Anyone else trying not not to contact a guy part 2??

[YouAreAllMySymmetry]

Hey loves @namechangeforthis5 @Frith2013 and whoever else I can think of.

How we all doing?

I'm having a weird night; I've been drinking and guess what skill it reminded me I've developed: crying out of one eye. It means that people generally don't notice, in the car, or lying on the couch or in bed.

That's sad, isn't it.

@LifeAtForty sorry for the ouch! Years ago I had to come to that conclusion myself and finally accept that if he wanted what I wanted, I wouldn’t be waiting around for his crumbs like I was. It’s very painful but actually liberating, the up side is that you end up free of it all and wonder wtf you were thinking once the obsession fades. The rest of the stuff is the lies we tell ourselves to give ourselves permission to hold on and not change. “ He’s scared/ busy/ waiting for me to make a move/ afraid to commit/ loves me really but we just can’t be together…” etc. We all know the truth but it hurts and means we’ve got to let go and move on. It does get easier, just keep going. X

Well I've had a big cry and deleted his number. I can't help but feel he must really dislike me to treat me the way he has and that hurts. Not ready to block, but the number is gone so that saves me any more loss of dignity!

I hope everyone else is doing better than me today and thanks for all the words of support xx

@LifeAtForty He doesn't dislike you. Just loves himself too much to care about another person feeling crap. Do you want to be with someone who feels that way about you? - absolutely not. In a way it should reinforce that he is a bell end like mine. Well done for deleting. I haven't deleted but I will.

@Bestnottoworry @LifeAtForty well done for staying strong 💪🏻 I didn’t realise how much the dopamine and adrenaline were keeping me going/distracted from my shitty divorce and now it’s gone it’s feeling majorly shit!
keep telling yourself how amazing you are and that in a week/month/year everything will be different xx

I totally agree with that @Jaz1987. I think it was the excitement and distraction from my also shitty divorce that I enjoyed most. The dopamine hits were a great distraction outside of my daily grind as a lone parent and the endless dragged out divorce. It's so hard when you've been through a marriage breakdown to believe you will ever have that again and this first attempt into a relationship ending so badly has really knocked me. It's that crappy feeling of failure again and that no one wants me. But you're right - in a month, a year, a lot can happen and we WILL be feeling better whether we find someone else or are single!

And yes @Bestnottoworry - he is a total bellend!

Drove past mine this morning, for the first time.

Felt nothing.

The twice I've driven past my proper ex, it's given me a mini heart attack and made me cry.

Hi @YouAreAllMySymmetry i hope you’re ok. Well I think you’re great and if I knew you out of this I’m sure I’d want to be your friend. I can empathise though.

Hey @namechangeforthis5

I'm actually sort of ok this week. Something shifted and I think the connection has died. There's a thing coming up in a few weeks - like a reunion - and I could ask if he's going or even invite him - but I just think, what's the point.

As I'm sitting here typing this listening to music, his band literally just came on, spooky 🤣

@YouAreAllMySymmetry don’t be hard on yourself. He was no good for you and didn’t make you happy, and the friend you “drove away” maybe was someone who was there for the good times but too selfish to support you in the bad times?
We all chase ‘happiness’ but do we ever stop to ask ourselves what it is? What does that word mean to you? Social media, adverts….all desperate to show you that you are not enough. Not enough if you don’t have the kind of family/ house/ holidays/ clothes that those ‘happy’ people posting on Facebook all have. Except that’s not their real life, it’s what they want you to think their real life is like. Adverts constantly telling you that your car isn’t good enough, your house isn’t good enough, even your bloody face isn’t good enough! Women in their twenties advertising anti-wrinkle cream, all airbrushed and filtered until they hardly resemble what they actually look like.
Happiness has to come from within ourselves. We’re the only ones responsible for making ourselves happy. Not our partners or our friends or anybody else, just us. Make yourself the priority now. Join some new local groups in your spare time, volunteer or learn a new skill. Focus on making yourself happy and others will feel happy when they are around you too. Make a list. What makes you feel happy? What do you enjoy doing? Use this time to work on you, this guy was filling a void on your life and if you can fill it yourself, find out what the void is, the rest will fall into place.
The normal state for a human being to be in is ‘mild alert’. Not happiness, it’s a transient thing. People think they ‘ought’ to be happy all the time and feel bad if they’re not. It’s bullshit.
Aim for contentment and loving what you have and loving your own talents. When we are satisfied with and grateful for what we have, the peace of contentment brings a happiness all of its own. Find yours. Your turn now, you’ve had enough of the crap he meted out. You’re worth more. X

Thanks @Thewookiemustgo you know what, I'm not hard on myself at all. Maybe I should be, but I'm not!

