Seeking advice

so I’ve moved beyond being a heartbroken OW to another emotionally charged issue and I’d love some input from you all since you all have come to know me in a very real (although anonymous) way.

I am dating an older (SINGLE) man (early 50’s). I’m in my mid/late 30’s and I have young children. His children are teenagers. We’ve been seeing each other for several months and amazingly, we have a lot of real interests in common, despite the age difference.

I’m not sure how to approach the topic of where he sees things going without freaking him out and thinking I’ve planned the rest of our lives together. I’ve never dated after divorce or with children, so I’m trying to navigate this properly.

I don’t even know if I SHOULD broach the topic. Normally, I don’t think I would, but because I have children, it seems logical that I would only consider pursuing a relationship that would have the possibility of being RIGHT for the long haul… It doesn’t make sense to pursue a relationship that will only lead to a dead end with no possibility of a future.

In other words, if I’m going to spend my time in a relationship and with the possibility of getting hurt and losing at love, I want it to at least be for the right reasons (ie: a relationship that at least COULD lead to something more)

UGH… I know he and I need to address this topic at SOME POINT… I just don’t know when or how…

Help?

updating

Just wanted to update, since people still take the time to check on me (thank you, btw…)

Things are well. No more word from exMM’s wife. I mentioned in comments on the last post that I messaged her through FB to apologize (and also mentioned that I knew it was her that left the comment on my blog) and her FB page disappeared within hours.

Anyway – she doesn’t have anything to worry about. I don’t think about him much. In fact, days can go by now before something reminds me of him. I finally see him as a piece of shit. Not all MM are. But HE was/is. He used me for some fantasy sex life and never intended to do anything more with me. I read what some of you wrote about your affairs, and I can tell that they DID mean something to BOTH parties. Not mine. It was just me. All it meant to him was the chance to explore his sexual fantasies.

So, now, I can actually be THANKFUL that it is over. That I ended it by sending that letter. He would have tossed me aside in the blink of an eye without a care on his own. I see that now.

Thanks for checking in on me. You all are a big part of my healing.

A new kink in the chain

She has found me… my x-MMs wife.

I woke up to an anonymous comment on my personal blog. The funny thing is that he’s been so far from my mind recently that the comment totally confused me at first. I thought it was left by my husband.

But there were clues. And I figured them out. The confirmation came when I checked my site meter and saw their town on it at the time of the comment (middle of the night). She was on my site for over four hours.

So I now know that she knows that we had sex. And that he let her know it was more than just a fling…

Two months ago, this news would have encouraged me… not that she’s hurting, but that there might be a chance for us.

Now, all this news did was create anxiety and hurt. God, I never wanted to hurt anyone. I know I should have thought of that before. I should have considered her.

Now, I am filled with worry. fear. anxiety. hurt. And the knowledge that she IS hurting. And she IS suffering. And their marriage may be in shambles. And none of that makes me proud. or happy…

Priceless

I’m not sure where to begin. It’s been ages since I wrote anything on here… or at least it seems as though it has been. It seems like another life.

I’ve been enjoying myself (!!! I KNOW !!!) and was a bit afraid to come and read these posts. I don’t want to be down and sad. I don’t want to relive those moments.

And yet, I don’t want to forget them.

You see, I’m in a happy place. The man that I was “pretending” with ended up being the real deal. And we are still seeing each other.

I don’t want to forget how far I’ve come. From a place where I was hurt and confused more than I ever have been in my life. From a place where I thought I was losing my mind. From a place of sheer pain and hell.

Oddly enough, one of the things that drove me absolutely stark-raving mad during my affair is present in this relationship as well: we are not able to see each other much; communication mainly over phone/text/email… Yet I feel so differently about this now.

I know that it is not because he has to go home to his wife.

And I can handle the time apart.

I’m NOT crazy.

I feel empowered and in control of myself.

For once I can say that, though I might consider it, I don’t think I’d go back to my xMM is he asked me to.

And that is priceless.

Pretending

I know that is what I am doing. But it is working for me right now: I’ve managed to go 2 full days without crying (HUGE!!!!) and without thinking of him constantly. And when I do think of him, I don’t feel like I’ve been punched in the gut (ok… I do, but it doesn’t feel like I’ve been sucker-punched and tackled and stomped on)

And it feels good.

I know it is only a matter of time before some of the excitement that I’m going through right now subsides, and my xMM creeps back to the forefront of my mind, however, I’ll take these moments of pseudo-normality for now.

This isn’t to say that I don’t think of him. I do. A lot. But I have a distraction that is helping to take the edge off of it.

