Was it all too easy?

[Wabbit]

I've just split up with my partner of 4 years. We didn't have a tempestuous or angst ridden relationship - there were inequalities and money/equal contributions were the major issue for me. I was also just fed up with his inability to commit to me by not asking me to marry him.

I helped support him through the last three years of studying for a Masters degree - he's just gone back to his old job and hates it and wouldn't just take it on the chin - it's a means to an end - very good money and he should be grateful in the current climate that he didn't have to trawl through interviews month in month out to get a job - let alone a good one.

So, it happened this way... I went to a residential group relations conference for 8 days last month and whilst I was there fell madly in love with another delegate. It hit me so hard I just couldn't resist it, I have never felt this way for any other man since I first fell (blindly) in love at the age of 19.

I thought I really needed my partner, but found that he was preventing me from engaging with all of my capabilities - in work, in my private life, in my internal world. I had stopped being ME.

When my man and I left each other at the conference we set a boundary - that we would not contact each other, but go back to our homes and take up where we left off.

It felt so awful, I was emotionally numb driving all the way to my sisters where I stopped the night and told her all about falling in love so deeply.

The back to how it was plan was just not possible, I didn't have the same eyes any more and could no longer look on my partner with love.

The same was felt by my new love. So much so that when I returned home I had 3 emails, and found out that he had immediately told his wife that he had fallen in love with another woman.

I knew I had to do the same but it took me three weeks to find the right words, we had become so adept at avoiding eachother, I actually had to 'book' time in the evening with exP to create a moment to speak alone and at length.

So I told him what had happened, he said that he knew something had happened and that he had been thinking for the last few months that we should have a 'trial separation' to see how we still felt about eachother - He said it could just as easily have been him that had fallen in love outside our relationship and that he would leave the next day - which he did.

So, why was it so easy? ExP is making big efforts to continue to be a father figure for my son and still loves him dearly. I cannot fault his behaviour towards me, he has even helped financially this month (which I normally have to ask him to do... like begging)

I know he feels love for me - he said so, I also know that we are not destined to be together.

My new man has started marriage guidance counselling with his wife and the outcome of separation has already been decided. His wife though still holds hope that his love will be rekindled.

We have not seen each other since the conference but have constant communication on the phone and by e-mail... he lives abroad and it will be a long road to our being together. Years probably before we can live together because of his children and our careers.

I had to write this out, not so much because I need some help with what I feel is a problem, but to ask if any of you have had an experience like this?

My dominant emotions are of hope and freedom... love and excitement...

so do you mean it was too easy to have amicable separation from partner - and you'd prefer him to fight for it more? or to fall in love and decide on the future with the new man?

So it was easy. What's the problem?

There isn't a problem!

I think I feel there should have been a wrench of some sort, there just hasn't been anything of the kind, a few tears of grief that the relationship didn't withstand the test of time and to mourn it's loss.

I think I wanted to ask if it seems too easy to someone outside of the situation. to ask if anyone else has split up so amicably and it remains so...

It's all very new out here on the other side of breaking up my relationship and falling in love with a man far away but who feels the same powerful emotions as I do.

It's far from cosy and I have such an overactive mind going to sleep is difficult... I'm just feeling my way. Not bragging!

Yes Passionsrunhigh easy to fall in love and make changes to my life - just like that - it was easy to be truthful and honest to my ex and to myself.

Not experienced this before - have always been in agonies of emotional pain when splitting up.

well. maybe because previously the split-ups were not overshadowed by such strong joyful feelings. Love does give you wings, however cheesy it sounds, also of course your P helped by not being emotional/in pain. If he was tearful and accusing then maybe you would ve felt pain (even just his). I think the bigger picture is (as nothing is easy in life) - the easy strong start is the price for future endurance tests, which are to come - it's really hard to be long distance AND waiting for divorces to go through, pkus I really don't think it will be easy on his side, as wife still hoping, and you will have to go through pain on that account. Aren't you worried that he might change his mind under her influence? So yes, be careful not to count your chickens and jump into bliss. With your P it's just lucky that you feel both the same.

I hate to burst the bubble, but I wouldnt think too much of a man who walks out on his wife and kids so bloody easily.

You say he lives in another country.. do you really believe he has done this?

Also, you say

Years probably before we can live together because of his children and our careers

Yet you dont mention your child in this.. but you say you have a son.

