My story, a cautionary tale

[Hindsight45]

Hello,

Im new, and this is my tale.

 

I met a man online, younger than me, we started chatting, and met some 10 days later. A relationship developed and we started seeing each other. Both of us married, very quickly this developed into a full blown affair. Within 2 months we had fallen in love and at that point it became a physical affair too. In the following month, we started talking about a future together and in May this year, we moved in together. Blissfully happy, we embarked on our future, aware and prepared for the difficulties ahead. Little did we know what was to come.

Within 4 weeks, i became unwell and had a very serious health scare. He was having problems with his son who was not coping with the trauma of his parents splitting up. He spent a lot of time with him, without me, which i fully understood and supported him with as much as i could. We started getting some nasty mail and texts, from persons unknown. By the end of July, and after our first and only argument, he announced he needed some time away from the relationship. He was away for a week and during that week contact was limited and he was distant. I was in a bit of a state. He returned and we talked a little, ending up with agreeing to take time away from each other. Within 48 hours he was online chatting up another woman, (actually it was me, but i was speaking to a friend about what had happened and he approached me, oblivious to my screename, and started chatting me up, telling me he had been involved with someone, but that was now OVER!) I was devastated. I confronted him and stupidly gave him another chance, only for the same thing to happen a month later, to a friend of mine. She called me up, told me what was happening but that she arranged to meet him for coffee and asked me to come with her, to which i agreed. Imagine his surprise! We had only just split up, and he was doing it again.

This had made me effectively homeless - i had to live in a tent for a week, until my husband discovered what had happened and took me in. I had no money, no home and was still fairly unwell. My husband and i talked for days, he was so supportive, not judgemental despite the fact i had hurt him badly. We took a holiday together and agreed to give our marriage another try and we are now 4 weeks into it and it seems to be going well.

 

There is obviously a lot more to this but thats it in a nutshell. I never got any real reasons for the split, apart from he couldn't cope with everything, it all got too much for him etc etc. I wanted to meet and close it away but was refused. I have had my surgery now and recovering. I have heard little from him, despite him claiming to still love me.

 

Confused, bewildered, hurt, betrayed, i could use soo many words to describe how i feel. Foolish, humiliated and used also spring to mind.

 

A cautionary tale if ever there was one.

 

HS45

[noel2]

As a woman who has been the OW 2 times, I don't understand why we think we are so special that they won't do the same to us, ya know? But, I'm so so glad you and your hubby are back trying to work it out, good luck!!

[truthbetold]

As a woman who has been the OW 2 times, I don't understand why we think we are so special that they won't do the same to us, ya know? But, I'm so so glad you and your hubby are back trying to work it out, good luck!!

 

That's exactly it ain't it? It seems it's soooo common with these MM that they're not good bets for any LTR they don't have good coping skills.

 

I know someone whose MM left and they lived together for approx a year. He was away overseas military duty. Came back, they had marriage plans for last spring. He came back previous summer and was a little distant, but he moved right from W to r with her. Anyway early fall he had loose ends in another state, fast forward to xmas and he springs on her he's leaving and he's in love with someone else

 

Really shouldn't have surprised her since he left his W the same way, but she thought their love was special and different. It rarely is unless these guys get into therapy that gets them to figure out why they think cheating is a solution instead of a problem.

[Hindsight45]

Yes, i shouldn't have ever thought he would treat me any differently. I guess i really sort of deserved what happened - i followed my heart and it led to it being broken by a pathological liar, who showed no remorse for anything. Even when he knew i was homeless he did absolutely nothing, not the actions of someone who claims to love me is it? When i tried to take some of the pressure off him, i was wrong. It felt like i did everything to try and make it work, conceded to everything he wanted and still it wasn't enough. I dont think it would ever have been enough for him. He shut down and shut me out - apart from telling me he couldn't cope, it all became too much for him to deal with.....there were two of us in that relationship, a fact he forgot. Even when i extended the olive branch - i asked him if he would like to meet, around the end of the year, to finally talk and try to let us move away from what happened without bitterness or hate or regrets, that was rejected. He had wanted to remain in contact now and again, but changed his mind and rejected the olive branch.

My gut feeling - there was another woman in the wings, just waiting.

I have no proof, but it all happened so fast, from nothing, within hours it was over bar the shouting.

[noel2]

Don't think you "deserved" it, you let your guard down, but its ok, you understand now and probably won't allow yourself to be sucked in again, right?

[truthbetold]

Yes, i shouldn't have ever thought he would treat me any differently. I guess i really sort of deserved what happened - i followed my heart and it led to it being broken by a pathological liar, who showed no remorse for anything. Even when he knew i was homeless he did absolutely nothing, not the actions of someone who claims to love me is it? When i tried to take some of the pressure off him, i was wrong. It felt like i did everything to try and make it work, conceded to everything he wanted and still it wasn't enough. I dont think it would ever have been enough for him. He shut down and shut me out - apart from telling me he couldn't cope, it all became too much for him to deal with.....there were two of us in that relationship, a fact he forgot. Even when i extended the olive branch - i asked him if he would like to meet, around the end of the year, to finally talk and try to let us move away from what happened without bitterness or hate or regrets, that was rejected. He had wanted to remain in contact now and again, but changed his mind and rejected the olive branch.

My gut feeling - there was another woman in the wings, just waiting.

I have no proof, but it all happened so fast, from nothing, within hours it was over bar the shouting.

 

Oh honey the guys a slime. How is with your H? You said things were getting better, but your posts seem a little wanting of what was.

