How can I have been so stupid

[Fuzzywig1]

I am in a terrible terrible mess and it is all my own fault.

This is long sorry.

Before I post please can I say that anything nasty or mean you say to me I have said to myself and it is not why I am here

I have been married for 21 years to a kind and gentle but emotionally distant man. I know he loves me but he does not find it easy to be vulnerable and show it in some ways. I am very warm and physically affectionate and he is not or not consistently meaning I often would feel lonely. Sex was also always on his terms and less than I wanted.

30 years ago I had an 18 month relationship with who I thought was ‘the one’ . Yes I was very young 22 and he was even younger (19). Anyway after a very very passionate relationship he went off to drama school and decided to leave me. I was heartbroken and never forgot him and never trusted that sort of passion again.

2 years ago and out of the blue an email arrived saying he had seen me at my sons football training. We started emailing agreed to meet ( I told my husband about this first meeting) blah blah yes we started an affair.

From the beginning he told me he always loved me but buried the feelings deep he wants us to be together we are twin souls. He left his wife and now lives on his own.

I did not ask him to do this by the way

I feel somehow enchanted by him and that I lose my reason ....

I have told my husband I want to get divorced but he cannot believe it and says we have always had a lovely and sweet relationship

Eventually he found out and now I am in an awful impasse.

The om said he does not want to put pressure on me but his moving out made its own guilt and pressure. His constant emailing showering of love and gifts etc have made me stupid.

My husband seems to just want to carry on as if nothing has happened and that I’m the end I will ‘cone Back to him’.

Over and over every day I change my mind about what to do. What will cause the least harm.

I have two lovely children aged 13 and 9 and I cannot bear the thought of hurting them. I have already hurt them by being distant from their father and sleeping separately from him.

I think I have now got to the point of knowing that I cannot do this. It is wrong, I have been deluded Abd stupid.

But I am now scared to tell the om who has changed his life for me and will be devastated

This email sounds so stupid.

I don’t think people would believe this of me.

Hard journey but a good journey (if that makes sense)

Sounds like you've made the right decision

Yes it does make sense. I called the counsellor to say we did not want another session with him. He really is quite strange. He went on and on about how my life is grey and i need technicolour. My life isnt grey.....we had a laugh together . we had just got lazy and of course my poor h has been feeling like shit for the last 2 years so hardly in a position to feel energised and confident and like laughing.

He put me in a bad mood though.....

I spoke to this other guy yesterday which sounds much better....it is however extremely expensive. I mean madly so. £15,000. Part of me thinks well anything is worth it. But my h now feels very suspicious of everything having been basically kicked whenn he was down....

What a bizarre comment for the counsellor to make. It's like he wants you to leave your marriage. Out of interest, who recommended him to you?

Very poor therapy imo. Aside from the entirely inappropriate comments it is good practice to work within the therapy dynamic in within a season, not on the telephone.

£15,000!?!!

Ie within a session

Do not forget that he left you once to go off to drama school Who is to say he won't do it again? - he had no reason to. Many relationships survive uni or college in different towns.

Now his marriage has broken down and he is on his own. So he is setting about dangling you on a string again and you have fallen for it.

It is not unusual for marriages to hit a rocky patch at your stage of life - God knows I had my offers! - but you are making the huge mistake of thinking that the grass will be greener elsewhere. It won't necessarily.

You will have to grapple with your guilt about your OH and about your children, so it is all likely to be pretty damned miserable frankly. Can you really choose to be the source of distress to your children? Could you live with that? Could you break up your family to pursue this dream of happiness at the expense of other loved ones' happiness.

The problem here is that you have hit that difficult stage of marriage where people just settle in to a known pattern of behaviour that is not making you both happy. But instead of stopping and thinking in a positive way about how to deal with this and improve things, you have this fantasy carrot being dangled in front of your nose at a vulnerable time in your life.

By all means leave your OH if he is a bad person - violent, selfish, intolerant etc. But do stop and think very hard - we all have romantic rose-tinted glasses images of our first love. Time to grow up and put that behind you. You can do it.

Er mishappening things have moved on

AKA RTFT

I spoke to this other guy yesterday which sounds much better....it is however extremely expensive. I mean madly so. £15,000

He’s a charlatan. And I think I might even know which charlatan he is.

Seek out a registered BCAP psychotherapist who specialises in relationships and don’t hand over your life savings to anyone.

Glad you ditched your other one!

Yes things have moved on quite dramatically. He did me a sales pitch this other guy. We are doing alright on our own just now. H needs a bit of time of connection and gentleness.

I wont easily get him to go again.

