Hello all,
I am new to this forum but desperately need some advice and thoughts. I can ask my friends til I'm blue in the face but they'll always have a tainted view.
I've been with a guy for almost a year - I am 26, he is 39 and we used to work together. He had been married for 2 years before we got together and has 2 young children, a boy and a girl. both 3.
There was very little time between the breakdown of his marriage and the beginning of our relationship, although that does not excuse the behaviour I am about to tell you of. I am very emotional and sensitive - he is not so much, although he shows and tells me that he loves me fairly regularly (I would like it if he told me more but he's not like that). We did get very quickly involved, expressing our strong feelings early on in the relationship, but after about 5 months he seemed to stop and pull away a little, saying he needed space and that I was suffocating him.
He was due to meet me one evening but didn't pick up his phone or answer his texts. I caught him with another woman in his flat that night, someone he works with in his new job. They had been texting for a while. He didn't and has not slept with her to this day (I know this for sure) but that was awful, I've never hurt like it before. I saw other people for a while but he asked for me back, saying he was so sorry etc. then I found out he was still seeing her - strangely, I bumped into her and told her that he was still seeing me, and it seemed that he had been 'cheating' on her - with me! She wanted little to do with him since, but still seems to hover around him which I hate.
I felt for a couple of weeks that I was well shot of him - I didn't think about him as much and although I missed what we had, I was happy on my own. Then he came asking and practically begging for me to take him back, saying that he had no idea why he hurt me, left me or started seeing the other woman. I took him back. He did all the work and I had to fall in love with him all over again, which felt bizzare. It's been rocky as hell for me, and I still find it hard to trust him, but I know my gut feeling is right, he hasn't played away since. He doesn't like talking about the situation though, but I keep bringing it up, even though I have said before that I wouldnt, and that I've forgiven him. I think forgiving is the easy part, but FORGETTING, never. I love him with all my heart and he is brilliant in so many ways. I can't imagine my life without him and we get along with eachother so well.
The questions I guess I'm posing is: can we survive, me being so sensitive and emotional and still mistrusting?
And am I stupid to have taken him back?
I have only provided the bare bones and I know that without going into more detail, the tone of the events and the relationship can only be guessed at by anybody who reads this, but that would be impossible,
Many thanks in advance,
Peace and Love