Anyone else trying not to contact a guy 3

[SunsetSkylane]

Anyone still want to chat?

@pubertyalloveragain I think you posted last on thread 2, how you doing?

@namechangeforthis5 @Frith2013 @Thewookiemustgo another thread if you want it, or maybe you're all magically cured - or maybe Wookie is sick of our shit 😂😂

@SunsetSkylane I’m so sorry you’ve been struggling
@imanidiotsandwich what did you put?
regarding obsessiveness I tend to get like this about a lot of stuff. Someone at work has been horrible to me and I am obsessing a bit over that so I think it’s one thing I’ll fixate on

Basically just a hey how are you.

But I initiated contact when I was trying not too

Well done for staying strong. It does sound like progress. I left a slightly tearful sounding voicemail earlier, so cross with myself but also just want to keep calling until he picks up. I don’t know how he can just ignore me. He’d have to have done something truly awful for me to do this to him.

Interesting re link to hormones

@imanidiotsandwich we've all done it. When I did it just showed me I didn’t really want to talk to him I was just being stupid but all you can do is keep moving forward

Feel like I need to join in. Started an affair with my manager 18 months ago, he married me in LTR. After a month of it starting (no sex by this point but physical) I split from my partner, things hadn't been right for a while and it was the catalyst for me to end things.

Affair carried on with me just being OW I suppose, obviously turned sexual but there hasn't been a lot, we mainly just like to hang out and chat, go for coffees, meet up doing a mutual hobby.

Over a year ago he said he'd told is wife he wanted out, moved into the spare room and started looking into the financials. And since it seems to be just excuse after excuse of why it's not happened yet. His mum was ill, a mate of his was ill, a relative of hers was ill....

A couple of months back his mum sadly passed away, and his freind passed a short time after. He was devastated of course and I just wanted to be there for him but he pulled back from me so much I hardly saw him (I moved job location so don't see him at work)

It was killing me so I told him I couldn't do it any more, it's so horrible and I feel so guilty stepping away from him while he's having such a shit time but it kills me I can't be there for him properly. I've told him to finally sort things out one way or another, but christ I miss him 😔

Not calling you an idiot btw

That sounds hard on you both @Likeoohlaalaala but the delays in taking active steps to leave would make me wary. So hard when someone has been part of your life for such a time.

@SunsetSkylane
I was just reading your comment about how your bloke is quite like your husband & it got me thinking I do look quite similar to OM wife he on the other hand is totally not my type I really don't do men with beards but he has one 🤦‍♀️
Also as you said your feelings are so intense & that's exactly me, I think about him all day every day & I hate how much space he takes up in my head I even dreamt last night he told me he slept with someone else & even though it was only a dream I woke up totally devastated & I know that feeling will stay with me all day now.
I so want to message him to make sure he's OK, it was only a few weeks ago he saw me upset & wanted to cuddle me & only last weekend we'd been messaging just chatting about normal stuff & out of the blue he said he'd been looking at pictures of me but then he totally ignored me in the week when I saw him & he's ignored my last message. It really doesn't help that I over analyse everything & will just keep going over & over every conversion/ message exchange. Will just have to stay strong & not message & see what he's like when I next see him but good God I so want to see his name pop up on my phone.

There a chasm of difference between wanting something to be true, wanting something to be what we want it to be and turn out the way we want it to turn out, and the truth about the situation.
The obsessing is chasing the way it made you feel, you can’t think of anything else to replace that feeling so you chase it.
The going over conversations/ messages/ memories serves that purpose, but also it can be a forensic search for something, some kind of empirical evidence, no matter how small to ‘prove’ to you that he wasn’t lying, he did care, the chance of happiness together really did exist, it wasn’t a fantasy or an illusion, I was/ am important to him.
I wouldn’t say these things if anyone here was saying how happy all this made them, and granted, I have the luxury of being in the outside looking in. However, it’s patently obvious, reading all that is said here, that it makes you unhappy.
The words you use to describe the feelings around this throughout the posts are:
being driven crazy
sad
lonely
unhappy
feel stupid
feel like an idiot
cried
sobbing
killing me
cross with myself
why
why
why

