An APfree 2021

[Affor]

Hi all. Thread two for the leaving AP support.

No hate or trolling please. We know how you feel about it, we've heard it all. We're trying to figure out our feelings and make better decisions to be happier.

Let's try and all be supportive and kind to each other

Fair point @Scorpiogirl123 and I appreciate you wanting it to be supportive here. It's a tough line isn't it as behaviour in and around affairs is so self destructive that tough love is almost inevitable for change to happen.

I personally think acknowledging that the married person in an affair has knowingly caused harm to the AP is supportive in a sense as it helps shatter the illusion / delusion that they are a romantic figure who wouldn't behave that way with anyone else.

I'll bow out now as I've been basically told to do so by a PP and don't want to cause additional pain to them, but I stand by my main point when it comes to no contact, whether related to an affair or another kind of toxic relationship:

If you really, genuinely knew you wouldn't respond to him and really, genuinely wanted it to be over then you'd block him on everything.

And one last thing - saying you think someone should give therapy a go to explore behaviours that have been upsetting and destructive isn't an insult. Mental health isn't something to be dismissed as an insult, it's a very real part of everyday life and therapy that helps people vulnerable to things like destructive and toxic relationship is absolutely invaluable and life changing. Saying someone could explore something in therapy isn't an insult unless you believe having mental health issues and needs is an insult.

Thank you Scorpiogirl123. All is well.

I think sometimes people do love two people at the same time, but life isn't just as easy as leaving your wife and children. But yes I agree promises shouldn't be made if they cannot be kept, it's not fair at all
My AP is really struggling with this now. I know how he feels about me but he is still struck with fear when he contemplates leaving. I do understand, it's a big risk taking this out of fantasy into reality but I'm starting to find it difficult not knowing where we're headed.

I think the posts tonight have been very supportive. I don’t think anyone should stop posting. It’s a highly emotive subject and I think other perspectives should be welcomed. There’s no attacks or name calling.

FWIW I tried to stay friends (joint project) with AP but it was awful. It just prolonged the agony. I was scared to block as he had terrible mental health problems and I was scared he’d do something stupid. I felt like if I knew he could contact me then it’d make me feel better.

It worked to some extent but looking back he’d just call me up and whinge about whatever and it was no help to either of us remaining in contact.

He met someone else and didn’t contact me again until it was over.

He’d always just complain. Always the victim. I just did a slow fade.

I finally blocked him on social media once the project was over. I needed to feel ready.

Blocking him on day 1 wouldn’t have worked. Time and distance sorted it out IYKWIM

Ginandcv, I agree with you completely. I won't be able to be friends with my ex MM. He seems to be falling in the same victim mode as you described. He understands that I have walked away. The slow fade has been the best solution in my opinion so far. Maybe in time blocking will seem the best solution.in the future but not yet.

I would also like to add that I won't be writing anymore posts about him. I wanted to share my experience and the relief of having bowed out but find it serves me no purpose to keep writing about him iyswim.

I understand about the said “script” but then i think ive used the script too. He does literally bring joy to my life. He makes me feel alive. He is a symptom of my shitty marriage not a cause. I just hate that before xmas i never questioned everything and now i feel like i question everything. And the lockdown lying doesnt help im sure. Its complicated but ultimately i wish i didnt feel like this. It was enough knowing that my marriage was crap. I wish i never met this man. He has made me feel so many amazing things but its devastation waiting to happen really

@Headisgone

I feel 100% the same as you. I wish I could offer some advice but I don't have the answers

@DustyMuse; You are doing well, have just read last nights exchanges. You and others taking charge and manging the issue.
I like your remarks about a slow fade. It doesn't set up a confrontation straight way, it doesn't challenge the blocked one to get round it.

This is what I did back then, without making it a formal decision, but I had little social media to complicate our world.

I’m really struggling today. It’s a week today since we had quite a nasty confrontation and not spoken since. I don’t regret the things I said as I meant every word but I was screaming and shouting. Which now upsets me.

I agree on the slow fade. I’ve done that over the whole of lockdown on and off so this is now the final hurdle.

Stupidly last night I had a look to see if he was on WhatsApp. I’d not looked since Saturday night. Now all morning I’ve just being going on and off the app to see if he’s online. He has been a couple of times. I wonder if he’s checking up on me or if he’s just messaging someone else. Who knows?! I shouldn’t care but it hurts. It was me that finished it again so maybe this time he’s respecting my feelings and not contacting me or maybe the whole two years have been a complete waste, he never cared and it was never worth the risk...

