I think I have to leave my husband

[PlaidJane]

I have had a nice little life the past few years with my DH, we get on well he’s a nice guy generally and we have an enjoyable time together. He’s quite insecure in his looks and not overly confident so I do feel I fall into the pattern of being a bit motherly, you know giving him reassurance. He says a lot of the time that I’m out of his league. This isn’t wildly attractive I’m sure some people would agree and I can find it annoying as I am not that shallow, I want someone who makes me feel loved and is nice that’s all.

I’d say the issue in our relationship up until now is that I feel like I am putting on a perfect persona all the time as he finds it hard to cope with me in any other raw format version. He gets defensive and upset if I have any Big Feelings - even if they aren’t related to him at all. Therefore I don’t share many big or small feelings with him. Hence the plodding along.

Over time I recognise I feel friendly affection for him with our lives tied together in a house and joint assets etc and I wasn’t going to disrupt anything.

I am a people pleaser and I find it so hard to let people down or put myself first.

I have been working on a short term project with another man for some months now which has ended. During this time we got along great, but I didn’t think anything much of it as I knew the project would end and mostly thought just this guy is a nice guy.

I don’t think we spoke emotionally or overshared our personal lives more than normal colleagues, we worked well as a team and had good fun in the process. As the project came to an end and we said goodbye, we both simultaneously appeared to realise we had formed some kind of feelings for each other.

I assume this is what happens to movie stars on film sets or strictly shows, when you spend a lot of time with someone in close proximity. So I’m not sure it’s real at all. I got worried I was in limerance so was working on detachment

We have had one honest in person conversation about this where we shared exactly identical experiences and thoughts about each other - it’s so weird and uncanny. I feel like we just wanted to check we were not going mad and deluded in our own minds? These moments in our minds were totally identical realisations or memories, matched each other in sync. This has never happened to me before. We both admitted we had grown attracted to each other physically but more than that, we liked each others personalities and couldn’t stop thinking about the other. It’s affecting both our sleep and appetites. We have agreed we need to detach because it’s very dangerous

Running off together is ridiculous, this isn’t some big romantic movie, also this is an awful thing to do to my husband. I’d rather be single right now and have none of this hassle I just want to run away from everything and everyone

I think I’m having a midlife crisis of some kind and I have to leave my DH but I don’t know where to even begin to detangle our complex finances. We don’t have any savings and a huge mortgage and the market is terrible right now for selling. I also feel sick at the thought of telling him I’m not romantically in love with him as it would break his heart.

I was in exactly this situation years ago. I had the sense to realise that my relationship with hudband was making me depressed, and I realised the ' new' person, though ee really fell for each other, wasnt really someone I could make a relationship with in the ' real' world. I got divorced, stopped being in contact with the other man, and spent 10 years as a single person. I then met a lovely man who I connected with very well and we have now been together 10 years and I thonk will stay together for the rest of our lives.

I literally still have these moments where I have a panic and think OMG am I making a huge mistake, have I just imagined all of this and what if the problem is me, and he’s a decent guy and I’m just the broken one here and I’ve caused all this because I liked someone else a bit some months ago.

Then I have one conversation with him and realise everything is such a mess and I can’t see a way out.

I just read your first post again where you said you'd had a nice little life with DH that he was a good man etc etc but then the work colleague situation where you both connected and felt the same about each other and maybe you realised what you had been missing? Have you seen him much lately?

I think you can manage this see saw of emotions if you take time and recognize them as just thoughts snd feelings. They will come and go. Just welcome them and wait for them to pass.

My guess is you experience this “uh oh what if he was right” periodically when you are feeling tired, or lonely. Stop and evaluate using HALT: am I hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired? Deal with the potential stimulus and you may find the longing to undo the separation vanishes.

Hi OP, I hear what you're saying, I've felt similar before when relationships have ended. But what I've come to realise about anything really is that if you are consistently having doubts over a long period of time then something isn't right. I don't know, it's like when something is good, or mostly good you don't consistently feel anxious about it and wonder if you should end it or stop it or leave etc. I think often our anxiety is a message that something isn't right and needs to change. And when it's about a person and their way of relating and you've tried asking them to change and they haven't. That's your answer really. I think as women we doubt ourselves so much. The older I've got the more I try to back myself and my hunches. And if you find you don't know or aren't sure, as someone else has said, you can sit with that uncertainty and at some point, it will become clear and you will know.

@JJkate thank you this makes a lot of sense!! Sitting with uncertainty is strange but enlightening.

@disturbia I have seen him a couple of times and we have texted but I’m unsure whether it would ever be a good idea to consider pursuing it at any point in the future. He seems a nice guy and he’s easy to talk to and he has given me similar advice to others on this thread. He seems content with whatever pace and proximity I would offer in the form of a friendship but I know he is interested in me so this adds a level of complexity. I’m too confused to make good decisions, I think I could overlook some red flags and get myself into a lot more mess. It would be so easy to run to that guy, he has a very good set up in life with free time, less commitments so there must be a catch it is too good to be true 😂