The list goes on.
There are so many questions asked too, mainly hypothetical. The questions do have answers, the answers lie in the truth about these men and the truth about the situations everyone is in.
Above, Vanishedinexplicably (not singling this out, it’s a typical example of many similar posts by others too) wrote, “I left a slightly tearful sounding voicemail earlier, so cross with myself but also just want to keep calling until he picks up. I don’t know how he can just ignore me. He’d have to have done something truly awful for me to do this to him.”
The answer is right here, glaring at us. But we don’t want to think that they don’t care about us as much as we care about them. Because it hurts. ‘How can he just ignore me?’ Probably because he wasn’t a ‘real’ relationship, he was having an affair, saying what he knew you wanted to hear. For some reason (you’ll never know the actual truth) he’s distancing himself and ending it, you are more invested than he obviously was, you thought it had a future but he always thought it was an affair. The rhetorical questions have painful answers that it hurts intensely to face.
And I’m sad reading all the hurt here.
Many of you have scrutinised the wife and seen similarities, compared yourselves to her and are trying to get inside his head to see what that might mean. It’s a pointless exercise. If you are similar, does that mean you’re his ‘type’ so maybe there’s hope? If you are very different, does that mean he’s bored with her and wants a change so maybe there’s hope? It’s pointless.
What you are actually comparing is a wife to a mistress. Two different roles. The answers to why her and not me aren’t found in comparisons, the answer is simply that you are you and she is who she is. The simple answer isn’t that you or she are better or worse than anyone else. It’s just that you are not her.
My husband’s AP had twenty years, no children or ties, foreign cachet and great beauty over me. On paper aesthetically speaking it was a thirties mysterious single, foreign gym bunny over a mid fifties British familiar wife and mother. No contest. She couldn’t work out why Wookie and not her. I killed myself comparing and feeling like unloveable shit. I could never look like her or be twenty years younger, ever. I did the pick me dance for months after it was over! My husband cried and said “I don’t want you to be different, I just want Wookie. I just want Wookie how she was and always is. I just want Wookie.” It made no sense, why have an affair then? Why did you want her if you always wanted me exactly the way I was and am? Why wasn’t I enough then but I am all you want now? Then I researched and read about what affairs are really about, what purpose they serve, and it was obvious I was asking myself the wrong questions. It was never about her or me. It was all about him.
Her biggest problem was very simple, all her ‘advantages’ would never matter. Comparing didn’t matter. Her biggest problem was that she just wasn’t me.
The wife is his wife for a reason.
Married men can’t have both forever, a few do, but usually not fully in secret. They know that, so at some point there will be a choice. The mistress knows that at some point there will have to be a choice.
His mounting guilt might force the choice, or the wife’s discovery of the affair, of the mistress forcing an ultimatum. But the choice hovers over the whole thing like a dark cloud on the horizon. It’s going to rain at some point. Everyone knows this but shoves their head in a bucket of sand and hopes that if they stick it out, he will really mean it and you’ll be together. Even if it ends, if you hang on and hope and long for him, he will miss you and you’ll be together. Affairs can be on/ off things but usually the net result is permanently off.
Unless the man genuinely wants out and is having an exit affair (vast minority) they will always choose their wife if she allows them to. Affair partners are mostly temporary arrangements with the clock always ticking. When they are truly over they are over. The man doesn’t like to look at what a shit he was to his wife and family so he eventually nukes the affair and to him, it’s the painful past. That’s why they can just ghost you. That’s why they can just switch it off. Because to them, it’s done and you’re in the past, like any other ended relationship.
You can stay in the past and want the present to be like the past was, long for it and hope that by some miracle it will return, or you can accept the truth, pick yourself up off the floor and look ahead.
There are no more possibilities popping out of the past. The future, however, is filled with possibilities. These men have decided and made a choice. Their future does not include you, if indeed it ever did.
Now you have to do the same. Looking back and analysing and comparing and asking why why why keeps you trapped in the past, doing this will change nothing for you until you accept it is over.
I’m not shaming or judging, nor do I think this is easy, but the truth is that this works like an addiction and won’t change until you decide and are determined to put a stop to it, like alcohol or drugs or food. You are always in control.
Why can’t I stop = I have not chosen to stop yet.
Claim your futures, claim your happiness, the past is gone.

Thanks, I know I need to stay away and let him either work things out with his wife or make the break, but just feels so odd not messaging him

If he made the break what’s to stop him cheating on you.
At least my ‘om’ was honest with me. Brutally so tbh saying you are no where on my priority list and we are using each other

@Thewookiemustgo your posts are so insightful and beautifully written.

I’m older now and married a long time, but I wish I had had someone like you when I was in my 20s to put relationships/dating into perspective. I would often have a man finish with me and then come crawling back (often with the motive of getting laid, I now realise looking back- I didn’t give in!) and it messed with my head a lot back then. So many of my friends had the same experience.

