Empty...how to change gears

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-10-2004
Empty...how to change gears
31
Thu, 02-17-2005 - 11:43pm

I haven't been on this board before but have been a regular on another. I have had so much happen. Where to start??? Nutshell: MM and I were planning to leave our M's and be together. Neither of us, it turns out, are cut out to have an A...or at least, not with each other. This has never seemed like an A to either of us. We have fallen so deeply in love that we saw no other way. I separated from my H almost 4 months ago. I had some issues in the M and some things happened that made the timing right to do that. He, on the other hand, was taking longer.

But...ironic, no matter how much anyone tells you there will be a "but" you are still shocked when it hits... He has been struggling with guilt and obligation. It has finally come down to the wire...we are suffering physically and mentally and could not put off making a change. His blood pressure, which he takes meds for, has been literally through the roof. I have been loosing weight...close to a pound a week.

Last Saturday we were able to spend the entire day together. We discussed that he was at a point that he needed to decide whether he was capable of walking away. It is hard to explain without going into deep detail, but he and his W had a very emotionally drainign experience in high school. I am the only person in the world that knows about what happened other than them. MM also won a bout with a severe illness in their early years. Those things combined with his terror over what a divorce might do to his kids has had him in knots. But he also has not seen a way to live without us. And neither of us are able to live with one person and try to make them think all is ok while loving another. Neither of us has been intimate with our spouses for over 7 months.

Sunday his W's mom, who has had cancer, went severely down hill and entered the hospital. W has been out of state at the hospital with her mom since Sunday. He has been a wreck. His W is distraught and he told me that he feels like he needs to be her "protector" through this. While I understand and agree it still was a knife through the heart. I told him there was no way he could do anything other than support her and get her through this. But he seemed to think he had to make a decision this week about us as well.

I saw this coming. I felt it in my bones. He has decided he doesn't have it in him to walk away. He is distraught and wants to have me in his life somehow and in some other capacity that neither he nor I know what could be. He asked me to spend the night with him tonight so that he could just hold me, and we would spend the day tomorrow talking. He called me about 10 minutes before I was to leave to drive to his town and said that his W called and her mom passed away. Of course there is no way I am going down tonight. His daughter is pretty upset and he will be spending most of the night sitting with her.

I am sick...my mind is reeling and I am in shock and I can't function. I have a ton of things I have to get done at work and I can't function.

I am at a loss for what to do. I am separated and don't know that the M can be saved. To be honest, I don't know that I want to save it. But I wonder if I shouldn't just crawl back into the shell of my former self and let H come home and pretend so that my kids are happy. Or divorce and hope to meet a different soulmate.

I guess I felt I needed to "talk" about this. I feel that I am mourning a death and no one can know. I mourn in silence. I am scared to death of how empty and lifeless I feel. I want to crawl into a hole and never come out. He still wants me to come spend the day with him tomorrow. Part of me thinks that would be unhealthy and a very bad idea. But I also see him hurting and trying to be strong for everyone else and he needs my shoulder. I think he would be devastated if I didn't come over. But it seems so impossible.

I have to figure out what to do with my life now that it has changed directions so abruptly. I think deep in my heart I always knew we wouldn't get this chance...I wish I had just walked away when I knew I could. But then again, I was able to experience the most intense and wonderful love...love like I never knew existed. I guess I am one of the lucky people in the world. Not many people can truly say the met their soulmate and had a chance to love like that. But with that goes hurting like many people will never have to.

Billie

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-13-2004
Fri, 02-18-2005 - 12:08am

hi billie,

im so sorry for your pain, i have no answers to give u but just to listen and say that in time u and maybe him will find the answers to some or all the questions

take care of yourself so u wont get sick, i take tylenol pm for my headache and also so i can sleep

i know u feel helpless and hopeless sometimes but like they all say, it will get better, it is a life changing experience and we are of course shocked, shell shock like me

- does he still want to continue the affair ? or does he want to end it
- are u going to Divorce husband or will u go back and try to rebuild M

im sure u are asking yourself even more difficult questions, i dont know if u should spend the day with him tomorow

anyways , im on west coast time so post and i will try to answer, im just rambling here

max

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Fri, 02-18-2005 - 9:52am

You can't put new wine into old wineskins. Which means you can't unlearn what you've learned about yourself and go back to your marriage as the "old" wife. IF, and I emphasize IF, you choose to go back to your husband to create a new marraige with him, then do so with a full commitment, clear head and energy for it. ANything less than that and the effort will fail.


