Letters to the Editor
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Be angry!
Dear Sorry,
don't be sorry, be angry!
You have been hurt enough by this relationship. Moreover, you paid a real-life not just emotional price already! You had to change jobs! MOREOVER, you don't owe loyalty to his wife, he owes her. So I don't understand what is that that YOU have to appologize for! It seems that the guy is trying to dump all the responsibility on you instead of taking responsibility for his actions. I know it is hard to loose a friend and you probably still hoping to save this friendship. But is he being a real friend by scapegoating you? Will you be a real friend if you enable him to behave deplorably? Do the right thing and stand up for yourself!
Take care and wish you many more better and truer friends.
Katie
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ask one question
You should be mad and you shouldn't apologize but just out of curiosity ask your ex-boss, what you're apologizing for? Be smooth and ask as if you just need clarification so you can compose the email appropriately.
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Only by revealing him will you get him off your back
then write her a note saying "My emotional affair with your husband was wrong, and damaged many people. It was so long-lasting, complex and intimate that I don't think I am being fair to you by simply saying 'sorry' by email. If you'd like to learn more - well, everything - about what transpired between us while we worked together, I am willing to meet and tell you everything you want to know. It's my hope that this will bring healing to all of us."
Oh, and cc: her husband, your ex-boss.
Likely he will blast you once or twice then go off your radar permanently. Save his emails, and when his wife replies she wants to meet, you better damn well believe she wants to meet and get to the bottom of this *right now*, forward his email to you with the note "I hadn't realized that Mike (or whatever his name is) hasn't been fully forthcoming about the nature of our relationship. All I can say at this point is, it's over, I ended it, moved on and told him to do the same. I have no wish to create further tension in your marriage. I really hope the two of you can work things out."
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Prepare for attack of the dramatic.
God only knows what this unstable weirdo (sorry, I mean friendly ex-boss)said to his wife about you, and/or what current crisis is befalling them. If you get triangulated into this couple, you haven't learned a thing.
Don't apologize for anything, and give yourself a w-i-d-e berth at that event. Or if the event isn't a big deal to you anyway, maybe think about not attending it at all. I have a feeling some very uncomfortable D-R-A-M-A is going to be hurled at you, especially once the cocktail hour begins.
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Slight correction to the proposed letter of Anonymous
If you'd like to learn more, point your browser to
http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/tenn/2007/11/08/wife_of_the_boss/
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LW, please return and define your terms!
I don't even know what emotional affair is. People have emotions. Whether they admit it or not, they have emotions about almost every person they deal with on an ongoing basis. You did not fuck? No affair. You did not blow him? No affair. You did not let him feel you up? No affair. You did not stick your tongue in his mouth on a regular basis or masturbate while together constantly while taking on the phone? No affair.
If you did not have sex ***with him*** in any shape or form, you don't owe anyone an apology. (Those times you masturabated while thinking of him don't count.) As to this so-called ex-emotional-affair-boss. Let him deal with his own crap. If he needs to save his marriage, at least let him do so honestly. Stop letting him manipulate you. Time to take charge of your emotions. These things sometimes happen. Grow up.
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Apologize for what?
Why does the LW have to apologize? Because her ex-boss feels guilty and he wants to make himself feel better? By making her to be the guilty party and do all the emotional stuff?
No way. Tell your ex-boss to get stuffed and take his problems to a shrink.
You're done with him and his manipulation..and tell him that in the email you should send him telling that you won't apologize for something that's long dead and done.
Also-tell him he should apologize to you and his wife for being such a jerk as to think you'll roll over and play games for him.
You owe nothing to nobody.
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Rarely...
.. do I agree with AKA Smith about anything, but I must say that I am mystified by this "emotional affair". I mean if you two had a passionate, but purely mental friendship, then what is wrong with that? People live their lives on many different dimensions. My wife and I may share a passion for gardening, someone else might share my passion for Duke Ellington, online poker, or something else.
Unlike AKA, I cannot see the relevance of sex. Human beings are plumbed in such a way that they can have sex with pretty much anyone. It tends to be fun at first, especially if it follows a period of celibacy, but once the thrill has gone it becomes routine. Having sex with someone has no more significance these days than having a drink with them, assuming that pregancy and diseases are avoided.
But I can kind of understand in a way. My mother, bless her soul, had a passion for playing bridge and had a male partner who was not my father, with whom she traveled the world playing bridge. This was not a physical relationship as far as I know and my mother always remained on friendly terms with his wife, but my father didn't like it and eventually divorced her because of this relationship.
But this doesn't sound like that. But the LW and this boss used to be right up each other's asses, and now they seem to be totally estranged. Beats me.
Bottom line is that the boss was miserable at home, so he was spending a lot of time with the LW, much to the chagrin of the wife. She mentions going for drinks, and I have to wonder exactly now much drink was involved and whether he was staggering home in the wee small hours with his hair and clothes smelling of smoke and booze while she lay in bed silently fuming and pretending not to hear him come in. Yes, I can see him now coming in, undressing, stubbing his toe, cursing, and laying down next to the fuming but profoundly sleeping wife.
Now this relationship with the LW was never sexual, so you have to wonder why not, and whether the boss man was/is impotent. There is nothing like a husband who has lost interest in sex to bring out the latent genes for anger in the Great American Wife, especially if there is Another Woman on the scene, even if he is not boffing her.
As far as the e-mail--the husband is anxious about this little get together and hoping that it doesn't turn into a cat fight. He hopes that a penitent e-mail will take the wind out of wifey's sails enough that he can navigate the evening without a shipwreck.
Should she send the e-mail? Hell, no, Cary's advice is bang on. In fact not only should she not send the e-mail, she should move to another state or overseas ASAP to get away from this ridiculous man and his ridiculous wife.