Dear MMF,

You have my empathy. I was in a 12-year marriage that ended four years ago. Toward the end, we had become very disconnected. Instead of sticking together and supporting each other, we found support through "emotional affairs," I with a friend from a volunteer group I was with, he with a friend from work. We hadn't planned to have this happen, we just drifted apart, were lonely, and these people filled our needs.

Things had not been going well. I had been diagnosed with major depression. He couldn't deal with it. There were problems with close relatives that also were straining our marriage. Our working hours changed so that we didn't see each other much... I started talking with this male friend. We started confiding in each other about our mutual marital problems. He and his wife were friends with me and my husband. I had a crush on this guy, and I think he for me. We talked a lot and he was very supportive. No doubt my husband felt our closeness, which further alienated us. I thought that if I was open and tried to encourage the four of us doing things together, it would stay as a friendship, and it seemed to. I eventually fought off my feelings and got back to the point where I felt like just a good friend again -- no crush (what a relief!).

Then my husband announced that he didn't love me anymore and wanted a divorce. He insisted that there was no one else. However, he moved in with this woman less than 4 months after he moved out and married her shortly after the divorce was final. When he told me her name, I realized it was someone he spoke of often when he would tell me about work. Now I was on the other side -- in your wife's place. I cannot describe the pain I felt.

Once my husband moved out and we were legally separated (I was devastated), my "friend" started to make sexual advances. It was very tempting. As this was happening, his wife was pregnant with their first child. We kept confiding in each other for awhile, but our friendship eventually ended. It didn't feel right for me to have amorous feelings toward him, nor he for me. Then he and his wife were relocated by his employer. We promised to keep in touch, but he basically dropped me as a friend. All of those hours confiding in each other about our lives, and then he just stopped communicating. We knew everything about each other, I thought. I was very hurt and surmised that our friendship meant nothing to him. His wife and I stayed friends and still keep in touch via email. He (with his wife in the background) called me about 6 months ago just to say hi. I was friendly but his acting on the phone as though we all were still buddies felt false. How could he cut communications for more than a year and then call like nothing had happened? I felt used. I have not heard from him again. That wound is healed over and I have learned another lesson.

MMF, obviously, you are missing THE key ingredient to a good marriage. You have endured this hobbled relationship for seven years. You found a substitute that filled your need for awhile. Those relationships can be exciting as well as comforting but rarely are they permanent, I believe. Why begin the search anew for another intimate emotional relationship outside of your marriage that cannot last? To me, it feels like you are trying to escape but your are on a leash that will stop you short again.

Computer messages can be taken in the wrong way. I am not criticizing you for what has happened because I have been exactly where you are. Loneliness in such a marriage was unbearable for me. I tried to kill myself because of it. Getting emotional support of the sort you and I found is wonderful but temporary at best, and inevitably hurtful and sad. And being the spouse of the person finding their emotional support elsewhere hurts like hell too.

Your friend has her reasons for not communicating with you and cutting off the relationship. Anymore, does it matter why? I am wondering why punish yourself by seeking outside support again when it should be coming from your marriage? What kind of a life is it when you are betrothed to one yet emotionally attached to another you cannot have? Don't you feel torn apart? I did. Looking back, it wasn't worth it.

If you feel that your children are better off as a family with a marriage such as your current one, then I guess that is the way it will have to be. But I think you should invest your energy in forging a relationship that will be more than a band-aid. I would try to repair the marriage or get out of it.

Absolutely seek a therapist because you need help sorting out all of your thoughts and feelings. It can be overwhelming. Maybe consider a male therapist just to avoid the kinds of transferences you will have with a female (my T is male; I was infatuated with him for a couple of years... Oh, the hours I wasted obsessively daydreaming and wishing that he would fall in love with me). Or maybe feeling those transferences with a female T would be helpful. I'm no expert.

If your wife is not willing to work with you on this, you should at least do this for yourself so that you can ease this tortured existence and open a new and happier path for yourself in this life.

Wishing you strength and peace.