[seekingwisdom]

My situation is long and complicated – like everyone’s lol- and I thank you all in advance for taking the time to read and assess it. May I also state that I am in a particularly fragile state of mind, so please do not lambast me regarding some of the things you are about to hear.

My marriage of 7 years to my childhood sweetheart of 13 years, my only real boyfriend, ended recently. We are separated and comfortable allowing each other to date during this time as we don’t know if we would ever want to reconcile in the future. This was the result of a year of soul searching and counselling and joint marriage counselling for a few sessions. The marriage had been in the final stages of terminal shut down for about a year. Prior to this stage, I had always been strictly sexually and emotionally monogamous. Due to our distancing so severely from each other, for reasons which could constitute an entirely different post, I began ‘acting out’ and seeking affection and attention outside my marriage. This was unconscious and harmless at the beginning = looking at other guys, chatting to them. Then I would begin to get to know the individual more and form very strong friendship bonds. Yet elements of sexuality were encroaching onto these relationships, the touch on the arm, the arousal, the looks, etc. Whilst in my marriage, I never broke my promise to be monogamous and certainly never sexually cheated in any way, but I did become emotionally involved with two men.

The first situation was 10 months ago and I was unaware of what I was doing or why, and the two of us ended all contact completely. The second situation, I was aware of my ‘acting out’ behaviour, but knew the marriage was ending and felt desperately lonely and in need of support through the break up crisis. My second emotional involvement did overlap my marriage by a few weeks. I met this individual, let’s call him Jack, through a sport in which we are mutually involved. There is a huge online community surrounding our sport as the internet is used as a place for tips, discussions, advertisements for events, etc. We met in January of this year and for 6 months were only ever friends and jokesters. We were oviously lonely as the myself, jack and many other people would meet up in this sports chat room ‘happy hour’.

We’d take the discussions outside of the public chatroom into groups individually. Eventually, Jack and I start chatting alone. I was distraught over my husband coming home from a business trip to Russia with laundry stinking of perfume and smeared in makeup. I was seeking another male opinion on the situation. Jack was very kind and told me to forgive and forget as life is too short to argue over these things. As we began to discuss philosophy and psychology and our thoughts on life, I began to trust him , trust that he was not talking to me because of my looks, nor for a sexual purpose, but because we were friends. Also, I felt safe because Jack was in a 3 year relationship with two young children as well, like myself. We began exchanging information about our personal lives, pictures of our children, etc and eventually became extremely close on a friendship level. We began to get more personal regarding the information we shared, such as the fact that Jack had sex only 5 times with his partner in the last 6 months and was very upset/rejected because of it. After exchanging long life stories- initiated by Jack as a way to get to know one another better-we discovered that our life stories were an almost identical fit. We identified on every level intellectually, and spiritually. One night, Jack asked if I wanted to have an msn affair? We both laughed and played it off, but the conversation eventually turned to our sexual preferences, which we found matched with astounding parallelness. We were excited to know that, actually, there was someone out there that could understand us on a personal/psychological/spiritual/ and sexual level. This accelerated our feelings towards each other even more. At this point, my husband had moved out for a while and my feelings, not clouded with guilt, began to blossom as did Jack’s. Then we began to feel guilty for these feelings, these thoughts that stretched beyond the bounds of our conversations and became waking dreams. We tried protesting it was not ‘real’, but our relationship very much became real. We were haunted by our lack of ability to touch each other or communicate at our own free will. We spoke every night on the internet for 4-5 hours for the past two months and, after exchanging phone numbers, he began to ring me several times a day as well. We both felt excited and valued and in need of talking to the other person. We began to discuss how our feelings towards one another that stretched much further than our time spent actually talking. He began sending me small gifts related to our sport. We began to say ‘I love you’ and explain why in touching ways.

His friendship, advice and comfort supported me greatly through the loneliness of a seperation and the difficulties of being a single mother. He also began coaching me in the sport which we both participated.

Jack began to discuss leaving his partner (I NEVER ASKED HIM TO DO THIS OR PUSHED FOR THIS AND ONLY EVER TRIED TO COUNSEL HIM TO HER POINT OF VIEW AND EVEN SAID IT WOULD BE EASIER FOR HIM IF HE STAYED WITH HER) Jack’s partner was someone who ‘forgot’ to take her pill (twice) and had ended up pregnant two times while Jack thought she was safe from this. The first time she got pregnant was 5 months into their relationship. She is also still married, yet separated from her husband with a child from the previous marriage to care for. She was emotionally vulnerable and needy and having sex all around town in a backwards effort to overcome the abuse she had also suffered as a child. Jack pitied her, took her in and took care of her , but their sexual relationship dwindled after about 6 months- the only real foundation for the relationship. Jack’s children are the love of his life, as he also came from a dysfunctional background. His need to provide a stabilised life for his children began to worry him about splitting up from his partner.

Eventually we decided to meet one day. We thought that it was necessary to see if our feelings carried out in reality. We thought perhaps that it might solve our dilemma altogether in that we might not feel the frission at all. So we set up some ground rules. We had a wonderful time and behaved like children. He held my hand and we talked and talked and talked. We’d agreed to have no sexual contact as we didn’t want Jack to be a cheater leaving or staying in the relationship and I did not want the devastation of possible rejection in the future should he decide to not leave his partner. We discussed our life ambitions, our hopes and dreams both individually and together and committed to being friends no matter the outcome of our situation as we shared a deep understanding of the other. We did discuss arrangements with regard to dating one another slowly in future when he was single and how that would work, as we live two hours apart, and even went so far as to explore whether or not we wanted any more children, etc. We did pretty well with the no sexual contact thing until the end when we did kiss. I realised that I could not see him again until he was single as the danger of being within 2 feet of him was too great and I’d end up being physical with him. Also, it was heartbreaking to watch someone I knew and cared for so much walk away. I don’t need that in my life right now! I told him so and as he left, he hugged me and said ‘it might be a while before we see each other again, a few months’. It was incredible and we were both in tears when our meeting was over. We phoned consistently to check the other was alright the next few days.

