Confused and anxious over waiting.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-09-2009
Confused and anxious over waiting.
15
Sat, 08-22-2009 - 8:06am
After reading dozens of posts going back to 2007 I have not seen one that quite covers my situation so I feel the need to put myself out here and ask for help to get some perspective. Btw you guys give some great advice and i just wanted to add that before blurting out my miseries.
IDK whether this would be better in EAS but as you all have dealt with waiting on MMs to seperate or D, i think you have a better knowledge of what i am asking....
I was in a EA with a MM for a year and he was apart from his family for work for the whole time. He was married for 18 years previous to that in a government job and was moved around the country for stints of up to 2 years at a time without the family (her choice mostly) so this last time after retiring from the govt he got a private sector job (that she directed him to) and they stayed in the home town and he moved 2000 miles away by himself. We met 5 months after he moved and became close friends sharing every part of our lives, secrets and future hopes etc. He became so close to me that he was thinking of D his wife and actually filed for sep. She is a good mother to their children but as the usual thing goes, she thinks of him as nothing more than a walking bank account. No emotional support or thoughts of his feelings as long as the bills were paid. I assume the emotional support is the role i filled. After going home to visit family (we had discussed him getting his marriage back before i had any romantic feeling for him) and told her that if they were to have any future, she would move to be with him or he would D her. She was shocked (the cynic in me assumes that her finances are being threatened so she must acquise to his request) and after a month of arguing she relents and agrees. She has to leave their son and his parents at home (son in college and parents live with them in their family home) He wanted to sell the home and move everything but she would not give in. He was so P.O'd and insulted that he had to threaten D to get her to be a family again but let it go.
Fast forward a few more months and he is getting more tense they will be joining him. He is uncertain that they will like the new place and the reason that she wants to keep the home is so she can go back if she feels like it and in addition to be forced by threats of D unless she moved. He has told me that he is comfortable with her but does not love her like a wife. They no longer have s*x regularly (we had not announced the *L* word when the last time was January and he had been back 4 times so i know he was telling the truth)but she is a good mother and he is staying for the kids.
OK now i know a lot of what he said comes under the excuses post and the MM handbook post but as we werent romatically involved at that time i cant seem to class the talk as cheesy come ons but more honest ramblings of a lonely man to a friend. It wasnt until a few weeks before they were due to arrive that i began to realize that the feelings i had were more than friends as did he admit he was feeling the same but he never said he would leave her. His words were that if she went back home and left him then it was over, and he is dead serious. I KNOW she is going to hate it!! For one she is going from year round hot state to -30 degree winters. there are NO shopping malls within 40 miles of the new place (she is a spender) and they know no one and have no hobbies. All that in addition to the son being left at home she is very anxious about that.
We didnt end anything but rather put it on hold until he could contact me as we have never gone more than 3 days without communication (he has contacted me a couple times when its safe) but i am in 2 minds. Firstly i want to know if i go NC, would that make him miss me more and compounded with the daily grind make him more inclined to need me? or do i continue to contact him the once or so a week to continue our relationship and let him know that i am still here for him? I love him and dont want to think that i have lost my best friend. How do you choose to wait or get on with life and find that they have left their W and you have already moved on? I am S and have opportunities to go out and meet people, but with him in my heart, there is no room for anyone new. How do you know when its time to move on. Its only been a little over a month so what is an appropriate time span to see if their marriage fails or works? I am so confused but i dont want to be sitting here like some women 3-4 years down the track in the same position. Can you please give me a little reality dose and words of wisdom to help?
Que Sera Sera - Whatever will be, will be.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2006
Sat, 08-22-2009 - 9:36am

Hi sometimesblue,


We here at EAS are ending or have ended our A's.

Onward and upward.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-18-2009
Sat, 08-22-2009 - 11:13am

Firstly i want to know if i go NC, would that make him miss me more and compounded with the daily grind make him more inclined to need me? or do i continue to contact him the once or so a week to continue our relationship and let him know that i am still here for him?


