wall, and fell asleep hours later. I wasn't having audible hallucinations. This really was happening. She didn't lose voice control in some sex-induced trance. If she would just stop, this would go away.   About ten days later, guess what.  She called me the wrong name during lovemaking for a fourth time. I went off. My penis still in her, I reached over, turned on the light and confronted her, "What the hell?!  Who the hell are you talking to?!" I pulled out and finally, finally confronted her. It was a brief confrontation and verbally combative, albeit in one direction. I finished by suggesting she get some counseling. Within a few short minutes, I could hear the rhythmic purr of her sleeping breath while I laid awake for the next several hours. And, what the fuck is up with that?! Apparently not something she needed to lose sleep over. It would take years of denial, adherence to my values, more denial, self-doubt, depression, counseling, and suicidal thoughts to finally, finally come to grips. The obvious conclusion would be, she was cheating on me. At first blush, it may appear she was. However, I believe there was actually something even more disturbing going on here. She was doing something worse.  What could be worse?  I will get to that.   With a kindergartner and a second grader asleep upstairs, I was in no hurry to upset the apple cart.  That is, I did not want to rush to a conclusion where we separate. By separating, I could only see myself in some apartment, alone. I would deny myself the daily influence I deserved to have on my daughters. No way. I remember having thoughts of divorce, but again, I couldn't bear being parted from my kids. After the fourth wrong-name event and subsequent confrontation, we buried it. We didn't discuss it, mention it, or regard it for years. I didn't know it at the time, but I continued to revert to my training which was fine by her. That means silence. She would not have to explain it or own it.  I would not have to confront it further. Let's pretend it didn't happen.   But this episode in our lives together served as a catalyst for me to examine our relationship. I had some qualms about our relationship, but overall, we were quite successful. For the first time, however, I really started paying attention. Maybe most people would have just walked out over this and maybe they would be right to do so. I'm not most people. I am who I am, a product of my experiences, especially that pivotal moment when I established my highest personal value, an integrated family. This was a huge wake-up call though. I started paying attention to the nuances in our marriage.  There was certainly a history of slights by her, but they were spaced out enough that I always looked at them as one-off events. Not wanting to upset the family balance, I always overlooked them.  Of course, this just served as my unwitting permission for her to continue. So, here I was, fifteen years in to the marriage and deciding to start paying attention. Bad on me for not paying attention before. However, I didn't think the one I was married to was the one I needed to protect myself from.  Probably, the most loyal love I've ever received was from my parents. Thus, with them, I could be totally unguarded, at ease, vulnerable. I held my wife in that same esteem, but it was becoming apparent this was a mistake.   Take away the physical advantage men have over women and they become equal. It becomes a matter of wits. I didn't realize at first, but there was a competition going on in my house. There was one person who wanted to be on top and be recognized by all as in-charge. It wasn't me. As the kids entered school, we started making new friends. The running joke in those years was, I would hear about my own upcoming social engagements from my kids' friends' moms. "Oh, see you Friday night for dinner." What? A minor display of unilateralism, but repeated over time, it demonstrated who had the power. It also demonstrated a lack of respect. Not only would she make commitments, she made it clear I wasn't involved. Then there was her unilateralism with me present.  We might receive a social invitation together and she would accept or deny without any consultation with me, without even looking at me. I know this certainly made an impression on people because the disparaging comments found their way back to me. She was in charge and seen that way, but at my expense. Then there were the cocktail parties where she would dump me like wet lettuce and go work the room, solo. Sure, I can socialize, but it's not like I didn't spend time standing alone.  She preferred to rub elbows with those she perceived as wealthy.  I get it.  I would be there at the end of the night anyway.  Why team up with me?  To her credit, when we entertained, she was amazing.  She would make the guest list, do the inviting, and the planning. She was like a one-man-band in the kitchen and received the accolades she deserved. Oh, I tried to participate, but always heard, "I got it."  I seemed relegated to just go get some more ice. That's all fine, I guess, but she would consistently accept help and participation from guests. This happened frequently enough that I received smart-ass comments about this, too. "Don't you do anything here?" I believed that's just how she wanted it.  Effective and seen that way, but at my expense.   It should be no surprise that through these and similar experiences, I came to feel disregarded, disrespected, and taken for granted. These were not isolated events. They accumulated to become a condition. There was more. She had longing eyes. Actually, I was okay with that even if she was a little obvious. There are attractive people out there. They're noticeable. I see them, too. But there was one fellow in particular that seemed particularly interesting to her. We would see him only occasionally, but when we did, they got along exceptionally well. In fact, this goes back to before we were married.  