Author Midlifecrisis1 Posted August 26, 2016 Author Share Posted August 26, 2016 Just to be clear, he was the one who declared me to be his soul mate. I was always much more level headed. But now he is the getting his life back on track and I'm crushed. I have to keep remembering that 4 months is NOTHING. Link to post Share on other sites
Whoknew30 Posted August 26, 2016 Share Posted August 26, 2016 Just to be clear, he was the one who declared me to be his soul mate. I was always much more level headed. But now he is the getting his life back on track and I'm crushed. I have to keep remembering that 4 months is NOTHING. He was trying to sleep with you. I feel for you but 4 months isn't a long time. Get your sadness out, cut your losses & move on. You'll be saving yourself a lot of headaches. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
whichwayisup Posted August 26, 2016 Share Posted August 26, 2016 Agree on a lot of what you said for what it's worth however true love endures. So....what happened here? It was soul mates for her, sex for him. The going gets tough, it crumbles. Is that love? I don't seem to think so. Your likely knee deep in affair fog is my guess. Doesn't matter, if it's real to you, that's all that matters. It was the use of "soul mates" that made me cringe as he wears a wedding ring, is not leaving.....that's not very soul mate like is it? Rhetorical. She invested emotionally in him for 4 months and it seems he didn't with her. The glue that holds two people together isn't formed with them since it was an affair and he shut it down very quickly. He didn't emotionally invest in her and didn't fall in love either. Sorry to be blunt OP. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
whichwayisup Posted August 26, 2016 Share Posted August 26, 2016 Just to be clear, he was the one who declared me to be his soul mate. I was always much more level headed. But now he is the getting his life back on track and I'm crushed. I have to keep remembering that 4 months is NOTHING. He said the words, but you felt it inside you. Which is why you're crushed. Saying it is one thing in the heat of the moment but actually meaning the words and feeling them is another. Sadly I think you just got burned by a selfish MM who was looking for some fun on the side and never had any intention of ever divorcing and starting a new life with you. Please consider counseling to help sort yourself out. Sooner or later you're going to have to make a decision about your marriage - To either reinvest in your husband and make the marriage great again, or divorce. You can't live a lie like this forever and pretend to play house to keep your family together when all the meanwhile you don't really love your husband and are prone to affairs. If you don't fix yourself, you'll have another affair with someone else in the future or fall back into the arms of MM when he needs an ego feed. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
Lobe Posted August 26, 2016 Share Posted August 26, 2016 If you don't fix yourself, you'll have another affair with someone else in the future or fall back into the arms of MM when he needs an ego feed. This. Now that you have a taste of what the butterflies and rainbows feel like, chances are good that if another opportunity comes along you will be vulnerable. You still haven't really clarified what was going on in your own marriage - where is your husband in all of this? Link to post Share on other sites
MidnightBlue1980 Posted August 26, 2016 Share Posted August 26, 2016 Just to be clear, he was the one who declared me to be his soul mate. I was always much more level headed. But now he is the getting his life back on track and I'm crushed. I have to keep remembering that 4 months is NOTHING. It's normal to be crushed. Mine was 5 months and that was 8 months ago. Women get attached fast. Men don't. People here are just tough in the beginning because we are all on the same journey, but we are further along than you. Link to post Share on other sites
Whoknew30 Posted August 26, 2016 Share Posted August 26, 2016 It's normal to be crushed. Mine was 5 months and that was 8 months ago. Women get attached fast. Men don't. People here are just tough in the beginning because we are all on the same journey, but we are further along than you. I understand women getting emotional quicker but any woman past highschool has to have learned that in the beginning of any relationship men will say anything to have sex with you. That's the goal. Though originally my ExOM said no at first & I persuaded him drunk the first time...but that's bc I know how the game starts. I understand a year & plus feeling it's more than just sex (bc at that point it probably is) but not even at the 6 month mark, a woman can't really possibly believe it's anything more that she's just a new & exciting sex partner. 3 Link to post Share on other sites
