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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

“And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid”

104 replies

Nancyandfrank · 08/02/2021 00:25

Firstly I have to warn you that this is massively indulgent. But I need someone to tell me what actually is happening here.

I’m mid fifties, widowed, comfortably off, with teen children. In my twenties I was with a man for 5 years. We were deeply in love but my parents didn’t really approve, he was younger than me and with hindsight needed a bit more time, and I was swept off my feet by an older man, who ultimately dumped me. Fast forward and we both married and had children. We don’t live near each other, I haven’t seen him in person for years, but we have always stayed in touch.

He has a wife. She is very unwell, and is not well enough to be cared for at home. She was very sadly brain injured in an accident some years ago. He is not disloyal but is clear that their marriage as it was, is over.

We message every day, sometimes a few times a day. It’s just what we are doing, how the families are, did you see XYZ on the news. Bit of flirting, no more than that. I have several times given him the option not to reply if he doesn’t want to, or has too much on his plate, but he always does.

So we have these chatty little conversations and I want to say “I love you. I always have. I don’t expect anything from you, you’re not in a position to do anything and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. But I feel like I’ll burst if I don’t say it.” And then I think “he probably knows anyway.”

In all other ways I am eminently sensible. What on earth is going on here?

OP posts:
Keratinsmooth · 08/02/2021 12:29

I know a man in similar circumstances. He met and fell for a woman after meeting her through friends. A few years before her husband had been in a horrific accident with a terrible brain injury, after several years of no improvement, not conscious he moved to a care home, his wife did everything she could, visited the care home, was called to sign paperwork for medical procedures etc. He was never going to get better or improve, she was his advocate.

The woman was very nervous but started a relationship with this guy, her in laws went nuts, eventually, despite really loving her the guy walked away, he needed to move area for work, she couldn’t move and leave her DH. Very sad.

In that story the in-laws came around to the idea of the new partner, in your situation they might too?

In your situation I think you need to know more, hold back on declarations, consider him a nice friend. When you can, meet up, see how things are but consider the man in my story, he left with nothing, no partner and moving, alone. After committing years to loving her.

rawalpindithelabrador · 08/02/2021 12:35

I wonder how this would read if the OP was a man wanting to do this to his brain-damaged wife. He is married. He can't leave. No amount of bloody talking or communicating or having a coffee is going to make her anything but the OW and she's the one who'll get hurt.

She is free and single. Why on Earth shouldn't she be deserving of a man who is the same and doesn't have to make her the OW to have a relationship? Because there are other men out there. He's not the only one.

Cannot believe people are suggesting she become an OW. He is married and cannot leave. It's sad, but that's the way it is.

ravenmum · 08/02/2021 12:39

If the OP was the man in this situation, and his wife was in a vegetative state and unlikely to recover, I'd encourage him not to feel guilty about seeing other women. He shouldn't have to be alone for what might be another 3 or 4 decades.
If I was the wife, and not in a vegetative state, I'd give the guy the green light.

AnitaB888 · 08/02/2021 12:54

OP, you say that his wife suffered a brain injury and is in care. I assume she is not 'compus mentis' and he has Power of Attorney. So, if what he says is true, then he no longer has a marriage.
In this situation he could maybe have the marriage annulled and be free to pursue whatever relationship(s) he wanted. He would have to take legal advice on this.
However, I would not hold out hope that he would be willing to do this.

I would write this off as there are far too many complications.

Geppili · 08/02/2021 13:14

I'd be very cautious. My spider senses went off when I read your op. I'm worried that he is not being entirely truthful with you about his wife. Do not tell him you love him. You don't. You are in love with the idea of being in love.

BigBadVoodooHat · 08/02/2021 13:16

There seem to be a lot of limerence threads about 'the one who got away' just now Confused

Geppili · 08/02/2021 13:17

@BigBadVoodooHat My thoughts exactly!

rawalpindithelabrador · 08/02/2021 13:21

@BigBadVoodooHat

There seem to be a lot of limerence threads about 'the one who got away' just now Confused
Yep!
Bythemillpond · 08/02/2021 13:23

I think in these sort of cases it can be a case of moving on because the marriage in the full sense of the word is over.
Why waste all 3 lives.

