Please help me to understand my OM...

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-02-2003
Please help me to understand my OM...
3
Thu, 10-02-2003 - 10:48am
Please help me to try and figure out my OM. OM is divorced, no children. I am married with teenagers. OM and I have discussed being together someday and I even told him once that I would leave my marriage, but I never said exactly when. I think that he knows that I won't leave until the youngest child is 18, which is one more year. OM dates and he knows that I don't like it, but I know that he has the right. He has been married twice and divorced twice and he says that it was very painful. Both wives had children from previous marriages. OM helped to raise them and then he ended up divorced. It was painful for him because he ended up getting attached to the stepchildren and then they left him. They call him on occasion now when they want something. I have to bite my tongue where these stepchildren are concerned because I know that they use him, but he won't listen to me. He is still very emotionally attached to them. OM and I work together, but in different areas. We have been in an emotional affair for about 5 years. We were intimate twice early in the relationship and then he decided that we were getting too attached and he stopped the intimacy. We have continued to talk off and on over the last 5 years. We talk and get close and then OM pulls aways for awhile. This goes on all of the time. It is so frustrating for me because I want to be close to him. When we do talk, we always tell each other that we love each other, but that is as far as he will go with me. He tries to keep our relationship at a "business only" level, but sometimes we end up talking on a personal level anyway. OM doesn't ever want to discuss my husband and on rare occasions he will ask about my children. He asked me the other day how old was my youngest child now and what grade was he in. I wasn't sure why he asked this. OM dates, but he doesn't like for me to know who he dates. I happen to know that is dating a new woman that has kids and he has been carrying her kids places for her. He knows that I know because I told him that I knew about it. He really didn't want to discuss it with me. All he ever says is that it is nothing serious. What am I supposed to think about his behavior? He tells me that he loves me, but he keeps me at arms length so that we can't be close. How can he love me and date new people? I know that I am married, but OM knows that I am in love with him and he's the one that has my heart. Please help me to understand what OM is thinking so that I can relate to him better.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-24-2003
Thu, 10-02-2003 - 12:58pm
I don't know what he's thinking, but maybe since you are M he is trying to keep his options open. And maybe when he doesn't like to talk about your H it's because he doesn't want to picture you w/ someone besides him.

As for the leaving when the kids are all 18 or older...my mother did that to us. She was miserable forever, and hated her life and M, and was in an EMA for a few years waiting for my bro to turn 18....I can say, that is NOT any easier for the kids, I have been torn between 2 parents for 3+ yrs now because of what she did/how she did it. My dad says that he would have been more supportive of her EMA if she had not hid it, and left right away leaving us with him, or even taking us w/ her.

I don't think the kids ages matter when parents split up, we know and sense things at a very young age, and the longer things drag on...the worse it becomes for kids. My brother and mother were like best friends, and the day she walked out that door (days after he turned 18) he disowned her as his mother. If she had done it when he was 13-14-15 or 16, he would have gone with her. I wouldn't talk to her for 2 years.

I hope your kids can deal with this for your sake and theirs. They are old enough to be talked to about what is going on. And if my mom had approached me right away instead of lying to me, and hiding from me, and taking her frustrations of M out on me, I would have known that she cared, and trusted me, and would have supported her, and probably gone with her instead of my dad.

JMO, I am not bashing you, just letting you know from personal exp. the affect of things like this.

Good luck though, I hope he opens up to you soon.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 10-02-2003 - 2:10pm
hey girl4 -- after all this time, you don't understand your OM? he's single and you're not. he wants to have a life -- with or without you. you're M with children and living your life separate from him.

objectively reading your initial post (since i cannot know the entire story!), i feel that your OM is waiting for you to make a move to get out of your M and then he will discuss going further in the R.

if your last child is 17 and has one more year of school and your deadline is his/her graduation/18th birthday, you need to decide whether or not you are actually following through with your promise. and then you need to communicate openly and honestly with OM.

sounds to me like he's hanging onto that deadline, but since you've never indicated "exactly when" you will leave, he's keeping his options open with other women (and their attendant emotional baggage, children, whatever). you cannot make him feel badly about "dating" others when you are still married with no concrete indication of a future together.

the ball's in your court, honey!

good luck with whatever you decide,

gurl

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Thu, 10-02-2003 - 3:04pm
How can you expect him to give you something you arent giving to him? The ball is definately in your court here...

Liberal