London_Nick Posted January 25, 2010 Posted January 25, 2010 I met Sarah thirteen years ago back at university and we quickly became incredibly close friends. But friends we remained because she was engaged. After university she got married and we were living in different cities but we still kept in touch - we'd email each other all day and she'd stay late at work so we could talk on the phone. Though never articulated directly I knew we were falling for each other - just talking in metaphors. I knew she wasn't telling her husband that she was talking to me and I knew the lying bothered her. One day out of the blue she sent a very long email talking of marrying wrong, finding your true love, doing the right thing...and then she vanished. Two years passed. I myself got married, though never fell out of love with Sarah regardless of how much I tried. My work took me to London where Sarah lived and though I wanted to contact her I refrained from doing so - I was marriage and I respected her wishes. But one day she contacted me - an email just asking how i was. She'd had a baby. We fell back into our comfortable routine - warm but platonic. After a month she suggested we meet for lunch. Soon we were emailing and calling each other daily again and meeting three times a week; neither of us telling our partners the true extent of our friendship. After a year we became too uncomfortably close for her and she asked we end our friendship. I again agreed and just like that we were not longer in each other's lives. But she returned around six months later. This time our friendship was much more flirtatious. It was a hot summer in London and we both had flexible jobs so we'd spend long afternoons in the park just talking for hours. Unbelievable sexual tension yet neither of us acting on it until one evening when we found ourselves for the first time admitting we loved each other. And so we began a physical affair - we connected physically just as well as we did as friends - meeting in our flats for mornings of sex followed by long lunches talking. Though I would have left my wife in a moment for her I never asked - she had a child and it had to be her decision. We continued a physical affair for about a year until she again had a crisis of conscience and said she had to leave. This time I was heartbroken and pleaded for her to stay but she left. Until she came back 9 months later. A phone call, a lunch, coffee afterwards when we kissed. The affair starting again as if she had never left. Talking of true love, soul mates, being together one day, promises made. Another year of love and passion. I had fallen out of love with my wife and she said she viewed her husband like a sibling. We lasted another year until she again said she had to leave...this time forever. We met one last time for goodbye sex. I was devastated. I tried to fix my marriage, my wife wanted a baby so we had one, then another. I heard from Sarah once two years later - she called to say she'd had and lost a baby and that she blamed 'us' a karmic punishment for what we did. I had another child. Two years from the phone call, four years after we said goodbye forever she emailed. A long beautiful letter about love, regret, friendship, morals. We met for dinner. She'd had another baby. The second I saw her I knew I was as much in love with her then as that night in the park so many years ago. We kissed. And there we were back to our old routines - talking every day, meeting three times a week for sex, days spent in hotel rooms, having sex, talking. I saw her drifting. I tried to grab hold of her - for the first time ever ask her to choose...to decide rather than flit in and out of my life. For seven more months we continued our affair but it strained - she wouldn't leave her family but wouldn't leave me. I hated the deception but couldn't leave either. December 2009 she's drifting - now only talking about the turmoil of loving two men. Angry at me because i won't let her go. No longer intimate or affectionate - just friendly. I try to accommodate but its hard for me not to be in love with her. Every term of affection, every tactile gesture when we meet makes her angrier. I tell her to leave...countless times...but on the one condition that if she does she never comes back. She stays in this fractured platonic state. Any mention of the past i make she gets angry....its as if she's eternal sunshine of the spotless mind'd the last 13 years. I tell her i can't lie to myself and be platonic with her and regress how i feel. I've loved her too long to be anyone else. I'd rather she left forever and let me mourn but she continues to stay as a friend...even saying ridiculous things like 'we don't know what the future holds - we might get back together either properly in marriage or as we were before'. But every demand or ultimatum I make only pushes her away - we not see each other less and our conversations though still daily require effort. I just don't understand - why doesn't she leave? - is she waiting for me to leave so she has a clean conscious? - should i leave? - should i stay? - does she even love me anymore or has she got over me?
