this is destroying me, best friend,coworker,married woman,new york man needs help!

[motocrosser]

O.K. I screwed up I guess. BAD. About 1 year ago, I became best friends with a married woman whom I had worked with for 3 years. I wanted nothing more than to be friends with her. I wasn't even attracted to her during this time.

 

 

She was in a very bad marriage for the last 2 and a half years. Her husband cheated on her and physically and emotionally abused her. They have kids together. She filed for divorce. Needless to say, we fell in love. We moved in together. About 5-6 months into our relationship- her husband had suddenly 'seen the light'-- wanted her back, played the 'lets do it for the kids card'- everything you can imagine.

 

 

I am trying to give you the condensed version here.

 

 

Well, about one month ago- she left me and went back to him. I had a feeling it was coming- I accepted from the beginning that this could happen and I thought I would have been prepared. I do not blame her or have anger towards her for any of this. I know what it is like to go through a divorce and wanting to make it work for the kids. From my own experiences and from experiences of those around me, I know that the euphoria of reconciliation lasts only a short time. Those issues that were in the marriage before the split up will come back two fold once the regained 'newness' or reconcialling passes. And, I am concerned for her because of that. He had cheated on her countless times- he didn't trust her for most of the marriage because he knew what he was doing. Seems like these trust issues will rear up and bite the both of them in the A**!

 

 

I know I am jumping around all over here- but please bear with me.

 

 

A couple weeks had passed after the break up and she was calling me again quite frequently. We were joking around again and stuff. It was great. Then, she finally admitted to me why we had broke up- because she was thinking about getting back with her husband. I told her that if she went back with him- I was out of the picture totally TOTALLY. I told her she would not hear from me anymore. She accepted that. She then told me that she had decided to indeed get back with her husband.

 

 

This is where I am having the hardest time. I ended up falling in love with this woman. She was my best-friend. And, I can't believe that everything we went through just 'poofed'. We had no major fights or anything like that- I mean yeah, we had fights but nothing that would push her away back to him. We were the best of friends. We were inseparable for about a year or so. We even bought a dog.

 

 

I have been through break ups before- serious break ups. But nothing that has happened to me to this point has hurt as bad as this break up does. I am having such a hard time not talking to her anymore. I AM TOTALLY LOST without her.

 

 

I want her back terribly. I want to talk to her but I can't. I want to see her but I can't. I know that I should just 'get over it' or 'move on already', but it has already been a month and she is still consuming ALL of my thoughts. I have already lost 20 lbs over this because I AINT EATIN'!

 

 

I know this is a stupid- stupid- stupid question- but how do I get her back? This woman was everything to me. Everything.

 

Before you reply to my topic that i am crazy , please understand that me and this woman were very, very close.

 

 

I have posted this in the coping section as well. I am in desperate need of advice.

[midori]

Hi motocrosser,

 

First of all, please just post your query one time, in whichever forum is most appropriate. Members can see all new posts in all of the forums, so posting more than once is redundant.

 

As for your question

 

how do I get her back?

 

I think you know the answer, much as you don't like it. You don't get her back. You learn to live without her.

 

You don't worry about her and the likely outcome of her choice to go back to her husband. There are infinitely complicated issues involved with women who stay in abusive relationships. I don't know the psychology literature on this subject, and thankfully I have no personal experience with it myself. But it's not something that you can solve for her, unfortunately. In fact, your presence on the periphery of her life will probably make things worse, not better for her.

 

What you can do is slowly extricate yourself from the aftermath of this. Start by finding things to do in the evening after work. Find a Tuesday night card-game with some people that you know, or sign up for climbing lessons at the local rock wall gym. Etc. Keep yourself busy. I'm not saying shut all thoughts of her out completely, obviously that won't work. But start the healing process by filling up the "physical" holes in your life her departure has left -- the unoccupied time. Start weaning yourself from your dependency on her. She cannot be your friend, let alone your best friend. You need to find other people to hang out with. Other people to confide in.

 

And while the lessons from this won't dawn on you right away, you can perhaps start to see some of them. You need to be a bit more careful about how you conduct yourself in professional relationships. You need to be a bit more careful in who you allow yourself to get emotionally intimate with. We all make choices in the steps that lead up to falling in love with someone. You perhaps thought she was a safe bet for a friend because she was married. But is it wise for a man to have his best friend be a married (happily or unhappily) woman he works with? It might have been easy, it might have seemed harmless at first ... but was it wise?

 

Why don't you have a best friend, male or female, of long-standing? Have you moved away from childhood & college friends? Do you only socialize with people from work? Why?

 

This didn't just happen. I'm not suggesting that you intended any of it to happen, but at the same time it wasn't pure coincidence. What's going on in your life that led you to get involved with a married coworker who was being abused by her husband? You don't need to answer me, in fact I'd be surprised if you do have an answer at the ready. I'm just putting out some questions that occur to me, an objective observor of the situation. I've allowed myself to get into ill-advised romances that, looking back, I can see came about because of other things within me, not because of the allure of the men themselves. If you emerge from this knowing yourself better, this won't have been for nothing.

[motocrosser]

thanks for the advice. are you a psychologist? you seem to be very well versed on these issues.

 

i think what makes this even worse is that her desk is right next to mine at work- you can only imagine how uncomfortable that is. CONSTANT REMINDER.