Long: Our Connection Is Intense and Real — But He’s Still With Someone Else

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I’m posting because my situation is messy and emotional, but also full of real connection. I don’t have anyone in my real life I can talk to openly about this without being judged, so I’m hoping for support or at least somewhere to vent.

 

Two years ago I met a guy I’ll call Mich. We dated for about six months and the connection was intense and natural. I had no idea he was in a long-term relationship at the time. After we broke up, I got back with my ex, Steve, and he’s the one who told me the truth — that Mich had been with someone else (I’ll call her Louise) for around 8–9 years.

 

I confronted Mich for closure, and I even tried to tell Louise and his mum, but Louise blocked me and his mum ignored me. For a long time, I felt a lot of anger on Louise’s behalf. I thought she deserved to know. But even with all that, my feelings for Mich never really went away. We’d check in with each other every now and then, and I never fully moved on.

 

I stayed with Steve and we had a baby in December 2024, but eventually me and Steve broke up. After that, me and Mich naturally drifted back into more regular contact. He’s still with Louise, but the way he talks about their situation makes it sound more like a stagnant routine than a real relationship. No closeness, no emotional bond, nothing that resembles what we have.

 

He flew me out to see him (we’re an hour apart by plane), and that first trip felt like coming home. Everything between us fell straight back into place. Over the last four months, I’ve been flying back and forth to see him, and each time our connection gets stronger. When we’re not together, we talk nonstop — FaceTime, texting, voice notes — basically 24/7. We even have three separate WhatsApp chats so we can have different conversations at once. I help him with all his boxing media and assistant-type stuff, and he constantly tells me how much he relies on me and how much I do for him.

 

We’ve talked about the situation with Louise. I’ve said I can deal with things as they are for now as long as it’s only me and her, but that it’s not a long-term solution. He’s said he doesn’t want it to stay like this either. We’ve talked about him making changes, about a future together where it’s me, him and my son, about kids, goals, business plans, everything. It feels like we’re building something real, not just having an affair.

 

Recently something happened that showed me even more clearly how attached he is to me. He has always had a firm boundary about me not liking other men’s posts on Instagram. Because I work in the boxing industry, I follow fighters for networking and engagement — he knows that. After a big fight night (Chris Eubank vs Conor Benn), I followed a guy on the undercard and liked a few of his pictures. The fighter followed me back.

 

Mich saw it and got really upset. Not because he thought I liked the guy, but because he felt I’d crossed a boundary he’d made very clear. He said it made him feel “like a prick,” embarrassed, disrespected and like I’d mugged him off. He said, “you do 100 things right but this is one of the most important things you’ve done wrong.” He said he didn’t want to be in a situation where he wouldn’t talk to me for two days because if it came to that he “might as well f*** me off.” And he told me he’d let me know by tonight whether he wanted to continue things.

 

He couldn’t understand why I’d “made that choice at all,” since to him it was such a small thing that meant a lot symbolically. I tried explaining it wasn’t romantic, wasn’t me entertaining anyone and was purely industry-related, but he was really stuck on the idea that I broke his boundary. As much as the conversation hurt, it also showed me how emotionally invested he is. He wouldn’t react that strongly if he didn’t seriously care about me and about what we’re building.

 

And honestly, none of this intensity exists between him and Louise. Their dynamic feels like two people sharing a life but not living one together. There’s no passion, no jealousy, no real connection. With me, everything is alive and emotional.

 

I love him, and part of me truly believes he’s going to leave her eventually and choose the life we talk about — me, him and my son, something real and lasting. But another part of me knows situations like this can go either way.

 

I guess I’m here to hear from people who’ve been in similar situations. Have you been the person someone eventually chose after a long-term relationship with someone else? Can something that starts messy still become something stable? Or am I blinded by how strong the feelings are?

 

What we have feels real. I just want to know if “real” can turn into “forever.”

[Gebidozo]

OP, there is a lot I could comment on here, but let’s just focus on the essentials.

That man, “Mich”, lied to his girlfriend and lied to you. He hid his affair from her, and he hid his relationship from you.

I’m going to be very blunt here. Mich is a bad man, one who cannot be trusted, and you should remove him from your life, now and for good.

Yes, I’ve been the person someone chose over a relationship with someone else. But the word missing here is “eventually”. The woman in question chose me after exactly two weeks of an unclear, messy situation. She broke up with the other man and became my girlfriend. There were no lies in either direction preceding this.