whichwayisup Posted January 25, 2010 Posted January 25, 2010 Have you? Really had enough? You're just as much to blame here as her. Everytime she calls, you jump. She ends it...Disappears...Then contacts you again, you jump.. And so on. If it is going to end YOU have to be the one who ends it and never speaks to her again. Both of you are deceiving and lying to your spouses. And betraying your family units.. Do you love your wife? You say you would leave her. Why not leave her now, reguardless of what Sarah does or doesn't do? Why are you still married? Wouldn't it be more fair to your wife to let her go, find someone who will love ONLY her and respect, honour her? Not cheat on her continuously for so many years? Sure, you'd be alone, but maybe that's what you need. Bouncing between your wife and this other woman is not a way to live. Sarah is selfish and can't make up her mind. She knows she can call you and you will drop everything and come rushing to her..HOW many times does she have to hurt you, leave you, before YOU stand up and say NO MORE? You say you love her, she loves you, but the behaviour you both show, shows it isn't love. You both are addicted to the affair dynamtic, the rush it brings and the fact that neither of your poor spouses have clued in. Make a decision and stick to it. I suggest ending the A (affair)once and for all, get Sarah out of your life and confess it all to your wife, let HER decide if she wants to stay married to a man has cheated on her throughout the marriage. Sorry that I'm harsh, but you need to wake up.
lkjh Posted January 25, 2010 Posted January 25, 2010 Tell her husband and you will see how much she loves you. She will tell him that you are some pathetic loser who won't leave her alone. You are her ego boost, when she can't get the attention of her H the man she actually loves she calls you. She does not love you, she loves how you make her feel because you are like her puppy
OWoman Posted January 25, 2010 Posted January 25, 2010 Nick.... You can wait for her to break out of this cycle - and you may still be waiting on your deathbed - or you can break it. Nothing indicates to me that you have a future with her. You certainly have "unfinished business", but it's not the kind that will lead to happy ever after, from what you describe. The only dynamic that seems likely is the one you currently have - moments of intense passion, followed by a vehement break up and a period of silence - before you start the cycle again. It's a bit like the cycles that people in other unhealthy situations go through - binge drinkers, who drink themselves into a state, hate themselves and swear off drink, go sober... and then, pick up the bottle again and get wrecked once more, a little further down the line. Or wife beaters - who beat their wives, apologise profusely and swear it will never happen again, treat thelr wives like angels.... until the next time they beat them. You can repeat that cycle forever - at least, until something gives (your family, hers, your mental health...) Or you can decide to end it. Not wait on her - she's not going to. She's already made it clear that nothing is going to change through her doing. If you want to change it, you're going to have to do that. You wanted to reconnect with your W. Why not focus on that? Get IC if you really can't forget "Sarah", and try to work through why you have a need for such destructive patterns in your life, so that you're not doomed to keep repeating them. And, next time Sarah mails (as she will), hit the delete key. Before you even read the message - because, you know what it will say, and you know what you will do. Better still, put a mail filter on your mailbox now so that the mail gets deleted automatically, so that you won't even know it happened. It's your choice - have you really had enough, or do you just wish you had?
Author London_Nick Posted January 26, 2010 Author Posted January 26, 2010 Thank you all for your pragmatic and brutally honest responses. Have I really had enough or do I wish I had? I think thats the first question I should ask myself... As disappointed as I am for saying so I have to admit its the latter. As ridiculous as it sounds I do love her. But you're all right - she had been explicitly clear about her priorities and I do for the first time in this tragedy...or is it a comedy know where I stand. And I suppose I've always known. I think I regret this year - in the four years she was away my marriage has blossomed, and having children though a cliche has brought my wife and I closer together. Its just no matter how good we are we've never been as good as Sarah and I - as a friend, physically. I am lucky to have my wife though and am stupid for risking everything for someone who possibly never felt the same as i did. Since my original post she's asked for a hiatus....she said she'll contact me again...but she doesn't know when. God I wanted to tell her to leave forever. I heard myself saying it...but didn't. I'll keep you guys updated. May I should join a 12 step programme!
