Needing closure, how to?

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-03-2004
Needing closure, how to?
11
Mon, 05-03-2004 - 5:13am
I am 30 years old and have been married now for almost 7 years. When I met my husband I was wanting to settle down and have children. This was my goal at the age I was at, so I looked past a lot of the desires I had for a husband and married someone who I barely knew figuring that in time I would learn to love him. I have come to love him, but there is a catch. When I met my husband I was very much in love with a man I had known for 8 years. He was in the military and we had been friends since I was 16 and he was 17. We were intimate once towards the end of this eight years and then we both just never talked about it. I believe he knew how I felt about him, I had over the years told him in letters and cards. Never of course coming right out and stating the obvious though. We were both rather shy. We would as you would say beat around the bush. But we were friends and I always felt a very strong bond and need for him in my life. My then boyfriend/now husband told me I had to call my friend where he was stationed and tell him about us if I wanted to continue seeing him and so I did. It was heart wrenching and I cried furiously over it. But I had a man who I knew would soon marry me if I did this or a man I had known for 8 years who had never made any promises but I knew I loved being around and always loved talking to. So I did it, I called, and my friend never contacted me again. We live in the same state now, he is out of the military and has been for almost 7 years. We live about 30 minutes from one another and I miss him desperately. I have tried for years to be angry with him for not taking the opportunity to tell me he wanted to be with me, or angry at him for anything, anything so I wouldn't want to talk to him. I just wanted to be angry so I wouldn't miss him so much. The problem is, is that I have had dreams for all these years. Sometimes 3+ dreams a week. The dreams are getting worse and I wake up crying, I feel terrorized by them. They make my sleep awful and for days I am depressed constantly wondering about him, how he is doing, wanting to hear his voice, see him. I love my husband and I don't want a love relationship with this other man but he was my friend and I lost him and now I can't seem to control this pain that this loss has caused. It is causing a lot of problems in my marriage. I have told myself to move on that I made a mistake by being intimate with him, that I should have told him point blank how I felt, anything but what happened. In my dreams I am always trying to get to him. He is always within veiwing distance and I am never able to talk to him. Sometimes I am even standing right next to him and I can't talk to him, no matter how hard I try it's as if he can't hear me. I can't handle this anymore. I don't want, as I said a love relationship with this man, but I still feel a definate need to talk to him. I need some advice? I don't believe he is married. His mom recently told a mutual friend of ours from school that he isn't doing anything, which to her means he isn't married and hasn't given her grandchildren yet. I don't know how my husband would respond if I told him I needed to talk to my friend. I do believe he knows that I wouldn't cheat on him, and I haven't been able to tell him yet why I am sometimes so moody and it has nothing to do with him. Please help, I can't continue like this any longer.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 11-18-2003
Wed, 05-05-2004 - 1:15pm
First let me say that if you thought I was just trying to be mean or anything else, I do apologize. I am not trying to insult you, nor to hurt you, but I dont want to go back on what I read and make up something nice and easy to hear and let you act out on, what I would in that situation, might do but know its wrong.

I have had big problems with doing that 'what if' thing as well, its easy to do. When our present is hurtful, we try and look back to see what we might have done to avoid it, and for some reason, we always put that with a person, not a choice. (So N So wouldnt have done THIS.) As I say, especially when I was so hurt and everything from my first husband, I did that quite often. In fact I all but LIVED there. It wasnt even the person, in my more lucid moments, I knew that, but I had worked everything out into totally different perspectives than I had when I was in the situation and time hadnt made things easier for me to accept or rationalize away. The thing is that it seems you are doubting that what you decided, while it was going on and everything was fresh, was right. BUT, you made the best decision that you could for yourself based on what WAS there and what WASNT. He did too. As did your husband. As with every choice made in your lives, you set your path.

Its not been an easy path, but you do have your children, and you do seem to have someone who at least is being a bit receptive lately. If the hard times that you two have went through bring you two to a better life together, would you deny them? Yes, I mean life is rough and trusting another person with your heart is also, but if it gets you to where you need to be, isnt it worth it? Some think that it is, some dont, but I myself do.

I set my path with my ex husband, went through hell, but all of it lead to me being able to later help the second (and last) man that I married. We did that for each other. I think that the greatest compliment that I can give him is to say that if the only way that we could be together was for me to go through what I did, then Im glad that I went through it. (Granted, it didnt feel like anything but hell at the time, but there you have it. lol)

I think that the line of friendship vs emotional attachment with your friend might have gotten more than a little blurred, due to the amount that he helped you with, especially the death of your child. That is a devastating blow, you needed someone to help you and of course being your friend he stepped in, but grief can be a very emotionally bonding experience when you share it with another. You have that, then the fact that you two kissed and had sex, those are not friendly things, lol. Thats romantic issues. Therefore the line is blurred. Alot of the feelings that you have can be not only friendly and it would take some severe introspection to see them, and alot of bravery to face them and put them to rest.

I think that more than anything you have searched out for comfort and remembered his and want the feeling moreso than him, but as I said from my own experience, its easy to mistake the emotion for pinning it to a person. Then we start focusing on them, then before you know it, it can get messy and you end up making your life right now worse.

But you are still evidently resentful over things that happened all that time ago to a much younger girl. You seem to resent yourself over the path you took, him over letting you go, and your husband for making you inform him about the husband. (One thing I would like to know, if he was viewing you as a friend, and you he, why did letting him know that you two were very serious and planning marriage affect you both so extremely? Him showing extreme signs of jealousy with his remarks to you and your grief over it?)

Those three young adults each took their own blame, benefits and losses with the decisions that were made. If you pay too much attention to that regret and dont fix where you are, you might have another one because of these two men. I would hate to hear that happening. But its so easy to be blindsided with the present when you have your whole mind delved into the past as much as you can. The present can be fixed but the past will never change no matter how much you look at it. It is the ONLY thing about your life that is set in stone, everything else depends on many things including attitude and your surroundings and again your choices.

You're very right that you and your husband do need to reach a level of friendship. You dont want to wake up and wonder who he is again when the kids are all gone. THIS is something that can be fixed, ...if you both choose to.

I wouldnt dare say that you or your husband are error free. No one is. (Lord knows IM not, lmao) With my own husband and I, we frequently make mistakes, but we also move past and forgive them too. That is the real difficulty of it. Its easy to notice each others lapses in judgement, but much harder to accept that they want forgiveness and give it.

With communication, the simple act of how you say everything can make a WORLD of difference, starting with if they will even listen to you. Its hard to learn it at first, but once you do, its like an entirely different relationship. Things can actually get fixed.

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