Is this true love lost?

[hfsn]

I am in desperate need of an honest opinion about a situation that has beenongoing for 9 years that I can’t tell anyone about!

 

WARNING – This is possibly the longest post ever!*

 

Here's the story, for anyone who may care enough to read through it!

 

I am a nurse and 9 years ago when I was in my last year of my nurse trainingI had a placement in the ITU. Whilst on placement I met a junior anaesthetistthat I instantly felt attracted too, I never actually got to speak to him atall when I was on that placement but I found out his name and I swear I havenever felt so attracted to someone on first sight. I had a fiancé at this time thatI had been with for more than 5 years and had known for 9 years.

 

My last placement of my nurse training was in theatres, and yes you haveguessed it the same anaesthetist was now working there. Again as a student inthe department I never remember speaking to him but I always had such terriblebutterflies in my stomach every time that I saw him. I was offered a job intheatres at the end of my placement and I had loved theatre nursing so I gladlyaccepted.

 

I spent my first year on the scrub side and in one theatre and again I onlyever saw this anaesthetist in the passing and still hadn’t ever spoken to him!In my second year I switched to anaesthetics and yes you guessed it I nowworked with this doctor (Alan) that I was highly attracted to a few times amonth. I had now been introduced to him, I now was engaged in conversation withhim and he was now teaching me a lot about anaesthetics. Over the next 6 monthswe worked together more often and spoke more often too, always veryprofessional conversations, never really anything on a personal level.

 

At this time I was about to be married to my fiancé of nearly 7 years. Ourrelationship wasn’t a healthy one and the more time that passed and the closerthe wedding got the more I knew I didn’t want to marry him, partly because ofhow strongly attracted I was to Alan but mostly because we had simply grownapart over the years that I had been training. 2 weeks before the wedding, oneand half stones lighter and sleep deprived from the stress of it all I calledoff the wedding, told my fiancé how I felt and ended the relationship, he didn’twant to end it but I knew I had to. We were due to be married in Mexico, familyall booked the lot and I had 3 weeks annual leave booked for the wedding. WhenI called it off no one at my work new since none of them were going to be atthe wedding as it was abroad. I returned to work, I was well tanned as we hadhappened to have great two weeks sunshine in Scotland and all I had done wasmope around in it!

 

First day back I was working late in trauma theatre with Alan. A surgeoncame past the open anaesthetic room doors as we were waiting for a patient andcheerfully asked how the newlywed was doing and had I had a great honeymoon? Iof course told him that I hadn’t gone through with the wedding and we had separated.Once the surgeon had finished apologising and left Alan turned to me and askedme had I really not gotten married? Yes I replied and it’s over.

 

]Over the next 6 months I saw a lot more of Alan as I was working extrashifts at weekends to make ends meet. Turned out we had heaps in common inparticular a shared passion for the same kind of music. We started exchangingCDs and making CDs up for each other, he bought me a CD at one point stating hejust thought I might really like it. Alan is a Virgo, and as anyone who knows aVirgo male can attest they are painfully shy, exceedingly wary and very slow tomake a move when it comes to romance. We both didn’t want kids, we were bothinto running etc yet despite all the lengthily conversations we had and all thetimes that we were alone together I could never summon the courage to ask himout, partly because we had such a fantastic working relationship, many othercolleagues commented on how slick we were as an anaesthetic duo! A sister inone of the theatres who hardly new me came to sit with me one day at lunch andproceeded to tell me that she had never in the 8 years she had known Alan seenhim speak so much to a nurse or seem so interested.

 

An older anaesthetist that I worked with, Abdul whom I was really close tohad totally sussed that I fancied Alan, he said he was sure Alan liked me andthat I should ask him out as he reckoned that Alan was way too shy to ever ask me.He told me a story about the love of his life, who to my surprise wasn’t hiswife but a nurse he had worked with when he was a junior, he never asked herout. Years after he was married and had left that hospital he met her in asupermarket. She told him after some general chit chat that she was glad he hadleft as it broke her heart to work with him everyday knowing he was happily married. He never was happily married and she had always remained his one reallove in life that he didn’t pursue.

 

Well, I didn’t ask him, and while I was busy pursuing him my now husbandcame into my life. I really adored Bob and he was such a really nice guy and wegot on amazingly. After just 4 months we moved in together. Alan got to knowfairly early on that I was seeing someone as a colleague had told him. I stillgot butterflies in my stomach every time I saw him or spoke to him but I wasreally falling in love with Bob and besides Alan was a fairly strange guy, he hadno real friends (that anyone ever knew of), he worked all the time, even at Christmasto avoid going home to his family and he was such a perfectionist that I knewit would probably never work between us.

