Unrequited Love Leads to Heart Ache

[Sub]

They have child together? If they're staying with you, where's the child?

[Quiet Storm]

It seems like you are having trouble managing your feelings.

 

You say that we cannot help who we are attracted to, and that all we can control is our actions in response to it. I agree that we cannot control our attractions- but we can certainly learn to manage our thoughts & feelings. We can redirect thoughts, we can replace thoughts with other thoughts, we can use self talk to prioritize some thoughts and minimize others. Some people find great success by simply envisioning a stop sign when your mind "goes there".

 

All of this mulling over it- analyzing his interactions with you & his interactions with his wife, discussing it with your friends, imagining possible outcomes... all of that energy is just making this much bigger than it really is. And that's not good for you.

 

Since you logically know that your attraction to him cannot go anywhere, and since you care about him and do not want to threaten his marriage/ life, then you need to reign yourself in. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

 

Your thoughts, feelings, assumptions, hopes... those things are water to your flower (the attraction). Those thoughts grow the attraction & make it feel important and meaningful. Alternately, managing your thoughts & redirecting your focus will starve the feelings so that you see this more realistically- as brief attraction in your life that is unrealistic and unsustainable.

 

You are essentially torturing yourself. It's your job to love yourself and protect yourself from emotional pain. Imagine you had a child that wanted a puppy, but dogs were not allowed in your rental. Would you bombard the child with puppy videos and books about puppies? Would you sing "How much is that doggy in the window?" to her? No... that would be mean. You would distract the child, help her to focus on other things and try to make her happy in other ways.

 

This is what you have to for yourself, Mona. The attraction is motivating you to explore it further, but it can never be. So all this energy and excitement is as pointless as teasing a child about a puppy that they can't have. It's just being mean to yourself, and setting yourself up for disappointment and heartache.

[the_artist_1970]

I think every married person on the planet has had an attraction to someone else which is strong. The problem I see here is that your boundaries are not strong when it comes to MM. You have to have solid boundaries. I read all the time that ppl can't help who they fall in love with and that is not true. Falling in love means takes time (unless you are two years old). Falling in and staying in love means nurturing that love and allowing someone else to meet your emotional needs. If you have solid tight boundaries you don't allow yourself to get your needs met by a MM. I agree that you do lack emotional maturity. I hope that you don't allow yourself to throw your dignity to the side and become a MM's side piece when there are so many eligible men out there.

 

So yes, we all understand. You don't have to act on feelings unless you make a choice to do so. I also agree that him and his W could be laughing at your attraction to him behind your back. That does happen. All married couples have done that at some point when some single, lonely person has had an attraction to our spouse. It's kind of pitiful.