How long until the pain from NC is bearable?

[sadwithouthim]

Last contact July 7th, it seems like forever. I just want to hear his voice.

 

I feel so guilty that I couldn't give him more. I'm married, he's single. He must have thought I didn't love him enough.

[affairaddict]

But you didn't love him enough or you would be with him.

[affairaddict]

Didn't mean to sound harsh. I suppose I just struggle to see it from the married persons side. I understand it must be hard. You can be with him though you can!!

[sadwithouthim]

That's harsh, but I'll forgive you since you're on the flip side. There are other factors in our situation. I have children to consider also, and there is a great amount of distance between us. We never met in person.

 

He was so patient, and never pushed me into making any promises. We should've stopped in the earlier stages when we predicted it would only get more complicated and harder to stop.

[TaraMaiden]

Yes, you should.

 

you do realise this is probably more an infatuation and a yearning for what you can't have?

 

Even if you WERE to be with him, there's no guarantee in the long-run that life would be better.

Just different.

 

Incidentally, staying within a marriage 'because of the children' is probably by far one of the worst reasons for staying.

 

I do think you need to have a talk with your H and agree that you two are married in name only.

It seems to me your emotional transference is huge, and that you would quite happily dissolve your marriage if the kids weren't there....

[TaraMaiden]

I'm sorry, but she's right. People get divorced all the time. Families make it work. It's difficult, it can be painful but it happens.

 

I said this on the other thread but I'm going to repeat. The most loving, kind thing you can do right now, is leave him be. Truly. You have to think of him, and his well-being, and his happiness. Until you can offer him more, you might as well be offering him nothing.

 

NC is a decision, much like a marriage, that you recommit to daily. It's not a decision you make once and that's it. You make it again and again, every day.

 

More often than not, the right thing to do is at odds with the thing we want to do. That's why we're so smart - we recognise the difference.

 

I also commented in another thread of yours that remaining in this marriage is hypocritical, farcical and dishonest.

It teaches your children the wrong things about relationships.

Instead of pining for something which to all intents and purposes was an emotional creation, why not focus on extricating yourself from the complete mess that is supposedly your marriage?

[sadwithouthim]

How long have you all been NC? I noticed nobody answered how long it might take for the pain to be bearable...lol. I guess there's no set time. I agree it probably is a decision each day. Each day, I say I will NOT contact him. This time, I will let something just for once be on HIS terms. He said more than once "if you could put yourself in my shoes in this, you'd have told me to F off long ago". It hurts that I hurt him.

[pianomanwoman]

If you keep the NC contract with yourself, you will be empowered and then realize that it wasnt ment to be. I broke NC about two months ago after like two years of him trying to get me back to the sickness of our relationship. I saw the poor thing trying to juggle his wife on the phone and his customers in the store and me...just like the past except his wife hung up on him when she heard me in the backround. I told him that it must stop. He just wanted to know where I was and if I was going to cause trouble in the future...or tell his wife about our affair. I assured him that I had no interest in him or his life anymore. Then a double rainbow formed in the sky and the customers rushed out to take a photo of it. I promised him if in ten years it did not work out with her and if I was not involved and he still loved me...a lot of promises there I made..that we can be together again. So he was satisfied with that. Dont tourture yourself. This guy only wanted to know if I was going to try to hurt him. He is self serving and had no interest in me but to use me. NC was the only way I could move on and get my dignity back. Buy your own house, get your own flowers grow your own garden. Make a family and with the husband you already have. Forget any losers that want to use you. NC takes time.. but if you keep breaking NC you are gonna be sorry. Good luck and god bless.

[sadwithouthim]

I should have cared more for him, and found ways to give him more of me. He was so much to me. I might have lost him forever now (even if I do change my situation).

[TaraMaiden]

Quit going on about him.

He's out of the picture.

He never really was completely IN the picture.

 

Focus, woman.

 

What the heck are you going to do about this dreadful lie you're living every day, 24/7, 365 perpetual?

[kamani]

You claim you never met in person.

 

Does that mean you've never seen him? Your communication was through electronic media only?

 

If that is the case, you hardly know him. This is only an obsession and a fantasy. The real person may be not the person you want.

[sadwithouthim]

I do need to talk to H and agree on the fact that there's nothing there. Yes, we have built a lot through the years and have 2 children, but there is no love. It's very painful, and maybe that's how I got myself in EA. I know the marriage is the first issue. EA was a bandaid.

 

My husband is hard to talk to, and very self-centered. He wouldn't make it easy. He's a vindictive, selfish man. He knows about EA (I told him 6 months into it), he then promised to change. Nothing can erase from my memory how mean he has been to me. My marriage will never work. He says I'm just not a forgiving person, and why can't I see the new him. He makes me sick! It not that I don't want to forgive, it's just that all those rotten memories aren't going away.

[sadwithouthim]

Yes, we've never met in person. We emailed, chatted, talked on phone, and shared our daily lives this way. There is a GREAT emotional bond there.

 

It's true that I don't know him in a physical sense. I do have pics of him. I regret that we didn't meet in person, and I may never know.

 

I know it's silly to speculate this, given that I'm married. I don't know how OM didn't give up on me long ago. I think we were kind of like therapy to each other.

[TaraMaiden]

Don't talk to your H any more.

See a Lawyer, and file for divorce.

