Need to 'talk' to someone about affair (mine) - sorry long!

[dollymixture]

I've been reading messages on this forum for a while now and have finally plucked up the courage to change my nickname and post.

I desperately need some advice on this awful situation that I've got myself in. I'll try and keep it brief or I could be here for days.

About a month before Christmas I started an affair with a very close friend. It didn't happen easily, we did a lot of talking and soul searching before anything physical happened and, despite knowing that we shouldn't, we still went ahead. I have been with dh for 13 years and have a lovely 2 year old son, and this friend is in a long term relationship but no kids. He is a very close friend to me and is dh's best friend.

Before Christmas there seemed to be lots of opportunities for us to be together, I guess it was fun and we were enjoying that 'new realtionship' buzz. We both agreed that nothing could ever come of it because it would devastate far too many people.

Since Christmas, there have been far less opportunities but, to be honest, I feel that this is of his doing (although he doesn't admit it). The phone calls and text messages have become less and less and, over the past 2 weeks, have virtually become non existent on his part. I have told him that we need to talk...but i'm still waiting.

If he were not a close friend, this would probably be it. But his life and mine are too closely linked. Even his family invite us to all their gatherings. There is no way that I cannot see him anymore, only perhaps not alone. Deep down I know that, when we finally get a chance to talk, I should end things and try and salvage our friendship. The logical part of me knows this but then my heart takes over and I can't imagine never feeling his arms round me again. I am so confused!! Although I love the way that he makes me feel when we're together, like a woman rather that a wife & mother, I hate how I feel the rest of the time. This whole thing is nearly constantly on my mind, I sit there waiting for the next phone call, text message etc I wonder if he's not been in touch because he hasn't had a chance or because he doesn't want to. I hate this, I'm normally quite a strong confident woman and I can't believe what this affair is reducing me to.

As for my relationship with dh. It's going through a rocky patch at the moment but I have no intention of leaving him and breaking up my family. I convince myself that everything will be ok and we can make a go of it and then he does something that annoys me and I doubt everything again.

If I don't get a chance to see this other man in the next couple of days, then there's a group of us going out at the weekend so I'll have to see him then and that will be even harder if we haven't had a chance to talk beforehand.

I would be grateful for any advice that anyone can offer me. Sorry that this has turned out to be so long but I have no one else I can confide in.

Thanks for listening.

Oh dollymixture - poor you - what a complicated situation to be in !

I think - for what it's worth - that you do need to end things with the other man immeiately and agree with him to put it all behind you and never speak of it again ! I can certainly relate to wanting that romantic/new relationship buzz thing again - because marriage is dull (IME) - but if you don't want to split with your dh you must end things now.

I also think that whole flirting and feeling desirable again thing is totally addictive - and to be honest you'd probably feel the same whoever was paying you the attention - so you're probably not "in love" with this man - although I don't doubt that you love him as a friend.

I suspect he is not getting in touch as he realises what the two of you have done and how it could rock both your worlds - not something either of you seem to want.

Try and speak to him before you see him next, but otherwise just have a quiet word - keep it lighthearted and agree that it was fun but madness and you ahve to put it behind you ow.

Good Luck, let us know how it goes.

Dollymixture,

Oh how I sympathise with what you are going through. I have been in exactly the same situation with the exception that he is a work colleague and is married with a child. We ended up together as a result of a freak situation and ever since then it has been on and off - this has been going on since August last year. I have posted on here about the situation and received a mixed reaction - most of the advice was to get out while I could and before anybody got hurt.

All that said, I cant stress enough that I understand that this isn't a black and white situation - the waiting, excitement when they call and being together can be such a strong pull. I have spent three nights with Mr X and all have been amazing - we also get on so well and have loads in common and have spent a fair amount of time just being together. After the most recent episode I realised that I was in way, way, way over my head and wrote him an email to end it (the third time I have done this). I have made the decision that my family are the most important thing to me and that despite the fact that our physical relationship isn't great my marriage is for the most part good.

The guy that I have been seeing is so different to me and deep down I know that I don't really love him but have just not been able to give up the thrill of being wanted by somebody forbidden. If I am totally honest I don't think this most recent break will last although we have been very good and have stopped all suggestive communication (text, phone, email). It does hurt but I am hoping that I will be strong enough to get past the hurt and life will eventually return to some sort of normality.

In a nutshell there is only one person who can make the decision to end your situation and sometimes there isn't much point discussing it to death. As my Mr X often points out - in these situations we only have ourselves to blame and it is far better that we hurt than hurting our nearest and dearest.

Sorry this has been so rambilng. I know when I was at my lowest I really just wanted to know that other people had gone through the same thing.

