Just told him goodbye

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-01-2009
Just told him goodbye
5
Sat, 05-29-2010 - 8:55am

This is long because I have to give background information.

We have been working together for 7 years, gradually getting closer professionally and personally for the past 5. We started having breakfast together every day about 2 years ago. We were going out to lunch occasionally some time before that. And even before that, we would have long conversations while working for at least a year before that.

I'm bringing all of that info up because it is hard to say when an EA has begun. Did it begin when we starting eating together daily?

I realized I had more than casual attraction for him back in May of 2008. But by this time, we were already talking for many hours a week. He says he was not aware of feeling for me back then, but the dynamic between us was a lot of push/pull. It seemed like he was confused by me. By Dec 2008, observers remarked that they saw the feelings between us were mutual. He claims he wasn't aware of having feelings for me back then.

I mention this because we started a PA in Sept 2009. So technically we have been together 9 months. But emotionally, much longer. How much? I will let you decide.

He has promised me he will get a divorce, but he is torn about the best way to do it because he wants custody of his children. He has served the role of primary caregiver, and primary breadwinner for as long as I have known him. His wife, has been more or less out to lunch as a wife and a mother for this entire time.

He told me this years ago, I never understood why he didn't see what was obvious to me or so many years. In fact, he claimed to be happy with that situation. He doesn't claim to be happy about it now, now that he sees that the grass really can be greener. She has been an emotionally and physically negligent spouse for his entire marriage. He just wasn't aware of that until he got close to me, something he resisted for years.

Anyway, I divorced my husband for reasons that have nothing to do with AP. It was something that needed to happen. I told AP partner last fall that I didn't want to do this forever, and that I need to see some light at the end of this tunnel. And he assured me that it will take time, and it may not be on the time-table that I would like, but it WILL happen.

At various times during the course of our PA I have said that I am not fond of spending my weekends alone, especially the ones where my child is with her father. I'm not fond of spending holidays alone, etc. And I through out distant dates of holidays where he said that he doubts by that time, that I will be alone. But time has come and gone, holidays have past and he is no further along than he was last fall. (Only slightly further along because he has had the conversation with his wife about his unhappiness.)

His big issue is how to handle custody issues. He wants full custody, and he doesn't think he can get it, just because he is a man and because of the after-school guardianship issues. Neither parent can pick the kids up after-school so her mother picks them up. However, he dresses, feeds and takes them to school every morning. If anyone cooks dinner, he is the one that does it. If anyone helps with homework, it is he. If anyone takes the kids out of doors to play, it is he. He takes them to the Pediatrician, he administers medication, he is the one to wake up in the middle of the night to deal with those issues that occur with kids at night.

For him to have the kids, he has to move out and establish a new household to accommodate them. He needs to get enough cash, which is substantial to do this. She isn't going to move out since they live in an apartment in her mother's 2 family house.

The most likely immediate scenario for custody would look like them staying with him, him doing the morning routine, her mother picking them up from school, taking them back to MIL/Wife's house until he can get them after work, and them sleeping at his place.

He worries that he won't get custody because a judge will feel that it is silly for him to uproot them just so they can sleep at his place.

But I believe this works pretty well because it gives both parents pretty much 50/50 access to the kids, where they each see them every day, and they adhere very close to their old routine.

She has never taken care of the morning routine. Doesn't dress them, feed them. She can barely get herself out of bed to get to work on time. In fact, he has to nag her to get her out of bed. (And she doesn't do much in the neighborhood of personal grooming, not even for work. He, on the other hand is one step away from being a metro-sexual. He is very well dressed and works hard on his appearance without being effeminate.)

He says he needs $10,000 before he can move out. And then after he moves out, we need to be publically "separate" for the sake of his children's transition for a good while, maybe a year.

Anyway, here is the meat, why I am writing.

I have become frustrated. In my eyes, we have been in a pretty intimate relationship for at least 2 years. He doesn't agree because he doesn't count our EA. If he does count it, he doesn't count the full length of it. I would say that if other people were commenting about 'us' back in Dec of 2008, then we were having an EA even back then. So as far as I'm concerned, we have been doing this for a long time, and I've been waiting a very long time. (My ex-husband moved out in Nov of last year.)

He has had a habit of push-pull throughout the duration of our relationship. In the earlier days, it was overt. Now it's very, very subtle.

A few weeks ago he told me he wasn't sure how he felt about me. This, after having many conversations with me talking about co-parenting and blending our families together. (He brought the conversations up.) I was so dumb-founded that I told him from this moment on, we are no longer monogamous, because as long as he is going home to her every night, he is cheating on me. I had every intention on dating other men, because frankly, I'm now single. I want to go out and have a good time, even if there is no romance involved. I want to be able to just have a life and not be in limbo.

