Hi,
I have destroyed my life and feel lost. I could do with a bit of guidance without criticism.
This is my story…
I met my stbx while I was at university (actually, it was when I was on my year out as I did a sandwich course to get work experience). I was 21/22 yrs old. I was a quiet girl and probably a bit too quiet tbh. This has led to me shying away from boys for most of my youth. I hadn’t really had a boyfriend even though I was fairly attractive (other girls used to tell me and couldn’t understand why I never had a boyfriend). I guess I just felt I was too young and felt so nervous. I had concentrated on my education to get myself into a good career (which I did) after growing up living on a council estate with my divorced mother. My siblings were a lot older than me and had left home by the time I was 4 years old.
At 19, I developed a crush (although, at the time, I thought I was madly in love) with a man (much older) who - basically - swooned and groomed me over a summer. He was working for his older brother but had been in the army as a physical instructor - he was an extremely good looking man with a body to die for. I guess, at the time, my hormones were raging and I found him hard to resist. He was exciting and fun to be around. I also knew other girls/women fancied him and he did flirt a lot (I was so naive)!!! He took my virginity (which I had always protected) in a car and it was hardly romantic - just on/off kind of thing. Did it once more. I was besotted with him but it turned out I was just a plaything. I discovered, via his brother, that he was a player and ‘liked the girls’ and - more horrifyingly - he had a girlfriend, in his home village, pregnant!! I was horrified and extremely hurt. I confronted him and he admitted it all. I told him I had been a virgin and absolutely broke down in front of him. I got a pathetic apology and that was that. I had been severely hurt by ‘my first’ - so much so, I was unable to start university and had to delay for a year. I was distraught at how I could’ve been so stupid to fall for him and become so besotted. I did see him years later, btw, after I had finished university and was working. He saw me making a phone call in a phone box (it was before mobile phones) and waited outside until I’d finished. He congratulated me on my achievements with university/career and said he had split with the mother of his child and seemed to be living a carefree life. That was that. I’d have never gone back with him anyway. I moved jobs (30 miles away) soon after and never saw him again. By this point, I was with my future husband anyway.
I met my husband on my year out. He was quiet but we got on well and seemed to like similar things. However, I knew he didn’t excite me the way ‘my first’ had but I guess I also knew he wasn’t likely to go with someone else etc. He is also older than me by 10 years. I never found him physically attractive and did have doubts on our wedding day (we only had a small registry office wedding). But, we enjoyed days out together, holidays etc. The ‘spark’ was never there though. Big alarm bells were that he never turned me on. Sexually, he was very poor but - because I had had little experience in that area - I didn’t know. I thought that was it. He couldn’t kiss properly (said he couldn’t breathe/made his asthma flare up) so that was a big passion killer for me. He was never passionate. Nor affectionate. Sex for him was on/off and that was it. I always felt unfulfilled and thought ‘is this it?’
Anyway, my desire to be a mother was getting stronger and I fell pregnant after 8 months of trying. I loved being a mother and this probably distracted me from other issues. The second child was conceived by IUI as we struggled with secondary infertility - although, looking back, it was more likely to be that I was definitely not attracted to him by this point (we’d both had tests at the hospital which came back normal). But, like a lot if women, I craved motherhood. I had it all - good job (I did work part time for so long), two healthy/intelligent children and a ‘loving husband’.
Years went by. I raised the children. Cared for my mother (RIP 6 years ago - cancer) and continued to progress in my career - I’m now senior management level.
My marriage - on the other hand - seemed fake and, I am sorry to say, became sexless when my youngest child was 9 months old (she is now 14 years old). I had no attraction for him sexually. But, even if I did, he lacked passion. It has been like having sex with a robot. He didn’t bring out my passionate side. He was 36 when he left home and had also been sexually inexperienced but I am convinced there are other issues there due to other areas of his life (he has some gay tendencies and never gets horny/looks at women) - just suspicions I have had. He never held my hand, hugged me and it dawned on me one day that he’d never said he loved me - verbally. I was a money maker (he was in a much lower paid job and never progressed), a nanny, a cleaner etc. I felt unappreciated etc.
I was busy with life and put my sex/love life on the back burner - for years. That was that - or so I thought.
Roll on many years. My mother had died a year previously and my job had been causing me issues after I was overlooked for promotion to someone who was friends (in and out of work) to a new manager. It rocked my world and I reacted by switching jobs all of a sudden as I couldn’t settle. What I didn’t realise, at the time, was that I was in peri-menopause so, emotionally, I was a wreck and making hash decisions. I also became extremely horny - again, unaware I was menopausal. My periods stopped abruptly. I had always been regular but then, one month, nothing - not a drop - and they never returned. I felt strange for months. Very horny (which I now know is the sex surge of menopause) and very detached from reality.
Cutting a long story short. And, you’ve probably guessed by now. I got involved with another man. I was so detached from reality my feet weren’t on the ground. I’m ashamed to say, he is also married but in a similar situation but won’t leave her (no kids). Guilt. We developed a very strong friendship and a very strong attraction for each other. We live quite far away from each other but have met up a few times. He is the opposite of my husband. Extremely passionate and always supportive/complimentary. He is also very, very affectionate. Something I have been deprived of my whole life. We get on extremely well too. He has ended it a few times - guilt/not fair - but constantly returns. This has damaged me - a lot. I began to assess my marriage and realised that it was nothing more than a friendship. That’s all it ever had been. I’d ended up in such a state - through deprivation of affection and the hormones going mad - that my head was turned. I fell for this man. Stupidly. He is still in my life but he is reluctant to meet. But, I was a fool. I ended my marriage a year ago and split up our entire family. My life changed. I feel like I’ve been on another planet but one think I have realised is that I have been living in a sexless/loveless marriage and kidding myself that this was normal. I am an attractive woman for my age (almost 50) and constantly have men telling me so. My husband never did.
I know that I have to move on. I know that both men aren’t good for me for different reasons. I’m struggling to let go of the other man simply because he fills a gap that has been there for many years. He is supportive, affectionate, passionate, lovely to talk to - but he’s married and has said he won’t leave. I know I am a fool but I was missing that in my life. It has brought about so many mixed emotions in me.
My first step, and rightly so, was to end my marriage. Which I did. I became extremely anxious around my husband. Not guilty, I just felt like I’d missed out on something amazing. I had. I couldn’t stand to be in the same bed anymore and had slept in the spare room for over two years.
I can’t let go of the other man. Even though we talk on the phone/messenger it is unlikely anything will ever develop. I know I need to let go. I have fallen for him but can never have him.
How do I move forward? I’m currently living in the family home that I need to sell in the new year to give stbx his share. I’m unsettled because of this. Stbx inherited property and moved out early this year. He bought me a Christmas present! I know I don’t want to be with him now.
Please don’t be awful to me. I know what I did was wrong but know why I did it. I have soul searched a lot. Gone right back to my childhood.
Any advice?