After 17 months of No Contact following a 5 year affair, I've regressed.

[kuma]

I am tempted, I will admit, to try this whole "lets be friends" thing, partially because I don't believe he truly understands how ridiculous it is. It's almost like I want to force myself to try this "friend" idea just so HE can eventually realise how impossible that notion is when you have a history like ours.

 

OP, tell him what you really want. Don't let him control your life this time. I hope you won't make the same mistake again.

[BB07]

Hi KG, I went back and read the backstory of you and your MM. So much pain and turmoil hon, don't let him take you down that path again.

Hugs.....

[jj33]

Hi KG. Sorry you fell back into this.

 

From my experience the best way to extricate yourself is to remember the reason you are no longer together

 

The time he told you he shared your "tricks" with his wife and all the other stuff that made it impossible for you to go on with him. Remember the awful pain and humiliation and depression when it ended. Those are the things that should make you run from this man

 

he showed his true colors when you were together and it wasnt pretty

 

So you have a chemistry. And?? Being with him almost drove you over the edge 17 months ago. What makes you think it would be any different now?

 

And Im speaking from experience over 3 years later MM still periodically makes known that he wants me back. And?? No way.

 

He hasnt said I couldnt bear to be without you these 17 months, I have thought about it and Im leaving. He said lets be friends and his behavior says if you are OK being FWB thats just fine by me.

 

That is not flattering. That is not "fate" or "true love" that is him being a cake eater again now that his W has calmed down.

Edited September 26, 2010 by jj33

[kuma]

The time he told you he shared your "tricks" with his wife and all the other stuff that made it impossible for you to go on with him.

 

I can't believe he did that! KismetGirl, forget him!

[camel's toe]

This is an addiction. I think you tried to go cold turkey. You were doing really well but you slipped up. Okay, its done. But you can get back up and continue trying. Get professional help. I'm not saying this in a nasty way at all - I went to see a shrink and it was one factor which helped me.

 

There is, in the future, a guy for you. Don't try to replace MM with another guy. You need to gather the strength to be alone and as I like to say "let the poison out". If you're on a detox, you don't eat anything, right? I would recommend cutting him off and you're gonna have to throw yourself into other things. It won't be forever. For me one thing was the gym and I am now the proud owner of a (UK) size 10 body, my goal as I'd always struggled with those few extra pounds and flab. I got my reward. And I'd like to say thanks to these ex MMs, you drove me to do it!!!

 

Another thing I did was, alot of my mates have kids, I got involved with babysitting, lending a hand, just to be busy really.Helping them out gave me increased self-esteem.

[newlife2010]

KG, I read your story with interest. In fact, your story is the reason I went from lurking status to registering so I could post.

 

Your original post was heartwrenching and eloquent. I don't believe your MM is a terrible person. I believe he is involved emotionally as deeply as you are, and doesn't know where to go with it. Please don't ever believe that this man didn't love you... he did, and does. He isn't a cake-eater or a liar or a jerk. He is a man who is trying to do the right thing by everyone.

 

I know how you feel. I've been living it myself for the last five years. I too have tried to convince myself that "friends" could work. It hasn't... it doesn't. Despite the love on both ends. I too don't want to see you setting yourself back years by having to go through the pain again, but I know exactly... EXACTLY... how you feel. I don't know the advice to give, because me telling you to forget him would just be stupid at this point.

 

I suspect you are where I am... which is that I don't WANT to feel this way, after so many ups and downs and several years of stops and starts and NC's and ending it and starting again..... but I still love him. And what it all comes down to, is that I don't WANT to start over, I don't have any desire to feel that way about someone else, I have tried dating before and my heart was still with him, and it held me back. How do you conquer that? I don't know.

 

I wish you the best KG. I know how you feel and where you are, only too well. I wish I had the answers. I can just say to please ignore people who give you grief for being where you are.

[KismetGirl]

I'm too tired to write individual responses at this very moment, but I just wanted to write a quickie to let everyone know I am reading, I appreciate all your responses so far, and I will respond individually in the next day or two.

 

At the moment I just wanted to lament that even though I know how right many of you are, I am having difficulty discerning how to approach my own emotions right now.

 

I would be the first one to tell my friends that they should never rely on anyone else for happiness, men or otherwise, but I find myself in a funk I must say.

