The OcUK Relationship Counselling and Hugs Thread

[RedvGreen]

If she really loves you, she'll get a divorce and move on with you. She's not making any decisions, and you're all stuck in a terrible situation. If she doesn't leave the man she doesn't love and is cheating on, and try and make a new life with you, she will regret it for the rest of her life.

You really need to make her understand that she's also holding back your life too, and the one you could be having with her. If this isn't just some fantasy life where she actually enjoys the emotional rollercoaster of having an affair with her "soulmate" whilst sticking with the husband she "feels sorry for", then she needs to make a decision to move on. Affairs can be exciting and dangerous making a woman feel special, where real life is boring and dull.

You're going to have to force that decision, or you will be stuck in limbo too. Presumably you want more too, not just half a life with her sneaking about behind her husband's back, and you need to tell her that she has to leave her husband and start a new life with you, if she cares anything for you at all. Don't just say you'll wait for her decision, tell her she knows you're the better choice, and that she should pack her stuff and come and live with you. She needs to sort her **** out if she wants to be with you properly.

This is likely to all come out sooner or later and the whole thing will blow up in all your faces, and it's quite possible that everyone will lose out if you don't get ahead of the situation and make it go the way you want it to. If it ends badly she could feel so guilty that it ruins your chance of making a new relationship going forwards.

Thanks for your comments - I've been around the park with this one and gotten bolder with my thoughts on the matter having told her what her choices are. The issue is that i am her best friend and she comes to me for advice as well as our relationship stuff too. She doesn't trust anyone else and won't even discuss it with her parents, female friends or sibling. I try to be pretty impartial, but i'm obviously biased.

Spoiler

She has big mental introvert sessions where she will swing from extremes like: life with her husband isn't 'bad', she just goes through the motions, acts the part and stuff just continues. She doesn't love him, or enjoy him, but merely is familiar and used to him.
She comes out with stuff like "well he seemed happy today, so i'm feeling ok", even though her happiness is what matters not his. As well as the cryptic "I'm not unhappy, but i'm not happy like I am with you."

In her bouts of guilt she bends over backwards to please him or just sits there looking at him comparing him to me, to the 'n'th degree - like our kisses are better, the way we interact physically is better, i'm funnier, i'm more attractive, we have loads of common interests whilst her husband has nothing in common except house/finances etc etc ad nauseum.

The big issue is that he is her first and only romance which they had since they were 13, and she's been with him since (about 14yrs, married 6yrs). People change and can grow apart. I don't actually know her husband, and have never met him, but he seems like a decent chap, if not boring and perhaps looks a little plain.

 

[Steampunk]

Thanks for your comments - I've been around the park with this one and gotten bolder with my thoughts on the matter having told her what her choices are. The issue is that i am her best friend and she comes to me for advice as well as our relationship stuff too. She doesn't trust anyone else and won't even discuss it with her parents, female friends or sibling. I try to be pretty impartial, but i'm obviously biased.

She's got to make the decision. Habit is one reason to stay with someone, but she's staying out of fear of changing her life out of her comfort zone, and guilt of leaving someone behind that she's so used to. If she wants you enough, she'll do it. People leave unhappy marriages all the time, usually without anyone else in the picture.

Look at it this way. You are filling almost all her needs now, emotional, physical, etc. There is no way back for her to have her husband do that, he's not that person, and you are filling that space in her life. There is no future there with him, even if you decided to bail out of the relationship with her.

Ask her if that's what she wants, to have you move forwards with your life and leave her behind, or if she wants to come with you? You both only get one life, are you going to waste it this way? Are you going to let her waste both hers and yours this way? You have to resolve the situation one way or another.

 

[RedvGreen]

She's got to make the decision. Habit is one reason to stay with someone, but she's staying out of fear of changing her life out of her comfort zone, and guilt of leaving someone behind that she's so used to. If she wants you enough, she'll do it. People leave unhappy marriages all the time, usually without anyone else in the picture.

Look at it this way. You are filling almost all her needs now, emotional, physical, etc. There is no way back for her to have her husband do that, he's not that person, and you are filling that space in her life. There is no future there with him, even if you decided to bail out of the relationship with her.

Ask her if that's what she wants, to have you move forwards with your life and leave her behind, or if she wants to come with you? You both only get one life, are you going to waste it this way? Are you going to let her waste both hers and yours this way? You have to resolve the situation one way or another.

Once again, very true!

Spoiler

She flips from side to side though - what I mean is, she says she thinks she could just box away the hurt from me not being in her life and try to continue (with nothing been said to her husband about the affair)... yet in the next breathe i'm so special and important to her and her life. Her mind is totally freaking out. She's not had much sleep this week due to a few very late nights with me, and early starts for work, so this won't help her thoughts and mind.