It did make me feel a bit insecure. On one social occasion, she blatantly dumped me to go hang out with him. Really, I think the situation produced two things for her; validation from another male and an avenue to try to make me jealous. It worked at first, but then it just became insulting.     Years later, in couple's counseling, I accused her of maintaining a long-term flirtatious relationship with this particular guy. She denied it at first, but then admitted it was true. The hardest part about it wasn't it's existence, it was that she played it out right in front of me, in my face. Two friends asked me separately if I saw what they saw.  It was then I realized this wasn't insecurity driving my imagination. There were no verbal put-downs, no arguments, nothing exciting over the years. On the outside, we appeared solid. We ran a very successful household. What confused me was, I was enjoying a great lifestyle largely due to her professional success. In many ways, she showed a lot of care for me.   However, the negatives just kept accumulating. Aside from the above, there was a withdrawal of affection on her part. For a time, the only affection given was in response to mine. When it did come my way, I got peck-type kisses. Two pencil tips could share more surface area. Hugs were air-hugs, like when people hug others out of politeness.  Head games came to bed, too, more than the wrong name issue. I can only describe her negative behavior toward me as like death by a thousand cuts.  What was confusing was hearing "I love you" between the cuts. I tried to limit my thoughts on her behavior to the time since she called me the wrong name in bed. That proved to be very difficult.  I couldn't help but see a pattern than spanned our entire marriage.   Ultimately, I realized the pattern preceded our marriage and the roots were laid in our dating years, in our foundation. Yes, I understand my own participation here.  By allowing her disregard, disrespect, unilateralism, and more served as my permission for her to continue the behavior. My parents' modeled an excellent marriage. My parents in-law apparently also had an excellent marriage.  I sought to copy that. However, when our dads dated our moms, I doubt they ever had to deal with things like this: Having their girlfriend display a picture of an old boyfriend on their bedroom wall for two years while they dated. I bet they never had the experience of picking up them from a guy's apartment on a Saturday morning to hear, "We're just friends."  I bet they never found man's length black hair on their girlfriend's pillow, multiple times. I bet our dads never had to see a picture of our moms in bed with a guy, then another one with a different guy.   There's more. I cannot emphasize enough how much I take responsibility for my own situation.  I accepted her behavior and therefore gave permission until I withdrew it. I was the Yang to her Yin. My fault was not having the awareness and self-esteem to stand up or walk out. I remember having questions before marriage, but thinking, "I think this is the best I can do." I said I would circle back to the episode of her calling me the wrong name during sex. Further, I said I would offer a reason for her behavior that didn't include cheating. Regarding being called the wrong name during sex, I believe it was an attempt to make me feel wholly insecure. I call it worse than cheating because cheating is usually an act of self-gratification, not necessarily meant to harm someone else.  If she did it to make me feel insecure, that makes it a truly offensive act meant to undermine me and cause me harm.   In her error, she counted on me staying silent like I had with her other slights. Even with the wrong-name episode, it went four times in short order. When was that going to stop? I've read a lot about forgiveness and learned there are acts where forgiveness is not appropriate. In brief, deliberately harmful behavior often belongs in the non-forgivable category. In personal and marriage counseling, I have been cautioned about tying meaning, if any, to events. Being called the wrong name during sex on four different occasions certainly rises to the level of being meaningful. I asked my wife in counseling what the meaning of this was. Over and over she said, "I don't know, but I'm sorry."  That answer is not working for me. Her back up answer was, "stress". Also, not working for me.   My explanation is very plausible, especially considering she has conducted other behavior intent on causing me jealousy and insecurity.  It makes sense. In counseling, I have been guided through a technique called 'reframing'. That is, the ability to find alternate explanations for events. It's a good thing, but not a panacea. I'm not going to lie to myself and call it reframing. Sometimes things are as they appear. After years of personal and couple's counseling, I feel dead-ended. One counselor asked a brilliant, pointed question of me, "What do you want from her?" I had to sleep on the question.  I wanted an authentic explanation of why she took up this behavior toward me. Particularly, I wanted and explanation of why she called me the wrong name in bed.  The answer remained, "I don't know, but I'm sorry."   I believe she strived to maintain two conditions in our marriage. The first condition is that she be in the power position and is perceived by outsiders as such. The second condition is she attempts to make me feel insecure as a way to perpetuate her power position. Build herself up by pushing me down. In public, she might have her hand on my shoulder. Behind the scenes, it's different. The marital experience feels like I have to alternate being on my toes or on my heels. I am quite able to forgive.  I'd prefer to forgive and continue having a great family.  On the other hand, if she truly doesn't understand her own behavior, why shouldn't she repeat it at some point in the future. That makes forgiveness now foolish. One advisor offered, "Maybe that's just who she is." I know and that's what scares me. It’s not what she does. It’s who she is.