 

Remember how I said there WAS this one other guy I was particularly interested in recently? He's someone I was speaking to online for months, seriously, like 6 hours a day at one point. I saw him tonight for our first "date" or whatever after months of speaking (he's only in town a couple days, leaving in the morning and the only time we had to meet was late this evening for a few hours....maybe not my best idea as he'd been drinking all day with his wedding friends....), and it didn't go as well as I would have liked. Maybe I was stupid for hoping it would be great and I'd have a distraction from MM....but after the lackluster evening I had where this guy just didn't seem particularly interested, guess where my first thought went to? I mean , the guy was friendly and nice, and maybe he was just really really tired, but come on....he was alone in my apartment with me and just looked like he was falling asleep half the time.

 

Yeah. So, after this exciting interaction, my thoughts go to--> How I'm supposed to see MM on Tuesday, and how nice it is that when MM sees me it is so obvious that he is attracted to me, that he likes me, that he loves being with me, and how I don't have to try very hard in that respect with him.

 

Dating is...in a word....exhausting. With all the stress of school and trying to get my life on track (to answer someone's question, no, I'm not Dr. KG just yet technically.....getting there though , which is the stressful part), and being emotionally drained over other things, it IS nice to know someone cares about you and is attracted to you , ya know?

 

And then when you're failing miserably in the rest of your dating life, it's really easy to fall into that comfort of someone like MM who, despite his negatives, despite how miserable I was in other ways over our affair...and believe me I remember....that immediate gratification of happy I feel when I am in that moment with him is something I fall back to when I am in a moment like I am at this very moment.

 

Maybe I was banking on this date tonight way too much working out, partially because I desperately want to connect with another guy the way I do with MM to distract me from him...

 

This dude tonight, I don't know, we talked for a few hours, he was friendly, sweet, nice.....granted he said he'd been up for 20 hours and was exhausted and probably could have just gone home but stayed out with me anyway, but I feel like if he was interested he would have made SOME kind of move because he's going back to another state tomorrow and it's not like he'll see me again for a few months, but he didn't, and at the mental state I am in right now that was kind of a self-esteem blow to me, because I came home at 130 am and immediately thought, "well, at least when I see MM on tuesday I know that he'll look at me and flirt with me and I KNOW he likes me".

 

He's so safe and so not at the same time, but he's very comforting sometimes, you know, in all his ridiculousness.

 

Sigh. I feel kind of pathetically...pathetic right now and sort of down. I didn't used to be this way. Don't know what happened to the confident college girl who had no issues with dating , but she seems like a distant memory right now.

 

I feel like some idiot who keeps failing miserably in her love life. Where the one man who makes me feel beautiful and wonderful when he sees me is the one man who also makes me feel destroyed because he's married, while the nice single guys I let myself like somehow don't work out, which in turn makes me feel like running back to MM again just so I can remind myself that someone is capable of being romantically interested in me.

 

Reading back on this I sound horribly pathetic. Christ.

 

Sorry, I'm having a bad night.

 

I'll respond to everyone's individual postings this week, I promise, just not much up to it tonight and I have to be at the hospital in 3 hours and still can't sleep....

[unspokenwords]

No amount of NC could ever make me' forget and if in 1-2 years time it reappeared just as randomly as yours did, I would have been just as weak. I wish you all the best.

 

Please continue posting. I desperately need to know how this plays out.

 

Totally in agreement with these sentiments.

 

I read the whole story too. I do sometimes think things happen for a reason.

 

Applaud you for your honesty - about weakness and also about the tremendous highs of love....

 

Definitely please keep posting.

[Angel1111]

And then when you're failing miserably in the rest of your dating life, it's really easy to fall into that comfort of someone like MM who, despite his negatives, despite how miserable I was in other ways over our affair...and believe me I remember....that immediate gratification of happy I feel when I am in that moment with him is something I fall back to when I am in a moment like I am at this very moment.

 

And that's the reason you have to completely stay away from MM because it's an emotional trap with an endless loop. You're romanticising the situation but reality is going to slam into the side of you like a freight train if you don't stop now. You must think beyond the here and now. You have to think about what this has done, and will continue to do, to you if you go back to that situation. Honestly, wild horses couldn't drag me back into a relationship with my xMM or any other married man. It is a highway to hell.

 

Of course, you need to do what you think is best for you. But it needs to be said -- if you get back into that sitaution with MM, you'll be making a mistake that you'll end up regretting. I promise.