I am grateful for your encouraging post Romancer. It is so important to receive gentle and realistic words. I know myself. It sometimes takes time for my heart to catch up with my very lucid head; this past relationship with a MM is an example. The slow approach always works for me. I know that blocking would make it all the more dramatic and intense for both parties, possibly accentuating emotions on my part when they very much need to die down slowly and very surely. I am clear about how small my place truly was in his life and how cliché our relationship was; I am completely at peace with this now. Fortunately there is no social media involved in our cases.

We all agree, I believe, how much of a drug these unhealthy and extremely intense relationships are. I am sorry you are having a bad day Thisisme101. The nasty confrontation and your heightened reactions during your last conversation, which have left you feeling so upset, highlight how toxic and out-of-control we become. These affairs are unsustainable. They are disconnected from real life and therefore create cognitive dissonance within ourselves and in our communication. One thing I appreciate is how calm I feel during zero contact. I hope you feel better soon.

Have been unsure whether to share my story, it’s different and not sure if wanted because we are now together. But I think potentially useful to unpick so will.

Had an AP who is now DP it went on for 1.5years. We talked a lot about being together but to be honest I never actually believed it would happen. Both of us were married, not a good situation I know.

I knew my marriage was finished anyway and intended to end it, it took longer than it should have (well it should have ended before, which I am well aware of) but circumstances with families/children/finances etc are always difficult. My exH didn’t do anything majorly wrong, our relationship had just run it’s course which actually was a huge shame as it was at one point very good.

Eventually things in my marriage came to a head and I left. I have to say when it happened I felt relieved. Even at that point I didn’t think my AP and I would be together. I continued the relationship for around 2 weeks after leaving my own marriage and then told my AP that I was going to back off, I didn’t want to continue with the relationship the way it was and knew then I was hoping for something to come of it. But as he was still with his OH I felt I needed to back off and let him make his own decisions in that.

At the time he was staying for a family occasion so I said if he left after that, we would re-evaluate but that I wouldn’t be ‘waiting’ for him, and he was free to continue his current relationship if he wanted but I would like to know his decision. I thought he would do that tbh, and I left him to it. However he left also shortly after and before the occasion they were waiting for.

Yes it was very messy, lots of people were upset, was it worth it? No, not like that it wasn’t, I wish we hadn’t upset all of those people and if I could go back I would absolutely leave first before finding anyone else, but it didn’t happen like that.

It’s been difficult, no bed of roses for us afterwards or anyone else in fact, it that makes anyone feel any better. But we are still together and we are happy. Things have settled a lot and there is less disruption now for anyone, but I do think we have probably done some permanent damages to some people involved in it, and I absolutely would advise anyone in the early stages to stop, and do things the right way.

I never ever thought I would be that person, and anyone who knew me wouldn’t have thought so either. But honestly it is very easily done, I know lots of people will disagree with me on that and that’s fine, but I don’t believe anyone is immune.

I know of other people too who have had affairs, some people I’m close to and wouldn’t have expected it from either, but I do understand it better now.

Not encouraging it at all, or even agreeing with it, but just a bit of a different story with a different ending and another perspective in case it helps anyone.

@Nssanymore thankyou for sharing, I think your story will be what my story looks like in a few months. I'm in the process of working out how to leave, encouraging my AP to work on his marriage but think he will end up leaving it. My biggest fear is that he ends up regretting it. Can I ask what difficulties you've faced since? I know there will be lots.

Difficulties have been that of ex partners who are justifiably upset. I don’t blame them at all, I would feel the same if the roles were reversed. But it’s a difficult juggling act of knowing how best to be gentle with them, but at the same time, you can’t undo what you’ve done. I would say we have both approached this differently with each ex and don’t necessarily agree with the way each has done it. But this has got better with time (we are now 2 yrs post break-ups).

The children involved and blending the families. Again not been easy. Better now also, and at the same time I feel we had this easier than most, exes haven’t done what many would/could and told the children the relationship started before, this is best for the children (too young and too much to put on them) but I understand why the exes would feel they would want them to know. I still feel guilty for ripping apart both mine and DPs children’s lives as they knew it, even though I knew I was leaving anyway, I wish it hadn’t been this way.

The obvious issue is trust when you begin a relationship from a place of distrust. This hasn’t been too bad of an issue; but I do think we are both very aware that we both did it before, so who is saying we won’t do it to eachother? I really hope we wouldn’t, and I am as certain as I can be I would never want to go through that or put anyone else through that again, and hope my now DP is the same. I also feel I would be happy on my own now too, which is a good thing should that ever happen. When the affair was good, it was good, but when it was hard it was really hard, it’s not all love and fluffy bunnies once you get past the initial bit that’s for sure.

Luckily our families have been accepting, whilst they don’t necessarily ‘know’ the relationship started prior to our marriages ending as it’s not been spoken aloud and none of us told anyone IRL. But I am sure most of them can guess, so deep down I think they know. Families have been accepting of us, but I do think there is a bit of a distance kept a little more than with our exes and I do think people probably look at me differently, again just a consequence I have to live with.