The only way to solve that kind of a situation is to make a choice as soon as possible. Either stay with the old partner or leave them and be with the new one. There is no in-between.

But Mich’s behavior is the very definition of in-between. He wants to keep both his girlfriend and his affair partner. He’s been stringing both you and Louise along for convenience, because he is a selfish, lying jerk who cares only about himself.

Unfortunately, things are even worse than that.

He’s not only a liar and a manipulator, he is also a control freak with some serious issues, possibly an abuser and a violent man.

The part about him not wanting you to follow other men on Instagram and becoming angry and jealous when you did that says nothing about his feelings for you. You’re absolutely delusional if you really think that means he cares for you or loves you. It means the opposite, that he is monumentally, pathologically selfish and possessive, to a degree that he wants to control the behavior of the woman he’s cheating on his girlfriend with.

Why do you allow an a**h*** like that order you around and control your life like that?

I sincerely advice you, immediately after removing him from your life, to find a good therapist and start working on restoring your self-respect.

Remember, as long as you don’t respect and love yourself, you’re going to keep attracting jerks like Mich.

[Maribelle76]

I was involved in a 10-year-long relationship with a married man. I look back on our times fondly, but one of the main reasons I have happy memories is that I accepted the relationship for what it was. We were friends who entertained each other and helped distract each other from the boredom of everyday life. Although I was single, I actively did not want to be in a real-world relationship with him (or anyone).

I have known five different people in this situation that you're in. Of those five, one went on to have a legitimate relationship. The main thing that was different was that he was the only man I know of in this situation, and he was the one actively pushing for them to be together in real life. They met at work, and even though they were both married, they instantly started spending every moment together. They had both been in marriages that were seriously failing by that point, and it was an exit affair for both of them. They moved quickly, and were divorced from their spouses within 6 months. They married about a year later, and they are still married today, although it has not been a good relationship. I do believe that they truly love each other, but they both have a lot of toxic relationship patterns and personal issues that would keep them from truly being happy with anyone. 

As far as all of the other or women I know in this situation, it has not been good for any of them. One of my friends has been in an on-off affair with a man for over 20 years. She's been so obsessed with him that she spent her 30s and 40s waiting for him to leave his wife. He did actually divorce his wife at one point, but instead of making it legitimate with my friend, he moved a younger woman into his house to live with him for 6 months. After he kicked that girl out, while still having an affair with my friend, he ended up remarrying his wife. For some reason, my friend still believes that someday they will be together, although when they had the opportunity, he did not choose her.

He just keeps moving the goal posts. When the kids grew up and left the house, then he said he needed to stay with his wife because of the house payment. Then they sold the house and moved to a smaller place, and he said he needed to stay with his wife so she could have health insurance. Then she got a job at a good company with good insurance, and now I'm not really sure what excuse he tells my friend anymore.

This was the same situation with the other three women I know. They were fiercely devoted to their lovers and swear that they have a connection with each other that nobody else has ever experienced. The men all say that their wives are and sexually neglectful. At least two of them have gotten their wives pregnant during the time they were involved with the mistresses. Other than my one friend who is still chasing this guy 20 years later, the other three women eventually gave up. Sadly, my friend missed out on the opportunity to get married and have children on her own because she has been so mentally fixated on this guy. He announced recently that after he retires in January, he and his wife are moving away, so maybe that will finally end her obsession with him. 

Beyond the nature of an affair, it seems like your relationship might not be very practical. You have a very young child with your ex, and it sounds like your affair partner lives a distance away. That means if you want your son's father to be involved in his life on a regular basis, your boyfriend will have to move here. I think getting a guy to leave his wife would be hard enough, but also getting him to uproot to another city is pretty much impossible. It doesn't even sound like your AP could be a fun and exciting side adventure since he wants to control your behavior.

If you do have some sort of game plan for how you two could be together taking into consideration the legal ramifications of residency dictated by parenting plan, it's probably time to test and see how serious he is. If you want to know if he is serious about you, tell him that you are ready to settle down with somebody now. Tell him that you would prefer it would be him, if that is unrealistic now, it is time to move on. Then break up with him and block all contact. If he is serious, he will realize that you are serious, and he will not take any chances on losing you. He will make it happen. Because one thing I've learned is that when a man really truly loves a woman, he will do whatever he can to make sure she is in his life. If he divorces his wife and seeks you out, you will know that he was serious about being with you. If he does not and he just comes up with more excuses, you will know that he was not serious about it. Good luck, and I hope it works out in the way that is best for you and your child in the long way.