It Never Ends -- ''older'' man (over 40)

[ItNeverChanges]

Once a fool, forever an old fool?

 

Stop gazing at your navel and get it together.

 

Leave that young lady alone.

 

Leave her alone, you say. That is exactly all that I HAVE done. I say nothing to her. She has barely written me in TWO YEARS. I never bother her, unless she writes me, which is less and less.

 

I am not made of stone. Well, no sense in trying to explain, other than to say that it is not HER that I have to work to leave alone. It is MYSELF that I torture.

 

Anyway, thanks for your response.

[AmyLee]

I'm so happy to have found this thread because I feel a little less like I'm going out of my mind!!

 

Like oldbutcurious, I am in the same situation as you ItNeverChanges, but I am the young woman deeply in love with the older married man. We are colleagues who work together in the same department so we spend most weekdays together, and often travel with each other for work.

 

A few months ago I actually told him how I felt, as I was miserable and at the point that I thought I might need to change departments to get over him once and for all. He was very careful in how he responded, and in the end we resolved that I would not act rashly and just see how I went over the next couple of months.

 

 

Well, at first I'd assumed that he did not feel the same way and it was just a silly crush. But he almost needed to take the rest of the day off, he was so shocked by my confession. Then subsequent to my confession, he started messaging me online every night, often just to see how I am and whether I had got home ok. He buys me snacks when I'm working late, and remembers my favourite type of chocolate and diet drink. Sometimes I catch him staring at me, and maybe it's wishful thinking, but there is something in the way he looks at me...

 

It is exquisite torture. I think, if he felt anything, like you, he would never, ever tell me, in deference to his wife of 25+ years. But it kills me not to know. So reading this gives me hope that he feels the same way, in secret...

 

 

In turn, I will never say anything to him again, and will pretend like I feel nothing. I am trying to be a good person and I would hate myself for doing anything to his marriage. I am almost cold to him now with how hard I am trying not to feel anything. So please take comfort in that she may well feel the same way, but is trying to ignore it, just the same way I am.

[ItNeverChanges]

''So please take comfort in that she may well feel the same way, but is trying to ignore it, just the same way I am''

 

There is comfort in that thought, although, for me, the torture is still a bit worse. I am getting better, though, by keeping very busy.

 

As your regards your situation, OH...MY...GOD!!! How can you stand it!! Weekends together AND traveling together. She used to work at the same place I work, but she quit and works somewhere else.

 

If I had to work with her, on weekends, as well as travel, it would be the 'perfect' mixture of heaven and hell. I have a moral compass that was set for me NOT by the good nuns at Corpus Christi Grammar School. It was set, rather, but STREET dudes I sued to hang out with.

 

Many people wrongly think that street folks have no morals. Well, it depends. In my old neighborhood, there was an honor code--NEVER mess around with another man's woman OR wife. That code saturates my entire being right now [i sometimes wish it would die out].

 

I can't change. Even if she approached me straight up and offered me her whole self INCLUDING....that, no way could I do it. I'm MOLDED--permanently.

 

So, being with her every weekend would not work for me. I wish I were more like my big brother used to be. .

 

By the way, I feel as you do, happy to know that others are SUFFERING tremendously, as I am. LOL!!!!

 

I can only be a shoulder for you to cry on, because I have no solution [sorry]. What helps me these days is keeping busy. I'm leaving town for some intensive, 3-day training, and I'm studying for that, TRYING to not think about her while I study.

 

Yesterday was a complete waste. I barely got anything done. I kept mulling over whether or not I should tell her.

 

What I didn't mention, I think, is that I have been in love with her fore EIGHT YEARS. We always communicated, via email. Even after she got married she kept writing me.

 

I used to wonder if she saw me as just a father figure. PERISH THE THOUGHT!!! Then, for the past two years she has not been communicating, but suddenly showed up, at my job, to tell me about her and her hubby being on the verge of divorce. She gave me a HUGE hug, too!!!

 

Why did she come to tell me that. Well, forget it.

 

I got a couple of Muslim buddies, and they keep screaming at me, ''SEE!!! SEE!!! That's why Islam allows polygamy.''