[greengoddess]

 

 

 

This dude tonight, I don't know, we talked for a few hours, he was friendly, sweet, nice.....granted he said he'd been up for 20 hours and was exhausted and probably could have just gone home but stayed out with me anyway, but I feel like if he was interested he would have made SOME kind of move because he's going back to another state tomorrow and it's not like he'll see me again for a few months, but he didn't, and at the mental state I am in right now that was kind of a self-esteem blow to me, because I came home at 130 am and immediately thought, "well, at least when I see MM on tuesday I know that he'll look at me and flirt with me and I KNOW he likes me".

 

 

Did you ever think this guy may not only like you but may RESPECT you and that is why he did not make a move on you at your first meeting. It was the first time you met and you wanted him to make a move on you when he was exhausted and half drunk??? I don't think you really know how a man should treat a woman. You should take a break from men and learn to love and respect yourself.

[bentnotbroken]

Did you ever think this guy may not only like you but may RESPECT you and that is why he did not make a move on you at your first meeting. It was the first time you met and you wanted him to make a move on you when he was exhausted and half drunk??? I don't think you really know how a man should treat a woman. You should take a break from men and learn to love and respect yourself.

 

 

Excellent suggestion. I don't know how someone expects to be loved truly when they don't love themselves enough to pick your own self esteem up. :eek:Why is her self esteem contingent on someone hitting on her? The external validation is shifting and inconsistant...why would anyone want that?

[silktricks]

I think you will end up being heart-broken if you decide to try to be friends. Though you will try to keep from making him the center of your life, you love him - and he is committed elsewhere - I think you'll end up making him your priority, while he must end up making his family his priority. It won't be fair to you, and you two will probably end up back in the pleasure/guilt cycle you've been in for so long. You've spent 5 years in this tar-baby of a relationship, and you were doing really well at unsticking yourself.

 

As appealing as I am certain both he and a relationship with him feel and sound, I think (personally) that you neestd to take better care of your heart then you can if you attempt to have any form of relationship with him.

 

But, of course, that's just my opinion.

 

As for the date with this other guy. As you say, dating is super stressful. Try not making any negative assumptions about him, and just take him at his word - that he was out on his feet. Some people do good in person - some get all stressed out and scared. You'll better be able to tell how it really went, when you two make contact again. You'll know then if it was exhaustion or messed up chemistry.

 

Anyway, don't get all down on yourself even if it doesn't work out with this guy. There are many single men out there, and a lot of 'em are pretty great guys.

Edited September 27, 2010 by silktricks

[Owl]

Here's my viewpoint.

 

Feel free to take it or leave it as you like.

 

New guy didn't "push it" with you because he does respect you, and is likely looking for a REAL relationship with you. He's investing in you, rather than trying to reap the rewards now with no thought to tomorrow. He likely wants something more than just the moment with you.

 

MM on the other hand used the situation to his advantage. He was stuck in the area, and flat out took advantage of that fact. He used it deliberately, intentionally to resume things with you.

 

And it worked.

 

And absolutely nothing has changed since the day you went NC with him last time. Just biding his time and using the situation got him what he wanted.

 

As a married man (who is faithful to his wife)...I would have slept in my car in that situation. Or walked whatever distance it was to get home, and worked out the car situation as need be. Or walked to the nearest Wal-mart and bought a bicycle.

 

You get the idea.

 

He used the situation to get what he wanted...without making any of the changes that you'd insisted on when you started NC 17 months ago. And he was successful.

 

What you have to decide at this point is whether or not that's acceptable to you. If you're willing to let things drift back to what they were, then agree to the "just friends" thing that you know is still an EA, and will just drift back into resuming the same PA you had with him before in short order.

 

Or, you can decide that nothing has changed....and resume NC.

 

Up to you my friend. Just be honest with yourself about what's going on here.

[greengoddess]

Don't you just hate it when a man says he just wants to be friends with you after he is done ****ing you? Seriously how could you even consider this?

 

Take a break from men and find yourself without the validation of a man.

[BB07]

I would be the first one to tell my friends that they should never rely on anyone else for happiness, men or otherwise, but I find myself in a funk I must say.

