Help! Need intervention...might give in!
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| Wed, 08-25-2004 - 5:53pm |
I haven't posted in a while because I thought I had healed and that this chapter of my life was CLOSED. This board is the only thing that kept me from straying again, and I need your help now!
Just to give you a little bit of background...I am married, and in March an aquaintence/friend I work with that I've known for 5 years and always had gotten along with took our usually harmless flirting a little too far. Before I knew it we were sending each other many emails a day and were kind of pushing the limits to see how far we'd go. Dangerous! I never meant anything to happen, but he kissed me. Long story short, we were very intense in the beginning, he got scared and ended things. I was really hurt because although I accept total responsibility for my actions, he pushed it. Then he ended it. Then he started up again, and we ended it again. Off and on for a while. We never had sex, just met in empty rooms at work and fooled around. He is in a serious relationship, so we always knew this was just for fun. Friends with benefits. I crossed a line and called him one night at work when I'd been out drinking with friends and he freaked out. I ended things completely, and felt hurt that obviously there wasn't even a friendship there, that he was using me. It was awful, and I missed our flirtations, chats, and the attention. But I started healing, focused on my marriage (which is going through a really stressful time...deaths, divorces in the family, moving into a new house, you name it.) and was doing ok. I did miss him, though. Ok, so that's the history...
Last week he sent me a really friendly "Hi! I haven't heard from you in a while" type message. We emailed a few times, small talk, a couple of not-too-serious flirty comments. And I was so happy. We were back to being friends and closer to losing the weirdness. Then yesterday he started IMing me, and one thing led to another. We were flirting hard core. He wanted to meet up. I told him I needed to sleep on it...that although I'm still so attracted to him, I didn't want to just jump into anything. We walked out to our cars together, and he got all weird. Said he left his keys and needed to go back in. I told him he must have been distracted, and he smiled and said he'd distract me again tomorrow. Well, I was in tormented hell all night. I know what I should do, and I also know how attracted we are to each other. I didn't sleep at all. AND FOR NOTHING! Not a peep from him all day. I am so tired of this! What is going on? Is he the jerk my best friend thinks he is?
I need your advice and your help...I played with fire again and I'm feeling it.
Thanks so much,
Lil


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This is what I meant as the *getting over an affair* board. Although I admit, I don't feel like there is a lot of support here. I suppose it is because it is not very busy. Most folks are still active, and posting in the *my affair* board.
You can see a lot of frustration and doubt there as well. I read both boards personally. Reading about others pain in an active A helps keep me maintaining NC. After all it was the constant pain of the rollercoaster that forced me to decide to get off.
As far as my reference to there being BS's here, I apologize as it appears I was incorrect. You are right, I am fairly new here so did not know your histories. However I detected anger in your responses which is why I thought what I did.
I understand it is unproductive to *sugar coat* responses to peoples questions. I just think if one comes off as hostile and angry one is likely to put off the person who sits on the fence, sending them back to a safer place, which might be their A.
I don't know, but a bit of compassion and understanding seems to be what is needed, a reality check though necessary, doesn't have to be with a bat at the side of the head.
*hugs*
Someday
I've come a long way in the past 8 months. I don't think I'm completely "recovered" yet; I still have weak moments, days that I miss the XOM and the A; and I still haven't definitively figured out what it is about myself that led me to the A in the first place. So I will still be visiting this board for awhile. And I will still be candid in my responses; will try not to come across as "hostile", though! :)
Reading your post I wondered why you gave yourself permission to "go too far" in the first place.
What about hubby? Do you talk to him? Does he know you're feeling confused and tempted? DO NOT tell hubby of your dalliance. As I've said many times before on this board, spouses may forgive, however, they don't ever forget. Better to forgive yourself the dalliance and learn from the experience while not repeating it.
Something prompted you to step over the boundary of your marriage. Focus on the "whys" and I think you won't have any trouble telling xMM to stay away from you.
cl-nre
For the record, I appreciated your response very much. I needed an INTERVENTION and that's what I got! You all gave me such wake up calls, and each and every response helped me in a different way. Thank you so much.
And, help me! 8 months and it's not over inside for you? I can't imagine having feelings for him 8 months from now. Help me understand the life cycle of the A.
The ending cycle, for me, went like this: We ended our 5 year A because of a sort of drastic incidence in XMM's life, and we both knew that it had to be that way; the time had come. We had not fallen out of love, we were not angry at each other, etc. But the first 2 months, I must have been in denial, because I was FINE. I wasn't grieving, I was getting along with life, and I felt good about the way we had ended things. I think deep down I hadn't accepted that we were "never" going to be in any sort of relationship again.
After 2-3 months that realization started to sink in, and I got angry. Angry because he had told me emphatically when we ended things that when I was ready, he wanted us to maintain some semblance of friendship. And after 3 months, I naively felt we had moved on enough that we could be friends, but he, smartly, rejected my offer of friendship. So I was feeling both angry and rejected.
Then, I found this board, and I *finally* started on the road to recovery. I finally started to understand that No Contact was the only way to go, and that I *had* to accept the fact that it was time to let go and move on. And I have done that, in many ways.
I realized that the fact that XMM and I were in daily contact for over 5 years, via phone and email and in person at business meetings, etc., and yet my H never suspected a thing was significant. It showed me just how disconnected we (H & I) had become from each other's lives. I have since been working hard on reconnecting, intertwining our lives again to the point where I know that I could never get away with another A at this point.
I realized also that it was the "high" of the affair, the way that it made me feel, that kept me hanging on to XMM; not necessarily my feelings for XMM himself. I never fell out of love with my H, and I would never ever leave him for XMM. That was never even a question. I realized that I was experiencing an addiction, nothing more, nothing less.
So when I say I still have feelings for XMM, I mean that I still miss the way the A made me feel sometimes. I do miss the friendship -- but I don't want it back. I want that connection to come from where it SHOULD come, and that is from my husband. But of course, there are some things the H doesn't "get" the way the XMM did, so sometimes if I read a really good book that I know the XMM would like, I wish I could tell him about it. Or sometimes a mutual friend (who has no idea about the A) will see XMM and tell me about it, and I'll get wistful. That kind of thing.
I think it both helps and hurts that the XMM was never a jerk, and we left each other with a mutual admiration. If I could be angry at him, I could have stopped caring about him sooner. :) As it is, I wish him nothing but happiness, sincerely. I think any lingering sadness I still feel may come from finally accepting that I will never even *know* if he finds that happiness. In many ways, I feel like I have been mourning a death for the past 9 months.
Ack, I'm sorry this got so long. There is so much more I could say, but I'll leave it at that! I wish you the best in your journey.
My problem is my relationship with my H. In some way, I do care for him ...maybe in a comfortable sort of way. He's trying so very hard to do all that he is capable of doing. And some of it is moving me emotionally. But he doesn't stimulate me intellectually the way my XMM did (your reading observations struck a chord; we had our own book club going on). And we still aren't back on track physically. How long did it take for you to truly reengage with your H? When (if ever...ouch) will I feel like engaging sexually with him again? How do I get over these humps?
Happy Tuesday...
soreinside, obviously this is personal and different for everyone; for me, the more energy I focused on my relationship with my H, the more rewarding the relationship became, physically and emotionally. I don't think I got to the point of focusing on it, though, until I got through the denial & anger stages of the end of the A and moved into acceptance.
Remember, most aspects of sexual attraction are all in your head, and just like they say that if you smile when you don't feel like it, you'll start to feel happier -- if you go through the motions of enjoying the physical relationship, hopefully the attraction will follow.
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