This is long.
In short - I feel like a naive fool and also very angry and confused , hurt and sad. I think that writing all this down in full and reading any responses is going to help me process and move on.
So DP and I met 10 years ago . We got to know one another slowly as we were both hurt by previous marriages. We eventually developed a very passionate bond, neither of us having had great physical relationships previously . I felt I’d found my person , and he said the same . We had young children of similar ages who met a year after we got together and eventually became very close.
We never lived together, but after our children had met and become friends , he moved to the village where we lived and we then spent most weekends and holidays all together with our children as well as having a shared hobby we did together without them .
The children are now late teens/ at Uni/ grown up. We had begun to discuss moving in together, probably once my youngest was at uni .
Then, just over two years ago, my eldest adult dc became seriously unwell and was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia. There have been a lot of crises. Helping my dc and coping with this was - and is still- really challenging.
I was also diagnosed with PTSD ( DC crisis events and also childhood trauma ) and had intense therapy .
DP found all this difficult.Although he was supportive at first, I - understandably I think - could not simply put my feelings in a box whenever I was with him , or remain unmoved about or uninvolved in , my DC’s situation.
He said I was becoming “too emotional”, and that he couldn’t cope, and he started becoming distant and spending long periods “taking time out “ from being with me.
However we continued with our shared hobby and were loving and intimate when together, and I believed we were still in a loving and committed partnership and just having some tough times .
Then my youngest child, aged 14, was diagnosed with PTSD due to experiences resulting from eldest dc’s MH crises, and from being bullied at school about this . We had good support from services but the school didn’t handle things well.
So, last spring, I decided to move to a different area so that my youngest could attend a new school and live in a community where any further eldest dc mh crises would not happen immediately around us or involve anyone known to youngest dc.
Everyone -except DP- encouraged and supported this , including services supporting both DC’s and me, my friends and work colleagues .
So we moved here last summer holidays and are now 40 minutes away from previous area, and youngest is doing really well, taking GCSE’s and has lovely new friends . I am still able to support eldest dc whilst also maintaining boundaries for us all.
I now have a longer commute to my full time , professional job but have managed to get our new house sorted including new bathroom and kitchen , changed cars and organised the refurb and sale of a buy to let in order to fund everything .
As with everything ever , I’ve done it all without anyone to delegate anything to, although I have lovely and supportive friends both in new area and old, and fantastic colleagues at work. We had hot meals and baths and help during the refurb .
DP initially sulked and said I was being controlling by imposing distance on our relationship, and that he didn’t want to have to drive whenever he wanted to see me.
He wouldn’t help me with anything to do with selling and buying or moving and wouldn’t listen to me talk about it .
He then began to make excuses and wouldn’t meet up or visit during the summer as we settled in here, saying he needed space . I didn’t see or even hear from him for all of July and August . When he wouldn’t communicate at all about the August holiday we’d booked for us ,with all our children , that we’d arranged back in January, I started to face that he’d ghosted me .
I was really upset, but I put all my energy into settling us into the new house and area.
The new school term began and shortly afterwards, eldest DC very sadly was sectioned again.
DP soon began messaging asking if we were ok ,but wouldn’t reply to my questions about what had happened to our relationship, nor make plans to meet. This continued throughout autumn and winter .
I’m afraid the pattern then became me messaging and apologising for having moved, for having been too emotional and not prioritising our relationship.
He was sporadic in replying, saying I had hurt his feelings and he was afraid of further hurt . He kept describing me as “too emotional “ and saying I’d shut him out and driven him away , and that he needed space before seeing me but also said that he missed me and wanted us to meet “soon”.
I continued to apologise and plead with him to give us another chance.
He visited my eldest in hospital and communicated kindly with my other dc throughout this time .
At Christmas, he began asking to meet . He sent long apologies and sounded as though he’d really done some work on himself, describing his behaviour as avoidant and saying he no longer held me entirely responsible for our separation.
He said he loved and missed me and wanted to try again. We began to communicate about our shared hobby and to talk on the phone late at night , laughing and being loving again. It seemed we were rebuilding our connection .
He told me he’d “had a fling” during the summer which was why he’d stopped contact . He spoke about this as an experience that had happened in reaction to feeling abandoned by me and angry that I had not given him a choice in where I lived .
He said the experience had taught him what a good relationship we’d had and how he’d not worked as hard as he should have to support me and make it work .
Somehow, I became besotted with him in a way I had not felt before. I became almost obsessed with missing him and wanting us to be together . I kept this all inside , embarrassed to tell anyone .
In January this year, when youngest DC was away, and after talking to me on the phone all day ,he spontaneously and unexpectedly appeared at my door. There was a passionate “reunion” and we had a weekend together behaving like lovesick teenagers .
