Please help i am so unhappy
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| Tue, 07-06-2004 - 4:17am |
I am new to this board and having read many of your stories i am hoping you can help me.
Two years ago i got very friendly with a married older man in work. I was just newly married. I got closer and closer to this man from work and started a relationship with him. It was an emotional relationship and very rarely involved sex. I loved him alot and still do.
He loved me but would not leave his marriage because of the kids. He still loves me. We finished a year ago but up until 2 weeks ago still had alot of contact. I cannot get over him. I want so much to give my marriage and my husband a chance but i cannot forget about my co worker. He is on my mind all the time. I think of him all the time. I see him everyday in work. I think about him every minute of every day. I obsess about what he is doing, i try to be in work the same time as him to see him. It was me who said 2 weeks ago that i did not want anymore contact because he did something very mean and terrible and really upset me and i said no more. He did not treat me very well only when he wanted to. Everything was always on his terms even when it finished.
When we were together we met about once a week for 15 maybe 20 minutes, i settled for the very least, we rarely had sex it was an emotional relationship.
I get very down and very upset. He is 15 years older than me. How do i break free?
It is ruining my life. I come from a broken home where my father beat me up for many years but i got over it and can never remember feeling like this. I have an empty pit at the bottom of my stomach all the time and have become very unsociable.
I have tried everything to forget this man, ignoring him, not ringing him, but i cannnot seem to break free. This is the longest i have gone without contact with him. But i think that he thinks i will go back talking to him as i have done this before but have always gone back. He tells me he still loves me but does mean horrible things. I end up giving out to him and he says sorry, lets me give out to him and its all forgotten about then. It is like an emotional rolercoaster and it is ruining my life.
He tells me he is very unhappy at home but is then seen out with his wife all about her. When i confront him with this he says it is all an act that they only go out so that they are not in the house together. His wife knows about me and stayed with him because she has had several affairs. He says they are only together for the kids which are 12, 14 and 16. He is 40 i am 25, what do i do? Very confused, very down, and feel like i am loosing it.
Have never been like this before i have always been able to get over things and get on with life. this is like i am stuck in time but i am desperate to get on with things. Dont want to love this man anymore i want to get on with my life and love my husband again. I have been with my husband since i was 16. I never had another boyfriend. My husband is a kind, caring, sweet man but is very involved in his hobby so is rarely at home. Do i need to leave my husband and start a fresh. Am i too young to stay in a marriage with someone i dont think i love.
I am desperate to get through this. I feel like a failure. I am putting so much energy into this MM and i am so tired and drained from it. I cannot remember the last time i was truely happy. I love him so much but dont want to, how do i break free??
How do i move on and stop thinking of him. How do i stop going to work every day just to see him.
Please help.
Kerry.

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You are indeed miserable because this relationship will never work. Something about it may remind you of your childhood experiences, and perhaps subconsciously you are reliving that. I suggest you find another job. Otherwise you will be reminded of your friend and the affair on a daily basis. That will make it difficult, if not impossible, to get over this. Also, seek counseling to help you sort out your feelings.
Do not leave your husband at this time. He is not getting a fair break here. You are very young and have your whole life ahead of you. Don't mess up this marriage while you are going through this. Hold on because it could make your marriage better. Try to do things to see your husband in a different light. You married him for a reason! You must have felt love for him at some point.
This man will never leave his wife. He is lying about their relationship. Even if he did leave his wife, he would not treat you well. He does not respect you if he is treating you in mean ways. You don't need him! Try to accept that and emotionally you will get there, one day at a time. Start a NO CONTACT promise to yourself. It is difficult but relationships like this are POISON, ADDICTIVE, and will lower your SELF-ESTEEM.
Run, don't walk, to the nearest exit!
My best suggestion would be to find another job. It won't be easy and it might take some time but you won't find anything new if you don't look. Also it sounds like you have a good husband who just has his priorities mixed up a little bit. Talk to him, go into marriage counseling...he needs to give back to the marriage just as much as you do.
Good luck and like the other poster I urge you to RUN from your xMM.
I know exactly how you feel. I'm same as you are and got married young and have been dating my H since high school. My MM is also 40, so i can relate to you. I always used to think just because i was only with one man in my life and never had a chance to date around as much as my friends i was missing out on life. SO i think that is one reason i started EMA, MM also got married young and has been married for 16 years and has young children, and he has never been in an A before either.
Don't let your H know, just end the A and you will see your H for who he is, i bet he is a much better man than MM and loves you more. And i'm sure at some point you loved your H and the excitement is just not there anymore, so start doing things with your H and bring the passion back into your life. My A opened my eyes and i realized how much of a better person my H is compared to MM, and i started to love him even more for that, so i guess my A made me realize i wasn't really missing out on life like i thought i was. I can't tell you how many friends i have who are single and would love to have a nice caring husband like ours and we take them for granted.
