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

@Fairyfae I'm sorry this happened to you. To pick up your point about women who cheat with married men being disgraceful, a lot of them are damaged and have MH issues.

I've got a friend having online chats with three men, all of whom nobody with critical thinking would touch with a bargepole, one of whom is married. They've never met but it's all flirting and him saying "wait till she's gone to work and I'll take pictures" etc. She's always had to be fancied and get attention from men to feel worthwhile.

I know someone else, not a friend but someone I know and she's had countless involvements with married men, all down to needing validation but she probably doesn't realise herself this is the reason. She's had tons of therapy as she felt even more worthless for getting involved with them in the first place. She was focused on "winning" so if they picked her she was worthwhile. It's a huge mess.

Yes I understand what your saying. The woman in question with my H is like this . Needy and constant attention seeking. Not just with him either. Its been worse for me as I warned my H about her months ago and he still went there. I dont have any sympathy for women who knowingly get involved with married men then play the victim poor me etc etc. Shouldnt of gone there to start with

It's not the other woman's responsibility to guard your marriage. That's your husband's role.
Do you really think the initiative in these situations always comes from the other women? Men who want an affair are often smooth operators. I've seen several situations like that at work. Some guys have a string of mistresses during decades of marriage. It's rarely a one-off, and if it is it is more probable he will divorce his wife.
Of course the wives like to blame the other woman so that they don't have to face the hard truth: they married a cheater. And sometimes they already knew before getting married but they liked the money and status of their husband.
Do you think Hillary Clinton did not know what kind of man Bill was before marrying him? She might also be telling herself it was Monika Lewinsky's fault.

100% it's the man's responsibility.
But there is also really no defence for a woman prepared to stoop low enough to insert herself into someone else's marriage
Much of the advice given is as much to the benefit of the ow themselves as for the wife of the men they are messing with.
No one comes out of these messes unscathed.

I think you are in the throes of the worst bit of limerance, where you quite literally are "blind" with obsession about the other person, and all you can think about is them, imagining a future together, being together, etc. It helps to think of limerance as a sickness, that you need to give yourself care and time to get over. You will recover, but you are in the fever stage right now, and this is the hardest bit to overcome. You must retreat from the source of the sickness (him) in whichever/whatever way possible in order to start recovery. In short, you must PHYSICALLY remove yourself from him and the spaces he is in because he is infecting you!!! Realise that you have a horrible illness and take care of yourself accordingly.

It will pass.

He’s the one for you?..

I can guarrantee, if it all actually happened, after he got divorced, faced al that it entails, have gone through sorting out financial and custody split, after all the backlash you would get at work (cause i assume you would) - you might not think that way anymore.

It’ll be like building a lovely lush oasis on a scorched desert. Good luck with that.

Let all of this pass, as it naturally will over time. He is not the one for you. Find a hobby, learn something useful in all the time you spend agonising over him. You can find someone without all this drama and complications.

Yes of course I understand!! I know exactly how my husband has behaved. Comparing hilary Clinton to my situation is ridiculous. And yes I will blame the other woman in my situation she is trashy and desperate and ive got evidence of this. Lots of it. Granted not all women are like this and they fall for the bs these men tell them but they still choose to get involved dont they!!!! And no my husband hasn't done this before either. My husband was a dickhead and made a choice to engage with her. But shes to blame too. You know nothing of our situation and sticking your oar in. Pipe down.

This x

He was with his wife for years before he even met you, he lived her and was so in love with her he married her and built a family and a life with her. He has loved her for most of his life. She’s not some nameless, faceless lump of boringness who just happens to be sitting at home waiting for him. She’ll be a very lovely woman, who knows him inside out, had supported him through difficult times, who has worked hard with him, who has shared amazing times with him. You can’t beat that, don’t even bother trying. He’s had a dalliance with you, he’s had you as a bit of a distraction. Don’t elevate yourself as something else. Your connection with him isn’t deeper than what he has with his wife. He knows it and he has told you. Let him go.

