Is this typical? I'm a jerk, right?

[moving2fast]

Hello All,

I'm new to this forum and in need of some advice, feedback, anything so that I can process what's going on and not obsessively think about this ridiculous relationship I got into.

 

Okay, so, I'm an OW. I started an affair with a married man a little over a year and a half ago. We met innocently one day while I was out at a bar and hit it off as friends. Now, from our first interaction, he shared he was married and we were just talking in a friendly manner. We exchanged emails and said we'd keep in touch.

 

As friends we would email about once a week to each other the first month, just sharing things about ourselves, our interests in certain teams, shows we were into, random innocent stuff. After about a month of that we exchanged numbers and met for lunch as friends. I'd pay for my stuff no flirting, but we would compliment each other but nothing crossing the line. We were simply friends.

 

He would tell me about his family, I'd share about mine(I'm not married,away from family) . We started sharing really personal stuff after about three months of being pals(childhood traumas), and we grew closer. He'd share his problems, I'd share mine. We were emailing, texting calling throughout the day, everyday. One day he says he loves me and I'm like, love you too as a friend. I always have a wall up. He says he is starting to have feelings, so I tell we should keep distance.

 

It didn't work, we kept talking and hanging out instead of trying to be apart. And it got to a point where we were kissing and touching each other. I knew it wasn't a good idea. But I liked him, and liked his wife too, they were nice. I would date, I have an issue of dating/ hooking up with lots of people(male and female ) and the MM and I would talk about that, because he would be concerned and I'd vent a lot about it when things were problematic for me. Around this time(6 months in his wife is pregnant with their baby boy)

 

Sex doesn't mean anything to me, and so when the MM started talking about it, I didn't mind. Started with him asking about what I'd done, then I'd ask him about what he'd do(with his wife) and he started talking about what he wanted to do with me. At about the 7month mark, we were having sex. He knew I was with other people and I was fine with him being with his wife. We'd share video (me with other people, him with his wife, him alone, me alone ) and well I grew really close to him. I didn't want to get emotionally attached so I told him it should only be physical.

 

He didn't like that. He wanted us to be more than that, and I tend to push people away. He would say he loves me and I wouldn't say it back. I didn't really want him to love me. I enjoyed things we had, but don't want a real boyfriend. We kept at things, talking, sleeping together, sharing everything under the sun. Then about a year into the affair, his wife found out from some video of us he had on his computer. She called me told me she knew what I'd done with her husband, to say away and never contact them. How could I? I knew she was having his baby, what was I thinking, and all kinds of bad/nasty names I'm not offended by. I told her I didn't mean for it to happen, that I didn't want problems and I wouldn't contact them again.

 

A fantasy I had is that we all got together. I am attracted to her too, but I didn't have the nerve to say it. I kept distance, then about two weeks later the MM contacts me, apologizes, says he really loves me(which he knows I don't care to hear ) and says he isn't sure he wants to be married but is going to couple's therapy with the wife. I say great and hope they're able to stay together. I want them happy. He says he isn't sure marriage makes him happy, but I could. Again, we're talking on a regular basis, instead of taking therapy serious like I asked him, he's sleeping with me again. I still met other people and there was a guy I was starting to see regularly that actually wasn't like most and wouldn't have sex with me, but said he liked me and wanted to know me.

 

The MM and I kept on and he got jealous of the man I was seeing, and talk bad about him because I told him about how he wasn't having sex with me.

 

The MM and I started experimenting more(new for him, not me) and he kept talking about how we should just run away together, how no one else would understand us, how we're so similar and he loves me. I do admit it sounds nice, but I don't want anyone getting hurt and I don't want to be someone that caused all these problems and then he cannot stand me. I am honest about how messed up I am and he acts like its okay but really we wouldn't last a week.

I don't know if he says these things because he thinks it'll keep me around( it won't, I say that all the time, I'm fine just being physical/being friends ) or because he really believes them.

 

The other guy I was talking to knows I have had many partners but still talks to me, doesn't want to be physical though unless we were monogamous and committed, I can't do that.

 

Last Friday the BS spouse called me again and told me to stay away. I said okay, but the MM wrote me an email again(Wednesday) apologizing and saying he's going to leave his family.

 

I don't want that. I enjoy what we have, but that's not what I wanted. Should I just not respond to him anymore? I never met anyone that had so much in common with me( though we're still totally different) and I do care a great deal for him. I care for all of them really, though I'm a jerk. Sorry for the long post.

[Cinnimon]

You say you really have no feelings for him, mainly just physical. I'd say walk away for good.

[ThatsJustHowIRoll]

Gee, ya think?