First time on here but I need advice & can't go to friends or family with this. I'll keep it as brief as possible. I've always been a bit insecure & had trust issues with regards to my wife, not on a massive scale, more a niggling doubt in my mind. I was recently shown some images of a women who bares more than just a resemblance to my wife in a sexual situation with a guy who definitely wasn't myself. There are so many similarities, the face, hands, & without being crude, even some certain actions being performed. As I said, I've had slight doubts before but nothing major, I trust her completely most of the time. The advice I'm looking for is, do I approach it with her, & if so, how. I love this woman more than anything, we've been together for nearly 15 years & married for nearly 12, the reason I can't go to friends or family is because I don't want them thinking she's capable of something like this, I don't know if I can believe that she is but it's really eating away at me. Your help will be greatly appreciated.

Sorry this is so long but I wanted to explain the whole situation. I have been in a relationship with a Latina lady for a little over a year and I am a white male. Her English to me is pretty good we can communicate well but she is a little unsure of herself and her English. We decided to move in with each other at the beginning of December and things were going very well. At the beginning of February we had a small Superbowl party. She had invited her adult son which is 23 which I get along with great. He had also invited over some other friend which is normal they all come over all the time which I have no problem with. This night there was another friend that showed up that I had never seen before. This guy was a little older approximately 30 or 35 and my girlfriend is in her early 40's but she looks much younger. As the night goes on I notice that he continues to follow her into other rooms where it is him and her alone. And at one point she followed him outside. This made me very uneasy and she could feel the tension. So she calls this guy over to tell him about me. However when them two talked they talked in Spanish. The guy would occasionally tell me things that she was saying which was good things about me. While this made me feel better I still was not sure. I was also frustrated that if there are three people in a conversation and only one language we all three knew why they continued to speak in Spanish. At the end of the night when we was alone. I tried to explain that I felt it was disrespectful to continue to be in the other room with another man. I also tried to explain that it would have helped when including me into the conversation if they would have spoke in English. Her response was he was a long time friend and he was more like a son to her, he felt comfortable in their house and that is why he would go in the other room with her. She also explained that she was embarrassed to speak English in front of him in fear that he would make fun of her. Which I understand but at the same time the guys English was not perfect. The next morning the fight continued and she ask me to leave. I left and went and stayed at a motel down the road for the night. The next day we ended up talking and working things out. She reassured me that that guy was a friend of the families and she would tell him not to come back if I wanted. I said no but she needed to put herself in my shoes and think if she would like it if I did the same with a girl. A couple weeks go by and she tells me this guy is in jail because he is in the country illegally and it would not be a problem anymore. About another week goes by and I come home and there is a strange dog in the back yard. I text her and she is surprised and does not know where it came from. When she got home she tells me her daughter had brought it over and she thought it was the guys dog that was in jail. I ask her how she knew and she said she had seen pictures of the dog before. I ask her if her daughter ask to bring the dog by and she said yes. But in the text she acted surprised. A few more days go by and she says something about the guy having another dog that was bigger and that he had brought the dogs over one time. But a few days earlier she had stated she had only seen the dogs in a picture. She said her memory was not that good. A few more days goes by and she says her daughter had received a phone call from the man in jail and her daughter wanted her to go to the jail to visit him. I told her she could do whatever she wanted to but I was not sure why she would go see the man in jail. Then I started to get curious so I looked at the phone bill to see if this guy had contacted her from jail. I noticed that the night that I was gone she had tried calling her ex-boyfriend two times. It only showed up as 1 min so she may have only got his voice mail I'm not sure. So that night I ask her if her ex-boyfriend had tried to contact her and she said no. I then ask her if she had tried to contact him at all. I also ask that she be completely honest with me. Again her answer was no and then started questioning about being on my phone all the time. Which I am on the phone form 6:00 am until 10:00 pm for work and work only. She really seems like a good girl she does not go out or anything. We stay at home a lot and work together to make our home better. But the question is am I being paranoid? Was it right for me to check the phone bill? And are these small lies hiding something bigger?

Does anyone think it's right that my wife, who cheated on me 8 months ago wants to meet new friends on the internet but says she only wants to meet guys. She says she only wants to meet men because women are vindictive and will steal your man. She gets mad at me for keeping her step sister in my life who I have had relations with.

