I am the OW and I am a mess

[whatthehelldoidonow]

Ok I am going to be as brief as possible but there is quite a back story here and I am sorry for name changing but I post regularly and I'm fairly recognisable and being outed is one additional problem I could do without.

I don't really know why I am posting anyway I I just feel such a mess and I realise I am going to get a tough time - i think that is probably what I need. at the very least I need to get it off my chest.

So ten years ago I fell in love with my boss. He is ten years older than me and when we met had a young family. The connection between us was very strong and for months I tried to kid myself we were just friends. We weren't. I know there is no justification for my behaviour so I wont try.

We had a 'relationship' for 18mths. I tried to stop it on several occassions but was never strong enough - no contact only ever lasted a couple of weeks. Eventually I left my job and moved to another town ceasing all contact. I got married had a baby and life was good.

After a couple of years without contact we met at an industry event and I am not proud to say we slept together, thereafter we had sporadic contact as "friends" although the reality is it wa very much an emotional affair. During this time I had a DC, left my husband who had cheated on me (good old karma biting me on the arse!) and my DC died.

I returned to work at the end of last year and inevitably bumped into him (although we are now in different companies) All the old feelings were there and whilst we once again tried to do the "just friends" thing our relationship resumed. He has been enormously supportive and has made me happy - at least in the short term. In the long term I feel crap: I am disgusted at my behaviour and know I am going to get hurt and end up miserable (lets face it I already am).

So now here I am in a mess from which I don't seem to be strong enough to remove myself.

I know I need to walk away but I love him (it sounds so pathetic doesn't it?!) I literally can't think straight. the rest of my life is suffering and yet I feel utterly miserable about the prospect of not having him in my life.

What do I do????

I must have missed some posts from the OP - when did he repeatedly choose not to leave? Has he said he's not leaving his wife?

As if, as if, as if, any man tells his mistress that, "well actually, everything's great at home, we're really happy and the kids are great. I've married an amazingly kind and beautiful woman but the thing is, I like having sex with you as well."

The OP will not have a clue what's going on in her lover's home or what his marriage is like.

But after 10 years, I'm going to guess it's actually quite good, or he'd have left by now.

maisie...he told OP at the beginning of their relationship he would not leave his wife

his marriage is his own business, I think that was made quite clear, tbh

Which is why it would be interesting to know what he's told her.

It's not been 10 years solidly - she broke it off then they met up again at the end of last year. I'm not trying to defend it, but I know couples where unhappy marriages and long term relationships have drifted on for years with mortgages, kids, financial commitments etc, and it's taken one of them to meet someone else for it to end. I wouldn't criticise anyone for that, it's just real life. On the other hand, I know a couple going through a particularly nasty separation as a result of her 5 affairs, when he thought it was a happy marriage. Every affair is very different.

maisie ...do you seriously believe that anything that MM has told OP is even approaching the truth ????

because that would be very naive

Ahhh, have just re-read the thread and I'd missed the crucial post about him making it clear he wasn't going to leave his wife.

I take it all back - he's a toss.

Dont kid yourself! What a waste of time.

Going to try and deal with some of these questions:

At the begining of the relationship OM did tell me that he wouldn't leave his wife. The explanation was put to me very briefly as he loved his DC and they were a family (I'm not saying I believed that or not but that is what he said).

He has never dismissed or bitched about his wife. As I say he has attempted to talk about their relationship and I have cut him dead. I don't want to know. He has got as far as blurting out that they get on amicably enough and they both love their DC, and when I first left my ExH he told me that he could understand why I wasn't prepared to settle for "good enough" like he was doing. It may be bullshit. I may be a mug. But honestly I am not stupid (maybe a horrid person) but not stupid and I don't believe he is lying to me. Perhaps I am a fool.

I can't imagine giving him a ultimatum...I would be scared of him not leaving almost as much as I would be scared of him leaving.

That is why I know I have to leave. I just feel so sad.

maisie, I did take your point, tbh

sorry to be so combative, it is a failing of mine

It's OK AnyFucker, I do the same meself! MN is usually guaranteed to get my dander up about something or other

OP, I don't think for a moment that you're a 'bad' person. I feel desperately sorry for you, and really do hope you can find the strength to move on. If he really wanted to be with you, he'd be making plans for the near/distant future, and would be talking about your future life together. However, he's not. He's been honest with you from the start, and so you now have to decide if you want to settle for "good enough" with him, or whether you want to close the door on him, cry quietly for some time, and then move forward in your life towards the man who is waiting for you. It's your choice. Good luck

dontcha just love a proper apology...

Nothing knocks you off your soapbox quicker than the s word

I can't be doing with those arsey, passive-aggressive "sorrys"

it's gotta be the whole hog

Agree - full frontal, bollock naked apologies or nothing.

'As if, as if, as if, any man tells his mistress that, "well actually, everything's great at home, we're really happy and the kids are great. I've married an amazingly kind and beautiful woman but the thing is, I like having sex with you as well." '

what if he did say that though?

How do you stop it?

Tell him your are lonely, vulnerable and grieving and what he is doing, the way he is using you, is making you worse. Tell him you may contact him in your darkest moments but please not to take the bait. If he is anything but a selfish shit he will stop contacting you. If he doesn't back off when asked, he doesn't care about you and is just using you which might give you some of the strength you need to give him up. You can stop kidding yourself there's some deep soul connection on his side.

Maybe you should let him talk about his relationship so that you realise it is real and that the wife and children exist and that he has this whole life that you will never be a part of. At the moment you're creating a bubble where they don't exist.

Meanwhile, delete his numbers from your phone, don't write them down anywhere, block his email address. Have strategies for what to do if you feel like contacting him such as mabye writing a mail but saving it to draft and not sending it. Come and post here, text someone else, call a friend. Find things to reward youself with when you resist contacting him.

