melrich

Not really. Could you explain clearly why you no longer like to play the games you played as a 12 year old? Fact is you simply grow out of them. You change, all through your life your wants and needs will change and you will not even notice this, less be able to explain exactly why. People change most when they are young, our tatstes, likes, dreams and wants go through rapid change from 13 to 25. That is a cycle of life and not always easily explained.

Well the first thing I would say is she is only 20 and this is an age of freedom and self discovery. No 20 year old wants to be tied down in a relationship that is separated by 1000 miles. They want to get out and have fun and experience life. A relationship means commitment and answerability.

Second thing I'd say is that you are donig everything wrong by continually calling her and emailing long letters to her. This is exactly what she is trying to tell you not to do. Back off and let her have her freedom and fun, let her find out who she is. If there are genuine feelings on her side she will make them known to you and maybe you will be able to pick up your relationship when you are closer together. Right now the best thing you can do is give her space and time to grow.

You don't say how old you are but I assume you are quite young. You cannot fall in love with someone over the internet without even meeting them. If you think you are in love then you do not have the maturity to be thinking about marriage. People can be whoever they want to be in the cyber world....and rarely is it who they really are.

Hi Chris,

Sorry you are going through some heartbreak at the moment. Your relationship was very short and funnily enough these can be the hardest to get over because you are still in the very passionate stage and you are probably wondering what might have been.

Truth is you have probably done nothing wrong and over analysing the situation is just going to drive you crazy. 5 weeks is barely enough time to get to know someone. Sometimes people just have a feeling things aren't going to work out, they can't see the longterm future so decide to get out in the shortterm. Your ex is likely telling you the truth when she says she doesn't know why she ended it.

Do you still love your wife? Do you want to spend the rest of your life with her and only her? Are you just staying together for the children or because you think it is the right thing to do?

I think you have to answer these questions in your mind before you can move on. If you answer yes to the first two then there are many places for advice on how to rekindle the romance in your marriage. assuming your wife wants to save the relationship, professional counselling is the best place to start. The first thing both of you have to accept and understand is that your relationship will not last if you continue to ignore your issues with intimacy.

If you answer no to the first two questions and yes to the last, then you need to be decisive and end the marraige before the relationship turmns ugly. Again I would recommend you seek professional conuselling on the best way to handle this. It is important that you do the right thing and ensure that you and your wife can have at least an amicable relationship down the track for the sake of your children.

The worst thing you can do is to continue to ignore the issues and go on being "sort of happy". It will eventually catch up with you. Believe me I know from experience.

Good Luck.

Hi Sunny,

I guess the only thing you can really do is talk to her. From what you have written this sounds like potentially your first relationship with the same sex? My girlfriend had similar feelings and has had sexual relations with a few females. Whilst she loves kissing other girls and the cuddling and fondling, she found she was not so comfortable with oral sex and genital play. All I'd say is go easy at first and make sure it is really what you want.

Well it is semantics really but popular culture says there is a difference. I think the best way to describe it is to say that you love your mom, your pet dog, your bothers and sisters. Being in love suggests a more intimate relationship and is usually only used to describe feelings towards a lover, its suggests a relationship involving intimacy.

I won't judge or criticise you but I would give you some words of warning. First consider what you are to this guy. You trot out the lines "unhappy in his marriage etc". This is what just about every cheating guy tells his mistress. When it comes to the crunch....99% of them will never leave their wives and once the affair loses its illicit excitement they lose interest in their mistress. You have to remember what leaving his wife would mean, two broken marraiges and the financial and social ruin associated with that.

Second you have to SERIOUSLY think about the impact your affair is/will have on his wife and children. It is devastating, life altering, horrendous for someone in a marriage who has been cheated on.

As I said I will not judge your actions but if you two are truley in love then you have to ask him to leave his wife. If he doesn't, finish it now. If he does, be prepared for a very difficult and often lonely future. Infidelity is the most ostracising thing a person can participate in. Many surveys rate infidelity as a more desicable act than the commiting of serious crimes. You will have to live with atht stigma for many years, not to mention the guilt that will consume your lover.

Think about it seriously before you decide what path you want to take.

I agree with all the advice offered here. I am in the situation of your boyfriend, in a realationship with someone with a 2 year old son (we were both separated before getting together. Just to repeat and emphasise what Scout said, never, ever criticise your ex husband in front of your son, and never allow your boyfriend to do it either.

I also agree with Princess, you will have to work incredibly hard to make your new relationship work. You have to work accross three relationships and you have to make them all happen - your son, your ex and your new boyfriend. Whilst this forum is great for general advice, I strongly recommend you seek professional relationship and parenting counselling. Your new boyfriend needs to understand the responsibilities and potential issues being a step-parent brings. DO NOT try to work through these things on your own, you will face issues you have not even dreamt of yet and you will need professional help to get it right.

Finally be honest with your son when he is old enough to have the situation explained. You will need to contuinually rebuild his trust.

Really this is probably the best thing that could happen for you. Take my word for it, your ex is in denial and has not dealth with the grief of ending your relationship (probably feels like she is living in a bit of as dream at the moment) Trust me, at some stage (if you were as close as you say you were) it will hit her very hard. She may even come to the conclusion she has made a big mistake given all this was so sudden.

