Please hold my hand -- I feel so totally trapped

[usernamefromhell]

This is going to sound like such a bunch of first world problems but I feel like I'm stuck in an endless spin cycle which I can't break out of and its making me so depressed.

I'm separated (a few years) having walked out of an abusive marriage. My instigation and totally at peace with the marriage having ended apart from the fact that my ex is useless and gives me no support, financial or otherwise. Luckily I'm a high earner so can support myself and my child fine without him. My child is happy and settled and all is good on that front.

I'm in love with someone I work with, have been for a while. We have never been in a formal relationship but there have been various liaisons. Won't go into more detail for fear of outing myself but for various reasons its clear that there's no possibility of us being together. There are various technical hurdles but fundamentally the bottom line is he doesn't feel the same way about me that I do about him. He's now in a reasonably committed relationship and its eating away at me. I can't bear to think about it. I have dated other people but I find it such a joyless experience.

All the advice I've received so far has been to leave my job in order to get away from him and draw a line. I love my job, enjoy it far more than anything I've ever done and know nothing else which I am qualified to do would compare. Notwithstanding, for the sake of my mental health I tried to do this earlier this year but was offered so much money to stay put I literally couldn't refuse (this isn't intended to sound smug or boastful, its just a statement of fact to explain my circumstances). I thought at the time I could ride it out and deal with it in the interests of the other obvious benefits it brought.

I'm now stuck in this hideous catch 22 whereby I either remain in a situation which is very damaging for my mental health or leave for an uncertain and almost certainly less satisfying professional alternative, losing friends and much-needed security and a lot of money. My field of work is very niche and, while I could probably get another job in this niche it would be difficult to broaden out.

Tonight I feel close to suicidal about this. It probably sounds petty but I've been stuck in this rut for a period of years and feel all my options closing in on me. I can't find a way out of this and I'm sick of feeling like this.

Just wanted to talk to someone really -- there are very few people I can talk to in real life about it and I can't see a way out.

OP I read this wondering if I'd actually written this post and forgotten This is my exact situation except OM neglected to tell me about his GF until just after the last time he slept with me about 6 weeks ago. No advice but just reaching out to say I know how you are feeling. I'm currently reading a few self help books to see if it kicks me up the arse hard enough

How are you getting on today OP?

On another thread a poster talks about an idea from her therapist, which I though might help you as well.

Everyday you must do one nice thing for yourself, maybe bake a cake or buy a bunch of flowers.
Get a notebook, one in your favourite colour would be good. Keep lists of the things that you've done and that you plan to do.

Review the lists every week, and try to recall how you felt at the time.

I hope you give it a try, and that it helps you. What have you got to lose, only the price of a notebook?

You are working 60 hours a week, long hours, and I wondered whether you think about this guy when you are with your dd as well as while at work? You could try consciously turning your focus away from your needs about this guy and entirely focus on your dd's needs, as doing so might re-set your brain about what you want from a relationship and what you really think about this guy.

Someone who you have had liaisons but is not interested in you (or your dd) is not going anywhere, you probably agree. Fill your head space with people who really matter, your dd, others, while waiting for the right guy.

You started up the obsession around the same time you left your abusive husband? Could the two things be linked, what you are feeling about this guy, love, happiness, dreams which can't come true, might be protecting you from having to properly process your feelings about having spent a long time with someone who didn't love you and treat you properly?

You started up the obsession around the same time you left your abusive husband? Could the two things be linked, what you are feeling about this guy, love, happiness, dreams which can't come true, might be protecting you from having to properly process your feelings about having spent a long time with someone who didn't love you and treat you properly?

I totally agree with this. maybe you are stopping yourself subconsciously from having to have a proper real relationship

Total bold fail!

Ada thanks for checking in on me: feel better today although the constant obsession is there all the time.

I think the doing nice things for yourself idea is a good one: I do try to do this where time allows and it helps -- up to a point. Generally speaking I have a pretty good life: I have a lovely DD who I love to bits, have good friends and have enough money to do things I like. Nothing really dislodges the underlying feeing of not being quite good enough though.

I do think I need to go back into therapy -- this feeling hasn't really changed in the past couple of years.

Pumpkin, lowtide I have thought a lot about this and I think you are probably right -- I think I have elements of co-dependency in me. I do have to have a live obsession in my life most of the time.

FYI I did the Freedom Programme online last night. Its very good and rang very true and I can see how it could be a lightbulb moment for someone in a very abusive relationship. I think its really designed for people actively involved in abusive relationships though I'm not sure its massively relevant for me. I'm perfectly capable of recognising when someone is abusing me and drawing the line (as I did from my STBXH). What I'm less capable of doing is romanticising and becoming obsessional about things I know I can't have and probably don't really want.

Thanks all of you for your advice, though, it all helps.

I think the therapy is good. I’m similar to you, I can work out an abosive relationship and leave it.
But I also romanticise things I can’t have, and I have recently realised (through therapy) that by doing that I am stopping myself having anything true and meaningful. Just a fantasy of a man who doesn’t really want to be with me and certainly doesn’t love me.

Have a look at going along to this. Note: going along not reading about.

I don't know if you do or don't belong here but you'll recognise a lot of what is addressed here. Nothing to lose if you're actually thinking of ending your life over this, such is your despair. Despair that deep is often the prerequisite for facing an addiction. Which is not as terrible as all that tbf, esp when the alternative is crushing despair. 🌸

When the house is quiet put some meditation type music on

Close your eyes, sit in your favourite chair, lie on bed
Visualise threads linking you to this man like an umbilical cord.
Visualise all your energy being drained out of you and you being powerless to stop it
Visualise a bright golden sword slashing these threads at your side, his side and in the middle.
Visualise them being knotted up do tight they can nerd rejoin
Visualise him in S bubble of light and you are standing at the edge of a cliff
Visualise him being blown further and further away from you, and take the colour down to sepia as he gets smaller and further away.

Do it each night. As often as you need.

You can do this with everyone in your life. Some people are energy stealers and it’s very draining
You don’t want any threads from anyone in your solar plexus

Could you talk to him? Is there any chance he could do the decent thing an change job?

Workplace obsessions - fun and exciting on the one hand and hideous and painful on the other hand. Inevitable too when people spend so much time together.

Most of mine ended when one of the two left the job. The separation quashed the obsession fairly quickly. Much harder to stop the obsession in place with ongoing interaction. All you can do is "mind over matter" it. He's just a mere mortal and to other women utterly revolting (hearing other women talk bad about my obsessions helped me knock these people from their pedestals).

So, my recommendation is meditation, distraction, avoidance. I would not leave a well paid job over him. You might regret that later. Once the obsession is over (and it will end although it doesn't seem like it now), you'll kick yourself for wasting your life energy on it. Just try and fast forward to that moment.