😂😂@TheMagicDeckchair I wish I had me now in my late teens / early twenties too. 😂😂 My speciality was having gymnast level abilities to vault over the faults of anyone I fancied and be deaf dumb and blind to every warning and red flag. I paid the price more than once, couldn’t spot a frog from a prince even if I was in a pond, because I refused to see the truth and stuck a crown on every frog I had a crush on or dated.

Knowing my tendencies I was strict with myself over reconciling with my husband and set boundaries which are still red lines. It would kill me to enforce them but better than a slow death by compromising myself. He’s been given a chance to put his words into actions and he’s doing that. Like I always say, actions really do speak louder than words.

I guess this was for me, and you're right of course, but whats to stop anyone cheating on anyone?

I believe him when he says he's never done this before, he's not a flirt/player type of character I've encountered before, and the basis of our contact is not sex (literally a few times in 18 months)

What I don't believe is that he will actually leave though, he'll likely just take the easy route and stay put

Because he’s got form with you. I hope I’m wrong.

I doubt anyone trying to impress anyone would say they had cheated before if they had. Most cheats prefer a sob story that portrays them as the unhappy victim just desperate to find someone to make them happy, who has never done anything like this before in their lives. Being as you already know they are liars and willing to keep secrets from their spouse, I’d treat it with a healthy dose of scepticism.

The ‘other guy’ in my situation used to say all sorts of crap then say he was joking. He said he’d done it before and then he hadn’t and I’d got it wrong. He said he went for a massage with a happy ending then he was joking.

@Thewookiemustgo thanks for your thoughtful post on the questioning/why. Funnily enough before I read it I decided on one last attempt at contact then will leave it. You are right I do want things to be the way they were and the hope of what might be. I do think he genuinely cared, but has chosen to hurt me in prioritising himself or his wife. He must know that and I shouldn’t lose sight of it. He told me he lacked courage, I should have believed him. But it has been an immense shock. After being so let down by my husband, I really thought things could be different with him.

@Vanishedinexplicably I wouldn’t contact him at all, it’s very likely he won’t reply, it’s very likely he’s prioritising his wife, it’s absolutely 100% likely that he’s prioritising himself.
By staying with his wife it shows that that is what he actually wants to do, therefore also, what he wants is his first priority. Even if he genuinely cared, and to an extent he probably did, he didn’t care enough to prioritise you or want you front and centre in his life, or he would have done so.
Men who have affairs are being selfish, if they end it with you and say that they love you but….
then insert excuses like : can’t leave because they are nobly “ only staying for the kids” then why risk their kids’ happiness and stability by having an affair in the first place? Most “reasons” for not leaving the marriage and ending the affair are gentle let downs through guilt or terror that the affair partner will get angry.
The reason they go back to their marriage is “Because I want to” which shows exactly what they’ve done and how they’ve just used everybody involved, which is why none of them ever say it. Any reason he gave you for ending it whilst saying he loves you, is just dressing up “Because this is what I want.” Men don’t give up what they want. White knights making noble sacrifices are only in fairytales.
You’ll either get hurt by his lack of response again, or get a guilty reply then ghosted again, or it will indeed start up again and when he’s forced to make a choice again, I’m absolutely certain he’ll choose his wife and you’ll be back where you are now, except more hurt and confused.
If you don’t want to find men who are capable of letting you down, I’d avoid married men completely. By having an affair with you they are letting their wives down miserably. There’s no bigger proof of being capable of letting somebody down than that.
I’m only saying this because sadly I have an inside track on what happens when the husband gets to stay with his wife.
I insisted on the whole horrible truth and my husband had no reason to lie, we both knew it was a horrendous shitshow.
He had told his AP he loved her, never said explicitly he was leaving me but let her think that and never corrected her when she talked about their future. She started pressuring him and asking why he hadn’t left if they loved each other it didn’t make sense blah blah. It terrified him, being forced to look at the choice he knew he didn’t want to leave me but was worried after all the stupid shit he’d said in the moment, that she’d quite justifiably go apeshit and contact me.
In the midst of this I found out anyway so he was relieved but daren’t just end it, as he’d been an even bigger twat and lied to me about parts of it to minimise it. I got the full truth later.
He did the gradual cool-off so that she’d get fed up with him and end it herself, she cottoned on quickly though and confronted him with the “You’re never leaving your wife, are you?” speech and he just said “No, I’m not”.
She did go apeshit but thankfully after one more attempt at contact she buggered off and left us alone. She waited a couple of weeks then (clearly in your position) sent , “So, nothing from you then?” and he finally found his balls and replied, “No, you know how it is, it’s over and I’m with my wife.” After a lengthy “fuck you” message to him, she vanished too.
He had wanted out anyway, so although he felt guilty because he thought at the time he’d said that stuff to her that he really felt that way, having to make a choice popped the affair bubble and killed the romance and feelings stone dead. He didn’t love her and felt foolish and like a shit for saying it. The more she’d said it towards the end, the worse it felt now, because he knew he’d made a total mess for everyone. He was in it up to his armpits and had nobody else to blame.
She was no doubt left dumbfounded after all he’d said. Add to that, she got ghosted and he “vanished inexplicably “ from her viewpoint. No wonder she was confused and pissed off.
He said “I realised I was actually in love with how the situation made me feel, the flattery and attention and adoration, she could actually have been anybody I found attractive. In the moment it made sense but back in reality it was a fantasy really. Her hanging on my every word and telling me how great I was made me believe I was a Superman version of me that I’d never have been able to live up to. Neither of us would have been able to keep up the façade of the version of ourselves we projected in the affair. I don’t think either of us were the person we thought we were. The truth was that I was so far from the best version of myself, lying to everybody and being too much of a coward to get myself out of it, but she was blind to it.” Obviously not verbatim but that was the gyst of what he told me.
If your affair partner really has vanished inexplicably, his wife probably found out or reality hit in some way and he couldn’t stand the guilt.
If he replies, whatever he says will be dressed up to either a) not hurt your feelings, or b) maintain his image as the poor, noble trapped victim, to keep you hanging on in case his wife dumps him.
Men who want out get out. Don’t put yourself through this again, there’s no closure in it, no explanation will satisfy you because you’ll keep thinking ‘but why, if he cares about me?’ until the day you stop pursuing this unavailable man.
I’m so sorry, but the bald truth is that he’s married, he’s made no effort not to be married and unless he wants to not be married, that’s how he’ll stay. Believe me, I know.
Save yourself Vanished, you don’t deserve any more hurt.