You systematically destroyed a family for a man you have no intention of actually being with.

 

And OW wonder why they get a bad rap?

 

Since you asked - Yes, you are a jerk

Edited December 7, 2013 by ThatsJustHowIRoll

[moving2fast]

But I didn't intend on doing that. He and I just really are toxic, and I know I should walk away. But if I do, is that going to hurt his feelings? I don't want to seem as if I'm rejecting him after he shared so much with me.

I know I was selfish. I don't really know about how other people are, I know I shouldn't be used as an example of how most people act because I'm out on the fringes. So I shouldn't be giving other OW bad wraps. It's just me.

[lollipopspot]

It would be the right thing to do to stay away and cease all contact. Don't even write another note, or just a cursory one - just stop or you will get sucked back into it. Let them work it out or not. From what you say you're not that invested in him and it doesn't seem like it would work out in the long run anyway. He's got a young child who deserves to have his parents try to work things out.

 

If he leaves his family that's a lot of pressure on you.

[Cinnimon]

I am sure it will hurt his feelings. Imagine how he will feel leaving his wife and child for you thinking that you two have some kind of future.

[imperfectangel]

then tell him you have no feelings for him god (and I am a ow) I feel bad for his wife at least I didn't know ex mm wife was pregnant if I had I would've run a mile

[ThatsJustHowIRoll]

HIS feelings? Are you serious?

 

He's a big boy. He made his bed. Let him lie in it.

 

Be honest.

[moving2fast]

I've always told him to stay with his family. I told him I don't want a relationship and I thought that was clear since I see and do whatever I want. He was the one talking about feelings, I never wanted him to say he loves me in a romantic way, I hate that and he knows it.

I'm not happy with people getting hurt. And I know it's messed up that I was with him while his wife was pregnant. He said he never wanted a child and that upsets me, because that's something I can't have.

I feel I opened up to him in the beginning because I felt safe, like he was offlimits so I could talk freely, but then everything else happened and I started thinking all of us could be a family or something, then I just settled with him as another body and a really close friend. I didn't set out for him to catch feelings beyond friendship/sex buddy and I hope he was lying about the feelings. That's what MM typically do, right?

[imperfectangel]

don't you think it would hurt his feelings more that he leaves his family for someone that just wants to sleep around

[moving2fast]

I am being honest. I care about him because he's been a great friend to me and I don't fancy hurting my friends or anyone.

I don't want his wife hurt, or the child. I am a bit detached. I know I've done inexcusable things. I wish things were different. I wish he was more open with his wife about things sothey could be closer. I wish we stayed just friends or his wife knew certain things and was okay with joining in.

I do know I was wrong, and if I wasn't so out of sync with my emotions and the moral code, I would feel more than I do. I wouldn't have engaged many things that I do.

[sweet_pea]

You didn't want/intend for anyone to get hurt so you do the thing that would cause lots of hurt? And continued to do so.... yes, that is jerk-lik behavior by both of you.

[Pastypop]

Yeah, this is typical. This behavior is straight from the affairs 101 guidebook. He groomed you for the affair from the very beginning. They start out as friends, then invite you out for lunches, happy hours and then start giving you are my best friend speeches. This happens to me all time as I am a bit of loner. I will play along and go out to lunch and happy hour and when they start the ily's or whatever; I act all offended and tell them they got the wrong idea and leave immediately. Initiate no contact after that. The guy gets all embarrassed and feels like a fool at that point.

[AlwaysGrowing]

I am being honest. I care about him because he's been a great friend to me and I don't fancy hurting my friends or anyone.

I don't want his wife hurt, or the child. I am a bit detached. I know I've done inexcusable things. I wish things were different. I wish he was more open with his wife about things sothey could be closer. I wish we stayed just friends or his wife knew certain things and was okay with joining in.

I do know I was wrong, and if I wasn't so out of sync with my emotions and the moral code, I would feel more than I do. I wouldn't have engaged many things that I do.

 

 

^ The "I don't want to hurt anyone horse" has left the stable. Time to accept that fact.

 

You either, continue to engage the MM knowing full well what his intentions are, or end it completely.

 

Both have different consequences.

[Popsicle]

Look lady, we all see what this is. Just leave him alone. Ignore him and let him focus on his wife and kids. IGNORE HIM. You don't need to worry about anything else, he will be fine. And YOU need to focus on single men.

[Fluttershy]

I think you need to work on yourself and stop saying "oh well, this is who I am." you delibertly continued with a guy who was committed and having a baby. Actions speak louder than words. You staying with him and giving him emotional support tells him you have feelings. He is just waiting for you to "let yourself go and admit you love and need him." So stop lying to yourself and admit you are leading him on, not with actions but with words."