For you...stay away from her completely. No calls, no questioning her friends etc. It will help you. Sure as night follows day, your ex will one day be hiyt by a wave of guilt and sadness that she will find difficult to ignore. You may here about it, you may not, but it will happen. Rebound relationships are usually just a way people seek to soften the blow.

I hate to tell you this but at 16 years of age you will probably find that you (and your ex) will go through lots of short term relationships. I know it is hard for you right now but believe me you will soon be dating someone else and all will be well in the world again. There is no point trying to change her mind, words will not do that. Try your best to be friendly with her again, you will feel better about yourself and who knows she may re-consider. If she doesn't then you have just learnt your first lesson about love.....it can hurt like hell.

Hi Lady,

I don't think that you can assume that because he has dreamed about her it is "suggestive". I dream about my ex all the time. It is impossible not to, so much of my life was spent with her, so many shared experiences. We all get overwhelmed by nostalgia occasionally.

I have been in a similar situation in all respects except that I did not have a fling. The fact that you did is I think irrelevant, the real problem you have is the relationship with your wife. In my case I ended up seperating from my wife. 3 months later I met someone who gave me everything I was looking for.

So you would think that I am happy? Far from it. I still carry an enormous amount of grief from the breakdown of my marriage. This has a huge impact on my new relationship. If I had my time over I would have taken a different course. I would have confronted all the issues (similar to yours) with my wife. What do you have to lose. If they were still unresolvable I would have left her. Then I would have taken a couple of years to get over it. (all the experts seem to say that it takes 2-3 years to resolve issues from a long marriage).

Talk to your wife. Tell her about your fling, don't let the guilt get on top of you. (as I say what have you got to lose?) Don't make your reason for leaving to be with this other woman. You will find your seperation (if it comes to that) incredibly hard to live with. You should be prepared for that and be willing to go through the pain and grief associated with it.

You are in a very tough place. Don't worry about the views of the moralists in here. You are human and all humans need love and another persons touch, that is more important to your sanity than the moral sanctity of a relationship formalised by a piece of paper. If you want to discuss more please feel free to message me. Good luck with everything.

Hi JustPlainSad,

The problem is the terminology "games". It implies dishonesty and manipulation as in "he's playing games with you". In fact what you are trying to explain is really behaviour. Baduras classically descibes human behaviour as a triumverate of behaviour/personality/environment in his model of triadic recipocal determinism. Put simply a person will behave in a given situation according to their personality and environment. These models are well researched and almost all human behaviour can be described thus. Despite everyone being unique, most behaviour is predictable according to these rules.

So how do you change someones behaviour? You provide a reward or incentive. An example.

John and Jill's relationship is getting serious (environment). John is scared of commitment (personality/values). John dumps Jill (behaviour). Jill wants him back and sends him flowers (reward/incentive).

A simple scenario but a good illustration of the model. John and Jill are not playing a game. They are simply responding to behavioural drivers that we all respond to. As I said in a previous post, this is why we see the same behavioural patterns in relationships over and over.

Your point about making a good impression on the parents is just another example of this. There are mores (environment) in society that we all adhere to in one way or another. We understand that appropriate behaviour brings reward (the parents like us) and we act accordingly.

This model (TRD) also explains why it is so difficult to get people to change the way they behave on a permanent basis. Values/personality are ingrained into the model and these are deep rooted, intrinsic drivers. Many behavioural academics argue that you cannot change personality. We can drive temporary change in behaviours by reward, but permanent change is far more difficult. It is why there are so many posts on these forums about people who do a particular thing serially. Fact is that if a person behaves a certain way once in response to a situation, the chances are very high that they will behave in exactly the same way again.

Life is not a game. It follows certain well documented routines and patterns, as you rightly point out but to call it a game is to ignore the fact that there are real people and honest feelings involved. Life is an experience and certainly most experiences you will have in life have been had before by others. It is this that explains why some scenarios play out so true and people will accept there is a role top play in these well worn situations eg man loses woman/ woman loses man.

The fact that you see the same behaviour over and over again (as documented in so much detail in these forums) does not mean people are playing a game.

Hi SecretLady. Well I can so relate to this post because I guess right now I am in the same position as your ex B/f. I broke up with my ex of 14 years 9 months ago and about 4 months ago started seeing someone else.

Just lately I have had a really strong desire to talk to my ex and see her. It is not about playing games as other posters have said here, it is about missing someone who was my best friend. I could no longer have a sexual relationship with my ex but I still loved her very much and I still crave her friendship. You do not spend that much time with someone without being very intimately involved in their lives and that is not easy to just let go. My guess is your ex is feeling the same way and is missing your friendship.

To say he is playing games is just crap but where I do agree with the other posters is that you should only accept the contact if your are ready for it. In my case my ex is not, I have called a couple of times over the past three months and I ask her if she'd like to catch up. So far she has said both times that she is not ready yet and I totally respect that. I also ask her permission to call again in a month or two and see if she would like to then. She has said that is OK, if she had said no then I wouldn't call. I think you should have the same arrangement in place. Tell him how you are feeling, I am sure he will respect your wishes. Don't resume your friendship until you are ready.

