Namechanger as some of my posts under my regular name could identify me. Apologies in advance if this becomes an epic post and if it lacks structure.
I desperately need to talk about this but I have no-one IRL that I can turn to at the moment with this particular problem.
DP and I have been having problems for sometime. We’ve been together for 16 years, 1 DC (18 months old). Problems have mainly been lack of communication and intimacy in the relationship going back several years. However, on the surface of it we usually rub along ok and onlookers would probably say our relationship is solid…but it’s far from it.
I think DP and I both buried our heads in the sand a bit and refused to acknowledge the extent of the problems, hoping that one day it would just magically get better by itself but, of course, it has just deteriorated further and further.
A year ago (almost exactly), DP became emotionally involved with a work colleague. I was fairly sure it was happening at the time but I was engrossed in my own struggles at the time (mainly the shell shock of motherhood – I’m not a natural at it by any means) and for a variety of reasons, I didn’t confront him about it at the time. Primarily, I didn’t want it to be true. Until this, DP has been the most trustworthy straightforward bloke I have ever known. And I also knew that the OW would be leaving to return to her home country at Xmas (she was always destined to be in the UK for a set time and would have no reason to return to DP’s office as she was moving to another division based in another country).
I suppose with my suspicions about the OW, I withdrew even more from DP and he was also retreating from me for his own reasons and so the distance that already existed between us increased.
It came to a head about 4 weeks ago with DP announcing that he wanted to leave. His reasons were that he was dissatisfied with our relationship, our home, his job, me and just everything in general, apparently, and that he wanted more out of life than our humdrum existence. We talked more that night than we have in years. He didn’t volunteer the information about the emotional affair – I had to ask him outright about it but he admitted it as soon as I did. My reaction surprised me. I always assumed that if any partner of mine was unfaithful, I’d sling them out quick smart. However, my immediate reaction was panic. I don’t want to bring up my DC alone. I want DC to have a solid family. And more than that, I want my DP and the relationship we used to have back.
I made him tell me about the affair. He swears they never had sex and I believe him but the emotional involvement bothers me more than if his motivation had been purely sexual anyway so that’s neither here nor there as far as I’m concerned. I think in his head at the time he convinced himself that if there was no sex, it wasn’t really an affair and he wasn’t really doing anything wrong but he knows now that emotional infidelity is just as bad, if not worse. He says that she supported him through some difficult work issues (and I know he was going through work stresses at the time and possibly he didn’t want to burden me with the full extent of them due as he thought I’d enough on my plate with the baby) and, in turn, he supported her with some family relationship issues. They grew closer and he confided our relationship problems in her – which is more than he ever has done with me, I might add. They apparently agreed that they should be ‘just friends’ and then she left to return home. Their contact continued intensively for a few months (I have evidence). OW began a new relationship with someone in June of this year but DP is still in contact with her as ‘just friends’.
DP reckons he had some quite serious mental health issues in the early part of this year, including some suicide ideation (which he says he would never have acted upon but the thoughts occupied his head for a while). He didn’t seek medical help but disclosed some if it to the OW and some to another (male colleague) and his sister and he feels he got enough support from them to move on. Never a word about it to me, though.
On the night of the confrontation and after hours of talking and anguish, we agreed that we actually wanted the same thing – to stay together and build our relationship back up again. I suggested relationship counselling and he readily agreed. We had an initial assessment appointment with Relate a few days later which we both found to be very helpful and we are now on the waiting list to begin regular sessions but it could be February before they can see us again which at the moment feels like far too long. I am worried about the damage we might inadvertently do in the meantime while we try to stumble long in the darkness trying to find a way through this mess. I have also suggested that DP have some individual counselling to address some of the other issues that were affecting his MH and he seems receptive to the idea.
All sounds positive, right? Wrong. There is one major stumbling block….his ongoing contact with OW. He maintains that they are ‘just friends’ and that the majority of their contact is about work issues (moaning about colleagues and issues relating to the company) but I have no way of verifying this. He is adamant that she is no threat to us but that he needs her as his outlet for his work frustrations because she understands the environment and culture in a way that I don’t. I can’t argue with that and I have to accept that there is always the chance that their paths will cross professionally anyway but I am, understandably, unhappy with any level of ongoing contact beyond what is absolutely necessary for his work. He understands that he cannot discuss any aspect of our relationship with her and that if there is any part of their conversations that he’d be unhappy for me to overhear then it’s inappropriate and outside the purely ‘friends’ boundary.
Yesterday, he landed another bombshell on me. OW is visiting our home city next weekend, apparently to visit friends and show her sister around but she has asked to meet DP for coffee and he wants to see her, feels that he has to as that’s what a friend would do and that he needs to for ‘closure’. When I asked him what he meant by ‘closure’, he said to confirm face-to-face that they can only ever be ‘friends’. My opinion is that closure can only be cutting contact but he disagrees.
My gut instinct is that we can never properly move forward while she’s hanging around in the background, casting a shadow over our relationship, even if they can maintain their friendship on the right side of the platonic boundary. The expert opinion and research seems to support my instincts. I’ve been reading the Shirley Glass book Not Just Friends which has been very enlightening about healing relationships post affair. I cannot make him cut contact but I am going to ask him to read the book before he meets her to see if it can help him to see the potential harm in continuing contact. I guess my biggest concern is that his need to maintain contact seems so strong that it’s making me question his commitment to doing whatever it takes to rebuild our relationship.
And now that I’ve written all of that, I’m not sure why it is I’m posting. Although writing it down feels helpful in itself as my head is so full of it that getting it down on paper (so to speak) feels like it has cleared a little bit of space.
for anyone who managed to get this far :)