I hope things get sorted for you - try to take things for what they are and hopefully you will get back on track soon.

SanB

The whole thing sounds intollerable for you both, and like it is making you unhappy for the majority of the time. It also sounds like you have decided what you must do but can't quite bring yourself to do it (calling an end to a fantacy is not easy): he's probably going through the same turmoil as you and perhaps is putting off contacting you for the same reasons - if you don't talk then you don't have to decide whether to get together again or to call it off.

I hope this fling will not detrimentally effect your family and you'll find a way to be friends with this man again after having resolved the sexual tension between you both. I have a good friend with whom an affair was once a possibility. Nothing happened but that tension still occasionally re-surfaces. On his stagg do he (whilst very drunk) kissed me and said that in another world it would be me he was marrying.

Dollymixture,

Oh how I sympathise with what you are going through. I have been in exactly the same situation with the exception that he is a work colleague and is married with a child. We ended up together as a result of a freak situation and ever since then it has been on and off - this has been going on since August last year. I have posted on here about the situation and received a mixed reaction - most of the advice was to get out while I could and before anybody got hurt.

All that said, I cant stress enough that I understand that this isn't a black and white situation - the waiting, excitement when they call and being together can be such a strong pull. I have spent three nights with Mr X and all have been amazing - we also get on so well and have loads in common and have spent a fair amount of time just being together. After the most recent episode I realised that I was in way, way, way over my head and wrote him an email to end it (the third time I have done this). I have made the decision that my family are the most important thing to me and that despite the fact that our physical relationship isn't great my marriage is for the most part good.

The guy that I have been seeing is so different to me and deep down I know that I don't really love him but have just not been able to give up the thrill of being wanted by somebody forbidden. If I am totally honest I don't think this most recent break will last although we have been very good and have stopped all suggestive communication (text, phone, email). It does hurt but I am hoping that I will be strong enough to get past the hurt and life will eventually return to some sort of normality.

In a nutshell there is only one person who can make the decision to end your situation and sometimes there isn't much point discussing it to death. As my Mr X often points out - in these situations we only have ourselves to blame and it is far better that we hurt than hurting our nearest and dearest.

Sorry this has been so rambilng. I know when I was at my lowest I really just wanted to know that other people had gone through the same thing.

I hope things get sorted for you - try to take things for what they are and hopefully you will get back on track soon.

SanB

Well, Mrs Harsh here again. To be absolutely frank, I think you are fooling yourself if you think it's a question of your ending the relationship. I think you've already been dumped. I know that sounds horrible but he's bailed out which is why you can't get to see him to 'end it'. The fact that you say 'I have told him we need to talk.. but I'm still waiting', says it all. He hasn't contacted you at all. That is not the action of a man in a relationship. I think for the sake of your dignity, you should accept this, painful as it may be, as the end of your affair. You say yourself you weren't going to leave your husband. The affair had no future and I'm sure your boyfriend realised this - this may even be why he went ahead, because he didn't want a commitment. I may be wrong, but I suspect you want to 'talk about ending it' as a way of prolonging something that sounds pretty dead to me. If you don't want to end your marriage you are going to have to learn to be a pretty good actress and learn to be natural with him in public anyway, so why not start this w/e - or, even better, find something else to do without your group so you don't see him while you are so preoccupied by him. Personally, I think your close friendship has to now end if you want to keep your family intact. You sound a nice person but I think you are deluding yourself and this man has already scarpered. Don't let him do your family any more damage.

I have to say that I totally agree with you Aloha. I was going to post something along those lines, but didn't have the balls. When men you don't live with decide they are going to end things, they rarely tell you. Most will avoid calls until you give up IME. Something else I would say Dollymixture, is that you will not get past your rocky patch with your dh until you accept that this is OVER. It will take ages before you feel ok in the other man's presence, but as Aloha said, you must put a brave face on things when you see him. You don't need to talk to him before the party, just look him in the eye when you see him and say 'Hi' with a smile. Then turn away and talk to someone else. Play it cool.

The way he makes you feel is not love, but lust. You must have felt that way about your dh when you first met? If you had stayed with this man, those feelings would have eventually changed once the real world set in - eg mortgages, raising children etc. He would have started treating you like a wife and mother...sound familiar? I really do feel for you, and you are going to have to give an Oscar winning performance, but you can do it. You will have to if you don't want your dh to find out. Good luck, and let us know how the weekend goes.

Thank you all so much for your replies. it really helped me get through yesterday to come on here and read what everyone had to say. I think, deep down, I knew that the end of my affair was inevitable it was just so hard to accept.

