Suddenly After 4 Yrs...It's Over!!??!!
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| Tue, 05-10-2005 - 12:33am |
For four years I (a single woman) was involved with a married man mostly via email and through telephone conversations. We met and were intimate with each other 12 times over the four years. It was made known right up front that he did not want to leave his very rich wife and their two small children. He adores and dotes on the children and wanted to be in the house to raise them with her. That was fine with me because I wanted him to be happy and to be happy was for him to be a fulltime dad to his kids. I even within those 4 years became pregnant and was pressured into getting an abortion because he didn't want us wife to find out he had a kid on the other side of the United States and I financially wasn't able to take care of it by myself at this time in my life (we used birth control). I wanted to adopt it out but he said he'd never be able to live with him self knowing there was a kid out there that was his. Right now it sounds stupid, but I can look back and see that I was brainwashed into getting rid of this child. I do know now, I do not believe in abortion unless it is a product of rape, incest or the child will not live. By the way, I had the abortion four months after both my parents were killed in a car accident.
For the last two years, our affair has been strictly emotional but yet we would talk maybe twice a day via cell phone and email or IM each other once a day as we live 2000 miles apart and my health can change from day to day. He always seemed interested in what I was doing, where I was going, how I felt, if I missed one of his calls he would leave a message irritated that I wasn't able to pick up the phone and where was I. He called me honey, sweetheart, told me he loved me after every conversation, sent me presents, and money when I had to take days off of work with no pay due to my health, seemed very loving and interested in life. My problem I know now is, I looked forward TOO MUCH to those phone calls. I enjoyed our conversations as he is an intelligent and witty man. I also considered him my best friend and unfortunately had told him almost everything about me.
Now four years later, he is caught. We had a family plan cell phone package together so it was cheaper and we could always get ahold of each other so I always thought she would find his phone because even though he is a teacher, he seems to lose everything all the time. We got caught by his computer being broken and when the cable repair came to fix it, he hadn't logged off of Yahoo properly and some of our emails to each other popped up for her to read. They were pretty platonic emails even though we did say we loved each other but when he was initally caught, he lied, said he never met me, only over the computer. We went through a week of this, he barely talked to me, she kicked him out to the downstairs bedroom but he could stay in the house with the kids. After a week, I don't know why, he spilled his guts to her, told her everything that has gone on for the past four years. It absolutely devastated me..during this week in between he was still calling me twice a day and telling me how much he loved me and wanted to know what was going on in my life. He had always said if we were caught he still always wanted to be in my life via email because he cares about me and how my health is. (I now that was all a bunch of bullsh*t) Then WHAM...I get a voicemail from him telling me IT IS OVER, IT IS FINALLY OVER, that he has only been calling me for four years to save his wife and children. He said he told her everything, about the affair, about flying to each other, and he said about the quote pregnancy/abortion (meaning his wife thinks it was all a big lie), he said in this v/m that she was letting him keep the kids and then he put her on the phone and she basically told me she had listened to the messages I had left in his voicemail, I sounded pathetic and to stay away from her husband.
I was absolutely flabbergasted and didn't take this very well. I didn't want to be broken up with over a voicemail, felt I deserved more respect than that. The best I could do was to get him to email me a few more times but every email was just as hateful as the next one. By him telling his wife, family and friends, they all blame me, they can't believe he would have been so guillible to belive me stories and how did I get pregnant when we used a condom. That I trapped him in this relationship for four years or I would tell his wife. This man knows in his heart this is not true (he knows what anguish I went through when my friend took me to get the abortions) & he is just trying to make me look like the total bad guy so he has someone to hate and make it look better to his wife. His friends telling he is gullible to believe my stories just infuriates me because me to no end because everything did happen. I can't help it my parents died in a car accident four months before I had the abortion (which also resulted in a hysterectomy because of trouble with my uterus). I really needed his support and he was with me through all these things, granted on the phone, but he called me in the hospital many a time. Now that everything is out in the open, he is defintely putting all the blame on me so he can rebuild his life with his family, forget about me and be able to have upstanding morales and values again as he is a schoolteacher. I truly loved this man, so I do want this man to be happy but I am so hurt and crushed by the way it has eneded. I always thought we would just give the phones back eventually and then stay in contact over the computer every now and then, NOT with him hating me and blaming me for everything, I have tried stating actual things he did or said proving he was not a hostage and I should not shoulder all the blame but he says he lied to keep me happy to save his home and he no longer wants anything to do with me. This is so unbelievable, I really thought I knew him and I really though he knew me...boy, did I ever have rose colored glasses on. I thought he listened to all my stories and sent me money when I had to take days without pay because he cared. He is now saying it is all a lie, he is saying now his wife has kicked him out of them house after she found out EVERYTHING (I don't know whether to believe him or not because I know she likes his nice big paycheck) and his main focus is on getting his family back together. Although the first week he was caught, I asked him if he was going for marriage counseling and he said no, he didn't feel there was anything worth saving. I am so hurt, confused, lost, feel abandoned, have no one to talk to but a therapist and she is so happy he is out of my life she is doing cartwheels. I do not have a support system, I do not have any close girlfriends, they are all married with kids, and I'm not a real good socializer in person. That's why these phone calls and clandestine meetings were enough to keep me happy. I liked being alone the rest of the time with my dog, a good book and an icy Diet Coke....now I am alone ALL of the time!!!
