When the one you will always love is not the one you married.

[royalmess]

I am desperately looking for some advice and wise words. I have been reading similar old threads over the last few days and I know there are some amazing mnetters out there...

I have been married for 12 years, 4 dcs. We married young. The result of a lot of soul-searching on and off over this times is that I "settled" and was not truly in love with my DH. I know this is a terrible thing to have done, and so selfish to him.

There is another man, a friend who I had a brief relationship with long long ago, who I believe I still love with all my heart, mind and soul. He lives far away, we communicate sometimes by email, haven't seen each other for 9 years. He has told me several times he is still in love with me.

I have 2 questions:

Do I really love this man or is it possible to just think you do because your marriage lacks that special something?

If I really do love this man, how do I get over that and accept my marriage? I do not agree with divorce and cannot justify wrecking 5 lives to be with this man.

Thanks so much in advance.

biddyofsuburbia, excellent advice, thanks. You hit the nail on the head about my relationship with my friend making me realise what my relationship with my dh lacks.

My dh knows I have close friendship with my friend, he has always been happy for me to have male friendships, go off on holiday on my own etc to get some space. But he doesn't know the extent of my feelings. I have talked to him about how I'm feeling we need to work on our relationship and he agrees in principle, not that he thinks there's anything much wrong. He see it more as me being an "up and down" kind of person.

Sounds as though you are looking for him to be more intense or driven? If so, does he know this?

He is very driven generally in life, career-wise etc. I think that's part of the reason I married him, he has a very strong character and I was quite insecure back then. He's a very solid and safe sort of person. I know he will never let me or the dcs down.

My friend, OTOH, is unemployed, dreamy, emotional - the complete opposite. My practical side obviously won over my gut instinct all those years ago, and now a large part of me regrets that, and feels it was unfair to dh.

Royalmess. I could nearly have written your posst. I have had a friend for years that I love. He is my best friend. we have admitted our love in a friendship way but I know it is more. But I am married (to someone I knew wasn't right but i was prgnant) and have 2 dc.
At the moment I have told my dh that I am not sure if I want to be with him. We are working at our relationship and seeing how it goes. I am not happy but don't want to upset dc etc. I am trying to work all this out independantly of feelings for om. Iyswim.
Sorry for mini hijack I just wanted to say I do understand . I think all you can do is if you want to go . go . But don't do it 'for' om.
If you really want to get over om I think you have to sever contact. I know i couldn't do this so if you can't I think you have to leave or just accept the life you have and try to focus on good times/relationship with your dh.
I wish you luck

I think of my first love with more fondness than any part of my relationship with DH, just a different level of respect for eachother....shame I was soooooooo crazy!

Royalmess - I am wondering whether this is an early midlife crisis and whether the OM represents your slightly younger days. And whether if you ran off with him you would soon resent him being dreamy, emotional and unemployed.

Perhaps you are just missing that "giddy feeling" of young love and the OM gives you a glimpse of that phase of your life.....something that we all have to cope with.

petitmaman I totally understand. It's hard to think clearly don't you think? I think I have always had reservations about my marriage, but there is a lot of good in it, and I need to focus on that and stop dreaming about what could have been. But it's so hard. I wish there was a box I could put my feelings in.

A lot of people are saying cut all contact. If I need to do this, it's possible, but I can already feel the unhappiness. It's like TDiddy said - the deep level of communication we have is good, as long as I know where the boundary is. And that's the problem at the moment.

TDiddy I have wondered about that. I am sort of surfacing from the babies and small children years and considering more what I want and need for myself. I do need to address that, but I don't think this man will ever "go away", and I don't want him to.

And what is really sad is that I don't remember ever having that "giddy feeling" with my dh.

Completely echo the advice that if your relationship is in trouble then look to fix it and if it cant be fixed leave.

Then after time if this other man is still available look to start dating.

In the meanwhile you need to stop all contact. His presence will always be destruction and cause you pain whilst you are married.

