Can you end an affair if you love him?
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Can you end an affair if you love him?
| Fri, 12-26-2003 - 12:24pm |
Is it possible to end an affair with someone you love, someone you yearn to be with? If you realize that the affair can never bring you the relationship with the person that you want, if you realize that the affair is destroying the relationship that you HAD with this person, can you end it even if you love and want to be with this person???
Has anyone ever done this?

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I am doing this right now. I am ending a 4 1/2 year affair with someone i truly love, and who truly loves me. My story is not one of wanting to end an affair because my MM is an awful person who is abusive or hurting me deliberately in any way. I love this man more than I ever could have known was possible, and he feels the same way about me. This makes it so unbelievably difficult to end. I am married, but very seriously want to be divorced, and am working on that, and hopeful that it will happen within 2 years. He is married, as unhappily as I am, but is unable to make that decision for various reasons that I don't want to take up time with in this post, but it's mostly because he can't face the failure of his third marriage to his parents, family, and himself. And as angry as I have gotten over the fact that he cannot grow up and do what he wants to do without being concerned about everyone else, deep down, because I do love him so much and understand him, I can't help but forgive him and love him anyway.
But, I still want a life for myself, and it's been agony all these years to know that we found what and who we were looking for, but it's not going to be. Being with him was always the best.....always wonderful, not necessarily perfect, but wonderful. And being without him was pure hell all of the time for me. I couldn't handle it.
And so, even though the love's still there, I needed to end it. I was always in terrible pain, always aching and longing to be with him full time. After we saw each other, the fallout would be horrible for me. It wouldn't be easy for him either, but I think he dealth with it better because for him this was the best it could be. For me, I couldn't see this as the best it could be. All I could see was that it could be everything we always wanted in a relationship, if we just made the changes. And it was continually painful for me to realize that he wasn't going to make that choice. That one fact has been the single most difficult thing for me to accept and deal with, and still is, and always will be. I can't understand how he is not making that choice. How can you love someone like that and make the choice not to be with them?
Some people say that if it were real love, then nothing would have stopped him from making that choice. And in many ways, i do believe that, and it has made me doubt whether or not his love for me was the same as mine for him.
Over the years, I ended it many times, and we never made it through NC for long. This time seems different. We both need to stop the pain, and move on. We are in day 12 of total NC, but have been in passive NC for a couple of months.
The bottom line is that no matter how much you love him, or you love each other, if one of you wants MORE than the other can give, it's eventually going to either destroy the relationship, or cause terrible anguish and pain for one or both people involved. Real love can't be stagnant. I realized that when I lived it. It just needs to move forward and grow. If it can't, then it suffocates and eventually dies anyway. I felt for a long time that our love just outgrew the box it was in, and we just couldn't stay isolated in that box any more. And while I was in the relationship, I felt there was no hope of me ever having the relationship and life that I want in the future, and the hopelessness was awful. In ending the relationship, even though what I'm going through right now is unbearable, I do have a sense of hope that someday in the future I will be able to have what I really want and need.
It's difficult to end a relationship and say goodbye when the love's still there, and there's no anger or resentment that heads you toward the door, and when you still want to know how they are and share the friendship that you had. But if you're not getting what you need or want from the relationship overall, and if you know you never will be able to, then it's best to end it and move on, and leave yourself open to the possibility that you'll be able to find someone who can offer you the things you need and deserve.
I wish you the best of luck in making your decision.
I think that everyone who posts here believes they were in love. And maybe on some level giving up their soul mate. If it was just sex, it would be easy to walk away. I think I loved my XMM more then myself. I still want him to be happy. I want him to feel good about being a man and a father. Even if we made a mistake together....and even if that mistake felt so damn good... it's not, nor will it ever be the right thing. Even if I did get him. He could never love me the way I want. I know the guilt he felt from DESERTING his family would eat him alive. I don't want to be the cause of so much pain to a man I did sincerely LOVE. Love is about having the courage to let go. Even though I didn't do it as cleanly as I wanted to--3 desperate e-mails, 3 telephone calls. I feel like I'm healing too. I'm using the things he gave me to make my life better.
I know some of the other people may think I'm giving him too much power over me. BUT, I really can move on and keep a little bit of him in my heart forever. I truly believe that is why humans are so complicated and wonderful. We have the capability to feel so much for so many people.
So you might be wondering what he gave me? He gave me... the ability to see myself as more then I thought. He taught me to demand more from men. He taught me to love stupidly because sometimes all you have is just one night. He taught me not to dread the end... but celebrate the moment, that you have.
Or maybe I taught him that last one...
So yes, A LOT of people have left when in their heart they were crying to stay.
Even though you make have a shaky hand you must steady yourself to find the strengh to give him up! At least physically, the mental part dosen't go away as easily.
The mental part you can work through by posting here...
Katja
My story is like many others, close friends who met at work. We had to end things when we were still very close. 12 years and a few serious relationships later, I am still sad that it ended the way it did.
His children were very young at the time. Add that to the fact that his family is very religious and they threw as much guilt & wrath of God at him as they could. They even offered to hire a lawyer for his wife. It would have been easier to end things if he had been a jerk. Just remember if breaking up was easy it would be called something else like "piece of cake".
I started lurking here because he called me out of the blue last March. He is still married and still unhappy. When I told him that I think about him often, I got a huge lump in my throat. That sort of caught me off guard. I thought I was past the pain. It is funny, I have changed a lot in the last 12 years, I doubt we have much in common anymore. My heart just remembers the bond.
I know what you are going through, it stinks. But so does the life as the OW.
Good luck,
aquagirl
Jazzdiva
As one of my friends likes to say, we don't always love people who are worthy of our love. Don't let love keep you in an abusive situation. You deserve to come first in someone's life. Anything else is just intolerable.
He calls me, texts me, all the time, says "I love you" all the time, tells me he wishes he could be here with me, blah blah blah....but he is still home with his wife, and I am still alone (well, not really, since I am married, but you lonely married girls know what I mean)....He cut off the physical part of our relationship, which barely existed anyway since we are a thousand miles apart for the next few years, but he is hanging onto the emotional part....
So, I am trying to figure out if this is just a blow off or if he really is ending it for honorable reasons....
Why not take the time to figure out if your marriage is worth saving? And if it's not, get the heck out. Life is too short to spend in an unhappy relationship. Being alone isn't all that bad, especially if you love yourself.
I am trying to look at it in this way: just enjoy the love we share, see each other when he can get away and get on with my life otherwise - in other words, keep the relationship but be content with my own life. It sounds so simple and some days I manage to succeed, but then I start to be honest with myself again about how much I want him - well, you know how it goes. Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions about how to keep motivated in the effort to clear your mind and live your life the best you can when you're not with him? I would like to be able to do what I just described in my first sentence of this paragraph.
Thanks in advance for any advice! Good luck to you all.
If you decide to stay in the affair, there are support boards here for that.
In my opinion, you will only be content for the next (possibly) 11 years if you want to remain last in his life. As long as he is married, his wife will come first, then his kids, his extended family, his job and you will remain there for the leftovers. Some people are content to live that way and that is ok, if that is what they really want. I was not content to live a secret life with a MM because I am single and available. I want to be with someone who can take me out in public, be there for me when I need them.
I did try to just enjoy what we had for the moment, but fell deeper and deeper in love with this man, who obviously was not willing to make the necessary changes to be with me on a full-time basis (plus, mine has no kids). I was not willing to settle any longer for that.
Please do some serious thinking before you continue this.
Good luck to you.
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