I know I don't deserve any support but for the sake of my husband and kids please can i have some help?

[NAB3lovelychildren]

So, I think ex really does mean it is over as he deletes email. I feel but also a tad relieved and really feel it will be fine with DH. DH forgives me.

He then emails me later and asks me to go on msn. We chat on there last night and then a couple of texts this morning before msn again. Pretty much straight away he says this is the last time we will have contact and refuses to phone me. Later we talk on the phone. (I honestly thought it was just as friends)

We both absolutely know we can't be together and it has to be no contact at all.

I have told DH it is finished.

I can't help thinking after all these years, what if I never get over him, what if I never stop wishing we could be together?

I have agreed no more emails/texts and have a friend who I can text instead.

I do so hope this doesn't turn out to be one of the most persistent trolls ever but sadly I have my suspicions now

NAB isn't a troll

NAB has been here a long time. She is not a troll.

pheeebe, nab is a long standing poster, who is just having a bad time of it, self induced to a n extent, but deserving of support none the less. she has been here for at least the 2.4 years i have been posting

I haven't said she isn't deserving of support and I stand corrected on the troll issue, NAB - my apologies. I do stand by my previous post though, I'm not convinced this level of pampering support is doing her any favours. NAB again, apologies if I seemed overly harsh but you need to find it in yourself to say enough is enough or seek some real life possibly medical help to support you through this process.

Pheebe, Nab is very real, my father has met her, she is lovely but has a troubled past (not her fault) and is quite unhappy sometimes.

We're here for her anyway, Nab don't despair.

Guys you can't really tell a depressed person to look outside themselves, they can't do it. There will come an easier day, and plenty more hard days, it's just up and down and up again. In the meantime we can just be here.

sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.

I'll be brutally honest - if this was a woman posting about her husband not being able to get over his emotional affair the general consensus would be that she should leave him, that she deserved better and that he was a lying cheating w@*nker, and that the only way for the marriage to survive would be for him to totally cut all contact with the om.

This is no different, and tbh if your marriage survives this it will be a miracle, but marriages do survive affairs, both emotional and otherwise and if you do the right thing then your marriage might stand a chance, especially considering your dh is being understanding about this and has chosen to forgive you.

But you are not the victim here, your dh is.

Let me be honest. This other man doesn't love you. He may have told you he loves you, you may believe he loves you, but he doesn't. If he genuinely loved you then he would be with you, and he isn't. He is with his wife, who is apparently going through some "issues" - wake up it's the oldest clichet in the book.

He is a game player. Nothing more. You said he had looked for you, and yet when you found him he said he had feelings but that he wouldn't leave his wife. Presumably he looked for you to boost his ego. He knew he was the one great love of your life and he just wanted to satisfy his curiosity by finding out if he was still the one great love of your life, and you played right into his hands.

Well now he's had his kicks it's time to walk away.

I realize that sometimes people fall in love with other people and marriages end as a result. But this is not one of those times. If you were meant to be together you would have been together, and you're not.

Time to stop dwelling in the past and get on with your life, before it's too late.

Nab I still think he represents something else to you - something very very deep.

Like it's not really about him as such. It's about what he might be/have been to YOU, like, someone that understands you perfectly, someone who has a special connection with you.

If you can separate those feelings from the person himself you might find it easier. You still get to keep the feelings, just not the person they are attached to. Nobody can take those away. But I don't sense he is giving you /feeding your soul, if you like, anything new, anything healthy.

It's a way of working through past hurt and doing that is not truly compatible with a happy marriage (or so I am told) unless you keep it very much contained within a separate relationship, perhaps with a therapist, or suchlike.

In all the relationship books it says don't enter into one if the other person is working on their past unless that is well contained and separate from your real life 'now' relationship.

So I think realistically you need to keep this very separate from DH and deal with it concurrently, to allow you both to move on and flourish. It's impinging on you and dh's marriage, in a way that could threaten it.

Does that make any sense honey?

IMO this is where mn fails and potentially fails badly. Clearly NAB is very troubled and if Helenburnes is right, prone to depression. That being the case, the kind of amateur psychoanalysis she is being offered here is potentially very damaging to her mental health as it allows her to avoid facing and seeking help for her emerging depressive episode in real life and it colludes and encourages the introspective/self-absorbed part of this illness.

NAB, my advice is offered with the best of intentions, not to hurt or put you down. Please please seek professional help and support as you try and deal with this difficult period in your life. Venting on here is fine but it will NOT help you move forward and make a better life for yourself and your family.

Thank you for all your comments

it is over with the other man

my husband wants us to get back to normal

i know i have problems, more than anyone knows to be honest and helen is right that this man was always more than just a boyf to me. It is strange i married the man iwas with after believing om was married. but what is done is done and now i have to get on with rl

thank you all for everything

glad you came back, you will get through it x

I don't think thinking about how other people are being affected will make any difference to how you feel at this stage when it hurts so much that you are blinded by the pain.

The first thing is to ACCEPT that this is GOING to hurt for some time - really intensely for weeks, then gradually fading over months until one day you realise it feels 'manageable'. You probably know this really from last time it happened (if I've understood this thread properly). NOTHING will take away the pain except TIME and separation. Every little bit of contact will reopen the wound as you have found. It is so hard to resist but then you think WHY have I done this again, I don't WANT to go through this pain again!