He came round yesterday after work. He said that he hadn't been avoiding me but he could see why it would look that way. I pretty much beleive him but I'm realistic enough to know there was probably some avoidance there - if not of me then of the situation. We both admitted that this couldn't carry on unless we started being very sneaky and deceptive to arrange secret meetings etc and that's just not us. I know I'm hardly in a position to defend either of us but this really has been so out of character for us both.

By ending things now, I really do feel that we have a chance at keeping what is actually a very strong friendship. I'm not going to throw 13 years away for a 2 month fling. It hurts like hell but I'm realistic and I'm sure that the pain will fade with time. I will be going out with everyone on Saturday and he will be there but so will a lot of other people too. It would be more suspicious if I didn't go, short of feigning illness I don't think there's anything that dh would beleive, plus it would ruin his evening too which isn't fair.

I think my priority for a little while now has to be me. I realise that might sound selfish but I think that once I feel I've regained my identity, not as a wife, mother or lover, but as the woman that I am, then I'll be in a stronger position to work on my marriage. Does that make sense? I realise I'm just churning out everything in my head at the moment!! Doesn't help with it being Valentines day. And all of our friends, and dh, seem to be talking about whether or not our friend (the one I've been seeing) will propose to his girlfriend!! I know that he won't, well not today anyway, because this situation has obviously made him question the way he feels, and that makes me feel like such a bitch!

Thanks for listening again, i've no doubt I'll be a bit of a regular on here as I try and find a way to get through this.

dollymixture I suspect you will get over this far sooner than you currently think.

Also, and I really hesitated to post this, male friends in problematic relationships ( "my girlfriend is a nutter, I want to end it but she would go ballistic" ) usually end up married (to the nutter psychobitch) within a couple of years .

Watch this space and keep us posted.
You probably had a lucky escape.

Good luck

Dollymixture, you are right to want to find your own identity again. It does seem like all you (as in 'one', not you specifically!) are is a wife and mother doesn't it? I know exactly how you feel. This is why affairs happen, because the man sees the sexiness that the dh has got used to looking past. I'm sure that most marriages are like that to one extent or another. Why don't you have a night to yourself each week, where dh babysits, and you do something for you. I do an evening class one night a week, and go out with my sister every few weeks for a girls' night.

I really admire your strength in breaking the friendship off, and you have the added problem of still having to see him! Keep posting here, on any topic, as there are loads of other things here to talk about. You will probably find that you become so addicted to Mumsnet that you won't have time for your dh, let alone another man!

Just re-read my message on Friday and I sounded so certain of everything and so determined...which I was then. Things aren't so clear this morning unfortunately.

We all went out Saturday night and, to be honest, it just seemed to stir all my feelings up again. We got home about 1.30am and I just lay in bed with it all going round and round in my head. Finally went to sleep after convincing myself that I would feel differently in the morning once the effects of the alcohol had worn off. Anyway, yes things did seem a bit better when I woke up and we took ds over to see him and his dp in the afternoon and that was all ok.

Feeling rotten this morning though. Don't know how I'm meant to get through this and just have no-one to talk to.

Dollymixture, is there someone you could trust to talk to? In my related situation I told a really good friend, chosen for being very trustworthy but also for living in another city and not knowing any of the people involved! It really helped and also meant there was someone in the world who knew what had happened, which I quite liked as it made the good bits (as well as the bad) real to me.

Good luck, how are you getting on now (I found you can feel different from day to day or even hour to hour).

Please try to avoid this man. You're a woman, make plans to see other people and your dh won't bat an eyelid that you are taking charge of the social situation. Unless you love him desperately, know he loves you too and you are going to be together forever, this is a waste of your life. He clearly isn't that keen but is less attached to his personal life than you are to yours (not married, no kids) so it is easy for him to dip in and out of your life. But you have so much to lose. Your dh will find out eventually - yes, he will. Then you face being a single mum to your child who will miss his dad desperately. This is a terrible thing if it can be avoided. I see how my stepdaughter suffers because her parents are apart. If it can't be helped, then it has to be dealt with, but if you can avoid it, please do. Do you honestly think your boyfriend will marry you if your dh leaves? You are being sucked back into this because you are pretending to yourself that you can't avoid this man. You can. Going to see him with his dp is just torturing yourself with false hope. God knows if any of this will make any difference. Of course, I know how you feel. I've had exes (not married, neither was I) who I couldn't bear to let go and carried on seeing them 'as friends' while I still had feelings for them. It was stupid and self-defeating. It just prolonged the breakup and made it more painful. Try to make a clean break.

