Heartbroken :'(

[Mentalcowgirl]

Hi all, I'm fairly new to all this I've posted before but this is different, I'll try and cut a very long story short!!

Have been seeing a guy for the past decade on and off,He was my first, we've both been in relationships had dc etc. my ds is 5 been separated from his dad for 3 years (not the same guy) history of dv and he has no contact with myself or ds (another story)

Have been seeing this man since my split he is in a relationship with ds2's mum (ds1 has different mum)

In short I'm the dreaded ow (slate me if u will) I don't know if I've been kidding myself that it's more than that tho as we have known eachother so long share so much history but it has never been the right time to get together properly.

I've told him I can't continue like this anymore as its messing with my head, he's seemingly ok/supportive/upset he sais he's known this has been on the cards for a while just didn't want to think about it.

I expected to feel free, rejuvenated, strong even. However I just feel absolute shit I've been crying my eyes out feel like my heart has been split in two. I don't want this to be the end but I know it has to be, help!!

This sounds really familiar - have you ever posted before? I'm sure I remember your story, you were trying to start a business or something and everyone was quite unpleasant about this guy.

You're heartbroken I guess because he didn't shriek "No! No! You're my soulmate and I can't lose you! I'll leave my partner for you!!"

Instead you got a rational and level-headed response which tells you that he wants to stay with his partner more than he wants a relationship with you.

This relationship has stolen 10 years of your life and has stolen something precious from his partner too.

It really wasn't the case that it has 'never been the right time to get together properly'. You would have achieved that if your feelings for one another had been matched, so that is really a comforting delusion. You didn't get together because one or both of you didn't want to give up people or things that were more important, not because of some noble selflessness either, but for self-interest reasons.

I'd recommend some counselling to help you deal with what must seem like a bereavement of sorts. If you've been kidding yourself all these years that you were star-crossed lovers for whom fate got in the way and conspired against you, it's going to be an awful realisation that it wasn't like that at all. And what ever mistakes you've made and need to take responsibility for, that doesn't take away your pain and feelings of loss.

cowgirl, I am so sorry you are feeling so much pain now. You must be in such turmoil. For what it's worth, I personally think you have done the right thing and however much it hurts now, the pain will get better.

I namechanged specifically to tell you about someone very close to me. She had a relationship much like the one you have described. Totally loved the man but the timing was never quite right for either of them at the same time. She never had children but he did. They continued with their affair for many years, with no regard for their other partners.

My friend was totally and utterly in love with this man. He was now married and had a child but continued to see my friend (who was now single and just desperate to be with him). And then he got sick. And tragically within a few days he died. My friend went to his funeral but she had to pretend he was just an acquaintance. She had to grieve as a distant friend, not as somebody who had just lost the love of her life. When she did grieve for him she felt that her grief wasn't valid somehow as their relationship had mostly been conducted in secret and of course he had his own wife and family who were grieving for him.

Some 7 years later she has mostly come to terms with this relationship and his death. But she 'lost' many years of her life to someone who would never have committed to her. She's now in her late 40s and because of her relationship with this man (and then her subsequent grief and fear of getting involved with anyone else), she has lost the chance to ever have children.

I don't really know the point of what I am trying to say other than your story struck me as so similar to my friend's. I would just hate for any one else to go through the pain she went through.

Crying is not a bad thing for you to be doing. It hurts. You have lost someone very special to you. You have lost the hopes and dreams you had with him for your future. But it does sound like the best thing in the long run, however painful it is just now.

Be kind to yourself and I hope to God no-one does come on here slating you as I really don't think you need that right now.

Thanks for the replies, it's just all such a bloody mess. Toscana I can totally relate to ur friends story. I feel like there's no one in rl I can talk to as the majority of people know nothing about it. My bf has been there since the start but is 4 weeks away from giving birth and I don't want to burden her with my emotional baggage!

He sais he can't leave current dp as it hurt ds1 too much when he left his mum and he doesn't want to put his kids through that again, which I totally understand.

I think I probably knew it would end up like this but have just been preventing the inevitable. I've loved him so long and so much that no one has even come close to how he makes me feel and I doubt they ever will so whatever subsequent relationships that I may have will always feel second best.

This is so hard.

No love he is spinning you another line.

He can't leave his DW because he DOESN'T want to. You were just a bit on the side.

There is someone special out there for you,just make sure they are not with someone else this time.

Sorry don't mean to be cruel.

Oh, mental...I feel for you as I was in a very similar position years ago. I got involved with a friend who was engaged to someone else (at the time, he lied to me saying they'd split up when they hadn't but I was so blindly in love that I chose to believe him even though, deep down, I knew what the truth was).

