ExpatWomen Confession:

Dear EW Girlfriend,

I read the Expat Confession dated February 2007 on Infidelity and find myself in somewhat of the same predicament. My husband has a new high-powered position in Oman and has been there without me for three months. I know his situation has been stressful, but he is relishing the challenge, the power and the adoration he is getting from the local women working in his company. He tells me about the women that he interviews and how on one occasion the candidate said she would willingly sleep with him. Now I discover that during my absence he is conducting online affairs with women. I accidentally discovered this and was deeply horrified to read the intimate details they shared with each other. He justifies his actions by saying that nothing physical has ever happened, and that he is able to detach himself from me when conducting these online conversations. He says that he has been lonely and stressed and that this is his way of relieving boredom. i just don't know what to do, can you give me any advice?

JB

ExpatWomen Girlfriend:

Dear JB

I can only imagine how you must be feeling. You have good reason to be upset. Your husband seems to be experiencing a newly-found amount of female admiration at work and online, as well as a new job with more authority. He is feeling powerful and desirable at the same time. Changing careers, moving from a western country to the Middle East as a western male is bound to attract local female attention. His position of authority in his company appears to be only adding to his attractiveness to local women. He is feeling flattered and his judgment is clouded. Your husband may be unfamiliar with this current situation and does not know how to handle it. In the period you were not there, he turned to cybersex, where he says he can escape the stresses and strains of real life. However, he seems to have forgotten that even though you were not physically present, you were emotionally available.

The online affair that he has been having is damaging to your relationship, even though it is not physical. When an online affair is romantic in nature it is difficult not to see that as an interference with your marriage. Online dating still involves a 'real life' person and extra-curricular romantic involvement in any form with an individual other than one's partner, is a betrayal of trust and loyalty. If you feel that he able to easily justify his online affair to both himself and you, perhaps you need to jump on a plane and see him face-to-face, so he can see and feel your pain, not just dismiss it in a nightly telephone call, where it is easier for him to see you as someone who is far away and not really involved in his daily life. He needs to see that the consequences of his betrayal can be just as damaging as an off-line affair. Emotional involvement, even without physical consummation, can be just as destructive to a relationship.

An important issue is whether or not he is willing to change his behavior. Does he realize that whilst he is currently feeling much sought-after, he is jeopardizing his marriage? I would advise you to tell your spouse exactly how you feel and ask him for his thoughts. Ask him how he would feel if it were you who was conducting online affairs – walk him through the scenario with the same intimate details that he was sharing via his online liaisons. He needs someone to hold a mirror up in front of him, and to realize his true values in life, before it's too late. Make sure your husband understands how it began and why it is a problem in the first place. He must accept that what he is doing is detrimental to your relationship and he needs to take ownership of the damage he is causing. Tell him that you are there for him, when he is feeling uncomfortable, stressed, irritated, mad or sad about something happening in his life. If you are honest with yourself and you think that you were not really there for him, decide if you want to be, and if so, make sure that you are. Your husband then has to choose what is more important: his online affairs or your marriage. If he is serious about keeping your relationship intact he will do whatever it takes, including changing jobs or moving to a different country. I am sure that he is not the first expat man who has given up a lucrative job in an effort to salvage his relationship/family and to reconnect with the values that he held before. Do not accept excuses like "it's just the Internet."

Sadly, there is no escaping the fact that there is now tension in your relationship. Together, you need to decide if there was tension before, and/or if you both have the willingness to heal the tension and repair the relationship. Do you want to be together in one, five, ten, twenty years? If yes, do not live under any illusions – now that this has happened, it will take you both some time to work through these issues and feel passion for each other again. Understand that that is normal. I recommend that you look for professional help to assist you in the process of getting your relationship back on the right track. Make it a priority to spend time together, and focus on each other. Think seriously about doing whatever it takes to live in the same household and in the same country again – be that in Oman or elsewhere. Best of luck, these are challenging times for you, but you can get through them. Be strong.

New ExpatWomen Girlfriend
March 2008 

Our New ExpatWomen Girlfriend is originally from The Netherlands. She has lived as an Expat Woman in India, Canada, Indonesia, Chile and Thailand – where she is currently a 'trailing spouse' to a husband of a different nationality to hers. She is a mother of two children, born in Asia, that have dual nationalities. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in European Communications (Marketing) and she has recently graduated from her Master of Science degree in Counselling Psychology. She works in a private mental health clinic, plus counsels expatriate women

Disclaimer: This column is intended to be of general interest to ExpatWomen.com visitors. Its suggestions and/or inferences are generalizations and do not address the needs of individuals, nor should they be relied upon in any shape or form. Please seek professional advice/counseling/therapy if you genuinely need assistance to talk through issues in your life right now.