 

4 years later I married Bob. A few months before the wedding in an emptytheatre that I was setting up where Abdul was working with me. Alan had come into set up some specialist equipment for us and Abdul jokingly said to him thatI would give him a great big kiss for helping us! Needless to say thank god Iwas wearing a scrub mask as I was scarlet. Abdul left theatre and as soon as hehad Alan turned to me and said “your taken, aren’t you”, I asked what he meant,I said if he meant was I in a relationship then the answer was yes I was aboutto get married (again!). He looked upset and left.

 

A year later I left theatres for a new job with pharmacy. My job still tookme back to theatres every 3 months for routine checks. Despite being veryhappily married I never stopped thinking about Alan, in the 8 years that I hadno known him I still got terribly nervous talking to him. After a year in thatjob I landed the perfect nursing job close to home. This time I knew I wouldnever be setting foot in theatres again and after all these years I felt compelledto tell Alan how I felt. I had the perfect opportunity in my last week on thejob when I had to go into theatres unscheduled and there he was. I told himthat I was leaving the job; he said he was really upset at that as he hadalways hoped I would go back to theatres. He said “does that mean I will neversee you again” nervous I stupidly said “god I hope not, that means you will bemy anaesthetist!” He looked close to tears, said nothing more and left. I wasso beside myself as I couldn’t believe I had cocked up the telling him how Ifelt scenario.

 

I decided to email him and tell him instead only I didn’t! My best friendwho also worked in theatres at that time talked me out of it. So instead Icomposed a fair well email that was exceptionally eloquent in which I told him professionallywhat I thought of him but never said how I felt for him. He replied equally asprofessionally and wished me luck in my new job. That was 3 months ago, and nowI cannot stop thinking about him. If I am honest I have never stopped thinkingabout him, I always have. It’s hard to explain but I feel so drawn to him, somoved by him yet there has never been anything between us except a mutual attraction.

 

I don’t know now what to do. I really do love my husband, and I am happy inmy marriage yet I think about Alan all the time, some nights I can’t sleep forgoing over encounters with him in my head. It has been 9 years since I firstlaid eyes on him and in all that time how I feel about him, how attracted I amto him has never wavered. Alan has had no relationships in all that time,another anaesthetist whom he is friendly with told me this in an unrelatedconversation a few months ago. I don’t know why but I simply yearn for him, inmy head I absolutely know that Bob is 10 times the man that Alan is andlogically I concede that I simply don’t think a relationship with him wouldhave worked, yet here I am at 1am, unable to sleep again for thinking abouthim.

 

I really do feel a sense of pain, a yearning that in 9 years has never diminished!I have recently been considering seeking therapy, but I don’t know what to tellmy husband I am in therapy for! I have no crap childhood hang ups and I am avery well balanced and always happy person so I am worried if I go to a psychologistBob is going to be panicked that there is something really wrong!

 

Should I have told Alan, just for the sake of closure? I am almost certainthat Alan being Alan if I sent him an email explaining how I felt he wouldn’treply, but should I do it anyway? Does anyone think that would help? I feellike I am going crazy and I am a rational person and this whole mess isirrational and nonsensical, yet I still feel this way no matter what I do not too

 

If you have read to the bottom after all this mammoth rant I thank you! Ifyou have any inclination left I would really value your comment, like I said atthe beginning, I have no one I can confess this to, know one I can tell!

Edited April 20, 2012 by hfsn

[january2011]

No, do not email Alan.

 

You had your chance with him and a number of opportunities to tell him how you felt, but every single time, you've not done it. I think you should consider that something within you, perhaps your intuition, stopped you because it would have been the wrong thing to do and would have destroyed whatever you felt about Alan.

 

Consider Alan the workplace crush that got away. In my experience, once fulfilled, crushes nearly always turn out to be disappointing and anticlimatic in the cold light of day.

 

You are married now. You love your husband and presumably do not want to hurt him. However, this yearning for Alan suggests that something is missing in your life. I suspect that you don't really want Alan, but something that Alan represents. Speak to a therapist to find out what that is. If your husband asks, tell him that you have been having some trouble focusing lately and you just wanted to get some advice.

[hfsn]

January

 

Thank you for taking the time to read the novel! You are right, I do know it would never work between us but I had never thought that my yearning for him was symbolic of something missing for me! I will seek therapy as I really do want to move on, I hate feeling this way and being distracted from my marraige.

[justsomebody]

I think what you need is a closure and then move on.

 

You have feelings for him but never truly expressed them all these years...could be rejected or flourished ....no one knows. You are not really looking for love from Alan, you just want to let him know that someone (in this case, you) loved/love him. That is. Being able to love is a blessing, knowing being loved is also a blessing. As you said, you know that Alan won't respond or do anything about it which you are hoping for anyway, therefore, letting him know, in my opinion, is just a way to close a file. Then you can enjoy what you have with Bob because you have unloaded a baggage.