That being said… when I stop and think about things, I’d definitely run back to him if he contacted me. That’s something I still can’t pretend I wouldn’t do.

So much for being strong…

Gray

That is how everything seems right now.

My mood is darker these past couple of days. In many ways, I feel more sadness, sorrow and emptiness now than I did the first couple of weeks after the affair ended. Maybe it is just the reality of the finality of it all sinking in deeper.

Last night I went for my daily run. I like to do it at night, after the children are all tucked in bed and I can finally exhale and know that I’ve made it through one more day.

The other benefit to running at night is that no one can see me crying.

I usually cry during some part of my run. Last night I cried through all of it and again when I finished. I was doing my stretches and ended up laying in the grass staring into the sky and sobbing. I cried as I fell asleep…

I talk to him. I tell him how I feel. He doesn’t hear it. But it helps for that moment. It’s just another one of my coping mechanisms.

The truth lies (or yet another reason affairs suck)

There are many moments throughout my day when I am stopped in my tracks. Moments when I once again remember that it’s over. Moments when I realize that time just keeps ticking on. Moments when I realize that as much as I try to will him to text me or contact me, he never will. Moments when I realize that one day, maybe already, he won’t think about me at all.

For obvious reasons, I dread those moments. Reality bites. And no amount of false hope is going to change my reality.

The problem is that the aftermath of an affair makes it hard to sort fact from fiction. I became adept at believing what I wanted to believe. Seeing what I wanted to see. All of my days during the affair, prior to D-day were spent creating an alternate reality; one in which he and I could be together happily forever. Even though people want to deny it and claim that affairs are temporary insanity (maybe? who knows…) THAT WAS MY REALITY. Even if it was based on half-truths and deceit, IT WAS REAL. It REALLY happened. The reasons don’t matter. The details don’t matter. What matters is that it happened. For whatever reason.

REAL = REALITY.

But D-day takes that reality and shreds, stomps and shits on it. Suddenly, that reality gets second-guessed. It gets us scorned. It makes us weep. Everything is turned over on its head.

My footing seems shaky. What was real is no longer real. I spend most of my day on auto-pilot, pretending. My days now seem less real than the days in the affair did.

***********

This song couldn’t be any more true than now…

Feist: “I Feel It All”

I feel it all I feel it all
I feel it all I feel it all
The wings are wide the wings are wide
Wild card inside wild card inside

Oh I’ll be the one who’ll break my heart
I’ll be the one to hold the gun

I know more than I knew before
I know more than I knew before
I didn’t rest I didn’t stop
Did we fight or did we talk

Oh I’ll be the one who’ll break my heart
I’ll be the one to hold the gun

I love you more
I love you more
I don’t know what I knew before
But now I know I wanna win the war

No one likes to take a test
Sometimes you know more is less
Put your weight against the door
Kick drum on the basement floor
Stranded in a fog of words
Loved him like a winter bird
On my head the water pours
Gulf stream through the open door
Fly away
Fly away to what you want to make

I feel it all, I feel it all
I feel it all I feel it all
The wings are wide, the wings are wide
Wild card inside, wild card inside

Oh I’ll be the one to break my heart
I’ll be the one who’ll break my heart
I’ll be the one who’ll break my heart
I’ll end it though you started it

The truth lies
The truth lied
And lies divide
Lies divide

On being an adult

I remember when I was a child and thinking life sucked because I wasn’t allowed to ride my bike to the country store. All of the other neighborhood kids got to. My brothers got to. But I was too little. Not old enough. I couldn’t wait to race through the next year so that I was finally old enough.

Several years later, I wasn’t allowed to attend a monthly dance at one of the local schools. It was intended for high school students only. I was in 8th grade. Not a high schooler. My mom was a stickler for the rules. “Rules are there for a reason. If we are going to break them, we might as well get rid of the rule, because we are teaching our children worse things otherwise“… Again, I found myself wanting to race through the next year so that I was finally old enough.

Now I’m an adult. And frankly, it can really suck… Why did I desire to race through all of those years? What did I think was waiting for me?

My xMM caught me at a time when I was beginning to go through my own personal crisis. My husband had threatened divorce many times throughout our marriage. He had finally told me to shape up or get out. (by shape up, he meant that I should be more 1950’s housewife than independent work-at-home mom.) I was determined to shape up, but I ended up miserable. Sick to my stomach with anxiety from trying to, once again, live up to his standards. In the meantime, I found my xMM on Facebook. Almost didn’t send the friend request, because I figured he wouldn’t remember me. But I did – and he did. And the rest is history.

