So I’m going to bite the bullet and brave the flaming that is all too common on these threads. I’m in a bad place right now and it won’t help.
I separated from my DH nearly two years ago. We had been together for 15 years. We were good at being parents and good at being companions but I think we both wanted more. We have 3 young children and the split has been about as amicable as these things can be and we are on good terms. At the beginning of the year I ended up sleeping with a colleague after a drunken night out and we drifted into an affair. He fell for me quite quickly and I gradually followed and have ended up loving him in a way I have never loved someone before. No one has ever made me feel as loved as he has. We both fell head over heels.
Just a few months after we started my MM told his wife he was unhappy. She didn’t want him to leave and he agreed to try to work on his marriage with counselling. He told me that he had been unhappy for years but it had never ever occurred to him to separate until he met me. He felt that he needed to try to make his marriage work for the sake of the kids (three teenagers, one at uni). He ended it with me but the affair very quickly started again (days). We fell deeper and deeper into our relationship. A couple of weeks ago he told his wife he was leaving and went to stay at a friend’s house with the intention of trying to find somewhere to live asap. However my elation has turned to heartbreak when two days later he told me that he didn’t think he could go through with it and he felt he had to try one last time with his wife. He said he hadn’t tried properly before as was carrying on with me. He has said he loves me but needs a clear head so he can make a committed decision one way or another and has therefore said no contact.
I am hurting so much. I have fallen for this man completely. On the one hand I recognise that his actions are probably honourable in that if there is anything salvageable in his marriage then he should salvage it as there are children involved. At first I didn’t consider his DW’s feeling if I am honest but I have as time progressed. He has a nice family life and he has never described her negatively. He has always said that their marriage is dead and has been for many years. I do completely believe he loves me and he has said many times that he has never felt for someone the way he does for me. So I guess part of me feels that he is potentially robbing her of a chance to be with someone that loves her properly rather than someone who is staying with her for the sake of the children. Already he is not the man she thinks he is as he has had a long affair. I have read other affair discussions on here and I have heard all the views of the MM’s devastated wife.
I know that there will be the usual lines on here that I could never trust him, our relationship has been built on lies, if he’s done it once he’ll do it again etc etc. FWIW – I don’t believe in any of that. The MM is a decent man. It is something that just happened. People fall in love, fall out of love, fall in love with someone else. Shit happens particularly as they got together when young. Of course all along we’ve had the free will to end it but our feelings for each other have done nothing but intensify. If he truly loves his wife then I will lick my wounds and wish him the best of luck. However I don’t believe he does. I think he possibly confused the pain of leaving and guilt for love. I think the sense that he was leaving for me rather than because of a dead marriage compounded that guilt.
But it still leaves me with a broken heart and the reality that we still have to see each other all the time at work. It leaves me desperate to contact and talk to him, to know what’s going on, to understand, but having to try to respect his request for space. I would really like to hear from those who have been in my position, either as the MW or the OW (PM me if you prefer). If your relationship ultimately worked out – did you or your MM wobble time and time again? Did you/he try to work on his marriage? How long were you together before the making a go of it? I would also like to hear from those for whom it didn't work out – how did you move on with a broken heart? Particularly if (as I suspect is often the case) you work together? How do I stop myself contacting him? I am itching to but he has asked for no contact and I have to respect that.
Woe - that was longer than I intended! But hey, rather than drip feed...