What a mess. DH or alone?

[HorseChestnutLocks]

I’m expecting to be flamed but I really don’t know what to do for the best.

I have possibly been having an emotional affair with a male friend for the past 10 months. I completely adore him and would love to be in a relationship with him. I don’t know if he feels the same way about me but I think he had feelings at least at one point, 5-6 months ago, because he was tortured about possibly not seeing me anymore. He phones me secretly when he’s alone. We talk about everything including my relationship problems.

We’re both married with children.

Obviously this relationship has massively impacted my marriage. Things had been not right for a long time (DH cheated once before we got married, I have had a series of crushes during the marriage which stopped before I conceived my first child, we have sexual problems). I stopped having any kind of sex with my husband when I realised I had developed strong feelings for my friend. It sounds ridiculous but I felt like having sex with DH would be a betrayal of OM. And yes, of course he’s having sex with his wife.

So now I’m in a situation where I’m still pining for my friend. I see him every 6-8 weeks and we text/speak on the phone every few days.

My gut feeling tells me that he’s in love with me but he’s an excellent person and would never leave his wife and children.

My DH doesn’t know about him. I don’t want to break up the family and I don’t feel strong enough to break up with DH. He’s a very dominant person and I’m a bit scared of him. He has already told me that he would try to get more than half of our assets.

DH and I get along okay in day to day life but he wants us to have sex and I don’t want to. I feel like I’m on a ticking time bomb. Either I:

Divorce him

• upset DH
• upset children
• struggle financially
• have to move house
• have to share custody of my lovely children and not see them half the time
• have a likely acrimonious time with DH re finances/assets
• be lonely initially
• have the chance to meet a totally new person and fall in love with them.

Stay in the marriage

• everyone except me is happy
• more secure
• risk regretting it later
• have to have sex when I don’t want to (will it get easier?)

So I don’t know what to do. I love my children. I miss my friend... I want to be with him as much as possible but I know it can never come to anything.

What should I do wise ones?

You've already said he's a good person and wouldn't leave. If he did leave he wouldn't be the person that you thought he was. So it's a lose-lose situation.
You need to step right away and sort out your own life first, whether that is with your husband or not.
This friendship is not real and will only cause harm.
You sound quite emotionally immature.
Good advice from Aquamarine above.

I don’t think he wants us to have a physical affair. I think he’s desperately trying to not let this become a physical affair.

There were two occasions when we could have met alone (for a friendly lunch or drink) but the first time he said he couldn’t because it would be ‘a betrayal’ - another reason to suspect he has feelings as otherwise how could it be a betrayal. The second time he made up an excuse as to why he couldn’t but I knew he was lying. The real reason was either he was too scared to ask his wife or he didn’t trust himself.

Yep. And then they leave again.... And you’ll never know if the nice guy left his marriage (if he ever did), came to you thinking you were the one, and then realised it wasn’t you either. Maybe he is really sad, longing for you. Men like this never belong to anyone, they just keep being sad and lost because there is pretty much always an equally sad and lost woman who wants to believe they can fix them. You’ve cast him as the lost, decent family man battling with his feelings. No matter what we say, I think you’ve already made up your mind to just wait and hope. I hope one day something better comes along and that you aren’t so under this spell that you miss it. Be someone’s love, for now you are just whatever he needs you to be for his fragile ego.

Last post was in response to your ‘they leave sometimes’, BTW.

MoseShrute, when I told him about my relationship problems he suggested that maybe I should have an affair to fulfil my need for love and romance. I don’t think he was offering himself though!!! He has said he’s anti-cheating.

Thank you Mythreefavouritethings. Lots of food for thought in your post.

Get a cold shower and stop fantasising about your friend. He is offering nothing, zero, zilch, nada. Probably just using you to flatter his ego.

If he was good man he wouldn't be stringing you along and humiliating his wife in the process.

It does sound like your marriage may have run it's course. You can carry on for all the reasons you mention but one day there will a straw that breaks the camel's back and then you will look back and wonder why you wasted so much time. Believe me the run up to making that decision is far worse than the reality of going through with it.

As for your friend...finish it, block him, see a counsellor and get legal advice re your marriage, then move on.