Your post just sounds too much like a Mills and Boon novel plot to me. :(

agree with squeaky toy

"Aren't you worried that he might change his mind under her influence? So yes, be careful not to count your chickens and jump into bliss"

Yes, he is not here, with me, of course I worry that it will all collapse in a heap and he decides that I'm the lesser of the two options he currently has. BUT for the openness and honesty of our communication. That is all I have. And I DO trust him. Fool though you may think me. (we have mutual friends/colleagues and what we have is very out in the open) I trust him, because I love him, I believe him to be telling me the truth when he tells me he loves me and has told his wife everything. And now they are in Counselling and have told their children and families.

He is also worried that without seeing each other, I may lose the spark of love for him and find someone else.

Well, squeaky toy - I have mentioned my boy - his relationship with my ex is very strong and ex is committed to maintaining this. GOOD MAN! True I have not given him a mention in that excerpt... your probably right in thinking I should have done. We don't have solid plans as yet, it's very, very early and plans have the habit of failing to materialise. My ex actively decided NOT to be Dad to my son - he actively decided not to marry me or accept parental rights over my son. What they have now I heartily support, they need each others love and companionship. How, over time this will move forward I don't know. There is the possibility that I WILL move abroad when my career plans allow and continue my work there. It's not a million miles away and Ex could still be part of DS's network of trusted and loved adults.

AND - we started something here and with all my heart will try to make it endure - it feels fucking fantastic to be so in love - 'gives you wings'. Currently we both have wings! Pity they don't work across the English Channel!

THing is, ending one relationship and beginning another doesn't have to involve squawking and violence and ripping up each other's underwear and acting like bellends. Sometimes it's perfectly possible to be civilised about it. Ending a relationship and beginning another is not a wicked thing to do. Lifetime monogamy is not natural or compulsory. All you have to do now is be as fair and civilised and reasonable as possible in exiting the former relationship. Best of luck.

Last month? I think you need to step away from the Mills and Boon too.

You say it will be years probably before you and your new man can live together due to children and careers, and yet, your ex was/is a father figure who lived with your ds and you, despite your belief in his lack of commitment. So, now you are in the first flush of lust/love, you have all the time in the world for his divorce/counselling/children to grow up/relocation?

I also don't see why your ex should have to take an old, hated job 'on the chin'. Three years out of a four year relationship you helped support him, it must have been part of your plan too, no? Do you think you are trying to find justification for ending it for a married man you met four weeks ago?

SolidGoldVampireBat - thank you!

I think what anxiety I do have has been a nagging feeling that I should be feeling wicked - I don't at all.

And that 'easy' doesn't fit with all my former histories of breaking up...

Tis all a bit new and wanted to run it past the vigilant cynicism that is MN!

Mills and Boon!!! Do they still churn that shit out?

NO perfumedlife, it wasn't in the plan... ExP was going to take a year's sabbatical which turned into 3 years.

The plan was for him to move sideways in the company and achieve a more fulfilling role in a different dept. He failed to come up to scratch and couldn't make the move. Despite getting a distinction in his masters.

I'm not making excuses so I feel better. Ex was the one who decided to go - I just told him about the feelings I felt for another man - because I couldn't lie to him, I told him that we were in contact and that the feelings were still very much alive. He could have chosen to work on what we had, but didn't want to.

And it's not MY belief in his lack of commitment, he told me he actively chose NOT to ask me. He knew he didn't want to marry me and knew that this was important to me.

The man I met is married.

I still fell in love with him because he made his heart available to me.

I was also just fed up with his inability to commit to me by not asking me to marry him.

I'm only going by what you wrote op, you clearly see commmitment as marriage then, and that's fine. Your new man doesn't seem to confer the same status to it though, could be a disparity there.

I think you're being disengenious when you say he left but could have chosen to stay and work on what you had. What he had at that point was a dp with a new love. What's realistically left there for him to work on?

possibly disingenuous - I wasn't offering a choice.

He didn't even ask though. It wasn't his first thought, his first thought was a sense of freedom. 'I'll probably go back to... ' (place he dearly loved FAR, FAR AWAY.)

Marriage became a beacon of light for me in my last relationship - an outward sign that all was good inside... I probably felt this way because of an unacknowledged understanding that all was NOT good.
I ended an already inwardly floundering relationship, it has shocked people we know because they thought we were so steady.