I am trying to be a good girl, I'm not calling his house, I'm not calling his cell phone, I can't email him because he closed his account. I am trying to go NO CONTACT but I still have so many questions and it is so hard for me to just go cold turkey. I am even worried about him, (I know kick me in the arse) about how he is and did he really have to move out of the house and where did he go? I worry because even if he wanted to call me, I was in the speed dial of his phone and I know he doesn't know the number, I am unpublished so he can't go through directory assistance. When I cut our phone plan from a family to an individual, he lost all his memory in his phone. He knows my email address but he closed his personal email account he had with me. Why do I even want him to contact me? He is just going to keep blaming me to make himself look & feel good about himself and probably make me feel worse than I already do.
How can you think you know someone for four years and then find out you barely did? I miss this man so much, I ache. I confided in him, he was my mentor, he was witty, he asked about my day, he said he loved me. He knew how hard it is for me to date because I come from a very small town and in my early forties, everyone is pretty much already taken or has their reasons why. I was so happy with our EMA and still had memories of our physical A, that was good enough for me. Now my world has stopped spinning and I'm having a hard time understanding this is now my reality.
How do you get over not being able to put your thoughts into words and emailing them to him and looking forward to the response? How do you get over not getting a phone call twice a day just to see how I am? How do I get over knowing I might have ruined this man's marriage and he was kicked out of the house and away from who he loves more than anything, his children? I just feel so depressed and horrible about myself right now.
If you have read this far...thank you so much. I'm not dumb, I've read enough books and magazines to know it is usually the mistress who gets the heave ho when the married man is caught and then the husband and wife become an "United Front" and HATE the mistress, I just never thought it would happen to me!!!!!!
My heart goes out to you all.....

Madison
Welcome to the board.
One sad truth your going to learn if you hang around here long enough is that the vast majority of these cheating married men are in fact COWARDS at heart and your XMM is no different then the rest of them.
The way he is treating you has ZERO to do with you, the fact that he cheated on his wife has Zero to do with her it is about HIM all he did he did for himself not her not you and not the kids...just himself.
These guys live for number 1 they look out for number 1, most of the single women that I have met at this board are way to good for them, but had a weakness that could be exploited and it was.
You will survive this has hard as it may be to believe it right now, you will learn from it and hopefully in time you will get out there and meet the real thing.
My condolances for the loss of your parents and the baby that was robbed from you to protect him.
Free
My god...what you have been through and still continue to have to deal with. The loss of your parents and having an abortion out of desparation was enough...but to be betrayed so harshly by someone after 4 yrs...i am so glad you have theraputic support at least!
Please focus not on his pain or worry for him...(i know..old habits are hard to break) but the shock of him being a total coward and not who you thought he was...is so much to bear i know this is why you are transferring your emotions to him.
You have a roller coaster of emotions ahead of you. You are only in the shock stage right now I think. I see this very clearly. come here and post whenever you need to but also read the advice given. Take the support as well .
::::::Hugs::::::::::
Lizzie
Please stay and post here whenever you need. Just decide that your life is worth living, and you're worth much more than he could ever give you. Hugs to you!
Madison,
I have read over and over that once the dust settles at home the MM will come running back to a long time A. He's as hooked as you are.
This may *seem* like a good thing. HOWEVER, I think you need to really, really think during this period about how your life is shaping up because of the A. You sort of say you are happy with it 'as is' drinking the icy coke but you're also seeing a T. Was it really easy to live that life? (I have my own bag of big issues so I know some of what your bag is like).
MM is keeping you from fully living your life. He will take any oppportunity you have to have kids if you stay in it (assuming you want them). I'm just trying to make you see that he will rob your youth from you. You will look back 10 years from now and say "WHY did I LET him do that??"
It might be better to consider moving and trying a different town out in order to meet more folks. Move for the summer and take a class internationally (that sounds fun to me!)
You have an opportunity to move on NOW... I have a feeling he will be back - the ball is in your court to decide what you do.
It's going to take a while to get over the feelings you have. And there is a good article posted here on the "stages of grief" - do a quick search and read it. There are tips for making it go faster (although we all know it will only go so fast).
Good luck, WIP