Listen, i have nothing against you sleeping around but when you were doing that and he was sleeping with his wife (and I can almost 100% guarantee you he was) you were endangering the child with stds. Deadly stds and life long ones. I urge you to look up stds during pregnancy and see just how bad it could be so YOU NEVER DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS AGAIN.

Listen, you are not unfixable or beyond hope. If you choose to you can start a new and better life that doesn't involve being a wrecking ball to a marriage. Yes, he sht on his marriage. But you helped him every step of the way.

[ThatsJustHowIRoll]

I've always told him to stay with his family. I told him I don't want a relationship and I thought that was clear since I see and do whatever I want. He was the one talking about feelings, I never wanted him to say he loves me in a romantic way, I hate that and he knows it.

I'm not happy with people getting hurt. And I know it's messed up that I was with him while his wife was pregnant. He said he never wanted a child and that upsets me, because that's something I can't have.

I feel I opened up to him in the beginning because I felt safe, like he was offlimits so I could talk freely, but then everything else happened and I started thinking all of us could be a family or something, then I just settled with him as another body and a really close friend. I didn't set out for him to catch feelings beyond friendship/sex buddy and I hope he was lying about the feelings. That's what MM typically do, right?

 

You are not the victim. Stop acting like you are. You know right from wrong. You saw where it was heading. You just didn't care.

 

Stop making excuses, end it. Don't look back except in counseling to understand how you could wilfully hurt people.

[lollipopspot]

OP: What happened to you to make you feel so damaged? The way you talk about yourself being so disconnected from your emotions and your 'moral code' make me think you're avoiding something that happened to you.

[moving2fast]

I do not think of myself as a victim. I just see this as something that was really great, I met someone that really has a bunch in common with me that I enjoyed spending time with and we both made really bad choices. I dread him making even poorer choices.

 

I do agree that I have a lot to work on within myself, but honestly I am not at a point of believing anything of significance is salvageable. So, I don't know when or if I'll put effort towards that. I really don't see myself as lying to myself/leading him on. I'll never have real feelings beyond buddy for him, I don't love and haven't loved anyone in my entire life. I know he was sleeping with his wife while with me. We would talk about it and such, as terrible as it may seem, I wanted him to do that. I do know that I didn't give her anything/the baby(he's had him, seen pictures of him) I get checked, it's a requirement for work, though yeah we weren't always safe. I didn't really think/care about that at the time, selfish of me.

 

It's not like I go and contact him after the fact. He does it. I get selfish because I have enjoyed his company, so I respond. But please don't think once it's been discovered that I'm somewhere pining for him. If not me, wouldn't he just be doing this with someone else? I mean, he approached me in the beginning. Won't he just do it with someone else anyway, if I take the advice and ignore him?

 

Is it really grooming for an affair he when already knows what type of person I am(from the circumstances of how we met that night to all of our conversations and such)? I think it was clear that I would do anything, but he was the one with boundaries and such, until he dropped those.

 

Yeah, it really was messed up of me to do what I did. Apart from the silly fantasy of having them both in my life, I really didn't care much about how my actions were affecting his wife or their son. I was selfish. I really don't care much for people in general(I've slept in passing with married people of both genders and thought nothing of their spouses because it was just in the moment and they were just there). I really don't care much for myself, but that's beside the point.

Edited December 8, 2013 by moving2fast
grammar

[rumbleseat]

But I didn't intend on doing that. He and I just really are toxic, and I know I should walk away. But if I do, is that going to hurt his feelings? I don't want to seem as if I'm rejecting him after he shared so much with me.

I know I was selfish. I don't really know about how other people are, I know I shouldn't be used as an example of how most people act because I'm out on the fringes. So I shouldn't be giving other OW bad wraps. It's just me.

 

Sorry to say, but this is a really twisted story.

 

You say you didn't mean for any of this to happen. I call bullsh*t on that. On the one hand, you paint yourself as some kind of uber experienced person, very open minded, knows how the world works, yet you expect people to buy that you didn't see any off this coming? That the pain and heartache were something you didn't see coming?

This wasn't some sort of drunk one off, it was a long time coming, with a really long lead up of flirting and inappropriate contact. Then, not only did you sleep with him and share videos with him of him and his wife (without her permission, I would expect), you knew her, and even if you weren't exactly friends, you knew he was married, knew his wife wasn't someone who "deserved" such crappy treatment (not that anyone ever does) and you also knew she was pregnant, and the one you are worried about is him?