It has all been very surprising - if i told my counsellor i didnt want to see him again he would say can we explore why that is not tell me i am making a mistake and berating me....

I think i got into panic mode with the £15,000 person......

I will calm down. And take a breath......

H and i have been doing mindfulness together in the morning. Its been very good actually. he falls asleep of course though.

Nobody recommended him. But he is registered BCAP......

Maybe you need to make some observations to BACP about this therapist who ticks you off for leaving him. Very poor!

Er, how much? 😳
That can’t be right. Or did he mean 3 years of weekly sessions?

Find someone else. There are great therapists out there, the highest rates I’ve seen were £110 per session and that’s London.

Sounds like the start of a narcissitic relationship to me 'love bombing'

'His wife gradually moved out because he snores.' ? really?

Don't do it.

What will cause the least harm? Staying home with your man and your family.

A respected psychoanalyst told me I needed to see her 5 days a week, which would have cost 12 grand a year. When I told her I wasn’t prepared to spend that kind of money she told me I was resisting treatment. 🤣

12 sessions of NHS CBT and I was good to go.

Tell your counsellor to do one.

I think i was just in panic mode and trying to 'fix it' in a try anything way.

the feelings of guilt are awful and i feel sick a lot of the time. But i am feeling better most days and able to get more interested in my work etc.

A horrible thing just happened. I was writing an email on my phone and his name keeps coming up . So I was seeing if i could delete him from my contacts.

Unfortunately doing this meant that i saw that he had sent me two emails today. I've tried to delete him before but i dont think you can on email.

Anyway they have made me shake with fear and given me hot panic.

I've deleted them and told my husband.

I can't believe i nearly fucked my life up for this person.

It is like i have been mentally illl.

One of the emails was just a list of how terrible he felt with a bit at the end saying i hope you are happy and have made the right decision. It also said please don't reply. But of course he has sent it hoping i will.

The second was a link to a wicked wicked article talking about how first loves stay with us forever. based on some dodgy research with 3 couples.

I feel very angry with him.

My h said he would reply.

But i think ignoring him is the best tactic.

What a horrible, manipulative man he is! Thank god you saw sense before completely ruining your life.

Have you managed to now block him from sending you texts, phone calls and emails ?

I have blocked him on my phone. You can't block emails but i had set a rule for all his emails to go into a folder where i wouldnt see them. Which i hadnt and then when trying to delete him tapping on his name meant they appeared.

He is horrible and manipulative..

One thing i used to say to him was that he used to look at me sometimes as if he wanted to devour me. well actually it was a snake looking at its prey....

I honestly though think he believes his own stuff.

But i am wise to him now.

My poor h . Having to be told that.

I feel awful awful for what i have done to him and seeing his grief now makes me cry and cry.

I cant believe i fell into this trap.

Actually there was a perfect storm of reasons why. H had withdrawn from me., the children were exhausting and he needs more space than me. I had held this wrong relationship in my head as a sort of 'ideal' true love. But it is not true love to fall into intense limmerance with somebody and then get rid of them 18 months later in a very cruel way.

Nor is it normal to google 'is my boyfriend a psycopath' or 'is he a narcissist'.

It’s ok OP. We fuck up in life, we’re here to learn.

Berating yourself is a waste of energy. You feel like you deserve punishment, so you’re punishing yourself. It doesn’t actually achieve anything.

It’s easy to say and hard to do but I would try to focus all that energy away from negativity and self-blame towards positive building of self-awareness, healing the problems that caused it, and rebuilding your relationship with your husband.

Stop playing the victim because it suits you. This went on for 2 years and you were hardly coerced into it. Why you can't own up for half of the blame is beyond me. What you did doesn't sicken me because I know all too well how it is hard to resist a first love, but your poor me attitude does.

She’s more than owned it.

It’s just she’s currently seeing OM for what he truly is - not the perfect knight but actually a rather manipulative, ruthless character.

Im not playing the victim. I know i made wrong choices. wrong choices that are to do with me and needs in me as much as or more than to do with my relationship with h.

But i was manipulated and coerced to some extent. If you had been the victim of a narcissist then you would understand.

And i think you are being quite cruel. And dont know what you think that will achieve.....

Thank you for your kind words Tatiana. I know i am trying to do that and actually have learnt a lot about myself in this process.

Is it best to ignore him?

The way i ended it was bit incremental though quite clear.

If i send him an email to say please dont contact me ....i love my h (as i always said i did ) .

DON'T CONTACT HIM. Even a "negative" message is giving him attention, and your H will know it.

My h suggested I do it.

I said that it is best to ignore him