I fully understand what led to all of this, and I've got a lot of compassion for the version of me who was that lost.

Funnily enough I've spent the last year building up me and my interests and making career moves, and every bit of it has been to either shake him off or keep him interested in equal measure; can't quite work it out but the point is. For months NOTHING WORKED.

No matter what I did I couldn't lose him. I could wear clothes he'd never see, have friends he'll never hear about, go to places we'd never been and still - he was lodged in there every minute of every day.

I can't understand what chemical thing took me over; it doesn't matter. What matters is what's left. Still working on that, and I'm doing ok.

On the friendship front no, I won't blame my friend for backing away from me. I drove her (and me) insane and there's only so much you can expect from one person who isn't getting paid an hourly rate to listen to you!

But here's the bigger problem really. I have really changed, and it's pretty clear my husband doesn't like me any more.

We just don't really fit any more. We're different now. And the things he likes are not the things I like.

So what do we do about that, do we think?

That's the muuuuuch bigger problem really.

Feeling a bit sorry for myself today. My guy is married. I know him through work - although we only see each other every six week or so, I can't avoid him.

It is one of those situations where there was just instant chemistry, attraction and connection on both sides. Neither of us would ever take it anywhere and no lines have been crossed, and I intend to keep it that way. I am often tempted to engineer contact with him, but that would break the rules I have set for myself. It's just rubbish - why can't I meet someone single with whom I have that connection?

@summerbreeze10 the connection you had was just two people finding each other attractive. It happens throughout life, whether you are single or attached. It will happen again and again into your future, you might even be married yourself. He’s married. Time to walk away.
In any other circumstances you might have dated and started a relationship, but the circumstances are that he is married and he chose not to do this and so did you.
I’m presuming you only saw him
for a few hours, weeks apart, work situation. You both fancied each other and it was more exciting than usual just because it is forbidden. In your head you found the frisson such a hit that you’ve woven a narrative about it and romanticised it and enjoyed replaying the connection in your head over and over to recreate the dopamine hit you enjoyed at the time. Nothing wrong with that at all.
The reality is that you fancied a guy, enjoyed the high from it, but from what you say, have only ever been with him for a few hours at work weeks apart. Whilst you replay this in your head and decide there’s no other high like it, no other guy stands a chance with you.
He’s not actually anything particularly special, you hit it off and had a connection, but his clear unavailability plus a lack of time to find out what he’s really like has idealised him and filled your head with longing and “What if…?” scenarios and “If only…”s. All perfectly delicious to dream about and re-live and it’s safe in your head, a little fantasy never hurts anybody, but it has to stay right there and you need to move on.
Affairs always feel way more exciting than a normal relationship because of this kind of scenario. The over the top high is usually fake. The excitement of the forbidden ramps up the feelings. Nobody is as attractive as somebody we fancy but shouldn’t have. Nothing is as exciting as breaking the rules and affairs are secret “Oh, if only we could…” relationships, with time and circumstance restrictions which enable them to go on far longer than if the relationship was in the open on the real world. Movies and tv series romanticise infidelity and make it something it really, really isn’t.
An affair relationship, or even just a fantasy scenario in our head, stays in a falsely extended ‘honeymoon’ period that normal relationships have at the beginning.