As to your xMM, he has chosen to remain in his marriage. No matter what his reasons are, the choice is still the same: he has chosen to remain in his marriage. End of affair. I speak as a man who left my marraige because it needed to end, not simply to be with my former OW, now wife. If you leave a marraige simply because you're in love with your affair partner without addressing how you failed in your first marriage, there is a strong likelihood that the new marraige with affair partner will also fail.


Your MM could have been just as strong and supportive of his STBX loss of mother from the outside as he could from being inside the marriage. Support doesn't rely upon marital status for level of effort. I believe that anyone who ends a marriage needs to do so for all the reasons that are wrong with the marraige and all efforts at correcting the shortcomings have failed. And kids are NOT a valid reason to stay in a miserable marriage. Kids aren't fools or blind. They see and hear how their parents interact and learn wha tis appropriate behavior between spouses from the patterns they live.


I suggest you continue with your separation for a while to live on your own and sort out what you want from your life and a marriage before moving back with your husband. Clearly there were reasons you used to justify the drastic step of an affair as

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-10-2004
Fri, 02-18-2005 - 2:30pm

Dear BB:

The same thing happened to me. You need to stop thinking about making HIM feel better and start thinking about YOU. No more Affair. If he is not going to leave his W then he doesn't get you no sex, no kissing, no COMFORT, no friendship, no nothing. It is all or NOTHING.

And believe me, I was so madly in love, I know all that you feel.
And it has been 16 m since my A ended and he still contacts me and is still miserable in his M but still won't leave. Same reasons as yours. But the reasons don't matter. The truth is that he is a coward and you and I are brave. If these xMM truly loved us like they say NOTHING should stand in their way.

The bad news is that the pain you are going to feel now for about 9 months is going to be excruciating. IF you end the A, however, you will regain your Self respect. I continued on with my D and I am so glad that I did.

I now have a new love in my life and he is WONDERFUL and he is there for me and only me 100% everyday. You and I deserve that. No sense beating your head against a brick wall you can't make xMM do anything. He has to live his life and make his decisions. I promise that if you go forward with courage that someday you will be happier than xMM who took the cowardly route.

Survive

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-10-2004
Sat, 02-19-2005 - 1:19pm

I went back and forth on whether going down Friday was a good idea or not. Part of me felt like he had made his decision and it would only serve to make me feel worse and make him more confused. But part of me wanted to make him look me in the eyes and explain this to me in person, not over the phone, and get some sort of closure.

Someone told me that I am in the "support-and-rescue-my soulmate-from-his-suffering" mode and that "you fail to grasp that in addition to already damaging your life he is about to shatter it completely to suit his own needs". Right on the mark. How does one handle this, though? I found myself wanting or needing to comfort him because of the death of his mother-in-law, because he is terrified of not having me in his life, etc. So that seems to be exactly what I did. But how do you handle something like this? I really truly love him and normally when you love someone you help them through things. On the other hand, I definitely felt like he was not being fair to me in asking this. To say the only thing getting him through is knowing I am in his life and that I will always have his heart...then what in the world is he doing still there???? I understand the fear and guilt of hurting everyone the way a D would, but I guess I felt it was hypocritical to stay with a M when your heart and mind and soul are elsewhere.

Yesterday....well, I'm sure you all can guess how it went. We held each other, cried, made love all day, talked....you know the drill. But it was so weird. Other than the overlay of sadness it was just like all the other days we have spent together. I was trying to get closure. Since around October, when he said he wanted to marry me and we began to look at rings, etc, I began working on a wedding gift for him. I write poetry, and have been writing and planned on giving him a book of poetry written about him/us on our wedding day. After he dropped the bomb on me I needed to end the writing. I wrote several "goodbye" types of poems. I bound all of it and took it to his house. Before I opened it I told him this is what the gift was (bawling the entire time) and told him I wanted him to have it. He stopped me before I could open the box & give it to him. Do you know what he said?

He said "don't. If this is something you have been working on I don't want you to stop. I am afraid that if you give this to me you will be giving up and closing things." He went on to say that he didn't know if he had it in him to stay, but he felt he had to try. He said that he knows he loves me more than life, that we are perfect together, but that he needs inner peace. That he can't walk away from his M and life without "really" trying. That means working on the M and seeing if he can stay and be happy. He said if the kids really took a D badly and things went terribly he would always wonder if he should have tried. He said it wasn't fair to them or to me until he did. He said that if he tried and couldn't do it he would leave. He understood that I might have moved on by then and he will have thrown away the best thing he had in his life and would be alone. But despite the risk he needed to do this.

