And so the cycle continues

[elaine567]

I know what you will say. Tell my husband. Tell his wife. Leave my job. Well none of that is going to happen.

Er...no. I have never been in that brigade, do not make assumptions.

 

No-one said you were invested from the start of the affair but from the start of posting it was very obvious you were already invested.

From the start of posting in April you were aware of the mess, yet, what have you actively done to extricate yourself from this affair?

 

He always calls the shots.

He is nice, you feel warm and fuzzy, he pulls back you are hurt and confused and wait expectantly like a starving sparrow for the next crumb he throws you.

 

When are YOU going to take charge of your own life, or do you just wait until it all falls down around your ears...?

 

I have a feeling that is deep down, exactly what you want, but why?

Will it free you from your marriage without YOU having to make THAT decision?

Will it give you a better chance to be with the man you love?

[Messy Lady]

Sorry Elaine. I get frustrated with others making assumptions and then I go ahead and do it myself.

 

I know I have not done anything to get myself out of this but I know I need to do this now. I have cried to myself more than once this past week over this ending and that shows it has gone too far. If I let this continue then it will be awful for everybody in the end.

 

I really don't want my marriage to end. I do love my husband and see my future with him. That is what I want.

 

My feelings for the MM? I am not in love with him but I know now that is a real risk if it were to continue. I care for him and like him far more than I should.

[elaine567]

If I let this continue then it will be awful for everybody in the end.

 

 

This is what you need to concentrate on, what you need to keep telling yourself if you feel you are wavering in your resolve.

This affair is now ended, he has ended it, it will only be resuscitated if you keep it going, please allow it to die.

Grieve, heal and move on.

[Grapesofwrath]

Messy: I recall your previous thread. I think this dynamic is the dynamic of your A. It's not going to change because this is what propels the whole thing forward. One of you decides it must end, there is a brief pause, then someone yields and it starts again. Who enacts which role is not the salient point, IMO. This dynamic is what feeds the A and you both thrive on it.

 

If you want a different result--i.e. to end the affair--you must change the dynamic. You must change your behavior. Stop responding. Change jobs. (That would be ideal, although impractical. I will tell you that changing marriages and families will be WAY more impractical, and a D-day seems likely given your current trajectory.)

 

If you want it to end, then you end it. It's simple, although not easy. Stop responding. Stop touching. Stop rationalizing. Stop making excuses. Just stop the whole thing. But if you don't really want it to end, then just continue with what you're doing. The pattern will continue indefinitely, until you are caught at which time you will no longer have control over what happens. Others will start to make decisions for you.

[ChickiePops]

Sorry Elaine. I get frustrated with others making assumptions and then I go ahead and do it myself.

 

I know I have not done anything to get myself out of this but I know I need to do this now. I have cried to myself more than once this past week over this ending and that shows it has gone too far. If I let this continue then it will be awful for everybody in the end.

 

I really don't want my marriage to end. I do love my husband and see my future with him. That is what I want.

 

My feelings for the MM? I am not in love with him but I know now that is a real risk if it were to continue. I care for him and like him far more than I should.

 

But you've known all along how great the risks were. You were not fully invested at the beginning, as you say, but you chose to continue anyway and allow yourself to become invested in spite of knowing the risks.

 

You went into this with your eyes wide open. What's different now?

 

That's a genuine question.

[Messy Lady]

But you've known all along how great the risks were. You were not fully invested at the beginning, as you say, but you chose to continue anyway and allow yourself to become invested in spite of knowing the risks.

 

You went into this with your eyes wide open. What's different now?

 

That's a genuine question.

 

At the start, I was not invested so I thought it would be something I could "control" and manage, with him and I being more discreet and there being less non-work interaction than there has been (especially in work!).

 

Allow myself to become invested? I find "allow" an odd choice of word IMO. I did not decide to start falling for him. That was not a conscious decision. It is something that I became aware was happening when I could see how I was getting hurt by his push/pull. This was a risk I had not thought about so my eyes were not actually that wide open and of course it creates a whole raft of new risks that I had not considered.

 

Though I do want to point out that I do not love him, however I realise now that could happen.

[ChickiePops]

At the start, I was not invested so I thought it would be something I could "control" and manage, with him and I being more discreet and there being less non-work interaction than there has been (especially in work!).

 

Allow myself to become invested? I find "allow" an odd choice of word IMO. I did not decide to start falling for him. That was not a conscious decision. It is something that I became aware was happening when I could see how I was getting hurt by his push/pull. This was a risk I had not thought about so my eyes were not actually that wide open and of course it creates a whole raft of new risks that I had not considered.

 

Though I do want to point out that I do not love him, however I realise now that could happen.

 

If you hadn't gotten involved with him, you never would have fallen for him. So yes, allow is exactly the right word. You may not have meant to but you did. Like it or not, this is just as much your fault as it is.

