I’m having the same issue here, none of these categories fit. For 21 years of our 25 year marriage my husband was completely trustworthy and faithful. Then one encounter with “making out” with a hospital employee who pursued him, far from home, on the day after he held his dying father in the hospital set him on a downhill course of shame and acting out. He started sexting strange women occasionally online, he couldn’t tell me, he stopped for months and then feeling especially lonely or hopeless because he thought I no longer desired him intimately, he would start up again. Finally last year he had an on again, off again, physical affair with someone he met online. He saw her two months, stopped all summer, checked in on her late summer with no intention of starting it up again, but succumbed to temptation. Never expressed love to her, in fact claimed to always love me and wished that she was me. Was trying to find the courage to confess to our pastor but thought I’d leave him. Finally on January 18 of 2020 he confessed to me and shut the door on her, and says he has no thoughts of her at all except that he’s hurt multiple people by his selfish actions. She knew he was married.
So was it an extended one night stand with a splash of emotional connection? No idea what this all was. It violated every moral code he’d ever expressed. He says he was in a dark and hopeless place since the death of his dad. He felt I no longer loved him and was looking for approval and appreciation. He takes full responsibility for the choices he made in his despair and wishes he had bought the red convertible instead of an affair.
Doesn’t fit
I’m having the same issue here, none of these categories fit. For 21 years of our 25 year marriage my husband was completely trustworthy and faithful. Then one encounter with “making out” with a hospital employee who pursued him, far from home, on the day after he held his dying father in the hospital set him on a downhill course of shame and acting out. He started sexting strange women occasionally online, he couldn’t tell me, he stopped for months and then feeling especially lonely or hopeless because he thought I no longer desired him intimately, he would start up again. Finally last year he had an on again, off again, physical affair with someone he met online. He saw her two months, stopped all summer, checked in on her late summer with no intention of starting it up again, but succumbed to temptation. Never expressed love to her, in fact claimed to always love me and wished that she was me. Was trying to find the courage to confess to our pastor but thought I’d leave him. Finally on January 18 of 2020 he confessed to me and shut the door on her, and says he has no thoughts of her at all except that he’s hurt multiple people by his selfish actions. She knew he was married.
So was it an extended one night stand with a splash of emotional connection? No idea what this all was. It violated every moral code he’d ever expressed. He says he was in a dark and hopeless place since the death of his dad. He felt I no longer loved him and was looking for approval and appreciation. He takes full responsibility for the choices he made in his despair and wishes he had bought the red convertible instead of an affair.