Have spent most of this week being very up and down. Monday I ended up sobbing down the phone at him which, in hindsight, was probably not a good idea. I haven't cried since though, which is actually very good for me as I'm a very emotional person. However, I am still at the stage where, given half the chance, I would just start everything up again and I know that's a really dangerous place to be.

ML - you are absolutely right, I do need to find someone to talk to. I have actually arranged for my 2 best friends to come over for a girly lunch at the weekend and I intend to pour my heart out! They already know a little bit of what's going on and I know they won't tell a soul. Yes, they do know all the people involved but we're very close and have been friends since school and I know I can trust them with this.

I'm hoping it will help to tell them, kind of like therapy! Also it will mean that when I'm feeling really down there will be other people I can pick up the phone and talk to rather than resorting to contacting him.

Aloha - thanks for the advice, I know that everything you've said is right but it really is so difficult to break off contact. I realise that probably sounds like an excuse, and maybe if I'm honest it is, but I just don't feel that I'm ready to do that yet.

Thanks for everyone's support, it is really helping me get through this.

God - sorry, dollymixture - but I'm going to be Mrs Harsh mkII if that's ok.

I was in a similar situation during my 1st marriage breakup. We'd split up and I was devastated but finally moved on, then he said he'd made a terrible mistake, blah blah blah and could we try again? My heart wasn't really in it by then but I gave it a go. Not long after, I began a fling with a bloke we both knew and I was besotted. It was very messy, involved lots of soul-searching by me and I poured my heart out to whoever would listen and agonised over every conversation with the boyfriend. In his mind he'd finished with me pretty much after a few weeks, and had made this clear by avoiding all contact but I prolonged it by ringing, obsessing, not sleeping and droaning on and on to my friends. I look back now and I am thoroughly embarrassed by the whole episode. I was a king-sized pain in the arse, completely caught up in myself and my own crush-type feelings towards this poor man and I scared him shitless!

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that you are being quite self-indulgant in wanting to go through it all again vicariously with your friends and deep-down maybe you feel that this will make the "relationship" more real. Can I suggest that this is a way of you getting the attention you are not getting from your dh at the moment? It makes what you feel is a boring time in your marriage seem like life is exciting again. Please take my word for it - he doesn't want to know and you are drawing it all out because you can't face the anti-climax. Think before you tell too many people as well - it adds to the chance that you will get found out.

Sorry to be a party-pooper. Still, if you're anything like I was, you'll ignore all the advice that seems negative and harsh and concentrate on the bits that involve you re-living it and wondering if there's any chance you'll get some joy from dh's friend. Sorry...

Moomin I have a very similar experience to yurs and can only agree with everything you say.
Please don't make a fool of yourself dollymixture because this guy from the sound of things will stay with the problematic girlfriend and you will end up hurt and agonising over a "relationship" which only existed in your imagination and not in his.
Seems he is trying to chuck you in a cowardly way, don't waste any more time or love on him.

It's over.
No promises were made and none broken.
You've had a bit on the side and you've got away with it. Count your blessings.
In time to come, you'll be able to sentimentalise over the affair - the excitement, the feel of someone else's skin, the unfamiliar hand touching you, the sex (and there's nothing as exciting as new-partner sex).
Let it be a pleasant memory - don't tarnish it with an attempt to continue it past it's natural lifespan.
He's not going to tell you he wants it to be over - but he obviously does (in the days when I used to play away from home [and I hope they're behind me now] I could never discuss ending an affair).
When you meet him socially, the subject is closed - no references at all even when the two of you are alone together. Obviously your social relationship with him will be different now, but there's no reason for it to be unpleasant - try not to let it be upsetting to you.
If you're very lucky DH will never find out.

As Frank Sinatra said "It was great fun, but it was just one of those things".

Sorry, I will have to be Miss Harsh too! Dollymixture you must realise that there will be no happy ending if you carry on the way you are. The worst that could happen is you losing your dh and your kid's respect, and your friends - and I doubt very much that your lover still stick around once everything falls apart. The best that could happen is that you stop seeing him, go to Relate with your dh and start your life again. Your lover is probably sleeping with his girlfriend as well as you, so he is cheating on you both, is this really the kind of man you want to risk so much for? He's not exactly Mr Moralistic is he? Put yourself in his girlfriend's shoes, how would you feel if someone did this to you? What if she finds out and seeks revenge? There are so many, many things that can go wrong here, and you stand to lose so, so much! Please, please end this now. It may be hard, but you know deep down that it is not impossible and that you can do it, anything else is just an excuse. Have courage, you deserve more than a man who plays the field, and who has so deliberately wound you round his little finger. I wouldn't even have him as a friend! Please put your energies into saving your marriage - there is so much potential there for happiness, don't throw it away!