 

Yeah. So, after this exciting interaction, my thoughts go to--> How I'm supposed to see MM on Tuesday, and how nice it is that when MM sees me it is so obvious that he is attracted to me, that he likes me, that he loves being with me, and how I don't have to try very hard in that respect with him.

 

KG.......sometimes we want what is familiar even when we KNOW it's not good for us. Familiar is comforting in many ways.

Dating is...in a word....exhausting. With all the stress of school and trying to get my life on track (to answer someone's question, no, I'm not Dr. KG just yet technically.....getting there though , which is the stressful part), and being emotionally drained over other things, it IS nice to know someone cares about you and is attracted to you , ya know?

 

It is nice to know that someone knows us, even though they don't have what is best for us at heart, but it gives us comfort that they know us. Remember this goes back to what is familiar, it doesn't mean it's right or it's good for us, but it is what we know.

 

And then when you're failing miserably in the rest of your dating life, it's really easy to fall into that comfort of someone like MM who, despite his negatives, despite how miserable I was in other ways over our affair...and believe me I remember....that immediate gratification of happy I feel when I am in that moment with him is something I fall back to when I am in a moment like I am at this very moment.

 

See what I mean? Even you talk about the comfort you feel with MM, but don't forget the other stuff, the pain, the heartache. It's not worth the price for a little comfort is it?

 

Maybe I was banking on this date tonight way too much working out, partially because I desperately want to connect with another guy the way I do with MM to distract me from him...

 

I can relate KG, oh I can relate. I'm a lot older than you, and for the 1st time in my life I'm having to face myself, all alone, without the outside noise of something else or someone else distracting me. It's hard, it's very hard. Sometimes I feel so alone. I don't know why but it tends to hit me in the grocery store as silly as that is, but it does. It's a very painful feeling when you have to come to grips with it, but it passes. I think it's necessary that I let myself feel it, no matter how bad it hurts. I maybe wrong KG, but I think you are like me and you are having trouble sitting with yourself in the quite and the aloneness. This feeling makes us want comfort and in this case wanting comfort makes you want MM??

 

"well, at least when I see MM on tuesday I know that he'll look at me and flirt with me and I KNOW he likes me".

 

Again see the comfort and familiar factor kicking in?

He's so safe and so not at the same time, but he's very comforting sometimes, you know, in all his ridiculousness.

 

You said it yourself in the sentence above, about the comfort thing. Something else to think about in the above is you said it's safe. How does safe play into it? Safe maybe because you know you can't really have him? Safe because you don't really have to have a real relationship with him, because the fact is you can't? Think about it, why does he represent safe? How much of it is about comfort and familiarity? Will that comfort and safeness last? It won't will it KG?

 

 

Sigh. I feel kind of pathetically...pathetic right now and sort of down. I didn't used to be this way. Don't know what happened to the confident college girl who had no issues with dating , but she seems like a distant memory right now.

 

I feel like some idiot who keeps failing miserably in her love life. Where the one man who makes me feel beautiful and wonderful when he sees me is the one man who also makes me feel destroyed because he's married, while the nice single guys I let myself like somehow don't work out, which in turn makes me feel like running back to MM again just so I can remind myself that someone is capable of being romantically interested in me.

 

You aren't a idiot KG, you are just struggling with some things that I struggle with myself and hon I don't want you to keep struggling with them as many years as I have. We have to learn to be OK with being alone, being quite with ourselves and liking it. If we like ourselves we don't look for comfort and love in the wrong places because we believe that we deserve more than something that is half-ass. You deserve better than half-ass KG, don't accept less.

 

 

Get some rest hon and big hugs to you.

[Angel1111]

I'm not trying to threadjack, but I had to respond to this because this is a VERY IMPORTANT point. If he was on his way out the door, you can rest assured that your A has slowed down his forward momentum. An A makes it more tolerable for them at home. They have happiness, intimacy, laughter, etc on the outside (you) which makes them able to go home and avoid the issues that were bothering them in the first place. An A does not encourage one to LEAVE a M, it encourages them to STAY.

 

Amen to that.

[IfWishesWereHorses]

I remember you not being able to eat, get out of bed, focus on school, enjoy life at all. Ending it with him was so hard on you. How many times do you want to put yourself through that?

 

Just remember that the more emotionally entangled with him you are, the harder it will be to have your heart open for someone else. You're a young woman with a brilliant future ahead. Open yourself to something wonderful that doesn't have this kind of pain written all over it.