 

At first I thought, that is just insane. But now...

 

We lambast that culture. But look at US!! How many ''second wives'' do men in our country have ON THE SIDE, cheating their asses off. And that is the point that my Muslim buddies make. But, they have no answer for WOMEN that might want more than one man.

 

Nevertheless, I keep wondering. The mormons do it, I think.

 

I have never been able to see women as just things. Not that I have not had my FUN, mind you, in my life. But, ultimately, I always end up wanting something serious, and permanent.

 

In my mind, I have been a polygamist for eight years.

 

Well, I guess the one thing I would say is that, if you are feeling guilty that you might badly impact his marriage, then you are doing exactly the right thing by giving him a kind of cold shoulder now. But, what happens if, one day, when you both are together, he GRABS you and confesses is LOVE, and tells you he feels desperate. What then,

 

Would you believe me if I told you I have written her 800 letters, always ending up deleting them; never having the nerve to send them. I want to wait until she and her hubby decide, one way or the other, what their future will be.

 

Then, I could at least tell her how I feel. But would that be fair to her. NO. So, I am stuck. If I dont tell her, I have to suffer with the thought that she will never know. If I do tell her, assuming they break up, I have to suffer with the thought that she might really love me to, but I am MARRIED and cant DO **** about it!!

 

I believe in God. But, sometimes I wonder WHY He [she...It...whatever] allows us to have hearts that can love married women; married men. You would think that He could have designed us so that we would never be attracted to anyone but our wives, husbands, PARTNERS [guess I gotta say that, these days, although I am from the old school, and find all these social changes hard to deal with]. But He did not do that.

 

Oh, that reminds me. Okay, in 2010, an old girlfriend who I had dated in the 1980s contacted me, telling me that I was ''the only man on earth that I can trust,'' and that she wanted me.

 

OY VEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

That went on for some months. Finally, we got into big arguments. We had always, even while dating, argued intensely, yet always resolve them, one way or the other. This time, though, we both figured something out. We had changed. We both were different.

 

So, that ended that, THANK GOD.

 

Well, my point is this. There is nothing LINEAR, or fixed in stone, about this stuff. One can think that once one is married, that is it. He or she will never turn their eyes in another direction again. But, it is not the EYES. It is the heart. That is the problem.

 

How does one control the heart. F**ck if I know.

 

GOOD LUCK!!

[ItNeverChanges]

Been a while since I've been here. Curious to know how you're doing, AmyLee, with your issue.

[Cookiesandough]

People date older and younger all the time. It's NBD. The reason why this would probably never work out in your favor is because you've put her on a pedestal.

[ItNeverChanges]

WHOA!!!! Yes!! And, believe it or not, that occurred to me only within the last few days. Then my PRIDE started bugging me.

 

I have no one to blame but myself.

 

Yes, GREAT observation! It became close to a form of worship, even. That's a little bit higher than a pedestal. She became a little god. I'm still shaking myself out of this. It's been many years. Seems very wasteful.

[Myword]

Therapists are probably no good for you. They wont understand but they will act like they do. I obsess myself over women and hate it because it can snowball your thinking entirely.

To paraphrase famed star Dickie Betts in a song: There is nothing youcan say and nothing you can do when you love someone and she doesnt love you!

[ItNeverChanges]

I generally do not like references to songs, old sayings, etc. But, Myword, when the song reflects what I have LIVED; what I FEEL, then the words are on target.

 

"There is nothing you can say and nothing you can do when you love someone and she doesnt love you."

 

Yes, if I say something, the reaction or reply might be negative. If I do something, like send her a gift, then she might label [in our FEAR-BASED society] me a stalker. Oy vey!! There is no win for me AT ALL.

 

I've been to TWO therapists. Neither of them were of any help. When it becomes obsession, I'm not so sure if anybody can help. I think mine moved from obsession to ADDICTION.

 

You build a world that exists only in your mind. I try to remind myself that, even in the most ideal situation, that SAME BEAUTIFUL FACE might, years later, be one that I CAN'T STAND.