I understand. Or I am trying. I left my M because I couldn't "play a role" and act. I couldn't give 100%, and I don't know that I can. I know I could live as great roommates but as intimate partners? I just can't see it.

He is definitely giving mixed messages, and knows it. He has apologized for it. He is terrified to find out staying won't work. He still wants me in his life as his best friend or whatever. But how in the world can I do that? I will drive myself insane. I won't move forward because I will be waiting for the call that it isn't working after all. But he has also said he won't talk to me much about what is going on between them.

He asked me a "favor." I have out-of-town meetings every couple of months and he has been going with me to those for several months. It has always been a wonderful time to be together and spend the night. He asked me to spend one more night in (XXX). I am absolutely torn apart.

I know I need to move forward as if he will not come back. But I am terrified to. My feelings haven't changed. I want to spend my life with him. He says he wants to spend his with me but he can't see ruining everyone else's life just to have what he "wants." What if I try to work on my M and he comes back? It isn't fair to my H or kids to do the yo-yo thing with them. MM seems to act like if I am not here for him in some capacity he will break. But I am breaking. I am broken. He knows this and feels so much guilt about it.

I gave him the "wedding" gift anyway. Closure and reality.

I am sorry this got so long, but I need to work this out. I appreciate all of the feedback. I know I am not the only one in this boat, as a couple of you posted to me.
I absolutely hate this.

I need to be alone for a while. Do I do that with no contact with MM at all? How do I do that? How do I not??? Noregrets said I need to have no contact. I think you are probably right, but HOW????

Billie

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-13-2004
Sat, 02-19-2005 - 5:00pm

hi billie,

im so sorry for all of the pain u are experiencing right now, all i can say is maybe u need to give him time

looks like he still wanst u but cannot go due to his kids/M/W etc, he needs to make a choice, he cant leave u hanging all the time

i think my OW made a choice, whatever her reason for at least she made a choice, it hurts like hell but what can i do, right now u will be in pain until u or him will make a choice, whatever that choice would be only u and him knows

i can feel the pain and confusion and anguish in u, i can feel it coz i am in it also, i just got back from going out the house, i felt better today, its been raining all day here in the bay area

just my opinion , looks like he still want to have his cake and eat it too, he still wants sex with u and it is sex that draws u part to him, not all i would say but the chemicals it releases makes us addicted to the other person, like me i am sexually dependent on OW and i think sex is a very large part of our relationship/affair, i think to her its all sex, to me its everything hence im feeling more pain than her, to her its like nothing happened at all, she just told me to move on, i dont see any remorse or feel any sadness in her voice or demeanor when talking to her

after some time u will be able to think clearly on what u need to do, r u single? just asking, did u divorce your H because of MM ?

pls take care and eart something
max

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-10-2004
Sat, 02-19-2005 - 6:02pm

Hey Max

I've read some of your posts and know that you are going through some anguish yourself. I can relate to much of what you are going through...I can't eat (I have gone from 112 lbs. to 104 and still losing), having a pretty rough time of getting things accomplished, etc. I am an administrator responsible for my program and all of the funding. I have two grants to write before the end of March and I find I am completely lost...a first for me. I'm working on my Masters and as hard as I try, I can't seem to get my work done for this week.

We absolutely can't let ourselves fall apart. I do know that. I'm not sure of the answers other than to keep putting one foot in front of the other, even when we feel like we can't, until the feet start moving on their own.

I know it sounds like MM is a cake eater...and I supose in some ways he is. But I know his waffling back and forth are for the same reasons I am a mess...his heart is with me. He is struggling to let go because he feels he has to (still trying to understand that and deal with it) yet grasping at ways to keep me in his life because he is terrified of not having that. But he can't have it both ways.

Time seems to be what I need. I feel paralyzed by indecision and uncertainty right now, though. I am still married, although we have been separated for almost 4 months. I separated when I realized that my heart wasn't there and I finally analyzed the problems in the M. I would be lying if I said I didn't leave in part to be with MM though...that is what we both wanted.

Not sure what I'll do or where I'll go at this point. But I don't want to make any rash decisions based on emotion. Either way. So, here I sit until I can find some direction.