 

I think any of us who watched Kismet's story unfold would agree to this. I've thought all along that you were your own worst enemy. That for some reason you keep sabatoging yourself.

 

Here you are though, with a choice to make, do you make the one that ensures your well being and peace of mind or do you go for just one drink? You've been sober for 17 mos. so surely you can handle just sitting in a bar and having just one beer with your buds, right?

 

Its YOUR choice, the onus is on you. No crying and sobbing unfair when you have all the information in this world about how this will work out and how you will handle it. You'll never deserve more than you want for yourself. I hope you have the strength not to find yourself back in the same situation.

[Silly_Girl]

I'm not trying to threadjack, but I had to respond to this because this is a VERY IMPORTANT point. If he was on his way out the door, you can rest assured that your A has slowed down his forward momentum. An A makes it more tolerable for them at home. They have happiness, intimacy, laughter, etc on the outside (you) which makes them able to go home and avoid the issues that were bothering them in the first place. An A does not encourage one to LEAVE a M, it encourages them to STAY.

 

Yup. A year ago my guy was moving out. I came along. He cheered up. He cared less about his home life. They spent even more time apart. Their relationship ostensibly got better and better

[KismetGirl]

No guys....it wasn't like I was expecting for this new guy to like, jump into bed with me right away to prove he likes me, that's not what I meant at all. I meant that, considering he lives 3,000 miles away and went out of his way while he was in town for a wedding to see me the last night he was here, I would have thought I'd get more of a sign that he was into me. Maybe he WAS just really tired, I don't know, it's possible. I guess I was hoping for some more significant sign of interest after speaking to this person for months and seeing them in person, like, I don't know....I don't know honestly. A kiss goodbye maybe? He acted ....very platonically. I thought there was mild flirtation for a second but otherwise just very freindly , and I think I was just really dissappointed by that because of all the reasons I stated earlier.

 

It's not like my entire basis for existence is focused entirely on if a man likes me. Granted it may seem that way because that's all I write about HERE, so you get an abridged version of my life, albeit one in which I am rather descriptive, but that is due to my writer's history, so I have a knack for adequately relaying stories and scenery to people more so than some others perhaps who are not writers in their pasts. It's not all been a medical history with this girl here, trust me.

 

But I digress, my point is that seriously this communication I had with the new guy who lives far away, it was doing wonders for helping to keep me on track and distracted. Honestly. There were times when I'd think of MM and be tempted, and say, forget it....this new guy is so nice, AND he's single, AND he showed interest. And then after months and months of speaking he has a chance to come into town for a wedding, and his schedule is crazy but we manage to squeeze in a meeting last night at like 1030 in the evening, and it's just....womp womp womp. Totally anticlimactic. I guess I was hoping for more of a "sign" that he was into my considering he goes back home today and I dont feel I got that so it's like I feel my "distraction" from MM has just disintigrated. Am I making sense?

 

It's like I'm distraught that , as an addict of sorts, I've lost what I was using to distract myself from my addiction to MM, and my first impulse upon feeling like sh*te about this new dude not showing interest was to think "well, at least on Tuesday when I give MM a ride home he'll be flirty and happy to be with me as always". It's an immediate gratification thing that I was doing very well to avoid for 17 months and it's like I've regressed totally, and it was compounded by this dissappointing date last night that, as I admitted, I was kind of banking on going well after all this time. I think it would have validated me that YES, I can really like someone ELSE besides MM, and that person can like me back. As silly as it sounds it would have been SOME validation that I really can find happiness with someone else one day.....it's been SO hard to even find someone else I had any REAL attraction to on both a physical and personal level, that when I thought i did, albeit online, and then in person it was fizzled....man, what a bummer.

 

Hope I am making sense.

 

Please do not think this is the only thing going on in my life. I wish this was my biggest problem in life, it's really not. I have a TON of other crap going on, and in a way that is why things like this stress me out I guess. Because I'd like to have someone or something just for me that makes me happy rather than constantly struggling to take care of my family, take care of everyone else, go to school, work....I mean, you have no idea what kind of other things I deal with on a daily basis, and to have that one last area of my life in which I am supposed to find happiness just for me, also go wrong...it's just exhausting after a while, I don't know.

