I wish all this weren’t true. I know everything I’ve said is filtered through my perspective, but I’ve tried to be factually based rather than how I feel about each item. The background to all this is what they each say is key and why it can’t be called an emotional affair. Getting personal here, but I need to make sure this portion makes no difference to the situation.
Before marriage, we had gotten too close, went through a long repentance process, and married worthily in the temple. My wife has still felt guilt about past transgressions and felt my advances were reminding her of the past (didn’t tell me this). She said she couldn’t tell me because she didn’t feel comfortable talking to me about it. I made things worse by falling into a pornography addiction a few years ago. I went to my bishop and I went to my wife and I worked things out with the Lord (different bishop). She forgave me and I felt our relationship has been so much better ever since.
She then came to me with some of this about 3 weeks ago. I’ve been trying to do a better job understanding her and meeting her needs and she has acknowledged progress.
During this time, I had this ongoing concern about my wife’s “friendship” with our bishop which did not exist prior to his call. I mentioned this to her. Her initial response was that she’d be more careful to not have long meetings one on one. Then it was that she’d stop texting him if that’s what I needed even though she didn’t want to. And now it is that stopping would “break her heart” which was expressed with great emotion and tears.
We’ve talked a lot about all of this. She says that she had to talk to him about our past to be able to feel good again. That without doing that, she never would have told me. She said I was turning the situation around “like I always do.” But what she talked about was not said just in the bishops office. What I was hurt from reading wasn’t about those details. It wa the obvious closeness and the increased distance I feel now from my wife.
Would any of that justify her frequent communication? Him coming over to eat on the front porch “is that ok? <daughter> will be here”. He said they are good friends and feel enriched by the friendship. They admittedly talk about spiritual experiences frequently. But after attending the temple with the ward council on Friday night, he said “it was hard to have him between us literally and figuratively” since I had sat next to her. She said she had wanted to say something in the celestial room but “<me> was there.”
He came to my house to talk about all this after my wife texted him that I felt this was a problem. The conversation was horrible. It was focused on what I did and how I’ve made my wife feel. I gave a straightforward definition of emotional afffair (when one partner develops an emotional relationship with someone outside of the marriage and that creates tension in the marriage) and he said that was a good definition like he hadn’t expected me to know what I was taking about l, but the didn’t comment on the validity of the situation. He instead said we should talk about the inderlying issue of how I make my wife feel and how she’d feel if I made her stop talking to him. And that the “three of us” should get to decide what happens next.
I am scheduling an appointment with a councilor who specializes in couples and members of the church. She has agreed to go but I think it’s more about working on our other issues which I’m all for. I’m hesitant to go to the stake president because I worry I’m just delusional like they both say I am (not those words), and I would just cause problems and further push my wife away. I feel crazy. I can’t take time off work because I’m a contractor and don’t get paid if I don’t work.
Sorry for the novel, but I don’t know how else to say it so I get advise that is based on all I know. Thank you for your replies. It’s good to hear others see in this situation who really know the dynamics of the church and the gospel.