Bythemillpond · 08/02/2021 13:25

I would however want to check everything out before making any declarations and I would want to meet in person a few times to get the vibe if what you think is being reciprocated

rawalpindithelabrador · 08/02/2021 13:27

@Bythemillpond

I think in these sort of cases it can be a case of moving on because the marriage in the full sense of the word is over. Why waste all 3 lives.
Wow, so her life is a waste because she's brain-damaged?

Why should the OP waste her time on a person who is married? There are others out there who don't have this baggage.

Covidcorvid · 08/02/2021 13:32

I don't think you should walk away but I also don't think you should tell him you love him, etc.

Even without the added complication of his wife then it's very early days, it doesn't sound like you're actually dating yet. Which I get is hard with lock down. I'd keep going as things are for now, then suggest dinner, cinema, etc when able to and see how it progresses.

I know someone who was in a similar situation and he's never divorced his wife who is in residential care and too brain damaged to be aware of what's happening. But he now has a partner who has moved in with him and they're very much a couple. He does still go and see his wife in the home. But it works.

rawalpindithelabrador · 08/02/2021 13:36

I know someone who was in a similar situation and he's never divorced his wife who is in residential care and too brain damaged to be aware of what's happening. But he now has a partner who has moved in with him and they're very much a couple. He does still go and see his wife in the home. But it works.

My mother's in her 80s and knows several who did this. For two of them, it abruptly stopped working when it was the man who dropped dead. The kids were secretly furious he hadn't bothered to divorce their mother because moving on, and as the couple weren't married, threw the woman out of the house with nothing in short order.

Why on Earth would someone who's free, single, has a good life ditch it all for a person who has more baggage than Pickford's?

IEat · 08/02/2021 13:48

Do you think he feels the same way? He will have mixed emotions because of his wife.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe · 08/02/2021 14:16

@BigBadVoodooHat

There seem to be a lot of limerence threads about 'the one who got away' just now Confused
Why does OP's situation need a 'label'? Isn't she deserving of considered responses rather than just a couple of posters who've come on her thread just to bleat 'limmmmerence, omg!' and derail it.

OP doesn't come across as deluded or blinded by her feelings, she sounds self-aware and considerate.

Original poster
Nancyandfrank · 08/02/2021 16:14

Thankyou this is really helping. Regarding his wife’s condition, I have no doubt at all about this at all.

His feelings for me? He keeps in touch without fail when it would be easier not to.

OP posts:
ravenmum · 08/02/2021 20:54

You haven't seen him in years. How much of these string feelings do you reckon could be daydreams and/or you feeling lonelier in lockdown?
Before you do anything, you would meet him in person, right?

MrsWindass · 08/02/2021 21:21

When did you last see him ?

Original poster
Nancyandfrank · 08/02/2021 21:22

Oh it’s years. 8 years I think.

OP posts:
MrsWindass · 08/02/2021 21:24

So how do you know you love him ? You don't know what kind of man he is now .

Original poster
Nancyandfrank · 08/02/2021 21:31

We have always stayed in touch. I don’t think people change fundamentally that much anyway.

OP posts:
pictish · 08/02/2021 23:09

Um...ok. So you’re thinking of declaring love to this man whose current wife is brain damaged, after not seeing him for eight years...because people don’t change that much.

I think you’d do well to leave him alone...but I don’t suppose you will.

rawalpindithelabrador · 08/02/2021 23:16

You don't think he's changed and you haven't seen him in 8 years and he has a brain-damaged wife and you're both now in your 50s? Hmm

I'm still friends with 'the love of my life' from when I was 30 and he was 29.

We're both quite different people now that we're both in our 50s.

C'mon.

Original poster
Nancyandfrank · 08/02/2021 23:18

I know, I know. I sound mad as a brush.

OP posts:
pictish · 08/02/2021 23:22

Yes you do.

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