Please help me get rid of this emotional pain

[LoveIsInTheAir81]

For 9 months I have been attracted to a male friend. We’re both married with children and we’re very close. Nothing physical has happened between us but I believe that the attraction is mutual. We speak about once a week on the phone about ‘friends’ stuff and we meet up every couple of months, usually with our families. He’s been a huge source of support for me and I would regard him as a very close, special friend. But the pain of not being with him is destroying me. Seeing him is wonderful but as soon as he goes there’s the emotional crash of being apart.

How do I make this pain go away? Should I have a heart to heart with him, tell him how I feel and break the spell? I know you will say go NC but I can’t. He means too much to me for me to not have him in my life anymore.

I believe that he’s not in love with his wife but he would be very unlikely to leave her.

My husband cheated on me and we have never really recovered from that.

Please help.

Moralitym1n1, I don’t think it would go like that. She’d forgive him. They’re not balanced in terms of income etc.

“Heavily hinted”.

So he fancies you and used to see you all day everyday which I’m assuming was through work? Now he sees you once every few months. If he fancied you he’d be wanting to see you alone, not with his wife more often that that.

Tell him how you feel if you want to carry on seeing things that are only in your head but prepared for embarrassment and then no contact at all.

But be prepared*

MashedSpud, you’re right. I would just humiliate myself. I believe that the feeling is mutual but I suspect that if I declared myself he would massively back off and make out that it was all one sided to avoid guilt.

You've built this massive fantasy in your head based on nothing because you're hurting from being cheated on. Sort your relationship first. Either forgive and stay and work through what happened or split up and move on. Once you're free to date you'll probably find available candidates and not a taken man.

I don’t think it’s a fantasy.

But whatever it is it hurts and I want it to stop hurting.

You’ll genuinely be the only one who gets hurt in this long term.
It may hurt now, but it will be X 1000 when you’re in deep and he decides his life is ok enough not to leave and he doesn’t want to split the house or see the kids EOW.

How is it anything but a fantasy? You haven't spoken about anything really or shared anything other than a few conversations that were completely above board.

You're quite rightly unhappy in your relationship and are building dreams in your head to get you out of making any decisions about your relationship. Your husband cheated on you and it hasn't been the same since. That's your issue. Not whether this man doesn't love his wife or whether you're more compatible because you don't know that. Plenty of men seem a certain way until you get all the nitty gritty details from their wives and they are completely different at home. My ex being one of them. To the outside world he seemed like a devoted husband and father, the reality was very very different.

Plenty of men seem a certain way until you get all the nitty gritty details from their wives and they are completely different at home. My ex being one of them. To the outside world he seemed like a devoted husband and father, the reality was very very different.

Yeah it's very easy to have a crush on someone when you don't have to deal with a the mundane, boring etc crap with them (or when you don't truly know them well enough to know their bad points).

I've had crushes and when I got to know the men much better realised they were not what I thought they were and we would not have had a good, workeable relationship.

That's probably true to sone extent of this man, you get/see the good side. You don't actually know someone until you spend a lot, lots and lots of time with them for a couple of years including stressful situations.

You need to follow all the advice you can find for disengaging from a crush.

You should build up your life, hobbies, interests, activities, social life separate from him and get yourself in a position to leave your husband should you want to (it sounds like you do and you want to use this as a catalyst to do so, and maybe a safety net), but this is only going to leave you feeling a. embarrassed, rejected, foolish, awkward etc if you raise it with him and he backs off -or - he gets into.dknd kind of affair but doesn't leave, in which case your heart will get ripped out, your self esteem shredded and your mental health probably affected. You'd be in a worse position than you are now.

I think you're very unhappy about your husband cheating on you and the trust has now gone. The grass is very much greener when you're hurting. Focus on your relationship with your husband, either split and rebuild your life without any romantic involvements or go to counselling and try and work it out. The other man is a total red herring.

Sort yourself out and then when you're through the other side you'll be able to see things a bit more clearly.

Have you considered therapy OP? I really think you need to unpick this and figure out whether it really is about this man or whether it's rooted in your husbands' affair. You asked how to make it stop hurting and I think this might be the best way, talk it out, figure out what's behind it and then hopefully you can move forward without hurting anyone, especially yourself.

Thank you. You’re all very kind and helpful and I appreciate that you haven’t been judging me for feeling this way about a married man.

DH and I had some relationship counselling but it didn’t really help.

I’m looking into having some counselling on my own.

I don't feel particularly sorry for your wandering-eyed husband, but I think that you owe it to him to explain that the counselling hasn't worked and that you'd like an amicable separation.

I believe that the other guy may have settled for his wife. It's not uncommon. I know a few marriages like this. It's really not fair on the more keen party and the less keen one often ends up cheating. But...he needs to sort all that out. Don't get involved. If he finds some courage (and respect for his poor unloved wife) and becomes free, maybe see how it goes. But don't be the dirty secret.

I personally think you need to look at ending your marriage....This smacks of escapist fantasy to me