Old flame back in touch...shit shit shit

[amtooyoungforthis]

Was with a man for a year, 6 years ago. He was married but I didn't know for 10 months. He was a very good liar. When I found out, I finished it.

He came back with promises that he would leave. I got suckered for 2 more months but refused to be intimate in any way, phone contact only, him kept saying he wanted to be with me, I even went with him to look at flats, met his family. He had never lived alone and wanted to move in with me but I said he needed to live alone before we ever got to that stage. It soon became apparent he wasn't about to leave so I did the decent thing and walked away. Then followed a few months of almost stalker like behaviour, begging me to reconsider so I changed phone numbers, email, etc so he couldn't contact me. Hurt like hell but no way would I be mistress knowingly

So come to the begining of this year and I get a facebook message. He's now divorced and married to someone else. He wanted to apologise for treating me so badly. Which he did and I left it at that. He didn't suggest any friendship or contact, and I was more than happy with that

No contact since until today

I get a phone call. His 2nd marriage has now ended. He is living alone, in his own place. More apologies and talk of how he has been in counselling address a number of issues. He would like to meet for a coffee, catch up

I took his number but haven't given him mine. I don't know what to do!!! I loved him, he hurt me and his 1st wife. He's proved to be a good liar and I don't know if he still is

Would I be totally stupid to give him number and meet up again?? Or should I just forget again

As AF says, find things to do that involve meeting people and widening your circle of friends. What do you enjoy doing the most? Painting? Pub quizzes? Historical stuff (historical re-enactors, for instance, are lovely company on the whole, and tend not to be hung up on mainstream society's appearance obsession).

Ahh Amtooyoung bless you sweetie, dont give up hope. You have to believe the right one is still out there.
So many of my friends have separated this year.
Many of the women have gone on the more famous dating sites and at least had fun trying and not all of them look like Claudia Schiffer ! One or two have actually met the love of their life on there. One has married and so far it is happy ever after.
Perhaps you should try again?
I'm not there so I know it's easy for me to say but I wish you well.

I have spent last night thinking only of negatives to get him out of my head

I will not be giving him my mobile number or contacting him again

Thank you all for keeping my head in the right place and making me smile at some of the comments, I am a silly bint and needed to see it in black and white

I'll carry on being the family taxi driver and watching CSI for now, though have been toying with a photography course so might give that a whirl in the new year (missed this terms intake)

so thanks again

you sound like a nice silly bint, though

much too good to be used by a tosser

Thank you

I thought I would be flamed bigtime for being the OW, glad I wasn't and I regret every second of hurt I caused that woman. There were no children involved thank god but my actions must have put her through hell. I only hope she has moved onto much better things. I would never have done it knowingly

remember that he takes the ultimate responsibilty for hurting his wife

just don't let him do the same to you

you know better !

Your guilt over the original affair is minimal. This man lied to you and deliberately set out to decieve you, repeatedly. Also, he is the one who betrayed his wife, not you.
Let him go. Think of him in 20 years time when he's living in some bedsit, sat watching Jeremy Kyle all day in skiddy pants because his looks have gone and no woman is desperate enough to take him on now, so the highlight of his day is catching the 5-minute freeview on the porn channel and having a self-loathing tug.

PMSL solid, you should try to express yourself a bit more you know, just say what you mean instead of beating round the bush

Great, great advice on here. Don't touch him with a bargepole!

pmsl at SGB

SolidGoldBrass- do you have a problem with the concept of "The One" I've noticed a few snorts of derision when this expression was used on another thread. amtooyoungforthis - Yes, everyone will say the same thing to you, and they are probably quite right, but you are going to, I think you have already decided this somehow. Just write down somewhere safe before you do the worst that can happen ( ending in tears etc.)before you do so that you can be 100% certain you go into it with your eyes open. On the face of it he sounds like very bad news, but there are two sides to every story and perhaps you ould be better off meeting and talking somewhere safe and in public so that you can take all he says on board before you make any firm decisions about what to do - surely he can't be so evil and hypnotic/seductive that a meet in a garden centre cafe (the least sexy place I can think of) would lead you down the primrose path. Please don't get too miserable about life in general, there are lots of nice men out there and all sorts of non sad things to do if you open your mind to them, I would however say don't make important decisions on the "ask the audience" approach on mumsnet - becuase you can usually predict the response you will get.

Oh higgle come on. I mean seriously. So many women get hung up on 'the one' and then either spend many years trying to get away from that person.....or....trying to 'change' them.

The MN audience is not the be all and end all and OP at the end of the day will do whatever she feels is best no matter what anyone says.