BuddyX Posted August 26, 2016 Share Posted August 26, 2016 I understand women getting emotional quicker but any woman past highschool has to have learned that in the beginning of any relationship men will say anything to have sex with you. That's the goal. Though originally my ExOM said no at first & I persuaded him drunk the first time...but that's bc I know how the game starts. I understand a year & plus feeling it's more than just sex (bc at that point it probably is) but not even at the 6 month mark, a woman can't really possibly believe it's anything more that she's just a new & exciting sex partner. On the money. OW should print this out and read it over and over. Yes women get attached more easily but let's not forget, we're all adults here. The "I fell for him hard" is pure BS. It's always a choice. You decide to answer the texts. You decide to meet him after hours. You decide to get into this mess. How about more accountability and less "poor me". 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Author Midlifecrisis1 Posted October 11, 2016 Author Share Posted October 11, 2016 My xMM ended things about 2.5 months ago after a 4 month affair. I am married as well. We both have children and live in the same town. We did not end out of any bad feelings or DDay. Just the stress and anxiety became too much, he had neglected his business and was irritable with his family because he was so focused on me. He reached the point where he realized that he came very close to destroying everything. It wasn't like that for me though. I was heartbroken. Had never felt so alive, just so much feeling...and then he cut it off. I spiraled into a deep depression. Told my husband that it was because i was bored and lonely and needed for us to have more of an emotional connection. but i was in so much pain missing xMM. i cried every day. i hardly ate. went to therapy 2x per week. never felt like i would intentionally harm myself, but had thoughts that if something happened to me, it might not be so bad. I've now been on Lexapro for a few weeks and although i think about him all the time, i don't feel the pain. but the weird thing is that i'm not sure it's a good thing. i'm scared that i will never have those alive feelings again. that i'm just deadened by the drug and will just go through the motions in life. a poster in another thread used the analogy about carrying a bag of rocks around and how you get used to the weight/pain of it. that when you put the bag down, you actually feel like something is missing, so you go and pick up the bag of rocks. until one day, you put it down and forget about it and walk away. i may be in the 2nd stage of that story...i'm so used to the pain, that i feel like something is missing without it. I also don't want my feelings to disappear because then i feel like what xMM and i had was just immature, teenage fantasy stuff...that it was silly. it didn't feel silly. but when i think back on the things he said to me, maybe it was...so much future faking on his part, like it was just going all be perfect once we left our spouses. he had said whenever i was ready i should let him know so we can make a move. wrote me love letters. couldn't get enough of me. it was all fake? that makes me sad. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
jen1447 Posted October 11, 2016 Share Posted October 11, 2016 Grieving's a strange thing - the pain that inevitably comes w it can often take the place of the person you're grieving, strange as that sounds. It sorta becomes your new companion, and at least it's something. When you lose that too, it can leave a void that's just dead space. That means no crutch, no reliable sensation that can comfort in its own strange way (you can bond w your pain), no companion at all. That's why that phase can be as challenging as the others, bc it just shows the future as bleak and lifeless. The good news is it passes, like all the others. Not sure how your drug involvement might affect that tho - did your doctor say? 5 Link to post Share on other sites
aileD Posted October 11, 2016 Share Posted October 11, 2016 Seek another antidepressant. Lexapro made me feel the same way: numb, without any feeling, kind of dead inside. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
lemondrop21 Posted October 11, 2016 Share Posted October 11, 2016 Agree with other posters, consider switching antidepressants. I'm on Zoloft and it's leveled me out but I don't feel completely numb. I cried over the weekend when something was really upsetting; it took a lot for me to get there, but it did happen. And I still have a sex drive although I was worried I wouldn't (although I'm not actually having sex... oh well). 1 Link to post Share on other sites
HeCantBreakMe Posted October 11, 2016 Share Posted October 11, 2016 I am so sorry to hear about how much pain you are experiencing. I went through something similar during one of our breakups. - not eating, not sleeping, basically couldn't function. I spent many days and nights crying and unfortunately because i couldn't deal with any of it I went right back to MM. Pain isn't always a bad thing- yes it hurts and it is uncomfortable but sometimes we have to feel the pain to allow it to change us. This is why you need to be careful with the drugs. I would recommend talking to your doc about it. Also, have you thought about telling your husband the truth about your affair? I couldn't have walked through this without being honest about my affair and mine lasted a year. Not saying it makes the pain go away because it doesn't, not even close, but it has allowed me to be able to put things into a better perspective and start building my marriage back from the ground up. good luck. 4 Link to post Share on other sites