It was lovely and we agreed to take it slowly , and to gradually rebuild things .
He then messaged me morning and night with huge affection and it was like when we’d first got together .
He visited again a few weeks later and we had another “romantic and passionate “ time whilst my dc was away.
I then rang him the next evening and he cut me off , then sent a series of texts telling me not to ring him ,asking why I had and saying I must “stop behaving as if we are back together “ and then silence for several days .
He then sent a long email, telling me that he hadn’t been honest and that the fling had in fact been a relationship which he was still in the process of ending.
He went into long and uncomfortable details about how and why it was difficult due to her mental health and her children’s behaviour problems.
He told me that he’d joined a dating site when I’d said I was moving because he’d been angry and felt abandoned . He said he’d met someone immediately and had thrown himself into a relationship in order to get over me, and that she had seemed to be “calm and gentle “ and not “ overly emotional like me” .
He said this had changed quickly and that she was actually now even more over emotional than me and he had quickly regretted starting it but didn’t know how to end it .
She’d been in his car when I rang and saw my name flash up on his dashboard and he’d been in the process of ending things with her but because I’d rung, she now believed the ending was because of me.
He said I’d messed things up and he now couldn’t end it with her until time had passed because he didn’t want her to think he’d cheated on her or was leaving her because of me.
He said he would no longer meet with me because “it would be dishonourable to her “ but asked me to be patient while he ended things.
I was furious and told him I would never have engaged with him at all had I known he was with someone .
He sent endless , lengthy messages and voicemails begging me to hang on and saying how much he loved me and how bad he felt for messing his girlfriend and me around . He told me she was suicidal and that he felt trapped .
I didn’t engage .
Then one of my adult DC told me she had just been to a community event in my old neighbourhood and had chatted to a woman who’d recently moved to the area from 300 miles away to live with her partner whom she’d met online. They’d had a whirlwind romance last spring ,and he’d helped her to find a house to buy. This house is three doors down from the house I’d just moved out of.
Her partner came over and it was “DP”. He seemed embarrassed to see my DC and later made a point of speaking privately to her, saying he still loved me and wanted to be with me and was trying to end it with the woman .
He asked DC not to mention anything about me to her as she didn’t know there was any family of mine locally and he’d told her that we’d broken up in 2022 and had no contact since .
He said she had no idea that I’d lived so close to her new house or that my DC lived locally . He told her he’d not wanted to visit me, but that I’d constantly begged and put pressure on him to see my new house . He denied sleeping with me.
He actually went to my DC house on a pretext a few days later to repeat all this on the doorstep . DC is disgusted and she -and all my DC- no longer want anything to do with him.
So, this woman had actually been staying at weekends with him shortly after I’d begun plans to move, and had begun buying her house whilst I was still living three doors down , whilst I was still asking him why he was being distant and had no idea what was going on.
I know I should have cut all contact as soon as I heard this , but I’m afraid I sent an anguished email asking what the hell was going on.
He replied repeating his story that he loves me and that she is unwell and he’s supporting her until she gets back on her feet.
He said he feels responsible for her having made a life changing decision which has turned out to be a mistake and that although he doesn’t love her, he wants her to think well of him.
He said her family are furious with him and he doesn’t want to “look bad to everyone “ so is ending things gently and doesn’t want anyone to know about me. He still wants me to wait . Whatever that means .
So obviously I’ve now stopped communicating with him completely and realise that he is not someone to yearn for or miss.
But I’m really struggling because I am missing him and am trying to process how someone I loved and was so close with for so long can behave like this to me and to someone else too. I’m furious with myself for getting drawn into this and for sleeping with him whilst he was in a relationship. I’d never have engaged at all had I known.
I’ve known and loved this man for almost ten years . How did I get it so wrong ?
He’s obviously treated both me and this poor woman in an appalling way. Over many months . I really feel sorry for her . She has moved her family to a new area to be with someone she thinks is the love of her life , without knowing what he is up to behind her back or what his back story is .
But .He was my partner and our now almost adult children have grown up together.
I thought we’d get over this difficult time and settle down into retirement together .
I keep thinking he will contact me with some reasonable explanation and ask to meet up.
And I’m afraid that I might respond if he did . I haven’t spoken to anyone about this in real life as I am embarrassed at what has happened and how it has affected me. I feel like a fool .
We are all late 50’s and professionals, and yet this sounds like some bad teenage drama . I can’t get my head around how badly he has behaved or why I am still thinking about it all.
thank you if you’ve read all of this . It has helped to write it down , and posting it will help hold me accountable to myself if he does make contact again .