Husband's 'emotional' affair at work is a problem

DEAR AMY: Please address the dangers of emotional affairs in your column, especially between people who work together. I have been living through that hell with my husband, who has a female "friend" at work.

Yesterday, I talked to her husband. We both agree that our spouses' relationship is inappropriate. People we all know consider this relationship unhealthy. It is like they are addicted to each other and neither is choosing to make it stop. It started out innocently two years ago. They started hiking together outside of the office.

It seemed OK at the time. But by last spring, my husband was deleting phone records and text messages from his phone before I could see them. He started hiding his phone, sometimes sleeping with his phone so I couldn't see it. When I finally looked up the phone records, there were hundreds of phone calls and text messages between them. We are in counseling; his phone and phone records are available to me at any time. I told him he could only see her at work. So now, they get coffee together every day. They visit in each other's offices every day. People at work are talking. They could lose their jobs. He flat out refuses to stop being her friend because it isn't an affair.

They both say they're "just friends" and the husband and I are at our wits' end.

--Worried Wife

DEAR WORRIED: Workplace relationships can easily turn into emotional (and physical) affairs. Technology has made it easier to maintain the connection - and keep it secret.

Judging from the content of my mailbag, emotional affairs are an increasing problem.

The prevailing response for couples trying to recover from an emotional affair is what your therapist is suggesting - total transparency. But transparency doesn't achieve its intended goal if the relationship continues, exclusive of the marriage.