So just give him a chance, and take your A as an experience and end it soon. I'm not going to lie to you i still struggle with NC but i know i deserve to be treated better, i was exactly the same, we used to see eachother for half an hour to an hour every two weeks and everything was on his terms, and that just made me look weak and i hated myself for doing whatever he wanted to. WE are young and these MM are older and i bet many men would love to be with you, so show him that you are better than him and can do better. THat's what i did and slowly showed him that i wasn't his little mistress to be available whenever he pleased. Last time he called me last week, i made it a point that if i really wanted to could have changed my plans which i used to do but that i preferred to spend time with my friend instead. I could tell it crushed him and he begged for half an hour but i said no. I'm not saying it's easy for me, inside i'm struggling but it is giving me more confidence.
Be strong and don't let him control you. IF you can change jobs because the toughest thing is seeing him and being reminded everyday.
Take care and best of luck to you
From what you mentioned about your father and your childhood, I would also recommend looking into some counseling for yourself to explore those issues. For some reason, the A with MM has brought some of these feelings to the surface from when you were a child. This could be another reason that you are feeling unhappy.
I would not tell H what has happened. Give yourself some time away from the A and away from MM before you deal with your marriage to H. You may even want to look into some marriage counseling, if you think that would help.
Be strong, and put yourself first! You deserve to be happy!
((hugs))
Circe
Thank you so much for your kind replies.
It was a great boost to read your kind words.
At the moment i am strugling and seeing MM everyday is very hard.
It has been finished with a year now and i just seem to be going around in circles because it was never a clean finish. Even though nothing has happened and we have not met in the past year we still had all the contact we wanted in work and i gave him the contact. All the conversations, the emails, the text msg he wanted i gave to him but got nothing back.
Its been 2 weeks now and i have not contacted him. I know i have to be strong now and keep away from him. I just seem to have so many habits like sitting in his direction in the canteen so that i can see him. Walking by his office hoping to see him. Its just all a mess. I cannot seem to get my head together.
Getting another job is not an option as i have a very good job where i am and where i live is a very small place.
I hope that i get back with my husband what i once had, i want to love him again. He never hurts me, he is always there to me in all our 10 years together i dont think he has ever even raised his voice to me.
I have started councelling so hopefully this will help me to get out of this bubble that i seem to be stuck in.
Thanking you all again very much.
Kerry.
xxx
One thing that occurred to me when reading about your past is that you might need to try some therapy to get to the root of your devotion to this man. Another poster suggested unresolved childhood issues, and although it may not seem to be connected, there's an excellent chance it is.
I understand that you've always been able to pull yourself up by the bootstraps in the past, but eventually we all break down and those old coping skills start to be less effective. Bottom line, you are probably using this man to fill some void you have. Rather than focusing on him - or the lack of him - in your life today, please do give some thought to what need you had that he was filling in those 15 to 20 minutes you spent together. There are other, safer and saner ways to make yourself happy than with this man. You need to find them, because you deserve so much better. JMHO. Love, Mo.
I'm back here again, having a really bad day. I have seen xMM loads today and he caught me looking at him a few times. It is so hard seeing him everyday. I am just so tired and emotionally drained from it all. It is so hard.
Somedays i am great and then i have terribe lows. right now i just feel like crying. I can feel myself weakening again and have thaught of telling him i cannot have all this in work - ignoring eachother and not saying hi. It is physically draining.
I hate him for the horrible things he has done but i still miss him and love him so much. I know that does not make sense but it is so diffidult. Part of me wants to talk to him again but then part of me just wants him to suffer and not have me.
I just dont know and cannot see when this is going to end. It is ruining me. I just want to be happy again. I am gone back to all my old ways now. Getting into to work the same time as him so that i can see him, sitting where he can see me in the canteen, walking by his office so that i might see him. Even leaving the canteen the same time as him so that i can walk by him. I feel like i am going mad.
Thanks you for listening.
Kerry.
The posters here have given you some solid suggestions. Seems like you are enjoying this wallowing in your self pity. Looks like one of you has already moved on....why do you keep setting yourself up for this hurt? Show a little pride. Quit making yourself so apparently viewable. Better yet, get another job. You will never get past this until you make some positive changes in your life, NOW.
Good luck,
R2L
Consider talking about this with your counselor, it may help you to let go of xMM and move on with your life.
We're all here for you! :)
((hugs))
Circe
Thank you for your good advice. I have talked to my councellor about the affair and she does think that it has alot to do with my childhood. Things happened to me when i was very young, something that i never spoke about until now. I blocked it out and pretended it did not happen. I think this is one of the reasons i was so happy with the relationship with MM because it did not involve sex.
After nearly 3 weeks of no contact i broke it yesterday. I spoke to him. I have also done something that i am not sure is right or wrong. We finished a yr ago but he finished it with me in work. We never met outside work to discuss anything or for closure on the whole relationship. I asked him to meet me and to give me the closure i need. For some reason i feel that i need to talk to him outside of work and get proper closure.
I really dont know if i have done wrong or right. I dont even know why. He is to get back to me later today to tell me if he is meeting me tomorrow. Deep down i know he will come back and say no.
I have been doing well - i have very good days and very bad days. I am 10 times better than i was this time last yr or this time 6 months ago.
I still do not want to go back to being frieds with him but for some reason i need this closure.
Am i being totally foolish.
Kerry.
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