I have been in a similar situation- For years I have had contact with an ex (to me he always was "the one") which I have remained friends with. More recently he told me how he felt and his regrets that he fucked it up with me by choosing this other woman over me (a bloody good friend at the time who shafted me but telling him I wasnt interested!)

Within 2 mths she announced she was pregnant (what she had always wanted at any cost nad told me the next relationship she had she wanted kids with )

He had already figured by this point that he wasnt happy but told me he had to try and make it work.

When he told me recently how he felt my response was you have to work at your relationship or leave. But you dont leave her for me- you leave for yourself. I am under no illusion that if we had got together properly the spark and laughter would eventually give way to everyday stresses and strained.

I have to move in the same social circles as him but you have a choice...you dont have to see him.

Personally I wish my ex had never told me how he felt- Its put a strain on my current relationship. It was quite disrespectful of him to do so. Your OM is also putting unfair pressure on yours.

Royalmess I really feel for you. I know I caould not ever cut conntact as ablove all we are friends and I would never want to lose our friendship. Could you try to reduce contact for a while while you concentrate on your family and try to get some other interests in your life and do some serious thinking and take it from there?

hesnotworthit, you sound much stronger than me! I wish I had your clarity on how if we were actually together it would not be as I imagined. To be fair to my friend, he told me how he felt long before dh and I were married, he says his feelings haven't changed but he doesn't ask anything of me.

petitmaman, I can do that. It will be hard.

Its taken a long time for become this strong. I admit to moments of weakness with him - Im not perfect.

Just dont want you to go through the heartache I have. Every time I see him I still feel giddy....but hopefully that will subside.

My current relationship doesnt have that giddiness but it does have a lot of love. trust and acceptance. Thats worth 100 more than any relationship with him could ever bring!

So in the end what you have with your partner is better even if there's no real passion there? Is that what you're saying? I can't accept never having that at the moment....

Look, your 'special friend' is only a human being, just like you, your H and everyone else. He might lose his romantic allure when he's moaning about not being able to find a matching pair of socks or doing great big smelly shits with the bathroom door open.
He also sounds like total non-starter as a long term partner, too. Men who are 'dreamy and emotional' are invariably parasitic, the relationship with them always becomes all about them and their various moods, and you'd find yourself having to be the practical one and turning into a right nag.

Basically, the person you need to be in love with to give you that special spark, etc, is yourself. Couple-relationshops don't fix a person, romance is a pleasant-ish distraction but it's not really very important in the long run.

Agree with SGB.

I bhaven't forgotten him, I haven't broken it off completely yet. going through it now. My h is moving out.

nearlyy, so sorry. What do you want to happen with your dh?

SGB that's brilliant, just the shake up I need. Thank you. You are right about liking myself more too. Have to go out now but will do some thinking about all the great advice on here. Back later.

Sorry but om sounds like an arsehole, he knows your married and to me it sounds like hes looking for an ego boost . Would you really want to be with someone who sniffs round another mans wife like this ? Hes crossed a line and clearly lacks morals.

Come on op, how on earth can you be in love with someone you email occasionally and you havent seen for 9 years ? How would you feel if your dh was doing this ? Forget these romantic notions hes always been in love with you, do you really think hes been pining for you for all these years, hasnt dated anyone in all that time because hes so in love with you ?

Most of us settle, otherwise we,d still all be single waiting for mr perfect. Dont listen to silly tails of om coming back to find their long lost loves, they usually only do this when they get the boot and seek out an easy option. The net makes it very easy to do this.

When seperating from my ex he immediateley signed up to every single dating site. When he had no luck there he contacted every single ex hed ever had stating hed never forgotton them, still missed them ect. Most were offended and cut contact straight away , but one didnt and was flattered. Cue 2 divorces as she beleived his crap that hed got out of his miserable marriage as he still loved her , waited for her all these years. Fact is she was vulnerable and didnt realise he very much didnt want the seperation and was desperateley trying to get back here. She was nothing more than an ego boost but i dont think her H or her kids see it like that.