NC is not meant to be a strategy for moving an A. in the direction you want it to go. NC is the hard and necessary line we take when the pain of being in an affair is greater than the relief of being done with it.


That said, I feel your pain. I ended my A. four years ago after separating from my own H. xAP was in a long-term m. and the only advice I can give is...you are only hearing what he tells you about the relationship. Could be true, partially true, or totally off base.


But you are wise to be thinking of yourself and what the future might hold. Regardless of the feelings you have developed for this man, what do you want? Hopefully it is a healthy relationship where both partners are free to commit to one another and the relationship fully. He is not able to do that right now. And until he can, will you feel happy or at peace waiting for what may or may not happen? It does not sound like anything you do or do not do will make a difference as far as what he does about his M. So why base your decisions on how he will react to them?


For me, the end was a relief. Although I loved my xAP, I could no longer take the emotional roller coaster of hearing him say one thing...and do another. I had a goal for my life and it didn't include being the other woman for years on end.


I found that by focusing on my long-term goals, instead of on what was happening or what I wanted to happen at that moment, I was better able to make decisions that were independent of anything xAP was thinking or doing.


Best of luck to you. I know these are difficult decisions when you have developed real feelings from another person.


Don't hold to anger, hurt or pain. They steal your energy and keep you from love.       ~Anonymous
 &nb

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-09-2009
Sat, 08-22-2009 - 1:56pm
i didnt mean to go NC to manipulate the situation. I dont want to be the OW in the sense that she is now with him. I feel being a sounding board while he was living alone was a different issue. I have seen the heart wrenching stories of the women that gave up and moved on and have their MM finally being free but OW was then in another relationship. I would like to know if going NC for the sake of telling myself that he is where he wants to be and i should get on with my life to save me the months of sitting on my hands. It sounds self explanitory when i see it in type but i care about him so much that i feel that maybe i should give him time to sort things out in his world. I just dont want to be where so many other women have been and lose years in the hoping and waiting for something that statistics say is a improbable dream.
Que Sera Sera - Whatever will be, will be.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2006
Sat, 08-22-2009 - 8:06pm

Well improbable does not mean impossible, and i am living proof of that. And i do not mean to give you false hope; yet when i made the choice to allow my AP the time and space he needed.. i did it in good spirits.


I always knew that i loved him and i knew that i always would. And during our time apart i lived my life and made new friends and continued to enjoy life while knowing that my AP

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-09-2009
Sat, 08-22-2009 - 11:04pm
i would be really interested to hear your story as this is what keeps me on the hoping side of the fence rather than the walking away side. I know we all think that we are special and if we just hang on there will be a happy ending but whether that is an illusion we fool ourselves into believing rather than face the pointlessness of a dead end relationship.
Cherry, how long did you go about life before things sorted out for you? How did you cope with the NC and how did things with your AP get back off the ground after he left his M?
Que Sera Sera - Whatever will be, will be.
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-05-2009
Sun, 08-23-2009 - 12:13am

We here at EAS are ending or have ended our A's.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-09-2009
Sun, 08-23-2009 - 6:14am
im sorry. i thought i posted under MAS as it has that title on the top of my page as i type. My apologies.
Que Sera Sera - Whatever will be, will be.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2007
Sun, 08-23-2009 - 8:32am

Catsmacks was talking to energy 2006, not you - you DO have the right board. Energy 2006 was chiding you for being on EAS and wanting to continue your affair when you were NOT on EAS. Don't know where her head was but you were on MAS, the right place for your situation.

I think EASers must lurk here and forget where they are when they post!

Proud to be a



You've got a lot of choices. I
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-28-2004
Sun, 08-23-2009 - 5:41pm

I also would like to hear your story if you wouldn't mind telling it. I'm kinda in the same place of what I need to do like sometimesblue is. I wanted to give an ultimatum without telling

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2006
Sun, 08-23-2009 - 5:48pm

It appears to me that SometimesBlue is indeed on the correct board. If EAS is what you are looking for, then maybe you should go there.


Cheri


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