Can I Make it Just About Sex...Without The Sex?

[Ophelia25]

My MM is my high school boyfriend. We have known each other, and been in love with each other in some manner, for 25 years. We had periods of distance when his kids were little and the first 8-10 years of our marriage, but every time we have seen each other or talked (in increasing frequency in the last 5 years or so), we have flirted and pined and desired each other.

 

We had what I guess I'd call a "breakthrough" when we learned that my husband was turned on by our relationship. He knew us as a mutual friend when we were teenagers, and he always was mesmerized by our intensity and extreme sexual desire (we have never had sex). He encouraged it when we were kids, and when he found out we had rekindled things through flirting and sexual talk, he was more turned on than he ever has been. To the point that when we have sex, he only wants to talk about MM and what I want to do to him. He acknowledges that its more fantasy than anything, but he has also allowed us to be together all night on three separate occasions to kiss and talk and mess around some. I'm sure this weirdness has messed me up in the head some, and I have a little trouble with sex because I feel both guilty and turned on by it being all about my (emotional) AP.

 

AP has pulled away in the last couple of years. He went from "I love you forever and would give everything up for you" to "We really don't want to destroy our spouses and families, but just can't give each other up completely." Because my husband is okay, even more than okay with it, I guess I just let go of my hangups and enjoyed the attention from my AP, his texting, his begging for attention, his flirting and requests for pics of me and business trip late night sexting and such. I miss the emotional, love kinds of talk, but we've also always been about sex more than anything.

 

When I don't talk to him, I turn into a basketcase. Depressed and angry and sullen and weepy. When I talk to him, generally during the week and during the day, I am a normal, happy person. I can be attentive to my husband and not feel like running off and ruining everyone's lives. But, when he disappears on me to be with his family, which he does at least every weekend and sometimes longer when he's feeling guilty, I miss him and love him and feel like I'd do anything to be with him.

 

If I can't manage to have NC, and I'm only saying this because we have tried umpteen times for the last 7 years to do so, can I somehow manage to extract the emotional part that feels like I love him and want to be with him, and just play with the long distance, virtual sex part? Is it devastating to my sex life, because it seems to be encouraging it. It makes me feel desired and makes him feel desired and we are both too wimpy it seems, or too comfortable in our lives, to rip everything to shreds. Can I distance myself from the need to love him and keep up the playing? Or does that just allow us to use each other and we will ultimately ruin everything anyway?

 

I know that his wife knows we talk and flirt. And I know that she doesn't like it, which gives me a little guilt, and I'm sure gives him even more, which is likely why he likes me and then drops me and then likes me again. I don't want to piss her off. But I also don't see either of us ever ending it successfully when it's been 25 years, and the periods of abstinence seem to make us more desperate, when the regular conversation seems to keep us...well, moderately sane. It's like if we have reassurance that the other person still wants us, then we can get through our humdrum lives. My big problem is just that I need that assurance more often than he is able to give it, and I get a little too needy, which makes me angry and depressed.

[sunburned]

My MM is my high school boyfriend. We have known each other, and been in love with each other in some manner, for 25 years. We had periods of distance when his kids were little and the first 8-10 years of our marriage, but every time we have seen each other or talked (in increasing frequency in the last 5 years or so), we have flirted and pined and desired each other.

 

We had what I guess I'd call a "breakthrough" when we learned that my husband was turned on by our relationship. He knew us as a mutual friend when we were teenagers, and he always was mesmerized by our intensity and extreme sexual desire (we have never had sex). He encouraged it when we were kids, and when he found out we had rekindled things through flirting and sexual talk, he was more turned on than he ever has been. To the point that when we have sex, he only wants to talk about MM and what I want to do to him. He acknowledges that its more fantasy than anything, but he has also allowed us to be together all night on three separate occasions to kiss and talk and mess around some. I'm sure this weirdness has messed me up in the head some, and I have a little trouble with sex because I feel both guilty and turned on by it being all about my (emotional) AP.

 

AP has pulled away in the last couple of years. He went from "I love you forever and would give everything up for you" to "We really don't want to destroy our spouses and families, but just can't give each other up completely." Because my husband is okay, even more than okay with it, I guess I just let go of my hangups and enjoyed the attention from my AP, his texting, his begging for attention, his flirting and requests for pics of me and business trip late night sexting and such. I miss the emotional, love kinds of talk, but we've also always been about sex more than anything.

 

When I don't talk to him, I turn into a basketcase. Depressed and angry and sullen and weepy. When I talk to him, generally during the week and during the day, I am a normal, happy person. I can be attentive to my husband and not feel like running off and ruining everyone's lives. But, when he disappears on me to be with his family, which he does at least every weekend and sometimes longer when he's feeling guilty, I miss him and love him and feel like I'd do anything to be with him.

 

If I can't manage to have NC, and I'm only saying this because we have tried umpteen times for the last 7 years to do so, can I somehow manage to extract the emotional part that feels like I love him and want to be with him, and just play with the long distance, virtual sex part? Is it devastating to my sex life, because it seems to be encouraging it. It makes me feel desired and makes him feel desired and we are both too wimpy it seems, or too comfortable in our lives, to rip everything to shreds. Can I distance myself from the need to love him and keep up the playing? Or does that just allow us to use each other and we will ultimately ruin everything anyway?

 

I know that his wife knows we talk and flirt. And I know that she doesn't like it, which gives me a little guilt, and I'm sure gives him even more, which is likely why he likes me and then drops me and then likes me again. I don't want to piss her off. But I also don't see either of us ever ending it successfully when it's been 25 years, and the periods of abstinence seem to make us more desperate, when the regular conversation seems to keep us...well, moderately sane. It's like if we have reassurance that the other person still wants us, then we can get through our humdrum lives. My big problem is just that I need that assurance more often than he is able to give it, and I get a little too needy, which makes me angry and depressed.

 

Dang, not sure I'm the best person to answer but I hate to see anyone left hanging here on LS. I will be blunt. Your post positively reeks of addiction, not love. Just cross out his name and fill in the words coke or heroine or whatever. It is extremely difficult to give up an addiction because of the most uncomfortable withdrawal phase. But detox is exactly what you need to do. And, no, there is no margin for you to be "friends" or sexting buddies. The sitch with your H is like nothing I ever heard, but it is not the sitch with his W. You need to be respectful and supportive of his effort (no matter how lame) to do the right thing by her.

 

Going NC will be one of the hardest things you've done. You just have to go through it. In a few months you will start to come out of the fog and you will feel good knowing you are doing the right thing.

 

Yes, it's been 25 years but you should have grown up in that time. Stop acting like you're still in high school. Time to graduate! Best of luck.

[privategal]

You need a heart to heart with your H to tell him how much tbis is effecting you. You cant cherry pick which feelings you have like cancel the love and nurturing but keep the intense sexting. It doesn't work like that unfortunately.

I was in longterm eap as well.

My xeap's wife discovered photos on their pc.

We once had a very platonic cool friendship until we ruined it with sexting and love.

Its a hard thing, but its reality.

I once believed I couldn't go a day without contact...Ive gone month's...Im living, Im fine, it does hurt sometimes but Im not destroyed. I am happy to be done being weighed down by it all.

Im free and you can be too.

You gotta get this under control and stop it for his WIFE.