You need to start building a life so that there's other people to see and contact during the dark moments.

whatthe, I do feel for you. I have to tell you I've felt that deep & compelling link to someone (more than once) and, if you're talking about the same thing, I now recognise it as a connection of flaws - weaknesses, vulnerabilities. Were you to visualise your connection, what colour would it be? Something dark? That's not the same as a connection of strengths. It's not a positive. It is not an enhancement to your life.

That kind of connection is very much like an addiction. It feels essential, but all the while you know it reduces you.

I support two pieces of advice from the preceding posts. One is to ASK him to leave his wife. You have to do this, I feel, to get your 'relationship' slightly more into the realm of real life. Currently, your love may feel like a both-ways flow, but it's all happening in your own head really. Don't accept a fudged reply. Listen closely, with all your senses, to his responses.

The other is to get yourself into therapy. I recommend this whether or not you ask him, and no matter his reply. You've been through some terribly disruptive times, and you are still disrupted. I feel you'd benefit enormously from loving yourself more completely. A good counsellor will help you with that.

Good luck!

do you want him to leave his wife?
or could you both be happy with a deep and sexual part time connection?

if you are both happy with the DASPTC , do it.Keep it secret and deal with the guilt, if there is any. (there might not be)

if he is happy with it and you are not, run.

i see you say you are a mess .

why exactly?

I am very concerned your life seems miserable because of another person.
Turn the tables round.
If he phoned you tomorrrow and said "darling I love only you I am leaving my wife so we can be together" would you be ecstatically happy? If so why? if not, what does that tell you?

Please do not invest your life/happiness/misery in another person

None of this is going to be great for the wife either, of course. Unless she's unhappy at home just wishing he would hurry up and have an affair so she would have an excuse to end it - we've seen posters here in exactly that situation. As WWIFN so often and astutely says, by keeping secrets from his wife he is denying her choices whilst keeping his own open. She doesn't know what's going on, so how can she fairly decide whether she wants to go on living with him?

But, if ignorance is bliss, and they're having a happy home life, then his bit on the side crooks her finger and off he scampers, it's going to take her a very long, painful time to realise she was probably better off without him.

So I, for one, wouldn't advise the OP should say "please leave your wife for me". "Would you ever leave your wife for me?" is the nearest she should get, again in the interests of all parties being fully informed so they can make a fair choice.

I'm sure I've previously mentioned my friend who assured us she was good for her MM's marriage because it kept him happy, the wife wasn't losing anything as long as she didn't know, they had a deep bullshit connection and the sex was great... Eventually the wife kicked him out, not sure whether she found out he was sleeping around or just got tired of his emotional absenteeism, and he turned up on my friend's doorstep with a suitcase. After only a couple of weeks he mooched off to "find himself", and with remarkable speed shacked up with another woman. Cue devastated friend. Happy ending, she now has a (single!) boyfriend and is no longer even tempted by ex-MM's occasional offers of a quick one for old time's sake.

Eurostar all good advice thanks.

And grace you are right I am sure some counselling would help. I actually saw someone a couple of times after the break down of my marriage but events were somewhat quickly overshadowed by my DD's death. That counsellor wasn't great with my grief and so I moved to someone who "specialised" in loss. Although they were helpful in relation to the loss of my DD when the OM came back into my life I was too ashamed to discuss it with her and so the whole exercise seemed pointless and I gave up on it. However I have arranged to see someone from next week. Hopefully it will help.

librium honestly I don't know if I want OM to leave his wife. I know I want more of a relationship with him but the fall out would be huge and the pain it would cause all involved enormous. I very much want us to be together but I don't know whether I could live with that.

I wanted to add that I have taken some positive steps.

Recently I was asked if I fancied a secondment to one of our European offices. I dismissed it out of hand (mostly because I didn't want to be away from OM )

However this morning I have spoken to HR and the offer is still on the table. I have had a brief chat with my nanny and she is in principle up for it too (which in itself is amazing - must be a sign!). Work want me out there quickly (within a couple of weeks)and provided I can make the necessary arrangements then I am going to go for it. It is only for 6 weeks but I think it will provide me with the space I need.

The only downside is it means putting the counselling on hold...

I am going to see OM tomorrow. I am not going to ask him to leave his wife or even if he would. Those of you who said that if he wanted to he would have are of course right. I am going to follow Eurostars advice and tell him how unhappy this has made me and that I need to move on.

Thank you for getting me to this point. I can be strong. I can do this.

Yes, Eurostar's advice was really good. Congratulations on the secondment, hope you enjoy it and keep busy/distracted.

As for how you "leave" him, you need to re-examine his behaviour and words, and re-understand him as other posters on this thread have been seeing him:

selfish - got his sex with you and then told you he wasn't leaving his wife. Well, thanks a lot for taking what you wanted and asking for more, without giving anything! He has continued to do this, and is probably quite enjoying life, as he gets what he wants - all of what he wants - and doesn't seem to sacrifice anything for it, although it is perfectly all right for you and his wife (and whoever else) to sacrifice things for him.

susceptible - "deep connection". If he could "fall" for you so easily, and if he could "settle" for his wife so easily (he wasn't forced to marry her when she was just a girlfriend. was she?), I would worry that he would be susceptible to others (and would be insulted about this, too!)

weak - He doesn't hold you off; he doesn't try to change his own situation for your benefit (why would he, when that would be hard).

manipulative - trying to talk about his wife, indeed! Trying to make you a co-conspirator, more like.

So: selfish, susceptible, weak and manipulative. What are his attractions? Seems charming and you like the sex (well, it is sex, isn't it? people are meant to like sex).

He is NOT charming at all. Give yourself a shake and really see through this man. Get pissed off, and get rid.