 

 

I know that eventually, maybe when I'm already an MD, and I'm settled in my career, I'll be less stressed, don't know. But even the route I am taking now, it's been significantly harder for me to get here than many of my peers, let me assure you, and stress can do terrible things for your ability to focus properly in other areas.

 

I'm totally going on a tangent now, sorry. Again I swear I'll respond to other posts but my lack of time at the moment is making me have to give a general response for a moment...

[JamesM]

KG, I have followed your story as well. I have felt your frustration, fleeting happiness, and immense depression as your relationship had its ups and downs.

 

While it is easy for me and others to say that you are the reason you are where you are...it is not easy for someone like you going through the roller coaster of emotions.

 

A couple of comments.....

 

Again, felt surreal to have him there....especially to have him in my apartment so late at night, which was something that was normally impossible when we had our affair as he normally had to rush home for obvious reasons, but on this night he couldnt get home and his wife had assumed he was sitting in his office and that's why he wasn't home yet. She knew about the incident that happened and that no one could get out of the city at that time.

 

I actually felt sadness for his wife when I read this. Here she is sitting alone at home with the children waiting on her H...assuming that he is trying to sleep at his office, alone and hungry. Meanwhile, her H is once again betraying her trust.

 

While I can agree that you had plenty of opportunities to stop this, IMO it falls on his shoulders for even calling you. As a guy, I am sure that he knew (as was said already) that he could text you and have a good chance that you would answer. When that happened, then he knew that you would let him see you. I think this was his plan when he saw that this situation was perfect for a renewing of the relationship.

 

Sadly, now that it has begun, the roller coaster ride will begin all over.

 

 

I told him if he wanted to, he could come lay in my room if he felt uncomfortable sleeping near my sister, who he doesn't know very well.

 

IMO this was an open invitation to him. No guy would resist this.

 

 

Sitting with him in the diner just talking, it was like I had this perfection sitting across from me. This combination of qualities, this connection with another human being that people often spend their entire lives looking for, and we have it sitting right in front of us....and yet we can't do anything about it. What a cruel fate.

 

Wrong. The fact is that HE won't do anything about it.

 

If he loved you as much as he says (and I am not doubting his feelings for you...only his commitment to you), then as a married man myself, I know that he can make a choice. He has three options: Love his wife and leave you. Love you and leave his wife. Betray the trust of both of you.

 

Two options show love to someone besides himself. The last option is a selfish option that shows only concern for his own feelings and not those of you or his wife.

 

Believe me when I say that I know how he feels about you and yet cares deeply about his wife. I know that you have a love for him. I also know that he has strong feelings for you. While it is possible that you have a true love for him, I question that he has a true love for you because this requires him to put your feelings above his own. And did he do that in this scenario?

 

For anyone that actually read this entire novel, cheers, you're a trooper. Had to get it out. Thanks.

 

I "enjoyed" reading this post and love how you express yourself. I meant nothing to be hurtful in my comments. I only responded because I care.

 

BTW, based on his past history, do you really think the wife will not suspect anything when he gets home after being with you? Can he keep living his life as he has for the past almost year and a half without showing that he is betraying her?

 

Keep posting. Many of us do care what happens to YOU.

[Angel1111]

While I can agree that you had plenty of opportunities to stop this, IMO it falls on his shoulders for even calling you. As a guy, I am sure that he knew (as was said already) that he could text you and have a good chance that you would answer. When that happened, then he knew that you would let him see you. I think this was his plan when he saw that this situation was perfect for a renewing of the relationship.

 

This is precisely why at one point I finally asked xMM to leave me alone for good. I never said that to before him but I was sick to death of the games and how he toyed with me when he knew he wasn't going to leave his marriage. He has no idea, but his actions have made me think so much less of him. Now I feel as you said, James - I just feel sorry for his wife. For every time she worried that she couldn't trust him, she was right. He apparently thinks committment means staying in his marriage. Fidelity is optional.

[jj33]

Im not sure why the full responsibility falls on him. It takes 2 to get into bed. Hes an azz for calling in the first place but KG you need to really think about how you want your life to be.

 

Youve been here before and it almost compromised your ability to perform at school. Can you really afford to get back into this? Based on the way things went before I wouldnt think so. And I can only imagine you are busier now.