This article was written by Prof Janet Reibstein, (co-author of Sexual Arrangements: Marriage and Affairs). The views expressed in this article are not necessarily shared by Click or OnePlusOne. Twenty years ago, I began an interview study of couples in which one person (at least) was having or had had an affair. As a new parent, I could not fathom how contemporaries of mine had the inclination or energy, never mind the time, to conduct one. Yet affairs, even among new parents, were happening and some of these couples presented themselves to my consulting room. The discovery of an affair at any stage of the relationship is still a chief reason couples come into therapy. I found, and so have others who bravely try to research this most difficult area (how do you study people’s secrets, for that’s what most are?), that people usually have affairs because they feel disappointed by marriage and are estranged in some way from the person they wanted to love and honour. They’d lost their way in love. Affairs struck me as primarily a symptom of people’s inadequacy in negotiating the changes of married life.  How do affairs start? The arrival of children, work taking one or both away into different worlds, not managing disagreements and conflicts and resentment building in consequence, all contribute. Or all of these combined can lead to the start of an affair. The upshot of not catching things early is feeling misunderstood, neglected, unappreciated, unloved, or undesired. Drift sets in. With it goes hope and effort. Attention wanders. And couples find renewal arises away from home.  Affairs can begin – and sometimes remain, a remedy for what particular light has gone out: just about sex, just about fun, just about talking and feeling understood. But sometimes they grow and become about love—the most dangerous kind for marriage (this applies even to ‘open marriages’). However, it’s possible, as research has shown that sometimes those affairs that stay limited and those that stay secret do not actually disturb the stability or commitment to the marriage (and the children in them), even if they might disturb the person having one. Dealing with the consequences But once an affair – except those tiny few ‘open marriages’ – becomes discovered or revealed, all marriages will suffer. This is related to how we understand marriage. We’re supposed to marry our best friends. We’re meant to be ‘intimate’ - to share innermost thoughts, private joys and troubles, ideas and pleasures. Thus, an act of intense intimacy and pleasure shared with someone other than our partner is like a dagger thrust first and then – the final betrayal- if kept secret from your ‘best friend’, repeatedly, is continual knifing at the heart of modern-day, best-friend-and-lover partnerships. Sometimes there’s a happy ending – sometimes not. But, as with all deep wounds, sometimes not. This marital drama’s been replayed over and over again in all my years in clinical practice. First I manage the wounds, and then return to the marriage: where, when, why the lights went out, before the wandering began.

This is my first post, and I'm writing it after having just confronted my wife over messages on her phone. About 2 months ago, I start having suspicions over the amount of texts she was getting, so rightly or wrongly I managed to get her phone (which she normally guards like a monkey with nuts). I quick skim through her messages showed me that my older brothers best friend had been texting her with some really dodgy stuff. With this information, I entered my wife facebook page, and found even more messages in her trash that she obviously thought she had got rid off. I confronted the problem then, telling her to stop talking to him. For a while it seemed to be ok, then it started again last week. I walked in to the study to find her click off of a conversation on facebook she was having with someone.. i deliberately hung around till the reply pooped up on her screen, and guess who... its that fella again!!.. this time it didnt seem to be rude though. I asked her why she was talking to him again, to which I got accused of being a control freak and not letting her talk to anyone. That night I took myself downstairs to sleep on the sofa, next morning a gave her another clean slate and said nothing of it. However the issue must be on my mind, because as soon as she left her phone unguarded i checked again. Probably the wrong thing to do, but there were no sexually explicit texts this time thatI saw, just a few with some strong sexual references, suggesting sex on the beach.. and asking her if she was all wet?! (sorry if that offends anyone). I confronted it again, once again being accused of being a control freak.. and being told I should leave. However as soon as I suggested that I would seek custody for our son, stating he deserved better than a woman that would do this to her family it all changed... she wanted relationship counselling etc. What do I do? Just so you know the background, My wife was in a previous relationship, and had 3 children. She found out he was having an affair with a man at work and so they seperated, however I have heard part conversations of other versions, stating actually my wife was sleeping with his brother (yet again more secrecy). At 21 years old I took on the role of dad to these 3 boys that I now see as my own, however I know legally I have no standing. But Joseph is mine, after a very late miscarriage two christmases ago, where we lost a daughter at 7 months, we were lucky to conceive Joseph... and he is a little star.. his first word is Dada... and to be honest is probably the reason I've stuck around.