Please help me to understand

[Gary]

Hi, I am over in the UK, and have taken great solace from reading various posts on this site in the past few days. I want to tell everyone about my relationship, and to ask - am I mad?

 

Bit of background, I met my wife when I was 28. I had done the 10 years of mucking about and felt I needed to settle down. We moved in together very quickly, had our son within a couple of years and got married a year afterwards. However I never really loved her. She is a good, secure person, but I never had that spark. On our wedding day when she walked up the aisle I remember thinking "I should be feeling something here", but I just didn't. We subsequently had a daughter, and things were 'fine', but I just didn't have an emotional connection with her. I am a very warm, soppy, emotional man, and I used to tell her I love her the whole time, because that is what I thought you did. She is a very cold person, and although she did love me, she had a hard time showing it. I wasn't desperately unhappy, but I just a bit flat.

 

Then I met someone. Lets call her K. She started working at my office, we started talking and. my God, I fell for her like I never thought was possible. I can't explain it, we just hit it off on every level. As the weeks went on it she let slip that she was separated from her husband. It transpires they met when she was 16 (she was 42 at this moment, 5 years older than me) and after years suffering from depression, he left her just after her 40th birthday for another woman. He quickly realised he had mucked up and came back, but she was very reticent to take him back. Anyway they were working on reconciling when she met me, and it turns out I was having the same effect on her as she was on me.

 

We had an affair, started spending as much time together as we could. We just clicked. She never offered me any sort of promises or commitment, but I told my wife that I had fallen in love with someone else, and moved out. On a side note, she met someone else and is happier than ever, and we are still very good friends - she is actually trying to help me through this now - I am very lucky in that respect.

 

After time K told her husband that it was never going to work between them, and it broke his heart. She didn't tell him about me however.

 

So we both carried on living separately and seeing each other when we could. I spent a lot of time with my kids and when they didn't stay with me I stayed at hers, she lives 2 minutes walk from me. And I loved that woman. She is the nicest, warmest, most loving and selfless person I have ever met. We had the odd day out together but in the main it was a relationship based on sleeping together and lots of phone calls and texts. It wasn't much, but when we were together it was magical. I have never felt like this about anyone and she said the same to me.

 

However she never told her friends I existed. She never told her parents (who she is incredibly close to) about me. I never met anyone. The days out became less frequent and stopped altogether. Our 'relationship' became me staying around there overnight for three or four days a week. I felt desperately lonely because, as the kids grew older, I needed more from her. The more I pushed for more, the more she retreated.

 

About 2 years ago we arranged to go away for a weekend, but on the morning I went to pick her up she broke down and said she just couldn't do it, so I went on my own. I broke down whilst I was there and called her saying I couldn't do this anymore. When I got back she came round in pieces and said that she didn't understand what the problem was, and that she was going to have therapy. I always thought that it was a commitment thing because of what happened in her marriage, and because I loved her so much, I was happy to be patient and wait.

 

This has been going on for 8 and a half years.

 

After Christmas she promised me it had really helped her out and we were going to meet her parents. On the night it was due to happen she came round and broke down, saying it just wasn't right and she couldn't do it. From then I think something inside me broke a little bit. I think my heart for the first time accepted what my head (and all of my friends) was telling me, that this was just never going to happen. However I still couldn't let go.

 

One of her dogs subsequently became very poorly and she became very withdrawn with me, which I put down to her worrying about that. She lost the dog a month or so ago and I was trying to be as supportive as I could.

 

However she came round to mine 2 weeks ago with a letter, and I just knew. She said that the therapy had helped her, but not in the way I wanted it to. She said she loves me to pieces, that I am her best mate and soul mate, but that she loves me as a friend. She said deep down she always knew it wasn't right for her, but because I had given up so much to be with her she stayed with me out of guilt. The weird thing is that even though the last few months have seen her get distant emotionally, the physical side has been better than ever - absolutely amazing. It's almost like a double life.

 

So as 45 year old man who is alone for the first time in 20 years, I am crushed. I have lost my partner, my best friend and my soul mate. We have both said we need to do no contact, and we will. But we are both finding it so hard. I am not eating or sleeping and I just feel dead inside. I am doing my best to be strong for the kids but right now this feel likes the end of the world. The thought of another man winning her heart makes me physically sick.

 

I feel I have totally wasted 8 and a half years of my life, split up my family for nothing. I feel utterly worthless.

 

Please help me understand what I am mourning, and how the hell you get through it.

[Keyman]

Hey bud, I'm also a 45 year old man living on this side of the world.

 

First thing, you did not waste 8.5 years of your life and this is the first thing you have to understand. If you had stayed in the previous relationship you would likely be thinking the same, I have just wasted all of this time with this person that I don't really love. THings have transpired, you have loved, learned, travelled through life so far, doesn't sound wasted to me. But you feel this because you are now lonely.

 

And this brings us to the second point. You are feeling down because you don't have someone in your life anymore. There is a sudden hole where someone used to be. Going forward, you need to fill that hole, but don't be tempted to just get out there and grab the next skirt, that would only be a temporary fix and you'll be back here again soon enough.

 

The best thing to do is fill that hole with yourself. Get to know yourself again as a single person. Start working on this need to have someone and that yo can't go on because you don't have someone. The truth is, you don't need anyone, you only need yourself and you need to get that understanding back before you try to find another partner.

 

I do understand that it is only just beginning, and it willt ake a while and likely a whole bunch of unhappiness and hardship, but it will be the best thing for you.

[Gary]

Thank you mate

 

 

 

Hey bud, I'm also a 45 year old man living on this side of the world.

 

First thing, you did not waste 8.5 years of your life and this is the first thing you have to understand. If you had stayed in the previous relationship you would likely be thinking the same, I have just wasted all of this time with this person that I don't really love. THings have transpired, you have loved, learned, travelled through life so far, doesn't sound wasted to me. But you feel this because you are now lonely.

 

And this brings us to the second point. You are feeling down because you don't have someone in your life anymore. There is a sudden hole where someone used to be. Going forward, you need to fill that hole, but don't be tempted to just get out there and grab the next skirt, that would only be a temporary fix and you'll be back here again soon enough.

 

The best thing to do is fill that hole with yourself. Get to know yourself again as a single person. Start working on this need to have someone and that yo can't go on because you don't have someone. The truth is, you don't need anyone, you only need yourself and you need to get that understanding back before you try to find another partner.

 

I do understand that it is only just beginning, and it willt ake a while and likely a whole bunch of unhappiness and hardship, but it will be the best thing for you.