 

Not meaning to does not absolve you of guilt. People who crash their cars into pedestrians don't mean to. It's still their fault though.

[anika99]

At the start, I was not invested so I thought it would be something I could "control" and manage, with him and I being more discreet and there being less non-work interaction than there has been (especially in work!).

 

Allow myself to become invested? I find "allow" an odd choice of word IMO. I did not decide to start falling for him. That was not a conscious decision. It is something that I became aware was happening when I could see how I was getting hurt by his push/pull. This was a risk I had not thought about so my eyes were not actually that wide open and of course it creates a whole raft of new risks that I had not considered.

 

Though I do want to point out that I do not love him, however I realise now that could happen.

 

You seem awfully insistent that people know that you weren't invested from the start. Nobody is saying suggesting you were, so why are you making that a point of contention? Of course you weren't invested from the start, nobody's really invested in any relationship at the start. People become invested in a relationship by thinking about, spending time in it and getting intimate, both physically and emotionally, in it. Doing those things is a choice, so yes, people allow themselves to become invested through their choices and actions.

 

What are hoping to get out of this thread? What is it you want to hear? It seems like you just want to defend and deflect. Nobody cares that you weren't invested at the start, that is irrelevant. It has so little to do with the situation at hand that when you say it you might as well be saying " it's sunny outside today". The problem is that you continue on doing the same things and making the same choices while at the same time saying you want it to end. What are you willing to change? If you are unwilling to change anything then nobody can help you.

 

I'll tell you one thing, there is no painless way out of a relationship that you are invested in. If you are waiting for this not to hurt then you will be stuck forever. You talk down to posters here, telling them that feelings cannot just be turned off like a tap. As if nobody but you has ever had to face the pain of ending a toxic relationship. Ending things hurts and it sucks but I'd bet every single person has gone through the pain of ending something they wished they didn't have to end. They lived and so will you.

[Messy Lady]

If you hadn't gotten involved with him, you never would have fallen for him. So yes, allow is exactly the right word. You may not have meant to but you did. Like it or not, this is just as much your fault as it is.

 

Not meaning to does not absolve you of guilt. People who crash their cars into pedestrians don't mean to. It's still their fault though.

 

 

Did I say it was not my fault? No, I did not. So please stop making yet more incorrect assumptions.

[Messy Lady]

I give up!

 

The reason I have talked of not being invested at the start was to explain my thoughts at the beginning on how I could "manage" the relationship with the MM. That's all.

 

I get asked a question. I answer the question. I then get criticised for answering the question.

 

Turning off feelings? I know I'm not the only one who can't do that. Yet it was beginning to sound like there was an expectation I should be able to control feelings. That felt like I was being talked down to actually.

[loveisanaction]

I think it's pretty obvious to anyone who reads this thread that Messy Lady is in complete denial.

 

Messy Lady, you claim to love your husband but not your affair partner but your actions are so clear even a blind man would be able to see that you are very much in love with your affair partner. You can lie to yourself until the cows come home, you are not in love with your husband. The way you defend your married man like a lioness defends her cub shows just how much you are in love with him.

 

Why are you not divorcing your husband and allowing him to find a woman who truly does love him? You say you love him? Love is an action not a feeling and your actions clearly show that you do not love your husband. You are pinning away for a man who has absolutely no feelings for you whatsoever, has made it perfectly clear that he will not leave his wife for you (you say you don't want him to; denial no. 2), has also stated that even though he has been intimate with you he does not regard you as his affair partner.

 

When will come out of this dangerous fog? When will you stand up and look at yourself in the mirror and say that you have wronged your husband, wronged your affair partner's wife, put your career in jeopardy and allowed a man to treat you in such a despicable way?

 

When? When will you start taking responsibility for the destruction you are doing to yourself, to your husband, to your marriage and to your job?

 

When? Because if you have no intention of fixing this mess that you have put yourself and your family in...anything you keep posting on here is all just talk.

[Satu]

Life is about choices.

 

We get what we choose.

 

If we don't like what we get, we need to make different choices.

 

We are all volunteers, none of us are conscripts.

 

Once you really get that, you feel liberated.

[Messy Lady]

Here we go again....

 

I don't love the MM. Though I do realise that is a risk.

 

I do love my husband. I have not defended him here because he has done nothing that needs defending.

 

I also know I am responsible for my part in all this. Again I have not tried to deny this.

 

Please stop putting words into my mouth or telling me I actually think or feel something that I know I don't.

[Satu]

What do you actually want in regard to this situation?

 

What is your desired outcome?

[ChickiePops]

Good. You know you're responsible. Now it's time to take some responsibility for cleaning up the mess.

 

Step one - no more unprofessional interactions.

 

Step two - find a new job