 

Perhaps I have a cynical view of men but they ask. And if you are saying yes I think its hard to say well he shouldnt have asked its his fault that I am weak. i dont buy that. They ask and ask (or xMM does in my case) sometimes after you ask them to leave you aone and forget they ever met you, and its up to you to determine what is BEST for you, not what you want to do at that moment throwing caution to the wind. I know its lonely and being busy isnt enough to stop the lonliness etc we all go through that sometimes.

 

Youve got everything going for you and a bright future ahead of you. You are the only one who can take care of you. You need to look after your emotional well being. Being involved with this man is self destructive based on the history.

Edited September 27, 2010 by jj33

[Angel1111]

Im not sure why the full responsibility falls on him. It takes 2 to get into bed. Hes an azz for calling in the first place but KG you need to really think about how you want your life to be.

 

I don't think anyone is saying that it's his full responsibility but he is responsible. In some ways, he's more culpable because he knows better than anyone whether he'll truly leave his marriage or not. The truth is, I know that I would never toy with someone that I had strong feelings for and who felt the same way about me if I knew that I'd never leave my marriage. I defintely wouldn't try to pull him back into the relationship every time he ended it. As I said to xMM, I realize that I am responsible, but he also needs to leave me alone. This is why I lost respect for him - he had no intentions of leaving his marriage, but he didn't want to honor my decision to leave him either. I feel much better now knowing that when I do have to talk to him, I don't have to worry about him picking up the phone and trying to be cute. It constantly kept me on edge knowing that he never stopped trying to draw me back in.

Edited September 27, 2010 by Angel1111

[silverplanets]

KG ..

 

I'd need to read this more fully to make a decent comment but one intial thought did come to mind ...

 

What's done now is done now ...

 

A bit like a health kick which is going well and the one night one eats a whole chocolate cake ...

 

It's done ... but it doesn't mean the end of the health kick ..

 

You can't "uneat" the chocolate cake, but you can smile, give yourself a big hug, forgive yourself for being human and have a laugh at it all ...

 

And then make a conscious decision based upon what's best for you ...

 

If you want then you can regard this as a temporary "blip" and go back to NC, working on your life, building a future that works for you and is on your terms etc, etc

 

Or if you want to you can get off the NC trail ...

 

Either way it's your choice .. the fact that you ate the chocolate cake doesn't mean the end of your "health drive" ... the end of your health drive comes if you decide that the one slip is an excuse to stock the larder and go into chocolate overdrive.

 

If it was me I wouldn't let one "slip" direct my future ... a slip is a slip, nothing more, nothing less.

 

What you decide consciously to do in the cold light of day is what matters.

 

For me, in the cold light of day I know I would never be happy back in the drama of an A and caught up in someone elses bad marriage and that's all I need to know at this stage of my life.

 

hope this makes some sense

 

be safe

Chris

[KismetGirl]

Sorry that this happened. It sucks and I am worried about you because 17 months you've gone on with your life, sure you've missed him and still love him, but you were going along fine. Then he tested you (yes he was concerned, I believe that, but he also manipulated the situation..) and you reacted. He didn't have to text you to ask if he could come sleep at your house. He could have called his wife, or a friend.. Nope, he called you knowing FULL well that you'd cave.

 

No comment on the sex thing, I saw that coming as soon as I read he came to your place..

 

What do YOU want? A friendship = Affair and you going back to being the OW and only a matter of time before things fall apart again, he acts like a schmuck, runs away again and/or there's D-Day all over again. Drama, pain, heartache, anxiety, confusion, that rollercoaster ride..Again.

 

OR

 

No friendship. Pain, heartache that WILL go away and lessen over time and hopefully allowing yourself to truly let go and heal.

 

Get a new cell number so he can't "text" you anytime in the future.

 

Hey you

 

Of course, as usual, everything you say is legitimate and logical, but we all know my logic is hard-pressed to become reality at times with this guy.

 

As eloquent I can be with words, I still have trouble fully describing the reaction I really have to him....it's unlike anything I've felt with anything in my entire life. It's like a travesty to think of never speaking to him again, even from a purely platonic stand point , because that is how much I genuinely care for him.