She went to a family do the other day and wished I was with her, not her husband.
Yet at the weekend before he went away, she said her husband was nice to her and he seemed happy, and she was ready to tell me that she just wants to be friends, but as soon as she saw me on the sunday evening, she said she just felt totally in love again with me.

 

[Steampunk]

Once again, very true!

Imagine the sexes were reversed, and it was a man vacillating between his wife, and the mistress who's been hanging around waiting for the promised "I'll tell her this weekend" etc. We'd be telling the mistress to move on, that she's being taken for a ride, that the husband is never going to leave his wife.

You're in exactly the same position as the mistress, and have been for quite some time. Either she loves you enough to start a new life with you, or she doesn't and you need to move on. Is it ultimatum time? I don't like to push people into corners, but there comes a point where you have to make a stand and have some sort of resolution one way or another. It's really the best thing for the both of you.

She's under no pressure to make a difficult decision because she knows you'll wait for her, and so she procrastinates - she doesn't want to be the bad guy and break up her dead marriage.

You need to make her understand that you're not forcing her into a corner, you're making a decision for yourself, as she obviously isn't capable. That you're moving forwards, and you want her to come with you, but enough is enough - she needs to decide where her life is going, not just ignore all the decisions that have to be made.

And she needs to understand, that if she chooses to stay with her husband instead of making good on all the promises she's made to you, then that's it, you're out of her life because you will need to move forwards and leave that baggage behind.

Seriously, a year is long enough, time to get that choice made, neither of you can continue the way you are if you want to have a fulfilling, honest life with each other.

 

[RedvGreen]

Damn you're good !

I agree with what you've said, i've asked a few others and got the dated rhetoric about 'I am an evil person and should sever all ties immediately'. But as I see it, she made 99% of the moves, even though I wasn't against it, I am still a little to blame, but I made no vows but am an option to a potentially brighter future for both of us.

If I was a betting man, she'd just return to how she was and be unhappy. But my foresight affords me the realisation that this is a cancer in her mind and marriage that will fester.
As I fill such a large amount of her life/time she will struggle to fill that with the same level of happy/fun/exciting/genuine caring etc etc. Also I don't think she would ever tell her husband of our affair as she pities him and it would destroy him, which would make her massively feel repentant and guilty for a very long time (or make him leave her, changing her life/comfort zone/friends/family etc).

 

[EddScott]

Women hate to be the bad guy when a relationship ends/flounders. She's texting you because it makes her feel better, not because she's looking out for you. There's a reason everyone says you should sever all ties, because this will stop you moving on.

You should tell her you're not comfortable with her texting you because it brings back bad feelings, and then block her on everything. You have to let go of the past, or you will be stuck there.

Decided to send my ex a text saying that if we are truly over then she needs to stop texting me so I can move on. She said OK I'll leave you be. Mixed feelings really. Partly sad that she has put the anchors on any hope of reconciliation and partly accepting that it was never going to work.

 

[A2Z]

It is basically a long-term affair that has been going on for a year. It started out as chatting on text/online, flirty chatting, then confiding emotionally and personally, and then moved on to spending time with each other and then ultimately 2 months ago, physical stuffs. It is nothing sordid or vindictive to spite her husband, but genuine kindness, love and soul-matey stuff. There are also no kids involved.

We both form such an intrinsic part of each other's life that we've survived through many difficulties and supported each other, but the problem is (obviously) that she is married. She goes through phases of being cut up with guilt, feeling like she is being denied activities, hobbies, independence, freedom, interests and friends and of course she has experienced things with me that she had not previously.
First thing we do in the day is chat (like 6am), we chat all day where we can, sometimes spend lunch together, then spend all night together (or chatting/texting if she can't escape from house/husband), and this has been the case for many months - we are both literally addicted to each other and can't stop thinking of each other.

It sounds cliché but we just clicked and hit it off brilliantly well from the beginning. Not sure what the future holds or where we are heading, but tensions are running very high at the moment as her spouse appears to be getting a bit suspicious. Ultimately, she has gone through the motions and said as much that she doesn't really love him and wants to be with me, but things are never that simple.

She refuses to make a decision at the moment as she is very emotional; but all I want is her to be happy whatever that takes - her friendship and affair with me is like a cry out for help, but the last step is the hardest for her. I said basically what her/our choices are:

- She leaves husband and starts living together with me.

- We continue as we are (but to what end?!)

- We stop our affair and become friends (risky as our love will always be there).