Every time I tried to leave him, he would come up with some soppy line about how he was trying to resolve his situation and how I was the most wonderful thing that ever lived...it went on for over a year until he told me his fiancee had got pregnant...I was livid and dumped him but after a while, I relapsed until I found out that he had even made the pregnancy up as he didn't have the balls to do the right thing and make a decision. The deception was too much for me to take and I told him I never wanted to speak to him again (even though we worked together and had to speak occassionally for work). It was the most excruciating pain I've ever felt...I cried day and night for weeks until, gradually and with the help of my friends, I started to realise that I was worth so much more than what he was giving me.

Hang in there...the pain will subside eventually and you'll start to feel so much stronger as a person for doing what you know is best for you and not allowing this guy to walk all over you with his pathetic excuses and web of lies. It may sound simplistic but when someone really loves you and values you, they wouldn't consciously hurt you and do anything to protect your feelings. His actions speak louder than his words and you need to preserve yourself.

It will be incredibly tough but you will get there and feel enormously proud of what you've achieved. You deserve so much better than that and you know it.

Agree with Doha. It honestly won't help you if you believe this tosh cowgirl.

It isn't logical. Do you really think that someone who is selfish enough to have a 10 year 'on/off' affair would stay in a situation that made him unhappy and even more implausibly, would put his children first when he never has before? Especially someone who's not even married to his partner and wouldn't have to go through a divorce, or lose half his assets, to be with you? It's not even as though these days (thankfully) when couples split up, a mother gets automatic residence with the children.

It really would be better for your own wellbeing if you acknowledged the truth, because that will help you move on far more quickly than believing a lie. He wasn't good enough for you and you weren't good enough for him. If you accept that it means you'll be open sooner to possibilities with men who will think you're good enough and you're more likely to give them a chance if you take the OM off the pedestal he doesn't deserve to be on.

Logically, it wouldn't be hard to find a partner who was better than this bloke and your feelings for him are no more than a choice you've made based on the lies he's told you and the lies you've told yourself. I think you've also got into a habit of 'enshrining' him because he was your 'first'. First lovers are really no big deal and it's such a shame that this fantasy about him being 'the one' has got in the way of you living a life and being happy with someone who was free to love you.

It might seem impossible right now, but we can all choose to stop loving someone. What helps is to see their character and motivations with absolute clarity and to stop attributing qualities to them that don't exist. It sounds like he sees you more clearly than you see him and that's why he's able to give up the relationship more easily. If he felt like you, he would leave. He doesn't, so he won't. It is no more complicated than that, whatever lies he tells you to make you feel more kindly disposed towards him - and of less importance to him, better about yourself.

Hatty ur right I know deep down that he just tells me what I want to hear and whatever makes him look a better person, I suppose I'm more inclined to believe him re the whole ds situation because my own ds has never had a dad who gives a shit, so it's nice to believe that there are men out there that do actually care. He does say all the right things and a part of me wants to believe what he says however I'm not naive enough to think that he actually means them. I feel like moving away so the temptation is no longer there but then on the other hand I'd be giving up my support network, job and ds is settled in school.

I just wish I could shake this sinking feeling inside, I'm trying to hold it all together for ds but in reality all I want to do is go back to bed and sob my heart out that the realisation that I've been such an idiot and let myself love a man that has essentially just used me for the past 10 years.

There are men out there who care about their children and if you gave them a chance, you'd meet them.

But he's not one of them.

You're comparing his fathering standards with those of your ex, you see. He's 1mm on the metre stick of fathering qualities and the OM is at about 10mm, being generous. Good fathers don't treat their co-parents with contempt by having secret affairs with other women. Truly good fathers are much further up the metre stick and those are the standards you ought to be aiming for in a man.

I think you're right not to move away. It wouldn't be fair on your son and although you should obviously do everything to remove temptation from your path, not if it has an adverse effect on others. I think you'll also respect yourself more if you manage to detach from him by doing this the harder way, because you need to get to the stage where you can bump into him on the street and feel nothing but sadness that you wasted so much time with him.

You do need to grieve though, so don't be too hard on yourself. Some counselling could help with that, especially as you don't want to lean on your friend. So it's okay to wallow a bit, as long as you're seeing him clearly. Don't get me wrong either, I'm not demonising him and painting you as a victim. He's been selfish but so have you. Just because your feelings were stronger for him than his were for you, isn't an excuse. But you've ended it and so you've got more courage than him, even if your reasons for ending it were self-interest rather than a desire to stop hurting others.

I agree with Hattytown re his parenting qualities.
He is not such a great father, to risk a long-term affair that would jeopardise the stability of the family he has created with his partner.

He has been unfair to both you and his partner - but the difference is that you had the benefit of knowing about her, and you decided to play along with him.

Did she get that choice?