In too deep

[Outofmymind45]

I know I’m going to get some hate for this post but I really need some advice from anyone who’s been in the same/similar situation to me.

For the last 2 months I’ve been involved with a married man at work. Up until a few days ago it was all emotional , but then we kissed - we’ve not slept together. I’ve fallen hard for this man and he feels the same - we both agreed it’s not a fling and if things were different we’d be together. I never asked him to leave his family and I never would.
Ive opened up to him , trusted him and he was my safe space.

We constantly had conversations of it needing to end and stop talking to each-other etc but it never lasted long. Yesterday he said that even though letting me go is the hardest thing he’s ever done and he’s scared of losing me , he needs to choose his family. He said he loves her , still wants to be her husband but he also has fallen for me. We now have to act like strangers and it’s breaking me.

Ive walked away and said that unless I’m the one he wants for certain I can’t do this anymore. I’m absolutely heartbroken and so confused how he can say he wants me but he also wants to stay married to her. I’m so in love with him , I’m convinced he’s the one and now I have no idea where to start picking up the pieces and moving on.

i never set out on falling for this man and I can’t even pin point the moment it happened. I just need to know how I can get over this - we see eachother every day and it just breaks me every time I see him

Your post makes an astonishing read. Glad you and your DW worked it out but stark that you forgave her so easily and put her on a pedestal almost as a ‘victim’ but her affair partner 💯 to blame!? End of day he didn’t take any vows… don’t know the ins/outs just interesting the level of splitting (one all good, one all bad).

Agree with the posters above, find a new job.

Another here to say you need to find a new job or at least a situation at work where you’re further away from him.

Make plans to leave.

This.

This.
You don't know him. You only know the highlights- the version curated so that he gets the validation he's seeking from you.
You don't know if he's slobby at home, how he behaves in an argument, how he treats his friends or his family. You don't know if he's grumpy when he doesn't get his own way, if he's lazy when it comes to effort in a relationship, if he can be bothered to be romantic.
Likewise he doesn't know any of those things about you, because neither of you have nor can be in a situation to uncover those things whilst sneaking about.
It's all fantasy on both your parts.
Yet despite only seeing the best of each other he still maintains he is putting his wife first.
That's the woman he's seen the worst parts of and who knows the worst of him and yet they still love each other.
Aside from the fact you're complicit in something that would utterly devastate (and don't underestimate just how devastating betrayal is) his wife and his family, why would you want someone who lies to someone who trusts him, who would still choose someone above you even when they've only had the carefully managed best version of you?
Even if he did leave his wife eventually, you'd have to maintain this curated version of yourself going forward to even stand a chance just to make it seem worth it.
There's no win for you here

It’s time to grow up.

He’s a cheat and you won’t have been the only one. He wants the security of his marriage and something fun on the side.

I think he has to see it this way in order to cope, and reassure himself that he picked a good woman rather than a cheat.

Absolutely agree. I think the only way he can justify it to himself is making the OM Satan and his wife a victim

A tale as old as the stars. It probably even bored the dinosaurs.
You should have known better, OP. I am sorry you are in pain but sometimes it's better to let your mind override the impulses of your heart.

If you want to get over him you need to make practical steps to do so — move departments, change jobs, block his number. Without an active decision to remove yourself from the situation you are just paying lip service to moving on.

Moving on emotionally may be harder but it will be easier when you look at the situation logically. Your post reads like a love story between two people who desperately want to be together but can’t because — he is married and loves someone else. That is not a love story and the more you romanticise his cheating the harder it will be to see the truth. The chances of what you have being true love are so slim it’s not worth a percentage. After two months of knowing him in a work environment you do not know who he truly is. You are infatuated with a version of him he’s carefully curated.

What you know as fact is he has poor boundaries and despite being in a happy and loving marriage to someone else he has allowed both of you to get emotionally invested in each other. He has then crossed the boundary into outright cheating.

