H’s friend – I feel like the OW but I don’t know what's going on..

[cyberfriendxx]

In case you haven't noticed I have been a step ahead of you the entire time. I told you that contacting the OM and asking him about what he "was trying to do" would just open the door for him to get a little aggressive in his pursuit but you had to know what he was thinking. I told you that your H would find out and you said there was no way for that and then your H found out. I told you the OM would pop up in your life and you said he would just lay low and now he has been popping up left and right.

 

You want this to go farther and that is why you refuse to take any advice that could stop this. You can keep saying no thanks all you want but maybe you should think about all of the people around you and not just yourself

 

I am willing to bet that even-though you claim you don't communicate with the OM, if he text you right now you would have a long deep convo with him

 

So what's going to happen next? It would be good for me to know what the OM is going to do - I can't read him but perhaps you could explain his behaviour better and what his future behaviour might be?

[cyberfriendxx]

To expand on what Owl has said, which is difficult to do since he's always right on the money, I would submit that this OM and whatever you may be feeling for him, is a major distraction in determining whether your marriage is truly worth saving. Even OW involved with MM will say that they don't want him to leave the marriage for them, but for tangible reasons apart from them. And if he does leave, he should do so with the intention of living alone before diving straight into another commitment. Anyone who hops from one person to the next indicates that they are dependent on someone else for their own happiness, and therefor will eventually become discontent because nobody else can do for us what we must be able to do for ourselves.

 

I'm not through my first cup of coffee, so my apologies if the above failed to make much sense. LOL

 

Ultimately, I think you should take the initiative (something your BH is probably secretly hoping for), and unite with your husband on an agreement to have no further contact with the OM. Together you compose a letter indicating that everything is out in the open, that you are choosing to put 100% into your marriage, and that there is to be no further contact with either of you at this time. Then you go about the business of fixing your marriage. Only then will you truly be able to determine if it can or should be saved.

 

If not, you will have no regrets for trying. You will be free to properly explore a relationship with someone else without any what-ifs plaguing you. I just think all this may be less about your feelings for OM and more about the perceived issues in your marriage. Until you've worked out the latter without outside interference, you will remain stagnate and confused, if not eventually completely heartbroken as the men in your life decide to give up on you altogether to seek out their own happiness. I don't say that to be snarky at all, but to give you an idea of what could happen as I don't wish the worst on anyone here. I know that I, myself, can often get stuck in a present quandary and not look farther down the road until someone else says something that makes me think.

 

These are just my thoughts, for what they're worth.

 

Thanks. And it makes good sense. It's a good insight and I understand what you say. I think though that my feelings for my H and this OM are both really new to me - that may sound stupid given the fact that we have been together so long but believe this has thrown up so many emotions and deeply hidden emotional truths that I'm still coming to terms with them.

 

I have looked at the issues in our marriage and we have discussed them.

My H doesn't want to end contact with the OM. He wants to find out what's going on I think but right now he's not sure about confronting the OM.

 

Cutting him out of our lives is so complicated (my reply to Owl explains it a bit).

 

I don't have much strength right now - a bit of time and space would be what I want but things seem to move so fast. I am controlling what I do -but that seems to mean that I am causing pain by making a decision and causing pain by not making one. Am I pivotal in this or is it not a triangle with equal corners?