 

Stop worrying about him. He's an adult and will have to face the consequences of his choices. As for you, learn from thus and move on.

 

One more thing. You may be very open minded and liberal when it comes to sex, which is not a bad thing for you. It's quite another when the people who will be the most affected don't share your views. Next time, spare them a thought. You may view sex as meaningless, but an awful lot of people don't.

[moving2fast]

Yeah, I know it's not something most people would be a part of. It's hard to really explain and my numbness to things probably doesn't help.

 

 

I don't have much experience when it comes to actual relationships(like the ones I see portrayed in media and hear about from third parties or read about in books, none of it is real to me). In that regard, going off of my own personal history, I don't understand how I could have seen this coming.

 

 

I expect people to be content with strictly physical relationships as I am, to be friends that help each other out here and there don't catch feelings, I have had friends but none besides this particular person has really shared so much of his/her life and I don't typically share mine. It is not something I'm used to. I would have expected him to just have hooked up with me the night we met after talking(even though it was just friendly speak) or hooked up soon after. Not all the talking and extra stuff, so I figured it was going to be a real friendship(I always wanted one of those and couldn't when I was younger), but then it became physical too, and just not what I'm accustomed to. I tried to keep it the way I knew things to be(either "friends" or just physical) that didn't happen.

 

 

I guess I really don't see how he's treating her as bad. Yes, he shared videos of them together and I don't think she knew he was sharing them with me/at all, but I don't see anything wrong with that, I don't see us being friends as bad, or other things we did(though I know it hurt her). The only bad things I would see would be if he actually did leave his family for absolutely nothing. I don't mean to seem as if I'm solely worried about him, I knew she was pregnant when he shared that news with me, y but I didn't see that as a problem. I was happy for them. I see him leaving as a problem, saying he has feeling that he shouldn't as a problem too. I don't like that.

 

 

I know I'm all over in my responses, trying to focus on the words. I say I worry about him because I have the most contact with him(but worry about them all). I genuinely care about him as a friend, especially since we've shared so much and I know what he's been though. I hope he opens up to his wife about that stuff and she's able to deal with that and they grow closer. I do worry that me just ignoring him if he were to actually make the mistake of leaving his family, would cause him to feel completely alone. I want him to tell his wife what he's thinking about.

 

 

I really should have thought about how other people felt, but really I don't see it as an issue since I don't want to be with the people I do things with. It really is hard for me to explain myself. Even trying to put myself in her shoes, I feel nothing. Maybe because I'm just too close or something, but I just would like for her to realize that it wasn't anything personal. I don't want her life/husband. I want them together and what happened was meaningless.

 

 

I can try and ignore him, but if I ever see him in passing I don't think I'd turn him away. I couldn't(not just to him, to anyone.)

[lollipopspot]

I do know that I didn't give her anything/the baby(he's had him, seen pictures of him) I get checked, it's a requirement for work, though yeah we weren't always safe.

 

OP, are you in pornography/the sex industry? What work requires tests for std's?

 

I'm wondering, still, what has happened to you to talk about yourself in the way that you do? From your posts you seem depressed beyond this situation, and that you don't feel good about yourself. Why is that?

[moving2fast]

@lollipopspot, I do tend to avoid thinking about my younger years. I didn't have a regular childhood, was full of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. I used to try running away a bunch and successfully did one week after graduating HS. Moved in with a man that was just about the same, and he got me started up in some things. I never loved him, he was using me for sex and making money and I was using him for shelter and my little bit of fun. I left him three years ago, I'm 25 now, so I really should be over the kiddy stuff. I've done really stupid things and been in really bad places so other things happened along the way, but really I tend to and enjoy myself now.

[moving2fast]

@lollipopspot, yes that is my line of work, and my employers require I get tested. I am in movies/ the sex industry.

Edited December 8, 2013 by moving2fast

[lollipopspot]

OP,

 

I think becoming emotionally disconnected from what happened to you earlier is a big part of what brought you into the porn industry and into this relationship.

 

You talk about yourself being on the fringes and as though you're damaged. It seems to me that your feelings about yourself are going to keep drawing you into situations that are painful and even dangerous.

 

I really don't think you owe this guy much of anything in terms of closure, and you should let him go immediately - and he ought best to work on his family relationship without you in the picture.

 

I know if you never had much of a family that it's hard to value family, and clearly this guy doesn't much either, but for the child it's still best that he tries.

 

Do you have any thoughts about trying to change your profession? It's generally very damaging to women who have usually already experienced a lot of trauma, I'm sure I don't have to tell you.

Edited December 8, 2013 by lollipopspot