 

I didn't mean to make you feel bad with what I said. I guess I just meant the ol greatest predictor of future behavior is past behavior, something like that.

 

Can you see how maybe this thing with the MM was a bit of fog? Maybe not entirely, but would you say you started to rewrite history in the hopes of justifying you new love? I'd think a new infactuation would be hard to compete with in terms of a comfortable marriage as far as sparks flying, but was it real or a fog? In hindsight that is, no pun intended:p

[Hindsight45]

No, it wasn't what you said that made me feel bad, i felt bad anyway!

 

My M is still a work in progress - we talk a lot more now and i think my H understands what led me to have an affair in the first place, so we are talking about how we can avoid getting to that kind of place again. I hope that we can get over what happened to us, and we are both still trying to find our new feet if you like within the M.

 

Looking back now, I got totally swept away by the MM - it was exciting and new and yes there were sparks flying. It represented all the my M wasn't and therefore was i actually in love or just the idea of it? I'm still looking for answers to that, but certainly the physical symptoms if you like, of feeling in love were there. But then i was falling into something with a skilled and adept manipulator - i was the third woman he had had an affair with, and im left feeling because my feelings for him were so strong, it gave him the ideal ticket out of his marriage. When i was no longer needed, i was out - only he couldn't really come up with a decent reason for ending the relationship. Had he been totally committed to us, truly loved me and wanted to work together to get over the issues (whatever they were, i'm still in the dark about that) then together we would have done it. However he didn't, he walked out and kept going.

 

Did i love him? Yes i did, i just dont know if he loved me. He didn't care, thats for sure. Nobody with a shred of compassion or decency would have sat back and done nothing, as he did.

 

I always wonder - what kind of example did he give his son? Giving up so easily is hardly a good role model for any child.

[truthbetold]

No, it wasn't what you said that made me feel bad, i felt bad anyway!

 

My M is still a work in progress - we talk a lot more now and i think my H understands what led me to have an affair in the first place, so we are talking about how we can avoid getting to that kind of place again. I hope that we can get over what happened to us, and we are both still trying to find our new feet if you like within the M.

 

Looking back now, I got totally swept away by the MM - it was exciting and new and yes there were sparks flying. It represented all the my M wasn't and therefore was i actually in love or just the idea of it? I'm still looking for answers to that, but certainly the physical symptoms if you like, of feeling in love were there. But then i was falling into something with a skilled and adept manipulator - i was the third woman he had had an affair with, and im left feeling because my feelings for him were so strong, it gave him the ideal ticket out of his marriage. When i was no longer needed, i was out - only he couldn't really come up with a decent reason for ending the relationship. Had he been totally committed to us, truly loved me and wanted to work together to get over the issues (whatever they were, i'm still in the dark about that) then together we would have done it. However he didn't, he walked out and kept going.

 

Did i love him? Yes i did, i just dont know if he loved me. He didn't care, thats for sure. Nobody with a shred of compassion or decency would have sat back and done nothing, as he did.

 

I always wonder - what kind of example did he give his son? Giving up so easily is hardly a good role model for any child.

 

Well I would say he lost the title of good role model when he decided to cheat instead of fix the problems in the marriage. Just because you can father a kid doesn't make you a good dad, so maybe he never was a good role model.

 

Talking is good! Sounds like your H is willing to get your marriage back on track, I just hope your not mooning about your MM because that would get old fast. I just mean how you said you would have done anything for your MM to make it work. It seems like your H is your fallback guy and I hope that's not the case. Everyone has a patience burn out and I hope he doesn't reach his. Anyway I do wish you best of luck in your M. You've been through a lot and I hope things calm down in a good way for you.

[Hindsight45]

Apologies for not posting sooner!

 

Truthbetold - I can see where you and others might think my H is my back up plan. Unfortunately, as I had nowhere to go, I had no choice but to accept his offer to go home. It was not the ideal situation, but beggars cant be choosers. Initially we spoke for days about my situation with the MM, which was surreal to say the least. But we spoke in depth about my feelings, his feelings, the marriage and how it ended up going down the route it did. I saw immediately the parallels between what had happened to me and what I had done to him, so there is a huge amount of guilt still to be worked through and we are working through it. We both acknowledge that this may not work for us, but should it fail, then we both walk away from it at least having tried again.

As for the xMM, well, I still struggle with things associated to that. The house we shared still has some stuff in my name and I have decided now to break all the contracts and take the financial hit for doing so. I dont want stuff like that hanging over my head and would rather all links are severed. This has proved to be difficult to do as I am trying to maintain NC but am forced to make contact to deal with house issues. I keep the communications brief and restricted only to these matters, no questions or statements about the broken relationship. Replies are the same. The only reference made to the relationship was about 10 days ago when he said that we never got space and circumstances to grow together. Hmmm!

 

I do still struggle with many things - ghosts I call them, certain songs, places, smells etc. All very difficult to actually leave behind or at least stop the associations. Its exactly 12 weeks today since that argument that sealed the beginning of the end. I feel I have made some progress - the feelings I'm left with are leaning more towards anger now. I find myself questioning if I ever did actually love him - at the moment, I cannot find it in myself to want his happiness or for him to find love and be content, therefore did I really love him???? Who knows!

 

So, I am just really taking it a day at a time - some are good, some are bad. I wish this year would end. I would have liked to end the year by burying the ghosts of the relationship with him, but I am going to have to do that myself. I want to do it, I need to do it, to free myself, but I dont think I'm quite there yet.

 

One day at a time and all that....

 

HS45.