Author Midlifecrisis1 Posted October 11, 2016 Author Share Posted October 11, 2016 Lemon drop, it's not that I'm numb, I still get teary and cry in therapy, but I don't feel the pain of not having xMM. The lexapro is necessary at this point because I need to function and take care of my kids while I heal over time. I guess what bothers me is that somehow the healing seems to diminish what we had and I don't want to be diminished to him like I feel. How can something so intense become a distant memory in just a couple of months? How can we have gone from best friends, love of his life, future wife, to literally nothing? Just nothing. No, I won't tell my husband and he won't tell his wife. We are going to carry this secret to our graves. Our marriages are stale and boring, but neither of us is leaving. Link to post Share on other sites
Chica80 Posted October 11, 2016 Share Posted October 11, 2016 My xMM ended things about 2.5 months ago after a 4 month affair. I am married as well. We both have children and live in the same town. We did not end out of any bad feelings or DDay. Just the stress and anxiety became too much, he had neglected his business and was irritable with his family because he was so focused on me. He reached the point where he realized that he came very close to destroying everything. It wasn't like that for me though. I was heartbroken. Had never felt so alive, just so much feeling...and then he cut it off. I spiraled into a deep depression. Told my husband that it was because i was bored and lonely and needed for us to have more of an emotional connection. but i was in so much pain missing xMM. i cried every day. i hardly ate. went to therapy 2x per week. never felt like i would intentionally harm myself, but had thoughts that if something happened to me, it might not be so bad. I've now been on Lexapro for a few weeks and although i think about him all the time, i don't feel the pain. but the weird thing is that i'm not sure it's a good thing. i'm scared that i will never have those alive feelings again. that i'm just deadened by the drug and will just go through the motions in life. a poster in another thread used the analogy about carrying a bag of rocks around and how you get used to the weight/pain of it. that when you put the bag down, you actually feel like something is missing, so you go and pick up the bag of rocks. until one day, you put it down and forget about it and walk away. i may be in the 2nd stage of that story...i'm so used to the pain, that i feel like something is missing without it. I also don't want my feelings to disappear because then i feel like what xMM and i had was just immature, teenage fantasy stuff...that it was silly. it didn't feel silly. but when i think back on the things he said to me, maybe it was...so much future faking on his part, like it was just going all be perfect once we left our spouses. he had said whenever i was ready i should let him know so we can make a move. wrote me love letters. couldn't get enough of me. it was all fake? that makes me sad. HI OP....yes the Lexapro can make you feel numb...that's why I did not like it. I would rather any feeling over no feeling. Talk to you Dr about a different drug. A couple questions: Are you in IC? Is pain and sadness a normal emotion, for you? I mean is it something you at comfortable with? Some people don't know how to be happy so they only revert to what they know pain and sadness. Your feelings are not fake, they are what they are. They were or are real. Feelings are not right or wrong they just are. Actions are right or wrong. How we choose to react to the feeling is what makes it right or wrong. What do you do with these feelings now that you have them. What do you do with them going forward? Sadness for many is not an emotion we are comfortable with so we do everything we can to mask it to escape it. Learn to sit with it a minute or two understand it and see what you can learn from it. Hang in there keep posting. Link to post Share on other sites
gettingstronger Posted October 11, 2016 Share Posted October 11, 2016 My xMM ended things about 2.5 months ago after a 4 month affair. I am married as well. We both have children and live in the same town. We did not end out of any bad feelings or DDay. Just the stress and anxiety became too much, he had neglected his business and was irritable with his family because he was so focused on me. He reached the point where he realized that he came very close to destroying everything. It wasn't like that for me though. I was heartbroken. Had never felt so alive, just so much feeling...and then he cut it off. I spiraled into a deep depression. Told my husband that it was because i was bored and lonely and needed for us to have more of an emotional connection. but i was in so much pain missing xMM. i cried every day. i hardly ate. went to therapy 2x per week. never felt like i would intentionally harm myself, but had thoughts that if something happened to me, it might not be so bad. I've now been on Lexapro for a few weeks and although i think about him all the time, i don't feel the pain. but the weird thing is that i'm not sure it's a good thing. i'm scared that i will never have those alive feelings again. that i'm just deadened by the drug and will just go through the motions in life. a poster in another thread used the analogy about carrying a bag of rocks around and how you get used to the weight/pain of it. that when you put the bag down, you actually feel like something is missing, so you go and pick up the bag of rocks. until one day, you put it down and forget about it and walk away. i may be in the 2nd stage of that story...i'm so used to the pain, that i feel like something is missing without it. I also don't want my feelings to disappear because then i feel