Falling for another man

[Kislette]

Well, I certainly applaud your decision to end the online relationship. It's unfair to your H to compare him, warts and all, to a fantasy image from cyberspace. I hope your efforts in therapy yeild the results you seek - seems like you're headed in the right direction...

 

Mr. Lucky

 

I was aware that there wasn't a real basis for comparison, but I do appreciate the reminder I spoke to my husband about my doubts about our marriage and my reasons for them. The doubts had nothing to do with the other guy, but I think they were what was fueling my obsession with him. My husband is being very understanding and we're already making progress on our own. I really am a lucky woman!

[Cobra_X30]

Kislette,

 

It is very good that you are open and honest with your H. Even if the M does not work out at least he will always know how good and decent you are.

[Kislette]

Thanks Cobra! I always planned on being open and honest with him, but because of his reaction a few weeks ago when I explained how some of his obsessive behavior was impacting me I thought he would really freak out over this. So, I was going to wait until counseling to tell him. I was thinking the counselor could help me say it in a way that wouldn't be so upsetting and that she could help him with his response to it. However, on Sunday I decided to go ahead and tell him so he could start processing it and be ready to discuss his side with the counselor. It's been a nice surprise that he actually handled it really well (after an initial reaction of fear and depression) We've been able to already start making changes that no longer make me feel like I have to distance myself from him in order to become a more healthy individual. In fact, I now think I will do much better with his support than on my own. In the meantime, my inappropriate feelings for the "other guy" have already almost entirely gone away.

[katiebour]

Good for you Kislette. My opinion on relationships is that they, like a job, take work to maintain. The Hollywood or romance-novel image of "Happily-Ever-After" just happening naturally is just an image.

 

Ponder this:

 

Main Entry: com·mit·ment

Pronunciation: k&-'mit-m&nt

Function: noun

1 a : an act of committing to a charge or trust: as (1) : a consignment to a penal or mental institution (2) : an act of referring a matter to a legislative committee b : MITTIMUS

2 a : an agreement or pledge to do something in the future; especially : an engagement to assume a financial obligation at a future date b : something pledged c : the state or an instance of being obligated or emotionally impelled <a commitment to a cause>

 

If you commit to your career, you don't automatically love it. In fact, there may be many days when you dislike it. But that doesn't mean that you quit and get a new job every time you dislike your current job- you find one that you like, you brave through the rough days, and you keep doing it for the rewards and the sense of accomplishment.

 

Marriages are the same. You find a partner that you like, you brave through the rough days, and you keep doing it for the rewards of love, loyalty, shared happiness and personal growth.

 

Being committed to a job makes you a better and more skilled employee- being committed to a marriage makes you a better person. Some of the areas that you can grow in include:

 

-learning to compromise

-learning to forgive

-learning to listen

-learning to respect

-setting appropriate boundaries

-becoming self-disciplined

-practicing loyalty and fidelity

 

In essence, marriage gives you the opportunity to become the most wonderful person you can be. It's not easy, but if you stick with it, at the end of your life you will be able to look back and say: "Look at what I did! I worked hard, and I'm happy with who I am and how I treated people. I lived a good life and spread happiness. I became the best possible 'me' that I could."

 

If your husband is a good man and worthy of you, then work hard and strive to be worthy of him. Keep communicating and working together and you'll have a long and wonderful life with each other.

[fromfaraway]

Hi Kislette,

 

I believe you are complicating something that is very simple, and your case is quite typical these days: you met this "new friend" and now you want to convince yourself that your separation from your husband has nothing to do with that. It does. It sounds to me you are trying to put yourself at a distance from your husband so that you can indulge with your new guy without feeling guilty. You sound to me incredibly selfish and self-centered. Leave your husband alone; you do not deserve him!!!!

[Kislette]

Hi Kislette,

 

I believe you are complicating something that is very simple, and your case is quite typical these days: you met this "new friend" and now you want to convince yourself that your separation from your husband has nothing to do with that. It does. It sounds to me you are trying to put yourself at a distance from your husband so that you can indulge with your new guy without feeling guilty. You sound to me incredibly selfish and self-centered. Leave your husband alone; you do not deserve him!!!!

 

Maybe you should read the whole thread before being a judgemental jerk.

[ARDriver01]

You are the reason why.