Remove that element, and the affair partners can’t keep up the ‘best self’ projection and with time in the real world, go from being the Great and Mighty Oz to the little man behind the curtain.
Disappointment all round that Romeo has turned into Rob from accounts (who he always actually was) and Juliet is actually just Julie from HR. There’s nothing wrong with Rob or Julie, but now they know everything about each other. Rob winces slightly as he watches Julie plucking her eyebrows and leaving the bits in the sink, and Julie hates the way Rob gets out of bed scratching his balls every morning….she signed up for Richard Gere who obviously never scratched his balls in his life. Not. It disappoints because this is real everyday stuff. Affairs aren’t. They don’t compare, they’re not the same , they exists in a fantasy bubble and not reality. Eyebrow plucking and ball scratching are the reality. This is what they always did and always will do, before their ideal, dressed up, always fun and happy selves showed up for a secret tryst. Because they’re human.
This is why affairs rarely (yes, I know some do) work out or last long when the affair couple get together. They have idealised each other, been in the ‘honeymoon’ period and longed for each other for so long that nobody could ever live up to that and reality is a far harsher mirror.
Your fantasy is just that, it’s your best you and his best him flirting naughtily in your head and possibly (gasp. Swoon) falling in love because you just couldn’t help it….. blah blah. Feels great, it’s a romantic scene. That’s why Mills and Boon sold so much stuff, why rom coms etc do so well, we get to fantasise.
Enjoy your fantasy and it’s great that you have rules and boundaries. Stick rigidly to them. We can’t control how we feel about people but we absolutely can control what we do about it. It’s not up to women to police men, but once you cross a line with a married man you are part of it all and willing to be complicit in the betrayal of his wife. Infidelity is a ruthless, devastating wrecking ball, there is a huge price to pay for everyone in and around it.
Unless you’ve been through it I can guarantee that you have no idea how hideous and in some cases literally life destroying it is.
Your boundaries will save you and others a world of pain and the thrill is never, ever worth the cost.
There are other men out there, but that’s who they all are: men. Not Romeo, not gods, not the Brad Pitt romantic lead in the movie of our lives.
Over the years (I’m older than you lovely lot) I’ve given a few men those roles in my life, and guess what? They all disappointed me. Why? Because they were guys. Guys I had fun with, had a connection with and I fancied. But they were never the huge deal I decided they were at the time, they were human like me. It wasn’t until I realised we’re all flawed humans with terrific bits thrown in, that I was ready to have a proper adult relationship with any man. Didn’t stop the fantasies, they were fun, but they stayed in my head.
Whilst we show glimpses of our god/ goddess selves at the beginning of something, later on we’re going to show our human side and that’s when you find out how strong your connection really is and what commitment and living in the real world together is really like.
I‘m sorry it hurts to long for an unavailable man, I’ve done it too. But those boundaries not only protect others, (imagine being in his wife’s shoes, the reality could be that there’s a woman your husband works with thinking about engineering time with him to start an affair. Horrific!) they protect you, too.
The very first second a married man chats you up is when you should run a mile, he’s just shown you right there that he’s a liar. He’ll lie to you too.
Keep going, he’s a bloke, not Thor, he’s somebody else’s, not yours. Imagine him sleeping with her every night whilst he tells you they live like brother and sister (rarely true) and the hours of pain desperately trying to believe that would give you. Don’t let that be you.
Vent here, but stay strong and keep this in your head, I guarantee you that you won’t regret that.