That didn't go over too well and he reacted very strongly, but not immediately. It was a delayed reaction. He became clingy and had a flood of strong emotions of affection toward me, emotions he says he has never felt. It was my action that made him get in touch with emotions he was burying.

So yesterday he tells me he had been pulling back, trying to bury his feelings again. He kept asking me how I can be so sure about him. (in context that he could lose me, his xstb, his kids.) And I told him I just am sure. We ended the conversation with him thinking about what he wants to do about us over this weekend. The conversation was started because I found out through the grapevine that he bought himself a $500 toy he doesn't need, when he is supposed to be saving to move out.

But upon reflection last night, I'm just so exasperated. This isn't the first time he has pulled back. I'm very sure how he feels about me, but his indecisiveness about his own feelings continues to slow down our trajectory. (He said we are going too fast.) Too fast eh? We've been in a PA for almost a year and we see each other almost every day because of work. Imagine that.

So I sent and email to him and told him that I don't want him to call me this weekend, as he promised, or ever again that it's time to end this. If he isn't sure about me, after all of this, then he won't ever be sure and it's time for me to move on. I explained in detail why I knew how sure I was about him, but if he doesn't feel those things too, then I'm wasting my time. I also told him that it is extremely degrading to me to go on as his mistress for so long, and that I wouldn't continue to participate in my own degradation and that if he loved me, he wouldn't allow it either.

:(

I think he will come back to me at some point and want to have a conversation. I don't know what he will say. I feel like he will try to get me back.

I don't like to have to draw these lines in the sand in order to make significant progress. I'm confused, I'm sad. I can't imagine my life without him, but I can't go on like this.

Advice? Insight? How long have we really been in this anyway? How long is a reasonable timeline? Am I being too pushy?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2010
Sat, 05-29-2010 - 4:59pm
Well, I don't know a lot about As, but I do know a lot about interpersonal relationships and communication, and the answer to the "how long?" questions is however long FEELs right to you.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-11-2009
Sun, 05-30-2010 - 12:15pm

I have been wanting to reply to your post all weekend but I am struggling so much right now with my own situation

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-01-2009
Sun, 05-30-2010 - 12:38pm

I did write my goodbye note, and told him to never call me again. But the realism of this sticking, I knew would be difficult since we are key players in a million dollar project at work. Essentially the staff either comes to him or I for advice and instruction, and we often have to go to each other to get work done. (We do different jobs so it is frequently essential that him and I have direct interaction. This is how we got to know each other in the first place.)

Anyway, I lost my strength and pelleted him with emails all day yesterday letting him experience the whole range of emotions I was feeling, including telling him how much I despise him and how I feel he can be so passionless. It's important for him to get to know that side of me if we are planning a future together. When we are together, he won't have the luxury of my usual censorship of myself, so I decided to let loose.

After 6-7 of these, he called me and we talked. He revealed something that he has told no one that sort of changes everything. It helps me understand his erratic behavior and puts everything in perspective. He also assured me that the feelings I felt from him were real and not something that I inflated in my own head because I wanted him to feel that way.

It doesn't change how I feel about this situation, that this has been going on too long without resolution and that something needs to change. But I better understand what he's dealing with emotionally, and so I am better able to guide and direct him through it. (And he also could use to talk to someone other than me.)

I can't say we are together or not together. He doesn't want me to wait any longer for him because he feels he is hurting me too much, and doesn't want to destroy what we have by putting me in this situation. I do agree with that assessment but don't know if it is reasonable to expect to "take a break" until he can work those things out. How do you do that and expect the relationship still be intact in the end? When you are as close as we are, it seems cold Turkey would be the only option, and that means forever. Not to mention the whole working together part of it adds a wrinkle.

I will keep you posted, but I will not know anything for some time. Monday is Memorial day, and thankfully I have plans. My daughter returns to me on Tuesday and I have a house guest for a few days. So finding the time for him and I to talk about some things... we shall see. Maybe we'll talk on Tuesday, but given the nature of this, it could be longer.

PS: I've lurked here a lot. I just haven't posted my story, or particulars because I am concerned about information being out there forever on the internet, undelete-able.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-11-2009
Sun, 05-30-2010 - 1:46pm

You say:

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-01-2009
Sun, 06-06-2010 - 5:04pm

That's a tough situation. Waiting for a long time is grueling because you don't know if it will work out in the end.

I don't worry about losing him forever. I just don't think we CAN break up "temporarily". How do you do that when you see each other every day? You either keep a connection or you don't. I'm feeling quite pessimistic today. I think it's the 93 degree weather burning my brain.