[jmargel]

Hi Kislette,

 

I believe you are complicating something that is very simple, and your case is quite typical these days: you met this "new friend" and now you want to convince yourself that your separation from your husband has nothing to do with that. It does. It sounds to me you are trying to put yourself at a distance from your husband so that you can indulge with your new guy without feeling guilty. You sound to me incredibly selfish and self-centered. Leave your husband alone; you do not deserve him!!!!

 

I agree 100%. Kislette you tell us there are other reasons for your marriage falling apart, so then TELL US. You CHEATED (yes cheating even mean just emotional) on your husband with one guy, you husband is now in constant fear of it happening again and naturally doesnt want to lose you so he attaches himself to you (ie. clingy) so what you do is the same thing again? You just did what your husband has feared the most, AGAIN.

 

You have put your husband through emotional murder and you have him on a roller coaster. At some point in time your husband will have enough. EVERYONE has a breaking point. You can only push a person so far before HE becomes the one to say the marriage is over.

 

I believe you want to test the waters, see if the grass is greener on the other side without getting physical with someone. You keep pushing this boundary but don't want to find a local guy because you are afraid of losing your husband. You want to keep him around as a safety net and by thinking as long as it's someone far away things can't get too ugly.

 

Wake up! What you are doing is wrong. Dragging your husband through the mud and then telling him about it like you are is cruel. You have him so beaten down that he has surrendered to having to hear your 'love stories' about this other guy. Your husband will fall out of love with you in the near future if you keep this up.

 

Stop being so ignorant to this. Stop acting like a teenager. Honestly how would you feel if he started doing this to you? How hurt would you feel?

[shakenandstirred]

I've been married for 21 years, and every day you don't feel that euphoric love feeling for your spouse. However you do know that you in your heart and soul you do love them. You go through an infatuation stage when you first meet someone. You feel like you just can't spend a second without them. Then eventually, if the relationship continues, you go to the attachment stage. Where sometimes you need your space, but you still want the person in your life. I have had many negative aspects happen in my marriage, yet I know that I love my wife and can't imagine myself without her. It is somewhat torturous for a husband to hear that his wife is sharing some emotions with another man when he wants to be the one she comes to. I don't know what issues you have, but I really don't think you want to separate from your husband. I think that you are trying to find yourself and maybe you got married too quickly. You can still find yourself and be married too.

Your husband may be clingy, but it's only because he is insecure and doesn't want to lose you. If his feelings for you changed and he didn't care anymore, how would you handle that? When you get married the two become one. If you hurt, he hurts and vice versa. You help one another along and support one another. You don't jump ship because you get confused about how you feel. You work through it. Giving each other space is one thing, but separation can bring on some unexpected factors.

Marriage is more than just a piece of paper. Its a promise to the other person that no matter what comes, hell or high water, I'm here for you.

Be encouraged Kislette. You just hit a bump in the road. Go over it slowly so you don't do any damage.

[ARDriver01]

I read threads at great length quite often. Most of them have to do with spouses who left them for someonelse, now they're affraid of being alone and who's going to father/mother thier children, "I'm in so much pain, he says he/she isn't in love with me anymore and has been seeing another person" etc.

 

Pain. Real pain is what is in most of these threads. Pain inflicted by the people that betrayed they're trust. Thier lives are different now and will never be the same. I'ts a really bad thing to betray someone you say you love. Causes a whole lot of damage.

 

You come on the site because you're "Falling for another man". Because you can't make a decision. I'm telling you right efing now. Stop being the reason why...

[Kislette]

I guess I didn't make it clear before that I effin already stopped my relationship with the other guy. My original angst that led me here is no longer applicable, and that is due in part to the supportive and earnest responses I got. A few weeks ago I completely cut off contact with him. At the same time I came to a realization about what had caused the problems in my marriage. It was poor coping strategies by BOTH of us.

 

My husband started having panic attacks and generalized panic disorder at about the time we got married, but he didn't tell me until a few years later when he just couldn't handle it anymore. It was a very stressful time for both of us, but I helped him and supported him. I never thought about the emotional toll that it might have been taking on me because I love him and getting rid of his suffering is what's most important to me. Well, since then my husband has seemed to be more emotionally dependent on me. He would also always question whether or not I really loved him. It got so bad that when we were in bed going to sleep and I turned to face away from him he would make a comment about me not wanting to face him because I didn't love him. Also, I couldn't go and play a computer game by myself or read a book without him saying I didn't want to spend time with him. It got to where I felt I had to monitor everything I said and did in an attempt to keep him from accusing me of not loving him.