Ive also had ridiculous declrations of love from overweight middle aged men i once knew in my teens, looking for an ego boost.
Really op, cut the contact, if you havent seen him for 9 years you really know nothing about him other than the bullshit he types in his emails.
Tell him to get his kicks elsewhere and identify what you get out of this silly email flirtation.

If your DH is not into talking then why not get some counselling alone so you can work out what is daydream and what is real life?

It sounds like marrying and having kids young you see this om as representing that free, passionate life you 'could' have had if you had chosen differently. Regret clouding your vision.

We all think like that sometimes but reality is the romantic 'spark' is often an illusion and unless it turns into active love (taking bins out, caring for sick kids with you, compromising on day to day mundane stuff) then it's worthless. People spend their lives moving on to find another spark and another and another, because they don't value love - they just want that initial adreneline rush.

Easy to be dissatisfied with your life and see this om as The Answer - if you were with him it would all be peachy. As others have said, rubbish. It would be mundane and someone would still need to take the bins out eventually. And there would be immense hurt to your family who I am sure you love.

Look after yourself - get some support, work out what would be satisfying and don't expect a partner - your DH or this om - to make you completely happy. Often you have to choose to do things because they are loving or giving and the happiness follows on. But if you go off seeking your own happiness only it can be so elusive.

I think it might be difficult to be happy with him if he is dreamy ,emotional and unemployed. One of those 3 might be doable but all 3 together...

When you married dh you had your hard hat on and were practical. You married someone you didn't love and now you find yourself in a loveless marriage. The reasons why you married him - mostly to do with security in which to bring up your dc and him being a generally decent guy - are they still relevant to your current life situation? Since you have 4 dc , I think probably they are.

Why not go all practical again for a minute and see if life with the OM is truly feasible. Ifi t is, you'd have to weigh up your distress atm vs. the dc's distress and dh's if you were to take it up with the OM.

You feel you made the wrong decision back then, maybe you did, maybe you didn't but any decisions you make now have to be a bit practical too.

Oh god, i didnt spot the dreamy , emotional unemployed bit ! Translates into emotional parasite lazy scrounger. Seriously op, its a crush, imagine yourself accompanying him down to the jobcentre every fortnight .

I read this earlier and can't stop thinking about the 2 of you.

I was in the same boat although no children at the time and eventually I left.

I have regrets though. I never went to councelling. I never tried to talk about it and change our situation. I believe I tried to do what I could to stay together but I didn't try hard enough. I believe if we tell ourselves enough that we are not happy we start to believe it. If we tell ourselves there is a way out we start to image what it would be like if we took it. You need to think more positively about your relationship. Sparks flying...they are just a fairy tale. What you have is real life and it takes HARD WORK.......so please work at it.

This guy is being so unfair to you telling you he loves you. Please don't fall for his charms. After all is it easy to get your kicks out of sharing feelings when someone is so far away. I wonder what he would do if you packed up the kids and the bags and told him you were on the way if he would be there waiting????

I really hope you do the right thing......however hard it is.

Thanks again for the responses.

Most of what you say I sort of agree with. However I feel you are being rather harsh on my friend - he hasn't done anything wrong, he knows the situation and accepts it, he is content to have my friendship. But we both know there is more to it and occasionally we talk about it. It's me who has the problem.

dignified do you really think most of us settle? I'm not sure that's true. But I would be interested to hear from people who do feel that they settled but made a happy marriage through work and commitment. Most of the responses about that here seem to involve one person eventually leaving.

Yes i do, we settle because the person is the best weve met ( yet ) or because theyre potentially a good father and we want kids,or because there better than our ex . Otherwise wed all be single waiting for george clooney or some other hunk , who would ever really be good enough ?

I know you think ive been harsh on your freind, but really, he has done something wrong, hes claimed to love you which is an intrusion into your family and threatens the security of your children, even though i know you dont see it that way. A freind wouldnt do this .

How were things with your h before your freind said these things ? There are several books about this sort of thing, it might be worth reading some of whenwillifeelnormal posts, shes very very good at this sort of thing.