Hello. I have name changed for this as I am a regular and I want some impartial advice.
Basically I am 30 years old. Married with no kids yet, but we intend on having them soon. Successful career. On the surface very happy- am very happy, really, but have some demons from the past I can't shake off.
In my late teens I had a long standing affair with a man who was my college music teacher. I was a very talented musician, my job is to do with that now, and he exploited that I loved his subject and I fell for him big time. Full on, big love. He had a long term girlfriend (he was 34, I was 17 so nothing illegal, just unethical) and he promised to leave her. He did, but spent five years flitting back and forth between me and her. It was a passionate but crazy relationship. When it was good it was the best thing on earth, I have never got along with or admired someone so much... it was like we were half of the same soul, is the only way I can put it. Not even in a romantic ridiculous way, but just that I had found the other half of my whole. He would play me music and I would weep it was so beautiful. But when it was bad it was black. An example is that he once broke a glass on the wall centimetres above my head in a rage. He once wound me up so badly I hit him with the business end of a stilleto. This was path for the course. He would tell me I was mad, that I would never marry or have a normal life because I was crazy and that I was somehow inherently unlovable.
His girlfriend was much more placid, dull, not as bright as me but equally nothing like as volatile (this was how a mutual friend once described her to me). I knew her on an acquaintance level and this seemed like a fair assessment.
When I was 22 he had a breakdown, quit his job and said he couldn't go on with being with me. I had a nervous breakdown but looking back, it was the best thing that could have happened. We were very unkind to one another, violent and angry and mad. I had bulimia almost the entire 5 years we were together and had a serious drinking problem. I missed him ferociously at first and thought I would die without him, but as the years limped on I gathered the pieces and became "normal". The only way I can put it is that I felt like half of what I used to be, literally like he had taken away my essence. I married quickly aged 25 to a nice, boring man who I thought a lot of but knew even on the wedding day that I didn't love. No kids. Divorced within two years, when I got this massive rush of what I used to be and knew I had to reclaim my life.
That same year I met my now husband. I fell in love with him almost as soon as he walked into the room at work. He is warm, witty, clever and brilliant and as cliched as it sounds I knew he was "The One". I love him more and far more healthily than I ever loved my first love. I know that it has all worked out well.
The problem I have is that my first love seems to have left some kind of scar on me, is the only way I can put it. I feel damaged by him, that he made me mad and destroyed all my optimism and happiness. I am much darker in my head than I ever used to be, I never felt sad or depressed as a young adult and now I am plagued by these pockets of blackness. He lives nearby and if I see him, I literally find myself shaking. He has said hello once or twice- no heavy conversation, just polite pleasantries- and I thought I would vomit he made me so nervous. He makes me feel 17 and at his mercy, even if we just pass on the street. I hate him for taking advantage of me and I hate him for leaving me broken and alone.
What seems to make it worse is that the girlfriend stuck by him and now, eight years on they are still together. That doesn't seem fair, he didn't deserve that loyalty. So I am angry that she stuck by him.
I would say that 90% of the time I am happy within my life. But in the thirteen years since the affair began and in the years since it ended I have had some symptoms of anxiety/madness. As I mentioned I had bulimia, which I got under control by the time that I was about 24 but left me with gastro issues. I have IBS that the specialist thinks is caused entirely by anxiety. I literally feel my bowels spasm when I start to worry. I worry about everything from my family to whether or not the direct debits have come out of my account and obsessively check things and repeat words in my head OCD-style. I have a multitude of bizarre skin rashes and irritations, which a dermatologist said thought were brought about by anxiety. I am a terrible hypercondriac and worry obsessively about my health. And like I say, 10% of the time I have these periods of blackness and sadness and I think about how he has "scarred me" and "defiled" me. I don't have any problems with having sex, but he was my first sexual partner and I obsessively worry I have PID and HIV and all kinds of sexually transmitted diseases that he has given me. I worry I will be infertile when I try because he damaged my insides. Various tests haven't stopped these fears: I just believe the tests are wrong and I am sexually diseased. I know that sounds insane by the way.
I had some therapy when it all happened but we didn't get very far. The therapist seemed to want to blame my family life and the fact my dad was in his forties when he had me for everything that happened. I didn't really hold with any of that, if I am honest. I had a really happy childhood. I have now signed up for some counselling with Relate and will persist.
Basically, I suppose I am asking people's advice about how the actual fuck I get over this. Or will I always be mad? Has anyone else been through anything like this and found a way to cope? My husband knows everything and tries to help but his range of experience doesn't cover anything like this and he just tries to take care of me. He will talk about anything I want to talk about but I know that he doesn't get it.
Thanks if anyone has got this far.