Hang in there,
Billie

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-13-2004
Sat, 02-19-2005 - 6:48pm

hi billie,

i absolutely know how u feel, in ways we all suffer the same experience, the last 13 days was realy paralyzing for me, i work in silicon valley and i am so behind in my work, i dont know if i can catch up, i think i will make it my goal next week to do that

it would be best it u give yourself some time to cool down so to speak and get a handle on your relationhip with MM, in the end u have to make a decision for yourself, i dont know how long will it take u to make that decision but in time i am sure u will come to a poin that u have already seen what is right for u, not for MM, but for u, me i am still struggling , although OW made it clear that its over, now it is up to me to deal with it and move on, i am still at that point that i have no idea what will i do with my life right now

it seems so trivial, all we need to do is move on, change our perspective in life, our priorities and do it, but we kept on holding on to OW/MM, its false hope i think, we cannot force ourselves to another person

u and MM have to make a decision, it will all come to that decision if u will continue on or end the relationship, i know its hard, people break up everyday, hearts get broken everyday and people fall in love everyday too, one day we will be able to fall in love again

just live one day at a time, if u live by yourself now, try to be with friends and keep busy, i know it is easy to say, i live by myself too and its driving me nuts being alone in my house

take care, ill be here online all afternoon and late tonite, it keeps me busy i think, im just blabbing around here and answering all the post, just think of me as the village idiot ... hehehe

max

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-10-2004
Sun, 02-20-2005 - 10:57pm

Hi Billie, remember me?
Sorry to hear you are in so much pain. It sounds like alot has gone on since the last time we chatted.

First off, I don't think you should run back to your H. You are probably scared about being alone and giving up the dream of being with MM, but do not go back to your H for those reasons. You made a choice to separate, I did too. It was hard and I had second thoughts, but I knew it was the right thing to do. You made a very difficult decision under very difficult cirmcumstances. You should be proud of yourself for being able to make that decision, unlike MM. You had your reasons for leaving your H, so remember those reasons when you have second thoughts.

Second, I think it is a very bad idea for you to keep making MM's life more bearable for him to live. You are enabling him to stay in his M by still being there for him. You are still giving him the things he needs that he is missing with his W. He said he can't see himself walking away. He made his choice. As sad as it is right now, you HAVE to show him that if this is really want he wants, that if he can't walk away from his M, then he CAN'T continue to have you too. Tell him this means NC. Show him that this is what his life is going to be without you in it. That him saying that he can't walk away means NO MORE YOU in his life. I don't think he quite understands that. My MM didn't either.

I know how bad you are hurting, I feel the same way. The only thing we can do is learn from these experiences. Maybe if you show him what his life will be like without you in it, he will be able to clear his mind and realize he can't live without you. Or maybe you will find your perfect soulmate down the road. Either way, you will be happy again. We all will.
Hang in there
BIG hugs to you

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-10-2004
Sun, 02-20-2005 - 11:03pm
Survive,
That is a very inspiring story! I hope that I can find the happiness that you did. I continued with my D too, and I liked what you said about us being brave and them being cowards. I believe the same thing will happen with my xMM. He will continue to stay in his M miserable and probably still contacting me. I just hope that I can one day be happy again.
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-10-2004
Sun, 02-20-2005 - 11:12pm
I just read this post...NO, NO, NO!!!! Do not spend one more night with him, no not talk to him, do not do anything with this man. It is obvious that he loves you but he is stringing you along, keeping you holding on to him, keeping you waiting and not moving on with your life so he can have you if he decides to walk away. Mine was doing the same thing until I stopped it. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, but I had to do it. You CANNOT let this man hang onto to you like this. It is not fair to you and your happiness. He said straight out that he needs to work on his M for his kids or whatever. I heard the same thing. Over and Over again. He always kept me hanging on, never wanted to give me any closure. He didn't want things to be over between us but he couldn't walk away from his W. He is still trying to make that decision. It will be much easier for him to make that decision if he does not have you in his life any longer. I can't believe that you looked at wedding rings together and now he is saying that he can't walk away. that makes me very sad for you. how can he go from looking at rings with you to staying with his W all of a sudden??? I don't get it. He obviously doesn't know what he wants. You need to continue on with your life. the fact that he wouldn't let you give him that book of poetry makes me angry. I have experienced the same thing. He doens't want you to stop writing in it. he doesn't want to give you up,doesn't want you to move on. you need to find your own closure and move on to find your happiness. I guarantee he will let you hang on and never move on with your life and let you keep the hope alive and he will be no closer to making his decision than he was before. he made the decision to work on his M. leave him to do just that.

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