New here and glad to be here

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-28-2010
New here and glad to be here
12
Sun, 02-28-2010 - 7:35pm

I am new to this board. I have been lurking in a dazed and confused state over the past several days. I have gained an enormous amount of strength by just reading and realizing that I am not alone. When I discovered this board, I had been NC for 3 days and was wondering where I would get strength to continue.

My xap is a childhood friend. We have known each other for over 28 years. We started off as friends in middle school. His family moved away before high school, and then we ended up re-establishing our friendship in college. He was more like a brother than anything else. When he decided to pledge a fraternity, I took him to get his physical. We even gave each other relationship advice. Several years after college, we ended up both living in the same city. I was one of the first people to meet the person that he ended up marrying. Eventually, time, miles, marriage and kids separated us, but we remained friends, and would always pick up right where we left off whenever we reconnected.

About 18 months ago, we both ended up at our college homecoming. We had never even flirted with each other in the past, but because we were so genuinely happy to see each other, we kept the lines of communication open after homecoming through texting and phone calls. My DH knows him, so communicating with him was never an issue. Since we were communicating so often, we began sharing personal information about our marriages, children, dreams, desires etc... Next thing we knew, we were entertaining the idea of an out of town rendezvous. We agreed that no matter what, we would not allow whatever was happening between us to impact our friendship. We continued to talk several times per day, and meeting every 6 weeks. He became my vacation. He was the break that allowed me to take a breather from my stressful job, 4 kids and DH with a stressful job.

At the end of 2009, I was sitting alone on a beach when I came to the realization that nothing good could come of our A. The bad part about it is that I have an amazing DH. Never in a million years would I ever choose my xap over my DH, but he was my hiatus from everyday life, and I could share things with him that I never even shared with my girlfriends. I also found comfort in knowing that he had just as much steak in the game as I did. Twisted logic, but that is what kept me going. I started looking in the mirror and not liking who I had become. I realized that I was not only cheating my husband, but I was cheating my kids out of precious time that we should have been spending together. I would allow myself to be late for meetings when he called me at work. I would even sneak to other areas of the house to talk to him late night. I did not know how I was going to end it, but I knew that eventually we would need to let go or we would both end up losing everything, and for us to be together was never a valid option for me.

Last weekend, I was with xap heading to the airport. Just as we were pulling up, he looked at me and said that he needed space. Admittedly, I was shocked and surprised at the timing, but I remained silent. The next day, I received a text from him explaining that he was beginning to feel obligated and no longer feeling free in our relationship. My only response had been "I understand". I had not heard from him again until yesterday. I glanced at his two messages, immediately sent them to the trash, sat myself down at the computer and read messages in the Healing Library.

I am so appreciative to have people to share with. I find it easy to let go of the A, but hard to let go of the day to day routine of talking to him. The A was so not worth it, but there is no undoing what we have done.

Thank you for being here.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 02-02-2010
Tue, 03-02-2010 - 8:53am

Fake it till you make it really works... if your head understands why it was wrong, that it wasn't real and that you got caught up in the fog- and if you keep reminding yourself of that, eventually your heart will catch up. I am starting to really feel a difference. I saw xap's car yesterday and saw him looking out his studio window as I drove by on my way to an appt. 2 weeks ago that would have caused tears to spill out before I even realized I was crying. Yesterday, I simply shrugged and kept on driving. No drop in the stomach, no pain in the chest.

Jane

Jane
NC/LC since January 28, 2010
http://secretlifeofjane.wordpress.com/
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-20-2009
Tue, 03-02-2010 - 9:08am

Yea, Jane!!!! good for YOU! That is awesome. You are on your way, Girlfriend!

Reading stuff like this, and having new posters like Brave, make my heart soar. I really needed this this morning!

xo
Dee

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