A genuine faker?

[make-this-stick]

A long time lurker emerging from the shadows here. After two and a half years as the OW, I'm now ready to exit (hopefully gracefully) from this A. and I really need your help to make this work. I've realized that this is a road to nowhere, and despite initial hopes, we are not going to end up together. We are both in long term marriages with his being much more complicated as both his wife and a child have health issues. I love this man hugely and we have a great friendship but it's got to the point where this relationship hurts and I'm left feeling disappointed all the time. Recently it feels like everything else is coming first in his life and it feels like he's withdrawing. Personally, I think it's because I was very honest with him and told him that I want a future together. I wasn't asking for any commitment, but wanted to know if there was any possibility. He said he couldn't tell me but that he doesn't want us to stop as he loves "us". He is loving, respectful, and understanding whenever we talk about how a future looks for us, but I'm beginning to suspect that he is just a really good faker. I'm so confused by this roller-coaster of emotions that I'm going through and hate how it's making me feel about him. I just want to get off the ride and step away from this without it dissolving into a big, nasty mess.

[Michelle ma Belle]

I want to commend you for coming to this harsh realization about your extra-marital relationship and choosing to end it. That is something to celebrate whether you believe it or not.

 

Is he a genuine "faker"? Isn't everyone in extra-marital affairs? I'm not saying that he doesn't have genuine feelings for you on some level but at the same time he sounds so very typical and even predictable in how he's dealing with you and the future. Yet another man happy to have his cake and eat it too.

 

Besides, there has to be a bit of fakery involved on both your parts otherwise how else would you be able to juggle TWO full-on relationships? Someone was bound to get the short end of the stick.

 

As a long time lurker I'm sure it's safe to assume you've perused the threads regarding affairs and the destruction and heartbreak they leave behind. All of this shouldn't come as a surprise to you and all you can do is concentrate on making peace with what's happened and carve out a new path without him.

 

Don't torture yourself by over-analyzing him or your relationship or the things he said or promised or did. It's pointless and if you're ever unsure about that go back and re-read the infidelity threads just to drive home the point.

 

Good luck to you.

[Grapesofwrath]

The key thing is to focus on how this relationship makes you feel. Trying to figure him out is an endless and pointless exercise. Worry about yourself. If the A causes you pain, disappointment, heartache, and makes you feel "less than" then it's time to move on. It's not nourishing you.

[Heatherknows]

 

After two and a half years as the OW, I'm now ready to exit (hopefully gracefully) from this A. and I really need your help to make this work. I've realized that this is a road to nowhere, and despite initial hopes, we are not going to end up together.

 

Recently it feels like everything else is coming first in his life and it feels like he's withdrawing.

 

He is loving, respectful, and understanding whenever we talk about how a future looks for us, but I'm beginning to suspect that he is just a really good faker. I'm so confused by this roller-coaster of emotions that I'm going through and hate how it's making me feel about him. I just want to get off the ride and step away from this without it dissolving into a big, nasty mess.

 

I understand where you are coming from, I have a short history of flirting online with a MM who told me so many contradictory things and ran hot and cold it made my head spin and sent me in a depression. This went on and off for about four months and we never met in person but it was ENOUGH head games to cause me slight insanity.

 

You've been with this man in real life for two and a half years. That means he has had access to your body, mind and soul for a very long time with no happily ever after promised. I understand why you're putting up with this. He gives you a rush, there is excitement with each phone call, each email, each encounter. When you're in his presence he probably showers you with flattery making you feel like the most important person on Earth. Who wants to give that up? But it isn't real. He's giving you romance drugs to keep you hooked on the pleasure so you can throw away your real life to be his toy on the side. You'll never be more than that and sometimes you won't even be his treasured toy you'll be his boring toy that he tosses aside for something better to do. That may be hard on your ego but if you can take the pain of reality you might be able to get out of Toyland and into a world where you are the Real Woman who controls her life.

Edited August 12, 2015 by Heatherknows

[Popsicle]

A long time lurker emerging from the shadows here. After two and a half years as the OW, I'm now ready to exit (hopefully gracefully) from this A. and I really need your help to make this work. I've realized that this is a road to nowhere, and despite initial hopes, we are not going to end up together. We are both in long term marriages with his being much more complicated as both his wife and a child have health issues. I love this man hugely and we have a great friendship but it's got to the point where this relationship hurts and I'm left feeling disappointed all the time. Recently it feels like everything else is coming first in his life and it feels like he's withdrawing. Personally, I think it's because I was very honest with him and told him that I want a future together. I wasn't asking for any commitment, but wanted to know if there was any possibility. He said he couldn't tell me but that he doesn't want us to stop as he loves "us". He is loving, respectful, and understanding whenever we talk about how a future looks for us, but I'm beginning to suspect that he is just a really good faker. I'm so confused by this roller-coaster of emotions that I'm going through and hate how it's making me feel about him. I just want to get off the ride and step away from this without it dissolving into a big, nasty mess.

 

You have to understand how confusing it is for a MM to hear you say this. You are not a single woman, so he thinks you are in the same boat as he is and plans to stay in both your M and the A forever. If he wanted someone to pressure him about a future, he would have gotten with a single OW. By you being married as well, it gives him a level of comfort and assurance, that he doesn't have to worry about "future plans". When you start talking about being together in the future, it throws him for a loop (one he had not planned on) and when you get angry at him for not making you more of a priority, he doesn't get that either, as your family is a priority for you, as well (or should be, in his mind). He thinks you are equal.