@HappyLittleNarwhal I take it this was an affair? Apologies if I’ve read it wrong.
No judgment here, but do you know about the psychology of affair relationships v long term relationships?
You can’t compare the two. Affairs are a white knuckle ride, simply because that is pretty much what they are. Look at your choice of adjectives, you could describe a rollercoaster with them: ‘exhilarating, invigorating, transformative and fun”
Real life out-in-the-open relationships have an element of this on the early stages, but after that it calms down and either fizzles out or grows into something more. Many affairs last and keep these feelings alive simply because it’s forbidden, a secret, a risk, there are obstacles between you and time together is shorter and stolen. You only have to look your best, and show up for a date. No kids, no bins to put out, no nagging about who last mowed the lawn etc. etc. Because of the abnormal situation, it stays stuck in the ‘new relationship’ buzz stage, which normal relationships never do.
The statistics on how many affair relationships survive reality are dire. The ones that do are usually and more often the few where the affair partners wanted out of their marriages in the first place and went actively in looking for a new partner.
Women tend to invest far more emotionally into affairs than men, and get high by reliving the heady emotions. Men tend to compartmentalise and move on better.
Both partners in affairs can mistake the situational highs for feelings they think are generated by the affair partner themselves.They believe they’ll never feel like this again and that the person they had the affair with is their soulmate and was responsible for all the heady feelings. Usually if they leave their main partner and can now spend all the time they want together, not on dates, not projecting their best selves but their real selves now, things can start to disintegrate. Seeing that person in real life when it’s allowed and not a secret, and you still have to schlep round Sainsburys like everybody else, no risk, no secrets, no “I miss you …. if only ….” texts any more, start to erode the highs caused by the affair situation (which has now gone) and you see each other warts and all.
If the situation ends unrequited or one partner is forced to make a choice, it can take the other partner a long time to stop mooning about it all, the come-down after the dopamine highs is brutal. To compare a long term marriage to running around in an affair means the marriage will always look dull in comparison.
Maybe your marriage looks more stale now because you have been putting more energy and thought into somebody else? If you had invested that much thought, effort and energy into your marriage, where might it be now? You say you are married but you are feeling flat, alone at your table with nobody to make plans with? If I’ve read this right you do have somebody to make plans with, not you’re choosing not to.
If your marriage is truly dead then do yourself and your husband a favour and talk about how to separate amicably and start again. If you want the huge buzz and highs and exhilaration you had before, have another affair, it probably won’t matter who with, because you are talking more about missing the feelings around the situation you were in on your post than the guy himself. It doesn’t surprise me one bit. This is the main reason most affair relationships have a dire prognosis. Adrenaline and dopamine caused by breaking the rules and sneaking around, getting pursued and flattered by somebody else is probably what you’re missing, not the guy himself.
Throw yourself into your marriage, or into planning a new life for yourself as a single person. Time is going by and you are stuck unhappily missing something which isn’t a particular guy, it’s the rush of being in an affair.
Look back on the fun you had not as the time when you met somebody you think is uniquely extraordinary as a period of time when you were addicted to dopamine and adrenaline. Fun, but never sustainable.
It would have changed into a ‘normal’ relationship and far less exciting if you’d been together anyway at some point. New relationship feelings/ affair feelings always have a shelf life. If the affair has ended abruptly you can end up mistakenly believing it would always have felt that way no matter what. It wouldn’t. You’re missing something that would have changed eventually anyway.
Affairs cause tremendous pain to all involved and are rarely worth it unless you know you want out of your marriage and that was the reason you had an affair.
Don’t long for something that is hurting you and would hurt others too. Most things are never always what we crack them up to be, our heads and hearts can do a stellar job of convincing us otherwise.
Start planning for yourself, make plans for you and your husband or just you, do an honest inventory of what you want for your future, where you are now and what makes you happy/ sad, and use the list to plan how to achieve the things you want for yourself. Don’t plan just for weekends, use this point in your life to plan a new future for you. There’s fun and risk and excitement in that, too. No guy is worth you wasting another second of your precious life stuck in “if only”.