I agree with Amp, focus on your daughter. Understand that it is normal to have the feelings your are having, i am sure you have heard of the break up cycles...anger, grief, acceptance. There is nothing you can do to avoid what you are going through, accept it as part of the healing process and don't look to far ahead. Planning for the future can come later when your emotions are not so raw. You will survive.

Hi, I don't know your age but if you are still in teens you will likely grow out of it, teenagers tend to see themselves as the centre of the universe..lol. If you are more mature, I'd suggest you could try getting involved in voluntary social work of some kind. That is usually a humbling (and rewarding) experience that may give you a better perspective on your place in the world. Don't stress too much though, we are all a bit self-centered when it comes down to it.

I went through almost identical about 2 years ago. We separated, after about 3 months started seeing more of each other, then started to get back into a relationship, then moved back in together after about 7 months seperation.

Sadly it did not work out. We forgot to resolve the issues that caused us to separate in the first place. Both of us were scared of a life without each other and we went back to what was safe. I'm not saying it will be the same for you but be careful you are not just glossing over the issues you had in the first place.

I agree that it does get harder to meet people as you move through your 30s. It is a lifecycle thing, we cannot maintain the networks and circle of friends we once did in our 20s and many of our longterm friends are settling down and focussing on family life.

That said, there are many, many people in their 30s out there looking for someone and as someone who has been through it I can say that it is definitely possible to find your soulmate at any time of life. In my case when i was 39.

I know it has a bad image I found using an internet dating site to be a great way to meet people. In your 30s you know more about who you are, what are your likes and dislikes and who you are likely to be compatible with than you do in your 20s. Lots of well educated, fun, attractive, cool people are now clueing into these sites and it avoids the sleaziness of trying to meet people in bars and niteclubs (probably not the type of people you want to meet anyway).

The days of internet dating sites being the last refuge of the desperate and dateless are gone with many people now using them for all the reasons outlined in your post. If you want any tips on how it works, message me.

Pick a reputable site, be clear about who you are looking for and give it a go. It worked for me and I am sure it has for many others as well.

Of course there are serious consequences from a marriage break up. I am not suggesting there are not and some people carry bitterness or depression with them for years but the majority of people, after a period of time, re-establish themselves and find happiness in their new circumstances.

In a survey recently completed by the Family Law Council it was found that 86% of divorcees were happy and either in another relationship or comfortable on their own within 2 years of finalising their divorce. Further, 73% reported amicable or friendly relationships with their exes after two years of finalising divorce. Unfortunatley it is usuually the more dramatic minority that we hear about.

It takes time and in the raw emotions immediately after seperation it will seem like your whole world has fallen apart and that you will never be happy or whole again. But those feelings pass...unless you are the type that wants to hold onto them.

Your inner turmoil is perfectly normal. I went through the same thing myself and for months I could not make the decision. I'd decide one way then an hour later talk myself out of it and go the other way. Your heart tells you one thing and your head tells you something else.

But at the end of it I made the decision based on my heart and looking back now I know it is the only one I could have made. The truth is you know what you have to do, you are just scared of doing it and that is the hardest thing to get through. Believe me, your friends, family and even after time your wife, will respect and admire you more for making the decision than they will if you just let a bad situation drag out. The sooner you find the courage to do what you know you have to do, the better it will be for everyone, including you. Just remember 1000's of people around the world go through this every day and most of them come out the other side happy balanced people.

Get out of the relationship now. You have not been happy in this relationship for a long long time and you have thought about all sorts of tricks and strategies to make him love you the way you want him too. It is time for you to get on with your life and stop wasting it on a guy who clearly does not feel about you the way you do about him. Simply if he did he would not treat you the way he does. You deserve better and you should pursue better.

Bsi, in these situations you have to follow your heart. You have acknowledge and accepted that you did the wrong thing which is a good first step. Don't compound it now by trying to rebuild a loveless marriage because you think the it is the right thing to do for reasons of family, finances, not hurting other people. fact is if you do not love your wife you will do more damage by trying to manufacture a relationship than you will by causing some pain and grief by seperating. sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

If you separate now and work on building an amicable relationship with your ex wife there is no reason why in the future you can't have a great friendship with her and a great relationship with your daughter. A word of warning though. Don't pursue the woman you had an affair with. It will not be the same and you will be surprised how much guilt and sadness you will carry after seperating from your wife. You will need to take time alone to deal with all of that.

Hi Sassycat. I don't know whether I have anything to say that will help you but I have been through similar. From what you have written my guess is that ultimately you will be better off moving on from your marriage. I too found myself alone for the first time after 14 years and it is very hard. There is no other cure but time, taking time to heal, trying not to look too far ahead. The best tip I can give you is to try as hard as you can to find yourself as an individual again. Stop thinking of yourself in terms of being a couple with your ex. When you start to get a feel of who you are again, the healing process will become much easier. It's not easy I know. Good luck with everything.