like what xMM and i had was just immature, teenage fantasy stuff...that it was silly. it didn't feel silly. but when i think back on the things he said to me, maybe it was...so much future faking on his part, like it was just going all be perfect once we left our spouses. he had said whenever i was ready i should let him know so we can make a move. wrote me love letters. couldn't get enough of me. it was all fake? that makes me sad. He was in and out in 4 months-that is pretty telling I think- I hope you can get to a place where you are not expending so much energy on this- you will be healthier and happier when you can- 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Author Midlifecrisis1 Posted October 11, 2016 Author Share Posted October 11, 2016 Sunshine, yes I am IC...2x per week. No, I was very uncomfortable with the sadness. I had no appetite and really was barely functioning. Could barely get out of bed to get my kids to school and then crawled right back to bed and cried until I slept. I don't think xMM is the reason for the depression, it was the trigger though. The realization that I could feel so alive and that I am unfulfilled in my marriage, or in being a stay at home mom, or whatever. Yes, he was in and out of my life in 4 months. I know logically and rationally that this is a blip on the radar. I think the lexapro has helped me be able to see the relationship for what it was...but I am sad that I will probably not have those kinds of feelings ever again (unless I become one of those people always chasing the high of a new love). Link to post Share on other sites
DKT3 Posted October 11, 2016 Share Posted October 11, 2016 (edited) Sunshine, yes I am IC...2x per week. No, I was very uncomfortable with the sadness. I had no appetite and really was barely functioning. Could barely get out of bed to get my kids to school and then crawled right back to bed and cried until I slept. I don't think xMM is the reason for the depression, it was the trigger though. The realization that I could feel so alive and that I am unfulfilled in my marriage, or in being a stay at home mom, or whatever. Yes, he was in and out of my life in 4 months. I know logically and rationally that this is a blip on the radar. I think the lexapro has helped me be able to see the relationship for what it was...but I am sad that I will probably not have those kinds of feelings ever again (unless I become one of those people always chasing the high of a new love). Chasing new love, interesting statement. Because after all this is the appeal of affairs among married people, looking for new highs. Odds are the only difference between your marriage and affair is a he amount of energy and effort put forth in your affair. Your ability to take 2/3 fantasy + 1/3 reality and come up with this amazing fun filled exciting relationship. If you don't hold yourself accountable for your actions you will indeed become a woman chasing highs, your behavior and actions will become more risky as you have to push past where you've been. Or You can burn down the house, attempt to rebuild it on honesty integrity and authenticity. One choice is wreckless the other is healthy. Edited October 11, 2016 by DKT3 3 Link to post Share on other sites
Friskyone4u Posted October 11, 2016 Share Posted October 11, 2016 Lemon drop, it's not that I'm numb, I still get teary and cry in therapy, but I don't feel the pain of not having xMM. The lexapro is necessary at this point because I need to function and take care of my kids while I heal over time. I guess what bothers me is that somehow the healing seems to diminish what we had and I don't want to be diminished to him like I feel. How can something so intense become a distant memory in just a couple of months? How can we have gone from best friends, love of his life, future wife, to literally nothing? Just nothing. No, I won't tell my husband and he won't tell his wife. We are going to carry this secret to our graves. Our marriages are stale and boring, but neither of us is leaving. Sorry, but there is your problem. because you will constantly have the tension of knowing your marriage is a sham, that you are still lying and being deceitful, and that you have no respect for the man you are living with. And you won't tell your husband because you know if you do your chances of holding on to your MM end in all likelihood. Right now you can still restart if he comes back and your husband is clueless. Most waywards with any brains will tell you carrying the lies is mentally grating. So plan on being on the pills for a long time and being miserable. Your husband might divorce you if you tell. But the two of you might also rebuild something worthwhile if you stop carrying the torch. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