- We call it quits and she goes back to him. (we simply cut all comms no matter how hard)

The latter will involve her telling him about the affair (which I told her she needs to do if she wants a future with him, as relationships are built on trust and respect, which she has not shown him) partly because he will say we can't be in each other's lives (and she says she absolutely needs me in hers) and also because he will be ultimately betrayed and never trust her again, as she will be forever kow-towing to him after that which isn't a healthy existence.
She is afraid of making a decision as she feels like her heart will break if she doesn't have me in her life, yet she merely feels sorry for her husband (but doesn't feel heartbroken over him - she has said she wished he was having an affair, or that he would just leave so she didn't need to make a decision).

I've known many couples in similar positions and they split and went their respective ways and often, are still going very strong (10yrs+) despite the relationship starting with an affair. The longer it drags out though, the harder any decision will be for her, me and her husband.

Due to past experience, people like you annoy me very, very much. You knew she was married and still carried on talking and moving things forward. That makes you very selfish, weak and pathetic. The fact you keep putting it in spoiler tags shows that you know its wrong.

I hope he does find out and gives you what you deserve, and then you guys get together properly and then she meets another guy who she has an affair with.

 

[malachi]

Due to past experience, people like you annoy me very, very much. You knew she was married and still carried on talking and moving things forward. That makes you very selfish, weak and pathetic. The fact you keep putting it in spoiler tags shows that you know its wrong.

I hope he does find out and gives you what you deserve, and then you guys get together properly and then she meets another guy who she has an affair with.

This. If someone is married then you do not interfere. End of.

 

[Steampunk]

Damn you're good !

I agree with what you've said, i've asked a few others and got the dated rhetoric about 'I am an evil person and should sever all ties immediately'. But as I see it, she made 99% of the moves, even though I wasn't against it, I am still a little to blame, but I made no vows but am an option to a potentially brighter future for both of us.

True, you are not the one who has been breaking vows (you didn't marry the guy), and if you genuinely love each other and her marriage is dead, then her divorce is the way forwards. You can only control your own actions, so you can't force her to end her marriage, but you can decide to move your own life forwards either with or without her.

What you shouldn't do is to try and manipulate her or tell the husband what is going on - she will only end up resenting your for that, possibly ruining any future chance of happiness between the two of you. What's going to happen is that he will find out (you already say he's getting suspicious) and then it will all blow up. She'll feel so guilty, she'll never make it work with you, though it gets her out of having to be the bad guy and end the marriage.

She has the choice of being happy with you or unhappy with the husband. Right now she gets the best of both worlds while she keeps you hanging and the husband in the dark because she doesn't want to make the hard choices. If she can't do that for herself, then you need to do that for yourself.

If she really loves you, and you're not just some fantasy relief from her own humdrum life, then she'll come with you. If she doesn't, then she's really not the woman you though she was, and doesn't care enough for you. It was all just some escape for her, but nothing she would leave her established, boring life for.

If I was in your position, then you have to bring matters to a head. Tell her that you love her and want to be with her, but you can't do this half-a-life any more. That if she really loves you and you fulfill her in all these ways, she'll end her marriage and be with you, or else you're moving on without her.

People get the life they make. If she really want to be with you, she can be. She just has to actually do it, instead of just talking about it. Maybe she needs the prospect of losing you to focus her thinking on the matter?

 

[Steampunk]

Decided to send my ex a text saying that if we are truly over then she needs to stop texting me so I can move on. She said OK I'll leave you be. Mixed feelings really. Partly sad that she has put the anchors on any hope of reconciliation and partly accepting that it was never going to work.

She's more than happy to cut you off, because then she can say to herself that she was the nice guy, and you were the bad guy who told her you didn't want to speak to her again. The female reality distortion field strikes again.

Seriously, it's for the best, if you were holding out a forlorn hope you'd get back together and fix all the problems that broke you apart in the first place.

 

[sb89]

Due to past experience, people like you annoy me very, very much. You knew she was married and still carried on talking and moving things forward. That makes you very selfish, weak and pathetic. The fact you keep putting it in spoiler tags shows that you know its wrong.

I hope he does find out and gives you what you deserve, and then you guys get together properly and then she meets another guy who she has an affair with.

This. I hope that sometime in the future the roles are reversed and you (RedvGreen) are in a similar position to the husband.

 

[EddScott]

This. I hope that sometime in the future the roles are reversed and you (RedvGreen) are in a similar position to the husband.

There is that saying that if someone cheats once, they are quite likely to do it again.

A good friend of mine is on the other end of this. His wife of 20 years with 3 kids started a new job. Within a short space of time my friend noticed a change. He confronted her and she literally walked out leaving him and the kids. Her home and her family and her husband have come a distant second to some lad she has fallen for from work. I've spoken a few times with my friend and he believes its almost like a break down of sorts and that she is having a midlife crisis.

