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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Help me remove the rose tinted specs

260 replies

shameshame · 29/05/2013 11:10

I've been a fool. I'm in love with a married man. He's got a young child. I know i'm stupid but I can't change my feelings no matter how hard I try - and i HAVE tried (No contact etc - it just never works). I would never expect him to walk out on his family for me. He says he loves me but can't leave his child. It is beyond sex - there are really strong feelings involved. I need out of this situation. Please please help.

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 29/05/2013 19:39

Is this helping, btw ?

It pains me to see women make such cliched choices and swallow such obvious bullshit, tbh. You must really have had to switch off the ole grey matter to maintain this delusion. How have you managed it ? Frontal lobectomy ?

Ilikethebreeze · 29/05/2013 19:40

That is ok shameshame.
It seems to me that you genuinely do want to get out of this relationship.
And, though I have no exzperience whatsoever, that you have fallen for him, and that will indeed take time for you to get over him.

shameshame · 29/05/2013 19:40

Yes Ilikethebreeze, i've had long term relationships before.

OP posts:
Ilikethebreeze · 29/05/2013 19:41

AF, I could be wrong but I think she is coming to her senses? That the spectacles are indeed coming off?

AnyFucker · 29/05/2013 19:42

nahhh, just a few posts back she said it was impossible to cut contact when it is actually just a series of clicks of a piece of hardware.

if she wanted to

piratecat · 29/05/2013 19:44

take it from me.

walk away. if you want your sanity in a few yrs time.

shameshame · 29/05/2013 19:45

Yes AF, this is helping and there are some comments I can look back on when I end it. I know how all of this makes me look and you are right, it is embarrassing.

Thanks ilikethebreeze.

OP posts:
MorrisZapp · 29/05/2013 19:46

I think its a bit unfair to blame women for men's lies. This guy is probably lying, but that's not her fault. How does she know what's the truth and what isnt?

scottishmummy · 29/05/2013 19:46

I don't think a mn talking do is likely to have her kick married shagger to kerb
the volition to get better relationship will come from the op if she wants
and if she doesn't want she'll live a tortured life knowing she's got a married soulmate

scottishmummy · 29/05/2013 19:49

oh behave zap,of course she has to take responsibility for shagging married man
responsibility for knowing he goes home to wife after a session with her
don't dare play the poor wee wimmin,lied to and played by big bad men excuse

Ilikethebreeze · 29/05/2013 19:51

Morris. She knows he is married.
It takes 2 to have the affair.

She knows she has been a fool as she puts it.

AnyFucker · 29/05/2013 19:52

MZ, I reckon when this bloke opens his mouth he is lying. Op knows it too.

She just needs to admit it to herself. That isn't blaming her for his lies, but it needs pointing out that she doesn't have to fall for them.

MrsSpagBol · 29/05/2013 19:53

Shameshame

You sound outraged at the thought of getting pregnant in "this situation"
God no AF!! Absolutely not!!! Nowhere near my list!

Try and take some of this outrage and apply it to the fact that you are sleeping with someone else's husband.
If it's not a good situation to have a baby in, how is it a good situation for you?
How?

This man is not available to you. No matter what he says, or how much you talk, or how it feels - this man is not a free agent. He is married. He has a child.

Do not do this. Stop it. Immediately.

No good at all will come of this.

Don't even start with the Mumsnset is also for women who can't be pigeonholed easily. There is nothing new, remotely different or special about your scenario. You are cheating with a married man. And he is telling you whatever he needs to tell you to keep it going.
See it for what it is. It's a complete cliché.

Just stop.

Stop.

Ilikethebreeze · 29/05/2013 19:57

It is all right op to cry about all of this.
It is sort of all right to mourn in a way too.

Did I read that you have been seeing him for 2 years?
Like others have said, I wouldnt leave the situation as it is for too much longer.

Were any of your previous boyfriends married? Though you may not want to answer that one.

shameshame · 29/05/2013 19:58

The MrsSpagBol. I know I'm a walking cliche - I wasn't suggesting that I am somehow more complex, just taking issue with the poster who said MN was for wives and mothers only.

OP posts:
badinage · 29/05/2013 19:59

I don't suppose the 'it's stopping you having kids' angle is going to particularly resonate with you right now. I'd guess you're using the fact that you're a childless 'career woman' as a bit of a bargaining chip over his wife who's got more on her plate, so it wouldn't be in your interests to think too much about kids and being a mother.

But it's also probably because you're childless that you believe all this rubbish he's telling you about not being able to leave his kids. You probably don't know that many couples with children who make a grand job of shared parenting, or too many single dads who've found that they actually spend more time with their kids than before.

