I had a great marriage (I thought) to a man I thought the world of.
Then he had an emotional affair with a colleague when I was unwell. She was in love with him, worshipped him and he took her attention, praise and caring affection and let it run away with him. When he should have most been supporting me, he was thinking about himself being lonely and needing his ego fed. Really bad, yes.
I know there was no sex - I talked to the OW myself - but it was a close relationship that really mimicked an emotional intimacy in a way I found more wounding than the sex itself.
I was persuaded into a reconciliation by his endless remorse, begging and promises to stick to everything we read in the various "healing from affair" books. The fact he didn't seem to fancy her seemed to make it tolerable.
In the end all his promises came to nothing. He stuck to it all for a few months where he was wonderful, the dream husband and helping me to feel better............ I actually thought our marriage was better for the affair.......... and then it unraveled.
"I will go to counselling" turned into him avoiding making appointments and complaining that he didn't feel up to a psychological rebuild.
"I will have no contact with the OW" lasted a few months and then turned into her gradually eeking her way back in and him telling me he was handling it (he wasn't)
"I will leave my job so I don't need to be around her" turned into efforts to find a new job but a general pessimism around it which led to him signing a contract with current employer for another year.
"I will do everything I can to be your safe space again" turned into moaning that he felt like a failure and I was attacking him.
"I will support you in every way I can and you can rant as much as you like" turned into him saying me talking about the OW all the time was ruining our relationship.
"I will earn your trust again" turned into him saying he would do things and not doing them, then saying sorry a million times and doing it again.
I think I've come to see him as really immature, selfish, incapable of really giving as much as he takes and completely lacking the ability to think properly about anyone but himself.
No, I don't think he is in love with or fancies OW at all, but I think he feels resentful that he can't keep his "friend" around and he definitely cares about her feelings and defends her at times. He seems to think letting her chase after him is totally fine and I should be okay with it because he chooses me.
Yesterday we had a conversation where he moaned to me that 90% of our conversations were about OW and he thought this was more damaging than his EA. He said that our endless discussions about her emailing him were more damaging than the emails themselves.
This just couldn't compute in my head. Is he saying his affair isn't the problem, nor her ongoing contact with him at least once a week, but the real problem is me having the gall to be UPSET ABOUT IT?
I just realised in that moment all he really cares about is himself.
I love him, but I am not in love with him anymore. So I made the decision to leave.
We don't share kids and our house is rented and we've only been married for four years. Leaving should be relatively easy practically speaking.
I am worrying how I rethink my life now - I am 43 - will I meet someone else?
Financially, I will probably have very little once we split and sell things - I'm worried about the future.
I am okay being alone, it just feels like I am quite old to be starting again and I feel not too confident about it and a bit worried I will end up alone in my older years.
Any positive stories?