My friend is quite a strong lad and has the benefit of her walking out leaving him the house and the kids. Seems to be moving on but it's been a terrible time for all of them.

Personally, and I don't know RedVGreen, I would stay well away. This is not going to end well for any of you.

 

[RedvGreen]

Due to past experience, people like you annoy me very, very much. You knew she was married and still carried on talking and moving things forward. That makes you very selfish, weak and pathetic. The fact you keep putting it in spoiler tags shows that you know its wrong.

I hope he does find out and gives you what you deserve, and then you guys get together properly and then she meets another guy who she has an affair with.

Thanks for your comments...

I'm not going to rise to your bait, but what I will say is...

Your perspective is nothing that hasn't been expressed before, but what I will say is to remember that it takes two to tango and also that emotions are very powerful and very real things that only the 'eye of the beholder' can truly appreciate (for good or bad!).

I honestly held your perspective when a colleague was having an affair with a guy at a club we were at, and I was disgusted. But this situation just naturally happened gradually over time and just dawned on me what it was and we had both discussed what it was too.

 

[Roar87]

Thanks for your comments...

I'm not going to rise to your bait, but what I will say is...

Your perspective is nothing that hasn't been expressed before, but what I will say is to remember that it takes two to tango and also that emotions are very powerful and very real things that only the 'eye of the beholder' can truly appreciate (for good or bad!).

I honestly held your perspective when a colleague was having an affair with a guy at a club we were at, and I was disgusted. But this situation just naturally happened gradually over time and just dawned on me what it was and we had both discussed what it was too.

I've been in your situation, she didn't leave him, I got drunk and told him, all 3 of us haven't spoke to each other since. There's no happy ending for this situation, you can either keep doing what you're doing or end it and find someone who wants a serious relationship. Most likely she doesn't have the guts to end it with her partner, she doesn't see you as worthy of a long term relationship, and frankly she's got a pretty good situation going on right now so why change?

 

[krooton]

Have cake. Will eat.

 

[EddScott]

Your perspective is nothing that hasn't been expressed before, but what I will say is to remember that it takes two to tango and also that emotions are very powerful and very real things that only the 'eye of the beholder' can truly appreciate (for good or bad!).

The heart wants what the heart wants (Said the nazi skin head in Breaking Bad)

I've had enough people tell me getting with my ex was a complete no no but I wouldn't listen. Even risked losing a very good friend over it. So, on that score, I can relate to that.

 

[RedvGreen]

The heart wants what the heart wants (Said the nazi skin head in Breaking Bad)

I've had enough people tell me getting with my ex was a complete no no but I wouldn't listen. Even risked losing a very good friend over it. So, on that score, I can relate to that.

What I would say is there are kids involved. You really don't want to be the one that was the catalyst to a failing marriage. If you think you will have a life with this woman, those kids will resent you and will put a big strain on any future you have together. How old are the kids and how many? If they are very young you might get away with it. If they are old enough to understand what's what you will be the focus of why mum and dad split.

Umm, there are no kids involved.

 

[Steampunk]

People fall in and out of love all the time. You can't help it. You think your life is dull, but it's the best you can hope for and the way it's supposed to be, and then you meet that person that lights you up. It is literally like being a drug addict. You're an alcoholic swimming in a pool of whiskey. The best thing you can do is get the issues resolved one way or another. It's best for everyone involved.

The trick is not to put yourself in the position of getting emotionally close to someone else in the first place, because that's where you start to take away from someone's existing relationship. It's where you start to fill the space that cannot be occupied by the other person's spouse, it's where a friendship soon turns to more than that, and the physical side is guaranteed to follow. The best solution is to marry your best friend, the person you want to spend time with more than any other.

I would never knowingly get involved with a married woman, because I don't need the drama, and I'm happily married, but if you meet that particular person, if it shows your life is a shadow of what it can be, it can't be stopped, especially if you're single yourself.

 

[EddScott]

Umm, there are no kids involved.

Oh no, sorry. As you were

 

[MaX_PoWah]

I'm not used to relationships (I've not been dumped since school!) and I didn't know how to handle it when your GF flakes on you. I complained which in her eyes makes me needy, selfish and controlling. What I didn't realise until recently is that if your GF flakes there is only one thing to do - nothing. You can't make someone do something they don't want to. This is where I went wrong.
)

Glad i am not on my own, i just don't get myself with what happened to me, Ive held down relationships with 3 different girls for 2 years each and everything mostly went fine.

I meet this new girl who being with is like described earlier "an alcoholic swimming in a pool full of whiskey" and i totally freaked out, i hate myself for driving her away because it was just so good when we were together.

Now everyone is "she must have being the one", "Ive never had that feeling with someone", "you must try and get her back or you will regret it"