Killing yourself would be a tragic waste and a never ending tragedy for your DH and DCs. I know you can't see that you are going to feel better but you are. It is possible to get over this and lots of people have - the fact that they have is proof that it can be done.

Try to visualise yourself free from the stress and pain of it, feeling relaxed and contented. Imagine how RELIEVED you will feel and know that this feeling is worth living for and waiting for.

As you let your feelings about OM gradually fade, your feelings about DH will gradually come back to you as your focus shifts back to him and you will notice his good points more and more and feel more and more grateful for what you have got.

For now, you have to get through it moment by moment. Find the smallest things which will give you some momentary pleasure eg painting your nails, eating something nice, watching a good film, reading a magazine etc etc, really small things which in the middle of it you might forget about the pain for even a few seconds and your brain will get a break from it. These little 'breaks' will get gradually longer as your mind/body heals itself.

I think you will find it hard to focus outside of 'self-centred' activities at first because of the nature of the 'mental illness' (and I think being in love and being heartbroken and being depressed are all mental illnesses) but then you will start to notice yourself realising that for a few moments you really enjoyed playing/interacting with your DCs/DH and forgot about your pain and will gradually start to appreciate what you have got more and more.

Good luck, I wish I could take away the pain for you right now but nobody can.

Keep your chin up Nab, it's painful but you will get through it.

See, I once liked someone who was with someone else (I didn't know he was with someone before falling for him), and there was a touch of the star crossed lovers thing going on with us. But I could never get over the fact that he was saying things to me while being with someone else, and what an arse he was being to his poor girlfriend. I couldn't scrub that out of my mind. If by some tiny, weeny miracle we had ended up dating, I know there would have been zero trust, and he would probably have done the same thing to me that he did to her.

Regardless of your feelings for him, this man sounds like a bit of a nob. Unbelievably, even after a few years I STILL occasionally think of my bloke with fondness and longing, usually if I have some daft romantic dream full of emotion. But after a few seconds, the remembrance of what he did - and what your old flame is doing to by the way, which is cheating on their other half emotionally - would creep back in. And that just... well, it spoils everything doesn't it?

I have huge sympathy for you, but I think you need to stop taking your cues from him, change your phone number and keep busy. Get on with daily life; the pain WILL ease. I promise.

Thank you so much for that TSL.

Just found myself seeing if he was on msn.

I will let it go.

It takes a while.

I am just so sad.

TSL Can i print out your post to read when i feel weak please?

Of course! Be kind to yourself x

NAB - sorry, I've seen some of your other posts but not read through them all - have you considered counselling (on your own) to help you through it? If you haven't already, being able to spill all of this to a RL person who won't judge you might really help.

It will get easier, you won't forget about him but the white hot pain will eventually go out of it, and one day you'll be able to think about him and realise it no longer hurts. One day at a time.

It's crazy.

I feel strong. Then weak. Scared.

Keep wanting to hear his voice one more time but it just prolongs the agony I guess. And I know he wouldn't answer anyway.

I was doing okay until he emailed me again. He knows that. He says he won't do it again. I hope so. But a part ofme hopes he comes for me if he is free and I hate myself for that.

All I wish, if only.

Would have been so much easier if I had not wanted to be with DH anymore.

be careful not to push DH away. you will get over it, in time, and the first step is no more contact ever . not even if he contacts you first. you have nothing to say to each other, nothing positive to add to each others lives.

be careful not to push DH away. you will get over it, in time, and the first step is no more contact ever . not even if he contacts you first. you have nothing to say to each other, nothing positive to add to each others lives.

There won't be any contact.

Just checked my msn thing and I think he has blocked me so that is good. I know now he meant it and will leave me alone.

I could never push DH away. I love him.

I agree with the whole seeking help thing and also with some of the harsher posts - i too had a hard time and was miserable in the summer but some very hard words on here that hurt like bloody hell at the time really helped me turn it around. If you were a man, depressed or otherwise, we would rip you to shreds and depression would not be an excuse for hankering after someone you are obviously not meant to be with, potentially detroying two families and hurting someone who loves you very much. I suspect this man represents something you feel you have lost within yourself and your depressed mind is looking for a return to a happier, freer time of hope, instead of concentrating on building a secure happy future once you have resolved what is making you so unhappy. I know you are trying but when you have a man at home who supports you like your dh does what on earth are you doing fretting about a man prepared to betray his family for an emotional affair. It isnt romeo and juliet. It isnt a love affair, its a betrayal and you have both done the right thing to stop it. Please call your gp and make an appointment to look at why you are so dissatisfied with your world when you appear to an outsider (me) to have a lot of love in your life already. I genuinly dont want to hurt you and wish you the best but seriously please dont throw away someone like your husband - you sound like a bright woman who has just lost her way a bit and i hope you find a way to find yourself again. p,s i have been on this site for four years. I know your not a troll and i think we need to start being a bit more careful before we throw that accusation around. Its happening a lot at the moment and its not ok when someone is suffering.

Thank you.

Please see my Thank You post on relationships for update.

will do and good luck!!!!!!!!!!