Perfect words Wookie, that all of us here hanging out for unavailable men need to heed

Thank you, it really is what I need to be told

As the old line goes.... if he wanted to, he would

You’re welcome @Likeoohlaalaala.
It’s the horrible truth that more likely than not in affairs, women are more emotionally invested, they love to be loved, and men love the ego boost, they love to be adored and worshipped, their ego likes the version of themselves that is reflected back from
the affair partner. It’s easier for the men to walk away than the woman.
I read it described as the affair partner being like a vanity mirror, where you see your best self reflected back because they don’t really know you and you can hide your faults, while the wife is like a magnifying mirror where who you really are is reflected back in detail because she knows you warts and all.
You don’t have to face your issues with the affair partner so they are an escape from your daily life. When your affair partner becomes your life partner, if you haven’t dealt with your issues she’ll reflect them back at you soon enough and disillusionment sets in because she doesn’t make you feel like she did in the affair any more. Daily life can’t compete with affair excitement and affair excitement can’t live in the day to day real world. It becomes daily life.
I also read somewhere that ‘women use sex to get love and men use love to get sex’ which is really cynical but I suspect there’s a lot of truth in that. I don’t think all cheating men are totally cynical though and I think some of them care about their affair partners, but I’m not sure that many actually love them in the way their female affair partner understands it to mean or think it means when they say it.
To me being ‘in love’ with somebody and ‘loving’ somebody are two stages of a relationship. ‘In love’ is the early honeymoon part and if you’re lucky, with time it deepens to real love later on.
Affairs never get out of the honeymoon period because it’s all dress up, show up, lap it up, if he keeps you dangling, suck it up and whenever necessary, if you need to lie, make it up.
It makes affair partners think that this is the love to end all loves, they’ve met their soulmate because these feelings are intense and never lasted as long in a relationship before. Its one long first date. Hence the shelf life once it’s in the real world and it’s not secrets and snatched moments and longing and there are no obstacles to it any more.
A few obviously do last for decades (usually exit affairs which don’t last long as an affair because everybody wanted out beforehand whether or not) but the vast majority don’t survive real life’s harsher lens.
The media and novels etc tell us and show us that ‘love conquers all’ and ‘love is all you need’ and that saying ‘I love you’ means that you are committed to doing everything understood by that statement and that saying it means you are their ‘chosen’ one.
It ought to mean that, but words are cheap and someone actually openly committing to you exclusively and choosing you and only you, is the only thing that might show you that.