HeCantBreakMe Posted October 11, 2016 Share Posted October 11, 2016 Lemon drop, it's not that I'm numb, I still get teary and cry in therapy, but I don't feel the pain of not having xMM. The lexapro is necessary at this point because I need to function and take care of my kids while I heal over time. I guess what bothers me is that somehow the healing seems to diminish what we had and I don't want to be diminished to him like I feel. How can something so intense become a distant memory in just a couple of months? How can we have gone from best friends, love of his life, future wife, to literally nothing? Just nothing. No, I won't tell my husband and he won't tell his wife. We are going to carry this secret to our graves. Our marriages are stale and boring, but neither of us is leaving. To be honest- to your MM it probably wasn't more than what it was an affair an escape. That hurts and sucks to accept but his actions are telling you what you need to hear more than his words ever could have. To you it was more and that is okay. The healing isn't diminishing anything it just means you are moving forward. But i challenge you to use this experience to learn from it and make your life what you want it to be. Stop acting like all of these things are happening to you and start taking some responsibility and control. My phrase i kept repeating in my head is ' nothing changes if nothing changes'. Link to post Share on other sites
Chica80 Posted October 11, 2016 Share Posted October 11, 2016 Sunshine, yes I am IC...2x per week. No, I was very uncomfortable with the sadness. I had no appetite and really was barely functioning. Could barely get out of bed to get my kids to school and then crawled right back to bed and cried until I slept. I don't think xMM is the reason for the depression, it was the trigger though. The realization that I could feel so alive and that I am unfulfilled in my marriage, or in being a stay at home mom, or whatever. Yes, he was in and out of my life in 4 months. I know logically and rationally that this is a blip on the radar. I think the lexapro has helped me be able to see the relationship for what it was...but I am sad that I will probably not have those kinds of feelings ever again (unless I become one of those people always chasing the high of a new love). I understand this... being uncomfortable with sadness....happy, anger feelings I could deal with not sadness. Sadness is an important feeling...when we try to push it away and ignore it or cover it up, we do things to actually cause more pain and more sadness.....because they are usually reckless actions. Happiness has to come from within. It's cliche but true. When we can learn how to do this you won't need to chase the external highs.. ..I'm learning that myself. So you are not alone. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
sandylee1 Posted October 11, 2016 Share Posted October 11, 2016 Just the stress and anxiety became too much, he had neglected his business and was irritable with his family because he was so focused on me. He reached the point where he realized that he came very close to destroying everything It wasn't like that for me though. I was heartbroken. Had never felt so alive, just so much feeling...and then he cut it off. The bolded tells you all you need to know. The affair wasn't worth what's really important to him. He came to his senses before he got busted. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
malvern99 Posted October 11, 2016 Share Posted October 11, 2016 Our marriages are stale and boring, but neither of us is leaving. Why hold onto a stale and boring marriage? Don't you deserve better, and just as importantly, doesn't your betrayed husband also deserve better? If you are so unhappy in your marriage, ditching your betrayed husband and starting fresh with or without MM should be something you embrace, no? Link to post Share on other sites
gettingstronger Posted October 11, 2016 Share Posted October 11, 2016 To be honest- to your MM it probably wasn't more than what it was an affair an escape. That hurts and sucks to accept but his actions are telling you what you need to hear more than his words ever could have. To you it was more and that is okay. The healing isn't diminishing anything it just means you are moving forward. But i challenge you to use this experience to learn from it and make your life what you want it to be. Stop acting like all of these things are happening to you and start taking some responsibility and control. My phrase i kept repeating in my head is ' nothing changes if nothing changes'. I agree with this on lots of points- what I was driving at with the 4 months (without a dday) is that it probably meant more to you than it did to him-I get he said some pretty intense things, but to fall in love, be ready to start a future and then back out all in 4 months (regardless if it was an affair or not)seems pretty quick-I also agree its OK if it meant more to you, that is probably why you didn't move to end it like he did- Whatever you decide as far as telling your husband is your choice, just know that it will probably prolong your healing and make it more difficult for you to take control of your life-which is what the goal should be- Take care and take time to reflect- Link to post Share on other sites
Author Midlifecrisis1 Posted October 11, 2016 Author Share Posted October 11, 2016 It's just strange to me that it meant more to me than to him...he was the one who was so over the top with his emotions and his actions and I was not that way. Physically, he is not even attractive, although I was attracted to him. My ego is very damaged and I need to stop placing so much of my self worth on men finding me physically desirable. But I had been feeling invisible as a 46 year old mom even though I am attractive. Although my marriage is stale/boring, I have kids, a comfortable life, and my husband is a good person. I am not ready to upend all of our worlds. I know I sound flippant and self absorbed...that's how I feel right now. I'm working on getting myself to a better place. Link to post Share on other sites
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