Why would she choose doubtful love over certain love?
I started seeing G in November. We're both in our mid-forties.
We were very much in love. But she was holding back – sex was great (we were very compatible), but very “one way”.
In February she finally admitted why: I wasn't the only man. She'd been seeing S for 2.5 years (he didn't know about us... and he's just turned 60!).
I asked her then if she loved him - “yes”; and I asked if he loved her “I think so”.
She couldn't bring herself to “give a woman's ultimate gift” to me because of her guilt. Worse – she was giving this bloke that “gift”... and it looked more and more to me like he didn't care for her, let alone love her. AND this cad was keeping me from getting it!
We carried on. We were so in love that it was impossible not to. But..
“The closer I get to you the more guilty I feel”
And:
“He must never find out about us. It would hurt him so much and then he'd dump me. That would destroy me!”
Eventually, after 9 months, I broke. I sobbed into her shoulder “please stop hurting me!”
She started to withdraw. Said we should be “best friends”. That didn't work well – she desired me too much:- “I love you, I find you incredibly physically attractive. I want you. But I can't have you.”
To which I thought (but didn't say): WHY THE HELL NOT? JUST DUMP THE BLOKE THAT DOESN'T LOVE YOU!!!
But she wouldn't. “I can't imagine my life without him!”
Soon after, I got a chance to ask him about his feelings for her. He said he wasn't “in love”. And when I told him how besotted she was with him, he said “yes....... I've been wanting to cool things down actually.”
Well.... I HAD to tell her!
She said she'd confront him about it. And she came to me the following morning and told me he'd denied everything. My heart broke. And I hated him for being a spineless bar steward.
So, in a fit of anger, I told him (by text) we'd been seeing each other. Oops.
So it all got messy. He threatened to leave her and kept her in limbo for a week while he thought about it. She made it quite plain to me that she could only be happy if he took her back. Because I loved her so much I just wanted her to be happy even though it broke my heart. I had to settle for being a “close friend”. But I have absolutely no doubt, from what she said, the way we hugged, held hands and kissed, the look in her eyes... that right up until the day before he said he'd take her back (it was close - he was going to dump her right up until the last minute, then couldn't do it!), she loved me still. NO doubts.
The upshot is that she is no longer seeing me – at all. Not even as friends, as she'd promised only the day before.
I'm guessing that's because she still loves me, but doesn't want me to “distract” her from him. Am I right?
Speaking to him on the phone a week afterwards, he said:
- She never did confront him about “cooling down”. I guess she just didn't want to hear it.
- That he would have willingly “stepped aside” had he known there was something going on between us before. “I would have been sad because I love her too” (not, I noted, utterly *&@# heartbroken as I was) but he’d had 3 good years etc.
- That before this had all gone pear-shaped, she had started to demand more from him than he could give – “I can only give so much, and she wanted more.” Hence his desire to "cool things down".
- That initially he was fighting my corner – he could see that we were in love and, as previously said, wanted to cool things down. This was an ideal way out.
- And he said that the ONLY reason that he took her back was to make her happy – like me, his aim was to make her happy, and she had obviously chosen him despite it making no sense to either of us, so that was the only way to do it.
So. Ladies. Tell me this, because it makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER to me:
Why would she dump the bloke that obviously loves her (and that she, too, loves) for the bloke who, she knows deep down, DOESN'T love her? Why is she desperately hanging on to him?
Could it have anything to do with him being older and her father having left home when she was a kid???
After 3 weeks I'm still getting anxiety attacks, still waking every night at 3/4am. Her relationship is... wrong. Both he and I know she should have stayed with me.
What the hell can I do????