I should add that a mutual friend made a pass at me recently and I told my friend about it and he was quite shocked/upset/disappointed. He seemed to be saying that our mutual friend had gone down in his estimation for making a pass at a married woman. So I doubt my friend is up for an affair.

So his poor wife knows something’s up and has expressed unhappiness at him meeting you alone... but instead of saying ‘all right darling, I won’t see her again’ he gets some bizarre kick out of meeting you and MAKING HER COME TOO?!?!?

Wtf?

Oh FGS - he's having an affair already, an emotional affair with you.

If he was a good man, he'd cut contact.

Stop the bullshit.

If it was a choice between DH and my friend then I would do it. But it has to be a choice between DH and nothing

That is incredibly unfair on your DH.
Read that back and imagine your DH was saying that about another woman and you

Apparently she said I don’t understand why you need to meet her alone and it went from there. Perhaps she suggested it.

This man you’re having the emotional affair with loves his wife but is enjoying the attention. He’s reflecting back at you to maintain your interest and keeping you hanging on a string.

So if you know he’s not up for an affair why are you continuing in your fantasy?
If you don’t love your husband, fine, leave him and accept you’ll end up with shared custody of your children and far less money. But maybe true happiness.
Go and be on your own.
I think your married friend is stringing you along. He’ll never leave. I think you know that

So he’s annoyed with another friend making a pass at you but is suggesting you have an affair.

He did say once that he’s not sure if he’s ever been in love

Good grief!!!!

First, please, respectfully....grow up! You are married! Either be in the marriage or out of it, but you seem to want the security of one and the excitement of the other.

If he's never been in love, then he's lying to his wife. Not a good man. By telling you that he is just stringing you along. Not a good man.
Secret phone calls etc, you guessed it- not a good man.

There’s more than one choice here. You can leave and stay on your own. I wouldn’t leave on the pretence this other man wants to be with you, but I’d leave because you’re clearly not happy with your husband.

He is NOT an “excellent person” as you claim upthread. At best he’s a fucked up mess, and at worst he’s a calculating, using deceptive manipulative asshole.

Yes maybe it’s just an ego boost for him, S021. He has said in a roundabout way that he thinks that I’m beautiful. Maybe he likes the attention of (what he deems to be) a beautiful woman.

So he’s annoyed with another friend making a pass at you but is suggesting you have an affair.

They were 2 different conversations 6 months apart. The affair conversation was in Autumn and the pass was more recently.

OP this is most definitely limerence. See livingwithlimerence (.com or .org?). Key features are idealisation, perceived barriers to being together and uncertainty about if they feel the same. It's a heady mix, one of the most powerful forms of addiction. See the site I mentioned for lots of very useful articles and advice.
A friend of mine left her DH in a similar situation. The OM ran a mile.
Don't leave on account of OM, highly unlikely it will ever come together. Get the individual therapy, kick the limerence/ addiction and then see how things look when you have a clear head.

When you said it's a choice between your husband or "nothing", you imply that you being by yourself and single = nothing. Instead of the rich and exciting life you could have. I think there's deep rooted issues here with your sense of self. You seem to use infatuation with men / emotional affairs to repeatedly validate your sense of self. You should have enough self love and respect to need neither of these two men. I think therapy would help you.

It sounds like he's totally playing you. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he's told his wife you have a thumping crush on him and won't leave him alone and they both laugh about it and he probably explains away the 90 minute phone calls as him having to talk you down from a ledge. I think he's says she doesn't want you to meet up alone as an excuse - if he really wanted to be with you he'd be with you.
I feel so sad for your children too. There's nothing worse than growing up in a household where one parent would patently prefer to be elsewhere.

Of course you’re beautiful and all the rest. You’re anything he wants you to be, you aren’t a reality to him. We can all be anything anyone projects onto us, but it is fantasy. At best, you are just that. A beautiful fantasy. That’s where he wants to keep you and it’s the only place anything good comes out of this.

I love being in a relationship though. I want to have someone to share life with. Love and be loved. I really like myself and enjoy my own company but I feel that life is even better when it’s shared with a partner I love.