How I managed to end being OM

[shoelacer]

I hope this story will help others...

 

I was OM for over a year with breaks.

It started as a casual office romance. I was not aware of her having somebody. Then it was her male flatmate; then ex-boyfriend she is just living with because she cannot find an apartment with And after pushing her on that topic she said they are on break, but it was a break he is not aware of. She confessed the day I told her that I love her, so I was emotionally involved, trusted her, etc.

I always was always judgmental about people that are cheating. I thought they were horrible people. But in my mind, She was not. She was all I wanted, and I accepted the situation she is into in the name of love.

And it came with a price...

From that time, I started trying to prove myself to her, that I was worthy of her. I upgraded my lifestyle, rented my apartment so she can move with me when she is ready, telling my family about her to prove that she is a real deal, and we are not just casual and many more things I should never do.

She was extremely bitchy and mean, but there were always excuses for her mood, that she is in this situation that she wants to be with me, but she don't have a power, don't trust me enough to end her relationship. She was giving me very little of her time, and all that relationship was mostly sex-driven with some dramas about her still living her bf and not spending time with me.

All that time, I had a rollercoaster of emotions. There was a fight between my sense of what I thought LOVE was vs. my morality.

It went for a while. In the meantime, I had many anxiety/panic attacks because of it, each time stronger and stronger.

At some point, they got engaged, which got me, and I wanted my way out of there for real.

Everything changed at work to the point that one day I was so pissed that I quit the job that day.

After my last day, I tried no-contact. She was still contacting me countless times, which was extremely hard to move on. Somehow after an extended period, we started talking again.

From that point, we didn't meet, mostly fighting about the same thing over and over. I was distancing though that time, which made my anxiety slowly stop.

I started to realize how manipulative, abuse emotionally she is, how she was treating me, how her words never matched her actions, how many gaslighting I have experienced, lies, or how she was hiding facts that were inconvenient to her to avoid fights. I realized how naive and weak I was. I started to see her more and more for what she is. I started treating her more like a narcissist, tested her behavior a few times to confirm it. All of a sudden, everything clicked and started to make so much more sense.

I tried to treat her friendly, set boundaries, but she never respected. I tried to stay in the center and ignore her, but I finally blocked her after she started to hate me after letting her go and intentionally sending me cruel messages that were meant only to hurt me.

 

tl;dr I got into an abusive, toxic affair with a co-worker because of being lied to and then being too naive to finish it. It was a terrible, emotionally exhausting experience.

 

I believe all of this could be avoided or at least finished way faster by educating myself.

 

What helped me:

• Keeping a diary where I was writing down everything (Extremely helpful to fight against gaslighting, keep track of lies, etc.)
• Seeing psychologist and talking to friends about it
• Esther Perel books about relationships and infidelity 

What I learn:

• That trust must be earn not given in the relationships
• I started to appreciate healthy relationships I have with other people
• I re-discovered my worth and what I'm looking for in relationships 

 

Edited January 2, 2020 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[Hip Pocket]

Hi, I’m glad you were able to end a R that wasn’t healthy for you. But I don’t think it was the EMR that made it unhealthy, I think it was the narcissistic personality of the woman you fell for. I dealt with a narcissist of a partner before so I know how hard it is to leave them. Kudos to you. 
 

Also, Esther Perel is the best! 

[carhill]

Welcome to LS and thanks for sharing your story... at this point, how long have you had black hole NC with your former co-worker?

Over the decades I found one awesome hinge point of enforcing NC and that's the person's spouse or partner. I had an experience similar to yours, except it was vendor/customer employee (her) and went on for many years. After saying goodbye to her, no anger or harsh words, just goodbye in person, I sent her cards and love letters to her husband. Boom, done. Worked fantastic. I found similar tools to work great over the years if things didn't subside on their own, this long before all the modern technology we use today.

I covered some of this stuff with our MC who's a clinical psychologist and he helped me with some different tools to process any potential interactions of similar type, tools of acceptance. Accept the real, accept it happened, accept people for who they are, accept that it's healthy to have boundaries, accept that emotional attachments can form and can end and emotional pain can result. Essentially he taught me a different method of processing things than my natural style. Not easy, to be sure. Sure helped eliminate rancor in our divorce though, man what a gift.

Anyway, these days, married women still hit me up, stuff still happens, life still goes on. It's OK. I see as they have good lives in their marriages and they'll get back to that. If they don't like it, huge freedom today to divorce and move on. Lots of choices, especially at my age; no kids to be concerned with and divorce is quite accepted.

Women will usually tell you who they are, some straight out with disclaimers, others by confluence/dichotomy of their actions and words. Some are clever, sure. The truth comes out in the end. With my sample, I didn't know she was even married (no ring, no pictures of kids/husband on her desk) for a few months. Turned out she was banging my customer, the business owner, and I was a tool to wean off him. Clever! That's life!

Edited January 1, 2020 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
Spelling

[mark clemson]

Sounds like there was a lot of hot/cold manipulation in this, as well as other problems. It does sound like she may have had personality disordered tendencies. It also sounds like she was just as hooked on you in a way as you were on her.

If you decide to tell the betrayed BF, be prepared for some possible blowback. Since you no longer work together and they weren't married it sounds like this is likely to be minimal. But if you happen to know he has a crazy streak and owns a lot of guns or something, well... Not saying don't tell, that's up to you, just be prepared.