I’m currently in a major holding pattern: separated from my husband, waiting for the divorce, looking for work, raising my children, and trying to get over a man who was and is no more available for me than the man in the moon.

I’d give anything for my biggest problem to be not being able to ride to the country store. (But I’d settle for a response to my apology letter…)

(heart)Broken record

I feel as though I am a broken record these days. “Blah blah blah WHINE blah blah blah SAD blah blah blah MISS HIM blah blah blah REGRET blah blah blah DUMB ASS blah blah blah…“

I have the same record playing over and over in my mind. Can’t figure out how to shut it up.

On top of that, it’s not as though I’m the first person to ever feel like this… These feelings aren’t that unique. And I won’t be the last to feel them either…

Some quotes I found and my thoughts on each:

“Don’t ever give up on something or someone that you can’t go a full day without thinking about.”

I know this feeling well. But maybe it’s just insanity. I guess the operative word in this quote is FULL. If I can silence this broken record for part of the day, then maybe I can give up this notion.

“The greatest pain that comes from love is loving someone you can never have.”

Any of us in an affair know this feeling well. Unless you are one of the rare ones who can just keep it about sex. He was never mine. Never would have been either. Yet I still love(d) him.

“Watching you walk out of my life does not make me bitter or cynical about love. But rather makes me realize that if I wanted so much to be with the wrong person how beautiful it will be when the right one comes along.”

This is the feeling I’m waiting for – that beauty that will come from loving the right person, instead of Mr. Unavailable Cakeman.

“Love is when you shed a tear and still want him, it’s when he ignores you and you still love him, it’s when he loves another girl but you still smile and say I’m happy for you, when all you really want to do is cry.”

Once again I’m going to address the stupid note I’ve mentioned before (here and here). As I’ve said before, I tried to end it. When I did, I told him that it made no sense for me to say I cared about him (he knew my feelings were headed towards being in love with him) and stay in an affair with him. I really loved him. And I KNEW I had to let him go BECAUSE of that. I was willing to try and walk away and pretend that I was ok doing so. Unfortunately, that only lasted 24 hours. Hence me writing that one line note to his wife.

Again — I love(d) him. I wanted to stay with him. But I also knew that he would never love me back if he was feeling guilty about not working on his marriage properly. I guess it became clear that I’d rather love him and have him hate me and be happy in his marriage than to love him and know that he wasn’t happy in any place.

Sound selfless? Maybe. But I’ve spent every day since wishing for another chance to make a different decision.

Love sucks.

“It hurts to love someone and not be loved in return, but what is the most painful is to love someone and never find the courage to let the person know how you feel.”

I’m glad that I did let him know how I felt. Maybe one day when things have settled down for him, he’ll be able to see that what I did really was backed up with love.

“Moving on, is a simple thing, what it leaves behind is hard.”

ok – moving on is hard too. But I suppose it is because of what I’m leaving behind. Not what lies ahead.

“It is impossible to fall out of love. Love is such a powerful emotion, that once it envelops you it does not depart. True love is eternal. If you think that you were once in love, but fell out of it, then it wasn’t love you were in. There are no ‘exit’ signs in love, there is only an ‘on’ ramp.”

I have questioned myself a couple of times about whether I did love him or not. And the answer is still yes – yes, I did. Even after realizing some of what I had willingly overlooked about him before, I don’t doubt that I loved him.

“One of the hardest things in life is watching the person you love, love someone else.”

Self explanatory…

“Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves – regret for the past and fear of the future.”

I think most of us who who have been on any side of an affair are caught in this web. I can’t say I’m fearful of the future, per se. But each day that passes means he’s further and further from me and from being a part of my life. And that still makes me really lonely.

“Until this moment, I never understood how hard it was to lose something you never had.”

Again – self explanatory. He was never mine. He was always hers. I was just a side dish.

Would I take him back?

I’m spending a lot of time zoning out today. Just staring. Feeling blah. Depressed again. Not sure why.

Melinda asked a good question in the comments of this post. She asked: “Given what you now know, would you take him back?“.

Let me first say that the chances of me even being offered that opportunity are NEGATIVE 5000%. BUT, if, by some miracle I were given the chance? I’d take him back. In my stronger moments, I like to think that I’d tell him “Only if you are single”.

I was out with a mutual friend of ours last night. Granted, he hasn’t seen my xMM in years. But he has met his wife, and says there is no way that he is happy with her. That gave me a fleeting moment of happiness. Yet we all know what people are willing to continue living through – for any given reason.

Maybe one day I can confidently give a hearty “HELL NO!” to anyone who asks Melinda’s question to me. I just don’t think it will be anytime soon.