@summerbreeze10 Wookie is very wise. She is absolutely right and always explains it in such a good way. I had this and the first few weeks were exciting and he paid me lots of attention. We still worked together then. Then I said something he didn’t like and he stopped talking to me. I was ok that time. Then he started texting me out the blue. Reeled back in. This continues for four years. The mask starts to slip. He’s likely lying to me too. We never met and thank god. My DH is a million times more the man of my dreams but this stupid crap seemed exciting. It wasn’t it was just a distraction and if I’d have gone through it to the end the fall out would have been horrendous. Luckily I had a sixth sense and actually I didn’t want to hurt anyone or be complicit in his betrayal of his wife who I didn’t know but seemed like a smart and decent woman.

Thank you @Thewookiemustgo and@namechangeforthis5 for your thoughtful posts. I agree entierly and am confident I won't violate the boundaries I have set for myself in relation to this man.

I suppose there is just a bit of sadness in the feeling I have "missed the boat". I am 41, and the reality is that the pool of single men for me to pick from is narrow. The pool of men who are not only single, but with whom I can form a connection is even smaller. So whenever I meet a man with whom there is an easy, simple, natural mutual attraction I grieve the circumstance, rather than the person. I am not sure if that makes sense!

I do understand and it sounds rubbish but honestly go down this route and you’ll end up feeling much worse

@summerbreeze10It makes perfect sense. I can see and understand how you feel, and it must be much harder to find single men than it was when you were twenty, but the one thing I’m certain of is that compromising integrity and standards never makes anybody feel better in the long run.
No man is better than any man. Dropping your standards to date a man lying to his wife means he will lie to you, too.
Married men usually still love the woman they married, they loved this woman enough to marry her, never underestimate that love and that bond, whatever state a married man says it’s in. Most go straight back to it once the shit hits the fan. They usually never wanted to leave in the first place, but lacked the courage and emotional skills to deal with their problems.
The OW is not in their home, they never have any real idea of what is going on and the husband can and will claim anything to appease and flatter them. Unless you meet a man literally in the middle of his divorce, he still hasn’t made that choice.
You’ll be somebody’s ego boost, somebody’s weak moment that they later bitterly regret, somebody’s midlife crisis or the fantasy (but easily disposable) half of a double life. When it hits the fan it’s usually the OW’s half which goes to the wall.
My husband’s OW was a mid to late thirties woman who was in an unsatisfactory relationship when she met him which was allegedly ending and her partner moving out. Her partner actually moved out five months after my husband met her. It wasn’t ending at all, my husband thinks he had no idea until he was booted out, she’d hung onto him for five more months until she’d ‘made sure of’ my husband before she jumped ship. My husband was a 30 year married, mid fifties, well off father of two teenagers at the time. Every mid thirties woman’s dream? Apart from the cash, probably not. I think because of her age and knowing she didn’t want children with the partner she had, she thought he was that last ship leaving the harbour she didn’t want to miss.
Don’t ever compromise yourself in an affair, whatever they tell you is going on at home.
I can almost guarantee you’ll end up wasting possibly months or even years of your life, suddenly left ghosted and alone, knowing that you were made a fool of and worse still, you will have the knowledge that you were selfish and uncaring enough to be a willing accomplice in helping a man devastate his wife and family. You’ll be a lot worse off than you were before.
Take your eyes off the horizon, looking for that ship means you’re missing what’s going on right now and what you can do now to enrich your life. Concentrate on becoming the best version of yourself for your own sake, you’ll never, ever regret that.

Been backtracking slightly today but I know it’s par for the course. Feel ill which isn’t helping but been thinking more about an old friend. My oldest bestest friend who I no longer speak to and thought I’d come to terms with it

What happened @namechangeforthis5 and is it fixable if you want to?

Hope you’re ok @namechangeforthis5 . Healing from this stuff isn’t linear, when you feel down/ ill it’s hard not to wander back towards the ‘easy’ option and reach for what used to pick you up and give you a boost when you felt down. Long term though? It didn’t make you any happier or feel good about yourself. Take a moment to remind yourself of all your good qualities and feel proud of them, and remember to share your many good qualities with those who deserve them. Giving in to a temporary high will leave you feeling worse about yourself in the long run. You’ve worked hard, you feel unwell, you don’t deserve to feel worse about yourself. Stay strong, sit it out and you’ll feel proud of yourself later instead of frustrated with yourself. Pause, breathe and take one step at a time. I hope you feel better soon. Things always seem rubbish when you’re ill. X

Well done. I think thats what got me the most too. Last time I saw him it was a scene nothing short of a proposal scene! I didn't reach out afterwards which I usually would have done, I know he expected me to. No contact for two months, I suspect he deleted my number or blocked me a month ago. It really hurts as I really thought he was a friend at least and to go without saying goodbye.

AND NOW - he back in the place I live, in my god friends house doing work. Confirms the connection is over.

I am trying not to dwell on what he thinks of me rather what I think of him.

Problem is I really miss him, even thought he completely discarded me after he kissed me and shouldn't have. I expect he thought I'd chase him but he's too shady.

Stupidly still heartbroken and have to drive past all week now.

And same for me too. He was a total distraction from separation. I now really appreciate why people say stay away from relationships for a few years.

Can totally vouch for that! I never ever in a million years would have thought I'd go down this road and find myself her.

I really am starting to be of the mind that it is really all about making yourself happy. Marriage is seen as s shared life, but really we have to see it as our lives first and foremost and then marriage.

I have always been at odds with this and romance. How can you be romantic with someone who you are so disconnected with and have your own life and perhaps everyone is just faking it or really lucked out.

Marriage, loss of connection and out of love and our struggles, with all this recent crap with OM has made me so cynical and I am struggling to see any future. Like @LifeAtForty has said.

Anyone have any tips on shifting your mindset?

I had no idea I had subconciously invested in this guy in terms of my belief in the future. Its quite sad really that things were that bad that he underneath it all symbolised some sort of hope in general and now that he is gone, I feel such a void and loss of hope. It feels like its almost codependent, which I would have been the complete opposite of before I married.