I think I met someone but his wife *just* left - help!

[Mandalayblonde]

Obligatory caveats: I namechanged for this (naice ham), am not in UK and Fuck Off Daily Mail...

So I met someone this week at a work event through a colleague I know well. He and I have briefly crossed paths before but not really connected. Until yesterday and today when I felt suddenly felt a definite spark and was pretty sure that it was reciprocated. BUT according to our mutual friend his marriage has been on the rocks for the last six months and his wife packed up and left for another city just this weekend. For full transparency, she apparently is 15 years younger and left him after 20 years for another woman. (Not necessarily relevant but part of the context).

I'm mid 40s, single no kids, I think he's a few years older with kids at Uni. I very rarely feel a connection to someone. I'm back home now and wondering what (if anything) to do. I guess with his situation being so new (and there being a work link, though indirectly) I just have to sit this out and wait and see whather he acts on this at all (or not).

But I'm lying here awake feeling terrible about what he's going through and wishing I could help.

Has anyone been through similar and had it work out? How? Help!

I thought you were going to say wide awake horny. Now that I could understand. I don't think he needs your help op...

@B1rdflyinghigh

Leave the freshly separated men alone. They need to find their way first. They don't really know what they want. Don't even dabble there.

"These freshly separated men are not the droids you're looking for, move along"

If there's frisson there and you expect no more than an exciting liaison then crack on! For anything else I'd steer clear.

Of course not.

You'd be the rebound shag who he cries to and then when he feels a bit better, he'll be off to someone else.

Don't do this to yourself.

Stay clear of project men, just separated men, men with sad stories.
You can't fix, save, or help anyone. It's dysfunctional thinking.

Thanks vipers.

That was the harsh, but fair, reality I needed to hear.

Will steer clear.

If she left him for another woman, his masculinity has probably taken a bit of a beating ! I wouldn't advise getting into a relationship in those circumstances - he might just want someone to help him prove what a stud he is.

Personally I don’t think you need to steer clear, but you do need to if you can’t control yourself and have moved into some form of fantasy about you and this man. He’s not even asked you out and you’re sleepless feeling awful and desperate to get in there. It’s bordering on stalkerish and I’m fairly sure he’d be terrified if he knew.

And the fact his wife is much younger and BI sexual is irrelevant. He may well have known. They may end up back together, they may not, but as it’s just happened that’s unfinished business.

@starrynight21

If she left him for another woman, his masculinity has probably taken a bit of a beating ! I wouldn't advise getting into a relationship in those circumstances - he might just want someone to help him prove what a stud he is.

Doubt it, his masculinity would have taken a beating if she left for another man. It’s highly likely he knew she was BI sexual..

So he was thirty she was fifteen?

When did he have his young children with his late Wife? A fifteen year old took on very young bereaved children? Her parents permitted that?
Now she’s decided she’s lesbian too.

Someone is telling porkies.

I think folks are doing the maths wrong. The op says she’s mid forties and he’s a few years older.

So if he’s 55 , it would make his wife 40 and they met when he was 35 and she was 20.

She also doesn’t actually know how old he is. He could easily be 60 for all she knows.

@Butwasitherdriveway

Erm how?

Well I just did the maths from the first post. He is about 50, they have been together twenty years, so since he was about 30 and she is 15 years younger, so a teenager.

OP has since revised the timeline since this was pointed out, but at the time of my post that is how it added up.

Hope that helps.

Oh yes Bluntness, if he’s fifty the wife is 35 so twenty years ago he’d have been thirty and she’d have been fifteen. If he’s 45 the wife would be 30 so twenty years back he’d have been 25 and she’d have been.....10.

I suppose ‘a few years older could be more than a decade, possibly. You’re right though, there is no specific age given and he could be seventy and his wife fifty five.

@Bluntness100

I think folks are doing the maths wrong. The op says she’s mid forties and he’s a few years older.

So if he’s 55 , it would make his wife 40 and they met when he was 35 and she was 20.

She also doesn’t actually know how old he is. He could easily be 60 for all she knows.

Doesn’t a few mean about three? So if she is mid forties and he is 55 this would be a decade older, not a “few” years older.

OP clarified that his last relationship has 10 years, not 20, and as a previous poster pointed out, OP is only estimating his age, so we really have no idea how old either was when they met.

Clearly she doesn’t know his age, she’s guessing, and with the ten not twenty years, it’s plausible.

Sounds a bit intense and odd and will likely end in tears.

Don't go there. I did I was his shoulder to cry on, he told me all about how heartbroken he was that she didn't want him back. We matched on Tinder last year, chatted for 5 months and when we met all he talked about was the mess that was his life. He was actually really nice but when she told him that they were over for good he turned into a selfish whining man who didn't ask me how I was and I was going through my own shit (not relationship related). He has gone off to sort himself out and said he will be back when his head is less of a mess. I'm left feeling utterly sad that I let a man like that into my life thinking as my ex put it "I could fix him".

Just seen above, yes and according to your timings he was in his 30s dating a teenager, no thank you.

Erm..
How?

She's done the bloody maths, how do you think??