I can't get over this guy...I am such an idiot.

[ThisIsaLoooow]

Namechanger...

DH and I are on a temporary break after some marital problems. So as not to drip feed I love him but I am not in love anymore he has had a real problem showing affection and has rejected me sexually for 3 years now so at my request we are spending some time apart this summer to re-evaluate the future. We have a little girl and this is really the reason for our need to work at the marriage. I am just so confused.

Anyway, I do an activity and got to know a guy there who over the weeks payed me loads of compliments and attention. Like a fool I let myself be swept up in all the attention and ended up in bed with him which was absolutely amazing and to my huge surprise I started to have really strong feelings for him. The next week he writes me a TEXT stating he can't handle the situation. That I am married and he may be the cause of anything happening to my family. He wanted to stop it now before it go too far and we developed feelings for one another. He thinks I am beautiful and if I were single he would be with me...blah fucking blah..
He is young and quite inexperienced in relationships.

It would never have "worked" logically but I am still in total shock and just can't stop thinking about him, about what happened. I am sobbing and daydreaming and so confused about what to do with my life, my marriage. I feel like I have reached a point of no going back somehow. To have had a moment of such passion and then to be dropped like this has stirred up such awful feelings within me.

I will see him again when the activity starts up again in Sept/ I don't want to drop the activity as it is a huge part of my life now but I feel like when I see him I will fall to pieces. It just helps to write it down I don't know what anyone can say to help to be honest. I am a mess.

He might not have been deliberately using you. He could have been just as swept up as you were. And perhaps he's a good guy who has realised that you are in a vulnerable position, need to sort your life out and then move on genuinely free to make the right choices for your future.

But that's not the key point. That relationship has ended.

What matters now is what you learn from it. That you are still a desirable woman who wants a normal, functioning relationship in which you are a partner not a flatmate/co-parent. Yes it hurts - something that mattered very much if only briefly is closed to you, and it's perhaps showing you that your marriage is over too. The little rationalisations that let you put up with a sexless marriage have been swept away dramatically and I suspect there may be a new sense of loss about that too.

You perhaps need more time to think about what this means for your life and how you move into the future. Not that man, and perhaps no new man for a while. But the possibilities are there and it would be wrong for you to ignore what this experience could be telling you.

Hi OP. Maybe it's because you're scared of being single that's made you attach to this other guy so deeply.

What are you scared off? I ended things with my H last year after being unhappy for a few years and knowing that I just didn't love him anymore. It sounds like you need some you time and getting into another relationship so soon would be wrong. It also wouldn't be fair to your H to get back with him because you're scared of being alone.

I'm not someone who likes to be on their own but I am actually loving being single. I've started a new job, put in for a 10k next month and am re-connecting with friends. My H has the DC every other weekend and twice in the week. I presume your H is sharing parental duties too? This has given me the chance to travel and see friends who have moved away for a weekend or just watch a film I've always meant to watch on my own with a glass of wine.

Have you got a good friends in RL that you can talk to?

I don't think these are mutually exclusive

I didn't mean it like that, sorry! Of course they aren't mutually exclusive.

So what you're saying is that you instigated a trial separation from your husband so that you could both re-evaluate your feelings for one another and decide whether the marriage could work, but during that period that was designed for objective reflection you embarked upon a sexual relationship with another man?

I'm presuming this soon-to-be affair was bubbling away in the background before you separated?

How has this relationship impacted upon your objectivity about your marriage?

If you decide to return to your marriage, will you tell your husband about this other relationship?

If you started an emotional affair before parting from your husband, I'd assume that the other man was interested in having an affair with a marred woman, but not a relationship with a single one. He possibly gave the impression he was interested in the single woman before he had sex with you, but backed off when he'd achieved his primary objective.

Frankly, it's a bit rich him bleating about breaking up a family now and any man who uses text as a medium to convey a message like that is a loser.

I have always thought that trial separations was just a way to come out of the house slowly and with as much drama, it is not really a time for reflection, it is just a step in the way out.
By the time someone ask for a trial separation one or both partners are already fed up with the relationship/behaviour of other person, or either is trying to get the other to change by claiming it's over. (As in the case of affairs)
It seems to me the OP wasn't in a real trial separation, she was out already, so lets not try to add shame to her pain.

I also think he could have been a good guy who did the honourable thing and recognised that being part of breaking up a family is a pretty big thing.

Work your marriage out first OP - the rest will follow.

He's new, you haven't got bored of all his faults yet. Or even found them out. Is it really worth it, over a guy who shags around without commitment? Is the activity dancing of some kind? Because it does seem to attract these sort of guys.

Your real issue is your DH and your marriage. It sounds dead in the water. I'd be inclined to end it, but you might meet a lot of guys like Mr No Commitment. If you hadn't been so starved of affection in your marriage, you might not have been so vulnerable to Mr No commitment? Just a thought.

You keep thinking about it because of the way you felt after such a long time in a dead relationship.

I was in love for 5 years with someone who wasn't remotely the man I thought I loved. But that was because my personal circumstances brought me to a position in which I needed to be in love in that way (basically so that I could be able to leave my parents' home and start my life as an adult). I was young and naïve, so I don't beat myself about it. It was what I was capable of, at that time. And I did learn hugely from the experience. And now I am with someone I love more and better than I could have ever imagined, and who loves me back.

So think of the experience as a stepping-stone, and something perfectly normal. Good luck. I'm sure you will be much happier in the future.