fooled once Posted January 26, 2010 Posted January 26, 2010 I met Sarah thirteen years ago back at university and we quickly became incredibly close friends. But friends we remained because she was engaged. After university she got married and we were living in different cities but we still kept in touch - we'd email each other all day and she'd stay late at work so we could talk on the phone. Though never articulated directly I knew we were falling for each other - just talking in metaphors. I knew she wasn't telling her husband that she was talking to me and I knew the lying bothered her. One day out of the blue she sent a very long email talking of marrying wrong, finding your true love, doing the right thing...and then she vanished. Two years passed. I myself got married, though never fell out of love with Sarah regardless of how much I tried. My work took me to London where Sarah lived and though I wanted to contact her I refrained from doing so - I was marriage and I respected her wishes. But one day she contacted me - an email just asking how i was. She'd had a baby. We fell back into our comfortable routine - warm but platonic. After a month she suggested we meet for lunch. Soon we were emailing and calling each other daily again and meeting three times a week; neither of us telling our partners the true extent of our friendship. After a year we became too uncomfortably close for her and she asked we end our friendship. I again agreed and just like that we were not longer in each other's lives. But she returned around six months later. This time our friendship was much more flirtatious. It was a hot summer in London and we both had flexible jobs so we'd spend long afternoons in the park just talking for hours. Unbelievable sexual tension yet neither of us acting on it until one evening when we found ourselves for the first time admitting we loved each other. And so we began a physical affair - we connected physically just as well as we did as friends - meeting in our flats for mornings of sex followed by long lunches talking. Though I would have left my wife in a moment for her I never asked - she had a child and it had to be her decision. We continued a physical affair for about a year until she again had a crisis of conscience and said she had to leave. This time I was heartbroken and pleaded for her to stay but she left. Until she came back 9 months later. A phone call, a lunch, coffee afterwards when we kissed. The affair starting again as if she had never left. Talking of true love, soul mates, being together one day, promises made. Another year of love and passion. I had fallen out of love with my wife and she said she viewed her husband like a sibling. We lasted another year until she again said she had to leave...this time forever. We met one last time for goodbye sex. I was devastated. I tried to fix my marriage, my wife wanted a baby so we had one, then another. I heard from Sarah once two years later - she called to say she'd had and lost a baby and that she blamed 'us' a karmic punishment for what we did. I had another child. Two years from the phone call, four years after we said goodbye forever she emailed. A long beautiful letter about love, regret, friendship, morals. We met for dinner. She'd had another baby. The second I saw her I knew I was as much in love with her then as that night in the park so many years ago. We kissed. And there we were back to our old routines - talking every day, meeting three times a week for sex, days spent in hotel rooms, having sex, talking. I saw her drifting. I tried to grab hold of her - for the first time ever ask her to choose...to decide rather than flit in and out of my life. For seven more months we continued our affair but it strained - she wouldn't leave her family but wouldn't leave me. I hated the deception but couldn't leave either. December 2009 she's drifting - now only talking about the turmoil of loving two men. Angry at me because i won't let her go. No longer intimate or affectionate - just friendly. I try to accommodate but its hard for me not to be in love with her. Every term of affection, every tactile gesture when we meet makes her angrier. I tell her to leave...countless times...but on the one condition that if she does she never comes back. She stays in this fractured platonic state. Any mention of the past i make she gets angry....its as if she's eternal sunshine of the spotless mind'd the last 13 years. I tell her i can't lie to myself and be platonic with her and regress how i feel. I've loved her too long to be anyone else. I'd rather she left forever and let me mourn but she continues to stay as a friend...even saying ridiculous things like 'we don't know what the future holds - we might get back together either properly in marriage or as we were before'. But every demand or ultimatum I make only pushes her away - we not see each other less and our conversations though still daily require effort. I just don't understand - why doesn't she leave? - is she waiting for me to leave so she has a clean conscious? - should i leave? - should i stay? - does she even love me anymore or has she got over me? She isn't going to leave. She knows she can flit in and out of your life and you will continue to accept her back. She has all the control. Do your wife a favor and divorce her. She deserves better. You can continue this rollercoaster with Sarah. No one uses us, we choose to allow them to do so. I just saw your update that she has chosen to leave your life again and leave you hanging in the wind. What you CHOOSE to do with that is up to you.
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