Breaking contact with OM

[howdiditcometothis]

Back story here

I feel like I'm having a breakdown. I've taken some time away and made the decision to work on my marriage -it is not bad enough to justify ending it. I know this means no contact whatsoever with OM. He says that he understands and supports the decision I've made but thinks we can maintain a friendship. I can't do that - I'm in love with him and I can't pretend to be his friend and ignore those intense feelings. I'm posting here to stop me replying to him or picking up the phone. I know if we talk, I won't feel able to do it. I would be so grateful if somebody would tell me how they have done this. I feel desperate. I need to switch these feelings off and forget about him. Somebody must have done this successfully before. PLease if you have dealt with a situation like this, please help me to end this. I need to get my life back on track.

I had an affair with a married man before I was married. It lasted physically for a year and then emotionally for a further 18 months. At the time I was so in love I couldn't imagine there could ever be love like it again. I wanted to be with him all the time and the prospect of not having him in my life was beyond painful. In the end we were not together, he stayed with his wife and thank god he did, if he had left her it would have been the biggest mistake he ever made and would have been a disaster for me

• because affairs are a fantasy - they are hard to get over because they are not based in reality, its illicit, and secret and often conducted in restaurants and hotels, its movie love, its all the aspects of relationships that are exciting and have heightened emotion attached, but its not real, its not sustainable, and once you introduce weekly shop, laundry, dishes, bills and all the regular day to day 'noise to the relationship it comes crashing back to reality and is all the more disappointing because all the things which made it exciting are gone.

I love my husband, and when we first got together it was an office romance so although we were both single it had all the secrecy and creeping around that makes it heightened, combined with new partner we were in a wonderful honeymoon phase. 10 years on and there are days where I think where has the magic gone, we have to try and capture romance between the childcare and our jobs and bills, but the friendship and respect and at times intimacy are so much more valuable, and what I know from having had the affair in my 20s, is that even if I am attracted to another man, maybe at work, maybe I am tempted, it will go nowhere and the cost not only to me but to my son and my husband will not be worth it. Because in 5 or 10 years I will be in the same relationship with another man, but having damaged people I really love.

To get over an affair is hard because the shit parts of a relationship rarely apply - its all been exciting and fantasy so far, but it never lasts.

I only managed to end my affair by stopping all contact. No calls, no e-mails, no messages, nothing. I told him it was never going to happen and it was over. It hurt for 6 months, and then I met my husband.

You asked for experiences so that is mine, I hope it helps

This is probably a really weird thing to do but I need to do something to not respond to the messages from today.

He sent:

"I can't lie to you. I have fallen in love with you. And in such a way that I've never experienced before. It is so clear to me. I CAN and will cope with the hard fact of not being able to express it further, but that's the truth I come up against every time."

and then:

"I will help you through however I can. I want to hold your hand through whatever this is"

and then:

"Don't worry I can tone this down. And also wait a very long time if need be"

and then:

"I will respect whatever decision you make"

Loud music? Dancing? painting nails - so you can't text. Drop phone down the loo?

It takes unexpectedly living through this kind of thing to know how horrendous it is. I never intended for it to happen in my life either. You can hate and judge yourself more than anyone else can.

You are just a person though. This kind of thing happens to people. There's a whole body of literature, art and music to testament to that. These are the emotions that thrill us.

What I'm trying to say is don't be so down on yourself that you depress yourself out of action. You are also the member of a species thAt has the capacity to be amazing, unselfish, strong, brave and beautiful. Strive for the highest. Lift yourself clear, give yourself space to be happy.

If you can't live yourself enough to do it for your own sake just now, then do it for your daughters. Don't you want her to have a mother with an intact heart, who can tell her of love and life without fear and bitterness?

Howdi, those messages are beautiful and i can see how much it must kill younot to respond to them. But he is letting you go. Be brave and let him let you go. Let him wait that very long time. If you really believe it's real love, then pick it up further on in life when you have figured yourself out more.

Leave it now. Do not respond. And change your number asap so you don't have to be tortured by living words anymore.

so true diggers, who sets out to have an affair, noone.

HDCTT cut yourself some slack - and don't feel you have to say how bad a person you are and what a terrible soul you have for the fact you fell in love with the wrong person at the wrong time, the people beating you up about that have never been unlucky enough to find themselves where you are. Let them walk a mile in your shoes then let them judge.

I feel for you so much. It is very hard to get over a relationship that never realised its potential. Its not a relationship that has run its course, it is a relationship of what might have been. There aren't all the bad things to reaffirm to your self you are making the right choice.

