i'm happy, i'm sad, i'm venting
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| Sun, 10-19-2003 - 1:23am |
background: seeing MM five months, i'm divorcing (not FOR him, wasn't happy in marriage)
i'm 28 he 42 & married 20 years.
Okay, MM and i had a long talk. Last weekend he said... wasn't leaving wife for me (after two months of saying he was). So.... okay, i am okay. i make it through this week where he's giving me these goofy sayings "you never know what the future holds".. "let me sell our (he and W's) house and see what happens" blah blah blah. So our talk tonight confirms, he isn't leaving.
GRRR!! i don't know what to do. i love this man, and consider him my soulmate. This, conceivably, could go on for a very long time. His wife knows about me, his kids know about me. His W isn't threatening to leave over me (she's just happy he's staying i am sure). His kids are old enough to know... crap happens - 17 & 19. Obviously he is basically done raising them and quite frankly he doesn't really care what they think. i mean, our proverbial cat is out of the proverbial bag, so what does it matter if we stay togther for five months for five years. We live, literally, two minutes apart. We work, literally, sixty seconds apart. i feel like our lives are so intertwined. He and W actually have a good relationship. She has accepted my presence in his life. He's not getting pressure to end it from that end. Crap, we have even all three of us gone out together, and once the dust settles from her thinking he was leaving for me, i'd be up for doing that again.
The confusion is much more on my end, and it involves only one thing: Dating. i don't know whether i want to try and "find" another man. i could use advice on this! i am happy with my relationship just the way it is. But i am 29 in six months, i feel as though i should be "looking". i do want a husband of my OWN and a family of my OWN. i have a daughter from my marriage, but my time frame for having more is quickly closing (or i feel it is). i feel as though i am cheating myself by not dating, and at the same time, i don't want to date. how do i know which one is best?? maybe this isn't so much a qeustoin as it is just a vent. As wonderful as it is that this man is my soulmate and i believe my true love, i deserve and someday want a husband, even if it means letting MM go. But i am not ready to let him go now. i don't want to let him go now. i guess i should just give myself permission to talk to men and date men as though i am "single" and deal w/ MM when i meet someone that has potential. i admit, there's nothing i can do that makes this not hurt. i mean... what if i NEVER feel ready to date?? What if i am okay with being the other woman for a long time??
Thank you for listening to me. i have no else to talk to about this stuff. Why does love have to be so hard.
Jenny

Now for me...I love him, I really do, but I cannot see being with him for the rest of my life, he's a hard worker, but lazy at home....I can't stand that. When we are together, it's just me and him time, and it's great. But I know at home he ingores his family, and plays on the computer all day...and treats his W like crap. Which if they broke up would turn into me, getting treated like crap. Men don't change I know that.
But right now I am dating...like crazy. I am trying to date I should say. I had a date last night w/ a new guy, and I was all pumped and ready, telling myself he might be the one, and hadn't been w/ MM in over a week, so I was thinking about him a lot less. We only talked a couple times on the phone this week. So I was all pumped and ready to go....then MM came over friday night, and cosumed my thoughts...so here I was out on a date saturday, and thinking only about MM, and picking apart the poor shmuck that bought me dinner...comparing him to MM. So it's really hard to date. REALLY HARD!
I need to date though. I cannot wait around for 1. Someone I can't have right now. 2. Someone I can't see myself living with.
I love MM because he's that...married, and I know I don't have to deal with him, he's like a naughty fantasy, and a best friend at the same time. Yet I compare every guy I meet to my MM, and I don't know why, I try not to...but it happens.
I am just as confused as everyone else...but will continue to date...already had a marriage proposal this week...freaked me out. As you can see I am rambling, and I don't exactly know what to do, or what I want.
I'm glad you have the board to come to, and hope just by writing it out and getting it out there that it's helped with your thought process.
I can understand to some extent the quandry you feel you're in since I, too, am divorcing and with MM, who is 98% certain he is not leaving the marriage. Like you, I know W well, and our lives are very meshed. Here are my thoughts based on my own experience:
Even if the 2% chance were to happen and MM leaves the marriage, one cannot say whether or not when the time comes that he may want to date others. Unless he were in the position of being single, he cannot say. And I, myself, might find that having an open/exclusive relationship with MM is not what I envisioned (slim chance, lol!). I can't say what my actions/thoughts would be until the actual circumstance, let alone what his would be...so it's a waste of brain cells to analyze That!
Our lives seem to be very intertwined, as well - verrry meshed. But, for all that we account to each other, the fact remains that his life is seperate from mine, and vice-versa. Just because he relates parts of his life that are missing out of my day, or despite the fact I will disclose to him where and with whom I have been, or just because he tells me his future goals, or even if he knows my children well, or besides the fact I've met some of his friends and family, or regardless of how many minutes of the day we are living and experiencing together - he goes home to his family, as I go home to mine. I have considered that each of those we experience together are seperate from other parts of our lives - when I don't wrap them all together and tie a ribbon around it and gift-tag it with a note, "MM & Meow", it's easier to keep the perspective that our lives are seperate, 98% realistically seperate.
Unlike you, I will not be having more children - I am 40-something and it just is not in the cards! Do I want to be married again?...I don't know how I feel about that right now, and I am trying not to let societal thinking sway how I enjoy my life. So, I don't feel the need to "hunt", lol. I do get lonely sometimes, I do get sexually frustrated, and I do miss what an open relationship enjoys - these are all aspects that MM cannot change, and only help with to a certain extent. Right now my mind is usually closed to the possibility of dating someone else - therefore subconsciously I'm only attracted to MM. Sometimes I peek my head above water and consider my options (pretty slim pickings, lol), and then wonder how I could give up the relationship I have with MM. Hmmm, but our relationship is always changing - and who is to say *how* it would change if I were to date - and who is to say I *have* to give up the relationship with MM - and it may happen that I will meet someone else to love and whom loves me - and etc.
Your MM is right when he says, "You never know what the future holds". My suggestion is that you do what is right for YOU, right now (don't consider pain/joy because both will be experienced in most things), and the rest will fall into place.
Well, thanks for the opportunity to respond and reaffirm my own thoughts. Enjoy your day!
Meow
this board *is* a godsend!!!!
i am giving myself permission to be happy right now and see where the future takes me with MM. in my heart, i will know when the time comes to leave, if that time ever comes.
Meow the last paragraph you wrote (before the "well" one) was GREAT i have mulled it over and over again in my head. No matter WHAT i do, there will be pain and there will be joy in my future. i shoudl do what makes me happy now. you're a genius :)
jenny