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...