determined to retain my power/idignity etc

[wickerman]

So once again, I need the collective wisdom of the electoral demographic called MNErs.
Some of you will know bits of my history but I'm not on here very much any more, but I really really do cherish the humour and wisdom of you lot. So here goes.
I've been seeing a very beautiful younger man which after the sexlessness and joylessness of my marriage has been a complete revelation, marvel etc. He's recently called time on it, because he wants more from me than I can currently offer - I'm still in the middle of separating, have kids, complex work life, etc - and is seemingly intractable on his decision. This is very hard as I have fallen for him in a huge way. We also work together which makes separating completely much harder. He's due to to leave the country in 6 months, and I'm floored that he's not using that natural break as a break in our relationship, rather than now. He's cooler and cooler with me every time I see him, which is very very hard, and we work closely in a creative team together, and were previously renowned for our brilliant work together. Because of the age difference and the fact that people at work don't know about my marital situation, we have kept it secret, so there's no one I can talk to about this.
I have to continue to see him, and work with him, but I need to retain my dignity and not go through a massive masochistic thing every time I see him. He says he still loves and desires me which is driving me crazy because I can't really understand why we need to call time on it. I don't need judgment calls on the whys and wherefores of what has happened - unless you know the reality of my situation you won't be able to judge - but just advice on remaining a queen/empress/eagle rather than a victim. TIA

he-elp. Please.

Poor you, it must be really, really hard. cnat think of any advice apart from find someone else to take you mind off it! But i didnt want your post to go un answered.

help help help.

It's possible he's detaching from you now to avoid compromising his travel plan. Not suggesting that helps much, but it might ease your pain a tiny bit.

I think you need a two-pronged approach to this, wickerman. Summon up all your wisdom, maturity, common sense and compassion. Write yourself a letter with all the reasons why your relationship would never have lasted the distance anyway: it was time-limited by his plans, presumably from the beginning, and you are aware of all the discrepancies that would have become stumbling blocks. In your letter, too, celebrate all the ways this relationship has enhanced you - renewed confidence, vivacity, energy: everything you have gained or regained, thanks to your rediscovered joy in loving.

Now grieve. You're perfectly entitled to mourn the end of something so lovely, to feel sorry for yourself and to need your own gentlest sympathy. It's very sad.

Your affair has added sparkle to you, and you'll still have it after he's boarded his plane. That's reason enough to feel kindly towards him. As the more experienced party here, you have some responsibility to respect his own emotional fragility (rather than take advantage of it!!) until it's time to "let go with love".

It is hard. And you can do it

THANKS, that's amazing.
have you been there?

Yeah

You know when you have to get the flight home from a really amazing holiday? It breaks your heart - but that doesn't make you wish you'd never gone on holiday, does it? When you get home, you're all the richer for the entire experience.

hmmmm.

We've just had a very long phone conversation, and I think I understand his reasoning now - and I kept myself calm and unteary during it.

and I now accept that it is OVER which was very
hard to accept before ..........it's just the day to day now, and the knowledge that there's NO WAY he will not be with anyone else before September...I'm DREADING him being with someone else......and the coolness that will result from that - I know that there will be no one else for me during these next months - I've tried the mindless fuck buddy thing and it just doesn't work for me.

But I know I am woman enough to deal.

I think I am.

I hope I am.

I kind of just have to be, don't I.

Well done you, you are being terrifically brave and sensible. In time the pain will disappear and you'll be left with the nice memories of the nice bits. Even more so because they will be untainted by thoughts of you clutching his trousers legs and bellowing 'pleeeeeeasssse don't leeeeeeave me!'
At least he sounds able to be courteous to you in working hours, which is a good thing. Best plan for the future is to indulge your own particular interests and find a social group that shares them.

no good advice I'm afraid but I do feel for you....loss sucks and life seems so unfair...

however,you are still you,can still be the person you want to be,more important than being with the person you want to be with

look after yourself and anyway,the world is full of beautiful men lol

< thoughts of you clutching his trousers legs and bellowing 'pleeeeeeasssse don't leeeeeeave me!' >
lol @ SGB
No idignity in that, huh wickerman??!

I am sorry that you know it's over now. I'm vastly impressed by both of you ... this way, you add to each other's worth as well as your own.

I hope you have sufficient chocolate and gin to hand

Ah, solid, how I love and esteem you. And you others too.

I had a surfeit of red wine and several rollies which anaesthetised me sufficiently.

He's being very sweet and sensible - like we normally have a work meeting at mine once a week, in the evening - and he's rescheduled it to be in the day in a neutral venue, because he's worried about wanting to sleep with me. I have to give him a fuck of a lot of credit, he's very sensible for such a baby and that does make it easier.

Fucking hangover today.

But have put posters up in my home office telling me I am queen and that there is a bigger world out there.

It's really hard, after SO LONG without good sex, to give him up, but I have to.

And I have to believe that at pushing 40 it's not too late for me to find the real deal with someone more suitable. But not yet.

HAHA also about the trouser leg thing.

It's not really my style, thank fuck.

Am super emotional but super proud too.

PHEW.