Our discussions the next week were filled with our plans and our feelings for each other. He kept sending me training tapes of our sport and his club tshirt and told me to sleep in it. I told Jack that our ‘friendship’ could not go on forever in this way, as we had to make a decision eventually as to whether or not we would become a real relationship. I felt that my heart time and thoughts are completely involved with someone who is essentially unavailable to me. Jack had said many times before that he was leaving the relationship in New Year, as he is currently on a business/sport related holiday in Thailand for two weeks and did not want to devastate his family before the holidays. So I set early January as my deadline mentally.

One evening, after a huge emotional high ( a week and a half ago) in Jack’s work/sporting career and a special closeness with our relationship resulting from the celebratory mood, he started to treat me strangely. He said he wanted to ‘distance himself a bit’ and how our relationship was ‘nice and fun, but not real’ and things that were COMPLETELY OUT OF CHARACTER to what he normally says to me. I got, understandably upset by his sudden and unexplained rejection. Found out later that he told me that his wife had found a text from me congratulation him the day before and it said the word ‘baby’ in it. Obviously and rightly , she got very upset and confronted him. They discussed separating again in the new year if they could not get along. Basically, Jack told me later, he could not stand the thought of another man raising his children! I think he felt that she might do with another man what she did to him.

I was angry at first and did not want to maintain any contact at all, partly out of anger, but also because i know that he will never make things work with his partner if he is spending every available spare moment talking to me! but Jack convinced me that it would be wrong to do that and that I was his ‘best friend’. We decided to be ‘just friends’ and not talk about ‘us’ or sex or ‘love’ so for a few days I asked few questions for my own ‘closure’ and then I busied myself in order to get my mind off this difficult situation I set myself up in and give ‘us’ some space. The announcement that he needed space in order to ‘give his relationship a last go, so that he could walk out with a clear conscience’ was on Monday. On Friday morning, I got about 10 txts from jack. He was excited and said that they’d argued again and talked about a lot of their issues and that she had promised that if they split after New Year that she would not have another man come and live in the house with his children. He said he was ‘relieved’ to know that ‘but its not over yet so I (he) should be positive’ . Now, I responded as a ‘friend’ to these texts and was very encouraging to him about it being positive that they discussed things and got their issues out into the open. But of course in my heart, I was encouraged…. I felt that, knowing her lack of psychological insight thus far, it is unlikely she will be able to profoundly change her behaviours and I might be able to date Jack!!!! Over the next day or so, we chatted a lot online and he did end up telling me again that he loved me.

On Monday, I rang him as we usually do, and told him I’d written him a letter regarding how I felt that I wanted him to read before he left to go abroad for 2 weeks. I felt that he had left me some space to fight in the relationship. We talked for 30 mins, but he was a bit distant and when I asked him if I should send the letter, he said, “it’s probably best if you don’t, I don’t want to cloud my head”. I went away from the conversation feeling angry, in that he can tell me how he feels regarding his life and relationship, but the exression of my feelings in regards to us was taboo. I texted him to say this, and a flurry of txts passed between us wherein I said ‘hey, you used to bluntly tell me what you thought of my ex husband and I and now it’s my turn’ and he was saying ‘yes I do love you but not like I do my family (his kids) My last text was describing our meeting and how real that was for us. He then txted me this message “Leave it there please, I enjoyed our time together but leave me alone now’ I wrote back “I guess this is goodbye, want to be clear, I wish you all the best” He wrote back “and you too, take care ok”.

Now I’m desperately worried that he is worried about me being a ‘bunny boiler’ – as he expressed this fear a few times in our communications. These horrible thoughts will be ruining his long awaited trip and I’m very upset for that. At the time I wrote all those texts, despite his wishes, I felt justified because I was hurt and angry. I felt like our communications were NOT 50/50 in terms of discussing our feelings.

The way we left it has made feel insane. “Please leave me alone now” sounds like something you say to a stalker. I feel incredibly ashamed and upset that he might feel this way about me. Put that on top of the stress of being recently separated and having two children, plus the flu and you have one very messed up 28 year old.

I have had several days of no contact now, and I’m wondering if I should or should not send him a brief email along these lines at some point in the next week:

I’m sorry that I upset you. I was hurt and angry that you would not listen to my feelings,but that I listened to yours. I felt that I needed to drive you away because I could not handle being your friend . I know that the timing was horrible given that you were going on holiday and you would compulsively worry about me freaking out and messing up your life. I am very very sorry I did not put your feelings in this situation as a higher priority.

I wanted to reassure you that I would NEVER do anything to mess up your life and I wholly support whatever choices you make. I will not contact you again as you asked, but I just wanted you to know that I miss our friendship and your support more than I’d imagined and I’m sorry I went about ruining it. I would have loved to share your journey. I guess I didn’t realise how much I was messing up by laying it on the line.

I am realising that I need you as a friend, more than anything else. But I guess I also understand if you don’t’ want to speak to me ever again. If you did, maybe we could lay out some groundrules to avoid us both getting upset.


What do you all think of this? letter or no contact at all.

I will miss his friendship terribly if we do not get to talk again. We were really successfully investigating our childhood traumas and spirituality in a positive way before this incident - outside of a 'romantic' relationship.

I would welcome comments on any aspect of my story.