 

Well, I have depression and poor coping skills too. About 4 years ago I started playing an online game and I got addicted. I was spending all my time playing the game and started missing a lot of work. For the first 3 years the only thing inappropriate about my behavior in the games was that I was spending so much time in them. Then last year I had the online affair. Even as I was doing it I was trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with me and why I was doing it. I thought it was only because of factors outside my marriage - my job is very emotionally stressful and very depressing. I take reports of abuse and neglect of children for a living. I was also working a different shift from my husband, and never got to see him. My depression was getting very bad. And then along came a guy who was someone who had been abused and neglected himself. We got close and I was able to help calm him down and soothe him when he was hurting. But he wanted more out of the relationship than I was willing to give. He pretended to accept my boundaries but then would manipulate me into going further than I wanted to. Although I was weak at the time, I do still know that going to far is something I'm responsible. I was relieved when my husband found out and I had no choice but to cut off contact with the other guy. At the time I was struggling to find the strength to do the right thing on my own. Anyway, my husband and I got marriage counseling that really helped us deal with the initial impact of what I had done.

 

So, about 6 months later I started playing my online game again under the condition that I have absolutely NO contact with the other guy. I was happy to agree to that and I have some good friends in the game I really missed having contact with. About a month later I met the guy that I was recently infatuated with. He had a great sense of humor, was incredibly smart, and was very kind. These are the traits that initially attracted me to my husband. I've told what happened after that. There was no flirting between us at all and I never gave any hint that there was anything wrong with my marriage. At the time, I still hadn't figured out that there WAS a problem with my marriage. I still thought the outside factors were the only problems.

 

I told my husband that I was attracted to my friend but I didn't tell him just how strong my feelings were. My husband found out when he was monitoring an IM session I was having with my best friend without my knowledge. I was discussing it with my best friend because he is always good at helping me keep perspective and he was trying to help me get over my infatuation with this other guy. So you see, I wasn't just torturing my husband by telling him about how I feel.

 

Anyway, my husband asked me why I kept falling for these other guys and I told him I didn't know. Which was the truth. I spent some time thinking about it and I realized that my escapism behavior was a reaction to feeling trapped by my husband's clinginess. Until then I hadn't even been conscioulsy aware that I was feeling trapped. So, at this time was when I decided to end my friendship with the guy I was infatuated with. Within days I stopped feeling like I was in love with the other guy. I stopped being obsessed with him and realized that what I was feeling weren't my real feelings for this other guy at all. I came to the realization that I had been transferring my feelings for my husband to this other guy who reminded me of him because my husband's behavior had been driving me crazy.

 

My husband actually understood all this and has done a good job of not putting those emotional pressures on me anymore. He felt that my decision to end my frienship with the other guy showed I was serious about wanting to work on our relationship. My feelings for my husband are back to the way they should be now. Our relationship is already better but we started marriage counseling because we need to make sure we learn how to cope with stress in ways that don't end up affecting our marriage. I think we're already doing a great job of building that foundation on our own, but this relationship is important to both of us and we want to make sure we end up with the best results possible.

 

I just want to add that I DO know that fatuation is a fleeting feeling and isn't real love. What was going on with me was that I was thinking I didn't want to be married REGARDLESS of this other guy. I was thinking I wanted to be separated and live on my own with no contact with the other guy at all. I never would have dragged him into a relationship with me while I still had one with my husband. What I did last year was an aberration and something that is unlike me. What I'm doing now is what I'm really like. I have feelings for other guys sometimes, which is something I can't help. But now I've re-learned how to have the strength not to give in to them and to have the patience to work things out with my husband. What worried me a few weeks ago was that I had stopped feeling like I cared for my husband. That is what I meant when I said I thought I didn't love him anymore - not that I had concerns about not having feelings of infatuation with him. Fortunately, I feel again like I really love him and we are doing very well and are happy. Except for my stressful, depressing job. However, I just put my notice in and won't be dealing with that much longer.

 

Ok, that's a huge post but maybe it will help with the questions. I'm not sure that even with that I sufficiently explained what's going on, but I don't even know if that's possible.