Correct. Emails and IMs and a couple phone calls (during which we did NOT talk about sex or our relationship, but about life and work). He wrote to me with sexual advances over and over again, which I countered in the beginning, then got tired of fighting and just let him do it, though I didn’t respond to any of it. No sex, no physical contact, no cybersex, no nude photos, no sexy photos, etc. Just “I love you”s. (Which makes me sick to think of now.)

I do think his wife was hurt by this, on a broader level even though she doesn’t know about it. He told me that he’d done this once before (and I suspect he actually did it many times before and is probably doing it now), which tells me that he doesn’t respect his wife and doesn’t care about the promises he made to her or the honesty that one would owe one’s spouse. So even though she doesn’t know…I think the betrayal, known or not known, exists and hurts the person who was betrayed.

So I’ll edit your statement just slightly into this: The only one NOT hurt was him.

But yes, I am grateful that I extricated myself relatively quickly and that over the past year, I’ve learned a lot of hard lessons around “friendships” that start online, particularly those initiated by married men. I am much more cautious today.