You should b e proud, you're doing absolutely the right thing and doing it well. Some relationships are simply finite, and being able to accept that gracefully is one of the real secrets to happiness, because you can look back happily on the good bits without bitterness.

that is indeed true Solid.

I wish I had known that when I was MUCH younger.

But I do know it now.

Must remember to pass that one on to my daughters.

Ok, first major challenge.

Our colleague lives in a complex with a pool (it's not that poncey honest)

and has invited everyone over for the first swim of the year after work today.

I cannot possibly view his semi clad body and behave in an adult way.

So I will not go.

And I will not think about all the Taras and Emma Louises who will be going.

I will not.
OK?

Luckily I have a major project to finish. Hmm.

how are you wm,did you go to the swim?

Course not! Would have been totally masochistic.

Now staying off fb where HILARIOUS pictures will have been posted.

But I have been reading YOUR thread with great interest!

How are you doing with that?

well,good and bad

Yes?

well we have become much more friendly again,which I am happy with...but it's that sort of friendship where you want to see a lot of the friend,so I miss him when Idon't see him.

He misses me too,only because we areboth very easy to get on with compared with a lot of people at work.

Gosh I have been there, exact situation, but years ago. I actually thought I may DIE of heartbreak, lack of fantastic sex, seeing him daily, working alongside him daily and when he met someone new a couple of months later OMGOMGOMG

I got around it by calling on my gorgeous friends, in work and out of work, who rallied, and I barely spent a night in that I didn't want to. I did try hard to avoid social situations where he would be, which was tricky for a while as after 2.5 years our friends were quite entwined, but I did it for the most part.

Just don't do what I did and convince myself we were friends, go out drinking, end up in bed together, more and more frequently causing him to dump me again

You CAN do it! That was the relationship that helped me stop being the clingon "oh please don't leave me" ball of patheticness I had been for the last 5 years!

I do still wonder about him tho , 20 years, 3 kids and a knockout, fabulous husband later

I actually did once clutch to someone's trouser leg when they were trying to leave me (and the room). I feel hot with embarrassment even twenty years later when I think about it. So, you have not done that and therefore you are cooler than me. It sounds like you are doing very well under the circumstances, so just keep going. I think hanging out with friends rather than him (and not going to pool parties with colleagues) is the best way to go otherwise it's torture for everyone (including him) given that probably nothing will change. BTW, I would rather die than appear in a swimsuit in front of my colleagues; are you expected to swim at these events (she says praying no colleagues have a pool)?

yeah. The weekend has been a bit......hmm.

So on Friday I went to a drinks party with friends and, drunk, lost my steely resolve and texted him - it was an ironic joky text rather than a trouser clingy one but it did none the less say that I was missing him. He agreed that he was missing me and then we discussed how we should have had sex to a particular band that we are both wildly into. But then we managed to move it on to more sensible discussions.

Then he texted me on Sunday morning detailing a very erotic dream he had had about me, and I was DEVASTATED. First because I thought he was being unfair and reeling me in again when he had no intention of doing anything, and then because I realised that he is so clear and moved on that he thought it would be FUNNY to share this with me. So I spent yesterday - luckily on a train - in a completely distraught state, reeling at his callousness, and am currently wondering about changing my job or at least trying to limit contact with him.

The thing is he is SO much younger than me - aherm, 15 years, - that I feel he can't possibly really GET what I'm going through, and that really I can't expect him to understand or have mature consideration.
And I have to get through this separation and all the emotional sturm und drang it's causing in my kids, and all this getting re-hurt and re-hurt by him is not helping.

So, more digging deep and steeliness. And yeah, outofmysystem, I realised that I was being a bit disingenuous, still finding many many extra reasons to contact/hang out with him in and out of work, and he was going along with them, because I know he really loves being with me, but he wasn't understanding how masochistic that was.

hmmmmm.

Ohhh, that must have been hard. Salt in wound!
I don't know the content of your breakup conversation, Wickerman, but am assuming he's also sad at the end of your affair. So isn't it likely he told you about the dream out of wishing rather than cruelty, disinterest, etc? It was unwise of him but who's perfect?

I'm really feeling for you here. Try to stay on your glorious course of "no recriminations; no regrets; no going back" ... Bittersweet, not bitter! Breathe deeply, think of a beautiful landscape, smile at something in the here & now. Congratulate yourself. Make a drink. Aaah.

Any better??

Raaaaah! thanks Grace, you wise bird.

Yeah. All that helps.

I'm trying to focus on remaining "in choice"

• rather than seeing him out of compulsion and then getting very hurt and upset.The boundaries are not super clear, because we are freelancy creative types and we do theatre and music together.

We have a big event coming up in the summer - basically we're doing a festival - and I'm DREADING DREADING DREADING it - because he will indubitably be with someone else by then, and I will be one of the numerous voluptuous brunette exes hanging around. And there will be TENTS. I know for a fact that he has roped in two of his exes into this project. I'm trying to work out if I can tough it out at all or whether it's just too much to ask - whether I can remain dignified or it will just be too humiliating.

I want to be able to do it, because it's stuff I've been working on for ages,and I organised it, etc etc, but we will see.

In the meantime I'm trying to focus on projects I'm not doing with him, as we've been everything to each other the past 6 months and I've almost forgotten all the other stuff I do.