Barbara
ran into a
man who
left his wife because he just couldn't live with her
after being married for 15 years. Since they have
been together for so long and have two kids
together, it is not easy for him to just
end the marriage and marry me. His family members
have pushed them into
marital counseling. After several weeks of
professional therapy, a
romantic vacation to the
Montreal,
and long conversations with friends and family members,
he decided to
move back to his home. She writes, "I asked him 'do
you want to
go back?'
and 'must I
let go.' He said while he is moving back and he
doesn't want me to let go. He said he is going to be
there only physically but not in his heart. I didn't
know what to make of it and I told him that I support
him and love him. He must do what he thinks is right for
him and it's his choice. After that conversation, it
dawned on me that when he moves back into the house, he
is basically
moving back into his marriage to try again. Not
living
with her was still a sign of 'maybe and I am not
sure about the marriage.'
This is probably one of my hardest decision I ever had
to make, but this is how I got to this conclusion. I had
a 4 year relationship with a man before I met my current
boyfriend and in those 4 years, which was after I was
divorced already for 6 years. I was not respected
emotionally and my
boyfriend
really treated me badly. He never
abused me
physically or emotionally but I felt that after the
6 years, and the final straw was when I realized he did
cheat on me. I didn't feel
worthy of loving and the worst was to not want to
love again because it was so
disappointing. Don't get me wrong; I am not a
cynical person when it comes to love, but really
very
romantic and the fact that I was shut off from
emotions, was very sad for me because not to love
someone was even sadder.
I told my
married boyfriend that he
restored my heart and my feelings that I am
worthy to be loved and I have such high regard for
our
love and relationship. I want to keep that sacred
and I am scared that when he moves back and we keep
calling
and seeing each other secretly, it will degrade what
we have. I don't want to
have an
affair. When he moved out and got separated, he
acknowledged me and now he is lying to his wife saying
to her he doesn't call me and he doesn't see me. I can't
do that; it is a recipe for disaster for everyone
involved.
Either way I will lose him. He is moving back and
if we have an affair, it will go on forever. I don't
want to be 50% good enough for another 5 years and I
have a better chance of him coming back to me,
respecting me for doing this and if his love for me is
really so strong, he will be with his wife day in and
day out and after 6 months or one year, still miss me,
then he will know he cannot
stay
in his marriage, but that will happen without my
influence and on his own.
I am not hoping he comes back. I have to be realistic
that he won't. One thing I do have is the KNOWLEDGE that
he will lose out on a
wonderful, loving, fulfilled life with me. If he
stays and that I am free to
love my
next lover, who I know will love me, and my
married lover boy will be
stuck in a
unfulfilling relationship that he justified was OK
for him due to whatever reasons, which I know wouldn't be
true to how he really feels.
To all the other woman out there, you can compromise on
many things in life, ex
eating out when you are on a
strict diet and choosing a place that is not so
healthy but just for one night eating there is not so
bad for your
diet plan and so on and so on, but on LOVE, you
never compromise. What you feel you are worth, how you
should be loved.
I feel emotionally dead. I am lost and
so alone. I feel scared and totally over emotional,
but I know it will only be for a month, please God, and
at the end of the day it will be my choice how long I
want to hold myself back to
hurt.
In the end, as I told him, he's known me now for four
months and he told me that in his 15 years of married
life he never had this what we have with each other.
With his wife, I am talking
companionship and not sex, he knows what he has in
me, if he doesn't know by now that what he have is
enough then he will never know. I hope you can give me
advice now on how to pray for my lover to return and for
me to make peace and surrender to what is."
Married men are, of course, stuck
First of all, I am sorry to hear that you have to go
through this
heartbreak.
Secondly, I think your analysis is exactly the same that
I would have presented to you. I simply do not support a
man who is moving in with his wife to
work on their
marriage, while he also wants to have an
extramarital
relationship with you, essentially messing lives of
two
women at the same time. So what it really means is that he is
not
committed to making his marriage work, but
then why is he putting on this show?
I think he is totally confused and does not have the
guts to face his wife and the world. If he did, he will
boldly declare that he does not
love his wife, will not
make any effort to
save the marriage, and wants to
start
a new life with you. He hasn't done that, and therefore,
he has no moral authority to ask you to be his
secret
girlfriend.
What will you end up with if 6 months or one year or two
years later he comes back to you and says that he cannot
really leave his wife and family? You will not only have
lost opportunities to
meet other men, your heartbreak
will be even more severe, because at that time you would
be more
emotionally invested. I mean, I don't mean to
underestimate your passion for him, but the reality is
that you have been with him just 4 months, and it will
be easy for you to
forget him now and
move on, rather
than drag the relationship.
He wants to have the best of both worlds and this is a
very selfish decision on his part. He wants to satisfy
whoever that he is trying to,
patch up and save his
marriage, while continuing to carrying on an
extramarital affair and
have you as a mistress so that
you can give him what his wife does not and then
whenever he wants he can simply come up with an excuse
to
end the affair with you.
There is nothing in this
affair for you but only
downsides and risks. As I read your email a few times, I
think you are saying a few contradictory things (at one
place you say that you do not want to be
just the
other woman and let him spoil the sacred love that
you have but towards the end you wish to
pray to God to bring him back to you) and that
is simply because you are so upset. I want you to
further think it through.
My personal recommendation is that you
end this
relationship right now because there is no upside to
dragging it. That will also enable him to really work on
saving his marriage. And when you are disconnected with
waiting for him, you can
heal faster and
find love again
sooner. Not all things are meant to be and this
relationship is one of them. Yes, he may appear to be
the best man in the world right now, but trust me, he is
not the only one.
You are a wonderful woman with a pure, loving heart and
if you have been in love before, I can't see why you
won't find love again. This was good experience for you
and hopefully you learned an important lesson (not to
fall for married guys) so that you can now emerge from
this experience as a more mature and wise lady. |