As people have said - can you get yourself some space somehow.

Google surviving infidelity.Its a great site dealing with everything to do with infidelity.whether you are the betrayed or betrayer and there is a forum.There is also a side in the forum for just the betrayers and so you will find all the support you need as these people are or have gone through the same as you.

Good luck.

Hi howdid

Someone else here who has been in your shoes. How are you doing.

Those messages must be hard to resist. But they are a bit manipulative, saying he will wait a long time etc. Do you see that?

I'm off to read the back story thread now. Keep strong.

sorry...still not sure why you can't be together if you feel the same

know you under another name I think

don't beat yourself up...i posted a slightly devils advocate thread tonight because I find the rel board ridiculously ott re the sanctity of marriage,affairs,OW etc drives me potty

oooh always - where is that, I am spoiling for a rumble tonight after the holier than thou - divorce your husband who went for a lapdance thread

cheepz - you hit the nail on the head - the hardest thing in one sense is that feeling of unfinished business - all the inane things we won't get to chat about, minutae that I'll never know about him and yes the rows and difficult times that would temper this feeling that he is my soulmate.

thank you for the people brave enough to admit to having been in this situation themselves

its excruciating, and what you have to work out is whether it is worth giving up what you have with your husband - even if it isn't as spicy, to take a chance on the relationship which your OM would become, once you have had the crazy heady days that would inevitably come in the early years. Because the chances are the problems you have in your current relationship would go with you.

I suspect the problems would follow me yes. I have thought and thought about this. And at the outset when OM was probably more forthright in his feelings for me than I was with him. I did try to put the brakes on and highlight the novelty factor being a major part of the attraction and to think that if way further down the line anything happened, real life would creep in, chores, bins to empty, bickering, annoying in laws, work stress etc etc

You can't escape yourself.

Step up howdi. Be brave and love yourself enough to stop the madness.

He just sent this:

Night night you. I am sorry for continually allowing myself to ask for something that isn't mine by rights and isn't within your gift to give. I promise I will hold my tonge x I'm glad I expressed it but I will learn to stop. Yours x

I am sorry to type these out but it is helping me to not respond.

ask him not to text anymore
this is not helping you
this is making it worse for you
you need space from him to be able to decide what you need for yourself

I agree with cheepz, apart from I'd say just do nit respond atall. You send him back

"please don't text me"

he sends back

"I'm sorry"

You send back

"it's ok"

He'll send back

"thanks"

And so on and so on. It'll never end unless one of you ends it. Sounds like he's totally loving the doomed romance and enjoying the unrequited beauty of hisvown words so doubt it'll be him. Don't respond until you're about to change your numbe. And then send him one last text saying, "number changed, sorry. "

change your email too. Tell work and clients some story and change it.

These texts are too provoking. Defend yourself and make them stop

And howdi, he'll not be the one to end it because he's left his wife and kids. He's lying to noone now, hurting noone thru deceit. You are though. And The only person he's hurting is you by continuing to be in contact with you. Remember that. If he really loved you he'd not want to hurt you. He'd let you have space. His texts sound to me like someone in love with the whole situation, not in love with you .

I'm listening to the advice and it is starting to sink in and make me question the whole thing.

I know its stupid but putting the messages here makes me feel like I've done something with them and not ignored them even though I've not responded to him

Last night in response to me saying no more contact it is hurting me:

'Kissing the tears away. Some wise fool said don't be sad that it's over, be glad it happened. Trying to get a grip on that feeling but it won't be easy x I swear I have never fallen this deeply x'

And:

'I don't want this to end. You must know I resist that with every fibre. But at some point I will surely have to accede to the wishes that come through in the sub-text. It feels like you're begging me to end it for you. I hope I'm wrong but if that is what is needed, I will do it. I love you so f*ing much.'

I think that it's a good strategy to type these texts out here. As you say, it gives you someone to do with them, and also I hope it breaks the spell to know other people have read them, breaks the bubble of unreality that you two are in. A dangerous wonderful bubble to be in.

They say that love is a kind of madness, and people in love do keep each other in the spell, hypnotised by each other reflecting themselves back at them. Basking in their own reflected light. And it is amazing! But only in the right circumstances. And this isn't right. It's hurting you rather than empowering you.