The reality is that he told himself that there was nothing wrong with your emotional connection because he was allowed friends and was not doing anything wrong. This lie he told himself came crashing down when you kissed and the mental dissonance has him pulling away and trying to now create boundaries.

His ongoing ‘love’ for you is of no substance. If his wife were to find out he would have no hesitation in never speaking to you again and would feel sick at the thought of what you could / did cost him. To him you are an escape from reality where he gets to feel the first flush of excitement that a new relationship brings. He gets to bathe in your adoration because he is your hero and ‘safe space’ whereas at home his wife probably moans he hasn’t helped with the housework or wants him to do DIY. But he is aware that his wife knows who he really is, flaws and all, which you are unlikely to have any knowledge of. Their relationship is based on a shared history with children and family. He knows that it doesn’t compare to what he has with you but he’s selfish and wants it both.

As for the hope that if he was single you would be together — unfortunately that is very unlikely too. If his wife leaves him over this it’s unlikely he would want to jump into another monogamous relationship when he couldn’t handle the one he had which had so much invested in it. More likely he would explore his new single freedom. Coupled with the fact that if his wife knew he was dating the person who ended their relationship co-parenting would be much harder and the kids would likely disapprove too.

I hope you can accept the reality of the situation and make steps to remove yourself. You also need to look into why you would allow yourself to be sucked into such a toxic situation with a man who thinks (and has told you) you are second best.

OP I have in the past thought I was in love with someone who didn't love me back - I look back and understand that unless love is genuinely free/mutual - it's not actually love. If you love someone but aren't getting back - you don't really know them properly

You have not had a relationship with this man you don't know the ins and outs of his habits, behaviours - you know he is weak and a liar but not much about how he is to live with etc. He also hasn't shown you his entire character.

You are infatuated - and yes that is FUCKING PAINFUL! I sympathise.

He has told you he still loves her - you need to believe him. Let him work on his life and walk away.

If you need to believe this in order to recover, just tell yourself that if you get on with your life - what's for you won't pass you by. If this man was right for you - then you might find each other in years to come.

But he is telling you clearly now he wants to be with his wife.

You need to move jobs

I forgave for me. I can't change what happened. So it was either forgive or be angry and hateful. And I had enough to deal with without letting hate or anger towards my wife change who I am. I refused to be changed by others. Instead I took stock of myself and what I wanted for me. What could I turn this pain towards. How could I use it to motivate me for myself and our kids. At that point I was fully prepared to leave or for her to leave.

There was no new pedestal. This is a brief snippet of what we went through. She is to blame but also is slightly in the victem camp too. The level of manipulation from him was huge and over many months. Even our counselor who to start with was you had the affair you are to blame for your choice. She couldn't believe the level of physiological manipulation from him.

Yes he didnt take any vows but anyone who badgers and guilt trips and needles a married person is scum. Anyone who gets involved with a married person especially knowing they have kids is scum.

What should have happened is my wife telling me its over before anything happened. I am glad that didnt happen and I will never be thankful for what happened. But we are in the best place in our 20 years right now and have learnt to communicate better.

As I said the forgiveness was for me. It did not mean I opened my arms and accepted her back. I was fully prepared to divorce. I didnt change me other than I started putting my needs first.

It took awhile and a surprising event to spark us back up. And we are still now working on it. We were one comedic event away from separating and I was fine with that. I had even told her so and told her she was free to go be with him.

My love for my wife never changed. It did not diminish. I was surprised by my own reaction to it as before cheating had been in my head an automatic end to a relationship. But I found out hard that it not the way it is.

I'm happy with my hate for him. That is something that is easy to carry. Especially as that feeling is now shared by my wife now the goggles of illicit excitement have been lifted and she can look back and see him for who he is.

How can you ever trust her again though?

At least you've had the sense to extract yourself while the going was good and the whole thing went pear shaped - as it inevitably would. You can see that I think.

