How do I forget?

[Kodaline77]

Long time lurker on here and never really needed to ask for any help.
So I hope this isn't going to be long, I was with my ex for 21 yrs, met very young had 3 amazing kids but 5 years ago we both agreed it just wasn't working.
Since then we've had a great co parenting relationship, he's remarried and his wife is great, no problems.

3 years ago I met someone but he's 12 years younger, never met my kids so it's always just us when we meet.
He's in the forces and with my work and kids it's hard to get time to see each other.

It was never meant to get serious, we talked a lot and we both knew we were in different stages of our lives and agreed it was fun.

I fell in love with him though and when I tried to break it off he told me he felt the same and had for a long while, now this is where I'm ashamed to admit but I knew there was no chance for us so I told him I had slept with someone else, in my mind I needed him to hate me so he would cut contact.

I hurt him so much and he messaged me saying he loved me but if I could do that then I had lied about loving him.

Now, 5 months later, no contact, nothing, I still can't stop missing him even though I know there was no chance for us but I hate that he thinks I did that and yes i know I've totally brought this on myself but at the time I believed it would be a complete break and the only way was to make him hate me.

Wow you've well and truly messed up haven't you? You should have come on here for advice BEFORE you told him that stupid lie! If worked. You got what you wanted.There's nothing you can do about it now. Leave him alone now.

There's nothing...

That's a bit bloody cruel to s woman clearly suffering! You could show a bit of empathy.
However I think she's right in that there's little to nothing to be gained by contacting him now. Your reasons for splitting remain valid, your method remains ill advised but effective. He is highly unlikely to believe the true story but even if he did you would only resurrect the relationship you didn't want in the first place. I'm afraid you need to move on, find new things and people to occupy your life and chalk this up to experience. I'm sorry.

I'd contact him, in writing, say you lied and why, apologise and let him decide the next step.

Life is too short to leave it like this.

The reasons it wouldn't work are presumably still there, so digging this up is futile and would probably hurt him all over again. You'd be contacting him for your benefit, not his.

Even if he did believe you, there'd always be that doubt and scratching under the surface lack of trust.

You need to find a way to live with your decision and grieve the relationship.

I'm with @Coolaschmoola - life's too short, just confess and move on

What's done is done. Learn from it & move on. We all fuck up from time to time.
I don't know if admitting it was a lie will help any. He'll be pissed off you put him through pain. I'd leave well alone and try to resolve in your own mind.

@Kodaline77, what's happening to you is called 'being very human'.
2 things really: On one hand, you are feeling a little remorseful, on the other, your are very much concerned about what he thinks of you.
You came up with what you believed was a sure way to break things off. In your view at the time, the end justified the means.

But now, a bit of guilt and a desire to show him that 'I'm not that bad - I did what I did for a reason' is sort of troubling you.
You are doing a very human thing: a desire to escape bad or uncomfortable consequences that naturally flow from our decisions.
I would say to you, it's actually a good thing that you are displaying a sort of tender conscience in regretting the way you ended things. But to move forward and to really grow as person, be honest in your dealings from now on. Let the past be the past - and stop trying to justify yourself to him or to anyone else in order to clam your troubling conscience, or to paint a false picture.

Learn from your mistakes and move on, and ponder carefully this whole idea of 'relationships for fun' ...'was never meant to get serious'... etc.
Countless lives have been ruined and much damage done to people because of philosophies like these. The problem is, if you treat people or relationships too casually, it becomes easy to justify ending them in whatever crude way. Because, in you mind, you were just 'fooling around'.

What you did is really extreme.

I would assume you did something that extreme for one of two reasons:
-the relationship was extremely dramatic and unhealthy
-you are extremely dramatic and unhealthy (e.g. you have something like borderline personality disorder)

Either way, this relationship was a bad idea. Stay gone from it and get counseling before you embark on any other relationships.

I assume he's on active duty? Your reasons for ending the relationship are valid. Your method? Not so much.

I'm curious as to why you would use such a scorched earth type tactic. Were you worried that you would go back to him, or were you afraid of his reaction? (anger, threats of self-harm, browbeating you into giving it another chance?)

Why on earth would you say something like that to someone! That’s so shockingly cruel.

You’re 12 years older than him, who cares.

Tbh he deserves someone who’s not such a drama llama. I genuinely could have thought you were 17 from your post.