Ultimately as I said above, we are happy now and I am glad if anything it has worked out because it almost would have been worse if it didn’t and we left and caused all that upset for nothing.

I know I wil probably get flamed for all this, but I think as someone in an affair it is useful to hear this side of it aswell as those leaving as every relationship is different.

@Nssanymore thank you for your story. Can i ask - did you ever discuss hiding the fact that it hard started pre-break up?

This is a circle we have gone round in. If he left, could we pretend to meeting in 6 months time? Mainly because it would ruin his relationship with his mum. But I'm not sure we could keep up the deceit?

I wondered that too @Affor. It's tempting but I doubt anyone would believe it. Thanks so much @Nssanymore it has given me a lot to think about.

Yes we did and as I said previously no one IRL actually knows for sure what our relationship was before being officially together. They can guess and I think most know it strayed before but I don’t think they know the extent.

So in effect we have kind of done this, but if push came to shove and people asked me outright I would tell them, depending on who it was of course.

I think you could do that and make it in 6 months time, but it really depends what your relationship is going to be afterwards.

We saw each other regularly once we had both left, whenever we didn’t have the children, and spoke daily, because we were glad to finally be together properly so I don’t think we would have liked to keep it secret for much longer, and we also felt that most people had probably guessed anyway.

We kept it on the ‘down low’ as in; not on social media or anything like that in fact it’s still only on there very minimally. Because we didn’t particularly want to broadcast it, we were happy to be together but still very much sad about how it had happened and what this meant for other people.

I know the general thought is those in affairs don’t care for the others involved, and I can see why people think that, but I do think it’s way way more complicated than that, and despite knowing we were hurting people it didn’t mean we wanted to. Yes we could have not done it, stopped it etc etc, and looking back, we should have 100% done that, but as many others have said nothing is that black and white.

Another thing I would say is, whilst it is tempting to do so, definitely look at the reasons.

If his relationship with his mum would be really damaged by it and the reasons for meeting later improve that, it’s possible.

But tbh keeping up the pretence or even just not mentioning when it started, hasn’t made me feel any better about it at all, I don’t think it’s made it look any better as as the OP says I don’t think many people even truly believe it started afterwards.

It almost feels worse sometimes that it’s ‘unspoken’. I mainly did this for my DP as for me, I know my family will continue to love me and be there no matter what, even if they don’t agree with my decisions and choices, which they wouldn’t.

My DP and his DM would probably have a fractured relationship about it too, tho again, I think deep down she knows, but perhaps thinks it was early days prior to the break up when actually it had been going on a while.

Sometimes it’s easier to get it out in the open and deal with the backlash.

Thanks @Nssanymore. Sorry I misread your post as that they did know.

I think we would like to do this in real life, but some of my closest friends would figure it out as have told them a sanitised version as a guy I am currently dating (I'm not the married one). And it kind of has to be all or nothing for it to work.

@Nssanymore Wow that is one of a story! I sort of wish I had your courage. I think I could be with AP if I was brave enough to leave my marriage the thought of hurting so many people really scares me and has made me end things with AP. I still fantasise one day we will be together I just don’t know how we will both cope with the pain to the innocent. Thanks for sharing your story.

@User2596 I think if you have left your AP and are trying to continue your marriage, then you should absolutely give it 100% and let go of AP completely.

Not easy but I do think at one point we have these choices to make, either leave the marriage and be alone, leave the marriage and be with AP or stay and make a go of it.

At some point it has to come to a head and one of those choices has to be made. As that in the middle limbo is hurtful too, when it’s going on but either people know or don’t, and it’s no fun for those involved anymore either like it was in the beginning. It develops and somewhere along the line it has to end one way or another.

This will be my last on this topic and I shall soon do a name change. I am explaining because the name change is part of my letting go of the past. It did happen 16 years ago.
It has been surprising that it resurrected memories of massive mistakes that I made. All by myself, I didn't need encouragement or help, it was me!

It is important to arrange things so as not to get cues that set off memories. It is similar to self development courses that emphasise knowing what you want to achieve and making a short list that you can manage. Do not make a long list which will always have things not done, nobody wants reminding of those.
Good Luck to you all especially gin and Dusty you are taking control. Bye'

@Nssanymore I absolutely agree with you and the time to make a decision came to me. I have made the decision to stay with my husband and want to give it my all so I know if things don’t work at least I gave it a proper go.

I hated being in the limbo and I much prefer to have this pain now but knowing I have taken the control over things. Only wine will tell but I am trying to stay positive and keeping my mind busy in other things.

only wine will tell
Best typo ever?!