Christ if I could look at one of my friends in particular and count the amount of times I've said "Don't go there"......and she does anyway.....and it's turns out to be a nightmare which I am privvy to for x amount of months till she gets it out of her system or till he drives to her to despair. Nightmare for her, nightmare for me having to listen to it all, but hey, that is what friends are for.

OP will do what she wants regardless of what any one of us tells her what we think is best.

There are LOTS of nice and lovely men out there who haven't been thru 2 divorces, cheated on their partners (wife and OP) and lied for 10 months. Why not hold out for the genuine nice guy instead of 'better the devil you know'?

I don't mean to be cheeky at all higgle but on the basis of the OP's OP, I'd find it hard to say "yeah, go meet him, see how it goes". Personally for me, that is too risky.

Don't go there.

It isn't worth the upset.

she has decided not to

Oh, I quite agree he is a strong contender for enormous disaster, but it is a bit like your parents saying "no" sometimes when everyone says "don't do it" you just want to do it more, and then when mumsnet united start making Mr pretty awful into the devil incarnate I sometimes think that adds to it as well. All I'm saying is that if OP wavers the other way not to go off on some sort of romantic assignment but to tackle him in the cold light of day - literally - and surrounded by pensioners too! Personally I'm a bit of a believer in "The One" concept and it makes me a bit sad when people scoff about it - my mother is now 83 and although y father's early death from lung cancer meant they only had 33 years together she is convinced he was earmarked for her from birth and they were fated to meet and fall in love - and I sort of believe in all that too. I know a few people who have had pretty disasterous romantic starts in life and then met what they would certainly describe as "The One" ( one hopeless in many ways friend now long established in his 4th and hopefully last marriage)

Doooo the photography course. Do it. Sign up now so you can't back out.

Poke around online for photography forums if that's your thing and get chatting to people in your area - try flickr...

Fill your days and keep your mind busy with new people as Af said, make friends, expand your social circle and see what happens.

Find something to fill the gap, but not him.

OP - if still at all undecided, I cannot recommend enough that you don't meet him again. In my experience most men fall into three groups when it comes to relationships:

• those who want commitment and try to find it. Infidelity rare in this group. Settling down usually preceded by serial monogamy until long-term partner found.
• unashamed players, who will happily go through a series of one-night stands.
• the basically untrustworthy, who are happy to take what they perceive as the 'best' of both worlds. Rats, if you want a more succint description.

For what it's worth, I agree completely with those who advise you to get on with your life through courses/volunteering etc and see what happens. As for internet dating - persist. Set your standards high (ie. to what you want from a man) and refuse to lower them. I admit I'm biased on this as I met dw this way (am on MN now due to work being dead), but there genuinely are men on there who are looking for more than sex or a passport - try the Times dating site, as it seemed to have a higher proportion of those genuinely after commitment when I was on it. Good luck.

Higgle: you bet I have a problem with this bullshit idea of The One. I am aware that lots of people meet lovely partners and have lovely lives with them, etc etc, not knocking that (though I would personally rather stick my head in a bucket of tarantulas than take up heteromonogamy). But all those people who want a longterm monogamous relationship and find someone to have it successfully with, have simply found someone who is one of many available, decent, attractive people they could have had an equally happy time with. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about it, because there are quite a lot of nice, decent, heteromonogamous people out there.
The reason I despise the myth of The One is a) a lot of the people who peddle it are doing themselves harm, buy clinging desperately on to partners who either simply don't want to be with them, or who are actively horrible to them (all these 'can;t live with X can;t live without him/her' situations - yes, you can live without this person and you should because you are not doing each other any favours here).
and b) deranged obsessive monogamists who dump one perfectly nice partner after another because the next appealing person who wanders into view must be The One and finding The ONe is the only thing that matters, so it's OK to treat the last One with contempt and cruelty because the New ONe is THE one until the next one pops out of the woodwork.

Can I just say, I don't believe in 'the one', I don't think this man is my soulmate, just there were some nice times, well..before I discovered all the lies

I really will not be contacting him, I could never trust anything he says, I even found a lie out in the phone call. I had an old broken laptop which he said he sold for me for £25 - he mentioned it yesterday, about how he put a new hard drive in. So still not truthful and stupid in that he doesn't remember what he said in the past

I was totally thrown yesterday, completely out of the blue and when I'm feeling a bit down. I am lonely and disappointed in the internet dating thing. I have a few fck buddies and I call on them time to time but right now, I really would like a partner

I am going to look more into the course, finding more friends I doubt I'll manage, always not been very good at that, will just keep going, just like before he phoned me

Good for you - this is certainly the right decision - especially now you have even more reason to doubt him. I hope you find "The One" even if you don't believe in the concept, I'm sure there is a really nice man out there with your name on him and maybe one of the more salubrious dating sites is the place to start looking.