Please help me to understand

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 i

Theres nothing about old relationshipw you can do now. What you should do now is focus on your health and then when you feel good about yourselr start new relationship.

You need theraphy too now and perhaps meds too, like antidepresants or mood stabilizers. Since you are in UK you can call samaritans for free the first time and then go talk to their office while having tea and cookies with a volunteer listener. That alone can help a lot in shorterm. But in longterm - theraphy and medication.

Good luck man. Whenever theres a lot problems in life, start with your health and other problems fall aside. You cant do this alone cause you seem clinicaly depressed now.

you are basiclly mourning that your entire life hasn't been what you thought it was. that's a LOT to deal with. and it will take time. and there is nothign any of us can say to fix that or help you fix that - it's JUST going to take time and some internal things within you to get passed and be able to step back and se objectively (this is where it is highly recommended you start seeing a professional to help you properly in stepping back to see this objectively).

What you will find when you get there is:
- your life is not a waste. you hve had plenty of wonderful things happen in your life and have felt absolute passion and love for and ecstasy. that is something. and as the sying goes - it's better to have experienced that and then crash - then to have never experineced that at ll
- you didn't ruin your family. family is still family and family love and blood love is still blood love. in a weird way you did what was best for your ex-wife and you and that is release the both of you from an emotionless, pasionless, flat marriage. she has now found somethign that truly makes her happy and you someday shall too. just because it doesn't fel good now or hasn't worked out yet doens' mean it was wrong. it was the RIGHT thing to do and that is nothing to shake a stick at. ITS HARD to do the right thing and the great majroty of people DO NOT do that b/c it's the HARD thign to do. but you DID that. give yourself some credit fo that. (i coudl go into al ong speech about how "separating yoru family" is actually better for your kids and their lives than keeping it together and teach them life is about a compromised and miserable househld....)

Lastly.. your tale is still in progress and tbd. That's okay. One day you will look back on this and realize it made you what you ultimately had to become and will become which will someday bring you peace. Youw ill find out that the ultimate thing that you achieve and level you get to (of enlightenment, inner peace, whaetver you want to call it) would have been impossible without this. Just hangi n there.. it'll come. Heal up , mourn what you have to mourn, cry out what you have to cry out, and allow yourself the chance to move on and face a new day with a blank canvas and just let it show you what's in store for you. (you might figure it out too at somep oint and then paint the canvas yourself).

The worst thing we can do as humans, and the one thing we can NEVER correct when its over - is regrets. Regrets oft hinsg we never bothered to discover and figure out. Regrets on the "what ifs..." It ddnt work out but atleast you won't have a "what if" form this. Can you imagine the regret and powerlessness to do anything about it if you HAD NEVER pursued and been with that woman? and gave it everything you had? evn if it failed? that would've ben WORSE than whereyou are today and have a chance to still do before its' all doen.

head up
i'm sorry about the urrent pain
trust that someday this will all make sense to you, for you, and happened for a reason.

Hi,

I'm sorry about your pain. I am currently suffering from a broken heart myself, so I'm aware of what you're going through. One thing stood out for me in your post that I wanted to comment on. You wrote that you feel as though you left your wife for nothing, because you left your wife to be with this woman, and after 8 years this woman left you. But one thing I'd like to point out is that you were never in love with your wife, so you needed to end that marriage anyway. I know what it's like to be in a loveless relationship, the boredom you feel, the agitation you feel, the need for a fulfilling relationship that isn't getting met. You did the right thing by leaving your wife, so please don't regret that.

The only thing I can say is that time really is a healer. You have so much love to give, I can tell by the way you write, and one day you will find someone who reciprocates your feelings. I know it sucks that right now you only want her. I wish some man would feel that passion about me, but so far every man has treated me as dispensable. It's painful. It hurts. It damages your self esteem and faith in love. But it can happen again for you.

What's helped me over the past few days is googling "heartbreak" and reading the articles. I've also been taking Tylenol because it helps with the emotional pain of rejection. I hope you begin to feel better real soon.

Laura