Finding the strength to stop
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Finding the strength to stop
| Mon, 05-05-2003 - 10:38am |
Hi Everyone,
I'm new to this board and I am in a crisis. I have been married for two years (together for 5) and I have become emotionally envolved with another man in the last month or so. There has been no physical contact only because distance prevents that, but we spend hours on the phone and have written a few notes. I know this is wrong, but it feels so good to have someone that shows me attention and communicates with me. I guess this is selfish, but I don't want to stop. I don't want to make excuses for what I'm doing, but my husband and I never had a world wind romance. We were single co-workers who had an office fling and I ended up pregnant so we got married. We were never "In Love", but we always had a pretty good friendship which is why we have endured this long. But I know I only got married because of the baby, and I have never really been happily married, just kind of satisfied with the hand that was dealt to me. The desire I have to want to be special to someone is being fulfilled by another man. I have gone to counseling with my husband and attempted many marrital exercises to change my feelings, but I don't think you can make up something that isn't there. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to divorce him because we have a family (I don't want my son to lose his homelife). But right now, I just need what OM is offering me. Can anyone relate?
I'm new to this board and I am in a crisis. I have been married for two years (together for 5) and I have become emotionally envolved with another man in the last month or so. There has been no physical contact only because distance prevents that, but we spend hours on the phone and have written a few notes. I know this is wrong, but it feels so good to have someone that shows me attention and communicates with me. I guess this is selfish, but I don't want to stop. I don't want to make excuses for what I'm doing, but my husband and I never had a world wind romance. We were single co-workers who had an office fling and I ended up pregnant so we got married. We were never "In Love", but we always had a pretty good friendship which is why we have endured this long. But I know I only got married because of the baby, and I have never really been happily married, just kind of satisfied with the hand that was dealt to me. The desire I have to want to be special to someone is being fulfilled by another man. I have gone to counseling with my husband and attempted many marrital exercises to change my feelings, but I don't think you can make up something that isn't there. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to divorce him because we have a family (I don't want my son to lose his homelife). But right now, I just need what OM is offering me. Can anyone relate?
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Today - and 10 months into a slowly ending EMA - I am seperated and divorce is a very likely outcome.
Did my EMA cause my unhappiness in my marriage - No. Did it make it easier for me to see what I was missing, easier for me to distance myself from my H and easier for me to start pondering D. YES.
Likelihood of working on my problems in my marriage and staying married pre-EMA, I would guess 75-80%. Likelihood of working out my problems today and staying married today: 10-15%.
The only positive thing I have taken from this is that I understand better than I ever have who I am and what I need to be a happy and fulfilled person. I probably could have figured that out without an EMA.
STOP RIGHT NOW IF YOU WANT YOUR MARRIAGE TO WORK AND YOU AND YOUR H ARE WILLING TO CONFRONT YOUR ISSUES.
You can not have both. I can't stress enough how important it is for you to stop communicating with this OM in a way that could lead to an affair and make you cheat on your family.
Cheating on your family, doesn't just mean the physical of it all. It means filling your head with his thoughts and your encounters to the point that your children, husband and home are so at the bottom of your list that you no longer make them a priority and your EMA becomes the most important and intoxicating thing in your life. This is like an addictive drug and the best thing to do is simply not to start.
It will change your life and there is never going back to what you had.
I will be thinking of you!
noangelhere
Oh, Gena, if I could give you ONE bit of advice that would stop you from careening into disaster I would say... DON'T get into an affair - not an emotional one, not a physical one. I was YOU in many ways, less than a year ago. I wavered, I begged for someone to convince me somehow, to say SOMETHING, to make me not to take the plunge into a full-blown affair... but I think I was already gone by the time I asked for help. And I did have an affair. And it almost destroyed me and everything I hold dear... and I am still reeling from it and dealing with the fallout and pain - and I ended it more than 4 months ago.
Your marriage has problems. Having an affair will make it all WORSE. In so many more ways and so much worse than you can possibly imagine from the "haven't done it yet" side of things. You will get attention and maybe even incredible sex... but it is NOT worth the price you'll pay.
I don't know if you can create something that was never there with your H. But you say you are friends and that is a GOOD start. It's a lot more than many women here have. Obviously your reasons for marrying your H were not great... but your OM can't fix what is missing inside of you. It's NOT about your marriage and it's not about the OM - it's about YOU. It took me way too long to figure that out, and I did a lot of damage by rationalizing and telling myself what was wrong or missing in my marriage and that I "needed" what the OM was offering.
I've been married a long time, and have children and I too don't want to tear apart their home life. But if you have no real hope of being happy with your H, and you feel that the only option open to you is to have an affair, then leave your H. You will end up destroying the marriage in a much more painful way if you try to stick it out and cheat on him, than if you know it's a dead end and end it now. If you have ANY hope of fixing your marriage and trying to make it work, do NOT have the affair. Find a new counselor if you don't think the one you saw (are seeing?) helps. You can NOT, absolutely 100% NOT, work on or fix or even be fully present in your marriage while you are with another man emotionally or physically.
I will repeat this and I bet this is the one thing that EVERYONE here agrees with - You can NOT work on or fix or even be a full partner in your marriage while you are emotionally or physically involved with another man. It will ONLY lead to further destruction of your already threatened marriage.
Understand before I say this, that I am a MW with children who cheated on her H and did NOT ever confess to him and I am now struggling to rebuild and repair my marriage while also healing my broken heart from ending the affair (I was the one who ended it). But if you are only settling for the sake of a child, if you don't feel love for your H, then leave him. You have only been married 2 years - can you REALLY imagine the rest of your life with this man and what it will be like if you don't love him???? If you are only friends and you feel like you settled to be with him????? It only gets harder to leave as time goes on... I've been with my H 18 years... I can relate to exactly how you are feeling but Gena, honey, you are just going to make it worse if you cheat. I promise you that.
Hugs, and please don't think I'm being harsh... it's just that I am coming OFF the roller coaster now, and in hindsight I can see things a lot more clearly than I could when I was about to step onto the ride.
Glinda