Recurring conflicts with spouse

I am having recurring conflicts with my wife. I need some advice. The issue is I started talking to a my high school friend 3 years ago . She contacted me after several decades. I used to love her but I never expressed my feelings to her. Both me and my high school friends have expressed love to each other. But we both dont want to leave our families as it will have impact on our children's and of course spouses.

Now I want to stay in touch with her for rest of my life. But my wife is not comfortable with it and she is asking me to cut down all links to my high school friend and sho evidence of that. We keep fighting every week almost after she heard me talking to my high school friend. I dont know what to do.

Dear pram1969,

Hi and welcome to the Forums. It is very nice to meet you. I'm so very sorry you are in the unhappy situation you describe. Wish I knew what to advise but I have never been good at relationships and am really the last person on earth to give advice. Hopefully others here with more experience, knowledge, insight and wisdom will see your post and respond to it with something really helpful to you. I am so sorry I could not be helpful to you in this but I hope that things will work out for the best.

Sincerely yours, Yao Wen

My partner & I have been together 18 years & trust each other 100%. For the record, I'll be 60 in June. Two years ago, I got in touch with a woman I was with in high school (we lost our virginity to each other). Despite the trust my current partner & I share, there's such a thing as sharing too much, IMO. You might have crossed that line...or perhaps I'm just kidding myself.

The woman I contacted is married with children, & there's nothing remotely romantic about our correspondence (we only email once every few months). Something about renewing contact with this old lover takes me back to my youth...nothing more. High school is ancient history...as is that realtionship. Catching up is no sin, IMO. There's absolutely no danger anything would come of our renewed correspondence. If you can say the same, I would argue that your contact is innocent enough.

P.S. I just read your post again. Since you two have professed love, we might be in very different situations. Be very careful. I'm sure you don't want to lose your marriage over this.

How would you feel is your wife got in touch with an old boyfriend that SHE had loved and lost her virginity to. Be honest.

If you're asking me, my partner has male friends & talks with them fairly regularly. I have no problem with it. She also has contact with her ex-husband (a pretty rare thing). I'm secure enough in my relationship that these factors don't bother me.

i agree with the other wise and wonderful posters. Be really careful with what you're getting into. Please do think of your Family and Marriage. i Hope and Pray that things will turn out alright. Please do stay careful. Sending many Safe, warm hugs to BOTH you, @pram1969, your Family, your Friends and ALL of your Loved Ones! Keep fighting and keep rocking NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, OK?!

I've been married for nearly 40 years. I'm definitely not opposed to needed separations, even if (when any children involved are not young) that means seeing other people, in certain cases. The way your post reads, however, it sounds like you're pretty deeply involved with your ex. It sounds like you want to remain in your marriage, with your children, while having a relationship with another woman. That's called "I want my cake and eat it, too." If I were your wife I would be extremely concerned. I support her feeling angry and frustrated with you.

I'm really confused about the 'expressing love' part. Like you have both told each other that if you weren't married to other people, you'd want to be together now? Because if that were the case, cutting off contact might be a good step.

Since social media, this happens all the time IMHO. I never dreamed I’d reconnect with every ex like facebook made happen. Nobody ever would have phoned to reconnect!

You have to choose one option; stop talking to your friend or not. If you continue in the way you are with talking to her, your wife will likely divorce you. You’d be having an emotional affair.

Your friend said she doesn’t want to leave her marriage to be with you. Is just talking worth losing your marriage over? Which relationship is your priority?

If you haven’t seen her since high school, all of this could just be a fantasy and there is likely no connection in person.

I was contacted by a high school boyfriend couple times in my adult life and it was never just let’s catch up, it was always with romantic connotation. I had to block him because it was inappropriate. He was married. I wasn’t at the time but I was grossed out. Plus this isn’t high school anymore. Clearly he wasn’t happy in his life and somehow thought he could fix it by professing love to high school sweetheart who long moved on.

What’s not working in your marriage that you are looking for happiness elsewhere? Focus on your marriage, maybe seek counseling for yourself and as a couple. But I’d stop professing love to high school classmates. Focus on what’s real

Call me old-fashioned but, to me, it reeks of 'emotional affair'.

You both still have feelings for one another but won't leave your respective marriages, yet intend to continue seeing one another?! Ouch. Your wife kinda feels like second best. No wonder she has issues with your ongoing relationship with that other woman. Frankly, I don't know who wouldn't have an issue with that.

How would you feel if your wife was in love with someone else, knowing they were also in love with her, and she was still seeing them right in front of your nose? Would you be okay with that?

Another vote for emotional affair. I understand your wife's point of view in this.

Nothing wrong with having friends of opposite gender or keeping up in touch with people even if they are exes. Both I and my husband have friends, we know each other friends and have no reason to be jealous or insecure. I keep in touch with my ex husband and my husband not only knows, he communicates with him as well (when occasion calls for it). Heck my ex sent us substantial wedding gift. So here.

Having said that we don’t have secret communications with exes or secret friends and we don’t profess love to anyone but each other. So that’s the difference.

But I’d not generalize that people should forever cut communication with others and lock their spouses up so they don’t talk to no one. That’s extreme. But this isn’t simply occasional catching up with ones ex and spouses knowing about it. That’s a very different story.

Secrecy and love declarations putting it in affair category