His words are eloquent and terribly romantic and I'm sure they melt you and sear into your mind! But from an outsiders point of view, with what I know about you from what you've written here, they aren't kind. They aren't about you! They are full of "I", full of his preoccupation with how he feels. If he really knew and loved you, they'd be full of " you". He wouldn't keep pushing, keep talking about "it" and saying how much he loves. He would quietly love from afar, without making you aware, without making you responsible
for his love, knowing that you need the time and space to be able to love him back. He's being very selfish. Maybe you don't think so because you know how he feels, lost in love like you, but I promise you, he is.

My sister met her husband when she was 17. They dated until she went to uni, and he asked her to marry him. She said no, she needed to live, see other men, have her university years. So he waited for her. He loved her so much and knew that they were right, so he let her go and when she came back to him a few years later, they began again, married and had 3 children. They've been through so much in the ten years since they married (illness, bereavement, bankruptcy) and in the twenty they've known each other, but he's always quietly loved her and been there for her regardless.

Your OM 's love is noisy. He wants to keep writing these declarations, they affirm him, they affirm it. They are for him as much as for you. That's weakness. He should be strong and back off. You're not free to love him back, and he's hurting you. That's not subtext, that's fact. If he knows you and your situation atleast as well as I do he should know that.

Remember. It's all words.

Song for the day .. Tim buckley- must have been blind

Have you changed your number?

Another song for the day Sting - If you love someone, set them free.

I do agree that he is rather in love with the idea of love. I'm sure his feelings are very genuine, but they've now spilt over into self-indulgence. The texts are very flowerly but also very manipulative. Please do as diggers say and change your number. I would send a final text to say: I won't be responding or reading any more of your texts as I'm changing my number. I need space - although I can promise you nothing, your constant texting me is not allowing me to move forward to decide what I do want. Please respect and accept my decision

Thanks - I'll look those songs up tonight when I get home - another good distraction.

I think the messages will stop now. But these were the final ones (digggers is right it just helps to burst the bubble of them a bit to put them here):

"I hope you're ok. I wish we could speak. F**k, I hope I haven't said the wrong thing. I love you and will do forever"

Then a voice message basically saying he understood I was in a tough situation. He didn't want the contact to end but understood if I felt it had to. Said I could lean on him if I ever needed to or hold onto him - he'll be there and just to ask. Understood that I might need to pull away from him and he was ok with it.

I texted this morning to say we were hurting each other, I couldn't think straight about what to do re my marriage with him in the picture and I'm changing my number.

Then this came:

"My worst fear is that you may think that you are the last in a line of people I have 'played' while I was unhappily married. Not so. I fell completely and utterly in love. A feeling to always remember..I understand your need for space and respect it. Take good care. Love always x"

In fairness to him this fear of having been played - it is something that I was paranoid about at the outset and told him so - because I'm younger and he's so clever and good with words and I was falling for him so hard I felt that I might just be blinded by infatuation and he was some sort of skilled lothario. I don't think that at all anymore - and partly because this was inadvertently confirmed by his wife when she got in touch with me.

And then:

"I understand your situation. Of course I do x x . I've been existing inside a (lovely) dream and I think we have to wake up. I get it. Love always x"

I think that is it. I honestly do. If I stay strong and don't contact him I think he will stay away. I feel completely gutted - threw up this morning in the loos at work but at least I'm holding it together. Feel like I could just start crying and never stop.

I have the perspective of the OW - dare I speak up on here for fear of being hounded, but this is one of the few open and honest discussions about the realities of an emotional affair on here.

I am in a similar situation having been in an affair for around a year on and off.

we had both agreed the affair should come out - be honest about the love etc, but within a week the bubble completely burst and he's decided to work on his marriage.

I've been dropped like a brick since the affair came to light whilst he has crumbled in pain and confusion over his marriage.

I sent endless supportive/desperate messages and calls, declarations of everlasting love and belief in what we have (much like the OM in your post) to the point of total loss of any dignity, to little response as he's been ordered to have no further contact we with by his DP. it dawned on me I was keeping a love alive by continually texting/calling etc, much for my benifit and not remind him our love was real and not to be forgotten.

however i've learnt the silence does work - his lack of response shocked me into calming down and accepting the situation - he is trying to deal with his relationship with her, not me - it speaks volumes.

I've stopped calling/texting for over 2 weeks now, its been hard to back off but I've realised there was no more i could do, no power left I had to sway the situation - he has to make his mind up and can only do that with some peace and space. any pressure would be pointless as the outcome would be false. its the classic, if you love someone, let them go and if its meant to be it will be

good luck, be strong, I know it feels impossible right now but all the emotional intensity will calm down and you can them make some informed decisions about YOUR life based on you. x