 

Sure, it won't be easy, but the process itself is simple.

Keep a business mind - don't use emotion to fuel your decisions.

But you cannot keep living like this and continue to invest in a toxic relationship.

The dynamics are destructive and your kids will grow up in that shadow.

 

Just go out one day, go into a lawyer's office and start the process.

 

Many of us have done it.

Look - we're still alive to tell the tale.

[affairaddict]

Yes, you are wasting your life in a miserable marriage. I left my marriage when my kids were 2 and 3. It was scary but I had to do it.

 

Trust me as a 34 yr old cancer patient that life is so previous it can be taken from you so suddenly - you must be happy.

[Goodbye]

That's harsh, but I'll forgive you since you're on the flip side. There are other factors in our situation. I have children to consider also, and there is a great amount of distance between us. We never met in person.

 

He was so patient, and never pushed me into making any promises. We should've stopped in the earlier stages when we predicted it would only get more complicated and harder to stop.

 

 

 

I have 3 lovely daughters and left a marriage that wasn't good. It wasn't an abusive marriage or an end-of-the-world marriage...it was a marriage that made me sad and unfulfilled. I left it. My daughters, 3 years later, are still doing well in all regards. My exH is doing really well. I'm doing better than I was in an expired marriage. I'm sick of people rationalizing cheating because "they have kids to consider." Ick.

[sadwithouthim]

I'm sorry, but she's right. People get divorced all the time. Families make it work. It's difficult, it can be painful but it happens.

 

I said this on the other thread but I'm going to repeat. The most loving, kind thing you can do right now, is leave him be. Truly. You have to think of him, and his well-being, and his happiness. Until you can offer him more, you might as well be offering him nothing.

 

NC is a decision, much like a marriage, that you recommit to daily. It's not a decision you make once and that's it. You make it again and again, every day.

 

More often than not, the right thing to do is at odds with the thing we want to do. That's why we're so smart - we recognise the difference.

 

You're so right about NC being a daily commitment. Even now, at Day 27 I constantly have to remind msyelf throughout the day that I will NOT be contacting him.

 

It's a serious process with a lot of ups and downs. One minute I'm fine, and the next a song or something will jog a memory and I can feel the heaviness in my heart and the tears have to flow. The tears bring relief for a while until the next time I think about what could have/should have been.

[sadwithouthim]

Don't talk to your H any more.

See a Lawyer, and file for divorce.

 

Sure, it won't be easy, but the process itself is simple.

Keep a business mind - don't use emotion to fuel your decisions.

But you cannot keep living like this and continue to invest in a toxic relationship.

The dynamics are destructive and your kids will grow up in that shadow.

 

Just go out one day, go into a lawyer's office and start the process.

 

Many of us have done it.

Look - we're still alive to tell the tale.

 

You're so wise Tara, thank you for your advice. You have inspired me to take baby steps in the right direction. Somehow, your posts have given me some strength.

[TaraMaiden]

I'm not wise.

But in some ways, I'm savvy.

 

I know we get one shot at this - and why choose to keep living in a rut, when there are other options available?

 

Your life was made up by a series of choices that brought you step by step to where you're standing now.

"Look down" on the stepping stone, you currently occupy.

 

Is this where you actually want to be?

 

Around you, in different directions, are other 'stepping stones'.

Calculate where you want to be, and rationally, reasonably, how many 'steps' it will take you to get there.

 

Then?

Start walking.

 

Baby steps are fine.

You can in any event, whatever the situation (real OR hypothetical) only ever take one step at a time....

But it still gets you there.

[Praying4Peace]

How long have you all been NC? I noticed nobody answered how long it might take for the pain to be bearable...lol. I guess there's no set time. I agree it probably is a decision each day. Each day, I say I will NOT contact him. This time, I will let something just for once be on HIS terms. He said more than once "if you could put yourself in my shoes in this, you'd have told me to F off long ago". It hurts that I hurt him.

 

As a MOW- give it 6 months until it's bearable. Also- you don't love him enough. You are infatuated. You clearly don't love your H, it's more of a duty or history of joint responsibility. No one can take your kids from you- it'll hurt you more to "share" time with them then it'll hurt them. They'll be happy to have a doting parent around but I speak from experience when I say I was the one that didn't want to be home alone... I now use that as ME time and to organize things for when the kids get back.

 

It's not conceivable that you love someone so much and you let them go knowing you will lose their affection forever.

 

But yeah- given the emotional connectionid say 6 months and focus on the fact that there is no hope and it's never going back to the way it was.

 

Spend time in MC with your H because a better relationship with him will help you forget OM. Do a lot family stuff.

 

Heads up- you'll feel a bit better 2-3 months in and then around 4 months you feel like you dreamed it all and you dip down again. Make a list of why you made this decision and read it when you feel like breaking NC or miss him.

[veryhappy]

My feelings are ambivalent about your messages, because on one hand you seem to be hurting, but on the other you were the one who chose not to be with your available AP. That doesn't make sense to me, and with my personal experience my response would be that it was your choice. Well, that's what I would say to my exAP if he complained about NC being hard on him.

 

On the discarded side, NC is impossible the first month. Feels like death. Then you gradually get better, then regress. It's a long term process. Probably it gets somewhere stable when the same amount of time passes as the length of the affair. I'm not there yet, but that's my hope.

 

It is essential that you do want to move on.