I appreciate the reality check @Thewookiemustgo and I am sorry you’ve been the wife in this circumstance. But I have too, not quite a full blown affair and too identifying to explain detail here, and he is also a cheated on spouse. Our spouses broke their vows first, neither of us would have even contemplated being this close to someone else prior to that. So we didn’t develop feelings recklessly or callously. I don’t need telling to stay away from married men. I think it’s pushing it to even call it an affair, or him an affair partner. I once grumbled at him that we had had all the disadvantages of an affair and none of the benefits. He had just recently confessed to feelings for me but also had been very honest that he still hoped he could sort things with his wife. Lots of complications about whether we could have made a relationship work. The shock for me is just that he didn’t have the courage to tell me that’s what he’s decided. I can see very clearly he has decided not to prioritise me, it hurts. I think that’s normal.

All the accusations directed at married men of the script etc could also be directed at me - the sob story, the living in a separate room, just staying for the children etc - but I know it is all true in my case so I think there will be men for whom it is also true. I think it was true for him.

I’m not intending to contact him again, but we had a close friendship and deep understanding of each other’s situation (and even of each other’s less attractive characteristics) so that’s is a loss regardless of any romantic feelings, as well as the loss of potential happiness as potential future partners.

@Vanishedinexplicably there’s absolutely no judgment, just my own personal story and experiences from stuff I now do with people from both sides of infidelity. I can’t say what as it’s too outing. I write about commonalities I’ve found that are more about the situation of being in an affair than judgments of the people involved. The nuances and personal stories vary greatly, but the framework and driving forces have many similarities.
There but for the grace of God go any of us and it is dangerous to believe that “I would never do anything like that” or “they would never do anything like that” about anybody in any situation, we won’t ever know until we get there ourselves and find out. Hence no judgment from me, I’m certainly no saint and was unfaithful before I met my husband in more than one relationship. I was young but it was no excuse, I chose to do it and knew what I was doing. I am ashamed of who I was back then and the nice people I hurt. It’s what made me choose loyalty when I got married, I didn’t like myself back then and was determined never to do it again.
Some people in affairs are of course telling the truth about their marital situation but they tend more to be the ones who do leave it because it really is that bad. In my experience talking candidly with both those who have been betrayed or had affairs, male and female, so far it appears to be more men than women who follow that pattern, but obviously there are women who do that too.
I don’t think anybody develops feelings recklessly or callously, recklessness and callousness usually don’t involve caring feelings at all and I apologise if I gave you the impression that I thought that.
I think what you had with him would be considered an emotional affair and the second he said he had feelings for you and discussed leaving his marriage without telling his wife, it most definitely became an emotional affair. Regardless of whatever it was, I was trying to say that until everybody sorts out their primary relationship it’s better to steer clear and go non-contact. It only perpetuates a potentially explosive and very painful cycle. Yes, he should have been truthful and told you his intentions after all he had confided and that he was not going to contact you, it was wrong and hurtful of him. You have every right to feel the way you do. Although it hurts I just feel you are better off out of it unless he leaves his wife. The upheaval and pain caused by the end of any relationship is compounded by infidelity of any kind, physical and/ or emotional and any relationship in crisis needs either partner developing feelings for somebody outside of it like a hole in the head.
Of course it’s a loss, and I’m sorry you got hurt and miss him and the relationship. That’s why the advice to stay away, you seemed to be considering contacting him and so I thought it would have been a big mistake and you don’t deserve any more hurt. He let his wife down and he let you down. You said your husband let you down and you were sad that he had also done this, hence my comment about married men who cheat (emotionally and/ or physically) being a bad bet in this respect.
I was only speaking from my perspective and experience in my own relationship and those of the many others over the last five years who contact me privately because they’ve read stuff I’ve written here and elsewhere where I have different usernames. Some of it may resonate with people, some does not line up with their experience which is expected and fine. One size never fits all.
It was just my story and the things I have found that seem to pan out in the same way from many other sources.
I genuinely apologise if it came across as accusations or generalisations levelled at anyone, it was not intended that way at all and I am sorry if it hurt you in any way.

It's all fairy tales, avoiding reality and responsibility.

They all end regardless of whether you stay, go, start again or forgive.

Just killing time, you will get over it.
That includes you Wookie, in the end we all end up on our own.

Try not to hurt too many people along the way.

Have a listen to 'Fairy Tales' the song by Anita Baker, she summed it up quite well.