hi bees, and others who've been in this situation. Bees I have so many similarities to you: I'm married, we've not had a great year to put it mildly, OM knows this. Nothing physical happened because I was clear from the outset I wouldn't do anything while married, but he still moved in on me and stirred everything up, making me feel desired, special, everything he was looking for - and he sucked me right in until I was seriously thinking about ending my marriage to start something with him. Once he saw he had me exactly where he wanted me he backed right off and started blanking me. It didn't happen overnight, he still posted on my fb page, clicked 'like' on the occasional photo of mine, but he simply wouldn't talk to me. At all!! I was left reeling. I just couldn't comprehend it. I dumped him off my friends list because I couldn't bear seeing him being flirty with other members of his female fan club (the majority of his friends on fb are female) while he continued to ignore my increasingly pleading emails. I still can't comprehend it if I'm honest. It just seems so cruel, even though I know I sound like one of those naive old ladies who's had her savings nicked by a conman. I feel like I have gone nearly mad with it, like I must have imagined he said all that stuff. To this day I've never had a word of explanation out of him. And it is so at odds with the kind and decent man I thought I knew. But slowly, slowly, I am beginning to see him for what he is, a chancer who saw I was vulnerable and thought he had a chance of an easy shag. My guess is that he got bored of waiting basically and he took the easy way out by blanking me. Trouble is I had totally fallen for him by then and couldn't see what was staring me in the face, even though everyone here was telling me.
I hope it will inspire you to keep focused on staying away from your OM when I tell you I cracked and foolishly made contact with OM after a few weeks of silence (I can hear the collective groans going up from you all). I think by then I was addicted to the feelings he had stirred up in me - of being desired, attractive, special. He took days to respond and when he did it was so short and his tone was so cold and offhand it was like communicating with a different person. I felt foolish and stupid and grubby - and that I had lost any chance of clawing back my self respect by chasing him again. I may has well have been on my knees in front of him. It is so embarrassing and that is the thing I am struggling to move on from the most. I let myself down. You haven't done that yet. Don't do it! I was told this guy was playing me but at the time I could neither see it nor believe it. It's only by allowing him to rub my nose in it that's it's become all too clear he was never really my friend, never really cared about me, never saw anything beyond the bulge in his pants!!!
So here I am, a few months further down the track than you in terms of trying to move on. You're doing so well. Please learn from what happened to me, or what I allowed to happen, and keep your head held high and your dignity intact.
If I could turn back time I don't know that I would erase spending time with him as it was a bit of a beacon of light in a very dark year, but I would stop it at exactly the point you are now at, because I would be able to look back and say I acted with dignity and walked away from it all the minute my instincts started telling me something had changed and the messages from him were becoming mixed.
I really wish you well. I know how bloody hard it is. On a positive note things have improved at home (certainly helps not having that arse messing with my head) and I now can't believe I now nearly destroyed what I had for some chancer who would never have wanted to know.
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
I learned this gem right here and it is so, so true. I didn't listen but you are clearly a stronger person than me - keep it up.