 

Changing my number is a bit of a stretch, if only because I've had it for a decade and that's a bit much to do just because of one person. I know that if I asked him to never call me again he would likely oblige me, because I know him, and in a strange way I have more power than he does at times, but I have trouble using it to that extent....I could KEEP the No Contact going, but I was incapable of initiating it. Just like now, I would never initiate this whole "platonic" thing, but since he's brought it up, I now find mysef being in the position of maintaining it. For instance, with this whole friendship thing, I know that the "success" per say of it remaining platonic is really more on me than him. If I choose to keep it friendly, he would never try to make a move again unless he was certain I allowed him to. Granted, if I gave one inkling that I wanted him to kiss me, come upstairs, or whatever, I'm pretty certain he'd cave in (regardless of the guilty fit freak outs he'd have on and off after that), but it's been long enough that I know how this works with him.

 

This friendship thing, however, is something I have never legitimately tried with him. Is it strange that I am intrigued? Partially because I want to torture him and punish him a little bit by letting him see me without allowing him to touch me like I'm sure he wants, and partially because, honestly....I think inwardly I want him to realise what he's really missing, even if in the end he still wouldn't leave his wife.

 

Am I making sense? It's like, when the sex is the focus, I feel like that's what it becomes all about because of the hurried nature of our time together. It's like....if we have two hours to spend together, we could spend it talking and getting to know each other more and being emotional, or we could spend it f**king, but not always both, and that towards the end of our affair it became a constant sex-fest and I used to feel pretty badly about that, as much as it felt good in the moment, because I felt like we had ignored that personal connection we have. I feel like the last couple of weeks it's been so nice that we've just been talking like really close friends (aside from that first night when we slept together upon seeing each other for the first time again.) It's almost like we get to know each other all over again and I can see him realise just how much we are compatible on a personal level, and that it's NOT just a sexual compatibility, and I see this recognition on his face....and I like it. I really do, I admit it.

 

I like to see him squirming, and staring at me when he thinks I'm not looking as I drive him home after work like I did tonight. I like joking around with him and knowing he genuinly likes to be in my company.

 

And, let's be honest, since he is trying so hard to be my friend, he now gets to hear about all the other people I like or date, and I see how much it kills him but he continues to listen and offer advice because he knows HE is the one that has proposed this "friend" thing and, well, friends talk about that sort of thing now don't they.

 

I think if I can maintain the platonic element of this relationship that I won't get to that same tragic depression I put myself into last time....so, to answer your question, I don't know what I want. I know I want HIM, and I guess I feel like as a friend I feel better about myself, which I didn't feel all the time when I felt like I had just turned into a sex toy for him. At this point he's really making an incredible effort to call me just to ask me how my day is going, to try to be that friend he claims he can be, and I'm hard pressed to let that go at the moment.

 

Perhaps if I can really keep the friendship going it would be good for me in a sense, because I can tehn control the situation a little bit, and before I felt like I had really lost all control of the relationship and that had bothered me alot before. It's like I feel that he is respecting me right now and I'm enjoying this element of power I have right now. Maybe I fell back into the affair with him so many times in the past because the "end" was always so sudden....we'd be doing our thing and then all of a sudden he'd have a guilt fit, or his wife would catch him in a lie, and BOOM, he'd cut it off again, and I never felt like I had a say in it, and it always felt like he was ripped from me. Quick and painless works for ripping a Band-Aid off your skin, but it doesn't always work so well in trying to get a person out of your mind.

 

Despite the fact that it got easier to deal with the break up over the last 17 months, I never forgot about him. I'd still have days where I would sit and look at all his photos online and make myself sad thinking that he probably forgot all about me, and that he never really cared, and that he didn't miss me, and that I never meant anything to him.

 

Seeing him make such an effort just to be friends with me right now....it's confusing and at the same time has really had a calming effect on me knowing that all those days of thinking he didn't give a damn were not true. He does care, enough to make the effort to at least try to have me in his life as a friend. HE is the one proposing the platonic friendship...not me. This tells me that he really is trying to have me in his life without the sex part, and that I mean something, even though I don't know if he can really maintain it. I know we both WANT to rip each other's clothes off....that's a given. And frankly sometimes I wish it WAS only a physical attractio, because then I wouldn't give a damn if we ever spoke again or not. Sex is easy to find anywhere. Personal connections with someone....not so much.

 

I guess all the support is helping me to maintain this platonic element, which is REALLY hard for me to do, but it's the best sort of compromise I can think at the moment. I don't know if I could bear to totally tell him to get lost and never speak to me again right now.

 

Tell me if I'm being totally crazy or if anything I have said makes sense. Still trying to sort this out in my head.