I'd also guess you haven't got a clue how most marriages with young children are and are living in some fantasy world about his wife neglecting him in favour of the kids, so he lacked attention or somesuch rubbish.

In my experience of mates who've been in your shoes, men who are never going to leave their wives tend to weave two different stories. They either blame their wives and their marriages for their affairs or they claim that they'd have bumbled along quite happily until they met the love of their lives i.e. you. Only the seriously stupid OWs fall for the first story, so the second is the one that the most manipulative characters come out with, because it makes them sound helpless and defenceless in the face of your irresistible charms.

Of course he'll be saying that he's in it for the specal connection with you and not just the sex and will even be passing off the lack of money he's spending on you as a positive thing so that you don't feel prostituted in any way. In truth it's because he can't risk money being diverted to his affair because they'd be broke/it would be noticed - and there might even be some guilt if he did spend any.

You're saying that you don't want him to leave his wife and family, so he's got it made. You won't rock any boats, you believe all this balderdash that you are his 'one' and you're probably telling yourself that it's 'so sad that you met too late'. Hell, you probably even feel sorry for him.

If you met him some place you both go regularly, like work or at a hobby, the reason he's having an affair is because you were there and you were willing. It really is that crude and that simple. He probably quite fancied the idea of sex with someone new and ideally with someone who'd make no demands on him. He probably quite likes you as a person and he probably loves the ego boost and the attention he gets, but that's about as deep as it goes. He really would ditch you unceremoniously if his wife ever got wind of it, or if you started making any demands.

Go right ahead and test this out, if you want to find out the truth.

moonfacebaby · 29/05/2013 20:01

Strangely enough, after I finally kicked my exH out for his affair (after 5 months of him not knowing what he wanted), he got back together with the OW - the one that I saw emails between, telling her that he had never felt this way before, blah, blah, blah.....

6 months on & he has admitted that his life is depressing & the relationship with the OW is complicated & about to go tits up. Somehow, the grass wasn't greener.....

It's a rare relationship that survives off the back of an affair - too much mess, lack of trust & crippling guilt seem to take the shine off

shameshame · 29/05/2013 20:02

Thanks again Ilikethebreeze. The specs ARE coming off, i promise.

I have been seeing him for just under a year waits for hell to break loose

No I have never been involved with an MM previously, so I am not purposefully going for unavailable men.

OP posts:
MrsSpagBol · 29/05/2013 20:03

Shameshame I wasn't posting what I said to be mean although I do feel VERY strongly that what you are doing is outrageously bad

But your title and subsequent posts suggest that you have rose tinted glasses on / fallen hook line and sinker / bought into the myth etc etc

suggesting that you somehow just "fell" into this situation and now you just can't help it.

As someone said above, you are an adult. Take some personal responsibility. You have the power to stop it. So just stop it.

scottishmummy · 29/05/2013 20:05

he's already emotionally left his kid by failing to be a good dad.
physically available to his family,yes but an opportunistic liar and shagger

FasterStronger · 29/05/2013 20:07

OP, I think you don't force a choice, say its her or you because you know he would always choose her....

Namechangingnorma · 29/05/2013 20:07

www.valenswines.com/home/stagetool/1 - try this, it is an actual Rose Tinted Glasses remover tool and it works!

Ilikethebreeze · 29/05/2013 20:11

I think you genuinely fell for him.
I think you know you made a mistake.

Others know the drill on these things better than me.

If you were to now do something about it all, would it be what the poster who listed 5 steps was saying?
You said you have done steps 1 and 2 before now. But not managed number 3.
Are you getting to the point of step 3 now?

shameshame · 29/05/2013 20:19

Thanks again badinage - that is a really helpful post and a lot of it resonates.

FasterStronger, I always thought an ultimatum would be nasty and unfair given he has a family, but maybe you are right and i'm afraid of the answer.

Yes Ilikethebreeze - I need to move forward and cut contact. We are supposed to be meeting up on Saturday.

OP posts:
WuzzleMonkey · 29/05/2013 20:21

When I was 18 I lived in a houseshare with another bloke a few years older than me.

He was in a long-term relationship with a girl who lived in another country.

This bloke and I were madly in love with each other - he was my first love. But it was all so very romeo and juliet because we couldn't be together.

After about 9 months I realised what a load of old shit it was and even though it ripped out my heart to leave him I moved countries, went to Uni and our relationship ended.

He's now married with kids to the woman he cheated on.

I'm married with kids to a wonderful man. Neither of us have ever or would ever cheat.

Fucking hell, if I could work it out at 18 what the hell is wrong with you that you're putting up with this at 30???? Seriously???