 

It happened to me in my second marriage. She had done fashion modelling--very beautiful woman. After 6 years of her NAGGING, I didn't come home. Or, I'd come back in the wee hours of the morning, just so that I wouldn't have to see her pretty face. I would enter my basement from a side door, and sleep in the basement.

 

Yet, for men, IT NEVER ENDS. A friend of mine--very academically incluined; PhD in history, and Master's in some other stuff--told me that when I confessed, embarrassed, that, at my age, I was obsessed over a woman.

 

He smiled and said, "You're not alone. I know guys that are 90 years old, and they are WORSE than you are."

 

Hard to believe. What is it? Maybe nothing more than biology; the biological imperative to preserve oneself; to assure one's immortality (even if only symbolically) by passing your genes on to children, or just FEELING as if you are--subconscious.

 

Maybe it ain't that deep. You see someone. You fall in love. Case closed. No big explanation. It's the heart.

[Cookiesandough]

Yes. You find her very attractive so you projected characteristics on her that she doesn't possess. Keep telling yourself that this is lust + idealism. Like everyone else, she has an unpleasant characteristics that will come out sooner or later. Usually with time and familiarity we can see these things clearer

[ItNeverChanges]

Yes, I have a friend of mine that says, "Oh, you just want to _ _ _ _ her." I insist that it's "deeper" than that. He just smiles.

 

Lust and idealism. I don't know. I don't like to think of it that way. I like her a WHOLE LOT, for a number of reasons. She certainly is the single-most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life. As Cyrano de bergerac said about his cousin, Roxanne, whom he loved deeply, "In these eyes of mine, beyond compare."

 

But (and not that I'm some saint), I seriously don't think about sex when I think about her. I just wish I could BE with her, somehow.

 

I look at her pictures--eight of them, almost every day. Seems ridiculous, sometimes, at my age--as if I'm a teenager. I suffer the SAME THING as I did when I was a teenager: love sickness; can't think; can't get my work done; sitting around thinking of her, instead of my work. Stupid ****!!!

 

I swear, women are the most powerful beings in existence. Very disturbing.

[wmacbride]

I DID seek help. I went to a mental health expert. I PAID for it--three sessions. And it seemed to work for some months.

 

But what I didn't like is that she told me that it was her opinion that the young woman that I love was USING me. She claimed that, from what she could gather from the sessions she had with me, the young woman was "collecting trophies."

 

In short, she concluded that she was TOYING with me, and that nothing could come of it.

 

As regards my marriage, I disagree with your conclusion. That's a very, very common conclusion: If a man wants another woman, it's because he's having problems in his marriage. No, no, no. That does happen, yes. But it's not the only reason.

 

In human history, men have taken on more than one wife for a number of reasons--either openly or secretly. This much I do know. Sometimes it was to unite tribes, or families.

 

But, that kind of thing doesn't happen anymore, probably, too much. Especially in the U.S. But, does that mean that my feelings have to be based on some "problem" with my wife? I've been with my wife for...a couple of decades AND MORE. I mentioned the number in a previous note.

 

One might say, "Well, that still doesn't mean you don't have some deep problem inside of you about the marriage." True. But, for myself, I just don't buy it, that's all.

 

I will easily admit one thing, and I'm not alone on this. How many couples are able to keep, throughout their relationship, that special magical thing that happens in young love; when first getting married, and however many months or years it lasts after that. VERY, VERY FEW. But, they don't break up over it. Well, sometimes they do, but many do not.

 

I can admit, with ease, that, yes, I miss young love!! I miss the feelings, you know? I miss things. I suppose that's all normal.

 

Yet, despite that, I keep thinking that there MUST be something deeper with the young woman. I feel like we're made to be together, is what I'm saying. That's what I feel strongly. She apparently doesn't. I don't really know.

 

Thanks for your input. I will not discard your input. I will think about it more. But, at the moment, I disagree.

 

um, I've been married more than 20 years, and we still have that magical "thing". My parents were married for almost 50 before my mom passed away. They most certainly had that special "thing".

 

It is possible, and there are lots of people on here who will tell you the same thing.

 

The problem here isn't with society, it isn't with your wife, it isn't with this ow, it's all within you.