All you can do is avoid this man, change your routine. Stay away from being with him alone. You'll get over it.

He is the polar opposite of your 'safe space.'

Being with him endangers you, him, his wife and his children.

He was never a safe space for you, OP, that was an illusion. You need to look out for yourself and forget about him.

Ignore all the unhelpful comments. Im going through the exact same thing we broke it off because we couldn't be together and stopped before we crossed any more boundaries. We both fell for each other hard.
I'd like to tell you that after a few weeks I stopped thinking about it but let me tell you that's not the case. The first few days after ending it was very intense. Those feelings do ease a bit but I still think about the person everyday. If I could go back in time I would not have done what we did. We never planned on falling for each other. You never know how painful it is to fall in love with someone you can't be with until it happens to you. Im starting to come to terms with it but im not over it yet, and dont know when i will be. Now I'm just having to live with it in silence which is the hardest part.

Yeah. Scumbags always trot this same shit out. " IF things were different. It's the hardest thing he's ever done - letting YOU go. He can't leave his children".

Really he's just an unpleasant married creep who thought he'd have a little cheap fun on the side and fed you a line. He got panicky that you were talking LURVE and not just a quick shag.

You won't be the first or last with this bloke.

‘I never asked him to leave his family and I never would.’

‘Ive walked away and said that unless I’m the one he wants for certain I can’t do this anymore.’

‘and so confused how he can say he wants me but he also wants to stay married to her.’

Well aren’t you just full of the typical, cliched ‘other woman’ contradictions, ‘I wouldn’t ask him to leave her but why doesn’t he want me more’. It always end up sounding like a competition to win a prize from a betrayed unaware partner?

Change jobs and stop romanticising a seedy emotional affair, he’s already removing his wife’s personally agency with this bs and if he and you became sexual he’d be removing her right to informed sexual consent which is abusive. Why any woman would accept crumbs from a creep displaying such behaviours is beyond me?

Honestly, grow up!

I'll say the same to you that I said to op. You didn't fall in love with him, because you couldn't know the full version of him. You romanticised a man based on a highlight reel.
He didn't fall in love with you- otherwise he would have left his wife.
He wasnt unhappy in his marriage - otherwise he would have left his wife
He wanted to have his cake and eat it.
Your relationship can't compare to the marriage he has. You've not dealt with the day of a life with him and you can't do while sneaking about.
You might not be able to help crushing on someone but you can have some integrity and hold better boundaries when interacting with a committed man.
None of that excuses his behaviour - he was tbe committed one after all but how would you feel if the people around you knew what you'd been involved in? Did you picture yourself explaining it to your parents, to his wife, to your colleagues, to his children?!

You both agreed it isn’t a fling….however, he’s dumped you and chose his wife. That’s a fling.

Why would you want a man that is happy to cheat? He’d just do that to you (well he is with his wife).
I just don’t get it. Meanwhile when/if the wife finds out it ruins her life. Stay as far away from this man as possible. He’s bad news.

Because I choose to. Through her actions, admissions and everything she has done.

She didn't see the full consequences like how it affected our daughter until it was too late and she has done everything to earn back the trust.

But mainly because I choose to. I know full well how much hurt and pain I could be letting myself in for. I know and accept the consequences of my choice. My wife knows what it would do to me and that there would be no next chance if she breaks my trust. But I whole heartedly believe I, we, made the right choice.

Thats how I trust again.

Leave him alone and BACK OFF. Leave your job. Yes hes to blame too but you entered into an inappropriate relationship knowingly with a married man and enjoying getting attention off him. You could of just said no. Speaking from being a wife of a husband who has just done this to me. You are just a distraction and ego boost to him. His poor wife will go through hell when she finds out and she WILL. Colleagues will be talking and not in a good way. He isnt in love with you. Leave him alone and give your head a shake. Women like you are disgusting. You were just attention fodder to him.