Here's the deal: you keep churning out the Mills & Boon shit and I'll reserve judgement for a few years to give those other mills a chance of proving that what goes around comes around.

In love after 8 days? Pull yourself together.

It seems like you were looking for a way out and you managed to give yourself one. This other man sounds like an utter fool, leaving his wife and children after meeting you for 8 days? I take it you probably slept with him? I don't care how 'in love' you were you are totally disrespectful and self obsessed, what about how his wife is feeling or do you not care because you are so high on lust love? if he did this to his wife he would do it to you in a second, remember he did actually outwardly commit to that woman and if he is in therapy he is not giving up hope. You should stop speaking to him and let him work it out with his wife without your input.

Live your life and forget about him, you don't always have to have a man around you know? Maybe concentrate on your son as it sounds like he's probably having the most heartbreaking time.

Editor's note in the interests of accuracy:

'When my man and I left each other at the conference' should read 'When the married man I'd been shagging left after the conference'.

'My new man has started marriage guidance counselling' should read 'My secondhand man has started marriage guidance counselling'

Your readers may want to know why you spent 8 days engaged in 'group relations' but only managed to cop off with one absent woman's husband?

It does does seem somewhat against the spirit of the event and is not exactly an achievement to boast about, is it? I'm sure that other less emotionally needy authors would have manged to rack up a higher score.

I agree with Izzy and similar comments.
You met once for 8 days.
He is going to leave his wife.
Just before Christmas.
He sounds like a cad.
Maybe you deserve each other.

He won't be leaving his wife before Christmas, Bar.

As the OP's said, it will be a long road to our being together.

I'm reading that as him wanting to wait for his children to grow up before he leaves his wife and, in the meantime, no doubt his career will give him more opportunities to engage in 'group relations'

New man hasn't left his wife though has he? He is actually attending counselling/ Relate

Everything he has told you could be a crock.

Look at his actions and ignore the words out of his lying cheating mouth

What a load of entitled, navel gazing nonsense and this from someone who has rarely left a relationship without someone else hovering in the wings. All these lives imploding yet your posts really come across as me, me, me! Though that's not to say that your melodramatic writing style didn't make me snigger.

Fine to get out of a relationship that isn't working but I'll be honest your ex sounds well rid. Your "suck it up" attitude regarding having him having to return to his old job is pretty unsupportive actually. Your "new" man is NOT going to leave his wife, let's just be up front about that and your lack of consideration as to how all this is affecting your child is pretty .

In answer to your question it's probably THIS easy because your ex is glad to be rid of you. From the way you describe yourself I really don't blame him. Get a grip for crying out loud!

This sounds like one of those woman view/man view scenarios.

Woman - met my soulmate, fell head over heels in love, never knew it could be like this, so happy I could die, so lucky he feels the same, looking forward to a future together, he's worth waiting for.

Man - Got another great shag at a convention. Result!

Well...... I think that some people find it difficult to leave a comfortable but unstatisfying relationship unless there is a good reason. They don't have the courage of their convictions to assert themselves and acknowledge that a relationship has reached its end. The 'good reason' might be a negative incident, or it may be a transfer of emotions to someone else, but it serves as the impetus to make a change.

So perhaps OP something like that has happened to you, there has been an impetus to make a change, and in the face of that 'good reason' your ex has chosen not to fight against it, but to walk away easily.

On the other side of the equation is the 'new man'. I can't imagine what type of 'group relations' conference would enable a relationship to form without offering any serious advice about the nature of attractions in these circumstances. Sharing an intense emotional experience with someone makes us vulnerable to experiencing strong attachments, attachments which are based on a single shared experience, and not based on the exploration of shared values, compatable behaviours, and long-term communication. From the short-term intense experience people often experience overwhelming infatuation, and from the long-term exploration people can develop deep and lasting love. Infatuation makes people reckless (of their own vlaues, and of those of others close to them), deep love is usually grounded in shared long-term values.

It may be that the overwhelming infatuation develops into a deep and lasting love (it is how many relationships start) but it should not be confused with love.

I guess what I meant was, he's made his wife sad before Christmas, even if they aren't splitting up immediately.
Very selfish of his, very selfish of the OP to encourage this man to leave his wife after a mere 8 days of lust.

whoever runs this "group relations" course is bloody effective at getting results... I will give them that!