If he did leave his wife for you, it’d be a shit show, very few people survive a rebound relationship. Less than 2% of affairs last to be long term, affairs just destroy a whole bunch of people, the betrayed person, the betrayer, the affair partner and the children are obvious but it doesn’t stop there, whole families and friendship groups are destroyed too.

Walk away, please. If he splits with his wife, spends sometime alone and starts to rebuild his life, only then could you reconnect and stand a chance.

Speaking from someone on the other side. Mine left his wife and we were together for years afterwards. Once I got to know the real him, because you truly truly don’t at first, I realised he wasn’t right for me at all. Took me a long time to end it due to guilt and I still hate myself now. I’d count your blessings and do a runner now and don’t look back. I still love my ex, but I really didn’t like large aspects of his personality it turned out. Still struggling now. Limerance is very real in these situations

@MysticHalfWitch

Thanks for sharing your story with such honesty

OP, I was a OW for 8 months. We didn't work together though.

He always spoke fondly of his wife and never said he'd leave her. I never asked him to. I fell in love with him. That was over 5 years ago and I still do.

The only way to get over him is, sadly, to leave your job and go totally no contact. It's hard but it will work.

I'll never get involved with an attached man again. Any man, actually!

Completely agree. I’ve never understood the ‘she’s not your responsibility so you’ve done nothing wrong’ often said on here to OW.

Of course the man is a lying cheating scumbag who deserves to be taken to the cleaners but anyone knowingly entering into a relationship with an attached person is equally as scummy imo.

You’re a pair of shits, both of you. Immature, too.

It isn’t very confusing. He has a crush on you but he doesn’t want to give up his life partner who he loves, his home, seeing his children every day and half his assets.

It isn’t very confusing. He has a crush on you but he loves his wife. It is how it is for many people who cheat. He would have to give up his life partner, his home, seeing his children every day and half his assets.

The woman cannot insert herself into a marriage if the husband does not allow that.
The betrayed women cannot admit to themselves that they married a cheater. Ladies, take responsibility for your choice. You most probably knew already that monogamy was a challenge for him when you married him. Or you had found that out before but still stayed with him. Too easy to blame the other woman.

You married a cheater and he will most probably do this several times during your marriage.
Yes you might be the one in the end celebrates the 50the anniversary with him but your marriage will have lasted because he had affairs on the side from time to time. That's the hard truth with most cheaters.

Tune into the fact that this is a man who is prepared to deceive his entire family and that should help you get over him. In the end, he decided getting his leg over wasn’t worth the hell he was going to pay.

You need to be a bit more judicious about who you go for in the first place.

He’s cheating on his wife and family. He will cheat on you. Move on.

Absolutely. Every woman who had ever been cheated on was fully aware their husband would cheat when they married them 🙄
What is appealing to you about a married man? Where do you see your relationship with one going if you are so sure he's just a cheater by nature?

Hes definitely not the one if he has said he wants to stay with his wife. If you were the one he would leave her. As soon as you can move jobs. Try and occupy yourself outside of work, as much as you can.

‘Ladies, take responsibility for your choice. You most probably knew already that monogamy was a challenge for him when you married him. Or you had found that out before but still stayed with him.’

i have read some nonsense on here but this is absolutely on another level. I know plenty of men who had affairs, who blindsided and shocked their partners and wider friendship group, they were before that moment decent loyal loving partners, with no red flags.

News flash… other woman are often attracted to the ‘decent family man’ for exactly the same reason the primary partner was when they married them!

Yes, the cases where that is not true are outliers. I know of one case - my cousin and his wife both had an affair and she was quite newly married. She got divorced and they have since been together for 20 years. Neither had kids. I think a lot of men just don't want to have uproot themselves and want to have their cake and eat it.

JFC - I’ve read some misogynistic victim blaming bullshit in my time but ‘it’s your own fault he stuck it in anything with a pulse because you should have been aware of his community dick when you married him so suck it up love and stop whining’ (or words to that effect) has to be up there with the biggest load of bollocks I’ve heard in my almost 60 years on the planet.