A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:Help! I really need some advice on what to do.I'm in my late twenties and I've been with the same guy for the past decade. We were best friends for the first year while we dated other people, but fell head over heels in love with each other. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever experiened - being in love with the person that's your best friend in the world.. who you can confide everything in.. who shares the same interests. I was convinced we had a bright future ahead.Over the years, the intimacy in our relationship slowly faded out and we stopped sleeping together. There were a couple of factors that caused this - sex for me was very painful and uncomfortable.. and I just thought it was anxiety about my bad work situation and after seeing a specialist the problem went undiagnosed, until going to see another specialist a couple of years ago that explained I needed minor surgery. The other problem was that my boyfriend was at the beginning stages of depression. He had a persistantly low mood, was low in energy and just generally apathetic a lot of the time. I didn't realise depression was a huge problem in our relationship, and just thought he'd cheer up.. I tried everything to make him happy.. and used to joke with him and make him laugh at things. But, I've since learnt that depression in men can easily go undiagnosed because they don't cry outwardly like women.. they are more likely to suppress their feelings and hold them inside. Anyway, for the past six years I have been with this man in a sexless relationship. We still kissed and cuddled and shared an amazing emotional connection you wouldn't believe. I considered him to be my soulmate and would've trusted him with my life. I was crazy about him and (even though he didn't show very much emotion over the years, I knew he felt the same for me). Just because someone can't physically show they love you doesn't mean you can't feel loved. I knew from all the wonderful, considerate things he did for me and the times he was there to support me during my most difficult rocky periods in life that he loved me equally.Anyway, loving him made me a better person. I loved being there for him.. and having never had any real genuine friends, I thanked God everyday for having him in my life.. and even though so many of my needs weren't being met, I never thought of straying.. I thought of him as my one and only - my soul mate. Anyway, last year, while I was extremely busy in my new career, he had an emotional affair with another girl. I found out about this from doing detective work.. getting onto the girl's networking site.. and reading her comments about how much she loves and cares about him. It absolutely broke my heart. For as long as I can remember, it was always ME and HIM.. we were like 2 peas in a pod, shared everything together.. now to know there was a third party for the past year... it nearly killed me with pain.Since finding out what had happened, I went through the entire grieving process.. and he stayed away.. not knowing how to approach me and explain the situation. He had no idea of what I knew. I finally decided to face him.. I wanted to hear the truth from him, as I knew (after finding pictures of them at a party together) that he had lied to me many times over the year. He told me they had an emotional affair for less than a year. They have been friends for 10 years and he never told me that he'd been hanging out spending time with her because he knew it would upset me, because I felt threatened by her - that's because I knew she was in LOVE with him.So they met up.. went for drives and talked together frequently (she lives 5 hours away, so it wasn't an everyday thing). They had some emotional connection.. and she was going through a hard time.. he was in the process of being bullied out of his job.. AND struggling (with what I realise now and what he's admitted to) is depression.. and he found common ground with her. He confided in her about his problems and vice versa. Over about 6 months, he was enjoying having a friendship with her, but according to his story, as soon as he got wind that she was thinking it was more than friends, he told her that although him and me weren't exclusively a couple at this stage, we were very close and he couldn't have anything more with her. She apparently went balistic and picked him up from his house and took him driving for hours a few nights during the end of last year.. while she did everything she could to change his mind. What tipped me off one night was seeing him get into her car as I was driving past.. but that was one of those nights she had picked him up to discuss the future of their 'relationship'. SHE thought it was a relationship (as she's said on her page).. HE thought it was a friendship.He said as soon as he got wind that she wanted more, he just wanted to 'deal with it' and just 'fix it' and just 'get rid of it' and get back to me. Last year he was incredibly distant and unemotional - much moreso than usual.. but I was so busy in my job, I didn't notice many of the signs something was up. I always allowed him the space and time to do whatever he wanted. Since all of this has come to a head, he's explained he has a problem with severe depression. Two months without me in his life, realising he'd lost me, forced him to look at his behaviour and realise how bigga problem it had become.Now, he's alone.. and the girl is back where she lives and nowhere to be seen for months and months. All he can think about.. all he can say to me is how sorry he is for ruining the best thing in his life and how he knows it's all his fault. All he's concerned about is where to from here with US. I AM the one that is obsessed with going over the details of what they had.. but he just wants to move forward with me.I've explained to him that I couldn't go back to what we had. It had become this in-between thing, where we weren't intimate (due to his emotional baggage).. but I still deeply loved him and desperately wanted to get back to what we had. This experience has shown me that he wants me just as much, but was simply unable to show his feelings.. he says he felt detached from everything and everyone.I would love to hear your view of the situation. Since meeting up with him to hear about the affair, I've realised her stupid comments on her site.. and everything I'd since imagined and the false conclusions I'd jumped to (thinking it was all a lie) are NOTHING compared to what actually happened. They never slept together.. according to him, they kissed once, during one of those nights she picked him up in a hysterical mess. You may wonder how a guy could be weak enough to get himself into a situation like this, but I have done everything I can to understand. That's what led me to making contact, knowing he had been very depressed.. that he had been going through hell in his job, and I was sure it was a factor. Although he says he has no excuse for lying and betraying me, he says it really felt like he was another person.. and he felt happy nowhere. The friendship is what I miss most of all. We could talk about anything and everything together.. and I know it's the same for him.I've learnt that every situation is individual, that there isn't black and white - just grey. We weren't a married couple who were having sex and he DIDN'T have sex with her.. I believe that. He looked right in my eyes over and over and told me through his TEARS that he never did. He's cried many many times since explaining everything to me. I've never seen him show emotion in YEARS and YEARS.I want to know whether you think this guy is worth taking back into my life, as a potential partner again one day (after he sorts out his problems) or even as the friend I had on the pedistool in my life. I miss him SO SO much. A life without him as a friend feels so empty and too painful to imagine.. yet, is what he has done forgiveable? And why has this happened.. has anyone ever been in a similar situation?Please help if you can. Thank you.
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (23 March 2010): I'm twice your age but my husband had an emotional affair also (least I'm pretty sure there was no sex from one of her texts I read). He even continued their 'friendship' after I found out and he had told me how stupid he had been!!!
One year on after my latest discovery (I'm sure it stopped then cos he was devastated when I found out again) I am worse if anything.
Cos I never got it out of my system as it always led to an argument as he didn't want me going on about it repeatedly, I now keep dwelling on all the details I found out.
Our lives have been hell. Oh yes it would be brill if I would shut up cos, like your fella, he wants us to go forward. That's alright for him to say, he hasn't got the torture of being betrayed.
I think your fella sounds just like my husband. They've had their fun and now when it suits them they want to forget about it but how can WE??
Because I love him loads and am frightened of losing him/being alone, I have tried to come to terms but I know I NEVER will.
It's a nightmare and I know what you're going through x
A
female
reader, Entirely Unique  +, writes (23 March 2010):
 The bit I can't seem to understand is that if from his side of things this was just a friendship and nothing in it at all from him why he felt the need to keep it from you and keep it like a dirty secret.I think something like this can be forgiven but you will never forget, you will probably find that the hardest thing for you to get over is the fact of this was your best friend, your soul mate for years, this is the bloke you've shared every tiny detail with and he betrayed you, emotional betrayal is harder to really come to terms with than sexual, if he slept with her you could kind of see that you two wasn't having a sexual side to your relationship but you've always had a good emotional side so his need for that elsewhere is painful.Give yourself some time to think about whats more important to you and important in your life, sometimes the living without someone is more painful than what they did and sometimes its what they did that hurts more.
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